by Wendy Byrne
Nate gave me his patented condescending look that he tempered with a smile. "Your ex Joseph showed up in town and wanted your help?"
"Yes, but I didn't give it to him because, number one"—I counted on my fingers—"the guy is a jerk, and number two, I would never interfere in police business." I gave him a cheesy smile. "I told him to come talk to you."
He laughed as if he didn't believe me. "Do you think you dreamt it?"
"I've never sleepwalked in my life."
"Maybe I should call the paramedics?"
"Don't go all Viola on me. I'm fine."
"Concussions are nothing to mess with."
"All I know is that Joseph came to see me and told me he was in trouble. I sent him away and told him to stay in Iowa City. Then I heard a fight." Could I have been mistaken? It had been a wild couple of days. But those men hanging around downtown Inez didn't seem logical either.
"Joseph was fighting with someone?"
"I don't know if he was or wasn't. Maybe I'm making an assumption."
"I'll see if he checked into a hotel in Iowa City. Will that make you feel better?"
"Not that I care about him one way or another, but that doesn't mean I want him dead either."
"Understood. I feel the same way about my ex. Ill will over what she did to Emily is always there, but not of the I-want-her-dead variety, right?"
I nodded, feeling a curious kind of bonding with someone I would never have predicted. "Exactly."
"Why did you let him in?" I suspected he was humoring me rather than believing me.
"He seemed so pathetic and scared. Not his usual bravado, which could have been faked to illicit sympathy."
"I heard his lawyer sent you some kind of letter."
I shook my head. "I forgot to get it from Gabe. I still don't think that has anything to do with…wait a minute…are you saying you think maybe he got wind of the money my father gave me?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it?"
"So the scum was looking for sympathy while at the same time looking to screw me over?"
"That would be my guess."
That would be just like him to make up a fictitious tale about someone being after him when all he really wanted to know is how much money I got from my dad. My disgust with him had definitely hit an all-time low.
CHAPTER TEN
I had barely settled into sleep when the morning sun peeked through the windows of my new place. I couldn't remember what time Nate left, but it was probably close to three. His grilling had been modest based on my prior experience, but in the end, he categorized my 9-1-1 call as an overreaction to what he classified as a drunken brawl rather than anything criminal.
Excess sunshine poured inside my place with a ferocity that I'm pretty sure could wake the dead. I needed to either go to sleep with sunglasses on or put up the drapes I'd bought if I ever hoped to sleep past seven a.m. Before I got a chance to do much more thinking about the subject, there was a knock at the front door, and Gabe's voice came from the other side. "You up yet, sunshine?"
"I'll be right there." I threw on a sweatshirt and jeans, did a quick tooth brushing and hair fixing, and opened the door. "You brought me coffee." I secured the cup with greedy hands and sipped. Heaven…especially after four hours of sleep. Note to self—pick up a coffee maker pronto if I expect to function on a daily basis. "I think I'm in love."
He smiled and shook his head. "I'm not that easy." He gave me a quick kiss on the lips before plopping onto the couch. "Sorry about that thing with Joseph yesterday. I didn't mean to do some kind of caveman routine, but I know how the guy screwed you over and yeah…" He shrugged as if that explained the remainder of what he didn't say, which it kind of did. "You mentioned yesterday something about hanging curtains. I've got my extra-tall ladder in the truck."
"Excellent. I feel a bit like an exhibitionist with these windows overlooking Main Street."
"That would give the gossips something to talk about, wouldn't it?"
"As if the whole debacle with my father wasn't enough." I sighed, thinking through how my father and I had taken five steps forward followed by a couple steps back. It was hard to get to know somebody with a biological connection as an adult. Everything felt so strange—like I should somehow know him and how he thinks, even while that seemed impossible.
"Tony still hanging at the cabin?"
"In between his whirlwind tour. He texts me every couple of days and gives me an update on the status of his new projects and where he's headed next." I had a weird feeling he was doing something secretive, but maybe that was a latent paranoid instinct after my first calamity involving him.
"Give him time. He's a guy who keeps to himself, so who knows what's going on inside his head."
Yeah, that's kind of what I was afraid of. "Did you talk to Nate this morning?" Those two were thick as thieves, so it stood to reason if Nate knew something about Joseph, he'd tell Gabe.
He shook his head. "Why? Something happen that I'd want to know about?"
I chewed my lip. "Joseph wanted to stay at my place last night because he was scared or something, but I told him to go to a hotel in Iowa City. Which reminds me, did you happen to bring that letter from the law firm?"
Gabe made an I'd-like-to-strangle-the-guy kind of face. Thankfully, he didn't utter what was clearly on his mind. Not that I blamed him. My tolerance for discussing Joseph's BS was seriously limited as well.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope and handed it to me. "I was so anxious to show you the place yesterday, it slipped my mind."
"No worries," I mumbled as I tore into the letter. My eyes scanned the information before I handed it to Gabe since I figured he'd be more familiar with legalese than I would be. "Is he asking for a reassessment of the arrangements of the divorce decree? Can he do that?"
"I'm not versed in divorce law in New York, but it looks like he wants to re-negotiate the settlement based on the fact you had a pot of money you hadn't disclosed during the discovery process."
I seriously hoped my head didn't explode because it sure felt like it might. He rubbed my shoulders. "I so want to strangle him right now."
"Me too. But we can talk about his crap another time. There are lots of things you can do to counter his move that are worth exploring. I've some good lawyer friends who practice in New York that can help you if it comes to that. Right now, let's focus on what happened last night."
I sucked in a deep breath to redirect my thoughts. "I heard this noise followed up by what sounded like a gunshot, and then I called 9-1-1, tripped, hit my head and passed out, and then Nate came by, and he didn't find anything, and thought I might be overreacting, but I could have sworn—as unlikely as it sounds—Joseph was fighting with someone."
He shook his head. "What? All this happened after I left? Why didn't you call me?"
"Because it was the middle of the night, and I'm sleeping in a new place that's a lot noisier than staying at Viola's. It's certainly not as noisy as New York, but you know how you have to get accustomed to new places, and then it's like whammo—"
He grasped my hands. "Izzy, you're rambling. Nothing you're saying makes any sense."
"I know. That's why I half wondered if I was sleepwalking. I mean, Nate didn't find any evidence of blood. I saw somebody that had on a navy blue coat that may or may not have been Joseph. But you know, men have so few choices in colors of coats. It's usually either blue or black."
Gabe held up his hand again. "So Nate came to check it out and didn't find anything?"
"I was nervous and anxious, and I could have let my imagination run away with me."
"That's never happened before."
"Do I hear a note of sarcasm in that tone?" I teased, trying to keep the focus on Joseph's problems rather than on anything about Gus or me or other potential disasters waiting to happen.
"Me? Never." He took a sip of his coffee and opened the bag of fresh doughnuts he'd bought.
"Holding out on me? T
hose small cinnamon doughnuts are to die for. Did you drive all the way to Anton just for little old me?"
He nodded. "I wanted to see if you were mad at me first before I shared." He did one of those dazzling smiles that made me forget about his occasional grumpiness. "Now where were we when we were interrupted by the Qs and then Joseph last night?" He slid his arm about my shoulder and began to pepper my neck with his lips.
He sure knew how to distract a gal. But I had an ex-husband who'd hid his numerous affairs over the years and wasn't about to let Gabe distract me from learning more about him.
I put some space between us, lest I give in to what he was selling. "I believe when we were interrupted last night, you were talking about your ex-wife." And I eventually wanted to get into what exactly he did for a living besides handyman-type work. That would take some major strategy on my part, however.
It was his turn to sigh. "We didn't work out."
"Because of cheating, you said. How long were you married?"
The discomfort he felt showed in his pinched expression as he morphed into grumpy Gabe. "We were young and stupid, and things got worse from then on."
I remembered Viola mentioning something about his wife attaching herself to Gabe's coattails. I had no idea what that meant and didn't know quite how to ask outside of being blunt. So far he'd told me nothing. I needed to dig deeper if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity. "Does she live close?"
He gave me a weary smile. "Ironically, she lives in New York now."
"That's a weird coincidence. What does she do? Do you think I might have crossed paths with her?" New York was a big place, but in certain circles, everyone knew everyone else.
"She's a lawyer and might have mentioned something about knowing Joseph. I think he tried to hit on her or sell her a building or something when they were at a charity thing. She's just trying to start trouble now that she knows I'm seeing you."
"Why?"
"Because that's what she does best." He huffed. "Let's change the subject. I came here to see if you wanted to go to the hill to run. It's sunny, and by afternoon, it might hit the high fifties. We haven't run together in a while."
"Count me in."
"Now let's hang those curtains." He drew me into a kiss. "Before you get me sidetracked."
My phone rang, followed by Gabe's. We looked at each other and answered simultaneously. "Hello."
"Joseph's rental car has been found abandoned. There's blood on the front seat, and they found a body," Viola said.
"What?" While I said that, Gabe was doing something similar on his line. I had to think he was talking to Nate because he then said. "Yeah, we'll join you there in a few."
I felt faint all of a sudden. The doughnut I'd eaten might rebel any second.
He looked at me. "You know."
I nodded. "Viola says the car Joseph rented was in some kind of accident, and there's a dead body nearby, possibly the victim of a hit and run."
The idea that Joseph might be hurt or dead didn't make me cry but made me sad nonetheless. We had some good times. Okay, very few good times, as I recall, but still there had to be some mixed in there somewhere. I might have forgotten one or two. Then again, maybe there only were one or two.
"You okay?" Gabe asked as he grasped my arm. When I nodded, he continued, "Nate wants you to come to the morgue to see if you know the guy found near Joseph's rental. They're checking missing persons right now and are coming back empty."
"If only I'd let him stay last night. Maybe whatever happened wouldn't have."
"You're getting way ahead of yourself. He might be fine. His car might have been stolen."
"You're absolutely right." I nodded with as much enthusiasm as I could muster given the unknowns. "Let's get this done."
"You sure you're alright?"
I nodded. "Nate's sure it isn't Joseph, right?" I didn't want to come face-to-face with a dead ex-husband. In some ways, I was getting used to the whole dead body thing—which was pretty darn disturbing—but didn't think I could be okay with it being somebody I knew.
"Definite no on that. Wrong height and facial features."
I sucked back the wash of fear lingering in my throat and grabbed his hand. "Let's get this done."
* * *
Gabe pulled up to a small nondescript place in the middle of nowhere. Then again, it seemed like everything in Iowa was in the middle of nowhere, so I shouldn't have been surprised.
"Are you okay?" he asked as he held my arm, and we walked toward the door. I'd already spotted Nate's car along with a couple of other cop cars, so I knew what to expect.
"I'm good." I kept the mantra of I can do this circling through my head while I wanted nothing more than to run away screaming. I really hated being surrounded by dead bodies, but at this point, I could become a mortician with all my experience. I was getting carried away with the crazy narrative in my head and forced myself to think straight—no simple feat right now.
"You don't have to do this." Gabe grabbed my hands and forced me to look him in the eye.
While I loved the sentiment, I knew the reality. "Yeah, I kind of do. Maybe I know the guy."
He moved a comforting arm around my shoulder. "I'll stay with you. You're looking a little green. Are you sure?"
While he was trying to give me a way out, I knew it was futile. If somebody could identify the dead guy, it had to be me. Gabe pulled open the door and ushered me inside.
Nate looked his usual professional self, sitting in the waiting room chatting with a deputy. He came to attention as soon as he saw us and walked over.
"I'm sorry to bring you here, but since we found Joseph's rental car not far away with the deceased's blood on it, I was hoping you might be able to identify him. It looks like he might have been in a fight or something. Some of it is consistent with being hit by a car but some isn't."
I sucked in a breath as I remembered what I'd heard last night. "No gunshot wound?" That was the only piece missing.
"None. The rental car has front-end damage consistent with the body. But other injuries match with being in a fight."
"What was the cause of death?"
"We're still working on that. Maybe a brain bleed or something from the fight. We'll know for sure after the autopsy. Right now, we need an identification."
Goose bumps broke along my arms as I walked toward the back with Nate. A body lay under a sheet, and my knees suddenly felt weak, like they might collapse. I needed to get a grip, but that seemed like an improbability given the circumstances.
"Are you ready?" Nate held tight to my shaky elbow. When I nodded, he pulled back the sheet.
I had already squeezed my eyes shut. I didn't want to do this. Seeing two dead bodies in less than six months was more than enough for me. Nate cleared his throat, and Gabe grasped my bicep. "You've got this."
Easy for him to say. I squinted my right eye, hoping to be able to confirm or deny without getting the whole dead body experience front and center once again. Instead I got a fuzzy version, which didn't help me identify squat.
Pull off the Band-Aid. I opened my eyes and did a whoop whoop.
"It's somebody you know?" Nate asked.
"Of course not. What kind of sadistic weirdo do you think I am?" A gal had to draw the line somewhere. "That's definitely not Joseph. And, before you ask, I have no idea who it is."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Despite my morning from hell, I felt reinvigorated by the afternoon. I knocked on Viola's door, excited about the possibilities and what I had planned. First, of course, I filled them in on the Joseph debacle and gave them the deets on my morning thus far.
Many times over the years that I'd been married to him, I'd wished Joseph would disappear, but I'd never meant it literally. Besides, who would have thought it would really happen? While I wanted to be more mad than worried after reading that certified letter today, I couldn't help but wonder what might have happened. Where could he have gone without his rental car? Were bad
people really after him, or was he manipulating me once again?
For right now, however, I needed to shift my focus from Joseph and zero in on finding Lori's killer. I was pretty sure the ladies would have no problem following my lead.
"I think we should go see a play tonight. What do you ladies think?" Thoughts of Gus and his dire predicament surged to the forefront of my mind.
"A play? Are you…" Alice's voice trailed off, and the Qs traded looks before giant smiles lit up their faces.
I nodded as one by one they recognized where I was going with my plan. "I did a little research and found out there's an amazing rendition of The Gazebo at the community theater outside Winterset starring Cindy Begay. Imagine that. What a coincidence."
"I do believe that's my favorite play," Viola added.
Ramona clapped. "It's a murder mystery, so that's perfect."
"Do you think we should go in disguises in case the detective's there?" Alice asked.
"As soon as I found out that the show would be tonight, I made an anonymous call to the station and found out Detective Begay is on duty this evening, so we should be good."
"What time do we have to leave? I'd like to do a little primping just in case there are some eligible men there," Ramona said.
The last thing I wanted to encounter was a full-on senior citizen flirtation expedition, but I thought we could dig up information and get some answers to the numerous questions I had. Plus, we'd see what Cindy looked like close up and personal—rather than a really bad picture in a newspaper or making a hasty getaway at a funeral service.
"How about fifteen minutes?"
"I need to put on some lipstick, and I'll be ready to go," Ramona said.
It took longer than I thought it would to round up the ladies and keep them focused on our excursion for the evening. Eventually, we left Viola's and were on our way.
The location of the theater was in a small town partway between Winterset and Inez, which worked in our favor. Heck, even if it wasn't, I'd want to go if for no other reason than to get a better read on Cindy.