Angel Angst

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Angel Angst Page 11

by Abby L. Vandiver


  “Why not?” Sunny said. She took a napkin from out of a small stack on the counter and pulled the pen out of her pocket. She jotted down her phone number and pushed it toward him.

  He picked it up and looked at it. “Cool,” he said and smiled. He put it in his shirt pocket and patted it. “So let me grab my jacket,” Chet said.

  He went off to the back and went behind a swing door. He stepped back out a moment later and stood by the door. “You ready,” he called over to her. “We’re going out this way.” He pointed to the area where Ian had emerged from earlier.

  “Oh. Okay.” Sunny said. She put her satchel over her shoulder and met him at the door. “You lead the way.”

  He pushed open the door and a whoosh of warm air pushed up against the two. Then Sunny felt it as it enveloped her and seemed to tug her.

  “It’s not bad out,” he frowned at Sunny. “Thought you said it was cold out? I could have left my jacket inside.”

  “It was. It is,” she said and looked at him. “I think that might just be my guardian angel.” She waved her hand. “I’m sure he doesn’t want anything.”

  Chet laughed. “Did you just say guardian angel?”

  “Never mind,” she said and smiled.

  The two walked down the narrow alley to the intersecting street where Sunny had parked her car.

  Sunny walked over to her silk blue metallic VW Beetle and beeped the door lock.

  “Is this your car?” Chet stopped walking.

  “Yep.”

  He dug his hands down in his pocket. “Cute car,” he said. “You don’t see many cars this color.”

  “Thanks. Yeah it’s different. And I don’t know what I was thinking about getting a convertible. It isn’t very useful half the time.”

  “Yeah. I guess it wouldn’t be, especially on a night like tonight.” Chet looked up at the sky. “Okay. I better make my way back.”

  “You want a ride?” Sunny asked. “I’m going to drive around to the front and pick up Divit.”

  “No. That’s okay,” he said. He smacked his hands together. “I gotta put the boxes in the dumpster. I left them by the back door. Plus, with the traffic light at that corner there,” he pointed. “You’ll probably take longer to drive around than I will to walk back.”

  “Okay,” Sunny said and glanced up the street. “You’re probably right.”

  “So. I’ll be talking to you,” he said and nodded.

  “Okay. Sounds good.” Sunny climbed into her car with a smile on her face and turned the ignition.

  The radio popped on and Sunny heard the disc jockey say, “The lyrics for our contest were, ‘I will never let you fall. I'll stand up with you forever. I'll be there for you through it all. Even if saving you sends me to heaven.’ And if you guessed the lyrics were from the song, Your Guardian Angel by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, you are a winner!”

  Sunny shook her head “Goodness! How do you keep coming on?” she muttered. “All of these angel songs.” She reached over and turned off the radio.

  Sunny flicked on her blinker, made a U-turn, and just as she neared the corner, the light turned red.

  Chapter Twenty

  Divit hopped in the car, a handful of flyers still in his hand, he placed them in his lap and fastened the seatbelt. The crowd had died down considerably and the blockades used to section off the street had been removed. Sunny had no problem pulling up near the front of the pub.

  “I mean what kind of luck is that?” Divit said. “Me knowing someone that lives in the same building that Fleming Bennet lived in.”

  “Pretty coincidental,” Sunny said. “I didn’t know you had friends.” She glanced over at the pub before she left, hoping to get another look at the bartender, but he wasn’t anywhere in sight. She pulled off from the curb and put on her blinker to turn the corner. She knew exactly where Fleming Bennett had lived.

  “I do have friends,” Divit said. “You’re the one with no friends.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right,” Sunny said. “But I may have made one tonight.”

  “Who?” Divit asked. “And don’t tell me that guy you were talking to that works at An Cladach.”

  “You mean who I was talking to when you came in acting all strange?”

  “I didn’t want to say anything in front of him. Especially that we were going over to the dead girl’s apartment. That would’ve been strange.”

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Sunny said. “We can’t let people know we were lying about the reason we were there.”

  “We really didn’t lie,” Divit said. “You really did get pictures and I spoke to a number of people.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course I did. What kind of priest would I be if I saw people in pain and didn’t try to help?”

  “I guess that’s right.” She turned, smiled at her friend and punched him in the arm. “Good for you, Divit. But did it get us any closer to knowing who the killer is?”

  “Maybe not to the killer, but to finding out what kind of person Fleming Bennett was. Other than what we found out on the Internet.”

  “That she loved social media?”

  “Yeah. Other than that,” Divit said.

  “Finding out more about her could help us find out the murder.”

  “I think so,” Divit said. “My friend, the one I saw tonight, he knew her somewhat. He said he talked to her before in the laundry room, and stuff, you know. He’d seen her around the building. The usual. That’s why he was at the memorial.”

  “What’s the reason you told him you were at the memorial? How well does he know you?”

  “I told him I was a grief counselor,” Divit looked at Sunny. “I haven’t seen him in a long time. Like I said, we played little league together when we were young, and I did tell him I just graduated from seminary schoo.”

  “Oh yeah, little league. Isn’t that when you were the star pitcher?” Sunny asked. She’d heard the stories from Divit from the time she’d met, him, and his family had been full of them at the graduation dinner.

  “Yeah,” Divit grinned. “So, I haven’t seen him in a while, but I trust him to help us.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Michael Sullivan.”

  “So where is he? I thought he was riding with us.”

  “No,” Divit said. “We’re going to meet him over there. At the building. He’ll show us Fleming’s apartment.”

  “He can get into her apartment?”

  “No,” Divit said. “Just where it is. Maybe it’s got that yellow police tape up across the door.” He rubbed his hands together. “You could get a picture of that.”

  “Oh my,” Sunny said and glanced at Divit. “You are really into this. Are we doing this to clear my name or to placate your newly discovered moroseness?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Anyway,” Sunny said not bothering to further explain. “There probably won’t be any of that police tape up because the crime didn’t happen there.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” Divit turned and looked out of the window.

  Sunny laughed. “You seem disappointed. Maybe you missed your calling.” She looked over at him. “Maybe you should have been a PI.”

  “Yeah definitely a private detective,” Divit said. “The Sleuthing Priest. It has a nice ring to it, huh?” Sunny rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” he continued. “Because I’d never want to work on the police force.”

  “My grandfather loved it,” Sunny said. “Said he wouldn’t have ever wanted to do anything different.”

  “Well what would your grandfather have done in this case? How would he go about solving it?”

  “I’ve been wondering that,” Sunny said. “He would always say to follow the leads.”

  “What are our leads so far?” Divit asked. He was unsure that they had actually found out anything.

  “Well for one,” Sunny said. “Chet said that Ian and Naomi may have been having the vigil at the pub because they f
elt guilty.”

  “Who is Chet?” Divit raised an eyebrow.

  “The bartender.”

  “Why do you know the bartender’s name?”

  “Because he told me,” Sunny said. “You wanna let’s get back to listing our leads?”

  “Hey, I was just wondering,” Divit said. “So why does he think that they felt bad?”

  “I don’t know, but when I asked him why he said it, he claimed he hadn’t ever said that.”

  “Interesting,” Divit said.

  “I thought that was something how quickly, and easily Ian got mad.” Sunny glanced over at Divit. “

  “Yeah he did, didn’t he?” Divit nodded “I was wondering about that too,” he said. “That was very suspicious.”

  “But,” Sunny said and put up a finger, “he could have been upset because we were questioning him. I mean, strangers coming into someone’s place of business with a barrage of questions can put a person on the defense.”

  “We didn’t ask a barrage of questions. And he just jumped to mad for no reason.”

  “Anything else?” Divit asked.

  “Not that I can think of,” Sunny said.

  “Maybe we’ll get more,” he said. “My friend in the building might be able to introduce us to people who knew her.” He shrugged. “I’m sure the police have checked where she lived for clues already, so it won’t be like we’re getting in the way of their investigation if we ask a few questions.”

  “We can’t go around knocking on people’s doors, Divit.” Sunny put on her blinker to turn the corner. “It’s late and what would we say? Speaking of which, I hope you thought of some better questions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know exactly what I mean. We just talked about this at the vigil. We have to do things – ask the kind of questions – that will tell us who killed her. Clues. I guess.”

  “Like what?” Divit asked.

  “I don’t know.” She thought about it for a minute. “Okay, she said and shifted in her seat. “We talked to three people tonight that knew Fleming personally.”

  “Right.” Divit nodded, then frowned. “Who were the three people?”

  “The owner. The bartender. The sister.”

  “Okay. But the bartender said he really didn’t know her,” Divit said.

  “Right,” Sunny said. “So we can cross him off our list. You don’t kill a person you barely know.”

  “Okay,” Divit said.

  “Okay, so then what about Ian. Do you think he could have killed Fleming?” Sunny asked.

  “The question is do you think he could have killed Fleming?”

  “Why would I think that he killed her? How would I know?”

  “Because you’ve seen the killer.”

  “I told you the shooter’s face was covered.”

  “Yeah, but look at the guy he had to be about six-two, six-three. He was on the slimmer side.”

  “Okay. So?” Sunny said.

  “And, you might not have seen the face, but you saw the rest of the shooter, right?” Sunny nodded. “So, does he fit what you saw? Was he too tall? Too slim?”

  “Oh, I see,” Sunny said. “Okay. I don’t know. Let me think.” She bit her bottom lip and tilted her head. “When they were standing up in that doorway, they seemed to be about even height.” Sunny spoke confidently.”

  “Did the other person have on heels?” Divit asked.

  “No. They didn’t. So that means the other person had to have been taller than her.” Sunny looked over at Divit. “But how tall was Fleming?”

  “So that’s something we could ask my friend. Maybe he’ll know.”

  “Okay, so unless Fleming was really short, I’d think we’d have to rule out March,” Sunny said.

  “I don’t think we should rule out anyone yet.”

  “Not even her sister?”

  “Sisters kill, too,” Divit said assuredly.

  Sunny shook her head. “You’ve gone full on Hercule Poirot.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Fleming Bennett’s apartment building was a four-story, brownstone walk-up. The inside had been newly renovated, the top half of the walls were a daisy yellow, a chair rail divided it with the bottom painted a bright white. Modern-styled sconces lit up the hallways, and the floors were covered in a soft gray padded carpet.

  Fleming had lived on the third floor, but Sunny and Divit had to make a stop on the second to find Michael Sullivan, Divit’s friend.

  Michael pulled the door open, pushing up his glasses and keeping a finger placed on the bridge, he looked up and down the hall way. “Come on in,” he said in a low voice.

  His precautions made Sunny look around. “Is there someone out here?” she asked.

  “No. No.” He shook his head. “But you never know who’s lurking around.”

  “Do people lurk around?” Sunny asked.

  He hunched his shoulders.

  “Michael, this is Sunny,” Divit said after they stepped inside.

  Michael looked older than Divit and that was probably due to his scraggly beard, it was blonde and wiry, just like he was. He wore glasses, and his clothes seemed too small for him. He wore scruffy lace up shoes on his long feet.

  “Glad you could make it, Divit,” Michael said patting him on his back. “This is all very exciting, just like the year we won the championship. You remember that? You were the best pitcher in the league.” He looked at Sunny. “We all thought Divit would go to the major leagues when we grew up. He was so good.”

  “You weren’t so bad yourself,” Divit said. “Catching that fly ball.”

  “You remember that?” Michael snickered. “Wow! I did do that.”

  “Yep. I do remember,” Divit said.

  “Yeah, well this is just as exciting, you trying to clear your friend’s name.” He pulled off his glasses, checking them for smudges, then put them back on and looked at Sunny. “They’ve got you pegged as a murderer, huh?” He seemed to enjoy the idea.

  Sunny’s eyes got big. “No they don’t!” She turned to Divit. “You told him about what happened to me?” she screeched. “That we were trying to clear my name?”

  “Well,” Divit said sheepishly. “We kind of are.”

  “What about if he’s the killer?” Sunny’s whisper was strained. “You just gave away our hand.”

  Michael let out a snort of a laugh.

  Sunny and Divit turned to look at him.

  “We don’t have a hand,” Divit said turning back to Sunny.

  “No we don’t. Not anymore. But you can’t go around telling people we’re looking for the murderer because we might just be talking to the murderer.”

  “We don’t have a hand, Michael,” Divit said and looked at him. “And we don’t think you’re the murderer.”

  “It’s quite alright,” Michael said. “I don’t mind. Have a seat. Let me tell you all I know about Fleming.”

  “Okay. That sounds like a good idea,” Divit said. “After all that’s what we’re here for.”

  “Sit there,” Michael said and gestured toward an outdated, and worn out sofa.

  “I’ll stand,” Sunny said, not wanting to be impolite, she let a faint smile escape. She put one arm through the camera strap around her neck, and leaned against the wall.

  “Suit yourself,” Michael said. “Okay, Divit. Shall we get started?”

  “So first question,” Divit said rubbing his hands together. “We just thought of it while we were driving over.”

  “What is it?” Michael asked.

  “How tall was Fleming?” Divit asked.

  “Oh she was about average height without those heels of hers. But she was always wearing them.”

  “How tall?” Sunny asked the question again.

  “Five-four. Five-five at the most. That’s why I don’t think she would’ve ever been that model you told me she was aspiring to. Those girls are all six feet tall.”

  “Divit! Did you tell him everything we found of o
ut about her?” Sunny asked.

  “Maybe not everything,” Divit said.

  “From what Divit told me, you haven’t really come up with much,” Michael said.

  “That’s true,” Sunny said. “But one thing we know is that if she was that short, those five-inch heels wouldn’t have made her tall enough to cover Ian’s face. We can scratch his name off the list.” Sunny shifted her position on the wall. “And Michael,” Sunny added. “Women don’t have to be six-feet tall to work as a model.”

  “You have a suspect list?” Michael asked, his eyes shiny through his spectacles. “That is so cool.”

  “No,” Sunny said. “We don’t have a suspect list.”

  “Okay. I agree. We can scratch Ian off,” Divit said. “But not March’s name. She was easily five-nine. And standing next to Fleming if she was wearing heels would obscure her face.”

  “Okay, so she’s still on the list.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have a list?” Michael said confused.

  “We don’t have a list,” Sunny said annoyed. “We were speaking figuratively.”

  “Oh,” Michael said.

  “What else do you know?” Sunny asked Michael.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” Sunny said and held up her hands. “Like did she have a lot of people coming in and out of her apartment? Did you know of any fighting going on up there? Something that might tell us who was upset enough with her to kill her.”

  “Those are good questions,” Divit said impressed.

  “Oh no,” Michael said, he gave a yank to the arm of his eyeglasses. “Nothing like that. She lived a floor above me.” He pointed up. “I don’t know what she did up there.”

  “You don’t know what she did up there?” Sunny said, almost squawking.

  “Nope.”

  “Well what about when you say her in the hallways, or in the laundry room, or roundabout?” Sunny asked. “I mean, you know what was she like? Did you ever hear her saying anything that could be a clue?”

  “No.” Michael shook his head.

  “Divit,” Sunny said through clenched teeth. “You wanna help me out here? Do you have any questions for him?”

  “Nope,” Divit said swinging his head back and forth.

 

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