Death Vetoes The Chairman (Lizzie Crenshaw Mysteries Book 7) (14 page)

“Thank you, Owen. That means more to me than you could possibly know.”

“Yeah, well,” he cleared his throat. “You two just be careful. And Lizzie, call T.J.!” I heard a click.

“I didn’t know the big guy had such a sensitive side,” Jake said.

“Don’t let him hear you say that. He’ll wring your neck.”

“Are you sure you want to go out with me today?”

“If you go, I go. Just let me get my bag. We’re going to need my notepad.”

Jake went to find Garth. “I need that small black case.”

“Sir?”

“Don’t give me that. You know what I’m talking about.”

Garth got a stern look on his face. “Please forgive me for what I’m about to say…I don’t think you need to take that little black case anywhere with you, Jake, while Ms. Crenshaw is with you. It’s only going to cause problems.”

“Her name is Lizzie, and someone left a death threat at our office back home.” Jake pulled the card out of his pocket and showed it to Garth. “See this? That’s why I need the black case. I’d get it myself, but I know you’ve got it hidden away somewhere.” He slipped the card into his pocket again. “We’re going to protect her at all costs, Garth. Now, get the Sig Sauer and put it under the driver’s seat of the Jeep.”

He nodded. “While you’re gone, I’ll talk to the security company about some extra men while you and Ms. Lizzie are here.” He started to walk away, but turned back around. “She’s a nice woman, Jake. I’m not sure what the situation is between the two of you, but if you’re willing to risk your life to protect her, she must be someone very special. Fix whatever the problem is between the two of you…sir.”

“Some things can’t be fixed, no matter how much you want to fix them,” Jake muttered as Garth walked away.

“What can’t be fixed?” I said as I walked in.

“The snowblower,” he said. “There’s a storm coming in apparently, and our old one has kicked the bucket.”

“Why don’t we pick one up while we’re in town?”

“Excellent idea. Are you ready? Got everything you need?”

I nodded. “Good to go.”

“Then let’s hit it.”

“By the way, am I going to meet any of your old girlfriends?” I asked him as we walked through the house.

“Maybe one or two.”

“Probably more like twenty or thirty,” I teased him.

Chapter 19

The first thing Jake did was take me to buy some boots. “With that storm coming, you cannot go around wearing those tennis shoes,” he said as we got out of the SUV.

“I’ve worn them in a snow storm before,” I protested.

“The ‘snow storms’ you get in Dallas are nothing like what we get here, Lizzie,” he replied.

Thirty minutes later, I was wearing a pair of KEEN high lace-up winter boots. I will admit, they were a lot warmer than my tennis shoes. Jake put the bag with my old shoes in the back of the SUV, and we started walking down the street. “I expected you to live in the big city,” I told him, “not in a small town at the foot of some mountains.”

“I seem to be blowing a lot of your expectations out of the water,” he laughed.

“Jacob Mathias!” someone called out behind us.

Jake cringed and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Oh, Lord, I was hoping I would be able to avoid her this trip,” he muttered.

“Who is she?” I whispered.

“I know your mother taught you better manners than that, Jacob.”

We turned around to find a small, gray haired woman staring at us. She was about 4’10”, 90, maybe 95 lbs, wearing a black fur lined coat, a rainbow colored snow hat, black gloves, gray pants, and black snow boots. Icy blue eyes looked at us from behind a pair of round rimmed glasses. “Mrs. Simpkins, it’s so good to see you,” Jake said, bending over and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Hmpf, don’t give me that, Mr. Mathias. I know you saw me when you came out of Rosenthal’s store.”

“You’re right, I should have stopped and said hello.”

She looked at me. “And who is this young lady with you?”

I held out my hand. “I’m Elizabeth Crenshaw, ma’am.”

“Ruthdale Simpkins,” she said, shaking my hand. “Are you Mr. Mathias’ wife? All these modern young women today are keeping their maiden names. In my day, you took your husband’s name proudly.”

Jake snickered. “No, ma’am, I’m not his wife. Just a friend.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s ever going to settle down. He had too many girlfriends in high school…”

“I don’t think we need to go down that road, do we, Mrs. Simpkins?” Jake interrupted her.

Mrs. Simpkins ignored him and kept talking to me. “He and Ethan Winthrop were always chasing after the same girls, at least until Jessica.” She glanced at Jake. “He quit dating for a while after her death, but Ethan never slowed down at all. I wonder if he’s married yet.”

“I should explain,” Jake said. “Mrs. Simpkins was one of my high school teachers. She knows all my deep, dark secrets.”

“And there are some things I wish I could forget, Mr. Mathias. Like the time I caught you peeking in the girls’ locker room…”

Jake’s face started to turn red. “Tell me about Jessica,” I interrupted. I wondered if he was going to tell her about Ethan’s death.

“Lovely young girl. Smart as a whip, and a pleasure to have in class. I think she had a future as a writer.”

“Would you like to join us for some coffee?” I suggested. “It might be warmer to go inside to talk.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” Mrs. Simpkins assured me, “but I appreciate the offer.”

“What do you remember about the week she died?” Jake said.

“She was withdrawn and sullen in class, which was totally unlike her. I pulled her aside and tried to get her to talk to me, but she just said everything was fine and ran off. I didn’t believe her for a minute. I could tell she had a black eye, even though she tried to cover it up with makeup. She wore baggy clothes that week, long-sleeved sweaters even though it was rather warm. I had an idea what happened, but without concrete proof, there wasn’t much I could do about it.” She glared at Jake. “I thought the two of you had had a fight.”

He looked at her wide eyed. “You thought I hit her?!”

“Yes, I did, at first,” she admitted reluctantly. I could tell that she felt ashamed of herself for thinking that. “Then I noticed after a couple of days, she stuck close to you, so I figured she must have confided in you. I caught you glaring daggers at Ethan, so it wasn’t hard to put two and two together after that.” She reached out and put a small, wrinkled hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry I thought so badly of you, Jacob.”

“It’s alright, Mrs. Simpkins,” he smiled, patting her hand.

“He did something to her, didn’t he?” Jake nodded, and she shook her head. “He was always a rotten boy. His father didn’t do him any favors bailing him out of trouble all the time.”

“Do you happen to know where he was the night Jessica disappeared?” I asked her.

Someone bumped into Mrs. Simpkins, and she stumbled a bit. Jake grabbed her so she wouldn’t fall, and we all moved closer to the nearest store. “I’m fine, thank you for checking!” she called out after the person who had nearly knocked her over. “People have no manners these days. Anyway, yes, I know where Ethan was the night Jessica disappeared. He was at the high school, sitting in my classroom with several other students for a tutoring session.”

“Are you sure?” Jake said.

“I’m old, not senile, Mr. Mathias,” she snapped. “Of course I’m sure! His father had arranged for his son to be there that night personally. Ethan had failed to turn in an important paper, and had also flunked a test. The only way I would even consider passing him was if he attended tutoring sessions four nights a week for three weeks.”

Jake leaned against the store front. I could tell he was shocked by what Ruthdale had said. “Was there any night where he was late or maybe left early?”

“Definitely not,” she replied. “I made it very clear to him and his father that if Ethan didn’t attend each and every session, if he wasn’t there on time, that I would not hesitate to flunk him. It would have meant not graduating on time, and his father had big plans for him. He wasn’t about to allow that to happen.”

“All these years,” Jake said quietly.

“There was one night, however, that his father was late picking him up.”

“Did he say why he was late?” he said.

“Something about a meeting running late, I believe he said.”

“Do you happen to remember which night that was?”

She thought about it a minute. “It was a couple of days after Ethan was arrested. They pulled him out of my class and hauled him away.”

“Hi, Mrs. Simpkins,” a woman said as she stopped next to us. “Are you still coming to choir practice tonight?”

“Absolutely, Annabeth.”

“Great, I’ll picked you up at 6:30.”

They said goodbye to each other, and the woman walked off. Jake checked the time. “Lizzie, we better get going. We’re having lunch with a couple of Jessica’s old friends in a few minutes.” He pushed himself away from the store front. “Thank you for talking with us, Mrs. Simpkins.”

“I don’t know why you want to drudge up all those old memories, Jacob. That was one of the worst years in my teaching career. I wish Ethan could have paid for what he did to her. She wasn’t the only one, you know. There were other girls. Jessica wasn’t his first victim.”

I suddenly realized I was his last victim, and wondered how many others there had been before me. “Do you know how many other girls, Mrs. Simpkins?”

“More than I care to admit, Ms. Crenshaw, and way more than there should have been. I’m sure he’s still up to his old ways, and getting away with it.”

“No, ma’am,” I replied, shaking my head. “Someone finally stopped him.”

The only thing that Jake told me about our companions for lunch was that he had gone to high school with them. When we walked into Grandma’s Grub Shack, he led us to a table near the back where two women were sitting. “Jake!” one of the women said, jumping up to hug him. She was about 5’6”, but her Manolos made her appear taller. Blonde hair was swept up in a chignon, and her navy blue pantsuit and cream colored blouse reminded me of a similar outfit I had seen Trixie wear once. I suddenly felt underdressed in my jeans, t-shirt and flannel shirt. “You look great. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to see you the last time you came home. Marc and I were in London for some business meetings.”

“You mean Marc was stuck in meetings while you were shopping,” he teased her.

She laughed. “You know me so well.”

Jake walked to the other side of the table where the other woman sat. “Sage, it’s good to see you,” he said, bending over to kiss her cheek. “How are the kids?”

“They’re good,” she smiled. “Chelsea is excited about singing a solo during the school program today, and Derrick is thinking of ways to make her laugh so she’ll screw up. Little Davy has started teething, and is gnawing on more things than the dog did when she was teething!”

We laughed, and as I sat down next to Sage, I felt a little better about my clothes, since she was wearing a similar outfit. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her glasses kept sliding down her nose, forcing her to push them back up. “Ladies, this is Lizzie Crenshaw. Lizzie, the lovely lady to your left with the baby food on her shirt is Sage Kingsley, and the impecibly dressed woman who would have a heart attack if baby food got on her clothes is Kassandra Sherwood.”

“Geez, Jake, you make me sound like someone with serious OCD,” Kassandra said.

“But he’s right, Kass,” Sage replied. “Remember the time you came to the house and Davy spit up on your Christian Dior dress? I thought I was going to have to call 911 because you were hyperventaliting.”

“Stop exaggerating, Sage,” Kassandra admonished her. “I calmly went into the bathroom and wiped it off.”

Sage leaned closer to me. “After she sat in the chair screaming her head off for five minutes. I wasn’t sure who was yelling louder, Kassandra or Davy.”

The waitress brought us some menus, and I looked at it while they chatted. Jake told them about our run-in with Mrs. Simpkins. It felt a bit weird to listen to them talking about things and people I knew nothing about, and I realized that was probably how Jake felt whenever he was around Trixie, Owen and I when we got together.

After we gave the waitress our orders, Kassandra looked at Jake. “Now, you want to tell me why you
really
wanted to have lunch with us? Although I think I have a pretty good idea…”

“And what idea is that?”

“Ethan.”

I shuddered. Jake put his hand on top of mine.

Kassandra gave me a sympathetic look. “I see we have a new member of the club.”

“Excuse me?”

“You flinched when I mentioned his name, and you got that deer in the Ethan headlights look on your face. Am I wrong?”

“No, you’re not wrong,” I replied, taking a drink of water.

“I have to say I’m a bit surprised. You don’t seem to be his type.”

“And what’s his normal type?”

“Blondes and cheerleaders mostly,” Sage said, “although there are a couple of brunettes in the group.”

“Have you ever been a cheerleader?” Kassandra asked me.

“No. I was in theatre in high school. I’m just a simple newspaper reporter.”

“Newspaper owner now,” Jake corrected.

“So how did you meet Ethan?” Sage said.

“At a fundraiser. Jake needed a date, and…”

“Ah, say no more,” Kassandra interrupted. She looked at Sage, who shook her head. “I understand everything now.”

“I don’t, so enlighten me.”

“Don’t say it, Kass,” Jake warned her.

“Oh, please,” she snorted. “As if you haven’t already figured it out yourself, Jake.”

“That doesn’t mean Lizzie needs to hear it.”

“Let me guess: Ethan went after me as a way to get under Jake’s skin.”

“Give the woman a crumbled cookie,” Kassandra replied.

Jake looked at me. “What? You think I’m that stupid? It wasn’t hard to figure out, especially after that first night.”

“He went after you the first night?” Sage said. “Wow, you must have looked really hot that night for him to do that.”

“She did,” Jake confirmed. It was my turn to give him the look. “Well, you did!”

Sage pointed at my bruised and still slightly swollen wrist. “Did that happen the first night?”

“No, that was a separate incident.”

“How is ol’ Octopus hands?” Kassandra said. “Obviously still as abusive as ever.” Jake and I looked at each other. “What? Why the look?”

“He’s dead,” I said matter-of-factly.

Sage stared at me like I had just grown a second head, but Kassandra was wearing a huge grin on her face. “So someone finally did the bastard in. I don’t believe it.” We stopped talking when the waitress brought our food. As soon as she left, Kassandra stabbed her fork in her salad and asked, “So, did you kill him, Lizzie?”

“Of course not!”

She shrugged. “Just thought I’d ask.”

“Did you kill him?” I retorted.

“Lord knows I’ve thought about it enough times over the last twelve, thirteen years. But thinking about it isn’t a crime. If it was, we’d all be in jail.”

“How did he die?” Sage asked quietly.

“He was shot,” Jake told her. “Anyone around with a hardcore grudge against Ethan?”