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“Jeffrey’s neighbor didn’t notice anything else about her?” I asked, knowing I sounded way too desperate. “Height? Build? Clothes?”
My husband’s expression was sympathetic, which I supposed counted for something. “I asked about that, but Katelyn just said the woman seemed kind of average — not too tall or too short, not especially thin or heavy. She did say she was wearing jeans and a black top, but that’s not exactly the kind of outfit that would stand out.”
No, not when it seemed to be the uniform of half the women in Arizona. You’d think they’d choose lighter colors because of the heat and sometimes oppressive sun, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Well, at least we know it probably wasn’t either Sara or NancyAnne,” I said, trying not to sound too dejected, and popped a bite of chicken cacciatore into my mouth.
“Doesn’t seem that way,” Calvin agreed before adding, “I know it doesn’t feel like a lot right now, but what Katelyn told me seems to confirm Sara Tilden’s claim that Jeffrey was seeing someone else. Now all we have to do is figure out who this woman might be.”
“Oh, is that all?” I quipped and reached for my glass of water. More than ever, I wished it was a glass of wine, but I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I’d already told myself I could have half a glass of champagne at Archie and Victoria’s reception, and that was it for my alcohol consumption this month…and the next five.
“Hey, at least we know she’s blonde,” my husband told me. “That’s more than we knew before today.”
He had a point there. And while Arizona some days seemed absolutely packed with blondes ranging from dark dishwater to bright platinum, I knew they were still outnumbered by those of us with dark hair.
The two of us ate in silence for a moment. Then I said, “Do you think it’s worth going back to Jeffrey’s office and poking around in his files again? I think I could get Sara to loan me the key.”
Calvin tapped a finger against the side of his water glass. Like me, he wore the expression of someone who would have been a lot happier if it had contained a nice pinot grigio instead of some San Pellegrino. “We didn’t find much the first time,” he pointed out.
“We learned about NancyAnne,” I replied. “And at the time, we didn’t have any reason to be looking for something specifically regarding a woman Jeffrey Sellers might have been seeing. Now we can narrow our search.”
A shrug, and Calvin said, “I guess we can give it a try. Do you think you’ll be able to take a few hours off tomorrow afternoon?”
“Probably,” I said. “It would be better than Thursday, since I’m meeting Hazel and Victoria at the nail salon after work, and I don’t want to do anything that might make me late. Then on Friday….”
I let the words trail off, but I knew he understood what I was talking about. On Friday, I was supposed to be over at Archie and Victoria’s place, helping to direct traffic as the party-supply people and the florists and the caterers dropped off various bits and pieces. The actual food and flowers wouldn’t be delivered until Saturday morning, but still, there were plenty of other things that needed to be managed.
“Well, let’s try for tomorrow,” Calvin told me. “I’m pretty sure I can slip out for a few hours. After dinner, why don’t you text Sara and see if it’s okay to pick up the key from her at work?”
That sounded like a plan, so I made a sound of agreement and then returned to my dinner. We kept the conversation pretty low-key after that, both of us seeming to understand there wasn’t much point discussing our investigation any further until we knew whether we would have the opportunity to dig through those files again.
But after I sent Sara a message, her reply was disappointing, to say the least.
I wish I could, but your police chief must have figured out that I had a key to Jeffrey’s office, b/c he sent a deputy over to confiscate it. I asked them who was going to feed the fish, & they took me to the office so we could bring the tank back to my place. Now I have it sitting in my living room while I try to find someone who can take it permanently…the guy I’d hoped would take it couldn’t after all, b/c he’s in the middle of moving.
Texts generally weren’t very good at conveying a person’s emotions, but it didn’t take a mind reader to figure out that Sara was pretty annoyed by the whole thing.
Not that I could blame her. That fish tank must have been at least three feet long, and her living room wasn’t all that big.
And damn Henry for sticking his nose in it. If he’d waited just another day to confiscate that key, Calvin and I could have gone and poked around, no harm, no foul. As it was, now we’d have to try some other way of figuring out exactly who the mystery blonde could be.
Okay, I knew that was being a bit irrational about the situation, since Henry was only doing his job, but I didn’t feel like being rational right then. After all, if a pregnant woman couldn’t be illogical from time to time, then who could?
I texted Sara back and said it wasn’t a problem, and told her I hoped she would find a home for Jeffrey’s fish soon. Then I put down the phone and let out a sigh.
“She won’t let you have the key?” Calvin asked from his spot in his favorite chair. We’d come into the living room to settle down after dinner, and he’d turned on the TV but kept it muted so it wouldn’t disturb me.
“Henry took it,” I said shortly, and released another annoyed breath.
“I guess that’s not too surprising,” Calvin replied. “I probably would have done the same thing.”
Having my husband agree with Henry’s actions wasn’t the sort of thing that helped my state of mind any. I made a noncommittal sound, and Calvin, correctly gauging my mood, didn’t offer any further comments on the subject, but instead turned the sound back on the TV.
Fair enough. I was ready to lose myself in someone else’s lives for a while…even as I prayed some other way of identifying the blonde woman would suggest itself to me. We were all doing our best to play it cool, but I couldn’t help feeling that time was running out as we sat there watching Yellowstone.
Unfortunately, not even a hedgewitch could slow the inexorable passage of time.
14
