Dying for Dominoes Read online

  She tried the keys one by one.

  Finally, the lock opened. The key was marked Z01.

  Disappointment filled her. The drawer was empty except for a few folders pushed to the front of the drawer by its metal follower block. A small box was shoved against the back. Pulling the manila folders to her lap, she sat down to read. There were files, documents, insurance forms, and leases for cell tower sites with such legalese that although she read and then reread them, they still didn’t make sense. One folder had a page of ruled paper with a list of names written by hand. Some were crossed out, others had a check mark beside them, and three of the names were marked with hand-drawn stars. She didn’t recognize any of the names.

  She pulled the final folder out and opened it. Bingo. Newspaper clippings from Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana crammed the folder in disarray. She scanned through them quickly, studying the photos more closely, but didn’t recognize any of the people in the photos or their names. She grabbed one of the articles and began to read.

  It was about Zachary Taylor. Not Zachary Taylor, the twelfth president of the United States. This was a Zachary who had a different past. One that had to have changed before he became Zelda’s Zack Carlisle.

  She stifled a whistle. Zack wasn’t who he claimed to be. Not if he had different names in every state.

  Amy jumped when Zack’s cell phone rang.

  Should she answer it? The thought was swift. She let it ring, hoping it would capture the number and record any message the caller might leave. It could be a clue.

  Now intrigued, she read the newspaper articles in detail. They were an odd collection of strange stories, but now that she realized Zack was a man of many names, it was easier to read between the lines. Zachary Taylor, ZC Dupoint, Zack Carlisle—they were all the same man who left a trail of angry people behind him wherever he went.

  He was mentioned in real estate deals that went belly-up. He was blamed by those who were burned as the cause and culprit in his scams. He was named in lawsuits for promises gone bad. There were stories about cell towers and cell tower leases, and how investments could be secured for a high rate of return. There were obituaries for people she didn’t know. One was a story about a bereaved husband who lost his wife and dog to cancer and blamed the cell tower that sat on his land. There was a news clipping about bird deaths, another about bee deaths, and a beekeeping farm that bankrupted when their commercial colonies mysteriously died. Mysteriously, it claimed, right after a cell tower was erected nearby.

  The last page in the folder was a flyer claiming that cell towers caused brain tumors because of the radiation being emitted.

  Amy laughed out loud. Zack had kept it.

  Zelda had borrowed Zack’s Hummer to get redbud trees at an end-of-the-season sale. She had dragged Amy along. Zelda purchased several trees, but when they rang up at $6.66 apiece, Amy insisted she add three angel wing begonias to her purchase. The angels would make it right.

  “Never mess with the Fates,” Amy told Zelda as they loaded the trees in the car. It might be a silly superstition, like crossing your fingers or knocking wood, but it didn’t hurt to be safe.

  The flyer was on the windshield when Amy and Zelda got back to the Hummer in the parking lot. Neither one of them questioned why someone would leave it there, nor did they notice if the message was meant for them alone or shared with everyone parked at Walmart that day.

  “Cell phones and cell phone towers are going to fry our brains into crispy pork rinds,” Amy read to Zelda out loud. They were on their way home via the fun route, as they called it—through the liquor store drive-through, down the back bumpy roads so they could smoke the roach they found in Zack’s ashtray, and then finally through the Dairy Queen drive-through for chocolate ice cream cones.

  They left the flyer in Zack’s front seat.

  A smile crept across her lips. Zack had kept it. He must have wondered if it were true.

  Something pinged in her head and she looked at the paper again, noticing a corner was missing, as if someone had snatched it from a corkboard, or another person’s hands. Opening the envelope of Zack’s pocket items, she pulled out the scrap of paper she had noticed earlier. The corners weren’t a match.

  Disappointed, she put the scrap back in the envelope and sat back against the worn cushion of the chair.

  Suddenly she felt at odds with her surroundings. She was nosing around in someone else’s business, a dead someone’s business, in a house that wasn’t hers. These files and clippings belonged to a man now deceased, whose widow was her best friend. Guilt flooded her. Zelda would be angry if she found Amy thumbing through her husband’s private affairs. Would she feel betrayed, even if Amy was trying to help?

  Did Zelda know about these files, or was this yet another aspect of Zack’s life that Zelda shut out of her awareness? It was odd that he kept these newspaper clippings. Maybe he had remorse for people he harmed. Or maybe was he collecting them like a scrapbook of little trophies he kept locked up.

  Zack was a con man. The realization was powerful in her mind. It loomed like a beacon on the top of one of his towers.

  A con man. And he had taken Zelda as his fool.

  Maybe Zelda learned the truth about his past after she married him. Or maybe she didn’t know still. And what could she do about it any of it, if she had?

  Was that why she wanted Zack out of her life? They all thought he was rude and abusive. Now she knew there was even more to his despicable nature.

  She reached for the locked box in the back of the drawer. None of the keys fit. The contents, at least for now, would go unknown.

  A notebook calendar in the envelope took her to the day of his death. Zack lived a busy life until the end. She stuck the notebook in her pocket and moved on to the cell phone, now charged enough to use.

  Her belly grumbled. Grumbled again a few minutes later. What would be the harm? Zelda would never notice a sandwich missing.

  She rummaged around the fridge and found a package of bologna. Leaning against the counter, she rolled up and wolfed down three slices. She grabbed a jar of pickles and ate two spears. With surprise, she noticed the clock above the sink told her she had been there for three hours. It was a good thing Zelda was away for the day.

  She turned when she heard feet shuffling outside the front door, not ten feet from where she stood at the sink. Her heart banged in her chest. Zelda was back early from the spa! How would she explain what she was doing in the house? How would she get out of that little lie?

  Amy was poised for a quick flight when the doorbell rang.

  Zelda wouldn’t ring the doorbell.

  Amy crept to the hallway and padded silently to the door. The bell rang again, and then the intruder knocked.

  She peeked into the peephole.

  There were two uniformed officers on the step outside.

  “Zelda Carlisle,” a male voice said from the stoop. “Mrs. Carlisle!”

  Were they there to make an arrest? They must have found some evidence that convinced them of Zelda’s guilt. And maybe there were police at Rian’s house and Genna’s door at this very minute, too. Even at her apartment.

  Her mind sharpened into focus like the lens that zoomed in on the faces outside. She needed to make a decision right now. Right here. She either needed to give in to her friend’s unimaginable guilt and then find and destroy any evidence that could prove that guilt, or she had to find the real killer, because it didn’t seem as if the police were interested in looking any farther than Zelda’s front door.

  Could she convince herself one way or the other? Could she do whatever she needed to do? Wrong or right. Moral or not.

  It’s what family does.

  If Zelda had mowed Zack down in the parking garage, she had good reason. She could get a good lawyer. She could show defense. She could . . .

  The bell rang again.


  “Mrs. Carlisle,” the voice said again. Then silence.

  She heard the shuffle of feet. In the peephole, she saw the two policemen retreating down the walk.

  But they would be back. She knew they would be.

  Amy retreated to the hallway, hidden from the windows. She stood silently, her heart pounding. She crept back to the peephole. The police were gone.

  She tidied the room, closed the door behind her, and made her way back to her car.

  Safely back at her own apartment, she knew what she had to do. She was already in too deep. She had tossed out the shoes. She had lied. If she was going to be a loyal friend, her loyalty would have to start now.

  She needed a plan. She would start at the end of Zack’s day and work backward. But the parking garage of the Bennfield Hotel was the last place she wanted to be.

  With access to the inner workings of Zack’s world—his voice mail messages, contacts, and calendar of his whereabouts—she could follow in his footsteps. She felt like a stalker predicting her prey’s next move, but she pushed aside the feeling and moved on with her task.

  Deciphering the entries in the calendar was more difficult than she thought. While she could read the dates and times of his scheduled events, the diary entries were in a personal shorthand, a code language only he would understand. For each entry, there was a letter—a first name, she assumed—followed by a three-character post, like G94 or P42. She had no idea if they were roads, or addresses, or lockers at the Greyhound bus station.

  L91 belonged here, too.

  What did it open?

  She tried to play the voice messages. When it asked for the password, she tried the last four digits of the phone number, which she’d looked at in the phone’s settings earlier. It didn’t work, so she hung up and thought for a moment. She didn’t know Zack well, but she couldn’t imagine him thinking up a number difficult to remember. She called voice mail again, this time trying the four digits in their address. With a bit of luck, that worked, and the lady on the other end listed the date and time of the first message.

  “You son of a bitch,” a man yelled into the phone. “You told me my apple trees would be safe from your backhoe. I even staked out where to go. You asshole,” the man yelled on, “your idiot drove right through the orchard we planted last year. You’re going to pay for this, Carlisle. You’re going to pay for my trees or else—”

  The message ended abruptly. Whether a bad connection or an accidental call drop, she didn’t know for sure. But the next message played after the voice time stamped it.

  It was a woman’s voice, but no one Amy recognized.

  “Mr. Carlisle,” the woman intoned. Her voice was cold and exacting, like a schoolteacher scolding him for drawing outside the lines. “This is Margarite Schaffer from Blue Mountain. We will be expecting you at our church’s board hearing next Tuesday at six. Sharp. We are prepared to hear your proposal on why the church should consider the cell tower project with your company.”

  There was a brief silence. “I am—we are,” the woman corrected, “aware that your proposal includes several promises that appeal to our board’s financial interests. I trust those promises will be kept if we approve to move forward?”

  Again, there was a brief silence as if she were expecting him to respond.

  “I would encourage you to come prepared. There are strong opinions on either side.” The message ended without a farewell, just an audible click from the phone on the other end.

  Amy played the next message.

  “Carlisle,” a gruff voice said, “don’t be messing with our game plan, buddy. You make the case like we talked about and everything will be just fine. I guarantee the votes will go in your favor. If you haven’t already heard from that Schaffer woman, you can be expecting her call. Don’t be fooled,” the man warned. “She’s not an ally. And she’s got more pull than you think. She owns that church. I’m going to be out of town for a few days. Have to hop over to Hot Springs. Let’s meet up if you need an advance to get the job done. But get it done.”

  Click.

  Amy tapped play on the next message and finally recognized a voice.

  “Just got your message.” It was Rian. “Granny’s going visiting today. Call me back.”

  There was a message from Zelda that said she’d call him back later, and several missed calls, including three more from Zelda, and a call where no message was left at all. The numbers were listed on the phone, except for one. The last caller’s information was blocked.

  Would the police have already tracked down these callers to interview them about Zack’s death? She didn’t know, but she had to find out.

  If she called each person and pretended to be Zack’s secretary, maybe they would volunteer information without her having to ask too many questions. She wasn’t quite sure what questions to ask.

  She would have to wait until morning, though. It was too late in the day to do that now.

  “Okay, so let’s put these pieces together like shrewd Miss Marple might,” she said to Victor, who joined her on the couch and pushed his way onto her lap. She had no idea how Miss Marple would do it, even though she had read her fair share of Agatha Christie mysteries. It looked so simple on the page. It was a confusing riot of a mess in real life.

  “I’ll just call and say there’s been a change in scheduling.” Victor was listening to every word. “And that Mr. Carlisle isn’t available. That’s not a lie. I’ll ask what I can do to assist them. Maybe I can tell from their reaction what to do next.”

  Victor bumped her hand with his head.

  “We know Zack stopped at the liquor store to buy a bottle of champagne,” she said to the cat. He also stopped at a Victoria’s Secret. The police returned the bag of garments to Zelda. She had tossed them in the trash. The receipt for the purchase was probably inside the shopping bag.

  Amy suddenly felt foolish. What did she know about solving a crime? That was police work. She wasn’t trained to hunt down clues or make sense of what she discovered when she found it. She couldn’t even make sense of her dreams.

  But she had to keep her best friend out of jail. Or all of them out of jail.

  Her friends were not cold-blooded killers. Or hot-blooded killers. Or killers of any kind.

  “Stay focused,” she told Victor. “Stay focused and think. What else do we know?”

  She drew in a quick breath. “Ha! We know he met Rian to pick up Granny’s sweaters. And he was alive then. Zack Carlisle was alive then.”

  Victor jumped off her lap when the phone rang.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Zelda said. Her voice was quivering into the phone.

  “You’re home early,” Amy said. “And you hate exercise as much as you hate liver. What’s wrong?”

  Zelda exhaled into the phone. “Someone has been in my house. Things are not how I left them.”

  Amy’s heart raced. What had she missed? Her mind traveled through time. What had she left behind?

  “Zack’s cell phone and keys are gone from his office. I know I left them in that envelope on his desk, the one the police gave me. I was going to put everything in his file cabinet, until . . .” her voice faded away. “The envelope is still there, but not his phone, not his keys. Someone has been here,” she repeated.

  Amy heard Zelda’s fear seeping through the phone like a thick, cold fog. She could put her friend at ease with a simple admission. She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “The drawers to Zack’s file cabinet were open, too,” Zelda added. “The drawers are empty.”

  “What? The files are all gone?”

  She hadn’t taken the files. Someone followed in her footsteps. But who? And when? The skin prickled on the back of her neck. Someone must have been watching the house when she slipped in the backdoor with the key. Someone was watching when she slipped out
of the house!

  Zack’s killer? Had Zack’s killer been there all along? Was he watching and waiting for—for what? The thought made her shiver.

  No wonder Zelda was scared.

  “Have you seen Genna or Rian?” Zelda asked. “Neither is answering the phone.”

  “Not today. Why?”

  “I just thought maybe they stopped by the house while I was gone. Do you know if anyone was here while I was at the spa?”

  “No,” Amy lied. She had been there. The police had been there.

  “Should I call the police? It might be important.”

  “Yes,” Amy agreed. “There might be fingerprints or something that could lead them to an arrest . . .” Amy faltered. “Wait, no!”

  It would be her fingerprints they found. She hadn’t taken the files, but she had fumbled her way through the file cabinet with bare and sweaty hands.

  “Let’s wait until we talk to Genna and Rian, just in case.”

  Zelda was silent. Amy wondered what thoughts were going through her mind but couldn’t ask. She was a heartbeat away from spilling her secret. How could she tell Zelda the police had come for her without showing her hand?

  If Zack’s killer had followed her and taken those files for protection, then any fingerprints left behind would be substantial evidence. That would be good. Except her prints would be known, too, especially now that they had her fingerprints on file. They had all agreed to have their fingerprints taken to remove them from any suspicion. Or so they had been told. They had agreed after their interviews. Rian had simply refused.

  How would Amy explain her foraging in those drawers to Zelda? Or to the police?

  No matter which way she turned her thoughts, she felt trapped by the unknown. This might be their chance to uncover a suspect in Zack’s murder. Or it might put the four of them more rooted in the muck.

  “Nach a Mool,” Amy said under her breath.

  “I need to get out of this house,” Zelda said. “I don’t feel safe. I feel watched. Like someone is waiting to pounce. Come get me and let’s take a drive.”