Threads of Suspicion(114)

She set a second card on the table. “If there’s a name from the past that strikes you as someone you did wonder about, call me.”

“Thanks, Lieutenant.” He stood, reached over to shake her hand, and tucked the card in his pocket.



David was sitting at a table in the coffee shop, a mug by his elbow, engrossed in a newspaper. Evie rapped knuckles lightly on the table as she passed to get a Diet Coke and then walked outside to David’s SUV, waited for him to come with the key. Nine years, she thought as she idly watched Jim through the window. He’s cared about Lynne and held his secret for her sake all this time.

Jim was speaking with the music store clerk, smiled at something he was told, bumped fists with the guy, then walked into the coffee shop. The girl who’d sold Evie the soda nodded at something Jim told her, took off her apron, slipped underneath the counter. Jim took her place, reached into the cooler and came up with a cold root beer for himself, drank half of it before picking up a towel and wiping down the counter. Going back to work . . . after one of the more difficult conversations of his life.

David clicked open the doors, and Evie settled into the passenger seat, twisted the cap off her soda. “So how much did you spend on Maggie, if I may be so bold?” she asked with a smile as she fastened her seat belt.

David smiled. “Not counting multiple coffees and the newspaper, eight thousand.”

She choked and sputtered on her drink. “Next time lead a comment like that with ‘A lot,’” she said through gasps.

“Sorry.”

“Sure you are.” She put the cap back on the soda bottle. If she drank the rest of it now, she would start hiccupping.

And she’d just recorded that whole sloppy episode. She slipped out her phone, closed the recording, sent the audio to her state account for safekeeping and a copy to David. She wasn’t surprised to see her phone battery about dead. She plugged it into the car charger and returned to what David had told her. “Eight with triple zeros after it?”

“And two more for the change.” He pulled carefully into traffic. “That particular keyboard would have set me back seventeen in New York, even with Maggie’s professional discount. Some guy buys it on a lease plan, can’t make payments after four months, it’s back barely out of the box but they can’t sell it as new, so the leasing company has to eat the difference. The store probably clears a thousand on each of the two sales, and I get more than a bargain. So it’s close to a steal. That model’s got a fifteen-year life-span, even under concert conditions. Put it in Maggie’s music room, our grandkids are going to be learning to play on it.”

“You’re thinking long term. Nice.”

He shrugged. “Short term too. She doesn’t need it, I could flip it next week to one of her friends for ten. Get Maggie to play a concert or two with it, it’s worth fourteen. If nothing else, it’s going to pay for landscaping at my new place—something better than geraniums in a pot.”

She did like his practical side. “So spending eight thousand is a way to make money.”

David laughed. “I’m good at it, you ever need some pointers.”

“In spite of his wealth—or maybe it’s the reason for it—Rob is good for those too. I handed Rob ten bucks one day, sort of a dare, and he gave me twenty-seven dollars and fifty-two cents back a week later. The two pennies he found on the street, but since he was doing business on my dare at the time, he considered it only fair to add them to my take. Rob had turned my ten into a box of very fine chocolates, asked the coffee-shop manager if he could try an experiment, put the open box on the counter next to the napkins with a Post-it note—25 cents, your choice—and an empty jar beside it. When the candy was gone, he collected the quarters, bought more chocolates. Repeated it again. He returned only a third of the profits to me. He’d earned another third for himself and gave the manager a third, though the sales tax he did pay out of the shop’s take. Rob likes to say making money is mostly about spotting opportunities.”

“He’s right about that.”

Evie could feel the tension draining out of her with the small talk, was grateful for it, even though a look at the time was ratcheting up the tension. She would likely be late for the charity event this evening. Her dress was at the hotel, and she was meeting Rob so she could ride with him. Lynne was probably already on her way into the city to get a good spot on the rope line. David would make it in time if she didn’t hold him up any further.

David glanced over and said, “That must have been some conversation with Jim.”