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Trevor said in a challenging tone, “Is gardening illegal these days?”
Cash said, “Not that I know of.” He looked at Vicky again. “So what did you call me about?”
Gunhild said in a shriek, “We found a gun in the shed.”
Trevor stepped back from her. “A gun?” he echoed.
Cash said, “Have you touched it? Smeared the prints?”
Vicky shook her head. “It fell to the floor. Nobody touched it. You can get prints off I suppose.”
Trevor inhaled hard.
Cash looked at him. “You know anything about that gun?”
Trevor jerked up his shoulders. “Me? Why me?”
“Well, as gardener you work in the shed, I suppose.”
“Of course. But gardening isn’t done with guns.”
Cash nodded. “Still I’d like you to come to the station with me for a statement.”
“About what?” Trevor asked. His expression was confused, but something flashed in his eyes. Resistance.
“Your little contribution to our morning paper.” Cash leaned back on his heels. With his bulk he obstructed the way to the back door.
Vicky held her breath.
Trevor eyed Cash. “Are you nuts? What’s wrong with writing a piece for the paper?”
He looked at Vicky. “First it’s my gardening that you don’t like, now something else. What’s really up here?”
“We’ll talk about it at the station,” Cash said. “Can I trust you to come quietly or do I need to handcuff you?”
Trevor’s jaw sagged. “What am I, a suspect?”
He glanced at Gunhild. “You don’t think that the gun in the shed is mine, do you?”
“Well, is it?” Cash asked.
Trevor kept his eyes on Gunhild. “Do you think that the gun in the shed is mine?” His voice pitched as if he was desperate for her to deny she thought that.
Gunhild shook her head wearily. “I don’t know, Trevor. I just need to sit quietly.”
“What’s wrong here?” Trevor said. His voice lowered as he repeated the questions, “What’s wrong here? What are you doing to her? Hey?”
He stepped up to Vicky and eyed her with a frown. “Who are you anyway? I’ve never seen you around here before. Have you made Gunhild cry?”
“Calm down,” Cash said, taking Trevor by the wrist.
Without warning the young man swung at him with his free arm, hitting Cash full in the face. He grunted, and blood began to run from his nose.
Gunhild shrieked. She was deadly pale and looked ready to collapse.
Trevor pushed past Cash and was out of the back door in an instant.
Vicky yelled, “Hold him.”
She wanted to go after the guy herself, but having just seen what he had done to Cash, she knew there was little point in it. She would only get hurt.
Outside she heard shouting—and looking out of the kitchen window she saw Trevor and a deputy wrestling in the grass. Trevor was on top of the deputy, and she just wanted to alert Cash, who was nursing his bleeding face, when the deputy made a lightning-fast move and was now on top of Trevor. He managed to pull the gardener’s arms behind his back, and while the young man roared like an injured bull, the deputy handcuffed him.
Cash said, “I need to see that gun.” His voice sounded nasal.
“Is your nose broken?” Vicky asked. She knew this was part of Cash’s job but she felt guilty for having called him without alerting him to the danger Trevor might pose.
“I don’t think so. Still it hurts. Stupid kid.” Cash exhaled hard. “He’s only making it worse for himself. I could charge him for assaulting me. Regardless of what else he might have done.”
He nodded at Gunhild. “Do you mind if Vicky shows me the gun in the shed? You had better stay in here and take it easy for the moment.”
Gunhild didn’t even look up. “Do whatever you want,” she said in a flat tone.
Outside the deputy had dragged Trevor to his feet. His hair stood up, and his T-shirt was almost backwards from the shuffle. He yelled, “Are you all crazy? I did nothing wrong. You’re arresting me for no reason. I did nothing wrong.”
“We’ll talk about that at the station.” Cash gestured at the deputy. “Put him in the car and stay with him. Make sure he can’t pull any tricks.”
“Like I can run away with these on,” Trevor scoffed, moving his hands behind his back so his cuffs clinked. “I’ll file charges against you for police brutality!”
“Be my guest,” Cash said. “I can file against you for assaulting an officer of the law. Obstructing me while I was performing my duty. Do you have any idea what you can get for that? Just for that? Not mentioning the rest.”
“What rest? You tried to attack me, without any reason, and I only defended myself. I’ll get a lawyer who can prove it,” Trevor yelled as he was dragged to the police car.
Cash sighed. He wiped at the bloodstain on his shirt right over his badge. “This is going to be a long day. Now for that gun …”
Vicky showed it to him in the shed where the stark bright electric light was still on.
Cash studied the weapon without picking it up from the floor. “No way of saying whether it could have fired the lethal shots, but ballistics will be able to tell. I’d better call in a team for fingerprints and all. Maybe Trevor also hid other things here?”
Vicky frowned. “It’s hardly hiding when a gun can fall out any time someone happens to tug too hard on that cotton organizer.” She nodded in the direction of the homemade contraption against the wall.
Cash shrugged. “Trevor might not have thought about that or believed he was the only one to come in here.”
“And those?” Vicky gestured at Gunhild’s sculptures on the bench. “Trevor knew she came here to work on those or at least store them. He can hardly have believed this was his little sanctuary.”
“Maybe he reckoned she wouldn’t go near the tools. He was the gardener, right?”
Vicky remained doubtful. “Yes, but most women cut roses and other flowers from their garden for the house. In fact, the thing fell and the gun came out when Gunhild offered to cut me a few of those pink roses that grow just outside the shed. She wanted to get shears for it.”
Cash waved a hand. “Whatever. I’ll think about all that later. Now I need to get our hot-headed suspect to the station.”
He reached up as if he wanted to touch his painful nose, then thought better of it and pulled his hand down again. “At least I now have something to hold him on. Until I’ve figured out the whole connection between the newspaper bit and the murder.”
Vicky followed him out of the shed.
At the police car Trevor was wailing out of the open window. “I did nothing wrong. I did …”
Then Gunhild came from the house in a run, something in her hand. Her face was ashen, and her light hair caught on the wind. She looked like a fury in a painting Vicky had once seen, a creature of vengeance coming down on the world.
At the police car she waved the thing in her hand at Trevor. It was the Glen Cove Gazette. “You … You killed him. You …” She gasped for breath. “You wrote down exactly how you’d do it and then you did it. You’re sick. Sick! You even dare show your face here after …”
The paper fluttered into the grass as Gunhild staggered.
Cash and the deputy each grabbed her from one side. Cash said, “Quickly back into the house. She’s in shock.”
Trevor called, “I didn’t do anything. I don’t understand. Gunhild! I didn’t do anything. Please. Gunhild!”
His calls were like those of a child for a mother he is separated from.
The despair in his face seemed real.
Vicky swallowed as she followed the men who carried the collapsed woman back into the house.
Chapter Five (#ulink_2dc4d60f-4829-5111-8317-2c1708150bdd)
After they had put Gunhild on the couch to come to her senses, Cash said to Vicky, “You have to stay here with her. She can’t be alone like this.”
Vicky checked her watch. “I should have been at the store already. There might be customers. Marge isn’t there because she’s helping a friend with a move and …”
“Call Ms. Tennings or somebody else,” Cash said brusquely. “This is more important.”
Vicky eyed him. “Trevor just showed up here, acting like nothing was wrong. He was making tea for us and all.” She gestured at the teapot and cups on the sink. “Can he really have believed he could get away with it?”
“Maybe he’s mentally unstable.” Cash shrugged. “Doesn’t have a conscience or a sense of guilt like other people do. I’ll have to bring someone in to assess him, I suppose. The risk he poses to others and possibly to himself. If we’re locking him up, I don’t want to take any chances of him hurting himself and escaping his trial.”
Vicky said, “I think he’s still very confused as to why he’s being taken in. You didn’t exactly explain it to him.”
Something about Trevor’s bewildered cries at Gunhild made her pity the young man. He might be a clever actor, or someone who was falling from one emotion into the other without having control over it himself, but he also might genuinely be ignorant of the developments.
Cash gave her a dark look. “Are you criticizing my behavior?’
“No, but … he seemed so confused and … Maybe he really has no idea what’s up?”
Cash leaned back on his heels. “He wrote the piece for the paper. If anybody knows what’s up, it’s him.”
“Yes, that certainly seems so, but …” Vicky’s thoughts raced. “Maybe Trevor discussed it beforehand with others. Maybe people knew he was sending it in. Maybe they took advantage of this opportunity. The doctor did use odd words for the dead man, that he was an unlikable type and even that he was guilty of something. If Goodridge had enemies …”
“Enemies who just happened to know what exactly Trevor was writing up for his contribution to the serial in our local paper? Doesn’t seem likely to me.”
“Well, at least you can explain to him what’s wrong.”
“I might get more while he’s still confused. I want to know where he was before he came here and how the gun came to be in the shed.”
Cash waved at her. “I have to get on it. You stay here with Mrs. Goodridge and take care of her until she is better or someone else is here to see to her needs. I’ll call you later, OK? Bye.”
Vicky sighed as Cash stalked off. She pulled out her phone again and called Marge. Her friend answered at the third ring. “Vicky! I’m so relieved. I heard something was up near the beach and when you didn’t turn up here, I thought—”
“You’re at the store?” Vicky interjected.
“Yes. The move has been postponed again so I came to work. Where are you?”
“With someone who’s feeling ill and needs someone to sit with her for a while. I’ll explain everything to you later, OK? Just take care of the store for me. I’ll stop by as soon as I’m done here.”
Vicky hung up before Marge could ask more.
Gunhild was lying on the couch, her hands over her face. Vicky heard her slow, deliberate breathing. She asked carefully, “How are you now?”
“I wish I had never read that paper. I can’t get the words out of my head, describing the dead body’s fall to the cliffs below. Describing Archie’s …” Her voice choked. “How can Trevor have thought up something so … terrible. And done it. Done it!”
Vicky said, “Take it easy now. No need to get all worked up.”
“Worked up?” Gunhild shot into a sitting position and stared at Vicky with burning eyes. “My husband’s dead. Dead because someone shot him. And that someone wrote about it in the newspaper as if it was some kind of an accomplishment. Something to gloat about! How can I not be worked up? I could kill Trevor right now.” She made a grabbing movement with her hands.
“How well do you know Trevor anyway?”
Gunhild took a moment to calm herself before she could reply. “Oh, he’s worked for us since we came to this house. He seemed a nice boy, really good with the flowers. There didn’t seem to be a violent bone in his body. And he liked my art. Or so he said.”
She rubbed her forehead. “Archie never liked him. He said Trevor was worshiping Kaylee. He always … got jealous of other men showing an interest in his daughter. Kaylee used to say she’d never find a boyfriend this way, because Archie scared them all off. It wasn’t that bad really. He was just protective of her. Afraid she’d make wrong decisions.”
Gunhild glanced at the open cupboard along the wall. It held several photographs in silver frames. “Have a look there, Vicky. See what a handsome man he … was.” Her voice cracked on the past tense.
Vicky went over and picked up a photograph of a man holding a trophy. “He liked sports?”
“Tennis foremost. A little golf. Always liked to be the best in everything he did.” Gunhild smiled thinly. “That was his way.”
Vicky put the photo back and studied the wedding picture beside it. The man in a suit, Gunhild in a stunning white dress with a big bouquet. There was also a girl of sixteen or seventeen in the shot, standing next to the man. She was smiling, but her eyes were full of a strange intensity. Daring maybe?
“Is that Kaylee? She’s the daughter from his first marriage, right?” Vicky asked.
Gunhild looked and nodded. “Yes. She came to live with us when we married. I’ll have to call her to tell her the news. But I really don’t want to do it. She’s a real Daddy’s girl, you know. This will completely destroy her. Oh, I can’t understand why Trevor did it.”
She began to sob again.
Vicky didn’t know what to say or do. She stayed in place, rubbing her hands together.
Gunhild said between sobs, “I liked him and wanted to keep him on while Archie wanted to fire him. If only I had listened to him. Then maybe Archie would still be alive.”
Vicky didn’t follow. “Why would he? If your husband had fired Trevor, he would only have made Trevor mad, giving him more of a reason to come after him and kill him. Right?”
