Read Between the Tines

by Susan Sleeman

I explained Daisy's problem and my desire to identify the men in question.

  Irene reacted with the same surprise as Mary had. "I know Daisy met with Gary a few times, but he never documented any harassment. The first thing Gary would have been trained to do in a harassment allegation was to complete a P1297. That's an incident report form we use. Then he'd give it to me. I'd log the form and file it in a pending file." She paused and rubbed her forehead with small circular motions. "So why didn't he follow protocol?"

  Hazel popped her head in the doorway. "Okay to interrupt?"

  I waved her in. "Sure."

  Sitting on her shoulder, Mr. T squawked, "Time to make the donuts."

  Irene turned an uncomfortable eye toward the bird, and Hazel caught the look. She went straight to Mr. T's nighttime cage and urged him to enter. "One small step for man, one giant step for mankind," he said and hopped onto his perch.

  Irene was still staring at him.

  "Don't mind him," I said. "He likes to repeat things he hears on TV. Sometimes what he says is right on target, other times it's just gibberish."

  "Resistance is futile," he said and turned his back to us in a flurry of feathers.

  "Are you done jabbering so I can give this to Paige?" Hazel asked the bird and handed me a zipped bank bag. "I've finished closing up. This just needs to go in the safe."

  "Thanks," I said and dropped it on the desk.

  She cocked a questioning brow at Irene who sat in a trance, and I mouthed, "Later."

  "Okay, then," she said. "If you don't need me for anything else, I'll be going."

  "See you tomorrow." I waited for Hazel to leave before turning my attention back to Irene. "Sorry about that."

  "You know." Her eyes came alive. "I've been thinking. Maybe Gary did record these men. I forgot that he went to Radio Shack on Thursday morning. He didn't say where he was going but came back with a Radio Shack bag. He wasn't the sort of guy to go shopping during work hours and it caught me by surprise. Do you think he bought recording equipment?"

  Yes! Yes! Yes! I resisted shooting up my fist in victory, looked at the photo on my cell and wondered how I would find this recording. If one of these men had killed Gary, I was out of my league. I no more had an idea how to proceed with investigating them in a safe manner than I had in how to get Adam to forgive me.

  Still, I couldn't let Irene know she was on the right track. She might do something stupid. I know, a bit like calling the kettle black, but I have more experience in solving murders than Irene.

  And to do that, I needed a confirmation on their names. Not that I didn't trust Mary, but I had to make sure she wasn't somehow in on this. I held up my phone again to bring Irene's attention back to the ogling men. "I don't know if Gary made any recordings or not, but if you'll give me the names of these guys, I'll look into it."

  She nodded and quickly started scribbling. She finished with a flourish and looked up. "I've listed them from right to left as the men are pictured."

  It was easy to see why she was an executive assistant. She was thorough, seemed organized, but more importantly, her hesitation in bringing Barney's file to me said she was an ethical woman.

  "There's one more thing I wanted to ask you about." I described the story Nathan told me about the Fatal Attraction woman stalking Gary in Texas.

  "Hah! That Nathan Jacobs makes me so mad. Why does he have to exaggerate everything?" She fisted her hands and snarled. "Gary wasn't being stalked. He had an affair with Cara Long, a VP at the Texas plant. When Gary met Karen he broke it off with Cara, and she made life tough for him at work. You know, the whole woman scorned thing. Instead of getting her in trouble, he asked for a transfer. That's the kind of guy Gary was. Even if Cara deserved to be reprimanded for her behavior, he made the change and didn't betray her."

  Happy finally to have this woman's name, I jotted Cara Long on my pad. "Any idea why Nathan would lie about this?"

  "Oh, I don't think he was lying per se, he just likes to create controversy. He's kind of a male drama queen." She rolled her eyes.

  I erased the picture forming in my head as fast as it appeared.

  "He was right about one thing, though. Gary did have to take a lower position for a while when he moved here, but he wanted to make a clean start with Karen."

  Or did he want to get Karen as far away from Cara as possible? "Do you know if Gary ever told Karen about this affair?"

  "I'm not certain, but I don't think he did. He didn't seem proud of the relationship with Cara."

  "Could Cara have wanted to get back at Gary? Maybe kill him?"

  "Hmm, that's a good question." She cut her eyes toward the ceiling and pondered before looking at me again. "I know she got married about a year ago."

  Married or not, she could still want him dead, and I needed to pursue this lead even if it was another dead end. I pointed at Irene's hands. "I'll take that now."

  "Oh, right," she said and gave me the paper.

  "I don't really have any other questions for you. I'm sure I'll come up with some once I've had a chance to think this over." I stood. "Mind if I call you if I do?"

  "Fine." She rose, hugging the folder tighter as if she thought I might wrestle it from her at the last minute. "You'll let me know if you figure anything out?"

  "I will." I pulled my business card from a holder on my desk "And you can call me if you think of anything else." I handed her the card, walked her to the front door and let her out before securing the deadbolt.

  I hurried back to the office to spend some time planning tomorrow's work session at the Buzzy house and organizing the supplies I'd need. And I'd have to find a helper to load that concrete if I was to finish the project in a reasonable time frame. Or maybe I should say if I wanted to finish the project and still have enough time to do a little snooping.

  I returned to my office and dialed Lisa on my speakerphone. "Are you working for Mitch tomorrow afternoon?"

  "Yeah, why?"

  I spun the knob on the safe and cranked it open. "I need help hauling concrete at the Buzzys' house."

  "Oh, but doesn't that sound like fun." She snorted. "Hey, wait. The Buzzys. Did Karen change her mind?"

  As I shoved the bank bag into the small safe, I told her about Karen leaving for Portland.

  "She probably shouldn't be making such major decisions so soon, but I can see her point in not wanting to stay somewhere that causes her discomfort."

  I swiveled back to my desk and spotted the list of names. "Speaking of discomfort, I found out the names of three of the men who harassed Daisy at Pacific." I rattled off the names.

  "Don't know a one of them. Used to be I knew everyone around here, but people come and go at the factory."

  Drat, I'd hoped she would know them. "I'm trying to decide how to proceed. I really don't have a clue how to find out if they killed Gary without coming right out and asking them."

  "Then don't do anything. It'd be one thing if they were locals and you knew them, but these guys could really be dangerous. I think you should turn the information over to Mitch."

  "Mitch! No way."

  "Yes, way." I heard a loud crash in the background. "Look, I gotta go. You come see Mitch in the morning, or I'll sic him on you." She didn't give me a chance to argue before disconnecting.

  I couldn't give in that easily, and she'd follow through on her threat and tell Mitch in the morning. I had twelve hours before that happened. How was I going to find out anything about these guys? I needed a source who knew everyone.

  Uma! I looked at the clock. 6:30. She usually started late and took appointments until seven for her clients who worked. I jumped to my feet, grabbed my cell along with the list of names and ran out of the building. If I hurried, I would catch her at the shop. Maybe she would fill in the missing pieces, and I'd finally know the identity of Gary's killer.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Uma, aqua blue eye shadow slashed across her lids in bold strokes obviously intended to match her brightly striped top
, chatted with a young male customer at the cash register. Well, chatted was a kind description for the outrageous flirting she engaged in.

  A quick nod was the only greeting I received, so I sat in a chair and waited for her to finish. The man, Lance or as Uma kept calling him, La-a-ance, appeared to be in his early twenties and looked decidedly uncomfortable. He repeatedly ran his hand over his freshly shorn head while inching toward the door. I was certain he would, if given the chance, drop to the ground, affect a runner's pose at the starting block and beat the starting bullet out of the door.

  Uma finally seemed to give up and said see you later. Lance rushed past me and didn’t take the time look at me.

  "Isn't he the cutest?" Uma charged after him and watched him climb onto his motorcycle. "I've been trying to get a date with him for the longest time, but he just doesn't seem to pick up on my hints."

  Hints? Uma had rolled out a treasure map with a big X marking her as available for a date. I wouldn't touch this topic with a ten foot, no, make that a hundred foot pole. The best option would be to ignore Lance and go straight to one of my reasons for being here.

  "I was hoping you would tell me when Olivia Jacobs was scheduled to see you again."

  Her penciled in brows rose toward the dyed hair. "What business is it of yours?"

  "Did you know her husband abuses her?"

  Uma's jaw dropped and she gawked at me as if I had two heads. I explained my meeting at the hospital and turned to show her my bruise.

  "I never would have imagined." She collapsed onto a chair. "She seemed like she had it all. Money, clothes, a man who worshipped her. Man, you just never know, do you?"

  "I want to help her get away from him. To do that I need to talk to her."

  "She has an appointment at nine thirty to have her hair done for the funeral." Uma's tone had lost all of her usual zest. Probably because her idol had just fallen off her pedestal.

  I would change the subject and move on so she could lament the loss in private. I clicked to the picture and held out my cell. "Do you know these guys?"

  At the word guys, her sour mood fell away and her eyes sparkled like the Hope Diamond. Or at least like she had the Hope Diamond in her sight. She jerked the phone from my hand and studied it. "No, definitely not. Trust me, if I'd met the cutie in the middle, I'd remember."

  I dug out the paper Irene had written their names on and traded it for my cell. "Here're their names. Recognize them?"

  Her eyes devoured the names, as if seeing them would remind her that she did know them. "Again, no." Her head popped up, and she shoved the paper at me. "Oh, I know what you're hinting at. You think these guys have something to do with Gary's death."

  "Maybe. I'm not sure."

  She slowly bent down, slipped off a shoe and rubbed the ball of her foot. When she looked back at me, her face held the superior glint it had lost when I'd told her about Olivia. "I thought you were on top of things, Paige. Guess you didn't hear the big news if you think these guys are guilty."

  "News? What news?"

  "Mitch arrested some guy about an hour ago. They're pretty sure he was the one who broke into the Buzzy house and your apartment."

  "Say, what?" I sat down hard. "Who?"

  "Stan Carson."

  "Stan Carson. I've never heard of him. You know anything about him?"

  "Nope and Ed—my source wouldn't tell me any more than that."

  So who was this Stan Carson? Was I barking up the wrong tree, here? Were the men staring at me from my cell not guilty? I was so sure one of the men who harassed Daisy had killed Gary. But Stan Carson's name wasn't on the list.

  I shot to my feet. "I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

  Out the door like The Flash, I pointed my speeding body toward the police station. I dialed Lisa on the cell still clutched in my hands.

  "Why didn't you tell me they arrested the person who broke into my apartment?"

  Sigh. Another sigh. "We've been through this, Paige. I'm not going to share what I hear at the station. And even if I did want to tell you about it, I wouldn't because you'd just go running off and do something crazy."

  How dare she? I would not run off and do something crazy. I slowed my pace to a brisk walk. "For your information, I'm on my way to tell Mitch what I know about the men who harassed Daisy."

  She coughed. "Right, sure you are. C'mon, Paige. Fess up. You might actually tell Mitch what you know, but your real purpose for the visit is to get information out of him."

  I was growing tired of her pegging me and pointing out my erratic behavior. "I'll talk to you later."

  To her knowing laugher, I clicked off and zoomed into the police station. Officer Riley, sitting behind the desk, looked up with an annoyed expression taking over his face. He was a classic yucca to me. If you approach a yucca the wrong way, sharp needle like leaves would poke your flesh and yuccas are stingy flowerers, sending up one shoot a year. And that was only after the plant had been in the ground for a few years.

  "What do you want?" he grumbled.

  See, like I said. Pokey and stingy. "I need to talk to Mitch. I have information about the Buzzy murder."

  He gave me a yeah-right look but punched the intercom button and spoke with Mitch. After a short conversation, he jerked his stiff neck to the rear. "He's in his office."

  I didn't wait for him to finish but charged down the hallway, pulling the paper out as I went.

  Mitch, worn and haggard looking, sat behind a pristine desk with a manila folder open before him. I rushed in.

  He closed the folder. "Riley says you have information for me."

  I slid the list of names across the desk and watched his face to see how he reacted.

  He gave it a cursory glance then leaned back in his chair. "Figured you'd get to these guys eventually."

  His haughty tone set my ire to firing, and I blurted out, "You gonna arrest them, too, since they were in cahoots with Stan Carson?"

  My taunt worked. Mitch's eyebrow rose in the finest imitation of Spock that I'd ever seen. He stared at me as if he was carrying the whole Spock thing to the next level and planned to use the mind meld on me.

  "Well?" I said to distract him before he could latch on and take control of my mind.

  "Who told you about Carson?"

  "I won't give up my source."

  "I guess I didn't even need to ask." He worked his jaw and clenched and unclenched his fists. "You have your own little stoolie working here."

  "Hah, shows what a good cop you are. It wasn't Lisa."

  His face reddened, and I waited for the top of his head to open and a gush of steam to shoot out like you often see in cartoons.

  I'd pushed too hard. I had to regroup. "I'm sorry, Mitch. I shouldn't have said that. You're a great cop. I'm just frustrated because you know something that might help me solve this murder, and you won't share."

  He studied me and his face cleared then threw back his head and laughed, long and boisterously. "You should see your expression. Remember when I got that Super Soaker for my tenth birthday. You wanted one so bad and saved your allowance to buy one, but your mom said young ladies didn't play with guns and she wouldn't let you get one. Yeah, well, you've got that same look on your face now."

  Oh and I felt that way. Here I was thirty-four, going on thirty-five, and I was acting like I had when we were ten. Worse yet was the fact that I recognized this and still wanted to knock that smug grin off his face. But that would get me nowhere. I'd tried force, now time to try honey. Slather it on thick and syrupy sweet.

  I forced a laugh. "Never did buy one, even after all these years."

  "Maybe you should have so you wouldn't be so tempted to play at being a cop now."

  I curled my fingers but kept on smiling. "Hey, I found Bud's killer before you. Never know. I might catch this one first, too."

  His eyes turned dark. "This one is different, Paige. Bud's murder was personal and my investigation says this case goes deeper than that. It has
too many layers for a novice to be involved in." He gave me a hard stare. "This killer isn't playing around. I need you to butt out of this now, before you get hurt. Seriously hurt, like dead."

  "So you know who the killer is?"

  He shook his head. "Not yet, but we will. Soon. I have a few puzzle pieces to snap into place first. Until that happens I want you to lay low."

  "Does it have something to do with Daisy's harassment?"

  He grinned. "I won't answer that, Paige and you know it." His face took on a fond expression. "Promise me that you'll let this go, and let me do my job. I can't have another victim on my watch."

  I returned his gaze, but kept mine neutral.

  "Please," he said. "Do it for me. For old times sake."

  Flashes of our playing together then hanging out as we got older and pulling innocent pranks popped into my mind. I had the same great memories of this guy as his expression said he had of me. But I couldn't look him in the eye and promise to stop. I would try for his sake, but I couldn't promise.

  "I'll be careful, Mitch." And I would try, but if the killer presented himself to me, I would go for broke.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After a long fitful night, I meandered toward the Crazy Curl, peeked into the window and confirmed Olivia's presence. I arrived at the end of the appointment and hoped to drag Olivia back to the shop for a cup of coffee. I eased through the door and watched the pair, chatting as if nothing had changed.

  Uma, wearing athletic shorts that had the waistband on the outside and barely covered real estate that I wouldn't want to show in public, backcombed Olivia's hair and hung on her colorful description of a tennis party that she and Nathan had attended last night.

  Olivia's animated face in the mirror belied her home abuse. How could she be so happy after her husband's beating? Maybe I was wrong. No, that's just what she wanted people to think. I knew the ugly truth and wouldn't let it drop.

  I waited and listened until Uma declared Olivia finished then joined them. "Good morning, ladies."

  Uma spun around, and her face lost some of its sheen. Our gazes connected, and she returned mine with a knowing look of approval. She patted Olivia's arm. "I'll just go ring this up."