CHAPTER SEVEN
I returned to the detective agency at five fifteen to find Abby standing outside in front of the gift store two doors down, looking in its window. She saw me coming and turned. “Ready for our next interview?”
“I’m all set. The bookstore is up six blocks, in Little Greece. We have plenty of time.”
“You have your iPad?” Abby asked. “Case emailed you the questions he wrote up.”
I tapped my purse. “Got it right here.”
As we walked, Abby said, “I spoke with Carly’s mother and sister this afternoon. Both said Carly had made a will after her son was born, but she had not made a new will. Carly’s mother was emphatic she would’ve known about it. Apparently, since Carly’s divorce, she and her mother talked on the phone every night.”
We stopped at the corner to wait for the light to change, then as we crossed the street Abby said, “If Carly didn’t have a new will, then, according to the original will, her son would’ve inherited the land at her death. And with Carly gone, Donald will undoubtedly get custody of the boy, which means he would have his land back.”
“Which gives him a motive,” I said. “He goes on the suspect list.”
The sidewalks were mostly free of tourists, which was strange for such a warm day in my lakeside tourist town. Abby and I strolled casually, talking about our lives. I asked Abby about her flower shop, and she told me how she had come to acquire it. “After being ejected from law school,” she said, “I didn’t know what to do with myself. And there it was, like a jewel in a crown, the place where I’d spent several happy college summers working, Bloomers Flower Shop. The owner was in financial straits and wanted to sell the business, but fortunately, I had money left from the college fund my grandfather had set up, so I was able to assume her mortgage.” Abby smiled. “It’s been quite a ride, and I love every day of it.”
“You’re very lucky,” I told her. “I love the garden center, but it’s not my passion. I haven’t quite figured that part out yet.”
“It seems like solving mysteries may be your passion,” Abby said. “From what I’ve seen so far, you’re pretty darn good at it. You and Case make a great team.”
Smiling at her remark, I said, “I wouldn’t be doing this without him.”
I glanced at the shop ahead of us. Above the big front window was a sign in Greek-style lettering, The Garden of Readin’. New and Used Books. “And look. We’re here.”
“Would you like to take the lead?” Abby asked.
“Sure!”
“You can read the questions from your iPad, and I’ll take notes in my notebook. Don’t judge my handwriting, though.”
“That’s why I use the iPad,” I told her. “You should see my handwriting.”
“Marco has been telling me to start using a tablet for my notes, but with my luck the battery would run out in the middle of an interview. You can’t go wrong with a pen and paper.”
“The pen could run out of ink.”
Abby stopped before opening the door and looked at me. “I’ve never thought about that before.”
We entered the little shop and saw a young woman talking to a customer at the cash register. The shop had a center aisle with bookshelves on both sides. The lighting was dim, the sun coming in the window illuminating dust motes in the air.
While Abby checked out the shop, I walked up to the counter and waited until the clerk glanced my way. “Is Eleni around?” I asked. “I’m a friend.”
“She’s around here someplace,” she said. “Eleni?”
“Back here,” Eleni called from the rear of the store.
I followed Abby, noticing a strong tingle in my nostrils. I’d forgotten how terribly dusty the store was.
We found Eleni in the last row, unpacking a box of books. She had on a pink print shirt and white pants with white sandals. Curly dark hair framed an oval face, heavy eye makeup coated the lids of her dark brown eyes, and deep red lipstick colored her lips.
“Athena!” she said with a smile. “What are you doing out and about? Are things quiet at Spencer’s, too?”
“Very quiet today,” I said.
“How’s your mother?”
“Busy at the diner, as always.”
Eleni gave Abby a curious glance, then said to me. “What can I do for you?”
“First of all,” I said, “this is Abby Knight Salvare from New Chapel, Indiana. Abby and her husband have a detective agency there.”
Eleni smiled at Abby and extended her hand. “Happy to meet you. Are you here for a vacation or on official business?”
“Business,” Abby replied, “but I’m also enjoying getting to know your town.”
“Eleni, as you’ve probably read in the newspaper,” I said, “my partner, Case Donnelly, and I own a detective agency. Right now, we’re working on a case with Abby concerning Carly Blackburn’s death.”
“Carly’s death?” Eleni asked. “I thought the police had already arrested the woman responsible.”
“That’s why we’re conducting a private investigation,” Abby said. “My cousin is the woman targeted by the police, and I know for certain she’s innocent.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. How can I help?”
“We’d like to find out more about the events of last Thursday evening,” I said. “That would be a great help.”
Eleni leaned one elbow against a shelf and gave me a skeptical glance. “Go ahead, then.”
I opened the iPad to retrieve Case’s notes. “First of all,” I said, “when did you arrive at the ballroom on Thursday evening?”
Eleni paused to think. “I don’t know. I closed the shop and made my way over afterward. So, sometime after six o’clock.”
Abby had pulled her notebook from her purse and was scribbling notes. I looked over to see what she had written but couldn’t make out her handwriting.
I continued, even though Eleni seemed more interested in unpacking her box of dusty old books. “Who was there when you arrived?”
She slid a book onto the shelf. “Fran and Jillian.”
“What time did the other two models arrive?” I asked.
“Hope and Carly arrived sometime after I did,” Eleni said.
“Did you see a man backstage at the beginning of the show?” I asked.
She turned to gaze at me as though the question puzzled her, but then she smiled. “Oh, that was Ben, our security guard. He was there briefly for a walk-through.”
“You have a security guard?” Abby asked.
“Actually,” Eleni said, ruffling the pages of a book, “Ben works for my husband.” She set the book on a shelf and leaned down for another. “Charles gave the introduction for the fashion show.”
I let Abby finish writing her notes, trying to ignore the sensation to sneeze. After wrinkling my nose a few times, the sensation dissipated. “Why does your husband need a security guard?” I asked.
“Charles has had some serious threats made against him because of his campaign platform, so he hired a security guard to travel with him.”
“What kind of threats?” I asked.
“Death threats.”
“From whom?” I asked.
Eleni positioned another book on the shelf, then turned to face me once again. “We suspect they came from someone connected to one of the corporations trying to get a foothold in town. As you probably know, Athena, Charles’s platform is to keep Sequoia small. We don’t want big corporations to come in and take business away from all the local shops. More than likely, it’s just a scare tactic, but Charles takes our safety very seriously.”
“What were the threats, specifically?”
“I don’t know the details,” Eleni replied. “Charles handled that. But they must have been serious enough to warrant a full-time security guard.”
“Who else knows about the threats?” I asked.
“Just those people who work closely with Charles. He doesn’t want to scare anyone, and I’m sure he doesn’t want it to go public.”
“Did Carly know about the threats?” I asked.
“Carly was his campaign manager,” Eleni replied, “so I assume she knew. And along those lines, you might be interested to know that Donald Blackburn, Carly’s ex-husband, had planned to build a giant casino near the lake.”
“Why is that important?” Abby asked.
“Because my husband quashed the deal. It wasn’t very long after that when the threats began.”
Abby wrote it down, and I watched her underline the name Donald Blackburn.
“Did you see Donald at the show?” I asked.
“No,” she answered. “And I doubt he would’ve been welcome.”
“So, Ben the security guard was at the show to protect your husband,” I said.
“Yes. And for my safety, too, of course. Ben was told to make a thorough sweep of the premises just to be safe.”
“Do you know him well, this security guard?”
“Not well at all,” she replied. “He was just hired two weeks ago.”
When Abby finished writing, I asked, “Did your husband go backstage at all before the show?”
Eleni bent to retrieve another book. “Charles came back briefly to wish me good luck.”
“Did you notice any other men backstage?”
“No.”
“What about a man in a black baseball cap and T-shirt?” I asked.
“No,” she answered again. “I didn’t see anyone like that.”
I gave time for Abby to write, puzzling over the mysterious man in the black hat that Abby had seen on the security camera. How could he have made it backstage without Fran or Eleni seeing him?
“I’m not really sure what you’re hoping to find,” Eleni said. “There were only a few people backstage, and I can’t help but wonder whether you’re looking at one of us as a suspect.”
I tried to reassure her, although I had to bend the truth to do so. “We’re not even sure that Carly was poisoned at the fashion show. We’re just trying to eliminate the possibility.”
“I see.” Eleni bent down to retrieve another book from the box on the floor. “Will this be much longer? I have several more boxes to unpack.”
“I’d like to know more about Carly,” I told her. “When she arrived backstage, did she seem to be acting normally?”
“I couldn’t say,” Eleni replied. “I was busy trying on an outfit in my dressing room.”
“What about the first night of the fashion show?”
There was a subtle tensing of Eleni’s jaw as she flipped through the pages of another book. I tried my best not to breathe. “Carly seemed fine,” she answered.
I noticed her looking impatient, and I hadn’t even started with the harder questions Case had written out. I tried to tread carefully. “Someone we’ve spoken with mentioned that you and Carly were seen having an argument on the first night,” I said. “Would you tell us what the argument was about?”
“It wasn’t an argument,” Eleni answered hotly. “We were having a discussion.”
“Then what was the discussion about?” I prodded.
Eleni unpacked another book. “That’s none of your business.”
Apparently, I hadn’t trodden carefully enough.
“Excuse me. I’m sorry,” Abby interjected, “but we’re private investigators. This is our business. You were heard having an argument with Carly one day before her death. You’ve been very forthcoming up until this point, but I find it very odd that you chose this question to avoid.”
Eleni placed one hand on her hip. “What are you insinuating?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” Abby said, “and it’s usually the guilty who refuse to help.”
“Guilty?” Eleni glared at Abby, her nostrils flaring. “You must be joking.”
“I’m dead serious,” Abby told her.
Eleni pivoted and walked up the row, browsing the middle shelf with her index finger. “Accusations can be damning,” she said, pulling a book from the shelf. She walked back over to where we stood. “Have you ever read Arthur Miller?”
I stared at her in bewilderment, but Abby merely said, “No, why?”
Eleni handed her the book. It was Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. “It’s about the Salem witch trials. You should read it, and maybe you’ll learn to be more careful when accusing others.” She pulled another book from the box at her feet.
Abby set the Arthur Miller book on the shelf. “Tell me what the argument was about.”
“Like I told you, it wasn’t an argument.”
“Then what were you discussing?” Abby asked. “Your husband?”
Eleni stepped to the end of the row and glanced toward the checkout counter, where I could hear the clerk chatting with a customer. Then she stepped back into the row and in a hushed voice said, “My husband is a good man. He’s been an excellent father and an outstanding mayor. So, when I learned that rumors were circulating about Carly and my husband, I politely asked her to resign as campaign manager. She wasn’t very happy about that and proceeded to tell me so, just not as politely.”
I waited a moment as Abby scribbled her notes before asking, “What was the rumor?”
Eleni studied the spine of an antique-looking Bible for a long moment, then finally sighed and looked away. “I was informed that my husband was having an affair with Carly.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. “Who told you that?”
Eleni shook her head sadly. “I shouldn’t have listened to her—she’s the biggest gossip in town—but she hears things. She has her sticky fingers in everyone’s business. Plus, I knew Carly and my husband were working closely together on his campaign.”
“Who told you?” I asked again.
“Hope Louvain.”
I let that sink in while Abby jotted more notes. Was that why Eleni had been so quiet before the show? Was that why she’d been crying? Had Charles just admitted to an affair?
“When did Hope tell you about this rumored affair?” I asked. “Was it before the fashion show?”
“No,” she said. “It was earlier in the week. She stopped by the bookstore to tell me.”
“Did you have any evidence besides Hope’s gossip that your husband was having an affair?” Abby asked.
“No, because it wasn’t true.”
“How do you know it wasn’t true?” I asked.
“After hearing the rumor from Hope,” Eleni replied, “I went to my husband’s office one evening. It was late, but I have a key, and I was able to get in quietly without being seen. I watched Charles and Carly sitting in his office going over a speech. I stayed there for quite a while, and nothing happened. It all seemed perfectly innocent.”
“Then you believe your husband wasn’t having an affair?” I asked.
“It didn’t appear that way,” she answered, “but I still wanted Carly to resign.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid Hope would spread the rumor and it would taint the campaign. I explained that to Carly and she was furious with Hope. I’m sure someone could’ve misread that as an argument, but I can assure you, Carly was not upset with me.”
I glanced at Abby to see if she was wondering the same thing I was. Why would Hope go out of her way to spread a false rumor—unless the rumor wasn’t false.
“How long had Carly and your husband been working together?” I asked.
“A few months,” she said.
“Then how can you be sure the rumor wasn’t true?”
“I do not believe my husband was having an affair with Carly,” she said with fierce determination, “but I do believe Hope was trying to turn me against Carly.”
“Why would she want to do that?” I asked.
“Hope was trying to use me to ruin Carly’s reputation. Hope and Carly were bitter enemies, which I’m sure you’ll find out as you continue your investigation.”
Before I could move on to another question, Abby raised her pen. “Would you explain it to us now?” she asked.
“Only if this is off the record.”
“We’re not journalists,” Abby informed her. “We share our information with the police.”
“All I mean is that I don’t want Hope to know you got this information from me. Her retaliations can be”—she took a deep breath and let it out—“harsh.”