I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself.
Was I returning to work?
Could I make this PI thing succeed?
I watched Jim feed Laurie. She snuggled into his arms. It was nice to have a little break, even though I was leaking everywhere.
I probably should have nursed her.
Instead, I selfishly pulled the covers over my head and tried to doze off.
Laurie began to cry. I pried an eye open and peeked over. Jim was asleep and had let the bottle fall out of her mouth. He continued to sleep through her cries.
I poked at him. “Jim.”
“Hmmm?”
“The baby. Feeding. Remember? Wife sleeping. Taking a break.”
“Yeah, sure,” he mumbled, sticking the bottle back into Laurie’s mouth. She stopped crying long enough for me to get comfortable. Then the wailing began again.
Jim was back asleep. Laurie was rooting around for the bottle.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” I grabbed the bottle and held it for her. Jim snored next to me.
Unbelievable.
There really is no substitute for maternal instinct.
My breasts were swollen and painful. That’s what I got for feeding her formula.
At 9 A.M., Jim was snoring and Laurie was still asleep from the formula. If it was helping her sleep, why was I opposed to it? I crawled out of bed and reviewed my to-do list.
To-Do List:
1. Help Jim find a job.
2. Find Brad and/or Michelle and Svetlana’s killer.
3. Check in on Galigani.
4. Day care for Jelly Bean??
5. Take more pictures of my little lollypop.
6. Get a photo book for Lemon Drop!
7. Stop missing Laurie so much when I’m away from her.
I got dressed and noticed that my belt was in a notch. I couldn’t believe it! “Hey, honey,” I called excitedly to Jim, “look at this! I’ve lost an inch!”
Jim looked at me while rubbing sleep out of his eyes. “You’re the incredible shrinking woman.”
I had a long way to go before that was true, but at least this was progress.
“All right,” I said, prepping Jim. “Laurie should be hungry soon. There’s a milk bottle in the fridge for her.”
“Where are you going?”
“Over to Michelle’s. I need to do a little more investigating.”
I hopped into my Chevy and dialed Mrs. Avery. Marta told me Mrs. Avery was “in de Club.”
“Do you have a key to Brad’s house?”
“Keee?”
What was the word in Spanish? Clef?
No, that was French.
Somewhere in the recess of my mind the word bubbled up.
“Jave?”
“Llave?” Marta clarified.
“Sí,” I replied.
“You water plants today?”
What the hell. “Sí.”
“Hokaay, you come pick up.”
I let myself into Michelle’s and wandered around the house aimlessly. No crime scene tape? Did that mean the police had ruled Michelle’s death a suicide?
I moved from room to room and tried to push from my mind the images of her body sprawled out in the dining room. In the kitchen I poured myself a glass of water and sat at the table, feeling an emptiness I hadn’t experienced before.
Although we had been out of touch for many years, Michelle had been a good friend in high school. It would have been nice to have the opportunity to reconnect with her.
I ended up in her bedroom, looking through her jewelry box, a simple wooden box with a mother-of-pearl lid.
Could the bracelet I found in George’s bag be Michelle’s? I recalled her handing it to me in front of the medical examiner’s office. Something nagged me. Had she recognized the bracelet? If it was hers, why not keep it? Why give it to me? Unless she was having an affair with George and didn’t want me to know her things were in his bag?
I ran my fingers across the expensive pieces in the box. Nothing resembled the silver bracelet. I wished I’d thought to show it to KelliAnn, Michelle’s half sister. She would have been able to tell me if it had been Michelle’s.
So if it wasn’t Kiku’s and probably not Michelle’s, who could that bracelet belong to, and what was George doing with it?
I recalled Jennifer’s silver rings. She’d worked at El Paraiso, and she was having an affair with Brad. Could it be her bracelet?
What if it was Jennifer’s bracelet and George, not Winter, her boyfriend, who had helped her kill Brad? How or why else would George have her bracelet?
I opened the closet door. It was deep, full of designer clothes, evening gowns, and a zillion of my favorite thing-shoes.
A black satin gown with silver trim caught my eye.
Ooh la la.
What function had Michelle worn this to? I imagined her at the country club with Brad and Mrs. Avery. Maybe a black-tie event, an auction, or a benefit.
I eyed a box from Via Spiga at my feet.
What size did she wear? Would there be any way a cute pair of shoes would ever fit my fat swollen feet?
I kicked the box open. Beautiful size eights stared me in the face. Pre-Laurie they would have been too big. I slipped them on. Perfect fit. I put them back in the box and picked up the next box. I amused myself with a mini-fashion show.
After trying on a few pairs, I noticed a cubbyhole full of handbags. I pulled out a few Coach purses and saw a shoe box concealed behind them. I extracted the box from its hiding place. It was full of paperwork.
I carefully replaced the purses, then took the box over to the bed and sat down to examine the contents. It looked like business ledgers from El Paraiso. I couldn’t read anything on the charts. Well, I could read it. I just didn’t know what it meant. One report looked like a profit and loss summary. But what did I know? I was a theater major in college. And the closest I got to accounting in my corporate job was ordering pencils and staples.
Jim would know. At least he had a business degree.
Flipping through the reports, I saw one for Heavenly Haight.
My breath caught. Svetlana’s store? Even after her marriage to Brad had ended, she’d stayed connected to him and by more than the memory of their daughter. Had they started the store while they were married? Did he still own shares in it? Maybe those shares had gone to Michelle.
I stuffed the reports into what I now lovingly referred to as my “diaper purse,” a very far cry from a Coach handbag, and stood. I placed the empty shoe box back into the closet and closed the door.
Without a clue about what to look for next, I decided I’d check out the makeshift office area in the guest bedroom. If memory served, what little I had left, I thought I’d seen at least a desk with a computer and printer. But first a stop in the master bath.
I rummaged through Michelle’s medicine chest, looking for Valium. It was practically empty. Maybe the cops had gone through and confiscated everything they could find.
Wait.
If Michelle had an office setup, why would she store paperwork in a shoe box at the bottom of her closet?
She must have been hiding those reports, but why?
Just then I heard a click and a creak.
The front door?
Someone was entering the house.
I froze. Footsteps approached from the hallway. Two voices, a man and a woman. The man’s voice was clearly recognizable to me. Rich, the manager of El Paraiso, aka Mr. Creepy.
He had a key to Michelle’s house?
“That fucking bitch! She can’t screw me like this!” Rich fumed.
“Calm down,” the female voice said.
Who was he with? I couldn’t place her voice.