by J. R. Ripley
Back on the ground, I returned the ladder to where I’d found it. I then hitched my purse over my shoulder and forced my way back through the hedge. As I popped out on the other side, a fat drop of rain landed on my nose, reminding me that some things were beyond my control.
I trotted out to the front. The sooner I got out of there, the better. As I jogged, I thrust my hand in my purse. I wanted to have my car key ready to go the minute I hit the street.
I skidded to a stop in the middle of the damp lawn. My open purse went flying. Cosmetics, coins, and expired coupons spilled across the overgrown grass.
That was the least of my problems.
The van was gone.
Tripping over my purse, I raced to the curb, looking up and down the street. “I parked it right here!” I said aloud, stamping my foot. “What on earth?”
I was stuck there. And I had a date with Derek in less than two hours.
A few sparse, icy raindrops fell—not enough to cause any trouble. I picked up my purse and shoved everything helter-skelter back in. I had to call somebody. But not the police. At least, not yet.
Mom doesn’t drive, so I called Aunt Betty. Unfortunately, the call went straight to voicemail. I considered calling one of my cousins, Rhonda or Riley, but didn’t want to explain myself to them.
Should I call Kim? She’d had a tough enough day herself. Besides, by now she’d probably downed an entire bottle of chardonnay. I needed somebody sober.
As much as I hated to, I phoned Derek. “Hi, Derek.”
“What’s up? You’re not cancelling on me, are you?”
“No, not at all. In fact . . .” How was I going to phrase this? “I was wondering if you could come pick me up.”
There was a beat of silence before he answered. “Pick you up? Aren’t you at your place?”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, no.”
“Well, okay. You want me to pick you up. Can do. Tell me when and where.”
“How about now? I read the address off the empty house and gave Derek directions as best I could how to get there. Not being from Ruby Lake, he was unfamiliar yet with much of the town.
Derek promised to get there as soon as he could.
The sky opened up and I ran for the vacant home’s porch. I was soaked to the bone before I’d made it halfway.
Derek pulled up fifteen minutes later. His headlights were on and his wipers were working full tilt. He honked and I made a dash for it. He leaned over and threw open the passenger door. I jumped in.
“You’re soaked!” he said. “And shivering!”
“Y-yes,” I said. “Th-thanks for coming.”
Derek pushed some buttons and turned some knobs in the cockpit and warm air began blowing from the vents. “Sorry, I don’t have a towel,” he said, starting down the road. “Let’s get you home as soon as possible.”
Derek parked next to the rear entrance of Birds & Bees. I unlocked the door and led us inside.
“Mind if I take a hot shower before fixing dinner?” I asked, once we were inside the apartment.
“I’d mind if you didn’t,” he said with a laugh.
I told him to help himself to drinks and whatever was in the fridge while I went to get cleaned up. I showered, blow-dried and combed out my hair, threw on the merest hint of lipstick, and slid into a comfy but, hopefully, sexy green pantsuit.
By the time I got back to the kitchen, Mom was seated at the kitchen table with Derek. A bottle of wine sat between them.
Mom rose and gave me a squeeze. “Amy, Derek told me all about what happened.” I had explained the circumstances of my standing in the freezing rain outside an empty house and my missing van to Derek on the drive back to my place. “You have to call Jerry!”
“I know,” I said, reaching for a hunk of cheese from the platter on the table. “I don’t suppose you want to do it for me?”
Mom rolled her eyes. “You’re a big girl, Amy Simms. This is serious. Somebody stole your van.” She pointed to my phone on the counter. “Now pick up that phone and call him. You agree with me, don’t you, Derek?”
Derek nodded. He was grinning.
I picked up my phone. “I’ll get even with you later,” I vowed. I called the police station. To my relief, Chief Kennedy was out. Anita, the dispatcher, took the call. I explained the situation.
“There’s been a big wreck out by the highway,” Anita explained. “Everyone’s all tied up. Are you okay?”
I said I was, and Anita promised to take down the report and said someone would get back to me. I left out the part about the exact location of my van when it was stolen.
“Don’t worry,” Anita said encouragingly. “I’m sure we’ll find your Kia.”
Sure, I thought, unless it’s part of that wreck out near the highway.
“See, that wasn’t so hard.” Mom held a plate of her homemade cookies under Derek’s nose. “Care to try one of my breakfast cookies, Derek?”
Behind my mother’s back, I waved my hands and shook my head no, but he didn’t seem to be getting the hint as his hand went out to select one. I cut between them. “Now, now, Derek. You don’t want to spoil your dinner now, do you?” I pushed the tray toward my mother.
“Oh.” Mom looked from me to Derek and back. “I didn’t realize. Don’t let me spoil your evening.” Or kill my boyfriend, I thought. At least, he was my boyfriend for a little while longer, I supposed.
“Don’t worry,” I replied as I filled the carafe and started a fresh pot of coffee. “You won’t.” Whatever Derek wanted to talk about might, however. I needed a hot beverage. The rain had seeped into my bones. “I was thinking spaghetti.” I reached into the cupboard for a box of noodles. “Is that okay with you?” Derek nodded his approval. I filled a six-quart pan with water and placed it on the stove to bring it to a boil.
“I can’t believe that Walter Kimmel and Bessie Hammond were lovers,” Mom said, fetching three mugs.
“And don’t forget,” I said, “Ed Quince was having, or had, an affair with Bessie, too.”
“Ed Quince?” One of the mugs slipped from my mother’s hand. Derek extended his hand and caught it. “Sorry.”
I filled them both in on what Ed had told me about his relationship with Bessie. I also explained how Kim and I had found his pocketknife at the scene of the crime. “Well, not exactly at the scene of the crime, but near enough,” I said. “And Ed didn’t exactly have a plausible explanation for what his knife was doing there.”
Derek nodded thoughtfully. “You turned the knife over to the police. I’m sure they’ll examine it thoroughly.”
“Actually . . .”
“Yes?” Derek’s eyebrows rose.
“I gave the knife back to Ed.”
“What?” Derek and my mom said in unison.
“Why on earth did you do that?” Mom asked.
“That knife could be evidence in a murder investigation, Amy,” Derek complained. “You should have turned it over to the police the minute you found it.”
I poured the coffee and reached for the sugar. “I felt sorry for Ed.” I found ajar of tomato sauce in the pantry and brought it out.
Derek frowned. “Feel sorry for yourself.” I cocked my head at him and he elaborated. “Because when Chief Kennedy finds out about this you are really going to be in hot water. And I’m not talking hot shower this time.”
I sighed. No doubt Derek was right. “In the beginning,” I said, searching the utensil drawer for the jar opener I knew was in there somewhere, “I could never imagine that anybody would want to harm, let alone murder, Bessie Hammond.”
Unable to find the jar opener, I handed the jar to Derek. The top deftly came off in his hand. “Now, I’m seeing that plenty of men might have preferred shutting her up for good.”
“Not only the men,” Derek conjectured, “but their wives.”
“What do you mean?” asked Mom.
“I saw Ed and Walter’s spouses at Brewer’s Biergarten the night of the Birds and Brews
thing. No pun intended, but something was brewing under the surface with those two. I could feel it. Heck, I could see it.” He turned to me. “You must have seen it too, Amy, right?”
I agreed. It would have been impossible to miss the tension in the room that night.
Derek continued. “They might not have wanted Bessie spreading stories about their straying husbands to their friends and neighbors.”
“So true.” I lifted the lid of the pot. Bubbles were forming nicely on the bottom. “Did I tell you that Kim broke up with Randy?” It was time for a change of direction in this conversation—take the heat off me, so to speak—so throwing Kim to the dogs seemed appropriate.
Both exclaimed their surprise.
“What happened?” demanded Mom, pulling up a chair beside me.
I went over the gory details of Randy’s cheating on Kim with his ex. As I talked, my eye snuck looks across the table at Derek, in a search for clues. Was he doing the same? Cheating? Could it even be considered cheating if he was seeing his ex-wife romantically? Was that what he wanted to talk to me about?
There was a knock on the door. I answered it. It was Kim. Her clothes were wrinkled and her shoes and hair were dripping wet despite the long black raincoat that she had either neglected or forgotten to button up.
She slouched against the doorframe. “I hate my life.”
20
I stared out the window. My chin rested atop the empty cash register. It was the middle of the day. There wasn’t a customer in the shop and I couldn’t stop yawning. Not only because of the lack of stimulation but Drummy, my wood-pecking nemesis, had started banging away at the tree outside my window at five thirty in the morning. Didn’t he have anything better to do at five thirty in the morning? I knew I did.
I had stared and stared out across the lake toward the McKutcheon house. It had appeared as a dark silhouette against the predawn sky. I knew in my bones that the house held secrets.
And maybe a killer . . .
I’d spent the night tossing and turning. The evening before hadn’t turned out as planned. Soon after Kim arrived, Derek had made his excuses and bailed. He said he didn’t want to intrude on girl talk. The big coward. I still didn’t know what he’d wanted to talk to me about.
Kim, Mom, and I had gabbed and commiserated into the wee hours of the morning and devoured a not very ladylike quantity of pasta and pinot.
I yawned again and felt a stabbing pain in the frontal lobe, a not-so-pleasant reminder of my night.
Maybe Derek and I not getting the opportunity to have a private conversation was a good thing. If he couldn’t talk to me in private, he couldn’t break up with me. Yeah. Maybe that would be my new strategy. All I had to do to keep my relationship with Derek going was to avoid him completely.
“Wake up!” Esther banged the sales counter with the point of her plastic-handled feather duster.
A cloud of dust filled my eyes and nostrils. I sneezed loudly and waved my hand in front of my nose. “Don’t you ever shake that thing out?”
“I just did.” Esther Pester thrust the feather duster into her apron tie and stomped off. She stopped in aisle two and glared back at me. “I thought you might want to be awake when that girl gets here.”
“What girl?”
The door chimes tinkled and in walked Channing Chalmers in a pair of tight blue jeans, a simple white cotton tee, and leather sandals.
Esther pointed. “That one!”
I perked up and went out to greet her. “Sorry,” I said, leading the girl inside. “I forgot you were coming today.” My mind had been on other things besides new part-time employees: little things like who killed Bessie Hammond, what did Derek want to talk to me about, how was Kim doing post-breakup, and how to save my friend Moire from that player Gus McKutcheon. Not to mention, my stolen van.
“Is there a problem?” Channing looked concerned.
“No, no,” I assured her. “Things are a little slow at the moment, so this will be perfect.” I rubbed my hands for warmth.
“Slow isn’t the word for it,” mumbled Esther.
I ignored her. “Let’s see,” I said, taking a turn around the store. “Where should we start?” I paused. Across the street, I spotted Gus McKutcheon. He walked out to his pickup truck, climbed inside, and drove off in the direction of his house.
Channing tapped me on the shoulder. “Is everything okay, Amy?” Her full, wine-colored lips pushed out.
“Huh?” This would be the perfect time to talk to Moire Leora, woman to woman. “Esther?” I waved my employee-slash-renter-slash-pest over. “Would you mind taking over for a few minutes? Show Channing around?”
“I suppose.” Esther scrutinized the young woman up and down and Channing looked back rather uneasily. I couldn’t say that I blamed her. I felt a little bad leaving her in Esther the Pester’s clutches, but now was the time to strike while the striking was good. I’d already seen one good friend get dumped on by a guy. I couldn’t let it happen to another. Not on my watch.
“Great. Channing, this is Esther. Esther, this is Channing.” I untied my apron and handed it to Channing. “I’ll be at the diner if you need me. I won’t be long. Promise.”
* * *
I took a deep breath before opening the door to the Ruby Diner. It was showtime. Moire Leora stood at the register in full uniform. The diner was half-empty. It was no accident that I’d chosen the middle of the afternoon to try to talk with her. This was the midday slump. There’d be fewer distractions. The biggest distraction being Gus McKutcheon. It would have been impossible to talk to my friend with him in the kitchen.
“Hi, Moire, can I talk to you for a minute?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lana watching us from a stool at the counter. Apparently, she was on break. Was it me she was interested in or Moire, her potential rival for Guster McKutcheon?
“Sure,” Moire replied lightly. “There’s a free table right up front. We can chat there.”
I would have preferred someplace more private, away from the prying eyes and ears of staff, especially certain staff like Lana Potter, but didn’t know how to say so without sounding crazy.
“Want some coffee?” she asked, as she reached behind the counter and poured a cup for herself. My friend Tiffany waved as she refilled the water glasses of a pair of customers seated at the counter. I waved back.
“No, thanks.” I was so nervous about what I wanted to say, my stomach was already churning like a sea in a hurricane. I didn’t need the additional acid rolling around in my gut. I sidestepped around a worker running a damp mop over the terrazzo floor and followed Moire.
“So,” Moire said as we settling across from each other in the small booth near the door, “what’s up, Amy?”
Suddenly, I didn’t know how to begin. My gaze wandered across the street to Birds & Bees and Brewer’s Biergarten. The brew pub, too, was in the midst of a midafternoon lull, with only a few tables in the courtyard occupied. “Did you know Gus came to the Birds and Brews event the other night?”
Moire smiled as she dumped a packet of artificial sweetener into her cup. “I’m trying to watch the calories.” She stirred slowly. “Sure, he told me. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.”
“You knew about it?”
“Sure, you invited us, remember? I wasn’t able to get away.” Moire sipped. She turned her head as the phone behind the register rang. “Gus said he had a good time. Is there a problem?”
Tiffany called out, “I’ll get it!”
“No, no problem.” I studied my fingernails. “I didn’t realize he was interested in birds.”
Moire shrugged lazily and rubbed her neck. “Gus is a man of many interests. And talents.” She smirked lasciviously.
I felt my cheeks turn pink. I could have used a glass of ice water. I grabbed a napkin from the dispenser and twisted it in my hands. “I take it things are going well with Gus?”
“Very well.” Moire clasped her hands, arms extended across the table. “Why?”
“So?”
“So, I’m worried that maybe you don’t know him as well as you should.”
Moire leaned back, a look of amusement on her face. “You’re worried about me, Amy? I’m a grown woman. A grown woman who’s been alone too long.”
“I know that. I understand that.” Since Moire’s husband died, she’d managed to make a good life for herself. But, until now, there hadn’t been a steady man in her life that I was aware of.
“Then what does it matter to you how well I do or do not know Gus?” Her eyes beat into mine. “And what business of yours is it, anyway?”
My ears heated up. I tore the napkin to shreds and entwined the pieces back into a wrinkled lump. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Moire.”
She folded her arms over her chest. “Gus makes me happy, Amy. Very happy.”
I shifted in the booth. This was not going the way I’d planned or wanted. I decided to be blunt. “Where was he the day I saw the body get thrown out of the bedroom window of his house, Moire? Where was he when Bessie Hammond was murdered on his property?”
“He was around here somewhere—working in the diner when Bessie was killed.” She pushed up from the booth.
“Around here somewhere? It doesn’t sound like you’re very sure where Gus was.”
“Whatever, Amy.” She looked at me with growing disgust. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I have no idea where he was the day of your reported sighting of a body flying out of the window of his house.”
She threw back her head as she laughed. “Gus is a big boy and I run a busy diner. I have more important things on my mind than keeping track of my boyfriend every minute of the day. Maybe you’d do better in your relationships yourself if you did the same and stayed out of everyone else’s business.”
That last barb of Moire’s stung, though I didn’t let it show. “I’m sorry, Moire.” I held up my hands in supplication. “I only wanted—”
“And, furthermore, I don’t care where he was!” Moire cut me off. Her voice filled the diner now as she leaned over me. “Because from what I hear, there was no body thrown out of a window. That was all your imagination.” Moire tapped the side of her skull with her finger, then snatched her cup from the table. “Your overactive imagination.”