Death Comes to a Retreat (Book 4 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 22

  “Do you have any idea whom she might be?”

  She refolded the paper and handed it back to me. “No.”

  “Could it be Katherine Lindstrom?”

  She shrugged, her cheeks flushed. “I’ve never seen Katherine nude, thank God.”

  “Did you know she had breast cancer?”

  Cindy rolled her eyes. “Another of her personal claims to fame. She had reconstructive surgery, though, and I doubt you’d be able to see her scar on a faxed photograph.”

  “How hard would it be for somebody not on the C.U. staff to have gotten access to a fax machine on the campus at eight twenty-six this morning?”

  “Fairly easy, really. I think all departments have one or two fax machines in their offices. There’s also a copy shop in the U.M.C.”

  “So a student could have sent this to me?”

  “Sure.” She pursed her lips and turned her attention to her papers, her cheeks reddening. This was probably not her typical coffee shop conversation. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Of course. Thank you so much for your time.”

  When I got home, Lauren, still in a funk, told me Jim had gone to speak to somebody at his office headquarters, which was located here in Boulder. I apologized profusely for leaving her with the children for so long, but she reminded me that that was our original agreement in return for my covering her airfare.

  She obviously didn’t feel like talking, so I decided to take full advantage of this chance to relax and headed upstairs to take a warm bath. The children were trying to brush Betty Cocker’s teeth with some old toothbrush they’d found. I chased them out of the bathroom and poured myself a bubble bath, only to find Betty Cocker enthralled with what I was doing. She periodically whined outside the bathroom door as I luxuriated in the warm water and bubbles. In case of inspiration, I’d brought with me a pencil and a cheap pad of paper that I wouldn’t mind getting wet.

  My aching muscles slightly appeased, I drew an absurd—and wet—cartoon. A robber is looking perplexedly at a woman behind a counter of a bakery. She says to him, “I distinctly heard you say, ‘I’ll knead your dough, fast.’ So take off that silly mask, put on a hairnet, and get back here. I can use the help.” The caption reads: One reason bakeries are seldom robbed.

  The doorbell rang while I was getting dressed. Lauren called upstairs, “That’s Tommy, again, and this time I’m not getting it for you if you’re stark naked.”

  “I’m not stark naked.” I called back to her, “so that means you will answer the door, right?”

  The doorbell rang again, but as I was brushing my wet hair into place, I heard the door open and the muffled rumblings of their quiet conversation. I waited an extra minute, then came out.

  Tommy, hands in his jean pockets, was standing just a foot inside the door. Lauren was seated in the recliner a short distance away, with her back to him.

  “Got some good news for you, Moll,” Tommy said as I was still coming down the stairs. “They got a prime suspect for the murder of Allison Kenyon. They’re close to bein’ able to make an arrest.”

  “Celia Wentworth?” I asked.

  Tommy’s smile faded. “How did you know that?”

  “She told me the police found copies of the key to the sauna on her key ring. She claims somebody planted them there. I didn’t know they had any evidence linking her to the murder, though.” While I spoke, Lauren leaned back on the arm of the stuffed chair, listening and yet removing herself physically from the conversation.

  “Somebody anonymously turned in a series of written threats to your friend Allison a couple days ago. The Colorado Bureau of Investigation identified Celia’s fingerprints on them, and handwriting analysis confirms that she wrote them. One’s in verse and almost identical to the one you described getting during your group outing into the mountains.”

  “How did somebody turn them in ‘anonymously’?”

  Tommy raised an eyebrow as if proud of his knowledge of the investigation. “They were in a large envelope labeled ‘Boulder Police’ in the Justice Center’s mailbox.”

  “Do you know if Celia confessed?”

  “To sending the threats, yes. She says she wanted to frighten Allison into confessing that she’d murdered her ex-husband.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked Tommy, feeling a touch of injured pride at having been one-upped by his superior sleuthing.

  “I got to be friends with one of the officers on your case.”

  “Which one?” Lauren asked, rising with arms akimbo.

  Tommy eyed her for a moment, then answered, “I’ve been wining and dining one of the female officers, if you must know. She seems capable of sayin’ the word yes.”

  “Oh, she is, is she? So what favors are you going to ask her for next?”

  “‘Scuse me, Molly. There seems to be a lack of fresh air in here.”

  Tommy left, letting the screen door bang behind him. He got into his car and drove off.

  My cheeks were burning on my friend’s behalf. I stayed put in the living room, while Lauren huffed and paced. “I sure walked into that one, didn’t I? Now he’s trying to shove some other woman in my face to get to me.”

  “But fortunately, you’re not even slightly jealous.”

  My deliberate sarcasm coaxed her into a small smile. “So. They’ve almost got this thing solved. That’s great news, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, If they’re right. The thing is, though, Celia had no reason to try to kill me.”

  “Maybe she knew you’d figured out that she was in love with Richard and wanted to avenge his death.”

  “But Richard and Celia’s relationship wasn’t a secret. Everybody knew that. Lois said their entire neighborhood knew.”

  Lauren paused and considered my statement. “Maybe she thought you were the only person who could have known she was the one sending those threats.”

  “Maybe so,” I said with a shrug. It was hard to put myself in the killer’s shoes, which was a bit ironic, since the killer had literally put herself in my shoes to frame me.

  The phone rang. I barely had time to answer, before the voice on the other end blurted, “Mrs. Masters? I need to speak to you. Can you meet me someplace?” I immediately recognized Maria Chavez’s accent.

  “Yes. Where?”

  “The Pearl Street Mall. I’ll be by the stone rabbit.” She hung up before I could respond.

  The stone rabbit was probably the carved rabbit at the east end of the mall. To be safe, though, I checked the business section of the phone book in case a new business called the Stone Rabbit had moved into town during my absence. None had, so I left Lauren in charge of the children once again and headed off.

  I walked briskly along the redbrick walk of the open-air mall. I spotted Maria. She was clutching something against her chest and kept checking behind her as if very nervous. She smiled a little when she saw me.

  “Mrs. Masters. I do not know if I’ m doing the right thing, but I feel that I have no choice.”

  “Go on.”

  She handed me a manila envelope. “Those are photographs. I found the negatives for them and gave them to Nancy Thornton.”

  I was not overly anxious to rip the envelope open and study dirty pictures in front of a woman I barely knew. “Are these…pornographic pictures of Richard Kenyon?”

  She nodded. “Nancy does not know I had these copies developed.”

  “Did she hire you to find them at Allison’s house?”

  “Yes. Though she gave me no money. She said I must help her, or she will have me deported.”

  “Did you fax me a photograph this morning?”

  She gave a slight nod, lowering her gaze. “I did not know what else to do. I do not trust Nancy. She may still call the INS, now that she thinks I have no way to stop her.”

  “So, Richard hid the negatives in Allison’s house before he moved out?”

  “It might have been Allison who hid them. Nancy told me Richard took thos
e pictures without her knowledge. And she said that Allison used the pictures to force Richard to give her a divorce.”

  “Thank you, Maria I’ll get them to the police right away. I hope she won’t be able to get you in trouble with the INS.” “I hope so, too.” She turned on a heel and walked away.

  As soon as I was sure no passersby could see, I opened the envelope and flipped through the contents. Some of the pictures were with and some were without the cat mask.

  Though the woman’s hair was blond instead of white, the woman was Nancy Thornton.

  Chapter 17

  What Are the Odds?

  Tommy had told me an anonymous source had given Celia’s threats against Allison to the police. What about these photographs? I trotted after Maria Chavez and caught up with her just as she was about to get into her car. “You found these pictures in Allison’s house?” I asked.

  “Not the pictures. The negatives. I take a photography class at the university. I developed the pictures myself. I kept the pictures. I gave the negatives and the notes to Dr. Thornton.”

  “Notes?” I repeated, my heart pounding.

  “Yes. They were rhymes …threats to kill Allison.”

  “Did you give any copies of the pictures or the notes to the police?”

  Maria shook her head. “I told you. I do not want the police to know about me. I will be deported. I did not give anything to the police.”

  That meant Nancy must have given the notes to the police once she’d gotten them from Maria. Yet why, I wondered, would she do so anonymously? Unless…

  “The police found Celia’s fingerprints on them, not yours.”

  “Yes. Dr. Thornton told me to always wear gloves when I touched them.”

  “Nancy specifically told you to find the notes for her?”

  “Yes. My orders were to find the negatives and the ‘nursery-rhyme notes,’ she called them, and give them to her.”

  “How did Nancy know they existed?”

  She pursed her lips and took a step away from me, growing annoyed with my constant questions. “I only know what she told me. She said Richard told her he gave the negatives to Allison. And then, I found Allison’s hiding place—inside a curtain rod.”

  All of this confusing jumble was finally beginning to make sense. Nancy had killed Allison and had planned the murder for quite some time; I could come up with no other explanation for her actions. After Richard’s death, Nancy had manipulated Celia into sending threats to Allison, then forced Maria to get those threats for evidence to frame Celia for the murder. But why? Why kill Allison? Perhaps Nancy had killed Richard, then had to kill Allison to cover everything up.

  “I’ll get these to the police. I can’t thank you enough.”

  Maria put on her sunglasses. “The best way you can thank me is to keep my name out of this. I want to stay in this country.”

  “I’ll do my best, but Maria, I’ll have to tell the police something about where I got these. Otherwise, an innocent person is going to get charged with two murders she didn’t commit.”

  Maria’s lips quivered, but she nodded. She got into her car without another word.

  Pondering the implications of what I’d just learned, I stood still and watched Maria drive away. Nancy had been having an affair with Richard Kenyon. She was intelligent, gorgeous, had a thriving practice as a psychologist. How could she have put herself in that position? I shuddered a bit at my unspoken pun, remembering the acrobatic move the camera had caught her in.

  That brought up another question: Had Richard really taken these pictures without Nancy’s consent, only to have Allison use them to strong-arm him into a divorce? That might have just been a story Nancy had concocted to convince Maria to search Allison’s house. Allison could have hired a private investigator to shoot the pictures. Either way, the only logical scenario I could concoct was that Nancy had killed Richard, then Allison. But these pictures proved nothing.

  I called Tommy. His “Hello,” sounded sad. “I think Nancy Thornton was Allison’s killer,” I told him, “as well as Richard’s. Could you meet me in the parking lot of the police station right away?”

  “I’m a ways away,” he replied. “It’ll be fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  I could beat him to the police station. Turley’s was right on my way. If Max Tucker happened to be working now, he might be able to give me some insight into Allison’s relationship with Nancy.

  I drove to the restaurant, ignored the hostess, and spotted Max, waiting on a table with his back toward me. His face fell when he turned and saw me, but he approached anyway.

  “Max, do you know how Allison felt about Nancy Thornton?” I asked in a half whisper to prevent anyone from overhearing.

  He snorted. “Once you know your friend and your spouse are cheating on you, things tend to get tense.”

  “Allison told you her husband had had an affair with Nancy?”

  He shook his head. “She never talked to me about Richard. She said talking about him was too upsetting.” Max let out a sad chuckle. “That Nancy was something else. Only therapist in town that can do splits like that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He held up a hand. “Never mind. Private joke.”

  “You’ve seen the pictures of her, haven’t you?”

  He stared at me in surprise, then averted his eyes and answered, “The guy that lives across the hall in my apartment building was a patient of hers. Someone sent him a photo of her with some dude. The man’s face wasn’t shown, but I recognized the wallpaper in the background. It was Allison’s bedroom. That’s how I knew about her and Richard. Quite a Kodak moment, I gotta tell you.”

  “How did your neighbor get hold of it?”

  “He said it came in the mail one day last winter. No return address or note or anything. My neighbor seems to think it’s funny. He hung on to it all this time and shows it to everyone.”

  Yuck! Somebody was sending pornographic pictures of Nancy to her patients. Who would do such a horrible thing? Allison? No, that was impossible. Last winter, Richard was still alive. Allison had been a battered wife; she couldn’t risk the repercussions of such an act once Richard found out. Richard himself was the most likely person to have doctored the photograph so that Nancy’s identity was revealed, and his was not.

  Max interrupted my thoughts. “Is that all that you, like, wanted to ask me? ‘Cause I really gotta get back to work.”

  I wished I’d never asked him about Nancy Thornton. He had already been through too much emotional trauma for someone so young. “Sorry. Thanks for speaking with me.”

  He strode toward the kitchen.

  “Max?”

  He stopped and looked back at me.

  “Your mother is going through a really tough time right now, and she needs you.”

  “My mom? You sure you got the right lady? She never shed a tear in her life, not even when Dad died.”

  “Or maybe she just never let you see her cry. All I know is she’s hurting now.”

  “Yeah?” he said, pointing a finger and struggling to keep his voice down. “Well, so am I! And she’s never as much as tried to contact me since I moved out!”

  I said gently, “Max, I think if Allison were here today, she’d tell you that life’s too short to waste time waiting for someone else to take the first step.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, then headed toward the kitchen.

  As I was walking to my car, I realized there was still at least one piece of the puzzle missing. I got into my car and called Celia, grateful that she answered. She immediately cried, “Molly, have you talked to Nancy yet?”

  “Yes, I saw her, but—”

  “The police think I killed Allison! I can’t convince anybody that I’m innocent! I have to talk to Nancy, but she’s not home!”

  “I’ve got to ask you an awkward question, Celia. Were you sending death threats to Allison?”

  She sobbed, then said, “Yes, but only because
Nancy made me.”

  “She forced you to send death threats?”

  “She told me Allison killed Richard. She told me the only way I could ever feel closure was to make Allison pay for her crime. I know it sounds crazy now, and I can’t believe I actually listened to her, but it sounded so right when it was coming from her. I can’t believe I ….Maybe she hypnotized me.”

  Hypnotic suggestion. That seemed far-fetched, but there truly was something almost intoxicating about Nancy’s voice; she was so soothing and convincing. Celia was not one of the calmer people I’ve met, and she might have given Nancy more power over her than she let on. I thanked Celia and hung up.

  I drove to the police station, stunned that Nancy Thornton—a therapist and someone who’s supposed to help people—was a murderer.

  Though the photographs proved little, at least I was finally out of the loop. I would give my evidence to the police, and once they’d spoken with Maria and Celia, they would arrest Nancy. Plus, a little bit of good had come from my blasted greeting card retreat; I might have played a part in helping Lois Tucker to reunite with her son.

  Tommy, sitting in his rental car in the parking lot, had beaten me to the police station. He lifted his chin to acknowledge seeing me, and I pulled into a parking space near his. He strolled over and opened my passenger door. “Moll, I gotta go soon. Lauren called, just after I left your place earlier this morning. We …kinda apologized to each other and promised to spend the afternoon together.”

  “Much as I hate to delay you and Lauren, this can’t wait.” I offered him the manila envelope, “It contains photographs.” He made no move to take them from me, so I prompted, “Look at them. They’re of Nancy Thornton and Richard Kenyon. Before Richard’s death, somebody had been distributing them to Nancy’s patients.”

  He still merely frowned and stared at the envelope in my hand. “What about fingerprints? Shouldn’t you—”

  “They’re just copies that my source developed from the negatives.”