Dead Between the Lines (6 page)

CHA
PTER 6

A
fter Officer Huang pawed through the laundry hamper and messed up the stack of clean sweatshirts in my drawer, I showed her the third key to the store, wished her a good night, and locked the door behind her. Gran must have taken a sleeping pill, because despite the police presence in our home, she didn’t wake up.

Banshee, on the other hand, had followed the cop around as if she were catnip-coated tuna, purring and rubbing against her ankles. The woman had fussed over and petted the traitorous Siamese, ignoring the fur he’d deposited on her uniform and declaring that he was a sweet boy. Until that moment, I had always considered Jessie a good judge of character. Obviously, I’d been mistaken.

Needless to say, it took me quite a while to relax and fall asleep, which meant that when the meteorologist’s voice woke me at six, I was too groggy to hear the entire weather report. I did manage to catch the word
thunderstorm
.

Once I had pried myself out of bed, I lurched into the bathroom. When I emerged, I must have showered and dressed, since my hair was wet and I had on something other than my nightshirt, but I had no memory of the two events. Avoiding the mirror—I knew the reflection wouldn’t be a pretty sight—I put on my shoes and socks. Then, following the enticing odor of bacon, I trudged into the kitchen.

Gran had her back to me as she worked her culinary magic at the stove, but she must have heard my footsteps, because she chirped, “Good morning.”

“Prove it,” I mumbled as I staggered toward my friend Mr. Coffee, who, unlike most of the men in my life, had always been there for me. His red light greeted me with a welcoming glow, and his little round pot was filled with caffeinated ambrosia.

Gran turned from the griddle and ran her gaze up and down me until I felt like a cut of meat that she wouldn’t serve her cat. “Why do you look like crap?” she demanded. “Did you even comb your hair after you washed it this morning?”

Taking a gulp of liquid energy, and burning my tongue in the process, I explained what had happened after she went to bed. I concluded with, “So, I didn’t get to sleep until after three.”

“Humph.” Gran turned her attention back to her cooking. “Why does the name Lance Quistgaard sound familiar?”

“You got me.” I poured myself another cup of get-up-and-go, put away the half-and-half, and nudged the refrigerator door shut with my hip. “Supposedly he’s a local, but I don’t remember ever seeing him around before. Does he attend St. Saggy’s?”

St. Saggy’s was also known as St. Sagar’s Catholic Church. While attending catechism as a child, I had inquired about the church’s name. The priest who was visiting our schoolroom had explained the identity of St. Sagar, but further interrogation had revealed that he had no idea why Shadow Bend’s Catholic Church had been christened for a martyred bishop from Turkey. Especially since the Turkish population of our little town was somewhere near zero.

After my cross-examination of the priest, our teacher, Sister Thomasine of the order of The Not Amused, no longer allowed me to ask questions. Shortly afterward, I refused to go back to CCD classes.

“I don’t remember ever meeting anyone by that name at church,” Birdie said, placing two plates on the table. Both contained three strips of crisp bacon, a pair of sunny-side-up eggs, and hash browns. “But the name does ring a bell from somewhere.”

“I can’t quite picture him on a senior bus trip.” I grabbed the bread as it popped from the toaster and tossed a slice on each of our dishes.

“Very funny.” Birdie sat down and grabbed the salt shaker. “Speaking of which, Frieda is picking me up in an hour. We’ll be back late tomorrow afternoon. Will you be home, or should I take my key?”

Oops!
I deliberately hadn’t mentioned that I was seeing Noah for brunch on Sunday. Gran had never forgiven him for deserting me when my father was sent to prison. Birdie had spent her whole life in a town that took family feuds extremely seriously, and although the betrayal had taken place nearly thirteen years ago, in her mind Noah’s treachery was as recent as last week.

I had been trying to persuade her that Noah may not have been totally at fault, but so far, she wasn’t convinced. Like a lot of folks, Gran assigned to people the role they were at their worst, and without an act of God or at least a memo from the pope, she refused to change her mind about them.

Although she knew that Noah and I were working on a fresh start, mentioning my high school boyfriend’s name would send Gran into an explosion of swearing that would make a gangbanger blink, so I stuttered, “Uh. Well. I’m not sure.” I ran through my options and chose what I considered the most believable lie. “Poppy mentioned doing something together, so you should probably bring your key.” Then I tried to change the subject. “I don’t think I told you that Boone is leaving today for a cruise.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Birdie took a bite of egg. “That poor boy needs a break.” She swallowed, then pointed her butter knife at me. “But you spending tomorrow afternoon with Poppy is hogwash. She’s in Chicago.”

Jeez!
If Gran was the one with the memory problems, how come she could keep track of my friends’ whereabouts better than I could? I’d completely forgotten Poppy was spending the weekend with her current boyfriend, Tryg Pryce, an Illinois attorney whom she’d met last month when he’d come to Shadow Bend to defend Boone against a murder charge.

“I think Poppy said she’d be back by noon.” I played for time by shoving a slice of bacon into my mouth and mumbling around it, “We might get together then.”

“Don’t try to fool me.” Birdie lasered me with her pale blue eyes. “You have a date with that scum-sucking doctor, don’t you?”

How to answer that? True, Noah was a physician, but I was fairly sure he never slurped slime. Still, arguing with her over that point would be futile, so I tried another tactic—weaseling. “It’s not a date. It’s just going to brunch with a friend.”

“Don’t prevaricate.” Birdie stabbed her fork at me, and I ducked as egg yolk flew toward me. “He’s trying to win you back, and I don’t trust him. I’m, uh . . .”

“Suspicious,” I supplied.

“Right.” She wiped the yellow spatters from the tablecloth with her paper napkin. “I’m suspicious that Noah and his mother are up to something. Maybe Nadine has ordered him to try to snake his way into your affections so she can figure out how to stop your dad’s release from prison.”

It had come to light last month that my father was innocent—sort of. Yes, he had killed a woman while driving under the influence. And there had been a controlled substance in his vehicle at the time. But the man who had been trying to frame him for embezzling money from the bank they both worked at had roofied my father’s drink. Then, once Dad was drugged, he’d fed him beer after beer before putting him in his car and planting pills in his glove box.

“Why would Nadine Underwood want to do that?” I was no fan of Noah’s mother, but why would she care if my dad were freed from prison?

“Because she’s never gotten over the fact that Kern picked your mother instead of her to marry,” Birdie explained, then muttered, “Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire.”

“Dad dated Nadine?” I yelped. “She’s got to be ten years older than him.”

“Your point?” Birdie got up and started to clear the table. “Back in the day, Nadine was a sophisticated thirtysomething femme fatale, and your dad was the most eligible bachelor in Shadow Bend. She set her cap for him, and it almost worked. But your mother moved to town, got a job as a teller at Kern’s bank, and that was the end of any romantic feelings Kern had for Nadine.” Gran put the dishes in the sink, then turned to me and winked. “Hell hath no fury like a woman who sees the fella she considers hers pick another gal.”

It took me a moment to sort through all of Gran’s clichés, but when I finally finished, I nodded to myself. Nadine’s intense dislike for me over the years now made a lot more sense. She’d probably been horrified when Noah and I had started dating as teenagers, and been thrilled when she was able to force him to walk out on me, just as my father had walked out on her. I shivered.

Nadine bent on revenge was a scary thought. Definitely another minus in Noah’s column. It was looking more and more as if he and I were destined to remain friends rather than become lovers. Too bad I was still so attracted to him.

Surfacing from my musings, I narrowed my eyes at Gran and demanded, “Why haven’t you ever told me about Nadine and Dad before?”

“When you were young, did you really want to know about your parents’ previous love life?” Gran asked. When I winced and shook my head, she continued. “Then when Kern went to prison, you never wanted to talk about him or your mother.”

“True,” I mumbled, ashamed. I’d felt too angry and abandoned to even think about my parents without crying or punching something during those years.

“But now that Kern’s coming home and you’re an adult, it’s time for you to know everything so you can be ready for any fallout from his return.” Gran took off her apron. “Some people will still blame him for that poor woman’s death, even if he was drugged when his car hit her.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I admitted, pushing away the twinge of guilt I felt about my own poor treatment of my father while he’d been in jail. I suspected that the claustrophobia I’d developed that kept me from visiting him might have been a convenient excuse.

“Nadine will be stirring up any anti-Kern feelings in town that she can,” Gran pronounced. “Especially if you’re dating her precious son.”

Thankfully, Frieda’s arrival distracted Gran, and I was able to shoo her out the door before I had to respond to her implied demand that I should call off brunch with Noah on Sunday. After a flurry of assurances that I’d clean up the kitchen before I left for work, and an exchange of hugs good-bye, I watched Frieda’s Impala drive away. With one last backfire, the old Chevy disappeared from view.

Tempting though it was to leave the dishes until tonight, with my luck, Gran would come home early for some reason and see the dirty plates. With that in mind, I filled the sink with water, pushed up my sleeves, and started to wash. In less than a quarter hour, the kitchen was sparkling and I was free to finish dressing.

Having done my granddaughterly duty, I tamed my mostly dry curls into a ponytail and hit the road. I wanted to get to the store early and make sure the cops and all their paraphernalia were gone—or at least confined to the rear of the building, as Chief Kincaid had promised.

Ten minutes later, when I arrived, I was excited to see that the alley was no longer blocked by a squad car, and was ecstatic that my rear parking lot no longer resembled the opening credits of an
NCIS
episode. Nevertheless, after I pulled my Z4 into its usual spot, I hesitated. Would there still be blood by the exit? And if there was, whom did one hire to mop it up? Was there a biohazard department of the Merry Maids?

Holding my breath, I walked the few feet across the asphalt from my car to the exit, stopping short of the door. I studied the ground, then exhaled noisily. The only mark I could detect was a section of the blacktop that was shinier than the rest. God bless Chief Kincaid’s tidy little soul. I followed the clean path to the Dumpster and was relieved to see that the file carton and its gruesome contents were gone.

Not that I had expected the cops to leave the dead body for the trash collectors, but, hey, it was always good to check out stuff like that. Smiling, I entered the storeroom, stowed my purse in the bottom drawer of the desk, and looked at my watch. I had an hour before the shop opened, and a lot of basket orders to finish.

I was placing the Trojan Vibrations Twister—an object that the package described as an intimate massager that provided unique and intense pleasure—in the Girl’s Night Out Basket when a disturbing question popped into my head. No, not whether the batteries were included, but whether a murder committed a few steps from my store might keep people away.

By now, word of the crime would have spread like a burst water balloon. Would the good folks of Shadow Bend shun my business and me? News of my father’s innocence and pending release from prison had stirred up a lot of sympathy for our family; I could only hope that those positive feelings would extend to this situation.

Still, as nine a.m. rolled around, I worried I might not have the usual Saturday-morning crowd. When I unlocked the front door, I was pleasantly surprised to find people lined up on the sidewalk. The group spilled across the threshold and I hurriedly got out of their way.

Xylia was at the front of the pack, but we didn’t have time to exchange more than a quick greeting before getting down to work. The customers were already three deep at the candy counter, and as I rushed over to help them, my clerk manned the register.

The first woman in line placed her order for a pound of cherries jubilee fudge, then said, “Were you the one that found the body?”

Until she asked that question, it hadn’t occurred to me that the news-flash factor might motivate people to drop by my store, although I certainly should have anticipated that possibility. After all, rumors flew around Shadow Bend like New Year’s Eve confetti, and scandal was a taste everyone savored. The community didn’t stand for gossip; it sat down and got comfy with it. A grisly murder would bring out both the connoisseurs of calumny and the occasional back-fence conversationalists.

And because I was unprepared, I wasn’t sure how to handle the situation. What information had the police released?
Crap!
I should have listened to the news this morning instead of slapping off my clock radio after the weather forecast. Or at least I should have had it on in the car. Chief Kincaid would not be happy with me if I gave away a detail he was holding back to help catch the killer.

“No. I didn’t find the body.” A firm denial surely couldn’t get me into trouble. “Would you like anything else?” I handed the tiny white box to her. “If not, you can pay at the register.”

Before she could ask another question, the next person in line pushed forward. The morning continued in the same vein, with me evading the inquiries as best as I could. From what I gathered, the local anchorman had announced that the body of Lance Quistgaard had been found late last night behind Devereaux’s Dime Store, and the police suspected that foul play was involved.