by Libby Klein
“About to make partner? Wow. So, I guess there was no one here who would try to hurt him?”
Kylie’s face pinked and her eyes darted to the floor. “Perhaps it would be better if we reschedule.”
She pulled a brochure out of a folder on the table. “Here, this lists our services and details the fees and exclusions. Why don’t you take a look and give us a call when you’re ready to sign?”
Before I could pick up the brochure, Kylie took me by the elbow and ushered me out with a bit more force than I felt appropriate for a business meeting.
On my way past Judy’s desk I got a look at that flyer she’d ripped a piece from. It was for the Starfish Lounge happy hour, and the corner had been a coupon of sorts.
I took the stairs down to the street level and thought about the bizarre meeting. What was Ken so angry about? Why was Kylie so nervous whenever Brody was brought up? Judy seemed truly wrecked by Brody’s death, and ready to talk. I’d really like to have a crack at questioning her. The only problem was that I had plans with Tim in an hour. This was really important. I couldn’t let Aunt Ginny spend the rest of her life behind bars. I had to prioritize. Maybe there was a way to feed two cats with one fish, so to speak.
I took out my phone and called Tim.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
“Hey, have you ever heard of the Starfish Lounge in the Villas?”
Silence. “The what?”
“The Starfish Lounge. It’s down by the bay.”
“Ahhh … why do you ask?”
“I have to accidentally run into someone who’s going to happy hour, and I was wondering if we could move our date there.”
“Uh-huh. Do I want to know what this is about?”
“Probably not, but I can fill you in later.”
“Oh-kay. I guess we could do that. Where is it again?”
I texted him the address and promised to see him in a bit.
I really hoped Judy would give me something to work with, otherwise all I had was a few kids with a rumor. I’d never get Aunt Ginny cleared with that.
Chapter 19
What the Starfish Lounge lacked in class was only made worse with the putrid smell from the horseshoe crabs that had washed up from the bay’s low tide. Weathered and gray, with few windows and fewer cars in the parking lot, the long, low box had a giant starfish in a net holding up a sign announcing HAPPY HOUR.
That seems overly optimistic.
The room was dark and sleazy with a smattering of tables around a stage in the back. A woman wearing a G-string and two poorly placed clusters of sequins gyrated on a pole to techno music. She was either in her forties or life had been cruel, or both. Great. I invited Tim to a hoochie club full of half-naked women. As if I needed more reminders of my own measurements.
“So, this is the Starfish.” Tim put his arms around my shoulders from behind me. “I always wondered what this place was like.”
I spun around to give him an apology for bringing him to this dive, but was interrupted when a waitress wearing a dress the size of a headband walked by carrying a tray of drinks. “Chef Tim! Hi!”
“Hey, Shel.” Tim slid his eyes my way and had the courtesy of having a flush of shame slide its way up the back of his neck.
“Really?”
“What? She comes in the bistro a lot with her husband.”
“Uh-huh.”
I spotted Judy sitting at the bar devouring a huge plate of potato skins.
“Come on, I see who I’m here to meet … Tim!”
“What?! I was listening.”
“Wipe your chin, you’re drooling.”
The bartender asked Tim if he wanted his usual.
Tim cough-choked out a “Dude.” He ordered us a couple of drinks and tried to look like he wasn’t looking at the pole dancers.
I took the seat next to Judy. Her eyes were red and swollen, her expression held the vacant listlessness of someone who was all cried out. She had set up a framed five-by-seven photograph of herself and Brody sitting together.
“Hey, Judy, I hope you don’t mind if we join you. I saw the flyer on your bulletin board. I’m so sorry about earlier. I hope I didn’t get you into trouble with your boss.”
“It doesn’t matter. It will never be the same there again, now that he’s gone.”
I nodded toward the photograph. “Is that the two of you together?”
Judy picked it up and hugged it to herself. “This was taken at the office Christmas party last year.”
“Were you and Brody a couple?” I asked.
Judy ducked her head. “No. Just friends. All of his free time was spent working with needy kids. Besides, I have my cats, and that’s good … that’s good.”
“I have a cat too. His name is Sir Figaro Newton. Mostly I just call him Fig.”
“Aww. I love that.” Judy wiped a tear off her cheek.
I looked at the photo again. Brody was several inches taller and quite a few pounds heavier than Judy. He was solidly built, like someone who doesn’t work out but has an active lifestyle.
“You were the one who found him this morning, weren’t you?”
Tim blew his breath out, just now getting a hint of what he had gotten himself into. He spun around on the bar stool so his back was to the bar and he could look me and Judy in the eye while we talked. That stage must have been very distracting to him because his eyes kept swiveling up to the girls.
Judy furrowed her brows. “I realized he had forgotten to sign some contracts on Friday, and I didn’t want to see him get into more trouble. So, I took the contracts to his house to have him sign and postdate them. When he didn’t answer the door, I figured he’d left already to get down to the Teen Center with his kids. So I let myself in with the spare key to leave the contracts on the kitchen counter.” She shook her head.
“Had you ever been to his place before?”
“No, but I knew right away something was wrong. Someone like Brody would never live that way. I thought maybe a raccoon had gotten in or an angry kid had vandalized his house. I was going to clean up for him. I never expected to find him there.”
“What do you mean by you didn’t want to see him in more trouble?”
“Ken and Kylie fired him. He didn’t deserve it either. He was a hard worker. All the clients loved him. He handled some of our biggest accounts.”
“I thought he was about to make partner?”
Judy laughed. “Are you kidding?”
Tim leaned in so Judy could hear him better. “You said he was fired?”
Judy nodded.
“What was that about?” Tim asked.
Judy’s eyes flashed. “Lies! They had it in for Brody from the start.”
I thought about Kylie and Ken and my meeting from that afternoon. They were both acting shifty, and Kylie outright lied to me.
“They said he was guilty, but I know he couldn’t have done it. Not someone who gives his time to kids like that. He was a hero. A true humanitarian. No way would he stoop that low. You know the county just gave him an award.”
Tim and I exchanged looks. Judy was wearing some rose-colored goggles.
“What exactly did Ken and Kylie say Brody was guilty of?”
Judy dunked a potato skin into a mountain of sour cream and shoveled it into her mouth. She seemed to be deep in thought while she chewed. “It’s not like anything can happen to him now. A couple weeks ago, the auditors noticed there was money missing from some accounts. About a hundred thousand. All from Brody’s clients. Ken and Kylie asked what he knew about it. Brody told them he didn’t know where the money was, he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“They didn’t believe him?”
Judy choked. “Please. Who else were they going to accuse? He was like an only child standing in front of a broken vase. There was no one else in the room. I didn’t handle the money. It’s not fair. There was going to be a whole investigation, but now he’s gone, so they’ll just pin it on him and claim the loss on th
eir insurance.”
Tim signaled the bartender to bring Judy a cup of coffee. “But you don’t think he did it.”
Judy got a dreamy look in her eye. “I know he didn’t do it. He had too much character.”
Oh boy. “Did you know that the cops found drugs in his house?” I asked.
“First of all”—Judy picked up her fork and poked it at me—“I don’t believe that for a minute. His whole life was about keeping kids off of drugs. I don’t care what they found in his house, it wasn’t his.”
Tim leaned in to look around me. “Did this guy have any enemies outside of work? Anyone who would want to hurt him? Maybe an angry client?”
A busty half-naked dancer shook glitter all over Tim’s lap and asked him if he’d want a private dance. He choked, from the sheer horror of being propositioned. Or it could have been because I gently pinched his arm and made him squirm. Either way, he couldn’t answer, so I had to politely tell her, “I will cut you.”
Judy was busy whispering sweet nothings to the photo of Brody, and hadn’t acknowledged the question. I tried to get her attention again.
“Earth to Judy. Hey there. Did Brody have any enemies outside the office?”
Judy crammed another potato skin into her mouth and mumbled, “Not unless you count Kylie’s lunatic boyfriend. He came in one day and went bat-poop crazy and accused Kylie of cheating on him with Brody. He said if Brody ever touched Kylie he would kill him. Then he punched a dent in my file cabinet and threw the old coffeepot out of the conference room window. It landed right on the psychic lady’s Toyota.”
Tim muttered, “I wonder if she saw that coming.”
I jabbed him in the side. “Judy, do you know if Kylie’s boyfriend was right? Were she and Brody having an affair?”
“He wouldn’t stoop so low to sleep with another man’s woman. He was an angel. An angel with blond, curly hair. Hair the color of a bale of freshly rolled hay.” Judy sighed.
“Uh-huh. Did you happen to catch the name of Kylie’s boyfriend?”
Judy was nodding off. Her head bobbed, and her nose dipped into her sour cream.
“Hellooo, Judy.”
“Oh, um, Ribbett, I think. Frank Ribbett, like a frog. It was embroidered on his uniform.”
“What kind of uniform?”
“A blue one. I don’t know, he looked greasy and smelled like oil.”
Tim looked like he was trying to read the tramp stamp over one of the hoochie mommas’ shorty shorts, and I was losing Judy’s focus, so it was time to make my escape. I told Judy to call me if she thought of anything else and gave her my number. Tim paid the check and took one last look to the stage.
“That’s it, let’s go.” I grabbed his arm and led him outside. “If I had known what kind of place this was, I would never have invited you here.”
He laughed and put his arms around me. “Are you kidding? I vote Best. Date. Ever.” He kissed me, and I felt warm and gooey, like cookies fresh from the oven.
We walked back to his car and he asked, “So, what was that all about? You aren’t being accused of murder again, are you? That would be too much of a coincidence for anyone.”
“It’s not me this time, it’s Aunt Ginny.”
“Aunt Ginny? Who’s she’s supposed to have whacked?”
“His name was Brody Brandt and that hot mess in there was Judy, his secretary.”
“I think Judy had a little crush on her boss,” Tim mused.
“Don’t you think it’s strange that he was murdered right before they opened the investigation into embezzlement?”
Tim cocked his head and gave me a knowing look. “It is awfully convenient.”
*
We both got into Tim’s car and drove to El Queso in Del Haven. El Queso was a new restaurant for me. It hadn’t existed when I was growing up here.
The ambiance was over-the-top and it took me a minute to take it all in. The walls were brightly painted stucco in shades of sand, turquoise, and pink. There must have been a hundred strands of Christmas lights crisscrossed back and forth over the ceiling. And if the health department ever closed them down, they could pick up a solid business selling off the piñatas.
“Wow. I’ve been to Mexico, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Tim laughed. “I know. It looks like Tijuana exploded in here, but I know the chef and the food is really good.”
I ordered a salad for dinner. Tim had an enchilada the size of a casserole for a family of eight. He ordered a refill on his tea and I considered stealing a forkful of cheese off his plate.
I filled him in on the doings at our house over the past couple of weeks. The sleepwalking, snacking, swiping trifecta and subsequent accusation and arrest. “I think Amber is gunning for Aunt Ginny because the method matches and the police can close the case quickly. Our mutual animosity doesn’t hurt either.”
“What would be Aunt Ginny’s motive for killing this guy?”
“With sleepwalking, you don’t need a motive. Aunt Ginny didn’t have a motive for breaking into the neighbors’ houses either.”
“Maybe she was hungry because of that diet you have her on.”
“That diet is her own fault; don’t you feel sorry for her for that. She’s the one who got me rooked into this Paleo thing in the first place.”
I thought of Aunt Ginny having to forgo her favorite peanut butter and Twinkies at her age, and I softened. “Of course, she doesn’t really have to do it with me anymore. It seems I’m going to be on it long term. But this does explain why she suddenly lost her appetite for breakfast. Anyway, news has been all over town about her midnight forays. Someone even tipped off the paper.”
Tim sat quietly for a minute, as though he was thinking about whether or not to say something. Finally, he said, “How do you know she didn’t do it?”
For a second I thought he was joking, but the look in his eyes said he was serious. “How can you think that?”
“How can you not think that? Aunt Ginny has always been crazy. Remember when she chased me with an axe?”
“She said be home by eleven.”
“We were two minutes late! And how about when she caught that crow?”
“It was trying to steal her wind chimes.”
“From inside the house?”
Tim was making some good points and I didn’t appreciate it. “Even so, I don’t believe she would ever commit murder, asleep or not.”
Tim leaned back and crossed his arms over his flat stomach. His tanned, flat stomach. Where was I? Oh, right. I could tell that he thought I was in denial, but I still believed in Aunt Ginny.
He took some money out of his wallet and left it on the table. “How about we go for coffee Saturday night after my first seating? I can let my sous chef take over for the second.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
He continued, “There is a little place on the mall called La Dolce Vita. I bet you’d like it.”
Gulp. “Where?”
He grinned wickedly and raised his eyebrows at me. “I think you know the place. I hear they have great muffins and a good-looking owner.”
Worlds colliding. “Why do you want to go there?”
“I want to see where you work.”
“I work in the kitchen in my house.”
“And I want to see where they sell these muffins I keep hearing about.”
“Riiiiight.”
“Is there a problem with that? You don’t want me meeting the other man in your life?”
There it is.
I tossed his words from the other day back to him. “No. We’re adults. We’re just keeping it light.”
Chapter 20
Tim drove me back to the Starfish Lounge to pick up my car. He opened my door, and when I got out he pulled me close to him. “Remember in high school how we used to sneak away from Aunt Ginny and come up to the bay to make out?”
I giggled. “Yeah.”
“Those were some of the best tim
es of my life.”
“Mine too.”
He kissed me goodnight and I floated to my seat. He was still chuckling over my reaction when he pulled out of the parking lot.
How easy it would be to fall in love with him again. But I don’t have time to focus on that right now. Aunt Ginny needs me to think of her first.
I didn’t get anywhere with Brody’s work, and Judy might not be the most unbiased witness. I checked the time and figured I’d see if Erika or her father were home yet. I drove up Bayshore and back to North Cape May.
There was a car parked out front and the light on the porch was lit. I could see shadows moving inside. I knocked, and a man opened the door. He was round and pink and looked to have the muscle mass of a canned ham. His short hair was heavily peppered with gray and stuck up on his head like a pincushion. A pair of blue sweatpants and a XXXL Flyers jersey clung to him for dear life.
“Can I help you?”
“Are you Jonathan Lynch?”
His eyes narrowed and his lips flattened into a straight line. “Who’s asking?”
“My name’s Poppy. I was—”
He started to close the door. “We aren’t interested in Avon, Amway, or the Last Days Judgment.”
I panicked. “No! I’m here about something else.”
He folded his meaty arms across his jersey, and stared me down. “And that would be?”
I motioned to the Flyers logo. “Do you play?”
“A little.”
“Roller or ice?”
“Roller. We have a pickup league that meets twice a week at Convention Hall. Is that it?”
“No, I wanted to ask about your daughter, Erika?”
He stepped outside. “Why? What has she done now?”
“Nothing … that I know of. I got her name from some kids down at the Teen Center.”
His eyes were hard and black as plums. “She isn’t going back there, and I told you people that pervert isn’t allowed within fifty feet of my daughter or I’ll have him arrested.”
“By that pervert, do you mean Brody Brandt?”
Jonathan’s nostrils flared and he took a step toward me. “I can’t believe he would send you to my house after what he’s done. I made myself very clear that if he came near Erika again, I would kill him.”
