The Graves of the Guilty (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 3) (25 page)

“Come on, Angela.” Cooper didn’t like the defeat in her friend’s voice. “What will happen if you don’t listen to Mrs. Farmer? She’s never been involved in the daily operations of this office before.”

“Well, she’s interested
now
! And if I make one
false move, she’ll have a reason to convince Mr. Farmer that I’m not worth my weight in salt. I’ll be out of a job. After that, she’ll make sure I lose my man, too!”

Cooper grabbed Angela’s hand as she reached for the telephone receiver. “Don’t let this woman hold such power over you!” Without asking for permission, Cooper opened Angela’s top desk drawer, knowing that her appearance-conscious friend kept a variety of beauty products there, and held up a small mirror. “Is this the face of someone who can be intimidated? The face of a woman who meekly agrees to be glued to a chair for five hours straight? Or is willing to surrender without a fight?” Pushing the mirror into Angela’s hand, she selected one of three lipsticks from the drawer. “For goodness sake, Angela. Your lipstick has completely worn off! I haven’t seen your bare lips since I started this job!”

This realization seemed to shock Angela into action. She snatched the cotton-candy gloss from Cooper, deftly applied it to her lips, and slammed the mirror back into the drawer. “Thank you, my friend! I needed someone to slap me on the cheek and you cared enough to do just that.
Two
hours with naked lips! What’s next? No nail polish? No perfume? No trips to the restroom to powder my nose?” She exhaled slowly and then punched a few buttons on the telephone.

“I believe you’ve earned a break,” Cooper said.

Angela smiled broadly. “Yes, indeed. I see a nice, sit-down lunch in my crystal ball, charged to the Make It Work! expense account. After that, I’m going to march into Mr. Farmer’s office and demand an assistant. If he backpedals, he’ll be all alone tonight! I have my own kind of power!”

After a lunch hour that stretched well beyond its sixty-minute limit, Angela reapplied her makeup, brushed and sprayed her hair, and doused herself with magnolia-scented perfume. “It’s show time!” she trilled and walked into Mr. Farmer’s office without knocking.

Pleased to see Angela regaining control of her life, Cooper and her team headed to her next appointment. As they drove out of the garage, she suddenly stopped mid-sentence during her conversation with Bobby.

“You okay?” Bobby asked.

Cooper nodded and then pointed at the figure alighting from a black Mercedes. It was Mrs. Farmer. “I’m fine, but I think there’s about to be a gladiator match in Mr. Farmer’s office.”

“Between that lady and someone in our office?” Josh wanted to know.

“Yes. Angela,” said Cooper.

“Then my money’s on Angela,” Bobby said loyally, and once again Cooper was so glad that she’d hired him.

She observed Mrs. Farmer’s determined march into the Make It Work! building. “We’d better pick up some roses on our way back.”

“What for?” Josh asked in confusion.

“That’s what the Roman spectators would have thrown into the arena. It was their way of rewarding the winning gladiator,” Cooper replied with a grin. “I believe red will do quite nicely.”

• • •

Cooper had asked Nathan to meet her at her apartment after work so they could open Maria’s mysterious box together. She felt a twinge of guilt for not having informed him that Maria was probably in a different country already and that they were now responsible for the box’s contents. As she drove home, Cooper felt hopeful that she and Nathan would discover enough proof to put Ivan away until he was stooped with age.

After turning off the narrow country road onto the gravel driveway leading to her parents’ house, Cooper was surprised to see Nathan’s old pea-green BMW parked in front of the garage. He didn’t have a key to her apartment, so unless he was waiting in the car, he must have felt comfortable enough with her family to seek shelter from the winter afternoon’s bite inside the Lee house.

As usual, the kitchen was filled with delicious aromas. A saucepan gurgled on the stovetop, releasing the scent of simmering tomatoes, garlic, and basil. The comforting smell of baking bread leaked out of the oven and Cooper inhaled deeply. She smiled at her mother, who was washing lettuce in the sink.

“Did you make your Key lime cookies today?”

“I sure did! What a nose you’ve got on you, my girl. I was just bagging a few for you and Nathan to have for dessert.” Maggie beamed at Nathan, who was sitting at the kitchen table cradling a mug of tea in his hands. “Now, my darlin’. I hope you have some food to feed this boy. If not, I’ve got plenty of spaghetti to share.”

“We’re having pasta, too, Mama. It’ll never be as good as yours, but I am using homemade pasta sauce. Homemade by the organic grocery store, that is.”

Maggie smiled, her cheeks flushing pink as she removed the lid from the pot on the stove and gave the sauce a perfunctory stir. “Do you need bread? Salad? Grated cheese?”

Earl walked into the kitchen and, after greeting Cooper, slipped an arm around his wife. “Stop giving our food away, Magnolia. Our daughter knows how to fix supper on her own. You know Grammy and I don’t want to share our meatballs or garlic bread.”

“Earl!” Maggie chided and slapped her husband with a potholder. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, squeezing her soft waist with his strong, weathered hands. Maggie’s cheeks turned a shade redder.

Cooper cleared her throat. “We’ll see you later. I need to start cooking and Nathan and I have some detective work to do, too.”

Nathan rose and accepted a bag of cookies from Maggie, who had detached herself from her husband’s embrace and was holding him at bay with a pair of tongs.

“Thanks again, Mr. and Mrs. Lee.” Nathan smiled.

“Please! It’s Maggie and Earl!” Cooper’s mother waved her wooden spoon at Nathan. “Go on, you two. I know you’re itchin’ to have some time alone together.”

“Are they talking about us or themselves?” Nathan whispered as he closed the back door and he and Cooper trotted up the short flight of stairs to the apartment.

Cooper unlocked her door. “They’ve always been like that. I was embarrassed by their displays of affection when I was growing up, but now I realize how lucky I was to have such openly loving parents. In these days of so many divorces, it’s nice to know that it really
is
possible to live happily ever after.” Moses and Miriam rushed the door, nearly tripping Cooper and Nathan as they cried for attention and dinner, winding around both pairs of human feet. Cooper obliged the kittens immediately by popping open a can of cat food.

“Let me get supper started before we deal with that!” She pointed at the box under her kitchen table and then removed her coat. “I want to be able to concentrate on the contents without my stomach rumbling.”

“Why is it under there?” Nathan asked. “Were you worried someone might try to steal it?”

Cooper laughed. “No! I couldn’t stop thinking about what might be inside last night and I figured ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Now I know exactly how Pandora felt.”

“I bet.” Nathan eyed the box intently, and his hands were already reaching for it. Fortunately, Miriam saw him squatting on the floor and interpreted his posture as an invitation to play. She launched herself at his feet, toying with his shoelaces. Moses gulped down the last bite of cat food and then leaped over his sister in order to scale Nathan’s chest.

“Ow!” Nathan chuckled and gently removed Moses’s claws from his shirt. “You wanna play rough, eh?” He turned the kittens over and, snatching his scarf from where he’d draped it over one of the chairs, began to dangle it above their eager paws.

Cooper switched on her CD player and hummed along to the songs of
Abbey Road
as she rolled meatballs and set them on a lined cookie sheet. Once the meatballs were in the oven, she put water on the stove to boil and began to slice the loaf of Italian bread she’d picked up on the way home. Soon, the tiny kitchen was redolent with the same warmth and comforting smells as her mother’s. Cooper placed her hands flat on the countertop and spent a moment simply enjoying a feeling of absolute contentment.

However, both she and Nathan rushed through the tasty meal, eating quickly and talking in spurts. Cooper drank her red wine too fast and felt rather light-headed by the time she’d finished her bowl of linguine.

“So much for a relaxing supper,” she said sarcastically.

Nathan grinned. “That box is an elephant in the room.”

“Let’s just dump our plates in the sink and open the thing already.”

Nathan leapt up and removed her bowl before she had the chance to move. “I love the Woman of Action side of you. I’ll clear this table like Flash Gordon. You get the box and a pair of scissors.”

A few minutes later, the open blade of Cooper’s kitchen shears hovered over the taped box flaps. Her hand was trembling with excitement and no small measure of trepidation. Nathan moved closer to her. The feel of his warm breath on the back of her neck was a momentary distraction, but she lowered the scissors point and severed the clear packing tape with a swift, definitive sweep.

Nathan peeled back the flaps and Cooper reached inside. She freed a file folder containing a few sheaves of oddly shaped rectangular papers. The folder was labeled
Special Titles
followed by a small mark.

If Cooper had expected to discover a pile of emails from Ivan to Hector containing precise instructions on how to forge documents or conduct illegal drug transactions, she was sorely disappointed. Flipping through the seemingly harmless Department of Motor Vehicle documents, she handed the top four vehicle titles to Nathan.

“What am I not seeing here?” she demanded crossly. “Where’s the incriminating videotape? The photographs? Letters? Anything but these car titles!”

“I’m sure if we examine them carefully something will become clear.” Nathan slid into a chair without looking up from the piece of paper in his hand.

Cooper grabbed Maggie’s Key lime cookies from the counter, placed them on a napkin in the center of the table, and began to pore over the first title on her pile. Absently, she reached for a cookie. She bit into the crisp buttery crust covered in powdered sugar and sighed as a burst of soft, sweet lime and smooth white chocolate chips coated her tongue.

“These cars were purchased from Love Motors. Nothing interesting about that.” She rifled through the more than half dozen titles in the folder and then fell silent, trying to think things through. She stuck her hand out toward the cookie plate and her fingers brushed Nathan’s. Looking up, the couple smiled at each other and then resumed their scrutiny of the various titles.

“The cars are all General Motors make, but they’re different brands,” Nathan pointed out. “I have a Cadillac, a Suburban, a Saab sedan, and a Pontiac G8 here.”

Cooper read off the cars listed on her titles. “My pile has a Hummer, a Corvette, a Dodge Ram, a Buick, a GMC SUV, and a Cadillac.” She took a sip of wine and grimaced. Red wine and lime cookies were not a good mix. “These aren’t inexpensive cars. I wonder if that’s relevant. Two of them have liens but the others were bought outright.” She whistled, trying to imagine what it would be like to have enough money in the bank to be able to drive a forty-thousand-dollar car off the lot free and clear.

The recorded odometer readings indicated that the vehicles were new when purchased and, after comparing notes, Nathan and Cooper determined that they’d all been bought over the previous three months.

“Why did Maria keep these?” Cooper was exasperated. “If there’s a secret here, it’s not obvious to me unless the titles are fakes.”

Nathan rubbed his dimpled chin in thought. “Do you have your truck title around? We could compare them.”

Cooper brightened. “I do! It’s in a fireproof lockbox in my closet.” She raced into her bedroom, retrieved the lockbox, and popped it open. Tossing aside her birth certificate, a stock certificate she’d received as a gift for her eighteenth birthday, a charm bracelet she’d worn as a girl, and her high school diploma, she came across the title.

“Ha!” She grabbed the paper and returned to the kitchen. Nathan slid his chair next to hers and the twosome huddled over the pair of Commonwealth of Virginia titles. Three sides of each title had a gray-blue border with an elaborate design that reminded Cooper of lace and had been printed on paper covered by the words “Vehicle Record” in shades of blue and beige. Cooper held the titles up to the light, revealing matching watermarks of the state seal. The light also illuminated only the blue letters and some nearly invisible barcodes. Returning the titles to the table, Cooper and Nathan matched up the information listed on each title line-by-line.

“Maria’s looks legit to me,” Cooper murmured, pushing the papers away in frustration. “How can a bunch of car titles help the police close two unsolved murder cases? Unless the people who bought these cars are criminals, the cops will laugh in my face if I bring them this file.” She recalled McNamara’s last warning. “Actually, they won’t laugh. I could end up in a heap of trouble. I can’t call them until I have solid proof.”

“Wish we had a friend at the DMV,” Nathan said with a sigh. “They’d know if the titles were doctored.”

Cooper scrunched up her mouth and tried to imagine strutting into the DMV and asking a supervisor to examine Maria’s titles. They’d probably think she was a nutcase. Suddenly, an idea sprang into her head. She jumped up and squeezed Nathan’s shoulder.

“I may not have friends in the DMV, but I did make a new friend shortly before Miguel was killed.” She kissed Nathan on the cheek and then began to dig through the hamper she used as a recycling bin. Flipping through last Saturday’s paper, which was stained by droplets of Dr Pepper and Whiskas Ocean Whitefish, Cooper found what she was searching for.

“Ever been to an auto auction before?” she asked her confused boyfriend. When he shook his head, she placed the paper in front of him and pointed at the advertisement for River City Auto Auction. “Well, I’m going to one this weekend. Take note of this face.” She tapped on the photo of a middle-aged woman smiling proudly as she gestured at a row of cars. Several grinning men flanked her, but the sheer happiness of the woman’s expression drew the eye right to her.