A Ghost in Time (Destiny Bay Cozy Mysteries Book 3) (11 page)

I took a look at the letters when I had a chance. They were all three from Karl MacKenzie—the ballroom dancer guy who had the dance studio downtown.
 

So I’d been right when I’d noticed Star humming Strauss waltzes. Hah! That very day she might have spent an hour in his arms at the dance studio, dancing away. That made me feel like I might just have the right sort of intuition for detection after all. Still, I handled the whole thing gingerly. I felt a little skeavy reading other people’s mail—especially when they were love letters of a sort. But it had to be done—I guess.

The first one was from almost a year ago, and it was the letter of a man just barely feeling out his chances. He was obviously smitten, but he wasn’t sure yet if she was going to reciprocate. Adorned with a lot of flirting, the main subject was working out a time when he could work with her on her tango. Cute.
 

The second one was brief, setting up a time and place where they could meet. And the third was very recent and very different. It seemed Karl must have been trying to break things off, and Star wasn’t having it. She wasn’t begging to keep him in her life, she was demanding it. At least, that was the way it sounded. Poor Karl sounded desperate to get her to back off. It kind of gave you the creeps to read it.
 

The question was, could a man this desperate have something to do with the death of the woman he was desperate to get rid of?
 

Suddenly I knew I needed to show these to Roy, and also to tell him what I learned from the apprentices about Star taunting Bebe and luring her over so that she could ambush her that night. I thought it was all eminently relevant. Of course, he might already know all about all these things. But he sure hadn’t told me about any of them.
 

I didn’t make this decision lightly. I knew I was taking a risk. After all, Roy was a good cop, loyal to his captain and his department, and if they were going in a direction that ran counter to mine, he was going to be with them. I knew that. I wouldn’t want him to do anything disloyal. But at the same time, what good would it do me to find exonerating things that might help Bebe and not have anyone willing to listen to the facts? Or even more--to the theories.
 

If I didn’t have Roy’s ear, I didn’t have anything at all. I’d be spitting into the wind. Tugging on Superman’s cape. Pulling the mask—well, you know the drill. And all that jazz.

I had to do it.
 

I gave him a call. He answered right away and said he was free. Did I detect a note of triumph in his voice? Ah-no matter. We agreed to meet at Mad for Mocha—or M4M as Jill and I had taken to calling it.
 

I went a little early so I’d have time to chat with Jill, if she was free. I trusted her completely and I knew it would be best to run some of my thinking past someone who cared and had a pretty good brain at the same time. So Jill it was.
 

“It was an accident, right?” Jill said after I’d whined to her about my fears and worries for a few minutes.
 

“Yes. An odd accident, but an accident none the less.”

She nodded, thinking. “Is anyone making accusations?” she asked. “I mean, is there anyone agitating to have Bebe charged with a crime?”

“Not yet. But that is exactly what I’m afraid of.”

She nodded again. “I can see why.”

“Do you see what bothers me most?” I asked her. “It’s all this stuff about a tall, dark man and her not seeing the mirror. Those two elements just don’t fit with the rest of the puzzle. If only there was some way to know what actually happened as she was driving up that road.”

“She really doesn’t remember?”

“Nope.”

Jill thought for a moment, then her pretty face lit up.
 

“You know what you need? Hypnotism.”

“What?” Not quite what I’d been hoping for.
 

“I’m serious. I was learning how to do it for awhile last year, but I never did get certified or anything. Still, I’ve got the basics down.” She was getting excited about her own idea. “I’ll bet I could do it. You want me to do it? You want me to try?”

“No!”

She looked crestfallen. “Why not? You always reject anything new. It can’t hurt. Bebe will have to cooperate and all. It’s not like a secret thing.”

I bit my lip, holding back my immense impulse to dismiss it out of hand. After all, she was right. I seemed to have a nasty habit of rejecting everything I wasn’t used to right off the bat. Maybe I ought to try to temper that a little. Why not let her try? If we could make a breakthrough…

I reached out and took her hand. “Hey, I’m sorry. I was just doing my usual knee-jerk reaction. I think it might be a really good idea. When can we try it? When do you have some time?”

We worked that out and when Roy arrived, I was in a pretty good mood. Jill’s baristas had just had a crisis with the main blender, so she scooted out and left us in the back booth to ourselves. Roy slid in beside me instead of opting for across the table. That made me smile.
 

“So Miss Keahi, what’s new?” he said, his eyes smiling at me.
 

“I’ve been doing a little digging,” I said, feeling pretty proud of myself. “And I’ve got some information. You might already know all this, but just in case you don’t, I’m here to give you the inside scoop.”

“No kidding.” He held back a grin that was threatening but his eyes sparkled. “What do you want in exchange?”

I thought for a couple of seconds. “Respect,” I ventured. “Maybe just a little…affection?”

“Kissing,” he guessed, looking at me sideways. “You liked that, didn’t you?”

To my horror, I was blushing, but I pretended I had it all under control. “Depends,” I said. “Good kissing is always welcome.”

He raised an eyebrow, teasing me. “No matter who?”

I laughed softly, shaking my head. “Oh it matters who. It matters a whole lot.”

“Good.” He was looking at my mouth. That made me quiver a bit, and it had to go if we were going to get serious. Otherwise, we might as well go out in his car and make out for the rest of the hour.
 

Ooh. That sounded good!
 

But wasn’t I supposed to be avoiding this man? That was the plan. Maybe I should get a refresher course on avoidance. And Backbone 101. Hmm.

Anyway, we didn’t have time for that sort of thing right now.
 

“Okay,” I said, getting down to business. “I have here three letters I stole from a cubby hole box on Star’s property. Can I show them to you? Or will you cart me off and charge me with mail theft or something?”

He winced, his head going back. I could tell this wasn’t as easy as I might have thought. He really had some ethical problems with it. But finally, he overcame them. At any rate, he took a deep breath and nodded.
 

“Go ahead and show them to me,” he said. “We’ll deal with your criminality later.”

I wasn’t so sure that was in my best interests, but it was what I’d come for, so I did it.
 

He was interested all right. He looked over each letter in turn, reading everything. Then he looked at me and shrugged.
 

“What does it all mean?” he asked me. “In your professional opinion as a registered female.”

“These were written by a man,” I pointed out.
 

“That’s why I’m asking. I already know how I interpret these things as a male. I want the female perspective. What did Star think when she got these?”

I put on my thinking face. “I think she felt adored and pursued with the first one. By the third, she felt like she was losing control and that is one thing she couldn’t bear.”

He nodded. “That’s about what I thought, too.” He looked at me quizzically. “So why did she hide them?”

I shrugged. “Why did she keep them at all?” I said.
 

His eyes narrowed. “Being a cop, I tend to look for nefarious motives. I’ll bet she wanted them in case she needed to blackmail him for something.”

“Yikes.” I frowned. “You do have a cynical turn of mind, don’t you? I prefer to think she kept the first ones to warm a lonely night or two—and the third to study and reinforce her decision to make him pay for dumping her.”

“So who’s cynical now?” He gave me a half grin and stuck the letters into his binder. “What else have you got, lady?”

“Nothing much. But I was thinking you probably picked up bits and pieces of things when cleaning up the accident site. Right?”

He nodded. “What are you looking for?”

“Do you have a list of the items?”

“Yeah.” He made no move to pull it out. “But it’s police business. You’re not on the police force.”

“But I’m friends with someone who is,” I reminded him, leaning close and looking up at him flirtatiously.
 

He grinned. “Okay.” He pulled out a little notebook and read off a list of junk, trash, the sort of things that collect in an area like that.
 

“A matchbook from Stumpy’s Bar and Grill,” he read to me. “A locket without any chain attached. No picture. Some Spearmint gum wrappers. No used gum inside. A nickel. A #2 pencil, broken off.” The list went on and on and I was beginning to yawn. He stopped, grinning at me. “Okay. Your turn.”

I sat up straighter and tried to think. “Well…I met Star’s ex-husband when I went to visit the apprentices. Do you know him?”

He nodded. “He was a loud mouthed jerk back in the day. I don’t imagine he’s improved much.”

“I didn’t stick around to find out.”

“He and Star seemed well suited. Too bad it didn’t last.”

I smiled. Was it my imagination, or was he moving closer to me? “So is it true he’s been up in Alaska all this time?”

“So he says. Kind of strange timing for a trip home. Unless he hopped a plane as soon as he heard about her being killed.”

Killed
. Ugh. That word gave me shivers, and not the good kind.
 

“The apprentices seem to think they’ve been promised a lot of things that aren’t being delivered. Now Star’s gone and they’re hopping mad. They feel cheated.”

He was definitely closer now. In fact, he stretched out his arm and his hand just happened to end up covering mine where it rested on the table. He played with the ring on my finger, turning it back and forth. But he went on as though he wasn’t even aware of what he was doing.
 

“I know,” he said. “I’ve talked to them. They’re young. They’ll get over it.”

“I don’t know. They might raise quite a ruckus before they go off gently into that good night.”

He frowned. “Isn’t that saying supposed to be about death?” he pointed out.
 

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

“So is that it?” he asked.
 

I hesitated, wondering if I should mention Bebe’s cadaverous-looking man, but after all, that was her secret, not mine. I wanted to say to him straight out that I thought Star’s death wasn’t just because of Bebe driving too fast. There was more to it, something we didn’t know yet. But I know I’d hinted around at that with him before. Without any real proof of anything, I didn’t think I could start hammering him with that again. Not yet.
 

Maybe Jill was right. We had to try the hypnosis on Bebe and see what we could get that way. If that revealed something meaty, then I could make my case.
 

“I guess that’s about it,” I said.
 

“Not quite,” he said softly.
 

I turned to look up at him and he reached out to brush back my hair.

The handy thing about the back booth was that you couldn’t see into it very clearly from the rest of the room. When he bent toward me, I raised my face to his and his kiss was soft, warm and friendly. I almost whimpered when he pulled back, but luckily I doused it in time.
 

He was leaving. The sense of disappointment that filled me was like nothing I’d ever felt before. I didn’t want him to go.
 

But he didn’t seem to have any such feelings.
 

“I’ve got to get back to the station,” he said cheerfully. “Thanks for this Mele,” he added, holding up his binder with the letters in it. “I’ll let you know if it all comes to anything.”

And just like that, he was gone.
 

I sat there feeling like you do when you’ve had a lovely hot bath and suddenly the water all drains away, leaving you cold and lonely.
 

But I had my buddy Jill riding to the rescue, as usual.

“Okay,” she said, slipping in to sit where Roy had been. “Now that he’s gone, we can get down to business.”

As if Roy being gone was something we’d been waiting for all this time. I sighed, but she didn’t notice.
 

“Look, I’ve made a list. These are candidates for our mystery man, the walking dead guy. Tell me if I’ve left anyone out.” She handed it to me.
 

First on the list, Jason Moon. I raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation.
 

“You always suspect the husband first,” she said.
 

“But they’re divorced.”

“Who told you that?”

I frowned. “I think it was Ginny Genera.”

“Ginny is usually an excellent source, but this time, she misfired. Star likes to tell people she’s divorced, but when you come right down to it, they never bothered to do all the paperwork.”

“But the huge blowup when they split….”

“Oh, there was a blowup alright. But it never went official.”

“Then there’s also the fact that he didn’t get back into town until the day after the death.”

Jill shrugged. “So he says.”

“Ah. Yes.” I looked at the next on the list. “Karl MacKenzie.”

Jill nodded. “Lovers are also great suspects. He and Star have been dallying for almost a year now. Rumor has it she was about to dump him.”

“And that can bring on anger and rage.”

“Absolutely. Plus he’s tall and kind of gaunt. Could be our man.”

I nodded, thinking that over. “Okay. Then there’s Norm Miller.”