by Laina Turner
“How can you be so calm?” Berklie asked Sophie exactly what I was thinking. “I’m about to freak out here. Damn, I wish the wine had been delivered. I could use a drink.”
“I’ll freak out later over a glass of wine, or three, but right now we need to take care of what’s right in front of us. Who do you think did this?”
“I have no idea. What’s taking the police so long?” I asked, resisting the urge to pace. The adrenaline was running through me, and I felt I needed to do something.
“I think I hear them,” Berklie said, and we paused to listen. Sure enough, there were sirens wailing in the distance. It would only be a few minutes before they arrived. “Good thing I was with you guys, or I would probably be the main suspect,” Berklie said in a tone that I could tell meant she was half serious and half joking.
I looked at her questioningly, not quite following her line of reasoning.
“What? She was screwing my husband. Of course I would be the first they would suspect. Don’t you watch TV? They will probably think I’m a woman scorned rather a woman who said good riddance you can have him.
As Berklie was talking, the police ran in. I pointed to Sylvia’s lifeless body, as if they really needed my help, seeing that she was the only one lying there in a pool of blood.
“Who was the one who called 911?” the first policeman through the door said.
“I did, Clive,” I said, wrapping my arms around my waist in an effort to get warm. I had goosebumps that were more from the shock of finding a dead body than the actual temperature of the room.
I’d gone to high school with Clive back in the day and even now twenty years later had a hard time with his being so officious. Once he had pulled me over for speeding, and I think had I not laughed at him during his lecture about the perils of speeding he wouldn’t have written me a ticket. I still thought of him as captain of the football team. The guy who looked older than his years, had a fake ID, and could also be talked into buying Berklie and me wine coolers. Just a little bit heavier now, but the same sandy- haired guy with a big heart. I didn’t recognize his partner, though. Not that it was a surprise, since I didn’t have a lot of cause to interact with the police.
“What happened?” Clive asked, pulling out a notebook and pen, poised to take notes.
“I don’t know. She’s dead. We found her like this.”
“How long ago?”
“I don’t know. Maybe about fifteen minutes?” I looked questioningly at Berklie and Sophie for them to confirm on the time.
“Yeah, that’s about right,” Sophie said.
“Clive, this one definitely isn’t from natural causes,” John, one of the ambulance guys, said. I only knew his name because of the nametag on his chest.
“How was she killed?” I asked, surprising even myself at my morbid sense of curiosity. The whole situation was surreal. I couldn’t believe this was happening in our new shop. My dream. Our dream.
John, the ambulance guy, ignored me and kept speaking to Clive. “The medical examiner will have to do his thing, but it looks to me like someone took a huge swipe at the back of her head with that hardcover book over there.” John pointed to a hardbound copy of Gone With the Wind.
I cringed. That was a collector’s item and the only thing of real value in here. We had been lucky to get it.
“George, make sure that book get’s bagged,” Clive said to the younger policeman with him. “And anything else around there. Ladies, keep this information to yourselves, and now I am going to have to ask you to leave. This is officially a crime scene.”
I stepped forward. “Clive, this may be bad timing to ask, but how long do you think this is going to take? We’re supposed to open in two days.”
“Trixie,” Berklie exclaimed. “We can’t worry about that now!”
“I’m not trying to be insensitive, but we have a lot riding on this.”
“No way you gals will be able to open in two days. Maybe by the end of the week. I’ll let you know. Now, please, I need you to leave so I can do my job. And please try to keep this to yourselves. I don’t need a lot of gossiping around town.”
I rolled my eyes. “Clive, I assure you we can keep things to ourselves.”
*****
We walked out of the shop and were standing by our cars in the parking lot, shaken up because of what had just happened.
“Who could have done this?” Berklie said. “There was no love lost between me and Sylvia, but I hate to see her dead. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and I certainly didn’t kill her.”
“We know that,” Sophie said, “and I’m sure Clive does, too. He’s known you for years. He knows you’re not capable of killing anyone.”
“Do you think Tom knows?” I asked.
“Why would he? This just happened. News travels fast around here but not that fast. Should I tell him?” Berklie asked, pulling out her phone.
Tom was Berklie’s ex-husband. She had caught him having an affair with Sylvia almost a year ago and had immediately filed for divorce. She’d said their marriage had been heading there for a while, and the affair was just the last straw. The divorce was in the finalization stages and Berklie was using a major portion of her settlement money to fund her share of Read/Wine, the coffee-book shop and wine bar we were opening. Or rather were planning on opening until this unfortunate incident. Now, who knew when it would happen?
“Someone’s got to tell him. It might as well be you. Though Clive said no gossiping,” Sophie said. Sophie was the newcomer of our group, only moving to town a few years ago. She had moved here with a boyfriend who soon became an ex about a year after getting here. But Sophie had liked living here and liked us, of course, because by then we were fast friends. She had also had a great job at a marketing and design firm. She was a graphic designer, but she had recently been laid off and decided to use some money her grandmother had left her to be a partner in Read/Wine.
“I think even Clive would approve Berklie telling Tom,” I said.
“Lucky me,” Berklie said. She dialed and put the phone to her ear. “Tom, it’s me. Oh, stop, I’m not calling to harass you about the settlement, cheap ass. I wanted to see what you were doing and if you were busy. I want to stop by in a couple minutes and tell you something.” She paused. “I’ll tell you when I get there. I promise it’s not about the settlement.”
She hung up and turned to us. “God he drives me crazy. I don’t see how I stayed married to that man for so long. After all I did for him, and he wants to screw me out of any of the money from the business that I helped him build. I’m going to go over there and tell him about Sylvia in person. I don’t like him very much these days, but I kind of feel sorry for him. I’m sure he cares about Sylvia. I mean, he left me for her, so I would hope he cares,” she said dryly.
“Good luck with that,” I said. “Call me later.”
What a day, I thought as I drove away. And it was still technically morning. Things like this hadn’t happened in my career as a librarian, which I had been until very recently. Berklie had come to me a short time ago and said she knew I had always wanted to open a bookstore with a coffee shop and wine bar in it. It had been my dream. We’d both grown up here and had been friends since grade school. Berklie had been the secretary at her ex-husband Tom’s business. He’d sold insurance for the last fifteen years. It had been their joint business, so when they got divorced she also lost her job. While she wasn’t sad to lose the job—or the husband on most days—it did leave her with a lot of free time. She talked me into this crazy idea of us going in together to open my dream bookstore/wine bar.
At the time I thought there wasn’t a chance I would be able to get my hands on the kind of money I would need to invest in something like Read/Wine. I didn’t have a divorce settlement like her. My ex-husband, while a good father, wasn’t exactly the best provider or the most fiscally responsible man. But in an unexpected twist of life circumstances, a check arrived from my mother for fifty thousand dollars.
It had been part of a college fund my father had started for me and then forgot about. Thank goodness for his absentmindedness. Then, around the same time Berklie and I decided to go into business together, Sophie lost her job, and we decided to make it a three-way partnership.
I was so lucky to have such an opportunity. I just hoped Clive could get to the bottom of this murder. Not only for poor Sylvia and her family’s sake, but also so Berklie, Sophie, and I could finally start on our dream.
Chapter 2
So what does this mean for the opening of Read/Wine?” Jack asked me.
I had stopped by his office to see if he was available for dinner. I had been at loose ends all day with the events of this morning throwing off my schedule. Lucky for me he had just been heading out, so we were now sitting at a café a few doors down from his office. I was glad because I wasn’t ready to go home for the night. The events of the day had rattled me more than I wanted to admit.
“It means a delay for sure,” I replied, dejected. “Clive said it would be the end of the week at the earliest. I guess all we can do it wait. I can’t rush the police.”
“I’m sorry, Trixie,” Jack said covering my hand with his. He was really a nice guy.
After my divorce and then dating my fair share of idiots, it was nice to have a good guy, with a good job, who enjoyed spending time with me. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Not unless you can hurry the police along.” I smiled. “I’m more worried that once we do open for business people will be afraid to come in.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ll bet people will be more inclined to come in to see the scene of a murder than they would be to stay away. Trust me, you will be busy those first few days, but you may not make much. It will be their curiosity that will draw them in. The positive is you’ll still get exposure and the chance to sell them something.”
“I didn’t think about it that way. Maybe we should charge a cover?” I said, teasing. After taking a bite of my chicken salad on a croissant, I added, “Then at least we would have some revenue coming in. I think that’s been the scariest part of this whole venture.”
“What?”
“That we do all this—the time, the effort, the money—and then no one comes in and buys anything.”
“That’s the fear of every business owner. What will happen if no one wants what I have to offer goes through their heads. Trust me, it went through mine when I opened this office. You have to focus on the positive. Thinking about the negative will just bring you down, and that won’t make the situation any better.”
“The voice of reason. I love it.” We exchanged a smile.
“Just giving you my opinion from experience.”
“I promise I will try to stay positive. It’s just hard. Especially now.”
“It will work out, you’ll see.”
I took a few more bites of my sandwich and a drink of my iced tea. “So, can you tell me now why Sylvia was in your office?” The girls and I had seen Sylvia leaving Jack’s office this morning before heading over to our shop—and obviously before we found her murdered.
“No. I told you she wasn’t there to see me, and even if she had been…”
“You couldn’t tell me. I know.” I shrugged. “Hey it was worth a shot.”
*****
“That was a horrible experience,” said Berklie.
“Good timing.” She had just called me on my cell. “I just left Jack, we had dinner together.”
“He’s not spending the night?” Berklie asked.
“No. I just want a long hot bath and some wine. I’m not in the mood for company.”
“One of the advantages of living alone. There are just times when you don’t want people around.”
“Very true. How did things go with Tom? I kind of expected you to call me earlier. I know that had to be a very awkward position you were in. It’s not every day an ex-wife gets to tell her ex-husband that his lover is dead. I’m sorry you had to deal with that. You’re a good woman, Berklie. Better than I. I’m not sure I could have done that. Dare I ask how he took it?”
“Not well. You know, I really think he loved her as much as I think he’s capable of loving anyone. It’s hard for me to admit and I hate even saying it, but he was upset, and I’ve known that man long enough to know when he’s faking it. He wasn’t faking it in his office. Our lives used to be so boring. Five years ago I couldn’t have fathomed all this.”
I heard Berklie inhale. “Are you smoking? Berklie, you said you had quit.”
“I did, but I think on a day like today I deserve one cigarette.”
“As long as it’s just one.”
“I promise. One cigarette and a few glasses of wine, and all this won’t seem so bad.”
“I second that on the few glasses of wine.”
“Trix? Who do you think killed Sylvia? I mean, she wasn’t my favorite person, but I just can’t understand killing someone.”
“I have no idea, Berklie. I didn’t know her all that well.”
“What did Jack think?”
“He was shocked of course, but he didn’t know her all that well either.”
“Did he mention to you why she was in his office?”
“No. He gave me that same lawyer line: he wasn’t the one who saw her and even if he had he wouldn’t tell us.”
“I figured he said that, but let’s face it, she was alive then. She’s not now. Things are different.”
“That’s kind of what I thought, which is why I asked him.”
“Maybe we could get his partner to tell us?”
“How do you propose to do that? Besides, I wouldn’t want to make Jack mad by going behind his back.”
“Bill has asked me out for drinks a couple times. Maybe I could have one, see what I could find out?”
“Maybe. I just don’t know if we should interfere?”
“Interfere with what? We’re just trying to help.”
“True.” I wasn’t sure what we could do and really didn’t want to upset Jack, but Berklie did have a point. Maybe there was a clue in the reason she was in the office. “I guess it couldn’t hurt. Just don’t lead the poor guy on.”
Chapter 3
Can you believe they questioned me for three hours?” Berklie was sitting down with Sophie and me for the first time since yesterday morning when we had found Sylvia’s body. It seemed like forever. “Three freakin’ hours!”
“Well, you said it yourself that you would be a suspect,” I said.
“I know, but I was mostly kidding. I thought they would ask me a few questions and then send me on my merry way. C’mon! Who would think for a minute I could kill someone? Especially Clive thinking that? We went to high school together, for godsake. More wine, please.”
I poured her another glass and pushed the cheese her way. She had told us she hadn’t eaten all day because she’d been so upset and stressed over the police interrogation, and I didn’t want her getting too sloshed. “What were they asking you?”
“Well, many of the usual questions, you know, like where were you at the time of death? Which they said was approximately nine a.m., and we were in Jack’s office so that was an easy one. But then they started prying into my divorce and how I found out about Sylvia sleeping with my husband and all that drama. It wasn’t something I wanted to have dredged up again. It was like they thought I might have a hit man or something. As if I would have any idea how to get one of those.”
“You poor thing,” I said soothingly. I couldn’t imagine being in that position.
“They weren’t even nice about it. I’m the one who was cheated on and lied to and I had to walk them through the events,” Berklie said with a huff.
“They were only doing their job, Berklie. You shouldn’t take it personally,” said Sophie.
“I know. I guess it’s just not what I expected. Hell, the last twenty-four hours hasn’t been anything I’ve experienced before. It’s all so overwhelming. I did get a little info
rmation I didn’t know before about Sylvia.”
“Really?” I asked. “How did you manage that?”
“That new deputy let it slip. Did you know she was from California?”
“No. I mean I knew she was from somewhere, she’s only been here for a couple years, but for some reason I thought she was from the east coast,” I said.
“Me, too. In fact, Tom even thought she was from Pennsylvania. He said that was what she told him but didn’t give him many details about her family. He said it was something she didn’t like to talk about.”
“That’s interesting. Wonder why?” Sophie asked. “Hey, Trix, isn’t Jack from California?”
“Yeah, somewhere in Southern California by San Diego. I can’t remember the name of the town.”
“I wonder if he knew Sylvia?” Berklie asked.
“California’s a big state. Besides, he never mentioned it,” I said. “So, they think her being from California is important?”
“I don’t know. As soon as the deputy let it slip Clive got all bent out of shape, and the kid clammed up. I just hope they’re done with me. Let’s talk about something else. I just want to get my mind off things.”
“So, how did it go with Andrew last night?” I asked Sophie, changing the subject at Berklie’s request. Andrew was her on-again, off-again boyfriend. Most recently he had been off due to his wandering eye and inability to understand what commitment meant, but he had begged Sophie for another chance and she had caved. She attributed it to the fact that he had a rock hard chest and was good in bed.
“I think I’ve decided he’s not worth it. He says all the right things, but he doesn’t do the right things. He thinks his smooth talking will get him out of hot water, and he can do whatever he wants. I think half the time he believes his own lies. I’m not going to fall for it or tolerate it. Anymore, that is. I’ve been played a fool long enough. Time to move on.”
“Did you tell him that?” Berklie asked.
“Yep. He was shocked, which even further cemented the fact I was doing the right thing. He’s so egotistical that he can’t believe there’s anyone who wouldn’t want him.”
