The Butler Didn't Do It (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 2) (18 page)

I sighed and spun my chair about to face Nate and reality. “Now that we’ve ruled Jonas out, do you honestly think that Charles Sitter or Julie Brown are capable of murder?”

“You’d be surprised at what people are capable of.” Nate switched the percolator on, then leant back against the counter. “Fieldman came clean about his nocturnal activities.”

My eyes widened on him. “You questioned him about the smuggling?”

“I like to be thorough,” Nate said. “But I doubt there’s anything there. His wife confronted him about large deposits in a secret bank account. The money’s from a finder fee arrangement his organization has established and it’s not huge amounts, a couple of grand here and there. He kept the account secret from his wife because he was planning to leave her and didn’t want it divvied up in the divorce settlement.”

“Aha,” I exclaimed. “There’s a reason, right there.”

Nate gave me one of his endless-patience looks. “Do you know why the divorce rate in this country is so high?”

I had a few good answers, but he didn’t wait for them.

“Because it’s a hell of a lot easier to get divorced than to murder your spouse,” he said.

Perhaps, but I wasn’t ready to absolve Fieldman. “What about the warehouse? Apparently Lydia followed him to an abandoned warehouse.”

“Fieldman was trying to be discrete by parking there.” He reached for a mug from the overhead cupboard. “His mistress’ apartment is a half-block walk from the warehouse.”

“He certainly has a convenient explanation for everything,” I retorted.

“We’re still looking into Fieldman, and that includes verifying that he just flew in from Turkey, but so far we have nothing suspicious.”

I blew out a breath. “Which leaves us with Charles and Julie.”

“I keep going back to Charles Sitter,” Nate said. “It’s just a gut instinct, nothing solid, and I have no motive for him. Sitter has never worked; he lives off a trust fund. We did some digging and found a divorced wife and child, neither of whom have spoken to him in twenty years. He has no hobbies beyond the GRIMMS. There’s been no affairs over the years. Few attachments to anyone, and those don’t go very deep.”

“So basically he has no life.”

“And therefore no reason that would drive him to kill, unless he were a psychopath. We had a profile drawn up on him and he doesn’t fit the bill for that either.” Nate poured my coffee and stopped by the fridge to top it off with milk. “But he did have the opportunity to get the rope. He has a garden suite with direct access to the north forest. The man has a sharp mind, so he could plan something like this. I also saw the whiteboard note, that he didn’t stay in the dining room for dessert.”

“That was Burns’ observation.”

Nate nodded. “I spoke to him about it.”

“But Lydia did stay for dessert,” I said. “Charles didn’t go to bed until eleven o’clock that night and he was only gone from the lounge for about fifteen minutes to fetch a newspaper from his room. The time he’s unaccounted for is so fragmented, there’s not really a stretch long enough to accomplish murder.”

Nate pressed the mug into my hand. “That’s where the smart planning comes in. If he chopped the task up into preparation, setting the scene up, execution, then it could fit.”

“Oh, I never thought of that.”

“That’s why I’m the detective and you’re the sidekick.” Nate tapped a finger to the tip of my nose and turned to go.

Totally chauvinistic and patronizing, but I got to be a sidekick. “Does that come with a costume?”

“It comes with anything you want,” he threw back in a low, suggestive voice that raised the temperature in the kitchen a couple of degrees, and disappeared through the doorway.

“You seriously have to stop that,” I muttered.

I sipped on my coffee, marinating the concept of Charles Sitter as our prime suspect. He’d been friendly with Lydia, maybe even something of a father figure according to Miss Crawley— Oh! Crap!

Sunday morning.

Miss Crawley.

Digest email.

Nate.

How on earth had I forgotten? I pulled my phone out for a fly-by check of all Miss Crawley’s social media platforms. No new posts or gossip, nothing about me. The panic grew hooks and barbs.
She probably saves the juiciest bits for her Sunday digest wrap-up.

I called Jenna, drumming my fingers impatiently on the counter top while the phone rang.

“Maddie?” Jenna croaked.

“Jenna, thank goodness! I was worried you were still sleeping.”

“I was.”

“Have you seen Miss Crawley’s digest email today?”

Silence.

“Jenna,” I huffed. “I know you subscribe.”

“I was going to cancel, I swear.”

“Right, and you can get right onto that as soon as you’ve checked today’s email. I need to know…”

“What?” she asked when I didn’t finish.

“You’ll know when you see it.”

“It’s the crack of dawn, Maddie.” A gaping yawn sounded her end. “A little help here?”

I glanced around to make sure Nate hadn’t returned before whispering, “Something about me being pregnant with Nate’s twins?”

“Holy cow! I’m your best friend, Maddie Mad. How the hell don’t I know something this huge?”

“There’s nothing to know, Jenna, that’s how,” I said irritably. “It’s just nonsense Miss Crawley plucked from fresh air. Now, can we please get back to the email? Did she write anything on me?”

“Just a minute,” Jenna grumbled. Another silence. “Are you sure?”

“Sure about what?”

“That you’re not pregnant with Nate’s twins.”

I sank my head into my hand. “Oh, my God.”

“Okay, relax, I had to ask.”

“Of course you did.” I should have compromised my principles and subscribed to the digest myself. It would have been a lot simpler.

“I don’t see anything,” Jenna said after a moment.

“Really?” I perked up. Mom must have come through for me.

“But there is a lovely write-up on your murder mystery weekend,” Jenna went on.

So much for my nanosecond of bliss. “Does she mention the real murder?”

“No, not all,” Jenna said. “She says the weekend has been a thrilling experience with some unique twists,
blah, blah, blah
, she’s delighted it was such a success and hopes… Oh, that can’t be good.”

“Jenna?”

“Um, fine, but remember, I’m just the messenger,” Jenna said. “She hopes your success continues, because it would be a crying shame if Mr Hollow were forced to take out a third mortgage on the family estate.”

“See?” I shook my head in disbelief. “She just makes it up as she goes along.”

“Not quite,” Jenna said. “Do you remember when you were trying to relocate your guests on Friday night? You told Miss Crawley you couldn’t afford rooms at Lakeview Spa Retreat. Something about how Mr Hollow would need to take out another mortgage and he already had two.”

I slapped a hand to my mouth.

Jenna was right!

“This is exactly why I can’t be trusted around that woman,” I groaned. “Thank goodness Mr Hollow doesn’t own a smart phone or a computer; he’d be mortified.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Maddie.” Jenna yawned again. “Was there anything else or am I allowed to go back to sleep?”

Well, there was last night’s adventure, and I was currently drinking coffee in Nate’s log cabin. But no one needed that kind of shock first thing in the morning.

I said goodbye and cut the call. One crisis averted, but there was still the all-important matter of Charles Sitter and murder to consider. I cupped my hands around my mug, inhaling the rich scent of roasted beans as I stared out the window. Wispy tendrils of early morning mist curled into the forest floor around the edge of the lake. It was kind of mesmerizing, however I did have something for Nate when he returned freshly showered, clean-shaven and wearing a short-sleeved white tee that showed off tanned, lean muscle—so
that’s
how he managed to toss Jonas around so effortlessly last night.

“There’s definitely something suspicious about Charles Sitter,” I said as Nate pulled out pans and mixing bowls and collected his ingredients. “Gout flares periodically, but why would Charles drink red wine at dinner if he turned down dessert because it supposedly aggravated his gout? Isn’t red wine just as bad?”

“Either his gout isn’t flaring up, or he needed to spill that wine.”

“Or it’s both and the gout was just an excuse,” I said. “Charles needed to slip out during dinner to snatch the rope from the alcove, and he needed to leave the table early so he could slip a note under Lydia’s door without anyone seeing he’d gone upstairs.”

“This confirms my gut feeling.” Nate glanced up from chopping peppers and onions. “I still don’t have a damned motive, and his rock-solid alibi is literally being at the crime scene, which was so messed up, forensics haven’t been able to give us anything conclusive.”

“Sorry about that.”

“Not your fault,” Nate said, somewhat more amiably than the last time the subject had come up. “That was probably part of Sitter’s meticulous planning. This is going to end up a cold case if we don’t get a break. It doesn’t help that my witnesses seem to consider it their patriotic duty to stonewall the investigation. And I can’t put them on the stand under oath until I actually have someone to prosecute.”

His comment on stonewalling got me thinking. “You might have that someone after lunch. The GRIMMS aren’t stonewalling, they’re saving it for the big reveal.”

“What big reveal?”

“My murder mystery weekend was supposed to culminate with everyone stating their conclusions at Sunday lunch,” I told him. “You know, the whole whodunit, why and how.”

Nate hitched a brow at me. “You’re still going through with that?”

“Apparently I am, but it could be interesting to see where they point fingers. Do you need help?” I asked when Nate cracked eggs into a bowl.

“Please, no.” He sent me a horrified look. “You’re permanently banned from cooking in my kitchen.”

I rolled my eyes. “You do know I was exaggerating about shedding skin in the salad, right?”

He turned a shade paler. “New rules; you’re banned from talking about cooking in my kitchen, too.”

“Fine by me.” I shrugged and settled back to watch him do all the work.

And could I just say, there’s something incredible spicy about a man flexing muscle while he whisks eggs.

My mood was positively sunny by the time we returned to Hollow House, and it wasn’t all down to Nate’s charm and talent in the kitchen. I’d had a lightbulb moment and no, I hadn’t forgotten my brand new resolution about bright ideas, but this was why exceptions were invented. I hadn’t told Nate, though, because it was just the sort of thing he’d try to talk me out of.

The only blip on my sunny forecast was when I left Nate in the bedroom (on the phone with a member of his Auburn team) and ran into Joe in the upstairs passage. I’d let my hair down to curl wildly over my cheeks, but he noticed the grazed skin anyway.

He reached out, gently swiping curls aside to take a better look. “What happened to your face?”

“It’s just a scratch.”

“It looks like a carpet burn,” he said. “Did you fall?”

I hesitated to tell him the whole truth, but he’d find out soon enough, and I didn’t want him to think I was going around falling willy-nilly over my own two feet either.

“Don’t freak out,” I warned, then gave him the short version of how events had unfolded with Jonas after he’d left me last night.

Joe freaked out before I even got to the good parts.

“You can’t kill Jonas,” I interrupted his tirade. “Nate locked him up for the night and had Jack bring him over early this morning to pack his bags. He’s long gone.”

“Nate was there?”

“He arrived in the nick of time,” I said. “I kicked Jonas’ legs out from under him and escaped. But he chased after me and tackled from behind, and Nate did a handbrake turn in the middle of the road and arrested him on the spot.”

Joe took a moment to process the gaps I’d glossed over, then his expression drooped. “Nate saved you.”

I realized I might have unintentionally crushed his male pride. “Well, I did save myself first, partially, and Nate just happened to be passing by at the right moment.”

“You don’t have to play it down,” Joe said. “I promised to love, cherish and protect you. Instead I betrayed your trust and I abandoned you last night to a house full of murderers.”

“There’s only one murderer.” I hoped, anyway. “And a kidnapper, but you couldn’t have known about Jonas.”

Joe wouldn’t be consoled. “I’m grateful Nate was there for you. It’s more than I seem to manage.”

He was finally owning up to how badly he’d wronged me, but even I couldn’t credit him with this much blame. “You made one mistake, Joe, don’t bang yourself up about.”

“One unforgivable mistake,” he said dully. “And I don’t deserve forgiveness. I never deserved you.”