A Vonnie Vines Mystery

Chapter 9

Janet's mouth popped open for a fraction of a second at my disclosure of Jalinda's dead status. She closed it, her eyes narrowing on me as she touched her open palm to her hair as if she wanted to ruffle it with her fingers. Then she remembered she'd hair sprayed it to within an inch of its life that morning.

Someone in the diner's kitchen yelled, "Order up!"

It frizzled the showdown between Jalinda's lawyer and me. Was announcing her-and my-client's death so abruptly crass?

Yes.

Did I care at the moment?

No.

I needed the element of surprise to gauge her reaction to the news.

From the way her eyes widened, the mouth dropping open thing, and her almost messing up her perfect hair, I could safely say that Janet Day did not kill Jalinda.

Damn.

It's not so much that I expected Janet to be the killer, but it would have made the job much easier. The murder of Jalinda Jones was no longer an open and shut case. Why couldn't my first murder investigation have gone smoothly?

"Who are you?" Janet asked, apparently ready to listen to my answer this time.

"Vonnie Vines, Private Investigator." I mumbled the "almost" under my breath.

No way did I plan to get caught lying to a lawyer. Not again.

She squinted at me. "Why are you concerned with my client?"

I squinted back, trying to make my eyes the most narrowed. "Dead client."

Janet cleared her throat. "Yes, apparently. If I can believe you."

The waitress who'd taken my order stopped by the table refilling Janet's not even close to empty coffee cup with decaf. I did my best not to crinkle my nose at the dark liquid, filling up the white coffee mug with a small chip on the handle. If you were going to drink coffee, at least make it regular.

"Trust me, I saw the body with my own eyes." Jalinda wasn't the first dead body I'd seen, but she was the first of my clients to turn up dead.

I didn't like it. No one died on my watch.

"Why were you and Jalinda meeting today?"

Janet pursed her lips, stared at me for another beat, and then answered. "She planned to show me evidence from the private investigator she hired to trail her husband and then decide whether we'd move forward with proceedings."

Hmmm.

"Why wait?"

Janet blew on the top of her coffee cup, blasting the smell in my direction. It reminded me of Broadrick and that made me want to puke. Of course, now just looking at his face made my stomach roll uneasily.

Or at least I wished it did. Standing so close to Broadrick last night made me feel many things, but not disgust.

"Believe it or not, Mrs. Jones didn't want to divorce her husband. She wouldn't do it until she had absolute proof of his cheating. I think she just didn't want to believe it, but once you've hired an investigator to spy on your spouse, it's easy to see the relationship is over."

Years as a divorce attorney obviously soured her on marriage thing.

"For what it's worth, I didn't find any evidence of cheating." At least I hadn't so far, and I'd been trailing Jimmy for over a week. If he had a mistress, he wasn't seeing her often. "If she didn't want to get divorced, why set up a meeting with you?"

Janet raised her shoulder before setting her coffee mug on the cheap countertop of our booth. "She said her husband had changed since they'd gotten married. She couldn't put her finger on it, but said he'd become easygoing. Funny. Then he started leaving the house every Monday night to hang out with friends, but she never met these new friends of his."

I nodded along with her story. It did sound suspicious.

A shadow fell over our table and I twisted my neck to stare into the newcomer's baby blue eyes. The man had to be a tank, and from the dirty apron he wore, he wasn't cooking in the kitchen. At least I hoped for my food's sake he wasn't.

He set my shake on the counter with a heavy hand. "Everything okay here, Mrs. Day?"

Hmm. Last name basis with the divorce lawyer. Interesting. The man didn't look a day over nineteen. What did he have to do with Day?

"Everything is fine Ross, thank you. Just a meeting."

He eyed me again, harder the second time. His squinty expression matched Janet's earlier one. Were they related? "She don't look like your regular clients."

"Oh, I'm happily single," I lied, making sure I smiled super bright and then brought the shake straw to my lips and took a big draw.

The cold hit my tongue, and I closed my eyes, promising I wouldn't moan. Damn, that was a good shake. I had to tell the girls. Maybe Anessa could steal the recipe and sell shakes in the bakery.

Mr. No-Name-Tag left after giving me one more good once over. I tightened my zipped-up coat, glad he couldn't see the pizza cat shirt. I had to get home and change and also find better clothing. Something that said "professional private investigator." Probably lots of black. Thankfully I already had a nice collection started.

"If Jimmy changed, why did Jalinda care so much about the evidence of his cheating?" We hadn't gotten into the specifics when she hired me to track her husband, but now I wanted to know. It wasn't a simple job any longer.

Janet shrugged again, bringing her cup to her lips. "I guess she loved the jerk. Apparently, she confronted him about his cheating and he denied it. Of course." She rolled her eyes as if his response was obvious. I didn't blame her that time. "I told her they all do."

"She wanted cold hard evidence." When I took the job working for her, I needed the money, even if breaking up their marriage wasn't my favorite activity. If someone was a cheat, the other person deserved to know and decide their future based on the facts.

I sucked down another healthy pull of the shake. "He wasn't cheating."

Janet's face fell. I guess she found the news sad in her messed-up reality. Only a divorce attorney would be sad someone wasn't cheating. Divorce attorney and private investigators with upcoming bills. "Pity. The Joneses are rich and Jimmy didn't have Jalinda sign a prenup. I would have enjoyed nailing him to the wall."

Her eyes held a special glint to them as if she sat across from me in the booth visualizing how amazing the court case might have gone for her. Lawyers were weird and Janet Day had a real thing against husbands.

The waitress who took our order approached the table again and placed a Styrofoam container on the table, letting me know I needed to leave. I dropped a few dollars on the end to cover my food and a tip.

"How sad you can't stay to eat," Janet said, not sounding sad at all.

I slipped from the booth. "Wouldn't want to overstay my welcome." No point in a lengthy goodbye. I tucked the sandwich under my arm and then walked out of the diner with the shake in my other.

Rachel sat in the parking lot right where I left her. My old car, Bessy, was at the junk yard. A shootout at Frankie Zanettis' house left her full of bullet holes. I frowned at the memory until my ass touched Rache's leather seats. I'd miss Bessy, but Rachel helped ease the ache. Especially since Frankie gave me the Camero as an apology gift after the shootout. Mobsters were weird.

It took about twenty minutes to make the drive back to Pelican Bay. I could have done it in less but didn't need a speeding ticket. Only two of us drove black Camaros in Pelican Bay, but I'd be the only one the cops would actually write a ticket for speeding. The other driver worked for Ridge Jefferson and had immunity. Stupid former Navy SEALS and their power trip perks. Jerks.

Men and their stupid boys' club.

The drive gave me time to consider what I'd learned from Janet. Why would Jimmy kill his wife if he wasn't cheating? What exactly was going down in that basement every Monday evening? What made it worth ruining an otherwise happy marriage and then murder?

I hadn't answered a single one of my questions as I turned onto the road of my rental-a three-story white home on the outskirts of Pelican Bay. Originally, some wealthy East Coaster built the home in the early 1900s, but over the years, someone converted it into three small apartments.

I coasted past the building with my eye on the large front window. Mrs. Mets wasn't peeking out from behind her sheer curtain, so I pulled around back and parked in the paved over lot set aside for resident vehicles.

They had turned one side of the home into a hallway with access to the three apartments from the front and back. I opened the door with my key, hoping Mrs. Mets was sleeping and I wouldn't wake her. The woman knew everything that went on in her building and she didn't like any of it.

Still beat living at home with my parents trying to give me a 10 p.m. curfew. Everyone knew all the best PI stuff happened after 10 p.m. I needed my independence and a life outside of what my parents wanted for me.

The door to the basement opened noisily, and I cursed the creaking sound as I slipped down the stairs. Immediately to the right, at the bottom of the steps, the washer and dryer sat against one old basement wall. The dryer spun with someone's clothing, a metal sound pinging every few seconds. The community wash area always had clothing in some various cycles of washing. I'd learned to tune out the noise.

The noise of the dryer wasn't what had me hanging my head and trying to shuffle soundlessly to my apartment door, but the sight of an older woman in a chair folding clothing against the long white table.

"I'm old, but I'm not deaf, Vonnie," she said as I slowly slipped my key in the door lock.

I released the breath I'd been holding, sure she'd hear it. No point in almost suffocating myself now.

"How are you, Mrs. Mets?" I asked, pushing the key in the lock the rest of the way and turning the handle.

"Not good. Why haven't you paid rent?" She folded the pair of shorts in her hands and laid them on the table. Her grandson's, a sixteen-year-old, straight from New York. His parents had dropped him at her doorstep two years ago, saying he needed a new beginning.