Chapter 13 #2
Grace’s eyes flicked to him over Lily’s head.
He crouched down at the edge of the table.
“Princess Lily, your mama and I and Deputy Cooper are taking very good care of you. We talk about all kinds of grown-up stuff so you don’t have to worry about any of it.
Your job is to be four and to take care of Cinnabun and Lord Baxter, and the seals. Can you do that?”
She considered him gravely. “Yes.”
“Excellent. Now, would you like to take your seals to the bedroom for a private tea party while we have ours?”
“With my coloring book?”
“Of course,” he replied jauntily. “No tea party is complete without some coloring.”
She gathered her menagerie with great ceremony and carried them down the hall.
Grace watched her go, then said softly, “You’re good at that.”
He looked at her. She was leaning against the counter with her hair loose around her shoulders, looking more angelic than ever. She held his gaze for a beat longer than was comfortable, and then she turned to put the kettle on.
Cooper stepped onto the porch ten minutes later with a manila folder under his arm and the wind-bitten look of a man who’d been outside all day.
“Grace. Reno.” He took off his hat. “Sorry to drop in on your evening.”
“You’re always welcome, Cooper,” Grace said. “Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee, if it’s not a bother.”
“I just made a fresh pot. Why don’t we sit on the back porch? It’s a nice evening.”
Reno led Cooper outside and Grace followed with two mugs of tea and one of coffee on a tray.
She set them on the coffee table between them.
Cooper sat in a wicker chair facing the sofa Reno and Grace sat on.
The screen rattled as a breeze came up off the lake.
The frogs were starting their evening chorus in the cattails at the bottom of the lawn.
Cooper said briskly, “A few updates. None alarming, some good. I’d rather you hear all of it from me at one time.”
Grace nodded. Reno noticed that her hand gripped the edge of the rolled sofa arm, as if it needed something to hold onto.
“First thing. Reno’s tip about the Apple Pie Creek bakery panned out further than I thought it would.
The owner is a woman named Tara Marchand.
Tara Krug, before she married. She’s a Cobbler Cove native, actually.
Went to high school here before she moved to Seattle and didn’t come back for thirty years.
Owns the fancy bakery as a hobby as far as I can tell.
She’s got money from her late husband’s tech company and she likes to be seen as a tastemaker.
Word from her own staff and a couple people who know her socially is she doesn’t take what she perceives as defeats of any kind well. ”
Grace frowned. “I don’t recognize the name.”
“She would’ve been six or seven years ahead of you in school. There’s no reason you should remember her.”
Reno asked, “What’s the connection to our person of interest?”
“She has a son. Age thirty-eight, lives with her in Apple Pie Creek. Name’s Curtis Marchand. Did a stretch in prison a few years back for residential burglary and unlawful entry. Got out two years ago, went home to wealthy mommy. I found no record of employment since.
Per his booking sheet, he’s left-handed. Hurt his right knee in a motorcycle wreck during a police chase after fleeing the scene of a robbery. The home had hidden cameras and silent alarms. Cops got there while he was still inside.”
Reno felt the cold satisfaction of pieces moving into place. He let it show in a single small nod.
“So we have a possible name for the man on the camera?” Grace said carefully.
“We have a strong candidate. We don’t have probable cause to bring him in for questioning or arrest him, yet. But I’m building that evidence as we speak.”
“What do you have so far?” Reno asked.
The boot print in your daughter’s flower bed is consistent with a size eleven Vibram sole, which Curtis happens to wear, but so do about three thousand other men in the valley.
I sent your security video out for enhance analysis, and we learned the lock picks in the footage are Russian-made, which is unusual but not unique.
I’m not going to ask a judge for a warrant until I have something a defense attorney can’t laugh out of the room. ”
“So what does that mean for us?” Grace asked.
“It means I called the Apple Pie Creek PD this afternoon, and they agreed to put discreet eyes on the Marchand house. If our friend Curtis leaves, particularly late at night, Clint and I will get a call, and we’ll be waiting for him if he heads for Cobbler Cove.
For now, your bakery, home, and daughter’s school are all going to keep their surveillance details.
But the good news is they’ll be acting more as traps waiting to spring that protection waiting to react. ”
Reno saw Grace’s grip on the sofa ease.
“There’s something else,” Cooper said.
Grace’s hand tightened again.
“Adelaide Marchand’s late husband was Geoffrey Marchand. He worked in commercial insurance underwriting. He processed the Shoemacher fire insurance claim five years ago.”
Reno watched Grace. Her face didn’t change. Her hand didn’t move. But her breathing slowed and became very intentional as if she was stopping herself from doing something else.
“Geoffrey Marchand died of a heart attack three years ago,” Cooper continued, “and we have absolutely no reason at this time to think his widow is involved in anything related to the fire. The fact that her husband touched paper that touched the Shoemacher claim does not, by itself, mean a thing. Insurance is a small world in this part of the country. People’s paths cross. ”
“But you’re telling me.”
“I’m telling you because I’d rather you hear it from me than have it show up in print or circulate around town as a rumor. I’d like your permission to look at the claim paperwork your insurance agent has on file from that summer. With your written consent, it would go faster.”
“Of course, I’ll consent,” she said quietly.
“I’ll bring the form over tomorrow.”
She nodded.
Cooper looked at her for a long moment, and Reno saw him weigh his next sentence against the kind of woman she was and choose his words carefully.
“Grace,” he said, “I want you to hear something else. I went to Arizona because I had a question about the original fire investigation. I’m not in a position to share what I found.
I will be soon, and when I am, I’d like to do it sitting down with you at a time of your choosing with whoever you want in the room.
I’m giving you a heads-up now, so when I do come asking, you’re not surprised.
I’d rather you have a few days to brace. ”
Grace’s eyes filled with tears. She did not blink.
“Thank you, Cooper.”
With a nod, he stood up and put on his sheriff’s deputy hat. He picked up his coffee, drank what was left of it in one long swallow and set the cup down. He nodded to Reno and murmured that he would let himself out and they should stay put.
His truck started in the drive. The headlights washed across the backyard and were gone.
Grace sat very still, and Reno didn’t reach for her. He’d learned, over the past week, that she did her bracing on her own and didn’t want anyone rushing in to help.
After a minute, she said quietly, “He thinks the fire wasn’t an accident.”
He couldn’t argue with her.
“Reno, if I find out my husband was murdered, I’m going to need to sit on this porch for a while.”
“Of course.”
“I may need somebody to look after Lily for that while.”
“I’ll take care of her for as long as you need.”
She nodded and looked at the lake. The sun had full set, and the first stars were coming out in the patches of sky visible through the tree canopy overhead. He watched her silhouette, and she didn’t cry. She didn’t move a muscle.
After a long minute she reached out blindly and put her hand on his forearm. She didn’t take his hand.
He didn’t move either.
They sat that way until Lily came padding down the hall in her pajamas with two seals under one arm and the coloring book under the other, asking if it was story-time.
Reno and Grace sat on either side of her in bed, reading to her together. They took separate parts in a story about two turtles deciding to visit a zoo.
He figured they both needed a dose of a child’s innocence tonight. Lily fell asleep in the middle of the second book with one hand curled in Grace’s shirt and a stuffed seal pressed against her cheek.
Reno stood up carefully. Grace eased away from her, kissed her on the forehead, and pulled the comforter up to her chin. The night-light cast its pale gold over the room, and Cinnabun was once again on the floor, under the window exactly where Lily put him every night.
Reno checked the window, and it was latched. He also did a lap around the cottage outside. Nothing was different. Nothing was wrong.
He met Grace in the kitchen. “Porch?” he asked quietly.
“Porch.”
The lake had gone fully black, and the moon was a thin curl over the mountains.
He sat with his bad leg propped on the coffee table, and she folded herself into the other end of the couch with the cat on her lap.
Marshmallow glared at him on principle.
“I’m not fooled,” he told the cat. “You’re a big softie under that grumpy exterior.”
The cat raised its nose in disdain, blinked a few times, and went to sleep.
He said quietly. “I’m ready to tell you what you should know about me.”
“Right now?”
“If you’ll have it now.”
She turned a little so she was fully facing him. “I’ll have it now.”
He took a breath. He’d thought about how to start this while he painted, and again while doing the dishes. He was a topnotch litigator and was known for his outstanding opening arguments. But he had no idea how to start this conversation. There wasn’t any good opening. He just had to start.
“I believe Hank told you that I went to a fancy Ivy League college. I also went to law school at an even fancier Ivy League school.”