Chapter 18

Chapter

Eighteen

T he dining room was filled with people and subdued chatter when Cat came in the front door. Alicia hurried over to her. “Is Maggie okay?”

“I haven’t heard anything else besides what they told me this morning.” Cat looked at the writers in the dining room. They’d all stopped talking and were watching her. “Why? Did something else happen?”

Alicia sighed. “No, I mean, when Shauna said you’d stepped out, I guess I thought you’d been called to the hospital. I’m sorry, I got everyone worried.”

Cat took off her coat and hung it up. Then she went into the dining room, poured herself a coffee, and grabbed a cinnamon roll. Sitting down, she sipped her coffee before talking. It had been a cold walk back. “Look, I know you’re all worried about Maggie and we’ll keep you informed of her condition as best we can. But the last I heard, she was doing well and should be on the mend. Let me text my Uncle and see if he has any updates.”

“Thanks, Cat. I mean, I know she’s just another guest, but we got close as a group.” Debra smiled at Alicia as she sat next to her. “We’re all going home and leaving her here in the hospital. It seems wrong.”

Cat nodded her head, trying to swallow the bite of the cinnamon roll. “I know it can feel strange to go on with real life after the retreat. And worse, now we’ve had a tragic event happen to one of our group, just before we all go back to our normal lives. But all we can do for Maggie now is support her as she recovers. I’m sure she’d love cards, letters, phone calls, or flowers as she gets better.

“Is she going home after the hospital? I heard her and her husband fighting yesterday.” Jon fidgeted in his chair. “I was outside, walking around, trying to figure out a plot point and I heard her talking to him on the phone when she got into her car. She wasn’t happy that he was dragging her away on the last day. I guess he didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

“You listened in on her conversation?” Patrick asked, shaking his head. “That’s cold, man.”

“We all do it, Patrick. We even talked about it at dinner the other night. Getting dialogue right is so hard, so I eavesdrop at times. Sue me.” He pointed a finger at Alicia. “You told me your professors talked about writers doing it all the time.”

“Not to other writers, dude,” Patrick responded. Then he looked at Cat. “Maybe her husband was part of this attack?”

“Are we plotting a mystery here, or talking about a friend we’re worried about,” Cat shook her head as she finished her cinnamon roll. “Believe me, as a writer, we’re always looking for the reason behind the bad thing happening. Maybe this time it was just a disturbed woman and Maggie was at the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Jon shook his head. “I could see that if Maggie had gone to this woman’s house to pay her respects and found her in a full-blown mental breakdown. But she came here after we’d all left and broke in. And if she followed Maggie inside after she’d used the code, Maggie would have seen her.”

“She could have watched Maggie key in the code,” Debra countered Jon’s theory.

Alicia interjected, “I don’t think so. I teased Maggie about her covering the code pad as she entered the code the other day. She said it was habit. Her husband had talked about people breaking into the college labs after watching students key in codes. She always covered the keypad with her other hand. She said she did the same thing when she punched in her pin at the bank. She wouldn’t have just slipped the one time a crazed murderer was watching her.”

“Lucy isn’t…” Cat stopped. What was she going to say? Lucy wasn’t crazy or she wasn’t a murderer.

A text from her uncle beeped on her phone. She read it, then read it again.

“What’s wrong? Is Maggie dead?” Alicia looked like she wanted to pull the phone away from Cat to read the text herself. Debra rubbed her back to calm her.

“It’s not about Maggie. The evidence shows that Lucy was attacked as well. She had several defensive wounds. They got DNA from her fingernails and they’re running it. The blood on Lucy was her own. Not Maggie’s.” Cat set her phone down. “Lucy didn’t do this.”

“But someone made it look like she did. Someone who didn’t know much about modern police work.” Jon raised his hands in victory. “I told you it looked weird. And it’s always the husband.”

Cat decided to change the subject and told everyone to keep both Lucy and Maggie in their thoughts. Then she did the closing speech she always gave at brunch. The most important part of the retreat, in her mind, were these last words.

“Don’t forget why you wrote so much or made so much progress this week on your career of being an author. It’s because you showed up. You could have slept in, stayed at the bar too late, or even got involved in trying to solve a murder. Instead, you did the work. When you get home, you need to approach every day with the same force.” She smiled at the group. “It doesn’t matter if you have four hours or fifteen minutes to write. The important part is you take that time and make progress. Write it on your calendar. Make an unbreakable commitment to yourself. Be the writer you want to be.”

She left the group with instructions on when Seth would be loading up their suitcases and taking them to the airport. Alicia hurried after her as she left the dining room. “Do you want me to help pack up Maggie’s room?”

Cat put her hand on Alicia’s shoulder. “That’s kind of you but it’s a mess and you don’t need to see that. Shauna and I will pack up her suitcase, maybe do some laundry for her, and then have the stuff ready for when she leaves the hospital. I’m sure she’d love a visit though. Just call the hospital first and see if she can have visitors.”

Alicia nodded. “Okay. I’ll go get my suitcase and bring it down. I’m just waiting for Seth to drop me off. I’ll be writing in the living room. Once I get back to classes Monday, I’m sure I’ll be slammed with work.”

“Someone listened to my rambling.” Cat liked having a graduate student in the retreats. If someone had been available for her to talk to about what types of things she wanted to write, she might not have felt so alone when she started writing the paranormal. She felt like she was reading comic books in class. “I’m serious about you being able to use the house to write if you need privacy.”

“I’ll think about it,” Alicia took the stairs, two at a time, and hurried up to the second floor, slowing down when she met up with Debra.

Cat went into the kitchen where Shauna and Seth were sitting at the table.

Shauna waited until she sat down to ask, “How was your coffee date?”

“Weird. I think Grace just wanted to know what I knew. Then when I didn’t give her any new information, she pulled out the church card and left. She could be Aspen Hill’s local gossip columnist if we had a paper.” Cat refilled her coffee cup. This needed to be her last one or she’d be bouncing up against the walls once the guests left.

Seth and Shauna looked at each other.

“What? What do you know about Grace Evans that I don’t?” Cat took a muffin off the pile on a plate in the middle of the table.

“Just that she’s pulled this kind of stunt before,” Shauna said. “I didn’t mention it when you said you were meeting with her, but she became obsessed with me about Kevin right after he died as well. She was always coming over to see if I was alright and if I’d heard anything about the investigation.”

“So she was concerned about you,” Cat didn’t understand what Shauna was saying.

Shauna met Seth’s gaze, “I’d never talked to her before that. She made something up about us meeting at a party, but Kevin had gone alone to that party because we had a retreat that week. She lied about meeting me. Then she latched on like we were best friends. At least until Pete found the actual killer. I think she liked hanging out with a suspect.”

“That’s a little creepy.” Cat thought about when Grace had asked her to lunch. It was because she thought Cat and Dante were dating. Was she looking for information on the mob boss rather than wanting to start a new friendship?

“She’s a true crime junkie. Everyone knows it.” Seth grinned as he ate his soup. “Well, I guess, everyone but you. I’m surprised she didn’t try to find out more about how Micheal died.”

Cat paled a little and Seth noticed.

“She did. I knew it. Cat all that woman wants is details about murders and attacks. She’s not looking for a friendship.” Seth finished his soup. “Let the writers know I’ll be ready to leave in about thirty minutes. I want to let Sam out for a while and spend some time with him before I go. Can someone peek in on him while I’m gone?”

“I’ll bring him into the kitchen with me. He can follow me around while I clean rooms.” Shauna offered.

“Speaking of cleaning, I’m going up to pack Maggie’s stuff. If there’s a lot of dirty laundry, do you mind if I wash it before we let her know her suitcase is here? I’m going to go over and see her later this afternoon.”

Shauna nodded. “Sure, I’ll hold off on washing the sheets until tomorrow. Just let me know when you’re done. You know how to run the washer and dryer, right?”

“Funny girl,” Cat smiled as she grabbed a trash bag and a laundry basket from the cleaning closet. She also grabbed some cleaning supplies and rags. “I might not get it all clean, but it will be better.”

“I’ll finish cleaning it tomorrow when they’re here fixing the door,” Shauna called out. “You don’t have to do this. I can handle it.”

“I’ll be fine,” Cat said as she headed up to the second floor in the west wing. Maggie had been alone on this wing since she’d kind of invited herself to the retreat there wasn’t room with the rest of the writers. But she hadn’t spent much time in her room. She’d been downstairs, writing or talking to the others about writing most of the retreat. Unless Professor Martin had asked her to meet him at the house, like yesterday. Cat wondered what had been so important that he couldn’t have waited a day.

As she came into the room, she realized Shauna had been trying to tell her that she’d already done some of the cleanup. There was a towel over the blood-stained wood floor. Seth would probably have to sand and reseal the floor. They’d just opened this wing less than a year ago. The bed had been stripped and most of the flat areas were already cleaned. Cat wondered if this was where Shauna had been last night when she couldn’t sleep.

Cat opened the closet and found that Maggie’s closet was almost empty. She must have packed everything before leaving to meet her husband on Saturday. She was down to only one suitcase of the three, so she must have taken most of her clothes back home. Cat put the woolen dress and black boots into the empty suitcase she’d sat on the bed. That must have been what she’d been planning on wearing for dinner.

She went to the drawers and found underwear, a nightgown, heavy socks, and a pair of Ugh Boots along with jeans and a long-sleeve shirt. Maggie was on top of everything. Cat packed everything away, then went to Maggie’s desk. A couple of fiction books were on the desk as well as her writing stuff. Her laptop sat on the top of the desk along with a notebook, pens, a highlighter, and stickies. She opened the laptop and saw it was password protected. She wondered why Uncle Pete hadn’t taken this into evidence, but maybe it was because they assumed Lucy had attacked her in a fit of jealousy.

She wondered if she could just take the books and laptop over to Maggie. Being stuck in the hospital would drive her crazy.

She found Maggie’s messenger bag and packed the computer with its plug-ins and mouse in there. Then she opened the desk drawer to be thorough. Maybe she had put some things away to decrease the clutter.

Cat was more of a out of sight out of mind filer, so she kept everything on her desk if it needed to be addressed.

A folder and a flash drive sat in the drawer, along with more pens. Cat grabbed those and set them on the desk. Weird, this was the third flash drive she’d found this session.

A noise sounded at the door. Shauna poked her head inside. “Hey, John Martin is here to pick up Maggie’s stuff. Are you done packing it?”

Cat fingered the flash drive in her hand. “What have you told him?”

“I said I didn’t know if the police had released the room. I said I was going to call Pete first, then he could go up and get anything she left.” She stepped inside. “You found something.”

“I think so. Where is Martin now?”

Seth’s watching him downstairs in the dining room. I came up the back stairs so he wouldn’t see me.” Shauna pulled out her phone. “Do you want me to call Pete?”

“Please. And tell him to hurry. Seth needs to get the rest of the writers to Denver and I don’t want to be left here in the house with Martin. And take these up to my office before you go downstairs.” Cat stuffed all the stuff from the desk into the messenger bag. “Put it in my closet.”

Shauna already had her phone out and headed toward the laundry room to go up to the third floor.

When Cat heard her open the laundry room, she went back to the suitcase and adjusted everything there. Footsteps sounded on the main stairs and she stepped outside the room. She dropped the laundry basket and cleaning supplies. She wasn’t surprised to see John Martin coming toward her, but she kept her face soft. “Professor Martin. I’m so sorry for what happened to Maggie. You didn’t have to come for her luggage, we would have dropped it off at your house.”

“Oh, I was in the neighborhood. I drive when I’m worried. They won’t let me sit with Maggie so I thought I’d at least try to be useful. Is that her room?”

The fact that he had known she was in this wing wasn’t lost on Cat but she smiled and nodded. “We only use these rooms for returning retreat guests, but since Maggie joined us unexpectedly this retreat, she got the upgraded experience. These rooms all have their own bathrooms. I was just about to check the bathroom for anything she left.” She kicked the laundry basket out of the way of the door. “But I think she must have already taken a bunch of stuff home. Or maybe it’s in her car. I think she only left Saturday’s dinner outfit and Sunday’s clothes here. Her desk was even cleaned off.”

“Her desk?” He turned to me. “Her laptop’s gone?”

Cat shrugged. “All I can think is that she figured she wouldn’t have time to write before she left. Your wife is a creative storyteller. She did a reading of her book for us and it’s really good. You should be proud of her. Maybe she can finish it while she recovers.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He checked the bathroom, then came out, but went back in and grabbed her toiletry kit and threw it into the open suitcase. The closet and dresser drawers were open. Shauna liked to spray everything down with disinfectant after a guest visit. He glanced at those, then opened all the desk drawers. “There’s nothing here.”

“Like I said, all I can think of is she took everything home with her when she went to meet with you on Saturday afternoon.” She nodded to the suitcase. “Can I take that down for you?”

“I can carry it, thanks. Her car is on the street, I’ll put this in there, and then come back for the car when I have a second driver.” He zipped up the suitcase, then stepped over the still bloody towel on the floor.

“I can have Seth drive it over this evening,” Cat offered as she followed him down the stairs. When they got there, Shauna, Seth, and the other writers were all in the lobby. Uncle Pete came in the door with two uniformed officers.

“Can the writers all meet me in the living room,” Seth called out. “You too Cat, you need to give your final talk before I take everyone to the airport.”

The writers moved into the living room, eyeing the officers warily. Jon stood near the living room door and glanced at his watch. “I thought you already did that. I need to be at the airport two hours before my flight leaves so it can’t be long.”

Cat smiled as she moved him toward the safety of the living room. “Oh, this will be fast. It’s the sales pitch for your next visit as an alumni.”

“I’m heading up to do laundry,” Shauna called out before Uncle Pete went over to stand near John Martin.

“Sir, I need you to come down to the station with me. I’ve got a few additional questions.” He reached for the suitcase and handed it to one of the men behind him.

“I answered all your questions last night. When are you going to let me see my wife? She’s all alone in that hospital room. Anything could happen.”

“There’s an armed police officer there to protect her,” Uncle Pete looked up as Shauna came down the stairs with the messenger bag. Cat was standing in the doorway watching.

“Hey, that’s Maggie’s bag. You told me she didn’t leave it here,” Martin stepped toward Shauna but the officers grabbed him and cuffed his hands behind him. “What are you doing? I’m the college president.”

“I’m a good storyteller,” Cat smiled at him.

“We know who you are,” Uncle Pete nodded toward Cat who stepped out of the living room. She could feel the writers watching the circus unfolding through the open doors. “Your neighbor, Mrs. Rice called yesterday to complain about a black Range Rover who sped out of here, just before the cops arrived. And a few minutes ago, she called again to say the car was back.”

“There are several black Range Rovers in town.” John Martin argued.

“Not that have PREZ as the license plate.” Uncle Pete held out the messenger bag toward Cat. “What did you want me to look at?”

“The journal and the flash drive are in the front pocket. I think you might find the Caymen Island account numbers with the missing money.”

“So Maggie stole the money? She always wanted more,” Martin was sweating.

“Would you take him outside? I’d like to chat with my niece for a bit.” Uncle Pete nodded to the door and the suitcase. “You might as well take that too. I think Mrs. Martin is going to need some clothes when she gets out later today.”

“Whatever she says, she’s lying,” Martin called as they dragged him out of the house.

Cat took the journal from Uncle Pete’s hand. “From what I could see, this is a listing of all the deposits he took from different accounts. And he was tracking Dante’s review schedule. He made notes of the last time Dante examined the accounts for usage. That way, he could frame Dante for taking the money. If I remember right, from what Michael told me, each department has a review from Dante’s office, then one from the president, annually. Just in case someone is using the money inappropriately. Of course, Dante didn’t hold that job when Michael was alive, but you get my drift.”

“I knew about the annual reviews. It was the reason Dante’s name came up in the embezzlement discussion, except for the fact that Dante had already alerted me to the missing money. He double-checked the account after the audit was done. Just in case the account holder changed something after the approval was given.”

Cat smiled, “I don’t think he trusts a lot of people.”

“And with good reason. I think this will solve our missing money case, and with the fingerprints, I’ve already found in Mrs. Martin’s room, her attack. But Allen’s murder is still out there. Do you think Martin would have killed him?”

Cat shook her head. “I don’t see the point. He was a perfect fall guy if Dante didn’t go down. A layer of protection for Martin. Well, until his wife found out and was going to tell everyone about him.”

“I’ve got to get these people on the road,” Seth said from behind her. “Any problem with that, Pete?”

“Go ahead. I’ve got contact information for these guys. I think you should charge a surcharge if there’s a crime that happened during the retreat.” Uncle Pete nodded toward the living room. The writers were all taking notes about what just happened. “At least their books will have researched, authentic police work included.”

“I’ll see what we can do in the marketing,” Cat waved the authors out of the living room. “Time to go home and finish writing your books.”