by Tracey Quinn
“The lovely Heather and Helen had decided to come over to check on our well-being and to bring tea,” I explained.
“And I imagine you two had been planning on sitting on the futon, telling ghost stories and waiting for the lights to come back on.”
“We may have had plans like that with a few variations.”
“I'm sorry about that beam hitting your shoulder. I was afraid it was going to be more serious than it is. When the doctor was examining you he seemed pretty concerned. I would have been glad to drive your truck home from the hospital.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You were at the hospital with Mark and you didn't call me and let me know?!”
“Well, I didn't want you to worry,” Bob said, “plus Mark told me you're banned from the hospital.”
I didn't trust myself to say anything.
“By the way,” he continued, “I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but I should tell you that Sheriff Wilkerson arrested Jolene this morning for the murder of Olivia.”
“Oh, no!” I cried. “You know she couldn't have done it, Bob. We've known Jolene all our lives!”
“I don't want to believe it either, Dani, but the fact is, we've got an eyewitness. Monsieur Rene saw Jolene going back up to Olivia's apartment just a few minutes after she brought her her lunch, then leaving again in quite a hurry.”
“I don't believe it! He must have been mistaken!”
“He saw her, Dani. He remembered because he thought it was strange that she should go up to Olivia's room a second time so soon after taking Olivia's lunch to her. It wasn't like she'd go up there to chat with her.”
“And what did Jolene say?”
“She denied it all, of course. She said Olivia was alive when she brought her the salad, and she never went back up to the room after that.”
“Oh, and you're going to take the word of a Frenchman who can't even pronounce 'croissant' when he orders at the diner, over the word of a sweet girl who wouldn't hurt a fly?!”
“You know, even the nicest person in the world can get pushed to the brink and do the unthinkable in the heat of the moment,” Mark cut in. “Sure, it's completely out of character for Jolene, but look how she had scrimped and saved and dif without things for all those years of her young life when she could have been out having fun with her friends. Then just when she's about to reap the rewards of all her hard work, Olivia screws her over. It was like she stuck a gun in her ribs and robbed her. That's enough to make anyone lose it and get violent.”
“Mark's right, Dani,” said Bob. “Anyone can snap. That's why it's a big mistake to push someone into a corner. You may think you're holding all the cards, but there's always that one card you don't have. I call it the hole card and the hole is usually six feet deep.”
“But there are so many other people that hated Olivia enough to do her harm!” I argued. “I can think of several right off hand! I mean, if you heard the things I heard about some illegal stuff she was doing- Look, I'll talk to a few people and make you a list of-”
“Whoa!”
“No way!”
“Don't even think about it!”
“That's not going to happen.”
Mark and Bob were both shouting at once. I don't know who said what.
“Well, for heaven's sake, don't get hysterical! You sound like a couple of scared little preschoolers,” I said. “I'd be discreet about it, of course.”
“Of course,” said Bob. “You're usually about as discreet as an atom bomb in the hall closet.”
“Well, excuse me if I'm the only one who's trying to do something to help a poor young girl who's rotting away in a dingy hell-hole of a prison!” I retorted with as much indignance as I could muster.
“Dingy hell-hole?” Bob laughed. “As you well know, the jail in East Spoon Creek City has an easy chair and a big-screen TV in each of its three rooms. And three times per day the poor prisoner is served the meals of their choice from the menu of the famous Breezy Spoon Diner and whoever is on duty at night provides them with chocolate chip-macadamia nut cookies from Tammy's Bakery. I can think of worse places to rot away.”
He was right, of course. The City Council members liked to have their meetings at Sammy Brown's gentlemen's club, a room in his lounge called Hotters, where the waitresses wore suggestive clothing and flirted with the patrons. The “girls” were all of an age to collect Social Security, but so were the council members, so I guess they didn't notice. Sammy also liked to mix the beer and wine with his homemade moonshine to save money, so if you were looking for a buzz you ended up with a roar. The City Council members would occasionally have to spend a night in jail for driving under the influence, so they made sure that the city jail had all the comforts of home.
“That doesn't matter,” I said. “Someone has to get to the bottom of this.”
“As I remember it, the last time you did your amateur detective thing, you could have gotten a roomful of people killed,” Mark added.
“Oh, that's ridiculous! The murderer was hardly going to gun down a room full of witnesses!” I scoffed.
“The murder had already gunned down three witnesses! That's what made him a murderer!” he countered. “Plus, don't you think it's insulting to Bob for you to insist that you know better how to do his job than he does? How do you think that makes him feel, Dani? He has feelings, you know.”
“Yes,” said Bob, leaning forward and staring down at the floor. “How do you think I feel having everyone in town know that my little sister has to do my job for me? I'm an object of ridicule. Small children throw rocks at me. People sic their dogs on me. No woman will look twice at me. People picket in front of my house at night with signs saying, uh, well, I don't know what they're saying because it's dark, but I'm sure it's not good.”
“Really? Is that the best you can do?” I said. “You two might want to get together and rewrite the script for your little melodrama if you ever plan to use it again. Look, if you're going to worry that much about me, I'll drop the idea.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I will! I'll trust Bob to handle it.” I got up and headed towards the kitchen. “I'm hungry. Would you guys like some Coney dogs with Brendan's steak chili on top, and maybe some onion rings and root beer? Takes me about fifteen minutes to fix them.”
“Got any ice cream?” asked Mark. “Hot dogs with root beer floats sound good.”
“Sure, and I'll steam the buns like they do at the root beer stand,” I said.
“Say, Mark,” said Bob as I left, “did you hear the joke about the steamed buns and the...”
I closed the kitchen door and began looking up the number for Monsieur Rene.
Chapter 5
It turned out that even a murder didn't slow down business for Monsieur Rene, and I wasn't able to get an appointment to see him until the next day. In the mean time, I decided to go over to the jail and talk to Jolene (and collect the dishes from the breakfast special the Breezy Spoon had sent her this morning). I was hoping that she could think of something, anything that would help her case.
Sheriff Wilkerson let me into her cell where I found Jolene sitting on the queen-sized bed, reading a magazine with the TV turned to a morning talk show. I sat down in one of the large leather recliners that flanked the bed.
“How are you doing, Jolene?” I asked. “Is there anything I can get you to make you more comfortable?”
“Gosh, no, Dani.” she said. “This is the nicest place I've ever stayed in. I mean I'd like to go home because I didn't kill Olivia, but the City Council sure knew what they were doing when they built this place. I even have maid service; they pay Esther Jean from the laundromat to come in and clean every day. She vacuums the wall-to-wall carpet, dusts the drapes, makes sure the mini-fridge is well stocked, and wipes down the bathroom; it kind of embarrasses me for her to do all that stuff. I've told her than since it's just me and the place doesn't get very dirty that she surely doesn't have to come and clean every day but she told
me not to say that in front of anyone because she can use the money.”
“Well, I think they ought to pamper you,” I said, “because you shouldn't be in here at all! A lot of people had reason to kill Olivia. Heck, with how she was always pestering me to buy my hair, I might have strangled her myself!”
Jolene folded her arms indignantly. “Good luck getting any money out of her if you had sold it to her! When I first started working for her I sold her some of my hair and let her have it to make a wig. She said it was hard to find auburn hair and she would pay me a lot for it, but how much do you think I got? I guess that's not important now. Still, it's no wonder everyone thinks I killed her.”
“Not everyone, Jolene; I know you didn't do it. The problem is that Monsieur Rene said he saw you go up to her room a second time right about the time she died.”
“He's lying! I wasn't even at the salon at all! As soon as I had given Olivia her salad I went straight to your friend Ham Hamsky's office so I could talk to him about my contract with Olivia.”
“Did you tell that to the sheriff? If he talked to Ham, he could give you an alibi.”
“Oh, that's no good,” Jolene sighed. “When I got to his office, there was no one there. I had gotten there a little early and he wasn't back from lunch yet. I was gonna wait for him, but then I got kinda scared 'cause I started thinking about what would happen if Olivia found out I was seeing a lawyer, so I just left. I went to the church and prayed. I even prayed for Olivia because you're supposed to forgive your enemies. I felt sorry for myself and cried a little, but then I felt a little better about everything and I decided to go back to the salon and get ready for my afternoon clients. I had more than usual because I had to reschedule my morning clients again. The water went out that morning for the third day in a row and Lester always takes hours fiddling around in the basement before it's fixed. I think it's Olivia's hot tub that causes it. Anyway, when I got back, the sheriff was there with all the lights flashing on his car and everything.”
“Why would Monsieur Rene lie about seeing you?” I asked.
“I can't figure that out. I always got on well enough with Harry- er, Rene. We never fought or anything.”
“Hey, does he ever wear glasses?” I asked. “Maybe his eyesight isn't so good, and he just made a mistake about what he saw.”
“No, he surely doesn't need glasses. His eyesight is better than mine when he isn't too deep into the schnapps.”
“The schnapps?”
“You know, peppermint schnapps. He keeps a flask of it around so that he can take a little nip to calm his nerves without anyone smelling liquor on his breath. Harry has a customer list of some snobbish old gals who pay a lot but are impossible to please. When they would complain about something then Olivia would come down hard on him. He wants to start his own barber shop in Pumpkin City as soon as he can get enough money together, so he puts up with it for now but it's hard on him. I've heard Lester Poole talk him out of quitting more than once.”
“Do you have any idea if he was he drinking on the day of the murder?” I asked.
“Not a clue. I was concentrating on my own problems, not really noticing much else. He didn't seem drunk or anything, though.”
I frowned and ran my fingers through my hair. This was a tough nut to crack. Monsieur Rene had to be lying, but why? Just then I remembered what Teela had said to me about Olivia's offer to Bildad. “Jolene, is it possible that Olivia could have been blackmailing Monsieur Rene? Or maybe she was blackmailing someone else at the salon and Monsieur Rene was trying to cover for them?”
Jolene scratched her head. “Gee, I guess Olivia was low enough to blackmail folks,” she said, “but I don't see why she'd bother to blackmail anyone at the salon. She helps herself our money and tips most of the time anyway.” She leaned toward me and her voice grew conspiratorial. “But now that you bring up blackmail, that makes me think about something; Chuck Bailey from the hardware store would come by every Monday after the shop had closed and go straight up to Olivia's apartment. I guess he thought the shop was closed so no one would see him, but I sweep up before I leave on Mondays so I know all about it! I'll bet Olivia is blackmailing him and he goes up there to pay her off!”
“Well, Chuck and Olivia were having an affair,” I said. “If things went sour between them, I wouldn't put it past Olivia to think of blackmail.”
Jolene's eyes grew wide. “What? Chuck Bailey and Olivia?!”
“That's what the Jameson sisters told me.”
“Aw darn! I'm missing all the good gossip while I'm in here!” Jolene grumbled. “Ooh, Chuck would get in so much trouble if his wife found out about that! She's the one that really owns Highes Home Improvement, you know; her daddy, old Mr. Highes, started it up and left it to her when he died. Chuck just runs the place for his wife's family.”
“So Chuck could lose his job as well as his wife if she found out.”
“Yeah, she could toss him right out on his ear if she was a mind to! You know, I'm not surprised to see their marriage go sour; she's just 25 and Chuck is 34! I thought all along that it was a mistake to marry a much older man!”
Thirty-four, my age. I wondered if I should check out the support hose at the dry goods store. I said, “It sounds like Chuck had a good reason to pay Olivia to keep quiet, and she's ruthless enough to make him do it. Did you ever hear them argue when he was up in her apartment?”
“No, he would just go up and then come down a couple of minutes later and drive away; no fuss about it. I guess he was just resigned to paying her. It's funny, huh?”
I thought it was funny too, but I wasn't laughing. I was too busy planning a visit to Highes Home Improvement.
Later that evening I was in my room and I could hear the washer and the dryer running in the basement. Mark would be doing his wash and presumably working on the doll house. This would be a good time to make up a list of suspects to investigate with being bothered. I opened up my laptop and sat on the bed and started a spreadsheet, listing everyone I suspected in alphabetical order.
Once I had put down everyone I could think of, I sat back and looked at the list. So far, it consisted of Chuck Bailey and Millie. Reluctantly I took Millie off the list. I was not off to a good start. Hopefully I'd be able to add to the list once I got started investigating.
Just then there was a knock at the door. What the heck? I glanced at my watch. The washer should be done by now; shouldn't Mark be putting his clothes in the dryer? I quickly closed the laptop and went to the door. Mark was standing there dangling my lacy lavender bra from his fingers.
“I found this in the dryer just now,” he said. “Would you have any idea who it might belong to?”
I reached for it, but he held it out of reach.
“For heavens sake, give it to me,” I said.
“But how can we be sure that it belongs to you?” he said. “After all, Heather and Helen were down there a few days ago. No, I'm responsible for returning this to its rightful owner and the only way I can determine who that might be is to have you try it on and see if it fits.”
“Okay,” I said, “but only after you have Heather and Helen give it a try first.”
He handed it to me. “Oh well. If you ever need help with the hooks let me know.”
Chapter 6
The next afternoon at two, as soon as my shift was over at the Breezy Spoon I jumped into the Firebird and started off for the beauty salon. I wanted to talk to Chuck but my appointment with Monsieur Rene was at two-thirty, so I would have to go there first.
I had barely sat down in the driver's seat when I was jabbed in the leg by something sharp and metal. Muttering unkind words to myself, I fished a handful of screws out of my pocket and put them in the cup holder. Before I left the house that morning I had sneaked down to Mark's workbench and swiped them because I thought I would need some excuse for going into the hardware store. I figured I would just go in and show the screws to Chuck and ask if he had any more like them. It was a la
me plan, but it was the best I had.
When I got to the salon, Lester Poole was sitting in one of the styling chairs reading a baseball magazine. I told him I had a hair styling appointment with Monsieur Rene, and he looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. He got slowly to his feet and shuffled over to the counter where he began thumbing through the pages of an appointment book and scratching his head.
I had just about given up hope when Monsieur Rene stuck his head out from a little booth in the back and spotted me. “Ah, Mademoiselle! This way please!” he called, smiling broadly. When I came into his booth he ushered me into the chair and said, “What's it going to be, Mademoiselle? Cut and curl? You'd look great with a pixie cut like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday.”
I shuddered at the thought. “No, just a shampoo, condition and dry.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
“So, everyone here must be shocked about what happened to Olivia Quinlan,” I said as Monsieur Rene began to rinse my hair. “I heard that you saw it happen.”
“Sorry, can't talk about that. The sheriff's deputy came in yesterday and warned me that under no circumstances should I speak with his sister Dani about the murder.”
Of all the nerve! This was surely an abuse of power by Bob and I was going to have a stern talk to him about this the next time I saw him. Of course, if I did he would know that I went to see Monsieur Rene. I would have to think that one out.
In the mean time, I wasn't about to let Monsieur Rene off the hook so easily. “Look Harry,” I said, “it's a free country and we can talk about anything we want. Besides, my brother's not the one paying you for an appointment!”
“Well, I suppose if I were to get a good tip, I might see things differently.”