“Yep. That’s him. Young fella. A nice lookin’ guy a mother would be proud of.”
The sergeant waved Officer Collins over to him and handed the paper to him. “Find this guy and take him to the station for questioning. Take Winnie with you.”
I made my way toward the lobby and saw an employee restroom near the stairs. I went in and stood at the sink, staring at myself in the mirror. I’d done a good job of mopping up the blood on my face, but there were drips and spatters on my shirt and jacket.
I rinsed my face with cold water and wiggled my nose. It wasn’t broken. I didn’t recall hitting my face on the wall or floor. Maybe my bag hit me in the face when it went flying.
Once I felt I was presentable and wouldn’t scare any children in the lobby, I went in search of Glenn and found him with a group of officers interviewing employees and customers.
I couldn’t understand why Jackie hadn’t shown up yet. Surely she must know what happened by now. Someone in the bank would have notified Milly at the beauty shop, and the entire town would have been alerted through the beauty shop’s gossip hotline.
Glenn was just finishing his interview with Danny McNutt when I walked up to them. Danny was all smiles. “I hear you had some excitement down there,” he said.
I didn’t know how to respond. A man had just died and was probably murdered. How could he be so cavalier and call his death excitement?
Glenn pulled me aside and whispered, “No one in this part of the bank felt the explosion, and only a few people heard any noise at all. We’re not sharing details, so everyone is assuming someone tried to rob the bank.”
I was too miserable to care. “I’m going home to take a shower, and then I’m spending the rest of the day in bed.”
“Didn’t anyone call an EMT for you? You can’t go home. You need to go to the hospital. What if you have a concussion or internal bleeding?”
“I’m going home,” I argued. “I don’t have any lumps or bumps, no blurred vision, and I think my bag gave me the bloody nose. If I’m not feeling well when you come home later, you can take me to the hospital.”
“Ok, but you’re not driving. Let me grab Clay and we’ll get you home.”
Danny came over to stand beside me.
“What happened down there?” he asked. “I heard someone tried to rob the bank.” He looked at the blood on my clothes. “Did you stop him?”
“It’s complicated,” I said. “And I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”
He shrugged and accepted my explanation. “Did I hear that cop say he was giving you a ride home? If he wants to stay here, I can take you home.” His smile was back.
My skin crawled, and I couldn’t completely hold back a shudder. I was on edge like I’d never been before. I had to quit talking to Danny before I said something I regretted. “That cop is my husband,” I said and walked away.
I went outside and climbed into the passenger seat of my truck to wait for Glenn. When I reached up to pull the seatbelt, I felt a rip in the material. A closer inspection showed the bullet fired at Oscar Preston entered my truck through the open driver’s side door, and rather than passing through to Oscar on the other side of my vehicle, it had gone through the seatbelt and was now lodged in the plastic molding.
There was no way I could hide this from Glenn. Keeping the shooting to myself was no longer an option. At least I’d have the bullet as proof when I eventually talked with Sergeant Rorski.
I leaned my head back, sighed deeply, and watched as the first few flakes of snow for the season began to fall.
Chapter Three
“What’s that horrible smell?”
I had just walked through Pepper’s garage and into her kitchen when a pungent odor filled my nostrils. I scrunched my still tender nose.
“Come and see,” she said with a cheerfulness that was almost too much for me to handle at nine o’clock in the morning.
I followed her into the living room. The sofa with its two end tables and lamps was along the wall to my left. The rest of the room consisted of office furniture to include a desk with my red phone and answering machine. A metal sign at the edge of the desk indicated the desk belonged to Pepper Swenson, Sister and Office Manager.
However, the item commanding my immediate attention was a movie poster on the wall behind the desk. The title of the movie? Two Sisters and a Journalist. The logline? Three Women Who Get You Action.
The large silhouette outline of the three women in the middle of the poster was meant to be a representation of Pepper, Jackie, and me, but only Jackie’s sexy silhouette was true to form. Pepper and I were definitely not as thin as the artist had depicted. Our full names had been typeset at the bottom where the actor’s names would normally appear. If the words Coming to a Theater Near You had been included, the joke would be complete.
Pepper was trying to get me to look at something near the front door, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the poster. I pointed to it and shook my head in disbelief.
“Isn’t that fantastic,” she gushed. “Kelly’s art teacher is showing the class how to make posters using computer software, and the local copy shop is printing them at a reduced rate. I asked her teacher to do one for us, and this is what she came up with.” Pepper looked proud of herself when she said, “It’s our first official business expense. Her teacher only charged fifty dollars for the artwork, and the hundred posters I ordered from the shop will only cost sixty-five.” She made a soft sighing sound. “I love it.”
I’m sure somewhere deep inside me was the desire not to hurt Pepper’s feelings, but I didn’t take the time to find it.
“It’s horrible,” I said. “People are going to think we’ve ripped off Charlie’s Angels.” I put my hands on my head for a moment as if trying to keep it from exploding. “And we have to change our name. People are laughing at us. We never considered they might think the sisters are nuns. Can you imagine nuns being private investigators?”
There was dead silence for all of five seconds before Pepper burst into tears. My shoulders slumped.
I put a hand out toward her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so harsh. I’m still on edge from yesterday.”
She grabbed a tissue from a box on the desk and blew her nose. “I’ve worked hard to get this business up and running again,” she said through sniffles. “I know what I’m doing. I took an online marketing class, and this poster is perfect for us.”
I didn’t have it in me to argue. “You’re right. I agreed to let you handle the office management and marketing. I’ll trust you from now on. I promise.”
As much as I hated the poster and thought our name was a mistake, I’d keep my promise. The worst that could happen would be that we’d go out of business, and that might not be a bad thing.
“My flyers got us that big job yesterday,” she said. “I’m sorry everything went wrong at the bank, but we still made money.”
I pulled the thousand dollars out of my bag, and placed it on the desk. “We can’t keep this. It’s blood money.”
Pepper grabbed the cash and held it to her chest with both hands. It would take an army to pry it from her.
“We’re keeping this,” she said emphatically. “You could have been killed yesterday. You deserve to be paid for what you did.”
I shook my head. “No. A man was killed yesterday. A real, live man with a perfectly waxed moustache.”
Pepper looked confused. “You’ve seen more dead people than anyone I know. Why is this man’s death bothering you? You didn’t know him.”
“I didn’t know him, but he hired me to protect him, and now he’s dead. He was next to me, talking and alive one minute, and gone the next. I failed this man, Pepper. I couldn’t do my job. We can’t keep his money.”
Pepper wouldn’t give up. “You didn’t fail him, Jo. You said he told you to wait out in the hall. If you would have stayed by his side to protect him, you’d be dead. Besides, we need this money. If you don’t want any of it,
that’s up to you, but I did my part to get the job, and I’m putting this money back into the business.” Her words carried a finality to them.
I dropped the subject. I didn’t want to fight with her. “What did you want to show me?” I asked.
Her cheerful countenance returned. She slipped the money into her sweater pocket and went to the coat rack in the corner. “Look at this,” she squealed, holding a fur coat up to herself. “It’s Russian sable. Isn’t it divine?”
“That’s not real.”
“Of course it is. Buck brought it home for me.”
There was no way they could afford a real fur coat. “That’s a Russian sable coat,” I said slowly, repeating her words. “Buck brought it home for you.”
She pranced back and forth with the coat in front of her. “A friend of his, another guy who drives truck, well, his grandmother died and his wife got this coat. She hates it, so he asked Buck if he wanted it, and he brought it home for me.”
“Is that what’s making your house smell so awful?” I asked.
“Mothballs,” she said. “The coat’s been stored a long time.”
“You can’t wear that. Someone will throw paint on you.”
“No they won’t. It’s vintage, so it’s grandfathered in. These sables died before anyone cared about animal rights. To not wear the coat would dishonor the animals that died to make it.”
She hung the coat back on the rack and turned on a fan that was facing the coat. The unpleasant odor intensified in the room.
“How long do you think it will take to air out?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. A day or two.”
I headed for the kitchen. “If I stay here any longer, I’ll have a mothball headache. I’m going out to do a little investigating of the murder yesterday. Do you want to come along?”
“You bet,” she said. “Let me stash this money and grab my purse.”
A few minutes later, Pepper yanked on the seatbelt in my truck. “What happened to this?” she asked.
I couldn’t help sighing. “When Oscar and I were getting out of the truck at the bank, someone drove by and took a shot at him, but they missed.”
Pepper spotted the bullet in the molding. “How are you still driving your truck? Isn’t this evidence?”
“Sergeant Rorski hasn’t officially questioned me, and no one has asked me to go to the station to write a statement, so I didn’t volunteer the information.”
“Does Glenn know?”
“Not yet. He’ll see it eventually, but until then, or until I’m properly questioned, I’m not giving up my truck. I need it.”
Pepper nodded. “Where are we going? To see the guy who was in the safe deposit box before our client? And does Glenn know you’re following up on Mr. Preston’s murder? You said you’d stay out of his business.”
She was starting to irritate me with her questions that sounded more like accusations. “For starters,” I said, “Oscar Preston was our client. We have a right to find out why he was killed. And we’re not going to see Jerome Conner. I think Sergeant Rorski will be all over him for a few days. I want to see Ellis Rich, the man who owned the box. I did some checking this morning. He’s a retired stockbroker. He was accused of insider trading about ten years ago, but the charges didn’t stick. He started his own investment firm after that and retired last year for health reasons, although he still does some private investing.”
I turned off Main Street and left Buxley by way of Route 40.
“Where does he live?” Pepper asked.
“Avondale.”
“Wow. That’s money up there,” she said. “I’ve driven through a few times to look at the houses. They’re all mansions.”
Her eyes were lit up brighter than a Christmas tree. It might have been a mistake to bring her along.
“You have to behave when we get there,” I said. “No asking to go to the bathroom and no snooping through the house.”
She sounded insulted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I glanced over at her. I could tell she was lying through her teeth. I needed to take her mind off whatever she was planning.
“How would you like a job?” I asked.
She made jumping movements in her seat. If the seatbelt hadn’t been holding her down, her head would have probably hit the ceiling. “Yes! Yes! I’d love to take over Nancy’s job. I could be the office manager for Two Sisters and a Journalist and Baranski and Wheeler Investigations.”
I sighed again. “That’s not what I meant. I was going to ask you if you wanted to do some housekeeping for me.”
She looked disgusted. “No, I don’t want to clean for you. I don’t want to clean my own house. Why would I want to clean yours?”
“You’re still looking for extra work aren’t you? Glenn and I are thinking about hiring some help, so I thought I’d ask you first.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. The last job I want is cleaning your toilets.”
A slight whiff of mothballs reached me. “You don’t have to be so snobbish about it. I would have paid you well.”
“You’re a pig on a good day. You can’t pay me enough to clean up your mess.”
She was making me mad again. “What are you talking about? When were you in our house and it was piggish? Maybe I don’t clean as much as I should, but Glenn keeps the place nice.”
“Ok. Ok. Maybe you and Glenn have everything under control, but you have to admit, when we lived at home with Mama, and when you lived alone in your house, you were a pig. Dishes everywhere, fast food containers in the living room, the bed never made, laundry only when it was necessary, and how often did you run the vacuum? A couple times a year?”
I felt like turning the truck around and taking her home. “I was living alone, so I didn’t have to keep a spotless house, and it was never as bad as you’re making it out to be. Forget I asked.”
The mothball odor drifted my way again.
“You stink,” I said.
Pepper folded her arms across her chest. “You don’t have to be mean, Jo. You know you aren’t the best housekeeper in the world.”
With heavy sarcasm, I said, “Which is why I offered to hire you.” With a softer tone, I said, “And I wasn’t being mean. You smell like mothballs. Maybe you should air the coat out somewhere other than your living room.”
She sniffed both armpits and nodded. “I think you’re right. Keith is staying at a friend’s house tonight. Maybe I’ll move it into his room for a while.”
I turned off Route 40 and passed beneath the stone arch indicating we were entering the community of Avondale. Pepper pointed out the fifteen mile per hour speed limit sign.
“Make sure you drive the speed limit. I heard they have security guards here who write tickets for one mile over the speed limit.”
A snicker noise escaped my lips. “That’s not true. Glenn said every jurisdiction gives you three to five miles over the speed limit before pulling you over.”
Pepper pulled her lips tight. “Why are you so contrary today? You’re arguing about everything. Are you going to argue with Mr. Rich, too?”
I wasn’t arguing about everything, but I was testy, and I knew it was coming through loud and clear.
I reached over and put my hand on her arm. “I’m sorry. I think my brain is still rattled from yesterday. I’m not trying to upset you.”
She smiled. “I know. If I was nearly blown up, I’d probably be in bed for a week, in a fetal position, and sucking my thumb.” Her eyes flew open wide. “Not that I suck my thumb,” she said quickly.
I couldn’t help laughing at her denial. Pepper had sucked her thumb until she was seven years old. She was terrified people would find out and think she was still a thumb sucker as an adult.
A few minutes later, we pulled into Ellis Rich’s driveway. It felt good to have a case to work and leave the mountain of paperwork behind. I only wished we weren’t investigating the murder of our client.
I took a f
ew deep breaths. It was time to be professional. I looked over at Pepper and smiled. With enough enthusiasm to match hers earlier, I said, “Let’s get this show on the road.”
Chapter Four
Pepper rang the bell to Ellis Rich’s home.
The house was an odd mix of stone and brick with a few Tudor elements in wood. It was by far the largest house on the street, but it wasn’t the most attractive. The entrance felt unwelcoming without a porch or steps. It was as though the house began as a cottage a hundred years ago and had been added to over time until the monstrosity before us was realized. Even the landscaping felt haphazard.
Pepper opened her purse and pulled out a box of business cards. “I forgot to give these to you.”
A sample of the cards within was taped to the lid and was a miniature of the poster behind her desk. Instead of all three of our names at the bottom, Jo Wheeler, Private Investigator was the only name noted. I had the same reaction to the business cards that I did to the poster, but I didn’t let Pepper know. I slipped the box into my bag.
“Thanks,” I mumbled.
A good-looking, shirtless, hunk of a man opened the door and smiled a smile so dazzling, I almost let my mouth hang open in awe. Almost. Pepper, however, allowed her eyes to bug out and said under her breath, “Wow.”
I jabbed her in the side with my elbow.
“What’d you do that for?” she asked and rubbed her ribs.
The man laughed. “What can I do for you ladies?”
Before I could respond, Pepper jumped in with a big smile of her own and handed him her mini poster business card. “Hi, Mr. Rich. I’m Pepper Swenson, and this is my sister, Jo Wheeler. We’re from Two Sisters and a Journalist. We’re investigating the death of Oscar Preston. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
I was going to kill her. If she had been listening to me earlier, she would have realized this wasn’t Ellis Rich, because Ellis Rich was easily in his seventies or eighties. And I definitely didn’t want to tip our hand this soon that Oscar Preston was dead. Pepper had just given away our ace in the hole.
Murder Breaks the Bank Page 3