If Onions Could Spring Leeks (12 page)

“Betts, I'm so sorry for what happened to you. So sorry. You could have been killed, too,” Lynn said.

I hadn't been sure if Lynn had heard the details of what had happened, but someone must have told her.

“Thanks, Lynn. I'm fine. Gram and I are so terribly sorry about Derek. What can we do to help you out—anything at all?” I said.

Lynn cocked her head and her eyes filled with tears for a moment, but she didn't allow them to fall down her cheeks.

“I'll be okay,” she said. “I'll be okay in time.”

I realized that Lynn was coping, but she was also in
denial, which I thought might be a good way to go for a short time. Pure grief would take over soon enough.

Her bright, watery eyes glanced out the window again. This time I resisted and didn't turn around. I could tell that Gram had noticed but she kept her eyes on Lynn too.

“Has your boyfriend mentioned anything to you, Betts? Have they any clues as to who the killer is?”

“Cliff wouldn't tell me if they did,” I said. “But I know the police will find . . . solve the mystery.” For some reason I didn't want to say the word “killer.”

“I don't know. I doubt we've got a very good police force, Betts. No offense to your boyfriend, but we are just a small Podunk town.”

I bristled, but bit back the fighting words that wanted to jump out of my mouth. Lynn complained; it's what she did. I shouldn't expect her to have changed because of the tragedy.

“We are also Broken Rope,” Gram said gently. “We've had so many strange things happen in this town that we have to have a good—no, a great—police force. I'm sure they'll find the killer.”

Gram didn't mind using the K word.

“Well, I suppose we'll see, but I don't have much faith.”

Gram nodded patiently. I tried to imitate the move but I doubted I pulled it off well.

Suddenly, the air in the room changed and began to smell like flowers. Like two dogs on point, Gram and I both sat up a little straighter and looked at each other, then around the rest of the room. Lynn looked around, too.

“Oh my gracious,” Grace said when she came into view directly next to Lynn. “I was pulled to her like a magnet to metal.”

Neither Gram nor I could talk to her, so I tried to communicate by opening my eyes wide.

“Oh, yes, this one doesn't know about us, about the ghosts?” Grace said.

I nodded and scratched my ear.

“That your grandmother?” She nodded toward Gram.

I blinked in the affirmative.

“I wish Derek had wanted to be a police officer,” Lynn continued when neither Gram nor I bit at her pessimistic bait. “He could have shaped that place up.”

“You're probably right, Lynn,” Gram said, but her eyes were on Grace as she bent down and inspected Lynn. Lynn looked at the space next to her because that's where Gram was looking, but she didn't see anything.

“I know I'm right,” Lynn said, turning forward again.

“This one is like someone I knew,” Grace said. “She's a manipulator. I can smell it on her.”

I really wanted to say,
“You can?”
Instead, Gram and I just shared a quick look of surprise. I was sure she thought the same thing I was thinking—they can smell? Was Grace being literal or figurative?

“Of course, Lynn,” Gram said.

“Oh my goodness, why are you two here talking to this one?” Grace said.

“Do you need anything?” I said to Lynn, repeating my offer. “Gram and I would like to help in any way we can.”

“Thank you, but I can't think of a thing. I won't be continuing the cooking class of course, but I imagine it's too late to get a refund,” Lynn said.

“Not at all,” Gram said. “You will get a full refund. Please don't worry about that.”

“That's nice, Miz, especially considering I won't have Derek's income to help me out anymore.”

“Of course,” Gram said.

“There's something else,” Grace said. She suddenly froze in place with her eyes directly on Lynn's. An instant later, just as the pause in the conversation seemed to go on too long, Grace said, “You should have told me. You just should have told me.”

A long few heartbeats later the ghost snapped out of whatever trance she'd gone into. She looked at me and said, “What just happened? Why am I here?”

I shrugged my shoulders, not caring if Lynn noticed.

“Betts, Missouri, you two okay?” Lynn asked.

“I have to go,” Grace said distractedly before she disappeared.

Gram stood. “We need to go, Lynn. Again, let us know if you need anything.”

“I will.” Lynn stood too and seemed confused by our hasty exit.

She walked us to the door and bid us a thankful farewell. Gram and I didn't say anything else until we got into the Nova.

“That was Grace, I assume?” Gram said. “I hurried out because I hoped she'd join us out here, but it looks like we're out of luck.”

“That
was
Grace. She's gone, I think. Hang on, Gram, I'm going to pull over up here.”

I steered the Nova to a spot around a curve in the road. If Lynn looked out her front windows, she wouldn't see us unless she really craned her neck.

“Why was Grace there?” Gram said. “And that moment
when she was so still. The look on her face reminded me of Paul when he was . . . when Jerome was there inside of him.”

“I don't think that was Jerome in Grace,” I said.

“I don't either,” Gram said. “You thinking what I'm thinking?”

“Probably. Derek?” I said.

“I can't imagine it would be anyone else.”

“Me either.”

“Maybe Grace, or Derek through Grace, can tell us what happened to him, but I have to say, Betts, I'm more than a little bothered that Derek might have been able to do that. I like that the ghosts I've met so far are long gone, their marks on the living world faded to nothing, the people they knew gone. This is all too . . . soon,” Gram said.

“We don't know for sure. I'll work on it,” I said.

“Good. Why are we still here?”

“Lynn was looking for someone or something,” I said. “I want to know what.”

Gram looked around and seemed to evaluate the surety of our safe distance from Lynn's house. Finally, she said, “Good
plan.”

“No, I haven't noticed her in my nightmares,” Gram said. “She doesn't look even slightly familiar. You're right, though; she's beautiful. Striking.”

“As I know them, she and Robert are both likable ghosts. They both have secrets, kept things from each other, and both had bad timing when it came to the train station. Your descriptions of one of the men in your nightmares is Robert. From the little I've seen, I find it hard to believe that he was a violent man, but anything is possible.”

“That's true. Oh, look, there's someone.” Gram nodded toward Lynn's house.

A red Explorer stopped and parked, and a moment later a woman hopped out of the driver's side and hurried up to the front door. Once she was at the door, we couldn't see her, but I'd already gotten a good enough look.

“She's familiar,” Gram said.

“Very. She works with Dr. Callahan. Her name is Ridley. She checked my vitals the day . . . the day of the barn. She seemed sad. Maybe that had something to do with Derek.”

It would be perfectly reasonable for me to stop by the doctor's office with some sort of medical question so soon after having been there for a bona fide emergency. Maybe I could talk to her there. No one would think there was anything strange about that, would they?

“You really think one or more of the ex-wives were involved in the murder?”

“Maybe.”

“Divorce as a motive?”

“Possibly, but there's more. Bonnie said they ‘shouldn't have ever married Derek.' I don't think any of them are upset over divorcing him as much as having married him in the first place, if that makes any sense at all.”

Gram was silent a moment but then said, “You might be right. There might be a big, ugly, hairy secret there.”

“Ugly, hairy secrets make the best motives for murder,” I said.

“We going to sit here and wait for her to come back out?”

“No.” I started the Nova and backed up and away from our hiding spot. “I'll take you home, and then I think I'll track down Cliff.”

Gram was glad to go home. She'd slept better the night before—fewer and less violent nightmares. She wasn't ready to be relieved, yet, but she and I both hoped that the sketches might prove to be a catalyst for making the bad dreams go away. Now that the images were on paper, perhaps they could leave her head and leave her alone. Despite the better rest, a
nap sounded appealing. I dropped her off and went back to town to find Cliff.

He was in his new crime lab and I suddenly understood part of why he'd been missing in action since he got back from St. Louis. He had lots of new, shiny toys to help him solve crimes.

“Betts, come on in,” Cliff said when he saw me after he pulled his face away from a microscope. “Come and see this.”

The room wasn't large but it wasn't cramped either, and it was much more decked out than I'd expected. In a way, the space reminded me of a modern version of Jake's archive room. But instead of old and archived, the items were new and modern. A large, lighted top steel worktable took up lots of space in the middle of the room, and sturdy, metallic shelves lined the walls, some of them holding intimidating machines with buttons and displays I would never understand.

I knew what a microscope was, of course, but the one Cliff had been looking through was bigger than the ones from high school, more heavy duty, more official.

I put my eyes to the scope and peered in at what looked like a single item with a bunch of stringy branches. There were bumps along the item and its branches. The picture was clear but I had no idea what it was.

“What is it?” I asked as I pulled away.

“It's a strand of your hair.”

I looked in again. “I have some bad split ends.”

Cliff laughed. “Not really. This microscope is just that good.”

“Where did you get the hair?”

“From the wrench that killed Derek and knocked you out.”

“Oh,” I said. “A wrench, huh?”

“Yes, that was the murder weapon. How's your head?”

“Fine. A little tender, but better.”

I took a seat on a stool not far from the microscope. It shouldn't have been surprising that there had been some of my hair on the same item that had killed Derek, but hearing it, knowing it was real, was unsettling. “Where's the wrench?”

Cliff stepped around the worktable and to a shelf on the other side of the room. He grabbed a big baggie and brought it back around.

“It's in here. It's been processed—this is something I've not been able to say without having to send evidence to St. Louis or Springfield;
I
processed it.”

“Does that make you more a crime-scene person than a policeman?” I asked.

Cliff shrugged. “I think it makes me both. I'm a police officer, but I know a little more now about crime-scene investigation and the processes and procedures. I can't do anything big—perhaps something that would involve heavy-duty chemicals or more advanced machinery. But I could figure out that on this wrench were a few things—your hair, Derek's hair and blood, Roy's fingerprints, and two other prints with unknown origins—they aren't in any criminal database.”

“That's pretty cool. How will you figure out where the two mystery prints come from?”

“The old-fashioned way. I'll start with all the Trigger drivers and get their prints. However, the possibilities could be endless. Though not likely, it is feasible that a tourist or two even touched it. We'll just have to keep looking for other clues or some other real evidence.”

“About that . . . ?” My tone was a giant question mark.

“You want to know what we've got, don't you?” Cliff smiled. “I guess I'm not surprised, and I bet that your curiosity is piqued since you were involved directly.”

I nodded.

“Unfortunately, we don't have much at all. We have the wrench and the mystery prints, but there's nothing else on there that might give us anything. No possible DNA to match with anything. No witnesses. We're still questioning lots of people, all the Trigger drivers included, and we've got more to ask Roy.”

“Roy? As in, he's a suspect?”

“He's more a person of interest, but we're looking at everyone,” Cliff said.

I realized that this case was not only personal to me, but also to Cliff since I'd been hurt. He wouldn't leave any stone unturned. Heck, he'd probably turn them all over a few times before he gave up. I liked having him on my side, but I didn't think Roy was a killer. “I never saw any problems between him and Derek.”

“There might be other angles there.”

“Like what?”

“Like Lynn—and I should not have said that. If you tell anyone I told you, I will have to arrest you.”

“If anyone is going to arrest me, I want it to be you,” I said with a bad attempt at a flirtatious smile. “But Lynn?”

“Lynn talked to Jim last week about her concerns over some possible safety issues with the Triggers. Jim checked out her complaints, and found nothing of substance. It appeared to Jim that Roy was upset by the way Lynn handled her concerns. He wished she would have talked to him first.”

“I didn't know she'd done that. Roy hid any surprise or irritation well. And that's what Lynn does; Roy knows that.”

“Sure he does, but it's difficult to find objectivity when it's about something you're so close to, something you've invented. Roy's Triggers are like his kids, maybe.”

“I don't believe objectivity is really ever possible, no matter what, so I get what you're saying. However, I do have a hard time with Roy killing Derek over something he was mad at Lynn about. Lynn and Derek were . . .”

“What?”

“I was going to say ‘two different people' but though that was technically true, I saw how they were often thought of as being their own little team against the rest of the world. And I'm beginning to wonder just how much time they actually did spend apart. It seems like Lynn was in the middle of all of Derek's life, marriages included.”

“That's what Rachel said.”

“Rachel? One of Derek's wives? She works at the bank?” I remembered Teddy's wife list.

“That's the one.”

“You talked to her?”

“Yes. Well, she came in and talked to us.”

“And?”

“I can't really tell you all she told us, but, yes, Lynn was right in the middle of all of Derek's marriages. Way too much in the middle.”

“I would love some details.”

“I know, but I also know you'd go searching for some stuff on your own if I tell you any more, so it's for your own safety that I don't. I might later, though, once we exhaust all of our leads.”

“Hmm. That's no fun.”

“I know.”

“Did she hint at the reason that Derek, with his sparkling personality, was able to find five women who wanted to marry him?”

Cliff smiled and raised one eyebrow. “No, she didn't go into that. We didn't ask her any questions that might give us those sorts of answers. We were just more interested in the amount of time that Lynn was ‘in the middle' of the marriages. Rachel was pretty forthcoming, but I can tell you this, she asked us specifically not to tell Lynn that she spoke with us.”

“Did you agree?”

“For now, yes. Jim's a firm believer that we as a police force don't bargain for much of anything, but he was willing to tell her he'd let her know if he felt compelled to tell Lynn.”

I nodded, and then looked appreciatively around the room. “All right, show me what all this stuff is.”

Cliff didn't hurry, but he didn't go into great detail as he described all the items and what they did. The things were interesting, but his enthusiasm was the best part. I found myself trying to imagine him as the architect that he used to be and the idea didn't fit quite right; it was as if the edges of the pictures in my mind weren't even. He'd found his true calling back home in Broken Rope.

Many times I'd tried to imagine him married to his first wife and my mind only formulated a blank screen. I hadn't known her, hadn't ever seen a picture of her, and I hadn't made it a point to memorize her name. Mostly I'd just pretended that Cliff had never been married. It wasn't that I was jealous of the other woman he'd fallen in love with, it was simple and pure denial; so much better to pretend she just didn't exist.

After the equipment tour and when I realized he didn't need me further interrupting his work, I left. Our farewell
was brief and only a little romantic, but that was okay. I had no sense that he was concerned about my kiss with Paul, nor did he push for more information about Jerome. In fact, I sensed there was a new balance to our relationship since the incident in the cooking school. I really liked the hint of normalcy that came with the balance.

Normalcy—not a bad plan, and something I needed to aim for more often.