A Shattering Crime (13 page)

Except, of course, for those clandestine lunches with Grandy.

By the time I got in the car to head to work, I was giggling over their secret rendezvous. Despite his marshmallow center, Grandy was a big, gruff, manly kind of man. It made me smile to picture him knocking on the
back door of the bakery so he and Rozelle could lunch without witnesses.

I made the drive into downtown Wenwood with those images in my mind and worry for Rozelle in my heart. It wasn't until I pulled into a vacant space along Grand Street that I acknowledged the addition of the crazy hope that I'd walk into Grace's luncheonette and Rozelle would be in her temporary spot behind the counter handing out fresh-baked cookies and muffins. Crazy though it was, the hope was there as I crossed the sidewalk and pulled open the door to the luncheonette.

The aroma of frying bacon and fresh coffee assailed me the moment I stepped inside. It was both comforting and aggravating. Aggravating because my stomach went a little tight and spiky with hunger; comforting because I'd spent so many mornings at the luncheonette that the particular mix of smells had the soothing effects of the familiar, almost like home.

If the fragrance of breakfast food was familiar and normal, the quiet of the luncheonette seemed unnatural and somewhat alarming. It was the quiet of an old-style Hollywood Western, when the troublemaking gunslinger swung into the saloon and everyone stopped talking and the piano went silent.

A half-dozen sets of eyes turned to me, took me in, and showed a glimmer of disappointment before turning away. That was enough to tell me Rozelle wasn't lurking in the kitchen fighting the grill cook for counter space. Everyone was still waiting, hoping for Rozelle to come bustling through the door.

I followed my usual path, turning left at the spinning rack of faded postcards and edging up to the lunch counter. Clutching the handle on a mug of black coffee, Tom met my gaze, nodded, and turned away with a sigh.

Grace's usual space beside the cash register was vacant, and I perched on the empty stool next to Tom and waited for her to appear.

At the tables behind me, conversation had started up again. Subdued voices accompanied the tap of cutlery on plates, the thunk of coffee mugs being lowered onto tables. It was this quiet conversation that made me tap Tom's arm. “Where's Terry?” I asked. “He didn't go back down south, did he?”

Tom shook his head. “Under the weather, he said. He's back at the house, still in his pajamas.”

“Oh.” I thought to continue the conversation, make small talk about how long Terry planned to stay in Wenwood and when he planned to head back to his daughter's house in North Carolina, but with Rozelle as my number one concern, I couldn't muster the energy to pretend interest in Terry's travel schedule.

And yet . . . Terry had been a private investigator during his years in Wenwood. No doubt he would have some solid ideas on how to go about locating Rozelle. Such as where to begin.

Grace ambled through the pass-through, plates of food stacked along both arms. “Be right with you, Georgia,” she said and continued to the opposite, open end of the counter and out to the table of waiting patrons.

I rested my elbows on the counter and leaned in, canting a bit in Tom's direction. “Do you think . . . I mean . . .
would you mind if I gave Terry a call at your house? Would you give me the number?”

He looked at me first from the corners of his eyes, then slowly turned his head until his nose was in line with his pupils and he was looking at me full on. “Why would you want to do a thing like that?” he asked, suspicion in every syllable.

“I'd like to talk to him.”

“Are you sure that's all?”

I didn't know whether to be surprised or confused. That is, I thought I knew what Tom was inferring, but I couldn't be right, could I? “You don't think I have some sort of romantic interest in Terry, do you?”

Tom sniffed, turned his attention back to the window on the opposite side of the counter. Only a few cars rolled by; no one was out on foot. “Terry's a good-lookin' fella,” he said. “Might make a fine catch.”

Terry was, of course, old enough to have gone to kindergarten with Grandy. That alone was enough for me to overlook him as a potential paramour. I opted not to share that with Tom, though, and went instead with a simpler truth. “I'm sure he would,” I said. “But I've already caught myself a man.” I tried a grin, to add a bit of levity.

Tom shrugged, almost like he thought I was lying but he wasn't going to call me on it.

“Now then.” Grace rounded the end of the counter and stopped in front of me. “Coffee and an egg sandwich to go?”

“Please,” I said.

She went on through to the kitchen to put the sandwich order in and I tried again with Tom. “If I promise
I'm no threat to Terry's status as a bachelor, can I have the number?”

He shook his head. “Don't understand why you want to talk to him.”

“I want to pick his brain about some old cases he worked on,” I said. I wanted to ask him if he had any experience with people who'd gone missing, how one went about finding them.

Before I could get further, Grace returned from the kitchen. She set a paper cup on the counter and filled it from the ever-present carafe of coffee. “I hear Diana went by your house last night,” she said.

I sneaked a peek at Tom.

“He knows,” Grace said. “Everyone knows.”

“Everyone knows the police were at my house?” So much for Grandy's secret.

Grace gave a sad shake of her head. “Everyone knows about poor Rozelle.”

Poor Rozelle.

I didn't know whether shivering or shuddering was the right physical response.

“Did Diana mention anything to you about theories? Any ideas of where Rozelle might be?”

Tom lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “Her car's gone and so is she. She maybe wanted to get out of town for a while, until all the Rayburn nonsense blows over.” He sipped noisily from the cup.

Forgoing her typical good-hearted yet cutting remark, Grace grimaced briefly at Tom then looked to me. The glistening of her eyes made my stomach sink beneath a
heavy heart. “Diana hasn't said anything other than what the department allows,” she said softly.

She capped my coffee cup as the cook popped his head out from the kitchen, my paper-wrapped sandwich in his hand. I fished in my purse for a five-dollar bill. By the time I came up with one, Grace had my sandwich and coffee secure inside a brown paper bag.

“If I hear anything,” she said, trading a single for my five, “should I let you know?”

A demurral was ready on my lips, but there was no sense in lying, was there? “Yes,” I said. “As soon as you
can.”

W
orking for Drew Able, Esquire, meant dressing in a semiprofessional manner. Sure, I was a kind of back-office girl, the accountant who did occasional copying and filing because her boss was a bit too scatterbrained to pull that off in a timely fashion. But in the small, in-house office it wasn't uncommon for me to cross paths with his clients and it wouldn't do for me to greet them in yoga pants and an
I LOVE NY
sweatshirt.

I parked my car across the street and down a ways from Drew's, leaving the space in front of his house vacant for clients. At the peak of summer when I started working for Drew, parking at a distance hadn't been a problem. Now, with summer gone and mornings biting cooler, the air against my legs made me lament that my
professional wardrobe consisted primarily of unlined trousers and pencil skirts, and made me think fondly of those yoga pants back at home.

Hurrying up the walkway, I clutched the hot cup of coffee in one hand and the bag holding my egg sandwich in another. I jogged up the few steps and faced the door to his private home ahead of me and the door to the office on my right. With the hand holding the bag, I tried to turn the knob on the door that led to the office but found the door locked. Having been in this predicament before, I knew Drew hadn't squirreled away a key inside a hollowed-out rock or beneath a decorative Wenwood brick. I also knew that the window in the back room where I worked was never locked and in a pinch I could climb in through there—as long as I wasn't wearing a pencil skirt. But in order to pull that off, I would have to put down my coffee, and that just wasn't going to happen.

I rapped on the door and waited in the cold for Drew to let me in. I tried not to think about the winter that lay ahead, but if I pushed those thoughts to the side, I would revert to worrying about Rozelle, so for the moment, thoughts of winter dominated, followed closely by and intertwining with thoughts of Tony.

Alone on the steps, I shook my head. After the visit from Diana and Detective Nolan, it was a little tough to return to the dinner table with the same somewhat relaxed attitude as before. Talk, as expected, turned to speculation on where Rozelle might be and whether the police involvement was necessary or extraneous. Small wonder Grandy didn't volunteer any information about his burgeoning relationship with Rozelle. Ben would
have had that out and dissected along with his speculation over whether looking for missing persons was a waste of taxpayer money. All in all and given the circumstances, the evening hadn't provided any hints at how well Tony did or didn't fit in with the family.

I caught the inside of my lip, asked myself why Tony fitting in was even a consideration. Certainly it was too early in the relationship to—

The door swung open, dragging a rush of morning air past me as Drew stood on the other side of the threshold, sandy hair mussed and green eyes almost frantic.

“What's wrong?” I asked, practically pushing him back into his office waiting room as I advanced. “What happened?” What with everything that had gone on in Wenwood since I moved in with Grandy, my imagination could go to some troubling places. My heart was prepared to lodge in my throat and adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream. “Are you all right?”

He pushed a hand through his hair and swung the door shut. “It's the . . . stupid . . . toilet again. I can't . . .” He sighed and looked at the ceiling. “I'm going to have to call the plumber.”

I squinched one eye shut to keep it from twitching. “You're having a plumbing emergency?”

“The toilet's clogged,” he said. He rolled down his shirtsleeves as he passed through the doorway from the waiting area to his office. “To me, that's an emergency.”

I followed him inside, set the paper bag with my egg sandwich inside on the edge of his desk. Drew fell into his chair and I took a bracing sip of my coffee then said, “I take it you haven't heard the news?”

He paused in rubbing his hands over his face, peering at me between his fingers. “What news?”

“About Rozelle? About her being missing?”

“Rozelle?” he asked, wrinkles of memory strain forming on his forehead. “From the bakery Rozelle?”

“That would be she.”

“What do you mean, she's missing?”

One-handed, I dragged one of the visitor chairs closer and settled in to tell him the story. I kept to the few details I knew—that Rozelle hadn't been seen since Saturday morning, the police thought Grandy might know where she was, and oh yeah, someone ate a pastry Rozelle had made and didn't survive the night.

“So it's all very . . . strange and unsettling,” I said, summing up. “And it makes your clogged toilet seem a bit trivial in comparison.”

Drew folded his hands and sat back, the tall backing of his leather desk chair giving him the look of a framed portrait. “In comparison.” He pulled in a noisy breath. “And you're sure the police weren't suspicious of Pete in any way?”

I opted to answer with a glare.

“Okay, okay.” For a brief moment he appeared lost in thought. I stood from the chair, reasoning that perhaps he was going to spend some time absorbing all I'd told him. But instead of leaving his office and starting in on my own work, I said, “Just out of curiosity . . .”

I waited until his gaze met mine, then continued. “If I were to say, go have a look around Rozelle's house, just to be sure she wasn't there, what would the legality be there? Out of curiosity.”

Drew lowered his hands. “Strictly outside the house?”

“Well.” It was my turn to study the ceiling. “I'd have to stay outside if the door was locked, wouldn't I? I wouldn't want to be accused of breaking and entering or anything. But if the door happened to be open . . .”

He grimaced and shook his head. “First of all, you could only be charged with trespassing. New York doesn't list breaking and entering as a crime. But more importantly, I'm sure Pete wouldn't be too happy to hear you were nosing around in matters that aren't your business.”

The temptation to tell him my nosing around was Pete's idea in the first place rushed through me. To keep from blurting out that tidbit, I kept to the law. “So what's the difference between breaking and entering and trespassing?”

“In those states that recognize it as a crime, the police can charge you with breaking and entering. For trespassing, the owner of the property has to press charges.”

I nodded to show I was following along. Drew interpreted the action as me plotting something.

“Georgia, I wouldn't recommend trying to let yourself into Rozelle's house,” he said, voice stern and expression serious. “The law may be on your side, but you don't want to be sitting in jail waiting for me to remind the authorities of that.”

“Awww.” I grinned. “You'd really come try and get me out of jail? That's so sweet.”

“Of course,” he said. “I'd be there right away. And I'll bring your grandfather so he can offer his opinion on your situation.”

In other circumstances the threat may have worked. In this one, however . . .

“Don't forget to call the plumber.” I picked up the paper bag, long since resigned to the impending need to warm the sandwich in the microwave, and scooted through the door that led from his office to the back room. I had work to do . . . and plans to make.

*   *   *

C
omfortable in the quiet of Drew's back office, I'd calmly progressed to the point of sealing the envelope on the last ready bill when my cell phone broke the silence. Idina Menzel's soaring voice, usually so exhilarating, so brilliant, startled the breath out of me.

“Carrie,” I said, no doubt sounding like I'd just finished a marathon. “Hi. What's up?”

“You know Tom's friend Terry who was in here the other day?” she said.

“What about him?” I sat up a little straighter.

“He's here. He's looking for you.” Her voice had a flattened sound to it, as though she were cupping her hand over the speaker so no one would hear. I had an instant visual of her hiding in the back room, whispering on the cordless. “He says you wanted to talk to him. That's what Tom told him, he says.”

“He's there now?” I stood, gripping the phone with one hand and gathering the outgoing mail into a stack with the other.

“He's out on the sales floor,” she said. I gave myself a mental high five for being right about Carrie hunkering
in the back room. “So is it true? You're looking for him? Why?”

Grabbing my purse from the back of the chair, I used a combination of foot and hip to slide the chair into place beneath the table. “I wanted to talk to him about—”

I hadn't prepared myself for telling anyone but Terry what I intended. Certainly I hadn't meant to keep anything from Carrie, but I kinda didn't want to fess up to going off snooping.

“Georgia Kelly, are you planning on going off snooping without me?” Carrie demanded to know.

I froze. “Absolutely not?”

“Georgia!”

“Carrie, honestly, last time wasn't enough for you?” I asked on a sigh. Back in motion, I shoved a hand into my purse to blindly feel around for my car keys.

Her responding huff came across the line sounding like mild static. “I want to at least know what's going on. Are you and Terry going to go poking around the David Rayburn thing?”

Mascara, lip balm, old receipts—I was coming up with everything except keys. “That's truly not what I had in mind.”

There was barely enough time to draw breath before Carrie said, “Oh, you're going to try and find out where Rozelle is. Good. Count me in. Should I tell Terry you're on your way?”

“As soon as I find my keys,” I mumbled. “But, Carrie, you—”

“Great. We'll be ready.”

“Wait, Car—” But of course, she hung up before I could get the sentence out. Talking Carrie out of helping would have to wait. Besides, once we were face-to-face, it would be easier to get her to see reason.

*   *   *

C
arrie drove.

The sky had grown overcast while I toiled away at Drew's, updating his accounts and pulling files for his afternoon clients. With the weakening sunshine, the chill seemed to grow, and my toes had gone icy in my thin dress shoes.

“You sure you know where you're going?” Terry asked from the backseat.

“We're almost there, I promise.” Carrie's grip on the steering wheel tightened. With Terry along for the ride, I couldn't ask her whether the strain was due to his presence or due to memories of getting caught up in the dispute over the Heaney estate. Regardless the cause, her tension was evident.

She made a right turn and proceeded slowly along a narrow road so chewed up I wouldn't be surprised if the last time it was paved, Jimmy Carter was president. The front left tire caught the edge of a pothole and her otherwise comfortable sedan bounced us around like a dingy on a stormy sea.

“Jeez, what's wrong with this town? Why don't they fix the roads? Criminettely, I'll be glad to get back to North Carolina after this.”

Carrie hunkered closer to the steering wheel and I
was saved from commenting by the ping of an incoming text message.

I yanked my cell phone free of the side pocket of my purse and checked my display. Message from Tony.
What are you doing today?

I didn't want to lie to him. But telling the truth didn't feel like a good plan either. As I pondered the best compromise, I checked the changing color of the tree leaves as we drove beneath the boughs.

Carrie and I are taking a ride over to Rozelle's. Why? What's up?
I typed, then hit “Send.”

“There it is,” Terry said. “Lakeland Avenue. That's the left.”

Carrie blew out a breath and switched on the turn signal.

As she guided the car around the corner, I took a keener look at our surroundings. A part of Wenwood I had never been through before, the area had the classic, aged look the old riverside houses had. But where the riverside houses had been built to accommodate the large families whose patriarchs the brickworks employed, here the houses were small, built perhaps for single men, or newlyweds' summer getaway. Tiny homes in which standard-sized doorways looked oversized and out of perspective.

“All right, everyone look for 624,” Terry said.

A peek at the first house number—12—informed us we had a ways to go. It took until we were in the low 400s for Tony's reply to come back.

Done at the site for the day. Dinner?

Dinner.

On the other side of a cross street on which the last house was 418, the first house was 588. “Five eighty-eight? What kind of crazy town is this?” I murmured.

“Now, when we get there, you ladies wait in the car. I'll go look around.”

I cut a glance at Carrie to make sure we were in agreement. The pursing of her lips told me I needn't have worried.

Turning in my seat, I gave Terry my best dealing-with-problem-customers squint. “We're doing this together or Carrie's going to drive right on by. I did not come all the way out here to sit in the car. Got it?”

Terry gave a sort of smirk and lifted his shoulders, and I was left wondering if he had been teasing when he said he would go it alone. I didn't have the luxury of wondering for long. As I looked away from Terry and prepared to turn and face forward in my seat, I caught sight of a car rolling along behind us by about half a block. Big and gray, the sedan appeared to be traveling at precisely our speed. Were we being followed?

I shook the thought out of my head and turned around to face front. Thinking we were being followed was paranoia plain and simple. It's not like I had seen the car behind us until now. And clearly other people used the roads.

“This looks like it.” Carrie slowed the car and pulled smoothly into the vacant spot at curbside.