Murder on the Bucket List (14 page)

“I wouldn't worry so much about fingerprints. I'd worry that it's broad daylight and every neighbor will see us go in his house.”

“Good, you're on board then. I've circled the block and I'm headed down the alleyway to park in the back. No one's in the other side of the duplex, and it doesn't look like anyone in the neighborhood is home. As long as the realtor can get us in the rear entrance, we're set. She should be here any minute. Better hurry up, Francine. And watch out for the paparazzi. I had to give them the slip when I left the subdivision.”

“Paparazzi?” she said, but Charlotte had already hung up.

She couldn't decide if it was better to have press or paparazzi. They would both be a nuisance. And she had no idea how to give them the slip.

twenty-two

Francine headed into the
old area of Brownsburg using several alleyways she knew about and finally lost the two cars. Then she drove over to the duplex Friederich had put on the market.

As Charlotte advised, she used the alley behind the duplex to keep the car hidden from the street. The back yard had a chain-link fence about waist high. Francine let herself in the gate and power-walked across the untended lawn dotted with yellow dandelions. She worried her tennis shoes were leaving tracks in the grass, but there wasn't anything she could do about it.

Charlotte, stationed on the side of the house, motioned her to hurry. “I stood on the back stoop for a little while but the position is too exposed,” she said when Francine got close. “Besides, here we can stand in the shade.”

Charlotte was dressed in a black shirt, black elastic-waist pants, and a wig that harkened back to Marlo Thomas's hairstyle on
That Girl
in the '60s. She had on dark sunglasses. If Francine hadn't been so nervous, she would have laughed at the disguise. “I can't believe we're doing this. When is the realtor going to show up?”

“Soon, I hope. I feel like I'm the poster criminal for that neighborhood crime watch Jud is going to talk about tomorrow.” She hopped from foot to foot.

“Will you quit dancing like that? You're making me nervous.”

“You're nervous? That little episode this morning with my stomach triggered my diarrhea, and I've been drinking Gatorade to stay hydrated. It's weighing heavy on my bladder. That bush over there is starting to look pretty good.”

“I heard something. Maybe she just pulled up.”

The two women watched as the gate opened.

“You didn't tell me the realtor was Emily Barringer,” Francine said.

“What's wrong with Emily?”

“She's good friends with Darla Baggesen! This has the potential to be all over the grapevine.”

Emily, wearing dress pants, a flower print blouse, and heels, closed the gate behind her and started toward them. There was no sidewalk, so Emily's shoes kept getting stuck in the yard as she made her way to the house.

Charlotte shook her head when the realtor finally reached them. “You're dressed like you're going to show the place. We're here to skulk around, not do a formal viewing.”

Emily matched Charlotte's attitude with her own. “It's just in case the police show up. If they do, the party line is that I was unaware we weren't supposed to show it.”

“I'm sure that'll work,” Charlotte said dryly. “It explains why you came in the back and core-aerated the yard.”

Emily took a key out of her purse. “You want in or not?”

“Wait.” Charlotte handed a pair of Mary Ruth's gloves to each of them. “Put these on before you touch anything. I'm sure I don't have to tell you why.” She waggled her eyebrows.

“What do you suggest we do with them if the police show up?” Francine asked, pulling on her pair. “They're not going to believe Emily's story if we have these on.”

“We won't have them on. At the first sign of trouble, I expect you to eat them.”

Emily shook her head. “You're such a card.”

Francine was amused.
She thinks Charlotte's kidding.

When the women were gloved, Emily opened the door. It led into the kitchen, which had old appliances and a worn-out Formica countertop but was otherwise clean.

Francine looked around. “It's pretty dated. Was this thing getting many showings?”

“Look at the neighborhood and think about the economy,” Emily said. “No. You should try being a realtor under these conditions.”

“I'm checking out the bathroom,” Charlotte said.

“Why the bathroom?”

“Because I have to use it.”

Francine rifled through the kitchen drawers. “Let's check in here first. We'll do this methodically from back to front.”

“I'm not doing anything,” Emily said. “I'm going to sit on the couch and watch. I agreed to get you in, but now I'm having second thoughts. I don't even know what we're looking for.”

Charlotte spoke before she went in the bathroom. “The police have been able to find all sorts of clues they won't share with us. We're looking for reasons someone other than Larry Jeffords killed Friederich. Someone like Jake Maehler.”

Emily got more defiant. “You didn't tell me you're trying to find evidence against Jake Maehler. I like him. I don't think he's a killer. He's got a killer body, though.”

“I said someone
like
Jake Maehler. Why don't you go look for financial records? See if you can scare up a file cabinet.”

“You know, I'm trying not to get in trouble for this.”

“If you help, we'll get out of here faster.” Charlotte closed the bathroom door behind her as Emily relented and got off the couch.

Francine searched the kitchen. Emily wandered down the hall. Eventually Francine heard the toilet flush. The bathroom door opened and Charlotte came out waving a bunch of magazines. “He read magazines while sitting on the pot,” she announced.

“Something scandalous?”

“
Mechanics Illustrated
and
Sprint Car & Midget Racing
.”

“No hot button there.”

Charlotte leafed through them. “But he's turned down the corners to mark pages in several of the
Sprint Car
issues.”

“Anything interesting?”

“They're pages of photos. Looks like they were taken at racing events. I'm taking them with me. They might be important.” She put the magazines on the kitchen table.

Francine got up on a step stool and examined the upper shelves of Friederich's cabinets. “This is definitely a bachelor's kitchen. I think he may have four mismatched place settings total, and they're assembled from cheap dinnerware. Lots of empty, dusty shelves.”

Charlotte opened the refrigerator and peered in. “Ewww.” She recoiled from the smell. “Not too much in here, but whatever it is needs to be thrown away.” She closed the door and opened the freezer compartment above the refrigerator. “He had a thing for Marie Callender, apparently. Hey, what do we know about Friederich's love life?”

“Nothing. Maybe we should ask about that.”

Charlotte closed the freezer door and checked behind the refrigerator. Francine came down off the step stool and stood behind her, peering over her head into the dark space. “What are we looking for back here?”

“If you were going to hide something important, you'd put it in a place people wouldn't think to look.”

“We'd need a flashlight to see back there. And anyway, he'd have to move the fridge every time he wanted to get it. This is a wild goose chase, Charlotte.”

“I should have remembered to bring a flashlight. I wonder if Friederich kept one around.”

“Probably in the garage.”

“Good idea.” Charlotte found a door off the kitchen that led into the garage. She flipped on a light and went in.

“Even if she finds a flashlight, there's nothing behind that refrigerator,” Francine said to herself. She gave up on the kitchen and checked on Emily. Emily was in the second bedroom, which Friederich had turned into an office.

“Not finding too much here,” Emily told her. “Looks like the police hauled out a computer, and a lot of the drawers in this file cabinet are empty. I'm going through a few folders that were left, but I don't see anything important.” She held up a folder with a single sheet of paper in it.

“Well, keep trying. I'm going to check his bedroom.”

She crossed the short hallway. Friederich's bedroom was small and squarish, maybe ten feet on a side. A window on the west wall had Venetian blinds, partially closed, that let in some light. There were a couple of generic framed paintings on the wall, but no photos on the dresser. A twin bed lined up along the south wall. Between the twin bed and the lack of photos, Francine wondered if Friederich had a love life at all. The police might have removed photos, she mused, but it certainly didn't look like he had a relationship to speak of.

Doors that slid back on one another hid the contents of a closet on the east wall next to the dresser. Francine slid open one of the doors, found a pull cord, and turned on the low-watt lightbulb in the closet. A rod ran from wall to wall with hangers on the rod. About half the hangers had clothes on them. Typical of a man, she thought. Limited wardrobe. There was a shelf above the hanging clothes. Francine was tall enough that she could pat around without having to get a step stool. On one side she found a magazine. The lack of dust on the cover made her think it was a magazine he'd looked at recently. She stood on tiptoes and pulled it down, expecting to find something like
Playboy
. Instead, it was another copy of
Sprint Car & Midget Racing
. There were no marked pages, as Charlotte had found with the copies in the bathroom. It had a July date on the cover, so it must be the most recent issue. She wondered why he would keep it on the top shelf of the closet. She carried it back to the kitchen table and added it to the stack Charlotte had created.

Francine hadn't seen Charlotte since she disappeared into the garage. She opened the door. The light was still on.

“Charlotte?” she said. There was no answer. Fearing her friend had fallen, Francine went in.

Friederich's home garage was spotless, just like the workspace he'd rented from Larry and Alice, but it was small. Taking up most of the single car garage space was his vintage Corvette in immaculate condition. Something about muscle cars appealed to Charlotte, so Francine went to the driver's side and peered in the window. Charlotte was slumped over in the front seat.

Francine yanked open the door.

Charlotte sat up immediately. She had terror in her eyes, then relief. “Ohmigosh, Francine, you scared me half to death.”

“What are you doing in there?”

“Imagining myself taking this thing out for a spin. It's a beauty, isn't it?” She put one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the gear shift.

Francine leaned an elbow on the car's roof. “We don't have time for this.”

“Do you think the police searched the 'Vette?”

“Of course they did.”

“Good. Then I'm taking this.” She held up an iPod Touch. “I've always wanted one.”

Francine's eyes widened. “You can't take that.”

“Why not? I'm taking the magazines. And Friederich's dead, it's not like he's going to miss it.”

The door opened and Emily stuck her head out. “Emergency problem. We've got a Channel 59 satellite truck outside. It doesn't look like they're going anywhere anytime soon.”

Charlotte said a bad word.

“We'll be there in a minute,” Francine said.

Charlotte put out her hand. “Help me out. I'm stuck. That's the problem with these muscle cars, they're not designed for senior citizens.”

Francine pried her out of the seat.

“We need to put the cover back on,” Charlotte said.

“You took the cover off ?”

“Don't lecture me. Just help me put it back so we can see what's going on with Channel 59.”

The two of them draped the cover back over the Corvette. In the house, they found Emily holding the curtain back just enough to see outside. “The cameraman is filming the place and there's a reporter that's been snooping around the windows. All the shades are drawn, which is a good thing.”

Charlotte stood behind Emily where she could see outside. “She looks like she's headed back to the van.”

Emily wrung her hands. “I'm going to get in trouble for this. I knew I shouldn't have agreed to show you this house.”

“Okay, here's what we'll do,” Charlotte said, talking with her hands. “They're both in front now. We'll slip out the back, the way we came. If we head the long way down the alley we'll come out on a side road, and we can use it to get back to Green Street. From there we scatter, each in a different direction.”

“I don't know,” Francine said. “If they're smart, they'll have planted another cameraman back by our cars. At least you have a disguise on, with that silly wig.”

“It's not silly. I bet you wish you'd thought of it now.”

“Quiet, both of you,” Emily said. “You're not the ones whose career is on the line. I bet they followed one of you here.”

“It's possible, but I tried really hard to lose them,” Francine said. “They must be good.” She decided from now on, no more doing anything she didn't want on camera.

Charlotte pulled open her pants and stuck the iPod in her underwear. Francine started to say something, but she waved her off. “In case the police show up and we get searched,” she said. “Grab the magazines. We can't hide those. We'll have to chance them.”

The women gathered at the back door. Charlotte had them slip off their gloves. She opened the back door and let them out and closed it behind her. Then she took off her gloves. They hustled as fast as they could across the back yard, but Emily easily outpaced them, even in heels. She reached the gate first, opened it, and froze. “We've been found,” she said.

Francine and Charlotte came up behind her as she took off for her car. Channel 59 had not only stationed a cameraman back by their cars, but also a reporter. The reporter screamed questions at Emily as she covered her face with her hand, got in the car, and drove off. The cameraman stopped filming her and turned his attention to the other two.

“Follow suit,” Charlotte said, “only not as fast.” She took the magazines from Francine.

As embarrassing as she found it, Francine couldn't think of anything else to do. She and Charlotte tried their best to cover their identities and get to their cars. The reporter asked questions about why they were there and what they hoped to find. Neither she nor Charlotte answered. The cameraman got in their way. They pushed past him and climbed in their cars. Francine drove off first. She hoped Charlotte didn't have any problems.