Fugitive Filling Page 9

  “Even given what he told you, I’m still not sure why he’s here,” I said. “What good can possibly come from his presence, even if everything he told you was true?”

  “He claims that there’s still unfinished business he had with her and that he wouldn’t be able to rest until her killer was caught, but I wonder.”

  When Jake didn’t continue, I asked, “What exactly is it that you’re wondering? Would you care to share it with me?”

  “Sorry. Did I not finish the thought?”

  “You did not,” I said.

  “I’ve been mulling over one possibility since he first introduced himself. What if he killed her himself?” Jake asked as he frowned.

  “Wow, is that always the first place your mind goes?”

  “What can I say? I spent too much time in my career questioning the motives of anyone even remotely connected to the case I was working on at the time. Alexander Rose appears to be angry that she was murdered, but it feels a little contrived, if you know what I mean. Maybe he’s dealing with it as best he can and my suspicions are based on nothing more than my eagerness to think the worst of people, but I don’t completely trust him.”

  “Could your attitude have anything to do with his chosen profession?” I asked Jake as I took off my jacket.

  “Maybe. I’ve certainly had enough cases snatched away from me at the last second by aggressive attorneys to make me mistrust the lot of them,” Jake admitted. “Anyway, he’s asked me to keep him informed, and I could swear the man actually tried to pay me for the privilege. When he found out about my background in law enforcement and that I was a private citizen now, he actually asked me if I was for hire, if you can believe that.”

  “It’s not that crazy a concept,” I said. “Lots of private detectives are former cops, aren’t they?”

  “I don’t know. I never really thought about it,” he admitted.

  “Maybe it’s something to consider,” I said.

  “I don’t know. I’d have to give it a great deal of thought, and I’m not ready to make that kind of decision right now anyway. There’s just too much going on around here at the moment. For at least the foreseeable future, I’m sticking to being an amateur. It’s an interesting perspective, to say the least. I thought I had limitations in what I could do before while I was an investigator, but I didn’t fully appreciate your constraints until I started working on this investigation with you.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said. “It’s not always easy, but I don’t have to tell you how rewarding it can be when you track down a killer.”

  “You don’t. That’s one of the things that gave me the most satisfaction in my former life. Are you ready to hit the ground running this morning?”

  “I’m ready if you are,” I said.

  “Were you able to come up with anything while you were in the shower? I’m at a loss. I’m going to keep my eye on Alexander Rose, but in the meantime, we need something to do.”

  “As a matter of fact, I did have a thought.”

  “I want to hear what it is, but first I need to know if it’s legal.”

  “It’s fine. It’s well within the law. Probably. At least I’m pretty sure that it is.”

  Jake looked at me for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Maybe you’d better tell me about it before we do anything else that we’re going to need to apologize to the police chief for.”

  “I was thinking that it might not hurt to get a look at Teresa’s place and see if there’s anything there that might help us,” I said. “Surely the chief is finished with it by now.”

  “You never know, but let’s say that he is. We can’t just break into the place.”

  “We don’t have to,” I said with a smile. “Nick Williams, one of my customers at Donut Hearts, happens to own the house where she was living.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Jake asked me in amazement.

  “Nick mentioned it when Teresa first came to town, and I filed it away in my mind, along with a hundred thousand other useless facts that I picked up working the front counter of my donut shop every week. Why don’t I give him a call?”

  “Maybe we should call the chief first and see what he has to say about it,” Jake suggested.

  “There might not be any need to bother him. If the place is still off limits, Nick will know, and if Stephen has released it, then we should be free to look around there ourselves.”

  “I really wish you wouldn’t call the chief of police by his first name,” Jake said with a hint of a frown.

  “Why not? I’ve known him forever, and we’ve done a ton of things with Grace and him socially. I find it’s odd that you keep calling him Chief yourself.”

  “It’s a good way to remind myself that he’s the one who’s in charge now,” Jake said.

  “Do you regret turning the job over to him?”

  “No, not on your life. I don’t ever want to butt heads with you and your mother at the same time about anything ever again,” he said.

  “Don’t forget, Grace and George were in the vehicle that night, too.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he said. Jake had been in a position of scolding the four of us at the same time because of some unofficial investigating we were doing without his blessing, and he’d made a decision to resign his temporary position on the spot, though I suspected that he’d been giving it some consideration for some time before that. I hadn’t envied him his position, and I’d understood his desire to abdicate it, but it had left a hole in his life, and I was beginning to worry about him. “Just try, for my sake.”

  “For you, I will,” I said. “in my defense, I mostly refer to him as the chief as it is, but I’ll refrain from using his name unless it’s a social occasion. So, should I call Nick?”

  “Go ahead. You might as well see what he has to say,” Jake said, so I dialed his number before my husband changed his mind.

  “Hey, Nick, it’s Suzanne Hart,” I said when he picked up the phone.

  “I didn’t know you sold Donut Hearts,” he said unhappily. “When did that happen? If you decide to put the cottage on the market, I’ll give you a good price for it. I at least want a shot at it.”

  “What are you talking about? I still own both places. Why, what have you heard?” The questions were disturbing on a few different levels. Did folks honestly think I was selling everything and leaving town? How had that rumor gotten started? Jake and I had just started talking about it the night before, and as far as I knew, no one else had been privy to the conversation.

  “Nothing much really,” he said, sounding confused. “It’s just that the last two times I bought donuts at your shop, you weren’t there. When I tried to ask about it, Emma was too busy to talk. Does that mean that it’s not true?”

  “Until further notice, I’m here to stay,” I said, despite Jake’s offer to relocate to wherever Momma and Phillip ended up. I had no idea if I’d take my husband up on his offer, but at the moment, I didn’t even want to think about it.

  “Okay, that settles that, then,” he said. Did he sound a little disappointed hearing the news that I was staying? I honestly didn’t want to know, so I didn’t ask.

  “Teresa Logan rented a place from you when she first came to town, didn’t she?”

  “She did. It’s a cute little house near the hospital. Why, do you know someone who might want to rent it?” he asked eagerly.

  I’d almost asked him if Jake and I could snoop around, but I suddenly had a better idea. “I might, but I’d have to see it myself before I could recommend it to my friend. Is it available right now, or do the police still have it sealed off?”

  “No, they released it to me ten minutes ago. It’s still got all of Teresa’s things in it though, and I need to repaint. Give me a week, and I’ll be more than happy to show it to you and your friend.”

 
I hesitated before I answered and did my best to sound disappointed. “Sorry, but she’s got to move quicker than that. I’m supposed to call her tonight, and there are a few places in Union Square she might be interested in instead.” I glanced over at Jake, who was looking at me oddly, which really wasn’t all that unusual. I held up an index finger to tell him that I wouldn’t be long, and then I continued my conversation with Nick. “Thanks anyway. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

  I delayed my hang up long enough for him to stop me, but just barely. “Hold on a second. You can see it now. Suzanne, I can trust you not to take any of her stuff, can’t I?”

  I wasn’t sure that I could make that promise, especially if we found anything that might help our investigation. Summoning up my best righteous indignation, I said loudly, “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that. I was going to bring my husband with me. You know, the recent chief of police? If you don’t trust me, I’m not sure I want to see it at all now.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. Forget I said anything.” He paused a moment. “I’m tied up with something else at this moment, but I can drop off the key on my way. There’s a flowerpot on the front porch, so I’ll leave it under there. Just lock up and put it back when you’re through, and I’ll get it later.”

  “That sounds good to me,” I said.

  “Don’t you even want to know how much the rent is?” he asked me curiously.

  I suppose that was a question I should have asked if I’d really had a friend interested in renting the place. “First things first. If I like what I see, then we can discuss money.”

  “Oh, you’ll love it,” he said.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  After I hung up, Jake asked, “Suzanne, is there something I should know about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you just make an appointment to see another place to live, or were you just working an angle to get us in?”

  “It’s an angle. Trust me, you’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I said with a laugh.

  “That’s a relief,” he said. “I take it that the place is free now?”

  “It will be by the time we get there,” I said as I grabbed my Jeep keys. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

  “That’s fine with me. I spent so much time on the road driving places alone, it’s nice to have someone else chauffeuring me around town.”

  “Just think of it as part of the service,” I said with a grin, “but you’ll have to get your own car door. That’s where I draw the line.”

  “I think I can handle that,” he replied.

  The house was cute, though too small for my taste, and I lived in a fairly modest cottage. If the entire home was four hundred square feet total, I’d be surprised. I knew about the Tiny House movement, but frankly, I had too much stuff to ever be able to do it myself, and that didn’t count everything that Jake had. We weren’t hoarders by any means, but I couldn’t see myself living with so little. I found a great deal of comfort being surrounded by my things, and I admired the people who focused more on living their lives than acquiring more stuff and needing an ever-growing amount of space to store it all in. There had to be a happy medium, at least as far as I was concerned, and I felt as though our cottage maintained a nice balance between necessity and excess. That didn’t mean that Jake and I didn’t enjoy the television shows that featured the lifestyle, though. Then again, we watched House Hunters International and reruns of Julia Child’s cooking show, and neither one of us had the desire to live abroad or make gourmet meals. It was entertainment, plain and simple. I loved cozy mysteries that featured recipes to try out myself, but I never seemed to make anything the authors suggested. Honestly, sometimes I enjoyed the descriptions given before the ingredients and directions lists as much as I did the actual mystery.

  Teresa had decorated her small space tastefully, with three pieces of art hung on the limited wall space and enough modest furniture to be comfortable in. The bedroom was tiny, but it used every square inch of space to its full advantage, and the kitchen was compact as well. It featured a small oven/cooktop combination that looked more suited for an RV, a tiny sink, and a dishwasher under the counter that couldn’t hold enough things from more than one meal at a time. Only the main living space could be considered large, with no internal walls to crowd the space between the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. Teresa was neat, and everything appeared to have its own place, but that might have been due more to the size of the house than her natural habits.

  Jake looked around beside me and whistled softly before he said, “Well, on the plus side, it shouldn’t take long to search.”

  “Could you live like this?” I asked him.

  “With you?”

  “I wasn’t asking you to move out,” I said with a smile. “Of course with me.”

  “Then no.”

  “How about when you were a bachelor?”

  “Again, no,” he said. “I need more elbow room.”

  “I know. They always look bigger on television.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “So, one of us should take the kitchen, the other one the bedroom, and we work our way to the middle. What do you think?”

  “It sounds like a plan to me,” I said. “I’ll take the bedroom, if you don’t mind.”

  “Be my guest,” he said. “See you in a few minutes.”

  Chapter 9

  Searching the bedroom turned out to be a bust, and it didn’t take me long to discover the fact. Teresa Logan was neater than I ever would have imagined. Everything had its place, and I wondered if her housekeeping skills were because of the limited amount of space or more because of the meticulous nature of her job. Her shoes were high heeled and polished, her handbags were delicate and tasteful small clutches, and her clothes sported labels that shouted high end. I was beginning to realize that I didn’t know much about the woman at all, and I hadn’t made much of an effort to find out, either. The fact that she had enjoyed flirting with my husband had tarnished everything else about her to me. It was something hard for me to forgive, especially when she had refused to stop doing it. I began to wonder what might make her act that way. Had she been rejected at an early point in her life, and it had scarred her forever? Perhaps her father had ignored her, and so she kept trying to get the attention of every man she ever met. Could we have been friends under different circumstances? I found myself wondering about her past, but it was too late to learn anything about that now. I’d let one part of Teresa’s behavior influence my entire opinion about her. So why was I working so hard to solve her murder now? I knew the answer to that. She’d been working in a space that I owned, and she should have been safe there, but someone had violated that and had killed her in my building. That was what made it so personal. I knew that didn’t make much sense logically, but I operated on my emotions as much as I did my intellect. I may not have considered her a friend, but that didn’t mean that I was going to turn a blind eye to her murder.

  I walked out into the living room and found Jake opening up boxes in the small pantry. “Have you had any luck out here? I pretty much drew a blank in the bedroom,” I told him.

  “Not yet, but I’m not finished here,” Jake said, and then he frowned as he picked up a box of cereal. It was one of the healthy varieties, packed full of fiber and vitamins and all sorts of things that were supposedly good for you. I wouldn’t have eaten a bowl of it if it had been the last bit of food in the house.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “There’s no way this box should be this heavy,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s all the iron that’s packed into it,” I said, joking.

  Jake opened the box and spilled the contents out onto the small counter.

  Something came out of the box, but it wasn’t cereal.

  It was a pers
onal-sized can of mace, a stun gun, and a receipt.

  “Why did she hide that in a cereal box?” I asked as I joined Jake at the counter.

  He shook his head as he picked up the receipt and studied it for a moment. “Suzanne, she just bought these things three days ago.”

  “So, she clearly felt threatened by someone recently. I wish we knew when that letter from A arrived. The timing could be rather telling.”

  “Is there really any reason not to accept the fact that we’re fairly certain who A really is? We both know that Alexander Rose sent it,” Jake said.

  “I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.”

  My husband shrugged. “Sometimes that’s exactly what you have to do. If you don’t make certain assumptions, you never get anywhere. My question is, why wasn’t she carrying these in her purse when she was attacked?”

  “Hang on a second. I think I can answer that question,” I said as I walked back into the bedroom. I went straight to her purse collection, and when I looked up, I saw that Jake had followed me into the bedroom.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as he peered over my shoulder.

  “I think I know why Teresa didn’t carry the mace or the stun gun. She didn’t have a purse large enough to hold them.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Jake asked.

  “See for yourself. Every woman I know has at least one large handbag she carries on occasion, but apparently Teresa was the exception to the rule.”

  “And it ended up costing her her life,” Jake said, shaking his head as he spoke.

  “To be fair, she got hit from behind with that bookend. There was no way Teresa could have prevented that, not with what you found, or even if she’d gone out and bought a gun. She literally didn’t see it coming.”

  “That’s a fair point,” Jake said. “Still, her purchases must mean something. I’m not willing to accept that it was a coincidence that she felt the need for protection, and three days later she was murdered. We need to take this straight to the chief.”