Authors: Sara Rosett
He thought I was asking about the purse for when I
cleaned out Cass’s possessions. I didn’t mention the possibility of the EpiPen being gone. I’d check first.
“Why would someone want Cass to die?” He sounded genuinely puzzled.
“I don’t know.” I searched for a gentle way to phrase my question. “Did anyone dislike her?”
A short huffing sound came over the line. “I’ve been over that with the investigators. I can’t think of anyone. She was the life of the party, you know, always laughing and having fun. Everyone loved to be around her.”
Maybe someone didn’t like her hogging the spotlight. I kept that idea to myself. I knew of several people who didn’t love her. “What about Jeff? He was awfully upset at the barbeque.”
“Yeah, the hunting thing. Cass didn’t like it when people interfered with nature. ‘We’re always messing it up,’ she’d say.”
“But I thought hunting kept wild animal populations under control.”
“That’s what hunters like to say. But I don’t think that conversation had anything to do with her death.”
I wasn’t ready to dismiss Jeff’s anger so quickly, but I changed tracks with Joe. “Well, maybe she knew something,” I ventured, thinking of her gossip about Gwen.
The line was quiet, not even static marred the silence for a few seconds. “Yeah,” Joe said reluctantly. “She did want to know things about people. She was curious, a real people person. Sometimes she was a little too nosy. Almost like a kid, she would ask anyone about anything. She asked Jill how long it took them to get pregnant.” Joe’s laughter came over the line. “Boy, that took a while to smooth over. She just wanted to get to know people and know the details of their lives. I guess she would’ve
made a good investigative reporter. She was never afraid to ask questions.
“I used to tell her to relax sometimes. People open up if you give them time, but she didn’t want to wait. She was always in a hurry for everything. It was like she tried to pack all the action and life she could into every moment. And it turned out she was right. She didn’t have that long to live.” Joe’s voice turned even softer. “She was like a sparkler, all bright, explosive, and beautiful. But they don’t last very long.”
“Did she tell you anything about Gwen?”
“Who?”
“Gwen Givens, Steven’s wife.”
“No,” he said quickly. Too quickly?
“Do you know where she went every Tuesday night?” I asked, remembering the calendar.
“I guess it won’t hurt to tell you, now that she’s gone. She didn’t want anyone else to know. She was embarrassed.”
It was a little hypocritical to want the details of people’s lives, but then jealously guard your own secret.
“It was her AA meeting.”
I was searching for a reply when Joe continued, cutting through the faint rustling on the phone line. “She’d had a pretty rough time. She got married young and they had kids right away. I don’t know all the details, but there were problems. Her first husband was a real partyer. I guess she was, too. She told me they used to hit the clubs every weekend. Then after Chloe and Julie were born she said she lost it, thought she was falling into the pattern of her parents. You know—boring respectability. She didn’t want that. I think their marriage was already shaky and the pressures of kids really
added to it. When Luke lost his job, everything went downhill. Cass told me she was drinking all the time, trying to escape. Eventually, they divorced and Luke got the kids because of her drinking.
“That was her wake-up call. She checked herself into a rehab center and then moved back home to get her life straightened up. I don’t think she’d had a drink since then.”
“That’s amazing. Quite a turnaround,” I said.
“She always had such a strong will. Anything she did, she did it all the way, to the extreme. When she partied she pushed herself to the edge, and then when she realized she lost the girls because of it, she pulled herself back the other way.”
“How did you two meet?” Joe’s words were pouring out. I hoped talking would help him and I couldn’t think of a way to ease out of the conversation without sounding abrupt.
“We went to the same high school. We knew each other but never dated. She was wild. She wanted to be out on her own and live. She told me she thought I was boring.” He laughed. I could tell it didn’t bother him. “We went our separate ways. I went to the Academy and she moved to Dallas and met Luke. Later, after rehab, I saw her at the mall when I was back visiting my parents for Christmas. And, well, it just grew from there.” He cleared his throat. “Sorry to talk your ear off like that. You’re easy to talk to.”
“No problem,” I said, relieved he’d wrapped up our chat. “We’ll see you Wednesday.” I assured him Mitch would pick him up at the airport.
Later that night, we were clearing the table after dinner when the doorbell rang.
For the final clean of your old home, arrange to borrow a neighbor’s vacuum, mop, broom, and other cleaning supplies after the movers finish since your cleaning equipment will be lumbering down the street in the moving van about the time you need it.
What I dream of is an art of balance.
—Henri Matisse
R
ex’s barks reverberated in our small house until Mitch told him to be quiet.
I paused with two dinner plates smudged with spaghetti sauce in my hands. “Who could that be?”
“No one we know uses the front door.” Mitch set down our glasses. Livvy’s bouncy chair hummed as she kicked her feet. She was used to Rex’s barking now.
“And at seven,” I said. “It’s so late.”
Mitch grinned. “We’ve turned into old fogies.”
“You mean people actually go places, do things, after six at night? They’re not home putting their kids to bed? Or trying to?” I hurried to put the plates in the sink and returned to the living room in time to see Mitch open the door to a tall man with curly brown hair
wearing a tan raincoat over a standard business casual uniform: long-sleeved oxford, khakis, and loafers.
“Hey—” Mitch began.
“Special Agent Oliver Thistlewait.” The man cut him off and stuck out his hand. “Office of Special Investigations.” Mitch paused and then shook his hand slowly. “Oliver Thistlewait. Nice to meet you. Come in.” Mitch avoided looking at me when he turned around. Interesting. Something to ferret out later. “My wife Ellie.”
“Let me take your coat,” I said as I shook Thistle-wait’s hand.
“How can we help you?” Mitch asked over his shoulder as he led the way to our half-cleared table and sat down.
“I’m here about Cassandra Vincent.” Thistlewait eyed the basket of buttered French bread. “We’re looking into her death. I understand you found her body, Mrs. Avery.”
“Yes. Have some bread,” I said, hoping to deflect any questions.
“Thanks.” He took a slice, pulled out a notebook, and began asking detailed questions, taking me through the day of the barbeque again. Good thing I got out of PR. I’m lousy at deflection.
He managed to eat two more slices of bread, scattering crumbs over the table’s glossy surface and spotting his notebook with greasy fingerprints by the time we reached the break-in at the Vincents’ house.
“I understand you have a key.”
“Yes. We’re taking his mail in for him and watering the plants.”
“I’ll need it to look around.”
He brushed the crumbs into a neat pile and asked, “Did you know Mrs. Vincent well?”
“Not really. We just moved here. I met her the night we moved in—Tuesday wasn’t it? Then I went to the coffee at her house the next night. What happened with her brakes and steering? Was it more than vandalism?”
Thistlewait continued writing in his notebook as he said, “We’re looking into it.”
“Well, what about her EpiPens? Have you found them? Was hers in the van?” I persisted, since he was being rude.
He looked at me this time and said each word with a faint emphasis, “We’re looking into it. Now, let’s go back to the barbeque. When you left did you see anyone in the parking lot?”
He leaned his elbow on the edge of the table and watched me with his dark eyes.
I ran my hand around the corner of the breadbasket, suddenly nervous. I felt like I’d just been clocked doing 75 in a 45 mph zone. “Mitch was talking to Nick Town-send, I think that’s his name. I don’t remember anyone else. Brent walked out with me.”
“Did you see any cars on the road as you left?”
I paused. “I don’t remember any.”
“No one passed you going back toward the squadron?”
“I don’t think so, but I don’t really remember,” I said with a slight shake of my head. “Gwen was the first one to stop. She was headed east to the back gate.”
“Know of anyone who didn’t like Mrs. Vincent? Any arguments? Rivalries?”
Mitch had been lounging at the table fiddling with a butter knife. I felt a stillness settle over him at this question. “We just moved here a few weeks ago. I don’t know anyone very well, except Abby Dovonowski. We were at Hunter together,” I explained. I spent the next fifteen
minutes, which felt like about three hours, answering questions about how well I knew Jeff, his knowledge of bees and wasps, the confrontation between him and Cass on Friday at the barbeque, and if I’d seen him when I left. Abruptly, Thistlewait switched to a new topic. “Cass Vincent lived most of her life in Texas. You sure you didn’t know her? You’re from there, too.”
“I never met her before two weeks ago.”
“You’re sure?” Thistlewait pressed.
“It’s a large state.” I couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I tried to ease in one more of my questions. After all, I’d answered most of his. “The Vincents’ garage and house have both been broken into. Could that be linked to Cass’s death?” Livvy started fussing in her seat and Mitch went to hand her a new toy.
“We coordinate with local law enforcement, Mrs. Avery,” he said with a tight curve on his lips that might have been a smile. It was the faint, self-satisfied, I-know-it-all smile that did it. I’d thought I would tell him about the undercurrents at the spouse coffee, Cass’s flirting and gossiping, Nick’s doctor visits, and Friona’s strange night car rides, but not now. He could find out on his own. He wouldn’t take anything I said seriously, anyway.
“I’ll get you those keys,” I said.
He pocketed the keys. “I’ll return these in a little while.”
I shut the door on his raincoated back and turned to Mitch. “Okay, what was going on when he got here?”
“What?” Mitch tried to look blank. He quickly gathered up the empty breadbasket and our two glasses.
I followed him to the kitchen. “There was something funny. You knew him, didn’t you? But you couldn’t say, right?”
Mitch washed and rinsed the dishes with intense concentration.
“What kind of name is Oliver? Who names their kid Oliver? And Thistlewait! That’s a made-up name if I ever heard one.”
Mitch stacked the dishes in the draining board, kissed my forehead, and said, “Oliver is a nice name. In fact, it’s similar to Olivia—the name you liked so much that we gave it to our daughter. I’ll change Livvy.”
The trials of having an honest, instruction-following husband. I wouldn’t get anything else out of him. He’d never reveal anything he wasn’t cleared to talk about. What was it with these close-mouthed men tonight? I picked up the phone to call Abby.
I grabbed the flimsy plastic bag handles and the diaper bag strap in one hand, then I hooked the car seat handle in the crook of my other arm. After a deep breath, I scurried through the downpour to the Cherokee, parked in the nether regions of the parking lot. I had heard motherhood described as a balancing act, but I added the literal definition to the term in my mind as I skirted the puddles and tried to keep the heavy blanket over Livvy’s car seat. I jerked open the Cherokee’s back door, clicked the seat into place, and tossed the diaper bag onto the floorboard. In seconds, I was in the front seat lifting wet hair off my forehead. I needed a coat with a hood since there was no way to add an umbrella to the menagerie of stuff I carried around with me.
I cranked the heater to high and reached back to remove the blanket from the car seat. Livvy had been fussy all day. In desperation, I’d called my mom. She
suggested Livvy might be teething, so I’d bought Orajel, but now she sucked her thumb and stared contentedly at the primary colored butterfly toy hooked to her car seat handle. I shook my head. Babies were not easy to figure out.
I put the Cherokee in reverse and waited for a woman in a raincoat to get out of my path. Tiptoeing in her high heels, she rounded the end of the Cherokee and slid between it and the next car. I thought for a minute she was heading for my door, but she continued on to the car parked in the slot facing mine. She slid into the car’s passenger side and slapped down the newspaper she’d used to shield her face from the rain.
She looked familiar. I tried to make out her features as she swiped her shoulder-length dark brown hair out of her face and turned to the man seated next to her. It was Gwen Givens. Could that be Steven? He looked too heavy, but it was hard to tell. Anyway Steven didn’t drive a blue four-door Buick. I remembered him leaning out of a sporty black truck the day we moved in. Gwen drove a Camry. I glanced in my rearview mirror. A white Camry, spotted and smeared from the rain, sat one row behind me.
I
glanced back at them, trying not to make eye contact, but I didn’t need to worry. They were completely absorbed in their conversation. He said a few words, but she cut him off. Gwen shook her head sharply and gestured with her hand, a short chopping motion.
The Cherokee was higher than the car and provided a perfect vantage point to see their interaction, although I couldn’t see the man’s face because his sun visor was down. I felt like a voyeur watching them, so I checked behind me again and slid out of the parking place without my lights, despite the gloom of the afternoon. Neither of them glanced at me.
Why would Gwen meet someone in a parking lot? I checked the blue car again before turning left onto the street. Still there. They didn’t seem to be meeting and going anywhere. Or if they were, they weren’t in any
hurry. Maybe it was business related. But her work, Tate’s, was on the other side of town.