“I’m sorry,” I said with a sigh. I really didn’t want to put pressure on her, but she’d been lying around the house for two days and that wasn’t good for her. “But it might make you feel better if you got up and out of the house. How long has it been since you had a shower?”
She shrugged. “I can’t remember.”
“Christy,” I said. She needed to get up and out of the house. Mom had tried to get her to look at Christmas lights with her and Dad the night before, but she had turned her down.
She turned her head toward me. “Look, Mia, I’m probably not going to be very happy for a while. I don’t want that to put you out, seeing as how you and Ethan are in love, but it’s just the way it is.”
Ouch.
“Okay. I’m not going to put pressure on you. I do understand you’re going through a difficult time right now. And I still hope you and John can work things out. But I just want you to know that I really am rooting for you.”
She grimaced and then sighed. “Okay. You’re right. I’m not making things any better by lying around.” She sat up. “I don’t smell very good, either. I just keep thinking that I made a mistake somewhere. Or mistakes. Lots of mistakes. Why else would he want to leave me?” Her voice cracked as she spoke.
I sat down on the chair across from the couch. “You know what they say. It takes two to tango. Or is that tangle? Blaming yourself isn’t going to help anything, and it’s a waste of time, anyway. He needs to man up and take some of the blame. Beating yourself up isn’t going to help anything.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. “You’re right. I just need to get through this somehow. And I’ll do it. I really will.”
“I know it’s going to take some time. If there’s something I can do to help, you know I’m here for you.”
She nodded. “I know you are.”
The doorbell rang, and we both looked at the front door.
“I’ll get it,” I said and got up and headed toward the door.
“Mom said she called a handyman to look at the leaky sink in the guest bathroom. I’m going upstairs to take a shower and relieve everyone of the smell.” She got up and headed up the stairs.
I hesitated, wondering if Mom had called Josh Tate. I considered calling Christy back so I wouldn’t be in the living room alone with him, if that who was behind door number one. I decided against it and opened the door. Chris Adams stood there with a toolbox in hand. “Hi Mia, your mom called and said she had a leaky sink.”
I smiled. “We sure do. I’ll show you the way.” I led him to the bathroom down the hall. “It’s leaking on the U-shaped thingy underneath the sink. I don’t know the technical term for it.”
He chuckled. “That’s okay, you don’t have to know the technical term.”
“Chris, I’m so sorry about Ellie,” I said as he opened the cupboard door and knelt on the floor.
He looked up at me. “It is a shame. Our daughter is torn up about it, as you can imagine. I never expected something like that to happen.” He shook his head and turned to look at the pipes beneath the cupboard.
“I found her that day,” I said. “It broke my heart.”
He looked up at me again, concern on his face. “I’m sorry, Mia. I didn’t know that. To be honest, I don’t know what she was doing there at the party house.”
“No one seems to know that. Laura said she had vertigo and never should have been on those stairs. They’re so steep.”
He looked at me, surprised. “Vertigo? It must have been something she developed after we split up. She never had a problem before.”
“Really?” I asked. “Maybe it was something she had developed recently.” That made me wonder. Ethan had seen the prescription bottle, but was vertigo something that was a long-term condition, or was it something where she experienced a couple of episodes and it was over? I wondered if Ethan had thought to look at the date the medication was prescribed. I wouldn’t have thought to do it.
He nodded. “It must have been. I heard she was murdered though. So I don’t know if vertigo played into it at all.”
“It may not have. I know the police are investigating and I’m sure they’ll have an answer soon.”
“I know Ethan is working on the case,” he said and shook his head. “You know what I don’t understand? Why Ellie allowed Laura to live with her as long as she did.”
“What do you mean?”
“Laura was down on her luck a few years ago. She never would tell Ellie what happened, but she got evicted from her apartment. Of course, Ellie wasn’t going to allow her to live in her car, so she told her she could live with us temporarily. But Laura wouldn’t move out. Well, let me tell you, that was the end of our marriage.” He shook his head sadly and opened his toolbox. “Yeah, Laura is something else. Never stops complaining.”
“Why was that the end of your marriage?” I asked, leaning against the door frame.
“Because Laura was always getting in the middle of everything we did. I told Ellie that she needed to tell her to mind her own business, but she wouldn’t do it. So I told Laura to stop interfering and then Ellie got mad at me. Those two were something else when they were together.” He chuckled bitterly. “I tell you, Mia, it was more than I could take. Listening to Laura complain all day long and then have her interfering with my marriage. I just couldn’t take it anymore.” He snorted and pulled a wrench out of the toolbox. “What a mess that situation was.”
“I can see where that would make things tense. So you just moved out? What about the house?”
“I bought Ellie’s half of the house with the promise that she and Laura would move out so I could sell it. That never happened, and they never paid me rent. I wanted to evict them. I mean, I didn’t want to evict Ellie, but I needed them out of that house. But my daughter insisted that I couldn’t do it.”
“That must have been tough,” I said. “You would think they would have at least paid rent if they weren’t going to move out.”
He snorted. “Right? Now that Ellie’s gone, you can bet I’ll have Laura evicted. If my daughter wants to cry about me throwing her aunt out, she can let her live in her spare bedroom. Somehow, I think she’ll change her tune real quick about it. She knows how her aunt is.”
I had to wonder if Chris wanted Ellie out badly enough to kill her. Josh said Chris was bitter about Ellie taking him to the cleaners in the divorce. With her out of the way, he could do exactly what he was doing. Evict Laura and take the house back.
“Do you have any ideas about who might have killed Ellie?” I asked him.
He stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “Do I have ideas? Oh, yeah. I have ideas. Josh Tate.”
I was all ears. “Why do you say that?”
“He was complaining about a customer that had stiffed him. He said he’d pay them back someday. At the time I didn’t realize he was talking about Ellie not paying what he quoted, but Laura told me they had had an argument with a handyman over money and I put it together. I would have done the work for them, but I was out of town and there was a rainstorm coming.”
“Did you say anything to Josh when you figured it out? And did you tell this to the police?”
He shrugged. “It was a couple of months ago. I figured it was just talk. I did pay him the fifty dollars, just in case. There’s something about Josh that makes me think he’d go to any length to pay someone back if he felt they did him wrong.”
“Do you think so?”
He nodded. “When my daughter told me what had happened to Ellie, I really thought it was an accident, but the more I think about it, the more I think it wasn’t an accident.” He nodded again. “I really do think it was murder. I think Josh did it.”
“You need to talk to Ethan about this,” I said.
“I’m going to. Ellie didn’t deserve to die like that. But what are the chances that Josh did it? I gave him the money she owed him, so why would he kill her?”
“I don’t know, but the police need to know so they can
check out every lead.”
He nodded. “You’re right. I’m going to have a talk with Ethan.”
I was shocked at what Chris had told me. Would the money he paid Josh have been enough to satisfy him if he really was angry enough about the situation to kill Ellie?
Chapter Fourteen
Ellie’s funeral was well-attended with the entire parking lot of the Baptist church filled to capacity and spilling out into the nearby neighborhood. Ethan wore a black suit, and I wore my black dress that didn’t see nearly as much use now that I was living back in Pumpkin Hollow again. Funerals these days were often casual affairs, but I liked to dress nicely. We met Mom and Christy at the church and went in together.
“Poor Laura,” Mom murmured.
Laura and Ellie’s daughter, Shelly, and her husband Charlie sat on the front pew. We sat in the back so we could see everything going on. I wondered if the killer might show up. Chris Adams was sitting on the second row by himself. I thought it was nice that he had shown up to show support for his daughter. Many wouldn’t have done it.
“Who’s that on the other end of the second pew?” Christy leaned over and whispered to me.
I looked in the direction she motioned to. There was a man that I didn’t know sitting by himself. He matched the appearance of the man Ellie was with when Carrie saw her at a restaurant the day before she died. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved in several days and he had long hair pulled back into a ponytail. The blue striped dress shirt he wore looked as if it had been crumpled up before he put it on. I narrowed my eyes at him and nudged Ethan. I nodded at the man and leaned over. “Do you know that guy? He matches the description of the guy Carrie saw with Ellie at a restaurant in Truckee.”
Ethan leaned to the right to get a better look at him. “I don’t recognize him,” he whispered back.
I nodded. Maybe Ellie did have a boyfriend. “I wonder if Chris or Shelly know him.” I also wondered if this was the guy that Ellie had been with when she embarrassed Chris.
“Maybe Chris doesn’t know he was dating Ellie and he’ll cause a scene if he finds out,” he suggested.
“That would be awful,” I said. Chris didn’t seem the type to cause a scene, but grief sometimes made people behave differently than they normally would.
“You can say that again. Maybe we can talk to that guy after the funeral.”
Laura ducked her head down and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. It was an open casket, and I wished it wasn’t. It was better to remember the deceased the way they were last seen. Unless, of course, you happened to have seen them dead. Then it was best to go back a little further in time and remember them that way.
The church filled up quickly while an elderly woman quietly played the organ in the corner. It was peaceful, if old-fashioned. Ellie would have enjoyed it. The pastor took the podium and began speaking about Ellie, reminding us all that she was in a better place. I hoped so.
When the service had ended, we waited in our pew while people streamed to the front to pay their respects to the family. I kept my eye on the stranger on the second pew. If he was a relative, he was keeping to himself. Chris shook hands with people and comforted his daughter. I noticed that Laura kept her distance from him, occasionally glancing in his direction. It must have been difficult, living with someone that couldn’t stand her. But if she had caused as much trouble as Chris said she had, I wondered if she felt any remorse, especially now that her sister was gone.
As the crowd thinned out, we made our way down the aisle. I didn’t want to see Ellie. I just wanted to see if Ethan could find out anything more about what had happened to Ellie, so I went along with him.
“Chris,” Ethan said. “I know you and Ellie were divorced, but I’m sorry for your loss.” He shook Chris’s hand.
“I’m sorry, Chris,” I added.
“I appreciate that, Ethan, Mia,” he said. “It still doesn’t seem real. Ethan, can I talk to you in private? Do you mind, Mia?”
“I don’t mind,” I said.
“Sure,” Ethan said. “Why don’t we go outside? I’ll be right back, Mia.”
“All right,” I said and turned to look at Shelly, who was talking to an older woman. I made my way over to her when the woman left.
“Hi Mia,” Shelly said, forcing herself to smile. Shelly had blond hair and blue eyes and looked younger than her thirty years.
“Hi Shelly, I’m so sorry for your loss.” I gave her a hug. I had gone to school with Shelly and I felt bad for her. Losing your mother had to be one of the hardest things a person goes through.
“Thanks, Mia, I just can’t get over it. I don’t know what she was doing at the party house, and what she was doing on those stairs,” she said, shaking her head.
“Your Aunt Laura told me she had vertigo,” I said, wondering if Chris was right when he said she hadn’t had it while they were married.
“Yes, it was really bad, too. She must have fallen half a dozen times over the past year. Thankfully she wasn’t on any stairs at the time, other than once when she fell off the patio steps. She knew she shouldn’t climb stairs, especially steep stairs.”
“I wonder why she did it when she knew she shouldn’t,” I said.
She sighed. “My mother was the most stubborn woman on the face of the planet,” she said chuckled sadly. “I’m sure she decided to decorate the ballroom on her own, and once she made up her mind, that was it.”
I nodded. Stubborn was one thing, but stubborn about doing something dangerous and possibly life-threatening was another. I couldn’t imagine her wanting to do that, but didn’t say as much.
“I feel terrible that she died that way,” I said.
“Thanks. I know she’s better off now, but I’ll miss her like crazy.” Tears threatened to spill, and I gave her another hug.
“Shelly, who is that man over there?” The man was making his way up the aisle to leave, so I pointed him out to her.
She leaned to the side to get a better look and shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before. Why?”
I shrugged. “I saw him sitting on the second row, and I thought maybe he was a relative. I didn’t recognize him, but I thought you might have relatives here from out of town.”
“No, I don’t know him. I didn’t realize anyone else had sat on the second row besides my dad. Speaking of whom, I should probably find him. He’s taking Mom’s death pretty hard. He had his heart set on getting back together with Mom, and this has just crushed him.”
“Oh?” I asked and tried to mask my surprise. “Well, I was surprised when they got divorced. I always thought they were so happy together.”
She nodded. “They really were happy. But I guess they hit a bump in their marriage and couldn’t recover from it. It’s sad, really. Neither of them were happy apart, but they were too stubborn to admit it. My dad finally realized it, but when he tried to get back together with Mom, she wasn’t ready to admit she wanted him back. I really think she just wanted to know that he really wanted her.”
I nodded and smiled. Chris said he didn’t miss being with Ellie. Sometimes kids, even adult kids, liked to believe a different version of the story when it came to their parents.
“It’s a shame they couldn’t get back together sooner,” I said.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive himself.”
“Shelly, if you had to take a guess, who would you think might have wanted to hurt your mom?” I stepped in closer and whispered the question. The crowd was thinning out, but there were still some people nearby.
Her mouth formed a hard line. “My first thought when I was told she had been murdered was Josh Tate. Do you know him?”
I nodded. “I do know him, although not well.”
“He did some work for my mom on her roof and he did a really shoddy job. The roof leaked as soon as it rained after he had done the work. She was taking him to small claims court to get the money back from him.”
“Really?” I asked. This was s
omething that no one had mentioned. “How much did he charge her for the work?”
“Five hundred dollars. Can you believe it? It was just a few shingles that needed to be replaced. I told her to wait until Dad had some time off from work and he’d do it for free. But she had to be stubborn about it and thought she needed it done immediately. I was so angry when I found out the roof leaked after she paid him that much money.” She blew air through her mouth and rolled her eyes. “The cheapskate.”
“Five hundred dollars is a lot of money to replace a few shingles. And then to have the roof leak? I’d be angry, too,” I said. I didn’t mention that her father had said Ellie paid Josh a hundred dollars. Even Josh had said it was a hundred. Where was Shelly getting the figure of five hundred dollars from?
“If there was some way I could take that five hundred dollar out of his hide, believe me, I would.”
“Do you really think he would kill her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but when he was served with the papers to go to small claims court, he had a fit. He came to her house and screamed at her through the door. I told her she should have called the police, but she didn’t want to make a fuss.”
“Wow. What happened then?”
“He eventually left, but not before he screamed and swore at her. I asked Aunt Laura why she didn’t call the police, but she wasn’t home at the time. It made me even more thankful that he hadn’t done something to her then. Of course, he may have just been waiting for a more opportune moment.”
“Shelly, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Christy said, coming up behind me. She gave her a hug and Mom did the same.
I wondered why Shelly’s story was different from her father’s and Josh’s story. Had Ellie told her five hundred dollars, and if so, why? If Chris had known it was five hundred dollars, he would have mentioned it. I looked over my shoulder at Chris. He was deep in conversation with the pastor.
I looked up and saw the stranger still at the back of the church, speaking to a woman. I turned and walked quickly up the aisle. He slipped through a side door before I could get to him and was heading to the parking lot.
Confectionately Dead Page 8