Death in Reel Time

by Brynn Bonner

  “That’s sweet,” I said. “I’ve run across several passages like that where she’s done nice things for people. She was always careful not to make anybody feel beholden or embarrassed. I love that about her. In my mind backhanded charity is about as bad as benign neglect.”

  “Um-hm,” Esme said. “I know plenty about backhanded charity. The family my mother worked for had a daughter several years older than me and sometimes they’d give me her castoffs if they were in a giving mood. Then my mother would have to listen as the lady of the house chirped on to all her friends about how generous she’d been to her maid. Mama never turned down the clothes, because I needed them and she made sure I said my thank-you-ma’ams but I know it was hard on her to take their brand of charity.” She turned back to the diary. “Seventy-nine cents for a pair of shoes! Can you imagine that?”

  “That was 1942 dollars,” I said, my brain automatically generating a list. “Nineteen forty-two, a war year: lots of battles, horrors yet unknown in Europe, FDR is president, gas, rubber, sugar among other things, are rationed, victory gardens, daylight savings time begins, the Manhattan Project, Japanese-American internment camps, the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire, actress Carole Lombard crisscrosses the country promoting war bonds and is killed in a plane crash. And at the movies both Casablanca and Bambi premiered.” I stopped for a breath.

  Esme was not impressed. She’s seen my parlor trick too many times. “Yeah, that,” she said. “And as if the war abroad and all the wartime deprivations at home weren’t enough, Celestine was worrying over the situation just across her own yard. Listen to this part”:

  I’m fretting for Renny. She’s trying so hard to be a good wife and doing her best to learn to please Johnny but it’s never enough. Not that Johnny treats her rough but he’s never satisfied with what she does nor how she does it. He gets real short with her and I can see it hurts her feelings to the quick. But it’s clear he loves her dearly. He can be sweet with her, too, especially after he’s had one of his little fits and been hateful and said hurtful things. Then he feels bad and is nice as pie for a while, but he doesn’t learn the lesson. It’s the same thing over and over again. Riley has tried to talk sense to him about it but all he gets for his trouble is Johnny sulking or giving sass back. It’s a worriment. Poor little Renny looks wore-out most of the time and her weight has fell off, which is a troubling thing with her being so tiny to begin with. I even tried talking to Johnny myself, not that I had any expectation he’d listen to me anyways. He told me, “Sister, you need to look after your own house and let me take care of my own.” Made me want to snatch him baldheaded since he is seldom even in his own house these days but out roaming the countryside carousing with his wild friends until all hours of the night. But I swallowed my words and told him all I wanted was him and Renny to be happy. Which is not at all a fib since that is my biggest wish.

  “Sounds like Olivia’s parents’ marriage hit the skids right away,” I said, glancing up at the clock. “And speaking of Olivia, we’re due at her house in an hour. Shall I go in and make our smoothies?”

  Esme gave me a look. “Sophreena, there are some things best left to the professionals. I’ll go make the smoothies and you pack up the stuff we’ve already examined here on this end of the table.” She swept her hand to include two or three boxes’ worth of letters, photos, and memorabilia.

  “Fine,” I said, as Esme headed for the kitchen. “Always happy to be the workhorse,” I muttered under my breath.

  “I heard that,” Esme said, without a backward glance.

  Being careful to keep the materials in the proper order, I packed them up and sealed them into archival water-resistant bins. This is a part of the job that gives me great satisfaction. I like knowing the family materials have been rescued from the oblivion of crumbling cardboard boxes.

  My smoothie, in an alarming tint of green, was waiting for me when I went to the kitchen. “What’s in this?” I asked.

  “Some things are best left a mystery,” Esme said. “Just drink it down. It’s tasty and it’s good for you.”

  “Long as I don’t start glowing in the dark,” I said, taking a tentative sip. It was tasty. I was noisily vacuuming the last few drops from the bottom of my glass with a straw when the phone rang. The caller ID announced Coco.

  “Could you come down to my studio for a few minutes?” she asked, skipping the small talk. “I’ve got a situation and I think you’ll know how to handle it.”

  “You got some kind of family history emergency?” I asked with a laugh. “That’s my only real area of expertise, you know.”

  “Not exactly,” Coco said, lowering her voice. From the muffled sound of it I imagined her cupping her hand over the receiver. “But there’s a family that may be history if things don’t get hashed out.”

  Esme raised an eyebrow and I shrugged. “Is this urgent, Coco? We’re supposed to be at Olivia’s soon.”

  “I’ll be back in just a minute, Sweetie,” Coco said to someone on her end, then I heard jostling and the welcome bell at the Morningside Craft Co-op and realized she’d stepped outside. “I need you to come now, Sophreena. I’ve got Tina Gibson here with me. She knows some information about the day Blaine Branch died but she’s—” She hesitated and I thought for a moment we’d lost our connection but then she went on. “It’s complicated, Sophreena. Just come, okay?”

  I hung up and gave Esme a recap. “Go,” she said. “Come on along to Olivia’s when you can. Coco’s not one for drama.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Well, okay, she’ll chew the sets when it’s about her, but not about something like this. You’d better go find out what’s what.”

  * * *

  Tina Gibson was not quite herself. In fact, she was somebody else entirely. Tina was an upstanding member of the community and head of the Arts Council. She always took great care with her appearance and carried herself with a cool reserve. Today? Not so much.

  Although I didn’t know her that well, she and Coco had been friends for a long time and that counted for a lot in my book. Coco was trying to comfort her as Tina sobbed and swiped at her mascara-streaked face.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, still standing in the doorway of Coco’s studio.

  Coco brushed past me and put the BACK IN FIVE MINUTES sign on the shop door. She twisted the lock and headed back into the studio, beckoning me inside.

  “Sophreena, I called you because I know you can keep a confidence,” Coco said. “I told Tina she could trust you.”

  “She didn’t need to convince me,” Tina said with a hiccup. “We’ve known one another a long time, haven’t we, Sophreena?”

  I allowed that we had, though I didn’t see fit to point out that was a mixed bag. Tina was older than me by a few years and had been one of the popular girls. Unlike Beth, she’d not been universally loved. She wasn’t a bad person, but she was unsure of herself, which made her occasionally do unkind things if that’s what it took to stay with the in-crowd. She’d never done anything mean to me, so I had nothing personal against her, but we hadn’t been pals by any means.

  “Listen,” I said hesitantly, “I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, but if you know something that’s important to the investigation into Blaine’s murder you need to come forward.”

  Tina looked to Coco, her eyes widening, then she wailed. “I told you this was a mistake,” she said. She ran her hands into her hair, normally styled into a purposefully messy cut. Today there was nothing purposeful about it. She grabbed a hank of hair on either side of her head and let out another wail. “I’m ruined,” she said, choking out a couple of pitiful sobs.

  “Tina,” Coco said softly, “just tell Sophreena what you told me. She’s your best hope right now.”

  Tina sucked in a big breath, holding it longer than I would have thought possible. The woman had diver’s lungs. Finally she let it out in a big puff. “I am so screwed,” she muttered. “What does it matter now?”

  Sh
e looked completely dejected and I felt compelled to say something reassuring. “Tina, I’ll do anything I can to help. Now, what’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that I’ve made the worst mistake of my life,” Tina said, now more morose than hysterical. “And that’s saying something.”

  Coco pulled over a chair and motioned me into it, then moved her stool close to Tina so she could rub her shoulder for encouragement.

  “I was with Blaine the day he died,” Tina said, her face a study in misery.

  “Go on,” I said, trying hard to keep my face expressionless.

  “I picked him up at The Sporting Life, in the back parking lot. I dropped him off a couple of hours later near his house,” Tina said. “I was trying to talk him into making a contribution to fund an art scholarship for the high school.”

  “For two hours?” I said. “That’s a lot of lobbying.”

  An angry look came over Tina’s face, but it soon deflated into misery again.

  “Were you having an affair with Blaine?” I asked, figuring we might as well cut to the chase.

  “No!” Tina said. She held her chin high for a moment, then she slumped. “But I would have. It was only a matter of time. We were working up to it. How in the world could I have been so stupid? I wasn’t in love with Blaine. Sometimes I didn’t even like him much. I love Mike. I love my husband. I know that’s hard to believe, given what I’m telling you, but I would just die if Mike found out about this. It would hurt him so much. I can’t explain how I let this happen. I think maybe I just wanted some excitement and I was flattered when Blaine flirted with me. How pathetic is that?” She looked at me as if she actually expected an answer.

  I’m normally a compassionate person, or at least I like to think so, and this woman was clearly in pain, but I was angry on Beth’s behalf—and on Mike Gibson’s. Mike was the ultimate nice guy. So, since she’d asked the question, I answered. “Truly pathetic,” I said.

  I instantly regretted it. Tina dissolved again into a heap of blubbering and Coco gave me a scolding look, which I had to admit I richly deserved.

  “Look, Tina,” I said, reaching over to touch her knee. “I’m sorry you’re in this situation and I hope it doesn’t blow up your marriage but you’ve got to come forward with this information on Blaine’s whereabouts that day. It could help the police solve the case. You need to talk to either Jennifer Jeffers or Denton Carlson.”

  “Denny, please, I’ll talk to Denny,” Tina said, sniffling. “Jennifer doesn’t like me. That’s my own stupid fault, too. I wasn’t very nice to her in high school.”

  I thought of telling her Jennifer didn’t like Esme and me much, either, but I didn’t want to give aid and comfort at that point.

  “Could you ask Denny to keep this to himself?” Tina asked now. “Will Mike have to find out?”

  “This is a murder investigation, Tina. Denny will have to tell the other detectives anything that has a bearing on the case, but he might be able to spin it to make it look less—” I searched for a word, but could only come up with sleazy, which didn’t seem a wise choice, so I just let it hang.

  Tina nodded. “Okay,” she said, drawing in a shuddering breath.

  “Would you mind me asking you a couple of questions? Maybe you could think of it as practice for talking with Denny.”

  “Okay, I guess,” she said, digging around in her purse for a tissue. I glanced over at her tote and my eyes bugged.

  “Are you carrying a gun?” I asked.

  “Oh that, yes,” Tina said. “Mike got it for me for protection last year when I was having so many night meetings. I’ve got a license and I’m qualified with it. I go to the range and everything.”

  “I didn’t realize Mike was such a gun guy,” I said.

  “He is,” Tina said, nodding vigorously. “I mean he doesn’t hunt, but he shoots for sport. He and Blaine are even on the same team at the gun club. Were on the same team. I don’t really like having it. I’m always afraid if it came down to it a bad guy could take the gun away and use it on me. But I don’t have the heart to tell Mike I don’t want to carry it.”

  It seemed there were a great many things she didn’t want to tell Mike. I bit my tongue and held in my opinions about toting lethal weapons around in pink designer handbags and moved on to my questions. “You say you picked up Blaine in the store parking lot, right?”

  “Yes, he texted me the night before and told me what time to be there.”

  “Do you know how he got to the store? His car was in the shop.”

  “Yes, he said his brother and a friend were picking him up,” Tina said, calming now that we were getting down to cold facts.

  “That was nice of Peyton,” I said absently as I was mulling the timeline.

  “Not according to Blaine,” Tina said with a sniffle. “He was hacked off three ways from Sunday when he got into my car. Apparently he and Peyton and whoever this other guy was had a bad fight about something. Blaine was madder than I’ve ever seen him.” Her face twisted, threatening waterworks again. “Which may have saved me from myself. I think he would have made his play that day but he was too mad to even bother with me. He was in a terrible foul mood, which really put me off.” She looked up, hope shining in her bloodshot eyes. “I mean that, it really put me off. Maybe I wouldn’t have gone through with it. If Blaine hadn’t gotten killed I mean. Maybe I would have stopped it right there. I was that put out.”

  “I’m sure you would have come to your senses,” Coco said.

  I wasn’t so ready to let Tina off the hook, but I thought of Esme’s many admonitions about how sarcasm doesn’t become me and moved on with my questions. “Did he say what the fight was about or who the other person was?”

  “No, but he asked me if I’d ever had a friend betray me, so it must have been somebody he knew well.”

  I suppressed a scornful laugh. That was a fine question coming from a married man who was sneaking around to meet up with a married woman, but I didn’t think Tina was in a place to see the irony. “Where were you for the hours you were with him?” I asked.

  “We drove over to Chapel Hill to eat lunch. Or I ate mine; he mostly drank his. And I did ask him about the scholarship fund,” Tina said, turning to Coco, who was clearly more sympathetic than me. “He said I should talk to Bonnie Foster about it since she seemed to think she was the brains of the operation. He said it real bitter. He was so surly. He was usually smooth and charming. But not that day.”

  “And where did you drop him off?” I asked.

  “Two blocks from his house,” Tina said, “so Beth wouldn’t see him getting out of my car.”

  “And that’s the last time you saw him?” I asked.

  “Yes, that was the last time. He said he’d call me and I hoped he would and hoped he wouldn’t. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded. “How many times did you have these little meet-ups with Blaine?” I asked, trying, and failing, to be delicate.

  Tina winced and I made a silent vow to put a cap on the snarky while she searched her memory. “Four times within the last two months,” she said finally.

  “And you’re sure Mike didn’t know about this? Or at least suspect?” I asked. Though I couldn’t imagine mild-mannered Mike as a murderer, Denny was right: Who knew what people were capable of given the right motivation.

  “I’m sure,” Tina said flatly. “Mike trusts me completely.”

  And the wailing began in earnest.

  * * *

  Once in my car I called Denny and gave him the quick-and-dirty on my talk with Tina—so to speak. I’d left her with the warning that she should contact Denny immediately and that I’d be giving him a heads-up. I also advised her to talk to Mike before the rumors got to him, but I wasn’t sure she’d do that.

  She’d looked up beseechingly as I got ready to leave, her lip quivering, green eyes round and vulnerable. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake, Sophreena?”

  I had. Many. Though I hoped none that
had the potential to cause so much hurt. But Tina’s obvious pain and genuine remorse got to me and I really hoped she and Mike could survive the fallout if this came out.

  I started the car, then remembered Marydale had more papers we’d ordered for Olivia’s scrapbooks and decided I might as well pick them up since I was here.

  As I opened the shop door I reached up to touch the bell to keep it from announcing me. Marydale wasn’t up front so I figured she was in the workroom, and I didn’t want her to stop what she was doing to rush out for a nonexistent customer. As I walked toward the back I could hear muffled voices. I couldn’t hear the words but the tone was contentious. The doorway to the workroom has only a curtain and I pulled it aside to see Marydale and Winston sitting at the worktable. Marydale had her little Westie, Sprocket, cuddled up on her chest and Winston had the other dog, Gadget, asleep on his lap. Both people and canines looked up, startled.