Happy Hour Page 15

  My mind raced to find something to change his mind, but then what Eileen had said about Mrs. Scanlon saying she’d be okay with Gerald dying came back to me. “Well, how about the fact that Gerald Engels is related to someone who used to own a garage right here in town?”

  “Our second victim?” Alex asked, clearly not seeing the importance.

  “Yeah, that very same guy. The one you and I saved. His father owned a garage in Sunset Ridge. Gerald Engels would know all about antifreeze and would be able to get it, I bet.”

  “Poppy, that sounds pretty far-fetched, even to me. Is this garage still in existence? If he had a way to get his hands on antifreeze, maybe, but I don’t know.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears! He seemed to want to shoot down every theory I offered.

  “Why are you acting like anyone couldn’t get their hands on antifreeze any time they wanted? It’s not like the stuff requires some special clearance to buy it. All anyone would have to do is walk into an auto parts store or the gas station down the road and pick up a bottle. Did you check those places in town to see if anyone bought antifreeze in the past few days? Antifreeze could probably be found in hardware stores too, I bet. Did you check into who may have purchased any recently from French’s Hardware?”

  “French’s?” Alex asked like I’d said something silly.

  The only hardware store in Sunset Ridge, French’s had been around since before I was born. Chester French, who everyone affectionately referred to as Old Man French, had inherited the store from his father who had opened it back in 1935 at the height of the Depression. The story went that he gave away more product than he sold in those early years, but ever since then, anytime anyone in Sunset Ridge needed anything that might be found in a hardware store, they went to French’s. Even the opening of two big box home improvement stores a few towns away in Anderson hadn’t diminished French’s popularity in town.

  That’s what sticking around and caring for your neighbors got you. I could only hope the same would happen for my father after all of this.

  “Yeah, French’s. I realize you’re not from here, but I would have thought that you’d lived in Sunset Ridge long enough to visit French’s at least once or twice.”

  “I’m more of a Home Depot man myself,” he said with a chuckle.

  “You’re not taking this seriously at all, are you? This is all we have, unless you have some secret suspect you’re hiding from me,” I snapped.

  “I wouldn’t do that, Poppy,” he said quietly. “I’ll check out this hometown hardware store after I get off the phone with you.”

  “It’s French’s, and the man who runs it is Chester French. He’s a very nice man and if he sold something in the past week, he’ll know. That’s what you get when you deal with a hometown hardware store.”

  I knew Alex wouldn’t keep things about the case from me, but I was frustrated. My father was depending on me to clear his name, and now the one hope I’d hung my hat on turned out to be worse for his case, not better.

  And Alex’s dismissal of a perfectly good lead in French’s Hardware bugged me. Sure, it wasn’t Home Depot, but at French’s they remembered everyone who came through the door and everything they sold. Try getting that at a big home improvement store.

  “You know I wouldn’t do anything to disrespect you on this case,” Alex said in the most serious tone I’d ever heard from him. “I didn’t mean anything when I said hometown hardware store, but I think you thought I did.”

  His contrition came through loud and clear, and I couldn’t help but feel bad. I didn’t want to pick a fight. I just wanted to clear my father’s name.

  “I know. Can we still have dinner? I need it more than ever right now.”

  “I’ll be there by quarter after five.”

  “Thank you for still wanting to spend any time with me at all after how awful I’ve been, Alex. I’m just trying to do whatever it takes to show you and everyone else that there’s no way my father could have committed these crimes.”

  I heard the smile in his voice when he said, “I don’t have a choice. That’s what a guy does when the woman he loves is in trouble and hungry.”

  As I turned onto Barn Street, I considered walking over to Simpson Street and talking to Chester French myself, but instead I kept walking toward my house. “I love you for that, Alex. See you in a little bit, and please don’t forget to check out French’s Hardware. You could even pick up a couple lightbulbs since the one in my upstairs hallway burned out this morning.”

  “Got it. Make sure to bring proof that I actually went to French’s. Should I keep the receipt too?” he asked in his best snarky tone.

  “Of course. I might have to return something,” I joked.

  “I’ll see you right after five. Oh, and Poppy, don’t worry. This is all going to work out. I need you to believe that.”

  Just like he had been forced to believe in me when he was the prime suspect in Bethany’s murder, I had to believe he’d find Marcus Tyne’s killer and show that my father was innocent of this crime. The only problem was even though I knew the best cop in Sunset Ridge was working the case, I wanted to be there working it with him.

  A knock on my kitchen door at precisely quarter after five announced Alex’s arrival, and peering out the window I saw takeout bags from Diamanti’s. Excited, I flung open the door and inhaled the delicious scent of fine food.

  Alex held up the bags and smiled. “Delivery for Poppy McGuire.”

  “Come in!” I said as I held the door and got out of his way. “That smells incredible! I’m starving.”

  He set the bags down on the kitchen table and began to unpack them. “I figured you would be. I bring the finest food this town has to offer for takeout.”

  The familiar scent of bourbon glazed pork chop floated up to my nose, and I stopped to relish it. Eyes closed, I focused all my attention on how good that food was going to taste in just a few seconds.

  “You look like you’re about to have an out-of-body experience over this food, Poppy,” Alex said before kissing me lightly on the lips.

  I opened my eyes to see him smiling at me. “Good food and a great guy. What more could a girl ask for?”

  Alex twisted his expression into a scowl. “That great guy to already have his killer and this case solved by now?”

  I cradled his unhappy face in my hands and shook my head at his talk of all this being on him. “We’re partners, buddy. We will solve this case, so don’t worry.”

  How long Derek would let me work on the case remained to be seen. I had alibis for both the time Marcus Tyne was killed and Gerald Engels was poisoned, but my father’s fingerprints on that one glass and Tyne’s showing up dead just outside McGuire’s meant I was likely too involved with all of it to continue as Alex’s partner.

  That didn’t mean I planned to sit idly by and wait for justice to happen, though. I hadn’t said anything to Alex, but if the time came that I wasn’t allowed to work with him officially, I’d be working the case behind the scenes, regardless of what anyone had to say about that.

  Too much hung in the balance for my family for me to be forced to the sidelines in this case.

  Alex nodded and smiled, but I knew he felt the weight of all this on his shoulders. “We better get to this food. Nothing like cold pork chop and garlic mashed potatoes.”

  We sat down and enjoyed our dinner in near silence as the two of us ate like we hadn’t seen food in weeks. Diamanti’s rarely disappointed, and tonight was no exception. The bourbon glaze hit the spot, and the mashed potatoes practically melted in my mouth. The restaurant cooked Alex’s steak to a perfect medium well, as usual, and he couldn’t get enough of the candied carrots, a Diamanti’s specialty.

  Once we’d gobbled down our food, Alex began talking about our trip to North Carolina, but I stopped him. “I can’t even think about that right now. What if my father is in jail by then? I won’t be able to leave him all alone stuck in jail.”

  Alex touched my ha
nd and weaved his fingers through mine. “Poppy, he won’t be in jail. I promise you we’ll get the killer long before then, and we’ll take our trip in July just as we planned.”

  I wanted to believe that—I really did—but at that moment as we sat there, each of us trying to pretend that the case against my father wasn’t getting stronger as the minutes ticked by, it felt like our trip would turn out to be nothing but a pipe dream.

  “I hope that’s true,” I said, forcing myself to smile.

  With that genuinely sweet look he always got in his soulful brown eyes when he knew I needed to be cheered up, Alex said, “It will be. Have faith. So let’s talk about what we’re going to do once we get to that hotel we decided on.”

  I loved when he showed his flirty side. In public, Alex almost always appeared serious and aloof, like a typical policeman, all buttoned-up and proper, but in private, he could be downright, deliciously sexy.

  “What we’re going to do?” I said with a sly grin. “Well, I’m thinking that tub is going to get some good use, and after that, maybe we’ll hang out in front of the fireplace before going out for a walk on the beach.”

  He looked at me with heavy lidded eyes, and I had a feeling he approved of my ideas. He’d been so insistent on the tub and fireplace, which sounded great, but I also looked forward to romantic walks on the beach at sunset complete with talks about the future and other topics that had nothing to do with crime or the Sunset Ridge police department.

  “I like the sound of that. It will be nice to get away for a few days. I love this place, but it gets a little claustrophobic sometimes.”

  “I know you mean. You think you have it bad? I’ve lived here all my life. I can barely walk down the street without someone noticing I’m doing it and whispering about it. But I can say I heard today that my reputation with the gossip crew is improving, thanks to you.”

  Alex looked surprised. Pointing at himself, he asked, “Me? What do I have to do with those old biddies and their opinion of you?”

  “Well, it seems my being with you has made a decent woman out of me, in their eyes, and they’re even hoping for ugly karmic justice to befall my ex now that he’s back in town.”

  “They’re not the only ones,” he mumbled just under his breath as he pushed the last of his carrots around his plate.

  “Good to know you and the biddies are on the same page. Maybe we can all have meetings once a week and send bad juju Jared’s way,” I joked.

  “I’ll bring the beer.”

  That he said those words without the hint of a smile told me how much he disliked Jared being back in Sunset Ridge. I knew it didn’t hinge on jealousy so much as on his desire to defend the woman he loved against the man who did her wrong.

  I scooped up the takeout boxes and paper plates, stopping next to Alex to lean down and press a tiny kiss on his cheek. “Throw the forks and knives in the sink and meet me in the living room.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Alex did as I suggested and by the time I’d gotten rid of the remnants of our delicious dinner, he was already waiting for me on the couch. After the day we’d had, I looked forward to some quiet time in the arms of the man I loved. If I could have that, then maybe this wouldn’t end up being the worst day of my life since my mother died.

  I slipped into Alex’s embrace, loving the feel of his strong arms holding me close, and when he kissed me, the horrid events of the day slipped away with every moment our lips touched. When it was just the two of us and nothing of the outside world could get in, we got to be just Alex and Poppy. He wasn’t a cop and I wasn’t his partner and we were just two people in love.

  As we reveled in each other, his phone rang, tearing me out of the sweetest moments of my day. With a grimace, he pulled it out of his pocket and showed me the call came from the police station.

  Frustrated, I leaned away and scooted onto the cushion next to him. “Can they do anything without you?”

  Alex merely rolled his eyes and answered the call. “Hello?”

  Someone I suspected was a fellow cop began to speak, but Alex stopped them. “Hang on. I want to put you on speaker.”

  He laid the phone on the coffee table in front of us and said, “Okay, start again.”

  I heard the voice of the man and knew I was listening to Stephen, the one person on the Sunset Ridge police force who seemed to have an unnatural dislike for me. Not only had we been interrupted by work, but we’d been interrupted by someone I could never encounter again and be perfectly happy.

  In his nasally, bordering on whiny voice, Stephen said, “I just had someone come in to give a statement about the Marcus Tyne murder. This person said he can attest to the fact that Joe McGuire was in a foul mood that day, and he saw him with some strange blue drink behind the bar on Monday. He knows Joe for years and has seen him angry before, and he believes he’s fully capable of murder.”

  I sat stunned by his words staring at the phone like it had become some foreign object I’d never seen before. What was he saying? Who was this person who claimed these things?

  “Who said this? What’s their name?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

  True to his dislike for me, Stephen answered, “I called a fellow police officer, not some amateur sleuth.”

  My head began to pound like a sledgehammer sat inside my brain. Who did this guy think he was? “Excuse me, you called Alex, my partner. I don’t know what your problem is, but I won’t be spoken to this way. Now who is this person who gave the statement?”

  “As I said, I called a fellow police officer. If you want to know official police business, you can ask him after I tell him. I’m not obligated to give the gossip writer for the local newspaper anything.”

  Gossip writer? Who the hell did he think he was talking to? He’d crossed the wrong woman. Now my Irish was up.

  But before I could verbally slam him, Alex stepped in and asked who the person was. When Stephen answered, I could practically hear the glee in his voice.

  “Jared Cooke.”

  I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t I sat so shocked at hearing my ex-fiancé’s name come through the phone. Alex quickly ended the call and sat back against the couch, likely as stunned as I.

  “That wasn’t the name I expected to hear,” he said quietly. “I guess I’m going to have to talk to him now.”

  Incensed, I barely found the strength to keep calm. “So now he’s a believable person? You thought he was a stupid fool the other day, but now his word is gold?”

  Alex stared straight ahead at his phone still sitting on the coffee table. “I’m not saying he’s trustworthy. I’m just saying we have to check it out to make sure we can prove he’s lying.”

  I jumped up and grabbed my cell phone. Calling my father, I said, “Of course he’s lying. He’s a snake, and you’re dead wrong.”

  My father answered and I immediately put the call on speaker. “Dad, have you seen Jared since he’s been back in town?”

  He hesitated for a moment but finally said, “He came into the bar right after I opened on Monday like nothing had ever happened—like he’d never cheated on you with some girl from the supermarket and then ran off with her. He’s lucky I didn’t toss his ass right out into the street.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Dad?” I said as I collapsed onto the couch, feeling completely defeated.

  “I didn’t want to say anything about him. He’s a painful part of your past, and I didn’t want to drudge up that history again because I know how much he hurt you.”

  “What did he say to you?”

  “Just that he was back and hoped to mend fences. I told him if there was a fence nearby I’d throw him through it. Then I told him to get the hell out of my bar and never come back.”

  My heart suddenly felt heavy in my chest. “Oh, Dad. He told the police you were in a bad mood Monday. He told them he’s seen you angry before and that he thinks you could murder someone.”

  “He’s not wrong. I wanted
to murder him when you told me what he did back then. I didn’t, though.”

  None of this was helping. I wanted to cry. My rotten ex had lied about my father, and now my father was all but admitting he would murder someone if they hurt me.

  I turned to look at Alex expecting to see the look of indictment I’d seen him give suspects before, but instead he just looked sad.

  “He said he saw some strange blue drink on the bar too, Joe. Is it possible he saw anything like that?”

  I knew he had to ask that question, but I still hated it.

  Without hesitation, my father answered, “No. I don’t know why he’s trying to railroad me, but he never saw anything like that on the bar. He walked in, acting like he was some kind of returning hero, and I didn’t let him get not even five feet through the door. Whatever he says he saw, he’s lying.”

  “Dad, I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I promise. I’ll call you in the morning, okay?”

  I heard the sadness in his voice when he wished me goodnight and hated how helpless I felt. I wouldn’t feel that way for long, though. Jumping up from the couch again, I intended on finding out exactly what Jared was up to.

  Alex grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me, though. “You can’t be with me on this, Poppy. You’re too involved and could hurt the case.”

  I stared down at him in complete shock. “You mean I could hurt the case you and that ass Stephen are building against my father? Too bad.”

  He slowly shook his head. “You can’t go, Poppy. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”

  “No. I’m not staying here while that snake Jared is out there spreading lies about my father.”

  Standing, he cupped my shoulders and said, “That’s exactly what I need you to do. You can’t be in on this anymore.”

  His matter-of-fact way of telling me I’d been forced out of the investigation cut me to the quick. Hurt by his coldness, I pushed him away and turned my back to him. “Just leave. Leave me alone.”

  “Poppy, don’t—”

  I spun around and cut him off. “Don’t what? Don’t feel like you’re betraying me when I need you most? Don’t feel like I’m being forced off a case that affects me the most?”