When she went inside, she wasn’t needed in the salesroom, so she retreated to her office to think. Were any of the suspects on her own list ruled out completely? Were any of them even good possibilities? Were there any reasons for her not to lose hope?
TWENTY-EIGHT
Chase sat at her desk in front of her monitor. It displayed a screen saver depicting a cat watching fish swim past. She ignored the playful image and doodled on a pad of paper, considering each suspect again for about the hundredth time.
Van Snelson. PRINCE in the blackmail book. Hated kids, even though he had been a high school principal for eons. Was getting into real estate, but not in a good way: swindling poor Hilda Bjorn and others out of their homes. He had probably slept at the high school all night and not left the building to murder anyone or stash any bodies. However, if he was being blackmailed, he might want Ron North dead.
Langton Hail. PHOTO in the blackmail book. The partner in crime—no, more like the instigator of the real estate swindle. However, he was an alcoholic, now trying to recover by drinking vegetable-laden beverages at Eddie Heath’s Health Bar. She shuddered. That night, though, he had been too drunk to drive and had stayed either inside the school or in his car until morning, when Eddie saw him leaving. If he was faking being drunk, he could have murdered Ron and returned, acting like he hadn’t left. Not likely, but possible. Not only the blackmail, but having a newspaper article expose his dealings, was a fine motive.
Then there were both Byrds. At first she considered Dickie Byrd because he might want to defend his wife’s honor from her stalker. When she found out they had split up, that motive had fallen apart. If Ron knew about the mistress, though, that could hurt his campaign, so that was a very good motive. He had spent the night with that mistress. She might have fallen asleep while he slipped out, murdered Ron, dumped him, and crept silently back into bed. Not likely, but also possible.
Monique Byrd. Should she still be under consideration? She surely wanted to get rid of the annoying man. Enough to murder him? Had he been in that trunk and not left a trace?
The scenarios were all possible, but not probable. The trouble was, none of the alibis seemed ironclad, while all of the motives were good.
That faint J penciled in below the other blackmail victims was probably Julie. It wasn’t good that she appeared in both parts of Ron’s notebook, the blackmail part and the stalking part.
Maybe it was time to review that night another time and go over every single thing she could remember.
She had arrived with Julie, who immediately found Jay. Chase talked to Bart Fender at the punch bowl, then Julie and Jay came over. Jay soon left with some guys and Bart wandered off.
Then Ron North had approached the two women. Ron started talking about Julie being part of the real estate scam. He seemed at least half drunk, and offered to spike their drinks. Then he attacked Julie and kissed her. Jay pulled him off and he and Julie left Chase with Ron.
However, she left and joined a group of women from her English class and they chatted for a good while. She observed Ron, still at the punch bowl, with some classmates and Mr. Snelson. Mr. Hail was with him. The two older men both left angry, possibly after Snelson paid him blackmail money, and joined Dickie Byrd.
Then Ron accosted Monique Byrd when she got punch. She threw her punch in his face. Bart started over, probably to do harm to Ron, but Ron skedaddled out the door to the parking lot. Bart followed him.
Julie had been in the parking lot with them, unfortunately. Chase didn’t notice her leave or return. She couldn’t testify as to how long Julie had been missing. How could the other, unnamed classmates do that?
The next thing Chase remembered was being approached by Eddie Heath. People were beginning to leave.
Who else had been in the parking lot at about that time? Probably lots of people. How could someone have killed Ron North and not been seen?
Bart had followed him out immediately. If he worked quickly, he could have done it. He was strong enough to strangle skinny Ron North. Chase had detected flashes of rage from him and wondered if he had Roid Rage from the steroids he was most probably taking. But why would he kill Ron? For bothering Monique Byrd? For blackmailing two men, one of whom was his boss? For mashing Julie, with whom he had almost no interaction? It didn’t seem that any of the letters in the notebook could mean Bart Fender. There were no Fs and the only B had to be Dickie Byrd.
Rats. Here was a good suspect with opportunity and means—and no motive.
The butterscotch tabby grew bored with nothing going on. She was sitting there, not even typing. When she worked on the keyboard, he often jumped into her lap, never mind that it made it doubly hard to type that way. It got him attention. Sometimes he even jumped onto the keyboard. That could be counted on to cause a lot of commotion. This writing on paper business, however, was extremely boring.
He decided to check on his stash. He snaked a claw under the desk and pulled the material out a bit. Yes, it was still there.
“My gloves!” Chase plopped down onto the floor. “There they are! You pushed my gloves under the desk, didn’t you, you pesky cat.” She fished one out, pushing Quincy away. He wanted to play with it, but she needed her good gloves. The weather was turning colder and colder and she didn’t see any sense in buying a new pair when she already owned these.
“The other one is under here, too, isn’t it?” she asked him. She knelt down, putting her head on the floor to see better. Something was under there, for sure. Reaching up to her desk drawer, she withdrew a wooden ruler and used it to get at the other glove.
“There! I’m so glad I found these.” She picked them up. A piece of paper dropped to the floor. She retrieved it. Why did it look so familiar? It had been torn from a spiral notebook, judging from the shredding on one side. The paper was small and lined. She squinted to make out the faint pencil writing. It held some words in capital letters and amounts next to them. It was another page from Ron North’s notebook!
TWENTY-NINE
Chase set the page on her desk, carefully, and called Julie. The cell phone rang over to voice mail.
“Call me,” she barked. She glanced at the clock. Two in the afternoon. Julie was, no doubt, in the middle of something at work.
She got up and started pacing. The paper was yellow and brittle. It must have fallen out of the notebook when they first started examining it. Maybe it was a page from an older notebook that Ron had stuck into the newer one. The louse had been blackmailing people for a long time. It was a wonder he wasn’t rich. Or hadn’t been killed years ago.
Stopping long enough to peer at the paper, she bent close over the desk. Squint as she might, she couldn’t quite make out the smudged writing. Was the first letter H? If she could find a way to connect this with another blackmail victim, even if it was an older one, there would be another suspect.