Madge was at her hostess stand when I walked in and smiled when she saw me. “Hi, Roxy. What would you like? It’s too late for anything off the stove, but I can check to see what Coco has in the cooler.”

  I thought a little guiltily of the untouched burger sitting on my front seat. “That’s okay. I’ve had lunch. Is Nate around?”

  “He’s in the kitchen. Let me go get him for you.” Madge beamed at me, and I felt even guiltier. I wasn’t there out of romantic interest but to warn Nate he might be a suspect in a murder.

  Assuming Brett Holmes had been murdered, which was beginning to seem more and more likely.

  Madge and Nate were back a few moments later, with Madge ducking away immediately to “check on something in the kitchen.” Nate smiled at me, but then the smile faded. “What’s up? You look…unhappy.”

  “Some weird stuff is happening. Can we take a walk?”

  His smile was completely gone now. “Sure. Let’s go outside.”

  We started up Second Street, in the opposite direction from High Country and Dirty Pete’s. “I just had a really strange lunch with the chief of police,” I said.

  Nate gave me a dubious look. “Is he somebody you know that well?”

  “I don’t know him at all, really. I was in Dirty Pete’s with Susa and Harry, and something was going on across the street at High Country. There were cops all around and an ambulance. Then the chief came into the restaurant and asked me to have lunch with him. Only it wasn’t an invitation. More like he was ordering me to his table.”

  I knew I wasn’t making much sense, but I figured it was more important to get all the information out than to do an enticing narrative right then.

  “Okay,” Nate said. “You’ve got my attention. So then what happened?”

  “He started asking me about last weekend at the market. You know, when Brett got physical and you had to step in and stop him.” I took a breath. “He knows about that. Or anyway, he knows a version of it. He thought you and Brett had a fight. I explained it wasn’t a fight and told him what was going on. But I don’t think he believed me.”

  Nate stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up the street. “Why was that important? Did something happen to Holmes?”

  “I don’t know. I tried to get Chief Fowler to tell me, but he wouldn’t. Yeah, I think something happened to Brett. Fowler wouldn’t have been asking me all those questions if someone else had gotten hurt.”

  “And he thinks I had something to do with it? I just met Holmes at the market last week. I didn’t even know his name at the time.”

  “I know, I know. It doesn’t make any sense. And there must be a lot of people who didn’t like Brett around town. He wasn’t what you’d call a likeable person.” I closed my eyes for a moment. “I’m sorry, Nate.”

  Nate frowned. “What are you sorry for?”

  “For getting you into this. I mean, I didn’t intend to get you into my situation with Brett. It just happened. But if you hadn’t pushed him away…”

  “Stop it,” Nate said flatly. “Just stop it. Brett Holmes created his own problems. You’re not responsible for what he did. And I wanted to get involved. Somebody needed to push that jerk off you. If it hadn’t been me, it would probably have been Harry. If the chief talks to me, I’ll tell him what happened. I hadn’t seen Brett Holmes before, and I haven’t seen him since.”

  He took hold of my hand and pulled me down next to him on one of the park benches that lined Second Street. “You don’t need to take on a load of guilt for everything that happens around you, Rox.”

  “I know. This just has me unsettled.”

  “What else did he ask?”

  “Not a lot. He wanted to know if Brett had asked me out before that, and I said he had and that I’d turned him down then, too. And he asked who all knew about Brett being a jerk to me, although that’s not how he put it. I didn’t tell him everything. But I have the feeling that won’t be the only time I have to talk to him.”

  “Probably not.” Nate blew out a breath. “Do you think Holmes is dead?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment. That was one of the main questions I’d been mulling over. “Yeah, I think he is. If he was just injured, I think they’d get the details of whatever happened from him. And none of the cops followed the ambulance when it left the restaurant, like they might have if they’d been taking him to the hospital.”

  Because Brett wouldn’t be giving them details. I was pretty certain of that.

  “Will the local news have the story? When does the paper come out here anyway?”

  “Wednesdays and Fridays. But it may be on their Web site before that.” I pulled my phone out of my purse and entered the URL for the Shavano County Sun. At the moment their front page still had a story about last winter’s avalanche damage on Highway 91. “They haven’t put it up yet. I don’t know how quickly they can do updates. Let me check the internet.”

  I did a quick Google search on Shavano and attack, which yielded quite a few articles about an attack by renegade Confederates in the year 1862. I tried again with Shavano and assault. This yielded a one-paragraph story from one of the Denver TV stations about a possible burglary at a Shavano restaurant and bar which resulted in a casualty. It had been posted an hour ago, datelined Shavano, which probably meant the police hadn’t told anybody the name of said casualty or his current status.

  Nate read over my shoulder, shaking his head. “If they really think this was a burglary, they don’t know much about the restaurant business. There wouldn’t have been that much cash on the premises, and the valuable stuff in the kitchen would have required a very specialized buyer who was in the market for something like an industrial-sized food processor.”

  “It doesn’t sound right to me either. Maybe that’s why they’re checking into Brett’s personal life. I wonder how long it’ll be before they release the real story.”

  “If Holmes is dead, my guess is they’ll want to notify his next of kin before they make any formal announcements.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. Up until then, I hadn’t considered the possibility that Brett had a family, too. And that family might be grieving for him. I promptly felt like a thorough creep myself. “Yeah, they probably won’t say anything public until then.”

  “Do you know where he was from?”

  “He worked at the same restaurant I did in Denver. That’s all I know.”

  “Fowler will probably find that out.” Nate paused for a long moment.

  “No.” I shook my head. “I’m not telling Fowler about what happened to me in Denver. It’s not relevant.”

  “But Holmes knew about it. And he tried to use it to blackmail you. Plus he told the woman who was in charge of that TV series a version of what happened.”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with Brett’s death,” I said stubbornly. I didn’t know for sure that Brett was dead. Still, the odds that he was seemed to be pretty high.

  “It probably doesn’t. But if Brett told other people in the kitchen at High Country, and if they thought he was having an affair with you because of it…”

  My stomach clenched tight. It hadn’t occurred to me that Brett would tell people besides Evelyn about my Denver reputation. But that would be his style. He’d want the people in the kitchen to believe he had inside knowledge. And he’d want them to believe he could pressure me into sex because of what he knew.

  I closed my eyes again, rolling my hands into fists. The more we talked about the possibilities, the worse everything became. “I’ll think about it. I don’t want to tell Fowler, but that may be the best plan.”

  “It would be better for him to hear it from you than to discover it on his own. It shows what a scumbag Brett Holmes was.”

  “But it might also give me a good motive to kill him.” I rubbed a hand across my face.

  Nate placed his hand over mine. “The guy was sleaze personified. A lot of us had reason to dislike him and dislike him a lot. But that’s not the same as wanting to kill him. You had every reason to hate him but no reason to kill him.”

  I blew out a long breath. That was the truth, and I’d been worrying so much about appearances that I’d overlooked it. I turned my hand so that I was palm to palm with his, then gazed up into those dark velvet eyes. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

  “Any time. We both need to take a step back so we can see what’s really going on.”

  A vehicle pulled to the curb near our park bench, and I glanced over to see a Shavano police car come to a stop a few feet away. My heart promptly went into overdrive. Had they come to arrest me? Why? How?

  The driver’s side door opened, and Chief Fowler stepped out. He narrowed his eyes, studying Nate. “Mr. Robicheaux?”

  Nate nodded stiffly. “I’m Nate Robicheaux.”

  “I thought you might be.” Fowler gave him one of those half smiles that didn’t really qualify as anything in the smile department. “I’m Ethan Fowler. And I’ve got a few questions for you.”

  I laced my fingers through Nate’s, pressing my hand against his, willing him to remember the advice he’d just given me.

  Nate drew himself up. “Okay. Ask away.”

  Fowler turned those cold blue eyes toward me. “Ms. Constantine, maybe you can find somewhere else to be.”

  Nate’s jaw tightened. I had a feeling if he refused to have his meeting with Fowler without me, Fowler might take him to the police station for questioning, the ultimate unfairness. I pushed myself to my feet. “I’ll talk to you later, Nate.”

  He stared up at me for a moment. “You don’t have to go.”

  I glanced at Fowler again. “I think I do.”

  Nate blew out a long breath. “I’ll call you.”

  “Okay.” I turned down the street toward Robicheaux’s where my truck was parked. I didn’t look back, not because I didn’t want to but because I was a little afraid of what I’d see. Nate and Fowler didn’t strike me as guys who might become best buds.

  The next hurdle would be telling Uncle Mike what was going on. But I thought I’d make a little jam first. Cooking usually helped me relax, and I needed to chill out. Rhubarb strawberry jam is another one where I use a little apple for natural pectin. I got the cut up rhubarb out of the refrigerator, along with a flat of strawberries and a couple of Granny Smith apples. I have to mash the strawberries up in the kettle before I add everything else, and I was wielding my potato masher with a lot of energy when I heard Uncle Mike coming in the front door of the cabin, Herman clicking at his heels.

  In fact, I heard him because he was bellowing. “Roxanne,” he called. “Why the hell does the chief of police need to talk to me at my earliest convenience? Do you know anything about this?”

  Busted! It hadn’t occurred to me that Fowler would get in touch with Uncle Mike so quickly. So far as I knew he was just checking up on my alibi for last night, which Uncle Mike couldn’t really confirm since we hadn’t seen each other after dinner.

  He stepped into the kitchen, looking slightly sunburned and very annoyed. “What’s going on, Roxy? What does Fowler want?”

  I took one last swing at the strawberries, then stepped away from the bowl. “Let’s go sit down. This takes some explaining, and I’ll have to start back a couple of days.”

  “That sounds ominous. I was hoping it was an overdue parking ticket or something.”

  I shook my head. “Unfortunately, no.”

  I hadn’t filled him in about Brett Holmes and Evelyn Davidson yet—maybe I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, which was clearly not realistic. When I’d finished that part of the story, Uncle Mike held up his hand, his expression grim. “This son of a bitch tried to ruin your chances just because you wouldn’t go out with him?”

  “Pretty much. He may have been mad about Nate pushing him down in front of all those people. That probably stung.” At least I hoped it did. Which wasn’t a very charitable point of view since Brett was most likely dead.

  “Remind me to shake Nate Robicheaux’s hand the next time I see him. And I’ll be looking in on Mr. Holmes to have a little talk, maybe tonight after we finish work.” His jaw firmed. My uncle the protector was on the job.

  “You can’t do that,” I started.

  Uncle Mike raised his hand again. “I know what you’re going to say. I know you don’t want me getting in a fight and calling attention to the whole thing, but Roxy…”

  I shook my head. “Actually, that’s not what I was going to say. I was going to tell you that you couldn’t talk to Brett because I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

  Uncle Mike stared at me, his jaw dropping. After a long moment, he scooted back in his chair. “Okay. I need a few more details here.”

  I gave them to him as efficiently as I could. When I’d finished, Uncle Mike was staring at me again. “So you don’t know for sure that this Holmes guy is dead?”

  “No, but it seems like a very good bet. If he isn’t dead, he’s seriously injured—so seriously that they haven’t been able to question him. I don’t think Chief Fowler would be traveling around interviewing everybody if it was just a minor incident.”

  “And why does he want to talk to me? I wouldn’t know Holmes if I tripped over him.”

  “I think he’s checking up on me. I told him I fixed you dinner last night, so he’ll probably want to confirm that you saw me. I have no idea if that gives me an alibi or not because I have no idea when Brett was attacked. Always assuming he was attacked, of course.”

  Uncle Mike looked confused and slightly anxious. “Why would you need an alibi, Roxy? Surely he doesn’t suspect you of doing anything to Holmes. You’re not the type.”

  “I don’t think I’m the type and you don’t think I’m the type, but Fowler doesn’t know me. He probably thinks I’m this big, strapping woman who could defend herself or get a little revenge on somebody who’d treated her badly.” I paused, staring down at my hands. There were times when I wished I really was that type of woman. Maybe I would have beaten up the chef the way he deserved to be beaten up instead of braining him with a can of tomatoes.

  My uncle reached over to grasp my hand. “Come on, Rox. You’re not to blame for this, any more than you were to blame for what happened to you in Denver. And since you didn’t have anything to do with this, they should clear you pretty quick. At least they’d better, since whoever did it is still out there.”

  I shivered at that. If Brett had been murdered, that meant the person who did it might still be in town, maybe even planning something else. Until we knew who or what was behind this, we’d all be on edge.

  “You should probably call Fowler back. The sooner you get this over with, the better it’ll be for all of us.”

  Uncle Mike pushed himself to his feet. “All right. I’ll give him a call. Will you be okay here by yourself after this? Maybe you should come over to the main house for a few nights.”

  I shook my head. “No need. I’ve got Herman. I’ll be fine.”

  But deep inside I wasn’t entirely sure about that. My cozy cabin felt a lot more isolated all of a sudden. And I didn’t even know for sure Brett Holmes was dead.

  Herman came to stand next to me, pressing his cold nose against my hand. He wasn’t the world’s greatest watch dog, but he was very reassuring. Particularly when I contemplated the long mountain nights ahead with no clear idea of what we were up against.

  Chapter 13

  The next day, Monday, the police department held a news conference and finally confirmed everybody’s suspicions. Brett Holmes was dead, killed by an unknown intruder in “the kitchen area” at High Country at some time after the restaurant closed for the night on Saturday. High Country closed at ten. The police theorized that Brett had stumbled upon a burglary in progress and been killed by the burglar.

  Like Nate, I had a hard time believing the burglar angle since there were lots of better targets for burglary in downtown Shavano. But I didn’t know if the police actually believed Brett had been killed during a robbery or if this was what they were telling the public while they kept their options open.

  There were a lot of other questions, too. What had Brett been doing at High Country after the restaurant had closed? I’d have expected him to be out the door as soon as the customers left, heading to the nearest bar for a round of tequila shots. How had the robber overpowered him? And, maybe most important, how had he been killed? We still didn’t know, and the police were being cagey about releasing any other information.

  While I worked on the strawberry rhubarb jam, I thought about Nate’s conversation with Fowler. He’d called after he’d finished with the chief and confirmed what I’d already assumed, that Fowler was mainly interested in hearing his version of the struggle with Brett last week. In fact, according to Nate, Fowler had seemed more interested in what Nate knew about me than what he knew about Brett.

  That started a whole series of unpleasant possibilities dancing in my mind. I kept thinking about Nate’s advice to tell Fowler about what had happened to me in Denver. It would be better if he heard it from you. Most likely it would. Originally, only a handful of people knew about me and the chef—Uncle Mike and Susa mostly. But now a cross-section of the Shavano population might have heard something. It was inevitable that Fowler would hear about it eventually, and Nate was probably right. It would be better if I was the one who told him.

  I went downtown on Monday after I’d gotten the strawberry rhubarb jam into jars and before I started another round of strawberry preserves. I figured I’d see if Fowler was around at the police station, and if he wasn’t, I’d at least have tried to talk to him.

  Needless to say, I really hoped he wasn’t in his office.

  The Shavano County Courthouse isn’t as charming as the rest of the town. The original granite building was torn down a decade ago, and the town put up a utilitarian square made of tan-colored brick. It houses courtrooms, judicial chambers, and the county attorney’s office.

  Also the county sheriff and the Shavano police department. And the jail.

  It is not, under any circumstances, a cheerful place, even on a bright Colorado bluebird morning. Once again, I thought about turning around and heading home.