Alex stopped dead and turned to face me with an expression of frustration. “I was saying that I don’t know what’s gotten into you today. First you jump on me as soon as I sit down at the table over at The Grounds and then you act strange over the tiniest things. Since you won’t tell me what’s wrong, what do you expect me to do? I’ve known you for three months, Poppy. I know when you’re not okay. Remember when you got sick right after the Geneva Woodward case? I sensed you weren’t okay without you even telling me. That’s what partners do, but since you won’t tell me what’s wrong, I assumed you were coming down with something again. That’s all I was doing in the car.”
His outburst surprised me, and I wanted to hide away after hearing how awful I’d made him feel. Hanging my head, I stared down at my newly painted pink nails peeking out of my white sandals and tried to find the words to explain to him what was wrong.
None of them came to me, though, so instead I said the only thing a good partner should. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was making things so difficult on you.”
He softly touched my arm and then cupped my shoulder with his palm. I didn’t want to look up because he was so close right there in front of me, but I did and I saw real concern in his brown eyes. I didn’t like him looking at me like that. I wasn’t some sad girl he needed to feel bad for.
“It’s okay. I just wish you’d tell me what’s wrong, Poppy. We’re partners. Whatever affects you, affects me.”
His plea washed over me, filling my head with possibilities that maybe I could tell him what was really wrong with me. The right words that had eluded me for days suddenly came to me there as we stood on the sidewalk in front of Mary Jessick’s tiny cottage house, but then the reality I hadn’t considered before struck me like a bolt of lightning.
What if I did tell him I didn’t want him to see Bethany because I cared for him, and what if he said he cared for me and we began dating only to find that it didn’t work out? Everything we did together now as partners would be lost. I loved working on cases with him and knew with each one I learned more than I ever could on my own. He noticed details I never thought of before, and I wanted to continue to improve my investigating skills with him. I didn’t want to risk losing everything we had already for the chance that we might be good together romantically too.
It was just too big a gamble.
And knowing that put everything I’d been going through into perspective. I smiled up at him and for the first time in too long, I told him the truth. “I’m fine, Alex. I got a little turned around about something a few days ago, but I think I figured it out now.”
When he smiled back at me, it went all the way up to his eyes, and the concern that had filled them disappeared. “Okay. I’m happy to hear that. It’s my job to make sure whatever’s turning you around knows you have someone watching out for you. Don’t ever forget that. That’s what partners do for each other.”
“Thanks, I won’t. Let’s go see if Mary can help us figure out who killed our victim. I’m starting to bake in the sun standing out here on the sidewalk like this.”
We walked up to her front door, and as Alex knocked on the old wood screen door, I enjoyed the shade her little front porch afforded us. While I cooled down a few degrees, I thought about the revelation that had come over me out there on the sidewalk and liked the choice I’d made. I still didn’t like the idea of his dating Bethany, but I would need to accept that. Alex was my partner, and if he was happy, then I should be happy for him.
“I don’t think she’s home. Let’s go around back and see if anyone answers there,” he said as he walked down the front porch stairs.
We made it halfway around the house when a deep, gravelly voice called out, “You can knock all you want. She’s not home.”
Looking behind us in the direction where the words had come from, I saw a heavy elderly lady with short grey hair standing on the sidewalk in what I was sure was the biggest tank top dress I’d ever seen. Bright yellow with gigantic red flowers, it hung loosely around her hefty body. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she had a look on her face that told me Mary hadn’t lucked out in the neighbor department when she moved to this house.
Alex spoke up and said, “We’re looking for Mary Jessick. Do you know where we can find her, ma’am?”
The woman’s right hip shot out and she snapped, “I know who you’re looking for. I’m surprised you brought a female with you, though. Won’t your girlfriend there mind you spending time with Mary right in front of her?”
He and I looked at each other, partly confused about what she meant about our potential suspect and party confused as to why people more and more seemed to assume we were together as anything more than work partners.
I smiled at the elderly woman and yelled out to her, “It’s not like that, but thank you for letting us know she’s not home.”
She flashed me an unconvincing smile that said she didn’t believe me on the girlfriend part or the part about me being thankful for her help and turned to walk away. Alex quickly asked, “Do you know what time she gets home from work?”
Spinning around quite fast for someone so heavy, she waddled toward us with a determined look that showed she had something more to say. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it, though, but Alex seemed acutely interested in what this woman might tell us and walked up to meet her halfway. Sure whatever she might say would be snarky, I double timed my steps and caught up to him just as he reached her.
“Who are you? What do you want with Mary?” she asked with eyes narrowed to slits in her pudgy face.
He flashed her his badge and one of his most sincere smiles. “I’m Officer Alex Montero from the Sunset Ridge Police, ma’am. What’s your name?”
“Eudora Stark. Mrs. Eudora Stark. It’s about time you came here since I’ve called no less than six times.”
“We’re just looking for Mary to speak to her.”
Mrs. Stark pointed her chubby index finger in my direction and ignoring his statement asked, “Who’s she?”
Alex began to explain how I was his partner, but I knew what would work much better on this woman. Thrusting my hand forward to shake hers, I introduced myself. “I’m Poppy McGuire from The Sunset Eagle, Mrs. Stark. How are you today?”
Her demeanor instantaneously changed. Gone was the snarky tone and nasty look, replaced by a smile and a handshake that enveloped my much smaller hand in hers.
“The Sunset Eagle newspaper? I knew I recognized you from somewhere. You write the society column each week. I read it all the time. Did I hear you were taking over the police blotter feature too? Is that why you’re with the officer?”
News certainly traveled fast, but that never surprised me in my hometown. What did was that my editor had already begun flapping his gums about my new assignment even before I’d handed in my first column.
“I’m so happy to hear you read it. In today’s world with computers and hundreds of channels on TV, it’s hard to keep people interested in the newspaper, especially the society column. I’m so flattered whenever I have the chance to meet a reader.”
I wasn’t lying about any of what I said to Mrs. Stark. Most days, I didn’t understand how The Sunset Eagle still continued to operate considering anyone with a computer could find out news one hundred times faster with a few website clicks, but then I remembered the basic truth that small town people like her enjoyed the local feeling of their town’s newspaper more than anything else, and this was doubly true with elderly folks.
“I never miss reading The Eagle!” she said as she clutched my wrist in her chubby hand.
She gazed into my eyes like I was some kind of movie star and she was entranced by meeting someone famous, but Alex interrupted her adoration of me in his attempt to get our visit back on its original track.
“Do you know what time Mary usually gets home, Mrs. Stark?”
I smiled and nodded as she continued to stare up at me, and she reluctantly looked over at him after a few mo
ments. “I usually see her back by six at night. She’s a young widow, you know. I think that’s why she acts the way she does.”
My ears perked up at her characterization of Mary in such a provocative way, and Alex jumped on her statement.
“Like what? How does she act?”
A deep frown settled into her doughy features, making the creases next to her nose and mouth even more pronounced and dragging the skin around her eyes down with them. “She sees too many men. You won’t be including any of this in your column, will you? I’d hate to have this get out.”
“No, no,” I reassured her. “This is entirely between us, Mrs. Stark.”
Happy to know the entire town wouldn’t hear about what she thought of Mary, she continued. “I know you young girls these days don’t do things like we used to back when I was young, but there can be too many men. A lady has to be careful with these things.”
My curiosity spiked, and I asked, “How many?”
“Two different ones just this week.” Mrs. Stark leaned forward toward me and said in a much quieter voice, “They both came over the same night.”
I looked over at Alex standing to my right whose knowing grin nearly made me chuckle right there in front of this elderly woman who clearly didn’t approve of whatever Mary was doing with her male visitors. There really was no point in trying to explain to her that they may have been just friends. Someone like Mrs. Stark wasn’t going to believe that anyway.
Changing the topic, Alex asked, “What did you call the police about all those times?”
“Mary has recently had people over who park with two wheels on the sidewalk and make my dog Muffy bark at all hours of the day and night.”
Alex asked, “How many people and when?”
Mrs. Stark scrunched up her face as she thought about the details and then said, “Three nights in the past week Muffy was up barking in the middle of the night. I go to bed early, and I’m sound asleep with her in her little doggy bed next to mine by ten o’clock. When she hears a car outside, she wakes up and runs to the window. I know it’s Mary’s house because Muffy is pointing that way when she barks. I don’t know how many people because it was dark, but I know I saw Mary on two of those nights get out of the car at that ungodly hour in the middle of the night.”
I knew he’d heard the same thing I’d heard—that Mary had come home late a couple nights in the past week. But had she been out the night of Canton Walters’ murder?
“Do you remember if one of those nights was Tuesday, Mrs. Stark?” he asked with excitement in his voice.
She nodded and continued to frown. “Yes, it was. Muffy was especially perturbed that night because Mary and some man made all kinds of noise when they got out of the car. I had to rock her to sleep and it took nearly an hour to calm her down!”
“Do you remember anything else about that night, Mrs. Stark?” I asked, hoping she was as nosy as I thought she might be and maybe watched out that bedroom window of hers for a while after Mary and her male friend arrived.
“It was late and Muffy was upset is pretty much all I remember.”
“What about what the man looked like?”
“He had blond hair and it looked a mess when he stepped out of the car. That boy needed a haircut. What kind of girl would date someone who didn’t even bother to do his hair for their date?”
Taking the picture of Canton Walters out of his pocket, he held it up for Mrs. Stark to look at. “Was this the man you saw getting out of the car that night?”
She took the picture from his hold and examined it. “It could be. I never saw him in the light, but it could be the same person. All I can say is the man I saw needed a haircut.”
As Alex wrote down the details from Mrs. Stark’s complaining, he asked, “Do you remember anything else from that night? Anything that seemed odd or out of the ordinary?”
She handed him the picture again and shook her head. “You mean other than what I already told you? I don’t think so. I’ve never seen him again here with her, and since that night, it’s been pretty quiet around Mary’s house.”
“Okay, thank you, Mrs. Stark. You’ve been very helpful.”
She beamed at Alex’s compliment and once again grabbed my arm. “It was so nice to meet you, Poppy McGuire. I’m going to tell all my friends I got to meet a real reporter from The Sunset Eagle.”
“You are so sweet. Thank you. And thank you for helping us today. You’ve been so good to tell us what you saw. Have a wonderful day, okay?”
“Oh, you too!”
She walked backwards toward her house next door wearing a smile from ear-to-ear as she waved goodbye to us. I wasn’t as big a deal as she’d made me, but I had to admit it felt nice knowing someone enjoyed my work that much that meeting me meant something to her.
Mrs. Stark had affected Alex in a different way, and I turned to see him circling Mary’s name in his tablet. Looking up, he said, “I think that woman may have been one of the last people to see our victim alive that night. I’ll be interested in hearing what Mary Jessick has to say when we come back tonight at six.”
We walked toward the car as that thought settled into my brain. I didn’t know Mary, but I had to wonder what had happened between when she and Canton came here and when he ended up with a knife in his back in his hotel room nearly a mile away.
“But didn’t the night clerk say he didn’t see Canton Walters leave the hotel that night?” I asked. “How could he have been here waking up Muffy and Mrs. Stark without that clerk noticing he’d left and then returned again?”
Alex stopped at the car and leaned back against the hood. Crossing his arms, he knitted his brows at the seemingly inconsistent facts from the two witnesses. “I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t paying as close attention as he wanted me to believe. Something tells me nothing gets by old Mrs. Stark there.”
“Don’t forget Muffy too.”
“How could I?” he said with a chuckle. “I bet she and her owner have gotten a show a time or two living here next to Mary.”
“That sounds pretty provincial, Officer Montero. Aren’t women allowed to enjoy the opposite sex like men are?”
Clearly surprised that I’d taken offense at his comment about Mary, Alex held up his hands in faux surrender. “Whoa. That’s not what I was saying at all. It just seems like Mary had a good time. You know, with the sex toy parties and guys at her house in the middle of the night.”
“I attended one of those parties once.”
I didn’t know why I blurted that out, but I didn’t regret it. I personally had no problem with Mary living life the way she wanted to either. If she wanted to spend time with different men, who was I or anyone else to tell her it was wrong?
Alex raised one eyebrow and then gave me a tiny smile that was definitely sexier than it should have been as we stood there on the street in the middle of the day, but he didn’t respond to my confession. All the better. I barely remembered anything other than women giggling at sexy lingerie that night, so if he asked me any questions about it, I wouldn’t have been able to answer them anyway. I hadn’t intended to make a big deal out of going to one, so his usual stoic response was appreciated.
“You really understood how to deal with her back there. I was impressed. I wouldn’t have known to handle her that way.”
For a moment, I stood confused by his changing the topic. When I recovered, I waved off his compliment. “It was nothing. I know The Eagle’s demographics, and the biggest segment of our readership is older people, especially older women.”
“She really liked you, Poppy. I think you have a fan.”
“It’s been known to happen, every blue moon or so,” I joked, trying to seem humble even as I thought it was nice to have someone out there I knew enjoyed my columns.
“I knew I wasn’t the only one.”
He moved to walk around the car to leave, but I had to ask if he’d actually become a fan of my writing for the paper. “You’ve read my columns and like them?
I never pictured you as a guy who reads a small town newspaper.”
Shaking his head, he gave me another sexy smile like he had when I told him I’d been to one of those parties and opened the driver’s side door to get in. “No. I’ve never read even one of them.”
I slid into the passenger seat wishing that simple sentence didn’t make me as happy as it did.
Chapter Ten
At exactly six o’clock, Alex and I knocked on Mary Jessick’s front door and found her home, just as Mrs. Stark had told us she would be. A young and attractive woman with long black hair that fell almost to her waist and dark brown eyes, Mary struck me as exotic, yet in some way naïve looking.
She stared out in fear at Alex’s badge pressed against her screen door as he announced in an authoritative voice who we were. “I’m Officer Montero and this is Poppy McGuire. We’d like to speak to you about a murder investigation we’re conducting.”
I expected her to immediately tell us she didn’t know the victim since it was likely she’d either seen something in the newspaper about Canton Walters’ death at the Hotel Piermont or heard people talking about it around town. Sunset Ridge wasn’t exactly the kind of place where you could avoid hearing local gossip, even if you tried. I knew that all too well.
But she didn’t. Instead, she opened the door and said, “Please come in. I was so sorry to hear about that poor man’s death.”
She led us to her kitchen, a tiny room off the modest living room where we’d entered the house. We sat down in dark wood chairs at a matching round table and saw how nervous Mary was. Whether she was unnerved by a policeman in her home or something far more serious that would indicate some part in our case, it was clear by how her hands shook as she sat down with us that something was upsetting her.
“I don’t know what I can do to help,” she began but then stopped and pressed her lips together. I wasn’t sure what Alex thought, but she looked plenty guilty about something to me.
“We know from Delilah Roberts that you were one of the people who attended her Naughty and Spice parties. Is that true?” Alex asked.
After Hours Page 10