Tote Bags and Toe Tags (21 page)

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Authors: Dorothy Howell

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“Is that a ... a—”
“A grill,” Ty announced. “It's the Turbo 2000 Mega Grill. This thing is all stainless steel, with ten burners, twelve hundred inches of grilling space, side burners, a warming oven with two settings, and the most BTUs of any grill on the market today.”
“It's a beast,” I said, and looked through my patio door. “Is that going to fit on my balcony?”
“I'll make it fit,” he told me, and waved away my concern.
I cringed. Oh my God, what was
that
supposed to mean?
“When you told me about Shuman and his girlfriend having a dinner party,” Ty went on, “I got the feeling you'd like to do the same. So I bought this grill today. What's better than a thick, juicy steak cooked to perfection over an open flame, shared by friends? So I figured we could have friends over and cook dinner for them.”
Visions of my mom flashed in my head—I hate it when that happens—but, oh my God, did Ty expect me to
cook
—at my
own
dinner party?
I gestured toward the Turbo 2000 Mega Grill and what looked like a couple billion parts surrounding it.
“Are you going to be able to get that thing put together?” I asked, and left
before the next decade
unspoken.
“Well, I don't do this kind of thing often,” Ty admitted.
“But I'll get it figured out. Hey, guess what else I bought today?”
Before I could hazard a guess—or even emotionally prepare myself—Ty took my hand and pulled me into the kitchen.
The cute little drop-leaf dining table I'd found at a vintage furniture store, haggled over the price and maxed out my Visa for, had been shoved into a corner. Next to it was a—oh, jeez, what was that thing?
“It's a freezer,” Ty announced. He opened the lid. “I filled it with steak—three different cuts.”
I peered into the freezer at what looked like—yikes!—approximately five hundred pounds of meat inside.
“And that's not all,” Ty said. “I bought lots of chops and roasts. And hot dogs—twelve packs. They were on sale.”
Twelve packs of hot dogs?
Frozen?
I mean, jeez, how bad could you need a hot dog?
“So we're ready to have friends over for dinner at a moment's notice,” Ty said, with a little nod of satisfaction.
“That's really ... something,” I managed to say.
Ty wrapped me in his arms and gave me a long hug. It felt nice, really nice. Then he leaned back and said, “You must be hungry. I'll fix you something to eat.”
Visions of something warm, oozing with cheese and mayo, drifted into my thoughts.
“While I was at the grocery store today buying the meat, I found a soup I know you'll like,” Ty said. “It will fit right in with your new eating plan. It's got barley, veggies, lots of whole grains.”
Eek!
“No, really, it's fine,” I said. “I'm not all that hungry.”
“It won't take a minute,” Ty insisted, pulling out a couple of cans from the cabinet.
“Are you planning to go back to work anytime soon?” I asked.
I said that in the nicest way imaginable—
considering.
“I hadn't even given it a thought,” Ty said. “By the way, I looked at that résumé you sent me. Dale appears to have a lot of potential. I'm going to meet with her, see if there's a place for her at Holt's.”
My distress over my apartment and the soup Ty was fixing for me vanished in a heartbeat. He really was trying hard to be a great boyfriend. He'd put a lot of time, money, and effort into doing things he thought would make me happy.
Marcie was right. If Ty had missed the mark on some of the things he'd done, it was my fault—well, partially my fault. Even if Ty had never asked what I wanted, the truth was that I had never told him.
Of course, Marcie—being really annoying, as only a BFF can be at times—had gone on to remind me that I seldom talked to Ty about some of the big things that were happening in my life.
Marcie was almost always right, so I decided to tell him something—something that didn't make me look bad, that is.
“Did I mention that Mom's housekeeper has disappeared?” I asked.
Ty grabbed a pot from the cabinet by the stove and looked back at me. “Juanita disappeared? What happened?”
I shrugged. “I don't know. She just didn't show up for work one day. I called her several times, I went by her house, I checked with the hospitals, the police, and the morgue. Nothing.”
“She didn't have vacation scheduled and your mom forgot?” Ty asked.
Ty had met my mom. He knew how she was, so this was a reasonable question.
“Mom had a dinner party scheduled,” I said. “No way would she let Juanita have vacation if she was expecting guests.”
“So what happened before?” Ty asked, popping the top of the soup can and pouring the soup into the pot.
“Before what?” I asked.
Jeez, what was that smell?
“Before Juanita left,” Ty said. “Things like this don't happen for no reason. People get hurt, they get angry, they get scared. Something triggered her disappearance.”
My mind shifted gears to the day the nurse in the emergency room called and told me Ty had been in an accident near Palmdale. What had triggered
that
event? He'd never really told me—because I'd never really asked—why he was headed there in the first place.
“That reminds me,” I said. “Did you ever make it to Palmdale?”
Ty stopped stirring the soup. He didn't turn to face me.
“No,” he said.
“What were you doing up there?” I asked, and managed to make it sound light.
“Business.” Ty stole a quick glance at me, then turned back to the soup. “Just business. Thinking about opening a store up there.”
Okay, so maybe I didn't tell Ty everything that was on my mind. Maybe I didn't mention my deepest, darkest secrets, all my screw-ups or problems. Maybe that was one of the aspects of our relationship I needed to work on.
But I knew Ty well enough to know when he was holding back, not telling the complete truth.
And that could only mean that he'd just lied to me.
C
HAPTER
21
W
hat were friends for if not to use for your own personal gain? I mean, really, wasn't that what relationships were all about?
I figured they were, as I settled into my office the next morning. With practiced ease, I ignored the work I was actually being paid to do, pulled out my cell, and called Marcie. She answered right away.
“Are you up for booking a couple of purse parties next month?” Marcie asked, after we'd exchanged morning pleasantries.
Marcie and I had been giving purse parties for months now, selling knockoff bags to deserving women who couldn't afford the real thing. We'd made tons of money, which had really helped me through my financial lean times. Plus, the parties were super fun and we both really loved hosting them.
Since that whole background-investigation thing was still hanging over me, along with the possibility of losing my job—unless a miracle happened, of course—I figured that keeping the purse parties going was definitely the way to go.
“Sure,” I said. “Set up as many as you can. I'm in.”
Marcie was employed at a huge bank just a couple of blocks from here. She'd worked there for years, moving through many different departments, so she knew almost everybody in the building. This, of course, benefited our business because she knew tons of women who liked attending purse parties—and today it benefited me personally because I had a favor to ask.
“Are you still working in the mortgage department?” I asked.
“That was two months ago,” Marcie said, then paused, and gasped, “Are you and Ty buying a house?”
She sounded really excited and I hated to burst her bubble, but I couldn't help it.
“No, nothing like that,” I said.
I had a feeling Marcie was about to ask me how things were going with Ty and me—we're BFFs so we just know these things about each other, even when our conversation was bouncing off a couple of satellites orbiting the planet—but I wanted to avoid the topic of my so-called relationship.
I knew I should tell her about my conversation with Ty last night, and how I got the icky feeling he'd lied to me about his reasons for going to Palmdale, but I just couldn't do it. Not now, anyway.
A conversation of that magnitude demanded lots of time, beer, and chocolate.
“Do you still know someone in the mortgage department who could do you a favor?” I asked.
“What do you need?” she asked.
“I need one of those reports,” I said. “You know, the one from the title company that tells who owns a piece of property, who's on the deed, who has liens or judgments or mortgages”
“You mean a title search?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Remember? You told me about it that night at that place when you had on that teal dress, and you were telling me about that jerk-face guy who worked at the title company that asked you out and he was really married.”
“Oh, yeah.
Him,”
Marcie grumbled. She was quiet for a moment, then said. “Do I want to know why you're doing this?”
“Not really,” I said.
At this point, my suspicion that Max Corwin had two families—and, thus, an excellent motive to murder Violet Hamilton—was just that, suspicion. I didn't see where telling Marcie about it would do any good. But I couldn't take it to Detective Shuman without some sort of evidence.
“Yeah, I can get that for you,” Marcie said. “Just send me the property info you want checked.”
For a minute, I thought she might ask me to have lunch with her, but I didn't want to think about it. Today was antioxidant and ancient grain day, according to Ty when he'd presented me with the lunch he'd packed for me this morning. I'd smiled and thanked him, and I really did appreciate his thoughtfulness and the effort he'd put into it, but
yuck
.
Marcie and I hung up and I texted her the two addresses I'd found for Max. Of course, if the info from the title company showed that he was on the deeds of both homes, it could just mean that he owned two houses. Maybe he lived in one and the other was a rental unit or something.
But I'd been to both places. I'd seen those wooden signs hanging by the front doors listing the names of the family members, with Max's name featured prominently at the tops of both, above what I assumed was a wife's name and a bunch of children's names.
Detective Shuman had told me that Max had fallen under suspicion because he'd changed jobs often in the past few years. If it were true that Max had two families, switching employment made sense. Sooner or later, something would happen at the office that would require the wife and kids to show up—a company picnic, an award ceremony, the annual Christmas party. It probably would require an impressive juggling act on Max's part to remember the right names and show up with the correct wife and children. Much easier to just change jobs.
So that put Max at the top of my personal he-probably-did-it suspect list.
I mean, jeez, if Max really was married to two women and had two sets of children, and everybody found out about it, he could lose a whole heck of a lot more than his job.
I glanced at my watch and saw that I'd managed to get through a big chunk of the morning without doing any actual work, but I saw no reason to launch myself into a frenzy to get something accomplished. I'd already booked the upcoming luncheons and ordered items for this week's birthday club—I'd upgraded the celebrations by adding an iTunes gift card, courtesy of the Dempsey Rowland corporate credit card—and I still had Violet's memorial service to finish up. But nothing pressing needed my immediate attention, which meant that I could—
Hang on a second.
Yikes! Mr. Dempsey's retirement party.
I slumped down in my chair. Good grief. I had to find out what was going on with that thing.
I stared at the common wall between my office and Constance's office next door. Adela had told me that Constance had been working on the retirement party for months, so she probably had everything done.
But what if Constance was one of those employees who claimed they did their work but actually put it off to the last minute—can you imagine? What if she really hadn't done much of anything yet? I'd be the one looking like a total idiot—not her.
There was only one way to find out for sure.
I had to get my hands on the info in Constance's office. But it was still sealed off by the LAPD, and since Detective Madison knew I wanted to get inside, I knew he would keep it sealed just to make my life harder.
Maybe I could ask Detective Shuman. Maybe he would let me inside just so I could get the retirement party info.
I mean, what harm could it do? It wouldn't take long and, really, how could there be any actual evidence of Violet's murder left in there? Both of the detectives and the crime scene investigators had been all over it. Surely they'd found everything of importance.
Shuman floated through my mind, along with the image of that special smile I'd seen him use when he looked at his girlfriend, or talked about her, or thought about her.
Nice.
Then Ty popped into my head. I was sure I'd seen him give me that special kind of smile at some point in our relationship, but I wasn't quite up to searching my brain to pinpoint the exact time, location, and occasion at the moment. Instead, I thought about what he'd said about Juanita and how
something
must have happened that caused her disappearance.
Ty's really smart like that.
Then my brain hopped to another topic—that just happens sometimes—and I thought about Violet's murder.
Something
had happened before her death, something that caused her killer to take action. So far, I'd discovered nothing that would indicate what that might be.
I needed to find out.
 
I made it through the gauntlet of sneers, frowns, and dirty looks from the gals in the Support Unit and found Iris at her desk in the payroll department. She'd been really helpful when I'd spoken with her before, so I hoped she didn't regret her loose lips and wouldn't clam up on me this time.
“Hi, Iris,” I said, giving her my I'm-a-nice-person smile.
I don't find a need to use that one very often.
She looked up from her desk, glanced around—checking to see if her supervisor was watching, probably, a standard move for anyone employed in an office setting—then gave me her I'm-a-nice-person smile in return.
I think she uses hers more often.
And really means it.
“Got a minute?” I asked, then stepped into her cubicle and sat down before she could answer.
Iris held up a stack of papers. “Well, actually, I have to get this report finished.”
“This won't take long,” I told her.
I leaned toward her a little, assuming the classic here-comes-the-gossip stance, and lowered my voice. “I heard something and I wanted you to be the first to know.”
Iris leaned in a little, responding with the time honored let's-talk-smack position.
“I got in touch with Violet's granddaughter, Dale,” I said, then paused a few seconds to let the drama build. “She says there was absolutely no problem between the two of them.”
Iris looked confused. “Not even after Dale didn't come to work here, as Violet had wanted?”
I leaned in a little closer. “Turns out Dale wanted to work here, but the company wouldn't hire her.”
Iris's eyes narrowed and she rocked back in her chair.
“I guess I should have expected that,” she murmured. Then her mood lightened again. “Well, I'm relieved there were no hard feelings between Violet and Dale. She loved that girl so much.”
My let's-talk expression morphed into my I'm-confused expression with practiced ease.
“When I spoke with you before, you mentioned that Violet had been very upset in the months leading up to her murder,” I said. “So if everything was fine between her and Dale, what was she so troubled about? Do you have any idea?”
Iris frowned. Obviously, I'd stumped her with my question.
I didn't have time to wait around for her to come up with an answer, so what could I do but suggest one of my own?
“Did it have something to do with Ruth?” I asked.
Yeah, okay, I knew Iris had said absolutely nothing about Ruth in our previous conversation, and I'd found no evidence whatsoever of a problem between the two of them. Still, Ruth had been so dreadful to me I just thought it would be nice if I could somehow incriminate her in the whole murder thing.
It was worth a try.
Iris lurched toward me and whispered, “Violet and Ruth never got along. Ruth was—and still is—very possessive of Mr. Dempsey. Always making excuses for him and covering for him. But Violet had known him from the very inception of the company. She resented Ruth sticking her nose in where it didn't belong, and running interference for him.”
Oh, wow. This was good stuff, really good stuff. Maybe Ruth actually had murdered Violet.
This was working out better than I'd hoped.
I ran with it.
“Did something happen between Violet and Ruth just before Violet's death?” I asked. “An argument, or a confrontation, maybe?”
Iris gasped and her eyes flew open. Her body went stiff. For a couple of seconds—eek!—I thought maybe she was having a stroke.
“Oh, my goodness,” Iris exclaimed. She gulped in a couple of deep breaths and said, “I—I didn't even think about it, but the day before Violet's body was discovered, I saw her in the hallway.”
“Did she tell you something?” I asked.
I had to keep her talking in case she really did have a stroke.
I mean that in the nicest way, of course.
Iris shook her head and her eyes got a glazed look, like she was remembering something—or maybe she really was having a stroke.
“I saw Violet in the hallway that day. I was headed over to H.R. Violet looked furious. Absolutely furious,” Iris said. “In fact, she looked so mad I was afraid to approach her. You know how it is when you're friends with somebody for a long time. You just know when they need to talk and when they need to be left alone.”
I understood completely. That's the way it was with Marcie and me.
“So did you talk to her later?” I asked.
“No, I didn't. I was planning to ask her out for lunch the next day and find out what was going on,” Iris said. “But, of course ... she was found dead that morning.”
Iris fell silent, and I couldn't think of anything to say.

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