Marriage Can Be Murder -- Every Wife Has A Story (A Carol and Jim Andrews Baby Boomer Mystery) (33 page)

“I think that was a mistake.”

I wasn’t telling Deanna the whole truth. I was embarrassed to admit that Jenny didn’t want to tell Mark about the possible stalkers because she was afraid he’d tell her she was overreacting.

Just like her mother.

“You can’t force her to tell Mark,” Deanna said. “But I agree with you. He should know. Especially since he’s on the police force. And keeping a secret like that isn’t a good way to start out in marriage. Believe me, I know about that.”

I looked at her, surprised.

“I’ll tell you about that some other time,” Deanna said. “My next appointment is due any minute now, so I have to finish you up.”

She picked up the styling brush and the dryer. “Does Jenny know who the two old men are?”

“She said their names are Bert Johnson and Ernie Smith. I actually met Bert, and he seemed very nice. And our dog Lucy really loved him.” “I don’t know Ernie Smith, but Bert Johnson is the absolute salt of the earth,” Deanna said. “There’s no way he could be a stalker. He’s one of the truly good guys. He was so helpful to me when the salon was broken into. You remember when that happened, right Carol?”

I searched my memory bank and came up empty.

“Nope,” I said. “I didn’t realize you’d had a break-in. When did it happen?”

“It was over five years ago. You must have been going to that
other
hair salon at the time.”

Point taken. I was properly chagrined. “I’m so glad I switched to you when I did, Deanna,” I said, proclaiming my loyalty loud and clear. “But I don’t understand why Bert Johnson was so helpful. Did he have a store near here?”

“No, silly,” Deanna said, looking at me like I was the stupidest person in the world. “I’m sure Mark knows Bert, too. He’s a retired Fairport police officer.”

Chapter 40

Chocolate won’t solve anything, but it’s a good place to start.

Deanna had given me so much to think about that I don’t remember much about the drive home. I was chewing over the surprising information that Bert Johnson had been a Fairport policeman when my cell phone sprang to life.

Mindful of the Connecticut traffic laws – police can ticket someone for texting or talking on a cell phone while driving, and it would be just my luck to be the only person in the state to get caught – I cruised over to the curb and put the car in Park. I didn’t want to take the chance that Mike was calling me and I missed him.

Instead of the voice of my darling son, I heard Nancy shrieking at me. “Are you there? Pick up, Carol. This is important.”

I had to excuse her tone. I knew from personal experience that having one’s husband in jail tends to put a person on edge.

“I’m here. What’s up?”

“Four sets of eyes are definitely better than one, don’t you agree?” Nancy said. “Especially at our age.”

“What in the world are you talking about?” I asked.

“I’m on my way to your house right now. Claire and Mary Alice are going to meet me there, so I hope you’re home. I have a sketch Bob made of the person he swears he saw leaving the Grey Gull Inn the night Tiffani died. We’re all going to look at it and figure out who the hell it is.”

Then she clicked off, leaving me holding a dead cellphone.

Rats. If Jim was home, he’d read me the riot act over this. And he’d be right. Besides, I had pressing things of my own to do, like protecting my daughter, for example.

“That Nancy!” I said, putting the car back into Drive and making the four-block drive to my home in record time. “She thinks everybody should drop everything just because she needs help.”

I conveniently overlooked the fact that I am guilty of the same sin. Much more often than Nancy.

I barely had time to get into the kitchen myself before Nancy arrived. “I know we’re all going to figure this out,” she said, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go into the office and I’ll show you what I’ve got before the others get here.”

“Hold on, Nancy,” I said. This was still my house, after all, and I wasn’t going to let her steamroller me, even if she was my very best friend. “I need to find out if Jim’s home before we get going on this sketch of yours.”

Nancy snatched a sticky note off one of the kitchen cabinets and waved it under my nose. “He says he’s at a Board of Ed budget hearing that’ll probably go late tonight so go ahead and eat without him.”

Sheesh.

“Thanks for telling me where my husband is,” I said, grabbing the note and reading it for myself. I scanned the rest of it quickly. “What a sweetie Jim is. He fed Lucy and Ethel before he left.”

“Perfect,” said Nancy, propelling me toward the office. “Nothing to interrupt us. Let me show you the sketch.”

“As long as we’re having a crime-solvers meeting,” I said, “I have a few things to put on the agenda myself. Like the possibility that Jenny was the intended victim, not Tiffani.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Nancy shot back. “Bob would never hurt

Jenny.” She paused. “Of course, he didn’t harm Tiffani, either. But I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Who’d want to hurt Jenny, for heaven’s sake?”

“I have no idea,” I said truthfully, “but it occurred to me this afternoon that maybe we were looking at this all wrong. Remember, I told you about Tiffani and Melody the cyberstalker? ”

Nancy nodded. “But I still don’t see what that has to do with Jenny. Besides, Bob swears the person he saw leaving the Grey Gull Inn was definitely a man. So it couldn’t have been Melody. Unless she had a pretty good disguise, which is ridiculous.”

This whole thing was getting ridiculous, if you asked me. In a very scary way. Any normal mother-of-the-bride had to contend with seating charts and dress colors. I had to contend with murder and mayhem. (Only a slight exaggeration.)

I was starting to explain my theory in more detail when I heard Mary

Alice’s voice. “We’re in the office,” I called out.

“Claire’s right behind me,” Mary Alice said. “What’s the emergency? I almost got a speeding ticket on the way over here.”

“Nancy wants us all to look at a sketch that Bob did. It’s of the person he claims he saw leaving the Grey Gull Inn just before he found Tiffani’s body.”

“He doesn’t
claim
he saw this person, Carol,” Nancy huffed. “He
saw
this person.” Whatever.

I was focused on my daughter’s safety, so while we waited for Claire, I booted up the computer and went to Jenny’s Facebook page. Maybe looking at the Nantucket pictures she’d posted would jar something loose in my brain.

“I’m here,” yelled Claire. “And I have chocolate ice cream sundaes with extra fudge sauce. A sugar high always makes us think better, especially since we don’t have to worry about blemishes anymore.”

“No, just extra girth around the middle,” I said, snatching one of the sundaes before it melted. I licked my lips. “Dinner tonight.”

“Nothing better,” agreed Nancy. “Now, can we get down to business, please? Here’s the sketch. What do you think?”

She smoothed out the paper and the rest of us gathered around to take a close look.

“Doesn’t look like anyone I’ve ever seen before,” said Claire. “Sorry.” “There’s something familiar about his eyes,” said Mary Alice. “But I could be wrong.”

I squinted and stared at the face. “Mary Alice is right. There’s something about the eyes. But I just can’t figure out what it is.”

“Let’s take an ice cream break and then come back and look at it again,” Claire suggested. She patted Nancy’s hand. “We’ll figure something out to help Bob. Don’t worry.”

Time to get to the topic that was uppermost on my mind.

“While we’re having our ice cream…thanks, Claire, for bringing it….”

I cleared my throat and began again. “What if the intended victim wasn’t Tiffani at all? What if it was really Jenny? I’ve been doing some research on cyberstalking, and I found out it’s much more common than most people realize. And a lot harder to trace. Deanna told me it happened to one of her clients, and the client was scared to death.”

Everybody started talking at once. One of the disadvantages of an all-female detective team.

“Hold it,” I said. “Before you all tell me I’m overreacting,
again
, let’s take a quick look at Jenny’s Facebook page. She posted a few pictures of our Nantucket trip on it. Maybe there’s something there.”

I clicked on the first photo, which showed Nantucket Airport with a laughing Jenny standing in front of the building. She was pointing to the “Welcome to Nantucket” sign. The next few shots were of the Grey Gull Inn.

“What a lovely place,” Claire said, leaning over my shoulder for a better look.

“With delicious food,” I added. “And it’s in a terrific location, right near the center of town.”

I realized I was getting off track again.

“There are a few more pictures to look at. Humor me, ok?” I asked. Lucy and Ethel chose that moment to make an entrance, and I scurried to move the chocolate sundaes out of their reach before they could help themselves to a few licks. Chocolate is very dangerous for dogs.

Lucy gave me a dirty look, and attempted to climb up on my lap. “Oof,” I said, lifting her up, “we need to cut down on the dog biscuits, kid. You’re getting too heavy.”

Lucy settled in my lap, and I swear she was looking at the computer screen. Who knows? Maybe she and Ethel go on line when Jim and I aren’t home. Then she sighed, and closed her eyes.

“Here’s one of all of you in front of the Whaling Museum,” Nancy said. “Tiffani is on the far left,” she added for the benefit of Mary Alice and Claire. “Looking at her in this photo, and knowing that in just a few hours she’ll be dead, makes me feel so sorry for her.

“Even though she ruined my marriage.”

“It’s a good picture of all of you,” Claire said. She squinted a little more at the computer screen. “Too bad there’s some strange man in it. See him, just around the corner? Maybe he can be cropped out of the photo. And what the heck is he doing?”

Instead of focusing on the picture in front of the Whaling Museum, my own eyes were riveted to at least 25 posts on Jenny’s page that hadn’t been there the last time I checked. All the posts were song titles from someone who called himself DeeJay Daddy, and were suggested songs that Jenny and Mark could dance to on their wedding day:

“Silhouettes” (On The Shade) (The Rays); “You Belong To Me,” (Carly Simon); “Private Eyes Are Watching You” (Hall & Oates); “One Way Or The Other” (Blondie); “Every Breath You Take” (Police); “Can’t Stand Losing You” (Police); “Can’t Get Used To Losing You” (Andy Williams); “Run For Your Life” (The Beatles); (I Would Walk) “500 Miles” (The Proclaimers); “Girl Watcher” (O Kaysions); “I Will Follow” (U 2); “I Want You Back” (N’ Sync); “Creepin Up On You” (Darren Hayes); “Never Gonna Give You Up” (Rick Astley); “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” (Kylie Minogue); “Follow You Home” (Nickelback); “Two Steps Behind” (Def Leppard); “Stalker” (Goldfinger); “I’m Gonna Love You Forever” (Jessica Simpson); “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” (Neil Sedaka); “Right Here Waiting For You” (Richard Marx); “Cherish” (The Association); (Everything I Do) “I Do For You” (Bryan Adams); “Don’t You Forget About Me” (Simple Minds); “Happy Together” (The Turtles); “Hopelessly Devoted To You” (Olivia Newton John); “Can’t Smile Without You” (Barry Manilow). “My Eyes Adored You” (Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons); “I’m Walking Behind You” (On Your Wedding Day) (Frank Sinatra.).

“I love these songs,” Nancy said. “I remember dancing to some of them when we were in high school.”

I had a completely different reaction.

Individually, each of the songs was innocuous. I even liked most of them. But, put together, they sent a horrible message. A message that someone was threatening Jenny by sending her a list of stalking songs.

I felt as scared at that moment as I’d been that terrible night on Nantucket, when I thought the dead woman was my daughter.

I forced my heart rate to slow down, and looked at the picture Claire was talking about. She was right. There was a man directly around the corner from us, flattened against the wall of the Whaling Museum. He was leaning forward, in our direction. It looked like he was trying to overhear what we were saying.