Murder Has a Sweet Tooth Page 17

  “I’d take you on a grand tour of that house of Jim’s,” Tyler grumbled, “if it would help us solve our case.”

  It was all the reminder we needed that there was a lot to do and a long way to go before Alex could put the experience behind him.

  I drummed my fingers against the bar. “Beth thinks Edward did it,” I told Tyler. “But Edward has an alibi.”

  “Detective Harold thinks Alex did it,” Tyler added. “But forensic evidence seems to eliminate him.”

  I thought and drummed, drummed and thought. I hadn’t had a chance to update Tyler on the latest news so I took the opportunity to catch him up. Since we’d talked on the phone the day after Eve, Norman, and I followed the women, he knew they were all stepping out on their husbands, but what Tyler didn’t know was everything I’d just found out at the wine tasting that evening.

  “Beth was angry at Vickie,” I explained, leaning across the bar so that I could keep the information private. “A couple weeks ago, Beth spent the night with some guy she met at Preston’s Colonial House, and Vickie was supposed to cover for her. Vickie didn’t.” I listened to my own words and my stomach soured. “To get even, Beth told Edward Monroe about Vickie and Alex.”

  “And you just said it yourself,” Tyler reminded me. “Edward Monroe has an alibi. You just said something else, too, Annie. You just said Beth was mad at Vickie.”

  “Sure she was. But that can’t possibly mean anything.” Could it?

  The idea bounced around my brain and when it was done in there, it hit my toes and settled in my stomach, souring it. I gulped. “You don’t suppose—”

  But I knew Tyler did, because he sat up like a shot. “Do we know where Beth was the night Vickie was killed?”

  “Probably back at Preston’s with Jack.” Even though Tyler hadn’t come out and said it, I sat back, distancing myself from what he was thinking. “Beth isn’t the type.”

  In spite of my protests, Tyler was all over the theory. “She’s shorter than Alex, right?”

  I couldn’t deny this.

  “Is she right-handed?”

  I had to think hard, but I remembered watching Beth at the wine tastings, and I had to admit she was.

  “It’s worth pursuing, Annie,” Tyler told me. He slipped off the bar stool. “You may not like it—”

  “I don’t.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. But she’s a mom. Just like Vickie was. And she was a friend of Vickie’s. Sure, she was mad at Vickie for nearly blowing her cover the night she spent with Jack, but as it turned out, her husband never found out she was fooling around, anyway. So she might have been annoyed at Vickie, but—”

  “How do you know her husband never found out?” Tyler pinned me with a look.

  And all I could do was shrug again. “Beth said—”

  “And you believe her?”

  I wanted to. Don’t ask me why. When it comes to investigations, I’m usually all about following the clues no matter where they lead. And I was as eager as anyone to get Alex completely off the hook and clear his name. More eager than most, since I had Jim to think about and I knew Jim wouldn’t rest until even the slightest hint of scandal was removed from Alex’s name. Sure, we knew now that Alex had been set up, but until the real killer was found, there would always be that doubt, always that whiff of memory that would remind people that Alex had once been involved with a murder investigation. Had he been exonerated? Had he gotten off on a technicality? Most people wouldn’t remember. They’d only remember that he was involved.

  Unless we found the killer.

  But . . . Beth?

  I slumped back on the bar stool, uneasy with what I had to say and knowing I had to say it anyway. “She’s blackmailing Edward. She says Edward’s guilty and she knows it. But—” A new thought occurred to me and, encouraged, I sat up again. “If she was guilty, the blackmail wouldn’t work, would it? She couldn’t blackmail Edward for being the murderer when she was the murderer. But it is working. She convinced Edward to give her husband a promotion. And Edward wouldn’t have done that if he wasn’t the guilty party. If Beth was guilty—”

  “Maybe Edward’s thanking her for doing him a favor.”

  As quickly as I was encouraged, I was disheartened again. “But she wears jumpers with teddy bears embroidered on them,” I wailed. It wasn’t much of a defense, not the kind Tyler could possibly understand, anyway, but he was kind enough not to point it out. He already had his cell phone in his hands and I watched him punch in a number, then say hello to Derek Harold and ask if they could get together and talk about something that might be important to the case.

  Beth, a killer?

  No matter how many different ways I looked at the theory, it just didn’t fit. Not in my book, anyway. Nobody who felt as guilty about misplacing Girl Scout cookie money as Beth did could possibly be heartless enough to kill a friend.

  Could she?

  And could she also have tried to cover her tracks by trying to snow another friend, one who was looking to get to the truth?

  It was not a pretty thought, but then, I didn’t like to think that I could be fooled that easily.

  Especially since it looked like it had worked.

  AS IT TURNED OUT, I NEVER DID WORK ON THE Bellywasher’s accounts that night. By the time Tyler left to go talk to Derek Harold, my brain was spinning. I promised myself that come hell or high water, I would go into the restaurant the next day and not leave again until my desk was cleared, and after offering Alex a ride home one more time (and having Jim put the kibosh on the offer one more time), I headed home.

  It was late, but I couldn’t sleep.

  I couldn’t even relax.

  I suppose it might have been the fault of all the Reuben dip, but I liked to think it was because my brain just wouldn’t settle down. What with thinking that Alex was finally out of jail, and Beth was blackmailing Edward, and Beth might be the killer . . .

  Is it any wonder I paced my apartment, too fidgety to keep still?

  Finally, near midnight, I’d decided I’d had enough. If I was going to stay up all night, I might as well put the time to good use.

  As far as I could see, at that time of the night, and closing in on the date of my wedding, the best use I could find for the long hours of the night was coming to a decision about that Scottish dish I wanted to make as a surprise for Jim.

  I’d just gone to my computer to do a search, when I remembered Beth’s magazine. It was on the counter in the kitchen, exactly where I’d left it the day I brought it home, and I hurried in there, fully prepared to find the answers to the culinary mysteries that had been dogging me.

  I would have, too.

  If when I picked up the magazine and paged through it, something didn’t flutter out and hit the floor.

  Even before I bent down to retrieve it, I knew what it was. But then, the envelope had landed faceup and I’d bought enough Girl Scout cookies in my day to recognize the familiar logo.

  It looked like Edward Monroe was right, after all. How depressing was that?

  Not only had I absconded with Beth’s magazine, I’d stolen her Girl Scout cookie money, too.

  Thirteen

  “A PHOTO ALBUM WOULD BE A PERFECT FAVOR!” Apparently, Eve thought so, because even as she stepped around me and into my apartment, she whisked just such an album out of her leather tote bag and handed it to me. Since I already had my purse in one hand (not incidentally, Beth’s Girl Scout cookie money was inside it) and my keys in my other hand, I back stepped toward my coffee table so I could set them down.

  “We could talk about it later,” I suggested to Eve. “I’ve got some things I have to do.”

  “Things that are more important than your wedding?”

  I managed a smile. No easy thing since guilt had been eating at me all night and I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. “Of course nothing’s more important than my wedding,” I told her, and I meant it. Only I didn’t bother to mention that cleansing my conscience was plenty imp
ortant, too, and that I’d never be able to do that until I explained the mix-up to Beth and threw myself on her mercy. “It’s just that this has to do with the investigation and—”

  “Then it can wait. Especially now that Alex is out of jail.” She flopped down on my couch and I cursed myself for giving in and opening the door to her when I could have stepped out into the hallway, told her I was on my way out, and been done with it. “This is such a fabulous idea, I think we need to jump on it really soon.”

  “A photo album.” I turned it over in my hands. The album was big enough to hold four-by-six prints. It had a shiny, satin-looking cover in a shade of ivory that appealed to me and, according to the sticker on the cover, each album could be custom embroidered with the names of the happy couple and the date of their wedding. “It’s a good idea, but the wedding is one week from today.”

  “No buts. Look at how perfect this is.” Eve plucked the album out of my hands. When she paged through it, I wasn’t surprised to see it was filled with pictures of Doc. Doc on Eve’s couch. Doc seated on one of the chairs at Eve’s dining room table. Doc in her kitchen. Doc looking over the bottles of bubble bath in the bathroom closet, as if he was all set to choose a scent. In every picture, he was wearing a little red sweater that matched the one Eve had on.

  I checked out each picture again. I looked over at Eve just in time to see her grin. “You’re starting to get the picture. Picture! Get it?” With one elbow, she poked me in the ribs. “I took these pictures of Doc this morning. Every single one of them. But I still managed to get them all into a photo album, and you’re wondering how, right? I took my camera over to that photo place on Wilson and voila! They had the whole album ready in just a couple minutes. Wouldn’t that just be the best! We could take pictures during the ceremony—”

  “You can’t take pictures during the ceremony. You’re the maid of honor.”

  “Well, not me, then. Norman.”

  “Norman is going to be the usher. He’s going to show people where to sit and keep things in order.”

  “Well, somebody else then.” Eve dealt with the objection with a toss of her head. “Anyway, there could be pictures taken. By somebody. And as soon as the ceremony is over and the reception starts, that same somebody could run out with the camera and come back with the albums. It’s a great idea.”

  In the scheme of Eve’s wedding planning ideas, it wasn’t bad. It was unobtrusive, didn’t involve sparklers, and there had been no mention of Doc actually taking part in the ceremony, resplendent—or not—in a tux. I was almost convinced until I saw the price list stuck into the back of the photo album. I multiplied the cost of the albums times the number of people who said they’d be honored to join us. Even though we’d vowed to keep the wedding small and the guest list to a limit, the total was staggering.

  “Simple, Eve. Remember?” Since I couldn’t believe my eyes, I’d pulled the price list out of the album for a better look. Now I handed it back to her. “I know math isn’t your thing, so take my word for it when I tell you we’d need our own bailout to make this work. I refuse to go into debt for this wedding. We’ve got house renovations to think about. And there’s no way I’m going to use any of the money earmarked for Bellywasher’s expenses. I won’t do that. Not to Jim. That pub means the world to him.”

  “You’re right.” Eve gave in with her usual good grace. She puckered her lips, thinking. “We could sell them at the door. You know, not for a profit. Just for cost.”

  I didn’t honor this suggestion with a reply. Instead, I grabbed my purse and keys, got up, and headed for the door. I would have liked nothing better than to have Eve’s company on the drive to McLean, but truth be told, I was still too mortified by my unwitting theft of Beth’s money to admit it to anyone. Once I gave the money back . . . once Beth and I laughed about the crazy situation . . . once she forgave me . . . then I might feel better about telling the story to Eve and to everybody else. For now, I’d have to settle for driving to McLean by myself.

  The better to practice my apologies all the way there.

  Fortunately, Eve had to get to Bellywasher’s to handle the Saturday lunchtime crowd, so giving her the slip was no problem. A half hour later, I’d parked my car (my real car, the Saturn, since I didn’t have to pretend to be a neighbor anymore and Norman was using his Jag for a personal appearance that day, anyway), and headed up the driveway toward the house.

  “You’re not going to believe this!” One last time, I went over what I wanted to say, even though I’d already gone over it a dozen times before. I stopped to try it on the bear and the moose on that Welcome Friends sign near the front door. “The craziest thing happened when I was here for the wine tasting a week ago.”

  Yeah, it sounded good. But that didn’t keep me from cringing. After all, if I admitted that the envelope with the cookie money inside was tucked into the cooking magazine, I’d also have to admit that I’d pilfered the cooking magazine. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it was enough to make a person as honest as me shake in my shoes.

  I was trembling when I rang the bell, and I’d been so worked up about the whole thing, I’d never even considered what I would do if Beth wasn’t home.

  But she wasn’t.

  Nobody was.

  Nobody answered.

  More disappointed than relieved, I turned away from the door. As painful as it would have been, I wanted to get the whole thing over with, and knowing I’d have to wait for another opportunity and spend another who-knew-how-many hours obsessing about the whole thing . . . well, it wasn’t a pleasant prospect.

  I decided to try one more time.

  I turned back and rang the bell again.

  There was still no answer.

  I doubted Beth was hiding behind a potted palm, watching the door and waiting for me to leave. For one thing, I didn’t remember seeing any potted palms in her house. For another, she couldn’t possibly have known that Tyler and I had discussed the feasibility (or not) of her being a suspect in Vickie’s murder. There was no reason for Beth to hide and not answer the door.

  With that in mind, I pressed my nose to the long, skinny pane of glass to the left of the front door.

  And that’s when I found out how very wrong I could be.

  See, there was a very good reason for Beth not to answer the bell, and it had nothing to do with hiding because she might be a suspect.

  When I looked inside, I saw all the beautiful art glass on display at the bottom of the winding staircase had been smashed to smithereens.

  And Beth’s body, broken and bleeding, in the middle of it all.

  TYLER IS NOT THE WARM AND FUZZY TYPE. WHICH means he wasn’t gentle about it when he braced a hand at the back of my neck and forced my head between my knees.

  “Breathe,” he said. “It’s the only thing that’s going to get rid of the light-headed feeling.”

  I wasn’t so sure I believed him, but it’s not like I had a lot of choice so I gave it a try. Except for the fact that my neck was killing me, after a minute or so, I did feel a little better.

  At least a little better than I had since I scrambled for my phone and made a frantic call to McLean emergency services.

  The paramedics had arrived in short order. So had the cops. Through it all and a haze of tears, I’d stood aside and kept out of the way, just like they told me to. I hadn’t even realized I was swaying on my feet and nauseous, too, until Tyler showed up out of nowhere, told me to sit down, and proceeded to make sure I didn’t throw up and spoil the pristine landscaping.

  After a couple more minutes, the pressure of Tyler’s hand decreased and I dared to raise my head. I was just in time to see the paramedics wheel Beth out on a stretcher. There was a white sheet over her face.

  My stomach swooped again and this time, I didn’t need Tyler to tell me what to do. I hung my head between my knees and tried to block out the clinking and clanking as the stretcher was loaded into the ambulance.

  It wasn’t until the amb
ulance pulled out of the driveway that I picked up my head. “What are you doing here?” It was a stupid question at a time like that, but I wasn’t about to argue with my more sensible self. If I focused on facts, I could avoid thinking about everything I’d seen there in Beth’s foyer, how that beautiful ecru tile had been dotted with color. Some of it was bits and pieces of Michael’s art glass collection. More of it was blood. “How did you—”

  “I just so happened to be having lunch with one of the guys I know on the McLean department, and I heard the call come in. I recognized Beth’s name, and the address. I told my buddy whatever happened here might have something to do with a case I was working on.”

  “In other words, you lied.” In other circumstances, I might have given him a one-upmanship smile. This time, I didn’t even try. “Do you think it has something to do with Vickie’s death? It can’t be . . .” The word stuck in my throat. I cleared it away. “It can’t be murder, can it?”

  Tyler glanced toward the house. “Too early to tell,” he said. “But I did hear a couple of the crime scene techs talking. There’s evidence of what might have been a struggle at the top of the steps.”

  “Someone pushed her?” I closed my eyes, but that did nothing to erase the image that formed in my mind. I gulped down the sour taste in my mouth. “You think the two murders are related?”

  “A little too coincidental if they’re not.”

  “You thought Beth murdered Vickie.”

  He sucked on his teeth, stalling before he admitted he was wrong. “It was a theory. I never said I knew it for certain.”

  “But Beth couldn’t have been the murderer. Not if someone murdered her.”

  “We’re getting way ahead of ourselves.” Tyler sat down on the porch steps next to me. The steps were wide and we were way off to the side, the better to keep to ourselves and not get in anyone’s way. “Last night, you said Beth was blackmailing Edward Monroe.”

  I nodded. “She wanted her husband to get a promotion. And she wanted her son to play soccer, too. Edward’s the team coach, and Jeremy’s an awful soccer player. She said that if Edward didn’t let Jeremy play—”