“I do have to figure out an angle for tomorrow,” I said, rubbing a knot in my shoulder.
“So that’s a yes?” FJ asked.
“That’s an, I don’t know yet,” I said. “I’ll have to see how having you on camera fits in once I finish my Cyber Monday research on what I’m actually going to talk about.”
“Which is what?”
“I plan to figure that out as soon as Dad and Eloise take off for the airport.”
“I sure wish our beautiful Eloise didn’t have to leave us to go back to school tonight,” Joyce said, reaching across the table to grasp Eloise’s hand.
Her elbow grazed the pizza boxes perched between her and Barb.
Two of the three slid off the table and hit the ground with an oddly familiar, jarring thunk.
“Oops,” Joyce said.
Frank jumped up from his seat to pick up the boxes while Barb reached for the slices of meat lover’s pizza that had catapulted across the floor.
“I’ve got seltzer right here,” Joyce said, grabbing her drink glass and kneeling to drizzle water onto the oily tomato sauce that was already oozing into the beige Berber carpeting. “Should take the stains right up.”
Barb and I dabbed at what looked like blood spatter until all traces of the accident had disappeared.
“Phew,” Joyce said, as we all returned to our seats to finish what was left of dinner. “What a terrible mess that could have been.”
“You know what I always say,” Gerald said, lifting the lid from the pizza box that had remained closed and helped himself to an overturned, but no worse for wear, slice of Canadian bacon and pineapple. “All’s well that ends well.”
_____
All’s well that ends well?
As in push had just come to shove?
Almost worse than hearing Gerald actually utter those words was the pointed pretending by everyone at the table that he’d said nothing more noteworthy than pass the salt. Not to mention Frank’s sudden insistence that Eloise grab her stuff and they get rolling to the airport.
“Have a wonderful rest of your semester,” I said, trying to sound calm after Eloise collected her bags and we hugged goodbye in the front hall.
“Thanks, Maddie,” Eloise said.
I took a deep but silent breath as the scenario seemed to come together:
Gerald, Joyce, and Barb had walked to my car behind, not in front of, Eloise after the Piggledy’s commitment ceremony. There was no way any of them could have placed the note on my car before she got there.
Someone had to have stolen away during the reception.
Or, worse, given the note to Eloise to plant on the windshield, pretend to find, and then summon me … ???
“I’m so glad you got to spend time with the family,” I barely managed.
“It was great,” she said.
“Craziest of weekends, though.”
“That’s the understatement of forever,” Eloise said.
“At least things can get back to normal now,” I croaked. “Seeing as Alan Bader’s in custody.”
Eloise shrugged. “I guess.”
I could barely breathe. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing really.” Eloise took a deep breath. “It’s just that—”
“Eloise,” Frank’s voice boomed down the hall. “Time to move it or you’re going to miss your plane.”
Eloise smiled—and not her usual toothy, posed sorority girl smile—but earnestly, like she used to when I agreed to read her that extra bedtime story or let her play an extra five minutes before lights out. “You’re a great stepmom,” she said. “And an awesome person too.”
“Oh,” I said, trying, not entirely successfully, to swallow back my surprise. “Thank you, sweetie.”
“Even if Dad sometimes isn’t.”
“What are you trying to—”
“Eloise!” Frank appeared in the hallway. “Honey, we have to leave now.”
“The main thing is you’re back together,” Eloise said, giving me a final hug. “Right?”
twenty-five
Was Eloise’s last comment in reference to her father’s misdeeds of the past, or something of a much more recent variety?
Seeing as she would be in the car with him for the better part of the next hour, I couldn’t exactly call her for clarification. I scrolled through my recent messages for her name thinking I’d text her instead, but I was stopped by our last set of back-and-forths—from Thursday night at Bargain Barn:
Omg! Where are you? Eloise had written.
At layaway. Looking for you, I’d responded.
We were coming to find you when it happened.
Who is we?
Everyone but Daddy and Uncle Craig.
Unless she’d been lying that night and had continued to lie for the rest of the weekend without a hint of remorse, Eloise had an alibi for when the pallet fell.
An alibi that also accounted for Barb, Joyce, and Gerald.
And Craig was theoretically in the TV line.
But what about Frank?
I decided to wait to send Eloise a text until I was sure she was through airport security and safely away from Frank peering at her text messages. Instead, I closed myself back in my office and opened my Guilty As Charged spreadsheet.
Everyone had an alibi of some sort at the time the pallets were pushed off the shelf. Everyone but Frank.
A band of sweat dampened the nape of my neck.
Frank, who was so supportive of my TV appearance, he actually did my on-camera makeup. Frank, who helped shift the direction of the line so it snaked through the toaster aisle. Frank, who reappeared after the pallet fell to help with the rescue effort of both Cathy Carter and Bargain Barn itself. Frank, who’d known CC—AKA Contrary Claire, AKA Cathy Carter—had been heckling Mrs. Frugalicious …
Was he, not Alan Bader, CC all along?
Worse, was CC also a combination of people like Alan suggested?
Frank was on the air doing his weekend financial report when CC—someone other than Cathy Carter—left that note on my car during the Piggledy commitment ceremony.
Meaning someone else had to be involved.
Someone with a penchant for cliché.
Gerald?
My heart began to pound.
No. Frank’s dad moved far too slowly to have shuffled across the mall and back unnoticed. And Joyce, even in sensible heels, wasn’t much faster.
Barb, on the other hand, was nothing if not a middle-aged hard body …
Running down the spreadsheet, I began to add to the information I’d already listed beside each member of the Michaels family.
Craig Michaels
Casually flirting with Griff’s girlfriend after the incident he’d somehow been involved in implementing?
Frank Michaels
Unaccounted for at the time the pallet fell?
Coincidentally there to save the day in the aftermath of the accident, the note on my car, and the arrest of Alan Bader?
Joyce Michaels
Had a cooler of leftovers on hand after the fact, as if she knew it would be a long night at Bargain Barn?
Was at the base of the stairs listening when I told the boys about my initial visit to the police station and could have known I was suspicious about the accident.
Gerald Michaels:
Author and cliché provider of the messages and notes (masterminded by Frank or even Joyce) to keep me from investigating?
Barb Michaels:
Note courier? All around-enabler?
Thankfully, when I got to Eloise, the only thing I had to add beside her name was a question mark.
Eloise was pampered, emotional, and opinionated, but she’d always seemed to know right from wrong. My gut told me there was no way she’d have agreed to plant a
threatening, anonymous note supposedly from CC any more than she’d have agreed to sit back quietly and allow Alan Bader to rot in jail if she knew he was innocent.
But she definitely knew something.
About her father?
About her grandparents and aunt and uncle aiding and abetting?
I texted Frank: Did Eloise get off okay?
With his return confirmation that her flight was on time and he’d left her at curbside check-in, I fired off another quick text to my loving stepdaughter.
You’d tell me if there was something I needed to know, right?
My head began to pound along with my heart as I awaited a response.
In the meantime, I tried to digest the hard-to-swallow possibility that my soon-to-be-ex, his family, and even his business associate Anastasia Chastain may have conspired to kill Cathy Carter.
The big question was why.
I thought of Alan and his certainty that a big corporation was out to destroy Bargain Barn. Was it possible Frank had been pretending to be supportive since he’d found out I was Mrs. Frugalicious but was secretly consumed with jealousy and out to ruin my business instead?
Could he have killed my online heckler to frame me, Mrs. Frugalicious?
Or, maybe he’d planned the whole thing to look like an accident to scare advertisers and the Frugarmy away.
Was it my investigating that prompted the post-mortem messages from CC to get me to stop?
I powered down my computer, rushed upstairs, and locked the door to my bedroom.
I drew a hot bath, added a mixture of aromatherapy oils all bearing the word calming, and soaked until my skin was wrinkled to the point of calm and the wrinkles in my brain smoothed enough for rational thought.
As the water cooled down, so did some of my panic about the supposed guilt of the Michaels family. Things looked dicey, but there were definite holes in the scenario. Namely, even though Frank was missing at the time the pallet fell, he was back and helping the emergency personnel almost as quickly as I was. Even though Frank and the others knew about the existence of CC, how would he or anyone else have known who Cathy Carter was among the throng of Frugarmy members? For that matter, how could any of them have known she was planning to show up at Bargain Barn that night at all?
And then my text alert pinged.
Expecting a response from Eloise, I quickly got out of the tub, dried off, and grabbed the phone.
The message was from Wendy Killian: I think I know what your question is about.
She did?
You do?
Not wanting to outright ask her whether Craig was in the line with her via text, I wrote back, How about I call you now so we can discuss it?
Now’s not a good time.
When’s good?
I’d prefer to talk in person.
Okay …
How about tomorrow a.m.?
I have a TV segment to tape in the morning.
What time?
Ten.
I’ll be at Starbucks by the mall at eight …?
Before I could type back with a Yes, No, or It’s really just a simple question, there was a knock on my bedroom door.
A knock I had no intention of answering.
For one thing, I was only wearing a towel. For another, it just didn’t seem judicious to let in a potential murderer and/or accomplice, at least until Wendy filled me in on what she knew I wanted to know.
How could she have known what I wanted to talk to her about?
“Mom?” Trent, judging by the slightly deeper timbre of his voice, jiggled the knob.
“I’m just getting out of the bath,” I said, thankful it was him, and more thankful that neither of my boys had gone to Bargain Barn on Thursday night and were thus free of the cloud of suspicion hovering over everyone else.
“Okay,” he said, but he didn’t say he was leaving or would come back later.
“Be there in a second,” I finally said, setting the phone on the vanity and grabbing my robe from the hook.
I opened the door, reminding myself that whatever it was Wendy wanted to talk to me about, the most likely suspect (despite his protestations of innocence) was already in custody.
“Do you think Alan Bader really did it?” Trent asked, stepping into my room.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“I mean, you locked your door.”
“Because I was taking a bath,” I mumbled unconvincingly.
“You could have just locked the bathroom door.”
“True,” I said, not elaborating any further. “Is that why you came in here—to talk about Alan Bader?”
“Well, the whole thing is kind of freaky.”
“That it is,” I said. So was Trent and FJ’s seeming ability to key into whatever was weighing most heavily on my mind at any given moment. “But there wouldn’t have been an arrest unless the police had good reason to believe he’s behind Cathy’s death.”
“True that,” Trent said.
Neither of us said anything for a moment.
“So FJ and I were online, and we discovered that people under twenty-five make up a huge percentage of online shoppers.”
“You guys really have been doing research,” I said, relieved he hadn’t actually come into my room to talk about Alan Bader but just thought about it when he discovered the door was locked.
“So maybe we can be in the background shopping while you talk about the best deals on the top online purchases for people around our age.”
“Interesting.”
He brushed a light brown curl out of his eyes. “I mean, we thought it was a good idea.”
“It’s definitely a good idea.”
“So, yes?”
“I don’t see why not,” I said. “Unless Anastasia has some kind of a problem with it.”
“Cool,” Trent said, but he didn’t make a move to leave—I presumed because he was waiting for me to offer to email or call her, which I wasn’t about to do until I had the clarity I needed.
“I’ll mention it to her in the morning,” I said.
“Great,” he said.
“Everything okay?” I asked, when he continued to stick around.
“Fine,” he said, glancing through the blinds and out the window that faced the street, as though checking to make sure no one lurked outside. “So do the police think Alan killed Cathy because she was CC, or do they think he was CC all along and had some crazy scheme planned?”
“I’m not sure they’ve figured that out yet,” I said, trying not to look as uptight as I suddenly felt. “Why?”
“Well, FJ and I figured Cathy Carter was CC and Alan killed her because she was threatening his business by bothering yours.”
“It makes a certain amount of sense,” I said, noncommittally.
“But then FJ figured out CC wasn’t just heckling Mrs. Frugalicious.”
A jolt of ice cold ran up my spine. “What?”
“While we were researching deals, he found some interesting comments on some other bargain hunting sites.”
“From CC?”
He nodded.
“For sure?”
“They were critical, cranky, and signed CC,” he said. “All from different web addresses too.”
“So CC wasn’t just heckling me?”
“Nope.”
“And the comments stopped as soon as Alan was arrested?” I managed.
“Yep,” he said. “But there were definitely some from after Cathy Carter died.”
My breath came in short bursts. “On what websites?”
“There were a bunch—Deals Galore, Saver’s Station, I Love a Bargain …”
“Any others? I asked, rushing into the bathroom, where I retrieved my phone and reread my recent interchange with Wendy Kill
ian.
I think I know what your question is about.
“FJ would know if there are more,” he said.
“Where is he?”
“Downstairs figuring out a movie to watch with Joyce, Grandpa, and Dad.”
“Dad’s home?”
“He just rolled in a couple of minutes ago,” Trent said. “Want me to yell down to FJ that you need to talk before they start?”
“That’s alright!” I said, a bit too emphatically.
Trent shrugged. “Whatevs.”
I looked down at my phone again. I’d prefer to talk in person.
“Does Here’s the Deal magazine happen to ring a bell?”
“Didn’t I say that one?” he asked. “CC was heckling on that site as much or more as he or she was on yours.”
twenty-six
I walked down a long hallway and peered into a slightly open door. The room, dimly lit and filled with filmy cigar smoke, contained a round table, chairs, and a dilapidated couch.
“Dealer’s choice,” Joyce said, handing out playing cards.
FJ and Trent had their backs to me, but I could see their oversized cards as they picked them up off the table.
Cathy Carter was the Queen.
Frank, the King.
I was the Joker.
Anastasia, seated to FJ’s left, looked at her hand. “A deal’s a deal.”
“She’s the real deal,” Craig said from the couch, where he was too busy groping Griff’s busty girlfriend L’Raine to join the game.
“You’re all double-dealing,” Alan shouted from a cage in the corner with a padlock affixed to the front. “All of you!”
“Don’t make such a big deal out of it,” Barb said.
“Exactly,” Frank said, a cigar hanging from his mouth. “No big deal.”
“It’s a good deal,” Eloise said, playing her hand. “Right?”
“More like a done deal,” Gerald said, folding.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” A voice, Wendy Killian’s, filtered through the hallway from a loudspeaker system. “Here’s the deal …”
_____
Despite waking up surprised I’d actually dozed off for long enough to have a nightmare, I found myself pulling into the parking lot of my local Starbucks wondering what I was doing stepping willingly into a new one.
Black Thursday Page 18