White Colander Crime (15 page)

“Why did she tell you that? What is this?” he asked suddenly, his voice underlain by a tension and anger that was a warning. He stared at her, his tone changing to puzzlement rather than anger as he asked, “What do you want? What are you looking for?”

“I
am
just trying to find out about Shelby Fretter, everything about her, even if it's something you said online or something someone else said.” She had flash of insight as to what would appeal to someone like Brennan, and leaned over, lowering her voice to a confidential murmur. “I want the dirt, the inside scoop. Everyone is so
disgustingly
positive when someone is killed. You only hear about the good side of them. I want everything else.”

Glenn calmed. His eyes glistened with interest. “I could tell you things,” he said, his words slurring softly. He knocked back the rest of his drink and the remainder of his wine, then held up his hand to the waiter to signal for another. “Shelby Fretter was a gold digger, just like the others. They only ever get with a guy for free meals, or they ask you for money for plastic surgery, then they dump your ass and move on. I don't know what the hell she saw in that Cody kid, but it must have just been sex, 'cause she liked a guy with money and she didn't care where the money came from.”

Stunned, Jaymie only managed to murmur, “Oh?” It seemed she had blown up the dam that had been holding back his venom.

“She
pretended
to be high-class, but I heard she was dating some biker guy who made his money from drugs and a protection racket.”

“Really?”

“She was none too particular. Heard she was dating around a
lot
.”

His tone was vicious, and she felt queasy. “But you had stopped dating her before she died, right?”

“Oh, sure!” he said, waving one hand and almost knocking over his wine glass.

“Have the police talked to you yet?”

“Why would they?”

“They want to talk to anyone who knew Shelby. Maybe they haven't gotten to you yet. This just happened last Friday evening, after all. Were you at the Dickens Days event?”

“Crap, no! Christmas is overrated.”

“Were you on a date maybe?”

He squinted across the table. “What?”

“Last Friday night. Were you out on a date?”

He shook his head, a little confused looking. “Can't remember.”

“Glenn, that was only four days ago.”

“Maybe I was out of town . . . yeah, out of town, working.”

“Working? But you'd left your job.”

He shrugged and stood as the waiter approached with another rye and coke. “I gotta go.”

“Glenn, wait, you can't leave yet,” she said, shaking her head to the waiter, who turned and took the drink away. “You have to pay for your meal.”

“Oh, yeah.” He summoned the hapless waiter who returned, this time with the tableside debit-credit machine.

It was a confusing few minutes. While Glenn tried to remember his credit-card PIN number, Jaymie jumped up and found the maître d', taking him aside. “Between the rye and the wine, Mr. Brennan has had way too much liquor. I don't want him driving away from here.”

The man looked alarmed, his thick brows raised. “But the wine was for you, was it not? Mr. Brennan was drinking rye.”

She shook her head. “I didn't drink anything. I just met the man tonight. Did he arrive in his own car?”

“I
think
he drove here.” He wrung his hands, then tugged at his suit jacket sleeves. “I must do something. We can't risk trouble.”

“I'm sure you'll figure it out,” Jaymie said.

The maître d' bustled off, had a whispered conference with another very well dressed gentleman, then came back to the table just as Jaymie was sitting back down and Glenn was returning his credit card to his wallet and sliding it into his jacket pocket.

“Mr. Brennan, as a courtesy of the restaurant we would like to offer you a taxi cab ride home, or to the destination of your choice.”

Glenn's alcoholic funk had worsened. He protested that he was perfectly fine to drive, but he wasn't. He searched his pockets for his keys, then stared at them in mystification when he dug them out. Between them, the manager and maître d' got his satin-lined cashmere trench coat from a hanger in the cloakroom, helped him into it, hustled him out to a waiting taxi and sent him home to his condo in Wolverhampton, the address obtained from his driver's license.

Jaymie paid her portion of the bill, tipped generously, and gathered her things. But before she left, she spoke to the maître d' again. “Has Glenn Brennan been to this restaurant before?”

“Oh yes, he's a regular.”

“Have you had this trouble with him before?”

He appeared hesitant, but finally said, “We usually establish a limit with him. The wine tonight fooled us.”

“Do you know if he was here last Friday evening?” He gazed at her blankly, and she continued, “He's, uh, dating a friend, and she's just wondering where he was. He didn't show up for their date.”

“I don't believe he was here.”

“Okay. Thanks so much!” She headed outside in a thoughtful frame of mind. Where was Glenn Brennan at the time of the murder? How could she find out?

She sat in her van and checked her phone. There was a text from Cynthia. Tuesday was pool tournament night at the bar, and the biker in question, Clutch Roth, always participated. Jaymie could probably catch him, Johnny had told Cynthia. Jaymie was faintly uneasy about it, but she had sworn to investigate. Johnny would be there at any rate, in case she ran into trouble.

She drove directly there instead of going home first. The bar—called Shooters, a reference to both drinking and pool playing, Jaymie assumed—was a low-slung joint on the highway about halfway between Queensville and Wolverhampton. Jaymie pulled into the parking lot in front. During the day the place was nondescript brown shingles and dark windows, but at night it blazed with a shooting star neon light over the false front. The doors were lined in blinking red and green holiday lights, and tinsel garland striped the posts that held up the overhang. A festive
OPEN
sign blinked, as well as neon ads for beer and liquor. Jaymie had been there once or twice with Bernie and other friends when they wanted to play pool. It wasn't her kind of scene, but it certainly wasn't dangerous, even if it did have a bit of a reputation for being a biker bar.

She pushed through the door and let her eyes adjust to the darkness punctuated by a blaze of neon everywhere: lights over the long wooden bar, glowing liquor ads and a retro jukebox in the corner howling out Def Leppard over the rumble of chatter and laughter. She spotted Johnny with a bar rag slung over his shoulder. He was carrying a bus tray, clearing a table in the corner of foam-flecked glasses and empty bottles. She slipped through the crowd and approached him. “Hey, Johnny,” she said, tugging at his rolled-up jean sleeve.

“Hey, Jaymie,” he said, smiling but seeming uneasy.

Johnny was a big fellow, long limbed, shambling, always looking like he hadn't grown into his height yet, even though he was in his late thirties. He had a rough life growing up, Valetta, who babysat him as a kid, had told her, but Jaymie knew he was doing his best to stay on the straight and narrow now after a stint in prison. He was keeping up with meetings, going now with Cynthia Turbridge, and though a bar might seem like a rotten job for a recovering alcoholic, he appeared to be making a go of it.

“Do you have a minute to talk?”

He glanced around. All the tables were clear. “I'll dump this, check with the bartender, and we can sit here for a minute. Can I bring you something?”

“Just ice water with lemon, if you could?”

“Sure.” He swiped his rag around on the table, hoisted the bus tray on his shoulder and headed behind the bar.

She slid into a banquette seat with her back to the wall and examined the room, wondering if her quarry was already there. Shooters was long and low-ceilinged, with a bar along one side near the front, banquette seating along the other side, tables for those who wanted to sit and a big square area at the back with six game tables: four for regular pool and two snooker tables. Some folks gathered, but they were mostly chatting and casually knocking a few balls around, no actual games yet.

Johnny returned, set the ice water on a coaster in front of her and sat down, keeping his eye on the barroom. He was busboy, bar back—responsible for refilling ice and fetching items from the storeroom for the bartender—and bouncer.

“Is he here yet?” Jaymie asked.

“Not yet.” He checked his watch. “It's just seven thirty. He's usually here about now.” He glanced over at her. “This isn't going to get him in trouble, is it?”

“No, not at all. He's just been mentioned as going out with Shelby Fretter and I'm wondering if he knows anything that could give a hint as to who killed her.”

“Going out with her? I don't think so. He's got an old lady, you know,” he said. “Does this mean that you don't think that Cody joker is the guy?”

She examined Johnny's rugged face, twisted in a skeptical expression. “Have you met Cody?”

“Sure. He was in here a few times.”

“What's he like? I only know him through Nan.”

Johnny sighed, leaned back and crossed his feet at the ankles, sticking his long legs out in front of him, his size-thirteen boots like small rafts. “He's like the other college kids who come in here slumming, trying to pick up the hot biker chicks, biting off way more than they can chew. He got in a fight one night and he's been banned ever since. The owner doesn't take that crap from anyone.”

Uneasily, Jaymie thought that was just the kind of hothead who would fly off the handle and beat a girl who sassed him.

“That's Clutch there,” he said, nodding toward a tall skinny guy with graying hair pulled back in a ponytail and ample gray stubble on his chin. The biker ambled in, followed by a careworn-looking woman in jeans, a tee and a leather bomber-style jacket that did not look warm enough for a motorcycle ride in subzero temperatures. She shivered. Clutch had on jeans and black leather boots, and over it all he wore a caped duster. The woman slipped behind the bar where a pot of coffee was at the ready and poured herself a mug, but the man took a spot at the bar, one foot up on the railing. “He looks like one tough dude, and he is. But I've never seen him disrespect a lady.”

Jaymie nodded. Johnny lived by the same code, she knew, and that was his attraction for someone like Cynthia Turbridge. Another guy might seem smoother, more sophisticated, more elegant, but when it came down to brass tacks it was how a man treated a woman that was important. That was what told you everything you needed to know about him, in some respects, anyway.

Jaymie wondered how she should approach him. It might be dicey asking him if he dated Shelby when he had his lady with him. She asked Johnny his opinion.

He stood and whipped the bar cloth over his shoulder. “Let me send him over. I'd be straight with him, if I were you. He doesn't like it when folks lie to him. It makes him mad.”

Jaymie felt a shiver down her back, and decided to take his advice. “Thanks, Johnny.”

She watched while Johnny spoke to the guy, who turned and assessed Jaymie with a piercing gaze. He nodded, picked up his longneck beer and strolled over, sitting down in front of her.

“Jaymie Leighton?” He stuck his big hand out across the table. “I'm Clutch. You want to talk to me about my acquaintance with Shelby Fretter.”

She shook, examining his pale crystal-blue eyes, the skin around them seamed by years of life and a squinted view of the road through a helmet visor. She felt an odd surge of amity. There was something about this guy that she liked, and she wasn't sure what it was. “I do. How did you know her?”

“She was a friend,” he said shortly.

“I'm sorry,” she said gently. “It was awful, how she died. I'm the one who found her. I wish I could have done more than just call 911.”

“You did what you could,” he said.

“They have a fellow in jail right now charged with her murder, did you know that?”

He nodded, watching her and frowning. “You think they got the wrong guy?”

“I don't know, but I'd like to make sure. I don't want the wrong guy locked up and the right guy—or girl—walking free.”

“How old are you?”

Jaymie startled, said, “I'm thirty-two.”

He nodded. “Just a little older than Natalie.”

“Who is Natalie?” Jaymie asked. The name was familiar. Could it be—?

“That's my daughter. Shelby Fretter was trying to help me find her. She's been missing for six weeks.”

Fifteen

T
HERE WAS A
moment of stunned silence on Jaymie's part. Then she asked, “What happened? And what was Shelby's part in it?”

He hunkered forward, his elbows on the table, and stared into Jaymie's eyes. “You working for that newspaper lady?”

She hesitated and examined him, trying to decide if it was in her best interest to admit that she was. Then she remembered Johnny's advice to be honest. “Kind of, but kind of not. I'm a columnist for the
Howler
, a food columnist. Vintage Eats.”

He quirked a smile. “Hey, my lady reads that. Reminds her of the old days, she says.”

Jaymie nodded. “Nan is a good woman. She, of course, is convinced her son didn't kill Shelby, and wants someone other than the police looking into it. I've been successful in the past just poking around, looking into things. I've given myself three days to decide if I want to pursue it or not.”

He nodded. “So if I tell you something and ask you not to spread it around, you'll keep your mouth shut?”

“Of course! Or at least . . .” She hesitated, picking at a scratch on the wood table as she tried to frame what she needed to say. “Clutch, I don't care about anything but what pertains to this case. But if there is something that I think the police need to know about, I'll tell them. I have a friend on the Queensville force and Chief Ledbetter is kind of a friend, too.”

He nodded, and his gaze slipped around the room. Someone waved to him from the pool table in the back and he returned the wave. “They're waiting on me. Hold that thought a sec. I want to tell them to get on with it.” He stood, straightening to his full height, and ambled to the back, where he had a brief conversation with a potbellied fellow in jeans, who was chalking his cue stick.

Jaymie glanced around. Clutch's lady friend had donned a bar apron and was serving patrons, hoisting a large tray full of beer glasses and empties. She threaded through tables easily, as more folks entered and took seats or strode to the pool tables. The biker returned and straddled a chair, leaning his arms on the back of it.

“I don't want anyone railroaded. If that stupid-ass kid didn't kill Shelby, then he ought to be freed. Anyway, I'm going to tell you about my daughter.” His voice broke, and he glanced around as he cleared his throat and swallowed. “Natalie is a good girl. She's smart as a whip, but she sure does like money. So anyway, she was working at the bank in Wolverhampton but quit when some other job came up, something that would let her travel, she said, and make a lot of dough.”

“Sounds ideal,” Jaymie said, privately thinking it sounded far
too
ideal.

“Sure, but she wouldn't tell me exactly what it was. I was worried and told her to be careful, but she just laughed.” He cleared his throat again. “She said, ‘Dad, I know what I'm doing! You know I'm no idiot.' And that's true, God love her. She's a smart cookie. But man, she has the worst taste in guys! I didn't like the fellows she was dating, and I didn't like the guy who hired her, neither. He's a pissant little piece of crap.” He shook his head. “Natalie is smart, but she has blinders when it came to men. Don't get why. She keeps getting her heart broke, but she won't smarten up.”

Jaymie digested what he said, but still didn't get what it had to do with anything. “So where does Shelby come in?”

His mouth twitched. “I know her mom real good. Lori's a good friend of my lady. Natalie disappeared six weeks ago. Just poof, gone. She called me and said she was going out of the country for three weeks for her new job. I told her to be careful and let me know when she got back. She's traveled alone before, loves the Far East. Spent a year in Japan in her twenties teaching English and traveled some after that, so she knows her way around. She told me she was going to South Korea to work, and then for a little vacation.”

“And?”

“I didn't think nothing of it. She's a grown-up, can take care of herself. But three weeks later when I didn't hear from her, I went to her place and banged on the door. No answer. Her car was in the parking lot out back. I texted her, called her, nothing. So I called her friends—the ones I know, anyway—and nothing. They hadn't heard from her and she hadn't posted online. She wasn't much into that online stuff anyway, and I'm not on there neither. Too much crap, you ask me. But I did find out she'd told them the same thing, that she was going to Korea, but she told them other stuff she didn't tell me. She said that with this new job she got to travel for free and all she had to do was appear at promotional events, that kind of thing. Sort of like modeling, she said.”

The posters about Natalie were up all over town, including in the Emporium, but it hadn't said anything about her disappearing in Korea, or on her way to Korea. There had to be more. “What do the police say? Have you tried your congressman, or the state department?”

“Hold on a sec,” he said, putting up one big hand and rolling his shoulders, anxiety etched on his long face. He scruffed the bristle along his jaw. “I went to the cops. At first they didn't do anything. She's a grown woman, they said, all that crap. So I broke into her place and looked around. When I proved to the cops that she told everyone she was going on a trip, but she never left home and didn't even take her purse or passport or credit or ID,
nothing
, they finally took it serious.”

That was bad; no woman would go on a trip—or anywhere—without her purse. Jaymie felt a thread of anxiety start in the pit of her stomach for Clutch and his missing daughter. “So how was Shelby helping you?”

“Lori told me Shelby worked for the fellow that was Natalie's new boss.”

Jaymie sat back. “Do you mean Delaney Meadows?”

He nodded. “That's him.”

“Did Shelby and Natalie know each other, then?”

“Yeah, like I said, Lori is my old lady's friend, but the kids didn't know each other before. I guess they met when Natalie came in for the interview for the modeling job, and they talked when she came back for other appointments. Natalie even went out with Shelby's brother a couple of times.”

“Have you tried talking to Meadows?”

“Sure have. I called and even showed up at the office, but all he says is that Natalie never left America, wasn't on the flight she was supposed to be taking, and that he doesn't know anything else. Second time I showed up he called the cops. I don't want no hassle with the police, not when I need them to help me find Natalie. So I can't contact him. He's got an order of protection out against me. Says I threatened him.”

“Did you?”

He shifted and squinted. “I may have,” he said evasively. “I was severely irked. But the jerk won't tell me where Natalie was going or why, or what she was doing working for him. I talked to Shelby. She told me there's something weird going on, and she'd try to help me out.”

“Have you talked to the police since Shelby was killed?”

He sighed, shook his head and looked off toward the front door, his face bathed in the blinking light from the Coors Light sign. “What if I got that poor girl killed?”

“You mean, what if Shelby was murdered because she was looking into what happened to Natalie?”

He nodded, his expression grim.

“Clutch, even if that is what happened—and I'm not saying I even think that's likely—you didn't coerce her into looking into it. It's probably not even connected, but you should talk to the police about it.”

“I'll do that, and I'll call Lori, too, see if I can do anything for her.”

“I'm going to be talking to her boss, and I'll try to find out more about Natalie's disappearance.”

His face cracked, his expression like the tragedy mask, his mouth twisted into a grimace as he tried to keep his emotions in check. “I know the truth, Jaymie. I
know
she's dead. There's no way on earth she wouldn't have contacted me if she's still alive. But I can't let it go, can't rest, don't sleep. She's my baby girl and I need to know what happened.” He squinted and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you find out anything, I'll be beholden to you for the rest of my days. I won't rest until I know the truth and bring her home, wherever she is.”

His lady friend seemed to feel his emotion and approached, putting one hand on his shoulder, a question in her eyes. He looked up at her, covered her hand with his own and introduced them. “This is my backwarmer,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Gabby, this is Jaymie Leighton. Gabby's my old lady, but not Natalie's mom.
She's
been gone for years.” He told her what Jaymie was going to do. Gabby nodded, offered a fleeting smile then went back to work.

Jaymie stood. “I just know I'm going to have more questions for you, but my mind is reeling and I can't think of anything.” She felt the weight of his loss strongly, and knew she had just added another investigation on top of Shelby's murder. His pain was raw. If she could help, she must. “Can I call you?”

“Sure can,” he said. He took out a card and scrawled a number on the back. “I'd appreciate it.”

“I haven't ruled out that Cody Wainwright did kill Shelby Fretter,” she said, but explained her doubts. “I'm not a trained investigator, though; I just snoop around and follow my gut. I may not find out a single thing about Natalie.”

“I know. Don't sweat it.”

It was nine by the time she got home. Hoppy dashed out the back door, Denver ambled, and Jaymie sat down at the kitchen table after putting the kettle on. She desperately needed a cup of tea. The light was blinking on the phone, so she grabbed it and hit the message button.

“Hi,” a young woman said. “My name is Lynnsey Bloombury, Mabel is my mom? I guess you want to know something about Shelby?” Everything she said had a question mark at the end of it. “So I have to go to the Queensville Inn tomorrow morning, right? Would you meet me there for a coffee? About ten?” There was a pause. “Okay, that's it.”

Jaymie took her cup of tea up to her tiny office, just a cubbyhole on the second floor, and sat at her desk, checking her email. One long one came in from Becca with details of everything from her upcoming wedding: the bridesmaid dresses Jaymie, Valetta and Dee would wear; the cottage shop renovation; their grandmother's health and their parents' planned schedule. Hoppy barked in the backyard, so Jaymie scooted downstairs, let him in, followed by Denver, who shivered and huddled into his basket by the stove. The night had descended into a bitter cold.

Jaymie trotted back upstairs. Valetta sent an email—unusual, since she preferred the phone—but this one contained only photos she had taken of the two of them working at the Emporium in their gaudy Christmas sweaters on Christmas-sweater day, an annual tradition for them on December first.

Then there was one from Nan. Jaymie had learned a lot about Nan over the last five months. She was the kind of woman whose brain never truly stopped functioning, even when asleep, and she was capable of holding multiple conversations at once even while she was typing something. She was so type A, her husband, a mild-mannered newsman with a soft voice and strong constitution, had been known to go away on “fishing weekends,” though he never did more in the boat than drift lazily on the river and read Dick Francis and Harlan Coben novels while smoking cigars.

Her email was very much in her frenetic voice: fast, full-on, faintly angry, impatient. She attached several pieces from the newspaper about the Fretter/Wozny family. Jaymie saved them to her desktop and a flash drive to read later. It seemed that the newspaper had covered a lot of the family's legal woes, from a drug bust and break-in arrest of Travis Fretter—was that where he had met and started dating Mikayla Jones, the girl from the jail, Jaymie wondered?—a DUI traffic stop for Lori Wozny, to a charge against Shelby for threatening, most recently, a reporter for the
Howler
. They seemed to have a bitter enmity, the Fretter/Wozny family and the newspaper. It was no wonder Nan had been warning her son about going out with Shelby, even if it was none of her business who her adult son dated.