Summer Reading is Killing Me (Phee Jefferson Book 2) (8 page)

CHapter Seventeen

I chatted with Shawna for a few more minutes about
her work in microbiology. She seemed lost and lonely amongst the artistic
crowd, so I invited her to meet me for lunch tomorrow at the Quickie Cow. I wanted
to ask her some additional questions about
Elody
, but
didn’t want to arouse her suspicions about my motives. Natural curiosity was
normal, but a more than casual curiosity about crime made people uneasy.

I walked outside to wait for Juliet. I didn’t want
to face the other women after my earlier fiasco. Pulling a paperback out of my
purse, I sat down on one of the bright purple Adirondack chairs by the lake
shore. A few minutes later, I was immersed in the latest Thyme for Tea cozy
mystery. Just as the heroine discovered a dead body in her hall closet, a
shadow fell across my page. Annoyed at the unexpected interruption, I squinted
up at my cozy crime interloper. Jay Burns stood over me. I squelched my
annoyance and seized the opportunity to learn more about Jay and
Elody’s
relationship.

“Hello,” I gave him a friendly smile.

“Hey there.
Whatcha
reading?” Jay squatted down next to me. He plucked a small wildflower from the
patch in front of him.

“
Just in Thyme for Death
.” I showed him the
cover of the book in my hand. “It’s a murder mystery.” Pickles and pancakes!
Someone killed his girlfriend and here I am showing him a murder mystery. I
fidgeted with the hem of my shirt and wondered how to bring up
Elody
.

“You like to read? Me? Not so much. I’d rather
work with my hands. I’m Jay, by the way.” He held out the small white flower.
As he leaned forward to hand it to me, a lock of his dark hair escaped from his
short ponytail and fell across his cheek. Up close, I could see his appeal. He
still had a grungy air about him, but his dark eyes and olive complexion gave
him a pirate-like sex appeal. The tattoos on his arms added to his roguish
appearance. He smelled of sandalwood and patchouli.

I took the flower from him and sniffed it. “I’m
Phee
. So what brings you here? Are you waiting for someone
in the yoga class?”

“Nah. I couldn’t sleep. I got tired of staring at
the walls of my room. Figured I’d take a walk. So what’s a beautiful girl doing
reading a book down by the lake in the early morning hours? I’m surprised your
husband isn’t serving you breakfast in bed,” Jay winked and the corner of his
mouth curved up in a half smile.

“I’m not married.” I blushed as the thought of Jay
bringing me breakfast in bed flitted through my mind. What was wrong with me? I
must have bumped my head when I fell. “I’m waiting for my sister. She taught
the yoga class this morning.”

“Yoga, huh? Never tried it. Mind if I keep you
company for a few minutes?” Jay eased the rest of the way down and stretched
his legs out on the grass. He leaned back and gave me a bold once-over. He had
the tightly coiled energy of a jaguar waiting to pounce on its prey. I sensed
danger despite his warm smile.

“No one waiting to bring you breakfast?” I asked,
not meeting his gaze.

He leaned back on his arms and let the sun warm
his face. He didn’t respond right away. “No. My girlfriend’s gone.”

Seizing the moment, I probed further. “You broke
up with her? Is that why you couldn’t sleep?”

Jay lowered his head. “My girlfriend was
Elody
Campbell. Someone killed her.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize…” I acted like I
was at a loss for words. I certainly couldn’t ask him if he killed her.

“It’s okay. I’m still coming to terms with it. Bad
thing is we had a big fight a few weeks ago. Now I’ll never know if we could’ve
worked it out.”

“I understand. Closure is important,” I nodded
sagely. “Can I be nosy and ask why you fought?”

“Ah, that’s the million dollar question. I guess
you could say I’m between two worlds. We all do stupid things we regret later,”
Jay said. He stood up and brushed the dry grass off his jeans. “It’s too nice
of a morning to sit here and talk about mistakes and murder with a beautiful
woman. I’ll leave you to your book. I’ve got business to take care of anyway.
It was nice to meet you,
Phee
. I hope to see you
again soon.” He gave me a two-finger salute and strolled off leaving me
wondering if I met a heartbroken
hottie
or a contrite
killer.       

The door to the community center opened and a
group of women spilled out laughing and chattering. Juliet peeled away and
waved goodbye to them. I stood up and trotted to Ole Blue. Her glare warned me
not to joke about my downward dog disaster. She stalked past me and threw her
yoga mat in the backseat. I followed meekly behind her and climbed into the
passenger seat without a word.

“Don’t speak. You fell over and took out two
people!” Juliet exclaimed.

“But I…” I protested, but she raised her hand up
to stop me.

“I told you yoga wasn’t easy, but no, you didn’t
listen to me. To make up for causing me trauma and years of therapy, you’ll
wake up and attend my early morning yoga class for the next year. For pity’s
sake, learn how to at least do a sun salutation.”

“Okay.” I bit my lip. I would be happy to get up
at the crack of dawn to make it up to her. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you with
my little slip and fall.”

“Oh, it was a little more than a slip and fall.
You
body-slammed the artist, Alicia Staunton. She’s won
every major art critic’s heart in the state with her latest show. Thank the
goddess, you didn’t break her hand or worse. I’d never be able to show my face
at the ashram again.” Juliet continued to scowl as she steered Ole Blue out of
the parking lot.

“I promise to practice every single day. I’ll
never do downward facing dog again without a safety net.” I raised my right
hand to swear.

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve done all day,”
Juliet said. Her face lost some of the angry tightness. “You
weebled
and wobbled, then you fell down!” Her face split
into a wide grin.

“I can never show my face there again,” I relaxed
as the tension eased.

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it. On the up
side, I found out an interesting tidbit of information,” Juliet said.

“Me, too. You go first,” I offered as a gesture of
peacemaking penitence.

“One of the women confided that
Elody
argued with her friend the night before she died.
It’s the girl you didn’t take out with your downward dog debacle. The one with
the glasses and brown hair.”

“Shawna Collins. I talked to her after class. She
roomed with
Elody
in college. She’s not your typical
club kid or groupie
Elody
partied with. Shawna is
smart and a doctoral candidate in microbiology.”

“I don’t even know what a microbiologist studies.
According to Rachel Mick, whose cabin is next to
Elody’s
,
she and Shawna had a knock-down, drag-out screaming match. Rachel wasn’t sure
what the fight was about, but she heard Shawna yell at
Elody
that she was acting stupid, and if
Elody
didn’t do
something about it, she would,” Juliet said.

“I’m surprised. Shawna sounded like she adored
Elody
. If what Rachel told you is the truth, then maybe
Shawna took care of things by taking out
Elody
,” I
concluded.  

Chapter Eighteen

I pondered what I learned about Shawna as Juliet
cruised along the road that hugged the lakeshore. She didn’t seem like a
murdering madwoman, but then does anyone ever look like the killers you see in
the movies? “I’m having lunch with Shawna tomorrow. I’ll try to find out what
she and
Elody
were arguing about that night. I had an
interesting run-in with someone myself.”

“Glad you did something productive this morning to
make up for your lack of coordination,” Juliet joked. She kept her eyes trained
on the road ahead and concentrated on the non-existent traffic, but I caught
the quick smirk and side glance.

“My mind is a ninja master of coordination. My
body just hasn’t caught up yet. So do you want to hear who I talked to, or
would you like to mock me a few minutes more?”

“Oh, I can hold my mocking to a minimum for at
least ten minutes. Spill it, Ninja Librarian,” Juliet demanded. She turned into
my driveway and parked her car.

“Jay Burns. He’s better looking in person. He’s
like a rebel without a clue. He caught me by surprise when he walked up to me,
so I wasn’t able to probe too much into his relationship with
Elody
. Jay didn’t seem heartbroken when I talked to him,
but maybe he’s pulled himself together since yesterday. According to him, he
and
Elody
had a big fight, and they’d split,” I said.

“Did he tell you what they fought about?” Juliet asked.

“Not really. He said something about being torn
between two worlds. Maybe
Elody
wanted back into her
dad’s good graces, and an older street thug turned artist didn’t cut it in the
Senator’s high profile, political world,” I offered. “I didn’t tell him I was
your sister, so play dumb and pretend you forgot to tell me he was joining us
for lunch.”

“It will be a stretch to play clueless, but I’ll
persevere.” Juliet laid the back of her hand against her forehead and sighed.
Such a comedy queen. She should have been on stage rather than a yoga mat.

“Thank you for sacrificing yourself on my behalf.”
I rolled my eyes as I opened the car door. “I better hustle. Today’s the start
of summer reading. I told Wade we needed to get to work early to get the bags ready
to hand out to the children. I’ll meet you in front of the restaurant at one,
okay?”

“Sounds good. Later days and crazy ways, chick.”
Juliet waved and backed out of the driveway. I raised my hand and waved back as
she zipped away in her convertible.

The paper boy had missed my front porch again. I
spotted the
Miller’s Cove Courier
  resting atop my hedges. I
grabbed it on my way inside and tossed it on the hallway table. After loving on
Watson and
Ferdie
a few minutes, I hurried and
changed my clothes.

A half an hour later, I walked into work and saw
Wade had beaten me there. Webster’s Dictionary defined punctuality with a
picture of Wade. As his boss, I couldn’t complain. As his friend, I was glad he
accepted Juliet’s chronic ignorance of time when it came to anything but yoga.

“Your girlfriend is a mini-dictator,” I said in
the way of greeting. “I went to her six a.m. yoga class. You have one little
mishap where you land on a few famous artists and she can’t ignore it and let
it go.” I put my purse into my desk drawer and turned to complain about
Juliet’s lack of compassion for my traumatic event.

“Huh. That’s nice,” Wade responded. He didn’t
bother to glance up. He continued flipping through the mail.

I sensed something wasn’t right in Wade World, so
I leaned against the counter and said, “Yeah. She said from now on she was
teaching all of her yoga classes in the nude. It’s all the rage in New York
City.”

“That’s cool,” Wade said and turned to check in
the books sitting on the book cart.

I reached over and rolled the cart out of his
reach. “What’s up with you? Don’t you dare say nothing because I’ll know you’re
lying.”

Instead of responding, he handed me the
Miller’s
Cove Courier.
The headline read “Senator Campbell Holds Memorial Service
for Murdered Daughter.” Puzzled, I said, “Juliet and I went to the service last
night. Remember?”

“Open it and check out page two,” Wade yanked the
cart back towards him and grabbed two books to scan.

I set the paper on the counter and flipped to page
two. Photographs of the Senator and several small-time celebrities attending
the service filled the page. Halfway down, there was a picture of Juliet
leaning in close to talk to Jay. The caption read, “No moss grows on Jay Burns
as he nuzzles his newest love interest less than twenty-four hours after
girlfriend
Elody’s
tragic murder.” Crap on a cracker.
No wonder Wade seemed angry. Thank goodness they hadn’t used Juliet’s name. The
paparazzi were such scavengers. How could they take an innocent moment and turn
it into a sordid affair? I scanned the rest of the pictures. In the bottom left
corner, a picture showed Jay watching Juliet walk away from him. He ogled her
departing derriere. I felt greasy and dirty just looking at his expression. The
earlier caption was correct. He didn’t appear lovelorn over
Elody’s
death.

“You realize she and I were on the job,” I
explained to Wade. He continued to ignore me and studied the children’s book in
his hand like it was an American classic with profound wisdom in its pages. “We
were investigating
Elody’s
murder. I assigned Juliet
to corner Jay. It was loud, and cameras were everywhere. She leaned in to tell
him what time to meet us today for lunch. The camera jockey snapped pictures
and twisted it to sell papers. My sister thinks you’re the hottest thing since
siracha
peanuts went on sale at Abe’s. Jay Burns is a
C-minus aspiring to reach your A-plus magnificence.”

Wade tried to stay silent, but a second later he cracked
a smile. “Where do you come up with these things? I’ll take that A-plus
magnificence and own it. I would like that exact wording on my next evaluation,
please.”

“You got it. It was crazy last night. It was more
of a red carpet photo op than memorial for
Elody
.
Cameras and reporters packed the park, and half the town showed up to watch the
drama unfold.”

“I’m sorry I missed the chaos. I’m also sorry I
came across like a caveman guarding his mastodon meat. What kind of man would I
be if I didn’t get jealous when that loser ‘artiste’ looked like he wanted to
have his way with my woman? I love your sister, and I have a jealous streak.
It’s the nature of this A-plus magnificent man,” Wade puffed out his chest and
winked at me.

“You’re killing me with your manliness,” I
laughed. “I understand completely. I wouldn’t like it if the situation reversed
and Clint appeared in the paper with another woman.”

I grabbed the box of bags and began to stuff them
with reading logs and t-shirts for the children. Wade stood up and rolled the
cart around to the front of the desk. “I’m glad you understand. Clint would
shoot this Jay Burns creep if he was in my shoes. I showed remarkable
restraint.”

Wade continued towards the stacks to shelve the
books. I paused in my bag stuffing and thought about what Wade said. Would
Clint be jealous or would he shrug it off? Was he invested in me as much as I
was in him? Shrugging off my doubts, I hurried to finish so I could open the
library and kick off summer reading fun.