by Sharon Pape
“I meant . . .,” Jaye let it go; it wasn’t worth the time it would take. On the plus side, Corinne appeared naive and gullible. Time to trot out the private eye persona. “I’m currently investigating a murder case,” she said in an “I do this every day” tone of voice. Corinne looked properly shocked. She even sat back in her chair as if to further distance herself from such a terrible subject.
“Maybe I should call the manager or the owner,” she said, reaching for the phone.
“No need to bother them,” Jaye assured her more gently. Corinne wouldn’t be any help if she was scared to death. “I just have a few photos I want to show you.”
The fear in the girl’s eyes slipped from a nine to a six. “Oh,” she murmured, “I guess that’s okay.”
Before Corinne could change her mind, Jaye held up the photo of the Newirths. “Have you ever seen either of these people in here?”Corinne stared at the picture for a good thirty seconds before shaking her head. Jaye couldn’t tell if she was just afraid of making a mistake or if she was having trouble with her memory. Given her age, Jaye figured it was the fear factor. They went through the other photos with similar results, until Jaye showed her the one of Elaine.
“She was in here,” Corinne said eagerly, as if she’d just passed a test of some kind. “I don’t remember her name though.”
Jaye was suddenly riding an adrenalin high, although a nagging little voice in her head kept warning her not to count any unhatched chickens just yet. “Her name is Elaine Feldman.”
“I’m sorry. It doesn’t ring a bell.”
Jaye tried a different approach. “Do you remember when she was here?”
“I know it wasn’t long after the salon opened.”
“Do you keep the old appointment schedules in your computer files?”
“Yes, but she never made an appointment. She looked at our price list and asked if we offered a discount to local merchants. When I told her we didn’t, she left in a huff.”
“Did you give her a tour of the facility?”
“Yes, the manager insists we do that with every potential customer. We charge more than other groomers, but you get a lot more bang for your buck here. Seeing the facility helps to seal the deal for most people.” Corinne seemed proud of her workplace.
“Was Ms. Feldman left alone at any time during that tour?” Jaye asked.
“Absolutely not,” Corinne said, as if she’d been charged with dereliction of duty. “We’re not allowed to let customers roam around on their own for any reason. It would be a breach of security.” She was so adamant about it that Jaye wondered if she was lying. Had she left Elaine alone to answer the telephone or make a quick trip to the bathroom? There was no way to rule out those possibilities.
“One last question,” Jaye said. “Are you the only receptionist who works here?”
“Yes.”
She thanked Corinne for her help, and as she was walking out, she heard the younger woman exhale a tremulous sigh of relief.
***
It took Jaye the better part of two days to check out the other local places on her list. When she was done, she had nothing more to show for her time and effort than blisters on both pinky toes from the new sandals she wore the second day. Bargains weren’t always great deals in the end. She kicked off the offending sandals the moment she reached her apartment.
Too tired to fuss with dinner, she and Raffles shared some canned tuna. Then she checked in with her compadres to learn that she was the only one who’d uncovered any connection to their suspects. They were going to have to widen the search. Unfortunately, the farther afield they had to go, the more time they would be spending away from their respective businesses. Tourists who’d been told they shouldn’t miss a trip to Cravings! when they were in Sedona were as disappointed as Sierra’s loyal customers when the bakery’s shelves were empty by noon. She had to start waking up an hour earlier to increase her output when she knew she wouldn’t be around to bake later in the day.
Daniel confessed that although his cousin George fully understood the necessity of finding the killer, he was becoming disgruntled. He was taking out as many tours as he could handle without compromising the quality of the excursions, but the simple truth was that he could drive just one Jeep at a time. He had to turn people away, only to see them sign up with the competition down the street.
Jaye was dealing with her own business woes. Bryn’s knowledge about Crystal Clear’s inventory was improving, but she was still far from having Jaye’s expertise. And although she was an enormous help when they were busy at the shop, the girl needed her own Bryn to keep up with everything when Jaye was gone for the entire day.
Sierra tried to put a positive spin on things by reminding Jaye that whatever they might be losing in revenue was sure to be less than the retainer of a fancy lawyer. She told Daniel how much they appreciated his help up to this point, but she made it clear that there was no need for him to risk his livelihood for their sakes. It came as no surprise to them when Daniel flat-out refused to step down.
Jaye prepared the new lists. Sierra would be traveling as far south as the Verde Valley, Daniel would go west to Prescott and she would go north to Flagstaff. Going east would have to wait.
***
When Jaye picked Flagstaff, she took the longest of the three lists. Since Flag was the only real city among them, it had more permanent residents than the other two and more businesses that catered to dogs. Her plan was to start at the center of the city and work her way out. That meant she would have the shorter drive on the trip home, when she was apt to be more tired.
She ended her second day there with K9 Kutz, a discount grooming shop located in a part of the city that seemed to be in the throes of change, but Jaye couldn’t tell if it was undergoing gentrification or sliding toward the abyss. Half the buildings had undergone facelifts, but the other half were in various stages of dilapidation. Although K9 Kutz bore a fresh coat of paint and had clean windows and a bright, cheerful sign, it was still the polar opposite of Lap of Luxury.
When Jaye entered, she found herself in what looked like a low-end pet store. Twenty– and fifty-pound bags of kibble were stacked in piles on the floor. Cans and packets of food lined the shelves on one wall. On another wall there was a Peg-Board with dog toys and bins with various types of balls and chews. The floor was green linoleum, scuffed and faded. There was one counter with a chipped green Formica top and one of the oldest computer registers Jaye had ever seen. No one was manning the counter, but she could hear dog noises coming from behind the partitioning wall at the rear of the shop. She called out to let whoever was in charge know they had a customer, but when no one appeared she headed in the direction of the noise.
The back of the shop was divided into two large rooms, one on each side of a short hallway. The one on the left was outfitted with stainless steel tubs for bathing the dogs, but it was currently empty. In the room on her right, there were two metal grooming tables, each occupied by a small poodle, one black, one gray. The dogs’ collars were hooked to metal arms that kept them in place while they were being clipped and dried. The black one was still wet, awaiting his turn with a look of resignation. The middle-aged woman who was working on the gray poodle seemed about as thrilled with her job as the dogs were with the services she was rendering. She was stocky, with a halo of frizzy brown hair and a ruddy complexion. Beneath her waterproof apron she had on a T-shirt and a pair of pants that were straining at the seams. Had it been fifty years earlier, Jaye would probably have found her with a cigarette dangling from her lips.
There were several dogs in crates against one wall, all of them either barking or whining. Most of them had blue or pink bows on their collars, which Jaye took to mean they were finished and waiting for their owners to return and claim them.
“Excuse me,” she said, since the groomer didn’t seem to
know she was there.
“You need to talk to the girl at the counter,” the woman said without looking up. “You’re not supposed to be back here.”
“I’d be happy to do that, but there’s no one out there.”
“What the—? Did Tiffany take off again?” she muttered thickly, turning to Jaye. “That’s what happens when the owner hires her daughter to play receptionist. The kid’s useless. How am I supposed to get anything done around here if I have to take up the slack every time she runs off to a shoe sale or her boyfriend?”
Since Jaye couldn’t answer any of her questions, she waited patiently for her to wind down.
“You here to pick up a dog?” the woman asked finally.
“No, I was hoping you might be able to help me out with something.”
“Do I look like I have nothing better to do?”
“I won’t take more than a minute of your time,” Jaye promised sweetly, since a heavy-handed approach was only likely to elicit more vitriol. “If you’d be kind enough to look at these few pictures and tell me if any of these people have been in here, it would be an enormous help in an ongoing investigation.” Her last words appeared to make an impact.
The groomer said, “You’ve got thirty seconds.” Jaye handed her the photos, and she shuffled through them at warp speed. She stopped at the picture of the Finnegans. “He’s a regular here. Smallish, black dog. Brings him in maybe every couple months. Never seen the woman.” She shoved the photos back at Jaye.
“You’re sure about him?”
“If you weren’t going to believe me, why did you bother asking?” She turned her back and resumed clipping the poodle.
“Thank you,” Jaye said. “I’ll let myself out.”
She’d just stepped into the hallway when the woman grumbled, “Don’t know if he’ll be back after the last time.”
Jaye backtracked into the room. “Excuse me?”
“When he came to pick up the dog, Tiffany was off somewhere again. So he walked back here like you done. Slipped on all the fur on the floor. Went down hard too. That’s why folks ain’t supposed to come back here. It’s a good thing he didn’t sue, or I’d be out of a job, ’cause we all know it’s never Tiffany’s fault.”
Chapter 33
After leaving K9 Kutz, Jaye drove straight to Cravings! to update her friend in person. The phone wouldn’t do for news this momentous. She wanted to see Sierra’s face when she told her there was a good chance she’d found the killer. When Jaye arrived, Sierra was getting ready to close up for the night.
“We did it! I can’t believe we actually did it!” Sierra screamed when Jaye told her. “Out of all our suspects, I thought Quinn was the least likely to have killed Peggy,” she said once she’d calmed down enough to think about it.
“He was at the bottom of my list too,” Jaye said. Her initial enthusiasm had faded on the drive back to Sedona. After leaving K9 Kutz, she’d been euphoric, riding a fabulous high of success and relief, but the more she thought about Quinn being the killer, the more doubts had started to creep in. And yet he was the only one they’d found so far who’d been in a perfect position to gather a crop of white dog fur from a number of different breeds with no one being the wiser. For that matter it was entirely possible he’d planned the fall in order to pick up the fur.
“I know he wanted to expand his restaurant,” she said, struggling to fit the last pieces into the puzzle, “but that alone is hardly a reason to kill someone.”
“What about the gambling?” Sierra asked. “Maybe he owes someone who’s threatening to hurt him or Luisa. If he doubles the restaurant’s seating capacity, he’d probably double his revenues.”
“We’re not even sure he’s a gambler. What Daniel overheard might have just been Quinn trying to sound like a big shot.”
“I guess this means we’re back to canvassing the rest of the places on our lists,” Sierra said glumly.
“Not so fast,” Jaye said, a plan starting to coalesce in her mind. “We really can’t afford to let a lead like this go. We just need to find out the whole story about Quinn.”
“I assume you have an idea how to go about it?”
“By going straight to the one person who knows if Quinn’s a murderer or not.”
Sierra’s eyebrows bunched together. “You mean drop in for a chat with him and during the course of conversation inquire politely if he murdered Peggy? I’m pretty sure a killer wouldn’t have any qualms about adding ‘liar’ to his résumé.”
“We wouldn’t ask him,” Jaye replied. “We’d accuse him. If we put his feet to the fire, we might catch him off guard. Without time to think, he might inadvertently give himself away.”
***
They met at Sierra’s house the next evening to finalize their plan. Jaye hadn’t been there recently, and Frosty was thrilled to see her. He did a little jig around her and jumped into her lap the moment she made it available by sitting on one of the kitchen chairs. Although the chair was narrow, Frosty didn’t seem to mind the challenge. He curled himself into as tight a ball as he could, looking like a furry serpent eating its own tail. Every few seconds a front or rear paw would slip off her lap and dangle beside the chair, but Jaye managed to help keep the majority of his limbs together.
“Is Daniel on board with us?” Sierra asked, setting a plate of her new oatmeal, raisin, coconut, walnut, chocolate chip cookies on the table. “These are Ruth’s new favorite, but even she can’t eat more than two a day.”
Jaye reached for one and almost lost Frosty in the process. After she’d restored their equilibrium, she broke off a chocolate-free piece of cookie and offered it to him by way of apology.
“You did speak to Daniel?” Sierra rephrased the question, since Jaye hadn’t answered her the first time.
“Yes, of course,” she mumbled around a mouthful of cookie. “He’s getting a police-grade wire for me to wear.”
“So much better than trying to use my old tape recorder from high school,” Sierra said. “If Quinn confesses or incriminates himself in any way, we’ll have it for the police.” She laughed. “I guess it sometimes pays to have friends in low places.”
“Plus, this way Daniel can be parked outside and still monitor what’s happening inside. It was actually the only way I could convince him to let us go in alone. And I had to agree to use a safe phrase in case things go bad and we need help.”
Sierra shrugged. “I can live with that if it means we go in unescorted. You’re right about Quinn being more likely to let down his guard when he’s just talking to a couple of young women.”
“I wish I could think of a way to keep Luisa out of the equation though,” Jaye murmured.
“That’s a tough one. She and Quinn almost always drive to the restaurant together.”
“I know. If we have to work around her, it’s sure going to put a crimp in our style.”
“It might be harder,” Sierra said with the trademark twinkle back in her eyes, “but nothing could ever put a crimp in our style.”
***
Jaye arrived at the bakery at nine the next morning. She’d stopped first at Starbucks to buy coffee for Sierra and herself and a chai for Ruth. She was disappointed, but not in the least surprised, to hear that Luisa had already been in to buy her daily treats. So much for talking to Quinn alone.
While Sierra wrapped up her baking, she and Jaye spent an hour exchanging ideas on how they should direct the conversation with Quinn. They’d both been awake most of the night obsessing about the confrontation. Should they be immediate and harsh with their accusation or lull him into letting down his guard with a display of camaraderie? The more genteel method won out.
“Any ideas about how we get in the door?” Jaye asked. “There’s no way he’s going to let us in if he has the slightest inkling about our real mission.”
>
Sierra popped the last tray of blondies into the oven. “I could say I stopped by to discuss having them cater a party. Or I could ask if they’d like to carry a line of my baked goods to supplement their other desserts, which, by the way, have never been inspired. Of course, I’d leave out that last part.”
“You choose—either one would definitely get us through the door,” Jaye said, raising her coffee cup. “Here’s to us!”
Sierra picked up her cup and tapped it gently against Jaye’s so none of the coffee would slosh out. “And to our success!”
Before last-minute doubts could undermine their enthusiasm, Sierra asked Ruth to take the blondies out when the timer rang, and then she and Jaye marched out of the bakery and across the street. Daniel’s Jeep was already parked outside the restaurant, but when Jaye gave it a cursory glance, she didn’t see his silhouette behind the wheel. Probably just the combination of the sun’s glare and the tinted windows. She didn’t want to draw attention to the SUV, so she kept on walking. The only other vehicles in the area were the Finnegans’ blue Honda sedan and a white panel van with the name “Lightning Electrical” in bold lettering on its sides. The van was parked a block down from the Jeep, so the odds were the electrician wasn’t working at Finnegan’s. Having Luisa there would be difficult enough. The addition of a workman would have forced them to postpone the confrontation.
When they reached the back of the restaurant, they could hear Luisa singing away in Spanish inside. Jaye knocked on the door, sorry she was about to ruin Luisa’s day.
Quinn opened the door. “Ladies,” he said, looking more pleased than puzzled to see them there. Apparently, Jaye’s previous visit had paved the road for friendly backdoor encounters. “What can I do for you?”
Sierra didn’t hesitate for a second. “I want to talk to you about possibly catering a party I’m planning.” To Jaye, she didn’t sound the least bit nervous or deceitful.
“Of course, of course,” he said, “come on in so we can talk.” If Quinn detected anything amiss in her little speech, he was hiding it well. He stood to one side so that she and Sierra could enter the kitchen. Once inside they were embraced by the rich aroma of the Mexico City soup Luisa was stirring in a big pot on the commercial-sized stove. She stopped singing long enough to welcome them, causing Jaye another pang of remorse for the misery they were about to inflict on her. Sierra caught her eye for a moment, and Jaye knew she was thinking the same thing. They didn’t have the luxury of sparing Luisa’s feelings unless they didn’t mind going to prison. That put things back in perspective pretty darn fast.