Upstate Uproar (19 page)

“Nosy,” Wendy whispered back and opened the
closet door. “We need to put this stuff up exactly as it was and go
downstairs. I think we found some good info, though.”

“I really could use some bacon now that I
think about it,” Kate said, but then she closed her eyes. “Mini-nap
first.”

Vivian grabbed her phone. “That was Nicole
who called. Let me call her back before we go down.”

Nicole picked up on the second ring. “What
are you doing today? I’ve found some good info. Do you have time to
visit?”

Vivian looked at the clock. “Larson should be
here in two hours to take us out on the boat. Can you come
here?”

“See you in 20.” Click.

They let Kate nap for 15 minutes, then the
three headed downstairs. Kate helped herself to a BLT and offered
to make one for the other girls but they declined. Vivian and Wendy
sat out on the front porch while Kate made her sandwich and they
waited for Nicole. They rocked and watched smoke billow from the
piles of burning leaves around the property.

“Brandon’s really got those going good,”
Wendy commented as he threw more leaves onto one of the stacks.

“It doesn’t take a pyromaniac to burn
leaves,” Vivian said. “We used to burn trash at my grandmother’s
farm in Alabama. A little lighter fluid and a few matches, and
you’re playing with fire.”

They rocked for a few more minutes before a
car pulled into the drive and Nicole got out carrying a big chrome
briefcase.

“Hey!” Vivian said.

“Hi. Are Brandon and Tracy here?”

“Tracy’s not. Brandon’s over there.” Vivian
nodded toward him.

Kate arrived at the screen door munching on
her sandwich.

“I’ve been through my grandpa’s files and
have found some interesting stuff. I wanted to tell you about it,
but in private.”

Vivian opened the screen door. “Let’s go in.
I gotta see what you’ve got inside that ginormous chrome case.”

They sat around the dining room table and
Nicole pulled out several files. “My grandpa had notes on just
about everyone in town. It took me awhile to sort through them and
pick out some that are worth a closer look.”

Wendy spread out the folders and read the
labels. “Everyone in town? Are there a lot of creepy people around
here or something?”

Nicole laughed. “No, he just liked to keep
tabs on everyone’s business. His theory was that everyone had a
story and you never knew when it would become newsworthy.”

“Good thinking,” Vivian said and picked up a
file. It read Jeremy Donaldson. She opened it and looked at several
pages of handwritten notes in a bad scroll. She looked at Nicole.
“I assume you can decipher this?”

“Grandpa wasn’t known for his penmanship, but
this file is on a student of Mary Beth’s. She tutored him here at
the house, and it was rumored they spent a lot of time together,
like she took a special interest in him.”

“Was something inappropriate going on?” Kate
asked.

“From what I gathered, I think he had a crush
on her, but she was just trying to help him. I talked to him this
morning, stopped by his house since he keeps his shop there. He
said they would stay after school and she would tutor him. Then
Mary Beth drowned and he not only quit school but went off the deep
end. He couldn’t handle her death, and he left town as soon as he
could. He worked on cruise ships, mainly in Alaska, and did that
until his parents died in an accident a couple of years ago, when
he came home.”

Vivian had been flipping through the pages in
the file while Nicole talked. She turned over the last page and
caught her breath. “I’ve seen this guy. Why do I know him?”

Wendy leaned over and looked at the picture.
“It’s the locksmith who helped us at the trailhead the other
day.”

“That’s him,” Nicole said. “Jeremy inherited
his parents’ estate, but he still needed a job so he learned how to
be a locksmith. He also wrote a couple of screenplays while he
worked on the cruise ships, and he sold one of them, though I don’t
think it was for a lot. I asked him today if he was working on
anything new, and he said he was almost done with a movie
script.”

“Interesting,” Vivian said. “I’ve always
wanted to write a screenplay. What’s his about?”

“A student who falls in love with a teacher
and they have an affair, but then she’s murdered.”

Vivian stared at his picture. “Wow. I’ve
heard people write what they know. Maybe there was more to his
affection for Mary Beth?”

Nicole shrugged. “I think so, and Grandpa
didn’t think the love was reciprocated. His notes are hard to read,
but he clearly says Mary Beth seemed to be in love with
Brandon.”

“Scorned and rejected,” Wendy said. “Not a
good combo.”

“What else did you find?” Kate asked. She
picked up the thickest of the files, and the name read Mike Grimm.
She set it upside down so she could easily flip to the back. She
looked at the picture, then showed Vivian and Wendy. “We met him
yesterday at the festival, right?”

“Sure did,” Vivian said. “I liked his dragon
paintings.”

“He invited us to his studio,” Wendy said.
“Maybe we should go?”

“Do what you want, but you probably shouldn’t
mention Brandon,” Nicole said. “Mike, Mary Beth and he have history
all the way through school. Mike went to college at the University
of Oregon where he evidently started drinking way too much and got
into drugs. He dropped out and went to Portland, joined a grunge
band, moved from couch to couch. He’s been in and out of rehab
several times. I know him to say hello, but not much else. I’ve
heard he finally conquered his addiction and is clean.”

Kate had turned over the last page in the
file and started working her way backward through it. “That’s
great, but if they were friends, why shouldn’t we mention
Brandon?”

“Wait for it,” Vivian said. “I can tell
there’s more to this story.” Nicole was on the edge of her seat,
drumming her fingers on the table.

“Mike moved home about a year before Mary
Beth’s death. One of the files Grandpa had is on a friend of Mary
Beth’s, a Suzy Fairlie, who says Mike spent a lot of time with Mary
Beth once he was home. Brandon didn’t like it, thought Mike wanted
more than friendship, even though Suzy doesn’t think Mike ever did
anything of the sort to Mary Beth. Suzy says Mary Beth and Brandon
had a big argument about it and Brandon forbid her to see Mike
anymore. Things were strained between them for a few days, and then
Mary Beth drowned shortly thereafter.”

Wendy sighed. “What a sad story.”

“It doesn’t end there. One of the documents
in the file is a police report and arrest record from when Mike
came out here and attacked Brandon. He apparently inflicted some
major damage. Mike told the police he was trying to beat a
confession out of him, but Brandon said Mike was crazy and couldn’t
be reasoned with, like he was on drugs.”

“Did Mike and Mary Beth ever date?” Kate
asked.

“Not that I can find, but their families hung
out together. I guess their moms were good friends, so they’d go
snow skiing, boating, hiking, take trips, you name it. His
affection was more brotherly when they were younger, but Grandpa
thinks that changed about the time Mike came back. And Grandpa’s
notes say Mike never liked Brandon, thought Mary Beth could and
should do better.”

“Is that all on Mike?” Wendy asked.

“Grandpa just didn’t like him much, thought
there was something weird about him and that there was more to the
story between him and Brandon. Mike always wears black, even
turtlenecks and long pants in the summer. A lot of these notes are
from Grandpa following Mike around town, just to see what he was up
to. Grandpa didn’t think Mary Beth’s death was an accident;
something wasn’t picked up on the autopsy. He doesn’t come right
out and say it, but I think he was highly suspicious of Mike and
that beating Brandon up for a confession was a cover-up
attempt.”

Vivian glanced out the back window to make
sure Brandon was still outside. He was tossing a tree branch on the
leaf pile. “But if he had feelings for her, why would he murder
her?”

Nicole shrugged again. “Drugs and alcohol can
do crazy things to people’s brains, even after they’re sober. Or
maybe Mary Beth wasn’t the intended victim.”

“Is Suzy still around?” Kate asked. “I’d like
to talk to her.”

“Yes, she owns Tropical Fish, a fish store on
the outer edge of town.”

“We’ll go talk to her,” Vivian said to the
girls, then picked up the next file on the pile, April Robinson.
“Who’s this?”

Nicole glanced at the file. “A fellow
teacher, though they weren’t friends for long. Or co-workers. Mary
Beth caught April changing answers on the state equivalency test
and reported her. April was fired and her teacher’s license was
revoked so she can never teach in the state of New York again.”

“That sounds like motive for murder,” Vivian
said, knowing that test scores mattered in terms of school rankings
and therefore funding, but cheating wasn’t the way to go.

“Yep,” Nicole said. “All the kids in her
class had to retake the test.”

“My mom is a teacher, and she would not
tolerate another teacher who did that,” Wendy said. “Mary Beth did
the right thing, but it sucks that the kids had to suffer through
the tests again.”

Nicole flipped through the file. “Mary Beth
certainly did the right thing in turning her in, but April was none
too happy about getting banned from teaching. April went off on
Mary Beth the day she got fired and made a lot of threats. Was it
heat of the moment, or more than that since Mary Beth had ruined
April’s life?”

“No, actually, April ruined April’s life by
cheating,” Vivian said. “Cheaters always lose in the end.”
Like
fuckin’ Rick!

Nicole tapped her fingers on the table again.
“She really stands out to me as a suspect. The police haven’t
looked into her as far as I can tell. She made those threats, had
her life in shambles, and Mary Beth dies shortly thereafter?
Coincidental?”

A shadow passed across the table in front of
Vivian and she looked up.

Tracy stood in the doorway, a concerned look
on her face. She quickly wiped it away as she locked eyes with
Vivian. “Having a nice time?”

T
racy walked in and
glanced at the files spread out on her dining room table. “Hello,
Nicole, good to see you,” she said with a smile.

Nicole waved her hand around the room. “Hi,
there, I love what you’ve done with the B&B. Very quaint.”

“Thank you,” Tracy said. “Can I get anyone
anything? A little lunch? We have pimento cheese, lunch meat,
peanut butter…”

Vivian was horrified Tracy had walked in on
them but tried not to let it show on her face.
How much has she
heard? If it’s just the last part that Nicole said, then we might
be okay. Try to act normal.
“You don’t have to do that, it’s a
B&B, not a B&B&L.”

“I don’t mind,” Tracy said. “I like to take
care of our guests.”

“Okay, you talked me into it. I’ll just have
a sandwich and some hot tea.”

Wendy smiled at her. “I could use a pimiento
cheese sandwich and a glass of water.”

“I could use something stronger, but I’d
better not,” Kate joked and rubbed her belly. “I just had a BLT. Do
you have something sweet back there?”

“How about some oatmeal raisin cookies?”

“Oh, yes, please, and thank you. With
milk!”

Tracy looked at Nicole, smile still plastered
to her face. “Anything for you? I made a batch of peanut butter
cookies yesterday.”

Nicole shook her head. “Hot tea sounds nice,
thanks.”

“Sure you don’t want a bite?”

“No, thanks. I’m allergic to peanuts, so I’m
pretty cautious.”

“Oh, goodness,” Tracy said and put a hand to
her heart. “I’d die. I love peanut butter cookies!” She walked
toward the kitchen.

The girls exchanged nervous glances before
Wendy asked in a low voice, “Any other important people we ought to
know about?”

Nicole slid a file to Wendy and another to
Vivian. “Just these two, and I don’t think it’s much. A football
coach who worked with Mary Beth at the school. Brandon and he had a
falling out, a jealousy thing. Also, the town recluse, Otto
Treadwell. Grandpa tried to talk to him about Mary Beth, thinking
that even though Otto was quiet and odd, he might be more attentive
than anyone realized and therefore might know something. Other than
those two, there are a few sex offenders in town, but not
many.”

“Are the coach and recluse still around?”
Kate asked.

“Coach Stubbs moved out of state years ago,
and Otto passed away.”

Vivian wanted to talk to Tracy and try to see
how much she’d heard. “I think I’ll go see if Tracy needs any
help.” She walked into the kitchen. Food was on the counters and
sandwiches were in the process of being made, but Tracy was nowhere
in sight. Brandon had set some groceries on a small kitchen table
and was just walking in the side door with another armful. “Let me
help you with those,” Vivian said, reaching for a bag.

Brandon didn’t release it. “That’s okay, I’ve
got it. You need something?”

“I was just coming to see if Tracy needed any
help getting our lunch together.”

Tracy walked in the side door drying her
hands on her jeans, then grabbed a paper towel. Her grey sweatshirt
sleeve was wet and she began to pat it dry. “Go relax with the
girls. I can make a couple of sandwiches and cups of tea.”

“I know this is bed and breakfast, no lunch
and dinner included. Are you sure we aren’t imposing? I don’t mind
helping.”

“No imposition.”

Vivian walked back into the dining room and
whispered, “They’re both in there.”

Kate nodded. “Nicole was just telling us some
ghost stories from around here. Great stuff, you gotta hear this
one.”