Domestic Affairs (Tiara Investigations Mystery)

by Lane Stone

  Domestic Affairs

  (A Tiara Investigations Mystery)

  by

  Lane Stone

  Copyright 2013 Lane Stone

  Dedicated to my husband, Larry Korb

  CHAPTER 1

  “If you run, I’ll chase you. If you stay, I’ll kill you, Leigh Reed.”

  Was he getting smart with me? In addition to not giving me a decent option, he said my name like it was a cuss word.

  The Atlanta Falcons must have scored a touchdown against the Washington Redskins because the fans in the Georgia Dome roared. That meant no one could hear me if I screamed. We were in a ladies room and he had me pinned against the line of sinks. The long fingers of his left hand were wrapped around my neck and with his right hand he hit the metal paper towel holder with his fist.

  “Mr. Sanders, we’re Tiara Investigations.” I imitated his smarty pants tone, when I said the name of our two year-old detective agency. “You cheated on your wife and we have proof. Now your life is going to be in the….” I pointed to one of the stalls.

  As Tara had so aptly phrased it, he’d been “testing his tube” on someone other than his wife. When he caught Victoria photographing him, he grabbed her arm and ran off. Tara and I chased them into the ladies room, but there was no sign of her. Come to think of it, where had Tara gone?

  The extra point kick was good and the crowd cheered again.

  Our client’s husband hit the stainless steel paper towel holder again for effect and I really wished he would quit doing that. The noise was earsplitting. Then there was the ever-growing, united with one purpose, federation of women waiting to get in, pounding on the door he’d blocked by propping the absent restroom attendant’s chair under the knob.

  “What’s it gonna be?” He heard the women too.

  Out went his fist again. This was getting downright rude.

  “I’m thinking.” I was thinking how miraculous the human body is. For instance, at that moment I was looking him dead in the eye but in my peripheral vision I could see a nicely manicured, dainty hand reach up between his legs. I knew Tara wouldn’t desert me in my hour of need. She was wearing her David Yurman ring, which I love. When she grabbed his crotch and then let herself fall to the ground, she pulled his family jewels down with her.

  He roared and fell forward toward me, in a faint. I thought about how proud and, okay, downright surprised our nemesis, Detective Kent, would be if he had seen us.

  “Thanks.” I let him slide to the floor then helped her up. My cell phone was ringing but I had better things to do than look for it.

  “Never fear when beauty queens are near.” Tara looked at the mirror behind me and tucked a misplaced strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Former beauty queens,” I corrected her. “Tara, I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but hon, maybe knocking him out wasn’t such a good idea.”

  “Oh, shit! You’re right, Leigh. We don’t know where he took Victoria.”

  “I’m in here! The last stall,” our partner called.

  “Come on out, sweetie, before he wakes up.” Tara was trying to turn the knob to the stall door. No luck.

  “He bent the hinges!”

  “Just slide out from underneath the door.” I saw she could clear that easily.

  “I’d really rather not.”

  Tara tapped the door with the tip of her fingernail. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

  “I’m wearing my new Stella McCartney slacks.” She reached one leg under the door but she didn’t need to. I remembered the outfit.

  “Hold on.” I ran into the next stall and grabbed all the toilet seat covers in the container and threw them under the partition to her. She caught on and emptied the receptacle in her stall too. Tara added to the stack. Then Victoria sat down and skied right out of there.

  Tara and I each grabbed a hand and pulled her up. I yanked the chair away from the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait! Where’s my phone? He knocked it out of my hand when it started ringing.” I searched the floor.

  “That was me calling. Here it is.” Vic spied it against the wall and brought it to me.

  We sprinted out past the ladies waiting on the other side of the barricaded door. They stared in disbelief and I had to think of something quick. “That man locked us in!” When Tara, Victoria and I are in danger the truth is not usually my fallback. But this time it was! Sometimes I amaze myself.

  ***

  “That’s very interesting, Ms. Reed, but for the purposes of your statement, can we stick to the death of Mr. Thomas Chestnut? And by the way, seeing you again is an unexpected, and pleasant surprise.” I’m forty-nine, very soon to be fifty, and this FBI field agent looked about half that. I’d given him my statement for the first murder Tiara Investigations solved about a year ago.

  “Please call me Leigh.” I didn’t expect my path to cross the FBI’s again either and that’s the gospel truth. We started our agency to offer women low-cost, women-friendly investigations into cheating spouses but last year we witnessed a murder and solved it in our own very special manner. And now here we were again. Damn, we’re good.

  I’ll begin my statement now, y’all.

  CHAPTER 2

  Statement by Leigh Reed. Every Monday and Friday, Julio, our personal trainer, tortures our lazy asses for a solid hour. We pay him good money to do so. Last Friday morning after he left, Tara, Victoria, and I were standing around my kitchen employing the sweet tea method of workout recovery. “We have a request for a different kind of case.”

  “I’m in.”

  It was just like Tara Brown to say that. I passed around carrot pineapple muffins. “I haven’t told you what’s weird about it.”

  “Let’s hear the facts and discuss it.” That was so Victoria Blair.

  “A Mr. Thomas Chestnut called. He wants us to follow his son-in-law. He has a bad feeling about this guy and wants to protect his daughter.” I drained my ice tea glass and waited for their opinions.

  Victoria broke off a bit of her muffin. “Protect his daughter? Does he think his son-in-law would physically hurt her?”

  “I think he meant break her heart.”

  “Why didn’t the daughter call us?” Tara stretched her calves and then her triceps.

  “She doesn’t know about his suspicions. Mr. Chestnut said he didn’t want to sour his relationship with the guy if it turns out his fears are unfounded.”

  “It must be nice to have a father that caring. I didn’t.”

  I knew about Tara’s parents and she was right. “I think we should take the case.”

  “He’s not the cheater, cheat-ee, or the cheated. I think he’s trying to get us to be busy-bodies,” Victoria said. “He should tell his daughter to call us. We have all the cases we want, anyway.”

  No one said anything. The three of us rarely disagreed. Victoria was right. With our success rate we keep very busy. Finally I spoke up. “He said a former client recommended us. And he said, ‘please.’”

  “I’m a sitting duck for a man who will say ‘please,’” Tara said.

  “It’s an amazing word.” Doesn’t Victoria’s sarcasm crack you up? It does me.

  “He wants to meet us for lunch today. Should we meet with him and then decide?”

  They both nodded in agreement with me, so I continued on. “Let’s meet someplace other than Cracker Barrel. If we decide against taking the case, I don’t want him knowing about it and showing up there.”

  Our office, so to speak, is a table at the Cracker Barrel on Lawrenceville-Suwannee Road and you can find us there two or three mornings a week.

  Victoria put
her plate in the sink. “How about Tex Mex Rex on Highway 20, near the Mall of Georgia?”

  I stacked the three napkins. I’d take them to the laundry room the next time I went upstairs. “Yum, I love Mexican food. I’ll text you the particulars.”

  They were headed out the door and Tara turned around. “Mr. Chestnut needs a code name.”

  “How about Pop Tart?” I suggested. This code name business was new to us and it was Victoria’s idea. That way we can talk about cases in public, plus it helps us keep them straight.

  ***

  At 11:45, we met up in the parking lot of Tex Mex Rex. I pulled my Toyota Highlander Hybrid in right behind Victoria’s Lexus SUV and we got out looking for Tara’s Hummer.

  “Yoo-hoo, I’m over here.” Tara was standing next to a white Porsche 911 Cabriolet convertible, so new it still had dealer plates.

  “Wow! When did you get this?” I was impressed.

  “Yesterday. I wanted to surprise you.”

  “You traded in the Hummer?” Victoria asked.

  “No, I’ll use it when we take the dogs. This is for when we have a need for speed.” We all have Standard Schnauzers that we use for protection. We don’t much care for guns. Tara reached in and pressed a button on the dash. The cover purred up and over the car, then clicked, and we headed to the overly purple restaurant entrance. “I’m a two-car family now, just like you, Leigh.”

  I have a Jeep that I drive when I have a need for mud. Actually that’s for my husband to drive when he’s home or between deployments.

  I pushed the door handles, brass dinosaurs wearing sombreros, and we got out of the moderate winds, low humidity, sixty-five degree pretty much perfect Atlanta day. Three corporate-type men were ahead of us, which gave Tara and me a minute to reapply lip gloss.

  “What’s Pop Tart’s real name again?” Victoria asked.

  “Thomas Chestnut, and he said he’d request a table in the back.”

  With a nod she headed to the hostess station.

  I holstered my gloss and smacked. “Tara, I like that shade of pink on you.”

  She sucked her cheeks in, then whooshed a puff of air. “Thanks. It’s a lip plumper and it better do more than look good. It stings like a son-of-a-….”

  The hostess pointed to the section where Pop Tart was waiting. I hadn’t walked more than ten steps when a familiar voice stopped me dead in my tracks. “I’m so embarrassed. I had no idea it was this big!” said the voice. That’s what people who have a drink that size, weekly, say.

  I made a quick right, then left. “Oh, no!” It couldn’t be. I looked over the row of booths. It was.

  The waiter put the three margarita glasses shaped like dinosaurs down in front of the three silver-haired ladies.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Victoria whispered over my shoulder.

  “Yep, my mother and two of her sisters.” We tiptoed off to meet our prospective client.

  His expensive gray wool suit looked fabulous with his hair, dark brown and graying at the temples. That’s as far as his GQ look went because his tie was askew and he was dozing.

  I stopped short and my fellow detectives bumped into me. “Good Lord. I thought only old people napped in public.”

  We untangled ourselves and regained our professionalism. He didn’t stir.

  Victoria was horrified. “Tell me that’s not going to be us when we turn fifty.”

  Tara hadn’t weighed in until then, “I don’t think he’s asleep.” She touched his arm and he slumped forward. His handsome forehead dove right into the salsa, so I grabbed his head and pulled him back. Victoria moved the bowl. I remember thinking we shouldn’t have done that.

  Did I know then it was murder? Nah, I’m not that good.

  “This kind of thing doesn’t happen in Cracker Barrel.” I rummaged through my handbag until I located my cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. I’m just sayin.’

  Victoria said she’d find the manager of the restaurant. I motioned for her to go a different route from the way we came in and she knew right away that I wanted her to avoid my mom and aunts. Tara knelt down, letting her handbag drop to the floor with a “what the hell does she have in there?” thud. Mr. Chestnut’s face was red. Still touching his sleeve, she bowed her head, closed her eyes and began a silent prayer. I prayed too, that she wasn’t leaving nor disturbing prints on that damn table.

  Victoria returned with Manager. I knew this because it was monogrammed in white onto his maroon shirt. It was obvious that Victoria had warned him about what he was about to see, but one look at that dead body and he was standin’ in the need of prayer himself.

  “Well, well, well. It’s the ladies of Tiara Investigations!” boomed another voice I could have done without. Tara and Victoria both groaned so I knew they’d recognized it too.

  “Hello, Detective Kent.” My volume was more than a few decibels lower than his. I looked at my watch. To get here so quickly he must have been at his desk in the North Precinct station, located on the road behind the Mall of Georgia. “Were you sitting by the phone, waiting for my call?”

  “Leigh,” he said and tilted his head. Did he really have to say my name that loud? “Tara,” again with the head thing. “Victoria. And a dead body. If you can’t ruin a guy’s day one way, you’ll ruin it another.”

  A word to the wise regarding Detective Jerome Kent. Lock up your daughters because he screws anything not nailed down. His wife hired us and then told him who we were. Right after that, we witnessed a murder but didn’t see a thing he could use as evidence. We ended up solving the case ourselves, but did we get any thanks? Noooo. I imagine him dreaming at night of closing down Tiara Investigations. He lusts after our license. I have to be on my guard around him because I’m afraid I’ll call him “string bean” out loud.

  This stroll down memory lane was called to a screeching halt when Detective Kent moved to take a look at the body. Over his shoulder I could see three silver heads leaning out of their booth, looking at me, eyes wide as the rims on their margarita glasses.

  Kent studied the man’s forehead. “He was hit on the head with what?”

  “That’s salsa,” Tara said.

  “I knew that!”

  “Un-huh.” Tara, Victoria and I said this in unison.

  “You found him like this?” Detective Kent asked.

  “No, we killed him.” I’m sorry, but he was begging for that. “Yes! We found him just like this, more or less.”

  “More or less?” Kent looked at Victoria because he thought he could count on her for a serious answer.

  “He’d been hitting the salsa pretty hard.” You mix an amazing intellect with a flair for sarcasm and what do you get? Victoria Blair. Lying was not her gift, but mockery and irony––oh, yeah. “We touched him and he fell over.”

  He rubbed his forehead, stopping short of his perfectly coiffed hair. “You’ve been here how long?”

  “Ten minutes, maybe fifteen,” Victoria answered him.

  “And, Leigh Reed, you haven’t solved the case yet?”

  I wasn’t in the mood. The ladies had heard him say my name and those nods to each other meant, “I told you it was her.”

  I put my hand on my hip. “Detective Kent, I’ve got troubles of my own that you’re not man enough to handle.” You can just imagine the look he gave me, but before he could retaliate the atmosphere changed.

  Detective Kent acknowledged with a nod the man who had joined our happy little group. “Ladies, this is Dr. Charles Asher, on loan from Homeland Security.” The newcomer was mid-forties, blonde and handsome enough to give you a hot flash if you care for that male model-ish type.

  “It’s Asher Charles. How long has the deceased been seated here?” He spoke pretty much the way you’d expect someone named Asher Charles to speak.

  “Maybe twenty minutes, but I checked on him during that time,” Manager answered.

  “And the blood on his forehead isn’t dry?”

  “Salsa.” Was it my imagination
or was Detective Kent a little too pleased to correct this guy? He looked at me. “Do you have a name?”

  Me on the inside: “Yeah, it’s Leigh.” Me on the outside: “Thomas Chestnut.”

  I looked at Manager. “Did you serve him?” I pointed to the iced tea and then the salsa and chips.

  “Those were already there.”

  “Who brought this food and drink?” When Victoria asked what, I thought, was a logical next question, I saw Detective Kent’s smirk.

  “Ub, ub.” Pretty boy Asher was trying to get into the conversation.

  “Why did you come back to check on him?” Tara was still kneeling beside the body.

  “Someone on the wait staff heard him mumbling to himself. And cussing. Honestly, I thought he’d had too much to drink.”

  “Did you hear what he was saying?” I asked.

  “Nothing that made sense. Sounded like ‘skiff’ and ‘damn skiff.’ Is it okay if I bring a screen over here to shield the other diners from…?”

  “Sure. Our people will be coming through the back to remove the body. Can you have someone direct them to us?” While Detective Kent spoke, he looked at the cameras mounted on the four corners of the dining room ceiling, tracking the viewing area of each.

  So, Detective Kent could be nice when he wanted to be. Problem was, he never wanted to be civil with Tiara Investigations.

  Happy with that answer and happier still to get away from the body, Manager left.

  I jerked my head up. Was it skiff or SCIF? At the time I didn’t believe anybody had seen my reaction.

  Charles pushed his way through us to the deceased. Leaning over Mr. Chestnut from the left, he said, “It’s botulism. All of this will have to be boxed up for testing, and this restaurant closed.”

  Tara gave Mr. Chestnut’s arm one last pat. “I think he was poisoned with Atropine, which is similar to Bella Dona.”

  I’d have to ask her later what made her think that.

  “I know what Atropine is,” Dr. Charles said. Or was it Dr. Asher? Whatever.

  Tara was still knelt down by Mr. Chestnut on his right, getting a final look at his face. She didn’t know Dr. Charles was leaning over the victim’s head from the other side, trying to get a better look at his forehead. When she stood up was when it happened. Their lips brushed. He did a double take. She pulled back. He leaned in. The rest of us were swiveling our heads like we were at Wimbledon. I saw a smidge of her lip gloss on his lower lip. Uh-oh.