Death of a Dapper Snowman (24 page)

“Huh?” Harper gave me a confused look.

“Sorry. It’s been a weird day. Do you want to go pop in and visit Jessica over at the sandwich shop?”

“And get a sandwich?”

My stomach made a noise that surprised both of us. Even after eating all the cupcakes, I was still hungry, apparently.

Harper said goodbye to her sister and the two of us walked over to the sandwich shop.

Jessica was just finishing her shift, so she took our order and then sat with us.

We had a nice late lunch, then the three of us did some shopping along the street. We stopped in at Blue Enchantment, where I nearly bought everything off the mannequin again.

After that, we went to the Golden Wok with some other friends of Jessica’s that we bumped into. I swore I wasn’t hungry, but then the sweet and sour chicken balls came to the table and my mouth actually watered for them.

As I stuffed my face and laughed along with the group, I got a warm feeling that spread through my whole body.

Maybe the feeling was contentment.

Or maybe the Golden Wok put booze in my non-alcohol piña colada.

Either way, I decided I was brave enough to return home to my own house that night.

Chapter 31
 

For the second
night in a row, I pulled up in front of my own house feeling like a stalker. Then I shut off the lights and engine and sat in my car watching the windows… just like a stalker.

My tenant was home, by the look of the bright windows. He had the living room curtains open, and I could see him walking around inside.

“Again with the shirt off,” I said to myself. “Have I got the furnace up too high, or is my tenant a partial nudist?”

Since I was alone in my dark car, nobody answered my questions.

I watched as a shirtless Logan walked around the brightly-lit living room. He brought a laundry basket full of clothes into the room, set the basket on the sofa, and folded his clothes.

For some reason, I found this very alluring and couldn’t tear my eyes away.

When he was done folding and placing everything in neat stacks, he grabbed a T-shirt from one of the piles and pulled it on.

“Half-nudist time must be over for the day,” I said.

Fully clothed, he walked around the room gathering up things I couldn’t see, but that I guessed were his wallet, keys, and phone. He disappeared from my sight, the living room light went off, and he re-appeared, coming out of the unit’s door on the side of the duplex.

“Ooh. Someone’s got a hot date tonight,” I muttered to myself.

Was it with a girl? I really hoped his hot date was with a girl. Even though he’d made a lousy first impression on me by insulting me at the vet’s office, part of me was fantasizing about the two of us sharing half-nudist hour together sometime. Perhaps over some takeout from the Golden Wok.

As he locked his door, he glanced over in the direction of my car.

I froze like a deer in the headlights and hoped the street lamps overhead didn’t reveal me sitting in my car like a stalker. My stomach made a weird sound. I kept holding still, even though my stomach was behaving so strangely, I was in danger of getting nervous giggles.

To my relief, Logan finished locking his door and didn’t react as though he saw me. He walked through the trampled snow of the driveway to his vehicle, a modest-sized SUV.

I thought about pulling into the shared driveway as he was leaving and introducing myself, but I had to think through what I would say if he saw me. All of this thinking took too long, and pretty soon the choice was made for me. Logan backed out of the driveway to leave. I watched his red tail lights disappear down the quiet street.

“I know,” I said to nobody. “I shouldn’t be scared of going into my own home just because a cute guy is my tenant and I’m worried about embarrassing myself. I know I’m a scaredy-cat.”

At the mention of the word
cat
, I thought of Jeffrey. The poor little man was at the house with Pam. Knowing her, she probably wasn’t feeding him enough. What would she be up to at this time of night? It was just a few minutes past ten o’clock. What if she was finally packing up her things and moving out?

Well, she wasn’t going to take Jeffrey with her. She didn’t even
like
the cat.

I simply had to go rescue him from her evil clutches.

Jeffrey needed me. I could sense it.

Yes, that was enough of an excuse for me to avoid my duplex and my tenant for yet another night. I started the engine, flicked on the driving lights, and pulled away from the curb.

Chapter 32
 

When I got
to my father’s house, I rang the doorbell rather than using my key to let myself in.

Pam yanked open the door and scowled at me.

“Oh, good. You’re still up,” I said.

“Why didn’t you use your key?”

“I didn’t want to scare you. There’s still a murderer on the loose, after all. You’re the one who’s afraid it’s a serial killer.”

“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “And… that’s why I’ve decided I’m moving out. First thing tomorrow.”

She pointed to a pile of flattened moving boxes leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“Oh?” I played dumb. She probably didn’t know I’d spent most of the previous day in the city, where I had seen my father and his new girlfriend. “Where are you going? Moving in with your sister?”

“I don’t know,” she snapped. “I’ve rented a truck, and I think I’ll get in and just start driving. See where the road takes me.”

“Sounds fun.”

She got a wistful look. “I always wanted to travel, but your father never wanted to leave this town. That’s why I’m done with him. Yes. It’s because I need to travel.”

I looked into Pam’s eyes and saw the heartbreak underneath the bravery and anger. It didn’t seem right to tell her I knew all about him breaking up with her weeks earlier. Other than a few pieces of furniture and the clothes in her closet, her pride was all she had. I’d let her keep it. But she wasn’t getting Jeffrey.

“Pam, I’m sorry it’s ending like this,” I said. “You know I can’t take sides between you and my father, but, as a woman, I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.”

As her eyes glistened, I felt the burning of my own tears coming to me. An awkward silence stretched out between us. I didn’t know what else to do, so I gave her a hug. She flinched when I reached for her, like she was repulsed by me.

I stepped back politely, swallowing the rejection. This didn’t mean what it felt like. She was only being cool toward me because I was my father’s daughter.
It wasn’t personal
, or so I told myself.

“Are you feeling okay?” she asked.

I looked down and realized I was rubbing my stomach. “Actually, no. I ate too much today.”

“You need to keep an eye on your figure, young lady.”

I gave her a weak smile. “I didn’t have much. Just a half-dozen mini cupcakes, a pepperoni submarine sandwich, and then the all-you-can-eat dinner buffet special at the Golden Wok.”

She made a
harumph
sound.

I kept rubbing my stomach. “Ouch. Payback is no fun. I guess I have heartburn. Plus a bit of a headache. Too many cupcakes, followed by too much excitement in one day, chasing down clues and accusing people of murder. The usual sort of stuff.”

“What? What clues?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. I ran into the mail carrier a couple days ago—it was kind of a funny story, really—and one thing led to another. I thought I had some clues, but it turned out it wasn’t anything helpful. I guess I’ll leave the rest to Tony. Did he tell you who they’re looking at for this one? My father. Isn’t that the craziest thing you ever heard?”

“Hmm.”

I felt a paw on my foot and looked down to see Jeffrey looking up at me, his dark gray fur framing bright green eyes. I reached down and scooped him into my arms.

“Pam, when you do go, how about I take care of Jeffrey?”

Her eyes flashed for an instant, and her nostrils flared. She replied, evenly, “That’ll be fine. Jeffrey likes you better, anyway, because you’re young and energetic and you spoil him with too much fatty food and letting him do whatever he wants.”

I winced inwardly, knowing she was referring to my father’s attractive and younger physical therapist. I had the urge to argue with Pam, to say that Jeffrey liked me better because I spoke nicely to him and fed him twice as much cat food as she did, but I decided to let it go. The woman was dealing with enough as it was.

“Here’s an idea,” Pam said. “Why don’t you climb into a nice, hot bath and relax? You do look tired.”

“I should hit the hay.”

“Try a bath first. Trust me. You’ll sleep like a baby. And since your stomach is bothering you, I’ll bring you some antacids and a cup of tea. Won’t that be nice?”

Pam being so nice to me was confusing, but not unwanted. Some of my father’s girlfriends had been nice, and I usually appreciated their efforts at being motherly, to a point.

“Sure. I guess a bath sounds nice. Thank you. I can get my own antacids, though. I’m the one who ate all those chicken balls.”

She started pushing me toward the floor’s main bathroom, the one with the big soaker tub.

“Silly girl,” she said in a friendly way. “Let me take care of you this once. You poor dear. Growing up without a mother, taking whatever scraps of comfort you could from the weekly whore your father had running through here.”

“Uh…” I started to defend my father, then I looked at poor, sad Pam, bent over the tub adjusting the temperature of the water for my bath. She’d had her heart broken, and a little trash talking of the man who’d done it was not unreasonable.

“It wasn’t easy,” I said. “Pam, I hope things work out for you. I hope you get to travel and see everything you want to see.”

Without turning around to face me, she added some scented bath oil to the water and said, “Don’t you worry about me, dear. Once I set my mind on something, I make it happen.”

Jeffrey walked into the bathroom and announced his presence with a meow. Pam didn’t even look at him, which was reassuring, because I didn’t want to fight her for him.

He jumped up onto the closed toilet seat and then the bathroom counter, where he gathered his paws together neatly and wrapped them with his dark gray tail.

Pam dried her hands on the snowman-decorated guest towel, said she’d be back in a few minutes with my antacids, then left me to my bath.

Jeffrey watched the tub water rise with his bright green eyes. He let his eyelids droop, pretending he was relaxed, but he was faking it. The swirling water had him very concerned, but he was too cool to freak out.

I got undressed and climbed into the water. Who said Stormy Day couldn’t sit still and do nothing? Jessica did. And she was wrong. In fact, I would send her a text message and a picture of my feet in the tub to tell her I was doing my own meditation class.

I leaned out of the tub to grab my phone, but it wasn’t there. My purse was probably on the hall table where I’d set it when I came in.

No phone meant I had to sit still and do nothing. I settled back into the hot water.

The soaker tub did have the perfect angles for relaxation. It was big enough for two people, and the water spigot was positioned along the side, so that a couple could sit in it, facing each other. That would be fun.

After a minute of relaxation, I decided to shampoo my hair. I grabbed the bottle, which was formulated to bring out the silver in naturally gray hair. I wasn’t sure if it would do anything weird to my hair, but it was purple and sudsy and smelled good—not too flowery, but not medicinal either.

As I lathered up and spiked my hair in a foamy mohawk for fun, I wondered how Logan was doing on his hot date.

Meanwhile, the other man in my life, Jeffrey, sat on the counter keeping a watchful eye on the water.

“Plenty of room for you in here,” I said, teasing him. He swished his tail and yawned, but didn’t move from his perch.

Pam knocked on the door and came in with a glass of white wine. She held one hand along the side of her face to preserve my modesty—not that I was all that concerned.

“I’ve got your antacids here,” she said.