I stepped on the gas as I pulled out onto Milwaukee Avenue. Yes, I drove away as fast as I could. It felt good. A half mile down the road, I slowed my pace enough that I wouldn’t get pulled over. A ticket would be the icing on the cake for this day.
Chapter 5
I was wrong. The icing on the cake was finding Bobby and his best friend, Gage, in a booth at the back of the bar near the pool tables. Bobby had that look he got when he had had one too many drinks. I had to unclench my back teeth and smile as I approached the table. “Hi, guys, how’s it going?” I buzzed a kiss on Gage’s cheek and sat down beside Bobby. I kissed Bobby on the mouth, but I wasn’t feeling it. I thought about the way Warren looked at Felicity. Bobby never looked at me like that.
“Where’ve you been?” Bobby asked as he flagged the waitress and motioned for her to bring another round of drinks.
“I was at the Executive Airport. I discovered a dead guy in the ladies’ room.”
“Wow,” Gage said. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, thanks.” I flashed him a grateful smile.
“What was a guy doing in the girls’ room? Was he wearing a dress?” Bobby winked at Gage.
I rolled my eyes. “No, he was dressed like a guy. I have no idea why he died in there.”
“Do you think he was murdered?” Gage asked.
“The cops acted like it,” I said, and accepted the long-neck beer the waitress put in front of me. “But I didn’t see any obvious evidence.” I shrugged and took a swig of my beer. “I’m no crime-scene expert, but it looked like whoever killed him must have stuffed him in the stall along with a mop and bucket.”
“Do you think they used that mop to clean up the evidence?”
“Gosh, I hadn’t thought of that.” I leaned forward toward Gage. “But it makes sense. I didn’t see any obvious signs of what killed him. But he may have had a gash on the back of his head. He could have bled all over the place, although I didn’t see a blood trail or anything.”
“It’s not like you’re a bloodhound,” Bobby teased. “Although I bet that hair of yours would collect scents like the folds in a bloodhound’s face.” He lifted a handful of strands in his fingers and let it fall. “Too bad you don’t have the sense of smell a dog does. You might have actually been of some help to the cops.” He finished the beer in his bottle with a giant swallow. “You called the cops, right?”
“Yes.” I tried not to sigh. Bobby and I had been dating since high school—eight years. Bobby had been cool back then, a jock on both the football and the baseball teams. Unfortunately Bobby had changed little since he was seventeen. What was cool when I was a teenager was not so cool now.
I looked at Gage. Unlike Bobby, Gage had gone to college and graduated with a business degree. He worked for a large prop house that stored scenery and such from the many local movie shoots and theater productions. I had no idea why he still hung out with Bobby. Maybe it was loyalty. Gage was like that. Once he decided on something, it stuck.
I rested my chin on my fist, elbow on the table, and studied Gage. He had short dark brown hair and must have come straight from work. He wore a pale blue dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His dark blue and white striped tie was loosened. The color reflected the blue of his eyes, which were framed in thick black lashes any redhead would give her eyeteeth for.
He was the opposite of Bobby, who wore a NASCAR T-shirt with a grease stain on the shoulder and worn jeans. Gage glanced up and caught my stare. I straightened and played with the condensation on my bottle. I’m glad it was dim in the bar. No one could see my blush. Gage was taken. He was dating a cute blonde named Emma. Her family was from Lake Forest and had money.
They made a great couple. Unlike me, her hair was always perfect. She was in great shape—thin with large boobs. Her nails and makeup were always done up, and the outfits . . . needless to say, my Target skinny jeans and green sweater didn’t even come close to the quality of her cashmere sweaters and designer slacks.
Not that I wanted to have to worry about always looking put together. I had enough things on my mind. But Gage had good taste in women. Not only was Emma well groomed but she was educated and worked downtown at a fancy marketing firm.
“So what the heck were you doing at the Executive Airport anyway? You get a job out there cleaning toilets?” Bobby snorted as if what he’d said was funny.
I winced. “Felicity got engaged to Warren tonight. He asked me to set up the event for him, remember?”
“No,” Bobby said as the waitress put a fresh beer in front of him. Gage waved off another round. I clung to my nearly full bottle as a clear sign I wasn’t buying more. Beer at a bar cost twice what a homemade margarita did. Warren’s check in my pocket could be put to better use than buying Bobby drinks. “I can’t keep up with what you’re doing . . . not working, though. Find a job yet?”
“No.” I rolled my eyes at Bobby’s inference that I was some kind of deadbeat. Gage gave me a sympathetic look over his half-empty bottle of beer. “Anyway, Warren does accounting work for this company that has a private jet. They let him rent it,” I told Gage since he seemed more interested than Bobby. “I decorated the inside with mementoes of their dating life. Felicity had no idea what was coming until he got down on one knee.” I pressed my hand to my chest. “It was so romantic. We all clapped when she said yes and then they flew off to a romantic destination.”
“They flew off to a romantic destination,” Bobby mocked and then took a swig of his beer. “Who does that?”
“Warren, I suppose,” I answered. It was times like this when I wondered why we were still together. Complacency, I guessed. Maybe we were both too lazy to move on. I mean, after eight years, I felt as if I’d invested a lot of time in Bobby. I kept waiting for the confident, competent Bobby from high school to come back. I think for Bobby, I was just the girl who was here. He didn’t have to do anything—not even listen to me tell him where I was going.
I had tried for years to get him to go out into the world. I’d dragged him to event after event that I had planned and worried over, trying to amuse him. But he preferred to either be here at the bar playing pool and getting drunk or home in front of the TV drinking beer. Either way I was an afterthought. Like an appendage, I was simply there.
The realization hit me like a bolt out of the blue. I could live alone and still not be heard, but then there might be space for someone else in my life. I mean, there had to be more guys like Gage out there, didn’t there?
“What are you pouting about?” Bobby scowled at me.
“I’m not pouting.” I frowned at him. “I was just thinking how I want something like that.”
“To be flown away for a weekend?” Gage asked.
“No,” I sighed. “To have someone who cares enough to make things special for me.”
It was then that I looked at Bobby. Really looked at him. I think that was the truth of it—I wanted him to care enough to make something special for me. Deep in my heart of hearts, I knew he never would.
Bobby got a little surly when he saw me looking through him. “Is that what’s been bugging you lately?” he asked, missing the point entirely. “You want me to propose?”
“Oh, gosh no.” I shook my head. It was so strange; I’d been waiting for years for Bobby to propose, but after seeing Warren look at Felicity, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t imagine marrying a man who looked at me as a pain in the bum. That was the look Bobby gave me right then.
“Right.” Bobby narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been hinting at it for years, and now your sister is engaged. You’ll really start hounding me.”
“No, really,” I protested. “I don’t want you to propose.”
He sneered at me. “Good because you’re nuts if you think I’m going to get down on one knee in this place.” He waved his beer bottle at the sticky, filthy, peanut-shell-encrusted floor.
“I don’t want you to get down on one knee,” I said as clearly as I could. For such a long time I had hoped that he would propose. That he would think to ask my sister or my friends what I would want—a sunset picnic by a lake. He never did ask, and now I could see he never would.
“Good.” He took a swig of his drink. “So I suppose you want to then.”
“Want to what?” I could hear the horror in my voice.
“Get married,” he said with a snarl.
Looking at the disdain rolling off him, I realized I had invested far too much of my time in a man who didn’t love me.
“No,” I said as firmly as I could. “I want to break up.” I got up and walked out. There was a rush of relief. I realized suddenly that I would be okay on my own. Far better than to be stuck with a man who spent all his free hours in a dingy bar, playing pool and listening to out-of-date tunes on the jukebox.
After all, I’d discovered a dead body. I’d called the cops. After that there wasn’t much that could faze me—certainly not the sound of Bob Seger singing “Against the Wind.” How old was that song anyway? The music was as old as the bar.
The night air was cool as I shoved the door open. The scent was crisp and clean and free of stale beer and musty peanuts. I really was going to be okay. I had not only discovered a body, but I’d put together a romantic proposal personalized for Felicity.
Maybe Warren was right. Maybe I could start my own business. He’d even given me enough seed money to live on for six months. I would be foolish not to try.
First thing tomorrow I would make up business cards. When Felicity and Warren got back, I would ask them both to hand them out to clients or friends. Surely if there was one considerate, caring man like Warren, there had to be two.
At least that was what I would stake my life on for the next six months.
My heart felt light. I took another deep breath of fresh air. For the first time in a long time, I felt as if I was on the right path. Maybe, just maybe, I could make something out of the ruins of my life.
Chapter 6
Two days later I was at my parents’ home helping Mom with Sunday dinner.
“What’s with the china?” my dad, Frank Pomeroy, asked as he passed through the dining room of the brick bungalow my parents had lived in my entire life.
“We’re celebrating,” my mom, Abigail, said without a blink. She carefully folded her best linen napkins into tiny pockets for the silverware.
“What?” Dad asked. “Did I forget an anniversary?”
“Felicity and Warren are flying home this afternoon,” I said as I put out the silverware.
“I made my famous pot roast,” Mom stated. “I thought you could smell it.”
“I can.” Dad shoved his big workman’s hands in his pockets. Dad was tall, around six feet three inches. He used to be six feet four, but he had started to shrink with age. He didn’t look bad for a man in his late fifties. He still had a full head of hair, although it had gone from red to white pretty early. His blue eyes sparkled with intelligence. Today he wore a light blue denim work shirt and dark blue jeans. My whole life Dad had been a plumber. He was proud of his profession and belonged to the local plumbers’ union. His favorite television show was Ghost Hunters because the two main guys were also plumbers.
“I figured there was a sale on roast or something,” he said.
“You did not,” I teased. “I saw you run out of the house the minute you realized it was pot roast.”
“What is she talking about, Frank?” Mom straightened and studied my dad.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I thought it was an anniversary or something.”
“Oh, he bought you a present,” I said then clamped my hand over my mouth when my father glared at me.
“Frank, you didn’t.” Mom’s green eyes twinkled.
“He did,” I said and then bit my lip as my dad narrowed his gaze at me.
Mom came around the table. “You bought me a present?”
“It can wait.” Dad blushed. Like me, he could never hide a blush. His ears turned bright pink whenever he was embarrassed or put on the spot. Even though his hair was completely white, he still had the skin of a redhead. It showed emotions like the colors of an octopus.
“It most certainly cannot.” Mom held out her hand. “Give it to me . . . please.”
“Fine.” Dad pulled a long box out of his pocket. “Think of it as a mother-of-the-bride gift.”
Mom opened the box and took out a silver charm bracelet. There were three starter beads on it. One was a piano. Mom was a part-time piano teacher and spent her Saturdays teaching students at one of two pianos in the music room. The music room was actually our basement, which Dad had finished on his own. He’d put in a drop ceiling and painted the cinder block walls. A Berber carpet and two upright pianos had given Mom the space she needed to teach her lessons without impinging on his football games.
The second bead was a silver bride, and the third charm was . . . “Is that a cuckoo bird?” I had to ask because I hoped for something better to represent me.
“What a cute cuckoo bird it is, too.” Mom brushed a kiss on Dad’s lips. “You’ll get your reward later, even if it isn’t an anniversary.”
Dad grinned.
Mom might be described as curvy, but Dad didn’t seem to mind the extra bits of her. She was the shortest in the family at five feet two inches tall. She wore a size fourteen and tended to be a progressive dresser. Today she had on a pair of dark slacks and a light green sweater set that played up the color in her eyes. She kept her hair dyed a dark brown and cut short so that it curled like a pixie around her face.
“Pepper, help me with this clasp, will you, honey?” She held out her wrist and I clasped the charm bracelet. “What do you think?”
“It’s lovely,” I said. “But I’m still not certain what the cuckoo bird represents.”
“Oh, probably the passing of time, dear.” Mom went back to folding napkins as if I wouldn’t know she was lying. “Put the crystal champagne glasses out,” she said. “It’s not every day we get to have champagne.”
Mom had pink-toned Irish crystal champagne glasses that I’d only seen her use a handful of times. The last time was on my parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary.
I pulled the glasses out of the china cabinet and wiped them off with a soft cloth before I placed them on the table.
“There, isn’t the table lovely?” Mom asked, admiring our handiwork.
“I do know how to set a table,” I said and put my hands on my hips. “It was part of event planning 101.”
“I know, dear.” Mom patted my arm as she moved to the kitchen. “It’s nice to see you use your degree.”
“I use my degree a lot.” I followed her into the kitchen.
She grabbed kitchen mitts decorated with red and green roosters and opened the oven to check the roast. The rich scent of roasted meat and onion filled the air. “I’m sure you do. Now if only you found a way to get paid for it.”
I sat down at the small kitchen table. It was mid-century modern with a red Formica top with chrome trim and legs. The chairs were silver pipe with red vinyl cushions. I think the set had been my grandma’s and she had given it to my parents when they first got married. I could admire the style in the piece. It fit perfectly in mom’s tiny kitchen, tucked under the window.
The rest of the kitchen was straight out of the sixties with tall maple cabinets and white Formica countertops trimmed in stainless steel. The sink was deep and had been installed by the previous owner. To give you an idea of the age of the décor, my parents had bought the house in 1980. They loved vintage and had used that as an excuse not to update anything in the house.
The floors were wood from when the house was built in the 1920s. The walls were plaster and the doorways were arched. The house was a basic bu
ngalow. It had a porch that ran the width of the front of the house. The front door opened into the living room. To the right was the guest bedroom. It had been my room growing up.
Straight back from the living room and separated by a wide archway was the dining room. Behind that was the kitchen, which opened to the stairs to the basement and a tiny back porch, where Mom’s students would take off their shoes before they entered.
To the right of the kitchen was a small hall that led straight into the only bathroom. To the left of the bath was my parents’ room. To the right of the bath was Felicity’s old room. My sister had her own apartment as well, and my parents now used her room for storage. My mother had considered making her room the new music room, but Dad refused to pull those pianos upstairs. So instead she used it as a place to keep her sewing machines and Dad’s desk, where he had his computer and did his accounts.
I snatched a carrot slice off the veggie tray Mom had put on the kitchen table. “I can’t wait to see the video of their engagement.” I tapped my fingertips on the DVD that sat on the table. “Cesar assured me it was romantic. Then you can see what all went into planning the event.”
“There had better not be any sign of that poor dead fellow in the video.” Mom closed the open door. “That would be terrible, just terrible for your sister.”
“There isn’t,” I said. “I checked. Besides Cesar gave a copy of the video to Detective Murphy. I’m certain the detective on the case would not have let us keep a copy if there was any evidence on it.”
“What an awful thing, finding a dead man in the ladies’ room.” My mom tsked her tongue and pulled out a package of brown-and-serve rolls and placed them in a pan. “Did you ever find out who he was?”
“There was no identification on him,” I said. “Last I heard, they were going to check missing persons and see if anyone fit his description.”
“Will they tell you when they find out?”
“I don’t suppose they will.” I shrugged and grabbed another carrot. “There would be no reason to tell me.”
Engaged in Murder (Perfect Proposals Mystery) Page 5