Sketcher in the Rye: (22 page)

“What about my ice cream?” Eloise whined, sounding like she was a foot stomp away from a full-blown tantrum. Olga was forced into action. With an unmistakable sigh of frustration, she bundled her charge off to the kitchen.

“The ice cream is in the freezer,” Rory called after them.

Chapter 27

“The marshal is a good-looking man,” Helene said, putting the juice glasses in the sink.

Rory was carrying the container back to the refrigerator. “Zeke?” she said, stopping in her tracks.

“Yes, don't look at me like that. I know he's older than you are, but he can't be
that
much older.”

Rory laughed. “I've just never thought of him that way. He's a friend, that's all.” She knew plenty of people would have accepted her answer and moved on, but she should have realized that her aunt wasn't one of them. Helene leaned back against the sink, arms folded across her chest, waiting for the truth. But Rory knew there was a good chance she wouldn't like the truth if she did hear it. As open-minded as Helene always seemed to be, believing in ghosts required a vastly different sort of open mind. Rory knew from experience. Accepting the existence of ghosts meant rethinking the possibility that other paranormal phenomena might also be real, and that was a daunting prospect.

“You don't know Zeke like I do,” she said, stowing the juice in the refrigerator. “He can be as stubborn as a mule. And don't even get me started on his views regarding women. He could make a peace-loving feminist homicidal.”

Helene shook her head. “I'm sure you're exaggerating. Besides, if you're looking for Mr. Perfect, I can save you the trouble, honey. He doesn't exist.”

“I don't want a man who's perfect,” Rory responded. “If he was, he'd never be able to put up with me.”

“Listen, I'm not trying to give you a hard time,” Helene said, putting her hand on Rory's arm. “And above all, I want you to find the right person. But if Aaron's got competition, maybe he should know about it. He's a great guy. In fact if I were only a few decades younger . . .”

So that's where this was going. “Don't worry,” Rory said, “Aaron doesn't have any competition. But that doesn't mean I'm ready to marry the guy either,” she added quickly. “We're barely off the starting blocks.” She locked eyes with her aunt. “So don't you give him any false expectations.”

Helene seemed taken aback. “Who, me?”

***

Rory planned to be at Harper Farms before the end of Luke's workday. She would have loved to stop for an extra-large coffee with a shot of espresso, since she had no idea how late she'd be out. But she'd learned an uncomfortable lesson early on in her career as a PI. A successful stakeout or tailing of a suspect required an empty bladder. So she bought caffeine pills instead of coffee, along with an assortment of snacks to munch on. She'd borrowed her mother's nondescript gray sedan, which looked like half the other cars on the road. It was perfect for the job. The red convertible she'd inherited from her uncle Mac would have been far too easy to spot. One day she'd have to give it up and buy a more practical vehicle for her line of work, but she wasn't ready to part with it yet.

She arrived at Harper Farms at three thirty. There were only a handful of cars in the parking lot. With winter around the corner, no one was buying outdoor plants or fertilizer to green up their hibernating lawns. The folks who were there had mostly come to purchase produce or items from the deli and bakery counters.

Early on in her investigation, Rory had asked Gil for a list of the vehicles his managers and family members drove. When she pulled into the lot, she had no trouble spotting Luke's black Lexus SUV parked in the last row. It was standard business practice for employees to leave the good spots for the customers. Rory tucked the gray sedan between two other cars in the second row, where she could keep a discreet eye on the Lexus from her rear-view mirror.

By the time Luke appeared, she'd been waiting for nearly an hour, and her toes were getting numb, in spite of the two pair of socks she had on in her fur-lined boots. She'd worried that letting the engine run might draw his attention, especially once the cars on either side of her left. Now she was one of only two cars in the customer section of the lot. It was a good thing they were just weeks away from the shortest day of the year. With any luck, darkness would keep Luke from noticing that the same gray sedan was parked there every day when he left work.

Rory didn't start her engine until the Lexus passed her. She watched it turn right out of the lot before putting her car in gear. Although the descent of night helped hide her from Luke, it also made following him at a safe distance more difficult.

Since it was the end of the workday for most of the office buildings along the Route 110 corridor, all the additional vehicles had slowed traffic to a crawl. Rory was three cars back from Luke, but she realized she was going to have to get closer or risk losing him at one of the many traffic lights. With a few lane changes, she managed to work her way around the intervening cars until there was only one car between them. As far as she knew, he had no reason to suspect he was being followed. She should be okay for now.

Luke's first stop was at a sporting-goods store. He spent fifteen minutes inside and came out with a large shopping bag. Next was a dry cleaner, where he carried in an armful of clothing, then on to a gas station. Rory waited at the curb on a side street. She was getting bored and hungry. If her mind wandered, she could easily miss seeing him leave. She dug into the goody bag she'd brought along and nibbled on almonds and dark-chocolate-covered raisins while keeping her eyes glued on the Lexus.

Over the next hour she lost track of all the places Luke stopped, but he seemed to be on a trajectory that would ultimately bring him to his town house. He pulled into a small strip mall and disappeared into a pizza joint. By the time he emerged, carrying one of the large square boxes, Rory was salivating like Pavlov's dogs. She followed him until he turned into his driveway. Then she drove on by, in case he was checking to see if she was tailing him. A few right turns brought her back to the pizza place, where she ordered a slice with mushrooms to go. Technically she shouldn't have left his street, but her pizza craving had convinced her that he wasn't going anywhere until he ate his dinner.

She drove back to continue her surveillance, parking at the end of his block, where she could once again keep tabs on his comings and goings from her mirrors. The pizza was as delicious as she'd imagined, but after it was gone, she had nothing to mitigate the tedium of waiting. It was dull enough to follow someone who was running what appeared to be a series of innocent errands, but sitting in a parked car, waiting for a suspect to leave his house, was a lot like torture. She hadn't brought along any electronic gadgets for entertainment, since she couldn't afford to be distracted and miss seeing Luke leave. This was the kind of situation when having a partner would have been useful. Conversation would have helped pass the time, and they could have taken turns catching a nap. Her eyelids were growing heavier by the minute, despite the advertised claims on the bottle of caffeine pills. At ten o'clock, she started bargaining with her work ethic. And at eleven, she caved and headed home.

***

James Harper arrived at Rory's office behind her house at the appointed time. He was polite, but he made it clear that she was wasting his time. “I hope this won't take long,” he said, perching on the edge of the armchair as though he was prepared to leave at the first possible instant.

“I'll get right to the point then,” Rory said, pulling up her desk chair. “Why did you go to Matthew's house in Eaton's Neck a few days before he was found dead?”

James shifted in his seat, as if it had suddenly become uncomfortable. “Who said I was there?”

Rory knew from experience that answering a question with a question was an unconscious stalling tactic. James was trying to give himself time to come up with a plausible explanation. “I have two witnesses who placed you at Matthew's house that night.” She knew she was seriously stretching the truth, given that Carla Desmond could only attest to having heard a car door slam shut. But if James believed there were two witnesses, he was more likely to give up on the pretense that he wasn't there that night. “From what I've been told, you and Matthew were having quite a heated argument,” Rory went on, “one that included some very specific threats on your part.”

James had started chewing on his lower lip. “Okay,” he said, “I did go to see him, but I had no choice in the matter. He refused to leave Lacey alone.”

“I have no idea what that's supposed to mean,” she said. “What exactly was he doing to your sister?”

“Like I told you the last time we talked, Matthew's always had a huge crush on Lacey. His infatuation seemed cute when they were little kids, but it became creepy by the time they were in high school. Lately it had been getting worse. Even though she told him a million times she wasn't interested, he wouldn't let it go. He was really obsessed with her. Anyway, she'd finally had enough. She decided the only solution was to make him hate her.”

Rory was jotting down notes as fast as her hand could go. “And how did she go about that?”

“She posted something on Facebook, something she knew would embarrass him.” James looked down at his hands, as if he too was ashamed of what she'd done. Rory waited quietly for him to continue, afraid to break his momentum. “A couple of weeks ago she invited him over to her place and gave him this speech about how she'd come to her senses and realized he was the man for her. She said she was going to give him a night he'd never forget to apologize for how she'd treated him. She went all out, cooked him dinner, even did a striptease for him. Then she asked him to strip for her.” He paused as if he was trying to summon up the courage to continue. “Matthew didn't know she had a camera recording it.”

Rory had to fight the urge to gasp at the cruelty of what Lacey had done. But everyone had a breaking point, and if James was to be believed, she had reached hers. “She posted the video on Facebook?”

“On YouTube, actually, but from there it went viral and wound up on Facebook and everywhere else.”

“What did Matthew do after that?”

“He went to her house, called her every name in the book, including some that were probably Russian, because she didn't know what they meant. But instead of leaving her alone, he started stalking her even more. Popping up wherever she went and scaring her half to death. That's why I went to see him that night.”

“Why didn't Lacey go to the police and get a restraining order against him?”

“It's complicated,” James said, with a heavy sigh. “His mother, Anya, and he have become part of our family over the years. Even though Matthew's behavior changed our feelings for him, we all still love Anya. Getting a restraining order against him would have put her in a terrible position. How could she choose between her only child and the family who took them in when she was in desperate need of a job and a place to live?”

Rory had no answer for him. Had she been in his position, she might have gone to see Matthew herself and she too might have issued him an ultimatum. On the other hand, she could barely imagine the devastating humiliation Matthew must have felt. Lacey had apparently succeeded in making him hate her after all. Rory was finding it hard to shut the door on her emotions and move forward with some objectivity. “What threats did you use against Matthew that night?” she asked.

James was bent over with his elbows on his knees, holding his head in his hands. He sat up to answer her. “I told him that he'd lose his job and that we'd throw Anya out of the house where she's been living for the past thirty years.” He sounded ashamed of himself. “I hadn't planned on saying that,” he murmured, “but it seemed like Matthew still didn't get it.”

“Did he stop harassing Lacey after you talked to him?”

James wagged his head.

“Did you kill him?” Rory asked point blank.

“No,” he replied, but he didn't look her in the eye.

“Did the thought ever cross your mind?”

James didn't respond immediately. “Yes, I'm sorry to say. But that's where it ended.”

“Did anyone else in your family know about the video or that Matthew was stalking your sister?”

“Lacey and I agreed to keep it between ourselves. Our father has a nasty temper and a short fuse. There was no way to tell how he'd react, what he might do to Lacey or Matthew if he found out.”

“You didn't tell Luke either?”

James issued a short grunt of a laugh. “My brother is a joke. If you knew him better, you wouldn't have even bothered asking the question.”

“Okay, thank you for your cooperation,” Rory said, putting her notes down. “I'll be in touch if I have any more questions.”

James rose from the chair looking like a broken man. His shoulders were slumped, and his eyes had a heart-heavy sadness in them. But Rory knew she hadn't broken him. She'd just peeled away some of the surface layers he showed the world.

Chapter 28

“I've been summoned to Harper Farms,” Rory said the next morning. She had her hand on the doorknob, ready to leave, when Zeke appeared in the entryway and asked where she was going.

“Summoned, as in ‘you've been a bad girl and we need to talk?'”

“I don't know about the bad-girl part,” she replied, “but he did say we have something to discuss.”

“Sounds ominous. Do you want some invisible moral support?” Rory really didn't need anyone to hold her hand. It wasn't as if she was going to be tied to a post and subjected to forty lashes of the whip. But the marshal looked so concerned and earnest that she found herself saying, “Sure, if you're up to it.”

“I'm at your service,” he said, bowing with a flourish.

“Just remember, no parlor tricks and no—”

“Righting wrongs,” he chimed in. “You made it clear you don't need a Donkey-Oatie, whatever that is.”

“Close enough,” she said, punching in the code on the alarm keypad.

“You won't even know I'm there.”

“Great, but it's actually Gil who shouldn't know you're there.”

***

“It's open,” Gil called, in response to her knock.

“I'll be right beside you,” Zeke whispered in her ear.

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Rory whispered back.

Gil was seated behind his desk, which was as neat as always. If he'd been working on something before she arrived, it wasn't evident. He asked her to have a seat but skipped over the usual amenities. “I asked you to come in so we could discuss your investigation with regard to the sabotage,” he said grimly.

“Has there been another incident?”

“Last night, but I decided it could keep till this morning.”

“For future reference, I'd prefer to be notified immediately,” she said, shutting her mouth before other, more adversarial words could escape. Valuable evidence may have been compromised or lost entirely during the intervening hours. How did he expect her to solve the case if he was keeping her at arm's length? “What happened this time?”

“They put sugar in the fuel tank of one of our trucks,” he said, without acknowledging her request. “We've been keeping all the vehicles locked in the garage overnight since this whole mess started. Someone must have given them the heads-up that the truck had been left out.”

“Or someone left it out on purpose,” she added.

“Either way, it's obvious they're not going to stop until we stop them. And that needed to happen yesterday. How close are you to zeroing in on the culprit?”

“I've interviewed everyone with access to your data systems and keys to your secured areas, but I haven't found evidence to link any one of them to the sabotage.”

“Did you find any dissension among them? Anyone with a bone to pick? Remember, I expect you to be investigating everyone with equal vigor, family member or employee.”

“That's exactly what I've been doing.”

“Would it be fair to say that you've been spending more time working on the murder case?” he asked, perhaps hoping to catch her off guard.

“Yes, that's probably true,” she answered honestly. Lying to your client was never a good policy, especially if your business was built on word-of-mouth referrals.

Gil leaned forward over his desk, locking eyes with her. “I know what I'm about to say may sound cold and uncaring, but I can't afford to tiptoe around the matter anymore. You and I need to be on the same page, so I'm going to lay it out for you. Even if you were to find Matthew's killer today, the most we could hope for is that justice will eventually be served. Unfortunately it won't bring Matthew back, regardless of how fast it's served. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” Rory said, hating the fact that logic was on Gil's side. He was right about another thing too; he did sound cold and uncaring. She couldn't help wondering if Gil's initial reaction to Matthew's death had all been for show. From there it wasn't much of a leap to wondering if Gil could be the killer. What better way to keep suspicion off himself than to shift it to everyone else? That left her with the question of why. Why would a man who'd been so generous to Anya and Matthew for all those years suddenly feel the need to kill him and, by so doing, destroy her? If James had told her the truth, his father didn't know about the video or the fact that Matthew had been stalking Lacey. As far as Rory could see, Gil had no motive to kill Matthew. “Then I can expect you to focus on the saboteur?” Gil asked, pulling her back to the moment.

“Yes, you can,” she replied. But since he didn't order her to put the murder investigation aside temporarily, she felt she had enough wiggle room to continue pursuing it as well.

***

“Hey, I understand that Gil has to protect his business,” Rory said, as she and the marshal drove home, “but he sounded awfully callous about Matthew.”

“When I heard him say that, I figured it wasn't goin' to sit right with you,” Zeke said. “But much as I don't like the man, he was doin' what any good businessman would do—mourn the loss and move on. There are a lot of people who depend on Harper Farms for their livin'.”

“I suppose,” she said grudgingly. She was having a hard time making peace between what logic dictated and what felt right.

“If you think about it, you did the same thing after Mac died. Even though you were still grieving, you took care of his clients and kept the business going.”

Rory bristled. “It's not the same thing at all.” But when she tried to offer a cogent explanation of the difference, she came up empty. Maybe it just galled her that the marshal had taken Gil's side. She was still in a huff over the meeting when she turned onto her block, so she didn't immediately notice the strange car parked in front of her house or the man sitting on her porch swing. When she did, adrenaline shot through her body, snapping her to attention. She wasn't expecting anyone. And what salesman or solicitor in his right mind would sit outside in the cold waiting for her to return, when he didn't know if she'd be gone for an hour or a month?

“Zeke—we have company,” she said, slowing to a crawl so he could disappear before he was spotted.

“It's your doctor friend,” he muttered as he winked out. By the time she turned into the driveway, Aaron was waiting for her at the top of the porch steps, a smile spreading across his face. Rory parked and hurried up the steps to him, her misgivings about the meeting momentarily forgotten. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were bright red from the cold, but he seemed otherwise unscathed by his vigil. Stuck in the house and frustrated by not being able to greet his new friend, Hobo had resorted to scratching madly at the door as if he could burrow through to the porch. Rory had lost count of how many times she'd had to repaint the door and the trim around it because of his enthusiasm.

“Hi,” she said, giving Aaron a quick kiss and a lingering hug. “You must be frozen. How long have you been out here? And where's your car?”

“Slow down,” he laughed, without letting her out of his arms. “I'm using the loaner down by the curb while my car is being serviced, and I've only been here twenty minutes tops. No big deal; I still have feeling in some of my toes.”

“A
good
doctor would have told you to stay out of the cold.”

“Then I'd better get me one of those,” he said, releasing her.

She rummaged in her purse for the house keys. “You should have called me first.”

“I tried, but you didn't pick up.”

“Oops,” she said, with a sheepish grin. “I guess I forgot to turn the ringer back on after my meeting.” Key in hand, she unlocked the front door and held the storm door open so he could get out of the cold. “I'll make you some hot coffee,” she said, following him inside.

“No way. I'm here to take you out to lunch.” Aaron's words were punctuated by a grunt as Hobo launched himself into his arms. He staggered backward under the impact, his arms windmilling for balance like a tightrope walker in a nor'easter. At first he seemed to be winning his battle with gravity, but at the last moment he thumped to a hard landing on the entryway floor. They had to suspend further conversation until Hobo had been reprimanded and then given a proper greeting. Once he'd calmed down, Rory sent him out in the backyard to relieve himself. Then she gave him his favorite chewy treat to make up for the fact that they were leaving again.

Once they were settled in the loaner, Aaron pulled away from the curb. “I almost forgot,” he said, “but before you turned into the driveway, I could swear I saw someone riding shotgun.”

Rory laughed, hoping it sounded more genuine than it felt. She was running out of explanations and excuses. “You must have been hallucinating,” she said lightly. “I've heard that can happen with frostbite to the brain.”

***

Aaron dropped her back home after a hearty lunch of French onion soup and spinach and goat-cheese crepes at a local bistro. Rory felt positively stuffed. Her lunch usually consisted of yogurt or salad, with the occasional peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. If she had too many lunches like the one she'd just polished off, she wouldn't be able to run after suspects—or run away from them, for that matter.

Hobo was happy to see her; at least, his wagging tail said so. He'd mellowed into his afternoon napping mode, and instead of jumping up to greet her, he rolled onto his back for tummy rubs. After she'd tummy-rubbed him back to sleep, she went up to the study to check her e-mail. She found Zeke in the reading chair, staring at her sketch pad.

“Hi,” she said, surprising him so completely that he lost cohesion for a few seconds.

“You're back,” he observed, once he'd regrouped. Rory suspected that if he'd had a tail, it would not have been wagging.

“Yes, and lunch was delicious. Thanks for asking.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, he turned the sketch pad around to face her. “Who is this?”

“Someone Eloise made me draw,” she said, wondering why he was interested in it.

“She didn't tell you her name or anything?”

“Nope, but you know how Eloise operates. I assume she'll tell me more when the spirit moves her.” She smiled at her own pun.

It didn't seem as though the marshal caught it. “It's not important,” he said, flipping the sketch pad closed. A moment later he was gone, the pad all that remained.