Staged to Death (A Caprice De Luca Mystery) (8 page)

“Sure, if it means that you
are
going to accept.”

“I am. But I’d like to know if you pick up girls often in a grocery store?”

He chuckled, then checked her expression and saw she was serious. “No, I don’t pick up women in grocery stores. Actually I haven’t dated at all since moving here a year ago. Experience has taught me that being a doctor and dating don’t often go well together.”

“Because of your hours?”

“Because of interruptions. My phone and pager often become hated items by women I’ve dated.”

“So why me?”

“I guess the very reason that you asked is why I would like to go out with you. You seem really interesting. You like to cook, which is a plus. I like the way you dress, which is unusual. I mean the way you dress, not that I like it. You like animals, and at the top of the list is the fact that you seem to care about
everything
.”

“Wow!” she responded, not knowing what else to say.

“What time is good for you?” Seth asked.

“Around two would be good.” Saturday mornings were usually busy with errands and pulling together all the loose ends from the previous week.

“Two, it is. What’s your phone number?”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card.

“A home-stager,” Seth said with another one of those smiles. “Good to know. I’ll call you next week to make sure you’re still free. Have a good visit with your sister.”

“I will.” Caprice gathered two peppers, plopped them into her basket, gave Seth another glance, then went to the checkout counter. She was going to play miniature golf with Dr. Seth Randolph.

Should she tell Bella about this date or keep it to herself?

 

 

Caprice found herself still smiling as she approached Bella’s front door. A date with a man shouldn’t make her feel . . . happy. After all, she was a self-sufficient woman who guarded the door to her own happiness. She grabbed it whenever she could. No woman should rely on a man to make her happy. Still, she felt as if she’d won some kind of prize.

Bella’s ranch-style house was very much like Bella, all manicured and precisely perfect on the outside. Joe could be as much of a control freak as her sister. He kept the lawn trimmed, the bushes banked, and the weeds to a minimum. He could edge with the best of them. To Caprice’s way of thinking, a little color would have been nice, but Joe didn’t take time for flowers or care anything about Caprice’s suggestions. That was okay. She knew by now when to button her lip around him so as not to create friction between husband and wife, or between him and her family. Though it was hard sometimes.

Caprice never knocked. After all, sisters didn’t have to do that. Besides that, Bella was expecting her.

With Seth’s smile still turning up the corners of her mouth, she opened the screen door, which was letting the May breeze invade the one-story house.

There wasn’t much of a foyer, just a step-in with a door leading to a closet on the left. The living room was to the right, and a hall through another archway led to the three bedrooms. The dining area and kitchen were to the left; the laundry room and garage were that way too. Bella’s house was compact and at times seemed to be stretching at its seams as it accommodated the Santinis’ daily needs.

Four-year-old Megan came running as soon as she saw Caprice. She practically tied her arms around Caprice’s knees, and Caprice burst into a laugh. “Hi there to you too, munchkin. How are you today?”

“My name is
not
munchkin,” her niece insisted in a back and forth they had almost every time Caprice saw her. “My name is Megan,” she said importantly.

Caprice let the bag of tomatoes and peppers drop to a green and tan plaid arm chair. Everything in Bella’s house was coordinated to the nth degree. Green and tan were the only colors in the living room, from the carpeting to the drapes to the furniture. Bella had gone with basic earth tones because Joe liked them. Caprice had her own thoughts about that because she knew her sister would have preferred flowers and a little more color. If Caprice could redesign the room . . . How many times had she thought about that? She’d move the sofa there, a light over here, get rid of the heavy drapes, add box shelves for the kids’ toys. But she wasn’t redesigning. Heaven forbid that Joe would let Bella do anything like that.

Kind thoughts
, she told herself.
Think kinder thoughts about Joe.
He loved Bella. That was the important thing. And he loved their kids, though he didn’t shoulder the burden of caring for them very often.

“Wanna play with my American Girl doll?” Megan asked.

Bella called from the kitchen, “In here. If you have those tomatoes, I’ll skin them and put them in the Crock-Pot. The sauce will be ready whenever Joe gets home. He’s still busy from tax season. I guess clients are amending their returns.”

Caprice bent down to Megan again. “Why don’t you dress Lanie in the very latest outfit you have for her. Then you can bring her in and show me.”

Megan thought about the idea, then agreed, “Okay.”

She scampered over to the sofa, where doll clothes were spread from one end to the other. Caprice knew Bella would be gathering all of them up before Joe came home. Everything in its place when the husband entered his domain.

Stop it
, Caprice told herself again. Joe was a perfectly nice guy. If you weren’t married to him.

Bella was removing a frying pan from a hook in the kitchen closet when Caprice set the grocery sack on her counter.

“Do you need me to do anything?” Caprice asked.

“Sure. You can start the onions and peppers in some olive oil while I skin the tomatoes. Add two cloves of garlic too.”

Bella already had a pot of water on the stove, simmering, to plop the tomatoes into. After she did that, she pulled a silicone bowl from a cupboard, scooped ice into it from the freezer, and set it in the sink.

As she added a little water, she asked, “Where did you get that outfit?”

Caprice’s clothes were an ongoing abomination to Bella. She hated vintage anything, let alone a tapestry fringed vest that could have been as old as she was.

“You know where I get most of my clothes, Secrets of the Past, downtown. Believe it or not, the T-shirt’s new. Lots of retro going on right now.”

When Bella didn’t respond to that, Caprice wondered why. Her sister usually took every chance to make a jab at Caprice’s penchant for Paul McCartney and anything about the Fab Four.

Her sister took a pair of tongs from a drawer. “How much do I owe you?”

“Seven bucks.”

When Bella gave her a look, Caprice shrugged. “On special today.”

Bella frowned, but again didn’t give her usual rejoinder.

Something was up. Caprice could feel it in her bones. Or maybe the telltale sign was the way Bella kept sliding her gaze away from Caprice’s. That usually meant she had something to hide.

But jumping into it feet first was never the way she operated with Bella. Nikki, yes. But with Bella, she had to be more subtle, even though Bella never was.

Knowing where her sister kept most things in her kitchen, Caprice slid a cutting board from a shelf in the closet, grabbed an onion from a basket on the counter and one of the peppers that had tumbled out of the bag when Bella upended it to reach the tomatoes.

After washing the pepper and peeling the onion, Caprice took a knife from the wooden block near the sink. That knife brought back pictures she didn’t want to remember.
It’s not a dagger
, she reminded herself. She was just going to chop some vegetables.

As she sliced the pepper in two and seeded it, she asked Bella, “When did you have your hair done last?”

“Why? Do I need a trim?”

Bella took everything personally. “No, you don’t need a trim. Your hair always looks perfect.” It was thick and curly, and who could tell when she
did
need a cut? “I wondered who your stylist is.”

“My stylist is Rhonda Fitzmore. Aren’t you happy with Peggy?”

Peggy Latimore did a fine job with Caprice’s long, straight hair—angling it around her face, fringing her bangs, making sure the back blunt cut was just right. “I’m good with Peggy. I just wondered if Rhonda ever talks about her boss?”

“You mean the queen of décolletage?”

Caprice had to laugh. “Yep, she’s the one.”

Bella’s lips finally turned up in a smile. “What do you want to know? Rhonda’s mostly discreet, but she does talk about Valerie when she’s not there. All the stylists do.”

“What do they say about her?”

“I think a lot of it stems from jealousy because Valerie sure knows how to turn heads.”

“Do they talk about her clothes or her dating habits?”

“Why all this interest in Valerie?”

Usually Caprice didn’t keep anything from Bella. But if word got out about Ted and Valerie, and the police heard about it, that could be bad news for Roz. So she simply said, “I’m interested, that’s all.”

Bella’s eyes narrowed. “Does this have something to do with Ted Winslow’s murder? Mom told me Roz is staying with you.”

“I can’t say anything else, Bee.” She lapsed into her childhood nickname for her sister, so Bella would know she was serious. “I’d really rather you not tell anyone that I was asking questions, okay? Or that Roz is staying with me.”

Bella nodded. “Okay.” After a pause, she filled Caprice in. “Valerie herself talks about who she dates. It’s no secret she’s always wanted to marry up.”

“Marry someone with money.”

“Exactly. In fact, Rhonda told me that Valerie let it slip to a client that the man she was seeing was married. Not only that, but she confided that he was going to leave his wife. Valerie’s boyfriend told her
she
knew the meaning of hot sex, where his wife didn’t.”

Caprice let out a low whistle. “That’s nasty.”

She sautéed the onion and pepper for a short while, then slid Bella’s hand grater from a drawer and shaved the garlic cloves over it into the mixture. She allowed it to cook for a half minute before she turned off the heat. “Do you want this in the slow cooker?”

“Yep, it’s ready and waiting.”

Bella had transferred the tomatoes from the hot water to the icy mixture in the sink. In no time she had them skinned, squeezed, and dumped into the slow cooker with the pepper, onion, and garlic. Taking a spice container from the cupboard, she shook some crushed red pepper into the mixture.

Then she said in a low voice, “Don’t you wonder sometimes if all a man wants is hot sex?”

Was that a rhetorical question? Caprice wondered. Or was she really supposed to answer it? “What makes you ask?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Bella was not an oh-nothing kind of woman.

“Bella?”

Bella turned to her, her eyes glistening, and announced, “I’m pregnant. Joe’s not going to like it one little bit.”

After her surprising announcement, Bella glanced into the living room and took two steps toward it. “I hope Megan didn’t hear,” she whispered, her hand over her heart.

Caprice could see into the living room, which was a good distance away. Megan sat in the middle of the sofa, looking as if she was struggling with the closures on her doll’s clothes. She didn’t look up and didn’t glance their way.

Caprice moved toward her sister and clasped her arm. “She didn’t hear.” Caprice lowered her voice though, just in case. “You haven’t told Joe?”

Now Bella almost appeared angry as she pulled away. “No, I haven’t told Joe. We’re living paycheck to paycheck. Every year when Mom and Dad give us money at Christmas, I insist we stow it away for a rainy day and we have that to fall back on. But just one crisis and it will be gone. I was going to find work again as soon as Megan goes to school in the fall. But now—”

When she stopped abruptly, Caprice realized Bella was almost in tears. “Maybe you’re wrong about how Joe will react.”

Shaking her head vehemently, Bella blurted out, “We’ve had lots of discussions about kids. I’ve always wanted more, but he always says we can’t afford them.”

A thought entered Caprice’s mind. After all, her sister was strong-willed.

But before she could even voice it, Bella’s brown eyes flashed, and she shook her head again. “No, I did
not
do this on purpose. Joe and I . . . You know Joe and I had to get married. Well, we didn’t
have
to, but Joe insisted. I’ve always wondered if I hadn’t gotten pregnant, if Joe would have married me.”

Bella had never expressed this fear before. Had it been eating at her all these years?

“Joe loves you.”

“Yes, I believe he does. But sometimes I think
he
thinks family life is a burden he’d like to escape. I never would have gone against him to get pregnant. It was an accident. Well, not exactly an accident. I was on an antibiotic and sometimes birth control isn’t as effective when you are. And one night Joe wanted to, well, you know—”

No, Caprice didn’t know. But she wasn’t going to go into that now. “Maybe you could find work until the baby’s born. With summer coming, I know Mom wouldn’t mind taking care of Megan and Timmy.”

Bella bit her lower lip. “I suppose that is one compromise I could suggest to Joe. But I’m just not ready to tell him yet. I have to prepare a little more. I have to come up with some other ideas. You know how I like to make costumes for kids. I sold a few the past couple of years. Maybe I could sell them online.”

“Maybe you could,” Caprice agreed. Bella had gone to a fashion-design school and received an associate degree. She’d always liked to sew. But on a weekend visit home, she’d met Joe, so she’d returned to Kismet to be with him and had taken secretarial positions ever since.

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone about this,” Bella implored.

“You’re not going to tell Mom or Nana?”

“No, no one. Not yet. Joe has to be the first one to know . . . I mean after you. I just . . . I just used the third pregnancy test this morning, and I had to tell somebody.”

Caprice supposed she was glad that she fell onto Bella’s “somebody’s” list. But she didn’t like the idea of keeping this secret. She didn’t like it at all. It was against her better judgment. Keeping this information inside wasn’t good for Bella, either. Yet she could see her sister wasn’t about to listen to reason, not now and maybe not tomorrow, either. Bella was like that. When she got something into her head, it stayed.

Throwing her arms around Bella, Caprice gave her a tight hug. Her sister leaned into her for a couple of seconds, and then she pulled away and squared her shoulders. “I have to get this sauce on. Talk to me about something that will get my mind off all this.”

Suddenly Megan came racing into the kitchen with her doll. “Lookie, Aunt Caprice. Isn’t she pretty?”

Studying the doll that Megan had dressed in slacks, a sweater, and a cute little hat, she answered, “Yes, she’s pretty. Almost as pretty as you.”

Megan giggled. “She’s gonna go shopping.”

“What’s she going to shop for?”

“Jewelry. I’ll get the jewelry Mommy gave me.” And Megan was off again as quickly as she’d appeared.

“I had an old purse, and I filled it with costume jewelry that I no longer wear. I swear she can play with that for hours.”

Although Caprice didn’t know if she wanted to talk about it, she knew there was one subject that would take Bella’s mind off her newly discovered pregnancy. At least she hoped it would. “I’m going on a date next Saturday.”

Bella practically squealed. “Who is it?”

She knew this was the part that Bella would probably like. “He’s a doctor. He works at the urgent care center.”

Bella’s eyes grew wide. “Dr. Randolph?”

“How did you—?”

“He’s the only single doc who works there. He might be the only single doc in town, for all I know. And he asked you out?”

That made Caprice feel really good. There was a bit of annoyance in her voice when she asked, “Is there a reason he shouldn’t have?”

Bella looked chagrined for a few moments. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it sound—” She lifted her hands. “You know. I’ve heard talk about him at Curls R Us, and when I went to a PTO meeting a couple of weeks ago. There’s a buzz about him. Actually I heard he never dates.”

“He said he hasn’t since he came here.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I took Roz there. Then I ran into him at Grocery Fresh, and he asked me to play miniature golf.”

“That’s terrific! Don’t treat him like you’ve treated everyone else.”

Leave it to Bella to put a damper on things. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. You don’t give men who are interested in you a second chance. You’ve got to get over Craig dumping you by e-mail. And I know Travis did a number on you. He was such a jerk for not realizing he still had feelings for his ex-wife. Men are so clueless.”

Maybe Joe was clueless, but Caprice didn’t lump all men into that category. She liked men. She liked dating. She just had trouble trusting the men she dated.

“There’s always an impediment,” Caprice almost said to herself, as she thought about Seth’s profession, the interruptions he’d cited.

“For once, don’t think about the future, just think about the time you’re with a man. You’re at a great place in your life, and it’s not going to come around again. Enjoy yourself and just let things happen.”

Even though Bella was younger, in some ways she sounded world-weary. Did she regret marrying Joe in her early twenties? Had she settled into having a family too quickly? Had she really known the man Joe was when she married him?

“Don’t tell anyone,” Caprice said. “I don’t want anyone to know about the date until after it’s over. If it doesn’t go well, I’m not going to breathe a word.”

Bella looked dubious.

“I mean it, Bella. I’m keeping a secret for you. You keep this one for me.”

 

 

When Caprice stopped at the security gate at the storage-locker center after her visit with Bella and entered her pass code, the gate slid open. After driving down one row, she made a left, drove up that row and down another. She’d rented two storage compartments, both the largest ones the company had to offer. If she wasn’t careful, she’d soon need a third. She didn’t like to pack them to the ceiling like some renters. That would make shifting out furniture, carpets, and artwork much more difficult. When she first entered the home-staging business, her parents had let her use one of their garages. But she hadn’t wanted them to leave one of their cars out in the weather for long. Within a few months, she’d rented a storage compartment, and then, soon after, another.

After she parked to the side of the asphalt so another car could pass if it had to, she dug into her purse for her key ring. Finding it, she turned it until she grasped the small key for the padlock. In a matter of seconds, she unlocked the first storage compartment.

Grasping the handle on the door, she began to lift it. The door rumbled, stuck for an instant, then raised the rest of the way. Her gaze took a quick inventory of everything inside.

Her compartments were ten feet deep, fifteen feet wide. They were stacked high, but not so high that she couldn’t reach everything. Rolled rugs stood in the corners, and labeled boxes lined the edges of the compartment. She kept a path open to walk through. Now she headed to the back, searching for the items she wanted to use for Marge and Grover Gentry’s house. She had a meeting with them tomorrow morning to go over the proposal. She could begin staging on Monday. She’d alerted Bob Preston, whose painting crews she often used and a former classmate of Bella’s, that she might need him on short notice.

As she was reading a list of items in one of the boxes, she heard a car engine outside. She didn’t know why, but the sound scared her a little. This place was usually deserted. She wasn’t normally skittish, and being alone here usually didn’t bother her. But, of course, she’d left her pepper-spray gun in the car.

It was probably Ted’s murder that had her spooked. If someone could break into his house and murder him, no place was safe.

Throwing off a fear she wanted no part of, she stepped outside again, just as the car pulled to a stop at her compartment.

She recognized that sedan. It was one of those sporty luxury cars where you talk to the console or something, and it either talked back or called someone on your list. The vehicle braked and the engine shut down. Her brother opened the driver’s-side door. He had her personal code to get into the storage-locker center because he’d often helped her lug furniture in and out. Vince worked out, and his muscles had been a godsend. Today he was still dressed in a white shirt with a classy tie and suit trousers.

“What are you doing here?”

“I called Bella about Mom’s birthday. She said you were headed over here. We have to pick a time to get together to talk about what we’re going to do. My schedule is probably the least flexible, and I was wondering what you were thinking of.”

Something about Vince’s demeanor told her that wasn’t all he had on his mind. “If we have the party at one of our places, we’ll only need a few days to pull it together. After all, this is what I do,” she said with a sly smile. “But you could have called my cell.”

He was silent a moment. “Yes, I could have, but there’s something more serious I thought we should talk about face-to-face.”

“At my storage compartment?” Her question held curiosity he could obviously hear.

“Roz is at your house.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “Is this something she shouldn’t hear?”

Vince swiped his dark brown hair over his brow and scowled at her. “How did you get yourself mixed up in this?”

“
This
meaning a friendship with Roz?”

“Of course not. How did you get yourself involved in a murder investigation? You should never have gone down to the police station with her. Jones didn’t ask you to come.”

Be calm,
she told herself.
Stay perfectly calm.
“You should have seen Roz after the murder. She could hardly put two words together. I didn’t want that to happen again.”

“You’re not her protector.”

“Someone has to be. I don’t know if Grant wants to be. I tried to call you.”

“I was in court. There was nothing I could do about that. There’s not much I can do now . . . or Grant, either, for that matter. She needs a criminal attorney, a defense attorney.”

“We’re hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

“Hope won’t go very far if the district attorney brings charges against her,” Vince reminded her with a bit of sarcasm.

“Do you know something I don’t?”

“No. I know Grant talked to a contact in the D.A.’s office. That’s about it. But they’re not going to tip their hand in this. I just came here to talk some sense into you. Stay away from this. Stay far away from it.”

“I found the body. I saw what someone did to Ted. No, he wasn’t my favorite person, but nobody should die like that.”

Although Vince’s brows still furrowed, his expression softened somewhat. “You care too much.” That was a criticism, but the way her brother’s voice gentled, it didn’t sting like it might have.

“Vince, isn’t that the Italian way?”

He gave her a cockeyed smile. “I won’t even go there. Just promise me you’ll call me if you get called in for questioning.”

“Grant is handling it.”

“No. Roz is his client. You’re not. I doubt if the cops will even look your way. But I’m serious. Don’t you say anything to them unless you have me with you.”

“I’m sure it won’t come to that.” She wasn’t about to tell Vince she was going to Curls R Us and the pharmaceutical company to check around. He wouldn’t like that idea one little bit. But a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

“Did you pick up the wine yet for Sunday?” she teased.

“One of these times I’m going to bring a bottle of the cheapest Chianti, then we’ll see how much everybody appreciates me.”

She laughed. Her brother could be a bear sometimes and a real pain at others. Yet he could be charming too, and they loved him. “Seriously, what did you find for Sunday?”

“I’m going to drive up to Adam’s County Winery on Saturday. I’ll find something good.”

Adams County Winery, north of Gettysburg, had a variety of wines to choose from, and she knew Vince would find something terrific. Since this Sunday was Mother’s Day, it was a little more special than most. Her mom and Nana still insisted on cooking, but the kids had a tradition too, one they’d started when they’d gotten their first cameras. Every year she, Nikki, Vince, and Bella pooled photographs they’d taken over the year and created albums for their mom and Nana. They rotated the responsibility. This year Nikki was doing their mom’s, and Vince was supposed to put together Nana’s.