Framed for Murder by Cathy Spencer
Chapter 3
Before going to bed in the wee hours, I deliberated over whether or not to call Ben, but decided to spare him for the night. I didn’t want to wake him up to tell him that his father was dead. There was nothing that he could do about it, and I didn’t want him driving out from Calgary, where he shared a house with three other roommates, all tired and upset. He was coming home for dinner tomorrow night – make that tonight – so I decided to wait and tell him then. I did leave a message on my boss’s voice mail, telling her that I was sick and wouldn’t be coming into work on Friday. Dr. Magdalena Lewis had been Chair of the Kinesiology Department and my boss for the past two years, but I didn’t feel comfortable telling her the real reason for my absence.
After leaving the message, I went to bed and had a lousy night’s sleep plagued with nightmares. I woke up feeling exhausted. Sitting at the kitchen table looking out the deck door at my blossoming apple tree, I decided that some protein might help. I showered, dressed, and headed for The Diner, walking the six blocks to Main Street.
I reached the restaurant about half an hour before the lunch crowd, and paused to peer in the plate glass window, wanting to see how busy the place was. With a town this small, I was sure that news of Jack’s death had gotten around, and I wasn’t up to answering questions from curiosity-seekers. The restaurant was almost empty, so I stepped inside, walked up to the old-fashioned chrome counter, and sat on one of the five red vinyl stools. To the right of the counter, pushed up against the wall, was a huge juke-box that played hits from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Behind me, eight tables with plastic place mats and dried flower arrangements were grouped around the floor.
Frank Crow, The Diner’s owner and cook, was an ardent Elvis Presley fan. Frank had visited Graceland four times and even bought one of Elvis’s glittery Vegas costumes at an auction sale. The costume was mounted in a glass display case and positioned in pride of place just inside the door.
Mr. Andrews was seated at one of the tables for two with his head bent over the local newspaper, a cup of coffee at his elbow. He was a retired rancher who had never married and mostly kept to himself. I suspected that he was actually lonely because he spent most of his mornings in the restaurant, reading the paper and sipping coffee.
“Morning, Mr. Andrews,” I called from the counter. He was dressed in his usual tan corduroy jacket and jeans. He grunted and nodded without lifting his eyes. Mary, the full-time waitress, was filling salt shakers at the counter, and I could see Frank working at the grill through the kitchen pass-through. “Morning Mary,” I said just as Frank called, “Is that Anna?”
“Hi, Frank – yeah, it’s me,” I called back. Most Saturdays I ate breakfast at his restaurant, and Frank and I had become friends. He hurried out the swinging door headed straight for me.
Frank was sixtyish with long grey hair pulled into a pony tail, and a full beard and moustache. He always wore jeans, a crisp white shirt covered by a white apron, and cowboy boots when he was working. He leaned over the counter and pulled me into a bear hug. That was a surprise. His girlfriend, Judy, only let Frank hug me on my birthday and New Year’s Eve. Anything more than that, and she clipped him one alongside the head. He must have been really worried about me.
Frank let go of me and looked into my eyes. “How’re you doing, honey?” he asked.
“You heard?”
“Of course. Cecilia was in this morning.” Cecilia was the receptionist at the RCMP station.
Mary brought my standing beverage, a glass of apple juice, and lingered on the other side of the counter while Frank sat down beside me on one of the stools.
“That woman ought to keep police business to herself,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t just her – the boys were talking, too,” Mary said.
I sighed. “Sometimes I just hate living in a small town.”
Frank said, “Come on, Anna, you know we’re all just worried about you. How’re you feeling? How’s Ben taking it?” Ben had bussed tables for Frank before graduating from high school, and Frank still took a fatherly interest in him.
“I haven’t told Ben yet, to tell you the truth. It was pretty late when I got home from the police station last night – I mean this morning. I just crawled out of bed half an hour ago.” Frank nodded as if he already knew what time I had gotten home. “Ben is coming home for dinner tonight, so I’ll tell him then. I didn’t want to tell him about his father over the phone.”
“How upset do you think he’ll be, honey?” Frank asked.
“I don’t know. He wrote Jack off last June when his father didn’t come to his high school graduation. I don’t know how upset Ben will be when he finds out. You know, Ben and his father didn’t see each other for years, but that was Jack’s doing. Now they’ll never have a chance to patch things up.”
“Poor kid, that sure is rough,” Frank said, patting my hand. “But you said that you just crawled out of bed. Are you hungry? Do you want me to fix you some breakfast?”
“That would be great. I know it doesn’t sound right with my ex-husband dead and my son about to find out, but I’m so hungry that I could eat some of Henry’s poutine.” Henry Fellows owned Hank’s Hearty Home-Cooking, The Diner’s only competition in town. It was kitty-corner from Frank’s restaurant and had just opened last Christmas. Henry’s menu featured hot meat sandwiches and poutine. I don’t think that Frank had anything to worry about.
Frank shivered and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Anna, I know things are rough, but there’s no need to talk suicide.”
I laughed and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks, Frank. I needed a good laugh.”
He winked and got up off his stool. “You just make yourself comfortable, and I’ll make you some bacon and pancakes.” Three strips of bacon and two big pancakes were my weekly Saturday indulgence. “Mary and I will look after you.”
He went back to his kitchen while Mary considered me. She was in her early thirties, skinny as a rail and flat everywhere, which she emphasized by wearing the tightest jeans and shortest skirts known to man. The town joke was that Mary should have been a magician because she disappeared whenever she turned sideways.
“Bless his heart, I know he just cleaned off the grill to start the chicken breasts, and now he’s going to make you bacon. He’s a good man,” she said.
I nodded in agreement. “They don’t come any better. Now tell me – you know everything that’s going on around here – was my ex-husband, Jack, working on a movie somewhere nearby?”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t know? It started shooting outside of Longview about a month ago.”
“No, I honestly didn’t know anything about it. I sort of remember reading in the newspaper that there was a movie shooting in the Foothills, but I didn’t realize that Jack was in it. Funny that no one mentioned it to me.”
Mary nodded, popping her bubble gum. “People were just being tactful, I guess. Everybody knows what a skunk your ex was. Anyway, Viggo Mortensen is starring in it. It’s a western. I think it’s called Crossed Trails.”
“Really? Who was Jack playing?”
“I don’t know. Viggo’s playing the sheriff, though.”
I nodded, picturing Viggo Mortensen in a cowboy hat with a sheriff’s badge pinned to a leather vest. “Yeah, he’d be good at that. Where are the cast and crew staying – at Creekside?” Creekside had been a working ranch until it was transformed into a motel-cum-spa. The rich oil crowd didn’t go near it because it was too primitive for them – guests could only access Wi-Fi in the lobby and there was no helicopter pad – but it was the only venue large enough to house a movie cast and crew around here. Jack, Ben and I had stayed there for a few days when we first arrived in Alberta, but it had been too pricey to stay there for long.
“Yeah, where else? Although I hear they’ve hired some of the locals to be extras so they don’t have to worry about putting them up.”
“Do you know which locals they hired?”
&nbs
I was forking up pancake soaked in maple syrup when I heard an engine roaring out on the street. The engine cut off abruptly and, moments later, the restaurant door was flung open.
“Morning, Mary. Morning, Mr. Andrews. Anna Nolan, what are you doing here? The whole town is talking about you. So, is it true? Did you kill that son-of-a-bitch husband of yours?”
I winced and swivelled on my stool to face Clive Wampole. Clive was a little older than my forty years, a big lump of a man who lived on a farm with his aging mother. Clive didn’t own a car. He favoured a bright blue tractor as his mode of transportation, and it was as beautiful to him as a Porsche would be to other men. Because he spent so much time driving his tractor, Clive was mostly deaf, and he shouted to make up for his hearing deficiency.
“Hi Clive,” I shouted. “That’s ex-husband. And no, I did not kill him!” I shook my head emphatically to get my point across.
“You don’t say? People are saying they wouldn’t blame you if you had killed him, seeing as how he was sleeping with anything wearing a skirt out on that movie set.”
I bridled a little. Jack had slept around while he was married to me, but he hadn’t slept with just anyone. He did have some standards, after all – or, he used to. “Really? Who was he sleeping with?”
“What?” he bellowed.
“Who was Jack sleeping with?” I said, enunciating each word clearly.
“Well, Amy Bright, for one. I hear she’s playing one of the saloon girls. I wonder if she wears one of those low-cut blouses and big, ruffled skirts that saloon girls always wear in the movies. Amy sure would look good in that.”
I nodded. I knew Amy to see her. She was a little younger than me, a divorcée who ran a hair salon out of her house here in Crane. She was very attractive with big blue eyes, bright auburn hair, a curvy figure, and a friendly disposition, just the kind of woman that Jack would have gone for. Maybe that’s what Jack had been doing in Crane on the night he died. Maybe Amy had had something to do with Jack’s death. For the first time since discovering his body, I felt hopeful.
People were starting to come through the door for lunch and were staring at me. I pulled a couple of fives out of my wallet and waved them at Mary. “Tell Frank thanks very much for breakfast, Mary. Tell him he’s a life-saver.”
“Sure will. You stay out of trouble, now.”
I grimaced as she guffawed at her little joke. I turned to Clive, who sat beside me studying the specials board.
“Thanks for the information, Clive,” I shouted, clapping him on the shoulder to get his attention.
“Sure thing. You going now? Say, are the police going to arrest you?”
Several curious heads turned in our direction. I shook my head and yelled, “Not today, I don’t think.” Keeping my eyes lowered, I bolted out the door before anyone could stop me and headed for home. That was just about all the attention that I could handle for one day.