Olivia looked uncomfortable at the mention of Roland. She smacked her hand on the surface of the water again. “I’m sure time will tell. But for now, let’s just enjoy this nice hot soak in the spring and worry about that later.”
“How can we worry about that later? A man is dead, a woman claims she owns the house I just spent my entire life savings to buy, and we’ve got business equipment deliveries being refused! How can I not worry?”
“Meditation can really help with excessive worrying.”
“Aunt Olivia, this is not excessive. What are we going to do?”
“For starters, I had them deliver the espresso machine to the gallery.”
“What am I going to do with an espresso machine at your gallery?”
“Mobile coffee business. You bake some of those cupcakes you’ve been dreaming up, and you find some clients who want coffee and treats delivered to the office.”
Lisa sighed. “I don’t… I mean, that seems like a perfectly ok business to do, but I wanted to make something beautiful, to give the town a beautiful place to gather. Office delivery bypasses that entirely. And what about kids? I wanted the youth of Moss Creek to have somewhere to go, too. Are they supposed to have cupcakes on Take Your Son or Daughter to Work Day only?”
“Honey, sweetie, it’s only a temporary fix until we get this whole mess straightened out. Don’t be so uptight.”
Lisa blinked back tears. “I just don’t understand how she could come in and just kick us out of the house we bought like that. The law should be on our side. I have a contract.”
Olivia grimaced. “Your mother’s more the one for contracts than me. But how about we just have a nice soak? Our problems aren’t going to run off and solve themselves without us.”
Lisa tried to relax back into the water. She closed her eyes and immediately saw Roland’s slack face and dead eyes. Sure, he was brash, but why would anyone want to kill him like that? And what was he doing at the Folly after selling it to her? She sighed and opened her eyes again.
“Aunt Olivia, thanks for the soak, but I don’t think I can relax right now. Can we go?”
“Darling, we just got here.”
“Oh, I meant to ask, how much was my bail? And where did you get the money to bail me out? I thought you said you were tapped out for the month after paying for the espresso machine.”
Olivia sat up in the water. “Maybe we should get going. I don’t mean to keep you here against your will.”
Lisa closed her eyes again as her aunt stood up to get out of the hot pool. Olivia’s casual attitude toward nudity had not dimmed with age.
“Are you decent?” Lisa asked, eyes still closed.
“I’ve got a towel on, Miss Modesty.”
Lisa peeked, then climbed out and grabbed a towel, quickly wrapping it around herself before ducking into the changing alcove. She’d never liked being nude in front of others, a fact that had hindered her career development as an actress. Sometimes it had seemed like half of the casting notices she’d seen called for full or partial nudity. It was an obnoxious part of the movie industry, and one she wouldn’t miss at all in her new career path. That is, if her new career path wasn’t completely blocked by her legal problems.
Chapter 13
They drove back to town in silence.
As they passed the Folly, Lisa noted the barriers her aunt had mentioned, blocking the driveway entrance. She gritted her teeth. That woman wouldn’t get away with this charade.
On the other side of the square, Lisa saw Brett on the sidewalk, talking to Roland’s lawyer, Jim Johnson.
“Let me out here,” she told her aunt.
Johnson frowned when he saw Lisa. Brett waved as she approached, but then turned and hurried down the sidewalk toward the real estate office. Johnson turned as though to follow.
“Mr. Johnson, can I have a word with you?”
Johnson turned back. “Our business is concluded, Miss Chance. I can’t imagine what you might have to say to me.”
She folded her arms. “How do you know I wasn’t going to offer condolences on the death of your client?”
“Very well, I accept your condolences. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“I wasn’t going to offer condolences, but I might have been about to.”
He turned away and started walking. She put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“Remove your hand at once!” His shout drew the attention of everyone on the street. A car slowed down to gawk. Even the crows in the town square trees were silent.
“I need to talk to you,” Lisa hissed, withdrawing her arm.
“I’m a busy man.”
“Busy? An out-of-town lawyer with exactly one in-town client, and that client deceased? How busy could you be?”
“As it happens, a deceased client necessitates a good deal of paperwork. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He started walking again and Lisa kept pace with him.
“Paperwork, right. I actually need some paperwork from you, too. That house that Roland sold me? Someone else claims to be the real owner, so I’m going to need some documentation to prove she’s a fraud.”
“I’m sure you have everything you need in the packet you received at closing.” He walked faster. She matched his pace.
“And I’m sure that I just got thrown in jail for trespassing, so I’m not feeling super confident in the amount of paperwork I have.”
“I’m not a criminal attorney.”
“I’m not asking you to defend me! I’m asking for papers on Roland and the house!” She took hold of his arm again, needing him to stop and look at her, talk to her, take her concerns seriously.
“And I’m asking you to leave me alone before I have to call the authorities. You can’t just accost a private citizen! Let me go!”
More people stopped to gawk at his shouts. She dropped his arm and he practically ran to his car, parked on a side street. He jumped into the rented Camry and took off.
Lisa stared after him, a bad feeling growing in her stomach. Since when did lawyers get so jumpy when you asked for paperwork?
Nero was outside his front door, wiping his hands on his apron. “Bellissima, what do you need with such a man?” Nero said as Lisa drew even with his door.
“You heard that?” she said.
“The whole town may have heard that. But forget about that man. Come inside and have some bread. Bread makes everything a little easier.”
Lisa’s stomach gurgled in agreement with Nero’s statement, but she shook her head. “Sorry, let me take a rain check on that. I have to get to my mother’s office.”
“Tell the lovely Penny hello from Nero.”
“I will, thank you.”
“And find a better class of man to accost in the street, beautiful Lisa.”
“Thanks, Nero.”
She trudged into the real estate office and was yanked into Penny’s office, the door firmly shut behind her.
Penny glared at her. “What is this I’m hearing all over town about my daughter involved in a murder?”
“What? How is it my fault that I found a body?”
“And then you get arrested?”
Lisa ground her teeth. “That’s some kind of misunderstanding.”
“And what is this I’m hearing about my daughter yelling at people in the middle of the town square? Are you trying to destroy this family’s reputation entirely? I should think that my sister’s constant flirtation with an obscenity charge was doing plenty in that regard, but you get back to town and immediately become the only thing anyone’s talking about?”
Lisa glared right back at her mother. “They’re talking awfully fast if they’re saying I’m yelling at people in town square. It wasn’t yelling, and it was just a minute and a half ago, and the man was Roland Comstock’s lawyer, who ran away from me when I asked for more documentation on the sale!”
“What does it matter how I heard about you yelling in public, which I notice you didn’t deny doing? And if you want documentat
ion, ask Brett; he’s your real estate agent! Why can’t you just follow the rules like everyone else?”
“I can’t talk to you about this!” Lisa resisted the urge to slam the door behind her as she left her mother’s office and stormed back outside.
She knew her mother loved her. It was just that Penny’s way of showing it could be so infuriating. She took off at a swift walk to try to get some endorphins in her bloodstream to counteract all the stress hormones.
As she passed the corner drug store, the rack of picture postcards in the front window caught her eye. The postcards took her back to her six months in jail.
Penny had written her every day, or at least sent mail of some sort every day. Lisa had received a copy of every imaginable postcard featuring the Grand Canyon, then every postcard of Flagstaff, then every postcard showing the train depot in Williams, every postcard with local mountain or forest views, and even a few with saguaro cactus, even though saguaro didn’t grow at this elevation. After she’d sent every picture postcard in town, Penny had moved on to her supply of Christmas cards from previous seasons, sending the two or three cards left in the bottom of each box, often with little reminiscences of what their family had been doing the year the cards had gone out. Those cards from her mother, with their constant gentle reminders of love and belonging, kept Lisa sane while she was locked up.
She would never forget that. Of course, Penny wasn’t as good at gentle reminders out loud and in person, which meant the two had spent years butting heads.
Her swift walk brought her to the edge of the town square, across the street from the Folly. She stopped and looked up at the beautiful house that had figured so large in her dreams. She needed to get those documents to prove she was the owner. She could ask Brett later. For now, it was time to retrieve her car and start planning the mobile coffee business Olivia had suggested.
Lisa crossed the street and circled around to the back of the Folly. Looking past the barricade in front of the rear driveway, she could see the little kitchen porch and the spot where she had left her car that morning. Now the spot was empty. She ground her teeth and pulled out her phone, calling Carly.
“Hey, it’s me. I need help. Can you pick me up? I’m at the Folly. My mother is being impossible. And it looks like that woman had my car towed!”
*
At Carly’s house, the tiny living room was taken up with a half-assembled crib. Parts and hex wrenches were scattered around. Carly’s gray tabby, Mr. Purrkins, was napping on top of a fold-out instruction booklet. Carly waved Lisa into the kitchen.
“You may have just saved my life and my marriage,” she said, handing Lisa a glass of iced tea.
Lisa laughed. “I’m pretty sure you just came to my rescue, lady.”
Carly gestured at the mess in the living room. “I kept asking Gideon to put the crib together and he kept putting it off, so I thought I’d show him that I could do it myself. Even without Mr. Purrkins helping sort the bolts,” she made air quotes around helping “it was just impossible. Why are the stick figures on the instructions all smiling? The people who design these things are sadists, pure sadists, I’m telling you.”
“Then I’m glad I could help,” Lisa said, chuckling. “And how was your check-up this morning?” she said, remembering why Gideon hadn’t been at the house with her when she found Roland.
“Uneventful. The usual routine of pee in a cup, get weighed, take blood pressure. The best part was listening to the baby’s heartbeat. I almost cried when I saw Gideon’s face as he listened to the heartbeat. Crazy hormones turning me all emotional.” Carly smiled at the thought, then raised an eyebrow at her friend. “But you haven’t explained yet, who is ‘that woman’ and how did she get your car towed?”
Lisa gave a quick rundown of the morning’s events. At the end of it, Carly’s mouth gaped open.
“Wait, you found a dead body and your headline is that your car got towed? Talk about burying the lede! Honey, are you ok? Want me to make you a sandwich?”
Lisa blinked back tears. “Sounds like your maternal instincts are kicking in already. But yes, a sandwich would be good. I forgot to eat lunch.”
Carly got out some bread, deli meat and cheese. “I can’t eat this stuff,” she said, dangling the bag of sliced honey ham between her fingers, “so I’m going to feed you like your face was my own face.”
“Why can’t you have honey ham?”
“No deli meat for pregnant ladies because of the risk of listeria.”
“Oh.”
“There’s a lot of rules.” Carly slapped a generous helping of mayo on the bread. “But speaking of rules, shouldn’t there be all kinds of rules about your house purchase? Like, how can this woman just show up and kick you out? I mean, it’s one thing if she was the bank, but, you know…”
“The bank shouldn’t be able to kick me out. It was a private financing deal with Roland. Ugh, I don’t even know who I’m supposed to make payments to now that he’s dead. And his lawyer was acting super shady about the whole thing. I just don’t know.”
“Hmm,” Carly agreed, piling up meat, cheese and pickles.
Lisa put her head on her hand. “I can’t believe how callous I sound. A man is dead, and all I can talk about is my car and my house and my business.”
“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. This has all been a big shock.”
“It has. I mean, I felt like I finally had my life planned out, like I knew what I was supposed to be doing for the first time in forever. It was clear for a long time that acting wasn’t going to pan out, my one commercial notwithstanding. And it should have been clear that things with Dylan weren’t any better. But the café, Lisa’s Last Chance Café — I could see it, I could smell it, I could feel the future pulling me forward. If I lose that, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Carly set a giant Dagwood sandwich in front of Lisa. “You don’t have to figure it all out today. Now eat.”
Lisa obeyed the order. The sandwich was delicious.
“But you do have to answer a question,” Carly went on. “Why didn’t you call me to bail you out? You know I would do it.”
“Actually, I didn’t call anyone for bail. Aunt Olivia just showed up.”
“Oh, I guess Toby must have called her. That makes sense,” Carly conceded.
Lisa shrugged and chewed. “Maybe, but what doesn’t make sense is where did she get the money? I thought she was all-in on the business stuff, especially after the espresso machine. I even asked her, and she dodged the question.”
“That’s pretty weird.”
“She’s been acting kind of weird in general.”
“How can you tell?” Carly laughed. “Remember when she tried to dress Toby as an anatomically correct Bigfoot for Halloween that year?”
Lisa laughed at the memory. Her aunt’s alterations to Toby’s Chewbacca costume had been legendary. “She’s eccentric, that’s true. But that doesn’t explain why she disappeared for two days, or why she’s got this secret money she doesn’t want to talk about. Eccentric is one thing, but this is something else. She’s never been a secretive person.”
Carly nodded. “That’s true. But wait, if you didn’t call me and you didn’t call Olivia, who did you call? Not your mother.”
“No,” Lisa said. “Actually, I called the vet to let him know about the kittens.”
“Ooooh.”
“It’s not like that. I just didn’t want the kittens to be harmed, or to get forgotten in all the commotion.”
“Uh-huh. What’s that?” Carly cupped her ear. “The kitten defense? Yes, of course, it has nothing to do with the vet being a total cutie.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did you meet the same Dr. Morris? Young, handsome, broad shoulders, loves animals?”
Lisa finished off the last bite of sandwich and took a sip of iced tea. “Well, the shoulders and the animals part may be true, but I wouldn’t know about the rest. The Dr. Morris I
met looked like Rocky at the end of Rocky one. He said he fell out of a tree climbing to a nest. But he was all beat-up and swelled-up and black and blue. It was hard to even look at him.”
“And yet he’s the one you thought of to call when your world fell apart.” Carly smirked at her friend. “Just wait until you see him after the swelling goes down.”
“You sure that’s not just more of those hormones talking?”
“Now you sound like Gideon. And in fact, those hormones make me very perceptive.”
“Of course they do. You want me to help put that crib together?”
“No, I’m going to leave that disaster for Gideon. Got to do something to combat the whole cobbler’s children are shoeless phenomenon.”
“Right, got it.” Lisa drank some more iced tea and thought for a minute. “What I don’t understand is, who would want to kill Roland?”
“So you think he was murdered?”
“I don’t see how else he’d end up there like that. We played on that balcony plenty of times as kids, and it wouldn’t be that easy to go over the railing without help. He didn’t seem to know anyone in town. He said he was from a branch of Comstocks that lived somewhere back east. I mean, obviously he knew his lawyer and his real estate agent and me.” Lisa blanched. “And Aunt Olivia.”
“What’s wrong? She’s your business partner, so sure he met her, too.”
“No, they didn’t meet until the final transaction, but she seemed to recognize him.” Lisa didn’t like where her thoughts were heading. Her aunt had definitely recognized Roland, and had seemed angry about it. Add in her secretive behavior since, and something just didn’t add up.
Chapter 14
The espresso machine was a shiny metal thing of beauty. It looked out of place in the back room of Olivia’s gallery, but at least they had found a place to hook it up to a water line. Lisa ran her hand over a chrome flourish on top and resisted the urge to touch one of the bright silver steam wands.
“Do you have the espresso cups?” she asked her aunt.
Last Chance for Murder (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Page 8