Authors: Maggie Toussaint
Chapter 18
“Daddy!” Charla’s voice rang joyously through the house. “I’m so glad to see you.”
I heard Charla clear up in my room as I tied my shoes. My heart ached for the family she wanted us to be. In her greeting I heard yearning and aching and worst of all, hope. My oldest daughter truly believed her parents would get back together.
Supposing Charlie did divorce Denise, what would happen? Last night he’d sounded like he wanted us to try again. If I could trust what he’d said, he wanted me back in his life and in his bed.
Too bad. I couldn’t get past all that he’d put me through. I couldn’t pretend that his adultery and our divorce had never occurred.
I put on a determined face and went downstairs to fix breakfast. Time folded in on itself as the four of us sat down to eat at the kitchen table. Charla talked nonstop while Lexy sulked because she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Charlie’s warm gaze rested as frequently on me as it did on the girls.
I could almost see the wheels turning in his brain as he tried his old life on for size. In the old days I would’ve gone along with his wishes so that I didn’t make waves. I wasn’t that person anymore. My purpose in life no longer revolved around making Charlie happy. The sooner he came to terms with that, the better for all of us.
Charlie offered to drop the girls off at school, and they left in a clatter of noise. Even my normally quiet Lexy seemed animated by her father’s presence.
But, after they left, I sat down with a cup of coffee and wondered just what I’d done. I’d fixed Charlie his eggs just the way he liked them, the way I’d made them a hundred bazillion times before. I’d added that dollop of milk to his coffee before I sat the cup on the table in front of him.
Good heavens. I’d been acting like I was his wife. That wasn’t going to happen. I wouldn’t let it. Only, there was a lot of comfort in a familiar routine. And after sixteen years of marriage, I was very familiar with Charlie Jones.
He’d given me that unshaven boyish grin as he left, the one that had always melted me down to my toes. A part of me was whispering seductively in one ear, “You could have him again.” But the other part of me was shouting, “You don’t want him.”
Mama walked into the kitchen dressed in her triple-stranded pearls, mauve suit, and burgundy pumps. “I heard a man’s voice. Who was here?”
Mama’s bedroom overlooked the driveway. She’d have to be blind to have missed Charlie’s BMW.
I drew in a deep breath, bracing myself for the explosion sure to come. “Charlie spent the night.”
Mama’s penetrating stare would have broken another, lesser woman. “I thought we agreed that you were over him,” Mama said.
“We did, and I am. He slept on the couch, Mama. He needed a place to stay.”
“Hasn’t the man ever heard of motels?” Mama poured a cup of coffee, then joined me at the kitchen table.
I’d already had this conversation with Charlie. “He’s the father of my children. Even if he is a puke, I couldn’t turn him out in the street.”
“I don’t see why the hell not.”
Lord, you had to love my mother. She was unswervingly loyal in her convictions. “It was my choice. I don’t see why we can’t be civil about this.”
Madonna must have sensed my distress. She came over and thrust her big Saint Bernard head in my lap. Her brown eyes radiated sympathy. I rubbed her head and she licked my hand.
“You always were softhearted, Cleo. Make sure that man doesn’t take advantage of you again.”
“Hey. I resent that remark. There’s a difference in being softhearted and being stupid. I learned my lesson about Charlie already.”
“Keep that in mind.” After she felt her warning had time to sink in, Mama added, “What time are you going over to the office today?”
“Soon as I finish up here. I’d like to start with the Bluemont Hills audit.” I also planned to make a phone call about Valley Land Company.
It had occurred to me during the night that Valley Land Company, the White Rock housing development, and Dudley’s death might be connected, but I wanted to move cautiously. A lot of money was tied up in this stalled development. A misstep here could cost me my pride, my biggest client, or even my life.
Mama left and I did the dishes. This was good thinking time for me as I mindlessly loaded the dishwasher. Before Dudley’s murder, I seemed to be caught in an out of-the-way eddy of life. Now it seemed as if my life was shooting through rapids, zipping from one exciting hydraulic to the next.
No longer was each day an ordeal to endure. I wasn’t looking backward anymore. My future seemed as bright as the gleaming white azaleas and sunshine-yellow forsythia blooming in my yard. The new Cleo was getting on with her life.
My immediate goal was to find out who killed Dudley. I wouldn’t let Britt send Jonette or Bitsy to jail for a murder they didn’t commit. I had one or maybe two men, if you counted Charlie, who were interested in me, although I wasn’t sure that either man was a good catch. But, hey, I had a future. Life was good.
* * * * *
I took a break from work and walked Madonna down to the bank to deposit the checks that arrived in today’s mail. Since it was such a nice spring day, I chose the long way to the bank. Madonna and I went out the back door and cut through Old Man Putnam’s driveway and over into the park. After that, we followed Schoolhouse Road west to Burkittsville Road and came up on the bank from the side street.
The first thing I noticed as I approached was that Main Street was a parking lot. Vacant cars pointed in the direction of the yellow crime scene tape surrounding the bank.
Had something else happened in Hogan’s Glen? What danger lurked in our sleepy little town?
Questions churned in my head as I made my way towards the throng of people gathered at the barrier of crime scene tape. I recognized the massive bulk of my neighbor Ed Monday and stopped next to him, reining Madonna in close. Ed’s bald head gleamed in the sunlight. I leaned around his portly figure to catch his eye. “What’s going on, Ed?” I asked.
Ed glanced over at me and then back at the bank. “The bank guard was killed last night,” Ed said, shoving his fists in the pockets of his worn jeans. “Shot. Right between the eyes.”
I felt icy talons gripping my stomach. I believed something suspicious was going on at the bank, and now the guard was dead? Did the police see the same connections that I did? “The guard?”
Ed nodded glumly, his attention fixed on the scene before us. My mind started churning around the new pieces to this puzzle. How did this all fit together?
Why would the guard be shot, unless the bank was being robbed or unless the guard saw something he shouldn’t have? Was this about White Rock or Valley Land Company? I glanced around the crowd, noting faces of friends and acquaintances. Our illustrious mayor was nowhere in sight.
I shivered in spite of the warm day. Hogan’s Glen was not a good place to live these days. Two murders in less than a week was two more than we’d ever had. Two murders meant it wasn’t a fluke circumstance. This was terribly serious. We had a serial killer in our midst.
What else connected Dudley’s murder to this one? Anyone with half a brain could make the connection to the bank. Lots of money flowed through that bank, and who better to know the transaction details than a bank officer like Charlie or Dudley?
Charlie hadn’t had an alibi for Dudley’s murder. Suppose he’d gone to the bank first and murdered the guard before he came over last night? Had he used me to establish an alibi for the guard’s murder?
Had I slept with a serial killer under my roof?
How well did I really know Charlie Jones? Just because I’d been married to him for sixteen years didn’t mean that I knew him. I’d had no knowledge of his adultery until it smacked me square in the face. Maybe I’d missed the real Charlie Jones all these years. Maybe I’d only known the man he wanted me to see.
I exhaled shakily. There was no reason to jump to conclusions. Just because Charlie worked at the bank, that didn’t automatically make him a mass murderer. Lots of people worked at the bank. But still.
I felt very uneasy. A killer was running wild in our town. How could I keep my family safe if the police couldn’t catch this person?
Uniformed policemen stood on the sidewalk next to a cluster of bank employees. I watched in morbid fascination as Detective Britt Radcliff scribbled on his notepad, then moved on to question the next bank employee. The group shifted and I found myself looking right at Denise. She was dressed in one of her sickeningly flattering suits, her blond curls cascading about her face just so.
She caught my eye and smiled smugly. I didn’t smile back. We were not friends.
Her smile was the same sort of smile she’d given me in the old days when she’d been sleeping with my husband behind my back. It was the kind of smile that said I’ve got hidden secrets.
Well, I had a secret too. Her husband spent the night at my house. He wanted to divorce her. I hoped the cops grilled Denise about this murder every bit as thoroughly as they’d grilled Jonette over Dudley’s death.
I wasn’t exactly friends with my neighbor Ed Monday, but at least I didn’t want to spit on him every time I saw him. Ed appeared to be transfixed by the scene. He nearly jumped out of his shoes when I tapped his shoulder to get his attention.
Oops, I had forgotten about his need for personal space. “Sorry,” I said hastily. “Didn’t mean to startle you, but I wanted to let you know I have someone looking into the problems with your account.”
“I hope it wasn’t the bank guard.” Sunlight flashed off of Ed’s thick glasses.
I narrowed my eyes. Was that a joke? Did Ed Monday have a sense of humor? “It was someone else.”
“Good,” he said glumly. “Doesn’t look like the bank guard would help me now anyway.”
What was that old saying? Dead men tell no tales? The bank guard was dead. Dudley was dead. And if this continued, someone else would be dead soon. Everyone knew bad news happened in threes.
Would it be another bank employee? What underlying cause connected the murders? I didn’t know.
“Hey, Clee. What’s all the excitement?” Jonette joined us at the taped barrier, her leopard-print spandex short skirt and top leaving nothing to the imagination.
I motioned towards the bank. “The guard was killed last night.”
“Damn Sam.” Jonette whistled appreciatively. “This has the makings of a regular crime wave. What the hell is going on around here?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but I have this vision of Denise sleeping her way through the bank hierarchy, killing them for sport.”
Ed Monday shocked me by laughing. “That’s rich,” he said.
“That’s jealousy talking,” Jonette’s amber-flecked eyes scowled at me in consternation. “Denise would be pained if she so much as broke a nail. I can’t see her murdering anyone, and believe me, I’ve got her number. We’ve got something much bigger going on. I can feel it.”
Jonette was about as psychic as I was, but in her current occupation as barmaid she came across all sorts of people. Perhaps she had some insight into Denise that I was missing. Or at least some objectivity. I couldn’t be objective about the woman who had ruined my life.
It was very unsettling that we were having a major crime spree in Hogan’s Glen. I had Mama and the girls to consider. “The bank guard was Bennett Glazier. Did you know him?”
“What do you want to know about Bennett?” Jonette asked.
My eyebrows quirked up. “You know him?”
Jonette nodded. “He’s a regular down at the tavern. My guess is that last night he had his usual three whiskey sours, then he walked home. He lives in one of those duplexes over by the park. Bennett never hit on me, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of my boss.”
The bank was between the tavern and the park. Bennett must have seen something unusual at the bank on his way home and stopped to check it out. Or had his sexual orientation triggered a murderer’s rage? “Dean and Bennett are gay?”
“Dean is not gay. I can attest to that one hundred percent,” Jonette said. “As for Bennett, I’m not sure he was out of the closet, if you know what I mean. He was more like a wannabe, in love with Dean, but Dean wasn’t interested. That unrequited love thing.”
Ed Monday’s ears turned pink. I guess this conversation was too racy for him. He ambled away, leaving me to wonder why he’d been standing here. Behind that shambling gentility, did a raging fire burn out of control? My instincts told me that he had a secret. I had two problems with that information.
First, my intuition was shot all to hell. How could I put much stock in my insights when I knew that I’d missed big on perceiving a major problem in my marriage? Second, not all secrets were large enough to kill for. What if Ed Monday had some minor secret that he didn’t want getting out? Was that why he kept to himself? To keep from being recognized?
I couldn’t pigeonhole Ed Monday any more than I could solve Dudley’s murder right now. I didn’t have enough information, but I couldn’t help feeling that I knew more than I thought. What I needed was a block of time that I could sit down and think this out.
For instance, Jonette was the police’s top suspect in Dudley’s murder. How did she rank in their standings for the latest murder? She knew both victims. Some assumptions could be made from that.