Something About Sophie (7 page)

Who was Cliff Palmeroy? Why was he following her? Why was he photographing her? And if not him, who? What was he going to do with the pictures? Why was he killed? Who murdered him? What did it have to do with her?

At the moment, her involvement was simply a question mark. She had a solid alibi, witnesses to back her up, and a couple of fierce friends to defend her. There was nothing to worry about, yet—and that was
all
her dad could and would say if she told him. And he'd worried enough for one lifetime.

No, she decided, pushing away from the door, heading for the back of the house to join Jesse and her bottle of bourbon. Her parents raised her to be a strong, independent woman with common sense and convictions. Time to test them.

Chapter Six

S
aturday morning came at last. Not the dawn—she'd watched the sun come up a few hours earlier. But now it was bright enough to make the day official, and she rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed. Tossing and turning most of the night, her body was stiff, achy, and still tired. Plus, Jesse's bourbon had given her heartburn—an ailment so rare in her life she wasn't prepared with antacids, or even a piece of gum, so it triggered a midnight run to the kitchen for warm water and baking soda.
Yum.

The run she'd planned for that morning was postponed indefinitely. Oddly, it seemed
too
healthy in light of the murder just a few hours before. Yet, it should have been just the opposite: a run to
celebrate
good health and life. But closer to the truth of it . . . she was still spooked by the sneaky and illicit pictures taken of her by the victim or, at the very least, in his possession. She felt violated, as if she'd been robbed and the thief had rifled through her personal possessions looking for something worth stealing. It was disturbing and scary.

An unusually quiet Jesse served baked eggs with red peppers, Swiss chard, and goat cheese on wonderful heavy dark bread with fruit and coffee while Mike ate two small mixing bowls of Froot Loops. Despite having the same thing on their minds, they didn't have enough information to actually talk about it, so they ate in relative silence until Mike received his paper list of chores for the day.

He looked up after reading it, his face contorted in disgusted disbelief. “Take Kristy Barnes out for a coke? A
coke
? I wouldn't take her out for a glass of water if you paid me . . . and paid for the water . . . and for the dark room we'd have to sit in because looking at her makes me want to puke! Forget it.”

“But I thought you liked Kristy.”

“In first grade maybe. Before she got all stuck up and started hanging out with the so-called cool kids, who only like her because her step dad's the sheriff and . . . oh. The sheriff. You want me to pump her for information.”

“I called this morning and they wouldn't tell me anything—and it happened right up the street, practically in front of my house. I run a business here. I need to be able to tell my guests that they're in no danger, if they have someone in custody or if there's a crazed killer still running around town.” Mike's gaze slid sideways to meet Sophie's. She bobbled her head, ambivalent—she could go either way on this Kristy thing. “Not to mention my own peace of mind.”

“Yeah, well the sheriff isn't going to tell her anything important. She couldn't keep it to herself if she was the last person on earth.”

Jesse crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back in her chair. “All right. But if you hear anything while you're out with your friends, I want you to text me.”

“
That
I can do,” he said, pushing away from the table with his bowl.

She listened to him leave, then glanced up at Sophie, winced and narrowed her eyes, looked away and came right back with a frown. Sophie sighed inwardly. This couldn't be good.

“What?”

Jesse shook her head, bewildered. “I don't know. There's something about you—I don't know what. I feel like I've seen you before somewhere. Are you sure you aren't someone famous?”

“Ha. Positive. Another life maybe?”

She chuckled. “Possibly. I read somewhere that you meet the same people over and over but in different relationships—like Mike could have been my mother in another incarnation. He is a bossy know-it-all.” She thought about it. “But then, who could my actual bossy know-it-all mother have been last time?”

Sophie laughed. “If this is the sort of thing you think about before you've finished the breakfast dishes, does your day get more or less complicated as it goes on?”

“Depends on the day.” She stood and started gathering their dishes. “Someone gets murdered on my front porch, it can get pretty complicated.”

And if the victim was following you and had pictures of you on his camera?— Well, that would put a crimp in your day, as well, but she didn't say so out loud. Any death was a trauma; murder was a bone-deep shock. But the bloody slaughter of someone you actually knew had to be overwhelming.

Complicated was relative, she supposed.

She offered but Jesse wouldn't let her help with anything around the B&B. Instead, she handed her a brochure of local sights and events issued by the Chamber of Commerce.

Monticello, Ash Lawn-Highland, and Montpelier, the homes of Presidents Jefferson, Monroe, and Madison respectively, were all within an easy drive and well worth a visit—but, of course, she couldn't leave town. There was an entry point to the Skyline Drive through the Shenandoah National Park not too far off and Charlottesville had the university and a plethora of programs and festivals available to the public, not to mention Miller's—the infamous bar that gave birth to the Dave Matthews Band—but, again, she couldn't leave town.

Even so, all was not lost. Clearfield boasted a Confederate museum just off Main Street on Market, antiques stores, and
“many galleries that displayed local art and pottery”
according to the pamphlet. Plus, if she chose to turn a blind eye to the city limit signs and extend her confinement to those marking the county boundaries, there were two small area vineyards that offered tastings every other weekend from Memorial Day to Thanksgiving with special events during the Christmas season. It was an “other” Saturday, and she could certainly use a tasting—or eight.

While a nice long walk into town would unkink her sore muscles, she took her car to feel less exposed. Safer, too. Jeeps were, after all, originally military vehicles; and if worse came to worst, she wouldn't hesitate to use hers as a weapon, she decided, her attitude unusually fearsome for a kindergarten teacher as she settled into the driver's seat and fastened her seat belt.

Oh, yeah. Her roots may have sprouted from the clay and limestone of Virginia, but her heart was pure Ohio flint, she told herself.
Flint.

“Hi,” she said, pushing into the outer office of Lonny's Service and Tire after filling up her war machine. The scent of old coffee, auto grease, rubber, and car exhaust suggested tires and repair were the establishment's prime objective. The small selection of candy, soft drinks, and cigarettes suggested gas was solely a sideline. And the man behind the counter in the charcoal overalls, wiping his grimy-looking hands on a blue rag, was Lonny—his name tag said so. “Pretty day, huh?”

“Sure is,” he said, watching her with a wary eye. He was an older gentleman, well into his sixties, maybe more, but only his poorly cut white hair, bushy gray beard, and the deeply rutted lines in his face gave him away because he stood large, straight, and tall—his hands looked strong and hard working.

“I'm there at that second pump, $42.16.” She held her charge card out to him with a smile.

Granted, she could have gone to either the BP station or the Chevron down the street—but not only was Lonny's the closest, it also filled the criteria for her favorite civic crusade: shopping local whenever possible. After all, if she had to spend her hard-earned money, who's going to appreciate it more: the sixteenth-largest public company in the world or Lonny?

He took a few extra seconds reading the name on her card, and when he looked up with a new interest, she mirrored him and smiled again. Small towns were all the same—they made Twitter seem obsolete. Preemptively, she said, “I don't know anything, so don't ask.”

That surprised a good-natured chuckle out of him and his natural caution slipped away. “Well, you sure got some blood pumpin' in this old town, that's for sure and for certain. Folks ain't had this much to talk about since the Benson girl come back to life and burnt her people's house to the ground.”

“What. She was a zombie?”

“Nah.” He shook his head in a sympathetic manner, waiting for authorization on her card. “Went missing years ago, come back to care for her sister's young girl. And the fire were an accident lookin' to happen. Then it did and folks had even more to talk about. Tough little cookie, that one. Took the girl, our sheriff and his kids, and moved 'em all up to Baltimore for some peace and quiet.”

Sophie couldn't claim to be innocent of gossiping. Truth: she was as big a nosy parker as anyone in Marion. Being on the other end of the stick, however, was stirring great regret and fostering no less empathy for those she'd sinned against.

“So it turned out well for them.”

“Sure did.” He hesitated briefly, passing her the charge slip and a pen. “This will, too. You'll see.”

She smiled gratefully and bent to sign her name. Looking up, she caught a soft sorrow in his expression—which he quickly covered with a friendly grimace. “You remind me a bit of my baby girl 'cept she had my wife's blue eyes and she weren't near as tall as you. But she was a happy gal growin' up, and that smile-a-yours is a real sweet reminder.”

Had, were, reminder . . . “I'm sorry,” she said, sensing his sorrow.

“No need. I got plenty of good memories and just the few that are sad. I pick and choose the ones I conjure up.”

She liked his thinking. A lot. She sent him her appreciation through her expression and swallowed hard on the envy that filled her chest to aching. Would she have to have snowy white hair and deep furrows in her face before the pain of her own loss disconnected from her other memories, dwindled and let only the good ones shine through? She wanted to ask how long the process took, but judging from the grief she'd seen on his face, she suspected it was an ongoing thing that required a conscious effort.

She glanced over her shoulder and flashed him a quick wave as she began to recognize the repeating pattern in her life: the choice was hers.

T
he museum was . . . small. The main floor of an old cottage house, it was owned and maintained by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and filled with the usual displays of rifles and uniforms and war gear, but more interestingly the intimate letters, pictures, memoirs, and souvenirs of the soldiers and their families who once lived in the area. The curator—nearly a relic herself—was chatty and a fountain of fascinating facts and folktales. Sophie couldn't recall a nicer stroll through time.

Not that her walk ended at the museum. The antiques shops she eventually got to were accustomed to tourists, so the proprietors were likewise as lively and informational—and the artifacts equally as fascinating in a very dissimilar way, like
What the heck
IS
that thing
? Or,
Who took such loving care of this
or
who'd give
THIS
away
? Sometimes simply
wow
or
aww
. She'd always enjoyed a good store of fine junk. Today its diversion value was through the roof.

It was nearly two in the afternoon when—after slowly ambling the entire length of one side of a well-loaded store, crossing along the back wall and starting up the other side—she caught a flash of yellow peripherally and turned in time to see Drew McCarren's sister barreling down on her.

“I can't decide if it's a good thing or a bad thing that it never takes longer than fifteen minutes to track someone down in this town.”

“Me?”

“Today, yes.” She'd slipped her large sunglasses to the top of her head like a hair band for her shoulder-length pageboy—one of those really thick, really shiny dark bobs that curly-headed gingers tend to wish for as teenagers—revealing the upper half of her face to be as attractive as the lower half. Her bright smile sported a single dimple in her right cheek and her eyes were that curious shade of gray green that Sophie suspected might swing to blue during a shopping montage . . . but not in a bright yellow sundress. “I'm Ava McCarren. Drew sent me to entertain you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. And don't reject me,” she said, skillfully bending her elbow around Sophie's and falling effortlessly into the slow meander she'd interrupted—knowing full well she was an irresistible force and therefore unrejectable. “I have a sensitive ego and am easily wounded, you see, and since my brother so rarely finds the need to ask anything of me, I'm feeling particularly vulnerable because I adore my big brother and would do anything to please him. Not to mention my own profound curiosity about you . . . or the detailed report I'll be delivering to my mother before supper.

“Now, the delivery of information to mother is a daily ordeal at our house, to which an invitation has been extended to you for tomorrow evening, by the way—
to which
Drew stipulates (a) only if you're feeling up to it and (b) only if it doesn't count as his rain check.” She took a breath and held it, pretending to make sure she'd forgotten nothing and grinned at her. “So, you teach kindergarten. I loved kindergarten . . .”

Oh, yes. Ava was a tsunami that swept in and took over. And while Sophie seldom complained about making new friends, this one was particularly enjoyable in that she was breezy and light, funny and smart; a talker who listened, and best of all, she felt no desire to discuss the murder.

Instead she diverted Sophie with tales of her great escape from Clearfield to study art history at NYU and the never-ending challenge of convincing her parents that a true artist was not just
of
the world but also needed to be
in
the world. Or vice versa. Ava could never keep it straight. And so,
yada-yada,
she needed to travel to far-off lands, to see new things and people and places in order to feed her artistic spirit and round out her life experiences to fulfill her destiny . . . or teach at some high school, whichever came first.