Grounds for Remorse

by Misty Simon

  Laura was so busy filling and refilling coffee that she looked like she might fall over at any moment.

  I found Gina in the back, counting out pastries. “Hey, is Laura okay, or is the migraine back?”

  “I’m not sure, but I did ask her if she wanted to go home. She said no, she needs the money.”

  “Do you think it might be time to hire someone else along with her?”

  “Not yet. It hasn’t become unmanageable, but I was hoping to put someone on staff who could actually help me run the place, not just work here. You know, in case I ever wanted to go away.”

  “But you never go away.” I stole a chocolate chip cookie and got a look for the trouble I went to be discreet.

  “Well, I might want to every now and then, and while I’m fine with Mom watching the shop for a few hours here and there, I might want to be gone for longer than an afternoon sometimes.”

  “Did Jeremy ask you to go on vacation with him?” I don’t know why that popped into my head, but it did. And the way his vacation was all of the sudden ruined and he was home without any explanation made me wonder.

  “I’m going to plead the fifth.”

  “You’re going to need to drink a fifth. Do you know how much he snores?”

  Her laughter filled the back room. Laura ducked her head in and gave a weary nod. She looked exhausted, but was gone before I could ask her how she was doing.

  “Are you sure she’s all right?” I asked.

  “It’s just busy. I remember looking like that when I first started. You have to get your serving legs under you and then you’re fine. She said she’s okay and I’ll take her at her word. Maybe she has a hangover, but I do appreciate her coming in. She’s pleasant to all the customers, which is more than I can say for some of the people who applied for the job.” Gina chose more pastries and laid them on a big, flat baking sheet. “Anyway, Jeremy and I are considering going on a vacation now, maybe just a weekend to find out if this is even a good idea. I don’t want Mama Shirley here the whole time. If you know of anyone who might be interested and is qualified, send them my way.”

  “Will do. But remember, he does snore, and don’t blame me if you don’t get much sleep.”

  “Oh, Tallie, if I don’t get much sleep I don’t think it will have anything to do with him snoring.”

  “Touché.” We laughed and laughed until Laura came back in and asked when the pastries would be done. They were running low.

  “I’ll send Tallie out with some in just a few minutes. Thanks for letting me know.”

  It occurred to me that perhaps I could offer my services for a weekend. Maybe if Max came up, we could handle it between ourselves for two days. I’d think about it. I wasn’t the best at this, and the more I helped out here, the more it became apparent to me that maybe my dream to own a tea shop next door should remain a dream and not become a reality. I liked what I did. Cleaning wasn’t for the faint of heart, or for the easily annoyed. But I was good at it, and it was good to me, especially since I ran my own company and could do what I wanted when I wanted.

  Something to think about later. Gina handed me a plate of divine-smelling croissants and told me to put them in the display case. I walked carefully with the full tray, yet still managed to bobble it near the door. Something was in my way. I walked around it, thankful that I hadn’t actually fallen, and placed the pastries as artfully as I could on the waiting tray. It wasn’t a Gina-standards kind of job, but people asked for them as soon as they went into the case, so at least this time presentation didn’t matter all that much.

  I reentered the back to let Gina know to put a rush on the rest of the goodies when I saw what I had tripped over. Laura’s purse lay on its side like a drunken floozy, spilling out its guts. I hurried to push everything back into the purse and picked it up to put it on the table so no one else tripped over it. I shoved lipstick and eye shadow, a flyer for one of those dating sites, and a magazine on perfect nails all into the bag. Was she also looking for Mr. Right? She might not find him in this town, but good luck to her.

  “Here, Tallie, don’t put it on the table. I keep telling Laura we have a set of lockers, but she never uses them.” Gina took the bag and shoved it into one of the small squares. “I’ll let her know where it is when she’s done.”

  “Sounds good. I’m heading out then. Max and I are going to try this dinner thing again tonight.”

  “Have fun and take pictures. I want to see how you doll up in that dress I found at the back of my closet.”

  “Will do.” I headed out and straight into the waiting arms of Max.

  “Hey, I was just coming to get you to see if tonight is free.”

  “It is, and I hope you have reservations, because I plan on eating a lot, and laughing and talking even more.”

  “You’re on. How long do you need?”

  “I have one house to do, but it’s a relatively easy, one-story spiff up. I’ll meet you at the apartment in two hours.”

  “Until then.” He kissed me and then walked into the Bean.

  I watched him because I could, and because I enjoyed what I saw. I thought I would enjoy it even more in a pair of suit pants.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I was very much not disappointed by Max in a pair of dress pants. They were cut perfectly and outlined the physique that I had come to admire more and more each time we were together. His shirt was perfectly pressed and the bow tie at his throat made me smile.

  “I look okay?” he asked.

  “Absolutely. How about me?” I flared out the skirt of the deep-purple, knee-length dress as I spun around. I’d paired it with heels that put me right at Max’s cheekbone. I left my shoulders bare with just spaghetti straps, the only thing keeping the empire-waisted bodice up.

  We were pretty stunning if I did say so myself. And apparently, we were back on our way across the river to eat on top of an office building at a new restaurant that called itself Seven Crossings. The name was obvious when we got there because you could see all seven bridges that spanned the Susquehanna from the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  It was beautiful, the atmosphere subdued and yet glamorous. I was so thankful I had gone with this dress and that it fit.

  We were welcomed in by a maître d’ who bowed to us and then showed us to a table right up against the windows. Max held my chair and laid his hands on my shoulders, kissing the side of my neck where I’d clipped my hair up. I let the shiver run through me and enjoyed every second of it.

  Water appeared on the table, along with a bottle of wine. We talked and chose items from the menu, waiting for someone to come take our orders. We didn’t have long to wait.

  I could have sworn I knew the woman who dropped off our food about thirty minutes later, but I didn’t get a good look at her until after she had gone. When I asked our server her name, all I got was a shrug. It didn’t really matter, but I was a sucker for not being able to place people, especially if they were in an establishment where I didn’t expect to see them.

  “So, dinner is fabulous, and so are you.” I forked a bite of lobster into my mouth and savored it. I had appreciated and still appreciated the simpler life I was now living without Waldo. Many things had been great back then, with parties and no budget and careless times doing whatever I wanted, but I loved being responsible for myself and making my own money. I didn’t miss the politics and the social niceties. I did, however, realize how much I missed really good food. I was either going to have to get Gina to cook for me more, or expand the line on my budget sheet for food expenditures and learn to cook the good stuff for myself.

  “Thanks. I’m glad you liked it. I wanted to try to pick somewhere you’d probably never been before.”

  “Perfect choice.”

  “Good.” We clinked glasses, and he winked at me.

  “You know, if you ever wanted to be up here a little more often, I certainly wouldn’t mind having you closer, or here more than a few days every couple of weeks.”

&n
bsp; “Is that right?” He sipped his drink.

  I had maybe expected a little bit more than that, but he winked at me again, so I figured he was just messing with me.

  I saw the girl deliver food to the table next to ours and she really looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

  “Hey, do you recognize her?” I asked Max, but by the time he’d turned around, she was gone again.

  “Man, that is going to bother me all night. I hate not being able to place people.”

  “It’ll pop into your head in the middle of the night. You’ll probably wake me up to tell me.”

  He wasn’t wrong, so I laughed. “Yes, I’m sure I will.”

  Sure enough, that night at about three o’clock I sat up in bed and nudged him. “Laura . . . That looked just like Laura, but she told Gina the Bean was her only job because she was going to school. I thought I recognized her, but something threw me off, and it was the hair.”

  I bolted out of bed while Max sat up, rubbing the top of his head. Probably still half asleep, but I was all the way awake and all pistons were firing now. I tried hard to remember the site that was on the flyer in Laura’s purse. She’d had the opportunity to poison someone at both places. She would have been able to slip something into Craig’s cup when she’d given him the complimentary cup from someone else. She was only across the street when the memorial was happening and often wore a black skirt and a solid-colored shirt like the funeral parlor dress attire required by my father. I only lacked a motive. She was far younger than Craig, but maybe she liked them older.

  I wracked my brain for the name of the dating site, and finally it came to me. SeekingFrogs.com.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised when I typed in Craig’s name. He was on there, and Laura had liked his page and also sent him a small pair of lips and a heart in the comments. Had she been one of the women he’d thrown away?

  She’d come to work for Gina shortly after Gina and Craig had started dating, so the timeline wouldn’t have been far off, and it all fit together perfectly. Was she just out for revenge? Didn’t like getting dumped—so she killed him?

  But then why would she have hurt Brenna? That part didn’t make a ton of sense, but that was the least of my worries. Had Laura burned down the house, too? I needed to warn Gina that she might have hired a psycho. Glancing across the street, I saw that her light was on. I took a chance that she’d have her phone on her.

  She did not sound happy when I called her. “Tallie, I have things to do, and not a lot of time to do them in.”

  “What do you know about Laura?”

  She paused. “Enough to have hired her. Her background check came out fine, and her references were glowing. Why?”

  “Did you know she’s also working in a restaurant across the river?”

  “No, but she’s a free agent. I don’t pay her much. I’m sure she needs more money than I can give her for part-time.”

  “Oh.” Doubt crept in. Maybe I just wanted this solved so badly that I was jumping at any shadow, anything out of the norm, and thinking that it had to be someone, so why not her?

  “What are you on about? You think Laura killed Craig?”

  “No. Well . . . maybe?” It had all made sense at first, when I was still in partial dreamland, but now that I was awake it seemed ridiculous. “Probably not.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think so. She has a boyfriend in State College that she goes to see at least once a month, and I can’t imagine her being interested in Craig. Plus, why would she have killed him? She didn’t strike me as crazy, and there were plenty of other women he dumped, not to mention you have two solid suspects who both thought they were married to him. My money is still on Lily.”

  “I found Laura on the dating Web site and she’d had her eye on him. I just thought it all fit together perfectly. Does she drive to work or walk?” The room she rented on Marble Street was only four blocks away and parking could be brutal downtown.

  “She must have a car to go to State College, but I’ve never seen it so I can’t tell you if it has your oversized tires.”

  “I could go look.”

  “I really think you’re grasping at the wrong person, Tallie. She had nothing at stake.”

  “Okay. Sorry to disturb you.”

  “No problem. I was up anyway, and ready to head downstairs.” I heard snoring in the background and giggled to myself quietly.

  “I hope you got at least some sleep last night.”

  “Plenty,” she said with an edge to her tone. “Now go back to cuddling with Max and look at it fresh tomorrow. See if Burton will tell you where Lily is and talk to her. I bet you she slips up and says something that will absolutely nail her for the murder.”

  “Okay. Sorry. Have a good day.”

  “Well, my morning started out peachy, so I can only go up from here, right?”

  * * *

  I had to wait a few hours to call Burton so that I didn’t get in trouble for waking him up before his beauty sleep was complete. Max and I talked the whole thing through and used my newly constructed spreadsheet to go over each of the women who could have committed the crimes, and we kept coming back to Lily.

  “I think Gina is right,” Max said. “She just happened to be there the day of the memorial; she had access to the kitchen at the funeral home if she was in the crowd seated in the room and slipped out. She would have heard the woman crying about the baby and seen you take her out. She was quick to try to take over the house, and I think she didn’t want anything standing in her way of inheriting everything Craig had owned for leaving her all those years ago. Maybe when she realized that Burton was looking into her marriage and she knew it was fake, she burned down the house because if she couldn’t have it, then no one could.”

  It made sense. It really did, but something in my gut was telling me that it was all too pat. Yet, I also didn’t have anything else. I still wanted to clear Gina’s name completely. She might have been snippy with me this morning because I was barking up her employee’s tree, or she could have been snippy because she wanted this over. Either way Burton had not officially told me that he thought it was anyone else, and he wasn’t actively pursuing anyone else, so the pressure was still on.

  Right at eight, I called and spoke with Suzy at the front desk. Burton wasn’t in yet, and I wasn’t willing to use his cell phone number before he ingested his first cup of morning Joe from the station.

  “You don’t happen to know where Lily is staying, do you? I wanted to give her something Gina found at the Bean. She must have dropped it at the memorial and it had her name on it.”

  “She’s at the B and B on Main Street. Just ask at the front desk. Or you could even leave it at the front desk. Mallorie would be happy to deliver it for you. She’s a wonderful lady.”

  “And so are you, Suzy, thanks!” I hung up before anything more could be said. I wouldn’t tell Burton where I got the information if I was asked with a hot poker at my eye.

  A trip to the bed and breakfast down the way was next on my list, then. Warman House had been standing for years and had originally been a residence. The house next door to it was an exact replica but built in the opposite direction. They were called Mirror Houses. The front doors faced each other on the corner and then everything flowed out behind with the same plans, just opposite. I had no idea why they’d done that, but the history of the town said that it had been two brothers who had built the houses for their wives.

  I pulled into the driveway around back with nothing to hand over to Mallorie since there never had been anything with Lily’s name on it. But I could still fake my way into getting her information and getting to see her.

  “Mallorie, hi! How are you?”

  “Oh, Tallie, it’s good to see you. We missed you around here when you were gone.”

  I had really only been up the hill, but I had never interacted with anyone down here in town except those I needed something from. And I hadn’t needed Mallorie and her bed and breakfast for anythin
g. I was ashamed of the snob I’d been and still trying to make it up. Maybe I’d buy a package for my parents to stay here for their upcoming fortieth anniversary.

  “I missed you, too. Hey, I was wondering if Lily was here. I wanted to see if she might want to go have some breakfast at Meiner’s.”

  “Oh, she stepped out just a minute ago. I hope she stays in the area when the estate is settled. What a nice lady, and so gracious. Did you know she used to be in the movies? She got tired of all the politicking and so left the screen before she made it big, but she had a commercial for shampoo that she did before she called it quits.”

  An actress—that was interesting. Apparently not a good one if she only had one shampoo commercial, but maybe she’d never been cast in the right role, like grieving widow. She hadn’t played that role well, either, so I could understand that she probably never got those parts because she wasn’t good at what she did.

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “For a walk. I pointed her in the direction of the park across the railroad tracks. Beautiful day for it. I might try to get out there once I get my cleaning done. Sometimes I wish I could hire you to do the dirty stuff.” She laughed.

  I handed her a business card, anyway. “Anything you need, big or small, and I’d be happy to help. Just give me a shout. I’ll give you a discount.”

  “Oh, well, thank you. My goodness. I’ll certainly call.” She tucked the card into her pocket. “Now, she just left a few minutes ago. You shouldn’t have a hard time catching up with her.”

  “Thanks, Mallorie. Talk to you later.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I briefly wished I had told Max where I was going, but I had left him in the shower. I could handle this on my own. I thought it would be better woman to woman, anyway, rather than having Max standing behind me looking over my shoulder.

  I walked to the park, coming up with how I was going to approach her. I had no intention of taking her down myself. I just needed her to tell me something, anything, that could be used against her. I would gladly hand the capture over to Burton after that. I just wanted my friend off the hook, not the dubious glory of catching another killer.