I stared back at Harper, who'd clamped her dark burgundy lips together in a straight line. Why was she asking me? She worked for the Sweets part-time as an administrative assistant. She probably knew more about Michael's hobbies than anyone.
Quinn leaned in eagerly, licking her pink-hued lips. “Yeah, Stormy! Tell us what you know. Was Michael messing around? Is that why Samantha killed him?” She lowered her voice. “I mean, assuming it was her, and not a jealous spouse.”
I took a slow sip of my Irish coffee and licked the whipped cream off my upper lip. The three women were watching me intently. They had no idea that this very moment was the first time I'd heard anything—outside of my own internal ruminations—about Michael Sweet committing adultery.
“You go first,” I said slyly. “Tell me what you know, and then I'll tell you what I know.”
Quinn elbowed Harper. “Tell Stormy what you told us.”
Harper gave me an uneasy look. Her dark-hued lips were still pressed in a flat line. She was a recent transplant to Misty Falls, having moved there with her younger sister not long before I'd returned the previous fall. She and Jessica had become friends when they'd worked together and lived in the same apartment building, before Jessica had moved in with me.
Harper was a likable girl, but I'd noticed her acting skittish around me. I suppose the time I attacked her by throwing an industrial-sized jug of laundry detergent at her in the basement utility room hadn't helped our relationship. In my defense, I'd thought she might be trying to kill me. She hadn't been, but you can't be too careful.
Harper and I had seen each other around town since then, though we didn't talk about anything meatier than how much my father was enjoying the old green Ford Torino he'd bought from her in the summer.
Quinn kept urging Harper to tell me something. Jessica watched quietly, her expression neutral.
Harper shifted her chair to face me but a few inches further back, as though she preferred to keep her distance from me. Her mouth seemed to be getting smaller and smaller, her darkened lips rolling in until I couldn't see her lipstick at all.
“You can speak freely,” I said to her. “This is all totally off the record.” Inside, I gagged a little over using the phrase “off the record.” It made me feel seedy and underhanded, yet it flowed so easily from my mouth. And it did the job. Harper's lips slowly reappeared, and she relaxed visibly.
Harper said, “Well, as you know, I've been working as an office assistant to the Sweets for a few months now. Just part-time.”
Quinn waved her hand impatiently. “Tell Stormy the good part,” she said.
Harper murmured something quietly. I couldn't hear her over the music and din of the busy pub.
Quinn put her elbows on the table hard enough to rattle our drinks. She exclaimed, “Michael Sweet was some sort of sex addict,” she said. “He would disappear for hours at a time, and Harper thinks he was using their house listings for his sex romps.”
I asked, “With who?”
Quinn leaned back contentedly, like a queen holding court. Just like old days. “We were hoping you could tell us,” she said. “Surely you're the one person in town who knows all about who's zooming who.”
I had to smile. Quinn had always referred to sex as “zooming.” I hadn't heard the term in years, and it really brought me back to a more innocent time. I nearly forgot we were discussing the reputed sex life of a homicide victim.
“Quinn, I was never on the case. If Samantha had been suspicious enough to hire me to tail him, then I would know.” I looked down at my Irish coffee. “In fact, it might have saved his life if he'd been busted sooner.”
Jessica leaned across the table and patted my shoulder. “Stormy, you can't save them all.”
I patted her hand and thanked her with my eyes.
“It wasn't another woman,” Harper said, her voice quaking. “I mean, it might not have been.”
We all exchanged wide-eyed looks.
Harper said, “A few weeks before Mr. Sweet's accident, a client found something he left behind at a house. It was a—”
Quinn interrupted, “I knew it! He was gay. That explains a lot, actually. When we dated in high school, I caught him trying on my cheerleader uniform more than once.” Her hands fluttered excitedly. “Do you think his gay lover killed him?”
“That's not what I meant,” Harper said, looking flustered. “If you would let me talk...”
Jessica stretched one arm across Quinn like the safety rail on an amusement park ride. “Go ahead,” Jessica said to Harper, “I'll clamp my hand over the Queen Bee's mouth if she tries to interrupt you again.”
“Please finish,” I said to Harper, speaking slowly and trying not to spook her.
“The client found pornography magazines,” Harper said. “I think he was using the houses for dates... with himself.”
Quinn wrinkled her nose. “That's all? Phooey. That's boring. I bet it was hookers. This town is small, but it's not that small. I know there's a dominatrix in town, available for—”
Jessica made good on her threat to clamp her hand over Quinn's mouth. “That's enough,” Jessica said. “The man is dead. He's not even been buried for a full day.”
I raised my hand meekly. “Actually, there is more than one dominatrix in the local area.” I waved my hand. “Which is a topic for another time.” I gave Harper a friendly smile. “Do you still have those magazines?”
Harper shook her head vehemently. “I picked them up from the client and gave them some spa coupons to the Canuso Resort as an apology. Then I threw them in the garbage. I never told Michael or Samantha.”
I asked her, “Did you tell the police?”
“Oh, Stormy,” Quinn interrupted. “Don't be such a narc.”
Don't be such a narc. The phrase stung every bit as much as it had in high school. Growing up the daughter of a cop in a small town hadn't been without its challenges.
“Never mind,” I said. “I'm pretty sure Michael's porno magazines didn't kill him. Not even the sharpest paper can cut a man's throat.”
Quinn laughed at my joke. Jessica raised her eyebrows and gave me an I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-you look. Harper hunched deeper into her chair, clutching her bottle of beer and watching me out of the corner of her eye.
I sipped my Irish coffee, let the conversation settle, and then asked, “What else is new?” I turned my head to check out our surroundings. “Is this place under new management yet again? Those light fixtures look different.”
“New owners,” Jessica said. “They got rid of karaoke night. Mainly to get rid of a certain singer, which is a shame, because she's really talented.”
“They exorcised Della Koenig right out of here, huh? Probably for the best.”
Quinn snorted. “That woman was a diva even before she got rich. Now she's a full-blown train wreck. I'm surprised we don't have paparazzi popping up in town.” She tilted her head to the side and got a funny smile. “But the press will be coming, soon enough.” Her smile got bigger and smugger.
Jessica took the bait. “Quinn, what are you talking about?”
Quinn breathed in the attention, sucking it all in like fuel for her ego. “Ladies, I'm not supposed to say anything until the big announcement tomorrow, but I'll give you a hint. It's big news.”
Jessica punched her on the arm. Hard. Because that's the only way Jessica punches. Growing up the little sister to twin brothers made her tough physically, if not emotionally.
Quinn whimpered and rubbed her arm. “Easy, killer.” She looked around the table with a sour expression. “I'll tell you guys, but only if you promise to come to the casino tomorrow. And you'd better act surprised.”
Jessica asked, “Is this about your hootenanny next Friday?”
“Yes and no,” Quinn said. “Are you coming to the casino tomorrow?”
Harper shuddered. “I'm out. That place gives me the creeps. Too much of the sort of element I moved here to get away from.”
“Don't b
e a baby,” Quinn teased.
I said to Quinn, “I can't go to the casino. I can't really get into the explanation, but I saw Trigger Canuso recently, she threatened to pull my legs off if she caught me on her land.”
Jessica gasped. “Pull your legs off?”
“Not in so many words,” I said. “But I don't want to find out how serious she was. She's tiny but tough. Like a wolverine.”
Quinn said in a loud voice, “Michael actually went out with Trigger for a while. Did you hear about that? He said it was part of his personal sensitivity training program, to date one of them. I wonder where Trigger was the day Michael got killed.”
Jessica elbowed Quinn. “Keep your voice down, Queen Bee.”
In a hushed tone, I chimed in, “If you want to hurl accusations around, could you do it at a more discreet volume?”
Quinn shrugged one shoulder. “Oh, please. Like everyone in this Podunk little town isn't already thinking it. Look around. They're all staring at you, Stormy. They think you know everything.”
I snuck a look behind me. She wasn't wrong. A few people were looking our way, but it probably had more to do with Quinn's volume, which was as loud and bossy as it had been during our cheerleader days.
Harper started pulling on her leather jacket. “Girls, thanks for inviting me out tonight, but I've got a busy day tomorrow. I'll be looking for a new job.”
Jessica said, “I'm sure you can get your old shifts back at the Olive Grove.”
“No offense, but it's not much of a career path,” Harper said. “The next step up from waitress is manager, which is all the same drama minus the tips.”
“Right,” Jessica said through a tight smile. “Thanks for joining us tonight. It's certainly been interesting.”
Quinn pushed her chair back and got up quickly. “Harper, I'll walk you to your car.”
Harper wrinkled her nose and looked right at me. “I sold my car,” she said.
“Then I'll give you a ride home, dummy,” Quinn said in her bossiest Queen Bee tone. “I want to talk about some future job opportunities you might be interested in.”
Harper brightened. “Can your husband, Chip, put in a good word for me with the post office?”
“Uh... sure.” Quinn grabbed Harper's arm at the elbow and began steering her away from the table.
“Great to see you,” I called after Quinn. “Really good quality time!”
She must have caught some of my sarcasm because she raised her free hand to give me the bird.
“Never change,” I called after her, laughing.
I turned back around to face Jessica.
“Classic Quinn Baudelaire,” I said. “Breeze in. Stir up trouble. Walk away as the bombs go off.”
“You're the one who breezed in a full two hours after we were supposed to meet up,” Jessica said. “And it's Quinn McCabe now. She's been warring with the other Baudelaires for a few years now and hates the sound of the name.”
“Who would have ever guessed back in school that the Queen Bee would end up domesticated and married to a chubby mailman who I could have sworn wasn't into women?”
Jessica gave me a saucy look, batting her eyelashes. “Just because Chip McCabe didn't throw himself at your feet, it doesn't mean he's gay.”
I rolled my eyes.
Our waitress, Dharma, appeared at that moment to whisk away Harper's half-empty beer bottle and Quinn's sticky martini glass. “Who's gay? I know a few single boys who'd love to meet someone. Really nice guys.” She winked at us. “I'm an equal opportunity matchmaker!”
I shook my head. “We were talking about a famous actor. Nobody you'd know.”
“Okay,” Dharma said. “FYI, your blond friends stopped by the bar on the way, and the loud, bossy one told me you're picking up her tab.”
“Classic Quinn,” I said ruefully.
After Dharma left, Jessica and I spent the better part of an hour trashing on Quinn. I'd forgotten about some of her high school antics, but tonight's bossiness had brought back memories. Especially the part where she'd called Harper, a girl she barely knew, a dummy.
We eventually circled back around to the topic of Michael Sweet and what I thought about the evening's revelations.
“Maybe he was some kind of porn addict slacker.” I looked down at the dregs of my second drink, which had been an Irish coffee minus the Irish—in other words, a lousy instant coffee with not enough whipped cream. “It doesn't really matter that he lied to his assistant and the daycare ladies about being on the golf course that day so he could get a few minutes alone to catch up on his reading.”
Jessica swirled her white wine sangria, staring at the chunks of fruit as though the medley might hold clues, the way tea leaves do for fortune-tellers.
“It's so hard to believe he's gone,” she said. “Are you sure he's dead?”
I nearly spit out the coffee I'd been sipping. “Don't worry,” I said. “He's dead. When I was inside the funeral home yesterday, I stuck my fingers up his nostrils to make sure he wasn't breathing.”
“Very funny,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“I really did,” I said, and then I told her about Peggy Wiggles walking in on me. I also caught her up on what I'd overheard Samantha saying in the washroom. I left out the part about Jinx being the other party present.
We both agreed that it was a sad, tragic situation.
Jessica used her straw to stab the fruit chunks in her glass so she could eat them.
“Quinn never told us the big news,” she said. “Should we go to the casino tomorrow to find out?”
“We can go, but I'll need to be wearing a full disguise so Trigger doesn't spot me on the security cameras and rip my legs off.”
She tilted her head and gave me a curious look. “Do you actually own any disguises?”
“What kind of self-respecting PI wouldn't have an arsenal of disguises?”
“A PI like you,” she said. “You hate shopping.”
She had a point. My preferred method of shopping was to pop my head into Blue Enchantment when I saw a nice mannequin in the window and buy the whole outfit without setting foot in the changing rooms.
“Guilty as charged,” I said. “But I recently acquired a trunk full of my dad's old clothes. You'd be surprised how much a men's jacket and a fedora can change your appearance.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me you don't have spirit gum and a selection of beards and goatees.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” I said. “I only have one mustache, but Jeffrey thought it was a creature to be mauled and eaten, so it's really just half a mustache.”
Jessica put her face in her hands and laughed.
I laughed as well.
After the week I'd had, from turning in an old friend, to pulling apart a family and watching a decent woman go crazy, it felt good to laugh and plan a caper.
Chapter 33
SATURDAY
On Saturday, Jessica's mother came by to drop off some wigs so we could disguise ourselves for the visit to the casino. She stuck around for a while, visiting, and we were happy to have her join us for dinner.
We skipped a traditional main course and instead enjoyed a large antipasto platter of cheese, vegetables, and smoked meats. Jessica leaned toward a vegetarian diet but ate meat sometimes, especially when it was high-quality prosciutto wrapped around asparagus.
After the antipasto, I cleared away the dishes while Jessica scooped out gelato for dessert.
I wasn't going to have any of the Italian ice cream, but Mrs. Kelly insisted I have some, and assured me that my figure was “still perfect” even if I was showing some evidence of a diet that included gas station hot dogs.
On her way out after dessert, Mrs. Kelly gave me a warm hug and thanked me for being a “remarkable young woman” and a “true friend” to Jessica.
As she drove away and we waved to her from the living room's front window, I said to Jessica, “Your mother is the best.”
“Too bad your father di
dn't think so,” she said, laughing. Long ago, when we'd been much younger and blissfully naive, we'd schemed to get our two single parents to fall in love. We agreed it would be the greatest thing. We would be stepsisters, and she could team up with me against our other sister, Sunny. It was a great idea, or so we thought.
The first step of a typical Jessica-Stormy-matchmaking scheme was to find something at the Kelly household that was broken. This wasn't difficult, considering how boisterous Jessica's older brothers were, but we weren't above breaking something intentionally. Then, when it was time for my father to retrieve me from a sleepover, I'd ask him to bring his tools and do some handyman work for Mrs. Kelly. Being a good fellow who would go to great lengths to be of service to the community, he would always oblige.
At the time, to our immature minds, our scheming had seemed to work. Each fix-it trip brought them into closer contact. We would hear the two of them talking and laughing. Unfortunately, my father had been faking it. He interpreted Mrs. Kelly's appreciation of his talents as an indictment of men in general. It must have been the wording of her compliments. She would say things like, “Aren't you useful, for a man!” It was just her dry sense of humor.
Thinking back, I had to give credit to my younger self. I didn't yet know what wasn't possible, so I didn't put any limits on my hopes. Now that I was older, I had reservations about everything. I'd failed at so many things over the last two decades. Career. Relationships. Attempts at finding a relaxing hobby that didn't get me in trouble.
Some days it took considerable effort to reframe all my mistakes as simply steps to acquiring wisdom.
I wondered, in the future, when I was looking back on tonight, would I see going to the casino as a terrible mistake? Probably. But I was going to do it anyway. The excitement of doing something I wasn't supposed to do was an effective way for me to be present, in the here and now. I wasn't like Jessica, who was a more cautious, fearful soul. Taking risks made me feel alive. Maybe that was why we got along so well—we complemented each other.
She looked up from her bowl of ice cream. We'd had a second helping after her mother left. It was Jessica's idea, I swear.
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