by Jessica Beck
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not saying that at all. You’re right to keep after her. All I’m saying is don’t assume anything. Get the facts, then figure out what they mean.” He glanced at his watch, and then added, “I have half an hour before I need to meet up with one of my suspects. Would you like me to come with you to the house and flash my badge? It might just help loosen this woman’s lips.”
“You’d really do that for me?” I asked. Jake hadn’t always been behind my impromptu investigations, but lately he’d become more supportive as he saw that I didn’t take too many unnecessary chances, and that I was actually pretty good at what I did. I suppose there was also a chance that he was just appeasing his girlfriend, but whatever the reason, I was glad to have him in my corner.
“All you have to do is ask,” he said. “I’ve got a stake in keeping you healthy, remember? The quicker you solve this case, the sooner you’re out of danger from the killer.”
I was tempted to take him up on his offer, but I hated to use Jake unless I really needed him, and I thought Grace and I could handle this, at least so far. “Thanks, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your offer, but I think we’ll be okay, at least for now.”
He nodded. “Good enough.” There was none of the foolishness where he tried to talk me out of my position. That was one of the things I loved about Jake. He respected my opinion, and was always willing to accept my decisions, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with them. I could tell that Jake was about to add something else when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the number, and then said quickly, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to take this. I’ll call you tonight, okay?” He kissed me briefly, and then answered his phone, still smiling at me. The news he got must not have been good, though, because his grin quickly faded into a frown. “I don’t care what he thinks is going to happen, we’re talking, and I mean right now.”
I waved to him as I walked back to Grace’s car and got in the passenger seat.
“That must have been a nice surprise,” she said with a fleeting grin.
“For both of us,” I said. “So, what do you think? Should we keep searching around town for Leah’s car, or should we go back to Ida Belle’s house and see if we can get anything out of her?”
“I say we go to Ida’s,” Grace said. “You saw how fast Leah was driving. She could be in Tennessee by now. As much as I love this company car, there’s no way we could catch her, even if we knew where she was going, which we don’t.”
As we drove back to Ida’s house, Grace said, “It’s really too bad Jake’s working a case. It would be nice to have him with us.”
“He offered,” I admitted.
“And you didn’t take him up on it?” Grace asked as she glanced over at me.
“I don’t want to take advantage of him,” I said. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“Completely,” she answered. “He’s one of the good ones, isn’t he?”
“I think so,” I said. I reached over and patted her shoulder, and Grace looked at me again for a split second, but then she turned her attention back to the road. A great deal had gone unspoken between us in those few moments, but that was just one of the things I loved so much about our friendship. So much could go unsaid, but still be understood.
To my surprise, when we pulled back in front of Ida’s place, an older woman was out cutting the grass with an old-fashioned reel mower. My grandparents had used one when I was a kid, and I earned a dollar whenever I cut their grass. It was some of the hardest money I’d ever earned, though, since the gears were rusty and the blades were always dull.
I got out before she spotted us, with Grace quickly on my heels.
“You’re Ida Belle, aren’t you?” I asked as I approached her. The mower stopped suddenly, since it didn’t rely on an engine to push it forward, but I’d still managed to sneak up on her.
“Why? Who are you?” she asked as she let the mower fall where it stood.
“I’m Suzanne Hart, and this is Grace Gauge. We’re friends of Leah.” I’d said it before I had a chance to think about the ramifications.
“That’s a lie,” Ida said flatly. She was an older woman wearing a faded housedress and worn slippers, not the most appealing attire I’d ever seen, and her hair was up in honest-to-goodness curlers that looked as though she’d had them at least fifty years. “Don’t try to fool me. You two are the reason Leah ran away.”
She started back toward her front door, but I stepped in front of her before she could make it. I wouldn’t stop her from going back inside, but I needed her to know that we weren’t just going away. “We’re here to help her if she’s innocent of murder, not turn her over to the police.”
“Murder?” Ida asked, stopping dead in her tracks. “Who said anything about murder?”
“Just out of curiosity, what exactly did Leah tell you when she showed up?” Grace asked.
“My niece told me that some crazy woman thought that she was seeing her boyfriend behind her back, and that she needed to lay low until things blew over,” Ida replied. “Nobody said anything about murder. I’ll kill Burt when I get my hands on him.”
“You’re his sister?” I asked.
“Yes, though I’m not exactly proud of it. Now, let’s start over from the beginning. Who exactly was murdered?”
“My boyfriend, Peter Morgan,” Grace said. At that moment, she got a little wobbly, and I reached out to steady her. Ida’s harsh expression dissipated instantly, replaced by concern. “Dear child, you must be in real pain. Would you like to come inside? I’ve got fresh lemonade.”
“That would be great,” Grace said, and we found ourselves being led into Ida Belle’s home. I wasn’t sure if Grace’s attack had been sincere or planned, but either way, we were getting our audience with Ida Belle.
Inside was like stepping into a different world. The rooms were all clean and neat, decorated in a style older than I liked, but still a pleasant place to be. She must have noticed my reaction to her furnishings.
“I like a neat house,” she said with a touch of a grin. “I had a young man who came around and did my yard work and kept things up outside, but he’s gone away to college, and I can’t find anyone to replace him.”
That made me think of Emma, and I felt the hole where she’d been in my life again. “I understand completely. My assistant just left to go to school. It’s tough, isn’t it?”
“Mitch is a good boy,” Ida said. “I honestly don’t know how I’m going to manage without him.” After a moment’s pause, she said, “Now, let’s see about that lemonade.”
“Would you like some help in the kitchen?” I asked her.
“No, I can manage just fine by myself; thank you for asking, though.”
Grace and I exchanged glances, but we didn’t have time to talk. Ida popped back in the living room with three glasses and a pitcher full of glorious-looking homemade lemonade. After she’d poured and served for all of us, we tasted it together. It was the best lemonade I’d ever had in my life, and Momma made a mean batch herself from time to time.
“This is delicious,” I said. “What’s your secret?”
“I use real natural sugar instead of processed,” she said happily. “It makes all the difference in the world.”
I planned on passing that tip on to Momma myself.
Grace took another sip, and then said, “Thanks. I’m feeling better.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Ida said. “I don’t know what happened to Leah, and I’m done making excuses for the girl. Until she was fifteen, she never gave any of us one lick of trouble, but as soon as she started getting interested in boys, that all changed. I’ve talked to that child until I was blue in the face, but nothing ever did any good.”
I was about to ask her where Leah might be when my hand slipped as I was reaching for my glass, and I accidentally knocked it over. There wasn’t much liquid in the glass, but I still felt terrible. “Do you have a towel I can use to clean this u
p?”
“There’s a dishcloth in the kitchen,” Ida said as she started picking up ice cubes. “There, that should do it.”
I went into the kitchen and found the cloth as promised, positioned near the trash can. I glanced inside, not because I was snooping, but because it was where my line of sight went naturally.
What I saw there was a game changer in our investigation.
At the top of the trash can was an opened box for a home pregnancy test.
If I had to guess, I’d say that Leah just might be pregnant, and I had a strong suspicion about who the father might be.
All in all, it might just be enough of a motive to kill a man.
* * *
I forgot all about the spill as I held the recovered box up to Ida. “Ida, is Leah pregnant?”
Ida took the box from my hands as though it were the most valuable thing on earth. “Were you snooping around in my kitchen, Suzanne? Was that spill really an accident, or did you just use it as an excuse to snoop?”
“It wasn’t planned,” I said. “And I wasn’t snooping. This was on top of the trash. Honestly, it was kind of hard to miss.”
She softened then, and I could feel some of the starch go out of her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have accused you like that. Leah’s got me in such a state right now, I don’t know how to act.”
Grace asked softly, “Is she pregnant with Peter’s child?” The words came out as though they wounded her with each syllable.
“No, dear, it turned out to be a false alarm,” Ida said in a comforting manner that surprised me. “She thought she might be with child a few days ago, but she took another test when she got here, and she’s not having a baby.”
“But she thought she could be?” I asked.
“I’m shamed to admit that she did,” Ida said. “Like I told you before, the girl’s out of control. I doubt she could narrow her list of suspects of possible fathers to the fingers on one hand, if you want to know the truth. When her parents died, she turned to Burt and me for support, but it was never enough for her.”
“I’m sorry about that, but I’m betting that Peter was at the top of her list,” I said.
“I admit that she’s mentioned him a time or two,” Ida said as she finished wiping up the spill. She took the towel, and the discarded box, back into the kitchen.
I followed her, with Grace close behind.
“You know her better than we do. Is there a chance in your mind that she could have killed him?” Grace asked, her voice heavy with the weight of what had happened.
After hesitating longer than I could have imagined, Ida said, “I’ve been asking myself the same question ever since you told me that the man was dead, and to be honest with you, I don’t have an answer one way or the other. The old Leah couldn’t have done it, but it feels as though I hardly know this girl anymore, and that’s the honest truth.”
The front door opened, and Leah herself walked in. She was clearly angry, and had worked herself up into quite a state. “I saw your car out front. You can’t just barge in here like this. You both need to get out, or I’m going to call the police.”
Ida snapped, “Young lady, you’ll do no such thing. They are my guests, not yours, and they’ll stay as long as I please.”
She looked shocked that Ida had taken our side. “What did they tell you? Never mind. Whatever they said was a lie,” Leah protested.
“Are you claiming then that your special friend, Peter Morgan, isn’t dead?” Ida asked, staring hard at her niece.
“It’s true that he’s gone,” Leah said, “but I didn’t kill him.”
“Then why did you run?” Grace asked softly. I was amazed at how calm her voice was, especially under the pressure she had to be feeling.
“I didn’t want to, but Uncle Burt saw us talking, and he made me come here when I told him that you weren’t finished with me. He said that if I talked to you again in his hardware store, he was going to fire me. What choice did I have?”
“Why would Burt care if you talked to us, anyway?” I asked, honestly curious.
“He said you were both snoops, and that if you got started on me, the whole town would believe that I was a killer. He said I’d be washed up then, and would have to go somewhere else and start over.”
Given my history with the man, I could almost understand where he was coming from. “We’re looking for the killer. If you didn’t do it, you don’t have anything to fear from us.”
Leah took that in, and then turned to her aunt. “What do you think, Aunt Ida? Should I believe them?”
“If it were me, I would,” Ida said after a moment’s consideration.
Leah nodded, accepting her aunt’s judgment. “Okay, we can talk. You just can’t tell my uncle that we spoke.”
I had no problem making that particular promise. “We won’t say a word to him.” That didn’t mean he wouldn’t find out somehow, particularly if Leah was a killer, but I’d keep my word. Burt Gentry wouldn’t hear it from me.
Leah sighed loudly, and then said, “Honestly, it will be a relief getting this off my chest. I’ve wanted to tell someone since I found out that Peter was dead. I just didn’t know who to talk to about it.”
“We’re good listeners,” I said.
Leah nodded, and then began to talk.
CHAPTER 8
“First, I’m really sorry for what I did to you,” she said as she turned to Grace. “You deserved better than that, and I feel worse than you can imagine. You have to understand something, though; he told me he was single and unattached, and by the time I found out about you, it was too late. The man was like heroin to me. I tried to give him up, but I couldn’t do it. I just wasn’t strong enough.”
I wasn’t sure how Grace was going to react to the way Leah was justifying her behavior, but after a moment, my best friend just nodded, and then she said, “I knew how Peter was when he wanted something, believe me. He could be the most charming man in the world when he set his mind to it.”
“And the cruelest when he was finished with you,” Leah said.
Grace looked surprised by that statement. “He was never like that to me.”
Leah snorted. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit. It’s because you were his public girlfriend. Peter paraded you around out in the open, but he hid me in the shadows.”
“You’re not actually blaming me for that, are you?” Grace asked.
“Of course not,” she said quickly. “You just don’t know how much I envied you.”
Ida said, “Stop stalling, Leah, and tell them what you know about the man.”
I looked at Ida and offered her silent thanks. I wasn’t sure how long Grace was going to be able to keep it together without falling apart, and I didn’t want Leah to push her any more than she had done already.
The three of us looked expectantly at Leah, and after nodding briefly, she began to tell us what she knew about the many secret lives of Peter Morgan.
“I’m not quite sure where to start,” Leah said, “because some of the stuff I know might be uncomfortable for you to hear, Grace.”
“I can take whatever you have to say,” my best friend said, and I was never more proud of her. “We can’t find his killer unless we know about all of his misbehavior.”
Leah accepted that after a moment, and nodded once. “Okay. The main thing that set me off four days ago was when I found out about Kaye.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Who’s Kaye?”
“Kaye Belson,” Leah explained. “She lives in Union Square, and I’m not surprised you don’t know about her. After all, you didn’t even know about me.”
“Tell them why you were so upset,” Ida urged her niece. “When you called me, you were in tears.”
“I thought I might be pregnant with his baby,” Leah said, “and Peter was cheating on me with her.” I was amazed that she actually had the nerve to claim offense, since she was doing the exact same thing to Grace. “I nearly blew my stack when I f
ound out.”
“If he cheats with you, he’ll cheat on you,” I recited. It was one of Momma’s favorite sayings, and I’d learned it well enough as a teenager to keep me from some bad situations. Maybe that was why catching Max with Darlene had stung so much. I was loyal to a fault, but sadly, my ex-husband couldn’t say the same thing.
“Suzanne, there’s no need to beat her up about it,” Ida said. “I’m sure Leah feels bad enough as it is.”
“It’s okay,” Leah said. “She’s got a point. I probably deserved it.”
“What do you know about Kaye?” Grace asked.
Leah let out a big breath of air. “Well, the first thing is, she’s got a temper; I know that much myself.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
Leah looked sheepish as she admitted, “I borrowed Peter’s telephone once so I could check my messages at home, and I happened to see a text from some random girl. I decided to look her up and tell her that she was messing with the wrong man. When she answered, I told her who I was, and why I was calling. I was expecting her to feel guilty, maybe even apologize. Man, she was furious! I thought she was going to pop my eardrum before I hung up on her.”
“What did Peter have to say when you told him you found out about Kaye?” I asked. I was curious to see if he’d try to deny it, or maybe even justify it by claiming that he could do what he wanted to without asking anyone else’s permission. They sounded like equally plausible scenarios.
I was wrong, twice, though.
Leah explained, “He told me to get over it, that he had enough on his mind without worrying about how I felt about anything. I couldn’t believe how rude he was to me.”
Rudeness was the least of Peter Morgan’s character flaws. “Was she mad enough to kill him when she found out about you?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t put it past her,” Leah said.
“Is there anyone else who might have wanted to see Peter dead?” Grace asked. I didn’t know how she was keeping it together, but her voice was calm and steady as she spoke.
“Peter had his share of enemies, trust me,” Leah admitted. She asked Grace, “You know about those yourself, right?”