CHAPTER THIRTEEN
My car tires crunched over the gravel parking lot of Palmer's Gravel and Rock. I'd spent another sleepless night staring at the ceiling, images of the people I'd known my entire life lined up behind one-way glass like some sort of police line-up. Someone had killed Justin. Probably even someone I knew.
I'd finally surrendered and gotten out of bed an hour before the sun was up. I'd nearly gone crazy puttering around my house. The moment the rock yard had opened at six, I'd been in my car heading to the outskirts of town to talk to Tom Palmer.
I parked next to a small building tucked between piles of rock of every size and color imaginable. A large sign reading Palmer's Gravel and Rock hung above the gray metal door.
I'd spent many an afternoon as a child riding with my dad out to the rock yard to drop off Kiwanis business, which usually resulted in cups of coffee and long chats about sports, hunting, or their next poker game. I opened my car door to be greeted by a large black dog barking and sniffing around my legs.
"Hi, Gus," I said as I scratched his furry neck.
"Well, Guinevere Stevens, as I live and breathe. What are you doing out here without your dad?" Tom Palmer asked. He stood in the doorway to the office building, his hands on his hips and a smile on his round face.
"Still using Gus as a living doorbell, I see," I said, laughing as Gus licked my hand.
Tom laughed too, and his large belly shook under his faded flannel shirt. "Keeps me aware of who's coming and going. I don't need someone shoveling off a pile of rock without my knowing."
I locked the car and started toward him, Gus dancing around my feet. "You know, there are these things called security cameras," I teased. "You hang 'em up, and they tell you exactly who's coming and going."
"That's true," Tom said, running his hand over his short, gray beard. "But Gus is more fun to pet."
I reached down and ruffled Gus's silky-smooth coat. "You've got me there," I agreed.
"Come on in," Tom said. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" He took a step back, leaving room for me to walk into the office.
The small space hadn't been remodeled since the Carter administration. I walked across the green shag carpet that had seen better days and settled on a floral sofa under a large window that looked out onto a pile of river rock. "I wanted to talk about Justin Hunt," I answered.
Tom let the door close behind him and blew out a breath. "It's a darn shame what happened to that boy." He walked over to an ancient coffeemaker and poured himself a cup. "Do you want some?" he asked.
"No thanks," I said, waving away the offer. "I heard a rumor you fired him last week."
Tom perched on the edge of his desk, which groaned under his weight, and took a sip of the coffee, eyeing me over the top of his mug. "You heard a rumor, huh? Why do you care?" he asked, his gaze shrewd.
I shifted in my seat and set my purse on the Formica coffee table. "I'm sure you heard I'm the one who found Justin's body," I started.
Tom nodded and said, "Junior mentioned he was first on the scene." Tom shook his head. "It really shook him up seeing a friend like that."
"I don't blame him," I said. "I will say it was nice to see a friendly face in that moment, although I'm sorry Tommy had to see it at all."
"It's part of the job," Tom said, referring to Tommy Junior's role on the police force. "What does any of this have to do with me?" he asked.
"Well, the police think Chris did it," I explained. "You know Chris. He'd never murder anyone."
Tom set the mug down and folded his arms across his thick chest. "I know that when pushed, people are capable of most anything," he said.
I hadn't expected that response from Tom, who was always good-natured and friendly. He knew Chris's character as well as anyone. "I know Chris didn't do it. I think someone's setting him up, and I'm going to figure out who that is," I blurted out.
Tom's eyes narrowed. "Your dad know you're poking around in this?" he asked, the warning in his tone clear.
I gulped but held his gaze while saying, "No, and I don't think there's any reason he needs to be told."
We stared each other down before Tom barked out a laugh, slapping his knee for good measure. "Still as strong willed as ever," he said. "I'll make you a deal. You be smart about this, and I won't tell your dad."
I beamed up at him. "Deal. Now will you tell me what happened with Justin?" I asked again.
He walked around and sat at his desk, shuffling through a few papers. "I got a load getting ready to go out in a few minutes. There's not much to tell, but I'll tell you what I know," he said.
He leaned back in his chair and continued, "Justin came to work for me six months ago. You know Justin, charming as all get-out but always seems to find himself on the wrong side of situations. He needed a job, and so I gave him a chance. Two months ago, I started to notice I was filling up the trucks with diesel more than usual, even though we weren't delivering more orders."
"That's weird," I said.
"That's what I thought," Tom agreed. "I started checking the mileage on the trucks before I left for the day and then again in the morning. One of the trucks was going out some nights." Tom leaned toward the window and pointed to a green dump truck parked a few spaces away from my car. "That one right there. Someone was putting between twenty and eighty miles on it, depending on the week."
"Someone was joyriding in one of your trucks?" I said in disbelief.
"I didn't know what to think," Tom answered. He looked down at his watch and pulled himself out of his chair. "I've gotta go check this shipment before it leaves. This is an important client, and I can't risk the boys loading the wrong rock. I'll walk you out."
I stood and grabbed my purse. Gus was waiting for us at the door and continued his bids for attention. I absently patted his head.
"Justin was my only driver at the time," Tom said. "Jed was out recovering from knee surgery. When I asked Justin about the discrepancies, he denied knowing anything about it, but I had enough other offenses that I could fire him without needing proof he was taking the trucks out."
"Other offenses?" I asked, itching to take my phone out but suspecting Tom wouldn't take kindly to seeing my list of suspects. He'd agreed not to rat me out to my dad, but if he knew how many people I was talking to, he might change his mind.
"Nothing big," Tom explained. "Being late, taking longer breaks than allowed. But he'd done it enough, and I'd talked to him enough, that it was a convenient excuse."
We reached my car, and I opened the door, leaning against it. "What do you think he was doing with the truck?" I asked.
Tom reached down and scratched Gus behind the ears. "Beats me, but he was real angry when I fired him." Tom stared into the distance as if he were seeing it all over again. "He had this wild look in his eyes. He begged me to give him another chance. He told me I didn't understand, that he really needed the job."
"You think he was stealing rock?" I asked, trying to make sense of what I was hearing.
"It's not that I can count every rock on the yard, but I'd notice if a whole dump truck load was missing. He was using the truck for something, but it wasn't to steal my rock," Tom said.
"Tom!" a man shouted from across the parking lot where he stood by a loaded truck.
"I gotta go, hon," Tom said briskly. "Stay safe."
"I will," I agreed. "Thanks for the info. And for not calling my dad."
The man who'd called Tom over caught my gaze, giving me a nasty look. While I knew a lot of people in Star Junction, I didn't know everyone. What was this guy's problem? I'd delayed Tom, what? One minute? I resisted the urge to give the look right back to him.
Tom walked around the corner with the other man, leaving me with Gus standing in the cold. I tapped my finger against my lips as I considered my options. The dump truck Tom had pointed out as the one Justin was driving after hours was just across the lot. I looked around. Tom was out of sight. Maybe I'd take a little look around while I was here. As far as I knew, Finn hadn't been out here investigating Justin's work as a possible connection to his murder.
I couldn't think of a connection to Justin winding up dead in Chris's youth center, other than Tom getting angry enough at Justin for using a dump truck without permission and hunting him down to murder in cold blood.
I shook my head as I made my way across the parking lot. I just couldn't believe it was true. Tom was a gentle giant. There were a million things he might do to Justin before murder would even make the list.
Halfway to the truck, I was still undetected. A thrill moved through my body. Is this what Margie had felt as she snuck me into Chris's holding cell? Like a superhero on a mission? Mild-mannered florist by day, crime fighting detective by night. I didn't hate the thought.
I made it to the dump truck, moving to the side opposite the parking lot and office portable. Standing with my hands on my hips, I considered my next move. What was I even looking for? I ducked down and looked under the truck, but it just looked like a normal truck to me.
I huffed out a sigh. This was ridiculous. Unless the truck came with a flashing sign that said I'm the reason Justin got murdered, I had no idea what I was looking for. The sound of two people talking, their voices growing louder as they got closer, froze me in position. Two men were talking. I plastered myself against the side of the truck, praying the mud was frozen enough to stay on the truck and not get on the back of my coat.
"What'd that lady want?" one voice sneered, as if my very presence had offended him.
"Gwen is the daughter of an old friend of mine. She was out here asking about Justin Hunt," Tom Palmer answered, his voice friendly.
"What's her deal with Justin?" the other man asked harshly. I was convinced it was the man who'd shot me a dirty look. I hadn't seen anyone else around, and his voice matched the undeserved hatred I'd seen in his beady little eyes.
"They went to high school together," Tom answered. "The load looks good. Let's use this truck to haul it. The other has been having some transmission issues."
"Good riddance to Justin Hunt. He did nothing but make my job harder," the man said.
Made his job harder? Was this another motive for murder?
"We don't have to worry about Justin anymore. Let's get this load out so we can start working on the Hansen job," Tom replied.
His words had been casual, almost distracted, as if he were checking an order while talking to the other man, but the substance of his words bothered me. We don't have to worry about Justin anymore? Sure sounded like something a murderer would say.
"Why's her car still here?" the man asked.
I held my breath as my heart hammered in my chest. That was a very good question.
"Probably using the bathroom or something," Tom said. "She's been out here countless times with her dad. She knows where it is."
I nodded enthusiastically, despite having no audience. That was a good excuse. If I managed to get out of here without someone finding me hiding, I was going to use that one.
The dump truck belched to life, and I bit back a yelp of surprise. The truck vibrated against my back. They were going to move the truck, and I'd be discovered. What excuse would I use then? I couldn't find the bathroom? That wouldn't fly.
I had a vision of myself gripping the pipes on the underside of the truck and riding out of here undetected like some kind of superspy. Yeah, right. I'd probably get myself run over.
The truck turned slowly, and I inched along with it until I was on the side facing away from the office and my car. A pile of reddish-brown gravel sat a few feet away. It was taller than I was. Before I could overthink my next move, I sprinted for the pile and practically dove behind it.
For minutes, I crouched close to the ground, my breath coming in frantic puffs, fogging into the icy air. I imagined it made me look like a dragon guarding its loot. A dragon. My dad would like that reference. Guinevere and the dragon.
No one yelled. No one came running over. Despite the odds, I'd escaped detection. I peeked around the side of the pile. The truck was on the other side of the office. No one was around. This was my chance.
I walked briskly to my car. Sprinting would have looked suspicious. Better to get caught and make up a lie than get caught looking guilty. I slid into my car, started the engine, and drove down the road until it curved, leaving me out of sight of the rock yard.
Heart still pounding, I opened the list on my phone and added the information I'd learned from Tom, including a note to brainstorm what Justin could have been doing with that truck in the middle of the night. Delivering drugs somewhere? But why one of Tom's trucks? There had to be more low-key ways of transporting illegal substances than a giant dump truck.
I put away my phone and headed to open Camelot Flowers, my mind working overtime. Justin bounced from job to job. He was enthusiastic but unreliable. Why had losing this job been such a big deal? How did this new piece of information fit into the puzzle I was attempting to construct around Justin's murder? If I were being honest with myself, the puzzle had more holes than it had pieces right now.
I slowed as I reached the city limits. Getting pulled over wouldn't help my mission to make it to work on time. Minutes later, I parked on the street a few doors down from Camelot Flowers.
Climbing from my car, I headed toward the door, but movement across the street caught my eye, and I turned to see Tommy, the officer who'd been first on the scene to Justin's murder and Tom Palmer's son, walking toward the coffee shop at the corner.
He was in full uniform, so he must be on duty. I glanced between Camelot Flowers and Tommy. I had a few minutes and didn't know when I might get an opportunity like this again.
"Tommy, wait up," I called out as I jogged across the street.
"Hey, what's up?" he said once I reached him.
"Got a minute?" I asked with a wide smile. I didn't have the same problems with Tommy as I had with Finn initially, but I'd also never asked Tommy for inside information on a police investigation before now. No harm in getting off to a friendly start.
Tommy shrugged. "Sure. I was going to grab some caffeine. We've been working overtime trying to figure out what happened to Justin, and I'm exhausted. I've got some time unless a call comes through on the radio," he said.
Just what I wanted to hear. "By the way, I just saw your dad," I said.
Tommy tilted his head to the side. "You went out to the yard? Why?" he asked.
"I heard Justin got fired. I was hoping your dad might know something that could point to another suspect in Justin's murder. Besides Chris," I added.
Tommy opened his mouth to respond, but I held my hand up to stop him and said, "And before you tell me this is police business and I should let you guys do your jobs, I've heard it all before from Detective Butler." While he'd insisted I call him Finn, it didn't feel right to call him that in front of one of his officers.
Tommy laughed and said, "I was going to say no such thing. Truth is, we could use any insight the public has about this case. It's turning out to be more complicated than the interpersonal politics of the pie social."
"In what way?" I asked, curiosity blooming in my chest like a spring tulip.
"We're tracking down every lead we come across, but the location of the murder, the murder weapon, the fight between Justin and Chris, it's not looking good for Crawford," Tommy explained in a matter-of-fact tone.
Finn wouldn't give me any details, but Tommy was a small-town cop and a friend from high school. Maybe he'd be more open to sharing. "What about forensic evidence?" I asked.
Tommy shook his head. "That stuff takes forever to come back, especially since we don't have our own crime lab here. We send it over to the county labs, but we're in line behind everything that came in before us," he said.
"Surely murder trumps any of the nonviolent crimes," I argued.
"It does, but Justin's isn't the only murder in the county. It'll be a few weeks," Tommy said, his frustration with the sluggishness of the system obvious in his tone.
"A few weeks!" I exclaimed. "Chris doesn't have a few weeks."
"Crawford will be fine. He just needs to keep his head down and stay out of trouble," Tommy replied.
I glanced at my watch. The store was supposed to open two minutes ago. I needed to get going. "Thanks, Tommy," I said, truly feeling grateful that he'd been willing to talk to me. "If you think of anything that could help me, can you let me know?"
"Isn't that supposed to be my line?" he teased.
I shot him a grin and turned to head across the street.
"Oh, hey," Tommy called after me.
I stopped and turned back toward him.
"There is one thing." Tommy looked around as if to make sure we weren't overheard. "Detective Butler found nasty messages on Justin's phone between him and Tony Reagan. Remember him?" Tommy asked.
Remember him? I'd seen him at Bucky's the night Justin was murdered. "Nasty how?" I asked.
"Angry," Tommy explained. "Tony blaming Justin for ruining his future."
"Ruining his future? Tony has an amazing job, lives in Chicago. What could Justin have ruined?" I said, thinking back to Tony's rude behavior toward Justin at Bucky's Saturday night. The same night he was murdered.
Tommy shrugged. "We're checking it out. We're also looking for a woman he was dating in Rose Lake."
"What about Samantha?" I asked.
"Detective Butler talked to her," Tommy said. "I don't know the details of their interview."
It wasn't much, but it was more than I knew before. "Thanks, Tommy," I said before hurrying across the street.
The police were checking it out, but I would too. The nasty text messages shed some light on what I'd seen at Bucky's, but I had no idea how Justin could've ruined anything for Tony. I didn't know the details, but there were plenty of people in town who might know exactly what happened.
* * *
Hours later, I hadn't had a moment to think about Justin, Tony, Tom, or anything else related to the case. Customers had kept me occupied until the store closed and my friends showed up to the store for my favorite part of the month—book club.
"Why do we always choose these depressing books?" Emma complained as she plucked another cookie from the floral plate on the table covered with a rose-patterned tablecloth.
My mom went all out when designing what she called "The Family Room" at Camelot Flowers. Not a break room, which she envisioned as boring and drab, but a comfortable room that would make spending long hours at the store feel more like home. My only complaint as I'd gotten older was that she'd painfully stuck to the flower theme in the décor. It was cheery. It was also a little sickening.
I'd been hosting the monthly book club for a year at Camelot Flowers. There were seven of us total, but with busy schedules we were never all there. Take Penny for instance, who had an event at school tonight.
We used "The Family Room" to meet so no one had to worry about cleaning their houses to host. Easy-peasy was our motto. Except when it came to literature, apparently.
"Don't blame me about the book choice," I said, joining Emma in having another cookie. They were homemade snickerdoodles courtesy of Kristi, the only one of us who consistently showed up with baked goods not from a store.
We all turned to look at Kristi, who'd chosen this month's book.
"What?" Kristi said defensively. "It was on the New York Time's Best Seller List for weeks."
"I bet there are some steamy romance novels on that list too," I countered.
"Or a mystery," Amy said with glee. "I love a good who-done-it." She glanced down at her watch. "Ugh, I've got to run. It's bedtime for the kids, and I promised I'd be home in time to tuck them in."
"Yeah, I need to get going too. Early morning tomorrow," Emma said. "Do you want us to wait while you lock up?"
I stood and gathered everyone's empty cups. "You guys go ahead. I've got to clean up and finish some paperwork from earlier today. I'll be fine," I said.
The group stood to help clear the table, but Amy said, "Are you sure? I've been jumpy since Justin got murdered. I used to feel like Star Junction was the safest place in the world. Now I'm not so sure." She tossed used napkins in the trash by the small kitchenette. "You're the one who found him," she said to me. "Aren't you scared?"
I packed up the rest of Kristi's cookies and handed them to her. "No," I said. "I mean, I haven't really been thinking it could be dangerous for anyone else. I figured it was personal. I don't think there's a serial killer lurking around town or anything."
Kristi shivered and said, "Don't even say that. I've been freaking out. I ask Matt at least twelve times a night if the doors are locked. He's getting pretty annoyed."
I rinsed off the one real utensil we'd used, a large spoon to dish out the pumpkin mousse Emma had brought. "I'd be annoyed too," I said to Kristi as I chuckled. I turned from the sink to see the group standing in a line watching me. "You guys, I'll be fine," I reassured them. "I lock up here all the time. This week's no different."
"If you say so," Amy said hesitantly. She clearly thought I was being foolish.
"I'll lock the door after you leave, and I'll text you when I get home. Deal?" I said to Amy.
"You'll text all of us," Emma said, pointing a finger at me.
"Yes, ma'am," I agreed, giving her a little salute.
I followed them to the front door and locked myself in. I watched through the glass door until they made it safely to their cars before heading to the back room. They were being paranoid, but it was nice they cared.
I brushed crumbs from the table before surveying the room to make sure we'd cleaned everything up. I scooped my copy of this month's book off the couch, where I'd tossed it halfway through our meeting. Emma was right. It really had been depressing. I had a feeling my copy was going straight to the library to be donated.
I straightened one of the throw pillows on the couch, both in floral prints. The room was clean, but I was exhausted. Forget the paperwork. I'd come in early tomorrow to finish it.
Riffling through my purse, I searched for my keys. Before I could find them, the room plunged into darkness. With no windows in the room, not even the glow of the moon could light my way.
My hands hovered over the bag in the dark. A blizzard could knock out the power, but the weather was clear. Maybe we'd tripped a circuit breaker. If so, there would still be power to the front of the store.
I straightened and started feeling my way toward the door to check the rest of the building. My knee slammed into something, and I yelped. I reached down. I'd run into a chair, which meant I was heading too much to the left. I shifted my position and reached out in front of me, moving one step at a time until I felt the smooth wood of the door. I pushed lightly, opening it a crack.
This wasn't a tripped circuit breaker. The entire building was dark.
I took a step back, letting the door swing closed. I didn't know what could cause a blackout in the whole building, but I wasn't afraid of the dark. I'd find my phone in my bag and call Penny. Her husband, Jack, was great at fixing things. I'd need to make sure the power was on before we opened tomorrow. He'd know what to do. As I turned back toward my locker, the unmistakable sound of breaking glass shattered the silence.