by Maddie Day
“Exactly. How do you know him?”
She gave me the side eye. “Because I live in South Lick? I grew up with Abe, so of course I know Sean. He’s a good kid.” She folded the shirt and rolled it into a neat sausage, tying it with red ribbon. “He mows our lawn in the summer months.”
Interesting. Toni must have hired him. I pasted a mental sticky note into my brain to ask Sean about her and Shirley.
“That’ll be fourteen ninety-five,” Shirley said.
I handed her my credit card. “Hey, sorry about the detective yesterday.” I shook my head. “She shouldn’t have extracted you from the restaurant like that.”
“It’s not your fault.” Shirley didn’t meet my gaze as she handed back my card with the slip and a pen. “I don’t mind being fingerprinted, but I agree Detective Slade wasn’t the smoothest player.”
“Did she question you, too?” I signed the slip.
“She sure as heck did.” She handed me a small handled bag imprinted with the store’s covered bridge logo, green and red tissue paper artfully sticking out. “How long had I known Toni, what kind of landlady was she, did I hear anything, the works.” The corners of her mouth turned down.
“It’s their job to ask questions.” I tried to look sympathetic.
“Including where I was the night before and morning of the day she died. What do they think, I killed her? I didn’t like her, and she was a crappy landlady. But, you know, if everybody killed their rotten rental owners, well, that’s not much of a solution.”
I laughed softly. “No, it certainly isn’t. In what ways wasn’t Toni a good person to rent from?”
“There was like zero maintenance on my side. Every time I asked her to fix a drawer that broke, a hole in a screen, or whatever, she always said she’d get to it, but she never did.”
“Are you going to be able to keep living there?” I asked.
“I have no idea. I suppose it’ll be up to Clive. He was her husband, so I’d think he’s got to be her heir. But I haven’t heard a thing about if he wants to be a landlord, is going to sell the place, or what.”
“I hope you can stay. If you want to, that is.”
“I need to live close by the—” She caught herself.
By the prison? Why didn’t she want people to know about her brother? Shame? A need for privacy? Or maybe some other motive was involved.
“I need to live in the area. This job doesn’t pay much, and my low rent almost made up for all the problems.” She rubbed the back of one hand with the other, staring at them with a frown. She looked up at me. “This morning when I woke up? I realized there was something I didn’t tell the detective. That is, I hadn’t remembered I’d seen it until today.”
I waited without speaking.
“Sometime that night,” Shirley went on, “or in the early morning hours, I got up to use the bathroom. I glanced out the back window, and I could swear I saw someone sneaking away from the house.”
Toni’s murderer. I grew quiet. Time seemed to slow. The spiced scent from a cinnamon candle pricked my nose. A tinny din of Christmas music lilted in from outside. My feet radiated warmth in my fur-lined boots. How could she have conveniently forgotten this sighting when she was talking to Octavia? On the other hand, why tell me about it if she had anything to hide?
“Did you see anything about the person?” I asked softly. “Height? Gait? And why do you say he or she was sneaking?”
She reached out and straightened a display of covered bridge magnets, pondering my question. “The person was tall, wore pants. He—or she—wore a watch cap and a dark coat, but I didn’t get a good enough look to tell if it was a man or a woman. I only saw him from behind. You know how much folks bundle up in the cold weather. I said he was sneaking because his head was kind of hunched into his shoulders.”
“Did you see him walking?” A tall person, indeed. Like Marcus, Jamie, and William, for instance?
“Not really. He’d stopped on the front walk moving away from Toni’s door. When he started to glance back at the house, I leaned away from the window. By the time I looked back, he was disappearing around the corner.”
So she hadn’t seen if he had a limp like William Geller’s. A pity. She hadn’t seen the person exiting the house. “Are you going to tell Buck or Octavia what you saw?”
A group of white-haired ladies bustled in with a clatter of chatter, oohing and aahing over the products for sale. I took a second look. One was the “oh my stars and nightgown” woman who’d eaten at my place earlier. I smiled to myself. Somebody should compile colorful local sayings—like that one and the phrases that came out of Buck’s and Adele’s mouths—into a book.
Shirley called out a welcome to the women.
“I won’t take up any more of your time, Shirley,” I said. “Thanks for the shirt.” I slid around the shoppers and made my way out. A tall figure in the dark. And she hadn’t answered me about telling the authorities. Something seemed fishy about her suddenly remembering the shadowy figure. If Shirley herself had killed Toni, this story could be a ruse to shift the blame onto any number of tall people. Or she might have simply seen a person passing on the sidewalk. I could certainly remedy the lack of reporting. It was Octavia’s job to follow up on the alibi part.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I shouldn’t have been surprised at how popular Bible and Brew would be, but I was. My restaurant was full of adults sipping, nibbling, conversing, and consulting their holy books. I saw Bibles bound in black leather and some paperback New Testaments. One woman about my age was even looking at hers on a Kindle. The types of brews people carried in varied, too, from Bud, PBR, and Strohs to the finest microbrews the region had to offer.
I’d decided to request a cover charge instead of running a bunch of tabs for appetizers. Samuel had been fine with the plan, and nobody had balked at the amount. The fee would also pay for the cost of washing all the small plates we were going through and beer glasses for those who requested them. And it would take care of the cost of light and heat at a time of day I usually didn’t have to use either in the restaurant.
By eight o’clock, both Adele and I had been running our butts off for an hour. At first she’d sat at a table near the door taking the covers while I drew pans out of the oven or the warmer and slid fresh ones in. Now that newcomers had dwindled, we were busy keeping the food refreshed. Every table had a bowl of pretzels and one of peanuts, but mostly the biblical locals were restocking their plates at the long table where I’d set the meatballs, pizza-ettes, and Buffalo bits with the dipping sauce. Almost all of which we were going to run out of soon. At least we didn’t really have to wait tables unless someone left, in which case we had empty plates to pick up. I’d had to mop up after a beer got knocked over, too.
Jamie Franklin was talking intently at a four-top with another man. I’d greeted Jamie when he came in but hadn’t been near him since. I moseyed over with a bag each of peanuts and pretzels. Had he been the tall figure Shirley claimed to have seen? I’d sent a text to Octavia as soon as I’d gotten home from Nashville. She could follow up with Toni’s tenant.
“Need a refill?” I asked, proffering the bags.
Jamie glanced up and did a double take. “Hi, Robbie.” He looked back at the bowls, frowning.
His companion, an older guy with a shaved head and ski-jump eyebrows, shook his head. “I think we’re set. Them wings sure were good, though.” He smiled through a graying beard reaching halfway to the second button on his shirt and gestured to a plate piled high with red-stained wing bones.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Robbie,” Jamie began. He took a cloth bag off the back of the chair where he’d hung it. “I’d, uh . . .” His voice trailed off and his gaze went to the door.
I looked in that direction too, to see Clive Colton slip in. Toni had died only yesterday. Maybe he’d come to find solace in talking about the Bible. Jamie waved him over. Interesting. Jamie hadn’t liked Toni, but her husband was o
kay with him? Apparently.
As Clive made his way to the table, receiving what looked like condolences on his way, Jamie murmured to me, “I need to talk with you before I leave. I have something—”
And then Clive was at the table. Jamie clapped his mouth shut and hung the bag back over the corner of the chair back.
“Evening, Clive,” I said. “And welcome.” He’d clearly been grieving from the look of the dragging lines in his broad face, but I thought it was a good sign he wanted to be here for the comfort of friends and faith.
He handed me the cover charge, which we’d clearly posted at the entrance. Adele and I had figured an honor system would be fine with this crowd after the first hour.
“Thanks for doing this, Ms. Jordan.” Clive set a six-pack of Rooftop IPA on the table.
“You’re welcome, but please call me Robbie. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He thanked me with watery eyes. As I moved away, the three men joined hands and bowed their heads, lips moving in silent prayer. I was dying to find out what was in the bag that Jamie wanted to show me. I clearly was going to have to wait.
I passed Samuel laughing with several others.
“Of course you can read it that way,” he said. “But in this verse”—he pointed to his open Bible—“the message seems to be exactly the opposite. Wouldn’t you agree, Robbie?”
I held up both hands—which held a bag each—and smiled. “I’m not getting involved in what the Bible says. You can work it out among yourselves. But I will get involved with your snacks.” I topped up the peanuts and refilled the empty pretzel bowl.
“Thank you, hon,” said a woman sitting next to Samuel.
I headed to the appetizer table. “How’s it going?” I asked Adele.
“These five are the last meatballs. The wings and tenders are finished, and there’s just one more pan of pizzas in the oven.”
“Did you get any?”
“Indeed I did.” She took a swig from an open bottle of Strohs at the end of the table. “I helped myself to an assortment right at the start.”
“Good.” I’d had a few bites before we opened, too.
“What in tarnation is Clive Colton doing here?” She lifted her chin to point at him. “One day after losing his wife. It’s just not right.”
“I wondered that, too. Grabbing some Christian comfort, I guess.”
“You might could have a point there, Roberta.” When the timer dinged, she hurried over to take out the little rounds.
I busied myself tidying up the table. I took the empty Buffalo tray to the sink as Adele transferred the little pizzas to a serving platter.
“Maybe I’ll take Clive a plate, since he came late.” I loaded up a plate with two pizzas and three meatballs.
“That’s a sweet gesture. I doubt he’s eaten today.”
When I set it down in front of Clive, I said, “We’re almost out of the hot appetizers. I thought you might want something to eat.”
“That is surely a nice thing for you to offer, Ms. Robbie.”
“My pleasure.”
“I’m Clive.” He blinked at the plate. “My dear late wife, she wasn’t supposed to eat things like this. No, indeed she wasn’t.”
I tilted my head, about to ask why.
Jamie piped up. “She’d had a cardiac condition for a long time.”
Ah. Also, curious. Shirley had said Toni was super healthy. She must not have known about the problem with Toni’s heart.
Clive went on. “Beltonia took medicine for it and all, but Doc wanted her to avoid red meat and cheese and such. And she tried real hard to follow his advice. Guess that’s what you might call ironic,” which he pronounced EYE-ronic, “that I eat all this crap and I’m alive and kicking. She was working on staying healthy and look what happened to her. Gone. Permanently and irrevocably gone.” He popped a meatball into his mouth.
I hoped he didn’t actually think my cooking was crap, but, whatever.
Jamie stood. “Excuse me for a minute,” he said to his companions. He grabbed the cloth bag and cleared his throat. “Robbie, can we talk somewhere more private?”
I glanced around. Nothing and nobody seemed urgently in need of me. “Sure. We can go over to my office area in the far corner there.” I half perched on my desk when we got there. “What’s up?”
“I . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then opened them. “I have had this bag for ten years.” He extended the handles of an IGA reusable grocery bag to me.
I gazed at him. This was about Kristina. It had to be. The bag was heavy in my hand.
“Kristina had kept a daily journal for years.” Jamie’s voice quavered. “She told me she had become frightened of her husband. She wanted me to keep these safe for her.”
Wow. “After she disappeared, did you read them?”
“No. She made me promise not to, and I didn’t. But now, knowing she’s dead? What’s the point? And if that monster of a husband killed her, I want him brought to justice.”
“You mean William Geller.”
“Yes.” He swallowed. “I still haven’t looked at them, but I know you’re honest, Robbie, and that you and Buck are friends. And you have caught killers before.”
“Not really, I haven’t.” I’d kind of gotten involved in more than one homicide case, sure. All I’d tried to do was help the police, though.
“Will you hand them over for me?” Jamie pressed.
“Wait a sec.” This didn’t make sense. “Why don’t you give them to Buck yourself? Or to the detective investigating the remains?” I saw him wince at the word. I didn’t blame him. I’d had the same reaction when a friend of my mom’s had been murdered in Santa Barbara earlier in the year. I should have softened the word somehow. “The detective’s name is Octavia Slade.”
“I, I don’t know.” He squinted out of one eye. “You could say you found them somewhere?”
“I can’t do that, Jamie.” I peered at him. He hadn’t sounded stupid before, and he was at least forty, but geez. “I don’t understand why you don’t want to turn the journals over to the authorities.” I glanced into the bag. Nearly a dozen hardcover notebooks lined up like sad mourners in a funeral procession. I tried to return the bag to him, but he backed up a step and shook his head.
“All right, I’ll give Buck the journals,” I said. “But I’m warning you, either he or the detective is going to want to ask you questions about them, how you got them, and what’s in them.” A lot of questions.
Jamie’s shoulders slumped in relief. He pumped my hand, saying thank you three times over, and headed back to his friends, his beer, and his Bible. As for me, by the time tonight’s affair was over and we’d cleaned up, it would be way, way too late to call Buck. It couldn’t hurt for me to take a peek at what the mysterious and now dead Kristina had written. Nobody would know. My conscience gave me a teensy bit of pushback, but I told it to shut up and go away. A quick read couldn’t hurt. That was my position, and I was sticking to it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The event wound down at about nine, and Adele and Samuel insisted on sticking around to clean up. Before they left, he reserved the first Friday in January for a repeat performance.
“I thought it went really well,” he said. “How about you, Robbie?”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I’d cleared a surprising amount of money from the cover charge, plus quite a few people had also topped up the tips jar. “And if the next one draws even more folks, I can hire Danna or Turner to help so you both can enjoy yourselves.”
Samuel beamed, but behind him Adele rolled her eyes. “We’ll count those eggs when they hatch, Roberta.” She stepped forward and bussed my cheek. “Right now I got to get two sets of old bones home.”
“Thank you for your help, favorite aunt. Good night, Samuel.”
“God bless.” He kissed my cheek, too.
I made myself stay in the clean restaurant for another half hour doing high-speed breakfast prep. Oth
erwise tomorrow morning would kill us. So to speak.
Back in my apartment, I answered a sweet goodnight text from Abe with a similar message and a big YES for dinner together at his place tomorrow. Then, yawning and wearing PJs, a fleece, and slippers, I settled in at ten on the couch in my apartment with Birdy, a bourbon, and a book. A handwritten book penned by a woman a decade dead.
My thin blue cleaning gloves felt odd holding a glass of whiskey, but I’d pulled on a new pair before I’d extracted the first journal from the bag. I didn’t want any trace of me on the cover or pages, just in case. I sipped and set down the glass, enjoying the warmth traveling through me as I opened the cover to the first page. It began:
Worst Thanksgiving of my life. Which might not last much longer if I don’t get out of here.
I blew out a breath. The poor woman. I peered at the date. Sunday, December 1. Ten years ago this week. I took another sip and stroked my kitty with my foot before reading on.
W found my cash stash and came at me with the pry bar. I think he bruised the bone on my thigh before I got the bathroom door closed and locked. He only hits me where it won’t show.
I shuddered.
J wants me to come to him. I don’t think he’s prepared for what W will do if I leave. We need, I don’t know, new identities. Passports. Somewhere we can escape to where he’ll never, ever find us.
Kristina hadn’t gotten away in time. And Jamie, out of loyalty, hadn’t read the journals, or so he said. He must not have, because if he had, William would have been investigated while his wife’s death was still fresh. I really needed to get these to Octavia or Buck, and soon. I read on.
At least tomorrow is Monday. He’ll be away all day. I can get to my safe deposit box, the one he doesn’t know about, and hide the money he didn’t find. I wish I could talk to my sister, but that’s a no-go.
A secret safe deposit box. Where could the key be? Did Jamie know about it? Maybe he had the key. Or maybe . . . I took out all the other journals and flipped through to see if she’d taped the key anywhere. No luck. I also didn’t see any cryptic notes about a bank or a box number.