Seed No Evil (8 page)

“I'm the handsome younger model,” Rafe said, balancing the tray on one finger. “Rafe Salvare,” he said, holding out the other hand. The tray clattered to the floor. He ignored it and Marco's scowl, but beamed at Emma's giggle, as if that had been his intention all along.

“Emma Hardy,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

Marco finally caught Rafe's eye and gave him a slight frown.

“Nice to meet you, too, Emma,” Rafe said. “If you need anything, just give a wave. I run the bar.” He gave me a wink, Marco a nod, and then sauntered off.

Emma looked at me and mouthed, “He's so cute!” Then she took a sip of her margarita and glanced over at Rafe, who was already chatting with a customer and pouring a beer. “Is he single?”

“He sure is,” I said.

“What we're interested in knowing,” Marco said, getting us back to the topic, “is what kind of relationship Bev had with the board of directors.”

“By the board,” Emma said, still with her cheery demeanor, “I'm assuming you mean Dayton Blaine.”

“Why?” Marco asked.

“Because Dayton controls the board. Whatever Dayton says, the board does. They sit quietly, nodding their heads at her, during most of the meetings—when they're not dozing off, that is.”

“How do you know this?” Marco asked.

“I attend board meetings. I see it all the time. All. The. Time.” Emma smiled. I wondered if she could keep her eyes from twinkling.

“Then I'll work under the presumption that the board is represented by Dayton Blaine,” Marco said, while I wrote it down. “Did Bev and Dayton usually agree on PAR business?”

“When I first started working for PAR, they did. But that changed about three months ago. Dayton was getting flack from the newspapers about the conditions at the animal shelter and didn't like her name connected with the
abominable shelter business,
as she put it. And she placed the blame squarely at Bev's feet.”

“What was Bev's reaction?”

“She didn't like it at all. She was used to everything going her way.” Emma leaned forward to say quietly, “Bev was a control freak, if you want to know the truth. But she knew the shelter was in bad shape, so she started going there after she finished at the PAR office for the day. Personally, I think it was all for show.”

“Let's go back to the board meetings,” Marco said. “How did the other members of the board react when Dayton criticized Bev?”

“I think they were very glad Dayton was dealing with the situation, because no one liked going up against Bev. Very few of them spoke at the meetings anyway, and if one of them did, it was just to back up Dayton.

“Last month, with no explanation given, Bev ran the meeting, not Dayton. Honestly, Dayton sat through the meeting acting uninterested in what was going on. In fact, she seemed withdrawn. I don't know. Maybe she was ill. In any event, she said only one thing that evening, and that was at the social hour afterward. She thought the no-kill policy needed to change.”

“Did she give a reason?” I asked.

“Finances,” Emma said with a shrug. “And that was only after someone questioned her. But here's what I don't understand. Dayton loves cats. She supposedly has several of them, which is why I don't see her sanctifying a shelter that euthanizes. And besides, Blaine Manufacturing gives a lot of money to PAR specifically designated to keep the shelter running. You'd think they'd just give more rather than change the policy.”

“Let's talk a little more about Bev's sister, Stacy,” Marco said. “What kind of relationship did she have with Bev, if you know?”

“Oh, they didn't get along at all,” Emma said with a frown, which did not cause her eyes to dim. I looked up at the ceiling. Was it the lighting?

“Would you elaborate as to how you know this?” Marco asked.

“Bev had me working at the shelter during my off hours to set up a Web site that people could actually understand and use. You should have seen the one they had before. It was a mess. No tabs, links missing . . . So anyway, I was there when Bev and Stacy were there on at least”—she stopped to count on her fingers—“ten occasions.”

“Did they argue?”

“Not in front of me. Always in Stacy's office, but those walls are really thin.”

“What did they argue about?” I asked.

“Mostly how to run the shelter.”

“What's your opinion of the shelter?” I asked.

“I don't know anything about anything, other than what I saw on their computer, and that was pretty sloppy.” Emma wrinkled her perfect nose. “But it could have been that way when Stacy took over management. Those conditions didn't happen overnight.”

“So you heard them argue on ten occasions?” Marco asked.

“Oh, yeah. Bev was tough on Stacy. Bev wanted to be able to go back to the board and show improvements, and it just wasn't happening. About two months ago, Bev wanted to hold a big fund-raiser for the shelter so she could make more changes to the physical environment, but Dayton told her no one was going to donate money unless they could see that things were changing. Otherwise, as Dayton said in a meeting, it would be throwing good money after bad.” Emma folded her hands on the table again and smiled. “Isn't that just the best saying? Throwing good money after bad?”

I realized I was humming “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”
in my head. I had to stop looking into Emma's eyes.

“How did Stacy react to the arguments with Bev?” Marco asked.

“Stacy would just stop talking after a while, and pretty soon Bev would come out and go into another room to work.”

“What did she work on?” I asked.

Emma shrugged. “I wasn't a part of that.”

“How did the shelter staff react to Bev?” Marco asked.

“The women at the counter are dull. I've never seen them react to anything. And the two in the back never had much contact with Bev that I could see.”

I wrote:
Shelter staff a nonissue.

“Did you ever feel that Bev and her sister were close?” Marco asked.

That got a laugh. “You never met Bev, did you?”

“No,” Marco said.

“Believe me,” Emma said in a dramatically low voice, “it would be hard to be close to her.”

“Even for her own sister?” I asked.

“Especially for her sister.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

Emma toyed with the straw in her drink, as though deciding what to tell us. “I don't know how they were outside of work, but from what I overheard at the shelter, the sisters didn't like each other.”

Just as Marco was about to ask his next question, Rafe appeared with a fresh margarita.

“Look what I have here,” he said, setting the drink in front of Emma and whisking the old one out from under her hand.

“Aren't you sweet?” Emma said, tilting her head coyly and gazing up at him.

Rafe beamed. “I hear that all the time, but never from someone as gorgeous as you.”

Emma giggled and put the straw between her lips. She took a sip, then said, “Yum. You make wonderful margaritas.”

“I make the best daiquiris in town, too.”

“There might be a customer waiting for one right now, in fact,” Marco said, giving Rafe a scowl.

“See you later,” Rafe said, and strutted off as though he was sure Emma was watching him, which she was. I thought it was pretty amusing, but Marco didn't. I could tell by the way he stared at the table that he'd lost his train of thought. That was unusual for him.

I was about to remind him when he said, “Let's talk about the PAR staff. Who besides you works for Bev?”

“Just two others—the fiscal director and the administrative assistant.”

“Would you give me their names, please?” I asked.

“John Bradford is our fiscal director,” Emma said, “and Holly Jankowsky is the admin assistant.” She followed that with a spelling of Holly's full name.

“Would you explain your duties and the duties of John and Holly?” Marco asked.

“I'm in charge of fund-raising, social media, publicity, and networking,” Emma said. “And can I tell you how much I
love
my job?”

She watched as I wrote it down, then pointed at the words and said, “Underline
love
.”

Now she was editing my notes.

“The fiscal director,” she explained, “is PAR's chief financial officer, which is self-explanatory, and the administrative assistant handles all the little tasks the three of us give her, or at least I
try
to give her. Bev keeps her—make that
kept
her—pretty busy.”

“How did the other two get along with Bev?” I asked.

“John's work is nonconfrontational, so he got along with Bev just fine. Holly is a sweet girl who just graduated from college and is super efficient. Bev loves her. I'm sorry. I mean she loved her.”

“Did you get along well with Bev?” I asked, remembering that red flag from before.

After a split-second hesitation, Emma nodded. “I didn't have any problems with Bev.”

Another red flag. She changed the meaning of my question. I wrote:
PAR staff—check with admin asst. and CFO re: Emma's relationship with Bev.

“Did Bev ever have a problem with you?” Marco asked.

Emma shook her head and followed that with a firm “No.”

“Was your job confrontational?” I asked, and then, at her puzzled look, I reminded her what she'd said about the fiscal director.

“My job involves a lot of marketing tasks, and they can be open to interpretation, so sometimes how I interpreted something differed from how Bev interpreted it.”

“Did she ever threaten to fire you?” Marco asked.

Emma finally lost her smile. “She never threatened me.”

That time she hadn't answered the exact question.

“Did she ever get angry over something you did?” Marco asked, changing his angle.

“That happened all the time to everyone,” Emma said, waving her hand. “Bev was always angry at
someone.
”

That time Emma had deflected the question. She was a lot cannier than I'd first thought. “Even Holly?” I asked.

Emma turned to look at me as though she suspected a trap. “She might have been on occasion. I don't know. I wasn't around Holly all the time.” With a frown, Emma stirred her margarita, looking uncomfortable enough to call it quits. I knew Marco would switch tactics now to prevent her from ending the interview.

“Emma, can you think of anyone who might have been a danger to Bev?” Marco asked, his hands folded on the table, his expression earnest. “Anyone we should be investigating for her death?”

She gazed into his eyes for a long moment, as though considering his question. Then she nodded. “Stacy. For sure.”

“For what reason?” Marco asked.

“Stacy hated Bev,” Emma said, “and not just because of problems at the shelter.” She sat back and waited for one of us to ask the obvious question, so I obliged.

“What was the other reason—or reasons?”

“From what I gathered, a long time ago Bev had an affair with Stacy's husband.” Emma lowered her voice and leaned forward again. “In fact, Bev is the one who broke up the Shaws' marriage, and I
know
Stacy has never forgiven her for it because I heard her say those very words.”

I glanced at Marco's face and knew Stacy had just moved up to the number-one-suspect position.

M
arco leaned forward, his gaze intent on Emma's face. “Did Stacy tell you that she had never forgiven her sister?”

“No, not to my face,” Emma said, wrinkling her nose. “Remember those thin walls I told you about? Well, while I was working on the computer, on several evenings after the staff was gone, I heard Stacy and Bev get into it.”

“Would you relate the conversation as you heard it?” Marco asked.

“You know how certain words are said louder than others in an argument?” Emma asked. “Well, I heard enough of those louds words to piece together what they were talking about.”

“Which is,” I said, writing, “that Stacy blamed Bev for breaking up her marriage?”

“Oh boy, did she blame Bev—and still hasn't forgiven her. From what I heard, Stacy was crazy about Justin—that's her ex-husband—and accused Bev of ruining her life fourteen years ago and wanting to ruin it again now.”

“By doing what?” Marco asked.

“I don't know. Every time Stacy got to that point, she lowered her voice.” Emma smiled and shrugged. She was relaxed again.

“Was anyone else around to hear? Any volunteers?” Marco asked.

“No. The volunteers are always in the animal wards.”

“Do you know anything about Stacy's ex-husband?” I asked.

Rafe suddenly appeared with a basket of tortilla chips and a dish of salsa. “I thought this would go with your margarita,” he said, gazing adoringly into Emma's blue eyes. “Need another refill?”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Emma teased with a flirtatious shake of her wavy hair. “I should warn you, it doesn't take much.”

“I like a woman who can't hold her liquor,” Rafe said, crouching down so he could feast upon her beauty.

Emma laughed, light and tinkling. “I like men who like women who can't hold their liquor.”

“I like men who do their jobs,” Marco said, prompting Rafe to stand and salute his older brother, then wink at Emma.

“Don't leave without stopping at the bar to say good night,” Rafe said.

“I won't.” Turning back to Marco, Emma said, “I'm sorry. Please go on.”

“What do you know about Stacy's ex-husband?” Marco asked.

“Nothing. I don't even know if Justin lives in town.”

I wrote:
Interview Justin Shaw

“You said Bev was hard to get close to,” Marco said, picking up an old line of questioning. “Did you try to get close to her?”

“Believe me, I tried for months after I started working there,” Emma said, then sipped her fresh margarita from the straw. “I finally gave up and just did the best job I could. There was no pleasing her.”

“How does her assistant do it?” I asked.

“By letting Bev walk all over her. By being her slave girl.” Emma shook her head. “Poor Holly. I felt sorry for the way Bev treated her, but she didn't seem to mind. She fell into the game of pleasing Bev.”

“But you found that impossible?” I asked.

“Totally. She'd give me a project to work on one day, then get angry that I was spending time on it the next day. Or she wouldn't like the way it was done and do it herself. No matter what I tried, I couldn't seem to please her.”

Emma was stirring her drink fast, clearly agitated. I saw Marco's focus sharpen and knew he was about to put pressure on her.

“Why didn't you quit?” he asked.

“The job pays well, and I have lots of student loans, lots of expenses. Do you know how hard it is to find a well-paying job in today's market? It's nearly impossible. I don't even want to think about trying.”

“Is that why you took on projects for private clients outside of work?” Marco asked.

Emma's eyes widened, clearly shocked that he knew. “I was helping a friend with publicity for her new shop, that's all. I got paid minimally.”

“Did Bev find out?”

Emma looked down at her drink, as though ashamed. “Yes. I tried to explain that I never worked on it during work hours, only on my free time, but Bev said it was a conflict of interest.”

“How would that be a conflict?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Emma said, looking as puzzled as I felt. “She wouldn't explain it.”

“Did she say she was going to fire you over it?” he asked.

At first it appeared that Emma was going to say no, but then she let out a heavy sigh, as though deciding it wasn't worth lying about. “Bev said if I didn't stop, she would have no choice but to fire me. I tried to explain that I desperately needed more income to keep my head above water, but she didn't want to hear it. She said my financial problems weren't
pertinent
to the work at PAR.”

Emma's last remark was said with a lot of bitterness.

“So she did threaten you,” Marco said, causing Emma's peachy complexion to glow a hot red.

“I saw it as more of a warning,” she said.

“When did this happen?” Marco asked.

Emma shrugged. “Sometime last week, I think. I'm not sure what day it was.”

If I were warned that I could be fired, I was fairly certain I'd remember that day for a long time to come.

“Did you do as she requested and stop?” Marco asked.

“What choice did I have?”

Easy answer. She could stop moonlighting, or she could
put
a stop to Bev. I studied Emma as she pressed her lips together, clearly angry at the memory of the argument she'd had with her boss. But could Emma have been angry enough to pull two cords to raise the doggy doors?

Emma checked the time on her watch, then glanced around the bar. “Are we done yet? I'm meeting a friend.”

“Just one more thing,” Marco said. “Where were you Monday evening between five and seven o'clock?”

“You're asking for my alibi?” Emma cried, causing a few heads to turn our way.

“It's a routine question,” Marco said in a soothing voice. “We have to ask everyone we talk to.”

“So basically you're treating me as a suspect.”

“No,” Marco said patiently. “As I said, it's a routine question. Would you answer it please?”

Emma shoved her drink away, clearly angry. “I went home to change and eat dinner.”

“Is there anyone who can verify that?” Marco asked.

“Okay, that's it,” she said abruptly. “You
are
trying to make me a suspect, and don't pretend otherwise. So write this down.” She pointed to my notes. “I had nothing to do with Bev's death.
Nothing.
” She slid toward the end of the bench. “Tell your brother good-bye for me. My friend and I will go somewhere else for dinner.”

She got up in a hurry and headed for the door, threading among people, as the bar had filled up since she'd arrived. Poor Rafe caught sight of her just as she left and came over to find out what had happened.

“I think we made her nervous,” Marco said.

“Thanks a lot,” Rafe said in disgust. “I was hoping to ask her out.”

I motioned for Rafe to come closer; then I said quietly, “She's a suspect in a murder investigation. You might want to hold off dating her until she's been cleared.”

Marco motioned for him to come even closer. “When you see us interviewing someone, would you not interrupt, please?”

Rafe straightened, coloring. “Fine,” he said, and stalked off.

Marco sighed. “Sorry, Sunshine, if he annoyed you, because he sure did me.”

“I agree with you, although it was kind of funny. So what did you think of Emma?”

“I'd like to hear your opinion first.”

I looked over my notes. “She's good at deflecting questions she doesn't want to answer.”

“Check.”

“She withheld the big news about Bev and Stacy's relationship until she felt more comfortable around us, like she didn't trust us at first.”

“Yep. Caught that.”

“She's harboring a lot of anger toward Bev for threatening to fire her.”

“Enough anger to kill Bev?”

“I hate to agree with a suspect, but I'm having a hard time thinking about what happened to Bev as a pure killing, Marco. So I asked myself whether Emma could have pulled two cords to let the dogs loose.”

“Why does that make a difference?”

“After listening to Stacy's rationale on the subject, I tried to put myself in the mind-set of a person who would probably not be prone to violence but might have gotten so angry she just wanted to get even. In pulling on the cord, the killer wouldn't have had to stick around and see the results, making the deed less gruesome somehow. As weird as it sounds, I could see it being a female-style killing.”

“Still, that female is taking a big risk that it might not do the job intended.”

“I know. It obviously wasn't well thought out, so it must have been a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

“What's your answer on Emma?” Marco asked.

“I can't answer it yet. The interview was too short. What about you?”

“Same here. I'm going to withhold judgment until I get more information. I'd like to talk to the other two members of the PAR staff tomorrow, hopefully in the morning while you're working.”

“
If
I'm working.”

Marco glanced at me sidelong. “What does that mean?”

“It means I hope I have orders to work on.”

“Is business that slow?”

“It was today. I hope it's not a trend.”

“Can you have a sale or something? Print coupons? Hire Lottie's boys to distribute flyers around town?” Marco was intent on solving my problem. “Didn't you run a contest a long while back? Can you do that again?”

“I'll figure something out.”

He took my hand. “I don't want you to worry about your business, Abby. It's a good, solid business. It'll bounce back.”

“Thanks. I appreciate your support.” And that's all I really wanted, his support. But typical of most guys, he needed to solve the problem, not just listen to me vent. Now I had to hope he was still listening because I wanted him to open up.

Giving his hand a squeeze, I said, “Isn't it great when we can share our concerns like this?”

“Sure is.” He pulled the notebook closer so he could read it.

“That's what a team is all about, right?”

He turned the page. “Team Salvare.”

“So what's our next step in the investigation after you talk to the staff at PAR?”

Marco closed the notebook. “Interview Stacy's ex-husband, Justin Shaw. I'm going to do a search on him tomorrow morning, so maybe by noon I'll have something lined up. I need to set up a meeting with Dayton Blaine, too, but she's proving difficult. I called Blaine Manufacturing today and got transferred around until finally a secretary somewhere said I'd just missed her, but I could try her office at PAR headquarters. So I did, and she hadn't arrived yet.

“I left a message for her to call me, and of course she didn't. I called back later and was told she'd already left. She was supposedly on her way to a Blaine subsidiary, but I couldn't reach her there, either. I'll probably have to go camp out at the Blaine headquarters and wait for her to show up.”

“She may not agree to see you.”

“Who are you talking about here?” Marco asked, putting his hands to his chest and acting offended. “Are you talking about the man you claim can charm any woman?”

“Oops. I forgot. You're right. One look at you and she'll grant you an interview. But that means I should stay away so I don't ruin the Salvare magic.”

“Are you kidding? If she shows up, I'll have you come right down with a bouquet of flowers. What woman can resist flowers delivered by the cutest redhead in town?”

“Naturally, she's cute,” came a woman's voice from behind us. “Why would my son marry her if she weren't?”

Francesca Salvare appeared at the end of the table and leaned down to wrap her strong arms around me for a lung-squeezing hug. “Abby,
bella
,” she said, smiling down at me. “You're adorable. Who is questioning it? Give me their names and I will straighten this out at once.”

“No one is questioning it,
Mama,
” Marco said, as his mother slid onto the bench opposite us. “I was talking theoretically.”

“Never mind your theories,” she said. “Let's talk specifics.”

“About what?” Marco asked.

“About your wedding.”

Oh no. Here it comes. Another harangue about the guest list.

“Where are you holding the ceremony?” she asked.

“In the gazebo at Fairfield Park,” I replied.

“Oh,” she said, looking crestfallen.

“What's wrong?” I asked, glancing at Marco in bewilderment.

“Well,” Francesca said, folding her hands on the table, “there's nothing much around it except for farm fields and rural county roads.”