A Hopeless Murder, page 8
part #1 of Hope Walker Series
“Absolutely not!” said Granny.
Detective Kramer took in the information.
“Okay then, but a word of warning before I leave. I’ve worked a lot of homicides over the years, and the one thing I’ve learned…” he fixed his eyes squarely on me. “People surprise you. They always surprise you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I woke up the next morning feeling like a new woman. Sure, my career was in shambles and I was living with my granny in the world’s weirdest town. But I no longer had a hangover and I had a very clear mission.
I needed a good cup of coffee.
I hadn’t had a really good cup of coffee since I left Portland and by God, if I had to find a coffee plant and grind the beans myself, I was going to have myself a good cup of Joe.
Which meant I was going to do the unthinkable, at least in Granny’s eyes. I was taking a trip to tourist town.
Mayor Jenkins had been right about one thing, Hopeless’s strange name undoubtedly kept tourism below what it might be. But have no doubt about it, Hopeless still got its fair share of visitors. The Moose Peak Lodge on the slope side of the mountain might be a bit janky, but it had skiing that rivaled anything else in Idaho. In the summer, backpackers flocked to the Sawtooth Wilderness around the Moose Mountains while rafters and kayakers descended upon Moose River like a plague of locusts. And where the white water broke and the river opened and spread out in tiny streams of crystal clear mountain water, fly fisherman could usually be found.
But old timers like Granny still liked to think of Hopeless as an insulated from the big city nonsense small town. She lived most of her life in the part of town called old town. But no matter how much she ignored them, fancy shops, trendy bars, and new coffee joints could be found in the other part of Hopeless.
Tourist town.
And over the last twelve years, tourist town had certainly grown. From the top of the hill the view of all the new shops and trendy bars was nothing short of astonishing. It didn’t take long to find what I was looking for.
A Hopeless Cup
Come for the Coffee, Stay for the View.
People crowded the café-style tables along the sidewalks, and above them, more customers relaxed on a second-story balcony. Out front, there was a wide screen showing time lapse views of main street and of Moose Peak. It was exactly the kind of tourist trap Granny hated. One whiff of the coffee assured me that it was absolutely the kind of tourist trap that I loved.
But when I opened the front door, I found something not so loveable.
Gemima.
Gemima Clark.
She saw me before I could run the other way. And of course, she was with her fiancé, Patrick Crofton.
“Hope Walker!” she practically yelled. “What a wonderful surprise!”
That, of course, couldn’t possibly be true. I found myself getting in the same defensive posture one might assume when encountering vampires.
“I just wanted a good cup of coffee,” I said defensively.
She grabbed Patrick’s hand and dragged him over. “Then you’ve come to the right place. My Patrick owns A Hopeless Cup.”
“You’re in the coffee business?”
“Among other things. I have a small bed and breakfast outside of town.”
Gemima squeezed him closer. “And Patrick owns the new Mercedes dealership on Vinton.”
“Hopeless needs a Mercedes dealership?”
Patrick shrugged. “You’d be surprised. Rich people from the cities find their way to Hopeless to vacation. And they like nice cars.”
Now it was Gemima’s turn to grab me. “But you came in to get a cup of coffee, not to chat about how successful my man is. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
“No, Gemima, I can manage.”
“But I thought you got fired?” She said it just loudly enough that every single person in the shop looked at us. And that’s when I understood the reason Gemima was talking to me in the first place. Like a very long set up to a very bad punch line.
Gemima leaned over and gave Patrick a very wet and very disgusting kiss on the lips. “See you later, darling.” Then she squinted her beady little eyes at me triumphantly and tilted her head. “Hope.”
And just like that, Gemima Clark vanished in a cloud of too-sweet perfume.
Patrick closed his eyes and shook his head, then looked at me with apologetic eyes. “I’m really sorry about that.”
“You don’t have to apologize for her.”
“Yeah, I sort of do. And seeing as I know the dork who owns this joint, I could probably get you a cup of coffee.”
I took a long look at Patrick Crofton. Good looking. Self-deprecating. Seemingly normal. But so many things about him didn’t add up. Most strikingly, Gemima Clark. And then, there was that other thing. To be honest, since Wilma Jenkins had mentioned it at Grub’s Diner, I hadn’t given it much thought. But now it got me wondering.
What exactly did Patrick Crofton do to get sent to the slammer?
“You really want to make it up to me?”
He nodded.
“Then don’t buy me coffee. Maybe just chat with me for a bit.”
“I could probably manage that. Let me check something in back—I’ll just be a minute.” Patrick said something to one of his baristas and headed toward the back. I might have sprinted toward the caffeine. A familiar tweed jacket was ahead of me at the counter.
“Hey, Professor Lomax.”
He turned, recognized me and smiled. “Remember, it’s Dean Lomax now.”
“Oh, right, totally forgot about that.”
His face flushed. “I’m sorry. That makes me sound like a pompous jerk. Call me professor if you like.”
“No, I like Dean Lomax. Very suave.”
He took his coffee from the barista and shook his head. “I’m not so sure about that.”
I pointed to the coffee. “What’s your poison?”
“I am a caramel macchiato man myself. And you?”
I looked at the barista and held up my finger. “One venti triple shot, white mocha breve.”
“You’re not messing around.”
“Dean Lomax, when it comes to coffee, I never, ever, mess around.”
“And though she came for the coffee, she’s going to stay for the view.”
Patrick was back. He held his hand out to Dean Lomax. “Hey, Robert, how you been?”
Dean Lomax took a nice long sip of his macchiato. “Better now. Much, much better.”
“By the way,” I asked. “What is this view you’re bragging about?”
Patrick smiled. “Only the best view in all of Hopeless.”
Dean Lomax looked indignant. “Better than the roof of the administration building?”
“I stand corrected. The best view on Main Street.”
Dean Lomax held up his coffee in a silent toast. “That I’ll agree with. Speaking of the administration building, I’ve been thinking of doing something similar to what you’re doing here.” Dean Lomax pointed to the TV in the corner.
“Oh, a time lapse?”
“If that’s what you call it. I just want something to show prospective students on our website. How do you do it?”
Patrick shrugged. “You’d have to ask Nick.” Patrick waved at a tall, skinny, twenty something with a little billy goat beard who was making a coffee at the other end of the counter. “He handles all of that stuff for me. I just know it works.”
“Excellent,” said Dean Lomax. “Hope, good to see you again. Patrick.”
Dean Lomax left and Patrick turned his attention to me. “You said you wanted to chat?”
I looked around the coffee shop, but every table was full. “Come on,” he said. I followed him through the maze of tables and then up a flight of stairs to the second floor. He led me outside to the balcony and we sat at an empty table.
Down below, people bustled past the sidewalks and cars drove by. To my left, the snowcapped glory of Moose Peak dominated the horizon. To my right, the rest of main street spread out, looking like a Norman Rockwell painting. Tourist town became old town which led out of town and back into the forest.
“No offense to Dean Lomax,” said Patrick. “But I still prefer our view.”
I took a gigantic, soul-cleansing sip of my white mocha. I let the warmth and the flavors hit the back of my throat and wrapped my hands around the cup as the coffee made its way into my belly.
“I think I’m in love,” I said.
“Who’s the lucky man?” he asked.
“A man? What are you talking about? A man couldn’t possibly do for me what this coffee is doing. Patrick Crofton, this is a seriously good cup of Joe.”
He shook his finger at of me. “Nope.” He pointed to the left. “Good Cup of Joe is on the far end of main street. This is A Hopeless Cup.” His crooked tooth added charm to this smile.
“So, what do you want to chat about?” he asked.
“Let’s start with the easy stuff. You mentioned you owned a bed and breakfast outside of town. Whereabouts?”
“About two miles outside of town off of Highway 15.”
My heart practically stopped, and I set my coffee down.
“You know the spot?”
Yes, I knew it. I knew it very well.
“It’s the prettiest spot in the world.” His enthusiasm was apparent. “I found this old log cabin set back from the road, on the other side of the Moose River. There’s a little wooden bridge to the cabin.”
“And you,” I floundered, hardly able to form words. “You bought this place?”
“About a year ago. I’ve been fixing it up ever since—trying to get it ready and, God willing, I’ll open up in a month or so.” He leaned over the table and touched my arm. “Hope, is everything okay?”
I stood up, not very interested in that coffee anymore. I walked away from the view, down the stairs, out the front door and towards my car.
“Hope!” I could hear Patrick calling me. “What did I say?”
I was hell bent on getting to that car before I broke down. But Patrick was too fast. He put his hand on my shoulder and I stopped.
“Hope, what did I say? What did I do?”
I’d been running from this for an awful long time. Too long.
“You didn’t do anything.” I took three deep breaths to try and keep it together. And then, when I thought I could speak, I tried to put my investigator hat back on. “Who did you buy it from?”
“Who? Guy named Wayne Mantel.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He bought it, oh, ten years ago or so.”
“Probably closer to twelve.”
“You know the place?”
“Yes, Patrick. I know the place.”
“But something’s wrong?”
Time to face it, Hope. Time to face it.
“Patrick, this is going to sound strange but, do you think you could show it to me?”
“The cabin? Sure. When were you thinking?”
“Now. I was thinking now.”
“Oh?” He studied me for a moment then nodded. “Let me tell Marcy and Nick, I’ll get my keys and we can go.”
We jumped in Patrick’s black SUV and drove through tourist town until we hit Highway 15, following the same curvy highway I’d traveled a thousand times in my life. When I was little, Granny would take me to have picnics along the Moose River. We’d jump in and let our feet dangle in the crystal-clear water. And whenever we were thirsty, Granny would dip her hands in the water and drink. I told her the teacher at school said never to drink out of the river without filtering it first. But Granny said that was the kind of nonsense tomfoolery that was making our nation soft. I told her our teacher said that was the kind of nonsense tomfoolery that was giving our nation diarrhea. Granny said something about diarrhea being a state of mind and remarkably, the conversation actually got worse after that.
In the winter, Granny would take me to the same spot, and we’d put on our snowshoes and stomp down the riverbank for hours. She’d point out the different types of birds and she’d show me where all the animals would hide for the winter. When I was young and here with Granny, I thought this was Heaven.
But as I got older, I spent less time with Granny. I got angry that my mom had left and so, ironically, started to act more like my mom. I told Granny it was my dream to move to the big city. To make it big. To be something.
And then, when I was seventeen, something—someone—changed that.
His name was Jimmy.
I fell hopelessly, madly in love and now it was Jimmy I picnicked by the river with and Jimmy stomping with me through the January snow. And I knew, after high school, Jimmy and I would be married and have children and raise our kids in the shadow of Moose Peak, live on Moose River and spend our lives together here in the Sawtooth Wilderness.
But first we’d need the perfect house.
Patrick rounded the bend where it happened, and I closed my eyes and tried to beat back the memories. But being there brought everything back so clearly that my heart started to thump, thump, thump out of my chest. I squeezed the door handle so hard I thought I would snap it in half. I felt the truck slow down and start to turn. I opened my eyes as we crossed the little wooden bridge over the river. I felt a shiver. He took the sharp right turn and just like that, we were there.
There was Moose Peak, as tree-studded and snowcapped as I remembered. A meadow of lush green grass spread toward us from the foot of the mountain. There was a play area for kids on the left. On the right a beautiful wooden sign, Crofton Bed and Breakfast. And between them, an old log cabin welcomed us with a long front porch dotted with rocking chairs, freshly painted green shutters and a warm red front door.
“It’s a beautiful house, isn’t it?” said Patrick, leaning forward on the steering wheel.
And as I looked at the home that I’d once expected to live in with the boy of my dreams, there was only one thing I could say.
“No, Patrick. It’s perfect.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Patrick took me on a tour of the property and then of the house itself. He showed me all the improvements he’d made and the plans he had for his bed and breakfast. I hardly said a word in reply. I felt like I was floating through a dream. Like I was one step removed from what was really going on in my life.
When we were done with the tour we sat on rocking chairs on the front porch.
“Thanks, Patrick, for showing this to me.”
He smiled. “Anything for one of Gemima’s old friends.”
I laughed. “You’re joking right?”
“I suppose you’re wondering about Gemima and me.”
“Not really my business. She is pretty.”
He nodded. “She’s pretty. I know she can be a lot sometimes.”
I gave him a look.
“Okay, she can be a lot, a lot of the time. But, when you get to know her, she’s different.”
“So, you really love her?”
“Does that seem so hard to believe?”
It did actually. Between Gemima and a fungal rash, most people would prefer dealing with the rash. But Patrick seemed sincere. There was something there I couldn’t quite figure out, but I sure didn’t want to pass the time discussing Gemima. Time to put my reporter hat back on and change the subject.
“I haven’t been around here for a long time, so I’m not up to speed with the current landscape, but have you heard any talk about who might have wanted to kill Sheriff Kline?”
His face changed. It twisted. Like in agony. He shook his head. “So that’s what this is about? This is what you wanted to ask me? Let me guess, Mayor Jenkins mentioned my past.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because she’s the only one in this town who ever seems to care. And she brings it up every chance she gets. She thinks that an ex-con doing business in this town is bad for the town. But whenever she says it, she says her town. Bad for her town. Like she owns the place.”
“And this makes you angry?”
“Of course, it makes me angry. I screwed up. I admit I screwed up. But I did my time and now I’m trying to use my talents to grow businesses in this town. Frankly, most people seem to appreciate that.”
“But not the mayor.”
“Not the mayor.”
“Patrick, can I ask what you did that sent you to prison?”
“Fraud was the charge.”
“But what exactly did you do?”
He leaned forward on the rocking chair and folded his hands. “You want to tell me why you wanted me to show you this place today?”
“To be honest? I’m trying to forget the past.”
He nodded and stood up, pulled out his keys and started walking to his SUV. Then he spun around. “Then that makes two of us.”
Patrick drove me back to tourist town, right to my car. But before I got out, I had one more question. “You mentioned that the mayor didn’t appreciate you being in town, doing business here. But she wasn’t the only one, was she? I’m guessing Sheriff Kline didn’t approve either, did he?”
“So, therefore I must have killed him? Is that it?”
“If he made your life miserable, that would certainly give you motive.”
“Hope, I know you’re a newspaper reporter and all, at least you were. But you know as well as anyone, Ed Kline made everyone’s life miserable.”
“Where were you the night he was killed?”
“Simple. I was at the bed and breakfast finishing some work.”
“And can anyone confirm that?”
His face hardened; the warmth drained away. He was angry.
“Yes, Hope. The love of my life. Your old friend. Gemima Clark.”
Patrick took off and not towards his coffee shop. Maybe to one of his other businesses. Maybe to go to Gemima or somewhere else entirely. But I’d interviewed enough people in my career that one thing was perfectly clear.
Patrick Crofton was lying about something. Although I wasn’t a homicide detective, I’d had plenty of opportunities to ask people what they were doing when a variety of crimes had taken place. When people lied about their alibis they almost always involved the people closest to them. The ones they could control. Which meant I needed to find Gemima Clark. And fast.
