Лори Касс - Pouncing On Murder

“I do,” I said in a muffled way.

“What? Speak up, child.” She held me away from her. “You don’t look the worse for wear, but what on earth possessed you to do something so stupid?”

I knew an eye roll would get me another scolding, so I kept it internal. I also wanted to know how she’d known about last night—I certainly hadn’t told her—but Chilson was a small town and I should have called her earlier to let her know I was okay.

“Can we sit down?” I asked. Then, without waiting for an answer, I ushered all three of them to a nearby bench and sat them all down in a row, Otto in the middle. I stood in front of the trio and started my lecture.

“No interruptions, please,” I said, clasping my hands behind my back and rocking back a little on my heels. They agreed and I started to enjoy myself. “Last night, I got home late because of the book fair. Soon afterward, I got a phone call from Cole Duvall, saying he had Eddie and that I had to be at the Duvall’s cottage in an hour to get him back.”

Kristen, Aunt Frances, and Otto all nodded. This part they already knew.

“I’m going to be completely truthful here,” I said. “I panicked. Freaked out, actually. I didn’t know what to do and I was scared.”

“Why didn’t—” Aunt Frances started, but Kristen shushed her to silence.

“Thank you,” I said. “I called Deputy Ash Wolverson”—this was for Otto’s benefit, because my aunt and Kristen were well aware of what Ash did for a living—“but had to leave a voice mail message.” Last night’s fear came back full and strong. I shook it away and went on.

“I knew it would take more than half an hour to drive to Duvall’s place and I’d already used up almost fifteen minutes of the hour by calling Ash and making sure Duvall wasn’t playing some cruel joke and that Eddie wasn’t still on the houseboat somewhere. So I got in the car.”

Kristen started to say something but stopped when both Aunt Frances and Otto glared at her.

“Halfway there,” I went on, “I pulled over. I had a few extra minutes, so I used them to think.”

And I had, after I’d pounded the steering wheel in frustration until my fists hurt. I’d jumped out of the car and paced up and down the side of the lonely road, trying to assemble a plan.

I told my audience how I’d called the sheriff’s office and coerced Dispatch into transferring me to Detective Inwood, who, I later found out, had been at home about to bite into a freshly grilled steak. I made a mental note to send him and his wife a gift certificate to Kristen’s restaurant and continued my tale.

“The detective told me he’d spent the day making a case against Duvall and said he’d call Sheriff Richardson as soon as he got off the phone with me, and to go home, that they’d take care of everything.”

Otto stirred. “But—”

Two female elbows, one from each side, jabbed him into silence.

I smiled at him. “But there was no way I was going to wait, not while Duvall had Eddie. When I told Inwood that, he told me to . . .” I paused, not wanting to repeat the detective’s exact words. It was Sunday, after all, and besides, my aunt didn’t approve of cursing at any time. “Let’s just say my subsequent actions weren’t sanctioned by the sheriff’s office.”

Kristen snorted, Aunt Frances sighed, and Otto chuckled.

Ignoring them all, I continued. “The detective told me they’d be there as soon as they could, and instructed me to wait until there was a police presence before approaching Duvall.” I looked away for a moment, remembering and reliving. “But I couldn’t do that,” I said quietly. “He’d said an hour. I couldn’t risk it, not when he had Eddie.”

My aunt sighed again, but this time I could tell it was a sigh of understanding. She’d lived with Eddie all last winter and she loved him, too. Kristen cast a glance at the heavens and slouched down on the bench. She understood. Otto gave me a soft smile and a nod.

I told them about going down to the dock, about finding Eddie, about my short dip in the water to avoid being clonked over the head with a blunt object, and the appearance of the police to save the day.

“So,” I finished, “it was a risk, but I knew help was on the way. And it all turned out okay, so there’s no reason to tell Mom, is there?”

This last was to my aunt. Who, as my mother’s sister-in-law, knew all about my mom’s tendency to drama and overprotectiveness.

Aunt Frances gave me a keen look. “I hear you’re dating Ash these days.”

I closed my eyes briefly. How did she know these things? “We haven’t been on a single date yet. Next weekend will be our first.”

She hmmph ed and stood. “Maybe he’ll do a better job of keeping you safe and sound than that doctor did.”

Otto laughed and got up. He leaned over and whispered, “I think you’re doing a fine job of that all by yourself, Minnie. Keep up the good work.”

The two of them made their good-byes and walked off, hand in hand.

Smiling, I watched them go, then turned back to Kristen, who remained on the bench as if she meant to stay there for months. “What?” I asked. “We’re going to be late.”

“Details,” she said, holding out her hands, palm up, and making “come here” motions with her long fingers. “There are more details to come and I’m not moving until I hear them all.”

Though I’d glossed over my near death from hypothermia in the story I’d just related to my aunt and Otto, since Kristen was the one who’d picked me up from the hospital, she was aware of those particular circumstances. “What details?”

“That Seth, for one. I thought you’d thought he was a murder suspect. Say, did I ever tell you that I finally saw Tony Wartella?”

I shook my head.

“Oh. Well, I did. He and his wife came in the other day. I asked if he had a relative named Seth, and he said he did, a cousin of some sort. But Tony also said that since his dad had passed away, and that was years ago, he’d never once seen him.”

I thanked her, but it hadn’t mattered, not since Irene realized she’d mistaken a law enforcer for a lawbreaker. And I’d also heard, via Ash that morning, that Detective Inwood had tracked down Seth via his probation officer and made the appropriate inquires. “They checked,” I said. “Turns out Seth had a solid alibi for the day Henry was killed.”

“What about for the day Adam was almost run over?”

“Then, too.”

Kristen nodded. “Good. Just wanted to make sure that Duvall can’t wriggle out of this by having his attorney point the finger at anyone else. If they can’t recover the audio from your phone, the prosecuting attorney might have a problem.”

She had a good point, but the motive and the opportunity were so clear to me that I didn’t see that happening. Even Felix Stanton had been ruled out as a suspect by Detective Inwood’s Saturday investigations. It turned out that Felix had been meeting with potential investors the afternoon Henry died, and had been downstate trolling for new clients when Adam came so close to being hit by that car.

I held out my hand and hauled Kristen to her feet. “Remember Neva Chatham?”

“The lady with the gun? Sure.”

“Turns out that the entire county except you and me knows that Neva’s shotgun has been a squirrel’s acorn cache since the Reagan administration.”

My morning phone call with Ash had also revealed that little tidbit of information. And I’d learned, through Sabrina that morning at the Round Table, why Rachel Carter, the mother of the little boy who’d defended Neva, had never called back. There had been a family wedding in Hawaii, and they’d turned the event into a long vacation. “Lucky buggers,” Sabrina had said, topping off my coffee. “The warmest place any of my relatives live is Escanaba. I’m the one who moved south.”