Nick was standing in the middle of the room. Rose was with him.
I walked over to them. “Hi,” I said. Rose was looking very pleased with herself. Nick, on the other hand, didn’t look like the top of his head was about to blow off the way he usually did when the Angels had a case. I wondered what the heck was going on.
“Hello, dear,” Rose said. “How did you make out? Did you find anything interesting in the storage unit?” She gave me a guileless look that might have fooled some people but didn’t fool me for a second.
“A couple of things,” I said. “I found a box of old beads that I let Avery have. Charlotte discovered another box of those canning jars. Anything interesting happen here while we were gone?”
“As you can see, Nicolas dropped in,” she said, patting his arm with one hand. He towered over Rose but there was no question which one of them was in control of the situation. “And he had some information to share about Gina Pearson’s death.” She gave him her sweet, little old lady smile. “But I’ll let him tell you. I need to get Alf a cup of tea. He must be parched.” She hurried away
I looked at Nick. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said.
“I didn’t expect to be here,” he said with a smile.
Nick Elliot was tall, well over six feet, built like a big teddy bear only with muscles instead of padding. He had sandy hair and the same brown eyes and warm smile as his mother. When I looked at him I could sometimes still see the shaggy-haired, wannabe musician I’d had a crush on when we were teenagers. I couldn’t remember a time when Nick hadn’t been in my life and he and Liam had been friends since they were seven.
Nick worked as an investigator for the state medical examiner. He had a PhD in criminal psychology. He had worked as an EMT to put himself through school and Charlotte had harbored a not-so-secret hope that he’d go to med school.
“So what exactly is this information Rose is talking about?” I asked, walking him over to the front window, where there was a bit more privacy.
“I talked to the current medical examiner. She pulled up the file on Gina Pearson’s autopsy—it was done by her predecessor—and Claire concedes it might—might—be possible that the injuries on Pearson’s neck, which the old medical examiner had attributed to an earlier suicide attempt, were in fact made in some other fashion.”
I held up a hand as the meaning of his words sank in. “Wait a minute. Are you saying Gina Pearson was strangled?” I stared at him, flabbergasted.
He swiped a hand over his mouth. “No one is saying for certain that’s what happened. Claire isn’t willing to alter the cause of death at this point. And the body was cremated.”
“But it could have happened.”
“Yes.”
I studied his face. “And you think it did,” I said. I didn’t phrase the words in the form of a question.
He was silent so long I didn’t think he was going to answer, but finally he nodded.
I looked down at my feet to hide a smile but Nick noticed. “Yes, I am on the same side as Rose Jackson. Go ahead and laugh.”
“I’m not laughing at you,” I said.
“Yes. You are.”
“Rose called in that favor you owed her, didn’t she?”
Several weeks before, Rose had conspired to set me up so Nick and I could talk after we’d had an argument. I remembered him showing up in the shop’s parking lot, wearing a suit because he’d been in court, pulling off his sunglasses with a tentative smile.
“I conspired with Rose, Sarah,” he’d said. “That should tell you how much I want to fix this thing between us.”
Nick had looked so earnest standing there that I couldn’t help laughing. “Now you owe her,” I’d told him.
“Which shows just how important this is to me. Please, tell me what I can do to fix things.”
And in the end, we had fixed things.
I sidled up to Nick now, bumping his hip with mine. “So was it worth it now that you have to pay up?”
He smiled at me. “Absolutely.”
Nick and I had a volatile relationship at times, but things were good between us right now and I was glad. I’d known Nick all my life and I loved him like a brother.
There wasn’t really anything more to say. Nick said he’d do a little more digging around and left. Liz came to pick up Avery, and Rose and Mr. P. headed out with them as well. I dropped Charlotte off and Elvis and I headed home.
My house was an 1860s Victorian that had been divided into three apartments somewhere around thirty years ago. It hadn’t been in very good shape, at least cosmetically, when I bought it, but it had good bones. Dad, Liam and I had done most of the work on my main-floor apartment and Gram and John’s second-floor one. Mom had helped decorate with yard sale chic. She had a great eye for color. For a long time the third small apartment at the back of the house had stayed empty. It was where my parents or Liam stayed when they came to visit. Then, when the lease on Rose’s apartment at Legacy Place hadn’t been renewed, Avery had suggested Rose move in. Rose had turned down Mr. P.’s offer to move in with him. Originally she was going to stay only until she found somewhere else to live, but having her close by had worked out a lot better than I’d expected. We respected each other’s privacy and I liked having a constant source of cookies close by.
I glanced up at the second floor as I pulled into the driveway. There were no lights on in Gram’s apartment, which meant I was on my own for supper. Luckily I’d made shepherd’s pie over the weekend—following Rose’s instructions to the letter. I stuck it in the oven to heat while I changed my clothes and put a load of laundry in the washer.
My kitchen, living room and dining room were one big, open space with tons of light from the double bay windows at the front of the house. My bedroom overlooked the backyard, which would have been nothing but grass if it hadn’t been for Gram and Rose. Instead there was a raised flowerbed full of perennials and two hanging baskets by the back door.
I wandered around the apartment, straightening a cushion on the couch, picking up a clump of cat fur from the floor, lining up my shoes. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I learned from Nick. Had someone actually murdered Gina Pearson and then set the Pearson house on fire? Could Mike Pearson have done that? Was that why he didn’t want us digging into things?
I wished Gram and John were home. Or Rose. I’d tried Liam earlier but I hadn’t heard back from him. Probably in another “meeting.” And I knew Jess had a date.
Elvis was at the top of his cat tower. I stroked the top of his head. “Liam is right,” I said. “Everyone does have a more exciting life than I do.”
The cat rolled over on his back and began to move his paws in the air as though he were doing some kind of feline aerobics routine. The message seemed to be, Speak for yourself.
The shepherd’s pie was good. Against all the evidence, Rose was actually teaching me how to cook. I gave Elvis a tiny taste of the meat and vegetables in their tomato sauce and he licked his whiskers.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
It was about quarter to nine when I settled on the sofa with the remote and the cat beside me. I was about to turn on the TV when there was a knock at the door. Elvis immediately looked at me. “Oh, you want me to get that,” I said.
He wrinkled his nose at me and made a low murp as I got up. Sometimes I thought sarcasm was wasted on that cat. Other times I wasn’t so sure.
I was hoping it was Gram at the door, maybe with cookies? Or Rose with cookies. It turned out to be Nick with a box of microwave popcorn and two bottles of Maine root beer. Not cookies but close enough.
“Hi,” he said. “Are you doing anything?”
Elvis meowed loudly from the couch.
“As you just heard, no, we’re not.” I opened the door wider. “C’mon in.”