Murder Is Where the Heart Is

by Maddie Cochere

  “Jo, it’s Alan. I need to talk with you right away. Give me a call as soon as you get this.”

  My heart jumped when I heard his voice. We hadn’t spoken to each other in over a year. I didn’t usually think about him in my day-to-day activities, but he did show up in my dreams fairly often. In them, we would do mundane, routine things like we used to – go out to dinner, watch television, play Scrabble. It was odd that he would call on the red phone, and I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to talk about.

  I put my bags on the counter and took my time unloading the groceries and making a salad. I rarely ate in the kitchen or dining room anymore. Ever since Alan and I divorced, the comfortable, overstuffed sofa and the coffee table in the living room had become my dining area.

  I grabbed the remote, slumped down a bit on the sofa with my salad bowl on my lap, and put my feet up on the coffee table. The highly lacquered wood was starting to show wear from frequent rubbing, but that didn’t make me want to put my feet down. I was doing much better in the not feeling like a slug department, but I still liked being comfortable on the sofa.

  Four months ago, a salad would have been boring and unsatisfying. Now that I had my binge eating mostly under control, I found eating healthier tasted better. I took a couple bites before turning on the television.

  There was nothing of interest. I was a police drama and murder mystery junkie, and the only thing on was an old Perry Mason episode I had seen more than once. I checked the guide for the evening shows and was disappointed to see mostly slasher flicks. With Halloween coming up, all the movie channels had horror movies scheduled.

  I watched Perry Mason’s courtroom scene anyway and enjoyed the masterful way he reduced the guilty party to tears on the stand. He sure knew how to wrangle a good confession.

  As the music blared over the ending credits, the red phone rang. It used to be that only Pepper and Jackie had the number to the vintage rotary phone that plugged into a wall jack, but now that the number was on my A. B. Investigations business cards, it could be anybody wanting Arnie or me to investigate a problem for them.

  The telephone sat on an antique stand next to another of my favorite thrift shops finds – an overstuffed chair with a refrigerator in the side. The chair was nearly a perfect match to my sofa and was presently stocked with Lite beer.

  I picked up the handset. “Two Sisters and a Journalist. This is Jo Ravens, Investigator.”

  “Why do you have to identify yourself?” Jackie asked. “If someone’s calling you, they already know it will be you answering the phone.”

  “I think it sounds more professional. The person calling might expect a receptionist to answer. I want them to know they got right through to the top.”

  Jackie laughed. “What if they ask for the journalist?”

  “I’d give them your number, of course.” I was serious, but I laughed with her. There was a fair amount of humor in the fact that I had quit my job at the mortgage company and was trying to make a living as an investigator.

  She became serious. “I just wanted to call and let you know Brick Brack has been arrested for the murder of Kate Fuller.”

  “No,” I said in feigned disbelief. “You know, the entire time we were at the morgue, I thought he looked and acted guilty. His grief at seeing his dead fiancé on the table with a bullet hole in her head seemed phony. I like him, too, for her murder.”

  “The arresting officer was Glenn Wheeler. He picked him up about ten minutes ago.”

  The inflection in her voice made it sound as if Glenn was some sort of hero. I did have a moment of pride and thought that’s my guy. Maybe I was more certain of my feelings for him than I realized.

  “Are they convinced it’s Brick? Do they have any evidence?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what they have, but he’s been charged, so there’s something. I’ll keep asking around. I overheard an officer say it was a crime of passion.”

  “I thought he had a solid alibi,” I said. “He was at the dispatch office. Hank talked with him when he called for a cab for me at the wedding reception.”

  “I do know about that,” she said. “The 911 call about the body falling out of the cab was at six thirty. Hank’s call was logged at six fifty-two. That was plenty of time for Brick to rush back to the garage.”

  “Well, that was solved fast. I already started work on the whiteboard. I’ll have to erase it tonight. What about Leslie Preston? Any word on her abduction?”

  “Not a peep.”

  “What are you doing in the morning?” I asked.

  “I’m meeting with the superintendent at the high school at eight-thirty. There’s a tax levy coming up, and I want to get the school’s official stance on why they need the extra money. Why?”

  “I’m spying on Burt Chester again at ten o’clock. Want to meet me at the coffee shop and ride along?”

  “Sure. When I’m done at the school, I’ll go over there to work on my story and wait for you.”

  We hung up a few minutes later. I took my salad bowl to the kitchen. After dropping it and my fork into the dishwasher, I dug through my purse to find my phone. I didn’t recall turning it off, but it wouldn’t be the first time it had turned off on its own. It had been acting glitchy for a few months now.

  I took a seat on the sofa again and put my feet up. It took three tries before the phone came on and stayed on. I had missed one call from Pepper earlier in the day. She was probably calling to entice me into coming over and helping with the fence painting. I was glad I missed her call.

  Alan had tried twice on my cell phone before calling the red phone and leaving a message on the answering machine. I was disappointed to see I had missed a call from Glenn ten minutes ago. Hopefully, he would call back.

  I brought up Alan’s number and punched send. He must have been sitting on the phone, because I didn’t even hear it ring before he said, “Jo! Baby! How are you?”

  Baby? What was he smoking? He had never called me baby before, and I found it irritating now.

  “I’m fine. What do you want?”

  He was oblivious to my biting tone. “You remember my Aunt Julia, right? She was the one with the fake eye that creeped you out all the time.”

  He was insufferable. Her fake eye didn’t creep me out. It was the large black mole with the two long hairs growing out of the same eyelid that creeped me out.

  “I remember her.”

  “She died last month.” He sounded positively jubilant.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “She was a nice lady. I liked her.”

  “Yeah, she was, but she was old as dirt, and she left me a buttload of money. Well, she left the two of us a buttload of money, but since we’re divorced, you’re no longer entitled to any of it.”

  What a jerk. It made me sad to hear him talk like this. He didn’t used to be this way. Success had gone to his head, and his love of money was on full display.

  “What do you want, Alan?” I asked.

  “She left her house to us, too. I need you to drop by my place and sign a quitclaim deed to take your name off the property. My lawyer is drawing up the papers. Swing by tomorrow afternoon, would you? Bailey will be there all day.”

  Bailey. His skinny, fashionista wife who quit working at the coffee shop soon after they were married. The last thing I wanted to do was go to Alan’s gorgeous home and see the equally gorgeous Bailey.

  “Why can’t you bring them here?”

  “I’m out of town signing a huge deal. I just landed the account for all of the bread bags at Bear Bread in Peoria. I was supposed to be home tomorrow afternoon, but it looks like I won’t make it in until late. I have to have the papers back to my attorney Tuesday morning, so I need your signature right away.”

  “Why can’t I just go to your attorney’s office?”

  “Because he’s sending the papers to the house.” His voice took on a tone I had heard many times before. “Dammit, Jo, just go over and sign the papers tomorrow. I have to go.”
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br />   And go he did. Knowing Alan, I could safely assume he disconnected in a forceful manner. He was infuriating at times.

  I admit to being jealous with how his career took off and how much money he made after our divorce, but now that I was embarking on my own career, I didn’t think about it as often. I had a bright and profitable future of my own ahead of me.

  Resigning myself to seeing Bailey tomorrow, I relieved my frustration by cleaning the bathrooms. After giving all three a vigorous scrubbing, I settled back down on the sofa to watch slasher flicks for the evening.

  I was disappointed when Glenn didn’t call back.

  Chapter Five

  “Hey, lady, you broke it, you bought it.”

  I looked up into the face of a large, middle-aged man standing in front of me. Other than his face, every bit of exposed skin was tattooed.

  “I didn’t break it. I just picked it up to look at it.” I held the teapot up for the man to see. “The lid’s cracked.”

  “It wasn’t cracked when I put it out ten minutes ago.”

  He wasn’t sucking me into that old trick.

  “You know full well I didn’t crack it. I’ve barely had a chance to look at it.”

  He pointed to a large placard at the front of his space. “The sign says, if you break it, you buy it.” He held his hand out for the money.

  I mumbled the word shyster under my breath and set the teapot down. On most days, I enjoyed coming into the flea market. It was an old, three-story building with wood plank floors. The interior was incredibly rundown, but that didn’t stop vendors from renting space. The building was packed full of antiques, junk, books, and old treasures. New goods were relegated to the top floor.

  Most of the vendors were friendly, but a few were difficult, and even dishonest, like the tattooed wonder here. I should have known better than to stop at his space, but the teapot had caught my eye, and I couldn’t help myself. It matched the one my grandmother used for tea parties with Pepper and me when we were kids. Before this jerk accused me of breaking it, warm memories swirled through my mind.

  It wasn’t worth arguing about, and I could live with the crack. I pulled a five-dollar bill out of my wallet and slapped it into the man’s hand. I glared at him as I grabbed the teapot by the handle. It promptly fell onto the floor and shattered. My mouth hung open as I stared at the handle in my hand. I touched the broken edge and tacky glue came off onto my finger.

  The man spluttered and said, “Look what you did now.”

  I snatched the bill out of the man’s hand and marched off. I completely ignored him when he called after me, “Hey, you made this mess. Aren’t you going to clean it up?”

  I stopped browsing and made my way to the back of the building. The snack counter was already busy with vendors, customers, and several retired regulars who hung out in the flea market all day long. The odor of hot dogs and popcorn filled the air, but it was much too early in the day for anything other than coffee for me.

  Arnie was in his usual place on the lone stool at the end of the long counter. The seat gave him a clear view of the first floor and the staircase. He didn’t smile when he saw me approaching. He never did. He always looked away and took another big gulp of coffee. The man drank strong, day old, black coffee. Walt, the owner of flea market, brewed a pot at the end of the day and let it sit all night for Arnie in the morning.

  I sat next to him on the corner. My only view was of Arnie and whatever Walt was doing behind the counter.

  The rented space behind him looked different from when I was in here on Friday. A card table and two folding chairs leaned against the back wall. A small television on a tall stand filled one corner, while a small locking file cabinet sat in the opposite corner. Those were the usual items. The new addition taking up real estate in the middle of the space was a brown leather recliner. On the wall behind the setup hung the familiar A. B. Investigations sign.

  The original offices of Arnold Baranski Investigations burned down a few years ago. Arnie then conducted his business from a stool in Parker’s Tavern until two months ago when Parker suggested it was time for him to find a new office. The corner space in the flea market was cheaper than an office and as good a spot as any.

  “Barcalounger?” I asked.

  Mama used to have a Barcalounger similar to this one. When Hank was little, he would jump in the chair and bark like a dog. It made Mama crazy, but Pepper and I thought it was hilarious that Hank thought a chair had been invented especially for barking.

  Arnie nodded affirmative. “Vintage. Ten clams. Just came in this morning.”

  I nodded my approval. Even though it had wear and a few stains, it looked to be a good buy at that price.

  “Slip me the lowdown on Chester,” he said.

  “I don’t have any lowdown. I’m going out to spy on him in a few minutes.”

  He frowned. “Surveillance. You’re running surveillance. You’re not spying. Did you at least go by his house?”

  “Not since Friday. Why?”

  “Jo, the job’s not Monday through Friday nine to five. You gotta be on the ball all the time. Observation. You always gotta be observing the world around you. Weekend’s the best time to catch a guy pulling a fast one. What were you doing all weekend?”

  I didn’t think he was mad. He seemed more concerned that I had dropped the ball on the case so soon.

  “I went to the Harrington wedding, and I spent yesterday afternoon down at the police station. You know about Kate Fuller and Leslie Preston, right?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Are we going to look into either case?”

  “Nope. Cops got Brack rubbin’ out the hack, and the other cupcake will turn up sooner or later.”

  “Leslie’s not a cupcake, Arnie. And why do you think she’ll turn up?”

  “She’s a television star, someone snatched her for a ransom. You’ll see.”

  I had no idea why he would think a ransom demand was to come. Leslie hadn’t been famous long enough to earn a huge income, and I knew her family didn’t come from money.

  “Did you know I was in the cab when she was abducted?”

  He gave me a wry grin and said, “Yep. What’d you observe?”

  I grimaced, and I knew I pronounced myself guilty with the look on my face. “I was sick. I didn’t have my faculties about me to observe anything.”

  He looked deep into my eyes and said with exaggeration, “Observe everything.”

  “I got it,” I said. “I’ll do better, I promise. How much more time do I have on the Chester investigation?”

  “The insurance company is expecting my report a week from Wednesday. I’ll give you through the weekend, but if you can’t deliver the goods, I’m taking over on Monday. Got it?”

  I smiled. I liked the grizzled old man. He had a rough exterior that made him look like someone who could eat you for breakfast and spit you out for lunch, but there was a kindness about him, too.

  “I’m on it,” I told him.

  I ordered a cup of coffee to go and headed for the front door. The tattooed vendor was busy with a customer. I scurried by to escape any comments he might want to throw my way.

  The donut shop was only a few minutes away. Jackie’s car was in the parking lot when I pulled in, and I knew she would be watching for me. I waited for her to come out.

  The Crumwell Insurance folder was on the passenger seat. I glanced through it one more time. Burt Chester had taken out a personal disability policy two months before a slip and fall outside his home. His alleged back injuries had kept him off work for nearly three months now, and the policy was paying him a considerable amount of money every month.

  The insurance company hired Arnie to run surveillance on Burt to determine if his behavior was indicative of a disabled person, or at the very least, someone struggling and showing signs of back discomfort.

  So far, my efforts hadn’t yielded any results. I had only seen Burt twice, and both times, he was out for a walk i
n his neighborhood. The chiropractor I consulted said walking was a normal part of therapy with a back injury.

  I looked up to see Jackie hustling across the parking lot with a cup of coffee in one hand and her briefcase in the other. She usually wore her long red hair pulled back when she was working, but today it was loose and falling in waves down past her shoulders. Her beauty easily turned heads, as evidenced by the two men walking into the donut shop. They were obvious in their appreciation of the view.

  She tossed her briefcase into the back seat before climbing in and digging through her oversized purse. She pulled out a small camcorder and grinned. “I’m all set. Let’s catch this fraudster.”

  I pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward home. Burt Chester lived in the allotment north of my cul-de-sac. Pepper could probably see his house from one of the bedrooms in her house.

  “Let’s stop at Pepper’s first,” I said.

  “Is she coming along?”

  “No, she’s schooling the kids today, but it just dawned on me that I might be able to see into Burt’s back yard from Kelly or Keith’s bedroom. I’d love to spot him digging holes or base jumping off his roof. I could put this case to bed today.”

  Jackie chuckled at the base jumping comment before changing the subject. “What did Arnie have to say about the Leslie Preston abduction?”

  “He doesn’t want me to get involved. He thinks a ransom note will show up. I can’t shake the feeling that whoever killed Kate abducted Leslie, too. But if Brick killed Kate, what would he have wanted with Leslie?” My eyes went wide with a thought. “Ooh, maybe Leslie saw him murder Kate.”

  Jackie shook her head. “She wouldn’t have driven the cab around like nothing happened if she witnessed the murder. She would have called the police – or at least her uncle.”

  “How’s Doug doing? Did he come in to work today?” I asked.

  “He did. I thought it odd considering how upset he was Saturday night, but he said between wanting to kill his wife and worrying about Leslie, he was going crazy at home.”