Domestic Affairs (Tiara Investigations Mystery) (12 page)

Victoria stood nearby and lowered her head to listen.

“She’s fine,” I told them.

In a few minutes we three detectives went out to Bea’s car. Vic and Tara wanted to tell her good-night before she left. One dessert was encased in aluminum foil molded in the shape of a duck and the other a swan.
 
The country club life is a mighty good life.

Some people from the dinner were trickling out to wait for their cars. And when we got back to the dining room the crowd had, indeed, begun thinning out. Paul and Tara walked around thanking people for coming, and Vic and I took a load off at a table in the back of the luxurious room. I scanned the buffet tables.
 
Maybe I looked hungry because a young woman carrying a tray walked over. “You want me to fix you a plate, hon?”
 

Before I looked up, I thought,
please Lord, don’t let that be Janice Marshall.
 
And it wasn’t. “I’m so tired I don’t know if I’m hungry or not.”

“I recommend the oysters,” Vic said. “See the ice sculpture over there?”

“That sounds good. Lots of horseradish, please.”

The oysters on the half shell arrived followed by Tara and Paul. She sat down and put her feet in Paul’s lap for a massage. “I see some good eating is about to take place.”

“I can bring you some too,” the waitress said.
 

“Thank you!” was Tara’s enthusiastic answer.

“Oysters for the table,” Paul said. (Mr. FBI,
delighted
is not a word you hear very often these days, but we should use it more. Dr. Paul Armistead was delighted that we were happy and enjoying ourselves.
 
He was especially delighted to have Tara’s feet in his lap. In my mind, I dared a baby to try to be born and call him away.)
 

“Sweetheart, would you get me a glass of Chardonnay?”

“Make that two,” Victoria said.
 

“Make that three.”
 
After I added my request, he was off.

“I had a bit of a meltdown two weekends ago when we went to Callaway Gardens to see the Butterfly Center.”
 

“You told Dr. Paul you wanted Chardonnay just so he’d leave and you could tell us this story? I mean, we are still getting the wine, right?” Victoria looked around the room to see for herself.

“Yes. Anyway, let me tell ya’ll what I did. We requested a wakeup call because Paul had to be back at the hospital pretty early. They asked if we wanted a second call and I said ‘yeah, why not.’ The next morning we got up with the first call and got in the shower.”

“Together?” Vic asked.

“Yes, together. We could hear the phone ringing again but it never occurred to us to get out of the shower and answer it. The phone rang again and again.
 
When I finally answered it, guess who it was?”

“Who?” We three jumped. Paul was back with a server who placed a glass in front of each of us, then walked around pouring.

“I’m telling them about our wakeup calls at Callaway Gardens. I was just getting to my hissy fit.
 
Anyway, this man said, ‘This is hotel security. When you didn’t answer the phone, we thought we’d check on you.’ Check on us? I felt like he was thinking that these old people probably had heart attacks during the night. I was so mad.”

“How would he have known the age of the occupants of that room?”

“Thank you, Leigh. That’s what I tried to tell her, but she gave that poor fellow down the country. I think it was just standard procedure.”

“Yeah, for old people….”

“Paul!” I shrieked. “You just used your first Southern expression!
 
That’s great!”

“Let’s have some music and we’ll show ‘em who’s old,” Victoria said.
 

“Obviously, someone has finished her half glass of wine.” I tilted my head toward Vic.

Paul laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.” He left us to finish off the oysters and Chardonnay.
 

Victoria scooped a dab of horseradish on an oyster.
 
“I had a similar experience last week, thinking someone was making a comment about my age. You know that new boutique at the mall that sells resort wear? Well, I went in there for a new bathing suit, but before I told the salesgirl what I was looking for she took me to the-“

I interrupted, “to the one piece suits?”

“No! She walked me over to the cover ups!”

“Ouch.” That was so funny I slapped both my thighs.
 

“No-o-o.” Tara was laughing so hard she was crying.

Soon George Strait was singing one of my favorite songs, ‘I Ain’t Here for a Long Time, I’m Here for a Good Time,’ and the detectives of Tiara Investigations got up to dance. Paul tried to join us, but when Tara pushed his shoulder down he decided he’d rather stay seated.
 

I leaned in for a conference, “Is that what the new car is all about? Wanting to feel young?”

“I guess.” Tara giggled.

Victoria put an arm around Tara’s neck. “You won’t do anything crazy, will you?”

“You mean, concerning Asher or Jerome?” Tara asked.
 
Jerome, being Detective Kent.

Victoria nodded.

Tara glanced back at Paul with a smile. “I may be crazy, but I’m not stupid.”

Then Paul was running to us, his smart phone in his hand. “Your car!”

“Huh?” This was from all three of us.

“Have you had the Porsche added to your auto insurance policy?”

“Of course; I called my agent before I drove it off the lot.” Tara’s voice trailed off, because a question like that rarely heralds welcome news. Kind of like, ‘do you have your TV on?’

“There was an explosion at the Porsche dealership at the Mall of Georgia. Here, read this!” Paul thrust the phone screen at us. Then he took it back and told us what it said. “Losses estimated at one million dollars.
 
No loss of life. Flames could be seen for as far away as….”

I couldn’t listen anymore and walked back to the table. We gathered up our handbags and phones to leave, operating under the principle of sober is as sober does. Paul made signs to the Country Club Manager like a baseball team manager makes to a pitcher, indicating he was leaving, tips to be added to his account for the wait staff, and that he was pleased.
 

I had three missed texts. The first was from Aunt Thelma. As Paul and I waited at the coat check window, I told him about my mom and aunts making up their own acronyms. “It says, AHN?G2B. I’ll call her later to get that one decoded. Usually I can decipher them, but this has me stumped.”
 
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to share it with him when I did. I looked back down and saw that it was,
anything happening now?
 
going to bed
.

He tipped the young woman and we joined Tara and Vic who’d requested the car be brought around. I checked the second text.
 
Bomb in Tara’s car caused explosion.
 
Stay away.
 

“Good Lord!” I yelled, startling the young man holding the door.

“Leigh? Are you okay?”
 
Tara ran up to me.
 

“What’s the matter?” Victoria grabbed my arm and motored me to the car. “Get in so we can talk before Paul gets here.”
 

“Got a text from Detective Kent.”
 
I recited it. Tara hid her face in her hands, and Vic just stared at me with an open mouth.

Paul got in, of course, after tipping the valet. Was there no end to the handing over of money in this place?

“Paul, this is so upsetting and you have to get up so early. I asked Leigh if I could spend the night with her.”
 
She had?

“I don’t like it, but I see the sense in it. Do you want me to stop by and pick up Stephie?
 
I can take her home with me.”
 

 
That, I didn’t like. My plan required having the dogs with us for protection. Not that I had a plan yet.

“Just drop us all off at Leigh’s. We’ll go later and pick up both Stephie and Mr. Benz.” Great minds.
 
Victoria was already dialing her husband to say what had happened.

CHAPTER 14

Continuation of statement by Leigh Reed.
While Paul and Tara said their good-nights, I let Abby out to do her business. Then we ran upstairs. “Let’s change clothes.”

Tara looked at the black running tights, navy t-shirts, and black fleece jackets I was flinging from the dresser drawer. “I take this to mean, we’re not staying away from the site of the explosion?” Rolling up a cuff here and there took care of the difference in my height and her’s.

Vic patted Tara’s back. “Either that or we don’t want to be recognized in that Jeep.”
 

Back downstairs, I handed out scarves and gloves, all in dark colors. “Let’s restore it to its former glory.”
 
I tossed my backpack in and we went to work. A few minutes later, we’d removed the electrical tape and what leftover sticky stuff we could see. “I won’t put the top on.
 
Everybody good with that?” Abby was running around catching the tape, then trying to get rid of it.
 
She paused and looked at me, like she was totally okay with the top off. I reached over and gently pulled a strip of tape off one of her back legs. She was wearing one of the black knit scarves, wrapped three times around her neck.
 

Tara reached down and petted her. “I thought I might get too warm in it.
 
Doesn’t she look cute?
 
She’s in a disguise, too.”
 
Her hand was shaking.
 

I walked over to Tara and tried a little humor.
 
“I’m sorry about your car, especially the heated steering wheel, leather seat belt buckles, and steering column casing in leather.” I looked at Vic to see if she noticed Tara’s nervousness. “Are you okay?”

“What I’ll miss most are the personalized floor mats with leather edging,” Vic said.

 
“I can buy another car, but if this had happened during the day and someone had been killed, I would never have gotten over it. I would’ve had to quit the agency.”

“You would?” Vic asked. “Why? You didn’t plant the bomb.”

“I guess I always assumed if anyone quit, we’d all quit and dissolve Tiara Investigations.” I started putting the doors back on, rear right side first. “No one was killed, but a million dollars of damage is a lot. Do you think Al Ford planted the bomb?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“Get in, Abby.”
 
I secured the driver’s door last and we were ready to go. “He has access to explosives.
 
Remember what Paige said about going to North Carolina to his company’s testing facility to check that the walls of new SCIF designs could withstand bomb blasts?”
 

We drove to Victoria’s house in Alpharetta first.
 
She took off her cap so the guard at the security gate could see it was her. “Oh, no. The lights are on.
 
Shorty’s home.”

“Should I just keep driving?”

“No, I want Mr. Benz with me. Park here.” As instructed, I stopped in front of the neighbor’s house. “I wish I knew which room he was in.”

Tara stopped stroking Abby’s head in the back seat to answer. “I’ll get out and go look in the dining room window.”

Victoria climbed out of the Jeep. “I’ll hide in the front yard. Take your phone and call me if you see him.”

“I’ll wait in the getaway car,” I said.

Vic walked through the front yard, but stopped short of the porch. She waited behind a Japanese Maple for Tara’s signal. I got out for a better look and that’s when I saw some movement in the window at the far right end of the porch. It was Mr. Benz. Why couldn’t Vic see him?
 
“Abby, stay.”

“Vic!” I was whispering but she jumped anyway.

“I think I just peed in my pants.”

“You mean my pants. Keep ‘em. There’s Mr. Benz.
  
Go get him.”

She tiptoed up the door, slipped her key in and cracked it open about an inch. “Mr. Benz, come.” No movement. “Come, baby.” He either heard or smelled me, or both, and tensed.
 

“Go to her.” Hearing my voice, he recognized me and his nub started to wag. I motioned to Victoria.
 
Dogs just don’t get pointing, or at least not the way we do it. All of a sudden something streaked pass me. It was Abby, her disguise scarf flying. She ran up to the window and scratched it. Once, twice. Then over and over quickly. It was the universal signal to go out, but she wanted in to her friend. Mr. Benz scratched back. I joined them on the porch and went to the window. We were covered in the porch light. I tapped the window and repeated my instructions. “Go!” Finally Mr. Benz heard Vic at the front door and ran to her. She headed to the Jeep and Mr. Benz followed. “I’ll call Tara.”
 

“Who’s out there?” Shorty yelled from the foyer.

Abby and I pressed up against the house. Wisely, and conveniently for me, he didn’t open the front door.
 
He wasn’t going to come outside. The way I see it, a man who’s afraid of a gram of fat and a ray of sun, is not going to open the door if he thinks a burglar might be out there. I rolled my eyes at his hyper-alert nervousness.
 

“Hey, good lookin’….” At the sound of Tara’s phone, his head jerked to the side of the house. Then he stomped away to the telephone on the oversized oak desk.
 
I doubted it was to order pizza.

“Run!” Tara was wearing the shoes she’d worn to the funeral, but she gave it all she had.
 

Tara and I reached the car at the same time, outpaced by Abby. Vic had our doors open. “We have to get through the security gate before he alerts them.”

I slowed down as we approached the brick guard shack. “Caps off.”

We gave little waves and kept going all the way to Tara’s house.
 
Before we got very far, Victoria’s phone rang. “It’s Frank.” She didn’t make a move to answer it.

I looked over at her. “I think you should take the call.”

“I agree. We need to know if he’s called the police.”
 
Tara and both dogs were in the back seat.

“Okay, but I’m putting him on speaker.”

“Wait.” I reached for her arm. “Remember you don’t know he’s at home.”

“And you weren’t at your house,” Tara added.

 
“Got it. Hello?”

“Victoria, where are you? Are you alright?”
 

“I’m fine. I’m with Leigh and Tara.”

“We had an attempted break in here at the house.”

“How do you know? Are you at home?” She paused in between each word.
 
Lying is not her gift.

“Yeah, I’m here. And there’s something else. The Security Guard here thinks you may have been kidnapped. They said everyone dressed in the car was wearing black. You are okay, right?”

“I’m fine.”

“They’re idiots,” Shorty said.

“No, they’re not.”

“You’re right, they’re not. They immediately checked on the neighbors and asked if anyone had seen or heard anything suspicious. Two reported seeing a black Jeep parked on our street, just sitting there.”

“I can’t hear you that well. I’ll be home in an hour or so.”
 
She tossed her phone into her handbag.

Tara leaned forward and patted Vic’s shoulder.
  
“It’s a good thing you hung up. You could’ve cracked. Wasn’t it sweet of him to be worried?”

“Sweet?
 
He didn’t notice Mr. Benz is missing!”

Said dog sat up straighter as if to say, “I’m right here.”

Tara put an arm around Mr. Benz to stop him from joining us up front. “Maybe Shorty was too concerned about you to notice.”

Vic huffed to express her doubt of this being the case.
  

We entered Tara’s subdivision, which is not a gated community. “I see lights on. Could Paul be here?”

“Those are on a timer. We’re good. Leigh, even though we look cool as can be in this car, do you think we should maybe take the Hummer? I mean, in case there’s an APB out on us.”

“Do they still use that term?” Victoria asked.
 

“Don’t know,” Tara answered.
 

I pulled into her driveway. “I agree. Let’s take the Hummer. That security guard could have reported us and the area around the explosion will be full of police.”
 

“And it’s getting cold,” Vic added.

I remembered Abby’s decision to exit the Jeep. “It’d be easier to control the dogs in it, too.”

“I’ll open the garage door.” Tara got out and a few minutes later the garage lights came on and the door floated up. I pulled forward and everybody, dogs and humans alike, relocated to the Hummer.
 

We didn’t crate them because we didn’t know what the night would bring. Abby is three and a half, Stephie and Mr. Benz are two and half years old, and none are too happy about being crated, so we do it only when necessary. I sat in the back and, one by one, secured them by their seatbelts.
 

Finally we could go to Highway 20 and try to get some information on what happened. Tara put the big car in reverse. “Now I wish Jerome had arrested Al at the mall, after he keyed my car.”

Victoria pulled a lip gloss out of her handbag. “We wanted him to make a mistake so he could be arrested for something bigger. Did you see him put anything in or under your car?”

“No, but it’s too much of a coincidence. Don’t you think? Who else could it be?”

That’s when it hit me. I hadn’t told them about Bea’s poisoning. I filled them in, especially the part about Al being in front of her when she took the handkerchief from whoever it was.

“She’s sure it was a man?” Tara looked at me in the rear view mirror.

“Yeah.
 
What a crazy night.” Then I told them about taking Bea to see the goats at Buford Dam. I was comfortable in the back of the car and my mind drifted from one turn of events to another of the last few hours.
  
I remembered I had three text messages and had only read two. The third made me smile. It was Jack writing that he missed me already. “Let’s take Satellite Boulevard. Then right onto Highway 20. Hopefully it’s not closed off.”

“Looks okay.” Tara sounded pretty calm.
 

I thought she’d be more nervous than she appeared.
 
She wasn’t letting any anxiety show.

“Tara, did you mean what you said about quitting the agency?” I asked.
 

“No, I was just upset.”

“Then I can give you two these.” I unzipped my backpack and handed Victoria two wrapped parcels.
 
“Vic, open yours.”

She squealed.
 
“Night vision goggles!”

I thought Tara was going to drive off the road in her happiness. “Actually, they’re night vision binoculars,” I corrected. “They run on three volt batteries, which I installed. We can use them tonight.”

Tara looked at the equipment in Victoria’s lap.
 
“How long will they run?”
 

“The battery lasts ten hours.”

“These look so real.” Then Vic held up the one she had unwrapped for Tara to see.
 

“They’re military quality.” I found the manual in my backpack. “Here’s what the pamphlet says, ‘these night-vision binoculars feature third-generation technology and are made with gallium arsenide inside the light-amplification tube.’ It says there’s a built-in IR Infrared Illuminator.”

“What the hell’s that?” Tara asked.

“Beats me, but doesn’t it sound good? Can’t you just see us throwing that kind of language around the High Hill Day Spa? Want me to read some more product details? We have Dual diopter adjustment with a central focusing knob.”

“Talk technology to me, baby!” Victoria was laughing out loud.

“How about if I just leave the manual with you?” It was about time for our turn and I looked around. “Tara, take a right onto Plunketts Road. It’s just after these shops. They each came with a protective carrying case and neck strap.”
 

Tara changed lanes to get ready for the turn.
 
“That I understood. What color are they?” Vic showed her a grey strap. “I can live with that for now.
 
Leigh, did Jack get these for you?”

“Nope. We don’t need to mention them in front of him, either.”

Victoria looked back at me. “Where did you get them?”

“Overstock.com.”

“How can we ever thank….?” Tara was interrupted by a phone call. She held up a hand to let us know she was about to answer it, then she pressed the navigation panel on the dash. “Hello.”

“Tara, it’s Jerry.” He’d gone from Jerome to Jerry for her, but he would always be Detective Kent to me.
 

I grabbed Vic’s shoulder. Neither of us breathed.
 

“Have you seen Victoria lately?”

“Yeah. She’s with me now.”

“Good,” he grumbled.

“Why?” Tara’s tone said she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.