Nickeled-And-Dimed to Death (26 page)

Poppy and I commiserated that we hadn’t found the murderer, deciding to postpone writing the report for Tryg until we’d talked to Colin Whitmore.

We agreed to meet at the health club at seven a.m., and I headed home. I waved at Gran and her poker buddies, who seemed to be involved in a cutthroat game of five-card stud, then closed myself in my bedroom to process the day’s events. Just before I fell asleep, I realized that once again I wouldn’t be able to search for Elise’s cat the next morning and resolved to do so after work on Friday. I sure hoped that Tsar had found someone to take him in, or at least a place to stay warm.

*  *  *

The health club was on the outskirts of town in a tiny strip mall. Poppy and I arrived at the same time, and I admired her low-riding, skintight stretch capris and matching ruffled sports bra. She didn’t seem quite as pleased to see my gray sweatpants and black T-shirt.

While we were signing in and paying for a day pass at the front desk, she hissed, “Are those clothes what you consider sexy?”

“Hey,” I whispered back, “if I looked like Fairy Princess Barbie, I’d wear your outfit, but since I’m more like a Jill doll, this is the best I can do. As a curvy girl, I firmly believe that wearing spandex is a mistake.”

“Why? If you’d put on some lipstick, fix your hair, and wear some cute shoes, no one would notice the size of your ass,” Poppy informed me as we walked down a short hallway. “And what in the hell is a Jill doll?”

“She was the teenage sister of an early 1950s chubby doll called Ginny,” I explained. “Both Jill and Ginny were shaped like real people rather than the fashion dolls that appeared later that decade.”

“Only you would know that.” Poppy snorted, then glanced around the room and pointed at a man on an elliptical machine. “If that’s Colin Whitmore, turns out I do know him after all. He comes to the bar’s karaoke nights.”

Since there was no one else present, I figured the guy had to be Elise’s husband, but he sure didn’t look like I had pictured him. The man on the machine was barely five foot six and maybe a 115 pounds soaking wet. He had a wispy mustache that drooped over plump pink lips. His brown hair made me think of a burlap bag, and a gold stud pierced his right nostril. It was hard to believe this was the guy who had succeeded in seducing Willow into giving up her vow of chastity.

As I approached him, his hostile hazel eyes zeroed in on me, but his sour expression changed when he caught a glimpse of Poppy behind me. He puffed up his chest and started moving faster.

“Hi.” Poppy waved. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Poppy Kincaid. I own Gossip Central. You have a great singing voice.”

Colin lurched to a stop. “Poppy, uh, what a surprise. Of course I know who you are. What man could forget someone so gorgeous?”

“Aw.” Poppy fluttered her lashes. “How sweet. But I don’t think I ever knew your name.”

“Colin.” He smoothed the sides of his short hair and tugged at neck of his faded T-shirt. “Colin Whitmore.”

Either Colin was ignoring me or he’d forgotten I was there. I was used to fading away next to Poppy’s exquisite beauty; it had been happening since first grade, when the bus driver was so enthralled by her that he missed my stop and didn’t realize I was still on board until he parked back at the bus barn.

“Oh, my God!” Poppy pretended surprise. “Was it your wife who was murdered last Saturday?”

“Yes.” Colin leaned awkwardly against the handles of the elliptical machine. “But we were in the process of getting a divorce.”

“Still, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Poppy said. “Do they have any idea who killed her?”

“I hear they think it’s her lawyer.” Colin’s expression was solemn. “I warned her about him.”

“Really?” Poppy twirled a strand of her hair. “Why is that?”

“He was giving her bad advice.” Colin licked his lips, his gaze on Poppy’s breasts as they rose and fell under her skimpy top. “I told her that we could settle things amicably without involving attorneys, and save a lot of money, too.”

“Now, Colin.” Poppy wagged a finger at him. “Was that because you’d been a bad boy and she and her lawyer were going to take you for all you were worth?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice rang with false sincerity.

“From what I heard, your wife caught you in a teeny bit of a compromising position.” Poppy’s tone was still playful.

“Well . . .” Colin winked. “When you’re as awesome in bed as I am, it’s hard to turn down a lady when she begs.”

After I stopped myself from gagging, I joined the conversation in the role of bad cop and said, “So, when that lady begged you to kill your wife to protect her identity, you couldn’t say no to that, either.”

“No!” Colin opened his mouth, closed it, and repeated the process. “I would never have hurt Elise.”

“Even though she was getting rid of all your prized possessions?” Poppy prodded him. “Come on, Colin. Everyone in town knows how pissed you were.”

“But—” His face had been ruddy with good health; now it was purple with outrage.

“You told anyone who would listen that she was selling or giving away items that had been in your family for years and were irreplaceable,” I added to jog his memory. “Hell, you threatened to sue whoever bought your stuff from her for receiving stolen property.”

“Okay.” Knitting his heavy eyebrows together over his pug nose, Colin admitted, “I
was
mad. She was getting rid of heirlooms like my great-grandfather’s set of golf clubs, signed baseballs that my dad had given me, and chocolate molds that had been a part of my mother’s family business.”

“That does seem mean.” I felt a twinge of guilt at the mention of the molds and reminded myself to give them back if Colin turned out to be innocent.

“So you really must have been furious when Elise tried to get you fired,” Poppy chimed in, her tone sympathetic.

“Sure.” Colin shrugged. “But I knew Max would never get rid of me.”

“Really?” I couldn’t keep the cynicism from my voice. “That’s not what I heard. I heard that when he told you he was turning the matter over to Mr. Bourne, you became violent and broke a coffee table.”

“That’s a lie!” Colin yelped. “Who told you that?”

I shot Poppy a glance asking if she thought we should tell him. She gave a slight shake of her head, and I said, “I can’t reveal my source.”

“Well, whoever said it is a liar, and everyone at the bank will back me up.” He swung his gaze to Poppy. “The front wall of Max’s office is all glass, so if I did something like that, everyone in the place would have seen it or at least heard the noise.”

“Interesting.” As a matter of fact, now that I thought about it, the president’s office was in full view of customers and tellers.

“Be that as it may . . .” Doubt curled Poppy’s perfect rosebud mouth. “You still could have killed your wife.”

“The police cleared me.” Colin pasted on a satisfied smile. “I have an airtight alibi. I was in New York at a programmer’s convention from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. Every bit of my time the night Elise was killed is accounted for.”

“How wonderful.” Poppy recovered faster than I did.

“Why are you two so interested?” Colin narrowed his eyes. “Hey, I remember now. You’re friends with Boone St. Onge. You’re trying to pin Elise’s murder on me to help your friend wiggle off the hook.” He advanced on Poppy and roared into her face, “Go to hell.”

She raised a brow and said, “Sorry. I can’t.” Then she grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the door as she said over her shoulder, “Satan has a restraining order against me.”

We hurried down that hall, glancing behind us to make sure Colin wasn’t following us. He might have an alibi, but he also had a temper.

Once we were safely in Poppy’s Hummer, she made a call to her source at the police station, and he confirmed that the cops had investigated Colin’s alibi and it had checked out.

After she put away her cell, I said, “We are now officially out of suspects.”

“Well, we’d better find some more.” Poppy whacked me on the arm. “Boone will not look good in prison stripes.”

CHAPTER 24

P
oppy promised to e-mail Tryg our report regarding Willow, Colin, and Lindsey, then hugged me good-bye and drove away in her Hummer. We were both upset. Boone had been counting on us, and we had crapped out. Why did all of our suspects have to have alibis? What were the odds that three people could verify their whereabouts on any given Saturday night? When I was under investigation, I sure hadn’t been able to prove where I’d been.

When I arrived at the dime store, the message on the store phone didn’t improve my mood. It was the school secretary telling me that Hannah wouldn’t be at work today. There was some sort of high-stakes achievement testing associated with the No Child Left Behind law that she was required to take with the rest of her class.

After quickly changing from my exercise clothes to my jeans and sweatshirt, I got the store ready for the day, then began creating a basket for one of Oakley Panigrahi’s clients. I had already finished the other nineteen in his order and needed to deliver them on Monday morning.

As I chose the perfect luxury items and arranged them, I racked my brain trying to figure out who had murdered Elise. There had to be something we were all missing. I had been working on the basket for nearly an hour when there was a knock on the front entrance. It was still ten minutes to opening, so I normally would have ignored the early bird, but I saw that it was Bryce Grantham and he was holding a large plastic Pet Taxi.

As I let him into the store, he handed me the carrier and said, “Look who I found.”

“Tsar, I presume?” A large gray cat with striking green eyes gazed at me through the wire mesh.

“That’s the name on his collar,” Bryce affirmed. “I found him this morning while I was walking Sweetie. I noticed him coming out of the half-open door of a neighbor’s tool shed. When I investigated, I saw that he’d chewed open a bag of dry cat food that had been stored in the shed and had made himself a cozy little nest in a rag box.”

“Was he hard to catch?” I asked, relieved that the cat had been warm and well fed the whole time that he was missing.

“Not at all.” Bryce grinned. “I put a dish of tuna in Sweetie’s Pet Taxi and Tsar strolled right in.” He frowned. “Actually, he limped in. I think he hurt his foot.”

“Poor baby,” I crooned to him, then said to Bryce, “I’ll take him to the vet’s right now.”

Normally, I hated closing the store, but with Hannah AWOL and an injured cat, I had no choice. I briefly considered calling Winnie but quickly decided against it. Better to lose business than to come back to the place in utter chaos.

“What will you do with him once the vet takes care of him?” Bryce asked.

“I have no idea.” I shrugged. “I have it on good authority that Elise’s husband doesn’t want him. Would you like a cat?”

“Sorry.” Bryce shook his head. “I’m more a dog person.”

I thanked him and promised to return Sweetie’s Pet Taxi as soon as I could. Once Bryce left, I taped a note to the store’s entrance saying that I’d be back in thirty minutes; then I took Tsar to Banshee’s veterinarian.

There was already a waiting room full of patients and their humans when I arrived, but the receptionist assured me that the doctor would see Tsar as soon as there was an opening in the clinic’s schedule. She said she’d call me with the results after the cat had been examined, so I left the cat there in the Pet Taxi and hurried back to my store.

Before resuming work, I sent Poppy and Noah each a hasty text that the cat had been found. Even though I knew they hadn’t been as preoccupied with finding the animal as I had, I thought they’d want to know that he was safe and being cared for by the vet.

My cell chirped a little after twelve and since I was alone—the store was deserted—I checked the message. My heart sank when I saw that it was from Tryg. The prosecutor had filed the case against Boone, and they were now waiting to go before a judge to see if Boone would be granted bail.

Sadness overwhelmed me. My BFF was in serious trouble and I hadn’t been able to help him. According to the IQ tests I’d been given in school, I was supposed to be smart. So why couldn’t I figure out who had really killed Elise?

While I was still castigating myself, the veterinarian called. Once we had established that I would foot the bill, he said, “Overall, Tsar is in good shape—well hydrated and with no sign of malnourishment.”

“Thank goodness.” I had figured the kitty was okay, but it was nice to hear it confirmed by a professional.

“However, there is one area of concern,” the vet continued. “A claw on Tsar’s right front foot is nearly torn off. The area between the nail and the footpad is jammed with something, and the only reason the claw was still attached is that he must have stepped in some type of resin and it acted as a sort of sealant.”

“How could an injury like that have occurred?” I asked.

“He was probably in a fight,” the vet guessed. “The claw will have to be removed. I’ll perform the surgery after my regular hours and then call you in the morning to let you know when Tsar will be ready to go home.”

As soon as I had thanked the vet and said good-bye, I headed for the safe. I would need my emergency credit card to pay Tsar’s vet bill and didn’t want to forget to put it in my wallet. The Visa was all the way in the back, and as I reached for it, I had to push aside Colin Whitmore’s chocolate molds.
Shit!
Now that I knew he hadn’t killed his wife, I needed to get the molds back to him.

I tucked the credit card into my purse, then checked the front of the store. Seeing that there were still no shoppers, I decided to package up the chocolate molds to send to Colin. Since I figured it was wiser to remain anonymous, I decided to drop them at the Kansas City FedEx when I delivered Oakley’s baskets. I’d use a fake return address and send them to the bank, since I didn’t know where Colin was living.

As I gathered the five molds from the safe, stacking them in my arms, the largest one slid from the pile and crashed to the floor. Hoping that I hadn’t damaged it, I bent to pick up the foot-tall metal bunny.