Murders of a Feather, page 24
Mari began. “I know someone who saw him for a back sprain, and they liked him very much. He treated the immediate pain problem and gave them referrals for a pain clinic and a spinal specialist.”
That sounded like standard care, nothing odd about it. “Anything more personal?”
After another bite of sandwich, Mari shook her head. “I did glimpse Alicia and José having lunch at Judy’s. They were sitting in front of the picture window when I walked by. I only remember because I noticed how lovely she was. Really eye-catching natural beauty.”
Not much help, unfortunately. “What about you, Cindy? Did you know José?”
Cindy answered with a shake of her head. “I mean he was familiar in town. I think he grew up in High Falls, or Saugerties, or somewhere nearby. I’m pretty sure he was a bowler, because my hubby and I saw him several times on our league bowling night. We didn’t know him very well, just enough to say ‘hi’ and ‘how’s it going.’”
So far, our conversations had been a bust. I was thinking about how I would approach his coworkers at the orthopedic clinic he’d worked at when Cindy added, “Maybe you should talk to Freddy.”
“Who’s Freddy?”
“Freddy Lassitor. He’s on José’s bowling team. He might be able to help, but I doubt it. Not a big talker, if you know what I mean. Once you finish discussing the weather, that’s it for him.”
“Great,” I said. “This is so frustrating.”
“You might try talking to Harriet, though,” she suggested.
“Who’s Harriet?”
“Freddy’s girlfriend. She isn’t a bowler, but she sticks to him like glue. She’s jealous Freddy might meet someone else during bowling, so she goes with him to every game. And this ought to cheer you up, Kate. Harriet never stops talking.”
“That’s all well and good, but how do I meet her?”
Cindy squinted her eyes and looked me up and down. “Can you bowl?”
There was only one bowling alley in Oak Falls. It looked a bit run-down on the outside, but when I drove into the parking lot to meet Cindy and her husband, I was surprised by the number of cars. On the other hand, I suppose it became a good source of exercise and socializing during the Hudson Valley’s brutal winters.
I actually knew how to bowl. After my mom and brother died, I was a very angry teenager. Gramps gave me bowling lessons every week, probably to force me out of the house and take my aggression out on the pins. It helped. I’d envision my dad’s face on the pins and get pleasure knocking them down. Gramps also played on a league, so after my lesson, I’d have to hang out with his fireman buddies, who always offered to buy me pizza or sodas and never asked any personal questions.
I didn’t remember how long ago I’d last picked up a bowling ball, but I figured my moderate skills would kick in after a few throws.
When I opened the bowling alley glass doors, the first thing that hit me was the noise level. Computerized programs blared on every lane, as the scores were posted electronically. Some lanes lit up with flashing lights that changed colors. Stunned at first, I didn’t see Cindy until she tapped my shoulder.
“So I’m on a ladies team, but we bowl on another night. I try to practice while the hubby bowls. We’ve booked the lane right next to him, and guess what? Both Freddy and Harriet are here. Lucky you.”
She surreptitiously pointed out Freddy, whose bright red-orange hair glowed nearly fluorescent in the artificial lights. He was very tall and skinny, and his eyelashes and eyebrows were so pale they vanished from his face, giving him a surprised look. I checked out my target, Harriet, who was sitting on the bench and wore a lot more makeup than most of the women there. When she stood up, I couldn’t help but notice a large shelf of bosom proudly displayed in a skin-tight sweater. I also realized she often talked to Freddy’s back.
“Let’s do this,” Cindy said with a surprising amount of enthusiasm, her hair in a high ponytail.
My friend brought her own bowling ball and shoes, but I was forced to use the everyday rentals. I decided not to think about how many feet had been in the size nine shoes before mine. Just before they handed me the shoes, an employee sprayed some sort of perfumed disinfectant spray inside. The strong pine odor made me sneeze. I didn’t see how spraying a disinfectant for three seconds would thoroughly protect anyone’s feet from the stuff that grew in bowling shoes—but I shoved them on over my socks and hoped for the best.
When I reached our lane, Cindy had already made contact with Harriet. They sat side by side, chatting away like old friends.
“Oh, Harriet, this is Dr. Kate Turner. We work together at the animal hospital. Kate, this is Harriet Wilder.”
“I’m so glad to meet you,” she said speaking loudly over the noise. “My friends say I’m wilder than my last name!”
Since it looked like she expected me to laugh, I did.
“Are you joining us?” I asked Harriet, hefting the ball up with two hands to feel its weight and balance.
“Oh, no,” she protested. “I’m a little top heavy for bowling. The girls would keep getting in the way.”
Stumped for a response, I said, “Okay.”
Over the next hour, the three of us chatted away about everything under the sun—the price of groceries, which salon in town gives the best pedicures, and Harriet’s favorite binge-worthy streaming shows. Once we felt comfortable, I snuck in a question about the murdered couple, Alicia and José. As predicted, Harriet expressed many opinions on the subject.
With wide eyes, she explained that she and her boyfriend knew José pretty well, and they were horrified by his murder. She said José had been so caring and dedicated to his profession—that it was a loss to the community. As she continued to chatter on about going out to dinner and how her hubby and José played a guys-only poker game every Tuesday night, I realized she hadn’t said a word about Alicia.
After my next turn, which ended in a lucky spare, I brought up José’s fiancée.
“Hum,” was her response.
I waited, knowing she would not be able to stop herself from talking about Alicia.
“Well, I hate to speak ill of the dead,” she began, “but Freddy and I were not happy when those two got engaged. She was…a stuck-up little bitch. Always thinking every guy was crazy in love with her.”
So much for not speaking ill of the dead.
“I never met her…” I began, but Harriet interrupted.
“The first time José brought her over to meet us, I knew she was trouble,” Harriet continued. “Sure, Alicia was okay to look at, but she never warmed up to either of us. Never. And I think she became paranoid or something.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked before I had to get up and take my turn. Cindy was beating me, of course, but preoccupied by what Harriet said, I must have freed up my unconscious mind long enough to bowl a strike.
“Yes!” I yelled out and performed a little victory dance. Lights flashed and an electronic voice called out “STRIKE!”
Cindy must have realized I needed some extra time to talk to Harriet because she paused our game to buy an iced tea.
As soon as I sat down, Harriet continued to explain why Alicia seemed paranoid.
“For one thing,” she said, moving closer to me, “she thought someone was watching her in college. In Albany, New York, of all places? José thought it was one reason she got married so fast to that lawyer, James Ramsey. For protection.”
A tremor of alarm went off in my gut. “Did she…”
“José told Alicia that she was simply reacting to people staring at her because she was so beautiful.” Harriet made a barfing gesture. “I mean she was cute, but there are a lot of attractive women in the world.” Harriet adjusted her sweater then added, “And she always lost stuff, but she blamed it on a stalker. Such drama. Like there is a stalker here in Oak Falls.”
From the expression on her face, I figured Harriet thought that an impossibility. “She even said someone was stealing her underwear.”
“Her underwear?” I asked.
“Nutty, right? Those two traveled back and forth to each other’s places so much she probably lost track of them. I lose panties all the time,” Harriet stated.
Another wild statement, but she expected me to comment, so I said, “Me, too. Lose them all the time in the dryer along with my socks.”
My answer didn’t slow her down. “That lawsuit talk and the stalker stuff started getting José jittery, which is why they decided to move to California.”
“José told you this?” I asked her.
She laughed and said, “Of course not. José told my Freddy, and then Freddy told me after I forced him to talk. I guess you could say I’m a teensy bit nosy.”
Thank goodness someone is, I thought. Harriet turned out to be an overflowing fountain of information. As Cindy and I signed up to play one more game, I resolved to drain her gossip fountain dry.
Harriet’s opinions revealed someone much more clever than people gave her credit for. She confessed she realized she was an average person in every way except her bra size, so in high school she decided to make the most of what she had. I told her in all honesty, she had plenty more going for her, which made her beam.
I asked her to try and remember any other details about José and Alicia, which might lead to their killer.
She came up with several. José came over to their house to say goodbye the week of the murder and indicated that he and Alicia were getting married that week. He didn’t tell them where. They’d bought plane tickets to California for their honeymoon. He’d decided to sell his big truck now and buy a smaller vehicle when they got to LA. They’d both been saving money by having roommates, which allowed them to put aside a nice nest egg for their first home.
“Why didn’t they move in together and save on rent?” Out of the corner of my eye I caught Cindy’s throw knocking down nine pins.
Harriet shrugged. “For the sake of romance. If you can believe that.” She made it obvious she didn’t.
“Who did they hire to perform the ceremony?” I wondered, while Cindy picked up a spare.
“Freddy didn’t say. My sweetie pie isn’t very talkative. Sometimes I have to pry information out of him with a crowbar.” Harriet looked over at her boyfriend bowling in the next lane and yelled out “Go, Freddy. Go!”
He turned his head and gave her a giant smile and a thumbs-up before bowling a strike with a series of fluid movements. I hadn’t thought of bowling as graceful, but Freddy Lassitor proved me wrong. I, on the other hand, looked neither graceful nor skilled. I’d been trailing Cindy except for a few lucky strikes, and our final scores were separated by at least fifty points. After our final frame, Harriet said goodbye and switched lanes to sit next to her guy. I noticed several men surreptitiously sneaking looks at her assets.
Cindy’s hubby was busy bowling with his team. Now I realized why my receptionist drove her own car tonight.
As we picked our way through the parking lot, Cindy asked if I learned anything interesting.
“Alicia had a stalker,” I answered. “In fact, there are three people who corroborate her stalking fears at three different times in her life: high school, college, and in Oak Falls. Her sister told me about the high school stalker; José mentioned a college stalker to Freddy; and both Harriet and Alicia’s roommate Nora remembered some odd occurrences here. Does the chief know about this?”
Cindy opened her truck door. “If he does, he hasn’t shared it with his wife. My sister knows how upset we’ve been, and she immediately tells me anything to do with the three murders. But Bobby isn’t saying much.”
“I guess we’ll have to keep plugging away. This is the first new bit of information I’ve found.”
“Could Alicia and José have been killed by a stalker? Isn’t that mostly in movies?” Doubt sounded in Cindy’s voice.
“From everything I’ve read about stalking, I would say that it is a definite possibility.”
With an admonishment to be careful, Cindy climbed into her car and waited for me to open my truck door. After a quick wave, she took off for home and family, while I headed back to the animal hospital alone, stalking scenarios playing in my head.
Jealousy was another possible motive added to the pile of motives.
Chapter Thirty-Three
That night I learned it’s not a good idea to do an Internet search on stalkers before you go to sleep. There were hundreds of postings, most of them from women whose former boyfriends wouldn’t let go or family members remembering victims of murder/suicide brought on by jealousy. A recurrent theme was, “If I can’t have you, no one can.” It’s a terrible outcome for everyone when a person prefers to kill their object of affection rather than let go.
I checked twice that night to make sure the alarm system was on and functioning. Reading these creepy cases made me jittery. I held my pepper spray in my hand when I walked Buddy and Bella, and when we came back inside, I made sure to double-lock the door. Then I poured a glass of white wine and headed for the couch.
“Hey, guys,” I told my dogs, “let’s watch some HGTV.” The nice thing about having a dog as a TV partner is you always get to watch your show and control the remote.
As we all settled in with a few soft blankets, the text tone pinged.
How’s your day been?
I texted back to Mike:
Interesting
About two minutes later, Mike called, and I explained about my bowling adventure.
“I haven’t been bowling in ages,” he told me. “Was it fun?”
How to admit I went bowling so I could talk about murder? At first I was tempted to simply say bowling was fun, but if Mike and I had any future together, he needed to know I’d been investigating the murders.
I hemmed and hawed before laying it on the line. “I went bowling with Cindy to find out more about José and Alicia, the murder victims Mari and I found up by the lake.”
“Good idea,” he said. “Did you find out anything?”
His interest in what I was doing surprised me. All my other relationships consisted of men telling me to be careful or to back off. “You’re not going to say I’m out of my league. Or crazy?”
“Was that a pun?” Laughter rolled through the receiver, coming right from the heart. “Long ago I stopped trying to orchestrate everyone’s lives, including my own. Life is messy and unpredictable. Maybe you’re meant to help solve this crime. The Babs I knew would have encouraged you—perhaps even joined you.”
“But look what happened to her.”
My statement met with silence. Then Mike reminded me of something everyone knows, a basic fact pushed to the back corner of our consciousness.
“Everyone is going to die, but murder changes the natural course of events. Her death came as a surprise. Babs probably didn’t suspect anything until she started to feel the effects of the Xanax in her coffee. Once she knew she’d been drugged, she did everything she could to help point the way for you. I miss her. She didn’t have to die this way.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“This is my motto. Live each day to the fullest and do what is right.”
Of course, what he said was true. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t keep trying to find the person who killed my friend.
“What made you so smart?” I asked in a joking voice. I didn’t expect a real answer.
“When I turned fourteen, I was on my grandparents’ farm plowing a field with a tractor…”
“At fourteen you ran a tractor by yourself?”
“You’d be surprised at the things farm kids do. I also gathered eggs and fed the chickens and cows and horses at four years old.”
I could picture a serious blue-eyed little boy diligently going through his chores.
“Anyway, it was after some heavy rains and everything was fine until the tractor hit a soft spot, that turned into a sinkhole, and tumbled about twenty feet into a pit, pinning me underneath. We weren’t visible at all. I shouted until I couldn’t shout anymore and figured they’d miss me soon enough. What I didn’t know was I was bleeding internally.”
“When did they find out you were missing?”
“That’s the bad part. I often helped my grandparents on Saturday, and sometimes stayed over until Sunday. Then we’d all meet up at church. That Saturday my grandma went to bed early with a migraine. Because of some miscommunication, each family thought I stayed at the other one’s house.”
“So you spent the night trapped under the tractor. In a sinkhole?” The idea of anyone suffering that kind of accident was horrific, but especially for a young teenager.
“Yep. I could see the stars above me. By then I felt numb below the waist, and I figured my spine had been broken. You hear people talking about their lives flashing past them, but for me, it was a realization that I was dying and there was nothing I could do about it. Just before I blacked out, I experienced an out-of-body experience. I was floating in the air looking down at myself trapped under the tractor. There were no feelings of pain or anger; it just was what it was. After taking one last look at the stars, I blacked out. I woke up in a hospital bed.”
“That’s some story. How bad were your injuries?”
“Broken femur, liver laceration, cracked pelvis, broken collarbone, and a bunch of minor injuries. But after that experience, I changed. I stopped trying to control everything in my life because—I’d surrendered to my fate. Looking up at the stars and nearly bleeding to death put everything in perspective.”
“So the moral of the story is…”
“Go get him, Kate. Track down whoever committed these crimes. Take precautions, but don’t let a bit of danger deter you.”
If he’d been sitting on the sofa next to me, I would have hugged him. Unlike my other boyfriends, he sounded calm, focused, and much more mature. Seasoned, my Gramps would say.
The big question in this romance equation was me. What if this was it? If he was the one? As much as I bitched about the state of my love life, was I ready? To be honest—I was afraid to commit again, to get hurt again.
