I leaned back in my chair slightly and let the silence hang. If you let silence hang long enough, most people would try to fill it, especially when they were uncomfortable. And Alice was definitely uncomfortable answering questions about why she came to Fair Haven. She probably didn’t even realize how much her demeanor changed as soon as Erik asked the question. She didn’t want to tell us why she was here.
She ran her fingertips along her lips one finger at a time. “Do the police have to keep things confidential?”
Alice Benjamin clearly didn’t watch any crime shows on TV. My knee-jerk was to flat-out lie and say yes. I didn’t. I’d earn her trust more if I replied in such a way that she couldn’t doubt I was being honest with her.
I tucked the photo of Vilsack and the paper she’d finally written the requested information on back into the file so Erik could assign an officer to check it later. Assuming he didn’t collapse first. “It depends. If what you say isn’t important to the case, then yes. If it impacts the case, then we can’t.”
Her posture immediately relaxed. “I have the same restrictions in my job.”
She fished around in her purse and handed me a card. Alongside her name and contact information was the logo for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“I’m a member of NOAA’s analytical response team. We got a report that the lake here might be experiencing a problem with harmful algal blooms—toxic algae, basically. I was sent to evaluate the lake and collect samples.”
In other words, not only did she have an alibi for the night of the murder and a legitimate reason for missing her reservation at The Sunburnt Arms, she also had a reason for being in Fair Haven that had nothing to do with Bruce Vilsack. I glanced in Erik’s direction and he nodded. He didn’t think she was our killer, either.
Even if she had a clear motive, we’d still have needed to explain how a woman not much larger than me had managed to haul a man’s dead-weight body out of The Sunburnt Arms by herself. None of Mandy’s employees would have helped a guest cover up a crime.
But she might have had someone else in town she could call on. Just because she was from out of town didn’t mean she had no friends or family living here.
“One more question, and then we’ll let you go.” I stood to show her I meant it. “Do you know anyone here in town?”
She shook her head. “That’s one of the reasons they sent me. It’s important that whoever goes out to collect the samples and survey the situation is objective.” She reached for the pen again. “Let me write down my boss’ number. You can check everything I’ve said with him.”
I’d also ask Elise to run a background check to see if her name popped up in connection with anyone in town.
Barring some hole showing up in her story, we were now in one of the worst possible situations for an investigation. We had no viable suspects.
9
“I think my sister might have done it.” Mandy’s voice came through my cell phone at a volume that would have rivaled my alarm.
Or at least it felt that way. I reached for the clock on my night stand. 7:00 am. Not that early necessarily, but I’d had trouble falling asleep again last night.
I slumped back into my pillows. If Mandy kept calling like this, we were going to have to establish some ground rules. I couldn’t be expected to make sense out of her rabbit trails before I’d even had my first cup of coffee. “Start over. What did your sister do?”
“She called last night because she heard about the murder, and she started into me again about letting the place go. Said this was a sign it was time to let someone younger take over. Do you think she might have killed Bruce to scare me into selling?”
The scent of coffee brewing wafted up from downstairs. I knew God didn’t work on a system of scales where you could cover over the bad things you’d done with good deeds, but if he did, my mom deserved to be forgiven for a lot for putting that coffee pot on this morning. Maybe, after a cup, Mandy’s suggestion wouldn’t sound quite as outlandish.
Right now, I had to draw on all my friendship reserves to not toss the phone across the room. I didn’t even know where to start with this one. I hauled myself out of bed. “Why does your sister want you to sell?”
A slurping noise came across the line like Mandy was drinking her own cup of coffee. I shuddered. I hadn’t minded having Mandy as a house guest except that she kept insisting on brewing the coffee in the morning. And her coffee was about as close as you could come to rat poison without actually killing someone.
“She wants us to travel together,” Mandy said between slurps. “I think she’s also worried it’s too much for me and that I’ll make myself sick.”
“Okay. Those are logical, caring reasons. Do you think your sister is the kind of person who’d kill someone so the two of you could travel together?”
Two beats of silence. “No.”
“And you don’t have any other reason to think she might have done it, right?”
“None,” Mandy said. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should start reading romances instead.”
I gripped the stair handrail tightly to keep from crushing my phone. That’s all Fair Haven needed. If Mandy switched from reading mysteries to reading romances, she’d likely also switch from coming up with conspiracy theories to matchmaking. Heaven help all the single people.
“Have you tried talking to your sister about why you don’t want to sell?”
“Not really.”
“Then why don’t you do that? I bet once you talk to her, you’ll also set your mind as ease that she’s not the killer.”
Mandy and I disconnected.
For the first time, I got a look at my downstairs. All but two of my stools and all my dining room chairs lay on their sides, making a fence. My dogs met me with happy tail wags but without the frantic need-to-go-out whines I usually got in the morning. The chair-fencing blocked them out of the kitchen, but ran from the laundry room door next to the door outside so that someone could technically open and close it for them without having to be in the corral with them.
My mom sat on one of the remaining stools, a fresh mug of coffee in her hand. She waved a hand at the chair barricade. “This way we can both have our space.”
My mom might have a freak flag not so different from mine after all. She just hid it a lot better.
My phone beeped. A text message from Elise. All of Alice Benjamin’s story checks out. She couldn’t have killed Vilsack.
That was good news for Alice and bad news for us, especially since the day my mom and I spent with Mandy and her employees hadn’t given us any more insight into who might have wanted to hurt him.
I padded across the floor and handed the phone to my mom so she could read the text as well. Before my fingers could wrap around the handle of the coffee pot, my phone rang again.
My mom held it out to me.
I backed away. “If it’s Mandy, let it go to voice mail.”
