Goddess, Guilted

by Jacqueline M Green

  “Lou!” I waved as I jaywalked across Main Street.

  He turned toward me, the smile fading from his face when he saw who it was. That’s not exactly the most heartening sight.

  “What can I do for you, Mariah?” His face was impassive. “I would think you’re pretty well stocked up on pizza for a while.”

  I smiled as charmingly as I could. “You can’t ever have too much pizza, Lou.”

  He didn’t even crack a smile, just waited, one hand on the door.

  “Lou, I need to talk to you for five minutes.”

  “About what?”

  “Sandy and Tamara.”

  Lou froze, then he eyed me warily. “What about them?”

  I moved closer to him. “They are both connected to Jerry. They both had reason to want him dead and now you’re connected to him, too. Do you really want to go to jail for one of them?”

  He backed away from me, concern flickering over his face. “Why would I go to jail for them?”

  “For being an accessory to a murder?” That was the only thing I could think of that sounded remotely reasonable.

  “Why would I kill Jerry?” He let go of the door and crossed his arms.

  I motioned him to the bench along the sidewalk. “Five minutes. Please.”

  He followed me to the bench and sat down at one end, looking pointedly at his watch. “Five minutes. It’s nearly lunch time and I have a business to run. I thought you did, too.”

  I glanced at my watch. He did have a point about that.

  “You never answered our question before. Are you having an affair with Sandy?” It couldn’t hurt to ask him again.

  He hesitated, then shook his head. “Not anymore. Well, I don’t know.” He looked down the street toward the Corner Mercantile and leaned closer to me, lowering his voice. “We have been spending some time together. Adult time, if you know what I mean?”

  Why did people say that? Of course, I knew what he meant. “Go on.”

  “Her marriage to Jerry was a sham. He was drunk all the time. Mostly, she just took care of him like a mother, keeping him out of trouble.”

  “Why didn’t she divorce him?”

  Lou’s eyes darted from side to side. “I probably shouldn’t say. It’s not really my business but the store has belonged in his family for years. Her name was not on the title. He held that over her, told her she would be out on the streets if she divorced him. It was the only thing he had to keep her there. Even he knew he would fall apart without her.”

  “Wow. That’s a tough life for her.” I bit my lip and looked down the street. “Enough of a motive to kill her husband?”

  Lou scoffed. “Why now? She’s put up with him all these years. Why would she kill him now?”

  I looked at him pointedly. “You, Lou.” Ugh. Why did that have to rhyme? “You.”

  He veered away from me, nearly coming off his seat. “Me? You think she killed her husband to be with me?”

  Horror flew across his face and landed there. He covered his mouth with his hand as he considered what I had said, finally, shaking his head and looking me straight in the eye, pressing his hands into his knees.

  “I know she can come across as gruff, Mariah, but Sandy is a good woman. She works harder than anyone I know. She’s generous. Did you know she has funded several scholarships at the community college?”

  I didn’t know that. I shook my head.

  “I’m sure she didn’t kill her husband.” At that, his eyes flickered away from mine and he sat back on the bench, crossing his arms. His voice said he was sure, but his body didn’t seem to be on board.

  “If she is so wonderful, why have you been hooking up with the Goddess Tamara?”

  I hadn’t been sure I was going to ask the question but was glad I did. His response was classic: He choked on his own spit, coughing and taking a minute to catch his breath.

  “Why would you think that?” he gasped out.

  I cocked my head and looked at him. “Don’t even try to deny it, Lou.”

  He hesitated, then smiled sheepishly. He held his hands in the air as if they held a gift. “Tamara,” he said her name gently, “has this spark, this light about her. I feel drawn to her.”

  “Like a moth to a flame? That’s not always a good thing.”

  He laughed. “I know it seems crazy. It’s just been a few days, but I feel alive inside, like I’m twenty years younger again.”

  “Maybe because she is twenty years younger than you?”

  “Now, Mariah, don’t be bitter just because it’s not you.” Lou shook his head at me as if I were a naughty child.

  “What? No! Ew, Lou.” Well, that was another unfortunate rhyme.

  I leaned away from him.

  He wiped his hands together, then pressed them into his thighs as he stood up. “I enjoyed spending time with Sandy. I love Tamara. But I didn’t kill Jerry, Mariah, and I don’t know who did. Go bark up some other tree and leave me in peace.”

  “Uh, Lou, just one more thing. Why don’t you ever go to the other local shops on Main Street, besides Corner Mercantile, for obvious reasons? We all eat at Luigi’s Pizzeria, but you never reciprocate by coming into our places of business.”

  Lou seemed taken by surprise. He paused, one hand on the bench and looked down the street. “I go to the shops.”

  “Which ones?”

  “I’ve been to the hardware store,” he said, his chin lifted in plain defiance.

  I shook my head. “C’mon, Lou. Be a team player. Someone besides me is going to notice and then perhaps we won’t be eating quite as much pizza.”

  Lou’s mouth fell open and then he started to laugh. “Are you threatening to boycott my restaurant if I don’t do yoga at your studio? Are you kidding?”

  He kept laughing as he waved to someone down the street and strolled back into his pizzeria.

  I sat on the bench for a moment longer. Jerk. Maybe I would boycott his pizzeria.

  I believed him about Jerry, though – mostly. He didn’t seem like a killer to me, but then again, no one I had talked to seemed like a killer. I let my head fall back over the top edge of the bench. Maybe Neil was right. Maybe I shouldn’t be investigating based on my gut instincts. What was it he always said? Follow the evidence. This particular evidence led me to a dead end.

  I jumped up and walked back across the street to CeCe’s. She met me at the door, ushering me back to my table. “Well?”

  “He did have an affair with Sandy. He is having one with Tamara. I don’t think he killed Jerry, but he laughed at me when I suggested he reciprocate with other businesses on Main Street, so I’m keeping him on the suspect list.”

  “He seems like a real prize,” CeCe scoffed as she shifted her gaze to the front doors of Luigi’s.

  “Yeah, too bad he makes such good pizza.”

  Chapter 18

  The next day, Stormy rode shot gun and gave directions out to the part of the river where they had dug up the Red Jasper. We’d closed the studio after the two o’clock class so we could both go. Josie sat in the back seat and pouted most of the way. I wasn’t thrilled to be driving back out to the river. Twice in one week seemed a bit much, even though it didn’t take long. Josie wasn’t happy about it either.

  “I just don’t see what we’re going to come up with at the river.” Josie crossed her arms and slumped in the seat, looking out the window.

  I glanced in the rear-view mirror. “We might come up with nothing or we might find a clue to clear your sister. Stay focused, Josie.”

  She made a face, then dipped her head in acknowledgement.

  We reached an outcropping on the east side of the river and pulled off to the shoulder of the road. Stormy jumped out of the car, Josie slowly moving behind her, her reluctance telegraphing itself loud and clear.

  I came up behind her and hooked my arm in hers. “It’s all going to work out, Jos,” I whispered. “Keep the faith.”

  Josie sighed and clutched my arm to her for a brie
f moment, then released me. We walked comfortably toward the river, Stormy skipping along ahead.

  I smiled at her exuberance. She was a far different young woman than the one I had first met in my yoga class, wow, just over a month ago. The thing was, I wasn’t sure who had changed the most – her or me?

  Stormy guided us up the trail, turning toward the left rather than the more heavily marked right trail at a fork in the road. The air was cool between the trees and felt good on my skin.

  Stormy waved toward the right-side trail, the Rivers Edge Trail. “Too many people are on that trail, so we always sneak off to the left.”

  We waved her on and followed up a slight grade, then down a longer downhill. After about a ten-minute easy walk, Stormy paused, looked around, then stepped off the trail into the bushes.

  Josie and I stopped and looked at the trail ahead of us. The bushes seemed to have swallowed Stormy whole.

  Her head popped out of the bushes and she turned toward us. “Are you guys coming or not?”

  We scooted up the hill and slipped into the bushes behind her. The branches felt soft and damp, so close to the river. We could hear it flowing past, lapping against the banks. Stormy slowly walked along the banks, then stopped.

  “We’re not the only ones who have been here.” Her face looked dismayed. “I wonder who told about our super-secret spot.”

  Josie shrugged as she leaned in close to look at the footprints. “At first glance, it looks like just one person. See,” – she pointed to prints in the mud – “it’s the same shoe, same size, same tread. Maybe someone just stumbled upon your ‘super-secret spot.’ It happens.”

  Stormy studied the riverbank, then drew us further downstream. She stopped and peered into the water, then took off her shoes and stepped into the river. Josie watched her with dismay.

  “Stormy, as an officer of the law, I have to tell you to use caution and perhaps rethink stepping into the river at this time.”

  Stormy cracked a smile in Josie’s direction. “Thank you for your concern, deputy, but it’s not against the law, so I’m moving on.”

  “Fair enough.”

  I stepped to the very edge of the bank to get a better look. Stormy looked up quickly. “Mariah, be careful. Those banks give way with hardly any notice and then you’ll end up swimming.”

  I stepped back from the edge but tried to see what Stormy was doing. She pulled a kitchen spoon out of her pocket and bent down toward the water.

  “You have to be careful,” she pointed out. “If you forget and sit your butt in the water, you look like you had an accident, if you know what I mean.”

  “We all know what you mean.” Once Josie started muttering under her breath, I could tell she was growing irritated with Stormy.

  “Aha!” Stormy held out her hand holding a small Red Jasper stone. Josie and I each took a turn holding it.

  The stone looked like the one that was on the sidewalk by Jerry. I realized that neither stone had been polished like the ones in the Corner Mercantile.

  “So, how much could you sell this for?” Josie wanted to know.

  Stormy shrugged. “We used to sell them to Sandy for a dollar a pop, but then she decided to dig them herself. I think she followed us out here one day and found our spot.” Realization dawned on her face. “That’s probably whose footprints we saw.”

  I frowned. “At her age? I mean, she’s not old, but she seems old enough to not want to go traipsing around the riverbank.”

  “She was our main business, so when she bailed, we quit digging up Red Jasper. It just wasn’t worth our time anymore.”

  I began to wonder if I could dig up Red Jasper, too, just to use in the studio or at home. I inched my way down the riverbank, holding on to tree branches so I could peer over the side into the water.

  “How do you know you’re in a good spot?” I had to raise my voice for Stormy to hear me over the fast-moving water.

  “Just look for a flash of red and start digging.” Stormy looked up toward me, miming digging with a small shovel.

  I crept downriver a little further, then, getting on my hands and knees to keep my center of gravity lower, I leaned my head out over the bank and grinned. There! A bit of red shined through the water.

  I reached down and had just grasped my hand around the rock when I felt a shove on my backside. I held tight to the stone as I screamed and tumbled into the river.

  “Mariah!”

  Chapter 19

  Josie and Stormy ran along the riverbank to find me struggling to turn onto my backside in the shallow river, clinging to a tree branch that had swung out over the water.

  “Hang on, Mariah!” Josie turned away from me and returned with a large stick in one hand. She stepped to the edge of the shore, then looped her arm through Stormy’s, who had wrapped her arms around a small tree to anchor herself.

  Josie handed the branch to me. I reached for it, tightening my abdomen so I would not be dead weight during the rescue. I was able to lift myself out of the water and finally put my feet down.

  “Don’t stand up!” Josie barked at me to keep my center of gravity low and walk slowly toward her, hanging onto the stick. “Check before you step each foot down that you’re not stepping in between the rocks.”

  I concentrated on hanging on to the stick as the current rushed past as I crept carefully toward the shore. When I finally reached the bank, Stormy and Josie reached out to grab each of my shoulders and dragged me onto the bank and then into dirt and bushes.

  “Ouch! Thanks, girls. Stop – ouch! – dragging me now!” I wasn’t sure which hurt more – being pulled by my shoulders or dragged through the dirt. It felt like a toss-up.

  They let loose of me, letting me fall onto the bank. Putting my hands beneath my shoulders – just the way I tell my yoga students – I pushed up and away into a kneeling position to catch my breath before standing.

  “Mariah, I told you the riverbank gives way easily. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking anything. Someone pushed me into the river!”

  Josie shook her head. “There was no one there but you, Mariah. It doesn’t make sense.”

  I held up my hand as if I could stop her words. “All I know is that hands were suddenly on my backside and pushing me into the river.”

  “Did you see who it was?”

  I shook my head and peered at the two of them. “It happened too fast. For all I know, it could have been one of you.”

  Stormy gasped. Josie made a face.

  “Stay here,” Josie ordered. She reached behind her back and unhooked her gun, then started creeping through the woods away from the river. She paused beside a tree stand, one hand on a tree as she slowly looked around. Her eyes darting back and forth, she pulled her cell phone from her pocket and pointed it toward the ground. Stepping gingerly around something, she took a few more pictures, then tucked her cell phone away.

  She walked, her head down, across the trail and into the bushes near where Mariah had been standing.

  “I think you’re right, Mariah. It looks like someone was standing over here.” She pointed to the tree stand. “Then they crossed the trail here.” She pointed to the bushes. “See, and we wouldn’t have been able to see them from this angle when they pushed you in.”

  She looked at me with a pointed expression. “I can’t even imagine who you have managed to piss off. Again.” She thought about it for a moment, staring off into the distance. Stormy kept rubbing my back.

  “Did you tell anyone we were going to the river?” Josie finally asked.

  I shook my head, then reconsidered. “Wait a minute. I did tell Sandy I might go dig up some Jasper, but I didn’t say when. Maya Anderson might have overheard me, too. I have to say May sure seems to be everywhere I don’t want her to be lately.”

  Josie stared at the ground in thought. “I don’t know. That seems iffy.”

  “Um, Josie?”

  Something in Stormy’s tone prompted us both to t
urn and look at her.

  “I might have said something to CeCe at the diner this afternoon.” She stopped rubbing my back and clutched her arms around her waist, looking forlornly at Josie.

  “At the diner? Where everyone and their brother could hear?” Josie’s tone was incredulous.

  “Now, Josie, how could she have known this would happen?” I jumped in to back up Stormy. “It’s not like it was a big secret anyway. Cindy probably already knows we’re here.”

  Josie couldn’t help it. She cracked a smile, then laughed out loud. “You’re right. That woman has eyes everywhere.”

  We all laughed together, Stormy looking much relieved.

  “Stormy, do you remember who was there when you talked to CeCe?”

  Stormy closed her eyes and nodded slowly. “Sure, let’s see, there was that lady from the pet store and her weird clerk, Mr. Sampson from the insurance place—”

  I had to interrupt. “Stormy, anyone who might have wanted to hurt me? Anyone connected with Jerry McIntyre’s death, for instance?”

  Her eyes flew open. “Oh, definitely. Maya, Jennifer from Safety Blanket, um, Sandy, Tamara and Lou. Oh, yeah, Sandy came in and saw Tamara and Lou. She looked mad.” Then she shrugged. “That’s all I can remember.”

  “Wait! Did you say Lou from Luigi’s was at CeCe’s shop?” I grabbed Stormy by the arm, not believing what I’d heard.

  Stormy tried to back away from me. “Yeessss.”

  “He’s never stepped foot in there before. I got on his case about it the other day, about how he never frequents the other shops on Main Street.” I was mentally patting myself on the back. Lou had changed his tune. Nice job, even if I do say so myself.

  Then I blew out my cheeks as my heart sank. “However, that’s pretty much all of our suspects in one room. That’s not so helpful.”

  Josie took me by the arm. “Maybe, maybe not. We just don’t know yet if it’s useful.”

  Even as I smiled weakly, I started to shiver and I ached all over. Josie noticed. “Let’s go, Mariah. We’ll find somewhere to get you warmed up.”

  Josie drove the car back to my house, a mostly silent ride, dropping Stormy at her apartment on the way. When we got to my house, Josie stopped in the driveway and turned to me. She tilted her head thoughtfully as if she was just about to say something when her cell phone buzzed.