Frugal Lissa Finds a Body

by Ritter Ames

  My eldest beamed.

  After the boys and the dog headed for bed, and we all said goodnight, I tucked them in, saying, “One hour of reading and lights out. You got shorted some of your book time last night, and I want to make it up to you.”

  “Any news about the guy who was out there?” Jamey asked. Mac was already reading, but he looked up at the question.

  “First, we don’t know that it was a guy, and the person might have been taking a shortcut through yards and got startled by Abby’s car and ran. Don’t you guys worry about it, okay?”

  “I’m not,” Jamey said, reaching over to pat Honey’s head where it rested on top of his bedspread. “We have the Honey-monster to protect us. She was barking before anyone knew what happened.”

  “She was indeed,” I said.

  I started to leave the door halfway open for Honey to come and go as needed, but Jamey spoke up again, “Honey’s figured out how to work the door handle. She can open and close our door anytime she wants now.”

  Oh, joy.

  “She’s a smart dog,” Mac said, grinning over the top of his open book.

  “And getting smarter every day.” I sighed.

  Downstairs, Abby was already set up at the table, logging into her email account and accessing my wireless printer.

  “I changed your frugal double-sided print settings. Sorry,” she said. “But I figured it would be better for us if we focused on one page each time and not worry about missing something on the back.”

  “I concur. Something this important needs pages in the handiest form for review,” I said. “Besides, when we’re done, I’ll put them in the print recycle box and use the other side for printing when I have draft projects or I’m proofing copy.”

  As Abby pulled pages from the printer, she kept each person’s or company’s info together in its own stack. She crisscrossed the stacks, so they were all at one end of the table when the printing stopped. I pulled the table leaf from where it stayed at the side of the pantry.

  “This might help,” I said.

  “Yes. We’ll be able to line more across to get a full view. We probably need tablets and pens too.”

  I pointed to the desk by the refrigerator. “In the middle drawer. Help yourself.”

  A minute later, I had the table another fifty-percent larger than before, and Abby had set us each a workstation at opposite ends.

  “If we sit on one of the long sides, we’re seeing the same thing. And our tablets and pens are handy to each of us, but not in the way.”

  “Did you learn this in law school?” I teased.

  “Was into drilled in me in Research 101. I perfected the tablet and pen placement on my own.”

  “I’ve always said you were creative.”

  “Well, let’s get both our creative minds working on this info,” she said, pulling the first small stack and distributing the pages in a straight line down the table. This data covered Carlisle. “Might as well start with the victim. By the way, good job today on trying to reason with the nosy neighbor’s daughter.”

  “I knew you’d appreciate my phrasing.”

  “Especially the part... let’s see... How did you put it?” She squinted an eye shut as she searched her mind for the words. “Oh, yeah, something about increasing the odds the criminal is caught and how it’s for everyone’s good.”

  “I bow to my mentor,” I said, scanning the pages. Suddenly something jumped out at me. I pointed to the third page. “Here, on his resume. It says he worked in the Springfield, Missouri office of Henson, Carter and Associates until a year ago.”

  “This is important?”

  “The Lofton’s daughter, Sandra, works in their Kansas City office. She’s telecommuting this summer, so she still has access to their computers.”

  “They put your house on the list?” Abby asked.

  “It’s a possibility. But it’s a connection of sorts with the victim. Her mother hates me, too, so she could be trying to be a good daughter and get me out of the neighborhood. And she does live next door to Mrs. G. Didn’t you tell me there were some lawsuits that named Carlisle or his firm?”

  “Yeah, let me think a minute.” She walked into the kitchen area for a glass of water and leaned on the work island as she spoke. “He ran a real estate trust and both he and the company he worked for were named in the suit. I’ll check, but it’s not a stretch to assume it was this Henson/Carter group. The suits were all filed recently, and the cases were scheduled for a hearing in Springfield.”

  “Not resolved yet? Only filed?” I asked, going to the refrigerator for lemonade.

  “No, it hasn’t been long enough. They’d still be in the deposition stage, maybe trying to get settlement meetings to avoid court,” she explained, then finished her water and held out her glass. “Your idea is better. Fill me up.”

  “Just after the time Carlisle’s resume shows he left the firm’s employment.” I filled her tumbler with lemonade.

  Abby leaned over and slashed a highlighter over that line on the page. “But it doesn’t say where he went next. That’s strange. Unless he’s freelancing or retired.”

  “He can’t be retired. He was trying to buy my house from some list,” I grumbled. “That sounds like business to me—funny business.”

  She grabbed a red pen and made a note about finding Carlisle’s current employer. When the rest of the pages seemed to be a bust, she stacked them all together, with the page of notes on top, and started a new stack of reviewed histories.

  “Next on the agenda is Mr. John Harper,” she said.

  “He doesn’t seem so suspicious now that we know why he was looking at all the houses in our neighborhood.’

  “Yeah, poor guy.” She pointed to a line on the second page. “Says here he just retired two weeks ago. It’s tough finding enough to do to fill a day when you no longer have a job to go to. It can leave a person searching.”

  “I suggested he talk to Mrs. G to get involved with community projects.”

  Pete Jenkins’s review was about as sad and beige as the man had been when we’d met him that morning.

  “Gosh. I want to go buy an aquarium from this guy just so he might have more than a page to his life,” Abby said. “This is...”

  “Disheartening?”

  “To the max.”

  “Vonda may have had the right idea with the fundraising thing,” I said. “We need to put a little thought into this when Brian gets the murder case wrapped up.”

  “So, you don’t see Pete as a viable murderer? Even with the gun on the counter?”

  I laughed. “Seriously, do you?”

  “No.” She grinned. “But I do wonder about those guys who were after him. You don’t think one of them followed him up to Carlisle’s floor and mistook him for Pete.”

  “They didn’t look anything alike.”

  “True.” She shook her head. “I’m having crazy thoughts.

  That was another no-go, so she added Pete’s single sheet onto the stack we’d already reviewed and pulled the next person out of the hopper: Arnie Morz.

  “Wow! Lots of community service awards,” Abby said, running a fingernail down the long list.

  “I’ll bet every one of them was for coordinating and participating in some physical challenge to raise money,” I said. “The guy’s a kind of gym rat. You can tell most of the thoughts he has throughout the day revolve around when he can use the Peloton again and out-bike all of his imaginary friends.”

  “Not a fan, I take it?”

  “He’s just... so superficial,” I said. “But Delayne, his assistant. You remember her from high school. Right?”

  “If I’d been into eye scratching, she wouldn’t have hers.” Abby flipped to her pages. “Let’s check out what Mean Girl Delayne has been doing with her life.”

  At first it was disappointing. Then eye-opening.

  “Graduated with a marketing degree from college, then apparently abandoned it as soon as she could,” Abby skimmed. “H
as worked at the bank nearly ten years, rents an apartment in town, has a car loan with the bank for an SUV—big bucks, it’s an Escalade—and owes way too much in student loans. Obviously, no head for business. She should have bought a house instead.”

  “And she works in a bank.”

  Abby started stacking this round of sheets, and commented, “Goes to show—”

  “Wait a minute!”

  I grabbed the papers from her hand and flipped to the one about Delayne’s college degree. Yep, it was what I’d thought. “Here.” I dropped the page to the tabletop and grabbed a highlighter, making five concentric circles around one line of the information. “I remember from high school that Delayne was going to college at Missouri State University. I made sure I never applied there. It says here she was at the Springfield campus the same years Carlisle worked for the Springfield office of Henson, Carter and Associates.”

  “Possibly tying him to both Delayne and Sandra.” Then Abby shook her head. “You said that tent pole would be too heavy for you to stab Carlisle. How would either of these women?”

  “I’ve seen Sandra in running clothes. Brian saw her too, and his tongue hung down to his knees,” I said. “The woman is fit. Plus, the way the stuff was stacked in the garage, she might have been able to kind of raise it and rest it on something chest high. So, all she’d have to use her muscles for during the murder is the big stab. Even I might have been able to do that.”

  Abby put a hand on her hip and rolled her eyes. “Will you please not pop off with observations like that? Even when it’s just us. We’re trying to make you appear less guilty, remember?”

  “Okay, okay.” I raised hands in surrender. “But I could definitely see Sandra being able to do the deed. She has the shoulders and upper arm muscle to handle it. And Delayne is fit too. I haven’t seen her in a running bra, but she no longer has a face with soft chin and cheekbones like high school. Now, she’s all angles. The kind of appearance when someone has their own personal trainer.”

  Abby looked back through her pages. Stopped, then searched through Arnie’s. “They both have a membership in the same gym.”

  “He probably wouldn’t have kept her as his assistant if she wasn’t at her physical peak.”

  “But she’s worked at the bank three years longer than he has. She likely had to apply in-house for the position as his assistant.”

  “Does that make a difference?” I asked.

  “No, probably not. I like to look for patterns and diversions when I see anything that doesn’t follow a straight course.”

  I looked at the last unreviewed stack. “We’re left with Brian’s.”

  “You’re not going to be happy.”

  I frowned. “Is it long and heroic?”

  “The longest and most heroic I’ve seen in a while,” she said. “But I only scanned it, so I may have missed something incriminating.”

  Sighing, I walked to the counter and started prepping the coffeemaker for morning. “Do me a favor and read through it yourself. If there are any surprises, let me know, but I don’t think I could handle reading a lot of praise about my high school nemesis tonight.”

  “I understand. Are you going to bed?”

  “Yup. I’m going to go grab a shower, then spirit the dog out of the boys’ room. Her snoring last night reminded me of Dek. Made me sleep better.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  THANKS TO MISS WONDERFUL Lofton, I’d managed to get very little blog business done in the previous afternoon, despite Abby spiriting away Mac. The experiments with Jamey had taken the rest of the time until dinner prep. So, when I woke ahead of the alarm, it seemed almost a gift to start the day at five-thirty.

  I dressed and stepped over a comatose Honey, as I made my way downstairs and punched the button to start the coffee. In the pantry, I found raspberry PopTarts I kept hidden from the boys—I did it for their own good, like a caring mom concerned about her kids’ nutritional needs—set the pastries on the rack of the toaster oven and pulled out my laptop while I waited for breakfast.

  Last night, while Abby and I sorted paper and made notes, the glimmer of a thought came to me for a blog post. I ran my idea on the theme that being surrounded by clutter costs both time and money, and I wanted to get a blog post started while the inspiration was fresh. This way, I’d be able to let the draft set a few days before I needed to revise and work in additional info.

  All evidence of the coffee and toaster pastry were gone by the time the boys’ alarm sounded at seven. I saved my file, happy with the thousand-plus words written and appropriate links I’d found, and I moved the computer to the kitchen desk and set the table. I started a new round of coffee, since Abby would kill me if she found I drank it all.

  Honey was the first one down, and I expected her to crash in the center of the carpet like usual. Instead, while I sat bowls on the table, I noticed her hind end sticking out from under the coffee table, and the front of her—at least her nose and front paws—hidden under the sofa.

  “Is your squeaky moose under there, baby?” I picked up the table and moved it aside. As I’d suspected, she was trying to dig her way under the furniture. “Move, Honey, and I’ll pull out the sofa and look for you.”

  I swung the heavy piece almost ninety-degrees, which isn’t easy when the carpet fought the maneuver with every fiber.

  No moose. Honey pounced on a palm-sized blue notebook.

  Once I’d finagled it from her by offering a trade of one of her peanut butter bones, I wiped Lab slobber from the cover and still smelled Obsession.

  “Darn. I’ll have to talk to Sandra again and apologize.” Then I looked closer and realized it looked just like—

  I flipped open the cover. “J.C. Carlisle!” I clapped a hand over my mouth and shoved the notepad into my jeans pocket.

  The boys and Abby would be down in a minute and I hadn’t time to read through the book. But if I left it out and “my attorney” caught sight of it, she’d probably do the responsible thing and turn it over to Brian ASAP. Being responsible threw a big roadblock in front of being nosy. Abby would only get the book after I had a chance to tease out its secrets. I hurried and moved the sofa back to avoid any uncomfortable questions.

  Honey took her morning constitutional in the backyard and returned to the middle of the living room before the three sleepy heads made it downstairs.

  I called up, “Hurry boys. We have to get Jamey’s project stuff in the car, so y’all need to get down here and eat.”

  That was enough to get Abby going too.

  “I’m here, I’m here,” she said a few minutes later as I pour a cup of coffee. “Where’s my—?” I passed the cup. “Oh, you’re a goddess,” she said.

  “Yes, I know,” I said, pointing to the table. “Go eat with the boys.”

  She gave a kind of half-mast salute and wandered off, still sucking down java.

  While my crew was refueling, I found a box to transport Jamey’s project. Yesterday, he hunted up clear plastic containers that would work for his classmates to fill with Oobleck, and then toss or thump to make the liquid change into a pseudo-solid. We talked about using sound, like they had on the television show, but that offered whole different risks. So, Jamey copied the recipe for Oobleck onto a small poster board, and at the bottom added the YouTube address for the show clip. I stood the poster board against one long side of the box. I added a couple of large plastic bowls that nested inside one another, to give students the ability to grab the liquid with their hands and let it run back into their respective bowls. Finally, in the last open space in the box, I set the airtight container of Oobleck. I also added a plastic measuring cup, placed upside down to fit, and wedged a box of cornstarch into one corner. That way, Jamey could make the mixture for the class, but it wasn’t his only option. I didn’t add the food coloring—they’d just have to live with white for today’s batch.

  Once he’d finished eating, Jamey took charge of the box. Double checked that I
’d included everything and made a few minor alterations in packing to leave his mark. I stifled a laugh, since it was exactly something his father would do.

  We packed up with time to spare, putting all the science stuff in the way-back of the wagon, and Honey took up her new and favorite place in the middle of the backseat.

  As we neared Mrs. G’s house, she was sitting on her porch dressed in her blue grocery shopping dress and holding her big black purse. I pulled into the driveway and Abby rolled down her window.

  “Hey, Mrs. G,” I called. “Is the senior citizens’ bus coming this morning?”

  She rose from the chair and set her purse in the seat, coming closer as she answered, “Yes, it’s shopping day. I think I’m going to make some fruit cobblers this afternoon. Would you all like one.”

  The boys shook the whole car in their excitement, and Honey barked as she tried to keep in the moment.

  “Quiet! Everyone,” I said. “Yes, Mrs. G, we would love one of your fabulous cobblers. And you’re welcome to dinner at our house tonight if you’re up for it.”

  She smiled and shook her white head. “It sounds lovely, but by the time I shop and bake, I’ll be in bed before the sun sets.”

  “Well, you have a standing invitation.”

  “Thank you, Lissa, dear.” Then she frowned and said, “Would you come out here for a moment and talk to me on the porch?”

  “Sure.”

  Abby looked at me with raised eyebrows, but I only shrugged and climbed out of the car.

  Mrs. G got to the porch ahead of me. “I don’t mean to be mysterious, dear, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted me talking in front of your boys. That young detective on the case came by and asked me a few more questions and asked if I’d seen any evidence of anyone else around my house in the last couple of days. I wanted to let you know so you were aware there might still be some mischief to worry about. He said patrols were stepped up for our neighborhood, and I’ve noticed a police car coming down our street several times each day. Reassured me.”

  “Yes, Detective Baker talked to us as well and said he would speak to the neighbors. I’m glad you feel safer, but if anything ever frightens you, be sure to call.”