Nickeled and Dimed to Death

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Nickeled and Dimed to Death Page 9

by Denise Swanson


  A year or so ago, after the Methodists put up a new church near the highway, they sold their old building to the current owners. I was eager to see how the interior had been renovated from a place of worship to an eatery. Apparently, so was everyone else in Shadow Bend, since the line for a table extended all the way out to the sidewalk.

  Surprisingly it didn’t take long for Poppy and me to make it inside the door. The smells of ginger, soy sauce, and other exotic aromas greeted us as soon as we stepped over the threshold. Ten minutes later, we were giving the hostess the number of our party.

  As usual, Noah had impeccable timing and showed up just as we were being seated. He greeted Poppy with a hug, but I moved casually out of his reach. He frowned, then the corners of his eyes crinkled and he took a step toward me, but the hostess, a stunning Asian woman in her early twenties, glided between us.

  She smoothed her gorgeous red silk cheongsam over her slim hips and said in a melodic soprano, “Dr. Underwood, I didn’t know you were the one joining these ladies, or I would have put them at your customary table.” She laid a delicate hand on his arm. “If you can wait a teeny tiny bit, I can move you and your party there.”

  The restaurant had been open for only six weeks and Noah already had a regular table? I arched my brow at him and he shrugged. Shaking my head, I once again realized that Noah had it all—money, good looks, social position. And that didn’t even take into account that he was the town’s beloved doctor.

  Noah patted the hostesses’ fingers. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience anyone, but if the back booth is available, that would be great.”

  “It’s no trouble at all, Doctor,” she assured him. “Follow me.”

  As we trailed her, Noah murmured into my ear, “I thought it would be better if we had some privacy, and the reason I like this table is that it’s a little apart from the others and behind a screen.”

  “That’s perfect.” I tried to keep the resentment out of my voice. “You’re right. It’s best if we aren’t overheard.” It wasn’t his fault that folks fawned over him or that his father hadn’t disgraced his family name. And, to be fair, I hadn’t ever seen him either ask for or abuse the privileges that people showered on him.

  Once Noah’s admirer had cleaned off the table, handed us menus, and reluctantly departed, the question of who would sit where arose. I quickly slid onto the bench on one side of the booth and dragged Poppy in after me. She rolled her eyes but didn’t comment. When the three of us were settled, we flipped open the large red leather folders.

  As with many Chinese restaurants, the menus were multipage. My mouth watered as I perused the many choices. It had been ages since I’d had Asian food—probably since I quit my job and bought the dime store—and I could hardly wait.

  Given that Noah was a regular at the restaurant, I asked him, “What do you recommend?” I was happy to try almost anything.

  “Kung pao chicken is my favorite, but the moo shu pork is a close second. I love the plum sauce.” He grinned. “I could order one and you could order the other and we could go halfsies.”

  “That sounds good to me,” I said, then looked at Poppy, whose face was still buried in the menu. “Unless you want to go thirdsies. Two entrées are probably enough for the three of us.”

  “Nope. I’m having ma po tofu.” She flipped closed the laminated pages and crossed her arms as if daring us to disagree. “And I’m not sharing. If there are leftovers, they’re going home with me.”

  “How about an order of pot stickers?” I asked, admiring my friend’s unabashed appreciation of food and that she never seemed to worry about her weight. Of course, she never seemed to gain any ounce, either, which might explain her indifference to the calories. “Would you be willing to share that?”

  “Okay.” She nodded grudgingly. “But I want hot and sour soup, too.”

  “Sold.” After we conveyed our orders to the server and poured the tea she brought us, I said to Noah, “So, tell us what you found out about Elise. Why were she and her husband getting a divorce?”

  “It took quite a few phone calls, but I finally found someone Elise had confided in.” Noah leaned back and stretched an arm across the back of the booth. “I was surprised there wasn’t any buzz around town, especially once I heard the story.”

  “Who did Elise tell?” I asked, curious as to whom she had trusted.

  “Vaughn Yager,” Noah answered. “He was only willing to tell me about it after I assured him we needed to know in order to catch Elise’s killer.”

  “That was very loyal of him,” Poppy commented.

  Vaughn had been a classmate of mine. His father had been the school custodian, and, like me, he’d been a victim of the other kids’ rejection and teasing. These days he was a different person. After making a fortune playing professional poker, he’d had his nose straightened and gotten a chin implant, then come back to town, bought a factory that was in bankruptcy, and turned it around. Now he was a successful, sought-after bachelor—a regular pillar of the community.

  “How did Elise become friendly with Vaughn?” I asked. “Was she originally from Shadow Bend?”

  “No. She moved here with her husband.” Noah consulted an index card he’d pulled from his pocket. “Elise and Vaughn met when the ad agency she worked for did a campaign for his factory.”

  “You know the definition of advertising, don’t you?” Poppy asked, then answered before either of us could respond. “It’s the science of freezing human intelligence long enough to get money from otherwise smart people.”

  “Very funny.” I shook my head. Poppy had a really twisted sense of humor. “So, Vaughn and Elise were friends. Was he the reason her marriage was ending?”

  “No, they just both liked to play bridge.” Noah tapped the index card on the tabletop. “Elise’s husband didn’t play and she needed a partner. Vaughn’s pa—”

  Poppy interrupted, “Forget the background stuff and get to the good part: the cause of the divorce.”

  “Elise caught her husband at a motel with their twenty-two-year-old pet sitter,” Noah answered. His expression was difficult to read.

  “The Cattlemen’s?” Poppy clarified, and when Noah nodded, she tsked. “How much of a moron is Colin Whitmore? If you’re going to screw the help, at least go to the hotel in the next town to do it.”

  “How did she catch him?” I asked, not well versed in tracking down cheating husbands or boyfriends. Although now that Jake was marshaling with his ex-wife, that might be a talent I should cultivate. That is, if he was still my boyfriend. A little detail that was currently unclear.

  “Lindsey Ingram, one of Elise’s coworkers, saw Colin’s car in the Cattlemen’s Motel when he should have been at work,” Noah explained.

  “How did Lindsey know it was Colin’s?” Poppy asked, then answered herself. “He’s got a vanity plate, doesn’t he? What does it say?”

  “CMP WZD,” Noah answered. “He’s the bank’s computer wizard. He started out there fourteen years ago as an intern and has stayed ever since. My mother mentioned that his boss says that Colin’s fingers are a blur when he’s at the keyboard. And that it’s truly miraculous what he can do with a PC.”

  “Interesting,” I mused, then felt a flash of sadness. Elise’s husband must have been there when my father worked at the bank. It could be awkward if I needed to talk to Colin. Would he see me as Dev Sinclair, successful business owner, or as Dev Sinclair, daughter of Kern Sinclair, embezzler and drunk driver?

  Poppy must have known what I was thinking, because she squeezed my hand and changed the subject. “Does Lindsey live in town, too?”

  “I’m not sure.” Noah paused while our soup was served; then when the waitress left, he continued. “The ad agency they both work for is in Kansas City, so she might live there. She was dropping off something for Elise, who was home sick that day with the flu.”

  “What did Elise do when her colleague told her about Colin being at the motel during working hours?” I
asked as I dipped my spoon into the rich soup.

  “She went to the motel, and when she caught Whitmore with his pants down, she Maced him and spray-painted a giant red A on the pet sitter’s bare chest.” Noah didn’t quite succeed in keeping his lips from turning up. “I can’t imagine how the poor woman got the paint off.”

  “How did Elise find out what room they were in, let alone get the door open?” I asked.

  “I bet she bribed the clerk for the number and the key,” Poppy guessed.

  “Right you are,” Noah confirmed. “Once I got the scoop from Vaughn about Elise catching her husband with another woman, I remembered that my receptionist’s cousin works the daytime shift at the Cattlemen’s and I went over to see him. It took a little persuasion, but—”

  “So who was this pet sitter?” Poppy interrupted again. “I’m thinking she might have held a grudge about having her boobs shellacked.”

  Noah leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Willow Macpherson, but no one, not even Vaughn, seems to know it was her.” He paused as the server put the platter of pot stickers on the table.

  Once the waitress was gone, Poppy squealed, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Nope,” Noah affirmed. “I have to admit, it surprised me, too.”

  “Willow Macpherson,” I repeated. “Where have I heard that name before?” It definitely sounded familiar. I put a dumpling on my plate, used my fork to break it in half, then chewed thoughtfully. Was she one of my basket customers, or had someone mentioned her to me at the store?

  Before I could dredge up the elusive memory, Poppy poked my shoulder and said around a mouthful of pot sticker, “Come on. Think. Her picture was on the front page of the newspaper a month or so ago. ‘Local girl makes good.’ There was a huge headline and a two-page story about her.”

  Now I remembered. “The young woman who got the big New York book deal.”

  Poppy nodded.

  “She graduated from college last summer, and when she couldn’t find a writing job, she started a blog that went viral,” I confirmed, then looked from Poppy to Noah, still puzzled as to why it was such a major to-do that she’d been caught committing adultery.

  “Do you know what her blog and upcoming book are about?” Poppy asked.

  “Not offhand.” I had only skimmed the newspaper article about her, and I hadn’t listened very closely to the customers’ talk at the dime store. I did recall that my high school helper, Hannah Freeman, had been extremely excited about the topic. The only thing I could think of was Willow’s occupation, so I guessed, “Pets?”

  “Nope,” Noah answered, as he helped himself to a pot sticker. “Chastity.”

  “Cher’s daughter? I mean, son?” I corrected myself. “Willow was blogging about being transgendered?” No, that couldn’t be it. As much as I would like to think that my fellow Shadow Benders would embrace diversity, I knew they wouldn’t have considered Willow changing sexes and publishing a book about it as a local girl making good.

  “Not Chaz Bono,” Poppy sneered. “The other kind of chastity. Abstention from all sexual intercourse.”

  “Seriously?” I held back a giggle. “She blogged about purity and was . . .”

  “Screwing a married man,” Poppy ended my sentence. “Yep, and that’s why it’s such a huge deal. Who’s going to want to read a book about purity written by a woman who was found in a motel boinking her brains out?” Poppy paused, then said, “I wonder if Elise took pictures. Maybe that was what her murderer was after. Without photographs, Willow has plausible deniability, since it doesn’t sound as if Elise blabbed all over town.”

  “That’s a very good question.” I dug through my purse until I found a pen, then made a note on the back of an old post office receipt. “Also, with Elise out of the way, Colin and Willow could get married, and that would certainly mitigate the whole situation if the story did get out. Willow could still claim she’d only had sex with one man, and that guy was now her husband. And it could be that she felt that Colin being a widower rather than a divorcé might somehow make the whole affair less tawdry.”

  “Maybe, but except for the three of us, it looks like only the motel clerk and the Whitmores knew that the woman Elise left her husband over was Willow,” Noah interjected. “So if she’s the killer, her motive was most likely to keep Elise quiet, not to marry Colin.”

  “So, if the motel clerk didn’t tell anyone when it happened, why did he suddenly decide to blab to you?” Poppy challenged Noah.

  When he didn’t answer right away, I prodded, “Why didn’t the clerk tell anyone about Willow? And, more to the point, why did he tell you?”

  “It seems that originally Willow had snuck into the motel,” Noah explained. “So the clerk didn’t know who was with Colin. But after Elise branded Willow with the paint, Willow ran out a back door stark naked, just as the clerk was taking a cigarette break by the Dumpster. When Willow realized that the clerk recognized her, she begged him for his T-shirt and his silence. She promised he could guest blog for her sometime if he kept her secret, and she would even acknowledge him in her book as someone who had helped her with it.”

  “But?” Poppy urged.

  “But the guy decided that cash in the hand trumped possible fame in the future,” Noah admitted. “You’d be surprised what a few crisp hundred-dollar bills will buy you.” He shrugged. “Actually, they probably don’t have to be all that crisp to work.”

  “Boone will pay you back,” I promised, thinking again how sweet Noah was being for helping out someone who wasn’t even a friend of his. “Thank you so much everything you’ve done for us today.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Noah shrugged off my thanks. “I meant it when I said I don’t think Boone is guilty, and I’d never want to see someone else in your life go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  I felt tears well up at Noah’s words. I never knew he thought my father was innocent. He had more faith in my dad than I did. In what other ways had I misjudged Noah?

  “Did you find out anything else about Elise or her husband?” Poppy asked, breaking the silence that had lengthened as Noah and I stared at each other. “Did either of them have any enemies?”

  “Not that anyone mentioned.” Noah pushed away his empty appetizer plate. “I did hear that she changed the locks on the house and got rid of all of her husband’s things.” Noah wiped his lips on his napkin. “Whitmore told anyone who would listen that she was selling or giving away stuff that had been in his family for years and was irreplaceable. He also said that he was going to sue whoever bought his belongings for receiving stolen property.”

  Yikes! If the chocolate molds Elise had sold me were Colin’s, I had to figure out a way to get them back to him without admitting that I’d ever had them. I so didn’t want to be named in a lawsuit. Too bad that would mean I had flushed eight hundred dollars down the toilet.

  “So Colin could have broken in to the house in order to try to grab some of his heirlooms before Elise had a chance to dispose of them, and when she discovered him, he killed her,” Poppy suggested. Then she pointed at me with her chopsticks and ordered, “Add him to your list.”

  While I wrote Colin’s name after Willow’s, the waitress brought three heaping dishes containing our main courses. We spooned the food onto our plates, and once Noah convinced us that he didn’t have any more information about Elise, Colin, or Willow, we turned the conversation to reminiscing about the good times we’d had together in high school.

  Half an hour later, Poppy pushed away her empty dish and said, “I need a potty break.”

  As soon as she left, Noah stood up, walked to my side of the table, and slid in next to me. Before I could react, he pressed his hard thigh to mine, and I had a sudden desire to crawl into his lap. Regaining my senses, I moved over and plopped my purse between us. His lips twitched and his expression said that I had won that round, but he was far from defeated.

  He handed me my scarf and said, “You left this
in my car last night.”

  “Thanks. I didn’t even miss it.” I tucked the silky rectangle in my pocket.

  “You’re welcome.” Casually, he plucked a morsel of chicken from my dish, and before popping it into his mouth asked, “Was the lawyer able to get Boone released on bail?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Tryg said that when someone is arrested, they can be held for twenty-four hours without a case being filed against them. And the twenty-four hours doesn’t start until the actual arrest is made, not when the person was first taken into custody.” I made a face. “Unfortunately, Boone wasn’t formally arrested until right before Poppy and I saw him being led to a jail cell last night. Which means that he can be held until one a.m. Monday morning before they have to give him a chance at bail.”

  “How does the whole bail thing work?” Noah asked. “Is there a preset amount depending on the crime you’re charged with, or does it have more to do with how likely you are to flee the country?”

  “Tryg said that Boone has to go to court for an arraignment hearing,” I reported. “It’s entirely up to the judge whether bail is granted, and if it is granted, how much it costs.”

  “So, Boone has two chances of getting out of jail,” Noah said.

  “Yes.” I ticked them off on my fingers. “One, bail is set and in an amount he can afford.” I felt my throat close with either hope or fear.

  Noah handed me my glass and urged softly, “Have a drink of water.”

  “Thanks.” I took a sip, then continued. “Or two, which is our best hope, that since there’s no real evidence against Boone except his presence at the scene of the crime, the prosecutor will choose not to file. Instead he or she will decide to wait for the police to investigate further before bringing charges against him, and Boone won’t have to go through an arraignment or face a judge.”

  “That’s what will happen,” Poppy declared, as she returned and took a seat on the opposite bench. “Once someone other than my father looks over the police report and sees the lack of evidence, they’ll see how stupid it was for the cops to have arrested Boone in the first place.”

 

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