A Country Gift Shop Collection: Three cosy crime novels that will keep you guessing!

“Sheriff,” the deputy called from his desk, “Mr. Baker wasn’t there, but I just got off the phone with the secretary. She’ll have the key ready for you any time you care to stop by.”

Cash seemed pleased. “I’d better go check on Gwenda right away then. I’m off,” and to Vicky, “Can I drop you in town?”

“I’m here by car. Marge lent hers to me because I had some other errands to run.”

Cash gave her a suspicious look, but he didn’t ask what those errands had been.

Just as they walked outside, his cell phone began to buzz. He took the call and listened. “Look, Deke…” His tone was threatening. “That’s not an option.”

Vicky tried not to stare at Cash, making it too obvious that she was listening in on his personal call.

“I told you to stop by the station this afternoon.” Cash spoke slowly as if he could barely control his anger. “I asked you, instead of coming out to take you in. Courtesy to Mom. Don’t make me—”

He shot upright. “You are what? At the airport? Now?”

Chapter Thirteen (#ulink_26d19933-a6e7-5863-b2ba-3da5c8c4d5c6)

Vicky held her breath.

Cash’s face turned red. “No, you’re not doing that. You can’t force me to…”

He clenched the phone. The veins on his temples stood out. “I don’t care. If you fly out of state, what will people think? What? Of course I don’t think you are involved in the murder. But that’s not the point.”

Vicky strained her ears to catch anything of what Deke was saying on the other end, but failed. Beyond an agitated voice she could make out nothing. But Cash’s remarks said it all.

Deke was not going to show up at the police station this afternoon to make a statement about his possible involvement in Mortimer’s murder. He was flying somewhere.

Intending never to return?

Cash lowered the phone with a gesture as if he was ready to fling it on the ground. “Can you believe that? Deke is flying out to some business meeting. Says there are hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake. Sure, why let one little murder hold you back?”

He banged the roof of his Jeep. “And what about my reputation being at stake, huh? What will people say when they find out attention was drawn to my brother Deke, in a murder investigation, and I let him leave the state?”

He looked at Vicky. “You know what the brat asked me? If I was going to put out an APB on him! The nerve!”

He exhaled slowly. “But Deke never took me seriously. Believes he is the big man in the family, with his mortgages and loans. Doesn’t care that he has to foreclose on local people and drive them out of their homes and businesses that were family-owned for generations. Makes him feel real tough.”

Cash stared down on the phone in disgust, then said, “Oh, never mind. His plane will be up in the air soon. I’ll just have to wait till it pleases Mr. Big Businessman to come back here, so I can question him.”

“If he even comes back.” Vicky glanced at Cash. “What if he is involved in Mortimer’s death and flees to escape arrest?”

“Deke a killer? No way.” Cash waved a dismissive hand. “Look, my brother is a pompous you-know-what who listens too much to his pushy wife. I bet Lilian put him up to this. She thinks it is beneath them for her husband to come to the police station. She underestimates the seriousness of it all and thinks a little time away will take the heat off of things and Deke won’t have to appear for a statement at all. Then her posh friends won’t gossip about it.”

“Instead it will only put the heat on.” Vicky glanced worriedly at Cash. “People will assume Deke is running because he has something to hide. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and that sort of thing. If Lilian did put him up to it, she gave him the worst possible advice.”

“Yeah, well, Lilian might never have thought that far. All she cares about is her image. She’s old money and marrying Deke was a step down for her. Ever since she has been pushing him to live up to her family’s standards. And Deke can never say no to her. She buys his suits, his designer ties, decides where they vacation. Or when his workroom needs a new orange wall with the ugliest painting you have ever seen. Who can work across from an orange wall?”

He huffed. “One big reason why I won’t marry. No wife, no hassle.”

Vicky smiled to herself. Cash had said that before, but still he had dated. She supposed he liked togetherness as much as anybody. And once the right person came along…

She cast him a sideward look. He still had his football muscle. He had a nice honest face and he had shaped up in the responsibility department too. Former bad boy Cash Rowland had reformed.

Then she remembered the red Jaguar from the old police report and Cash’s lie about the bar fight. She cleared her throat. “Cash, do you know anything, anything at all, that can explain a relationship between Mortimer and Deke? Financially perhaps?”

“No. Not at all. You?”

“I’m not sure.” She tried to sound casual. “I know so little about town relations really. I’ve been away for years, you know.”

Cash looked at her gravely. “What a time to come home, huh?”

Vicky followed Cash’s Jeep into town. Just as she cruised down Main Street, Marge came running from the library waving at Vicky to halt. Vicky pulled up at the curb and lowered the window. Marge leaned in. “The dispatcher at the sheriff’s station is a cousin of Mrs. Jones’ niece’s boyfriend and she told her when they met for coffee that Deke was asked to come to the station this afternoon to make a statement related to the murder. So Mrs. Jones said that as Deke got on a plane for California, he was obviously not going to make his statement. Maybe he won’t even stay in San Francisco, but try and cross the border into Mexico or even further to Colombia. Mr. Jones said that’s where fugitives go to start a new life.”

Vicky cringed inwardly. “Look, I was with the sheriff when his brother called in and said he was flying out for a business meeting. There is nothing sneaky about it. He just couldn’t cancel the meeting. His company would miss out on a big deal if he didn’t go. Since he duly reported it to Cash, nothing is wrong.”

Marge wasn’t convinced. She lowered her voice. “Deke could be Celine’s killer. If Cash allowed him to walk, he could be aiding and abetting. He could lose his badge over this.”

Vicky sighed. “Maybe Cash didn’t think too hard about it. He seems to think he’ll get a second dead body on his hands.”

She pointed up at the apartment’s windows. “He’s going over to Everett Baker’s now and coming back here with a key to have a look inside and make sure Gwenda didn’t get murdered as well last night.”

“That I have to see,” Marge said and hovered on the pavement, while Vicky parked the car in the lot down the street and rushed back so she wouldn’t miss anything.

As the two of them entered the gift shop, there was still a vague scent of paint on the air, mixing with the beeswax used on the sideboards.

The cozy sight of the first furnishings distracted Vicky a moment from her speculations about Gwenda Gill. With a loving gaze around, she dropped her purse and coat in one of the two leather armchairs. She had planned on bringing things from her cottage to create cozy scenes and snap those as promotional pics for her flyer. Maybe she should just push on with that? She wasn’t quite sure what else to do about the murder investigation, at least not until Marge’s husband had made sure Mortimer hadn’t hidden additional evidence from the files in Perkins’ barn among his birdcages. Tonight.

“Cash already has the key and is coming back here,” Marge reported from her lookout position in the doorway. She popped inside quickly to remain unseen. They heard the key turn in the lock, then footfalls thunder up the stairs.

They both listened for anything suspicious—an exclamation, footfalls returning fast—but nothing happened.

Marge hitched a brow at Vicky. “I don’t think Gwenda is lying there. Cash would have responded somehow, right?”

Vicky nodded. “Let’s wait until he comes down again so we can see his expression. But I bet you Gwenda just left town for a day or two to escape all the speculation following Mortimer’s death.”

She gave Marge a quick recap of her meeting with Diane at Ralph Sellers’ poultry farm. “I now know for sure that the call I saw Mortimer make from the window must have been the one to Deke. Mrs. Jones hadn’t been able to overhear anything of the conversation. She said so herself when I talked to her right afterward, so it would be pointless to go ask her again. But what about Everett Baker? Mortimer wasn’t looking where he was going and about ran him off the curb. Maybe Everett recalls a snippet of the conversation? I’ll go out to Everett’s offices and ask him just as soon as Cash is done upstairs. According to my mother, Everett Baker likes me so much that he’s bound to share everything he knows.”

Marge nodded. “Good idea.”

Overhead was a sound as if doors were being opened and closed with a bang.

“Is Cash looking inside her closets?” Vicky asked, puzzled.

“Maybe the place has been ransacked?” Marge said with wide eyes. “It always is on TV. Maybe the killer looked through Gwenda’s things to find the evidence, but came up empty. Of course he had no idea that smart Mortimer had already put it in your unfinished fireplace.”

“Hmmm,” Vicky said. It might have been smart of Mortimer, but right now it left her in a spot. What if the killer somehow found out about it and her store was next on his list to ransack? She already saw her sideboards’ doors torn out and the leather armchairs cut open.

The damages to her brand-new furniture would put a serious dent in her budget, not to mention she’d hardly feel safe in her own store anymore.