by Неизвестный
“Do you mean the dung beetle? That was pretty cute for a bug rolling around a ball of poo.”
She closed the bathroom door with a bang. She hadn’t appreciated my compliment of her broach the night of my father’s party, either. The ancient Egyptians, who’d revered the dung beetle as a symbol of rebirth, must have had a better sense of humor than Pam.
“I’ll keep an eye out for your scarab,” I promised.
Through the door, she said, “Gather up your things from the spare room before you go.”
“Am I being kicked out as a houseguest?”
“I don’t want you here,” she said. “I mean, I don’t need you here. I’m quite capable of looking after myself, and I’d rather have my space, thank you.”
I shook my clenched fists at the closed door. You get out! This is my house, I wanted to say but didn’t.
I finished getting ready for the day, making some toast for a quick breakfast and then gathering up my things from the spare room. On my way out, I wished her a good day through the bathroom door. She didn’t respond, but I could practically feel her seething through the door.
It took me another five minutes to get away because Jeffrey had arranged himself to be irresistible. He lay on his back, in the crack between two sofa cushions, tempting me with the cuteness of his belly. In a low voice, I told him how much I’d miss him when he moved out. He twisted and stretched, luring me into his pet-my-tummy trap before grasping my wrist and gnawing my thumb.
I extricated myself without a scratch and was on my way.
Outside, the chilly winter air was bracing.
I paused on the porch to zip up my jacket and noticed movement next door, at Mr. Michaels’ house. A man with dark hair was standing on the lawn where the snowman had been, taking a picture of the house. The man had a beard and looked familiar, but it wasn’t my new tenant or anyone whose name came to mind.
I called over a hello.
The man looked over at me and then turned and started walking away briskly.
Was this the bearded man Pam had reportedly seen in the neighborhood weeks earlier? What was he up to?
I pulled my phone from my purse, set it to take photos, and started following the guy.
Chapter 36
I followed the bearded man to the end of the block and around the corner. I stayed a safe distance back, pretending to be reading something on my phone, but my fine detective work was wasted. He didn’t even glance back over his shoulder, let alone notice me taking pictures as he got into a car and drove away.
As I walked back to my own car, I called Officer Tony Milano and gave him a full report.
“Slow down,” Tony said. “You’re getting yourself all worked up, just like you did over the girl who calls herself Harper. I talked to her this morning, and you’re lucky she’s not pressing charges against you for assaulting her.”
“She’s mad at me?” I asked. “Over the laundry detergent?”
“Not exactly,” he answered cagily. “But I saw the bruising on her forearm, and she told me what happened last night.”
I groaned. “That was a misunderstanding. She had a scary hammer. Plus the lighting in that laundry room was super creepy, like the kill room in a serial killer movie. You would have been jumpy, too.”
“Good to know,” he said sarcastically. “I’ll make a note here in the file. Creepy lighting. Yes, this is very damning. Thanks for calling it in. Oh, and I’ll get right on running the license plate for this new suspect, the one who very suspiciously took a photo of a house.”
I told Tony what I thought of his sarcasm and his casual dismissal of my help.
The call did not end well.
After he had hung up on me, I jumped into my car and drove around the neighborhood. I searched for the bearded man and his car, but he was long gone.
I considered calling in my license plate tip again, this time to Officer Wiggles, but I needed a moment to get my temper under control.
Coffee. I wanted coffee. Pam’s brew had been weak, and I needed the real stuff. I drove to House of Bean.
My least favorite House of Bean employee was working. Chad took one look at me and prepared for combat. He turned to me, chest thrust out, shoulders squared, smug face begging to be punched.
“Good morning,” he sang.
“And a good morning to you,” I said evenly. “I’ll have the third item on the menu, please.”
He gave me a ferociously happy smile. “Do you mean the Teenie Weenie Beanie Steamer?”
“If that’s the third item on the menu, then I suppose I do.” I pointed to the stack of large cups. “This size.”
Chad’s nostrils flared big enough for flames to shoot out. “Mountain size,” he said.
“Sure,” I said with a deliberate shrug. “I’m easy. That sounds great.”
I paid for my coffee and put a generous tip in the cafe’s tip jar. This generosity was met with suspicion, just as I’d anticipated.
I took my vanilla latte to a corner table and enjoyed it along with a copy of the Misty Falls Mirror, which I read from cover to cover. Their coverage of the Murray Michaels case included a two-paragraph obituary and a statement from the police asking citizens to come forward with information. I called the phone number listed and asked to remain anonymous. I passed along the description of the bearded man I’d seen at the house, along with his vehicle make and plate number. Tony hadn’t taken me seriously, but perhaps someone else would.
Feeling the satisfaction of one task completed, I tipped back the last of my coffee, checked the contents of my purse, and continued on my way. I would visit Leo Jenkins at Masquerade and return his stolen cufflinks. Then I would get out of the costume shop as fast as I could, before Creepy Jeepers got grateful enough to hug me with his spider arms.
Chapter 37
On my way to Masquerade, I stopped at my reflection in Ruby’s big mirror on the corner. I ruffled up my spiky hair and smiled. I liked how I looked with the postcard-pretty view of the small town and mountains behind me.
Was Ruby was sitting on the other side with a cup of tea? I waved, in case she was.
I turned away, walked down the street, and entered the costume shop with a bounce in my step.
Leo Jenkins, who was standing on the platform for the window display, greeted me with a dismayed look on his face and a decapitated foam snowman in his arms.
“Now you’ve done it,” I said jokingly.
He sighed. “Busted.”
“You’ve killed that snowman,” I said.
“He was asking for it,” Jenkins replied, rotating the snowman’s face so it looked right at me.
I laughed. “You’ll have to kill me next. You can’t go around leaving witnesses.”
“But I’m so busy this afternoon. I have to change this window display myself and then get to the bank for coins.” He gave me a thin-lipped grin. “This will be our little secret.”
“Sure.” I stepped back and let him by with the foam snowman, which he placed in a cardboard box that advertised its contents as DAPPER SNOWMAN.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to apologize for the other night. I’m so sorry if I gave you a scare. Breaking and entering is just about the craziest thing I’ve done in my whole life, and I feel dreadful about, well, everything.”
“People make mistakes,” I said. “Those cufflinks must have meant a lot to you.”
He continued loading the snowman into the box, avoiding eye contact. He’d gotten his glasses fixed, but he still bore a small red cut on his angular cheekbone, where he’d gotten injured during the arrest.
I pulled the cufflinks from my purse and held them out. “Here you go,” I said. “I happened to come across these at a pawn shop, and I wanted to get them back to their rightful owner.”
He frowned at the cufflinks, his thin face look practically skeletal.
“You can toss those on the counter,” he said without so much as touching them. He continued his w
ork in the window display, rolling up the white felt carpeting.
I walked over to the cash register and set the cufflinks down with a clink. Was he too ashamed about the break-in to let on he was happy to get the cufflinks back, or did he genuinely not care? Had the cufflinks been a cover story for the police?
Stalling for time, I pretended to be interested in the circular display of masquerade masks.
Mr. Jenkins continued changing the window, pulling snowflake decals off the glass with his long fingers.
Something was definitely odd about the man. He’d been released by the police after providing an alibi for the entire window of time during which Mr. Michaels must have been killed, but wasn’t that, in itself, odd? Was there even another person in the entire town who had an alibi for that exact same period?
I grabbed my phone and set it to record a memo. I used the memo function often, to take down worries that hit me while I was driving or falling asleep. Our voices would be muffled by my purse, but if the costume shop owner said something damning, I could pass it along to the police. Tony couldn’t ignore my help forever.
“I set your cufflinks by the cash register,” I said. My voice sounded squeaky, compressed by the tightness in my throat.
He didn’t even glance up. “Thanks for doing that. I wish you wouldn’t have.”
“Oh? Why?” I edged my way around the shop’s displays so I had a clear escape route to the door.
He didn’t answer my question, so I pressed on. “Why shouldn’t I have gotten your cufflinks back? Didn’t you want them?”
He answered, “They’re not worth much.”
“But you wanted them, didn’t you? Why else would you break into Mr. Michaels’ house?”
He turned his body so his back was to me, and I couldn’t even see the edge of his face to gauge his expression. He slumped over and groaned.
I took two more steps toward the door. “You can tell me,” I said.
Softly, barely loud enough for me to hear, he said, “No. I can’t tell anyone. It’s too disgusting.”
My skin prickled, and the urge to run for the door became almost unbearable. But I had to stay calm, stay present. I’d been in stressful situations before, on the brink of losing huge financial deals, and I knew that the secret to success was pressing on beyond the point where most normal people would give up.
Just a little further. Just another nudge.
I took a risk and bluffed, “I saw what you were doing inside his house. I already know everything. Why don’t you let it all out? Tell someone. You’ll feel better.”
“Okay,” he said softly. “Please don’t tell anyone else.”
I casually tugged my purse open wider. I wouldn’t tell anyone, but I would certainly share the recording. With the police.
“Start at the beginning,” I said.
He reached for something on the platform next to him. A box cutter. My heart pounded. I could make it to the door in five steps, but he had such long legs, he could make it there in three. I held still, ready to bolt if he so much as twitched in my direction.
“The weight loss started in the summer,” he said. “I didn’t mind because it was swimming season. My wife actually admired me and said I was looking younger.”
“Okay,” I said, waiting to hear what this had to do with killing Mr. Michaels.
“By the fall, though, I kept losing weight, and I finally went in to see my doctor. They ran all the tests, so many tests, but there wasn’t much they could do. I must have had a bad reaction to some medicine I took earlier this year for an ear infection. They said it could take years for my digestive system to recover, but there was an experimental treatment.”
“How experimental?” While I listened, I kept a lookout for people entering the shop. I hoped someone would come in but not before I got a full confession.
“I had to fly to a special clinic,” he said. “It was very expensive, not covered by insurance, and when I got there, I’m ashamed to say that I couldn’t do the treatment. I stayed in the hotel the whole time and then flew back home. I told everyone I was feeling better, but I wasn’t. I kept losing weight. So, I had to pay for the trip a second time, and off I went. The second time, I managed to go through with it.”
“And… did Mr. Michaels know about this? Is that why you had to silence him?”
Jenkins straightened up and slowly turned to face me. He blinked, looking sad and confused. I almost felt sorry for him but not sorry enough to stop my phone from recording his confession.
“Murray didn’t know,” Jenkins said. “Nobody knew.”
“So, you broke into a crime scene to retrieve some cufflinks you don’t even care about?”
Jenkins deflated, looking skinnier than a popped balloon.
“I was searching for my wedding band,” he said. “It slipped off my finger the day I banned Murray from the store. I was sure he’d taken it, but I didn’t want to cause a scene on the sidewalk in front of the store. I thought I could reason with him eventually, but then I was out of town for a spell, and he never came around again.”
“But you didn’t tell the police about your ring. You told them you were looking for cufflinks.”
His face went pale. “A good man doesn’t take off his wedding band unless he’s up to no good. I didn’t want them to think I’d left my ring behind on a previous visit to the man’s house. Now, I’ve got no problem with people who are gay, and I stay out of other people’s business, but I couldn’t bear to have everyone thinking something that wasn’t true.”
“Right,” I said, the picture coming into focus. “Was Murray gay?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But if word got out that my wedding band was in his possession, I guarantee you wouldn’t be the last person to ask me that question.”
“I understand,” I said, and I did. A wedding band conveyed more than other types of jewelry. Whatever testimony Jenkins gave the police was supposed to be private and confidential, but the fact that I, an ordinary citizen, knew about his cufflinks story was evidence to the contrary.
He continued, “At least my treatment worked. I’ve gained a pound already. You must not tell anyone, though.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But why is it such a secret if you’re feeling better?”
He gave me a look of annoyance. “I guess the whole town’s going to know eventually, so I might as well tell you. After being suspected of murder and arrested for burglary, my reputation can’t exactly get worse. People still need their tuxedos. They’ll have to come here and rent them from the poo-poo eater.”
I staggered back. “Pardon me?”
He rubbed his forehead with one long-fingered hand as he explained the procedure. The treatment for his digestive problem involved him ingesting live bacteria cultures, harvested from living donors. Apparently, waste was taken from healthy subjects and then processed in a manner that, upon hearing it described, made me question if I could ever use a blender again.
The funny thing was, even though he’d seemed so horrified about the treatment, the more he talked about it, the more animated he became. Almost proud.
I had only myself to blame. I had, after all, encouraged him to open up and talk about it to someone.
He kept talking, waving for me to follow him around the store as he tidied the display and gathered new materials. I lost track of how many times he used words that should never be uttered during normal retail interactions.
Finally, when I thought I was going to have to fake a medical emergency to get out of there, the door opened.
He walked over to greet the customers, who were the same mother and daughters I’d seen in the store four days earlier. The group of them blocked the exit. I stood near the counter and bided my time, studying the dimly-lit corkboard on the back wall as I waited for my chance to escape. Jenkins and the mother talked about the town’s recent homicide and how it was so troubling the police hadn’t made their arrest yet. The woman cited the statistic that most murders are
solved within forty-eight hours, or never. Her daughters made faces at each other, and the older one distracted the younger one by trying on an assortment of sparkling hats.
The door jingled again, and a man with the beginning of a snowy white beard came in to ask about Santa Claus suit rentals.
Jenkins responded, “Mr. Lake, you know I always have one reserved for you!”
The door opened again, and a couple came in with a sandy brown dog with soft-looking curly fur. They asked if it was okay to bring in Stanley, who had separation anxiety and would cry if left on the sidewalk. Leo Jenkins assured them it would be fine, and the two girls cooed over the Labradoodle while the adults continued to gossip, speculating about possible motivations for the recent murder.
Ten minutes later, I moved out of the way to let the jolly-looking man arrange his costume rental.
I gave Leo Jenkins a friendly wave and practically ran out of the shop.
Breathless with excitement, I marched up the sidewalk.
I knew who killed Murray Michaels.
Now I just needed proof.
Chapter 38
Armed with two dozen miniature cupcakes, I pulled open the spotless glass door for Ruby’s Treasure Trove and went inside. Hayley, the young girl cleaning the display cases, looked exhausted.
“Hello,” she said with a sigh. “May I help you with anything?” I looked into her pale blue eyes and saw the family resemblance to her half-sister, Harper.
“Is Ruby in today?” I opened the bakery box and set it on the counter between us. “We can’t eat all these cupcakes by ourselves.”
She hesitated, but I urged her to help herself to at least two, if not more.
“You need the calories,” I said. “Ruby’s been working you to the bone, hasn’t she?”
“Nonsense,” said Ruby, who’d just emerged from the back room. “I’m no more ruthless as a boss than anyone else in town, including you.”