Chapter 15
“God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!”
—George Wilson in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
On the way back to the shop, Tegan took the turns at high speed. She’d never had an accident, but I had to admit I was nervous.
“Slow down, pal,” I cautioned.
“We didn’t get answers.”
“But we got a tip. Something to go on. You know all murders aren’t solved in a matter of days.”
At the next bend, she cried, “Oh, no!”
“What?”
“The coolant level is down. How is that possible?” She tapped the glass covering the control panel, as if the action would help. “I recently had the car serviced.”
“Pull over.”
She did, then set the car in park, switched off the engine, and yanked the latch inside the vehicle to open the hood. We both scrambled out. She propped up the hood. Steam billowed from beneath it. She batted away the moisture.
“Don’t touch the cap.” I was no expert, but a boyfriend in high school had taught me a lot about engines—like valves, pistons, and spark plugs. Yes, he had also shown me what the backseat was for, which had ended our relationship. I wasn’t a prude, but I wasn’t easy, either. “You could get burned.”
“I know.” She leaned forward and gasped. “The radiator hose has been cut.”
“Cut? You mean, it tore off?”
“No, I mean cut, as in it was sliced. On purpose. Look.”
I peered in and agreed. The edges weren’t frayed.
It was a smooth cut. Who would’ve done something like that?
Had one of the campers or one of the bird-watchers tampered with the car while we were fifty yards away in one direction or the other?
They’d all seemed friendly. I doubted any were responsible.
It dawned on me that Iggie had been in the bookshop earlier. “Tegan, when did you tell Chloe our plans to go hiking?”
“The moment we came out of the office.”
“While she was ringing up Iggie.” I groaned. “Do you think he overheard you?”
“OMG.” Her face went pale. “And he did this because you were asking questions at Puttin’ on the Glitz and … and … he hoped we’d crash or something?”
“I wasn’t doing the asking. Lillian was. But the timing is unnerving. And the way he glowered at me when he was buying his book …” I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed the Auto Club for roadside assistance.
While we waited for a tow truck to arrive, Tegan phoned Chloe and said that we’d be delayed.
At the same time, I received text messages from Fern.
Four, in fact. The first was to touch base.
The second was because she was concerned I hadn’t responded to the first. The third was a dozen question marks.
The fourth was frantic, saying she was worried to distraction, and I had to contact her immediately.
My mother was not the hysterical type. In fact, she was calmness personified.
I texted her that I was only now receiving all her messages and would call soon, adding everything was fine.
I added a thumbs-up emoji and two kisses.
After I sent the text, I wondered again about the messages I’d received from Jason. “Where could they have gone?” I muttered.
“Where could what have gone?” Tegan asked.
I told her about my phone not displaying the text messages after Jason wrote me the night he died. “Zach didn’t not believe me about receiving them, but he was skeptical. I suggested Jason had deleted them via his phone, but Zach said Jason wouldn’t have been able to delete them on mine.”
“Aw, geez, I meant to mention this earlier. I did some research this morning, and … tech lesson two hundred and twelve …” In high school Tegan had been a nerd.
She’d learned coding and how to build and take apart computers.
She wasn’t a major geek any longer, but over the years, she’d provided all sorts of tips that had helped me understand how to navigate the Internet, utilize social media, and access apps on my phone.
“I discovered there’s an app that can erase text messages. ”
“Really?”
“Yep. It’s new. It allows you to delete messages from other people’s phones. You know, for those people who make the huge mistake of drunk texting at three a.m. and wish they hadn’t. They’re able to reach into the stratosphere and hit delete, delete, delete. On both of their platforms.”
“Wow. It sounds illegal and like you’d have to be supersavvy to do so.”
“I could master it. I’m not sure you could.” She grinned. “You know, Jason didn’t have to be the one to delete them. The killer might have.”
I shuddered as a new theory occurred to me. “Building on that premise, what if Jason didn’t text me at all? What if the killer posed as him to lure me there and deleted the texts to destroy the trail and make me look like a liar?”
“Whoa.” She palm slapped her forehead.
I couldn’t see Patrick being a techie, but I didn’t know him well.
Looks could be deceiving. Lots of brawny guys could probably do rings around me when it came to this kind of stuff.
I recalled a conversation the other day at Ragamuffin between Finette and Iggie.
They’d chatted about keeping up with Burt the Cyber Buddy’s blogs, meaning they might be up-todate with new creations in the tech world.
Reika had said she was familiar with Burt’s work, too.
“Reika,” I murmured.
“What about her?”
I explained how she rued sending mean texts to people and wished she could rescind them. “What if, to toy with me, she was hinting that she’d mastered the send-and-delete skill?”
A tow truck from Garth’s Garage pulled ahead of Tegan’s MINI Clubman and parked. A guy in overalls hopped out. His grin was crooked but sincere. “Trouble?”
“We reached out to the Auto Club,” Tegan said.
“Yeah, that’s me. I’m an independent contractor for them. Garth’s the name.”
Tegan quickly described the problem.
Garth checked under the hood. “Yep. Yep. The hose does appear to be cut, but it’s not. The normal life for one is up to ten years. When they crack, it can look like a knife cut.”
“This car is three years old,” Tegan argued.
“Yep, yep, but sometimes hoses are bad when installed. You might’ve gotten a rotten hose, not to be confused with a rotten apple. Had one of those once. Yuck. Knew it after the first bite.” He pulled a face. “Where do you want me to tow this puppy?”
“Bramblewood.”
“Whewie!” He ran a hand down the back of his neck. “B-wood? What a haul.”
“Yes, but it’s where we live.”
“Okay. Yep. Yep. The Auto Club is here to serve. Hop in the truck. I gotcha.” He hooked up the car by extending a hydraulic arm underneath the front of it. Once the wheels were raised, he climbed into the cab and secured his seat belt.
“Good thing you’re a club member.” As he cranked the truck into gear, he rattled off how much it would have cost Tegan otherwise. “B-wood sure is pretty. You like it there?”
On the drive back, while Tegan and Garth chatted about the beauty of living in Bramblewood, I phoned Zach, but he wasn’t in.
I started to leave him a message about the incident and my concern Iggie might have tampered with the radiator hose, but I stopped short.
It was merely a theory, and nothing untoward had happened to us. It might have been a coincidence.
Instead, I said, “Hope we can talk soon,” and hung up.
Tegan broke off her conversation and gawked at me. “What was that about?”
I whispered, “I want to be friends with him again. As long as I’m a suspect, it’s impossible.”
“We’ll figure this out.” She patted my knee. “Don’t worry.”
We arrived at the bookshop around four thirty, and I retreated to the office, deciding it was time to do another deep dive on the three people I suspected of murder—whether they had an alibi or not and, more importantly, whether I liked them or not. I didn’t kill Jason. I needed to prove who did.
Darcy leaped onto the office desk and purred.
“Hello to you, too.”
He began pacing along the far edge, as if he wished he could take away my angst.
“Cool it, cat. I’m fine.”
First, as I had done at home, I created a Word document on the office computer. I generated a three-column grid and added the names Patrick, Iggie, and Reika.
Next, I reached out to three of Iggie’s cronies from the country club using numbers Tegan provided.
None answered their phones, so I left cryptic messages saying they had won a free private meal from Dream Cuisine.
I didn’t think they would call me back without knowing me or the reason for my call, and I didn’t want to say I was investigating their buddy.
Following that, I checked out Shayna Luckenbill online.
I didn’t know whether she would talk to me about her husband, but we were kindred spirits.
Like me, she was an avid reader. After I knew more about her, I would reach out as a part owner of Feast for the Eyes and encourage her to come to the shop and join our book clubs.
Images of her popped up everywhere, ones of her donating time to the theater, to the art society, to the children’s group at the library.
In each she was decked out in what appeared to be expensive clothing.
I phoned Lillian and asked if Shayna was a regular at Puttin’ on the Glitz.
She said she was and had one of the deepest pockets she’d ever seen, adding she wasn’t sure how long Iggie could afford to keep her in so much finery.
One picture of Shayna and Iggie at a formal event gave me pause.
Iggie was fixing his cuff link, as he had at Ragamuffin the other day.
I zoomed in on it and gasped. A cursive capital I was etched on the cuff link, a capital I that, because of the serif, could’ve been mistaken for a capital J.
Could the cuff link found at Jason’s belong to Iggie?
I jotted the tidbit in his column, and then, because I couldn’t help myself, texted Zach about the discovery. Not unsurprisingly, he didn’t respond. By now, he might have learned Iggie’s alibi and ruled him out.