All Murders Final!

by Sherry Harris

  “Who?”

  “I’m not sure.” Maybe I should ask for Pellner. He was better than someone I didn’t know very well or one of the state police officers, if they were still around. I drummed my fingers against my leg.

  “What’s it concerning?”

  “Margaret More’s death.”

  “Sarah?”

  I turned and CJ stood there. My heart did that push-pull thing it did every time I saw him. One part wanted me to fling myself into his arms, the ones that had cocooned me many times during our marriage. The other, more logical side of me knew it wouldn’t be fair to either of us if I did that. I’d left him because I believed he’d cheated on me. He’d let me go without a fight. So here we were, eyeing each other. I wondered if he felt all the same things I did.

  I forced a smile. “You’re back.” Brilliant, Sarah. State the obvious.

  CJ nodded but didn’t return my smile. “I took a red-eye. Why are you here?”

  “I need to report something.”

  “Okay. Come on back.”

  I trotted down the hall after CJ, his back sturdy, almost rigid. He still walked like he was in the military and might need to throw a salute anytime. He turned into an interview room on the right, instead of taking me farther down the hall to his office.

  “Have a seat.”

  I perched on the edge of the uncomfortable, serviceable chair.

  “I’ll get someone to take your report.”

  “CJ, I’d rather—” But he left the room and closed the door before I got the words “tell you” out.

  “Okay, then,” I said to the mirrored wall. Maybe I should have called Vincenzo. If the state police came in, I’d clam up, call, and wait for him. I just wanted to help, but I didn’t want that help to be misconstrued by someone who didn’t know me.

  Pellner strolled in and straddled the chair opposite me. “What’s up?”

  Whew. After a rocky start to our relationship last spring, I now felt pretty comfortable with Pellner. Even though I was violating Angelo’s “Don’t talk to the police without a lawyer” policy, I filled Pellner in on what Laura had told me. He stood when I was finished.

  “I’ll make sure someone looks into this,” he said.

  With that worry off my shoulders, I trotted down the steps of the police station. My phoned chimed, and I whipped it out. A picture of me in my red winter coat on the steps of the police station popped up. You look good in red was printed at the bottom. I jerked my head up and scanned the area. People were going in and out of the library to my right and the town hall to my left. Some kids were out in front of the high school. Maybe Lindsay was one of them. I waved over in that direction, and someone waved back. I crossed my eyes, stuck out my tongue, snapped a selfie, and sent it off to Lindsay.

  * * *

  I let myself into my apartment, happy that Pellner had taken me seriously, but CJ’s behavior puzzled me. Although mine probably puzzled him too. I sat on the couch with my computer and found dozens of messages from different people on my garage sale site. I couldn’t believe the number of them since yesterday. I took a deep breath and started scrolling through them. Thankfully, the majority of them were just from people who needed things approved so their posts would show up. Those I took care of quickly. I needed to do a better job of staying on top of this.

  The next batch of messages was complaints about a cleaning woman, Juanita Smith, who I’d let advertise on my small business Tuesdays. Tuesday was the slowest day for posts, so I allowed people who sold everything from protein shakes to skin-care products to post about their businesses. But I didn’t vouch for their businesses. I told the people who complained that they had to contact the cleaning lady. If my small business Tuesdays ended up being a problem, I’d quit doing them.

  I made a sandwich and went back through old posts, deleting things that were really old or didn’t follow the posted rules. My phone rang. It was CJ.

  “I’m sorry I was so short at the station. I had a million things going on.”

  “It’s fine.” I could be short myself.

  “Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  I almost dropped my phone.

  “Sarah, are you there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, you’re there or yes to dinner?”

  “Yes to both.”

  Chapter 7

  “Are you excited?” Carol asked a few hours later. She sat, with her long legs in a yoga-like pose, on a wooden chest I’d converted into a laundry hamper, watching me get ready for my dinner with CJ. We’d met twenty years ago in Monterey, California, when I was only eighteen and was dating CJ. Carol had already married her husband, Brad. They had been stationed in Monterey, as had CJ.

  I’d sent her a text earlier, telling her I was going out to dinner with CJ. She’d come over for moral support. Over a glass of wine, we’d hashed out my finding Margaret. Carol empathized because she’d found a man murdered in her shop last fall.

  I leaned over the pedestal sink in my bathroom to apply light gray eye shadow. If I took two steps back, my legs would bump my beloved claw-foot tub. “Sort of,” I said. “Maybe more nervous than excited.”

  “Why nervous?”

  “Seth spent the night here last night.” I didn’t look at her when I said it.

  Carol almost fell off the hamper. “You slept with Seth last night, and now you’re having dinner with CJ?”

  “That sounds really bad, but it wasn’t like that. Seth came over to check on me. He heard I found Margaret and was worried about me.”

  “And you said, ‘Come on in and stay over’?”

  “No. We were waiting for his shirt to dry and fell asleep. On the couch.”

  “I don’t even think I want to know why his shirt had to dry.” But she said it with an impish grin that highlighted her cheekbones and put a sparkle, which I hadn’t seen much lately, in her eyes.

  I gave up all pretense of trying to do my makeup. “I tripped over my fuzzy pink slipper and tossed wine all over him. His clothes are expensive, so I wanted to rip off his shirt. I mean rinse off his shirt.”

  Carol snorted. “Rip off is more likely. Are the buttons still intact?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes. We fell asleep on the couch. I woke up around three and went to bed. Alone. When I woke up, he was gone. Nothing happened.”

  “Does he look as hot with his shirt off as I think he does?”

  “Yes. I almost drooled.” I put the light gray eye shadow away and searched my makeup bag for a darker shade.

  “But you have feelings for him.”

  I blended some darker gray eye shadow on the outer corners of my eyelids, going for a smoky look. “I do. He’s fun to be around, smart, caring.”

  “Hot. Don’t forget that.”

  I thought about him standing there without his shirt and laughed. “You’d have to be dead to forget that.” That made me think about Margaret and the man Laura had seen her arguing with. I hoped CJ found out who it was and would tell me.

  “So you don’t feel at all awkward about seeing CJ tonight after what?” Carol looked at her watch. “Having been with Seth just fourteen hours ago or so?”

  “Yes. But being with Seth made me feel like I needed to spend some time with CJ. So when he called, it seemed like the best thing to do.” I hoped to heck I was right. “Can we change the subject? I need a steady hand to get my eyeliner on right.”

  Carol looked like she wanted to say something else. “How’s the garage sale site going?”

  “Okay.”

  “I thought you loved it.”

  “It’s been great up until recently. It’s just the past few weeks. There’s been a couple of fights in the comments section about the quality of merchandise being sold.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad.” Carol shifted on the hamper.

  “I know. Mostly, I stay out of it, unless I get a lot of complaints in my messages.” I lined my upper lid with eyeliner and leaned back to see how it looked. �
��I’ve had to ban more people from the site lately.”

  “Oh, that’s not good. How come?”

  “It runs the gamut from people repeatedly not following the posted rules to people not meeting for exchanges to people not leaving payments and taking items, anyway.” I didn’t add that sometimes I got ugly messages when I banned a person. I swiped on my mascara and turned to Carol. “How do I look?”

  Carol took in the red wrap sweater, the black pencil skirt, the black tights, and the knee-high boots. “Stunning, Sarah. As pretty as the day we met.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You could adjust the sweater to show a bit more cleavage.” Carol stood and demonstrated.

  I looked in the mirror. A bit of my lacy black bra showed. “That’s a little too much for me.” I adjusted the sweater back to a more modest position.

  “You are certainly going all out for your dinner with CJ. He’s going to be blown away.”

  “I hope so.” Even though I’d been the one to put the moratorium on seeing each other in place, I wanted him to know what he was missing. “He’s been really distant the last couple of times we talked.”

  “You did tell CJ to leave you alone. Did you expect him to be happy about it?”

  “No. But I didn’t expect him to act like a block of ice, either. Is he seeing someone? Do you know?”

  “Do you want to know?”

  I studied myself in the mirror, found a brush, and stroked it through my hair. “Yes.”

  “He stopped by a few nights ago with a redhead.”

  “Pale and freckly?”

  “Pale and gorgeous.”

  Hmmm, maybe I should wear my sweater the way Carol suggested. Stop it, I told myself. “And?”

  “They weren’t there very long. She was very flirty. Even with Brad.” Carol slid off the hamper. “Brad said I was shooting death rays at both of them.”

  “It’s probably why they didn’t stay long.”

  “Probably. I miss how we all used to be. We had so much fun.”

  Memories flitted through my mind: volleyball on the beach in Monterey, cable car rides in San Francisco, ski weekends at Tahoe. “It was fun. But life changes.”

  “It does. Have fun tonight.”

  * * *

  Fun. Dinner had been anything but. CJ had picked me up and taken me to our favorite Italian restaurant in Bedford, the town adjoining Ellington to the east. It had seemed like half of the restaurant was filled with people from Ellington and the other half from the base.

  “Thanks for the information about Margaret fighting with a man at a party,” CJ had said when the waiter set our entrées in front of us.

  “Did you find out who it was?”

  “Sir. Sarah.”

  Before I even looked up from my shrimp verdicchio, CJ leaped up. “Not Jim. How are you, man?”

  I did look up in time to see the small tightening around James’s eyes before he smiled. It was a very fake smile. CJ stuck out his hand, and they shook.

  “You don’t have to call me sir anymore. I’m a civilian now,” CJ said.

  James gave a short nod before looking over at me. “How’s the pasta?”

  “It’s good. Are you here with someone? Do you want to join us?” Even though originally I’d wanted to spend time alone with CJ, right now having someone around seemed like a better plan.

  “I came to pick up a take-out order. Shrimp verdicchio.” James smiled at me. His smile was a real one this time. “You two, have a good evening.”

  That was the story of our evening. So many people stopped by, we were barely able to talk. There were couples we knew from base, a group we’d once been part of, staff from DiNapoli’s—they’d better hope Angelo didn’t hear about this, unless he’d sent them to check out the competition—and even Stella, who was there on a date. Most seemed surprised to see us together, some darted looks back and forth between us, and some stayed at their tables, watching and whispering. Evenings like this made me think I should move into Boston, where you had some degree of anonymity.

  Finally, when things calmed down, we talked about the weather and a rash of car thefts in Ellington, we complimented the Chianti we’d ordered, and we concentrated on our pasta. My shrimp verdicchio had succulent shrimp, black olives, artichoke hearts, and sundried tomatoes in a wine-butter sauce over a bed of spaghetti. CJ powered through his lasagna and meatballs. I was surprised when CJ agreed to share a tiramisu with me, because at this point it was abundantly clear that he wasn’t interested in sharing any other part of my life.

  I wondered why we were here as I took a first bite of the tiramisu.

  “I wanted to talk to you about your virtual garage sale.” CJ fiddled with his fork but didn’t dig into the tiramisu. I almost spit mine out. That was the last thing I had expected this dinner to be about.

  “Okay,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

  “It’s what you need to know. They’re dangerous.”

  I took a small bite of the tiramisu. Either to give myself a moment to think or to keep from stabbing my fork into CJ’s hand. I swallowed. “We haven’t had any problems.” At least any problems that were worth notifying the police about. “They’re designed so people know the members in the group.”

  “How many people are in your group?”

  “Three thousand.” I’d been amazed by how quickly the group had grown.

  “And you know every single one of them?”

  I tightened my hand around the fork and decided to set it down. I clasped my hands together. “Not personally. But each person is recommended by someone else that’s in the group. I check out their profiles to make sure they’re a real person before adding them.”

  “It’s very naive to think someone can’t fake a profile.”

  “I get that. But if there’s a problem with someone, I ban them from the group.” How odd that CJ would bring this up now, after I’d been a bit worried about the complaints about the cleaning lady.

  “It’s not the only issue. I’ve heard that people go to a stranger’s house to pick up and drop stuff off. It seems . . . foolish.”

  Now I wished I’d driven over here myself, because I’d be excusing myself and leaving, minus the excusing part. “I encourage people to meet at a neutral place, like Dunkin’ Donuts. That isn’t practical if you’re selling a couch. I ask people not to go to someone’s house alone. And not to be home alone when someone comes to pick something up during any transaction.”

  “Look at the things that have happened to people on national sites.”

  “That’s why this is safer. It’s smaller groups of people who have some connection. A lot of police departments are letting people use their lobbies to make exchanges. Maybe you should consider that.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  “Have you heard something specific about my site?”

  “No. But it’s my responsibility as chief to make sure the townsfolk are safe.”

  “Noted. Do you also always take the townsfolk out to dinner to do so?”

  CJ didn’t answer.

  I stood and tossed some cash down on the table to cover my share of the bill. “Please take me home.”

  Chapter 8

  When I woke Monday morning, I felt like I’d spent half the night thinking about Margaret and the other half about the picture of me looking into her car. If the picture taker was the murderer, I might be lucky to be alive, if not well that was just plain creepy. No matter how many times I turned it over in my head, nothing made the situation okay.

  On the ride home last night CJ had told me they found the man Margaret had been arguing with at the party Laura had attended. It was one of Margaret’s brothers, although he wouldn’t say which one, and the argument didn’t seem to have anything to do with Margaret’s death. After that he hadn’t answered any of my other questions about the investigation. The rest of the drive home last night had been chillier than the weather, and our good-byes had had a finality to them, which had left me
shaken.

  I made myself a strong cup of coffee, read the newspaper, and watched the morning news. None of that provided me any insights into what had happened to Margaret or why. CJ had been quoted as saying it was an ongoing investigation. Since I didn’t have anything scheduled until this afternoon when Juanita Smith was picking up Pez dispensers I’d sold through the garage sale site for a client, I decided to start fixing and pricing some of the things I planned to sell at the February Blues garage sale. After New England’s Largest Yard Sale was such a success, Laura had asked me to run the base event. I planned to have my own table, and since last fall I had been squirreling away stuff I bought, like the things from the church rummage sale Saturday, or items I found on the curb.

  Maybe while I worked a next move would come to me to find out new information on Margaret. I pulled out a box of dishes, a small end table, the lamp from yesterday, and a box of assorted stuff. I’d start with these things. I might as well make the lamp repair first. I grabbed a three-way socket kit from under the kitchen sink and after some fiddling had the lamp working again. The blue and white porcelain lamp would look great in my bedroom, but I resisted the urge to put it in there.

  The end table needed a good dusting and some screws tightened. When I finished with it, I set it by my couch. It fit perfectly. That wasn’t good, because now I’d have to decide if I wanted to keep it for myself or sell it, like I’d originally planned. The sale wasn’t until a week from Friday, so I didn’t have to decide right now. I turned to the box of dishes, which I’d found on someone’s curb. They looked like they were from the fifties, with their atomic-themed starburst pattern. I turned one of the plates over. The mark indicated they were hand painted in France, and then there were some words written in French. I wondered if they were worth anything. You never knew what goodies people just threw away. I’d have to look online for more information about them before I priced them.

  I filled the kitchen sink with warm, sudsy water and started washing the dishes. I’d promised myself when CJ and I divorced, and I moved from a large house on Fitch to this small apartment, that I’d have a “something in, something out” policy. I set the clean dishes on a towel on the counter. After I dried them, I peeked into my already overcrowded cupboards. Maybe with a little rearranging . . . I shook my head and managed to put them back in the box, instead of in my cupboard.