Death Under Glass Page 4

  “For now?” Carrie asked in a voice made even smaller from being blocked by a teacup.

  At last, he forced a tight, polite smile. He presented Carrie with a business card he pulled from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “Call me if you think of anything about Russ that might be useful.”

  After one last slug of coffee, he set the mug down. He took one step away from the table before turning back. His expression opened from stern, professional police detective to warm, concerned gentleman. “How’s your grandfather?” he asked.

  His question caught me by surprise, and I mentally scrambled for an answer. “I, um, he’s good. He’s good,” I stammered. “Why do you ask?”

  “I wondered if he was . . .” He paused, searched the ceiling for the right word. “Unwell. And that his health was what was keeping you in Wenwood.”

  I shook my head. “No, Grandy’s fine. Same old stubborn teddy bear.”

  Detective Nolan stood motionless, as though waiting for more, as though expecting me to give him the reason I remained in Wenwood. But that was something I had yet to fully discover myself, much less voice.

  He sighed slightly. “Glad to hear it,” he said then turned to Carrie. “If I have any more questions, I’ll let you know.”

  Without further hesitation, he strode out of the coffee shop.

  While the waitress hovered beside the table I pushed aside the stray thoughts the detective’s unspoken question had awoken, the why I stayed and if I would leave and what’s next either way. Those thoughts only ever led me in circles.

  Carrie practically dropped her cup into its saucer. “What does that mean, if he has any more questions?”

  “What can I get you?” the waitress prompted.

  “I . . . ugh.” I held up a “one-minute” finger to Carrie and ordered up an egg and onion omelet and handed back the menu I never opened. When I’m in the mood for eggs, the variety of options present in a menu serves only to confuse.

  The waitress swept up the remaining menus and left us alone.

  I took a quick sip of coffee before addressing Carrie. “I think it just means he might think of more questions. I don’t think there’s anything sinister there.”

  She sighed and sank against the vinyl cushioned backrest. “You warned me to stay calm and I blew it.”

  “You didn’t blow it.” Firmly shutting away thoughts of my own life issues, I softened my posture, smiled a little. “Probably if you didn’t get a little cranky talking about your ex, that would be suspicious.”

  She let out a reluctant half laugh. “I almost lost it when he asked if Russ had any enemies. I’d be shocked if Russ hadn’t cheated on some other woman who could give me a run for number one enemy by now.”

  That little wisp of worry stirred once more, but I mentally stomped it down. Carrie may wish Russ hives in uncomfortable and embarrassing places, but she wouldn’t actually put itching powder in anyone’s shorts. I knew that, and I was certain Detective Nolan knew that, too.

  Mostly certain.

  Hopeful.

  I swallowed down the last of my delicious coffee and looked around for the waitress. It was then, as I turned full around in my seat, that I noticed traffic moving along the main drag and pedestrians strolling by the coffee shop’s plate glass window. Business had resumed in downtown Newbridge.

  “Funny thing is,” Carrie said, sitting up again and leaning into the table, “Russ is a pain in the ass, but I really don’t think he does have any enemies. He’s not the type. He’s more the laid-back, everyone-loves-him type.”

  Catching the eye of the waitress, I lifted my coffee cup into view—a silent request for a refill. “Maybe he’s changed since you guys split. Maybe his latest conquest has a jealous ex who’s a bodybuilder or a boxer.”

  “Or an arsonist.”

  I grinned. “And Russ is in hiding from this guy because he’s afraid to have his nose broken. Or his knees.”

  Carrie chuckled. “That’s it exactly. He’s hiding out in his brother’s hunting cabin, hoping—” Her jaw dropped and her eyes popped wide. “The hunting cabin. I should have told Detective Nolan about the hunting cabin.” She huffed and put a hand to her forehead. “Russ is probably there.”

  An older woman holding the hand of a smiling little girl pushed open the entrance door and cheerfully announced, “Here we are. Waffle time.”

  The waitress greeted them like old friends, all the while sliding my omelet onto the table and holding a carafe of coffee. She refilled my mug and checked if Carrie wanted to order anything more.

  “Why don’t you have another cup of tea?” I suggested.

  Carrie agreed and I waited until the waitress walked off before resuming our conversation.

  “Isn’t hunting usually done in cold weather?” I asked, laying a napkin across my lap. “I don’t remember ever seeing advertisements for hunting shorts or tank tops.”

  “In summer they fish.” She rolled her eyes and huffed again. “I should call Detective Nolan and tell him. Is his cell number on here?” She picked up the card he’d left. “Maybe I can get him back here before he’s gone too far.”

  I shoveled a forkful of eggs into my mouth and threw good etiquette to the wind by speaking with my mouth full. Anything to avoid more contact with the good detective until I understood why I had become so fascinated with the confidence of his stance or the forthrightness of his gaze. “You don’t know for sure Russ is at the cabin,” I said. “I don’t think there’s any need to rush to talk to the detective. Besides, you shouldn’t tempt him to take a cell call while he’s driving.” Yes, I was babbling. I would have said anything to stop Carrie calling and convincing him it would be a good idea to change direction and return to the coffee shop.

  “No, you’re right.” Carrie considered this while the waitress delivered a fresh cup of tea and went through the usual “How is everything?” Once I’d assured her the eggs were fine and she sauntered off, Carrie continued. “I bet his staff knows if Russ is fishing, and they should be arriving soon. I could ask them.” She sat up straighter in her seat, peered over my shoulder.

  I turned and followed her gaze. From where we sat, though, we had no view of the blackened building.

  She dug in her purse and pulled out her phone. “Already after ten, though. Someone should have turned up already.”

  Shaking my head, I traded my fork for my coffee cup. “You never worked in an office, did you?” I sipped while Carrie confirmed my suspicion. She had spent her career years to date working at the antiques shop that her family had handed down through generations and visiting estate sales in search of rare and sometimes beautiful objects. I had spent my career years manning a desk and suffering through some seriously bad coffee and high-profile financial scandals. This disparity made me qualified to educate my new best friend on the way the corporate world worked. “Number one rule—no, wait. Number one rule is avoid office politics. Number two rule is if the boss is away fishing, nine o’clock is overachieving. Give them time.”

  Carrie slid to the farthest edge of her bench seat so she could watch for arriving employees without craning her neck while I enjoyed yet another refill of delicious coffee.

  By the time I finished my omelet, I was well into the third cup of coffee. My stomach was beginning a protest when a dark-haired young woman dashed past the window and slammed open the door. The older woman and little girl enjoying waffles at the counter jumped at the noise. Okay, I did, too. The only one unaffected was Carrie, who had no doubt seen the woman coming all along.

  “Susie,” she shouted. “Susie, are you here? What the hell happened?”

  Our waitress spoke as she hurried out of the kitchen, more animated than she’d been all morning. “I’ve been trying to call you. Is your cell off? There was a fire,” she said.

  “Obviously,” the dark-haired girl snapped.

 
“Firemen and cops were in and out most of the morning,” waitress Susie said, joining the newcomer by the door. “You just missed them.”

  “What about Russ? Did anyone get hold of him?”

  Carrie abandoned all pretense of not listening to strangers’ business and slid from the booth. “Russ wasn’t answering his phone and he wasn’t at home. Do you have any idea where he is?” she asked.

  The girl turned, annoyance bunching her brow. “Who are you?”

  As Carrie reached the middle of the café, she extended a hand. “I’m Carrie Stanford, Russ’s ex-wife. The police called me when they couldn’t reach him. You are?”

  Go, Carrie. Cool and calm and a little bit snippy. Not a guaranteed method of grabbing the upper hand but fairly reliable and masterfully executed.

  Pink flushed across the dark-haired girl’s cheeks. “I’m Melanie, Russ’s administrative assistant.” She took Carrie’s hand, but from where I sat, her grip looked a little tentative.

  “Melanie, would you be able to tell me where Russ is, please?”

  But Melanie narrowed her eyes, calculating. “Hold it. You’re Russ’s ex?”

  “Yes, now can you tell me—”

  “He’s mentioned you. You guys are on pretty good terms, right?”

  “Well, we—”

  “Great.” Melanie’s grin was wide and somewhat alarming in its sudden appearance. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  I had just wedged myself out from behind the table by the time she exited the restaurant. I climbed, with one knee, back upon the bench and leaned to watch her out the window.

  “Where’s she going?” Carried asked waitress Susie. When Susie only shrugged, Carrie directed the question to me. “Where is she going?”

  I shook my head, no idea. Wherever she was going, she was going in a hurry. If she kept up that speed, she’d be covered in sweat in no time. “She said she’ll be back,” I muttered, then turned back to face Carrie. “You’ll just need to find out where Russ is and then we can get out of here.” I didn’t have anywhere I needed to be until the evening, but the back of my mind, the quiet place that foments ideas while I’m not paying attention, was urging me to get started designing a window for Trudy’s bed and breakfast.

  “I’ll get your check,” Susie said.

  It took her only moments to present us with the bill, at which point I realized Carrie and I were paying for Detective Nolan’s coffee. Not that the cost of a cup of coffee was going to overdraw me at the bank, but the very idea that he left without throwing so much as a couple of singles down on the table was irksome.

  Carrie and I were quibbling over how much we should tip our waitress when Melanie returned to the café, shuffling gracelessly under the weight of the large cardboard carton emblazoned with U-Move-It’s diamond-shaped logo that she held before her. A yellow plastic grocery bag hung heavily from her wrist.

  She backed her way through the door, stumble-spun to the lunch counter, and dropped the carton on the counter’s shiny blue surface. “There,” she said, prying the plastic bag from her wrist and plunking the bag atop the carton. “Your problem now.”

  Carrie side-stepped toward the counter, eyes on the carton, face scrunched in apprehension, as though the box might contain an assortment of spring-loaded snakes. “What is all this?”

  “This”—Melanie flapped her hand toward the box—“is what’s left of the Heaney estate. Russ asked me to pick these up from Hudson Estate Sales and bring them to the office. But seeing as there is no office and Russ said you might be interested in this stuff, I’m giving it to you. No way am I storing that musty crap in my apartment.”

  Cautiously, I slid the bag to the side of the carton and attempted to peer inside the carton. “What’s in there?” I asked.

  Melanie sounded annoyed by the question. “Junk. Trinkets and letters and old pictures and . . . crap Russ thought you”—she lifted a chin in Carrie’s direction—“might want to have in your shop. You’re into antiques or something, right?”

  “Exactly where is Russ?” Carrie asked.

  Melanie huffed, placed a hand on her waist, and cocked out a hip. “Fishing trip.”

  Carrie flashed me a smug smile. “Fishing. Up at Gabe’s cabin?”

  It was Melanie’s turn to look smug. “Mmm, you haven’t talked to Russ in a while, have you?” she asked, and Carrie’s smile fell. “Let’s just say I doubt he’s at Gabe’s cabin, okay? Look, I gotta run. Now that I know I don’t have to work today, I’m way behind.”

  “Hold it.” Carrie jerked a thumb at the U-Move-It carton on the counter. “What am I supposed to do with all this?”

  Melanie tugged a set of keys from her purse. “I guess go through it and talk to Russ about it when he gets back?” She shrugged. “Okay then. Bye all.”

  “Bye!” The little girl waved her fork.

  “Call me, okay?” Susie called out.

  She waved a farewell as Melanie dashed through the door.

  Carrie turned and gaped at me. “Now what?” she asked.

  A seed of an idea took root. “I guess we’re loading this stuff into your car,” I said. “And then . . .”

  “And then what?”

  “Well, if you’re not in any rush to get back home . . .” I said.

  She put a hand on her hip. “Spit it out.”

  “Do you know where Gabe lives? Or, I guess, where he works?”

  “Of course but—” Her eyes widened in unhappy understanding. “No. Absolutely not. We are not going to go see Gabe.”

  “Yes. Absolutely yes,” I said just as firmly. “Look, Russ might not be at Gabe’s cabin, but Gabe still might know where he is. Mutual friends? Neighbors? That kind of thing.”

  Shaking her head, Carrie lifted the yellow plastic bag Melanie had left behind and passed it to me. “Let the police do it.”

  “I’m sure the police will, but I suspect you might be in a bigger hurry to find Russ than they are.” I paused while she hefted the carton off the counter, then held open the door for her to pass through.

  “They’re going to be more interested in finding out whether or not that fire was an accident, and if not, whodunit.” We ambled down the sidewalk, heading for the car that had been baking in the sun. “You’re the one who’ll end up fielding all the questions and talking to the fencing people and dealing with insurance and the gas company and the phone company and if we can find Russ . . .”

  “Georgia.” Carrie came to a stop and turned to face me. “Did you get some kind of Miss Marple disease when you were figuring out who killed Bill Harper? And now you need to feed the sickness?”

  “Um. No.” I resumed walking, slowly, considering how best to answer the question. “That’s not it,” I said at last. “In fact, I only have a vague idea who Miss Marple is.” I was wise enough on the walk back to give the gutter puddle wide berth. “I think that helping figure out who killed Mr. Harper and getting Grandy out of jail, that made me feel—I don’t know—useful somehow? Like I’m contributing?”

  At the car, Carrie balanced the carton against the rear fender. She dropped her purse on the trunk and fished around inside the bag. “I don’t understand. How could you not feel useful?”

  “Maybe unwelcome is more like it. I don’t get the warmest reception from the good people of Wenwood,” I said on a sigh. “If I can help, then maybe I could be, you know, less of an outsider?”

  Her brows drew together across the bridge of her nose. “So sticking your nose into crime is your way of sucking up to the townspeople?”

  I opened my mouth, waited vainly for a coherent noise to come out. In the end, I shrugged. Oftentimes things sounded less crazy in my head than they did out loud.

  Lifting a set a keys from her purse, Carrie shook her head in a manner that made me think she’d make a good mom. “Fine. Let’s go look at cars.”


  4

  Carrie had the good sense to call the dealership before we took the ride and make sure Gabe was working. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, as we headed south on the highway. “Really. I could just ask him over the phone if he knows where Russ might be.”

  “Phones are nowhere near as much fun as road trips.” I flipped down the sun visor and perused the collection of CDs Carrie kept there. “Besides, I really do need to start thinking about buying my own car. May as well get my research going.”

  She checked the rearview mirror and smoothly changed lanes. “You could research online.”

  “Blind shopping on the Internet inevitably ends with two hours lost to YouTube. I need a place to start.” I selected classic Alanis Morissette and popped the disk into the CD player.

  “Buying a car, worrying about fitting in . . . Does this mean your trial period is over and you’re going to commit to staying in Wenwood permanently?”

  Settling back in my seat, letting the air-conditioning blow the frizz of my hair away from my face, I sighed. “I think so. But I go back and forth. I like it here, you know?” I gazed out the window, where even the highways were surrounded with thick green trees and cheerful wildflowers. “But this wasn’t exactly the way I pictured my future. I pictured big city, power lunches, and mass transit, not front porches and the luncheonette.”

  Carrie chuckled. “What we picture our future to be and what it turns out to be isn’t always the same thing. But we adjust.”

  “When everything fell apart for me, I came here to rest and figure out how to start over. I figured the starting over itself would be elsewhere. If the starting over happens here, is that adjusting? Or giving up?”

  She shot me a sidelong glance, one filled with compassion but empty of an answer.

  We rode the final miles to the dealership in silence. What ran through Carrie’s mind along the way I couldn’t guess at; what ran through my mind was the same old circular indecision about whether to fully commit to Wenwood or move on. By the time the enormous U.S. flag flying over the dealership came into view, all I had concluded was that, stay or go, I was going to need money and I was keeping my cat.