Under the Moonlight collection

by MaryAnn Kempher

  Nene rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Just ignore her.”

  Jack smiled and continued on to his office. When he saw Curt at his desk, he could tell by the look on his face that that something had happened.

  “What’s up?” Jack asked. “You have that look…”

  Curt handed the morning newspaper to Jack. Across the front page was a picture of Mark being arrested, and the headline: Cop Arrested for Local Woman’s Brutal Murder

  Jack sat. He quickly read through the article, looking at the picture of Mark being walked to a squad car, hands cuffed.

  “Damn,” he said. “That was really quick. We knew this might happen, but it’s only been a week since her murder. I guess I was hoping they’d catch someone else before it came to this.”

  “We’re still going to stay out of it?” Curt asked.

  Jack sat back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, weighing the pros and cons of getting involved, on any level, in an ongoing police investigation.

  “Don’t think it would hurt to make a call or two, do you?” he asked back.

  “Whatever you want to do, Jack,” Curt answered. “I’m all in.”

  ***

  Curt could see that Jack was worried and felt a little guilty that he wasn’t thinking about Mark or the murder. But he couldn’t help thinking about Daisy Sunset. He didn’t know how her animals had gone missing, though it was largely due to that fact that he hadn’t been trying all that hard to find out. He worried that if he solved the mystery, he might not see her again.

  He was smitten.

  They’d spent a lot of time together over the few days. He knew they’d make an odd couple and that he probably wasn’t her type. She was tiny, bright, and full of sparkle, and he was just a big, dull guy with super short hair. What did he have to offer her? Now more than ever, he wished he’d let his hair grow out.

  He stood and grabbed his coat.

  “Where you going?” asked Jack.

  “I have some things to do, then I’m going to head over to Daisy’s pet store. See you later.” Curt answered.

  Then he was gone.

  ***

  Curt looked at his watch as he drove. It was nearly ten, but they might be there. He’d stop by, see if they could fit him in. If not, he’d come back later. He didn’t have much time, and didn’t like sneaking around behind Jack’s back. Jack was a good guy, but Curt preferred to keep this particular activity to himself.

  The morning rush had thinned out and Curt found himself in front of the building in record time. He jumped out of his truck, went to the back and pulled out a bag, then went inside.

  A woman greeted him. “Hello, Curt.”

  “Hello,” he said. “I don’t have an appointment, but I brought what I’ll need. Any chance I can get an hour or two in?”

  The woman smiled. “Of course.”

  Chapter Ten

  Once Gaga had finished putting the cotton candy out, she began throwing away candy bar wrappers that had been left on the counter, while Nene swept the floors.

  “I swear, Nene,” Gaga said, “if I figure out how those kids are getting in here, I’m going to wring their scrawny necks. I’m tired of cleaning up wrappers and throwing away half eaten candy.”

  Nene leaned the broom against the wall, “Is it me, or is it cold in here?” she asked, ignoring Gaga’s comment.

  Gaga, who was always chillier than most people, was wearing a thick sweater and hadn’t noticed. She stopped, stood still, and looked up at a vent near the ceiling.

  Nene pulled a small step stool out from behind the door and opened it.

  “Careful,” said Gaga. The stool was only three steps high, but Nene had always been accident prone. So Gaga walked over and Nene placed her hand on her shoulder for balance.

  “I don’t think there’s any heat coming out of this,” said Nene.

  “Oh, that’s just great,” said Gaga. Now that Nene had pointed it out, she too felt how chilly the store was. Nene got down from the ladder, just as Jack came to the door.

  “Good morning ladies,” he said. “I was coming over to see if your heat is working. Ours isn’t.”

  Gaga didn’t answer. She just looked cross, as usual.

  Nene sighed, then said, “Downstairs, your heat and our heat is controlled by the same thermostat. Upstairs, each apartment has its own. So if you’re cold, so are we. The same is true if you’re hot.” She poured Jack a cup of coffee and pointed at a tray of chocolate donuts. “Would you like one?”

  Jack smiled. “No thanks. So who do we talk to about getting it fixed—Burch or the electric company?”

  “I’ll call the electric company,” said Gaga, rolling her eyes, impatience in her voice. She pulled a large phone book from a shelf and dropped it loudly onto the counter.

  “What – no internet?” Jack asked. Somehow, it didn’t surprise him that Gaga and Nene would still be using a phone book rather than a website.

  “Gaga doesn’t trust computers,” explained Nene.

  Jack wondered how two sisters could be so different; as cheerful and chubby as Nene was, Gaga was equally cranky and thin. Yet they seemed like an old married couple, completely in sync.

  Jack pulled a dollar from his pocket to cover the coffee and tried to hand it to Nene. “No sir - your money isn’t good here!” she said happily.

  “Sure it is,” Gaga said under her breath.

  “Don’t listen to her Jack.”

  Jack smiled.

  He watched as Gaga picked up the phone book and walked into the store’s back office. It held two desks facing each other. One was very neat, while the other was extremely messy. Jack figured he knew which desk belong to which sister. On the messy desk was a framed photo of a man.

  “Ms. Albright,” Jack asked, “is that a photo of your husband?”

  Nene turned and smiled. “Yes. That’s my Henry. He died about five years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jack.

  “Oh, don’t be. We had a long time together. Most of it pretty good.” She shrugged. “I can’t complain.”

  “Children?”

  She nodded. “Yes, two. My son, Henry, the oldest, and my daughter, Lilly.”

  Gaga walked out of the office. “Very strange,” she said.

  “Did you find out why the heat was turned off?” asked Jack.

  “No,” Gaga answered. “That’s what’s strange. They said they didn’t do it.”

  Jack thought about his recent visit from Victor Burch. He knew the man wanted them to break their lease. He couldn’t help wondering if the man would stoop to turning the heat off in hopes of driving them out.

  “I think I’ll give Mr. Burch a call,” Jack said. “I’ll let you know what he says.”

  ***

  After calling three times, someone finally answered at the number Mr. Burch had provided Jack and Curt. It was a woman who identified herself as his secretary and asked Jack to “please hold.”

  Twenty minutes later, Jack was still holding.

  So he hung up and called back, but this time received a busy signal. “Son of a bitch,” he said, redialing. The phone rang that time. On the fifth ring the same woman answered.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. “We must have gotten cut off. Mr. Burch answered your call right away, but he said you’d hung up.”

  “I did hang up,” said Jack. “After holding for twenty minutes.”

  “Well,” the woman said, “let me get Mr. Burch for you now.”

  After five minutes of dead air on the other end of the line, Jack’s blood began to boil. Finally, he heard a voice.

  “Hello?” Mr. Burch said.

  Jack thought he sounded hesitant, as if he hoped Jack had hung up again.

  “The heat is off in our office, Victor,” Jack told him.

  “Well, that’s very strange,” said Mr. Burch. “I’ll call the electric company and get to the bottom of it. Thank you for letting me know.”

  “They said—” Jack began,
but Mr. Burch had already hung up.”

  Within the hour, the heat was back on.

  “That’s better,” said Jack to the empty room.

  No sooner were the words out of his mouth then he heard a low rumbling. Then the overhead lights flickered and went out.

  “What the hell?”

  ***

  Ninety minutes after Curt left Jack, he was driving again, this time in early lunch hour traffic, headed toward Daisy’s pet store.

  Her face lit up when he walked in the door. “Hi Curt!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again so soon.”

  Curt walked briskly to Daisy and looked down into her colorful face. She had the most amazing green eyes he’d ever seen. They looked up into his, and his breath caught in his throat.

  “I…uh…I had some free time. Thought I’d take another look around the place, see if I can figure out what happened to your birds. Maybe after I’m done, you’ll let me take you out to lunch?”

  Daisy smiled. She glanced over at the half-eaten sandwich on the counter. “I’d love to,” she said, smiling at him. “I’m starving.”

  Curt made his inspection, then drove them to Gerry’s Place, a family owned restaurant off of Virginia Street. It was shaped like a boxcar and had a long Formica counter inside. Red and white checkered curtains hung on the windows. They slid into a booth.

  “This is a really cute place,” Daisy said.

  “Yeah,” said Curt. “My partner Jack told me about it. He worked nearby, on a case, for a few months and ate a lot of his meals here.”

  They looked at menus until the waitress arrived and took their order.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to figure out how your animals are getting out,” Curt said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Daisy told him. “You’re doing your best to help figure it out.” She quickly shifted topics. “Did I tell you my family is in town?”

  “They are?”

  “Actually, they’re in Carson City. The circus arrived there about a week ago. They’ll be down here next week. I’ve already seen my uncle. He stopped by the shop. He was in a really good mood.

  “Are you going to go see your folks, too?”

  “I’ll probably wait until they come down here.”

  “Funny that your uncle came down alone.”

  “I think I mentioned that he and my father don’t get along.” Curt remembered this. “They both do a different version of the same act, so there’s this crazy competition between them. My mom think’s they’re both nuts.”

  Curt smiled as he listened to Daisy talk. It didn’t matter what she said. He just liked being with her, listening to her talk.

  ***

  When Curt finally returned to the office, Jack told him about the heat and the lights, which thankfully had come back on fairly quickly. After their first meeting with Victor Burch, he and Curt had figured him to be a pretty greasy guy. But they’d thought he was a halfway reputable business man, at least. Of course, at the time they’d signed the lease, he hadn’t been offered a lot of money from the city to sell the building. Now that he had, Jack wondered if the annoyances of the morning might be a taste of things to come.

  “Do you think we should just go?” asked Curt. “I’m not sure putting up with Burch’s crap is worth the low rent.”

  Before Jack could answer, he saw a woman standing in their doorway. She was attractive and looked to be of about forty-five, with short spiked blonde hair that looked almost messy. It worked for her.

  Jack quickly stood. “Yvonne!” He looked at Curt. “This is Candy’s mom,” he said quietly. Curt sat up straighter in his chair, unsure what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

  “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Candy,” Jack said. “Please, sit down.”

  Yvonne had deep circles under her eyes and Jack noticed her hands were shaking. She looked to be on the verge of tears. “Jack,” she said, “did you know Mark Barnes has been arrested?”

  “Yes…I read about it in the paper.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  Jack and Curt exchanged troubled glances.

  “I don’t have access to anything to do with the investigation, Yvonne. I don’t work for the department anymore.”

  “But you know Mark personally,” she said. “Do you think he could have done this to Candy?”

  Jack hesitated. His opinion wasn’t important, but she was asking him a direct question. He owed her an honest answer.

  “Maybe, if he was angry enough. But my gut says he’s innocent.”

  “With Mark in jail,” she said, “they’ll stop looking for my daughter’s killer.” Her voice trembled. “I want you to investigate her death, Jack.”

  “Yvonne—”

  She held up her hand. “Please, let me finish. The police just want to close another case. They don’t care about my daughter, even though she worked for them. What harm will it do if you look into it? If you find that the evidence points to Mark, then fine. They think they already have the murderer …maybe you’ll see something they’ve missed, or overlooked.”

  Jack had been thinking about Candy’s murder and the mess that Mark had gotten himself into since the moment he’d learned about it. But he knew the detectives investigating her murder. They were good cops. They’d find the truth.

  He looked at Yvonne’s pleading eyes.

  “I’ll make some phone calls. But I can’t make any promises.”

  Yvonne nodded, her eyes glistening. She stood “I understand, Jack…thank you. I just want to make sure that they have the right guy. I met Mark a few times. I got the impression he really liked Candy. I can’t imagine him hurting her.”

  Jack momentarily thought about how many cases he’d investigated in which the killer had turned out to be the victim’s lover. Crimes of passion were incredibly common, even more than the public realized.

  Yvonne looked back before she left. “Jack,” she said.

  He began to stand. “Yes?”

  “Candy’s funeral is tomorrow at four o’clock. St. Matthews church on Beecher Street.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer.

  Jack stood and watched through the window as she left. “I need to clear my head,” he said. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

  He drove around aimlessly, running everything through in his mind. Did he think Mark had killed Candy? Should he even get involved at all? Without even realizing it, he ended up in a familiar neighborhood.

  Of course, he thought.

  He pulled into the driveway and got out of the car. He walked around the house to the back yard gate and smiled as a large Bassett hound ran toward him. The dog flopped on the ground, rolling onto his back as he waited to be scratched.

  Jack kneeled down and obliged. “How you doing, Rusty?” He stood and walked to the screen door.

  “Ma?” he yelled.

  The screen door lead into a nice-sized kitchen; stainless steel pans hung from hooks above an island. The kitchen windows were fogged from steam that danced above multiple pots and pans on the gas stove. Fragrances that Jack remembered well from his childhood met his nose.

  A woman called back. “Jack?” She pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Where have you been?” She walked to him, put her hands on his cheeks, and kissed his forehead.

  “Ma, you know I’ve been busy getting the office ready for business,” he reminded her.

  Jack watched as his mother used a wooden spoon to stir a pan full of gravy. She was short and plump and made him think of Nene Albright, though her personality was more like Gaga. She took no grief from anyone.

  “What are you cooking?” asked Jack.

  “Beef stew,” his mother answered warily. “This visit so early in the day…it’s a little unusual. What’s going on?”

  Jack sat down at the kitchen table. “You remember Candy?”

  “Sure,” his mother answered, setting a wooden spoon down. “Busty girl, wore too much make-up.”
r />   “She was killed last weekend.”

  Her face dropped. “I’m so sorry, Jack. Are you okay?”

  “Sure ma. It just kind of threw me. I saw her a week ago Friday, at a party. Her mother stopped by the office today.”

  Jack’s mother stopped and walked over, sitting across from him as she wiped her hands on a small red towel. “What did she want?”

  “She wants me and Curt to investigate her daughter’s murder. She isn’t convinced they have the right guy.”

  “And you? What do you think?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t have a lot to go on…and what I do have points to him.”

  “Remember when you were a kid, and you’d struggle with some school assignment or another that you just couldn’t work through?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What’d I tell you?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “I’d tell you to go over what you did know again. Usually the answer is simple, and staring right in your face.” She stood and went back to the stove, she turned around.

  “You’re probably right,” he told her.

  “Didn’t I meet Candy’s mother once?”

  Jack smiled. His mother’s memory was sharp…and so were her eyes. She missed nothing.

  “Yes,” he answered.

  His mother nodded knowingly.

  “No, Ma,” Jack said. “It’s not like that. Her daughter was just killed.”

  “And she comes to you why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And how’d she know about your new office?”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. Someone must have told.”

  “Right.” Her eyes didn’t flinch. “Just be careful. That woman isn’t thinking clearly right now.”

  “You don’t think I’d take advantage of a grieving mother, do you?”

  She smiled. “No. I raised you better than that. But still…things happen when people aren’t thinking straight. ”

  He changed the subject. “Dad’s at work, huh?”

  “As always. Why don’t you come back later, for dinner?”