Death of a Domestic Diva

by Sharon Short

  Plus I have to admit that the thought of being in a book made me feel important. Special. Somebody. I’d loved books all my life.

  And there was another thing, too, which I’m not proud of. A little bit of me wanted to get back at Tyra, for not really planning to have me on her show. And for stirring up the town so much. Not to mention my lingering snit over her wanting to transplant the orange thread in my heirloom quilt with white thread. “Simply wonderful. . .” Hmmph.

  “We wanted to get to you first, before the others,” Steve added.

  “The—others?” I asked.

  “Oh yes,” Linda said. “Journalists. From newspapers. Magazines. TV stations. With what’s happened here, this town is going to be swarming with reporters from all over the country by tomorrow morning. We were really, um, really hoping that you’d give us an exclusive.”

  I didn’t say anything for a moment, while I turned this proposition over in my mind, and Steve added, “She means not talk to any other reporters, just us.”

  Now, all this big talk about a book and exclusives, as exciting as it was, hadn’t turned my head from the fact I needed any information I could get to help me figure out why Tyra was really in Paradise . . . who had killed Lewis, and why. These two might just have information that would lead me to the answers.

  “I know what you mean by exclusive,” I said. “But I’m thinking . . . if I’m going to give you something, you ought to give me something, too.”

  They both looked alarmed and glanced at each other, exchanging one of those looks that somehow gets across a secret message. Then they gave each other a tiny nod.

  “What do you want?” Steve said. “We can’t offer any percentage of the royalties we’ll get from our book—”

  “I’m not interested in that. I want information. If you’ve been researching Tyra Grimes for your book, you must already know a lot about her. There are some things I’d like to know.”

  “Like what,” Linda said.

  I had to think about that for a moment. There were lots of things I wanted to know. What Tyra’s connection with Lewis Rothchild had really been. Why her assistant had apparently run off with my cousin Billy and two strangers who spoke Spanish. Nah, they couldn’t tell me any of that. What else?

  How about—a little voice whispered from the corner of my mind, a voice that I swear sounded like Mrs. Oglevee’s—how about what’s up with those red Tyra Grimes T-shirts? And what about the TV news report that Tyra was going to be investigated for having illegal aliens working for her? These two, especially as former investigative reporters, should know something about that.

  I took a deep breath, then told Steve and Linda about the TV news report I’d heard. Then I told them about the red T-shirts that had popped up around town. I left out how upset Vivian Denlinger had gotten over them, since that didn’t seem anything except just weird, and I left out the part about Billy and his two new friends who were strangers to town and their comings and goings at the old orphanage where there had been boxes and boxes of the T-shirts, until they were moved. Or stolen. Something just told me—maybe the way both Linda’s and Steve’s eyes got all narrow and intense and drilling at me when I just mentioned those red T-shirts—that I’d be better off not mentioning all those details just yet.

  When I finished, Steve said, “Here’s what we’ve heard, from, er, some unnamed but reliable sources. Tyra Grimes has a labor camp out in California—”

  “A labor camp?” I jumped in. “You mean like a prison?” It was hard to imagine what a Tyra Grimes prison would look like. Maybe lace valances over the jail cell doors. Or cute handcuff stencils on the bars. Toilet paper roll crafts out in the yard, right after basketball. . .

  Steve smiled. “Not a prison like you’re thinking of. But, yeah, kind of like a prison. A forced labor camp where the employer uses illegal immigrants, who are terrified of being sent home. The camps are illegal, and the conditions are bad. Long hours. Little pay. Unsanitary conditions. Poor nutrition.”

  I could hear the outrage in Steve’s voice . . . felt the outrage rising in me, too.

  Linda shot Steve a look like she thought he was saying too much. She leaned forward to me and said in a near whisper, “Anyway, that’s what we’ve heard—from, um, someone who knows someone who used to work there. A Mexican fellow. But he and his wife broke out, stole a truck, took off—apparently with several boxes of T-shirts that are just like the ones you’ve described.”

  I felt a sudden pressure on my arm. It was Steve, his hand grasping my arm just a little too tightly. His grin was just a little too tight, too, as he said, “You sure you just saw only the two T-shirts being worn around town?”

  I surprised him by doing a pretzel-y move that quickly got my arm free and left his hand flopping around on my dining table like a fish having an out-of-water experience. My grin was also a little tight as I said, “Yes, I’m sure.” Technically, I was not lying. I had told him I’d seen two T-shirts being worn by people in town. The ones I’d seen in the boxes weren’t being worn by anyone.

  “The couple,” said Linda softly, “is armed and dangerous.”

  “Oh, yes,” Steve said. “They were seen at a convenience store not long after they took off from California. Somewhere around Phoenix. Robbed the store, beat up the manager really badly. Was he expected to live, Linda?”

  “Last I heard, his prognosis wasn’t so good.”

  Now this scared me, sent my stomach folding itself into a panic origami. This couple sounded like they could be the same two Billy, and now Paige, had taken off with. Maybe I’d been all wrong to suspect Paige. Maybe this couple had attacked Lewis and Tyra . . . and poor Lewis had gotten unlucky.

  “Should we tell Josie the rest?” Steve was saying.

  “I think we’d better,” Linda said. “After all with Tyra Grimes staying in the apartment next door . . .”

  “Tell me,” I snapped.

  “Well, word is that this couple is after Tyra. They have it in for her,” Steve said.

  I gulped. My tummy origami got tighter.

  “So, if you see them, you must contact us right away—”

  Now that comment worked like a pan of cold water dumped on my head. Something suddenly didn’t seem right to me. I wasn’t sure who these two really were, or what they were up to, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with being writers.

  “Why would I contact you, if this couple is so dangerous? I should call the Paradise Police Department.”

  They exchanged looks again. “Oh, no, you don’t want to call the local police,” Linda said. “No offense, but I’m sure you’re aware how incompetent small town police departments can be when dealing with a problem of this nature.” She chuckled, as if to emphasize the humor in the idea of small town cops capturing such dangerous outlaws.

  I, for one, was not amused. As much as Chief John Worthy might annoy me at times, I have nothing but total pride and trust in the officers of the Paradise Police Department. They do a top-notch job of carrying on the proud heritage of Chief Hilbrink. So I just glared at her.

  “We, um, want an exclusive interview with them first,” Steve said. “We’ve interviewed criminal types before, so we’ll be okay. Plus we’ve got contacts with the, um, FBI, INS, um . . .”

  “CIA,” Linda added helpfully.

  I lifted my eyebrows. “Interpol, too? Look, I don’t see why this couple would follow Tyra if they just escaped from this labor camp of hers, and I’m not sure who you are, really—”

  “Like we said, writers—”

  “Uh huh.”

  Steve gave me his thin grin again. “Now, Josie, you said you’d help us out if we gave you information about Tyra for our book. So why don’t we get back to that. Maybe you could just describe what it’s been like having her around, maybe let us just take a look around the apartment she’s staying in—”

  I hooted at that. “So you can snoop through her stuff? I don’t think so.”

  They exchanged looks, this t
ime telegraphing to each other their frustration and mutual desire to whop me upside the head. Clearly, I wasn’t the pushover they’d expected Ms. Josie Toadfern, laundromat owner and stain expert, to be.

  “At least,” I went on, “I don’t think so unless you can give me just one more bit of information.”

  Steve closed his eyes and put his head in his hands.

  Linda just sighed. “What’s that?”

  “The names of the couple who are after Tyra.”

  Linda frowned, not speaking. I pulled my keys out, dangled them. For a minute she looked like she was going to lunge.

  “You can force them from me, or break into the apartment,” I said, “but then I would have to call the police, and your story would get out. Whoever you are, your cover would be blown.”

  Steve moaned. Linda tightened her lips. “We give you the names, you let us in the apartment?”

  It didn’t seem quite right, letting these two go through whatever personal stuff Tyra might have left in Billy’s old apartment, but then, I didn’t see as I had much choice. The T-shirts and this couple seemed to be at the center of the mess that had developed since Tyra’s arrival, a mess that had left Lewis dead and Elroy accused of his murder. So I just nodded.

  “Aguila and Ramon Cruez,” she said.

  I ran to my kitchen, grabbed the notepad I have for grocery lists, and a pencil. “Spell the names,” I said.

  She did. I wrote them down, right below “eggs.”

  Then I pulled the next door apartment’s key off my ring and tossed it to Linda. She caught it smoothly. “Leave it under my door when you’re done, and don’t mess anything up or think you can just keep the key. I know where to find you.”

  Steve looked up. He looked a little scared. “You do?”

  I gave a half laugh, half snort. “Sure. There’s only one place to stay, unless you’re camping. The Red Horse Motel.”

  “C’mon,” Linda said to Steve. “Let’s go.”

  They let themselves out, Linda slamming the door just a little harder than she had to. I locked the door after they left. Then, I went to take a shower. I thought maybe a fresh shampoo would help relieve my itching scalp, a condition that kept getting worse and was starting to worry me.

  By the time I’d finished my shower and changed into fresh jeans and a T-shirt, my scalp felt better. The key for Billy’s old apartment next door had been slid just under my door, and that relieved me. At least the Crookses had returned it. I put it in my junk drawer in the kitchen, and while I was in there, I got out a fresh package of vanilla wafers and poured myself a glass of milk. I needed to think, and a little snack to give my brain some extra fuel seemed in order.

  I sat down at the table with my vanilla wafers, milk, and the spiral notebook in which I’d been jotting notes since this morning. I munched, made a few notes, flipped back through my notebook, made a few more notes, then tried to look at the whole story logically.

  It was impossible. There were too many angles, all jutting out from the fact I’d gotten this crazy notion about being on the Tyra Grimes show to help get Paradise on the map . . .

  Except Tyra hadn’t come here to have me on her show. She’d come here for some other reason. And Lewis had been murdered.

  And this couple—Aguila and Ramon Cruez—had come here, too. I shivered, thinking about how Steve and Linda Crooks had suggested that the Cruez couple was after Tyra. Could Lewis have been an innocent bystander who just got in the couple’s way?

  But then why would Tyra want to protect them and accuse Elroy of murdering Lewis? I could almost see her protecting Paige if she were the murderer, but why protect this couple?

  Then I thought maybe I should stop trying to see this from Tyra’s point of view. Maybe I should look at this whole mess from a different angle . . . starting with Aguila and Ramon.

  I made a list that went like this:

  1.Aguila and Ramon Cruez are working at Tyra Grimes’s illegal labor camp.

  2.They get T-shirts and come to Paradise, and start selling a few.

  3.They don’t hurt anyone (although another mystery couple, the Crookses, posing as writers, say they are dangerous, especially to Tyra).

  4.Tyra also came to Paradise . . . but not to put me on her show. Why? Because of the T-shirts? Or because of Aguila and Ramon?

  5.Tyra has accused Elroy of attacking her and Lewis, and now Lewis is dead.

  6.Paige lied about the cocoa stain on her sweater—she was definitely somewhere muddy. Why did she lie? Was she out at the site where I found Tyra, Lewis, and Elroy?

  7.Lewis was totally against Tyra’s coming to Paradise. Why?

  8.Tyra was very interested in Lewis, somehow met with him out by the old mall site. Why? What’s the connection between them? Could Lewis be why Tyra came to Paradise?

  9.Vivian Denlinger also was against Tyra’s coming to Paradise and was upset that Verbenia was wearing one of those T-shirts. How did Verbenia get the T-shirt, and why was Vivian so upset?

  10.T-shirts stored at orphanage then disappear—but the “Smiths’” truck is broken down at orphanage. How did the T-shirts get out of there? Probably it was Billy and the Smiths who took them out—in Paige’s SUV? Where did the T-shirts go? Why move them? Why would Paige want to hook up with these three?

  I looked over my list a few more times, then staggered over to my couch and collapsed. I’d learned a lot today, and although I had a lot of new questions, they all seemed to come down to two things—figure out why Tyra really came to Paradise, and figure out what was going on with Aguila and Ramon and those T-shirts.

  I’d done more than enough detective work for one day. I’d think about this again tomorrow. Right now, my brain was tired, my body was worn out, and my head was still itching like crazy, despite my shower.

  All I wanted to do now was make a sandwich, since I hadn’t had dinner yet and the cookies only counted as a snack, watch a Mary Tyler Moore or I Love Lucy rerun on the TV Land cable station . . . or maybe even skip all that, and go right to sleep, right here on my couch . . .

  The doorbell rang.

  I got up and answered my door. Owen staggered into my apartment. There were dark blue circles under his eyes. His hair was sticking out in all different directions, like he’d run his hands through it a thousand times. His shirt was untucked. He was also carrying two large shopping bags from a mall all the way up by Columbus.

  Owen’s arms quivered, but still, he held onto the shopping bag handles. “Shopping,” he wheezed. “She made me go shopping. Said there were essentials that were missing from the apartment. . . the right soap holder to go with the right toothbrush holder . . .”

  It was around six o’clock. I just figured Tyra hadn’t been ready to be released yet from the hospital, and that’s why I hadn’t heard from Owen.

  “Owen, what time was Tyra released from the hospital?” I glanced behind him, into the hall, looking for Tyra.

  “Ten,” he said. “Ten this morning. Just a quick trip, she said, for a few essentials. Scented soaps, candles, lotions . . .”

  “Owen, set the bags down and stop moaning,” I said.

  Tyra breezed into my apartment. She held out keys to Owen and said, “Owen, be a dear, put those bags in my little apartment, won’t you?”

  I was horrified to observe my dear Owen obediently put down a bag, take the keys, stick the key ring in between his teeth, pick up the bag again, and stagger back out of my apartment. This, from a man with two PhD’s, a man who can quote Shakespeare at will, a man who hates even shopping for groceries. Something terrible must have happened to make him act this way, all cowering and catering before Tyra. Maybe she’d hypnotized him.

  “What have you done to Owen? You’re treating him like—like some servant.” I stopped. I was so mad, I was panting, which was getting in the way of my speaking clearly.

  “I’ve merely asked him to put away a few things I had to pick up. Essentials. It’s been a trying experience, I must say. So hard to find the
proper things around here.”

  “Well, now that you’re all stocked up, you’ll want to go to your apartment—or my apartment, that I’m letting you use, for free, and—”

  “Where’s Paige?” Tyra was looking all around, as if she expected Paige to just materialize, perhaps offering a soufflé for dinner or a neck massage or something to soothe her boss.

  “She’s not here. In fact,” I went on, feeling a little triumphant over the news, “I have no idea where she is. No one does. It looks as though she’s run off. She checked out of the Red Horse last night—with no forwarding address.”

  I’m not sure what, exactly, I expected Tyra’s reaction to be. Maybe outrage. Maybe fear. Maybe shock. After all, Paige was a longtime employee.

  Instead, Tyra just stared off into the distance for a minute. I wondered if she’d even heard me.

  Then she looked back at me, gave me a smile that was—even though I was angry with her—endearing. “You’ll have to drive me tomorrow, then. Thank you so much dear. I appreciate it.” She started for my door.

  “What? I’m not driving you around. I have a business to run.”

  Tyra stopped and said without turning around, “I need to be at Stillwater Farms, tomorrow, for a 10 A.M. meeting. Paige has disappeared with my only means of transportation. So I need a driver tomorrow, plus I’ll need to go back later this week, as well, for a press conference I’ll be holding there.”

  Then she walked out.

  And I knew I’d drive her, because I was curious why she wanted to go to Stillwater Farms, of all places. Why she’d hold a press conference there. What she was up to there . . . and I suddenly felt a little fearful for Guy, although I had no logical reason to feel that way.

  And what was worse, I knew I’d drive her just because Tyra had told me to. She had that affect on people.

  “I wish I could say I’d learned something from Elroy,” Owen said. “He just kept babbling about how he was so glad to learn that it was the mushrooms that must have made the workers sick, not his tuna salad.”