Mom Zone Mysteries 02 Staying Home Is a Killer (30 page)

Apparently, she’d answered my first questions in an effort not to offend a potential customer, but now her patience was gone. “Why did you move here from California?” I asked.

“I was led here. This”—she turned and swept her arm across the snow-covered cherry trees—“is part of my journey.”

“I bet the feds would have a different opinion.”

Her head snapped back to me. “What are you talking about?”

I handed her one of the articles. She scanned the headline with her mouth pinched together, then said, “Nothing but trumped-up charges from narrow-minded right-wingers. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You’re making claims about your products that aren’t true.”

She crumpled the paper. “There’s nothing wrong with what I do. I give those pathetic young women what they want. They
want
to believe they can look younger. I give them confidence and peace of mind. There’s no law against that.” She shoved the paper in her pocket. “I knew you wouldn’t understand when Irene told me you went to one of those churches in town.” She gripped the window and leaned in. The venom in her voice shocked me and it took me a few seconds to react. “You’re so wrapped up in tradition that it’s going to choke you.” Her dangly earrings slapped against her coat collar as she shook her head. “You can’t abide the idea of someone finding happiness, if it’s not in your confining definition of Sunday morning religion. You’re a hypocrite.”

I put the Cherokee in reverse.

“Now get off—” I gunned the engine and her gloved hands slipped off the window as I backed up. I took the turn to the icy, rutted road too quickly, but I got the Cherokee under control and glanced in the rearview mirror to check on Livvy.

She still slept, hands splayed and head tilted to the side. Her hood covered her left eye. I concentrated on getting my breathing under control. I pulled at my turtleneck as it seemed to close in around my throat. I reached the light at the end of the twisty country road and stopped. I peeled off my gloves and used them to pat my forehead.

I checked the rearview mirror again. Livvy slept and the road was empty. I yanked on my turtleneck collar again. The light changed and I accelerated. Was I narrow-minded? Sure, I had my beliefs about spirituality, just like Ballard did. We both felt passionately about our beliefs. Didn’t I have as much right to my beliefs as she had to hers? She wanted me to respect her beliefs, but she’d only had contempt for mine. I hadn’t tried to stop her from practicing her beliefs, only pointed out that the FTC thought she was defrauding people.

Okay. Forget her viciousness, her intolerance. Concentrate on what she’d said. She’d
said
she hadn’t bought a manuscript from Victor. She could be lying. Her business was definitely a money-making machine based on secrets from ancient texts. She could use another text to validate her products, and I could only imagine what new claims she could come up with, using a letter from Paul. It would be a huge draw.

I glanced in the mirror at Livvy. Her hood had slipped lower and now only her mouth was visible.

As I drove I turned the suspects over in my mind. Like a mental puzzle, I picked each one up and tried to fit it in the picture. But none of them worked. There were still too many missing pieces. I slunk down in the seat. I needed a break. I switched lanes and headed for Sonic. A carhop bundled up in a thick coat brought my Diet Coke and scurried away. I rooted around in the console and found some Hershey’s Kisses. They were rock hard from the cold, but I put one in my mouth to thaw it out. Just what I needed, a caffeine and chocolate fix. I smiled. Just like Penny and her chocolate and espresso fix.

I sat up straighter. Clarissa’s death and the discovery of the manuscript had overshadowed one player in these events, Penny. Just like she’d faded into the background while she was alive, more sensational events drew the attention away from her in death, too. I needed to refocus on the questions I’d had about Penny. I opened my cell phone to call Kelly, the babysitter I’d had the night of the Preview Show. She hadn’t done such a good job keeping up with Rex, but she had taken great care of Livvy. I could leave Rex in his kennel and he’d be fine for a few hours.

“Sure, Mrs. Avery. I can come over early. You still want me to watch Livvy while you get your haircut at four-thirty, right?”

“Haircut? Oh. Right. I’d completely forgotten. Things have been a little crazy.”

“Ma’am, you can’t walk on this floor with those shoes.” I felt about sixty years old. On base I was “ma’am,” but when someone called me ma’am I had to fight the urge to look over my shoulder for an elderly lady behind me. I slipped off my boots and crossed to the bleachers in socks. I’d tracked Will to the gym. I hadn’t expected him to be at work. Technically, the gym isn’t “work,” but the Air Force wants everyone healthy; there’s a physical fitness test to pass, after all.

I spotted Will playing three-on-three basketball. I settled on the wooden bench to watch. He was better than I expected, quick on the court. From his lounging, lazy ways I’d never have pictured him playing basketball. As their shoes squeaked and yells echoed up to the caged lights, I thought about Penny. I knew some of her movements and actions on Monday. She interviewed Bedford. Then I talked to her at the squadron. Around noon she called Marsali, then went to my house and hid the miniature disk in the old coal shoot. Will found her body at home around twelve-thirty.

Why was she at the squadron? What made her go to my house and leave the disk? I shifted on the bench and checked my watch. Maybe Will could answer my questions. And what about the week before? Tessa had said Penny had a meeting with Bedford. I closed my eyes and tried to restructure the week before Penny died. It seemed so long ago. Had Penny babysat for me? No. It was the week Will came home from the deployment. I’d wanted her to stay with Livvy while I got my teeth cleaned, but Penny had a video conference at the squadron right before Will returned.

I needed to look at a flight schedule. Maybe Tommy could pull it up for me. Or Tessa. I’d never heard back from Tessa about her friend Marilyn, who worked with Bedford. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the squadron. I got Tessa’s voice mail and left her a message, asking if she’d put me in touch with Marilyn.

The players moved off the court and I stood and waved. Will grabbed a towel and came over. I said, “Hey. Good game. Can I ask you a question?” He nodded and wiped his face and neck. “Do you know what Penny did the morning she died?”

His mouth turned down and he shook his head. “She had that interview with General Bedford at the Mansion. Then she went home for lunch.”

“Did you see her notes from the interview?”

Will shrugged. “Nah. They’re probably in her notebook. Last time we went to the BX she bought a notebook, a new one, to take notes in.” He tossed the towel on his shoulder and cracked the knuckles on his hands. To complete the routine, he put his hand under his chin and pushed it up first to the right and then to the left until his neck popped.

There weren’t any notes in her journal about the meeting. “Was she going to tape the interview?”

“Nah. She tried that another time and didn’t like having to type it out afterward.”

So where were her notes?

“I wonder why she went to the squadron,” I said.

I didn’t expect Will to answer, but he did. “I left my hat at home. She brought it to me.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No, I was in the vault. She just left it on my desk.”

“What about the week before? You’d just gotten back from Turkey, right? On Wednesday?”

“No. It was Thursday,” Will corrected.

“What did Penny do that week? You had a video conference?”

He nodded. “I think that was Monday, her time. “I’m not sure what else she had going on.” He wiped the towel across his forehead. “I’ve got to go back to the squadron.”

“Sure. See you later.” I checked my watch. As long as I was on base I might as well go see Tessa.

As soon I walked into the Orderly Room, Tessa saw me and said, “Marilyn hasn’t called me back.”

“That’s okay.” I glanced into Briman’s office. The squadron commander’s office was empty, like the rest of the cubes around Tessa. “Where is everybody?”

“Briman’s in a meeting, Kinsy’s sick, and DeLane and Notas are on a smoke break.”

I pulled up a chair to her computer. “Can you get into scheduling?”

“Sure.” She pointed and clicked with her mouse. “What’s going on?”

“I’m running errands.”

“Running errands. Ahem. Like I believe that. Okay, here you go. I’m guessing you don’t want this week’s schedule. Back a few?”

I ignored her sarcastic tone. “About four weeks ago.”

“Um-hmm.” Tessa scrolled and then swiveled the monitor to me. “The week before Penny died. You being careful? Who knows you’re poking around in this?”

I smiled at her. “Only people I trust completely, like you.” I went back to the list of sorties and crews. “Wait. Rory flew that Monday.”

“Not a local,” said Tessa. “He was coming back from Turkey that day.”

“Really?” Can you bring up only his schedule for the last few weeks?”

“Sure. There. See, he’s been doing the out-and-backs, rotating the crews in and out for the deployments and dragging fighters over to England and back.”

The Air Force was multitasking, refueling jets as well as moving people.

“Cushy. He goes, gets the tax break, but he doesn’t have to stay,” I said. “A regular route for the last month. Do you have a log or sign-in sheet for the video conference?” I asked suddenly.

“Sure.” She pulled a notebook out of a stack and handed it to me. I flipped back and checked the dates and times. Penny signed in for her video conference at three Monday afternoon. Rory landed at noon. Calculating time for a debrief for Rory, I thought it was possible that they had crossed paths. Did Penny see what I saw the last time Rory landed, what looked suspiciously like a drop?

“You okay?” Tessa asked. “You look a little pale.”

“Sure. I’m fine,” I said, but I wasn’t.

Tessa’s phone rang. “Orderly Room. Marilyn! Oh, jeez.” Tessa swung to check the clock. “I forgot. I totally forgot. Okay. Yeah.” Tessa’s gaze cut to me. “I’m bringing a friend, okay? Five minutes, I’ll be there.”

Tessa hung up, grabbed a red duffel bag. “I completely spaced out. Marilyn’s waiting for me at the gym. We walk three times a week. Come on, you can meet her and ask her anything you want.”

Marilyn, a heavyset woman in a green jacket and skirt with a sparkly frog pen on her lapel, already had on her tennis shoes and was striding around the indoor track when we arrived. We caught up with her. Tessa introduced me and vouched for me, then scooted off to change clothes. Marilyn tilted her chin up and studied me through the bifocals of her glasses. “So you want to know about Penny?”

“Yes.”

Marilyn gazed at me for a moment more, then gave a small nod. “Okay. Might as well walk while we talk. Some people can take their sweet time at the gym.” She threw a glance at the women’s locker room door. “But I have to get back.”

“Sure.” I kicked off my boots again and we walked. “Penny met with General Bedford on Monday, the morning of the day she died,” I said to get the conversation going.

Marilyn nodded. “Ten-thirty. Right on time. So nice when people are on time.” We took the first turn.

“What was she like? Her mood?”

Marilyn considered, then spoke. “Polite. Distant. Just like she was the week before. But she was completely different back in the fall, the first time she had an appointment with him. I remember because I had to give all the information to the police.”

“How was she different?”

“She was nervous, I could tell, but she was nice. She and the general hit it off right away. I heard her telling him a recipe for some kind of foreign dumpling rice dish.” She saw my disbelief and laughed. “You don’t think that fancy young wife of his did any cooking, do you? I’d say unpacking the containers from a restaurant was about as far as her cooking skills went.”

“Really?” Secretaries always have the dirt on their employers and their employers’ families, too.

“It started when his first wife died. He was strictly a grilled steak and potato man. One day, he came in with a cookbook from the BX. ‘Marilyn,’ he said, ‘if I have to eat one more steak, I’m gonna become a vegetarian.’ He tried new things, noodles and such. Every once in a while he’d bring me a recipe. Got my rib recipe that way. They’re so tender, fall off the bone—but you don’t want to know about that.

“Let’s see, back to Penny. The last two times she was there, she was worried. I don’t know about what, but I could see it in her face.”

“Did you hear her interview?”

“No. She asked General Bedford to close the door. Hadn’t done that before.”

“What happened when she left? Clarissa was there?”

“Yes.” Marilyn shook her head in disapproval. “There was no call for a scene like that. Mrs. Bedford was a real beauty, bless her heart, but not too smart about General Bedford. Any fool could see there was nothing romantic between Penny and General Bedford. Only business.”

As we took the next turn, I asked, “What was he like after Penny left? Or did you notice with the fit Clarissa threw?”

“Oh, I noticed.” Marilyn’s pace slowed. “He was a little different. General Bedford’s one of those people who has a long fuse. He’ll go a long time and then just blow up. Sometimes I know he’s furious, but you’d never tell it on the outside.”

“But you could tell he was angry?”

“Not angry, exactly. Worried?” Marilyn tried out the thought, then rejected it with a shake of her head. “No. Maybe anxious is a better description.”

“And she was in the week before?”

“Yes,” Marilyn said. “I’m not sure what day. Wednesday? Now, I didn’t hear much of that conversation, just the general telling Penny to come back next week because he needed time to get things in order. Those photos she wanted, you know.”

“And you said something about her appointment with him in the fall?”

“Yes. Now,
that
was about the World War II exhibit.”

Penny did a bunch of volunteer work at the museum, mostly behind the scenes.