Death by Tea (12 page)

“You're not off of the hook.”

I screamed and jumped about a foot into the air.

Officer John Buchannan stood a few feet away, blocking the stairs, finger leveled at me. His glare was hot enough to melt steel.

“Excuse me?” I started forward, hoping he'd get out of my way and get out of earshot of Rita before throwing around more accusations. Of course, he didn't move and I was brought up short.

“Chief Dalton might think you are innocent, but I'm not fooled.” He was speaking loudly enough that everyone in the entire store must have heard what he was saying. “You killed him.”

“I did no such thing!”

Buchannan grinned. “I'll prove it.”

“Yeah?” I asked, cocking a hip. “And how do you plan on doing that when I had nothing at all to do with it?”

“I'll find a way.” He took a step closer to me, pressing out his chest in a way that made his badge catch the light and nearly blind me. “Just because there was no blood on that cardboard cutout doesn't mean we can't use it as evidence.”

“You found him?” Rita was up and across the room so fast, she very well might have teleported there. “You found my James?”

Buchannan's eyes gleamed with a sinister light. “We did.” He nodded to me. “Miss Hancock here had it in her house.” His grin widened. “In her bedroom, no less.”

Rita's eyes just about popped from her head as she turned a hurt gaze on me. “You . . . you stole James?”

“I didn't do it on purpose.” That didn't come out right, so I tried again. “I mean, I did, but I didn't kill anyone. And I was going to give it back.”

“How could you?” Rita looked as if she might cry. “He's your
father
.” There was far more implied in that last comment than I cared to deal with. She turned to Buchannan. “When can I have him back?”

“After the case is closed,” he told her, adopting a concerned tone I didn't buy for an instant, though Rita seemed to melt into it. “It's currently being held as evidence.”

Rita nodded and wiped at her eyes. “Is he . . . damaged?”

Buchannan hesitated, causing me to wonder if he'd bent it getting in or out of his car. “He is as we found him. I can't tell you anything more.”

Liar,
I thought, but I didn't say it out loud. I was sure if I did, Buchannan would be all over me. He'd probably drag me down to the station on some trumped-up charge. It wouldn't be the first time.

Rita spun on me and just about punched me on the nose as she wagged a finger in front of my face. “I'm very disappointed in you. What would your father think?” And then she turned and stormed back to the group, presumably to tell them of my theft.

“Thanks a lot,” I grumbled as Buchannan turned back to me.

“You brought it on yourself,” he said. “I'll be watching you.”

“How about you try to find the real killer instead of harassing me?” I said it with something of a snarl. I usually didn't let people get under my skin so much, but Buchannan was pushing all the right buttons. Everyone in the store was watching me, judging me. Their eyes practically burned with curiosity.

And it was all Buchannan's fault.

“I am,” he said before turning and walking down the stairs. I hoped he would keep on walking right out the door, but instead he found a seat in the corner and sat down. His eyes never left me as I sulked my way behind the counter.

Vicki was there with Lena. They both stopped talking as soon as I came around the counter. I knew they'd been talking about me, which hurt. The cloud hovering over my head got just a little bit heavier.

“You okay?” Vicki asked. The concern in her voice was real, which was something I sorely needed. I suppose if anyone was going to talk about me behind my back, Vicki was the one I wanted to do it. She would defend me, no matter how bad I looked.

“Not really.” I picked up my apron but didn't put it on. It seemed to weigh a ton. If I were to put it around my neck, I'd be on the floor, crying my eyes out, in seconds. I didn't know why Buchannan had it out for me so much. Sure, I'd made a mistake when I'd first gotten to town, and I went on a date with his work rival, yet it seemed to go deeper than that. I'm not sure there was much I could ever do to repair the relationship.

“Do you want to go?” she asked. “We can handle this. Right, Lena?”

Lena nodded, purple hair bouncing around her ears. “It's no problem at all. I can help close up.”

The door jingled and the Cherry Valley group came in. How they could even think of a stupid book club after David's murder was beyond me, yet here they were.

I so didn't want to deal with them tonight.

“Yeah,” I said, tossing the apron back behind the counter. “If you're both sure . . .”

Lena and Vicki nodded in unison.

“Get some rest,” Vicki said.

“Thanks.” I turned and headed for the door. Albert hesitated in the process of going up the stairs and looked as if he might come over to talk to me, so I hurried my pace just a bit. I couldn't handle him tonight, not with Buchannan sitting right there.

I stepped outside with a sigh of relief. All of my troubles were locked away in Death by Coffee, at least for the moment. Once back home, I could sort through everything I'd learned and hopefully figure out who killed David Smith before the pressure killed me.

I walked over to my car, opened the door, and slid inside. Just as I started the engine, Officer Buchannan stepped out of the coffee shop. His eyes immediately found me and he smiled. I pointedly ignored him and then backed out, hoping against hope he wouldn't follow me home.

12

The car was parked across the street with its two right tires sitting in the neighbor's yard, the other two on the road. The engine was off and no light came from inside it, yet I knew who was out there; he'd been sitting there since I'd gotten home a couple of hours before.

His name resounded in my head like a gong strike. He was positive I'd had something to do with David Smith's death and was going to do anything he could to prove it, even if it meant sitting outside my house all night. Even if I had killed David, what made him think I'd sneak out and kill someone else? He was wasting his time.

I let the curtain fall back into place and left the window. Staring at him wasn't going to make him go away. I could only imagine him sitting there, a stupid grin on his face, while he watched me watch him. He had to be out there on his own volition, because I couldn't see Chief Dalton sending him. Didn't he have other duties, like saving cats from trees or making sure no one else got killed?

I ground my teeth together, getting angry despite myself. I didn't do anything. There was nothing he could do to me. As long as I played it safe and didn't do something stupid, he could wait out there forever and it would get him nowhere.

I sat down at my island counter where a smattering of puzzle pieces lay in the upturned lid. The puzzle was of a pair of kittens sitting in a field of daisies, silly kitty grins on their faces. Misfit lounged next to the partially completed puzzle, eyeing each piece as I laid it down. The moment a stray came anywhere close to his immediate vicinity, he would snatch it up and run, hence the lid. I had more than a few puzzle pieces come up missing because I wasn't paying close enough attention.

“We're just going to have a nice quiet evening together, right?” I asked the orange furball. “Just the two of us.”

He huffed and watched my hand carefully as I placed the corner of a kitten's ear.

Puzzles were normally my way of relaxing, yet tonight it wasn't helping. My back ached with tension that seeped down from my shoulders, which were trying to close up beneath my neck. I rubbed at a sore spot with a grimace. Sitting on the tall stool at the counter wasn't helping matters any. David's murder was stressing me out far more than I liked.

Then again, it wasn't the murder so much as it was Buchannan's insistence I had something to do with it. If he wasn't following me around, hounding me like I was some common criminal, I might be handling things far better. In fact, I might have already come up with the real murderer by now! He was hindering
my
investigation with his lurking. If I would have done the same to him, he'd nail me with obstruction.

I heaved myself up and headed for the window again. The car was still sitting there, but now the overhead dome light was on, illuminating his grinning face as he accepted a mug of what I assumed was hot tea from Eleanor Winthrow.

Eleanor was wearing a tattered blue bathrobe that was parting in the front, though she didn't seem to mind, not with Buchannan looking at her like she was the most precious thing ever. Big, fuzzy pink slippers adorned her feet. Her hair was done up in rollers, and it looked as if she might have dyed it recently, though it was hard to tell; it might only be wet.

As one, both Buchannan and Eleanor looked toward my house, matching grins splashed across their faces. They watched me for a long moment before Eleanor turned back to talk to Officer Annoying.

“Argh!” I let the curtain flop back and stormed across the room. Eleanor was part of the reason I was a suspect in the murder at all. If she hadn't been sitting at her window, watching me in the middle of the night, no one would have even considered that I had anything to do with the murder. In fact, I steadfastly believed that nearly all of my troubles as of late were her fault.

I paced the room, steaming. Misfit watched me with interest from his perch. His tail swished a few times and then his eye darted to the upturned lid.

“Oh, no, you don't,” I said, hurrying across the room. I closed the box and then gently moved the puzzle away from the devious cat before setting the box on top of it. There was no way I was going to be able to focus on finishing the puzzle tonight, and I wasn't about to let the cat destroy what progress I'd already made.

I scooped Misfit up and deposited him on the couch before throwing myself down next to him. He gave me an indignant look, flipped his tail into my face, and then jumped down. He strode halfway across the room, turned to face me, and then sat down. He gave me a look that quite clearly said, “Come over here and pet me.”

Cats. Always have to be in command of every situation.

I ignored his silent pleas and dug out my phone. If I wasn't going to relax, I might as well do some research. The more I knew about David Smith, the better chance I'd have of figuring out why someone would have wanted to kill him.

I started with the Facebook app, which was quickly becoming my favorite investigative tool. I typed in David's name, and about a zillion David Smiths popped up. I spent five minutes going through them before giving up. There were far too many of them, and since he wasn't from around here, no one I knew would be his friend.

But I
did
know a few names of people who had known him, and one especially closely.

“Sara Huffington.” I spoke her name out loud as I typed it. If anyone was David's friend on Facebook, it would be her.

I found her almost immediately. Her profile pic made her look like a millionaire. She was wearing a black dress, hair pulled up off her neck in one of those stylish hairdos I could never pull off in a million years but was common enough with celebrities. Her heels were so tall, it was a wonder she didn't pitch face-first into the pavement. Her pearls were around her neck, and she was wearing a diamond bracelet and ring. She was giving the camera one of those holier-than-thou smiles.

“Geesh,” I grumbled. My pic was just a basic one of me sitting on the couch from a few years back, looking as boring as could be. She'd really gone all out for this one.

I skimmed her basic info, learning little, before moving on to her friends. I used the search there to find any Davids and found none. I tried Smith next. Still nothing. From there, I scrolled down through the list of names and faces, hoping something would catch my eye, but found no one that looked like our favorite dead Brit.

“Huh,” I said, closing the app. Apparently David didn't use Facebook, or he hadn't told Sara about his page. If he hadn't told her, then I seriously doubted he would have told Albert or any of the others. I wasn't sure whether that was important or not.

I rose from the couch and headed for my laptop. I sat down at the little desk, opened the lid, and brought up the Internet browser. From there, I Googled “David Smith” in the vain hope I'd find something. I much preferred to do my Googling on a computer rather than on the tiny screen of my phone.

My first search brought up nothing, so I added “Cherry Valley” to the search. Still, not a single thing about the murdered man appeared. It was as if he'd never existed, or at least kept his online profile to a bare minimum. It was frustrating to say the least.

A paw reached up and whacked me on the elbow as I brought up Facebook again. I absently reached down and stroked Misfit's ears as I considered who to look up next. There had to be someone out there who would know something, someone whose profile might give me insight into David's life outside of the book club.

A ping brought my eyes to the lower right of my screen where a message from Old Birnhul waited. It simply stated,
Hey.

I frowned at the message. I didn't recall having a friend named Old Birnhul, and thought it a rather strange name. I quickly checked my friend list, thinking it might be some sort of glitch, but sure enough it was right there. The person could very well be someone I used to play Facebook games with, back when I was addicted to them, who had recently changed their screen name. I clicked on the message box, curious, and replied with a
Hey
of my own.

My frown deepened. Who would ask that, especially if it was someone I didn't know personally? For a moment, I thought that maybe Paul Dalton might have changed his name for some reason, but it made no sense. The letters didn't match up. This had to be someone else.

Who is this?
I typed, and hit send.

My eyes bugged out at that message, and my heart started to beat a little faster. I knew of absolutely no one on my friend list who would talk to me like that. Had I somehow gained a stalker due to my minor celebrity status around town? I suppose anything is possible, but that didn't make it any better. In fact, it made it worse.

I typed in,
I don't know what you are talking about,
before picking up my phone and dialing Paul's number. It rang a good five times before his voice mail picked up. I stared at the laptop screen the entire time, dreading the next reply. I clicked off my phone without leaving a message and set it aside just as the reply popped up.

So you think.
I sat back, trembling. I racked my brain, trying to come up with someone in Pine Hills who would send such horribly invasive messages. Rita was a bit strange, but I doubted she'd stoop to this level, even if she was still mad at me about stealing Cardboard Dad. Vicki would never do something like this, and I'd never added Lena or anyone else at Death by Coffee to my friend list. And since I knew it wasn't Paul, there was really no one else I could think of.

“Ew!” I just about puked as realization set in.

Old Birnhul. I took a quick moment to move the letters around in my head. It was a puzzle, so it came pretty easily. Rob Dunhill.

As in, Robert, my ex.

You're sick in the head, Robert.
I typed it in a fury.
Leave me alone, perv!

Before he could reply, I found his name in my friend's list and removed it. I then changed my password, figuring that was how he'd managed to get himself added. After that, I went through my friend list one more time and removed any names I didn't recognize, just in case.

It was pretty obvious what had happened. That cheating jerk, Robert, had my Facebook password from when we were dating. He'd gone in, added a few names, ones I wouldn't immediately recognize as his, though like a dope, he used anagrams rather than coming up with something completely new. He'd probably been stalking me all this time, reading everything I ever posted. It gave me the heebie-jeebies to think of him sitting there, my underwear balled in his fist as he scoured my Facebook posts and pictures like some loony in his mom's basement.

There was a reason I'd broken up with the man. Now I was beginning to wonder why I'd ever started dating him in the first place. Could I really have been
that
desperate?

Satisfied I'd excised Robert from my Facebook life, I closed my laptop and moved to the window. Officer Buchannan was still sitting out there, more than likely sipping his tea. Eleanor was gone.

My house sat on a road that ended in a cul-de-sac, so there was little to no traffic this late at night. Buchannan could sit just off the road all he wanted, and the only people who'd know it would be my neighbors.

And, well, anyone Eleanor Winthrow told, of course. I had no doubts that she was already on the phone, talking to her bestie, Judith Banyon, about me.

With a sigh, I closed the curtain and went about turning out the lights. There was no way I was going to get back onto my computer tonight. I was tired and had to work in the morning, so turning in a little early wouldn't hurt. I carried my phone into the bedroom, where I tried to call Paul one more time, only to hang up before it could even go to voice mail. I didn't know whether he was avoiding me because I was a suspect or was mad at me for some other reason. Either way, it hurt, and right then I was too tired to care.

I began stripping out of my clothes, dropping them into the hamper beside the bathroom door. Misfit jumped up on the bed and made himself at home. I was reaching for my pj's when a brief flare of light caused me to freeze.

I was standing in my underwear—all black, without a pink bow anywhere, thank you very much—and there was something outside my window. My hand moved toward my bathrobe, which was hanging off the back of the bathroom door. I put it on slowly, afraid if I moved too fast something awful would happen. I cinched the robe at the waist, eyes never leaving the reflection coming from somewhere outside.

It was dark enough out that I couldn't see much from clear across the bedroom. My curtains were parted in a way that told me Misfit had been lounging up there while I'd been out. Normally, I kept them firmly closed. I crept across the room, all kinds of horrible thoughts going through my head.

What if it was the murderer come to kill me before I learned his or her identity? What if it was Buchannan, watching me with his own handful of my underwear clutched in his sweaty fist? What about Robert? If he could find my phone number and infiltrate my Facebook profile, then he could just as easily find out where I lived.

It wasn't until I got near the window that I realized what I was seeing.

There were actually two small circles. The light from my bedroom was reflecting off them.