Paper, Scissors, Death (10 page)

Ah, but the breeze all the way home was worth the effort. I didn’t dare keep the top down on the hottest days because the sun was too intense. But this was the kind of evening convertibles were made for. The tree frogs, crickets, and cicadas sang love songs to me as I tooled along. I would miss my daughter terribly tonight as I did every night she stayed with her grandmother, but at least she would pass the evening in comfort.

Gracie met me at the back door with her long pink tongue hanging from her loose jowls. Saliva dripped off the white picket fence of her teeth. The inside of the bungalow was stifling. After a flick of the switch proved the power was still out, I retrieved a flashlight from my car and made my way to my bedroom.

A few minutes later, overnight bag in hand, kibble in a plastic bag, dog in passenger seat, and tent in trunk, I headed down Interstate 270 to the Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park, a campground over on Highway 44 near Eureka. The tree-shaded area had been my second home in the weeks after selling the house in Ladue and before taking occupancy on the bungalow. My Value Kard promised a tent site for twenty-one dollars and change. I could clean up the next morning in the communal showers, and Gracie was always welcome, as the place prided itself on being “pet friendly.”

A night under the stars with a gentle breeze was far preferable to being cooped up in a hot, stuffy house. Sure, my tent wasn’t a five-star hotel, but the campground was within my budget and this kept my dignity intact. With any luck, AmerenUE would have the power back on in the morning, and the house would cool down before Anya came home from school. In the meantime, as long as the mosquito spray worked and the neighbors in their RVs didn’t play their boom boxes too loudly, I could pretend I was here by choice.

Just for one night, I decided I wouldn’t think about George. I wouldn’t worry over his murder or wonder how to solve the crime. I would pretend I was here with a man who loved me and only me. We’d stretch out on top of the cushy sleeping bag and smell the pine needles and name the constellations (which shouldn’t take long unless he knew a lot more astronomy than I did). I’d show him Orion with Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, the three stars forming the giant’s belt. I’d tell my companion about the mighty hunter and his faithful dog, Sirius. I’d pat my own canine sidekick and thank her for her fealty. He’d think I was pretty smart and maybe even irresistible as we snuggled close here in the last vestiges of Missouri forestland, under the maple leaves and the protective auspices of a noisy hoot owl.

As I drifted off to sleep, my fantasy lover revealed his face. He looked suspiciously like Chad Detweiler.

Kiki’s reverse lettering technique

You’ll need sticker letters, an ink pad, and a sponge. Be sure the sticker letters are trimmed along their silhouette. You also need a bottle of Un-Du, a safe solvent that loosens the adhesive so you can pick up a letter after it’s stuck and move it.

1. Write out the word or phrase you want to create. (If you skip this step, you’re likely to misspell a word!)

2. Count the letters and spaces. Divide by two to determine the middle of your word/phrase. The midpoint may fall on a letter or a space. Make a tick mark on your rough version to help you keep track.

3. Check to see you have enough letters for your word/phrase.

4. Peel the letters from the backing one by one. Starting at the center of a plastic or metal ruler, stick the bottom edge (1⁄8” or so) of the middle letter to the middle of the ruler’s edge (probably at 6” if you have a standard ruler). The sticky remainder of your letter will flop in the breeze. Be careful not to touch the top of the letter to any paper or surface!

5. Once you arrange your letters on the ruler as you want them to appear on your page, transfer them very carefully onto the paper. Start by pressing the tops of the letters to the paper. Move your way down the body of the letter until you peel the letters’ bottoms off the ruler.

6. Burnish all the letters so none of the ink will run under the edges.

7. Dab an ink pad lightly with a sponge. (Test the sponge first on a piece of wastepaper to make sure it isn’t too saturated with ink.) Now dab the ink on top of your letter stickers. Continue to dab until you get a pleasing intensity of ink. Your letter stickers should be covered!

8. Let the ink dry. Squirt on a little Un-Du. Slip the blade of a craft knife under the letters to peel them off. (You might be able to reuse these newly inked letters in another project by adhering them to wax paper for storage.)

“Where were you between the hours of midnight and one last night, Mrs. Lowenstein?” Detweiler frowned at me.

All I could do was blush back at him. I’d been thinking all sorts of sexy thoughts last night with him in the starring role, and here he was in the flesh. I felt like I’d been caught reading a romance novel with a racy cover.

Detweiler stood uncomfortably close to me in a triangulated tough-guy pose. His Bic pen poised to write on a steno pad. With a jolt, I realized he was here because he had some problem with me. Gee, Kiki, I chided myself, did you really think the man came to ask you for a date? My dreams evaporated, and I hit the earth hard. Whatever the reason for this visit, he was not here to fulfill my fantasies. How stupid could I get?

“Mrs. Lowenstein? Hello? I need an answer. Where were you last night between the hours of midnight and one?”

“Hey,” said Dodie. She’d been in her office, reading the morning paper, eating a gigantic blueberry muffin, and drinking a large caramel macchiato with whipped cream from Starbucks. I’d gulped down a carton of diet yogurt and a Diet Dr Pepper. My stomach rumbled in a queasy way.

Dodie raised her voice to Detweiler. “I need you interrogating my employee in my scrapbook store like I need another hole in my head. Get out of here. Scram.”

“Okay,” said Detweiler. “How about I take her downtown to the police station?”

And lose a half a day’s wages? I didn’t think so. Better to talk and work at the same time than to take the cut in pay. Surely this interview couldn’t last long. “My husband’s been dead for six months, Detective. What the heck difference can it possibly make where I was last night?” Now that he wasn’t the man of my dreams, I remembered him in his alternate role as bearer of bad tidings. I pulled at my shirt and fanned myself with my collar. The store seemed unbearably warm.

“Just answer the question.” Detweiler tugged at the neck of his shirt. Something likewise made him hot under the collar. Could it have anything to do with the way he was eyeballing me? I wondered. Well, he could just knock that off right now. Whatever was bugging him, I didn’t care for his attitude. Or the effect he was having on me.

“Last night between midnight and one, I was in a tent at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park over by Eureka. Not that it matters.”

“Right. You look like a woman who camps out.”

“I resent that!” What the heck was he implying?

“Right. Where were you? I don’t have time for this.”

“Neither do I.” I continued to straighten paper on the shelves. The aftermath of every crop was disarray. No matter how hard I tried to put the whole place back in order before I left, there were always spots I missed.

“I’m losing patience here. I need an answer pronto.
Capisc
e?”

“
Capisce
-sheesh. Speak English.” If it wasn’t Yiddish or elementary French, I was out of my element. Oh, and Hebrew. I knew a few words of that, too. But no Italian.

He growled, “I asked where you were last night.”

“And I told you. The Jell-eee-stone Campground.” I elongated my words.

Dodie drawled, “You got a hearing problem, bucko?”

“No, but Mrs. Lowenstein here has an attitude problem. Where. Were. You?” His breath tickled my neck. Goose bumps rose all over my body.

Over my shoulder, I said, “Okay, one more time with feeling, pal. I was in a tent at the Jellystone Campground off of Highway 44 by Eureka.” This man was seriously ticking me off. He’d planted himself in the middle of the shelves forcing me to walk around him each time I put a piece of paper where it belonged.

Whack! Detweiler slapped his notebook against a nearby fixture. The noise made me jump. “Hello? Am I not getting through to you? This is serious. Do I need to haul you into the station for questioning?”

“You can’t do that without just cause,” volunteered Dodie. She was a big fan of true crime novels and police procedurals. “And you have to Mirandize her, bub.”

“No kidding?” snarled Detweiler. “When did you get your badge? Because you’re wrong. About the Miranda. This isn’t an interview; it’s an informal discussion.”

Dodie shrugged elaborately. I could tell she was enjoying this. Dodie liked men and she liked trouble. Her input was making Officer Friendly more nasty by the minute. Being in the middle of a problem was her idea of heaven on earth.

But not mine. The fact I was being grilled by a good-looking man who probably knew how devastating his buff body was didn’t make a bit of difference. Under other circumstances watching a manly man act all tough and macho might have made my motor purr. But not here and now. I was supposed to be working. And, need I mention, my fantasy encounter did not include a Bic pen and steno pads? Or my boss and messy shelves of scrapbook products?

I straightened, trying to ignore how my shirt gapped in the front. I probably needed to add a couple of snaps to the underside of the button placket. “Okay, smart guy. Look.” I walked to the front counter. From underneath, I pulled my purse. I whipped out my wallet with my KOA Value Kard tucked among the trio of one dollar bills. “See? This entitles me to pitch my tent for twenty dollars and change. The electricity was off at my house so Gracie and I—”

“Gracie? Can she collaborate your story?”

“Sure, if you speak Danish.”

Dodie laughed. “Good one, Kiki.”

Detweiler grumbled an indistinguishable word.

“Here’s the rundown, ace. I worked until five and picked up my daughter from my mother-in-law’s house. When I got home, I discovered my electricity was out and my house was like an oven. At six, I took Anya back to her grandmother’s to spend the night. I worked here until half past eleven. I ran home to pick up a change of clothes and Gracie. Then I headed for the campground. I’ve stayed there before. They’ve probably got a record because you have to check in at the ranger station.”

“You slept in a tent?” Dodie’s bushy eyebrows flew up like crows startled by a cat. “You could have bunked up at my house. There’s lots of room now that my daughter is at Mizzou. Honest to goodness, where was your head?”

I started straightening the magazine rack. “Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn’t dream of imposing. I’ve slept at Jellystone before. When my house in Ladue sold, before the place I’m living in was fixed up, I slept in the tent every night. I’d shower there and come on in. I kind of like being out under the stars. It’s no big deal. You can call AmerenUE and see if they’ve turned on my power if you need to collaborate my story.” I brushed back a curl that had fallen onto my forehead.

“That’s corroborate, Kiki,” said Dodie.

“Oh.”

Detweiler tried not to smile. “That won’t prove anything. You could have checked into the campground, driven to the Chesterfield Mall, and made it back to spend the rest of the night there … under the stars.” Detweiler was studying me with an intensity that made me flustered. His behavior was weird, really weird.

But also not my problem.

“I have no idea what you are talking about. I didn’t go to the Chesterfield Mall. Why would I? It’s not even near my house.”

“There’s a scrapbooking store out there. A big one.”

“Yes, Archivers is there. It’s gorgeous. I love that store.”

“So do I,” said Dodie, in a declaration of solidarity.

I continued, “But I work here. I get the employee discount here—and supplies for the demo pages I make are free. In case you haven’t heard, I’m broke. Poor. Impoverished. Why do you think I sold my house in Ladue? And got a job here? For fun? No. Sorry. I do it for the do-re-mi. So I mainly shop here.”

I hoped Dodie didn’t catch the qualifier “mainly.”

Most scrapbookers shop around for supplies. We aren’t disloyal, but if you run out of photo splits in the middle of the night, and you have to have them, you can’t always be picky. A necessity is a necessity, and that’s a fact.

“What’s this poor-mouth routine? Your husband must have had life insurance. George Lowenstein was a business man. A smart guy, or so I heard,” Detweiler sounded confused.

“I wasn’t his beneficiary.” With my peripheral vision, I watched Dodie’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. She figured I needed money, but I never told her what my husband owed Dimont or about George’s life insurance. I assume she assumed what everybody else assumed, that I socked away a bundle for a rainy day. Realizing I’d just exposed one of my many personal problems to my employer really hacked me off. Great, I told myself. Bad enough Dodie knew I was desperate for employment. Now that she knew about the problem with George’s life insurance, I was completely at her mercy.

I whirled on the detective. “Excuse me, but don’t you have anything better to do? Or is this your idea of a good time? Picking on poor defenseless widows?”

Detweiler looked stunned. His handsome jaw dropped. He snapped it shut and glowered at me. He was at least a foot taller than I. “Hey, when did you get the personality transplant, lady? I don’t remember you acting quite so sassy.”

“You have a lot of nerve. When did I get the personality transplant, buster? Right after you and everyone else in the world ran all over me last fall. Right after I had the worst Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Valentine’s Day of my life. Right after my husband died and left me indigent. Got it? That’s when I got so sassy. What’d you think? I’d lie down, roll on my back, and bare my throat? George is gone, but I’ve got to go on. By myself. For my kid. Now, if you don’t have anything better to do than harass me, why don’t you let yourself out? There’s the door.” And with a sweep of my hand, I pointed to the front exit. I was on the verge of tears. The fast-track review of my circumstances made me feel pretty darn sorry for myself. I didn’t dare add, “And I’ve been publicly ridiculed by my hubby’s old girlfriend as well as being verbally slapped around by my mother-in-law.”

I had to get hold of my emotions. Fast.

Detweiler turned those gorgeous eyes on me. They were angry, no doubt about it. “Actually I don’t have anything better to do. I’m doing my job. This is my second assignment to the Major Case Task Force in the past year and each time, your name manages to turn up. I’m not leaving until you tell me what you know about the shooting last night.” His arms remained stiff at his sides. He stared at me, daring me to look away.

“What shooting?” Dodie and I said in tandem. We could have doubled as the chorus in a Greek play.

“Don’t play coy with me. The shooting last night at Chesterfield Mall.” Neither Dodie nor I responded. We had no idea what the man was going on about. Chesterfield was a suburb several miles west of the city of St. Louis, while our store and my home were in the more centrally located suburb, Richmond Heights.

“Cut it out! Don’t tell me you know nothing about it!” His voice was clip.

“It what?” I demanded. My voice rose higher and higher. “What are you talking about?”

“Roxanne Baker’s murder!”

“Roxanne? Dead? You’ve got to be kidding me! How? When?”

“
Oy vey
,” whispered Dodie.

“Like I said, she was killed last night in the mall parking lot.”

“Whoa, so that was the body in the news,” Dodie gulped. “They hadn’t released the name this morning …”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That’s … that’s awful. But we just saw her, when? Saturday? At the shower? Dead? Are you sure? And shot?”

I couldn’t help thinking maybe she got what she deserved.

A wave of despair hit me. Now I’d never learn more about her relationship with George. Death had a curious way of ennobling people. Of washing away their flaws and elevating their reputations to a new purity. Sinners became saints once their bodies were lowered into the ground.

Now no one would tell me all the dirt on Roxanne. I suspected she might have been one of the two women my husband lunched with the day of his death. But how would I ever know?

Detweiler studied me.

“She wasn’t a very nice person. She stomped in here and threatened to quit doing business with me if I didn’t fire Kiki,” Dodie volunteered.

My jaw dropped. “What?”

Dodie shrugged. “Soon after you came to work here. But I fixed her wagon.”

For a moment, I thought Dodie was going to confess. So did Detweiler; I could see it in his eyes.

“Yeah, I fixed her good.” Dodie’s voice was casual.