1 Murder for Bid

by Susan Furlong-Bolliger

  I’m covered in sweat and my head’s pounding in time with my heart beat. I had too much wine last night. My mouth felt like sandpaper.

  I unwrapped myself from my tangled sheets and cracked open a caffeine-filled soda. The cold liquid seemed to reconstitute my shriveled tongue. I slowly tiptoed to the kitchen. Although I was shaky and my stomach rolling with nausea, I managed to fix an egg sandwich, lathering on the mayo and leaving the yoke a little runny. The combination of high fat and caffeinated phosphate seemed to hit the spot.

  After a couple of aspirins and a long nap, I awoke around noon, feeling a little better. I spent the majority of the afternoon alternating between domestic chores and cleaning up some items to sell at market.

  I reflected on the past week’s events as I worked and wished that I could glue the scattered pieces of my life together with the same ease that I mended the broken edge of the frame I was repairing. In one week, I had managed to neglect my business, involve myself in a murder of a woman I didn’t even know, and push away the only man who could possibly be ‘Mister Right.’

  At four-thirty, Dad knocked on the door to invite me down for an early dinner. “I put Italian beef in the crock pot this morning and thought you might want to come down and visit with your sister and the kids before they take off.”

  I walked in to the welcoming aroma of spicy beef and fresh baked bread.

  “Aunti Pip!” My niece squeezed my legs. “Are you feeling better? Mommy said you had the bottle flu. It sounds horrible. Did your tongue shrivel up?”

  “No, but I hope your mommy’s does,” I mumbled, just loud enough so that Maggie could hear. She was on the floor next to Sam playing rowdy card game.

  “Just be glad, Sis, that I have high stakes riding on this game, or I’d get up and wipe that smirk right off your face,” she mocked.

  We continued our friendly banter back and forth through seconds and thirds of Dad’s famous Italian beef on homemade rolls, steak fries, and coleslaw. At eight-thirty, I said goodbye to my family and made my way back upstairs.

  I felt it as soon as I walked in. Someone had been in my apartment. Once again, I had neglected to lock my door. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like a big deal, I was just heading down to the main house.

  I stood motionless, wondering what to do. I strained my ears. No sound. At least no sound that I could hear over the high-pitched buzzing in my ears. My heart was slamming against my chest. I willed it to slow down. I needed to calm myself, think this through.

  There were only two places that someone could hide in my small apartment. I glanced from corner to corner before crossing the room and tentatively opening my closet door.

  Nothing.

  Next, the bathroom door. I pushed it open, the door knob hitting the inside wall with a thud. Empty but the shower curtain was drawn. Did I do that? I tried to think back to my shower. No, I don’t think I ever draw the curtain after I shower. I just let it hang all crumpled up, inviting mildew to grow within its moist folds.

  Sucking in my breath, I reached out a trembling hand and yanked the curtain back.

  No one. Thank God.

  Breathing easier, I walked around my apartment and closely surveyed my stuff, looking for perhaps another piece of false evidence planted among my personal things. There wasn’t a shred of evidence indicating that someone had been in my apartment. Was I just paranoid?

  I knocked around my apartment, heart still racing, for a few minutes before picking up my cell. Before I could decide just who I was going to call, I checked the display. I had a couple of voice messages. I listened to the first.

  “Hello Phillipena. It’s Greg. Just thinking about you. Let’s get together tonight. Give me a call.”

  I saved the message and listened to the next. It was Sean. “We need to talk. Call me, okay?” I paced in front of my sofa for a few minutes, formulating what I would say to Sean. I decided not to tell him about someone being in my apartment. I had no proof. He’d think I was playing some sort of game to get his attention. I punched in his number.

  Sarah answered again. I hated her voice which was sexy, professional, and pleasant, all wrapped up in one. Only this time, I didn’t hang up. “May I speak to Sean, please?” I asked, in what I thought was an equally as sexy voice.

  I waited for what seemed like an eternity. Why was it taking him so long to pick up? I strained to hear background noise. Was that running water I heard? I knew what was going on. The whole scenario was unfolding in my mind’s eye: Sean and this, this incredibly beautiful woman were just finishing with a … a tryst. Now she was busy fixing him a post-tryst snack, while he washes off in the shower. They’ll dine together, feed each other bite-size morsels and share a bottle of wine before…

  “Hello.” Sean’s voice cut through the ugly picture forming in my mind. He sounded so very relaxed. “Pippi, is that you?”

  A surge of anger flowed through my body, I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind, but I couldn’t speak. Instead, I slapped my phone shut, cutting him off mid-sentence. Almost immediately it began ringing again. I ignored it and went straight to the freezer for some ice cream.

  All this time, all I had ever gotten from Sean Panelli was a bunch of waiting for some sort of commitment, and what? As soon as we have a little trouble in our relationship, he turns to the arms of some beautiful, long-legged, lawyer.

  I alternated cuss words with spoonfuls of ice cream until I scraped the bottom of the container. Flinging the spoon into the sink, I began to pace, figuring out a new strategy. The way I saw it, there were two ways I could get back at Sean for his sexy little indiscretion.

  One, I could call Greg. He had hinted what would be in store for the night, if I wanted. Turnabout was fair play. And Sean deserved it. Or two, I could figure out who killed Amanda before Sean. Wouldn’t he feel stupid explaining to his captain that some detective-wanna-be solved the case while he was busy exchanging DNA samples with some long-legged lawyer?

  I deliberated for all of two seconds before choosing option two, beating Sean to the scoop. While option one would probably be easier and more fun, it would require me to shave my legs. I just wasn’t in the mood for a rendezvous with my disposable. Not to mention that I was a little freaked out about my shower at the moment. I know that I didn’t draw the curtain. That famous horror movie shower scene kept knocking around in my head. Who knew how long it would be before I’d take another shower. Besides, the ice cream had left me bloated and there’s nothing like an expanding belly to kill any hopes that I might have of feeling sexy enough for a hot date.

  So, that settled, I retrieved my cell phone from the floor and armed myself with a pair of binoculars, a six-pack of soda, and a bag of cookies. I slipped into my raincoat and ran out the door into the pounding rain. I had something to prove.

  Chapter Seventeen

  As I drove, my mind kept returning to the previous week’s conversations. Three people had pointed a finger at Richard Schmidt. Madeline, although I really couldn’t put much stock into a mad woman’s theory, Alexa Hamilton, and Greg. The last two were plausible resources. They both had an insider’s view to Richard and Amanda’s relationship. His own sister-in-law, Alexa, had even reinforced the notion that Richard had a nasty temper and that Amanda was looking to end the marriage. I thought back to when I saw him tear the lipstick-stained shirt in two. His anger obviously surfaced easily. My original theory was probably correct: Richard had killed Amanda in a fit of rage. What prompted that rage, I couldn’t be sure. Either the fact that Amanda found out about his affair, or the idea that she’d conceived a baby with another man. There were so many possibilities. I just needed to get the final piece of proof, the murder weapon. Then I’d be able to get the answers I needed.

  I reached Schmidt’s street in record time and parked the Volvo across from his house. The first thing I noticed is that hardly any progress had been made on the new house constructed by Schmidt’s. Probably the rain had held up the building efforts. It had onl
y been a few days since I’d been here, but it seemed like forever ago that I’d snuck past the workers in my ill-fitting tumor-sweater just to get busted snooping around Schmidt’s shed. I felt flushed just thinking about that incident. Hopefully tonight’s endeavor would go much smoother. I sighed, pushed my seat back, turned the radio to my favorite easy-listening station and settled in for a long night of surveillance.

  Twenty minutes and a half bag of cookies later, I was bored out of my mind. Nothing was going on at Schmidt’s place. I wasn’t sure what I had hoped to accomplish by staking out his house anyway. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Isn’t that what they always did on television? Except for TV detectives, it only took one commercial break for something to develop. My perp, on the other hand, wasn’t doing a whole heck of a lot. Every once in a while the lights would turn on in a room and I’d catch a glimpse of a shadow crossing in front of a curtained window. Nothing exciting, nor incriminating. Just Schmidt doing whatever Schmidt did in the evening.

  I polished off another row of cookies and replayed in my mind the sexy scenario that I could imagine was taking place with Sean and Ms. Sarah. I decided that perhaps I should be more assertive about the whole thing. What I should really do is call him back and let him know exactly how I felt about his new girlfriend.

  I had my cell to my ear when it hit me—the obvious hiding spot. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Because of the rain, it probably wasn’t too late. Giving Sean a piece of my mind could wait. I shoved my phone into the pocket of my rain coat, threw up my hood and retrieved a flashlight from the backseat.

  My shoes made tiny splashing sounds as I navigated the sidewalk toward the construction site. After maneuvering over the plastic red mesh fencing, I trudged through mud and debris until I reached the edge of the basement hole. I had remembered seeing the guys working this site last week. They had pulled out when the weather threatened rain. That was the day after Amanda was murdered, right next door.

  Formwork, which would eventually hold poured cement, expanded the perimeter of the basement cavity. I stared down at the twelve-inch width of the castings thinking that they would be the ideal place to drop a golf club. None of the construction guys would ever think of looking, and even if they did, chances were they wouldn’t bother to retrieve it. Once the cement was poured, it would be lost forever.

  I began walking around the perimeter of the dug-out basement, my tennis shoes gathering mud with every step. Soon, I had monster shoes. Every couple of feet, I’d stop, scrape the bottom of my shoes, and lean over the formwork to shine my light in the crevice. Finally, half-way around, my light reflected on something metallic. Dropping to my knees, I thrust the flashlight as far down into the molding as I could. It was a golf club!

  I knew it! The perfect hiding spot: close, convenient, and foolproof. Except for one thing, the rain.

  I smiled to myself as I thought of how crazy Schmidt must feel, knowing that the murder weapon was practically lying in plain sight. It had rained on and off for almost the entire week, making it impossible to maneuver the heavy truck through the mud and close enough to the basement to pour the cement. Also, even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t possibly have retrieved it. I mean, how would he do that? The thing was lodged almost ten feet down between a ten-inch span of concrete forms.

  Wiping my mud-caked hands off on my raincoat, I pulled out my cell and quickly dialed Sean’s number.

  “I found it!” I blurted out, before he barely said hello.

  “What?”

  “The murder weapon. Schmidt’s golf club. It’s here at the construction site next to...”

  The phone was ripped from my hand. I turned just in time to see him smash it under his foot.

  “Hello Phillipena.”

  “Greg?”

  Momentarily confused, I wondered why Greg would be here at this time of night. For a second, I hoped that maybe he was patrolling his construction site. I’d heard that there was often a problem with looting at sites. Was that it? If so, why had he done that to my cell phone?

  “Surprised?”

  I stiffened with fear. His normally handsome features were twisted, making his face appear menacing and cruel.

  “That’s right, Phillipena. It was me.”

  Suddenly it all made sense. Greg had been playing me all along. I thought back to all the tidbits of information he had given me, all of it misdirecting my investigation. It was all just to divert my attention from the real murderer—him.

  With the trembling beam of my flashlight, I searched his face for a trace of mercy. I saw none. The pounding rain was coming in hard, hitting my face at an angle, making it difficult to keep my eyes focused on Greg. Somewhere in the background, a dog began barking crazily. Did it sense the danger I was in? Would its owner bother to see what was causing the animal’s sudden outburst?

  “You killed Amanda?” My fading voice betrayed my confusion and fear.

  The edges of his lips curled as he spoke. He seemed to take delight in my fear. “Finally, you got it right. How fun this has been, watching you flit from one suspect to another. You were so easy to play. Madeline, the judge, and Richard Schmidt. And, when I wasn’t playing you, I was setting you up as the murderer. A little more time and …”

  “You planted the bracelet?”

  “Yes, that was me. You’re an easy target, you know. Digging around in people’s garbage doesn’t give you the best reputation.”

  “How did …”

  “Easy. I distracted you with our date and I had one of my people do it.”

  My expression must have betrayed my thoughts.

  He started laughing. “You actually thought I was attracted to you? No, Phillipena, you’re not quite my type.”

  I shriveled. There it was, straight from the man himself. Everyone had tried to tell me. How could I have ever been so stupid to think that he could find me attractive? “I’m glad you found it all so amusing,” I answered, with not as much bravado as I had hoped.

  “You were so sure that Schmidt did it. What you didn’t realize is that he’s too good a person to ever kill his wife. He may have wanted to once he found out about her affair, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t enough of a man to actually do it. In fact, he wasn’t much of a man at all, if you know what I mean. He couldn’t satisfy Amanda’s needs. That’s why she needed me.”

  “You were her lover?” I had never considered the possibility.

  “Yes, we were lovers. Until she decided to break it off.”

  Rain had matted his hair, creating jagged points along the fringes of his face. His rain-soaked shirt clung to his body, emphasizing his powerful physique. I suddenly realized where I had seen the distinct double stitching of his shirt’s seams before.

  “It was your shirt that I found in the garbage can.”

  Greg’s laugh sliced through the thundering rain. “Yes, I suppose it was. It got stained during one of my visits and I had to dispose of it. I actually borrowed one of Richard’s shirts. It didn’t fit properly, but oh well.”

  My mind flashed back to when Schmidt tore the shirt in two. He must have realized that it wasn’t his. Had he confronted her that afternoon? Did she come clean about the affair? Beg his forgiveness? Were they going to try to make things work between them? Was he willing to forgive her and love the child as his own?

  “Come on, little Miss Detective,” Greg said, taking away my flashlight and grabbing my arm. “You’re coming with me.” his fingers dug into my flesh. He started dragging me toward the road. Every time I struggled, his grip tightened. My arm was on fire. I could feel blood tricking down my wet sleeve.

  I prayed that Sean had heard enough to know where I was or even that I was in trouble. Maybe he thought that my cell phone had just cut out. Would he be looking for me? I walked as slowly as I could, stalling for time by asking questions.

  “Did you plan on killing Amanda or did you lose control?” I shouted over the rain. He was pulling me through the mud. I was struggling. H
is powerful legs didn’t seem to have any problem maneuvering through the quick-sand-like puddles.

  He glanced back at me and cackled. “Lose control? No. She was a problem and I took care of it.”

  “What do you mean, she was a problem?”

  “Do you think I actually loved the woman?” He laughed heartily as if it was all a big joke. “I could have any woman I want. No, she served a purpose. She was my inside to the city council office. Once she fell for me, it was easy. She could work her husband for just about any type of permit I needed. I did the same with Madeline. It’s very useful to sleep with the wife of a judge, especially when I need her to influence her husband on certain court rulings.”

  “I don’t understand. If Amanda was so useful, why kill her?”