by Jessica Beck
“As I said, I don’t want care to discuss it.”
“I just don’t see what all of the fuss is about. Could ten dollars be all that important in the scheme of things?” I asked him.
Kevin shrugged as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small notebook. He proudly opened a few pages, and I saw that the man had recorded every transaction he’d ever had, no matter how small, in his fine handwriting.
“Wow, I can’t believe you keep such meticulous records,” Grace said.
I was certain that she hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but he took it as one anyway. “I know every penny I’ve ever spent since the first grade.”
“And it’s all in there?” I asked as I pointed to the tiny notebook.
“Of course not. This just contains my most recent income and my various expenditures.” He closed the book and showed us both the paper cover. “I got these notebooks on clearance for next to nothing. They were the best investment I’ve made in years.”
I was about to ask him something else when I heard a buzzer go off. Kevin put the last bite of sandwich in his mouth, followed it with a drink of water, and then folded his paper lunch bag neatly and tucked it into his pocket. “If you’ll excuse me, I have precisely seven minutes in which to walk back to the bank.”
“Mind if we tag along and walk with you?” I asked him. We hadn’t come anywhere close to asking enough questions yet, and I didn’t want to let him get away until we had.
“Sorry, but that’s my private time reserved for personal reflection,” Kevin said, and then he was gone.
Grace and I watched as he walked away, and then we turned to each other and shook our heads.
“Apparently we’re not as good at investigating as we like to think we are,” I said.
“Apparently,” she replied, echoing the sentiment.
“What should we do about it?” I asked her.
“Well, when all else fails, we could always eat.”
“Do we even deserve a meal after three bad interrogations in a row?”
“I’m not about to base my food intake on whether I deserve it or not,” Grace replied. “Feel free to punish yourself if you’d like, but I’m starving.”
“Well, I’ve never done well on an empty stomach,” I replied.
“Then we’ll tackle Vince Dade after we eat lunch.”
“Okay. I give in,” I said as we headed for the Boxcar.
“Funny, but you didn’t fight me on that very hard.”
“Did you want me to?” I asked her.
“No way. What are you going to have?”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’ll take a chance on whatever special Trish is running today. Whatever it is, I know that it’s bound to be good. How about you?”
“I’m sticking with my tried and true: hamburger, fries, and sweet tea.”
As soon as she said it, I realized that was probably what I should get as well. “We’ll make it two, then.”
“No, sorry, but you’ve already committed to the special,” Grace said with a grin.
“How is that possible? We haven’t even walked inside yet.” It was true, though just barely. We were on the steps and one more foot from the front door.
“Okay, I’ll let you slide this time,” Grace said as she held the door open for me.
“No, you’re right. I’m going with my first choice after all.”
“Even if it’s liver and onions?” Grace asked mischievously.
“Trish wouldn’t do that to me,” I said.
“We both know that some folks just love that meal.”
“No doubt about it. I’m just not one of them.” I was relieved to see the special was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans, one of my favorites.
“Hey, Trish,” I said with a smile, knowing that I was going to love my lunch.
“Sorry, but you just missed him,” Trish said as her ponytail bobbed once in the air.
“Who exactly did I miss?” I asked.
“Jake, of course,” she answered, clearly confused. “Weren’t you meeting him here?”
“Why? Did he say that I was?”
“My mistake,” Trish said. “Grab any table you’d like and I’ll be right with you.”
I didn’t budge, though. “Trish, what aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing, not a thing, nothing at all,” she said, but the diner owner didn’t make eye contact with me, something that was a dead giveaway that something was going on.
“Trish,” I repeated, this time much firmer.
Blurting it out as though it cost her money to say each word, my friend the diner owner said, “He was here with another woman, okay?”
Chapter 10
“Another woman? Are you sure?” I asked loudly, not caring if some of the folks already eating at the Boxcar had paused to listen to our conversation.
“She was a woman, all right. She might have been wearing a suit, but there was no hiding those curves,” Trish said. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“We all know that’s not true, and I appreciate the heads up,” I said as I reached for my cell phone and headed back out the door. Grace started to come with me when I stopped her. “Grab us a table and order. I’ll take the special after all. I love meatloaf.”
“What if you need to go somewhere to straighten this out after your telephone conversation?” she asked me.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure that it’s fine,” I said.
Grace just shrugged, and then she and Trish shared a furtive glance that I was sure I wasn’t supposed to have seen.
It just made things that much worse. The entire town knew that Max had cheated on me when we’d been married, so it was understandable that everybody might be worried that Jake might do the same thing, but I had a distinct advantage over them: I knew my boyfriend.
Jake answered on the second ring. “Bishop here,” he said.
“Hey. I heard you had a pretty nice-looking lunch companion today,” I said, allowing the smile to come out in my voice.
Jake laughed, a very good sign indeed. I trusted him completely, but it was nice to know that he hadn’t been caught doing something that I wouldn’t approve of. “This town is something else, isn’t it? Kelly and I left the diner three minutes ago. Did Trish call you?”
“Actually, Grace and I must have just missed you. We’re at the diner right now,” I said. “Are you talking about Kelly Blakemore?” I’d met Kelly twice, a fellow investigator Jake worked with. She was a lovely woman, there was no doubt about it, but she also happened to be devoted to her husband, a former linebacker for the Carolina Panthers professional football team. “What was Kelly doing in April Springs?”
“Take a guess. The Chief sent her to talk me out of retiring.”
Actually, that was a pretty smart move on Jake’s boss’s part. There were few men alive who could say to no to Kelly if she put her mind to it. “What did you tell her?”
“I thanked her for caring enough to come, and then I apologized to her for the wasted trip. I meant what I said, Suzanne. No matter what happens next, that part of my life is over, once and for all.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “I’m a little worried that you might miss the excitement of your old job if you quit now.”
“With you around, how is that even possible?” he asked with a chuckle. “Kelly just left, and I’m trying to track Vince Dade down. Any ideas where I might find him?”
“Honestly, we were going to look for him ourselves as soon as we ate.”
There was a pause, and then Jake said, “Fine, just as long as I get to him first. Have you spoken with any of your other suspects yet?”
“We have, not that any of the conversations did us any good.” I told him the painful details of each encounter, and to his credit, he was sympathetic to our frustration.
“You know as well as I do that happens in questioning more often than anyone likes to admit,” he said. “It’s not nearly as easy as they make
it look in books and movies.”
“It still doesn’t make it any easier to accept, though,” I said.
“Nor should it. Listen, I really do have to run. If you find Vince first, go ahead and take a shot with him. You never know. You might just get lucky.”
“Goodness knows that I’m due a little. See you later. I love you.”
“And I love you right back,” he said before he hung up.
I tucked my phone back into my pocket and found Trish and Grace both trying to look nonchalant as they stared out the door at me. Putting on a fake frown, I stomped up the steps toward them. After all, why shouldn’t I have a little fun with them before I told them what had really happened?
“What did he say?” Grace asked softly as I approached them.
“You’re not going to believe this,” I said, trying to build up a little frustration in my voice so they wouldn’t know that I was just playacting.
“Suzanne, I’m sure that it was all harmless enough,” Trish said hastily. “They’re probably just old friends. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.”
“Don’t you dare apologize. You were just looking out for me,” I said.
“What did he say?” Grace asked. “Is it over?”
I suddenly felt bad about teasing them. It was time to end this. “It was all perfectly innocent. I’ve known the woman for years. Jake works with her. Or should I say worked.”
“Why was she here, then?” Grace asked.
“It turns out that her boss sent her to get Jake to reconsider his resignation,” I explained. “It was all a perfectly understandable mistake.”
“That’s a relief,” Trish said. “I still need to be a little more careful about what I say.”
I hugged her lightly. “Don’t ever stop caring enough about me to tell me the truth.”
Trish looked surprised by the gesture. “The same goes for the two of you, you know.”
“You don’t have to worry about us,” Grace said with a grin. “We’re both honest to the point of brutality sometimes.” Her smile faded as she turned back to me. “You didn’t answer my question, though. Is he going back?”
“No, he sent her on her way,” I said. “One thing that I’ve learned about Jake is that once he makes up his mind about something in his life, there’s very little chance that he’s going to change it again without a very good reason.”
“So, are we happy about that?” Trish asked me.
“Actually, we’re ecstatic,” I said.
“What’s he going to do for a living, though?”
“That’s the beauty of it,” I said. “He has no idea. One thing that he has repeatedly said that he won’t do is take over the police chief’s job, even though it’s pretty clear that Chief Martin is finished with it himself.”
“So, we’ll be in need of a new police chief soon,” Grace said. “Any chance that you might run for office, Suzanne?”
I looked at her in disbelief. Had my best friend lost her mind? “I wouldn’t do it if you paid me a million dollars,” I said. “Besides, I already have a job.”
“Isn’t it tempting to run, though?” Grace asked.
“Not even a little bit,” I said. “Now let’s eat. I’m starving.”
“The only free table is right here beside me. I hope that’s okay,” Trish said.
“That sounds wonderful to me,” I said.
When Grace agreed, we took our seats beside the register. Trish smiled at us as she offered menus. “Do you even need to look at these?” she asked.
“I’ll have the meatloaf special,” I said as I refused it.
“Make that two,” Grace said, surprising me with her choice.
“I thought you were going to have a burger.”
“Hey, a gal’s entitled to change her mind, isn’t she?”
“Are you kidding? I consider it my natural-born prerogative,” Trish said.
I grinned at the diner’s owner. “Two specials then, and two sweet teas.”
“Coming right up.”
As Trish ducked back into the kitchen, a large room formed from another boxcar that matched the one we were sitting in, Grace said, “I’ve got to admit that you had me going there for a minute.”
“I’m sorry. I know that it was cruel. I just couldn’t help myself.”
“Are you kidding? I applaud your inability to pass up a way to zing Trish and me. Just remember, though, payback can be brutal.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “By the way, Jake’s on his way to speak with Vince Dade.”
“I hope he has more luck than we’ve been having today,” she said. “Have we ever had an investigation where we’ve been thwarted so much so soon?”
“Not even close, but we were probably due. What we really need to do is to get these folks away from their usual surroundings so we can isolate them a little. They’re all just a little too comfortable as things stand right now.”
“That sounds suspiciously like you’ve got a plan,” Grace said.
“I wouldn’t call it a plan quite yet. Right now it’s more of an inkling.”
“Those work, too. Care to share it with me?”
I shook my head. “Not just yet. I want to play with it a little more in my mind first before I say anything out loud.”
“I totally get that,” Grace said, and then she looked up as Trish brought us not only our drinks, but our food as well.
“That’s the beauty of getting the special,” Trish said as she slid the plates in front of us. “You never have to wait.”
“This all looks delicious,” I said as I took in the lovely sight of the diner food on my plate. The meatloaf was coated in brown gravy, and there was even a dollop of gravy crowning the mashed potatoes as well. One look at the green beans told me that they’d never seen the inside of a can, and I knew that they’d be delicious too.
“Trust me, it’s tasty,” she said with a smile. “I had mine before we started serving lunch.”
The food was everything that I’d hoped it would be, and my appetite was satisfied by the time we paid the check and walked out into the crisp afternoon air. Cool weather was finally upon us, and it hadn’t come a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. Folks tended to eat more donuts when the temperatures began to drop, but there were more reasons than that that made me love the cooler weather.
“Where to now?” Grace asked me as she buttoned her jacket slightly. My best friend favored the hot days of summer over every other time of year, so I knew that she was already in mourning over the fact that chilling temperatures were to come.
“Well, I hope that Jake has already spoken to Vince Dade, because he’s the only name left on our list.”
“What do we do if we can’t speak with him? If Jake can’t find him, what hope do we have?”
“We’ll just have to figure that out if it happens.”
Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened after all. All in all, it just wasn’t our day.
It turned out that Vince Dade wasn’t at his office or his home, either.
“Do you have any idea where else he could be?” I asked Grace as we left his workplace.
“The only other place I can think of is the bank,” she said.
“Why would he be there?”
“Well, he’s got his hands in a dozen different ventures, so he’s got to get capital for it all somewhere. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it’s as good a place as any to look,” I said as I drove toward the bank.
It turned out that we didn’t have to look for him after all.
When I glanced across the street, I saw the man himself coming out of the town hall.
Grace had been looking at the bank, so when I turned the Jeep in the opposite direction, she yelped a little. “Hey, what are you doing? The bank’s over there.”
“Maybe so, but Vince Dade is right here.” I pointed to him just as he spotted us and turned to walk away in the other direction. “Come on. He’s trying t
o get away.”
“Vince, hang on a second,” I called out as Grace and I hurried out of the parked Jeep.
“I don’t want to talk to either one of you,” he said as he kept walking.
“This will just take a second,” I promised him, though I doubted that I could question him that quickly.
“That’s what your boyfriend said. I didn’t tell him anything, and I’m certainly not going to speak with the two of you. I just want to be left alone.”
“I’m sure that you do, but wouldn’t it be easier just to speak with us now and get it over with? If you do, we’ll promise to leave you alone.”
“Guess what?” Vince said as he stopped abruptly. “You’re going to leave me alone anyway.” There was nothing friendly or pleasant in the way he said it, and his statement sounded distinctly like a threat to me.
“What could it hurt to answer a few questions?” Grace asked.
“Go away,” he said.
“Do you really think that it’s going to be that easy to get rid of us?” Grace asked him, pushing the man a little harder than I would have dared to try.
He looked at her fiercely for a moment before he spoke again. “I’ll just say this once. I’m not interested in being a part of your little investigation, and I expect you to respect my wishes on the subject.”
There was a clear “or else” hanging in the air, but Grace started to follow him anyway as he stomped off. I put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
“Suzanne, we can’t just let him get away.”
“Grace, don’t kid yourself. We never had him in the first place. You heard the man. He’s not interested, and we can’t exactly make him cooperate with us. If Jake didn’t have any luck with him, there’s no reason in the world to suspect that we would.”
“I guess you’re right,” she said, so I removed my hand from her shoulder. “We’ve hit nothing but dead ends this entire day. Is there anything else we can do, or is this just going to all be hopeless?”
“I’ve got one idea,” I said.
“Is it the one you were talking about before?” Grace asked me.
“No, that one is still percolating.”
“Then what’s the one that’s already been fully brewed?”
