Chapter Thirteen
I groaned after eating a bowl full of the best beef and broccoli I’d ever had. Max had even taught me how to use chopsticks, or at least he’d tried. I could run a vacuum like I was waltzing with it and use a squeegee like a baton girl, but chopsticks were not my forte. They never had been. He still got points for trying.
I glanced at my computer over on the coffee table and then quickly glanced away. I did not need to do any searches on Audra or on the nephew of Mrs. Petrovski or on Mrs. Petrovski herself. I was no longer in the game, at least for tonight, and I wanted to spend time with my boyfriend.
“You know, I did a search on the whole family today, but I don’t know if now is the right time to talk about it or if we left that over at Gina’s for the night. Some interesting stuff there.” He played with the wrapper of a fortune cookie he’d bought at the store to go with our dinner.
I stared at him until he looked up, with a smile.
“You know you want to know, and I wanted to know, too. Can I be John Watson this time? I don’t really think I’d make a good Shaggy or Fred.”
I laughed and laughed. “You will always be my Watson, but doesn’t that make me Sherlock, who was a self-professed high-functioning sociopath?”
“Never that. Just brilliant and good at putting the pieces together when you have them. So let’s start laying them out on the table.”
I rubbed my hands together and wiggled in my seat with glee. “So what do we have?”
“Well, first there are Mrs. Petrovski’s properties, and there are a lot of them. It seems that almost every single one is either on the market or going on the market soon. I know you originally thought that maybe she was going to keep you on to clean the mansion on a continual basis, but she wants them all gone. I haven’t been able to find out why she wants them all sold. The guy I asked to look into her bank accounts didn’t see any outstanding debts or deficits in the cash flow. I don’t see any way in which she needs a bunch of money.”
I blew out a breath and pulled a notepad and a pencil on the table toward me. “So nothing except that she wants cash, instead of the properties that have been in her family for years. That’s not a crime in any way, and there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to have a bunch of places, for which you have to pay taxes and upkeep. She might get snubbed for deciding to be cash rich instead of land rich, but I’m pretty sure she can handle that. She’s older, she’s high up on the scale as far as upper-crust society around here, and she’ll be fine.”
“However, there’s a brother.”
“Really? I thought her only brother was dead.” This I wrote down on my notepad.
“It’s a half brother, and the money came through the father they don’t share, not the mother they do.”
“Hmm.” I crossed through the half brother.
“However, there’s an issue with three of the properties.”
“Oh?” This could be good. I wanted it to be good so that we could start down a solid path to the killer.
“Yes. Word is that there’s an issue with the titles. I wasn’t able to get more than that through the grapevine, because I was working.”
“Oh. Can we do more to find out about that?” I felt like this might be something. “What if someone wanted the properties and thought they belonged to them? What if he or she was at the mansion when Audra was there, did something he or she shouldn’t have done, and Audra saw the whole thing, and so this person killed her and tried to get rid of her before anyone knew about it.” I was rambling in my excitement, and my imagination was getting away from me.
“I’m already on the fact-finding. As for the scenario, I don’t know. Do you think that makes sense?”
I sank back in my chair. “Not really. Why would killing someone get you the three properties or even one? That doesn’t make sense at all, Watson. Thanks for pulling me back to reality.” I laid my hand on top of his, and he turned his palm up to lace our fingers together.
“We can keep thinking about it. In the meantime, my information is that the aunt pays for everything for the nephew but has removed the majority of the money from that account and has opened another one.”
“When did she do that?”
“Today.”
“Interesting.” I rubbed Peanut’s head. She’d just come over to see if I had any food to drop on the floor for her. “Could he be bleeding her dry, and that’s why she has to sell everything? He said he wanted money for some kind of investment that he needed to make right now. Maybe he thought if he killed Audra, then his aunt would sell the house for whatever she could get so he could have the money now.”
“I don’t know if that makes sense, either. He’d have to wait for the investigation to be over. And he had to know that Mrs. Petrovski would give the cleaning job to you, which he was adamantly against.”
“But when it happened, he didn’t think there would be an investigation. He’d called the truck to come pick up that Dumpster before anyone knew that someone had been killed. He might not be big, but he could have moved Audra from the house. But how did he kill her, and why a carpet? It was so big and bulky. Why not a big black trash bag? As for me and the job, maybe he had someone else lined up already. After he sabotaged me, there was a very good chance that Mrs. Petrovski could have been swayed to hire someone else.”
“Carpet to be able to hide the body. And you’re right that he did think no one would be at the mansion when the truck arrived to pick up the Dumpster. As for the cleaning job, I don’t know what would have happened. She did choose you, though. Maybe she realized that you were more reliable than she had thought.”
We both sat in silence for a moment.
“You know, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let this case mess up my time with you, that I was just going to be the concerned citizen, not the vigilante that Burton accused me of being. And yet here I am,” I said.
“Vigilante looks good on you. Maybe we should get you one of those long leather dusters and a pair of cowboy boots.”
I burst out laughing. “Yeah, I think if I put that on my résumé or in my work queue, my dad would have a fit for sure.”
He held my hand across the table and massaged my fingers. His warmth was everything I’d ever need. “Are you that worried about what your parents think?”
I remembered that his parents had not wanted him, had, in fact, shipped him off to live with his stern and unforgiving grandmother when he was a teenager. This issue with my parents could be a tricky quagmire, and I did not want to drag him back into it.
“Not worried so much as I appreciate my parents and love them, no matter how much they annoy me. They’ve been there for me from the beginning.” I watched his face to see if it would go blank at my admission. But he just smiled at me. He loved them, too, he’d told me when I’d caught him pretending to be a flower delivery guy all those months ago.
“They’ve been there for me, too. It’s hard not to want to please them.”
I shrugged. “It’s also hard to please them sometimes. I got married to get away from this place.” I really meant the two floors below me, where the dead bodies were kept and then displayed for their loved ones to say good-bye.
“And do you still feel that was the right decision?”
I gave that one some serious thought. My marriage had been a disaster from pretty early on, and yet I hadn’t left until it was leave or go down with him. I hadn’t been happy for years. Now I could honestly say I was happy, but was that in spite of having to work at the funeral home part-time? Was I happy because I was back in the arms of my friends and family and with Max? Was I still putting up resistance to the funeral home because I always had? Or did I really hate working there that much?
“Marrying Waldo might not have been the best decision, but I think I had to go through all that to understand where I am now and appreciate it. I can’t deny that I wouldn’t be sitting here with you, that we wouldn’t be talking all this out over delicious beef and broccoli, if the rest hadn’t happened. Even if he were alive, I don’t think I would be able to thank Waldo for being a jerk just yet, but I can look back and see the path that got me here. And I am extremely thankful for it.”
He squeezed my hand. “I’m obviously happy to be where I am with you right now, too. The answers for the rest of it will come later, I’m sure.” And he smiled at me, not one of those beaming smiles that made you feel like you had to go do some rainbow dance or something, not even one that made me feel like he was patronizing me, until I got my stuff together and decided that I had been wrong all along. No, it was one that made me feel that he was here for the journey with me and that whatever I decided would be right.
I couldn’t help myself. I got up, went around the table, and sat on his lap to snuggle into his chest. Of course, Mr. Fleefers did not want to be left out, so he jumped on my lap and proceeded to climb up my chest to get to Max’s shoulders, where he draped himself, with his back paw stuck to my nose. Then Peanut came over and rested her head on my knees.
Max and I looked around at the animals, which were making sure they were noticed, and then back at each other and laughed.
“We might need better chairs,” I said.
“Or maybe more room.”
Maybe. I wanted him up here, but I kept going back to the fact that I’d have to move to Washington, DC. I couldn’t ask Max to move to my tiny town in central Pennsylvania when his work life was based in DC. But I didn’t want to leave my small town. As much as it could be a pain to have everyone know me to the point that I couldn’t get away with anything, as a call would be placed to my mom, and as much as I balked about working at the funeral home, I’d started building a life here, one I really loved, finally, after all these years. I just wasn’t ready to let it go yet.
Although I did wish people would stop killing each other in our area so that I could retire my deerstalker hat.
“We can discuss that later,” I finally said and snuggled back in, removing Mr. Fleefers’s paw from my face. He put it right back, but at least I’d tried. “Right now we need to figure out this murder thing and get to the place where we can point a finger at someone, with evidence to back it up.”
“I thought you were leaving the finger-pointing to Burton.”
“Well, yes, of course, but he’s so busy with everything that if I can help, I’d like to. If you still want to do that.” Oh, I so hoped he was going to say yes, but I wouldn’t press if he didn’t.
“I find it fascinating, to be honest, and a whole lot more interesting than running numbers every day sometimes. I love my job, but recently, it’s been getting to the point where I’m asking for the more in-depth things, because it’s getting old.”
Could Max want to change careers? Oh, that would open up the possibility for him to move up here! But I wasn’t going to press that issue, either. We had all the time in the world, unless you listened to my mother, who had recently started lamenting that my biological clock was ticking so loud it kept her up at night.
I jumped off his lap and got our computers. After placing his in front of him, I grabbed my notepad. “Okay, we need more information on business dealings and current life situations for the family. Background checks are good, but I think we need to know more about them at this moment instead of in the past. I feel like I need a filing cabinet to keep everything together.”
Looking around the tiny apartment, he frowned. “I don’t think you have room for one, unless you’re planning on becoming a private eye.”
I’d had that thought when Matt mentioned Burton wouldn’t be able to shut me out if I was licensed, but I shuddered to consider all the people I’d have to interact with, people with secrets or bad deeds in their past. It was one thing to complain about picking up dirty socks, but sifting through people’s emotional dirty laundry would break something in me if I did it on a permanent basis.
“Nope, no private investigator stuff. I might be curious and not know what I want to be when I grow up, but I’m pretty sure it’s not that.”
“Still, we need to do more research.”
“Yes, why don’t we take tonight off, and tomorrow you take the computer stuff while I go ask some questions? If I run into Burton and get the lecture about the concerned citizen again, I’ll just tell him I’m asking after people’s well-being. He can’t argue with that.”
After our discussion, we went to bed, but I was up early the next morning. I gathered my purse and my notepad, then headed toward the door.
“Don’t let Burton deter you, unless you’re not going to be safe,” Max said as I exited the apartment. “I’m sure he’ll try.”
“No doubt, but that’s part of the game. I’ll be fine.”
“Just make sure you’re safe.”
“Will do. See you later.”
I had left my laptop on the kitchen table, just in case Max wanted to run two searches at the same time, and then I went looking for the pool of people I usually asked for dirt.
Mama Shirley was the first one who popped into my mind, but I had tapped her already, and she might not have anything new. There was my uncle Sherman, but I wasn’t sure what he might know or if it was worth having to listen to him berate Burton yet again for not doing his job fast enough.
Trotting down the stairs, I listened for sounds of my mom. In two hours I had a funeral to drive for again. Letty and the rest of the crew were already at Mrs. Petrovski’s house and were making good progress, and the mansion wasn’t open for cleaning just yet, so I wasn’t needed for the next two hours.
Perhaps I could go back to the mansion and look for more clues, not that we’d found any yet, but anything was possible.
However, my phone rang before I made it all the way down the stairs. It was Matt. What had we done without phones before now? They were both a curse and a blessing, but lately I felt like my whole life depended on this electronic device in my hand.
“Where are you?”
I looked around and told him, “At the foot of the stairs at home.”
“Well, I want you to be careful. We just found Audra’s car, and Burton wanted me to check in with you. See? He doesn’t think you’re annoying, and he wants you safe.”
Right.
“What about the car makes him think I’m not safe?” I sat down on the bottom step and rested my feet for a moment. This could take two minutes or all day, depending on what kind of mood Matt was in.
“Not you in particular, but he’s concerned because whoever did this is still out there and could be getting nervous about being found out. The whole thing was wiped down meticulously. It was parked at Caleb’s apartment complex, in the back, on the other side of a Dumpster, where we might not have seen it, except that a woman called to report it because her son cracked the windshield and she didn’t want to get into trouble with the owner.”
“What does ‘wiped down’ mean?”
“There isn’t a single print anywhere, and no fibers, no dust, no lint, nothing at all. It’s like someone set off a Roomba in there and let it run for hours.”
“Again with the hiding and the Dumpster. It’s just weird that whoever is doing this seems to be drawn to the big metal cans. That and keeps doing everything he or she can to make sure any evidence is never found.”
“Yeah, you’re preaching to the choir. Burton’s fed up to his eyebrows. Every time we think we have a lead, it disintegrates like it’s on fire.”
“Do you think it’s the boyfriend again?”
He sighed, and I felt his pain and frustration. “No, we think someone is trying to set it up to look like the boyfriend is guilty. We found an ex that lives in the same complex, and we are bringing him in for questioning.” I heard his teeth snap together. “Don’t tell Burton I told you that. I don’t want to get into trouble for bringing you in.”
But now my curiosity was piqued again. “I thought Audra was single when she first moved here. She said she met Caleb, and they hit it right off. In her words, she was so glad that she wasn’t tied to anyone, because that way she could do anything she wanted.”
“She might have been single at that point, but she originally moved here with a boyfriend, who paid all the bills, until she got the job with that commercial cleaning company. Then she dropped him like a hot potato. My information is that he was not exactly happy. As it turns out, her ex and Caleb live in the same apartment complex. She and Caleb always met at her house, just in case they came across the boyfriend in the parking lot. That must have been awkward to have your ex and your current boyfriend in the same apartment complex.”
“Well, at least that was thoughtful of her.”
“Ha! Not her. Caleb,” Matt said. “She wanted to come over as often as possible, and he just always made sure that they went to her house.”
“Trying to make the ex-boyfriend jealous?” Man, I wished I had my laptop with me. This was someone else to look into, if I could get Matt to give me the guy’s name.
In the end, he wouldn’t, but I still wanted it. Surely someone would know. Maybe Caleb would tell Letty. I’d have to call Letty to see if she could get him to give her the guy’s name, which she then could give to me. It was a brilliant plan, and one I was about to execute when my phone rang again.
Lo and behold, it was Letty.
“Hello, my favorite lady. How’s it going over there?”
“We’re getting things moved around and out onto the sunroom, but, man, this is grueling work.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over and help? I feel terrible that I’m not doing anything at the moment. I was going to go dig up any dirt on the players in this wonky murder but I think I need to find Burton, instead. Other than that I’m open.”
“You can come over if you want and haul furniture. Actually, we might want to ask your brother Dylan and Max to come move some of the bigger stuff, if that’s okay with you. We’re strong, but some of this stuff is gigantic and old. I don’t get how they moved this kind of furniture around when they just had a horse and buggy.”
“Me, neither, though I’ve never thought about that. Maybe it was like the people who built Stonehenge. A lot of back-breaking work.”
She snickered, and that was much better than the exhausted sound of her voice at first.
“So what can I do for you? And then I have a favor to ask,” I said, still sitting on the steps. At some point in the near future, I could just imagine my mom coming in and wanting to know why I was there and not with Max. She’d ask if we had had a fight and what I had done wrong. I was not going to borrow trouble, though, so I tuned back in to Letty.
“I thought Bethany would be back by now, but I haven’t seen her. Any chance she’s called you?”
“Weird. No, I haven’t heard from her. I would have thought she would have reported to you at the house. I left her a voice mail about the change of plans.”
“Yeah, I did, too, but she doesn’t seem to be answering her phone, and it goes right to voice mail, then says the voice mail is full.”
“That’s not good.” Of course my brain started whirling through the possibilities. Was she hurt? Had she gotten stuck on vacation without a charger? Had she had a run-in with Audra when she was at the house that first night, taking pictures, and forgone her vacation and come back to kill the woman?
That last one seemed far-fetched, but at this point anything was possible.
“Have you checked with her boyfriend?” I asked.
“I don’t know his name or his number.”
“We should have a contact on her employment sheet. I can go run to get that, and I’ll call you back once I have something. Speaking of boyfriends, though, Matt just called to tell me they found Audra’s car at her boyfriend’s apartment complex, and that her ex also lived there. I never heard of an ex. Do you think Caleb might know his name? He might bear looking into.”
“Concerned citizen, huh?”
“The most concerned.”
She chuckled. “I’ll call him, and when you call back with Bethany’s info, I’ll give you the name.”
“Deal.”
When I rose from the stairs, I was just in time, because I heard my mother rummaging around in the kitchen and singing to herself. I did not need her to come out right now, unless she had snickerdoodles in her hand. Most likely, she was making them now. It would be fine enough to see her later, just not at this moment, when I was on a mission.
I rushed back up the stairs and surprised Peanut and Max by bursting through the door. Mr. Fleefers, being his usual self, barely glanced my way.
“Hey, everybody! Sorry to buzz in and out, but I need an employee folder.”
“Did you leave, then come back?” Max asked from his place at the table. I really needed to think about getting some kind of desk for him. I just had no idea where I might put it in this small studio apartment without cluttering up the tiny space.
As I rummaged through my box of files—I really should get a cabinet for them too—I finally came up with Bethany’s information. I didn’t have a lot of employee folders, just the four, but I had also been putting receipts in this box, too. I had a feeling Max was not going to be pleased with my organizational skills when it came time to do taxes.
Max stopped me on my way out the door. “Do you have to run right now? I just need a few seconds of your time.”
“Of course.” I put the paperwork down on the table and joined him, sitting in the chair next to his.
He turned the computer toward me and used a pen to tap the screen. “I hit on a few things for Audra. She actually has a rap sheet for stealing and the misuse of company funds.”