Chapter 31
Annie’s eyes scanned down the list of Sheila’s customers who had purchased the Summer Dream scrapbooking paper from her. She didn’t recognize most of the names—except for two. One was a woman whose kids went to school with hers. The other woman she didn’t know—but her name was Mendez. Irina Mendez, who, according to the order form lived with and worked for the Drummond family. Annie would call to make an appointment with her and make sure it was the correct address. It was the third Mendez she’d heard of within a week. There was a Mendez at the police station with Bryant and it was the name of the man at the apartments. Her gut told her to start with the Mendez woman—and thank goodness she did not live at the Druid Lane apartments.
As she was getting ready to leave the house, her cell phone buzzed. It was the sheriff.
“Yes,” Annie said into the phone.
“Sheriff Ted Bixby here.”
“How can I help you?”
“I wanted to run something by you, if you don’t mind?”
“Yes,” Annie said.
“Is it strange for me to think these murders have something to do with scrapbooking? I don’t quite know what to make of all the scrapbooking stuff, but it seems significant that the killer left scrapbooking stuff on site.”
Stone cold fear crept into her stomach.
“Someone didn’t like these women scrapbooking,” Annie said, more to herself than to the sheriff.
“I thought the same thing. But why? Seems harmless enough” said Sheriff Bixby.
“Scrapbooking is harmless, but sometimes women getting together is not,” Annie said. There was strength in communication and numbers—and some men didn’t like it.
There was silence from the other end of the phone.
Annie continued. “What I mean is, in certain cultures, the men prefer their wives to be at home, without the friendship of other women.” She felt a ball of fury form in her gut.
“I see.”
“Especially if something is going on in the community that, I don’t know, isn’t right. And the women get together and discuss it,” Annie said.
“Sounds a bit far-fetched.”
“I agree,” Annie said. “But these cases are very strange.”
“True enough. These women lived in the US. Neither of them were married; they seemed to be alone. No boyfriends hanging around, either.”
“No men?” Annie said. “Odd. Maybe we need to dig a little deeper to find them. I’m sure there must have been some men in their lives.”
She was thinking she’d ask the woman who lived at the Drummond place, Irina, about boyfriends and so on—if she knew the sisters, that is. But Annie certainly was not going to tell the sheriff what she was up to. He was a lot more personable than Bryant, but he was still a cop. She knew what he’d say. Leave the detective work to us. But sometimes people would talk to her when they wouldn’t open up to the police, especially if those people were from a foreign land in which police power was abused on a daily basis.
The sheriff chuckled. “Yes, you’re right. They were young and healthy women. Why didn’t they have men around? No boyfriends?”
Annie gathered her belongings, found her keys, and drove to the address Irina had given her when she called to make the appointment, on the other side of town—the Drummond place. As she pulled up into the driveway, she checked the address again. It, indeed, was the address on the scrapbook supply order form and the address Irina had given her. Funny, it didn’t even look like anybody was living there. It was an old farm house on the edge of town. Annie noted that the Riverside Apartments buildings were visible from there, as was a sliver of the park.
She walked up the sidewalk to the front porch and door. To say the house needed a paint job was an understatement. The sidewalk was a bit crooked and the porch stairs were warped and creaky.
She rang the doorbell, almost certain it was not the right place. Getting ready to turn around, she was surprised when the door opened to a small, older, dark-skinned woman who smiled nervously at her.
“Hello,” Annie said. “Are you Irina?”
She nodded. “Yes, you must be Annie. I’ve been expecting you,” she said, plastering a cool, professional-looking smile on her face, even though that’s not quite how she felt.
When Annie walked in, she was shocked to see how lovely and clean the inside of the house was. Beautiful Victorian furniture, well-appointed rooms, gorgeous, gleaming woodwork throughout—and yet the outside of the place had gone to hell. She tried not to show her surprise. “Is this your house?”
“I live here. But this is where I work. I work for the Drummond family,” Irina said. “Please have a seat. Can I get you something? Tea? Water?”
“No thanks,” Annie said, a little off-balance by the remarkable difference between the inside of the house and the outside. “This is such a lovely home.”
“Thank you,” Irina said. “I like to make things look pretty. What brings you here?” she asked with a pleasant expression on her face, smoothing over her dark skirt.
Where have I seen her before? Annie wondered. “As I said on the phone, I’m a reporter and I’m working on the story about the Martelino sisters.” She reached into her bag for her recorder and clicked on the button. The woman appeared to be okay with it and Annie had mostly stopped asking permission anyway. If people didn’t want to be recorded, they’d tell her.
“Yes,” Irina said, looking down. “They were both my friends. God rest their souls.” She crossed herself.
Finally! Someone who knew them that will talk to me, thought Annie.
“Lovely young women,” Irina said. “Horrible way to die.” Her bottom lip quivered.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Annie said, taking a closer look at her and wondering where she had seen her before? “I’m sure you’ll agree that we need to find justice for them. Find out who killed them and bring them to justice.”
The woman cracked a smile.
Odd.
But her cheeks quivered, escaping from the forced smile.
“Did the women have any other friends besides you?” Annie asked, after a moment and then she finally realized where she had seen Irina before. She was the woman who had been hugging the sad-eyed young man at Pamela’s Pie Palace the day of the first murder. It made sense now. She was a friend of Marina’s.
“Yes,” Irina said. “We have a large community of people here.”
“But did the women have any close friends?”
“A few,” Irina said, after appearing to mull it over.
“Any men?” Annie asked hopefully.
Irina stiffened. “Not really. They were beautiful, loving young women and wanted to marry, eventually. But”—she shrugged and gestured with her hands—“it didn’t work out yet. They were young.” Her voice cracked.
“Hard to believe there were no men sniffing around,” Annie said.
The other woman shrugged.
“I was over at their apartments and a man was there. Not very friendly. He has the same last name as you,” Annie said.
The woman chuckled. “Half the Hispanic population has the same last name as me. It’s like your Smith or Jones. We’re not related.”
“Oh I see. So you don’t know him?”
“Oh, I know him,” Irina said with an edge to her voice. “Not a very nice man. Thinks he’s king of the hill because he manages apartments.”
“You don’t live over there. Why?”
“Why would I? This is a nice place. I like Ms. Drummond. There’s plenty of room for me here.”
Annie wondered if it was as simple as that. Why wouldn’t she want her own place? And why wasn’t the outside of this place as meticulously cared for as the inside? How could she even begin to frame such a question?
“Ms. Drummond even allows my friends to come here to scrapbook,” Irina said. “She’s very nice. None of the others have enough room in their homes.”
“This is where you meet to scrapbook?” Annie looked around.
“Yes, in the dining room. There’s a huge table in there. We’re having a crop Friday night. The first night since . . . they passed away. Would you like to come?”
Annie could not believe her luck. Was it luck, karma, or kismet? She had to stop herself from jumping up from her chair and screaming, “Yes!”
She met Irina’s smile with her own. “I’ll have to check my calendar. But I’d love to come.”