Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 02 - Main Street Murder (4 page)

“Jake, I know there were other women at the parade, but there was only one who lived in the same building as
Vince Shipton. What kind of coincidence would it be for these two to turn up where Kristy is, talking about Vince and not be talking about her?”

Jake
answer.  As a defense attorney, he knew world was full of coincidence.  It was coincidence that Emma overheard the men in the first place, but that wasn’t something he was willing to bring up to his wife at that moment.  He knew once she set her mind on something, she had to work it out for herself.

He waited while Emma spoke with the police detective assigned to Shipton’s case.  This time she smiled as she hung up the phone.

“Are the police going to be able to do anything?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Emma, her face lighting up.  “They are going to review the surveillance footage for that part of the street during the parade and see if they got the men on camera.”

She looked up at Jake, “Did you know they have cameras all along Main Street?”

“Yes, much to the disappointment of a client or two of mine,” said Jake smiling.  “It’s not something the city talks about.”

“I should think not,” agreed Emma.  “I can’t believe that here in sleepy old Casper, the police have surveillance cameras watching everything we do.”

“Well, not everything,” said Jake, smiling down at his wife. 

Emma blushed, “Thank God for that at least.” Then her face grew sober again.  “Jake I’m afraid for Kristy.  What if it’s not a coincidence? What if these men were talking about her?  What if…”

“What if we stop imagining terrible things?” interrupted Jake.  “You said that
Kristy didn’t know Shipton, had barely even met him except to say hello and good-bye at the mailboxes, right?”  Emma nodded.  “Then I can’t see how Vince’s murder would have anything to do with her.”

Jake continued after a long silence, “
It’s been two months since Shipton was killed.  If someone wanted to come after Kristy, I don’t think they’d be likely to wait so long, do you?”

“No-o-o,” said Emma, not convinced but wanting to believe Jake.  “I don’t suppose I can do anything more about it, but I’m going to keep a close eye on
Kristy and I hope she keeps her guard up just in case.”

6

Kristy had no intention of becom
ing the next victim.  She’d made light of Emma’s concerns when she relayed  the two men’s conversation but only to calm Emma.  Returning to her loft after the parade, Kristy locked the door, which she rarely did.  Mindful of the fear in Emma’s voice, she locked the deadbolt as well, something she never did. 

Standing in front of the door, Kristy recalled that terrible morning when she’d opened that door to find the police there to tell her about the murder on the floor beneath her.  “There were no signs of a break-in,” the building manager had told her when she’d seen him afterward in the lobby.  “The police think whoever killed him either he let them in or they had a key.”

Kristy shivered.  What must it be like to open your door to someone you know and trust only to realize that person is there to kill you?  She closed her eyes tightly against this line of thinking.  There were things she never wanted to find out. 

Opening her eyes she stared at the deadbolt.  What if someone did have a key?  She made up her mind to buy one of those privacy door latches like they had in hotel rooms.  Then someone would have to break down the door to get in, key or no key, and that would give her time to be ready for them.

Kristy sighed and turned away from the door.  This was not the life she’d expected to be living.  She took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator and poured a glass.  Leaving the bottle on the counter, Kristy walked into her living area and stood staring out the window. 

She fell in love with this condo for two reasons.  First, it was downtown, three stories high on Main Street in the heart of Casper’s night life and a short walk to Emma’s office.  Second, the wall of windows framed a spectacular view of downtown with the Casper Mountain as a backdrop.  Day or night, winter or summer that view took her breath away.

Normally the view of the mountain made her feel at peace.  She’d moved so many times before coming to Casper, always trying to settle in, but always forced to move on.  Casper was the first place where she’d felt safe.

She didn’t feel safe tonight.  Emma’s conversation had brought back memories that Kristy had thought had been put to rest years ago.  She’d gotten the phone call about her ex-husband’s death
and remembered vividly the sense of relief that had flooded through her. 

She’d gone back to Tennessee for the first time in so many years when she was told about
his death.  She’d sat in the park across the street from the funeral home during the viewing, waiting for the family to leave.  

When they did, she
‘d slipped across and into the room where her ex-husband lay in an open coffin.  Staring down at him, she had tried to blink back the tears but her emotion had been more powerful than her control.  Tears of anger and hurt and pure relief had streamed down her face and she’d found herself lost in a world of dark memories.

A quiet step in the room behind Kristy
had roused her and she’d turned to see the funeral home attendant approaching her respectfully.  She had accepted the tissue he offered with thanks and dried her eyes.  She’d noted gratefully that the attendant was young and not someone she recognized.

He
had explained sympathetically that the viewing hours were over and he had been closing up when he’d heard her.  He’d asked if she needed a few more moments, but Kristy had declined.  Thanking him for his kindness, she’d turned to leave.

“Would you like to sign the guest book?” the
attendant had said, showing her an open book with very few names.  Her ex-husband was no more popular in death than he had been in life. 

Kristy
had thought about it for a moment then, accepting the pen the attendant held out to her, she’d bent over the book and hastily signed her real name.  She had put the pen down in the crease of the book and looked at the name that seemed foreign to her now.  She’d left the funeral home and wondered what his mother would think when she read that name in the book.

Going out into the evening,
Kristy had  enjoyed the cool breeze against her cheek.  That name was dead to her, as dead as the ex-husband who had given it to her.  It was finally over and his mother could bury that name along with her son.

Kristy
had crossed the street again and walked across the park to where she’d left her car in the lot on the other side.  Getting into the car, she had rolled the window down and taken a long, deep breath.  He was dead.  She was safe. 

Only was she?  Kristy closed her eyes and recalled what Emma had told her.  She hadn’t heard much, certainly nothing Kristy should really ne
ed to be concerned about.  Yet she agreed with Emma, even through she’d tried to talk her out of it.  She must be the woman they were looking at during the parade.

If that were true, what about the rest?  What was it the first man wanted the second to “take care of” and what was
their connection to Vince Shipton?  Had they “taken care of” him too?  She went over the day of the blizzard for what seemed like the hundredth time but still there was nothing. 

As she’d explained to the officer when he’d come to her door asking if she’d heard anything, the walls and floors in the building were soundproof.  In a downtown loft, with busy shops and restaurants on the ground floor
, that was one of the featured selling points.  There were four apartments below her loft, including Shipton’s.  One had been vacant but there were two other tenants living on that level yet no one in the building had heard anything out of the ordinary. 

Kristy thought about those two other tenants.  What did she know about them?  She owned her loft,
perched at the top of the building, but the apartments below were rented out.  They were all taken at the moment, even the one where Shipton had been found.  The rental market in Casper was hot and the location was ideal so as soon as the police cleared the apartment, the building manager had swept in with a cleaning crew and the next day the new tenant had moved in.

She didn’t know any of her neighbors well.  A hold-over of her roving days, Kristy had always found it best to keep to herself.  After her ex-husband died, she’d
started to relax.  She’d grown closer to Emma, who had given her a job when she first came to town. 

She’d joined the
Greeters a few months ago at Emma’s suggestion.  Kristy suspected Emma was trying to coax her out of her shell but she’d been glad to go.  She’d made a few friends there and found that, in a safe environment, her true personality was beginning to resurface.  Kristy had always been out-going by nature.

And now?  Kristy had lived with danger for too long to lose her nerve
now but this was a different kind of danger.  In the past, she’d had to keep moving to keep one step ahead of her ex-husband.  His father had been a police chief in that tiny Tennessee town and her ex- used his father’s network to track her down every time she moved.  

Kristy had lived with the fear that he would find her and either drag her back to the hellish life they’d lived in Tennessee or finally make good on his threats and kill her.  She hadn’t been sure which would be worse.

Now that he was dead, it seemed impossible to believe that there would be anyone else out there who would want to harm her.  Her father-in-law had drunk himself to death before Kristy broke away from his son and her ex-husband had no brothers.  He had no family at all that Kristy knew of except for his mother and she was more doormat than danger. 

Try as she might, Kristy could not conjure up anyone she’d ever met who could be so full of hate as to either come after her or hire someone else to kill her.  She closed her eyes and recalled the picture the police had shown her of the unfortunate
Vince Shipton, but she could make no connection between him and anyone she had ever known.

Kristy stood up and drank the last of her glass of wine.  It wouldn’t do any good to sit here and stew.  She had front row tickets tonight and Cheri was expecting her.  She was going to her first rodeo.

Emma tapped her toe impatiently and checked her watch for the tenth time.  “Jake, aren’t you ready yet?” she called.

Her husband, who was shaving, heard the tone though he couldn’t quite make out the words.  “
I’m coming,” he answered her, wincing as he nicked his chin.  He sighed and rinsed off the razor.  Emma had given him an electric razor for his birthday but he couldn’t bring himself to give up his old habits.  Blades give a closer shave, he’d told her.

He daubed at the cut, hoping Emma wouldn’t notice then
put the razor in the medicine cabinet and went out to find his wife.  She was standing in the living room, playfully tossing a catnip mouse down the hall and watching their youngest cat Sparki race after it. 

The fluffy white cat pounced on the toy with her front paws while her back paws slid down the hall, effectively turning the cat around. 
Sometimes, Sparki would be traveling so fast, she slammed into the wall but it didn’t slow her down.  Sparki would trot proudly back to the living room, toy mouse in her mouth, and drop it at Emma’s feet to be tossed again.

Emma turned to look at Jake as he came into the room.  “It never gets old,” she told him.

“Me or playing catch with the cat?” He asked.

Emma put her arms around his neck and kissed him.  “Both,” she smiled.  “But you take longer than any three women to get ready.”

“Maybe I need more work than any three women,” joked Jake.

Emma tossed the toy one last time for Sparki, who tore down the hall and slid
into the guest room door.  Shaking her head, the little cat batted the mouse like a hockey puck then rolled onto her back and held the toy in her front paws while “killing” it with her hind paws.

Emma laughed and walked over to pet her older, sedate cat, who had been watching the game from her perch atop the cat tower.  “Good-bye, Peachy.  Don’t let Sparki get into too much trouble while we’re gone.”  The cat purred and rubbed against Emma’s hand. 

What she was thinking, Emma didn’t want to know since there was no love lost between the two cats.  Peachy had been ruler of the roost until Jake came home with the bedraggled orphan kitten who promptly took over the house much to Peachy’s dismay.  The only time Emma had seen Peachy defend Sparki was when a neighbor’s dog strayed into the house during a barbeque. 

The dog had good naturedly “treed” a
frightened and hissing Sparki on the dining room table.  Peachy had raced up to the dog, fangs barred and claws flying.  The poor dog had yelped and run out of the house, leaving a grateful kitten who would from that day on follow her heroine around and nuzzle against her - much to the annoyance of the older cat.

“I hope we’re not going to be late,” said Emma as they pulled into
the very crowded parking lot across from the rodeo arena.  “Everyone in the County seems to have turned out tonight.”

“More like everyone from this side of the state,” observed Jake, noting the license plates with a variety of county numbers.  In Wyoming, each county was assigned a number, based on their
assessed property valuations when they began using number in the 1930’s.  That number, from 1 to 23, was displayed on the left side of the license plate. 

Oil rich Natrona
was assigned the number 1, pleasing Casper residents and annoying mineral rich counties like Sublette (23) and Campbell (17).  It also aggravated residents of the state capitol in Cheyenne whose Laramie County plates bore the number 2. 

Periodically
someone would suggest the numbers be re-assigned based on population.  Since that would come at a significant cost, to drivers and counties alike, Casper continued to claim top honors in the license plate game. 

Jake found a parking space at last and eased his truck into it.  He took Emma’s hand as they walked to the crossing and waited for the officer directing traffic to signal them across.  Jake
smiled down at his California-transplant wife dressed in her best Western wear for the evening. 

Emma wore cowgirl boots, tan with silver and turquoise accents.  Her denim skirt just touched the top of her mid-calf boots, topped with a sleeveless checked shirt.  A silver chain belt with black and turquoise clasp cinched the shirt at her waist.  Her tan cowgirl hat topped the outfit and Emma carried a light jacket.  Even summer evenings could be chilly in Casper.