by Abby Byne
Nick laughed. “Remember, we close up at 6 p.m. on weekdays.”
“Of course, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit distracted.”
She looked over at Jennifer, who appeared to be engaged in a silent standoff with the largest of the weight-lifters. He was a huge man with a wispy little mustache and the look of someone who, despite his size, was used to doing whatever he was told.
“Shall we try that one next?” said Nick loudly, pointing to a machine near Jennifer.
Bitsie settled herself into a seat of a contraption that appeared to have been made for a creature about ten feet tall and ten inches wide with a penchant for extreme humiliation.
“I’m supposed to do what with my legs?” she asked incredulously, as Nick motioned for her to place her legs in the spring-loaded scissor-like contraption.
A few feet away, over by the mirrors, Jennifer and the mustachioed weight-lifter were still not speaking to each other.
Bitsie refrained from protesting the ridiculous position she had to put herself into. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to herself.
“You seriously think I could—“ Jennifer hissed at the weight-lifter. “I could never—I mean, why would I? Why would I even want to?”
Bitsie craned her head around to see what was happening. If she contorted herself enough, she could get a glimpse of the weight-lifter’s expression. She craned her neck around to get a better look at the guy’s face. He looked scared—and angry in a mousey sort of way—but mostly scared.
“Money,” he hissed back at Jennifer. “I know you. You’d do anything for money. I wish I never had—” He stopped speaking abruptly and dropped his weights on the floor with a tremendous thud, then turned on his heel and left the gym without another word.
Chapter Five
“So, what is going on?” Nick demanded.
They were safely outside now, leaning against Bitsie’s car, which she’d parked on the street a block away from the gym.
There hadn’t been much else to see or hear after the weight-lifter had accused Jennifer of doing it for money (whatever “it” was).
“I’ll tell you what is going on,” said Bitsie. “There seems to be a lot of people who don’t believe that Marco’s death was accidental.”
“Oh? It is very strange that the cash register was robbed the same evening a man dies in a freak accident—but if someone wanted to knock over a bakery, why wouldn’t they have just used a gun or beaned the guy over the head with a tire-iron or something? And, come to think of it, if you’re going to bust up a cash register, why leave half the money behind?” said Nick. “Although, I guess whoever was robbing the cash register could have been surprised in the act by Marco and left without the rest of the money?”
“I guess it’s possible,” said Bitsie, “that Marco might have been so rattled by the intruder that he got distracted and careless and that’s why he turned on the power without thinking.”
“I suppose.” Nick agreed, but he didn’t sound convinced. “But if Marco’s death wasn’t an accident, it was certainly intended to look like one.”
“That much seems certain,” said Bitsie.
“You really think someone killed him?”
“Yes, and I don’t think the killer was the same person who pried open the register.”
“The robbery certainly wasn’t a very professional job,” Nick said. “Tell me what you found out that makes you think that Marco’s death might not be just a tragic accident.”
“First off, Danny—the other electrician who was on the job last night—swears that the water on the floor wasn’t there when he left at two. He also says that without the water on the floor, Marco probably wouldn’t be dead.”
“What else?”
“Luke, Marco’s other electrician, claims that Marco had just fired another guy on their crew for throwing a hammer at someone’s head, and, according to Luke, Monty—the hammer thrower—spent several years in prison for attempted murder.”
“Where is this Monty, then? Have the police questioned him?”
“That’s suspicious, too. I talked to Monty’s Ex, and she says she hasn’t been able to reach him, and he didn’t show up for visitation with his kids,” said Bitsie.
“Disappearing is suspicious,” Nick agreed.
“And he certainly would have known what to do to make it look like an accident.”
Bitsie called up Stan that evening, before she went to bed, to see if he’d heard anything.
“Nobody’s been able to locate Monty Burge,” Stan said, “but Luke’s story about Monty’s criminal record checks out. Monty was convicted of trying to kill a buddy of his. He very nearly succeeded, too. Happened about ten years ago, and they put him away quite a while for it. He’s only been out a little over a year.”
“Monty’s Ex also mentioned that he wasn’t allowed to see his kids unsupervised.”
“There’s also that,” said Nick. “He’s had quite a few domestics. There was a no-contact order for a while—“
“Sounds like a charming guy!”
“My thoughts exactly. Still, there’s not much to suggest he had anything to do with Marco’s death.”
“Except for the fact that he made vague threats, and now he’s disappeared.”
“There is that.”
Bitsie hung up the phone, feeling wretched. It was awful enough that Marco had died in her bakery, but if he’d been murdered—she thought of the kids Marco had left behind. There were three of them, according to Hector. Three boys. The youngest was eight, and the oldest was twelve. They lived with Marco’s ex-wife, Raina.
Bitsie decided she’d go see Raina the next day and extend her condolences. Even if Raina wasn’t still married to Marco, she must care for him. Bitsie couldn’t imagine how she’d feel if something happened to Robert. She wasn’t sure if what she felt for him was still love, but at the very least, she’d be devastated that Emily no longer had a father.
Bitsie had a terrible time dragging herself out of bed when her alarm went off. She was glad she hadn’t been foolhardy enough to volunteer to take over a permanent spot in the early-morning shift. She wasn’t cut out for getting up at two in the morning.
Bitsie was a bit late, and Anabel was already there, hard at work mixing a batch of strawberry caramel cupcakes when Bitsie arrived.
“How are you holding up?” Bitsie asked Anabel as she fitted a hairnet over her new tousle of curls and took down a clean apron from the hook by the office door.
“OK. I couldn’t sleep last night, though. I kept seeing Marco lying on the floor. I see it over and over. I just can’t stop replaying the scene.”
Bitsie felt sorry for Anabel. Of course, she was traumatized. If she could have managed without her, Bitsie would have sent Anabel home for a few days along with Hector.
“I suppose there will never be a good time to ask you this,” Bitsie said, “but I never really heard a complete version of what happened when you came to work that morning.”
“It’ll be pretty much the same as whatever Hector’s told you. We were together the whole time.”
“Yes, you and Hector technically saw exactly the same scene, but everyone notices different things. Tell me everything that you saw when you came in the door. No, start earlier. Tell me absolutely everything you can remember from the time you parked your car.”
“So, you think it’s true that someone killed that electrician and made it look like an accident?”
“It’s looking more and more like that to me.”
“Well,” said Anabel, turning off the mixer and turning to face Bitsie, “I parked in my usual spot on the street near the entrance to the alley. Hector pulled up right behind me. He usually gets there before me and waits for me to park so he can walk me in. I get a little nervous walking down the alley at that hour. Not that I worry about that homeless guy, Bill. In fact, I find it comforting that he sleeps back there, almost like having a guard in the alley.”
“Did you see Bill in the alley las
t night?” Bitsie asked.
“I think so. He usually sleeps behind the dumpster, and I can usually see the foot of his sleeping bag sticking out, but the light’s not too good back there, so I can’t be sure if he was there that night or not.”
Bitsie made a mental note to have a light put up back there. A big floodlight. She’d call around tomorrow, not that electricians would be clamoring to do work for her after what had happened to the last guy.
“So, you and Hector walked in together—“
“Yes. There was something a little unusual. I tripped over a rock, right before we got to the back door. I didn’t think about it much at the time, but I’m thinking someone had been using it to prop the door open; you know how it locks automatically when it shuts.”
“I suppose one of the electricians might have done that, so they could bring stuff in and out.”
“Yeah, I guess so. The electrician’s van was parked back there in the alley.”
“Anything else?”
“I smelled cigarette smoke outside the back door.”
“Does Bill smoke?” Bitsie asked.
“I don’t think so. Nobody who works for the bakery smokes, and none of the other buildings that back up to the alley have anyone in them at that hour.”
“Maybe Bill had a friend sleeping over,” suggested Bitsie. “A friend who smokes.”
“Maybe, but I’m not sure Bill was even there. He does that sometimes, disappears for a while. Or maybe he was there and cleared out when the police showed up. He doesn’t like policemen.”
“Except Stan.”
“Oh, yes. He likes Stan. Stan used to go out back and sit with Bill and drink coffee and talk about Iraq.”
“Bill’s a veteran, too?”
“That’s what he says, but then he also claims to have been abducted by aliens. Stan seems to think he’s telling the truth about being in Iraq, though.”
“Did you see anything else unusual when you came in?”
“The door was locked; I’m sure of that because I had a little trouble getting my key to work. That sometimes happens.”
She’d get in a locksmith, too, Bitsie decided, to replace that lock with one that worked properly. Scratch that. After what had happened, she’d feel better with all the locks changed.
“So, you came inside and tried to turn on the light—“
“Yes,” Anabel continued. “Only when Hector hit the switch, the lights didn’t come on. We used our cellphones as flashlights, and that’s how we found him.” Anabel’s eyes involuntarily strayed to the place beside the sink, where they’d found Marco.
“And you discovered him lying in a puddle of water?”
“Yeah. There was quite a bit of water there,” said Anabel. “But you saw that yourself. Nobody had cleaned up before you got here. There’s a dip in the floor. If somebody splashes water when they’re washing dishes, it collects. That happens all the time, but I’ve never once known that sink to leak.”
“It’s not leaking now,” Bitsie pointed out, motioning to the sink full of water.
“It certainly wasn’t holding water like that. Nick fixed it first thing after he got here. It was just a loose coupling on the drainpipe. All he had to do was tighten it up.”
“What about the mop? Did it ever turn up?”
“Yeah, it was out by the back door the whole time, although nobody will admit to being the one who left it out there.”
“Where was it found?”
“I found it right next to the door.”
“Which side of the door?”
“Uh, the left side, I think. If you were standing outside about to go in.”
“Show me where you found it.”
They went out the back. The stone that Anabel had tripped over was still there, and Bitsie wedged it in between the door and the jamb to keep the door from closing. It really was dark out there. If Bill had come back and taken up his habitual spot behind the dumpster, it was impossible to tell.
Bitsie hoped Bill would show up soon. It was the unanimous opinion of every person she’d talked to that he was harmless, but if he had been in the alley the night that Marco died, he might have seen and heard something that could lead them to Marco’s killer.
Anabel pointed out where the mop had been found.
“The door swings out into the alley,” Bitsie said. “So, if the door were propped all the way open, which it would be if Marco and Danny had been bringing stuff in and out, then the mop would have been hidden behind the open door.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“And you’re sure that nobody knows how it got there?”
“No. None of us ever puts the mop outside. We keep it in the bucket next to the utility sink; we’ve been keeping it there for as long as I’ve worked here.”
Anabel and Bitsie went back inside, carefully closing the door to be sure it was latched securely and set to work on the morning bake. They were already behind, and, as Bitsie was quickly discovering, she might be an expert home-baker, but turning out 50-dozen cupcakes in a couple of hours was a whole different story.
Chapter Six
Bitsie left at nine, shortly after Nick arrived. He gave her a dazzling smile when he came in but made no reference to their chance meeting at the gym the previous evening. Bitsie was covered in flour and flecks of cupcake batter. She still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of the industrial mixer.
When Bitsie arrived home, Max was waiting at the door, impatient to be fed. At Max’s last check-up, the vet had put his foot down and mandated that Max needed to get his weight under control. Max hated being on a diet, and Bitsie didn’t blame him. Who enjoyed feeling half-starved all the time?
She looked down guiltily at her own waistline. She’d lost a lot of weight at the beginning of her separation from Robert; she hadn’t felt like eating a thing. But now she’d gotten her appetite back, and she was on track to gain back all that weight and more. Too many cupcakes, she decided.
She’d better do something about her weight gain, Bitsie thought. It wasn’t a vanity thing. There was nothing wrong with being plump as long as she was healthy, but her expanding waistline brought up a practical problem. If she gained much more, she wouldn’t be able to fit into any of her clothes.
Buying a whole new wardrobe had a certain appeal, but she really couldn’t afford a luxury like that right now. Bitsie had a feeling that she was going to miss getting that regular paycheck she’d enjoyed as one of the few perks of being a drudge-for-dollars at the accounting firm she used to work for back in Tucson.
Bitsie fed Max, giving him a little more kibble than the vet had recommended. To atone for her sins, she ate a stick of celery and downed a glass of hot water with lemon. Then she jumped in the shower, finishing off with a bracing splash of cold water.
After all that virtue, she felt ready to face a visit to Marco’s ex-wife.
Raina, the woman who, according to Hector, had spent fourteen years married to Marco, was easy to find. She ran a daycare just a few blocks from Bitsie’s cottage. Bitsie called the number for the daycare and got Raina herself.
Raina wasn’t exactly warm and friendly when Bitsie explained that she wanted to talk about her ex-husband, but Bitsie couldn’t blame her for being less than enthusiastic. In Raina’s place, she’d have probably refused point-blank to subject herself to the intrusive sympathy and nosey questions of a random stranger, but Raina didn’t refuse.
Raina said she could spare a few minutes in the afternoon, during naptime, when nothing much happened, and her assistants could handle things. She’d meet Bitsie at the pocket park halfway between Bitsie’s house and the daycare center.
When Bitsie arrived, on time, for their appointment, Raina was already there. Raina was a beautiful woman, but in a much less flashy way than Jennifer, who wasn’t exactly beautiful, but certainly knew how to attract attention to herself.
“You’re Stan George’s sister, aren’t you?” Raina said as Bitsie settled herself on the bench beside
her. “That’s the only reason I agreed to talk to you. I don’t know Stan personally, but it’s a small town. People talk, and he has a reputation for being a good cop. He was very kind to my brother a few years back, and he’s the one who came to tell Marco’s Mom—“
“Were you there when Stan came and told her?”
“Yeah. The kids spent the night with her, and I’d gone over really early to pick them up. I was glad I was there.”
“How are the kids doing?” Bitsie asked.
“Not so good. I’m pretty broken up about it, myself. And it really worries me that there are all these weird rumors going around,” said Raina. “There are people saying he might have been murdered. Other people seem to think he committed suicide. So far, I don’t think the kids have heard any of it, but—“
“What do you think about the rumors?”
“I don’t know what to think. I mean, what do I know? It’s just that—“ Raina hesitated.
“It’s just that—what?“ Bitsie encouraged her to continue.
“It isn’t common knowledge, but Marco was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor about three months ago.”
Raina paused, fighting back tears before she continued. “Marco didn’t tell very many people about the diagnosis, but I he told me, and he told Jennifer, and that’s what’s so crazy—”
“What do you mean?”
“Just a week or so ago Marco found out that he wasn’t dying after all. He went to another doctor for a second opinion, and that doctor told him it was all a big mistake. They did more scans and said they couldn’t find a thing wrong with him.”
“But I heard—“
“You heard that Jennifer claimed that Marco made the tumor up?”
“Yes,” said Bitsie.
Raina looked surprised. “How did you hear that?”
“The beauty salon. Jennifer’s coworkers aren’t very discreet.”
“He wasn’t making the tumor up,” said Raina. “I’m sure of it. He wasn’t like that. I’ve known him for twenty years. Marco wasn’t always entirely truthful, but he wouldn’t have lied about something like this, not to me or to Jennifer. Besides, I know for sure he wasn’t lying because I talked directly to his first doctor, the one who told him he was dying. Marco asked me to come with him to one of his appointments. Marco thought I should help him decide what to tell the kids.” Raina broke off, struggling to regain her composure. “As soon as I heard Marco was dead, I thought—well, I wondered if Jennifer hadn’t killed him for some reason.”