6 Beach Blanket Barbie (6 page)

“No
, the shabby little place that’s about five miles out of town. I think it’s called One Man’s Trash.”

“Oh
, yeah, I know the place you’re talking about. Go on.”

“I decided to stop
to check it out. I found Ms. Bennington preparing to leave through the back door. She had a clock in her hand. The store wasn’t open, so I assumed she was stealing it. She begged me not to arrest her. She said she’d seen the clock on a previous visit and fallen in love with it but couldn’t afford it, so she decided to steal it. And she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

I frowned. The entire scenario made no sense. If Salinger had revealed that he’d caught Barbie stealing designer clothes or jewelry
, I’d probably buy it, but an old clock from a rundown antiques store that was known for selling more junk than anything else?

“Was there anything special about this clock?” I asked.

Salinger shrugged. “I’m not into antiques, so I couldn’t tell you. It was old. The kind you have to wind.”

“Did she leave with it?”

“No, I made her leave it behind.”

“And she didn’t have anything else?” I asked.

“Not that I noticed.”

I tried to work the whole thing out in my mind. Something odd was going on
, for sure.

“You were seen talking to Barbie at the beach on the day of her
death. Do you mind telling me what you were talking about?”

“I don’t see that our conversation is any of your business,” Salinger pointed out.

“Perhaps not, but I’m curious all the same.”

Salinger blushed. “I wanted to see if she was interested in having dinner.
At first I thought she was going to accept. She got real close and whispered in my ear. I was expecting her to whisper something dirty, but instead she told me to buzz off. I got angry at her dismissive tone and reminded her that I was keeping her secret. She basically told me that she’d paid her debt and our business was concluded. I got mad and left. I never saw her again until I responded to the drowning call.”

“She was with a man in red board shorts. Did you recognize him?”

“No. There was a man, but he got up and headed into the water when I arrived. He didn’t say anything and hadn’t come back to the beach by the time I left. I suppose he was just her fling of the hour. Now I really need to get back to work, so unless you have anything else for me . . . ?”

“No, that should do it for no
w.” I stood up. “I tell Zak, Levi, and Ellie everything,” I emphasized. “But with the exception of the three of them, who won’t say anything,” I assured him, “your little secret is safe with me.”

After leaving Salinger’s office, I headed over to Ellie’s Beach Hut
.
The parking lot was packed as usual, so I parked in the alley behind the shops that lined Main Street. I hadn’t wanted to take Charlie with me when I went to visit Salinger, so I’d left him with Zak. If the number of bodies crammed onto the beach and pier were any indication, I was willing to bet that Ellie had done a good amount of business that afternoon. Ellie really did have an awesome setup for those looking to grab a cold drink or quick bite to eat while enjoying the beauty of one of the most popular beaches on the lake. As I ran across the street, dodging traffic in both directions, I noticed a man walking to his truck who looked a lot like the man Ellie and I had referred to as Conan the afternoon we’d been spying on Barbie. He appeared to be alone, so I changed direction and set a trajectory that would cause me to accidentally on purpose run smack dab into the Neanderthal.

“Oh
, I’m so sorry,” I said as I knocked his keys out of his hand. “I’m such a klutz. I can’t believe I ran into you like that. Are you hurt?”

“By a tiny thing like you? Hardly.”

“You know, you look familiar. Do we know each other?” I asked, knowing we didn’t.

“Perhaps
.” The man began looking me up and down.

P
ervert.

“Aren’t you a friend of Barbie’s?” I fished.

“You party with Barbie?” The man was practically drooling by now.

“Occasionally. How about you? Are you and Barbie close?”

“We’ve gotten funky a time or two,” the man leered. “Maybe you can call her up and the three of us can get together.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. Can I have your number?” I figured if the guy didn’t realize Barbie was dead
, he couldn’t have killed her and most likely didn’t know anything at all about what had happened to her, but it couldn’t hurt to get his number.

I handed the man
a pen and he wrote his number on my hand. Seriously? After he left, I fought the bile that had worked its way into my throat as his sweaty palm caressed mine, and headed toward a table that had just become vacant. I sat down before the party even left, receiving a rude look for doing so, but in this crowd, he who waits, waits.

“Smooth move,” Ellie greeted me as she began to clear the table. “Who was that guy you were talking to?”

“Conan.”

“Come again?”

“From the beach. That was the guy you referred to as Conan. He was giving me his phone number.” I held up my hand.

“You think he knows something about Barbie’s death?”

“I don’t think he knows much about anything, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to have his number just in case. Do you have a piece of paper so I can transfer this from my hand before I soak my arm in battery acid?”

“Battery acid?”

“The guy seemed to think it was necessary to molest my arm while he jotted down his number. I almost vomited on his shoe.”

Ellie laughed.
“Well, I should think so. We have some pretty strong soap in the back. It’s not battery acid strong, but it should do the trick. Go ahead and wash up. I’ll save your table.”

By the time I’d washed Conan’s grubby paw prints off my hand and arm
, Levi had shown up. We both ordered a beer while we waited for Zak to arrive and Ellie to get caught up enough to take a break. The cold beer on a hot day went a long way toward settling my queasy stomach. There’s something about sitting by the water on a warm afternoon that makes life’s little disturbances seem inconsequential at best. I found myself wishing I’d taken the time to go back to the house to get Charlie. He’d love sitting in the shade next to me, watching the kids on the beach chase each other along the waterline. I was lucky to have a dog who was so easygoing with any person and in any situation. Ellie sat down next to Levi at about the same time I saw Zak jogging down the beach with my furry bundle of joy. Charlie trotted over to me as Zak took a quick dip in the lake to cool off before joining us.

“I want you to taste a new appetizer I’m thinking about offerin
g.” Ellie set a bowl of dip on the table in front of us. “Be honest about whether you like it. When I first came up with the concept, it seemed like it would be delicious, but I’ve tried a couple of different versions and it doesn’t seem quite right.”

I
picked up one of the tortilla chips she’d brought to accompany the dip and took a bite. It was good. Really good. “I like it,” I commented.

“Yeah
, but I can see what Ellie means.” Levi took a second bite. “Maybe if you add some hot pepper sauce. It’s good, but a little pepper sauce would give it more of a kick.”

Ellie took a bite and thought about it. “Or maybe horseradish. It would give it a kick and provide an interesting flavor. Thanks
, Levi.”

“Always happy to help a damsel in distress.”

Zak came over to the table and sat down next to me. Ellie offered him a beer, but he declined.

“You jogged
all the way from your house?”

Zak nodded to me.
“I needed to get some exercise, and I figured Charlie and I could get a ride home with you.” Zak took a bite of the dip. “Hey, this is really good. New menu item?”

“Maybe
, if I can get it just right,” Ellie answered.

“You didn’t bring Lambda?”
I asked Zak about his dog.

“No
. He’s been limping again, and I didn’t want to put too much stress on his joints. I have an appointment to take him in to see Scott this week. I’m afraid his arthritis might be getting worse. It seems like he’s in pain a lot of the time lately.”

“Poor baby. Maybe Scott can change his meds.”
Lambda had been involved in a run-in with a black bear and was near death when I found him almost five years earlier. I’d brought him to the shelter and, with Scott’s expert doctoring, we’d nursed him back to health. Lambda was a young dog at the time of the attack and healed quickly, but his altercation left him with some permanent disabilities, and I worried about his ability to age gracefully.

“
Maybe. It seems like he’s having a hard time getting around, but hopefully he’ll be okay as long as we keep him quiet for a day or two,” Zak answered.

“
Did you find out anything new about Barbie’s murder?” Levi asked Zak. It was obvious he felt the death of a friend trumped doggie ailments when it came to picking a topic of conversation.

“Not really. It seems Barbie ha
d been totally off the grid. I couldn’t find any record of her at all since she left Ashton Falls three months ago, which in and of itself is strange.”

“Why so?” Ellie asked.

“If she applied for a job or rented an apartment or changed the address on her credit cards, I would have found it. The fact that I didn’t find
anything
makes it look like she was hiding out. I looked at the address she has on file at the post office. She closed her box before she left but didn’t leave a forwarding address. I talked to the woman who works in the back, and she said any mail for her that came their way was sent back to the sender as undeliverable. She let it slip that Barbie actually had quite a bit of mail sent back, including a tax return. It seems odd that she wouldn’t leave a forwarding address if she were expecting a check.”

“It’s like she just dropped off the face of the earth,” Ellie stated.

“Yeah, she did seem to have disappeared,” Levi agreed. “I asked around, and no one had heard from her at all until she called me on Thursday.”

“She was her
e on Wednesday,” I supplied. I filled the gang in on my conversation with Salinger.

“Why in the world would Barbie steal a clock from that shabby antique
s store?” Levi questioned. “I tried to get her to look through a used bookstore once, and she asked me why I would want to buy a book that someone else had owned already. Barbie wasn’t the type to appreciate anything old or worn.”

“Maybe it was valuable?” Ellie speculated.

“If Barbie wanted valuable, she would have gone for jewelry. Or shoes,” Levi added. “Barbie loved shoes.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t track th
at Barbie would have been in that shop in the first place to notice the clock,” I agreed with Levi.

“Maybe Salinger was lying,” Ellie suggested.

“About which part?” Levi asked.

“All of it. Maybe he didn’t find Barbie in that particular shop holding a clock.”

“The man admitted to letting a thief go in exchange for sexual favors. Why would he lie about something as inconsequential as the
what
and
where
?” I asked.

Ellie shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s just that the whole thing doesn’t fit
what we know to be true about Barbie.”

Ellie had a point. The fact that Barbie would break into a dusty antique
s store and attempt to steal a clock didn’t make sense. I’d been in the store in question a time or two, and I was fairly certain the man who owned the establishment dealt more in junk than in treasure. The only possible scenario that made sense was that Barbie was stealing the clock for someone else. The question was, who? If she’d been off the grid, she must have been living with someone for the past three months. Maybe if we found out who she’d shacked up with, we’d find out who killed her.

“Have we learned anything else?” Levi asked.
He was obviously becoming agitated.

“I’m pretty sure Conan didn’t do it. He didn’t seem to know that Barbie was dead
,” I added.

“Conan? As in the guy on the beach?”

“Yeah. I ran into him on my way over,” I informed Levi.

“I talked to Angela Hayes
today,” Ellie contributed. “She wasn’t unhappy to hear that Barbie was dead, but it didn’t seem like she was responsible for the act either. She mentioned that she and Phillip went sailing with a friend and then headed to the Wharf for dinner. You can check with the staff at the restaurant, but I’d be willing to bet she was telling the truth.”

“Yeah, but if Barbie died at between
eleven and one, they could have gone to dinner and still had enough time to return to the pier and kill her,” Levi pointed out.

“Maybe. But it seems unlikely,
” Ellie defended herself.

I had to agree with Ellie
; it did seem unlikely. I glanced at Charlie, who had crawled under the table and fallen asleep on my foot. The feel of his furry head against my bare foot gave me a feeling of contentment that I can’t quite describe. I didn’t want to say as much to Zak, but I was worried about his large chocolate lab. If the arthritis we’d been battling got much worse . . . well, I didn’t want to think about it.

“I’m going to go to the yoga studio in the morning
to talk to Serenity.” I jumped back into the conversation as a way to divert attention from my uneasy thoughts.

“You’d better go prepared to take a class,” Ellie
said. “The watchdog at the desk doesn’t let anyone in unless they’re supposed to be there.”

“Maybe you can get the scoop on Barbie and Phillip while you’re there,” Levi suggested.
“The guy gives me the creeps, and I agree with you that he had plenty of time to kill Barbie after he finished his dinner. He could have eaten, taken his wife home, and then gone back and killed Barbie.”

“Honestly
, now that I think about it, it seems unlikely, but I’ll see what I can find out,” I promised.

“I can get in contact with Courtney,
” Ellie offered. “Her boutique is just down the street. I’ll find a few minutes to get away.”

“I have class
es all day tomorrow and then baseball practice after school,” Levi informed us. “I doubt I’ll have time to do much of anything, but if I get the opportunity to talk to anyone on our list, I’ll take it. How about we all meet tomorrow night and share what we find out?”

“Sounds good.
Oh wait.” I grimaced. “
American Sensation
is on tomorrow night. We’ll have to meet on Tuesday.”

“
American Sensation
?” Levi asked. “That show with the singers?”

“That’d be the one,” I confirmed.

“You’re seriously sitting here telling me that watching a show called
American Sensation
is more important than finding Barbie’s killer?”

“Well
, it’s not
more
important,” I conceded, “but it
is
the final episode of the season. By ten o’clock tomorrow night, everyone will know who’s going to be America’s next sensation.”

“Can’t you record it?” Levi wondered.

I shook my head in the negative. “I did that last year and it was a total horror show. I overslept and wasn’t able to watch it before I went to work, so I spent the entire day warning everyone I saw that they’d die a slow and painful death if they let slip the results. And that wasn’t even the worst part. I was terrified that I’d overhear the results on the radio or as part of a television update or Internet story, so I had to avoid all contact with everything electronic for the entire day. It was literally the most stressful day of my life.”