String of Lies

by Hughes, MaryEllen

  “How is Sylvia?” Jo asked, taking a seat across from the two of them.

  “Her water started to break. They’re afraid the baby might be born too soon. They’re with her now.” Carrie sighed. “I’m sure the stress brought this on. The police have been talking to Xavier again.”

  Jo nodded, not surprised. “Did they want to know what you did after you left the hotel kitchen last night?”

  Xavier looked at her with eyes that had aged years since she last saw him. “Sí.”

  “Xavier,” Carrie said, standing, “I have to go home now. Amanda’s been running a slight fever,” she explained, turning to Jo. “It’s probably nothing, but I should be with her. I’ll come by again in the morning, Xavier. I’m sure everything will be much better.”

  Xavier stood up with Carrie, and she patted his hand in farewell.

  “Thank you, señora,” he said.

  Jo watched Carrie head for the elevator with her cell phone in hand, ready to check on her daughter the minute she left the building. Jo waited for Xavier to sit back down.

  “I’m so sorry Sylvia’s having problems.”

  “It’s what Señora Brenner says. It’s all too hard on her. It could be very bad for the baby.”

  To look at Xavier’s eyes was heartbreaking, but Jo kept hers steady. “The doctors here are very good. Try not to worry. She’s in good hands.”

  After a moment, Jo asked, “Did you get a lawyer to be with you when you talked to the police?”

  Xavier nodded. “Yes. Mr. Merkle.”

  “Good. What did you tell the police you did after you left the hotel?”

  Xavier sighed. “I tell them the truth. I drive around awhile. I’m very sad to lose my job. I know Sylvia be very sad, and I don’t want to tell her, so I drive.”

  Jo groaned inwardly. That wasn’t good.

  “After you drove around, when did you finally get home?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t look at clock. Sylvia was sleeping, and I was quiet and get into bed without waking her. Maybe it was eleven, maybe twelve. I don’t know.”

  “Did the police ask you if you had ever worked with cars?”

  “Sí. I tell them I never work at a garage. But I know how to fix things. I have to. We can’t afford to take a car to be fixed. If I can’t fix, we don’t have a car.”

  Xavier said it so openly, Jo was sure he had no idea of the deep hole he had dug for himself.

  “Xavier, this is the second time you have no one to back you up as to what you were doing at the time of a murder.”

  “But I have no reason to kill anyone!” Xavier had raised his voice, and a nurse’s aide pushing a cart of medical equipment looked over, startled.

  Jo waited until Xavier had calmed, then said, “The police might think you had good reason to want Alexis Wigsley dead. After all, she caused you to lose your job by dragging Mallory Holt over to find you there.”

  Xavier shook his head vehemently. “No, no, no.”

  “But the worse problem is your connection to Parker Holt, which is probably the main reason they’re also looking at you for Alexis’s death. They’re likely thinking one thing led to the other. You have, in their eyes, a very good reason for wanting Parker Holt dead, and you also had a very good opportunity. It’s that hour after you left Dan and spent grocery shopping that’s the sticking point. Is there no one you can think of that can back you up on that? No one who can give you the alibi you need?”

  Xavier looked down at his hands, which were clenched tightly. He shook his head. “No one, señora.”

  “Are you telling me the absolute truth, Xavier? I’m sorry, but I keep getting an uneasy feeling that you’re leaving something out.”

  Xavier shot Jo a look, turned away, then turned back, stating grimly, “I didn’t kill Mr. Holt. I didn’t kill the lady last night.”

  “Mr. Ramirez?” A nurse in green scrubs stepped into the alcove. “You can see your wife now if you like.”

  Xavier jumped up. “Yes, thank you!

  Jo watched as he hurried down the corridor to his wife’s room. She hoped Sylvia’s pregnancy was stabilized and that their baby was safe. The Ramirezes had enough troubles to deal with.

  As she saw Xavier disappear into the room, she thought about how he reaffirmed his innocence regarding Parker Holt’s murder. His sincerity had been convincing. However, he hadn’t answered her question concerning whether he had left anything out.

  Xavier, she believed, had told her the truth.

  But, she wondered as she stared down the hall to the room holding the Ramirezes, had he told her the whole truth?

  Monday morning, Jo drove straight to the shop, having heard from Carrie that she was at the hospital once again and that Sylvia was doing well. Jo had stayed late the night before until both Xavier and Sylvia fell asleep, Xavier in the chair beside his wife’s bed. She was glad that Carrie would be there to help them through whatever their next steps were.

  As she turned onto Main she was greeted with the cheering sight of Randy shoveling the walk in front of the craft shop.

  She pulled up even with him and lowered the window. “Randy, you got my message!”

  “Morning, Ms. McAllister. Right. Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”

  “I’m just delighted to see you now.” Jo drove into the small parking lot beside the shop, which thankfully had been plowed the day before, though the process had created a high ridge along the edge of Jo’s sidewalk. She had feared she’d have to tackle that ridge herself if Randy didn’t show up.

  As she unlocked her shop door, Jo told Randy, “I’ll get some coffee going. It should be ready in a few minutes.” She went in and flipped on the lights, the first sight of her craft wares always making her smile no matter what else occupied her mind. She headed past her red Valentine’s Day display near the front, the brightly colored silk flowers she’d worked on yesterday, and the beautiful array of scrapbooking papers, stamping essentials, and beads, shucked her outerwear to stow in the back, and set up the coffeepot. She could hear Randy’s shovel scraping against the pavement.

  The phone rang, and Jo picked it up, wondering if it might be Carrie calling from the hospital.

  “Jo, it’s Loralee. I hope I’m not calling too early?”

  “Not at all, Loralee. Is anything wrong?” Jo had picked up a seriousness in Loralee’s usually cheerful tone.

  Loralee sighed. “I just wanted to tell you. I’ve decided to take a condo at Pheasant Run. The Cardinal, I think—the one-bedroom. That should be all I’ll need.” Loralee sounded like a fugitive who decided to finally turn herself in and face up to spending years in the penitentiary.

  “Are you sure?” Jo asked.

  “Yes, dear. I do so want Dulcie and Ken and the children to be nearby. It will be fine. And I’ll be close by to many lovely people at Pheasant Run. There’ll be lots of bridge games.”

  Jo didn’t remember Loralee ever enjoying card games.

  “And such convenience with the shuttle bus available. I won’t need to drive much at all.”

  Loralee loved her car.

  “And that lovely fitness room.”

  Uh-huh.

  “I wanted to thank you, Jo, for all your help.”

  “I did very little, Loralee,” Jo protested. And for what she did do, Jo felt guilty since it had edged Loralee toward an existence she probably wouldn’t enjoy. But what could Jo do? It was her friend’s decision to make. “I wish you all the best, Loralee. If I can help you with this transition, I hope you’ll tell me how.”

  Loralee promised, then asked after the Ramirezes. Jo told her what she knew about Sylvia’s condition and heard some life come back into Loralee’s voice as her focus switched away from her own concerns. “I’ll notify the ladies at church,” she promised. “That dear couple won’t have anything to worry about when they come home from the hospital.”

  “That’s great, Loralee,” Jo said, and wished that could really be true. Xavier and Sylvia might not have their m
eals to worry about, but there would still be a heavy cloud hovering over them, which the Ladies’ Sodality could do nothing about.

  “Oh, Jo, I almost forgot! You know that lovely candleholder you have? I admired it once when I was there, if you remember.”

  “The stemmed, glass bowl that holds a scented pillar candle?”

  “That’s the one. Would you put it aside for me, dear? It will make a lovely housewarming gift for Dulcie and Ken with a rose-colored candle in it, don’t you think?”

  What Jo thought was that Dulcie and Ken should be showering Loralee with gifts for the sacrifice she was making for them, not the other way around, but she said, “Of course, Loralee. I’ll find a nice gift box for you too.”

  Loralee fluttered on with more thanks before finally ending the call. Jo went to find the candleholder, thinking, as she lifted it off its shelf, that it really was a lovely piece. Shaped like an oversized brandy snifter, it was designed to hold a six-inch pillar candle inside and could be easily trimmed with matching flowers or ivy at its base. She wiped a bit of dust from its foot, found a rose-colored candle that smelled like strawberries, and set the whole thing on her desk. She heard the coffeepot come to its final sputters and glanced out her front window. Randy looked to be finishing up on the walk, so she went to bring him in.

  Jo leaned her head out the door and called, “Coffee’s ready.”

  Randy, who had been scraping up the final crumbs of snow from the pavement, looked over. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll be right there.”

  Jo went back to pour out two mugs and set them on the workshop table where she and Randy had eaten their lunch a few days ago. She heard Randy stamp off his boots, then cautiously open the door.

  “Don’t worry about bringing in the snow,” Jo said. “My customers will be tracking it in all day. Come on back.”

  Randy did so, Loralee’s glass candleholder catching his eye as he passed by.

  “That’s just like the one at Parker’s house.”

  “It is?” Jo handed him his mug. “You’ve been there?”

  “Yeah.” Randy blew at his coffee and took a tentative sip. He pulled out a chair and sat down, opening up his jacket and pulling off his knit cap. “Some time last summer. Parker hired me to work on his yard. I remember that candle thing because I nearly knocked the darn thing off a little table near the back door. I could hardly see when I came in from bright sunlight to use the bathroom.”

  Randy took a hearty drink of his coffee. “That’s good. First cup of the day.”

  Jo smiled and nodded. “For me too.” She pulled out a chair and joined Randy at the table. “So you did some landscaping for Holt? Were there others there too? Workers from Pheasant Run?” Jo realized she’d never checked on Heather Bannister’s story of Parker Holt dipping into the Pheasant Run resources.

  “Not when I was there. But I could see there had been work done there recently—new bushes and stuff with their tags still on. I was hired to spread mulch from a big pile. I remember thinking it was funny that whoever did the planting hadn’t finished the rest of it.”

  Jo made a mental note to verify who had done the planting and where they’d gotten the plants from.

  “So you worked there just that once?”

  Randy shifted in his chair. “Well, that might have been the last time I was there. Parker threw a few odd jobs to me, off and on. We knew each other from high school.”

  “Oh, right, I guess he would have been about your age. Were you in the same class?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What was he like then?”

  Randy shrugged. “I only knew him from shop class.” He grinned, remembering. “He wasn’t much good at it. Funny in a way, seeing as how he turned into a big developer. Guess he was a lot better at getting other people to do the work, while he just added up the numbers.”

  Jo took a drink from her mug. “Some people have accused him of dishonesty. Did you see that in him then?”

  “As I said, I only saw him in shop. Hard to cheat there. You either build the thing or you don’t. You’re not going to get someone else to do your work for you with the teacher right in front of you, watching.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  The front door dinged, and Jo looked over to see her first customer of the day, a woman Jo remembered who had bought Jo’s prepackaged key-ring kit. Was it just a week ago? It seemed, after all that had happened, more like months.

  “Excuse me, Randy,” she said, getting up to greet her customer.

  The woman smiled. “That kit I bought here turned out so well, I came for another one, plus one for my daughter.”

  “Great, I’m glad it worked out.” Jo led her over to where the kits were stacked.

  As the woman sifted through the various choices of colors and styles, she said, “Wasn’t that a shame what happened to Alexis Wigsley the other night?”

  “Yes,” Jo said, by then weary of hearing that same comment, which had been repeated often the day before. She heard Randy pushing his chair back and remembered she hadn’t paid him yet for his snow shoveling. She excused herself from her customer and went to her cash register. Randy seemed to have forgotten his payment as well, as he continued on to the front door.

  “Randy!” Jo called, and held his money out to him.

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks.” He took the cash and stuffed it into his pocket.

  “Thank you,” Jo said. “By the way, Randy, did you happen to notice when Alexis Wigsley left the ball Saturday night?”

  “The police asked me that too.” Randy pulled on his knit cap. “I can’t say for sure. I think it was toward the end, but people were leaving in bunches because of the snow, and I was kept hopping.”

  “So I guess you didn’t see if her car was acting funny or not?”

  Randy shook his head.

  Jo’s customer brought two key-ring kits over to the counter, and Randy took off. As Jo rang up the purchase, she reminded the woman of the ongoing beading workshops, “In case you want to learn a few more beading techniques.”

  As she said it, Jo’s thoughts went to her group of regulars and how she looked forward to meeting with them again. She wanted their help to make sense of all the bits and pieces of information she’d picked up over the last few days.

  “I’d really like to do that,” the woman said. “But with so many things popping up lately in my life, I’ll be lucky if I manage to get to this new kit anytime soon. Can’t hold on to too many strings at once, can we?” The woman laughed. “You just end up with a tangled mess!”

  Jo nodded. How very true.

  Chapter 22

  Javonne was the first of the workshop group to arrive, and Jo handed her the black dress on a wire hanger, covered with a plastic dry-cleaner’s bag, along with the coat she had borrowed for the ball.

  “Thanks so much, Javonne. It was a great outfit for my undercover work.”

  “You had the dress cleaned?” Javonne protested. “Why did you go and do that? I’ll never be that size again, so all it’s doing is going back into my closet.”

  “I don’t think I was that size, either, to tell the truth. I doubt I took a full breath the entire night.”

  “Then it was a good thing you didn’t have to chase down any criminals, wasn’t it?” Javonne grinned. “I’ll just take this right out to the car and get it out of the way.”

  As Javonne left the shop, Ina Mae and Loralee entered, and Jo retrieved the glass candleholder from the stockroom, where she’d packed it carefully with tissue paper in its gift box.

  “Here you are, Loralee,” she said. “I added a rose-colored candle to it.”

  “Thank you, dear!” Loralee said, taking it. “This will look lovely on Dulcie’s coffee table.”

  “In your living room,” Ina Mae added with a sniff.

  “No, it will be her living room then. I’ve had it long enough.” Loralee said it with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I went to talk with Angie Palmer yesterday. She’s drawing up
the papers.”

  Jo struggled with what to say and settled on, “Pheasant Run will be lucky to get you.”

  Javonne breezed back into the store, accompanied by Vernon, and they all gathered around the workshop table, where Jo had already set out the boxes of beads.

  “I thought we could work on a multistrand bracelet,” Jo said. “It’s a bit more complicated, so don’t expect to finish it tonight. But the result, I think, will be a lovely piece and worth the extra work.” Jo explained how beads of various sizes would be strung on five separate wires, all attached in a row to the end slide clasp. “If you make each string hold a different pattern of beads, you’ll get a nice effect. Then we’ll string a sixth wire, and wrap it loosely around the other five.” She held up the sample bracelet she had put together and got a pleased reaction from the group.