Magnolias, Moonlight, and Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “Still in the garage. No luggage missing, just her purse and keys. She sent Nita an e-mail, saying she’d be out of town for a few days, but Nita always did think that was strange because Jodi was conscientious. It wasn’t like her to leave without planning for it at work. She hadn’t requested any days off.”

  “Did she have a boyfriend?” Where were these questions coming from? It wasn’t like I was interested. Oh, who was I kidding? Of course I was interested. Who wouldn’t be, especially after learning I lived in the same house she’d lived in before she’d gone AWOL? And even though I told Mitch I wouldn’t get involved…a girl could ask questions, couldn’t she?

  “No. I don’t think so,” Dorthea said. “I never saw her with any boyfriends and Nita says she wasn’t dating anyone seriously.”

  Livvy marched up and said, “Mom, can we wrap Geneva’s present now?”

  “In a few minutes.”

  Dorthea said, “Let’s see if I have something in my pocket.”

  She made a big production of digging deep into the pocket of her stretchy elastic-waist jeans, then pulled her hand out and opened it with the flair of a magician. A shiny new quarter caught the sun. “It was so bright and new I thought I’d save it for Livvy, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course. Oh, I’d better go,” I said. “It looks like Nathan is pulling up our gardenias.”

  Chapter Five

  I was dashing into the Base Exchange to pick up a bag of dog food before I met Mitch for lunch when the name Topaz Simoniti caught my eye.

  I pushed the stroller over to the cash register for a closer look at the sign that read MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO TOPAZ SIMONITI.

  The woman running the kiosk was turned away from me, helping a customer. She had brown hair and was shorter than me. It could be her.

  I checked the sign again. Come on, who else could it be with a name like that? Memories of Mrs. Daniel’s ninth grade history class—the last, endless class of the day—came rushing back: the smell of Corey Tate’s stinky shoes, the ping of the metal high bar clattering to the ground through the open windows in the spring when one someone missed their jump, Mrs. Daniel’s boxy-heeled shoes clomping along the aisles as she passed out papers, the chain connected to the frame of her half-glasses swinging back and forth with each step. You knew you were in trouble when Mrs. Daniel stopped at your desk and pulled those glasses down to the tip of her nose and looked over them at you.

  Thankfully, I was hardly ever on the receiving end of her glare. Topaz, on the other hand, had endured the glare often, but it didn’t bother her.

  “Mom, where’s Dad?” A tug on my sleeve and Livvy’s voice brought me back to the present and I glanced around the mall area of the Base Exchange. To call it a mall was stretching it. Minimall or lobby would be more accurate. The wide high-ceilinged hallway stretched the length of the Base Exchange, which was a department store located on Taylor Air Force Base. The minimall had a small food court at one end and shops—a florist, the uniform shop, a barbershop, and a dry cleaner—lined the rest of the space. Kiosks of independent vendors filled the middle aisle.

  You never knew what vendors would be in the minimall. I’d seen rugs, paintings, cookware, clothing, military memorabilia, and books. Topaz’s booth was divided in half. One side displayed home decor items made from metal. Candlesticks, metal-framed mirrors, napkin rings, and flower buckets ranged along the shelves. Each featured delicate twists of metal threaded with sparkly beads or interesting meshwork. The other side of the booth displayed a range of jewelry from chunky metal designs to fragile shells.

  I glanced around again before I answered Livvy. “He’ll be here in a minute,” I said. “Why don’t you go get a drink from the water fountain?” She skipped a few feet over to the water fountain and pulled a step stool into place. I could tell by the way she moved she felt grown-up. Getting to go to the water fountain alone was a big deal at three. Of course, she would point out that she was “almost three and a half.”

  “Were you looking for something in particular?” The woman had finished with the other customer.

  I swiveled slightly, so I could keep Livvy in sight as I said, “No. I mean, everything is lovely, but I wanted to talk to you. You’re Topaz Simoniti?” She’d put on a little weight, but then again, hadn’t we all? Her eyes, her namesake, were the same light golden brown. She’d once said, “They’re brown, your basic brown. Boring. Trust my mom to go from ‘brown’ to ‘topaz.’ I guess it could be worse. I could be named coffee or something.”

  She thought her eyes were boring, but everything else I remembered about her was interesting. Even as a sophomore she’d been eccentric. Because I sat behind her, I’d spent a lot of time looking at the back of her head during American history and even that hadn’t been boring. At the beginning of the year she’d had long straight brown hair. Each day was a different style—braids, ponytail, slicked back with gel, crimped. You named a style and Topaz had done it to her hair. After Christmas break, she came back with jet-black hair and clothes to match the goth look. By spring, she’d shifted to white blond and red lipstick. I wasn’t sure if she was doing a retro—Marilyn Monroe thing or an ironic take on Madonna. Then she cycled through looks, chameleon-like, as styles changed.

  Today her hair was back to brown, but streaked with bold blond highlights at half-inch intervals. The asymmetrical cut was shorter on the left than the right and exposed a dangly chandelier-type earring of different size keys on one side. Her hair curved longer on the other side, hiding all but the tip of the other earring. Her round face and padded cheeks looked the same, if a little more plump. Her porcelain skin was still flawless. She’d never had a zit and I’d told her once it was a crime to cover up her great skin with all that white makeup during her goth phase. She’d laughed it off and said she’d rather have my tiny hips than perfect skin. Well, my hips weren’t so tiny anymore and Topaz still had her great skin.

  “I’m Ellie Avery—I mean Ellie Westby. That was my maiden name.”

  She blinked a couple of times, a puzzled look still on her face. “From high school,” I added. “Mrs. Daniel’s class. Remember the awful Saints and Sinners quizzes?” Her eyebrows scrunched together as she tilted her head slightly toward me like she was having trouble hearing me. This was getting embarrassing. “You probably don’t remember. I had the Rachel haircut and sat behind you in sixth-period American history at Llano Estacado High.”

  Her face cleared and she broke into a grin. “Ellie! Of course I remember you. And how could anyone ever forget those Saints and Sinners quizzes? So, how are you?”

  “Good.” How do you sum up your life in a couple of sentences? “I’m married now, obviously. New name and all. My husband’s a pilot in the Air Force and we were transferred here last winter. I’m a professional organizer.”

  “And a mom, too,” Topaz said as she leaned over to look in the stroller.

  “I always think that’s kind of apparent,” I said, grinning as I pulled back the stroller’s visor. “This is Nathan, our youngest. He’s eleven months old.”

  “Mom, can I get another drink?” Livvy said, pulling on my arm.

  “No. Not right now. This is a friend of mine from school.” I introduced Livvy and she suddenly became shy, clinging to my hand and hiding her face against my leg, her standard operating procedure with new adults.

  “You do not look old enough to have two kids!” Topaz exclaimed. “You look great. How do you do it?”

  I shrugged a shoulder. “Must be all that chasing after the kids—keeps me in shape, at least a little bit. So, tell me about what you’ve been doing for the last—what would it be—ten years? Are you here at the BX a lot?”

  “Some. I hit the bases’ exchanges in the fall and winter. I spend the spring and summer on the road at craft fairs and visiting shops. I have a lot of merchandise on consignment at little boutique-type places. North Dawkins is home base for me now. It’s a good central location.”

  “How did you get star
ted?” I picked up a candlestick holder. The base was weighty and solid. Several fine wires twisted around it and swirled up to encase the taper candles. A couple of glass beads were spaced irregularly along the wire. The candlesticks were good quality and the twisty wires added a quirky flair to them.

  I wasn’t much of a shopper. In fact, I’d designated Abby as my personal shopper. The only retail section that interested me was the designer purse section. I liked browsing the handbags at department stores, but what got my pulse racing was looking for purses at thrift shops and on Internet auction sites. On the topic of Kate Spade versus Louis Vuitton, I knew what I was talking about. All other types of shopping bored me silly and I left those up to Abby. She had a knack for putting things together and making a room or an outfit look spectacular. I thought she’d approve of the candlesticks.

  “Oh, you know.” Topaz shrugged. “I liked to make stuff. I tried the college thing, but it didn’t work out. Business classes, well, any classes really, just bore me, you know? I was always making something and one day a woman offered me twenty bucks for a belt I’d woven from leather strips. Twenty bucks! I was amazed, but then it dawned on me that I could make some money from basically nothing. I got a booth and started selling my stuff.”

  I picked up one of her business cards from a smooth wooden holder, a four-inch section of a tree branch with the bark removed and the wood sanded to a silky finish. “Found Objects,” I read.

  “It’s a fancy name,” she said. “Basically, I take stuff people don’t want—what they throw away or what nature leaves lying around—and make it into things, then sell them.”

  “How long will you be here at the BX?” I asked.

  “Through the end of the week and then I’m not sure where I’m off to. There are a couple of stores I need to visit on the coast…but I don’t know. I might hang here for a little while. Depends on what I feel like.”

  I set the candlestick holders down by the register. “These are beautiful. I’ll take them,” I said.

  There were other customers lining up behind me, so I paid for the candlesticks, then gave her one of my cards for Everything In Its Place, my organizing business. I had to dig pretty deep into my purse to get one. I hadn’t exactly had people clamoring for help organizing their life since we’d moved to Georgia. Starting a business was hard. I’d had a fairly good stream of clients while we were stationed at our last assignment in Vernon, Washington. But I’d discovered that starting over in a new city was even harder than the initial business start-up.

  I bought the dog food, then went on to the food court, where I spotted Mitch in line. I grabbed a table and waved him over. He set down a tray with several slices of pizza and before I could tell him about Nita Lockworth’s visit or running into Topaz, he said, “The list came out today.”

  He didn’t have to explain which list. We’d been waiting for the major promotion list for weeks.

  “And?” I stopped cutting pizza into bites for Livvy.

  “I’ll have to buy new rank.”

  “Mitch, that’s great.” Buying new rank meant changing the pins and patches on his uniforms to reflect his promotion. We’d been hoping for the promotion to major. Mitch was a year under the zone, which was complicated to explain. There was a time frame, a group of years, when Mitch could be selected to be promoted. “Under the zone” meant he’d been picked before most of the people in his time frame. The others could still make it, but it would be next year or the year after. “We can celebrate it when we go on our date on Sunday.” We’d been trying to go on a date for weeks, but so far either our sitter had canceled or the kids had gotten sick.

  “You know what pinning on new rank means,” he said.

  “Um…it doesn’t mean we’re moving sooner, right?”

  “No, we’re here for at least a couple more years. It means a party—a promotion party.”

  “Oh. How could I forget?” It was kind of strange, like a lot of things in the Air Force, actually. You got the promotion and then you threw your own party and invited the whole squadron. Sounds selfish, I know, but that’s how it was done. Tradition. I didn’t understand it and—most of the time—I didn’t try.

  I caught my cup as Nathan knocked it over. “So, did anyone else get promoted?” There was another tradition associated with promotion. If more than one person got promoted, they usually pitched in and hosted the promotion party together. Since an event like that could run several hundred dollars, it was nice to split it several ways.

  “Nope. I’m it. I’m thinking a cookout in two weeks on Friday.”

  I pulled out my organizer and flipped to the calendar. I’d be lost without it. “That would work. Nathan’s birthday party is the week before and Halloween is the weekend after.”

  He picked up on the reluctance in my tone because he said, “Don’t stress. A cookout will be simple. Just burgers, chips, and some beer.”

  Somehow I didn’t think it would stay that simple. And a cookout would mean making sure the house and the yard looked great. We’d be hosting fifty people, at least. Probably more. My stomach clenched. I was a nervous wreck when we entertained. Lists. I was going to need lots of lists. “Okay, I’m writing it down on the calendar. About what time should we tell people? Six o’clock, you think?”

  Mitch whistled. “On the calendar. You know what this means—no turning back now. It’s official.”

  “Stop it,” I said, but I was smiling. “It’s in pencil, not ink.”

  “Oh,” he said with mock seriousness. “Just pencil, well, that’s different. Yeah, six sounds good. What’s the date again? I’ll start to get the word out.”

  “Hmm…you need the date?” I couldn’t resist teasing him. “Good thing I’ve got it written down, isn’t it?”

  I mentally shifted gears back to my news. I knew if I focused on the party I’d drive myself crazy worrying. I was really good at worrying. Plenty of time for that later.

  “Okay, I’m not going to think about that right now, because—well, you know me, so you know why. I have some news, too.”

  I told him about Topaz and he asked, “Was she a good friend? I don’t remember you mentioning her.”

  “No, more of an acquaintance. I don’t think she had any really close friends. She was one of those unique kids—totally herself and completely confident. I always had the feeling she was too exotic, too unconventional to fit into any group.” Our high school had been a strange blend of The Breakfast Club and an Edward Hopper painting. Topaz seemed to have walked out of a Salvador Dali world. She didn’t quite fit, but it didn’t bother her at all.

  “Are you going to get together and catch up?”

  “I don’t know. I’d like to, but it sounds like she travels quite a bit. And that’s not all that’s happened. We had a visit from a friend of Dorthea’s today.” I explained about Nita Lockworth’s visit. “Can you believe Jodi lived in our house before she disappeared? Isn’t that weird?”

  “Yeah, really interesting and quite a coincidence, too.”

  “Mitch, I did not know anything about this. There’s no way anyone could know, unless they lived in the neighborhood when Jodi lived here, since the house was listed through a property agent.”

  Nathan started to fuss, so Mitch transferred him out of the high chair and into his lap. “I know, I know. You’re interested, I can tell. You’ve got that spark in your voice.” His phone rang and he had to take the call. I finished off my pizza, wiped the kids’ faces and hands, and began to pack up toys. Mitch hung up. “I have to get back.”

  “That’s okay. I need to go, too,” I said. “I want to work on those brochures during nap time.” Mitch transferred Nathan to the stroller and I dumped our trash.

  As we walked to the parking lot, Mitch said, “Ellie, have you thought about shutting down Everything In Its Place?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You’re pouring tons of time and money into it and nothing’s happening with it. It’s not like we need the mon
ey.”

  I stopped the stroller at the Jeep, got the kids strapped in, and spun back to him. “It’s slow right now. It takes time to rebuild a business.”

  “It’s almost been a year,” he said gently.

  I bristled and collapsed the stroller a little more forcefully than was necessary. “Mitch, you don’t get it, do you? I’m not doing it just for the money. It’s something I’m good at and it’s something that’s completely mine. You’ve got this whole other work life. Sometimes I feel like my identity is being gobbled up in being a wife and a mom. I need something that’s all me.”

  Mitch sighed and said, “I’m only saying that you always have a lot going on, and like you reminded me the other day, your days are pretty full. The spare bedroom is driving you crazy and if you weren’t doing all the work for your organizing business you might feel better. You’re investing a lot of your time and energy in it and not getting much return. It’s a business. Don’t get too emotional. You’ve got to make a business decision. That’s all I’m saying. Is it a business or a hobby? I know you’re probably mad, so I’m getting out of here now.” He gave me a quick kiss and headed to his car.

  I managed not to stomp over to the driver’s side of the car, but I was only able to restrain myself because I knew Livvy and Nathan were watching. A losing venture! Make a business decision. Don’t get too emotional. Easy for him to say. It wasn’t his project he wanted me to walk away from.

  As soon as everyone was down for nap time, I hit the computer with a renewed sense of energy and purpose. I clicked over to our e-mail and was delighted to see some new e-mails, but then I realized it was on our personal account. I pulled out the calendar and flipped through the last few months. I’d bought it in January, right after we’d moved in. I’d expected that my business would be slow. It would take a while to build up a new client base. But ten months was a little long to wait for one client. I’d tried advertising, but that hadn’t drawn much interest.