Holly and Homicide (19 page)

“Cameron’s car is still parked behind the house,” Mikara said. “Didn’t anyone else notice that this morning?”

“He must have never made it home,” Chiffon said. “I …went upstairs to see Henry just as Cammy was leaving.”

“Do you know if your skates were still in the back room at that time?” Mackey asked.

“No. I gave them to Cameron to hang in the ski lodge.”

“You gave Cameron Baker your ice skates,” Mackey repeated, more a statement than a question.

“Yes. The lights were still on downstairs, so I asked him to come in and discuss his ideas for hiring Alfonso with Henry and Audrey, but Mikara was the only one around. We got to talking about my skating. I was a competitive skater when I was younger, and we all know how museums and restaurants always like to have souvenirs from celebrities to put on display. So I gave Cameron my skates to put on public display at the ski lodge.”

“I don’t remember any of this,” Mikara said.

“You’d already left the room,” Chiffon countered.

“In other words,” Mackey said, “Baker was carrying your skates out the back door when you last saw him?”

“Right. At about ten-thirty last night.”

“And you spent the entire rest of the night with Henry Goodwin?”

Chiffon paled visibly and hesitated. “That’s right.” She released Henry’s arm and stuffed her hands in the pockets of her plum-colored parka.

I met Steve’s gaze. It was true that Audrey had said she was tired and had gone to bed early, but Steve and I both
knew that the rest of Chiffon’s story was a lie. Henry had left the house at a few minutes after ten
P.M.
, joking to Steve and me that he was heading out on the town, and we were not to wait up for him. Not wanting to deal with Chiffon, we had tiptoed up the stairs half an hour later when we heard the back door open and her calling out, “Oh, good, Mikara. You’re still awake.” Although it was quite possible Cameron had been with her at the time,
Henry
had definitely not yet returned.

Mackey announced that he wanted to take everyone’s
statements at the station house. He and his deputy brought Steve and me separately to start the process. Mackey realized once we arrived that he’d made a tactical error; there wasn’t a solid wall between the two desks, which meant that we’d hear what the other was saying. Mackey and his underling conferred, then the deputy led Sullivan through a door in the back, which, judging by the building’s dimensions, housed the jail cells. My heart was not only racing but seemed to be beating irregularly—palpitating every few minutes. I’d rather have been thrown into a tiny cell than forced to endure Mackey’s questions, but my choices were limited; en route I’d told him about the inconsistencies in Chiffon’s story, and I wanted to back that up by being as cooperative as possible.

Mackey offered me coffee and displayed a veneer of basic humanity as he asked about my relationship with Cameron. His veneer cracked after the three or four minutes it took for me to give him the gist of our personal history.
“From what I hear tell,” Mackey said snidely, “you and Cam had quite the reunion kiss at the inn last week.”

“We were both happily surprised to suddenly see each other again, a decade later.”

“You’re sure he was surprised, too? That the whole thing hadn’t been secretly prearranged?”

“Prearranged?
No. That doesn’t make any sense. Cameron was as surprised as I was.”

Mackey bobbed his head as though he hadn’t been listening and was instead framing his next question. “One thing that’s not a secret is how jealous Steve Sullivan was of Mr. Baker. Care to comment about that?”

I clenched my fists below his eye level, trying hard not to let him goad me into snapping at him. “Yes. Steve was angry about the kiss. We both got over it. Cameron accepted that I was now in a serious relationship with someone else. Steve was with me all last night. Neither of us killed Cameron Baker.”

“You sound pretty upset, Miss Gilbert.”

“I am! Of course! A man I once loved was brutally murdered right below my bedroom window! It’s highly upsetting to me!”

Mackey peered at me and rocked back and forth in his desk chair, a spring making an annoying high-pitched squeak all the while. I wasn’t doing well on my vow not to snap at the ignoramus. “And you have no idea who killed him?”

“No, I don’t. I can’t begin to understand how he could have brought Chiffon to the inn, come inside, and then been killed on the front lawn. All without my having heard a sound.”

“Yeah. That’s pretty hard for me to believe, too.”

“And yet, that’s what happened. And, like I told you earlier, Henry left the inn at ten. So I don’t know why Chiffon apparently lied about being with Henry from ten-thirty on.”

Mackey started taking notes now. “And you didn’t hear Henry come in last night?”

“Right. Nor did I hear Cameron’s voice. It’s an old house, very solidly built. When your doors are open, you hear everything in the central hall where the Christmas tree is. Once you’ve got them closed, though, you can’t hear a thing that’s going on in the lower levels.”

Mackey’s jiggling in his chair increased, as if he was trying to shake an idea loose in his thick skull. “Henry could have killed him. I wouldn’t put it past him to kill a man out of jealousy over Chiffon.”

“I
would! They only recently started casually dating. Those two truly are not a committed couple, Sheriff Mackey.”

“Yeah, the ‘committed couple’ is you and Sullivan.”

“But we were together all last night! We’re both innocent!”

“Barring either of you being a real solid sleeper.” He leaned his elbows on the desk and gave me a sly grin. He tapped his notepad. “Could have been either one of you, once you take deep sleep in this soundproof house into consideration.”

I stared at him, dumbstruck. The man had seemed to be stupid, yet he’d managed to elicit self-incriminating statements from me.

By the time the sheriff’s deputy gave us a ride back to
the inn, I felt miserable. The police tape had marked off a substantial area, but the driveway itself was still unblocked. Cameron’s car was not there, so the police must have towed it away while we were at the station.

Steve put his arm around me as we made our way toward the back door. “Maybe it’d be best if you stayed in bed all day today and just …zoned out,” he suggested.

I shook my head. “I know Sheriff Mackey won’t approve, but I’m going back to Crestview tonight. I want to talk to Linda about all of this.”

“It’s not in her jurisdiction and—”

“I know that! I want to talk to her as a friend. And get her advice. I’m not going to let Sheriff Mackey railroad one of us and make false accusations against us.”

“Okay. I’ll come with you.”

“No, please don’t. I need some time alone. And at home. I’ll drive back up tomorrow morning.”

Steve hesitated, then replied, “Okay. Well, then, I’ll just …hold down the fort here.”

I
packed my overnight bag and drove directly to the Crestview police station. The woman at the desk in the lobby told me that Linda—Sergeant Delgardio—was out, and so I asked to see Detective O’Reilly. When his tall but unathletic frame leaned in the doorway, I’d never been happier to see him; in truth, this was my first time being glad to see the man. He tended to act highly skeptical at my every statement, a habit that had driven me up these eggshell-white walls on numerous occasions. After dealing with Sheriff Mackey, though, I felt like kissing O’Reilly’s feet.

Even as he was holding the lobby door for me, he told me, “We don’t have any jurisdiction up in Snowcap, you realize.”

“I know. I’m just hoping for some good advice on what to do.”

Our eyes met and I could sense from his somber expression that he’d heard the latest reports. “Was the second victim a friend of yours?”

“My college boyfriend. Cameron Baker.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

He escorted me to his desk, and I dropped into the cheap chrome-and-gray-fabric chair facing him. As he took his own seat, I told him honestly, “I never realized how good the Crestview Police Department was until I ran into Sheriff Mackey.”

He seemed to mull my statement in silence for a long time. Finally, he glanced to either side and leaned forward. “Erin, my advice, as a …” he paused, then continued, “off the record, is to get a lawyer. And to stay here in Crestview. Walk away from this place in Snowcap you’re designing.”

“That’s what I want to do. But, the thing is, a man who once meant the world to me was murdered today. There’s a buffoon in charge of the investigation. And I think he might be taking payoffs from Wendell Barton.”

“Wendell Barton is the business mogul who pretty much owns the town of Snowcap, right?”

“Right. Cameron’s boss. I think it’s very possible that Wendell either killed these people himself, or that he hired a henchman.”

O’Reilly rubbed at his temples. “Would he have any reason to kill his right-hand man?”

“Maybe. Cam seemed to be getting into something of a power struggle with Wendell. A whole lot of rancor could have developed over time. Or maybe Cam had recently uncovered information that Wendell was bilking businesses in town …something along those lines.” I was speaking off the top of my head, but during the long drive down from the mountains, I’d been formulating a theory. “One possibility that occurred to me is that Wendell’s ski resort could be a link between both victims. Angie Woolf—the first victim—and Cameron could have discovered that Wendell’s resort had been cutting corners. Just the other day, there was a ski lift accident, and a girl’s parents were threatening to sue. Angie was a building inspector, but she also did other types of inspections. She could have done a safety inspection of some kind on the lifts and discovered serious problems.”

O’Reilly pondered this for a moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and I suspected he was either battling a headache or was surprisingly worried about me. “Is this all just conjecture, or do you have evidence?”

“Conjecture.”

“Then let’s look at this realistically for a moment. With all of Barton’s money and power in the town of Snowcap, even if you’re right, Erin, a crack investigative team is going to have to amass foolproof evidence.”

“What exactly would you term ‘foolproof evidence’?”

He sighed. “A half dozen witnesses plus a visual recording of Barton committing one or both murders, along
with a taped confession. At which point you’ll still only have a fifty-fifty chance of conviction.”

“Barton will go scot-free.”

“If
he’s guilty.” O’Reilly held my gaze for a long moment. “After fifteen years as a cop, it pains me to suggest this …Then again, I’ve already told you to get a lawyer, which is like an atheist chanting to Allah, so … Hire a good P.I., Erin. Also, stay the hell out of Snowcap. And, whatever else you do, steer clear of the investigation yourself.”

Feeling more discouraged than ever, I drove to Audrey’s
house, eager to cuddle with Hildi and a cup of mint tea, and to spend a couple of uninterrupted hours alone with my thoughts and my cat. Hildi trotted partway toward me as I entered the front room through the French doors. As if suddenly remembering my unforgivable absenteeism, she stopped, raised her hackles, rr-red at me, then pranced out of sight.

Half an hour or so later, after I’d ensconced myself in my favorite sage-colored sofa in the den, she gradually warmed up to strutting past me with her cute little pink nose in the air, flicking the white tip of her tail at me. (I’ve always considered that gesture feline for a raised middle finger.) An hour after my return, she deigned to join me at the far end of the sofa. Several minutes later, after much suitably reverent coaxing on my part, she climbed into my lap and purred as I stroked her black, satin-smooth fur and thought about Cam. We’d been the center of each other’s universe at one time. He’d had an uncanny ability to sense my moods, and always knew the perfect thing to say
or do. We couldn’t wait to be together, and whenever we were apart, nothing felt real or significant till we’d had the chance to discuss it in detail. For an entire year after we’d first met, I’d half suspected he could read my mind and barely cared either way; he was so kind and loving that I never had any negative thoughts about him. He made me feel wonderful about myself.

When the doorbell rang within a minute or two of Hildi’s and my reconciliation, I jumped a little. Hildi let out an indignant growl, hopped off my lap, and rushed from the room, leaving a trail of silent recriminations in her wake. I marched toward the door, silently composing the tirade I would deliver if this was a door-to-door salesperson. I threw the door open without looking through the sidelight.

Steve stood on my front porch, a sheepish smile on his face.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I came to find you. I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Steve. I’m just extremely upset. Cameron is dead. And I can’t talk to you about that.” My words, however unfair or unprovoked, were coming out in a torrent now. “I don’t want to have to think about your feelings every time I say something or remember something about him. I want to be selfish and sad for my loss just for this one putrid day in my life. Without having to always guard myself, to always consider how my grief affects you.” Even as I was speaking, I was horrified at myself; just because my statements were true didn’t mean I should voice them.