The three of us stared at one another and tried to hear something that would give us a clue to the identity of the caller. But Eric said nothing, just listened to whoever was speaking. Finally he said, “I’m leaving now. Be there in ten.”

  “Can you tell us what’s going on?” Chloe asked when Eric came into the kitchen.

  He looked at each of us. “That was Tommy. He got an anonymous call from someone who claims they saw Travis carrying a couple of mallets into his house.”

  “Sounds fishy to me,” Mac said instantly. “The caller I mean, not Travis.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Eric said, untying his apron and hanging it inside the pantry closet.

  I frowned. “Nobody knows that a mallet is the possible murder weapon except the killer.”

  Chloe held her wineglass and pointed at me. “Along with whoever might’ve overheard us talking about it when you heard those footsteps outside the offices.”

  “It might be one and the same person,” I said.

  “I’d rather not speculate right now,” Eric said, closing off the conversation. He gave Chloe a quick kiss. “You guys stick around. I’ve got to go, but I still want to look at that video.”

  “We’re not leaving without our pizza,” I said, and made Eric laugh.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  Mac stared out the kitchen window, deep in thought. “Someone is trying to set Travis up.”

  “Oh, absolutely,” I said, tearing off a piece of the crust. “I’m betting on Lewis.”

  Chloe nibbled on salad. “Tommy might be able to identify the voice of the caller.”

  “They could’ve disguised their voice,” Mac said.

  “Coward,” Chloe said with a sneer.

  We were all silent for a long moment, sitting around the table with our own thoughts. And pizza. I bit into the crust, then took a sip of wine, and mentally thumbed through the possibilities. I was still set on Lewis being the one who’d made the anonymous call about Travis hiding the mallets. I could envision a full scenario that included Lewis as the bad guy and Travis as the good guy. From day one, Lewis had been jealous of Travis because he was friends with Linda. Lewis had stolen Travis’s tablet and stolen his story idea, too. Lewis had snuck into Travis’s house to hide the mallets to set him up as Linda’s killer.

  The only thing that didn’t fit was the idea that Lewis killed Linda. What was his motive? He liked her! And she had been nice to him. So that one fact made all the rest of it seem unlikely.

  And yet I still suspected him. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but I was okay with it. I had developed such a strong dislike for the man. I hadn’t liked him from the first minute he looked up at me and took my picture. It had been weirdly insulting! Even worse, I didn’t like the way he had treated Mac.

  And still, I couldn’t see any reason why Lewis would kill Linda. So I’d have to backtrack and look elsewhere.

  But who else would’ve accused Travis of hiding the mallets in his own house—which was the same as accusing him of killing Linda?

  One of the other writers? Why? What if it was one of the veterans? Maybe Travis had been feuding with a neighbor. But I couldn’t believe something like that could happen without the rest of the village knowing about it.

  What about Julia? She had been Linda’s closest friend, but she had admitted from the beginning that there was some jealousy when it came to the two women competing for men. I brushed the thought away. It was obvious that they had been joking about it. I didn’t believe for one minute that Julia had anything to do with Linda’s murder.

  Could it be one of the Homefront workers? But again, what would their motive be? It didn’t make sense.

  Chloe set down her wine. “Eric will never believe that Travis could hurt someone. Especially not Linda. Travis and she were dear friends. You saw them together.”

  “They seemed like they really cared about each other.”

  “And same goes for him and Parks,” she said. “They were great friends. Travis wouldn’t do anything to hurt either of them.”

  “It’s not Travis,” I said emphatically. “I don’t care if they found the mallets in his house.”

  “What about that woman?” Chloe asked. “That friend of Linda’s. Maybe she’s not such a good friend?”

  I frowned at her. “Are you talking about Julia Barton?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. How well do you know her?”

  I had just gone through the same thought process concerning Julia so I couldn’t exactly dismiss the question. I glanced at Mac, and he looked back at me with eyebrows raised. The fact that we were once again discussing murderous intentions should’ve been repugnant to both of us. But from the first time we met, we’d been faced with murders in Lighthouse Cove so Mac had turned it into a guessing game. Suspects, motives, opportunities. He called it the Scooby-Doo game, after the cartoon characters who were always getting involved in mysteries and then spending their time hashing out the possibilities.

  “Julia is a lovely woman and a very good friend of Linda’s,” I said, and took a quick bite of my pizza.

  Chloe gave a shrug. “Oh well, it was just a shot in the dark.”

  “However,” I continued, “Julia did admit to me that they weren’t always friends. You know they grew up here, right?”

  “Yeah,” Chloe said.

  “She said that they ran into the same prejudices and obstacles that we did. You know, the rich kids versus the townies.”

  “So who’s the rich kid and who’s the townie in their relationship?”

  “Julia’s father was a carpenter,” I said. “He used to work with Dad.”

  “That’s right. Mr. Barton,” she said cheerfully. “We talked about this. I remember him.”

  I smiled. “He’s a good guy.”

  “So, what about Linda’s father?” Mac asked.

  “Linda’s father is a wealthy lawyer. And guess what? He’s a friend of Whitney’s father.”

  “Whitney rears her ugly head again,” Chloe muttered, then rolled her eyes. “That whole townie discussion makes me tired. It’s the one thing I never missed about Lighthouse Cove.”

  “Yeah, I’m over it, too.” I gave her hand a quick squeeze, knowing what she’d gone through all those years ago.

  “So how did Julia and Linda become friends?” Mac asked.

  “They wound up in the army together and became best buds.”

  Chloe smiled. “That’s kind of a nice twist.”

  “It is,” I said. “Linda told me that she could always count on Julia.”

  “Oh wow.” She blinked her eyes. “That almost makes me want to cry.”

  “But wait,” Mac said. “What if Julia’s townie feelings festered for years? What if their friendship was a total charade? What if, when Julia met up with Linda in the army, she plotted it all out?”

  Chloe and I just stared at him.

  He threw up his hands. “I don’t buy it, either. We’ll strike Julia off the suspect list.”

  “Good,” Chloe said.

  He held up his finger. “Except, just one more possibility for the sake of argument. Maybe Julia was jealous of Linda.”

  “Jealous, why?” I asked.

  Mac picked up his beer. “Well, Linda completely captured the attention of Lewis.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “So you think Julia was secretly crazy about Lewis?”

  He laughed. “Good God, no. I was trying to keep the scenario going, but I just can’t go there.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But just in case you harbor doubts, let me put your worries to rest once and for all. Julia couldn’t stand Lewis. She didn’t trust him around Linda because Linda was too nice and friendly and open around him. Julia was worried about Linda spending any time with him. And now I’m thinking she was right to worry.”

  Chloe’s phone rang and she ran to answer it. “Oh, Eric. Are you okay?”

  She listened for a minute and then said, “Okay, keep me posted. If you think it’s going to be more than an hour, call me.”

  She ended the call and looked at Mac and me. “He’ll be home in an hour and asked if we would save him a piece of pizza.”

  “Oh, that’s sad,” I said.

  “I know,” Chloe said. “I feel sorry for him having to work so late.”

  “No, I mean it’s sad that we have to save a piece of pizza for him.”

  Chloe slapped my arm. “Pizza hog.”

  “Couldn’t we save him some salad instead?”

  She slapped me again. “Meanie.”

  I laughed. “Okay, fine. We’ll save him a piece of the pizza he bought for all of us.”

  “That’s good of you.” She got up, brought the wine bottle to the table, and poured more into our glasses.

  “Did he tell you what’s going on?” Mac asked.

  “A little bit. He said that Travis was taken to the police station, where Tommy is now interrogating him.”

  I frowned. “Why Tommy?”

  “Because Eric is recusing himself,” Chloe said. “He’s too good a friend of Travis’s to be impartial.”

  “Eric must hate that,” I murmured.

  “You know he does,” Chloe agreed.

  “Is Tommy in charge of both murder cases?”

  “As long as Travis is a suspect, I guess Tommy’s in charge.”

  “Well then.” I exchanged a look with Mac, then glanced at Chloe. “We’ve got to figure out who the real killer is.”

  “Did Eric say anything about Parks?” Mac asked.

  “No.” Chloe looked ready to cry again. “I’m really worried about him.”

  “No news is good news,” I said immediately. “Let’s wait until we hear something.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Mac and I stayed with Chloe and ate pizza and salad, and discussed suspects and motives. We wanted to wait until Eric got home so we could all look at the video together.

  An hour later, Eric walked in the door. Chloe jumped up and ran to greet him.

  “Come have some pizza,” she said, and walked with him into the kitchen.

  “We saved you a piece,” I said quickly.

  Chloe gave me a dry look. “We saved you three pieces and some salad. You want a beer?”

  He ran a hand up and down her back. “I think I’ll have a glass of wine.”

  He poured himself a glass of the Pinot Noir while Chloe warmed up a piece of pizza. Then he sat down at the table, looking beat.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

  “Two bloody mallets were stuffed inside a plastic bag and shoved into Travis’s closet.”

  Mac snorted. “Because every killer keeps his bloody weapons in a plastic bag in their closet.”

  Eric gave him a cynical look. “Right? Some people can be so dumb.”

  “Worse,” I said. “They think you’re dumb.”

  “That’s a big mistake,” Chloe said, and set a plate down in front of Eric with a big slice of pizza and some salad.

  “Yeah. Big mistake.” He picked up the pizza, folded it, and took a bite. “Oh man. That’s good.”

  “The best,” Mac agreed.

  “It really is the perfect food,” I said.

  “So what’s this about Tommy?” Mac asked.

  Eric shrugged. “I recused myself, so he took over.”

  I gazed at him. “Not for long, I hope.”

  “I’ll still run the case, but Tommy will take charge of everything connected specifically to Travis. Any questioning, searching of premises, that sort of thing.”

  “Sounds complicated,” I said.

  “It’s a little tricky. We’ll work it out.”

  Chloe brought him another piece of pizza, and he gazed up at her adoringly. “Thanks, babe.”

  I’d probably react the same way if she brought me a piece of pizza. It was really good.

  Eric’s phone rang and he grabbed it, then looked around the table at us. “Sorry. This won’t take long.”

  He said hello, listened for a minute, and then said, “Good. Okay. Thanks, Tommy. See you tomorrow.”

  He set the phone on the table, screen side down. Then he took a long sip of wine. Finally he said, “Travis has been interrogated and released with a warning not to leave town.”

  “That’s . . . good, right?” I asked.

  “As good as we can get for the moment,” he said. “For now, it’s all circumstantial. Nobody saw him do anything. Except we’ve got some anonymous jackass insisting that he saw Travis run into his house carrying two bloody mallets.”

  “That’s just ridiculous,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Eric said, and took a healthy bite of that second piece of pizza. “We know that, but not everybody seems to agree.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Was someone bad-mouthing Travis, I wondered.

  “Now that Tommy’s in charge, he’s determined to stay impartial. But it’s almost like he’s bending in the opposite direction. He said a few things about Homefront not being safe.”

  “Eric, he got that from Whitney,” I said. “We all know she’s an idiot.”

  Chloe huffed out a breath. “Then he’s an idiot if he’s paying attention to her.”

  “They’re married,” Eric said. “What else can he do?”

  “Tommy’s great,” I said, “but he’s way too easygoing when it comes to placating Whitney.”

  For a minute, we were silent, drinking wine, thinking about the murder.

  “I want you to know I’m honing in on Lewis,” Mac said. “I don’t trust him and I don’t like him. He was flirting with Linda the whole time, meeting her at the pub, so he must’ve liked her. But he’s squirrelly. Maybe she told him to buzz off, and he took it badly.”

  “I honestly can’t see her saying something like that,” I said. “But more importantly, Lewis told Linda about the problems he was having with writing a new book.”

  “He did?” Eric said.

  Mac and I stared at each other, suddenly realizing that we’d never told him about Lewis’s issues with starting his second book. So we told him the whole story now.

  “The reason this is important is that once Travis’s tablet disappeared, Lewis suddenly sent his agent a full manuscript.”

  “You think Lewis stole an idea from Travis?”

  “I think he stole the entire book,” Mac said.

  “And the only person outside of the writers’ group who knew he didn’t have a story idea was Linda.”

  “And then Linda was killed,” Eric murmured. “So he steals Travis’s tablet, finds one of his great stories on there, sends it to his agent, then remembers that he told Linda his sob story.”

  Mac nodded. “You’ve got the gist of it.”

  “But Lewis really liked Linda,” I said, playing devil’s advocate.

  “True,” Eric said.

  “But then, Lewis is squirrelly,” Mac countered with a crooked smile.

  I looked at Chloe. “Remember in the pub, when Travis was sitting with Linda? Remember the look on Lewis’s face?”

  “If looks could kill,” she said.

  Eric shook his head. “There’s too much psycho stuff here. So he kills Linda and then tries to frame Travis, who he considered his main competition for Linda.”

  “That’s really sick,” I said.

  Mac reached over and squeezed my hand.

  “And don’t forget,” I said. “There’s that conversation I had with Sheri at the memorial.”

  “Oh yeah,” Chloe said. “The woman scorned. Or whatever.”

  “She was jealous of Linda,” I said.

  We took a few seconds to think about all that. Eric finished his pizza, then asked, “How does Parks fit into all this?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he saw the real killer go into Travis’s house.”

  Eric stared at me. “You’re good at this.”

  “I’ve had some practice,” I said, with a smile for Mac.

  Mac just grinned. “That’s my girl.”

  I reached for my wineglass. “You know, we haven’t even touched on the other writers in the group. They’re all squirrelly, if you ask me.”

  “They’re an odd group, for sure,” Chloe said.

  “Let me think about all this,” Eric said. “Damn, I really need to talk to Travis myself. I didn’t get a chance tonight.”

  Mac leaned his elbows on the table. “Can you talk to him as a friend and not jeopardize the investigation?”

  Eric scowled. “I’ve got to think about it. Maybe I’ll talk to Tommy tomorrow.”

  Chloe leaned over and asked, “Do you want a third piece of pizza?”

  “No thanks, babe.” He stood and took his plate to the sink. “I want to watch that video.”

  His phone rang again, and his shoulders sagged in defeat. “I’ve got to take this.” He connected the call. “Hey, Tom.” He listened for a few seconds. “Hold on for just a quick minute.”

  I stifled a yawn.

  “Sorry, guys,” Eric said

  “It’s okay, Chief,” Mac said. “It’s getting late anyway. Why don’t you two go ahead and look at it tonight, and Shannon and I will check it out tomorrow night?”

  I winced. “I have my construction class. Unless I cancel it.”

  “You can come over anytime and look at it,” Chloe said. “Morning or afternoon.”

  “I want to get back to our partition wall tomorrow morning, so how about later in the afternoon.”

  “Works for me,” Chloe said.

  “I can do it then, too,” Mac said.

  “Thanks, guys.” Eric walked out of the kitchen to resume his talk with Tommy.

  “If you do watch the video tonight,” I said to Chloe. “Let me know what Eric thinks.”

  “I will.” She gave me a hug. “Sleep tight.”