All Murders Final! (5 page)

“I went to pick up the stuff she was donating for the silent auction.”

“Where'd you find her? How'd she look?”

The image of Margaret there in her car, looking so peaceful, floated through my mind. I shuddered. “I can't believe you asked me that.”

“Sorry. I watch too many of the
CSI
shows. It's fascinating. Are you okay?”

“As okay as anyone can be after finding someone you know dead.”

“How'd it happen? They didn't say anything on the news last night.”

“I can't say.” I finished my coffee to keep myself from adding anything else and tossed the cup in a trash bin.

Laura didn't press me. “Fine. I get it. This is going to sound shallow, but she promised us a Cartier watch to auction off. No way we'll be able to come up with another one.”

“How well did you know her?” I asked.

“I saw her at a lot of events. You know, charity balls, silent auctions, military functions.” Since Laura's husband was the wing commander for Fitch, they got invited to a lot of functions. “I've been to tea at her house a number of times.”

“Did she go with someone to the events? I read her husband has been dead for five years.”

Laura stopped in front of the storeroom door and sorted through a set of keys. “There was one man I saw her with a few times.”

“Mess dress or tux?” Mess dress was what the air force called the uniform that was formal wear. CJ had worn his mess dress to our wedding and had looked oh, so very handsome.

“Tux.”

“So not military.”

“Probably not.”

“What did he look like?”

“A bit younger than her. Nice looking, but nothing that really made him stand out in a crowd.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“No. What is this? An inquisition?”

“Sorry. I blame it on CJ's influence.”

“Maybe you should go into law enforcement.”

“No thanks. I'd never make it through the academy. I can barely do one pull-up. And garage sales are a lot less scary. So did Margaret and the man seem like a couple?”

Laura pursed her lips. “Not really. But the last time I saw them, they had some sort of argument. He stormed off, and Margaret's face was bright red. A couple of her friends rushed over to her, and they all disappeared for a while.”

“When was that?”

“A couple of weeks ago.”

“Interesting.” Maybe it was interesting enough that I needed to tell someone at the Ellington Police Department.

Laura unlocked the storeroom and threw open the door. The space was dimly lit and musty smelling. We could barely see into the dark corners.

I pointed to the round tables stacked to the left. “Those won't work. They're too hard to stand behind and sell from.”

“How about the rectangular ones?” Laura gestured toward the right.

“Yes. Those look perfect.” I whipped a tiny tape measure out of my pocket, measured the tables, and jotted the dimensions in the note section of my phone.

“Ladies.”

Laura and I jumped, screamed, and turned almost simultaneously.

Chapter 6

James stood there, holding his beret. Because of military regulations, he had to take his beret off inside and wear it when he was outside.

“Whoa. Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you.” James was a cop for the security forces on base. He always introduced himself as “James, not Jim,” so most people called him Not Jim. I stuck with James because I knew he liked it better. But I'd noticed the few times I'd seen him since he returned from his deployment last October that people were calling him James instead of his jokey nickname. He'd returned a harder man than he'd been when he left last spring. It worried me.

“I saw the door open, and then I saw Sarah's Suburban, so I thought I'd stop and say hi.”

“Don't sneak up on people,” Laura said, patting her chest.

“I didn't mean to, ma'am. I apologize.” James's light brown eyes had a few wrinkles around them. I'd like to think they were laugh lines, but I wondered if they were stress lines instead. His dark brown hair was longer than a lot of military guys wore theirs, just barely within regulations.

“It's okay. You don't have to go all ‘ma'am' on me,” Laura said.

But really he did, not because of who Laura was, but because of her husband's position and superior rank. I used to get the same treatment, but since CJ was out and we were divorced, I could just be Sarah.

Laura glanced at her phone. “I have to run. Can you finish measuring the space and lock up, Sarah?”

“Sure.”

She held up her coffee cup. “Thanks for the coffee. I'm sorry to desert you. I owe you one.”

“No you don't,” I said to Laura's back. I hated it when I did something for someone and they said “I owe you.” I did it because I wanted to, not so someone would owe me something.

I turned to James. He was a bit older than most of his peers, because he had enlisted at twenty-seven, instead of right out of high school, like so many kids did. James and I got along well, and for a while last spring I'd thought he had a crush on me. When CJ had still been active duty and we'd lived on base, James had always swung by when CJ was deployed or TDY, off on temporary duty, to see if I needed anything. “How are you?” I asked.

“I was worried about you. I heard you found Margaret More yesterday.”

The base had memorandums of agreements with the local police departments of the surrounding towns, which meant they helped each other with crimes. But I guessed that bit of information didn't come over official channels, since Ellington wouldn't need base law enforcement for Margaret's case.

“How did you hear?”

James shrugged. “The old gossip mill. You know Fitch. It's like a small town. Word gets around.”

It didn't look like James had anything else to say on that subject, and I didn't want to push him. The pre-deployment James I might have, but this James just wasn't as easygoing.

“Have you heard if there's an official cause of death?” he asked.

“Not yet. You probably know as much about that as I do. Maybe more.”

We stared at each other for a moment. It felt like something needed to be said, but since I didn't know what, I snapped back to my purpose for being here. “I've got to measure the room so I can start making a map of how many tables I can cram in here for the garage sale.”

“Do you want some help?” James asked. That was the pre-deployment James I knew and loved, the one who was warm and helpful.

“Sure. If you have time, it will go a lot faster.”

I trotted over to where I'd dropped my purse, and pulled out my industrial-sized tape measure. With James holding one end of the tape measure, we finished up quickly. I added the dimensions to the notes on my phone.

“James to the rescue again,” I said when we finished.

James didn't smile at my quip. In fact, he didn't smile as much as he used to. It made me sad.

We locked the place up and exchanged an awkward hug. “Thanks for your help,” I told him.

James waited until I was in my car and pulling out of the lot before he took off in his patrol car.

* * *

I walked into the lobby of the EPD and approached the window. Two trips in one morning. This time a man sat there. “I need to speak to someone,” I said.

“Who?”

“I'm not sure.” Maybe I should ask for Pellner. He was better than someone I didn't know very well or one of the state police officers, if they were still around. I drummed my fingers against my leg.

“What's it concerning?”

“Margaret More's death.”

“Sarah?”

I turned and CJ stood there. My heart did that push-pull thing it did every time I saw him. One part wanted me to fling myself into his arms, the ones that had cocooned me many times during our marriage. The other, more logical side of me knew it wouldn't be fair to either of us if I did that. I'd left him because I believed he'd cheated on me. He'd let me go without a fight. So here we were, eyeing each other. I wondered if he felt all the same things I did.

I forced a smile. “You're back.”
Brilliant, Sarah. State the obvious.

CJ nodded but didn't return my smile. “I took a red-eye. Why are you here?”

“I need to report something.”

“Okay. Come on back.”

I trotted down the hall after CJ, his back sturdy, almost rigid. He still walked like he was in the military and might need to throw a salute anytime. He turned into an interview room on the right, instead of taking me farther down the hall to his office.

“Have a seat.”

I perched on the edge of the uncomfortable, serviceable chair.

“I'll get someone to take your report.”

“CJ, I'd rather—” But he left the room and closed the door before I got the words “tell you” out.

“Okay, then,” I said to the mirrored wall. Maybe I should have called Vincenzo. If the state police came in, I'd clam up, call, and wait for him. I just wanted to help, but I didn't want that help to be misconstrued by someone who didn't know me.

Pellner strolled in and straddled the chair opposite me. “What's up?”

Whew.
After a rocky start to our relationship last spring, I now felt pretty comfortable with Pellner. Even though I was violating Angelo's “Don't talk to the police without a lawyer” policy, I filled Pellner in on what Laura had told me. He stood when I was finished.

“I'll make sure someone looks into this,” he said.

With that worry off my shoulders, I trotted down the steps of the police station. My phoned chimed, and I whipped it out. A picture of me in my red winter coat on the steps of the police station popped up. You look good in red was printed at the bottom. I jerked my head up and scanned the area. People were going in and out of the library to my right and the town hall to my left. Some kids were out in front of the high school. Maybe Lindsay was one of them. I waved over in that direction, and someone waved back. I crossed my eyes, stuck out my tongue, snapped a selfie, and sent it off to Lindsay.

* * *

I let myself into my apartment, happy that Pellner had taken me seriously, but CJ's behavior puzzled me. Although mine probably puzzled him too. I sat on the couch with my computer and found dozens of messages from different people on my garage sale site. I couldn't believe the number of them since yesterday. I took a deep breath and started scrolling through them. Thankfully, the majority of them were just from people who needed things approved so their posts would show up. Those I took care of quickly. I needed to do a better job of staying on top of this.

The next batch of messages was complaints about a cleaning woman, Juanita Smith, who I'd let advertise on my small business Tuesdays. Tuesday was the slowest day for posts, so I allowed people who sold everything from protein shakes to skin-care products to post about their businesses. But I didn't vouch for their businesses. I told the people who complained that they had to contact the cleaning lady. If my small business Tuesdays ended up being a problem, I'd quit doing them.

I made a sandwich and went back through old posts, deleting things that were really old or didn't follow the posted rules. My phone rang. It was CJ.

“I'm sorry I was so short at the station. I had a million things going on.”

“It's fine.” I could be short myself.

“Are you free for dinner tonight?”

I almost dropped my phone.

“Sarah, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, you're there or yes to dinner?”

“Yes to both.”

Chapter 7

“Are you excited?” Carol asked a few hours later. She sat, with her long legs in a yoga-like pose, on a wooden chest I'd converted into a laundry hamper, watching me get ready for my dinner with CJ. We'd met twenty years ago in Monterey, California, when I was only eighteen and was dating CJ. Carol had already married her husband, Brad. They had been stationed in Monterey, as had CJ.

I'd sent her a text earlier, telling her I was going out to dinner with CJ. She'd come over for moral support. Over a glass of wine, we'd hashed out my finding Margaret. Carol empathized because she'd found a man murdered in her shop last fall.

I leaned over the pedestal sink in my bathroom to apply light gray eye shadow. If I took two steps back, my legs would bump my beloved claw-foot tub. “Sort of,” I said. “Maybe more nervous than excited.”

“Why nervous?”

“Seth spent the night here last night.” I didn't look at her when I said it.

Carol almost fell off the hamper. “You slept with Seth
last night
, and now you're having dinner with CJ?”

“That sounds really bad, but it wasn't like that. Seth came over to check on me. He heard I found Margaret and was worried about me.”

“And you said, ‘Come on in and stay over'?”

“
No
. We were waiting for his shirt to dry and fell asleep. On the couch.”

“I don't even think I want to know why his shirt had to dry.” But she said it with an impish grin that highlighted her cheekbones and put a sparkle, which I hadn't seen much lately, in her eyes.

I gave up all pretense of trying to do my makeup. “I tripped over my fuzzy pink slipper and tossed wine all over him. His clothes are expensive, so I wanted to rip off his shirt. I mean rinse off his shirt.”

Carol snorted. “Rip off is more likely. Are the buttons still intact?”

I couldn't help but laugh. “Yes. We fell asleep on the couch. I woke up around three and went to bed. Alone. When I woke up, he was gone. Nothing happened.”

“Does he look as hot with his shirt off as I think he does?”

“Yes. I almost drooled.” I put the light gray eye shadow away and searched my makeup bag for a darker shade.

“But you have feelings for him.”

I blended some darker gray eye shadow on the outer corners of my eyelids, going for a smoky look. “I do. He's fun to be around, smart, caring.”

“Hot. Don't forget that.”

I thought about him standing there without his shirt and laughed. “You'd have to be dead to forget that.” That made me think about Margaret and the man Laura had seen her arguing with. I hoped CJ found out who it was and would tell me.

“So you don't feel at all awkward about seeing CJ tonight after what?” Carol looked at her watch. “Having been with Seth just fourteen hours ago or so?”

“Yes. But being with Seth made me feel like I needed to spend some time with CJ. So when he called, it seemed like the best thing to do.” I hoped to heck I was right. “Can we change the subject? I need a steady hand to get my eyeliner on right.”

Carol looked like she wanted to say something else. “How's the garage sale site going?”

“Okay.”

“I thought you loved it.”

“It's been great up until recently. It's just the past few weeks. There's been a couple of fights in the comments section about the quality of merchandise being sold.”

“That doesn't sound so bad.” Carol shifted on the hamper.

“I know. Mostly, I stay out of it, unless I get a lot of complaints in my messages.” I lined my upper lid with eyeliner and leaned back to see how it looked. “I've had to ban more people from the site lately.”

“Oh, that's not good. How come?”

“It runs the gamut from people repeatedly not following the posted rules to people not meeting for exchanges to people not leaving payments and taking items, anyway.” I didn't add that sometimes I got ugly messages when I banned a person. I swiped on my mascara and turned to Carol. “How do I look?”

Carol took in the red wrap sweater, the black pencil skirt, the black tights, and the knee-high boots. “Stunning, Sarah. As pretty as the day we met.”

“Yeah, right.”

“You could adjust the sweater to show a bit more cleavage.” Carol stood and demonstrated.

I looked in the mirror. A bit of my lacy black bra showed. “That's a little too much for me.” I adjusted the sweater back to a more modest position.

“You are certainly going all out for your dinner with CJ. He's going to be blown away.”

“I hope so.” Even though I'd been the one to put the moratorium on seeing each other in place, I wanted him to know what he was missing. “He's been really distant the last couple of times we talked.”

“You did tell CJ to leave you alone. Did you expect him to be happy about it?”

“No. But I didn't expect him to act like a block of ice, either. Is he seeing someone? Do you know?”

“Do you want to know?”

I studied myself in the mirror, found a brush, and stroked it through my hair. “Yes.”

“He stopped by a few nights ago with a redhead.”

“Pale and freckly?”

“Pale and gorgeous.”

Hmmm, maybe I should wear my sweater the way Carol suggested. Stop it
, I told myself. “And?”

“They weren't there very long. She was
very
flirty. Even with Brad.” Carol slid off the hamper. “Brad said I was shooting death rays at both of them.”

“It's probably why they didn't stay long.”

“Probably. I miss how we all used to be. We had so much fun.”

Memories flitted through my mind: volleyball on the beach in Monterey, cable car rides in San Francisco, ski weekends at Tahoe. “It was fun. But life changes.”

“It does. Have fun tonight.”

* * *

Fun.
Dinner had been anything but. CJ had picked me up and taken me to our favorite Italian restaurant in Bedford, the town adjoining Ellington to the east. It had seemed like half of the restaurant was filled with people from Ellington and the other half from the base.

“Thanks for the information about Margaret fighting with a man at a party,” CJ had said when the waiter set our entrées in front of us.

“Did you find out who it was?”

“Sir. Sarah.”

Before I even looked up from my shrimp verdicchio, CJ leaped up. “Not Jim. How are you, man?”

I did look up in time to see the small tightening around James's eyes before he smiled. It was a very fake smile. CJ stuck out his hand, and they shook.

“You don't have to call me sir anymore. I'm a civilian now,” CJ said.

James gave a short nod before looking over at me. “How's the pasta?”

“It's good. Are you here with someone? Do you want to join us?” Even though originally I'd wanted to spend time alone with CJ, right now having someone around seemed like a better plan.

“I came to pick up a take-out order. Shrimp verdicchio.” James smiled at me. His smile was a real one this time. “You two, have a good evening.”

That was the story of our evening. So many people stopped by, we were barely able to talk. There were couples we knew from base, a group we'd once been part of, staff from DiNapoli's—they'd better hope Angelo didn't hear about this, unless he'd sent them to check out the competition—and even Stella, who was there on a date. Most seemed surprised to see us together, some darted looks back and forth between us, and some stayed at their tables, watching and whispering. Evenings like this made me think I should move into Boston, where you had some degree of anonymity.

Finally, when things calmed down, we talked about the weather and a rash of car thefts in Ellington, we complimented the Chianti we'd ordered, and we concentrated on our pasta. My shrimp verdicchio had succulent shrimp, black olives, artichoke hearts, and sundried tomatoes in a wine-butter sauce over a bed of spaghetti. CJ powered through his lasagna and meatballs. I was surprised when CJ agreed to share a tiramisu with me, because at this point it was abundantly clear that he wasn't interested in sharing any other part of my life.

I wondered why we were here as I took a first bite of the tiramisu.

“I wanted to talk to you about your virtual garage sale.” CJ fiddled with his fork but didn't dig into the tiramisu. I almost spit mine out. That was the last thing I had expected this dinner to be about.

“Okay,” I said. “What do you want to know?”

“It's what
you
need to know. They're dangerous.”

I took a small bite of the tiramisu. Either to give myself a moment to think or to keep from stabbing my fork into CJ's hand. I swallowed. “We haven't had any problems.” At least any problems that were worth notifying the police about. “They're designed so people know the members in the group.”

“How many people are in your group?”

“Three thousand.” I'd been amazed by how quickly the group had grown.

“And you know every single one of them?”

I tightened my hand around the fork and decided to set it down. I clasped my hands together. “Not personally. But each person is recommended by someone else that's in the group. I check out their profiles to make sure they're a real person before adding them.”

“It's very naive to think someone can't fake a profile.”

“I get that. But if there's a problem with someone, I ban them from the group.” How odd that CJ would bring this up now, after I'd been a bit worried about the complaints about the cleaning lady.

“It's not the only issue. I've heard that people go to a stranger's house to pick up and drop stuff off. It seems . . . foolish.”

Now I wished I'd driven over here myself, because I'd be excusing myself and leaving, minus the excusing part. “I encourage people to meet at a neutral place, like Dunkin' Donuts. That isn't practical if you're selling a couch. I ask people not to go to someone's house alone. And not to be home alone when someone comes to pick something up during any transaction.”

“Look at the things that have happened to people on national sites.”

“That's why this is safer. It's smaller groups of people who have some connection. A lot of police departments are letting people use their lobbies to make exchanges. Maybe you should consider that.”

“I'll look into it.”

“Have you heard something specific about my site?”

“No. But it's my responsibility as chief to make sure the townsfolk are safe.”

“Noted. Do you also always take the townsfolk out to dinner to do so?”

CJ didn't answer.

I stood and tossed some cash down on the table to cover my share of the bill. “Please take me home.”