Dolled Up to Die (9 page)

“But Jesus himself says, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through—’”

Cate waited for more, but the conversation ended abruptly at that point. “You stopped right there?” she asked.

“Oh, I kept going, but I was so intent on what I was saying that I must have accidentally reached up and slid the clip on the pen, which is the on/off control.” Mitch sounded exasperated with himself.

“I think you did great.”

Actually, Cate was astonished by all the recording revealed. About Jo-Jo getting a half million in insurance, of course. What was a little alimony compared to that kind of payoff? She was just as surprised with what the recording revealed
about Mitch. They’d been attending church together regularly, always on Sunday, sometimes also the midweek Bible study. He actively served with the church’s Helping Hands project, as he’d been doing since before she’d met him. And yet he’d always seemed to have some reservations holding him back from full belief and commitment, a kind of quiet foot-dragging. But he hadn’t seemed to have any doubts as he talked to Celeste.

As if reading Cate’s thoughts, he said, “Sometimes having to state your beliefs to someone else helps clarify them in your own mind.”

“And yours are clarified?”

He smiled. “Very clear now.”

Cate wanted to clap, but she doubted Mitch would feel comfortable with applause. “So what happened then? Did Celeste get as snarky with you as she did with me?”

“She said she’d still like to do a past-lives reading on me, and then I’d know the truth that those lives existed.”

“So are you going to do it?”

“Are you kidding? Let that woman hypnotize me? No way. She might program me to quack like a duck every time the phone rang. But I did ask her if she thought Ed Kieferson getting murdered in this life was payback for something he’d done in a previous life.”

“What did she say?”

“She said that Ed had plenty to account for in this life.”

“That almost sounds as if she thought he got what he deserved.”

Had Celeste decided on murder as payback for something Eddie had done in this life? She might be a cougar with Mitch, but she was definitely a protective mama bear when it came to Kim.

A good PI, Uncle Joe had once mentioned to Cate, could
sometimes pull information out of people that they never intended to give. And sometimes didn’t even realize they were giving. She thought Mitch had done that here.

“Well, even if Jo-Jo gets the insurance, Kim has the big house and a convertible, along with Mr. K’s and a vineyard, to comfort her,” Cate noted.

Mitch disconnected the pen recorder. “Maybe I’ll check into that,” he said thoughtfully.

 9 

Mitch, after reminding Cate they were rescheduled to do Mr. Harriman’s cleanup job Saturday afternoon, was already settling down in front of his computer when Cate left the condo. Back home, her cell phone rang just as she walked into the house. Uncle Joe and Rebecca were watching TV in the living room, and she stepped into the office to take the call.

“Cate, hi, this is Robyn. I’m sorry to bother you so late, but there’s a problem.”

Now what? No doubt a world crisis, from Robyn’s point of view. Which probably meant—what? She needed help with the color of her toenail polish for the wedding? Someone to fasten her ankle bracelet? A color other than periwinkle for the wrist corsage ribbons? Which reminded Cate she still had no idea what color periwinkle really was. She gave a resigned mental sigh. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Yes! Thank you so much for offering. As you know, I have six bridesmaids plus my maid of honor for the ceremony.”

Well, no. Cate hadn’t actually paid much attention to the bridesmaid count.

“My maid of honor, McKenzie, is coming from Denver. Kathi and Rachel live in San Francisco. Susi is flying in from Chicago, and Tiana and Tara are coming up from San Diego.”

Cate relaxed. This was something she actually could help with. “I’ll be glad to pick up any of them at the airport. Just tell me when.”

“No, it isn’t that. The problem is the other bridesmaid, Shauna. She’s a college friend from Spokane, and she just told me she can’t make it to the wedding! Her husband is being transferred to Denver, and that’s exactly when they’ll be moving.” Robyn sounded caught between anguish at this breakdown in her ceremony and annoyance that this friend was actually putting her husband’s transfer ahead of Robyn’s wedding.

“Well, um, that’s too bad.”

“So right away I thought of you! You and Shauna are about the same size, and her bridesmaid dress will fit you perfectly!”

Cate felt dismay wash over her like a slosh of sour milk. She didn’t mind the small suspicion that she was chosen primarily because she’d fit the dress, but, be a bridesmaid? Oh no. At one ceremony she’d tripped coming down the aisle and fallen into the lap of an elderly man in a nearby pew. At another, the bride had chosen slim-skirted, goldy-brown gowns for her bridesmaids, and they’d looked like a quartet of overdone corndogs.

“You want me to be a bridesmaid?” Cate asked with the small hope she was mistaken about what Robyn was asking.

“Yes! You’ll look gorgeous. So many bridesmaids’ dresses are almost hideous, you know? You have to wonder, what was the bride
thinking
? I had to wear this ghastly pink thing one time, and I looked like an escapee from a cotton candy machine. But these are awesome. A lovely, soft celadon. You’ll have lots of use for it afterwards.”

“Well, um, that’s nice,” Cate said as she frantically searched for some acceptable door of escape. She had to make an unexpected trip to Siberia? She felt the coming onslaught of a disease heretofore unknown to medical science?

“Cate, I know it’s a lot to ask, since we’re rather recent friends, but I’d really appreciate it. I-I feel as if the wedding is falling apart.”

Cate heard a note of panic in Robyn’s voice. Okay, this was really, really important to her. Cate gave a mental sigh. Would it hurt her to help out here?

“Yes, I can do it,” Cate said. Then, realizing that sounded more sacrificial than eager, she tried to put more enthusiasm into her voice. “I’ll be really happy to do it!”

“Thank you so much! Shauna is sending the dress by Fed Ex, so I’ll call you as soon as it gets here and you can try it on.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

At least as much as she looked forward to flu shots, foot fungus, and a parking ticket.

But an unexpected thought occurred to her after the conversation ended. As a bridesmaid, and presumably a helpful friend of the bride, she could legitimately go to Lodge Hill and look around. And at the same time she could see what other non-wedding information she could pick up about Kim, Celeste, and the late Mr. K.

There was a frustrating delay before she could go out to Lodge Hill, however. On Saturday morning, when she planned to go, Jo-Jo called. She was still staying at Donna’s house in town. The sheriff’s department had notified her that she could return to the house on Randolph Road, but they still had her old van, so she was without transportation.

“Why are they holding the van?” Cate asked.

“They didn’t say, but Donna says it’s because they’re looking for DNA or fingerprints or something that would prove Eddie had been in it. Maybe dandruff, for all I know. Eddie was always shedding it. Anyway, if they find something, I
guess that would prove to them I took him out to the house and killed him.”

“Was he ever in the van?”

“Not since he went all highfalutin and got that Jaguar he tooled around in.”

So, hopefully, no remnants of Eddie the Ex would show up in the van. Cate briefly wondered what trophy-wife Kim thought about a husband who shed dandruff. Perhaps a flutter of hundred-dollar bills successfully covered even a snowstorm of dandruff?

“So what I’m wondering,” Jo-Jo went on, “is if you could take me out to the house? Donna has some event going on at the library today, and I’m worried about Maude.”

Cate glanced at her watch. It would mean postponing her visit to Lodge Hill, but she could run out to the house with Jo-Jo and still get back in time for the cleanup at Mr. Harriman’s with Mitch at 1:00. She didn’t want the donkey going hungry. “I can pick you up in about twenty minutes.”

“Oh, Cate, thank you! You can add this to my bill, of course. Like I said, it may take awhile, but I will get you paid.”

Right. A half million in insurance would cover a lot of investigative work.

At the house, Maude announced their presence with a raucous bray, although Cate thought she detected a certain welcoming enthusiasm in this bellow. Jo-Jo climbed on a fence rail, and Maude rubbed her head affectionately against her.

Animals didn’t base their affection on what a person had or hadn’t done in the human world, Cate knew. Yet seeing the obvious affection this animal gave Jo-Jo somehow reinforced Cate’s belief—or was it more like a hope?—that Jo-Jo couldn’t be a killer.

Cate hadn’t yet had a chance to ask about the insurance. Jo-Jo had chattered nonstop throughout the entire drive, covering everything from a
Dancing with the Stars
rerun, to the comfortable, new-style mattress on the bed at Donna’s house, and a wonderful chicken casserole Donna had fixed for supper last night.

“Eddie would have loved that casserole,” Jo-Jo had added, sounding, as she sometimes did, wistful.

Cate followed Jo-Jo inside the barn to Maude’s stall, where the manger was indeed empty. Jo-Jo filled it with hay and grain and then got out a brush that looked more like something from a cosmetics counter than a donkey store. Maude stretched out her neck as if she were in donkey heaven while Jo-Jo brushed her, and Cate asked how she’d acquired the donkey.

“A farm over on Kittler Road was foreclosed on, and there were a bunch of animals that had been abandoned. Nobody wanted Maude, and she was so skinny and discouraged looking. I just felt so sorry for her.”

Cate smiled. Maude was not so skinny now. And Jo-Jo had not killed Eddie the Ex. Maybe that was a non sequitur, but she was sticking to it.

After Maude was properly tended to, Jo-Jo headed directly back to the car.

“Don’t you want to go inside and look around or pick up clothes or something?”

“Not yet.” Jo-Jo’s throat moved in a big swallow as she turned to stare back at the house. “Eddie’s funeral is Tuesday afternoon, did you know? It was in the newspaper obituaries. I suppose it would be inappropriate for me to go. I’d have to take a taxi anyway. I wonder what they cost?”

“I could take you, if you’d like.”

Jo-Jo hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Thank you.
I’d appreciate that.” She eyed the door to the house. “I suppose I should go inside and look for something to wear to the funeral.”

“You could just go buy something.”

“I’d like to look nice. For Eddie. But clothes are so expensive these days.”

Finally, an opening. “But you have money coming from Eddie’s insurance, don’t you?”

“Eddie’s insurance?” Jo-Jo sounded puzzled. Then her eyes widened and her mouth rounded into a surprised
O
. She repeated the words in a different tone. “Eddie’s insurance.”

“I understand there’s a half-million dollars of it.”

Jo-Jo didn’t ask how Cate knew that. She just kept shaking her head as if stunned. “Eddie’s insurance,” she repeated once more. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

Either Jo-Jo actually hadn’t thought about it, or she was practicing for a late-blooming career as an actress.

“But you must have known. And that you, not Kim, would get the money.”

“It was one of those things the lawyer put into our divorce settlement. That Eddie had to keep me as the beneficiary on his policy. But it seemed like such a way-off-in-the-future thing, and I just never thought about it. I wonder how long it will take to collect the money?” Jo-Jo didn’t sound wistful or nostalgic now. Just eager.

“I have no idea. You should talk to the lawyer.”

“I will. But I can afford a dress, can’t I? I can afford to pay you. I can afford to take a taxi—or buy a car!”

Cate doubted the police would ever believe Jo-Jo had forgotten about a half-million dollars’ worth of insurance. Cate was inclined to believe it anyway. Jo-Jo really had been mourning Eddie, not counting a windfall of cash from his insurance.

Celeste had apparently been quick enough to find out who was the beneficiary of Eddie’s insurance after his death. If she’d killed Eddie thinking Kim would get the money, this turn of events must be an unpleasant surprise for her.