I Know What You Bid Last Summer

by Sherry Harris

  “What kind of relationship?” Wow. Wouldn’t that be something if he and Melba had had something going on? They’d seemed close during my interactions with the board and from what I’d read in the newspaper. Anil had always sided with Melba on any issues or votes.

  “Our professional relationship. I’m a happily married man.” His normally calm voice lilted heavily with his native accent.

  Anil jumped up and started pacing across my living room. It didn’t take long. After a couple of laps, he returned to the couch. “They seem to think I have something to do with her murder.”

  Great. Just what I needed. “I can recommend Vincenzo DiNapoli if you need an attorney.” It seemed odd that he’d drop by my house for advice on legal help.

  “I don’t need an attorney. Yet,” he muttered. “I need you to help me.”

  Another person asking me for help? This was getting weirder by the minute. I was fine with Angelo asking me to check out his competitors for the bake-off, but I didn’t know Anil that well. “What could I possibly do to help you?”

  “Find out who did it.”

  I shook my head. “That’s best left to the police.”

  “You’re good at figuring things out. Please say you’ll help me.”

  “I’m not the person for the job.”

  “Think of it as a search at a garage sale. You’re looking for something, and you go from sale to sale to find it.”

  “That’s finding an inanimate object, not a murderer.”

  “But you’ve solved others.”

  “Dumb luck.” Jeez. How long was it going to take to get him to accept that?

  “That’s not true. It’s persistence, a dogged determination to get to the truth.”

  What it had actually been was a need to save someone I loved. “It wasn’t like I’d wanted to be involved. Circumstances drew me into it.”

  “Can’t I be a circumstance?” His dark eyes were long lashed and intent. He leaned forward, arms on his knees.

  I held in a sigh. “You need a professional. A PI or legal help.” I was starting to sweat, and it wasn’t from the heat. This would be the perfect time for someone to stop by or call. But no such luck.

  “At the very least, will you just hear me out?”

  Listening didn’t cost anything, and it might make him realize what a poor substitute for a professional investigator I was. Or maybe it would dawn on him that the police were asking routine questions and it wasn’t that they suspected him. “Okay. What’s the first thing they asked you?”

  “Where was I late Friday night and early Saturday morning.”

  That sounded routine. “And you said?”

  Anil shifted on the couch. “At home.”

  “And were you?”

  He nodded.

  But I didn’t believe him. “The whole time?”

  He started to nod, but it changed to a shrug.

  “If you want me to help you, you have to tell me the truth.” I looked him right in the eye doing my best impression of a police officer. “But I’m not going to lie to the police unless you give me a very, very good reason.”

  He stared down at the floor like a petulant little boy. “I wasn’t there the whole time. My wife doesn’t even know. She’s a very sound sleeper.”

  I knew a little something about sound sleepers. I’d always told CJ he could sleep through an earthquake. “I think we should end our conversation here and you should call a lawyer. I would have to testify about anything you say to me.”

  Anil opened his hands wide. “But I’m innocent.”

  “Even if you are, anything you tell me can be twisted in court by the right attorney.” I thought about Seth, who’d be in charge of prosecuting the case. If he was well enough. When he was well enough.

  “Melba called me at one-thirty in the morning and asked me to meet her at the school. That it was important. I went, but she never showed up.”

  A call in the middle of the night? Oh, boy. “Can you prove any of that?”

  “Only that she called. There’s a record of that. But not that I didn’t go into the school. I don’t think the police believed me when I told them that.”

  I’d already been attacked and taken to the hospital by then. “Was that unusual for her?” Random nocturnal calls sounded really unusual to me.

  He shrugged. “She’s called at odd times before. It’s like her brain doesn’t shut off.”

  “Do lots of people in town know she does this?”

  “Anyone who’s served on the board does. I’m not the only one she called at odd hours.”

  “Everyone’s okay with that?”

  “Not everyone. But Melba was a good superintendent, so we put up with a few quirks to keep her. She’d had more than one offer from bigger school districts that could pay her more.”

  “Who wasn’t okay with it?”

  “Betty Jenkins. They had it out about the late and early calls. Betty’s husband is a physician, so they have enough late-night calls. Plus, she used to be a nurse and worked shifts. Melba left her alone. Mac Danucci grumbled about having his market to run, but he’d show up when called.”

  “Any chance Melba was under duress when she called you that night?”

  Anil closed his eyes and sat quietly for a minute. He opened his eyes. “If she was, I didn’t notice. I was sound asleep when she called. I’m not sure I was thinking that clearly.”

  Three things raced through my mind. Melba really had called him. The killer had tried to lure Anil to the school. Or Anil was the killer and was trying to cover his tracks. Only the first one gave me any ease of mind. “Were you working on something with Melba that might have caused a problem for anyone?”

  Anil sat for a few moments. “Only the budget. It’s always contentious, but this year was no different than any other.”

  I pondered that pause before he answered. Was he hiding something or trying to think of a possibility that would result in Melba’s death?

  “Everything here sounds routine. Tell the police the truth.”

  “That’s not it. There’s more.”

  I gestured for him to go on.

  “Someone made it look like I was selling the stolen goods online.”

  “What?” If the items were being sold online, why hadn’t I seen them?

  “I don’t even know how to buy or sell anything online.”

  “Then how do you even know about this?” I asked.

  “Someone sent me a message saying they were interested in what I was selling.” He clasped his hands together. “That’s the only reason I knew. I looked to see what it was and realized it was the items stolen from the silent auction.”

  “Can you show it to me?”

  “I deleted it all. Someone created a fake account to make me look bad.”

  Deleting it might look worse. “You should have told the police.”

  “But it makes me look guilty.”

  “So does deleting all of it. They probably could have traced the origins.” I stood. I was tired and didn’t have anything to offer to Anil. “I don’t know how I can help you.”

  “Please, you have to.”

  I was too tired to argue. “I’ll do what I can. Don’t get your hopes up.” I ushered him to the door. “But be careful. Don’t agree to meet anyone in the middle of the night anyplace.”

  His face paled. “You think I could be in danger?” His voice squeaked on the last word.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Just watch your back.”

  He glanced over his shoulder like he expected Charles Manson to be standing there. “Okay.”

  * * *

  My phone rang as I locked the door. Nichole. “Hello.”

  “Seth’s in surgery, but the doctor is confident he’ll come out of this with no long-term damage.” Her voice was brisk, like making the call took everything she had.

  I slumped onto the couch, legs shaky with relief. “Thank you for calling me. I was worried.”

  “Do you have somethin
g to take down a number? It’s so you can call the hospital for a recorded message of updates.”

  And that way we wouldn’t have to talk, a win for both of us. I grabbed a pen and an old envelope. “Go ahead.”

  Nichole recited a number and pass code. I read it back to her.

  “Yes. Well . . .” She paused. “Thank you. And Seth’s parents asked me to thank you also. Who knows how long it would have been before we found out without your call.”

  I started to say, “You’re welcome,” but the phone connection broke before I could finish. I guessed Nichole and I weren’t going to become best buddies now.

  I poured out my now tepid beer and turned off the TV. It seemed unlikely that the Red Sox would blow a ten-point lead. I’d promised to help at the thrift shop on Fitch tomorrow. Hopefully, despite all that had happened today, I’d be able to sleep. I went through my “wash my face, brush my teeth” routine and climbed into bed. I could hear Ryne moving around his bedroom. It always made me feel awkward to know he was on the other side of the thin wall.

  It made me wonder again what he’d heard before CJ left. I remembered the night I told CJ that I wanted to live in Ellington. That I didn’t want to move to Florida. CJ had reminded me that I’d promised I wouldn’t let him die a lonely old man. That I was the only person he wanted to be with. I’d asked him to stay, to make a life with me here. Instead, he’d walked out.

  Chapter 13

  Monday morning at nine I arrived at the visitors’ center at Fitch Air Force Base. My friend Eleanor Wood had sponsored me on since Laura had moved. Getting on a military base without a dependent’s ID was a bit of a hassle. Someone had to sponsor you one which meant they had to go to the visitors’ center and fill out a form or have their spouse fill it out from an official government e-mail address. I stood in line waiting for my turn to fill out paperwork, show identification, a driver’s license, and proof of car insurance. Sometimes I knew the troops working because they had worked for CJ, but I didn’t recognize any of them this morning.

  After I got my pass I drove down Travis Road, which cut from one side of the base to the other. The base was situated on low rolling hills and lended some New England charm to the utilitarian government buildings. I passed the parade field, gas station, shoppette (similar to a 7-Eleven), and outdoor rec, where you could rent everything from tents to skis. The thrift shop was just up the hill on the right. It was going to be strange to be there without Laura, because we’d worked here together for the past couple of years. But that was the military life for you. People came and went.

  I pulled into the parking lot behind the shop and parked. Was that why I wasn’t taking CJ’s departure to Florida harder? I was used to people cycling in and out of my life? Did I hold out some thought that he’d cycle back in? Or maybe the time we’d spent apart during our separation and divorce had prepared me for life without him.

  I felt tears welling up. Tears I thought I’d finished crying. So much for thinking I was taking things well. I gripped the steering wheel. I’d made my decision when CJ drew a line in the sand in May. I was staying here. On my own, to figure out my life without a man. It was time. CJ and I had been together since I was in my late teens. Life was different without him, but it wasn’t awful. I got out of my Suburban and slammed the door a little harder than necessary.

  The thrift shop was quiet, as it tended to be in the summer, with so many families moving and others on vacations. Eleanor greeted me with a big smile.

  “Thanks for not quitting because Laura’s gone.”

  “I would miss volunteering here. What do you need me to do?”

  “The storage shed is crammed full. Would you mind helping me drag some of the bags from it to the back room and doing some sorting?”

  “Sure.” People who donated things to the thrift shop often stuffed them in bags or boxes. If the thrift shop was closed, they could stick them in the storage shed behind the building.

  Eleanor and I spent the next fifteen minutes hauling stuff inside.

  “Are you off for the summer?” I asked. Eleanor was the school nurse at Ellington High School.

  “I am.”

  “That’s got be a tough job,” I said.

  “It can be. But most of the time, I like it. Some days it seems like the hardest part is sorting out who is really sick and who is faking it.” She flipped open a box we had carried in. It was full of toys, all of them clean. “It seems like every year there’s some illness kids latch onto, and day after day one kid after another comes in with the same complaint.”

  I started pulling the toys out of the box. A pink princess castle, a bright yellow dump truck, and some dolls. “Kind of a mass hysteria thing?”

  “That or they see one kid get out of school, so everyone else tries to use it as an excuse. Last year everyone had migraines, this year it was concussions, and two years ago it was the flu. I actually caught a kid holding a thermometer to a lightbulb.”

  I laughed at her expression. We heard someone come in the front, so Eleanor went to work the register and I continued to sort. Since it was mindless work—keep, toss, recycle—I thought about Anil showing up. I had read the newspaper this morning, but there was no progress on Melba’s murder. At least nothing that the police were willing to share. There was an article about Seth, the fire at his house, and that he was in stable condition at the hospital. I was grateful that it didn’t mention me. But I knew there had to be a lot more going on in both investigations. An attack on a district attorney would get high priority. Was it personal or work related?

  I found a stack of sports jerseys, which made me think more about Anil. I still didn’t see any way I could help. It also made me think of Mike and his telling me to stay out of it. Why should I? I’d been attacked over what? A few autographed sports items? What I did was none of his business, unless his business was buying stolen sporting goods. When I got home, I was going to bid on some more sports stuff and see what happened.

  * * *

  Two hours later I walked out into an aggressive June heat. It was unusually warm after an unusually mild winter. I unlocked the Suburban, hopped in, gagged, and leaped back out. Yuck. Brody’s clothes. They’d smelled a little off when I got in the car, but I’d driven through Dunkin’s, and the aroma of the coffee had fought off the smell of Brody’s uniform. I opened all the doors, rolled down the windows, held my nose, and stood outside hoping some of the smell would dissipate before I drove home.

  Thirty minutes later at eleven-thirty I dragged the garbage bag full of clothes up to my apartment and dumped everything out in a corner, making sure it all landed on the wood floor and not on my ancient Oriental rug. The cleats still had grass and dirt in them. I quickly tossed the washables—uniform top, pants, a lightweight jacket—in one pile. I put the cleats, scarred bat, bright blue dented helmet, and grass-stained baseball in another. I stuffed the washables back in the bag and carried them to the washing machine and dryer in the basement.

  Back in my apartment the smell lingered. So I scrubbed the cleats, bat, helmet, and ball with some warm, soapy water. That helped a little bit. I put a towel down in a corner of the living room and set everything on it to dry. I sat on the couch with a glass of iced tea and ticked off the things I needed to do. The most fun item was meeting Carol for dinner at Tony’s in Billerica. Tony was one of Angelo’s competitors. Angelo didn’t think Tony was much of a threat, because according to Angelo, Tony used fake cheese and inferior ground meat. It didn’t sound too appealing, but I’d promised. Harder to deal with was keeping my promise to Anil to look into Melba’s death and trying to suss out what Mike was up to.

  It was one of my worst faults that when someone told me not to do something, it made me do the exact opposite. It was why I’d met CJ. My mom had told me to stay away from the military guys attending the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. But I had gone out of my way to meet one. I shook off those thoughts. Finding out what Mike was up to and trying to track down the things stolen fr
om the swap meet seemed a lot easier than trying to help Anil, so I pulled out my computer. Maybe somehow it was all connected, anyway.

  First, I went to the site where I’d contacted Sportzfan. I wanted to try again to track down Mike’s online name. If I could do that, I could see what he was trying to buy and see if he was also selling things. But to my astonishment, there was no trace of Sportzfan on the site anymore. I tapped my finger against the side of my laptop. What the heck?

  I did a general search for Sportzfan and found one guy in Chelsea with the name Sportzfan1. His profile picture was of him sitting in an apartment decorated with sports memorabilia from all the professional teams in Boston. He wore a Patriots jersey and a Red Sox cap. This Sportzfan didn’t seem to be on any buy-sell sites, but I decided to contact him, anyway. I made up another account. This time I called myself BostonFan928. Who knew there would already be so many people using BostonFan as their name? I shot off a message saying I was a buyer of sports memorabilia and did he have anything to sell? I sent him a list of a few of the stolen items and threw in a couple of things I could see in his profile picture so it wouldn’t look so obvious what I was after.

  While I waited to hear back, I started searching for the items that had been stolen. I found a few similar things and sent messages to a few of the sellers. My computer binged. Sportzfan1 said he was selling what I was buying. We arranged to be at a Dunks, as he called it, in Lynn in two hours. This time I verified that the Dunkin’ Donuts was actually still in business. First by looking at their Web site and then by calling. I finished Brody’s wash, carried everything back up to the apartment, and headed to Lynn.

  * * *

  I arrived at the Dunkin’s in Lynn at one-fifteen. The place was packed even this late in the day. I ordered a cup of coffee and a coconut donut. Then I returned to my car to wait. I’d parked strategically so I could see the entrance and would be able to spot Sportzfan1 when he showed up. Part of me wondered if this was really Mike or one of his cronies. After I finished my donut, I saw a beat-up truck with a Red Sox license-plate holder, a Patriots flag, a Bruins bumper sticker, and a Celtics logo on the back window pull in.