by Rae Davies
And maybe she was. I couldn’t be completely sure about Betty.
Either way, I had no more time or energy to worry about them. I left them to draw up the rules of their “rumble” and went to dig up the piece of wood with the barbed wire. Luckily, Betty and Phyllis hadn’t gotten to the back of the store yet in their reorganization efforts.
I balanced the wood on the top of my head and wove my way through the disaster that was my store.
The bell dinged and in walked the three S and M fanatics. They made it three feet before a pile of rugs blocked their path.
Immediately, two of them turned, ready to run for the door. The third, she of the barbed-wire-loving husband, stood uncertainly, still, but ready to bolt.
My eyes narrowed, I looked at my warring sales team. Neither noticed. Both were already scrambling over whatever merchandise stood in their way, making a beeline for the close-to-escaping customers.
Within seconds, both women had new best friends. I just hoped these new “friends” didn’t kill each other or the innocent beef rancher spouses in their efforts to win their sell off.
Unable to watch whatever might happen next, I lowered the board to the ground and did my best imitation of a game show assistant. “This is what I was telling you about.”
My customer, distracted by her companions being dragged into the bowels of my disorganized store, hesitated. Then, apparently deciding they weren’t at any immediate risk, she turned her attention to the board.
While she ran her finger over each piece and commented on the manner in which the strands had been mounted, I thought of ways to bring up the dinner at Tiffany’s and what, if anything, she knew that might help clear Ben.
I didn’t have to. She brought it up instead.
Her finger stilled less than a millimeter from one barbed wire point. “You were at the opening too, weren’t you? You threw a dish on our table.”
“Uh, yeah.” I stuttered. “I was there, I mean, but I don’t remember throwing a dish.” Eyes wide, I blinked. “Someone did that?”
One of her eyes closed halfway. I recognized the look as what my father would call the hairy eyeball.
I babbled on. “There was a lot of confusion there. What with the protesters.” I shook my head. So terrible, those dirty protesters.
“You were talking to one.” She stood up, leaving the board on the floor. “And that goose.”
“I wasn’t talking to the goose,” I objected.
Pauline, apparently recognizing that she had become the topic of conversation, honked.
My customer jumped. “It’s here.” Her hand went to her throat, and I sighed.
Really, I should have known better. I would never unload this board of twisted metal.
But, to my surprise, the woman glanced around and then leaned forward. “Did you know the chef too? She stopped by your table, didn’t she?”
A little unsettled that she had noted so much about my activities that night, I hesitated.
Apparently taking my pause as reluctance, she waved her hand in the air. “I only ask because... well...” She looked around again.
Every fiber of my being told me something good was coming. I nodded my head and tried to look as encouraging as possible.
Sensing a kindred gossip, she moved even closer. “You haven’t heard anything about her and her landlord, have you?”
Her landlord. Richard Danes. The underwear. His willingness to furnish her apartment on his dime to her hideous taste. It all added up.
“I... I’ve met him.”
She nodded. “With that chef?”
“No, not until after she died, but...” I motioned to the surrounding mess. “A lot of these things came from the building. Some from the restaurant and some from her apartment.”
“Really?” Her demeanor lifted, and she spun around as if seeing my merchandise in an entirely new light.
I knew then that letting slip that I’d also found a pair of men’s boxers in Tiffany’s dresser would almost guarantee me a nice sale. But that was beneath me...
I walked to the counter and dug Tiffany’s sparkly cow key ring out of the register. “Did you see her key chain?”
The little cow flashed in the light, like a tiny diamond-encrusted disco ball.
The woman grabbed the key chain from my hand. “Leslie has one just like this,” she exclaimed. Her face was a mix of horror and glee. Horror, I guessed, that her suspicions had been proven right. Glee for the same reason.
She rolled the cow over her palm as if she might see some detail that disproved what she was thinking. After a moment, she handed it back to me, shaking her head.
“He bought two,” she commented. This seemed to disgust her, maybe more than the thought that Danes was cheating on his wife/ her friend.
“Tacky,” I agreed.
Her lips pursed, and we shared a moment of mutual disgust for any man who would be so tasteless as to give his wife and mistress the same bauble.
“Makes me all the more grateful for my Alfred,” she said after a moment.
Realizing Alfred must be he of the barbed wire fixation, I dove on the renewed opportunity of making a sale and dragged the board over to the counter where she stood. “I know I appreciate my boyfriend every day.” This was, of course, an overstatement, but not totally. I did appreciate him... most of the time.
She smiled. “The man you were with that night. Does he work for the police?” She moved smoothly into a conversation that was designed to dig more information out of me on everything from what Peter knew about Tiffany’s death, to how long we had been dating, to why I was still unmarried.
The unmarried part hit a little too close to something my mother would ask. I forced my lips into a smile and worked my hardest to get the conversation off of me and back onto something I wanted to know about.
“I heard you say next door that you had a friend who went to a spa. I’ve been thinking of taking a break myself. Do you know where she went?”
“Leslie?” I could see thoughts moving through her head, probably her sifting through our conversation to see if I had made the connection that this friend was also the wife of the cheater. After a second, she seemed to either decide that I hadn’t or that it didn’t matter. She gave me the name of the spa and added. “I can’t say if it is any good though. I’ve never been there.”
Because her husband hadn’t needed to ship her off while he hooked up with a hottie.
We were both thinking it, but neither of us said it. We did have some class.
Her friends returned, both laden down with tchotchkes. One held a brass spittoon, two branding irons, and a collection of cow bells. The other had a ceramic lamp with a tambourine shade, a red tulip-shaped blown glass vase, and one of Tiffany’s hideous red sculptures.
“Uh, everyone ready?” I asked, trying not to glance at Betty or Phyllis, who had walked up behind the women and were now occupied with scowling at each other.
Realizing time was limited before there was another explosion, I trotted behind the counter and rang everyone up as quickly as I could. Total sales, including the board of barbed wire, were over $800, with Phyllis taking the moment with $500 worth of the sales.
She beamed, Betty glared, and I hurried the women out of the shop as quickly as I could.
Then, head low, I scurried into my office and locked the door behind me.
I turned around to find a malamute and a goose staring me down.
“You’re both smarter than I give you credit,” I acknowledged. I pressed my ear up against the door to check on the hell that surely was breaking loose in the main shop.
Silence.
“That can’t be good, can it?” I asked my fowl and canine companions, but neither had a reply.
My hand moved toward the door knob.
Pauline snorted and Kiska lifted one brow. Derision at my weakness from a dog and a goose.
How pathetic was I?
Slowly, I lowered my hand and stepped back from the doo
r. I gave it one more wary look, then resolve stiffened, I turned on my computer and went to work saving my brother.
I decided to start with my newest lead first—Leslie Danes. After talking to my new gossipy friend, I was pretty confident that the men’s underwear in Tiffany’s drawer belonged to Richard Danes.
Giving his wife, Leslie, the perfect motive to off the young chef. Now I just needed to establish she had opportunity.
I searched for the spa on the Internet and placed my call.
The woman at the main desk was friendly in a one-too-many-cups-of-coffee way. She was also highly efficient, barely giving me time to say the name Leslie before cutting me off with a, “I’ll put you right through.”
Then the phone was ringing, and I was scrambling for a cover story.
Leslie Danes answered promptly, forcing me to choose my lie quickly. I glanced around the room. My gaze settled on the Old West comics lying on my floor.
“This is Billie Kidd,” I stuttered out. “With Montana Getaways. We’re doing a piece on spas next month and women who enjoy them.”
“Billy? Kidd?”
“Uh, yes, my dad was a bit of a history buff.”
There was a pause on the other end and for a moment I thought I’d lost her, but then she laughed, a rough laugh like it was hard to muster, but still a laugh.
“Well, I bet people don’t forget it.”
I laughed in return as if my made-up name was a constant source of amusement. Which maybe if I had been named Billie Kidd, it would have been. Lucy Mathews hadn’t brought much spice to my life.
After we’d finished sharing that moment, I pushed on. “Do you mind telling me a bit about your stay at the...” Blanking for a moment, I shifted my gaze back to my computer and the homepage still on the screen. “Golden Rock Lodge? Have you been a guest there before?”
“No, actually, it was a gift from my husband.” She cleared her throat as if she had more to say about the gift but had decided to keep it to herself.
Pretending I didn’t notice the omission, I made appropriate sounds of being impressed and murmured praise for any husband who would be so generous. “When did you arrive?”
“Monday night. Richard dropped me off before rushing off to a conference in Helena. He’s president of the Beef Ranchers.”
“So he wasn’t able to enjoy any of the amenities?”
“He could have, but he didn’t.”
All was not paradise in the land of Danes.
“Oh, that’s a shame, but I guess being president of an organization comes with a lot of responsibilities.”
“That’s what he tells me.” There was a noise from the other end of the line, like curtains opening. “Did you have questions about the spa? That is why you called, right?”
Her directness caused me to stutter. “Uh, yeah, uh...”
“Yes?”
I went through a completely made up spiel about how Montana was completely lacking in spas and wondering what had driven her to choose the Golden Rock Lodge.
“As I said, it was a gift from my husband.”
“But the amenities? They’re nice?” I don’t know why I cared, it wasn’t like I was really writing an article on the place, but the conversation was such a downer, I felt driven to bring something good to light.
“They have some.”
After that ringing endorsement, I spent some time getting enough details about the place and her schedule to convince her that my cover story was real. But I wanted to turn the conversation back to Richard Danes some too.
“Is your husband picking you up at the end of the week too? Maybe he’ll have time then to enjoy the spa some. If he does, I’d love to get his take on the place. As rare as spas are in Montana, it’s really hard to find men to interview about them.”
“I don’t think that will work out.”
And that was it. I tried to pry a bit more out of her, but it was pretty obvious that she was done with the interview.
I hung up, fairly certain the Golden Rock Lodge would not be getting any 5 star reviews posted online from Leslie Danes and that she had not killed Tiffany, at least if her story of being dropped off by her husband was true. Yes, she could have gotten someone to drive her to Helena to off the chef, but that added a complication, plus it was at least a seven-hour drive.
Leslie had said she had arrived on Monday evening; to leave her on my suspect list, I needed a more specific time.
I called the receptionist at the Lodge back, going through my cover story again and asking when Leslie Danes had arrived. Apparently a trusting sort, she told me six p.m.
This meant for Leslie or her husband to have killed Tiffany she would have had to have died after one a.m.
For Ben’s sake, I really hoped Tiffany had rolled under his van sometime in the wee morning hours. If not, I’d just exonerated two of the most likely suspects.
Chapter 16
I opened my office door to find the shop empty. No Betty and no Phyllis. There were, however, noises coming from the alley.
Against my better judgment, I tiptoed to the back door and looked out.
The pair of them were standing between two stacks of merchandise, one stack decidedly of my personal taste—dusty and antique; the other mid-century and sleek.
They seemed to be sorting things or bargaining. I couldn’t tell for sure, and honestly, as long as they weren’t yelling or tearing the store down around them, I didn’t want to know.
Figuring this might be one of my only opportunities to exit before another wave of animosity began, I grabbed Kiska and Pauline and led them out the front.
It was a bit of a walk down Last Chance Gulch with my 120-pound dog and a honking white goose, but I braved the stares to walk around the block and enter the alley where I had left my Jeep. By the time we reached my rig, Betty and Phyllis had disappeared back inside.
I hurried my companions into the vehicle, and we pulled out.
Talking to Leslie, I’d realized there were major holes in my knowledge regarding Tiffany’s death. By now, the police had to know at least an estimate of when she had died and, hopefully, what killed her.
I needed to know those things too.
Time to go for the weak link: George.
It was lunchtime. Which meant George would be going out soon to pick up a sandwich from his favorite hole-in-the-wall shop. I pulled into the lot and waited.
A few minutes later, he arrived and went inside. I got out of my rig and went to lean against his car door.
He walked out carrying a bag and a steaming cup of coffee. When he saw me, he stopped and looked around. For an escape, I guessed.
Finally, realizing his cause was lost, he ambled toward me.
“I should have realized my luck wouldn’t hold.”
I feigned hurt. “Luck? I thought you liked me.”
He shook his head and motioned with the hand holding his lunch. “I can’t tell you anything. Especially not with your brother arrested.”
“Now is when you should most want to tell me something,” I replied, dropping my gaze in my best poor-little-girl look.
“Lucy...” I could see he was breaking.
I softened my face even more and waited.
With a sigh, he lowered his lunch to his side and said, “What do you want to know?”
Ten minutes later, George was back in his car, eating his lunch, and I was back in my rig digesting what he had told me.
Tiffany had died around midnight. This, unfortunately, ruled out both Leslie Danes and her husband as the killer.
George had been less forthcoming about what exactly had killed Tiffany, but I had finally managed to get him to admit that whatever they had found in Ben’s Egg that led to his arrest, it hadn’t been a weapon exactly. George had danced around my questions on this quite a bit.
Still, this info, coupled with Daniel’s observation of Tiffany’s behavior, led me to a drug overdose. Except, then why would the police be so sure it was murder?
&nbs
p; Pondering this, I turned my rig toward the Capitol and my next stop in my gathering of information: the organic grocery, where I hoped to find HA! I couldn’t imagine my upright brother doing or dealing drugs, at least not a type that would kill someone, but I had to admit he and I had not been all that close of late, or ever.
The other members of HA! almost surely knew more about the Ben of today than I did. Plus, I wanted to follow up what he had told me about Hope and her activity on FriendTime. If she was the one posting Pauline’s pictures on Tiffany’s wall, I wanted to know.
No, check that. I wanted Stone to know.
The only signs of life in the storage room were a new stack of empty hummus containers, three open bags of pita chips and a half-eaten apple.
I found Hope out in the store, sorting through kefir bottles.
“They let us have the expired ones,” she announced, holding out a pink and green plastic bottle.
I held up one hand, warding off her generous offer of fermented milk. “Uh, no. Thanks.”
With a shrug, she twisted the lid off the bottle and tucked two more under her arm.
“I guess you heard about Ben,” I said.
She took a drink and shook her head. “Heard what?”
“He was arrested.”
“Really? Does Eric know? We thought the protest had been a bust. That guy being found took all our press.”
Her enthusiasm for Ben’s arrest and annoyance at Daniel for allowing his own head to be bashed in on HA!’s stage were both heart-warming.
“Ben wasn’t arrested for the protest. He was arrested...” I couldn’t say for murder or killing Tiffany. The words just wouldn’t come out. “...for... because of the chef.”
Hope lowered her kefir, leaving a pale pink yogurt mustache on her upper lip. “Tiffany?”
“Yes...” I looked around. I didn’t really want to have an in-depth discussion of my brother’s possible drug connections next to the dairy section.
I motioned toward the back and started walking. Hope followed, pausing along the way to pick up a bruised peach and an outdated box of organic sandwich cookies.
In the storage room, she shoved the hummus containers to one side, set her kefirs on the table and started munching on her peach.