“I’ll walk you out,” he says, standing from his chair. I follow him out into the hall and to the front door of the police station. He opens the door leading outside. “Thank you again for your time, Mrs. Purdy. I may have more questions for you yet. We’ll have to see what kind of turns the investigation takes. But there’s one thing I’m sure of.”
“What’s that, detective?”
“The song, ‘Kansas City’? I’m sticking with the Willie Nelson version. I’ve yet to see any evidence that women from there are crazy.”
Before I can reply he disappears back into the building. It was just as well as I’m not sure what I might have said to that, particularly when it dawns on me he more or less called me pretty.
Whether he is buttering me up as Stax suggested he might do, or whether he is genuinely flirting with me, it doesn’t matter. As far as police interrogations go, I’m pretty sure they don’t get much smoother than this, and for that I am grateful.
I am able to finish out my workday without sparing another thought to the murder of Marlene or the threat of suspicion falling upon me. Ruby is more imaginative than perceptive. Poor, sweet, old lady. Maybe she is just bored with life and got caught up in the excitement of a real-world mystery so similar to the fictional ones she used to concoct for her books. It is nothing I can hold against her, since I, too, found myself caught up in the intrigue of it all. But I am glad to see the cloud lift and I look forward to returning to the humdrum of my uneventful, but peaceful, existence.
On my way home, I call Stax and give her a quick rundown of my talk with Detective Bentley. I make the mistake of telling her I think he called me pretty and she teases me for being such an inveterate flirt.
I call Ruby and tell her the same story. Unlike Stax, she doesn’t have any opinion on the matter. In fact, she appears distracted, saying she has some firm ideas of her own, but won’t know more until she receives some deliveries she is expecting. I ask what sort of deliveries, but in typical Ruby fashion, she doesn’t want to say.
No matter, I think. Let the lady have her fun. As long as she doesn’t get herself hurt, there’s no harm in it. And who knows, maybe she’ll catch Marlene’s killer yet. As for myself, if I’m not the detective’s suspect, there is little reason for me to play sleuth. That’s why we pay professionals like Bentley.
I am cruising the streets behind Main Street to avoid traffic. The wheels crunch on gravel but I feel as though my feet are floating above ground, liberated as they now are from the metaphorical gumshoes I’ve been wearing since the trail run. In my present state, I am not prepared for what awaits me as I come upon Marlene’s office.
I train my eyes on the little building as I approach. After all, this is sacred ground, being the location of my first (and hopefully last) breaking and entering. The broken window in front has been replaced and there is no sign anything untoward recently took place here. More interestingly, there are cars parked outside. Marlene is dead and Gretchen quit, so Anderson Petrick must be doing his grieving at the office.
As I am about to drive past the front of the office, the door opens and out steps Chase Reynolds. I almost lose control of the steering wheel and wipe out the rustic wooden ‘Petrick Travel Agency’ signpost embedded at the curbside. I break hard and come to a sudden stop but Chase doesn’t notice me. He’s in a rage, spewing obscenities at the ground as he storms towards his car. I notice a white shirt appear in the doorway of the office. It is wrapped around Anderson Petrick, who, unlike Chase, appears at home in the midst of discontent.
“Get ahold of yourself,” Anderson says, his deep voice resonating without effort.
“You’re lucky I don’t get ahold of you,” replies Chase, the spit flying from his mouth. “What if Marlene were here? What then?”
Anderson grips the knob of the outside screen door. “But she’s not here, Chase. I am.” He slams the door closed and disappears. Chase throws himself into his car and I get while the getting is good.
I spend the drive home trying to imagine why Chase, of all people, would be paying Anderson a visit. Does Anderson know about Marlene’s affair with Chase? Was there even an affair? And what did Chase mean by ‘what if Marlene were here?’ Is he accusing Anderson of the murder? If so, Anderson isn’t denying it.
By the time I reach my driveway I decide, suspect or not, I am too close to the case to let it go. I resign myself to continue investigating as long as Ruby and Stax want to, but I am equally determined not to lose any more sleep letting my mind run wild with speculation. My plan is to continue collecting facts and putting them together until they form a picture.
I enjoy a relaxing evening at home, chatting with Gretchen over a delicious dinner prepared by her of steak marsala and grilled asparagus. She makes multiple attempts to befriend Meatball, but for some reason, he is not having it. Gretchen, too, is less of a wreck than the day before and I find a lot of pleasure in sharing the company of a younger, hipper woman. She sparks like an ember as she discusses her dream of making a living out of her love of sewing, embroidery, and similar disciplines. She says her own small business is gaining momentum. I think of the business card I saw in her office and wish I could ask about it, but of course I cannot. Nevertheless, having a conversation about something other than Marlene and murder is refreshing.
I have to admit the day has gone my way, and when my head hits the pillow I feel altogether lighter.
The next morning starts as mornings tend to start, with a cat to be fed, a lunch to be prepared, and a beauty regimen necessary to make myself presentable to the world.
There’s nothing exceptional about it—with one exception. I exit my door and walk into the shiny, metallic handle of a pair of barber scissors protruding from one of my wooden porch posts.
Marlene’s killer has paid me a visit.
NINETEEN
Detective Bentley’s groggy rasp told me I’d woken him. But he lodged no complaint and said he’d be right over. Gretchen, who is no longer gainfully employed outside of her Internet business, is still asleep. She will have to be up and about before the police get here, but before waking her I use my phone to take pictures of the scissors. I thought about texting the pics to Stax, but decide to wait until the police left, lest Stax should barrel over here and put her foot in my mouth. But I sent them to Ruby.
The gravity of the situation doesn’t hit me until after I wake Gretchen and escort her out to the front porch. Seeing the look on her face reminds me that as I slept a blade-wielding killer stood mere yards from me on my own porch and struck out. Sure, it’s only wood, but it just as well could have been my throat.
I sit down on the porch steps to keep from hyperventilating and call Caroline at the insurance agency to once again ask for time off. I feel obligated to explain what is going on and brace myself for her cries of anguish. When she putters down to a mere whimper she assures me I can have whatever time off I need. If not for the ominous threat hovering over my head like a halo, I’d have taken that moment on the steps to consider how blessed I am.
Detective Bentley arrives in short order with Officer Diebold towing in moments later like a lazy, blue caboose. In spite of my frantic state I manage to notice how the light blue button-down shirt the detective is wearing accentuates his eyes.
Man alive, I’ve been single too long.
Bentley smiles as he comes up the walk to where Gretchen and I are sitting on the porch.
“We really must stop meeting like this,” he says, his voice sounding tired. “Oh, that’s quite a pair you’ve got there.”
“Ahem.”
“I mean the scissors, of course!”
Yes, he’s definitely tired.
Bentley leaves Diebold to guard the scissors and escorts Gretchen and myself back into the house to talk. We take seats in the living room and talk about the events of the night. I say there isn’t much to tell, as it was a night like any other. I awoke only once when I heard Gretchen come out and use the restroom. In response to Bentley�
��s question, I tell him I know this occurred at 2:03am because I looked at my phone for the time. I went promptly back to sleep and remained so until my alarm went off. Gretchen confirms getting up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and states she returned to bed right after. Neither of us heard anything else.
Bentley turns to me. “Lacy, when we first spoke, you told me you live alone. Is this (he motions to Gretchen) a new development?”
“Yes, quite new. I assume you know she worked for Marlene and Anderson’s travel agency?”
“Correct.”
“Well, after Marlene was murdered and the office broken into, Gretchen didn’t want to be alone. I told her she could stay with me a while.”
“Very altruistic of you.”
I’m not sure whether I should be offended or impressed by the detective’s use of ‘altruistic’.
“Altruistic? Is that sarcasm, detective?”
“If opening one’s home to someone in need isn’t altruism, then what is?”
“I don’t know, crazy?”
“I thought we covered that. Kansas City women are not inherently insane.”
Is that a wink? Did he just wink at me?
“Um, excuse me,” interjects Gretchen. “First the needle is broken off my plaque in the office, and now these scissors get stuck in the porch not two days after I come here to stay. Am I missing something or am I the one being targeted here?”
Gretchen’s voice cracks as she speaks. I reach my arm in her direction for comfort and she melts into me.
“Now, we don’t know what this is all about,” Bentley says, attempting to sound reassuring. “It might be a stupid hoax, or it might be something else.”
I give Gretchen a squeeze as she clings to me. “You mean I might be the target.”
“Could be.”
I came to that obvious conclusion myself, but hearing the detective give voice to it drops a lead weight in my belly.
Bentley stands from the chair, signaling the end of our discussion. “We’re going to be in the area today asking questions and seeing what we can find out. I’ll ask that you not speak to anyone. If curious neighbors come by asking questions, tell ‘em I say mum’s the word. I’d also advise both of you to take extra precautions to protect yourselves.”
Gretchen jumps from the couch and gets in his face. “Isn’t that your job? Can’t you provide us with protection?”
Bentley looks warmly upon Gretchen but shrugs his shoulders helplessly. “I wish I could, but we don’t have the resources. Of course, if anything happens, you call and we’ll be here within minutes.”
The detective leaves and I spend the next half hour comforting Gretchen. I remind myself she is a suspect in this case. She was close to Marlene, whose husband was seen in the company of a mysterious redheaded woman. And now, within days of moving into my house, the same scissors haunting Marlene prior to her murder have found me. I feel terrible having these thoughts as she soaks the shoulder of my blouse with her tears, but the reality here is someone murdered Marlene, and this someone knows who I am. It therefore stands to reason I know them.
I need to get out of the house for a bit. Since I’m not expected at work, I decide to bug Stax at Read It or Eat It. Besides, if the killer is hip to my snooping around, Stax and Ruby might also be in danger. I call Ruby on the way to the bookstore but get her voicemail. I leave a message cryptic enough to assure she’ll call me but nothing too revealing in the event she isn’t the only one listening.
• • •
“How old is he? Is he single?” I join Stax among the stacks in her shop, pulling copies sold through her online store. She is all ears until I mention the detective, and then she is all gossip.
“Did you not hear the part where my life was threatened?”
“Oh, please. If they wanted to kill you, they would have marched those scissors into your house and put them in your head.”
“That’s a pleasant thought. Thanks.”
“You were given a warning. That’s all.”
“That’s all?!”
“Sssshhh, use your library voice.”
“Stax, a real-life murderer visited my house. There can only be one reason.”
“I’ll bet Ruby would say there’s never only one reason.”
I ignore her attempt at diversion. “Be that as it may, the killer knows I’m onto them. And if they know that, they know about you and Ruby as well.”
“Then why are there no scissors stuck to my porch?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I found the body?”
“It doesn’t make sense. The police were looking at you for the murder, right? Or, at least, they should be.”
“Stax!”
“Ssssh, library voice, remember? I mean on the surface you make a pretty good suspect. You hated Marlene, you were at the run, and you were the one who found the body. So, why take a perfectly good prime suspect and turn her into a potential victim? Doesn’t make sense. Unless…”
“Unless…what?”
“I don’t trust Gretchen. Hey Stretch, grab me that Carolyn Wells from the top shelf, ‘The Maxwell Mystery’.”
Gretchen? That’s random. I hand her the old hardcover. “What does Gretchen have to do with it?”
“Either nothing or everything. If it’s nothing, then my bad. But it seems odd to me that she moved into your house and—Kablam!—you get scissored. And you said you heard her moving around late at night?”
“I heard her using the restroom. That’s hardly evidence. Who doesn’t get up at night sometimes?”
“But what did you really hear, Lacy?”
I hadn’t thought of it that way before. My instinct is to argue against what Stax is saying, but when I take a second to think about it I see her point.
“Well, I heard feet moving. Some of those old boards are loose and you can hear someone walking. And I know the squeak on her door. I used the room for storage and it always jarred me when I had to go in there.”
“So, there’s no doubt it was Gretchen you heard. But how long between the first squeak and the second?” I shake my head, not understanding her meaning. “I mean, if the door squeaked when she left the room, it would also squeak when she went back in, right? So, how much time between squeaks?”
“I only remember one squeak.”
“That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“Not if I nodded back off after the first squeak.”
“Or the second.”
I nod in agreement. “I wasn’t awake for long. It’s hard to tell time when you’re half-asleep, but it might have been seconds. No longer than a couple of minutes.”
Stax is holding a copy of an old romance paperback with a shirtless, dark-haired Fabio-type pulling a young vixen from—or pushing her into—the water. She smacks it down on an exposed shelf space and straightens her posture. When I see her lips purse and her eyes narrow, I know the finger isn’t far behind.
“So, it’s like I said.” She jabs the air in front of my face with her finger. “You don’t know she was up to use the bathroom. You assume it.” Like a champion sword fighter, she goes in for the kill with a final poke to my arm.
“I didn’t ‘assume’, you goof. It’s what she told the detective. Should I assume she’s lying?”
“I’ve been in your house, have I not?”
“I dare say you have been.”
“And I know that for her to go to the bathroom, she’d have to take a left turn and go down the hall. The bathroom is on the right. But a couple skips past the bathroom is your back door.”
“Your point?” I already know her point, because the same thought crossed my mind. But my heels are in too deep by now.
“My point is she could have slipped out the back, made her way around to the front of the house, did her thing with the scissors, and returned back the same way to her room.”
“That’s pretty risky,” I counter. “What if I’d caught her?”
Stax looks at dark-Fabio for inspiration
. It doesn’t take her long to find it. “If you caught her in the act of actually jabbing the scissors in, the jig would be up. But if you caught her coming out, she’d just say she was using the bathroom. And if you caught her coming back in she’d say she heard a noise and went to investigate.”
I am out of juice. I’m not about to agree with Stax that Gretchen is a mad killer, but I also can’t argue her points. What she suggests is a real possibility. I’m about to concede the point to Stax when my cell phone goes off.
“Sssshhh, airplane mode!” jokes Stax.
It is Ruby.
“Hi, dear. I’ve just returned home and heard your voicemail. It sounded rather urgent.”
I told her about the scissors in my porch. Her response is instant. “My house, tonight. Eight o’clock. Tell Stax. In the meantime, be safe.”
“I can’t avoid going home. Meatball is there.”
“Home is the very place you should be. With all the dust the good detective and his men are stirring up, I’m certain eyes will be in every window up and down your street. Neighbors make the best police, mark my words. Whoever visited you last night would know better than to strike again so soon.”
Stax heard the conversation and said she’d pick me up later at my house. I head home to find Gretchen and a large, older man loading her things into the back of a dirty pick-up truck. The man, stacked like a tree trunk, has the darkened skin of a life spent in the sun, but his shirt appears clean, pressed, and ill-suited for labor. An awkward introduction confirms he is Gretchen’s father.
“I’m sorry to be bugging out on you this way,” Gretchen says. “I appreciate what you did for me, but after last night I feel like a sitting duck staying here.”
Gretchen’s father is off messing around with some items in the back of the truck, so I speak freely and frankly. “But you said the last thing you wanted to do is move back in with your dad.”
“That was true, until I started getting stalked by a murderer. Now, being murdered is number one on my list of things to avoid. I’m so sorry, Lacy. I hope you know this has nothing to do with you.”
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