Loose Lips (22 page)

“So,” she said. “When did this get
here?”

Watching as Kiska wandered into my office, I
tried to act nonchalant. “Last night.”

“Darrell brought it by?”

“He told me I could borrow it.”

She flipped the end of her feather boa back
and forth in front of her and motioned to the two still–unopened
boxes that Darrell had also loaned me. “And then sent you junk
store rejects.”

“
But
he said I could borrow it, and
I am.” I breezed past her and motioned to the front window. “Where
should we place it?”

The boa swished a bit more. “Joe’s
arraignment is today. Are you going?”

In my concern over the painting, I’d
forgotten about Joe.

She didn’t wait for an answer. “They got
some more evidence on him. He had pictures of Missy hidden at his
house. The police missed them when they went through the first
time, but they found them this morning.”

That got my attention. “Where—”

She gestured to my office and the TV. “Your
friend Bev.”

“She’s no friend—”

Betty swiped her boa in the air in an
obvious response of “whatever,” and walked to the window where she
began rearranging things to make room for the painting.

I went to my office to find out just what
Bev had supposedly discovered now. I found the clip from that
morning’s news show on their site.

Bev was standing outside a small, square,
green ranch–style home of the 1960s variety. It wasn’t rundown, but
it wasn’t any too fancy either. In the background, you could hear
dogs barking.

“I’m here outside Joe Spencer’s home where
police have just completed another search.” The light was dim. I
guessed the time had to have been 5 a.m. or so, when I was safely
tucked into my bed. “My sources say that new evidence has come to
light that indicates the murder of Missy Gill was not, as
previously suspected, motivated by greed at all, but was instead a
lovers’ quarrel.”

Lovers’ quarrel? Between Joe and the Cutie?
There was no way. Not that Joe wasn’t a decent looking man and just
all around great guy, but I would have known if he was dating a
Cutie. He would have told me, or at least not been so upset about
the lost business.

“Love notes, photos and other items of an
intimate nature are rumored to have been found inside.” Bev took a
step closer to the camera. “We have also learned that the Helena
P.D. had consulted with an outside expert who told them that the
method of death, and the weapon used, indicate that the motivation
for the murder was personal.”

Bev, it seemed, had sources of her own.

I clicked off the TV and called George.

His response was less than helpful. “Can’t
tell you anything.”

“Not even why you didn’t find whatever you
found the first time?” Call me suspicious, but there was something
about all of this I didn’t like.

There was silence on the other end of the
line.

“George?”

A chair creaked. Then George answered. His
voice sounded weird, like he’d moved into an enclosed space or had
his hand over the phone. “There’s stuff going on. Stuff I don’t
like.”

That made two of us.

“Klein’s been getting tips.”

“Tips?”

“Yeah, and not the kind you leave on the
bar.”

Okay.

“He got one early this morning suggesting we
visit Joe’s again. Told us right where to look to find a stash of
pictures and notes.”

“That’s convenient.”

“It sure is.” There was a sound on the other
end of the phone, then someone calling George’s name. When he
returned, his voice was normal again. “Listen, I have to go. It
looks like there’s been a break–in at the Deere mansion.”

He hung up, leaving me to stare at my phone
horrified.

I looked up to see Betty watching me with a
smirk. “Deere mansion, huh? Who would want to break in there?”

My conversation with George left me in a bit
of a quandary. My first instinct was to panic.

The Deere mansion had been broken into.

This did not sound “fine.” It didn’t sound
anywhere near fine.

Betty, however, talked me off the ledge.
“You didn’t break in, did you?”

I shook my head. The door was clearly open
when I arrived.

“And you didn’t take anything that Darrell
hadn’t promised you, right?”

Eh. I made a face.

Betty muttered under her breath. “Okay, did
you
keep
anything Darrell hadn’t promised you?”

No, definitely not.

I glanced around to assure myself that
nothing else had somehow made its way into my shop.

“Then you’re fine.”

There was that word again. I made another
face. “Should I call Cindy?”

“Why don’t you call Peter instead and just
admit everything?”

She was right. I reached for the phone.

She slapped my hand down. “What are you
doing?”

“Calling—” Seeing her expression, I stopped.
“Oh.”

With a shake of her head, she pushed me
toward my chair. “You need to think about something else. What did
George say about Joe?”

Betty had walked in after that part of the
conversation. Plus, that was when George was muffling his
voice.

“Someone called in this morning and
suggested the police take another look at Joe’s house. Whoever it
was told them where to look to find the pictures and notes that Bev
mentioned.”

Betty tapped her chin. “Interesting. And
this isn’t the first call they’ve gotten. There was the one that
sent them here the other day too.”

“But they didn’t do anything except look
around.”

Betty squinted. “Someone still sent them
here. Someone thought they were going to find something. What about
when they found Phyllis’s pills. How did they know about them?”

It was a good question. I hadn’t even known
about them.

“Do you think all the calls were from the
same person?”

“Maybe. Who would have known all of
that?”

“All of what? We don’t know why Klein and
Peter came here that day.”

“Could you ask?”

I could, but I would rather wait to talk to
my boyfriend until after I got more information on what was
happening with the Deere mansion “break–in.”

Betty waved her hand, signaling she knew
what I was thinking without me saying it. “Let’s start with the
pills. Who could have known they were in your car?”

Phyllis was the obvious answer, but neither
Betty nor I could think why she would want the police to find
them.

I picked up a pencil and waved it in the
air, as if it might magically bring us some answers. “The B&B
owner? She knew Phyllis was staying there. With that picture
running in the paper and Missy being killed, maybe she wanted
Phyllis out, and alerting the police about the pills was a way to
get rid of her.”

Betty didn’t buy it. “Why not just call and
tell them she was there then? And how would she have known about
the pills? She could have seen you carrying out the laundry, but
how would she know the pills were in the bag?”

“Phyllis’s laundry was already in the bag
when I got there. Maybe she saw them?”

Betty tilted her head. “Eh.”

I sighed. She was right. It didn’t flow.
“What about my mother?”

“Your mother?”

I nodded, maybe a little too vehemently.
“She’s who sent me to the B&B. I know she did it because she
knew Phyllis was there.”

“But how would she know about the pills? And
why would she call the police on
you
?”

I was frequently at a loss as to why my
mother chose to do things, but Betty was right. Even if my mother
had wanted Phyllis caught, she too could have just called the
police and told them where she was hiding.

“Maybe...” Betty sat on my desk. Right on
top of my latest copy of
Antiques Today
. “... we’re
thinking about this wrong. Maybe the person who called knew the
pills were in your car because...”

“They put them there,” we finished in
unison.

In less than ten minutes, we had narrowed it
down to the only person I knew who had had access to my unlocked
car and, coincidentally, the pills.

“Laura.”

And I’d really started to like Laura, what
with our shared love of some of life’s most important things: wine,
cheese, and dogs. Framing me for murder and quite possibly being a
murderer herself was really going to put a damper on our burgeoning
relationship.

o0o

Laura was not the picture of remorse and
embarrassment that I’d imagined. “Why would I want the police to
find the pills? I told you that I put them in Missy’s drink. If
anything, I’d be hiding them, not calling the police and telling
them where to find them.”

She picked up a wheel of cheese and dropped
it onto the counter. After turning her back on me and digging
around in a drawer for a few minutes, she turned to face me. In her
hand was the biggest, sharpest cleaver that I’d ever seen.

I shrank backward. The cheese shop wasn’t
open yet, meaning Laura and I were alone.

Not, I realized now, the best plan.

Caught up in whatever emotions were rolling
through her, she didn’t seem to notice my unease. “Did you tell
them?” She whacked the cleaver down toward the cheese. The blade
slammed into the wax–covered wheel and then stopped, lodged only a
quarter–way into its depth. Laura picked up the cleaver, cheese
wheel still attached and waved it around. “Dammnit. I told him I
needed the saw fixed.”

“Him?” I asked politely, hoping to turn the
conversation away from the saw and other sharp objects.

“My rat bastard husband,” she responded.
Just as quickly as her anger had soared, it dissipated. She
deflated, dropping the cheese on the counter and dropping her body
onto a stool that sat behind it. “I wish I could afford to leave
him.”

“Uh...” Marriage advice was well out of my
comfort zone. Unsure what else to do, I reached out and patted her
hand. “I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

“Maybe. Maybe I just expect too much.”

She didn’t look as if she believed that. Not
for one nanosecond. I gave her hand another pat.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t giving
money to those hookers.”

I nodded, understanding... wait. “Hookers?
In Helena?”

She looked at me, her expression a mix of
humor and surprise. “The Coffee Cartel? What did you think that we
were trying to prove?”

I flapped the hem of my shirt at her.

She laughed out loud.

At least I was putting her in a better
mood.

“No. I mean that
is
annoying, but
we knew the police wouldn’t do anything about that. It’s the
prostitution that gets us, or more specifically for me, the money
my husband spends on it.”

“Why not divorce him?”

“Oh, I will, but I need proof that that’s
where the ten grand missing from our savings went.”

Ten grand
. Her husband was lucky
all she wanted to do was divorce him.

“That’s why Phoebe and I turned the
WIL
ers onto them.”

“You and Phoebe? I got the idea that Kristi
was the leader of the group.”

Laura made a face. “She is, but going after
the Cuties wasn’t her idea. She was more into street
beautification.” Another face.

“Street beautification?”

“Planting trees, picking up trash...” She
waved a hand.

“But she was part of the protest, and was
there that night, right?”

“I think she was just keeping track of us. I
don’t think she trusts us a whole bunch.”

I couldn’t imagine why not, what with Laura
and company thinking it was a good idea to drug Missy.

I asked about that.

“Oh, yeah.
That
was actually her
idea. She said it would be cleaner.”

So much for Kristi being the responsible
one.

“But originally, she wasn’t real big on our
plans, and after... you heard how she talked at the meeting. She
seems to think the Cuties are going to change their ways now.” She
rolled her eyes. “Last I checked, another $250 was missing from my
savings.”

As we were talking, I realized all of this
gave Laura an even better motive for murdering the Cutie.

“Was your husband...” Unsure exactly how to
ask this, I paused. “Was Missy who your husband was sleeping
with?”

Laura shrugged. “I don’t know, but she was
the boss. She made no secret of that.”

“So you haven’t followed him or—”

The look on her face gave me an answer. I
filled in the unspoken bit myself. “Your walk with Abi when you had
your camera. You were looking for something. Was your husband
there... cheating?”

She lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know. He’s
sneaky. I haven’t been able to trail him yet. Instead I started
following the Cuties.”

“And one of them—” I remembered then that a
few days before I’d seen Laura in the B&B neighborhood, I’d
seen Rachel there too. I mentioned this to Laura. “She said she was
coming from the B&B. Is it a brothel?” I could not imagine the
lecture I would get if I booked my mother
and
my dad for a
week’s getaway at a brothel.

“Maybe,” Laura answered cheerfully.

My horror knew no bounds.

“But most likely she was visiting a client.
I’ve seen her there a lot, and she’s always headed to one house in
particular. A house you’ve visited too.” She raised a brow.

“A house...? The Deere’s! Darrell...” Pieces
fell into place like ice dropping off a snow–laden roof. How
Darrell had greeted me. How he had responded to my requests for
Ruby’s things. How Cindy had acted. The “toy” we’d found at the
house.

Oh my
... I rubbed my hand against
my thigh as if I could rub off the contact I’d had with the
thing.

“You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know. Why would you think I’d
know?”