Book Club Bloodshed

by Brianna Bates

  Alison Breckmyer was relatively new to town and barely knew any of them, let alone Anne Baxter enough to kill her. Alison came from Delaware so Missy doubted there was a past connection to Alison she didn’t know about. If there had been, it would have come up by now in conversation at the Book Club.

  Still, for all Missy knew about the woman, she could have been a sociopath. She didn’t really know her at all. It wasn’t a good idea to be so dismissive of her as a suspect.

  She rewrote Alison’s name under the others. Better to keep her on the list.

  That left three people other than the anonymous cop.

  Ellen Stein.

  Trudy Shaw.

  Kylie Thompson.

  Missy went through one by one in detail.

  Ellen Stein’s long-term fiancé, Marco, had gotten cold feet and called off the wedding. Not more than two weeks later, he was spotted out with Anne Baxter at Carney’s of all places. And pretty soon, Marco and Anne had tied the knot. That marriage had lasted all of two minutes. Nobody knew for sure that Marco had cheated on Ellen with Anne, but anybody with half a brain would have suspected it. Though that was pretty horrible of Anne, it had been many years ago. As a matter of fact, she’d once overheard Ellen and Anne joking about Marco, and Ellen hadn’t felt strongly enough to object to Anne’s participation in the Book Club. Still, though, it was motive so it needed to be checked out.

  Kylie Thompson’s hapless but sweet brother, Robert, had never been able to hold onto a job mainly due to his drinking. Robert had finally gotten the help he needed last year and had been on the wagon ever since. He’d managed to keep his act together long enough to land a job working in the deli of the main grocery store that Anne’s family owned, right in the center of town. Robert had been a good employee but from what Missy had heard, just didn’t get along with one of the managers at the store. The guy wasn’t even his boss, but he’d reported Robert for drinking on the job. Accounts differed as to whether this was true or not, so Missy had no idea. Facing a he-said, he-said situation, Anne had sided with the manager who’d been working for her family for twenty years, trusting him over Robert who was more likely to have had a drink than not, truth be told. By the time Robert was let go, the Book Club had been going strong for a year and Anne was already part of it. Kylie didn’t make a stink about Anne still being a member and had decided to keep coming herself.

  And last, and probably least, there was Trudy Shaw.

  Trudy Shaw and her husband had decided a few years ago to leave their jobs and start flipping houses. Missy envied their entrepreneurial spirit, though she was way too risk adverse to think of quitting Books and Crannies and putting all her eggs into the one temperamental basket of real estate. She flipped much smaller things—mostly old furniture that she refurbished—at flea markets. Sure, the profit was much smaller, only a few hundred here and there. But Missy never had to worry about going into debt. Then again, she only had a few thousand dollars in her savings account at any given time (she just never seemed to get ahead) so maybe her “safe” way of living wasn’t really that safe at all.

  Trudy and her husband, Jason, had been flipping houses for four years now, though, so they must have been doing something right. They had even ventured into the even more speculative pursuit of purchasing undeveloped tracts of land. A particularly attractive parcel had come to their attention and they’d moved in quickly, hoping to snatch it up before too many others had gotten wind.

  They didn’t move fast enough. Trudy had mentioned this in passing at one of the Book Clubs during a break to Ellen Stein. It had not been intended for Anne’s ears, but she had been within earshot. But next thing they knew, the seller was balking at the last minute and finally rejected their offer which he’d agreed upon. He sold the land for an undisclosed price to Anne of course. When Trudy confronted her, Anne had pretended to know nothing of her involvement, claiming she had only ever dealt with the seller and didn’t even know there were other buyers interested. Of course, nobody believed her but nobody could prove she’d known.

  Now that Missy thought of it, Anne had been bragging about the sale a month ago. She’d subdivided the tract and sold it off in pieces. For once she’d been polite enough not to share the actual profit with the group, but that must have been enough to set Trudy off. She and her husband had probably missed out on a huge opportunity. But was lost profit enough motive?

  Missy dropped the pen on the pad and sat back. Dragging the rubber band out of her hair, she refixed her ponytail. Her dark red, wavy hair was in bad need of a cut, full of split ends. A few greys had even poked their heads out, like meerkats on a prairie.

  If she’d learned anything, money was always enough motive to kill. A real estate deal gone bad had been the root cause of the last murder she investigated. Of the three then, Trudy was the most likely killer. Anne hadn’t fired Kylie, she’d fired Kylie’s brother who might have been drinking on the job anyway. And yes, Anne had stolen Ellen’s fiancée but that had been a long time ago. It would have been strange for that to come to a head now.

  The door opened and Missy looked up, expecting to see Brett returning from lunch. But instead, she saw a man with thinning hair and a mustache (a mustache!) that covered his top lip enter. He was short and thin and wore an overcoat that reminded her of Columbo. He smiled when he saw her, like they were old friends.

  For a moment, Missy worried that she did know him but didn’t recognize him. He could have been somebody from high school. Her graduating class had been over four hundred, and by now she’d surely forgotten a few of them.

  The short, thin, mustached man walked to the desk and nodded at her. “You Missy?”

  “Yes?”

  He nodded again, his lower lip jutting out. Missy didn’t understand what emotion he was trying to convey with the expression.

  “Yeah, you are.”

  She squirmed under his stare. Since he’d entered the store, his eyes hadn’t left her. “And you are?”

  His eyes kept elevatoring up and down. God, she hated it when men did that.

  “We have a…mutual friend, if you know what I mean.” He rubbed the side of his nose. At first Missy thought he was trying wipe a booger off it, then she realized he was gesturing at her like they shared a secret.

  “I actually don’t know what you mean.”

  He opened his arms and the overcoat opened also. For one horrifying moment, she worried he wasn’t wearing anything underneath.

  With palms out, the man acted hurt. “Hello? Lee Greenberg. You know, Lee?”

  It took Missy five seconds to get it. “You’re the private detective.”

  “In the flesh.” He raised his eyebrows several times. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Lee didn’t do you justice.”

  He stuck his hand out. Missy didn’t really want to shake. The guy gave off a sleazy vibe. Gravity, or some other force, kept pulling his eyes down in the neighborhood of her boobs.

  “Lee didn’t do something justice?” She smiled at the weak joke, stood, and reached her hand out. Hopefully she could give him the female handshake, just fingers, but the PI was having nothing of it.

  He held on just a little too long. His palm was clammy. When he let go, she couldn’t help it but wipe her hand on her jeans.

  “Oh, sorry.” He held his palm out for her to see. “I have a condition. Hyperhidrosis. I sweat a lot.”

  Missy could sympathize. She never got man-sweaty, but for a women she soaked easily from little exertion. Five minutes on the treadmill and her shirt was usually sticking to her.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Paul I.S. Gold. As in, Paul Is Gold.”

  Missy arched an eyebrow. “That’s your actual name?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it has been ever since I changed it.”

  Missy could not comprehend the fact that Lee Greenberg, possibly the most successful attorney in the area, used this guy as his investigator. Maybe Paul I.S. Gold was so underestimatable that he essentially flew un
der the radar.

  Either way, here he was.

  “What was it before you changed it?” Missy asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

  “Dwayne.”

  She laughed, thinking he was actually making a good joke. But when she was met with a serious face, she stopped chuckling.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Oh. Nothing.”

  He put his hands on his hips. It was supposed to be an angry gesture, but on him it was comical.

  “Dwayne just didn’t sound right. It sounded like such a dweeby name.” He smiled.

  She nodded and decided to be gracious. “Well, Paul Is Gold is a much better name than mine.”

  “Missy Demeanor?” he said, not getting it.

  Really? “Yeah, like misdemeanor?”

  “Oh.” He laughed. “Right.”

  She smiled. Time to get down to business. Paul Is Gold couldn’t keep his eyes off her breasts and she was beginning to feel self-conscious even though they were undoubtedly her best feature.

  “So Lee filled you in?”

  Gold nodded. “We got a dirty cop. What a surprise.”

  Missy frowned. “They’re not all bad. Most of them are good, actually.”

  Again, it was weird she felt the need to defend Tyler even though he’d wrongfully arrested her best friend. But Missy didn’t dwell on this because she didn’t want to understand what it could mean.

  “Too good for me,” Gold said. “Can you believe that? They took three other guys over me, none of whom went the distance. And one of them, Stan Garbo, is actually in prison now for that Ponzi scheme he started while he was working as a cop.”

  Missy pegged Gold to be mid-forties, so the police had probably passed him over twenty years ago at least. He should have been over it by now.

  Like she had room to talk. This morning she had almost asked her high school sweetheart for closure.

  “Lee told me you were going WiredFit tonight. I think that’s the perfect place to start.”

  His eyes migrated south again, and Missy couldn’t stand it anymore. She was so self-conscious about her body, that even positive attention sometimes made her uncomfortable.

  “Okay.” She shot out a palm. “Can you keep your eyes up here?” She put her hand in front of her face.”

  “Hey, sorry.” He smirked. “I can’t help it. I’m a chubby chaser.”

  Missy hated that term. “Excuse me?”

  “What? Is chubby a bad term now?” He threw his head back and rolled his eyes. “Somebody call the thought police. I’ll tell you, political correctness has gotten out of control in this country.”

  “Women don’t like to be called chubby, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Big? Thick? Curvy? BBW? What do you prefer?”

  She had called herself all of those things. And that was okay. For her to do. Not okay for somebody else to do.

  “Look, Paul, can we keep this strictly business? No offense.”

  “I get it. I get it.” He put his hands on his hips again and it was difficult taking him seriously in that pose. “You don’t like short, thin men. Women tell me that all the time, that I’m not their type.”

  Missy said nothing.

  He pointed at her. “I’ll bet you know what that’s like. To not be somebody’s type, huh?”

  She wanted to punch him.

  “Oh.” He snapped his fingers in her general direction. “I forgot. Lee can’t get Noreen released.”

  “What?” Missy couldn’t believe it. Even after she’d given Tyler the jealous lover lead? “Why not?”

  “Attorney-client.” Paul shook his head. “He couldn’t say. But reading between the lines, it’s not good.”

  She shook her head. “Noreen didn’t do this.”

  He shrugged, like that was unimportant to him. “I hate to break it to you, but that means the police have all they need. Right now they’re just dotting all their I’s and crossing all their T’s. Your friend is in big trouble.”

  “You’re not exactly reassuring.”

  “What can I say? I tell it like it is.”

  Missy was dying for this conversation to be over. “Anyway, yes, I’m going to WiredFit tonight.” She groaned inwardly at the idea of immersing herself in an environment filled with super fit people, who were strong, athletic, flexible, and less than six percent body fat.

  “Good.” He nodded at her and stuck his lower lip out again. She realized he was trying to look tough, or smart, or both. “You shouldn’t have trouble getting one of them to pick you up, so then you can invite yourself to the bar after.”

  Missy wasn’t looking forward to this. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’ll be following your every move.”

  She couldn’t help but be sarcastic. “Great.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Missy called in a favor with Brett, asking to leave early in light of the fact she’d be working around the clock the next three days. Of course he agreed. Brett was a nice man, probably too nice.

  “Brett, I really owe you.”

  He smiled. “Miss, good luck. I know what you’re going to do.”

  “You do?” she asked, incredulous. She hadn’t told him anything about her investigating the murder.

  He nodded. “I’ve worked with you a long time, Melissa DeMeanor. I’ve gotten to know you well. And I know this about you: you will not stand by and do nothing when there’s something wrong. You’re a good person.”

  She was embarrassed by the compliment. Missy just thought she was doing what anybody else should do for a friend.

  “Thanks, Brett.” She hugged him. “Have a nice vacation, I mean, as nice as you can.”

  “Thanks, Miss. Sell a lot of books while I’m gone.”

  Missy got home at six and found Cody in the same spot from when she’d left this morning. She quickly fed her, then hurried upstairs. The WiredFit class started at seven and she needed to find something appropriate to wear.

  Searching her bedroom, she found an old pair of yoga pants she forgot she had and a wicking shirt that was a size too small. She looked through her dirty hamper to see if she could reuse the outfit from her aborted run this morning, but like Paul Is Gold, she sweated a lot and the clothes had taken on an odor after being balled up in her laundry for the entire day.

  So yoga pants and undersized wicking shirt it was.

  Missy went back and forth on using the regular bra versus the sports bra, and eventually settled on sports bra. She’d heard the WiredFit workouts could get really crazy.

  The yoga pants stretched across her thighs and became almost transparent. She examined herself in the mirror…and almost died.

  ***

  Missy was normally a planner. As the day wore on she racked her brain to come up with a strategy. Finally, with nothing coming to her, Missy gave up and decided to wing it. She was not a winger by nature but she didn’t have much choice. Noreen was in jail and Tyler didn’t seem interested in pursuing any other angle to the case.

  Her phone buzzed as she pulled into the WiredFit parking lot. Lee Greenberg. She hoped against all reason that Lee had good news, that Noreen was being let go, that Tyler had caught the killer, because as selfish as it sounded she really did not want to set foot inside WiredFit. She might have lost fifteen pounds over the last two months, but she had a long way to go and the hardcore exercisers weren’t usually the most sympathetic when it came to being overweight.

  Lee said, “Missy, I wanted to give you a status update.”

  “Are they letting her go?”

  “No.” Lee’s voice was hesitant for a change. “Actually, they’re bringing formal charges tomorrow, which means they’ll schedule the trial.”

  Trial? This couldn’t be happening. How could Tyler be so obtuse? She wondered what had happened between them, maybe they had burned each other and the past was now bleeding into the present.

  “What do we do?”

  “Not to worry, Miss. This won’t go to trial i
f I have anything to say about it. I’m going to keep working my angle. Have you connected with Paul Gold yet?”

  “Actually, Lee, I wanted to talk to you about him…I don’t know if you’ve worked with him before, but he—”

  “He’s the best, Miss. Paul really is gold, ha ha.”

  Missy couldn’t let this go. It was too important. “Uh, I’m not sure how to say this but—”

  “Miss, he works well because nobody sees him coming.”

  Actually, Missy thought everybody would see him coming because he unfortunately looked like a pedophile in his overcoat. How Lee expected him to be able to tail the cops without being noticed was beyond her.

  “I don’t know, Lee.”

  “I do.” In the background, she heard him opening a door. “Now I gotta run, Miss. I have to prepare for the indictment, it’s going to take a very compelling motion.”

  “Lee, just one more thing—”

  “Gotta run. Talk to you tomorrow, Miss. And stay safe.”

  He hung up.

  Missy dropped the phone in her lap and leaned her head back against the seat cushion. Taking a deep breath, she told herself she shouldn’t be worried about what others would think of her inside WiredFit. Her body was her body. It might have contained her but it didn’t reflect some deep character flaw. She was just overweight. That was all. All her life she had struggled to keep the pounds off. Most of the people at WiredFit had never faced what she had. Sure, anybody put on weight if they weren’t careful or as the years rolled by, but she was on the—

  Thud, thud, thud.

  “Hey, Missy!”

  Missy nearly hit her head on the roof of the car when she jumped. Paul Is Gold’s face was practically smooshed up against her window as he waved excitedly at her.

  When her pulse got back down to just under a million beats per second, she grabbed her keys, phone, and exercise bag and got out of the car.