Stuck on Murder (13 page)

They all laughed, but it quickly faded as the gravity of the situation sank in. Nate was very much a marked man.

“Do you think they’re going to arrest you?” Brenna asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But given that Ripley and I had some very public differences of opinion, and the fact that I don’t have an alibi that can be corroborated by anyone but Hank, it doesn’t look good.”

“We have to find out who did it,” Brenna said. “And I know exactly where to start.”

“You have someone in mind?” Nate asked.

She flipped over the paper and pointed to the article about Nate. “Ed Johnson.”

Chapter 13

Nate’s face darkened as he took in the photo and the article.

“This is the trouble with a misspent youth,” he said. “It never goes away. Am I correct in assuming that Ed neglected to mention that I was cleared of all charges? That I wasn’t even in the room that night?”

“You’re correct,” Brenna said. She bit back the urge to ask about the blond, but just barely.

“But why Ed?” Matt asked Brenna. “Why would he harm Ripley?”

“He’s been waiting for a story like this his entire career,” Brenna said. “Maybe he got tired of waiting and decided to create one himself.”

“But murder?” Tenley asked. “That’s pretty extreme, even for a badger like Ed.”

“Anything is possible,” Nate said. “But it does seem to be a stretch.”

“What about Roger Chisholm?” Brenna asked. “He’s the president of the historic preservation society. I heard him talking to Lillian Page, the librarian. It was obvious that there was no love lost between him and Ripley.”

“But murder?” Matt asked.

They were all silent, contemplating this possibility.

“Who else then?” Brenna asked, feeling exasperated. If they could come up with a viable list of suspects, surely that would help Nate combat the bad publicity he was getting in the
Courier.

“Does it matter?” Nate asked, sounding weary. “Ray is on it. I know he won’t rest until he catches the killer.”

“What if he doesn’t?” Brenna asked.

“He will,” Nate said. “I trust him.”

“I like Chief Barker, too,” she said. “But he’s only one man. If the media and the town turn against you, well, you could be arrested for a crime you didn’t commit.”

“The media is notorious for being wrong,” Nate said. “And what do I care if the town turns on me? I didn’t kill Ripley.”

“I know, but . . .” Brenna’s protest trailed off as Nate rose to leave.

He tipped his head as he studied her. “You worry too much. Just leave it be. Everything will be okay, I promise.”

She watched as Nate slipped out through the back door with a wave to them all, back to his isolated life on the lake.

For a worldly artist, he was so naïve. He really thought that Ray would catch the murderer and his place in the town would resume. He didn’t realize that once tainted as a suspect, a person had a hard time shaking off the insidious suspicions of others, even when proven innocent. She didn’t want to see Nate suffer through that. The sooner Ripley’s real murderer was caught, the better.

“Uh-oh,” Tenley said.

“What?” Brenna asked.

“You’ve got that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you’re not going to listen to a word Nate says and you’re going to do exactly as you see fit,” Tenley said.

“That’s a look?” Brenna asked.

“Oh, yeah, it’s the same look you give me when I try to get you to drink decaf,” Tenley said with a smile.

“I’m thinking Ripley wasn’t going to develop the lake property on his own,” Matt said, breaking his contemplative silence. They both turned to look at him.

Brenna nodded. “I bet you’re right.”

“Maybe the deal went sour when Nate kicked up a fuss and Ripley’s partner held him responsible,” Matt said.

“And killed him?” Tenley asked.

“Money is a big motivator,” he said.

“How can we find out who he was working with?” Tenley asked. She pulled the leftover snacks from yesterday’s class out of the minifrig in the storeroom and passed them around. Both Matt and Brenna helped themselves to a bunch of green grapes.

“We could ask Cynthia,” Matt suggested. “She must have known what her husband was doing.”

“Maybe or maybe not,” Tenley said. She swallowed a grape before she continued. “I’m betting our answers are in his office. If he had an appointment book or a Rolodex or a record of his phone calls, it might lead us to whoever he’s been working with. The question is, have the police taken it all as evidence, and if not, how do we get access?”

Tenley and Brenna exchanged a look. The box Cynthia had dropped off sat on the table between them.

“I think I have an idea,” Brenna said. She tapped her chin with her forefinger. “Cynthia has asked me to make a memorial plaque for Ripley’s service. I could stop by his office and ask his secretary if there is anything from his office that should be included and use the opportunity to search.”

Matt looked impressed. “That just might work.”

“Unless the police have already confiscated everything worth taking,” Tenley said.

“Yes, but this will give us an opportunity to look around at least,” Brenna said. “Who is his secretary?”

“Eleanor Sokolov.” Matt and Tenley said it at the same time with identical expressions of distaste.

“What’s wrong?” Brenna asked.

“She’s a dragon,” Matt explained. “She used to be the office secretary at Morse Point High School. Put one toe out of line and that woman would have you in the principal’s office so fast you didn’t even have a chance to think up a good lie.”

He and Tenley exchanged a look ripe with memories, and Brenna looked away, feeling as if she were intruding on their shared history.

“We’ll need a distraction,” she said.

“And a lookout,” Tenley added. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparked. “I want in. I owe that old busybody some payback.”

“Me, too,” Matt said. “Let me provide the distraction.”

“No. I don’t even like the idea of going in there myself,” Brenna said. “The only reason I’m considering it is because I have a solid reason to be there. I can’t let anyone else get swept up into this mess.”

Tenley looked down her nose at Brenna with her best Morse family look of disdain. “I’m sorry, Ms. Miller, but what makes you think you have any choice in the matter? I am a Morse, and I do as I please.”

“Whoa, you look just like your mother,” Matt said.

Brenna was hard pressed to decide if he was more impressed or intimidated.

“I can do a pretty good Tricia Morse when I want to,” Tenley admitted in her mother’s voice. Then she grinned and her entire persona changed back to the Tenley everyone knew and loved.

Matt blinked and Brenna laughed. Tenley seldom used her prominent family status to coerce people, but when she did, it was a sight to behold.

“You might as well give in,” Matt warned her. “Her mind is made up, and you will need a lookout. Besides, I owe Ms. Sokolov some payback, too. You can’t deny me.”

Brenna was thoroughly exasperated as she looked at the two of them. “You do realize you could land in a heap of trouble, possibly even jail?”

They nodded, with much more enthusiasm than she liked.

“Fine,” she said with a put-upon sigh. “Let’s get planning.”

 

 

Brenna tried to shake off her nerves as she and Tenley approached the town hall, but it was impossible to ignore the sheen of sweat coating her palms, and she wiped them on her pants as they climbed the main steps.

“Okay, remind me again,” she said. “What are the keywords I’m looking for?”

“Anything with the name or phone number of the developer Ripley was working with,” Tenley said. “Look for things that sounds corporate or incorporated or limited liability, blah, blah, blah.”

“Okay, I’ve got it,” Brenna said. “And you’ll be right by the door doing lookout duty.”

“Yep, me and Eleanor are going to have some fun. Well, I am at any rate,” Tenley said

They passed through the massive columns that led to the front door, and Brenna realized she had never been so intimidated by a building before. The Morse Point Town Hall had been built by Tenley’s great-great-great-etc. grand-father in 1835 and was a study in the Greek Revival architecture popular at the time. The brick building was a long rectangle that had five steps leading up through four daunting columns to the massive oak double doors.

Tenley opened one of them for her, and Brenna blew out a breath. She could do this, she told herself, and for a second she almost believed it. Then the large oak door shut behind her and she felt all her self-doubt slide in behind her like a shadow.

Tenley smiled and waved at the guard who was sitting by the front door. Withered, probably from suffering through too many harsh New England winters, he looked old enough to have remembered the town hall being built. He adjusted his dentures before he greeted them.

“How do, Miss Tenley?” he asked.

“Doing fine, Mr. Abner, and yourself?” Tenley stopped to talk, and Brenna could feel her nerves snapping at her insides with little pinchers. She really wanted to get this over and done.

“My sciatica is acting up,” he said with a grimace. “The pain shoots right down my leg just like that dang bullet I picked up in Germany in ’44.”

“You need to go see Doc Waters. He’ll fix you up. He took care of Ruby Wolcott’s pinched nerve, and she was as hunched over as a question mark,” Tenley said. “Isn’t that right, Brenna?”

“Huh?” Brenna asked. She was still learning the fine art of small town chitchat. No one in Boston would tell you to go to the doctor if you complained about an ache or pain. Oh, they’d tell you where to go, but it wouldn’t be to the doctor.

Tenley gave her a not-so-subtle elbow to the side, and Brenna said, “Oh, yeah, Doc Waters, absolutely.”

Abner narrowed his watery blue eyes at her. “You’re new here.”

“Yup,” she said, feeling as welcome as a tick.

“That’s okay. Any friend of Miss Tenley’s is a friend of mine,” he said. He broke into a sudden toothy smile, and Brenna suspected he shifted his dentures so much because they were too big. Maybe his gums, like the rest of him, were shrinking with age.

Either way, Brenna felt as if she had just passed the first hurdle to getting to the mayor’s office.

“Maybe I’ll give Doc a shout,” Abner said, considering. He rolled his dentures again and then asked, “So, to what do I owe a visit from two such lovely ladies on this fine April afternoon?”

Tenley gave him a warm smile and Brenna mimicked her, but it felt unnatural, as if she were baring her teeth instead of smiling.

“We’re here to see Eleanor,” Tenley said.

Abner leaned back from her as if she’d said she was bringing in the plague. “What do you want to do that for?”

“Brenna is working on a plaque for Mayor Ripley, and she thought Eleanor might like to contribute something from his office,” Tenley said.

Abner glowered at the stairs to his right, and Brenna guessed there was no love lost between Abner and Ms. Sokolov.

“It’s for his memorial service,” Brenna said.

“Well, good luck with that,” Abner grumped. “That old harpie is like a junkyard dog guarding that office. She refused to let the police in and told them they’d need a search warrant from a judge before she’d let them set foot in there. I heard Chief Barker threatened to lock her up if she didn’t let his men in.”

“So, did she?” Tenley asked.

“Nope,” Abner said. “Chief Barker was crazy mad. I heard him say he’d be back with a warrant today, but I haven’t seen him as yet.”

Tenley and Brenna exchanged a wary look. It occurred to Brenna that getting past Eleanor might prove to be more difficult than dodging a pit bull with a grudge.

“Thanks for the warning, Abner,” Tenley said.

“Good luck and God bless,” he said. He promptly sat down at his guard’s desk and assumed a pose as if he’d never seen them.

The mayor’s office sat at the top of the curved staircase that climbed the wall to their right. Thirty steps up and they turned down the hallway. Dressed in his volunteer firefighter’s uniform, Matt was lounging against the wall. Tenley nodded at him as she and Brenna went through another set of double doors to the right.

The temperature dropped in the large reception room by a noticeable ten degrees. Two utilitarian chairs and a small table, with no magazines on it, filled one corner. Brenna wondered if the uninviting furniture and frigid temperature were chosen specifically to encourage people not to wait.

The burgundy carpet was squishy under her feet, and Brenna would have enjoyed the luxurious feel of it if the severe-looking woman sitting at the large rosewood receptionist’s desk across the room wasn’t glowering at them like they had just tracked mud on said carpet.