*This month has been manic, but I hope to be able to respond more personally to reviews sometime this weekend. Thank you for reading along, I appreciate you all!
Chapter 15 — I hate waiting.
Mr. Morton's top of the line Mercedes sped through the city streets, as Nancy sat anxiously beside him, drumming her fingers on the plush, leather armrest. He was supposed to be taking her home, but she'd asked him to drop her off at the store, insisting she'd call a taxi to get home when she was ready.
After a few minutes, Mr. Morton glanced at her and said, "Patience isn't your strong suit is it?"
Nancy huffed a laugh and clasped her hands together in her lap. "Nope."
"And you're sure I can't take you home? I don't really like the idea of you being there alone this late."
"I appreciate that, but since George busted into the police station so abruptly, I want to make sure the place has been closed up properly. It shouldn't take too long."
"I'm happy to wait," Mr. Morton said, but Nancy noticed him twist his wrist to check the time on his watch as he said it.
"No, there's no need. I'll be fine. The police are still keeping an eye on the neighborhood. And I've taken up so much of your day already, which you'd better bill me for," she added.
"Count on it," he laughed. "And we will touch base in the morning about how things are proceeding with Ms. Fayne."
"Thank you," she said gratefully as she slid out of the car. Mr. Morton waited until she'd gone inside and locked the door behind her and then his car slipped away into the night.
Nancy rested her hands on her hips for a moment as she surveyed the store. George had locked up when she'd left, but the lights were all still on and a dryer was rumbling from the back, probably stuck in a perpetual fluff cycle. "So you left in a hurry," she muttered to herself. "But why now? How did you know they were looking at me as a suspect?"
A tentative knock on the glass door made her jump, and Nancy slowly turned around, hands reaching for the pepper spray in her purse. It was a young police officer at the door and she let out a sigh, her shoulders slumping with relief. She opened the door and gestured for the man to come in. "What can I do for you?" she asked.
"I'm Officer Eddleton, ma'am. I'm sorry if I startled you. The girl who works here left in a rush and asked me to keep an eye on things. I'm about to go off duty, so I wanted to check in and make sure she was all right. Do you know where she had to rush off to?"
Nancy tilted her head and stared at him. He met her gaze and then looked away. Make sure she was all right. Ok then. "Well, I'm afraid she isn't all right," Nancy replied bluntly. "She's being held for questioning because she burst into the police station and confessed to the murder that happened here."
The kid's eyes bugged out of his head. "What?! I didn't mean— But why did she— Ah, holy cats, lady, I didn't know she was going to do something like that!" He began pacing nervously. "I thought it would make her feel better, you know? I heard over my radio that they'd found more evidence…really shouldn't have said anything, I know. Probably get a reprimand for that. But she swore up and down you didn't do it, so I believed her. I said it looked like maybe someone was trying to frame you, and I'd heard they'd found more evidence in your yard. But I didn't think she'd rush off and confess for you!"
Nancy sank wearily into one of the waiting room chairs, and after another half pace of the floor, Officer Eddleton joined her. "Ma'am, I truly—"
"Don't talk," she said, holding up a finger towards him. "Let me think." She wasn't sure why George would be so convinced Nancy hadn't done it and then sacrifice herself by confessing to the crime. And she refused to believe that George committed the crime, even with the memory of the bloody shirt laid out on her grass. She'd known George for several years now. She'd watched her graduate, start college, work her tail off at school and the store trying to help her grandmother. She was loyal and fierce. The only thing that made sense was that someone was trying to frame her. Nancy shook her head. Someone was trying to frame George to look like she was framing Nancy? That sounded ridiculous. But the one way to prove George wasn't involved would be to find the girl's shirt that matched the one with the blood stains.
Nancy stood up and faced the young policeman. "If you're off duty and want to help, you can give me ride home," she said. "After I check on something."
"Yes, ma'am," he nodded, jumping out of his chair.
"Don't call me ma'am," she said, shooting him an exasperated look. "I'm not an old lady yet."
While the officer called in to say he was going off duty and taking her home, Nancy pulled up the account for George and her grandmother to see if they currently had anything at the store. She remembered George wearing that shirt not too long ago. Maybe she'd brought it up with their other things to clean. She quickly located the current ticket and went to the back to dig through the bags. Dumping out the one that matched their ticket number she sorted and counted the pieces. "Eight. Nine," she muttered to herself. Then she stopped and looked at the ticket again and recounted. There was a shirt missing. Nancy stood there, tapping the edge of the table as she thought. There was no way to be sure the missing shirt was the shirt. She'd have to ask George's grandmother to let her look through George's things and make sure.
Shoving the clothes back into the bright purple bag, Nancy quickly shut down the machines and turned off the lights. She'd just come in early tomorrow and finish things up. Officer Eddleton escorted her to his police cruiser and drove her home, chatting amiably all the while about how he'd come to the city from upstate to be a cop and how he wasn't sure he really liked the Big Apple all that much, and once he had some experience under his belt he might apply to some of the smaller towns up north. Depositing Nancy at the curb, he paused to scribble his number on a scrap of paper and told her to please let him know if he could help in any way.
Nancy stood in the circle of porch light in front of the cheery yellow house, feeling suddenly sick that George's grandmother might not even know that the girl was being held for questioning. A moth thudded against the light bulb, mimicking the thudding of Nancy's heart. She steeled herself to relay the news, and pushed the round button beside the crisp white door. A loud chime, like the gongs of a grandfather clock echoed inside the house. After a few moments the lock turned and the door opened. "Nancy, what on earth are you doing here so late?" Carmen exclaimed.
"May I come in for a moment?" Nancy asked, trying to smile, which probably came across as more of a grimace. "There's something I need to talk with you about."
"Oh heavens, has George done something? Come in, come in, of course. I'll make some tea."
Nancy followed the older woman inside. Well into her sixties, Carmen was still sharp and energetic enough to run rings around her twenty year old granddaughter. Her gray-streaked black hair was pulled back into a neat bun on the top of her head, a loose blue dress swayed around her knees as she padded, barefoot into the kitchen. Nancy sank into an old armchair, trying to formulate her words. The woman had already gone through so much. Widowed more than thirty years, her son, George's father, had died of a drug overdose when George was little, and the girl's mother had dropped her off one afternoon and was never heard from again. Carmen had continued to plow through life, making ends meet with her late husband's pension and sewing fancy decorative pillows for a designer in Manhattan.
Nancy tried to will herself to be calm and business-like about the situation. "Carmen, I can't really stay for tea. Now, before I tell you this, please know I don't believe it for a moment. There has to be some other explanation…but George has confessed to murdering the girl I found at the shop the other night."
George's grandmother closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Well, I'm glad you recognize at least that George couldn't have done something like that," she said softly. "Is she in jail? Is that why she hasn't come home yet?"
"They're holding her for questioning, but I think it's only because they aren't sure what to do with her. I made sure she has a very good lawyer. They won't be able to keep her there."
Carmen nodded slowly. "I will pray the rosary for her. Thank you for telling me in person. I'm sure you know how much George looks up to you. She was horrified when she realized the accident that her friends were mixed up in had killed your husband."
"Yes, she said she'd known Marisol before."
"Thick as thieves," Carmen said, making a face. "Godless, corrupted things. I told George to stay away, but she's always been soft hearted, a follower. Dated that Micah for a while, secretly, because she knew I didn't approve. And then that girl showed up, the Jezebel. In no time at all she had them twisted around her little finger. George started skipping school, I found drugs in her bag. I knew I had to do something. I didn't want to lose her the way I'd lost her father. So I pulled her out of that school and moved to Queens. The accident happened about a month after we moved here. I saw it in the paper. And do you know, that horrible girl showed up here asking George for help? Like a dog returning to its own vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. I threw her out and told George in no uncertain terms that she was to have nothing to do with her again. The way of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord."
She wouldn't have couched it in religious terms, but Nancy couldn't disagree with the sentiment. She would have given George the same advice about Marisol had the subject come up. "I'm so sorry she's mixed up in all this," Nancy said earnestly. "I think I can help her if you'll let me look for something in her room. And I'll go back down to the station first thing in the morning and see if there's more I can do. I really believe this is all going to be cleared up, and they'll find the true culprit."
"The true culprit in all this is dead," Carmen said dryly. "Marisol reaped what she sowed. But if those detectives were smart they'd focus their attention on Micah Fernandez. Surely he's the most logical?"
Nancy sighed, and shrugged. "I agree. But the police have to have the evidence to back up their suspicions. The lead detective on the case is good, and sympathetic. He's a customer at the store."
Carmen made a face. "I don't know that I trust the police all that much, but I suppose for the moment we must wait and see. I expect they'll be coming here tomorrow to rummage around in our lives, but go ahead and look for whatever you want if you think it will help."
Nancy headed down the short hallway off the living room and peered into the darkened room. The first was a guest room and study of a sort. The second seemed to be George's. Fumbling for the light switch Nancy took in the mess, clothes draped around, books and papers stacked on a small desk and the floor, the bed rumpled and unmade. "Thanks for making it so easy," she huffed, and began sifting through things. It went faster than she'd expected and she was more than a little disappointed to find there was no such shirt anywhere to be seen. Sighing and stretching, she suddenly remembered the missing item on their laundry ticket. Could that be what was taken when her store was robbed? Was someone intentionally after George's shirt? But if that were the case, then it was highly likely that the bloody shirt in her yard did belong to George, and had been used intentionally. Was Fernandez capable of something like that?
"I'm sorry she's rather a mess about her things," Carmen said from the doorway. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Nancy answered slowly. "But I promise I'll find a way to help her."
"Thank you again for coming to talk to me," Carmen said, walking her towards the door. "I have to admit the Lord seems to give a greater measure of trouble to some than to others." She shook her head sadly.
Nancy grasped her hands and pressed them gently. "This will all work out, Carmen, I'm sure of it." She left the little yellow house and crossed the small yard to her own house. She banged the front door closed a little harder than necessary, beyond frustrated and confused about the turn of events.
The logical part of her brain knew it was foolish and probably futile, but she yanked her phone from her pocket and punched out the text anyway.
You have to be looking at Micah Fernandez for this, right?
The screen almost immediately showed that Frank read the message. Then the three little dots appeared. It seemed like an eternity that she stood there by the front door staring at those three little dots.
I'm sorry. I can't discuss an ongoing investigation.
Nancy almost screamed and threw the phone. Only the thought that she shouldn't probably replace a phone when she also had two lawyers to pay for stopped her. She did give the sofa a good kick as she walked past it into the kitchen.
She rummaged around for the notebook where she'd made a few notes about the case and sank down into one of the chairs at her little table. Someone was even using George to try and set her up. She was almost certain of it. The body was dumped outside her store, the shirt and the murder weapon buried in her yard. And the only person she could think that might have a desire for revenge against her was Fernandez.
The wind gusted suddenly, rattling the windows, and Nancy jumped in her seat. Looking up, she was all at once starkly aware of how dark it was around her house. She had the little light on the front porch and another at the corner of the garage where the trash cans were, but the rest was blanketed in darkness, the new energy saving lightbulbs in the streetlights barely casting a glow on the sidewalks. Muttering to herself about her silliness, she double checked the locks on the front and back doors, and went from room to room checking the windows and pulling all the curtains closed.
Her phone buzzed on the kitchen table as she came back into the room.
We are doing everything we can.
Nancy huffed. She knew that. She did. It was just so frustrating being on the sidelines. And now she had to admit to herself that she was a little afraid of some nameless, faceless figure trying to pin a murder on her…or showing how close they could get to her.
She slowly typed out her reply. I know. But this all seems very personal — Nancy stopped and stared at the phone. Could she admit the next part? She'd probably regret it tomorrow, but right now, in the dark, silent house she wanted some reassurance. — and it's making me a little anxious.
There. That wasn't too feeble. It was true, but didn't sound like she was shaking like a leaf from fear.
Once more the phone immediately showed that he'd read the text. The three dots were only there for a moment this time.
You don't need to be nervous. I'm right outside.
More dots…
I'll be on watch for the next few hours. Then other officers will rotate in.
Nancy walked over to the window at the front of the house and peeked around a corner of the curtain. There, one house down and across the street was his black Tahoe. Nancy let the curtain drop and went slowly back to the kitchen. She filled her little electric kettle and turned it on, grabbing a mug and a tea bag. Sitting back down at the table while she waited for the water to boil, she reread his message. He was there. He'd shown up before she'd said anything about fears she didn't even know she had.
Part of her wanted to walk across the street and bring him a cup of coffee. Heck, part of her wanted to ask him to come in. But she was not going to go against the stern warnings of her lawyer. So she had to simply type Thank you, and hope that Frank knew how much more she wanted to say.