Hide nor Hair (A Jersey Girl Cozy Mystery Book 2) (13 page)

We threw open the doors and stepped out of the car. The gravel crunched beneath our feet and the parking lot was nearly pitch black. Bevin put up the hood on her rain slicker. I hadn’t thought about headgear. I flicked on the flashlight and went around to the back of the car to open the trunk.

“Are you nuts?” Bevin asked, alarmed when she saw what I had retrieved.

I opened a black umbrella and held it over my head. “
What?
”

“It’s pouring out, dummy, and I heard thunder. What if it starts to lightning? How bright are you, standing outside with that thing sticking up? Why don’t you just screw a big lightning rod into your head?”

I hadn’t thought of that. I closed the umbrella and tossed it back inside the trunk.

“Where to?” Bevin asked.

“Let’s go around back,” I told her, starting for the side of the terminal. “Keep your eyes open.”

“What color is this infamous missing shoe?” Bevin asked. “Neon orange or bright yellow, I hope.”

“We’re looking for a sandal, and it’s brown,” I said, remembering the shoe’s match from the evidence bag. “It has a heel, probably two inches.”

“Great! Just great! Everything out here looks brown or beige.”

It was true. The field had taken on a dead-grass beige color, and around the terminal, there was so little light that even the colorful flowers I thought looked so pretty on the day I first saw the airport appeared a dark, ugly brown.

Behind the building, where the hangar was located and a few planes stood, looked even more bleak than the front entrance. The rain soaked my head and clothes. I wondered what compelled me to come out on such a miserable night. I had honestly thought there would be less chance that Bevin and I would be spotted snooping around with the weather so bad. After all, who in their right minds would be out in a rainstorm—except for us?

“Hey! Point that beam over near those planes,” Bevin said.

I kept the beam pointed down and swung the flashlight back and forth, sweeping the ground. The planes parked around back were all small—similar to the two-seaters Drake Tuttle spoke of when I first went to the airport for the story on flying lessons. For some strange reason, I couldn’t imagine why the tiny planes would be outdoors in a rain storm. There was a hangar after all, and I thought the safest place for these small, grounded coffins would have been indoors.

We walked toward the place where the blacktop ended and the grass began. I couldn’t see much, but Bevin’s eyes were sharper.

“Is that something over there?” she asked, pointing toward something sticking up in the grass.

I aimed the flashlight in that general direction and walked toward it. It was a piece of paper, rain-soaked, yet fluttering in the wind that had picked up since we first arrived.

“It’s only garbage,” I told her. With the wind blowing, I knew there was bound to be plenty of that. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea after all. That shoe could be stuck up in a tree for all anybody knows.” I was surprised Bevin didn’t feel the same.

“As long as we’re already out here and soaking wet to boot, we might as well give it our best shot.”

We continued to walk. The temperature wasn’t particularly chilly, but my saturated clothes made me feel cold and miserable. I kept walking, this time toward the runway, methodically sweeping the beam from the flashlight back and forth.

I thought I spotted something off to the left and backtracked a few steps. “Hey, Bev, there’s something over there in the grass.”

Bevin took a step back and we both walked over to the barely visible object. As we approached, we could see it was distinctly some kind of footwear.

“It’s a sandal!” Bevin shouted so I would hear her in the pouring rain. “A brown sandal! How cool is this? We found it!”

“Yeah. That’s definitely the match to the shoe I saw when they brought out her body,” I yelled back. “Now what do we do with it?”

We thought we were completely alone until we saw the beam of a second flashlight coming toward us. I switched mine off, and Bevin and I both ran in the direction of the hangar. I was sure my heart would explode from my chest like something out of
Alien
. What if the killer had come back for the very same sandal Bevin and I had found? My kids would be motherless and so would poor little Dennis, Bevin’s son.

We reached the side of the building and plastered ourselves against the wall, trying to blend in with the dark and make ourselves invisible. I hated the thought of evidence getting away from us, and whoever was out there had ventured out into the wet, dreary night looking for that sandal, just as we had.

“Bev,” I whispered. “I think we’re in trouble. We can’t get to the shoe, and whoever that is with the flashlight will take it and go.”

“They must know we’re here,” Bevin said. “Your car’s parked right out front. They might not be looking for the sandal at all. Maybe they’re looking for us.”

We ended the discussion. We both knew what had to be done. Still hugging the wall, we inched our way toward the front of terminal and the parking lot. Once inside my car, I would be able to use the flashlight to catch a license plate, provided whoever was out near the hangar had driven out to the airport. Halfway around the building, we saw the reflection of flashing red and blue lights. We got to within three feet of the front of the building when the beam from a flashlight far more powerful than mine blinded us.

“Come on out, Mrs. Caruso,” a rather youthful, familiar voice called out.

Both Bevin and I walked forward. I offered the man my most innocent smile. “Good evening, Officer O’Reilly. What brings you out on such a terrible night?”

“I guess you do,” he said. I noticed he wasn’t smiling back, but he did look somewhat amused, as far as I could tell in the pouring rain. “I saw your flashlight bobbing from up the road and came down here to check it out. I called in about it. I’ll have to radio back to the station to tell them it’s a false alarm. I need to ask you some questions. Go sit in your mother’s car and wait for me.”

“It’s my car now,” I informed him, walking toward the Sentra.

We waited until Officer O’Reilly came over and climbed into the back seat. He had on a police slicker, which deposited rain water all over the upholstery. Bevin and I did our own water damage up front. We were soaked and shivering.

“Did you find anything out there?” young James O’Reilly asked.

Bevin, normally the stealthier of the two of us, cracked first. “We found Leona Barber’s missing sandal!”

I scowled at her.

“Are you guys sure it was Leona’s? We combed through most of that field the day we found her body. I don’t see how we could have missed it,” O’Reilly said over my shoulder.

“It wasn’t in the field. We found it just beyond that paved area, in the grass near the hangar,” Bevin explained.

“God! If we’re ever captured by enemy troops, you’ll sing like a canary!” I complained.

Bevin laughed and gave my shoulder a playful shove. “Come on! We’ve been caught red-handed. Lighten up, Colleen. You wouldn’t have been able to keep the sandal anyway. It’s evidence!”

O’Reilly agreed. “She’s right, Mrs. Caruso. It
is
evidence. I’ll photograph the area and bag it to take with me. You ladies should go home now. You shouldn’t have been out here in the first place.”

“We’re not under arrest?” I asked. I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed his smirk. I wondered briefly if it was the same facial expression he gave to all the premenopausal moms in town who misbehaved.

“Nah. You weren’t even trespassing. There’s no sign out on the road warning people to keep out. Just don’t let me catch you out here after dark again.”

He exited the backseat and went straight to his cruiser, presumably to find an evidence bag. I started the Sentra’s engine and turned on the heat to full blast to warm us up.

“What now?” Bevin asked.

“Now we wait until Officer O’Reilly comes back with the sandal, and then we go home,” I said.

“Why? Do you think he had something to do with Leona’s death?”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to leave that kid out here all alone in the dark.”

“He’s not a kid, he’s a cop. He has a gun. He’ll be fine. This is his job.”

I didn’t really care. He was only in his twenties, and I wasn’t leaving until he was safely on his way back to the station. I had grown very fond of the young policeman who, instead of being angry whenever he caught me in an unusual predicament, seemed entertained by my actions. It was hard not to feel a little overprotective.

We waited until we saw the bobbing flashlight come around the side of the terminal. He waved to us when he opened the driver’s side door of his black-and-white, as if he knew I was watching out for him.

“Are you happy now? Can we please go home?” Bevin asked.

I put the Nissan in gear and drove down the road to the highway. By the time we got to my mother’s house to check on the kids and beg for a cup of hot coffee, we were both drying out nicely.

“This will wake you two up,” my mother said, handing us steaming mugs of sludge. Poor coffee-making skills ran in my family, which explained my preference for diet soda or better yet, a gin and tonic. “Why are you two so wet? What were you up to? No good, I’m sure.”

“We were looking for Leona Barber’s sandal,” I volunteered.

“In the rain? At that dinky little deserted airport? Honestly, Colleen, where are your brains? I swear, you get that from your father’s side of the family!”

I groaned—a long, highly audible sound to make sure my mother heard it.

“What’s your excuse?” she said to Bevin.

“I guess I take after the Flemings, too.”

“Two idiots! Did you at least find the sandal?”

“Sort of,” I told her.

“What does that mean?’

“Don’t ask, Ma.”

We carried our coffee into the dining room, where Bobby, Dennis, and my father were playing cards at the table.

“What’s this?” Bevin asked. “Go Fish?”

My father looked up from his hand. “Texas Hold’em.”

“You’re teaching my kid Texas Hold’em?” she asked, incredulous.

“You didn’t think I’d just plunk them down in front the television, did you? I don’t believe in that. They should do something useful with their spare time. Learn something!”

“Texas Hold’em?” Bevin repeated.

“I’ll bet they’ve pretty much mastered seven-card stud,” I told her. “It’s like playing Yahtzee—three of a kind, four of a kind, a straight. This is a little more complicated, but they stand a much better chance to win at Texas Hold’em. They use common cards.”

“You’re as bad as your father. Your whole family’s nuts.”

I nodded, agreeing wholeheartedly. She was right. We
were
all a little off.

Bobby looked up from his hand. “Can Dennis stay over?”

Dennis gave Bevin sad, puppy-dog eyes. “Please, Mom?”

“No way,” she told him. “It’s a school night. We’re going home, and you’re going straight to bed. After that, mommy’s peeling off these wet clothes and getting into a pair of nice, dry pajamas. Then I might just drink myself blind.”

“I’ll drive you guys home,” I offered. “I have to stop to check on Sara anyway.”

My mother poked her head into the dining room. “She’s asleep upstairs.”

“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”

“She came over because she was upset. Something about this Christian guy and some kind of disagreement,” my mother told me. “I didn’t really understand what she was talking about. She’s just like you, Colleen. Always looking for trouble, fighting with some nice Christian boy …”

“Christian Grasso,” I informed my mother. “He’s a boy from school, not a religion.”

“Oh! Well, I told her she could stay overnight. Let Bobby stay, too. I’ll get them up in time for school.”

“Great,” I said. “After I drop Bevin off, I’m going to see Ken Rhodes to tell him about the sandal.”

“You’re seeing Ken Rhodes looking like that?” my mother asked. “My God, Colleen. You look like a drowned dog!”

I took Bevin’s coffee mug and gave both hers and mine back to my mother. “Nobody cares what I look like.”

“He’s a man, isn’t he?” she said. “Trust me, he’ll care!”

14

I drove Dennis and Bevin home and then turned into my own driveway. My mother was right. Men did care how women looked. Ken Rhodes was a man. He always dressed impeccably, even when casual. And though our relationship seemed stuck somewhere between purely professional and family friend and something with potential, I didn’t want to look like a drowned rat when I saw him. I decided to up my game a bit. I ran inside and bounded upstairs to put on mascara, some lip gloss, and neat, dry clothes. Pleased with my appearance, I drove out to Ken’s condo tower on Bay Boulevard, where it stood like some kind of monument to opulence for uber-rich, New Jersey shore residents. I always felt like I was out of my element whenever I visited the building. The fact that my ex, Neil, lived there, too, made my blood boil.

I pulled the Sentra into the visitor’s parking lot and cut the engine. A quick glance in the rearview mirror made me glad I had taken a few minutes to dry out my hair and change my clothes. I gave myself a big thumbs-up before climbing out of the car. I ran down the short walkway to the building’s entrance, where a friendly doorman jumped into service and let me in.

“Eighth floor?” he asked politely. “Apartment 8C? Mr. Rhodes, right, ma’am?”

I had only met this man once before, when I had visited the building months ago. I couldn’t imagine how he remembered me, but I supposed that was part of his job, and he was obviously very good at it. I thought his Christmas tips from the residents alone would set him up for life.

“Thanks. Yes. Ken Rhodes. He isn’t expecting me.”

“That’s fine, Mrs. Caruso. Go right up,” he said, as though I were a familiar face instead of a rare visitor.

I took the center elevator up to the eighth floor and pressed the buzzer on “C.” Ken didn’t look surprised to see me. He grinned, but I guessed it wasn’t due to the pleasure of my company.

“What happened to you this time?” he asked. Of course, Ken looked amazing in loose-fitting sweatpants and a faded Rowan University T-shirt.