It's Just a Little Crush

by Caroline Fardig

  “She was my friend’s cousin. What a heartbreak for the whole family…”

  “I can’t believe this kind of violence in Liberty. Why, that girl was just a child…”

  “Who could have done this?”

  “I don’t think there’s ever been a murder here…”

  Julia and I grimace at each other in defeat. I sigh, “I can’t believe no one is talking specifics! If we don’t find out something soon, we’re losing this bet.”

  “I know! Hey, I think our girls are coming back—maybe they know something.”

  Our cosmetologists, Laura and Brittany, sit down and begin our pedicures. Julia greets them with, “So how are things going around here today?”

  Julia’s cosmetologist, Brittany, sighs heavily. “In a word, crazy. First we had that big deal this morning, and now everybody and their brother wants an appointment all of a sudden.”

  Julia and I look at each other guiltily.

  I ask carefully, “So did the police make you leave the building this morning while they were investigating upstairs?”

  “Yes,” replies Laura. “We had to go outside for about a half hour, then we were allowed to come back in.

  “Did the police tell you what was going on?” asks Julia.

  “Not really. They just said someone had died upstairs and they needed to do some looking around.” Laura is not a wealth of information.

  “Did they ask you guys any questions?” presses Julia.

  “Yes, just basic things like ‘did we hear any unusual noises the past couple of days,’ ‘when was the last time we saw Audra going into her apartment,’ ‘did we see anyone else going in or out the past couple of days.’ None of us had heard or seen anything, but we’re only open from nine to six every day, so it’s not like we know everything that goes on up there.”

  “So you knew the tenant upstairs? Audra?” I ask. We may be getting somewhere now.

  Laura sighs and turns her gaze down. “She was one of my customers. Really nice girl.”

  I want to get more information out of her without coming across like I’m trying to get more information out of her. I try a sneakier tactic. “Audra. Oh, no. It wasn’t Audra Sanders, was it? We were friends in grade school.”

  Julia gives me a strange look.

  “No, it was Audra Downing.” Bingo. “She was only twenty-one. So sad—she has had a rough couple of months, and now this.” Laura shakes her head.

  Julia and I both lean forward, waiting for her to continue.

  “Okay, there you go,” Laura says abruptly, as she reaches out a hand to help me down from the pedicure chair. “Let’s move you to the manicure stations up front.” Great. Just when the story was getting good, we get interrupted. It’s going to be hard to bring this conversation back.

  As Julia and I shuffle awkwardly up to the front of the salon in our disposable pedicure flip-flops, an older lady waves to us from under one of the hood hair dryers. The salon keeps a couple of those ancient hair dryers around for their elder clientele who still request the old helmet-head hairdo. “Well, hello, girls,” calls our high school English teacher, Mrs. Bennett.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bennett,” Julia and I reply at the same time.

  “What are my star English students doing today? Taking a little break from working at the Chronicle?” Good old Mrs. Bennett. No one is prouder than your high school English teacher when you land a job at the local newspaper.

  “Yes, with all the excitement here this morning we thought we needed to relax a little,” Julia replies.

  “Such a tragedy,” Mrs. Bennett says, clucking her tongue. “Dear Audra was also a student of mine—a lovely young woman. I thought so highly of her. I referred her to work for my niece, Beth, at Stewart-Campbell Accounting.”

  “She must have really impressed you to refer her for a job,” Julia says.

  “Oh, yes. She was wonderfully organized and hard-working.” She shakes her head. “Pity it didn’t work out, though.”

  “What didn’t work out, Mrs. Bennett?” I ask.

  “Her employment at my niece’s office, dear.”

  Interesting. Not necessarily pertinent to her murder, but gossip is gossip. Now to get Mrs. Bennett to spill it. I use my concerned face and muse, “Oh. That’s unfortunate. I wonder why it didn’t work out.”

  “I can’t imagine what went wrong. Audra did very well at first, but Beth told me that they had to let her go not long ago. Beth was quite bothered by how things ended. I wonder if she has heard what happened to poor Audra. She will be very saddened by this news. I should phone her. Excuse me, girls,” Mrs. Bennett says, plucking her cell phone out of her purse.

  Bonus! Julia and I gape at each other, eyebrows raised and eyes wide. We do the tiniest of fist-bumps, trying to conceal our glee. The ‘Stewart’ of Stewart-Campbell Accounting is none other than Jed Stewart, husband of our co-worker Hannah. Hannah will know everything about Audra—why she was fired, and possibly even why she was having a “rough couple of months”, and if not, she can call her husband and find out for us. There’s no way that she will be giving Blake the inside scoop after losing the story to him this morning. We are so winning this bet!

  Laura and Brittany are waiting for us at the manicure stations. I rack my brain, trying to come up with a sly way to get them to open up more about the whole Audra thing. Julia is making small talk with them about the fair next week and not having any luck steering them back. The phone rings shrilly from the reception desk, and Laura excuses herself to answer it. Here’s our big break to talk up Brittany alone. Julia and I nod at each other with a silent understanding.

  Julia begins, “So Brittany, were you scared when you learned someone died upstairs?”

  Eyes wide, Brittany pops her gum and replies, “Totally. I thought this town was, like, so safe, but you never know, right?” She leans in and lowers her voice. “Our boss told us not to tell anyone, because the police haven’t made it, like, official yet, but word is she was strangled. They told us to be extra careful on our way to and from work. I am so getting signed up for a self-defense class.”

  My jaw drops. Julia finds her voice before I do and whispers, “Strangled?” Damn. We were all wrong on our cause of death bet.

  Brittany is absolutely eating up our rapt attention. She peers around to see if anyone is listening. “Wanna hear something really freaky?”

  Julia and I nod at the same time.

  “It was, like, probably two months ago, and Audra was in here going on and on about how she broke up with her boyfriend and that he went all psycho on her. Seriously, she was afraid he was going to come after her or something. He kept calling her and showing up where she was. Total creeper. She was even thinking about getting a restraining order. She told us he—” Brittany stops abruptly, and a little guiltily if you ask me, as Laura returns from the front desk.

  “Sorry about that,” Laura says. “Almost finished. We’ll have you ladies back to work in no time.”

  Bummer. I guess that’s all the gossip we’re getting. Maybe an hour was too ambitious a time frame to get enough info to win our bet. With only ten minutes left of our lunch hour, we still have to get back to work, talk to Hannah, and write down our findings. Julia and I pay for our mani-pedis and race out the door.

  She turns to me and squeals, “Did you get all that? This is a bona fide mystery! Well, not that we get to do anything about it, but I can’t believe all this is happening in our little town.” She glances down at her watch. “Ooh, only seven minutes left. Haul ass, chickie!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Julia and I arrive back at the office, breathless. She makes her way straight to Hannah, and I hurry to my desk. We had decided that Julia would grill Hannah while I type out what we learned at the salon. Julia is way more empathetic than I am (what can I say—I’m a straight-forward gal), and I am the faster typist. Hank and Blake notice us come in and begin to walk over to my desk. I don’t have time for my usual routine of getting all gooey when Blake com
es near me—right now I am a woman on a mission. Even though I’m doing my best to ignore him, I’m still getting a little sweaty in spite of myself. Focus, Lizzie. I’ve already typed out most of our information by the time they amble over and try to look over my shoulder at my computer screen.

  I put my hands up to cover the screen. “No peeking, boys.”

  “You’re only saying that because you’ve got nothing,” Blake teases. I can just imagine the darling, playful smile that’s on his face, but I don’t dare look.

  “Don’t waste my time, you two. I only have a few minutes left.” I resume my furious typing.

  Julia appears back at my desk and orders Hank and Blake, “Go away.”

  “Tick, tock,” Hank says, tapping his watch as he and Blake stroll back to their desks.

  Julia whispers in my ear, “No luck with Hannah. Just put what we found out at Fascination.”

  I snap my head up, surprised. “What do you mean ‘no luck with Hannah’?”

  “Shh! Just type! I’ll tell you later.”

  I finish the last word at 12:59 and hit the print button. Julia runs and grabs my document off the printer, stuffs it in an envelope, and rushes to Hank’s desk while licking the glue strip on the flap.

  Hank says, “Don’t trip, now. You’ll paper cut your tongue. What would you broads do if you couldn’t talk the rest of the afternoon?” He leans back in his chair, pleased by his witty observation.

  “Hardy-har-har,” retorts Julia. She says to Blake, “Got anything yet, Blake?”

  “I’m sure I’m already far ahead of you,” he says patronizingly.

  “I almost forgot, Hank,” I interject. “We were all off the mark on cause of death.”

  Blake stares at me incredulously. “You have COD?” he asks, his voice almost squeaking.

  “Oh, yeah,” I drawl slowly, smiling and thoroughly enjoying his attention.

  “Come on, at least give me that. Please?” Blake pleads, gazing at me steadily and flashing me his killer smile.

  Check it out. I’m actually flirting with Blake Morgan. (He noticed, right?) And this time, I am not choking, saying something stupid, or stuttering. “Ooh, sorry. That’s sealed information,” I say with a wicked grin.

  ***

  As soon as Hank and Blake return to their work and are off our backs, I hurry over to Julia and drag her to the breakroom. “Why did Hannah have nothing on Audra Downing?”

  Julia frowns. “I don’t think it’s so much that she knew nothing, it’s that she didn’t want to talk about her.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, but here’s what happened. I ran in and told Hannah that Audra was the one who was killed, and asked if she knew anything about her since she used to work for Jed. First she was totally shocked. She didn’t say anything for a while. I tried again to get her to talk. She just looked really upset and said she couldn’t talk about it, so I didn’t push her.”

  I muse, “I wonder if there was some kind of bad blood between them due to the firing.”

  “I don’t know. Hannah seems pretty torn up, though.”

  “Hmm. Even without the extra info from Hannah, I think we still have this bet won. Blake had a fit when I told him we knew the cause of death.”

  We high-five each other.

  “I’d better get back to my desk,” I sigh. “I want to be a little ahead by tomorrow. Blake has to have his big story in by tomorrow afternoon, and if I’m behind, I’ll have to stay late to edit it. It has to go in this weekend’s edition. And it’s going to be a long one.”

  Our office is especially calm the rest of the day, now that all the excitement from the morning has died down. Hannah in particular is silent all afternoon. Every time I peek over at her she is just staring blankly at her computer screen. I wonder if she’s upset about Audra’s passing because she knew her, or if there’s something else going on. Hannah has a lot on her emotional plate today between getting passed over for the new story plus not being able to rid herself of the Samuel Harper mess. Blake being assigned to write the Audra Downing story might be a good thing, though, since Hannah seems to be a little too close to the situation.

  ***

  On Friday morning, eleven o’clock can’t get here soon enough. Julia and I are whispering excitedly to each other about how we think our bet with Hank and Blake will turn out.

  Julia says, “I bet he’s got nothing. The police haven’t even released her name yet because they haven’t been able to find a family member to contact. None of them live around here anymore.”

  “I wonder if the police have any suspects yet. What could be so important to kill a twenty-one-year-old girl over?” I ask.

  “Love or money, sister. That’s what makes the world go ‘round.”

  Hank and Blake have their heads together, talking quietly. They nod to each other and walk toward us, both swaggering and wearing wicked grins.

  “Goooood morning, ladies,” Blake drawls sexily. Is it possible that he gets dreamier by the day? “Ready to lose a bet?”

  I’m temporarily unable to reply due to a minor bout of Blake-vision. At least it’s becoming more controllable.

  Julia (obviously unaffected) fires back quickly, “You haven’t got squat and you know it.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” Hank says, producing two envelopes. “Let’s take this to the breakroom.”

  We all follow Hank into the breakroom, and he closes the door. “Why don’t we flip for who gets to go last? Lizzie, heads or tails?” He flips a quarter into the air.

  “Heads!” I call.

  Hank catches the quarter and looks at it. “Heads it is. Blake, my boy, you’re up.” He opens Blake’s envelope and starts reading the document to himself.

  “Aw, come on!” Julia huffs. “You’re not going to read it out loud?”

  Hank feigns ignorance. “Oh, you wanted me to read it out loud?”

  Julia shakes her head. “Just read, jerkwad.”

  Hank clears his throat. “‘The Winning Entry’ by Blake Morgan.”

  Julia and I both shoot a withering glance at Blake, who isn’t even trying to cover the smirk on his face.

  Hank continues pompously, “‘Audra Downing, age twenty-one, had her young life tragically cut short this week. Thursday morning, she was found strangled in her apartment located above Fascination Hair Designs by the Chronicle’s own Paul ‘the Picker’ Jackson.’” Hank stops as Julia and I both gasp in unison.

  “Paul found her?” I squeal. No wonder he’s been MIA since all the commotion yesterday.

  Hank raises a hand to silence us and says importantly, “Please, let me continue.” Once satisfied that he has our undivided attention back, Hank resumes his recitation. “‘Mr. Jackson and Ms. Downing had made plans on Tuesday to meet for dinner the following evening. When Ms. Downing neglected to appear at their scheduled meeting place, a dejected Mr. Jackson made several attempts to contact her, but was unfortunately unsuccessful. He tried phoning her again once he arrived at work on Thursday morning, also to no avail. Sensing that something may have been horribly wrong, he then decided to abandon his work and pay her a visit at her apartment, mere steps away from his office building. When he reached her door, he noticed that it was unlocked. Cautiously he entered the apartment, calling her name. He didn’t have to look far to find signs of a struggle, and upon entering her living room he found Ms. Downing lying on the floor, horrifyingly blue from lack of oxygen. Mr. Jackson tried valiantly to revive her, but realized that all was lost. He tearfully dialed nine-one-one to report the heinous crime.’”

  “How in the hell did you get all of this information?” I demand. I give Blake my best mom-glare—you know, the piercing look your mom always gave you when she was trying to Jedi mind trick you into behaving or telling the truth—and accuse, “Did you beat it out of poor Paul?”

  “How can you even say that?” Blake replies, trying to look thoroughly hurt by my accusation.

  “Because it’s not like you guys
are friends, and he wasn’t even here yesterday or today. I bet you made all of this up.”

  Blake gives Hank a sideways glance. “It’s amazing what a couple of beers and a visit from the cool kids will do.” Blake fist-bumps Hank and says to him pointedly, “Am I right, my friend?”

  “You jackasses!” Julia cries. “How could you take advantage of poor Paul when he was at his most vulnerable?”

  “It’s not our fault he can’t hold his liquor like a man,” Hank says. “He didn’t make it through half a bottle before he was singing like a canary. Lightweight.”

  “Is that all? Or is there more to this romance novel?” Julia asks, unimpressed.

  Blake fires back, “Isn’t that enough? I’ve got it all.” Understatement of the year. “Let’s hear what you girls have.” He lounges back in his chair, lacing his fingers behind his head.

  “Quiet down for the reading of our next entry,” says Hank. “‘Females Gossiping’ by Julia and Lizzie.”

  “It doesn’t say that,” I huff.

  Hank ignores me and continues, reading quickly in a bored tone without an ounce of inflection, “‘Name: Audra Downing. Age: Twenty-one. Occupation: Was fired from Stewart-Campbell Accounting a couple of months ago. Cause of Death: Asphyxiation by strangulation. For the Win: Former boyfriend is possible suspect. Audra broke up with her boyfriend two months ago, and according to our source, ‘he went all psycho on her’.’”

  Julia turns to glare at me. “Is that it? That’s all you wrote?”

  “You were there. That was everything we learned,” I say.

  “Yeah, but it’s so concise and…sterile.”

  “Never send a copy editor to do a journalist’s job,” Blake interjects.

  I frown at him. “I say we win.”

  “No way, Hart. We win.”

  “We have a suspect with motive!”

  “We have an eyewitness account of the untouched crime scene,” he says.

  Julia snatches the papers from Hank and scans them. “You know, if you take out all of your waxing poetic, we basically have the same information, except you have a witness and we have a suspect. I’d say that’s pretty even.”