by Sara Rosett
“Shoot. I forgot to buy anything to take home to Livvy,” I said as I spotted Summer’s RAV4 and waved.
“That’s okay. We’ll just have to go again.” Abby’s haul was bigger than mine. She hadn’t bought a new carry-on bag either.
Summer whipped over to the curb, jumped out, and threw open the back. We shoved our bags in and I asked Abby, “How are you going to get all that home?”
She slid into the backseat as I took the front passenger seat. “I brought an extra suitcase,” she said as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “I always pack my small suitcase and then put it inside the medium one. That way I have a whole empty one to fill up.”
“Sorry,” Summer said as she pulled her backpack out of the floorboard at my feet and tossed it in the back. She buckled in and merged into traffic in one smooth motion. “I’m so jealous of your shopping trip. What’d you get?”
Abby itemized our finds, including the regular price and sale price so Summer could fully appreciate what good deals we’d found. Although, from looking at Summer, you wouldn’t think she was into fashion. She must have stopped by her house and changed clothes on the way to pick us up. Her long red curls were scrunched into a tight bun under a brown newsboy-style cap. She had on tan cargo pants, a clingy green tank, and leather flip-flops. “Okay, so give me the details on this boda lady.”
By the time I gave her a summary of Estelle’s story and told her what we’d found on the Internet about marriage fraud, we were stuck in traffic. “We’re only a few blocks from the turn.” Summer clutched the wheel and pulled herself up a few more inches as she tried to look over the tops of the cars in front of us. “I can’t see a thing.” The clock on the dashboard counted off five minutes as we sat without moving.
“Good thing I got her address,” Abby said. But at that moment, the lane on the right began to creep forward and Summer slid into it, skimming another car’s bumper. She crossed another lane of cars as they inched ahead, then hit the off-ramp and accelerated. “I know another way.”
I loosened my grip on the door frame. “For a few seconds there I thought I was going to get to see every detail of the grill of that SUV.”
Summer flashed me a smile as she changed gears and accelerated through a yellow light. “Don’t worry, I’m good at driving in traffic.” She zipped into a minuscule opening in another lane and made a hard left turn. “That means I can tailgate without rear-ending and I have nerves of steel. If you go for the opening—even if it isn’t there—it’ll be there by the time you get there.”
I said, “You didn’t drive like this with Mitch a few days ago.”
“I know. I didn’t want him to worry or pester me. Oh, good news, I talked Ivan into pink for Emma’s room.”
“So he likes pink now?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Summer said as she changed lanes, oblivious of the car horns sounding around us. I glanced in the back. Abby was searching for the seat belt.
“I wouldn’t say he’s had a change of heart. I’d say he’s more resigned than anything else,” Summer said. “I told him it had to have pink because Ms. Archer requested it. We compromised on a pink glaze on the walls with a hand-painted border of black with pink and white.”
“That sounds okay,” I said slowly.
“It’ll be gorgeous, I bet. Sounds like a Mary Engelbreit–inspired style border?” Abby asked.
Summer confirmed, “That’s the plan. And if he doesn’t stick to it, I’ll repaint it.”
“It just might work,” I said. “Pink for the little girl, but the touch of black will give it sophistication. You could do all sorts of cute things with the black and pink. What about a bedside table lamp? The shade could be pink with black polka dots.”
“I’ll have to remember to subtly plant that idea in Ivan’s head, so he’ll think he thought of it. Then he’ll love it. I’ve got all the supplies and workers lined up for tomorrow.” Summer made another turn and wheeled into the parking lot of Verde Campo. “Ta-da. And only fifteen minutes late. We would have been early if it hadn’t been for the traffic.”
We were getting out of the car when I saw a familiar head of springy curls. “There she is.” Wellesley walked quickly to a white Land Rover and got in. The brake lights glowed as she backed out of the slot.
“We missed her,” Abby said. “She must have come early.”
“Come on, we’ll follow her,” Summer said. Abby and I hurried to scramble back into the car before she left us standing in the parking lot.
Chapter Thirteen
I gripped the handle on the door as Summer accelerated out of the parking lot and crisscrossed through traffic. She kept about two cars back from the Land Rover. “She’s staying inside the beltway,” Summer said as she made a quick right turn and then slowed down so we didn’t end up right on the Land Rover’s bumper. We zipped through a neighborhood that seemed kind of uneven to me. High-rise condos towered on one block, but on the next, flashing lights on a police car lit up a boarded-up gas station as a police officer handcuffed a man. “Interesting neighborhood.” I twisted around to see what was going on at the gas station, but we were already too far away.
Summer hit the accelerator and the engine revved as the SUV climbed a hill. As we crested the hill, the sparkling lights of a shopping complex filled the night. “Yep, this neighborhood’s moving on up. It hasn’t quite reached into that little corner, but it probably won’t take long. In a few months or a few weeks, that gas station will be a chichi drive-through coffee bar or a boutique.”
“From the size of the houses around here, I bet you could get two condos on that lot,” Abby said.
“You’re laughing but that’s a real possibility, especially inside the beltway.” Summer hit the gas and made it through another yellow light to keep the Land Rover in sight.
Abby’s phone rang and I could hear her in the back saying that we were still running around and we’d be back to the hotel later. She put her phone away and said, “The guy’s study group has morphed into a Texas Hold’em tournament. I told Jeff that we’re still out. We might want to stop somewhere later for dessert. I never did get those sopapillas.”
“Looks like she’s almost home,” Summer said as she slowed outside a gated apartment complex. Ivy crept up the brick wall enclosing the apartments. Summer paused until Wellesley put in her code and pulled through the gate. When the gate began its slow sweep to close, Summer whizzed through and turned to follow the Land Rover through the complex. Flowers trailed out of window boxes. Patches of landscaped grounds were lit with spotlights that edged the sidewalks. A single-car garage door scrolled open and the Land Rover drove into the square of light. The garage door unwound as we parked on the street behind the passenger van with the words Inside Look Tours on the side. The condo with its white-paned windows under the concave copper awnings stayed dark.
I fingered the door handle that I’d gripped so tightly before. I didn’t want to barge into someone’s house late at night, but I didn’t want to have this conversation in the morning with the rest of the tour group as an audience either.
“I don’t know if we should do this,” I said.
Summer twisted toward me. “All we want to do is talk to her.” She got out and walked up the sidewalk. Abby and I climbed out and hurried to catch up with her.
There was only enough room on the stoop for me and Summer. Summer leaned on the doorbell. I noticed that the window box was full of plastic flowers and ivy. Now, why hadn’t I thought of that? Fake flowers were so much easier to keep up than real ones.
Summer pounded on the door and I jumped as the thumps reverberated through the quiet complex.
We waited a few more seconds and Summer pounded again. “Wellesley. We know you’re home. Open up.”
I put a hand on her arm and leaned toward the seam where the door met the door frame. “Wellesley, we need to talk to you. Please let us in.”
Summer shouted behind me, “You don’t want us making so
much noise that your neighbors call the police, do you?”
I was surprised that Summer was being so aggressive. But Mitch had always said that when she did something she threw herself into it and didn’t look back. Wellesley jerked the door open. Her curls vibrated with her abrupt movement. “What is going on? What’s all the noise for?”
Summer stepped inside. “Hi. I’m Summer Avery. The police think I murdered a man and Ellie’s found out that you knew him. We’d like to talk to you about it.” Wellesley blinked and Summer continued into the living room, her shoes tapping on the hardwood floor. Abby and I followed her inside and Wellesley quickly shut the door.
“Hi, Wellesley,” I said. “Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we figured you wouldn’t want to talk about this in the morning with the whole tour group.”
Her place was a mess with a load of white clothes dumped on a leather couch and piles of magazines, flyers, and junk mail sprinkled around every surface of the room. The kitchen trash spilled onto the slate slabs of the floor, and stacks of dirty dishes and take-out wrappers lined the granite countertops in the kitchen.
“All right. Since you’re already in you might as well come in here.” She stepped into a small living room that connected to a kitchen area. I pushed the pile of clothes over and sat down on a dark leather couch beside Abby. Summer perched on the arm of the couch and Wellesley took the matching leather chair across from the flat-screen TV. Wellesley had taken off her shoes. She tucked her bare feet up under her flowing white sundress and looked at me expectantly. She pulled one curl out and wound it around her finger.
Abby and Summer looked at me, too. I guess I had the lead here. I was the one who’d actually seen her talk with Jorge. I took a deep breath and dived in. “Wellesley, I know you talked to Jorge before he died. Would you tell us what you know about him?”
She frowned and kept circling the curl around her finger. “Jorge? I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Jorge Dominguez. You talked to him on the Mall before he was pushed off the platform in the Metro. In fact, you did more than talk. You argued.”
“Didn’t you mention this before?” Wellesley’s voice was weary. “I’m sorry that you’re confused, but you have to accept that you’re wrong. You must have seen someone else who looked like Jorge.”
“I also talked to the man you talked to today outside Union Station. He was a landscaper, just like Jorge.”
Summer leaned forward and said, “We have a photo of you at the end of the platform near Jorge.”
Describing what we had as a “photo of Wellesley” was pushing it a bit, but it finally got a reaction out of her. She unwound the curl from her finger and sat up straighter. “What are you saying? That I pushed him? That’s absurd. And if you did have a picture of that I’m sure you wouldn’t be here asking questions. It would be the police.”
“Yes, but the police do think he was murdered and they’re looking at everyone who was on the platform that day,” Summer said. “I wasn’t there, but they think I was. Someone used my Metro card and made it look like I was there.” Summer stood up and paced back and forth. “So, see, I’m really motivated to find out who else was on that platform and who could have pushed Jorge. It seems like you would be anxious to talk to us instead of the police.”
Wellesley’s gaze ran over the three of us, then returned to Summer. Her mouth was set in a hard line as she said, “Okay. I’ll tell you, but this doesn’t go further than this room.”
“Fine.” Summer stopped pacing.
Wellesley raised her chin and said, “I did know Jorge. He filled in on my landscaping crews.”
“Why did you go down to the other end of the platform that day in the Metro?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I like to get on at the front of the train. I’d done my job for your group. I’d gotten you to the right platform.”
“Well, did you see anyone with long red hair at that end of the platform?” I pressed. If we could find someone who’d seen that the woman wasn’t Summer, we’d at least be making some progress.
Wellesley snorted. “No. You don’t look at people in the Metro. You don’t make eye contact. You get on your train and get where you’re going. You ignore everyone else, so no, I didn’t notice anyone at that end of the platform.”
I suppressed a sigh, but she was right about people not looking at each other. I’d noticed it, too, when we rode the Metro. Everyone seemed to enclose themselves in their own little box of silence and avoided looking at anyone else. I decided to switch back to Jorge. “So you didn’t know anything else about Jorge?”
She paused, frowning. “Not really, except that his last name was Dominguez. Other than that, he was an illegal and he worked whatever jobs he could get. And don’t go all self-righteous on me about using illegal aliens. They’re here and they work hard.”
“What else did he do, besides landscaping?” Summer asked as she began pacing again, moving in and out of my peripheral vision.
“How should I know?” Wellesley shrugged one shoulder. “Probably other manual labor stuff, that’s what most illegals do.”
I asked, “How did you find him?”
“There’s a place, a grocery store parking lot. About six in the morning, they start showing up. I go there when I need more people. You can find any sort of skilled and unskilled worker there—drywallers, painters, framers, roofers, and just general manual labor. He came up and said he could do yard work and drywall.”
I tried to keep my face blank, but it was hard. Wellesley was talking about people as if they were items on her shopping list. “So you use these people for your Household Helper referral business?”
“Yes.”
So much for her claim of having references on everyone who worked for her.
“You just hire these guys and, let me guess, you pay them in cash, right?” Abby asked with an accusing tone.
Wellesley stared right back and said, “They prefer cash and it simplifies bookkeeping.”
I bet it did. In fact, I bet Wellesley had whole sets of books that the IRS didn’t have a clue about, but if Jorge was illegal he wouldn’t dare turn Wellesley in. She didn’t have a motive to kill him. And during the interaction I’d seen between Jorge and Wellesley, he was angry at her, so why would she push him? Unless—
“Was he involved in your other business?” As I asked the question, I realized that Summer wasn’t in the room. I didn’t turn my head to do the full visual sweep of the room because Wellesley was focused on me and Abby and hadn’t realized Summer wasn’t there. Somehow I doubted she’d slipped out to go to the restroom. I didn’t want to be the one to clue Wellesley in on Summer’s disappearing act, so I forced myself to stay focused on Wellesley.
She laughed and relaxed back into the cushions of her chair. “Inside Look Tours? No.” She shook her head quickly and her curls quivered. “He could barely speak English. There’s no way he’d be able to lead a tour.”
“No,” I said. “I meant your other, other business. Your wedding business.” I could see her defenses going back up, as she prepared to deny any other business. “Don’t bother to get all huffy. You’ve already got two businesses operating. What would stop you from having a third? Especially if that business—facilitating marriages between illegal aliens and Americans—could bring in lots of cash that didn’t have to be reported to the IRS? You said yourself that it costs a lot of money to live here.” I ran my hand over the arm of the couch. “Leather furniture.” I looked over Wellesley’s shoulder to the kitchen with its pile of dirty dishes and junk mail. “Granite countertops. You drive a Land Rover and have a van for your tour business.”
“I don’t have to listen to this anymore. I’ve told you what I know about Jorge. Now leave.” Wellesley sprang up from the chair. “You’re desperate, you know that, don’t you? Your sister-in-law”—Wellesley flung out her arm just as Summer drifted back into the living room—“is in trouble and you’re hoping for a new suspect, but it’s
not going to be me.”
Wellesley marched to the door and pulled it open. “Jorge was a good worker, a hard worker, and dependable. He always showed up. He was much more valuable to me alive than dead.”
We trooped outside and I’d barely made it across the threshold before she closed the door firmly. She jerked it back open and said, “I’m sure you’ll understand that I won’t be leading a tour for you tomorrow. You’re on your own.” The door closed again and I heard the dead bolt slide into place.
“Too bad we paid in advance,” Abby said.
“Yeah. Looks like we won’t be getting a refund on tomorrow’s tour,” I said.
We climbed in Summer’s car, closed the doors, and sat there for a moment in silence. Finally, I said, “Well, I don’t know if that did any good. I need chocolate. How about you guys? Anyone want a Hershey’s Kiss?”
“Of course,” Abby said as she buckled the seat belt.
Summer clicked her seat belt, flicked on the headlights, and quickly navigated the curving streets to exit the complex. “Sure.”
In the backseat Abby rolled the foil around in her hand, her head tilted back on the headrest. “Summer, you sound just like Nadia—all perky. How can you be so upbeat? Wellesley did admit she knew Jorge, but she completely stonewalled on the marriage fraud thing.”
I tossed my wrapper back in my purse and pulled out another Hershey’s Kiss. “These are so addictive. They’re like potato chips. You can’t eat just one. But Wellesley did say a few interesting things. Like that Jorge could hardly speak English. You said he carried on conversations with you, right?”
Summer frowned as she worked her way through the thickening traffic. “Yeah, that was weird because Jorge spoke English very well. Not even really an accent and he never had to search for words.”
Abby sat up in the back. “And did you notice how she phrased that about when she met him? It sounded more like he sought her out instead of the other way around. I thought that was interesting.”
