Bedeviled Eggs (29 page)

current
whipping girl. Missy was a midwestern corn-fed,
blue-eyed blond with pale skin
and a lush figure. Although
lately, that corn-fed figure was looking decidedly more
sprouts-and-greens.

“I
have to hand it to
Carmen,” said Suzanne. “She vowed
to bring high fashion to Kindred and she did it.”

“Alta moda,”
agreed Missy, who
didn’t always enjoy
working for Carmen, but certainly seemed to love the shop
itself.

And who wouldn’t?
Alchemy Boutique was a tour de
force in style. Thick mauve draperies complemented plum
colored walls and the
carpeting looked like liquid pewter
yet felt like a silk cloud. And the clothes! Oh
my, they were something! Think
Vogue
magazine,
Women’s Wear Daily,
and Rodeo Drive all
rolled into one. There were fluttering silk
tops, black cocktail dresses,
tight designer jeans from Citi
zens of Humanity, nipped navy blue blazers, and James
Perse
T-shirts.
There was a display of suede handbags in raspberry
red, dove gray, and pale blue.
Plus silk scarves to twist ca
sually around one’s neck, gigantic cocktail rings that
looked
like
disco balls, leather bangle bracelets, gold chains, and a
whole area devoted to
flats, boots, and lethal stiletto heels.

Suzanne had already
put a few items on her own per
sonal wish list—a pair of camel-colored suede booties
with
ruffled
learner trim at the top, a pair of cigarette-leg Rock
& Republic jeans, a
raspberry sherbet-colored cashmere scarf. But of course! This was Cashmere and
Cabernet,
after all!

“Would you like a
glass of wine, Missy?” Suzanne
asked, suddenly remembering that she was a working stiff
today, not little Miss
Shopaholic.

“Carmen would kill me,”
said Missy. “Especially since
I have to honcho the informal modeling in a few minutes,
then work
the crowd to solicit orders for all the special
trunk-show items.”

“You sure you enjoy
working here?” Suzanne asked. “If you ask me, working conditions seems a little
Dickensian.”

Missy
gave a thin smile. “Oh, you don’t think twelve-
hour days are the norm?”

“Only if you’re the
owner,” said Suzanne, “working
your
tail off in a start-up situation.”

“Well, I’m not the
owner and I’m still working my tail
off,” said Missy.

“You have skills,”
said Suzanne. “I’m sure you could go
back to being a paralegal.”

“Maybe.” Missy
shrugged.

“It would be better
than...”

“Missy!” screeched
Carmen, suddenly spotting her bou
tique manager and rushing over to them. Only it
was more
of
a baby steps rush, since Carmen was wearing a tight
black turtleneck dress with a
black leather corset over it. To polish off her look, Carmen’s hair was pulled
back severely
and her eyes
were rimmed in dark kohl.

“Oh-oh,” said Suzanne,
“looks like trouble.”

“You have to get the
models dressed!” Carmen hissed.

“Of course,” said
Missy. “Right away.”

Carmen grabbed Missy’s
arm as she started to dash off.
“And don’t let the fat girl wear the denim leggings,”
said
Carmen.
“Give them to someone they might actually fit.”

“She’s a size six,”
said Missy.

“Exactly,” said
Carmen, “way too pudgy for leggings.”
Carmen switched her focus to Suzanne. “And you,”
she said, glaring. “Could you
please
pour some wine for my
guests?”

“Good
gosh, Carmen,” said Suzanne,
“I
didn’t
realize I
was supposed to
serve as bartender, too.”

“Catering
involves more than just standing around hold
ing a tray of sandwiches,” said Carmen.

“You think?” said
Suzanne. Carmen reminded her of a
dust devil, spinning wildly, kicking up huge
amounts of
dust
and debris, but never really going anywhere.

Carmen backed off
then, turning a critical eye to the food, the line of sparkling crystal
wineglasses, the bottles of ruby red cabernet. “Everything looks perfect, no?”
she
asked.

“Yes, it
does,” said Suzanne. “So you should be cele
brating your triumph.”

Carmen frowned and
shook her head. “But such a dismal
crowd,” she moaned. “I sent out something like
fifty invita
tions, but only thirty-five people showed up.” She sighed, grabbed a tea
sandwich, and took off like a jackrabbit.

“She’s counting the
flyspecks in the pepper,” Suzanne
murmured to herself, then decided to shake it off.
Carmen’s
disappointment
and anxiety, whether real or faux, wasn’t
her problem. And thank goodness
for that.

Positioning herself
behind the buffet table, Suzanne
poured glasses of wine for the guests, used a pair of
silver
tongs
to place miniature quiches and lobster and cucumber
sandwiches on their plates, and
tried her best to enjoy the
event.

As models pranced
through the store, showing off the
delightful duds, and Carmen and Missy did their
best to
buttonhole
customers and elicit orders, Suzanne grabbed her cell phone and called the
Cackleberry Club.

Toni answered on the
first ring. “Cackleberry Club.”

“It’s me.”

“How’s it going?”

“The clothes are
gorgeous, people seem to be spending
money, and Carmen thinks it’s a flop.”

“There
you go,” said Toni”. “That’s the difference be
tween Carmen’s attitude and
ours. We sell eight toad in the
holes for breakfast, it’s like breaking the bank in Monte
Carlo.”

“You are so off the
hook.” Suzanne laughed.

“Of course,” Toni
said, cheerfully. “So, are you ready to
suit up and hit that pumpkin patch?”

“Give me
forty-five minutes,” said Suzanne. “I’m al
most done here, but there’s
something else I have to take
care
of.”

Suzanne
drove a long, looping, circuitous route to Chuck
Peebler’s house, even
though she knew it was silly to be paranoid. Who would suspect she was going to
creepy-
crawl
his house? Nobody, of course. Still, for Doogie’s
sake, she was determined to take
precautions.

After
glancing into the rearview mirror about a hun
dred times, she’d only noticed
one vehicle following her.
And that was a Roto-Rooter truck that had peeled off one
block
back. Somebody’s sewer line obviously needing to
be roto’ed and rooted.

Suzanne was also well
aware that Peebler’s house
would be deserted. Peebler, being of the divorced persuasion,
meant there was no grieving widow left to wander
about. So she’d be free to...
well, wander around.

Crawling down Olive
Drive, Suzanne hung a left on
Essex Street. There it was, the third Cape Cod from the
cor
ner.
A simple blue clapboard house, probably built in the
fifties, that now looked a little
forlorn and deserted. Luckily
for Suzanne, the house had mature trees in the yard to
help
shield
her movements from prying eyes. A nice fiery red oak, a grove of five straggly
poplars, and two bushy cedar
trees mat hunkered right along the driveway. So perfect.

Swinging into the
driveway, Suzanne nosed up to the
garage, getting as close as possible. The better
to slip in
unseen
and avoid any neighborhood snoops who might
be gung ho lieutenants in the
Neighborhood Crime Watch
program.

Suzanne gathered her
purse, walked up to the steps, and
knocked on the front door. As her left fist rapped
sharply,
the
key in her right hand slipped into the lock. There was
a slight hesitation, a subtle
click, and then she was in. As
the door pushed open, Suzanne smiled and nodded, faking
a big smarmy greeting. If a nosy neighbor
had
seen her, it
would appear someone
was there to let her in.

Stepping inside the
dim house, Suzanne shut the door
behind her. And locked it, just to be safe. Then she
stood
in the
entryway and squared her shoulders, trying to get a
vibe from the house.

Dust motes twirled in
the near darkness; a clock ticked
in the stillness. Peebler had only been dead for
a few days,
yet it seemed as if he’d been gone forever. An odor of must
iness permeated the
air, and an eerie stillness hung in the house. If Suzanne believed in ghosts,
really
believed, she
would have said this house was mourning its owner.

She walked slowly into
the living room, flicked on a
lamp, and surveyed the room. There was a beige sofa, two
brown
leather chairs with an old hobnail design around the
arms, and a decent-looking walnut
cocktail table covered
with magazines. Last month’s issues of
Time, Golf
Digest,
and
National Geographic.
She crossed a bright blue orien
tal rag that was pure
acrylic and pulled open the drawer of
an end table. It revealed an old
TV Guide,
two
remote con
trols,
and a dog-eared crossword puzzle book. Hot times at
the Peebler household.

Suzanne made her way
into the kitchen, nervously ex
pecting to find Peebler’s last meal, half eaten and
rotting on the table, blowflies buzzing everywhere. But it was nothing like
that. Dishes were stacked neatly in the dish drainer and
the counters were
remarkably free of the usual cookie jar-
bread box-spice rack debris.

A neat, tidy kitchen
for a neat, tidy man?

Not quite. Peebler’s
last evening had been anything
but tidy, his argument with Jane ruffling feathers and
raising eyebrows. Then
his bloody and bizarre murder at the hands of a crossbow-wielding killer. And
no clues to point in any direction. So the last evening of his life was not
exactly tied up nice and neat with a big red bow. No
wonder Doogie had taken her up
on an offer of a fresh
pair of
eyes.

But was she really
seeing anything?

No. Not yet. So I
better keep moving.

Suzanne
left the kitchen, walked down a narrow hall
way, and entered a small room
that had obviously served as
Peebler’s office. A campaign poster was starting to
unpeel
from
the wall. Stacks of flyers that had never been handed
out, and never would be, sat
piled on his desk.

Settling into the
swivel chair behind Peebler’s desk,
Suzanne eased open all of the desk drawers for
investiga
tion.
She took a pencil and stirred things around in each
of the drawers, but nothing
popped out at her. She ran her
fingertips across files in the deeper file drawer, but
they
contained
mostly household bills, insurance forms, and ap
pliance warranties. Like that.

Finally,
Suzanne crept upstairs. With just two bedrooms
and a small landing, it felt
small, cramped, and warm. One bedroom was unused, obviously a guest bedroom of
sorts with a twin bed and an ugly velvet tapestry of a deer in the
forest decorating one
wall. The other room was Peebler’s bedroom. A brown-and-white-checked quilt
covered the
queen-sized bed, a dresser and mirror hunkered against one
wall, and the folding
closet doors stood open.

Suzanne figured
George Draper had probably dropped
by and hurriedly picked out Peebler’s best suit
for the visi
tation and
funeral.

Now Peebler’s lying in
that suit, six feet under.

The notion chilled
her. Made her want to turn and run
pell-mell down the steps and out the front door
to escape
the
claustrophobic aura of a dead man’s house.

Instead, Suzanne
gritted her teeth and stood her ground.
She crossed to the closet, which
smelled faintly of moth
balls, and searched through the clothes. All
conservative
stuff, all brown. Just like everything else in the house.