Kate burst into laughter. “Have you two met?” she asked looking over at Holly.
“Ivy, I thought you would consider this--I don’t know--sinful, I guess,” Holly said shaking her head in amazement.
“Why would you think that?”
“You still go to church almost every Sunday and I’m pretty sure your parish priest would tell you this is fortune-telling.”
“Oh, Holly! You’ve always been so literal, so all or nothing when it comes to the church.”
“That’s what I tell her,” Kate said.
“The Catholic Church is pretty clear about how it is all or nothing,” Holly replied.
“I just don’t see it that way.” Ivy turned to face, Kate. “You do readings?”
“Yeah, but I’m just an amateur.”
“She’s pretty darn accurate,” Holly broke in. “But before she does a reading for you, you need to know about the reading on the table.”
“Okay.” Ivy said looking from Holly to Kate.
“Tell her, Kate.”
“No. You tell her.”
“I asked the cards if we should we just forget about Leonelle Gomez and trust the police to find the real murderer. I asked if we could just go home and start enjoying our vacation.”
“And what did the cards answer?”
“That we must, and I quote, ‘accept the work.’”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
They sat quietly for a moment looking at the Celtic Cross spread on the table.
“The cards also say that love is the only power, and Holly needs to make way for marriage.”
“Shut up!” Holly snapped, messing up the cards on the table as Ivy and Kate laughed.
“Well,” Ivy said when she finally stopped chuckling, “if I end up with Nick Manelli as a brother-in-law, then I’m in.”
Holly looked at her sister, her smile receding. “Seriously. We don’t have to do this. We told Elena we couldn’t do any more. We could get in trouble with the police. We could endanger ourselves.”
“I know that. But I’m down here because, in spite of the fact that I’m exhausted, I could not fall asleep. I keep going over that phone call to Elena and it’s tearing me up. I admit I’m scared, but will we ever be able to look at ourselves in a mirror again if we just go on our merry way, and Leonelle goes to prison?”
Holly sighed loudly. Ivy continued, “I’m not suggesting we actually investigate anything, but we can at least go with Elena to the lawyer again, can’t we? Let him know we think his sharing information with the Hagel’s lawyers is unethical, and maybe just go with Elena to visit Leonelle for moral support.”
“I love you, sister. You have an unerring moral compass, and you’re absolutely right. We can at least be there to show support and hope like hell the police…”
“Who?” Ivy asked, one eyebrow raised.
“Okay, we can hope Manelli does his job.”
Kate had picked up the cards while they were talking. She handed the deck to Ivy. “Now think of a question you want to ask while you shuffle the deck.”
29 BACK HOME
“Home Sweet Home,” Holly said as they pulled into the driveway.
“The weekend was so much fun. After the Trout Parade, I’m not sure if I’m ready to face reality,” Ivy said.
“Ready or not, here we are.” Holly got out of the car and opened the back door. Lucky jumped down from her pop-up kennel on the backseat. “Would you take her around to the front gate and let her in? She loves to run around the yard and smell everything after we’ve been away. I’ll get our stuff.”
Ivy took Lucky around front and Holly popped the trunk. She grabbed as much as she could and brought it in through the garage to the basement. By the time she returned to the car, Ivy was there to help her.
They climbed the stairs to the first floor, and Holly stopped, noticing the light flashing on the answering machine. “Let’s see who called. There will probably be 10 hang-ups. I can’t believe the number of sales calls I get.”
“I screen all my calls for that reason.”
The first two calls were blank. The third call began with a sob. Holly and Ivy just looked at one another.
“Ms. Donnelly, this is Elena Gomez. I didn’t want to call you, but I don’t know what else to do. Mr. Grabnick, he called me, yelling something about a CD he got in the mail. He said, ‘You tell that Donnelly woman that if she doesn’t stop interfering, I’m going to go to the police. This is harassment.’ Then he made it sound like this could hurt my mother’s case. I didn’t understand what he was talking about. I’m so sorry to bother you. Please call me. I’m so worried for my mother.” Here Elena sobbed again. “Please. I have no one else.”
Holly sank into a chair. “So much for weekend afterglow, huh?”
“We better call her right away.”
Holly sighed, reached for the phone, located Elena’s number, hit call and speaker.
“Hi, Elena. It’s Holly and Ivy Donnelly. We just got back.”
“Thank heaven. I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I’m so sorry to bother you.”
“It’s okay, Elena. What CD was Grabnick talking about?”
“I don’t know. I thought you would know.”
“No, we don’t. Are you home now?”
“No, I just got out of class.”
“Meet us at Grabnick’s office. We’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Thank you so much.”
Holly hung up, shaking her head. “What a creep Grabnick is!”
“Really. He didn’t have to yell at her.”
“He’s nothing but a bully.”
“What do you think this CD is?” Ivy asked.
“I don’t have a clue, but let’s go see the little pissant and find out.”
30 GRABNICK REDUX
Elena was sitting in her car parked in front of Jonathan Grabnick’s office. Holly pulled in behind her, and shut off the engine. Elena was out of her Honda before Holly and Ivy opened their doors.
“I am so relieved to see you,” she said, rushing to hug Holly before she could even get out of the car.
Ivy came around to their side of the car and Elena held on to Holly’s hand as she hugged Ivy.
“Elena, you have to calm down,” Holly said. “Remember, the police told us not to interfere, so we must be very careful.”
“I know,” Elena replied, lowering her head. ”But this man is… he should not have talked to me the way he did.”
“No, he should not,” Ivy confirmed. “Elena, Holly and I discussed things and we decided that we will continue to be with you and your mother for moral support, but we can’t do more than that.”
“We’re here because this man issued a threat to us through you,” Holly added. “We have every right to question him about that threat. Now when we go upstairs, you just relax and let me handle things, all right?”
“Okay.”
The three women walked to the door leading upstairs to Grabnick’s second floor office. The door stuck and Holly needed to lean her shoulder into it in order to get it open. The hall remained unswept since their last visit, the same Snicker’s wrapper in the corner. At the top of the stairs, Holly knocked on the door. No answer. She knocked again.
“I hope he’s here,” Ivy said. “What will we do if he isn’t?”
“Call for an appointment, I guess,” Holly answered.
The door suddenly opened. Jonathan Grabnick looked startled. “I thought you were the deli delivery boy.”
After an awkward moment, Holly sighed and asked, “Aren’t you going to let us in, Mr. Grabnick?”
“I’m quite busy. This isn’t a good time. You should have called for an appointment.”
“We’ll only be a minute,” Holly snapped, pushing past him, Ivy and Elena following.
Grabnick huffed, shook his head and followed them in. He walked around his desk and remained standing.
“So why are you here? To harass me?”
he asked.
“You’re kidding, right?” Holly asked. “You called Elena, harassing her about some CD you got in the mail, threatening to go to the police about us, and suggesting it would hurt her mother’s case, and you want to know why we’re here?”
“I did no such thing.”
“She’s got a recording of your call. I think the police might not agree with you.”
“You listen to me, Ms. Donnelly. You have no business ...”
“NO! You listen to me, Mr. Grabnick. If you had something to say to me and my sister, you should have called us, and not bullied this young woman. Now, what I want to know is what CD are you talking about?”
“You know very well what CD.”
“No, I don’t. If I did, we wouldn’t be here. Show me this CD.”
“You mean you didn’t send it?”
“No. What’s on this CD?”
Grabnick appeared genuinely baffled. He looked down at his desk and shuffled some papers. After a moment, he looked up, smiled and said, “Perhaps I was mistaken. Uh, Ms. Gomez, my apologies. Please just forget my phone call.”
Holly, Ivy and Elena stared at Grabnick, appearing mystified by his change in demeanor.
“Will there be anything else?” Grabnick asked.
“Wait a minute,” Holly said. “You got a CD related to Mrs. Gomez’s case. What was on the CD?”
“As I said, I was mistaken.”
“No, no. C’mon. You accused us of harassing you. You have to tell us what was on the CD.”
“Now that I know you didn’t send it I realize it had nothing to do with this case. It was just a matter of my jumping to the wrong conclusion. I now see it is related to another case. Please, accept my apology and just forget all about it. And Ms. Gomez, please know that I am doing everything I can for your mother.”
Holly bit her lip, recognizing that they were not going to get anything more out of him. Beside her, Ivy moved forward to the edge of her seat. She looked straight at Grabnick and said, “Mr. Grabnick, I do hope you mean what you just said to Elena because Holly and I know that you shared information about this case with the Hagels’ lawyer.”
Grabnick’s eyes widened. Before he could deny anything, Ivy continued.
“That’s grounds for disbarment. Make no mistake about it. If we feel that you do not do everything you can for Leonelle, we will come after you. And if you bully Elena again, we will go to the police and bring harassment charges against you, you little pissant.”
Ivy stood up, never breaking eye contact with Grabnick, who appeared stricken.
“Ladies, let’s go,” she said.
Ivy turned, opened the door and walked out. Struggling to keep the grin on her face from turning into a belly laugh, Holly followed without saying a word. Elena glowered at Grabnick, snapping her fingers at him and slamming the door behind her.
Out on the street, Holly started to laugh uncontrollably. Giggling, Elena hugged Ivy, who also began to laugh.
“Feel better?” Holly asked when she finally could speak.
“Yes. Yes, I do,” Ivy said.
31 AN UNEXPECTED VISIT
When the three women stopped laughing, Ivy said, “How are we going to find out what was on that CD?”
“I don’t know, but it’s got to be important,” said Holly. “It must be something that casts some doubt on Leonelle’s being the murderer.”
“Wouldn’t that be great? Do you think it’s possible?” Elena sounded hopeful.
“I don’t know, Elena. Remember, we really can’t do anything.”
Elena’s crestfallen expression made Holly want to go back upstairs and ransack Grabnick’s office.
“Let Holly and me go home and talk this over, Elena,” Ivy intervened. ”We’ll see if we can come up with an idea, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Go home and we’ll call you tomorrow or Wednesday,” Holly said.
Elena looked at her watch. “I better hurry. I have to pick up my sister at school. She gets out early today.”
Elena hugged Holly and kissed her on the cheek. She turned to Ivy, kissed and hugged her, saying, “You were wonderful up there. Thank you so much--both of you.”
She got in her Honda and drove off. Holly and Ivy got in the Cadillac.
“You were wonderful up there,” Holly said as she eased the car into traffic.
“I’m actually shaking a little,” Ivy replied. “I’m not really sure what got into me.”
“Whatever it was, I’m glad it did. I’d completely forgotten that we intended to confront Grabnick about talking to Hagel’s lawyer. You so shocked him when you brought it up, he couldn’t react fast enough to deny it.”
“I guess that proves we were right. So it’s looking more and more like someone in the Hagel family murdered Mrs. Hagel. What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. But I’d love to know what was on that CD.”
“Want to break into Grabnick’s office tonight?”
“IVY! I’m shocked. You have got to calm down, girl,” Holly teased.
“I’m only kidding, but short of breaking and entering, how else can we find out?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Holly put on her turn signal when they reached her block. As she rounded the corner, she caught her breath.
“Uh-oh! What’s he doing here?” Holly asked. Detective Manelli was exiting their gate when he spotted them.
“Do you think Grabnick called him?” Ivy asked.
“No. Even if he had, Manelli couldn’t have gotten here ahead of us.”
“Stop the car,” Ivy said.
Holly stepped on the brakes and lowered her window. Manelli walked over to the car and bent down to their eye level.
“Detective, we didn’t expect to see you,” Ivy said from the passenger side.
“Yeah, I didn’t expect it, either. We need to talk.”
Holly felt a tingling under her skin. ”Okay. I’ll park in the driveway and we’ll meet you at the front door.”
Manelli backed away from the car. Holly closed the window. ”What could this be about? Why didn’t we just stay at Kate’s?”
Inside Holly went straight to the front door where Manelli was waiting.
“Come in,” she said. Lucky came to the door, tail wagging at the sight of the detective. After he petted her, the dog continued outside. “Come this way, Detective.”
Manelli followed Holly into the living room. “Have a seat,” she said. He sat in the wing chair beside the fireplace and she sat on the couch opposite him. Ivy came in and sat down beside Holly.
“Why are you here?” Holly asked.
“You don’t know why?”
“No. Look, we did what we said we would. We left Saturday morning for the Catskills and just got back a few hours ago.”
“And you didn’t mail me something before you left?
“No. What would we mail you? We just saw you the day before.”
“Was it a CD?” Ivy asked.
Holly grabbed Ivy’s arm. “What are you doing?”
“He needs to know, Holly. We should tell him everything.”
Holly lowered her head and moaned, covering her face with her hands massaging her temples. Manelli sat silently, appearing to enjoy the interchange between the sisters.
“Was it a CD, Detective?” Ivy asked again.
Manelli smiled. ”Why don’t you tell me why you think it was a CD, Ms. Donnelly?”
“As Holly said, we got home about two hours ago. We were getting ready to go out to lunch--that reminds me, I’m starved. Holly, can we have pizza delivered? If not, what’s in the fridge, I have to eat something or…”
“Ms. Donnelly,” Manelli cut in, “could you just finish first?”
“Yes,” she laughed. ”I guess that’s more important. I just get a little discombobulated when I’m hungry.”
“So what happened when you got home?” Manelli asked.
“Holly saw the answering machine message light
blinking, so she played the messages. There was one from Elena Gomez. Hey, it’s still on the machine, right, Holly?”
“Yes.” Holly sat up glaring at her.
“Let’s go in the kitchen and you can hear it for yourself.”
Ivy popped up and headed to the kitchen. Holly remained seated on the couch. Manelli stood up, waiting for her.
“You don’t need me,” she said. ”She’ll tell you everything you want to know and maybe even a little you don’t.”
“I’d like you to join us. You’re part of this interview.”
Holly sighed heavily, stood up and walked to the kitchen. Ivy had the refrigerator open. ”There’s some cheddar cheese in here. Do you have crackers, Holly?”
Holly went to the cupboard to get the crackers.
“Ms. Donnelly, could we get back to the phone messages?” Manelli asked, sitting down, placing his notepad on the kitchen table.
“Sure. Holly, would you hit the replay button? I don’t want to hit the wrong button and erase anything. I’m so bad with machines. But I think you know that, Detective.” Ivy smiled at Manelli.
Holly shoved the cracker box at Ivy, went over to the machine and hit replay.
After the message ended Manelli asked, “So what did you do next?”
“We called Elena, of course,” Ivy answered. “Would you like a cheese and cracker, Detective?”
“For God sakes, Ivy!” Holly cut in impatiently. ”We called Elena and told her to meet us at Grabnick’s office. We went down there and told him that if he had something to say to us, he should have called us and not bullied Elena. We asked him what CD he was talking about. Like you, he said, ‘You don’t know?’ I said no. All of a sudden he becomes Mr. Congeniality. He says he must have been mistaken. He apologizes to Elena, and he won’t tell us what was on the CD. Now, if you got the same CD as Grabnick, it wasn’t sent by mistake. And if you think we sent it, then it has something to do with Leonelle’s case. But I don’t suppose you’re going to tell us anymore than Grabnick about what was on the CD, are you?” Holly stood glaring at Manelli, her hands on her hips.
Second Bloom Page 13
