Кэти Дэйли - The Magic Of Halloween Night

I put my arm around Cass’s waist and tucked my body in a little closer to his. “Okay, so we have scratches and black paint. Anything else?”

“Bill had mud on his shoes when his body was found. He was still wearing the dress shoes that he had on at dinner, so he must have driven somewhere and gotten out of his car at some point between leaving the restaurant and being killed in the crash. I’m not sure the mud helps us much. We know he was out on the old highway, and there is a lot of open land out there. It hasn’t rained recently, but there are places under tree canopies that remain wet for weeks once they get a good soaking. At one point, it occurred to me to head out to the old highway and look for footprints, but the area is endless. It would be an impossible task.”

“Yeah. We’d need to be able to narrow things down a lot for it to make sense to look for footprints. I guess he must have had mud on his tires as well.”

“He did, but there’s no way to know when he might have picked it up.”

“I guess that’s true.” We arrived at the house, but not wanting to go in quite yet, we sat down on the swing. “So other than paint, mud, and scratch marks, did the body or his car reveal any other clues?”

“The guys who went over the car didn’t find tampering, but they did find these little red and green stones in the tire tread of all four tires.”

“Red and green stones?”

“It seems like the stones might have come from gravel like the sort one might use to cover a dirt drive. I don’t know if that’s relevant. Bill could have picked up the stones anywhere. But it is a clue that I intend to keep in mind should I discover a reason to open a formal investigation.”

“Do you still think the crash was just an accident?”

He nodded. “At this point, I haven’t found anything to suggest otherwise. The only thing I’m still waiting for is the final coroner’s report. Once I’m able to verify the official cause of death, I should have what I need to make a decision about a formal investigation.”

“I thought the cause of death was the accident.”

“It appears that the accident was the catalyst that led to Bill’s death, but we’re interested in specifically how he died. Did he bleed out? Did he hit his head and suffer a brain injury? Did he pass out after his airbag deployed, causing him to suffocate?”

“Does it matter?” I wondered.

“It might or might not, but it seems like something we’ll want to know. If nothing else, we need to eliminate a cause of death inconsistent with an auto accident.”

Okay, that made sense. What if the reason Bill ran his car off the road was because he’d been injured before entering the car and simply lost consciousness while trying to get away? That was a much different scenario than swerving to avoid a collision with a deer and hitting a tree.

“Will you be out at the movie site all day tomorrow?” Cass asked after the conversation paused.

“I think so. I’m not really sure what hours the film crew and cast work or how long they’ll want me hanging around, but I plan to show up in the morning and see how it goes. I’ve already told Naomi that I probably won’t be by for my volunteer shift. She said she understood and could find someone to cover, but I will miss doing playtime with you.” I paused to consider the situation. “I might be done in time to do the play hour. Maybe I can just call or text you to let you know how things are unfolding.”

“That works,” Cass said. He stretched and then stood up. “I think Milo and I are going to head home. It’s been a long day.”

“Okay. I probably should check on Paisley anyway.” I walked him to his truck.

He leaned over and kissed me gently on the lips. It took all my willpower not to lean into his body, but I supposed I should finish my conversation with Gracie about the curse before I let the barely suppressed passion we shared bubble to the surface any more than it already had.

Chapter 10

Friday

The next few days had flown by. I’d settled into somewhat of a routine at the movie set. I now knew to arrive early and to plan to knock off around four o’clock. While I still wasn’t off early enough to pick Paisley up from school, as I would have preferred, I was home early enough to help her with her homework and offer a presence in her life.

Paisley was staying with Anna again this weekend, and I was going to be off early enough this evening to do the play session with Cass and the dogs, which thrilled me to no end. I’d missed Tuesday’s session since I’d hung around the movie set a lot longer than I’d really needed to, wondering if the filming would continue into the evening, but apparently, the schedule provided for an early start and a wrap well before the evening meal. I’d planned to work through the weekend, but there was a huge storm blowing in, so the director decided to break until it passed since all they had left to shoot were exterior shots.

I hadn’t seen Cass since Monday and really missed him. We’d spoken on the phone a few times, but he’d been busy with his investigation into the cause of the auto accident that had killed Bill Fuller and hadn’t had a lot of time to chat. I did find out that the official cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, which was consistent with an auto accident. Cass also informed me that he’d spoken to Jennifer about the conversation she’d had with Bill before his death, and she told him that although she and Bill were separated and had been since before he left LA, they had never filed the official divorce paperwork. She’d been trying to get Bill to sign the paperwork that their attorneys had already worked out, but he’d been dragging his feet. She’d seen the dinner between Bill and Robert as a good opportunity to get in front of him and had taken it.

As far as where Bill had gone after they’d spoken Thursday evening, Jennifer had no idea. Cass decided to pull Bill’s phone and bank records. The last call he’d made from his cell was to Robert at four o’clock Thursday afternoon. Robert verified that Bill had called him around then with the time of their dinner reservation. As for Bill’s bank records, Cass couldn’t find anything suspicious or out of line. I knew that Cass was still working on the case despite the fact he still had no hard-hitting reason to suspect that the crash that killed Bill was anything more than a terrible accident.

As for me, I’d been busy with my assignment. Not only did I spend each day watching the filming, talking to people, and snapping photos I hoped to get permission to use, but when I got home in the evenings, I had to write something up for Dex, who, by the way, I was still worried about, but hadn’t had time to speak to further. I had spoken to Gabby almost every day, and she said it seemed like Dex might be doing better. We both hoped that his forgetfulness had been a temporary thing.

Gracie had talked to Ethel yesterday, and she was thrilled that I was willing to take over as Paisley’s guardian in the event she was no longer able to continue in that capacity. She had a friend who happened to be an attorney whom she planned to speak to in order to ensure that everything was set in motion to progress smoothly when it was time. Paisley still hoped that her grandmother would get better and come home, but after I’d told Paisley about the plan Gracie and I were working on with Ethel to ensure she could stay with us if her grandmother was unable to care for her, she began to relax and settle into her new routine.

Paisley’s play was on Thursday of next week. I was pretty sure the film crew would be done filming by that point, and I wouldn’t have a conflict, but whether they were done or not, I planned to be there to cheer her on. She’d been working so hard to learn her lines, and it seemed like she was ready for opening night, even though they still had another week of rehearsal.