Death of a Garage Sale Newbie (8 page)

With the revolver snug in the box, Arleta turned off the light and felt her way to the bed. She lay on top of the bedspread, closed her eyes, and pretended to sleep just like she would if an intruder showed up.

Even in the brief hours when she did sleep at night, it was a light sleep. She heard every noise, every creak of the old house. Each passing year without David, the noises got louder and more frequent.

Her arm fell across the other side of the bed. David’s side. For a brief moment, she imagined herself as hollow with the wind blowing right through. Her heart ached. David had been her life. David and his work. They hadn’t had any children. That hadn’t bothered her when David was alive, but now she was alone. Arleta squeezed her eyes shut, taking deep breaths.

I am not a quitter. I’ve got plenty of life left in these old bones, and I intend to live it.

Arleta took one last deep breath and steeled herself for the practice drill. She rehearsed the steps in her mind. Reach for Annie, grab flashlight and speed loader, crawl to the closet, drop loader into gun…and wait. Wait.

The air in the police records room smelled of sweat and old paper. For the sixth time, Tammy shuffled through the file drawers thinking, hoping, that the report on Mary Margret Parker had been misfiled. Since catching Vicher in a lie, she’d gone digging for the report she did the night she interviewed Mary Margret’s friends. She could find no record of the report on the computer or in hard copy. These files in the basement storage room were the inactive files.

Her throat went dry. The steel of the file cabinet was colder than usual against her hands.

“Looking for something, Welstad?” Tammy jumped. Captain Stenengarter suddenly materialized at the door. The guy was quiet.

“I um—I um was just looking for an old stolen vehicle report.” She straightened her spine and pulled a random file out of the cabinet and waved it. “And I found it.”

Stenengarter took three steps into the room. His soft-soled shoes were silent on the concrete. “Must have been misfiled, huh?” He sauntered toward her and stood closer than what she would have considered to be polite social distance. “’Cause you were looking in the homicide-suicide cabinet.”

Somewhere in the huge records room a fan whirred and a lightbulb sputtered. The reflections off of Stenengarter’s rimless glasses gave the effect of a veil covering his eyes. The muscle in his left cheek twitched.

“Yes, that’s it.” She swallowed trying to produce some moisture in her mouth. “It must have been in the wrong cabinet.”

The captain stared at her way beyond the etiquette time limit. Tammy’s heart pounded.

“Well—” his Adam’s apple moved up and down on his skinny neck—“if it’s an old file, we shouldn’t be bothering with it. We have enough active files to deal with; we have to let those old cases go, don’t we, Welstad?”

She forced out a, “Yes, sir.”

“So why don’t you put that file back and go do your job.”

Tammy slowly turned away from the captain, clicked open the file cabinet, and slid the file back in place. The press of Stenengarter’s gaze was almost palpable on her neck and back.

“Do you like working property crimes?” He pulled the keys out of his pocket, twirling them, making tinkling metal noises.

“Yes, I do. I like the variety. I like the brain work involved.”

“Good, I would hate to see you busted back down to patrol.” Without another word, he walked out of the room.

Tammy pushed the drawer shut and stared up at the sputtering light.
Oh, God, I need this job.
She closed her eyes. She’d worked hard to get promoted to property crimes. But even as she thought about being demoted or fired, she knew what she had to do.

Do the right thing, and God will take care of the rest, her father had always said.

Somebody, probably Stenengarter, was making the Parker case disappear. She needed one more confirmation. As she stood alone in the records room, she decided then she would wait until she was off shift and check to see if there was anything left of the Parker case in the evidence storage room. Stenengarter couldn’t get on her case for that. She would be doing it on her time, not the department’s. Even if the case was closed, anything gathered from it should have been in storage for at least a year.

At 8 a.m. when her shift ended, Tammy checked her cell phone to make sure she hadn’t missed any calls from Trevor or her mom. She stood in the long hallway of the justice building holding her breath while she clicked buttons until the words
no messages
came up on the tiny screen.

So far, so good. Trevor had stayed close to home since his jailhouse experience. There had been only one small disaster. He had stolen and taken apart one of the neighbor kid’s robot cats without asking.

On her way to evidence, she darted down the hallway passing Deputy Coroner Bradley Deaver, who held a sandwich in his hand. “Where ya headed in such an all-fired hurry?”

Maybe it was just the intense lighting in the hallway, but Deaver was looking more like a turtle than usual. Tammy couldn’t decide what gave him his reptilelike quality—the large flat jowls, the high forehead, or the beady eyes that were more pupil than iris. She kept waiting for his tongue to flick out of his mouth. “I’m just taking care of some stuff.”

He glanced at the doorway that led downstairs. “You going down to evidence?”

What a busybody. “Why does it matter where I’m going?”

Deaver moved toward her. “Aren’t you off shift?”

“Don’t you have a book to read about Waco or something?”

The remark must have hurt his feelings. His forehead wrinkled and his lips bundled up into a pout. He crossed his arms and stared at her for a long time. “We’re the two people in this department who don’t fit in. You know that don’t you, Welstad? We’re the outsiders.”

What an odd thing to say. Tammy shook her head.

“So you are headed to evidence to check on the Parker case?” His tone was not accusatory.

Deaver’s cryptic remark suddenly made sense. For whatever reason, Stenengarter wanted the Parker case to vaporize. He had used Vicher to see to it that that happened. Since she had asked to interview the members of the archery range, the captain had shown up four times on her shift, something he had never done before. And he had followed her into the records room making veiled threats about demotion.

Stenengarter might have other lackeys besides Vicher, but one thing was for sure. Deaver wasn’t one of them. Tammy’s irritation melted. If there was one safe person to talk to about this, it was Deaver. He was the most disenfranchised, unconnected person in the department.

“I just think more effort should have been put into it. I interviewed her friends. Something was up. All the paperwork on the case has disappeared.” She realized now how isolated she had felt since she’d first had an inkling that the department was not on the up-and-up. “I’m not trying to be an outsider, Deaver.”

He tore off a corner of his sandwich and shoved it in his mouth. “It’s not something you choose. Believe me.” A tiny bulb of mayonnaise clung to the corner of his mouth.

“I am headed down to evidence.”

“You won’t find anything.” He wiped the mayo off his face with his knuckles.

“How do you know?”

“You were right. This thing felt funny from the beginning.” Deaver rubbed his hands together to get the crumbs off. “Aside from the odd female lawyer or clerk who needs to straighten her panty hose, you are the only person in the women’s locker room. The men’s locker room, however, is just filled with outright gossip and mumbling. Being invisible has its advantages. I hear everything. I already checked the evidence room. Anything that was collected has been expedited through the system, and it has turned to dust.”

The news caused the tension to return to Tammy’s shoulder blades. That meant the phone message tape and the arrow were gone. What kind of corruption was she facing and why? “Bradley, do you know what this means?”

He shook his head.

“I hate to admit it, but I think we have a genuine conspiracy on our hands.” How many people it involved beyond Vicher and Stenengarter, she couldn’t begin to guess.

Deaver grinned. “So what’s our first step?”

“You keep your ear close to the gossip. Be careful. Neither of us needs to lose our jobs. On the outside chance that I am wrong about this, I don’t want to point fingers until I am sure.”

A uniformed officer sauntered down the hallway and passed them. Tammy lowered her voice and leaned a little closer to Deaver. “And I need to get in touch with the Parker woman’s friends. I made a terrible mistake telling them the case was closed.”

Kindra clutched an autobiography
of Einstein and leaned close to Ginger. “Is that librarian giving us the hairy eyeball, or what?”

Ginger glanced up from the newspaper she had been flipping through and studied the tall rows of books. “I don’t see any librarian, and I don’t know what the hairy eyeball is.”

The last two days had been frustrating. They’d gone to the third address on Mary Margret’s list, only to find that the people there had had a moving sale. The house was empty with a For Sale sign on the lawn. They had three items left and only one address they hadn’t visited: 112 Fremont.

On top of everything, she and Earl seemed to be drifting even further apart. They weren’t fighting. They just weren’t talking. He was spending more and more time in his workshop. When he wasn’t working on an invention, he was reading the self-help books their son Robert gave him.

One night after Earl had gone out to the shop, she had glanced through the stack of books. Most of them were about marriage, and one of them said that women were from another planet. She knew what that book was really about. If Earl thought their marriage was in trouble, why wasn’t he talking to her about it?

Ginger exhaled and closed the newspaper. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything in here about the lawyer in that big house.”

Suzanne pulled another local newspaper off the rack. “I know I saw an article about him. It was just a little bit ago. They had a photo of him standing in front of his mansion. I remember the yellow roses in the background.”

Kindra placed her thick book on the table, stepping forward and back so she could survey several bookshelves. “I’m sure she’s been following me around the library.”

Suzanne flipped a page of her newspaper, sucking on the insides of her cheeks like she always did when she was concentrating. “Maybe she’s just putting books away.” She pounded her fist lightly on the table and bent closer to the newspaper. “Oh darn, the Kid’s Closet had a sale on children’s clothes and I missed it.”

“Suzanne, there are more important things than sales.” Ginger’s voice had a sharp bite to it that surprised her.
More important things like your marriage falling apart, like your best friend’s murder being swept under the carpet and your not being able to do anything about it.

Kindra and Suzanne stared at Ginger, eyes narrowed, pensive.

“Do you have a fever?” Kindra touched Ginger’s forehead with her cool hand. “’Cause I thought you just said that their sales were nothing to get excited about.”

“Of course, some things matter more than getting a good deal.” Suzanne reached for Ginger’s hand.

Both of the women gazed at her, waiting, her cue to explain why she had snapped at them. She couldn’t put words to the chasm she felt growing between her and Earl. All she could think was that she was a lot like the mustard-colored coat on the clearance rack that no one would ever buy no matter how big the markdown. Just hanging there all sad and lonely.

It wasn’t like they were fighting or anything. Even talking about it scared her. Ginger tensed, her frustration returning tenfold. “I just don’t know if all we’ve been doing is getting us any closer to figuring out who killed Mary Margret.”

Kindra shifted her weight and tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “What else can we do?”

“I’m not Perry Mason and you’re not Miss Marple.” Ginger shoved the newspaper aside. “We don’t know what we’re doing.”

“Nobody but us cares about what happened. We have to do this for Mary Margret,” Kindra said.

Suzanne nodded.

Ginger shook her head. “It just feels like we are not getting anywhere.”

Kindra elbowed Ginger. “I am way too young to be compared to Miss Marple.”

“Maybe a private detective would do a better job.” Ginger crossed her arms.

“Do you know what those guys charge?” Suzanne said. “I don’t think they would do anything different than what we’ve been doing.”

Spending thousands of dollars on something she could do herself didn’t sit well with Ginger. “Okay, we’ll find out who this lawyer guy is and go back to his house. Then we’ll go to the last address on the list. If sparks aren’t flying by then, we’ll have to shop around for a cheap detective. Maybe there’s one who gives out coupons for his services.”

Kindra placed another newspaper in front of Ginger. “Start looking. Suzanne thought she saw it in the Features section.”

The women flipped silently through the newspapers for several minutes until Suzanne asked, “Wouldn’t a hairy eyeball hurt? I mean, when you closed it?”

“I think it would get stuck if you shut your eyes.” Ginger mimed trying to pry open a hairy eyeball.

Kindra stared at the ceiling and blew out a gust of air. “It’s just an expression my father used, okay? It meant someone was staring at you like they suspected you of something. Can we get back to work please?”

All three women giggled while they scanned the newspapers.

“Here it is.” Suzanne pointed. “I knew I had seen it.”

Ginger stepped toward Suzanne. The story had a picture of the lawyer, whose name was Keaton Lustrum, standing outside his house, arms crossed, mountains and lake in the background. An attractive woman leaned close to him, an arm wrapped possessively across his back. The photograph had been taken from a low angle, which made Mr. Lustrum look that much more domineering. The headline read “Lawyer Seeks Ban on Motorized Vehicles.”

Kindra leaned close. “Oh yeah, I remember. He’s the guy who represents those environmental groups. He did a guest lecture at the college.”

Ginger scanned the article. “Looks like he doesn’t want any motorcycles or four-wheelers on the National Forest land.” She tapped her finger on the woman in the picture. “That was the lady who had the garage sale, along with a lady who looked like her.”

Kindra cleared her throat. “Don’t look now, but the hairy eyeball is rounding the corner.”

The librarian was as tall as she was wide. She walked like she had Velcro on the bottom of her shoes, each step taking substantial effort. Ginger was only five foot five, and she had to look down on her.

“Please, I hope you don’t think I’m rude. But I’ve seen you in here before.” She directed her comment to Kindra. “You’re friends with Mary Margret, the lady who died?”

“Yes.”

“Such a nice lady.” The librarian used her stack of books to point at Kindra. “You helped Mary Margret at our used book fund-raiser. It took me a while to place you.”

Kindra let out a faint, “Oh.”

Ginger rested a hand on Kindra’s shoulder. Now that the mystery of the hairy eyeball was solved, Kindra seemed a little embarrassed.

The woman arched her back to counterbalance the weight of the books. “You know, she was in here the day she died.”

Ginger’s heart skipped a beat. “She was in the library the Saturday she died?”

The short woman nodded. “I remember it because she seemed upset. She was waiting at the door when I came to open the library at ten.”

“What was she upset about?”

The woman shrugged. “She never said. She just wanted
to
look at the newspapers from twenty years ago. They are downstairs on microfiche.”

“Did she say what she was looking for?”

“No, but at one point, she came upstairs and wanted to know if we had the minutes from old city commission meetings.” The woman adjusted the three books she had in her arms. “I told her that kind of thing was probably at the courthouse. They’re not open on Saturday. Terrible thing that happened to her, that accident.”

“It wasn’t an accident.” This news only confirmed her suspicions. Mary Margret had figured out something, and it had gotten her killed. Maybe she was Miss Marple. Better yet, Jessica Fletcher. Ginger thanked the librarian.

After the librarian disappeared around a bookshelf, Suzanne wiped the sweat from her forehead and tugged her shirt over her bulging tummy. “I can go to the courthouse and see if I can figure out what Mary Margret was looking for. When we get together tonight for midnight shopping, I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Ginger looped her arm through Kindra’s elbow. “Come on, kiddo; you and I are going to 112 Fremont for starters.” Ginger headed toward the door. Renewed hope put an extra spring in her step.

Earl stood in the driveway between his workshop and the house. He cocked his head to one side and rubbed his chin. He had closed the door to the house and yet, there it stood, open. He made his way across the gravel and up the front stairs. He examined the knob and keyhole area. A person wouldn’t have to break in. He never locked the door when he went out to the shop. Shrugging off his suspicions, he stepped into the kitchen.

He found the Tupperware container of food Ginger had labeled and put in the fridge for him and placed it in the microwave. She had left earlier in the day to go to the library, taking Phoebe with her. The image of Phoebe perched in the booster seat made him smile. Whoever heard of a cat that liked riding in a car? He knew Ginger was gone because she had tacked a note for him on the fridge. They seemed to be leaving notes for each other a lot.

He noticed the number one blinking on the answering machine and pushed the button. A woman said, “Hi, Ginger; this is Officer Tammy Welstad. I have some news about your friend, but I need to tell you in person. I will come by your place after I work out; I should be there a little after eight tonight. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll assume that will be okay. I know you might still be upset at me, but this is important.” The woman left her number and then hung up. Would Ginger even want to talk to Officer Welstad?

The microwave dinged, and he pulled the steaming lasagna out. The aroma of Italian spices swirled around the kitchen. He and Ginger weren’t even having meals together much anymore. He was eating at weird times. He’d get so wrapped up in his project that he’d forget to come into the house until the growling of his stomach got louder than his power tools.

He needed to make an effort to come in at mealtimes. Maybe that was what she had been trying to say to him when she brought his meal to the shop the other night. Women were funny. They never came right out and said what they wanted, and yet they expected a guy to know. Early in their marriage, Earl had realized that almost everything Ginger said to him would be in some kind of code. After all these years, he still hadn’t broken the code.

Earl grabbed a fork and wandered into the family room.

He still couldn’t shake the eerie feeling that someone had been in the house. Furniture wasn’t overturned. No drawers hung open. No catalogs cluttered the floor. It was more a sense that things seemed slightly askew. Ginger was an extremely organized and tidy person. The bills were spread across the desk, not in her usual neat pile. The couch cushion as well looked like it had been pulled out and pushed back in a hurry.

Earl shook his head and dismissed the thought. What did they have that would be worth stealing? He sat in his easy chair and clicked on the TV so he could give the FOX News commentators his two cents’ worth.

He glanced down at the stack of self-help books he’d borrowed from Robert. The one that said women were from another planet he’d grabbed by mistake, thinking it was a science fiction book. The others, though, Robert had handpicked from his shelf. None of them had been much help. He was looking for a chart or a table that explained when a woman does X, it means Y.

He had spent nearly forty years with Ginger, he loved her more than anything, and yet sometimes he felt like she was speaking Russian. Maybe it was just the loss of Mary Margret, but honestly, the speaking a foreign language thing seemed to be intensifying.

Like the other night when she had come into his workshop. That made no sense. He had been glad to see her, a little surprised, but glad. And then she started looking around, those two vertical lines between her eyes deepening, and he was sure she was thinking about tidying up the place and alphabetizing his tools. That made him afraid. He had that shop just the way he wanted it. It was his space. She got to keep the house the way she wanted it.

Earl turned the volume down on the TV and sat forward in his recliner. In the corner of the room, his other stack of books—science fiction and invention reference books—were knocked completely over. He scanned the room again, unable to totally pinpoint why he felt a sense of invasion. His skin prickled; he gripped the lasagna container a little tighter.