I didn’t tell him I thought he’d make a wonderful parent. I kept that to myself.
After Detweiler left, the house seemed strangely empty. All my fears came back to haunt me as I wiped black fingerprint powder from my scrapbooking room.
Were we safe? Should I have sent my daughter to Sheila’s? Would the burglar return for the rest of my equipment? Was a killer watching my home and waiting?
Who killed George? Was it Roxanne? And who killed her? She hadn’t been robbed. Detweiler told me her purse and jewelry had been undisturbed.
So Roxanne had been with George before he died. The scarf proved that. Or did it? What if someone had planted her scarf on George’s body?
And maybe she’d been with him when he died. Did she kill my husband? If she killed George, why did someone kill her? To revenge his death? Or were there two killers out there? Two killers and a burglar?
My head started to hurt.
After I wiped down the room, I spent a restless hour. Finally, I let the dogs out for their goodnight piddle. A police car paused in front of my home.
Tonight we were safe. But for how long?
___
The next morning I dropped Anya at school and was in the store by quarter past eight. I brought Paris, her crate, and Gracie through the back door. I’m grateful Dodie lets me keep my canine babysitting charges at the store. She told me, “They’re welcome to visit as long as they are well-behaved and crated. Except Gracie. She’s free to have the run of the place.”
But for the emotional security of our customers, Gracie mainly stayed in the back room.
I think Dodie secretly wants a pet but isn’t ready to commit. I frequently find her in the back cuddling a lonely pooch. The woman is a study in contrasts, by turns hard-nosed businesswoman and sensitive employer. Although she expects a lot from me, she has made it perfectly clear she understands that Anya’s needs come first.
Our relationship turned upside down when I moved from customer to employee. And yet Dodie has let me know that in many ways she values me more than ever. Back then, I was a minor source of revenue; now I am a revenue stream.
All in all, my decision to work for Dodie has been a good one, and I appreciate this job. Today I had lots to do. Every other Friday, we offer a Beginning Scrappers Crop, fondly called the Newbie-Do-Be-Do. I like to start early getting ready for them. For each beginners’ crop, I create a new simple layout. Since working at Time in a Bottle, I’ve taught two beginning classes, this being the third. That means I have two other beginning layout kits I can sell to our newbies. Each kit includes all the paper they need, instructions, and a small color photo of the finished project. At the price, it’s a bargain, but it makes money for Dodie. My starter kits help business in yet another way—beginning layouts encourage newbies to feel successful quickly, keeping them involved in the hobby.
I was paying close attention to the die-cut machine when the buzzer heralded a customer. The store doesn’t really open until nine, but I flip over the sign as soon as I get settled. After all, you never know when a big sale will walk in.
I looked up to say hi to Merrilee Witherow.
Only, it wasn’t Merrilee. It was Linda Kovaleski. She looked terrible. Her red-rimmed eyes were underlined by dark, puffy bags.
“Boy, for a moment I thought you were Merrilee.”
“We have the same hairdresser,” she said, flipping her tresses to show them off. They were a sunstreaked blonde that was probably as expensive as it looked. After the flip, she grabbed a piece of hair and twisted it cruelly.
“Can you believe it about Roxanne? Isn’t it awful?” she talked like a woman on speed. “It’s scary. There’s a killer out there. None of us are safe.” Her eyes kept roaming the ceiling, unable to focus, like a cell phone searching for service. I heard a tapping and glanced down to catch her foot in frenetic motion.
“Yes, it’s horrible.” This wasn’t the place to get into theories of divine retribution. Truth be told, I wasn’t as worried about the dead Roxanne as I was about the live whacko standing two feet from me. Linda’s eyes ricocheted like pinballs, and her fingers moved at warp speed, turning and fiddling with her hair.
I asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’ve had a lot of caffeine. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I can’t stop thinking about Roxanne at the shower, you know? I wonder what happened? I mean she was alive and now—how could she be gone? Why would anyone hurt her?”
I bit back an answer.
“She was at the mall. Why there? She only shopped designer stores.”
“I don’t know what she was planning. Maybe we’ll never know.”
“She was this total scrapbook fanatic. I mean, it’s odd that you and she … uh, George and you and …” The woman tailed off, momentarily stunned by her own bad taste, or so I hoped.
Her finger twirled like a helicopter propeller, ravaging her hair. “I mean, her scrapbooks were really important to her. Like, they were her life! She was always taking pictures. I’m worried about our photos from the shower. I heard about your computer being stolen.”
“How’d you hear that?”
“Uh, I called Dodie at home first thing this morning. She gave us her business card with her phone number, remember? I was upset about Roxanne.” Linda twisted a lock of hair, her finger chasing it round and round. “And I was worried about Roxie’s camera. Was it on her … her body? I mean, what about the shower photos?”
So that’s what this was about. “It’s okay. We’re covered. She didn’t take any photos at the shower.”
“But your computer’s gone. Our photos were in it.”
“Right, but I also copied them onto CDs.”
“And on this computer?”
“No. Customers use this computer. I can’t store the photos here. I can’t chance someone erasing them by mistake. And remember Snapfish?”
Linda’s eyes measured the ceiling. Thinking, thinking, thinking. The answers are not up there, I was tempted to say.
She bit a corner of her mouth and got lipstick on her front teeth. “What do fish have to do with our pictures?”
I tried not to sigh. I didn’t want to sigh. But I probably did.
I needed to recoup fast. I had no right to act unkindly toward her. There are plenty of things I don’t understand: calculus, rocket science, and intelligent design. “Snapfish is a photo finishing and storage site. I probably didn’t do a good job of explaining how it works. Why don’t I walk you through the process?”
We sat side by side at the computer. I noticed her gorgeous French manicure and expensive perfume. Actually, what I noticed was money. Lots and lots of money.
Shades of my former life.
I opened the website, typed in my password and room code, and clicked on the album. Linda’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. She really was a computer novice.
“Those pictures are small. You can barely see anything.” Her twisting ramped up. That poor strand of hair was turning and twirling for all it was worth. At this rate, she’d be bald before sundown.
“Right. We’re viewing thumbnails. They’re called that because of the size. Watch. I click and the image gets bigger.”
She squinted. “You can’t really tell a lot about what’s going on, I mean, not really.”
“That’s part of my job. I can enlarge the photos. I can also adjust the brightness and contrast, fix red eye, and crop out distractions.” As I spoke I brightened a picture of Merrilee and her mother opening a gift. I fixed the red eye and removed an annoying ficus at their side.
“Notice how taking away the house plant redirected our attention? We can focus on the bride and her mother.”
“You sure can!” Linda leaped out of the chair, her purse held tightly to her body as if warding off a blow. “I’ve got to go.” She walked straight out the door.
I sat at the computer and stared after her. Life had gotten so weird. Linda’s bizarre visit proved that bedlam was the new norm. Was there a full
moon out there or what? Certainly my life was in total disarray.
Then again, who was I to label her behavior strange? I fingered Detweiler’s card tucked in my pants pocket. My husband had been dead less than a year and I had the hots for a man who’d accused me of murder. How sick was that?
Dodie walked in fifteen minutes after Linda’s precipitous departure. Paris set up a barrage of warning barks, announcing she was on watchdog duty. After dressing herself for school, my daughter had outfitted Paris in a pair of denim capri pants and floral crop top. Dodie lifted the canine fashion model out of her crate. “Hey, gorgeous, how’s tricks? Walked any runways lately?”
I told Dodie about Linda’s visit.
“She called me at home. How would I know if the police found Roxanne’s camera? How many times do we need to tell her the photos were loaded into your computer and Snapfish? Geez, talk about your ditzy blonde.” Dodie paused. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Yes, I’m blonde, but that’s because I believe in better living through chemistry. If my income didn’t improve soon, my hair would return to its natural mainly-muddy brown.
I flipped open my cell and called Detweiler. That brought up a good question. Where was Roxanne’s camera? We knew she hadn’t taken photos at the shower. At least not before we loaded her memory card. Had she taken any pictures after? Did she have the camera with her when she died?
I left a message on Detweiler’s voice mail.
Dodie worked the counter while I sorted photos. Most of them didn’t relate to the shower. Culling through the rest, I looked for candid photos that reflected the celebratory spirit of the bridal shower. I immediately discarded any that were unflattering to the guests, although I hesitated before purging the picture of Roxanne with an ugly sneer on her face. With judicious cropping, I created portraits of Merrilee and each of her guests. One particularly striking photo taken by Linda showed Merrilee and her mother beaming at each other. No wonder the woman stressed out so much about the safety of her photos. Linda was a darn good photographer. She’d captured Mrs. Witherow lovingly cradling her daughter’s chin in her hand. It was a portrait that would have made any professional proud.
Around lunchtime, I grabbed a strawberry low-fat yogurt from the mini-fridge in Dodie’s office and chugged a Diet Dr Pepper. The dogs needed a potty-break and a walk. After fifteen minutes in the heat, we oozed our way gratefully into the air-conditioned cool of the back room. My short-sleeved cotton blouse would have wilted had I not soaked it with an entire potato field of starch before ironing. My short khaki skirt kept me cool everywhere but around the waistband. I splashed cool water on the inside of my wrists, returned to the sales floor, and shifted gears to work on the new layout for the newbie crop.
Try as I might, I couldn’t decide what I wanted for that particular project. I kept shuffling papers and rejecting embellishments. I’d gotten nothing done but wasting time when my watch told me I’d better hustle to meet Anya after school.
I told the dogs. “Time to get our girl!”
Gracie hopped up and down, doing her heavy-duty imitation of a pogo stick. Her big tail thumped the nearby boxes. Paris yapped. She wasn’t smart enough to know I’d suggested an R-I-D-E, but she figured if Gracie was excited, she might as well join in. Inside the car, Gracie perched her rump on the passenger seat and her front legs on the floor, so she looked exactly like a human with a blocky head. Paris raced back and forth in the tiny back seat.
My landlord, Mr. Wilson, rang my cell phone as I was driving to CALA.
“Heard the police were at your house.”
“Yes, sir. I had a break in.”
“That’s never happened before at one of my properties.”
I found that hard to believe. The term “slumlord” would have been a generous moniker for the man. But I didn’t want to be disagreeable. “Yes, sir. I called because I have a friend who’s installing security lights as we speak—”
“Your lease specifically forbids you from making any alterations to the property unless I approve.”
So far his approval had extended to me turning a gross dump into a clean and attractive home. Wilson sure hadn’t minded saying yes when it meant letting me put hours of my time into upgrading his property.
But my Nana always said you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.
“Yes, sir, I understand. I really do. And I’m so sorry this happened. I would have waited on the lights but it’s really dark along the sides of the house and—”
“I don’t care. I don’t like the unsavory elements you’ve attracted.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m giving you thirty days. I want you gone. And forget your deposit. That’s mine now.”
Thursday morning I woke up at dawn after a futile attempt to sleep. I’d tossed and turned for hours as the digital numbers slipped into place, one after the other, on the clock. I sat at my kitchen table, stared out the window, and watched the sun rise.
I had no idea where I’d find another security deposit. I’d sold everything we owned but some furniture, my old Beemer, and my diamond engagement ring that I’d asked Sheila to hold in her lockbox for Anya.
Even if I could scrape up the money, I doubted I could find a suitable place on such short notice. A rental property that took pets and had a fenced-in yard was hard to come by.
Despite the burglary, I wanted to live here. I’d put so much of myself into this place. Besides, how would I explain being evicted to Anya? How could I put her through yet another change?
I added upsetting Anya to my personal hit parade of worries. Topping the chart was housing, then came being broken into again, while replacing my computer brought up the rear. At least six people—not counting Mert, Dodie, and Detweiler—knew I had made CDs of the memory cards. How long would it take my home invader to discover he’d left those duplicates behind? I could take the copies to work and leave them there, but short of writing a note and taping it to my scrapbook room window, I had no way of telling the burglar I’d moved his cheese. My best recourse was to let as many people as possible know plenty of copies of the photos existed. Then there’d be no need to target me.
I turned to the matter of George’s killer. Okay, Roxanne was dead, but an unsettling thought niggled at me. Two women left Antonio’s with George the day he died. My husband’s mysterious tablemates went to a lot of trouble to keep their identities secret. Roxanne was gone, but who was the other woman? Why hadn’t she stepped forward? Was there more to their secret? Was she the shooter? What if Roxanne’s scarf had been planted? Did the other lunch companion know who killed George? And how? And why?
Three people left Antonio’s and hopped into a car together. Now two of them (assuming Roxanne was one of the two women) were dead. Detweiler said he didn’t believe in coincidences. What was happening? Why had Roxanne been shot?
A ding-ding-ding went off in my head. Maybe George’s killer also murdered Roxanne. But why? Did Roxanne take a secret with her to the grave?
I choked down two bites of toast before tackling yet another item on my personal worry list. I had to repay Roger for the security lights—and ask him to take them back down.
After dropping Anya at CALA, my body showed up for work, even though my brain was off in the stratosphere, circling Saturn. Once again, I struggled to come up with a design for the newbie crop. The official title for my malaise is scrapper’s block.
“Father’s Day is right around the corner. How about you do a layout remembering George?” Dodie smiled kindly at me. “You could have Anya journal her memories.”
The sincere expression on her face saddened me. If she only knew what a jerk my husband had been, taking our daughter along for trysts with his mistress, and swearing our child to silence. I’d gotten the rage out of my system last night and didn’t want to revisit my fury by scrapbooking my husband.
No scrapbooker in her right mind would destroy a photo. Not only do we believe images spark the tinder that make
s our memories blaze brightly, but we also secretly believe a picture holds a portion of the soul. How else can you explain the way the portrait of a loved one moves you? Photos are sacred to scrapbookers. I’ve heard stories of women risking their lives to save family keepsakes from flood, fire, earthquake, and paper-eating silverfish. Whereas in the early days of scrapbooking, crafters used scissors and templates to crop their photos into amusing shapes, now the tendency is to regard the photo with more reverence, only cutting away that which might divert our attention from the subject.
Yes, only a scrapbooker who had lost her grip on sanity would destroy a photo.
Which tells you exactly how crazed I had been the night before. I’d had a day and a half to think about George’s perfidy. I couldn’t believe he’d exposed our child to his affair with Roxanne Baker. The more I tried to rationalize his actions, the madder I got.
What else had George been hiding from me?
I got sick thinking about it.
I probably could have kept my cool, had it not been for the evening news.
Anya and I were sitting in front of our tiny television eating open-face tuna sandwiches broiled with a slice of American cheese on top.
Anya selected one of Paris’s formal gowns from the tiny trunk. “I think this slinky green number sets off Paris’s hair. What do you think, Mom?” A tiny evening purse had been sewn to the dress. Anya strapped silver slippers to the dog’s back paws.
“She’s lovely. Please put her down and wash your hands, sweetie.”
Anya pushed her food around her plate. I encouraged her to eat, but she only swallowed a couple of bites. This was one of her all-time favorite meals. If she wasn’t interested in tuna sandwiches, we were in deep trouble. Anya had never been a picky eater, but she definitely had her favorites.
Paris was watching Anya, too. Most fashion models are underweight, but there was nothing wrong with this fashion victim’s appetite. Paris lurked under the coffee table, the better to gobble any scraps that fell to the floor. And that little hairball did not like to share. When Gracie eyed a crust of bread hungrily, Paris bared her teeth and growled. The big dog scampered to my side for protection, all the while making goo-goo eyes at my meal.
Paper, Scissors, Death Page 12
