Lilac Avenue

by Pamela Grandstaff

  Maggie put on the sweater, which did look great on her.

  “Why don’t you have any luggage?” Claire asked her.

  “I never go anywhere,” Maggie said.

  “Maggie would rather hang out with the people she does know who irritate her than go somewhere new to be irritated in new ways by people she doesn’t know,” Hannah said.

  “There are plenty of places in West Virginia that are nicer than anywhere outside the state,” Maggie said. “The Cheat River, Canaan Valley, Blackwater Falls, the New River, Snowshoe, Lewisburg, the Greenbrier, Oglebey Park ...”

  “Maggie likes to be able to get there and back in one day,” Hannah said. “She likes to sleep in her own bed.”

  “You’re kidding me,” Claire said. “You never leave the state?”

  “People down south like to hug too much,” Maggie said. “Plus when they say ‘bless your heart’ what they really mean is ‘you are such an idiot that I pity you.’”

  “So why not go north?”

  “Yankees,” Hannah and Maggie said at the same time.

  “Y’all are so weird,” Claire said. “Bless your hearts.”

  When Hannah and Claire arrived at the Rose and Thorn, Claire could see through the front window that the bar was packed with wedding guests. Scooter Scoley and The Snufftuckers were playing “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and Patrick was handing out shots from behind the bar. Claire was about to follow Hannah inside when a tall, well-dressed man stepped out of the shadows and stopped her.

  “Claire Fitzpatrick?” he asked.

  The door slammed shut between Claire and Hannah, who did not seem to notice Claire had not followed her inside.

  The man was handsome, with movie star cheekbones, dark eyes, and hair. He showed Claire his identification: it was from the FBI.

  “James Randolph Brown; United States Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Claire read from the identification the man offered her.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening but I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Can I see your driver’s license?” she asked.

  He smiled, and when he did so, Claire could see that he was amused, not irritated or offended. He reacted more like every arrogant, handsome man she had ever known, someone who thinks all he has to do is wink and any woman would be happy to jump straight into the sack with him. Claire especially liked to give this type of man a hard time.

  As he took his driver’s license from his billfold, she blatantly looked him up and down, taking in his off-the-rack gray suit, white shirt with starched collar, and unremarkable blue-striped tie. He smelled good, but it was drugstore cologne. His shoes had been chosen more for comfort than fashion, and they needed a good polishing. All this ordinary was mitigated by the twinkle in his dark brown eyes and a smirky smile that advertised “flirtatious smart ass,” a character flaw for which Claire just happened to have a weakness.

  She made a production out of comparing his driver’s license photo to his actual face.

  “FBI, huh?” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  “From the tall, dark, and handsome division, I assume,” she said.

  “None other,” he said.

  “All right, Agent Brown, what could you possibly need to speak to me about?”

  “You can call me Jamie,” he said. “I hope you will.”

  “I won’t,” Claire said. “I think it’s better that we don’t become too familiar.”

  “I already know a lot about you,” he said. “You’ve led a very interesting life, working for a movie star.”

  “If you knew me at all,” Claire said, “you’d know that I don’t find invasions of privacy to be acceptable behavior.”

  “If you wanted privacy, you should’ve picked a different career,” he said.

  “That’s true,” Claire said. “You’ve got me there.”

  “I know a lot about you, but I don’t know what you like for breakfast. I make really good French toast. You ought to try it sometime.”

  There was the line crossed, the first salvo fired. He was very confident indeed if he wasn’t worried about Claire filing a harassment charge. Or maybe he was confident in the power of his position versus hers; Claire had known some cops who went that way. She didn’t find it attractive.

  “Very charming,” Claire said. “Lucky for me, I’m impervious to that sort of thing.”

  “I could show you my gun,” he said. “It’s very big.”

  Yep, it’s about power, she decided. He’s not afraid to be blatant because he thinks nothing can happen to him. He would make an excellent movie producer.

  “That’s neither creative nor original,” Claire said. “I hate to tell you this, but your game is tired.”

  “My dog loves me,” Agent Brown said.

  “I always hear the theme song from Twin Peaks in my head whenever I meet one of you guys,” Claire said. “Makes me crave cherry pie.”

  “You’ve had a lot of experience dealing with the Bureau?”

  “My former employer played an FBI agent hunting a serial killer in the movie ‘Cat and Mouse.’”

  “I saw that,” he said. “Not very accurate, I’m afraid.”

  “That’s what the retired fed who consulted on the film thought, as well,” Claire said. “I guess you know all about that.”

  “I know Tony. He said you were the nicest person he met the whole time he was in L.A. He said to tell you hello.”

  “I thought he was nice, too,” Claire said. “I felt sorry for how frustrated he got when they took whatever he said and turned it into such clichéd crap.”

  “It did do well at the box office,” Agent Brown said. “Tony bought a little hunting cabin and some acreage with his paycheck.”

  “Fortunately, ticket buyers don’t care as much about accuracy as they like being turned on and scared.”

  “Two of my favorite things, as well,” Agent Brown said. “Maybe we could explore that at a later time. Unfortunately, tonight we’re working on something less sexy, but very time-sensitive, and we need your help. Would you mind coming down to the city building, where we have an office set up?”

  “You must know my father was the chief of police in this town for thirty years,” Claire said. “So I’m not that impressed by your badge. If you want to talk to me, my attorney will have to be present.”

  “Sean Fitzpatrick,” he said. “He’s already there.”

  Claire was taken aback. She took out her phone and called Sean, only to have him confirm his presence in the city building.

  “Don’t worry,” Sean said. “You don’t have to cooperate if you don’t want to.”

  “How did you know Sean was my attorney?” she asked the agent.

  “This isn’t my first time in Rose Hill,” Agent Brown said.

  Claire and Agent Brown walked up Rose Hill Avenue to the city building. Inside, the hallways were dark; the only room lit up was the conference room, where Sean sat with another agent, a woman Agent Brown introduced as “Therese.” Therese wore no makeup and her hair was cropped in a no-nonsense short do. Claire was overcome with the urge to apply some mascara and lipstick to the woman, and to suggest some blond highlights, but she curbed it. Instead, she sat down next to Sean. He squeezed her hand under the table and she squeezed back.

  Agent Brown pulled his chair closer to the table, opened a file folder, and set it on the table between them.

  “You’ve had a busy week,” he said with an amused smile.

  “I didn’t realize I was under surveillance,” Claire said. “Why is that?”

  “It’s not you we’re interested in,” Agent Brown said. “At least not until today.”

  “Why today?” Claire asked.

  “You had a meeting with Anne Marie Rodefeffer in the Sacred Heart Church,” he said. “I’d like to know what you discussed.”

  Claire looked at Sean, who nodded for her to continue.

  “She was mad at me for bailing on her seminar,” Cla
ire said. “And she blamed me for the spa staff and guests leaving. We had an argument. Hold on. She’s not dead, is she?”

  “No,” Agent Brown said. “She’s not dead.”

  “Thank goodness,” Claire said. “You don’t want to be the last person who argued with someone before they get knocked off.”

  “Please tell me as much as you can remember about your conversation,” he said.

  Claire noticed no one was taking notes, so she assumed she was being recorded. She started at the beginning and told them as much as she could remember.

  “Ed Harrison was there,” Claire said. “He heard everything she said.”

  “We know,” Agent Brown said.

  He removed some papers from the file and handed it to Claire to read. It was a copy of the article Ed had written on Anne Marie’s ministry, the one that would be in the next day’s edition of the Rose Hill Sentinel. The one she helped him put together. Claire didn’t bother to ask how they had got hold of it because she knew they wouldn’t tell her.

  “Are you investigating Anne Marie?” Claire asked.

  “For the purposes of this meeting we’re primarily interested in Knox Rodefeffer,” Agent Brown said. “His ex-wife has been peripheral to that investigation, but considering the events of this past week, we’d like to find out if she had any involvement in the death of Mr. Rodefeffer’s aunt, or his ex-secretary.”

  “I don’t have any proof,” Claire said. “I wish I did.”

  The agent asked Claire more questions, and Claire told him about all her dealings with Knox and Anne Marie, from her visit a couple of years previously with Sloan to Anne Marie’s place on the West Coast, where they both received psychic readings; to April of the current year, when she had actually hit Knox in the face for putting her parents into a predatory balloon mortgage. She admitted she hid under the bed in Joy’s room at the Eldridge Inn and what she had heard. She told them about catching Jeremy and Courtenay together, and what Jeremy said about her death. When she was finished, she looked at Sean.

  “I hope they’re both truly alive and well,” she said. “Or I just moved to the top of the suspects’ list.”

  Sean shook his head as he smiled. He looked concerned, but he had let her go on and on without stopping her. Claire reflected that, seeing as how Sean was a corporate attorney, and not a criminal defense lawyer, she may have just made a grievous error in judgment.

  “We’d like for you to meet with Knox and Anne Marie,” the agent said, “and wear a wire.”

  “No,” Claire said. “No way.”

  “You don’t have to,” Sean said. ‘They can’t make you.”

  “You say you don’t want them to get away with anything,” Agent Brown said. “Here’s a way to make sure they don’t.”

  “But why would they even meet with me?” Claire said. “Knox hates me and Anne Marie knows whatever she says I’ll run straight to the press.”

  “We want you to tell Anne Marie that you’ve reconsidered what she said, and that you would be willing to recant if you can come to some understanding with her and her ex-husband.”

  “Isn’t that blackmail?” Claire said. “Is that even legal?”

  She looked at Sean, who looked uncomfortable, and a little sheepish.

  “You’re a lot of help,” she said.

  “I’m also a little drunk,” Sean said. “Look, if you don’t want to do it, please don’t.”

  “Time is of the essence,” Agent Brown said. “Once that story is out, we’ve lost our bargaining chip with Anne Marie.”

  Claire wanted desperately to talk to Ed.

  “I guess I can’t discuss this with anyone first,” she said.

  “We need you to make that call now,” Agent Brown said. “Wherever you meet, we’ll be nearby; we won’t let you come to any harm.”

  Claire wanted Anne Marie and Knox to get what was coming to them for the deaths of Mamie and Courtenay, plus all the other people they had swindled and abused over the years. She just didn’t want to have to do the dirty work. She could refuse, and no one would blame her, yet she would then have to tell Ed that story. Wouldn’t she rather be able to tell him how brave and awesome she was? Wouldn’t she rather be able to give him the scoop on how Knox and Anne Marie were finally caught? That might mitigate telling him about the tawdry, shallow meandering she had done over the past twenty years of her life.

  More than anything, she wished she could talk to her dad. He wouldn’t have allowed her to do anything dangerous, she was sure, but what if they had asked him to do it? What would her father have done, the father she used to have?

  “Okay,” she said, surprising herself. “What do you want me to do?”

  Chapter Eleven - Saturday

  Before he and Maggie left for the party at the Thorn, Scott called Sarah to let her know he was leaving town, and who would be in charge.

  “I know Purcell,” Sarah said. “He’s kind of a jackass.”

  “He’s not likely to let you push him around, is what you mean to say,” Scott said.

  “Not like you,” Sarah said.

  “No,” Scott said. “Not like me.”

  “I can’t believe she actually went through with it,” Sarah said. “You must be relieved.”

  “I’m very happy,” Scott said. “What’s going on with the investigation?”

  “The feds took over,” she said. “Agent Brown is going to keep me informed, but I’m out of it, officially.”

  “Jamie Brown?” Scott asked.

  “The very one,” she said. “He remembered me from last time.”

  “I remember him, too,” Scott said. “You better be careful, Sarah; that man has no conscience whatsoever.”

  “I’m touched you care so much,” Sarah said. “You should have called me to come to your bachelor party. We could’ve had fun.”

  “It wasn’t that kind of party,” Scott said. “And now I’m a married man.”

  “Means nothing to me,” Sarah said.

  “Then you and Agent Brown should get along famously,” Scott said. “Good luck, Sarah.”

  “Aren’t you going to keep in touch?”

  “Nope,” Scott said. “Rose Hill is now in Chief Purcell’s capable hands. If you need anything, you call him.”

  Scott hung up the phone and rubbed his forehead.

  “What’d she say?” Maggie asked. “I mean, between insulting you and hitting on you.”

  “Agent Jamie Brown is back in town and the Feds have got the case.”

  “It’s a good time to leave, then,” Maggie said.

  “I’ll give Chief Purcell a call in the morning,” Scott said. “Just to warn him about Jamie.”

  “And then no more,” Maggie said. “Promise me.”

  “I can promise I’ll try,” Scott said. “I’ll tell him to call me if I’m needed, but otherwise, I will not call.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking this might not be such a great idea,” Maggie said. “I don’t know what it’s like to have so much time with nothing to do and neither do you. We might drive each other insane.”

  “There is something we can do, and it’s something we haven’t done before,” Scott said.

  “What’s that, relax?”

  “No, silly woman, we haven’t consummated this marriage yet. We haven’t had any of that lackluster post-marital sex I was promised.”

  “There will be a lot less of it, I’m afraid,” Maggie said. “That’s what everyone says.”

  “Is that what you say?”

  “Hell, no,” Maggie said. “I say we set the curve for post-marital sex. I say we bring up the averages.”

  “I’ll be happy to oblige you,” Scott said. “You know what else they say.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A happy wife means a happy life.”

  Claire was standing at the falls overlook in Pine Mountain State Park; the precise place where Courtenay had fallen to her death. The wind was cold, having come past the falls, which roared in the
background. Other than the widely spaced footlights along the path from the lodge, the only light was from the moon, shining down between the tall pines. It seemed brighter than usual, and for that she was grateful.

  Claire stood well away from the stone wall over which Courtenay had been thrown. Her heart was pounding; in her ears she could hear the sound of her blood pumping. Even though she knew she was surrounded by hidden agents, she was shaking with fear.

  ‘I always hate the part in the movie when the heroine does something this stupid,’ she thought. ‘So why am I here?’

  She looked at her phone; they were fifteen minutes late. She heard someone coming along the path, and then a figure entered the moonlit clearing in which she stood. It was not Anne Marie or Knox, however. It was Jeremy.

  “Of course it would be you,” she said. “I should have figured they’d send a hit-man.”

  “I’m just here to take you to a different meeting place,” Jeremy said, raising his hands in the air. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Tell them the deal’s off,” Claire said. “I’m not stupid enough to go to a second location with the hired henchman.”

  “They’re not stupid, either,” Jeremy said. “They figure that newspaper’s editor is hidden here somewhere.”

  “He’s too ethical for this,” Claire said. “Plus this story is his big break and I’m about to blow it right out of the water. If the price is right, that is.”

  “What made you change your mind?” Jeremy said.

  “I just found out all the money I had invested was lost in a Ponzi scheme,” Claire said. “I’m unemployed now and I need the cash.”

  That was the cover story Claire had thought up, and she was impressed with her own creativity. She’d spent too much time living among actors, no doubt, but she felt she needed a back story in order to be believable.

  “You could always work for Anne Marie,” he said. “Joy quit today, so she needs someone to take charge. Come meet with her and we’ll discuss it.”

  “I could never work for her or Knox,” Claire said. “I might end up in a ravine with my neck broken.”