Let's Fake a Deal

by Sherry Harris

  “She works out a lot. And I think she works for an accounting firm in Ellington part-time.”

  So maybe she wasn’t so lonely. But I couldn’t rule her out completely. We continued to clean and reorganize. “What about the captain’s wife?”

  “Don’t you know Joy?”

  I thought for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  “Wow. I thought everyone knew her or of her,” Eleanor said. “Maybe they moved here after you left base.”

  “How come?”

  “She’s just . . .” Eleanor paused. “She’s just fun.”

  “Fun?” That’s not what I’d been expecting.

  “Joy has more energy than ten cats hyped up on catnip. She volunteers for everything and no job is beneath her, so she’s very popular. Not to mention she’s gorgeous. Luscious red hair, clear blue eyes, and a figure that would make a Kardashian jealous. Men adore her, too.”

  “Know anything about her marriage?”

  “She seems to love her husband,” Eleanor said. “Talks about him in glowing terms and wears a locket with his picture and one of his dog tags around her neck every single day. She says it’s her good-luck charm. It’s so lively when she volunteers here. I’m surprised you haven’t run into her.”

  “She doesn’t sound familiar.” Hmmm, she didn’t seem like a woman who would be vulnerable to a man like Major Blade. Maybe she’s overcompensating for something that was lacking in her marriage. I moved around another set of glasses. “What about the butter bar’s wife?”

  “She seems nice, but maybe a little on the nervous side.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “She just seems like she wants to do the right thing. I always see her watching the higher ranking wives at events and then imitating them.”

  “How?”

  “She’ll show up at the next thing in similar clothes or jewelry or makeup.”

  “She must not have a lot of confidence.”

  “No, and I think she’s pretty young. The butter bar is just out of college, and I think she’s still working on her degree.”

  “That means she could still be in her early twenties.” A time when people were still trying to figure out who they were. Yeesh. I still hadn’t figured out who I was, but it was different than how I felt in my twenties. She sounded like the kind of woman Major Blade might home in on. “I can totally relate to that. I felt the same way when CJ and I were first married. Military life was so different, and I was always afraid I’d offend someone and hurt his career.”

  “It can be a lot of pressure.” Eleanor stepped back from the glasses and looked over our work. “Thanks for helping clean up. This looks fantastic.”

  “You’re welcome.” We tossed our dustcloths back into the bucket. Eleanor picked it up and carried it to the back of the shop.

  “Did any of this help you?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But thanks for the information.”

  * * *

  As I drove home, I thought about the three very different women. Joy seemed the least likely to be susceptible to someone like Major Blade. And maybe I was wrong about all of this anyway. There was a whole bar full of people there that night. Lots of military but lots of civilians, too. It was a very popular place. And who said Major Blade only hit on military wives? Civilians traveled, too, and their wives could be lonely. There were just too many suspects. And how was I going to get close to any of the wives Eleanor and I had talked about?

  Ugh. I was never going to figure this out before Michelle was arrested. But I couldn’t give up. As good a man as Special Agent Bristow is, I couldn’t count on him not to go for the easy answer. He said it himself: He has a lot of cases open. He’s busy. So a simple solution would probably seem very appealing.

  Unfortunately, it felt like Officer Jones took much the same approach, which is why Michelle wasn’t the only one I was worried about. Going back and forth between her case and mine was exhausting. I hoped I didn’t overlook some detail that could be important to either case. Other than getting convicted, it was my biggest fear.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later I opened the door to Burke’s Dry Cleaners. I’d run home and found a dress in the back of my closet that the label was marked DRY CLEANING ONLY. It wasn’t dirty, but I figured out that I’d have a lot better chance of getting questions answered if I was a paying customer. I had wadded it into a ball so at least it was wrinkled.

  A buzzer buzzed noisily when I walked in. It was warm in here and there was a slight chemical smell, even though a sign on the front window said they were an organic cleaner. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant smell.

  An energetic woman bustled to the counter from the back. “Help you?” she asked.

  It sounded like the same woman I’d talked to when I’d called. Only today she was a lot more energetic.

  “I need to dry-clean this dress.”

  “Any stains?” she asked. She took a pen out that was stuck over her ear. Her hair looked a bit damp. It must be a hard place to work.

  Since it was clean, no. “No. Not this time.” I smiled as she filled out a form on one of those old-fashioned pads with carbon paper in between two thin pieces of paper.

  “We will have this done in two days unless you need it earlier. There’s a small fee for twenty-four-hour service.”

  “Two days is fine.” It was now or never. “I have a question for you,” I said. “Is there any way you could look up a phone number and see if the person is a customer?” I didn’t hold out a lot of hope since the woman was writing things down on a pad of paper instead of using a computer.

  “Of course, we can. I just use the pad as backup. The whole system crashed one day a couple of weeks ago, and it was a disaster for the next forty-eight hours. We couldn’t find a thing.”

  “Would you look up a number for me?”

  “No.”

  I wasn’t going to try the lost puppy eye thing after my experience with Bristow. Instead, I was just going to throw myself on her mercy. I poured out the story of what happened at the garage sale. How the phone number the Greens had used to call me and the dry-cleaning tag I’d found at the apartment were my only connection to the Greens/Youngs. “I’ve been handcuffed, had a mug shot taken, tossed in a holding cell, and arraigned,” I said. “There’s a pretrial conference set up for next week. I’m scared about what might happen.”

  “I heard about you over at DiNapoli’s,” she said. “If you’re good in Rosalie’s eyes you are okay by me. Let me see the phone number.”

  “Thank you.” Thank you, Rosalie. I read it off to her and she typed it into a computer. She mumbled a bit while she did it like she was debating what to do with me. “The phone number is for a customer with the last name of Fitzwater.”

  That was a new one. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that it was a real name, either. “Is there an address listed?”

  “We only keep an address for people who want their dry cleaning delivered,” she said.

  I took the tag out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Is there any chance this is one of yours?” I asked.

  She squinted at the tag. “It is.”

  “Do the numbers have any significance?” I asked. I tried not to get my hopes up because up to this point everything had been an abysmal failure.

  “They do,” she said.

  “Would you explain it to me? Please?” I tried to keep any hint of desperation from my voice.

  The woman gave me a sympathetic look. “The first two numbers tell me it’s from this store. We own three dry cleaners in the area. The second two,” she pointed to a 07, “mean they brought it in on a Saturday. The seventh day of the week.”

  That at least I could have figured out. I nodded.

  “And the last two numbers tell me it’s a military uniform.”

  Finally, something concrete. A solid connection between the Greens and the military.

  “Can you tell if the uniform was for a male or female?” I as
ked.

  “No. We charge the same no matter whose uniform it is.”

  “Thank you.” I turned to go but whipped back around. “Is there any chance they have something left that they are supposed to pick up?” If they did, I could contact Pellner or Awesome and let them know. Maybe the Greens would finally be caught.

  She typed some more into the computer. “No. Sorry. They don’t have anything here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I sat in the dry cleaners’ parking lot. I used my phone to do a quick search of the name Fitzwater. Nothing came up in Ellington or on the base. I broadened my search to the greater Boston metropolitan area. Nothing. I called Eleanor to see if she knew anyone by that name. That was a bust, too. I sent a quick e-mail to Bristow and one to Pellner with the new information. Maybe one of them would be able to find a connection now that I was fairly certain that one or the other of the Greens was in the military. Why else would they be dry-cleaning a uniform? With the beard Alex Green had, it must be Kate. Unless he did some kind of undercover work or had been on leave long enough to grow a beard like that.

  Maybe I was all wrong about this, too. I’d been questioning myself a lot since they’d fooled me so completely with their “aw, shucks” Midwestern act. They could have purchased uniforms at a military supply place and just pretended to be in the military. People wanted to help out those who served, and around here it would be a heck of a way to blend in.

  My phone rang as I drove home. It showed that the call was from the Billerica police. They should be calling Vincenzo, not me. I tossed it back in my purse. My heart thumped at a frantic pace. What did they want? I figured if it was any good news I’d hear it from Seth or Vincenzo. I was trying to remain calm, but the ragged edges of panic chewed at me.

  I thought again that Michelle wasn’t the only one who had to worry about her situation. Maybe I needed to worry more about my case than hers. I would love to talk to Pellner about the Greens, his thoughts on the map Luke had put together, and the information I’d just sent him. But he might know the Billerica police wanted to talk to me, so I decided to avoid him, too.

  I pulled over, dug my phone back out of my purse, and called Vincenzo. All these calls to him were going to cost me a fortune. I left a voice mail saying I’d gotten a call from the Billerica police, but that I hadn’t answered it. It didn’t seem right that they were calling me, and I didn’t want them to do it again.

  All the stress of everything made me feel like I was going to break. If only I could run away just for a few hours without any consequences. Why not? I hadn’t gotten any of those dire warnings you see on TV about not leaving town. It was a lovely fall afternoon. No one would miss me. The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of a mini-break. There were a bunch of very cute antiques stores in Essex, Massachusetts. They even called themselves America’s antiques capital. Essex was only thirty-five miles away and sat on the Essex River in the middle of a beautiful salt marsh. It would be peaceful.

  If I took the back roads, it would be a pleasant fall drive. I could look for chairs for the sitting room at Seth’s house. I could shop for vintage ornaments for the wreath I wanted to make. The glory of a few hours to myself sang to me like a siren song. I could head over to Ipswich and eat at one of their famous clam shacks. A little self-care and procrastination never hurt anyone, did it? Maybe a short getaway would clear my head and open it to new possibilities.

  Two hours later I had a bag full of vintage ornaments in my trunk. But chair shopping was discouraging. I’d seen lots of wingbacks, ladder, and Rocco chairs. Too traditional, uncomfortable, and fancy—just in that order—for Seth’s sitting room. I wasn’t even sure what kind of chairs I wanted when I walked into the next shop. Only that they weren’t anything I’d already seen.

  I’d been here before and knew the owner had a huge barn full of furniture behind the store. She’d let me look through it a couple of times in the past. Usually, her things were way out of my price range, which was more like twenty-five to one hundred dollars. Who was I kidding? My price range was more like zero. Dumpster-diving and hand-me-downs were more my style. Or an “at the end of a garage sale” bargain when the person was desperate to get rid of things. I always had to watch my pennies and whatever other money I earned. Three things saved me from poverty. The money I made from the now annual New England’s Largest Garage Sale, my savings, and I still got half of CJ’s retirement pay as part of our divorce settlement.

  The store was beautifully arranged with bright lights and high-quality furnishings. I preferred shops that were jumbled with things to dig through. Then it was like going on a scavenger hunt as a kid. I would never know what I’d find. I spotted the owner at the back of the store and wended my way past Hollywood Regency chairs, stunning but not comfortable enough, sideboards, and settees.

  “Hi,” I said when I reached her, “I’m looking for some comfortable reading chairs for a sitting room off a bedroom. I’m not sure what I want. I only know what I don’t want.” I ran my list by her as she nodded.

  “It’s nice to see you again. Thanks for stopping back by.” She smiled like she was happy I was there. “We just got a big shipment in from an estate in Andover. It’s all in the barn and was more or less just dumped back there. I haven’t had time to sort through everything. If you want to take a chance, you’re welcome to go have a look around.”

  “Thank you. That would be fantastic.”

  She retrieved a key and handed it to me. “It’s at the back of the barn in the far-left corner. The light switch is to the right of the door.”

  “Great. I’ll be back in a bit.” I walked out her back door, crossed an alley, and unlocked the barn. I felt for the light switch and flipped the lights on. It was cool in here. Even with the lights on, it was a bit dim. I felt invigorated as I made my way to the back. Maybe I’d find something wonderful. The place was cavernous. Who knew what treasures were waiting for me? There were two mission-style oak chairs with thick leather cushions on the backs and seats near the middle of the barn. Very masculine and I loved the clean lines. But still not what I was looking for. I waded in deeper. The farther I went the dimmer it was. Frankly, it was all too quiet and a little creepy. But I was on a mission and wasn’t going to let that stop me.

  I made it to the far-left corner. There was a jumble of furnishings. Some things were stacked on top of others. It’s good thing I’d built up a lot of muscle over the past year and a half or so, hauling stuff around. Coffee tables were on top of couches, nightstands on beds. I spotted something across the way and edged by, over, and around furniture. I pulled a standing lamp off a mahogany magazine rack. Then I stood back. This was them.

  The two chairs were art deco club chairs. Possibly French. Probably from the 1930s. The light-colored upholstery looked like silk. I ran my hand across the seat. It felt like silk, too. The chairs had a great curved design with high-gloss-lacquered wood arms. I ran my hand over the curve of the furniture, too. The wood looked good with just a few nicks. The upholstery had a pull here and there, but no rips. I sat down in one. Amazing. They were even comfortable.

  I wondered how much they were. The problem with antiques is they didn’t have any intrinsic value. Take midcentury modern pieces. Ten years ago no one cared for things from the fifties, so they were cheap. But now they were all the rage and prices had skyrocketed for grandma’s old mixing bowls or that cool laminated kidney-shaped table on wire legs. The interest in the art deco era came and went. But I feared because of the construction and materials along with the interest in all things are deco right now, these two chairs would be expensive.

  These were perfect and I wanted them bad. I snapped a couple of photos with my phone and then made my way back to the front of the barn. I turned off the lights and locked back up.

  “Any luck?” the owner asked when I went back into the store.

  “I found a couple of old art deco chairs that might work.” I accented the old and might while trying to
keep my voice nonchalant. I didn’t want to sound too excited even though inside I was doing a happy dance. “I took a couple of pictures, so you don’t have to trek out there.” I showed her the photos and mentally crossed my fingers.

  “Oh, I remember those. They are stunning.”

  Darn. “How much do you want for them?”

  “I was thinking three thousand, and that’s a deal.”

  Three thousand? Yikes. “There are some chips in the wood on the arms and snags in the upholstery.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to kill my movers. They were perfect when I saw them at the estate.”

  I’d taken pictures of the chips and snags, so I showed those to her.

  “Maddening.”

  “How about one thousand since they’re damaged?” I accented the damaged. Five hundred apiece for them was a bargain.

  “No way. You’re not even close. Two thousand.”

  At least she was willing to bargain. That was a good sign. “Fifteen hundred. That’s the best I can do.”

  She tapped her hand against her thigh. “Oh, all right. But you have to load them yourself.”

  “Done.” I handed her my credit card before she could change her mind. I was lucky to have caught her on a slow day with a new shipment.

  * * *

  At three thirty I was back on the road, a sweaty mess, but the two chairs were loaded in the back of my Suburban. I swung through Ipswich and bought an order of clams to go. I ate them as I drove home. When I got back to Ellington, I couldn’t decide whether to just go over to Seth’s house in Bedford to drop the chairs off or stop at home to clean up first.

  I used my rearview mirror and ran my fingers through my hair. As long as no one got close enough to smell me, I’d be okay. Seth should still be at work because he worked crazy long hours. I worried a little bit about even going over to Seth’s because of my impending pretrial conference. But I didn’t have anywhere else to put the chairs.

  I pulled into Seth’s driveway. I didn’t have his garage door opener, so I would have to use my key to his house for the first time. I’d walked about three steps down the hall when I heard a woman laughing and Seth’s voice.