“Yeah—in the background, pretending to buy stuff online while you do your thing.”
“Which you will be unless I’m caught in traffic or something.” I pulled up to the curb beside John Carter’s house and killed the engine. “In which case, you have the talking points.”
“You’re saying you want Anastasia to interview us?”
“Only if I’m not back in time.”
“Is everything okay, Mom?”
“I just need to check on something before I head home.”
“Must be important,” he said.
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.” I’d promised John I’d visit him again at some point on Monday. John had insisted he and Cathy go to Bargain Barn so he could be one of the first twenty people in the flat-screen-TV line.
If he confirmed that he’d seen Craig ahead of him, I would still need to contact Griff and somehow clue him in on my suspicions so the police could look into things further.
If he couldn’t confirm Craig had been there, though, I’d be heading straight home to confront Frank in the relative safety of my news crew–filled home.
“Mom,” FJ asked. “Does this have to do with the CC comments I found last night on all those other websites?”
“In part,” I said.
“What’s the other part?”
I sighed. How exactly did I tell him I suspected his entire family of a drawn-out conspiracy?
The front door of the Carter home swung open.
“I promise to fill you in when I get there,” I said as John appeared on his front stoop. “Gotta run.”
“Mom, do you need me to—”
“What I need is—”
A smile lit up John’s otherwise sad face.
“—for you and Trent to just go ahead and take the mic today.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “What’s Anastasia going to say about that?”
“My guess?” I paused for the briefest of seconds. “The show must go on.”
_____
“So many well-wishers,” I said, trying my best to make pleasant conversation as John led me into his front hall, now much more crowded with flower arrangements, gift baskets, and even boxes.
“The packages were ordered by Cathy before …” He shook his head as if trying to shake away his thoughts. “I guess I need to dig through and figure out what to do with it all, but I don’t even know where to start.”
“Maybe I can help,” I said.
“Really?” His face seemed to brighten.
“Whatever I can do.”
“I’d really appreciate it,” John said. “But aren’t you supposed to be on the news soon?”
“I have a few minutes,” I said. “The boys had an idea for this morning’s segment so I’m letting them run with it until I get there.”
“Interesting,” he said.
“I hope so,” I said. “May I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
I took a deep breath. “It’s about Thursday night.”
“Okay …” he said, like he wasn’t entirely sure it was.
“The thing is, there’ve been some developments.”
“As in?”
“Well.” I took another breath. “The police are sure they have their man, but—”
“But you’re not?”
“Not entirely,” I said. “When I was here yesterday, you mentioned that you’d decided to go to Bargain Barn mainly for the flat-screen TV.”
With his nod, a teapot began to whistle in the kitchen.
“Sorry,” John said. “Can you excuse me for a moment?”
“No problem,” I said.
He had already ducked into the kitchen.
“You’ll have some tea, right?” John asked a few seconds later.
“Sure,” I said, mainly to be polite but also because my mouth was parched from stress.
“Cathy kept a drawer full of pretty much every type there is,” John said. “What do you want?”
Mostly, I wanted to be living in a reality where I wasn’t about to have to admit to a grieving widower that my extended family belonged on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, nor to have to rush home and confront them all about what I planned to do about it. “Whatever you’re having is fine by me.”
“Ginger Peach something-or-another is on top.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said, setting my purse on the front hall table and venturing into the dining room/coupon command post.
“So why the interest in the line for the flat-screen TVs?” he asked from the kitchen.
“I have reason to believe the killer said he was there at the time of the incident.”
“As an alibi?”
“Something like that.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Definitely couldn’t have been Alan, then.”
“No,” I said.
“But wasn’t he already identified on that security tape?”
“A man that closely matched Alan’s description was ID’d on the tape.”
“And it wasn’t him?”
“Alan’s maintained his innocence all along,” I said, “Which has been harder and harder to buy, except that I was just at Bargain Barn and the employees found surveillance tape of someone tossing a black shirt into a locker right after the pallet was pushed.”
“Seriously?” John asked over the clank of silverware dropping into the sink.
“The tape didn’t show as much as the other video, but there was a clear shot of the right hand of a man who wasn’t wearing a soldered-on gold medical alert bracelet,” I said. “Which Alan does.”
“I see,” he said. “What do the police have to say about all this?”
“They’re over at Bargain Barn checking into it right now, but I’m afraid it’s just going to be considered more circumstantial evidence,” I said. “I was hoping that by coming to talk to you, I might be able to help figure out who else could have been behind this.”
He reappeared beside me looking as pale as I felt.
“Thanks,” I said as he handed me a mug.
“Thank you for filling me in,” he said. “I hope I can be of help.”
“Did you happen to see a man ahead of you in the line with dark hair that maybe fit the description of Alan?” I took a sip tea to somehow gird myself with the bitter sweetness but was still unable to quite get myself to utter the name Craig. “Or my husband?”
“Your husband?”
“Like my husband.” I nodded. “Generally.”
“And you think this person was really the one responsible for my wife’s—”
“If he was in line, no.” I sighed. “If he wasn’t, then it’s possible.”
“I see,” he said again.
We sipped our tea together in silence.
While I awaited his response, I distracted myself by looking at the neat stations Cathy had set up on the dining room table for collating, organizing, and clipping what was an admittedly impressive pile of Sunday circulars, printed online coupons, in-store flyers, and mailers.
“Cathy was a really adept couponer,” I finally said.
“That she was,” he said, then shook his head. “Maddie, I’m afraid that evening is still mostly a blur.”
“And I’m so sorry to ask you to try and recall anything about it,” I said. “But if he was there, he’d have been at the very front, or close to—”
“I was toward the back of the line,” he uttered, and again there was silence punctuated by the sounds of sipping. “Do you think I could show you something while I’m trying to remember who was ahead of me?”
I needed to get back soon, but the poor man had been through too much for me to dump my story in his lap and simply take off, leaving him alone to try and process it all. “Sure.”
“Thank you,” he said, tears choking his voice as he stepped across the room to the hall and opened a door leading to the basement. “Cathy would have given anything for you to see this.”
I glanced surreptitiously at the wall clock again before I followed him downstairs. 9:27. I figured I had fifteen minutes to admire what was surely going to be her stockpile room and ooh and ahh enough to hopefully jar his memory before I absolutely had to leave.
As I made my way down the steps behind him, I was the one who was jarred.
The basement, typical in its mid-century layout, consisted of a rec room and a hallway that contained a guest bedroom, bathroom, and what looked to be a utility room.
That was where the similarities to all other ranch-style basements ended.
The main room had essentially been transformed into a warehouse—complete with merchandise-filled, floor-to-ceiling shelves lining all four walls. Inside the open guest bedroom was the equivalent of a small, overstuffed clothing store, complete with multiple racks and rounders.
“Oh my gosh!” I said, even before I reached the bottom step and attempted to maneuver around the various lamps, end tables, and still-tagged furniture filling the room like a bargain showroom.
“Everything was bought on close-out, final sale, or using multiple discounts,” John said.
“This is incredible.”
“You know what they say,” he said. “One man’s trash … ”
Maybe it was just claustrophobia from the sheer volume of stuff crowding the relatively small space, but I suddenly felt light-headed.
John made his way over to a computer in the corner and jiggled the mouse. “She coded everything by where she got it, retail price, and what she actually paid for it all,” he said. “Average savings of over seventy percent.”
“That’s amazing,” I said.
“I’m glad you think so, because she followed your advice religiously.”
“She accumulated all of this merchandise by following Mrs. Frugalicious?”
“She followed a lot of other websites, too,” he said pointedly. “A lot of them.”
“Like?”
“Let me see,” John said, checking the browser history. “Deals Galore. Saver’s Station. I Love a Bargain … Oh, and she talked about Here’s the Deal quite a bit.
I was definitely dizzy.
“But Mrs. Frugalicious was her far and away favorite.”
Clearly, pleasingly plump Cathy with her sweet, heart-shaped face, bobbed hair, and neon pink sneakers, was as big a fan as she proclaimed. One look around the basement and it was also clear she had a major bargain-shopping addiction.
The warning signs rattled my brain like an alarm:
Compulsive bargain shoppers head for the sales and clearance racks when they feel angry or down.
And/or wrote online complaints on bargain-hunting sites when the shopping didn’t turn out quite as planned?
“Did she ever, by any chance, have any particular criticisms about Mrs. Frugalicious or any of the other sites?” I asked.
“Cathy?” He seemed incredulous. “Never.”
Compulsive bargain shoppers see sales as opportunities that can’t be passed up.
“This really is incredible,” I said, trying not to sound as weird and off-balance as I was feeling. “What did she plan to do with all this merchandise?”
“I think she had it in her mind that she would open some sort of store of her own.” His voice sounded somehow tighter. “But she couldn’t seem to part with anything.”
Compulsive bargain shoppers routinely forget what they’ve purchased and find unused things in their closets.
“Everything seems very organized,” I heard myself say, like I was somehow trying to talk my way out of believing what I was seeing.
“By make, model, and size,” he said. “It’s even color-coded.”
Compulsive bargain shoppers spend so much time tracking down deals that they compromise time with family and friends.
“I can’t imagine how much time she spent down here,” I said, now feeling as tingly in my arms and legs as I was dizzy.
“Way too much,” John said. “Not to mention money.”
Compulsive bargain shoppers spend more than they can afford.
“You know.” My throat felt tight. “Since everything is all catalogued, it would be easy to put anything you don’t want up on Ebay or one of the auction sites.”
“Do you think I might recoup my costs on some of this?”
“I’d expect you would and then some,” I said.
“I need to,” he said. “Her little hobby has ‘saved’ us right into bankruptcy.”
Why hadn’t I noticed before that the faraway look in his eyes, which I’d assumed was profound sadness, also contained more than a hint of desperation?
My text message alert pinged from inside my purse, upstairs in the front hallway.
“I should probably get going,” I said.
“You sure?” He smiled “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Suddenly, I felt sick. And so tired.
“How about I come back another time to see the rest?” I walked through what felt like marshmallow fluff, around a cherry red leather loveseat with an 80%-off tag hanging off the side.
“I don’t believe I answered your question about the dark-haired man ahead of me in line yet,” he said.
“That’s okay,” I said, fearing his answer.
“Now that I think about it, I don’t believe there was a man of that description in the line,” he added.
“Great,” I said, starting up the first and then the second step. “I’m really not feeling very well.”
“That’s because your tea was sweetened with Cathy’s sleeping and anxiety pills.” The desk chair creaked as he stood. “All that shopping gave her terrible insomnia.”
My legs, instead of responding to what I’d hoped would be an adrenaline rush that would enable me to bolt up the stairs and out the front door, went leaden instead.
“You poisoned me?”
“Of course not,” he said. “I gave you something to help you relax.”
My knees buckled. The next thing I knew, I was falling.
John caught me in his arms.
“Why?” I asked, trying in vain to escape his firm grasp.
“Why did you have to keep looking into the circumstances of my wife’s accident?”
Half-awake and trapped in a real-life nightmare, all the pieces started to fall into place.
“You …” I managed. “It was you all along.”
“What choice did I have?” he asked. “I tried to be nice and nip things in the bud by warning you and all your fellow bargain bloggers that this money-saving, coupon-clipping rage had a dark, downside …”
Sure, some stores offer a free frozen turkey with $50 minimum purchase, but what they don’t tell you is they’re so deep frozen you could miss Thanksgiving waiting for the bird to thaw …
There’s nothing gained by buying off-brands. The kids don’t like them, they scare off the parents, and chances are the treats will just end up in the trash …
“By heckling on our websites?”
“I was hoping to poison your Frugarmy and advertisers with doubt.”
I, for one, plan to take a pass on tonight … The sound system is the only special addition that seems all that special. To be honest, this whole event smells of a scheme cooked up by you, your TV reporter husband, and Bargain Barn to line pockets with kickback dollars. Namely yours … Everyone knows the deals are way better online these days, anyway.
“Too bad no one took CC or any of the problems she raised about your dangerous advice seriously. Worse, when I gave Cathy an ultimatum—me or the bargain shopping—she cut back but still couldn’t stop herself from the had-to-have deals she kept findin
g online.” He shook his head. “I finally realized I had no choice but take action.”
“Let me go,” I punched, scratched, and wondered how I could have been so stupid not to have thought about the fact that John was also of average height, build, and had dark hair.
Or that Cathy Carter had known everything about me, but CC hadn’t even known Frank and I were separated.
Or that the spouse was always the initial suspect.
But not my spouse.
Particularly not with the help of my in-laws in a scenario too far-fetched even for a movie of the week, much less the plot of a campy crime drama. A plot centering around the bad guy standing or not standing in a flat-screen TV line.
Pathetic.
I grabbed a handful of John’s brown hair and pulled as hard as I could.
He grabbed my wrists and forced me down the hallway.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You haven’t seen Cathy’s grocery stockpile yet,” he said. “You, of all people, will love it.”
“Please let me go,” I begged as he dragged me into the utility room like the sack of potatoes I was quickly becoming.
He kicked the door closed behind us.
“You’re just like her,” he said, letting go of me with one hand and reaching for the yellow utility rope from the workbench beside him. “You just won’t stop.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “All I ever wanted to do was help—”
“If you wanted to help me, you should have stayed out of the middle of it all.” He wrapped the rope around my waist. “I had everything planned so perfectly.”
As he looped the rope around the leg of the heavy workbench, I glanced at the small, single, barred window and tried, through my growing brain fog, to plan an escape.
“You don’t have to do this,” I pleaded, wondering if he’d leave a tool that would enable me to get the bars off after he left me there. Would I even be able to squeeze my smaller-than-usual hips through the tiny, code-violating egress window?
“You did this to yourself.” He chuckled. “Really, so did Cathy when she insisted, on your advice, that we pre-shop for a few must-haves at Bargain Barn three days before the sale.” He tightened the rope, tied it, and stepped across the room toward a shelf filled with various brands of laundry soap, stain remover, cleaning supplies, and utility items like sponges. “I ended up doing a little advance work of my own.”
Black Thursday Page 21