Chapter 7 #2
Then I noticed Melanie waving at me from the other side of the glass doors. She was motioning me around to the side door. I said to Detective Lehmann, “Excuse me. I’d better get the baby inside—”
“One second. Before you go, I should tell you that the Ruperts have come up with a new defense.”
The Ruperts were my second or third cousins, Rupert Beckett and his son, Rupert Beckett.
They’d murdered my second or third cousin Sammy Hart, and tried to murder me.
Yeah, I know. It’s a bit of a soap opera.
Anyway, they’d already confessed but then recanted and were now considering less truthful options.
“They’re saying that Sammy made advances toward them, and they killed him in self-defense.”
“He made a pass at them, both of them, and so they killed him?”
“That’s what they’re saying.”
“Even if that were true, which I doubt that it is, ‘no thank you’ works pretty well.”
“It gets worse.”
“How? How does it get worse?”
“They’re saying you made a pass at them too.”
“Okay. No. No, no, no. I did not make a pass at both of them or either of them in my grandmother’s backyard during a snowstorm with people in the house a few feet away.”
That’s the part where they tried to kill me.
“And… and this is the important part. Neither of them is attractive enough for me to make a pass at in any situation ever. There’s no planet anywhere where that would happen.”
“Their lawyers found out about your drug use.”
I was tempted to erupt like Mount Vesuvius. This place! Could no one keep a secret? Or at least keep a secret about me. Didn’t I have any right to privacy? But I did not erupt. Instead, I took a deep breath, and said, “I need to get the baby inside now.”
I walked around the building, down a neatly shoveled path and walked in the side entrance. Melanie opened the door for me. Before saying hello, she asked, “Who’s this?”
I put the baby carrier up onto the bar. Then slipped the blanket down from her face. I may have woken her because she gave me the dark scowl that always reminded me how much she looked like my grandmother.
“My sister, Emerald,” I said, and I touched the back of my fingers to her cheek. She felt warm. In a good way. “Sorry, I couldn’t find a babysitter.”
I was trying not to say my baby sister since it was pretty obvious she was a baby. Maybe I’ll start calling her my baby sister when she’s thirty.
“She looks sweet,” Melanie said. The baby looked angry to me, like she hadn’t appreciated the blanket over her face. But maybe Melanie was being nice. I dug around and found the plastic keys for Emerald to chew on. I offered them to her, and she snatched them out of my hand. Well, baby-snatch.
“Awwww… aren’t you just the best brother. Taking care of your sister.”
I smiled modestly. I absolutely agreed with her, but I wasn’t going to say so. “Are you okay?” I asked with deep sincerity . It seemed an appropriate question.
“I’m fine. I’m not the dead person.”
That made me look over to the front door. From this angle I could see the front of the corpse. I couldn’t help saying out loud, “Oh crap. I know her.”
After Dr. Blinski was murdered in September, I, like many others in the county, tried to get my Oxy from Ronnie Sheck.
I’d stood behind Roberta, Bobbie outside his trailer while we waited in line.
She talked. A lot. What did she say though?
She gave me a tip about a doctor down in Cadillac, a nearly two-hour drive.
“You do?” Melanie asked, looking up from my sister who she’d been shaking the plastic keys at. “You know Bobbie?”
Oh crap. I did not want to tell that story. “Yeah, I’ve seen her around. Small town.” Thinking it a good time to change the subject, I said, “Detective Lehmann said he interviewed you.”
“Pretty extensively.”
“And that’s why you called Ham?”
“I felt like I needed someone on my side.”
And we were definitely cheaper than a lawyer.
“They can’t possibly think I’d kill someone and leave the body in front of my own business!”
“If it was Sheriff Crocker I’d say yes, absolutely. Detective Lehmann is a lot smarter, though. Did he ask why you’re here so early?”
“He did.”
I waited a moment. She didn’t elaborate. Instead, she said, “Oh look at those cheeks! I just want to pinch them.”
Thankfully, she meant the baby.
“Why are you here so early?” I asked.
“Oh, sorry. I had a client meeting to talk about a wedding. We do summer weddings. Set up tables outside or use the barn if the weather’s bad. They didn’t show up. I mean, maybe they were early and saw a corpse in front of door and ran for the hills. I don’t know. I’ll have to call them.”
“What time did you get here?”
“Eight.”
“And what time did you close last night?”
“Seven.”
“So, the body was dumped here sometime between then.”
“Well, no. We close at seven, but we don’t always leave right away. I think we left closer to eight.”
I went over to the door and bent down close to the floor so I could get a better look at Bobbie.
The emotion on her face was fear, terror really.
It was disturbing, so I tried not to think about it and focused on details.
What was I seeing? Her eyes were open and bloodshot.
There were tiny red specks all over her face—though they might have been there before.
She wasn’t wearing makeup. There were a couple of scratches on her neck.
Her parka was open, and underneath she wore pajamas.
The bottoms were a solid blue, so I hadn’t realized what they were when I’d seen her outside.
The top was printed with cartoon sheep jumping around.
Counting sheep. Get it? The pajamas had guest starred on Dawson’s Creek and Ally McBeal.
I’d tried to get a pair, but they were way out of a barista’s budget. How did Roberta pay for—
Maybe that wasn’t the important point right now. The important thing here was that she’d been ready for bed or even in bed when she was killed, meaning it was likely she was killed in her home and brought to the winery to implicate Melanie. I changed my mind about something.
Melanie was back to poking at my sister. Really, it was a bit much. I cleared my throat. “No offense, but it does kind of make sense that you’d dump her body here if you killed her.”
“Whose side are on?”
“Yours. But we need to think this through. It looks like she was killed in her home and then dumped here to implicate you. Which is stupid because you wouldn’t do that.
But that makes it smart. Making it look like someone is trying to implicate you would be smart because it makes you look innocent. ”
“Is that what Detective Lehmann thinks?”
“Possibly. He asked where you were last night?”
“He did. I was in bed. Alone. My husband and I split a few years ago. He was one of the other three friends.”
“Who was the third friend?”
“Eddie Wilton. A close friend of ours. He died in a hiking accident. His parents inherited his portion of the winery. They’re like silent investors now.”
“So, they stand to lose as much as you if Bobbie was successful?”
“But she wasn’t going to win. Not after what you found out.”
“True. Did Lehmann ask when the last time you saw Bobbie was?”
“He did, yeah, um… I’ve seen her around. Main Street Café a couple of times. Bensons. That’s about it. How do you think she died?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see any blood so she probably wasn’t stabbed or shot. She might have been suffocated or strangled. But I can’t be sure.”
“I’m not sure I’m strong enough to strangle another human being. Or schlep a body around.”
Honest opinion, she looked strong enough to do both of those things.