Something to Crow About: Another P.J. Benson Mystery

by Maris Soule

  “I’ll be able to hold my granddaughter when she arrives,” Mom said, grinning. “I just hope she doesn’t cry as much as you did.”

  Her gaze went beyond me. “Ah, there’s another pregnant lady here tonight.”

  I turned and looked behind me. Maria Gonzales, from the Mothers-to-Be group, was heading toward our table. Or, more accurately, she was heading for the bathrooms just beyond our table. I don’t think she even saw me as she passed. Her focus was zeroed in on the sign for Ladies.

  The waiter brought a tray of appetizers and another bottle of champagne to the table. Grandma had gone all out for this wedding supper. One more thing I should help her pay for. I would talk to her later.

  Wade tried to rejoin us without being noticed, but Mom spoke up before he slid into his chair. “Now, Son, what was so important that you had to leave this wonderful party? What could be more important than listening to your mother-in-law talk about all the trouble your wife gave her as a baby?”

  I cringed. Wade doesn’t like to be called “Son,” not even from his own parents, and from what I’ve heard, Mom hallucinated a lot right after I was born. There was no telling what she would say now after two glasses of champagne. Or had she had three?

  “Someone tried to break into our house again,” Wade calmly said and grabbed one of the last barbequed chicken wings from the appetizer tray.

  “Again?” I stared at him, wanting more information.

  “Howard stopped him,” Wade said and winked at me. “Before we left the house, I called and asked him to keep an eye on the place. He got the license number.”

  “Did the guy get into the house?” I was thinking about Baraka. I didn’t want my dog hurt.

  “Nope, Howard said the guy had just gotten out of his truck when he saw him coming. Short guy? Kinda stocky?” Wade waited for my response. I nodded, and he went on. “The guy didn’t waste any time getting back into his truck. Backing up, he almost ran into Howard’s car, and, according to Howard, he practically flew down the road.”

  “So, he’s still out there.”

  Wade patted my hand. “We now have the license plate number. We’ll get him.”

  “Here’s to the cavalry,” Mom said, holding up her glass of champagne in salute.

  “It’s got to be the rocking chair he’s after,” I said. “That’s why he keeps coming back.”

  “Maybe, but why take those two thumb drives? The first time the house was broken into and you said your thumb drive was missing occurred days before you bought that rocking chair.”

  I didn’t have an answer, and Arthur, Ben, Mom, and Grandma all wanted to know exactly what was going on. Wade and I told what we knew, starting from the Sunday we came back from seeing the butterflies up to what had happened today. The questions and answers were interrupted when the waiter took our order and by the time our food arrived, our conversation had switched from break-ins to why I’d decided to have the baby at home.

  Talking about giving birth, and that my time was coming close, I remembered seeing Maria pass our table to go into the bathroom. I hadn’t seen her come out. Not that I couldn’t have missed her. I turned in my seat and looked around. “Is something wrong?” Wade asked.

  “No, at least, I don’t think so.” Although I couldn’t locate Maria anywhere in the restaurant, chances were I’d simply missed her. On the other hand, . . . “Excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom.”

  Connie’s comment Friday that she’d thought Maria might have gone into labor had me worried. What if Maria was in labor? Right here, in the restaurant’s bathroom? During one of our Mothers-to-Be sessions, Maria had said she was worried about having her water break in front of others, that it would be embarrassing. Would she stay in a bathroom to avoid being embarrassed?

  To my relief, Maria wasn’t still there. I wasn’t sure what I would have done if she had been in labor. Probably, I would have called Connie.

  Maybe it was thinking about going into labor, but I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my groin. For a second it took my breath away, and I gripped the side of the nearest sink. Slowly, the pain passed, and I could breathe again.

  It took me a few minutes to make sure the pain didn’t return. Finally, I used the toilet and washed my hands. I was smiling when I returned to the table and I didn’t say anything about the pain, but I was glad the wedding dinner didn’t last much longer. By the time Grandma took a picture of Mom smashing a piece of wedding cake in Ben’s face, I was ready to go home, take off my shoes, and put up my feet.

  I wasn’t eager when Wade suggested we stop by Ken’s store before heading home.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The lights were off in Paget’s Computer Repair Shop, a closed sign in the window, which wasn’t a surprise considering it was late. I tried calling Ken again. Almost immediately I received a message that his voicemail was full. “I don’t even know where he lives,” I told Wade.

  “He has an apartment nearby. I was there last weekend.” Wade drove on for another block, then turned right. He parked the Jeep in front of a two-story brick apartment building. “Wait here. I’ll see if he’s home.”

  I noticed Wade checked his gun before walking up to the entrance to the building. He also paused at the doorway and motioned for me to lock the Jeep’s doors. Which I did. Though not a bad area of town, I didn’t feel totally safe sitting alone in a car at night.

  At least ten minutes went by, so I figured Ken was in his apartment talking to Wade. Maybe giving Wade the diamonds he’d found. I almost talked myself into getting out of the Jeep and joining them when I saw Wade exit the building. I could tell from his expression that something wasn’t quite right. “What?” I asked as he got into the car.

  “He’s not there,” Wade said. “As I was knocking on his door, a woman in the apartment next door came out. When I told her who I was, she said she was glad to see me, that she was worried about Ken. She saw him yesterday afternoon. She was surprised he wasn’t at his shop, but he said something had come up that he had to take care of. She said he acted nervous, didn’t chat with her, as he usually did, just opened his door and went into his apartment.

  “About an hour later, she heard someone pounding on his door, yelling for him to open up. She was about to go out and tell the guy to be quieter when the pounding stopped, and when she looked out, no one was there. Curious, she waited a while, then went over and knocked on Ken’s door. She said she was going to see if he’d like to share some soup she’d made. The way she said it, I gathered he often joins her for dinner.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, he said they do.”

  “Anyway, Ken didn’t answer when she knocked on his door, which surprised her. She hadn’t heard him leave. This morning she decided to check and see if he was all right. Again, he didn’t answer when she knocked, so she let herself in for a ‘Safety check.’ ” Wade smiled. “She’s a good looking, middle-aged woman, and I have a feeling they might share more than soup. Tonight, once I showed her my badge, she let me in.”

  He paused and pulled his seatbelt on.

  “And?” I urged.

  “He wasn’t there. Not this morning when she looked and not when I looked. I checked the entire apartment for any signs of a struggle. Nothing. However, I did find his bedroom window open, the screen on the ground outside the apartment, and his cell phone on his dresser, which would explain why he hasn’t responded to our calls.”

  “You think he went out his bedroom window when that guy started knocking on his door?”

  “Certainly a possibility. Tenants’ cars are parked behind the building. His car wasn’t in his assigned spot.”

  “You need to call the police, tell them he’s missing.”

  Wade chuckled and started the Jeep. “And tell them what? A grown man left his apartment through his bedroom window, not his front door?”

  “And hasn’t come back?”

  “It’s not against the law to stay away from your home.”

  “But he left his phone.”
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  “Maybe he thought he had it with him.” Wade checked for traffic, then pulled onto the street.

  I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe it wasn’t against the law to stay away from your home, but why would Ken do so? Unless . . . “They were after the diamonds.”

  “They who?”

  “The man pounding on his door Friday night. The one phoning him. Threatening him.”

  “If he is being threatened he needs to turn those diamonds over to the sheriff’s department. Once we have them, they’ll leave him alone.”

  “What if he didn’t have them with him Friday night? What if they were still in the trailer? They were there when he called. Did you see anything when you were at the trailer?”

  “I didn’t go inside yesterday. He wasn’t there. To go inside, I’ll need a search warrant.”

  “Then get one.”

  Wade grunted, and for a few miles didn’t say anything more. I knew he didn’t appreciate me telling him how to do his job. He didn’t want me involved at all. But how could I ignore what was going on? What I wished, most of all, was that I hadn’t cut Ken off when he called Friday, or that I’d been able to go to the trailer and see the diamonds. If I had, I would have made sure he got them to Wade. I seemed to be failing my friends lately.

  That thought was interrupted when Wade said, “Tell you what. Monday I’ll see if I can get a search warrant for the trailer. And, if by then we haven’t heard anything from Ken, I’ll call Kalamazoo Public Safety and let them know what’s up. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Wade’s ideas pleased me, but there was one problem. “Don’t forget, we have that meeting at the school on Monday.”

  Wade nodded. “I haven’t forgotten.”

  * * *

  Sunday morning I was looking forward to spending time alone with Wade. I planned on fixing us a big breakfast, then simply relaxing with the paper, or, if it warmed up a bit, the two of us taking a walk in the woods with Baraka.

  Before we even got out of bed, Wade’s phone rang. I scooted closer to his side as he answered, hoping the call was from Ken. We still hadn’t heard from him.

  It wasn’t Ken; it was a woman’s voice I heard. Lying by Wade’s side, I could tell she was crying.

  My first thought was Ginny, that something had happened to Jason, but then Wade spoke. “Calm down, Marge. Stop crying. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  Marge.

  I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth. I should have known it would be her, the ever-persistent Marge who called at the worse times, her excuses flimsy. She needed his advice or information.

  That’s what she said. I knew better. She wanted his body.

  Or was I being paranoid?

  Wade slid out of bed and headed for the bathroom. He closed the door behind him, shutting me off from hearing anything else he said. I tried to calm my breathing, tried to give the woman the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she had a major problem. Maybe there was a reason she’d called this early on a Sunday morning.

  When Wade came out of the bathroom, he’d already ended the call. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go,” he said and grabbed a pair of jeans from the closet. “Marge’s car won’t start, and she’s supposed to be in Ann Arbor at her mother’s this afternoon with a special cake she is scheduled to pick up right now.”

  “She can’t call Triple A?”

  “She said she did, but they can’t get anyone to her for at least an hour and this woman who’s made the cake will be going somewhere before then.” He pulled a sweatshirt over his head. “I won’t be long.”

  There were a dozen things I wanted to say, none of them nice, so I decided to keep my mouth shut. “Go back to sleep,” he said and came over to kiss me on my forehead “Take advantage of this break. I’ll let Baraka out before I leave.”

  I did lie in bed, but I didn’t go back to sleep. Various scenarios played through my head, all of them involving Marge Bailey seducing Wade. Finally, I threw back the covers and got up. Enough fuming. I was not going to spend my day imagining another woman with my husband.

  After showering and getting dressed, I found an upbeat music station on the radio and turned the volume on full blast. I then had some toast and orange juice for breakfast and tackled what I’d put off for over a month while I did taxes—I cleaned my house. Dishes from the dishwasher were put away, stray items of clothing that were laying around on the floor, draped over furniture, and stuffed in corners were dumped in the closet or laundry basket. I dusted, mopped floors, and vacuumed. I wasn’t sure if all of this housekeeping was a sign that I was nesting—as Connie called it—and would soon deliver Paige Joy, or if I simply wanted my house to look good when Ginny—whose house always looked clean and neat—brought Jason back.

  My burst of energy also helped expend my anger at Wade for leaving to go help Marge, and by the time I put the vacuum away, I was exhausted and didn’t care if Marge Bailey seduced my husband. Being single, I told myself, was a lot easier than being married. Single, I didn’t care what my house looked like.

  By the time Wade returned, I was sitting on the couch in the living room, watching the noon news. I didn’t say a word when he sat beside me. I wasn’t about to ask him why starting a car had taken so long.

  For several minutes we sat that way, neither of us speaking. I could feel Wade’s tension, hear his breathing. He kept opening his mouth, as if to say something, then closed it and took in a deep breath. Finally, he spoke. “She tried to seduce me,” he said. “There was nothing wrong with her car. The moment I arrived, she wanted me to come inside. She had coffee ready and homemade cinnamon rolls. Her car had started after all, she said. She’d already picked up the cake she needed, but as long as I was there, why not have breakfast with her?”

  Wade paused, and I could tell he was looking at me, waiting for my response. Without looking at him, I said, “And, so you did?”

  He sighed. “I did.”

  I kept staring at the TV, the weatherman promising warmer temperatures. Wade’s answer had my internal temperature rising, but I said nothing.

  “I needed coffee,” he said, as if that explained everything. “And it’s been a long time since I’ve had homemade cinnamon rolls.”

  I looked at him, my eyebrows raised in disbelief.

  “Honest,” he said, “I thought she just felt guilty for bringing me over to fix her car when it didn’t need fixing. I didn’t realize what was up, not at first. Not until she started talking about how upset I’d seemed lately and how she admired me for marrying you to make the baby’s birth legitimate.”

  How dumb can you be? I thought.

  He expelled a deep breath. “She started going on about how kindhearted I am, and that I needed a woman who really understood me.” He chuckled. “Kindhearted. That’s not something I would list as one of my stronger points.”

  I disagreed but said nothing.

  “She said you’d entrapped me, and it wasn’t fair, that I shouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life tied down to someone I didn’t love.” Wade shifted his weight on the couch so he was turned toward me. “That’s when I realized she was the one who didn’t understand. I told her she had it all wrong, that you didn’t trap me into marrying you, that I was attracted to you from the moment I saw you. I said it more than once, but she just wouldn’t listen.”

  She didn’t want to listen, I thought. Wade might be smart about a lot of things, but he was sure dense when it came to understanding women.

  “She told me no one would think poorly of me if I divorced you after the baby was born.” He gently placed a hand on my abdomen. “As if this were the only reason I married you.”

  “So, you told her she was wrong. Then what?” He certainly hadn’t come right home.

  “She got all emotional. Started crying, hanging onto me, and telling me she was the one I should have married, she knew how to make a man happy.”

  “Did she kiss you?”

  He averted his gaze. “I couldn’t get away from h
er.”

  “So you stayed?”

  “No.” He said it firmly, then backtracked. “That is, I stayed for a little while. She was so upset I was worried about her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on, Wade. Really? You stayed a little while? Like three hours?” I started to get up. I wasn’t going to sit and listen to his excuses.

  “No. P.J., stop it!” He caught my arm and kept me from standing. “I did not spend three hours with her. Maybe ten minutes at the most. And then I left.”

  “Oh yeah?” Ten minutes did not equal the time he’d been gone. “You left here before nine o’clock. It’s now past noon.”

  “Because after I left her house I drove to the station. I wanted to see what they’d found out about our burglar.”

  If he was trying to get off the subject of Marge, he’d succeeded. “What did you learn?”

  “That the license plate is registered to a company truck. One owned by—”

  I finished for him. “Patterson’s Furniture.”

  “Yes.” He looked surprised by my answer. “You already knew?”

  “I told you the guy I saw was Miguel, the one from the Patterson’s Furniture store. That truck was parked outside of the store the night I stopped there. They didn’t want me to buy that rocking chair. I don’t know why, but I think Miguel’s been trying to get it back.” I looked at Wade. “Is it still in the woodshed?”

  “I’ll go check.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Wade brought the rocking chair into the kitchen and set it on the linoleum. Thursday, when I had looked for it in the woodshed, I’d merely checked to make sure it hadn’t been taken. Now, with it sitting on the kitchen floor in front of me, I could see something had been taken. “Did you remove the packing material covering the music box?” I pointed at the small, hard-plastic box attached to the left rocker. “That was wrapped in brown paper when I saw it in the store.”