As a token gesture, I decided to call Bev as soon as I got in and set a date for shopping. She needed help, she kept telling me. There were entirely too many pairs of shoes out there for her to choose among, even considering that she wanted to match her dress, a shade of green that was perfect for her red-highlighted Porter hair.
As I pulled into my driveway, I saw that I had company waiting. June Chinn was sitting on my front steps, outfitted for warm weather with a bright yellow tank top, cut-off denim shorts, and her black hair tied back in a ponytail. She gave me a big smile and patted the concrete next to her, a reasonably clean patch. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw that she was eating packaged cookies.
“I’ve been staking out your place,” she said.
“I hope the journey wasn’t too rough on you,” I teased. My petite next-door neighbor and I called each other Eichler cousins since my house was pale blue with dark blue trim, hers two shades of green and the mirror image of mine in layout.
I sat next to her, my stomach churning as I watched her chain-eat flat round vanilla cookies with a “crème” filling made of who knew what. I opened my mouth to invite her in for my ginger cookies, but from her strained expression I realized she wouldn’t know the difference right now, and more important, she needed to be in control of this little visit.
“Skip and Maddie came by to pick up her swimsuit,” she said. “Skip was going to take her to the pool at his club. I didn’t think she liked swimming that much?”
“She doesn’t, not since she discovered computers. But something’s up. She told me she wished she had a pool in her yard.”
“Hmm,” June said. “Didn’t you say that she and Taylor are on the outs this summer?”
“She hasn’t said so specifically, but it seems that way, yes.”
“Is there, by any chance, another girl in the group of friends around here who has a swimming pool?”
It took only a minute to absorb what June was saying. “Henry told me that Taylor went to a pool party this past weekend. And then it became a slumber party as well.”
“Uh-huh, I’ve been there,” June said, with a nod of her head. “A new girl with more resources moves in and before you know it, your BFF goes off and leaves you hanging. Then you’re alone and your BFF feels guilty because you weren’t invited, but she can’t give up a party like that. Then the party turns into more parties, and on and on.”
“You really have been there.”
June laughed. “For me it was a pony.”
“The other girl had a pony?”
“She did. A golden pony, as I remember it. I’ll never forget Kimberley or the pony. She lived way on the other side of the tracks”—June stretched her short arm up and away from our spot on my steps—“and she offered certain girls rides and other girls not. Kim seemed to go for one member of a pair, like she was deliberately setting out to break up BFFs, though we didn’t call them that at the time.”
Something clicked in my brain. I’d suddenly remembered an important remark that Maddie had made right before the earthquake on Saturday. “Nobody likes me,” I said out loud.
“What?” June asked. “Everybody likes you.”
“Maddie said that the other day. Then the rattling and rolling started and it went out of my mind. It fits with what you’re saying.”
“Definitely,” June responded. “That’s how you feel when it happens. When your best friend hooks up with someone else, you feel like nobody likes you.”
“Poor Maddie,” I said, not intending the sentiment to come out, but June was the right person to hear it. She put her arm around my shoulder.
“The good news is that the situation takes care of itself eventually. My prediction: Taylor will come crawling back once she sees that the new girl is all about collecting trophies and Maddie is the real gem of a friend.”
“Thanks,” I squeaked, more impatient than ever for Maddie’s return.
I was impressed by June’s insight, but then, she was much closer to eleven years old than I was. I started to feel guilty that June might have solved one of my big problems, and I hadn’t done a thing for her except allow her to gorge herself on an inferior snack. I had to own up.
“I’ll bet you haven’t been boiling in the heat, staking out my house, to share your childhood traumas and help me with Maddie’s.”
June let out a big sigh, and waited for a noisy pickup to pass on the street. “I was hoping to talk to you about Skip and me,” she said, offering me a cookie.
I was afraid it would come to that. I didn’t know which was worse, being asked for romantic advice or having a bag of store-bought cookies waved under my nose. I could smell the chemicals.
“Thanks,” I said and took the cookie. “I’m really not a good one to ask for advice on matters like this. As you see, I can’t even figure out what’s going on with eleven-year-olds.”
“But you know Skip best, maybe even better than his mom does.”
“Skip isn’t that complicated,” I said. I heard how dumb that sounded almost immediately. Of course it was simple for me. I was his aunt; my only job was to root for him and provide nourishment now and then. “Can you explain what’s wrong?” I asked, trying to redeem myself.
June told me her side of the story, which matched Bev’s interpretation—that Skip criticized her for being a workaholic when he spent every bit as much time as she did at work.
“Do you think it’s just an excuse, the work thing?” she asked, wiggling her toes in her flip-flops and studying the motion as if it were a science project, and a simple one compared to her emotional struggle.
“I don’t know. I know his feelings for you seem genuine to me, and he’s been with you longer than anyone I can remember.” Lame, but the best I could do.
“Maybe we’ve been together too long? It seems like, just as things are going along super-great, he ups and picks a fight and we’re off again. It’s almost like he waits until nothing’s wrong, and then he makes something wrong. Do you know what I mean?”
“Well, I—”
“Wow, I see it, Gerry,” June interrupted, scooting over and turning to face me. “He gets scared when things are too good, and he has to do something to aggravate me so I’ll call it off. What do you think?”
“Well, I—” I started again.
“Especially with his mom’s wedding coming up. I’ll bet he thinks if everything is smooth with us, I’m going to push him into a wedding, too, and really I’m not in any more of a rush than he is. That’s it,” she said, exultant. “I’ll just make sure he knows that.” She stood and bent over slightly to hug me. With my height and her lack of it, the embrace worked perfectly. “Thank you so, so much, Gerry. I knew you could clear it up for me,” she said, and skipped off to her green Eichler in a trail of thank-yous.
I pulled a tissue from my purse and wrapped the rest of the so-called cookie in it, in preparation for tossing it in the garbage. “You’re welcome,” I called after her.
If only the other problems on my list would work themselves out the same way.
* * *
I thought it was about time I tried to reconnect with my granddaughter. I tried her cell and Skip’s, with no luck. Maybe cell phones were banned from the swimming pool area of Skip’s club. At least I could dispense with all the bad images that had crowded my mind. Before I’d heard Skip’s message and gotten eyewitness testimony from June, I’d envisioned a toxic bagel at Willie’s, an automobile accident, a mugging (not so far-fetched now that the town had chalked up a murder to start the summer).
Overgrowths of weeds among the strips of flowerbeds at the end of my walkway had been nagging at me and I walked over to get rid of them. Maybe next time I’d let my landscaping guy use some of the eco-friendly poison he was always touting.
I was distracted by the noise of an oncoming car—a van, in fact, with Video Jeff’s logo. Jeff exited one side of the van, Bebe the other. Jeff looked forlorn, probably torn between relief that his sister had been
released and panic that his girlfriend had been arrested. Bebe wore her usual frown and tense expression.
“Hey, Mrs. Porter,” he called as they walked toward me. Bebe waved, as if we were a great distance apart and her voice wouldn’t carry.
“How are you two?” I asked.
“We thought we should come in person,” Jeff said, with no assenting nod from Bebe, and giving me no clue as to what precipitated this unprecedented visit.
“Would you like to come in for a cold drink?”
“If you don’t mind.” Jeff again.
“Follow me,” I said, wondering if Bebe would ever say anything. It was possible that her last allocution to me, that she’d murdered Craig Palmer, had done her in.
We talked only about the weather—the hottest first week in June ever, a bad summer for water coming up, with rationing likely—until we were all seated in my atrium with chilled glasses of iced tea in hand.
“I sure made a mess of things, didn’t I?” Jeff asked.
I could think of a couple of things that might be messed up, from Bebe’s confession (definitely) to Catherine’s arrest (maybe). “What did you have to do with the mess, Jeff?” I asked.
“Look, I realize I have no right to ask you for anything, Mrs. Porter, but now Catherine’s been arrested.”
“I know that.”
“It changes things.”
“And I’m very sorry about that, but if you’re asking me to do something about it, I’m afraid—”
“I know where you’re coming from. The last time I asked you to help, I know you got into a little trouble. Bebe told me she had to tell the police that she confessed to you and that made you look bad with the cops.”
An interesting way to put it. “Well, it all worked out,” I said.
“I know my sister went off the deep end trying to protect me. I never expected that.”
“What did you think I’d do?” Bebe, at last, more mellow than I would have predicted.
I still wasn’t sure why the siblings had arrived on my doorstep, but I thought I might as well clear up some points for myself. “Jeff, did you say or do something that caused Bebe to believe you killed Craig?” I asked.
“Other than that the two of them were fighting over a woman who should have stayed in New York and left us all in peace?” Bebe asked.
Jeff scratched his head, thinking. Or trying to get his story straight? “I told her I was there and I hoped the police didn’t find out.”
I gulped. “You were where?”
“I went looking for Catherine. Our last date, you might call it, didn’t end well, and she wasn’t answering her phone. She has Caller ID, you know, so she was obviously mad at me. I went to the store to find her, and…”
“And?” I prompted.
“And I saw Craig, on the floor.”
“How did you get in?”
“That back door was propped open. It was really hot inside so I figured she was in there, finishing up, and needed some air. I called out to her but no one answered. I walked in, and all of a sudden, I saw him. Craig Palmer. I’d only seen him for a minute when he was on his way to meet you guys in Sadie’s that afternoon.”
“You saw us in Sadie’s? Were you following Catherine?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t say following exactly, but I knew he’d come into town and I was curious, you know, even to see what he looked like. Catherine had pointed him out in a picture she had of an office party. But I wanted to see him in the flesh.”
“Pssh,” Bebe uttered. Meaning what, I couldn’t say.
Jeff continued. “Palmer and a younger woman came around the corner by Seward’s coffee shop, which is right across the street from my store, as you know, so I got a pretty good look as he walked by and continued on to Sadie’s.” He shrugged his shoulders and looked sheepish. “And I might have watched him walk down the street.”
“And you recognized him when you went into SuperKrafts looking for Catherine later that evening?”
“Uh-huh. Even though he was on his stomach, I could tell the dead guy was him. That brown and gray hair. And who else would be wearing a black suit in June? He was sprawled out on the floor, this huge crate of pottery on top of him.” Jeff closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Did you call the police? Nine-one-one?” I knew the answer, but I wanted to make a point.
“No, I knew how it would look. My girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend is dead and I’m the only other one in the place. Or maybe not, you know? I wasn’t interested in hanging around to find out if it was an accident or…whatever. What if the killer was still there? Besides, there was no question that he was dead. Nine-one-one wasn’t going to be able to help him. Plus, I knew the cops would be making rounds all night because of the quake and they’d find him soon enough.”
Bebe had been watching my reaction. “Oh, no, Gerry,” she said. “You have that look, like all self-righteous. Are you going to tell Skip?”
Lately, Bebe seemed to have a never-ending number of ways to aggravate me. I tried to recall what her personality was like before the takeover (her term) by SuperKrafts. My assessment was: not that different; she’d always seemed to have a chip on her shoulder. I remembered her nasty divorce from Jake Mellon, a tax attorney who took his business to another state to get away from her, as well as other shop-related troubles with vendors and employees. Since I had no such worries, I cut her some slack and kept my composure. “What I’m going to do is tell Jeff to tell Skip,” I answered.
“Kinda the opposite of what you told me,” Bebe said. “You said not to tell the police.”
“Because I didn’t believe your story,” I said, miffed again that I had to explain myself when all I’d tried to do was protect her. “Jeff, on the other hand, has valuable information.”
“How can it help Catherine if I tell them I found Craig’s body?” Jeff asked.
“You can help the police pin down the timeline. You know what time you were able to get in. You say the door was propped open?”
“You sound like you don’t believe him,” Bebe said.
“What time was it, by the way?” I asked, choosing not to acknowledge Mama Bear. I was also distracted by the idea that security at SuperKrafts did not befit a major New York–based corporation. Not only had they purchased inferior cameras that were recalled, but no one noticed the back door was open?
“It wasn’t too late,” Jeff said. “Before sunset, not long after I closed up, maybe seven-thirty?”
One hour after the earthquake, which was consistent with the theory that the killer had taken advantage of the quake to cover the murder. Also, if he was telling the truth, Jeff’s alibi was still intact, that he’d been in his store at six thirty-two.
“That’s a big piece of information,” I said. “If you really want to help Catherine, that’s how you can do it—talk to the police.”
“I see what you mean,” Jeff said. “And knowing the door was propped open, that matters, too, so absolutely anyone in town or three towns over could have gotten in and killed him.”
“Including Catherine,” Bebe said.
One could never say that Bebe didn’t make herself clear.
I felt great relief when I heard the key turn in the lock on my front door, a few yards from where we sat in my atrium. Not only would I have my granddaughter back, but I would have gotten away without making a commitment to work on the Palmer case as if I were a cop, no matter whose friend or relative had been arrested for the crime.
* * *
In the next few minutes, there was a significant regrouping in my atrium as Maddie bounded in, Skip following. Bebe and Jeff beat a hasty retreat after a cursory greeting to Skip. I could believe they’d had a big enough dose of the LPPD to last a while. Skip stayed only long enough to explain that he simply wanted to drop Maddie off and had to rush next door to June’s “because she texted and said we had something important to talk about.”
I wondered what that could be?
I was happy t
o have Maddie to myself again but also eager to know how Skip had fared with her. Had the swimming session relaxed them both enough to have the open conversation I’d envisioned? Had Skip found it easier to deal with Maddie than with June, or was he stymied by women of all ages?
As I was debating whether to broach the tender subjects of Taylor and boys myself, Maddie came up with her own plan. “Can we do the chart now?” she asked. “The one with the earthquake alibis,” she added, responding to my confused look. Charts were not something I chose to think about on a regular basis.
I rummaged in my purse among the detritus of the day—receipts, wrappers, tissues, Fred Bates’s business card—to pull out the odds and ends of notes I’d made on the reported whereabouts of my little group of suspects. I felt a pang of guilt as I came across the piece of paper Jeanine had given me with the titles of her boyfriend’s books of poetry. I doubted I’d ever follow through and look them up, let alone read them. I’d have to come up with an excuse, but not right now. I picked out the alibi notes and gave them to Maddie to compile.
“You can probably put these together faster than I can,” I said.
“I can’t believe you did this by hand,” she said, shaking her head, causing a red curl to fall in front of her eyes. “You know, if you had a smartphone, you’d be able to type right into a notes app and then I could have just ported them and then…”—she looked at me and caught me rolling my eyes—“Never mind,” she said.
Maddie disappeared into her computer and came back to the atrium table about twenty minutes later. She placed one printed copy of a nicely laid-out chart in front of me and another in front of her seat. “I made an extra copy for Uncle Skip,” she said, while lowering her skinny body to the chair. She brushed back her curls and we were ready for a high-level meeting.
She allowed me a couple of minutes of silence to study the chart (sometimes the word itself caused my jaw to tighten). I observed first the headings for each column: NAME, LOCATION, WHAT HAPPENED, DIRECTION, and then read the entries:
Megan
KenTucky Inn
coffeemaker/ice bucket shook, glass broke
7 Madness in Miniature Page 16
