“Ri-i-ight! Like they exonerated Mr. Greene.”
Laurel’s jaw dropped. “You know who he is?”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Sure. I was in grade school when all that stuff happened, but I don’t live in a bubble. We talked about the weird case last year in our Social Studies unit on criminal justice. Even watched a recorded news segment. I have to say, Mr. Greene looks a lot cuter now than he did when he was being dogged by reporters.”
“I would never have guessed you recognized him,” Laurel said. “You didn’t act nervous to meet him.”
“I’ll let you hog the Oscar for uptight performance. I just reminded myself straight off that there must be a reason why the guy wasn’t indicted.” Caroline lifted a forestalling hand. “I know. I know. Bad people get away with things all the time. But Mr. Greene seems like a good guy. You have to admit that sometimes good people get accused of bad things.”
Laurel spurted a chuckle. “I think you’ve overheard too many of my phone conversations with colleagues from work. But please remember, sweetheart, that I’m a mama bear dedicated to protecting you. I’ve also had a little more life experience, so pardon me for being skeptical about charming exteriors.”
Caroline leaned close. “You know what I think?”
“Hmm. Something about the tone of that question makes me wonder if I want to hear it.”
“I think you can handle charming without wigging out, but rich and charming pushes all your buttons. Throw in a little suspicion of violent behavior, and the guy is presumed guilty until proven innocent.”
The air stalled in Laurel’s lungs. What would Caroline know about the terrors of Laurel’s brief marriage to her father? She’d barely been three years old when he ditched them for a more compliant wife. Good riddance, as far as she was concerned. But since then, for Caroline’s sake, Laurel had been careful to keep any mention of the man brief and honest, but as kind as possible. Well, at least not overly hostile. Had Caroline been reading between the lines all these years?
The teenager clapped her hands and laughed more heartily than Laurel had heard her in months. “You should see your face, Mom. The psychologist’s daughter strikes again!”
The sound of footfalls entering the room stopped the rebuttal on Laurel’s tongue. Caroline’s head turned in unison with hers toward their host.
David regarded them soberly. “The sheriff and the coroner will be here as soon as the storm lets up.”
The smile melted from Caroline’s face, and Laurel shivered as if he had dashed her with a bucket of snow. For Melissa Eldon the worst had already happened. For her and Caroline, the worst might be about to begin.
* * *
David ripped at the bunch of romaine lettuce as if he could rend truth out of it by force. Refusing assistance from his guests, he’d retired to the kitchen to prepare a supper no one might have an appetite to eat—and to gather his thoughts. He’d left mother and daughter in the main room playing a listless game of Scrabble.
How legit were those two? If he’d ever seen pure horror on anyone’s face, he saw it on Laurel’s when they uncovered the dead woman in her trunk. After they came inside, Caroline’s stunned reaction was as believable as her mother’s. Then he left the room for a few minutes to place that radio call and came back to find them laughing—well, Caroline anyway. Laurel’s expression had been confounded as a coyote staring down a rabbit hole.
Were these a pair of stellar actors, or were they as innocent as they seemed? Laurel hadn’t done well at hiding her feelings from the moment he opened his front door to them, so he’d be surprised if she was that good at pretending. On the other hand, from what he’d overheard of their discussion about him, Caroline had also recognized his face and hadn’t batted an eyelash. If she easily masked surprise, could she fake it, as well?
He attacked a tomato with a knife.
His brief observation of the body, clad in button-down blouse and sleek pants, revealed Ms. Eldon as tall, blonde, full-figured and leggy. Caroline was a snip of a girl. The picture of her lugging that body into the garage from wherever and lifting the corpse into the trunk simply did not compute.
David’s knife halted halfway through a downstroke into the meat of the tomato.
Unless little Caroline had an accomplice—like her too-attractive-for-his-own-good mother. They were both petite, but together they could have managed it.
Maybe he was on to something. Laurel had protested him joining her to collect the luggage. Maybe they were planning to ditch the corpse down one of the ravines along the route, but the snowstorm scuttled their best-laid intentions.
But then he came back to that look on Laurel’s face as she stared into the trunk. He couldn’t quite buy a put-on when the response was so spontaneous. Besides, if she knew the body was there, she could have been more forceful in her refusal of his help. Why did Laurel even bring up the luggage if the mention could lead to discovery of her grizzly secret? If she was that desperate to freshen up, she could have sneaked out there while he was warming up the radio and been back in with the bags before he knew she’d gone.
Then there was Caroline’s cheerful announcement that she’d set up the game. No trace of anxiety and no attempt to stop them from retrieving the bags.
David began giving the salad the tossing of its life.
Could his unexpected guests be setting him up for some reason? The pieces didn’t fit that scenario either. He didn’t see how they could have planned for a snowstorm to dump them on his doorstep. Plus, he’d never met the dead woman, though there was something about her...His brows drew together. What had he glimpsed out there that gave him this feeling he needed to take another look?
He shrugged off the thought with a roll of the shoulders. He didn’t know the woman. Never seen her before in his life, and he wasn’t going to meddle with a crime scene. Period.
But his guests knew the dead woman, and it seemed that Caroline had cordially disliked her. That was a tick mark against the teenager, but he’d had plenty of teachers during his school career that he’d wanted to ship to Timbuktu in a packing crate. Of course, he never would have followed through with his desires, any more than Caroline’s feelings about her teacher meant she’d killed the woman. Surely, the police investigators would realize that much.
Not that he had much faith in cops giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. Come to think of it, he didn’t have much confidence that they’d solve the murder. Look how they’d done on his case. Lots of crimes never came to closure and left people in a limbo of pain and distrust.
David stopped tossing the salad and leaned against the counter. There was his answer. He wanted people to treat him as though he was innocent until he was proven guilty. Shouldn’t he do the same for Laurel and Caroline?
“Something smells wonderful.” Laurel leaned a shoulder against the kitchen door frame.
David offered her a smile, but she stared back at him as if she’d never seen one before. She was still dazed, and he couldn’t blame her. He stirred the sauce bubbling on the stove.
“If you and Caroline want to set the table, we can eat in about ten or fifteen minutes.”
Laurel called her daughter, and they headed to the glass-fronted cupboards that held plates and glasses.
“Wow!” the teenager said. “This kitchen’s got about every technogadget on the planet.”
David wrinkled his nose. “I know. It looks more like the kitchen of a five-star restaurant than a cabin in the woods. I like to cook, but the prior owner was something of a gourmand. I was told that he sometimes brought his private chef with him. I prefer doing things the old-fashioned way.” He