All Murders Final! (19 page)

Chapter 34

I drove through the Dunkin' Donuts drive-through and bought a dozen assorted donuts. Then I headed over to DiNapoli's, eating one of the donuts on the way. The DiNapolis didn't serve breakfast but would probably be there prepping for lunch. I parked in the wide alley behind their restaurant and sent a quick text to Vincenzo, letting him know I was here. As I hopped out of the Suburban, I glanced over at Herb Fitch's house to see if his curtain twitched. He was a retired police officer and kept an eye on the neighborhood. I was grateful that I didn't see a twitch. He might know if the police were looking for me and alert them about where I was. I knocked on the back door of DiNapoli's, and Ryan opened it.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I brought donuts.” I held up the box. Angelo had opinions about breakfast, but I knew bringing donuts was acceptable.

Rosalie and Angelo joined me at a table, bringing over a pot of coffee and mugs. Ryan and Lois were the only employees there. They both grabbed a donut but took them to the room behind the kitchen where the dishwashers and coolers were.

I took a coconut donut from the box. Angelo grabbed a Boston cream, and Rosalie took a simple glazed donut.

“Do you know anything about Nichole More?” I asked them. She'd been on my mind during my sleepless night. James, Seth, CJ, Nichole—thoughts of them had kept me up half the night.

They exchanged a look. Angelo took a big bite of his donut.

“Our boy, Tim, dated Nichole in high school, then on and off during college,” Rosalie said.

Angelo swallowed. “Apparently, a kid whose parents make a decent living by hard work isn't good enough for the likes of Margaret More.”

“Angelo,” Rosalie said. “It was for the best. Nichole has a reputation.”

“Broke our boy's heart more than once,” Angelo said.

“What kind of reputation?” I asked.

“Drinking, partying,” Rosalie said.

“Sleeping with anyone.” Angelo sounded bitter. “The last time Tim caught her, he left. Quit college and came home.”

Rosalie patted Angelo's arm. “But if he hadn't, he would have never met Beth. She's a sweet girl, and they have a lovely family.”

“That's true, Rosalie. I just wish he hadn't gone through so much before he did.” Angelo stood up. “Are you in some kind of trouble, kid?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you're here with donuts,” Angelo said.

“The police want to have a chat with me.”

“I'll go with you.”

“I called Vincenzo. He's going to pick me up at ten. Do you mind if I wait here until then?”

Rosalie stood, too. “You wait here as long as you need to.”

Lois came out a few minutes later and sat across from me. “Can you show me how your online garage sale works? I've got some stuff I want to get rid of.” She frowned. “Need to get rid of. Living in this area costs a fortune, but I don't want to take my kid out of the school here if I can help it.”

“Sure.” I took my phone out. “You send a request to join this site. Do you want to do it now? I'll approve it right away.”

Lois slipped a phone out of her black work pants. She sent the request, and I approved it.

“All you have to do is take pictures, post them, state the price and where they can be picked up.”

“You want me to put my address on there?”

“No! Never. I mean put, ‘Pickup in Ellington.' Technically, everything is supposed to be picked up in Ellington, but there are people from other towns who post on here.” I gave her my safety briefing and showed her the site rules.

“What does
bump
mean?” She pointed to a post.

“If no one buys your item, once it's been on there for a week, if you type in the word
bump
, or any other word, for that matter, it will make it go back to the top of the site.”

“What's this one that says ‘ISO girls' five-T clothing'?”

“‘ISO' stands for ‘in search of,' so someone's looking for clothing for a little girl who wears size five-T.”

I sipped my coffee as Lois continued to scroll through the site.

“What's this one?” she asked, turning her phone toward me. “It says the admin of this site sucks.”

I paled and grabbed my phone. There was a long list of complaints. Someone had said they were going to start their own site. I had a lot of things I'd like to say to these people, but instead, I deleted the post.

“You worried someone else will start a site?” Lois asked.

“No. They're welcome to. It's a lot of work and headaches. If people have complaints, they can come to me or send a private message to the person they have an issue with.”

I posted a reminder that I didn't allow drama on the page.

“How do you know how to price things?”

I looked at Lois. Lines of worry were etched around her eyes and creased between her brows. “I could help you.”

“Would you? How soon?”

“When's your next day off?”

“Monday,” Lois said.

I checked the calendar on my phone. “How about early afternoon?”

“That'd be great.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later Vincenzo and I sat in an interview room at the EPD. He'd let me answer all of Pellner's questions about the threats I'd received through the garage sale site, and I had told Pellner about all the pictures I'd received. I hadn't mentioned that almost all the bad ones had come after I'd been with Seth.

“I don't think there's any way to trace who the threats are coming from, Pellner. People set up fake accounts on public computers. I don't think it's worth the time to try to track them,” I said.

Vincenzo leaned forward. “At this time.”

Pellner stood. “I'll be right back.”

Vincenzo whispered in my ear. “Now we're going to find out why you are really here.”

I stiffened.

“Relax. You haven't done anything wrong. They're fishing. I'll protect you. Keep your answers brief.”

I tried to peel my shoulders back down from my ears.

A thin, wiry state patrol officer entered. I recognized him from the day Margaret had been murdered.

“Let's keep this brief,” Vincenzo said, taking the offensive. “My client has been forthcoming with her information. I don't see the point of questioning her further.”

“The day of the murder were you ever in Mrs. More's car?” the officer asked. His dark brown eyes were hooded making him hard to read.

I looked at Vincenzo. He tilted his head, which I took as an okay to answer. “No. As I stated in my report, the car was locked.”

“Did you ever, at any time, ride in her car?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but Vincenzo interrupted.

“How can you expect her to answer such a broadly worded question? Ever?” Vincenzo shook his head.

The officer frowned. “Have you recently ridden anywhere with her?”

I looked at Vincenzo. He did the head tilt thing again. “No,” I said. I wanted to tell him that I'd never ridden with her and to ask why he wanted to know.

The officer watched me. We all sat in silence. I knew the officer was hoping I'd crack and confess to something. Believe me, it was tempting. But the only thing I'd done wrong lately was eat too many donuts. And as far as I knew, that wasn't against the law.

“You've claimed that you've received numerous photos through an app called”—he paused and looked at his notes—“PopIt. Has anyone else seen the photos?”

I'd wondered if the state police doubted the pictures' existence.

“No.” I didn't add anything else but glanced at Vincenzo.

Vincenzo stood. “Unless you have anything else to ask Ms. Winston, we're leaving.”

The man didn't look happy but nodded.

When we got back in Vincenzo's car and I'd snuggled into the soft leather seat, I turned to him. “What was that about?”

“I'm not sure.” He looked a bit worried, which worried me. I'd never seen him ruffled. “Have you ever been in Margaret's car?”

“I don't think so. It's not like we were buddies.”

“Then there's nothing to worry about.”

“You think somehow my DNA showed up in her car?”

“You've been to her house before?”

I hated it when people didn't answer my questions. “Yes.”

“So if your DNA was in her car, it could have been transferred from her to her car. Or it could be sloppy police work. You were at the scene.”

The driver pulled up in front of my apartment. He got out and held the car door open for me as I stepped out. Vincenzo leaned over. “Don't worry about this. It's nothing.”

Easy for him to say.
I realized I'd left my car behind DiNapoli's and walked over to get it. I came around the corner of the alley and saw that one of my tires was flat. When I got up to it, I saw a piece of paper stuck to the tire, held in place by a knife.

Chapter 35

I knelt down to read the note, careful not to touch it. It said,
You won't see me coming
. I whipped around, but I had a feeling the person who did this hadn't waited around to watch me. But I looked around just in case, wishing I'd spot someone with a sign around his or her neck saying
I'M YOUR STALKER.
I was alone in the alley, very, very alone.

I tried to shake off the fear. “Oh, big deal. You killed my tire.” My attempt at bravado didn't help. Not at all. What I wanted to do was take the knife out, toss it and the note, and try to pretend this never happened. Instead, I hurried over to Herb Fitch's house and knocked on the back door. I must have pounded harder than I thought, because a neighbor opened her back door and stuck her head out.

“Are you tryin' to wake the dead? I've gotta kid taking a nap,” she said.

No, just Herb.
I hustled over to her. “I'm looking for Herb.”

“He goes to Florida every February.” She said it with a tone that indicated if I didn't know that, I didn't know Herb.

Just my luck, when I really needed the guy, he was on a midwinter break. “Did you see anyone in the alley this morning?”

“Yes.”

Oh, good.
“Who?”

“Lots of people. There's always people coming and going from the businesses.”

“See that Suburban? Did you see anyone around it? Someone stuck a knife in my tire.”

“Someone must not like you very much.” She looked me over more closely. “Are you that Hooker woman? Hell of a name.”

I just nodded. It was easier than explaining I'd changed my name back to Winston.

“There was a delivery van back there, behind DiNapoli's, this morning.”

“What kind?”

“Just one of them white-paneled van types. And in case you're going to ask, no distinguishing marks, and I have no idea about the license plate. I watch cop shows.”

“Okay. Thanks.”
What to do next? Go ask Angelo about deliveries, which would make him suspicious, or call the police, which would upset Angelo?
I decided to talk to Angelo first.

As tempting as it might be to walk in through the employee and delivery entrance again, I walked around to the front of DiNapoli's. It gave me a few minutes to think about wording, but all that went out the door when I actually faced Angelo. Because my face crumpled, and tears started to fall.

“Are you okay? How'd it go?” Angelo asked. He led me to a table and handed me a bunch of napkins.

“Fine. Vincenzo said it's nothing to worry about.”

“But you're still going to worry.”

“Something else happened.” My voice caught on the word
happened
. I took a couple of deep breaths and told him about the tire. “Did you have any deliveries this morning?”

“No. And nobody better be running any funny business out of the back of this place. Let me ask a couple of questions, and then we have to call the police.”

I followed Angelo to the back. Two dishwashers, Ryan, and Lois were all joking as they worked.

“Anyone have any deliveries made back here this morning?” Angelo looked each one in the eye. I would have wilted under the look.

They all shook their heads no.

“Anyone been in or out that back door that shouldn't have been?”

“A couple of us went out for a smoke,” one of the dishwashers said.

“Did you happen to notice a white-paneled van out there?” I asked.

“No. Just that white Suburban,” said the dishwasher.

“What's going on?” Lois asked.

“Someone stuck a knife through Sarah's tire,” Angelo answered.

“Oh, no,” Lois and Ryan said in unison.

The dishwashers shook their heads.

Angelo studied their reactions. “Thanks for your help.”

Angelo and I walked outside. “It seems like they were all telling the truth,” I said.

“They'd better be if they want to work for me.” I showed Angelo the tire. He bent down and looked at the note. “Do you want to come stay with Rosalie and me for a few days? The kids are gone. We have room.”

A flood of warmth rushed through me. Tear blurred my vision. “That is so lovely of you. But no. I can't let this jerk get to me.”

“Let us know if you change your mind. Safety first.”

“The good news is Stella is dating a police officer, so he's there a lot.”

“But not all the time.” Angelo looked at the tire again. “You'd better call the police. Do you have roadside that will come take care of the tire?”

“No.” I pulled out my phone and called the nonemergency number for the EPD. I'd never had to change a tire before. My dad had shown me once, when I was fifteen, but I knew I'd never have the courage to try it on my own.

“After the police are done, I'll help you change the tire.”

* * *

Pellner shook his head and pointed a finger at me. “I thought Chuck was going to have a stroke when we told him about this.”

I shivered in my jacket as the wind picked up. A few snowflakes fell, but they didn't seem serious.

“I wouldn't let him come, because he'd cause a scene and end up in trouble with him.” Pellner jerked his head toward the state police officer who had shown up. We watched him place the knife in an evidence bag.

“What's he doing here? This is vandalism, not murder,” I said.

“It might have been a murder if Chuck had come along.”

“Okay. I get it. CJ's not happy. I'm not, either. It's not like I asked someone to do this.”

The statie trotted over with the knife and held up the bag in front of my nose. “Recognize this?”

“Yes.”

Pellner's and the statie's eyebrows shot up.

“It was recently in my tire,” I said.

Pellner took a step behind the statie and shook his head. I got the message: “Shut up and play nice.”

“I'm sorry. It's been a stressful morning,” I said.

Pellner moved off and took another look at the tire.

“Other than seeing the knife in your tire, have you seen it before?” the statie asked.

I looked at it. The knife had a black handle, a razor-sharp edge on one side, and steel serrated teeth on the other. I imagined it being plunged into my stomach and twisted. “What's that used for?”

“Hunting,” the statie said.

I swallowed hard. “I haven't ever seen it before. Or anything like it.”

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I took in a couple of deep breaths and nodded.

He held up the evidence bag with the note in it. “Any chance you recognize the writing?”

I studied the note, trying to focus on the writing instead of the threat. It was neat, tight writing, cursive, not print. I looked up at the officer. “No. I don't recognize it.”

The statie conferred with Pellner for a minute and then took off.

“Do you need help with your tire?” Pellner asked me.

“No. Thank you. What did he say to you?”

“Either you deserve an Academy Award or you really don't know anything about who did this.”

* * *

Ryan came out right after the police left. “I'll put your spare on for you. Angelo could do it, but it will be easier for me.”

We chatted as he changed the tire. I tried to watch what he did and wondered if I should up my insurance to include roadside.

“Don't let this shake you, Sarah,” Ryan said. “Whoever did this is chicken sh . . . chicken.”

“I won't.”

“Your teeth are chattering.”

“It's cold.” I wanted to believe that was what was causing the chattering, but I didn't think Ryan bought it, and I didn't really, either.

“I'm almost done. Go in and get some coffee.”

I started to protest, but Ryan insisted.

“Let me pay you for your time, Ryan.”

Ryan waved me away. “Go warm up.”

* * *

When I got home, after getting my tire replaced, I had a message from the woman who owned the Pez dispensers, asking if I'd sold them and when she'd get her money. I smacked my hand to my forehead. Since they hadn't been part of the crime scene at Juanita's house, I had just brought the box home with me and had stuck it under the eaves. I sent her a quick note asking if she wanted me to repost them or return them. She replied that she'd still like me to sell them.

I crawled into the space under the eaves and noticed a box had been knocked over. I must have done this when I was getting all the stuff out for the February Blues garage sale. The box was full of photo albums. I stuffed them back in but could tell one was missing—before they'd fit perfectly in the box, but now there was space for at least one more. I looked around the space but didn't spot the missing photo album. I thought the missing one was full of fairly recent pictures—ones from the past couple of years.

I grabbed the box of Pez and took it to the couch, intending to look through it. But I couldn't stop thinking about the missing photo album. Where would I have put it? I was too young for memory problems, but darn it, I couldn't remember taking that album, or any of them, out of the box. I sighed loudly. It had to be here somewhere. I should just look for it. It couldn't have gone far.

I searched my living room first. It seemed like the most likely place I'd have left it. Maybe I kicked it under the couch. Nothing. I opened the trunk I used as a coffee table. It was where I kept my stash of vintage tablecloths. There wasn't a photo album tucked inside. I checked the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen. Nope. The bedroom closet, the dresser, and the area under the bed all came up empty. I even checked the clothes hamper in the bathroom, which reminded me I needed to do some wash. The good news was there weren't any dust bunnies, bogeymen, or monsters in my apartment. A prickly feeling crawled up the back of my neck as I realized the album was not misplaced but gone.

Something else was missing, too. My favorite aqua sweater. I had thought I'd left it someplace and had intended to check with Stella, the DiNapolis, and Carol. But I'd never gotten around to it, with my mind on other matters.

The robber.
I'd thought he took only things he could sell quickly—my computer, my cash, and my wedding ring. At the time I'd chalked the wedding ring up to the gold having some value. But my aqua sweater had been missing probably since that day, and there was no way a pawn shop would snap that up. I tried to convince myself I'd left the sweater someplace, but I knew better. Whoever had been in here had wanted more than items for a quick sale. They'd wanted my personal things. You couldn't get much more personal than my sweater, photos, and wedding ring.

The robber was my stalker.