Flipped Out

by Jennie Bentley

  “Enough to look like Swiss cheese,” I said, but I got up and padded outside. My feet felt a little better after the bath and the bandaging, and with the soft, fluffy socks. The chair didn’t look so hot right now, old and covered with dirty paint, but I could picture the finished product in my head, and it would look awesome. “How come the wood didn’t split or crack when you drilled this?” I ran my finger around the inside of a hole that overlapped two boards.

  “You need a guide board,” Derek said, holding one up. It was a thin piece of plywood with a hole drilled into the middle. “You just clamp it to the front of the chair and drill through it. It’s easier to get the hole started that way. It helps with the biggest holes and the ones that are between two boards.”

  “Maybe a couple more? And a few on the armrests?”

  “I don’t wanna put too many on the seat,” Derek said, “since it might compromise the structure. But I can add a few to the backrest and the arms.”

  “I’m gonna go look up Missouri.”

  He nodded. “I’ll be in when I’m done with this and I’ve cleaned up.”

  I padded back inside and sat down at the computer again. Mischa had entered the parlor now, too, and had jumped up on the windowsill, where he sat and stared out at Derek, tail twitching.

  18

  Nina’s resume on LinkedIn told me where she’d started her career and gave me the call letters of the television station in Missouri where it had all begun. I even knew the time she’d worked there: six or seven months twenty-one years ago. I started there.

  And unfortunately, came up pretty empty. Neither Nina nor Tony were mentioned anywhere on the station website. And no wonder, considering how many years it had been since they worked there and that neither of them had stayed very long. There were no mentions of previous employees at all, unless something bad had happened to them. Like one young woman, Aurora Jamison, who must have died suddenly, and who had gotten a road named after her. Aurora Lane, the road heading up the hill to the transmitting tower. But since both Nina and Tony had been alive and kicking when they left Kansas City, there was no mention of either of them.

  I’ve had occasion, in the past, to look into Waterfield history, and I usually start with the historical society and the local newspapers, the Waterfield Weekly and the daily Clarion. Kansas City probably had a historical society, but this wasn’t something they’d be able to help me with, being fairly recent in historical terms. The newspapers, on the other hand . . .

  The big newspaper in those parts seemed to be the Kansas City Star. Its news archives didn’t go back twenty years, but some of its content did. When I googled Tony Micelli + Nina Andrews + KRBQ, the call letters for the station, I lucked out and found myself staring at an obituary. For none other than Aurora Jamison, who had given her name to the TV-station road.

  There was a picture at the top of the obit, showing me that Aurora had been a beautiful girl in her early twenties. From the name, I had expected a blonde—Sleeping Beauty’s name was Aurora, maybe that’s what threw me—but this Aurora was a brunette. Curly hair, big eyes, sweet smile. Something about her was familiar, although I couldn’t put my finger on what.

  She had started at KRBQ less than two years before she died, but the hometown girl had quickly become a viewer favorite, as well as a favorite with the powers that be at the station. There were plans for making her the host of a new midday show they were putting together. That news hadn’t been made public yet, and several of the other young reporters associated with the station were in contention for the spot, as well. But at the time she died, Aurora was the front-runner.

  And then she had been in a car accident on her way to work in the super-early hours of the morning. Nobody was around to see what happened, but the postmortem showed that she was DUI, and she ran off the road and crashed the car. By the time paramedics got to her, it was too late.

  That information wasn’t in the obituary, of course. I found that by googling Aurora’s name. And where the Star didn’t have their news archives online for twenty years back, one of the smaller Kansas City newspapers did. They quoted Nina, another of the TV station’s up-and-coming young reporters, who had been called in to work to replace Aurora in that morning’s broadcasts, as saying that everyone was in shock and nobody could believe it had happened. There was no mention of Tony except for his name in the obituary with her other colleagues. I scanned the list, just in case there was a Rory or Corey or Laurie on it, or even a Roderick or a Lauren, but no such luck. The closest I came was Frederick, but it was difficult to imagine how Grant could have turned that into Rory.

  “Find anything?” Derek asked, coming into the parlor to lean over my shoulder. He dropped a kiss on the top of my head on his way down, and then swore as Mischa launched himself at him. I let Derek unhook the kitten from his jeans on his own this time as I focused on the computer.

  “Check out this article about a woman named Aurora Jamison, who worked at the same TV station as Nina and Tony. She died while they were in Kansas City.”

  “Rory,” Derek said, putting Mischa back on the windowsill. “Damn cat.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I hate this cat. He’s always getting on me. Oh. Rory. Short for Aurora.”

  “Really? I’ve never heard that.”

  “I knew a Rory once whose name was Aurora.” When I slanted a look at him, he was smiling.

  “Old girlfriend?”

  “Summer fling. I was sixteen. So what happened to this Aurora?”

  “Car accident. Late at night. DUI and probably hurrying to get to work on time.”

  “Hard to imagine how that could be anyone else’s fault,” Derek said.

  “I know. If she and Nina were close friends, I suppose Nina might have felt bad about it afterward. But bad enough to leave a good job at a TV station? The article said she ended up taking over Aurora’s job on the early news.”

  “Maybe she felt guilty. If she’d wished Aurora out of the way, and then Aurora died.”

  “Someone sent the letters, though. And it wasn’t Nina.”

  “You don’t know that,” Derek said, “but no, it probably wasn’t. Did Aurora have any family?”

  “If she did, they’re not mentioned here. I can keep digging. There’s probably a regular obituary somewhere, too. A personal one. Not this fancy one from the TV station.”

  “Tomorrow,” Derek said. “It’s time for bed. You need to rest your feet.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” They were scratches. And not even deep scratches.

  “Are you questioning my medical expertise?” He picked me up bodily, straight out of the chair.

  “But Kate hasn’t even called yet. Don’t you want to wait to hear from the hospital?”

  “Bring the phone upstairs. We’ve got another early morning and another long day tomorrow. We both need sleep.”

  And that was it. He didn’t even give me time to shut down the computer, although I did reach out and flick off the light on my way out the door.

  Kate didn’t call until the next morning at the ungodly early hour of 5:45. We were up by then, dressed and downstairs in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew. My feet felt better, but I was still wearing fluffy socks and comfy sneakers, in spite of the hot weather. And I was tired. So was Derek, his eyes dull as he watched the coffeemaker go through the motions. Kate sounded tired as well, even if the relief in her voice was palpable.

  “She’s awake. She woke up for just a minute last night, and then went to sleep. But it was after midnight, so I didn’t call.”

  “She’s all right?” Derek asked. I’d put the cell on speaker so we both could hear and talk to her.

  “She’s fine. She’s got a concussion, like you said, but she can remember everything up until running off the road. The last minute or two of heading down toward the water are gone, but the doctor says it’s no big deal; people with concussions often have minor memory loss of things that happened right before they hit their head
s. And besides, we know what happened.”

  Derek nodded.

  “She’s going to stay in the hospital until tomorrow. Josh will be released today, but I don’t think he’ll be able to come help you guys. His foot is bandaged.”

  “Twisted?”

  “Broken. Some little bone near his ankle. He’ll be fine, too, but the ER doctor said to stay off it as much as possible for a few days.”

  “What about you?” I wanted to know.

  “Oh, I’m fine. I’m on my way home to take care of the crew before they head out to work. After that, I think I’ll take a nap. I didn’t get much sleep overnight.”

  “Look at their reactions when you tell them what happened,” Derek instructed. “Just in case one of them says or does something suspicious.”

  “Wayne told me the same thing. He’ll be there, too.”

  “Tell him to give us a call later. There’s something I need to tell him. And let us know how it goes.”

  She promised she would, and we hung up.

  “That’s most of our work crew gone,” Derek said.

  I nodded. “You don’t think that’s the reason for the accident, do you? Someone trying to sabotage our project?”

  “Who’d care that much about a TV show?” Derek answered. “And killing Tony is taking things pretty far, wouldn’t you say? If someone truly hated us that much, wouldn’t they just try to kill one of us? It’d be simpler.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  He shrugged. “We’ve never done anything to anyone to deserve that. And besides, if someone disliked either one of us enough to go to such lengths to ruin our first TV appearance, don’t you think we’d know who it is? That kind of crazy is hard to hide.”

  He had a point. The only people I could imagine might dislike either of us enough to kill were the folks we’d helped put in jail, and they were all where they were supposed to be, as far as I knew. In lockup.

  “And,” Derek added another qualifier, “that doesn’t explain the accident in Kentucky that put Stuart in the hospital. Or the poison-pen letters.”

  “So we’re back to someone who’s trying to ruin the show itself. Or trying to ruin Nina.”

  “One of the crew,” Derek said. I nodded. “Well, at the moment, we’re gonna ruin our own chances of being on TV if we don’t get moving. We won’t have much help today, so that means we’ll have to do more of the work ourselves. Let’s go.”

  “The coffee . . . ?”

  “Take it with you,” Derek said and headed outside to load the holey Adirondack chair into the back of the truck.

  By the time the television crew arrived at the house on Cabot, we were hard at work. Derek was finishing up the second coat of polyurethane on the wood floors, and I was putting the doors back on the kitchen cabinets and screwing the new door handles and drawer pulls onto the doors and drawers. It all looked great and would look even better when the kitchen counter was in.

  Ted and Adam helped Derek maneuver the counter in place while Wilson filmed. Meanwhile, Fae pushed me into the utility room, Nina on her heels. “We heard about Shannon and Josh. How horrible!”

  I nodded. “They were lucky. Things could have been so much worse.”

  “What happened?” Nina asked. “Kate said they’d run off the road on the way home from dinner yesterday, and she’d been at the hospital all night.”

  “Basically, that’s all we know. The brakes on Josh’s car failed. No idea why yet, but I’m sure we’ll find out when the mechanic has taken a look at it. Luckily, Josh managed to find a place where they didn’t fly off a cliff and drop like a rock straight into the ocean, so it turned out all right. He has a broken bone in his foot. Shannon has a concussion. Other than that, and some cuts and bruises, they’re both fine.”

  “Oh, my,” Nina said, and grabbed Fae’s arm. “That could have been Fae!”

  “If it had happened the night before, sure. Although there are no cliffs on that side of town.” I hesitated for a second, calculating a plan of attack, before I continued, “But really, they were very lucky. People die in car accidents every day. Young people no older than Josh or Shannon. Or Fae. You had a friend who died in a car accident, didn’t you, Nina?”

  Nina paled, and she dropped her hand from Fae’s arm. “How do you know about that?”

  “It’s public knowledge, isn’t it? KRBQ in Kansas City named a road after her. Aurora Lane, right?”

  Fae was looking at Nina now, too, while in the kitchen, Derek had started the process of screwing the kitchen counter to the cabinets. From the other room, we could hear Adam explain the process to the camera. “What Dick is doing now . . .”

  “His name is Derek, Adam,” Wilson said. “Start over.”

  In the utility room, all were silent. Fae was watching Nina, a guarded expression on her face. Nina looked like she had trouble breathing.

  “I went online,” I said. “Last night. Something’s going on here. People are dropping like flies around this production, and we’re lucky Tony’s been the only fatality so far. I wanted to know why. So I did some research.”

  “And you found out about Rory?” Nina’s voice was hoarse.

  I nodded and chalked up a point for Derek, who had postulated the nickname. “She died during the time you worked for KRBQ, right? You and Tony?”

  Nina nodded, her face still several shades too pale. She was twisting her fingers together.

  “Did you have something to do with it?”

  “I didn’t kill her,” Nina said. “It was an accident. I wasn’t even there that night. And I had no idea she’d get in the car and try to drive to work even though she’d been drinking. That was just stupid!”

  “Maybe she was afraid that if she didn’t show up, you’d take her job,” Fae suggested, her voice low but with an underlying sharpness. “That’s the way it is in television, isn’t it? So many reporters, so few jobs?”

  Nina looked stricken, and I followed up with another question. “You did take over her job, didn’t you? Afterward?”

  She swallowed. “Just the newscasts. Not the midday show. They decided to shelve that when Rory was killed. And I didn’t stay there much longer, anyway. Just a month or so after she died.”

  “Guilty conscience?” Fae suggested. Nina turned on her.

  “I didn’t do anything! I wasn’t even there when she left. Sure, she was the favorite, and we all knew it, and we all wished she’d mess up or be late or do something stupid so the rest of us could get our chance, but we didn’t want her dead!”

  Fae snorted.

  “Who did she go drinking with that night?” I asked, and Nina looked at me, her eyes haunted.

  “Tony.”

  “She and Tony were dating?”

  I’d thought Nina and Tony had been dating, but maybe I’d misunderstood the situation. Although that was what she’d said, wasn’t it?

  Nina shook her head. “Tony was with me. God knows why, because she was much prettier than I ever was, although I didn’t look too bad back in those days, I guess.” She shrugged. “Rory had a baby, though, and Tony didn’t want to be tied down. He wasn’t looking for anything permanent. I always knew our relationship wouldn’t last beyond Kansas City. Tony had too much ambition. So did I. Rory didn’t, but things just seemed to work out for her. You know?”

  I nodded. I knew the type. “So what was she doing with him that night?”

  “She always liked him. He’d never given her the time of day before, but that night he asked her out. And to go home with him afterward. She said yes.”

  I wrinkled my brows. “How did you feel about that?”

  “I asked him to,” Nina said.

  “You what!”

  This was Fae, and Nina turned to her. “I asked him to do it. To take her out and get her drunk and take her back to his apartment. I thought it would make her sleep through the two A.M. alarm, and she wouldn’t make it to the TV station in time to do the morning broadcasts. Or if she did, she’d be too drunk or too hu
ngover to go on the air. I made sure I was there so I could do it instead.”

  “You asked your boyfriend to take advantage of her?”

  “It wasn’t taking advantage!” Nina said. “I told you, she liked him. She said yes, didn’t she? And all I wanted was to make sure she couldn’t go on and do the morning news. I didn’t want anything to happen to her!” Her eyes had filled with tears.

  “What did happen?” I asked, making sure my voice was gentle.

  Nina blinked. Hard. “I don’t know. Nobody does. Tony slept through it. He didn’t wake up until I banged on his door hours later. He didn’t even realize she’d left. Maybe she tried to wake him up in the middle of the night, or maybe she didn’t. Nobody knows. I don’t know why she didn’t just call a cab, if she was bound and determined to get to the studio. She wasn’t supposed to drive!”

  The tears overflowed and spilled down her cheeks, and she dug in her handbag for something to wipe them with. I tore off a sheet of paper towel and handed it to her, and she buried her face in it. Fae watched her for a second before she slipped off into the kitchen to join the others, I guess maybe to give Nina some privacy. I would have liked to have done the same, but I still had questions.

  “Do you think this is the reason you’ve been getting the letters? Someone knew what you did?”

  “But I didn’t do anything!” Nina said again. “I didn’t want anything to happen to her, I just wanted her out of the way for a couple of hours so I could take her place. That’s all! I felt horrible when I heard what had happened. But we never intended for her to try to drive herself to work in the dark!”

  “I get that.” And I did. She seemed too distraught not to be telling the truth, and besides, it wasn’t like she’d stayed at KRBQ after the accident to take advantage of Aurora’s passing. Both she and Tony had been out of Kansas City within a few months and hadn’t been in contact with one another for twenty years. Those weren’t the actions of people who had planned to kill. “Did anyone else know? Or just you and Tony?”