Framed For Murder (An Anna Nolan Mystery) (6 page)

“Sure – they’re right over there on top of the cabinet,” I said, pointing to the credenza that held all the forms.

“Oops, I always forget where you keep those things. My bad.” He grinned. “I’ll just grab a few and get out of your hair.”

“Okay Bryan,” I said, entering my computer password.

After he left, the mail cart rumbled down the hallway and stopped outside my door. Alice Cobb, the Chinook University mail person for the past twenty-seven years, walked into my office with a bundle of mail in her arms. She was a compact, wiry woman who always wore her long grey hair plaited in a single braid down her back.

“Morning Anna,” she said, dumping her load into my inbox and removing the outgoing mail.
“How was your drive in this morning?”

I looked up at Alice and smiled.
I liked Alice; she had taken me under her wing when I arrived four years ago, explaining how things worked and where to find the kinesiology labs. “Pretty dismal with the rain. How was yours?”

“The same,” Alice said.
Like me, she preferred living in a small town outside of Calgary and commuting to work. “Say Anna, I saw a picture of Jack Nolan in Saturday’s paper. He was your ex-husband, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Sorry for your loss but, gee, he was a good-looking guy. Thick hair, nice eyes, great body. Yum! I wouldn’t have been too quick to kick him out of bed.” Alice talked big, but she’d been with the same guy for thirty-five years. I’d never met her Mike, but I’d heard so much about him over the years that he seemed like a good friend. She sat down on the edge of my desk and fiddled with her braid.

“I don’t know about that, Alice.
You were probably a lot savvier when you got married than I was. Maybe you wouldn’t have let him into your bed in the first place.”

“Oh.
You mean pretty boy, but not a lot of substance, eh?” she said, winking at me.

“That about sums him up, Alice,” I replied with a smile.
Alice had a way of getting to the point that I appreciated. Unfortunately, our conversation was interrupted by the sound of high heels tapping down the hallway. Alice jumped up and said, “Catch you later, Anna,” before hurrying out the door.

“Bye Alice,” I called after her.

Magdalena stuck her perfectly-coiffed head into my office and said, “Good morning, Anna.”

“Morning Magdalena.”

“I have a meeting with the Dean at 9:00. Have you got that budget report ready?”

I scooped up a binder from the top of my desk and held it out to her.
Magdalena walked the rest of the way into my office, as beautifully turned out as always in a brown tweed suit with a lavender scarf tucked into the neckline of her cream-coloured blouse. The strap of her tailored leather briefcase was slung over one shoulder, and her pointy-toed, chocolate-brown stiletto pumps didn’t look as if they had just tramped through a muddy parking lot. I felt inferior in a navy and white-striped cotton sweater over navy slacks with sensible black flats. Her blond hair was swept up into a neat French twist, while I held back my shoulder-length brunette hair with gold barrettes.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the report.
“I hope that you’re feeling better. Did you have a nice weekend?” As she studied me, I wondered if she had seen Saturday’s newspaper report of Jack’s death. Silly me – of course she had. Magdalena always kept up with the news.

“I’m much better, thank you,” I answered, ignoring the question about my weekend and not volunteering any information about the murder.
If she wanted to know about Jack, she was going to have to come right out and ask me.

“Good.
The meeting should run about two hours. Please ask Bryan to drop by my office at 11:10.”

“Certainly, Magdalena.”

“Thank you.” She nodded, turned on her heel, and strode away. I exhaled and relaxed. Magdalena and I had worked together for two years now, but I would certainly not classify our working relationship as “close.” She knew about Ben – I had introduced him to her at the start of the fall term – but I’d never discussed my marriage with her. It might be a foolhardy wish, but I hoped to avoid that topic now, especially since Jack had been murdered. I suspected that my boss would blame me for allowing my life to become messy. Magdalena liked to run a tidy ship, and she wanted all of her crew members to be ship-shape.

I managed to avoid her in a day heavy with meetings and sped off home as soon as the work day was over, thrilled that I hadn’t been forced to discuss Jack’s death with anyone but Alice. When I got home, Wendy greeted me with her usual ecstatic tail-thumping and rear end-wiggling routine, and I let her out into the back yard.
Kicking off my shoes and heading toward the bedroom to change out of my work clothes, I heard the doorbell ring. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was 5:05. Who would be calling on me at this time of day?

The man standing at my front door was a complete stranger.
I considered myself of average female height at 5’5”, but I had to crane my head upwards to see his face. He must have been 6’4”, and lean. He wore a tailored black suit, grey shirt, and a silver and blue-striped silk tie. He was young – maybe thirty – and clean-shaven with close-cropped, blond hair.

“Anna Nolan?” he asked, and I nodded.
I wondered who he could be. He was too expensively dressed to be a door-to-door evangelist.

He held some ID up before my eyes.
“Mrs. Nolan, I’m Sergeant Charles Tremaine of the RCMP. I’ve been asked to lead the investigation into your ex-husband’s death. There are a few questions I’d like to ask. May I come in?”

I stared at the picture on his ID and raised my gaze to his face.
His cool grey eyes looked back at me. “Where’s Steve Walker?” I asked. “I thought that he was the officer conducting the investigation?”

“Constable Walker has been assigned to another case.
I work with a national criminal unit that investigates homicides throughout western Canada.” He paused and waited for me to respond. In the ensuing silence, I realized that Wendy was barking at the deck door. She must have heard the doorbell ring and got excited. She didn’t like it when people came into the house while she was stranded outside.

“Yes, of course, come in.
Please take a seat in the living room. I just have to let my dog back in.”

Sergeant Tremaine followed me into the house and stayed in the living room while I opened the kitchen slider for Wendy.
She went bounding past me headed straight for the living room. Not wanting the officer in charge of my ex-husband’s murder investigation to be molested by my dog, I rushed into the living room, just in time to see her sniffing Tremaine’s outstretched hand. He squatted down to scratch behind her ear, and she sat at his feet.

“I see you’ve made a friend,” I said.
He rose and sank his hands into his trouser pockets. “Her name is Wendy,” I said, attempting to be pleasant.

“Hello Wendy,” he said solemnly before looking back at me.

“Please, have a seat,” I repeated. He extended a hand toward the couch and waited for me to sit before taking an armchair. He might be stiff, but he had good manners. “I can tell that you’re not from around here,” I said, making nervous conversation. Tremaine spoke with a rather posh British accent.

“No,” he replied.
“Mrs. Nolan, I understand from Constable Walker that it had been a number of years since you last spoke with your ex-husband.”

“Four.
Why was Steve Walker assigned to another investigation?”

“Constable Walker was re-assigned because your friendship constituted a conflict of interest.
Why do you insist that you hadn’t spoken with Mr. Nolan for four years when his cell phone showed that he called you on the night of his murder?”

“I don’t know why Jack called me that night, but as you must know, I was at a book club meeting when he called.
I didn’t speak to Jack, and since he was already dead when I found him, I have no idea what he wanted. If Steve was removed from the case, why wasn’t Eddy Mason from the local station assigned in his place?”

Tremaine considered me for a moment, and I followed his glance down to my stockinged feet.
I felt at a disadvantage beside this elegant man. “Mrs. Nolan,” he said, but I interrupted him before he could continue.

“Please don’t call me ‘Mrs. Nolan,’ Sergeant.
I kept the ‘Nolan’ because I’ve always hated my maiden name, but ‘Mrs. Nolan’ makes it sound as if I’m still married to Jack. Please, just call me ‘Anna.’”

“What was your maiden name?” he asked.

“Butcher,” I said, colouring.
The name sounded obscene given the circumstances.

“I see,” he said, unfazed.
“Anna, this is a small town. All the officers in the detachment know you. Some of them eat at The Diner with you. Staff Sergeant Mason is concerned about bias, particularly when the victim was an actor working on a high-profile film. There’s been national press coverage of his death. It was prudent to bring in someone from a major criminal unit with no ties to the investigation’s chief suspect. I normally work homicide investigations, so that’s why I was chosen.”

My mind froze at the words “chief suspect.”
I couldn’t believe it. I knew that I was a suspect, but “chief” made it sound so hopeless. I slumped back onto the couch. “I’m the chief suspect?” I squeaked. His gaze was beginning to unnerve me, so I looked away.

“Anna, are you aware that you are the sole beneficiary of a $300,000 life insurance policy on Jack Nolan’s life?”

“What?” I said. “Jack had a $300,000 life insurance policy?”

“That’s right.
I’ve discussed your financial situation with your bank manager. I know that $300,000 would pay off your mortgage and the balance on your credit card with money to spare.”

“It’s not such a big balance,” I said.
“Wait a minute – are you allowed to talk to my bank manager?”

“This is a homicide investigation, Anna.”

“Please, wait just a minute. Let me think.” Information was coming at me too fast and I was getting confused. “I remember that Jack and I took out life insurance policies when Ben was born so that we could take care of him if anything happened to either one of us. Jack must have kept his up all these years.”

“Why would he do that, Anna?
And why would Mr. Nolan retain you as his beneficiary after your divorce? Why not change it over to your son, for instance?”

“I don’t know, Sergeant.
Maybe he felt he owed me. Jack never did pay me any child support.”

“Why didn’t you tell Steve Walker about the insurance policy?”

“Because I forgot about it. Jack took it out a long time ago. How was I to know that he kept up the payments?” I got up from the couch to pace around the room. Sergeant Tremaine rose from his chair and Wendy stood up, too.

Tremaine raised a hand.
“Look, Anna, I just arrived yesterday. I’ve read the constable’s preliminary notes and your statement. The test results from the crime scene haven’t come back yet. I have a lot of people to question, particularly the people on the film set in Longview. I will be investigating you, including interviewing people who know you. Is there anything you want to tell me about Mr. Nolan’s death before I do that, anything you haven’t mentioned already?”

I shook my head, frowning.

He removed a card from his jacket pocket. “Alright, I’ll be in touch. Please don’t go anywhere so that you’re available for questioning. If you do remember anything pertinent to the case, please ring me at the number on this card.” I took it from him wordlessly, panic driving coherent speech from my mind.

He looked at me for a long moment.
“That’s all for now. I’ll let myself out, Anna. Good night.” He reached down to pat Wendy’s head and left the room. I heard the front door open and close behind him.

Sinking back down on the couch, I felt as if I had been released from the hypnotic gaze of a cobra.
“Oh crap,” I said, “what am I going to do now?”

Wendy pushed her head into my lap and stared at me with her big, brown eyes.
I thought it was empathy until I realized that it was supper time.

“Sorry, girl.
I forgot to feed you,” I said. “Let’s go get your food.” Her head bounced up and her tail started thumping. Life was so simple for dogs.

As she gobbled down her meal, I decided to buy my supper at The Diner.
I sure didn’t feel like cooking after that last bombshell, and there wouldn’t be many people there on a Monday night. I changed into jeans and a long-sleeved shirt and walked over to the restaurant.

When I got in the door, I looked around the place in surprise; I couldn’t believe how crowded the restaurant was.
And, wonder of wonders, Frank was sitting at one of the tables surrounded by a bunch of his regulars. I had never seen him at a table before. Mary bustled by with four plates of food balanced in her hands. I heard the bell ring on the kitchen pass-through and glanced over. Judy was working in the kitchen and it wasn’t even a Saturday. Mary breezed by again, and then turned back to me.

“You better order tonight’s special and go find a seat at Frank’s table while there’s still room, Anna.
Half the town’s here.”