An Appointment With Murder (8 page)

When gabby left to prepare for her first client, I sat at Beth’s desk reflecting on the conversation with Detective Flynn. He didn’t seem particularly interested in Lindy, or Jacob, for that matter. I rummaged around looking for the application Beth had filled out when she’d applied for the receptionist job. I found her home address, and plugged it into the GPS in my cell phone. I decided I was going to pay Beth’s housemate, Melissa, a visit.

Several minutes later, I was parking on the street in a quaint little residential neighborhood composed of small, well-kept houses. I double-checked the address, 28 Luther Street, to be sure I was at the right house, then locked the car, walked up to the front door, and casually looked around. The neighborhood was quiet, no one milling around. I knocked on the door and waited.

Moments later I heard a sound, and the door opened very slowly. I instantly recognized the woman behind the door as the young, attractive girl with the short stylish hair Max had introduced me to at Beth’s service.

“Your Beth’s roommate, Melissa, right?” I asked. She hesitated, then opened the door a little wider.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes darting around.

“I’m Sarah. Remember, we met yesterday? Sorry to drop by unannounced. It’s just that, well, I’d like to talk to you about Beth.”

She grabbed a card from a table near the door, quickly scribbled something down, handed it to me, then closed the door in my face.

I stood there, dumfounded, then looked down at the card.
Meet me at Billy’s Burgers in one hour.
As I slipped the card into my purse and walked back to the car, I had a feeling that my afternoon was going to get very interesting.

* * *

Billy’s Burgers being only a few minutes from where I was, an hour afforded ample time to gnaw down nearly all my fingernails. It was practically dark by 4:30 when Melissa pulled into a lot adjacent to the restaurant, parked, and emerged from her car carrying only a shoulder bag. I locked my car and followed her into the burger joint.

I’d never been to Billy’s Burgers. The place had subdued lighting and several flat screen TVs on the walls broadcasting some sports channel I wouldn’t know anything about. A perfect environment for private conversation, neither too quiet, nor too loud. She sat at a booth, and I slid in opposite her.

“You’ve got my full attention,” I said, looking directly at her.

“Sorry about all that drama back at the house,” she said, brushing a stray hair from her forehead and looking around. “It was very rude of me, but I had to do it for our protection.”

“Protection from what?”

The waitress stopped at the booth and we ordered two pints of beer. When she left, Melissa leaned across the table and looked at me.

“I know this is going to sound really strange, so please bear with me,” she said, her hands trembling slightly. “Beth wasn’t exactly the person you thought she was.”

“How do you mean?”

“Beth was working for a guy.”

“Working for what guy?”

“She was doing jobs that may not have been legal,” she said, lowering her head and staring at her hands.

“You’re being vague. What are you trying to tell me? Was she working for an escort service or something?”

“God, no,” she said, and laughed nervously. She glanced around the room again, then continued. “Nothing like that. Other kinds of jobs. Snooping around. Taking photographs. Apparently, the private eye she worked with hired her because she was young and innocent looking. She could get people to trust her.”

I was confused. “I still don’t see where you’re going with this. Why all the cloak and dagger?”

Just then, the waitress returned with our beers. When she left, Melissa sipped hers, tapped her fingers on the rim of the glass, and glanced around again. “Well, this one time she was hired to befriend a woman who was supposedly cheating on her husband. Beth got close to her and eventually the woman confided in her about the affair and Beth was able to get evidence to incriminate her.”

“So she was a spy?”

“Well, it wasn’t as if she was selling government secrets, but . . . yes.”

“And she got paid to do these jobs?”

“He made it worth her while.”

“So what kind of guy hires a young woman to spy and put herself in potentially dangerous situations?”

“I’m not sure if it’s his real name, but she called him Carter. He would contact her, give her instructions, and when the job was complete, he’d pay her, in cash, at a location he would choose.”

“What kind of compensation are we talking?”

“It depends. For the job I told you about, with the cheating wife, she got three hundred dollars.”

“Holy shit. How many jobs would she do in a month?”

“It varied, but, on average, one or two a month.”

“Do you know if Beth was doing a job for this guy at the time of her death?”

Melissa shook her head. “She usually didn’t fill me in on details, but I had a feeling she was working on something at the time. She was out very late some nights. Jacob would call wanting to know where she was, and I’d have to cover for her.”

“So Jacob didn’t know about these extracurricular activities?”

“No. Beth was afraid to tell him, thought he’d get pissed. She’d planned to quit before they got married. I guess she just wanted to finish up her last assignment.”

“Is it possible her cover was blown? Maybe whoever she was spying on found out and decided to put a stop to it?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”

“Have you looked through Beth’s things to see if you could find out what she was working on?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t find anything. I thought about telling the police when they questioned me about Beth a few days ago. But I’m scared, Sarah. What if Carter found out that I talked to the police about him? I don’t even know who he is. He could be watching me right now.” She looked around quickly, then covered her face with her hands.

“How in the world did Beth get mixed up in this kind of business?”

Melissa lowered her hands and looked at me.

“A year or so ago, Beth’s brother, Max, owned a company called Luke Enterprises. He sold surveillance equipment. Security cameras, tracking devices, and such. It was a completely legit business. He even sold stuff to police and government agencies. Well, he had connections with all sorts of different people, and he knew this Carter.”

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me Max is the one who set her up with him?”

“Indirectly, I guess. Carter didn’t work for Max. He was a customer. He bought equipment from Max.”

“And?”

“Beth was the receptionist for Max’s company. She met Carter one day at work. Apparently, he recruited her for a small job, just to see how she’d do. A trial run. Turned out she had a knack for the kind of work he needed done.”

“Did Max know about this?”

“Not at first. But when Beth finally did acknowledge that she was working with Carter, Max pitched quite a fit.”

“What’d he do about it?”

“He confronted Carter, told him he no longer wanted his business.”

“But Beth continued to work for Carter anyway?”

“Yeah.”

“And Max had no idea?”

“Who knows? He decided to sell the company a few months later, and I guess he figured it was over.”

“How wrong he was,” I mumbled, biting my lip. My head was beginning to spin. We sat quietly for a few moments, sipping from our respective glass mugs. I looked back at Melissa. Her expression was blank, devoid of emotion. Maybe she was numb. I couldn’t blame her for being scared. “Let’s go to the police, Melissa,” I finally suggested, “and let them locate this Carter guy and question him.”

“I don’t know. I need to think about it, Sarah.”

“Okay. I understand. I really appreciate your sharing this with me, and I know you’re afraid. I won’t take this any further until we’ve talked again.”

Melissa sipped her beer and her shoulders seemed to relax a little. She leaned her head to one side and fidgeted with her napkin. I took a ten-dollar bill from my purse and laid it on the table. Getting up, I placed my hand on her shoulder and said, “Why don’t you come in for a massage sometime. It’ll be on the house. I think you could really use it.”

* * *

It was 5:30 by the time I headed home, and my mind was swimming with all the information it was trying to assimilate. Whatever Beth had been working on could have something to do with her death, but, then, how did Lindy tie in? Or did she? I couldn’t picture sweet, little Beth snooping around in other people’s affairs, for money or not. But that was precisely, according to Melissa, why she was so good at it. She’d never be suspected. And what about Carter? If things had gone sour with whatever she was working on, he must have known about it.

When I got home, Brian and Nick were playing a game on the X-Box. They looked up briefly when I walked in.

“Hey, boys, are you hungry?” I asked, removing my jacket.

“Already had some hot pockets, Mom,” Brian said, continuing to bang away on the hand held controller.

My appetite being pretty much non-existent, instead of making myself dinner I popped a few Ativan and headed to my bedroom to spend a mindless evening immersed in a trashy romance novel. After a long shower, I got into my pajamas and lounged on the bed, decompressing from the day’s events. Two chapters into
Ravaged By Love,
my eyes grew heavy and the book fell to the floor.

I arrived at the office at nine and immediately put the buzz imparted by the three cups of coffee I’d had before leaving home to productive use. I cleaned and refilled oil bottles, washed doorknobs, walls, surfaces, and anything else that might potentially be smudged, organized the music CDs, emptied trash, and folded laundry. It was ten when Gabby walked in.

“The place smells so clean,” Gabby said, smiling, her curly hair damp, clothes wrinkled.

“You seem chipper today. But you look like you slept in your clothes last night.”

“I had an amazing evening,” she said, fluttering her generous eyelashes.

“Oh, really? Do I dare ask?”

“It had been two months, three days, and six hours since the last time I got laid, and last night the spell was finally broken.”

“Well, congratulations, I guess,” I rolled my eyes and she laughed. I could appreciate the bounce in her step without hearing the details. But I wasn’t to be spared entirely.

“Sarah, you should have seen this girl. She had tits out to here!” Gabby held her hands out at least a foot from her chest.

“That’s nice.”

“Seriously, she was stacked. It was love at first sight. I met her at the new gay bar, and let me tell you, there were plenty o’ lovelies to gaze at. But she caught my eye, and I knew I had to have her.” She rubbed her hands together.

“So you lured her to your bed with your charming ways,” I said, with just a touch of sarcasm.

“That’s right. She didn’t stand a chance. She was goosed, juiced, and seduced,” she said, licking her lips.

“Okay. That’s way too much information,” I said, shutting my eyes and bringing my hand up to stop her from saying any more. She laughed and walked down the hall towards her massage room.

While trying to exorcise the images of Gabby and her girlfriend from my mind, I heard my cell phone ringing in my purse. I took it out. Didn’t recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Sarah. It’s Max.”

“Hi,” I said. The sound of his voice made my heart skip a beat.

“Just calling to see how you’re doing?”

“I’m back at work, so keeping busy. How about you?”

“Well,” he paused and cleared his throat, “I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner tonight.”

Had I heard him correctly?

I hesitated, not sure how to respond. Was I being asked out on a date? Or was it just tit for tat, dinner for dinner?

“Sounds nice,” I said.

“Have you been to Angelina’s Ristorante?”

“Don’t think I have, but I adore Italian food, so that sounds perfect.”

“Meet you there at seven? Or I can pick you up.”

“I’ll meet you.”

“Great, I’ll look forward to it.”

I placed the phone in my lap, transferred some of the guilt I felt to the device, and slipped it back into my purse.

* * *

My first client was new. A heavy-set woman in her early fifties, Tina arrived, promptly at ten-thirty, complaining of a pinched nerve in her shoulder. I had her complete the required client form that solicited her personal information and medical history, then showed her around and led her to the treatment room.

“I’ve never had a real massage before,” she said, looking nervously around the room.

“It’s natural to feel a little apprehensive at first. Let me explain how I work. I’ll leave the room while you get undressed. You can leave your underwear on if you prefer, but either way this sheet will be covering you throughout the entire treatment.” I held up the oversized, white cotton sheet that covered the massage table.

“We’ll start with you face down, resting your head in this little donut face rest. I’ll guide you through some breathing techniques to help you relax. Then I’ll apply this warm oil to your back and neck. The pressure will be light at first, then gradually increase up to your comfort level. Let me know if you feel pain at any time.” She seemed a little less anxious when I left her.

The next two clients after Tina being regulars, I was able to slip back into my relatively effortless routine. At the end of the day, I sat at the reception desk and checked the messages on the answering machine. I was returning a call to a potential client when Gabby came out of her room.

“Busy day?” she inquired.

“Yeah, and now I need to get ready for my date.”

“Date?”

“Max is taking me to dinner at Angelina’s.”

“See? What’d I tell you? He wants your hot ass.” Gabby performed a little bump and grind number.

“Max has no interest in my ass,” I said. “but if he wants to treat me to a night out, I’m game.”

“Why can’t you just accept the fact that a younger man finds you attractive? You deserve to be appreciated. Let Max do that for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should jump in bed with him. Just have a little fun.”