CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

We made it back to my apartment in half the time it should have taken, with Maizy lead-footing it and taking red lights as a mere suggestion. We hauled the shopping bags upstairs and unloaded the groceries into the fridge or cupboards as need be. I slid Elmer into the freezer.

Maizy was waiting at the door when I noticed my voicemail light blinking. I held up a finger for her to wait and grabbed the phone. There was one message, from Howard Dennis, and it wasn't good.

I was fired.

My whole body went limp as I listened. According to Howard, the firm couldn't tolerate my despicable criminal behavior besmirching its sterling reputation. Clean out my desk within forty-eight hours. Hand over my key to a partner. And don't expect any visitors from Parker, Dennis while in prison.

I dropped the phone back into the cradle. So much for innocent until proven guilty. So much for having the decency to fire me face-to-face. I'd have thought Howard would want the chance to berate me before he let me go.

"What's the matter?" Maizy's face was pale.

"I've been fired." I hugged myself, overwhelmed by the realization.

"Because of all this?" She shook her head. "So what? You didn't like that job anyway. You'll get something better."

Easy for her to say. Where was I going to get something better? I'd had to put in sixteen applications before I got that job. I wasn't fearless like Maizy, I wasn't highly skilled, I wasn't overly bright, and now I couldn't even use Parker, Dennis as a reference on my resume. If I had one. Guess now I had to fabricate a resume, one with a real phony work history involving some nonexistent, defunct companies.

That sounded like a job in itself.

The full implications of being fired suddenly hit me. I had no income. I wouldn't be able to pay my bills, which wouldn't matter much since I wouldn't be able to pay my rent, either. I'd be able to keep my car, since I owned it outright, but I couldn't afford gas or insurance. I'd have to sponge meals and showers off of my parents. I'd be seven years old all over again, but without the dignity.

My eyes were stinging. I swiped the backs of my hands across them, angry with Howard, angry with Dorcas, angry with myself.

Maizy was hugging me then, her bushy hair plastered against my face. She didn't say anything. She didn't rub my back in that soothing way people do. She didn't tell me everything would be all right. It was a good hug. When it ended she stepped away, pulled her knit cap back onto her head, said, "I'll help you with your resume, as soon as we solve this murder," turned, and walked out the door.

Twenty minutes later, we were back in the Shop 'n Save parking lot. Not much had changed. The lot was still half full. It was still cold. And I was still a little freaked by my newly unemployed status. But then I started to see an upside to it. Now I had the time to sit in the Shop 'n Save parking lot to wait for Roger Marrin to get off work.

Which he did, about ten minutes later, loping into the parking lot with his head held low as if he was hiding his face from surveillance cameras. He wore a ragged-looking camouflage coat, fastened up to his Adam's apple. He had a black scarf wrapped around the lower part of his face, and he was wearing black gloves.

"He looks like a criminal," Maizy said. She started the car.

I squinted. "Are you sure that's him?"

"That's him." She pointed. "See the pants?"

I hadn't even noticed his pants before. Now I wondered how I missed them. They were checkered.

Roger Marrin had parked at the far edge of the parking lot, in an area probably designated for employee parking so the paying customers could be close to the door. He stuck out a spindly arm when he was about twenty feet away from that area, and a black SUV's headlights flashed in response.

Maizy and I looked at each other. "You've got to be kidding me," I said.

She shrugged. "I told you every other driver in New Jersey has one of those." She waited for Roger Marrin to pull out of his spot—then she fell in a good distance behind him, rolling along as if we were on a Sunday drive and running out of gas.

"Be sure you don't lose him," I said, pointing as the SUV coasted through a right on red.

Maizy waited for a Mustang to gallop through the intersection to provide a buffer zone. "He's probably going home," she said. "Bet he has a freezer full of Hungry-Man dinners and a cat waiting for him."

"I don't think so," I said. In fact, I was starting to think I knew just where he was going. A few more turns, and I was positive.

We were in Weaver Beeber's neighborhood.

"He lives here?" Maizy stared out the window in amazement. "Shop 'n Save pays better than I thought."

"He doesn't live here," I said. "Weaver Beeber does."

Her head jerked toward me. I pointed straight ahead. "End of the block. Pull over. Let's see what he does. Maybe this is just a shortcut for him."

It wasn't. The SUV's brake lights flashed as it came to a stop at the curb around mid-block. Roger Marrin didn't get out. No one came out of a house to get in.

Maizy hunched over the steering wheel. "What is that little weirdo doing?"

He wasn't doing much of anything. Ten minutes later, there was still no movement.

"Do you think he's messing with us?" she asked. "Maybe he knows we're here."

I shook my head. "I doubt it. He could have pulled over anywhere to do that. He's watching the Beeber house for some reason."

"He does know she's dead, right?" Maizy asked.

"Maybe better than anyone," I said. I'd had my doubts about Roger Marrin killing Dorcas, but there was something so creepy about this whole scenario that it was starting to seem more plausible by the second.

Another ten minutes passed.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Maizy said.

"It's the cold."

"It's the Big Gulp I had before we went shopping."

I looked at her. "So run the heater for a few minutes."

"If I run the heater, we'll get exhaust," she said. "If we get exhaust, he might notice us back here."

I sat up straighter. The Beeber front door had opened, and Weaver stepped outside. Or Seaver. It was hard to tell from a distance. Whichever Beeber it was, he got Roger Marrin's attention. I saw movement in the SUV, and then something black appeared in his hand, standing out in contrast to the windshield behind it. He pointed it toward the Beeber house.

I clutched at the dashboard in alarm. "Is that a gun?"

"It's a camera," Maizy said. "With a telephoto lens, from the looks of it. What the…" She narrowed her eyes, watching. "He's taking pictures of Weaver Beeber!"

We watched for another few seconds until Weaver had gotten into the sedan in the driveway. A moment later it backed onto the street and took off in the opposite direction.

Roger Marrin's SUV lurched after it.

"Isn't this interesting," Maizy said, starting the Escort. "Roger Marrin's a stalker."

Even more interesting was his choice of stalkee. I could only think of one reason why Roger Marrin would be stalking Weaver, and it had to do with revenge. A shiver ran through me. Maybe some diabolical plan was being executed right in front of us. Maybe Roger planned to follow Weaver to some remote location, or maybe he'd actually lured him to some remote location, where he planned to do the worst. Or, if not the worst, maybe the very unpleasant.

"Where's the nearest remote location?" I blurted.

Maizy didn't bat an eyelash. "Place called the Dunes, but they're not really dunes. They're just dirt hills and gullies, like that. Kids go there to drink and—" She bit her lip. "Not really sure," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "I get it, you're a kid. You're not climbing out the bedroom window at night to go to free speech rallies. I'm just thinking where's the best place for Roger to kill Weaver."

"Oh, that'd be the Pine Barrens," Maizy said immediately. "They're a lot more remote. You might not see anyone for miles, and the body might never be found." She frowned. "But that's a pretty good drive from here. And it's starting to get dark."

"Exactly." I looked at her. "What better time to lure someone to his doom?"
"Wow. Doom." Maizy looked back at me. "Really?"

"Yeah, okay." I grinned. "Maybe that's a little dramatic. But I just have a feeling about Roger Marrin."

"Me too." She pulled out her cell phone. "I've got to know the deal with this guy." She unlocked her screen and pulled up a search engine.

Weaver exited the development followed by Roger Marrin, and Maizy toodled along well behind, engrossed in her Internet search. Traffic was starting to get heavier as it got later in the day, and, before long, we were half a dozen cars behind.

"We're losing them," I said as they both rolled through a yellow light well ahead of us. "Are they headed in the direction of the Pine Barrens?"

Maizy looked up. "Nope. They're headed in the direction of that 7-Eleven." She pointed as Weaver's car pulled into the parking lot and parked on the far side. Roger Marrin parked next to him. "Not very subtle, is he?" she asked.

Both men got out of their vehicles, and I was struck by their physical similarities. Neither one would ever be mistaken for a stud. Between them they probably didn't weigh four hundred pounds or have a full head of hair. And their fashion choices ran toward Ninth Grade Nerd.

"Geez," I said. "It's as if they're one person."

Maizy nodded. "No kidding."

Weaver went into the 7-Eleven first, holding the door open for Roger Marrin without looking at him, the way I'd done lots of times for strangers behind me. Roger stayed on Weaver's heels as they moved into the store.

Maizy dug into her backpack and came up with a little pair of binoculars. Which should have surprised me but didn't, since she generally carried more gadgets than James Bond. She trained them on the store's plate glass window. "Oh, that's so not a good idea. They're getting Slurpees. This 7-Eleven doesn't have good Slurpees. Too watered down." She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

I stared at the storefront, trying to see. "Are they talking to each other?"

"Doesn't look like it. Oh." Maizy bit her lower lip. "Well, that's just weird."

"What?" I reached for the binoculars.

Maizy blocked me with her arm and kept looking. "I think Roger just smelled Weaver's hair, in the back, down by the collar."

"No, he did not!" I made another grab for the binoculars.

Maizy handed them over with a shrug. "See for yourself."

I looked for myself, but all I saw was Roger following Weaver, each with Slurpees in hand, toward the cashier. Or maybe Seaver. That was yet to be determined as far as I was concerned, although I had a feeling if Roger Marrin had been caught sniffing Seaver's hair, he would be wearing his Slurpee, not sipping from it as they emerged from the store. They weren't speaking. In fact, they didn't seem to be aware of each other as they got into their respective vehicles. Weaver drove off immediately, headed back the way he came. Roger's SUV sat parked.

Maizy blew out a breath. "Okay, so they're not friends."

I shook my head. "Are you sure that's what you saw?"

"I know hair sniffing when I see it," she said. "You think I've never had my hair sniffed? Brody Amherst sniffed my hair just last night."

I looked at her. "Did he?"
Her cheeks turned pink. "You know, at the free speech rally."

Right.

"It wasn't so great," she added, her attention fixed on Roger Marrin's SUV. "Brody wears Old Spice. He smells like my grandpa."

"It gets better," I told her, thinking if Curt wore Old Spice, I'd tear his clothes off with my teeth. I had a soft spot for Old Spice. And Curt. A sigh escaped me.

"Just invite him to dinner, already," Maizy said.

I blinked. "How did you know what I was thinking about?"

She shrugged. "You sigh a lot when you think about Uncle Curt. It's your tell."

I was going to have to watch that.

She kept her eyes straight ahead. "I hope I meet someone someday who'll make me sigh like that."

"I have a feeling you will," I told her.

The SUV's driver's side window rolled down, and Roger Marrin dumped his Slurpee onto the parking lot.

"Told you the Slurpees weren't so good here," Maizy said.

Roger Marrin dropped the cup into the Slurpee puddle. The window slid closed, the engine fired up, the headlights came on, and he was gone.

"That's littering!" Maizy yelled, flinging her door open. "That dink couldn't be bothered to put the cup in the trash if he didn't want it?"

I thought about the newest developments while Maizy rushed over to pick up the dink's discarded Slurpee cup, careful to avoid stepping in the cherry-colored mess on the ground, and deliver it to the waste can by the entrance. Weaver and Roger had had no conversation, no eye contact, no physical contact. Yet Roger had purposely driven to Weaver's neighborhood, taken photos of him, and followed him to the 7-Eleven. No chance we were dealing with a simple coincidence here.

When Maizy came back, I said, "I think I know what this was all about."

She pulled a wad of tissues out of her pocket and scrubbed her hands. "Yeah? What?"

For the first time all day I felt a surge of optimism. "That was an excuse to get close to Weaver Beeber." I chewed on the inside of my cheek, thinking. "Only question is why."

"The why is obvious," Maizy said. She tossed the tissues onto the floor, pulled a bottle of hand sanitizer from her satchel, and poured some on her palms. The scent of vanilla filled the car, reminding me I hadn't eaten in awhile, and that I had actual food at home, including the mother of all turkeys, and that made me think about Curt and—

"You're sighing again," Maizy told me. She put the hand sanitizer back and brought out a container of antibacterial wipes.

I stared at her. "You planning to perform surgery?"

"Don't mock me," she said. "There are a lot of superbugs out there, and Roger Marrin's cup was probably hosting a half dozen of them. Do you know what those things can do? They'll eat right through your skin."

So much for my appetite.

She put the antibacterial wipes away and pulled out a bag of sweet potato chips. I shook my head when she held it out. I saw no point in sullying potato chips with health and nutrition. "So you want to hear the why, or what?" she asked while she crunched. "I think he planted some sort of bug on Weaver. Probably he had it in his nose and when he smelled his hair, it flew out and stuck in there. What are you looking at me like that for?"

Eww.

"Roger the dink is probably some sort of stalker," she said. "I bet he has all sorts of weird contraptions at his house." She started the Escort. "I think we ought to go look."

I didn't think I was ready for more breaking and entering. The studio was one thing. I'd been pretty sure that would be empty. But Roger Marrin's house was something else. He might be headed back there right now. Besides—"We don't even know where he lives," I said.

I should have known better.

"Concord Street," Maizy said. "The Shop 'n Save manager told me." She slid me a sideways glance. "He might've thought I was there in an official capacity."

I sighed. "Doesn't your well ever run dry?"

"Apparently not," she said cheerfully. "I checked it out on Google Earth. It's pretty gross. He's got an above-ground pool filled with green water in the backyard."

Eww again. I did not want to see the inside of a house that had green pool water on the outside.

Maizy braked for a red light and looked over at me. "Doesn't it seem strange to you that Roger knows where Weaver lives, brought a camera with him, used the camera, and still followed him to the 7-Eleven?"

"And sniffed his hair," I added. "Of course it seems strange to me. Roger Marrin seems strange to me."

She nodded. "I think Roger's gone off the deep end. He's waiting for his opportunity to get revenge for being a cashier."

"He could have done that outside the house," I pointed out. "With a gun."
Maizy snorted. "As if he would ever get away in a neighborhood like that, driving a Hulk-mobile like that, after a gunshot." She shook her head. "Trust me, he's got a plan. And the poor guy doesn't even see it coming. But we do." The light changed, and she floored it.

I grabbed for the dashboard. "You have to stop doing that," I told her when she'd leveled off to a reasonable fifteen miles above the speed limit and dipped back into her bag of chips.

"Well, we don't have all night to get there," she said. "Do you have any moral qualms about residential B&E?"

"Yes," I told her. "Huge qualms. Please tell me you have huge qualms, too."

"Not so much," she said. "While you're wrestling with your huge qualms, think about this. The next photo of you in the newspaper might be you doing the perp walk into jail."

I sighed again, and this time Curt had nothing to do with it. "Fine, we can look in his windows. Tomorrow, in the daylight, when he's at work." I crossed my arms. "After all, he might have a security system."

"He might have a Rottweiler, too," she said. "But we both know he has a cat, or a hamster. Maybe a ferret. Something weaselly."

I gave her a look.

She shrugged. "But we'll do it your way. So what do you want to do now? We're too late for Harvey McWirth's Starbucks run."

"We could go clean out my desk at work," I said glumly.

"You don't want to run right over and do that. Make the bozo wait."

"The bozo might throw out my things," I said.

"I've seen your desk," she said. "You haven't got anything worth keeping."

That wasn't true. I had an almost new box of Krimpets in my bottom drawer. And a snow globe paperweight with a family of tiny polar bears poised on a tiny iceberg. Beyond that, Maizy was right. Howard frowned on too many personal items being on our desks, claiming it detracted from the professionalism so noticeably absent from the rest of the office.

"It's getting kind of late," she said. "I've got to get home. We can get together tomorrow, catch up with Harvey and Tippi McWirth." She glanced at herself in the rear view mirror. "I'm thinking I'll color my hair tonight. Maybe see what blonde looks like."
My mouth fell open. "But your hair has always been blue!"

"Not always," she said. "I was born a brunette."

I couldn't picture it.

"Besides, the blue might be a little too unconventional for someone who's gonna be eighteen. And a licensed driver."

"It is unconventional," I agreed. "That's why it suits you. You're not a conformist." Then it struck me. "This wouldn't have anything to do with Brody Amherst liking blondes, would it?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. It's no big deal."

"It is a big deal," I told her. "Don't change for any man, Maizy. Especially a lousy little hair-sniffer. If you're not good enough for him, he's not good enough for you."

"You think?" Her dimple flashed. "He does have kind of a big nose. When he sniffed my hair he practically parted it."

"There you go," I said. "That should tell you right there. Who needs some guy with an enormous beak telling you you're not good enough?" Or for that matter, some guy with killer good looks and an antiquated notion of what a "normal" woman should be?

Damn it.

"Take me home," I muttered. "I want to be alone." I had some heavy-duty sulking to do.

Maizy glanced at me with uncertainty. "Did I say something?"

"Nope." I forced a smile that I'm sure looked as shaky as it felt. "I did. It's nothing for you to worry about."

We drove in silence for a while. Then Maizy said, "Uncle Curt's not like Brody Amherst."

No kidding. Curt had chest hair, for one thing. And a job. And how did she do that, anyway?

"I still think you should invite him to dinner." She pulled up to the curb in front of her house, an older split-level with white siding, an American flag on a pole, and subtle landscape lighting. Nice. "I have a trig test tomorrow," she told me. "But I'll cut out before study hall and meet you at your place around eleven."