All Murders Final! (4 page)

Chapter 4

I grabbed my coat and a couple of sturdy tote bags. I'd go hit the last thirty minutes of the rummage sale at the Congregational church. Walking across the town common to the church, I wondered if anything good would be left. Sometimes going late meant losing out on the best stuff. Other times I'd managed to negotiate rock-bottom prices on great items as sellers packed up their things.

Across the common I spotted a woman and a well-dressed man loading bags of stuff into the trunk of a car. Hennessy Hamilton. I wouldn't have known it was her from this distance, but the doors on her car had large bright pink
H
s painted on them to promote her consignment shop, Hennessy's Heaven. I knew that underneath the large
H
, her slogan, “Where all your shopping dreams come true,” was painted on the car. You'd have to be dead to miss it. I winced as I thought of Margaret.

There were still a lot of cars parked around the common and people going in and out of the church.
Drat.
That didn't bode well for my bargain hunting. I trotted down the steps to the church basement and hung my coat on a hook in the hallway outside the fellowship hall, where the sale was being held. I kept the totes with me. At this kind of sale, where everything was paid for at the end, it was easier to set my finds in the totes than try to juggle an armful of things or depend on people having plastic bags available to put stuff in. At bigger events, like outdoor flea markets or sales at convention centers, I took a collapsible wire cart with wheels.

As I entered the fellowship hall and looked at the people milling about, I wondered if the news of Margaret's death was out. At the first table I had my answer. A woman was crying and blowing her nose. “They should have canceled the sale. It's not right being here when poor Margaret is dead,” she said to a woman standing next to her.

“She wasn't even a member of our church,” the woman replied.

“But she was a member of our community. A godsend for this town.” She choked back a sob. “What will we do now?”

The woman next to her rolled her eyes and moved away.

I spotted a blue and white porcelain lamp a couple of tables down and strolled over to it. “How much?” I asked the woman behind the table. She'd started packing away a few of her things.

“It's broken,” she said, looking around. “Have to be honest at a church sale.”

I turned the lamp over but didn't see any cracks or chips in the porcelain.

“No,” the woman said. “It doesn't turn on anymore.”

Ah, so it just needed new wiring, an easy fix. Any hardware store carried socket kits, and I probably had one at home. I was pretty sure the base was from the forties, and once I fixed it, the lamp would be worth at least thirty dollars. A sticker on it said
TEN DOLLARS. “
Since it's broken, would you take three?” Was this lying in a church? Would a bolt of lightning strike me dead? Was it wrong to be here after finding Margaret this morning? Since nothing happened, I decided I was okay.

“I guess so, but why would you want it if it's broken?” She shook her head, clearly thinking I was an odd duck. She marked the price down on the sticker. “Terrible news about Margaret More, isn't it?”

I nodded my agreement, not trusting myself to say anything, and placed the lamp in one of my totes.

I bartered with a man over a set of salt and pepper shakers—vintage Mr. and Mrs. Claus. I'd found them at the bottom of a box full of old dish towels—not old in a good, antique way, but old as in worn and stained. It paid to dig through boxes. I'd turned up a lot of treasures over the years by doing just that. The man wanted twelve dollars for the shakers but agreed to five. I moved around the sale listening to people's reactions to Margaret's death. I bought a blue cobalt glass vase thick with dust. An unframed watercolor of a cabin in the snow was my last purchase. I'd fix it all up and sell it at the February Blues garage sale on base.

As I paid for my purchases and thought about the conversations I'd overheard, I realized about 85 percent of the people felt terrible about Margaret dying, another 10 percent seemed ambivalent, and the last 5 percent appeared almost happy. I wondered about those people.

* * *

My apartment had a slanted ceiling, so it was high on one side and sloped to a four-foot wall on the other. A small door in the wall allowed access to a good-size place to store things. My phone rang as I started to stash my purchases away in the storage space. CJ.

“I heard you had a rough day,” CJ said. His low voice rumbled over the line like a lightning bolt into my heart. We might be divorced, but when he spoke to me with such a caring tone, it was easy to forget everything that had happened between us.

“I've had better, but compared to Margaret's day, I'm fine. Is there an official cause of death?” I sat down on one of the two chairs at my small kitchen table and started tracing the pattern of the flowers on the vintage tablecloth with my finger. It wasn't that different than the one stuffed in Margaret's mouth, the one I had wanted so much last night. Sometimes I was an idiot.

CJ sighed. “You know I couldn't tell you if there was. You have to wait and find out like every other resident of Ellington.”

“A girl can hope,” I answered.

“Did you remember anything else about the photo that was sent to you?”

My heart dropped a little. This was an official call, not a personal one. A small town police chief doing his job. “I don't remember anything else. Where are you?”

“At a conference for chiefs of small police departments.” He paused. “In Monterey.”

Monterey?
I'd grown up in Pacific Grove, a small town next to Monterey. When I was eighteen, my mother had warned me to stay away from the military men at the Defense Language Institute, just up the hill from our house. So, of course, I'd headed right up there. I'd bowled CJ over, literally, as I hustled out of a building I wasn't supposed to be in. The security guys had been hot on my heels as I exited, right into CJ's arms. He'd even lied to the MAs—the masters-at-arms, or navy police—saying that I was waiting for him and that he was late. The memory made me smile.

“I had dinner with your folks last night.”

My folks?
That wiped the smile off my face. I loved my parents, but since the fall they'd increased their pressure on me to move home. I'd spent Christmas with them, and much of the holiday had been them probing into why I was staying in Ellington. I loved it here, although the warm weather and the stunning coastal scenery of Pacific Grove tempted me.

But I didn't want to go back as a failure. If anything, Monterey was more expensive than this area, and there was little possibility of finding a place I could afford on my own. I'd checked the classifieds there after CJ and I first split. It had helped to make my decision to live here easier. Plus, my parents hated garage sales, because they thought if you didn't want something, you should give it away. Which was fine and dandy if you had lots of money, but many people needed the money, and I liked to help them make it.

“Are you there?” CJ asked.

“Yes. I'm just . . . surprised.” Surprised didn't begin to describe my feelings. My mother had been dead set against us getting married so young. My father hadn't been happy about the idea either, but at least he hadn't vocalized those feelings and instead had bent over backward to welcome CJ to the family. Even after CJ and I were married for nineteen years, my mother had continued to be a bit reserved with him. At least she'd managed not to say “I told you so” to me over Christmas. I wondered if she'd said it to CJ. I was flummoxed that she'd invited him over for dinner, now that we were divorced. Maybe she was trying to get him to tell me to move back to California.

“How did it go?” I asked, not sure I actually wanted to know the answer.

“No blood was shed, if that's what you're worried about.”

“I wasn't too worried about bloodshed with my pacifist parents.” “Aging hippies” was a better way to describe them. Me marrying a military man went pretty much against everything I'd been raised to believe. But over time, as CJ won them over, they'd mellowed a bit. “But they are opinionated, to say the least, and the fact that you hurt their only daughter . . .”

“They asked where we stood.”

“What did you tell them?” I wasn't sure I wanted to know this, either.

“That they'd have to ask you.”

Ask me?
The last couple of times I'd reached out to him, he'd been all business. It sure felt like he'd reached a decision all on his own, even if I hadn't. Not that I'd blame him if he was tired of waiting around for me to figure my life out. I heard a woman in the background call to CJ.

“I've got to go,” he said.

“When will you be back?” But CJ had already hung up.

Thinking of CJ with another woman upset me more than I wanted to admit. I crawled back through the small door to the storage space to finish putting my purchases away. A box in back of the things I'd accumulated for the February Blues sale caught my attention. I dragged it out from under the eaves and realized this unopened box was one from when CJ and I split up. So much for not thinking about CJ. I pulled off the packing tape and found a box full of CJ's sports stuff. A baseball bat, a basketball, and an old pair of cleats, apparently nothing he valued or things he thought were lost. I took out the baseball bat, hefting it in my hand. I went to my bedroom and stuck it under my bed as I thought about the photo of me standing by Margaret's car. The photo must have freaked me out a little more than I cared to admit.

* * *

I fixed another fluffernutter for dinner, realizing a diet of fluffernutters would get old quickly, but I still didn't have my car back. At six, I flipped on the news, and the story of Margaret's death was covered even by the Boston stations. Her family had a compound on Nantucket, but they'd called Ellington home for many generations.
Philanthropy
and
industry
seemed to be the main words used to describe the family. After getting my fill of Margaret's family history, I flipped on the Celtics game. During the commercials I approved posts for the garage sale site. If I'd known how much time the site would take up, I wasn't sure I would have started it. The admin of the Concord site had warned me and hadn't been overstating the amount of work.

At halftime there was a knock on my door. I hoped it was Stella Wild, my friend and landlady, who lived in the apartment below me, so I could vent about finding Margaret. I yanked open the door. Seth Anderson stood there.

Chapter 5

In his black cashmere overcoat, gloves in hand, he looked every bit Massachusetts's Most Eligible Bachelor, which he'd been named by a magazine two years running. I hadn't seen him in person in several months. I'd seen pictures in the newspaper—lots of pictures. Him at this gala or that charity event, always with some dazzling-looking model type on his arm, but never the same one twice in a row. He was a darling of the society pages, and every one of those pictures sparked a jealous twinge in me, as much as I'd like to deny they did. Here I was, dressed in sweats, a Celtics T-shirt, and pink, fuzzy slippers. At least I still had a bit of makeup on.

“I know I'm breaking the ‘You don't want to see me' rule, but I thought finding Margaret dead and a trip to the police station allowed for relaxing the rule.”

Seth was the district attorney for our county and thus would know when any major crimes occurred. He smelled heavenly—fresh air and soap. I'd forgotten how deliciously tempting he was, even with his dark hair mussed, like he'd run his hands through it a hundred times recently. I was happier to see him than I wanted to admit to myself. We'd met in a bar last winter, and I was still embarrassed that I'd slept with him that first night. I hadn't seen him again until last April, and after that we'd dated on and off until last October.

“I take it by your silence that you want me to go.”

“Yes,” I said as I shook my head no.
Damn.
My subconscious was totally betraying me. I sighed. “Come in.” I managed not to say, “Please, please, please come in and hold me and take me and never, ever let me go.” Instead, I demurely stepped back so he could enter. But I wondered if the amused grin on his face meant he read every thought as it flicked through my mind.

He slipped out of his coat and laid it on the arm of the couch.

“Would you like a glass of Cabernet?” I asked. I definitely needed one.

“Sure. That would be great.” He took off his red silk tie and loosened the top couple of buttons of his pristine blue shirt. His dark gray suit must have been custom made, because it fit him so perfectly.

Seth settled on my couch like he belonged there. I fled to the kitchen. Well, it was more of a shuffle in my fuzzy slippers. I gave myself a good talking to as I opened the bottle of wine and poured two glasses.
Do not get too close. Be friendly. Polite. Maintain a proper decorum, as much as one can when wearing sweats, a T-shirt, and pink fuzzy slippers.
I took a deep breath, gave my shoulder-length hair a toss, and shuffled back into the living room.

Trying to look composed in fuzzy slippers wasn't all that easy. As I handed Seth his wine, I stepped on the back of one slipper, lost my balance, and tossed the wine all over Seth's shirt.

“Oh, no. I'm so sorry.” Heat flamed my face. “Give me your shirt and I'll rinse it out.”

Seth stood and laughed. “It's fine. It's just a shirt.”

“Hand it over.”

Seth unbuttoned his shirt, and I braced myself for the sight of his bare chest. Fortunately, he had a white T-shirt on, but it was also soaked with wine. He yanked it off over his head. I held my hand out for both, trying not to stare at his chest.
Eyes up.

“Do you have a towel?” he asked.

“Yes.” I kicked off my traitorous fuzzy slippers and dashed off to get one. I returned and watched as he carefully blotted up as much of the excess wine on his blue shirt as he could.

“Do you have any club soda?” he asked.

“Yes. Give me the shirts and I'll rinse them.”

“Just point me to where it is, and I'll take care of it.”

He followed me into the kitchen, which seemed smaller than normal, considering his proximity and bare chest. I opened the fridge and pointed. “There's the club soda.” I hustled out of the kitchen and grabbed a couple of hangers from my bedroom.

“Here,” I said, when I returned to the kitchen and handed him the hangers. “We can hang your shirts from the shower rod so they can dry.” After Seth put the shirts on the hangers, I took them to the bathroom. I couldn't sit out there with him half naked. I only had so much willpower when it came to Seth. So I went back into my bedroom and scrounged around in my dresser until I found the biggest T-shirt I owned.

Seth sat on the couch and I tossed him the T-shirt. God help me, if I didn't watch him pull that thing on. It hugged his chest and flat abs, but this was much better than bare. I hustled back into the kitchen and fanned myself with a dish towel. I needed to turn down the thermostat. After pouring him another glass of wine, I went back into the living room. I meant to sit in my grandmother's rocker by the window, but Seth grabbed my wrist and pulled me down next to him. I'd like to say I shot off the couch. Instead, I stayed, took a drink of my wine, and smiled when I felt Seth's lips brush across my hair. I fit next to him so well. But that made me think of CJ and the promise I'd made to myself to keep my distance from both of them until I could figure out—with a clear head—what I wanted. Or whom. I put a little space between us. I felt more than heard Seth's sigh of resignation.

“I'm sorry you found Margaret,” Seth said. “Are you okay?”

I found my head circling in a yes-no motion. I propped my feet up on the old trunk I used as a coffee table, grateful I'd given myself a pedicure a few days ago. “It was horrible finding her.”

“Tell me about the picture.”

I quickly told him all I remembered. Which was what I'd told the police and the state troopers. “You must have read my statement.”

“I did, but I wanted to hear it from you.”

“So you could tell if I was guilty?”

“No. So I could see how I could help you.” He studied me for a minute. “As a friend.”

I gave a little snort.
Friend.
Funny. I didn't feel like ripping the shirt off and jumping into the lap of any of my other friends.

“And I know CJ's out of town.”

Apparently, everyone had that bit of information. “So you thought I needed protecting. I'm not some fragile damsel in distress.”
Yes, yes, I am. Please don't buy my bravado and leave me.

“No. Like I said, I thought you might need a friend.”

That took the wind out of my sails.

We talked and finished the bottle of wine. I woke at three, sprawled across Seth's chest, his arms wrapped around me. He snored gently. I slipped out of his arms, got a blanket from my room, and put it around him. Part of me wanted to snuggle under it with him, but I couldn't see that leading to any place good, or maybe I saw it leading to someplace very good that I needed to avoid. So I crawled in my own bed and slept better than I would have thought possible given my day.

* * *

At 9:30 a.m. I scurried to the bathroom because I needed to freshen up before facing Seth. Seth's shirt and T-shirt were no longer hanging from my shower rod. I peeked around the corner into the living room. The blanket was neatly folded on the couch, and a piece of paper lay on top of it, but my T-shirt was nowhere to be seen. The piece of paper was a note from Seth:
Let me know if you need anything. Call me if anything else happens.
He'd underlined the word
anything
twice. I crumpled the paper and threw it in the trash. Needed, wanted, I could barely tell the two apart anymore, which was why last October I'd told both him and CJ that I needed a break. But now that I'd seen Seth and knew I still had feelings for him—lots of messy, wonderful, scary feelings—I realized I needed to see CJ again and soon.

Pellner called and told me I could pick up my car at the station, which was a good thing because I had a meeting on base this morning. I bundled up, hoping that Stella was home and could give me a ride. If she wasn't, I'd make the walk. Even though the sun was shining and some of the snow was melting, it was cold out, according to the weather app on my phone. I trotted down the stairs and knocked on Stella's door. She answered, also bundled up and looking like she was leaving for the day. Her cat, Tux, meowed behind her. He was black, with a white chest. I'd found him a collar that looked like a bow tie in the front. He was the George Clooney of the cat world.

“It's okay, boy. I'll be back,” Stella said as she started to close her door. I waved at Tux, but I wasn't sure he appreciated the gesture. Stella taught voice at Berklee College of Music. We were about the same age and height, but she had exotic Mediterranean looks, with olive skin and deep green eyes, while I had dark blond hair and blue eyes.

“Where are you off to this morning?” I asked.

“I'm meeting the family for Sunday brunch in Boston. Then giving some private lessons this afternoon. You?”

“I need a ride to the police station.”

“The police station?” Stella's voice sounded concerned, with a hint of amusement.

“I'll explain on the way.”

Stella murmured sympathetically while she drove and I told her the story. It didn't take long to reach the station.

After thanking Stella, I trotted up the steps and entered the lobby. It was a square space with a couple of chairs, two doors, which I knew were locked and which you had to be buzzed through, and a bulletproof glass window with a small opening for speaking through. No desk in the lobby with a gossipy receptionist sitting there who might fill me in on what was going on with Margaret. Or even a stoic Yankee receptionist who might walk off to get something, allowing someone like me to snoop.

No, this lobby was snoop proof. Darn the Ellington police and their modern ways. I walked up to the window. The desk on the other side was empty. “Hello,” I called, putting my lips near the vent-like thing embedded in the window. I hoped it amplified my voice so someone would hear me. After a few moments a woman with puffy red eyes showed up. Her name tag read
MORE.
I wondered if she was the dispatcher who couldn't talk to me yesterday morning and how she was related to Margaret.

“I came to pick up the keys for my Suburban. Officer Pellner said I could pick it up.”

The woman gave a short nod and disappeared from my view. She returned a few minutes later and slid the keys through a contraption like you see at the movie theater. “The car's round the side of the building.”

She turned away before I could even say thank you.

* * *

It was 10:30 a.m. by the time I stood in the community center on Fitch Air Force Base, the site of the February Blues garage sale. I handed Laura Nicklas, my good friend and the base commander's wife, one of the two cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee I'd swung by and picked up on the way over here. Mine was almost gone, because I'd needed the jolt of caffeine this morning. I dropped my purse in a corner to keep it out of the way.

Laura took a drink. “Yum. Just what I needed. Thanks.” Laura stood about two inches taller than my five-six and looked a lot like Halle Berry. She'd actually gotten into arguments with people who insisted she was indeed Halle. As if she wouldn't know she was a rich and famous movie star. Laura had sponsored me on base, which allowed me access after I went to the visitors center, filled out a form, and got a pass to display on the dashboard of my Suburban.

The security forces were sticklers for procedure, even with people like me, who used to live on base. Usually, the pass they gave me was only good for a few hours, but with the work leading up to the February Blues garage sale, Laura had gotten me a thirty-day pass. Woo-hoo! Now I wouldn't have to go to the visitors' center and fill out a form every time I came to base to help with the sale. By showing the pass and my driver's license to the security guard at the gate, I'd be able to sail right through. It would feel like the old days—just over a year ago—when CJ and I were still married and I had a dependent's ID that allowed me on base.

I looked around the room. My status on base might have changed, but the carpet here hadn't. It was still old and stained, and the crystal chandeliers seemed to be at odds with our purpose, but we were able to use the room for free, so neither of those things really mattered.

“Why are we doing the sale on a Friday? Aren't they usually on Saturdays, when more people are off work?” Laura asked. One of the many duties Laura had as the base commander's wife was running the base thrift shop, so she was savvy about sales.

“That would usually make sense, but more people are on base during the week because of all the people who commute to work here, so I thought Friday would be better.” I hoped my theory was right. “More people means more sales.”

“Okay. You're the expert. Where do we start?” Laura asked. “I don't have much time, because I have to go to mass.”

“Let's go to the storeroom and measure what size tables are available. Then we can start laying out a floor plan for the room.”

“I hate that creepy storeroom. I always think I'm going to find a dead body in there.”

I winced, thinking about Margaret.

“What? What do you know?” Laura asked. We started walking across the room, which was about the size of an elementary school gymnasium. “Do you know something about Margaret More? Did CJ tell you something juicy?”

“CJ didn't tell me anything.”

“But . . . I know you have a
but
.” And that was why Laura always knew what was going on around base. She was observant, she asked the right questions, or she could stare you down like you were a teenager fibbing about where you'd been.

“I found her.”

“No.” Laura's mouth dropped open so far, I was pretty sure her jaw hit her toes. “How'd you happen to be the one who found her?”