by Lucy Ness
“Then what about the mess in my room?”
He had the nerve to smile. “Maybe you’re a lousy housekeeper.”
“As a matter of fact, I am. But I haven’t been here long enough to make a mess yet. Someone was in my rooms.”
He backed up, backed away from the argument. “Look,” he conceded, “I know that. But we looked around and we didn’t find anyone. We dusted for fingerprints so that might help. For now, what you can do is lock your door when you go to bed, and when you have a chance, go through your things and let us know if anything is missing. For now, the ladies can leave and you can, too.”
“Are you staying?”
“Here? Of course. Until we’re done.”
I made up my mind in an instant. I was the club manager, right? Well, it might be nearly four in the morning, but I had managing to do. “Then I’m staying too,” I told Alterman. “I’ll be in the dining room if you need me.”
Back in there, I plunked down in a chair. “He says you can all go,” I told the ladies.
“And we will.” Agnes finished her coffee. “But there’s something we need to talk to you about first, Avery.”
“It’s the club.” There were tears in Gracie’s eyes.
“And the prospect of things going downhill,” Valentina said. “I mean even further downhill than they already are.”
“If this murder isn’t solved . . .” Patricia shivered. “Well, I guess we won’t have to worry about getting new members once we lose all our old members.”
I agreed. But if that was so . . .
“Not one of you spoke up when Alterman asked if Muriel had any enemies,” I reminded them.
“We did too,” Agnes insisted. “We told him about Brittany.”
“And about Bill Manby,” Gracie said.
“But what about all that stuff we talked about earlier? About how Valentina, you were treated badly by Muriel, and how you and Muriel fought yesterday, Patricia, and—”
Agnes stood and patted my arm. “Oh, come on, dear, we’re members of the club. We can’t possibly be suspects.”
“But there could be others,” Patricia whispered. “That’s why we want you to look into things.”
“Look into . . . ?”
“The murder, of course.” Valentina rose and looped her way-too-expensive-for-words purse over one arm. “You have the perfect position that will make it easy for you to talk to members. You know, to see what you can find out. And once you have information that will help, you can tell Sergeant Alterman.”
“You’ve got to help us, Avery,” Patricia said. “Otherwise, the club is going to be ruined.”
And just like that, they marched out and left me standing with my mouth open and my head spinning. It didn’t help my brain settle down when I heard them chatting in the hallway on the way to the door and Gracie’s voice float back to me. “Well, let’s just hope she doesn’t come back as a ghost. The last thing we need around here is Muriel haunting this place.”
Ghost.
Goose bumps shot up my arms.
The woman in the basement, the one the cops couldn’t find. What if she . . .
I kicked the thought aside, shook myself back to reality, and reached for another cup of coffee.
I’d been hanging around with Aunt Rosemary too long.
CHAPTER 7
Me? Solve a murder?
It wasn’t in my nature.
Or my job description.
Still . . .
As I paced the kitchen while I waited for the cops and the crime scene technicians to leave, my brain refused to let go of one tantalizing tidbit of information.
Was it a clue?
See above. Since I didn’t know how to solve a murder, I’ll admit I wouldn’t know a clue if it came up and bit me. But I still couldn’t brush off the memory of those bruises on Patricia’s arm.
Fixing a bathroom sink J-trap with a screwdriver, huh?
I will go on record right here and now and say that growing up with Aunt Rosemary provided me with many skills. One of which wasn’t communicating with the dead. But see, for all her enthusiasm about life (and death), and all her community spirit (I use that last word in all its connotations), and with all her big heart and open mind, Aunt Rosemary is a total zero when it comes to the practicalities of life. As a kid, I’d learned to take care of things around the purple Victorian monstrosity of a house we called home, things like changing electrical fuses and furnace filters. And yes, I’d once replaced the J-trap in the bathroom.
No screwdriver required.
So why had Patricia lied? And what did it mean?
The thought was still pinging through my brain by the time the sun came up. With all the coffee I’d had throughout the night, I practically sloshed when I walked. Still, Sergeant Alterman was the last one out of the building, and I knew he’d had a long night, too. It would have been rude not to offer.
“You want coffee? How about breakfast before you go?”
Like he actually had to think about it, he stopped in his tracks. While he was at it, he yawned. “I can’t remember the last time I ate.”
“No sandwiches?” There were only crumbs left on the platter where we’d stacked the turkey and the roast beef.
“I never eat when I’m working,” Alterman told me. “Slows me down.”
“You’re not working now.”
He stretched. “Technically I am, since I’ve got to do all I can in the next few hours to get this case in gear. But if you could spare a piece of toast . . .”
I led the way to the kitchen, made the toast, and put on another pot of coffee. Even though there were no events scheduled at the club that day, we had a food order due to arrive around ten and Quentin and Geneva would be in to handle it. They, unlike me, had probably not spent the last ten hours mainlining caffeine. They’d appreciate a fresh pot of coffee.
“You’ll probably want to talk to them.” Of course Alterman didn’t know who I was talking about. I can be excused. I’d been up for just about twenty-four hours and I was a little punchy. “Our cook and our waitress,” I explained.
He slid his notebook across the table to me then reached for the jar of grape jelly I’d put down along with his two pieces of toast. “Contact information,” he said.
I didn’t know it. Not until I went out to my computer and got Quentin’s and Geneva’s addresses from our employee files. I dutifully wrote it all down, and by the time I got back to the kitchen, Alterman had finished the toast and another cup of coffee.
“I can make more,” I told him.
“No thanks.” He shot up from his chair. “If I sit too long, I’ll get tired, and if I get tired, I won’t do everything I need to do today. I’ll be back,” he promised, and he took his notebook out of my hand and headed to the front door.
I’d locked it behind the last bunch of cops who had left, and I stepped forward to unlock the door just as Jack Harkness pulled into the parking lot.
“Early for employees,” Alterman said.
“Not exactly an employee. Our restorationist. We had a fire upstairs last week.”
His dark eyes flashed. “The crime scene guys said something about a mess upstairs, but none of you club people mentioned it to me.”
I couldn’t provide an excuse, just the truth. “With everything else that happened, it slipped my mind. There was no structural damage, but the fire was in the room where our records are kept. We’ve got a restorationist working to save as much as he can. He’ll also take care of stuff like getting furniture cleaned or replaced, getting the wallpaper stripped and redone.” I did not bother to point out that the wallpaper was printed in 1946, not 1945. Something told me Alterman wouldn’t much care. “I never thought to call him and tell him not to show today. Can he work upstairs?”
“I don’t see why not,” Alterman said.
“But make sure you tell him to stick to where he’s supposed to be, nowhere else. Ms. Sadler’s office and the basement are strictly off limits. Don’t let any one else wander around, either.”
I couldn’t help myself. I had to ask. “And the mysterious woman in the basement?” I asked him.
Maybe Alterman was being kind when he didn’t respond. Or maybe he just didn’t know what to say.
With a sigh, I swung open the front door and stepped back just as Jack Harkness got out of his car. It was a surprisingly sleek little number, foreign. Silver and shiny. For a man who was not the least bit shiny, it wasn’t what I expected.
As if to prove my assessment, that morning Jack looked pretty much like he looked the last time I saw him. A little rumpled and as shaggy as a pound dog. He juggled an armful of books while he locked his car, dropped one of the books, and bent to retrieve it.
“I said I’ll be back.”
Alterman’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts and out of watching Jack. I yawned and smiled and yawned again. “I think last night is catching up to me. I zoned out. Sorry, Sergeant Alterman.”
“You’ll feel better once you’ve had some rest.” Alterman stepped outside. “And by the way, my first name isn’t Sergeant, it’s Oscar. But everyone calls me Oz. And once you finally have the chance, if you’re looking for someone to share that bottle of wine with . . .” A smile cracked his stony expression. “Give me a call.”
Just like that, he was gone. And there I was, staring again.
Only this time, not at Jack.
In fact, I never even noticed Jack walk up to the front door until he was standing beside me.
He propped the books he was carrying beneath one arm so he could slide his glasses up his nose and, like me, he watched Oz get into his black sedan and pull out of the parking lot. “Company?”
“Company? You mean like . . .” I am not a blusher. It’s not in my nature and besides, my business is my business alone and no one has the right to comment, to criticize, or to condemn. Still, I couldn’t help the rush of heat that raced into my cheeks. Was it because I didn’t want Jack to get the wrong impression? Or because suddenly, thinking of sharing that bottle of wine with Oz sounded so appealing?
Sleep deprivation.
That was the only thing that would account for my crazy thoughts, and I shook my head to knock them out of my brain. “No, no. Nothing like that,” I told Jack. “He’s a cop.”
Jack looked over my shoulder and into the club. “Not another fire, I hope.”
“Worse than that.” I stepped back so he could walk inside and he set the books on my desk while I told him everything that had happened the night before.
When I was done, Jack shook his head. “That’s terrible.”
“It is. Muriel could be difficult, sure, but from everything I’ve heard, she was a mainstay of the club. We’re all going to have to pick up a lot of the slack. She’ll be missed.”
“Yeah. Uh . . . sure.” Jack grabbed his books. “But that’s not the terrible I’m talking about. That . . .” He darted a look out to the parking lot and the car that had just pulled in before he took off running for the stairs. “That’s terrible.”
This I couldn’t say.
What I could say is that an older man and a young woman got out of the black Lincoln SUV. He was iron haired and distinguished looking. She was dark haired, tiny, and wearing jeans with multiple holes in them (how is that a style?) and knee-high boots of supple leather.
I’d already locked the door behind Jack so when they walked up to it, I peered out the window at the top of the door and spoke up nice and loud. “We’re not open today.” They never budged. Maybe they didn’t hear me. I waved my hands to emphasize my message.
The woman rapped on the window. “You’ve got to let us in.”
I tried again, waving for all I was worth. “We’re not open today.”
She propped one fist on her hip and shot me a look I was surprised didn’t melt the glass between us. “Do you know who we are?” She tapped the toe of one boot against the ground and gestured toward the man. “This is Tab Sadler. You know, Muriel’s husband.”
Not something I was expecting.
Not someone I was expecting.
I was caught between my duty to the club and my sympathy for Muriel’s family, but it really wasn’t much of a choice. I unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped back.
“About time,” the woman grumbled, and just like that, I knew who she was. No introductions necessary. Nasty genes run deep. This had to be Muriel’s granddaughter.
It was. “Kendall Sadler.” She stared at me like she was a magician doing a mesmerism act. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to apologize. Or grovel. When I didn’t, she puckered her too-plump lips. “Grandpa needed to be here.”
I couldn’t imagine why.
And I didn’t dare say it.
Instead, I smoothed a hand over the red snap-front cardigan and navy-blue slacks I’d worn to the chamber of commerce meeting. It felt like a long, long time ago.
“There’s really nothing you can do,” I told my visitors. “Everything here is under control. If you want to see Muriel . . .” Would they? I was inclined to think not, at least not until someone could do something about that horrible gash on Muriel’s head. “You should call the police. They’ll help you.”
“Don’t you get it, girl?” Tab had a craggy face and when he frowned, it furrowed like a 3D topographical map. He had eyes the color of slate and there was no softness in them. He darted a look toward the stairs. “I’m Muriel’s husband. I’m the grieving widower. I need to be here. I need to see the place my Muriel died.”
“I’m afraid you can’t.” This I didn’t know for sure, but Alterman . . . er, Oz . . . mentioned not letting anyone roam freely through the building, and I could only assume this was exactly what he had in mind. “The police aren’t done processing the scene.”
“Of course. Of course.” Tab didn’t so much walk as he did high-step, each movement as quick and as precise as if a marching band director had choreographed it. Shoulders back and head high, he moved around me and toward the stairway. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t at least spend a few minutes in her office.”
“That’s exactly what it means,” I told him.
His hand was already on the bannister, and he stopped and shot a look at me over his shoulder. “Are you telling me I can’t be alone in Muriel’s office to grieve? Then Kendall”—when he said her name, she snapped to—“you come up with me.”
“You can’t be in Muriel’s office alone. You can’t be in there with anybody else, either.” I had no choice but to walk up a couple steps and stand there to block his way. “The office is cordoned off. No one is allowed up there.”
“When the police said no one, they certainly weren’t talking about me,” Tab insisted.
But of course, they were.
I told him that, and when Kendall squinched her eyes and wrinkled her nose, all set to dispute it, I gave her as much of a smile as a woman who hadn’t slept in a day could manage.
“Police orders,” I said.
“Well then, I’ll just . . .” Tab shook his shoulders. “If you two will excuse me, I’m going to head to the men’s room. Maybe when I get back, young lady”—he looked down his patrician nose at me—“you’ll have come to your senses.”
Before I could decide if going to the men’s room qualified as roaming around the club and what I could do if it did, he disappeared in the direction of the dining room and the restrooms beyond.
Kendall watched him go. “You’ll give in eventually,” she purred. “Everyone always does.” She slid me a look. “My grandfather didn’t get to be one of the most important men in Portage Path by letting little people tell him what to do.”
I pulled myself up to my full height and looked down at her. “Goo
d thing I’m not one of the little people.”
She chuckled and sashayed past me, back toward my desk, where she skimmed one finger over the surface. “I bet the police are all over this. I mean, they’re bound to be, aren’t they? Considering that it was my grandmother who was killed.”
“I’d like to think they’d handle any murder in town the same way.” My computer was still on from when I’d looked up Quentin’s and Geneva’s contact information, and I turned off the monitor. “I’m sure they’re working as hard as they can.”
“Maybe they need a tip. You know, information about a suspect.”
I remembered what the ladies of the board had asked, how they wanted me to look into the crime, to nose around, to see what I could find out.
Careful not to look too eager, I straightened a pile of papers that didn’t need straightening. “You know something?” I asked Kendall. “About a suspect? Who is it?”
“You, of course.”
When my head came up and my mouth fell open, Kendall laughed.
I stammered. “Why would you . . . How would you . . . You don’t know anything about me. How can you possibly think I’m a suspect?”
Instead of answering, she strutted over to the front door. “You didn’t know my grandmother well, did you?” she asked, then before I could say a thing, she answered for me. “Well, of course you didn’t. You just started working here. Muriel Sadler was a force of nature. She wanted me to have your job.”
“So I hear.” I gave her a level look. “It hardly matters now, does it?”
Kendall’s smile was sleek. “But it does. Don’t you see? It matters more than ever. I’m going to be the business manager of the Portage Path Women’s Club.”
I looked out the windows to the parking lot and the expensive car she’d arrived in. I checked out her outfit (pricey), her makeup (perfect), her hair (freshly styled).
“Why do you want my job?” I asked her.
Her lips pinched. “So I can do it the right way, of course.”
“Except you don’t know that I can’t do it the right way.”