Death of a Domestic Diva (12 page)

“Which were never proven, Tom—”

Paige shivered and wrapped her white sweater tighter around her, as if seeking comfort from the gesture.

“Maybe not, Paul, but I have some very good insider information that the government will soon file charges for using forced labor against Tyra Grimes . . .”

Paige moaned—just a tiny moan—but it was enough to send her butt off the end of my couch, down with a thud to my floor.

“You okay?” I hollered, moving toward her, which startled her enough—I'd forgotten she didn't know I was in the room—that she brought her head up too fast and whopped it on the corner of my coffee table.

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting across from me at my kitchen table, holding a cold, damp cloth to her temple. She was going to have one big knot.

“Sorry,” I said, for about the seventh time.

Paige shook her head, managing to look weary and great all at the same time.

Of course, now that I was sporting a new hairdo, I looked pretty good too. Except my scalp tingled, so I scratched it—and then I thought that probably wasn't very sophisticated, so I stopped. I didn't want to ruin the fact that we were clicking—which was pretty amazing. Paige was cheese soufflé at the Ritz; I was Cheeze Whiz on a Ritz cracker.

Why do I always think in food analogies? I put that question out of my head and spooned up another mouthful of Cap'n Crunch. Paige had already finished hers. I think the head wound had made her a little dizzy, and that was why Paige—who was so slender she looked like she must interview every calorie before letting it pass her lips—agreed to a bowl of Cap'n Crunch. It was a kind of bonding experience, eating Cap'n Crunch together, while Paige filled me in on how the rest of the evening went before, she said, Tyra had left to take a walk. Paige had stayed to clean up, she said.

Now, to my apology, Paige said very kindly, with a smile, “Don't worry, Josie. It's not your fault. This is your home, after all. And you're a sweetie to fuss over me so.”

Now, one of the problems I have with people is that I push the wrong things at the wrong time. Just like this one time in biology class, my sophomore year of high school. This very pretty and very popular girl—Tamara Sheehan—and I were paired up to dissect a pig. Somewhere between the liver and the kidney, Tamara—who'd been pretty upset to be paired up with the likes of unpopular, gawky me—said, ‘You know, you're okay after all.' I think it was because she kept trying to pass out and I kept telling her she'd be okay. But her compliment made me goofy. I started cracking jokes about pork entrails, and the next thing I knew, Tamara's eyes were rolling to the back of her head—with disgust at me, not at the pig.

That was pretty much how I gummed things up with Paige and me now. I finished off my Cap'n Crunch, licked my lips, and decided I'd take our newfound friendliness as a chance to pry a little. Nosy Josie strikes again.

“That show you were watching when I came in—the government's going to press charges against Tyra?”

What a dud of a move. Paige went stiff on me—fast. “Those were just some talking heads trying to create trouble where there is none.”

A look came over her eyes that reminded me of the Paige that had somehow picked the lock to my bedroom door. I suddenly felt uneasy about her, just as I had earlier. But I pressed on, anyway. What if this had something to do with Lewis's murder? It seemed unlikely—but everything was so topsy turvy now, I figured I couldn't discount any possibilities.

“You were pretty intent on listening to what they had to say,” I said.

“I was just channel surfing, taking a rest after cleaning up from the party. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I said. “Thanks for doing such a great job cleaning up.”

“I used your carpet shampooer, too. I found it in your bedroom closet when I was looking for a vaccuum. I'm afraid I used up the last of the shampoo, though.”

“That's okay,” I said. “So you were channel surfing . . .” I urged her back to the topic of the TV show on Tyra.

“Right. I stopped at that channel while they were talking about something else, and they started into the story on Tyra just before you walked in.” She shrugged, as if the story were of no consequence. “I was about to click to the next channel when you walked in.”

That's not what it had looked like to me, I thought. I stared into my bowl, empty except for the Cap'n Crunch sweetened leftover milk. Probably drinking it right from the bowl wouldn't help my fizzling relationship with Paige.

I looked up at Paige. “Why did Tyra really come here?”

Paige stared at me a minute. Then she said, “We went over this earlier tonight, before you left the party. She came to interview you as a stain expert—because you wrote her a letter suggesting she should.”

I shook my head. “That's what I wanted to believe at first. But she hasn't asked me word one about stains.”

“I'm sure she will sometime tomorrow.” Paige said. “After she's back from the hospital.” She sure didn't seem at all upset by her boss's experience . . . or about Lewis's murder. While we ate our Cap'n Crunch, I'd told her about how I'd found them, and she hadn't really reacted at all—just accepted the news with an occasional “hmmm” or “mmm hmmm.” That seemed mighty odd to me.

Now, she switched from her left hand to her right to hold the cold compress to her bumped forehead. And that's when I saw the big, brown streak on the back of the right sleeve of her white sweater.

“What happened there?” I said, pointing to the smear.

Paige tilted her head to get a look at the sleeve. “Oh, that. Cocoa. I spilled some earlier and cleaned it up with a sponge. I didn't realize I'd dragged my sleeve through it.”

“Well,” I said. “That's a protein stain on a cotton-acrylic blend sweater—and believe me, if we don't get that in a cold water presoak, it'll be next to impossible to get out later.”

Paige smiled. “You really do know your stains.”

I looked at her. “I'm a stain expert. The least I can do is help you get your sweater clean.”

She put the cold, moist cloth down on the table, shrugged out of her sweater, and handed it to me. I took the sweater from her and went over to the sink. I got a pail out from beneath the kitchen sink and put the pail under the cold water tap. As I waited for the bucket to fill, I examined the stain. It did have the coloring of cocoa. But it hadn' t dried the way cocoa would. And how could she not have noticed she'd gotten cocoa on her sweater? Was she that wrapped up in the TV show? But no, she'd had the presence of mind to clean up the spill from the coffee table. But why would she lie about something like that?

More questions. I turned off the tap, set the pail on the counter, put the sweater in the pail, and returned to the table.

“Thanks,” Paige said.

“No problem. Do you want to borrow a jacket of mine later? It's still raining.”

“That's real sweet, Josie, but I'll be fine.” She smiled again—but this time her smile was sad. “No one ever asks me things like that.”

That comment inspired another question. “Why do you work for Tyra, Paige? You're smart—talented—and as sweet as she acts, I'd think she'd be tiring to work for. And demanding.”

“She pays me very well.” Paige's smile turned tight, thin . . . and scary. “I would do anything for her. Anything.”

I shivered. Just how far did “anything” extend?

Paige shook her head as if to clear it. “Now, I ought to get back to the Red Horse Motel—”

“There's an example of just what I'm trying to say. You have to stay there, where Tyra won't even set foot, and she gets this whole apartment, not that it's a palace or anything, but—”

“Josie, do you want to be on the
Tyra Grimes Home Show
?” Paige asked, clipping off the ends of her words, as she stood up and went for her purse in the living room.

“Of course! It's just that—what with all that's gone on, and the fact Tyra hasn't expressed any interest at all in my stain expertise—”

“If you want to be on Tyra's show, stop asking questions.”

But I've always been a question-asker. It's a natural gift, one that comes in handy, at least when it's not getting me in trouble. So when Paige was almost to my door, I stopped her with one more question. “Paige, why are there people around town wearing Tyra Grimes T-shirts—red with her signature on them?”

She stopped, then slowly turned, fixing me with her dark, probing eyes. “Tyra is not involved in clothing manufacturing at this time. If you've seen such T-shirts, it's because someone is trying to make an unlawful profit using her name.”

Her statement sounded like it came straight from some speech made up especially for a news conference. And it was, also, I knew, a lie.

But I didn't say anything more—just watched Paige—ever elegant, even with a head wound—let herself out my door.

I went over to my living room table. Sure enough, her mug had the residue of cocoa in it. I took the mug to the sink and washed it out.

Then I peered in the pail at Paige's sweater.

The cocoa stain wasn't lifting at all.

You see, cocoa stains fall into the protein category. Which means you should soak them in cold water before laundering. If you try to wash them in hot water, you basically cook the stain into the fabric.

On the other hand. . . cold water doesn't do a thing for clothes with mud stains. But hot water will get them out, if you wash them soon enough.

And this stain, which Paige said was cocoa, was acting suspiciously like a mud stain.

Only one way to find out, for sure. If I washed the sweater in hot water, and it came out, it was mud . . . and for some reason Paige had been lying. But if the stain set, it was cocoa after all, and Paige was telling the truth. I shuddered at the thought of purposefully setting a stain into cloth to decipher what it really was.

I had to know. Because if Paige's stain was mud, that could mean she was out at the site where I'd found Tyra, Lewis, and Elroy. At the very least, it meant she hadn't been in my apartment all night as she'd claimed.

But why would she lie? Just how far would she go to do “anything” for her boss? And . . . would Tyra lie to protect her?

I was going to take that sweater down to my laundromat and wash it in hot water to see if I could discover a clue to help me find out the answers to all those questions.

But first, I picked up my Cap'n Crunch bowl, and slurped down all of the sweet milk.

An hour later, I pulled Paige's sweater from the hot water wash to see that sure enough, the stain had washed right out, proving my theory that it was mud and not cocoa. I was so tired. I'd have to figure out what I wanted to do about this knowledge in the morning. Chief Worthy sure wouldn't care. And I didn't like the idea of confronting Paige.

I threw the sweater into a dryer, then went back up to my apartment—making sure to lock the door. Then I had a glass of warm milk before getting ready for bed and finally crawling under the covers. That helped me get to sleep—but it didn't deliver me to a restful sleep, because it seemed I'd only just put my head on my pillow when there was tiny, old Mrs. Oglevee again, at the foot of my bed.

“Peanut butter,” I muttered.

Mrs. Oglevee just smiled gleefully, and waved her super-sized wooden spoon at me. “Won't work, little missy,” she gloated. “I've had counseling.”

I sat up. “You get counseling in—in wherever you are?”

Mrs. Oglevee smoothed her white apron, waggled her eyebrows at me, and said, “You'd be amazed at the benefits package that's offered here.”

I yawned. “What do you want? I'd like to go back to sleep.”

Mrs. Oglevee rolled her eyes. “You are asleep.”

I glared at her.

“All right,” she sighed. “You're busy, I'm busy, everyone's busy these days, so I'll get on with it. You're going to blow it if you're not careful.”

“Okay, so I asked Paige a few questions, but I'll get on Tyra's show. I care about Paradise, you know.”

“Forget about the show! You've got bigger fish to fry!”

“No show?” I squeaked.

“With all that's happened, Paradise is definitely going to get media attention now. But it's not going to be the good kind. The only way you're going to turn this around is to find out what happened to Lewis.”

“You don't think Elroy killed him?”

Mrs. Oglevee shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. From where I sit, I've observed that just about anyone is capable of anything. But Tyra showing up seems to have triggered his murder, wouldn't you say?”

“Not if Elroy killed Lewis over the tuna sandwiches . . .”

“But why now? Did Tyra say or do something to push Elroy over the edge at the party?”

Hmmm. I hadn't seen Elroy at the party, but maybe I could somehow ask Paige about that, and sneak in a few questions about the sweater's mud stain . . .

Then Mrs. Oglevee threw me a curve. “Besides,” she went on, “You ought to be digging into why Tyra really came here.”

I'd asked Paige about that—suspicious about Tyra's real motives. But now I stuck out my chin. “To interview me about stain removal tips. You're just jealous and—”

“Josie Toadfern, use your brain for once. Why does anyone ever come to Paradise in the first place? You've got three chances to name the one that correctly applies to Ms. Grimes. Think of this as
Truth or Consequences
”

Great. An afterlife version of an old game show—with Mrs. Oglevee as the host. I didn't want to think about what the consequences would be if I didn't figure out the truth.

But her question was one we'd discussed a lot at Chamber of Commerce meetings, while trying to figure out a way to get more people to come. “Camping over at Licking Creek Lake.”