“Alexis! Dead?” Memories of having seen and spoken with Alexis only hours ago rushed over Jo, making that difficult to believe.
“How awful! But how did it happen?” Jo asked. “Was she that reckless a driver? I know the conditions were terrible, but we’re talking about town driving.”
“Greenview is fairly steep,” Carrie pointed out. “And it curves sharply near the bottom. But you’re right. It does seem like she’d have to be going awfully fast. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out more. I’ll be in as soon as I can get there. Did you have any trouble driving this morning?”
“Not once I got out of my driveway. Two wonderful neighbors with snowblowers helped with that.”
“Great. I’ll ask Dan to come clear the shop’s walkway.”
“No, don’t, Carrie.” Jo knew Dan would be able to pick up a few dollars clearing parking lots and long driveways with the snowplow attached to his pickup. There was no way she’d interfere with that. “I’ve made a decent dent in the snow, and someone’s coming to finish it for me.”
“All right. I’ll see you soon, then.”
Jo hung up, stunned at the news about Alexis. Knowing the woman, Jo figured she probably had stayed to the very end of the ball, letting the driving conditions worsen as she caught as much gossip as she could and caused as much trouble—Jo stopped at that thought. Alexis had certainly caused trouble, at the ball and on a daily basis. Could it possibly be . . . ? No, Carrie had described an accident, pure and simple. Unfortunate, but unforeseen.
Still, Jo couldn’t shake an uneasy feeling. To distract herself, she began unpacking an order that had arrived the day before: silk flowers and greenery that needed to be sorted and tagged, then placed on the proper shelves in customer-friendly bins. She clicked on her radio for further distraction and dug in, finding, before she knew it, that half her job was done and that Carrie was stomping snow off her boots outside the door.
“Sorry it took me so long,” Carrie said as she came inside.
“No problem. I haven’t had a single customer yet.”
“Everyone’s probably waiting for the streets to clear a bit more. They’ll venture out, little by little.” Carrie headed for the stockroom to pull off her boots and jacket. “They’ll want to talk about the latest bad news.”
“I’m still floored by it myself. Not grief stricken, I have to admit, just stunned. But I hate for that to happen to anyone.”
Carrie called from the back room, “Don’t apologize for your feelings—they’re honest. I suspect we’ll hear too much insincere bewailing today. Most people have difficulty saying a bad word against the dead. But Alexis was a troublemaker, and that’s the truth.”
“That she was, and to the very end, I’m afraid,” Jo said.
When Carrie came out front, Jo told her about the scene she witnessed in the hotel’s kitchen the night before.
Carrie scowled, shaking her head. “That’s outrageous. As if poor Xavier didn’t have enough trouble as it is. Do you suppose he even got paid for the work he put in?”
“I couldn’t say. That manager seemed anxious to put on a big show of apology to Mallory. I doubt he worried much about what Xavier was owed.”
Jo then told Carrie about Alexis’s intrusive advice to Lisa Williams, and what had surely been a most unwelcome conversation with Heather Bannister. She skipped her own annoyance at Alexis’s chasing off of Russ Morgan at the end of their dance, having decided, while thinking it over as she’d sorted through the greenery that morning, that he was unlikely to have lingered with her much longer anyway. Russ Morgan’s sole purpose, she figured, was to warn her away from interference in the Parker Holt case. Once that was accomplished, he surely had more important people to talk with.
“And then,” Jo continued, “there was Mallory Holt and her not very well-veiled threat to me.” Jo described the scene that occurred after Mallory had learned about Jo’s visit to Sebastian.
“Well, you had quite a jolly time last night, didn’t you?”
Jo laughed. “It wasn’t the senior prom, I’ll admit.” Except for that one, lovely, too-short dance, she mused wistfully.
The sound of stamping outside her door shook her back to business. “Our first customer of the day.”
A large, well-bundled woman opened the door and walked in. “Well! That was an invigorating walk! Very few people have shoveled their sidewalks yet, but the snow-plows did a good job, so I walked in the street. Need to get a few things, including some scrapbooking papers for the project I’m in the middle of. Did you hear about poor Alexis?” the woman asked, bright eyes going from Carrie to Jo. “I’ve been absolutely heartbroken since Mary Louise called me this morning. Poor, dear Alexis.”
Carrie caught Jo’s eye as if to say,
And so it begins
.
The afternoon continued in that vein, the flow of people to Jo’s craft shop increasing as the wintry sun grew brighter. Most bought craft items, some simply accompanied buyers, but all discussed Alexis Wigsley’s terrible crash. Jo learned little more about the accident, other than that it had occurred at 12:30. Kimberly Costello told her that part, explaining that she had been up with her new baby and, living only one street over from Greenview, had heard the crash, though she didn’t realize at the time what it was. But when sirens soon followed, she knew something bad had happened.
Ina Mae stopped in around midafternoon, complaining that her power-walking group had cancelled because of the snow.
“I thought I’d come out anyway,” she said, “for some fresh air.” As she began to browse through Jo’s beading section, Ina Mae overheard two women commenting on Alexis’s accident.
“She must have been driving terribly recklessly,” the older of the two said. “I heard the damage to her car showed she was clearly traveling at a very high rate of speed.”
Ina Mae spun around to contradict them. “Alexis would never have driven recklessly. She was an extremely cautious driver ever since a cousin of hers was killed over twenty years ago in a car accident.”
“She was?” Carrie asked. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, it was a hit-and-run accident out on Route 30. The cousin was in a coma for days before succumbing. Alexis was quite shaken by it and wouldn’t drive for months afterward. When she did resume driving, she was very careful.”
The other customer looked like she didn’t quite believe Ina Mae as far as Alexis’s careful driving, but Jo knew her friend well enough to know she never made a statement she wasn’t 100 percent sure of. Why then did Alexis’s car show such high impact?
The answer came much later in the afternoon. All the customers had cleared out, and Jo was doing a quick mop-up of melted snow on her floor. The phone rang, and Carrie picked it up. Jo could tell it was Dan, and she turned back to her mopping, though her ears perked up when Carrie’s tone of voice changed dramatically. When her friend hung up, Jo looked over for an explanation.
“That was Dan,” Carrie said unnecessarily, her thoughts clearly still on what she had just heard.
“Is something wrong?” Jo asked.
“Alexis’s car crash. We were all wondering about her driving speed? There seems to be an explanation.”
Jo waited.
“Dan got this from someone at Hanson’s Garage. They towed the car. They also saw a major problem.”
Carrie looked at Jo with worried eyes. “Her brake lines were cut. It wasn’t an accident after all, Jo. Alexis was murdered.”
Chapter 21
Jo closed up shop at six and stopped on the way home to pick up a precooked chicken and fixings from the supermarket’s salad bar, feeling too mind-boggled after what Carrie had told her to think of cooking. After she had her dinner and cleaned up, she brewed a cup of tea and settled on her living room sofa, prepared to kick off her shoes and mull over the events of the last two days. She didn’t get beyond the first sip before the phone rang. It was Carrie.
“Jo, I’m at the hospital. Sylvia’s here because she started having problems. Xavier’s a wreck, and he needs someone to be with him, but I can’t stay much longer. Dan’s still out plowing parking lots.”
“I’ll be right down,” Jo said. She set her tea down and rushed about to gather up her things, managing to pull into the hospital’s parking lot within twenty minutes. A short time after that she was heading rapidly down the corridor to Sylvia’s room.
“Jo, we’re here.” Carrie’s voice came from a little seating alcove to the right, and Jo braked to see her friend sitting next to Xavier. Xavier’s forearms were on his knees, his head hanging low, and as he lifted it up to look at Jo, it seemed to require much of his last remaining strength.
“How is Sylvia?” Jo asked, taking a seat across from the two of them.
“Her water started to break. They’re afraid the baby might be born too soon. They’re with her now.” Carrie sighed. “I’m sure the stress brought this on. The police have been talking to Xavier again.”
Jo nodded, not surprised. “Did they want to know what you did after you left the hotel kitchen last night?”
Xavier looked at her with eyes that had aged years since she last saw him.
“Sí.”
“Xavier,” Carrie said, standing, “I have to go home now. Amanda’s been running a slight fever,” she explained, turning to Jo. “It’s probably nothing, but I should be with her. I’ll come by again in the morning, Xavier. I’m sure everything will be much better.”
Xavier stood up with Carrie, and she patted his hand in farewell.
“Thank you, señora,” he said.
Jo watched Carrie head for the elevator with her cell phone in hand, ready to check on her daughter the minute she left the building. Jo waited for Xavier to sit back down.
“I’m so sorry Sylvia’s having problems.”
“It’s what Señora Brenner says. It’s all too hard on her. It could be very bad for the baby.”
To look at Xavier’s eyes was heartbreaking, but Jo kept hers steady. “The doctors here are very good. Try not to worry. She’s in good hands.”
After a moment, Jo asked, “Did you get a lawyer to be with you when you talked to the police?”
Xavier nodded. “Yes. Mr. Merkle.”
“Good. What did you tell the police you did after you left the hotel?”
Xavier sighed. “I tell them the truth. I drive around awhile. I’m very sad to lose my job. I know Sylvia be very sad, and I don’t want to tell her, so I drive.”
Jo groaned inwardly. That wasn’t good.
“After you drove around, when did you finally get home?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t look at clock. Sylvia was sleeping, and I was quiet and get into bed without waking her. Maybe it was eleven, maybe twelve. I don’t know.”
“Did the police ask you if you had ever worked with cars?”
“
Sí.
I tell them I never work at a garage. But I know how to fix things. I have to. We can’t afford to take a car to be fixed. If I can’t fix, we don’t have a car.”
Xavier said it so openly, Jo was sure he had no idea of the deep hole he had dug for himself.
“Xavier, this is the second time you have no one to back you up as to what you were doing at the time of a murder.”
“But I have no reason to kill anyone!” Xavier had raised his voice, and a nurse’s aide pushing a cart of medical equipment looked over, startled.
Jo waited until Xavier had calmed, then said, “The police might think you had good reason to want Alexis Wigsley dead. After all, she caused you to lose your job by dragging Mallory Holt over to find you there.”
Xavier shook his head vehemently. “No, no, no.”
“But the worse problem is your connection to Parker Holt, which is probably the main reason they’re also looking at you for Alexis’s death. They’re likely thinking one thing led to the other. You have, in their eyes, a very good reason for wanting Parker Holt dead, and you also had a very good opportunity. It’s that hour after you left Dan and spent grocery shopping that’s the sticking point. Is there no one you can think of that can back you up on that? No one who can give you the alibi you need?”
Xavier looked down at his hands, which were clenched tightly. He shook his head. “No one, señora.”
“Are you telling me the absolute truth, Xavier? I’m sorry, but I keep getting an uneasy feeling that you’re leaving something out.”
Xavier shot Jo a look, turned away, then turned back, stating grimly, “I didn’t kill Mr. Holt. I didn’t kill the lady last night.”
“Mr. Ramirez?” A nurse in green scrubs stepped into the alcove. “You can see your wife now if you like.”
Xavier jumped up. “Yes, thank you!
Jo watched as he hurried down the corridor to his wife’s room. She hoped Sylvia’s pregnancy was stabilized and that their baby was safe. The Ramirezes had enough troubles to deal with.
As she saw Xavier disappear into the room, she thought about how he reaffirmed his innocence regarding Parker Holt’s murder. His sincerity had been convincing. However, he hadn’t answered her question concerning whether he had left anything out.
Xavier, she believed, had told her the truth.