Tom whirled around. “Where have you been hiding?” He tickled the boy, which sent him into gales of laughter. When they finished tussling, he stood up straight again. “Harriet, can I talk to you and Lauren in the kitchen for a moment?”
Connie and Jessica looked from Harriet to Tom and back again.
“Can you entertain the kids for a bit?” Harriet asked.
“Of course,” Connie said.
Harriet closed the door behind her and turned to Tom.
“What’s wrong?”
He reached out and squeezed her arm.
“Nothing. I mean, nothing bad. I heard a piece of information from Joyce. I just didn’t want to talk about anything else in front of the kids. Etienne has been talking to Mr. Renfro. He and Lainie don’t understand why they’re still living at Marcel’s and why they’ve barely seen their mother.”
“So, what did Joyce have to say?” she asked.
“I took some canned goods out to the camp, and while we were loading it into the storage boxes, I was asking her about Marine’s father. She said he’d been living in the woods for a while. He was an alcoholic, but Joyce thinks his real problem was dementia. Chances are he was homeless and drinking because of that.”
“So, whoever got him to call Aiden probably tricked him into it.”
Lauren sat down at the kitchen table.
“Maybe they offered him money or shelter. Depending on how far his dementia had progressed, he might not have remembered he’d sold out his daughter after he’d done it.”
Harriet paced across the kitchen.
“That still leaves us with the big question of who. Who would want to set up Aiden? Who knew Marine’s father had dementia? And who had access to Aiden’s saliva?”
“The real question is: Who even knew that guy was Marine’s father?” Lauren pointed out.
Tom sat down opposite her at the table.
“Maybe that part was coincidence. Whoever was setting Aiden up needed someone to make a false call. It wasn’t important who. I suspect the perpetrator was as surprised as anyone in this town to discover the relationship between Marine and the drunk in the forest.”
Harriet joined them.
“That’s interesting, but I’m not sure it gets us anywhere.” Tom’s shoulders sagged, and she reached over and put her hand on his. “Thank you for telling us. I’m sure it will make sense when we know more.”
“It has to be someone close to one or both of the families,” Lauren said thoughtfully. “I wonder if someone from the French community is involved. I can look and see who else in Foggy Point is French. Don’t they have some sort of local association?”
“There’s a French-American School of Puget Sound,” Tom said. “Aiden’s mother was involved in founding it and was a regular donor. It was started twenty years ago.”
Harriet and Lauren stared at him.
“Don’t look at me like I just grew a second head. I did the plans for an addition they made to the school some years ago.”
“Hard to imagine what could have happened at the school that would cause someone to kill Marine and blame Aiden,” Harriet said with a sigh.
“I know,” Tom said. He stood up. “I’m grasping at straws like everyone else. I better take the kids to the Renfros. Let me know if you need anything, or if you hear anything.”
Lauren and Harriet followed him back to the studio. He took the kids and left.
“Did he have earth-shattering news?” Connie asked when the door was shut once again.
Harriet recounted Tom’s news.
Connie shifted in her chair. “Interesting, but it doesn’t really help, does it?”
Harriet ran her hands through her hair.
“We’re missing something.”
“Well, we aren’t going to solve it sitting around here,” Lauren looked at Jessica. “You ready to head to the homestead?”
Jessica picked up her purse.
“Can we get in our jammies and watch old movies?”
Lauren rolled her eyes.
“Whatever.” She went to the kitchen door, called Carter, and followed Jessica to the door.
Connie followed suit and gathered her things.
“Can I give you the nanny’s phone number to follow up with? I have Carla and Wendy coming over tonight. I think we should try calling again, but I told Wendy I’d watch the princess movie with her, and it’ll be too late for me to call if she doesn’t fall asleep right away.”
“Sure, no problem.” Harriet crossed to her desk and got a piece of paper and a pencil.
“I’m going to go upstairs and take a bubble bath,” Sharon announced.
“Okay, I’m going to work a little on my customer quilt,” Harriet told her as she handed Connie the paper.
Connie wrote the information and gave the paper back.
“Let me know if you hear anything.”
Chapter 25
Scooter was curled up on his bed under Harriet’s desk sleeping; Harriet had been stitching for an hour. Her customer wanted a dense stitching pattern that took all of her concentration.
It was a relief to be by herself, not thinking about Aiden or anyone else. She felt a little guilty when she stopped to stretch her back and realized that, while she had the liberty to take a mental break from it all, Aiden had to live it without relief.
She was lost in thought when her dog went flying off his pillow to the studio door, barking for all he was worth.
“Scooter, hush.” The dog redoubled his efforts. Through the cacophony, she heard someone tapping. She picked Scooter up and went to the side window to see who was on her doorstep.
“Jules?” she said through the window.
He leaned from the doorstep toward the window.
“Can I come in?”
“What do you want?”
“Let me in, and I’ll tell you what I know. I promise.”
Harriet looked away from the window. Sharon was upstairs watching TV after her bath. She’d probably come down if she heard loud voices. Harriet decided she’d let him in but take him to the kitchen to be closer to Sharon’s hearing range.
She stepped to the door and opened it.
“Come in.” Scooter was still barking for all he was worth, wriggling and twisting. “Let’s go to the kitchen.”
Jules reached out and patted Scooter’s head. The dog fell silent and started wagging his tail.
“You little traitor,” Harriet whispered to him. “Would you like something to drink?” she said in a louder voice.
He went to the table and sat down.
“Water would be good.”
Harriet got a glass and filled it from the refrigerator dispenser. She set the glass in front of him and sat down.
“Why are you here?” she asked in a flat voice.
He studied her face for a moment.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he started and then watched for her reaction. “I shouldn’t have said I would sell you what I know. I’d like to think I wouldn’t have taken your money.”
“I’m supposed to believe you now? That’s a bell you can’t unring.” A cloud of musky men’s cologne shrouded him. Harriet turned her head to the side and took a deep breath.
“I’m not the bad guy here.”
Harriet supposed the sort of women he spent time with were impressed by the big blue eyes, leather jacket and trendy cologne. She was not. She rubbed her face and then looked at him.
“I’ve had a long day. For that matter, I’ve had a long week. I don’t really care if you’re a misunderstood hero or Jack the Ripper. If you have something to say, spit it out. Otherwise, please leave.”
“So much for the small talk.” He sat back in his chair. “I think you’re looking in the wrong direction. In this town, my family is the scum of the earth, and the high and mighty Jalberts can do no wrong. I know my mom and dad have, or had, problems, but they would never do anything to hurt one of us kids.”
Harriet stared at him and wondered again why
he was really here.
“Okay, I know my dad had problems. He was a longtime drug user and alcoholic. If you live long enough with both of those habits, you develop health problems. Dad had alcoholic neuropathy and anemia, and lately it became clear he had dementia.
“He was never much of a father, but he was my dad. I hadn’t seen him in years, but when he surfaced again and it was obvious what shape he was in, I started seeing him. I took him his iron pills and made sure he was eating. And I know it probably wasn’t the best thing for him, but I’d take him a fifth of bourbon. I mean, he was never going to really get better at this point, so what was the point in trying to detox him.”
He stopped and sipped his water.
“Anyway, a week or so ago, I went to find him in his favorite little clearing in the woods, and I heard him talking to someone besides himself. I stepped behind a tree and waited to see who came back out.” He paused to make sure his audience was paying attention. “It was Michelle Jalbert.”
Harriet let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“Oh, my gosh.” Her head was literally spinning.
“I’ll bet if you listen to the messages on Marine’s phone, there’ll be one from Michelle setting her up.”
“That would be great—if I had Marine’s phone.”
“What are you talking about? It’s sitting on your desk in the other room.”
“The only phone I have is the one Michelle’s daughter left.”
“Black with purple sparkly nail polish all over it? Marine did that to every phone she ever owned. She borrowed my phone once, and when she gave it back it was covered with that junk. I never could get it all off. I’m telling you, that’s her phone. Go get it, you’ll see.”
He followed Harriet into her studio, and when they got to the table, he picked it up and typed in the unlock code. The phone chirped to life.
He held it out to Harriet.
“See, it opened with Marine’s code.”
Harriet took the phone and pressed the contact button; the file contained only one number—Aiden’s house. She tried messages, emails and the calendar. If there had been data in any of these, it had been wiped.
“Michelle supposedly has three phones—two of them for her legal-aid clients to contact her. Lainie is using one of them while she’s staying at her uncle’s. It would make sense for the legal-aid phone to not have any other data on it. And we don’t really need to bring in the code breakers to figure out one, two, three, four as the password.”
“I’m telling you, this was my sister’s phone. I’ve seen it before.”
Harriet turned it over, but all she could see was poorly shaped stars painted in purple glitter nail polish.
“I’ll hang on to this until we sort things out. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I’m not a fan of Michelle, but I have a hard time believing she would kill Marine and set up her own brother. She’s annoying, but a killer?
“I need more proof than her talking to your father and her daughter having a phone that looks like Marine’s. There are reasonable explanations for both of those things. She works for legal aid; your dad could be one of her clients. I’ve explained the phone. Marine was at Michelle’s for several days. She could have painted one of Michelle’s phones.”
Jules held his hands up in surrender.
“I knew you wouldn’t believe me. But at least you know. Do with it what you will.” He turned toward the door.
“Wait.” She reached out and grabbed his arm, and he turned back. “Thank you. You didn’t have to come back and talk to me, and I do appreciate that you did.”
Jules looked at his feet.
“I’m not really a bad guy. I just don’t live in the same world you do. Spending time with my dad in the shape he was in has had me thinking about the future. Maybe it’s not too late for me to make some changes.”
“I think plenty of people would say it’s never too late to change.” Harriet thought for a moment. “Look, I’ll follow up on what you’ve told me. Tell me the phone number for Marine’s phone. I’ll have a friend check out the cell phone records. If the phone was Marine’s, and it’s been wiped, there will still be call records.”
“Will tell me what you find out?”
She handed him a paper and pen.
“Write down your contact info, too, and I’ll let you know either way.”
He handed her the numbers and let himself out. Harriet watched at the window until she saw his headlights go down her driveway and turn onto the street. She shot the deadbolt on the door and went into the kitchen,
She punched Lauren’s phone number into her house phone.
“Jules just paid me a visit,” she said when they’d gotten through their greetings. “He decided to share his information gratis.” She repeated his story about seeing Michelle with his dad and ended with his insistence that Lainie’s phone was actually Marine’s.
“Do you know anyone who can access cell phone records?” she asked when she’d finished the explanations.
“That would be hacking,” Lauren pointed out.
“I know that. The question was—Do you know anyone who can do it for us?”
“I might. It will mean I’ll owe someone I’d rather not owe.”
“I can give the information to Detective Morse tomorrow.”
“You should do that in any case, but I didn’t say I couldn’t get my guy to do it. I just will have to pay the piper at some point in the future.”
“I don’t want you to do anything that’s going to cause you problems.”
“Nothing I can’t handle. Give me the number.”
Harriet gave it to her.
“Should we get together for coffee in the morning?” she asked.
“Probably a good idea. If it turns out to be Marine’s phone, we may have some things to talk about. We need to see if we know why Michelle was in the woods with Dad, too. I suppose it’s possible she was doing legal aid work for him.”
“That’s what I said to Jules. He didn’t seem to know one way or the other. I wonder if Robin has any friends in that world who could shed some light on that?”
“You call Robin, and I’ll get my guy going. Let’s meet at the Steaming Cup at nine.”
“See you then.”
Harriet called Robin and her aunt and Connie. They agreed to call the rest of the Loose Threads. Finally, she left a message for Detective Morse, letting her know that it was possible she had Marine’s phone.
She sat for a moment lost in thought and then picked up her phone one more time.
“Tom?” she said when he answered. “I may be paranoid or just holding a past grudge, but…” She explained how Jules had suggested Michelle might have something to with his sister’s death. “Even with all she’s done, I can’t believe she’d do that to Aiden. Just in case I’m being naive, do you think the Renfros could come up with a reason to keep Lainie and Etienne for a few days? If Michelle is questioned by the police, even if she’s cleared, it would be better if the kids didn’t have to see it.”
Tom assured her the Renfros would be thrilled for any excuse to keep the kids. She thanked him and told him about the morning coffee gathering.
“Come on,” she said to Scooter when she’d hung up. “Let’s go update Sharon and see if there’s any mindless TV we can watch before bedtime.”
Chapter 26
Harriet woke with a start at six a.m. She’d been dreaming. Having a nightmare, really. Square after square of satin, silk and velvet were floating down from the sky like snow, burying her to her neck. She’d had to fight to keep her head above the growing pile of crazy quilt fabric.
She must have called out in her sleep, because it was the only explanation for Fred being awake and head-butting her that early.
“Sorry, Fred. I was having a nightmare.” He meowed his understanding. She fluffed her hair with her hand. “Now what are we going to do?” She looked over the edge of her bed to Scooter’s bed. All that was visib
le was a pile of fleecy blankets. “Let’s go for a walk,” she said. Fred meowed again, but the dog bed was silent. “Okay, I’ll go for a walk, you can stay in your bed.”
She dressed in her running tights and T-shirt and pulled her gray hoodie over the top. She quietly closed the door and went downstairs, stopping to feed Fred on her way outside. After a few stretches, she jogged slowly down her drive and onto the roadway.
Running gave Harriet time to think about the previous week’s events. For Michelle to have killed Marine, she would have to have gotten Marine’s dad to call Aiden and get him out of the apartment. She would also have had to kill Marine, plant evidence on her body, and then be seen driving around town looking for Marine at the same time.
She focused for a minute while she watched traffic and then crossed the busy intersection at the bottom of her hill. Michelle would almost have to have had an accomplice—if the time of death was right.
She ran on, pondering that thought for a mile. Although she’d become closer with Sharon, it was hard to ignore the fact that Sharon was the one with no alibi at the exact time Marine had died.
She looped around and headed back up her hill. If you took a step back and looked at Marine’s death without the prism of knowledge about the individuals, her killer should be someone from the drug world, or her family. She ran on. Nothing else presented itself on the steep run except a charley horse in her calf.
Harriet got a cup of hot cocoa at the counter of the Steaming Cup. She carried it to the large table where the Loose Threads were assembled.
“Hi, all,” she said and sat down between her aunt and Lauren.
“You took your sweet time getting here,” Lauren said.
“Sorry. I woke up early having nightmares about our crazy quilts. I decided to go out for a run, since I was up, and after I showered…never mind, it doesn’t matter. What did you find out?”
Lauren pulled out her tablet.
“The phone is a burner.”
Aunt Beth set her cup of coffee on the table and leaned toward Lauren.
“What does that mean?”
“The actual name is ‘prepaid cellular.’ That means you buy the phone at Walmart or any other store that has them and, at the same time, pay for a preset amount of minutes. In a normal prepay, you can reload it as many times as you want. In the world of drug dealers, they don’t reload. They use the phone until its minutes are gone and then throw it away. If the phone was purchased with cash, we have no way of knowing who bought it.”
Crazy as a Quilt (A Harriet Turman/Loose Threads Mystery Book 8) Page 20
