Bats and Bling Read online

  “I’m sure it’s more of the same and do we really want to hear what we just read?”

  “No but what if it’s something different. This is motive that either Craig or Tilly or both could have murdered Veronica. Maybe they wanted her out of the way so they could continue to do whatever it is they’re doing.”

  “Didn’t you say Craig was divorcing her? Isn’t that much less risky than murder?”

  “Well yeah but people murder all the time when they could just divorce. People are crazy. Open it.”

  “Ok, ok but let me state for the record that I’m afraid,” Anna said.

  A couple seconds went by before a voice came on and to my surprise it was Veronica’s.

  “Tilly, if you’re listening to this I’m dead so listen carefully. No one is safe as long as that brooch is in the wrong hands. You must get it back. I knew helping her was going to be a huge mistake I just hope it doesn’t cost anyone else his or her life.”

  “OK, now this is an official screw up. What do you think Veronica meant,” I said.

  “Clearly, she was afraid of something or rather someone.”

  “If she recorded a message like that for Tilly she must not have known about the fact that Tilly was sleeping with her husband,” I said.

  “But when how did these emails get on the same flash drive as the audio file,” Anna questioned.

  “Maybe Tilly put them on there?”

  “But why save illicit emails. Because you’re right. It does kind of make them look guilty. So why bring extra attention to yourself.”

  “I don’t know but I need to tell Willie about this.” I reached for the phone and Anna grabbed the flash drive and pulled it out.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to take this to the back and download the contents to my laptop. Just in case Tilly comes back in ten minutes and wants the drive back. I’m thinking we should pretend we never looked at it.”

  “That’s probably a good idea. Oh, hey Willie, it’s Pres. Give me a call when you get this. It’s kind of important.”

  As I hunt up a customer walked in.

  “Go back and copy that drive while I help this customer.”

  “Ok.”

  Chapter 11

  “There’s that detective. The one who lied to me and said he was an insurance agent representing Heiselman’s.”

  “Where?”

  “Three people in line ahead of us,” I said to Anna pointing him out.

  “What would he be doing here?”

  “Getting coffee it looks like.”

  “I gathered that smart ass. I mean at this Starbucks.”

  “His office is just around the corner. It’s probably convenient.”

  Anna turned to me and stared. “You little sneak. That’s why you wanted to come all the way over here. It wasn’t to check out that new store and then get coffee. You were hoping to run into him.”

  I smiled. “Maybe.”

  “I don’t think there was any maybe about it. So now that you see him what are we going to do about it?”

  “You’re going to stay in line and order our lattes,” I said handing her my debit card. “I still want my coffee. I’m going to wait until he gets his drink and pays and then follow him outside and ask him why he lied to me.”

  “You’re nuts, you know that?”

  “Maybe a little, “I grinned. “Skinny pumpkin spice latte, please.”

  “As if I’d forget.”

  Bert was paying for his drink and I held back a little until he walked out. I didn’t want to talk to him in here. It was too crowded and I didn’t want to make a scene. He stepped outside and I followed walking up and tapping him on the shoulder. He turned around, only taking a second to recognize me, then he smiled.

  “You’re the young lady who owns Silk,” he said.

  “And you’re the detective who lied and told me he was an insurance investigator,” I said just as sweetly. To his credit his smile never faltered so either he didn’t care I had found out the truth or he was a great actor.

  “You caught me,” he said, not sounding like he cared at all.

  “Why’d you lie?”

  “I didn’t lie. Exactly. I do some work for Windy City Insurance. Just not this particular case.”

  “So why were you asking questions about the brooch?”

  “I was hired to find out as much as I could about it.”

  “By who?” I said, getting a little frustrated by his short answers.

  “By my client. And don’t even ask. I won’t tell you who that is.”

  “Here’s your coffee,” Anna said and handed it to me as she joined us.

  “I think Veronica hired you. I think she wanted you to find out who Craig was having an affair with. What I can’t figure out is how that would lead you to ask about the brooch after her death. Unless that’s somehow tied to her murder,” I said with what I hoped sounded like confidence. I had just made that up on the spot hoping by his reaction I’d have some indication on whether or not I was at all on the right track.

  Apparently I wasn’t, as he started laughing.

  “Good imagination but you’re way off the mark.”

  “Then why don’t you help me get closer to the mark.”

  “Good try, but I don’t talk about my clients. Now if you’ll excuse me ladies.”

  He walked away and I wanted to stomp my feet in frustration. Instead I took a large sip of my latte which made me feel a little better.

  “I guess the positive is we can eliminate Veronica having him investigate her husband and one possible theory of why he likes asking questions,” I said dryly. Not really comforted by that thought.

  “Look who’s being all latte half full,” Anna teased and I gave her a dirty look.

  “Seriously though, now what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well what other ideas do you have?”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t.”

  As I stood on the sidewalk sipping my latte I willed myself to think.

  “You know. We aren’t that far from Heisleman’s, maybe we go talk to Raquel again. I’d still like to know the connection between her and Belle.”

  “Did you call her yet?”

  “No. I’m procrastinating. Bad I know. I just don’t want to have this conversation.”

  “You just need to get it over with.”

  “After we visit Raquel I’ll call her.”

  A brisk walk of a few minutes later and we arrived at Heisleman’s. We walked in and Raquel was there helping a gentleman and she glanced up in our direction nervously. At least that’s how she seemed to me.

  “I’ll be right with you ladies,” she said with a strained voice. I wonder if the customer she was helping was giving her a rough time. I walked up to them while Anna hung back looking at some bracelets.

  “I’ll be right with you,” Raquel said again, looking at me and then back at the gentleman. He seemed to be late fifties, early sixties. Clean cut, well dressed. Seemed like a normal customer for a place like this, but I got the feeling he was making Raquel nervous. In front of her was a blue velvet tray with quite an assortment of large diamonds. I didn’t know a lot about diamonds but even I could tell those were expensive.

  “Go ahead and wrap those up for me. I’ll be back later to pick them up,” the gentleman finally said.

  “I can do that Mr. Stevenson. I’ll have them ready in about an hour.”

  The man walked out, smiling at me as he turned to leave, and Raquel locked the tray of diamonds back up.

  “And what can I do for you?” she said, sounding weary.

  “Is everything OK,” I asked.

  “Everything is fine. It’s just been a long day. Now what can I do for you.”

  “I was wondering how you knew Belle.”

  Raquel’s eyes widened in surprise but quickly recovered and said, “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  At least she didn’t deny it. Th
at was a positive.

  “It’s not. But she was a friend of Veronica’s and I’m just trying to find out more about what could have happened to her.”

  “I think you should mind your own business.”

  Chapter 12

  “Oh my God, Presley, come in here. Hurry,” Anna yelled from the other room. I was in the kitchen getting us some chips and salsa for a snack and then we were going to finish planning the fashion show. Since we had to find music. Surprisingly enough Tilly hadn’t come back yet demanding her illicit drive back and given us the real music so I wanted to pick some out.

  “What?” I said as I ran into the room with the open bag of chips in my hand wondering what was so urgent.

  “Belle’s been arrested. At Veronica’s funeral for her murder,” she said and pointed to the TV where a news anchor from our local NBC station was broadcasting live from what looked to be the outside of the police station.

  “We have just received word that a suspect in the murder of Veronica Knapp has been arrested. Belle XXXX has been accused of stabling Ms. Knapp several times in the chest. Currently she has not given any statement to the police but we’ve heard she’s retained the counsel of high profile criminal attorney Chris Grady. You may remember him from the Scott case a few years back…”

  Anna turned down the volume on the TV and turned to look at me. I set the chips on the coffee table and sat myself down in the chair.

  “Now,” was all I could manage to say.

  “Do you think she did it?” Anna asked me.

  “I have no idea. They were friends but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  Chapter 13

  “Hey Presley. Phone for you,” Anna yelled to me from the doorway separating the sales floor to the back room. I was in the office paying bills. Never a fun job.

  “Who is it?”

  “Chris Grady,” she said slowly and with emphasis.

  “You mean the Chris Grady? As in defense attorney for Belle XXX?” I turned to completely face her.

  She nodded.

  “What could be possibly be calling me for?”

  “Pick up the phone and find out.”

  I picked up the phone and pressed the line to take if off hold.

  “This is Presley.”

  “Please hold for Chris Grady,” a woman’s voice said. He had someone to make his calls for him. I didn’t know whether to be impressed or disgusted he had that much self importance.

  “Hello.”

  “Ms. Thurman, Chris Grady here.”

  “Please call me Presley. How can I help you Mr. Grady?”

  “Call me Chris. And I’m calling on behalf of my client.

  “Your client?”

  “Yes. Belle XXXX.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  He chuckled. “No I don’t suppose you do. She wants to speak with you. Can you come down to the station in the morning at nine am?”

  “Sure.”

  “I will see you then.”

  I hung up the phone and Anna must have seen the light go off showing that I’d hung up because a few seconds later she was back in the office.

  “What did he want?”

  “He said Belle wants to talk to me.”

  “About what?”

  “No idea. I only met her twice. I can’t imagine what she would want to talk to me for.”

  “Are you going?”

  “Yes, because I’m curious. Now I need to get back to figuring out how to stretch the money to pay these bills. I really shouldn’t have hired Angela.”

  “Don’t say that yet. I think she’ll more than earn her keep.”

  Chapter 14

  Belle and police station

  I pulled up to the police station and felt nervous. I’m not sure why, it’s not like I’d never been inside a police station to talk to an alleged murdered before. The fact that was a true statement made me realize how interesting my life had been in recent years. I saw Chris Grady walking up to the front of the building and got out of my car to join him. As I approached I noticed he was better looking than he appeared on camera. And taller. I knew the camera supposedly added ten pounds but I didn’t know it also made you appear shorter.

  He saw me approaching and stood holding the door open.

  “Good morning. You must be Presley.” He saw my expression and started laughing. “I make it a point to know who I’m meeting,” he said noticing my confused expression. Of course I knew who he was. He was a celebrity of sorts. But I had no clue how he’d know me. Unless of course he Facebook stalked me like I did when I wanted to find out who people were. Though he probably had more sophisticated methods.

  “And you’re Chris Grady. Nice to meet you,” I said holding out my hand and shaking his. “So can you shed some light on why Belle wants to talk to me?”

  “I’ll let her tell you. It’ll just be a minute until we can get checked in.”

  We had to sign in and show our ID after walking through the metal detector. I was always paranoid that I’d set something off because I’d left something in my purse I shouldn’t have. That stemmed from the one time I accidently left a corkscrew in my purse and tried to get though the airport. TSA didn’t look too kindly on that. But no corkscrew or weapon like objects this time and the process was painless. Once we were cleared we were ushered into a conference room.

  “They’ll bring her to us in a minute,” Chris said putting his briefcase on the floor and pulling out a legal pad.

  It was only a couple minutes later when they brought Belle in. She was in handcuffs, which they released when they got in the room. The dirty looking grey jumpsuit made her looked washed out. Though I’m sure no make up and being accused of murdering her friend didn’t help. I knew I would look horrendous in her shoes. I couldn’t even imagine. She sat down and smiled at me.

  “Thanks for coming, Presley,” she said softly.

  “No problem, Belle, but I must admit I don’t know why I’m here.”

  “I need your help.”

  “How can I help?”

  “I think Tilly killed Veronica and is trying to pin it on me.”

  “Uh. Ok. I’m still not sure how I can help.”

  Belle looked at Chris who nodded back at her.

  “I need you to help me prove my alibi.”

  “Why me. I mean no offense but isn’t that what your lawyer should be doing,” I said and looked at Chris who just smiled.

  Anna and willie

  “I have a question for you, Pres,” Willie said and took a sip of his coffee.

  “Shoot.”

  “Would you mind if I asked Anna out?”

  My eyebrows shot up. I don’t know what I had expected him to ask me but this wasn’t it. Though they were both good looking, smart, funny, nice, so it kind of made sense.

  “Of course not. Why even ask?”

  “You’re my friend and she’s my friend and I wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt that so I wanted to make sure you didn’t mind.”

  Chapter 15

  stalker shows up

  “Thank god you’re home,” Anna said the minute I walked through the door and I could tell by the look on her face something was wrong.

  “What’s wrong,” I said as I sat down my purse and hung my coat in the closet.

  “He found me,” she said with a shaky voice.

  “Who, the guy who was harassing you in Korea?”

  She nodded.

  “He followed you all the way back to the States?” I said skeptically. Not that I didn’t believe her it just seemed, I don’t know, crazy.

  “I know it sounds stupid but I swear I saw him. He’s from Missouri so it’s not that far from here. Maybe he came home to visit and thought he would try to look me up.”

  “Where did you see him?”

  “I went to my apartment today to start cleaning out my storage area. After being gone this long there’s a lot of crap I know I don’t need and thought I would slowly go through it. I stopped at the Starbucks
right around the corner and when I was walking out I saw him coming down the sidewalk. I ducked into a store so he didn’t see me and he walked on by and then I just came back home. I was too afraid to go to my apartment. What if he was hanging out there waiting for me?”

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  I had hoped I was wrong but as I saw Tillie scurry up to the house the door opened for her I could see Craig let her in. I grabbed my phone and dialed Willie’s number.

  “Hey, Pres.”

  “I need you to get over to Craig Knapp’s house as soon as you can,” I whispered into the phone. Though why I was whispering I didn’t know. It’s not like anyone could hear me from inside the house. Though I hoped no neighbors came by and wondered why I was sneaking around in the shrubbery. That would be hard to explain.

  “Presley,” he said slowly. “Why are you at Craig Knapp’s house? What are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry about that right now, just get over here. I think him and Tilly killed Veronica and framed Belle for it and if you don’t hurry they’ll get away with it.” I hung up before he could ask me anymore questions and made sure my phone was on vibrate before I stuck it back in my pocket. I peeked over the bushes to see if I could see Craig and Tilly in the front windows and when I didn’t see anything decided I was going to try and get closer. I reasoned that if I couldn’t see them then they couldn’t see me either. I hung along the tree line up the side of the property, thankful they had such lush landscaping in the yard. It allowed me to make my way up and stay fairly hidden. I made my way to the side of the house when I spotted them through the dining room windows. It looked like they were arguing. My fear was they’d leave before Willie got here and then they’d disappear. I couldn’t let that happen or Belle might actually go to jail for a crime she didn’t commit. Tilly had pulled her Volvo right up close behind Craig’s Mercedes. If I let the air out of her car’s tires she wouldn’t be able to drive it and she was too close to him and he was too close to the garage door to get that car out. It might not stop them but would definitely slow them a little. Except taking off the valve stem wouldn’t flatten the tires quick enough. I needed to puncture them. I looked around for something that might work when I spotted a small, short handled spade. The gardeners must have left it lying around. I ran over and grabbed it and then went over to her car. The spade wasn’t very sharp, even though it was pointed, and I couldn’t get it to go in. I leaned all my weight against it and my hand hurt from the handle but I kept leaning. I couldn’t let them leave. I was so intent of what I was doing that I didn’t hear anyone walk up behind me until it was too late. I felt a cold metal object press against the back of my head.