Murder Most Owl, page 15
I almost told her to forget about Byron and let the police do their job without any input from us, but that would have been hypocritical of me to say that. After all, the only reason I’d seen her breaking into Byron’s house was because I myself was poking around. Plus, I didn’t want to alienate Roxy now that she was talking to me. Getting anywhere close to lecturing her would probably do just that.
‘Promise me that you really won’t go back to Byron’s house,’ I pleaded.
She huffed out a sigh, but then relented. ‘Fine. I promise. But you think he’s the killer, right? You saw all that creepy stuff in his office, and I swear he’s been digging in the forest.’
‘There’s definitely something up with him,’ I said. ‘And, yes, he very well could be the killer. All the more reason to stay away from him.’
Roxy stared out at the ocean. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but I hoped she wouldn’t be breaking into any more houses in the future.
I stood up and brushed the sand from my shorts. ‘How about I give you a ride to school?’
She gave me an award-worthy eye roll, but she didn’t protest.
When I dropped her off at the local high school, I waited until I saw her disappear into the building. Whether or not she would actually go to class, I didn’t know, but during the car ride she’d agreed to start volunteering at the animal sanctuary, and I counted that as a win.
TWENTY-ONE
After dropping Roxy off at school, I returned to the farmhouse and parked myself at the kitchen table with my laptop in front of me. My thoughts wanted to bounce around in all different directions, but with my phone meeting coming up, I had to focus on my job. Although I’d always been self-disciplined, I impressed myself with my ability to concentrate on going over my script before my conversation with Giselle, the producer.
During the phone meeting, my attention never wavered from the subject of our discussion. Once it ended, however, my brain had reached its capacity for ignoring the day’s earlier events.
Since I didn’t want to think about the dogs’ special abilities (my mind still wasn’t ready to process any of that), I focused on what we’d found in Byron’s study. Maybe Roxy was right and Byron had collected newspaper clippings for crimes he’d committed, but that couldn’t be the story behind all of the items he’d posted on his walls, because some of the crimes dated too far back.
I accessed the photos I’d taken in Byron’s home office and zoomed in on several of the newspaper stories. While a few were original copies clipped from a newspaper, others appeared to be photocopies or printouts from the Internet or digital archives. A couple of the crimes had taken place in the past decade. Others were far older. Some of them dated so far back that Byron either wouldn’t have been born or would have been a young child when they were committed.
Byron probably just had an obsession with cold cases. Although, that didn’t explain why he kept his home office locked. Maybe he had a lodger whom he didn’t fully trust. I didn’t check all of the bedrooms so I didn’t know if more than one appeared to be occupied. Roxy had looked into at least one of the rooms I hadn’t seen. She’d given me her cell phone number before getting out of the car at the high school. I wondered if I should text her and ask what she’d seen in the other bedrooms. I didn’t want to encourage her to stay focused on Dorothy’s murder, but the information would be helpful.
Making up my mind, I sent her a quick text message. Then I zoomed in on the photo of the newspaper clipping that had really caught my attention. The story related to a bank robbery that took place in Tennessee back in 1974. The text of the clipping was a little bit blurry in the photo I’d taken, but not so bad that I couldn’t read it again. I’d felt certain back at Byron’s house that the story related to the same robbery as the one mentioned in the clipping I’d seen in Victor Clyde’s safe. Now, having read the story again, I was more certain of that than ever.
I poured myself a glass of iced tea and sat down at the kitchen table again with my laptop in front of me. It didn’t take long for me to find some information online about the robbery. The crime took place in a small town in the spring of 1974. A man wearing a ski mask to disguise his face entered the bank with a gun and demanded money. He made off with more than a hundred thousand dollars in cash. A vehicle and getaway driver waited outside the bank and took off as soon as the robber climbed in with his loot.
Although the police set up roadblocks, they failed to nab the robber and getaway driver. A week after the robbery, the getaway car was found abandoned on the edge of a logging road. The car had been stolen in Kansas and had been wiped clean of fingerprints. However, based on the bank tellers’ description of the robber’s build and voice, and the concurrent disappearance of a young local man named Jeffrey Herring, the police believed that Herring was the culprit.
Herring was in his early twenties at the time and was dating a local teenage girl named Ellen Dudek. The police believed that Ellen was the getaway driver. When officers showed up at her family’s home to question her, she sneaked out of the back door and took off in her father’s car. While fleeing, the vehicle went off the road and into the local river, which was swollen from the spring run-off. The police came across the accident scene shortly after it happened, but they were unable to save Ellen. Her boyfriend, the suspected robber, was never located.
I sat back in my chair and took a long drink of iced tea. Was it a coincidence that both Byron and Victor had newspaper clippings related to the 1974 robbery? The case didn’t seem high-profile enough to make such a coincidence likely. Then again, if Victor and Byron were cold case buffs, maybe it wasn’t so unusual that they’d both taken an interest in the crime. Could I really conclude that Victor was a fan of unsolved cases, though? I hadn’t gone through the entire contents of his safe, but I hadn’t seen any evidence that he’d taken an interest in past crimes aside from the robbery.
Car tires crunched over the driveway, making Flossie’s and Fancy’s ears perk up. The dogs jumped up from where they’d been snoozing and ran for the back door. I got up to see who’d arrived at the farm. My shoulders tensed when I opened the door and saw Ed Grimshaw climbing out of his car.
I strode across the grass with the dogs at my side. ‘You’re not welcome here,’ I called out to Grimshaw.
The front door of the carriage house opened and Aunt Olivia emerged on her crutches.
‘I’m not here to see you,’ Grimshaw said to me.
‘I agree with my niece.’ Aunt Olivia’s blue eyes didn’t shine with their usual friendly light.
‘Hear me out,’ Grimshaw said to her. ‘I think you’ll like what I have to say.’
‘I already know what you’re going to say.’ Olivia leaned on her crutches. ‘And I won’t be selling the woodland to you, or to anyone else. Dorothy entrusted it to my care so I could protect it, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.’
Grimshaw’s expression darkened. ‘Foolish notions won’t keep a roof over your head when times get tough. And they will get tough if you don’t make the right choice.’
‘Are you threatening my aunt?’ I demanded.
The dogs shifted restlessly at my side.
Grimshaw shrugged. ‘I’m just saying that I’ve got friends in high places.’ He returned his attention to Olivia. ‘You might find that you end up having trouble with your mortgage. This is a nice place you’ve got here. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to lose it.’
Beside me, the dogs growled. I clenched my fists at my side, ready to explode.
Aunt Olivia spoke again before I had a chance to blow up at Grimshaw.
‘Leave now or I’m calling the police,’ she said, a hard edge to her voice that I hadn’t heard before.
‘You don’t want to be doing that,’ Grimshaw said with a smirk.
I pulled my phone from my pocket. ‘I’ll make the call.’
The smirk fell from his face when I started punching buttons on my phone. ‘You’ll regret this.’ He aimed the threat at both of us.
He got into his car and slammed the door. The engine revved and dirt and gravel sprayed up as he stomped on the gas pedal and careened around in a wide U-turn. I had to jump out of the way as he tore onto the grass before returning to the driveway and shooting out onto the road.
I moved over to stand next to my aunt as we watched his car disappear.
‘Don’t worry,’ Auntie O said, sounding far calmer than I felt. ‘I don’t even have a mortgage on this place anymore. I own it outright. Ed Grimshaw is all bluster and empty threats.’
‘Unless he’s the one who killed Dorothy.’
My aunt frowned at that.
Something occurred to me. ‘It looks like Dorothy had tea with her killer before she died. Do you think she would have let Grimshaw into her home and sat down with him? He was so threatening toward her when I saw them in the woods together the day before she died. Why would she invite him into her cabin?’
And did that mean that Grimshaw wasn’t the killer?
‘Would it be his style to sedate someone before killing them?’ I asked before my aunt had a chance to answer my first question.
‘If Ed Grimshaw was planning a murder, I can imagine him doing it in a way that would ensure he would keep his hands relatively clean. So, yes, he might have used a sedative to drug his victim. To answer your first question, I have trouble picturing Dorothy letting him into her home. At the same time, she mentioned once that forgiveness and tolerance were important to her. She fell for Marlene’s bait and argued with her once – that’s the time she supposedly cursed Marlene – but I know Dorothy regretted that later. She told me she planned to apologize to Marlene, for the purported curse, not for helping people with her natural remedies. I don’t know if she ever got the chance.’
I mulled that over. Apology or not, Marlene couldn’t have killed Dorothy because of her alibi. I still wasn’t sure about Ed Grimshaw. Maybe he pretended to change his tune and asked to have a reasonable conversation with Dorothy. I couldn’t picture Grimshaw doing that sincerely, but as a way to try to get what he wanted, that was far more likely. I didn’t know that Dorothy would have fallen for such an act though.
It was all so confusing and troubling. If not for the fact that Aunt Olivia and I had been dragged into the murder case as suspects, I would have gladly left all the investigating and theorizing to the police. The unsolved mystery, and the fact that a killer was roaming free, would have still troubled me, but I could have stayed out of the investigation. In the present circumstances, however, I couldn’t sit back and do nothing.
As much as I disliked Ed Grimshaw, he might not be Dorothy’s killer. Roxy was convinced that Byron was the culprit. I wasn’t so sure about that. I needed to find out if anyone else might have committed the crime.
My thoughts immediately zeroed in on Shanifa.
‘Do you know anything about Dorothy shooting at Shanifa, the owner of the Lebanese food truck?’ I asked as I accompanied my aunt back into the carriage house.
The dogs came too. They’d seemed agitated while Ed Grimshaw was present, but they had since settled down and quickly made themselves comfortable on the rug in the living room.
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of any such thing,’ Olivia replied as she made her way across the room. ‘It doesn’t sound like Dorothy at all. Where did you hear about it?’
‘The guy who works there with her, I’m assuming it’s her husband?’
‘Mo, yes. That’s her husband,’ Aunt Olivia confirmed.
‘I overheard him saying that Dorothy tried to shoot Shanifa once.’
My aunt lowered herself into an armchair, her forehead furrowed. ‘That couldn’t have happened right in town. Everyone would have known about it if it had. And Shanifa must not have reported it to the police, either. Otherwise, again, the news would have spread like wildfire.’
‘Tessa’s cousin never heard about it either.’ Tessa had told me that in a text message. ‘Maybe Shanifa didn’t report it because she had something to hide,’ I speculated. ‘How well do you know her and her husband?’
‘Not very well. They’ve been in Twilight Cove for less than a year. Shanifa seems friendly enough. I’ve talked to her a few times, and I know she volunteers at one of the local retirement homes. Mo doesn’t seem like much of a conversationalist.’
I decided I needed to find out more about Shanifa and the shooting incident. Since I hadn’t eaten anything for lunch other than ice cream, my rumbling stomach gave me an excuse to stop by the food truck. I needed to stop eating so much takeout if I wanted to stay healthy while in Twilight Cove, but I decided I could be healthier starting tomorrow. Right now, I needed both food and information.
TWENTY-TWO
After parking in the beach lot for the second time that day, I opened the back door of my car and the dogs almost tripped over each other in their rush to get out. I laughed as they ran for the water. It seemed they loved the ocean as much as I did.
Even though I’d come into town for information, I took a moment to face the water and breathe deeply while enjoying the view. Sunlight danced on the waves and the salty breeze ruffled my hair. Seagulls cried from somewhere nearby and a sailboat with a red and white sail cut across the cove. Farther out, a fishing boat bobbed on the water.
A few people dotted the beach and cars passed along Ocean Drive now and then, but the cove was still quite peaceful.
‘I could get used to this,’ I said under my breath.
Then I reminded myself that I shouldn’t.
I also reminded myself why I was there by Ocean Drive. I called to the dogs and they came splashing out of the water. Flossie stopped and gave a great shake, spraying water in every direction. Fancy copied her and then they bounded over my way. I snapped their leashes onto their collars, not wanting to take any chances when we were going so close to Twilight Cove’s busiest road.
Three food trucks sat parked along the edge of Ocean Drive, but I went straight for Shanifa’s Lebanese Cuisine. It looked as though Shanifa was working on her own, unless her husband had stepped away for a break.
After greeting Shanifa, I ordered the vegetarian stuffed grape leaves again. I handed over some cash to pay for the food and she got busy preparing my order.
‘Those are beautiful dogs,’ she said with a glance and a smile at the spaniels.
I patted Fancy and Flossie. ‘They were Dorothy’s,’ I said, glad that Shanifa had given me an opening for talking about the murder victim.
‘I thought so.’ She packaged up my stuffed grape leaves. ‘Dorothy didn’t spend a lot of time here in town, but when she did she always had the dogs with her.’
‘Is it true that Dorothy once fired a gun at you?’ I asked.
Shanifa frowned as she handed me my food, but she quickly smoothed out her expression. ‘Where did you hear that?’
I had hoped she wouldn’t ask me that question. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing when your husband mentioned it the other day.’
Again, a frown appeared on her face before she quickly replaced it with a neutral expression. ‘She didn’t actually shoot at me. It was a warning shot fired into the air.’
‘Why would she do that?’ Dorothy hadn’t struck me as the type to fire off a gun for no good reason.
Shanifa’s gaze darted away from mine. ‘I was trespassing on her land, although I didn’t mean to do it. I was just taking a walk in the woods and didn’t realize I was on her property. Dorothy overreacted.’ She tapped her fingers on the counter, still not meeting my eyes. ‘Sorry, I think I hear my phone.’
She disappeared deeper into the truck.
Food in hand, I wandered back toward my car. Shanifa’s cooking skills were top-notch, but her ability to lie definitely wasn’t in the same league. If Dorothy really had fired a gun in Shanifa’s presence, it wasn’t to scare off a mere accidental trespasser. The problem was that I didn’t know how to find the truth of the matter. If Aunt Olivia, as one of Dorothy’s neighbors and someone who was plugged into the local gossip network, didn’t know about the incident, then who would? Shanifa’s husband, Mo, might know more, but would he be willing to tell me? It might be worth asking him, although I didn’t hold out much hope.
I leaned against the hood of my car and munched on my food as I thought things over. Despite the fact that I felt better for eating, the questions bouncing around in my head still troubled me as much as ever.
The dogs watched me as I ate, their eyes hopeful. I finished off the last bite and looked down at them.
‘Sorry, girls. You can have dinner when we get home.’
Fancy wiggled in her seated position and let out her characteristic ‘a-woo’. Flossie gave a woof of agreement. I interpreted that to mean they wanted to eat now rather than later.
Two more seconds of them staring at me with pleading eyes and my resolve cracked.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You win.’
Fancy let out a ‘woo-woo’ of happiness while Flossie bounced around in circles.
I laughed as I tossed my empty food container onto the passenger seat to be recycled later.
‘Come on then.’
I had to tighten my grip on the leashes when the dogs charged ahead of me. They knew exactly where they were going, and led me straight to the ice-cream parlor. I’d noticed earlier that the shop had pup cups on the menu, so I bought two of those. Each small cup held a single scoop of lactose-free vanilla ice cream.
Flossie and Fancy wiggled and waggled just outside the door, with Fancy talking the entire time, urging me to hurry up. The young man working behind the counter laughed at their antics, and so did I. When I had the cups in hand, I returned to the beach and sat on a log, holding a cup in each hand while the dogs stuck their snouts inside and busily lapped up every last trace of the ice cream. Once they cleaned out the cups, they swished their tongues around to clean the droplets off their muzzles.
After that, they seemed satisfied with heading home. When we got back to the farmhouse, I set out their dinners. I wondered if the ice cream would have ruined their appetites, but that definitely wasn’t the case. Both dogs gobbled up every last crumb from their dish. I answered a couple of emails while they ate and then I took a book out to the swing on the back porch and read while the dogs lounged in a shady spot on the grass.
