by Libby Klein
Kim gathered her military jacket and her purse. “I hope you got some good information today.”
“I didn’t get a confession from the killer. Just another wild lead to run down.”
“I’m sorry.” Kim hugged me. “Call me if you need me again.” Kim looked down at Figaro lying on his back, staring blankly at her with his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. “But, you know, not for a couple of days, okay?”
I found Aunt Ginny in the kitchen. “How was your day?”
She gave me a dirty look. “The doctor’s office called. I missed my follow-up appointment.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That I was being held prisoner on house arrest, and wouldn’t likely make it in anytime soon.”
“I see.”
Georgina breezed in smelling of lavender, peppermint, and cucumber.
“I feel like I’m a brand-new woman.” Georgina spun in a circle.
“That would be great,” I muttered under my breath.
Georgina put her Coach purse on the hall table and took her sunglasses off. “So what did you do today?”
“Same thing I do every day. Make some muffins. Question a perp. Get a hex put on me by a sheisty psychic.”
Georgina blinked a couple of times. “Did you see the muffin man?”
“The muffin man?”
“Yes, the muffin man.”
“Yes, I saw the muffin man. Who lives on Drury Lane?”
Georgina shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about?”
Georgina put her hand up to her forehead. “I need to go lie down. Eight hours of pampering undone by five minutes of conversation with you.”
I giggled to myself. Georgina was too easy. I went into the kitchen to toss myself a quick salad. I wanted to go to the Teen Center in a couple of hours and ask Brenda about what Ken said today. She had to be the woman who blew up at Brody in his office. How many other large, spiky-pink-haired ladies could there be in Cape May? I had to hear her side of the story. I never suspected that Brenda could be the killer, but maybe I’d missed something big.
Aunt Ginny came from her bedroom. “I want to order a pizza.”
“Okay, order a pizza.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Of course not. You’re having a rough time right now. You get whatever you want.”
“In that case, I’ll get a side of garlic butter to go with it.” Aunt Ginny picked up the receiver of her ancient phone on the wall.
“You know that anklet is butter-proof.”
“Oh. Then never mind.”
With her pizza ordered we sat together at the table. She looked tired. All her crafty ways were taking it out of her. “Why are you so hell-bent on escaping house arrest?”
“I don’t have much time left and I don’t want to spend it in a women’s prison.”
“I’m doing the best I can to find the real killer, I promise.”
“I know that. But ever since Amber put this doohickey on my foot, I hear a clock ticking down the minutes of my freedom.” Aunt Ginny started to tear up.
I moved to her side of the banquette and put my arm around her. “Even if you were to go to prison, I won’t stop looking for ways to set you free. We had a good day today. Gia and I were able to cross Ken and Kylie off the suspect list. We had to add Brenda, and Frank Trippett just rocketed to the top, but I think it’s still progress.”
Aunt Ginny blew her nose in a hanky she pulled from inside her bra. “So, you spent the day with the sexy Italian. Good. That’s also progress.”
As if someone turned on a diva-alert beacon in the sky, Georgina pounced into the kitchen. “You what? I asked you if you were with the muffin man.”
“Is that what you were talking about?”
“Poppy, you knew that’s what I meant.”
Aunt Ginny rolled her eyes. “Georgina, no one knows what the devil you’re talking about half the time.”
Georgina tapped her foot in time to my rising blood pressure. “You know how I feel about you spending so much time with other men, Poppy.”
“Yes, and I also know that you’re unreasonable and it’s none of your business.”
Aunt Ginny stiffened her spine. “Well, I’m thrilled that she’s spending so much time with that lovely man. You would have her remain a widow for the rest of her life, Georgina, but I want her to be happily married again someday.”
Georgina’s hands flew up to her hips. Her face turned crimson. “Poppy has no business getting married again. She wasn’t that great a wife the first time around. She can barely take care of herself.”
In times like this, it’s interesting to note that when I cross the threshold from irritated, to angry, to what I feel right now, I don’t yell or scream. I get quieter. And I was very, very quiet. “What do you mean, I wasn’t a good wife to John?”
Smitty walked into the kitchen, overheard the conversation, grunted, and made a quick retreat.
“First of all, you tricked him into marrying you by pretending to be pregnant. And you’re bad with money. Never taking my advice on what to properly invest in. You make decisions on a whim, like this ridiculous inn you’re trying to run here. You’ve sunk all of John’s money into this place.”
“Georgina, hear me now, because I won’t ever be saying this to you again. I was pregnant. And I lost my baby. And if you ever bring my pregnancy into doubt again, it will be the last time we speak.”
Georgina paled, but she remained silent.
Aunt Ginny stayed next to me, unmoving like a soldier at arms. I could feel the strength rolling off of her like the swell of the tide.
“And as to how I am with my money—and I do mean my money—not John’s money. I built a life with my husband and we shared everything equally. When he died, the insurance money became mine. I never wanted to be in a position of collecting it, but here I am. How he ever let you put our assets in trust so you could dole them out to me based on your whims, I’ll never understand.”
Georgina’s voice came out stiff and arrogant. “I’m only trying to help you, Poppy. You don’t know how to take care of a house or bills.”
“How do you know how I am with money? Who do you think paid the bills and ran our house for twenty years?”
Georgina stamped her foot and blew her breath out of her nose like a bull who just spied a red cape. “If John could hear you now, he would be so ashamed. Talking to your mother-in-law like this. Spending money, cavorting with strange men. You dishonor him.”
Did you hear that sound? That was it. That was the sound of a camel’s spine fracturing under the mountain of straw Georgina had been shoveling on me for years. As the fury skyrocketed through me, a tense calm descended, and my voice was just above a whisper. “You have no right. John isn’t here. He’s dead. And the only thing good about that is that you aren’t my mother-in-law anymore. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just a minority stake in a business agreement.”
Georgina sucked in a lungful of air.
“I think it would be best if you gather your things and head home to Waterford. Tonight. I can’t talk to you. I can’t even look at you. I’ll get a loan to pay you back your investment so we can be done here, once and for all.”
Chapter 48
I needed to be anywhere but here. I felt like a pot of spaghetti boiling over. Georgina had stomped off to pack her bags, and I had the restless energy that needed a good punching bag.
Aunt Ginny patted my arm. “She’s only lashing out because she’s hurt.”
“I thought you were on my side.”
“I’m always on your side. It’s just that Georgina said some very hurtful things, and I know that she upset you.”
I opened the refrigerator and freezer, hoping a cake or some ice cream had magically materialized. “She’s been saying hurtful things for twenty years. Why should now be any different?”
“I think she’s insecure. Insecure people can be very ugl
y when they’re trying to protect themselves.”
“Protect herself from what? I didn’t attack her.”
Aunt Ginny handed me the peanut butter and a spoon. “Well, I don’t know. But she feels threatened about something. I think in her own way she was trying to get your attention. Maybe her abrasiveness is a cry for help.”
I shoveled a mound of peanut butter into my mouth. “Om arye somen nker ot onaday.”
Aunt Ginny got herself a spoon. “You’re right. Maybe it is a cry for someone to knock her out one of these days.”
Smitty peeked into the kitchen with his hat in his hand. “I’m, ah, going to take her to a hotel and drop her off for the night.”
“Whatever.”
Smitty ducked his head and put his hat on.
The front door closed a couple minutes later, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had to get control of myself. I needed to get my head back to the critical task at hand.
I called another dear friend from my youth—it looked like I was cashing in all my chips in one week—and asked Connie if she could keep an eye on Aunt Ginny while I ran an errand. She was gracious enough to leave her husband and two girls, and come over to help me out for a while.
Twenty minutes later, her husband, Mike, dropped her off, and I got hugs from him and the girls. “Thank you so much for coming, Connie.”
“It’s no problem. Mike’s taking Sabrina to cheerleading practice at the high school and Emmilee has a lesson tonight, so he was already doing his rounds.”
Emmilee came in with Connie to show me her new fluffy unicorn.
“Nice. What’s his name?”
“It’s a her, and her name is Poppy.”
“You named her Poppy?”
“Yes, ’cause she’s so fluffy.”
Mike spun Emmilee around and nudged her toward the door. “Okay, that’s enough. We got to get you a Happy Meal and drop Bean off. Say goodbye to Mommy.”
“Bye, Mommy and Poppy.”
Connie patted Emmi affectionately. “Bye, liddybit. Have fun at ballet.”
Once we were alone, Connie hugged me hello. “I think she means because your hair is so fluffy and pretty.”
“Uh-huh. I’ve had worse said about me in just the past hour, so it’s all good.”
I caught my friend up on the events over the past couple of weeks.
“I already know. Kim told me all about it this afternoon over coffee. I’ve been expecting your call.”
“Whatever you do, don’t give Aunt Ginny an inch. She’ll be out the door and on her way to Reno faster than you can go pee.”
Connie ran a hand through her pixie-cut brown hair. “I met Officer Consuelos on the way in. He warned me not to fall for any emergency cries for help over vermin.”
“I believe he was burned by that excuse this afternoon.”
“Don’t worry. I came prepared. I have a secret weapon.” Connie patted her leather tote bag. “Fingers crossed. You just go do what you need to do.”
I thanked her and grabbed the bags of butterscotch-oatmeal crumble bars I’d made hours ago at Momma’s—my farewell visit—oh happy day.
*
I rage-drove into the Villas. Good thing it was the off-season. Less chance of hitting a tourist trying to find the bay, to catch the sunset while struggling to ride a bicycle they hadn’t dusted off in twenty years. And I was in a tourist-hitting mood.
I walked into the Teen Center with the bag of bars hanging from my hand. Three kids swarmed me and the bars evaporated like a sweater to a family of moths.
Brenda was poring over a stack of bills while drinking a Diet Coke. “I heard the stampede when you came in. How’s it going?”
“It’s good.” I pulled a wrapped package out of my purse. “I saved you a bar.”
She perked up at the news. “You’re my hero.”
“Hey, I found out something today that I wanted to run by you.”
“Shoot.”
“Brody’s old boss told me that a woman showed up in his office one day and they had quite a knock-down, drag-out.”
Brenda’s face pinked up to match her hair. She took a gulp of her Diet Coke.
“Was that by any chance you?”
“Did Brody’s boss hear what the fight was about?”
“He heard enough. He said the woman accused Brody of doing something underhanded that could put the Teen Center in jeopardy.”
Brenda sighed. “What will you do with this information?”
“That depends. If it isn’t related to the murder investigation, I’ll keep it to myself.”
Brenda held two hands up. “Okay. You got me. I went to Brody’s office and ripped him a new one. I discovered something that could destroy everything we’ve worked for, and it could have sent him to jail.”
“Oh God. What was it?”
“I’m embarrassed to say, and now that Brody’s gone, I don’t want to speak ill of the dead and ruin all the good he’s done.”
“I understand. Why don’t you just tell me what you found.”
“Brody had intake papers and community-service records for Michael Huber.”
Oh right. I reached into my purse and pulled out the letter that had been stuck under Brody’s desk with the financial records. I peeled off the Post-it that had the words I know scrawled on it. “This M. Huber?”
Brenda paled. “Where did you get that?”
“It was in some stuff Brody had at work. I thought it was filed there by accident.”
Brenda came out of her little office and pulled me by the elbow down the hall. She took me into a storage closet full of cleaning supplies, toner cartridges, and computer paper, and shut the door behind us. She snatched the letter from me.
“Oh, jeez. I found this one day when I was cleaning out the files. I almost left it on Brody’s desk so he would have to come to me to explain, but the more I stewed over it the angrier I got. So I drove over to his work to confront him. If anyone finds out about this, we’ll be shut down. He’s done a lot of good in the community. I would hate to see one mistake ruin all that.”
I looked at the letter in her shaking hand. “I feel like I’m missing something. What does Michael Huber have to do with Brody being disgraced?”
“This is a page from Michael’s file. It shows forty hours of community service that he worked off while he was part of the program. And it says that he successfully completed alcohol awareness classes.”
“Right?”
“Michael never came here.”
“What?”
“Brody took a ‘donation’ of fifteen thousand dollars and received a nod to the humanitarian award committee from the mayor in exchange for signing off on his son’s community service records, saying that Michael attended the program, when he didn’t.”
“Why would Brody do that?”
“Our money had run out and we were about three days away from being shut down. Brody said that Mayor Huber approached him asking for help. He wanted his son to get private counseling instead of attending a twelve-step program.”
“Counseling for what?”
“Alcohol abuse. The boy had been sentenced to forty hours of community service for an underage drunk-and-disorderly charge.”
“I’ve never heard of that.”
“He was at a high school party—parents out of town—lots of jocks, you know the sort. The neighbors called the police and they raided. The kids scattered, but Michael didn’t get away fast enough.”
“He was arrested.”
“This was his first offense, and a minor one at that. But someone wanted to make an example of him. Probably because of this new transparency-in-politics movement started by Congressman Clark.”
“Okay, so Michael was sent to the Teen Center in lieu of juvenile detention?”
“Only the mayor felt it was a family issue that should be handled at home. He said his son didn’t have any addiction and he didn’t want him mixing in with the kind of kids who come here.”
Brenda
rolled her eyes and I responded with a shared look of disdain.
“I gather that it’s a crime to sign off on community service hours that don’t happen?”
“It’s a Class D felony. Brody could have been fined thousands of dollars—or worse, he could have gone to jail. And he knew better. He should never have gone along with something like this. If this had been discovered, the county would have pulled our funding, private donations would dry up, and the whole program could have been destroyed.”
“So, Brody cheated to win the humanitarian award?”
“No. We won fairly. He committed fraud to get nominated. When I found this”—she shook the paper—“I blew a gasket.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“Only the boy’s father, Mayor Huber. And he has his own motivation to keep this under wraps.”
“I would guess so. So only the mayor and Brody knew about this until you discovered the paperwork. Then you went to Freeman and Furman to confront him?”
Brenda slumped down on an upturned bucket. “He regretted making the deal with the mayor from the start. He wanted to help these kids so badly. The humanitarian award hadn’t even been on our radar, so fifteen thousand dollars plus the possible award money was like winning the lottery. He said he was blinded by the thought of how many kids we could save.”
“What did you-all spend the money on?”
“Rent, a lot of late utility payments, and the computer lab. The computers are monitored twenty-four hours a day. We hold classes teaching basic programming and network security. Although every time I walk in there they seem to be playing World of Warcraft.”
A familiar boy in a hoodie opened the closet door and almost dropped the box he was carrying.
Brenda shot to her feet. “Holy schmagoly!”
“Uh, sorry.”
“Emilio? Hi! You’re back?” I asked.
“Yeah.” A stunned Emilio put the box on the shelf and hugged me. “Thank you for what you and Father Brian did. The cops know the drugs were confiscated from a kid, but they don’t know it was me. I’m in the clear. And now Brody don’t look bad either.”
Brenda folded Michael Huber’s document into a tiny rectangle. “Well, I don’t see any mouse in here. Let’s head back to my desk up front.”
