Vanilla Vices

by Jessica Beck

  “Not so fast,” Gabby said. “There are some conditions.”

  “Okay,” I said hesitantly. “What does she want?” I wasn’t sure who this mystery woman was, but I found it odd that she was demanding things before she’d even speak with us.

  “First off, you have to promise that whatever you learn during your conversation, including her identity, will not be shared with anyone else.”

  “I suppose Grace and I can do that, if we have to,” I said.

  “That’s the second thing. She won’t speak with anyone but you. Just you, Suzanne. I’m afraid Grace can’t be with you, or even learn the woman’s identity.”

  “Okay. Got it. Well, thanks for trying. I appreciate it, Gabby.” And then I ended the call without another word.

  “That was fast,” Grace said as she looked at me curiously. “What happened?”

  “It’s not going to work out,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  I debated whether I should tell her the real reason or not, but then I decided that she had a right to know what was going on. “The mystery woman wouldn’t speak to you, too.”

  Grace frowned for a moment before she replied. “I wonder what she has against me. Is it possible that we’ve met before, and she’s not a fan of mine? Honestly, it’s hard to believe that’s even possible, isn’t it?” Grace asked me with a grin.

  “I wouldn’t take it personally if I were you.”

  “It’s kind of hard not to, though, isn’t it?” Grace asked. “Suzanne, you should go ahead and talk to her by yourself. What you learn may be valuable in finding out who killed Dan, and I refuse to let my pride stand in the way of us gathering information.”

  “That’s gracious of you, but unfortunately, it wasn’t her only requirement. If we agree to her other demand, I’m not allowed to share what I’ve learned with anyone else, even her name. With that set of limitations going into the conversation, it’s not going to do me that much good anyway.”

  “So you turned Gabby Williams down cold. Do I even need to ask how that went?”

  “I’d tell you, but the truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t stay on the line long enough to find out, but I think you can use your imagination and guess,” I said as my cellphone rang again. I held it up so Grace could see it. “It’s Gabby. Should I even bother answering it?”

  “How can you not? Aren’t you dying to hear what she’s got to say?”

  “Not really. I have a hunch that it’s not going to be good,” I said, but I answered anyway. “Hey, Gabby.”

  “Hello again, Suzanne. That was odd. We must have been cut off in mid conversation. I kept waiting for you to call me back, but you never did.”

  “That’s because it was no accident,” I said. “What point was there in continuing the discussion? I’m not going to let your friend dictate the terms of our conversation.”

  There was a long pause on the other end before she spoke again. “I understand.”

  Then, apparently it was Gabby’s turn to hang up on me.

  “Was she furious with you?” Grace asked me.

  “No, not that I could tell. All she said was that she understood. What an odd conversation that was.”

  “Let’s face it. Most chats we have with Gabby are strange.”

  I shrugged as I answered, “If we aren’t going to talk to the mystery woman, do you have any suggestions about where we go from here?”

  “I was thinking that we should see if we can get anywhere near the junk shop. It might hold the answer to what we’re looking for.”

  “What could it hurt? Maybe Inspector Black missed something without even realizing it.”

  “That would have to be the case if she did,” Grace said. “There’s just one problem. If she couldn’t find it, what makes you think that we can?”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “We knew Dan. She didn’t. It’s possible that something that looked perfectly normal to her would seem out of place to us. It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

  “What if she hasn’t released the crime scene yet?”

  “Then we figure out what Plan B is after that, and then we do that instead,” I replied. “Let’s go get my Jeep, okay?”

  “I think that’s an excellent idea. After all, I’m not walking all the way out to Dan’s shop.”

  “It’s not that far,” I said.

  “Okay then. Why don’t you walk, and I’ll drive? I’ll see you out there in an hour.”

  “It probably wouldn’t take me that long, but I get your point. Let’s cut through the park again. I love this time of year, when the air has a bite to it and the tree branches are all so exposed to the world.”

  “You just love it because your donut sales pick up when it’s chilly out,” Grace said.

  “Maybe that’s part of it, but I’ve loved winter since I was a kid. You know that. We’ve been friends forever.”

  “You don’t have to remind me. It’s one of the things I like about my life, my ability to hang onto your friendship, through all kinds of situations.”

  “Like marrying Max, and then divorcing him later?” I asked her.

  “That was certainly part of it. How are he and Emily doing, by the way? I haven’t seen much of them around town lately.”

  “As far as I know, they’re still going strong. Max has been getting more work in commercials out in LA, so he’s been gone more, but Emily keeps me posted. Before he left for the coast the last time, he told me that he’s trying to make enough money so he can buy her a house, but don’t spread that around, because Emily’s not supposed to know.”

  “I can understand an engagement ring, but an entire house? Or is he even going to propose before they move in together?”

  “He’s already asked her once, remember?” I asked. “This time, he wants her to know that it’s not so spur of the moment.”

  “And you know all of this why, exactly?”

  “What can I say? He confides in me.”

  “After the nasty split you two had, it’s odd that you are friends now,” Grace said.

  “I know it’s hard to understand, but I’ve seen his transformation with my own eyes. People can change. That’s something that I’ve had a hard time believing in the past, but I’ve seen it up close with Max. He’s a different man than the one I married.”

  “And divorced,” Grace said. “Is that your cellphone again? Suzanne, you’re more popular than I am.”

  I pulled it out and saw that it was Gabby yet again. “What could we possibly have to talk about now?” I asked as I answered it. “Hey, Gabby. I was wondering when you would call again. I was beginning to miss you.”

  “Is that another one of your lame attempts at humor, Suzanne?”

  “Evidently,” I conceded. “What’s up?”

  “I’ve spoken with my friend again.”

  “Has she changed her mind about speaking with both Grace and me?”

  “No, she still wants it to just be you in the interview, but she understands your unique relationship with Grace, so she’s agreed to allow you to share whatever you learn with her, as long as you promise to be as discreet as possible.”

  “That exception has to include Jake as well,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but there was no way I was going to agree to keep anything from my husband.

  “That’s understood. So, do you agree to her terms?”

  “Hang on a second,” I said, and then I buried my phone against my chest. “We’ve got a new offer, Grace. The mystery woman still just wants to speak with only me, but I can share what I learn with you after the fact.”

  “From your end of the conversation, I assume you can tell Jake as well.”

  “Yes, but only if we all promise to be discreet.”

  “And you want to know if I can do that?” Grace asked me.

  “I k
now you can. I just want to be sure that you’re okay with the terms.”

  “They are fine by me. I can catch up on some paperwork while you two chat. After you talk, maybe we can get lunch.”

  “That sounds wonderful. Thanks for understanding.”

  “Hey, as long as you’re not the one excluding me, there’s nothing to understand.” She pointed to my phone and added, “Should you keep her hanging around on the phone like that?”

  “Probably not,” I said as I smiled and spoke again.

  “It’s a deal,” I said before I realized that Gabby was already gone.

  What now?

  “Hey. Did you just hang up on me?”

  “I thought you were signaling your unwillingness to accept the new terms by hanging up on me again,” Gabby said sternly. “Suzanne, I must say, I don’t approve of this new way of communicating with me.”

  “I didn’t hang up on you,” I explained. “I wanted to be sure it was okay with Grace before I gave you my answer.”

  “And was it?”

  “Yes. I accept. Now, who is it?”

  “Rather than tell you over the phone, come to the back of my shop as soon as you can get here. She’s waiting on you.”

  “Should I knock in any particular pattern so you’ll know that it’s me, like three shorts, three longs, and then another three shorts?” I asked her.

  “Why on earth would you want to do that?”

  “I don’t know. This all just seems so covert, I thought she’d at least insist on some kind of secret code.”

  “She’s not making this difficult on purpose. All she wants is to salvage what small bit of pride she has left. Being with Dan wasn’t easy for her, but she genuinely cared for him, and now that he’s gone, she wants to be sure that whoever killed him pays for it. Is that so hard to understand?”

  “I suppose not,” I said. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  “Alone,” she reminded me.

  “Alone,” I echoed.

  After I hung up, I turned to Grace and said, “I’ll swing by your house when I’m finished.”

  “I’ll be there,” Grace said. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks. I just hope I don’t need it.”

  “This is a friend of Gabby’s, remember? Trust me; you’re going to need it, all right.”

  I didn’t even have to knock on Gabby’s back door when I got there, so my suggested secret code was useless anyway. The door opened a moment before I was even able to reach the handle.

  “Come in,” Gabby said, looking behind me furtively, as if it was a possibility that I could have been followed. Maybe it wasn’t that crazy an impulse. After all, someone had killed Dan Billingham the night before. It was entirely feasible that they knew Grace and I would be digging into the crime, especially if they were from April Springs. We’d developed quite a reputation for nosing around crime scenes, so it wasn’t that hard to believe that the killer might decide to stalk us as we worked at solving the homicide to check up on our progress. I’d have to share that insight with Grace the next time I saw her. The thought of being followed made me uneasy, and I was happy to get inside and bolt the door behind me.

  “Hello, Suzanne,” a voice from the shadows said, and I turned to see who had been dating Crazy Dan the junk man in secret.

  Chapter 6

  It was Belinda Carson, maybe the last single woman in April Springs I would have ever imagined dating Dan Billingham.

  “It’s you?” I asked her incredulously. “You were the one dating Dan in the dark?” Belinda Carson was always dressed impeccably, and she practically oozed a Southern genteel demeanor. It was hard to imagine her with the junk man, but I had no reason to doubt her, especially given what she’d gone through to keep her identity a secret.

  “I know. It’s not easily explained, but then again, is attraction ever simple to understand?”

  “Sometimes it’s not,” I admitted.

  “Dan had a rustic charm about him, but most of all, he made me laugh,” Belinda said. “I was so stubborn about upholding my precious standing in the community that I wouldn’t let him tell anyone about us. The truth is that I was ashamed of him, and it kills me to admit it now. My pride wouldn’t allow me to flaunt how I felt about the man, and as you can imagine, it severely limited the time we could be together. What a fool I was.” She cried gently, and I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know how to do it. After all, Belinda was right. She’d let her status in the community keep her from being happy. What good was that doing her now? In a way, she was still letting it happen. Her rules for speaking with me proved that. I didn’t doubt that she’d cared for Dan on some level, but it was just as clear that she’d cared more for her reputation, and she obviously still felt that way after he was gone, no matter what she might say to me now.

  “Belinda, if you really knew him that well, could you shed a little light on who might have wanted to kill him?” I asked.

  “Do you mean to say that it wasn’t some random robbery after all?” she asked me.

  “It very well might turn out to be just that, but Grace and I are working on the premise that it was someone Dan knew, a person who had a motive to want to see him dead.”

  “I take it your husband doesn’t agree with your theory.”

  “It’s not his case anymore,” I explained patiently. Why was everyone so concerned about what Jake thought? He was the acting chief of police, as well as my husband, but that didn’t mean that my views always had to match his.

  “Oh,” she said softly.

  Had I been a little too harsh in my response? I decided to soften my tone a little. “The state police are treating this as one in a string of other crimes, so it doesn’t do any of us any good to try to duplicate their work. Grace and I are playing the game of What If.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it. What if Dan’s murder wasn’t random? What if there was a motive we don’t know yet behind the killing? I’m talking about things like that.”

  “Let me think. We didn’t discuss his business very much, but I knew that he was angry with two men he dealt with: Benny Flint and William Jecks. They were both unhappy with him, and I can assure you that the feeling was mutual.”

  “Did he ever say anything about Jeffrey Frost to you?”

  “Just that he wouldn’t leave Dan alone, always pestering him to sell his land to him. I don’t know that there was any animosity there, though, at least not on Dan’s part.”

  “Is there anyone else that you can think of?” I asked her.

  “No, not off the top of my head.”

  Apparently that line of inquiry was dead with her. My questions weren’t over though, not by any means. “Can you think of anything Dan had that someone else might want enough to kill him for?”

  “I can’t imagine what it would be. All Dan had was his junk and the land his shop sat on.”

  “Land the developer coveted,” I reminded her.

  She looked surprised by the implication. “Would someone actually kill another person for something they owned?”

  “It happens all of the time, all over the world,” I assured her. “If it wasn’t the land, could it be something in Dan’s shop? Is there anything of value there that you know of?”

  “You’ve seen the place, Suzanne. It’s chock full of worthless junk. I’d be willing to bet that his entire inventory isn’t worth over two hundred dollars.”

  “I know this theory is farfetched, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t pursue it. If it wasn’t anything he owned, could it have been because of something he knew?”

  “Meaning?”

  “What if Dan saw or knew something that someone else desperately wanted to hide?” It was a stab in the dark, and there had been nothing premeditated about my question.

  Evidently Belinda didn’t fee
l that way. She decided to take it personally. “What are you implying, Suzanne? Or do I even have to ask?”

  “What do you mean?” I was honestly baffled by her reaction.

  She looked at me fiercely for a moment before she spoke again. “I trusted you, and this is how you repay me, by slinging accusations at me?”

  “Belinda, I honestly don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” How had I struck a nerve with her so divisively?

  “Don’t play ignorant with me.”

  “I only wish that I really were playing,” I answered in complete and utter honesty.

  “Gabby!” Belinda called out.

  I wasn’t at all surprised when the ReNEWed owner showed up immediately. When I’d begun questioning Belinda, Gabby had stepped back into her shop, but clearly she hadn’t gone very far.

  “What’s wrong, Belinda?”

  “I’d like Suzanne to leave,” she said stiffly.

  Gabby looked quizzically at me, but all I could do was shrug. “All I can say is that if I offended you in any way, I apologize.”

  “Belinda?” Gabby asked hesitantly. She was clearly as confused by the situation as I was.

  “It’s too little, too late,” Belinda said firmly.

  Gabby nodded, and then she turned to me. “I’m truly sorry, but I’ll have to ask you to leave, Suzanne.”

  I considered protesting, but what good would it do me? It was obvious this particular question-and-answer session was over. I thought about apologizing again, but I refused to do it. Belinda wasn’t the only one in the room with a streak of stubborn pride. I’d asked her a random question, and I’d gotten my head nearly bitten off in return. Or had it felt that random to Belinda? It suddenly dawned on me why she was so upset. She’d taken my generic question and had made it specific and directed at her. In her mind, I was implying that she’d killed Dan to protect the secret of their relationship. I hadn’t even considered that possibility, at least not until she’d so graciously pointed it out to me. As I let Gabby lead me to the door, I turned back to Belinda and said, “Thank you. You’ve been more helpful than I’m sure you even realize.”