Moving Is Murder

by Sara Rosett

  “No problem,” I said, relieved he’d wrapped up our chat. “We’ll see you Wednesday.” I assured him Mitch would pick him up at the airport.

  Later that night, we were clearing the table after dinner when the doorbell rang.

  An Everything in Its Place Tip for an

  Organized Move

  For the final clean of your old home, arrange to borrow a neighbor’s vacuum, mop, broom, and other cleaning supplies after the movers finish since your cleaning equipment will be lumbering down the street in the moving van about the time you need it.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  What I dream of is an art of balance.

  —Henri Matisse

  Rex’s barks reverberated in our small house until Mitch told him to be quiet.

  I paused with two dinner plates smudged with spaghetti sauce in my hands. “Who could that be?”

  “No one we know uses the front door.” Mitch set down our glasses. Livvy’s bouncy chair hummed as she kicked her feet. She was used to Rex’s barking now.

  “And at seven,” I said. “It’s so late.”

  Mitch grinned. “We’ve turned into old fogies.”

  “You mean people actually go places, do things, after six at night? They’re not home putting their kids to bed? Or trying to?” I hurried to put the plates in the sink and returned to the living room in time to see Mitch open the door to a tall man with curly brown hair wearing a tan raincoat over a standard business casual uniform: long-sleeved oxford, khakis, and loafers.

  “Hey—” Mitch began.

  “Special Agent Oliver Thistlewait.” The man cut him off and stuck out his hand. “Office of Special Investigations.” Mitch paused and then shook his hand slowly. “Oliver Thistlewait. Nice to meet you. Come in.” Mitch avoided looking at me when he turned around. Interesting. Something to ferret out later. “My wife Ellie.”

  “Let me take your coat,” I said as I shook Thistle-wait’s hand.

  “How can we help you?” Mitch asked over his shoulder as he led the way to our half-cleared table and sat down.

  “I’m here about Cassandra Vincent.” Thistlewait eyed the basket of buttered French bread. “We’re looking into her death. I understand you found her body, Mrs. Avery.”

  “Yes. Have some bread,” I said, hoping to deflect any questions.

  “Thanks.” He took a slice, pulled out a notebook, and began asking detailed questions, taking me through the day of the barbeque again. Good thing I got out of PR. I’m lousy at deflection.

  He managed to eat two more slices of bread, scattering crumbs over the table’s glossy surface and spotting his notebook with greasy fingerprints by the time we reached the break-in at the Vincents’ house.

  “I understand you have a key.”

  “Yes. We’re taking his mail in for him and watering the plants.”

  “I’ll need it to look around.”

  He brushed the crumbs into a neat pile and asked, “Did you know Mrs. Vincent well?”

  “Not really. We just moved here. I met her the night we moved in—Tuesday wasn’t it? Then I went to the coffee at her house the next night. What happened with her brakes and steering? Was it more than vandalism?”

  Thistlewait continued writing in his notebook as he said, “We’re looking into it.”

  “Well, what about her EpiPens? Have you found them? Was hers in the van?” I persisted, since he was being rude.

  He looked at me this time and said each word with a faint emphasis, “We’re looking into it. Now, let’s go back to the barbeque. When you left did you see anyone in the parking lot?”

  He leaned his elbow on the edge of the table and watched me with his dark eyes.

  I ran my hand around the corner of the breadbasket, suddenly nervous. I felt like I’d just been clocked doing 75 in a 45 mph zone. “Mitch was talking to Nick Town-send, I think that’s his name. I don’t remember anyone else. Brent walked out with me.”

  “Did you see any cars on the road as you left?”

  I paused. “I don’t remember any.”

  “No one passed you going back toward the squadron?”

  “I don’t think so, but I don’t really remember,” I said with a slight shake of my head. “Gwen was the first one to stop. She was headed east to the back gate.”

  “Know of anyone who didn’t like Mrs. Vincent? Any arguments? Rivalries?”

  Mitch had been lounging at the table fiddling with a butter knife. I felt a stillness settle over him at this question. “We just moved here a few weeks ago. I don’t know anyone very well, except Abby Dovonowski. We were at Hunter together,” I explained. I spent the next fifteen minutes, which felt like about three hours, answering questions about how well I knew Jeff, his knowledge of bees and wasps, the confrontation between him and Cass on Friday at the barbeque, and if I’d seen him when I left. Abruptly, Thistlewait switched to a new topic. “Cass Vincent lived most of her life in Texas. You sure you didn’t know her? You’re from there, too.”

  “I never met her before two weeks ago.”

  “You’re sure?” Thistlewait pressed.

  “It’s a large state.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I tried to ease in one more of my questions. After all, I’d answered most of his. “The Vincents’ garage and house have both been broken into. Could that be linked to Cass’s death?” Livvy started fussing in her seat and Mitch went to hand her a new toy.

  “We coordinate with local law enforcement, Mrs. Avery,” he said with a tight curve on his lips that might have been a smile. It was the faint, self-satisfied, I-know-it-all smile that did it. I’d thought I would tell him about the undercurrents at the spouse coffee, Cass’s flirting and gossiping, Nick’s doctor visits, and Friona’s strange night car rides, but not now. He could find out on his own. He wouldn’t take anything I said seriously, anyway.

  “I’ll get you those keys,” I said.

  He pocketed the keys. “I’ll return these in a little while.”

  I shut the door on his raincoated back and turned to Mitch. “Okay, what was going on when he got here?”

  “What?” Mitch tried to look blank. He quickly gathered up the empty breadbasket and our two glasses.

  I followed him to the kitchen. “There was something funny. You knew him, didn’t you? But you couldn’t say, right?”

  Mitch washed and rinsed the dishes with intense concentration.

  “What kind of name is Oliver? Who names their kid Oliver? And Thistlewait! That’s a made-up name if I ever heard one.”

  Mitch stacked the dishes in the draining board, kissed my forehead, and said, “Oliver is a nice name. In fact, it’s similar to Olivia—the name you liked so much that we gave it to our daughter. I’ll change Livvy.”

  The trials of having an honest, instruction-following husband. I wouldn’t get anything else out of him. He’d never reveal anything he wasn’t cleared to talk about. What was it with these close-mouthed men tonight? I picked up the phone to call Abby.

  I grabbed the flimsy plastic bag handles and the diaper bag strap in one hand, then I hooked the car seat handle in the crook of my other arm. After a deep breath, I scurried through the downpour to the Cherokee, parked in the nether regions of the parking lot. I had heard motherhood described as a balancing act, but I added the literal definition to the term in my mind as I skirted the puddles and tried to keep the heavy blanket over Livvy’s car seat. I jerked open the Cherokee’s back door, clicked the seat into place, and tossed the diaper bag onto the floorboard. In seconds, I was in the front seat lifting wet hair off my forehead. I needed a coat with a hood since there was no way to add an umbrella to the menagerie of stuff I carried around with me.

  I cranked the heater to high and reached back to remove the blanket from the car seat. Livvy had been fussy all day. In desperation, I’d called my mom. She suggested Livvy might be teething, so I’d bought Orajel, but now she sucked her thumb and stared contentedly at the primary colored butterfly toy hooked
to her car seat handle. I shook my head. Babies were not easy to figure out.

  I put the Cherokee in reverse and waited for a woman in a raincoat to get out of my path. Tiptoeing in her high heels, she rounded the end of the Cherokee and slid between it and the next car. I thought for a minute she was heading for my door, but she continued on to the car parked in the slot facing mine. She slid into the car’s passenger side and slapped down the newspaper she’d used to shield her face from the rain.

  She looked familiar. I tried to make out her features as she swiped her shoulder-length dark brown hair out of her face and turned to the man seated next to her. It was Gwen Givens. Could that be Steven? He looked too heavy, but it was hard to tell. Anyway Steven didn’t drive a blue four-door Buick. I remembered him leaning out of a sporty black truck the day we moved in. Gwen drove a Camry. I glanced in my rearview mirror. A white Camry, spotted and smeared from the rain, sat one row behind me.

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  I glanced back at them, trying not to make eye contact, but I didn’t need to worry. They were completely absorbed in their conversation. He said a few words, but she cut him off. Gwen shook her head sharply and gestured with her hand, a short chopping motion.

  The Cherokee was higher than the car and provided a perfect vantage point to see their interaction, although I couldn’t see the man’s face because his sun visor was down. I felt like a voyeur watching them, so I checked behind me again and slid out of the parking place without my lights, despite the gloom of the afternoon. Neither of them glanced at me.

  Why would Gwen meet someone in a parking lot? I checked the blue car again before turning left onto the street. Still there. They didn’t seem to be meeting and going anywhere. Or if they were, they weren’t in any hurry. Maybe it was business related. But her work, Tate’s, was on the other side of town.

  How had Cass phrased her comment about Gwen at the barbeque? She had something to tell me that was so “not Gwen.” Had Cass known something about Gwen that Gwen didn’t want anyone to know? Her meeting in the parking lot certainly seemed clandestine, but maybe it was just the rain, the overcast atmosphere, and her raincoat.

  My cell phone rang. It was Mitch. “Hey,” he said. “I’m over at Nick Townsend’s. His car battery’s dead and I’m going to let him borrow my car this afternoon. Could you come pick me up?”

  “Sure. Where does he live?”

  “You’re not going to believe this. A block over from us.”

  “I should have known. Why did I even ask?”

  Mitch’s laugh sounded down the line. “It’s a garage apartment on the corner of Twentieth and Birch.”

  I found the garage apartment and pulled into the driveway behind a Mustang. My headlights flashed on the AFPILOT license plate. I hit power on my phone to call Mitch, but it responded with “Battery Low, Recharge.” I unbuckled Livvy’s car seat and rushed through the heavy raindrops and up the steps to the apartment.

  Nick jerked open the door, greeted me while ushering me inside. “Want something to drink?” Nick asked.

  “Sure. Water would be great.” Nick pulled a water bottle out of the fridge while I took in the apartment. It was a typical bachelor pad with a coffee table, a single bar stool, and a worn couch that looked like the twin of the couch in the squad’s break room. An oak entertainment center with every piece of high-tech sound and video equipment imaginable showed where Nick spent his money. A SportsCenter anchor detailed the latest baseball stats from the large-screen TV. What Nick lacked in the furniture department he made up for with his wall hangings. Framed posters of every type of Air Force plane covered each wall. Even the niche above the sink had a plane. Nick could check out the details of a C-5, a massive cargo hauler, while he washed dishes.

  I took a sip of the water. A huffy sound came from the car seat. Mitch drained his Gatorade and stood up.

  “We’d better go. Livvy’s going to be hungry when she wakes up,” I explained to Nick. “Thanks for the water.”

  Mitch took the car seat from me and started bouncing. “Call me when you get the new battery. I’ll walk over and pick up my car.”

  “Nah. I’ll drop yours off and walk back if the rain’s stopped. It’s only a block. Thanks.” Nick smoothed down his Air Force Academy sweatshirt and opened the door again.

  Back in the car, I gestured to the vanity plate. “He’s a little overboard on the Air Force.”

  Mitch shrugged and backed out of the driveway. “He likes to fly, no big deal.” The Cherokee’s movement lulled Livvy back to sleep, so we could talk without shouting.

  “Don’t you think he’s a little extreme?” I asked. Mitch liked flying, but his identity wasn’t solely wrapped up in the wings he wore on his flight suit. “He had his Air Force Academy yearbooks out as coffee table books.”

  “Yeah,” Mitch conceded with a grin. “That’s a little weird, but Nick’s a little hyper. He goes overboard.”

  I told Abby about Nick’s extreme decorating style when she dropped by after school to help me price things for the garage sale.

  “It figures. I set up a friend, a teacher from school, with Nick. She said all he could talk about was how great flying was and every trip he’d ever been on. She was ready to bolt by the time the appetizer arrived.”

  “Sorry,” I said after I yawned. “It’s not you.”

  “Did Livvy sleep last night?” Abby asked as she flicked through a pile of videos.

  “No. Maybe she’s teething. I bought some Orajel today.” I described the weird parking lot encounter I’d seen between Gwen and the man.

  Abby dragged a box across the garage floor, pulled out the masking tape and a pen, and asked, “Do you think she’s having an affair?”

  “What?” I asked, surprised that idea was the first thing that came to Abby’s mind, but I’d wondered, too. I hadn’t wanted to put it into words, even in my own mind. Leave it to Abby to put it into words. She always says what she thinks.

  “Well, it sounds like it. They meet in a parking lot. Leave one car there and take one to a hotel. That way both cars aren’t at the hotel, in case anyone notices.”

  “But there aren’t any hotels close to here.” I marked a beanbag chair five dollars.

  “She lives down the street, maybe he lives around here, too. And downtown isn’t that far from here.”

  “Now I really wish I’d circled back to see what happened, but it’s kind of unlikely, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not.” Abby could tell I wasn’t convinced. “Listen, when my mom and dad divorced we found out things you wouldn’t believe. The finer points of sneaking around were broadcast around the house during the fights.” Her voice was joking, but her eyes were serious and sad.

  My own upbringing was so far from anything like that description that I didn’t know what to say. Most people I knew had divorced parents. The fact that mine were still together, and happy, made me almost a freak. My family was so normal it was almost abnormal. “I’m sorry.”

  Abby shrugged and pulled a hand mixer out of her box. “It was a long time ago.”

  I shifted to another subject. “Did Cass ever say anything to you about Gwen? That she knew something about her?”

  “No.” Abby’s forehead wrinkled together in thought. “No. I think I’d remember something like that.”

  “She and Steven seem very close. She doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would have an affair.”

  “You never know.”

  I pushed my bangs out of my eyes and hurried to the door, shushing Rex’s volley of deep barks. Late morning sunlight streamed in through the front door, silhouetting Diana’s trim form and highlighting my grubbiness. The Orajel hadn’t worked wonders and if Livvy hadn’t already been on antibiotics I’d be making another doctor appointment for her right now. It was all I could manage to throw on some gray sweats, tuck my hair behind my ears, and rub the sleep out of my eyes this morning.

  “I had an appointment cancel this morning.” Di
ana flinched as Rex let out one more sharp bark. “I thought I could help you price things for the garage sale, but if it is a bad time …” Her voice trailed off. In contrast to my slob-around-the-house ensemble, Diana wore a crisply ironed pink oxford shirt, navy slacks, and leather penny loafers. She looked like a mannequin from the Ralph Lauren display. Not exactly what I would pick to work in the grime of my garage, but Diana looked like she buffed and waxed her garage floor, so she probably thought she was dressed appropriately. Even though my garage would probably shock her, I wasn’t about to turn down her help.

  “No. It’s not a problem. Livvy’s not sleeping well. Just let me show you where everything is and I’ll be there in a minute.” I led the way through the house and down the steps to the basement garage.

  “You keep the dog inside?” She quick-stepped past the baby gate that confined Rex to the mudroom.

  “For now.” I sighed, resigned to the new arrangement.

  Diana eyed Rex warily. “I’m more of a cat person, but we don’t have pets right now. I can work by myself if you have other things you need to do,” Diana said.

  Like shower, she was probably thinking. I went to the garage door on the right and I heaved it up and over my head. Our older neighborhood didn’t have many two-car garages and few with garage door openers. The left-hand side door stuck so I left it down and clicked on the single overhead light. Digging out the box of pricing materials, I explained the different areas where we had grouped similar things. “I left the box cutter right here.” I patted the top of a book box and looked on the floor. “I’ll get some scissors.”

  “Here. I have a Swiss Army knife.” She pulled it out of her compartmentalized purse and neatly lined it up next to the black marker. I stifled another sigh. Trust her to look perfect and be prepared. Diana, the good Girl Scout. It irritated me that she looked composed and was prepared while I felt out of control. I was supposed to be the organized one, damn it. I rubbed my greasy bangs and said, “I left Livvy in her swing.” I could see the warning sticker clearly in my mind, NEVER LEAVE CHILD UNATTENDED. “Let me put her down for her nap and I’ll be right back.”