Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “Oh, Joanie, I have the crib and everything. I just couldn’t part with them, but you’re welcome to borrow.”

  We ate dinner and chatted about this and that, mostly about the coming baby, which was clearly Joanie’s favorite subject. She did manage to ask, “What about Mike?” and I shrugged.

  “Status quo.” Joanie, do you ever have another thought in your head besides relationships with men?

  The phone rang about eight. I always answered it with some fear these days.

  “Is this Kelly?” The voice was female but unfamiliar.

  “Yes,” I said hesitantly.

  “This is Pam Spencer…uh, I’m Tim’s wife.”

  I nearly dropped the phone. I’d been thinking dark thoughts about Tim exposing the girls to an illicit relationship and here he was married—why didn’t he tell me? I managed to stammer, “I guess it’s time that we talked.”

  “Past time,” the woman said, “but Tim somehow never wanted me to meet you. That’s not why I’m calling though. Have you seen him?”

  “Tim? No, not all day.”

  “He left this morning to clean his things out of your garage, and he hasn’t come back yet. He’s not answering his cell phone, and I have no idea where he could be. He promised me a special dinner tonight. I think he said, ah, Del Frisco’s—and I’m starving. I thought you might help.”

  Briefly I wondered if I was supposed to help find Tim or take Pam to Del Frisco’s, a really pricey steakhouse. Then I realized this could be serious. “Gosh, no,” I said. “I don’t have any idea. Wait a minute. There were some young men”—did my voice pause over that phrase?—”at my yard sale this morning looking for Tim. They said they were supposed to meet him here and help him with the garage. But he never showed up, and they left.”

  “I guess I’ll just go to Taco Bell across from the motel. I suppose if he hasn’t come by morning I’ll call the police.”

  “I’d call if he’s not back by, oh say, midnight. I hear they don’t consider people missing until they’ve been gone twenty-four hours, but it wouldn’t hurt to call. And, Pam… uh, let me know, will you? I’m a little worried. I won’t tell the girls.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  That ended the conversation, and then of course I repeated it verbatim to Joanie, who immediately made a dark mystery out of it, connecting it to the skeleton and the fire at the house on Fairmount.

  “Joanie, your imagination is running away with you,” I told her. I somehow didn’t want to admit to Joanie that I was worried. Aloud, I said, “Tim probably ran into an old friend…or thought of a money-making scheme.”

  “Since this morning?” Joanie asked skeptically, and I knew she was right.

  We lingered in my bedroom after dinner—the only place that offered any comfortable seating since the living room furniture was gone. The girls were in bed, Theresa was apparently watching TV—I checked on her once—and the house was quiet and peaceful. I was sort of enjoying the success of my garage sale, and I put the worry about Tim out of my mind, along with the worry about the vandals who plagued me. Just sort of put everything on hold. Maybe it was that second glass of wine in my hand.

  Any such feelings shattered when the doorbell rang. A quick glance at the bedside clock told me it was almost ten, too late for anyone to be calling. Joanie jumped from her chair and demanded, “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Does she think I have x-ray vision? “But I guess I’ll find out.”

  Dramatically, Joanie said, “Wait. We need something for self defense.”

  “What would you suggest?” I asked dryly, as the doorbell rang again, this time more insistently.

  “A baseball bat?” Joanie said.

  “The girls don’t play baseball, Joanie, and if they did it would be with soft bats. You stay here.”

  But Joanie tiptoed down the stairs behind me, as though being silent might make her invisible—or safe.

  For the first time, I damned the glass-paned door. I had no hiding place. Deciding boldness was the best tack, I strode toward the door with as much determination as I could muster but a quaking fear inside of me. I expected to see Joe with his baggy pants and ponytail. Instead, I saw Detective Buck Conroy.

  Throwing open the door, I said accusingly, “You almost scared me to death.”

  “Sorry about that. Couldn’t stand two deaths in one night.”

  Something clutched at my stomach. “What does that mean?”

  “Ms. O’Connell, your ex-husband is dead.” He said it flatly, without emotion. Officers aren’t all good at delivering bad news, especially Buck Conroy.

  “Tim? Tim can’t be dead.” The wild thought went through my mind that he hadn’t cleaned out the garage yet, so how could he be dead? I just couldn’t imagine a person walking around on the earth, perfectly healthy, one day and dead the next. The numbness of denial set in.

  Buck Conroy didn’t mince words. “He was shot. I have to ask this: where’ve you been all day.”

  Buck Conroy needed serious lessons in breaking news to concerned parties. I didn’t cry, but I felt like I ought to, and then I didn’t know what I felt. Suddenly, my knees seemed about to give way, and I looked desperately around the empty room, wishing even for a straight chair I could sink on to. I decided sitting on the carpet was better than standing with quaking knees. To my surprise, Conroy hunkered down so that he was at my level.

  “I’ve been here. We had a garage sale and then Joanie was here for dinner….” I turned toward the stairs, but there was no sign of Joanie. “Joanie, come down here.”

  Joanie inched her way down the stairs. “Is Tim really dead.?” She had the weirdest look on her face that I’d ever seen, and I wanted to say, “Oh, come on, Joanie. You barely knew him.”

  “‘Fraid so, ma’am. You are?” His appraisal of her was frankly top to toe.

  “Joanie Bennett, a friend of the family.” She smiled at him as though they had a secret.

  Well, maybe Joanie had a secret, but I bristled. Was she placing herself as a friend of Tim’s as well? “Joanie’s been here since about six,” I said, trying to sound businesslike, “and this morning Mike Shandy was here from six-thirty until, oh, maybe noon. You don’t think I shot him, do you? I don’t even have a permit…or a gun.”

  Conroy permitted himself a slight grin. “No, I don’t think you shot him, but as I said, I have to ask. If Shandy was here with you, you’ve got a clear alibi. We figure someone shot him about eight this morning. What kind of a car did he drive?”

  Behind me, Joanie said, “Oh, how horrible,” followed by a kind of moan.

  “Rental,” I said. “A…oh, I don’t know, probably a Camry like mine. Mid-size, nothing classy or remarkable, just a car.”

  Conroy nodded. “We found a Camry parked about a hundred yards away. No kind of ID in it, but a check of the VIN number showed it was a rental, charged to one Tim Spencer.”

  So that’s why he didn’t come meet Joe and the others to clean out the garage—he was already dead when they asked about him. “Have you notified his wife?”

  “Wife? I thought you were the only wife in the picture.”

  I shook my head. “I thought so too. I thought he just had a girlfriend, but she called tonight because she couldn’t find him and she was worried. Told me they’re married.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Days Inn. But I’m not sure which one. I think Tim said out on the West Freeway.”

  “You just saved me a bunch of trouble. We were going to have to search for where he was staying.” Conroy picked a walkie-talkie from his waistband and spoke into it, issuing orders that had to do with the Days Inn and Mrs. Spencer. Then he lowered himself onto the carpet next to me. “They’ll question her, dust the room, and see what they can find.”

  It all sounded callously cruel and heartless. Would the officers show any compassion for the new Mrs. Spencer’s loss? More compassion than Buck Conroy showed? Before I could ask anything about that, he
said,

  “Let’s talk about your ex-husband. Who hated him enough to kill him?”

  I shook my head, still trying to grapple with how I felt. I’d hated Tim lately—no, not hated, just been so darned mad that he’d even think of taking the girls to California. But dead? No, I never wanted that, and now I didn’t know how I felt—or how I should feel.

  “Since he came back to town, I’ve found out a lot of people didn’t like him, people that never told me when I was married to him, but none of them would have killed him. They just didn’t like him.”

  “Like who?”

  I didn’t want to implicate people, so I said, “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes, it does,” he persisted. “You let me be the judge.”

  “Okay, Anthony, the carpenter who works for me, and Keisha, my office manager. You know, even Em, my four-year-old, said she didn’t like him. And he’s her father.” Then it dawned on me. “Oh, God, I’ll have to tell the girls.”

  “Yeah, you will.” He looked a bit more sympathetic.

  “Tell us what, Mom?” It was Maggie, standing on the landing, clutching Em by the hand. Joanie hovered behind them, doing nothing useful.

  I held out my arms. “Come to me, girls,” and they came. I gathered them in a huge hug. “Your father’s dead,” I said, thinking that I wasn’t a bit more tactful than Buck Conroy. “We don’t know what happened or why, but he’s dead.”

  “He won’t take us to Ol’ South again?” Em asked.

  Maggie shut her up with, “No, Em, and besides, he said he’d never take us there again.” Then she looked at me. “Did someone hurt him?”

  I stroked her hair. “Yes, darling, someone did.” I turned to Buck Conroy. “This is Detective Conroy, and he’s going to find out who hurt your dad, but….” I took a deep breath, “You’ll be okay. Nothing in your life is going to change except that you won’t be going out to dinner with him and Pam.”

  Maggie fixed me with a curious look. “How did you know her name?”

  “I talked to her tonight. You could have told me her name—it wouldn’t have made me sad. And you could have told me they were married.”

  Maggie stared at her bare foot. “I…I didn’t feel right about it.”

  I hugged the girls again and said, “You go upstairs with Joanie, and I’ll be up to tuck you in soon.” Joanie, do something useful. Get a little practice for motherhood. Put these girls to bed and read to them.

  Joanie must have heard the thought, for she said, “Come on, girls. I’ll read to you.” And upstairs they went. But Joanie threw Buck a long look as she went up and added as an afterthought, “Tim was scum, but he could be charming.”

  Buck looked at me and muttered, “What’s that supposed to mean?” but I just shook my head. I was still thinking about the girls. Poor Tim. His daughters didn’t even cry. I suppose he’d been so little a part of their lives. I still felt I should cry but there were no tears. Instead I just felt numb. I think I was more struck by the enormity of sudden, unexpected death, than I was by the loss of Tim. And I was curious. What had Tim gotten into? With all that was going on, it seemed impossible that this was a random mugging or something unrelated.

  “Buck,” I said, “don’t you work cold cases? Why are you investigating this one?”

  He shrugged. “I asked for it—because of the relationship to you and all that’s been going on. I…I just don’t think it’s coincidence.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Theresa wandered down the stairs. “I heard voices,” she said.

  Conroy looked at her and said, “I can’t keep all the players straight in this game. Who’s that?”

  I explained and then told Theresa in simple straightforward terms about Tim.

  Theresa looked right at us and said, “Joe wouldn’t kill anybody. He’s not that bad.” She looked at me directly. “He was furious when he heard they’d beat me. He fought with a couple of them.” And then she disappeared upstairs.

  I remembered how Joe looked this morning. He had indeed been in a fight, and I hoped, for some illogical reason, that Theresa was right about why.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Conroy stood up, stretching to ease his aching back. “Who’s Joe?”

  “Long story,” I said. “Come on in the kitchen, and I’ll fix coffee.” I held out a hand, and he helped me up.

  While I made coffee, I tried to explain about Anthony, Theresa, and Joe. Buck kept interrupting with questions. “This Joe is sweet on Theresa, so he arranges for his friends to beat her up? Won’t wash, Kelly.”

  “I think…I don’t think he arranged that. He may have arranged a kidnapping, thinking she’d be safe and I’d be scared. Kidnapping her was a way to get me out of the house and scare me. I don’t know what would have happened if Mike hadn’t followed me—although I didn’t know he was doing that. But Joe surely looked like he’d been in a fight when he came by this morning. He was supposed to help Tim empty the garage.”

  “So Joe and Tim are connected? This gets more tangled by the minute.”

  I explained about Joe working with Anthony when Tim was still here but admitted I didn’t understand the current connection any better than Buck did.

  “I think you’re giving this Joe too much credit for being a nice person, but how did Shandy know to follow you?” His tone clearly said this story was getting less and less believable.

  “He was on patrol, saw me leave the house alone at nearly ten-thirty, and knew that wasn’t right.”

  He spread his hands. “Okay, I give up. What we have to do is find out this Joe’s involvement, right?”

  “Yeah. Anthony says he’s being paid, and that makes sense. But I can’t imagine Tim was paying him—except maybe to help clean out the garage. Besides, if Tim was paying him, Joe wouldn’t kill him. But, still, I don’t think Tim had any money—he never paid child support.”

  “So I got lots to do: find this Joe and talk to him and find out who killed your ex. I got to talk to Anthony and Keisha, even though I believe you they aren’t involved.” He looked at me. “You okay with him gone? I mean…well, you know, I assume you were married several years and you got two kids together and…well, hell, I don’t know about these things, marriage and all.”

  I studied him. “You ever been married?”

  “Once. For about two months. Didn’t last, but no regrets. And I have no idea where she is, living or dead. Long gone, out of memory. Different thing.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “it is a different thing. I imagine I’ll shed some tears for Tim…but not yet.”

  Upstairs I found the girls asleep in my bed, and Joanie sitting on the window seat staring out the window. “You okay?” I asked.

  She turned, and I thought I saw some streaked mascara.

  “It’s just…well, you don’t expect that to happen to anyone you know, even if you don’t know them well.”

  “I know,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say to her, but she seemed more upset than I was.

  “I gotta go,” she said.

  Instinct welled up inside of me. “Joanie, how well did you know Tim?”

  Her toe played with the carpet, and her eyes refused to meet mine. “He might be the father of my baby. I don’t know. It’s one of a couple of possibilities.” She actually blushed, which was a good thing because I was at first speechless and then ready to slap her. Sleeping with your friend’s husband—okay, ex-husband—was one of the biggest betrayals I could think of. How could she? I could see Tim’s part of it—he was charming, and he may well have been pumping her for information about me. Besides, I realized too late that Tim had not exactly been faithful. But with Joanie?

  And Joanie didn’t even know for sure Tim was the father of her baby because there was more than one suspect. It reflected a lifestyle I couldn’t understand—that desperate, late-thirties single state. What was the song? “Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places.” I counted back to see when it happened, because three months ago, I didn�
�t even know that Tim was in town. I thought he hadn’t been here in—what? Over a year? He’d come to town and hadn’t even seen his girls! Their absolutely unforgiveable behavior stunned me, perhaps more than Tim’s death.

  “Joanie, tell me. I thought Tim hadn’t been here in over a year.”

  Her toe was really busy with the carpet, and she didn’t raise her eyes toward me. Slowly, oh so slowly, she got the words out. “He came to town, I think to spy on you. He called me and, hey, I’m always up for a happy hour drink. Well, three drinks led to dinner and then….” Her voice drifted off, and I didn’t need to ask more.

  I didn’t say anything but just sat looking at her, still stunned.

  “It was just one night, Kelly, and it didn’t mean anything. Too much wine. I…I never wanted this to happen”—she pointed to her stomach—”and I sure never wanted to hurt you.” She was babbling now out of nervousness.

  I held up a hand. “Stop, Joanie. I don’t want to hear any more. Just go home. I’ll call tomorrow.”

  ~*~

  The tears came in the middle of the night, and they were not for what I’d lost, but for Tim himself, for what he could have been, and what life should have brought him. I thought my tears were silent, but they woke both the girls.

  “Are you crying for Dad?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, sweetie, I am. Nobody deserves to die suddenly and so young.”

  “I thought he was old, like you,” Em said.

  But Maggie was serious. “I…I think he was trying to be a good father, and that makes me sad. He…well, he’ll miss a lot. And we’ll miss having a father.”

  Em immediately began to wail, while Maggie sat with tears running silently down her cheeks. I checked my own tears to hug the girls. “Your dad will miss seeing you grow up, and that’s very sad. But you can remember the good in him and, for his sake, be the best people you can be.”

  “For your sake, too, Mom,” Maggie said.

  They went back to sleep, but I lay awake, thinking about Joanie. Hers was the classic betrayal of one woman by another, and yet I thought I didn’t really care. Would it change my feelings about her? I hoped not. I’d work to make sure it didn’t. Joanie would need more support than ever in the coming months. Then the weird thought occurred to me that her baby could be a half-brother or sister to my girls. I was so tired I almost giggled. Then I wondered if Joanie expected child support from Tim. If so, she’d be sadly disappointed, but I don’t think she’d thought that far ahead tonight.