Upstate Uproar (27 page)

“I didn’t see them around anywhere.” Wendy
took a sip of coffee. “In Kate’s dream, Mary Beth’s muscles froze
up. What would cause that? Could Brandon have given her poison or
something?”

Vivian tapped the closed file. “Good
question. I don’t know enough about poisons to know what would
cause that. Know anyone we could ask?”

“Who’s been poisoned?” Lucy asked as she
stepped into the room. “I thought I’d come find out what was on tap
for the day.”

“Good morning there, little Miss ‘Found
Yourself a New Bed,’ ” Vivian said. “Don’t you have a nice pink
glow in your cheeks. Been sexercising?”

“Yeah, where is good ol’ Pierre?” Wendy
asked. “Did he need a rest?”

“Oh, stop,” Lucy joked, bouncing up and down
on the bed. “Do I really have a glow?”

“Heck, yeah, you do. Orgasms take years off
your face,” Vivian said. “I think they help with blood pressure,
too.”

“Hmmm,” Lucy said, keeping her bouncing pace.
“So what are y’all doing?”

Vivian picked up the next file on the pile,
Jeremy Donaldson. “We’re looking through these to find a killer, of
course! But soon we’ll be heading to town to replace our swimming
cellphones.”

“We also need to go talk to Mary Beth’s
friend, Suzy Fairlie, at the fish store,” Wendy reminded.

Lucy peeked over at Jeremy’s file. “I can see
his issue with Mary Beth, unrequited love and all that, but what
ties does he have to Rebecca?”

Vivian skimmed the file, not finding any
relevant information other than what Nicole had told them the day
before. “None that I can see other than their mutual husband.”

Wendy dived into Brandon’s file. She held up
a newspaper article of Rebecca’s death and a yellow Sticky Note.
“This reads, ‘Brandon = suspect?’ ” She picked up another piece of
paper.

“Grandpa’s notes say that after Rebecca died,
he talked to people in the diner, men in the barbershop, even spoke
to Amanda, Mary Beth’s cousin who owns the You Name It store.
Everyone thought Brandon had something to do with Rebecca’s
disappearance, and people in town also started wondering about Mary
Beth’s death, was it really an accident? That before Rebecca’s
death, everyone felt sorry for Brandon about losing his wife, but
after he married the second so quickly and then she disappeared not
too long after, folks thought he was involved in both situations.
Grandpa agreed.”

Kate walked into the room rubbing her eyes.
“Everybody thinks he’s in this up to his eyeballs.”

Vivian gave her a smile. “Mornin’, sunshine.
How you feeling?”

Kate smiled. “I’m good. Had a little
breakfast and a nap. I need to call Shaun. I think I should check
in more often after last night. He was pretty freaked out.”

“You want to borrow the B&B phone to call
the rental car company and arrange to get another car?” Vivian
asked. “Then we can ride into town and get new phones.”

“I’m already on it,” Kate replied. “The new
rental should be here in 30 minutes.”

Lucy looked at the files lying around the
room and in the briefcase. “Let’s each take a file and go through
these while we wait. Then we’re going to need to put these back
into the briefcase and clean this place up. It looks like a tornado
hit it.”

Vivian scooped up the folders and paper on
the bed, dresser and floor. It looked like her office at work,
paper everywhere. She double-checked Jeremy’s file in case she
missed anything, but she hadn’t. She set it aside, then picked up
Tracy’s purple folder.

It didn’t take long to read the contents, as
the only thing inside was a fluorescent green Sticky with a single
question mark. She showed the girls. “What the heck?”

Kate looked from Vivian’s face to the big
black question mark. “I guess Nicole has questions about Tracy. Or
maybe she wants to ask her questions.”

“Maybe Nicole thinks Tracy is next?” Wendy
said.

Goosebumps broke out on Vivian’s arms. “He is
kind of an asshole to her.” She shivered and set down the file and
looked over Wendy’s shoulder. “Anything interesting in April’s
file?”

“That Grandpa was a sly old guy,” Wendy said.
“He started keeping tabs on April as soon as news broke about the
school testing debacle. He was in the school for an interview when
April went off on Mary Beth and heard it all. The principal was
walking him to Mary Beth’s classroom when the shouting started.”
Wendy stopped for a sip of coffee and to turn the page.

“He said that on April’s last day, she went
across the hall to Mary Beth’s room and screamed at her. The
principal ran in and broke it up and told April to leave the campus
immediately. Grandpa peeked into April’s classroom and everything
was scattered all over the floor and the desks were knocked
over.”

“Hurricane April,” Kate said. “Does Grandpa
say what he overheard?”

Wendy nodded. “He quotes her. ‘You prim and
proper goody-two-shoes. You got me fucking fired. Like you never
changed a kid’s answer to help him pass? One day fate is gonna kick
you in the ass. Hard.’ ”

“That’s incriminating.” Vivian leaned against
the dresser. “Anything else?”

Wendy flipped through a few more pages. “He
followed her off and on for a couple of weeks. He suspects she
keyed Mary Beth’s car and threw a baseball through the principal’s
living room window.”

“That’s something,” Lucy said, gathering up
the pages on Otto, the town recluse. “People do the dumbest
things.”

Kate moved a file out of the way and sat in
the chair. “Any connection between April and Rebecca?”

Wendy thumbed through a few more pages, then
closed the folder. “Not that I see. She laid low. The last note
said she started working at the Olympic Ski Jumping Complex.”

Vivian put Tracy’s file on top of Jeremy’s
and Brandon’s in Nicole’s briefcase, then picked up the contents of
Coach Stubbs’ file. She scanned the few pages and smirked.

“Listen to this. The football coach was known
for being a little too friendly with some of the high school girls,
including Mary Beth. Brandon quit midseason after finding out that
the coach ‘accidentally’ bumped into Mary Beth so he could cop a
feel. He had done that to a couple other girls and insisted it was
accidental so nothing was done to him. Brandon didn’t buy it and
wouldn’t play for him anymore.”

“Not motive for murdering Mary Beth years
later,” Wendy said.

“Brandon was a key player, and they lost the
rest of the games that season,” Vivian said as she put the file
into the white box. “But no, not motive for murder. If anything,
you think he’d be after Brandon.”

Kate opened her file. “Then why would Grandpa
have him in the box of heavy hitters?”

Vivian looked out the window for the rent
car. “Maybe we’re missing some pages.” She bent down and looked
under the bed. She and Lucy had picked up all the loose sheets.
“What do you have in Otto’s file, Lucy?”

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed and opened
the folder. “For a recluse, he knew a lot about the goings-on
around town and evidently didn’t always stay so reclusive. Grandpa
used to see him sitting on a bench in Mid’s Park on Main Street
just watching people, so he’d join him and strike up a
conversation. Looks like Otto had heard a good deal of the gossip
about Brandon after Mary Beth’s death, and even more after Rebecca
disappeared. Some of the rumors were pretty far-fetched, like the
one that Rebecca was already married and her husband showed up and
took her home. Another was that she got amnesia and wandered off.
This one is crazy — that she ran off with a bassoon player from
Syracuse who was in town playing with the Sinfonietta in the
summer. And, of course, there’s always the aliens.” Lucy gave
Vivian a huge smile. “See, I’m not the only one who watches
The
X-Files.
”

Wendy looked at Lucy. “Where’s Pierre?”

“In our room on the computer. He said he had
to do payroll.”

Kate held up a piece of paper from a file on
the bed and waved it in the air. “Hey, guess who Mike Grimm is
dating?”

K
ate sat in the chair
in Vivian’s bedroom jostling a piece of yellow legal paper back and
forth. “Guess, go ahead,” she said to Vivian, Wendy and Lucy. “Take
a big, fat guess. Guess who Mike Grimm is dating.”

They looked at her.

“Uhhhm, Nicole?”

“No! April Robinson! The teacher Mary Beth
got fired.”

“Whoa,” Vivian said. “What if they’re in on
both murders together? Conspiring?”

Kate set the sheet back in the file. “I can
see why they’d want to murder Mary Beth, but Rebecca? If they
killed her, we’re missing the connection.”

“It all links to Brandon,” Wendy said.
“There’s no getting around it.”

“True,” Kate said. “I still think we should
look into April and Mike today, though. Let’s go see her at the
Olympic Ski Jump Complex, then pay Mike a visit at his studio.”

Vivian grabbed her jacket out of the closet.
“I wanted to go see Suzy Fairlie at the fish store, so let’s go
there before we visit April.”

A knock sounded at the door and Brandon
called, “Girls, Deputy Stokola is here to see you.”

The girls picked up the remaining files and
threw them into the briefcase, then tromped downstairs to find
Stokola in the living room chatting with Tracy, Brandon and Pierre.
The conversation stopped when the girls walked in. Stokola had dark
circles under her eyes but her uniform was clean and pressed.

“I brought all of the items that were in the
car.” She held up a clear plastic bag filled with the girls’
purses. A little water sloshed in the bottom. “I just left the
scene of the accident and thought I’d save you a trip to our
office.”

“Any updates on who ran us off the road?”
Lucy asked.

“We just had the car towed out of the lake
and will need to process it, look for paint chips, that kind of
thing.”

Tracy eyed the water in the bottom of the bag
and reached for it. “Do you want me to take this onto the front
porch?”

Stokola handed her the bag. “Sure. I need a
minute with them.”

Tracy shot Brandon a look, then grabbed the
bag from Stokola and headed for the porch. Brandon walked out the
back door.

Once they were out of earshot, Stokola turned
to Wendy and Kate. “I need to get statements from you since I
didn’t last night.” She pulled out a notepad and pen.

Vivian interrupted before the interview could
get underway. “If I’m not needed, I’d like to get the stuff out of
my purse. Get it drying out.”

Stokola nodded. “I just need these two.”

Vivian, Lucy and Pierre walked out on the
front porch and found Tracy pouring the water in the plastic bag on
her rose bushes. “I’ll grab you some towels, be right back.”

Vivian picked up her purse. “Let’s see what
the damage is.” She pulled scraps of paper, gum, car keys, makeup
and her wallet out of her orange leather purse. She uncapped her
favorite lipstick and poured water out of the tube. “A stop to a
drug store is in order, but I think my bag will be fine once the
lining dries.”

“I don’t think I’m as lucky,” Lucy said,
going through her once silver and gray, now greenish-brown,
leopard-print calf-hair Nancy Gonzales clutch.

Pierre nuzzled her neck and wrapped his arms
around her waist. “I’ll buy you a new one.”

Vivian looked at the bag, though it wasn’t
her taste, and she knew it was expensive. “Be careful there,
Pierre. She doesn’t do knockoffs.”

Lucy started to protest, but the sound of
cars approaching stopped her. “That must be our new rental.”

The cars pulled to a stop and a guy in a
white dress shirt and black tie got out of a navy Jeep Grand
Cherokee. “Hello. I’m looking for Kate Jameson.”

“I’ll get her,” Vivian said and then went
inside where Stokola was wrapping up. “The car’s here.”

Stokola shut her notebook and clicked her
pen. “I’m done for now. I’ll let you know if anything comes up or
if we have any further questions.” She headed for the door.

The girls went out front and Kate dealt with
the rental car. Tracy had brought them towels and extra purses of
hers for the girls to borrow. The selection was difficult as they
were all ugly. Two resembled shag carpeting, one was purple
corduroy, and the green leather on the third was so beat up, it was
surprising there were no holes.

The girls threw their credit cards, cash and
IDs into the ugly-ass purses and asked Tracy where to get new
cellphones. She gave directions to an all-carrier one-stop shop and
sent them off with a bag of cookies. They walked down the front
porch steps to a shiny, navy blue Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Kate signed the paperwork and climbed behind
the wheel. “I love that new car smell. This Jeep only has 1,400
miles on it.”

Navigator Wendy got in the front seat and
directed Kate into town and to the store that sold everything from
batteries and alarm clocks to makeup cellphones. They planned to
meet at the diner when each had a new phone in hand.

An hour later, Vivian set her new, hot-pink
smartphone on the counter beside Wendy and pulled up the map app.
“The fish store is on the way to the Olympic Ski Jump Complex.” She
looked at Wendy’s French toast and told the waiter, “I’ll have a
plate of that.”

“I didn’t have breakfast,” Wendy said as she
slathered her plate in maple syrup. “Their brunch menu is
kick-ass.” She stabbed a slice of strawberry and toast and hummed
as she ate it.

Vivian’s new phone rang and a picture of
Antonio with NOPD filled the screen. She picked up on the second
ring.

“I’ve got some news on Jake’s other
cellphone.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“My FBI contact was able to get the call
history and is tracing the numbers. There was a lot of call
activity and my guy’s doing this on his own time, so it could take
a while.”