eleven

The room was deathly quiet but for Alice’s sobs.

Finally Joy spoke up. “You … didn’t know this?”

Alice tried to talk but the tears kept flowing. She shook her head.

The women acted on reflex. Joy went to comfort Alice. Charlotte went to get her a glass of water. Mary Ruth went to get some tissues. Francine began massaging Alice’s shoulders.

“How did you find out?” Francine asked.

She took a minute to pull herself together. “He called me from the police station. Told me not to come down. Whispered a few excuses. Said he’d try to explain it later.”

“I bet that middle part really hurt,” Charlotte said. She set the glass next to Alice. “Why would he not want you to come down?”

The remark made her start her crying again. Francine glared at Charlotte while they waited for Alice to become calm. Mary Ruth came back, yanked out a couple of tissues, and handed them to Alice, who wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. Would the police even let me see him?”

“Did he say he was arrested?” Charlotte wanted to know. “If he wasn’t arrested, he doesn’t have to stay for questioning. He can just walk away.”

“He didn’t say.”

Francine tried to mentally step back from the situation so she could analyze it. From what little she knew about the law, Charlotte was right. If Larry was only being questioned, he didn’t have to answer. He could just walk away. Larry had his lawyer there, though. What did that mean? She hoped it meant he was getting good advice.

Charlotte was still talking. “I know it looks really bad, Alice, but I don’t think you should leap to conclusions. You haven’t heard his side of it.” It was surprisingly sympathetic of her to make the point, and it would have stayed that way had she stopped. “Of course, the fact that Larry came back the day Friederich disappeared makes me want to connect the dots. But it doesn’t have to be that. He could just be an accessory to the crime.”

To which Alice resumed crying.

Francine steered Charlotte out of the library.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Charlotte said when they were out in the hall, “but it’s true. It would be better if he was guilty of something other than murder.”

“Accessory isn’t a lot better.”

“Well, he’s guilty of something. You don’t do stuff like that unless you have something to hide.”

“While I agree with that, we don’t need to go announcing it in front of Alice. We’re her friends. We’re supposed to lift her up, give her hope.”

“She knows what we’re all thinking.”

“Not unless she reads minds.”

Joy came out into the hall. She shut the door to the library behind her. “Thanks for nothing, Charlotte. Alice is now talking about backing out of the GMA interview tomorrow.”

“How can she back out? She’s not going to be on camera.”

“She’s talking about not letting anyone onto her property tomorrow. We’re supposed to film by the pool.”

Francine wanted to scream. Was no one thinking about poor Alice?

“We could film in front of the police station,” Charlotte suggested. Then she thought a moment. “No, that might cause Jud to go crazy on us. What if we set up in front of Matthew’s Funeral Home? Do we know where the funeral’s going to be?”

Joy paced in the hall. “Might work. Or we could do it at a church. Did Friederich go to church? Who would know that?”

The door to the library opened and Mary Ruth’s head popped out. “With no help from you, I’ve managed to calm Alice down. She wants to talk to us all together.” She nodded her head in Alice’s direction.

They filed back into the room. Charlotte regained the apricot chair, but the rest stood. Tissues littered the floor around Alice. She blew her nose with a fresh one.

“Charlotte’s comment reminds me that I’m not necessarily telling you the whole truth as I know it,” Alice began. “At first, I didn’t want to tell you this because it made Larry look like a suspect. Now I guess that doesn’t matter.”

“What didn’t you want to tell us?” Charlotte asked, surreptitiously retrieving her notebook and pen from the end table.

“Six months ago Larry threatened to throw Friederich out of the garage space.”

“Why? And what made him not follow through?”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Friederich was having money problems. At least that’s Larry’s take. At the time he was way behind on the rent. Larry told me he was thinking about taking Friederich to small claims court, maybe try to garnish his wages.”

“That would take a court order,” Charlotte agreed, making notes.

Alice shrugged. “I don’t know why Larry put up with it. He should have just dumped him and written off the rent. But with the economy being bad, Larry said he doubted he could get another tenant, and he hoped to work it out with Friederich. Really, it’s one of our lesser properties. I don’t think Larry paid much attention to it.”

“So he never sent an eviction notice?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Did Friederich ever start paying again?”

“I don’t know. Larry never brought it up.”

Charlotte turned to Francine. “Jonathan is his accountant. Wouldn’t he know about this?”

She lifted one eyebrow. “You know I can’t comment on things that are client confidential.”

Mary Ruth squatted into a folding chair. “I wonder if the police know about Friederich being behind on the rent. It makes sense that they would want to question Larry if they discovered that.”

“They didn’t know until earlier today. Jud tricked me into talking about the incident. He called about an hour before Larry did, and what he said made me think he knew. So I let it all out. Now I’m not sure he knew at all.”

Charlotte chuckled. “That Jud, he’s a good bluffer. You could tell him a flying saucer just landed in Arbuckle Acres and he’d act like his department filed the flight plan. You never know if he really knows anything or not.”

“They’d probably been over to Friederich’s house and gotten the information there,” said Francine soothingly. “All they’d need to find would be a checkbook or his computer files to figure out he wasn’t paying Larry.”

Charlotte put down her pen. “I hadn’t thought about Friederich’s house. We need to get in there.”

“We can’t do that!” Mary Ruth said. They all looked at her. “I mean, I’m sure it’s illegal.”

Charlotte waggled her eyebrows. “Not if there’s no crime scene tape barring the door. And anyway, if Jud is prying information out of Alice to gain circumstantial evidence pointing the finger of guilt at Larry, we should be able to access Friederich’s house to prove otherwise.”

“And just how do you think you’re going to get in there?” Joy asked.

“I have connections,” Charlotte replied. “Just leave it to me. Remember what’s at stake here.”

“So, what is at stake, anyway?” Mary Ruth said. “Sure, the police are investigating Larry and Alice, but they’re innocent, or at least Alice is. This is all about you solving a mystery, isn’t it?”

Charlotte sat back, affronted by the accusation. “We all know of cases where justice has been perverted.”

“No we don’t. Not personally. And you only think there’s a lot of it going on because of those creepy thrillers you read.”

“How about we have some cake?” Francine stood up, hoping to defuse the tension.

“It’s my cake,” Mary Ruth said.

“Yes, it is,” she replied. “It’s your wonderful flourless chocolate cake.”

“Make sure you wash your hands before you cut into it.”

Francine took a deep breath before she responded. “We need to have some cake and cool off, but let me make this observation before we do. As bad as it sounds, it’s not just a murder that’s been committed. It may well be that the killer is not through yet. He may be actively working to frame Larry. Jonathan and I have reason to believe that.”

“Really?” Mary Ruth said, sounding doubtful. “You need to stop encouraging Charlotte like this. You have some kind of proof ?”

“I hate to be mysterious about this, but I can’t say more until Jonathan talks to Larry.”

“That could be awhile,” Charlotte said. “In the meantime, the more we do to uncover the real facts of this case, the sooner the police will be able to find whoever killed Friederich. I have a plan. After everyone gets cake and coffee, I’ll lay it out. Then we can discuss it.”