The Magic Of Halloween Night

Chapter 14

Monday

Cass received a call from the coroner early Monday morning confirming his assumption that Robert had died due to a gunshot to the back. He also confirmed that Robert had most likely died on Thursday evening and that he’d most likely bled out slowly, so would have been able to continue to flee for several minutes after being shot. Basically, the coroner confirmed what we’d already assumed, but confirmation was important at this point in the game.

Robert’s car still hadn’t been found. We figured it was either in one of the barns in the area or stashed in the woods somewhere. There were several property owners on the south side of the highway who Cass still needed to talk to, but he hoped to track them down today while I was at the movie site. When Cass and I arrived at the shoot, we found Jennifer waiting for her call time.

“I don’t know who killed Robert any more than I know who killed Bill,” she said right off the bat after Cass introduced himself and told her why he was there. “Yes, the three of us had dinner together on the Thursday evening before the filming was to begin, but it was just a dinner. A few of us arrived in Colorado early, so we went ahead and checked into the hotel before the rest of the gang who would arrive Monday. Robert had made plans to have dinner with Bill, and I’d been looking for an opportunity to talk to Bill about signing our divorce papers, so I invited myself along.”

“So, how did the dinner go?” Cass asked, even though he already had the answer based on comments from spectators.

“It was fine. At first. After a while, Bill started to get on my nerves, which admittedly created tension. I’d been trying to get him to sign those darn divorce papers for years, but he kept coming up with one excuse or another. It wasn’t like either of us was looking to remarry, and there weren’t any kids involved, so making things legal wasn’t urgent, but I was ready to move on, and my being in town seemed like the opportunity I’d been looking for. After we left the restaurant, I cornered him in the parking area and tried to make him sign them. It was pathetic that he’d been hanging onto the memory of what we’d once had for so long, and he even tried to talk me out of it once again, but I was insistent, so he finally gave in. After he signed them, I returned to my hotel room. I have no idea where Bill went after that. And while I will admit that things became tense between Harrison and me after Bill died, I didn’t kill him.”

“Do you have any idea who might have killed Harrison?” Cass asked.

“No clue,” she answered.

“Had Harrison mentioned having a problem with someone in the area, or had you noticed any tension between Harrison and someone here for the shoot?”

Jennifer paused. “Harrison was a popular guy amongst his peers, and he seemed to get along with everyone involved in this movie, but I will admit that there was something going on.” She rolled her lips as she appeared to be tugging at a memory. “I was chatting with Harrison last week. I guess it might have been Thursday. Anyway, he got a call while we were chatting. He looked at the caller ID, frowned, and then declined the call. A short time later, he got another call. This time, he said he needed to take it, and he walked away. The two of us were on standby to find out if we were going to need to redo a scene we’d done earlier in the day, so he wasn’t able to go far. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I did notice him pacing back and forth while he talked. He looked agitated.”

“And he never said who the call was from?” Cass asked.

“No. But if you pull his phone records, look for an incoming call around three o’clock on Thursday of last week. If I had to guess, both the call he took and the call he declined might end up being important.”

Cass nodded. “Thank you. I’ll do that.” He handed her a card. “If you think of anything else, let me know.”

“I will,” she said. “And I hope you find out who did this.”

Cass wanted to talk with both the producer and director about Harrison Roberts but needed to leave after that since he also needed to follow up on a few other leads. He suggested that since I was going to be at the shoot all day anyway, I should talk to other film crew and cast members in the hope that someone knew something about Robert’s movements and intentions on the day he was shot. He asked me to call him right away if I found anything relevant. Otherwise, he promised that we’d get together that evening. Paisley and Aunt Gracie would both be back after spending the weekend away, so I suggested that Cass have dinner with us. I needed to be home this evening, but I really wanted to have a chance to debrief with Cass as well.

The filming was delayed while Cass spoke to both Sloan Kingston and Dirk Coven, but he kept it short, and once he was done, the film crew and cast were called together, so the official announcement of Harrison Robert’s murder could be made. Everyone on site was asked to share any insight they might have about the murder with Deputy Wylander, and Cass’s office number was distributed amongst the crowd. A break was called until after lunch so the scriptwriters could meet with the producer and director to come up with a plan for Harrison’s character. In the end, they decided to kill him off early in the movie rather than recasting the part. I heard chatter about using scenes they’d already shot, combined with scenes using a double until his death could be slipped into the storyline.

The overall mood at the movie site was subdued once the announcement had been made, but as they say, the show must go on, which it did once filming resumed. Harrison’s death had put them behind schedule, and it seemed that most of the actors and actresses were more upset about the delay than they were about the death of a cast mate.

I was afraid they’d make the decision to work late since they’d gotten a late start, but when four o’clock rolled around, they called a wrap for the day. I headed out to my car, where a woman who I’d met on one other occasion stopped me.

“Jeri?” I asked, hoping I remembered the name of the woman who worked in food services correctly.

“Yes, that’s right. Jeri Landry. I wanted to say that I was sorry to hear about Harrison. I remember you saying at one point that the two of you had known each other before the shoot.”

“Yes. We both grew up in the area.”

She fidgeted a bit and then spoke. “I’m not sure if I should mention this to you, or if I should call Deputy Wylander directly, but I might know something about Harrison. It’s probably nothing, but I overheard a phone conversation he was having last week, and the more I think about it, the more certain I am that it could be important.”

“Okay. What do you remember hearing?”

“I was cleaning up after a large group had come in for lunch. Harrison got a call and walked away from the group. I wasn’t trying to snoop, but I was busy clearing dishes and wiping tables nearby.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“I don’t know who Harrison was talking to, but I do remember him saying the name Bill on multiple occasions. It didn’t mean anything to me at the time, but one of the cast members mentioned today that not only had Harrison been murdered, but a man named Bill had died just a week before.”

“Bill and Harrison were friends,” I said. “Do you remember what Harrison was saying about Bill?”

“Not everything, but he said something about Bill feeling bad about the way they’d treated someone. Harrison indicated to whomever he was talking to that he wondered if Bill had been stupid enough to open old wounds after all these years.” She took a breath and blew it out. “As I said, I wasn’t trying to listen, but I did hear the name Bill a few times during the conversation, including the comment about his having opened old wounds. Harrison indicated at one point in the discussion that perhaps this person Bill felt bad about hurting might have been the one who ran him off the road.”

“Okay, that might be important.” It sounded like Harrison thought that someone from Bill’s past might have run him off the road, which is the theory Cass and I were operating under as well at this point. “Anything else?”

She slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t listening all that closely. I didn’t think it was important at the time. Harrison wasn’t murdered yet, and I hadn’t heard about anyone named Bill dying.” She turned and looked behind her. “You might want to talk to Jennifer Ashford. She seems to have been tight with Harrison. And there’s a script girl named Connie who seems to know everything that’s going on with everyone on the set. I did notice Harrison chatting her up on more than one occasion.”

“Okay, thanks for the information. I’ll pass the information along to Deputy Wylander.”

“I hope Deputy Wylander can figure out who did this. Harrison was a good guy. I can’t believe someone shot him. Sure, he had a wild side at times, and he was a bit of a Casanova, which didn’t really appeal to me, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die.”

I thanked Jeri again and then headed toward my car. The drive home was uneventful. I was happy to see Paisley waiting on the front porch for me. When I pulled up, she ran out to the car and gave me a hug.

“I missed you this weekend,” she said.

I hugged her back. “I missed you too. Did you have fun with Anna?”

“So much fun. Her mom helped us make Halloween decorations. I made some for the house, and some for your bedroom too.” She grabbed my hand. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Okay,” I said, letting her drag me inside. Based on the sheer number and variety of homemade decorations Paisley had made, it appeared that Anna’s mother was a regular Martha Stewart. “Wow,” I said, picking up a witch that you could hang from a hook. “Everything is so great. You must have been busy.”

“So busy.” She grinned. “We had a lot of fun. Aunt Gracie said that we’re all going to go to the pumpkin farm and get pumpkins to carve as a family Friday, and I’m looking forward to that so much.”

She hugged me again. A hard, long hug that seemed to hint at an underlying desperation. I hugged her back with equal fervor. I knew that it was important for Paisley to regain her sense of security. I think it helped a lot that Gracie and I had promised to pursue guardianship should something happen to her grandmother, but I suspected that beneath the wide smile was a tiny trickle of fear that maybe things wouldn’t work out as she hoped, and she’d end up alone and without a family. I remember feeling that way when my parents died, and Gracie had been a blood relation. I supposed that given the fact that neither Gracie nor I were related to Paisley, the potential existed for complications to arise at some point in the future. But I wasn’t going to think about that. Instead, I was going to focus on the family that we’d created, and the upcoming holiday we all planned to share.

Gracie was in the kitchen, making dinner. I greeted her when I was finally able to make it that far. She informed me that Tom was at his cabin cleaning up and that she planned to serve the meal at six or whenever Cass arrived. I’d called her earlier and told her I’d invited Cass to dinner and that he’d thought six would work out just fine.

“So, how was your weekend?” I asked.

She smiled. “It was lovely. How was yours?”

“Lovely as well,” I replied. I might have elaborated, but Paisley was sitting at the counter, hanging on our every word. “Although I guess things didn’t really end up on a positive note. Did you hear about Harrison?”

“I did. Such a shame. I really don’t remember the man from when he lived here, but I spoke to Maude, who knew him when he was a teenager attending our high school. She had a high opinion of the boy, although she seemed to think he left town to become a scientist and not an actor.”

“He just sort of fell into acting,” I said. “I actually wrote about it in the column that published today.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t had a chance to take a look at the newspaper today. I will after we eat, and I get the kitchen put back to rights, though.”

“Whatever you’re making smells wonderful,” I said.

“I was going to make a pot roast, but we got home too late, so I decided on pork chops with mashed potatoes. I stuffed the pork chops with my cranberry stuffing and put them in the oven rather than frying them. I love the way the cranberries and the walnuts complement each other.”

“It smells fantastic. I’m going to run upstairs and change. I’ll call Cass and confirm he’s still going to make it by six. He loves your stuffed pork chops, so I know he won’t want to miss them.”

By the time I took a quick shower and put on clean clothes, Cass had arrived. I could hear him downstairs talking to Tom, which probably meant that everyone was waiting for me. I brushed out my wet hair but didn’t bother to dry it. I jogged down the stairs and joined the others just as Gracie was calling everyone to the table.

After dinner, Paisley went upstairs to do her homework, and Tom helped Gracie with the dishes. I offered to help, but they shooed Cass and me away and insisted that we’d been working all day and should take it easy. It was too cold to sit outside, so I suggested we retire to the living room where we could enjoy the fire Tom had built.

“So, how was your day?” I asked.

“Frustrating,” Cass said. “I talked to a lot of people and followed up on a lot of leads, but none of them really panned out.”

“You still can’t figure out where Robert was before he was shot?”

He shook his head. “There are only a limited number of possibilities, so this shouldn’t be so hard, but I’ve talked to everyone who lives on the south side of the old highway, and no one will admit to knowing a thing about Robert’s death. It doesn’t make sense that anyone other than the killer would lie about having seen him in the area. Most folks didn’t even realize he was in town, and most had no idea that Harrison Roberts, the actor, was actually Robert Harrison, the science geek, who lived in the area more than a decade ago.”

I supposed I wasn’t surprised by that. If not for the fact I’d been assigned to cover the filming, I most likely would never have made the connection either.

“And his car never showed up?” I asked.

“No. And I looked through every barn and outbuilding in the area. Either Robert got a ride out to the location where he was shot or whoever shot him moved his car. For all I know, someone could have run the darn thing into one of the dozens of lakes in the area.”

“There are a lot of places one could dispose of a vehicle in this area,” I agreed. “Did you have a chance to follow up with Jeri?”

“I called and spoke to her. She didn’t overhear enough to give me anything tangible to act on, but based on what she said, it does sound like it was Robert’s opinion that Bill had done something to cause his own death. Something that had something to do with someone Bill and Robert both knew in the past. That actually fits the other clues that have presented themselves to date. The thing is that if someone from Bill’s past ran him off the road after he reopened old wounds, why now? Bill has been back in the area for years. Assuming the person he hurt was someone that both he and Robert knew from back when Robert lived here, what could Bill have done to cause this person to act now and not at any point in the past decade?”

“Good question,” I said.

“And if Robert was shot by the same person who ran Bill off the road, assuming he was run off the road, why would Robert do anything to antagonize this person if he already suspected them of being responsible for Bill’s death? And if Robert did suspect someone of running Bill off the road, why wouldn’t he say something to me about it?”

“All good questions,” I agreed.

“I feel like there’s an important piece to this puzzle we’re missing. The problem is that I really can’t figure out what that missing piece might be.”

“Maybe we should go back through our yearbooks,” I suggested. “Perhaps something will occur to us if we review what was going on back when Robert and Bill both went to high school here.”

Cass nodded. “That might be a good idea. Do you have yours handy?”

“They’re up in the attic. Go on up, and I’ll let Gracie know what we’re doing in case she has any ideas.”

When I’d first returned home to Foxtail Lake after having lived in New York, the attic had been a mess, but I liked spending time up there, so one of the first things I’d done, with Paisley’s help, was to clean and organize things. There were still boxes stacked against the walls, but I had set up a desk to house my computer and work files, and the window seat where I loved to sit with Alastair had a new cushion and pillows.

The yearbooks were in a box labeled Callie’s high school stuff, which not only held my yearbooks but items such as my cap and gown, class ring, and various photo albums as well. I was tempted to dig out the photo albums for a walk down memory lane with Cass, but I wasn’t friends with either Robert or Bill, so I doubted I’d have photos of either. Cass took the yearbook from our junior year, which was the year Robert and Bill were seniors. I thumbed through the one issued when we were sophomores.

A lot of the individuals pictured had moved out of the area at some point. There were still a few classmates living in the area, but for anyone with big plans for their future, Foxtail Lake offered limited opportunities. We didn’t have a college, so anyone who wanted to attend college left the area. It seemed like most young adults who chose to leave also chose to stay gone.

I paused when I came across the individual photo of Evie Johnstone. I barely remembered her from high school, but now that I’d found her photo, certain memories were beginning to return. Evie had been in the same class as Cass and me. As far as I knew, she’d never gone away to college and had never married. She’d inherited a midsized farm from her father when he passed away. I’d heard that her mother had remarried and moved to Atlanta, but Evie still lived alone on the isolated property.

“Did you ever track down Evie Johnstone?” I asked Cass.

“No. She lives on one of the farms on the north side of the road, which I haven’t gotten around to canvassing yet.”

“Evie was at the decorating party for the haunted barn Thursday two weeks ago, and she told me her grandmother was sick and that she was heading out of town. She’d been painting epitaphs for the tombstones, which she shared that she had been working on all night the night before the barn decorating party.”

“Which would have been the night Bill died.”

I nodded.

“Is there something that makes you believe that Evie might have had a reason to harm Bill?” Cass asked.

“No. As far as I know, Evie and Bill weren’t friends, although I suppose I really don’t know Evie well enough to know who she is and isn’t friends with. What I do know is that Harrison’s name came up at the barn decorating party. Evie told Dave, the man I was working with to set the tombstones, that she’d known Harrison Roberts back when he was Robert Harrison. He also told me that Evie had made a comment about not being a fan of the guy.” I paused to think back. “She told him that she’d had an experience involving Robert during her junior year that left a bad taste in her mouth.”

Cass flipped the yearbook to the page with individual photos of the juniors. “Evie was a junior when we were. Robert was a senior that year. If Robert did something to Evie that she still resented all these years later, then I might suspect that she was the one who shot Robert.” He paused. “That’s if she was back in town last Thursday. We know she was in town when Bill died.”

“Bill did have black paint on his hands, and Evie had been using black paint for the tombstones,” I pointed out. “I suppose it’s possible that Bill visited Evie the night he died, presumably to apologize for whatever he and Robert had supposedly done to her in high school. If whatever had been done to her was really bad, I suppose bringing it up might have opened old wounds, so she might have followed Bill when he left and ran him off the road.”

“If Bill and Evie talked in the barn where she’d been working on the epitaphs, it would have been nearly impossible for Evie to go into the house, grab her keys, get into her car, follow Bill, and run him off the road before he got home,” Cass pointed out.

“Yeah,” I had to agree. “I guess that is a farfetched scenario.” I paused. “But I suppose she could have killed Robert if she was back in town on the night he died.”

Cass looked at his watch. “It’s early yet if you want to take a drive out to her place. If she’s home, maybe we can talk to her. Make sense of what’s really going on.”

“Okay,” I said, getting up. “I’ll just let Aunt Gracie know what we’re doing.”

Evie lived in the same general area as both the location of Bill’s accident and the site where Robert had been shot, only she lived on the north rather than the south side of the road. When Robert’s body had been found, Cass had focused on the houses on the south side of the road since their proximity to the location of Robert’s death was more likely than homes that were quite a bit further away. In terms of Bill’s accident, I supposed farms on either side of the old highway were equally likely.

When we arrived at Evie’s home, I noticed that her car was in her gravel drive, and the lights were on inside her home. After Cass parked and I stepped out onto the drive, I noticed that the gravel was comprised of crushed stone that included both red and green pebbles. It really did appear as if Bill had been at Evie’s farm on the night of his accident.

Cass knocked on the door, and Evie answered, looking more than a little surprised to see us. “Cass. Callie. Come in.” She stepped aside. “Don’t trip on that luggage. I just this minute got home from Cincinnati and haven’t had a chance to lug the suitcases upstairs yet.”

I realized that if Evie had just gotten home, she couldn’t have killed Robert, although she had been home on the night of Bill’s accident.

“How can I help you?” she asked, after showing us into the living room and offering us a seat on the sofa.

“We’re in the area asking folks about a couple events that occurred in the past two weeks,” Cass said.

“Events?”

“Bill Fuller’s auto accident eleven days ago and Harrison Roberts’ murder four days ago.”

She paled. “Bill was in an accident?”

Cass nodded. “His vehicle left the road, flipped, and hit a tree.”

“When?” she asked.

“It was the night before the decorating party at the barn,” I said.

She put a hand to her mouth and sat down. “Oh, my. I hadn’t heard.” She looked at me. “As you know, my grandmother has been ill, and I left to go out of town later in the day after we talked that Friday. I just this minute returned. Is he…”

I knew she was asking if Bill was dead, so I jumped in and answered that he was.

A single tear slid down her cheek. “I just can’t believe this. How did I not hear before I left?”

“The car was hidden in the trees, and wasn’t discovered until later in the day on Friday,” Cass said.

“I didn’t hear about the accident until Friday evening,” I said. “You would have left for the airport in Denver by then.”

“We suspect that Bill was visiting someone in this general area on the night of the accident,” Cass continued.

“Me,” she said. “It was me.” She swallowed hard. “Bill works at the paint store, and I’d called earlier to see if someone could deliver more black paint to me. I spoke to Bill, who informed me that he had a dinner date, but would be happy to bring it out after if I didn’t mind a late delivery. I knew I’d be up for most of the night getting the tombstones ready anyway, so I told him that was fine. I guess he showed up around ten-fifteen or ten-thirty. He didn’t stay long. I guess he left by eleven. Maybe eleven-fifteen.”

“The accident must have occurred shortly after he left here,” I said.

“Poor Bill,” Evie said. “I feel just awful that his death was the direct result of him doing me a favor.”

“It’s not your fault,” Cass said. “These things happen.”

“Do you know what happened?” she asked.

Cass admitted that he didn’t. Of course, if Bill had been visiting Evie and had flipped his car and hit a tree shortly after leaving her place, it seemed like we were back to driver error as the cause of the accident. There were a lot of deer in the area. It seemed likely that one could have run in front of Bill, who swerved and ended up in the ditch on the side of the road, which caused him to roll and then hit a tree.

Evie looked at me. “You said that Robert is dead too and that he was murdered.”

“Shot in the back this past Thursday,” Cass confirmed. “His body was found in the woods not far from where Bill’s car ended up. We’ve considered the possibility that the two deaths were linked, but if Bill had been here visiting you before the accident, it seems unlikely that’s the case.”

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to shoot Robert in the back?” I asked.

Evie laughed, although it came out as more of a snort. “Do you have a while? The guy was a real tool when we were all in high school.”

I frowned. “I don’t remember him being so bad. Of course, we weren’t really friends, so to be honest, I barely remember him.”

“Trust me, you were lucky that you hadn’t struck up a friendship with the guy. He was really nothing more than an insecure little twit who seemed to get a kick out of making the people around him look bad. I didn’t shoot the guy, and, in fact, wasn’t even in town when he was shot, which, by the way, I can prove, but I seriously have no sympathy for the low life, and I’m glad he got what was coming to him.”

I narrowed my gaze as I tried to work everything out in my mind. When I’d spoken to Jeri, she’d mentioned that she’d overheard a conversation Harrison had with someone on the phone where he mentioned Bill’s name on several occasions. Jeri had said she’d heard him mention something about him opening up old wounds after all this time. It sounded as if Evie wasn’t the only person he’d hurt in high school. I had to wonder who else he might have hurt who would still be so angry as to kill him all these years later.

“While I have no doubt that Robert might have deserved being shot in the back, it’s still my job to figure out who might have done it,” Cass said. “We’re looking at those residents who live on farms and ranches on the south side of the old highway. Does anyone come to mind who seems to you to be more likely to have pulled the trigger than anyone else?”

Her lips tightened. I could see by the look on her face that she knew who would have wanted to shoot Robert, but instead of filling us in, she simply shook her head and then promised to think about it. Cass asked a few more questions and then asked her to call him if she thought of anything. Once we were in his truck and headed back to town, I asked him what he thought about things given the new information we’d just received.

“It seems likely Bill’s accident really was just an accident,” Cass said. “That was my initial impression, but I let Robert’s murder and the history between the men sway me into thinking the two were connected.”

“So if Bill really did simply swerve to avoid something or lose focus which led to the accident, then we need to focus on who would have wanted Robert dead,” I said. “Jeri told me that Harrison was telling whoever he was talking to that Bill was feeling bad about the way he’d treated someone, and he wondered if he’d been stupid enough to open old wounds after all these years. Maybe Bill had been the bad guy along with Robert back in high school, but unlike Robert, who didn’t seem to feel bad about whatever role he played, maybe Bill felt bad. Maybe he even apologized to this person at some point, and even if that didn’t lead to his death, maybe it reopened old wounds, which caused this person to go after Robert.”

“So how did this person get Robert out to the area where he was shot?” Cass asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I feel like we need to figure out who Robert was speaking to on the phone the day he died.”

“I requested his phone and bank records. I’ll take a look at them and let you know what I find.” He pulled into the driveway in front of Gracie’s house. “It’s been a long few days, and I have a busy day tomorrow, so I really should get home.”

“Don’t forget Milo,” I leaned over and kissed him on the lips.

“I won’t forget Milo,” he said, opening his door. “What time are you heading out to the movie site tomorrow?”

“Early. They were planning to wrap tomorrow, but now with having to rework things due to Harrison’s death, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. At this point, I figure I’ll just show up to record what I can via photos, interviews, and eyewitness accounts.” I put my arms around Cass’s waist and laid my head on his chest. “I’ll miss you.”

He kissed me on the forehead. “And I’ll miss you. Why don’t we plan to touch base tomorrow evening.”

“Okay.”

“I’d love to get Robert’s murder wrapped up before the film crew and cast leave the area,” he added. “While it looks as if someone from Foxtail Lake might have been the one to kill Robert, we can’t know that for certain.”

“I suspect you have at least a couple days before everyone decides to head out. I’ll see if I can find out exactly when they plan to wrap and let you know. For me personally, I plan to wrap up my coverage no later than Wednesday. Paisley’s play is Thursday, we’re going to the pumpkin farm on Friday, and Saturday is Halloween.”

“And I’m looking forward to all of it. Maybe I can put the rest of the pieces together and wrap up Robert’s murder by Wednesday as well.”

“I hope so. I’m ready to relax and enjoy my family and the holidays.”