Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  Denise pouted. “I don’t even know if we’ll be paid for the time we’re closed. It’s such a mess. I can’t wait until the police clear out of there so that I can get back to work.”

  Was she nuts? If my workplace closed for a few days I’d be dancing in the streets. Denise sounded a little too good to be true right now. Was she practicing her speech for her boss?

  Oh, wait. Charlie was her boss. She could practice on him anytime of the day or night. I ground my teeth together in frustration and a sharp pain shot up my jaw.

  I would have to watch it or my teeth would soon be ground down to nubs. The whole Charlie and Denise thing was one source of major teeth gnashing. Dudley’s murder was another.

  Charlie had mentioned that he didn’t have an alibi for Dudley’s murder because Denise wasn’t home. I was Charlie’s alibi for the second killing. I couldn’t ask Denise about her alibi for the second killing without sounding like I was interrogating her, but I knew something about her alibi for the first murder if I could just remember what it was. I strained through the bits of information stored in my feeble brain.

  It came to me a moment later. She was supposed to be off doing something with her mother that night. “It’s nice to have family in times like these. I rely on Mama to help me out in a lot of ways. Do you have a close relationship with your mother?”

  “My mom is terrific,” Denise said with another annoying wiggle.

  I don’t know why she was posturing and jiggling her fake boobs under my nose, unless it was because she could. I certainly was not impressed, but I was getting closer to finding out where her mother lived. “Is she located near enough that you get to see her frequently?”

  “She’s in a retirement community about thirty minutes away. I go see her at least once a month.”

  Thirty minutes. That wasn’t so far that Denise had to spend the night there before driving home. Why did she stay overnight? If it were me, I’d have wanted to be home in my comfy bed instead of sleeping on a borrowed cot.

  How tacky would it be to ask the name of the place? Jonette routinely assured me that tacky was in the eye of the beholder, so I boldly kept the questions coming. “Does she like the retirement place? Mama has been making noises about one. I understand they have all sorts of activities and trips at these types of places.”

  Denise nodded energetically and everything wiggled. “Mom’s made so many friends there she barely has time to fit my visits in her busy schedule. Montclair is the greatest. They even have Mom on an aquatic volleyball team.”

  Montclair. I had the name of the place. Now all I needed was to learn if Denise’s presence there the night Dudley was killed could be verified.

  Mama pulled up in the driveway and Denise suddenly seemed very anxious to leave. When I get to be Mama’s age, I’m going to cultivate a reputation like Mama’s so that people get out of my way.

  Denise tossed her head and her blonde curls shimmered. She waved goodbye in a Miss America–style minimal wrist rotation. “Once Charlie gets back in town, I’ll have him call and reschedule his visit with the girls. Ta ta.”

  My fingers clenched into tight fists. I’d like to squeeze her ta tas until they popped.

  Mama growled at Denise as she passed her on the steps. “What did that hussy want?” Mama asked.

  I opened the screen door and stepped aside for her to pass by. “She canceled the girls’ weekend visitation with Charlie. It seems he’s gone fishing and she doesn’t know when he’ll return.”

  Mama snorted. “Fancy that.”

  “But she didn’t just come here to tell me that. Did you hear about the bank guard?”

  “Sure did. It’s all Muriel and Francine could talk about down at the church.”

  “Denise implied that the police like Charlie for this murder.”

  Mama tugged at her ear as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “What?”

  “I kid you not. Denise claims he worked on his computer at the bank after he left to go fishing. With the bank guard turning up dead today, it’s no wonder they think Charlie might be involved.”

  “What time did all of this happen? Didn’t Charlie spend the night here?”

  “I don’t know when the guard was killed,” I said. “I was watching that TV show about cops and lawyers so it must have been after ten when Charlie arrived. Denise claims he left home in the afternoon.”

  Mama frowned. “Do you suppose he whacked the bank guard and then came here to give himself an alibi?”

  I blinked at her choice of words. “Whacked the guard? When did whacked become part of your conversational vocabulary?”

  Mama slipped her taupe pumps off and rested her stockinged feet on the coffee table. “We have weed whackers. I’m sure there’s such a thing as people whackers too.”

  “Yeah, right. If this were a mob-run town. This is Hogan’s Glen. Nothing ever happens here.”

  Could I have been wrong about the town too? I had always assumed Hogan’s Glen reveled in its close-knit society. But then, I had also assumed Charlie was content in our marriage and I’d missed the mark there.

  “Not anymore,” Mama said. “With two murders, I guarantee you we’re on the map now.”

  “What if Charlie committed the murders?” I asked. “Could I have been married to a murderer all those years and never suspected a thing?”

  “People change. People do bad things. You never thought he’d cheat on you either.”

  My teeth clenched automatically and I braced for the shooting jaw pain. “Cheating and killing aren’t exactly in the same league.”

  “That’s why children should never do drugs.”

  “What? What are you talking about now, Mama?”

  “Drugs. They’re bad for you.”

  I didn’t get the connection. In all the years I had known him, Charlie had never shown any interest in drugs. He liked being in control too much to ever let his guard down. “Are you saying Charlie is doing drugs? I can’t believe he’d do that.”

  “I’m saying that it’s possible to go a little ways down one road and find yourself in a whole new place with different rules. Once that happens, people don’t know how to act and bad things happen. That’s why they have gangs in the big cities. So that folks know how to behave. Granted it’s bad behavior, but gangs have stepped into the vacuum of kids with no home training.”

  I didn’t care that much about faraway inner-city kids and neither did Mama. She just liked to shoot her mouth off. “This is a little too bizarre for me. I don’t know how we got from the bank guard’s murder to inner-city gangs, but I can’t save the world. As far as I’m concerned, if Charlie’s gone off-road with bad behavior, he’s got only himself to blame. He had a great life and he threw it away.”

  Mama’s gaze narrowed. “Just make sure he doesn’t drag you into this cesspool. I don’t want my granddaughters having to go to prison to visit both of their parents.”

  My chest froze in mid-breath. “Prison?”

  Mama waved her arm in a wide arc. “That’s where they put murderers, remember?”

  My head snapped back as if I’d been gut punched. “There’s no way they could put me in prison. The closest they could put me to either crime scene is that I know how to play golf, I have a bank account, and I know my way around a computer. And if they use those criteria, they’d have to arrest half the county.”

  “Be careful, sweetheart.” Mama patted my shoulder. “There’s a rotten apple in this town and I don’t want you getting too close.”

  Too late. I was already too close. The only way to get rid of a rotten apple was to throw it out of the apple barrel. I didn’t want my family members to be the next victims of a deranged killer. Finding the killer was the only way I knew to protect them. Rooting out the rotten apple was my top priority.

  I had three other reasons for finding the killer. Jonette and Bitsy and Charlie topped the police suspect list. Jonette had an alibi for the second murder. What about Bitsy?

  I pho
ned Bitsy and her mother answered the phone.

  “Bitsy’s at a doctor’s appointment,” Mrs. Noblit said.

  “I’m sorry I missed her. How is she doing?”

  “As well as can be expected now that her life is ruined.”

  I guess Mrs. Noblit wasn’t excited at the prospect of having a third grandchild. “Please tell her I called and asked after her. One more thing. Do you happen to know where she was last night?”

  “Bitsy was right here serving tea to my bridge club. Why do you ask?”

  I crossed my fingers and told a small fib. “I thought I saw her dining at the Boar’s Head last night.”

  “You were mistaken. My daughter was right here.”

  I hung up. It seemed Bitsy had a solid alibi for the second murder. Of the three top suspects, that left the brunt of the suspicion on Charlie.

  If Charlie was Britt’s new top suspect, I had to get him cleared too. I’d been willing to find the real killer to clear Jonette and Bitsy, so how could I let the father of my children go to jail? Even though he had treated me badly in the past, I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

  Like Mama, I couldn’t envision a future where I’d be driving my daughters to prison to visit their father.

  No way around it. I had to find the killer, now more than ever. Over the years, I’d found that it paid to take problems to the top of an organization. Right now I had plenty of questions for our mayor.

  ~*~

  “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. Mayor.” I sat down in the paneled office. Darnell Reynolds had the American flag on one side of his desk and the Maryland state flag on the other. With his dark suit, white shirt, and narrow red tie, Darnell was the picture of patriotism.

  “You said there was a problem with my taxes?”

  I hadn’t exactly said that. I’d hinted that was the case when I told his secretary that the mayor might have a visit by the IRS unless I got something straightened out immediately.

  “I’ve been reviewing the new tax laws and believe we should rethink our strategy on the tax forms I filled out for Valley Land Company.” I pulled out a large folder from my briefcase. I hoped it didn’t come down to me opening the folder because I had nothing new to show him.

  I was here on a fact-finding mission, hoping that I wouldn’t piss off my largest client or get killed. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to review the assets of the corporation.”

  The mayor pounded his fist on his desk and swore.

  I flinched and gritted my teeth. I’d never known Darnell Reynolds to punch anything. Bugs like him usually scurried for cover when detected. There might be more depth to Darnell than I thought. “If this isn’t a good time I could come back later.”

  Darnell circled behind me to close the door. I heard him click the lock. Every hair on my neck snapped to attention.

  This was it.

  I’d triggered the rage of a homicidal maniac and I was next on his hit list. I should have told my daughters I loved them this morning before I sent them off to school.

  I stood up, not wanting to have him lurking behind me. If he was going to shoot me, I wanted to see it coming. Daddy had always said that the best strategy for any situation was to have a good offense. I couldn’t exactly dodge a bullet, but I could talk my way out of almost anything.

  When I turned, it was to see Darnell resting his florid face in his hands. The bright color ran from the peak of his balding head down into his white shirt collar. Was he going to murder me with his tears? I hadn’t expected this reaction.

  A twinge of sympathy tugged at my heart. “Darnell? You okay?”

  “No. I’m not okay. I was stupid enough to go into business with Dudley and it’s going to ruin me.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, hoping to draw him out. Folks told their accountants the oddest things. This past tax season, a woman had insisted that her vacation to Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands was a religious pilgrimage. Another man tried to write off his wife’s car as a company vehicle and she didn’t even work for his company. I couldn’t wait to hear Darnell’s story.

  “My life is unraveling and I can’t do a thing about it. I won’t be needing an accountant in prison, Cleo.”

  I wished I had thought of bringing along a tape player. If the mayor confessed to the murders, I’d like to have it on tape so that Britt Radcliff wouldn’t think I had made up this story. “It can’t be that bad.”

  Darnell clutched his heart the way Mama did when she had heart palpitations. I knew what to do. I steered him to his desk chair and handed him a glass of water.

  “You’re going to think I’m a foolish old man.”

  “I don’t know what to think, but I’m going to call nine one one if you keep grabbing your heart.”

  “Don’t call anyone.”

  I’d known Darnell Reynolds for years. Daddy and I had golfed with him on occasion. Darnell thought nothing of improving his lie when no one was looking and he always gave himself putts.

  I didn’t have any trouble imagining him planting a bullet in Dudley’s head. “Tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help.”

  Darnell sipped his water and gradually his flush subsided. “What’s wrong is that Dudley made promises that I can’t keep. When this comes out I’m going to be ruined.”

  “Promises?”

  Darnell groaned. “He told Robert Joy the land developer that everything was greased for White Rock. That the mayor was in his pocket. That all the approvals he needed for annexation were a sure thing.”

  Dudley and his high financing. I wondered how much money Dudley made on this deal and where that money went. “Ouch.”

  “More than ouch. Once this becomes common knowledge, I won’t have a job.”

  “I heard that you wanted out of the White Rock deal.”

  “I don’t have any choice. I never promised Dudley or Robert Joy a single thing. I wanted my name kept out of this. That’s why I formed the land corporation.”

  In Hogan’s Glen, the procedure was for the town council to vote on matters that affected the community and the mayor had the deciding vote on the council. “How were you going to handle voting on the annexation?”

  “I planned to abstain from the process. Other council members have done that in the past when there was a conflict of interest. There’s never been any problem with that before, but Robert Joy is threatening to ruin me if I don’t cooperate. I’m totally screwed.”

  It all clicked for me at that moment. Darnell wanted to make money on the land deal but he wanted to be mayor more. With Dudley’s assurances about the annexation being a sure thing, Robert Joy had already invested in land grading, surveying, and promotional materials.

  Without the annexation, it was doubtful that more than a dozen or so homes could be built on that thirty-acre spread. Worse, the cushy profit margin for the developer disappeared. Those colorful advertisements hadn’t come cheap. Robert Joy needed to recoup his investment on this project.

  At last, I was in my element. I had a nose like a bloodhound when it came to following the money.

  My heart wanted Darnell to be guilty of murder, but he was my client. It was to my advantage that he stay out of jail. “Have you spoken to Scott Michaels?”

  “No. I didn’t want the city attorney involved.”

  “It’s time to get him involved. Once you go on record with documentation about your intent to recuse yourself from the annexation vote, then you don’t have to worry about Robert Joy.”

  Darnell’s eyes flooded with relief. “It can’t be that simple.”

  “Sometimes the simplest answers are the best.”

  “What about White Rock?”

  “Annexation or not, you own the property. Worst case, you now own a farm, Mr. Mayor.”

  “What about my tax problem?”

  His tax problem was a figment of my imagination. “Let’s leave things as they are for now and revisit the new tax laws when everything else calms down.”


  I collected my briefcase and let myself out the door. Darnell had gotten caught up in one of Dudley’s shell games. Darnell was upset about his reputation being ruined and losing his job, but was he upset enough to murder someone? I believed he was capable of killing and he certainly had a motive to kill Dudley.

  If I believed the murders were about money, then I needed to follow the trail of the money. In the case of the White Rock development, the trail wasn’t clear.

  The mayor had plenty of money. The developer wanted money. The dead banker used to have money. Who had the money now?

  I didn’t have any new ideas, so I went back to the beginning and looked at everything with fresh eyes. Of all the suspects on my list, there was one I wanted to be guilty. I’d start with her alibi for Dudley’s murder.

  TWENTY

  With a killer on the loose and a town full of suspects, I didn’t feel I could spare time for my Ladies Golf League this week. The police were no nearer an arrest than they had been last week. I had people to investigate, and best of all, Mama was busy organizing a church social this morning.

  Montclair Retirement Center was a veritable town unto itself, a cluster of graciously designed three story buildings. Sweeping archways dominated the covered walks linking the complex. Rigidly pruned evergreens formed the backdrop for a riot of purple and yellow pansies lining the concrete sidewalks.

  I signed a logbook, registering myself as an Official Visitor, while the youthful receptionist called the business office to see if someone was available to talk to me. Baby blue dominated the richly patterned carpet, the walls, and the upholstered furniture. Very soothing, even for someone as nervous as I was today.

  I had so many possible murder suspects now that it would be a relief to remove someone from my personal suspect list. I was fairly certain this was a wild-goose chase, but my nagging conscience wouldn’t let me overlook Denise Wonder Boobs.

  The only person I’d completely ruled out as a killer was Violet Cooper, Jasper’s mom, and that was because she couldn’t see. Darnell and Robert Joy and Ed Monday were on my suspect list. Jasper could have done it, and if I was really being honest, Rafe could have done it too.