Murder at the Blue Plate Café (A Blue Plate Café Mystery) (19 page)

I was running on anger as I turned into the side street where William Overton had his office/home combination. It was a modest house, like a guesthouse. I’d never been there but Tom told me he kept his office in the living room and lived in the bedroom.

Without knocking, I burst through the door. Overton was sitting hunched at his desk. The walls behind him were covered with diplomas, CPA certificates, and the like. I spotted a framed document certifying him as an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. Eagle Scouts don’t cheat, I thought wryly.

“Miss Kate? Ah…this is a surprise. What can I do for you?” He half stood, and his face turned even paler than it usually was. His eyes looked anywhere but directly at me.

I marched straight to his desk, ignoring the folding chairs he set out for clients—really classy office this. “You can explain the difference between the balances you wrote on a piece of paper for me and what the bank shows as my balance, especially in the payroll account. And you can tell me what happened to the money Gram thought she was donating to the city.”

He
steepled
his fingers in front of his face and stared up at me, obviously thinking. He’d look at me for a minute and then down at his fingers. It was as though I could see his mind whirling, trying to come up with what to say. He stammered a few times and then fell silent again.

I refused to retreat one inch. Finally, he said, “I…I told you your grandmother decided to stop the donations.” He took a deep breath and rushed on, like a swimmer plunging into deep water. “And as for the discrepancy, I did give you those figures from memory. Foolish of me. I should have waited to check the books.” He made a nervous gesture toward an open ledger on his desk.

“Check the books!” I exploded. “You know I’d never let the payroll account get that low. You should have caught that.”

“Uh, won’t you sit down, Miss Kate?” Now he was stalling, his mind obviously seeking a solution to this problem—me—that had barged into his office.

I was heady with strength. There was nothing this weasel could do to me, and I had him dead to rights. “No, I won’t. I know the accounts are short, and an audit will show the withdrawals I don’t know about. At the same time, an investigation will demonstrate that Gram continued to designate money for the city after you stopped paying the donations. You’re going to jail for embezzlement and murder. You killed my grandmother!” I was practically shrieking by now.

He rose slowly. “Now, now, let’s not be hysterical.” Suddenly his hesitation and confusion seemed gone, and I wondered what scheme he’d thought up.

“You killed Gram. She’d given you a chance to get established in a new town, and you killed her!”

A pained look crossed his face. He reached into the top drawer of his desk, and his hand came out pointing a gun at me. Too late I realized that I should have tackled him or something before he had this chance. Now I sat transfixed, more amazed than afraid, though fear would come in a minute. I’m no expert on guns—all I knew was it was small and steel and cold looking. In the next moment I was paralyzed with fear, but then Gram talked to me, “Child, you can’t let him get away with this. You must save yourself.” I think I said aloud, “Okay, Gram, I’m not going to let this weasel of a man kill me, and I by gosh won’t going to let him get away with our money.”

Overton jumped at my words and then smiled maliciously. “Your grandmother can’t help you now, Kate. I’m sorry about this.” He didn’t sound one bit sorry. “I knew all along you would be trouble. That’s why I had someone cut your brake lines in Dallas.”

“You what?” I was astounded. I knew in the back of my mind that Rob had not done that, but I never ever thought Overton was that scheming and vicious, maybe desperate. “You had someone cut the lines?”

Holding the gun, he said, “I could’ve handled Donna. She’s a dimwit. But you were bound to catch on. When you survived, I made plans to take what I could and leave.”

So many things began to make sense to me that I was astounded at how dense I’d been, how many little things I’d overlooked. Overton had been overly solicitous when news got out about my brake failure. I should have picked up on that. It dawned on me I wasn’t dealing with a milquetoast at all but with a cold, calculating mind, if not a very firm personality. Maybe I could capitalize on his…what? Insecurity? Uncertainty?

“Put that away,” I said.
Fake it, Kate. Don’t let him think you’re afraid!
“You don’t have the nerve to use it.” My tone was deliberately as scornful as I could make it.

“Don’t be too sure.” He was calm and cool now, sure he had the situation in control. “I used a similar one on Irv
Litman
. It was, ah, very effective.”

Edging toward the door, I asked, “Why would you kill Irv?” I was stalling, looking around for something, anything that I could throw at him, but his bare office, with no decorations, offered little help unless I could hoist one of the chairs, and I doubted that. I was getting closer to the door though.

“Ah, Mr.
Litman
and I were…acquainted in Dallas. He knew, uh, that I had lost my CPA license for embezzling.” His eyes left me for a nanosecond to linger on the framed certificate. “It’s no longer valid,” he said, “but I couldn’t have Irv around to tell people that.”

By now I was really close to the door, getting ready to bolt.

“Stop,” he commanded, raising the gun just a bit. I noticed, I guess with encouragement, that his hand shook. Then again, maybe that was bad. “We’re leaving together. Walk out the door in a normal fashion and get in my car in the driveway.”

Any woman who’s had an ounce of self-preservation training knows you never, ever, get in the car. It’s like signing a death warrant. I was betting he wouldn’t shoot me on the streets of Wheeler. Now I was the one whose brain was whirling, but I pretended to comply, stepping out on the porch just ahead of him. Then in one sudden but oh so calculated movement I stumbled on purpose, grabbed a pot of petunias and heaved it in his face. Only later would I laugh at the irony of that bare bones office having petunias on the porch—wilting ones at that.

Without looking back, I took off running down the street, zigzagging—hadn’t I heard a moving target is harder to hit? All the time I was waving my arms and yelling like a crazy person. My back prickled, and I expected a bullet to come zinging my way any minute. My heart was pounding, my lungs protesting with every step. I had to stop yelling to catch my breath. Behind me I heard, “Stop, you bitch, or I’ll shoot.” It didn’t sound to me like he’d moved, and I didn’t hear footsteps, but maybe my hearing was distorted by the blood pounding in my ears.

Sidewalks in Wheeler are old and uneven, and I tripped, scraping my knees and the palms of my hands. For a second I was tempted to lie flat to the ground and see what happened, but I didn’t dare. But I managed a peek over my shoulder. Overton was standing there, the gun pointing limply in my direction but more toward the ground. He had a puzzled expression on his face. I didn’t move.

Sirens screamed, a car screeched to a halt, and I heard a familiar voice.

“Drop the gun, Overton,” Rick Samuels ordered. Rick had assumed that stance you see on detective shows, feet apart, hands holding the gun in front of him. I had no doubt he could hit his target with ease. Overton’s attention had completely shifted from me, and I used the moment to struggle to my feet.

Overton mumbled something and then suddenly put the gun to the side of his head and pulled the trigger. There was the gunshot I’d dreaded, but the victim was not me, not Rick. William Overton lay still on the ground—half of his head was gone. The only thing that kept me from retching was the distance I had run—I couldn’t see closely and didn’t intend to move any closer. I was frozen. But my heart began to slow its frantic pace, my stomach stopped lurching, and my breath came more evenly instead of in ragged gasps. Rick stood over the body. He didn’t even bother to try for a pulse.

More sirens, and then Rick came slowly toward me. “Kate?” If I expected comfort and sympathy, I didn’t get it. “What in God’s name made you take a risk like that? Why didn’t you call me?”

I drew myself together. “You’d have said I was on a witch hunt.”

“Your hands are bleeding,” Rick said sensibly. “And is that blood on your pants?”

“Probably. I fell.” I looked down. Not only was there blood but one good pair of chinos was ruined, torn at the knee. When I began to walk, I limped a bit, and I wasn’t going to tell Rick, but my hands did sting.

“You’ll have to come to the station and make a statement, but go home and clean up first. I’ll meet you there. Or do you want me to drive you home?”

I wanted to have a stiff upper lip and say I’d walk, but both my hands and my knee really hurt. “Yes, please.”

“Come get in the patrol car. I’ll just be a moment.” He got me seated in the car, gave me a long look I couldn’t interpret, and turned back to Overton’s office, where the ambulance drivers were loading Overton into a body bag. One of them looked the other way and looked to me like he might wretch.

****

Gram used to put iodine on our cuts and scraped knees when we were little. I remembered that I’d left the bottle in the medicine cupboard when I’d cleaned out all Gram’s things. I washed my hands and knees first with soap and water—that alone stung enough. Then the iodine, which stung like fire. I put a band-aid over the worst cut on my knee so it wouldn’t ruin another pair of pants, and looked at the chinos I’d been wearing. They were beyond repair. I relegated them to housecleaning cloths.

Then I sat at the kitchen table with a cup of tea, staring out into the yard, occasionally reaching down to pat
Huggles
, who sensed my distress and was ready to jump into my lap to comfort me if I’d let him. It began to hit me that I’d nearly been killed—again. It still didn’t seem real. And I’d seen a man die, a man I’d just talked to, a man I’d met with every week for months. The fact that he was going to kill me faded into the distance. I’d had too much death lately—Gram, Irv, and now Overton. Finally, I dragged myself into action.

Dressed in clean clothes, I stopped by the café, intending to tell the staff that I’d be delayed and they’d have to handle the noon customers themselves. I planned to say there’d been a bit of trouble in town. I needn’t have worried.

“So Overton shot himself,”
Marj
said. “It’s all over town. I knew I didn’t trust him. I told your grandma she was making a big mistake.” Then she stopped to look at me. “You okay,
hon
? You look a might pale.”

“No, I’m fine. Just a bit upset. Try to keep a lid on the gossip,
Marj
. I’ll be back when I can.”

Rick was in his office and ushered me right in. At his request, I reviewed the entire morning, a review that took longer than I expected.

“So you did it! You found out who killed your grandmother and poisoned the mayor. I should be huffing and puffing because you stole my responsibilities, but my hat’s off to you, Kate.” If I’d wanted a warm fuzzy hug, I wasn’t going to get it. He had his official hat on now.

“I had some information I didn’t share with you,” I said reluctantly. “Gram’s financial records. There’s a lot of money missing. I’m hoping you can freeze Overton’s account, though now that he’s dead I don’t know who would try to touch it.”

“You never know. I’ll get the JP to act on it. I’ll have to do a search for nearest of kin.”

I nodded. “The problem is, Rick, I didn’t clear Donna. I made it worse for her.”

He was honest enough not to deny it. “We’ve got no proof that he killed
Litman
, no link to them. Donna’s still our best suspect.”

“I know he killed him, and I know why. But you have only my word against whatever, now that he’s not here to testify in his own defense. He told me, just before he tried to usher me into his car that he killed Irv because Irv knew him from Dallas, knew he’d been caught embezzling and had his CPA license revoked, something I’m pretty sure Gram didn’t know. That explains what Donna said to me about Irv telling her it takes one to know one.”

Rick rubbed his chin, looked thoughtful, and said nothing—for so long I began to fidget. Finally, “We’ll have to see where Donna’s lawyer can take this. If I’d known you were going to do this, I could have put a wire on you. But of course if I’d known, I wouldn’t have let you do it.”

Rick had actually, with my prior knowledge and consent, taped our conversation, so all of this was part of the record. He switched the recorder off and said, “Kate, go home. Get some rest.”

“No,” I said stubbornly. “I’ve got to go see Donna, and then I’ve got to go to the café. I haven’t been there at all today.”

“Did it ever occur to you that the café will survive if you miss a day?”

I shook my head and stood up. My knee was stiffening again, and I hated to limp in front of him, but I couldn’t help it.