Murder at the Car Show Page 9

  “They were closed for the summer. We were totally trespassing,” Aleta said. “Plus, there was a hundred dollars of illegal fireworks in the car.”

  “We didn’t know anything about that though.” Georgie giggled.

  “No, and I’m sure if the cops had caught us, they would have believed us.” Aleta rolled her eyes. “They shot those off for us, every last one.”

  “They were beautiful. You could see them for miles.”

  “Obviously, someone else saw them. It didn’t take five minutes before we heard the police sirens.”

  “Right.” Georgie laughed at the memory. “We ran to the car and peeled out of there with the lights off, remember that?”

  “How could I forget? It was terrifying and thrilling all at the same time.”

  “Those guys were nice.” Aleta looked across her backyard. The rosebush at the far end grew elegantly against the back fence with bright spots of red where the roses were in bloom.

  “Yeah, they were,” Georgie added. “Sean was a little grabby though.”

  “Was he? You never said.”

  “Well, a lady never tells.”

  “Right, but we’re talking about you here.” Aleta nudged Georgie with her arm.

  “I can’t help it that I had it in all the right places even then.” Georgie looked at Aleta innocently. “He just wanted to make sure it all stayed put, I guess.”

  “You were certainly the one with all the curves, that’s for sure.”

  “Don’t play modest with me. You had all the same curves, you just didn’t show them off. I can’t help that.” Georgie inspected her nails.

  “Is that what you were doing? Showing them off? It was more like giving it away, wouldn’t you agree?”

  By this time the Kaye sisters were howling with laughter as they strolled down Memory Lane. “I wouldn’t want to go back to those days of dating for all the money in the world.” Georgie wiped her right eye after regaining her composure.

  “No, me neither.” Aleta took a deep breath.

  “Do you like Marley?” Georgie asked seriously.

  Aleta bit her lip and pinched her eyebrows together like she was trying to answer a difficult trivia question. “There is something about him. He’s so different from William.”

  “William was one of a kind.” Georgie took her sister’s hand.

  “That he was. When I talked to Marley at his house, he came across as really genuine. He is what he is. He’s not wealthy or a businessman. He’s just a man, you know?”

  “I do. Well, Aleta, I’m sorry that my efforts today produced no fruit. I have an idea, though.”

  “Please don’t tell me it requires fireworks.”

  “Nope. I saw Auntie Mame was on the classic movie channel tonight.”

  “The one with Rosaline Russell?”

  “Of course.”

  “I love that movie,” Aleta gushed. “Popcorn is on me.”

  “I’ll do you one better. How about we make popcorn and some chocolate covered peanuts to go with them.”

  “I’ve got the ingredients for a yellow sheet cake and half a container of vanilla frosting.”

  “This beats the heck out a date any day. Let’s go.” Georgie whistled for Bodhi who trotted up to his mistress, sneezing and snorting with his doughnut-shaped tail wagging wildly.

  “How old were you when you started dating Stan?” Aleta asked as she scooped up Freckles from the sidewalk.

  “I think I was a sophomore when I started wearing his ring.”

  “But how could that be if you went out with Sean Householder?”

  “Well, there are seven days in a week. Stan wasn’t there every day.”

  “So, you were a bit of a floozy, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “No, I was an expert at scheduling.”

  “Does Stan know?” Aleta laughed.

  “Well, if my twin sister didn’t know why would my ex-husband be in the loop? Sometimes you ask really silly questions, Aleta.”

  Chapter 13

  The next day Georgie skimmed the list of people on the Watermark payroll and found only one person named Pete. “I wonder if this is the kid at the lemonade booth. No one else is named Pete.” She shrugged her shoulders and decided a quick visit to his house couldn’t hurt.

  As it turned out, it was Pete from the lemonade booth. He lived in the Pilsen neighborhood that was about an hour in city traffic from Georgie’s home. She discovered on arriving that Pete also had three roommates, and they were all crammed into a one-bedroom apartment.

  There were no chairs in the apartment, so Pete offered her a seat on two milk crates that were crazy-glued together. “Don’t worry. It’s completely stable.” He patted the cushion on top. Georgie took a seat and smiled at Pete. “Yeah, I’ve worked the car show the past three years.” Pete grinned back at Georgie as he took a seat on a similar milk crate setup. “It’s easy money.”

  “When you worked with Hera did she do anything else other than run the lemonade booth? Were there any people she dealt with other than customers?”

  “You should be asking ‘what didn’t she do.’ That guy Deebs?” Pete was contemptuous of the car show manager. “He wouldn’t be able to find his butt—pardon my rudeness—with a map and a flashlight if it weren’t for Hera.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. Hera was in charge of almost everything for the last two years, from making sure the right people got assigned the right spaces to collecting the cash from all the vendor booths and...”

  “Did you say cash?” Georgie interrupted him quickly.

  “Yeah, the vendors were required to pay a fee to be at the events. Everyone had to pay cash. Hera would make sure everyone knew that ahead of time. See, most places let you pay with credit or check, but Hera said everyone had to pay cash. She gave them plenty of notice to get the money together, and she sometimes gave a vendor a little extra time to get the funds. Like the car show, those vendors paid between five-hundred and a thousand dollars each. There were how many of them there?”

  “At least fifty.” Georgie did the math in her head.

  “That’s a lot of cash to trust to one person. I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted to let a couple of hundred slip in my pocket.” Pete snorted. “I’m just being honest.”

  “Right. I can’t say I’d blame you. So, Mr. Deebs had Hera walking around collecting all these fees for him? He must have trusted her a great deal.”

  “Hera was just that kind of person. She was tough, but like I said before, she had a really big heart.”

  Just then the front door to the apartment opened and a long-haired, wiry fellow in cut-off camouflage shorts that reached his knobby knees walked in. “Sup,” he said to Pete who replied, “Dude,” and jerked his chin up before the young man disappeared behind the door of the one bedroom.

  “My roommate works the afternoon shift at the 7-11 three blocks down then goes to work at the Lava Lounge at night. He’s home for a nap.”

  “Of course.” Georgie nodded understandingly, silently urging Pete to continue telling her what he knew about the car show and how it was managed.

  “So, where was I? Oh, yeah. Well, considering that Mr. Deebs picks all the vendors, you’d think he’d tell them they needed to pay cash and save Hera the hassle of having to remind them.”

  “What do you mean ‘he picked all the vendors’?”

  “Yeah, they are all friends of his. At least, that is what Hera told me. I figured it was just because they’d been doing the shows so long that Mr. Deebs knew them all.”

  “Right,” Georgie said.

  “What Hera told me was like this, okay? Let’s say Mr. Deebs has a friend who wants to have a vendor booth at the car show. Mr. Deebs gets him all the permits and all the trucks or booths he needs, and those prices vary on the size and amount of the merchandise, see?”

  Georgie nodded her head. Pete didn’t realize what he was telling Georgie. To him, this was just how Mr. Deebs ran the shows. As far as he knew, all
shows were run this way, but Georgie knew it was not the normal way to do business. Still, she sat and listened and didn’t interrupt.

  “So, did you ever hear of anyone new to the show trying to get booth space?” Georgie asked. She was uncomfortable on the milk crate chair but was afraid to adjust her position for fear of toppling right over.

  “Hera had mentioned it a couple of times. She said that Deebs turned down some really good guys that were entrepreneurs and had great merchandise. I can’t remember what it was, but Deebs said ‘no dice.’ He said there wasn’t enough room. An outdoor venue at the county fairgrounds? Not enough room? There’s what, like a billion acres out there?” Pete snorted again.

  “Something like that,” Georgie replied. “Did Hera ever talk to Mr. Deebs about his unusually strict selection process?”

  “What? Talk to Brock Deebs about how to run his business? I don’t think so.” Pete shook his head. “That guy was like an army general. You didn’t question what he was doing even if he was leading you right into enemy fire, not if you wanted to keep your job.”

  “So, you said you worked the car show the past three years. Did you ever talk to Brock?”

  “Not that I can remember. I don’t even know if he knew I worked there. Hera was the one who arranged for me to help her with the lemonade booth. That little box made good money.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. Well, Pete, you’ve really been a big help. Have you found yourself a new job?” Georgie stood quickly. Surprisingly, the milk crate chair stayed erect and still.

  “Yeah, Little Caesar’s Pizza is keeping me rolling in dough for the time being. Huh, no pun intended.” Pete chuckled.

  “What do you do when you’re not working?” Georgie asked.

  “I’m in school. Well, I’m off for the summer, but I’ll be back hitting the books come fall.”

  “What’s your major?”

  “Architecture.”

  “Really?” Georgie almost gasped.

  “Yeah, I got a natural talent for numbers and I didn’t want to go into banking or finance.”

  “Well, good for you, Pete!” Georgie was sorry she had judged a book by its cover. She would have never guessed architect, video game designer, maybe; a barista at Starbuck’s, possibly. Pete’s field of study was a pleasant surprise. “I think you’ve got a really good head on your shoulders. Thanks for your help.”

  After leaving Pete’s apartment, Georgie was positive that Brock Deebs needed a little more scrutiny. “If I had a business in town and people wanted to know something about it, where could that information be found?” She asked Pablo as she approached the car. “Maybe the library?”

  The library in Georgie’s neighborhood was a massive complex with plenty of quiet corners to sit and think. Georgie knew there were business cards of local businesses in the lobby of the library. Maybe someone there would know a little more about Brock Deebs if she acted like an interested vendor. It turned out that Brock Deebs did have his business card posted in a tall kiosk at the front of the library, along with two dozen business owners from around town. But when Georgie asked the librarian at the front desk if she knew anything about Brock Deebs business, the librarian whispered back softly that she didn’t.

  Feeling like she’d hit a brick wall, Georgie decided to meander through the tall bookshelves and let the quiet calm her. She really should come more often. It had been a few months since she’d visited the library. It was a massive complex with plenty of quiet corners to sit and think.

  Georgie found herself in the reference area of the library and quickly went up to the second floor where the fiction books were. She hadn’t intended to check anything out, but as she scanned the hardbacks in their plastic covers, she was enticed by several interesting titles. With a few romances tucked under her arm, she managed to grab a gruesome true crime story before going back to the reference section and picking up two books on painting and sketching. Nothing boosted her creativity more than studying up on some of the masters, and not-so-masterful artists, and their techniques. All together, she checked out nine books, eager to set aside the mystery of Hera Packard’s death for just a little while.

  “I am just an amateur sleuth, after all,” Georgie told Pablo as she drove back home. Painting pays my bills. In fact, I think a pencil drawing of Bodhi and Freckles might be just the thing to cheer Aleta up. I’ve never drawn a picture of those two scallywags together, she thought happily as she drove along.

  The trip to the library might not have yielded any new information about Brock Deebs, but Georgie felt invigorated. The change of scenery had done her a world of good just as Obby had said it would. Unfortunately, when she pulled up in her driveway just a little past nine o’clock at night, she felt something was wrong. As she stepped out of the car, there was a feeling of unrest in the air. Had the crickets and birds suddenly gone quiet? Where was the street traffic and elevated train rumbles? When she went to insert her key in the front door she realized something was very wrong. The door was already open.

  Chapter 14

  “Are you all right?” Stan asked as he hurriedly approached Georgie who sat shivering on Aleta’s front stoop. Aleta had her arm wrapped around her sister’s shoulder. Behind him two squad cars with lights and sirens going came to a screeching halt.

  “It’s not the Macy’s Day Parade, Stan,” Georgie chastised her ex-husband, but her heart wasn’t in it. She knew Stan could see the tears in her eyes. She stood up and Stan gave her a quick hug, gently wiping away a tear that overflowed down her cheek with one thumb.

  “Have you been inside?” Georgie shook her head no.

  “Stay here,” Stan said. Without speaking to the officers, he signaled with his hand and two of the four uniformed cops went around to the back of the house. Stan withdrew his weapon, and the remaining two officers followed him inside the front door.

  “I’m so sorry, Georgie,” Aleta said. “I didn’t hear a thing. Bodhi didn’t either. He was with me the entire day, and I don’t think I heard him bark more than one time and that was because he was dreaming about chasing foxes again.” Sometimes in his sleep Bodhi’s legs would mimic running. He’d growl ferociously and sometimes bark himself awake. Aleta joked that the little dog dreamt about being a wolf and chasing foxes like his ancestors did.

  “It isn’t your fault.” Georgie patted her sister’s hand and stared at the open door. “Thank heaven Bodhi was with you. Everything else can be replaced but not Bodhi and Freckles and you. I’m just angry, and I have no one to be angry with.”

  “That has to be driving you crazy,” Aleta teased gently, trying to take Georgie’s mind off things.

  “You know, it really is.” Georgie chuckled with a tear in her eye.

  After several minutes, Stan and the police officers emerged. By now the neighbors had convened in their pajamas on their front lawns to see what was happening. Finally, Stan approached Georgie, a serious look on his face. As she got up and walked over to him, she felt a scolding on the way. “Georgie, I have to ask you some questions, and I need you to be honest.”

  “When have I ever not been honest with you, Stan?”

  “Georgie, have you been snooping around in things that don’t concern you?” Stan ignored this red herring that Georgie hoped would distract him and continued gazing steadily at her.

  “Of course not,” Georgie answered confidently. “Anything I snoop around in does concern me.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Stan slipped his hand around Georgie’s arm and gently tugged her toward her open front door. He had turned on all the lights as he and his men swept the rooms. When Georgie looked inside, she looked carefully but, the room looked like it had when she left. Nothing was missing that she could see right off. Nothing appeared to be broken.

  “I don’t understand,” Georgie said. “I know I locked the door.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Stan answered still holding on to her arm. Without letting go, he led her to her bedroom. There she had a picture of Aleta
and herself taken at Georgie’s first official gallery showing. They stood in front of a colorful painting of a handsome parrot. Stan had said something just as the photo was being snapped that made them burst out laughing. Click. They were frozen in time holding each other’s hands as they did in their mother’s belly with huge smiles on their faces. It was a wonderful memory, but now it was ruined.

  “What?” Georgie looked closely at the smashed frame. Whoever had come into her house had found this picture, broken it out of the glass, and scratched both their faces out.

  “Georgie, you want to tell me who you’ve been irritating?” Stan finally let go of her arm and pulled his leather notebook from his shirt pocket.

  “Is this about Obby?” Using a distraction tactic like in football when the quarterback fakes a pass to another player then throws deep, Georgie tried to buy some time.

  “What?” Stan shouted; she never had been able to fake him out. “Georgie, I don’t know if you are aware of this or not, but what we have here isn’t a robbery. This is a threat! This is a message that reads ‘stop nosing around or you or your sister are going to pay the price!’”

  Georgie turned and went into her kitchen without saying anything. That was where she saw her broken back door. Whoever had done that to her picture had gotten in her house through here. “Great,” she sighed. “What will this cost to fix?” She quickly got a pot of coffee going and pulled some ice cream from the freezer. Sugar wafer cookies were pulled down from the shelf, and, within just a few minutes, Georgie had made a sweet ice cream treat for herself, Aleta, Stan, and his men.

  “Have a seat, everyone. I’ll tell you what I know.” Georgie had always planned on sharing the information she had gathered with Stan, but she now felt like she was turning to him for help instead of figuring things out on her own. She wasn’t afraid of some dark figure breaking into her house. She’d taken several self-defense classes, kept pepper spray on her nightstand, and knew for a fact her voice could carry. Screaming loud still worked, but she was afraid of looking vulnerable in front of Stan.