“He'd never leave me,” Samantha said with certainty. “Can you fix my eye shadow?”
“Uh, sure. Close your eyes and I'll fix it.”
They worked in silence for a while. I could hear people milling around outside the bathroom's main door. It had been a large turnout, but most of the attendees were at the other side of the funeral home, at the post-service reception. This bathroom on the far side would be out of the way, which was I'd chosen it.
Jinx made a few comments about the makeup application she was doing, then asked Samantha, “So, if you don't mind me asking, what was it that tipped you off to Michael's big plan? Did he send you a note after the, um, staging at the house?”
“No, but I certainly would have appreciated a note,” Samantha said with a snort. “He's never been the most thoughtful husband.”
“Was he good to you?”
“Sometimes. Michael's full of surprises. And he's a tiger in the bedroom!”
“Good for you, honey! So, just between us, how'd you know he was planning to fake his death?”
I nearly stopped breathing. Jinx was relentless. She would have made a great investigator.
Samantha didn't answer for a minute. Finally, she said, “Just between us? Promise you won't tell anyone?”
“Cousin swear,” Jinx said. “I never told anyone you stole the contents of Uncle Pete's liquor cabinet at the lake house, did I?”
“True,” Samantha said. “Okay. How I know is: Michael slipped up on Sunday, the day before the whole thing. He told me that we were about to come into some money. A lot of money.”
“Did he say how?”
“Nope. He said it was top secret for now, but soon I would understand everything. He said I'd be really angry at him at first, but then eventually I'd see how everything worked out for the best in the end.”
“Are you sure he wasn't talking a business deal? Like a big sales commission on some property or business he was selling?”
Samantha snorted. “Yeah, right,” she said sarcastically. “When it comes to the listings, I'm the one who handles the business end. He'd kill me if he knew I was telling you this, but he was basically a stay-at-home dad. I do all the real estate work, which is fine by me. As soon as our big insurance money comes in, I'm going to put my feet up and keep them up for a long time. Preferably on a sandy beach somewhere with a margarita in my hand.” She giggled girlishly. “I could hire you to be my personal makeup artist.”
Jinx laughed lightly. “If you can afford my fee, I'll take the job and fetch your margaritas as well.”
There was the sound of makeup containers snapping open and shut.
Then Jinx asked, in a more serious tone, “Did you tell the police about what Michael said to you on Sunday?”
“No,” Samantha snapped. “Why would I?”
“Uh...” Jinx was stumped. There wasn't much she could have said. If she pushed Samantha about talking to the police, it would go against Samantha's delusion that Michael had faked his death.
“The police need to mind their own business,” Samantha said. “Besides, Michael already paid them all off. That's how he got the coroner to sign off on that other body. Michael took care of everything.” She gasped. “Jinx, this is all very illegal. I could get him in big trouble. You won't tell anyone about this, will you?”
“Of course not,” Jinx said. “Not even Logan.”
“Good. He keeps asking me questions, but I won't crack. Your big brother thinks that he's the smartest person living in Misty Falls, but he's not that clever.”
“What about his girlfriend? Stormy Day?”
“Oh, Stormy doesn't know half of what Logan gets up to. She should keep him on a shorter leash.”
“Oh? I don't know her well, but she seems pretty clever to me.”
“Too clever for her own good,” Samantha said. Her voice had a vengeful tone that did not surprise me.
“Sam, she just wanted to make sure your kids are taken care of. She's worried about you.”
“Whatever,” Samantha spat out. “One of these days, Stormy Day is going to get what she has coming to her.”
The skin all over my body prickled. I felt like I might explode or, at the very least, cough. I focused on relaxing my muscles and managed to keep myself quiet.
“Promise me you won't do anything you'll regret,” Jinx said. “You always did have a short fuse.”
“I'm okay,” Samantha said softly, sounding frail. “I've got everything under control. Everything's going according to plan.”
“Whose plan?”
“Michael's plan,” Samantha whispered. “Shh. It's our secret.”
“Our secret,” Jinx agreed. She sounded so achingly sad, it made my heart break.
There was more snapping of makeup containers, water running, and then finally they both left.
I took what felt like the first deep breath I'd had all day.
My feet were somewhat numb from my not-so-dignified seat on the toilet.
I walked over to the sinks with an ouch-ouch-ouch from the pins and needles of my circulation returning.
Ah, the glamorous life of a sneaky sleuth.
Next, I had to slip back out of the funeral home and return to my car before I got spotted.
But before that, I had one small task to attend to.
I had to visit Michael's casket and make sure it was him inside, and not a body double.
Just to be absolutely, positively, one hundred percent certain.
Usually, when a person is dead, they stay dead. I'd seen Michael in the tub, and he'd appeared to be dead. But thanks to the strange events earlier that year at the Flying Squirrel Lodge, I knew there were certain chemical compounds that could make a person appear to be dead even when they weren't. While stranded at the lodge, I'd encountered one such “wandering zombie corpse,” and so my suspicion about the state of Michael Sweet's body wasn't entirely unfounded.
Chapter 31
It's only because I'm a thorough and detail-oriented investigator that I find myself in compromising positions.
I've been busted in a few embarrassing situations before, but this one really took the cake.
Officer Peggy Wiggles, dressed in civilian clothes, walked into a private room in the back of the funeral home to find me standing over the corpse of Michael Sweet with two of my fingers stuck up his nostrils.
Peggy's jaw moved up and down, but no sound came out of her mouth.
“It's okay,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing, take-charge tone. “I'm just checking to make sure he's dead.”
She swallowed audibly then replied, “Stormy, putting the word 'just' in front of something doesn't make it acceptable.”
I gently removed my fingers from the deceased's nostrils. “He's dead all right,” I said.
“Are you sure? Did you check his neck for two small puncture wounds?”
“Not yet, but since you're here, you can guard the door while I unbutton his shirt.” I moved toward the body but then stopped myself. “Wait. What? Puncture wounds on the neck?”
Peggy's thin lips twisted up at the corners the way they did whenever she talked about her cat. “I'm pretty sure we don't have a vampire on the loose,” she said.
“Your jokes are so deadpan,” I said. “You totally got me.”
“Are you going to tell me what you're doing in here? Or am I to assume you have a thing for dead bodies?”
I closed the top of the casket to make the situation feel less creepy.
It didn't help much.
“You've heard about his widow's delusions,” I said. “I heard a rumor he paid off the coroner to declare him dead when he wasn't. Plus, I was thinking about those chemicals that Benjamin Biggs knows how to make.”
“What are you saying? Do you think Michael Sweet stored up a supply of his own blood for staging a crime scene, paid off multiple state and local authorities, dosed himself with some chemical compound Benjamin Biggs cooked up in his basement laboratory, then gave himself mu
ltiple fake stab wounds and crawled into a bathtub to wait for his vital signs to drop below detectable levels?”
“It sounds far-fetched when you say it out loud like that.”
She raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly. “It does. And I've already questioned Benjamin Biggs. He assured me he had nothing to do with this.”
“And you believed him?”
“He told me that arrogant jocks like Michael Sweet don't make friends with geeks like him.”
“True enough,” I said.
“And he's not hurting for money. His health-food company is worthless, but he sold a few of his chemical compounds to Big Pharma and made a mint.” She rubbed her hands together as though brushing my far-fetched theory away for once and for all. “More importantly, Michael truly is dead.” She glanced at the closed coffin. “They drained what was left of his blood and filled him with embalming fluid.”
I turned and looked at the coffin as well. As part of the embalming process, the mortician would have jabbed Michael's body in the abdomen with a trocar to aspirate gases. If a person wasn't already dead, they sure would be after that. I could have checked the body for the trocar buttons that would have been used to cover the holes following this procedure, but sticking my fingers up the nostrils had seemed less invasive.
In hindsight, under the cold stare of Officer Peggy Wiggles, I probably shouldn't have touched him at all. But I had to be sure. That's just how I am.
I tried to look recalcitrant. “Peggy, am I in trouble?”
She frowned at me.
I smiled. “Do you need to call in a ten-fifty-nine?”
“You heard about that? We'll have to change the code.” She shook her head. “You promised you weren't going to get involved in this case.”
I shrugged.
Peggy took a step back, blinked twice, and glanced around the room as though confused. “This isn't the washroom,” she said, as though talking to herself. “I guess I'll be exiting this room now, having seen nothing noteworthy.”
“Before you go, there's one more thing.”
She clenched her jaw, emphasizing the angular lines of her face. “Don't you dare open that coffin again.”
“It's something else,” I said. “I overheard something.” I hesitated, even though I wasn't bound by cousin-swear confidentiality. Jinx and Samantha had a reasonable expectation of privacy. I shouldn't have listened to their conversation. But then again, they didn't check all seven stall doors. I had a reasonable right to be in there using the washroom.
“What did you”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“overhear?”
“The day before Michael was killed, he told Samantha he was about to come into a big windfall. Some big payoff.”
Peggy lifted her chin. The tendons in her neck strained out, as though she was struggling to chew on this new information. If I had to guess, I'd say this particular bit of information was news to her.
She asked through her teeth, “Any other details?”
“Just that he was keeping the specifics from Samantha. You can try asking her about it, but I honestly don't think she knows anything. It does explain her hope, though. He planted the seed for her delusion.”
“Thank you,” Peggy Wiggles said with a nod. “I appreciate the information.”
“You're not still looking at Colt Canuso for this, are you?”
She stared at me for a while, her cool gaze unwavering, before answering. “If you didn't think your friend did it, why did you turn him in?”
Good question. And I truly didn't know why until I heard the words coming from my mouth.
“Because it was what my father would have done,” I said.
“He raised you right.” Peggy turned back toward the door and slipped away discreetly.
I waited a few minutes and then did the same.
Chapter 32
FRIDAY
I entered the Fox and Hound, keeping my head down to avoid an exuberant greeting by Dharma Lake.
It didn't work. The white-haired older waitress accosted me by the front door and locked me into a hug. The woman had been friendly to me ever since we'd met, and after I helped the kind senior get out of a murder charge, she'd only become more friendly.
“How's Logan?” She waited expectantly, as though she alone was responsible for getting the two of us together. Dharma saw herself as a matchmaker and believed it gave her good karma to pair people up. As far as she was concerned, every loose sock had a match, and it could be found right there in Misty Falls. Working as a waitress in a bar that served plenty of alcohol must have made her matchmaking job as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but I never mentioned that to her face. She was a generous woman with a sincere, loving heart.
“You know Logan,” I said. “He's always busy, busy, busy.” After the funeral the day before, I'd gone for lunch with him and his sister, and then they'd gone off together to attend some family functions without me. He'd finally gotten a few days off from his work at the law practice, but now he would be busy with his sister for a while. I wasn't one to complain. When Logan got busy, I just found my own things to be busy with. Tonight I would be socializing with the girls, and that was fine by me.
Dharma grabbed my left hand and made a hmm sound. I pulled my hand away self-consciously.
“No, I don't have an engagement ring,” I said with a laugh. “Trust me. If Mr. Sanderson and I get engaged, you'll be the first person I tell, right after my father.”
She made a tsk-tsk sound.
“Dharma, it's fine. I've been engaged before, and that was a disaster. Getting a ring on my finger is not the be-all, end-all, believe me. And besides, Logan and I have only been together about six months.”
“That's half a year,” she said. “You're not getting any younger, dear. What are you now, thirty-nine? Forty is right around the corner.”
I made a shocked face. “I'm thirty-four. These bags under my eyes are because I didn't get much sleep last night, because I was working.”
“I've worked late hours for many years. The secret is to take a nap in the afternoon. My husband John calls it my fountain-of-youth sleep.”
I caught myself frowning and tried to relax my face so I didn't make myself look worse.
She continued, “The key to a good nap is to not sleep too long. Thirty minutes is perfect. Especially if your lover wakes you up with a kiss and a hot cup of tea.”
“Ah. That's what I've been doing wrong. I'm usually woken up by either my phone ringing or my cat sitting on my face.” I twitched my mouth from side to side. “This afternoon, it was both.” I turned my head and scanned the crowded pub. “Have you seen Jessica? We're supposed to be having a girls' night.”
“She's upstairs, by the fireplace. What can I bring you to drink?”
“Irish coffee, with an extra shot of espresso.”
“We don't have an espresso machine, but I'll stir in an extra scoopful of the instant coffee mix we use.”
“Perfect,” I lied. I succumbed to another one of her friendly hugs and headed upstairs to find my friends.
I spotted Jessica by her red hair, which was twisted up in another of her elaborate braided hairstyles. My best friend always looked about one brocade vest short of being dressed up for a Renaissance fair.
Jessica was sitting with two blondes: Harper Hinton and Quinn McCabe.
I strode up to the table of three and said, “Looks like this girl group is missing their brunette.”
Jessica whipped around on her chair and grinned up at me. “Stormy! I was just telling the girls I wasn't sure if you were going to join us. I thought you might be busy with your adulterers.”
The other girls laughed as I took a seat in the fourth chair, facing the fireplace.
“Laugh now,” I said with a mock-serious tone. “You won't be laughing when I catch one of you in flagrante delicto. That's Latin for 'in blazing offense,' in case you're wondering.”
Harper, the youngest of the group, gave me a shy smile. She oft
en wore lipstick that was a bit too dark for her skin, which made her look tired and a bit malnourished—not that I was one to judge, apparently.
Harper said, “Stormy, I'd need to have a husband first before I could get another one to adulter with. Wait. Is adulter a verb? Or even a word?” She glanced around at the other girls, who were a decade older.
Quinn McCabe started coughing into her fist. “How should I know? Why are you asking me?”
I took a good look at Quinn, who was still clearing her throat and avoiding eye contact with the group. I quietly put the clues together. On Monday of that week, Quinn's husband, Chip, had visited me at the store and asked about putting a tail on his wife. He'd said it was for her protection, but then, thanks to Brianna's family gossip, I'd figured out Quinn had something going with a photographer. It was no wonder the topic of adultery was making her uncomfortable.
“Adulter,” Jessica mused. “Sounds like a word.”
“It's not a word,” I said. It was warm there by the fireplace, so I immediately slipped my jacket off and put it on the back of my chair. The girls were watching me expectantly, so I explained further. “In the private investigation business, we simply call it committing adultery. Interestingly enough, you can adulterate something, but that generally means adding cheaper or inferior material. For example, adding lead to pewter.”
Dharma arrived with my Irish coffee, took drink refill orders from the other three girls, and left.
I continued explaining, “So, you could theoretically adulterate a marriage by adding cheap, inferior material such as another person's affection, but I wouldn't use that word in a client report. We prefer the term indiscretion.”
Quinn was watching me with narrowed eyes. Did she know her husband was onto her, or was she suspicious of me due to her guilt? Perhaps a few drinks would loosen the truth out of her.
Harper turned to me and asked, “What about my boss, Michael Sweet? Would you call what he was up to adultery?”
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