Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 05 - Gems & Gunshots (7 page)

“I always need one—or two, or three.” I had met Haley at the Coffee Break. It was her day off. She was going to take me exploring and I was thrilled at the chance to see more of this great city. “So where are you taking me today?”

“I thought we’d explore downtown. There are some fun shops and restaurants and some really interesting old buildings, if you’re into that? I personally love the architectural history of San Diego.”

“Lead the way. I’m game for anything”

“We’re going to be doing a lot of walking; are you sure you can handle it in those shoes?” Haley asked looking down at my sparkly silver sandals with the four–inch heels. They went well with the sunflower yellow sundress I had on.

“Of course. I’m used to walking in heels.” Although, these were new shoes I hadn’t worn before. Hopefully, they wouldn’t give me blisters. Not that it mattered. I often sacrificed function for fashion.

“Right up here is what is called the Gas Lamp Quarter. It’s a sixteen–and–a–half–block historic district filled with amazing Victorian–era architecture. It’s one of our many historic sites dating back to the Wild West saloon days of Wyatt Earp, and you can still see much of the late nineteenth century character in its architecture,” Haley said, sounding very much an official tour guide.

“Wyatt Earp? Really? I guess I don’t think of California as the Wild West.

“Yep, we had our share of cowboys and outlaws, and if you want to get more sordid, there is a downtown nightclub called Stingaree, which was the name of San Diego’s red–light district circa 1900,” Haley said.

“Could you imagine living back then? If I had to go back in time, I would love to be part of the roaring twenties. I love the look, and the women were such characters.”

Haley nodded. “Old Town San Diego is considered the “birthplace” of California. It’s the site of the first permanent Spanish settlement in California. There are some original buildings left and some reconstructed ones. But most of all it’s fun with a lot of history and great food.”

“Great. Maybe it will inspire me to write.”

“Still have writers block?” Haley said sympathetically.

“I did manage to write a blog post today, but then I couldn’t find the instructions Jared wrote down for me to post it.” I shrugged.

“Here’s the trolley stop. We’re going to have to hurry if we’re going to get on before it leaves. And I’m starving.”

We took the trolley to Old Town and the experience was everything Haley promised. After a great lunch of burritos and margaritas at Old Town Mexican Café, we were just wandering around the shops, trying to exercise off our lunch.

“Oh my God!” Haley said in a loud whisper, grabbing my arm and dragging me down behind the rack of shoes I was looking at. We were in a drugstore and I was looking at their selection of cheap white tennis shoes. I finally admitted my feet hurt from walking all morning and the new shoes were giving me blisters. I was ready to give up and put something less painful on my feet for the rest of our walk. Fashionable or not.

“What’s going on?” I exclaimed, rubbing my arm where she had grabbed it.

“Shhhh. I don’t want them to see or hear us.”

“Who?” I whispered, peeking out over the rack where I noticed Jill and some guy. A really handsome guy at that. “Jill and her boyfriend? But why—”

“Never mind that now. Come on. We need to get out of here.”

Jill and her boyfriend were coming toward us, so Haley started crawling down the aisle in the other direction and motioned for me to follow. I did, leaving my thoughts of comfortable walking behind with the rack cheap shoes, wondering what was going on that we were crawling through a store. One that didn’t have the cleanest floors, I might add. Though, since I didn’t usually crawl around on the floor I didn’t have a great frame of reference.

Haley turned the corner to the next aisle and stood up slowly but just half way, motioning me to do the same. I saw that Jill was looking in the other direction.

“C’mon,” she whispered and turned to scurry out of the store. I followed her, and when we turned the corner she slowed down.

I finally caught my breath enough to ask, “What the hell was that all about?”

“That was Jill and her boyfriend, Robert.”

“So. I don’t get why we had to sneak out of there and leave me with blistered feet in these heels.”

“I told you before we left that we would be walking a lot.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Explain why we are avoiding Jill.”

Haley sighed. “A few weeks ago I went to this party given by a friend from school. I was having a good time just hanging out and talking to people. You know, your normal college party. I met this guy. We spent the night talking and were getting along so well, we spent the night together. I know what you’re thinking, and I promise I’m not normally a one–night stand kind of girl, but I am in college, so I figured why not? Plus I really liked this guy and thought he liked me, too. I thought we had some good chemistry. For a few days after we texted and talked on the phone a few times and I thought things were going well.” She paused.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ in here somewhere,” I said.

“Not so much a ‘but.’ Rather an ‘until.’ Things were going well
until
Jill came in to the coffee shop on her break one day all excited about her new boyfriend and showed me a picture of him.”

“No!” I exclaimed knowing what was coming next.

“Oh, yes.” Haley nodded. “My guy and Jill’s boyfriend were one in the same. Apparently she had been dating him for months off and on and they just had cemented the boyfriend/girlfriend title the night before. That’s why she hadn’t said anything to me before then. Jill dates lots of guys and never talks about one specific one.”

“What a coincidence that he’s dating your cousin. It sure is a small world. Brings a whole new meaning to six degrees of separation.”

“No kidding. Anyway, Jill really likes this guy and she’s known him for a lot longer. I just don’t see any value to telling her and hurting her feelings unnecessarily.”

“I agree. Did you tell him you knew?”

“No. I just stopped returning his texts and calls and he finally stopped trying to contact me.”

“You never know he might have been calling to tell you he was now in a committed relationship.”

Haley shrugged. “True. I just don’t want to ever see either of them. Jill’s relationships don’t usually last to long. She gets bored easy and moves on. Hopefully that will happen in this case and lesson learned for me that I should ask more questions before I sleep with someone.”

“Yeah make sure the guys you hook up with aren’t dating a relative.”

Haley burst out laughing. Isn’t that the truth? C’mon. I know where there’s another store that will have those cheap white tennis shoes.”

Chapter 9

C
an I help you?” A young woman dressed to the nines and wearing a lot of jewelry said to me in a friendly way.

“I’m just looking, thank you,” I replied, smiling at her.

“We have a lot of fun things to look at. I’ll be right over here if you need anything,” she said, pointing to the other counter. “My name’s Camille.”

Thanks, Camille.” Today was the first day that Gemstone’s Unlimited had reopened to the public and of course I couldn’t stay away. Not only did I love jewelry, I mean what girl didn’t, but like several other people—judging from the traffic in the store on a weekday morning—I couldn’t help but want to see where the crime had taken place. “Hey, Camille?”

She turned back to me. “Yes?”

“Is it usually busy like this in the morning?”

She sniffed haughtily. “No. These people aren’t our normal customers. I think they just want to see the scene of the crime.”

I thought this might be a good opening for me. “Did you know her well? The girl who was killed?”

“Nicole.” Camille shook her head. “Not really. She—hey wait a minute. You’re not a reporter or anything are you?” she asked suspiciously.

“No. I’m just also one of those people who wants to know what happened,” I said honestly, hoping she wouldn’t throw me out.

“Well, at least you’re better dressed than they are.” She nodded approvingly at my outfit, which was a red wrap dress with black peep toe heels. “Just don’t tell anyone I spoke to you. I’m not supposed to talk about what happened.”

“I won’t.”

“Nicole had only worked here a few weeks before the other day. None of us knew her that well. Sad really that she was so new and then this happened.”

“Do you know how she got the job?”

“Rumor has it, she knew Mr. Anderson, the owner from somewhere, and he gave her a job,” Camille said, rolling her eyes, making me think this was a normal occurrence for Greg.

“She was young, wasn’t she? Doesn’t seem like they would run in the same circles.”

“You’d be surprised at what circles Greg runs in,” Camille said not very kindly.

“I take it you’re not a fan?”

“Not of his type, no. Guys like that think because they have money, they can treat women however they want. He’s nice enough on the surface but he tries to date every girl who walks through those doors. I turned him down of course. I just feel bad for his wife. That poor woman doesn’t have a clue.” She shook her head.

A gentleman across the store motioned impatiently to Camille for some help.

“Listen, I need to go do my job,” she said pointing to the man.

“No problem. Thanks for chatting. I’m just going to look around a bit if you don’t mind.”

“Sure,” she said over her shoulder as she walked to the other side of the store.

I looked at the jewelry in the cases, and even the less expensive items were way more than I could afford. This was definitely a place you needed to have money to shop. The merchandise was beautiful though. I spent a few more minutes looking and then headed out. Camille waved and smiled as I left. I walked out wondering what she meant by
the circles Greg ran in
and how he met Nicole. I needed to find out more about her. I also felt bad for Amelia. I now had two people at two different times who told me Greg was a cheater. It was starting to look like Amelia just really didn’t know or had a huge case of denial.

I walked across the street, dodging traffic, to the Coffee Break, thinking I would grab a latte and chat with Haley. When I got there I found that Haley had the day off. Not a big deal, I would just call her later. I grabbed a local newspaper someone had left on a table and took that and my latte and headed outside to what was becoming my favorite spot. I was flipping through the pages, sipping on my coffee, when I came to a page that stopped me. An idea started forming in my mind on how I might be able to find out a little more about Nicole, but I would need Haley for moral support for this one.

*****

“Are you sure we should be doing this?” Haley asked me for what had to be the tenth time. She had been apprehensive of my idea from the moment I had called her and her nervousness was showing. Not that I could blame her, I was also apprehensive about my idea.

“No, but I don’t have any better ideas, do you?” I replied, smoothing down the front of my light blue skirt. We were at Franklin’s Funeral home, where the visitation for Nicole Butler was—the girl who had been killed at Gemstone’s Unlimited.

“No, I don’t. This just seems so intrusive,” Haley said, looking nervous.

“I know. Crashing a visitation at a funeral home isn’t exactly what I like to do for fun, and I don’t plan on being obnoxious about it. The last thing I want to do is be disrespectful to Nicole or her family. I just thought if we hung around and gave our condolences we might hear something that would give us a clue as to who she was and how she got that job at Gemstone’s Unlimited. ”

“I just don’t like funeral homes. They kind of creep me out.”

“No one likes them, but it’s just a fact of life. Now remember the plan is to be nice and as invisible as we can be. Just follow me.” I said walking up the steps and into the front door with a confidence I didn’t feel.

I agreed with Haley; funeral homes creeped me out. There was just something strange to me about wanting to look at someone in a coffin, but I could also understand the need for closure. Like any funeral home I had been in, which, granted, wasn’t many, this one was a very ornate with over–the–top décor. I wondered what it was about funeral homes that made decorators want to make them as gaudy as possible, rather than just subtle soft tones, which was what I would prefer. But I supposed if you were dead, you didn’t care, and the people here to see their loved ones off to a better place probably didn’t care much about the décor either.

It was quite a big place and there were signs outside each of the six rooms, with a picture of the deceased. I had seen a picture of Nicole in the obituary section of the paper, which was what gave me this idea in the first place, so I scanned the hallway for her likeness. Finally, I spotted it a few rooms down. “Over there,” I whispered to Haley nodding in the direction of Nicole’s room.

We walked down the hall, and I paused a minute before going in. I did feel intrusive, but I told myself it was for a good cause. Surely her family wanted to know what happened for their own closure. We entered at the back of the viewing room. I had no interest in actually going up to see the body, so the back of the room was fine with me. In the back corner was a photo collage of sorts to Nicole. She must have been young because many seemed to be from a picture display you would see at a high school graduation party. There were a few people back in that area so I thought it would be as good as any place to start.

As I looked at the pictures I saw a young, pretty blonde girl. The type you would assume was a cheerleader, which in this case, would have been right, as there was a photo here with her cheerleading uniform on. Interesting choice of picture to display at a funeral. It appeared she came from a large family. There were a few pictures with three other people close to her in age who looked so much alike I assumed they must be her siblings: two sisters and a brother, all blond, as was her mom. The older guy in the photos, whom I would normally think was her dad, didn’t look anything at all like the rest of the pack, so either they all took after their mom or maybe he was a stepdad.