Dead Ringer (8 page)

“What can I get you this morning?” she asked with a smile.

“A Denver omelette and an orange juice, please.”

“Coming right up.”

She disappeared back toward the kitchen, and I took time to observe my surroundings as I waited for my breakfast. The workmen got up from their table and ambled toward the counter near the back of the café. A moment later, Gina reappeared and worked the cash register, accepting money from each of the men. There was no sign of anyone who was likely to be Shelley.

A few minutes later, Gina brought me my breakfast, and I dug into my omelette, my stomach rumbling in anticipation as the aroma of eggs and peppers wafted up to my nose. As I ate, I kept one eye on the back of the café to see who emerged from the kitchen. But mostly I watched the traffic and pedestrians passing by outside the window.

By the time I'd finished my meal, the two young mothers had left with their kids and an elderly ­couple had entered the café, but I still hadn't identified Shelley. Leaving my table, I approached the back counter. Gina carried a load of dirty dishes into the kitchen and then came back to the cash register.

I handed her a ten dollar bill, and as she counted out change for me, I asked, “Is Shelley working today?”

“Shelley?” Gina handed me my change. “Sure, she's in the office.”

I slipped the coins into my wallet. “Would it be possible to talk to her for a moment?”

Gina shrugged. “I don't think she's busy, so I don't see why not.” She leaned through the door behind the counter. “Shelley! Someone here to see you!” Gina flashed a smile at me. “Have a nice day.”

“You too,” I said as I shoved my wallet into my purse.

She scooted around the counter and headed toward the elderly ­couple, now seated at a small table in the middle of the café. I remained where I was, waiting for Shelley to appear and wondering how she would react to my questions.

 

Chapter 8

I
DIDN'T HAVE
to wait long. While Gina was still discussing the menu with the elderly ­couple, a woman in her late twenties poked her head out from the kitchen, her wide eyes curious. Her highlighted chestnut hair was tied back in a ponytail and she wore plenty of mascara, black eyeliner, and shimmery pink lip gloss.

“Yeah?” she said when her eyes settled on me, the only person nearby.

“Shelley, I'm Midori. I knew Jeremy and I wanted to come by and say how sorry I am for your loss.”

Shelley's big blue eyes welled with tears, and I immediately felt mean for upsetting her.

“You knew him? How?”

“We played in orchestras together from time to time.”

“He did love music.” Shelley sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve.

Something glinted on her finger and caught my attention. “Were you two engaged?” I hoped I didn't sound as surprised as I felt.

Although her eyes still shimmered with tears, Shelley smiled and held up her left hand to admire the diamond ring on her finger. “Yes, he proposed earlier this week.” Her smile faded and a tear finally escaped from one eye to trickle down her cheek. “Two days before he died.”

“Shel!” Gina hustled over to join us. “What's wrong?”

Shelley sniffed and dabbed at her eyes again. “We're talking about Jeremy.”

Gina put an arm around Shelley. “Maybe we should go in the back,” she said, glancing toward the two patrons in the middle of the café.

I followed her line of sight. The man and woman watched us with curiosity, and I knew they could probably hear our conversation. When Gina ushered Shelley into a cramped back room with lockers along one wall, I followed, whether I was supposed to or not.

“I'll be okay, G,” Shelley said, although another tear had tracked through her makeup.

“Are you sure?” Gina didn't sound convinced.

Shelley nodded. “I'm sure.”

After casting an uncertain glance in my direction, the waitress left me alone with Shelley. Jeremy's fiancée sank down onto a scarred wooden bench, its blue paint chipped away to reveal older coats of red and green.

“It's still so hard to believe that he's gone.” Shelley hiccuped. “And the police didn't even bother to notify me. I had to find out from Mrs. Landolfi.”

“Mrs. Landolfi?”

“Jeremy's landlady. He lived in her basement.” Shelley closed her eyes and let out a sob. “Oh, Jer. We were so happy!”

I was a bit alarmed by the fact that she was outright sobbing now. I sat next to her on the bench and patted her awkwardly on the back, but she didn't seem to notice.

“We were planning our honeymoon,” she went on between sobs. “He was going to take me to Hawaii. He even brought me travel brochures so I could pick the resort.”

She dropped her face into her hands and I patted her back again.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, my guilt growing more intense with every minute. “I didn't mean to upset you by coming here.”

With a hiccup and a whole lot of sniffling, Shelley raised her head and blinked her blue eyes. “Oh, no. It's okay. It's actually kind of nice to talk to someone who knew Jeremy, who knows how sweet he was.”

Sweet? That wasn't a word I would have used to describe Jeremy, but I bit my tongue and simply nodded with what I hoped was a sympathetic expression.

Shelley twisted the ring on her finger. “I guess I'd better get back to the office. I have suppliers to call.” She got to her feet.

“Shelley.” When she turned back to me, I asked, “Did Jeremy have any enemies that you know of?”

Her big eyes widened. “No way. Not Jeremy. That's why it's so confusing. I don't get why anyone would want to hurt him.”

I was afraid she would start to cry again, but she took a deep, shuddering breath and the welling in her eyes subsided.

“The police will find who did it,” I said with far more confidence than I felt.

She gave me a tremulous smile. “Thanks for coming by. It was really nice of you.”

Before I had a chance to feel too guilty about my ulterior motives, Shelley disappeared out into the hall.

I remained sitting on the bench, trying to absorb everything she'd told me. I didn't even have a chance to sort out my thoughts before a fortyish woman with dark hair and wrinkles at the corners of her eyes came into the small room.

“You the one who was talking to Shel about Jeremy?” the woman asked as she opened one of the lockers.

I couldn't tell from her tone if she was accusing me of something or simply asking a question. “Yes.” I stood up, planning to make a quick exit if the woman became hostile. “I'm Midori.”

“Lorelei,” she offered, her voice less aggressive now. “So you knew Jeremy well?” She grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the locker and banged it shut.

“Er . . . our paths crossed several times over the years.”

“Hrm.” Lorelei fished a cigarette out of the carton and stuck it in her mouth.

“Did you know him?” I asked.

She dropped the carton into the pocket of her apron and spoke around her unlit cigarette. “I knew more than I wanted to.”

With that cryptic statement, she left the room. I followed after her, unable to leave things like that. She didn't seem to mind that I accompanied her, saying nothing as she pushed her way through a back door and descended three concrete steps into an alley.

I kept my distance as she lit up, having no desire to blacken my lungs with her secondhand smoke.

“So you didn't think much of Jeremy?”

Lorelei snorted. “I thought plenty of him. He was a cheating bastard, for starters.”

I couldn't stop my eyebrows from going up. “He was cheating too?”

She gave me a sidelong look as she took a drag on her cigarette and let out a stream of smoke. “What do you mean by that?”

“I heard that Shelley might have been seeing someone else.”

“Flipping malarkey.” She paused to take another drag on her cigarette. After she exhaled, she jabbed her cigarette in my direction. “Shelley was devoted to that jerk. She might be naïve, but she's a good kid and she deserved much better than the likes of him.”

All this new information was jumbled in my head, confusing me and threatening to trigger a headache. If Lorelei was right and Jeremy was the one having the affair, why had he told the reverend that he thought Shelley was cheating? Or had Jeremy for some reason mistakenly believed that she was unfaithful? If that were the case, why would he have proposed to her?

Or perhaps Estelle had misheard. Maybe Jeremy had gone to Reverend McAllister because he felt guilty about his own affair. Perhaps that's why the discussion had become heated. If McAllister had told Jeremy to come clean to Shelley, he might not have liked that advice. It certainly wouldn't have been out of character for Jeremy to start an argument.

I shook my head, unable to come up with any concrete conclusions. Even though I had come to the café for answers, I now had more questions than ever.

“Are you sure he was cheating?” I asked.

“Damn sure.” Lorelei dropped her cigarette and ground it under her heel. “And I've got the picture to prove it.” She extracted a cell phone from the pocket of her tight jeans. “I was going to show it to Shelley before she got hitched to the guy, to save her from making a huge mistake. But then when Jeremy kicked the bucket, I didn't have the heart to add to her misery.”

She skimmed her finger across the screen of her phone, sorting through her pictures. The cigarette smoke now safely dispersed, I drew closer to her.

“He dropped by to see Shel one day, and not five minutes later he was out the back here kissing some chick in his car. How do you like that? Right under Shel's nose, just about.” She found the right picture and held up her phone. “See for yourself.”

The picture wasn't of the greatest quality, but I recognized Jeremy's blue car and there were definitely two ­people sitting inside of it, locked in an embrace. The woman flicked to a subsequent picture, one which provided a closer view of the vehicle's occupants.

“Definitely Jeremy,” I said.

Lorelei gave a satisfied nod.

“Do you know who the girl was?” I couldn't see her face in the picture, only the back of her head. I could tell that she had short dark hair but that was about it.

“No idea. But I've got a close-­up of her face somewhere.” She skimmed through a ­couple more pictures and held the phone up again.

I peered at the screen and nearly spluttered in surprise. The woman in the photograph was none other than Clover Delgado, bass player in the Pont Grey Philharmonic.

I
HAD TO
work hard to keep myself from grumbling under my breath like a crazy person as I rode a bus away from the Green Willow Café. Everyone had told me something different, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. If they did fit together. Some of the bits of information I'd gathered were at odds with each other, and I didn't know if that was because of mistakes, differing opinions, or lies.

The tidbit about Clover only confused things further. I supposed I could understand why she hadn't mentioned her relationship with Jeremy. I'd seen her hulk of a boyfriend waiting for her after rehearsals as recently as last week, so she too had been cheating on someone. But could she have wanted to harm Jeremy?

I didn't know, and I wasn't sure that she'd want to tell me. After all, she didn't volunteer anything about her relationship with Jeremy the last time we spoke. I might have to ask her nonetheless, because I wasn't a single step closer to proving Hans innocent, and that frustrated me to no end. I needed more pieces of the puzzle. At the moment, there were far too many gaping holes to get anything close to a clear picture of what had happened and who was involved.

Unfortunately, I didn't know where to turn to find more clues. My mind was going like a merry-­go-­round on super speed. As much as I wanted to keep investigating, I needed to take a breather, to give my brain a chance to calm down. I also had to teach three violin lessons in the afternoon and stock up on some groceries.

I got off the bus at a grocery store near my apartment and bought a few essentials. Once I got the groceries home and put them away, I gathered up my violin and hopped on another bus that took me to JT's neighborhood. I dropped in at a bakery on Dunbar Street and bought a dozen of JT's favorite cookies—­chocolate chip macadamia nut.

Tucking the paper bag of cookies into my purse, I walked the remaining three blocks to JT's house. It was almost noon, my typical time to show up at my studio, so I didn't bother to notify him of my impending arrival.

As soon as I let myself in through the front door, Finnegan came bounding along the hallway, skittering across the hardwood floors before coming to a stop at my feet.

“Hi, buddy!” I knelt down and we went through our usual routine of doling out hugs (me) and sloppy kisses (Finnegan).

Once we had sufficiently expressed our mutual delight at seeing each other again, I left my violin in the foyer and headed along the hallway toward the back of the house.

“Where's JT?” I asked Finnegan.

His tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, Finnegan grinned and trotted over to the basement door. I started down the stairs, Finnegan running down ahead of me.

“JT?”

His voice drifted up to me from below. “Nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted.”

I smiled and descended the last few steps, turning to the right of the stairway where JT sat on a chair, strumming on one of his acoustic guitars.

“Speaking of which,” I said as I flopped down onto a beanbag chair, “we haven't had an
X-­Files
marathon in ages.”

“Too long,” JT agreed, still strumming. “How about next Friday?”

“You're on.” I took the paper bag of cookies out of my purse and held it out to him. “I brought you something.”

JT set aside his guitar and accepted the bag, peering inside at the contents. “Dori, you know the way to my heart.”

I grinned, already feeling calmer. No matter how much of a whirlwind my mind might be in, hanging out with JT always helped to relax me.

“What have you been up to today? Besides going to the bakery.” JT fished a cookie out of the bag before holding it out to me.

I selected a cookie for myself. “You might not want to know.”

He eyed me suspiciously as he chewed a big bite of his cookie. “You might be right,” he said once he'd swallowed, “but now you've got me curious, so spill.”

As I nibbled my own cookie, I told JT about my excursion to the Green Willow Café and my conversations with Shelley and Lorelei. After eating two cookies, JT set the paper bag on a table out of Finnegan's reach and picked up his guitar again. Instead of playing the instrument, he held it in his lap, listening carefully to everything I said.

I stroked Finnegan's silky head as I related my story, finishing up by saying, “It's all so muddled in my head. I can't figure out how it's all connected to Jeremy's death.”

“Maybe it's not.” JT played a ­couple of random chords. “Maybe his death had nothing to do with any of it.”

“But there was so much going on beneath the surface!” I didn't want to think that all of my investigating had been for naught.

JT shrugged. “That's the way it is with a lot of ­people.”

I slumped back into the beanbag chair, dejected.

“I'm not saying everything you found out means nothing, just that it isn't necessarily the reason for his murder.”

“That only makes things even more confusing,” I said. “How am I supposed to know what's significant and what isn't?”

“You're not. That's for the police to figure out.”