I turned off West Street at the used car dealership, drove past the turnoff for The Capital newspaper, wound down Moreland Parkway and found a place to park behind a convoy of moving vans.
Inside the gym, I stood for a moment, taking in the ka-thwup, ka-thwup emerging from the racket ball court and the squeep of tennis shoes on the composite floor, then I turned to the woman behind the reception desk, laid both hands on the counter and smiled what I hoped was a tragic, wistful smile. “Hi, I’m hoping you can help me. I’m here to pick up my neice’s things? Jennifer Goodall?”
The receptionist looked up, her eyes wide and bright. Then her smile vanished. “Oh my gosh,” she said. “I don’t know. This has never happened before.” She turned, her ponytail lashing her shoulders. “Pete!”
Across the lobby, a young hunk wearing white shorts and a blue polo shirt froze in mid-stride, pivoted and trotted over.
“This lady’s Jennifer Goodall’s aunt?” the receptionist explained. “Okay if she picks up her things?”
Pete winced. “Hey, that’s tough.” After an awkward silence, he led me past the reception desk, down a long hallway. “Here we go.” Pete stood to one side and indicated the door marked Women. “Know where her locker is?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh. I was here with Jen a couple of times. She gave me the combination. Thanks, Pete.” I smiled wanly and pushed through the door.
Wooden benches and walls of lockers surrounded me. I groaned. Even if I found Jennifer’s distinctive lock, what would I do about the combination? As I scanned the ranks of lockers, I ran through the information I had gleaned about Jennifer from the Internet-her apartment number, her phone number, her Social Security number, her license plate, and her birth date. If one of those or a combination of them didn’t work, I was doomed.
I found the lock easily enough, tied with a strand of red embroidery cotton. I nestled the lock in the palm of my hand, studying the three numbered tumblers, feeling unaccountably sad about that red embroidery cotton, wondering if Jennifer had been into needlepoint and how many projects had she left behind unfinished. I tugged on the lock, and to my utter amazement, it sprang open.
Jennifer hadn’t even locked it.
And no wonder. There was nothing in the locker worth protecting. A pair of ripe athletic shoes, long past their sell-by date. Blue and gold jogging shorts. A white camisole top, clean and neatly folded.
I poked gingerly at the shoes with an index finger. Nothing was stuffed inside. I checked the pockets of the shorts and found two pink While You Were Out slips dated three weeks ago. One was from a Midshipman Lucas Judd. No phone number. The other had no name, just a number with the 443 prefix I usually associated with a cell phone. I shoved the slips into my own pocket, closed the locker, and replaced the lock.
I was about to slam the lock home when a flash-forward jerked me up short. Richard Knowles, the Assistant U.S. Attorney trying my case, standing before the judge saying: And furthermore, Your Honor, Mrs. Ives was tampering with evidence!
So I left the lock exactly as I had found it. Almost. Using the tail of my shirt, I wiped it clean of fingerprints.
When I emerged from the locker room, Pete, who had taken over at reception, appeared to notice my empty hands. “Find everything you need?”
“Yeah, thanks, Pete. Jen must have taken everything with her.”
“Well, okay then. You take care, hear?”
I bowed my head theatrically and scuttled out the door.
“Nice outfit!” he called after me.
I was still smiling over the compliment when I jogged past a guy in a dark green Taurus reading a newspaper, a FedEx delivery truck, and a moving van executing a three-point turn. Once inside my car, I grabbed my cell phone and dialed the 443 number. After three rings James Earl Jones cut it, telling me that my call had been forwarded to an automatic answering device and that somebody named Chris was not available to take my call. Would I care to leave a message after the tone? I certainly would-Who the hell are you?-but when I heard the beep, I chickened out and pressed End instead.
I tucked the pink slip of paper with Chris’s phone number on it into my purse and headed out West Street toward Route 50. At the Rowe Boulevard exit I checked the rearview mirror for merging traffic and noticed a dark green Taurus dogging my tail. Was that the same car I’d seen outside of Merritt? Was I being followed?
Nonsense, I told myself. There are hundreds of dark green Tauri. Don’t be paranoid, Hannah.
The Taurus stuck with me through the detour around the Spa Creek bridge construction, but when I turned left on Bladen Street, the driver continued straight on Northeast. I breathed a sigh of relief and headed home.
And just in time, too. The dough I’d left to rise had quadrupled in size, threatening to overwhelm the kitchen. I punched it down-thinking of Richard Knowles the whole time-then separated the dough into two loaves. By the time I’d had a cup of tea and shoved the loaves into the oven, I had formulated a plan to track down and have a word with the mysterious Chris.
CHAPTER 16
When Paul returned from his meeting, the seductive aroma of baking bread filled the house, and I was busily whipping up my famous turkey tetrazini casserole-turkey, mushrooms, heavy cream, gruyere and parmesan cheeses, linguini, and my secret ingredient, a dash of Marsala wine, not that paint thinner you get at the grocery store, but the real thing, Superiore Riserva, from Sicily.
I’d heard the front door slam, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise when he crept up behind me, lifted my hair and kissed the nape of my neck. “Yum. You smell like cinnamon.”
“You are hallucinating,” I said.
“Faculty meetings can do that to you.” He inhaled noisily. “God, that smells good. Will the bread be ready in time for dinner?” He leaned over my shoulder, snitched a noodle from the casserole I was stirring and lowered it into his mouth. “Staying home appears to agree with you.”
I scowled. “That remark is so sexist that I’m not even going to dignify it with a response.” I whacked Paul’s hand with the back of my wooden spoon, then attacked the turkey noodle mixture savagely with it. “On second thought, I want to make it clear that although you appear to be the beneficiary of my staying home-in a culinary and domestic sense, that is-it has not agreed with me, Mr. Paul Everett Ives. I can’t tell you how much I hate being cooped up.”
Paul’s mischievous grin vanished. “Whenever you use all three of my names, I know I’m in trouble.”
I waved the spoon, gloppy with cheese sauce. “They might as well have clapped me into an electronic ankle bracelet.”
Paul eased the spoon out of my hand and laid it on the table, cupped my chin in his hand and tipped my face up to his. “Hannah, you must know that I was teasing.”
“I guess my sense of humor has gone AWOL along with everything else.”
He kissed my lower lip, which was protruding petulantly. “No need to ask what you’ve been doing all day, then.”
“No.”
I should have told him right then about my little expedition to Chesapeake Harbour, but I opened the fridge and pulled out a chilled bottle of Pinot Grigio instead. “Here,” I said, handing him the bottle. “Make yourself useful.”
While Paul coaxed the cork out of the bottle using a state-of-the-art corkscrew with ears like the Energizer Bunny, I popped my casserole into the oven, feeling more than a wee bit guilty. Paul and I had a relationship built on trust; I knew I should have consulted him before I went nosing about Goodall’s apartment complex and her gym, but he would have been furious. I’d floated that balloon over the weekend, but he’d quickly shot it down. “Leave all that to Murray,” he had cautioned. “He has an investigator working on it.”