“What about the woman Sabrina worked for? Maybe she’ll help.”
Carole made a face. “Mrs. Conner? I talked to her this morning after I got off the phone with the lawyer. She told me that she was so busy, she didn’t see how she could manage. The woman was really sort of cold about it, in fact. She said to let her know when the arrangements were made so she could send flowers. Then she asked me if I knew anyone looking for a job. Said she hated the thought of the store being closed for an extended period of time. I honestly think she wanted me to run the place for her or something. Like I have time for that or nothing better to do! To tell you the truth, I almost hung up on her right then and there.”
I nibbled a few peanuts from the bowl on the bar and slurped up the rest of my ice cream. “Listen, this is going to sound really weird, especially since I didn’t really know her, but I, I want to help. Can you keep me posted? If nothing else, I can help set up the memorial service for her. Maybe help you with the inventory.”
Carole’s phone buzzed and she glanced at the screen. “Oh, wow, thanks, Marcy. I mean Marty. That would be totally amazing. A Godsend! Here’s my card.”
We swapped her business card for my number scribbled on the back of a paper napkin. Her phone buzzed again.
“Sorry, Marcy, but I’ve got to return this. Good to meet you again.” Then, she slipped off the stool, and went over by the patio door to take her call.
I decided it was time for me to leave. It was almost two. I was no longer interested in the pool. Hopefully, Charli would be home. As much as my sister drives me nuts, she’s also the person I look to for advice. And I needed some advice. And, hopefully, a more comfortable bed for the night.
I said bye to Dave and made a pit stop before I left. When I came out of the restroom, I glanced back to the table near the jukebox. Much to my surprise, Carole was deep in conversation with Big Ed. I couldn’t image what on earth the two of them had in common. Call me nosy, but my curiosity won out.
“Hey, Ed. Glad to see you’re feeling better.”
He jerked around so hard he nearly knocked over the table. “Oh. Hey, Marts. Yeah. Better. Thanks. Twenty-four hour thing. You know?”
Carole had also started at my greeting, but quickly regained her composure. “Oh, of course you two would know each other. Y’all are both in radio. I guess it didn’t really occur to me. Ed’s a client.”
Ed suddenly relaxed. “A client. I’m, er, one of her, uhm, clients. She’s, like, uhm, helping me figure out what to do with all my, uh, my millions. Millions of pennies, I mean.”
His laugh was one of those strained ones people make sometimes when they say something they mean to be funny, but halfway through, realize it really isn’t.
Carole gave a little fake chuckle of her own and pointedly glanced at her watch. “Nice to have met you, Marcy. I’ll be sure to give you a call letting you know how you can help out with the Sabrina matter.”
I took the hint. “Sure thing. You do that. Call anytime. Well, before, say ten. I’ve got to get up at four, so I’ll probably be in bed by then. Sorry to have interrupted. See you tomorrow.”
Carole gave a polite little wave, almost like she was shooing me away. Ed used one of the napkins from the dispenser on the table to wipe off the sweat that had beaded up on his forehead.
“Yeah. See you, Marts. At the station.” He covered his mouth with the napkin and gave a couple of fake-sounding coughs into it. “Unless I have a relapse or something, that is.”
The whole thing was bizarre and awkward, so I finally said goodbye again and headed out. Although Carole had said that Ed was a client, to be honest, I wasn’t really sure I believed it. They’d both acted so strange, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was one of his conquests.
Heck, maybe she was the one he’d met up with to get a little loving from, for all I knew. The image of the two of them about to kiss popped into my head. Eww! No way. Carole was actually a lot classier than I’d given her credit for when I’d first met her. Way classier than the women Ed attracted. Maybe he really was a client and had just been worried that I’d rat him out to Herb for laying out of work.
Besides, it wasn’t my business. Not that I let that stop me from thinking about it all the way over to Charli’s house.
9
My car started on the first try, something I always count as a lucky break. Before I pulled out, I texted Charli to let her know I was coming, and she messaged back that she’d leave the door open for me. When I got to her house about fifteen minutes later, I found her waiting for me on her front porch, sipping a glass of iced tea.
She hugged me, then tucked a rogue curl behind my ear, a move she’d learned from Mom. “So, kid, how are you holding up?”
“Okay, I guess. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Would it be okay if Delbert and I bunk here for a couple of nights? Rowena’s isn’t working out, Mom’s scared of Delbert, and she’s adamant that I not stay with Tim. She thinks people will “talk” and that it “will ruin my reputation”. Like I’ve got much of one left to ruin.”
“Of course. In fact, I meant to call you earlier. John and I decided, considering the circumstances, that it would be best for me to be here, so I’m not going to go to his family reunion in Cincinnati this weekend. You’re going to need a place to stay and lots of support these next few days. We didn’t want to cancel the trip for all of us since the kids are so excited about going to the Zoo and the baseball game and King’s Island. They’ll be so busy, that they’ll hardly even miss me. Plus, his folks and his sister will be there to help with the kids. Not to mention all of his cousins.”
Not that I’m self centered or anything, but I hadn’t even realized that Charli had been planning a trip. “Wow, sis, that’s really awesome of you. I hate for you to miss the fun, though. Are you sure about this? I could just stay here while y’all are gone. House sit.”
“Nope. It’s all set. To be honest, I needed some time to myself. It’s been such a crazy summer and after everything that’s happened, well, let’s just say this was a good excuse. They’re leaving Thursday morning and will be gone until late Monday.”
I thanked her, then told her about my conversation and lunch date with Harry. “I still find it hard to believe Mark Donavan didn’t have anything to do with Sabrina’s murder. But even if the guy’s innocent of murder, he still was abusive. To be honest, it sort of bothers me that Harry took up for him.”
“I guess he doesn’t want to admit that his buddy isn’t the person he thinks he is. Remember Dad’s friend? The one who went to jail for child abuse? He seemed like such a great guy in public. No one could believe it when he was arrested. I guess you never really know someone unless you live with them. Even then, there are lots of people sneaking around doing all sorts of things in secret. By the way, I assume you didn’t talk to Mom today. She did some investigating and found out some info about Sabrina.”
Charli told me about Sabrina having grown up in foster care, which, of course, I’d already heard about from Carole.
“Mom said that Sabrina’s mother died when she was about nine and her dad a year or so later. She lived with a distant cousin’s family for a couple of years, but the cousin’s husband was a real sleaze ball and beat up his wife in front of the kids. That’s when Sabrina got in the foster care system. She moved from one home to another until she graduated high school. Apparently, she was a hard working girl, because she worked full time while she took classes. She earned a business degree last year. Then she moved here in the spring, right at the beginning of April.”
“I ran into her neighbor, Carole, at Pilazzo’s at lunch. She just found out this morning that Sabrina had named her executor of her estate without even asking her about it. She said that she wasn’t really even friends with Sabrina, that she barely knew her, in fact. Don’t you think that’s sad?”
Charli agreed. “I talked to a couple of people from the food drive committee about it today and we all realized how little we knew about Sabri
na. Even the owner of the coffee shop, who was the one who got Sabrina to join the committee, said that she only knew her because she was a regular customer.”
“It seems like no one really knew her very well. Carole talked to Sabrina’s boss and basically got nowhere. Oh. I almost forgot what I came to ask you. Carole is all stressed out, so I told her I’d help her plan the memorial service and whatever else she needs. Do you think that’s weird? I mean, I didn’t even know the girl. It’s just that I feel so guilty. It seems like I owe her.”
“Sweetie, that’s not weird at all. It’s a very kind gesture.”
“Will you help me? I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m probably getting in over my head.”
“Of course I’ll help. I understand where you’re coming from. I feel bad that I didn’t take the time to get to know Sabrina when I had the chance. She seemed like a nice girl. A little stand-offish, but that was probably for a good reason, now that I know about her background.”
“Hey, you mind if I do a bit of laundry. I’m operating on limited clothing here,” I asked, about an hour later, after I got back from picking up Delbert from Rowena’s. Charli was in the kitchen making dinner and the kids were running around like a bunch of hoodlums. They’d been to the ice cream shop with Mom and were all hopped up on sugar, and went a little bonkers as soon as they saw my poor cat.
She agreed of course, telling me she’d toss my jeans in with the load she was getting ready to wash. Unlike me, Charli is meticulous with laundry. She checked my pockets to be sure there wasn’t any loose change or stray paperclips or ink pens.
“What’s this?” she asked, handing me the card for the modeling agency Big Ed had given me the morning before I found Sabrina’s body.
I rolled my eyes and tossed the card in her trash can. “It’s nothing. Ed gave it to me yesterday. He’s shilling for some modeling agency, trying to line up recruits. He thought I’d be a good candidate. I told him he was loony. Besides, it’s probably some sort of scam or something.”
Charli fished the card back out of the trash can and studied it. “Probably. But you have to admit, this is a gorgeous card. That girl is stunning. Although, there’s something a bit off kilter, too, don’t you think?”
I barely glanced back at the card. Charli had made a salad, baked chicken, and rice pilaf and I was starving. “I guess. When’s dinner?”
She tossed the card back into the trash. “Right now. John had an emergency out-of-town meeting, so it’s just the kids, you, and me. Can you help them wash up?”
After I gobbled up a baked chicken breast, two helpings of rice, and another cookie, I called Tim. To be honest, I was still pretty ticked off at him, but I also wanted to know what was going on with the murder investigation. One of us was bound to crack before the night was over, so I sucked it up and made the first move. I figured I might as well come out looking like the winner. You know, being the bigger person, turning the other cheek, all of that crap. He wasn’t very receptive at first, so I went for his Achilles heel: I offered to stop by Pilazzo’s and pick up a pizza and some beer.
“Supreme with mushrooms and sausage? On the thin crust?”
I hate mushrooms and sausage on my pizza, and I love Dave’s thick crust pizza, but I gave in. Sometimes, the sacrifices I make… “Deal. Want to meet at the complex pool? We can swim after we eat. Hang out, cool off, have some fun for a couple of hours.”
If I ever actually do master the art of time travel, that moment would likely be my fourth stop. Maybe even my third. Although, Mom says, “whatever’s meant to be, if it hasn’t already gone under the bridge, will be”, so it might not have made any difference. You can’t blame a girl for wishing, though.
10
I was just pulling into the parking lot when my phone rang. It was Carole. “Hi, Marcy. I hope you weren’t kidding when you said you wanted to plan a memorial service for Sabrina. I’m up to my eyeballs in work and I could really use the help.”
I told her, once again, that my name was Marty, and that I’d be glad to assist. I also ended up agreeing to help go through and inventory Sabrina’s belongings as soon as the police released her apartment. It was one more step in my new-found mission to find out about Sabrina Lewis and try to find a way to keep her memory alive.
“My sister said she’d help too. And I’ll check with Tim. I’m meeting up with him at the pool in a few minutes. I’ll see if they’ve still got Sabrina’s apartment locked down.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Marcy. Darn. I’m so sorry I keep doing that, Marty. Give me a call when you find out about the apartment.”
Tim was hunkered down at a table near the rear of the pool deck. We had the place to ourselves, which made me happy. Usually there are two groups of annoying people hanging out at the pool: moms and dads with shrieking little yard apes, and a bunch of surly teenagers who think it’s cool to cuss and push each other in the pool
I put the pizza on the table and handed Tim a plastic bag with some beer, napkins, paper plates, and red plastic cups inside. He poured us each a plastic cup full of beer and doled out the pizza while I went in the locker room and changed into an old, raggedy, one-piece swim suit I’d left at his apartment over the summer. It had once been white with blue flowers, but the white had turned yellow and the blue faded to an odd purple color. It was pretty stretched out and wasn’t particularly flattering, but I didn’t really care. I just wanted to cool off in the water.
When I returned, Tim noogied my head and apologized. I punched him in the arm and chucked him under the chin, our official “make up” routine.
After that, we shoveled down the pizza, and I told him about agreeing to help with the memorial and inventorying Sabrina’s apartment.
“I can help too, if you want. Let me see when you can get into it and into yours.”
I suspected he was hoping to find something the evidence squad had overlooked so he could come off looking like a big hero, but I kept my suspicions to myself. While he called to check on the apartments, I helped myself to another slice of pizza.
“Sabrina’s will be cleared tonight,” he told me. “Yours won’t be ready probably until Thursday late. By the way, still no leads on who killed Sabrina.”
“So it definitely wasn’t Mark Donavan?”
“Nope. His alibi is rock-solid. The park caretaker recalled seeing him about five times throughout the morning, not counting when he checked in and out. Oh, and I talked to Winger. He wants you to come by the station tomorrow when you get off work. He’s got a few questions and some things he wants you to clarify.”
“Do I have to?” I complained. My last visit to the good detective’s office hadn’t gone particularly well.
“Of course you have to. Don’t worry. I promise it will be painless. Winger might even let me sit in if you think it would make you feel better.”
“That’s okay. I’m a big girl. I can handle it. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot to ask. Did they find her purse?
“Not yet. They got her cell number from Donavan and issued a subpoena for the records, but it will be a month or so before they get them. Too bad it doesn’t work like on television. We’d have had them in about five minutes.”
“That’s strange about her purse. Do you think maybe it was a flat-out robbery gone wrong?”
Tim leaned back in his chair and patted his tummy. “Winger doesn’t think so. No one’s tried to use her credit cards. I guess she could have been carrying around a wad of cash, but that seems unlikely. Her bank account was pretty skimpy. She was like the rest of us, I suspect. You know, just living paycheck to paycheck.
“Probably. Even if they did do a big online business, she couldn’t have been making much money working at that gift shop. Listen though, here’s something weird.” I filled him in on what Mom had learned from her investigation into Sabrina’s life, and told him about Sabrina’s will and her naming Carole executor.
“Don’t you think it’s surprising someone our age, someone with no
family, and apparently no assets, would have a will?”
“Not really. I have a will. I don’t have much money, but I’ve got my truck and a new TV and a bunch of stuff like that. Plus, I’ve got insurance. I don’t want my folks having to worry about paying for a funeral if I croak.”
Just hearing him talk about it so matter-of-factly made me really nervous, especially in light of the fact that he was still rehabbing from having been shot in the arm while on duty.
“Well, that’s different,” I said. “You’re a cop. It’s a dangerous job. The Glenvar Gift Shop doesn’t seem to me like it would be a particularly hazardous place to work.”
“Maybe something else was going on. What if she had some sort of fatal disease? Or found out she was about to inherit a bunch of money or property or something. That would explain it.”
He was right of course. Not that it mattered. We finished up the pizza, tossed the trash, and hopped into the pool. We’d been swimming around for about ten minutes, taking turns diving off the board and tossing a small rubber football to each other, when Carole waltzed through the gate. She waved and called hello to me, once more calling me Marcy, and tossed her towel and bag onto the lounge chair next to the gate.
Tim dove off the board and swam up beside me. He gave a low wolf whistle, just loud enough for me to hear. “Who’s that?”
“Carole. The one we’re going to help. Come on, I’ll introduce you.” I felt another of those irritating stings below my eye and one on the left side of my chest. The silly sisters were evidently at it again. This time they were working together to really annoy me.
We climbed up the ladder and dried off. Carole had taken off her sarong and was posed on the lounge chair like one of those girls in a beer commercial. She had a spectacular figure and her minuscule black bikini left little to the imagination.
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