An Uplifting Murder (40 page)

“You must have some nasty bruises,” he said. “Let me drive you to the hospital.”

“Can’t afford it,” Josie said.

Josie and Ted walked out of the store at 3:35, some five hours after they’d entered. “What if your shoulder is broken?” he asked.

“Then you can X-ray and set it.”

“I’m an animal doctor,” he said.

“Exactly. Your patients can’t talk, so you have to be better than people doctors.”

“My practice doesn’t include people,” he said. “And I’m not practicing on anyone, especially you. But I won’t argue with you now.” He had his arm around her—carefully. Josie enjoyed being cherished.

“Where do you want to go?” Ted asked.

“Home,” Josie said. “I’m bracing myself for the lecture already.”

“How mad will your mother be?” Ted asked.

“Once, when I was in first grade, I wandered away from Mom at the old Famous-Barr department store. A saleswoman found me and paged Jane. Mom collected me at the information counter. She nearly fainted with relief. When we were out of the store, she said, ‘Young lady, if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll kill you.’ I’m expecting a similar lecture.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Josie saw movement on the edge of the parking lot. Three shadowy figures loped across the lonely expanse of asphalt. The dog pack. She felt in her purse for the canister of pepper spray and realized the police had it now.

“I see them,” Ted said. “I have my spray.”

“Ted, I still want to thank you for your help. You’ve spent your day off stuck in a storeroom because of me. I’d like to take you out to dinner tomorrow night.”

“I’ll go to dinner with you anytime,” Ted said. “But I want to take you and Amelia ice-skating at Steinberg Rink. It’s a local tradition.”

“I’m a terrible skater,” Josie said.

“Me, too,” Ted said. “I think that’s also a St. Louis tradition. I may spend more time falling on the ice than skating on it. Please, Josie. Say yes.”

Josie remembered when Amelia had pleaded with Josie to let her father, Nate, take her ice-skating. Josie had refused because Nate had been drinking. But Amelia could go with Ted and Josie. “We’ll all go tomorrow night,” she said.

“Deal,” he said. They sealed it with a kiss on the bleak parking lot. The troublesome shadows at the edges disappeared.

Chapter 43

Josie folded Amelia’s cotton shirt and added it to the stack of clean laundry on top of the dryer. She’d carry the clothes upstairs tomorrow morning. Tonight she needed to soak her bruised body in a hot bubble bath. Josie’s shoulder, back, and knees ached from her encounters with the escalator and Cody John Wayne.

Josie dragged herself up the basement stairs until she heard the kitchen phone ring. Then she broke into a run. A call at this hour was rarely good news.

She answered with a timid, “Hello?”

“Hello, yourself!” The stern Officer Doris Ann Norris sounded almost giddy. “Guess you heard the good news on TV tonight. He confessed.”

“Who?”

“Who do you think? Cody John Wayne. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him already.”

Josie was confused. The last time she’d seen Cody, he’d been on his way to the hospital, clawing at his eyes and screaming that he was blind.

“He confessed to you?”

“No, to those Venetia Park detectives. The hospital washed out his eyes first. The docs say Mr. Wayne will see again. He made the pain worse by rubbing pepper spray into his eyes, so he’s in a world of hurt.”

“Me, too,” Josie said. “He bruised my shoulder.”

Officer Norris skimmed past Josie’s complaint and kept talking. “The going-blind scare must have put the fear of the Lord in Mr. Wayne. Venetia Park got him a public defender. When Mr. Wayne calmed down, Detective Yawney told him about the evidence they had from the Plaza Venetia murder. The crime-scene techs found a shoe print on the floor.”

“How?” Josie said. “The Plaza Venetia bathroom didn’t seem dusty.”

“There was wet tile near the sink and the floor wasn’t that clean. They got a shoe print.”

“Cody’s size?”

“His size and his shoe. The right shoe was marked by a deep cut in the sole.”

A deep cut in the soul. That sounded poetic to Josie’s fogged brain, until she realized Officer Norris meant there was a distinctive cut on Cody’s shoe sole.

“He was wearing the same pair when they took him to the hospital. Crime scene also found two hairs on the victim’s body. Short, brown ones. Her husband’s hair is darker. They’re doing DNA testing now, but they’re sure they’ll get a match.

“Once Mr. Wayne found out the police had evidence, he confessed. His public defender nearly had a cat in the interview room. The lawyer did everything but throw himself on top of his client to shut him up, but Mr. Wayne wouldn’t stop talking. It was like when a plumber opens a blocked drain. The words gushed out. I’m hoping his lawyer cuts Mr. Wayne a decent deal.”

“Me, too. I knew Frankie,” Josie said. “She was an evil woman.”

“So I heard,” Officer Norris said. “It’s too bad Mr. Wayne is looking at jail time. If you ask me—and no one will because I’m low on the totem pole—that woman drove him to it. But I’m not supposed to blame the victim. Murder is wrong and he killed her.”

After delivering her argument for clemency and then refuting it, Officer Norris seemed surprised by her outburst. “I’m sorry. That was unprofessional.”

“But true,” Josie said. “Now that Cody has confessed, are they going to let Laura Ferguson go?”

“They will. Probably first thing in the morning. These things take time, Ms. Marcus.”

It didn’t take Josie any time to fall asleep after a long hot soak in her bath. She was alone tonight. Jane had offered to let Amelia sleep upstairs, then drive her to school in the morning.

As Josie expected, Jane had had sharp words for her daughter. Then she took the sting out of her lecture by adding, “Amelia wants to cook with me this evening. She can stay overnight and I’ll take her to school. You need your sleep.”

“Can I bring Harry?” Amelia asked.

“If he behaves himself,” Jane said. “No running and chasing Stuart Little. No banging against my furniture. And you”—she pointed to her daughter—“go downstairs and get some rest. Your eyes look like two holes burned in a blanket.”

Josie went, but she was too hyped on adrenaline to fall asleep. She puttered around, dusting and tidying, then did laundry until Officer Norris called. That put Josie’s mind at ease and she was finally able to sleep. Josie awoke after ten the next morning, when she heard a thud on her porch. Then the doorbell rang.

Josie was too sleepy to answer it. Terrible things disguised as gifts had been left on her doormat. One of the worst was a dead rat buried in the pretty paper of a shoe box. Harry the cat came out of Amelia’s room and stared at her. He seemed too uneasy to sit down next to Josie.

“Morning, cat,” she said. “Did Amelia drop you back here while I was asleep? She must have fed you, too, or you would have been in here earlier, demanding breakfast.”

The doorbell rang again. Then twice. Three times. That sent Harry into full alert, ears up, eyes wide. He trotted to the living room. Josie followed him. Harry circled in front of the door and growled. Josie heard the sound of a car driving away. Good. Whoever had been on her porch was gone.

She lifted the living room blind using the Mrs. Mueller method and peered out. A cardboard box the size of a television squatted on Josie’s porch. She opened her front door and approached the box carefully.

GIFT BASKETS BY GILDA—OPEN IMMEDIATELY, a red label on the box commanded. There was no other message.

The box was too heavy for Josie to give it an exploratory shake. She dragged it across the threshold into her home, left the sealed box on the boot mat, and went for a butcher knife. Now she was prepared for anything inside it, good or bad.

Harry sniffed the box carefully. He didn’t growl this time. He sat next to the box.

“Okay, Harry,” Josie said. “You’ve checked it for me. Let’s let ’er rip.”

She slit the packing tape along the top with the knife. The box was stuffed with enough foam peanuts to feed every plastic squirrel in Missouri. Josie pushed them aside and heard the crinkle of cellophane. Inside was the mother of all gift baskets, wrapped in blue cellophane, decked in ribbons, and packed with goodies.

Josie carefully lifted out the basket while Harry chased a foam peanut. The basket bulged with bounty: chocolate truffles, smoked salmon, roast turkey breast, cashews, maple-crunch popcorn, cheddar, water crackers, pepper relish, honey mustard, summer sausage, a bottle of Cristal—the champagne of rock stars and celebrities.

This would make a lavish feast after tonight’s skating session.

Josie opened a blue envelope and a check for five hundred dollars fell into her lap, along with a note from Laura Ferguson. “Dearest Josie,” it read. “You cleared my name and restored me to my family. I cannot thank you enough. Lang and I hope your next shopping experience will be more pleasant than your recent visit to Desiree Lingerie. Fondly, Laura.”

Josie dialed Laura’s home number. A man answered. “Mr. Ferguson? It’s Josie. I got your wonderful present. That was a feast in a box.”

His voice warmed instantly. “Please, call me Lang. We’re glad you like it, Josie. I know you want to talk to Laura, but she’s with our daughter, Kate.”

“How is Kate?”

“She’s better now that her mother is with her. Laura will stay with her until after the baby is born. Kate needed her mother and you made that possible.”

“I was glad to help, Lang, but you didn’t have to pay me.”

“We didn’t pay you, Josie. We just want you to get yourself a little treat. You saved our family. I’ll tell Laura you called. And thanks again.”

Josie cut herself a sausage sandwich and ate a few cashews. She called Alyce and gave her an update.

“Congratulations,” her friend said. “I saw the news on television: Frankie’s killer has been arrested. Laura Ferguson is free. Your daughter is safe. You must be so relieved it’s over. Now you can rest on your laurels.”

“Hope that’s good for bruises,” Josie said, and helped herself to a chocolate truffle.

Chapter 44

Stars shone like diamonds on jewelers’ black velvet. Bare tree branches reached for their soft glitter like greedy fingers. St. Louisans believed Steinberg Skating Rink was one of the city’s most romantic sites. Tonight proved they were right.

Josie felt out of place among the confident skaters gliding around the ice. She couldn’t control her feet. She felt clumsy in her clunky skates. She was cold. Woman up, she told herself. Get out on the ice and enjoy yourself.

She moved gingerly onto the slick surface, her ankles like rubber in her rented skates. She stayed close to the safety rail—but not close enough. Two steps out on the ice, Josie slipped and nearly fell on her bottom. Ted deftly caught her, then lost his balance. The two of them landed together on the ice, laughing.

Amelia skated up to them, her stride smooth and controlled. “You two make a great pair.” Josie’s daughter laughed so hard, she almost fell down, too. Josie and Ted used the railing to pull themselves up. Josie kept one gloved hand on it, hoping she would feel more at home on the ice. You got the first fall out of the way, she told herself. No major damage. It was rather fun.

“Can I go skating on my own?” Amelia asked. She circled around them, then slid to a smooth stop. How did her daughter learn to skate like that? She seemed so natural on the ice.

“Yes,” Josie said. “Stay in sight where I can see you.” Amelia skimmed across the ice as if she’d been born with skates.

“Thank goodness my daughter didn’t inherit her mother’s grace on the ice,” Josie said, brushing off her cold jeans. “She must get her skating talent from her Canadian father.”