Grace Takes Off

by Julie Hyzy

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions,” I said, “before the police do.”

  “Is that allowed?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be a problem.” Two officers had been stationed inside the lounge area, purportedly to make sure we didn’t leave before being questioned. They didn’t seem to have an issue with us talking amongst ourselves.

  Although I’d been involved in this entire situation from the very beginning and knew that we had no plan to corroborate or conspire, I still thought it was shoddy police work. The authorities had been handed a solved crime in a shiny, jet-shaped package. All they cared about now was filling out the paperwork.

  Adam followed my gaze and apparently my train of thought. He lifted his eyebrows and grunted.

  I addressed Matthew. “Here’s what I want to know: You brought Pinky into the group—”

  “If I would have known she was packing, I would never have—”

  “Slow down,” I said, “I’m not placing blame, I’m trying to understand. According to Detective Williamson . . .” I waved in the direction of the interrogation room “. . . the name Pinky provided was an alias. We’ll never find out who was behind her actions if we don’t know her real name.”

  He folded his arms and stared out at nothing. “I don’t know it.”

  Adam sat sideways in his chair, elbows propped on his open knees, fingers clasped. He gave a patient sigh. “Come on, bro. Listen to the lady. All she wants is to ask you a couple questions. Quit acting like an idiot here. Nobody thinks you had anything to do with that poor stewardess getting killed. But if there’s some way you can help . . .” He let the thought hang for a moment before he chucked Matthew on the shoulder. “Maybe you should chill a little here and listen to the questions before you jump down our throats.”

  Matthew leaned forward again. Not acquiescence. More like resignation. I knew he wasn’t about to launch into the conversation and beg me to question him, so I started in without waiting. “Did she give you her real name?”

  Hunched over now, he shrugged. “Just Pinky.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “At the club. Last night. She was hanging around backstage and in between sets told me she had some problems and needed to get back home to the States.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  Matthew grimaced. “Said her mother was sick.” He blew raspberries. “The oldest con in the book, huh? And I fell for it. She said that her mother had been taken to the hospital and that she might not make it more than a day or two. She said she didn’t have money for a flight and did I know anyone heading to the East Coast?”

  I exchanged a glance with Adam, whose brow furrowed over concerned eyes. It appeared as though he wanted to say something, but kept quiet as Matthew continued.

  “I felt sorry for her. It wasn’t like she was into me or anything.” He seemed to seek our acceptance on this point. I nodded. “I sure wasn’t into her. She was nice enough, but as soon as we got to the plane, she didn’t even bother faking it.” To punctuate his words, he leaned down. Millie anticipated his move and flopped onto her back so he could rub her stomach. “When I told her we had a jet scheduled for the next day, she was all over me, begging me to let her come along. I said it was okay as long as Slick said it was.”

  He glanced over to Adam, who let out a low whistle. “Sounds like she targeted us specifically. No idea why. We get hangers-on from time to time,” he explained. “Nobody as wacky as this chick, mind you. Anyway, I was busy with the sound mixing guy at the club—he wasn’t getting me because of the language issue—and I agreed without really thinking about it too hard. I’m sorry.”

  Heaven help us if the rest of the world were this gullible. “I guess it’s almost like picking up a hitchhiker,” I said. “You take your life in your hands.”

  “We’ve picked up lots of hitchhikers on the bus. Plenty of times,” Matthew said, as though that absolved them.

  Adam apologized again. “We blew it. There’s no disputing that. And we’ll do whatever we can to help.” He nudged Matthew. “Won’t we?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “If it’s any consolation to you, Grace,” Adam continued, “we’re in it pretty deep, too. That plane isn’t ours.” He shot a glare at Matthew as though warning him not to interrupt. “It hasn’t been announced yet, but we’ll be the warm-up band for Curling Weasels at their next concert.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “They’re huge.”

  “Yeah, and they’re none too happy about this.” Adam held out a hand as though the waiting room symbolized all we’d been through. “We’re keeping that info on the downlow. If you don’t mind.”

  “Got it.”

  “If the press finds out, they’ll spin it into a convoluted conspiracy.” Adam met my gaze with his concerned one. “That won’t help you get answers. Once the media gets wind of Curling Weasels’ involvement, they won’t care what really happened, and we can kiss the truth good-bye.”

  I pulled a couple of business cards out of my purse, scribbled my cell phone number on the back, and then handed them to Adam and Matthew. “I’ll keep the Weasels out of this as much as I can,” I said, “as long as you promise to get in touch if you find out anything.”

  Matthew stuck the card in his back pocket. I wondered if he’d toss it at the first opportunity. In contrast, Adam held the card in both hands. “I promise,” he said.

  When the door opened and Detective Williamson called Matthew to come in next, Bennett and I said good-bye to Adam. Within minutes we were safely ensconced in the backseat of one of Bennett’s cars and finally, blissfully, headed home.

  “Don’t worry, Gracie,” Bennett said. “Once we’re back at Marshfield, we’ll be able to shake off all this unpleasantness.”

  I nodded, but only to be polite.

  Chapter 16

  IT WASN’T JET LAG OR MY INTERNAL CLOCK being messed up that had me at my desk before six the next morning. It was a need to grab hold of my bearings before the day got away from me. Although my capable assistant, Frances, had been left in charge in our absence, there was still much to do to catch up.

  I had a slew of tasks I needed to cross off my list. First and foremost, I wanted to find out more about Pinky. I’d have to draw on every resource I could. In the past, Marshfield had used a service, Fairfax Investigations, to look into sensitive matters on its behalf. Their offices weren’t open yet, so I left them a voicemail to call me. I debated leaving a voicemail for Ronny Tooney, but was afraid of waking him. He’d become an ally of sorts, but I decided to call him at a more respectable hour.

  Until then, I started through the tidy piles of notifications Frances had so precisely placed on my desk. As I read reports from the various departments, my mind wandered back to my homecoming late last night, with Bootsie snuggling close as I lifted her to my chest. Having waited up for me, Scott had shouldered the luggage and tugged it in through the back door, while Bruce pulled me into a huge bear hug that threatened to squeeze Bootsie out of my arms.

  My roommates had been as overjoyed to see me as I was to be home. Even though I struggled with fatigue, I insist they bring me up to date on all that was new at Amethyst Cellars, their wine shop, everything that had happened with Bootsie, and a few tidbits about the neighborhood. I took it all in, happily digesting the news but suspecting that they were avoiding one topic in particular.

  “What about Hillary?” I’d asked. “Was her move-in day as big a production as we all expected?”

  Bruce and Scott had exchanged a look before Bruce said, “We haven’t seen her.”

  Scott had held out his hands. “There’s been nothing going on over there since the day she arrived—which was pretty quiet, to be honest. No movement. Not a peep.”

  I thought about that conversation now as I sorted through the time cards, stopping for a
moment to stare out my office window overlooking the verdant Marshfield gardens. It wasn’t like Hillary to keep a low profile. The idea of her being our neighbor was almost too much to bear. Everything I knew about the woman screamed “Look at me.” I couldn’t imagine her having completed the move without taking out a full-page ad in Emberstowne’s local newspaper and organizing a parade in her own honor.

  As I’d snuggled Bootsie, I’d told my roommates what had happened on the flight across the Atlantic, and tried in vain to dismiss their concerns. The problem was, I was worried—a great deal more than I let on. As usual, however, Bruce and Scott saw right through my assertions that all was well now that the authorities were in charge.

  “But who hired Pinky?” Bruce had asked.

  That question haunted me now as I pulled the timecards closer and forced myself to focus. I hadn’t had a reply for Bruce, and I knew I couldn’t rest until I had answers that made sense.

  The door to the next office opened and shut. A quick glance at the clock told me it was far too early for employees to be arriving. That left security or an intruder as the only options behind the noise.

  I stood. “Hello? Who’s there?”

  Before I could make it to the door that connected my office with Frances’s, she walked in, scowling. “Give me a fright, why don’t you?” she demanded. “What are you doing here at this hour?”

  I opened my mouth to automatically respond in kind to her snippy tone, but was surprised by the sudden rush of affection I felt for the purple polyester–clad woman glaring at me. I was glad to see my cranky assistant, and shocked by such an unexpected reaction. The two deaths on the flight home yesterday had clearly wrought havoc with my emotions.

  I managed to instill enough sarcasm into my truthful reply to keep her from falling over in a faint. “I missed you, too, Frances.”

  “Humph,” she said, turning her back to me as she trundled away.

  I followed her to her desk. “How did it go while we were gone?”

  She pulled her beige purse off her shoulder and dropped it onto the desktop with a heavy thud. “Is that why you’re in early? To check on what I’ve been doing while you and the Mister have been gallivanting all over the globe? Let me tell you something—”

  “I’m here early because I need your help,” I said quietly. “Bennett’s in danger.”

  Her mouth clamped shut, tadpole eyebrows bunched together over her alarmed, beady eyes. “Be more specific.”

  I took a seat in front of her desk and pointed. “Sit down. I need to bring you up to speed.”

  As I retold the story of Pinky’s attempt on Bennett’s life, her subsequent killing of Evelyn, and how Rudy had saved the day by taking Pinky down, Frances’s eyes by turns went wide then tightened. Her mouth opened and shut as she struggled against the urge to interrupt. It dawned on me about halfway through the story that this was one of the rare times I was able to bring news to her. Frances always seemed to have an ear to the ground and a finger on the pulse of Emberstowne. She was always ten steps ahead of me. Not this time.

  “Wait, wait. That can’t be the end of it,” she said as I wound to the conclusion of my tale. “Pinky must have been in cahoots with someone else.” Frances’s face reddened. The tadpoles squished together. Her disapproving eyes sparked with anger, and little bubbles of spit gathered in the corners of her mouth. “Why would anyone want to kill the Mister?”

  “That’s what we”—I wiggled a finger between us—“have to find out.”

  She sat back a little bit. She blinked. “You and I?”

  “There’s no way we can accomplish all this alone, though. We’ll need help.”

  Reaching for the phone, she said, “I’ll call Fairfax.”

  “Already done.” I pointed to the clock on her desk. “I think it’s a decent enough hour to call Ronny Tooney now, too. I’ll do that in a minute.”

  She sniffed. “Like he could handle something this important.”

  “He’s done pretty well for us in the past.”

  “Pheh,” she replied. “He got lucky and he knows it.”

  I let that pass. “Bennett has his WizzyWig board meeting this afternoon,” I said, “But I’m seeing to it that he doesn’t go alone.”

  She gave me one of her cheeky glares. “How do you plan to protect him? Tuck a gun into your skirt and play bodyguard?”

  Dealing with Frances required grappling with her frequent grousing, including that fun quip. “I called Terrence yesterday,” I said, exercising extreme patience, “on the ride back from the airport. He and a couple of his staff will accompany Bennett to the board meeting today.” I arched my brows to prevent her from jumping in before I’d finished. “And before you snarl, yes, I’ve already gotten Bennett to buy into this arrangement.”

  “Snarl? Humph,” she said again, scowling.

  “Bennett mentioned that Vandeen Deinhart is particularly upset about this new acquisition. Bennett is positive Deinhart wouldn’t try anything drastic to keep the deal from going through, but you and I both know better than to trust anyone. Especially where money is concerned. Has anything unusual been going on here?” I asked.

  Her little eyes relaxed ever so slightly, and when she asked, “Wouldn’t I have alerted you if there was?” her words had a bit less bite.

  “Of course you would have,” I said smoothly. “I only ask because now that you know what happened on our flight, you may interpret things differently.”

  She considered that. “Best of my knowledge, nothing amiss.”

  “Good. I guess,” I said. “I almost wish we had something to look into.”

  “Yes, well.” Frances worked her jaw in a way that let me know she was about to unload a big piece of news. “There’s more. Nothing to do with the Mister. Not precisely.” She slammed her mouth shut and struggled for control. Her lips writhed, making me believe she was attempting to keep from spewing in an angry eruption.

  I sat back a little, but knew my assistant well enough to hazard a guess. I kept my tone even. “Frances . . . did something happen between you and Hillary while we were gone?”

  “Did something happen?” she repeated in a voice loud enough to startle staff on the first floor. “I’ll say it did. I’m sorry you and the Mister had the kind of trouble you did on that airplane, but I had my hands full with that . . . that . . .”

  Her face had gone bright red and I was afraid she might explode in front of me. “What happened?” I asked.

  She took a breath, calming down enough to answer with steady, rather than crazed, fury. “That businessman of hers—that, that . . .”

  “Are you talking about Frederick?” I supplied. The week before Bennett and I had taken off on our European jaunt, Hillary had dropped a couple of bombs on us: She was moving to Emberstowne, and she was launching a new interior design enterprise with a fellow named Frederick. From what we could tell, she wasn’t interested in him romantically, but I would lay odds that she’d used whatever feminine wiles were at her disposal to manipulate his cooperation to ensure financial backing for her fledgling business venture. “What happened?”

  “That headstrong girl will be the death of me.” As her angry spittle threatened to provide my second shower of the day, it occurred to me how often Bennett had used the same description when referring to his stepdaughter. “I told her she wasn’t allowed in the Mister’s rooms while he was gone, but did she abide by the boundaries I set?”

  I waited.

  “Of course she didn’t,” Frances went on. “That girl has never had respect for authority. Somebody needed to teach her a lesson when she first came to live here. I’m telling you, if she were my daughter—”

  “What did she do up there?” I asked to keep Frances focused.

  “Took photographs. Lots of them.”

  I sat back, confused. �
��You mean ‘took’ as in stole or borrowed, or ‘took’ as in captured images with a camera?”

  Frances’s cheeks puffed. Her face flushed red. Clearly, I’d interrupted her diatribe with a stupid question. “She’s using pictures”—Frances pantomimed operating a camera—“from the Mister’s quarters to create a portfolio for herself.”

  “Whoa, wait,” I said. Frances favored me with a look of congratulations for finally catching on. “She didn’t design those rooms. Bennett hired professionals.”

  “I reminded her.”

  “Years ago,” I continued. “Those rooms haven’t been changed in decades. She can’t waltz in here and claim them as her work.”

  Frances wiggled her head. “You think I didn’t argue that point? Hillary says it doesn’t matter. She believes she’s fully capable of creating those kinds of designs, so why not pretend she did?” Frances waved her hands in the air dismissively. “Of course she claims that this is only temporary. Says she’s borrowing the rooms just long enough to build up her own clientele.”

  “But that makes no sense.”

  As though reading my mind, Frances asked, “Hard to have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent. She’s a twit.”

  In spite of myself, I laughed then sobered as I rubbed my temple. “I can’t fight this battle right now. There’s too much at stake here. Bennett could be in danger.” I stopped, then corrected myself. “Forget ‘could be.’ I’m sure he is. I can’t let anything distract me from protecting him. Once we get to the bottom of that”—I hoped we could do so quickly—“then I’ll tackle the Hillary problem.”

  Frances snorted, but didn’t disagree with the plan. “Have you called those two Keystone Kops down at the police department yet?”

  Although this matter was not in our local detectives’ scope, the two of them, Rodriguez and Flynn, might be able to lend assistance. Or at least provide guidance. “Not yet,” I said. “I was waiting to tell you first.”