Maddie's Gift of Mystery (A Rockcrest Cove Cozy Mystery Book 5) (4 page)

T
he next morning
, things did not go as smoothly as Maddie had hoped. Eleanor called to say that she thought it best if Maddie stopped by without her. She felt that her presence might make Maria feel uncomfortable and refuse to talk. But considering the fact that Maddie could not come up with a reasonable explanation for her visit without Eleanor, it was difficult for her to go alone. The result was that the interview was left entirely in the hands of Chief Willis and his team of detectives.

But that did not mean that Maddie did not have a plan. Ultimately her goal was to get Maria to start talking about what had happened to Jimmy, and they didn’t need an official interview for that. Maddie decided to take advantage of Maria’s need for attention. Instead of heading off to talk to Maria directly, she decided to go in in a more roundabout way. Picking up the phone, she called her granddaughter, Bailey, to help.

Bailey picked up the phone on the first ring. “Hi, Gran.”

Maddie smiled at the familiarity. “Hi, Bailey. How’re you doing, hon?”

“I’m really good, Gran. Missing you though.”

“I know. I guess we’ve both been too busy lately.”

“Well let’s get together for a visit soon.”

“Sure thing, hon. I would love that, and the sooner the better.” Maddie hesitated before she got to her point of the phone call. “Listen, Bailey, I have a favor to ask you.”

“Sure, Gran. Anything.”

“Did you know Jimmy, the boy that was murdered recently?”

“No, Gran. I didn’t know him personally. I don’t get much chance to talk to other students since I’ve graduated.”

“That’s good. Then the chances of them recognizing you will be pretty slim.”

Bailey’s attention was peaked. She could always tell when her gran had a plan.

“Are you working on that case?”

“Jimmy was a student of Eleanor’s. She asked me to help.”

“I thought they had arrested someone.”

“They did: Emily Winston, but I’m pretty sure that they’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t really have anything solid right now, but my gut is telling me that it’s someone else.”

“I’m sure you have a possible suspect in mind.”

“I do: A Maria Carvone, another student of Eleanor’s.”

“Ah huh. But you need something to support your gut, I suppose.”

“Yes. That’s where you come in.”

“Me? I don’t know any of these kids.”

“That’s why you’d be perfect, Bailey. I want you to pretend to be a reporter and interview Maria about Jimmy, see what you can find out.”

The phone went silent for a moment while Bailey thought about it. She had done something similar for her grandmother once before, but she hadn’t done it in a long time.

Maddie, sensing Bailey’s reluctance, rushed on. “Listen, Bailey, you can do this. This girl will be really easy to break. She loves a lot of attention. If you show up like a newspaper reporter, she’ll slip and say something. I’m sure of it.”

“Of course I’ll do it for you, Gran. I just don’t know if I can pull it off. If you remember the last time I tried it, it didn’t go so well.”

Maddie gave a soft chuckle as she recalled the time when Bailey had tried to be a reporter once before but was identified before she could get her questions answered. Most people in town knew she was her granddaughter, so it was hard to hide the truth.

“Yes, Bailey, I remember. But this time it will be different. You said yourself that most of these young people don’t know you, and I know they don’t know me. They’re in their own world, and they don’t pay attention to older people like me anymore.”

Bailey started thinking again. Her gran had a point, and if she did it away from campus, she might be able to conduct the interview without being recognized.

“All right. I’ll do it. But, Gran, you have to tell me everything you know about her and the case you’re working on so I know what kind of things to fish for.”

“Sure thing, hon,” Maddie answered, and she began to break down everything she knew about the case. Bailey listened intently and could see it would be easy to formulate a plan for how to approach the girl.

Several hours later, Bailey, dressed in a smart business suit, was standing across the street from the campus at a cafe she had learned Maria liked to hang out at. She scanned the crowd in search of the face she was looking for. Her gran had given a pretty good description of the girl, but without a photograph, she could be any number of students that hung around the campus, and the crowd was quite large considering that school was now officially out.

She finally found her sitting in a small corner booth inside the café with a bunch of friends who were deep into an animated conversation when she approached.

“Excuse me,” Bailey started, using her most professional tone. “Are you Maria Carvone?”

Maria looked up at the unfamiliar face and was clearly perplexed about who this person was. “Who are you?”

“Oh, excuse me,” Bailey said, offering her hand across the table. “My name is Bailey Thomas, of the Rockcrest Cove Chronicle.”

Her gran was right. Maria’s face immediately brightened up at the thought of talking to a real live reporter.

“I’m doing a story on the Jimmy Maxwell case, and I’m told you’re the person to

talk to about it.”

Maria’s eyes got even brighter at the prospect. A few oohs and ahhhs came from the group of girls that were with her.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions if I could.” Bailey fished in her large bag for her recorder. “If you don’t mind,” she said, placing the small recorder on the table between them.

Maria didn’t hesitate to respond. “Of course,” she said, beaming. “I’d be happy to tell you anything I can. Jimmy and I were good friends, you know.”

One of the young girls in the group rolled her eyes but made sure that Maria didn’t see it. “Maria, if you’re going to do this, I’m bailing. I’ll catch up with you later,” she said as she slid out of her seat.

The other three girls followed suit, excusing themselves. Bailey thought she was missing an opportunity to hear something about the case from the other girls.

“Oh, you’re welcome to stay. In fact, I’d like to hear your comments about Jimmy as well.”

“That’s okay. You’ll get more than enough information from Maria here.” They all beat a hasty retreat as they left the café and left Bailey alone with Maria.

Bailey made a mental note that maybe they should look a little more closely at Maria’s relationships. Apparently these girls had tired of Maria’s attention-getting efforts and were losing interest in maintaining the status quo. But for now, she was alone with Maria and had to make the best use of her time.

“You know what, Maria?” Bailey started. “It’s kind of crowded in here. Why don’t we take a stroll through the park and talk there,” she suggested.

“Sounds great!” Maria agreed, gathering her bags together. “It’s such a lovely day. A walk in the park would be nice.”

Just as Bailey suspected, the park was relatively quiet, with fewer people to overhear their conversation. She felt that if she could get Maria alone, she would be more likely to reveal more information.

“All right. What do you want to know?” Maria asked eagerly as they strolled down one of the wilderness paths that meandered through the natural surroundings.

“Why don’t we start with how you knew Jimmy.”

“Oh, yes.” She beamed. “Jimmy and I were in the same criminal justice classes as first year law students together. He was such a bright student. I just liked hanging around him because I knew I could learn a lot from him.”

“Is that so?” Bailey responded. “I heard you gave quite an impressive speech at his funeral the other day.”

“Oh that?” she said, trying to sound embarrassed. “People keep talking to me about that. It was just some words I threw together, nothing special.” She finished with a dismissive wave of her hand and a little giggle.

Geez. Gran was right. This girl is really in love with herself, Bailey thought to herself. It was going to be easy to get her to talk.

“So tell me about what you think happened to Jimmy.”

Maria made a sad sigh as she tried to figure out what to say. “Well, he was murdered,” she said. “It was pretty sad news for all of us.”

“The police seem to believe that Emily Winston is the murderer. What can you tell me about her?”

“Oh Emily,” Maria started. “I knew something was wrong with her from the beginning.”

“What do you mean?” Bailey pressed.

“She was always so clingy with Jimmy. She would never let him alone, you know? It was like she was obsessed with him.”

“Really? How so?”

“Poor Jimmy. He could never do anything alone. She was tailing him from sunup to sundown.”

Bailey let her go on for a while about Emily. It was clear that there was no love lost between the two women. It led her to believe that maybe there was a secret rivalry going on. As they walked, Bailey noticed that Maria’s eyes kept looking over her shoulder. She had done this several times before. Bailey finally turned to see what she was looking at but saw nothing but a few joggers on the trail behind them. There was no one who stood out as unusual.

They continued walking for a while, but as they went farther along the trail, it became plain to see that Maria was becoming more uncomfortable.

“Why don’t we sit her on the bench for a few minutes?” Bailey suggested. She wanted to see if any of the walkers were lingering around them.

“You know Jimmy,” Maria continued. “Jimmy loved to joke around a lot. That’s why everybody loved him.”

“Well, somebody didn’t,” Bailey countered.

Maria hesitated for a brief second as one of the men on the path behind them seemed to quickly slow his pace. She kept her head down, but her eyes were clearly trained on him.

The man was a little creepy looking. He was a tall, thin man who looked completely out of place in the thick foliage of the surroundings. He stopped, putting his feet up on an old log, and pretended to stretch his hamstrings directly across from Bailey and Maria. He wasn’t looking at them, but he wasn’t able to hide very well either. He was extremely interested in Maria for some reason.

“Well, I think that’s all for now,” Bailey said, curious about the man and why he was following him. “Maybe I can get your phone number and we can meet again for a follow-up story if something else comes up.”

“Sure thing,” Maria agreed, giving Bailey all of her contact information.

“Oh, that’s my phone,” Bailey said. “Can you excuse me a minute?”

She pulled out her cell phone and walked to the other side of the path, pretending to be chatting with someone. Out of the corner of her eye, she kept a close watch on Maria to see what she would do. At first, nothing happened. The two seemed to be complete strangers, so Bailey walked around a bend in the path, breaking her line of sight but doubling back and peering through the bushes to see if they would speak. It didn’t take long for her to be rewarded.

Maria got up from her place on the bench and approached the young man, clearly in an agitated state. She made an angry swipe at him and appeared to engage in a whispered but heated argument. Bailey squinted hard, trying to figure out what they were talking about, but she couldn’t.

She decided she would take one last-ditch effort to find out who the man was. Taking out her cell phone, she pretended to be having trouble getting a decent signal and approached the side of the path where the two were. Keeping a reasonable distance, she was able to catch snippets of the conversation.

“Really, Anthony. You have to stop following me like this.”

“I’m just looking out for you,” he said. “You need to stop talking to everybody.”

“I’m just doing what people expect me to do.”

“I told you not to go to that funeral. You’re going to mess everything up.”

“The only thing that’s going to mess it all up is you following me all over the place. People are going to get suspicious. All you have to do is act natural.”

“Well what do you expect me to do?” he asked. “You won’t tell me anything.”

Maria made another irritated swipe at him. “Anthony, there’s nothing to tell, and if you keep doing this to me, people are going to start asking questions. Even that reporter lady was starting to get suspicious with you following me around like a lost puppy dog.”

“No, she’s getting suspicious because you can’t keep your cool under pressure. She doesn’t know who I am. To her I’m just another jogger on the trail.”

Maria scoffed at his comment. “I doubt that. You’re not as discreet as you think.”

Bailey watched carefully from a distance as the two continued their whispered conversation farther down the path. Yes, Gran was definitely onto something, but she wasn’t sure it was enough to incriminate Maria or the young man in a murder. She was sure that there was much more underneath the surface that needed to be uncovered before the case was over.

M
addie was anxiously pacing
the floor, waiting to hear from Bailey. It had been several hours since they had talked, and she was desperate to find out if her hunch was correct. Astoria was mimicking her every move. She paced one way and Astoria followed; she changed directions and the cat switched too. It was like the two had become one person.

She tried to busy herself with things to do around the house but couldn’t really concentrate on what she was doing. She had such a strong feeling about Maria knowing more than she was letting on, but there was no way to be absolutely sure about it. By the time the phone rang, Maddie was almost in a state.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Gran,” Bailey started.

“Oh, thank goodness, Bailey. I was starting to get worried.”

“I’m fine, Gran. No need to worry.”

Maddie let out a long sigh of relief. She hated getting her granddaughter involved in things like this, but Bailey was always willing to help out when she could.

“Did you find out anything?”

“Yes, I did. I’m around the corner from your house. I’ll be there in just a minute.”

Maddie waited for her at the door, anxiety riddled across her face. As soon as Bailey emerged from her car, Maddie hit her with the question. “So, what did you find out?”

“I’m not entirely sure, but they are definitely hiding some secret.”

“Really,” Maddie said, escorting Bailey into the house.

“Yes. I didn’t notice it at first, but we were being followed.”

Alarm spread across Maddie’s face. “Oh my goodness,” she said. “How do you know?”

“Maria kept looking over her shoulder as we were walking through the park. I didn’t see anyone at first, but after a while I noticed this young man lingering around us pretty closely.”

“I wonder who it could be.”

“It was someone named Anthony,” Bailey answered. “I pretended to be making a phone call and I overheard some of their conversation.”

Maddie sat silently, waiting to hear what more Bailey had to contribute.

“Apparently they are trying to hide something. She was upset about him following her and concerned that people would learn about something they were doing. I never found out exactly what it was, but there is definitely something going on with them.”

Maddie stood there deep in thought for a time. “I wonder,” she finally said out loud, “if it has anything to do with Jimmy and Emily.”

“I will say that she seems to be very jealous of Emily,” Bailey continued. “She described Emily as almost being Jimmy’s stalker, saying that she was always hanging around him—the clingy type.”

It was encouraging to learn that her instincts were still good. “That’s all good information, Bailey,” Maddie said, “but it isn’t proof. If we want to get the charges against Emily dropped, we need something more concrete than mere hearsay.” The information she got from Bailey would be helpful though. It could lead them in the right direction. “I’ll talk to Eleanor about it. Maybe she can give me some more information on Anthony and what he might be up to.”

After Bailey left the house, Maddie picked up the phone and dialed Eleanor’s number. It rang a few times before Eleanor picked up, a little out of breath.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Ellie. Are you busy?”

“Yes, a little, but not so much that I can’t give you a few minutes.”

“Good. I’ve found out a little information I’d like to share with you. Do you think you can stop by after work this evening?”

“I’m afraid not. I’m swamped with staff meetings all day. But maybe you can stop by here around lunchtime. I’ll have a little break in between.”

“All right. Say about twelve thirty?”

“Sounds great. I take it you’ve found out something.”

“I believe I have, but I’m not really sure what it is or how it can help us. I’m hoping you can shed some light on the subject.”

“Oh, gotta go,” Eleanor said, abruptly cutting her off on the line. Before Maddie could respond, the line had gone dead. What was her friend up to?
she thought to herself. Eleanor’s strange behavior was beginning to cause her some deep concern.

Maddie arrived at Eleanor’s office precisely at twelve thirty, but she was nowhere to be found. The door was open, so she let herself in and waited. A full ten minutes passed before Eleanor came bustling through the door, appearing breathless and a little rattled. “Oh, Maddie, I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said, walking around her desk and pulling out her chair. “You say you found out something about the case?” She was getting right to the point.

“Yes,” Maddie agreed. “I found out something about Maria actually. I’m just hoping you can link it to the case.”

Eleanor’s head snapped up. “Really?” she asked, surprised.

“Yes. I didn’t go to meet her like I said, because I thought it would make her suspicious, so I asked Bailey to get involved. She pretended to be a reporter and asked Maria for an interview.”

Eleanor gave a slight smile to her friend. “Well that would certainly do it. Maria loves the attention.”

“So we learned. Tell me, what do you know about this man Anthony? Is this someone she’s involved with?”

Eleanor gave a small little chuckle. “I hope not.” She smiled. “Anthony is her brother. A first year law student.” She stopped in thought for minute. “He’s not one of my students,” she said. “I may have met him one time, but I never really got to know him. Why?”

“Well I think he’s involved in some way. He seemed quite concerned about Maria talking so much about the case.”

“Tell me, what did Maria have to say about Jimmy’s murder?”

“She seems to feel that Emily had something to do with it. There is obviously a rivalry between the two girls, and while I don’t have any concrete proof just yet, it seems that Jimmy may have been caught in the crossfire.”

“Hm,” Eleanor said. She got up and paced the small area of her office. “The problem is that we have a lot of conjecture but no real proof of anything.”

“Well let’s see. What do we have?”

“We have a man smothered in his sleep,” Eleanor started.

“But neither girl would have been strong enough either physically or emotionally to do such a thing.”

“We also have Emily being the last one seen with Jimmy before he died.”

“Yes, and she was the only one that had access to his house.”

“Hmm.” Eleanor was pensive. “That’s a tough one. She also admitted to being there at the time of death. That’s going to be a tough one to overcome.”

“You sound like she’s really in trouble with this case.”

“Well if we don’t come up with something more concrete, I can assure you she will be.”

Maddie reared back in her seat, nibbling on the tip of a pencil. “What do we have on Maria?” she asked.

“Only what you’ve found out today. There is nothing that links her to even being anywhere near Jimmy on the day he died, or her brother. In fact, she wasn’t even at the party.”

The whole case was becoming rather disconcerting as the two women continued to discuss the evidence they had.

Finally, Eleanor just slammed her hands down on the desk. “I just don’t get it,” she said. “Neither one of the girls had any motive to kill Jimmy. There’s got to be something we’re missing.”

Suddenly Maddie sat upright in her chair, a new thought taking over her mind.

“Maybe we do have a motive here,” she said, her eyes twinkling with the idea.

“What do you mean?”

Maddie leaned forward to explain her idea to Eleanor but was interrupted by a phone call for Eleanor.

“Hello?”

“Yes, Emily, what is it?” She listened while Emily spoke into the phone. “Of course. I can do that. Maddie is with me right now. I can take her with me.”

“All right. I’ll be there soon. Bye.”

Eleanor hung up the phone and looked at Maddie. “Emily needs me to stop by her dorm room and pick up a few things for her court appearance tomorrow. Would you like to go with me? Maybe we can tie up some loose ends while we’re there.”

The two women walked across campus together, chatting about the case all the way. The student dorms were on the far side of the campus, away from the major traffic of students coming in and out. The four-story building looked just like you would expect a dorm to look. It was an old brick building with lots of windows on each side. Emily’s dorm room was at the far end of a long corridor with rooms on either side. There were quite a few students moving about the hallways, many of them with suitcases in tow, on their way off to various locations for the holidays.

The presence of Eleanor in the dorms garnered quite a bit of attention as they entered the building. Many of the students recognized Eleanor, but they weren’t really sure about who Maddie was. They were constantly being greeted as they made their way through the crowd.

Maddie kind of enjoyed the little anonymity; when dealing with older ones in the community, her face was readily recognizable, but here among the younger generation she was a real unknown, which allowed her to get close to students and overhear what they had to say. Many of them had no idea about her close friendship with Eleanor. Nor did they realize she was involved in the case in any way.

Eleanor was still perplexed about the information that Bailey had discovered and was trying to wrap her brain around it. “I just don’t understand,” she commented. “I can’t imagine Maria or Anthony being involved in anything so heinous. I know Maria loves a lot of attention, but I would never have imagined that she would go that far.”

“To be honest, Ellie, I don’t think it had to do so much with Maria and Jimmy at all. I think it is some sort of rivalry between Maria and Emily, and poor Jimmy just got caught in the middle. Do you remember Emily’s demeanor when Maria got up to speak at the funeral? She was clenching her fists, she kept her head down, and she wouldn’t look up and make any type of eye contact.”

Eleanor didn’t respond right away. She took Maddie’s words to heart and ruminated over them as they entered the small dorm room.

A young girl was sitting in the room at her desk, her head deep in a book when they entered. Startled, she jumped from her seat and stood, panicked, as she stared at the two women.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Eleanor started. “I didn’t realize anyone was in here.”

Recognizing Eleanor, the girl relaxed a little. “Oh, Ms. Hawkins” she said, placing a hand on her chest as if to slow down her heartbeat.

“April. What are you doing here?”

“This is my room,” she answered. “Didn’t you know? I’m Emily’s roommate.”

“No, I didn’t,” Eleanor responded. “Emily never told me she had a roommate.”

“We just started sharing a few weeks ago. It was getting kind of expensive for her to have a single room by herself, and to be quite honest, it was cutting into my budget too.”

“I totally understand,” Eleanor responded. “Listen, we just stopped by to get a few things Emily needs for court tomorrow.”

April’s face grew solemn. “How is she doing?” she asked. “I don’t believe she had anything to do with that.”

“Thank you for saying that,” Eleanor said. “I’m sure she appreciates all of those things.”

April seemed to have gotten misty-eyed for a second, but she quickly rebounded. “All right. What is it that she needs? Maybe I can help you find it.”

“That would be appreciated.” Eleanor smiled. “She wants a pair of earrings, the kind with the silver stones embedded in them.”

“Yes. I know the ones,” April said and went over to Emily’s closet and pulled out

her jewelry box. After a few seconds of looking through the jewelry in the box, she seemed a little perplexed. “That’s odd.”

“What’s odd?”

“I know Emily keeps all of her jewelry in here, but those earrings aren’t here. Are you sure she didn’t take them?”

“No. She made sure to ask me to bring them with me to court tomorrow.”

“Well they’re not here now,” April said, pushing pieces of jewelry around the small box.

“Perhaps she put them someplace else in the room,” Maddie suggested. “Let’s just take a look around. Which part of the room is Emily’s?”

April sat up on the bed and looked around. “Well, that’s her bed and her desk over there,” she said pointing to the opposite side of the room.

Maddie walked over and began searching the desk for the earrings while Eleanor moved to the dresser to look there. After a few minutes of searching the desktop, Maddie started opening drawers looking for the missing earrings but found nothing. “Find anything?” she asked Eleanor.

“Nothing yet,” Eleanor said, looking under a pile of clothing.

Having checked the side drawers of the desk, Maddie finally pulled open the center drawer to search there, and what she found caught her attention. Reaching in, she pulled out a small locket on a gold chain and let it dangle from her hand. “That’s interesting,” she said out loud.

“What is?”

“This locket. Is it Emily’s?”

“Yes, that’s hers. She wears it all the time.” April commented.

“Hmm,” Maddie said, studying the piece of jewelry. “How many does she have?”

“Only the one that I know of,” April answered. “Why?”

Maddie didn’t answer her. She turned her attention back to the locket. “Eleanor,” she said quietly, “didn’t Willis say that the victim had Emily’s locket in his hand?”

“That’s right.”

“So that means they have Emily’s locket in the evidence locker at the police department.”

“They should have.”

“But if this is Emily’s locket, then whose locket are they holding in evidence?”

“I don’t know, but I think we need to talk to Willis to find out.”