Mom Zone Mysteries 02 Staying Home Is a Killer (18 page)

Livvy nodded and the chocolate ring around her mouth widened with her smile. “Brownie,” she pronounced proudly. “Brownie. Fun.”

“Yes, it is. A lot more than cleaning up.” I grabbed a brownie off the plate. It was still warm and thin lines of icing trailed off the sides onto my fingers. I closed my eyes and relished the rich chocolate. “This is just what I need,” I mumbled.

Abby cranked on the hot water in the sink and dumped the dishes into the bubbling water. “We had a blast. Of course, I don’t see how you get a thing done during the day.”

Abby had talked to Wright and Thistlewait as soon as school was out and then she’d come over to watch Livvy for me while I took my turn with the investigation team.

“Did Mitch call while I was gone?”

“Nope.”

I mentally counted off the days since his 3:00 a.m. departure. Only two days. Sometimes I didn’t hear from Mitch for several days after he left for a trip, so I wasn’t really expecting a phone call, but I dreaded to think what Abby would have told him if he’d called while I was out. She wouldn’t mean to tell him about me finding another corpse, but a little detail like Thistlewait asking for another interview might slip out.

“So what happened?” Abby left the bowls soaking and came over to the table.

“I went through everything again for them. About five times, in fact.”

Abby said, “Rachel told me Clarissa was strangled with rope, not lingerie. The lingerie was added afterward.”

Tall and skinny with lots of kinky red hair, Rachel taught art at the same school as Abby. Rachel’s husband was in the OSI. Abby continued, “Rachel said if anyone finds out she told us she’ll be in hot water, so we have to keep it to ourselves. Anyway, she mentioned the rope. Said it was like rope you could buy at any Home Depot or Lowes and the red thong was twisted around her neck on top of the rope. Do you think the killer was trying to make a statement?”

“Like let them know about her trips to Vegas?” I said as I wiped Livvy’s mouth and retrieved her sippy cup from the floor.

Abby nodded. “Or, if the killer doesn’t have anything to do with her jaunts to Vegas, maybe the lingerie is to distract them. Rachael also said they’ve checked her travel schedule and she was out of town every other weekend. She’d go to Boise or Seattle or, like when I saw her, Portland, and spend a day or two. Then she’d fly down to Vegas.”

“I wonder if they’ve found her money. I’ll bet she had some sort of special, separate account for her ‘earnings.’”

“Probably,” Abby agreed. “But get this, General Bedford’s been TDY to Florida for the last two days.”

“So that lets him off the hook.” A perfectly good suspect, out of the running. I pushed my bangs off my forehead with a sigh, remembering the intense scrutiny of the OSI office as I left. As one of the suspect pool, I was all for having as many people in there with me as I could get. “He’d have a great motive, if he found out about her being a hooker. You know he wouldn’t have wanted that to get around,” Abby said.

I dumped the cup in the sink and grabbed a dishcloth. “I’m nervous. I’m on their short list.” I wiped Livvy’s tray as I said, “All my ideas about suspects were wrong and I’m afraid if more solid leads don’t turn up they’ll come back to me.”

“Well, where’s your list? Let’s add what we know.”

“Okay.” I put the dishcloth down and pulled the paper out and studied the line I’d drawn through
the crew.

“Clarissa’s death changes everything.” I drew a line through her name and rewrote
Crew.

Abby had been leaning over my shoulder and asked, “Do you think one of them did it?”

“I don’t know, but Hetty said Clarissa argued with a short, blond guy. The only guys that I can think of who fit that description and knew Penny are Aaron and Rory.” I tossed the pen down. “I need to talk to Will again, too.”

“Good luck with Rory.”

“He’s out of town anyway. I’ll start with Aaron.”

A sharp knock on the kitchen door punctuated my sentence. I shushed Rex and put him in his kennel, then opened the door.

Even in the dim light filtering through the low-slung gray clouds, Bree Reed looked unhealthy and pale. In full sunlight she’d look like a patient recovering from a round of chemo. Her red pointy hair accented the pallor of her face. “Thank God you’re here. I thought I saw you drive up. I’ve got to talk to you. Could you come over to my studio for a few minutes?” A cold breeze pressed the thin cotton of her flowing poet shirt to her torso. She shivered and clutched her elbows, pressing several beaded necklaces to her chest. Her artistically ripped and worn jeans were probably drafty, too.

“Ah, sure. Do you want to come in for a minute and warm up? While I get Livvy in a coat?”

“No. Thanks, though. Just come over when you’ve got a minute.” She backed down the steps and ran back across the street, her loose shirt flapping like a sail.

She obviously hadn’t seen Abby inside, so I closed the door and turned to ask Abby if she wanted to go over with me.

“No, you go ahead, I’ll stay here with Livvy. We’ll do the dishes.” Abby already had Livvy on a step stool beside her at the sink.

“Okay,” I said and shrugged back into my coat. I’d have Livvy wanting to “help” me with everything now from the laundry to the dishes. I’d never get anything done.

I picked my way across the frozen sheet of ice that was our street, avoiding a few puddles and the slush near what would be the curb when the ice melted in the spring. Hopefully, that would happen before Memorial Day. Maybe before April Fools’ Day? Better not to get my hopes up. Last year we didn’t turn off the furnace until June.

I paused in the long driveway of the Reeds’ house. Bree had said studio, so she probably meant their garage. The vintage bifold doors were locked and didn’t look like they would move for anything short of an earthquake, so I walked down a well-shoveled and de-iced path to the side of the garage.

Bree opened the door after I knocked. “That was fast. Where’s your daughter?”

“She’s with Abby at my house.”

Bree led the way to a rectangular table with folding chairs at one side of the garage. The last time I’d been in the garage was over a year ago, before the owner decided to make the house a rental. “Did you and Aaron do the work in here?” The gloomy, dirty garage had been transformed. Skylights let in some natural light, banks of overhead lights hung from the exposed rafters. A no-nonsense, low-pile carpet covered the floor, and the walls had been drywalled and painted a light cream. Since the garage, or studio, was warm, I suspected someone had put new insulation behind the drywall. I spotted a few shiny heat registers, too.

“Aaron worked for a contractor one summer and can do anything, drywall, electrical, whatever. About all I can do is paint.”

And she didn’t just mean the walls. Two easels contained works in progress, and paintings were propped, stacked, and hung around the room, their bold splashes of color jumping off the canvas on this dreary day.

“You did a great job, remodeling this place.” I walked over to a row of paintings propped up on the wall. To my untutored eye, they looked almost abstract, but not quite. Scenes in sharp, economical strokes depicted a beach, a forest at sunset, a street crowded with people. I leaned closer to another painting. “That’s my house,” I said, picking out the distinct honey-colored bricks and the Tudor-influenced sweep of the roofline.

Bree studied the painting and nodded in agreement. “There’s some great variety in the architecture around here.” She walked back to the long table. “Want a cup?” She poured herself a cup from the small coffeepot stationed on the end of the table.

“No, thanks.”

I studied the initials in the corner. “Why do you sign with “A.R.?”

“Bree is short for Aubree. Soda?” She gestured to a minifridge tucked under the table.

“Diet Coke?”

“Sure.” She pulled out a can and handed it to me.

I sat down at the table and popped the top, noticing a phone. “You must spend a lot of time here.”

“Oh, I do. Sometimes the whole day. We even remodeled the back. Added a bathroom.” She pushed some brushes over to the side of the table and sat down across from me. “I didn’t ask you to come over here to talk about the studio.” She fiddled with the brushes, lining them up from the smallest to the largest.

Finally, she asked, “You’re taking over Penny’s work with Frost Fest, right?”

“Well, no. I helped the chairperson, that’s Hetty Sullivan, find some artwork that was at Penny’s house, but that’s it.”

“Oh.” Bree slouched over her mug, and her necklaces clicked against the table. I counted a thin gold chain, strands of shells, small pastel beads, and a chunky turquoise.

“This is
Dilemma
,” Bree said as she leaned over and picked up a painting that was propped against the table leg.

“What?” I tuned into the conversation. “I’m sorry. I’m a little distracted today.”

“I imagine you are, after finding that witch dead.”

“What?”

“Clarissa Bedford. I heard you found her body.”

The squadron grapevine transmitted news as fast as the Internet.

Bree continued, “Anyway, I know this isn’t the best time, but Frost Fest could be really important to us, to Aaron and me.” She pointed to the painting. “Penny told me to send something to display in the art show, but it took longer than I thought to finish it. I thought I’d missed the deadline, but Penny said they needed more artwork and, well”—she waved her long, red nails at the painting—“
Dilemma
is the result.”

“Oh.”
Dilemma
was the name of the painting. “You’d better talk to Hetty Sullivan. I’ll give you her phone number.”

“Could you put in a good word for me? Give her a call first?”

“Sure. I could do that.” I didn’t know how much clout I had since I didn’t know that much about art, but I wanted to ask Hetty a few more questions about Clarissa anyway. “I’ll call you when I get home with her phone number, and then I’ll call her.”

Bree smiled. “That would be wonderful!”

“So you didn’t like Clarissa?”

Bree snorted. “She commissioned a painting and then wouldn’t pay for it. She said she didn’t like it and wasn’t going to take it. Like we’re Wal-Mart or something.”

The phone rang and Bree answered. “Yeah, it was a killer, uhhuh.” The chorus of “uhs” and “mmms” continued until I gave up and left. I wanted to ask Bree a few more questions, but I couldn’t leave Abby babysitting all day. I’d catch up with Bree later.

Later that day, I called Hetty. “Hi. This is Ellie Avery,” I said as soon as I recognized Hetty’s scratchy voice. I explained Bree’s request.

“I’ll give her a call. What’s her number?”

I read it to her, then said, “You mentioned you saw Clarissa talking to a man the last time she was at your class. Did you happen to hear what they said?”

“No, but I could tell they were fighting because of their body language.”

“Was anyone else in the hall?”

“I don’t think so, but you might talk to Karen Barakat. That’s who I suggested the police contact, too. She sat next to Clarissa and they seemed to be friends.”

“Great. Do you have her number?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give that out. Policy, you know. Check the phone book.”

“Okay. Thanks, Hetty.”

I pulled out the phone book. One Karen Barakat listed on Ponderosa. I called the number and a recording informed me that the number was disconnected. I called information. No new listing for either Karen or K. Barakat in Vernon.

After I got Livvy in bed that night, I did an Internet search, but Karen Barakat didn’t net any results. I pushed away from the computer and found Rachel’s phone number. Her message came on, a lengthy one with each little Smith family member chiming in on the message. If you were the grandparents, those phone messages were cute, but for me—and I like kids—they were annoying. Rachel coaxed the youngest to repeat, “Leave a message at the beep.” Finally!

“Hey, Rachel, this is Ellie. Call me.”

I didn’t think about my phone call to Hetty again until an afternoon two days later when the phone rang.

“Ellie? This is Bree.” I heard a gurgle, and then Bree mumbled, “Hold on.”

“App juice, peez,” Livvy said, waving her sippy cup at me.

I help up one finger, indicating I’d be just a minute. Livvy interpreted this sign, as all kids did. When grown-ups had a phone pressed to their ear it meant, “Mom’s distracted, so let’s see what we can get away with.”

Livvy dropped her cup on the floor and Rex and I dove for it. I won, swiping it up seconds before Rex could lick it. I looked around for Livvy, but she wasn’t in the kitchen. I tossed the cup in the sink and found her in the living room trying to put her Cheerios in the VCR.

“Livvy!”

“Sorry,” Bree said weakly in my ear. “I’ve got that flu that’s going around and I was going to drop
Dilemma
off with Mrs. Sullivan, but Aaron’s TDY and there’s no way I can go farther than five feet from the bathroom, so—Oh no. Hold on.” A slam sounded through the phone line and footsteps pounded away.

I grabbed Livvy’s hand and guided her to her high chair. “Finish your breakfast in your chair.” Wails of protest greeted this ultimatum.

I strapped Livvy in and patted her shoulder, then walked back into the living room so I could hear Bree. She came back on the line as I crouched in front of the VCR with a flashlight. I didn’t see any Cheerios so I went back to the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Bree said. “Could you take my painting to Mrs. Sullivan? I thought of you right away. You’re close and since you stay at home, you’re not doing anything.”

I think I suppressed the growl I felt coming on, but my silence must have conveyed my irritation, because Bree continued, “Please, it would mean so much to me. This kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day.”

Even as I eyed my grocery list and the muddy footprints and paw prints covering my kitchen floor, I knew I couldn’t turn her down. How could I say no to someone in the throes of a nasty flu? I’d been in the same situation before, searching for help with no relatives or friends to call.