White Colander Crime

by Victoria Hamilton

  It took Jaymie a moment, as she did not know the Bible nearly as well as she supposed she ought, but she finally clued in. “Oh, wait . . . something about the lilies of the field, neither do they sow, nor . . . uh, I’m not sure of the rest.”

  “Good Lord, you’re practically Bible illiterate,” he said, with an eye roll. “King James version is, ‘consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.’ Though Lily does spin; I’ve seen her at spin class. She’s Queen B at the gym.”

  What a different perspective one got speaking about someone to two different people. She’d have to remember that. The truth was likely somewhere in between Mrs. Stubb’s saintly version of Lily and Austin’s venomous view. “You got fired because of that?”

  “She made a big deal out of it. I guess she doesn’t like that anyone would think she doesn’t earn her way. But I mean, they don’t have kids. Why should the woman not work? Everyone else does. She does all these little volunteer things that make her feel worthwhile, and she’s on every board and in every volunteer group, but really!”

  “Don’t you think that’s between them?” It all sounded fishy, she wasn’t sure why. Had that been all there was to his being fired from Delaney Meadows’ business?

  He shrugged and finished his tea, then got up and took his mug over to the sink, sitting it down in the small stainless steel basin. “Speaking of . . . I have to get back to work or Rudy will have my butt on a platter. I sure do hate the call center, but I don’t want to get fired this close to Christmas.”

  “Just one more question,” she said, and he turned back toward her. “Did you know anything about Shelby looking into the disappearance of a young woman?”

  His expression blanked. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “I have to go. Toodles!” He waved his fingers and headed out at a brisk pace.

  Jaymie sat a minute longer, looking at the door. Why was Austin Calhoun lying about that? She was convinced that he did know about Shelby’s investigation into Natalie Roth’s disappearance. She took her mug to the sink and washed the ones they had used, turned off the coffee machine and dried the mugs. She heard footsteps and turned just in time to see a fellow enter; she recognized him right away, even only having seen him from a distance. He had a stooped stance that was familiar. It was Delaney Meadows.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know the conference room was in use.”

  “It’s not. I’m just . . . tidying up after a private interview,” she said, realizing he wouldn’t know if she was an employee of one of the firms in the building. “Do you need it?”

  “I’m setting up some interviews for an executive assistant and I don’t have anywhere to do it but here.” He seemed at a loss, staring around as if he didn’t know where to start.

  “Let me help. You’re Mr. Meadows, right?” She got a paper towel and wiped out the sink, then tossed the balled-up paper into the garbage.

  “Do I know you?” He was tall, slim and nicely dressed, with glasses and sandy thinning hair brushed carefully over his domed head. But the stoop, from rounded shoulders, appeared to be habitual.

  “No. I’m sorry about Shelby Fretter. Is that whose position you’re interviewing for?” Her mind was tumbling at full speed, but this was a unique opportunity to ask questions without him having his defense shields in place, so to speak.

  “It’s a terrible thing. I feel so bad for her family,” he said vaguely, still standing at the door and staring.

  He did not sound sincere. “So, if you’re interviewing . . . will anyone be interviewing with you?”

  “No.”

  “Then the long table is too formal,” she said decisively. “How about over here?” she said, sweeping her hand toward the chairs she and Austin had just vacated. She moved back to them and pulled a small round table between them. “How many do you have coming to be interviewed? And are these folks your own agency has already interviewed for other positions?” She eyed him.

  His gaze sharpened. “You know what my company does; I’m surprised.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” she said.

  He shrugged. “I’ve got three girls coming.”

  “Staggered by how much time?”

  “Uh, half an hour between each.”

  “And you’ve got someone in your office sending them here?”

  “Yes. I just didn’t . . . The police have been wandering in and out of my office and I don’t want to have that interrupt me. Or . . . or scare the girls off.”

  She turned one of the chairs and shifted the table a few inches. “Understandable. I imagine they’ve searched her desk. Did they take stuff away?” she asked, wondering about the journal Shelby was writing in. It was possible she kept it with her, possible that she left it in her work desk and possible it was somewhere else entirely.

  “I think so. I didn’t pay attention. I mean, it was her boyfriend who killed her, right? Nothing to do with me or her work.”

  “What was her job?”

  “My assistant.” He set his sheaf of papers down on the conference table and started looking through cupboards. “Should I ask them if they want coffee? Or . . . I don’t know. I’m a little perplexed. Shelby had been with me awhile and I guess I got to rely on her. Maybe too much.” He stopped and turned, eyeing her. “You’re not looking for a job, are you?”

  “Me? No. Not right now, anyway. I have a few jobs.”

  “Sounds like the kind of gal I’m looking for, eager to work. I have one girl working for me who wants the job. I’ve got her on reception and phones right now, but there is no way I could rely on her.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugged and his gaze slid away from Jaymie. “She’s just not . . . That isn’t her forte, I guess you’d say. She’s more interested in taking the easy way out of things.”

  Interesting. “What were Shelby’s job responsibilities? I can’t say I’d rule out her job without knowing.”

  “She kept my schedule straight. I have a couple of companies and the needs are very very different.”

  “I know one is a white-collar headhunting agency, but what is the other?”

  He eyed her and squinted. “Well, I, uh, supply models to companies that want a spokesperson for their auto show, or, you know, a booth model for a tech show. A pretty girl to stand around, hand out pamphlets and attract attention.”

  “Around here?”

  “Anywhere. Here. Canada and other countries.”

  “There is actually a call for that?” Jaymie asked, thinking of Natalie Roth. This was getting interesting. Clutch had already told her that Natalie was excited about her new job working for a company that sent models to other countries, and this was the confirmation that she was indeed working for Delaney Meadows’ modeling agency. Was Shelby investigating her boss in connection to Natalie’s disappearance?

  “Sure. The world loves a pretty girl.”

  She suddenly remembered what Glenn Brennan had said the evening before. “I thought I heard you ran a dating agency or something? Some guy I met said he found someone on there.”

  He licked his lips. “It’s . . . Well, yes, I do run a dating website, but a classy kind, you know, for professional men to find suitable girls. But that’s not a profitable business, at least not, ah . . . not yet.”

  “So the dating website and the modeling agency aren’t the same thing?”

  He stared at her. Clutch had called him a pissant piece of crap; she wasn’t sure what to think yet of Delaney Meadows.

  “What’d you say your name was?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “A lot of people.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jaymie Leighton.”

  His lips firmed and he pointed an accusatory finger at her. “You’re that snoopy girl,
the one who found Shelby’s body. Why are you here? Are you following me?”

  “No, of course not, I—”

  “Yes, you are. You’re following me. I don’t like that. I think you ought to go.”

  She remembered how he had had Clutch thrown out and obtained a protection order against him. He was more than a little paranoid. “This is just a chance meeting, Mr. Meadows. I’m so sorry about Shelby. It sounds like you relied on her a lot.”

  There was a tap at the door and a young woman stood in the doorway. “Am I early?”

  He glanced down at his clipboard. “No, you’re right on time. This girl was just leaving.” He turned and glared at her. “Weren’t you?”

  She knew when she was beat. “Yes, I was. I’m sorry, Mr. Meadows. Maybe we can talk another time.”

  “I doubt it.”

  She hastened from the room, but didn’t leave the building. This was the perfect time to do a little snooping at the Meadows agency. It was just down the hall, a rather nondescript office, with a partial glass door and a sign with the company’s name on a plaque beside it. She pushed open the door and went up to the reception desk.

  “Hi. Uh . . . Lizzie Bennet to see Mr. Delaney Meadows,” she said to the girl at the desk, who was doodling on a notepad while twirling her hair and chewing gum, the trifecta of reception duty. This must be the unsuitable replacement for Shelby.

  She stared at Jaymie a moment in mid hair twirl. “You have to go to the conference room, that’s where he’s interviewing, you know. Not here.”

  “I’m not here for the assistant job. I’m here to interview him for the Wolverhampton Weekly Howler business section,” she said, fishing out her press pass. She realized belatedly it was in her real name, flashed it and stuffed it back in her purse. “I have an appointment at . . .” She checked her watch. “Right now, actually.”

  The girl looked like a deer caught in the headlights, confused and unsure. She had a strand of hair pulled out to the side of her head like a long piece of blond cotton candy. “But . . . he’s in the conference room.”

  Jaymie sighed and moved from foot to foot. “I hate to have come all this way and then not be able to get the interview. It’s going to do his business so much good, but we’re coming down to the wire. Were you the one I spoke to last week about the article?”

  “Oh, no, that would have been Shelby. I’m surprised she didn’t write it down for him. She was so efficient.”

  “Shelby . . . Oh! That’s the poor girl who was killed in this village, right?” Jaymie watched the young woman’s eyes. “I heard about that. You knew her?”

  She nodded.

  “What was she like?”

  “She was nice,” the young woman said.

  How descriptive. Jaymie leaned in and said, “I heard she was involved in some kind of run-in with another employee, a guy named Austin. Is that true?”

  Her eyes widened, and she leaned forward, dropping the strand of hair. “Did that get out? I thought everyone had passed it off. They told some story around the office about him getting fired because of poor Lily, but it wasn’t Mrs. Meadows’ fault. I mean sure, she was mad at Austin for teasing about her expensive taste in clothes, but it was him making that crack about Shelby and Mr. Meadows dating that got him fired. I mean, Shelby was so mad! I’ve never seen her that mad before. She told Austin that he had a big fat mouth and that he should close it before she decided to tell everything she knew about him!”

  Jaymie acted suitably awed, and her mind clicked through the information swiftly. “What did she mean? What did she know about Austin that she could reveal?”

  The girl shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess she died before she could say.”

  Jaymie asked a few more questions, but the girl didn’t know anything more. “Look, can I just sit in Mr. Meadows’ office until he comes back?”

  She looked reluctant. “He’ll be gone for a while.”

  “Then maybe I can go back and leave him a note?”

  “I can do that,” the girl said. She got out her pad of paper and a pen and looked up at Jaymie with a bright expression.

  “Okay.” Jaymie thought for a second, then said quickly, “Tell him that I’d like to interview him to get his opinions on the government regulatory conference in Flint that will discuss the implications of the foreign trade agreement section two one oh subsection three seven one on companies that have international travel mandates as a part of their substructure. I’d also like to get his views on the oversight committee in gubernatorial electoral college voting procedures.” She stopped to take a breath and was gratified to see the completely overwhelmed and mystified look on the girl’s face. She hadn’t gotten beyond writing down “Interview” on the sheet.

  “Could you repeat that, please?” she asked plaintively.

  Not if her life depended on it, Jaymie thought, with only a dim recollection of the gobbledy-gook nonsense she had just spewed. “It’s vital that this not be messed up. Just let me go back and leave a note on his desk, and I’ll be out of your hair in three minutes.”

  The phone started ringing just then. The girl hesitated, but the ringing phone beckoned. “Okay, but just for three minutes!” She picked up the phone and in her best reception voice said, “Meadows Employment. How may I direct your call?”

  Jaymie circled behind the reception desk and ducked around the hall, getting her bearings. It was a tolerable office space, radiating off a central office lounge with a square of couches facing a television tuned silently to Fox News Network. She could hear voices down the hall, and she veered away from them, not sure what exactly she was looking for. But she soon spotted one possibility; there was a desk in a cubicle with a photo of Lori Wozny and Shelby by the blank screen of a desktop computer monitor.

  She only had a few minutes, so Jaymie hastily searched the desk. There was the usual desk rubble: paper clips, ball-point pens, felt markers, elastics, a stapler, staples, stickers and erasers. But more tellingly there were travel brochures, too, and some notes that Jaymie couldn’t figure out. It almost looked like an itinerary, or a list of steps to do something or get somewhere. There were short forms and initials, but she didn’t have time to puzzle it through. She looked over her shoulder, ripped the page off the notepad, and stuffed it in her purse, deciding to look at it later.

  Not finding anything else, Jaymie skipped down the hall until she found Meadows’ office, which was unlocked. She slipped in and stood, looking around. It was modest, almost blank, offering no hint as to its owner’s personality other than a bland landscape on the wall and a calendar of kittens. But his planner was open on the desk. She flipped back through to the day of Shelby’s death. He had a full load of work and appointments, and some notes jotted down for that day, but most telling and interesting to Jaymie was a notation for the evening.

  “Dickens Days—SF,” it simply said.

  Nineteen

  HAD HE THEN been at the event, and was “SF” Shelby Fretter? Had he met with Shelby for a lovers’ rendezvous? Or had he followed Shelby and her family, lured her away and beat her to death?

  Why would he?

  Or why wouldn’t he?

  The amount she still did not know was overwhelming. In the short space of her morning she had added significantly to the list of possible suspects in Shelby’s murder. Austin Calhoun or Delaney Meadows could have killed her. Maybe they were unlikely, but they were possible. Lily Meadows, too . . . she was a possible suspect.

  Footsteps in the hall alerted her, so she tore a blank piece of paper from the notepad and scribbled some random words, then looked up as the receptionist came to the doorway.

  “I don’t think I ought to leave you back here,” she said uneasily. “Mr. Meadows has been cranky, what with the police here a few times and such.”

  Jaymie straightened. “Look, I’ve decided not to leave a note. It’s too com
plex. How about you just forget it for now, and I’ll catch up with Delaney later. I know where he lives and I know his wife, Lily, very well, so I’ll give her a call and we can meet at his home later, when he’s more relaxed.”

  “Okay,” the girl said, looking confused.

  “Don’t worry one little bit about it. My goal is to make this easier for everyone, so don’t even worry about telling him I was here; I’ll take care of everything, trust me!” Jaymie smiled and stuffed the gibberish note in her pocket. If the girl knew Jaymie she’d recognize the feverish tone of someone who had trouble lying convincingly.

  But the girl actually smiled and nodded, with a big sigh of relief for one thing she didn’t have to worry about in a position that was clearly beyond her ability. “Okay. That would be better. Thanks. What did you say your name was?”

  “Don’t even worry about it,” Jaymie said, patting her arm and slipping past her. “So long! I have to hurry. Got another meeting.”

  She sped out and headed down to the Bean & Leaf, shaking from nerves, got a cup of tea and sat at a table by the window overlooking the courtyard. This was all getting terribly confusing, and she had a lot of leads but no organization. In the last hour Austin Calhoun, Delaney Meadows and Lily Meadows had zoomed up the list of suspects, and she wasn’t sure how to go about eliminating them.

  She knew one thing; she needed to speak with Cody again. She remembered something he had said in the confrontation with his mother, that Shelby had told him Nan was out to get the Fretter family, and had a vendetta against them. Did Shelby really think that? He seemed to agree. She needed to speak with him about it. She got her notebook out of her purse and wrote that down, then pondered what else she needed to ask.

  Shelby’s journal or whatever it was she was writing in: that nagged at her. She got out her cell phone and texted Nan to have Cody call her. She needed to ask him if he had ever seen Shelby writing in a journal and where it might be. She was curious about what Shelby was writing.