Murder on the Bucket List (19 page)

twenty-nine

Between stressful meetings, first
with Brady Prather and the upcoming one with Jake Maehler, Francine drove Mary Ruth back to her house to gather up her equipment and her car. Two media trucks were sitting outside again. Francine waved to them as she parked in the garage and closed the door behind her, relieved she had caught them off-guard. When they got inside, the place was spotless. Everything had been cleaned and Mary Ruth's van had been repacked. A note from Marcy was taped to the refrigerator with Mary Ruth's name on it. Francine pulled it off and handed it to her.

She unfolded it and started to read. “Oh, my Lord, listen to this!”

“What?”

“She's editing the audition tape, but that's not the best part. I have a catering job for tomorrow! This is so last minute! Fox Sports has decided with all the mystery surrounding Friederich's death and Jake's being in the race, they're sending a crew in tomorrow to cover SpeedFest. Marcy talked them into letting me cater it. It's not very big, but it's with a national network! This could be the break I've needed. Marcy is like a fairy godmother.”

Francine wondered if she was the only one of their group who didn't agree. Maybe Alice. But she was happy for Mary Ruth. “Does Marcy have an in at Fox?”

“Either that or she doesn't take no for an answer.”

“I bet it's the latter.”

Mary Ruth read farther down. “It says Joy is going to be part of the Fox crew. They're going to audition her by having her do some interviews!”

“I thought she was auditioning with ABC. Or was it CBS? This is crazy.” Francine shook her head. How they could go from obscurity to having networks fighting over getting them on television was ridiculous. She knew it was how the Internet worked—YouTube videos could go viral and make instant stars out of anybody—but she hadn't wanted it to happen to her, and she worried about how it would affect her friends. If anything, she was now more determined to solve the mystery of Friederich's death—with Charlotte's lead—in hopes things would return to normal.

“I can't just stand here!” Mary Ruth said. “I need to get going. I need to see what food I've got and if I can beg my supplier into delivering things today. Maybe I'll have to run to Gordon Food Service.”

Francine walked her to the van, yelling at the reporters to get off her lawn. They did, but still they taped the two of them as she said good-bye to Mary Ruth. It made Francine mutter under her breath.

Mary Ruth laughed. “This is all your fault, you know. If you hadn't hoodwinked me into meeting Brady Prather, I'd be home already prepping for tomorrow's event and you'd be in the house with the window shades drawn.”

“You're not mad about Brady, are you? I know it caught you off-guard, but if I'd told you ahead of time, would you have gone? And if you hadn't gone, would I have an appointment to talk to Jake Maehler?”

“It all works out.”

_____

Francine surprised Charlotte with the news that they had an interview with Jake Maehler before his training session at five o'clock. She drove, and the two women arrived at the Brownsburg Fitness Factory well ahead of time. They waited in the former church's vestibule, which served as the reception area. Alone except for the thin blond receptionist, Charlotte learned on her cane and sat in one of the molded plastic chairs. Francine paced, pausing every so often to look out the glass window in the arched doors.

“Stop it, Francine. You're making me nervous.”

“Stop what?” She suddenly realized what she was doing. She sat in the chair next to Charlotte. “Sorry.”

Two minutes later Jake came through the door. He was dressed in a white tank top that hugged his lean compact frame. The effect was … exploitive? Francine smiled.
No worse than Danica Patrick
. She hastily stood and introduced herself. Jake had arrived so that
the women had ten minutes at most.

“I know who you are,” he said. “When I did cardio in here yesterday, you and your Bridge Club were on every television in the place. And there's a reporter outside.”

It made her look out the window. Had she missed it before, or had the reporter just arrived? In any event, one of the female reporters from the local paper had a camera and was taking photos of the front of the building.

“We're getting tired of them,” she said.

Charlotte rose from the chair. “Speak for yourself.” She shook Jake's hand and introduced herself.

“Let's get his done,” Jake said. “I don't know why I should talk with you other than Brady asked me to do it.”

“We appreciate your time,” Francine said. “We're here because we discovered Friederich's body, and we're trying to make sense of this.”

“If the police can't make sense of it, why should you?”

“Can we sit, please?” She and Charlotte used the same chairs they'd been in, and Jake scooted another of the plastic chairs so that he was across from them.

He sat and stretched out his legs. He looked like he was trying to appear unconcerned. “Fire away.”

Charlotte referenced a notebook on which she'd scribbled a few questions on the way over. “You're a NASCAR driver now. Why are these midget races so important to you?”

“C'mon. You've read the papers. You know I'm not winning in the big leagues.”

“Is it costing you sponsors?”

He shook his head. “I don't have a lot of them, but my sponsors are sticking with me.”

“Really?” Charlotte continued. “We hear you're running out of money.”

He paused as if deciding how to answer that. “What I've lost is a patron, not a sponsor. I don't know if they ran out of patience or money or what. Translated, it means I'm not getting the practice time I need.”

“You don't know why he stopped supporting you?”

“I don't even know his name.”

Francine was surprised. “This guy's been sponsoring you and you've never met him. That's odd. Any idea why?”

“No. He's tried to meet me twice now, but he must've changed his mind. Each time I went to the meeting place, no one was there. The last was the night Friederich died.”

Charlotte's eyes lit up. “Then that's why you don't have an alibi for that night. You went alone and he didn't show up.”

Jake gave his head a slight shake, which Francine interpreted it to mean that
wasn't
the reason he didn't have an alibi. But he didn't elaborate. “Without that patron,” he said, “I need two things, one of which is another sponsor with deep pockets.”

“And the other is victories?” Charlotte asked, pressing. “If not in NASCAR races, then in midgets?”

“You want me to confess it?” He glared at her. “Okay, I came back here to work with Friederich and win again. Get my mojo back. There. Are you happy?”

Francine decided it might be best to help with the questioning. “Let's go back and talk about your relationship with Friederich. I imagine he was a father figure to you.”

“He was all that and more. He became the only family I had left after my mom and grandma died. Friederich not only taught me about auto racing, he taught me about life.” He swallowed hard.

Francine wished her next question wasn't going to sound so mean, but it had to be asked. “He sounds like a loyal friend. Yet you accused him of sabotage. What evidence did you have of that?”

He stopped slouching and sat up. “Let me make one thing clear: What I said was in the heat of the moment. I didn't think it through. He and I were working together again just a few days afterward. That should prove something. Friederich understood. I expect everyone else to.”

“Did Friederich have any other close relationships?” Charlotte asked. “Was he getting ready to take on another protégé, someone you displaced when you came back?”

“You ask that like you have someone in mind.”

She looked to Francine for help.

“We have reason to believe he might have been taking an interest in Sara Baggesen,” Francine said.

His mouth dropped open. “Why do you think that?”

“He had marked some pages in a racing magazine. She was one of the people he seemed to be tracking.”

Jake leaned back in his chair. “He knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Nothing.”

“C'mon, Jake,” Charlotte said. “We know you know something. We're going to keep pursuing this until we find out. It's like Brady told you earlier—easier to just work with us.”

He considered that for a moment. “I'm not going to explain myself to you or to the police. This has nothing to do with Friederich's murder.”

“How do you know that?”

He stonewalled. “Next question.”

Francine wondered how many next questions they would get. She decided to take a different tack. “Tell us more about Friederich. If he was such a good mechanic, why did you leave him when you moved up to NASCAR?”

“Two reasons. First, the owner who hired me had his own mechanics. But second, Friederich's specialty was midget cars. He was really good with them.”

“How so? Was he good at developing new technology?”

“Not at
developing
technology.” He squirmed a bit in the chair. “But he was brilliant at
adapting
it. He knew how to cheat legally.” He paused. “Look, what I'm telling you is not a secret. Here's what's great about midget cars, and honestly, what I miss about them. There's nothing quite like them. The association has fairly tight regulations on how they can be built, so when it comes down to racing midgets, it's often a matter of who's the best driver.”

“Often,” Francine said. “Not always?”

“Exactly. There are ways to get around the regulations, the best of them perfectly legal, at least until the association learns what they're doing and rewrites the rules. Friederich was a master at it. You're sure you didn't know this?”

Both women shook their heads. “Can you give us an example?” Francine asked.

“Sure. Take shock absorbers. You know what those are, right?”

Francine said yes and Charlotte said no. He sighed and borrowed a sheet of paper and a pen from the receptionist. He drew a little diagram of the front end of a midget car on a napkin and placed it where they could see what he was illustrating. “The association states that you have to use a specific shock absorber. It's a good one, but not an excellent one. But what if you took out the rod that absorbs the shock and replaced it with one from a more advanced shock absorber?” He circled the spot where the rod was placed in the shock. “In a sense, you're borrowing a better technology. Is it cheating? Well, that's a gray area. You
are
using the specified shock absorber, only modifying in a way that no one is likely to see. It's all internal to the shock.”

“It doesn't sound legal.”

He tilted his hand up and down in a
maybe yes, maybe no
signal. “It's legal until someone finds out.”

“Does it make that much of a difference?”

“In the case of the shock, it did. I gave you that example because it was discovered several years ago and the result was new regulations.”

“Are there many cases like that one?”

“Oh, sure. Someone discovered they could fit larger injectors in the engine than the standard ones. That was clever. Another person relocated the fuel pump, which usually runs off the engine, into the fuel tank to keep it cooler.” He shrugged. “There will always be ways to cheat the system. All it takes is ingeniousness. Friederich had it. Of course, it also takes money.”

“Let's go back to the money angle,” Charlotte said. “You're very good-looking … even more so with your shirt off. Isn't there money for people who can race and be a model?”

Jake relaxed for a moment and laughed. “Thanks for the compliment. But the looks and build only work if you prove you can win. Yes, I'd rather be a winner, rather be a NASCAR driver. But I'm not going to be poor the rest of my life.” He jutted out his chin. “You know, I have a lot of contacts in the industry. I could get a job as a sales rep for any of them.”

Francine hadn't thought about it before, but Jake had the goods to make a great sales representative. “You say now you're not desperate for a win, but you acted like you were after you lost the Night Before the 500.”

“Only because we came so close, and we would have won if it hadn't been for the car.”

Charlotte said, “So if this isn't about money, why was Friederich broke?”

Jake's surprise showed on his face. “Who said Friederich was broke?”

“He must've been. Our friend's husband Larry, the one being investigated by the police, was owed money by Friederich. He hadn't paid the rent on his garage in a long time.”

“Maybe it didn't have anything to do with money.”

That stopped the two women. “What else could it have to do with?” Francine asked.

“You asked me earlier if Friederich had any other close relationships. He had one other.”

“Who?”

“I don't know,” he said.

Charlotte frowned. “I don't understand.”

“It was a complicated relationship. Friederich was in love with her, but he wasn't sure she was in love with him. He mostly just hinted about their relationship. All I know for sure is Friederich said he used hidden cameras to record a little insurance to make sure she wouldn't leave him.”

The door to the fitness center opened. It was the woman reporter. Francine motioned Jake closer. He bent his head toward her. “Did you tell the police that?”

He whispered in her ear. “They know, and they're looking for the video. I should have told them right up front, but when they started pushing hard to make me their prime suspect, I finally told them. I needed to hand them someone else to look at.”