“Jake. What are you doing here?” I reached up to steady the towel I’d wrapped turban-style around my head.
“That’s a fine greeting. Hasn’t anyone taught you not to look a gift horse in the mouth?” He held up a paper sack. “Nancy called. I assumed you hadn’t eaten and picked us up some burgers and fries.”
My stomach gurgled at the smell of the greasy food. “Come on in. I’ll throw on some clothes and be out in a minute.”
Brutus walked up to sniff Jake’s pant leg. His face twisted as he looked at the dog. “First a cat, now a dog? What’s next? A bird and a spider monkey? I didn’t know you were some kind of Doctor Doolittle wannabe.”
“Hush.” I patted Brutus on the head. “I’m dog-sitting for Myra.”
There wasn’t time to dry my hair or apply makeup, plus, he’d just seen me bare-faced anyway. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and pulled on a sweater and jeans. If this didn’t scare him away, nothing would.
Jake stood when I entered the room. “I made you some coffee. I hope that’s okay. I assumed you might be cold after your trek to the falls.”
“Perfect.” I blew in the cup and took a swig. Jake had set out the food and had waited on me to start eating. He was the perfect combination of ruggedly handsome and genuinely kind. “I’m glad you didn’t see me earlier. You’d have had the neighborhood watch hanging up wanted posters for the psycho escaped from the loony bin.”
He pulled out his phone. “You mean when you looked like this?” He held up a picture of me in my Mrs. Frankenstein get-up.
“Where’d you get that?” I grabbed his phone.
“Nancy sent it.”
“She must have taken it when I wasn’t looking. That creep. Remind me never to speak to her again.”
He took back the phone and laughed. “Won’t that be a little difficult since you two are like sisters now?”
“Ugh. Then she’s the wicked stepsister. I swear, if that ends up on Facebook...”
Jake picked up his burger. “She’s sneaky, but she’s not mean.”
I was too hungry to “girl eat” like I do on dates, so I grabbed a handful of fries and shoved them in my mouth.
Cricket circled Jake’s feet, purring loudly. I think she liked him even more than she liked me.
“On a more serious note,” Jake said, “the whole town’s talking about your friend Myra.” He pulled the onions off his burger. “Nancy tried to tell me something about a flask, but I didn’t quite follow.”
If Jake was going to skip the onions, I was too. “Are you sure you want to know? Last time you helped me with a murder case, it got a little dicey.”
He turned to me with his big brown eyes. His lips parted as though he were about to speak, then he looked away. “Of course, I want to help. You’re my friend too, not just Nancy’s.”
For an ex-FBI agent, Jake was fairly transparent when it came to his feelings. For a moment, I thought he was about to say something else. I had to remind myself that I was the one who had put the brakes on starting up a relationship.
The coffee was hot and burned on its way down. “Did she tell you that there was a woman’s flask found in the freezer with Mr. Squishy?”
“No. She left that part out.”
“I’m trying to determine how it got there.”
“What have you found out so far?”
“The flask belonged to the party planner, Gwen Palmer. It was a gift from the married man she was having an affair with. Preston Harper.” I realized how much this case was beginning to sound like a soap opera. What had that reporter called it? Oh yeah, salacious.
“Preston Harper. That doesn’t surprise me.”
“Do you know him?”
“Yeah. He’s one of my mother’s biggest campaign donors. Helped get her elected to the state senate. Everyone felt sorry for him when his wife was dying. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he was seeing Leslie Woodgate on the side. They got married less than two months after his wife passed.”
“Leslie Woodgate? As in Woodgate Industries?”
“That’s her father’s company.”
“Huh. She said she came from money, but I didn’t realize that she was a Woodgate.”
“Yep. She’s only a few years older than us. She went to boarding school in Albuquerque, so you may not have known her.”
It suddenly hit me why she looked vaguely familiar. One summer she had hung out at the lake with my brother. She was probably going through some “bad boy” phase or else she was trying to lash out at her parents. Imagine how different things might have been if they had gotten together. Tyler might have stayed out of trouble. He might have stayed in school. He might have gotten along with Patrick. Patrick might still be alive.
“Wendy? Are you okay?”
I felt a tear slip down my cheek and brushed it away. “Sorry. I was just thinking.” He probably thought I had PMS or was one of those girls who break out in tears for no reason. “Where was I?”
“Gwen Palmer’s flask.”
“That’s right. She took it to the party and Leslie recognized it as identical to the one she had gotten from her husband and took it. She says she put it in her purse. Apparently, she has a drinking problem, although I can’t remember who told me that.”
Needing more attention, Cricket jumped up onto the table. Jake snapped his fingers and she jumped down. It was magic. “If Leslie has a drinking problem,” he said, not missing a beat, “why would her husband give her a flask? That just seems cruel.”
“You’re right. Anyway, she thinks either someone took it out of her purse or else it may have accidently fallen out. Either way, she says she didn’t have anything to do with the clown.”
Jake sat back with that psychology-major look he got on his face when he was trying to figure something out. After a long pause, he sat back up. “I have a few theories. Maybe the clown found the flask and had it with him when he got locked in the freezer, either intentionally or by accident. Or, maybe he wasn’t the intended victim. Maybe Leslie wanted to lock Gwen in the freezer.”
“Leslie swears she doesn’t know whose flask it was. When I told her I knew who brought it to the party, she wouldn’t let me tell her. She wants to whitewash her husband’s whole affair out of her life.”
“Do you believe her?”
I pushed away from the table and picked up Cricket. “I do.” Did I just say “I do” to Jake? I hoped he didn’t pick up on it. Or maybe that was just a girl thing.
“You have good instincts, so you’re probably right.”
“Oh, like when I thought you were a murderer and were trying to kill me?”
“Well, except for that. The problem with this case is that we’re trying to prove the negative.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want to claim that the clown just found the flask and accidently got locked in the freezer, then you are trying to prove that nothing happened. It’s easier to prove that someone else is guilty.”
I nodded. “Like in the Salem Witch Trials when people had to prove they weren’t witches.”
“Exactly. And during the McCarthy era when people had to prove they weren’t communists. Trying to prove that Myra had no motive and that the clown’s death was an accident is going to be tough.”
That was not the encouragement I was hoping to hear. “We can’t just blame it on some innocent person just to get Myra off the hook.”
“No, but that’s what defense attorneys do all the time when they’re trying to make a case for reasonable doubt.”
“I don’t like it.” I tossed Cricket on the floor and crossed my arms. She looked up at me. I knew what she was thinking. Freddy Callahan. “Something’s been bothering me. When I asked Freddy if he’d been with Myra the whole time he was at the party, he acted a little cagey. He said he had disappeared for a few minutes but wouldn’t tell me where he’d gone. I don’t trust him. Is there a way for you to use your secret spy equipment to find out more information about his past?
”
“If you mean the internet, sure. I can look into it.” He picked up our plates and took them into the kitchen. Such good manners.
“Do you want to use my computer?”
He drank down the last of his coffee. “Um, no. I have some software you don’t have.”
“See. I knew having James Bond on the case would help.”
“I’ll check it out and report back if I find anything. You’re going to owe me a dinner for this.”
I walked him to the door. “Sure. You and Nancy make a plan, and I’ll be there.”
He gazed into my eyes. “I was hoping it could be just the two of us. I’m tired of having a chaperone.” He leaned down and brushed his lips across my cheek. Then he whispered, “You are the most beautiful slasher victim I’ve ever seen.”
Before I could breathe again, he was out the door. And with him, he took away any doubts I had that I was ready to see where this relationship might go.
Chapter 17
If Jake was right, my best hope of clearing Myra was to put the blame on someone else. Maybe Mr. Squishy had found the flask in the coatroom and had gone outside for a drink. Freddy might have gotten angry and dragged him back inside and locked him in the freezer. Or, maybe he just wanted his cousin to sober up. But if that were the case, he wouldn’t have left the flask inside with Squishy.
It was more likely that if Freddy had put Mr. Squishy in the freezer, it was for a more sinister reason. If Myra had put the key back on the wall hook as she said, it would have been easy enough for someone to get it and use it to lock the clown inside.
I was no closer to solving this case than I was the day of the party. My legs ached from our hike to the falls. I needed to clear my mind. The greasy burger and fries sat in my stomach like a boulder. What I needed was exercise.
Just thinking about going to the gym made me tired. But the last few months of stress-eating ice cream and potato chips had taken its toll on my waistline. Lately, shopping had been my only cardio, and by shopping, I meant online shopping. If I was going to start dating Jake, I needed to tone up.
Who was I kidding? Tone up? Actually, I needed to drop about ten pounds.
I changed clothes and headed to the gym. Nancy would be so proud of me when I told her I had gone for a workout. I was already feeling better about myself when I walked inside.
Chaz was behind the desk wearing earphones and eating a dry waffle with his fingers. I signed in and headed for the stationary bikes. This time, I wouldn’t even cheat. After a good thirty-second workout, I knew I couldn’t keep up the rigorous pace. I turned the resistance on the bike down to somewhere between “none” and “you should really just quit.”
Luckily, I was spinning like a superstar when Sherry and Gretchen walked into the gym looking like models for Workout Magazine (no relation to Waterfall Magazine). There was no avoiding them. Gretchen headed to the locker room while Sherry came over to mock me.
“Look who finally faced the fact that she is no longer a Disney princess.” Sherry looked at the setting on the machine. “If that bike were on the ground, you’d be going backwards.”
“And if you were on life support, I’d unplug the ventilator to charge my phone.” Ugh. What was it about Sherry that brought out the teenage “mean girl” in me? High school nemesis? The sheriff’s wife? Oh yeah. Her personality.
“Very funny. Speaking of life support, looks like your friend Myra will be spending a long time in prison.”
Sherry apparently didn’t know how the whole “Speaking of” thing was supposed to go. “Not so fast. Just because your husband is too lazy to do his job doesn’t mean Myra is guilty.”
“At least I have a husband.”
“Seriously? That’s the best you can do?” I shook my head. “It’s good to know there’s someone special out there for everyone. Of course, the person for you is a psychiatrist.”
She rolled her eyes and swung her long, thin leg over the bike next to mine as if she were mounting a horse. She turned up the resistance to “rock star spinner” and off she went.
By this time, my pulse was racing and sweat was pooling in my pits. I decided to take a break and got off the machine.
“Good idea. I’d hate to have to give you CPR. Rescue Annie is better looking than you.”
“Ouch. That one stung. If something happens to you, I’ll make sure the paramedics see your medical alert bracelet that says, ‘Bat Crap Crazy.’” Just then, my phone rang. I fumbled in my gym bag to find it. By the time I did, it had gone to voicemail.
When Gretchen came out of the locker room, she smiled at me. Sherry shot her a look that said, “Team Sherry or else.” Poor Gretchen started to speak but turned and went back into the locker room.
“Well, aren’t you a little ray of total darkness,” I said as I played the voice message. It was Jake. Not only did he ask me to come to his house, he gave me the perfect excuse to escape Sherry Grady’s claws. I picked up my bag and wiped my perfectly dry face with a towel. “Good workout.” I headed toward the door.
Sherry threw out one last jab. “Don’t leave on my account. It’s so much fun watching you pretend to exercise.”
I spun around and grinned.
She stopped spinning. “What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing much. I was just picturing you in the trunk of my car. Oh well, maybe someday.”
Chapter 18
As I drove home, I debated whether I should change clothes before going down the street to see Jake. I didn’t think he’d ever seen me in my workout pants before. If I kept my jacket closed, I looked pretty good. Maybe he’d be impressed that I was the sporty type. And by sporty, I meant I knew how to dress like someone who played sports.
Finally, I decided to go as I was. It’s not like I had worked up a sweat in the ten minutes I’d been at the gym. As I drove closer to my house, I could see someone on the front porch knocking on the front door. It was my next-door neighbor, Curtis Meeks.
He scowled at me when I pulled into the driveway.
“Curtis,” I said as I got out of my Jeep, “what can I do for you?”
“You can shut that dog up. It keeps waking the baby.” I wondered how long a person referred to their kid as a baby. I thought Delilah would be walking and talking by now. “How do you know I have a dog?”
Right then, Brutus let out a mournful howl. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought it was a cow mooing.
Curtis glared at me. “That’s how I know. But wait.” He held up his hand.
Brutus barked sharply four times then stopped.
“Yep. That’s it. A howl and four barks. Lana said he’s been doing that on and off all day.”
“It’s actually a friend’s dog. I’m just looking after him while she is...um...away. He’s probably just lonely or hungry or something. Doesn’t the baby cry when she feels that way?”
“Sure. But she doesn’t make the windows of the house rattle.” His perfectly put-together junior banker look appeared uncharacteristically disheveled. He had even loosened his tie.
Brutus started in on his song again. “Look, I’m here now. I’m sure he will settle down.”
Curtis stepped down off the porch. “I hope so. It’s bad enough to have a screaming baby, but I don’t want to have to listen to a complaining wife all night, too.”
“Trouble in paradise?” The perfect-couple façade seemed to have a crack in it.
“Paradise? All I can say is that you should think long and hard before you decide to have kids. Everything changes, and I mean everything.”
Poor guy. He really did look dreadful. “I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s just a phase or something.”
“A phase that’ll last eighteen years.” He turned and headed back to his house.
Cricket jumped up on the porch and stared at me as though I’d turned her kitty condo into a time-share.
“Are you mad at me, too? It’s temporary, I promise.” Brutus barked louder as I fiddled with the key in the lock.
“Ugh, this door.” I had intended to get the door handle and lock replaced but kept putting it off. I needed to find a new handyman.
Brutus looked disappointed when he saw me, but at least he stopped barking.
Cricket raced past me to her perch. She hissed at Brutus, who must have thought she wanted to play. He galloped over and gave the carpet-covered structure a head butt. It swayed a bit but held in place.
“Brutus! No, no. Bad dog.” I snapped my fingers, and he looked up at me like I had said it was time to go to the vet for shots. Tucking in his tail, he sulked over to the rug and plopped down.
I knew I should be glad he had minded, but I felt awful. I hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings. The only way I knew to make it up to him was to take him with me to see Jake. That would also keep him from howling again when I left. I picked up his leash and waved it at him. “Want to go for a walk?”
Oh boy, did he. Brutus jumped up and waddled over as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.
Cricket meowed and cocked her head to the side.
It was no use. I was going to be in hot water with one of these creatures no matter what I did. Maybe this is how parents felt. “You can come, too,” I said as I clipped the leash on Brutus’s collar. “Just keep your distance.”
I opened the door and she strutted past Brutus like she was the favorite child. This was one of those times I questioned my belief that she was somehow imbued with the spirit of my grandmother. Obviously, that had been my imagination. I think.
We walked past the Attwood house. Construction had finally been completed on Beverly’s new garage since the fire that had destroyed the old one. Jake lived four houses down the street, but it took a while to get there. Brutus found it necessary to water every tree he passed on the way there.
Finally, we made it to the porch and knocked on the door.
Jake greeted us. “I see you brought the whole zoo.”
Killer Shots Murder Mysteries - Books 1-3 Page 23
