Unbelievable
Page 25
But Snowflake doesn’t know CPR. And I remembered that I don’t either.
I screamed a four-letter word and lunged for the phone.
***
Twenty minutes later a Clarence police officer was standing in my living room, hovering over me, my couch, and Candy’s dead fiancé. I stared down at Stanley, willing him to start breathing again, while Captain Wilson Rye kept repeating the same questions about how I knew Candy, how I knew her boyfriend, and—here was the tricky part—what he was doing lying dead on my couch. I imagined Candy would wonder about that, too.
“Ms. Hewitt? Look at me.” I glanced up at a pair of blue eyes that might have been pleasant under other circumstances. “You have anywhere else we can talk?”
Hope drained from his face as he scanned my condominium, an expansive loft with an open floor plan and very few doors. At the moment the place was swarming with people wearing plastic sheeting, talking into doohickeys, and either dusting or taking samples of who knows what from every corner and crevice. Unless Officer Rye and I decided to talk in the bathroom, we were doomed to be in the midst of the action.
“I’ll make some tea,” I said. At least then we could sit at the kitchen counter and stare at the stove. I glanced down. A far better option than staring at poor Stanley.
“Ms. Hewitt?”
“Tea,” I repeated and pointed Officer Rye toward a barstool. I turned on the kettle and sat down beside him while the plastic people bustled about behind us, continuing their search for dust bunnies.
“Let’s try this again,” he said. “What was your relationship with Mr. Sweetzer?”
“We had no relationship.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“No, really. He was Candy’s boyfriend. She lives downstairs in 2B.”
The kettle whistled and I got up to pour the tea. Conscious that this cop was watching my every move, I spilled more water on the counter than into the cups. But eventually I succeeded in my task and even managed to hand him a cup.
“How do you take it?” I asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Your tea. Lemon, cream, sugar?”
“Nothing, thank you.” He frowned at the tea. “So you knew Sweetzer through Ms. Poppe?”
“Correct.” I carried my own cup around the counter and sat down again. “She and I met a few months ago.”
“Where? Here?”
I sipped my tea and thought back. I had met Candy in the bra department at Tate’s of course. It was the day after my divorce was finalized, and she had sold me a dozen bras spanning every color in the rainbow. Candy had even mentioned it that afternoon.
“Ms. Hewitt?”
“We met in the foundations department at Tate’s.”
“The what department?”
So much for discretion. “The bra department,” I said bluntly. “Candy sold me some bras.”
Rye’s gaze moved southward for the briefest of seconds, and I remembered the brand new, bright blue specimen lurking beneath my white shirt.
My white shirt.
If there had been a wall handy, I would have banged my head against it. Instead, I mumbled something about not expecting company.
Rye cleared his throat and suggested we move on.
“Candy and I got to talking, and I told her I was in the market for a condo, and she told me about this place.” I pointed up. “I took one look at these fifteen-foot ceilings and huge windows and signed a mortgage a week later. We’ve been good friends ever since.”
“And Stanley Sweetzer?”
“Was Candy’s boyfriend. He had some hotshot job in finance, and he was madly in love with Candy.”
“So what was he doing up here?”
Okay, good question. I was trying to think of a good answer when one of the plastic people interrupted. “Will someone please get this cat out of here?” she called from behind us.
I turned to see Snowflake scurrying across the floor, gleefully unraveling a roll of yellow police tape. I quick hopped down to retrieve her while the plastic people sputtered this and that about contaminating the crime scene.
“She does live here,” I said. They stopped scolding and watched as I picked her up and returned to my seat.
Snowflake had other ideas, however. She switched from my lap to Rye’s and immediately commenced purring.
Rye resumed the interrogation. “Did you invite Mr. Sweetzer up here?”
“Nooo, I did not. I was working. I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when Stanley showed up out of the blue.”
“You always work Saturday nights?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”
Rye took a deep breath. “You were alone then? Before Sweetzer showed up?”
“Snowflake was here.”
More deep breathing. “Did he say anything, Ms. Hewitt?”
“He looked up when he hit the couch and whispered ‘Candy.’” I shook my head. “It was awful.”
“Could he have mistaken you for Candy?”
I shook my head again. “She’s at least twenty years younger than me, a lot shorter, and has long dark hair.” I pointed to my short blond cut. “No.”
“Well then, maybe he had come from Candy’s.” Rye twirled around and called over to a young black guy—the only person other than himself in a business suit—and introduced me to Lieutenant Russell Densmore.
The Lieutenant shook my hand, but seemed far more interested in the teacups and the cat, who continued to occupy his boss’s lap. His gaze landed back on me while he listened to instructions.
“Go downstairs to 2B and get them up here,” Captain Rye told him. “Someone named Candy Poppe in particular.”
“She’s still at work,” I said, but Lieutenant Densmore left anyway.
I looked at Rye. “I really don’t think Stanley came here from Candy’s,” I insisted. “She’s at work. I saw her there myself.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was in Tate’s this afternoon.”
Rye took another gander at my chest. “That outfit for Sweetzer’s benefit?”
“My outfi—What? No!”
Despite the stupid bra, only a madman would find my typical writing attire even remotely seductive. That evening I was wearing a pair of jeans, cut off above the knee, and a discarded men’s dress shirt from way back when, courtesy of my ex-husband. As usual when I’m at home, I was barefoot. Stick a corncob pipe in my mouth and point me toward the Mississippi, and I might have borne a vague resemblance to Huck Finn—a tall, thin, menopausal Huck Finn.
I folded my arms and glared. “As I keep telling you, Captain, I was not expecting company.”
“Is the door downstairs always unlocked?”
“Umm, yes?”
“You are kidding, right? You live smack in the middle of downtown Clarence and leave your front door unlocked? Anyone and his brother had access to this building tonight. You realize that?”
I gritted my teeth, mustered what was left of my patience, and suggested he talk to my neighbors about it. “For all I know, they’ve been here for years without a lock on that door.”
Rye might have enjoyed lecturing me further, but luckily Lieutenant Densmore came back and distracted him. He reported that, indeed, Candy Poppe was not at home.
“What a shocker,” I mumbled.
One of the plastic people also joined us. “You were right, Captain,” she said. “This definitely looks unnatural.”
“Yet another shocker.” My voice had gained some volume, and all three of them frowned at me. I frowned back. “This whole evening has been extremely unnatural.”
Rye turned and gave directions to the plastic person—something about getting the body to the medical examiner. He told Lieutenant Densmore to go downstairs and wait for Candy. Then he scooted Snowflake onto the floor and stood up to issue orders to the rest of the crowd.
I stood up also. Everyone appeared to have finished with their dusting, and I was happy to see that Stanley had been taken away. But it wa
s a bit disconcerting to watch my couch being hauled off.
“You wouldn’t want it here anyway, would you?” the Captain asked me. We stood together and waited while everyone else gathered their equipment and departed.
Rye was the last go. “I’ll be downstairs if you think of anything else, Ms. Hewitt. Or call me.” He handed me his card and headed toward the door. “I can’t wait to hear what Ms. Poppe has to say for herself.”
“She’ll have nothing to say for herself,” I called after him. “She’s been at work all day.”
He turned at the doorway. “Stay put,” he said. “That’s an order.”
“Shut the door behind you, Captain. That’s an order.”
About the Author
Cindy Blackburn is living the dream! She spends her days sitting around in her pajamas, thinking up unlikely plot twists and ironing out the quirks and kinks of lovable characters. In other words, Cindy’s a writer.
When she’s not typing on her laptop or feeding her fat cat Betty, Cindy enjoys taking long walks with her cute hubby John. A native Vermonter who hates snow, Cindy divides her time between the south and the north. Most of the year you’ll find her in South Carolina. But come summer she’ll be on the porch of her lakeside shack in Vermont. Yep, it’s a place very similar to Lake Elizabeth.
Cindy’s favorite travel destinations are all in Europe, her favorite TV show is The Big Bang Theory, her favorite movie is Moonstruck, and her favorite color is orange. Cindy dislikes vacuuming, traffic, and lima beans.
www.cbmysteries.com
www.cbmysteries.com/blog
@cbmysteries
Table of Contents
Start Reading
Acknowledgements
Other Works by Cindy Blackburn
Book One: Playing with Poison – Sneak Peek
About the Author
Copyright
Chapters
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | Epilogue