Murder Has a Sweet Tooth (18 page)

“I’m ready, too,” Eve said, but not before she checked her makeup and her lipstick.

I clapped my hands together. “Then let’s roll.”

And roll we did. Each in our own car, we headed to McLean and staked out our targets. I sat across the street from Beth and Michael’s fabulous gee-whiz home, and I wasn’t worried that Beth would look out a window and spot me. I didn’t think she’d ever imagine that the Annie she thought was her neighbor from the big, gorgeous, expensive brick Colonial would be driving a six-year-old Saturn. But that didn’t mean I was taking any chances. At six o’clock on the dot, when Beth’s garage door slid open and I saw her slip behind the wheel of a black Lexus SUV, I hunkered down on the front seat just to make sure she couldn’t see me. That was exactly the moment my cell phone rang.

It was Eve. I didn’t bother to point out that since Celia was in one car and Eve was calling from another, she didn’t have to whisper. “I’m outside Celia’s house,” Eve said. “She’s leaving.”

“So’s Beth.” I whispered, too. A natural response, and I told myself to cut it out.

“She’s heading down the street toward the first stop sign,” Eve said. “She’s turning right. She’s driving past a house with the prettiest rose garden. Oh, I bet it’s just spectacular in the summer. She’s stopping at another stop sign. She’s—”

“That’s terrific. Really.” I couldn’t take the chance of offending my Watson so I did my best to be diplomatic. “But I don’t need to know every turn Celia makes.”

“Oh, but you said—”

“Each move she makes. Yeah.” I remembered our talk back at Bellywasher’s and realized my mistake. Eve could be completely obtuse at times, and totally literal at others. The trick was that I was never sure which time was which. I scrambled to redeem myself. “What I meant is that you should call me to tell me where she ends up.”

“Well, really, Annie!” Eve tsk-tsked as only Eve can. “Detective work is an analytical thing. Like a science. You need to be a little clearer when you give instructions.”

“I do. I will. From now on. I promise.” I was sincere, but distracted. I’d been driving three car lengths behind Beth since she left her house, and now she got on the George Washington Memorial Parkway heading east and I eased into traffic behind her. That, of course, sounds easier than it was in practice. Drivers in the D.C. metro area are notoriously competitive. If there’s an inch of free space, they want it for their own. Rather than lose my concentration and risk a little too-close-for-comfort bumper-to-bumper, I told Eve we’d talk later, clamped both hands on the wheel, and kept my eyes on the road—and on Beth’s SUV.

When she merged onto Arlington Boulevard, I did, too. I was glad to be off the highway when my phone rang again. It was Norman.

“We’re in Arlington,” he said, referring, of course, to himself and Glynis. “We’re headed toward Ballston.”

The call-waiting feature on my phone beeped. I switched over to the other call. It was Eve. “We’re in Arlington,” she said. “Near Crystal City.”

And me? I wasn’t all that far away from either of them.

That may sound odd, but here’s the thing about Arlington: It’s not a city, like most people think. Arlington is a county. In fact, since I’m a numbers sort of person, I remember from back in my high school days when I learned that, at twenty-six square miles, it’s the smallest self-governing county in the country. There are no cities in the county, but there are neighborhoods, like Clarendon, where Très Bonne Cuisine is located, and Ballston, where Glynis was headed, and Crystal City, which was apparently Celia’s destination.

As for Beth, she was driving in the direction of Rosslyn, the area just north of Arlington National Cemetery. With the way traffic was moving faster than the posted speed limit and drivers doing their best to outpace each other, I really had to concentrate to keep an eye on her SUV. Up ahead, she slowed down and I did, too. The car behind her turned left. So did the car behind that one. Like it or not, at the next red light, I found myself right behind her.

I wasn’t about to take any chances, not after getting this far. I slunk down in my seat and propped one elbow on the steering wheel so I could use my hand to partially cover my face. “I’m in Arlington, too,” I told Eve, keeping my voice down in spite of the fact that I knew I didn’t have to. “This is just weird.”

“Do you suppose they’re all going to meet somewhere?” she asked.

And honestly, I couldn’t say. The light turned green and we started up again, and when a pushy driver wedged his pricey sports car between Beth’s SUV and my sensible sedan, I was grateful. I eased back a bit, but I never took my eyes off Beth’s car.

A couple quick turns and I saw her brake lights flash on. She turned into the parking lot of a place called Preston’s Colonial House. I still had my cell phone to my ear, and I was about to report this turn of events to Eve when she said, “Fergie’s.”

“Huh?” I couldn’t follow Beth into the parking lot without her seeing me, so I hung back, pretending I was waiting for a parking place to open up on the street. “What do you mean, Fergie’s? Beth just went into—”

“Celia just walked into a place called Fergie’s,” Eve reported. “It looks nice. Upscale. Well-dressed people coming and going. It’s a bar.”

“So’s the Colonial House.” I didn’t have time to consider what this meant. My phone beeped and Norman got on the line with his report.

“The Purple Tiger,” he said. “It’s a bar. Looks like a younger crowd. Hip and trendy. You know the type.”

I didn’t want to burst his bubble and tell him I wouldn’t know hip and trendy if it walked up and introduced itself. Instead, I got lucky and a parking place on the street opened up. I slid the Saturn into it, then grabbed my clipboard and took notes.

Under the column that said
Celia
in bold, black letters, I wrote
Fergie’s in Crystal City
along with the time. I did the same for Beth and Glynis, listing the names of the bars they’d gone to, the time they entered, and—

“Now we wait,” I told Norman, though since I heard his car door slam, I didn’t think he was listening.

“No worries,” he said, sounding as carefree as he did on his TV show when he was combining what sounded like impossible-to-go-together ingredients into what always turned out to be an incredible meal. “She doesn’t know me. It’s perfect, Annie. I can keep an eye on Glynis. You know, up close and personal.”

“Not too up close and personal,” I warned him, at the same time I clicked back over to Eve. “Not too—,” I’d just said when I heard her car door slam, too.

That left me, and I couldn’t go inside, because Beth would recognize me in an instant. I groaned and reminded myself that even one Holmes couldn’t follow three suspicious characters. I was lucky to have my Watsons, and I’d be luckier still if they didn’t get spotted and blow the operation.

As for me, I snapped my cell phone shut, pulled the clipboard onto my lap, and waited to see when Beth would come out of Preston’s.

I did something else, too.

I wondered why each of these women had gone into a different bar, what were they doing there, and what it all had to do with Vickie’s murder.

BY THE FOLLOWING FRIDAY, I STILL DIDN’T HAVE THE
answers to my questions, but I knew where I had to look to find them. I would, too. As soon as I got over the shock and awe of getting my first up-close-and-personal gander at Celia’s house.

Beth’s home was a modern wonder of sleek lines and serene colors. Celia’s was anything but. No stylish angles or two-story panes of glass here. With its hand-hewn stone walls, its slate roof, and the little half-circle windows that peeked from gables, Celia and Scott’s house looked as if it had been plucked from the English countryside. In fact, the only thing it had in common with Beth and Michael’s palatial home was the too cute
Welcome Friends
sign near the front door. Yeah, the one with the smiling, waving bear and moose on it.

Bear and moose aside, I tried not to look too impressed when I stepped through a charming swinging gate that led up an equally charming stone walk lined with an array of early blooming (and not incidently, very charming) wildflowers.

I actually might have been caught in the fairy-tale wonder of it all if the door didn’t open even before I rang the bell.

And if Edward Monroe wasn’t standing there.

Before I could make a move, he stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “I heard you’d be here,” he said. He looked beyond me to Norman’s Jag parked on the other side of the street. “I’m surprised you didn’t walk. It’s such a beautiful evening.”

“I was running late. And with so much to carry . . .” I had a tote bag with me, and I hoisted it in both hands just to demonstrate. “I hope Celia isn’t waiting for me before she puts the food out. I wouldn’t want to hold up the festivities.”

Edward’s expression never changed. “Oh, the girls are a little busy,” he said. “Beth’s in a real tizzy. You know how she can get.”

I didn’t, since I didn’t know Beth well enough to know if she was tizzy-prone. I nodded like I did, anyway. “She’s upset? About . . . ?”

Edward didn’t answer. In fact, all he did was stare. So hard and so long, it made me uncomfortable. I shifted my tote bag from my right hand to my left, then back to my right. “If there’s anything I can do to help . . .” I finally said, making a move toward the door.

Edward blocked my path. “I suppose the only thing anybody can do to help is to find that money for her.”

I was pretty sure my blank expression was all the response Edward would need. But he apparently was not so convinced. He cocked his head and raised his voice just enough to make it clear that perhaps I hadn’t heard him right the first time, and if only I’d listen a little closer, maybe I’d get things straight. “The Girl Scout cookie money,” he said, slowly, each word pronounced distinctly. “There’s five hundred dollars of Girl Scout cookie money missing and Beth’s worried sick about it. She doesn’t want Michael to find out, so don’t say a thing once you’re inside. She probably wouldn’t have mentioned it to me except . . . well . . .” He twitched his shoulders as if the thought made him uncomfortable. “She apparently thought I could help her out, though how I can, I’m not sure. But then, maybe she’s not thinking straight. She’s terribly upset.”

“I can certainly understand that.” My own stomach did flip-flops at the very thought, and it wasn’t even my cookie money. “Maybe she’s just misplaced it. That kind of thing happens a lot. We put something down in one place, and we’re convinced we put it someplace else. We make ourselves sick with worry when all we have to do is stop and think things through.”

“Maybe.” Edward wasn’t convinced. I could tell because he crossed his arms over his chest.

I managed a smile. “Maybe she needs to re-create the incident. You know, go over the details in her head. When was the last time she saw the money?”

“She says it was at her house. Last Friday. You know, the day you came over for the wine tasting.”

Yes, of course I knew that. I didn’t point it out. “And where was the last place she saw it?”

Edward’s eagle-eyed gaze never wavered. “She thinks it was in the kitchen. There’s a desk in there where she and Michael take care of bills and such. She’s sure that’s where she left the envelope with the money in it. You may have seen it, Annie. You were in the kitchen. Alone.”

OK, call me slow. Call me dense, to boot. It took a while for what he was saying to sink it, and even after it had, I was pretty sure I was imagining things.

I swallowed hard. “You’re not saying—”

His eyes opened wide in feigned surprise, Edward took a step back. “I’d never accuse anyone of something like that. Not until I had some proof, anyway.”

That was a relief. I reminded myself that suspicious looks and veiled accusations weren’t enough proof for anyone and reached around Edward to press the front bell. Pretending I’d just arrived was the perfect excuse for me to get away from him. “Maybe I can help Beth figure out what happened,” I said, a smile on my face. “I’m pretty good when it comes to getting down to the bottom of mysteries.”