Hometown Homicide Read online

  “I was in Spokane. Sorry. I forgot to turn on my phone.” Hadn’t she told him her destination this morning?

  He was silent a moment, then said, “Did you find another apartment?”

  “I’m afraid not. I had some shopping to do—nothing to wear, literally—and Shine was due for her check-up, so—”

  “That’s fine.” He cut across her stumbling explanation. “No rush. I think—”

  Now it was his turn to stammer.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I think I’d just as soon you stay where I can keep an eye on you. So, is the lock-box yours?”

  “Unless Howie had one just like it, I expect so. A Sentry eleven hundred?”

  He verified the model.

  “I hope it’s as fire-proof as the manufacturer advertised.” Reminded of her loss, she couldn’t help fretting. “My army records are in there. And some family papers from Grandma’s estate. Pretty much irreplaceable.”

  “I’ll bring the case home with me. How about the list? How soon can you get one worked up?”

  By now she’d read through the note. Apparently, he—or Russ Pettigrew—wanted an itemization of her possessions destroyed in the explosion for an insurance claim. She couldn’t even describe the sense of relief she felt on hearing that. The Hawkesford Fire Department’s pay scale wasn’t especially munificent, and she’d been worried about meeting her bills.

  “I’ll work on it,” she told him. “But that’s not why I called.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No. I’ve found something you need to see.”

  “Is this about the murders? What is it?”

  “A possible—no, a likely motive.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Well, no. Not quite. But that didn’t stop her from saying, “Yes.”

  Gabe was silent a moment, then said, “I’m checking some leads right now and hate to break off mid-stream. I’ll be back in Hawkesford in a couple hours. I’ll see you then. That okay?”

  What the heck? Only by a fluke had the DVD survived an exploding house anyway. What difference could a few more hours make? “Sure. I guess so,” she said.

  “Good.” He hung up without saying goodbye.

  Like in the army, she thought. Communication didn’t require politeness. Only clarity and getting the point across.

  Gabe’s two-hour time frame, plus an added sixty minutes for good measure, passed without him showing up. Frankie occupied herself in the meantime in removing price tags from her new clothes—adding up the cost item by item and nearly having a heart attack—pressing everything but the underwear, and hanging stuff in the closet. An awful lot of space was left on the rod considering the amount she’d spent. A list detailing her loss at the duplex took only a matter of minutes. She couldn’t see putting in a claim for a few battered pots and pans acquired from the second-hand store—except for that old cast iron skillet and the dutch oven. Antiques, or so she’d been told. Taken together, though, the replacement cost even of stuff added up.

  Shortly before dinnertime, she gathered her menagerie into the pickup and trekked off to the grocery store. It only seemed fair since Gabe had fed her more than once, telling her to help herself to whatever was in the refrigerator. Frankie believed in paying her debts. Also, she couldn’t help thinking he would be in a better frame of mind if his belly was full of good food. Chowing down always worked for the troops.

  Seeing one’s neighbors while grocery shopping is kind of like being at a community-meeting center. Frankie spied Maggie pushing a cart up and down the aisles as she headed over to the produce department for mushrooms. Chris and Darryl were buying beer and potato chips in the junk food section. Hoping to evade her co-workers, Frankie threw a handful of ‘shrooms into a paper bag, a few seconds too late to escape, when Maggie touched her arm.

  “There you are,” Maggie said. “I was hoping you’d stop by the station and fill us in. Karl said you were okay, a few superficial burns, but I, for one, would rather hear it from you. Men sometimes don’t realize—”

  Frankie cut across what might become a full-on attack. “I’m fine, Maggie, thanks for caring. Howie’s cat was the only casualty—aside from the duplex, of course.”

  Maggie eyed her. “Chris was telling us you looked rough when they gave you a ride home.”

  “Us? Who else has Chris been talking to?”

  “Just Darryl and me. And Benton. That’s all. We were concerned, all of us.”

  Maggie didn’t seriously expect anyone to be fresh as a flower after being dragged down a gravel driveway, did she?

  “I’m fine, Maggie. Really.”

  Frankie paid for her groceries and made her escape.

  Shine and Banner, toenails clicking on the hardwood floors, rushed to meet Gabe as he backed his SUV into the driveway.

  The coil of worry Frankie had been harboring about his safety released. Then she scoffed at herself. Why wouldn’t he be safe?

  Frankie heard him talking to the dogs as she shoved a couple ribeye steaks under the broiler and got out salad fixings. Turning to meet him as he walked into the kitchen, her heart beat a little faster. Though not a large man, he had presence.

  Of which she was very aware.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

  He sniffed the air. “Garlic and mushrooms, which must mean steak. What are we celebrating?”

  Instantly, Frankie felt heat rise in her cheeks and imagined turning three shades of red. Not celebrating—laying a blanket over her guilt. He was going to be pissed when he learned she’d looked at the disc before turning it over to him. With good reason.

  Hoping the open broiler door on the stove provided an excuse for coloring like a schoolgirl, she said, “Being alive. Reason enough for a good meal?”

  “There is that.” He leaned against the doorjamb and studied her, then smiled. “But I think something else is bothering you. Spit it out, Frankie. But let’s get this over with first.” He clumped over and dumped an extremely sooty and battered looking lock-box onto the table.

  “Here you go. Looks like it survived the fire and explosion in good shape.”

  “As long as the papers didn’t turn brittle and crumble.”

  “One way to find out. You do have the key, don’t you?”

  The faintly derisive question raised her dander, a good thing. “Of course,” she replied coolly. “I keep it with my car keys.” In proof, she fished the simple ring out of her jeans pocket and unlocked the box. Everything, she discovered, was whole, if slightly browned in color. As she lifted the file folders out to examine, the casket containing her medals spilled out too. Lid knocked askew, they glinted under the kitchen light.

  “Purple heart.” Gabe touched the ribbon before she could sweep the medals back into their container. “And—” His astonished gaze wrenched up to meet her eyes. “Good Lord, Frankie. Is this a Bronze Star? My granddad had one. That means—”

  She couldn’t bear the sight of those medals. Men had died. She almost died. Why did people say soldiers “won” or “earned” combat medals. There was no win or earn about it. The whole episode owed to blind luck.

  “It doesn’t mean anything.” She slammed the lid down and threw the casket into the lock-box. “Supper is the same as ready. Why don’t you wash up? Your hands are dirty.”

  They were, too, soiled from handling the lock-box. Lucky, also, to have avoided being crushed by Frankie’s safe lid.

  Somehow, they managed to get through the meal with no further outbursts. The dogs helped ease the tension arisen between them. Banner sat beside Frankie, graciously accepting the two chunks of beefsteak she allowed him.

  Shine crouched near Gabe. The bichon was still leery of approaching him but allowed herself to be enticed by tiny bits of meat.

  “What about it, Frankie?” Gabe asked her once. “Do you think this dog has been abused by a man at some time? She’s not warming to me very fast.”

  He sounded hurt by it.

/>   She wiped her fingers on a paper napkin. “Well, somebody shot her, and I’m betting it was a man.”

  “You’re probably right. Shooting a dog doesn’t strike me as a woman’s act of violence.” Thoughtfully, Gabe chewed a bite of succulent ribeye.

  The food, to Frankie’s way of thinking, turned out darn good, something of a minor miracle since she hadn’t cooked a real dinner for anyone in ages. Gabe wouldn’t hear of letting her clean the kitchen by herself afterward, pitching in to load the dishwasher and scrub the broiler pan. But this couldn’t last and finally, with the towels hung on a rack to dry, he led the way into the living room.

  Frankie grabbed the computer disc out of her purse and presented it to Gabe. “Here. This is what I found.”

  She held her breath.

  His eyes lit. He turned the case over while examining it as though trying to garner information through his fingertips. “This is the DVD Howie told you about?”

  “Yes. See? It’s marked Smoke Signals, just like he said.”

  Gabe’s voice was patient and soft. “And just how did this come into your possession?”

  “I found it after the duplex blew up. I was sitting on the pumper’s running board before I started home when an envelope came tumbling right at me. The disc was inside. Evidently, the explosion blew it in from somewhere.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You mean you’ve had it in your possession for hours and didn’t bother to tell me?”

  Uh, oh. Sounded as if she’d given the wrong answer.

  “I tried, but you’d already begun talking to Karl and checking stuff out. Then, later, I got busy with other things and didn’t remember I had it. I—I forget things, sometimes.” Not wholly a lie.

  Smoke Signals had faded off her radar for whole hours at a time today.

  “You forget things?” He sounded incredulous, disbelieving.

  Her head hurt. Mortification burned through her. Without thinking, she pressed two fingers against her temple, fighting the sudden pain. “Yes,” she said defiantly—or maybe belligerently. “Sometimes I forget things. So shoot me.”

  Gabe’s expression changed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. You—I—”

  Damn all war wounds. Now she had him stammering like an adolescent. Frankie waved his apology aside.

  “Have you looked at what’s on the disc?” he managed to say after an awkward pause.

  “Yes. In fact—” This admission was going to be hard. “—I downloaded it to your computer before I took the dog to the vet.”

  He scowled. “So I guess I don’t need the disc at all.”

  She felt like chewing off her tongue. “If anything happened to me, I wanted to be sure you had the information. But the main thing is, after I looked at the file, some of the stuff struck me as familiar.”

  “Familiar?”

  “Yes. But my memory—” Here she went, playing on his sympathies again. “So I showed it to Dr. Kelly.”

  “Who?” Gabe’s dark eyes snapped fire. His face turned hard as stone. His cop face.

  “Dr. Kelly is Shine’s vet. I told you, she contacted the sheriff’s office about Denise’s disappearance. She’s the one who convinced me Denise’s absence was suspicious.”

  “I remember. But why show this to her. This disc may be evidence, Frankie. You can’t go around—”

  Frankie interrupted before he could go into a full tirade. “I thought she might decipher the part I couldn’t remember.”

  His jaw clenched. “And did she?”

  “Sure did.” She couldn’t help the smile—or maybe smirk—breaking over her face.

  “Are you going to tell me what the two of you found?” His patience seemed exaggerated.

  “Certainly. We think it’s about insurance fraud. A whole bunch of insurance fraud.”

  With long steps, he strode to the computer and dinged the keyboard. The monitor flared to life.

  “And blackmail,” Frankie added, peering over his shoulder.

  Turns out Gabe had a highly inventive vocabulary of cuss words at his command. It was just like being back in the army.

  Chapter 19

  For Frankie, morning came all too soon. Eyes gritty, yawning and stretching, she slouched downstairs, following the scent of coffee.

  Gabe, like a terrier at a rat hole, had kept at her for what seemed like hours last night after she dropped the blackmail bombshell on him. The experience kept worrying at her this morning, just as it had all night.

  Quote: What the “expletive” did she think she was doing, pulling an outsider like the dog’s vet into the equation? Why the “expletive” hadn’t she brought the disc straight to him? “Expletive.” Hadn’t she ever heard of a person using her own initiative? She wasn’t in the blankety-blank army anymore. In the real world, people had to think for themselves, make good decisions, and she hadn’t done much of a job of it. She was an idiot! Unquote.

  Oh, yeah. He definitely went off on her. And he had a point, as she’d known all along. He also didn’t know how close she’d come to popping him one. Or maybe he did. He’d seen something that suddenly called him to lay off.

  All of which didn’t help her surly mood as she peeked around the corner into the kitchen. Except for Shine, rising from her dog bed when she saw Frankie, and Banner noisily lapping water from a bowl, the room was empty. Emboldened, Frankie entered.

  “Where is he?” she asked Banner in a whisper, not ready to face Gabe just yet.

  The dog looked up, flicked his plumy tail back and forth a few times, and dripped water on the floor from his muzzle.

  “You’re not helping,” she told him. “Is he gone?”

  She spied the note then, on the table, weighted down by a bakery bag. Peeking inside, she found a fresh apple fritter within. Her heart did a little jump. An apology, by any chance? Pouring a cup of coffee and downing half of it in a mouth-scalding series of swallows, she munched the fritter and picked up the note.

  You’ll be glad to know we’ve got a lead on Denise Rider’s former employer, it said.

  Humph. She wasn’t surprised. Gabe’s first scan of the files last night had him punching numbers into his phone and, as soon as someone on the other end answered, he reported in a terse, short-hand kind of way. He finished by snapping suggestions that sounded more like orders, just like her old drill sergeant. Funny really, since he said he’d never been in the service.

  Looks like you and Dr. Kelly were on the right track. Now lay off. The sheriff’s department will take it from here, the note continued.

  Frankie blinked. Well, that was clear enough and suited her fine. She’d emptied her mind to him last night. Hadn’t forgotten a thing, of that much she was certain. Repeated every word Howie ever said to her. Relayed Dr. Kelly’s impressions of Denise, which he said he’d ask the vet about himself, thanks. Did her best on an inventory of what she’d found in the apartment when she moved in. Accounted for all of Denise’s old flames, what she knew of them, admittedly not much.

  “Ask Maggie about any other rumors,” she told him, “because I’m all done.”

  To which he replied, “You bet your sweet cheeks you are.”

  Gabe’s note closed with, Call Karl Mager. Meticulously, he time-dated the note. He’d written it—she looked at her watch— only ten minutes ago. She’d just missed him, and thank God for that.

  Now what? Did the department need her to work? Or did they want to fire her?

  Telling herself not to be ridiculous, she poured a second cup of coffee and dialed the station. Benton, on dispatch this morning, transferred her to Karl with almost too much alacrity.

  Karl barked his name into the phone like he’d been taking lessons from Gabe.

  “Good morning,” Frankie said, cheerily upbeat as all get out. “I got your message to call.”

  Karl huffed. “Deputy Gabe Zantos is a helluva fast worker by God.”

  She wasn’t quite sure how he meant that, but it struck her as kind of double entendre-ish. Since he c
ouldn’t see her, she glared at the phone and said stiffly, “I beg your pardon? I hope what you’re saying is that Deputy Zantos is extremely efficient.”

  Karl got a kick out of her answer. She could tell that by the way he chortled in a smothered sort of way.

  “You called,” she said again.

  “I did. I wanted to let you know Lew is satisfied you know your beans. You’re cleared for duty as paramedic in charge. He’s going back on days with Chris, and you and Marc will be carrying night shift. That leaves Hal and Mary Lou to take up the slack with whatever volunteers have enough training. Sound good? Think you can handle it?”

  Relief flowed over her like a gentle breeze on a scorching day. Frankie barely avoided laughing out loud. “Of course, I can handle it. Sounds great!”

  “Means your weekend is cut short. We’ll need you back on tonight, but after this little bump the schedule will be set.”

  “Fine with me. Thanks, Karl.”

  “Don’t thank me. Thank Lew for the passing grade and the US Army Medical Corps for the training. Get some sleep before your shift, hear?” He hung up as someone in the background asked him a question.

  A sense of well-being swept over Frankie. Somehow, her physical condition hadn’t interfered with carrying out her duties, and apparently, she hadn’t forgotten any critical medical process or harmed any of the patients. She’d passed everything she knew about the murders into Gabe’s capable hands. No more worries on either score.

  Only one thing marred her euphoric state. At this rate, she’d never have the time to find a place to live.

  Her jaw hardened. Looked like Gabe was stuck with her and her menagerie for another day or two whether he liked it or not.

  The clock wound slowly down to midnight, not that Frankie was watching the hands move. Not exactly, anyway.

  So far, the shift had gone smoothly with only a single call entering the system, a farmer reporting a prowler around his combine, which was parked in the field next to his house. Maggie, on night shift this week, passed the call on to the deputies, and then she, Marc, and Frankie went back to relaxing.