Софи Райан - Telling Tails

Caroline smiled and shifted to look at Mr. P. “Michael ordered that fitness tracker for Leesa, the same way he’s ordered ones for, I’d say, fifteen other clients. None of whom he was involved with. We have four children, Mr. Peterson. There aren’t enough hours in the day.”

“Sixteen,” her husband said, quietly.

She tipped her head in Michael’s direction. “Sixteen other clients. They get a better price and Michael gets a small commission. Leesa paid in cash. I can show you the receipt.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mr. P. said with a smile of his own.

Caroline’s expression turned serious then. “I know you’re thinking that Leesa and Michael were having an affair, especially with all the secrecy Leesa insisted on.” She smiled at her husband and held out her hand to him. He caught it and gave it a squeeze. “I know the wife is always the last to know, but I know my husband and they weren’t.”

Looking at the two of them, there was no way I didn’t believe her. Liz had insisted no man could be quite as perfect as Michael Vega seemed to be. This was one time she was wrong.

Michael got to his feet and put his arms around his wife’s shoulders. “Leesa didn’t talk about, well, anything personal, but I saw how hard she was working, training for this half marathon. She was desperate to reconnect with her husband. I know what the police believe, what the evidence says. I just have a really hard time believing it.” He let out a breath. “If she did kill Jeff—and that’s a very big if—it had to be something that happened in the moment. I know a crime of passion is clichéd, but I don’t see how it could have been anything else.”

I remembered what Nick had told me about Jeff Cameron having been hit over the head and then drowned. There was nothing about that that said crime of passion. Nothing at all.

“There is one sort of odd thing that happened,” Michael said.

“What do you mean?” Mr. P. said.

“It was a week ago Monday. I was on my way to The Black Bear for takeout and Jeff Cameron bumped into me on the sidewalk. He made a big issue of it, as though I’d done it on purpose. I apologized a couple of times and managed to get past him.”

“Do you think it’s possible he knew you were spending time with his wife and thought there was something going on?” I asked.

“I suppose it’s possible,” Michael said. “But if that was the case, why didn’t he say something straight out? Or punch me in the nose for that matter?” He shook his head. “It was just strange.”

We thanked the Vegas and left.

“I believe them,” Rose said once she was settled in the front passenger seat of the SUV.

“So do I,” Mr. P. said from the backseat.

“What do you think about his story about seeing Jeff outside The Black Bear?” I said.

“If we didn’t know Jeff was dead I’d be inclined to say he staged the whole thing to make it look like they’d had a confrontation. Which could be useful if one was going to fake one’s death.”

“But he is dead.”

Mr. P. nodded. “Yes, there is that.”

I nodded my agreement. “Now what?” I asked.

Rose reached for the ubiquitous tote bag at her feet. “I’d like to drop some cookies off to Nicole Cameron, if you don’t mind. I expect there will be a service of some kind and people will probably be stopping by.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I said.

I drove across town to Nicole Cameron’s house and parked at the curb. A U-Haul van was parked in the driveway, wheels turned hard to the right. I’d just stepped out of the car when what looked like a large beach ball covered in paper-mâché and possibly coconut bounced into the street and caromed off the front fender. I caught it and looked around.

A woman was hurrying down the driveway across the street. “Sorry!” she called.

“Go on in without me,” I said to Rose and Mr. P.

“We won’t be very long,” Rose said.

I walked across the street and handed the beach ball to the woman. “Thank you,” she said. “I guess the out-of-control snowball really was out of control.” She smiled. “I’m Deb.” She gestured at the kids on the lawn, who once again seemed to be making another movie. “I’m the director’s assistant, prop master, costume designer and lunch lady for this production.” She had dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, warm brown eyes and a pair of retro tortoiseshell-frame glasses on her head.

“I’m Sarah,” I said. I gestured at the beach ball. “Do I smell coconut?”

“It photographs like snow and if you get hungry you can eat it.” She grinned.

“Weren’t they doing some kind of creature-from-the-black-lagoon movie last week?” I asked.

She nodded. “Sewer Pipe Swamp Thing.”

I laughed. “Very creative.”

“That’s all my daughter,” Deb said, pointing to a fair-haired girl about ten or eleven years old who was positioning a boy I was guessing was supposed to be Bigfoot in his bath-mat costume. “She’s the director and script writer. She got an old camera from her grandmother a couple of weeks ago and she’s been making movies with it ever since.”

The girl looked around, spotted her mother with the beach ball and ran over to us. “It went into the street again, Bayley,” Deb said, pointing over her shoulder with one finger.”

“Sorry,” the child said, making a face.

“Say thank you to Sarah,” her mother said, indicating me with a dip of her head. “She’s the one who rescued it.”

Bayley smiled at me. “Thank you for getting our ball,” she said. She had none of the shyness with adults that I’d had when I was her age. “We’re getting ants again,” she said to her mom. “I think they’re after the coconut. It’s just like with the slime.” She made a face.

“Baking soda and shaving cream,” I said. “You can make some great fake snow with it.”

Bayley’s eyes widened. “Awesome,” she said.

“By any chance do you know how to make slime?” Deb asked. “We used corn syrup and food coloring, which is why the ants, plus it didn’t flow quite right.”

“White glue and borax,” I said.

“You must be a teacher.”

I shook my head. “Former summer camp counselor, and I own Second Chance. It’s a repurpose shop.”

“Repurpose. That means you have old things.” Bayley squinted in the sunshine.

“Yes,” I said.

“Could we go, please?” she said to her mother. “I need stuff for my Godzilla movie.”

“Make a list,” her mother said. “I’ll take you tomorrow.” She held out a hand and her daughter high-fived her; then Bayley turned to me. “Would you like to see my movie?” she asked.

“I would,” I said.

“Okay, stay right there.” She bolted across the grass to get her camera. It was attached to a makeshift tripod, an empty soda bottle duct-taped to a stool.

Deb followed my gaze. “You don’t by any chance have an inexpensive tripod at your store, do you?” she asked.

“I do,” I said. “It’s old but it’s in decent shape.”

“How much?” she asked.

“Ten dollars,” I said, cutting the price I’d been planning on asking in half. I liked Bayley’s energy and creativity.

Deb made a face and looked from the kids to the house. “There’s no way I can get there today,” she began.

I held up a hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll set it aside with your name on it.”

“Thank you so much,” she said.

Bayley came racing back across the lawn with her camera. I leaned over the view screen and watched Sewer Pipe Swamp Thing . It was funny and creative and I loved the way the child’s eyes lit up when I laughed at the mom, aka Deb, putting the Swamp Thing in time-out for getting slime all over the kitchen floor. I caught sight of my car and Liz’s in the background of one shot and Leesa Cameron’s Audi in another. I had a feeling that someday I’d be watching one of Bayley’s movies on the big screen and I’d be able to say that I’d indirectly been in one of her first films. I clapped at the end and she grinned happily.