The woman laughed coldly. “She didn’t give a damn about her work. Only cared about being the center of attention. For months, she’s been screwing up everything she touched. Commerce reports, banking reports, voter reports. You name it, she made a mess of it. And who was left to pick up the pieces?”
I didn’t have to be an insider to guess, so I wasn’t going out on a limb when I said, “You, right?”
“Damned straight,” she snarled. “Sarah was given all the plumb assignments. Then when it came time to present her findings, she’d turn in some half-assed report. A man of Senator Mercy’s stature, he doesn’t need that kind of bungled information. It’s too important to his career. So of course, every time he asked…” She stood a little straighter. “Of course I told him I’d help. And I always did.”
“Why not just have Sarah redo the work herself?”
“There’s a good question, and believe me, you’re not the first one to ask it.” The woman shot a look across the room toward the senator, and when she realized he just happened to be looking our way, she pasted a smile on her face. “Missed my kid’s last damn birthday party, thanks to Sarah,” she said through clenched teeth. “Ended up staying late to clean up one of her messes.”
“That’s a shame.” Truly, it was, but I made sure I slathered on the sympathy. It was the best way to keep her talking. “You think she was on the verge of getting fired?”
“It would explain why she killed herself, wouldn’t it?”
It would. If Sarah had killed herself. I tried not to look too eager. “It sounds like you knew her pretty well.”
“I knew she was useless.”
“Then maybe you also know…” I didn’t have to pretend to be embarrassed. Sticking my nose in other people’s business did not come as second nature to me. Neither did lying. My cheeks were flaming, but I pressed on. “I’ve heard a lot about Sarah today,” I said, easing into the change of subject. “You know, from the people here. I heard somebody say something about how much money she had. They said she bought a really expensive dog. And that she had really nice clothes. Somebody mentioned that she was going on a cruise. I know it’s none of my business, but I hope you don’t mind if I ask…I’ve been thinking about getting a new job, and if a position on a senator’s staff pays that well…”
“If it paid all that well, believe me, honey, I’d be on a tropical island somewhere. Sure would beat looking forward to another winter in this town. All that money Sarah had…” The woman sneered. “Just another example of how lucky she was.”
I dunno, I’d never thought of a woman who ended up dead in a bathtub as lucky, but now was not the time to quibble. When the redhead crooked a finger to call me closer, I moved in.
“Her aunt Sadie,” she said. “Rich widow with no children and no other relative in the world. Died just a few months ago and left every last cent to Sarah.”
I had wondered how Sarah came by the wherewithal to support her lavish lifestyle, and I have to say, this news cheered me. It was enough to have to worry about Sarah’s murder; I didn’t need to throw the mystery of her finances into the mix.
“Isn’t that just a kick in the butt?” While I’d been deep in thought, the redhead had kept right on going. “Woman leaves Sarah a chunk of change, and before she can go through even half of it, she up and does a hari-kari number on herself. Just goes to prove how much she craved the spotlight.”
This time, I couldn’t hide my disgust. “Really, if she wanted to be the center of attention—”
The redhead stopped me with a snarl. “Look around you, honey. We’re all here, aren’t we? And on a national holiday, too. What are we all talking about? Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. If you ask me, she got just what she wanted.”
Investigation or no investigation, it was all I could take. With a polite (and very phony) smile, I whisked the woman’s plate away. Even though I should have collected a few more of them and not wasted the trip, I headed for the kitchen, the better to put some distance between myself and the redhead’s jaundiced view of the world.
I nudged the kitchen door open with my hip and nearly bumped into Charlene.
“I’m so sorry!” Charlene hadn’t changed much since high school. She was still polite and concerned with other people. She held the door open and stepped back to allow me to get by. “I’m glad I found you,” she continued. “I just told Jim…” She looked into the kitchen where Jim was putting the finishing touches on the plates of pastries that would be served for dessert. “But I wanted to tell you and Eve, too. This is perfect. Just perfect.” She waited until I put the plate down, then grabbed my hand. “Thank you, Annie.”
“I’m glad we could help.” It felt good to be telling the truth again, and I smiled, then remembered what the redhead had told me. “And I’m so sorry about your loss,” I said. “It must be especially difficult to lose two relatives so close together.”
Charlene tipped her head. “Two?”
“Your aunt Sadie.”
“My aunt? Sadie?” Charlene smiled. “I don’t know where you got your information, but please, don’t worry about me, Annie. Sarah and I, we never had an Aunt Sadie!”
Eight
BY NATURE, I AM NOT A LIAR.
In everyday life, I believe this is a big plus. When investigating a murder…well, I hate to say it, but when it comes to getting to the bottom of a mystery, being honest falls into the not-so-good category. To uncover information—any information—it’s sometimes necessary to bend the truth. I know this in my heart, but I still can’t lie with a straight face or without my conscience prickling.
It goes without saying that because I don’t lie, I assume other people don’t, either.
Naive? I suppose. But, I always believe the best of people.
I suppose that was why it took me a couple moments to process Charlene’s comment.
No Aunt Sadie?
I had a couple of reasons to believe this. Number one, it was coming from Charlene, and I knew that if anything, she was even more honest than me. Number two, why would Charlene want to/need to lie about a dead relative?
The night before, Eve and Charlene had met at Sarah’s apartment, and Eve shared our theory about Sarah’s death. Charlene wasn’t ready to buy into it wholesale, but unlike Tyler, she didn’t completely dismiss it, either. Even murder offered a tad more comfort than the thought of suicide, and she was willing to consider the possibility and grateful that Eve and I had the knowledge and experience to look into the matter. (On this point, I think Eve might have bent the truth herself a tad and made us sound a lot more capable than we really were.) But, like us, Charlene was anxious to find out the truth.
In my book, all this meant that Charlene’s word was golden. If she said there was no Aunt Sadie, I wasn’t going to shake the family tree to try to prove otherwise.
That left me with two options:
Redheaded Woman had concocted the Aunt Sadie story.
Or Redheaded Woman was on the up-and-up, and Sarah was the one who made up the fib about Aunt Sadie.
Just like I don’t lie, I don’t jump to conclusions. But the latter conclusion seemed pretty obvious. Call me crazy, but I didn’t think Redheaded Woman gave a damn. She had no reason to lie. That meant Sarah was our culprit.
“Why would Sarah tell someone you had an Aunt Sadie?” I asked Charlene. “She told her coworkers that’s where she got all her money. She’d inherited it.”
Charlene was not as attractive a woman as Sarah. She was short and stocky. Her mousy-brown hair was blunt cut, she didn’t wear any makeup, and her clothes, while neat, were even more basic than mine. I suppose it came with the territory—she wouldn’t have moved halfway around the world to teach people how to dig latrines if she was the type who worried about breaking a fingernail. I was grateful not to have to work past any pretensions and glad I didn’t have to explain myself. Charlene knew exactly what I was thinking.
“This is about all that stuff in Sarah’s apartment, isn’t it?” I
t had been a long and difficult morning, and Charlene scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’ve been wondering how Sarah could have afforded it all, too. But believe me, the money didn’t come from an inheritance. We don’t have that many relatives, and the ones we have sure don’t have any money. Why would Sarah make up a story like that? You think she was into something she shouldn’t have been messing with, don’t you?”
It was hard to deny the possibility, but I tried anyway. This was one conclusion I didn’t want to jump to until I had more proof. More than none, anyway.
“Maybe it was a man,” I suggested. This was an easier theory to swallow. “Could she have had a boyfriend who gave her all that expensive stuff?”
Charlene shrugged. “I’ve been in the Peace Corps for years,” she said. “I’ve lived all over the world. Sarah and I…well, it’s not like we didn’t like each other or like we didn’t write and call when we could. But it’s hard to get personal when you’ve got three minutes to catch up on six months’ worth of news. We only really saw each other once every couple years, and let’s face it, our worlds didn’t exactly overlap. Sarah worried about prestige, power, and designer clothing. Not exactly my thing. I’m ashamed to admit it, Annie, but I really didn’t know her that well. I can’t tell you about her personal life. The last guy she talked about was Dylan, but that was months ago, and according to Eve, they weren’t seeing each other anymore. Some of the stuff I found around the apartment was obviously brand-new. If somebody bought it for her, it wasn’t him.”
Before I had time to process all this, Eve came by, and Charlene latched onto her arm. “You two are doing an amazing thing,” she said, looking back and forth at Eve and me. “If it’s true that Sarah didn’t…” She cleared her throat. “If it’s possible that she was…” She coughed again. “Look, I hate to ask for more, but…” Charlene’s cheeks got pink.
“It’s OK.” Eve patted her arm. “Anything, Charlene. We’ll help.”
Charlene wiped away a tear. “You’re already doing so much. But, well…” She sniffed. “I have to leave. Tomorrow. I won’t have time to wrap everything up.” She glanced at Eve, her expression imploring. “If I could sign over my power of attorney, you know, just in case there are things that come up that need to be handled.”
“Of course.” Eve put a hand on her arm.
“And if you could just…” It was clear Charlene wasn’t used to asking for help. Her cheeks got red. “If you could clean out Sarah’s apartment, I can’t tell you how much I’d appreciate it. I picked up a couple little mementos when I was there last night, but there’s nothing else I want or need. If there’s anything that strikes your fancy, keep it. Donate what’s left to a woman’s shelter.”
“And Doc?”
Do I need to point out that the question came from Eve? Or that while she waited for Charlene’s answer, she held her breath?
“The dog?” It was obvious Charlene had not thought of this. She lifted one shoulder. “Maybe there’s somebody who will—”
“I’ll take him!” Like a kid in school, Eve raised her hand. “I promise I’ll take good care of him. I’ll walk him and feed him and love him and—”
“It’s OK.” Charlene laughed. “That would be great, Eve. I know you’ll be good to him. And it would really help me out.”
“Yes!” Like an Olympic gold medal winner, Eve punched one fist in the air. “Oh my gosh, he’s going to be so happy that he gets to stay. I’m going to call him now and tell him.”
Yes, Eve can be a little obtuse at times. But even she had her act together enough to realize Charlene and I were giving her blank stares.
Eve rolled her eyes. “No, I don’t think he’s going to answer the phone. But I can leave a message on my machine. He’ll hear it. He’s going to be thrilled.”
She raced into my office to use the phone.
In the meantime, some of the guests had started to leave, and Charlene hurried to the door to thank them for coming. Left to my own devices, I wondered who I should talk to next. The matter was settled for me when an elderly woman walked out the door, and Dylan Monroe came back inside.
“Dylan!” I stopped him before he could reach for the raincoat that was draped over the back of one of the bar chairs. “Hi. I’m—”
“A big fan. Yeah, I get the message. I’ve heard it about a million times before. You do realize this isn’t exactly the right time to ask for an autograph, don’t you?”
Dylan’s words were as cutting as the look he gave me. Startled, I stepped back. “I don’t want an autograph,” I said. “I’m Annie. Annie Capshaw. I was a friend of Sarah’s. Eve and I, we’re the ones who found her.”
Dylan’s handsome face went pale. He squeezed his eyes shut. Something told me that when he opened them again, he hoped that I’d be gone.
No such luck. Now that I had his attention, I wasn’t about to let him get away. Not until I had some answers.
“I’m sorry,” Dylan said when he saw that I hadn’t moved an inch. “Honest, I am. Now you know the truth. I can be an insensitive jerk.”
I wasn’t about to argue with that. Of course, telling Dylan as much wouldn’t have gotten me anywhere. Instead, I gave him a brief smile. “I just wanted to give you my condolences,” I said. “I understand that you and Sarah were dating.”
Dylan made a sour face. “Were being the operative word.” He plunked down on one of the barstools. “I’m sorry. Again,” he said, and he tried to prove it by pointing to the empty seat next to him. I shook my head, declining the offer. There was no use calling any more attention to what I was doing.
“I’m a little on edge,” Dylan admitted. “Attending the service this morning, then the burial…” A shiver snaked over his broad shoulders. “I feel awful about this whole thing.”
“About not dating Sarah anymore? Or about Sarah dying?”
“Both.” He ran a hand through his hair, and I wondered what magic TV news reporters had. When he was done, his hair looked as good as it had before he touched it. “If I knew she was going to take it this badly, I never would have dumped her. I just never thought…” He let out a shaky breath.
“I’ve been in Afghanistan,” he said. “Working on a major report. I’ve been gone for months, and I tried, I mean I really tried to keep in touch with Sarah. We e-mailed. We talked just about every day. But I knew what was happening. Every time we talked, I could tell. We were growing apart. We just didn’t have anything in common anymore.”
“But you came to her funeral.”
Like he didn’t understand it himself, he propped his elbows on the bar and steepled his fingers, tapping his index fingers on his chin. “I just got back yesterday. I heard the news and…Damn! It’s my fault. The world has lost a beautiful person. And it’s all my fault.”
It’s not like I didn’t believe him. I was, after all, the honest person who saw the good in everyone else. But I felt our conversation coming to an end. And I hadn’t found out anything useful. I knew I had to dig a little deeper. “You don’t really think she would take a breakup that hard, do you?” I asked Dylan. “After all—”
“What?” His macho image questioned, Dylan got to his feet and looked at me down his perfectly shaped nose. “Maybe you don’t understand because you’ve never been dumped, honey, but let me tell you—”
“Don’t bother!” A spurt of anger shot through me. No need to ask where it came from. This was Peter-induced fury, pure and simple. Even I was surprised that I was prepared to take it out on a perfect stranger. “Believe me, when it comes to breaking up, I’m an expert. My husband ran off with the girl from the dry cleaner’s. How’s that for real-life experience?”
“And when it happened, tell me you didn’t feel like ending your own life.”
The very idea shook me to the core. I glared into Dylan Monroe’s perfect brown eyes at the same time I looked into the depths of my own soul. “Never,” I told him and reminded myself. “I felt like hell, sure, but I never once thought suicide was t
he answer.”
“Then maybe you’re just a stronger person than Sarah.”
“Or maybe Sarah didn’t kill herself.”
I hadn’t meant to let the words slip, but like I said, I was angry. Once they were past my lips, there was nothing I could do but hold my ground and wait to gauge Dylan’s reaction.
I didn’t have to wait long. By the time he slipped on his coat, he was shaking his head. “Women,” he said. “You can’t accept the fact that you’re not as tough as men. You’re always looking for touchy-feely excuses to explain everything.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call murder touchy-feely.”
“And I wouldn’t call suicide murder just to make myself believe that my friend was a stronger person than she really was. That’s what it was, you know. Suicide. And as much as I hate to admit it, I know it was my fault. From what I’ve heard, everything else was going well in Sarah’s life. I was the only bump in the road, and our relationship was the only thing that had changed lately. Do the math. Oh, wait! Women aren’t good at math, either, are they? Then get over it and face the facts. Sarah killed herself. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
He didn’t wait for me to say I would or I wouldn’t. Dylan Monroe walked away. As soon as my temper had a chance to calm down, I thought about what he’d said.
Their relationship, he’d told me, was the only thing that had changed in Sarah’s life recently.
Except it wasn’t.
According to Redheaded Woman, Sarah’s work had suffered as of late. Big time. So much so that there was talk around the office of Sarah losing her job.
And according to what I’d seen in the apartment with my own two eyes, Sarah suddenly had a whole lot of money to spend, too.
Changes?
No doubt of that. My only question now was who would be willing to talk about them?
I didn’t have to wonder long. No sooner had I watched Dylan stomp out of the restaurant than I decided to look around for dishes and glasses that needed to be picked up. All set to do just that, I turned away from the bar—and ran smack into Senator Douglas Mercy.
Murder on the Menu Page 10