Scales of Justice Read online

  My breath came a little faster when I saw those words. Maybe we were getting somewhere at last. I pulled out my phone and took another picture, explaining to Pops that I would only be sharing this with the sheriff.

  “Oh, I’m not worried, Pepper,” Pops said. “I hope this was helpful. It would sure be good to find out what happened to that poor fella, the attorney. People say he wasn’t very popular around here. But still, I can’t imagine anybody wanting him dead.” He smiled up at me. “Misty just isn’t that kind of town.”

  He closed the big book and walked me from the back office to the front of the store, where the bells rang cheerily as I opened it. He waved goodbye as he said, “Now don’t be such a stranger, Pepper. I never see you in here anymore!”

  I got in my car and headed back home as the last rays of the sun were leaving the sky. The clouds were a fiery pink and orange, and I could just see the beginnings of a full moon.

  It seemed I was slowly getting closer to solving the mystery, but I wasn’t sure I would like what I found when I did.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I kept a firm hand on the wheel as I drove through the meadows on my way to the Long Island Sound section of Misty.

  There was a marsh on either side of the road that was often pretty but also frequently fragrant, and not in a good way. The driving could be a little tricky when it got wet or snowy in the wintertime, but there was no chance of that today, since it was a beautiful July evening. The sun was setting over the water, and I could almost see the beach grasses swaying. I was eager to get out for a walk as soon as I fed Mr. Woogles.

  There wasn’t a lot of traffic at this time of night, but in the changing light, I still had to watch carefully to navigate the curves. Just as I rounded one, I heard a siren. I slowed down and pulled over as close to the side of the road as I could without being in danger of slipping off the edge. An ambulance appeared in my rearview mirror and came up on me quickly. Whoever was driving was really hustling. It must be an authentic emergency.

  As the ambulance raced past me, I heard another siren coming from up ahead. I waited a bit, but it never came by. The accident or whatever it was must be close.

  I was just about to inch away from the edge of the road and start driving again when I heard yet another siren coming from behind. The horns were blaring and the lights flashing. This was a dramatically noisy display for our sleepy little town.

  And this one was a firetruck. As it barreled along, I squeezed physically to the right, as though my hunkering down inside the car would make any difference. Fortunately the huge truck slowed down a bit to make it past my car, though it seemed to zip by in dangerously close proximity.

  In just the few minutes since I had started down the road, it had gone from sunset to early twilight, and now I could see a number of stationary lights flashing up ahead. I didn’t know whether it was safe to drive away from my treacherous perch or wiser to stay where I was.

  I was intensely curious about what was going on up there, and a little bit afraid. I was probably close enough to walk from my car to where all the commotion was, but that might be a really bad idea with emergency vehicles racing up and down this curvy road. There were no houses and no lights, only the narrow ribbon of pavement crossing the marsh.

  I wondered how long I was going to be sitting here and how hungry I was going to get. Surely we wouldn’t be held up too long.

  I pulled out my phone to see if I could get a signal. Naturally, this was one of the few places in Misty where it was hard to get reception. This stretch of road over the marsh was notorious for disconnecting people who were trying to chat as they drove. I tried calling my mother, since she kept up with the circle of Misty ladies who always seemed to know what was going on at any point in time, but I couldn’t get a signal to call her.

  After about five minutes, I figured it had to be safe to proceed. I didn’t hear any more sirens. I also didn’t see anything moving back this way from the cluster of lights ahead. Was that a good sign or a bad one? The center of town was behind me, with the hospital and police station. Nothing was out in the direction I was heading except the beach and residential homes, plus a few nice restaurants. But unless there was an emergency need for a lobster roll, no one would be taking an ambulance in that direction.

  I’d turned the engine off, but now I started it up again and gingerly pulled back onto the road. As soon as I rounded the next corner and could see the group of emergency vehicles, I slowed down. It looked serious.

  My path was blocked almost immediately. A police car from another town was parked across the roadway to keep me or anyone else from getting by. An officer in a reflective vest carrying a light approached my window, and I rolled it down.

  He leaned in, his face serious. “I’m sorry, ma’am, we aren’t able to allow vehicles to pass at this time. I’m afraid you’ll have to go around.”

  “Thank you, Officer. Are you able to share any information about what happened here?”

  He hesitated for a second, and I debated about whether it would be a plus or a minus to tell him that I was an attorney. Police didn’t always have the most positive relationship with lawyers, and sometimes vice versa. I decided to go the personal route rather than the professional.

  “I grew up here in Misty. I know a lot of the folks here. Please tell me it isn’t anything serious...”

  I let my voice trail off, hoping he’d feel sympathetic. He gave a quick glance around and a small shrug of his shoulders. “Guy slid off the road into the marsh. He’s okay. We got him out. Little bit of a close call, though. Could have been major.”

  Before I could respond, I saw another man approaching the car. He looked like he was in uniform too. When I saw the glint of a badge on his chest, I realized who it was. Logan.

  He came up to the other officer and nodded. “They could use you back there, Dave,” he said, indicating the cluster of people and vehicles with his head.

  As soon as the other officer had gotten out of earshot, Logan turned to me and grasped my arm as I held the steering wheel. I was so startled that I stared at his face, but it was hard to read his expression in the passing glow of red and blue lights. All I could see was a deep crease in his brow as he looked at me.

  “Thank God you’re okay, Pepper.”

  “Logan. I’m fine. What happened?”

  “I was afraid you were in the car with him.”

  I could feel my heart pounding. “With who?”

  “The doctor. D’Amore.”

  My free hand went up to my mouth. “Angelo? He was the one who slid off the road?”

  “He didn’t just slide off the road, Pepper. He couldn’t stop. Looks like somebody messed with his vehicle.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When I finally lay my head down on the pillow, I let out a big sigh. Woogles was at my feet, as usual, but he must have sensed that I needed some reassurance. He came up and settled beside me, his snout nuzzling my shoulder. It was comforting enough that I didn’t mind his dog breath being in such close proximity to my nose.

  “What a night, Mr. Woogles!” It had taken me some time to calm down after the frightening news that Angelo’s car had been tampered with.

  From what Logan had told me, Angelo was lucky. His car went off the edge of one of the curves and into the marsh, and the muck was deep enough that it started to sink. His Jaguar had all kinds of safety devices, but the angle at which he hit the water meant that he took the impact on the side of his head and lost consciousness. It was only because someone else was driving along the same road only seconds behind him that he was spotted and pulled out before drowning.

  It made me dizzy to think that Angelo could have died, and even more frightened at the idea that someone apparently wanted him dead. He was in the hospital now being checked over, to be followed by a night of observation. At the very least, he’d be suffering the aftermath of a concussion for months to come. There were some bruises and a few stitches, but according to Logan, an
MRI had revealed nothing with long-term implications.

  Mr. W was asleep now, and he twitched beside me, his feet running along what I imagined was a dream beach. The moon was full tonight, a long slant of white light spreading across the bedroom floor.

  I tossed and turned for a while, trying to wrap my head around the fact that this was the second attempted murder in Misty in less than a month. The first one had been successful. Fortunately, this one had not.

  But it didn’t make sense. Everyone figured that Angelo or someone working on his behalf had set up the balcony to fail and lead to the death of Roger Winthrop. This turned everything around.

  Was it Big Daddy all along?

  I looked at the clock. It was past midnight. I needed to get some sleep. I rolled over again, causing Woogie to whimper softly. Maybe he was having troubled doggy dreams now. I hoped not.

  I must have fallen asleep at last, because I found myself dreaming about fast cars sliding off dangerous curves and balconies with floors that dropped out when you stepped on them. Swirling around all of that was the vision of Roger Winthrop as I last saw him on the ground, getting CPR from Angelo.

  Suddenly a piece came into focus. It wasn’t real. Even as I dreamt it, I knew it wasn’t real. But in the dream, Roger lay on the ground under the window, and an ornate metal spindle was clutched in his hand.

  I stared at the spindle, and it seemed to reflect the sun, creating almost a dagger of light. The light was directed at one of the other construction workers. As I watched, I saw him head back into the house at a run. It was Shrimpy.

  Shrimpy had gone back into the house.

  I sat up with a start. This wasn’t just a dream. This had really happened. I’d completely forgotten that I saw Shrimpy run back inside. With all the commotion and the life-and-death resuscitation going on in front of me, I had been distracted.

  Why did Shrimpy race back into the house? I searched my memory for a glimpse of him after that, maybe up near the balcony, but nothing came. No surprise, really, what with sirens and police cars and the arrival of the sheriff and everyone holding their breath to see if Winthrop was still alive. No one would have noticed what Shrimpy did.

  I had an idea, and I wasn’t going to wait until morning to see if I was right. I slipped carefully out of bed and pulled some shorts on under the long T-shirt I slept in. I grabbed my flip-flops and tiptoed down the stairs barefoot, tucking my phone into my pocket. Just before I left the house, I took the key from where it hung beside the heavy wooden front door and locked it behind me. It was probably ridiculous, but I didn’t want anyone getting into the house to bother Mr. Woogles.

  Slipping on the flip-flops, I padded across the lawn and through the tall hedge between my house and Angelo’s. It was a beautiful night. The perfect night for solving a murder.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I walked through the hedge and past all the yellow police tape. It was bare ground in front of the house, where the lawn had been churned up from all the construction work. My feet in flip-flops sank into the dirt, and I could feel its dry sandy texture against my toes.

  As I walked up the front steps, I wondered if I could find my way around. I’d only been inside this house once. Of course, it had been way out of my price range, but I’d persuaded the realtor to show it to me just for fun.

  I had a memory of the layout, which was a good thing, because there were no lights on. I had only the bright moon to guide me. Or in a pinch, the light from my phone. Clearly nobody was around to wonder what the heck I was doing there in the middle of the night. And since I didn’t particularly want to advertise that fact, I didn’t even try flipping on switches to see if there was electricity. This was going to be a stealth operation. Hopefully a quick one.

  What I wanted was on the second floor. I was certain that Logan and the rest of the Misty police force had gone over this house and whatever was left of the balcony in excruciating detail. If there were clues to be found, wouldn’t Logan have found them? Still, I was determined to try.

  Using what light the moon provided, I made my way up the stairs, my hands carefully sliding along the smooth wooden railing and my flip-flops slapping each step as I rose. When I reached the second floor I felt my way toward the master bedroom and the balcony off the front. I looked toward where I knew it must be, expecting to see bright moonlight coming through. And then I remembered that there was no opening there anymore—it had been boarded up after Winthrop fell. Which made sense. But there were windows, and I could easily see the spot on the wall where I thought a dumbwaiter door should be.

  And there was nothing.

  I felt around the wall, checking for hidden openings or seams where a wall might have been closed up.

  I let out a sigh. My dream revelation might not amount to anything, and my nighttime visit to the house could turn out to be a wasted effort. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

  From what Jared had told me, Roger Winthrop had come out to the spa house at Big Daddy Johnson’s request to serve an injunction on Angelo as the owner of the property. It seemed obvious that he wanted Angelo to stop building because he was trying to discourage a business that might impact his own hotel plans. So when Winthrop got to the door and the workers offered to take the documents to the boss, Winthrop refused. He needed to put the legal papers in the hands of the property owner directly.

  I remembered that Jared had said they didn’t want to let him upstairs where Angelo was, because the place was a worksite, and it wasn’t safe. But when Winthrop insisted, somebody let him pass. Somehow he was directed into this bedroom, stepped out onto the balcony, and then fell to his death.

  So someone had set that up.

  I headed out into the hall again, hoping that I’d find a door to the dumbwaiter there. It had to be up here somewhere. That was the only way my imagined scenario would work. I figured that Shrimpy had raced back into the house after Winthrop fell to get rid of any evidence proving he had messed with the railing on the balcony. In the confusion, he could have done nearly anything. My theory was that he grabbed the fake wooden spindles and tossed them into a dumbwaiter—and then sent it downstairs.

  I continued looking in the other bedrooms. No dumbwaiter. But it still seemed a safe bet that there had been one here originally. This house had been built within a few years of mine, at a time when those contraptions were all the rage. I kept checking rooms and feeling carefully along the walls. Finally, I found the right kind of door in a wall hidden at the back of a deep closet that had probably been a butler’s room many years ago.

  I opened it up and peered in. I couldn’t see a thing, but since I was inside a bedroom and inside the closet within that, I figured I was safe to turn on the flashlight in my phone. With the light shining, I could see that the platform designed to carry items up and down was not visible on this level. I looked for the ropes that were part of the pulley system these devices used, but I couldn’t find any ropes at all. What I could see were the wheels that they should have looped over. Was this one defunct? Or had someone cut the ropes?

  I wasn’t ready to give up. I turned off my light and retraced my steps down the stairs, feeling my way carefully in the moonlight. When I got the first floor, I found the spot that I thought would be directly underneath the dumbwaiter on the top floor. It was in the kitchen, which would make sense, since these conveyers were typically used for food. But there was no opening where it should have been.

  I felt around for an indication that there had been a door here. I thought I felt a bumpiness in the wall, but that could have been my imagination. I thumped a couple of times where the shaft might be and thought I heard an echo... maybe.

  There was one more floor to try. I opened the door to the basement level, wondering if I’d find dust, spiders, mice, or worse down there. The stairs were steep, and the railing was rickety. I turned on my light again so I wouldn’t trip and kill myself. If I managed to die in this basement, heaven knew when my body would be found. I could imagin
e how distraught Mr. Woogles would be. I could also imagine just what kind of a search party my mother would mount.

  The thought made me giggle, even though I was reasonably terrified to be making my way into a dark basement by myself in the middle of the night. I almost gave up and went home. But I knew I still wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

  I had a little argument with myself as I made my way downstairs.

  “Pepper, what are you, nuts? Going into a strange basement by yourself at night? In a house where someone fell to his death just a week ago?

  “Yes. I am probably nuts. But I’m going to do this anyway. It will be fine... I hope. Now leave me alone so I can solve this case.”

  Having settled that, I proceeded to the bottom of the steps. The place didn’t look all that scary from this vantage point. It looked pretty much like my basement next door. Musty, dusty, and cluttered with some dried-out cans of paint and various unidentifiable old things. I pointed my phone light and headed for the only place the dumbwaiter could be—if it still existed.

  Instead of an opening, there was a bulletin board on the wall with old newspaper clippings. From what I could see, the articles were from the 1950s. How long had it been since this thing was used?

  I held my phone in my teeth for light and gently lifted the bulletin board off the wall in the hope that there was something behind it. It wasn’t heavy, and it came away easily.

  And there was the door. I opened it up.

  The dumbwaiter platform was lying on the floor of the shaft— and on it were three wrought-iron spindles and three painted wooden ones... with jagged broken ends.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I gasped as I looked down at my findings. Prime evidence. It sure looked like someone had sawed off the original strong metal bars and replaced them with fake wooden ones.