Party Crashers

by Stephanie Bond

  The fact that he might live there only temporarily was his business.

  She left the store and walked to her rental car feeling closer to normal than she had in ages. She used her cell phone to call Detective Salyers.

  The woman answered on the first ring. “Salyers here.”

  “Detective Salyers, this is Jolie Goodman.”

  “Goodman…You’re the girlfriend in the Hagan case.”

  “Yes.”

  “Nice of you to return my call, Ms. Goodman. Finally.”

  Jolie ignored her sarcasm. “Do you have some information about Gary?”

  “Maybe. We traced the hang-up call to your apartment on Monday to a pay phone three blocks away from your apartment complex. Have you had any more hang-ups?”

  Jolie’s pulse kicked higher and she spoke carefully. “No.”

  “Has Mr. Hagan called you?”

  “No,” she said, grateful she could answer truthfully. Crawling into the backseat of her car wasn’t calling. “Has the woman in the car been identified?”

  “No. We’re still waiting on the medical examiner’s report.”

  At the abrupt answers, Jolie swallowed. “Is there something else?”

  Papers rattled in the background. “Ms. Goodman, do you know a Mr. Roger LeMon?”

  Her heart jumped in her chest. “Yes. How do you know about him?”

  “He came by this morning, said you’ve been harassing him.”

  Her eyes bugged. “What?”

  “According to Mr. LeMon, you’ve been following him, asking him questions about Gary Hagan, whom he denies knowing.”

  Jolie clenched the phone tighter. “He’s lying.”

  “You haven’t been following him?”

  “I…I mean he’s lying about knowing Gary. He’s one of the men in Gary’s photos.”

  “Is he?” Salyers asked mildly. “You said you didn’t know any of Mr. Hagan’s friends.”

  “I d–don’t.”

  “Then how did you find Mr. LeMon?”

  “I went to a party in midtown Wednesday night and recognized him. I asked him if he knew Gary and he said he didn’t.”

  “What made you think he was lying?”

  “His body language. And when he excused himself, I…”

  “Yes?”

  Jolie sighed. “I followed him.”

  “Oh, you want my job, do you?”

  Jolie frowned at her sarcasm. “I followed him because he said he was going to get a drink, but he walked right past the bar. When I found him, he was talking on a pay phone and I heard him tell the person my name, and that I’d recognized him.”

  She assumed the silence meant that the detective had perked up. “Do you know who he was talking to?”

  “No.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “I don’t know. I left immediately, but he might have seen me.”

  “Hmm. Is that the only incident?”

  Jolie squirmed. “I saw LeMon last night, and he was talking to another guy from the photos. Kyle Coffee.”

  “Where was this?”

  “At another party.”

  “Another party, huh? You’re really torn up over your boyfriend’s disappearance, aren’t you, Ms. Goodman?”

  Jolie’s stomach clenched.

  “In fact, one might think that you aren’t worried because you know he’s alive.”

  Her inclination to tell the detective about Gary’s late-night appearance in her car or her possible sighting of him in the store vanished. No way the woman would believe she hadn’t helped him.

  “I saw Roger LeMon again today,” Jolie said, diverting the conversation. “He came to Neiman’s.”

  “Did he approach you? Threaten you?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  “What exactly did he do?”

  Jolie bit into her lip. “He didn’t do anything, I guess. He was just…there.”

  “Did you tell him where you worked?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand—was he shopping?”

  “No. There was an event taking place in the store, a big crowd.”

  “So he was just standing in the crowd at a public event?”

  Coming from someone else, it sounded harmless. “Yes, but…” But what?

  The detective sighed. “Ms. Goodman, do you think maybe you’re overreacting? Isn’t it possible that Mr. LeMon, a wealthy man who probably shops in upscale stores, just happened into Neiman’s to buy something?”

  “Yes,” Jolie admitted.

  “Ms. Goodman, let me a give you some friendly advice. I don’t know Roger LeMon, but I’m told that he’s a wealthy man with a long reach.” She lowered her voice. “He even donated money to buy bulletproof vests for the police department—do you get my drift?”

  The woman’s “drift” was unmistakable. “Yes,” Jolie murmured, trying hard not to feel like a fool. “Was there anything else you wanted to tell me, Detective?”

  “No, except to stay away from Roger LeMon before he slaps a restraining order on you.”

  Jolie disconnected the call with shaking fingers and acknowledged an instant headache. She touched her temples, trying to slow her thinking, to make some sense of things.

  If Roger LeMon was up to no good, surely he wouldn’t go to the police. She’d been hoping to talk to Salyers about the possibility that Gary had been framed, but the woman wasn’t going to listen to a shoe clerk who stalked a pillar of the community.

  She sighed, wishing for divine inspiration. Maybe she should just forget about Gary, forget about her car, and forget about the dead woman, whoever she was. Cut her losses and walk away. Before things got…worse.

  The idea of going out with the girls tonight and crashing Sammy’s party was starting to sound more appealing. What was it that Carlotta had said? That Jolie needed to add the word “fun” to her vocabulary.

  “Fuunnnnn,” Jolie said aloud, testing the word on her tongue. Then she tested a smile, suddenly anticipating the well-heeled pajama party.

  At least she could wear house shoes.

  Fourteen

  “Are you sure it was Gary you saw in the crowd?” Leann asked.

  Jolie sighed into the phone receiver and dropped into her favorite chair. “I thought so at the time, but now…I just don’t know.”

  “Did he look as if he was trying to make contact with you?”

  “I only got a glimpse of him, but he seemed to be looking at me.”

  “And who is this other guy you said was there?”

  “Roger LeMon? Well, long story short, I recognized him from a picture in a photo album of Gary’s.”

  “What? How did you get Gary’s photo albums?” From Leann’s tone it was clear she didn’t approve of the kind of intimacy that having his personal items implied.

  “The apartment manager gave me a box of things he salvaged from Gary’s apartment after the fire. The album didn’t have much in it, some childhood pictures, group photos from parties.” She decided not to mention the X’dout picture of herself.

  “And this guy LeMon was in some of the photos?”

  “Yeah.” She told Leann about recognizing LeMon and following him to the pay phone, and the snippet of conversation she’d overheard.

  “Maybe Gary is mixed up in something dangerous,” Leann said, her voice solemn. “Drugs, maybe.”

  “That what’s the detective insinuated. In fac t…” She winced. “Gary has a record for selling cocaine.”

  “What? You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “And he never told you?”

  “No, but then again, I never asked,” she said dryly.

  “What a slimeball,” Leann seethed. “I can’t believe he would deceive you like that, and now…this.”

  Jolie could tell she was pacing, and she was touched by her friend’s concern. “Please don’t worry about me—you have enough on your hands with your sister.”

  Leann sighed. “Jolie, I just wish you h
ad taken my advice and stayed away from Gary Hagan. I told you he was trouble.”

  “You were right.” Jolie laid her head back and stared at the water stain on her ceiling. “Why could you see that and I couldn’t?”

  Leann sighed. “Just a matter of experience, I guess. Gary seemed…too good to be true.”

  The water stain looked like a misshapen heart. “I’m gullible.”

  “You just haven’t dated enough jerks to make you cynical.”

  She frowned wryly—linking up with a possible murderer had made her a quick study.

  “Jolie, do you think Gary is still following you?”

  “Yes,” Jolie admitted. “I thought I saw my car drive by last night as I went into the hotel for the reception. I think he’ll contact me again. For some reason, I think he feels that he can trust me. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing, or a bad thing.”

  “What will you do if he does contact you again?”

  “Try to get him to go to the police.”

  “And if he won’t?”

  “I’ll call them myself,” Jolie said. “Stall him until the police get there…something.” She pushed to her feet and walked to the desk to re-sort the mail, keeping an eye out for the alleged envelope Gary said he’d sent, but the only thing unusual was Mrs. Janklo’s AARP magazine that the mail carrier had put in Jolie’s box by mistake. “I just want this to be over.”

  “Me too,” Leann said.

  Jolie tried to smile. “I’m trying to forget about Gary, at least for one night. I wish you could drive up and crash the party with us.” She glanced at her watch. “If you left now, you could make it.”

  “Yeah, right. Besides, you don’t need me there, not with your new friends.”

  Jolie wasn’t sure if the envious tone made her feel needed or crowded. She’d never before had multiple female friendships to maintain. She missed Leann, but she was grateful for Carlotta’s companionship, especially since Leann would be in Florida for a few more months. Torn, she said, “Hopefully, by the time you get back to Atlanta, this mess will have blown over and all of us can be friends.”

  “Okay,” Leann said, but she still sounded forlorn. “Hey, aren’t you afraid that Sammy will throw you out of her party?”

  “Carlotta is a master of disguise. Sammy won’t recognize me.” Jolie frowned suddenly, thinking she was getting way too blasé about deceiving others. This would be the last party she would crash, she promised herself.

  “Is it a costume party?”

  “No, actually, it’s a pajama party. I think it’s Sammy’s version of a costume party.”

  “Sounds decadent.”

  Why the word “decadent” conjured up the face of Beck Underwood, Jolie wasn’t sure, but she pushed him out of her mind. When she met with him tomorrow to try to sell him an expensive house, she would be all business. If the man had decided that she was his cause for the week, she would take it, but she wasn’t going to risk more than her time. If there was such a thing as too good to be true, it was Beck Underwood. If nothing else, Gary had taught her a lesson about keeping her heart under wraps until her head caught up with it.

  “With Sammy, I don’t know what to expect,” Jolie said. “I forgot to mention that she came by today, too. Tried to give me a bribe.”

  “For what?”

  “I think she’s in trouble for a deal that went bad and she’s afraid I’ll be questioned.”

  “Did you take the money?”

  “Of course not!”

  “You should have taken the cash and told the truth anyway. What’s she going to do—fire you?”

  “I don’t want to have anything to do with the woman’s money…unless I have to go back and beg for a job. And after the spectacle I made of myself today, I might get fired from Neiman’s.”

  “So how is your brokerage business?”

  She flipped on her computer so it could boot up while they talked. “Anonymous. But I’m sending out a mailing today to some of my former customers. And I’m meeting with a guy tomorrow who’s looking for a house.”

  “That sounds promising.”

  “Uh-hm,” she murmured casually.

  “Anyone I would know?”

  Because of her interior design connections, Leann knew almost everyone. “Er, possibly. Beck Underwood?”

  “Of Underwood Broadcasting?”

  “Yup.”

  “Oh, my God. How on earth did you meet him?”

  “Remember I told you about running into a guy when I was carrying that armload of shoes my first day on the job?”

  “Yeah…it was him?”

  “It was him.”

  “Wow, what a coup. I can’t imagine what kind of a house he’s going to buy.”

  “Well, I don’t have his business yet.” She’d seen plenty of customers—especially wealthy ones—drop agents at the last minute to give their business to a buddy or to a buddy’s wife, son, daughter, hairdresser.

  “Oh, Jolie, I hate to go, but I have to get ready for a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Sure,” Jolie said. “Thanks for listening. Tell your sister that I hope everything is okay.”

  “I will. Good luck with Beck Underwood, and have fun tonight.”

  “Bye.” Jolie hung up the phone reluctantly, conceding that she dreaded spending the afternoon alone. She leaned against the desk and surveyed her surroundings with an eye toward what Carlotta and Hannah would think when they arrived. The living room-slash-office, galley kitchen, breakfast area, all visible from where she stood. A sad collection of odd-lot furniture she had accumulated situated on gray builder-grade carpet. The layer of dust on every flat surface seemed to sum up her general mindset over the past few weeks—since Gary’s…departure. Well, enough of that.

  She unearthed the feather duster and gave everything a good going over. In the bedroom, though, she paused at the sight of finger marks in the dust on the top of the bookcase that was built into the headboard. She swiped her own fingers in a dusty patch, and the marks were much smaller. Her neck prickled with unease. Had someone been in her apartment, in her bedroom, or had she somehow made the marks herself when she’d reshelved the books strewn around the apartment? She experimented again, this time putting her weight on her hand, and, to her relief, the impressions were more similar. She wiped away the marks, telling herself that she truly was becoming paranoid.

  After dusting and running her ancient vacuum cleaner, she looked around the small apartment where she’d lived for four years and tried not to feel depressed. Having worked in real estate for most of her adult life, she knew that the sooner she invested in a home, the better. Yet some small part of her resisted the idea of buying a home to live in alone. She had always envisioned that she and her husband would shop for a first home together. Between school loans and living expenses, she had managed to squirrel away a few thousand dollars, but when she’d opted to invest in her own brokerage firm, she had postponed owning a home for a while longer.

  Now she wondered if that had been some kind of unconscious decision to wait for Gary—or someone else—before buying a home.

  She shivered. The outside temperature had plummeted to an unseasonable low, and the apartment had acquired a distinct chill. Rebelling against turning on the heat in the middle of October, she donned jeans and a sweatshirt to work at her desk. To the tune of a smooth jazz station, she assembled a postcard mailing to a list of former clients, giving her new e-mail address and cell phone number if they had referrals. Sammy would probably shoot her if she caught her poaching clients, but Jolie reasoned that she had developed a relationship with the clients and had a right to ask for their future business. She welcomed the mindlessness of labeling and stamping the postcards. It was, she realized, the most normal thing she’d done in days and took her mind off the disturbing tangents her life had taken lately.

  She was actually humming under her breath as she bundled the postcards into a bag and left to drive to the post office. A surprisingly cool wind gusted a
round her, tossing her hair into her eyes. Two young girls skipped along the sidewalk, holding hands, pigtails bouncing. Their pink cheeks and exuberant feet made Jolie smile. Had she ever been so carefree? At what point in life had she begun to accumulate baggage, to make poor decisions that had led her to this moment?

  She dropped off the postcards, purchased more stamps, and on the way back to her apartment, pulled into a drive-through to pick up dinner. While she waited for her order, she leaned forward and peered through the windshield, squinting into the sun. The day was so luminous, it was difficult to imagine that anything was wrong with the world, much less the horrible mess that Gary had gotten himself into. When her order came through the window, she snagged a French fry from the bag and glanced in the side mirror in preparation for pulling away.

  A gray Mercury Sable sedan sat behind her. With one occupant. A man whose build resembled Gary’s. Was he following her?

  She choked down the fry and looked harder, but the man wore a ball cap pulled low over his face. Coincidence or intentional? She kept her foot on the brake and reached for her cell phone. After retrieving Detective Salyers’ number, she waited for the call to connect while her pulse climbed. Another car had pulled in behind the Sable, so as long as she stayed put, he would be trapped by a curb and some rugged landscaping. The young man in the drive-through window frowned at her.

  At last the woman answered. “Salyers.”

  “Detective Salyers, this is Jolie Goodman. I think Gary Hagan is in the car behind me.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “It looks like my car, and a man is driving it.”

  “Are you sure it’s Mr. Hagan?”

  “No, I’m not positive.”

  “Is there some way you can get behind the car to check the license plate?”

  “No. I’m sitting at a Wendy’s drive-through.”

  “Where?”

  “Holcomb Bridge Road.”

  “What’s the cross street?”

  She glanced around frantically, trying to remember. “East of Old Alabama Road.”

  “I’ll dispatch a cruiser there. Can you sit tight?”

  A horn blared a couple of cars back. “I’ll try.”