“Neither is business rivalry, but at this point, we don’t really have anything else to go on.”

  “Precisely.” He turns onto the Coast Road and motors past the Overlook Hotel perched high above the crashing waves.

  I get lost in memories of my visits to the place. I drift into a tangled web of impressions and thoughts until David snaps me out of my reverie. “We’re here.”

  I wake up to the fact that we’re parked in front of a strip mall several miles north of West End. A McDonald’s, a gas station, and a cheap souvenirs shop complete the collection. T-Shirt Hub sits on the far end of the strip.

  David and I let ourselves in. We wander through racks of t-shirts with every conceivable design until we find the counter at the back. A tall, thin man with sparse, greying hair works over a screen-printing contraption shaped like a wheel. The central hub turns around six screen stations. Maybe that’s where he got the name for this business.

  His eyes fly open when David flashes his badge. “I’m Detective Graham of the Peterborough Police Department. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Yes!” Morton blurts out. “Yes, we did.”

  “We’re here to talk to you about Christopher Partridge’s death. He was shot in Simone’s shop last night.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Morton exclaims. “I never had any problem with Christopher. I told you that. He was a nice guy, and Simone loved him.”

  “You didn’t have a problem with Christopher,” David counters, “but you certainly had a problem with Simone. You’ve been harassing her for two years. You should know that’s an offense under the law that could get you jailed. Didn’t she tell you not to call her anymore?”

  Morton goes pale. “Yes. Yes, Sir, she did.”

  “Then why are you still calling her?”

  Morton’s can’t hide his true colors for long. He scowls at David and then at me. “Did she lodge a complaint about me? Is that what this is all about?”

  David stiffens. He barely changes his manner at all. If I didn’t know him so well, I wouldn’t even notice the change. I do know him well, though. I know him well enough to recognize when someone makes the mistake of getting on the wrong side of him.

  “I told you,” he booms. “I’m here to talk about Christopher’s murder. Simone is a very nice lady. She’s too nice to make a complaint about you, although I wish she had because you are way out of line, Mister. Don’t let me find out you called her again for any reason whatever, not even to offer your condolences on Christopher’s death. Do you understand?”

  Morton drops his eyes to the floor. “Yes, Sir.”

  “Have you offered her your condolences on Christopher’s death?” David demands.

  “No, Sir, I haven’t.”

  “You see what I mean?” David goes on. “You knew he was killed because I told you on the phone last night, and you don’t even have the decency to offer you condolences when you knew probably better than anyone what Christopher meant to her. You’re a selfish piece of filth, Malcolm. That’s what you are. You’re not fit to call yourself a man. You’ll hammer her day in and day out for two years to come and visit you and tell her she’s incapable of loving anyone because she didn’t bow to your beck and call, and you won’t even call her to offer your sympathy on losing her best friend.”

  Morton keeps his eyes down. Man, I wouldn’t want Detective David Graham talking to me like that!

  David shrugs his jacket into place. “Now we’re going to talk about the murder. I don’t think I have to tell you that you’re a suspect.”

  Morton’s head shoots up in a flash. “I can’t be a suspect! I didn’t do anything.”

  “Then you won’t mind telling us everything you know,” David reminds him. “You had a motive to kill Christopher because you held a grudge against Simone for breaking up with you. You tried to control her, and when she didn’t bend, you went after her using the means you knew would cause her the most damage and distress—by killing her best friend.”

  Morton opens his mouth to argue, but David cuts him off. “Where were you last night between six o’clock and eight-forty-five in the evening?”

  “I was here,” Morton squeaks. “I never left the house.”

  David raises his eyebrows and looks around. “House? What house?”

  “I have a house behind the store.” Morton jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “That way I can get back and forth in a few steps.”

  “Can anyone confirm your alibi?” David asks.

  Morton gulps. “Alibi?”

  “Yes, Morton,” David chides. “Your alibi for Christopher’s murder. I told you that you’re a suspect. That means you won’t be able to leave the area without notifying the Police. At this point, you’re our prime suspect. You’re the one person we know of who had the most reason to want to hurt Simone.”

  “I would never hurt Simone!” Morton gasps.

  David purses his lips. “You already did hurt her by making the last two years of her life miserable and by threatening her with your interference if she got involved with anyone else. She was lucky to have friends like Christopher to help her through it. You’re lucky she didn’t start dating me or I would put the fear of God into you. Now answer my question. Can anyone corroborate your claim that you were here all night?”

  Morton pulls his head down between his shoulders. “No. I was alone.”

  I cringe away from David during this questioning. I really start to feel sorry for Morton. So this is what whining, conniving little toads like him get to look forward to when they come face to face with a real man who respects women. I don’t envy Morton one bit.

  David nods. “That puts you square in the limelight. You have no way to confirm your story, so unless we turn up some more compelling evidence that someone else did it, we’ll be taking a closer look at you. Just remember I’ll be keeping an eye on you from now on, Malcolm. I would advise you to mind your Ps and Qs.”

  He pivots toward the door, but Morton rushes around the counter to intercept him. “I didn’t kill Christopher! You have to believe me. I love Simone. I really do. I would never do anything like that to hurt her.”

  David draws himself up to his full height. “If that is true, then you should want to see her happy with someone more compatible with her. Stop calling her. Stop trying to pressure her to come and visit you. Just drop it and move on.”

  Morton sinks in on himself. He dwindles to a pathetic shadow of himself, but maybe that’s just part of his pity act.

  David spins on his heel and marches out of the store without a backward glance. I scuttle after him and find him already opening the passenger door to let me in. He slams it extra hard and starts the motor. He’s halfway down the highway before I work up the courage to say anything. “Do you really think Morton killed Christopher?”

  “I don’t know,” he growls. “Guys like that infuriate me. They sink their hooks into women, but when it comes to standing up for themselves against another man, their spines turn to water. Guys like that should be rounded up and held behind razor wire so they don’t infect the rest of the population with their poison.”

  I cast a hesitant glance at his profile. I’ve never seen him like this before. “Do you really consider him a suspect, or did you just say that to intimidate him?”

  “He’s really a suspect. Simone might not think he’s capable of violence, but the fact remains that he has a motive and no alibi. We’ll see what the other suspects have to say for themselves, but he’s not in the clear, no matter what Simone says.”

  “She said he never came to town to see her. Don’t you think it would be unusual for him to go to her store late at night to kill Christopher?”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” he points out. “Besides, if he made up his mind to kill Christopher, a trip to town wouldn’t stand in his way.”

  “He couldn’t have known Christopher would be at the store,” I remind him. “It was spontaneous.”

  “We have no way of knowing what Morton did that evening,” David argues. “He could have staked out Simone’s house, and when Christopher left for the store, Morton followed him and caught him there alone.”

  “I don’t see him doing it,” I tell him. “Simone said he wasn’t violent. He has no motive to hurt Christopher since he didn’t see Christopher as a threat to his reestablishing a relationship with Simone.”

  “He had no hope of reestablishing a relationship with Simone,” he counters.

  “That’s exactly my point. He had no more or less hope now to attack Simone than he did in the last two years. There was no precipitating incident that could trigger him to act violently when it wasn’t in his nature to do so. There’s no reason now that he would go out of his way, drive to West End and stake out Christopher, and then shoot him to death than there was in the last two years.”

  “No reason that we know of,” David argues. “I hear what you’re saying, but we don’t have all the facts yet. Until we do, he’s a suspect. He’s our only suspect so far.”

  “He’s the only person we’ve interviewed so far,” I return.

  He suppresses a grin. “It’s nice to see you on form. Come on. Let’s get back to town and interview that Bret character and see if we can scare up Javier.”

  “Don’t forget Carol Sneeeeeed,” I tease.

  “I’m leaving Carol and her husband to you.”

  “Me!” I exclaim. “Why me?”

  “You’re their neighbor. They’ll be more likely to confide in you about their beef with Simone.”

  “They’re decrepit old people,” I point out. “They couldn’t hurt a fly if they wanted to.”

  “I admit it’s a long shot, but we have to take their threat seriously. Carol said she was going to put Simone out of business. Then Simone’s best friend winds up shot in her own store. It’s a plausible chain of events.”

  “All right. I’ll talk to them.”

  He drives back to West End and parks in front of Simone’s shop. Police cordon tape blocks it off. The building looks desolate and haunted from beyond the tape. Simone’s store wasn’t always the most inviting establishment in town, but now it looks positively forbidding.

  David opens my door for me. He shuts it and turns toward the new antique and collectibles shop across the street when Stacy appears from the Happy-Go-Lucky Café. Her eyes pop when she sees us.

  She rushes over to us and whispers under her breath. “Is it true that Christopher Partridge got shot last night? Is he dead?”

  “Yes, it’s true and yes, he’s dead,” I tell her. “It’s no secret. I’m sure the news will be all over town in no time.”

  “Who could do such a despicable thing?” she gasps. “I just don’t know what the world is coming to. He was the nicest man I’ve met in years. Anyone would be lucky to have him as a friend. I’m sure Simone is devastated.”

  “Yes, she is,” I reply, “and we don’t think the killer was after Christopher at all. He had no enemies. We think the killer wanted to hurt Simone by taking him away from her.”

  Stacy leans in close and lays her hand on my arm. “Do you mean someone like Carol Sneed?”

  My head whips around. “You know about that?”

  “Everybody knows about that—at least, everyone in my café knows about it. You ask any of the staff. Carol and her husband Ronald came in bad-mouthing Simone to everyone. They never tried to hide it. They told everyone they planned to sue her and put her out of business. You never heard such vitriol in your life.”

  “Wow,” I breathe. “I had no idea it was that bad. When was this?”

  “I’d say it was about a month ago.”

  I cast a significant glance over my shoulder at David and he nods. “Thank you, Stacy. Let me know if you hear or think of anything else, okay?”

  “You bet.” She hustles back to her own business.

  “What do you think of that?” I ask David after she leaves. “It sounds like Carol and Ronald had more of a bone to pick with Simone than we originally realized. If they felt that strongly that Simone was a bad apple, they may have decided to take matters into their own hands.”

  “I don’t think so,” he counters. “If they hated her enough to sue her and put her out of business, if they hated her enough to broadcast their feelings all over town, they wouldn’t have gone and killed her afterward. If they planned to kill her, they wouldn’t have told everyone they planned to sue her. It’s like Hercule Poirot says. Either they were planning to sue or they were planning to kill. You can’t have it both ways.”

  I slip my hand into his elbow and squeeze him. “So now you’re Hercule Poirot?”

  “No, that’s you, honeybunch. You’re the sleuth here. I’m just a flat-footed cop.”

  7

  David and I walk across the street to the new antique and collectibles store. It still isn’t open, but when David tries the front door, he finds it unlocked. We let ourselves in. No one would ever recognize it as the same establishment as the Toy Store where we originally came to investigate Mr. Stewart’s death.

  None of the dusty shelves remain on the walls. Their absence makes the shop look bigger, brighter, more inviting. Glass cases display collectible knick-knacks and rare objects, all meticulously labeled and mounted.

  I don’t see the counter that once sat in the far back behind acres of toys. Now a small antique desk occupies pride of place next to the door with no register in sight. An elegant glass-shaded lamp radiates warmth and beauty over the varnished mahogany surface without a scrap of paper on it.

  The man who dropped off the lasagna rises from his chair to greet us. “Welcome. You’re my first customers, although I don’t officially open until next Monday.”

  “That’s all right.” David shakes his hand. “We’re not really customers. I’m Detective David Graham of the Peterborough Police Department and this is Margaret Nichols, who is a private consultant to the investigation into Christopher Partridge’s murder. We’re interviewing all the potential suspects and, as you can well imagine, your name is on that list.”

  A fleeting shadow crosses Bret’s face before it clears to his usual cheery expression. “Actually, I can’t imagine. Why would my name be on the list? I didn’t even know the man.”

  “Because you’re in competition with Simone Peretti,” David replies. “You set up a rival antique shop directly across the street from her store. You must have seen in the last few weeks how much business she gets. Maybe you started to freak out that you wouldn’t be able to compete.”

  Bret’s cheeks flush. “I did not freak out and I definitely didn’t kill that man. As you can see, I offer a different class of merchandise than she does. I don’t see myself in competition with her at all. Besides, if I considered her competition, why would I take lasagna to her house?”

  “Maybe you just wanted to be neighborly,” I suggest.

  “It wouldn’t be exactly neighborly to kill someone in her shop, would it?”

  “Christopher Partridge was her best friend,” David tells him. “You wouldn’t know that since you just moved to town, but I can’t think of any way more suited to inflict maximum damage, not only on her business but on her as a person than to kill him.”

  “If I didn’t know he was her best friend then I would have no way of knowing that, would I?” Bret replies.

  David shoots a sidelong glance my way, and I see my own thoughts written on his face. Bret is right. We’re running around in circles here.

  David shrugs and looks around the store. “All right, Bret. I see your point. Just tell me where you were last night between six and eight-forty-five in the evening.”

  “I was in a meeting with my buyer,” he replies. “We were at my house having a business dinner. He showed up at five-thirty and left at nine. I can give you his number to prove it.”

  “Okay.” David turns away. “That’s all the questions I have for you right now. Just make yourself available to the Police for the duration of the investigation, all right?”

  “Of course.” Bret takes a square of yellow paper out of his drawer and scribbles something on it. He hands it across to David. “I’ll cooperate with the investigation in any way I possibly can. It was a terrible crime and I hope you catch whoever did it. West End is too nice a place for stuff like that.”

  David slips the note in his pocket and mutters to me. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  At that moment, another man enters the store from the back. He walks up to Bret. “Where do you want me to put those crates of Waterford crystal?”

  “Hey!” I point at him. “You’re Javier Suarez, aren’t you?”

  He frowns at me. “Who wants to know?”

  “You used to work for Simone Peretti, didn’t you? I recognize you from when you picked up those cardboard boxes from the candy store. You’re the ex-employee that just quit, and now you’re working…..here.” I look around this new, glamorous store.

  “What if I am?” he growls.

  “Why did you quit?” David asks.

  “She refused to give me a raise,” Javier replies. “I was working on her for months to pay me more. She started me on minimum wage with the promise that I could work up to twenty dollars an hour, but she kept making excuses not to increase it. She also wouldn’t let me take breaks. Every time I went on one of my lawfully required lunch or coffee breaks, she would come along and demand I do some job right away. I never got to break for the full time—not ever. After a while, I just got sick of all the BS, you know. Now I’m working here making a lot more.”

  “Did you know her best friend Christopher was murdered last night?” I ask.

  I study his face for the slightest reaction, but he doesn’t bat an eyelash. “No, I didn’t know that. What does that have to do with me?”

  “You’re a suspect in his murder,” David replies. “You had a reason to want to hurt Simone.”

  Javier snorts. “I wouldn’t kill a man over that. I quit and now I have a better job. End of story. I don’t have any reason to hurt her. I’m just happy not to be working for her anymore.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11