Murder in the Milk Case (6 page)

“No, honey. I’m coming down.” I took another quick glance around with a lighter heart, opened Russ’s high school box, and grabbed his yearbooks. Then I turned off the light and went down the stairs.

Sammie waited for me at the back door. “Buddy showed me where the new kittens are,” she said. “In that old shed next to the garage. You wanna see?”

No, I didn’t want to see. I’m not keen about cats even though I was raised with them, but I couldn’t ignore Sammie’s shining eyes.

“Okay, sweetie, show me.”

My father built the small, clapboard lean-to next to the garage when I was Sammie’s age. Years of white paint, lumpy in spots, covered the wood. He’d replaced the door recently with one that had a real handle instead of just a hook and eye. Sammie pointed to the corner where a tabby cat had made a bed with what looked to be an old insulated shirt of my dad’s. Multicolored kittens, eyes barely opened, crawled over her.

I had to admit that the kittens were cute, but I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking at the large, sheet-covered object behind them, feeling my heart fall to my toes.

Chapter Six

My ride to the ball game with Max was subdued. Charlie and Sammie were home with Karen. Tommy was working. All I could think about was the stop sign I’d found in my father’s shed.

Max didn’t notice my preoccupation. He was telling me all about the meetings he’d had regarding the new self-storage facility. His typical male denseness was to my benefit tonight.

He parked the SUV at the community ball field. I grabbed my purse. Another car whipped into the spot next to us. Then I watched as a tall blond got out of the vehicle. She sashayed to the front of her car wearing a lime-green skirt just this side of too short. A green-and-white-striped tank top showed off her other attributes, which the matching green sweater she had tied around her shoulders only partially covered. White, strappy high-heeled sandals, not at all appropriate for a ball game, adorned her delicate feet.

When she saw us—in particular, Max—her eyes grew wide in her beautiful, oval face. Then she smiled and waved as if greeting an old friend.

I surmised from the woman’s reaction that she knew my husband. When I turned on Max, I had only one question. “Who is that?”

“Stefanie Jenkins,” he said, undoing his seat belt.

“Who?” The name sounded familiar.

“Jim Bob’s wife, er, widow,” he said.

The widow sidled over to my husband’s window. He opened it.

“Maxwell?” I heard her southern accent and knew I’d spoken with her earlier that day. “May I speak with you?”

“Shouldn’t she be grieving at home?” I whispered in Max’s ear, as suspicion niggled in my brain.

He smiled at her. “I’ll be out in just a moment.” He put the window up, turned off the ignition, and turned to face me. “Trish, be nice. She just lost her husband.”

“Exactly my point.” I jabbed my index finger into his shoulder for emphasis. “Shouldn’t she be grieving at home?”

“Let’s go, baby.” He kissed me thoroughly. “I’ve got to get our team settled.”

He was out of the car first and joined Stefanie, who leaned too close to him for my liking. I joined them quickly, and she greeted me with a white, toothy smile.

“You must be Trish. Maxwell speaks so highly of you.” She looked down at me with those wide baby blues. “I’m Stefanie with an F. You can call me Steffie.”

“Steffie.” I nodded. It sounded so collegiate. I looked closer at the widow. No wrinkles. No mustache hairs. She even looked collegiate. Now I understood why my mother had oozed disapproval over Jim Bob’s marriage, and why, if such a thing were possible, Estelle would have turned over in her grave.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, watching her and wondering why she was here and why her eyes weren’t bloodshot from crying for her dead husband.

As if she read my thoughts, tears welled up in her eyes. “Thank you. And I want to express my sympathy that you were the unfortunate one to. . .find. . .my husband.”

I’d seen better acting on Saturday-morning cartoons. Something about her wasn’t right, which explained why I said what I said next.

“I’m really surprised that you’re out and about so soon. Especially to a ball game.”

Max looked down at me in surprise, then he put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. I put my arm around his waist and pinched him in return as I smiled sweetly at Stefanie.

Tears hung on her eyelashes. She blinked rapidly, and I couldn’t tell if she was fluttering her eyelids or getting rid of tears. “I just couldn’t sit at home by myself. I heard about the game and decided it would be a distraction for me.”

“It’s a good idea,” Max the Dense said.

She turned to him and batted her eyes.

An older couple I knew from church arrived and offered their sympathies to her.

Max took my hand and led me to the other side of the SUV. Concern wrinkled his forehead. “Trish, I can’t remember you ever being so unkind. Well, except around my mother, which is understandable. What’s wrong?”

I stared up at him while I tried to figure out just exactly what was bothering me besides a raging attack of jealousy. “Stefanie called you today at our house, but she wouldn’t leave a message. She said she’d been looking all over for you and couldn’t find you.”

“What?” He frowned at me.

“I know it was her. Who can miss that accent?”

“Honey. . .”

“There’s something not right with her, Max. I mean, her husband just died. She’s never come to a ball game before—I would have noticed. Besides, I don’t like the way she looks at you.”

“People sometimes do strange things when someone they love dies,” he said.

“Not her. She’s up to no good.” I meant that in more ways than one.

His lips twitched into a smile. “You wouldn’t happen to be jealous, would you?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Should I be?”

He laughed. “I’m flattered, but you’ve got a really suspicious mind. You should work with Eric Scott.”

That gave me pause.

Max must have seen my expression. “Hey, I’m not serious. I want you to leave all that behind you.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “You have nothing to worry about, by the way. I adore you.”

I appreciated his words, but he didn’t understand at all.

An hour later, I sat at the top of the hard, metal bleachers. A cool breeze blew, and I was glad I’d worn long sleeves. I glanced around at the crowd and noticed Stefanie seated at ground level next to the same couple who had spoken with her earlier.

As I contemplated the widow’s pert nose and perfect hair, I realized that Max hadn’t told me how he knew her. That aggravated me, so I went to the soda machine to get something to drink. While I stood there deciding, April May Winters, one of my mother’s employees, wandered up.

“Hey, Trish.” The chubby redhead contemplated sodas over my shoulder.

“Hi, April.”

“I see Miss Priss Stefanie Jenkins is here.”

I perked up. Not only because of what April said, but because she might be a source of information. I hastily picked a Diet Coke, pushed the button, and then pulled out more quarters. “You want a soda?”

“Well, sure,” she said enthusiastically. “Grape.”

I put more money into the machine and out popped the soda, which I handed to her. I watched her open it and take a huge gulp.

“Stefanie told me and Max that she’s so sad and lonely she’s come here for company,” I said.

April May choked. I thought I might have to do the Heimlich maneuver, but she recovered. “She said that? I can’t believe it. She must think you guys are stupid or something.”

That’s not exactly what I wanted to hear. My mouth must have been hanging open because April immediately backtracked.

“Oh, sorry. That sounded really bad. I didn’t mean it. I don’t think you and Max are dumb.”

“It’s okay. We might be a little stupid when it comes to Stefanie.” I said we when I really meant he, but April didn’t have to know that. “So Stefanie’s not grieving?” I asked.

April snorted about ten times, which is the way she laughs, and I worried that she would choke again. When she regained control, she shook her head. “She married the man for his money. Unfortunately, Jim Bob was as sneaky as he was ugly and mean, er. . .God rest his soul.”

April was the third person I’d spoken to who had nothing good to say about Jim Bob. “He had money? Why was he a pharmacist?”

“Dunno.” She shrugged. “I just heard he had it, but he didn’t act like it, nasty tightwad. He made your mother deliver a box of free doughnuts to the pharmacy once a week.”

That was news to me, but I didn’t have time to think about it because April was on a roll.

“Him and Miss Fancy-Pants met out there on one of them Cayman Islands. You know, like what you hear about? Probably where people swim buck naked and all. I mean, imagine.” She paused, possibly to do just that.

I didn’t know anything about the Caymans or swimming nude and didn’t care, but I nodded anyway. She took my attention very seriously. I doubted she had much opportunity to talk when she worked with my mother.

“Well, next thing you know, here he comes back to Four Oaks married to her. Everyone knew what she was up to. I mean, her and him? The old goat.” Snort. “He must have been really stupid. Of course, he is a man.” She snorted three more times.

I’m not a man basher, but tonight I was irritated enough with my husband’s lack of astuteness about Stefanie to agree. I smiled widely and nodded again to encourage April to continue.

“Well, they lived in unhappiness. Can’t figure out why they stayed together.”

“Hey, April!” someone shouted from the bleachers.

“Gotta go,” she said. “It’s been good to talk. You know, I don’t always agree with your mother.”

Neither do I, but I wondered which of my mother’s opinions about me April referred to. She walked away as I tried to sort through what I’d learned. I’d have to make some notes later. Meanwhile, with April May’s comments, my temper had subsided, and I felt compelled to go back to the game and support Max. On rare occasions, he stopped thinking about the team’s performance long enough to look for me in the bleachers for a thumbs-up. I needed to be there just in case. Besides, watching him play is a pleasure all its own.

Max’s team won, which didn’t surprise me. The intrepid Detective Scott played almost as well as Max. I wandered around, shooting the breeze with people, watching Stefanie out of the corner of my eye. She had a lot of hair. A long, bleached-blond, curly pouf, resembling what I’d seen on beauty contestants. She met my eye and tottered over to me on her high heels. Without being rude, there was no way I could avoid her.

“Oh, Trish. The game was wonderful. Max is so talented. He plays like a pro.”

“Thanks,” I murmured. I hoped his game was his only quality she’d been watching. I was so busy fighting my bad feelings that I didn’t see Detective Eric Scott until he was standing next to me. He smiled. I thought I would fall over.

“Hello, Trish.” He turned his gaze on Steffie. “Mrs. Jenkins. How are you tonight?”

She focused her big baby blues on him. “Oh, Detective Scott. You are such a good ball player.”

“Thank you.” He continued to smile, but I saw past that to his eyes. Shrewd and assessing. I was relieved that he wasn’t looking at me for once. “It’s a team effort, of course,” he said. “No one person is responsible for our game.”

She blinked several times and continued to smile brightly. “Oh, that is so true.” She turned to me. “Maxwell is so good.”

If she said one more thing about how good Max was, I was going to hit her.

“Must be hard to be out so soon after the death of Jim Bob,” Detective Scott said.

I coughed trying to cover a laugh. He glanced at me, then back at her again. I was thinking better and better of him.

“This is such a good distraction for me.” Tears filled her eyes again. “Detective Scott, I’m so impressed by your dedication to finding the person who did this.”

As far as I was concerned, she was laying it on a little thick.

“Have no fear, Mrs. Jenkins, I’ll solve this crime.” He jauntily saluted us. “Ladies. I have to get a move on. Crime fighting never ends.” He jogged away.

As I watched him go, I noticed a bald man disappear behind the cement building that held the bathrooms. I didn’t recognize him.

Stefanie sighed. I turned back to her.

“Seeing the police brings back my loss,” she said in a breathy voice. “I need to go home.”

She walked in the direction of the parking lot. I wandered around the grounds, greeting people. Peggy Nichols, the principal of Charlie and Sammie’s school, stopped me. “Trish, will you still be able to man your booth this Saturday?” She squinted at me through thick glasses.

“Sure. I’m fine.”

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t be if I were you. I can’t believe all the things happening in our little town. It’s like a bacteria eating from the inside out.”

That was certainly descriptive. Unfortunately, it sounded a little like what was happening to me. I was being eaten up inside by guilt. We chatted a bit more, then I left to find Max and noticed Stefanie coming from the bathroom. That was strange. I thought she’d been in a hurry to leave.