No One Needs to Know (35 page)

The job market looked pretty dismal. So were her prospects of ever hearing back from Adam Holbrook. But she kept checking her e-mail anyway. If Cheryl refused to tell her what was happening, maybe Adam Holbrook could. Perhaps between Dean’s brother and her, they could figure it out.

While all six pies rested, she poured herself a glass of wine and started to look up cooking jobs in Portland. An e-mail notification clicked on the corner of her computer screen.

Laurie told herself not to get excited. It was probably junk mail. She clicked on her mailbox and looked at the short list of incoming e-mail. It was at the top:

7/8/2014 [email protected] Thanks & Catering Work

“Oh, my God,” she murmured. She clicked on the Read icon, and gazed at the note:

Thank you for the delicious dessert. I’m glad to have such a talented goddaughter. I’m planning a casual dinner party in early September to celebrate my wife’s birthday. If you and your catering associate are free this Saturday afternoon, I’d like to meet with you and discuss. Please keep all this confidential, as the party is going to be a surprise.

All Best,

Gil

Do not reply to this e-mail. Please send your e-mail response to my assistant, Rachel Porter

(
[email protected]
—425/555-9074)

Gil Garrett Productions, Inc.

P. O. Box 22

Bellevue, Washington 98008

Phone: 425/555-9073

Fax: 425/555-9075

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
SIX

Wednesday, July 9, 1:47
P.M.

Seattle

“I
’ll have the Reuben. But could you hold the sauerkraut and Thousand Island—so it’s just a plain corned beef with Swiss and it’s grilled?” Adam’s father handed the menu to the waiter. “One of these days some smart restaurant will put ‘Grilled Corned Beef and Swiss on Rye’ on their menu and save me from going through this whole rigmarole every time I order.”

Sitting across from his dad in a booth at the Deluxe Bar and Grill, Adam could tell he was pretty lucid right now—at least, lucid enough to order a corned beef sandwich the way he liked it. In moments like this, Adam felt like he had his father back. But then he noticed an old tomato juice stain on the front of his dad’s plaid shirt, and it was a reminder that his father’s clarity was just temporary. His dad used to be such a sharp dresser, and here he was in a dirty shirt.

They were having a late lunch. Adam wore a thin tie with a striped shirt and khakis. They’d just come from Bonney-Watson Funeral Home, where they’d made arrangements for Dean and Joyce’s burial. Adam hadn’t wanted to put him through any of it, but his father had insisted on coming. Once there, he’d gotten confused. He’d thought they were planning the funeral service for Adam’s mother, and kept asking where Dean was. At one point, he’d even told Adam, “You remind me of my younger boy, Adam. Are you a friend of his?”

Adam had managed to get them both through the whole ordeal, but by the end of the consult with the funeral parlor associate, he was exhausted. He also wondered how the hell he was going to pay for everything. He knew Dean and Joyce had a lot of money put away, and it was probably going to him. But there was no telling how long that money would be tied up.

Adam ordered the cheapest thing on the Deluxe menu, the soup of the day: chicken gumbo.

His dad was with it enough to wait until their server left, and then he remarked, “She’d be a pretty attractive gal if it weren’t for those rings in her nose.”

“Different strokes, Pop,” Adam said, reaching for his water glass.

“These kids with their pierced this and pierced that, and all the crazy tattoos,” his father lamented. He nodded toward a skinny young man and his girlfriend at a table by the window. “Look at that idiot, sitting at the table with his hat on. You go to a nice restaurant, you take off your hat when you sit down to eat. What’s with these kids and the backward baseball hats anyway?”

Adam chuckled. “Dean used to do a pretty good imitation of you carrying on about eating-out etiquette and ‘these kids today.’”

His father gave a tired, melancholy smile. “Yeah, poking fun at the old man was about the only thing you two ever saw eye to eye on.”

It didn’t slip by Adam that his dad was talking about Dean in the past tense. Yesterday, Adam had tried to find the right moment when his father was cognizant enough to ask him about this deep, dark family secret. Dean and Uncle Marty knew about it. And there was every indication it had something to do with Dean and Joyce’s deaths. But the opportunity never presented itself—until now.

“Well, I think Dean was kind of hard on you, Pop,” Adam said, setting his napkin in his lap. “He could be such a tight-ass at times. He expected you to be perfect. But you know, you could tell me anything, Pop, and it’s not going to change how I feel about you.”

His father shifted a little in his seat, and then he moved his cane so it leaned against the side of the booth at a different angle. “Well, thank you, son. That’s good to know.”

“Dean used to make out like he knew something about you, Pop, something you were ashamed of. He never told me what it was. He always acted like he was protecting me from some terrible secret . . .”

The waitress with the nose rings returned with their sodas, and Adam turned quiet.

“Sure takes awhile to get a drink around here, doesn’t it?” his father said, once the waitress left.

Adam leaned forward. “Pop, you know what I’m talking about,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t bug you about this, only I can’t help thinking there’s a connection between this old secret and what happened to Dean and Joyce.”

Adam’s dad sipped his Coke, sat back, and sighed.

“Pop, why would somebody be ‘getting even’ by killing Dean and Joyce that way? You said that the other day. If you have any idea who might be behind the murders, you need to tell me . . .”

His father nodded, and then cleared his throat. “The best corned beef is in New York City—or maybe Chicago. You know what we should do? We should load up the minivan and take off on a cross-country, a family road trip, you and Dean and your mother and me. Dean can spell me on the driving. He has his driver’s license, doesn’t he?”

With resignation, Adam slumped back in the booth. He worked up a smile, and then raised his glass. “Here’s to family road trips, Pop,” he sighed. “And family secrets. . .”

Joey was a hit with the old folks on the benches in front of Evergreen Manor—especially the ladies. They took turns holding him. Laurie kept close by, one hand ready to catch him if he slipped out of someone’s frail, uncertain grasp. But none of the elderly ladies let him go, and the looks on their faces as they nuzzled up to him were so remarkable. Just holding a baby seemed to take years off each one of them. And Joey was golden, too. He didn’t squirm or cry. He loved being the center of attention.

Laurie had come there looking for Dean Holbrook’s father. But she hadn’t been able to get past the nurse at the front desk—a stout, copper-haired sixtyish woman with lipstick on her teeth. “Mr. Holbrook’s son signed him out at ten-thirty this morning,” she’d explained. “I don’t know when they’re coming back. It might not be until after dinner.”

Laurie had asked if she could wait in the lobby.

“I’m sorry, but no,” the nurse had replied, slowly shaking her head. “All guests have to be cleared with the resident or their immediate family, no exceptions. I hope you understand. We’ve had quite a few media people trying to get in to talk with Mr. Holbrook.”

“Can I wait out front?”

The nurse had sighed and nodded. “Suit yourself.”

From the residents out by the front entrance Laurie had learned that Adam Holbrook had taken his father to a funeral home on Capitol Hill. Most of them were certain Mr. Holbrook would be back in time for dinner, because it was Salisbury steak tonight—apparently a big thing around there. So Laurie waited outside with them. She was one of few people in front of the rest home without a walker or a cane.

While a spindly woman with blue rinse in her hair and a pink fleece robe held Joey in her arms, Laurie glanced at her wristwatch. It was three-thirty. She’d been out here for about twenty minutes now. She’d gotten out of work early today.

Driving herself to and from the set had made for a much shorter workday. Alone in her own car, she kept thinking how tense the drive would have been if she were with Cheryl in the food truck. Now that her boss had acknowledged Laurie might be at risk associating with her, how could the two of them just ignore it?

Yet somehow today, Cheryl had managed to do just that.

When Laurie had first gotten to the food truck this morning and started unloading her apple pies, she found Cheryl slicing up a ham. “It was strange driving myself here this morning,” Laurie said. “I have to admit, I was worried about you all alone on that pickup route . . .”

“Well, I’m here,” Cheryl replied, not glancing up from her work. “I managed okay.”

“Looking over your shoulder the whole time, no doubt,” Laurie replied.

Cheryl said nothing. Again, she didn’t even glance up at her.

“So are we going to talk about what’s going on?” Laurie asked.

“I got the word that they’re breaking for lunch a half hour earlier today, so we need to get cracking. The good news is we’ll probably get out early. How did the pies turn out?”

They kept busy and kept it all business as they fixed lunch in the food truck. Laurie felt safe there on the set—with a strong police presence outside the gate of the “murder house.” It wasn’t necessary. Only a handful of protestors showed up in the morning. Dolly Ingersoll’s death had bumped them off the TV newscasts yesterday, and the cameras and TV news vans weren’t there today. So, without anyone to perform for, most of the Hooper Anarchists stayed home.

After lunch, Laurie and Cheryl sliced up the apple pies and set them on the kitchen counter. It was then she told Cheryl that Gil Garrett wanted to see them this Saturday.

Cheryl was ecstatic. Immediately, she started talking about how they needed to make an assortment of dishes Gil could sample. “And we have to make sure we’re meeting and dealing with Gil—and not some underling,” she said. “We need to get that across to him in our e-mail response when we set up the meeting. It should just be us and him. I don’t want a lot of other people around to muck up his decision-making . . .”

Laurie promised that tonight she’d send her a draft of the e-mail reply for her approval—before sending it to Gil’s secretary.

She didn’t tell Cheryl about her other plans for tonight.

She was going to start packing.

She couldn’t keep working for Cheryl in this constant state of uncertain dread. She figured Joey was indeed safe with Tammy and Hank, and he was scheduled to start at Lullaby League Daycare next week. The setup there was ideal. After some initial misgivings, she loved her apartment, too—such an improvement over the dumpy Bancroft Townhome in Ellensburg.

But she felt like a sitting duck working alongside Cheryl.
Talk about a curse,
the late Dolly Ingersoll had said to her boss.
You’re bad news, honey . . .

It wasn’t just paranoia either. Cheryl had admitted that there was cause for concern.

But she wouldn’t elaborate. If perhaps Laurie had gotten some sort of explanation, she might not have been so anxious to get the hell away from Cheryl Wheeler and her food truck.

Unless Cheryl could give some sort of assurance that she was safe working at her side, Laurie figured she’d be crazy to stay there. She planned to go online and start looking for a new apartment tonight. It would be tough to get a new place without a job or references. Still, she was determined to make a clean break from Cheryl. If she couldn’t find a place that was move-in ready by next week, she’d check back into the Loyal Inn.

Still, before she pulled the plug on La Hacienda and Cheryl, Laurie figured she owed it to herself to visit Evergreen Manor. Maureen Forester may have had a whole file on Cheryl, but the only lead Laurie had was the rest home where Cheryl longed for a catering gig. Dean Holbrook’s father was a resident there. Bothering him with a bunch of questions while he was grieving was pretty tactless. But it seemed quite possible Dean’s meeting with Cheryl had something to do with his death. Why else would Cheryl be so reluctant to talk about it? If in the days just after Brian’s death, someone had come to her with information about why and how he’d died, Laurie would have welcomed it—painful as it might have been. A part of her still wanted to know why he’d volunteered for that reconnaissance mission.

She didn’t have any answers for Mr. Holbrook, but between the two of them, maybe they could figure out why his son and daughter-in-law had died that way.

The lady with the blue rinse was named Shirley, and according to Shirley, Mr. Holbrook was in the early stages of dementia. They hadn’t seen much of his older son, Dean, but the daughter-in-law (“
a lovely girl . . .
”) had visited every week. The younger son, Adam (“
oh, he’s a charmer . . .”
) came by almost every day.

Laurie wondered if Mr. Holbrook was in any frame of mind today to answer her questions. So that left Adam, who still hadn’t replied to her e-mail. From the buzz on the set the last two days, Adam Holbrook was the only potential suspect in the copycat murders that the police had so far. After all, he’d discovered the bodies; he’d claimed to have been sleeping in their basement while the murders had occurred, and he was in line to inherit a ton of money. But according to what Laurie had read online, the police hadn’t charged him with anything—at least, not yet.