Anonymously Yours (11 page)

“Not a problem,” he said. “Just call if you need anything else.”

Uncle Bob turned to me. “Now it’s time for me to do a little detective work of my own,” he said, reaching for my hand. “We can talk more about this when I get home this evening. In the meantime, you can go back to the house and see what information you can dig up.”

We walked to the door, my heart beating wildly with excitement. “I’ll do that, Uncle Bob,” I said. “But once I drop you off at your office, I’m going by the grocery store. I want to prepare you a home-cooked meal tonight. It’s the least I can do. So bring home an appetite.”

He squeezed my shoulders. “Ah, you don’t have to do that,” he said. “I can always throw something together for us.”

My stomach suddenly lurched at the thought of my uncle’s cooking. “Oh, but I want to,” I responded quickly. “It will help keep me occupied until you get home.”

Besides, it will also keep me busy while I wait for Justin’s call, I thought. Hopefully, he’ll have some useful information to share.

I’d purposely omitted Justin’s name from the conversation during my lunch with Uncle Bob. It would have been difficult to explain why Justin was already asking questions about the death of Angelica Belmont without arousing suspicion. And I didn’t want to take a chance that Justin might let it slip out. For now, Uncle Bob knew everything he needed to know.

After seeing the vacant building and loft apartment after lunch, my hopes had soared to a new expectation. For the first time in a long time, the prospect of working with my uncle seemed like a genuine possibility.

Back at his house, I placed the groceries on the counter, then called Justin’s cell. While I was aware that he might still be out scouring the neighborhood for information, I couldn’t wait to find out if he’d learned anything useful so far. What I really wanted to do was drive over there myself, but we’d already agreed I should try to stay away from the area as much as possible for now. Working at the diner was one thing: not only did I need the meager income, but I didn’t want any major change in my daily schedule to alert Michael Black that we were onto him. But staying at my parents’ house was different. Staying there alone, I’d be a sitting duck.

No one answered Justin’s cell, so I left a message for him to call me back as soon as possible. I’d just clicked the disconnect button, when the phone rang.

“Justin?” I said before giving the caller a chance to speak.

There was a long pause before anyone responded. “Denise? Are you okay?”

Mom, I realized. I’d been so sure it was Justin calling me with the information he’d discovered today. “Hi, Mom,” I said, hoping my disappointment didn’t show.

“Denise,” she said again. “What’s going on? Why are you at your uncle’s house? Has something happened?”

I realized I probably should have called my parents and told them what I was planning. But at the time, the only thing on my mind was getting to safety.

“Nothing’s wrong, Mom,” I said. “I just thought I’d come here and fix Uncle Bob a home-cooked meal for a change.” It wasn’t a complete lie, I rationalized. To further convince myself I hadn’t told an untruth, I held the phone between my ear and shoulder, while I located a cutting board and placed it on the counter.

I heard a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “When are you going to get a new cell phone?” she asked. “I was worried sick when I couldn’t get you all night at home. I finally called your uncle and he told me you were staying at his house.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’ve just been too busy to worry about getting a new phone. But I will. I promise.” I rinsed off the head of lettuce, then placed it on the cutting board. “I can’t wait to hear about your vacation,” I said, trying to steer the conversation in another direction.

She didn’t take the bait. “Denise,” she said, her voice questioning, “you would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

I chopped the lettuce, then placed it in a large bowl. “Mom, you worry too much. Nothing is wrong.” I decided it might be a good time to bring up Uncle Bob’s agency. Picking up a large tomato, I began dicing it, then asked cautiously, “Mom, is there any particular reason you and Dad didn’t want me working with Uncle Bob?”

A long pause ensued. For a moment, I thought the connection had ended. “We only want what’s best for you, Denise,” she said softly. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “You’ve probably already figured this out, but your uncle isn’t a very good detective. Over the years, his agency has dwindled to almost nothing. I don’t think he can hold out much longer.”

I had figured that out. But it would have been nice to know that it wasn’t my choice of professions that they objected to all these years, but my choice of partners. But I also had plans to help Uncle Bob change his string of bad luck.

“You have figured that out, haven’t you?” she asked, when I didn’t respond right away.

I finished chopping an onion, placed plastic wrap on the bowl, then placed the salad in the refrigerator. Maybe Uncle Bob just needs a boost to get him back in the game, I thought. But I didn’t say that to my mom. She’d want to know what kind of boost I was referring to, and I couldn’t tell her that. At least not now.

Instead, I answered, “He seems to be having some setbacks. But who isn’t these days?” I refused to give up on him. He was still my only uncle, the man I had admired for years. So he wasn’t the great detective I’d always thought him to be. I knew we still had a future together as partners in crime.

“Okay, Denise,” Mom said softly. “At least now you know why we tried to steer you away from becoming involved with his agency. In the end, it’s always been your decision.”

I smiled and reached for a large pan beneath the counter. “Thanks, Mom,” I said. Opening a can of tomato juice, I asked, “Are you ready to come home?”

“We’ll be home in three days,” she answered. “We’re having a great time here, but I can’t wait to get home to our normal lives again.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Things were far from normal at home right now. But with any luck at all, that was about to change very soon.

“I’ll see you then,” I said, steering the conversation to an end. “Have a safe trip home.”

I made quick work of the spaghetti sauce, then placed it on the stove to simmer. After cleaning the mess I’d made of the kitchen, I decided to see what else could be done to help out Uncle Bob. During high school, I used to come over and clean for him. From the looks of the place, no one had taken over that duty since that time. I ran my finger across the television screen and grimaced. A film of black dust covered my fingertip.

I located an unopened bottle of window cleaner along with a small can of furniture polish under the kitchen sink, grabbed a paper towel, and returned to the living room. I cleaned the television, the coffee tables, and the mini-blinds, and was just wrapping the electrical cord around the vacuum, when the shrill ring of the doorbell made me jump.

I opened the front door to find Justin standing there.

He stepped through the door. “I didn’t see your uncle’s car in the driveway, so I figured it was okay to stop by,” he said. “How did your lunch with him go anyway? Is he going to help us?”

I closed the door and escorted him into the kitchen. “Yes, and he doesn’t even know it.” I motioned for him to sit down, poured two glasses of iced tea, and set a plate of packaged cookies on the table, before sitting in the chair opposite him.

Justin sipped his tea. “That’s great, because I’ve got some interesting news.”

“You found someone to talk about Michael Black?” I asked hopefully.

He nodded. “Remember the old lady we saw knitting in her yard the day we went to Michael Black’s house together?”

I scrunched my eyebrows, trying to visualize that day. “You mean Alley the Snoop?”

“That’s the one. She was sure willing to talk today. And Mr. Black was the only person she wanted to talk about.” He reached for a cookie and bit into it. “Care to guess what Michael Black’s wife died of?”

“Cyanide poisoning,” I said softly, knowing I was right.

“Accidental cyanide poisoning,” he corrected me. “Or at least that’s what the papers said. It seems she got hold of a bottle of aspirin containing the poison.”

I put my elbows on the table and leaned forward. “How could that happen?”

“That’s what I wanted to know,” Justin said. “According to Alley, almost thirty years ago, people were being poisoned from over-the-counter medications. Apparently, it’s been a popular method of murder since then. It’s actually happened several times in the past years. Someone taints several bottles with the poison, places them back on the store shelf, and waits for people to purchase it. That’s how Mrs. Black died, along with five other people.”

“Seems like I remember hearing about that somewhere,” I said. “Do they know who did it?”

“Hard to prove,” he said. “But it might be nice to know if Michael Black was ever a suspect in his wife’s death.”

The smell of spaghetti sauce permeated the air, and I went to the stove to stir the bubbling mixture. “How convenient for Michael Black,” I said, sampling my concoction from a wooden spoon. “I guess with five people dying from the tainted aspirin, it would have been easy for him to murder his wife and blame it on the cyanide killer.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” Justin said. “Only this time we won’t let him get away with it. This time he had a witness.”

My face must have shown my concern.

“Don’t worry, Denise,” he said. He rose from the chair and came to stand beside me at the stove. “Michael Black won’t have another shot at you. We’re gonna catch him this time.” He put his arms around my shoulders.

I leaned back and snuggled deeper into his embrace, enjoying the musky scent of his cologne, mingled with the aroma of garlic and oregano. For a moment, I could almost make myself believe the comfort his words offered. But a strange feeling kept gnawing at me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. We were missing something. Something important.

Justin nuzzled my neck then spun me around and kissed me. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Denise,” he whispered in my ear. “I’m not going to lose you.”

He kissed me again, and held me at arm’s length. “There’s more I should tell you.” He led me back to the table and set me down. “According to Alley, she wasn’t surprised to find the police at Michael Black’s house the other morning. She said she’s heard arguing coming from inside for about a month now. Very loud arguing.”

“Did she know what the arguing was about?” I asked.

“No, but she did say that sometimes the arguing was between two men, and other times it was between a man and a woman.”

My head shot up. “Maybe Angelica was seeing someone else.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. The only problem is, Alley also claims that she saw Michael Black drive his red Toyota away the night before you found Angelica’s body.”

I sighed and traced an imaginary figure on the table. Without looking up, I said, “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if Mr. Black’s neighbors were supposed to think he was leaving town.”

“You may be right,” Justin agreed. “It did provide him with the perfect alibi.”

“Except for the car.”

“What do you mean?”

I looked up and leaned my elbows on the table. “Remember when we walked over there that day? The red Toyota was missing, and it had been there earlier.”

“So?”

“Well, obviously whoever killed Angelica used that car to remove the body, and that’s why it wasn’t there when we went by later on.”

Justin shook his head. “Am I missing something? What does that have to do with Mr. Black’s alibi?”

I leaned closer. “If Mr. Black did drive off to make it look like he was leaving, why would he drive his own car back to commit a murder? It would have been smarter to take a taxi.”

Justin wiped the sweat from his glass of tea with his finger. “Yeah, that was pretty stupid of him.”

My mind was beginning to spin, and I had to shake away the dizzying sensation. “None of this makes any sense,” I said, massaging my throbbing temples with my fingertips.

Justin got up and paced the room. Suddenly, he stopped and threw his hands in the air, before pulling the chair out and straddling it. “Let’s start back at the beginning,” he said. “What happened when you first saw Michael Black come into the restaurant that night?”

My mind went back to that night. The diner was virtually empty until Michael Black entered. Then Mr. Winslow asked me to take his order.

“He was the only customer in the diner until you came in later,” I said. “I remember he ordered pie and coffee, and he was extremely agitated, like he had something on his mind. I didn’t see him leave, but I did think it was strange that he didn’t eat or even drink the coffee.”

“Okay, so we know he had something on his mind when he came in. What did you do after he left?”

I shrugged. “I cleaned off the table, and that’s when I noticed the wallet on the floor. Mr. Winslow suggested I call and tell him he’d left the wallet behind.”

Justin put his hand up. “Wait a minute. Does Michael Black come into the restaurant often?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen him there a few times. Why?”

“So when he came into the diner, he sat at your table. Did he know it was your table? Maybe he picked you for a reason?”

“It didn’t matter where he sat,” I answered. “I was the only waitress on duty at that time.”

Justin looked disappointed. “Okay, so then what happened?”

“I tried to call his home number, but there was no answer. That’s when Mr. Winslow suggested I drop it off.”

“And that’s when you discovered the body.” Justin said the words slowly his eyebrows drawn tightly, as if he were trying to make sense of what I said. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did he come into the diner at all, if he didn’t plan to eat? Then he leaves his wallet behind, so you’ll return it?” Justin looked up, his expression one of confusion. “I know this sounds ridiculous, but it almost seems like he set you up to find the body.”

“That’s just what I was thinking,” I said. “But why would he do that? If I had gone to the police with this information, he probably would have been arrested for murder. Especially, once they found out his first wife died of the same kind of poisoning. Besides, if he wanted me to find the body, why did he move it right after I left?”