Hide and Snoop (The Odelia Grey Mysteries) (7 page)

seven

When I picked up
Lily after work, she was clearly glad to see me. She was scrubbed clean, top to bottom, including her clothes, and her cold seemed better. She ran to me and threw her arms around my legs, chattering a mile a minute about cookies and trains. Or maybe it was clubs and twine.

“You’re a miracle worker, Zee. Lily looks factory new.”

Zee was working on supper. “Nothing a nap and a bubble bath couldn’t fix. I went through her suitcase to see what was clean and dirty and ended up throwing almost everything in the wash. By the way, there’s a baby monitor in there. Make sure you use it tonight.”

Lily babbled something and took off like a shot to watch something on TV.

“She was in the middle of
Dora the Explorer
,” Zee explained.

“Huh?”

Zee laughed. “You’ll learn soon enough.”

“I really owe you, Zee.” I hesitated. I had two other favors to ask her but didn’t want her to think I was taking advantage. One was taking Lily the next day, Friday, so I could go into work. I was sure she wouldn’t have an issue with that if she didn’t have plans. The other favor was Friday night. Shortly after I left Carl, I had called Greg to update him on everything.

“If I don’t locate Erica soon, you and I will be playing Mommy and Daddy over the weekend.”

“Sounds like fun, actually,” was my darling husband’s initial response. “I know Wainwright will love it. But what about Friday night?”

“What’s Friday?” I asked, my mind a blank. Before he could say anything, I groaned, remembering we had plans. Isaac and Melina Thornwood had asked us over to dinner on Friday night. Isaac played basketball with Greg. He was also in a wheelchair but was an amputee. Like us, the Thornwoods entertained quite a bit. Usually their dinners were on Saturday night, but this Sunday they were leaving on vacation. Friday night was to be a small birthday bash for Isaac.

“If Zee can’t watch Lily, I’ll have to stay home with her.” I was disappointed but felt very motherly and responsible as I said the words.

“If Zee can’t watch her Friday night, maybe my parents could,” Greg offered. “You know my mother loves little kids.”

That was an understatement. Between Greg, his brother, and his sister, only his sister had produced grandchildren for the Stevens family, and recently she and her brood had moved to Northern California. Renee Stevens was going through grandchildren withdrawal, just as Zee was going through the anticipation of getting her own one day.

I turned my memory away from my earlier phone call with Greg and settled back on the present and Zee.

“I have a really big favor to ask you,” I said to my friend as she stirred something in a large pot on the stove. The steam drifted over to my nostrils. It was aromatic, filled with scent of gentle spices and chicken—probably a homemade stew or soup. My mouth watered. Lunch with Steele had seemed like days ago. I hoisted my behind onto a stool in front of the granite kitchen counter.

“You want me to watch Lily tomorrow while you go to work, don’t you?” Zee put the wooden spoon down on a spoon rest and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. She moved from the stove to the counter, standing across from where I sat.

“Could you?”

“Of course,” Zee replied in a happy voice. “I figured you might need a sitter for tomorrow.”

I fidgeted on the stool, my short legs dangling uncomfortably until I could find the foot rail. “Can you also watch her tomorrow night? Greg and I have dinner plans.” Before Zee could answer, I gushed, “If you can’t, that’s okay—I do have a backup plan, and you’re already going above and beyond.”

Zee didn’t answer the question, instead honing in on the obvious information behind it. “So Lily’s staying with you for the entire weekend?”

“If I can’t locate Erica tomorrow, she is.” I gave her a quick update on my conversation with Carl.

Zee didn’t say anything but returned to the stove, where she picked up the wooden spoon and started stirring whatever was in the big pot again. It didn’t need it, but Zee needed something to do. In her head I knew she was stirring the information I’d just given her as vigorously as she was whirling around the contents of the pot.

“So in spite of my warning, you’re going to hunt down Erica Mayfield?”

“You forgot, I’m also sneaking around to see if she and Mark are doing the nasty.”

Zee didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She fixed me with the two pools of chocolate she called eyes and set her mouth into displeasure.

“I didn’t have a choice, Zee,” I told her, going on the defense. “Carl gave it to me as an assignment. It could be the difference between keeping my job or not.”

“Did you even put up a fight, Odelia? Did you tell him you were out of the attorney-hunting business?” Zee returned to the counter, still clutching the spoon. I worried she might bop me over the head with it. She didn’t, but she did shake it at me with determination while her left hand, knotted in a fist, latched onto her bulky left hip. “Well, did you?” Zee’s coffee-colored face was stern but not scrunched in anger. I took that as a good sign. Still, I leaned back from the counter.

“No, Zee, I didn’t. I’m thinking the sooner I find Erica, the sooner all the crap about Lily and my job will be cleared up. Carl didn’t sound the least bit pleased with Erica and her shenanigans.”

She put the spoon down on her spotless counter. “Would you really file a discrimination suit against that firm?”

“Honestly? The idea never occurred to me until I found out Erica was trying to influence the Woobie partners against me. If they decide they want Mark over me strictly based on work product, I wouldn’t like it, but I could live with it. But Erica is going out of her way to make sure I fail.” I paused to think it over. Suing an employer had a lot of risks. “But if I found out Erica had special and personal ties to Mark Baker and that was her motive for sandbagging me, then yes, I’d consider legal action.”

Zee issued a deep sigh and looked into my eyes a long time before looking away. From the den came the sound of a children’s song and giggles from Lily.

“When you bring Lily over tomorrow morning,” Zee said, “why don’t you plan on her staying the night. That way you and Greg won’t have to worry about how late your dinner runs.”

“Thank you, Zee.” I breathed a sigh of relief. “We’ll pick her up Saturday morning.”

She picked up the spoon and shook it at me again. A few drops of broth flew in my direction, landing on the counter with the droplets from earlier. “Just assure me there are no dead bodies involved.”

With my right index finger I crossed my heart. “There are no dead bodies, Zee. I just have to locate Erica, so Carl can talk to her as soon as possible, and do some snooping into Mark’s connection to her. I’ll probably be able to do both tomorrow from the safety of my desk while chowing down on a tuna sandwich.”

The spoon pointed at me like a lance. “Just keep it that way, you hear?”

In the beginning, Lily
wasn’t so sure about wanting to be pals with Wainwright, our big, friendly golden retriever. But he won her over, as he does everyone he meets, and soon she was rolling on the floor in a fit of giggles with Wainwright and Muffin, our young gray cat. Our old man cat, Seamus, wasn’t having any of it and had disappeared into our bedroom for a quiet snooze.

Greg was enchanted with Lily and she with him. If Lily were twenty years older, I’d have been a bit worried about her stealing my hubby’s heart. Greg loved kids and, like his mother, was grieving over the move of his two nephews.

Kids had been a sticking point when Greg asked me to marry him—not a sticking point to him, but to me. I was in my late forties when we married; Greg was ten years younger. I knew he wanted kids, but for me it wasn’t an option. In the end, he assured me it didn’t matter, that he wanted me no matter what. For a while we considered adopting, but that never materialized. Now, with me in my fifties and Greg in his forties, children weren’t even on our radar, except for the children belonging to friends and family.

When she first met Greg, Lily was fascinated by his wheelchair. She kept wanting him to get up and let her have a turn. Once she understood the chair acted as his legs, she’d asked for a ride. Greg had hoisted her up on his lap and taken her for a spin around our large, wheelchair-friendly house.

Now the two of them were in the kitchen. Greg was whipping up grilled cheese sandwiches with Lily’s help and supervision, the planned catfish dinner long forgotten. Lily was kneeling on a chair dragged up close to the counter. Because our counters were built to be accessible to Greg, they were low and perfect for Lily’s use, with a little help. They were also perfect for me since I’m on the short side.

Lily was in charge of buttering the bread. Wainwright watched with eager and hungry eyes for any fallout. He’d already snagged a piece of bread that had fallen to the floor—butter-side down, of course. I was at one end of the kitchen table with my laptop. Outside, the threat of rain had finally materialized. It started while driving home from Zee’s and had continued, soft and steady, since. Rain, the warm kitchen, and the happy domestic scene were acting as a balm to the day’s events. But watching Greg with Lily brought back the old worry and guilt that I might have robbed my husband of something important. Blinking back the tears threatening my vision, I moved my thoughts back to getting a bead on Erica’s whereabouts.

Our firm puts out a personnel directory with everyone’s information, such as name, address, telephone number, and emergency contact. I had it on the table beside me. After checking Erica’s address, I looked it up on Google Maps. Erica lived on a cul-de-sac in Newport Beach just off Jamboree Road. I knew the area. It was a quiet housing development of nice homes near the Back Bay, not far from Fashion Island Mall. There was both a home phone and a cell phone listed on the sheet. Erica’s emergency contact was Connie Holt, Lily’s mother. There was no secondary contact. I circled the phone number for Connie, then did a reverse lookup.

A few years ago I had subscribed to an online search engine for finding people. There were some free services out there, but this one had proved to be worth the money and often gave me information most folks thought was unlisted, including things like household income, real estate values, and educational backgrounds. It was paying off right now. Connie’s number produced an address in Irvine and her husband’s name—Harrison—although I remembered Alyce referring to him as Hank. According to the website, Connie was in her late thirties, Hank in his early forties. The combined household income was just under two hundred thousand a year. It listed one child under five years of age—no name or gender.

“You having any luck?” Greg asked from his spot at the stove.

“A bit. At least I have addresses and telephone numbers, which is a good start.” I closed my laptop.

Greg had finished cooking supper and had lifted Lily down to the floor. In her outstretched hands he placed a dinner plate piled with grilled cheese sandwiches. Lily carried the plate with pride and care. When she reached me, I took it from her and placed it on the table.

“Thank you, Lily. What a good helper you are.” The child beamed and babbled about how she had cooked the “sand witches.”

I settled Lily on top of a couple of cushions placed in a kitchen chair, wrapped a dish towel around her neck for a bib, and pulled her close to the table. Greg rolled over with a large serving bowl of cream of tomato soup.

“How many
sand witches
are you planning on Lily eating?” I asked Greg, casting an eye to the pile on the plate.

“What? There’s only five—two each for us and one for Lily.” Greg put the soup on the table. “I made three with plain American cheese and two with cheddar and tomatoes.”

“And basil?” I asked hopefully.

“Fresh chopped basil, just like you love it.”

I got up and went to Greg, giving him a sound kiss on the mouth. He returned the kiss, taking a little longer with his. Next to us, Lily giggled and wiggled. “Me,” she insisted. “Kiss Lily, Cheese-head Squirrel.”

I leaned over and gave Lily a noisy smackaroo on her forehead. She squealed with delight. Maybe we shouldn’t have given up so easily on the adoption thing.

“What did she call you?” Greg asked as he dished soup into two thick mugs.

“Um, Cheesehead Squirrel.” I said the name in a quick, low, barely audible voice, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Don’t give her very much,” I told him as he spooned soup into a small plastic bowl for Lily. “I don’t know if she’ll eat it. And let it cool a bit before giving it to her.”

Greg put the ladle down. “Cheesehead Squirrel? How did she come up with that?”

“Beats me.” I cut one of the American cheese sandwiches into quarters and put two of them on Lily’s plate. She grabbed one with the same gusto she’d attacked the chicken fingers with earlier in the day. I was two for two so far on food, thanks to a waitress and Zee.

“Did she say that in front of Steele at lunch today?” my husband asked with a wicked grin.

I sighed. “That’s where she came up with it, and totally on her own.”

“He must have loved it.”

“Yep.” I took a bite of my sandwich, letting the flavors of the sharp cheese, cool tomato, and peppery basil melt together in my mouth.

“Cheesehead Squirrel,” Greg repeated. “I love it.”

“Cheesehead Squirrel. Cheesehead Squirrel. Cheesehead Squirrel,” sang Lily, moving her fist with the sandwich like a baton.

I groaned. Greg laughed—far too long, in my opinion.

Wainwright sat at attention next to Lily, his eyes following the arc of the sandwich as it circled through the air. If Lily lost her grip, the sandwich would disappear before it ever hit the floor. I’m sure, if questioned, the dog would have voted for the adoption route, too.

“Wainwright,” Greg ordered, pointing away from the table. “Go lay down.”

The dog looked from the precarious sandwich to his master with sad, pleading eyes, measuring his training against the hope for buttery bread and cheese.

“Go on, boy,” Greg urged. “You know you’re not supposed to beg.”