Mom Zone Mysteries 02 Staying Home Is a Killer (17 page)

He rubbed his hand over his buzz cut as I contemplated his request. Then he waited with his arms hanging from his droopy shoulders. Apparently, he was used to waiting people out.

I reluctantly left the warmth of the Cherokee. On the way across the parking lot, he asked, “So what were you taking to the class?”

“Photographs. The teacher, Hetty Sullivan, is coordinating the art show for Frost Fest.”

I thought I was going to have to go into the convoluted details of Penny’s death and my tangled associations in her life, but thankfully, we arrived at the edge of the amoeba. Wright made his way through the crowd and I followed until I was at the edge of the spotlighted scene.

They must have finished with the photographs and the measuring, because the body had been turned over. Two men pulled a stretcher through the slush. I took a deep, unsteady breath and turned away. Now I knew why I couldn’t find the wrist to search for a pulse. Clarissa had died with her hands at her neck trying to claw away the tight line that encircled her throat.

“Mrs. Avery? Are you all right?” Wright asked.

“No,” I said, but turned back to the body. Once I got past the grotesque protruding tongue, I looked at her face, but it didn’t look like her. Instead, it was a strange and evil caricature of what she’d looked like alive. “It’s Clarissa Bedford.”

The busy, clinical atmosphere continued around me, but the sounds seemed to recede as I studied her body. It was like the scariest part of a movie. I wanted to stop looking, but I couldn’t. A muffled conversation flowed around the circle. I heard a sharp comment and then a bark of laughter, but I stared at the red around Clarissa’s throat.

Not blood. I squinted and leaned closer. A thin line of shiny scarlet encircled the throat, and on the edge, trailing away under the mass of hair, was a bit of frothy red lace. I stepped back quickly, turned, and shouldered my way through the crowd.

Wright loped along beside me and I realized he’d asked me a question.

“Look, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here right now. I’m—I think I’m in shock. Can we do this tomorrow?”

“Wright!” someone bellowed. “Channel Two is here.”

Wright sighed, his shoulders sagging lower. “Okay, Mrs. Avery. I’ll be in touch with you tomorrow.”

Later that night, I tried to drift off to sleep, emptying my mind as Ballard had suggested, but I kept thinking, why strangle Clarissa with lingerie?

I knew Abby watched the morning news as she got ready for school, so when she arrived at my kitchen door, breathless and sending out white puffs of breath in the cold air, I handed her a cup of coffee. Even though I don’t drink it myself, I keep some for visitors. After I’d unearthed the can of coffee from the back of the freezer, I’d scraped the ice crystals off the top layer. I hoped you couldn’t taste freezer burn on coffee granules. “Thanks,” Abby said and took a sip. Apparently it didn’t taste too bad, because she didn’t grimace or gag, just set it down on the table, stripped off her gloves and coat, and then gave Livvy a pat on the shoulder.

“I saw it on the news. Tell me about it.” She plopped down in the chair across from Livvy’s high chair.

“But what about your trip? I haven’t seen you since you got back last night and I want to know all about it,” I teased.

“It was great. And I have news, but you first. I couldn’t believe it when I turned on the news and saw you running away from the scene of the crime.”

“I couldn’t either.” I slammed the freezer door shut with my shoulder and opened the box of frozen waffles. “And I wasn’t running. Wright told me I could leave, so I walked—quickly—I’ll give you that, but it was cold out there. I wanted to get away from those people. It was kind of creepy with them talking and joking over a dead body. I know they see it all the time, but it bothered me.” I shivered and popped a waffle in the toaster for Livvy. I realized she was hammering her sippy cup on the tray of her high chair. I’d been blocking the noise out, but I noticed Abby winced each time Livvy brought her cup down with a thump. I scattered a few Cheerios on the tray. What would I do without Cheerios, a mom’s best friend? “It was that Chelsea O’Mara who used the word ‘fleeing,’” I said.

“Who’s Wright?” Abby asked.

“The police detective. He asked me some questions and then told me to leave. He’d said he’d get in touch with me today.”

“So who was it?”

The police hadn’t released the identity of the victim to the media yet.

“Clarissa Bedford.”

“No.” Abby’s eyes widened. “It can’t be.”

“Yes, I’m sure it was her.” I swallowed and removed the waffle from the toaster with two fingers. I resolved not to eat any breakfast. I was too queasy, just thinking about Clarissa’s face.

“It can’t be. I just saw her.”

“Didn’t we have this conversation before, but in reverse?” I cut the waffle and sprinkled it with powered sugar. Livvy didn’t like syrup. “Icky,” she’d say, meaning too sticky.

“You’re right, we did.” Abby took another gulp from her coffee cup and hopped up from her chair. “I saw her on our trip, though. First in the Portland airport.”

“Clarissa? You saw Clarissa? I thought you had a direct flight to Vegas.” I set the waffle in front of Livvy. I poured a glass of orange juice and raised the pitcher and my eyebrows toward Abby, but she shook her head.

“No, I’m too hyped already.”

I leaned against the counter as Abby paced across the kitchen.

She reached the end of the kitchen and whipped around. “The travel agent forgot to tell us she booked us on the flight with a lay-over. So we were hanging out in the gift shop, arguing over buying a pack of gum. Two dollars! Such a rip-off. I could buy two jumbo packs for that at the Comm.”

I had to smile at Abby, who pinched every penny, but you’d never know it from her clothes or her house. She had a knack for buying cheap things and putting them together the right way. Like today, she wore a white fisherman’s sweater that she’d picked up at Tate’s winter clearance. (I knew because I was with her that day and she tried to get me to buy the sweater. When I wouldn’t, she snatched it up.) She’d paired it with black pants she’d bought on sale at Target and chunky boots from the outlet mall. An emerald scarf swirled at her neck, topping off her outfit. I looked down at my sweats and worn house shoes stained with Rex’s muddy footprints and baby spit-up and promised myself I’d buy anything Abby told me to next time I went shopping with her.

“Anyway, that’s when I saw Clarissa across the aisle. She bought a copy of
Investment Today
and went to the restaurant next door to the gift shop. We ate lunch there, too, but she never noticed us. In fact, I don’t think she would have recognized me, if she really looked at me.”

“
Investment Today
? That doesn’t sound like Clarissa.”

“I know. That’s what caught my attention, too.” Abby made another trip up and down the kitchen. “It had something on the cover like ‘Ten mutuals you need now.’ And let me tell you, she pored over that magazine during lunch and on the flight.”

“I saw her on Wednesday. She was leaving on a business trip. She must have been going to several cities. She told me she was in sales.”

“I’ll say,” Abby said darkly. She finally stopped pacing the kitchen and settled down at the table. “She was on our flight to Vegas. She read that magazine the whole way and didn’t look up except to order a Diet Coke. She’s not the typical commander’s wife, so I watched her. Jeff was embarrassed. He kept telling me not to stare, but I was curious.”

I suppressed a yawn as best I could, but Abby noticed. “Sorry, I didn’t sleep very well last night,” I explained.

“Well, this’ll wake you up. When we landed, she hooked up with a man as we came out of baggage claim. We were right behind her, waiting to cross to the hotel shuttles, when she walked over to a black limo. The guy got out of the limo and kissed her on both cheeks. He was dark, kind of swarthy in a Middle Eastern sort of way. She was wearing this microminiskirted “business suit” and the man noticed Jeff and me staring. Clarissa leaned over to pick up her carry-on bag and climbed into the limo.

“Let me tell you, it was quite a sight. I don’t think Jeff’s seen that much leg outside our bedroom since Derrick’s bachelor party. Jeff’s mouth was hanging open and the man with her turned to Jeff and wagged a finger at him. ‘No, no. She’s all mine tonight,’ he said in an accent. Then my mouth dropped open, too.”

I sat down in the chair across the table. “What?”

“She’s a hooker, Ellie. Or was a hooker, a high-class call girl.”

“But how can you be sure? Maybe she was having an affair.” I remembered the flimsy lingerie popping out of the suitcase.

“I guess I would have assumed that, too, except I turned to Jeff and said, ‘Can you believe that?’

“He hadn’t regained his power of speech yet. The flight attendant was standing beside us waiting for her hotel shuttle and she answered me. She said she sees it all the time when she’s flying in and out of Vegas. She even recognized Clarissa. The flight attendant said, ‘She’s a regular. Always meeting a different man.’”

“But—” I sputtered and then stopped as Livvy’s minifork slipped out of her fingers and pinged onto the floor. I tossed the dirty fork in the sink and grabbed a new one. “Are you sure it was her?”

“Not a doubt in my mind.”

“But she’s the wing commander’s wife. Why would she do that?”

Abby shrugged. “Who knows? Asserting her independence? Maybe she had some sort of sexual addiction? An adrenaline junkie, she gets a thrill out of it? I don’t know. All I know is she was doing it.”

“Yeah. Well, she won’t be anymore. Someone killed her last night.”

The kitchen clock’s tick seemed to be amplified during the silence.

“This is too much like last year,” Abby said, finally.

“I know,” I said, remembering the death of two spouses that no one realized were connected. “Do you think Clarissa’s death is connected to Penny’s? I thought Clarissa was a great suspect for Penny’s murderer, but apparently I was wrong. Although I do have a hard time picturing her dipping castor beans in chocolate. Too tedious.”

“Castor beans?” Abby asked.

I updated her on what Georgia had told me.

“Yeah. It would’ve messed up her nails,” Abby said. “But it may not be connected to Penny’s death at all. Maybe General Bedford found out about her real ‘job.’ Or maybe it was something else. Clarissa’s occupation was dangerous. Organized crime’s involved in prostitution. What if she made some mob boss mad?”

“If that happened, wouldn’t it be easier to kill her in Vegas?” I asked.

“But look what finding her here does—it makes a ‘hit’ seem like an even more remote possibility. If she’d died in Vegas, it would be one of the first aspects investigated.”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “Maybe those Mafia movies exaggerate things, but I think if it was a mob hit, then her body would never have been found. You’d better talk to Wright today.”

“Well…” Abby looked reluctant. “Maybe it was a random killing and had nothing to do with her trips out of town.”

“I don’t think so. She was strangled with a piece of lingerie.”

Chapter Seventeen

A
stack of paperwork thudded onto the table. Detective Wright took a seat next to Thistlewait and said, “She was strangled with a piece of rope. We’re releasing her name, but no details about how she died.” To me, Wright said, “Keep that to yourself. And don’t talk about the lingerie, either. The red thong was twisted around her neck on top of the rope.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense. It seems like lingerie would be too thin and flimsy. I’d wondered if the material would be strong enough to strangle—” I stopped abruptly. I didn’t want them to think I sat around pondering which materials would provide the best support for strangling people.

“With the information your friend gave us this morning, we’ve been able to check on Mrs. Bedford’s travel schedule. Did she mention any other travel plans or anything about her business when you worked for her?” asked Wright as he ran his hand over his short, bristly haircut.

“She said she was going out of town, but didn’t tell me where. I asked her if she thought about quitting and she laughed. Said she’d never do that. She never wanted to depend on a man. One other thing. The woman who’s teaching her class, Hetty Sullivan, mentioned she saw Clarissa arguing with a man in a flight suit. She said he was young and blond.”

Thistlewait and Wright exchanged a look. Thistlewait made a note and Wright stood up. “Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Avery. I’ll be in touch.” He loped out of the room. I wondered how many police detectives Vernon had on their force. Now that I’d talked to Jensen and Wright, I’d probably met the whole department. Not a good thing to know more than one police detective, unless it’s in a social setting.

Thistlewait leaned over the table. “This is number two.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Look, I’m getting tired of standing up for you around here. My gut instinct is that you’re innocent, but this is body number two that you’re connected with. Do you think you can avoid them in the future?”

“It’s not my fault that I found Clarissa. And I could have left. I didn’t have to call 911. I could have walked away and let some student find her on the way to class the next morning.”

Thistlewait sighed. “I know.” He stood and snatched the file. “That’s what makes me think you aren’t the perp. You couldn’t walk away, not even from a dead body. Couldn’t leave it in the cold for a few hours, so I don’t see how you could actually murder anyone. But let me tell you, people around here are trying to connect the dots and your name is coming up a little too often not to include you in the picture on the criminal side. Maybe you could just go home and stay there for a few days?”

I prevented myself from rolling my eyes, but just barely. “And what should I do? Fold laundry? Bake cookies?”

“I like chocolate chip, myself,” he said blandly.

“I’m not going home to bake cookies,” I snapped. Then I realized he was trying to suppress a smile and I did roll my eyes.

The smell of warm sugar, vanilla, and chocolate greeted me when I opened the door of my kitchen. “Hi, sweetie,” I said as I dropped a kiss on Livvy’s head and surveyed the floury mess of crusty mixing bowls covering the counters. “You’ve been busy helping Miss Abby, I see.” I stopped to scratch Rex’s ears. He wriggled and danced around my feet in awkward half leaps. He knew he would get in big trouble if he jumped on me, so he’d developed a wiggle combined with a low hop and topped it off with yaps to greet anyone who’d been gone for more than five minutes.