Pinned for Murder (24 page)

“Mr. Fielding?”

“The insurance man who came by today to assess the damage from Tropical Storm Roger.” She wandered across the room only to turn back and retrace her steps. “He started asking questions.”

“Who did? The insurance guy?”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I know I’m rambling.” She raised her arms into the air and then clasped them over her head for a moment. “Curtis started asking questions about everything in the room—the murals, the books, the costumes, the stage, you name it. He loved it all.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

She shrugged. “Anyway, we got to talking about the few little things I still wanted in the room. I told him about the brackets and the curtain, the table and the chairs—” She stopped suddenly, her gaze fixed on her friend’s. “I
told
him, Margaret Louise. I told him each of the items I wanted.”

Understanding dawned on the woman’s plump face and she nodded slowly.

“Now that doesn’t explain how he could know the exact cost but—”

“I reckon it does.” Margaret Louise struggled out of the chair and headed toward the one behind Tori’s desk. “He saw the catalogue, probably knew tax wasn’t an issue, and he added it up.”

She stared at her friend. “What do you mean he saw the catalogue? When? How?”

“Don’t you remember I told you about Dixie and how she still gets that catalogue? That she just got that same copy the other day at the post office?”

“I think so . . .”

“I even told you she’d dragged some poor soul into the corner just so she could show him everything inside.”

It sounded vaguely familiar, so she nodded.

“Well, that was Curtis.”

Tori swallowed over the lump that sprang in her throat. So maybe she wasn’t such a nut after all . . .

“ ’Course I thought she was bendin’ his ear. Never thought he was takin’ notes.”

Taking notes.

Tori held her hands up. “But wait a minute. Seeing that catalogue might explain how he knew the cost of the table and chairs . . . but”—she worried her lip inward—“that doesn’t explain how he hit the nail on the head with the brackets and curtain. Especially when the curtain is from some specialty Web site Leona found on the—”

Leona
.

It was the final card. It all made sense now.

“Margaret Louise, do you think you could find out whether Leona discussed the curtain with Curtis?”

The woman nodded. “Can I use your phone?”

“Absolutely. Just press line two.”

Five minutes later they had their confirmation.

But was it enough? Could they take the wish list and the donation amount to the police chief and have it be enough to get Kenny released?

“I say we march over to Adelaide Walker’s right now and ask him. See if his face turns red as a beet. ’Cause that’s the way to spot a liar no matter how old someone is. I used it on Jake when he was a young-un and I use it on his
own
young-uns now. Works like a charm.”

She had no doubt it would. But if they were right, and they confronted him, would he simply turn and run? Or, worse yet, would he strike out at one of them?

“I don’t know, Margaret Louise, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

The woman pushed off the desk chair, patting her fanny pack as she met Tori at the door. “I’ve got a can of Mace and I know how to use it.”

There were a million reasons why they should go straight to the police. And they all made perfect sense from a logical standpoint.

But there was some merit to Margaret Louise’s suggestion. It would get them the kind of answers they were seeking in a more expedient route, which, in turn, would enable them to bring much-needed peace to Rose in the same fashion.

“Let’s do it.”

A look of surprise flashed across Margaret Louise’s face, only to be chased away by a mischievous smile to rival all others. “Are you sure?”

“Sure as I’ll ever be.” Grabbing her purse and keys, she picked up the phone and punched in the code for the information desk. “Nina, I’ve got to take care of an important matter. I’ll be back before closing. If for some reason I’m not, then”—she stole a glance in Margaret Louise’s direction, the woman’s excitement nearly contagious—“contact Chief Dallas. Tell him he’s got the wrong man.”

“The wrong man?” Nina repeated in her ear, worry evident in every nuance of her assistant’s voice.

“The wrong man. Tell him it’s Curtis . . . the man who was working for Martha Jane until her death.”

Chapter 22

It was funny how an idea could seem to be smart one minute and, well, not so smart the next. The timing of that realization, though, needed to be a little better.

“Do you think this is such a good idea?” she asked as she followed Margaret Louise down the sidewalk and up Adelaide Walker’s front steps. “I mean, do you think maybe Chief Dallas might be more effective at getting the truth? It
is
possible the red-face trick won’t work on Curtis.”

“It’ll work. It always works.” Pausing her knuckles just inches from the elderly woman’s front door, Margaret Louise turned and met her eye. “Did you hear that?”

Tori looked side to side. “No. What was I supposed to hear?”

A soft tapping in the distance brought a grin to her friend’s face. “That.”

“Oh. Yeah, I heard that.”

“I think that’s our man.”

She froze.

“Somethin’ wrong, Victoria?”

“I—I . . .” She stopped, swallowed, and started again, this time with a voice that sounded a little less hesitant. “Let me do the talking, okay?”

The woman’s shoulders slumped. “Really? I’ve been rehearsin’ what I’d say the whole way over.”

Tori laughed, the sound as much of a motivator as the feeling that evoked it. “You can rehearse and gab at the same time?”

“I can do many, many things at the same time, Victoria.”

Slipping her arm around the woman’s shoulders, she tugged her to her side. “I know. And you do them all well. It’s just that—well, I want to confront him . . . if you’ll be my backup.”

Once roles were set and a basic plan formulated, they walked down the steps and around to the backyard, the sound of their feet barely discernable against the soft breeze that rustled the tree branches overhead. “Curtis?” she called. “Curtis, are you here?”

His head popped around the corner of the house. “Right here.” As his gaze settled on Tori’s, a tentative smile spread across his face, softening his features. “What can I do for you, ladies?”

“Well, we”—Tori motioned to the woman trailing her heels—“wanted to thank you. Your generosity was unexpected and wonderful all at the same time.”

He slid his hammer into his tool belt and looked a question at them.

“In this day and age it’s plumb hard to find someone so willin’ to part with their assets simply to help someone else. In fact, it’s mighty refreshin’, young man.” Margaret Louise slapped a hand over her mouth as her eyebrows raised upward with glee. “Just don’t go tellin’ that twin of mine I called you that. She’d have my head.”

A smile did little to dispel the confusion on his face.

“I have all the item numbers written out on a pad of paper beside the phone. I’ll call those in just as soon as I get back to work.” She stole a glance in Margaret Louise’s direction, the woman’s unzipped fanny pack providing some relief as she contemplated her next words. “And I’ll stop by Leona’s this evening to get the ball rolling on the curtain.”

His jaw tightened a smidge as she continued on, her words taking on a distinctly friendly tone. “The only thing I don’t know much about are the brackets. Will those be tough to attach to the top of the stage?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said through teeth that were suddenly clenched. “What brackets? What curtain?”

Margaret Louise stepped forward, her pudgy hand slipping into her fanny pack. “Sure you do. And there’s no sense in continuin’ this modesty of yours. You did a good thing donatin’ that money to the library and the collection booth. We needed it. Didn’t we, Victoria?”

She nodded, her gaze fixed on Curtis. “We did.”

“We needed it much more ’n she did, didn’t we?”

Again, she nodded. “Robin Hood knew what he was doing, and so did you. It’s a shame we don’t have more like you around.”

Curtis shifted from foot to foot, his gaze moving between the two women with rapid speed. “I didn’t—I mean, I—”

“We know you stole it, Curtis. Kenny told us.”

Tori’s head snapped to the right as she stared at her friend and cohort. “He did?”

Margaret Louise stared back, her eyes narrowing on Tori’s face as her own sported a telltale shade of red. “He did. He told me this morning . . . when I stopped by the station to see if he needed anything.”

The man’s face drained of all color as he wrapped his hand around the handle of his hammer. “Look . . . I didn’t know what else to do. I figured if I called, they’d think it was me. One look in their computer system and they’d think it was me.”

Tori looked from Curtis to Margaret Louise and back again, the man’s words not at all what she’d expected. “What are you talking about?”

Raking a hand through his nearly nonexistent hair, he dropped onto the patio and leaned against the house, his voice shaking as he rushed to explain. “Who is going to believe the drifter in town?”

“Believe the drifter about what?”

“That he wasn’t the one who strangled the old lady on the floor?”

She grabbed hold of Margaret Louise’s arm for support. “What are you talking about?”

“That woman—Mizz Barker. She was dead when I found her.”

The women stared at one another before turning, simultaneously, back to Curtis. “She was already dead?”

He nodded, his hand shaking as he finally pulled it from his hair. “I went looking for her because she hadn’t paid me yet. I’d asked her that morning but all she did was holler at me for some tree I hadn’t cut low enough. Then, after the tree, it was a piece of siding she saw dangling. And so it went . . . all day long.”

“That sounds like Martha Jane,” Margaret Louise mused. “Go on, we’re listenin’.”

“Once I had everything done that she’d badgered me about, I knocked on her door. When she didn’t answer, I knocked again. And still she didn’t answer. About that time I began to wonder if she ever had any intention of paying me . . . I mean, I’d heard the way she talked about me to you”—he motioned toward Tori—“that first day. She hated me.”

She wanted to argue but she didn’t. He was right. Martha Jane had thought very little of her employee.

“She hated most people.” Margaret Louise. “It was just the way she was.”

Curtis shrugged, his words continuing even as he fixed his focus somewhere in the distance, as if he was revisiting the day in question. “So I tried the door and it was open. I called to her as I went inside but she never answered. And as I walked through the house, calling her name, I found myself getting madder and madder with each step I took.”

“And then what?” Tori prompted, her mind torn between the believability of the man’s words and facial expression, and her desire to wipe the hurt and worry from Rose’s eyes once and for all.

“I found her. Lying faceup on her bedroom floor, that heavy rope Kenny was using wrapped around her neck.”

Tori closed her eyes as the man’s words formed an image to match.

“Why didn’t you call someone?” Margaret Louise asked as she placed her hands on her hips. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

He propped his head in his hands for several moments, his silence giving them time to exchange looks. The problem was, neither of them knew what to believe.

Finally he spoke, his voice muffled. “Unlike Doug, I’m not a drifter because I like moving all the time. I’m a drifter because no one who requires an application will ever hire me.”

“Why not?” Tori asked, her curiosity on overdrive.

“Because I embezzled money from my last employer.”

Margaret Louise sucked in her breath while Tori simply processed the man’s words. “Why aren’t you in jail?”

“It was my brother-in-law. He didn’t push for maximum penalty out of respect for my sister. But he’s made sure I’ll never get a job again.”

“And you figured the cops wouldn’t believe you about Martha Jane because of that charge?”

He looked up, his jaw tight once again. “I didn’t
figure
. I
know
. Once a criminal, always a criminal.”

She mulled his words. “Are you going to tell us you didn’t take her money?”

His face turned red.

Margaret Louise beamed. “See? I told you. Works for ’em whether they’re five or thirty-five.”

Rolling her eyes, she turned back to Curtis. “Well? Are you?”

He shook his head. “I took it.”

“Why?”

“Because she owed me.”

“She didn’t owe you that much,” she stated frankly.

“You’re right, she didn’t. But when I opened that drawer and I saw all those bundles of hundreds, I couldn’t leave them there. She was dead. She wasn’t going to need them anymore anyway, so what difference did it make?”

“It wasn’t yours, son,” Margaret Louise stated matter-of-factly. “That’s the difference.”

His face flushed still redder. “But it’s not like I hoarded it for myself. I spread it around . . . to people and places that needed it more than either of us did.”