Let's Fake a Deal

by Sherry Harris

  Enviable. “Wowsa,” I said. “She’s something.” I could see a husband getting jealous over a wife like her. And I could see Major Blade being interested. Almost anyone breathing would be.

  “And she’s nice on top of all of it. I’ll call her over. Hey, Joy.” Eleanor waved to attract her attention. When Joy looked over, Eleanor pointed to the pitcher of beer. Joy changed direction and joined us.

  Eleanor poured her a beer and made the introductions.

  “Your name sounds familiar,” Joy said to me.

  Rats. That wasn’t good. “I volunteer at the thrift shop,” I said.

  She tossed her gorgeous hair back. “No. That’s not it.”

  “My ex-husband used to be in charge of the security police here on base.”

  “Sarah has her own business running garage sales in Ellington,” Eleanor said.

  “Not my thing,” she said, looking at me. “No offense.”

  Joy’s husband walked up behind her. He didn’t look happy. “I know why you’ve heard of her.”

  He leaned in close to Joy’s ear but stared straight at me. “She’s friends with the woman who murdered Major Blade.” Joy’s eyes widened. “Come on. You’re up,” her husband said. He held out his hand to help her up. As they walked away Joy glanced over her shoulder and mouthed Sorry.

  “That went well,” I said to Eleanor.

  We watched them rejoin the group. Joy took a dart, put one foot slightly forward, and pointed the elbow of her throwing arm at the dartboard in what looked like a very awkward position. She let the dart fly. It landed just off center. There was another round of cheers. I noticed her husband was going from group to group. They took turns looking back at Eleanor and me. It wasn’t hard to figure out what he was saying.

  “I hope this doesn’t create any issues for you,” I said to Eleanor.

  “Piffle. I could care less. My husband isn’t in that squadron, and I’d stand up for you even if he was.”

  “Thanks. I guess that’s going to put a damper on the sleuthing.”

  “I don’t see the colonel’s or the butter bar’s wives here anyway. But we are staying put. I’m not going to let some vicious gossip chase us out of here.”

  “Maybe it’s not vicious,” I said hopefully.

  Eleanor laughed. “You keep thinking that.”

  * * *

  Eleanor and I were having a fun evening despite Joy’s husband. Several people who had worked for CJ showed up and joined us. James came with his new girlfriend. A part of me felt like I was home. As much as I loved Ellington, I still missed the camaraderie of being a part of the military community. The excitement or disappointment of the next assignment. New places to live, new people to meet. The “we are all in this together” attitude—well, most of the time it was that attitude, Erin and Becky with their troubles with the Spouses’ Club notwithstanding.

  I guess that was part of my problem, sort of an every person who was attached to the military problem. No one had one place that was home; we lacked roots. But I was lucky. Ellington had become my home, and there was no other place I’d rather build a life. As soon as I figured out what to do about the Greens. And Michelle.

  “Excuse me,” I said to the people at our table. “I’ll be right back.” I went to the bathroom. When I was washing my hands, Joy came in. I didn’t know whether to scurry around her or hide in a stall. Instead, I dried my hands in one of those horrible air dryers that was so weak it would take an hour to actually dry my hands. I turned, shaking the water off, and Joy stood there like she was waiting for me.

  “I wanted to apologize for my husband,” Joy said. “He’s a little overprotective.”

  “If I had a wife who looked like you, I might be, too.” I smiled, trying to ease her discomfort.

  She waved her hand as if to wave off the compliment. “He’s just been very upset since he found out Major Blade was murdered.”

  “I imagine the whole base has been.”

  “Yeah. But he respected Major Blade. More than the others.”

  Interesting. “So you knew him?” I might as well try to find something out.

  “Yes. Major Blade even helped me with my homework for a statistics class I’m taking.” She moved to the mirror and checked her lipstick.

  Overprotective husband. Joy and Blade working together. That was interesting.

  “We almost always just met at my house, so there wasn’t any cause for gossip.”

  She said almost always, not always. I wondered where they met the rest of the time. But asking her seemed imprudent if I wanted to get Joy to tell me anything else.

  “It must be hard for both of you to have lost him then.”

  Joy dug around in her purse, found a lipstick, and reapplied the hot pink to her lips. “It has been. Maybe we spent too much time with Blade since he was a rank over my husband. But we all just had the same interests.”

  “What did you guys like to do?” I wondered if she was going to tell me to mind my own business.

  “Camped, sailed, and surfed in the summer. A bunch of us booked a ski lodge in Vermont for over Thanksgiving. I’m not sure anyone will want to go without Blade.” She put her lipstick away. “He was a life-of-the-party kind of guy.”

  “I’ll be blunt. I heard he was a womanizer.” I decided to leave it at that instead of adding that I’d heard he especially liked married women.

  Joy lifted one corner of her mouth. “He did love women.”

  I couldn’t help a tiny flinch.

  “Oh, not in a bad way.”

  Joy had been watching me closer than I thought.

  “Blade was a good guy.” Her eyes looked sad. “I’d better get back out there. Do you mind waiting a minute before going out? I don’t want my husband to know I was talking to you.”

  “Not at all.” I didn’t want her to have problems because of me.

  “I’m sorry about your friend being a suspect. I’ve met Michelle. She’s a smart woman when it comes to work.”

  “I sense a but.”

  Joy dipped her head for a moment. “She could be overbearing. And aloof. It was a strange combination.” Joy opened the bathroom door and left.

  * * *

  I leaned against the sink and thought over what she’d said. There were a lot of different views of the kind of person Blade was. Good man, churchgoer, womanizer. Filer of false IG complaints. It was confusing. What wasn’t confusing was that Joy spent time with Blade. And her husband was overprotective. It didn’t seem like a good combination at all.

  The door opened and Eleanor popped her head in. “I thought you fell in.”

  I straightened up. “Not this time.”

  “Come on. Your beer is getting warm,” Eleanor said.

  I followed Eleanor back to the table and tried to get back into the flow of conversation. Joy’s husband watched me from across the room, and he didn’t look happy.

  James followed my gaze. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  I smiled at him. “Yes.” It was for me. I just hoped it was for Joy and her husband.

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later I stood at the bar waiting to get our pitcher of beer refilled. Joy’s husband came and stood by me. So close our shoulders were touching, until I shifted to the left. He leaned his forearms on the bar. I hadn’t realized until then how muscular he was. Not tall, but his biceps were massive. He had a dart in his hand, the one closest to me, and he tapped it slowly up and down on the countertop. I watched it until he turned his head toward me with a pleasant smile.

  “Stay away from my wife,” he said. He chuckled. Anyone watching us wouldn’t realize he’d just threatened me. “She tells me everything.”

  I wonder if he knew about the “almost always” Joy had mentioned about meeting with Major Blade. What a blowhard. He wasn’t scaring me. Too much. Maybe only because there were so many people around. But that tapping with the dart was freaky. It’s like he knew I was afraid of them. But he couldn’t. “You’re a lucky man th
en.” I didn’t think Joy was a lucky woman, though.

  James came up on the other side of me. “How long does it take to fill a pitcher around here?”

  His question was neutral and friendly, but his eyes and the set of his jaw focused on the captain with a steely determination. The captain stared back. It was almost like they were arm-wrestling with their eyes. There was so much subtext swirling around, we could have been mind melding. And while neither of them was in uniform, I didn’t want James to get in trouble later. The captain outranked him.

  The bartender set the full pitcher of beer in front of me. I put my hand on James’s arm. “There it is now. Take it back to the table for me?”

  James raised his eyebrows in an “are you sure?” look. I gave him a quick nod. After James left, I turned toward Joy’s husband. I mimicked his earlier friendly smile. “You may outrank him,” I tipped my head toward James, “but you hold no sway over me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I sat in Kitty’s basement with Toulouse Thursday morning at seven forty-five. This time last week I’d been arrested. A whole week ago and what had I found out? Not enough. But I had to focus on this task. Today was going to be my big final push to finish pricing everything and do most of the setup in the garage. In the light of day, or make that the basement, I wondered if my remark to Joy’s husband had been foolish. Sometimes I carried the strong, independent female thing too far. But what choice did I have? I cared about Seth but didn’t want to be dependent on him. Although there were times when that was very tempting.

  Maybe I should tell Special Agent Bristow or Pellner about Joy’s husband’s threat. But was it even a threat? Did I just imagine the “or else” after his “stay away from my wife” comment? Maybe the strain of worrying about the pretrial conference, trying to track down the Greens, and worrying about Michelle were putting my imagination in overdrive. Although, James had noticed something in the captain’s attitude or he wouldn’t have come over. After I had sat back down at the table he asked if I was okay. I had assured him I was.

  I straightened my shoulders and opened another box. “Toulouse, I’m going to miss you when I’m finished with all this.”

  Toulouse didn’t answer, but he jumped in my lap and curled up. So maybe he did answer. I rubbed his ears. His purr throbbed through me. “I’ll miss seeing Kitty every day, too.” She was a little kooky, but in the best possible way.

  A little after nine thirty my phone rang. Luke.

  “I need Vincenzo’s number,” he said.

  “What? Why?” I asked.

  “I’m headed to the Ellington police station.”

  My stomach rippled. “Do you have any idea what they want to talk to you about?”

  “Yes.”

  Luke had been like this as a kid, too, with the short answers. He’d perfected the “I’m not going to incriminate myself” by the time he was five. By the time he was six he was pleading the fifth whenever he was in trouble. He should have been a lawyer. “Tell me.”

  “I went up to visit my landlady before I left for the station. I always take her garbage out for her anyway. So I just asked if everything was okay.”

  “And?”

  “She told me she’d seen that murderer hanging around and had called the police to let them know where she was.” Luke paused. “So they could capture her.”

  I held back my “I told you so.” It wasn’t important when he could be in trouble. I rattled off Vincenzo’s number.

  “They called Michelle in, too.”

  I didn’t answer for fear I’d say something I’d regret, like How stupid are you two?

  “I know what you’re thinking. So I’ll just say this once. You were right.”

  “As usual,” I added. Any other time we would have both laughed because I’d been saying that to him since we were both able to talk. “Call me when you can. I love you.”

  “Will do. Love you, too.”

  * * *

  Thank heavens I had so much physical work to do. It gave me a way to work off the worry and tension while I waited for Luke to call. I must have been up and down the stairs fifty times before he finally called.

  “No one’s been arrested,” Luke said.

  “That’s a relief.” Neither of us added the “yet.” “What did they ask you?”

  “How long we’d known each other. That kind of thing.”

  “That’s it?”

  “I could tell from their questions that they think Michelle and I had been seeing each other for a lot longer and didn’t buy the ‘we just met’ story. Even though it’s true.”

  “So they think you two worked together to kill Major Blade? Why?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. But I have an alibi for Thursday night.”

  “You do?” I couldn’t have been more surprised. When Luke had dropped me off that night, he had been headed home.

  “Yes.”

  “It can’t be me,” I said.

  “It isn’t. I spent the night at a friend’s house.” His tone was so neutral I knew something was up.

  It didn’t take long for it to dawn on me. “A girl friend’s house?” It came out a little more shrill than I’d expected. It’s not like I didn’t know Luke was a bit of a ladies’ man. He always had been. I remembered his first girlfriend. Margaret Mary. She lived down the hill from us with her nine brothers and sisters. She’d had long blond hair and big blue eyes. Luke always wanted her to come spend the night like other friends had and didn’t understand why she couldn’t.

  “Yes. A friend who is a girl. I didn’t know I was going to fall for Michelle the next day,” Luke said.

  “You fell for her?” I asked. I was astonished. Luke didn’t fall for people. They fell for him.

  “Yes. I did. Bad timing, right?”

  “It is. But I’m happy for you.” We chatted for a few more minutes before we hung up.

  * * *

  Thursday afternoon around two my phone rang. I had left Kitty’s after I priced everything and hauled it out of the basement and up to the garage. Most of it was organized, too. I was patting myself on the back for all I had accomplished. I didn’t recognize the number, but I was in a phase of answering all calls in hopes someone would get in touch about the Greens. I’d hung up on a lot of telemarketers and reporters lately. This was probably another one.

  “Is this Sarah Winston?”

  “Yes.” Ugh. Another telemarketer.

  “This is the popcorn lady over at the flea market.”

  I gripped the phone harder. “Hi. How can I help you?”

  “That couple you were asking about the other day?”

  “Yes?” I almost dropped my phone.

  “Plain popcorn and the caramel corn. They’re here. Caramel corn is anyway. She looks kind of different. Her hair’s short and she has more makeup on. A lot more makeup on. But she placed the same order. Couldn’t fool me.”

  The change in appearance didn’t worry me. I’d do the same if I was breaking the law. It was probably one of the reasons they’d been so hard to find. “Do they have a booth?” I asked.

  “No. It seems like she’s trying to sell some stuff to other dealers. I spotted her across the way chatting up some friends of mine. Regulars here.”

  I grabbed my purse, tucked my phone under my chin, locked my door, and rushed down the steps. “I’m on my way. If there’s anything you can do to stall her, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Don’t know what I can do. I have a business to run, you know.”

  I leaped into my Suburban. “I understand.” I called Pellner as I sped over. It went to voice mail, but I hoped he get the message soon.

  Twelve minutes later I was running across the flea market parking lot and into the building. I had to blink a couple of times to adjust to the dimmer light. I dodged left and right as I hurried to the popcorn stand. I pushed to the front of the line.

  “Is she still here?” I asked the popcorn lady. I turned and smiled apologetically to the person
behind me. He didn’t smile back.

  She nodded. “I sent a text to my friend telling her to stall her.” She pointed diagonally to a booth. “See the woman with the short dark hair in the red shirt? That’s her.”

  A group of people clumped around the booth she pointed to. But I spotted a woman in a red shirt. The popcorn lady put two fingers to her lips and let out a whistle that was probably heard over in Concord.

  Her vendor friend jerked her head up, but so did everyone else. Kate Green and I stared at each other for a brief moment before she dropped her stuff and took off. She ran the opposite direction of where I’d parked. Go get my car? Or chase her? My feet took off before I’d realized I’d made any kind of decision. I ran after Kate.

  I’d run through the flea market not too long ago. That time someone had been chasing me. “Look out. Look out,” I yelled as I ran.

  Two long blasts of a whistle sounded out. Probably from the popcorn lady. Other people shouted for security. A rolling cry for security followed me down the hall. Other feet pounded behind me. Kate ran faster than I did and made it to the west entrance. She disappeared from sight. I didn’t slow down, and pretty soon I popped out into the parking lot on the west side of the building. An engine revved and wheels spun. Gravel sprayed.

  A red car careened out of a parking spot. Kate sat in the passenger seat, and I got a quick glimpse of the driver. Alex. Sirens sounded in the distance. Please let that be Pellner heading here. I dug in harder and raced across the gravel parking lot, reaching the top of the exit as they flew onto the road. Another car was in their way. Both of them swerved. The driver of the other car flipped Kate’s car off and drove on. The car Kate was in lost control. The back end slammed into an old oak tree. Bark splintered, limbs and leaves tumbled down.

  I paused, staring at the car not quite believing what I was seeing. All was quiet except for the sound of the engine. I ran forward again. Gasoline permeated the air. Then I saw flames.