eight

The sleeve of Francine’s nylon winter coat made a swish when she pulled her keys from her pocket. The wind whistled past the evergreens near the porch and dusted them with a bit of snow. She shook it off. Since she’d been driving Charlotte’s car, she didn’t have the garage door opener to let them in through the back. She unlocked the door and let herself, Eric, and Charlotte into the house. She stood over the air register just inside the door and let the warmth engulf her. It felt good. Eric was the last one in. He stopped, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply as if he could smell food cooking. “I remember some very fine meals here,” he said.

Francine looked at her watch. It was coming up on eleven, a little too early for lunch for her tastes, but she had no idea if Eric had even had breakfast. “Why don’t we sit around the bar and I’ll get some snacks for us. Maybe it will tide us over to lunch.”

Eric brightened. “That would be great!”

Francine took their coats and hung them in the closet. Charlotte trailed Eric into the kitchen. She nabbed a stool at the bar and he sat next to her. “Tell me why you don’t want Fuzzy Carter to see you.”

“He’s been really creepy the last few months, always coming over to see Aunt Camille. Several times she had me lie to him about her not being there when she was.”

“What did he want to see her about?”

“It had to do with her consulting business. He has her on retainer. It wasn’t clear to me what he wanted done, but he was unhappy about something.”

Francine wasn’t far behind and could hear the exchange. “I thought they were always on the same side when the Council voted.”

“Maybe. But that was about Town business. This was about his farming business. At least I think. But it’s my guess he wants me to fix whatever problem he was bugging Aunt Camille about.”

Francine pulled out a container of party mix and set it on the bar. “Are you working for her consulting business now?”

Eric grabbed a handful. “A little. As her junior partner, I needed to be. I know enough to be dangerous.”

That’s an interesting way to put it, Francine thought.

Eric munched on the party mix. “I appreciate this. I haven’t had much to eat today, but I don’t mean to impose.”

“You’re not imposing,” Francine assured him. “Let me fix you something.” She fished around in the refrigerator. “Weren’t you the one who loved grilled cheese sandwiches?”

“I still do. I just don’t allow myself to have them too often.”

“How about one now? You could use some comfort food.” She said it with the implication that she wouldn’t take no for an answer. He didn’t object. She got out cheese and bread, buttered the top and bottom, and proceeded to grill the sandwich.

Charlotte poured some party mix on a plate and began to pick pretzel sticks out of it. She ate them one by one. “What will you do now? Do you think you know enough to take over the consulting business? You aren’t planning to give up stripping, are you?”

Francine chuckled. “You’re not trying to influence him one way or the other, are you, Charlotte?”

She realized what she said. “I guess that didn’t come out right, did it? Not that I don’t think you’re smart enough to do consulting.”

Eric grinned. “It’s okay. I wasn’t the best student, I admit. My forte was phys ed and chorus.”

“Cass Carter was your gym teacher, wasn’t she?” Charlotte asked, in between munching. “That was before the divorce from Fuzzy.”

Eric stiffened a bit at the mention of Cass’s name. “She was. I remember hearing she got divorced, but that was a year or two after I was out of high school.” He changed the subject. “Back then I wasn’t motivated to learn. But when you grow up, your priorities change. I’m a lot more interested in business than you’d think. I bought the Royal Buckingham dance troupe. Did you know that?”

Both expressed surprise. “I had no idea,” Francine said. “Although I wondered how you got them to do the fund-raiser here in Brownsburg.”

“It’s a lot easier when you’re the boss.”

Charlotte examined the pretzel-less mix and started extracting the peanuts. “Next thing you know, you’ll be joining the Chamber of Commerce.”

“I have,” he said sheepishly. “I was already going with Aunt Camille as a part of her company. But now I’m going as a business owner.”

In more than one way, Francine thought, now that you own her business too. She hated that she thought it. She told herself she didn’t mean anything by it. Eric wasn’t capable of doing anything so heinous, was he?

The grilled cheese was perfectly toasted, and she served it to him on a plate.

“Bet you’re the first male dancer ever to join the Brownsburg Chamber,” Charlotte said.

“Pretty safe bet,” Eric replied. “But without Aunt Camille’s influence, I’m not sure they’ll let me operate a business here.”

Francine watched as Eric devoured a quarter of the sandwich in a single bite. Then he refilled his plate with party mix. “I don’t think Brownsburg is your target market,” she said. “There’s probably a place in Indianapolis that would be a better location.”

He grew melancholy. “Like I said, it probably won’t happen anyway now that Aunt Camille’s gone.” He closed his eyes.

The two women looked at each other. Change the subject, Francine mouthed to Charlotte.

“Speaking of Camille, what made her decide to run for the Council seat?” Charlotte asked.

Francine frowned at her.

Charlotte shrugged. First thing I thought of, she mouthed back.

Eric opened his eyes. “She thought she could make a difference.”

“I think she’s done that,” Charlotte said.

Eric took a ragged breath. Francine thought he seemed to be pulling it together. He appraised Charlotte. “I know you and Aunt Camille didn’t always see eye to eye, especially about your irrigation system. But she didn’t think of you as a bad neighbor, just so you know. It was just the circumstances.”

“Despite our differences, I supported her campaign. She’s made a difference just stopping Tricky Dicky and Vince’s shenanigans, like when they tried to block some critical annexations or repeal the no-smoking ordinance.”

“I was proud of her.”

“How do Council members get replaced?” Francine wondered aloud. “Is it a vote of the Council, or do precinct committee chairs get involved?”

“It’s a caucus of the precinct committeemen,” Charlotte said. “You should throw your hat in the ring, Eric.”

Eric’s eyes widened. “I’m not ready to step into politics. I’m not even ready to see the police yet.”

“Would it help if one of us were there? You said you hid in our car because we’ve had some experience solving murders. It’s our advice that you go to the police.”

“Not right now,” he said. “I need to think about it. I need to find some place to stay that’s not at my house.”

Francine did not want to volunteer. She was willing to feed him, but until he went to the police, she didn’t want it to appear that she was harboring a suspect. Charlotte didn’t volunteer either. Francine wasn’t sure if it was because he was a former student and the situation would have been too creepy, or if it was because there wasn’t a lot of sense to be made in hiding at the house next door to your own. Either way, Eric seemed dismayed at the silence.

“May I use your restroom?” he asked.

She nodded. “You remember where it is?”

“It looks like you’ve remodeled.”

“We have, but the bathroom’s still in the same spot.”

He left the kitchen through the swinging door and disappeared into the living room.

Charlotte ate the last few peanuts she’d taken out of the party mix. “That boy needs to see the police.”

“That’s something we agree on. But how do we get him to do it?”

“It’s getting close to lunch, isn’t it? We need to get him loosened up to the idea. Maybe a beer with lunch?”

“We could try, but his abs don’t look like they’ve seen too many beers.”

“That’s good. Maybe it’ll only take one beer!”

“I meant, he may not choose to drink it.”

“I knew that. How about one of your caramel cashew brownie sundaes? Put him in a sugar stupor. I bet his body hasn’t seen that much sugar and fat at once in a long time.”

Francine pulled a mug down from the cabinet. “He’s eating grilled cheese. He might go for the sundae.”

She made tea while Charlotte rooted through the pretzel- and nut-less party mix selecting rice and corn cereal pieces. She sat down at the bar with the mug. Charlotte pushed the plate toward her. “You can have the wheat cereal. You like it better than I do.”

“Which is to say, not at all.”

“Either way, they’re all yours.”

Francine nibbled a few pieces. The two women had a sudden realization. “He’s been gone a long time,” Charlotte said.

“I bet he’s run,” she answered.

They got up and went through the kitchen door looking for him. The closet door was open where Francine had hung up his coat. The coat was missing. The front door was slightly open. Francine guessed he hadn’t wanted to make any noise, so he pulled it as close to shut as he dared.

“We can still track him,” Charlotte said, throwing open the door. “He couldn’t have gotten far.”

They looked out. He was nowhere to be seen. “No,” Francine said firmly. “We are not going to track him. He’ll show up when he’s had a chance to weigh his options. We’ve given him the best advice we can.” She shut the front door.

“We still need to help him,” Charlotte said.

“How?”

“By investigating Camille’s death! He came to us for help. As he said, we do have experience in these kinds of things.”

Francine crossed her arms over her chest. She’d heard those words before. Not that their group didn’t have a good track record, but they always landed themselves in trouble first. She wasn’t convinced she wanted to go through that again. “Where would we even start?”

“In this case, I think we should start with motive. Who wanted Camille dead?”

“Seriously, Charlotte? No one wanted her dead. Even if she was worth two million dollars, the only person who stood to benefit would be Eric, and I don’t believe for a moment he’s guilty of it.”

“Don’t give me that. Someone wanted her dead, or Joy wouldn’t have found her with a knife in her side. Think outside the obvious. For example, we’ve been assuming she left it all to Eric. What if she didn’t?”

Francine opened her mouth in surprise and then closed it. Charlotte had a point. If there were an alternate beneficiary, who would that person be? Or, what if Eric found out that he wasn’t the beneficiary? Would that make him angry enough at Camille to lash out at her? No. She still couldn’t picture it being Eric. “Let’s go back to the kitchen. We need to explore this some more.”

Francine settled them down with tea, paper, and pencil. Charlotte said she’d keep the list. She put Eric at the top.

“He had motive and he had access,” Charlotte insisted. “Neither of us really think he did it, but we have to be realistic. The police usually suspect a close family member, and with good reason.”

She listed herself second. “My fingerprints are on the murder weapon. We can account for how they got there, but I could have gotten backstage ahead of Joy, stabbed Camille, left the room, then re-entered after Joy.”

“You would have had to move awfully fast.”

“I’m moving better these days.”

“Motive?”

“I’ve never told you this, but a long time ago Camille blackmailed me.”

Francine narrowed her eyes at Charlotte. “She what?”

Charlotte got up and began to wander around the kitchen as she explained. Francine interpreted it as a way to avoid eye contact while she said it. “I loved Philip, you know that. But like most couples, we went through some troubled times. Mercifully it was brief, but he and I were angry with each other for a while and he moved out. It only turned out to be a few weeks, but during that time I was unfaithful. It was wrong, I knew that. I was stupid. But Camille took photographs of the gentleman I had the tryst with coming and going from the house. I have no idea how she knew what was going on.”

Francine was aghast. She and Jonathan had argued, but he’d never left and she’d never considered doing what Charlotte had done. “I’m not sure I want to know any more of this.”

Charlotte plunged ahead as though she couldn’t stop, despite what Francine had said. “All I knew was, after I’d broken it off and Philip and I reconciled, she told me what she had. I didn’t know if that was a threat or what, but I offered her some money to lose the photographs. She never bothered me again about it, mostly I think because Philip had the heart attack and died several months later.”

Francine took all that in and didn’t say anything for a while. “But you and Philip took each other back, and what’s done is done. He’s been gone a long time now. What could she possibly have over you as far as that goes?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that between that and the stupid irrigation system we fought about, we haven’t had the easiest of relationships.”

“But Eric said …”

“Just because Eric doesn’t know about the past, doesn’t mean he or the police won’t uncover some things Camille might have saved. I have to be prepared for the worst.”

Part of her wanted to ask questions, like who she’d had the affair with and how much she’d paid Camille, but the other part felt she had no right to know. And besides, surely Camille had gotten rid of the photos by now.

Hadn’t she?