His mention of a library rang a bell in my head and Alex’s too, and he quickly lifted his head from his notes. “Which library?”
This question made Sterling look toward the ceiling again, and I decided this incredibly irritating behavior wasn’t intended to anger anyone. I had a feeling that was merely the way he organized his thoughts before answering.
Finally, after a few painfully long moments, he lowered his head and looked over at us once again. “The library in Caston. I saw her go there at least three times.”
Alex turned toward me with a look of consternation. “She was at a library the day Samuel was murdered too.”
“Yeah, Bruno said he took her to the Georgetown University Library.”
I didn’t have a sense that Eliza Morrow was an intellectual of any stripe, so why would she be going to the library so often? She no doubt had internet in her house and on her phone wherever she wanted to get online, so it wasn’t like she needed to go to the library for that. What else did people use the library for other than books and research these days?
Sterling said, “Hey, what did you just say about Samuel?”
We looked at him, and I suddenly realized he may not have heard the news that Samuel had been murdered. Alex cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Sterling, Samuel Morrow was murdered yesterday morning. Did you know that?”
Jefferson Sterling’s body sagged in his chair, and he shook his head. “No, I didn’t know that. Damn, I’m sorry to hear that, though.”
“You had no idea he had been murdered?” Alex asked.
“No. I had no idea. Samuel called me last on Friday and we talked for a few minutes. He sounded fine, like he didn’t have a care in the world. To hear he’s dead, murdered no less, tears me up. Samuel was one of the good guys, you know? You don’t meet too many of them anymore.”
I nodded, once again saddened by the realization that the sweet man who ran the only jewelry store left in Sunset Ridge was gone. Alex, however, still focused on questioning Jefferson Sterling.
“I’m curious why Samuel kept having you follow his wife and her driver if you’d proven for nearly six months that she wasn’t have an affair with him. We only have one payment of five thousand dollars, but knowing now what you did for that money, it seems like he overpaid tremendously. Can you explain that, Mr. Sterling?”
The private eye shifted in his seat, but unlike before when Alex asked him questions about his work following Eliza, Sterling didn’t look away now. He kept his gaze focused on Alex for a minute and then shrugged.
“Following his wife and her driver wasn’t all I did for Samuel. He had me do some other jobs for him, so the five grand isn’t as much as you think.”
Once again, I was intrigued by this man and the way he held back the details. He certainly had a way of burying the lead. What else had he done for Samuel Morrow?
Alex leaned forward and leveled his gaze on Sterling. “Other jobs? Like what?”
Sterling rubbed his hands together, which made a scratchy noise like sandpaper running over wood. “Nothing illegal. Just some checking up on people he wanted to know some more about. You can never be too sure in business, you know?”
“No, I don’t know, Mr. Sterling. Why don’t you make it crystal clear for me?” Alex said in a way that made the private eye understand it wasn’t a request.
Sterling shrugged again and smiled. “You were close with crystal clear. He wanted me to get the dirt on a couple of his jewelry suppliers. You know, so he could have something on them he could use in negotiations for future business.”
“Are you saying Samuel Morrow had you get information on people he worked with in the jewelry business so he could blackmail them to get diamonds at lower prices?” Alex asked in a voice full of disbelief.
Sterling nodded. “Yeah. Jewelry dealers of all kinds—diamonds, rubies, sapphires, whatever. He gave me their names and had me dig up any dirt on them I could. That was the main job I did for him. The job tailing his wife and that driver of hers was more of a side thing.”
“Did you find a lot of dirt on these people?” I asked as Alex tried to jot down some notes but only came up with BRIBERY and a question mark.
“Some. I can give you the names and what I found on them. Nothing big. No murder or anything like that. No international crimes either. Just some petty stuff like one guy is cheating on his wife and another one has two sets of books and will probably end up in some hot water with the IRS when they find out.”
“Mr. Sterling, when did you tell Samuel about what you found out?” Alex asked as he drew more question marks in his notebook.
“I met with him in late April and gave him everything I found out on that job. He already had a lot of the pictures I’d taken of his wife and the driver, but I gave him the rest of them that day too. He didn’t seem convinced, though, so he still wanted me to tail her.”
“And did you see where she went to yesterday morning?” I asked, curious to know if he could corroborate the story she’d told us already.
Sterling nodded. “Yeah. The driver took her to Georgetown University and she went to the library there. She stayed there for nearly six hours and then he picked her up and took her home.”
“Do you have any idea what she was doing at the library at Georgetown for that long?” I asked Sterling, wishing that Alex had pressed her more on why she’d been there.
“No idea. I sat outside the library and enjoyed the nice day while she sat inside and missed it all.”
Alex closed his notebook and stuffed it into his uniform shirt pocket. “I’d like to have anything you found out about those business associates of Samuel’s now, thank you.”
Sterling didn’t argue or give Alex a hard time about handing over the information he’d gathered for Samuel. As he searched his desk for what he wanted, I leaned over and whispered in Alex’s ear, “This has been a very interesting interview, don’t you think?”
He turned his head and smiled. “I’d say that’s an understatement, wouldn’t you?”
“I hate to think that Samuel wasn’t a good guy, though, Alex,” I said, hating the possibility that he was some shady businessman.
“Well, we don’t have all the facts, so don’t turn on him yet. All we know so far is that there’s no proof that Eliza and Bruno were having an affair, but Samuel thought they were. He also had this guy dig up dirt on people he did business with. That wasn’t a crime, but it might have led to his murder. What that means is this case just got a whole lot bigger.”
“I know. I’m still holding out hope he was the good guy we thought he was. What’s really bothering me is Eliza’s trips to the library. What’s with that? What reason would a woman like her have to go to the library?”
Alex thought about my question for a moment and shook his head. “I have no idea, unless she wanted to research something only a university would have the books for.”
“Like what? The phone in your pocket is a computer that help you find anything you want.”
“Not everything. There are many books that haven’t been digitized yet, so she wouldn’t be able to find them online.”
I chuckled. “Eliza Morrow isn’t exactly the type of woman I think of as a scholar. Any kind of book she might want would be online or in ebook she could just buy.”
My partner cocked one dark eyebrow. “So what are you saying?”
Quickly, I checked to make sure Jefferson Sterling wasn’t listening in on our conversation and saw he was still searching his desk for the information on Samuel’s business contacts he’d spied on. Turning back to face Alex, I whispered, “I’m saying if Eliza Morrow was using a library, she was using it as a cover for something else she was doing.”
“As in?”
“Well, as in, using their computers instead of her own at the house or her phone to search for information on something she doesn’t want traced back to her. I’m simply not buying that she’s going to these libraries to look up rare editions of some book. She’s not th
e type.”
Jefferson Sterling clapped his hands, startling me. “Found it! I swear I need a secretary these days.”
Under my breath, I said to Alex, “Yeah, a platinum blonde he calls a dame all the time.”
He chuckled and quietly corrected me. “They don’t call the girl who works for them a dame. She’s the only female in the entire story who isn’t a dame.”
I nudged him with my elbow and smiled. This private eye’s office was having an effect on the two of us.
Sterling walked back over and sat down in his metal folding chair again. The stack of papers in his hands made me wonder just how many people Samuel had told him to dig up dirt on.
“That’s a lot of paperwork there,” I said, pointing at what he held. “I guess the five grand wasn’t overpaying.”
He took my comment as a compliment and smiled as he said, “This is hours and hours of work here. When you’re digging up dirt, it isn’t like just following some lady and her driver around. This took some skill to put together. I take pride in my work.”
“Well, we hope it helps us find out who murdered Samuel Morrow,” Alex said before standing up and taking the stack of papers out of Sterling’s hands.
“I do too. As I said, Samuel was one of the good guys.” Looking at me, Sterling said, “I get the feeling you don’t think so because he had me dig up some dirt on those people he works with. That’s just good business, miss. You always want to know who you’re sharing money with, and that’s the truth of it.”
Nodding, I stood up as Alex did. Maybe Jefferson Sterling was right. Maybe it was just good business to know who you were dealing with at all times. I honestly couldn’t say I disagreed with that idea. I just hoped it wasn’t what got Samuel killed.
“We’ll be in touch if we need anything else, Mr. Sterling,” Alex said as he moved toward the door. “I know where to find you.”
I smiled as I passed by the private eye, and he waved at us. “I’m always here, so just stop by if you need my help. I want to see whoever did that to Samuel caught just like you. We’re both on the same side.”
The office door closed behind us, and we made our way past the oral surgeon’s office and down the stairs to the outside where the sun shined and it didn’t feel like some cheap version of a film noir movie. A woman with a tiny dog and a couple holding hands walked toward us on the sidewalk, making the area feel less abandoned than before. The neighborhood still reminded me of a ghost town, though, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there and back home to Sunset Ridge.
“So that was Jefferson Sterling, private detective,” I said as we walked toward the car.
Alex looked over at me and nodded. “I told you. He wasn’t anywhere as glamorous as you thought he’d be. Just another guy digging up dirt on people.”
As I opened my car door, I asked him, “Do you think we learned anything concrete from that whole thing with him?”
He held the driver’s side door open and smiled. “I think we learned a great deal from him.”
What he’d learned, other than the possibility that Samuel wasn’t as good as everyone had always believed, I had no idea. But that’s why Alex was the cop and I wasn’t.
Chapter Twelve
Late because we slept through the alarm and hit the snooze button two times, Alex and I raced around the house getting ready for a jam-packed Monday. Both of us had to go into work, me at The Eagle and him at the police station, and both of us were due at our jobs at nine sharp.
I glanced at the clock as I rushed by the nightstand on my way to the closet to grab my pink sweater and saw it was already quarter to nine. We were going to be late! Alex stood in the bathroom still dripping wet from his shower. Even worse, neither of us had made the coffee yet, and with each passing second, it became less and less likely we’d have time to.
“It’s almost nine, Alex! I need to get in there to brush my teeth,” I pleaded as I slid my feet into my comfortable flats.
“Okay. I’m done in here, so I just have to get dressed. We’ll be fine. We live less than five minutes away from where we need to be, Poppy. Don’t worry.”
I pushed past him and positioned myself at the sink. The slapdash job I’d done with my makeup would have to do. Thank God I had what my mother always called a peaches and cream complexion. I rarely praised my Irish heritage, which gave me pale skin that burned after only a few minutes in the sun, but this morning, I loved that rosy glow that she’d always attributed to my being Irish.
Alex padded up behind me, still just wearing a towel around his hips, and kissed me sweetly just below my ear. “You look beautiful, like always.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned my head to kiss him before grabbing my toothbrush and squeezing a thick line of blue gel onto it. “And you’re going to be late, but thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, smiling at me in the mirror. “As for me being late, have you met the chief? I think he’d be okay if I rolled in a few minutes late.”
“The chief is your partner on this case, so you might find Derek a little different now,” I said as I brushed my teeth, garbling my words.
Alex shrugged. “I’ll bring doughnuts from The Grounds. It’ll placate him.”
Finished with my morning work on my teeth, I rinsed the sink and turned to face him as he still stood in that towel like we had all day to lounge around. “Doesn’t that seem stereotypical? A cop loving doughnuts? And will you get dressed? It’s ten to!”
He slid his arms around my waist and leaned in to nuzzle my neck. “I don’t think it’s a good sign that my future bride is complaining about me being undressed.”
My eyes rolled back in my head at the touch of his lips to my skin, and for a moment I forgot about the time, where we had to be, and everything else in the world but the two of us standing there in the bathroom. I ran my hands over the smooth skin of his shoulders, still warm from the hot shower, and let myself enjoy the feel of his strong body next to mine.
If I could stay there in our house with him like that for the rest of time, I would in a heartbeat.
But reality flooded my brain, telling me we couldn’t and we had less than ten minutes before we had to be at our respective workplaces.
Cradling his face in my hands, I kissed him and reminded him of that reality. “We have to go now, so get dressed, Officer Montero.”
“Fine.”
He sulked away to get into his uniform while I checked my look in the mirror one last time and silently bargained with my self-esteem that I looked good enough. I was only going to meet with my boss at the newspaper. What should I care how I looked to spend a few hours with him?
“Don’t forget about the cake tasting at three this afternoon. I’ll probably be at the station by that time, but just in case I can’t, don’t forget.”
Alex nodded and forced a smile. “Got it. Charming cake tasting at three. Bring an empty stomach.”
As we walked down the stairs, I explained what I’d read about these wedding cake tastings. “Actually, they say don’t do it on an empty stomach because it will make you nauseated. They also say to drink water between each tasting.”
“Got it. Eat lunch and drink water. I feel like I’m in some kind of special training for this thing today.”
I nudged him in the shoulder to let him know I didn’t appreciate his teasing about this part of our wedding plans and looked longingly at the coffee maker sitting on the counter with none of my morning nectar of the gods sitting in the pot. The Grounds would have to do. I just hoped the line wouldn’t be too long. I didn’t need Howard in a tizzy to start off the workday.
Howard demanded I come in and report to him not only about the case, which I would have to do some of my best hedging on, but also what I’d been doing about the yearly Founders’ Day celebration article that was due to him in just a week or so. As if I needed to do anything other than what I did every other year. He’d made that perfectly clear in the past, so I wasn’t sure what he wanted to discuss.
> At least that meant our meeting wouldn’t run very long. A little of Howard went a very long way, as far as I was concerned.
Alex drove toward The Eagle’s offices, but I stopped him as he passed The Grounds. “Wait! I need to get a coffee, so just get your usual space in front of the police station. I’ll walk from there.”
“Oh. I figured you were late, so you’d want to head directly to work,” he said as he stopped the car.
“All this time, and you still don’t know me well enough to know coffee must be had before the day can begin?” I joked, leaning in to kiss him goodbye.
He smiled at me and turned the car off. “What was I thinking? And on a day you’re meeting with that boss of yours? Better make it a two-cup day.”
“You think you’re joking, but I’m serious. It might be a two-cupper. Howard has been in rare form lately. You know he’s going to pump me for information on the Samuel Morrow case. I need to be on my toes so I can do my shuck and jive dance around him so he thinks he found something out when in reality, he’ll know no more than when the meeting began. Wish me luck!”
“Love you,” Alex said in that sweet voice he only used with me.
“I love you too. Talk to you in a few!”
In a hurry, I ran over to The Grounds and thankfully found only two people in line ahead of me. I had a feeling the heavens were smiling down on me today. First the peaches and cream skin and now a short line for coffee, which meant I might just make it to work on time.
For a Monday, I couldn’t complain. Now all I had to do was survive the meeting with Howard so I could go back to working on the Samuel Morrow murder case with Alex and then have our cake tasting that afternoon.
Not to be punny, but I thought to myself, “Piece of cake.”
I walked into The Sunset Ridge Eagle newspaper building with a coffee cup in each hand and ready for my meeting with Howard Fleming, editor of the paper and my boss who I grew to dislike more and more each day. The man had no feelings for any of the people in Sunset Ridge, probably because he didn’t even like to admit he knew people there.
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