by Kaye George
Nigel, whose warm body had been curled up behind her knees, yawned and stretched, curling his pink tongue and squinting his eyes. When he began working his claws into her bedspread, she shooed him to the floor and got up to stagger through a shower and breakfast.
The cat raised his voice as she started to leave.
“Oh, I forgot your breakfast. Sorry.” She filled his water bowl and poured out some food. The glare Nigel gave her made her pause. She had poured the food into the water. After everything was cleaned up and the water and kibble were in the proper places, she gave him a couple of strokes and dashed out the door.
She arrived at work a few minutes after her normal time, but she was usually quite early, so she wasn’t actually late. When Andrea showed up well past the hour, Tally pounced on her.
“You’re late,” she stated, unnecessarily, her voice sounding harsh to her. “Is everything all right?”
Andrea took a breath, and her face pinched in on itself. “Oh dear. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.” She stuffed her bag under the shelf, then changed her mind and pulled it out again. “I need to use the restroom. I’ll be right back.” She seemed distraught.
Tally was in a bad mood. She didn’t have to inflict it on her employee. She softened. “I know you won’t be late again. It’s okay. We’ve only had a couple of customers. Don’t worry about it.”
Where was the gentle, friendly young woman that Andrea had been before Gene wooed and dumped her? She’d been so weepy and even volatile ever since his death. Then Tally remembered that the tenth anniversary of her sister’s death had also hit her hard. Maybe she needed more time to regain her equilibrium after all of that.
At about two in the afternoon, Tally was surprised to see Detective Jackson Rogers come through the front door. She was alone on the sales floor while Andrea took a break in the kitchen. She broke into a grin that disappeared as soon as she saw the severe set of his jaw. And the other policeman tramping in behind him.
“Can…can I help you?” She tried to smile again, but only achieved a forced grin.
The detective ducked his head before talking to her. Was he being shy? No, that couldn’t be. Embarrassed?
“Tally, Ms. Holt…”
Ms. Holt? What was going on? Why was he calling her that?
“…I have a confession to make. I’ve talked to my commander, and he’s…surprised we only searched the kitchen, the shop, and—for Mart—the restroom.”
“And the alley,” she said. “You searched the alley. You found the shoe there.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, we did. But I’ve been told to look around again, with your permission, and include the whole premises.”
“What else is there? Just my office.”
He nodded again. “Would it be all right if we did that?”
He turned his smoky gray eyes on her, full force. Poor guy. He got in trouble for not looking for clues where there wouldn’t be clues anyway.
“Sure.” She lifted her right shoulder. “I don’t see why not.”
His smile seemed as forced as hers. “You’re saving my day, Tally. I’d have to get a search warrant if you’d said no.”
She returned his smile, trying to cheer him up. “No problem. Maybe you can balance my books while you’re in the office.”
“Officer Edwards, you stay here.” He abruptly strode past her into the kitchen, leaving Tally with the uniformed man—a large, imposing, beefy man—with a scowl on his pockmarked face. She thought he looked unhappy and wondered if he had ever shot anyone. Now, why had that thought popped into her head? She wiped her hands on her smock, realizing that they were sweaty.
Andrea strolled through the kitchen door. “What’s going on? There’s a policeman in your office.”
“I know. He’s… He’s here on police business.” She put her hand up and scratched behind her ear. She felt nervous, for some reason.
“What kind of police business?”
“I don’t know exactly. They’re dotting Is and crossing Ts. That’s all.”
Andrea frowned. “Are you sure?”
She was rescued from her puzzling conversation by a family of four coming in for Whoopie Pies. She motioned Andrea forward to wait on them, since her hands were a bit shaky.
What was going on? Did he come here just to search the office? Why? She decided to brave Officer Edwards.
“Do you know why he’s looking in there?” she asked him.
“Got a confidential tip today.”
“From who?”
“Can’t talk to you about that.” A man of few words, obviously.
“Oh. Okay.” What an exasperating man. A tip? Someone called the police and told them to search here? That didn’t make sense.
Rogers emerged through the kitchen door into the shop holding a bulging paper evidence bag. He gave a dark scowl to his partner, who unclipped a set of handcuffs from his belt and told Tally to turn around.
“What? What are you doing? Are you arresting me?” She was too stunned to move. Edwards grabbed her arm and spun her around so he could click the hard, cold metal onto her wrists.
“Andrea, call my brother.” She breathlessly gave Andrea the number. Andrea, thank goodness, grabbed an order pad and wrote it down.
“Should I close the shop?” Andrea asked as they were marching Tally out the front door.
“I don’t know. No. Maybe. Ask Cole.” She shouted frantically over her shoulder as she went through the door, her heart hammering like a frantic woodpecker. “Call Cole! And Yolanda!”
Chapter 22
Yolanda glanced up from tucking a silver jingle bell into the basket she was finishing for a fortieth birthday present. The theme was the cruise the husband was going to surprise his wife with, and the basket contained palm fronds, a jar of beach sand, some flip-flops, and the tickets.
She had had a nice, long phone conversation with her sister. That didn’t happen very often. Had it, she wondered, ever happened before? The difference in their ages made sure they didn’t have a lot to talk about. What they did have in common was the family, their mother and father.
From what Violetta said, it seemed their father was finally expanding his chronic disapproval to his younger daughter.
“It was a big mistake letting him get a peek at my credit card bill,” Violetta had said.
“I agree with that. Have you racked up a big balance?”
“It’s not all that big, but I can’t pay it off in a month.”
“Two months?”
“Well, maybe six or seven. I needed some furniture. According to Papa, I should have kept sitting on the floor until I saved up for a couch and chairs.”
“I know,” Yolanda said, sympathizing with her sister. “Haven’t you heard him hitting the ceiling about my credit card bills?”
“Bills?”
“Well…yes. I have more than one. If you do, don’t ever let him learn about that.”
“Yolie.” Her voice grew somber. “I’m worried about you. What’s happening with that murder thing?”
That was sweet, Yolanda had to admit. “They have another suspect.”
“I thought they had several more.”
“That’s what I let Dad believe. But I honestly don’t think the person they’re hammering at now did it.”
“So who did?”
“I have no idea, but I hope they find out soon.”
“If you didn’t do it, they can’t arrest you, can they?”
Of course they could. But she didn’t want to worry Violetta. “No, Vi, they won’t arrest me. Don’t worry about me. And keep your bills away from Papa or I’ll start to worry about you.”
As Yolanda straightened the bow a final time, she relished the warm feeling she had from her talk with her sister. Maybe families weren’t so bad. She gazed out the window at the hot pa
vement. You could see heat rising from it in distorted waves.
Yolanda felt so much better after swigging the cough syrup Tally had brought her. And her lips felt smooth and silky from the lip balm. She would try not to chew on them so much, but she needed less stress for that to happen.
She gazed out the front window, then did a double take. Tally was being led to the back seat of a police car by that detective. And she had handcuffs on!
Yolanda stood frozen, wanting to dash out and see what was going on, but not wanting to draw attention to herself any more than had already happened.
After the uniformed cop had pushed Tally’s head down and closed the back door, Yolanda moved closer to her front window and looked out, feeling helpless and confused. The car drove away toward the police station. She stood still for a few moments, then ran next door to see if Andrea knew anything.
Her tug on the door was met with resistance, so she pulled harder. It was locked. Was Andrea inside? She must have locked the door immediately behind Tally’s exit. Yolanda pounded on the door, but no one responded.
The words she had flung at her best friend last night haunted her. Sure, Cole had treated her bad in school, years ago, but he treated all the girls bad in those days. And probably now, too. That was no excuse to go off on Tally. She had brought her the medicine, and it had worked a miracle. Once her cough was tamed, she’d started to feel better. This morning she slept late, but felt good enough by mid-morning to come in to work. She wasn’t even sniffling anymore. She’d kept telling herself she needed to call Tally and apologize. Maybe take her out to lunch, but lunchtime came and went.
Now what should she do? She had to help Tally. Without giving herself a chance to chicken out, she called her father.
“Papa, it looks like Tally’s been arrested.”
“Arrested? For the murders?”
“I don’t know. I saw her leave with two police officers and she had handcuffs on.”
“That’s not good. Should I call Lackey?”
Yolanda twisted a strand of hair with the hand that didn’t hold the phone. “What do you think? Would that make her look more guilty?” That had been, after all, her own objection to her father getting the lawyer for herself.
“Something must be making her look guilty if she’s handcuffed,” he said. “They took her away in handcuffs. Doesn’t that sound bad?”
“I…guess.”
“Cara mia, do you think she did this?”
“No!”
“Not so loud. Are you certain?”
“You know what? Let’s hold off. I need to find out what’s going on.”
She cut the connection before he could say anything else. A car pulled up, and Andrea ran out of Olde Tyme Sweets and climbed in. An older woman was driving, the same one who often dropped her off in the mornings. She was probably Andrea’s mother, the one Tally had talked about being so ugly to her daughter.
Every family had its own dynamic, and some were difficult to understand from the outside. Andrea seemed as much a mama’s girl as Yolanda was a daddy’s girl, but the vibes were very different in their cases.
Taking a deep breath, trying to swallow her pride with a big gulp, Yolanda raised her phone to call Cole, then realized she didn’t have his number. She flipped the Closed sign on her door and drove to Tally’s house to try to find him.
She had a long wait. Cole wasn’t there, so she waited in her car for him to arrive from wherever he was. Surely he’d be there eventually.
Yolanda waited two hours, trying to decide every five minutes whether to leave or not. Her phone startled her, and she realized she had dozed off. The number was unfamiliar.
“Yes?” Her greeting was tentative, as it always was with an unknown caller.
“Yo! Can you come get me?”
It was Tally. “Where are you?”
“I’m at the police station. I don’t have my car here and I can’t reach Cole.”
Yolanda said she would be right there and started her engine as she was disconnecting the call.
Tally was standing outside the station when she pulled up to the entrance. Tally ran to the car and climbed in, starting to sob before she finished fastening her seat belt. Yolanda reached over to hug her friend and felt Tally’s body quaking in her arms. They clutched for no more than a few seconds when Yolanda was startled by a horn honking behind her.
“I guess I’m blocking the way.” Yolanda patted Tally on the shoulder, shifted into gear, and drove out of the parking lot. “Where to, Tally? Your house? Andrea closed up your shop and left.”
“That’s okay.” Tally’s voice was thin through her tight throat and her tears. “Yes, my house, I guess.”
“What happened? Can you talk about it?” Yolanda threw frequent glances her way as she drove toward Tally’s place.
“Detective Rogers found a tennis shoe in my office. A tennis shoe. It must be the mate to the one they found outside the back door when Gene was killed.”
“Why were they in your office? Were they looking for it?”
“They must have been. Officer Edwards said they got an anonymous tip.”
“Someone told them to look there? I’ve wondered where the mate was. Wait, it was in your office? The whole time?”
“I have no idea. I never saw it.”
“So they just showed up, walked in, and found it?”
“They had a tip and they can’t tell me who gave it to them.”
“How could anyone else know what’s in your office? That’s weird.”
“Maybe it was hidden somewhere. I kept asking them where it was, but they never told me. They wanted me to tell them. But I can’t. I don’t know!”
“They? How many people questioned you?”
“Detective Rogers and the other cop. Edwards, his name is.”
“Two against one.”
“It was awful.” Tally started sobbing again, more loudly than before.
Yolanda felt completely helpless. She knew Tally hadn’t killed anyone. And she herself hadn’t either. What was happening?
Chapter 23
Tally sat on the couch in the dark, her legs tucked up under her. Her awful heaving sobs had stopped, but tears still ran down her face. A box of tissues sat on the end table, but she had quit dabbing her face fifteen minutes ago, leaving a pile of tissues on the cushion beside her.
She figured she was lucky she hadn’t been arrested and thrown into a cell. If not for killing Gene—and maybe Mart, too—then for concealing evidence, which was how it appeared. The shoes weren’t her size. Maybe that was why she’d been released.
Nigel crouched in her lap, watching her. He stretched up and licked a tear as it reached her jawline.
She smiled. “You silly boy. You’re making me laugh. I love you.”
She vaguely wondered where Cole was, but didn’t try calling him again. A pain gnawed at her stomach. Was it from tension or hunger? She didn’t feel like eating, even though it had been many hours since her breakfast.
The sun had set long ago but she hadn’t turned on any lights. The shadows suited her mood better.
Nigel made her smile again when he turned his attention to the pile of tissues on the couch and batted them, one by one, to the floor.
Eventually, though, he jumped down with a thud and headed toward the kitchen, starting to meow. His meows were as loud as his purring. He was acting like he did when he was hungry, even if she wasn’t.
She put her feet on the floor and pushed herself up to go the kitchen to scoop food into his big bowl and refill his water. From there, she heard the front door unlock and open.
“Cole?” she called.
“Why are the lights out? Did we lose power?” He came into the kitchen, flipped the overhead light switch on, and plopped into a chair. “What’s going on, Sis?”
She turned
and he saw her tearstained face.
“Whoa. Now what’s happened? Someone else die? Get killed?”
“No. It’s just… I was taken in and questioned again.”
“Okay. And?”
“They took me in wearing handcuffs. They found the mate to the tennis shoe in my office.”
“In your office?”
She nodded. “In my office. At the shop.”
“Where in your office?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t see them find it. They wouldn’t let me back there. I had to stay in the front while the detective searched.”
Cole jumped up and hugged Tally. “Hey, they found the shoe. All right. That doesn’t mean anything. They have to find out how it got there. And who it belongs to.”
She chuckled, half crying again. “I wish they would. They think I put it there.”
“That’s stupid. If you killed Gene, why would you keep incriminating evidence in your own office?”
“Because I didn’t think they’d ever look there?”
Cole pushed her an arm’s length away. “Wait. What are you saying?”
“No, I’m not saying I put it there. But if I did, that would be why. But I didn’t.”
“That detective likes you, I can tell. He’s not going to come down hard on you.”
“Guess again.” Tally pulled a spoon from the flatware drawer and a container of chocolate-chunk ice cream from the freezer and started eating it from the carton. She had thought he had some feelings for her, too. But if he had, they were over now. Those smoky, warm gray eyes were nothing but hard metal during that interrogation.
She sat across from her brother at the kitchen table. “I assume they didn’t arrest me only because the shoe is a tad bit too long. What am I going to do, Cole?”
The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Cole said.