Chapter Thirty

  My first date, if I could even call it that, with Sheriff Milan Penbrook wasn’t like anything I expected that it would be. In fact it wasn’t a date at all, since it was to interview a murder suspect. As much compassion as I felt for her, I had to start thinking of Slade as a suspect. Just as I couldn’t completely remove Stacey from the list, the same was true for Slade.

  What made me even more suspicious of Slade was her home. I knit my brow together as we sat outside of the large house with its immaculate lawn and trim hedges. “She lives here?”

  Milan looked at his phone. “Yes, this is the address the chief gave me.”

  This wasn’t the life that Slade described to me at all. She’d said that she lived in an apartment with a bunch of roommates and could barely make her rent. This was not the home of someone just scraping by. It was on the water, so had to be well over a million dollars. Homes on the bay were the most sought-after in Traverse City.

  Even so, I told myself to reserve judgment. This was most likely her parents’ home, and just because Slade’s parents had money, it didn’t mean she did. Some parents cut their kids off after a certain age.

  We walked up to the door, and Milan knocked. Huckleberry sat at our feet. It wasn’t ideal to take the pug to our interview, but there was no one I knew in the city I could leave him with, and even in the evening, it was too hot to leave him in the car.

  A pretty woman in her fifties opened the door. It was clear she hadn’t been home long from the office. She still wore her high heels.

  “Mrs. Susan Carra?” Milan asked.

  “Ms. Carra,” she replied.

  “Please excuse me,” he said.

  She nodded. “What is this about?”

  “We would like to speak to your daughter, Slade.”

  Susan pressed her lips together. “Her name is Saldona. I don’t understand what it is about kids nowadays that gives them the right to rename themselves. I should at least get to name her after fifteen hours of labor.”

  At least I knew one thing Slade had told me was true: her real first name was Saldona. I was relieved to hear it. I wanted to believe Slade. I really did.

  “Who are you two and what do you want with my daughter?” She removed her heels as she asked the question.

  “I’m Sheriff Milan Penbrook, and this is Shiloh Bellamy, who is helping me with the investigation into the death of Professor Dane Fullbright. Does the name Dane Fullbright mean anything to you?”

  She frowned. “Never heard it until this week when he died at the festival. It’s big water cooler discussion in my office. There aren’t many murders in Traverse City.”

  Milan nodded. “And we’d like to keep it that way, which is why we want to find out what happened to Mr. Fullbright as quickly as possible.”

  “I don’t see how I can be of any help, and Saldona has never mentioned the name to me. I’m sure that she doesn’t know him either.”

  “She is working for his wife.”

  She furrowed her brow. “She told me that she was working for an art gallery near the bay. I was happy that she was putting that expensive art degree I was paying for to some good use. It was the first summer she’s been willing to work and not hole up in her room for three months and paint.”

  “How did Slade get the job?” I asked.

  She looked at me, and I thought she wasn’t going to answer. I can’t say I blamed her. I didn’t know that I would be willing to speak about my child to a stranger. In fact, I knew I wouldn’t.

  Susan cleared her throat. “She saw it on the job board in the art department and applied. I was so relieved. I have been trying to convince her to get a job for years.” She looked down at Huckleberry. “Is that a police dog?”

  “In training,” Milan said. “We aren’t sure he has what it takes.”

  “He’s a pug,” Susan said.

  “We thought we’d go for unassuming with this one,” Milan said with a straight face.

  “No kidding,” Susan replied.

  “Ms. Carra, would it be all right if we came inside to speak to you more?” Milan asked.

  She frowned. “I just got home from a twelve-hour work day. All I want to do is put on my pajamas and read with a glass of wine in my hand.”

  She was a woman after my own heart.

  She sighed. “But you can come in. I have always had a soft spot for dogs, even failed police dogs. I don’t have the time to care for one now but plan to adopt one or two the moment I retire, whenever that is.” She gave a short bitter laugh.

  We stepped into the house, and she bent over to pet Huckleberry’s head. He licked her hand. The little charmer got us in. He was definitely getting a teaspoon of peanut butter when we got home. It was one of his favorite treats. Also, I thought he might just have the chops to be a police dog after all.

  The front door to Susan’s home opened into a great room decorated in all shades of gray with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the bay. Everything from the high corners to the baseboards along the walls was spotless. The ceiling had to be eighteen feet up, so that was no small feat.

  “I’ll call Saldona,” she said and walked over to an intercom on the wall. “Saldona, please come to the living room.”

  There was no reply, but a moment later, the young woman appeared at the top of the open staircase. She spotted Milan, Huckleberry, and me standing by the front door. She hesitated, and for a moment, I thought she would bolt. Her chest went up and down as if she took a great sigh, and then she came the rest of the way down the stairs.

  “Saldona, this man is from the police. He says he needs to speak to you about your professor who died.”

  Slade’s eyes were huge. “I already spoke to the police chief.”

  “I know that,” Milan said soothingly. “But some new information has come to light that I need to ask you about. Shiloh is here to ease the conversation.”

  Her gaze slid in my direction, but Slade didn’t look me in the eye. I wondered if some of the rapport I’d gained over tacos had been lost now that I was in her house, a home that was much different from the one she had described.

  “Please, have a seat.” Susan gestured to two white leather couches that faced each other in front of the massive fireplace.

  Milan sat without a fuss, but I gingerly perched on the sofa. I was a farmer who had spent the entire day at the festival. There was no guarantee there wasn’t a little bit of dirt on my pant legs. I took care to put as little of my body possible on the white leather cushion. A stiff wind would have easily blown me off. Thankfully, the large windows were closed.

  Milan watched me out of the corner of his eye, and one side of his mouth tipped up into a smile as if he knew just what I was doing. Huckleberry lay on my feet. I took comfort in that.

  “Saldona, have a seat too.”

  The young woman unceremoniously flopped on the couch across from Milan and me. She folded her hands on her lap and looked down as if she couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact with anyone in the room.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Susan asked. “Water? Pop?”

  “No, we are fine,” Milan answered for the both of us. “We don’t want to take up much of your time.”

  Susan nodded and looked as if she was about to sit down too. “If you are going to speak to my daughter, I want to be here.”

  “Ms. Carra,” Milan said. “I completely understand why you feel that way, but Saldona is a legal adult. We would like to speak to her alone. She is more than welcome to tell you whatever she would like about our conversation after the fact.”

  Susan looked like she might want to argue, but in the end said, “Fine. I’ll be in my office. I have some emails to catch up on. Saldona, make sure you see them out when they’re finished.”

  Her daughter, who was still staring at her folded hands on her lap, gave a slight nod.

  Susan shook her head as if she couldn’t understand her daughter at all. Maybe she couldn’t. Slade was a creative and sensitive soul, and it looked like Susan was far more practical and corporate. The two of them were bound to bump heads, but I could tell by the way Ms. Carra looked at Slade that she really loved her daughter.

  Susan walked out of the room, and Milan waited a full minute after she left before he spoke. “Slade, we wanted to talk to you about Dane Fullbright.”

  “What about him?” she asked, still not looking up. “I told the police chief and his officers everything that I knew. It’s not much.”

  “We do appreciate you doing that, but what we would really like to get to the bottom of is your relationship with Dane.”

  She lifted her gaze up and looked at Milan. I noted that she had yet to look at me. “I already told Shiloh about it. Ask her.”

  “Slade,” I began. “One of your classmates stopped by my booth this afternoon.”

  “Who?” Slade asked.

  I widened my eyes at her sharp tone. She had come across as docile and even melancholy during our conversations. This more aggressive Slade took some getting used to.

  “Her name isn’t important,” I said.

  “I should know who is talking about me,” Slade said.

  “How did you know she spoke about you?” I asked.

  “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “So you’re living here with your mom,” I said. “That’s not what you told me. You made it sound like you were desperate to find a job for the summer to pay your rent. You said you lived in an apartment.”

  “I was living with roommates during the semester on campus. I’m home for the summer.”

  “And the job with Lily Fullbright, is that true?”

  Her head snapped up. “You saw me in her booth. She was the one who told you to find me.”

  “That’s true, but Dane didn’t get you that job with his wife, did he? Did he even know you were working for his wife?”

  She pressed her lips together.

  “Slade,” Milan began. “We’re trying to piece together Dane Fullbright’s relationships so we can find out what happened to him. You told Shiloh and the police that you had a romantic relationship with him. Is that true?”

  She sighed. “We could have if he hadn’t been so distracted by Stacey. I hate her. She stole my chance with him.”

  I raised my eyebrows. The venom in her voice surprised me.

  “He wasn’t happy in his marriage. I wanted to help him get over it,” Slade went on.

  “Did he tell you he was having marital problems?” Milan asked.

  She hung her head. “No, but his wife would come to campus and yell at him in front of his students. She said she wanted a divorce and that he was ruining her life.”

  This was a very different view of Lily Fullbright. I reminded myself to take everything Slade said as this point with a grain of salt. She had lied to me more than once already.

  “How did you end up working for Lily?” Milan asked.

  Slade cleared her throat. “Lily is a wonderful artist, and she came to the art department looking for an assistant. I applied and got the job.”

  “So Dane wasn’t involved.”

  Slade wouldn’t look at me. “No, but I thought if I was working with his wife, I would see him a lot this summer. I wanted him to know that he could lean on me. I wanted to help him any way I could.”

  It seemed like more and more like the mysterious college student who had stopped by my booth had been telling the truth, and Slade had been the one lying to me all this time. I felt like a fool. I thought of her ex-boyfriend. I had witnessed him pinch her arm. I saw the bruise. I believed her that he was unkind, maybe even abusive. But I knew I had to be more careful about coming to these sorts of conclusions.

  “Did you ever tell Dane how you felt about him?” Milan asked.

  Slade looked at him. “I did.”

  “And how did he respond?”

  She shifted in her seat. “He said he appreciated my concern, and he planned to file for a divorce by the end of the summer. He said he was flattered, but he couldn’t be involved with a student and he was already seeing someone else.”

  “Stacey?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I didn’t know that at the time I took the job, or I wouldn’t have bothered.”

  “Did he say Stacey’s name?” I asked.

  She balled her fists at her sides. “I saw them kissing.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “The day before he died,” she said.

  “And what did you do?” Milan asked.

  “I told his wife that night. The next day, he was dead.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  “You seem to be implying that Lily might have had something to do with her husband’s death,” Milan said.

  Slade picked at her nails. “If anyone would want him dead, it would be her.” She paused. “Or me.”

  I arched my brow. It wasn’t that common for a suspect to just come out and say they could be guilty.

  “I think I have heard enough.” Susan came into the room holding a glass of wine. “If the police wish to speak to her again, they can in the presence of our attorney.”

  Milan and I stood up. I got up so fast I knocked poor Huckleberry onto his back. He flailed about like an overturned turtle until I picked him up and tucked him under my arm. I guessed the police academy was out of the question for him after all.

  “Ms. Carra, we were just asking Slade a few questions,” Milan said.

  “I heard your questions,” she said. “And I can see what you’re doing. You’re trying to make my daughter look like a killer, and I won’t have it. I won’t. Now, I’ll ask you to please leave before I throw you out.”

  Slade jumped up. “I would have never killed Dane. I loved him.”

  Her mother gasped. “He was your teacher.”

  “I don’t care. I know we were supposed to be together. If we had more time, he would have seen that too.” She took a breath. “He and Stacey would eventually break up, and I would be there to pick up the pieces. I was trying to help him.”

  It seemed like a very odd way of helping.

  “Other than the timing of Dane’s death, how do you know Lily was the killer?” Milan asked.

  “By how was he killed. Who would know his allergies better than his wife? I didn’t know.”

  She made a good point, and if Lily was furious with Stacey over the affair, stealing her medicine bottle to frame her would have been the perfect plan, but how would Lily know that Stacey had a three-month old bottle of penicillin in her medicine cabinet?

  “Saldona, stop talking,” Susan said. “I don’t want you to say anything more.”

  “Lily killed Dane. I need to tell them the truth.”

  Susan turned to us. “Please leave.”

  I wanted to argue, but Milan put a hand on my arm. “Of course. Chief Sterling of the Traverse City Police Department will want to speak with Saldona again for an official statement.”

  “He can, in the presence of our attorney,” Susan said, leaving no room for debate.

  Milan nodded and tugged on my arm. We started for the door.

  “Shiloh,” Slade called after me.

  I looked over my shoulder.

  “I really do appreciate everything you tried to do for me.”

  I nodded in return.

  Milan and I rode back to Open Space Park’s small parking lot in silence. I had compassion for Slade, but I also couldn’t believe how well she fooled me. My judgment was off. That wasn’t a comfortable feeling.

  “I’ll drop you and Huckleberry off and then I’ll see if Chief Sterling is available and tell him what we learned.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “And no, before you ask, you can’t come,” he said, but his smile took the bite out of his words.

  He parked his SUV and I unbuckled my seat belt. With my hand on the door handle, I asked, “Do you think Lily killed her husband?”

  “I think Lily has a really good motive for murder. Slade is right; the timing is key. It was a quick turnaround. Slade told Lily the night before the festival what she saw, and in less than twenty-four hours, Dane was dead.”

  “But it wasn’t a crime of passion. Whoever stole the pills from Stacey had been thinking about this murder for a long time.”

  “Right. Assuming that Stacey’s pills were even used in the murder. That will be very difficult to prove.”

  “Does this mean Stacey is off the hook?”

  He shook his head. “Not by a long shot. In fact, all three women are at the very top of my suspect list.”

  “Who else is on your list?” I asked as innocently as could be.

  He gave me a side-eye.

  “Cayden has to be there as the jealous boyfriend. I saw with my own eyes how he treated Slade. I don’t think she was lying about that.”

  He sighed.

  “You know what I’m thinking?”

  “No, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”

  “I think we are on the wrong track. If the murder wasn’t so premeditated, I would like all of them, even Stacey, for the crime. But this was premeditated. All the suspects we have on our list right now are there because they were furious with Dane in the moment. They don’t fit.”

  “If you’re right, we are in a whole heap of trouble,” he said. “Because we don’t have any other suspects.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The next morning, I was happy to do my chores on my farm with Huckleberry snuffling along behind me and barking at inappropriate times. When I opened the front door of my little cabin, he ran out like he was ready to be a real farm dog. Then he saw a squirrel in a walnut tree, yelped, and hid behind my legs. Even so, I appreciated the enthusiasm to start the day.

  Esmeralda wasn’t nearly as excited to begin another day on the farm. I tried to coax her out of bed, but she refused to move. Instead she obsessively groomed her tail, paying special attention to her bald spot. If she wasn’t back to her old bossy ways by the next week, I would take her to the vet for a checkup. As far as I could tell, the only part of her that was bruised from the incident was her ego. Since Esmeralda had a very large ego, it must have pained her quite a bit.