A Plus One for Murder, page 7
Jack rubbed at his freshly shaved jawline as if pondering her words. “How did he come to find you, then?”
“By way of a flyer I pinned to the town’s virtual community board.”
“And since you didn’t know him, you looked him up before taking him on?”
She gave a half nod, half shrug. “I guess I’d unknowingly read a column or two of his over the last few years. But it wasn’t until I looked him up on the Internet that I realized just how truly prolific he was in relation to the goings-on in this town. With many, many of those stories being rather unflattering to Sweet Falls and the powers that be.”
“Unflattering. That’s one word for it.” Jack palmed his mouth, held it there for a moment, and then let it drop back down to his side. “Brian Hill was a pot stirrer, no doubt.”
“A pot stirrer,” she repeated, letting the words linger in the air. “Does that mean he stirred yours on occasion? Or, maybe, your boss’s?”
His gaze lit on hers. “Excuse me?”
The little voice in her head that told her when to speak and when to stay silent was screaming. Loudly. But, for whatever reason, the notion of him surreptitiously watching her while she played with her dog bothered her—stirred her pot, to borrow his phrase. “It seems to me, if Brian was truly murdered, a good place to start in figuring out who did it would be to look at all of those people whose pots he stirred.”
“That’s obvious.”
“Is it?” she prodded. “Because you seem pretty focused on me.”
“You were the person he was with when he was murdered.”
“Me and a roomful of about thirty other people.”
He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “All of whom stayed afterward, except you.”
“Did you question everyone?”
He cocked his head. “Meaning everyone other than you?”
“I’m answering your questions now, aren’t I?”
“You’re not giving me anything.”
Oh how she wanted to—wanted to hand over Brian’s paper and be done with it once and for all. But then again, if she did, would he be so focused on the fact she’d withheld evidence that he’d let the real culprit go?
“I want the person who did this to Brian to be held responsible,” Emma finally said.
“As do I.”
“Regardless of who it might be?”
He stepped forward, lessening the gap between them. “Is there something you want to tell me, Miss Westlake?”
Something about the sudden use of her last name, along with an unmistakable icing of his tone, served as an internal warning to tread lightly. “No. I-I guess I’m just thinking how hard it must be for you to lead this investigation.”
“I’m not the lead. The sheriff is.”
“The sheriff?” she echoed in shock. “He can’t do that!”
Jack’s answering laugh increased the speed of Scout’s tail. “Oh? And why is that?”
“He was in the audience when Brian died,” she said. “Surely that’s a conflict of interest, yes?”
“You can’t be serious . . .”
“Have they had any run-ins that you know of?”
“Who?” Jack asked.
“Sheriff Borlin and Brian.” There was no doubt about it, her words punched him back a full step. The sudden draining of anything resembling color in his cheeks was simply the icing on the cake. “Clearly, I struck a nerve just now, no?”
“No, I . . .” He stopped, dropped his gaze to the ground, lifted it to the sky, and then, slowly, returned it to Emma. “There was some bad blood there, sure. But that was a year ago. In the immediate aftermath of his reelection.”
“Whose reelection? The sheriff’s?”
His nod was quick, the silence that followed much longer. When he finally did speak, his tone was tired, even strained. “I should probably let the two of you get to those ducks.”
“Thank you.”
He walked a few steps in the direction from which he’d come and then stopped. “Emma?” he said, turning back to her and to Scout, his expression difficult to read. “Make sure you don’t leave town.”
Chapter Eight
They were barely a mile down the road when she felt the angst of the past week drift away through the open driver’s side window. Something about the combination of the air on her cheek and Scout’s pure joy over going for a car ride just felt good—really good. The fact that their excursion, born on a post-breakfast whim, would culminate in the kind of hours-long distraction she needed at the moment made her positively giddy with excitement.
“Are you going to help me dig today, Scout?”
Ducking his windblown face back into the car, Scout wagged his tail and barked, a sure sign, at least to Emma, that her pooch was the smartest in the land.
“I figured as much. But Scout?” Again, he looked at her, but his urge to stick his face back into the wind was palpable. “When I tell you it’s time to stop digging, I really need you to stop, okay? It won’t do us any good if you go back and dig up all of the plants we put in the ground. That, boy, is what we call counterproductive.
“And this”—she swept her hand at the vacant spot where Scout’s face had been at the beginning of her diatribe—“is what’s called losing a room.”
Turning her full attention back to the country road that wound past the sporadic smattering of some of Sweet Falls’ older homes, Emma found herself thinking ahead to the flowers and plants she wished she could get, and the flowers and plants that might actually be possible with the limited discretionary funds she currently had. Granted, the wish-she-coulds and the actually coulds were light-years apart at the moment, but she refused to count herself out. At least for now.
After all, in less than a week, she’d worked twice—three times, if you counted Open Mic Night with—
“Nope . . . Nope . . . We’re not going there today, are we, boy? Today is about digging in the dirt and having fun. No traumatic moments allowed.”
Scout, of course, wagged his tail at boy, and wagged it even harder at digging, but his head remained outside the window the whole time, the joy of the wind on his face simply too hard to resist. And that was okay. She got it, she really did.
Stepping her foot more firmly on the gas, Emma lifted her own chin to the wind as she drove the remaining few miles to Davis Farm and Greenhouse. Located on the outskirts of Sweet Falls on Rural Route 50, the nursery and its adjacent orchards had been in the Davis family for generations, with its most recent owner—Nancy—the last of the original clan. Born with a green thumb, Nancy fancied herself a distant relative of Mother Earth, determined to get Sweet Falls on the map as the prettiest, greenest, landscape-iest (if that wasn’t a word, it should be) town in North America. A lofty goal, no doubt. But if there was even a remote chance of it happening, Nancy was the woman to do it.
“And to let you know it at the same time,” Emma murmured, earning herself an obligatory wag from the passenger seat in the process. “Ever the male, aren’t you, Scout? Finding a way to look as if you’re listening even when you’re not. Well done.”
Just north of the road’s fourth substantial bend, Emma decreased her speed in advance of the nursery’s entrance that was now less than a hundred yards away. A hand-painted sign, bearing the Davis name, pointed from Scout’s side of the road to Emma’s and reminded her to put on her turn signal. Scout, sensing the change in wind velocity, popped his upper body back into the car in order to visually inspect the shift in direction. When they were safely on the dirt lane that would deliver them to the parking lot, he continued his stint at the window with increasingly vigorous wagging.
Slowly, they bumped and lurched their way between towering oaks with their stunning canopy of green. At the end of the lane, where it widened out into a large, sparsely graveled parking lot, Emma turned left and headed toward a smallish white SUV with the Davis Farm and Greenhouse logo on the side. Beyond the lot were the gardens, the greenhouse, the main building, and the orchard fields.
“Wow, this place is dead,” she said as she pulled to a stop beside Nancy’s van and cut the engine.
At the cessation of all movement (and thus wind), Scout popped back into the car, and crossed into the back seat via the armrest between their seats. He scoped out the view the new vantage point afforded, and then returned to the passenger seat for a quick lick of Emma’s face and a wag of excitement over the beckoning aromas of dirt, plants, and trees, and the many possibilities they birthed.
“No peeing in places you shouldn’t pee, okay?” Scout turned his lolling tongue in her direction, licked his lips, and panted his excitement, if not his agreement. “C’mon, boy. Let’s go. It looks like we’ve got the run of the place today.”
She pushed open her door, stepped onto the lot, and, as Scout took his place at her feet, closed the door and headed in the direction of the barn-turned-storefront. Along the way, she slowed here and there to check the name (and price) of a few flowering plants. Scout, in turn, took advantage of the change in pace to sniff a little dirt . . . a few plants . . . an abandoned pacifier . . . a child-sized footprint . . . and a wooden flower bed with an array of plastic flowers that lazily spun in the afternoon breeze.
“You like those?” she asked as she, too, stopped to admire a yellow one that would look awfully cute in the flower bed at the base of her front steps. A peek at the price had her moving on with a dejected Scout in tow.
At the entrance to the barn, she attached Scout’s leash to his collar and stepped inside, the natural light streaming in rendering the overhead fluorescent lights virtually unnecessary. To her right were aisles of gardening implements (hand trowels, rakes, and fold-and-go-style shovels), interspersed with clever gadgets to make the task easier (kneepads, compact folding chairs, and cutesy gloves for those who liked to keep their hands clean). To her immediate left were dozens of seed packets displayed in little hand-woven pockets that hung from a paneled wall. Those who had visions of growing their own vegetables gravitated toward the dark-brown pockets. Those intent on growing flowers from seed sought the light-brown pockets. And straight in front of her was the counter at which questions were asked, purchases were made, and self-proclaimed experts imparted their advice to novices while waiting on line.
If she turned right, she could find a replacement hand trowel for the one that not-so-mysteriously disappeared the last time she and Scout took a stab at sprucing up the flower bed next to the front steps . . .
If she turned left, she could go in search of a flower that might complement the blue of her window shutters every spring and summer . . .
If she headed straight for the counter, she could ask the kind of questions that might make her limited resources (read: money) go as far as possible . . .
After Emma spent a few moments hemming, and an equal number of moments hawing, Scout smartly took point all the way to the counter. There, between a glass of water to its right and a gardening magazine to its left, was a bell. In lieu of ringing it, she jangled her keys en route to their temporary resting spot inside the front pocket of her jeans, cleared her throat of nothing, and followed both up with a fake cough.
Sure enough, Nancy’s voice emerged from behind the accordion screen tasked with distinguishing the employees-only area from the rest of the gardening shop. “I’ll be right with you!”
Pulling her gaze from the bell she’d intentionally resisted but secretly wanted to ring, Emma took advantage of the momentary wait to really absorb the framed pictures on the wall behind the register—pictures she’d seen in bits and pieces while waiting in line over the years. The first few were in black and white, with the subjects wearing attire that spoke to a different time.
To the right of those were a pair of pictures clearly taken when Nancy had been given the reins of the family business. In the first one, an older version of one of the men from the black-and-white photographs was handing her an apron with the Davis Farm and Greenhouse logo emblazoned across the front. In the second picture, Nancy was wearing the apron and ringing up a customer at the very counter where Emma stood now, the woman’s pride on full display in everything from her confident stature to the face-splitting grin she wore.
A glance farther down the wall yielded yet another picture; this one of current-day Nancy, smiling ear to ear while holding a certificate in one hand and a ribbon-strewn watering can in the other. Next to her stood Steve—
“I’m so sorry to make you wait. I’d just finished my lunch when I heard you out here and I wanted to make sure I took a moment to wash my hands.” Nancy breezed around the edge of the screen, her hands making short work of the apron she secured into place around her burgeoning midsection. When her gaze fell on Emma, she stopped and smiled. “Emma! How lovely to see you, as always. How did those petunias work for you the last time?”
“You remember my last purchase? Wow. That had to have been”—she searched her memory for the last time she’d had a little extra cash—“months ago.”
“It was. But you know as well as anyone that’s the Davis Farm and Greenhouse difference: customer service.” Nancy stepped up to the counter like the force she was. “Did you hear about Maime Rogers?”
“Maime Rogers? I don’t think I know—wait! She was Great-Aunt Annabelle’s biggest nemesis at bingo!”
Nancy laughed. “She was indeed.”
“Okay, so what about her?”
“She’s taken up with a man in the room next to her at the nursing home. Says they’re getting married.”
“Interesting . . .”
Nancy leaned across the top edge of the counter. “I know one of the orderlies at that home. He says the poor old fella has taken up with all of the ladies in the home. Including Maime’s roommate.”
Emma laughed. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh is right. Maime doesn’t like to lose.” Her lips twitching, Nancy pushed away from the counter. “Anyway, you didn’t come to hear me gossip, so tell me . . . How’s the yard coming? Any new pictures for me?”
“Maybe. Let me check.” Emma plucked her phone from her back pocket, pressed her way into her album, and froze as her gaze fell on the picture she’d felt an inexplicable need to take after returning from the park with Scout the previous day. Why, she still didn’t know, but there it was . . .
“Did you find something?” Nancy asked.
She stared down at the thumbnail of the paper Brian had foisted on her in the moments before his death and shivered at the sight of the one person she knew couldn’t be involved—the same person now watching her, waiting.
“Emma?”
Shaking the ludicrous notion from her head, Emma slid her phone back into her pocket and forced her smile back into place. “Nope. Nothing new.”
“Next time, then?”
“Sure.” She sucked in a breath and released it slowly. “How are you doing after the other night?”
“Other night?” Nancy asked.
“At Deeter’s. For Open Mic Night.”
A cloud not unlike a summer storm’s made its way across Nancy’s face as she checked and rechecked her apron for wrinkles that simply weren’t there. “Deeter’s?”
“Yes. You were seated about three tables over from where I was.”
“Was I?” Nancy asked. “I don’t recall.”
“That’s okay. It’s hard to remember much of anything besides what happened to Brian up on that stage, isn’t it?” Emma drew in a breath, released it with a shake of her head. “For me, if I’m not replaying the thud over and over, I’m hearing the gasps and the screams that followed.”
Nancy stopped fussing with her apron. “Thud?”
“When his body hit the stage.”
“Of course.” Nancy turned her continued restlessness toward the counter and the cup of pens she swapped with a stack of scrap paper. “I guess I’ve chosen to focus on the silence that came between them, instead. It’s a much more pleasant sound to remember compared to the alternative.”
Emma drew back. “I don’t remember any silence.”
“Oh, it was there. Trust me. And if that doesn’t work, lose yourself in something that makes you happy. Like flowers and plants, or that wonderful dog of yours.”
Peeking down at Scout, Emma smiled. “He is pretty wonderful.”
“He is indeed.”
Emma brought her gaze back to the wall and the picture of a smiling Nancy standing next to Sweet Falls’ former mayor, Steve Dalton. “You sure look happy there.”
Nancy’s brows dipped in confusion only to reset—with a smile to boot—when she followed the path indicated by Emma’s pointed finger. “How could I not be? Leading the Sweet Falls Beautification Committee to its first-ever state award was a dream come true.”
“I can see that.” Emma shifted her finger to the right and the series of pictures showing the town square at its finest. “It really did look incredible. Like something you’d see in some fancy magazine—where the town is just too pretty to actually be a real place. Only it was.”
Nancy retrieved a stool from beneath the eave on her side of the counter and lowered herself onto its well-worn seat cushion. “People are quick to forget, aren’t they? Not that you can blame them when it”—Nancy hooked her thumb back toward the picture—“was all so ridiculously short-lived. But that’s what happens when folks fall for the old bait-and-switch trick.”
“Bait and switch?” Emma repeated, glancing down at Scout.
“Meaning what you see is entirely different than what you get.”
“I know what bait and switch means.” She loosened her hold on the leash and leaned against the counter’s edge, her desire to talk plants momentarily sidelined by the need to follow a conversational sidebar to its full conclusion. “I was more wondering about it in the context you gave. Or, rather, in relation to the award you got.”
