Wine, Dine and Christmas Crimes, Maria Swan [best short novels of all time .TXT] 📗

That top she’s wearing, it’s the one I found on the floor of the condo. I recognize the blue thing with the little tassel. Look, go back. I’ll show you. See? Yes, either someone else borrowed her clothes or that was her top. And that’s Kay, Kay Lewis the one who didn’t invite me to the dinner party. I remember that outfit, she must have been on her way back from the office.” Adam and Eve quietly watched me check out the rest of the tapes. I saw a half dozen strangers hop off and on elevators, then Gold Buttons Walter moving from the desk in the lobby to the entrance, then disappearing, and then a different angle showing him directing cars away from the front. Oopsie, Double Wide—he was coming out of one of the elevators and walked straight to the exit.

“That’s him, that’s him. Dale Wolf. Does he live there?” I, the Realtor, asked the cops if the owner of D.W. Brokerage lived at The Nest. Had I had any brain, I would have checked that out myself by looking up the name in the property taxes. Duh! Time went by, more tapes, more unknown people coming and going. Actually for a building with so many floors, I would have expected more residents. There were packages being left in the lobby, flowers delivery...boring, boring. They stopped the show.

“Monica, we didn’t see Mr. Wolf on the Thursday night tape, but we did see your Fiat. Where were you parked?”

“You’re right, I wasn’t paying attention, both my Fiat and his Maserati should be in the same frame, right? He even walked over to the rear of his car to check it out, the idiot. I didn’t touch his car, I scraped the sidewalk, and it wasn’t really my fault. Anyway I was doing a U-ey right where I left my car today. Why?”

“Nothing, we wouldn’t have known about the Maserati and Mr. Wolf being there on Thursday evening if you hadn’t mentioned it. Good job. How about Saturday when you went to the condo? Did the doorman show you up?”

“Who? Gold buttons? No, I didn’t see him at all, not on my way up or on my way down. As a matter of fact, it was sort of eerie. I didn’t encounter a living soul.”

“Are you saying the place was deserted?”

“I thought so at first, that is until I went upstairs and couldn’t get to the pool. I told you about the key. Don’t you think the listing agent should have provided me with that key? How would I show the pool to a prospect if I don’t have access?”

Neither seemed too concerned about keys. “How long were you there, from when you arrived at the Nest and when you got back to your car?”

“I don’t know, forty-five minutes? I was thrilled not to bump into the doorman. It was all quiet, even the elevator music was turned off. Okay, very quiet except for the voices.”

And there was that look again. Did they assume I was loony tunes?

“Voices?” I swear, Eve spoke so softly I had a hard time understanding her.

“Wait, not that kind of voices. Yeah, yeah, I’m not stupid. I can read it in your eyes. Maybe there was an HOA meeting. I don’t know, but a large group of people were somewhere upstairs, same floor where the door to the pool is located, opposite side. I mean, the elevator stops there. End of the ride. I don’t know what the gathering was about, it sounded pretty lively, when I heard voices coming my way, I rushed to get into the lift down. Didn’t want Kay to see me.”

“Kay?” Adam said.

“Yes, I recognized her voice. She was talking to Dale Wolf, something like getting a lawyer to do the talking.” I didn’t know what time it was, but if the birthday cake started to look appetizing it was time for me to get the hell out of there.

“Did you see them?”

“Nooo. How many times do I need to repeat the same thing? And I wasn’t going to hang around and get caught either. Something in the snippet of the conversation I overheard led me to believe they weren’t alone, and the lawyer would be ‘doing the talking’ for more than the two of them. Again, it was probably a monthly homeowner association meeting. Sort of damage control regarding the dead girl in the pool? By the way, how did she die?” For the first time I realized my whole conversation had been recorded by not one but two cameras. Shit. No warning at all, had I known I could have put on some lipstick. Jerks. Then again, with all my bragging about binge watching cop shows, I should have known better.

Cop shows or not, something was nagging at me. “Excuse me, I really need to get back to the condo.”

“Sure, give me a minute,” Adam said. He fiddled with a laptop or tablet, couldn’t tell from my angle, checking the files? The miracles of modern technology... “By the way, you said you stuffed the top you found on the floor of the condo. Was it with the other items in the closet?”

“Yes, I picked up the clothing and stuffed it into the closet as—instructed.”

“Instructed?” Adam’s voice—so intense.

“I called Leeann Brown and asked who was sleeping or staying at the condo. She said no one was supposed to be there and she would ask her sister when she could talk. Then she told me to stash the stuff in a closet and make the place presentable for showing. That’s it. Didn’t you guys find the clothing?”

They weren’t paying any attention to me, I could read the excitement on their faces. Five minutes later I was back in their sedan heading to The Nest. My phone had stopped vibrating and I no longer wanted food, I wanted to get in my own car and head home and forget all about The Nest and Kay and Double Wide and Gold Buttons