Death of the Couch Potato's Wife: Cozy Christian Mysteries (Women Sleuth, Female Detective Suspense) (6 page)

Chapter 7

Babe and I decided to stop by the pharmacy for lunch. We parked at a metered space out front and walked into the store, which was located on the corner of our cozy little downtown area. The business was more than one-hundred years old and had black and white tiles checkering the floor. At the front were various items from hair care products to toy John Deere tractors. At the back wall was the pharmacy, and at the L beyond that was a little ice cream counter that also sold sandwiches and chips. The place was quaint, I had to give it that.

Kent spotted us from his position in the back, but only had time for a smile and a wave as we walked in. Since a majority of the population in Boring was in their golden years, and this was the only pharmacy in town, Kent kept busy. He had one employee who helped him, a dark-haired girl named Jasmine.

I watched Kent for a moment as he talked to a white-haired woman. I could tell he loved it here. He positively beamed behind that counter.

The store where he’d worked in Chicago had been large; though the benefits were good, the pressure had been overwhelming. At 28 years old, he should have been energetic and enjoying his job. But his skin always looked pale, and he dreaded going to work every morning. Then the “incident” at my work had taken place, followed up by a second “incident” where someone had pulled a knife on me and stolen my purse.

After that, Kent had sat down with me and told me about this wild dream he had to move to a small town and run his own pharmacy. He wanted a slower pace of life, especially if we were going to have kids one day. He’d grown up in a small town and loved it.

I’d looked at him like he was crazy.

But I loved him, so I agreed to explore the options.

That’s when he found a pharmacy for sale in Boring, Indiana. He went alone to visit one day—I had to work—and when he came back home, he couldn’t stop talking about the place. He thought the town would be the ideal location for a family. The city was no place to have kids, he said. I just had to visit.

So I did.

That night when we got home, after Kent was asleep, I’d cried. And cried. Boring was the last place I wanted to be. But I knew this was where we’d end up because I loved my husband more than I loved the city.

“How’d you meet your husband, Babe?” I asked before taking a bite of my grilled cheese sandwich. Her husband had passed away years ago, but I knew Babe didn’t mind talking about him. He’d owned a chain of banks up in Indy. Babe moved down here after he passed away. Apparently, he’d left her very comfortable.

“I worked at one of his banks. I was the beautiful young teller, and he was my rich, handsome boss. It was quite the scandal when we started dating.”

“Scandal?” This I wanted to hear.

“He was fifteen years old than me.”

Someone had robbed the cradle. Who would have thought? “Was it love at first sight?”

Her eyes got a faraway look that made me envy her. “You might say that. We played games with each other, teasing and flirting. It was such fun.”

For some pessimistic reason, I wanted to pop that dreamy look out of her eyes. “And let me guess—you got married and that all went away?”

“Of course not! It got even better.”

My heart sunk. “Oh. That’s great.” And it was. For her. Not me.

“Not many marriages were like ours. We had something special.” Babe took a sideways glance at me. “You and Kent do too, honey. Of course.”

“I’m not so sure lately.”

I glanced over at him and saw him laughing with Jasmine. We used to laugh together.

“How long have you been married?”

“Seven years next week.”

She patted my shoulder. “Every marriage has rough patches. The good news is they’re just patches. There’s a whole bunch of smooth road beyond that.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Babe.”

As much as Babe drove me crazy, I wanted to tell her about the note. I needed to share the information with someone. Surely I could trust Babe, who might be a hardhead but still trustworthy. I pushed my plate away. “Babe—”

Two women from church rounded the corner and sat at the counter next to us.

Babe looked at me, waiting for me to continue. “Yes?”

I glanced at the ladies from church and shook my head. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

Babe and I left a few minutes later. We decided to take a stroll down Main Street to walk off the extra calories we’d consumed. I walked along the storefronts, past the Pronto Café. Just ahead was what town folk’s affectionately called “Grandpa’s.” The real name of the antique store had outgrown the marquee. The owner called it the Jacob, Emily, Martin, Ann, James and Marlyn Shop. Every time a new grandchild was born, he added to the marquee.

Then there was the courthouse and an old cemetery. At the corner stood a grand bank, complete with real marble fixtures and a second story balcony. I paused outside the massive wooden doors.

“I need to take some cash out. Do you mind?” I grasped the thick handle.

Babe swung her head back and forth while pursing her lips. “You won’t catch me in that bank.”

I raised an eyebrow, counted to three, and finally asked, “Why not? Boring National is the only bank in town.”

“That Paul Willis drives me crazy! I’m not going to give his business one single cent.”

Paul Willis owned the bank. We went to church together and he always seemed like a nice enough man. I paused, feeling somewhat like a therapist. “What do you have against Mr. Willis?”

“He thinks he’s smooth, talking about how he used to hang around with all of the cool cats back in the day.” She swung her hand through the air, snapping her fingers in her signature motion. “Or maybe I should say, ‘He thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips.’” Dramatically, she crossed her arms and scowled. “He’s a faker, that’s what he is.”

I nodded slowly, trying to comprehend. I finally settled on, “I’ll just be a moment.”

Babe scowled harder. “I’m waiting out here.”

“Fine.” I gripped my purse, ready to go inside.

“In the cold.”

I shrugged, pushing away my guilt. “It’s your choice.”

Her lips parted—in surprise, I assumed. “You’d leave an old woman in the cold?”

My shoulders slumped in exasperation. “Babe! You’re an adult. You’re making your own choices.” I had to get a grip on this pushover thing before it became my standard. Today, I’d take my stand.

Babe harrumphed as I pulled the heavy door open. No little bells jingled as I stepped inside the bank. In fact, it seemed awfully quiet, quiet enough that I took a step back to check the hours posted out front. Closed. The bank should be closed.

That was one thing I’d discovered about small town life. Businesses were open at odd hours and never, ever on holidays, even on President’s Day or Memorial Day. It seemed like whenever my parents came to visit, everything was always closed. Even the post office kept strange hours, and I could never remember when it was open and when it wasn’t.

But if the bank was closed for a lunch break right now, why was the door unlocked?

I stuck my head inside. No tellers stood behind their wood- framed windows. No management greeted me. No customers milled about.

Okay, so there were only three people who worked at the bank, but still, someone should have been out front, or the doors should have been locked.

“Hello?” My voice echoed off the high ceilings.

Even no music whispered from the overhead speakers, I realized. Mr. Willis usually put in a jazz CD for customers to enjoy. Back in the day, he’d played saxophone at a club up in Chicago. We’d talked about it at church before.

I stepped further inside and said hello again.

No answer. The teller windows were to my left, and directly in front of me stood the vault. I glanced at it quickly, relieved to see the door closed. Had the place been robbed and all the tellers locked in the vault? That would explain why no one was around. Or was my imagination working on overtime since Candace died? That was the most likely scenario.

I decided to step closer to the vault, just to make sure there wasn’t anyone inside screaming for help. I couldn’t call the police every time I had a crazy hunch. Most of the time, I was wrong. I tiptoed across the floor until I reached the massive steel door. Carefully, I propelled my ear until it touched the cool metal.

Silence.

A hallway stretched beyond the vault. I stepped in that direction, and heard a TV blaring. My stomach clenched. Flashbacks of finding Candace assaulted my memory.

“Mr. Willis?”

Still no one appeared. Perhaps he’d stepped out for a bit. But why would he leave his bank unlocked? People in Boring weren’t that trusting. And Mr. Willis wasn’t that stupid.

I followed the sound of the TV until I reached a room marked “Employees Only.” I knocked. I could hear the TV on the other side. Taking a deep breath, I cracked the door open. “Mr. Willis?”

The TV sat on a table against the far wall. The back of a couch faced me. No one in here.

As I was about to close the door, I froze and closed my eyes.

That wasn’t what I thought.

It wasn’t.

Couldn’t be.

I forced my eyes open and stepped forward, squinting.

Yes, that did appear to be a leather shoe resting on the arm of the couch. The position of the shoe made it clear that the footwear was attached to a leg.

Lord, be with me. I paused and looked at the ceiling. Then at whomever that foot belonged to.

I took another step and peered over the back of the couch. That’s when I saw Mr. Willis—lying on the couch like a corpse.

Chapter 8

I screamed.

All of a sudden, Mr. Willis rose from the dead.

He darted from the couch, looking as if I’d scared him to death—or scared him to life, however you wanted to look at it.

“What are you doing?” he shouted, clutching his chest. “What’s going on? How’d you get in here?”

“You’re alive!”

“Of course I’m alive, girl. I’m old, not dead.”

Babe burst through the door. Her eyes were wide and her pink lipstick freshly applied. “What happened? Are you okay? What did I miss?”

I pressed a hand over my heart, which pounded erratically in my ears. Finally, I laughed a shaky laugh and pointed at Mr. Willis. “I thought you were dead.”

I could see the headlines now: Attack of the Killer Couches.

“Dead? Not yet. Keep sneaking up on me like that and I might be soon.” Mr. Willis grabbed a fedora from the hat rack and slipped it over his balding head. His gaze flickered behind me to Babe. “And how are you doing today, Ms. Pritchard?”

She stuck her nose in the air. “Just fine, no thanks to you.”

“To me? What did I do? I was just back here taking a nap. It was the two of you who barged in!” His gaze swung back and forth between us.

Babe harrumphed. “I came in only because I heard my friend scream. I had no intention of entering your establishment.”

He stepped closer. “Afraid you might find something you like?”

Babe crossed her arms and leaned forward, an unusual firmness in her inflection. “Not a chance.”

The tension in the room was tight enough to make me snap. “I’m glad you’re okay, Mr. Willis. I was only concerned for your well-being. Babe, I’ll come back another time—when you’re not with me. I can see this was a bad idea.”

The two still faced off. I watched them to see who would blink first. Instead, they stared, Babe with fire in her eyes and Mr. Willis with a twinkle.

“There are plenty of other banks around,” Babe said.

“But this one is the best.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.” Mr. Willis looked rather smug.

I grabbed Babe’s arm before war broke out. “Come on, let’s go.” I pulled her away. “I’m glad you’re okay, Mr. Willis! You should really make sure those front doors are locked when you’re closed.”

“Sorry about that scare, and I will talk to the manager about those doors being left unlocked. It’s unacceptable. Plain unacceptable!”

As soon as we were out of earshot, I whispered, “What was that about?”

“He rubs me the wrong way.”

I looked at Babe. “Because he thinks he’s a ‘cool cat’?”

She shrugged like an adolescent. “Maybe.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I don’t think so.”

There was obviously something going on here that I wasn’t picking up on. I’d find out more of the story later. Right now, I needed to get Babe home. We had a big night coming up: our first shift as official Neighborhood Watch volunteers.

“It’s very important as a member of the Neighborhood Watch Patrol that you’re always on alert.” Harry cruised through our neighborhood in his beat-up Seville. Darkness had fallen several hours ago, and no one stirred—except us. “The bad guys are sneaky—very sneaky. You have to keep your ears open and your eyes peeled.”

I rolled my eyes in the backseat and shoved some copies of Body Building magazine onto the floor. They collided with a hodgepodge of empty protein shake containers and a few apple cores. And this guy wondered why he couldn’t get a date? I hoped he never asked me my opinion on the matter because I would be forced to confront him with the truth. He was a slob, self-obsessed, and he had bad breath. There.

Babe sat up front as Harry “trained” us for this new position. Did this guy always take himself so seriously?

“I’m jiggy with it.” Babe angled her hands in front of her like a rapper.

And did Babe ever take herself seriously? Only when she was around Paul Willis, apparently.

“If you see anyone sneaking around, you’ll want to report it to the police. That includes anyone dodging behind cars, bushes, or in people’s backyards. You can never be too careful, especially in light of recent events.”

Yeah, Candace. Poor thing. Was there any hope of anyone solving her murder?

As Harry rambled on and on about how important it was for us to keep our neighborhood safe, I thought about Kent.

I’d only seen him for five minutes when he got home from work. He was late—again. The chicken pot pie I had prepared for him—made only with ingredients that were sealed and I was sure hadn’t been tampered with—was cold when he’d arrived home. He didn’t seem bothered by it, but I was.

And I’d wanted to tell him about my day, about Babe and The Couch King.

Before I could get in a word, he’d blurted, “I think I need a man cave.”

I’d stopped in my tracks. “A what?”

“A man cave. You know, a place of my own where I can do my own thing.” In other words, a place where he could spend his time without me.

“And why do you think you need this?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. It just seems like the suburban thing to do. I’m thinking I could turn the garage into my space. You know, put in an old TV and couch. Maybe a small refrigerator. Hang up some sports paraphernalia and a few strands of string lights. Then I can invite the guys from church over to watch the game sometime.”

At that moment, I felt more and more of our marriage slipping away.

As I left, he’d taken his nuked dinner and plopped in front of the TV to watch
Judge Judy
. Part of me wondered if he was glad I’d left so he could spend uninterrupted time with Panny, my loving nickname for our Panasonic.

“Do you have any questions, Laura?”

“What?” My gaze refocused on Harry, who tried to preen in the rearview mirror while catching a glimpse of me.

He shined his front teeth with his finger then flickered his gaze back to me. “Do you understand what your responsibilities are?”

“Of course.”

“Tomorrow night will be your shift. I figure you can have Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll take the rest of the week.”

“Sure.”

“I feel like I’m on the TV show
Cops
! This is so exciting.” Babe clapped her hands before abruptly pointing in the distance. “Did I just see movement over there?”

Harry grinned. “Let’s go check it out.”

I rolled my eyes again. I’d seen movement too. It wasn’t a cat burglar. It was just a plain cat.

Harry spotlighted the feline with his headlights and shook his head, as if disappointed.

This would be a good time to chat about Candace, I figured. I leaned forward, in between the seats. “So Harry, do you have any theories as to what happened to Candace? You’re ‘in the know’ with things around here. Certainly, you have some ideas.”

He puffed his chest out. “Of course I have ideas. They’re just speculation right now, though. I have to prove I’m right.”

Then maybe Romeo would allow him to be a part of the police department, I thought. Poor guy wanted something he could likely never have. I understood all about that. My big city dreams had been dashed when I moved here.

I leaned farther between the seats. “Come on. Just share with us. We’re a team now. Maybe we can even help you.”

Babe glanced back at me, admiration in her eyes.

“Well, I do have one main suspect who stands out in my mind.”

I leaned closer. “Who?”

“This is just between the three of us. I don’t want any rumors being spread around.” He glanced back at us, like a father giving his children a warning.

I rolled my eyes when I was sure he couldn’t see me. “Of course.”

“Okay, you both seem pretty trustworthy. And maybe you should know this information since you’re both a part of Neighborhood Watch. You never can be too careful.” He pulled to a stop at the side of the road and cut off his headlights before shifting in his seat to face us. “Donna.”

“Donna?” Why on earth would he think Donna was guilty? Donna was Mrs. Prim and Proper. Of course, Tiara had acted like something was stressing her friend out. Could something have been stressing her out enough to murder someone?

“I saw Candace and Donna arguing last week.”

“Arguing about what?”

Harry shrugged. “I wasn’t close enough to hear, but it looked pretty heated.”

“Well, spit it out. What’s your theory?” Babe didn’t mince words.

Harry drew in a deep breath, as if he were hesitant to share. Something about the action didn’t ring quite true to me, though. “You know Donna is opposing Hillary in the next election? She wants to be president of the Homeowners’ Association.”

“She does?” It was the first I’d heard of it. If I understood correctly, no one had ever dared to run against Hillary. Besides that, I’d never seen Donna as the type to have an interest in politics at any level. She seemed content being a family woman. And her kids sure kept her busy between all of their activities.

“It’s the only thing I can think of that they would have been arguing about.”

“But why would Candace and Donna be arguing over that?” I raised my palm in the air in confusion. “Candace and Donna were friends. Certainly Candace would have supported her in the election process. Everyone knows Candace didn’t like Hillary.”

Harry brushed his mustache with his fingers. “That’s the question I’d like an answer to also.”

My investigation was not working so far. And it was because I had no plan.

The next morning, as soon as Kent left for work, I sat down with a cup of coffee at my kitchen table and pulled out a notebook. I needed to approach this like a public relations campaign.

Every good public relations campaign had several elements to it. First, I needed an objective. I had that. To find Candace’s killer before Candace’s killer found me.

Each campaign also required connection and credibility. Connecting meant I needed to get out of this house and interact with people. Draw on all my friendliness and charm. Find out information. Credibility meant I needed to establish trust and inspire confidence.

I could do it. I wouldn’t let someone keep me in my own house, scared to come out, scared to eat.

Ever since my attack in Chicago, I’d vowed never, ever to let someone make me feel weak again. Even though fear still simmered beneath my bravado, I was determined to push through it. That’s what made people strong.

Being a city slicker just might come in handy now, I realized.

My first goal today would be to introduce myself to my new neighbors who’d moved in two doors down. After all, that’s what people in the ‘burbs did.

The sun shone brightly as I charged up the sidewalk and rapped on the front door. I should have brought something with me, a plate of cookies or brownies. Donna would have done that.

A woman with brown hair, so dark it was almost black, clacked toward the storm door in high heels, a top with a plunging neckline, tight black pants, and way too much jewelry. “Yes?”

“I just thought I’d introduce myself. I’m Laura Berry, and I live two houses down from you.”

A smile grazed her lips but didn’t reach her eyes. “Hi, I’m Gia.” She held out a manicured hand, tipped with blood-red fingernail polish.