All Murders Final! (16 page)

Chapter 28

Thirty minutes later I stood in front of my living room window, looking over the dark town common. Light reflected off the four stories of church windows. Maybe I should call Vincenzo if I was a person of interest. But there really didn't seem to be any reason to call him right this minute. I'd wait until the morning.

Through the floor I heard Stella singing a song from
South Pacific
. The one about being in love with a wonderful guy. I'd been so caught up in my own drama, the words just now registered. I'd noticed Officer Awesome's car parked in front of the house when I came in.
Wow.
That was fast. I hoped for the best for Stella, but, boy, romance certainly had more downs than ups. She'd probably be singing the one about washing him out of her hair in no time.

My phone chimed. I wondered if it was Seth, with an apology. I was pretty angry and was not sure I felt very forgiving right now. I walked over to the couch and dug my phone out of my purse. If it was Seth with one of his sad face photos, I might throw the phone out the window. But it wasn't. It was me. Standing in my apartment window two seconds ago. I swallowed a huge lump in my throat. Whoever had sent it had made it look like a drop of blood was dripping from my chest. The black heart was back, too.

Freaked out, I ran to the window and yanked at the curtains, desperate to get them shut. I jerked so hard, I pulled them and the flimsy curtain rod right off the wall. Now I was really exposed. I hugged the whole mess to me, staring out into the darkness. Was someone out there? Watching all this? Laughing?

I flung the curtains and rod down and one-finger saluted whoever was out there.
Take that, you crazy stalker.
Then I came to my senses and ran over to shut off the overhead light. Now I missed Mike and his brothers and wished they were still next door. I dropped to the floor and crawled back to the window. I peeked over the sill, but I didn't see anyone moving or any cars driving away. Up until right now, I'd loved looking at the common at night. Loved the way the moonlight lit the church. The way the trees looked silvery without their leaves.

Awesome's car was still parked down below. I scurried across my apartment and tore downstairs to Stella's. I shoved open her door, thinking she really should keep it locked. A startled Officer Awesome leaped off the couch, holding a beer in his hand. Stella whipped her head toward me, mouth open. Thankfully, they were both fully clothed.

“Someone sent me another picture. Me standing in my window.”

Awesome leaped up and was out the door before I said more.

“Are you okay?” Stella asked.

I wasn't sure if I was okay. I wanted to be, but that photo with the drop of blood, of me in my own apartment . . . Some freak had been spying on me here, in my own home. And his intentions clearly weren't good.

“Come sit,” Stella said. She poured me a glass of wine and herself some scotch. “Here. This will help. You must be scared.”

I thought about that while I took a drink of the wine. “Scared? Yes, I'm scared, but now I'm mad, too.” I tried to convince myself that anger was the stronger of the many emotions circulating through my head. “I'm going to figure out who's messing with me. Sending me all these disappearing photos . . . I almost wonder if it's more than one person.”

“Why?”

“Because some of them are nice pictures complimenting my clothing. Then others are dark. Scary. Threatening.” I tried to hold on to the anger but felt myself slip back to scared. I set my wine on an end table. “I'm an idiot. The angry pictures always come after I've been with Seth.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I should have realized it before. Except for the other night. He came over for dinner, and there wasn't a photo after that. I wonder what was different about that night.” I hugged my arms to my waist. “So now I just have to figure out who doesn't want me to be with Seth.”

“I don't have a clue. Do you?”

“Seth's mother, but I can't picture her doing this. Nichole. And . . .” I didn't want to say it out loud.

Stella looked at me. “And CJ. He wouldn't want you to see Seth.”

“No way it's CJ. Do you remember meeting James last fall? He's with the security forces on base.”

“Yes. Do you think it's him doing all this?”

“I don't want to. But he's different since he came back from his deployment.” I stared into the glass of wine. “Maybe there's someone we aren't even thinking of.”

Stella nodded but didn't look convinced. “What about Seth? Doesn't he seem to be a little too good to be true?”

“No.” I shook my head so hard, it hurt. “I can't think about this anymore. Let's talk about something happy. Are you in love with a wonderful guy?”

Stella looked at me like I'd just spoken Russian.

“You were singing about it.”

“Yuck, no. I was practicing. I'm singing at an event to honor Rodgers and Hammerstein. They did a drawing, and that's the song I got. Trust me, after the last debacle, I'm not in any hurry to fall in love.”

Awesome came back in, frowning. “I didn't see anyone, but I'm guessing between the time of the picture and the time you got down here, they had plenty of time to get away.”

I sighed. “Figures. No one's seen who's doing this. Not once. Not even me.”

“I found some cigarette butts by a tree. I read the reports that there have been others in scenes involving you. They could have been there awhile. It's not like they were warm.”

Yeesh. Scenes involving me. Reports about me.
I stood. “Thanks.”

“I bagged them, just in case.”

Stella hugged me and insisted I take the glass of wine with me upstairs. I looked back at her as I left. “Keep your door locked,” I told her.

Back in my apartment I got out my drill and reattached the curtain rod to the wall and re-hung my curtains. Then I deleted the PopIt app from my phone. I'd been reluctant to do it until now since I'd used it to promote my business. But I didn't want to see one more picture of myself being watched. It was like living with a bogeyman, and I was tired of it. I couldn't keep on like this, jumping every time my phone went off or constantly worrying I was going to be arrested for not one, but two murders. I needed to do something. I thought about the night I met Awesome and the bait car, about how the car lured the criminal to them. Maybe that was what I needed to do. Make myself the bait.

Chapter 29

The first thing I did when I woke was download the PopIt app again. The sun had chased away the bogeyman and my fears. I might need PopIt for my plan to work, and I certainly needed it for my business. What had I been thinking last night? I made a cup of coffee and opened my computer. I sat with my fingers poised over the keyboard. I'd come up with a plan, and I'd looked at it from every angle I could think of. It should work. I opened my garage sale site and posted a note:
Cleaning and other services available. Introductory offer $50.00. Willing to take on any job
.

I took a deep breath and hit SEND. This seemed like a safe way to find out what was going on. The way I figured it was that the person hiring the cleaner was an innocent victim. It was the cleaning person who was caught up in some kind of crime ring. I hoped by putting myself out there, I might flush him or her out with no risk to myself. Since I was undercutting the competition and saying I'd do any job, he or she might think I was the perfect person to replace Juanita. If I got any creepy notes or threats, I'd be at the police station faster than you could empty a wastebasket. Now all I had to do was sit back and see what happened.

Two people answered almost immediately, saying they'd sent me private messages. A third message was from Frieda, and all it said was,
WTH
?

I chose to assume she meant “What the heck?” and decided that responding wouldn't do any good. I looked at the other two private messages. One woman asked if I could come today, and the other wanted someone tomorrow. I said yes to both. I gathered what cleaning supplies I had in my house and stashed them in an old galvanized metal bucket that had been sitting under the kitchen sink. I decided to run to the grocery store to pick up a few extra items before going to the first job.

This was kind of exciting. I'd earn some extra money, and how hard could cleaning be? I'd been cleaning up after myself since I was a little girl, my family being firmly behind the idea that a busy kid was a good kid.

* * *

Many hours later—which felt like several days—I dragged my weary rear end back into the house. It was only 5:30 p.m., but it felt like bedtime. Even my fingernails seemed to ache. I'd faced three thousand square feet of disaster, and I wondered if the woman had ever cleaned the place before. She had somehow seemed to think my title was miracle worker, not cleaning lady. Sharpie hadn't come off the painted walls no matter how many magic cleaning products I'd tried. Then she'd argued about paying me the full fifty dollars, for goodness' sakes. And I wasn't any closer to figuring out who had murdered Juanita and Margaret. Or who my stalker was.

I poured myself a glass of wine and eased down onto the couch. The only good news that had come out of the whole ordeal was that she had also hired me to run a garage sale for her in the spring. I'd upped my commission by 10 percent, and she hadn't blinked. My phone buzzed on the end table. It had been vibrating all day. I had updated the garage sale site when I took quick breaks but had ignored the new voice mails from numbers I recognized. I took a deep breath and looked at the list: CJ, Seth, and Carol. I listened to Carol's message first.

“Have you lost your freaking mind? You're cleaning houses now? Come work for me if you need money.”

Next up, CJ. “Do you need money? I'll increase your alimony or give you all my retirement pay. This housecleaning nonsense better not have
anything
—let me say that again,
anything
—to do with Margaret's and Juanita's murders.” There was a pause. I could picture him pinching his nose. “Just stop it now. Whatever it is you're doing.”

Seth. “I heard a wild story that you started a cleaning business. Call me.”

On the bright side I was flattered that three people cared about me in varying degrees. But now seemed as good a time as any to put my moratorium on seeing CJ and Seth back in place. I called Carol. Fortunately, my call went straight to voice mail, so I left her some flimsy excuse about why I was now in the housecleaning business. Then I stumbled into the bathroom, took a long shower, flopped on my bed, and conked out.

* * *

Thursday morning I perused my garage sale site as I drank my first cup of coffee and ate a fluffernutter. I considered myself a strong person after all the years of garage sales and hauling things around. But this morning I still ached, and I already hoped that the job today wouldn't be as bad as yesterday's. I didn't know how long I could keep this up.

Frieda had posted her own cleaning ad. It cost ten dollars more than mine, and she emphasized her twenty years of experience and her triple A rating with the Better Business Bureau. Her “Don't hire an unknown person” was a direct strike at me. Even though I wasn't in this for the long haul, I still felt annoyed, not just for myself but for Juanita and all the other hardworking cleaning people out there.

I decided to drop by Ellie's Deli, the place where Carol had seen Frieda and Juanita together, on the way to my morning cleaning job. By the time I got to Ellie's, the work crowd was gone and the moms whose kids were in school had arrived. There was a banner by a corner table that read
WE MISS YOU
, M
ARGARET. FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS
. It didn't take a genius to know there was some story here. I just hoped I could find out what it was.

I ordered chai tea and a scone. If it wasn't Dunkin's coffee, I really wasn't interested. I found a small table and watched Ellie work. I figured when things slowed down, I'd ask her to join me. I was on my second cup of chai, and a “chai high” was kicking in. I'd never figured out if it was the caffeine or the sugar, but when I drank this stuff, I got a boost, one that would have me cleaning like a whirling dervish when I got to my job today. I thumbed through my phone, approving and disapproving various posts for the garage sale site. By the time I finished, there was a lull, and so I went up to Ellie.

“Do you have a minute?” I asked her. We'd met when she'd catered some breakfasts for Spouses' Club activities on base.

Ellie swiveled her head around, taking in the scene. A little smile played over her lips as she observed her domain. “Sure,” she said, turning her “so blue they were almost violet” eyes on me. “Let me grab some coffee. Do you need a refill?”

“No, thanks.” A third cup of chai would probably have me levitating.

I sat, and a couple of minutes later, Ellie set a cup of coffee and a plate of cookies on the table before sitting across from me. Her light brown hair was in a tight bun.

“What can I do for you?” she asked.

“I wanted to ask you about Margaret.” I pointed to the sign by the corner table.

Ellie took a sip of coffee and relaxed into the chair. “Why?”

I leaned forward. “I'm the one who found both Margaret and Juanita. I'm scared the police are looking at me as a suspect. And a friend told me they saw her here with Frieda Chida and Juanita a couple of weeks ago. I feel like I need to find out what was going on in Margaret's life. Who might have wanted to kill her.”

“Frieda and Juanita used to be here together a lot. Thick as thieves.”

Hmmm. Interesting way of putting it.
“When did that change?”

Ellie thought about it as she munched on one of the cookies. “A few months ago. I'm not even sure when.”

“I heard they had a fight here the other day.”

“They weren't happy with each other. I know that much.”

“Do you have any idea why?”

Ellie reddened. “I don't like to seem like I eavesdrop on my customers.”

“Trust me, I understand. You can't help but overhear things.”

“Most of it I wish I could un-hear.”

“Happens to me when I throw garage sales sometimes.”

“They were arguing about money and who owed whom what. It stuck in my mind because I know Margaret didn't have money problems.”

And I knew Frieda did. “That's odd.”

“At first I figured it was just about the whole cleaning lady thing. Do you know about that?”

“Frieda gave me an earful about it. Was that all you heard?”

Ellie looked around and leaned forward. “Frieda told them they were both liars and cheats.”

“Both of them?” Maybe this wasn't some big mystery. Maybe it was just Frieda still being angry about Margaret replacing her with Juanita.

“I'm sure of it.”

“Ellie?” called one of the women behind the counter. “The modem's on the blink again.”

Ellie stood. “Sorry. Duty calls.”

“That's fine.”

“I'll have the cookies wrapped for you to take whenever you're ready.”

“Thanks. One more question. Do you know if any of them smoked?”

“Frieda does. Like a chimney.”