Fugitive Filling (8 page)

“That’s sweet of you,” Jake said.

“Hey, if I can help a friend out, why wouldn’t I?” I asked as I dialed Miranda’s number.

“You’d be surprised. Not everyone feels that way,” Jake said.

“Hey, Suzanne,” she said after picking up on the second ring. “Do you have another job for me?”

“No, sorry, it’s about something else.”

“That’s okay. I’ve got just about all that I can handle at the moment as it is. I was sorry to hear about Teresa Logan, though.”

“I know. It’s a real shame. You were still cleaning her office for her on a regular basis, weren’t you?”

“I took care of it two days ago,” Miranda said. “I hate to say it, but I’m glad that my visit wasn’t supposed to be
yesterday
morning. I heard that you and your husband found the body. That must have been just awful for you.”

“It wasn’t fun,” I said. “Would you mind if I ask you something while I’ve got you on the line?”

“Sure, go ahead,” she said.

“Did you ever notice anything odd while you were cleaning her office?”

“Like what?” Miranda asked a little cautiously.

“I don’t know. Anything out of the ordinary at all, I guess,” I answered.

There was quite a long pause before she answered. “Suzanne, I’m grateful for all you do. You know that, don’t you?” Miranda asked in a hesitant voice.

“I know that. Listen, if I made you uncomfortable with my question, I take it back. I didn’t mean to press you on it.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m probably just being silly. I just don’t want anyone to think I talk out of turn about them. There is one thing that I thought was odd the last time I cleaned for her. It’s probably nothing, but it did make me wonder at the time.”

“What was it? Remember, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I found a letter in her trashcan when I was emptying it this week. I wouldn’t have dreamed of reading it, but it fell to the floor when I tried to toss it, and when I picked it up, there was something in it that caught my eye.”

“Do you by any chance still have it?” I asked her.

“I wish now that I’d kept it. I’m sorry, but it’s long gone now.”

“Do you remember what it said? What was the gist of it?” I asked.

“It said something like, ‘Teresa, you’re dead wrong about us. We belong together, and I’m going to make you realize what you’re missing, whether you want to face the truth or not. I’m not taking no for an answer, so you might as well give up now. There’s only one way this is going to end, and we both know what that is.’ I’m not doing it justice. You’d think it was from someone who loved her, but the words just chilled my heart when I read them.”

I wished she still had the letter, but maybe there was something else we could learn from it. “Was it signed, by any chance?”

“It just had an A scrawled on the bottom.”

“Did you happen to glance at the envelope? I’d love to know if there was a return address, or maybe a postmark.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t check. Should I call Chief Grant and tell him about it? I would hate for it to look like I was snooping through the poor woman’s garbage just before she was murdered.”

“Call him,” I said without having to consult Jake. “If it helps the police, you’ll be doing Teresa the last favor you could do for her, and if it doesn’t matter, the chief won’t mind the interruption. Better to err on the side of caution.”

“Okay. I’ll call him right now. Thank you for the advice.”

“Thank you for the information,” I said.

I was about to hang up when she asked, “When I call the police chief, should I tell him that we spoke about this?”

I wanted to say no, but I knew that I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t fair to put that kind of burden on my friend, a woman who had enough weight on her shoulders without me adding to it. “Sure, tell him that we spoke. It’s okay with me.”

“Thanks. I hate keeping anything from him, you know?”

“I completely understand,” I said.

After we hung up, I gave Jake a brief rundown of what Miranda had told me. It was clear that he’d picked a lot of it up just from listening closely. Miranda didn’t believe in using her indoor voice, ever, and I was certain that he’d been able to get everything that had been said without my report, but I still felt better giving it.

“That’s interesting on so many levels,” Jake said after I finished.

“One thing we know for sure is that dust was left there the day she was murdered, and so was the label,” I replied. “Miranda’s a fierce cleaner. I can vouch for that.”

“I’m interested in that, too, but who is this mysterious A?”

“I don’t know. Teresa never took me into her confidence, and to be fair, I never asked her about her personal life. Whoever it was, I’m guessing that she rejected him at some point in her life, and he was ready to force his way back into it, no matter what it might take.”

“If Miranda’s memory is good, it’s not exactly a love letter, is it?”

“There seemed to be a lot of implied threats in it, but bear one thing in mind. Miranda went through a pretty nasty divorce, and her view of the men in this world might be a bit tainted,” I said. “She gave us her interpretation of that note by memory. It’s not something we can take at face value without seeing it for ourselves.”

“Maybe not, but we still need to discover who this A character is,” Jake said.

“You’re right.
Somebody
needs to,” I replied, reminding Jake that our investigation was secondary to Chief Grant’s inquiry.

“Just not me, right?” Jake asked with a grin.

“Don’t worry. There are plenty of other things we can do with our time,” I said.

“Like what? I’m open to suggestions.”

“Let me grab a quick shower and change my clothes, and I’ll see what I can come up with.”

Chapter 8

“J
ake, where did you go?”
I called out after I took my shower and put on clean clothes. The cottage we shared wasn’t that big, but even after I checked out the upstairs where I used to sleep, I still couldn’t find him.

Then I noticed that the front door was unlocked. I looked out the window and saw Jake standing on the porch speaking with someone I didn’t recognize. It was a man in his late twenties; he was wearing a nice suit, and judging by the BMW in our driveway, he had money and wasn’t afraid to spend it. I grabbed my jacket and walked outside to join them.

“Hello, I’m Suzanne,” I said as I introduced myself.

“I’m Alexander Rose,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t stay and chat, but I really must go. Thank you for the information, Jake.”

“Sure thing,” my husband said. “Will you be in town long?”

“I’m staying in Union Square at the Marriott,” he said. It was the nicest chain hotel within thirty miles of us.

“Good to know,” Jake said as Alexander got into his car and drove away.

“What was that all about, and why didn’t you invite him in?” I asked Jake as we both stepped back inside the cottage.

“I offered, but he didn’t want to stay. He heard that we were the ones who found Teresa Logan’s body, and he wanted to hear all about it.”

“Did he know her?” I asked.

“According to him, they were engaged at one time,” Jake said.

“But not still, right?” I asked incredulously. It was hard to believe that Teresa would have agreed to marry anyone, based on the way she flirted on a wholesale level.

“No. They went to law school together, and he always assumed that they’d get married when they graduated. According to him, that had been the plan all along, but she’d broken it off the night before they marched across the stage to get their diplomas.”

“So, he’s got to be A. He had to have written the note Miranda found in Teresa’s trashcan,” I said.

“That’s how I figured it, too,” Jake said.

“It’s kind of odd, him showing up like this right after she’s been murdered.”

“He told me that he heard the news when he got back to his office, and he took time off work immediately to hurry up here. He admitted to me that he’d been trying to get her back, and he claimed that just when he thought she was warming up to him again, this happened. He seemed heartbroken enough about it.”

“Do you believe him?” I asked my husband.

“The truth of the matter is that if Miranda hadn’t read that letter and shared its contents with you, I would have completely bought his story. He made a very compelling argument that everything he said was true, and I found myself giving him the benefit of the doubt. He must be one heck of an attorney, I can tell you that much. I’m not that easy to sway.”

“Even given what he told you, I’m still not sure why he’s here,” I said. “What good can possibly come from his presence, even if everything he told you was true?”

“He claims that there’s still unfinished business he had with her and that he wouldn’t be able to rest until her killer was caught, but I wonder.”

When Jake didn’t continue, I asked, “What exactly is it that you’re wondering? Would you care to share it with me?”

“Sorry. Did I not finish the thought?”

“You did not,” I said.

“I’ve been mulling over one possibility since he first introduced himself. What if he killed her himself?” Jake asked as he frowned.

“Wow, is that always the first place your mind goes?”

“What can I say? I spent too much time in my career questioning the motives of anyone even remotely connected to the case I was working on at the time. Alexander Rose appears to be angry that she was murdered, but it feels a little contrived, if you know what I mean. Maybe he’s dealing with it as best he can and my suspicions are based on nothing more than my eagerness to think the worst of people, but I don’t completely trust him.”

“Could your attitude have anything to do with his chosen profession?” I asked Jake as I took off my jacket.

“Maybe. I’ve certainly had enough cases snatched away from me at the last second by aggressive attorneys to make me mistrust the lot of them,” Jake admitted. “Anyway, he’s asked me to keep him informed, and I could swear the man actually tried to pay me for the privilege. When he found out about my background in law enforcement and that I was a private citizen now, he actually asked me if I was for hire, if you can believe that.”

“It’s not that crazy a concept,” I said. “Lots of private detectives are former cops, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know. I never really thought about it,” he admitted.

“Maybe it’s something to consider,” I said.

“I don’t know. I’d have to give it a great deal of thought, and I’m not ready to make that kind of decision right now anyway. There’s just too much going on around here at the moment. For at least the foreseeable future, I’m sticking to being an amateur. It’s an interesting perspective, to say the least. I thought I had limitations in what I could do before while I was an investigator, but I didn’t fully appreciate your constraints until I started working on this investigation with you.”

“That’s good to know,” I said. “It’s not always easy, but I don’t have to tell you how rewarding it can be when you track down a killer.”

“You don’t. That’s one of the things that gave me the most satisfaction in my former life. Are you ready to hit the ground running this morning?”

“I’m ready if you are,” I said.

“Were you able to come up with anything while you were in the shower? I’m at a loss. I’m going to keep my eye on Alexander Rose, but in the meantime, we need something to do.”

“As a matter of fact, I did have a thought.”

“I want to hear what it is, but first I need to know if it’s legal.”

“It’s fine. It’s well within the law. Probably. At least I’m pretty sure that it is.”

Jake looked at me for a few seconds before he spoke again. “Maybe you’d better tell me about it before we do anything else that we’re going to need to apologize to the police chief for.”

“I was thinking that it might not hurt to get a look at Teresa’s place and see if there’s anything there that might help us,” I said. “Surely the chief is finished with it by now.”

“You never know, but let’s say that he is. We can’t just break into the place.”

“We don’t have to,” I said with a smile. “Nick Williams, one of my customers at Donut Hearts, happens to own the house where she was living.”

“How could you possibly know that?” Jake asked me in amazement.

“Nick mentioned it when Teresa first came to town, and I filed it away in my mind, along with a hundred thousand other useless facts that I picked up working the front counter of my donut shop every week. Why don’t I give him a call?”

“Maybe we should call the chief first and see what he has to say about it,” Jake suggested.

“There might not be any need to bother him. If the place is still off limits, Nick will know, and if Stephen has released it, then we should be free to look around there ourselves.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t call the chief of police by his first name,” Jake said with a hint of a frown.

“Why not? I’ve known him forever, and we’ve done a ton of things with Grace and him socially. I find it’s odd that you keep calling him Chief yourself.”

“It’s a good way to remind myself that he’s the one who’s in charge now,” Jake said.

“Do you regret turning the job over to him?”

“No, not on your life. I don’t ever want to butt heads with you and your mother at the same time about anything ever again,” he said.

“Don’t forget, Grace and George were in the vehicle that night, too.”

“Don’t remind me,” he said. Jake had been in a position of scolding the four of us at the same time because of some unofficial investigating we were doing without his blessing, and he’d made a decision to resign his temporary position on the spot, though I suspected that he’d been giving it some consideration for some time before that. I hadn’t envied him his position, and I’d understood his desire to abdicate it, but it had left a hole in his life, and I was beginning to worry about him. “Just try, for my sake.”

“For you, I will,” I said. “in my defense, I mostly refer to him as the chief as it is, but I’ll refrain from using his name unless it’s a social occasion. So, should I call Nick?”

“Go ahead. You might as well see what he has to say,” Jake said, so I dialed his number before my husband changed his mind.

“Hey, Nick, it’s Suzanne Hart,” I said when he picked up the phone.

“I didn’t know you sold Donut Hearts,” he said unhappily. “When did that happen? If you decide to put the cottage on the market, I’ll give you a good price for it. I at least want a shot at it.”

“What are you talking about? I still own both places. Why, what have you heard?” The questions were disturbing on a few different levels. Did folks honestly think I was selling everything and leaving town? How had that rumor gotten started? Jake and I had just started talking about it the night before, and as far as I knew, no one else had been privy to the conversation.

“Nothing much really,” he said, sounding confused. “It’s just that the last two times I bought donuts at your shop, you weren’t there. When I tried to ask about it, Emma was too busy to talk. Does that mean that it’s not true?”

“Until further notice, I’m here to stay,” I said, despite Jake’s offer to relocate to wherever Momma and Phillip ended up. I had no idea if I’d take my husband up on his offer, but at the moment, I didn’t even want to think about it.

“Okay, that settles that, then,” he said. Did he sound a little disappointed hearing the news that I was staying? I honestly didn’t want to know, so I didn’t ask.

“Teresa Logan rented a place from you when she first came to town, didn’t she?”

“She did. It’s a cute little house near the hospital. Why, do you know someone who might want to rent it?” he asked eagerly.

I’d almost asked him if Jake and I could snoop around, but I suddenly had a better idea. “I might, but I’d have to see it myself before I could recommend it to my friend. Is it available right now, or do the police still have it sealed off?”

“No, they released it to me ten minutes ago. It’s still got all of Teresa’s things in it though, and I need to repaint. Give me a week, and I’ll be more than happy to show it to you and your friend.”

I hesitated before I answered and did my best to sound disappointed. “Sorry, but she’s got to move quicker than that. I’m supposed to call her tonight, and there are a few places in Union Square she might be interested in instead.” I glanced over at Jake, who was looking at me oddly, which really wasn’t all that unusual. I held up an index finger to tell him that I wouldn’t be long, and then I continued my conversation with Nick. “Thanks anyway. I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

I delayed my hang up long enough for him to stop me, but just barely. “Hold on a second. You can see it now. Suzanne, I can trust you not to take any of her stuff, can’t I?”

I wasn’t sure that I could make that promise, especially if we found anything that might help our investigation. Summoning up my best righteous indignation, I said loudly, “I can’t believe you’d even ask me that. I was going to bring my husband with me. You know, the recent chief of police? If you don’t trust me, I’m not sure I want to see it at all now.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking. Forget I said anything.” He paused a moment. “I’m tied up with something else at this moment, but I can drop off the key on my way. There’s a flowerpot on the front porch, so I’ll leave it under there. Just lock up and put it back when you’re through, and I’ll get it later.”

“That sounds good to me,” I said.

“Don’t you even want to know how much the rent is?” he asked me curiously.

I suppose that was a question I should have asked if I’d really had a friend interested in renting the place. “First things first. If I like what I see, then we can discuss money.”

“Oh, you’ll love it,” he said.

“We’ll see about that.”

After I hung up, Jake asked, “Suzanne, is there something I should know about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you just make an appointment to see another place to live, or were you just working an angle to get us in?”

“It’s an angle. Trust me, you’re not getting rid of me that easily,” I said with a laugh.

“That’s a relief,” he said. “I take it that the place is free now?”

“It will be by the time we get there,” I said as I grabbed my Jeep keys. “Come on. I’ll drive.”

“That’s fine with me. I spent so much time on the road driving places alone, it’s nice to have someone else chauffeuring me around town.”

“Just think of it as part of the service,” I said with a grin, “but you’ll have to get your own car door. That’s where I draw the line.”

“I think I can handle that,” he replied.