A Secondhand Murder

by Lesley A. Diehl

  After he had left I let myself fall back against the baby-changing table, wondering why it was so damn difficult to get a straight answer from either Alex or Jerry. They were so different in so many ways, yet so alike when it came to acting sincere and avoiding the truth.

  I had found out something from Jerry, however. I now knew how easily a clever man could dress up like a woman in order to blend in. Dressed like that, any man could go unnoticed in a public toilet, or perhaps, a shop full of customers. A man could get away with murder dressed like that. They could also reenter said shop at a later date to cover their tracks, maybe steal a knife to replace the one that they had lost in the heat of the moment. How fortunate for them that I’d dropped one on the back room floor. Oh, it wouldn’t have been Jerry, of course, but someone else. I felt even more certain now that Valerie’s killer had access to the Sanders’ house. That meant both family and friends were suspect. Maybe not Dwight. Poor dead Dwight.

  “What took you so long? I was about to send in a mounted patrol.”

  “That’s not the kind of question you ask a lady,” I said, feigning offense. “No Jerry?”

  “Nope.”

  “I guess he chickened out then.” I looked around the crowded area but saw no sign of the “woman” who had accosted me in the restroom.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve seen Highway Patrol officers going in and out. If he wants to remain a free man, he should start picking better meeting places. Let’s go.” He gave the area one last look, then grabbed my hand.

  An hour and a half later, we pulled up in front of my house.

  “I’ll come in and take a peek around. To make certain no one’s here,” Alex said.

  “Like who? Dwight’s dead and Jerry’s not going to show his face here.” I reached for the car door handle. Alex put his hand on my shoulder.

  “We should talk.”

  “Oh?” About time. But being inches away from his full lips made me forget how important the truth was to me. Talk could wait. Gravity was pulling me in.

  There was an untimely tap on the car door.

  “Hey. I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” Madeleine’s perky face appeared in the window.

  Alex looked peeved. Whether that was because he really did want to talk or because he was about to communicate in another way, I couldn’t tell. My face must have shown relief because now I didn’t have to wrestle with my conscience. The furrows on his forehead deepened.

  I rolled down the window. “Hey there. No, we just pulled up and were considering dinner. Want to join us?”

  Alex slammed his palms on the steering wheel. “Oh, damn. I forgot. I have some paperwork to do. I’ll carry your bag in, and the two of you can catch up.”

  “Never mind the bag. I’ve got it.” I reached back and grabbed my duffle, then hopped out of the car. “Thanks for the lift. Sorry the weather wasn’t better.”

  “Maybe next time.” He saluted me and then shifted into drive.

  Madeleine and I watched the car zoom off, its back wheels spinning out on the loose gravel.

  “What did you do to him?” she said. “Any faster and he’d have ripped the tires clean off that car.”

  “Let’s go to the Burnt Biscuit, eat steak and get crazy with some cowboys. I need a little fun.”

  There was a bass tournament in town and the anglers seemed to have chased all the cattle jockeys back to the range. I like fishermen, but, when you want to have fun, there’s nothing more annoying than having to listen to fishing stories that grow longer and more absurd as the night wears on. We ate our steak and wandered home. Madeleine offered to spend the night, but I assured her that I was fine.

  “You’re not saying that because you think something would go wrong if I stayed here, are you?”

  I considered several possibilities: an unexpected hurricane, a cattle stampede through my neighborhood or a plane dropping out of the sky and landing on my roof. I couldn’t see how she could cause any of those. Well, maybe the stampede, so I decided not to chance it.

  “No, honey. I just want to be alone tonight.”

  Madeleine and I opened the store together Monday morning. It was after noon when the first customer appeared. The initial rush of murder-inflated interest had definitely subsided. Trade was down, and not for a lack of classy inventory. I had to get to the bottom of this murder or we’d be filing bankruptcy in a month.

  I hadn’t heard from Alex since he had left me to wrestle with my hormones. Madeleine insisted that I was too tough on him, too suspicious of his motives for being around me, too distrusting of one of the good guys. I wasn’t certain. I needed another opinion, so I called Grandy, who agreed with Madeleine’s appraisal of the situation. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I shoved their assessments to the back of my mind and considered other issues.

  Suspicions of the Sanders family and their circle of friends bothered me. Dwight’s death had made it easy for the authorities to wrap up the case, but I was still pondering the issue of motive. Since nothing was happening in the store, I made several phone calls to acquaintances in Connecticut. We talked about old money, old families, and those individuals who skirted the edges of the law. I had no contact number for Napolitani, but I thought I might be able to get in touch with him through his daughter, my soon-to-be-replacement, Jerry’s new fiancé.

  “Hi. This is Eve. You know, Eve Appel. Do you have a minute?” Friendly, casual, as if we knew each other better than we actually did.

  Her voice was bitter. “I know, and I’m not interested in speaking with you unless you tell me what you did with Jerry.”

  “I didn’t do anything with him. He did things with himself.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I was tempted to tell her he dressed like a woman on at least one occasion, maybe more, but I stopped myself.

  “Nothing. Could you tell me how to get in touch with your father?”

  “Why?”

  This conversation wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. “Never mind. Just tell him I’d like to talk with him.”

  “I’m not telling him a thing.” The line went dead.

  The conversation had gleaned more than I thought it would. Now I knew Jerry hadn’t been in touch with his fiancée and the soon-to-be mother of his child. Why not?

  Madeleine and I were about to close early when a black limousine pulled up in front of the store. Goodie. Patrons from the coast.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The chauffeur got out and walked around to open the back door. Madeleine and I stood transfixed in front of the window as Leon Sanders, Valerie’s husband, got out and walked into the shop.

  “Mr. Sanders. I’m sorry to hear about your son.”

  The expression of doubt and anger on his face told me didn’t believe me for a minute and even if he did, he couldn’t have cared less about my condolences.

  “Let’s dispense with the pleasantries.” He stopped mid-sentence, as if he had realized that there was nothing pleasurable about a death in the family, condolences or not. He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “I’d like to talk to your grandmother.”

  “Grandy?”

  “Yes, I believe that’s the one.”

  “About what?”

  “That’s between her and me.”

  I wasn’t going to let this man bully me. “Mr. Sanders, you’re in my shop. On my turf. You’re asking me to do you a favor. One I’m not certain that I approve of. I love my Grandy, and I’ll do anything to protect her, especially from you and Valerie’s family. So, whether you like it or not, you’ll have to go through me if you want to speak to her.”

  Chapter 21

  Leon Sanders cast his gaze up at the ceiling, as if it held the answers to our predicament. Finally his eyes met mine. He heaved a deep sigh then sighed again, as if he needed more air than my tiny shop provided.

  “Must I tell you why I want to see your grandmother?”

  “Yes, I insist.”

  He
veered away from me, as if to leave. Then he doubled back again, a look of stubborn determination on his features.

  “The locket. You know what I’m talking about?”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything about Franklin’s gift to Grandy.

  “Valerie loved that locket. Now it’s the only thing that I have left from her family.”

  “Valerie loved the idea of the locket. Grandy’s had it since long before Valerie was born. Besides, I find it very difficult to believe that the locket is the only remaining jewelry from the Wartons. Both your families were neck deep in jewels. There are hundreds of pictures in the society columns to attest to that.”

  “They’re gone. All gone.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Uh, no. Apparently, Valerie was in such despair about our financial state that she pawned them.”

  “You found the pawn tickets, I gather.”

  “No. I hired PI Montgomery to follow her and he quickly learned what she was doing. He told me shortly before her death.”

  “The entire family knew of this? That she was pawning your family heirlooms?”

  He nodded.

  Could that somehow have been a motive for Dwight to kill her? It didn’t make sense to me.

  “Did you confront her?”

  “No. I was going to, but before we could talk, someone killed her.”

  “Someone? So you don’t think it was Dwight?”

  Mr. Sanders’ face reddened. “Of course not.”

  “Fine. I don’t think Dwight did it either, but the authorities seem happy to wrap up the case by saying that Dwight was murdered by a drug deal gone wrong.”

  “Dwight wasn’t involved with drugs.”

  Now that was the song sung by all clueless parents.

  “I don’t see what this has to do with the locket and Grandy unless you think she’ll take pity on a jewel-less family. Maybe that’s a tragedy in West Palm, but it’s not where we come from.”

  Sanders’ face told me he was weighing his options. Option “A” had been the sympathy plea, but that didn’t seem to be working. So this time around, he opted for plan “B.” “I’ll find the money to pay for it.”

  I laughed hard enough to bring tears to my eyes. He certainly didn’t know my Grandy. Money couldn’t sway her.

  “Sure.” I wiped my eyes on my shirtsleeve. “I’d be happy to hook you up with Grandy.” This story seemed typical and arrogant. Both Valerie’s family and the Sanders clan had underestimated what the locket meant to Grandy. It wasn’t about the money. It was about love.

  I thought Grandy needed some humor in her life right now, given the miserable weather, so I flipped open my cell and left Sanders standing in the front of the store while I wandered out back. To my surprise, I didn’t get the chuckle I had expected, but she did me one better. A loud toot like an auditory sneer came through the phone. “Well, we sure can’t fish in this weather. We’ll head on up there.”

  “Hold on a minute.” I turned to Sanders. “She’ll be here in three hours.”

  “Make it two,” he said. “We can meet at my house.”

  Imperious man. He wanted a favor yet thought he could dictate the terms.

  “Fine. Give me directions,” said Grandy, who was still waiting on the line.

  I whispered into the cell. “This guy makes me nervous. Are you sure you want to meet on his turf?”

  “I’ll have Max with me. Why don’t you call Alex?”

  Because I don’t trust Alex either, I thought. I didn’t say it out loud because Grandy would have just given me the lecture on good guys and bad guys again.

  Several hours later, I pulled into the Sanders’ drive and parked my rental alongside several other cars—a Beemer convertible, a Lexus, and two Mercedes. I hadn’t had time to shop for another car, and my rented Ford Focus looked like Cinderella’s pumpkin a day after the ball. Grandy and Max’s car wasn’t there yet. Should I wait for them before going into the house? Another vehicle pulled into the drive, one that was familiar to me. It was the black SUV owned by Mr. Napolitani.

  The driver’s-side window went down and the dark, handsome head of Nappi Napolitani appeared, gleaming smile and all.

  “I have something I’d like to give to you.” He handed me a large manila envelope.

  I opened it and pulled out Jerry’s ownership papers.

  “So you were the one responsible for nabbing these from under my pillow. Why? I thought we were on the same side.”

  “Of course we are, but I was worried that your hiding place wasn’t as secure as the one that I could provide, so I was just holding onto them for you.”

  “Why not give them to Jerry?”

  Napolitani’s face darkened. “He hasn’t contacted me or my daughter. I’m looking for him.”

  “You know the police are, too.”

  He waved a dismissive, manicured hand at me. “Police. Ha.”

  “Sanders told them he was the one who kidnapped me.”

  Napolitani gave a derisive snort. “You show these papers to Sanders and tell him that you got them from me. He’d like to get them back, and we might even agree to that if he changes his story about Jerry. Right?”

  “No, we wouldn’t agree to that. Jerry sold my divorce settlement, tiny as it was, by turning that property over to Sanders.”

  “We’ll work out something.” The window rolled up. Napolitani drove off.

  I stood there, dumbfounded, holding the envelope. I didn’t know much about what was going on with Napolitani, Jerry, or the Sanders family so I hoped that Grandy and Max would be better than I was at dealing with the rich and the criminally inclined.

  Alex’s car pulled into the drive. Hey, hey, the gang’s all here. I hadn’t called him. Wonder who did. Or was he just getting accustomed to popping in for visits every now and then? “You,” I said.

  “Me. I guess you’re not too happy to see me.”

  That wasn’t true. I loved seeing those eyes, imagining the feel of his sun-streaked hair against my fingers and dreaming of his hands on my shoulders, his lips on mine and … But, no! I wasn’t happy about seeing him here, despite my daydreams of us being together, in bed. The real-life Alex had too many secrets.

  I ignored his comment and rang the bell. To my surprise, Cory Burnside answered. Beyond her, in the large living room, I could see Randolph, Leon, his daughter Constance, and her husband Eduardo. That other woman, Marie Someone—the one I saw at the funeral, who looked like Eduardo’s female clone—was also there. I walked past Cory, my heels making a click-clacking noise on the marble floor.

  “The wealthy plead their case. Great title for a reality show.” I threw my purse on the couch, fell into the leather chair next to it and crossed my legs.

  Leon raised his arm and looked at his Rolex. “Your grandmother’s late.”

  “I think your watch is fast. I set mine by the short wave radio in my house. It’s accurate. Maybe you need to have your battery checked.” I tapped my Timex with the black faux-leather band.

  He made a sound that sounded much like a “hurrumph.” Good. I had provoked him.

  The bell rang again. This time Randolph went to the door. He showed Max and Grandy in. I hugged them both and whispered in Grandy’s ear, “Careful of these vultures.” She patted my cheek with a look that said she’d handled worse.

  Leon didn’t even ask them to sit down before he started making demands. “I want you to return the locket you took from Valerie’s family.”

  Randolph cleared his throat. “I don’t think that’s the best approach to use, old man. Let’s everyone sit and we’ll discuss this.” He gestured to the couch. Grandy and Max sat. Randolph introduced everyone, including himself, Cory and Stella, the clone, who turned out to be someone’s personal secretary.

  “Why are you here, Randolph?” I asked.

  “Leon is upset, given the recent events—you know, the murder of both his wife and son. He asked me to speak for him.”

  “You should h
ave spoken first then, before he could piss everyone off.”

  Randolph smiled and nodded. “I’m sure Leon is sorry he acted so …”

  “Imperious?” I said. “Demanding? So much like an ass?”

  Randolph chose to ignore my words. “The jewels from the Warton family and from the Sanders family are gone, pawned by Valerie in a desperate attempt to raise money. She was, of course, trying to repair the damage inflicted by your husband.” He shot me a look of contempt. And here I had thought that Randolph liked me.

  “Ex-husband. And he was cleared of all charges,” Grandy said.

  “Whatever.” Randolph waved away her remark in that oh so irritating manner that the wealthy often have. “Because Valerie loved that locket so ….” Grandy and I both snorted. “Because her daughter would like something to remind her of her mother, we’re asking you to consider returning it. For a price, of course.”

  I got out of my chair and wandered over to the bar, lifting the scotch bottle in order to examine it. Leon came over and pulled it out of my hand. He pointedly set it down beyond my reach.

  “Why don’t you take the money that Valerie got from pawning the jewels and just buy them back?” asked Grandy.

  There was silence in the room. Randolph spoke. “May I tell them, Leon?” Leon nodded. “They don’t have the money. It’s gone.”

  “Gone? Gone where?” asked Max.

  Leon shrugged. “We have no idea.”

  I looked around the room. Since I didn’t believe that Dwight had killed his stepmother, I figured that someone in this room was probably guilty of her murder and might have had a hand in Dwight’s as well. The money from the jewelry? From what Valerie had said to me and Cory, it would seem that she had invested it somehow, somewhere.

  “Any ideas, Cory?” I asked.

  “How should I know? I wasn’t with her when she went to those awful places to sell the stuff.”

  “How about you, Alex? You were following her. Did she ever go to a bank or an investment firm?”

  “No.” If he felt like I was attacking him, he didn’t show it. He remained his cool self, leaning nonchalantly against the doorjamb by the pool area. “She kept her usual schedule in the afternoon, either going to the stables, to Sabal City, or out to lunch with Cory and her other friends.”