Murder Wears a Medal Read online

  It was her custom to meet for dinner with Troy on evenings when her late night at the library matched his evening shift break time. He noticed her melancholy humor immediately.

  “Not soup,” he groaned after Francie had taken her order. “What’s wrong? I know you’re not sick, so what is it? What’s Queen Lois up to now?”

  He wasn’t used to seeing Kelly with an expression of disdain on her face. If anything, Kelly seemed to own more variations of a smile than anyone he’d ever met. But she wasn’t smiling now.

  “She’s the way she always is. I wish she’d go back to staying at her insurance agency all day instead of camping out at the library. Just because she’s the board president doesn’t mean she’s staff.”

  “What did she say?” Troy pressed, knowing that, however irritated Kelly was by Mrs. Stark’s all-day presence at the library, that alone wasn’t responsible for her downcast mood.

  “Oh . . . she’s getting a new flag from Rep. Eldredge—you know how they give out flags to organizations in their district—because she doesn’t like the little flags I put in the ground by the flowers. That’s not it, though. Although I like the flags by the flowers!”

  Troy grinned as Kelly showed her feisty nature. “So do I,” he said. “What’s she up to?”

  “While she was on the phone, he must have said something about her husband. You know, being suspended and all that. And she thanked him for his support and said, ‘I’m sure that, with your help, we’ll be able to make things right very soon.’”

  Troy was silent.

  “So you don’t think I’m overreacting,” Kelly said, taking a sip of her coffee as minutes passed without a comment from Troy.

  Troy stirred his coffee. “No,” he said at last, “I don’t think you’re overreacting. For one thing, you don’t overreact unless you’re out to rescue someone. And I can’t fault you for that. It’s made a difference in people’s lives. Lucas’ life, for one. If not for you, he’d be starting his prison term in juvenile detention and moved to prison when he turned eighteen.”

  “You helped with that,” Kelly reminded him. “I couldn’t have rescued him alone.”

  Troy smiled absently. “We’re a team,” he said. But his usual side comment about teamwork, dating, and a relationship wasn’t added. Still, he was obviously considering what she had told him.

  Kelly’s spirits revived. Having Troy on her side with this made all the difference in the world.

  “Francie,” she said when their meals arrived. “Could I add some fries to my order? I’m hungrier than I thought I was.”

  3

  Unwelcome News

  Kelly was alone at the library when she returned after dining at The Café with Troy. Carmela left when Kelly returned and Mrs. Stark typically left at 5:00 p.m., which would have been her normal working hours at the insurance agency. The library was busy with people who came in after work to check out books and movies, do homework, and use the public access computers, so Kelly didn’t have time to check her phone for messages. When the rush eased, she returned to her office. There were three messages from Carmela. “Call me.”

  “Carmela?” Kelly said on an inquiring note when Carmela answered. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

  It wasn’t so long since Carmela’s tires had been slashed in front of her home and, even though the culprit had been found and exposed as not only a vicious prankster but also a murderer, Carmela was still uneasy. She had been involved in the murder investigation following the Groundhog Day death of Lyola Knesbit, and the memory and subsequent events, even though she had not really been a suspect, had given the library clerk a heightened sense of alarm.

  “Leo Page is on suspension,” Carmela said. “It was on the news. That worthless tramp, Travis Shaw, he gave an interview to the news. The news! He said he didn’t kill Lyola Knesbit, he just stole her purse, but Leo had it out for him because of him being Leo’s ex son-in-law, and he forced Shaw to confess to the murder. That’s not true! I was there and I know that Leo never laid a hand on him. And he wasn’t alone with him!”

  “I know . . . but why is he suspended?”

  “I was talking to my neighbor, Bonnie Calligretti, you know her, she goes to First Church, and her cousin is on the town council and he told her that the town doesn’t want any more bad publicity after the three murders, so they decided to suspend Leo until everything gets sorted out. This didn’t make the news, but Bonnie told me the council has offered Chief Stark his old job back!”

  I’m sure that, with your help, we’ll be able to make things right very soon.

  “Kelly? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Kelly, you know as well as I do that Travis Shaw is the murderer. Now this means the case will be opened up again, and Mia Shaw and I are going to have to go through it all again while they try to find someone to blame.”

  “They aren’t going to just release Shaw on his say-so,” Kelly said, trying to stay calm although her heart was hammering in agitation from Carmela’s news.

  “Maybe not, but with Leo suspended and Chief Stark back in charge, we both know that nothing is going to get done. Leo didn’t touch Shaw, he never laid a hand on him.”

  No, that wouldn’t be something that Leo Page would have done. But he had had Mia Shaw waiting at the station when Troy brought Travis Shaw back, and that might have been out of bounds, considering that Mia was Leo’s daughter as well as Shaw’s ex-wife. It was probably enough to cast a cloud of suspicion over the episode, even though the state policeman had been there. And was that also going to do Leo harm? Troy had told Kelly that Chief Stark had a pretty solid relationship with the state police and frequently passed on the tougher jobs to them. Was it more than that? Were the state police, or some of them, accomplices in Chief Stark’s network of lies? Was Rep. Eldredge just a dutiful representative, or was he returning a favor to a campaign donor? Was he involved in any of this? How did someone accused of murder, awaiting trial, manage to snare an interview on the local news?

  “I know,” Kelly responded automatically, trying to soothe Carmela’s rising apprehensions even as she attempted to process her own tumbled reactions.

  “When Lois Stark waltzes into the library tomorrow, I won’t be responsible for what I say to her!”

  “Carmela! Don’t do anything or say anything. I know it’s not easy, but we have to see where this goes.”

  “It’s going to go with Chief Stark back in power and everything being covered up. We never knew, not until he was gone and Leo replaced him as police chief, just how bad the drug problem is in Settler Springs. We heard things, and Jimmy Patton always said that he knew when the drugs came in because he and the ambulance crews spent the night with the overdoses. But we didn’t know!”

  Carmela had no idea that Chief Stark was probably involved to a greater extent than could be blamed on a negligent police chief closing his eyes to crime in his community because he didn’t want to deal with it, and Kelly was not going to disclose what she and Troy knew or what they suspected.

  “You have to act as if this has no bearing on you,” Kelly told her with urgency. She didn’t need to remind Carmela that when she was being questioned during the investigation, Mrs. Stark had used that against her, getting her suspended from her job as if she had actually been accused of the murder. Some members of the library board had been disturbed by Mrs. Stark’s unilateral decision, and if the suspension had continued, they might have contested her action. Some of them definitely would, Kelly knew. But what about the rest? Were they too acquiescent or too subdued by Mrs. Stark’s assumption of absolute authority to stick up for the staff? That was a troubling thought but one that Kelly knew she would have to ponder before long.

  “But it does have bearing on me. What if they start asking questions again?”

  “You just tell the truth like you did before. No one thinks you had anything to do with Lyola Knesbit’s murder. In fact, people think you were pretty brave to g
o after Travis Shaw when you saw him carrying her purse and you suspected that something wasn’t right.”

  “They do?”

  “Of course they do. And you were brave. Don’t worry about this, Carmela. It’s Leo that has to worry. What about Leo? Is he on desk duty while he’s suspended as police chief?”

  “No, he’s suspended completely. Bonnie said her cousin told her that they want to avoid more attention. No one wants the news crews back in town. I suppose they’ll be back now, though,” Carmela said with gloom in her voice.

  “Maybe not. They don’t have much to go on.”

  “Not yet. I just don’t think I can stand looking at Mrs. Stark, all smug and knowing, acting like she’s won.”

  “Then why don’t you take a sick day tomorrow?” Kelly suggested. “I’ll say you called in sick, and you can spend the day on your back porch with a crossword puzzle book and some iced tea and just decompress.”

  “I don’t know . . . we have all the work for the Memorial Day program to do. It’s not like she’s going to help when there’s real work to be done.”

  “We don’t really want her getting involved anyway,” Kelly replied candidly. “If you don’t think you can stand being around her, give yourself a day to prepare for how she’s going to be. But don’t say anything when you come to work. That won’t help.”

  “I don’t know . . . I don’t like to leave you in the lurch.”

  “Well, think about how you’re going to handle her and text me tomorrow morning after you decide what you’re going to do.”

  “What about Officer Troy? What does he say about this?”

  “I haven’t heard from him yet.”

  “You will,” Carmela said with relish. Her views on Troy Kennedy had improved ever since she’d joined him and Leo Page on the drug stake-out that ended in the arrest of Travis Shaw. She often made leading comments about Kelly’s relationship with him and it was clear that Carmela regarded the two as a couple, no matter how often Kelly insisted that they were friends. Good friends, but not more than friends.

  She had to end the conversation then because a patron had come up to the desk, wanting help in choosing books for her mother, who was laid up at home with a broken ankle and couldn’t drive herself to the library. The woman left just as Lucas Krymanski came in, giving the library a quick scan to make sure that his nemesis, Mrs. Stark, wasn’t hiding in the stacks.

  “Hi, Miz Armello,” he greeted. “You gonna need help setting up the meeting room for the vets?”

  “I will, thanks, Lucas, but we won’t be doing that until Memorial Day weekend. You’ll help?”

  “Sure. I just wanted to make sure. My mom told me that Mrs. Stark said I can’t come to the library to help.”

  “Yes, well, that’s what Mrs. Stark says, but I’m working on it.”

  The pair shared a conspiratorial grin. Kelly wasn’t sure just yet how she was going to work around Mrs. Stark’s ban, but she was determined that Lucas was going to continue to be allowed to volunteer his help at the library as long as he was willing to do so. Grim as the news was about Leo’s suspension from the police force, perhaps there might be a silver lining if Roger Stark’s return to his former position meant that his wife would abandon her daily vigil at the library.

  4

  Bar Fight

  “You coulda knocked me over with a paper straw! It was on the news, right there on the news!”

  Leo Page had called Troy with the news of his suspension from the force. Troy was on duty, but he’d taken the call as soon as he heard the ringtone indicating that the call was police-related. When Leo told him what he’d seen on the news, Troy pulled over into a parking space so that he could give full attention to what Leo had to say.

  “They didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person that I’m suspended,” Leo exclaimed in disgust. “They called me. After the interview with Shaw on the news. I was sitting at the dinner table. Millie doesn’t like us to watch it while we eat, the kids, you know, but I keep it on in the living room just to listen. When I heard them say there was an interview coming up with Shaw, I just about jumped out of my chair. Mason and Lucia didn’t hear the TV, and Millie got them outside pretty quick, said they were going to eat outside on the porch instead of inside. Gotta hand it to Millie, she thinks fast. Faster than me. I just stood in front of the TV and couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”

  “What did Shaw say?”

  “That I’d forced him to confess, and he did so because Millie and me have custody of his kids, so he felt like he didn’t have a choice. He made it sound like I told him he’d never see his kids again unless he confessed.”

  “There’s enough witnesses from that night to refute that.”

  “One of ’em is my daughter,” Leo said. “No one is going to listen to her,” he went on with resignation in his words. “She’s Shaw’s ex-wife, she doesn’t have custody of the kids, and she’s a recovering addict.”

  “Carmela Dixon was there. She knows you didn’t intimidate Shaw with threats. She recognized him when she saw him as the man who had Lyola Knesbit’s purse in Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day.”

  “We cut a few corners to catch him, Troy. It was just you and me on the stake-out. We had Carmela with us, and she was a former . . . well, not exactly a suspect but not exactly cleared, either. I had Mia at the station, waiting, for when you came back with him that night.”

  “We might have cut corners, I’m not saying it was all by the book, but we were trying to catch a murderer.”

  “Now it looks like we pinned a murder on him.”

  “It’s going to be a little hard for anyone to make it look like Travis Shaw is an innocent man.”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I wanted him behind bars, I admit that to you.”

  “Don’t say any more, Leo,” Troy pressed. “You wouldn’t have arrested him if he was innocent. He wasn’t innocent and you and I both know that.”

  “Grabbing a woman’s purse and taking the money from it carries a much lighter sentence than murder.”

  “What about the drugs? We saw him selling, we’ve got that on him.”

  “Selling drugs or murder. If you could choose, which charge would you prefer?”

  “Neither, but I’m not a criminal, and Shaw is.”

  “I don’t know . . . I just feel like I got sucker punched. The council didn’t even tell me to my face. The interview. They didn’t talk about the suspension on the news. That came later, after everyone who watched would have heard that, according to that miserable lying scum, I forced him to confess to the murder charge. After that, that’s when Mayor Truvert called to tell me I was suspended. I could hear the satisfaction in his voice. The council agreed; they want Stark back.”

  “I doubt if it’s that simple, Leo. They don’t want the attention, especially now when everyone is in town for the Memorial Day activities.”

  “I don’t know . . . it’s a funny feeling, you know? Like wondering who’s my friend and who’s my enemy. I told Millie I need to get away for a few days. I’m gonna go up to camp and stay for a while.”

  The area where Leo’s camp was located was twenty miles out of town. Troy doubted if Leo would find respite there. It was one thing to go up to the camp at the end of winter, when most people weren’t there and there was privacy, if that was what someone was looking for. But now that the summer holiday season was about to officially launch and the weather was fine, other people would also be enjoying their camp getaways.

  “Don’t stay away too long,” Troy said. “We’ll have to get to the bottom of this, and I’m not counting on Chief Stark’s help.”

  “Just watch your step. He’ll be looking for someone to pin the murder on.”

  “I wasn’t even in Punxsutawney on Groundhog Day!”

  Leo’s laugh lacked mirth. “Sure . . . that’s what you say!”

  Troy had to end the call. Another bar fight. Different bar this time. Casey’s. It was a rough place where some of Settler S
prings’ repeat offenders tended to hang out. When Troy arrived at the bar, he saw that the parking lot was filled with motorcycles, beat-up pickup trucks, cars that were missing hubcaps and vehicles that looked like they had come off the assembly line decades ago. Getting out of the squad car, he ran his flashlight over the parked vehicles, noting which ones merited a follow-up because of an expired registration or any other obvious violation. People who drank at Casey’s didn’t go there to impress the Sunday church crowd.

  He entered the bar, his reflexes alert for trouble.

  The fight might have started with two men but by this time, it had reached the status of a small mob. There were at least fifteen people, some of them women, involved in throwing punches. At the center of the throng was a big man wearing a leather vest, boots, and jeans, no shirt, with a tattoo sleeve on both bare arms.

  “Semper Fi!” he bellowed.

  “Semper Fi!” someone called, returning the cry.

  Great, Troy thought as he waded into the melee. A Marine slugfest. He came up behind the brawny leatherneck and pulled him away. The man started to swing at Troy, who nimbly ducked; the Marine’s hand smashed into a glass of beer on the bar, sending the glass and its contents flying.

  “Hey!” the Marine objected.

  “Hey yourself,” Troy answered. The man was a couple of inches taller than he was, and outweighed him by fifty pounds, but the ex-Marine had let himself go over the years; he had a belly on him, and he wasn’t quick on his feet. Some of that might have been because of whatever he’d been drinking, but Troy’s instincts told him that the Marine relied upon his size rather than actual fitness to win fights. “Is this how you fought in Iraq?”

  The Marine peered at him. “How’d you know which war I fought in?”

  “Because I’m sober, buddy, and I can do the math. Now what’s going on here?”