Diamonds & Disguises Read online

  I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but we were pulling in the driveway to her house and my mind jumped to the reason we were here.

  We walked up to the front door and she unlocked it, going in. I could hear her shutting off the alarm. She stuck her head back out the door.

  ”Come on in.”

  The place was like a palace. At least according to what I was used to. I would have loved to look around, but she hurried down the hall and into a room that I assumed was the office. It was beautifully decorated in baby blues and silver, though I’d expect no less. look in that file cabinet.”

  I went over to the file cabinet and tried to open the door. “It’s locked.”

  “Damn. Just a second. Where would she hide the key?” she muttered. Then she purposefully strode over to the bookshelf and pulled out a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird. She opened the book and taped to the inside was a key. She had a triumphant look on her face. “Her favorite book,” she said by way of explanation handing me the key.

  I put it in the lock and it worked. It opened all four drawers, which seemed to be full of files. I sighed. And here I hoped I’d open the drawer and a folder that said blackmail list would be sitting there. I riffled through the files and the first two drawers were the usual things you’d find in a home office. Warranty’s, receipts, old insurance papers. The last two drawers were empty.

  I turned to Stacey. “Nothing in here. Are you having any luck?”

  She shook her head. “No. Nothing in the desk either.”

  “Is there any other place she might keep something she wanted to hide?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  I could tell she was as disappointed as I was. Her face lost all expression.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help. Maybe she didn’t keep a record.”

  “That’s very possible. Since what she was doing was illegal.”

  Stacey winced at my words.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

  “That’s OK.”

  “I guess I should call an Uber?” I said. No reason for me to stay any longer.

  “I can drive you back if you’d prefer.”

  “No, that’s OK. I don’t want you to go out of your way. It’s fine.”

  Stacey and I sat on the front porch and talked a little while I waited for my Uber. She really did seem like a nice girl and it made me want to find out even more who killed Susan.

  Chapter 22

  Oh, my God, oh my God!” I yelled.

  “What’s wrong?” Molly said, running into the office.

  “I just called to follow up on the mask shipment because I’m paranoid it won’t come in on time and we can’t afford for it to be late. They told me it was canceled!” I sat at my desk, where I’d just got off the phone and put my head in my hands. “Leigh is going to kill me, then tell everyone about what happened, and we’ll never get any business again.” I groaned.

  “Well, if you’re dead, does it matter?” She smiled.

  I glared at her. “You’re not funny.”

  “I’m sorry.” Molly put a serious look back on her face.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “You can’t reorder them and get them shipped overnight or something?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I asked, but they have to call me back. The lady I spoke to said she had to check with the shipping manager. Even if they can, you know how expensive that will be? That’s not even the best part. We got charged a twenty-five percent restocking fee. Even if we can get them reshipped it’s going to cost almost double and I can’t pass that cost on to the customer.”

  “How did the order get canceled?”

  “That’s the even crazier part of this. They said I canceled it.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Supposedly I emailed three days ago and canceled the order.”

  Molly’s eyes went wide. “How could that even happen? No one here has access to your email.”

  “On my God.” The blood drained from my face and the word ‘access’ triggered a thought. “My stolen laptop. That’s it. That’s the only way someone could have accessed my email.”

  Molly frowned. “C’mon. You think the mugger went in your email, saw you had an order for masks, then canceled it? For fun?”

  “I know it sounds crazy. But there’s no other explanation. You said it. No one else has access to my email.”

  “It was probably just a clerical error. Someone else emailed a cancelation and whoever got the email just typed in the wrong thing.”

  While I did agree it was far-fetched that a mugger would have done this, it also didn’t make sense that it was an error on their part. The woman on the phone said she had the cancelation email from me.

  The office phone rang and I looked at the caller I.D. “It’s the mask vendor,” I said to Molly and picked up the phone.

  “Hello. This is she. Uh-huh. Yes. I understand. No. That’s fine. It’ll have to be fine I appreciate it. Nope, that’s perfect. Thank you.” I hung up the phone and sighed a breath of relief.

  “Well? What did they say?”

  “They can second day air them, which gets them here by Wednesday. They’re guaranteed by noon and the communication sent to the gala ticket holders said to pick up after five Wednesday so we should be fine.

  Thank goodness I had the foresight to build in the buffer between original delivery and pick up or we’d be screwed.

  “See. It all worked out. You didn’t need to worry.”

  “Whatever. Go back out to the floor,” I grumbled good-naturedly. Molly chuckled and headed back out and I went to my email.

  The lady I’d spoken to from the mask vendor was sending me the email I supposedly sent.

  I hit refresh and it popped up. I read it and the lady was right. This was an email from me canceling the order. Only I never sent it. So, who did?

  Chapter 23

  “Presley, it’s Leigh on line one.” Molly called on the intercom to my office where I was working on paying the bills. Always grateful for an interruption with this task, I picked up the phone.

  “Hi, Leigh.”

  “Sorry it took me so long to call back. Things have been crazy with the last-minute gala details.”

  “No worries. I just wanted to give you an update on the masks. They arrived this morning and let me tell you, they look even more beautiful in person. I think you’re going to be pleased. I think all the party goers will be pleased.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Leigh said, and I could hear the genuine excitement in her voice.

  “I was also thinking we should display them on the sales floor with very clear signage that they’re display only and why. That’ll help build buzz for the gala, then you could inform the ticketholders they can stop in and pick up their masks. It should create more excitement about the event. I know tickets are limited so it will give the zoo more exposure.”

  “That’s a genius idea! I’ll send out an email when we get off the phone to remind them today is pickup day. On another note, how good of friends are you with Andrea?” She switched gears to a topic I wasn’t expecting.

  “Uh, what?” I felt a pit in my stomach and wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “Your friend, Andrea. She’s, well, how can I say this? A little over eager and persistent but if she’s a good friend of yours then I don’t want to complain. She’s just very forward.”

  Didn’t I know that all too well!

  Great. “I’m so sorry, Leigh. She’s not really a friend. I mean I just met her, so we don’t know each other that well. But if she’s done something, I can certainly talk to her.” Not that I wanted to be put in that position, but I couldn’t let something offend one of my better customers. Especially with the gala thing going on right now.

  “No. It’s fine. Forget I brought it up. But I do have another question. What’s your relationship with Bess?”

  Where was this coming from? I wondered. First Andrea, no
w Bess. I was feeling very uncomfortable. Was she going to bring up Bess as the murderer again? Maybe I should stop investigating. I really didn’t need this. What I’d heard at the gala had made me second guess my gut feeling about Bess. I didn’t know her that well. I didn’t know anyone that well. But none of the women I’d talked to who had a beef with Susan gave me a bad feeling. Which made it increasingly hard to pinpoint the person who may have murdered her.

  “We’re acquaintances. Why?”

  “You should be careful. She can’t be trusted. I know she probably says the same about me, but you seem like a sweet girl. Don’t let Bess fool you with her seeming interest in you all of a sudden. She tends to collect people and then use them and toss them aside. I don’t want to see her do that to you.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, thinking she seemed sincere.

  Leigh paused. “You should talk to someone. I don’t want you to take my word for it. Her name is Shelley Warren. Let me give you her number. Just call her and ask her about Bess.”

  We chatted about a few more gala things then hung up. My mind spun from my conversation with Leigh. I didn’t know what or who to believe. I stared at the number for Shelley Warren I’d written down, confused about what to do. How deep did I want to get into all this? Leigh must feel strongly about this if she was this determined to show me proof of Bess’ character. Then I wondered if I should I call Andrea and talk to her about Leigh’s comments. I didn’t want any friction with Andrea, but I also couldn’t have her annoying my customers either,. Leigh had turned my day upside down with all these accusations. I decided I should speak to Andrea since Leigh was a customer who I didn’t want to upset. Plus, I did want to hear Andrea’s side of the story. I shot Andrea a quick text to see if she was free later for a drink.

  Within seconds she’d texted back she was available, and I asked her to meet me at Muldoon’s at seven. With that out of the way I went back to staring at the phone number for this

  Shelley person. Leigh must feel pretty strongly about whatever Shelley had to say for her to tell me to call her. Which also meant she was pretty sure Shelley would want to talk to me. Or already knew she would.

  There was no way I should ignore Leigh’s warning if it only took a phone call to get the information and it might get me one step closer to finding the killer. I picked up the phone and dialed.

  A woman’s voice answered almost on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Shelley?”

  “This is she.”

  “My name is Presley Thurman, and I got your number from Leigh Winters.”

  “You want my story about Bess Anders,” she said matter-of-factly.

  So, she expected my call. Leigh must’ve warned her before she told me to call her. Now my interest was really piqued. “Yes. Leigh said you might have information I needed to know.”

  “Are you friends with Bess?”

  “I’d say we are more acquaintances than friends, but she seems nice. This was the same spiel I’d given Leigh.

  “You might think so, but I doubt she does. If I tell you anything else you need to assure me you’ll never bring my name up around Bess. We have a confidentiality agreement that I can’t afford to break.”

  A confidentiality agreement she can’t afford to break? Which means she is getting paid to keep her mouth shut, so this had to be something big. What had happened between this girl and Bess? Now I was really curious.

  “I promise I won’t say your name at all.” My excitement started to grow at the possibility this might be a clue to who murdered Susan. Though part of me hated to think it might be Bess. That would mean my gut was wrong about her.

  “I met Bess when I interned at a charity she volunteered at. Her youngest had just moved out and she seemed to take an interest in me, which I appreciated. I think she wasn’t ready to not have kids to boss around and I happened to come along at the right time. I didn’t have a good relationship with my parents, and I admit I was a little lost. I was partying a little too much, hanging around with the wrong crowd. That type of thing. She took me under her wing and guided me at a time when I most needed it. I even lived with her for a while. I thought she was a dream come true. She did a lot for me. At first,” she said bitingly.

  “So, what changed?”

  “She started taking me places, to events, and asked me to spy on people. She’d tell me a certain piece of information and then ask me to bring it up. Like blindside them with things that weren’t exactly for public discussion and weren’t entirely true. Although, I didn’t find out that part until later. Like bringing up that someone’s husband was fired from his job for supposed embezzling. Or one time she had me ask one of the women about their Lexus being repossessed. At first, I felt it was harmless, even if a little mean-spirited. I went along because I didn’t want to lose her friendship and thought it was a small price to pay. I felt I owed her for all she’d done for me.”

  I cringed a little. That seemed like horrible behavior. What would possess Bess to act like that?

  “It all came to an end when she wanted me to come on to her husband and see if he’d, uh, take me up on my offer.”

  “What?” I couldn’t help exclaim.

  “She wanted to catch him cheating to divorce him and get his money. I refused. I liked her husband. He’d always been sweet and supportive of me. He treated me like one of their kids. I couldn’t do that to him even though I knew they had issues in their marriage. I just couldn’t. It was going too far and I told her as much.”

  Couldn’t say I blamed her. I couldn’t believe Bess tried to whore out this poor girl for money. Maybe I was being naïve about Bess’s character. Things kept adding up that put Bess in a bad light. “So, what happened?”

  “She became furious and not only cut all ties with me but started trashing me around town. I got fired from my job, evicted from my apartment, because she knew people. I started getting harassing calls that I couldn’t prove was her, but I knew it was. I had to change my number and move. She ruined the life I’d started to build. She helped me and then destroyed me.”

  Wow. I didn’t have words. This was not at all what I had expected to hear, and I almost couldn’t believe it. But why would she lie? What would this girl have to gain by lying? Unless she and Leigh were in some big conspiracy, which seemed unlikely.

  As if she knew what I was thinking she continued to talk. “I know you have no reason to believe anything I’m telling you, but you should. Be careful. Don’t trust Bess but more importantly don’t cross her.”

  We said our goodbyes and I was in shock when I got off the phone. Did Bess really do this? How did Leigh know about Shelly and what did that mean? Darn it. I should have asked. I told Shelley I wouldn’t mention her name and wouldn’t go back on my word, but what to do now? If Bess could do this to an innocent girl what might she do to someone who slept with her husband and then blackmailed her?

  Chapter 24

  I sat at my desk, wondering what to do with the information I’d received from Shelly, when my phone started buzzing. I looked down and saw it was Willie. Good timing. I could tell him about Shelley and get his opinion.

  “Hey. What’s going on?”

  “We didn’t get a chance to talk Saturday about Cooper’s VP and you didn’t answer my texts yesterday, so I thought I’d try you today.”

  “Sorry. We had a lazy day at home. So, what do you have to tell me? And I have something to tell you, too.”

  “Well, by all means, you go first,” he said.

  I told him about the conversation I’d just had with Shelley and as I recounted it, it seemed even more bizarre. When I finished speaking, he didn’t say anything at first. Probably wondering if I’d made the entire thing up.

  “Did you already know this?” I finally asked, wondering if he wasn’t saying anything because it wasn’t news to him.

  “No, but it’s not surprising. I have looked into her as a suspect and she’s filed several lawsuits against people for frivolous t
hings that were mostly thrown out of court. She’s also filed for divorce on four separate occasions, then withdrawn her petition. She seems a little bit of a loose cannon. Impulsive. Willing to go to a bit of an extreme when she’s angry. I agree maybe you shouldn’t be hanging out with her.”

  “I’m not hanging out. It’s not that deep. She’s using me for her entertainment purposes if you want the truth. Probably just like Shelley. But she’s not asking me to do bad things and I know to be careful. I’m fine.”

  “Well, you should be careful.”

  “So, what did you have for me?” I bypassed his warning. Not that I didn’t agree with him, but I could take care of myself and I was more interested in hearing what he had to tell me.

  “You know how when you see a car you like then all of a sudden you see them everywhere?”

  “Um, yeah.” Why were we talking about cars?

  “That’s how I’ve felt since you mentioned Michael Panning.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “You brought him up Saturday and since then his name keeps popping up in my investigation.”

  “Like how?”

  “He is connected to every single one of the women I’ve talked to whose husbands Susan slept with.”

  “Seriously? Do you think he’s having affairs with them?” Quite a tangled web in that group of people.

  “I don’t know what’s happened, but something is there and it’s being kept quiet. I just need to find out what it is.”

  “But doesn’t it make sense for them to all be connected somehow? I mean they all run in the charity fundraising circles.”

  “Yes, but there’s something people aren’t telling.”

  “Have you talked to him about it?”

  “Not yet. I’m waiting for him to all me back.”

  “Did you find out anything on Coopers new VP? Bill.”

  “No. He’s not in our system at all which means he’s never been in trouble.”

  “Maybe I’m just being paranoid, but these issues with Cooper’s business didn’t start until he did. Like you said, I’m not a huge believer in coincidences.”