by Sophie Sharp
Whoa. Nell? What? Where did she fit into this new fiasco? “Anthony, start from the beginning.”
“It was two months ago. I went to Sub-Con in San Francisco.”
“To what?”
“Sub-Con. Biggest sandwich convention in the nation. Anyone who’s anyone in sandwiches is there.”
“Oh.” Who knew such a thing existed?
“So, I was at the Moscone convention center for Sub-Con. That’s where I met Kimmy. She’s big in pickles. And bada bing bada boom! I don’t know, the chemistry was insane. So much in common with sandwiches and all. We went to the meetings together and I knew I was on a slippery slope. One night, after too many beers, we lost control.” He shook his head. “I’m such an idiot.”
“You slept with her?”
He turned to Molly and stared at her earnestly. “No, it was worse than that. I was falling in love with her. I didn’t sleep with her, but I might have, if Veronica Corsello hadn’t shown up.”
“What?”
“Me and Kimmy were outside, off in a dark corner where no one could see us. Or so I thought. We were, well, we were getting hot and heavy, and I was just about to take Kimmy up to my room when I see this light, like a cellphone, you know? And I realize someone’s videoing us making out. I go storming over and it’s Veronica Corsello.”
“How? Why was Veronica there?” And Nell. Molly really wanted to know how Nell came into the picture, but she needed to let Anthony tell his whole story.
“I guess there was another conference there on the last day of Sub-Con. Urban development and something to do with using green earthy stuff. Don’t have a clue why Veronica Corsello attended that meeting, she hated everything about the earth. But she was there. So, I go to confront her, and she just smiles at me. She makes her fingers like a gun and points it right at me, and then she walks off like it’s nothing. I went running after her, but by the time I got inside, she was gone.”
“And that’s how she blackmailed you? With the video.”
Anthony nodded.
“So where does Nell come in to all this?”
“Well, I cool it a bit with Kimmy, you know, but I like her a lot, so the next night we’re in the bar, just having a drink and talking, all innocent. Well, not entirely innocent, because I’m thinking how beautiful she is and how much I want to see her again. Anyway, I look across the bar and who do I see but Veronica and Nell.”
“I am so confused. Veronica and Nell were having a drink together?” This was impossible. Maybe hormones had distorted Anthony’s vision and it was just someone who looked like Nell.
“No, they were arguing. They didn’t see me at first. I didn’t know whether to sneak out or stay put and hope they didn’t notice me. But then Kimmy knocked over her drink. She squealed and everyone turned to look. Next time I looked back across the bar, Nell was looking right at me. She looked as embarrassed to see me as I was to see her, and she stormed off. But Veronica just stood there. She pointed her cocked finger at me again. Then she blew on her fingers and gave me the ugliest smile I’ve ever seen. And when she waved her phone at me, I knew right then, that disgusting woman had me by the nuts. Pardon my French, Molly.”
This fling was a huge surprise to Molly, but to hear Nell and Veronica were arguing at a conference was big news. Did this have anything to do with Nell changing sides on the lot plans? But Nell hadn’t openly endorsed the plans until after Opal May’s death and the conference, aka the argument, happened two months ago.
Molly had been surprised when Nell suddenly had a change of heart and backed the lot sale. Maybe Veronica had something on Nell and had confronted her at the conference. And maybe, just maybe, they’d both been waiting for the “right” time to leverage Nell’s relationship with the mayor on the lot. After all, Nell was a native San Cosmas-an. When she aged out of foster care, she’d lived for a while in a group home and had always said that Opal May Harrison had been one of the kindest benefactors, even influencing Nell to get involved in the government after college to pay back her community for the love and support she’d received growing up.
Yeah, something, or someone, had brought this switcheroo up in Nell. Was Veronica blackmailing Nell too? But for what? And now everything about Anthony made sense. But dang, this made him look like he had a solid motive. He hadn’t been at the funeral. He probably had no alibi.
“So, then what happened?”
Anthony started crying again. “Nothing at first. Kimmy wanted to see me again, but I was too scared. I realized I didn’t want to lose Jocelyn. But I loved them both. Sucks, Molly. I thought if I buried my head in the sand and ignored Veronica and everything, it would go away. Then Corsello came to me last week and said I’d better support her at the town council meeting and agree to break my lease, or she’d show everyone the video. She’d just been waiting for the right time to control me. You got to believe me, Moll, I didn’t know she was blackmailing the other trucks with false photos till we were all at your house that night. And then I was too ashamed to be the only one she had the dirty truth about.”
Molly again wondered if Veronica had intended to blackmail her too. This was all too much.
“Then after you and me talked, I wondered if someone else knew. If Veronica gave anyone copies. I knew I’d f’d up. If Jocelyn was going to find out, I knew she had to find out from me. It took all this for me to realize that no matter how I felt for Kimmy, Jocelyn is my true love.”
“But you didn’t kill Veronica?”
“I’d never kill someone.” He did the sign of the cross across his chest. “That’s a sin.”
So was adultery, but she wouldn’t remind him. If his marriage stood any chance, it started with him being the one to tell his wife, so at least he’d done that.
Kind of like what she realized she needed to do with Doug now. She needed to tell him the next chance she got that she had stuck her nose in the murder investigation. She’d never kept a secret from him and if he found out from anyone else what she has been up to, he’d be crushed.
“Give her some time. All the time she needs. Maybe she’ll forgive you eventually. Okay?”
He nodded, looking down at his feet like a second grader who’d been grounded for the summer break.
“Anthony. Why would Nell be with Veronica?”
He shook his head. “You know, I respect the hell out of Nell. I can tell you right now, she was not happy to be there with Corsello. It was tense, you know, beyond the tension of catching me stepping out on my wife. But I know Nell had nothing to do with this. You know Jocelyn lived in that group home too? Nell treated her like a sister. Nell came to me the next day and asked me if she could help me get counseling so that I wouldn’t leave Jocelyn. She said I probably acted out due to my kids leaving home, you know, the whole empty nest thing. Suggested I probably just wanted to feel needed again. She was right. No, she wasn’t the one trying to ruin my marriage. She was trying to save it.”
Yeah, now that sounded more like the Nell Molly knew.
Molly’s gut told her Nell was in some sort of trouble, but what in the world could Veronica have had on Nell to blackmail her with? Nell was a saint. Everyone in the community loved Nell.
Nell was on the Necklace List and now maybe, on the Blackmail List, but no way was she a murderer—she’d been at the funeral too. Molly had seen her there, several times. The only time she hadn’t seen Nell, was when Molly herself had followed the mayor to his car after the eulogy.
“Anthony, you know that necklace you bought from Mia?”
She wasn’t sure what the connection was, but he crumbled into tears again. “Yeah, I gave it to Kimmy. She’s a helluva lady, but I couldn’t risk my marriage. I gave her the necklace as a sort of goodbye present.”
He pulled out his phone and showed a picture of Kimmy wearing the necklace. Her smile was big and her eyes bright. Molly hated to say it, but it looked like love. This must have been before Anthony broke it off.
It was a guess, but she had to ask.
“Were you with Kimmy during Opal May’s funeral?”
If she’d thought he looked ashamed before, now he couldn’t even look Molly in the eyes. He nodded. “But it wasn’t like that, Molly. Veronica Corsello tracked down Kimmy. She threatened her. Kimmy called me and begged me to come over. I had to go, because I’d caused the trouble in the first place. Me and my stupid libido.”
Molly bumped her shoulder against his in comfort. Anthony could be crossed off the murderer list, but not Jocelyn’s Sh!t List. He was going to be on that one for a long while.
She stood to her feet. “Stand up, you big jughead, and let me give you a hug.”
After a while, she said, “I have to go do some cleanup at Glam Van. I’m closed today, but why don’t you come by later and I’ll give you a cut and shave before you go and try to talk to Jocelyn again.”
Molly couldn’t wait to update Mia later today. They could clean up their lists a bit, and then she needed to get the funeral book back to Max.
And then, at some point in the very near future, she needed to tell Doug the truth.
Chapter Seventeen
Tabitha was just switching the cashier’s drawer over to a new barista, when Mia arrived at the cafe.
“The necklace,” Tabitha said, slapping her forehead. “I totally forgot to look for it.”
Mia gave Tabitha a big phony smile. “Don’t worry. Turns out I have photos of it already. But,” she said, suddenly having an idea, “when you have a little time, I could use some help Photoshopping them. I heard you’re a pro.”
Tabitha hesitated. “I don’t know about that, but I’m happy to help. Come upstairs with me. There’s something I want to show you, anyway.”
In her cozy apartment above the cafe, Tabitha poured two cups of tea and flipped open her laptop. “I’ve been working on a piece for Audrey,” she said. “That’s why I took Danika’s class. I’m almost done with it, but I’d love your artistic opinion.”
Mia breathed a sigh of relief. Of course Tabitha was working on something for Audrey; of course she wasn’t creating blackmail photos. Mia leaned in as Tabitha’s screen glowed to life and a photo flashed up. It wasn’t Audrey, though; it was Sahara. She was leaning against one of Carmel-by-the-Sea’s Heritage blue gum eucalyptus trees—a spot Mia knew well from childhood trips with her aunt and uncle, and of course, shopping with her mother. And Sahara was smiling with a deeper glow than the one Mia had seen earlier during class. It was love, for sure.
“Oh,” said Tabitha, quickly closing the picture down to reveal her wallpaper photo of herself and Audrey.
Mia’s thoughts pinged around in her head, like a Roomba vacuum cleaner tracing a path around a carpet, picking up a bit of fluff here and a crumb of something there. Tabitha’s vagueness and fluster over being unable to produce the necklace and Sahara’s glow of someone in love fell into place. Even the necklace she’d bought from Mia was a sign—not something Tabitha had given away because she didn’t like it, but a token given in love.
Mia glanced at Tabitha, but Tabitha looked away quickly. Mia wasn’t a hundred percent confident in her intuition anymore, but she was pretty sure she recognized the look in Tabitha’s eyes. Love. Mia smiled. Like a grown-up, she would not pry into Tabitha’s private love life, but when Tabitha decided to open up and tell Mia about her relationship with Sahara, Mia would throw her arms around her and tell her she was so pleased for her. Maybe Mia could even make a matching necklace, so they’d have a pair. If anyone deserved to find love and happiness, it was Tabitha.
For now, she’d settle with one question and answer. “Tabitha, are you happy?”
Tabitha blushed and just as quickly teared up. “Oh, Mia, my darling. I am so happy, and if I’ve been acting strange lately, it’s just because I’m the happiest I’ve been since I lost Audrey, and sometimes, I feel guilty that I could be happy again without her in this world.”
Mia pulled Tabitha into a supportive hug. “You know what I think?”
Tabitha shook her head against Mia’s.
“I think Audrey would be very happy you are happy.” Mia smiled as Tabitha pulled up the photo collage she was making of Audrey. She looked forward to reaching Glam Van and erasing Tabitha and Sahara from the situation board now that she’d seen they both had alibis: each other.
“Have fun tomorrow night,” Tabitha said, as she hugged Mia goodbye several minutes later.
“What’s tomorrow?” Mia asked.
Tabitha’s smile fell away. “Oh. Nothing.”
“Tabitha,” Mia said. “I can see right through you, you know that, don’t you? What’s happening tomorrow?”
“I’m an idiot. Damion asked for the night off and I assumed he was taking you out. Obviously, it was supposed to be a surprise, and now I’ve gone and blown it. Me and my big mouth. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Mia said, forcing a smile. “I’ll pretend to be shocked.” At this point, she’d be shocked if he was still talking to her. He hadn’t even texted her since their fight last night and he certainly hadn’t asked her out for tomorrow night. Was this the surprise he’d mentioned the other night? Did the man and woman have something to do with it?
“You are your mother’s daughter. You should be able to pull off some acting,” Tabitha said and hugged Mia again.
As Mia rode off through the streets of San Cosmas, she had a very bad feeling that her intuition could be trusted after all. She had doubted Damion and had denied everything, but if he didn’t spring a surprise date on her tomorrow night, she’d know for sure that something fishy was going on.
She would ask Aunt Molly to do her hair tomorrow, so she’d be ready to be proven wrong. At least she hoped it would turn out that way. But she was immediately distracted by an unexpected item in the Glam Van.
“A thank you gift from Asil,” Aunt Molly said, when Mia asked about the huge box of Turkish delight that now sat by the tea station. “He just came back from talking to Detective Moat. Brody confirmed that he’d been with Asil at the time Veronica was murdered. That means we can take Asil off the board. Thank goodness.”
“We can remove Tabitha too,” said Mia, and she told Aunt Molly about Tabitha’s project for Audrey. “I not only saw some photos from her beach trip, I saw her necklace too.”
Mia decided not to say more about what she’d learned from Tabitha’s photos. She knew from being Lacy Casey’s daughter what it was like to have the most intimate details of your life broadcast to the world, so she would keep her friend’s private life private.
“This whole thing about Veronica and Nell arguing at a conference is crazy,” Mia said, puzzling over the remaining information on the board. “I just looked up Moscone Convention Center’s events list, and I do see two conferences that coincided: Sub-Con and Green Urban Development, just like Anthony told you. I can see why Nell was there, but not Mother Nature–hating Veronica. Unless she was there to borrow jargon for a false marketing campaign.”
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” said Aunt Molly. “In all fairness, though, we need to add Nell to the board a second time. We still haven’t seen her necklace, and now we have her linked to Veronica by a witness who saw them arguing. And while she also doesn’t seem like she would have worked with Veronica on blackmailing Anthony, she did know about Anthony’s affair, and she was standing behind Veronica’s development proposal. Even if she did apparently wait for the right time to push support for Veronica.”
“After Opal May died.”
“After Opal May died,” Aunt Molly confirmed. “I hope there is a perfectly logical and different explanation for everything. This is Nell we’re talking about. But still.”
Mia added Nell to the board a second time. “We can always remove her once we know more details.”
“And if we come to anything conclusive, we’ll share what we know with Moat. We are reaching that point.”
Mia’s stomach tightened at the sound of Moat’s name. She busied herself, checking her phone for the hundredth tim
e. Still no Damion. Maybe Damion was hanging out with the older woman. Maybe she was his Kimmy. Men. “I’m so mad about Anthony and his wife. Decades down the drain.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that.”
“Anthony knows he made a mistake. He doesn’t want to lose Jocelyn no matter how he feels about Kimmy. I’m pretty sure it won’t happen again.”
“So many secrets,” Mia muttered and tossed her phone on the counter.
“Mia?” Aunt Molly said. “What’s going on?”
Mia chewed around the words, trying to put them in order, but nothing sounded right. She wanted to tell Aunt Molly everything else about Damion, about his late-night plans and his “surprises,” but she knew she’d sound over-dramatic and silly. The best thing to do was to get her mouth shut and her galloping thoughts at bay, and to focus on solving this crime. “It’s nothing,” she said and gave her aunt a big Lacy smile.
Aunt Molly gave her a suspicious look, but let it go, thankfully. “Let’s get through this funeral book so I can get it back to Max.”
“Has it occurred to you that Detective Moat might ask Max for the book too?”
“Yes, it has, thank you very much. Shall we keep talking about the book or should we look at it?”
Mia blinked in surprise. Aunt Molly never got snippy with her. This sleuthing business created a lot of pressure. And if she was honest, sometimes a little fun. This was a pressure-cooking moment though.
“Sorry, Mia.”
“It’s okay. Hey, at least we get to cross Asil, Tabitha, Sahara, and Anthony from the board; they have alibis,” Mia said as she drew lines through two names and handed the marker to her aunt to strike the other two.
“Unless one of them hired a killer,” Aunt Molly said and reluctantly laughed.
Mia cringed. “That would be horrible.”
“Of course, assuming they didn’t, all these updates make our list smaller.”
“And we can move Damion’s name to the checkmarks on the necklace list. He definitely has his.” But did Damion have an alibi? She’d seen him later that morning, but she couldn’t say where he’d been until then.