“Nope. Not a clue. There’s no chatter about it anywhere. No gossip out there. I checked around with my friends on other forces. Nada.”
“So nothing about the mob and the money Randolph stole? I guess that’s good news.”
“We’ll see,” she said with a wide grin and a bit of green pepper in the gap between her teeth. “Feel like cheesecake for dessert?”
Not even I could manage cheesecake. Still, I wanted to keep the so-called friendship going. I didn’t know when I’d need some more information from her.
I said, “I don’t think I can. But I love to watch people eat dessert, so I’ll get one and save it for later.”
Domenico’s All Night had pretty good cheesecake too, according to Candy. The extra time while we were waiting did leave me with the challenge of making conversation.
“So, are you back at work tomorrow?”
She shook her head. Still off duty.
“Really? But there’s been an unsolved murder and Burton is such a small place, I figured . . .”
She shrugged. “You thought the new girl would be right in the thick of it?”
“I thought everyone would be pressed into service.”
“I’ve got a bit of overtime piled up and they want me to take it. All the big boys want in on this. I talked to my sarge, but he said to save my energy for after, when they get tired and discouraged.”
I supposed that made sense. “So what do you do on your days off?”
“Not much. I’m new here. The guys keep to themselves. Most of them are married or living with someone, so having a new friend like me isn’t an option.”
“Right.” Candy was the most unglamorous, unseductive, ungirly girl I’d ever met. So I figured the wives and live-ins might not have too much to worry about, but then attraction is a funny thing. And I was beginning to see her appeal. Kind of like a Labrador retriever. She couldn’t take no for an answer, and nothing could shake her optimistic good humor. I suppose you’d have to love her or hate her. “I can see where that would be a problem.”
“It has been.”
“But you’ll settle in, become part of the community.” Listen to me, like I would ever settle in and become part of the community. I had my job, my uncles, my tame librarian and my long distance friend, Tiff. Also Walter. That was it. I tried not to think about Tyler Dekker. I didn’t have him. And in fact I didn’t know what had happened to him. I didn’t know if he was all right. I was surprised at how much that ate at me.
“I suppose. I thought small towns would be a bit friendlier, but this one isn’t.”
I nodded, being fresh out of advice for her. I watched the tired server set the cheesecake in front of her. I watched Candy’s eyes light up.
“So,” she said, “what do you do on your day off?”
“I guess I don’t really have days on and off. I do what I need to do and lots of times I have to be at sales or book fairs on the weekend.”
“Oh yeah. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, this and that. I have a lot of errands and whatnot for Miss Van Alst.”
“Tell me about her? What’s that like? Tons of money, right?”
She lifted a forkful of Bailey’s cheesecake to her lips. Maybe that was to draw my attention away from the gleam in her eyes. For Candy, this would be like an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. In reality, more like Lifestyles of the Crabby and Newly Impecunious.
But I know where my loyalties lie. There was no way I’d let anything slip about the state of the Van Alst estate. The missing paintings, the lack of repairs. The fact that all Vera’s money went to her collection and that, of course, included me.
I was actually surprised that I felt so much loyalty to Vera. She wasn’t exactly the supportive or motherly or friendly type. She was a dragon, but she was my dragon. Her dignity needed to stay intact. Maybe mine did too.
“Old family, old home. Everything in it and about it means something to my employer. She doesn’t spend a lot though, just on her collections.” And her employees.
“So you’re working all day?”
I didn’t want to say that my time is my own.
I shrugged. “I get my job done and I work diligently, but it’s on my own schedule, except for breakfast and dinner at eight, attendance compulsory.”
“Huh.”
“And I have to dress for dinner,” I added sheepishly.
“You probably like that.”
“I do actually.”
“What do you have to do tomorrow?”
She was pretty relentless.
“You’ll make a great detective some day,” I said with a grin.
That surprised her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to push you. I can see you’ve got things to do and you don’t need me pushing my way into your life.”
I relented. “I’ll be making the rounds of the best charity shops and secondhand bookstores in the area. It’s supposed to be a nice day for a drive tomorrow, so I’m planning to do Fairlawn and Ainslie. It’s easy to check Harrison Falls, Burton and Grandville frequently.”
She laughed out loud. “Tough job.”
It was my turn to shrug. “Someone’s got to do it.”
“No, they don’t. Why do you choose to do that? And what do you do there?”
Easy answer. “People are always donating books. I scout through them and see if I can find something that’s undervalued. If I do, I pick it up cheap and then we resell it online. I take care of that.”
“Huh.”
That “huh” thing was kind of annoying. I really loved this part of the job. If I had to defend it to Candy and she still didn’t get it, there wasn’t much hope of a friendship.
“I found a signed first edition of Dick Francis’s Driving Force for a quarter.”
“Okay.”
“But it’s worth four hundred bucks.”
“Huh. Well you can sure go shopping on that.”
“Not really. It’s part of my job. I bring in these little treasures and they get sold. If it’s something I can sell to a dealer, any profit from this goes straight to Miss Van Alst’s credit at the dealer.”
“Hardly seems fair.”
“Oh, it’s fair, all right. I get paid, regardless. I get my little apartment, meals and a job I love.” I didn’t bother to add that I uncovered a few magnificent vintage clothing and handbag finds at the bazaars and charity shops, including what I was wearing. Vera had no interest in vintage fashion or fashion of any kind for that matter. Those finds were all mine.
“Guess I can’t argue.”
“Different strokes for different folks. I don’t want to give out parking tickets. You picked a job that you enjoy, right?”
Her expression took me by surprise.
“You don’t enjoy it?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m pretty new. There’s more than giving out parking tickets to the job, but it’s not as interesting as I thought it would be. It’s kind of lonely too. Like I said, I’m not fitting in all that well. So I don’t know if I’ll stay on.”
“That’s too bad. And you don’t want to try for the force in your own town? Or where you know people?”
“Nah. Too dangerous. A cop could get killed there. Plus my relatives are all in town and I’d just get picked on all the time. No one thought it was a good idea for a girl to join the police. They give me a hard time and my mom cries about it. She wants grandchildren. And she says I look like crap in the uniform. My own mother! I can’t stand it. So I’ll give Burton another six months and if things don’t look up, I’ll probably retrain.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
She poked at the cheesecake. “Although in this economy, a person wants to think twice about that. I could go out to California. Good climate.”
By now, I was feeling like a total jerk. Here was a lonely person, pleasant to be around if a bit nosy. A woman with troubles of her own. Why didn’t I just give h
er a chance?
Candy said, “So I’m off duty tomorrow. And I’ll probably die of boredom.”
I caved. “Any chance you want to come with me when I make the rounds of the junk stores?”
“Hell, yeah.” She lit up like a high-end Christmas tree, the surplus kind my uncle Danny was selling out of the back end of his truck last year.
So that was settled. I figured I’d have to be careful about my uncles. Better they didn’t meet Officer Candy. They were all still reeling from my relationship—better make that “association”—with Tyler Dekker. Which reminded me yet again, where the devil was he?
She grinned and said, “Want me to pick you up?”
Ah, the first snag. “I thought we might each go in our own vehicles.”
“No way. Half the fun will be traveling together.”
Relax, I told myself. You can pick her brains on the trip.
“Why not. Maybe we can go by the police station and find out the latest on the killing of . . . What was his name? Pierre Gagnon?”
“Mmmm. Bad idea.”
“Oh?”
“I already don’t fit in, so if I start bringing my gal pals along for tours, the guys will never let me forget it. I get called enough names. I can’t just look into a computer file without sending up red flags.”
“Oh.”
“Listen, I’ll drop in on my way, pretend I forgot something in my locker, whatever, and I’ll see what’s happening. Find out more about this Gagnon.”
“We need to know who he’s connected to. And maybe you could talk to contacts in your hometown.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll do my best.”
“The Adamses’ lives might depend on it.”
“And if they are alive, they’re going to make sure no one finds them to charge them with killing this guy.”
“I can’t imagine Randolph killing anyone. There will be a story there that might vindicate them.”
She made a face. Might have been Vera’s twin for a minute.
I said, “What?”
“You don’t want to be too—”
“Naïve?”
“Maybe not naïve, but trusting. There’s something off about them.”
“I know that, Candy. But between something off and killing someone there’s a lot of territory.” I thought of my uncles, crooked as you can get, but gentle and kind. And never in the least bit violent. If the Adamses were crooks, I figured there was a good chance they were this type. And yes, even I knew that was probably wishful thinking.
“Then we can talk about it on our way. Where to first?”
“Fairlawn and then on to Ainslie. There’s a bit of money in those communities and they are less likely to hang on to things. Although the downside of that is they may have a better sense of the value of the good stuff.”
“I getcha. When shall I pick you up?”
I felt my back stiffen. I am used to being in control of a vehicle, making my own way and my own decisions. This I didn’t intend to cave on.
“I like to drive. I hate being driven. Never get used to it. What time should I pick you up?”
There was a little flash of resistance in her eyes, then a grin. “Sure thing. I don’t make a great passenger, but you’re letting me come along. How about I come by your place and leave my car there and we go in yours. Only thing is, if I get called in, we’d have to get back PDQ.”
This was turning into a pain. I could already imagine one of my favorite parts of the job being ruined by this curious, insistent and irritating person. And maybe having my day’s work cut short if she got called to work on some police matter.
“What are the chances you’d get called in?” I figured they were pretty high. Even if they didn’t think much of her abilities, the force must have been stretched with this murder. On the other hand, they were pretty lax in a lot of ways. Maybe the Burton cops just investigated murders from nine to five, weekdays. That wouldn’t have surprised me a bit.
“Hard to say. I’m not used to their ways yet and, you know, there was a murder.” She chuckled.
“That’s funny?”
“Not where I come from, but they’re kind of laid-back in Burton, so who knows. If there’s more media coverage or something, they might get energized. I’d like to get called in. I need the experience and I want to work my way up to detective. You can’t do that if you don’t have a chance to watch them in action.”
I wondered if the Burton force would be the best kind of experience, particularly when they had an enthusiastic new hire and they were not making use of her in what had to be the most significant crimes in the community in memory.
Fine. I could always drop her off and head out again. The worst that could happen would be that I’d lose an hour. I could live with that.
“Okay, well, we’ll play it by ear. No point in starting too early. I’d like to begin at Once More with Feeling, which is the furthest point. It supports a women’s shelter and a school breakfast program. It’s in Fairlawn. It’s closed on Monday and Tuesday and opens at noon on Wednesday. They always have a team of volunteers stocking the stuff that they received over the weekend, and they won’t open until they’re ready. We’ll be their early birds.”
“Cheep, cheep,” she said. I wondered if maybe she meant “cheap, cheap.”
Chapter Twelve
AS WE HEADED back to our vehicles (as Candy called them), I stoked the idea of visiting the police station in Candy’s mind.
“So you’re going to pop in to the station and check around to see if you can find some connection between Randolph and this Pierre Gagnon. Depending on what you find out, it could change what we do tomorrow.”
She gave me a hurt look. “Okay, I get the message. Part of the deal, is it?”
So I hadn’t been too subtle. I gave her my winningest smile, as the uncles would call it.
“Oh no, am I being pushy again? I’m just looking forward to our little road trip. I always do this alone, so it will be good to have company.”
She nodded, mollified. “Okay, I won’t let on that I don’t know anything about antiques or whatever, but yeah, I’ll pop in and see if there’s any news. Like I said before, I can’t bring my friends to see the ‘cop show.’”
I made a small show of protest.
She rolled her eyes. “Spare me. I’m used to it with other girls I know. It’s like feeding time at the zoo. Chance to see a man in uniform. Didn’t I tell you these guys are taken? Even the guy who’s gay and still in the closet.”
“Oh, I didn’t really mean to—”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s all right. Human nature. Listen, I’ll call you if there’s anything interesting.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty tired anyway and I need to sleep for a few hours.”
In my midtwenties and I was already starting to sound like Vera, except even Vera couldn’t go to sleep with all this going on. But I found Candy quite intense and, frankly, a bit needy. I needed to recharge for the next day.
As we said good-bye in front of her dark-blue Tahoe, Candy said, “Since you’re going to sleep anyway, maybe I’ll wait and check with the detectives tomorrow before we head out. They’re not guys to work all night if you know what I mean.”
I felt dirty exploiting her desire for friendship, but what choice was there? I figured I could make it up to her when everything, whatever everything was, sorted itself out. I resolved to accept Candy for what she was: an exuberant, loud, needy person who was apparently my new BFF.
“We should leave around ten,” I said. “It will be fun.”
“Sure,” she said. “Good times.”
• • •
I SLEPT LIKE the dead. If I dreamed, I had no recollection. The way my dreams had been going, that was a good thing.
Vera was under the weather and didn’t show up for breakfast at eight. After an uneventful breakfast of ham, eggs and sautéed zucchini, I popped into my uncles’ place to find out if there was any word on Uncle Kev. It was now about
thirty-six hours since he’d last been seen.
My uncles’ place was now Walter’s place too. And apparently this new nameless dog had a home there as well, although I had hopes that Tyler Dekker would return and the dog would go back to where he belonged. He nuzzled my ear as I sat at my uncles’ kitchen table. That dog wasn’t the only elephant in the room.
Uncle Lucky had a faraway look in his eye. He wasn’t paying any attention to me, Mick or the new dog, although Walter was getting his ears scratched in an absentminded manner. I knew what was behind this. Uncle Lucky’s relationship with Karen had moved to a new level and Uncle Lucky was a man in love. But that wasn’t something that I could ask him about. I adored Lucky and I thought Karen was great. The spoiled little girl in me wasn’t sure she wanted to share. Get over yourself, I told myself.
But I still felt that Walter and I were caught in the middle and who knew where that left Uncle Mick.
Uncle Mick had produced a package of gummy bears and some Oreo cookies. The perfect breakfast dessert.
“Thanks, but I couldn’t,” I said, “much as I’d like to. I have been stuffing my face in the interest of my job and of finding out something more about that murder before Uncle Kev gets fingered by the fuzz.”
It only takes a few minutes before I start to talk like the uncles and their friends.
“Kev? Why would he get fingered?”
“He was there the night it happened. You already know that and you know he clobbered a cop thinking he was saving me. Then, of course, he hid out in the area. Shortly after, somebody was killed.”
I had all their attention now.
“Uncle Kev was there. I don’t think he’s capable of killing someone and particularly not this way. I mean, maybe in self-defense or to save someone else or even by accident, but not in cold blood.”
I felt that familiar knot in my stomach. The Uncle Kev I knew was fun and funny. Not at all cold-blooded, but he was already on the run from some dangerous people before he’d stumbled into a situation with another batch of dangerous people. He might have needed to defend himself. Would he have the nerve to kill someone? Could he actually use a knife? It seemed so personal and so vicious.
The Sayers Swindle (A Book Collector Mystery) Page 18
