by Morgana Best
I tried to force it from my mind. I had already let Basil ruin one outing. I thought I’d had chemistry with him, but that was apparently nothing compared to whatever he had with the journalist. I was mortified that I’d kissed him back, only to be dismissed in such a way.
Despite my best efforts, the only thing I managed to think about on my walk was Basil. I wasn’t in a good mood. For one, it was a particularly glary day. I took off my sunglasses and wiped them on a tissue. I held them up to the sun, and could see that they still needed a good clean. I walked a few more steps without them, but was forced to squint at the glare reflected off every available surface: windows, chrome, and passing cars. I put them back on, smudges and all.
My nerves were on edge, and the grating sound of a truck using its compression brakes went right through my head, as did the loud abuse hurled at the truck driver by the pedestrian who was half way across the road at the time.
I cheered up when I caught the scent of good coffee carried down the street on a good breeze, the same breeze that moments later caught my skirt along with a dozen or so discarded chocolate wrappers.
I was so intent upon holding down my skirt that at first I did not identify the man walking toward me. When recognition dawned, I broke out in a cold sweat. What to do? Should I cross the street? Slap myself on the forehead as if I’d forgotten something, and then hurry back the way I’d come?
I shook my head. Basil was the one in the wrong. He should be the one to duck into a shop. Still, if I hesitated any longer, we might actually have to talk to one another. Just the thought of it made me sick to my stomach.
“Laurel!” Basil waved to me, and then hurried down the sidewalk. “I’m glad I ran into you.”
The nerve of the man, I thought. He’s acting as if nothing happened the other night!
I greeted him with a curt nod and tried to act normal. If he was going to act as if nothing happened, then so was I. I was not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much it bothered me.
“Did you see Anna’s article this morning?”
Of course it would be about Anna, I thought with irritation. I gave him a tight smile. “Yes. It was favorable, thank goodness.”
Basil appeared to be surprised at my indifference. “I think it turned out wonderfully. She highlighted the celebrity funerals in a positive manner. In fact, she didn’t mention the murders at all.”
I resisted the urge to say something catty. “I’ll call her and thank her.”
Basil was still talking. “She’s a sharp journalist, but even she can be reasoned with. Although, I must say, it wasn’t easy talking her out of using the murders in her article.”
I narrowed my eyes and glared at him. Did he want me to thank him? He seemed a little too proud of that statement. And exactly how had he talked her out of using the murders in her article? An awful image popped into my head of Basil and Anna sharing a hug, of Basil holding her the way he had held me that night.
“Laurel?” His voice jolted me back into the moment.
I realized I had zoned out. “Thanks. I appreciate you talking to her,” I said after an interval.
“You’re welcome.” He smiled the way he used to smile at me.
He was a confusing, contradictory man. Was he an evil twin, or did he have multiple personality disorder? It was all too much. The silence hung between us. The moment couldn’t have been more awkward.
Basil was the one to break the silence. “Laurel, I wanted to talk about the other night.”
I shook my head. “I’m about to meet someone for coffee. I can’t be late.”
“Meet someone?” he asked with a measure of surprise. An odd look crossed his face.
If I were feeling hopeful, I would have sworn that it looked like jealousy. Whatever he was feeling quickly vanished. “Of course. I apologize for holding you up. Perhaps we could talk later?”
I brushed by him and hurried away. It wasn’t the most mature way to break off a conversation, but I’d had about as much as I could take.
Tara was already there. “I’ve already ordered you a latte and a macaroon,” she said, sporting a whipped froth mustache from her energetic gulping. “What’s wrong? I thought you’d be a lot happier today. I saw the newspaper article on your business. Things seem to be looking up!”
I sat down and wrapped my hands around my latte. “I am happy about it. It’s great news. By the way, you have a froth mustache.”
Tara dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “Seriously, you’re pale. Is anything wrong?”
I shook my head.
Tara’s expression was skeptical. “Now spill. You’ve been off ever since we saw Basil and that newspaper chick together. What’s up?”
I took a sip of my latte and then set down the glass. “Okay. Well, you know how I walked home that night?”
Tara nodded.
“Basil drove past and said he’d give me a ride home. He walked me to the door, and then he kissed me.”
“He what?” Tara shrieked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Shush!” I looked around the coffee shop, but no one was staring. “I was too upset. He kissed me and then said we could never be together.”
Tara leaned across the table. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shook my head.
“Are we talking a peck on the check, or a real kiss?”
“A real kiss,” I said. “And then he said, ‘We can’t be together. I’m sorry.’”
“And then what happened? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I hurried inside and shut the door, and the answer to your second question is that I was too upset. I could hardly bring myself to think about it, much less speak about it.” I took a bite of the macaroon, but all I could taste was cardboard. I knew it should be tasty. I could smell the flavor locked in the moist center. I could feel the slight crisp of the outer shell give way to a warm frosting center. Yet it might as well have been glue. “And I saw him just now. He said he wanted to talk about it.”
“Basil actually wanted to talk about it?” Tara asked incredulously. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s over with.” I dabbed at my eyes with a crumpled tissue. “I’m just mad that I let it get to me at all.”
Tara waved her hands in the air. “Why wouldn’t it get to you? It’s not like you waved a neon sign in his face and said, ‘Kiss me, dum-dum.’”
I had to laugh.
“Seriously though, that’s so weird. Why would he kiss you if he didn’t want to?”
I shrugged. I’d replayed the scene a thousand times in my head, and then a thousand more for good measure. No matter how I looked at it, I was still no closer to an answer. Nothing about it made sense. “He probably had someone else on his mind.”
Tara tapped a finger against her cheek. “No, he’s not going to kiss you just because he didn’t kiss her. That makes no sense. He did have a bad breakup some time back. Men never seem to get over bad breakups as well as women do. Perhaps he’s still upset over that. It might not be anything to do with Anna Stiles.”
I abandoned my attempt to eat the macaroon and put what was left of it on my plate. “I don’t know, Tara. I’d rather not think of what they did and did not do. It’s not my business, either way.”
“I’m just saying that maybe there is more to everything than meets the eye. He might have a really good reason for how he’s acting,” Tara mused.
“Maybe. But unless he has an evil twin that escaped from the attic that night, I can’t see anything he could come up with that would make it okay.”
Tara laughed. “I think an evil twin would make it worse. It’s bad enough trying to figure out just one of him.”
“I’ll drink to that!” I lifted my coffee in a toast, and then took a hearty gulp. “To change the subject, has Duncan said anything else about the case?”
Tara shook her head. “And you said that you don’t suspect the mayor’s wife anymore?”
“I’m starting to think perhaps it
was the mayor,” I said in a low voice. “Helen said he was the one who was upset about the jewelry theft. She said the jewelry had belonged to his mother. From what Helen said, she didn’t get along with her mother-in-law. So, bottom line, Helen didn’t care one bit about the jewelry, and it was her husband who was so upset.”
“That’s what she told you,” Tara said, “but if she is the murderer, then that’s exactly what she would say. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being a cop’s wife, it’s that you can’t always take people at face value. Trust no one.”
Chapter 12
I had sent Anna Stiles a polite email thanking her for the article she had written about the funeral home. I hadn’t expected a reply, so when her email arrived, I leaned forward in my office chair and peered at the screen.
‘I need to speak with you. I will be over soon.’ Short, sharp, and to the point. Just like the woman herself, apart from the fact that she was tall.
What could she possibly want from me? And the nerve of her assuming that I would be at the funeral home all day, and she could stop by whenever she liked!
Despite myself, I was intrigued. What could it be? We had no more reason to contact each other. She had done her story, and that was that. I did not like the woman. However, I was grateful to her, because she had written a positive story about the funeral home, when she most certainly could have torn me to shreds in the same way that the other paper had. How much Basil had to do with that, I most certainly did not want to know.
The doorbell rang, so I hurried out the front, expecting Anna. Instead, it was Duncan’s partner, Bryan.
“Hey, Laurel.” He handed me a black tape. “We’ve finished with this.”
The tape was my surveillance footage. There were a few small and discreet cameras throughout the funeral home, installed by my father at least a decade before. They recorded onto a series of black tapes that would erase themselves every forty-eight hours. Dad had installed the security system after a woman had stolen an expensive watch from her dead sister during a wake. It had caused quite a scene when the dead woman’s husband realized the watch had gone missing.
I took the tape from Bryan. “Did it help?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Not really. The detective in charge of the case said he went over it three times, and there’s nothing. They thought it would be a good lead, but sometimes things don’t work out. Still, it was good that we had the chance.”
When he left, I walked back into our tiny security room and sat on an uncomfortable metal folding chair in front of a VCR and a small monitor. I placed the tape into the VCR. I skipped around, speeding forward and going back, but I couldn’t see anything that stood out. I set the tape back into the machine so it would be erased and recorded on again.
I was half way back to my office when Anna arrived. I should have smelled her coming. Like before, she was wearing strong perfume, this one a heady floral fragrance. It was a pleasant enough perfume, but once again, there was just too much of it. It was as if she had bathed in it.
I admit that I was annoyed to see how nice she looked, although she always looked nice. Expensive clothing, her hair done perfectly, her makeup the same, and, as always, a mixture of small good jewelry and large fake jewelry. It was strange to see such a muscle-bound woman look as feminine as she did. Everything about Anna annoyed me, and I wanted to get our meeting over quickly.
“I have some questions,” she barked at me. She pushed past me and headed for my office.
By the time I got to my office, she was already sitting in the chair opposite my desk. I hurried around the desk to take my seat.
“Preston Kerr!” she said.
“You want to ask me questions about Preston Kerr?” I should have known.
“Yes.”
As soon as she took her seat opposite me, she leaned forward. “I’m making good progress with the story.”
“Good for you,” I said, completely disinterested in her and her little story. She was so sure it was going to open any door she wanted for her, and she was probably right. “Anyway, thanks for that article. That was good of you.”
Anna waved her hand at me, as if she were shooing away a fly. “Don’t thank me. Thank your accountant, Basil. He’s the one who talked me into it.”
I bit my lip.
Ann smiled at me. “He’s really quite funny, too, isn’t he? Still, he’s your accountant, so I’m sure you know all about him.”
“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “What did you want to ask me about?”
“Right.” Anna leaned forward. For a moment I thought she was going to take out her tape recorder and set it on the desk like she had done the first time I had spoken with her, but she did not. “This isn’t off the record or anything, but I just don’t want a digital copy of anything we’re about to say,” she whispered. “I have a very good memory. It’s a gift.”
I nodded, once again intrigued, my annoyance with Anna and her meeting with Basil forgotten, at least for the moment. There was no need for her to whisper. After all, we were alone in the building. My mother was at church praying for God to help her take responsibility for her own actions, even though they weren’t her fault.
Anna looked down her nose at me as if I were a cockroach or something equally distasteful. “Anyway, back to Preston Kerr. What do you know about him?”
“I don’t really know too much,” I said. “He was a funeral singer I hired online. I had been told he had arrived, but I couldn’t find him, so I went looking for him. When I was upstairs looking for him, I heard someone scream, so I went downstairs. Someone else had found him in the bathroom, dead.”
“He was strangled.”
She said it as a statement, rather than a question, but I answered. “It looked that way to me, but you’d have to ask the police.”
Anna narrowed her eyes slightly. “Okay, now to the funeral. It was for a man who had been hit by a stolen car?”
“Yes,” I said. “A hit and run. Someone might have been trying to kill him.” I wondered why she asked. It had been all over the news.
Anna smiled. Her smiles were always small and full of malice, or at least they appeared that way to me. “Trying? They did kill him.”
I was irritated. “I meant that I’m not sure if he was killed on purpose.”
“The police seem to think he was,” Anna said.
“I’m not a cop,” I said with a shrug.
“Who was at the funeral?”
I stared at the woman. “Who was there? Lots of people were there. You were there, too.”
“I was only there in my capacity as a reporter,” Anna said, “so I didn’t know the mourners. Was anyone of importance there?”
“Who are you hoping was there?” I asked. “You seem like you want me to say someone in particular.”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I’m just curious.”
“Well, like I said, there were lots of people there. I didn’t know them either, apart from the deceased’s brother who organized the funeral.”
Anna nodded. “I hear he’d had some trouble with the law.”
I knew that to be true as well, but did not want to admit that to her. “He seemed nice enough to me.”
“Who else was there? Friends?”
I nodded. “Of course. We don’t have a guest list, though. We never do.” I thought I had better say that before she asked for one.
“Anyone else? Any people hurt by the deceased?”
“Hurt?”
Anna narrowed her eyes once more. “He had only recently been released from prison. Whoever murdered him obviously had a problem with him, and whoever murdered him was probably at the funeral. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously at all?”
“I don’t know any of the people who came,” I said. I did know Helen, the mayor’s wife, but I wasn’t going to tell Anna. Helen had been robbed by the dead man, and had gone to his funeral. Yet, if Helen could be believed, her husband was the one who was angry about the sto
len jewelry.
That didn’t seem to be the answer Anna was looking for. “So you didn’t see anything strange?”
I shook my head. Her questions were making me wonder if she knew more than she was letting on. And from there it wasn’t a stretch to wonder if she was involved in some way. She was searching for something, trying to hit upon an answer she wanted. What sort of answer? It occurred to me that she sounded as if she was trying to find a likely suspect. But why? Because she was trying to solve a case so she could write about it, or because she was guilty of killing both men and so needed to write a story pinning it on someone else? That was a bit of a stretch, of course, but I disliked Anna, and so was willing to go with it.
“Nothing at all?” she persisted. “Someone was murdered in your funeral home, and you didn’t notice anything odd?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t think of anything unusual at all.”
Anna stood. “I can see myself out.”
I watched her go, wondering when she would be back. I could tell she wasn’t finished with me.
Chapter 13
Somehow my mother had managed to talk me into attending Ian’s birthday party. She was having it at her house, and as I lived there, too, I was hard put to come up with a good excuse to avoid it. For that reason, my mother didn’t have to ask me any more than, well, about fifty times. Finally, I agreed.
I was getting ready for the event when I heard Mom calling me. “Laurel, did you have a meeting at the funeral home?”
I went out of my room and stood at the top of the stairs, looking down at her. “No, why?”
“There’s someone there,” she said. I went back into my room and looked out of my window. Sure enough, a long black sedan was parked outside the funeral home. I couldn’t see anyone behind the wheel, so I assumed they were up on the front porch, ringing the doorbell.
“Who is it?” my mother asked from downstairs.