Hollyhock Ridge (24 page)

“And in return, I help you set up a spa in the basement of
the Eldridge Inn.”

“Exactly.”

Claire was tempted. It would be so wonderful not to have Pip
underfoot for a while. Knowing Pip, she had no illusions about it being a
permanent placement, but it might last six months.

“Can I think about it?”

“I’ll give you twenty-four hours,” Gwyneth said.

Claire’s feet were so sore she wanted nothing more than to
go home, take a hot shower, and go straight to bed. As she passed the newspaper
office, however, Ed came outside and stopped her.

“Can you come in for a minute?” he asked her. “I’d like to
talk to you.”

“Is Eve here?” Claire asked.

“No,” Ed said. “She’s working.”

Claire came inside and sat down at the work table in the
middle of the front room. She was so tired she could barely function.

“Bakery work is brutal, I’m guessing,” he said.

“I’m out of shape,” Claire said. “I need to start running
again.”

“Anytime you’re ready I’m ready,” Ed said.

“Let’s say tomorrow,” Claire said. “I may cancel, but let’s
pretend I’ll follow through and see what happens.”

“I wanted to thank you for the information you got from
Knox’s phone. I was able to get to the person he talked to at the bank before
Sarah did. He was checking on an application he had made for a loan against his
home. He was denied, of course. You don’t fire someone for misappropriating
funds and coercing a bank board for personal gain and then turn around and give
him a loan.”

“Only Knox was arrogant enough to think that could work for
him.”

Claire told Ed about her phone call to Anne Marie, and he
took notes. She did not tell him about the vision Anne Marie had.

“Neither the bank or the attorneys will talk to me, of
course,” Ed said, “and neither Stuart nor Trick will return my phone calls.”

“That leaves Marigold,” Claire said.

“She said her call was about a committee Knox and she are
on,” Ed said. “He didn’t answer, she didn’t leave a message, and he didn’t
return her call.”

“So we know he was alive at 12:20 p.m., when he called his
brother,” Claire said. “The call Pip made to Knox was at 12:52. When I called
Frieda, she said Pip had left five minutes before, and it only takes about five
minutes to get from her house to Knox’s, so sometime between 12:20 a.m. and around
1:00 p.m., when Pip found him, someone killed Knox.”

“Unless Trick killed him, and then had Sandy call from
Knox’s cell phone to give him an alibi.”

“You don’t really think Trick is smart enough to think that
up, or that Sandy would go along with it.”

“No, I guess not.”

“At least that narrows it down,” Claire said. “I’d like to
know where Meredith was during those 40 minutes.”

They were both quiet for a few moments, thinking through the
series of events on Knox’s last day.

“My brain hurts,” Claire said. “I need to go home, take a
shower, and go to bed.”

“Eve told me about the senator,” Ed said.

Claire was taken aback, and it took her a moment to organize
her thoughts.

“What did she say?”

“The affair started when she spent a week with him working
on a profile piece,” he said. “She said she didn’t want there to be any secrets
between us.”

“That’s admirable.”

“You aren’t surprised, I see.”

“No, I knew all about it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It felt like tattling,” Claire said. “It felt like a petty
thing a jealous ex-girlfriend would do, and not a good friend.”

“There’s still a chance the child’s mine,” Ed said. “And
even if it isn’t, I want it to be raised as mine.”

“I understand,” Claire said. “I do. I understand it, I
accept it, and I support your decision, if not 100 percent wholeheartedly, then
at least 85 percent, which, I’m sorry, is probably the best I can do.”

“I appreciate that you were looking out for me.”

“We’re friends, Ed,” Claire said. “At least I hope we still
are.”

“Of course we are.”

“Before I go, I want to say this, and you can take my advice
or leave it,” Claire said. “You’re more valuable to Eve than she wants you to
think.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“It’s true,” Claire said. “Right now you have all the power
in the relationship, and you don’t even realize it. If you tell her how you
want it to be, and she doesn’t agree, you don’t have to cooperate.”

“But I want the kid.”

“Tell her you’re prepared to sue for custody and demand a
DNA test,” Claire said. “That should get her maternity panties in a twist.”

“Wow,” he said. “You seem very sweet, Claire, but underneath
you’re actually a cutthroat pirate of a girl, aren’t you?”

“There are some things I need to tell you about my own
past,” Claire said. “Some things I’m not too proud of. Since we’re putting
everything out here on the table, I’d like to get that over with.”

“You’re entitled to your privacy,” Ed said.

“No,” Claire said. “My father used to say you shouldn’t
complain about being robbed if you make your living as a thief.”

“I have a hard time picturing you as even a metaphorical
thief.”

“That’s what I want to address,” Claire said. “I want you to
know who I am.”

“Do you want a beer, first?”

“Yeah, I think I better have one,” Claire said. “Bring two,
actually; I may need them both.”

After she left the newspaper office, Claire went back down
Rose Hill Avenue, and just happened to look into the tea room to see if
Meredith was there. She had her nose pressed to the window and didn’t hear
Laurie until he was right next to her.

“Hey,” he said. “Find any dead executives lately?”

Claire jumped, her heart thumping, and she must have been
down to her last nerve, because it infuriated her all out of proportion.

“Been to the bottom of any vodka bottles lately?” she asked
him.

“The office was covered.”

“You could have died, Laurie.”

“It’s a lot like Russian roulette,” he said. “I just prefer
spirits to firearms.”

“That’s not funny,” Claire said. “You can’t go on this way.”

“A momentary lapse of focus,” he said. “It won’t happen
again.”

Claire took a deep breath, and reminded herself how
compassionate she had planned to be in regard to other people’s battles. It
wasn’t always easy.

“I’m concerned,” she said. “What
did
happen?”

“My life,” Laurie said. “Do we have to talk about this? Can’t
I just buy you some flowers or a pair of shoes with some Italian man’s name on
them, and we can put this behind us?”

“Yeah, because I’m just some shallow, stupid little woman,”
Claire said.

“I’d apologize,” he said, “but what I’d really like to do is
change the subject.”

“Fine,” Claire said. “Your alcoholism is beginning to bore
me, anyway.”

There were a few moments of tense silence, heavy as a
thundercloud. She crossed her arms, sighed, and rolled her eyes. Laurie looked
as if he were counting to ten, as if he felt the same. If they were each so
mad, so fed up with each other, then why didn’t one of them just walk away?

“So, you went up to Knox’s house to stop Pip from
blackmailing Knox …” he finally said.

His tone was quiet, detached, and polite, but barely so.

“I thought Knox might do something to Pip, like shoot him
and then say it was in self-defense or something. I don’t know; it was an
impulse.”

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“I gave Sarah my statement at the scene and you got Pip’s
last night.”

“But you didn’t give yours to me,” he said. “Go slowly, take
your time.”

Claire took a deep breath and blew it out. She told him
everything she could remember, but she didn’t mention her amateur detective
work. He didn’t speak until she mentioned the hundred dollar bill.

“They said there was nothing in his wallet,” Laurie said.
“Big self-important guy like that probably carried around a big wad of cash,
don’t you think?”

Claire shrugged. She wasn’t supposed to know Knox was broke,
so she couldn’t say anything about it.

“Didn’t you talk to Sarah about the case?” she asked.

“She basically said ‘Stay out of the way and we’ll handle
it.’ ”

“The county always takes over when there’s a suspicious
death,” Claire said. “That’s the way it is here.”

“Whoever was driving the sedan wasn’t at all worried about
being seen,” Laurie said. “I think that was more of a harassment tool than a
murder-for-hire. Any idea who’d want to kill the guy?”

Claire told him about the conversation she overheard between
Knox, his brother, Trick, and former mayor, Stuart Machalvie.

“What a charming fellow,” Laurie said. “You think one of the
other two might have done it?”

“Stuart’s capable but I can’t see Trick doing it,” Claire
said. “He’s more the whiny little brother who always screws everything up but
thinks it’s just bad luck.”

“Sounds like Knox is a bigger liability to the congressman
and senator.”

“He never cared who he stepped on to get ahead,” Claire
said. “He made a lot of enemies.”

“What about you?” Laurie said. “Any reason you’d like to see
Humpty Dumpty have a great fall?”

“He put my parents in a ridiculous balloon mortgage,” she
said. “When I found out about it I went up to his office and decked him.”

Laurie’s solemn face broke into a delighted smile.

“You socked ole Roly Poly Rodefeffer?”

“I did,” Claire said. “I also rescued his second wife out of
his office safe.”

“This, I need to hear,” Laurie said.

Claire told him the story of how Meredith disappeared and
Knox’s first wife, Anne Marie, told Claire he used to lock her up in the room-size
safe behind his office when he was mad at her.

“Hannah and I went up there, and while Hannah wrestled with
Courtenay, the secretary he was having an affair with, I found the safe and let
Meredith out. Knox arrived right as I released her, and she attacked him with a
coin box; put him in the hospital.”

Claire shared what Scott had told her about Meredith
threatening to kill Knox.

“So it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch to imagine her
whacking him on the head,” he said. “So this was the same Courtenay who was
living with Pip when she was murdered?”

“Anne Marie’s assistant said it was Knox and Anne Marie who put
him up to it.”

“What do you think?”

“I heard Anne Marie tell him to take care of Courtenay, but
she didn’t say to kill her.”

“How did you overhear this?”

“I was hiding under a bed in the Eldridge Inn,” Claire said.

“You’re going to have to explain that a little more
thoroughly,” Laurie said. “Can we go somewhere and get a cup of coffee or
something?”

Claire hesitated.

“Please,” Laurie said. “I know the county has this case, but
it happened on my watch. How can I look Scott in the eye when he returns if I
haven’t at least made an attempt to figure out who killed the big lug?”

“All right,” Claire said.

“Your house? My house?”

“The station,” Claire said.

“Probably safer that way,” Laurie said. “I hadn’t realized
how violent your temper is.”

Back at the station, Skip was playing some sort of Internet
game on the computer and Frank was taking a nap on the sofa in the chief’s
office. Laurie shut the break room door behind them.

“I hate to disturb Crockett and Tubbs while they’re working
on a case,” he said.

Claire made the coffee, and while it was dripping she washed
two mugs for them to use.

“Just a few more days,” Laurie said. “You won’t have to put
up with me much longer.”

“I’m not going to pretend with you,” Claire said. “If you
don’t stop drinking you’re going to lose that job, or kill yourself.”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about it.”

“Fine,” she said, and told him the story of Anne Marie
coming to Rose Hill to hold a seminar in the Eldridge Inn.

Gwyneth had hired Claire to set up a temporary spa space in
the basement of the inn, and while working there, Claire had been privy to some
private conversations between Meredith and Anne Marie, and Anne Marie and her
assistant, Jeremy. It was while Anne Marie was in town that Knox’s Aunt Mamie
and Courtenay both died under suspicious circumstances.

“I was there when Trick found his Aunt Mamie dead,” Claire
said.

“You’ve been back here for four months and you’ve found how
many corpses?”

“Just four,” Claire said. “My friend Tuppy, Mamie, Diedre, and
Knox.”

“That’s more than I’ve seen in the past four months, and
that’s part of my job.”

“I can’t help it,” Claire said. “It just happened that way.”

“Where is Meredith now?”

“I think she’s in town, trying to sell the tea room,” Claire
said.

“I wonder if she still has a key to the house.”

“He probably changed the locks after she tried to kill him.”

“I’d like to see what the county has on this,” he said.

“Sarah’s still sweet on you,” Claire said. “Buy her a pair
of shoes, why don’t you?”

“You still sore about that?” Laurie asked. “I thought you
were through with me.”

“I’ve been trying to be through with you. Lord knows why I
can’t just walk away.”

“You love a lost cause? You’ve always been attracted to the
antihero?”

“If you drink because of your grief over the death of your
first wife, I can understand.”

“I had this problem way before I married her.”

Claire was surprised by this confession. She had the urge to
snap at him, but he looked so vulnerable and miserable, all her righteous
indignation evaporated.

“When did it start?”

“In college,” he said. “Everyone partied, some much worse
than me. Most of them got it together after we graduated; I just learned to
hide it better.”