There's Something About Marty (A Working Stiffs Mystery Book 3) (3 page)

Returning to the courthouse forty minutes later, I walked into the bowels of the third floor carrying a paper sack containing the remains of Marty McCutcheon’s last meal, a half-empty bottle of green chili salsa, and a nearly-full fifth of scotch whisky.

Karla Tate, Frankie’s death investigation coordinator in charge of cataloguing the evidence brought into the department, looked up at me over her computer monitor. “Brown bagging it today?”

“It’s evidence. Maybe.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Maybe?”

“If Marty McCutcheon ate or drank anything that caused his heart to stop last night, it’s evidence.”

Leaning over her desk, Karla frowned at the bag. “Is that a bottle of booze in there?”

I nodded and told her the rest of the contents of the bag.

She puckered, accentuating the network of wrinkles that decades of smoking had carved into her upper lip. “You know that if there were any real indication that Marty died from anything other than a bum ticker, the Sheriff would be storing that stuff in his evidence room instead of us cluttering up ours.”

“I know it’s a big
if
and we’ll probably end up throwing all of this into the trash, but if there’s even a chance that Frankie wants something analyzed after the labs come back….”

“Fine,” Karla muttered on a sigh. After pulling out some evidence tags from a drawer, she led me down the hall to the storage closet that doubled as an evidence room.

It contained a four-tier wire rack unit that shelved boxes of holiday decor and party supplies, coils of extension cords, a cardboard box piled high with telephones that appeared to be leftovers from the last century, and a covered plastic storage bin containing a roll of aluminum foil along with assorted sizes of baggies and gloves.

To the right of the shelving unit stood a tall, two-door gray metal cabinet. Filling up the majority of the remaining space a white refrigerator/freezer softly whirred.

Nothing about this closet screamed
Evidence Room
except for the fact that both the cabinet and the refrigerator were secured with padlocks.

“Glove up,” Karla said, reaching into the plastic bin and handing me a pair of nitrile gloves. “I assume you were wearing gloves when you removed this stuff from the house?”

“Uh, no, but I only handled the plate after wrapping it in plastic and the other two bottles already had their lids on them.”

Karla heaved another sigh as she snapped on a pair of gloves. “If this ever goes to court the defense attorney will rip you to shreds for not following protocol. In the future, if you think we need to collect some evidence, call me.”

My cheeks burned from the criticism of the senior staffer who had been training me to be her backup. I’d made another rookie mistake.

She pulled the plastic-wrapped plate from the bag. “This looks nasty.”

I couldn’t disagree. “Yeah.”

Palming the plate she met my gaze with a look worthy of a disapproving schoolmarm. “And it isn’t cold.”

“I know. Mrs. McCutcheon left everything on the table, just as it was after her husband became ill.”

“So it sat out all night, uncovered.”

“Yep.”

“You know what I said about that defense attorney ripping you to shreds?”

I nodded.

“Ditto. Fortunately for us, Marty didn’t fall victim to anything more sinister than the poor diet that’s been hardening his arteries the last thirty years, and your
evidence
won’t be needed.”

“Right.” Try convincing the McCutcheon women that their loved one had simply eaten his way into an early grave.

After another few puckers and sighs, the remnants from Marty McCutcheon’s last meal were bagged, tagged, and stored under lock and key, and I was handed a plate to return to his second wife.

Not today, I thought, washing it in the breakroom. My only order of business today was to speak with everyone who had shared that last meal and then get my report to Frankie.

I made a quick trip to my desk to store the plate in a drawer and check my messages, then I headed for the door to interview the next person on my list: Jeremy McCutcheon.

On my way out I glanced up at the brass clock mounted above the front door that along with the red brick courthouse, dated back to the late eighteen hundreds. Since it was eleven twenty-two and approaching lunchtime for most of Port Merritt’s occupants, I figured I had a fifty-fifty chance of catching Nicole’s brother at the shop where he’d worked for Marty. The same could be said for Cameron, the half-brother Nicole and Jeremy didn’t know they had, Phyllis, the salsa lady, and Bob, Marty’s whisky supplier.

With any luck, I’d be able to get most of their statements, take my own lunch break at Duke’s, and then walk back to McCutcheon Floors & More to finish the job.

That would leave only one name on my interview list: Austin Reidy. I just needed to make sure that my lunch had settled before I visited Austin. Not that history would repeat itself and I’d cap off our meeting by upchucking on his shoes. That ugly little slice of mortification pie was served only to sixteen-year-olds foolish enough to chug their first beer on a dare. Wasn’t it?

I reached into my tote bag and fingered the roll of antacids I kept in a side pocket. Yep, I was armed and ready for Austin Reidy. At least that’s what I told myself.

As soon as the door to McCutcheon Floors & More swung shut behind me, two things seemed very inappropriate given the reason for my visit: the business as usual atmosphere in Marty McCutcheon’s store and the bright smile on his son’s face as he greeted me.

“How’re you doing? Can I help you find something?” Jeremy McCutcheon asked without waiting for an answer to the first question.

I looked up at the younger, golden-haired version of his father. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Charmaine Digby and I work for the Coroner.”

The wattage of his smile dimmed as his heavy-lidded brown eyes scanned my face. “Yeah, I remember you.” His gaze dropped to my hips. “It’s been a while.”

At least fifteen years since I’d served him a burger at Duke’s and double that many pounds. “I’d like to speak with you if you could spare a few minutes.”

He shook his head. “You couldn’t have picked a worse time.”

No doubt his father’s death had to have made getting through this work day especially difficult.

“We’re kicking off our annual fall sale today.”

A sale? Today of all days?

He thumbed in the direction of the two couples walking through the laminate flooring section. “I’m kinda busy.”

“I can see that.” I also noticed a twenty-something dressed in the same polo shirt/blue jeans combination as Jeremy, who was assisting one of the couples. That’s where the similarity between the two men ended. Where Jeremy, a solid-packed former state wrestling champion, looked like he’d enjoy the taste of his own blood, the dark-haired guy with the more angular features looked long and lean like a distance runner who preferred fresh air to the stink of a wrestling mat. At least I’d thought they had nothing in common until his gaze met mine, and I saw that they shared the same heavy-lidded, bedroom eyes—Marty’s eyes.

This had to be Cameron, and he appeared to be as curious about me as I was about him.

“I thought about closing things down today,” Jeremy said as I looked around. “But I didn’t think my dad would want us to do that, especially after he spent some bucks to advertise the sale. Instead, when I told everyone the news this morning, I said they could take the day if they wanted.”

“Anyone take you up on your offer?”

“Just Bob Hallahan. He and my dad went way back, so he took it pretty hard.”

“Understandable.”

“If you could come back Monday, after the sale—”

“Sorry, this can’t wait, but I promise I’ll be brief. Is there somewhere private where we could talk?”

“Of course.” The smile crawling back onto his face, he bowed slightly, all politeness like the officious maître d’ at my former in-laws’ San Francisco bistro. So very accommodating to the big tippers, such a prick to everyone else. “Right this way.”

I followed him past stacks of rolled carpet, halfway down a dimly lit hallway into a back office cluttered with catalogs, books of swatches, and laminate sample boards.

Jeremy sat behind the desk and pointed to the two black vinyl chairs facing him. “Have a seat. Sorry about the mess. Pop was the carpet king in town, not the organization king.”

Clearly that was the truth, but again it struck me how unaffected by his father’s loss Jeremy appeared to be. It was as if he’d shifted into an emotionally neutral state. Assuming, of course, that he was a man capable of experiencing highs and lows on a sliding scale of emotions.

I sat in the chair closest to the door and pulled my notebook from my tote. “First of all, my condolences. I knew your dad from working at Duke’s over the years. He was a very nice man.”

“We all thought so,” he said, his gaze cool as he tapped a steady beat with his index finger.

I took that as a signal to cut the niceties short and get on with the interview. “I understand that you were at your dad’s house for dinner last night.”

The tapping continued. “That’s right.”

“Who else was there?” I already had the answer, but I wanted to hear it from him.

“Victoria, my sister, Nic, her husband, Austin, Cameron, and me.”

“Who’s Cameron?” I asked to watch Jeremy describe Cameron’s relationship to his late father.

“New guy. My dad took him under his wing when he hired him a couple months back. Even had him to the house for dinner once before.”

Again Jeremy was making like Switzerland. Completely neutral.

“So it didn’t seem unusual for him to be there with your family?”

“No, and why are you asking about one of our employees?” He sat up straight like I’d just jammed a stick up his backside. “Are you suggesting—”

“I’m not suggesting anything. The Coroner just wants to be thorough. You know, dot all the i’s, cross all the t’s.”

Jeremy vented a breath.

Righteous indignation? If that’s what he had intended to convey I wasn’t buying it, not with the lack of heat behind the carefully constructed mask he was wearing.

“Whatever,” he muttered. “I need to get back to work so what else do you want to know?”

“Tell me about your dad. You must have spent quite a bit of time with him yesterday. Did he say anything about not feeling well?”

“He seemed fine. It was his birthday so Phyllis got him a cake. We all signed a card for him. What can I tell you? He seemed to be enjoying himself.”

“And later on at dinner?”

“The same. Laughing, joking around—normal stuff.” He knit his brows. “At least until he broke into a sweat.”

“When was that?”

“About ten minutes after we sat down to eat. I didn’t notice it at first. Victoria did. Asked him if he was okay. Of course the old goat said he was fine. Too proud to admit he was in pain.”

Nicole and Victoria had made it sound like Marty had become violently ill from something he ate or drank, but neither one of them had used the word
pain
. “Did he say something about anything hurting to you?”

With a cavalier shrug of a shoulder Jeremy’s lips curled into a humorless smile. “Didn’t have to. I was there for his last heart attack. Trust me, seeing him go all sweaty and pale—that’s not something you forget.”

“Did you tell Victoria that you thought your dad was having another heart attack?”

“I tried, but when he started throwing up she got a little hysterical. Honestly, I don’t think she heard me.”

Hysterical? The cool and calm Victoria I met earlier this morning? Once again, I wasn’t buying what Jeremy was trying to sell me. And him throwing in an
honestly
line only served to make him less convincing.

“But if you recognized the same signs that you saw before,” I said, struggling to phrase my question in a non-accusatory way, “did you suggest placing a nine-one-one call?”

“Victoria didn’t seem to want to call but finally…after…”

“After what?”

“Dad passed out on the bathroom floor, and I was yelling at her that we couldn’t wait any longer,” he stated matter of factly as if we were talking about something as inconsequential as the weather, not his dying father.

His version of last night’s events was very similar to Nicole’s and Victoria’s except for the parts where he suspected that his father was having another heart attack and his portrayal of his stepmother as hesitant to get Marty the help he needed. The unflattering picture he’d painted made me curious about their relationship, especially since I knew that Jeremy was the one who had called to check up on her this morning.

“But with the time it takes for the paramedics to get out to Clatska, it was already too late.” He heaved a sigh as if it had been scripted, but behind that sigh—nothing. No sense of loss, no indicator of grief.

What was with this guy?

The finger tapping resumed. “Anything else that I can tell you?”

I knew there was plenty more he could tell me, but it would have been a waste of his time and mine if we were to continue this game of verbal dodgeball.

“That’s all I need for now. Thank you. Would you ask Cameron to come in?”

Coming to his feet, Jeremy narrowed his eyes at me, his gaze hard as granite for a split second before he shifted back into neutral.

You don’t like me telling you what to do.

“I’ll see if he’s available,” he stated slowly and clearly as if I needed a reminder that he was the one in charge in this office.

Fine. At least he’d revealed an honest emotion. Not a particularly pleasant one since the guy looked like he wanted to wrap his beefy arm around my neck and put me into a head lock, but still, his emotional response told me a lot. Most notably that my read on him was correct.

That didn’t mean that Jeremy McCutcheon had anything to do with his father’s death. It also didn’t mean that he didn’t.

∗ ∗ ∗

Shaking his head, Cameron Windom stared down at the floor much like he had most of the last seven minutes we’d shared in his father’s office. With his fingers interlocked, his elbows propped against the armrests of the chair next to me, Cameron gave the appearance of praying, only his lips weren’t moving. Instead, they were clamped shut, making him look a lot like my ex-husband—a man afraid of digging himself into an inescapable hole after I caught him kissing our sous chef in the walk-in freezer.

After several seconds of stony silence, Cameron blew out a breath, his feet inching toward the door like he wanted to bolt. “Really, I don’t know what more I can tell you. Like I said, I ate everything that he did, so I don’t know why he got so sick.”

You could tell me the whole truth.
Which would be especially useful since the information he was withholding was making him too twitchy to get an accurate reading.

I decided to take a different approach. “Okay, then tell me about when you found out that Marty McCutcheon was your father.”

He searched my gaze. “How did…. Does Jeremy know? I wasn’t supposed to say anything until after—”

“Victoria told me, and I haven’t said anything about this to Jeremy, but it will be included in my report to the Coroner.”

Cameron swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he nodded. “Maybe it doesn’t matter now.”

I leaned toward him both to see and hear him more clearly. “What doesn’t matter?”

“Without Marty here…” He shook his head. “There’s no reason to make the McCutcheons’ lives any more complicated than they already are.”

Somehow his line felt rehearsed. Maybe the brothers were more alike than I’d given them credit for.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Too bad. I kinda liked this job.”

“Are you saying you’re leaving?”

He stared at the floor with such intensity he could have burned a hole in the carpeting with his corneas. “Jeremy doesn’t want me here. He’s made that pretty clear.”

Oh, yeah? “How?”

Cameron shrugged. “He rides me pretty hard when Marty’s not around. And now that he’s gone, I don’t have to put up with Jeremy’s
management style
.” Another lopsided smile crossed his lips. “It’s not like I’m going to be invited to any more family gatherings. No big deal,” he said, his eyes reddening with unshed tears as he lied to the both of us. “I don’t need any of this shit.”

The last part of his statement might have been true, but as a member of yesterday’s gathering he was smack-dab in the middle of it.

He turned to me. “Are we done?”

“In a minute.” Now that we didn’t need to skirt around his relationship to Marty, I wanted to revisit Cameron’s account of yesterday’s dinner party. “When you said that you ate the same food as Marty, what exactly did you eat last night?”

Cameron angled a glare at me. “You want to know every single thing I ate?”

“Yep.”

“Chips, dip, a bunch of jalapeno pepper things wrapped in bacon, some sort of enchilada casserole, taco salad, sour cream, more chips. I guess that’s pretty much it. Oh, and a beer.”

He had packed away that much food, and he was this skinny? Man, I’d love to trade metabolisms with this guy.

I compared the list to everything Victoria had told me that Marty had eaten and spotted one glaring omission. “Did you have any of the hot sauce?”

He shook his head. “I thought about it when Marty dared me to try it, but when Victoria pointed out the flames on the label I decided not to tempt fate.”

“Fate?”

“Hot and spicy food can give me some pretty bad heartburn. In fact, that’s what I thought was happening with Marty at first.”

“When he started getting sick?”

“Right. He grabbed his water glass like his throat was on fire. After he finished his water he drank Victoria’s.”

It seemed odd to me that she hadn’t mentioned this.

“Then he started to sweat,” Cameron said.

She hadn’t mentioned that either.

He wrinkled his nose. “A few minutes later I could hear him throwing up in the bathroom.”

“Cameron, did you or anyone else suggest calling nine-one-one?”

He stared down at his scuffed sneakers. “Sure, but Marty kept saying that he’d be okay—to give him a few minutes.” Cameron shook his head. “I think waiting all that time was a big mistake.”