by Lane Stone
Victoria put her tea glass down. “What was the disagreement about?”
“The way I understood it, Thomas felt resources should be spent on cyber security and the CDC manager thought physical security was more important. You know, cameras, background checks, guards. One day last month he put a powder on Thomas’ laptop keyboard.”
“Did it damage his computer?” Tara handed the baby back to Kelly.
“No, it burned his fingers. Turned out it was a bacterial agent. The guy said he was just trying to make a point. They worked out a deal. CDC fired him, and Thomas didn’t press charges. That kept it quiet. That prevented a scandal.”
The baby made some kind of gurgling noise and I looked up. She was awfully cute. “Do you know the name of the CDC employee?”
“No, sorry.”
“How did you meet Thomas?” I thought information on his background would help us learn about his associates.
“We met at a bridge tournament.” Bea rose from the sofa and went to look out the window to the front yard. “He was an elegant strategist. His play was artistic.” She turned back to me. “He was a gentleman, and his manners reminded me of my husband. He opened doors for me. Then there’s the fact of what a hit he was with the other women in the bridge group. I was pleased that he wanted to spend time with me. We enjoyed dinner dates and movies. We went to museums and we had long talks. Flattery and nostalgia can be a potent combination. ”
Tara took the baby’s sock off and kissed her foot “Had you two set a date?”
“I was having second thoughts. His son-in-law wanted us to sign a pre-nup. Thomas told Al he would do no such thing, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to marry into that family. I was going to call the wedding off.”
“Did Al know you two weren’t getting married?” I asked.
“No, I hadn’t even told Thomas.” She looked around the room and smiled. “He wanted what I have, but he has never done the work to get it.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I think he envied the closeness I have with my two children, or that I usually have with them.”
Tara was tickling Anniyah’s foot with the tiny sock. “I know he and Paul weren’t close, but how was his relationship with Paige?”
“Not good, but he was trying to make it better. I think she knew that and appreciated it.”
“Paul didn’t know Paige’s mother had passed away. Were they still married when she died?” Tara tried to put the sock back on Anniyah, but that made the baby laugh even more, so she gave up and handed it to Kelly.
“No, they were already divorced. That’s what I mean. He didn’t do the hard work, year after year, so he shouldn’t have expected the benefits.”
I was sitting next to her on the sofa and I swiveled to look at her. “Have the police caught your kidnapper?”
“No!”
“Any leads?” Victoria asked.
“They think I got lost and disoriented.” I don’t think Bea meant to put her glass down as hard as she did, but it went down with a clank.
Vic stood up. “You are one of the most clear-headed people I know! Did the police find anything in your car? Fingerprints? Anything?”
“No.”
“Did the hospital find anything in your system?” She looked at me for a long minute when I asked this. I leaned over and touched her hand.
“No, nothing.” She watched Kelly walk out of the room. “I have a vague memory of hearing goats. I wonder if I’m losing my mind. I can handle anything but that.”
Tara came over to us. “Victoria’s husband works there. He can look at your records if you’d like.”
“Let me think about it.” She looked over her shoulder. “I need to tell you about something that happened this morning. It’s why Kelly is out of sorts with me. We went shopping for dresses for the funeral and I watched Anniyah while Kelly went into the dressing room. I was feeling the fabric of an outfit and when I looked back around, the stroller wasn’t there. My hand had been off the stroller for less than thirty seconds.”
You know how I feel about kids, but that scared me.
She went on with the account. “I screamed and Kelly ran out. We found the stroller in the next department. We were in Designer Dresses and the stroller had been moved to Juniors.”
Obviously, she didn’t want Kelly to hear, so I checked before I spoke. “How did you find her?”
“A sales girl said a man said to check the cameras and that she would get security to do that. Kelly and I kept looking and then we heard her cry and followed the sound. After what happened last night, Kelly thought I became distracted and walked away, but I swear to you, someone moved that stroller.” Kelly was back so she stopped talking.
“Kelly, are you coming to the funeral?” Tara asked.
“No, I don’t have anyone to keep Anniyah.” I looked to see if that answer came with a pout, but she was smiling at her baby.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Six months last Tuesday.” Mother and daughter had answered at the same time.
It was getting close to our tee time and I stood up to go. The last time I checked my car wasn’t ready for pick-up, and I wanted to call again. “Bea, do me a favor. Don’t refer any more business to us. We appreciate the thought but….”
She interrupted me. “I didn’t refer Thomas to you. The first I knew of you all being involved was when I saw you at the funeral home. When Victoria walked me to my car, she told me it was you three who’d found Thomas when you went to meet him in that restaurant.”
She walked us to the door. “I do remember something from when I was at the lake.” She checked over her shoulder to be sure Kelly wasn’t in earshot. “I remember hearing a voice.”
“Man or woman?” I asked.
Bea shook her head slowly. “I just can’t remember.”
“I bet it was a woman and her name was Janice Marshall!” Tara lunged back up on the porch.
“Who’s that?”
“Never mind. Did you get a look at whoever it was?” I asked.
“I can’t remember anything else.” She inhaled a bit of strength and turned to go back inside to people who needed her.
“Bea, you’re not crazy, but somebody is,” I said. “There doesn’t seem to have been a reason to kidnap you or to make you think Anniyah had been kidnapped. And did you hear about someone trying to set one of my flower beds on fire on Saturday night?”
Kelly walked up behind Bea and onto the porch. An expensive stroller, loaded with options, was parked against the house. “I need to get her binkie.” She leaned over to get something out of a lower compartment. When she stood she was holding a plastic tiara.
“That’s a binkie?” I stared in astonishment.
“No!” all four women said.
“Did you give us this?” Kelly looked at it from the front then the back.
“I’ve never seen it before.” Victoria walked over and examined it.
She handed it to Beatrice. “I wonder if this was put in there when the stroller was moved?”
“I think whoever put it in the stroller can see into the future, and they know she’ll be a beauty queen.” Tara walked over and hugged Kelly. “We have our work cut out for us so we had better go.”
“Do you need this?” Bea was still holding the plastic tiara.
“Just hold on to it and we’ll let you know when to give it to the police.” I had one of those wait, wait, don’t tell me feelings. Like I knew something, but didn’t know it, if that makes sense. “That tiara is no more a coincidence, than the Tex Mex Rex glass in my burnt flower bed.”
“Shouldn’t we give it to them now?” Kelly asked.
“No. They wouldn’t take it seriously.” I stopped because something occurred to me. “My crime against landscape and Anniyah’s stroller being moved are below their radar screen, but Bea’s kidnapping shouldn’t be.”
“Are you saying different people are behind each incident?” Tara asked.
“Don’t know.” I pointed to the security alarm company sticker on the door. “Lock up and set the alarm.”
Bea and Kelly walked back into the house, but Tara took Bea by the hand before she could get away. “Beatrice, everything’s going to be just fine.” Does anyone get to our age without needing to hear those words from time to time? Can I get a big Amen?
CHAPTER 12
Continuation of statement by Leigh Reed. We hadn’t shown our faces at Hartfield Hills Golf Course since last Thursday and I was afraid they’d start contacting the hospitals and jails soon, looking for us. Since the funeral was at five o’clock, we’d have to play quickly, which meant pocketing our balls even more than we usually do.
We were alone in the locker room and I resumed the conversation from the drive over. “Someone as good as accused us of moving that stroller.”
Victoria pulled her hair into a low ponytail. “Al Ford has to be considered a suspect in Thomas Chestnut’s murder. If Chestnut shuffled off this mortal coil before he married Beatrice, Paige stood to inherit. I will also admit he seems guilty to us because we don’t like him.” We try not to jump to conclusions like this, but it worked with the other murder we solved. “I don’t see how Al could be involved in setting the fire on your lawn, though. What motive could he have? And he only met us on Sunday night.”
I sniffed a sock that had been stored in my golf shoes. It got a C+ maybe a B-, so I put it on. “Are you saying we’ve hit a new low, people disliking us before they meet us? Damn.”
Tara pulled a sweater over her knit turtleneck. “The scariest part is that there doesn’t seem to be a reason for Bea’s kidnapping, moving the stroller, setting the fire. I mean, Bea wasn’t harmed, at least not physically. Anniyah was just a few feet away. Leigh’s flower bed will be replanted. So what was accomplished?”
“His wife, Paige, isn’t exactly a charmer herself, but I don’t think she’d kill her own father. I guess Al could be working alone,” Victoria added.
“Every time we turn around….” I said.
“We see Janice Marshall.” Tara sat to change shoes.
“I was going to say, every time we turn around, someone is mentioning CDC. Thomas Chestnut was a consultant there. Janice Marshall works there. The guy Thomas had an ongoing disagreement with worked there.”
Vic looked in the mirror and patted her hair. “Should we pay them a visit in the morning? Let’s look for Janice Marshall and talk to her.”
I zipped my Callaway navy jacket, which matched my Bermuda shorts. “I’m going to call Detective Kent and ask him if they’ve made any progress finding Bea’s kidnapper. Unless you’d rather make that call, Tara?”
She threw her socks at me. “Very funny.”
“By the way, last week when I picked Jack up at the airport, I saw Mrs. Kent. She was carrying a plastic bag filled with water. I guess she’d bought a fish or something.”
“He told me she was in Mexico last week.” Tara immediately wished she hadn’t let this tidbit out.
“Oh-h-h,” Vic and I said.
“You talked to Detective Kent?” Vic turned to face her.
“There’s no there, there, guys. I wouldn’t date a married man and the guy’s got more baggage than Delta Airlines.” I believed her, but Victoria and I had been there to feel that electric current that’s been the ruin of many a good girl whenever Detective Kent stared at her.
I dialed his number and he answered. We talked for a minute and the upshot of it was that he didn’t know anything, but he was still sick and hadn’t gone in to work. He had, however, been in touch with either Charles Asher or Asher Charles, who told him Bea had just gotten lost.
Tara’s phone rang. Vic and I exchanged a look while she answered it.
She walked to the corner of the locker room, but was back shortly. “That was Asher Charles. I asked him about Bea and he’s sticking with the senior-citizen-getting-lost driving-at-night line.”
“Bull puppy!”
“Victoria, language please.” Our clubs were standing in a row outside the clubhouse. I shouldered mine and walked to the starter to get a golf cart.
Tara carried her golf bag by the handle. “If Bea was so upset that she fainted when she saw the casket was missing, maybe it’s not out of the question that she got turned around when she drove home.” She joined me in the first cart.
Vic strapped her clubs to a second golf cart. “I’m glad you didn’t offer that explanation while we were there. She’s one woman I would not want to see mad.”
“I wonder why she fainted.” My foot was off the brake pedal and I was sailing to the first tee.
Tara pulled her driver from her bag and walked to the red tee. “I love that we can play golf all year.”
I got out my driver and waited for her. “I’ll play until they pry my cold, dead hands off my clubs.”
When we were all on the green, I pulled the flag and dropped it on the skirt. “I don’t like coincidences. Al Ford builds SCIFs. Thomas Chestnut was saying SCIF while he died. Anything there?”
Victoria putted and then marked her ball with a snap off her glove. “I’ll Google him. I haven’t done that yet.”
When we got to the next hole, Tara stayed in the cart. “Too many trees, I’m sitting this one out.”
“Those aren’t trees, those are opportunities,” I yelled over my shoulder.
***
I fed Abby, let her out, called about my car again, was told it still wasn’t ready and showered. The phone rang while I was drying my hair.
“Leigh? I came to Nordstrom’s to pick up a new suit I had altered. Al Ford is here at the mall. He keeps walking around my car, just circling it. He looks angry and he’s not even trying to hide his crazy.” Tara’s voice was shaky.
“Where are you now?”
“I’m in Barnes & Noble.”
“Stay around people. I’m on my way. Call Victoria.”
“Now he’s trying to open my car door.”
“But it is locked, right?”
“Oooh, nooo.”
“What’s happening? Did he get in?”
“He’s keying it. He’s carving something on the side. I’ll kill him.”
“Tara! Wait until I get there! Or call Detective Kent.”
***
Why in the world did I suggest she call Detective Kent? If I had left him out of it, then when I pulled up in a Jeep, which was wrapped 360 degrees in white electrical tape, and let myself out by pulling it up and sliding beneath it, he would not have been there to observe it. Now, it was bad enough having about a hundred mall customers gaping and pointing, especially when it stuck to my arm and I had to peel myself off of it, pretending like that didn’t hurt.
Detective Kent and Tara stood next to her defaced car. He stroked her back. “Leigh, what are you driving?”
I shook my head, too embarrassed to speak. “Tara, are you okay? This looks horrible.”
“It really does.” She was staring at my ride and her mouth hung open.
“I meant your car, Tara!” He had carved mine on the side of her brand new white Porsche convertible.
“That can be repaired.”
“And as soon as I have time, I can take that electrical tape off my car. I was in a hurry, if you recall.” I forgot myself and rubbed the back of my left hand and lower arm. That called attention to the welts.
Tara took my hand. “What happened to you?”
“When you take a turn and lean up against the sticky side of the tape it’s like pulling a bandage off.” Over and over again.
“What the hell?” Victoria walked up. “Who did that?”
“Al Ford,” I said.
“Paige Ford’s husband taped your Jeep up like that?” She was awestruck by the sight.
“I was referring to Tara’s car.”
“That’s nothing. You should see her driving in it.” Detective Kent was pale and seemed to have lost weight. “Tara, I’m assuming you’ll be pressing charges.”
“Leig
h, do you think I should?”
“Finding Thomas Chestnut’s killer and Bea’s kidnapper rank higher. Detective Kent, can you talk to him and see if he knows anymore about that? Tell him Tara is considering pressing charges.”
“Sure thing. I’ll have someone go talk to him.”
“Asher Charles?”
Victoria’s question sounded reasonable to me, since he was familiar with the case, but Detective Kent shook his head and gave a little chuckle. The three of us watched him walk away.
“I wonder if he’s seen a doctor,” Tara said.
I put my arm around her. “Want me to follow you to the dealership to drop your car off?”
She looked at the Jeep and tensed up.
“I understand if you’re too embarrassed to be seen in it. Vic, can you do it?”
“Sure.”
“Anything you need to get out your car before you drop it off?” I was killing time. I had to admit I didn’t even want to ride in the Jeep the shape it was in, and I felt a little guilty at my disloyalty to my baby.
We three transferred Tara’s extra sunglasses, lipsticks, and house keys to Victoria’s Lexus SUV.
Then it was time for me to go. “I’ll see you at the funeral, but I might need a ride.”
“Ya think?” Tara asked.
I hung my head. No really, I had to lower my head to get under the tape.
As I started the engine, Vic ran up and moved the tape on the passenger side and got in. “All for one!”
Tara pulled up next to us. “For better or worse.” Then she beeped her horn. “Let ’em stare all they want.”
CHAPTER 13
Continuation of statement by Leigh Reed. I guess Hamilton & Sons Funeral Home didn’t have all that many offspring because Janice Marshall’s defection left them short staffed. But the show, so to speak, had to go on.
Tara, Vic and I walked away, so Paul, our chauffer for the evening, and the funeral director could talk business. I wore an emerald green Roland Mouret sheath dress and a cardigan. Even though this was the funeral, I was not as formally dressed as I’d been for the viewing. My reasoning went something like, the dead person has already seen me.
