Strolling Into Danger (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 6) (3 page)

“I’m investigating your mother’s death. You are within your rights to make me obtain a search warrant, but it will only slow my investigation.”

“She would not want you in her home,” the woman said. “And it will tell you nothing.”

“It already has told me a great deal about who she was,” Zack said. “And knowing who she was will help to find who killed her.”

The woman looked uncertain and Sadie saw the grief beneath the mask of contempt.

“I’m Sadie Barnett,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Alena,” the other woman said. “Alena Felton.”

“This is Police Chief Zackary Woodstone. He’s my fiancé, and I can tell you his only reason for being here is to discover the person who killed your mother and bring that person to justice.”

Alena still looked unconvinced and Sadie looked at Zack. She didn’t know what else she could do if he didn’t say something to change this girl’s mind.

“Say the word and I’ll go,” Zack said, gesturing with both hands.

“No, you’re right,” Alena said.

“It would only delay things. I will give you permission now.” She began to back out.

“Wait a moment,” Zack said.

“I was told you shared your mother’s home. But it only looks like one person lived here.”

“We did share,” Alena said, “when I was younger. I’ve had my own trailer for a couple of years now, but people forget. They still come looking for me here.” She gave them a warm smile and left.

“Could someone have stabbed Pabelin thinking it was Alena?” Sadie asked. “Someone who forgot she didn’t live here anymore?”

“I doubt it,” Zack said.

“For one thing they don’t dress anything alike. For another, I don’t think she was stabbed in here. There’s no evidence of a struggle. No blood.” Sadie looked around.

“You are right,” she said. “I was so busy wanting to live here I forgot to look for evidence. I’ll have to do better if I’m going to help you.”

“Just being yourself helped. I don’t think Alena would have agreed to let me look if you hadn’t spoken up.”

“It was a gamble, and it paid off. What are we looking for?”

Sadie picked up a picture from a pile on the table. It was of a much younger Alena with a man. Her father perhaps?

Zack came to stand beside her and looked, too. Then he picked up the pile from the table and sorted through them.

“These are all quite old,” he said. “I wonder why she had them out?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Sadie said. “Looking back on better days, maybe?”

“We’ll probably never know. There’s not much to go on here, let’s go talk to people,” Zack said and headed toward the door.

They spent the next couple of hours questioning circus people. A clown described the man who argued with Pabelin as a bony young man with round glasses that kept slipping down his nose and messy, sandy hair.

“Justin Ives,” Sadie said when the clown left the trailer.

“I’ll never understand how that man always ends up involved in whatever scandal is going on. He’s a hot mess of a college professor.” To which Zack agreed.

Rupa Street, the ring master’s red-haired wife, flounced into the trailer and freely admitted Pabelin was having an affair with her husband, and that she would have gladly killed them both.

“But there would be no point in killing Pabelin,” she said, “because then he would just sleep with someone else. The only thing to do would be to kill Maestro, and I can’t bring myself to do it. How could I live without him?”

She looked directly into Zack’s eyes with such an open frankness Sadie had to believe she was telling the truth.

Rupa said something else of interest before she flounced back out of the trailer, “if you really want to know who killed Pabelin, you should talk to Wen Felton. I’m sure he knows more than anyone about Pabelin. More than Alena or Roman.”

“Why do you say that?” Zack asked, but Rupa slipped from the trailer without answering.

Then it was time for Zack and Sadie to watch the performance.

Chapter Three

The circus was enjoyable, but Sadie thought the performers were in mourning, their hearts weren’t in the performance. It wasn’t that anything was lacking; it was just a sadness in a way she’d never experienced at a circus. It was like watching a toy car whose battery was failing. She was feeling sad when Zack drove her home and she wished they would close the circus for a few days.

Sadie took Mr. Bradshaw for a walk in the park before loading him into her car and driving up to the community college located on the bluff above the ocean. The wind was coming in off the water, smelling of salt. Mr. Bradshaw shook once when the breeze hit him, ruffling his coat. Then he stuck his nose in the air and sniffed before following Sadie to the history department.

Associate Professor Justin Ives dropped his face into his hands when Sadie walked into his office. A muffled groan reached her ears. Mr. Bradshaw trotted over and put his paws on the young man's leg. Justin raised his head and rubbed Mr. B on the head and Mr. B jumped into his lap.

"Why is it that whenever I have words with a person they die like, the very next day?" He asked. "I don't understand it."

"Maybe you're drawn to trouble," Sadie said.

"Some people are." He just shook his head and looked miserable.

"Do they think I killed her?"

"Not that I know of," Sadie said.

"It doesn't seem like you. Then again it doesn't seem like you to argue with a fortune teller. What did she say?"

"It wasn't what she said so much as what she didn't say. She gave me the general spiel about success and love, but then she looked frightened and clammed up. I asked what was wrong, but she lied and said nothing was wrong. I got mad. It was clear to me she saw something and wouldn't tell me what it was."

He slammed his hands down on his desk, startling Mr. Bradshaw, who jumped down and went back to Sadie.

"If something bad is going to happen I want to know. I want to be ready for it."

“You do know most fortune tellers just make it up, don’t you? They have a series of scripts that they ‘tell your fortune’ from. You know it’s a sham?” Sadie was appalled that he thought Pabelin might have been able to see something in his future.

“She was the real deal,” he said.

“One of the professors where I work went to see her and she was so right on he just knew she was authentic. A real seer.”

His jaw was set stubbornly. Sadie wanted to argue with him, to set him straight, but she let it go. This was not the time for a lesson in chicanery.

"Even if she was a real seer, just because she looked frightened doesn't necessarily mean something bad is going to happen to you," Sadie said.

"Maybe she saw what was going to happen to her. That could be scary," she said. "It could have scared her so much that she couldn't communicate with you. It might not have been about you at all."

"Now I feel really awful. I was really angry with her. Why do I never learn?" He dropped his forehead onto the desk.

"Aargh."

"Oh, stop." Sadie clapped her hands together sharply two times.

"If you'd only stop thinking only of yourself you'd be just fine."

He lifted his head. "What?"

"If you'd stop thinking of yourself and ask yourself what the other person needs, you'd stop making these mistakes. Be calm. Get the facts. Then ask yourself what needs to happen. Sometimes the answer is nothing. You'd feel much better now if you'd let it go and done nothing. And you wouldn't have been any worse off." She looked at him closely.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? It's not all about you."

"Yes, I understand. At least I think I do." He looked confused.

“Whenever you feel yourself going off the deep end, ask yourself ‘Is this about me? Will I be okay if I just walk away?’ Do that and eventually you’ll understand.”

At least she hoped so. She was talking through her hat here, but there had to be a way to help him grow up. She got up and Mr. B sprang to his feet, tail in the air, ready for action. She searched for something to say that wouldn’t sound preachy and failed.

“I’m sure we’ll meet again soon, Professor Ives,” she said.

“Justin,” he said automatically.

“I’m looking forward to our next meeting, Justin,” she amended. “And I hope I sound a little less like someone’s maiden aunt when we do.”

“I appreciate your concern for me,” he said.

“I probably could use a maiden aunt to whip me into shape.” Sadie smiled at this.

“Couldn’t we all?” she said and waved as she left the room.

Betty was excited when Sadie entered the shop, the bell above the door jangling.

“Oh good!” Betty said, “you’re back. We got a delivery while you were out. Let’s open it.”

Mr. Bradshaw preceded them into the back room where a big wooden box was sitting on the worktable. Sadie got out a couple of short blue crowbars from the tool chest and handed one to Betty. They began prying the lid off the packing case. On top was an Irish Chain quilt in red and white.

“This is my lost crate from Ireland!” Sadie said and began pulling things out.

The top layer consisted of several quilts in Irish Chain and log cabin patterns. Under the quilts were carefully packed boxes of antique china and under those, boxes of antique toys. Sadie and Betty spent a happy hour unpacking and examining the items. A teapot had broken, but everything else had survived.

“Let’s not put these into inventory until we’ve got the problems with the database sorted out,” Sadie said. “No point in adding to the chaos.”

“Oh,” Betty jumped up and hurried out of the room and Sadie wondered what she said. But Betty was back a moment later holding a stack of paper.

“Look,” she said.

“I found this under a pile in the office. We never finished entering these.” She handed the paper to Sadie.

Sadie smiled. “Oh my God,” she said, “I thought I was losing my mind. No wonder nothing was scanning. Do you think you can get these entered before we finish inventory?” she asked.

“Oh sure,” Betty said.

“I can do it this afternoon. The codes are already in there I just have to add descriptions. Then we can add this stuff,” she waved at the jumble on the work table.

“And then we’ll be current.”

“Wonderful,” Sadie said. “I can help if you want. We can split the pile, divide and conquer.”

“But if you do that you won’t be able to come back to the circus with me,” Zack said from the doorway. Sadie jumped a mile.

“You two frighten me,” Zack said. “Anyone could sneak in here and clean you out and you wouldn’t even hear them. What are you doing back here?”

“My missing box from Ireland arrived,” Sadie said. “We were unpacking it.”

“I didn’t know you had a missing box,” Zack said.

“Only Betty knew,” Sadie said. “I try not to complain when boxes go astray, they so rarely do.”

“And here it is.”

“Yep, and it’s great stuff.” She picked up the red and white quilt.

“I’m keeping this for myself.”

“As you should,” Zack said.

He turned to Betty. “Can you handle this inventory stuff by yourself?” he asked.

“I would love to take Sadie back to the circus, but not if it means we’ll be abandoning you.”

“Oh, pooh,” Betty said. “I’ll have this done before you guys even make it to the highway. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll leave Mr. B to keep you company,” Sadie said. “And also so he doesn’t get stepped on by an elephant.”

Mr. Bradshaw looked at her as if to say he was quick and smart and wasn’t about to let an elephant step on him. But he settled himself in his basket, content to nap while Betty worked.

The seven trapeze artists were in the big top practicing when Zack and Sadie got to the circus. The two of them sat in the shadows and watched the aerialists. The performers were arguing in a language Sadie did not understand and when she looked to Zack for an explanation he just shrugged.

One of the women was clearly angry. She spit her words with such fury that Sadie recoiled, and the young man the woman directed her rage toward seemed to lean away from her, his trapeze swaying a little. When she finally stopped screeching and they started the routine again, Sadie thought she could see a smug anticipation in his face. Sure enough, when it came time for the young man to catch the female flyer, he missed, and Sadie thought it was on purpose. She bounced in the net shouting abuse at the young man. He was smiling.

“Did you see that?” she asked Zack. “He dropped her on purpose.”

“I did,” Zack replied. “I’d say he’s attempting to teach her a lesson, but it’s not going to take. She thinks too much of herself to learn anything from a mere flyer.”

“That’s the truth! She acts like she’s the queen of the universe.”

Sadie watched the woman swing down from the net spewing what could only be profanity.

“The young man who just dropped her is Winston Felton.” Zack looked at Sadie as if this was a significant fact and she racked her brain.

“Oh, the man Rupa said was in love with Pabelin,” she said.

“That’s him,” Zack said. “And I need to talk to him, but later, after the last show tonight.”

“I’d be afraid to interrupt them now,” Sadie said.

“That woman,” she pointed to the woman who was climbing the center pole to get back to the trapeze, “would take the skin off your back with her tongue.”

“Indeed. Anyway, I need to talk to Roman again, and I was wondering if you would hang around the animal pens and just listen. I want to know what the circus people are talking about.”

“Do you want me to spend time with all the animals?” she asked, “Or can I mostly hang out with the elephants?”

“I think you should look at all the animals,” Zack said, “but it’s okay with me if you spend the bulk of your time with the elephants.”

“Oh, punny.” Sadie smiled. “That baby elephant…”

“I know. He stole your heart,” Zack said. “I feel an affinity with the little guy. Come on, we can’t sit here watching the Flying Spitballs argue all day. We have people to talk to.”

Zack took her hand and they walked past the still fighting aerialists swinging their arms. At the exit, Zack dropped a kiss on her head and they parted ways. Sadie walked around to the long side of the tent where the animals were housed. She went straight to the elephant pen and was rewarded with the sight of the baby hanging out with its mamma.

She leaned on the barrier and the baby ambled over to see her. It placed the tip of its trunk gently on her cheek and she reached out to scratch the top of its head. She rubbed the baby elephant absently while listening hard. There were conversations here and there and roustabouts shouting back and forth. A lot of it was in a language Sadie wasn’t familiar with, and the English exchanges were completely banal.

Still she listened. She concentrated so much on what she was hearing that she didn’t notice the mamma elephant approach and put her trunk on Sadie’s arm. Sadie jumped and then laughed when she realized who was touching her. She patted the larger elephant’s trunk and looked into her eyes.

“Who said you could enchant my elephants?”