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Chapter Four

Chapter Four

After we finished eating, Juliet dropped me off at my house. I promised I would be at her butt c***k o’ dawn yoga class in the morning.

“ Don’t come crawling in halfway through the class like you did last week,” Juliet warned. “I will call you out in front of everyone and make you downward dog all day. Blood is not thicker than yogi karma, Flea!”

“ I won’t be late,” I promised. “Stop calling me Flea!”

She honked her horn as she zoomed off in her blue Karmann Ghia convertible, Ole Blue. The weather had been mild all week. I had walked to work and left my trusty VW van, Velma, parked in my driveway. Unlocking my front door, my twenty-five tons of fluffy love cat, Ferdie, twined his way between my legs mewing his pleas for food. I hurried to the kitchen before his meows turned to grumpy caterwauling.

I dumped a half can of food onto his dry kibbles. “Happy?” Ferdie, typical of his fickle cat nature, ignored me in favor of dinner.

I turned the gas on the stove to boil water for tea. I needed to sit and think about Mike’s murder and Nellie. After fixing myself a cup of Moroccan mint tea, I carried it to my vintage Formica table.

“ Ferdie, I have to figure out who hated Mike Johnson enough to kill him.” I grabbed a pen and some paper to list the people who had a reason to kill Mike. After a minute, the list only had one name - Nellie.

“ I can’t leave her off the list yet. Even though Nellie wouldn’t have done it, Nancy Drew would include her.” Ferdie, finished with his dinner, lifted his tail and trotted out of the room, a clear sign of what he thought about Nellie as a suspect.

I thought about Mike. He and Nellie moved to Miller’s Cove from Louisiana over twenty years ago. Mike had built the pickle factory and as far as I knew, his business was successful. He sold enough pickles to buy Nellie her coffee shop five years ago. Rumor was he paid cash for the business. He and Nellie lived in a nice house on a large tract of land outside of town where they raised horses.

I didn’t know Mike or his friends. Despite talking to Nellie almost daily, she never shared much information about her husband. Whenever I asked how he was doing, her standard reply was “working hard.”

Putting down my pen, I headed next door to talk to Oscar. Oscar Pollack was eighty years old and had been the mayor of Miller’s Cove for more years than I’ve been alive. He knew everything about everyone. More importantly, he loved to gossip.

Moments later, I stood knocking on his door. Oscar answered the door wrapped in a ratty red flannel robe and leather moccasin slippers on his feet. His few remaining wisps of gray hair stood in tufts all over his head.

“ I’m sorry, Oscar. I didn’t realize you were in bed,” I apologized.

Oscar waved my apology away. “I wasn’t asleep. I’ve been in my pajamas for the past two days fighting off a darn cold.” He let out a large sneeze. He reached into his robe pocket and pulled out a tattered handkerchief. Oscar wiped his already red nose. He motioned me inside and shuffled towards his living room. I followed and sat on the couch opposite his beat-up blue recliner.

“ Can I bring you anything? Soup? Tea?” I asked. His nose was swollen and his eyes were puffy.

“ A bottle of whiskey wouldn’t go unappreciated,” Oscar said. At my shocked look, he said, “My Mary, God rest her soul, swore by whiskey with a little honey or brown sugar to fight off a cold. The woman was a teetotaler unless she had a cold. Just between you and me, she had a lot of colds.”

“ Well, if Mrs. Pollack swore by it, then it must have worked,” I said. I rose from the couch to leave. “I wanted to ask you about Mike Johnson, but it can wait. I can come back another time when you’re feeling better.”

“ Mike Johnson,” Oscar drawled. A slight air of contempt permeated his words. “What’s that slick weasel done now?”

I sat back down. “He’s been murdered.”

“ Well, isn’t that interesting?” Oscar leaned forward and fixed his puffy eyes on me. “What happened?”

I ignored the eager gleam in Oscar’s eyes. “I was at the sheriff’s office earlier. They brought Nellie in to question her about his death. He was found dead at the factory.”

“ Woo doggie. This is a kawinkydink. Couldn’t happen to a better person.” Oscar gave a harsh bark of laughter that ended in a coughing spasm. When his coughing subsided and he had caught his breath, he said, “Mike Johnson was a cheater. He cheated on his wife, and he cheated in his business. Guess the old expression that cheaters never prosper finally rang true.”

“ Mike cheated on Nellie? Who was he cheating with? Did she know?” I asked.

“ Whoa. Hold on. Mike’s been cheating on Nellie with a two-bit dancer from Lamplighter Lounge.”

“ Lamplighter Lounge?”

“ It’s a strip club outside of town on the way to Hawkins,” Oscar explained. “I don’t believe Nellie knew about his indiscretion, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors. He was catting around with some floozy named Dusty or Misty… something with a Rose. Dusty Rose. That was her name.”

“ It sounds like you knew more than a little bit about what went on behind closed doors,” I said, only half-joking.

“ I make it my business to find out things. You can’t run a town or a business without knowing what people are doing. Gives you the upper hand to know what makes a person tick.”

“ I’ll keep my curtains closed at night,” I laughed uneasily. My octogenarian neighbor wasn’t as sweet as I believed.

“ You have nothing to worry about from me, Phee.” He leaned forward and patted my knee. “I’m retired from politics and from business. I don’t have a need for information like I used to. Besides, what bad deeds would a librarian commit?”

“ I fold the corners of my novel’s pages down sometimes.”

“ I rest my case.” Oscar coughed hard and let out a loud sneeze. “I’d better get back in bed, and you’d better get out of here before I make you sick.”

I stood up to leave. I hesitated and turned back. “Oscar, you said Mike was a cheat in business. What did you mean?”

“ Nothing I could put my finger on but ask yourself this. How did Mike Johnson come up with cash to buy that factory, build an extravagant home outside of town and pay cash for Nellie Jo’s Cup O’ Joe? The pickle business is good, but it isn’t good enough for that kind of money. Plus, there’s been late night deliveries to the pickle factory lately and it’s making me uneasy.”

As I made my way back to my house I wondered how I could explain to my mother that I needed to go to a strip club.