Chapter Thirty
Outside, a woman approached from the other direction, heading toward the car wash waiting room we’d just exited.
The woman from the grocery store.
Still wearing the unnerving cat shirt, now under a sweater, which didn’t help much.
“What are you doing here?” the woman demanded.
That snapped me out of my cat-shirt-staring trance. Not that my staring mattered, because she focused on Clara.
And now that I saw Clara’s arrested expression, so was I.
But the cat-shirt woman didn’t seem to notice Clara’s reaction as she said, “I remember now. I’ve seen you on TV. You’re like some sort of detective. Didn’t know you could get on TV doing that until I saw you. I could do that.”
“I’m sure you could—”
Accepting Clara’s declaration as an obvious fact with a low-energy hand-wave, the woman circled back to, “What are you doing here?”
“Looking into getting a car wash,” Clara said brightly.
“Oh.” The bored syllable dismissed that mission. “You should tell me how to get on TV. I’m Blanche Todd Alsup. Like Mary.”
I tried not to let my face reflect the turmoil in my brain.
Alsup . . . Heading toward the car wash and William. His wife? The woman Clara saw with Damon and we both saw after Thursday’s training? She had the dark hair and pale face.
But who was this Mary Alsup she clearly assumed we knew with her Like Mary comment?
Clara got it well before I did, but she has the Kentucky native’s advantage.
“You’re related to Mary Todd Lincoln?” Clara sounded impressed — if you didn’t know her. “Quite the family tree.”
Blanche Todd Alsup looked blanker than I’d felt. “Related? No.”
I retook the lead in the blank sweepstakes. Why on earth would she bring it up if she wasn’t related?
Again, Clara came to the rescue. “Oh, to indicate how to spell it. But do people have more trouble spelling Todd than Blanche or Alsup?”
Blanche Todd Alsup’s top lip didn’t center on her bottom lip, which gave her a sneering, exasperated expression and, oddly, made her look more intelligent than she’d otherwise shown herself to be.
“Everybody will get it right once people see it on TV. How do I get on TV?”
Clara’s smile didn’t budge as her jaw tightened. “Being involved with a charity can open the door—”
“Nah. That’s not how you get on.”
“If you answer questions for us, that might . . .” Clara didn’t finish, letting Blanche make the assumption. “You must be so sad and shocked about Damon Swindell’s death.”
I admired Clara’s tactic of taking the connection for granted.
“Can’t believe it.” Neither sadness nor shock echoed in those flat words.
“How long have you known him? How did you meet?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Don’t remember. Maybe a party in the neighborhood. Saw him around.”
“Did you see him Thursday night?”
For the first time, something like wariness came into Blanche’s eyes. “There wasn’t a party Thursday.”
“What did you do that evening?” Clara prodded a bit more. “You talked to him? Outside Zepke’s?”
Blankness resurfaced.
I slid in with, “The pet store, where he took his dog to training.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Were you supposed to meet him after that?” Clara asked.
“Nah.”
“But you hoped to.” Clara’s mild persistence paid off.
“Yeah. Would have made it easier. Hurried things up. Found out what I needed to.”
“Found out what?”
She gave no sign of hearing my question.
“Though I wouldn’t mind having sex again. He wasn’t much for duration, but he didn’t demand a lot, either. Too busy talking.”
So much for Damon’s skills in bed.
“But he couldn’t shake off those two,” Blanche added.
“Those two?” Clara repeated.
“Those two women who hung onto him all the time.”
Poor, poor Damon. Needing to wrest himself away from his wife and Girlfriend One to find time for Girlfriend Two. And likely never knowing how low she’d scored him.
“So, what did you do?”
“Went to dinner. Salmon. It was good.”
Which explained why she and William were late diners at the Tavern. She’d waited until after dog training ended, in case she could connect with Damon. Had she known William was there, watching her?
And exactly how much watching did he do?
Ew.
Abruptly, Blanche added to Clara, “Gotta go. Get me on TV and we’ll talk more.”
She went inside the office, having never once looked at me.
* * * *
“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize her right away in the Roger. It was dark when I saw her with Damon, but still—”
I cut off Clara’s self-remonstrations. “Probably that shirt.”
“It is weird.” She chuckled.
Released from the staring cats and Blanche’s oddly mesmerizing impression of a semi-zombie, a suspicion popped into my brain . . . and out of my mouth as I settled into the passenger seat of the van amid the dogs’ greetings.
“Was it my prejudice against her shirt playing tricks with my mind or did she indicate she was messing around with Damon to get information out of him?”
Looking up from her phone, Clara’s eyes narrowed. “What she said . . . It could be interpreted that way. But do you think she’d have the smarts to be a spy, try to get information to help her husband’s company?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly.
We looked at each other, then turned in unison to look back at the car wash’s office, where — presumably — husband and wife had reunited.
“All the business stuff he talked about first . . . That sure seems to be his focus,” I said.
“I was thinking I’d ask Glen Selka if he knows anything.”
“Perfect.”
Her high school classmate achieved great success after leaving North Bend County and remained grateful that we’d helped him out of a tight spot.
She said, “I’ll call Glen and Gundy Vance.”
As owner/manager of Shep’s Market, he knew local business people. And we’d cleared up issues affecting his family, too.
“Good thought.”
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow, I have things to pick up, so it’ll look casual. Also, we should talk to Willow again. If we go to the dog park early tomorrow, maybe Donna can set us up—”
“Uh, I’m going to skip the dog park tomorrow. I have a . . . a lunch. Meeting people in Indiana. For . . . lunch,” I finished lamely.
She regarded me for a beat, blinked, and said, “Okay. We’ll wait to talk to Willow again when we can do it together. And I’ll take Gracie and Murph to the dog park tomorrow.”
Friendship is not asking the question you know your friend doesn’t want to answer.
Also, friendship is taking three dogs to the dog park alone.
“You should check with Urban on Damon’s business dealings. Get his view,” Clara added.
That cost her a few friendship points, though dwarfed by the ones she’d piled up.
“But first,” she continued cheerily, “we have to go to Carol’s house. I messaged the group who were at brunch today, asking about Damon’s business practices. They didn’t have anything new on that, but Linda said we need to talk to Carol more, and now’s a good time.”