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“Maybe,” I said primly. “I just don’t see why we can’t mix business and pleasure, since we’re driving all that way. Besides, on the off chance someone from Globe is also visiting Gilbert today and spies us, that’ll give us a good excuse for being there.”
Apparently, Calvin decided he couldn’t really argue with my logic, because he only nodded as he maneuvered us onto the road and started driving west. It was not quite an hour and a half drive each way, so I settled myself against the back of the seat and tried to enjoy the novel experience of having my husband pilot a vehicle I usually drove.
There was never much traffic on that route, so we made good time and reached Gilbert’s city limits at just a few minutes past eleven. Sara Tilden lived in a rented townhouse not too far from the cute downtown area — convenient for us, because that offered us some additional plausible deniability in case anyone we knew actually saw my vehicle and recognized it.
We pulled up to the curb, and Calvin rolled down his driver-side window and turned off the engine. “Ready?”
I nodded. To be honest, my heartbeat had sped up a little, because even though I’d been the one who’d insisted on this interview, it was still nerve-wracking to have to talk to a complete stranger about a murder. Would Sara be teary and heartbroken, or — like Joanna Greer, who’d lost her partner when Peter Tillis decided to hack him into little pieces and hide him in a trunk — would she be more matter-of-fact, mostly worried about finding a new dance partner so she wouldn’t have to take too much time away from the competition circuit?
Only one way to find out, I supposed.
Hoping I looked more confident than I felt, I opened the car door and let myself out, then walked up the neat front path to Sara Tilden’s blue-painted front door. I had to admit these townhouses were very cute, with their vaguely vintage architecture that matched Gilbert’s restored downtown area, and I kind of hoped the friendliness of my surroundings might match the woman who lived in the home with that cheerful blue door.
I pushed the button for the doorbell, and a simple “ding-dong” rang from inside the house. A moment later, the door opened, and a woman who looked like she was probably in her late twenties or maybe early thirties stared out at me, clearly perplexed to find a complete stranger standing on her flowered welcome mat. She had dark blonde hair with some careful highlights, and eyes somewhere between blue and gray.
If she’d cried recently, I couldn’t see any sign of it. No reddened eyelids, no puffs.
Was that a good or a bad thing?
“Can I help you?” she asked.
I’d already resolved to be truthful, hoping that would make Sara Tilden more inclined to confide in me. Maybe all this would get back to Henry, but I’d deal with that when I had to. “Hi,” I said, and extended a hand. “My name is Selena Marx. I was wondering if I could talk to you about Jeffrey Sellers.”
A shadow passed over her features, one I might have missed if I’d blinked. “Are you a cop?”
“No,” I said, then took a breath. “I’m a friend of the woman who was arrested following his death. I know she had nothing to do with it, and I’m trying to clear her name.”
This forthright approach appeared to take Sara aback for a second or two, because she blinked, then hesitated before saying, “I don’t know if I can help you, but sure — come on in.”
The first hurdle cleared. I couldn’t exactly heave a sigh of relief…or turn toward the spot at the curb where Calvin waited in my Renegade so I could give him a thumb’s up…so I just followed Sara inside her townhouse. It had a small foyer with a single white-painted table in it that held some cheerful yellow flowers in a bubble-glass vase, and was obviously fairly new, based on its cool, gray-toned neutral color scheme.
“We can sit in here,” Sara told me, leading me into a small living room with an L-shaped sectional upholstered in white linen and a glass-topped round coffee table. “Can I get you anything to drink? Some water?”
“I’m fine,” I said, which was only the truth. Calvin and I always filled go-cups with water from our filter in the fridge before we set out on any drive that was longer than just going to the local grocery store, so I definitely wasn’t thirsty. “And thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.”
Sara made a small hitch of her shoulders. “Like I said, I’m not sure how much I can help.”
As we both sat down, I said, “Really, anything might be valuable. I know my friend didn’t do this, and I’m just trying to figure out who would.”
“Oh, I know Victoria Parrish had nothing to do with Jeffrey’s death,” Sara told me. “I said the same thing to Chief Lewis. Pretty much everyone loves Victoria.”
That revelation made me feel a little better. Not that I’d expected anything less; even so, I’d been worried there were dancers out there who were just as jealous of Victoria as Jeffrey Sellers had been of Archie.
“Can you think of anyone who might’ve had a grudge against Jeffrey?” I asked next, and again, Sara gave a faint shrug.
“Well, he was a private detective,” she said. “I know some of the stuff he dug up helped break up a couple of people’s marriages.”
“Anyone in particular?”
She shook her head. “Jeffrey didn’t give me any details. It was just the sort of thing he liked to brag about.”
I blinked. “He bragged about ruining people’s marriages?”
Sara didn’t answer at first, and instead looked over one shoulder, as though she halfway expected someone to be eavesdropping on us despite our obviously being alone in her townhouse. Apparently satisfied there would be no other witnesses to her next words, she said, “Just between you and me, he was kind of a jerk. I only partnered with him because I needed someone to dance with, and his former partner had dropped him for someone who was already dancing in the pro division, so he was available.”
“So, you two weren’t…?” I ventured delicately.
That insinuation earned me a vigorous shake of the head. “God, no,” Sara replied at once. “We danced together, and that’s it. I mean, I’m not saying we didn’t go out for a drink after a competition every once in a while, that kind of thing, but there was nothing personal going on between us. Life is complicated enough, you know?”
