Rest in Pieces (19 page)

“Damn, that’s complicated. I’m going to need a flow chart.” Monica nodded like she was trying to connect all of the dots.

“Nat told me that it was a very passionate kiss.” Haley’s eyebrows rose as she sipped her coffee.

“I’m not going to lie, sparks did fly and he’s an exceptional kisser, but in light of new evidence,” I glanced at Monica, “the spark has died out.”

“Too bad.” Haley said all dreamily. “I was counting on your dating him so I could live vicariously.”

“Me too.” Monica matched her dreamy expression.

“He’s a drug lord…okay, so he’s hot, but he’s a bugged–my–house drug lord.” I whispered. “Okay, I’m a little bummed.”

“Damn.” Monica sat up. “Your phone is bugged and I told you about the safety deposit box this morning.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a plan for that. I think you need to call me later today and tell me that you were wrong. The key goes to a padlock or something. We’ll go look at her house and pretend it’s for a padlock.” I propped my chin in my hand. “If the bugs are about Molly, we need to assume that her house is bugged, too.” But we wouldn’t know for sure until we checked Monica’s and Haley’s homes.

An hour later, Monica and I pulled into her duplex’s driveway. The Arapahoe Shores Duplexes took up one whole street next to the water treatment plant and were Lakeside’s equivalent to inner city public housing. The rent was fifteen hundred a month, which by Lakeside’s standards was pocket change. By my standards, that was pie–in–the–sky high. Since I couldn’t afford Arapahoe Shores, what did that make me…aspiring to poverty?

Monica put her silver Honda Civic in park and turned off the engine. We’d taken her car after we dropped Haley and the kids off at the Hill Country Galleria. They were getting hot chocolates and checking out books from the library. I loved that our library was in the mall. It was right across from Barnes and Noble. I’d go into Barnes and Noble, find the book I wanted, and then go to the library and check it out. Poverty has made me thrifty. No wait, that’s a lie. I totally did the same thing before I had to give up my not–so–strapped–for–cash lifestyle.

Monica opened her car door. “Think we need to check the garage?”

She was all fancy–schmancy with her garage. “I guess.”

She reached back into her car and clicked the button on her garage door opener. The metal door rolled up. We walked into her garage. Monica liked to refinish old furniture. Well, that’s not true, she liked starting to refinish old furniture. Her garage was stacked with half–finished projects. My fingers itched to clean up this mess, but the last time I’d suggested it, she’d growled at me so I pulled out the bug zapper and walked around the room. I hadn’t gotten two feet until it lit up like the disco ball the Knights of Columbus used on bingo night. I’ll admit it, I’d tried playing bingo to supplement my income, but those little old ladies were vicious and they scared the crap out of me. Gangster rappers have nothing on the rabid old ladies at the Knights of Columbus bingo night.

Inside Monica’s house, every single room had at least two listening devices.

Monica looked at me and shook her head. She picked up a yellow legal pad and black sharpie that were sitting on her kitchen table. She wrote something and then turned it around for me to see. “Let’s go outside.”

I nodded. I hadn’t thought to scan her car for bugs so I ran the bug zapper around the car. It was clean. We got into the car and closed the doors.

“I can’t fucking believe it. Who the hell would want to bug my house? I never do anything exciting.” Monica’s brown eyes were enormous. “This is ridiculous.”

She put her hand on the silver door lever to open it. “I’m going in there and destroy them all.”

I put a hand on her arm. “That’s exactly what I said to Daman but he said it’s a bad idea. Think about it. We know about the bugs so now, so we won’t say anything useful. If we take them out, they’re just going to put in new ones or do something worse.”

This is a conversation I never thought I’d be having. Now if I could just have a conversation where someone tells me that I’ve won the lottery, I can get another never–thought–I’d–have–that conversation out of the way.

Monica slumped back in her seat. “I can’t believe it. I feel so violated.”

“You’re preaching to the choir. I’ve never been so quiet in my own home. Max asked me what was wrong. I told him I had a headache.” I couldn’t tell Max about the bugs. It would freak him out, and he needed to feel safe.

“I wonder if there’s a way to find out who’s doing this.” Monica never took anything lying down. She was a fighter. I totally loved that about her. “On Monday, I’ll ask a couple of the Private Investigators we have on staff. They should be able to help.” She turned to me. “What was Molly into?”

“No idea. I think we do need to go to her house and find out which bank she used. The safety deposit box key is the only lead we have. Now more than ever, we need to know who has us under surveillance.”

“Do you think Daman had anything to do with this?” I wanted her to say no, but I knew that was a stretch.

“If he isn’t involved, how would he know that your house was bugged?” She shook her head. “Then again, why would he tell you? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of bugging your house?”

“Yeah.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think we can assume that Haley’s house is bugged too, but I’ll check later today. It feels like we’ve stepped into an episode of
Covert Affairs
.”

“Tell me about it. I keep waiting for the punch line, only there isn’t one.” She shook her head like she just couldn’t believe this was happening to her. “Why would anyone go to the trouble to bug my house? I’m a nobody. I have no life.”

“Daman said that it had to do with Molly’s murder. He could be lying, but really, besides the PTO that’s the only thing that links the three of us…besides friendship.” I hunched my shoulders. “I can’t think of any PTO business that’s bug worthy apart from the heated discussion the moms go into over the fourth grade spirit shirts.” I rolled my eyes. “Some people take pink rhinestones way too seriously.”

Monica turned the engine over and backed out of her driveway. “It’s too weird. Now I don’t know what to say in my own home.”

“I hear ya. I don’t think we can get rid of the bugs, but I do think we should use them to our advantage. From now on, we only say what we want others to hear. If someone is listening in, let’s mess with them.”

If there was one thing I was good at, it was messing with people. This was game on.

Chapter 15

Monday morning, I called in sick, and Haley and I went to Molly’s house. I felt guilty for calling in sick for a whole ten seconds and then I was over it. I’d never used a sick day and I had several of them saved up. Occasionally, I do take off work early, but other than that, I’m a model employee most of the time…okay, some of the time.

Armed with my set of keys, the bug zapper, a legal pad and a black sharpie, I marched up to Molly’s front door and unlocked it.

“Wait for me.” Haley slid out of her Range Rover, grabbed her own legal pad, and marker and followed me in the house. The second I stepped inside Molly’s house, the lights on the bug zapper went red. Her house was bugged, too.

This confirmed that the ‘bugging’ as Monica had come to call it was definitely related to Molly Miars. Clearly that was bad, but I had to admit that I was relieved that our houses weren’t bugged because Daman was trying to find his diamonds. He was still involved in the bugging, but this wasn’t about stolen diamonds.

Haley and I had worked out a script of sorts in case Molly’s house was bugged.

I started.

“Since the key wasn’t a safety deposit box key, we need to look for a padlock.” I read from the first page of my legal pad. I am willing to admit that my voice was louder and a little more mechanical than normal.

“Yes. That is correct.” Haley sounded like a fifth grader reading from a script for the Valentine’s play.

We both sucked as actors.

Wait a minute. I was a fantastic actor. I’d faked hundred of orgasms throughout my marriage, I could do this.

“The key is little so it goes to a little padlock or maybe a bike lock.” I threw in that last bit as improv.

Haley looked at me and mouthed, “bike lock?”

I shrugged. Didn’t she understand artistic license?

“Okay, I will look for a small padlock or bike lock.” Haley continued the elementary school monotone. “How about a book on tape to pass the time while we search?”

“Sure. Sounds good to me.” I added in all the emotion of a Mexican soap opera. One of us needed to ramp up the emo if we were going to pull this off.

“Okay, here goes.” Haley pulled out her phone. She touched the iTunes icon and piano music thundered out. James Earl Jones began, “James Earl Jones Reads the Bible, The New Testament, King James Version. The Gospel According to Matthew…”

On my legal pad, I wrote, “The New Testament?”

I turned it around so Haley could read it.

She scribbled something on her legal pad and then turned it around for me to see. “I thought the people bugging us could use a heavy dose of Jesus.”

She had a point.

James Earl Jones droned on. I kept hoping he’d say, “Luke, I am your father,” but sadly Luke Skywalker hadn’t made it into the Bible.

We searched our way through the front parlor–turned–bedroom and found nothing. When I opened the closet to show Haley all of those plastic bins full of crap, she wrote on her legal pad and turned it around to me. “I thought you were kidding. What’s with all of this junk?”

I wrote, “No idea, but she liked her some junk. At least she kept her hoarding organized.”

We searched the kitchen, the weird envelope hoarding room, the upstairs, and then we headed out to the garage.

I leaned into Haley and whispered, “If you thought the envelope filing was weird, wait until you see this.”

I tried the keys on the ring until I found the right one. I pushed open the door, flicked on the light, and found a totally empty garage.

“What the hell?” I said it out loud. I couldn’t help it. “Where’s the chemistry set?”

Haley smiled at me like she was assuring her daughter Riley that she really could see her invisible friend. “I’m sure it was very nice.”

“It was here. I swear.” I figured that since the people who’d bugged the place already knew about it and had taken it, our talking about it wouldn’t make a difference.

I walked around looking for any hint that the chemistry set had been here. There wasn’t so much as a scuff mark on the tiled floor. The floor and walls were clean as a whistle. I couldn’t help but be impressed by Molly’s killer’s level of commitment. If I couldn’t find fault with it, the room was sterile enough to do surgery. Maybe the killer owned a cleaning service? If so, I’d give them a reference because they did good work. Well, apart from the whole murder thing.

James Earl James barked out, “He saith unto them. How many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew, they said, five and two fishes.”

My stomach rumbled. The loaves and fishes always made me hungry.

“It looks like we’ve come up with a big fat zero on a padlock.” I was reading from the script again.

“Yep, we found nothing.” Haley’s voice was even louder than James Earl Jones. “I guess we will just go home empty–handed.”

Acting clearly wasn’t her forte.

I turned off the lights, closed the door, and locked it.

We headed back to the car. As my hand touched my door handle to open it, Haley tapped on my shoulder.

She showed me her legal pad. “Where are the lima beans?”

Since I tend to block out all mention of lima beans, it took me a second to remember what she was talking about. All of those bags of lima beans that Molly had been experimenting on. I crooked my finger in the universal follow me gesture. I led her to the backyard.

The plastic tent and tree were missing. Whoever had taken it, had done a good job, but the ground where the tree had been was slightly higher than the surrounding ground.

“It was here, I swear.” I pointed to where the tree had been. It seemed like I’d been saying, “it was here, I swear” a lot today.

“Okay, whatever you say.” Haley turned her pad around. She’d written, “Don’t mention the pics you took.”

“Whoever is behind this is smarter than me.” I rolled my eyes. “I give up.”

I didn’t think that would deter them, but hey, it was worth a shot.

“Me too. I’m tired of wasting my time.” Haley grinned very proud of herself for going off script. She wrote. “I’m getting into this.”

She did sound less like a robot.

“Let’s get out of here.” I walked toward the backyard gate. “Hold up. Let me make sure I locked the back door.”

I trotted up the steps to the back porch and checked the door. It was locked.

I tripped over the corner of the black welcome mat and stubbed my toe. “Damn, that hurts.”

I reached down to massage my toe.

Sunlight reflected off the back window and hit something metallic on the wood slats of the porch. I leaned over. It was a silver and shiny. I got down on my knees and snapped my fingers to get Haley’s attention. She ran up the steps.

“Crap. I think I left my flashlight inside.” I heaved an I’m–so–stupid–but–what–can–I–do sigh and pointed down. “I just stubbed my toe. Can you go find my flashlight for me?”

I handed her the keys and scribbled, “find me a hammer” on my legal pad and showed it to her.

She nodded and took the keys. “Be right back.”

The shiny, silver thing that had drawn me down on my knees was a nail. A brand new nail. I pulled the welcome mat back and glanced around. All of the other nails were age appropriate to the century–old farmhouse. This could have just been a loose board that Molly had nailed down, but my gut was telling me otherwise. This house was pier and beam, not concrete slab like houses were now. If I were going to hide something, this would be an excellent place.

I tried to yank the board up, but it didn’t budge.

“Here it is.” Haley handed me the hammer.

“Thanks.” I took the hammer. “Do you have a Band–Aid? My toe is bleeding.”