Sink Trap (13 page)

“Traitor,” I muttered at Buddha. He behaved fine for me, but I had never been able to get that clicking noise to work, and Sue knew it.

“So what did she take?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t see it all. She had a couple of old pillowcases off the bed, and she stuffed them full of clothes. Barry said they were things that ‘didn’t look like the kind of stuff Martha Tepper wears,’ but he couldn’t explain what he meant by that. Swore he didn’t know anything about women’s clothing, and changed the subject.

“He also said Paula told him something about Miss Tepper’s housekeeper having to move out because the house was for sale.”

We crossed the street, hurrying in the growing dusk.
Walking the dogs after work had a few drawbacks, chief among them being the unlighted streets. It wouldn’t be really dark for another hour, but we were still careful.

“The worst part, though, was that she kept talking about ‘that woman’ who made her move out.” My heart raced a little at the memory, and I felt my face redden. I hoped it was dark enough that Sue wouldn’t notice.

“Why was that so bad?”

“She said the woman threw her out, and wouldn’t even let her take her things. She told me she saw her drive away, and that was when she came in the house, because she knew it was unlocked.”

I stopped and fiddled with the leash. It was twisted, though not badly. I was stalling, and I knew it. Worse, Sue knew it and she called me on it.

“And? Get to the point, Neverall!”

“It was my mother.” There, I’d said it.

“Your mother? You said she was there, but what did she have to do with any of this?”

“She was ‘that woman.’ I know she was. She and Gregory had just left, and this Janis person said she saw her leave. It would be just like them to throw her out of her house the minute they signed the deal with the Gladstones. Besides”—the misery I felt when I considered my mother’s heartless behavior crept into my voice—“Barry said it wouldn’t be like Miss Tepper to leave Janis without a job or a place to live. The Gladstones were supposed to be acting on Miss Tepper’s behalf. It had to be Sandra and Gregory.”

I sneered the last name, my animosity toward Mr. Too-Smooth Gregory Whitlock growing by an order of magnitude. My mother’s attitude regarding charity was lousy, but I blamed Gregory for this one. He had made the deal, and I was sure it was his idea to throw Janis out.

“She sounds really angry, maybe even a little unhinged, from the way you describe her.”

We reached my house and crossed the damp lawn to the front door. Daisy strained at the leash as I fished the house key from my pocket.

There was a faint whiff of expensive perfume. I recognized it as Joy, my mother’s favorite. That was when I noticed the small, cream-colored envelope stuck in the door.

Sandra had been here.

I sighed with relief, and thanked my lucky stars that Sue and I had taken the long way back. Since I could still smell her perfume, I had probably missed her by only a couple minutes.

I wondered how I had missed seeing the Escalade.

I grabbed the envelope and pushed the door open.

Once inside, the dogs were anxious to get to their water dishes. Sue and I quickly unclipped their leashes and let them go.

They ran into the kitchen. Their trimmed nails made only the tiniest sound against the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor, quickly replaced by the slurping and lapping as they drank greedily from their dishes.

“What’s that?” Sue asked, pointing to the envelope in my hand. She took Daisy’s leash from me and hung it on the hook behind the front door, along with Buddha’s.

“I don’t know. Something from my mother, I think.” I put the envelope to my nose, and sniffed. “It smells of her perfume. I think all her stationery does.”

It was the envelope I had smelled. So maybe I had missed her by more than a few minutes.

Either way, I was relieved. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to “that woman” yet.

“You can’t read it with your nose, Georgie.” Sue rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you try, oh, I don’t know,
opening
it?”

Sue plopped onto my secondhand sofa. The floral cushions sagged slightly, and she sank back. The sofa was cheap and a bit ugly, like most of my mismatched furniture, but comfortable. It had cost less to buy it at the Salvation Army than it would have to ship the leather sectional I never used from my San Francisco apartment.

The dogs finished their slurping and trotted back into the living room, muzzles damp. Buddha curled into the doggy bed in the corner and Daisy spread out on the braided rug in front of the fireplace.

I didn’t often have an actual fire, but Daisy had adopted that as her spot the minute we walked into our new home, and she was eternally optimistic that I might light a fire someday. I wasn’t sure how she knew about fireplaces, but she did.

“I’m wait-ting,” Sue singsonged.

“It’s addressed to me,” I replied. “Not you.”

“Ah, but a note from your mother. Not a phone call, or an e-mail, or a message on your machine. A real, handwritten note. That’s got to be pretty important.”

She snickered. “Maybe it’s a wedding invitation. Something personal and subdued. Just right for a second marriage.”

“We aren’t talking about that, remember?” I glared at Sue.

“I’m not talking about her ‘love life,’ as you so delicately put it. I am talking about Gregory making an honest woman of her.” She sighed dramatically. “Imagine how romantic. Lonely widow falls for her rich boss.”

I stomped across the room and dropped heavily into the club chair next to the sofa. “There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t know where to start.

“First off, my mother isn’t a lonely widow. She’s got tons of friends, and she’s busy all the time. Second, Whitlock might have money, but he doesn’t fit my mother’s definition of rich. And third, I don’t think she needs his money, anyway.”

“Aha! But you don’t know that, do you? She just might need his money. You don’t talk about finances and business with her, do you, any more than you do with me?”

I bit my lip. She was right, I didn’t talk to my mother about money anymore. Not since the disastrous time when I had offered, too late, to help her out.

“It’s complicated,” I muttered.

“I know it is,” Sue said, one finger tapping against her closed lips.

“Your mom is a stubborn woman. I know that. She didn’t want to admit she needed help when your dad died, and she refused what was offered. I know she told a couple people she wouldn’t take ‘charity,’ no matter how they tried.”

That I understood. Mom had barely admitted how deeply in debt she was and I hadn’t pried. That first six months, when things were the worst, I was pouring every penny into my business, sleeping in my tiny office to save paying for a San Francisco apartment, and showering at the Y.

Weeks later, my first fat contract in my hand, and a large check in the bank, I called to ask if Mom needed anything. She’d been quick to let me know she was doing ‘just fine,’ and didn’t need anything from me.

Her new job, she said, was going very well, and she could take care of herself. She said she had money of her own, and she didn’t need to take charity from her daughter.

As surprising as it was, I found out it was true. Who would have suspected that Sandra Myers Neverall, who only ever wanted to be a wife and mother, would have an incredible talent for business? She seemed to be able to match buyer and property with pinpoint accuracy, and her career had taken off.

No, whatever else there was between them, she didn’t need Gregory Whitlock’s money.

“Hello? Earth to Georgie? Are you in there?”

I gave myself a little shake, throwing off the memories. How much my life had changed in the last few months!

“So, are you going to open that, or not?” She gestured at the envelope I still held in my hand. “Or do I have to do it for you?”

I pulled the envelope back against my chest. “I’ll open it, if it’ll get you to stop yelling at me. Okay?”

Sue nodded and sat back, propping her sneakers on the edge of the ancient steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. “So? Open it already!”

Reluctantly, I slid one finger under the flap of the envelope. Inside there was a single sheet of my mother’s monogrammed note paper, folded in half.

I pulled the note out of the envelope and scanned the stick-straight lines of my mother’s precise handwriting.

At first, I couldn’t believe it. Then I laughed out loud. “What’s so funny?” Sue sprang across the table, reaching for the note I held in my hand.

I pulled it away, refusing to let her see the message. “You are not going to believe this!” I choked out, still laughing.

“What?!” Sue tried again to grab the note, but I wouldn’t let go.

“All that, that whole conversation.” I gasped. “Over this!”

I finally handed over the note, which read:

Sue glanced at her watch, and jumped off the sofa. Buddha looked up from his bed, alerted by her sudden motion. “I better run then,” she said. “It’s already a quarter ’til.”

“Why?” I lounged back against the well-worn leather of the chair. It had been my dad’s, the one he kept in his den at home. I had talked my mother out of it when I moved to Pine Ridge, and it was my favorite.

“Well, you need to go talk to them, don’t you?”

“About what?” My voice was sharp, and I swallowed my temper. I wasn’t really mad at Sue, and I shouldn’t
take it out on her. “I really don’t have anything to say to them.”

“How about: There’s a crazy woman running around Martha Tepper’s house, claiming you threw her out and wouldn’t give her her clothes? Something like that?”

I shrugged and burrowed deeper in the chair. “I don’t think it matters. She seemed pretty harmless.”

“You said yourself she was yelling and throwing stuff around. Who knows if she’ll come back for more stuff, or what.”

“That’s their problem. I am not getting into their business, Sue. I think what they did stinks, and I don’t want anything to do with it. I’m just there to work on the plumbing, and that’s it.”

Sue sat back down and we both were quiet for several minutes. Daisy wandered over to me, begging for pets, and I sat there stroking her coat and trying not to think about my mother, and Gregory, and Janis Breckweth, and Martha Tepper.

And how the brooch that rested in Sue’s desk drawer at Doggy Day Spa had ended up in the drain of an abandoned warehouse.

chapter 12

Sue cleared her throat a couple times, like she was going to say something, but then she didn’t. The third time, though, I couldn’t ignore her.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“I know you didn’t. But you’re
thinking
really loud and I want to know what about.”

“It’s nothing,” she protested. “I just . . .” She shook her head, refusing to look at me. “No.”

“Just what?” I stood up and paced along the living room wall, then turned into the kitchen. “You keep sighing and clearing your throat,” I called back over my shoulder. “Maybe a beer would help.”

“Not for me,” she called back. I heard her get up from the sofa and come in the kitchen with me. “But I could use a cup of tea, if you have some.”

I dug around in the cupboard and came up with a tiny canister of orange spice tea bags. We heated mugs of water in the microwave and sat facing each other at the tiny kitchen table.

“Now,” I said, “tell me what it is that’s bugging you.”

“Well, it’s like this.” Sue stirred her tea and took a sip before she looked up at me.

“Georgie, what if Paula is right about Miss Tepper? What if she didn’t leave town by her own choice?”

Sue’s eyes were bright and her hand shook a little when she picked up her tea. She was upset, unnerved.

“I do have to admit, there are a lot of questions.” I took a long sip of tea, grateful for the delay. Finally, I looked back at Sue.

“I remember Miss Tepper, like Paula says, as the library lady. I didn’t know much about her personal life, and maybe now I wish I did. But she never left anybody out. Remember sophomore year, when she helped coach the debate team while Mrs. Reynolds was on maternity leave?”

Sue nodded, and I went on. “Every time there was an away meet, if somebody was having money trouble at home, she managed to find a ‘sponsor’ to help with the cost of the trip. Now I wonder if the sponsor was Martha Tepper, dipping into her own funds. Someone like that wouldn’t leave a live-in housekeeper without a job or a home, with no warning. That’s completely out of character for her. My mother can call it charity and sneer, but there were a lot of kids that benefited from her help.”