Moving Is Murder (19 page)

“Rex, no!” I whispered. He pulled his nose out of Friona’s expensive leather purse. She must have left it beside the coffee table on her way inside. “Drop it.” He opened his mouth and several papers fell on the floor. Envelopes from Nordstrom, Bon Marche, Pottery Barn, and charge receipts from Target and Pamona Grill bore Rex’s teeth marks.

I smoothed out the mangled papers and stuffed them back in her purse. All the envelopes had
FINAL NOTICE
or
PAST DUE
stamped on the outside.

“I told you—don’t call me.” Friona had retreated to the rear of the kitchen and lowered her voice, but I could still hear her words and her hostile tone. “I sent it yesterday! Don’t call here again.”

She slammed the phone into its cradle and then sat down in the white chair.

“Is Keith flying tonight?” I asked.

“No. Gone to the store.” She scrutinized her glass of water, swirling the ice.

“I like your colors in here—bright and cheerful.”

Friona shrugged one shoulder. “My parents have pool houses bigger than this.” She said it casually, but checked with a quick glance to gauge my reaction. She reminded me of Mitch’s youngest sister, Becca. She was fourteen when I met her and tried so hard to be nonchalant, but she constantly checked my reactions to her words and attitude to see if I was impressed.

I didn’t answer. What could I say? “How nice” or “Wow” seemed inadequate. Friona put down her glass,
sat up straight, and said, “I love to shop.” Her tone was defiant.

She was challenging me, waiting for an answer. “Well, I like to shop, too.”

“But it has gotten a
little
out of hand. I realized that today after I talked to you. I mean, I work at McDonald’s. I’m wearing polyester.” She half smiled and then leaned back in the chair. “I used to go shopping with my mom and sisters. We went every Saturday. Since I moved here, I haven’t had that much to do, so I go to the mall all the time.” She heaved another sigh.

“But it really started last year when I planned our wedding. I had two credit cards and charged them up. Then offers for more came in the mail. I opened more accounts, okay? For a while the companies upped my credit limits. I’d reach a limit and it was like magic, here’s five hundred or a thousand more to spend.” She looked up at the ceiling.

“Keith didn’t notice?” I asked in disbelief. Mitch always noticed anything new around the house.

Friona rolled her eyes. “I handle the money. As long as Keith has his Harley and Sports Center, he doesn’t care.”

My surprise must have shown on my face because she continued, “If he noticed, I’d tell him my mom sent me the clothes, but he’s, like, clueless about fashion, okay? I kept some of the clothes in the basement in our moving boxes.”

The phone rang and she tensed. “Now I’m getting these phone calls about the bills. Like I don’t know I have to pay them.” The answering machine switched on after three rings and she sagged back into her chair. “It’s been rough working two jobs.” She checked my
face again. “If I just had a little more cash this month I could make the payments on two cards …” Her voice trailed off. Giving money to Friona seemed like giving an alcoholic a ten and telling him to buy a meal with it. Since I wasn’t going to give her cash and she’d ruled out getting help from Family Support on base, I tried another angle.

“Could your parents help you pay the bills?”

“No.” She slid lower in her chair and propped her pristine Tommy Hilfiger tennis shoes on the coffee table. “I can’t go to them. I’d die if they found out.” Her words sounded more like a teenager than a young woman. It seemed Friona still had some growing up to do. “They didn’t want me to marry Keith. They said we were too young. That Keith’s job wasn’t stable enough. Like working for the government isn’t stable. I can’t ask for their help. If I do, they’ll think they were right.”

“How much do you owe?” I sipped my water and braced myself for big figures.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. Probably ten or fifteen thousand.”

I gulped my water and tried to keep my expression blank. “You need to find out exactly how much you owe. And I’ve heard cutting up your credit cards is a good way to stop spending.” She looked pained, then her expression changed, hardened. This advice wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “Then you can come up with a plan to pay the bills off. You really do need to tell Keith.”

She nodded, but in a preoccupied way. I followed her gaze. She stared out the window at the Vincents’ house.

“Check the phone book for credit counseling services.
They can help you get a plan to pay everything off.” I stood up, reluctant to go. “Call me tomorrow, if you’d like to.” I gathered up Rex’s leash.

She stood and opened the door for me. “So she died right after the barbeque? On Friday?”

I nodded and stepped onto the porch.

Friona shivered. “Kind of freaky. I mean, like, she lived right there.” She squinted over my shoulder.

I was halfway down the steps but stopped and turned back. “Oh, the other night I saw a car leave your house. Its lights were off.”

“That was me. I didn’t want to wake up Keith. The headlights sweep over our bedroom window. He’s a light sleeper.”

Such a simple explanation. I didn’t ask her, but I thought she probably carried her clothes to work because she didn’t want to put them on at home. Afraid Keith or a neighbor would see her. She probably kept them hidden, too. And it was Friona going to her two jobs, one a swing shift, that created the “comings and goings” Mabel noticed.

At the sound of a motor, she turned and peered down the street. “There’s Keith.”

Keith roared into the driveway on his Harley. I waved to Friona and left without waiting for an introduction.

I decided to walk one more block to sort out my thoughts before going home. Really, it amazed me how some people lived. I couldn’t imagine keeping something like that from Mitch. In the first place, he’d notice all the new clothes. And in the second place, guilt would eat me up.

I wondered if guilt bothered Cass’s killer. Apparently Friona had nothing to do with it. I shook my head at my own suspicions, remembering how I tailed her car
through the night to the store. I suspected her of murder! The only thing she was guilty of was killing her credit rating. Obviously, I didn’t have a good instinct for finding suspects.

I reeled in Rex’s leash as we turned the corner and headed north on Ponderosa Street. I realized the backyards of these houses met the backyards of the houses on the opposite side of the street from us. No alley separated the properties, only wire or wood fences.

I wondered which house backed up to the Vincents’ house. I passed a nondescript bungalow, a large red brick colonial, and then paused in front of a newer split-level. The main floor hung over the daylight basement like an overbite. It looked out of place, cheaply new when compared to the gracefully aging brick, frame, and stucco homes. The lot had probably sat vacant for fifty years. Down one of the side yards, I could see into a backyard with stubby grass and a chain link fence. Beyond it lush grass, shrubs, and flowers abounded. I didn’t need to see the gray stucco and black trim to know it was the Vincents’ backyard. The contemporary house in front of me was quiet. The miniblinds were tightly closed and long sprigs of grass grew around the
FOR SALE
sign in the yard.

Suddenly, the leash whirred as Rex sprinted after a squirrel. It sped past two trash cans, veered across a lawn, and dashed up a pine tree. Rex took the more direct route and dove between the trash cans. The cans clanged on the driveway. Trash bags and garbage sprawled across the driveway and lawn. I closed my eyes and sighed. When I opened them the first thing I saw was Rex whining and leaping at the base of the tree. I reeled in the leash with a jerk. “Bad, bad dog!” Rex
cringed and returned to my side. He knew he was in big trouble because he sat down obediently and only cast a few longing glances at the tree.

I picked up a can rolling in a lazy circle and began replacing the white trash bags. I checked out the house, but no one seemed to be home. The windows were dark. In the approaching twilight, lights glowed in many houses around me. I hoped I could get everything back in without being noticed. Rex whimpered and made a small movement toward the tree. “Don’t even think about it,” I warned. Rex stayed where he was. I wished I could run home for a pair of gloves to pick up the rest of the trash that had spilled out of one of the bags: decomposing brown leaves, pine needles, empty plastic trays that had held boneless chicken breasts, and flattened Pepsi cans.

When I saw the DVD player I froze with the last trash bag suspended in midair. Then I let it thud into the can. I squatted down to look at the DVD player without touching it. It was a Zenith with a long scratch across the blank clock panel, just like Cass’s DVD player: the one stolen item from the Vincents’ house. I remembered it because we had the same brand. I’d even shown ours to the police after the break-in so the police would know what model to look for.

I stood up. No one seemed to be home at the house where the trash had come from, but ringing the doorbell didn’t seem too smart. After all, it was the stolen DVD player. I was sure of it. But leaving it on the driveway covered with plastic poultry trays and other trash didn’t seem like the right thing to do either. And I knew from my contact with the police in the last few weeks that I shouldn’t touch it. Not that I really wanted to anyway.
I stood irresolute in the growing twilight. Then I remembered my cell phone. I dialed 911 and explained my find; then I dialed our home number.

An engine purred softly past me as a white car pulled into the driveway. Gwen Givens parked near the garage and then walked back to me. Her black dress blended with the growing darkness and her russet-colored scarf flapped over her shoulder in time with the click of her low squared heels. Her husky voice sounded loud in the twilight: “I remember you from the squadron. It’s Ellie, isn’t it?” She surveyed the mess. “Whatever happened?”

I explained how Rex knocked over the trash cans as the phone line rang in my ear. Mitch wasn’t picking up. He was probably changing a diaper or bathing Livvy and couldn’t get to the phone. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll get a broom. It’ll only take a second to clean it up. You go on with your walk. You don’t need to hang around here.” She pirouetted back to the garage.

“No. We can’t touch anything. The police need to look at this. That’s the DVD player that was stolen from the Vincents’ house. Did you know they were robbed?” In my ear, our answering machine clicked on.

Gwen crossed the driveway with quick steps. “Don’t call the police.” She grabbed my wrist and jerked the phone away from my ear. I was so surprised I didn’t even resist when she snatched the phone out of my hand and pressed the “end” button. “I won’t have the police here.”

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
—Anonymous

I
could feel Rex go on alert beside me. He growled a low, threatening sound. I didn’t tell her she had hung up on my answering machine. Better not to let her know the police were already on their way, since she was so tense. She looked like a tightly coiled wire. I patted Rex’s head. “Why don’t you want the police here?”

“I just don’t,” she snapped. Her ready flow of words seemed to be drying up.

“Well, what about the DVD player? You can’t just throw it back in the trash.”

She looked at it and then at the trash cans, speculatively. That was exactly what she wanted to do.

“Why don’t you wait here while I get Zoë out of the car. It’ll only take a second.”

Since she had my cell phone, I wasn’t going anywhere. Gwen opened the back door and a little girl about five years old jumped out and rushed toward us with her long brown hair flying out around her head in disarray. “Can I pet your dog?” she asked. She stopped inches from Rex. She didn’t touch him, but looked pleadingly at me with big green eyes.

“I don’t know if he’s ever been around kids. Better not,” I said as gently as I could.

Gwen returned, carrying a hot pink backpack. She stopped beside Zoë. “I’m so sorry to bite your head off like that, but things have been a little stressful lately.” She held out her thin, elegant hand and offered my phone back. “Please let’s just let this go.” She glanced down at the DVD player. “I don’t want the police here, tromping over my yard and asking questions. It would be very upsetting to Zoë.” Gwen’s green eyes looked troubled while Zoë's sparkled with interest. I pocketed the phone. Gwen smoothed Zoë's hair down and looked at me imploringly. “We can return it, but let’s leave the police out of this. It’ll be so much easier. Faster, too. Last time someone rear-ended my car it took forever for the police to show up. And then there’s all those forms and questions. I’m sure you have better things to do tonight than fill out forms.”

What did she have to hide? Her parking lot visits with another man? A city police car cruised up to the curb. Gwen’s look changed from pleading to vicious. She swept Zoë inside and left me to explain the situation.

“Ah, yes, the battle of wills.” Dr. Stig said while peering into Livvy’s ear. It was Friday morning and I had just described how Livvy continued to cry at night. She decided
she didn’t like having her ears looked at and began to cry. Further conversation was on hold until the exam was over and Livvy snuggled up with her head in the crook of my neck. I nuzzled her fuzzy head with my chin and did the gentle baby bounce to calm her. Livvy liked to be held, usually up over my shoulder, so she could see everything; she didn’t cuddle much so I enjoyed the moment.

“As I was saying, about wills,” Dr. Stig said as he scribbled on Livvy’s chart. “Your Livvy there has a strong one. Her ears look great, so her crying at night is probably for attention. She’s getting used to waking up, crying, and you feed her, or your husband comforts her, and then she goes back to sleep. Have you been rocking her to sleep?” He flipped the chart closed and stood up.

I nodded. “You basically have two options,” he said. “Keep doing what you’re doing or let her cry it out for a few nights. She’ll sleep after that. You can do whatever you want. My wife couldn’t stand to hear our kids cry, so we took the first option. It’s up to you.”