Journaled to Death

by Heather Redmond

  Mandy stared into her wine as if it could be used as a divination tool. ‘I thought they were on my side until the divorce. Then I learned his parents are just like him. Somehow Cory thinks it’s all good as long as he is nice in person and responds to Vellum’s calls. I mean, he literally hung out with us over the weekend, fixed stuff, bought takeout. Yet he doesn’t give me the checks.’

  Reese smiled at the server as she set a dinner salad in front of each of them. Reese’s first course, Mandy’s entire meal. ‘I think you have to ask yourself why he’s being so attentive all of a sudden.’

  Ravenous, Mandy picked up her fork. Focused on her salad, she blithely walked right into Reese’s trap. ‘What are you implying?’

  Reese tapped the table until Mandy looked up. She shot her bolt right into Mandy’s heart without even blinking. ‘That he killed Ryan, of course. To punish you for divorcing him.’

  Mandy’s fingers went numb. The fork clattered to her plate. House dressing splattered. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly against a splash of lemon juice. Blinking rapidly, she stood and moved toward the back of the dining room, hoping to find a washroom to rinse out her eyes.

  ‘I’ll watch your purse,’ Reese called helpfully as she darted away.

  Ugh. And here she’d thought Reese was actually trying to be nice for once, rather than implying she’d married and given birth to the child of a murderer.

  Had she?

  TEN

  Neither she nor Reese ended up paying for their dinners. While she was in the bathroom diluting the lemon juice in her eye, and frantically considering what Reese had said, Reese flirted with those two men in the dining room and they picked up dinner. Mandy said no to the offer of a date from the man who showed interest in her, but Reese gave the other one, a local architect, her number.

  ‘I can’t believe you let them pay,’ Mandy groused in the parking lot. She was still trying to process Reese’s words. Ryan and Cory had never, ever been close. Ryan had actually sent her a congratulations card through the mail when she’d filed for divorce. She remembered him standing guard over the house as Cory packed up his things, insisting he’d keep her husband from taking her few family heirlooms. There had been harsh words over crystal bar glasses that had belonged to their Meadows grandmother. But that had been almost a year ago.

  ‘Why didn’t you want to date that man?’ Reese asked, unlocking her car door.

  Mandy forced herself back into the moment. ‘Seriously? He left his wife just before Christmas. They haven’t even filed for a formal separation yet.’

  ‘The perfect time to catch a man. He’s lonely.’

  ‘He didn’t need to tell me all those personal details.’

  ‘He was looking for a date. What is wrong with you, anyway? I’m sure you could get a date with Doctor O’Halloran if you played your cards right.’ She stuck her finger in front of Mandy’s nose. ‘Don’t give me that “just divorced” line. You chose poorly for your first husband, but even I might have not realized what a bad bargain Cory Moffat was. He hid it well. You can do better the next time. If you stay out of prison.’

  ‘Thanks for taking me to dinner,’ Mandy said, since she couldn’t possibly respond to the rest of Reese’s speech.

  Reese nodded graciously and tucked her coat around her legs. ‘You’re welcome. If you really want just a girl’s night, I’ll take you to a little Indian place my father likes. No one will bother us there and you can eat heartily. I offered to buy you dinner, after all.’

  ‘Sure. If I stay out of prison,’ Mandy echoed.

  When Mandy’s phone rang, seconds after she’d arrived home from dinner, her first thought was that Reese had somehow slipped Recently Separated Guy her phone number. But she recognized the number. It belonged to Detective Ahola. What did he want at eight p.m. on a Tuesday?

  The mere thought of what it might be made her hands shake as she dropped her mail and picked up her phone. ‘Detective?’

  ‘Hello, Ms Meadows.’

  ‘Have you had some kind of breakthrough on my cousin’s death?’ she asked, thoughts of what Reese had implied about Cory running through her head. How bad of a judge of men was she?

  ‘No, this is a personal call,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Got a minute?’

  She perched on a kitchen stool, thinking she’d stop trembling if she sat. God help her if the homicide detective was about to ask her on a date as well. ‘Sure. What is it? Need my muffin recipe? My coffee blend?’

  He chuckled. ‘I was thinking about your house.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You were fretting about the basement apartment, about needing a new tenant.’

  ‘Yes, after I clear it out. Ryan’s estate isn’t paying rent. His sister claims he didn’t have any money.’

  ‘I wonder if you’d let me rent it once you’re officially cleared as a suspect.’

  Mandy’s first response was a hot wave of thrill. He thought she’d be cleared. What a relief. Her second thought was that she wasn’t sure she wanted a strange man in her house. But having a police detective as a tenant was surely better than most possible choices. ‘Gosh. I’m not going to say no. That must mean you’re optimistic about figuring out what happened.’ Even though it had been almost a week already.

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  She wanted the police to work faster. ‘I found out something new.’

  His voice sharpened. ‘What?’

  ‘I learned the hospital has a drug-dealing employee.’

  ‘It’s not that unusual. Why do you think Ryan was involved? Do you think he was the dealer?’

  ‘No. It’s not like he seems to have had extra income. But maybe, the fact he didn’t was a sign he was using.’ She sighed. ‘He wasn’t the man I thought he was. Not that I had him on a pedestal. How could I? But I had no idea he was so promiscuous or that he did drugs. He slept with my co-worker and my neighbor.’

  ‘The dead can’t protect their secrets,’ the detective said.

  ‘That’s for sure. I don’t think he’d like that I’ve learned he lied to me about a lot of stuff.’

  ‘Maybe he was lying to himself, too,’ he said. ‘Give me the details of these conversations you’ve had and I’ll follow up. And please don’t do any investigating on your own. I understand that you can’t avoid gossip from neighbors and co-workers, but that needs to be the extent of your involvement.’

  ‘No problem.’ Though privately, she thought he’d done nothing but incentivize her to figure the situation out for herself. Not only might the killer be someone who was still close to her, but losing her suspect status would land her a new tenant.

  ‘I’ll talk to you soon. Don’t go promising away that basement apartment of yours before you talk to me.’

  ‘OK, but …’ She hesitated, remembering a running gag about cops always finding the best apartments from the television show Hawaii Five-0. ‘I can’t give you a discount, even if a murder did take place there. I really do need the rent money.’

  She heard him exhale. ‘I wouldn’t ask for one. Nor would I behave in anything but the most ethical manner. I believe in our ethics.’

  ‘Amen,’ Mandy said. ‘That’s what makes you one of the good guys, Detective. Thank you for the call.’

  She hung up and stared blankly at the cork board attached to the wall backing the short counter. Did she really still have Christmas cards up? Where had her head been this past month?

  She started unpinning them, counting a total of seven, then neatly stuck the push pins into the top corner in a diamond shape. Now that the board was empty, she could use it for planning ideas or art or something. She took a quick look through the cards, hoping she had sent a card back to each of them. Reese’s smiling face twinkled at her from the bottom card, underneath a corporate one from USea. Cradled in Reese’s angora-sweater-covered arms was a white fluffy cat looking cross-eyed in an elf hat, complete with pointy ears.

  The cat flashed significantly in her memory. A whit
e fluffy cat? She remembered the cat hairs on Ryan’s chair.

  In the hallway, she unbolted the basement door and went down, careful to take her phone with her in case of emergency. She went into the already musty-smelling, unused sitting room, and compared the cat hairs clinging to the corduroy to the cat in Reese’s Christmas photo. They certainly could belong to Reese’s cat. Had she given Ryan the chair, or had he picked it up from the side of the road? Mandy knew he’d selected abandoned furniture for his use. Or had Reese sat in this very chair, not too long before Ryan died?

  Mandy rubbed her eyes. She was seeing potential killers everywhere, in a life that had been calm and normal just a week before. All those years of ignoring helpful aunties and cousins who had warned her that Ryan was bad news and to stay away from him, and he’d been the one who’d been victimized in the ultimate way. Who should people have been warning her about? Her own husband? One of her neighbors? Her co-worker? Or someone Ryan himself had brought into his life?

  A dark shape fluttered in the corner of her eye. She turned quickly, her heart pounding in her chest. Had Vellum’s ghost come back, or an intruder? Her gaze darted around the room, looking for a weapon, but every box had been filled and taped down. She’d been such a good cousin and landlord, clearing the space.

  Uneasy, she crept forward. The fluttering happened again. Her body shook as if buffeted by a strong wind, existential terror filling her veins. But then she saw it. A hot-pink sticky note, hanging off the side of an old wooden bookshelf. The air vent had been catching it.

  ‘Take a breath,’ Mandy muttered to herself. ‘In through your nose, out through your mouth. Calm down.’ She reached up and pulled off the note, careful to touch only one little corner. Once she had it firmly in her grasp, she took it into the laundry room, where the light was better.

  On the sticky note was a printed logo that said ‘Planning With Reese’. Then, handwritten, was a series of tally marks, like someone had been counting denominations of bills at a bank or something like that. It could have been anything.

  She affixed it to the top of the dryer. Probably just garbage; she was unqualified to determine its importance, though it was another clue that Reese had been down here. At least she’d solved one ghostly apparition. She circled the laundry room, looking for similar fluttering items as her pulse slowed.

  ‘Nothing.’ Satisfied, she moved laundry from the washer to the dryer, then checked the back door to make sure the new bolt was securely fastened before she went back upstairs.

  She wolfed down a muffin while she dressed again for the outdoors, then hunched against the nighttime cold and went out to bring Vellum home. Even though her daughter was fifteen, she didn’t like the idea of her walking outside after dark. After the week they’d had she allowed herself a little mom indulgence.

  She walked past her car, debated driving the half block, then told herself she needed the exercise.

  Linda’s security lights flared to life as she walked by her friend’s house. Linda opened her kitchen window and leaned out. ‘What are you doing outside?’

  ‘Just walking over to my mom’s.’

  ‘Come in for a second so I don’t have to yell.’

  Mandy zipped through Linda’s yard to the back door. Her friend let her into her inviting kitchen. The scent of chocolate laced with peppermint filled the air. The corner of one of Linda’s ladybug curtains had caught in the window when she’d shut it.

  Mandy pointed to it.

  ‘Oops.’ Linda pulled out the fabric and latched the window. ‘I saw some traffic at your house today, but the nosy neighbor has to do a better job of keeping her own house locked up.’

  ‘It’s best to be careful until we know what happened,’ Mandy agreed. ‘I almost had a heart attack in the basement until I discovered a piece of paper fluttering by the heat register.’

  ‘What did you think it was?’ Linda absently licked at a knife she’d been using to frost brownies.

  ‘Vellum’s ghost.’ Mandy’s laughter sounded forced in her ears. ‘Can you imagine? I’ve never believed in ghosts.’

  ‘You’ve never been around violent death before,’ Linda pointed out. ‘Brownie? I added some peppermint extract to the frosting to change it up.’

  ‘I could smell it from the back door,’ Mandy said. ‘But I need to get over to my mom’s. Vellum needs to come home. It’s a school night.’

  ‘You’ve heard of a telephone?’ Linda said innocently, cutting a big slice of her treat and dropping it into a square glass container.

  ‘Would you send your daughter out into the night alone right now?’

  Linda shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t even send out a pet without a guardian.’ She snapped a lid on the container. ‘So listen. I saw Vellum come home from school.’

  ‘She went into our house? I thought she’d go straight to my mother’s.’

  ‘She was only there for a few minutes before I saw Dylan and Alexis pull up. She might have just been changing clothes or something.’

  ‘I’m surprised she’s willing to be home alone right now,’ Mandy admitted. ‘Mom always makes her comfortable.’

  Linda brushed a few crumbs into the sink. ‘Anyway, they parked on Roosevelt and went to the front door. I can’t see that, of course, but they went back to their car only a minute later. Vellum refused to let them inside.’

  ‘Good for her, but she probably shouldn’t have opened the door.’ Mandy took the container from Linda. ‘Thanks. I’ll share the brownies with Mom.’

  ‘I did overhear Dylan and Alexis talking about their romantic relationship with Ryan,’ Linda said.

  ‘At my front door?’ Mandy hadn’t realized voices could carry that far across the side street.

  ‘No. I was outside by then. I thought Vellum might need help. They were by their car.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Mandy said. ‘I appreciate you looking out for her.’

  Linda nodded. ‘But you get my point, right?’

  ‘I guess not,’ Mandy admitted. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Romantic relationship.’ Linda emphasized the first word. ‘They called Ryan their boyfriend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mandy grabbed a fork out of Linda’s drainer and scooped excess frosting out of the bowl, then stuffed it into her mouth. Cream cheese and peppermint exploded on her tongue, instantly soothing her. She hadn’t realized how complicated her cousin’s lifestyle was. He’d been in a ménage. And now his ex-partners were harassing her daughter.

  ‘Feel better?’ Linda asked, after Mandy swallowed the bite of frosting.

  ‘Pitiful, huh?’ Mandy said. ‘But I needed that.’

  ‘Better than wine,’ Linda said, then patted her hips. ‘Even if it’s worse on the waistline. I don’t think Vellum should be home alone right now.’

  ‘I agree,’ Mandy said. ‘I’m on it. I need to coordinate with her better until the killer is uncovered.’

  Linda cut into her brownies and deftly scooped out a square, then deposited it on a plate. ‘It must be hard for you, not knowing who you can trust.’

  Mandy put her free arm around Linda’s shoulders and squeezed. ‘There are plenty of better suspects than you, my dear. After all, you never slept with Ryan. Right?’

  Linda chuckled. ‘No. I have George to keep me warm. And these fat old bones couldn’t have made it across the street, into your basement, so I could murder someone, then back to my house and into my car in just five minutes.’

  ‘Don’t sell yourself short,’ Mandy said. ‘But it is unfortunate that your very welcome alibi also gives one to Dylan and Alexis.’

  She went outside, holding her brownie container, then crossed Roosevelt to her mother’s house. Traffic was sluggish. Roosevelt was an active street, almost all residential right here, with occasional businesses, parks and schools giving into a commercial core as it closed in on the University District around the University of Washington. Locals used the street to move between there and Northgate Mall to the east. But at this time of night,
everyone was settled into their homes. Even Dylan and Alexis had given up for now.

  She rang her mother’s doorbell and waited. It took an unusually long time for her mother to answer. By the time she did, Mandy’s toes were aching with cold.

  ‘Everything OK?’ she asked.

  Her mother shook her head. ‘Vellum isn’t doing well.’

  Mandy followed her inside, too chilly to take off her gloves or hat in the vestibule. ‘Is she upset about Dylan and Alexis showing up again?’

  ‘I’m sure that’s part of it. She had a full-blown panic attack after she arrived, complete with hyperventilation. I had to have her breathe into a paper bag. I was afraid she was going to pass out.’ Though her mother didn’t have a hair out of place, her sweater buttons were askew and she had circles under her eyes.

  Mandy’s eyes pricked with hot moisture. ‘My poor baby. Where is she?’

  ‘In the den, watching one of the Parent Trap movies.’

  ‘I hope she doesn’t think her father and I will ever get back together.’ Mandy handed her mother Linda’s offering. ‘Do you want to dish that up? The frosting is really good. Maybe chocolate will help.’

  Her mother unsnapped the lid and looked blankly at the brownies. ‘Good news would help more.’

  Mandy pulled off her gloves. She tightened her icy fingers around them. ‘All I’ve got is a story of the ghost that wasn’t. That’s about the only good news.’

  ‘Are you sure you can’t point the camera over the till when the new one comes in?’ Mandy asked Scott during her break the next morning.

  ‘The angle is wrong,’ he told her, slouching back in his office chair.

  ‘I only got a C in geometry,’ Mandy said. ‘Could you attach a camera from another angle?’

  ‘There aren’t many places where we can attach it. You can’t seriously think Fannah is taking the money from the till?’

  Mandy shrugged. ‘Someone is.’

  He leaned forward and cracked his neck from side to side. ‘Even so, no one has time to go through hours of footage in order to figure it out. Especially when you don’t even know what you are looking for.’