Book Club Bloodshed Read online

  Missy’s heart sank. She knew what this meant.

  Noreen forced a laugh. “You’re my one phone call, Missy.”

  “Oh my God, Noreen. This can’t be happening.”

  “It’s happening.” She started crying again. “I need your help, Miss. They think I did this.”

  Missy felt horrible about equivocating with Noreen earlier. Of course she was going to help. She’d do anything for her best friend.

  “Noreen, we’re going to get through this. I promise.”

  “Thank you, Missy.” She sad-laughed again and it broke Missy’s heart.

  “First thing in the morning, I’m going to talk to Len Greenberg,” Missy said. “He’ll have you out of there in no time.”

  “Okay.” Noreen was breathing heavily now and sounded like she was hyperventilating.

  “Nor, take it easy, take it easy. Take a long, slow breath, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Missy sat back down on the bed. Cody picked her head up and looked sullenly at her. The dog always could tell her moods and knew whenever something was wrong.

  “Missy.” Noreen’s voice was calm again. “I did not do this.”

  “Don’t worry,” Missy said, making up her mind. With Noreen officially arrested, she couldn’t sit on this information that Trudy had shared. “I think I can get you out of there fast. Is Tyler right there?”

  “No.”

  Missy cursed silently. “Is he at the station?”

  “They processed me an hour ago, and that was the last time I saw him…I really don’t know where he is.”

  Missy thought about it. She could just call him directly. It was probably safer that way.

  “Okay, Nor. Listen to me. I’m going to call him right now, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “And even if that doesn’t work out, I’ll still be there tomorrow with Len Greenberg, okay?”

  “Miss, I didn’t do this.”

  “I know, Nor. I know.”

  “Missy, I don’t know what to say…I’m so scared.”

  “Me too. But we’re going to get through this.”

  Missy told Noreen to be strong and try to get some sleep, promising her tomorrow would look a lot different. It was 3:30AM by the time she got off with Noreen, which really wasn’t a great time to call somebody but Missy figured that Tyler was still up. He’d just arrested Noreen, so he was probably at the station, filling out the endless paperwork she’d heard police complain of all the time.

  She scrolled through her contacts and thumbed the phone icon next to his number.

  It rang a few times before a woman answered in a sleepy voice. “Hello?”

  Missy was thrown off by the voice. Who was this?

  “Hello, I’m calling to speak to Tyler.”

  “Who is this?” The voice was instantly suspicious.

  “This is Missy DeMeanor.”

  There was a pause. “I’ve heard about you.”

  Then Missy put it together. It had to be Tyler’s ex-wife, Jill. They were estranged but trying to work out their marriage. From what Missy had heard, Jill still lived near Philadelphia, where Tyler had worked as a detective until recently. When he’d moved back here, it had been alone. Missy knew they were working things out, but she hadn’t known Jill was in town.

  “I’ve heard about you too,” Missy said, which was only half-true. She’d heard about Jill from everybody except Tyler. In the few conversations they’d had over the last six months, Tyler had mentioned her in passing, and never by name, and he’d never revealed anything about her except that she worked at in sales at a pharmaceutical company. Missy knew that meant she made a fortune, at least by Missy DeMeanor standards. She’d seen pictures of the woman online, and she was stunning. Tall, long legs, blond hair, year-round tan, and her body had a long, lean look to it like she’d played sports her whole life.

  In other words, she looked exactly like Missy didn’t.

  “What do you want?” Jill said, no humor in her voice.

  Missy’s anger rose. “I called Tyler because I need to speak to him.”

  Jill didn’t respond for a moment. “Why are you calling my husband at this hour?”

  “It’s police business.”

  “Oh right.” Her voice changed tone and became mocking. “You think you’re a detective. I forgot. You think you can do what Tyler does.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “More like you’re trying to get your friend out of trouble by exploiting your relationship with the chief detective.”

  “You must not think much of Tyler if you think he’d let someone he thought was guilty go because I said so.”

  Score one for Missy.

  “You can speak with him tomorrow.”

  “I need to talk to him now. He’s got somebody locked up who shouldn’t be, while there’s a killer out there.”

  “You mean he’s got your friend locked up right now. Talk to him tomorrow.”

  “You’re not seriously going to hang—”

  Jill cut her off. “Don’t ever call my husband on his private phone again.”

  “This is—”

  “And don’t ever call Tyler again at this hour. I don’t care if you’re dying.”

  She hung up.

  “What a bitch,” Missy said.

  Chapter Eight

  The morning came early. It had taken Missy an hour to calm down enough after her call with Noreen and nasty conversation with Jill, Tyler’s wife, to fall asleep. She woke at 7:00AM, her mind already racing, and as tired as she felt couldn’t fall back asleep. It was still too early to get a hold of the attorney, Lee Greenberg, so she decided to exercise instead.

  Missy pulled on some old sweats that were really starting to get loose (yay!) and a black t-shirt that wasn’t quite form-fitting but also didn’t look like she was wearing a trash bag. The sun was out when she slipped on her sneakers and bounded down her steps. Cody watched her leave from the front door.

  Though Missy had always been overweight, she’d also been an athlete in high school. She’d been a pretty good field hockey player and had made the volleyball team too. Anybody looking at her would never suspect she had an ounce of athletic talent in her, especially if they knew she was a bookworm. But long ago (almost twenty years!) she’d played varsity sports and had known what it was like to be part of a team. Even though the years had added plenty of cushion around her hips, thighs, and butt, she could still move okay.

  She walked for a minute down the road then started jogging. Six months ago, she wouldn’t have been caught dead running on the street, where any nitwit could see her, preferring instead to go to the gym and use the ellipticals with other people “of weight.” But a month ago she’d decided to get over it.

  Missy jogged at a good clip. She was running toward the sun, and the early morning light felt good on her skin as the day broke. Spring was right around the corner. At this rate, she might be down another fifteen pounds in two months and, believe it or not, meant she might be able to get back into her black (slimming) one piece bathing suit and make her triumphant return to the Grove City pool.

  She hadn’t been able to fit into that in almost three years. The thought of that motivated her to pick up her pace and she was feeling extraordinary, getting that runner’s high that temporarily made her forget about everything else that was going on—

  Till a car horn blared her out of her zen-like state. The sound actually startled her. Missy lost her footing and went down in the grass strip along the road.

  “Get out of the way, you whale!” the guy yelled through the passenger window before speeding off. She didn’t recognize him or the car, but if she ever saw them again, she definitely would.

  Missy picked herself up. When she rubbed her sweatpants, the mud she’d accumulated smeared onto her hands. Though the guy was about to take the bend in the road ahead, she gave him the one-finger salute before he disappeared from view.

  Sometimes, she loathed men. For
some reason, it was socially acceptable for them to give people a hard time about their weight. People just shrugged or laughed it off and looked the other way.

  There wasn’t much of a shoulder on this two lane road, but still, she wasn’t that big that he’d need to swerve to avoid her.

  He was just an asshole.

  And even though she told herself she shouldn’t feel bad, and repeated to herself that the guy was just one of those people who reveled in making people feel awful about their weight, she couldn’t help but feel down. The runner’s high she’d briefly experienced dissipated quickly, and once the adrenaline died she was left short of breath with tired, aching muscles. She turned around and ran back home, but her heart wasn’t really into it.

  ***

  Missy took a shower and purposely didn’t look in the full-body mirror in her bedroom. Instead she went with her standby comfy, loose jeans she always wore and an equally comfy, loose long-sleeved t-shirt under a flannel. It was a great outfit for work, she was always getting up and down and carrying things and moving around in Books and Crannies.

  Exercise always made her even hungrier than usual, so she was ravenous when she got to the kitchen. She fed Cody first, then weighed her options. They came down to: cereal, cereal, cereal. She settled on cereal.

  She ate quickly and checked the time: 8:15AM. By now, Lee Greenberg was probably in his office. But maybe she didn’t even need to call him. Missy nodded to herself. She wasn’t going to let that idiot from earlier ruin her outlook on the day. Nope. Today she was going to get her friend out of jail. And she might be able to do it without a lawyer.

  Ignoring Jill’s orders from last night, Missy scrolled through her contacts again and called Tyler’s cell phone instead of the station.

  “Hello, Melissa.”

  His tone was neutral. Missy wondered if he was home or at the station. She pictured Jill standing behind him, fuming. And it made her smile.

  “Tyler, we need to talk. Can we meet?”

  “Come to the station.”

  Missy was thinking it would be safer if they talked outside of the station. She didn’t want anybody there to overhear them, in case Trudy’s theory was right and the mysterious cop was Anne’s killer.

  “I really need to talk to you somewhere else, Tyler. I—”

  “If this is official police business, I need you to come to the station, Melissa. If it’s not, then…”

  “Then what?”

  “Then…I don’t know.”

  Missy didn’t think she’d ever heard Tyler say I don’t know before. He sounded lost.

  “I spoke to Jill last night.”

  His voice turned high-pitched. “What?”

  “Yeah, I spoke to her,” Missy said. “Guess she didn’t give you the message.”

  “What…what did she say?”

  “That I wasn’t supposed to call you on this phone anymore.” Missy chuckled. “Oops.”

  “Melissa,” he said. “Our situation is complicated. She knows a lot about you, too, so she must have felt threatened.”

  Why would she feel threatened unless Jill knew Tyler still had feelings for her? It was the only explanation. Missy was both happy and angered. She would have gladly dated Tyler again and had come close six months ago, right before he’d dropped the bomb on her about he and his ex-wife trying to work things out.

  She let her frustration and disappointment get the better of her. “That’s funny, Tyler, because I don’t know much about her.”

  “Melissa, don’t be like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know like what,” he said. “And I really don’t have time for this.”

  “This? What you mean is, you don’t have time for me.”

  He said nothing.

  Missy knew she should take a deep breath, but she was on a roll. “I thought we were supposed to be friends, Tyler.”

  “It’s just not that simple.”

  “Sure it is,” she lied through her teeth. She knew full well they couldn’t be friends. At least, not yet. Missy still had feelings for him. “Ever since you closed the books on Albert Switzer’s murder, you haven’t been able to look me in the eye longer than five seconds. When we bump into each other, you act like we’re perfect strangers.”

  “I’m in the middle of a murder investigation and can’t—”

  “By the way, you arrested the wrong person.” She was livid now, her hand almost crushing her cell phone. “Noreen didn’t kill Anne. That’s why I was calling you last night. So now she’s spent the night unlawfully imprisoned.”

  Missy didn’t know if Tyler had broken any laws, but the phrase sounded pretty good.

  “If you have information, you need to come down to the station,” Tyler said. “I can’t do this over the phone.”

  “Why not?”

  “Melissa, you really don’t get it, do you?”

  “I guess I don’t.”

  A hard edge lined his voice. “This is a small town and when something terrible like this happens, everybody has their eyes on the detective.”

  “If you can’t stand the heat…”

  “I can stand the heat, that’s not the problem.” He sighed. “The problem is, I can’t have any appearance of impropriety when I’m investigating. If anybody thinks I’m being influenced by my ex-girlfriend, I’m finished. Don’t you get that?”

  Missy was about to fire back, but finally got herself under control. He was absolutely right and had warned her of this last time when she’d meddled.

  “So come in here and we’ll have somebody take your statement.”

  “Not somebody,” Missy said. “It has to be you.”

  “God!” He laughed sardonically. “Are you trying to be difficult, woman?”

  “No. I’m starting to think that comes naturally.”

  Chapter Nine

  On her way to the police station, Missy called Lee Greenberg’s office. She had the number stored in her cell because Lee had helped her mother update her will last year.

  “Good morning, Missy. As much as I hope it is, I’m assuming this is not a social call?”

  “I’m calling on behalf of Noreen Sullivan.”

  “Don’t tell me they’ve arrested her for the murder of Anne Baxter.”

  News traveled fast in Grove City. It always did. “You got it.”

  “The police can never get anything right, can they? Last time they waited too long and that oaf Gordon Cooper almost squeezed the life out of you. This time they jump the gun and arrest clearly the wrong person.”

  Lee was very outspoken in his political views, many of which were negative toward the police. Missy found herself in the strange position of wanting to defend Tyler, even though he’d arrested her best friend.

  “So you’ll take the case?”

  “You had me at Noreen Sullivan.” Most men found Noreen attractive. Somehow she managed to be sexy and yet pull off the girl-next-door quality as well. Lee was no exception and Missy remembered he’d asked specifically about Noreen last year, when she and her mother had been in his office.

  “Glad to hear you’re taking the case for all the right reasons, Lee,” Missy teased.

  He laughed. “What better reason is there than to rescue a damsel-in-distress from a gross miscarriage of justice?”

  “Do you think you can get her out?”

  “Of course.”

  Missy stopped at the intersection before the police station. “How?”

  “To be determined, Missy. But a good lawyer can find a way to argue about anything. That’s what they call advocacy.”

  Missy shook her head. Even before one had tried to strangle her, Missy normally didn’t care much for attorneys. They were generally full of themselves and capable of talking out of both sides of their mouth. She believed there was a right and a wrong if you looked hard enough and thought that people these days hid behind their lawyers to get out of obligations.

  But she was happy she’d called Lee. There was a lo
t of swagger in his talk, but she felt confident he could do something for her.

  ***

  Missy walked into the police station. Chief Brody was sitting in his office, staring at her through the glass just like last time she’d been in here. This time she decided to give him a flip little wave. He nodded once then went back to his computer. She wondered what he actually did, because it seemed like Tyler did all the work.

  Tyler came out of the other office. His uniform looked freshly-pressed. Missy caught herself wondering whether Jill had ironed it for him this morning...she shook the thought away and focused on the more pressing issue, like her best friend's incarceration.

  "Good morning, Melissa," he said in a stiff voice. He was putting on an act for some reason. "How can I help you?"

  "First, can I see Noreen?"

  "I'm sorry. Only staff and attorneys are allowed back there."

  She nodded, expecting that answer. "Could I have a minute of your time?"

  “Of course,” he said, just as stiffly.

  As they walked through the open floor of the station, Missy felt all eyes on her. No wonder Tyler was acting very formal with her, everybody was watching and the constant rumors that she was using their past relationship to influence him must have been stifling. She felt bad, for a moment, about forcing the meeting with him but then again Noreen was locked up.

  He opened the door to his office. His desk was much neater than the last time she was here and to her surprise there was a bonsai tree in the corner next to a new, but empty fish tank. The room now seemed to have a little bit of a feminine touch and jealousy tore through Missy. She scanned his desk as she sat in the chair facing him and her eyes landed on a picture of him and Jill.

  They were standing in front of a waterfall. The picture had a South American feel to it. Tyler's arm was around Jill's shoulders and her hand was at his waist. Jill was only a couple inches shorter than him, and Tyler was tall, so she must have been pushing six feet. Missy couldn't help but be jealous of her figure and her beauty. She was very attractive.

  But that should have come as no surprise. Tyler was a hunk and a good man to boot, present circumstances notwithstanding.