“Jeff met someone else. He’s gone, and so is everything that was in our joint investment account. If he’d been here when I got home, yeah, I might have hurt him, but he was already gone.” A cell phone was lying on the chrome table. She picked it up, scrolled through several screens and handed the phone to Michelle. “See for yourself.”
Michelle read the text without comment.
Leesa reached for an envelope on top of one of the boxes and passed that to Michelle, who raised an eyebrow. “It’s the statement from our investment account. Go ahead. Take a look.”
Michelle returned the phone and took a single sheet of paper from the envelope. She looked it over, then put it back in the envelope and handed that to Leesa. “Have you and your husband been having problems, Mrs. Cameron?” she asked.
Leesa’s mouth twisted to one side. “I didn’t think so,” she said. “I lost my job three months ago—I was a buyer for a chain of home decor boutiques that went out of business—but Jeff was making good money, so we didn’t have any financial issues. Part of the reason he took the job here was so that I could take some time to decide what I want to do next. When Jeff first started working for Helmark, we spent six months in India. This was supposed to be my time, my turn. And it was supposed to be a chance for the two of us to spend more time together, but he was always working.” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I guess it’s true. The wife is the last person to know.” She turned to me. “I’m sorry about your . . . friend, but I didn’t see anything. I wasn’t here and clearly Jeff wasn’t, either.”
Michelle nodded, the motion almost imperceptible. “Do you mind telling me where you were?”
“I was with Jeff’s sister, Nicole. I thought maybe she’d know where he went or who the other woman is, but she was as shocked as I am.” She folded her arms over her midsection and rubbed her left shoulder absently with the other hand. She had the strong legs, wide shoulders and sculpted arms of a rower, and I’d noticed the prow of a scull in the backyard when I’d looked through the porch. “Nicole being here is why we chose North Harbor,” she continued. “She’s all the family Jeff has aside from . . . well, me.”
Leesa turned her attention to me again. “What did he buy?” she asked. “You said he got me a gift.”
It seemed odd to me to buy a present for a woman you were about to leave, but there was no reason not to answer her question. “A pair of candlesticks.”
She laughed again, her face twisting into a semblance of a smile. “Let me guess. They were silver. Kirk & Son.”
“Yes.” How had she known?
“There’s your proof,” she said. “I don’t know where Jeff is, but I promise you he’s fine. When we first got married, we were broke. Eating-ramen-and-peanut-butter-for-dinner broke. So broke that I sold the only thing of value I had, a pair of silver candlesticks that had belonged to my grandmother. Those ones he bought? His snarky way of making this square between us. They definitely weren’t any kind of a romantic gesture.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “They’re still yours. I’ll make sure you get them.”
“Thank you,” she said. “Could you leave them with my sister-in-law?” She gave me a wry smile. “I suppose I should say my soon-to-be ex-sister-in-law.”
I nodded. She grabbed a pad of sticky notes from the counter and scribbled an address and a phone number. I took the square of paper and put it in my purse.
Michelle pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Mrs. Cameron, what’s your husband’s cell number?” she asked.
Leesa Cameron recited the phone number and Michelle punched it into her phone. “He won’t answer, Detective,” she said.
She was right.
“The phone is turned off,” Michelle said after a moment.
“Jeff hired a student from Cahill College as an assistant for the summer,” Leesa said. “Chloe Sanders. She might know how to get in touch with him. She’s very keen. Hang on a second.” She grabbed her cell from the counter and swiped through several screens. Then she held up the phone and Michelle typed the number on it into her own phone. I repeated the digits silently to myself, hoping I’d remember them.
“Thank you,” Michelle said. She cleared her throat. “Is there any possibility that your husband was involved with Miss Sanders?”
Leesa laughed. “None. Oh, I’m not saying she wouldn’t have been interested. She hung on his every word and he’s a very good-looking man, but Chloe wasn’t his type. He called her a Roomba.”
“You mean like the robot vacuum cleaner?” I said.
She nodded. “He said having an assistant was like having a Roomba. He could just leave all the grunt work for her.”
I was starting to think Jeff Cameron was a first-class jerk.
Michelle glanced at me and gave a slight shrug; then she turned to Leesa and held out a business card I hadn’t noticed her pull from her bag. “Thank you for your help, Mrs. Cameron. If you think of anything else, please call me.” The other woman promised she would and we left.
“Do you think she’s telling the truth?” I asked as we reached the street.
“You think she isn’t?” Michelle raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know. Why would someone buy an expensive gift for a woman he was about to leave?”
She glanced back at the house. “You heard what she said. It was his crappy way of making things even so he could leave the marriage without owing her anything.”
“So he clears out their investment account but buys her those candlesticks so they’re even? That makes no sense.” I pushed my hair off my face, wishing I’d pulled it back into a ponytail the way Michelle had with her hair.
She patted her pocket as if she was checking to be sure her phone was still there. “Sarah, one thing I’ve learned is that people do things that make no sense all the time.”
“Maybe she killed him,” I said, kicking a rock with the side of my sandal, sending it skittering down the driveway into the street. “Maybe the story she just told us is her way of covering it up. If people think Jeff Cameron has run off with another woman, no one will be looking for him.”
Michelle exhaled softly but didn’t say anything.
“What did the text say?” I asked.
“That it wasn’t working anymore, he’d met someone else and he was going to start a new life.”
I shook my head in frustration, pulling at the bottom of my striped T-shirt. “C’mon, Michelle,” I said. “Who does that kind of thing? In the movies, maybe, but in real life? Who ends their marriage with a text?”
“You’d be surprised.” She held up both hands. “That’s how people do things now, with a cell phone. Not face-to-face.”
I wasn’t convinced, and it obviously showed in my expression.
“You don’t honestly think Leesa Cameron concocted this elaborate story as a cover, do you?” she asked. “How do you explain the statement from their financial adviser? Their account is empty.”
“That would be easy to fake.”
“And just as easy to check on.”
I made a face.
“Why don’t we go talk to the people who found Rose?” Michelle said. “I’d like to know if they saw anything.”
I nodded. “Okay.” This conversation wasn’t taking us anywhere.
We walked along the curve of the street past a small, pale blue cottage, identical to the one the Camerons had been renting. The next little house had been painted a deep shade of inky navy blue. An open porch stretched across the front like a welcoming smile.
“It’s this one,” Michelle said. She pointed to the brass numbers by the front door. “Number twenty-four.”
Just then a woman came around the side of the house followed by a large black Lab. The dog’s tail began to wag the moment he spotted us. The woman put a hand on its back. She said something to the dog I couldn’t hear and then the two of them started toward us. She was tiny and curvy, no more than five feet tall, I guessed, with dark almond-shaped eyes behind round tortoiseshell glasses. Her hair was pulled up on her head in a messy bun and she was wearing khaki shorts, a red tank top and Birkenstocks. “Can I help you?” she asked with an inquiring smile.