Closet Confidential

by Maffini, Mary Jane

  I grinned at Wendy. “One more visit and you’ll be done with us and free to enjoy your wonderful closet.”

  Unfortunately, I was off to face the Beauchamps.

  21

  It may sound simple, but keep the items you use most often in the easiest spot to access. This will save you time and aggravation when you’re getting ready in a hurry. Reserve top shelves and out-of-t he-way places for rarely worn or out-of-season clothing.

  Yes, I was aware of the evils of procrastination, but I didn’t have an appointment with Lorelei until three. I headed for CYCotics with a large insulated container of Wendy’s chili and rolls, plenty for Jack and me, too. Wendy couldn’t have shown her gratitude in a better way. Jack had been overrun with midday customers, and I offered to distract Little Nick for a few minutes while he ate an early lunch in case the noon crowd overwhelmed him. His part-time repair guy was also run off his feet. I would have changed the baby’s diaper, too, but that had all been taken care of. Jack was hitting his stride rather than losing interest as I had hoped. I reminded myself that he’d never lost interest in rescuing dogs and fund-raising for WAG’D. Apparently babies were just as fascinating, if not more so. He didn’t seem to require any more assistance, so I dashed home to let the dogs out. Left to their own devices they will sleep until I arrive. This time was no different. There was no sign of gratitude when I woke them up and took them out. They were back busily dreaming in minutes. That reminded me, Go back. My own dreams had instructed me to go back.

  Shortly after, I sailed down Long March Road. I had plenty of time. It was just after noon as I headed down to Friesen Street.

  Go back echoed in my head. “This is not going back,” I said out loud. “This is merely checking something.” I slowed in front of the apartment building across from the building site and stopped. I looked up. There was no one in the window with the flowers, but a woman was peering out the door to a second-floor balcony with a thick row of thriving plants. An elderly man shuffled slowly into the building.

  I locked the car and hurried through the front door at the same time. He turned and held it for me. He held the interior door for me, too. So much for security measures. I reined in my inner bossy boots and refrained from telling him not to let strangers into the building. You can’t go by appearances. However, it was convenient for me. I figured the second floor was the place to start. I headed to the end of the corridor where I assumed the occupants would have windows and balconies overlooking the street and the construction site. There was no answer at the first door. If my guess was right, the second door would probably be the unit with the balcony plants. I knocked on the door and waited as a tapping sound came closer. An angular woman who would have been tall if she hadn’t been quite so stooped opened the door and asked in a quavery voice what I wanted. I put her somewhere in her late eighties, still going strong and elegant in her periwinkle silk blouse.

  “My name is Charlotte Adams. I would like to ask you a few questions about the construction site opposite. Are you comfortable talking to me?”

  A chuckle followed. “Well, you’re no bigger than a minute. I think I’ll be safe enough.”

  This presented another opportunity to warn about judging people by appearances and how that can be dangerous for older people. But, she got it right: I am not very big and she’d be safe with me.

  I stepped inside a tiny apartment, stuffed with enough furniture to fill a two-story house. I like to help people who are in that situation, but that wasn’t why I was there.

  “I am Thalia Waverman. Please have a seat,” she said, gesturing around to the two oversize sofas and the cluster of chairs.

  She moved with a slow, arthritic gait. It didn’t dampen her mood, though, and I got a whiff of Chanel as she limped past me.

  I said, “I’d love to see the plants on your balcony. They look quite amazing from the ground floor.”

  She brightened. “Why don’t we talk out there? Spring and summer are too short. We should enjoy them while we can, although you probably have a few more years than I do ahead of you. You’ll need to carry an extra chair, though. I can no longer manage that.”

  “Happy to.” I selected the nearest dining chair and carted it to the outdoor space.

  She glanced down as the man in the fedora scooted past on his motorized scooter. Across the street and down, people came and went from the Hope for Youth at Risk office.

  I said, “I thought that the construction site would be visible from here. But I see it’s obscured by these plants.”

  She nodded. “Hibiscus. I put them there because I didn’t want to look at it.”

  “I can’t blame you. What was there before? Familiar buildings?”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “They were derelict and boarded up. A danger to our neighborhood. People were afraid to walk past them.”

  “Did people in the neighborhood resist the redevelopment?”

  “If they did, it’s news to me, dear,” she said, picking a nonperforming leaf off the nearest hibiscus.

  “Oh, well. I must be mistaken. The reason I am here is that my friend was killed on the site and—”

  “A friend, was she? How sad.” She patted my hand kindly. I felt bad at lying to this lovely woman. Anabel had not been a friend, although I’d known her since she was a child.

  “It was very sad. I wondered if you happened to see her the day she died?”

  “Oh!” she said.

  “I am sorry to ask you to revisit that day. It must have been upsetting enough talking to the police about it.”

  “The police?”

  “Yes. They must have asked you questions after the accident happened.”

  She shook her head. “They didn’t. I would have been happy to talk to them. I don’t get that many visitors up here, you know.”

  “Maybe you were out when they came around?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t go out that often except on my balcony. This was, let me see, back in March? I have no idea what I was doing then. The days do blend together. I might have had a doctor’s appointment, I suppose. Or gone for groceries. I could check my calendar, but I’d have to find it first. Silly me, I didn’t even offer you a glass of water or a cup of coffee. I still make good coffee. I spent enough time in Europe to learn how to make a decent brew.”

  I accepted that. She turned down my offer of help, and I stayed on the balcony watching the car and foot traffic below. When she teetered out with a tray, two cups, and a steaming little Bodum of wonderful smelling coffee, my heart was in my mouth. I gave myself a mental talking to. After all, I couldn’t even make coffee that smelled that wonderful.

  Once the coffee was poured, she said, “Yes, I had wondered about that, too.”

  Letting my cup pause in midair, I said, “Did you see anything?”

  “I believe so. It had been such a rainy week, coming down in buckets for days and days. It was a Friday, I believe, because there was no one left working on the site. Then the sun finally came out, very late in the afternoon, and for a short time it was beautiful. In March we are desperate for a bit of sun. I came out to enjoy the last bit of warmth and plan a bit for my balcony in the summer. I like to ponder what to plant and what to buy and what containers to use.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “I saw the young woman who died slip in behind the gate to the construction area. I wish now I had realized how dangerous it would have been after all that rain, so slippery. I could have called for help. It would have made a difference. And she seemed to be wearing a lovely swirly cream-colored skirt and pretty shoes, high heels.”

  “Can you see someone’s shoes clearly from here?” We were on the second floor.

  She chuckled. “Oh, you caught me out. I do have a pair of binoculars. I often take a peek at birds or people. Better than television. I’m old. Need a bit of diversion. I’m probably not the only one.”

  It was convenient that a witness had been using binoculars at the right moment. Of
course, the fact that Anabel had been wearing dress shoes didn’t do much more than confirm it would have been dangerous on that slippery site. I reminded myself that that was what I wanted to establish.

  “She ducked in through the opening? Do you think she was meeting someone?”

  “I couldn’t tell. But I think that if she’d planned to meet somebody in that place, she wouldn’t have been wearing a light skirt and those high heels.”

  I said, “Was the gate to the site open?”

  “I suppose it must have been. She pulled it toward her and disappeared through it. I was surprised that she’d risk ruining those shoes. I don’t think I’m much help to you if that’s all I remember.”

  I smiled. “You’re doing fine. And you’re right. Most young women wouldn’t go onto a site like that with their heels on. Wouldn’t want to ruin them for one thing.”

  She said, “Well, there was a tall fellow in a blue coat, very odd-looking, with a hat, who seemed to be waiting for someone. The young woman was walking toward the youth center. When she saw him, she stopped and changed direction. That’s when she ducked into the site.”

  “You think she was dodging him?”

  “I thought it at the time, but now, well, I don’t know.”

  “Did he follow her onto the site?”

  “No, he didn’t. He hung around for a while, then walked away. The next thing I noticed, the police were arriving. And then ambulances and fire trucks. Such a fuss. I didn’t realize that the young woman had died. But at any rate, I didn’t have much to add to the story. A terrible accident.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And either she had had a brain wave about something and decided to stick her nose in and then slipped in just the wrong place or, more likely, didn’t want to see this man and decided to dodge him.” And drowned alone senselessly as a result.

  “I suppose so. Such a tragedy.”

  “Do you think anyone else saw the man in the blue coat?”

  “Somebody must have. There were other people coming and going. Friesen Street is always busy. The kids from the center, shoppers. I especially noticed your friend, because of her shoes, I suppose. One of my former neighbors thought he heard a call for help. He was out for a walk and he hurried home to call 911.”

  “Really? I’d like to talk to him.”

  “We all would. He was a lovely kind fellow, but he had bypass surgery in April and he didn’t survive it, I’m afraid.”

  I said, “Here’s my telephone number, Thalia, if you think of anyone else. And I suppose I’d better have yours, too.” I handed her a business card with my cell phone number on it.

  Thalia wrote out her phone number for me and pocketed my card. I took a couple of seconds to transcribe her number to my phone list. She said, “And you could ask Rudy.”

  “Who’s Rudy?”

  “He’s the merry fellow on the motorized scooter. With the lovely fedora, just like the old days. You haven’t seen him?”

  “I have. In fact, he’s tipped his hat to me more than once.”

  When I left Thalia Waverman’s place, I made a point of dropping into the office of Hope for Youth at Risk. Gwen spotted me and her beautiful face hardened. The person she was talking to continued to lean forward, speaking intensely to her. He twisted around when I approached, and I got my first really close look at Dimitri.

  “I’m Charlotte Adams,” I said, extending my hand.

  He grunted. A shame. Someone that striking should be able to communicate.

  Never mind. I’m capable of carrying a one-way conversation. I shot off with both barrels: “Anabel Beauchamp’s mother has asked me to look into her death. She thinks it was murder.”

  Gwen rose and crossed her arms over her chest. “This conversation is not going to happen. Please leave.”

  I said as if I hadn’t heard, “But I believe as you do that it was an accident. I need to have enough anecdotal information to help her mother accept this. I’ve been told that Anabel was wearing a skirt and heels when she entered the site. I’ve never seen Anabel in anything but very casual work clothing or sports gear. That sounds like she was going to a meeting or on a date—it’s certainly not something you’d wear to a muddy construction site. Do you know if she was planning to meet someone?”

  Dimitri turned away briefly. If that wasn’t grief written on his face, then he should have had a brilliant career in acting. He had the looks for it, too. He faced me and said, “Yes, she was meeting me. We did have plans. Then she never turned up because she was dead. As you know.”

  After the grunt that I’d first heard, I was surprised by his voice, soft, gentle, and his words, which were a lot more articulate than I would have expected. There may have been a subtle trace of an accent, exotic for Woodbridge. Russian, I assumed. I could easily understand why Anabel was so taken with him.

  I said, “I am so sorry for your loss. I understand you and Anabel were close. It must have been very difficult for you.”

  He swallowed and nodded. I was glad he didn’t grunt again. He said, “You want to reassure her mother? Then you will have to work very hard to do that because whatever else, it was not an accident. I guarantee that. I don’t care who says otherwise.”

  Gwen Jones widened her expressive eyes. “Dimitri, you know that’s not true. As hard as it is to accept, Anabel’s death was a terrible fluke.”

  “A fluke? She died and you call it a fluke? We were going to be married and you think she would take a stupid chance with her life? She was waiting for me. She didn’t meet anyone. She would never go check out that site in her dress shoes.”

  Gwen snapped, “But she could afford a hundred pairs of designer shoes.”

  Dimitri shook his head. “She took care of her things. She was never wasteful. You know that, Gwen.”

  Gwen turned away, and Dimitri turned back toward me. “Somehow she was lured onto that site and someone killed her. We’ll never find out what kind of monster did that until people like Gwen, who pretends to be so good, or the police, who don’t want any bad statistics, or maybe her mother, who doesn’t want any bad publicity, stop blocking the truth. You want proof it was an accident? You won’t find it because it wasn’t. It was murder. Everyone knows it and no one will do a thing.”

  Gwen sputtered, “That’s not true.”

  I said, “Why do you believe it, Dimitri?”

  His raised voice betrayed the barely contained emotions. “I just told you. Isn’t that enough?”

  Before I could counter that, he was out the door. I raced after him, but he had disappeared from view. Down that alley, I supposed.

  Gwen said, “Thanks a lot. None of this crazy talk is going to bring Anabel back. Now, in case I wasn’t clear before, I will be now: Do not come back to this office making trouble again.”

  After the intensity of Dimitri’s reaction and being tossed off the premises by Gwen, I sat somewhat shakily in the Matrix for a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on. Although common sense and official opinion told me it was an accident, a small nagging voice at the back of my brain insisted that if Anabel had been murdered, her killer had gotten away with it. Still, I found myself upset by the raw emotion behind Dimitri’s outburst. I’d had an up-close view of how strong his feelings had been for her. And still were. There was no doubt in my mind that he truly believed that Anabel had been murdered.

  But did Gwen honestly believe it was an accident, or was she trying to protect her vulnerable organization? Something I’d heard about the neighborhood buzzed in the back of my brain. What had Tierney said when we’d met him at Betty’s? He’d talked about some badass types they were keeping an eye on. What else? Serious criminal activities in that area and they were working to keep a lid on them. Could they be connected to Anabel’s death? Was there more going on and the cops were unwilling to admit it because it might compromise some other investigation? Let the Beauchamps suffer—who cared? I opened my handbag, extracted my notebook, and wrote Gwen and Dimitri. I gave Gwen a question
mark. Under Dimitri’s name, I wrote Criminal activities? Thank God for paper.

  Paper.

  That reminded me, why the hell hadn’t I taken a look at the small folded paper I’d found in Nick’s pocket? Where was it? I closed my eyes and thought. I’d left it on my desk that night, meaning to check it to see if it was a private note to Pepper or something relevant. I put that down to how upset I’d been about Nick flying through the window when Tierney and his team came in. That stirred up a few other thoughts. Tierney seemed to have made up his mind about Nick without considering any other options. He was determined not to listen to anything in his defense. Another thing: Tierney had insisted that the cops had done a door-to-door search on Friesen Street and talked to the people in the apartment building. But Thalia Waverman told me they hadn’t. I believed her.

  Was Pepper right and Tierney was not to be trusted?

  I pulled myself together and edged the Matrix out into the street. I took a look at that alley at the same time. Not a place I’d ever walk. Where did it come out? It was a long shot, but I wondered if I might find Dimitri on the other side. I drove slowly to the corner, turned right and right again to Potter Street, which ran parallel to Friesen. The alley did indeed exit on Potter Street. I parked again and got out of the car. No sign of Dimitri, but as I said, that had been a long shot. Just then, Rudy whizzed out of the alley in his motorized scooter and tipped his fedora to me.

  I waved to him and gestured for him to wait. I trotted over and introduced myself. “Hello. I need to speak to Dimitri. He got very upset about something I said and I didn’t get a chance to apologize.”

  Rudy stared at me without blinking. I hoped he wasn’t going to do a Gwen on me.

  I added, “Do you know where I might find him? I thought he might be on this side.”

  Rudy said, “Not much happening here. All the action’s on Friesen. There’s only people on Potter, that’s all.”