Marja McGraw - Bogey Man 01 - Bogey Nights (9 page)

“I’m not licensed to do this type of work.”

“You don’t need to be. This will be mostly research.”

“By the way,” Pidge said, “when this uncle of ours lived in that house, it was a boarding house
. There could be plenty of suspects. How’s that for a place to start your investigation?”

Chris rolled his upper lip under and I knew we were in, like it or not
. Who was the pigeon here – Pidge or Chris? My vote went to Chris. These women wanted us to actually solve the case. It was no longer just an idea of ours.

Chapter
Ten

M
idge told us what little she knew and then excused herself to retrieve a shoebox from her car. It contained letters to her mother from her uncle. At the time of his disappearance, Midge’s mother had moved out of state with her husband but returned when Charles couldn’t be located. She’d spent a lifetime grieving over the loss of her brother, as had her mother.

“We’ll do what we can,” Chris said, “but I can’t make any
promises. I want to make sure you understand that.”

“I do,” Midge replied
. “I’ll pay you whatever you want. I am a woman of means, so money isn’t an issue.” Before pulling out her checkbook, she flapped her hand at Chris like discussing price was distasteful to her.

“I won’t charge you anything
, so put your checkbook away. You don’t seem to get it, but I’m not a P.I. I
can’t
charge for this. Anything that we do will be totally unofficial. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“I do, but I still feel like I should pay you something.”

The phone rang and I excused myself to answer it.

“Hello?” I said.

“Good morning, Pamela. This is Sharon. I thought I’d call and see how you like the article I wrote. Pretty good, huh?”

I took a deep breath
. “Sharon, I thought you were going to try to put a good spin on what happened. Not only
didn’t
you do that, but it was on the front page with information about Chris and me. What were you thinking? Or were you thinking at all? You even brought up the fire at the other restaurant. What’s
wrong
with you?” I could feel my lips begin to purse.

“But I thought I wrote a great
article.” Sharon sounded hurt.

I didn’t care
. “You didn’t help us at all. In fact, now everyone will relate the murder to our restaurant while the information about the fire rumbles around in the back of their minds. You – ”

“I’m on my way over,” Sharon said
. “See you in fifteen minutes.”

She hung up before I could
tell her not to come.

I glanced toward the living room
and our guests. Uh oh. I needed to get Midge and Pidge to leave before Sharon showed up. She’d have a field day with this if she knew what the two women wanted.

I called to Chris
asking him to come see me in the kitchen.

He excused himself and I closed the door to the kitchen as soon as he walked through the doorway
. “Sharon is on her way over. We’ve got to get rid of those women in a hurry.”

“Why didn’t you stop her?”

“She hung up before I had the chance.”

Chris paced around the kitchen twice before returning to the living room
. “I’m sorry, ladies, but my wife just reminded me that we have an appointment. Please excuse us, but we’re going to have to leave in a few minutes.”

“Oh, I understand,” Midge said
. “You
will
take the case though, am I right? Please help us.”

“Yes, we
’ll take the case. Let me give this some thought first and then I’ll get back to you. I know I’ll have questions that only you or your mother can answer. And I want to look into the previous owners of that house.”

The women stood to leave after
Midge and Chris exchanged phone numbers. Midge reached out to shake our hands. Her daughter held back. I wasn’t sure if the younger woman quite trusted us. Her demeanor made me feel that she wasn’t sure her mother was doing the right thing.

Chris and I watched them walk out to their car, a beautiful black sport
s model Mercedes, and I could see Pidge’s mouth working while she constantly shook her head. Midge stopped, said something to Pidge, and took her hand, patting the top of it. Pidge shook her head one more time and climbed into the vehicle.

I started to laugh, unable to help myself
. “Midge and Pidge? Good grief! They should be on that TV show, What’s in a Name?”

“They’re so
tiny
,” Chris said. “I felt like I was talking to a couple of kids, except Midge seems to know what she wants and I think she might go to great lengths to get her way. I get the feeling that dame is probably the brains behind this little investigation. I think she could be quite the little Dragon Lady.”

“Dragon Lady?
I don’t think she’s intimidating at all,” I said.

“That’s because you’re a woman
. A very small dame can be intimidating
because
she’s small. Men are afraid she’ll fall apart like a China doll. They’ll handle her with kid gloves and she then becomes the intimidator. I was half afraid to press the flesh with her because her hands were so small.” Chris thought he had women figured out.

“
You shake a small woman’s hand just like a big woman. Gently.” I didn’t argue with anything else he said. Let him live in his little dream world. What could it hurt?

“Okay,” I said, “Sharon is on her way over and she knows we’re not happy
. Maybe she’s going to try to do some damage control.”

“One can always hope
. I’ve been thinking, cupcake, and my thought is that I’ll hit the bricks and drive over to the new restaurant, and let you handle Sharon by yourself. You’re better at that kind of thing than I am.”

“Don’t even think about walking out that door,
buster. You stay right here and face her with me. She’s got to undo some of the damage she’s done. And if you’re uncomfortable when she arrives, try intimidating her. Put on your hard case persona and put her on the spot about what she’s done. I know you can do it.”

“Uh huh.”
He didn’t sound convinced. “You know, you used to be so quiet and demure. What happened?”

“I married you and came out of my shell.”

“My fault, huh?”

“In a way
. When I met you I was a widowed mother raising a child and working two jobs. I didn’t have time to be anything more than quiet. Demure? No. Well, maybe a tad shy, but that was because of my circumstances.”

Sharon pulled up to the curb which
effectively cut off the conversation. That might have been a good thing. We weren’t arguing, but it could have led to that because Chris didn’t want to have a confrontation with Sharon. He wanted me to.

I opened the front door and stood with my arms folded, waiting for Sharon to walk up the steps
. Intimidation comes in many forms. Her knowing that I was standing with the door open instead of passively waiting in the house was one of them. I should have been tapping my foot as though waiting for an errant child.

“Now, Pamela,” she said quickly, stopping in front of me, “we can fix this
. I reread my article and I can see why you might be upset, but I had to do it. That’s my job. I write about what’s going on in town. And an old body turning up is news.”

I stood
silently with my arms crossed and didn’t acknowledge her statement. If I let her talk long enough, she just might hang herself.

“Honestly
. We can fix this. I’ll play up the new restaurant angle without mentioning the murder. That’ll work, I promise.”

I could see the wheels turning in her head, figurative
ly speaking, of course.

“I can see the headline now,” she said
. “
Fine Dining and Dancing at the
Bogey Nights
.”

“
‘
Bogey Nights
?’ How did you come up with that name?”

“Isn’t that what you were going to call it?”
She looked panicked that she’d gotten the name wrong.

“We haven’t named it yet,” Chris said
. “But I have to admit, I kind of like that. Pamela, what do you think?” He turned to me.

“I thought you didn’t want to use the name Bogey
. However,” I said slowly, “I kind of like it.
Bogey Nights – where good food and great atmosphere abound
. Okay, Sharon, one point for you. You gave us the name for the restaurant – maybe. But you’re still not off the hook.”

“
’Bogey Nights – where
gourmet
food and great atmosphere abound’,” Sharon said, correcting me.

“Don’t get carried away,” I said
. “The food won’t be what I’d call gourmet, but it will be excellent, just the same. And I don’t want it to be an advertisement. I want you to write a real, honest-to-goodness story.”

Sharon pulled a pad of paper out of her purse and began writing
. “I don’t want to forget any of this.
Excellent food, atmosphere and dancing to a live 1940s-style band
. Good stuff.” She put her pen and paper back in her purse.

I had the distinct feeling that she was trying to distract us
, hoping we’d forget about her story.

“Okay,” Chris said
. “You’ve redeemed yourself some, but not enough. I’ve still got a beef with you. You’ve got to clear this up so people don’t think we’re running a mortuary instead of a restaurant.”

Sharon began batting her eyelashes at Chris like she thought flirting would help.

He wasn’t going for it. “Flapping those blinkers at me ain’t gonna help either. Another story like this one and we’ll never get the supper club off the ground.”

“Okay,” Sharon said, “I got carried away
. And I know it, and I’m sorry. I’ll do what I can to make it up to you.”

“You’d better,” I said, none too politely.

“So what’s next on the agenda?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Chris asked.

“Look, can I come in instead of standing here on the porch?”

I gave it a
slow count before I stepped back and let her come in. I didn’t want her to feel too comfortable.

“Oh, nice house,” she said, looking around
, kissing up to us.

“We like it.”
I led the way into the living room where I saw Midge’s phone number sitting on the coffee table. I nonchalantly picked it up and shoved it into Chris’s hand. He stuffed it in his pocket. I didn’t want Sharon to see it because she probably knew the name of the relatives.

She watched our interaction
suspiciously, but didn’t comment.

Neither Chris nor I spoke, waiting fo
r Sharon to say what was on her mind. We were still thinking in terms of intimidation.

“So, what’s up?
Where do you two go from here?” she asked.

“We’re going to start work on the restaurant,” Chris said
. “What did you think we were going to do?”

“Oh, nothing
. Well, I thought maybe you’d work on the murder. After all, the body was found in your cellar.”

“Just because there were bones in the cellar doesn’t mean we’re going to get involved,” Chris said
. “We don’t know a thing about the stiff or what happened to him.”

“Yeah, Sharon, we’re not P.I.s or anything,” I added
. “Maybe you should go talk to that female private investigator you drive crazy. At least she’s really an investigator.”

I thought Sharon shivered, but I couldn’t swea
r to it. “Oh, no. She doesn’t want to see me right now. She says I get in her way.”

“And is she right?”
I couldn’t help it. I grinned.

“It’s not amusing.”
Sharon looked indignant, although embarrassed at the same time. “She says I always get under her feet and in the way. That’s not true. I’ve actually helped her out on occasion.”

“That’s not what I heard,” I said, still grinning.

Sharon didn’t look happy. Time to change the subject.

“
How did your date with Big D go?” I asked.

She actually smiled a genuine smile
. “Davey and I had a wonderful time. He’s such a gentleman, but not boring. We’re going out again. Of course,” she added, “he’ll have to get used to my career. I’m a reporter, and that’s number one in my life.”

She hadn’t convinced me
. I had a feeling Big D could easily sweep her off her feet and maybe make her let her career take a backseat to their relationship, if it went that far.

“By the way,” she said, “who were those two ladies
I saw leaving just before I got here?”

My mouth
dropped open and Chris nudged me. “Close your mouth, Pamela. Dangling lips are not attractive.”