Beeline to Trouble (23 page)

Thirty-nine

I walked to The Wild Clover just like every workday,
but instead of going inside, I went around back and took off in my trusty blue pickup truck, heading for Holly’s house.

Where I found pandemonium reigning in the Paine household.

For one thing, Max arrived home about the same time I got there, after having spent the night at the station, hoping for a miracle that would free his wife. What a mess the man was. Hair every which way, rumpled clothing, and tired, haunted eyes.

A week had passed since his houseguests came to visit with the original intention of a work-free weekend filled with relaxation and team-building. That had fallen to pieces (though at least two of them had been able to figure out a new way to “bond,” ew).

Apparently Camilla and Gil hadn’t been very happy when the limo didn’t show up to whisk them to the Milwaukee airport. By the time they called the transportation service and discovered the error, it was too late to make the flight.

Oops.

When I entered the house, Max was in the process of having his ear bent by the unfortunate grounded passengers, who were surrounded by packed suitcases and dashed plans.

“Somebody canceled the limousine,” Gil told him. “That’s what I was told when I called to find out where it was.”

“I’m not staying here any longer,” Camilla said, and I wondered what she had to complain about. From my perspective, the only sweat she’d been subjected to wasn’t considered actual work in our society.

I smelled something wonderful in the air like pancakes or waffles, and saw Effie and Milly cleaning up. I wandered into the kitchen, but found the griddle had been cleaned and put away. Darn. Not a single leftover in sight.

“Where’s the gardener?” Camilla said, still with some of that not-one-more-second tone. “He can take us to the airport. We’ll try to get out of here on standby, right, Gil?”

Effie looked up then and said, “Chance is out running errands and won’t be back until later this afternoon.”

Wasn’t that convenient. The man was a virtual disappearing act. “What sort of errands?” I wanted to know.

“Personal ones,” Effie said, stone-faced.

“He wasn’t here yesterday, either,” I kept going, “when Harry Bruno was arrested for stealing the truck. Was he off doing personal business then, too?”

Effie and I locked eyes. “No,” she said. “He wasn’t.”

“I’d take you,” Max said. “But I’m only home long enough to shower and change my clothes, then back to the police station.” He bounded for the stairs, and was gone from sight.

“What about Effie?” I said, thinking this would be the perfect time to do a little sleuthing in the carriage house. “Can’t she take you?”

“Not her,” Camilla said. Since the clean-up crew was running water in the sink, I was fairly certain her words hadn’t carried.

“Why not?” I asked back, moving out of Effie’s earshot. Camilla automatically followed me. So did Gil.

“I hate to be picky,” she said, getting picky, “but your sister did a terrible job training her house help. The woman is surly” (look who was talking!) “and obviously resents her subservient role in life.”

“But she can drive?” Gil said to Camilla. “Who cares about her personality?”

“Honestly,” Camilla said to me, “tell your sister she can do better than that woman. Even self-absorbed Nova saw right through her. And not only that, she refuses to cook! Flat out refuses. Insubordination like that would never be tolerated in the business world.”

“All I care about is getting to the airport,” Gil complained, walking away. I heard him in the kitchen. “Effie, we need a ride to the airport.”

“Not my problem,” she replied. “Sorry, I have other things to do.”

“Now do you believe me?” Camilla said. “We ask her to do a simple task, and she refuses?”

“I’ll drive you,” Milly offered, coming out, wiping her hands on a towel.

Darn. So much for a peek inside the carriage house. I couldn’t think of any other ways to stop the two flavorists from flying off, but at least I’d slowed them down. Not that I supposed it mattered anymore.

The next half hour was a flurry of activity: getting the couple’s bags into Milly’s trunk and that group on their way; Effie finishing up in the kitchen then vanishing, probably to hide out in the carriage house; and Max, refreshed after a shower and change of clothes, getting ready to rush back out to the police station.

I caught up with him before he drove off, and asked, “Did you check the Andersons’ references before you hired them?”

Max frowned. “That’s an odd question, but yes, of course. Why, is something wrong?”

“No, I’m just getting a bit paranoid, worried about Holly. So they all checked out?”

“Yes, of course, but I have to go. We’ll talk later. Okay?”

“Later, then,” I said, watching him leave.

Suddenly all was quiet.

I was alone and back at Holly’s outdoor table.

I called Jackson. He picked up this time.

“Anything on the gloves?” I asked him.

“Nothing helpful,” he said. “Compost. Pollen. That’s it. Nothing toxic.”

“Thanks anyway, I owe you.”

Disappointment set in after we disconnected. I didn’t have a single, solid lead. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. Clues should build up, one after the other, guiding and pointing the way down the right path. Instead, I might as well have beat my head against the wall for all the puzzle pieces I was connecting.

But wait. That wasn’t necessarily true. I still had lots of unanswered questions to explore.

Like . . . where was Harry Bruno? He’d been released from jail. Had he left town? Doubtful, I decided, based on the way he’d been sniffing around Patti.

And what about Chance Anderson, also missing in action? My internal radar told me to pursue that thread. I marched toward the carriage house for a showdown with the only other person still on the property.

Effie Anderson had some answering to do.

Forty

I climbed the stairs on the side of the garage and
banged on the door at the top.

Nobody answered, so I banged again, this time trying the door. Locked.

“I know you’re in there, Effie!” I hollered through the door, plastering my ear against it and listening for sound on the other side.

Nothing happened.

This was ridiculous. Was Effie actually avoiding me?

I stomped back down the stairs, stood outside eyeing the carriage house above me, and wondered if I could find a ladder high enough to climb up there and bash out one of the windows. It really was as high up as Holly had told me when I’d suggested she climb up and spy on Effie.

After searching the inside of the garage, I couldn’t find a long enough ladder. I’d have to be related to Spider-Man to get up there.

Next I went to Holly and Max’s outbuilding. The Queen Bee Honey–stickered ATV was missing. I’d bet my honey business that Chance had torn off on that exact one yesterday. The work truck was also missing from the property.

Effie said Chance was out running errands, so he’d have the truck. But if he’d come back after Harry had been arrested, then where was that ATV?

I fired up another four-wheeler and drove over to the maple tree that had stopped Mabel’s forward motion. Fat tire tracks led off from the grass into a wooded area. The tracks were easy to follow since all the low vegetation had been packed down from the weight of the ATV and hadn’t sprung completely back.

It was rough going, and I wondered why Chance had chosen to make his own path instead of using one of the groomed trails. It confirmed for me that he’d left in a really big hurry. As though he’d panicked.

The tracks wove here and there, dodging trees, and came out onto the shoulder of highway E (which is more like a country road than a highway). I promptly lost the trail and had to zoom back and forth on the road, searching for a sign. But the trail was as cold as this case had become.

Where was everybody?

I was sitting on the ATV while it idled, feeling depressed, heading for one big confused funk, when Holly’s work truck suddenly roared toward me at about a zillion miles an hour. It wasn’t heading for Moraine, either. Exactly the opposite—away from town.

Was that Harry Bruno in the driver’s seat? Oh my gosh, it was! And he had a passenger. A woman, I thought, or a long-haired man. Was it Effie?

So what?
I thought next as the truck blew by. Big fat deal. Let them all disappear—Chance, Harry, Effie, throw in Patti, too—and may their spaceship never return. Although, speaking of Patti, where was she? Shouldn’t she be snooping around by now, inserting herself and all her crazy ideas into our lives, looking for, or causing, trouble?

I drove back to Holly’s empty house and called 9-1-1. “Harry Bruno has my sister’s truck again,” I told the officer who answered. “I’m reporting it stolen. Again.” He put me on hold. Johnny Jay came on the line. “You’re making this up, Fischer,” he said.

“Honest. I just saw it with my own eyes. He’s heading south, he’s with someone, and he’s traveling fast.”

“I’m on it. Unbelievable. Where are you?”

“Why?” Suspicion always pays off when Johnny Jay is involved.

“I have a few follow-up questions for you. I’ll expect you at the station in the next half hour.”

“I’m busy.”

“That not what they told me down at your store.”

Johnny Jay had been out looking for me? That wasn’t good. “It’s my day off,” I told him. “I’m not spending it down at the police station.”

“You will if I say so.”

Who did he think he was? What a pompous, arrogant, control-freak bully. Ha! Maybe I’d just hang out here at Holly’s house all day. Later I’d call Hunter and have him meet me on the dock for a boat ride and a little fishing. Surely Holly had a nice bottle of wine inside her wine fridge. And cheese and crackers. Yes, that sounded like a great idea. And maybe when Holly got out of jail, which I hoped would be sometime today, I’d be here to welcome her and Max home. The four of us could go out to dinner at Stu’s Bar and Grill. A wonderful evening with loved ones.

With that plan in mind, I hung up on Johnny.

After rummaging around in the house, I found a pad of paper and pen and poured a glass of lemonade from a pitcher in the refrigerator. Pausing with the glass at my lips, I dumped the contents down the sink drain and popped open a can of diet soda instead. One can never be too cautious in a kitchen that produced a toxic drink that actually killed a human being.

Back outside, I started to make a bullet list of things to follow up with. Then something lodged in my brain. Nagging at me, poking, saying things like—
everything doesn’t always have to be what it seems.

Well, that was really helpful. I have to say that my intuition could be more . . . well . . . intuitive. Or more helpful in weeding out the quack grass from the rose bed. More user-friendly. Instead, it makes me try to sift through stuff and that never works well.

Everything doesn’t always have to be what it seems.

What the heck did that mean? That I should try making an assumption that Nova Campbell wasn’t really dead?

She was dead all right. I’d witnessed the whole sorry event. Not to mention viewing her body in the morgue. Okay, but I’d already decided I may have misjudged the motive. That maybe it wasn’t work related. Let’s see. I made a Beginners 101 list of possible motives based on TV shows I’ve watched:

• Jealousy
  
• Revenge
  
• Greed
  
• Rage
  
• Fear
  
• Love
  

I crumpled up the list.

I had to be missing an ingredient, something other than carrot juice and water hemlock. So what if the motive really wasn’t obvious?

I was making scribbles and cryptic symbols all over my paper pad, tearing them out, crumpling them up, tossing them into a pile.

I wrote down Patti’s name in capital letters, since she was on my main suspect list. It was her water bottle that had been poisoned, and she’d been in the river while Nova breathed her last breath. And she had a powerful connection to the dead woman.

But why would Patti leave behind a bottle that so clearly could and would eventually be traced back to her? I mean, really, how many people put “Stalkers Have Rights, Too” on their water bottles? And “I’m Watching You.” It was only a matter of time before Johnny Jay would have been all over her even without my help. Patti certainly was an obvious choice.

Almost too obvious.

Thinking of Chicago and Patti’s past brought me to Harry Bruno. Harry certainly had the background and history to pull off a homicide and get away with it. Right? But he and Nova had already divorced. If he was going to kill her wouldn’t he have done it before now? And how would he get his hands on Patti’s bottle? Besides, Harry was obsessed with Patti. Why would he frame her?

What about the Andersons? Something had sent Chance packing in a great big hurry. I didn’t believe Effie when she said he was out running errands. Especially now that Harry Bruno had sped past me driving the same truck Chance was supposed to be out and about in. And I was almost certain he had a woman, probably Effie, with him. No, I believed Chance had taken off on the ATV yesterday, almost collided with Mabel in his hurry, and hadn’t returned.

I glanced up at the carriage house again.

And that’s when I ruled out Effie as Harry’s recent passenger.

Because she was coming toward me with a pitchfork.