Stay Calm and Collie On. Lane Stone
slight, older man with thinning hair and a gentle smile had joined the crowd at the bar. I’d seen him around town but never met him. “It was my fault entirely,” he said.
Actually, it was. I wouldn’t have said so for the world, but he had moved in right behind her.
He held out his hand to shake hers, and my eyes automatically went to his drink. It was in a safe zone. “Peter Collins.” Brown eyes twinkled behind his round eyeglasses.
“Anthea Fitzwalter.”
“Is that a British accent I hear?”
“Yes.” To allay the fears of the pet parents she’d played super-duper British all night. Now her one-word answer made me think she was tired of it. “Do you live in Lewes?” she asked him to shift the conversation.
He took a sip of his cocktail. “I recently retired here from the cellular phone industry.” Then he turned to me. “You’re Sue Patrick, right? And you own Buckingham Pet Palace if I’m not mistaken.”
I smiled then pointed at Lady Anthea. “We’re co-owners. And you own the new antiques store on Second Avenue?”
“Guilty as charged,” he said with a chuckle. “I was on a buying trip to Manhattan just today.” He turned his attention back to Lady Anthea. “The Best of the Past is the name of my little shop. It’s an antiques store and art gallery combined.”
“Do you specialize in a particular period?” Lady Anthea asked.
When Collins hesitated in answering, I said, “I’ll go put our name in for a table.” I turned a little too quick and ran into a wall. With arms. Which reached out to steady me. “Chief Turner, how tall are you?” I asked. I had almost called him Chief Tall Drink.
“Tall enough.”
“Sorry, I meant to say how are you.” I really had misspoken. The serious buzzkill look on his face took away any fleeting inclination I may have had to tease him. He was in uniform—he seemed like the kind of guy who was always in uniform. His thick black hair had a little gray at the temples. He’d pocketed his Ray-Bans, and I saw that his eyes were blue. His tanned face was lined more by the sun than a lot of years. My forty-something estimate for his age stood.
“I saw your Jeep parked out front.” Something in his tone sounded like an apology, so I assumed I was about to get a ticket. Lord knows it wouldn’t be my first. “Can we talk?”
He walked away without waiting for an answer.
“Good to see you, Mr. Collins,” I said. The chief could wait.
Lady Anthea smiled at the antiques store owner, seconding my motion. “Any menu recommendations?” she asked him.
He gave the room a supercilious once-over, as if he smelled something bad. “I consider myself somewhat of a gourmet, so I’m not the best person to ask.”
Chief Turner was standing at the open door leading out to the deck. I’d made him wait long enough. “Would you excuse us, Mr. Collins?”
I pulled her arm, and when we were out of earshot, I whispered, “He’s not with the health department, so I don’t care what he thinks. Everything on the menu is good.”
She nodded that she’d heard me. I thought Chief Turner was going to lead me outside for our confab, but we stayed there blocking the doorway.
He scanned the room before he spoke. “We reached Ms. Trent.” The way he said the name should have alerted me that there was more to the story, and it would have if I hadn’t been getting tired. “She’s not Henry’s sister. She’s his fiancée, and for some reason she was very annoyed with us for getting that wrong.”
“As in engaged to be married? I mean, he planned to go back to Albany? Upstate New York is so far away.”
“Yes, she says he came here to take a job with you.” I probably imagined the emphasis on the last two words. “Says he works such long hours they haven’t seen very much of each other since he took the job. And not at all in the last month.”
“Long hours?” Before I knew it, I was speaking ill of the dead. “We’re talking about Henry Cannon, right?” Turner didn’t answer; I hadn’t expected him to. “I wonder why he never mentioned her?” I looked out into the night, like there might just be an answer out there. Or not.
“You can ask her tomorrow, when she comes to identify the body.”
That brought me back. “I can?”
“No, I didn’t mean that literally. Also, the number he gave you wasn’t a working number.”
I shrugged. “Wait, maybe it was when he filled out the employment application three months ago. Have you thought about that?”
“The area code was wrong for Albany, New York. I had my administrative assistant find Ashley Trent.”
“You’re implying he intentionally gave a bogus emergency contact? Why would he, or anyone else, do that?” I felt like he was blaming the victim, and doing it awfully early. “I have something to ask you. A rumor started almost immediately that Henry had stolen the dogs. One pet parent even said he was taking them to Canada to sell them! How did word get out about the murder within the hour, and how did that crazy rumor get started?”
“Not from my office, if that’s what you’re implying. And what makes you so sure he wasn’t about to drive that van onto the ferry?”
“Well, for one thing, he wasn’t in the driver’s seat.”
“He could have been when he drove up.” Both of the chief’s hands were in his pockets, and he was doing that leaning over me thing.
I gave him what I hoped came across as a sarcastic smile and raised the collar of my Buckingham Pet Palace polo shirt. “Where is his shirt? He was wearing it when he left Buckingham’s.”
I shook my head because I wasn’t ready for the image my mind had started playing and replaying of Henry leaving with the last of the four dogs. Shelby, who had helped him load the van, said something to him and he’d snarled, “Later,” without looking back.
I realized I had closed my eyes and snapped back to the here and now. Turner was really invading my space. “You’re in luck.”
He straightened and ran a hand over his hair. “How do you figure that?”
“The ticket stalls have security cameras,” I said.
“The van didn’t enter the parking lot,” Chief Turner said, “but, who knows, maybe the range of the closest one will include at least some of the street outside.”
“There’s an outside camera at the far end of the stalls. It would provide coverage of Cape Henlopen Drive, wouldn’t it?” I looked back at Wayne. No one from DRBA had told the new guy in town, Chief Turner, about that last camera.
“Sue, are you saying a CCTV camera could show someone wearing his uniform shirt to the ferry?” Lady Anthea asked. Honestly, I had forgotten she was standing there.
“No,” I said.
“No,” John, that was his name, said at the same time. He smiled. “Go ahead. I’d love to hear your theory.”
“Really?” A real live police chief wanted to hear my theory?
“Uh, no. Not really. But please, be my guest.”
I sighed. “His work shirt is probably covered in blood and holes from the stabbing,” I said. “I doubt the killer put that on. And he, or she, definitely wouldn’t drive the van wearing it.”
“The forensics team can tell me if they find fibers from it in the wounds. And I’ll look at the camera footage later tonight. If someone else drove your van to the ferry, it suggests the rumor isn’t true. And could be a big break in the case.” He grinned then said, “Hmm, isn’t there an old song