Trudy, Madly, Deeply (Working Stiffs Mystery Series) (27 page)

She held the elevator door open. “Going down?”

“No, I … forgot something,” I croaked, my throat wound tight with adrenaline.

With a dismissive glance, Virginia pressed a button and the elevator door closed.

Holy crap!

No need to panic. Nothing happened. Breathe.

My heart pounding, I slumped in the chair next to my mother.

“What’s the matter with you?” she asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No ghost.” But I may have just seen a murderer.

* * *

My grandmother was standing next to her gurgling coffeemaker when Marietta and I stepped through the kitchen door around six the next morning.

“Thank God!” Gram said, slapping her palm to the collar of her pink chenille robe. “Where have you two been? I hardly slept a wink last night, I was so worried.”

I forced a smile. “If it’s any consolation, we didn’t get much sleep either.”

“Where’d you go?”

“The hospital,” my mother said, heading for the stairs.

Gram sharply inhaled. “Who died?”

“No one died.” Since I hadn’t been to work yet, at least no one that I knew of.

“We made sure of that,” Marietta called out from the top of the staircase. “And now I’m going to bed.”

Gram scowled at me. “This is about Trudy, isn’t it?”

And Bernadette, Jesse, Rose and Howard. “Sort of.”

Gram pointed an arthritic finger at my chest. “You need to let go of this thing about Warren Straitham. I don’t care what you and Alice think you saw at the funeral, he couldn’t have had anything to do with Trudy’s death.”

“I think you’re absolutely right.”

“Then what were you two doing at the hospital all night?”

“Lucille and I thought—”

“Lucille’s involved in this caper?” Gram rolled her eyes. “Did you know that crazy woman carries a Taser in her handbag?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell my grandmother that her daughter had just schlepped one upstairs.

“No one was tased last night, and we’re all perfectly safe and sound.”

“Thank the good Lord for small favors. Promise me that you’ll never do anything like that again.”

“Sorry to worry you, Gram.” But until Virginia Straitham was arrested, I couldn’t make any promises.

“I’m going back to bed.” My grandmother shuffled to the stairs in her pink fuzzy slippers. “You should try to get some sleep, too.”

I should also try to stick to my diet, but that wasn’t going to happen either.

Since I had to be at work in less than two hours, I poured myself a cup of coffee and took it upstairs. After a fifteen minute shower, I dried my hair and did the flat iron thing, then crammed myself into a pair of control top pantyhose. I felt like a pork link sausage, but at least I could fasten the waistband button of the black pantsuit I’d worn to Trudy’s funeral. I wanted Steve to take me seriously today and that required pants that weren’t held together by a safety pin.

I stepped through Duke’s kitchen door around seven-thirty.

Aunt Alice sat on her wooden stool and frowned at my pantsuit. “Who died?” she asked, sounding just like Gram.

“No one died. Can’t a girl dress for work?”

She grunted. “You must want something.”

Dang. Was I that obvious?

I grabbed an oatmeal raisin cookie from a cooling rack. “How do you feel?”

“Better,” she said without looking up from fluting the edge of the marionberry pie on the table in front of her.

I wanted to believe my great-aunt, but she looked as pale as the flour dusting her work table.

Lucille rounded the corner and grabbed a bowl. “Hey,” she said, “anything happen after I left?”

I didn’t want to light a match under Lucille by mentioning Virginia Straitham’s appearance at the hospital, so I shook my head. “It was a pretty quiet night. We left around six.”

“One of the girls told me Peggy will get discharged in an hour or two, so it looks like she’s out of the woods.” Lucille gave me a thumbs up sign, then squeaked away with a bowl of oatmeal. Since I could see Steve through the window over the grill, I had a good guess about that bowl’s destination.

That meant that I needed to lose the cookie. No one takes anybody seriously when they’re eating a cookie.

Duke turned to me as I reached for the plastic wrap he kept on a shelf across from the grill. I braced for a wisecrack about my breakfast choice, a Free Lunch remark, something. Instead, he glanced back at Alice, deep furrows carved into in his forehead.

“How’s she doing this morning?” I asked.

He shrugged. “She seems a little better. We got her something at Clark’s to help her sleep last night.”

Then, maybe she wasn’t lying. My brain was so weary of chasing red herrings that I was more than happy to trust Duke’s judgment when it came to my great-aunt.

I just wished that I could get Steve to trust mine where Virginia Straitham was concerned.

“I was thinking about making chili for tomorrow,” Duke said, watching me as I covered the rest of my breakfast in plastic wrap.

He made chili every day. I felt like I was missing something. “Okay.”

“Unless you want something else for the party.”

The party! I’d forgotten all about it. “No, chili’s terrific. Gram loves your chili.”

That meant I needed to bake a cake tomorrow. And before that I needed to get paid, go shopping, and convince Steve that Virginia Straitham was a serial killer.

Good thing I was wearing my power suit. I had a feeling I was going to need it. Probably another cookie or three and a mocha latte, too.

At the moment I’d settle for a cup of Duke’s coffee, especially since it gave me an excuse to sit down with Steve.

I took a deep breath, brushed the cookie crumbs from my lapels, and stepped around the corner. “Good morning,” I said to Steve.

His gaze dropped to the suit, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “You look pretty good, all things considered.”

I pulled a coffee cup from the rack. If I hadn’t known that Duke would make me pay for breaking it against Steve’s thick skull, I would have been tempted. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t imagine you got much sleep last night.”

“Since you didn’t bother to stop by the hospital, I can’t imagine how you could presume to know how much sleep I got.”

“I was just finishing my morning run when you pulled into your grandmother’s driveway.”

Oh. Sometimes it was very unhandy to have him living across the street.

While I grabbed the coffee carafe and filled my cup, he pushed his empty one toward me.

“And Lucille mentioned your girl’s night out,” he said as I gave him a refill.

I didn’t like his tone. “It wasn’t like we were having fun.”

“You could have listened to me and gotten a little more sleep.”

“I might have if you’d done a little more talking.”

Irritating man.

I came around the counter and took the seat next to him. “Peggy’s supposed to go home in a couple of hours,” I said, using his spoon to stir creamer into my coffee. “But that might not have been the case if we hadn’t been there.”

Steve turned to face me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I saw Virginia Straitham on the elevator.”

“When was this?”

“A little before eleven.”

“Huh,” Steve grunted, his mouth full with oatmeal.

“If we hadn’t been there …”

He swallowed. “Peggy would still be going home in a couple of hours.”

“You didn’t see Virginia on the elevator. She wasn’t there in the middle of the night to deliver flowers.”

“Maybe she was just looking for someone,” he said, working on his oatmeal.

“Well, she found me, and clearly she wasn’t happy about it because I foiled her plans.”

“Chow Mein, I know you have a hard time believing this, but not everything is as it appears.”

“I know what I saw.”

“More like what you think you saw.”

“Steve, she—”

“If you needed to see a certain doctor in the middle of the night, where would you go?”

“Well, if she had been looking for her husband, he wasn’t there. And why would he be there around eleven? Tina Norton doesn’t get off shift until midnight.”

Steve reached for his wallet. “Then that would probably narrow down who Mrs. Straitham came to see.”

“Shit.” I had just saved the other woman from an angry encounter with the wife.

He patted me on the top of my head. “Have a nice day.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

After I got off work, I spent two hours with my mother force-marching me into every grocery store in town before I dropped her off at a four-star marina restaurant for her dinner date with Barry Ferris. With Gram at her Friday night mahjong game, that gave me the house to myself.

Sleep beckoned, but since I knew I’d be counting murder victims of Virginia Straitham instead of sheep, I put away the groceries, changed into a tank top and my gauze skirt, and then called Donna to meet me at Eddie’s for a drink.

“You should thank me,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder as I sat next to her at the bar an hour later. “I saved you from a complete and utter dud.”

“Who? Justin?”

Donna straightened and heaved a sigh. “Nice package but not much staying power if you know what I mean.”

Eddie refilled my empty wine glass. “Some guys got it, some don’t.”

She waved him off when he offered her a refill. “And those who got it usually don’t have to brag about it.”

“Ouch!” Eddie winced. “Have you been talking to my wife again?”

Donna smiled. “We do like to share some little secrets,”

“Sweetheart, it’s not that little,” he said with an evil grin.

When Eddie crossed the room to clear a table, Donna reached for her wallet. “I hate to drink and run but I told the girls at the salon that I’d meet them at the new club in Port Townsend by nine. Wanna come with and make a night of it?”

“I made a night of it last night,” I said, fighting off a yawn. Once I got a couple of glasses of wine in me, all I wanted tonight was a date with the Sandman. “Have fun.”

After saying goodbye to Eddie, Donna waved at me as she headed for the door.

I waved back and a dark-haired body builder type with bowling ball-sized biceps smiled at me a split-second before his eyes shifted to my boobs.

Averting my gaze, I sipped my wine. Despite the physical inventory the guy had just taken, I doubted Mr. Muscles would make a move on me. Donna was probably more his type.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked over Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers wailing through the overhead speakers.

Then again, Donna wasn’t here.

I held up my wineglass. “Got one, thanks.”

He picked up his beer bottle and slid onto the seat next to me. “I’m Jimmy. What’s your name?”

“Char.”

“Like Charlene?”

Close enough. “Sure.”

He leaned an elbow against the bar. “Cute name for a cute girl.”

Was this guy for real?

There was definite male interest with the dilated pupils and the way he squared himself up to me, but a few beers could probably make Lucille look good to Jimmy.

He raised his bottle to Eddie to signal for another one. “Are you sure I can’t buy you a drink?” Jimmy asked, smiling down at the girls under my lacey tank top.

What the heck. Another glass of wine would guarantee that I’d fall asleep the second I made contact with my pillow. “Maybe just one.”

“Sorry I’m late, honey,” Steve said, standing behind me, pressing his fingers into my upper arms.

I stiffened as he kissed me on the cheek and tightened his embrace. He angled against the bar, looking past me at Jimmy. “Who’s your friend?”

I sighed. “This is Jimmy. He
was
keeping me company. Pretty good company, too.”

“Thanks, Jimmy,” Steve said. “I’ve got it from here.”

“Sorry, man.” Jimmy scooped up his beer bottle and scurried away like a wolf who had no intention of challenging this pack’s alpha male.

I wriggled out of Steve’s grasp. “That was completely uncalled for.”

“Uh huh.” He threw a twenty on the counter. “Let’s go.”

I scowled at him. “I’m not done with my drink and after spending most of the last twenty-four hours with my mother, not to mention all your lack of assistance, I need it.”

“I told you everything I could.”

“Well, you could have been a little more specific.”

“You want specific?” He emptied my wineglass in two gulps, then clasped his hand around my flabby bicep. “Come on.”

Eddie picked up my empty glass. “You kids aren’t having a fight in my bar, are you?”

“We are if he doesn’t let go,” I said, glaring at Steve.

He released my arm. “Happy?”

“Delirious!” I grabbed my tote and stormed toward the door. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Me! What was that back there?” Steve asked, hot on my heels.

I pushed the door open. “I could ask you the same thing!”

“Y’all come back now,” Eddie called after us.

A light breeze cooled my overheated cheeks as I stalked to the side lot where I’d parked the Jag. “Go away, Steve.”

His oxfords crunched on the loose gravel behind me. “Don’t act like you’re mad.”

I spun on my heel to face him. “This isn’t an act.”

“You weren’t interested in
Jimmy
.”

“I could have been!”

“He wasn’t your type.”

I stabbed an index finger at his chest. “You don’t get to decide who’s my type!”

“If you want specifics then know that
Jimmy
only wanted one thing.”

Like that was something that had escaped my notice.

Running his thumb over the strap of my tank top, Steve’s gaze darkened.

If he was trying to get me even more hot and bothered, he was doing a good job. “That guy had just sat down. You don’t know …”

Steve’s eyes shifted lower, surveying my breasts. “Trust me, any guy who sees you in this wants to see what’s under the lace.”

My mouth went dry. “You don’t get to say that to me.”

“Char—”

“You don’t get to show up and pull my hair at Trudy’s funeral when Heather is sitting right next to you, or offer me a ride in your truck when you’re acting like one big happy family, or tell me which men I can have a drink with.”