Tote Bags and Toe Tags

by Dorothy Howell

  Okay, so maybe I didn’t tell Ty everything that was on my mind. Maybe I didn’t mention my deepest, darkest secrets, all my screw-ups or problems. Maybe that was one of the aspects of our relationship I needed to work on.

  But I knew Ty well enough to know when he was holding back, not telling the complete truth.

  And that could only mean that he’d just lied to me.

  CHAPTER 21

  What were friends for if not to use for your own personal gain? I mean, really, wasn’t that what relationships were all about?

  I figured they were, as I settled into my office the next morning. With practiced ease, I ignored the work I was actually being paid to do, pulled out my cell, and called Marcie. She answered right away.

  “Are you up for booking a couple of purse parties next month?” Marcie asked, after we’d exchanged morning pleasantries.

  Marcie and I had been giving purse parties for months now, selling knockoff bags to deserving women who couldn’t afford the real thing. We’d made tons of money, which had really helped me through my financial lean times. Plus, the parties were super fun and we both really loved hosting them.

  Since that whole background-investigation thing was still hanging over me, along with the possibility of losing my job—unless a miracle happened, of course—I figured that keeping the purse parties going was definitely the way to go.

  “Sure,” I said. “Set up as many as you can. I’m in.”

  Marcie was employed at a huge bank just a couple of blocks from here. She’d worked there for years, moving through many different departments, so she knew almost everybody in the building. This, of course, benefited our business because she knew tons of women who liked attending purse parties—and today it benefited me personally because I had a favor to ask.

  “Are you still working in the mortgage department?” I asked.

  “That was two months ago,” Marcie said, then paused, and gasped, “Are you and Ty buying a house?”

  She sounded really excited and I hated to burst her bubble, but I couldn’t help it.

  “No, nothing like that,” I said.

  I had a feeling Marcie was about to ask me how things were going with Ty and me—we’re BFFs so we just know these things about each other, even when our conversation was bouncing off a couple of satellites orbiting the planet—but I wanted to avoid the topic of my so-called relationship.

  I knew I should tell her about my conversation with Ty last night, and how I got the icky feeling he’d lied to me about his reasons for going to Palmdale, but I just couldn’t do it. Not now, anyway.

  A conversation of that magnitude demanded lots of time, beer, and chocolate.

  “Do you still know someone in the mortgage department who could do you a favor?” I asked.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  “I need one of those reports,” I said. “You know, the one from the title company that tells who owns a piece of property, who’s on the deed, who has liens or judgments or mortgages”

  “You mean a title search?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Remember? You told me about it that night at that place when you had on that teal dress, and you were telling me about that jerk-face guy who worked at the title company that asked you out and he was really married.”

  “Oh, yeah. Him,” Marcie grumbled. She was quiet for a moment, then said. “Do I want to know why you’re doing this?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  At this point, my suspicion that Max Corwin had two families—and, thus, an excellent motive to murder Violet Hamilton—was just that, suspicion. I didn’t see where telling Marcie about it would do any good. But I couldn’t take it to Detective Shuman without some sort of evidence.

  “Yeah, I can get that for you,” Marcie said. “Just send me the property info you want checked.”

  For a minute, I thought she might ask me to have lunch with her, but I didn’t want to think about it. Today was antioxidant and ancient grain day, according to Ty when he’d presented me with the lunch he’d packed for me this morning. I’d smiled and thanked him, and I really did appreciate his thoughtfulness and the effort he’d put into it, but yuck.

  Marcie and I hung up and I texted her the two addresses I’d found for Max. Of course, if the info from the title company showed that he was on the deeds of both homes, it could just mean that he owned two houses. Maybe he lived in one and the other was a rental unit or something.

  But I’d been to both places. I’d seen those wooden signs hanging by the front doors listing the names of the family members, with Max’s name featured prominently at the tops of both, above what I assumed was a wife’s name and a bunch of children’s names.

  Detective Shuman had told me that Max had fallen under suspicion because he’d changed jobs often in the past few years. If it were true that Max had two families, switching employment made sense. Sooner or later, something would happen at the office that would require the wife and kids to show up—a company picnic, an award ceremony, the annual Christmas party. It probably would require an impressive juggling act on Max’s part to remember the right names and show up with the correct wife and children. Much easier to just change jobs.

  So that put Max at the top of my personal he-probably-did-it suspect list.

  I mean, jeez, if Max really was married to two women and had two sets of children, and everybody found out about it, he could lose a whole heck of a lot more than his job.

  I glanced at my watch and saw that I’d managed to get through a big chunk of the morning without doing any actual work, but I saw no reason to launch myself into a frenzy to get something accomplished. I’d already booked the upcoming luncheons and ordered items for this week’s birthday club—I’d upgraded the celebrations by adding an iTunes gift card, courtesy of the Dempsey Rowland corporate credit card—and I still had Violet’s memorial service to finish up. But nothing pressing needed my immediate attention, which meant that I could—

  Hang on a second.

  Yikes! Mr. Dempsey’s retirement party.

  I slumped down in my chair. Good grief. I had to find out what was going on with that thing.

  I stared at the common wall between my office and Constance’s office next door. Adela had told me that Constance had been working on the retirement party for months, so she probably had everything done.

  But what if Constance was one of those employees who claimed they did their work but actually put it off to the last minute—can you imagine? What if she really hadn’t done much of anything yet? I’d be the one looking like a total idiot—not her.

  There was only one way to find out for sure.

  I had to get my hands on the info in Constance’s office. But it was still sealed off by the LAPD, and since Detective Madison knew I wanted to get inside, I knew he would keep it sealed just to make my life harder.

  Maybe I could ask Detective Shuman. Maybe he would let me inside just so I could get the retirement party info.

  I mean, what harm could it do? It wouldn’t take long and, really, how could there be any actual evidence of Violet’s murder left in there? Both of the detectives and the crime scene investigators had been all over it. Surely they’d found everything of importance.

  Shuman floated through my mind, along with the image of that special smile I’d seen him use when he looked at his girlfriend, or talked about her, or thought about her.

  Nice.

  Then Ty popped into my head. I was sure I’d seen him give me that special kind of smile at some point in our relationship, but I wasn’t quite up to searching my brain to pinpoint the exact time, location, and occasion at the moment. Instead, I thought about what he’d said about Juanita and how something must have happened that caused her disappearance.

  Ty’s really smart like that.

  Then my brain hopped to another topic—that just happens sometimes—and I thought about Violet’s murder.

  Something had happened before her death, something that ca
used her killer to take action. So far, I’d discovered nothing that would indicate what that might be.

  I needed to find out.

  I made it through the gauntlet of sneers, frowns, and dirty looks from the gals in the Support Unit and found Iris at her desk in the payroll department. She’d been really helpful when I’d spoken with her before, so I hoped she didn’t regret her loose lips and wouldn’t clam up on me this time.

  “Hi, Iris,” I said, giving her my I’m-a-nice-person smile.

  I don’t find a need to use that one very often.

  She looked up from her desk, glanced around—checking to see if her supervisor was watching, probably, a standard move for anyone employed in an office setting—then gave me her I’m-a-nice-person smile in return.

  I think she uses hers more often.

  And really means it.

  “Got a minute?” I asked, then stepped into her cubicle and sat down before she could answer.

  Iris held up a stack of papers. “Well, actually, I have to get this report finished.”

  “This won’t take long,” I told her.

  I leaned toward her a little, assuming the classic here-comes-the-gossip stance, and lowered my voice. “I heard something and I wanted you to be the first to know.”

  Iris leaned in a little, responding with the time honored let’s-talk-smack position.

  “I got in touch with Violet’s granddaughter, Dale,” I said, then paused a few seconds to let the drama build. “She says there was absolutely no problem between the two of them.”

  Iris looked confused. “Not even after Dale didn’t come to work here, as Violet had wanted?”

  I leaned in a little closer. “Turns out Dale wanted to work here, but the company wouldn’t hire her.”

  Iris’s eyes narrowed and she rocked back in her chair.

  “I guess I should have expected that,” she murmured. Then her mood lightened again. “Well, I’m relieved there were no hard feelings between Violet and Dale. She loved that girl so much.”

  My let’s-talk expression morphed into my I’m-confused expression with practiced ease.

  “When I spoke with you before, you mentioned that Violet had been very upset in the months leading up to her murder,” I said. “So if everything was fine between her and Dale, what was she so troubled about? Do you have any idea?”

  Iris frowned. Obviously, I’d stumped her with my question.

  I didn’t have time to wait around for her to come up with an answer, so what could I do but suggest one of my own?

  “Did it have something to do with Ruth?” I asked.

  Yeah, okay, I knew Iris had said absolutely nothing about Ruth in our previous conversation, and I’d found no evidence whatsoever of a problem between the two of them. Still, Ruth had been so dreadful to me I just thought it would be nice if I could somehow incriminate her in the whole murder thing.

  It was worth a try.

  Iris lurched toward me and whispered, “Violet and Ruth never got along. Ruth was—and still is—very possessive of Mr. Dempsey. Always making excuses for him and covering for him. But Violet had known him from the very inception of the company. She resented Ruth sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong, and running interference for him.”

  Oh, wow. This was good stuff, really good stuff. Maybe Ruth actually had murdered Violet.

  This was working out better than I’d hoped.

  I ran with it.

  “Did something happen between Violet and Ruth just before Violet’s death?” I asked. “An argument, or a confrontation, maybe?”

  Iris gasped and her eyes flew open. Her body went stiff. For a couple of seconds—eek!—I thought maybe she was having a stroke.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Iris exclaimed. She gulped in a couple of deep breaths and said, “I—I didn’t even think about it, but the day before Violet’s body was discovered, I saw her in the hallway.”

  “Did she tell you something?” I asked.

  I had to keep her talking in case she really did have a stroke.

  I mean that in the nicest way, of course.

  Iris shook her head and her eyes got a glazed look, like she was remembering something—or maybe she really was having a stroke.

  “I saw Violet in the hallway that day. I was headed over to H.R. Violet looked furious. Absolutely furious,” Iris said. “In fact, she looked so mad I was afraid to approach her. You know how it is when you’re friends with somebody for a long time. You just know when they need to talk and when they need to be left alone.”

  I understood completely. That’s the way it was with Marcie and me.

  “So did you talk to her later?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t. I was planning to ask her out for lunch the next day and find out what was going on,” Iris said. “But, of course ... she was found dead that morning.”

  Iris fell silent, and I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I’m really not good in these situations.

  “And you know what?” Iris said quietly. “That day when I saw Violet and she was so upset? She was coming out of the Executive Unit.”

  I gasped. Oh my God, this was a major clue.

  The whole thing bloomed in my mind.

  Maybe Violet had a confrontation with Ruth. Maybe their argument had continued until the next day, somehow, and they’d ended up in Constance’s office, for some reason. Maybe Ruth had gotten so angry she’d attacked Violet and killed her.

  Admittedly, there were still a lot of holes in this argument-turned-to-murder scenario, but the important thing was that I had a new murder suspect.

  And it was Ruth.

  Cool.

  CHAPTER 22

  I left the office a little before noon—it’s never too early to leave, really—to have lunch with Erma Pomeroy. Dale had told me that Erma and Violet had been BFFs since back in the day, and that Erma could give me a list of Dempsey Rowland retirees who would want to attend Violet’s memorial service.

  I had another motive for talking to Erma when I called her and asked if she could meet me.

  That’s how we super-stealthy-wanna-be-private-detectives do things.

  I headed up Figueroa Street toward Wilshire Boulevard, enjoying the gorgeous Southern California weather and feeling great about the brown business suit I’d worn today, and went inside the restaurant Erma had suggested.

  The place was small, with booths along one wall, a full bar on the other, and table-chair combos filling the space in between. There were lots of dark wood, green plants, and numerous shades of brown.

  The lunch crowd had already started to filter in, but I had no trouble spotting Erma—the only gray-haired woman dining alone. She had on white capris, red sandals—neon-pink toenail polish—a red print blouse with a matching scarf tied around her head, and she was drinking a beer from the bottle.

  My kind of gal.

  “Erma?” I asked, as I approached her table.

  “That’s me,” she declared as she pushed the facing chair back with her foot. “You must be Haley. Sit it down, honey.”

  “Thanks for meeting me,” I said as I took a seat.

  “I’m retired now. Not that many people want to have lunch with me these days. At least, not many people who can remember where we’re meeting, get themselves there, and not wet their pants on the way.” Erma drained her beer, then called to the bartender, “Bring another one of these, George. And one for my young friend.”

  The guy behind the bar nodded. He was young and kind of hot looking—not that I really noticed, or anything.

  “You’d better eat something,” Erma said, and passed me a menu. “We girls from Dempsey Rowland used to eat here all the time. This place has changed hands more times than I want to count. Like everything else, change, change, change.”

  I glanced over the menu as George approached the table with two beers balanced on a tray.

  “I’ll have a cheeseburger all the way,” I said, as he put the beers on our table. “Thanks, George
.”

  “My name’s not George,” he said quietly, giving me a smile. “It’s Jeremy.”

  “I can still hear,” Erma announced. “You look like a fellow who worked here a few years ago. His name was George. Heck of a guy. Died of cancer. Sad. But, hell, it’s better than wasting away in some nursing home, waiting for kids that are never going to show up and visit.”

  Jeremy gave me a good-luck-getting-through-lunch-with-her smile and went back to the bar.

  “So,” Erma said, tipping up her beer, “you’re planning a memorial service for Violet, are you? Does Arthur know about it?”

  It took me a minute to realize that Arthur was Mr. Dempsey’s first name.

  “The service is his idea,” I said.

  “I doubt that,” Erma told me.

  I’d wanted to talk with Erma to find out what she knew about Violet during her days at Dempsey Rowland, and had used the memorial service for cover. I figured I’d have to use my aren’t-I-sly-and-clever-at-manipulating-a-conversation skills to get the info I wanted. But it seemed Erma was ready to dive right in.

  I think the beer helped.

  “Actually, that’s what Ruth told me,” I said.

  Erma made a grunting noise. “Ruth. That bitch.”

  “I don’t like Ruth,” I said.

  “Smart girl,” Erma declared, and took another pull on her beer. “Violet never got along with Ruth. She was all over Arthur, screening his calls, his visitors, putting herself between him and most everybody else, especially Violet.”

  “Isn’t that what most executive secretaries do?” I asked.

  “Not like Ruth,” Erma said. “She protected him, cleaned up after him, saw to his every need.”

  My eyebrows bobbed as the vision of—ugh, gross!—Ruth and Mr. Dempsey doing the wild thing sprang into my mind.

  Erma must have read my horrified expression because she said, “Nothing like that. Ruth was more like Arthur’s mother, fussing over him the way she did. Hell, she probably thought—and still might think—she’ll be the next Mrs. Arthur Dempsey. But even the current Mrs. Dempsey won’t be Mrs. Dempsey much longer.”