The Eleventh Hour

by Anina Collins

  Alex and I took our place next to her and looked down into the yard. In a low voice, he said, “There’s an alley way behind these houses.”

  Then he turned around and asked Shelley, “I’m thinking you weren’t standing here just gazing out the window, right? How did you come to see him on those nights?”

  Smiling, she answered, “Well, this is my bedroom and I was lying in bed that first night and heard a strange noise outside. So I jumped out of bed and went to the window and there he was walking up poor Geneva’s back stairs.”

  “When was that exactly?” Alex asked before I could get the words out of my mouth.

  “A month ago, like I said.”

  I began to say that was March and it was unlikely she’d have her window open to hear a noise outside, unless it was really loud, but Alex cut me off after just a few words.

  “If I go outside, will you tell me if you see any resemblance as I walk up the back stairs?”

  “Sure!” Shelley agreed, thrilled to be a part of Alex’s playacting.

  “Okay, open the window and give me a minute. Poppy, can you help me?”

  Alex tugged my arm to follow him, so I reluctantly left Shelley before I could get some real answers out of her. Pressing his finger to his lips to keep me quiet, he walked down the stairs and out the back door toward Geneva’s house. When we reached her steps, he looked up toward Shelley’s bedroom window and smiled.

  “Tell me everything me standing here reminds you of, Shelley.”

  Under my breath, I mumbled, “How much do you want to bet she’s going to say the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet?”

  “He wasn’t as tall as you, Alex,” Shelley yelled down. “But he had a body like yours.”

  “Did she want to jump his bones too?” I teased as Alex took a step toward Geneva’s porch.

  “Anything else, Shelley?” he asked her as we continued what felt like busy work or an excuse to give his admirer more chances to check him out.

  She leaned out her window and gazed longingly down at him for a few moments before shaking her head. “No. Nothing else.”

  “Did he have to wait to be let in?”

  I hadn’t thought of that and looked up toward Shelley, eager to hear the answer. She seemed to think about it for a moment and then said, “He might have knocked once or twice, but that night she was killed, he didn’t knock. I remember that.”

  “Okay. We’ll meet you in the parlor.”

  He waited until Shelley had left the window and turned to face me. “I bet you’re wondering what the purpose for all that was.”

  “Are you a mind reader too, Mr. Wonderful?” I said with a chuckle.

  “Shelley’s not telling the truth. I just wanted to see if we could get her to slip up. I think she was in her bedroom the night of the murder, though. Whether she stayed there all night or walked over to Geneva’s to strangle her is a different story. And yes, before you say anything, I caught what she said about hearing a noise outside that made her get up and look. Since it was March then, I’m willing to bet she didn’t have her window open, so hearing a man walk up these steps was unlikely. Did you hear what noise they made when I walked up them?”

  Sheepishly, I admitted I hadn’t. “No, but Geneva might have gotten them fixed.”

  “If you hadn’t been so concerned about how much Shelley likes me, you would have noticed they made no noise when I stepped on them and they’re old wooden steps. She didn’t get them fixed because there was nothing wrong with them to fix.”

  Embarrassed, I looked down toward the white painted wood steps and nodded. “Point taken. I don’t know why her fawning all over you bugs me.”

  “Because her type of female is the opposite of yours. She equates happiness with a man. Today, I’m that man, but I’m sure there will be a delivery guy to take my place in her heart tomorrow. You’re not like that, so her behavior bothers you.”

  “Do you have an answer for everything?” I asked, frustrated by how right his explanation was.

  One of his slow smiles lit up his face, and he began walking back toward Shelley’s house. “No. I still don’t know who killed poor Geneva.”

  “Now you’re sounding like Shelley with that poor Geneva stuff,” I joked as I followed him.

  She met us at the back door wearing a big smile. As she pushed open the screen door to let us in, she asked, “Did anything I say help?”

  I let Alex answer her since if I did I might let what I was thinking slip out. Still smarting from knowing that I’d let myself be irritated by her behavior even though it shouldn’t have affected me in the slightest, I decided it might be better to let Alex do the talking with Shelley from that point on. I might not like it, but he did have a way of getting her to talk.

  By the time we got back to the parlor, Shelley was back to flirting and I was back to rolling my eyes. I might have been able to keep quiet, but I wasn’t capable of totally turning off my reactions. Not that it mattered. She didn’t look at me from the moment she laid eyes on him at the back door. I could have lifted half a dozen expensive knick-knacks as I trailed behind them, and she would have never known she was so distracted.

  “So do you have any idea who did this horrible crime? I haven’t felt safe since the whole thing happened, so I truly hope you catch him. It can be quite frightening living all alone in this big house with no one to protect me, and just knowing someone killed poor Geneva right next door is just so upsetting.”

  “Not yet,” Alex said as he took a bite of a sugar cookie and washed it down with a gulp of iced tea. “But you’ve been very helpful. Thank you, Shelley.”

  Once again pawing him, this time on his hand, she said in that purring voice that grated on my last nerve, “It’s my pleasure. I just wish I could remember more about that man visiting her all those nights. I love the idea of midnight rendezvous, don’t you?”

  Alex took a pen and a piece of paper out of his windbreaker and wrote a phone number on it. “If you remember anything else, please call. Anything at all might be helpful.”

  Shelley nearly ripped the paper from his fingers as he handed it to her. Her eyes fixed on the number, and she held that piece of scrap paper like it was something precious. “I will. I genuinely want to help, so I’m going to think about all those nights I saw that man and call when I remember something.”

  “Please do.”

  Standing, he took her hand in his and shook it, but not the way he’d shake a friend or acquaintance’s hand. More like he cradled her hand. Whatever he was doing, it worked because Shelley looked like she was about to melt.

  “It was a pleasure meeting you, Shelley. Thank you for all your help.”

  “Yes, thank you,” I chimed in as she walked us toward the front door. “You’ve been so gracious to speak about this twice, especially during this time of mourning for your friend.”

  Shelley flashed me a smile and then seemed to remember that it was, in fact, just days since her dear friend had been strangled to death. Putting on a sad face, she said, “I just want to help bring him to justice.”

  “Thank you, Shelley. Remember, if you think of anything, just call that number,” Alex said in that smarmy voice again.

  “I will. I promise,” she purred one last time as she closed the door behind us.

  “I really hate that voice you put on for her, you know that? Please don’t ever use that voice on me or I’ll be forced to do something you might not like,” I said as we walked toward the sidewalk that ran up and down Cherry Street.

  He looked back at Shelley’s house and then at me. “You and Shelley are two entirely different people. I would never use that voice on you because it wouldn’t work. On Shelley, as you can see, it works.”

  “And what’s with giving her your phone number? You better prepare yourself because she’s going to be your own personal stalker. I realize I’m new at this, but a little advice, Alex. Don’t give a woman like that your number, unless you want to hear from her early and often.”
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  Stopping, he grinned like a man who had some top secret only he knew and said, “I gave her Derek’s office number. If she thinks of anything, she’ll be calling the police. She didn’t recognize the number, so we can assume she wasn’t the person who called the police, assuming those calls ever happened.”

  Damn, he was good. I had to admit it. The guy knew what he was doing, and I felt like a novice.

  Grudgingly, I admitted what he likely already knew. “I’m pretty green about all of this. Maybe it would be better if you just investigated this on your own and I went back to my life of writing the social page for The Eagle and digging up dirt on pseudo-celebrities.”

  “You aren’t green. You have good instincts, Poppy. You’re just more sincere than I am. That’s why I can deal with someone like Shelley in the way I had to and not be bothered in the least. She saw me as a potential mate, so I treated her the same. It’s not who I am. It’s just what worked with her.”

  As we walked down Cherry Street, I said, “I can’t imagine being like that. Not that there’s anything wrong with it. You used the cues she was giving off and ran with them. I’ve just never been a very good actress. My mother used to tell me I wore my emotions right on my sleeve and she could always see exactly what I was feeling by the expression on my face.”

  With a serious look in his eyes, he said, “There’s nothing wrong with being like that, Poppy. It’s who you are. It just makes us exact opposites. Who knows? Maybe that will make us great partners too.”

  I liked that idea. I may have been green, but I knew good detective work when I saw it, and that was Alex. If I could learn from him, maybe I would someday be as good as him.

  He tapped me on the arm and pointed toward the end of the street. “Let’s take a look at the alley way behind the house. I’m sure the police thoroughly checked it out, but I want to see it for myself.”

  “Sure.”

  As I walked with him toward the alley way behind Geneva’s house, I couldn’t help but be impressed by my new partner. We may have been complete opposites, but for what it was worth, I liked to think that maybe he was right and I did have good instincts.

  Chapter Nine

  An hour later, I sat at a table in the back of The Grounds while Alex waited in line for our drinks. The coffee shop was unusually busy for midday, and I had a few minutes by myself to think about what information Shelley had given us. Too bad I couldn’t get her oversexed divorcee act out of my head.

  Alex was right. A woman like her had nothing in common with someone like me. I couldn’t imagine acting like she had, but there hadn’t been an ounce of shame evident in her at any time we were there with her.

  Shelley’s desperate housewife performance wasn’t the only thing I couldn’t stop thinking about. The way Alex had handled her so expertly replayed in my mind, and I had to admit the more I thought about it, the more I wasn’t sure how I felt about him being like that. Even more, did I know anything about who Alex really was? He said he wasn’t the man he pretended to be to get what we needed out of Shelley, but who was he?

  “You look a million miles away.”

  I looked up to see him standing next to the table with my coffee and a cherry danish. Jennie must have clued him into my favorite breakfast food too.

  “I got you something to eat too. I know it’s not really for lunch, but I figured it might be something you’d like.”

  This Alex I liked and respected.

  Taking my coffee from his hand, I inhaled deeply the delicious smell of dark roast. “My favorite morning drink and food? You do have a way of knowing how to ingratiate yourself with someone.”

  His smile faded, and his expression grew serious as he sat down. “I have a feeling you aren’t comfortable with who I had to be back there, even though you said you were.”

  I took a sip of my coffee and decided I needed to choose my words wisely. I didn’t want to offend him, but I didn’t want to lie either.

  “I just don’t know who the real Alex Montero is, so all I have to go on is the guy who barely took the time to be polite at Derek’s office and then pulled a gun on me, the guy who was standing on my porch this morning with a peace offering wanting to work with me to solve a murder, and the guy who I worried might take Shelley right there on her settee if I wasn’t standing across the room.”

  Alex smiled and slowly lifted the coffee cup to his lips to take a drink. I couldn’t help but think he was dragging the entire action out, maybe to form his answer. It came off methodical, which I had to believe was truly part of him.

  “I wouldn’t have taken Shelley right there on her settee.”

  And that was it. He said nothing else after all that.

  I looked across the table at him in shock. “That’s all you’re going to say after that entire thing with lifting the cup slowly and then slowly putting it back down?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t have. She’s not my type. I like my women a lot less eager.”

  Entirely unsatisfied with his answers, I let out a loud sigh and jammed my fork into my danish as I tried to take out my irritation on my morning pastry. This man was extraordinarily frustrating.

  Alex reached across the table and gently touched my arm. Looking up, I saw that smile of his and knew he had something more to say.

  “I’m just teasing you, Poppy. I’m not really that guy who was rude to you that first day or the guy who pulled a gun on you, even though you were trespassing on my property. And I’m definitely not the guy you saw at Shelley’s this morning. In fact, out of all the versions of me you mentioned, I’m mostly the guy standing on your porch after he made sure to get your favorite coffee because he didn’t like who he’d been last night.”

  I listened to everything he said and finished chewing a piece of my danish before I spoke. Unlike him, I wasn’t trying to extend the other person’s anticipation of what I’d say, though. I was just trying not to speak with my mouth full.

  “We are two very different people, Alex. I’m afraid what you see is what you get with me. I’ve never been very good at subterfuge. Like I said before, I wear my emotions right on my sleeve, and every emotion I’ve ever had has passed over my face. My parents always claimed it’s an Irish thing. You probably think of me as some simple small town person, and I guess next to you, I might be that. But this is who I am.”

  “I don’t think that at all, but I think you do. This town isn’t all you are, and I believe that with everything I know of the world. If all you were was Sunset Ridge and its mindset, you wouldn’t have disagreed with Derek when he decided Geneva’s murder was just some robbery gone bad.”

  I scoffed at his attempt to make me something I wasn’t. “I disagreed with him because it was obviously not just some stranger who had come in and strangled her. Strangulation is too intimate an act. I mean, if it was just some thief, they could have just bludgeoned her to death with one of the half a dozen statues Geneva had in that room. Knowing that doesn’t mean I’m not Sunset Ridge through and through.”

  Alex put his cup down on the table and studied my face. Within a few seconds, I felt like some butterfly under glass and began fidgeting. Smooth was definitely not my strong suit.

  “Look around you, Poppy. Take a good look at the people just in this coffee shop and tell me what you see.”

  I scanned The Grounds and saw the usual suspects who often seemed to be there. The two twenty-something males with their laptops open who always seemed to be complaining that there should be a Starbucks in town so they wouldn’t have to drink what they considered to be substandard coffee. The smattering of elderly men and women who came into the coffee shop during their shopping downtown. A few more strangers than usual rounding out the crowd.

  Looking back at Alex, I said, “I see nobody who looks like me.”

  “That’s not what I wanted you to see,” he said, knitting his eyebrows into dissatisfied black slashes.

  “I was teasing. I know what you meant. You think I’m not like these people, bu
t I am, Alex. It doesn’t matter that I spend most of my time daydreaming about visiting far-off places and wishing I could leave and never come back. I’ve lived here nearly all my life, and I come from people who lived here their entire lives.”

  No sooner had the words left my mouth did the realization come over me that I’d just referred to my mother. A Sunset Ridge resident all her life, except when she went away to college, Siobhan McGuire was everything this town meant to me.

  “Poppy, your father isn’t a small town person either. I’ve spoken to him. It’s in him just like it’s in you.”

  “What? What’s in me and my father?” I asked defensively, disliking where this conversation had gone to.

  “A curiosity for more than gossip. That’s how you’re different from the people in this town. How you’re different from Shelley, who sat by that window every night to spy on her neighbor just because she wanted to have something to use against her. How you’re different from the rest of Sunset Ridge, which seems to mostly want to talk about people instead of ideas.”

  “That’s quite an indictment of your adopted home, don’t you think?”

  He shook his head solemnly. “It is what it is. I’ve listened to the people in this town since I moved here almost a year ago. I hear what they care about. Who’s doing what to whom. Who has more money. Who’s not married and why not.”

  His last comment hit me directly since I was one of a handful of single women above twenty-five in Sunset Ridge. I knew what people in town said about me. What they said about the others who weren’t married when old women had deigned it should have happened already.

  Old maids. Sad, pathetic single women left on the shelf. Destined to be single forever.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard all about why I’m not married if you’ve been in town for that long,” I said with a chuckle, feeling a little more defensive than I was comfortable with.

  His expression still serious, despite my attempt at humor, he nodded. “I have.”