by Etta Faire
“You told Agnes you were getting a divorce, though, right after the holidays the night of the party.”
“Yes.” His voice wasn’t nearly as upbeat anymore. “That was a weak point in my life. My drinking was getting out of control, and… well, I called you back because I felt like I owed Agnes at least that. After she passed, I realized life was too short. I quit my job at Dreamstreet, went to AA, and moved my family upstate for a clean start.”
I checked my watch. I had to leave soon. But I had a lot of questions for Hank, especially now. His actions after Agnes’s death seemed very drastic to me, suspiciously drastic. I was surprised the police hadn’t found moving away right after someone’s death suspicious as well, but then you can’t arrest someone for acting guilty.
I kept my voice calm because I didn’t want to let on that I didn’t trust a word he was saying. “In my investigation, there was a witness that saw you pour something into Agnes’s drink before you handed it to her. This was right before she fell ill. Can you tell me what it was?”
“Who’s your witness?”
“I can’t say. But did you pour something into her drink?”
“It was probably Nancy. She was always gunning for someone’s job. Anyway, if I did pour anything into Agnes’s drink, and I probably did, it was rum, or champagne. That’s right. It was champagne. I think I remember. But then, who knows? I drank that entire party, most regular work days too. All the time, really.”
I kind of thought that was going to be his answer.
“You were also going to give her a pair earrings from your grandmother that night.”
He sighed heavily. “Yes. I can hardly believe that one. I was always doing dumb drunk stuff. I gave away a lot. Hurt a lot of people too. I’ve made amends to most the people I hurt over the course of my drinking. The women whose butts I pinched at the office. The times I had my buddies lie for me. But not Agnes. I never got the chance to make amends there. And I should not have cheated on my wife with her.”
His voice broke and he paused to cough over it. I wondered if he honestly thought I would believe he was holding back a tear. The phony.
He went on. “I cheated both women. Agnes thought I was getting a divorce. And I did think about it. But when she died, man, I remember sitting in my living room, staring at the ornaments on my Christmas tree, just thinking how glad I was that it had been Agnes to go and not my wife. I know that’s a horrible thing to say. But every ornament on that tree was something Helen and I shared in buying, or receiving, or having our kids make for us with their hair full of glue and glitter. It made me think long and hard about the things in my life that mattered.”
I took a long, hard sigh and said good-bye. I had to get to work. I still couldn’t rule Hank out as a suspect, but I was really starting to think he might not be the phony I thought he was.
“Before I hang up,” I added. “Just one more question. Did you kill Agnes Dundle?”
“No, and I don’t know who did either. But if I had to guess, I’d say it was Michael. I told the police about him that night, too. Guy was pretty far off his rocker. I don’t remember much from that party, but I do remember Michael… uh, doing some questionable things.”
“Like what?”
“I told the police about it at the time. It was one of the details they were keeping under wraps. You know how they like to do that. I’m not sure I can mention it even now.”
“I’m sure you can. It’s been twenty-five years.”
“You’ll have to ask the police then,” he said.
As soon as I got down Gate Hill enough to have reception, I called my work. Rosalie picked up immediately. “Hello. Purple Pony,” she said, with the high-pitched, sweet voice she reserved for customers.
I hated to disappoint her, but I had to. “It’s Carly.”
Her voice dropped into its usual gruff tone again. “Oh hell no. Don’t tell me you’re sick. I’m swamped over here.”
We both knew that was a lie. The Purple Pony was located in Potter Grove, the little town next to Landover. And while we did get a few tourists over the summer when rich people strolled in from their vacation lakefront homes, Christmas wasn’t summer. And the hippie outfits and turquoise rings on the floor of the Purple Pony weren’t high on too many people’s Christmas lists.
“I’m going to be a little late,” I said.
“This had better not be a ghost excuse.”
She was one of the few living people who knew I worked side jobs for dead clients.
She went on before I could answer. “Besides I need help decorating,” she said. “Or redecorating, whatever you want to call it. I want to change the whole Christmas display. It’s all wrong. A lady came in yesterday and said we should only be using vintage hippie ornaments on our tree or ones handcrafted by local artists.”
“We have local artists?” I asked. “Look, I’ll be in as soon as I can. I just need to run a quick errand on the way. But go ahead and start redecorating without me,” I said with a hopeful tone.
“Nope, I’ll wait for you.”
I took a deep breath. “While I’m out and about, did you want me to pick you up a ticket to this weekend’s party at the bed and breakfast?”
“A complimentary ticket? Everyone else received complimentary ones.”
“I’ll buy you a ticket.”
“I do not want you to purchase me a ticket,” Rosalie said, her voice stiff and formal. “I can do that myself. I want Paula Henkel to offer me one. We have worked together on two seances. She should at least think of me during the holidays.”
“I’m sure it’s in the mail,” I said, hanging up.
Ten minutes later, I found myself fast-walking across a freezing parking lot toward a small, three-story, “library-looking” red brick building with the logo Dreamstreet in front of it. Every once in a while, the wind smacked me in the face to remind me how stupid I was being, cutting my own work hours to investigate a murder no one cared about anymore. My breath circled in front of me in frozen puffs as I pulled my thick jacket in tighter and kept my head down.
The smell of coffee, the good kind like Starbucks, greeted me as soon as I opened the doors but all I cared about was the warmth. I definitely took a second to enjoy that. Once I defrosted enough to look around, my jaw dropped. The place could not have looked different from the channeling. But then I was in the lobby now. Maybe that was the difference.
It was one huge room, a spacious white entryway with a bright green accent wall on one side and a waiting area with dark gray modern couches and a coffee station on the other.
A young brunette in a high-end, gray tweed business dress smiled at me as I approached her desk, my huge gray puffer jacket swishing a little as I walked.
“Hi. I’m here to see Nancy…” I paused to remember her last name. I took my jacket off and pulled my phone from my pocket to bring up my notes.
“If you’re here to see Nancy Wilkin, she doesn’t see anyone. Plus, let me bring up her calendar.” The woman tapped on the iPad on her desk. “Oh yes. She’s busy all day. All day.”
I nodded, and motioned toward the coffee. The woman looked down at her iPad again, so I took that to mean “Help yourself.”
I yelled from the coffee station. “I didn’t even know a high-end ad agency was right here in the middle of small-town Landover, Wisconsin. But then I guess everything’s digital now, so it doesn’t matter where you’re at.”
She didn’t even pretend to look up. I could’ve been talking about robbing the place and she wouldn’t have cared. She was done with me.
As I was shaking my little pink packet of fake sugar, a group of about seven people rushed in from the parking lot, laughing and talking. Each of them was in an outfit that probably cost as much as my car. And I was pretty sure Nancy was the dark-haired, middle-aged lady in the middle. The one everyone seemed to be leaning into and hanging on her every word.
I briefly thought about rushing over and trying to blend in with the group,
but then I looked down at my sweatshirt and skinny jeans and gave that thought up. The blend-in-with-the-group trick probably only worked in the movies, anyways.
“Jackson,” I said to the air, hoping my ex had ridden in on me today and was around here somewhere. Ghosts were great for a distraction. He could just knock over the coffee station or break a vase. But he didn’t answer.
“See you at the meeting,” Nancy said then stopped at the receptionist’s desk while the others got onto the elevator. I ditched my coffee and ran over to join the group.
A plan formed in my head, that consisted of little more than riding the elevator until Nancy finally got on it, but it seemed like a good plan to me.
I nodded politely to the others in the elevator as the doors closed and they scanned my outfit, exchanging glances.
“What floor?” a woman asked, hitting the number three. There were only three floors.
“Two,” I replied. As soon as we arrived on my floor, I jumped out and waited for them to get far enough away before hitting the elevator button and jumping back in again.
“The things I do for dead people.” I muttered to myself, hitting the button for the bottom floor, briefly wondering how long a person could ride an elevator without causing suspicion in the security cameras.
But as soon as the doors opened at the bottom again, Nancy was there scrolling on her phone, waiting.
She moved to the side to let me out, but I also moved to let her in. “As it turns out, I was headed up to three and I pushed one.”
Her eyes stayed on her phone. She didn’t care. “Three please.”
As soon as the elevator doors closed, and it was too late for her to jump out, I moved in closer, so I was about four inches from her face. “Agnes Dundle” was all I said.
Her face fell and a smile formed across her thin blood red lips. She raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me. “Very resourceful. I got your instant message on Facebook. Of course, I was never going to answer you. But, I must admit, coming here was a smart move. I like a go-getter.”
“Thank you,” I said then kicked myself for accepting the awful woman’s compliment.
She went back to her phone. “And I’d really like to help you, but I don’t remember much from that night. Like I told the police, I didn’t see anything unusual.”
“You can cut the crap,” I said as the elevator jolted upward. “I know the truth. You were the last person to see Agnes alive, and you ignored her cries for help.”
Chapter 9
All of the other reindeer
It was almost fun watching her squirm, shifting her weight uncomfortably from one six-hundred-dollar heel to the other.
That’s right, lady, I’m not one of your underlings who has to laugh at your mean jokes that are probably at someone else’s expense. I’m not someone intimidated by your three-thousand-dollar outfits (okay, maybe a little on that last one).
But I was there that night in 1993. And now, I was here for Agnes.
Staring her right in the eyes, I said, “Yes, you heard right. I know. You were in the bathroom when Agnes Dundle was dying. The last person to see her alive…”
Nancy’s pupils dilated, and her thin red bottom lip spasmed just a little.
I wasn’t done. “And while Agnes was in that stall basically being cooked from the inside out, begging you for help, saying she thought she might be dying, you left her there. And called her a drunken slut on the way out.”
The elevator doors dinged just in time for the woman’s face to grow pale. She stared in front of her a second, blinking into the bright lights of the room, stunned.
Stumbling out onto the floor, she barely looked up at the twenty people in equally stylish, tailored outfits hustling around. The smell of coffee and ink filled the air.
The room was humungous, an open floor plan with desks and artist stations strategically set up around. The bright green and white accents had extended to this floor as well. I was pretty sure this was the same floor the office party had been on in 1993, and it was a far cry from the beige cubicles.
Most of the workers looked over and smiled when they saw Nancy walking out of the elevator. A thin man in his thirties with a bushy beard approached her with some papers, but when he saw her face and the crazy woman following right at her heels, he looked down and backed away.
Nancy smiled awkwardly at them all as she quickly moved past them toward a hall lined with industry awards. “Follow me to my office,” she said. I could tell she was trying to make her voice seem calm and natural, probably for the benefit of her minions.
She stopped at a door, and I pointed to the gilded lettering on the side of it that read, Nancy Wilken, Vice President of Operations.
“I see you got what you wanted. Congratulations.”
She closed the door behind us, and motioned for me to have a seat.
Her office wasn’t big, but it was stylish and modern. I slid into an iconic Eames chair on the other side of her desk. It wasn’t comfortable.
She inhaled deeply before talking, like a woman about to choose her words carefully. “I’m not sure how you knew I was in the bathroom that night, and I don’t care. I’ve relived that party too many times…”
“Oh have you?” I interrupted. “And you’re ready to move on with your life, huh? Well, I don’t care either.” I was surprised by how confident my voice sounded, and by how shocked Nancy appeared to be. But then, being yelled at by a woman in a $15 sweatshirt probably didn’t happen to her every day.
Her face softened and she pulled a tissue from the box on her desk. Her makeup crackled along the sides of her eyes, showing her age, as she dabbed at her mascara. Did she really think I’d believe she went from indignant to remorseful with the grab of a tissue?
“That’s not what I meant. I was terrible to Agnes,” she said, lifting the tissue away, making me see her mascara streaks. “I used to think there were two types of women in the office. The kind that slept their way to the top, and the kind that went to college, tried to be professional, and were never taken seriously because of the former.”
I pinched my lip and forced myself not to interrupt her even though I was ready to scream.
She went on. “I hated Agnes with every fiber of my being. So when she came into the bathroom, being sick and begging me for help, I thought she’d had too much to drink.”
“But you’d just seen her minutes before at the potluck table during the magic trick…”
She looked up at the ceiling. “You remember far more from that night than I do. I remember seeing her and Hank Hanford dancing drunk under the mistletoe. How do you know so much about that night, anyway?”
I shrugged. “I’m just a good investigator.”
She sat down on the other side of the desk. “Well, good investigator, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve relived that night, wishing I’d done something. Helped her. Hadn’t let the last word she heard on earth be me calling her a slut.” Her hand shook as she dabbed at her nose now.
I resisted the urge to feel sorry for the woman. That’s what she wanted. But I wasn’t falling for her “I’m a victim too” tears.
After a couple seconds of dabbing, she went on. “Things changed after Agnes died. Our old boss left. We got new owners, and I took the suggestions Agnes gave me that night and ran with them. We got rid of the cubicles so people could talk to one another. Got rid of the incentives so people weren’t competing with each other. And we made ‘A rising tide lifts all ships’ our new mantra, because we should all help each other succeed. And you know what? We did. We’re a creative force now. Thanks to Agnes. I learned she wasn’t the person I had stereotyped her to be. And that neither was I. I needed to stop stereotyping myself as a bitch.”
She pointed to one of the awards on the back wall. Under a framed sign about lifted ships, was Agnes’s sales award from December of 1993, the one she received with her bonus check. “I never let myself forget.”
“I bet,” I said, standing up to
leave. I motioned toward the award. “I hate to point out the obvious, but as an investigator, I see a lot of murderers who keep trophies from their crimes. That might be what a reasonable jury sees when they look at that wall.”
“Then they need to look closer,” she replied. “I honestly have no idea what happened to Agnes Dundle. But then, I don’t need to. I also have a very good attorney.”
Looking back at the wall, I saw the framed quote above the award actually said:
A rising tide lifts up everybody in the water.
— Agnes Dundle’s mom
“I know there’s no going back,” Nancy added as I walked out of the office. “But if you see Agnes again, please tell her I’m sorry.”
I stopped in the doorway. It was my turn to be stunned. “Uh, you know…”
“That you’re a medium? Yes.” She crossed her legs. “You don’t think I’d take the time to do my own bit of research on the investigator who contacted me and dropped the name Agnes Dundle?”
I left, not sure what to think anymore, except for the cold, hard fact that I’d lost a full hour of work at the Purple Pony for just about nothing.
Rosalie, my boss, was sitting at her “reading table” in the back of the store by the dressing rooms when I got to work twenty minutes later. She had a magnifying glass in one hand and a woman’s palm in the other. Her graying dreadlocks were pulled behind a light blue headband as she scanned over both the college girl’s hands. Three of the girl’s friends, probably all from Landover University, stood behind her, along with a ghost. I ignored them all and headed toward the back room.
“Your love line is very uneven and jagged. You’ve been hurt in the past…”
The other girls gasped. “Ohmygod, Wendy, best Christmas gift to yourself ever.”
Rosalie nodded to me when she heard me come in, but continued studying the lines on the woman’s palms. “But very soon that will change.”
“How soon?” one of the friends asked.
