by Kylie Logan
I couldn’t blame him for the look he gave me. Quizzical. Amazed. Disbelieving.
“Like Gus would confide in me?”
“I know, I know.” I sighed and leaned back in my chair. One of the day’s specials at the Terminal had been baked ziti, and we’d brought a portion of it home for dinner and served it along with crispy green salad and a nice Primitivo. I scraped a finger along the rim of my salad bowl and licked the last of the balsamic-rosemary vinaigrette dressing from my finger. “If Gus was smart, he’d realize that we could be a big help to him if he’d share information.”
“If he was smart.” Declan plucked my salad bowl off the table and put that in the dishwasher, too.
I finished the last of the red Primitivo in my wineglass. “Maybe the problem is I’m just too close to this whole investigation. Too focused on it. If I could get my mind off of it for a while . . .”
When Declan started the dishwasher, then spun to face me, his eyes were bright and his smile was wicked.
“I could help you get your mind off of it for a while. Guaranteed.” He grabbed my hand and together, we went upstairs.
* * *
• • •
DECLAN WAS RIGHT. For the next couple of hours he was able to take my mind off murder, and I was grateful (not to mention very happy) by the time he drifted off.
What I wasn’t was sleepy.
Careful to be quiet so I didn’t wake him, I got up, pulled on my robe, put on the new slippers I’d bought to replace the ones I’d ruined in the ice storm, and left the bedroom. Back when Rocky Arnaud owned Pacifique, she had a library/office of sorts up there on the second floor, and in her honor—and because it didn’t make any sense to make wholesale changes to the house when they didn’t serve any purpose—I’d put my office in the same room. I’d left the framed botanical prints on the wall and the two chairs on either side of a small table with a stained glass lamp on it. In the center of the room was a large table with a chair pulled up to it, a spot where I imagined Rocky looked over catalogs from seed companies and jotted notes in the journal she kept each year that showed which crops she’d planted, how much she’d harvested, how much she’d sold. Often, I spent time at the table, too, or over at the desk. After a long day at the Terminal, I sometimes brought the day’s receipts home so I could enter them in our office management program. Other times, I carried along all the advertisements and mailers that came to the Terminal from places that sold napkins and silverware and dishwasher soap and mops and buckets so I could settle back and wade through them all, compare prices to what our current suppliers charged, and decide if it might be a good idea to make a move.
All of those flyers and samples were stacked on the table in neat little piles, and I bypassed them and sat at the desk. I flicked on the light next to my computer and touched a hand to my keyboard.
My screen popped to life and showed a picture of me and Declan taken at his family Christmas party several months earlier.
He was wearing a charcoal gray suit and a tie with green and red Christmas trees on it. Just for the record, each and every one of those trees was decorated with tiny shamrocks. His hair was tousled, but then, he and his brothers had been roughhousing with the lightsabers the kids had gotten for Christmas. His smile was as bright as the lights on the Christmas tree behind us.
I was wearing black lace, not because I wasn’t in the holiday mood, but because the dress with its boat neck and long sleeves was the nicest thing I’d brought with me from California, and my paycheck from the Terminal did not allow for shopping sprees. My hair was pulled back in the elaborate braid Declan’s sisters, Bridget and Claire—both of them RNs at the local hospital—had helped me wind into my hair, and like Declan, I was wearing a smile a mile wide.
That day, I’d been surrounded by noise and chaos, kids and wrapping paper and ribbons and food I didn’t have to cook and no one was more surprised than me—who had always reveled in my aloneness—to admit that I was deliriously happy with it all.
Happier than I ever remember being on Christmas.
Little did I know when the picture was taken that in just another half hour or so, Declan was going to propose.
For the first time.
I’d give him that; he was a persistent man. He was also generous, caring, smart, handsome, funny, and crazy about me.
What was not to love?
I grumbled—quietly so I didn’t make too much noise—and wondered if it was Declan I was angry at.
Or myself.
What was wrong with me, anyway? The man of my dreams was sleeping quietly in the next room and here I was obsessing about all the reasons I couldn’t marry him.
Which pretty much boiled down to the fact that I didn’t believe I could make a relationship work.
As if it would somehow prove my determination, I clicked on the Internet icon and my desktop and that Christmas picture on it faded away.
For a moment, I sat with my finger poised over the keyboard, debating about what to do next, where to start.
There was no use looking at Meghan’s home page again, I told myself, back to thinking about murder now that Declan wasn’t there to distract me in incredibly interesting ways. I’d read over her website again and again and knew I’d see nothing there now that I hadn’t seen then.
Instead I looked over the reporting of Meghan’s murder—there was plenty of it—and checked various social media sites to see what her fans were saying about her life and her death. Many of them were calling her the greatest American actress since . . . well, since anybody, and I told myself that someday I’d watch a couple of her movies to see if they were right. I skimmed the messages and wondered where I thought it would get me besides the big ol’ nowhere where I already found myself.
Still wide-awake and at a loss for ideas, I sighed, sat back, and checked my e-mail.
There was the usual smattering of junk, and I deleted it without a second thought. I was just about to delete another message from an address I didn’t recognize when something stopped me, a little niggling voice inside my head that told me it just might be worth my while to look.
Then again, the subject line was About M, and if nothing else, it got my attention.
I clicked on the message.
It was short and sweet, that was for sure—one line with an unmistakable message:
You need to talk to Dulcie Thoroughgood.
* * *
• • •
“SO WHO’S DULCIE Thoroughgood?”
Declan finished the last bite of his poached eggs (just for the record, he makes the world’s greatest poached eggs) and sopped up the yolk swimming on his plate with a piece of toasted wheat bread. “And how did you say you found her?”
“I didn’t find her.” I finished my OJ, and since he’d cleaned up the dinner dishes, I took over the task for breakfast. I took my dishes to the sink and came back for his. “I got an e-mail.”
“From someone you don’t know. You shouldn’t have opened it.”
“I know. But I did. I just felt . . .” Honestly, I didn’t know what I felt, not the night before and not that morning, standing there in the kitchen with Julia Child grinning at me from the photograph on the far wall. I hoped my shrug said it all and because I knew it didn’t, I added, “I need to do something. Anything. I feel like we’re getting nowhere fast, and I figured it was worth taking the chance.”
“And you found out about someone named Dulcie Thoroughgood.”
I went back over to the table and pulled out the sheets of paper I’d printed out in the wee hours of the morning.
“I’ve got a telephone number.” I handed the paper to Declan. “But it seems a little weird to just call out of the blue and tell her some anonymous person pointed the finger at her in Meghan’s murder.”
As if he could look at it long enough to change the basic inform
ation on it, Declan stared at the paper in his hands. “Nothing online about where she works? Who she is? How she might be connected with Meghan?”
I pulled over a different sheet of paper and hoped the heat I felt in my cheeks didn’t make me look as guilty as I felt. “I logged into the background check site we use at the Terminal to check on new employees and suppliers. I know, I know,” I added quickly before Declan could accuse me of exactly what he should have accused me of. “Sophie gets charged every time we do a background check. I’ll reimburse her.”
“Of course you will.” His look clearly said he’d never consider that I’d do anything but what was right. “And the background check told you what?”
“Not a heck of a lot. If she works, her place of employment isn’t listed. If she’s got family, there are none named. All I’ve got is the address.”
He pursed his lips. “An address is good enough for me.”
“You’ll come along?”
He pushed back from the table. “You don’t think you’re going without me, do you?”
Within an hour we were on our way to a little town called Hermitage, Pennsylvania. In case it sounds like a big deal to go from Hubbard to another state, think again. Hubbard is on the eastern boarder of Ohio and the little town of Hermitage, across the state line and into Pennsylvania, was just twenty-five minutes away.
My GPS directed us to an overgrown drive where a painted sign peeked out from bushes that hadn’t been trimmed since the day they were planted. And something told me they’d been planted a long time before.
SUNNYSIDE TRAILER PARK.
I consulted the printout from the background check site.
“Looks like the right place,” I told Declan, and we drove right in.
From what we’d seen since we’d arrived, Hermitage was a town not unlike Hubbard. Shipshape, simple houses, a smattering of businesses, retail stores, and restaurants. Since it was Monday and still early, it was hard to tell if the community was thriving. Many of the parking lots outside the retail sites were still empty and traffic coming into town was light.
Sunnyside Trailer Park looked like it had been dropped into that neat, unassuming town by someone playing a practical joke. The mobile homes we passed were rusted, and the small lawns outside them that weren’t covered with cars up on cinder blocks or kids’ bikes and sandboxes and swing sets, had weeds growing on them that were nearly as high as some of the roofs.
“No way we’ve got the right Dulcie Thoroughgood,” Declan said, and I knew exactly what he was thinking.
“No way anyone who lives here could have anything to do with Meghan. That’s what you mean, right?”
“Maybe . . .” Declan was driving, and he slowed down enough to check the faded numbers on the nearest trailer. “Maybe we’re about to find out.”
He stopped the car and even before we climbed three rickety stairs to get to the door, I was sure someone was home; there was a TV on inside the trailer and a familiar voice from it had just called out, “Come on down!”
I knocked.
There was no answer.
The TV was pretty loud, so I tried again.
The front door popped open and I found myself nose to nose with a woman with bleached-blond hair that looked as if it hadn’t been conditioned (or washed, for that matter) in a good, long time. She was as skinny as a spaghetti noodle and since she was wearing short, short denim cutoffs along with an army green tank top, her knobby knees showed along with her knobby elbows and a whole host of tattoos.
A mermaid.
A rose.
A star.
Tinker Bell.
I was so busy staring at her right arm and the elaborate red and purple heart with the name Joachim in the center of it, I didn’t snap to until the woman’s voice roused me.
“Whaddya want?”
“Hi.” I offered a smile she didn’t return and launched into the little speech I’d practiced in the car on the way to Hermitage. “I’m looking for Dulcie Thoroughgood. Are you Dulcie?”
She reached into her pocket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. “Whaddya want?” she asked again, the question seeping out of her along with a long trail of smoke.
I kept my smile firmly in place. “Just to talk. If you’re Dulcie.”
She had small eyes the color of faded jeans and skin so anemic, I could clearly see the veins in her neck. The fingers in which she clutched her cigarette were bony. Her teeth, surprisingly, were as straight as soldiers, even if they were discolored from the nicotine. She glanced at Declan, who was standing at my shoulder.
“I’m Dulcie,” she said. “You cops?”
“We’re not.” When I felt my smile fade, I stuck it back in place. “But you may recognize me. You might have seen my picture on the news in the last couple days. My name is Laurel Inwood.”
The name didn’t register. Dulcie continued to puff away and give us the evil eye.
I tried again.
“Like I said, I’ve been on the news. Well, my picture’s been on the news. I don’t like being interviewed, but you know how the press can be! They find a way to drag a person into a story whether they want to be there or not.”
I gave her time to agree. Or disagree. Or do anything besides just stand there.
When she didn’t, I forged ahead.
“But there I was, on TV! Like it or not. And even if you don’t watch much TV, I know you’ve heard the news because everyone’s heard the news. The press was talking about me because I once worked for Meghan Cohan.”
As if she’d been slapped, Dulcie reared back. After that . . .
Well, after that, I can’t say exactly what she did because she slammed the door in our faces.
“So much for that line of questioning.”
Since Declan said what I was thinking, I didn’t criticize him for it. Together, we turned and trudged down the steps.
“It’s pretty strange, though, don’t you think?” I commented. “No sooner does she hear Meghan’s name than she turns tail and runs.”
I looked the trailer over. We’d parked the car facing the door where we’d just had our encounter with Dulcie. To the right of that door was a window and to the left of it, another window. I had once lived in a trailer with a family who’d taken in four foster kids and I knew that window to my left was probably the main living area where there would be a bench built into the wall, a table, and no doubt, that TV that still blared the sounds of applause and cheers and now and again, a commercial for cars or hearing aids or dishwasher soap.
“The bedroom windows are probably at the side,” I mumbled, and before Declan could ask why I cared, I took off in that direction.
Just as I expected, there were two windows that faced the side of the trailer next door. They were surrounded with a rhododendron big enough to swallow the entire side of the trailer. I waded my way into the heart of it.
Or at least I would have if Declan hadn’t grabbed on to my sleeve.
“What are you doing?” His voice was a harsh whisper.
I shook off his hold. “I just want to look, that’s all. Maybe from here I can see what she’s doing.”
Why I thought it would make a difference, I can’t say, but I knew I wasn’t ready to just give up on Dulcie Thoroughgood, not when she reacted the way she did when I mentioned Meghan’s name.
I slipped behind the rhododendron and closer to the window.
Here, the voices from the TV were louder than ever, and it was just as well because I tripped over a discarded beer bottle and mumbled a curse.
To remind myself not to do it again, I clapped a hand over my mouth, stood on tiptoe, and peeked into Dulcie’s bedroom.
There was a twin-size mattress on the floor in one corner, the blankets thrown back and the sheets rumpled. Nearby were three pairs of shoes, a pair of jeans, and a pair o
f fuzzy bunny slippers.
I kept scanning the room, from the dresser strewn with earrings and necklaces and various pieces of filmy lingerie to the picture on the wall across from where I stood.
Meghan.
She was wearing the fabulous purple velvet gown with a plunging neckline and a narrow skirt that I remembered her having made for the Oscars one year. Her hair was swept up, her smile wide and bright. The picture had been torn from a magazine, full page and in living color.
There was a kitchen knife stuck into the center of it.
Right into Meghan’s heart.
Chapter 10
“We need to talk to Dulcie Thoroughgood.”
It went without saying, but I said it anyway, just as Declan and I got back to the Terminal.
“She knows something.”
“Something she doesn’t want us to know.” He held the door for me and I slipped inside the restaurant just in time to see that the waiting area was filled with hungry patrons and Sophie wasn’t paying attention to any of them. How could she when she was standing behind the cash register clutching a tabloid newspaper, her nose red and her eyes swollen?
By now Declan knew enough about how the Terminal operated, so when I gave him a look, he knew exactly what to do. While I went behind the counter to wind my arm through Sophie’s and get her out of there, he grabbed a handful of menus and ushered the first waiting party to a table.
“What’s going on?” I asked Sophie even before we were all the way to the office. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s . . . it’s . . .”
Luckily, we got into the office and I closed the door behind us right before she burst into tears.
I put both my hands on Sophie’s shoulders, settled her into the chair in front of the desk, and reached over to where we kept a case of bottled water.
“Drink,” I told her, uncapping the bottle and handing it to her. “And tell me what’s going on.”
