The Beginning (13 page)

“Oh, yes,” Drew said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I talked to people who said they saw her with several suitcases. She took a cab to the airport, no small feat here. Then she flew to Miami. Mr. Neuspech found that much out. “

“And then?” Minerva said.

“And then, nobody seems to know. Some thought she was already dead. Some thought she ran off with a man. I vote for the latter.”

“What man? Did anyone have an idea?” I asked.

“There were rumors of a real-estate tycoon.  Oh, but some people said she ran off with the family lawyer, George.”

“George?”I said. He doesn’t strike me as her type. Not at all.

“But he’s still here,” I said.

“Yes, but he left for Miami on the same plane. He has a condo there, a very expensive condo. But then he came back a week later. However, after that he went to Miami almost every weekend. Claimed his mother was sick.”

“Was she?” Minerva asked.

“I don’t know.  I never asked and he never told me,” Drew said. “I helped him sell his house here and he moved in to an apartment, but we weren’t exactly friends. In fact he gives me the creeps.”

Just then Marlowe came out of the garage. One of his officers was carrying the shovel in a garbage bag. I guess there wasn’t an evidence bag large enough.

Marlowe pointed at me, “Did you touch the shovel?”

“Ew, no. I touched the tarp. I’m not that stupid. And, by the way, I’m looking to buy this place, so my fingerprints are probably everywhere. I’ve touched almost every surface in this house.”

“So, you’re going to use Frank’s money to buy this eyesore,” Marlowe said.

Drew and Minerva looked at him with open mouths. Ok, I wasn’t the only one who was offended by that statement.

“First of all, I happen to like this place, it has a lot of potential, unlike someone I know. Second, no, I am not going to use Frank’s money, I’m going to use my money. Money I have worked for and saved my entire life. Not that it’s any of your business. If you have nothing else, Chief Campion, we’ll be leaving now.”

“Nothing further, but don’t leave town,” was all he had to say. His face was red, but I didn’t care. I didn’t like the man.

“Like I was gunna,” I rolled my eyes at him and walked away.

“I can’t believe the way you talked to the Chief,” Drew said.

“He rubs me the wrong way.”

“That’s right, you stand up for yourself,” Minerva said.

As we walked toward our cars I told Drew to put in the offer that she and I had discussed. Then Minerva and I got in to my little yellow car and drove back toward the hotel.

We stopped for lunch on the way and started to make tentative plans, but we didn’t get very far. We agreed to get together later in the week to start making real plans. Minerva was so excited that she sat in the lobby with a note book and wrote down every idea that she had. I was excited for her.

I went to my room. I had a headache and I wanted to lay down for a little bit. I was exhausted and dealing with Marlowe drained my energy.

I was awakened by the ringing of the phone. I looked at the clock. It said seven o’clock. But was it AM or PM? I looked closer. It was AM. Wow, how tired was I? I answered my phone to shut it up.

“Good morning, Misty. “ It took me a moment to place the voice. It was Drew.

“Good morning, Drew, you’re up early.”I tried to sound cheerful, but I wasn’t sure I pulled it off.

“I always am. I love mornings. They’re so full of promise.”

I liked her a little less right now.

“I have news,” she continued.” First, did you hear that they arrested Mr. Neuspech for the murder of his wife?”

I sat up in bed. “What? No. When?”

“Some time last night. Makes sense, I mean she was terrible to him. I guess he just lost it. Not too bright hiding the murder weapon in his own garage, though. I mean he was selling the house. He knew people would be looking at it.”

“Very stupid,” I agreed.

“Anyway, looks like he’s anxious to sell. He needs the money for his defense; he’s got to pay Mr. Dirkmyer with something. He’s already been denied bail.”

Oh sure, Adolf gets a quick bail hearing. Why couldn’t Jerome?

“Wait, who’s Mr. Dirkmyer?” I asked out loud.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Neuspech’s lawyer,” she said.

“Oh, George. So did he accept the offer?” I asked.

She took a deep breath and exhaled before she answered, “He did. We just have to wait for the home inspection. Also, we have to make sure there are no legal reasons he can’t sell the house. As soon as I find out more I’ll let you know.”

“Ok. Thanks, Drew. I’ll wait for your call.” With that I hung up.

Wow, he accepted my offer and I low-balled him. He must have been desperate to sell. Then it hit me, was I really going to invest my money in that place? I already had a theme park to help refurbish, well I supervised any way. I had a lot on my plate. Did I want to take this on too?  Then I thought, you know what, why not? After all it was my money, I had earned it, I had saved it, and it was my choice. And, I’d have help with the house too.  Yes, I was going for it.

I remembered what Marlowe said about it being Frank’s money. No, Frank never wanted me to pay any of the bills; it would have bruised his ego if I had. And he trusted me to spend money responsibly. I had started working when I was twelve. I kept working until after the kids were born.  I saved almost every penny that I had earned. Then when I went back to work I deposited every paycheck in to that account and never took a penny out. Now, over thirty years later it was a lot of money.

Originally I saved the money to surprise Frank. It was supposed to be for when Frank and I retired, to ensure we’d have no financial worries.  I thought we could travel, see things we’d never seen together, do things we’d never done together. Instead it would now be invested in something that would hopefully help earn money for me for when I retire.

I got up and made coffee in my little pod coffee maker. I’d gotten so sick of the hotel coffee that I went out and bought my own coffee maker, coffee, creamer, sugar, and filters. I sipped my vanilla coffee as I got showered and dressed for the day. I was feeling pretty good.

After my shower I went down to the lobby and had the free breakfast that the hotel provided. Most of us who had been staying at the hotel for these past few weeks, no longer did the free breakfast. Like the buffet, we were getting a little burned out eating the same thing day after day. But I knew that the hotel owner was trying to please us. (After all, we were paying her a lot of money and filling her rooms.) She would do her best to add some variety to the breakfast. Usually In the form of a different pastry or fruit, but she tried. The only problem was that I missed a hot breakfast. I wanted eggs and bacon. I wanted to cook again.

That, I realized was my problem, I wanted to cook again. In my own home. There were many, many perks to living in a hotel. But there were many draw backs, too. I found myself really wishing the sale of the house goes through quickly so I can be in my own home again. I really wanted a place I could go to every night that belonged to me. Ok, I was getting depressed, maybe I should think of something else.

That’s when Frankie came out of the elevator. “Mom, why didn’t you tell me you found the murder weapon?” he said a little louder than I thought he should have.

I looked around the room to see if anyone was shocked by the announcement. There was only one other man sitting there and he did not seem to care about anything but his news paper.

“Because, I was sickened by it. Because when I got back yesterday I fell asleep immediately.”

“How could you fall asleep after that?” he said between bites of cheese Danish.

“I had a really bad headache. Maybe I was just worn out. Too much excitement for your old Mom. Frankie, aren’t you sick of the breakfasts here?”

He stopped eating and looked at me. “No, why?”

“It’s the same thing day after day.” I said trying to not let the lady behind the desk hear me.

“So?”

“So don’t you want some variety?”

“That’s right,” he said, “I forgot you didn’t know much about my lifestyle back on good ole PA.”

“You made a lot of money back in good ole PA. I don’t quite know what you mean?”

“I made a lot of money, and I spent as little of it as possible. I spent most of my time at work, ten to twelve hours a day, sometimes more, five or six days a week. I lived like a college student. My cabinets had ramen noodles, mac and cheese, canned soups, stuff like that. “

“But, you’ve told me about all the wonderful places you’ve eaten.” Boy was I confused.

“Yeah, but only when I wanted to impress clients. Then I would only eat half and take the rest home. I’d tell my clients I didn’t believe in wasting food, but in reality I was saving every penny so I could retire by the time I was fifty. You know sometimes my clients would even let me take their leftovers home.”

So
not
the image I had of his lifestyle.  “Um, wow,” was all I could say.

“Learned it from you,” he said. “You and Dad saved whenever you could so you could retire in style.”

“Yeah, but we ate decent food and had variety.”

“You saved your way, I save mine.”

“I suppose that’s why your father is considering retiring and moving here to help us. He can take the financial risk.”

“Yes, he had a great financial advisor.” Frankie gave me that little boy smile he’s so good at. He could get away with anything with that smile. Except with me and he knew it.

“What are you doing today?” I asked him.

“I have several meetings at the park. Do you want to come along?”

“Wait, shouldn’t I be at these meetings? I am part owner?”

“If you want you can come. A lot of it will be financial and I thought you’d get bored. “

“Yes, I would. Keep me up to date. And, next time tell me when there are meetings scheduled.”

Frankie didn’t know it but I knew how to run a business. I was successful once upon a time.

“Sorry, Mom, I will. Today you can go around and check on the progress so far. We should be doing that anyway.”

“Love to. Speaking of which, has the scene been released so we can start building the garage?”

“Yeah, two days ago. They guys are working overtime to try and catch up.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Frankie looked up at me, “I thought I did. Sorry.”

“Maybe you did and I forgot. My mind has been on other things.”

“Yeah, like being a detective,” he said in an excited sort of voice.

“Any way. So then everything is on time at the park. So far,” I said as I crossed my fingers.

I added the “so far” as an antijinx. I was sure something would eventually go wrong, the odds were with it. After all Adventure Universe had all eight planets under some form of renovation. We were also adding employee parking and administrative buildings in the back. Everything was happening all at once. There wasn’t one area of the park that wasn’t undergoing some sort of renovation. It was exciting, but also a bit overwhelming. And even a bit scary.

We were getting a lot of the work done at cost or cheaper, by some well established people in their fields, thanks to Frankie. But, it was still scary. All of the money I ended up with after the divorce was invested in the park. A lot of Frankie’s money was invested in that park.  I had a blind faith that we were doing the right thing, maybe even a feeling of destiny. And, Frankie never advised against it. So, it must be ok. After all, the kid’s a genius.

As we pulled up in the front of the park I counted eleven construction cranes. Yeah, we had a lot going on. The front entrance was finished except for the sign. An artist friend of Frankie’s had designed the sign and it was currently being made in some factory somewhere. I couldn’t wait until it arrived. We intended to cover it and only reveal it on opening day, but I refused to wait. As soon as it got here I wanted to see it.

When we got out Frankie went to my car’s tiny trunk to get our hard hats. Somehow he had found a purple one for me, my favorite color. He was smiling as he presented it to me. I looked at the hat and I saw why. He had put my name on it, and a title.

“CEO?” I asked him.

“Would you prefer Madame President?” he said.

“I don’t know,” was all I could say.

“You’re the boss, Mom. You can put someone else in the CEO seat later if you want, but I prefer to keep this a family run, privately funded park. We have more control that way”

“You’re right,” I said as I put the hat on my head. “We’ll discuss my lack of qualifications later.”

“Lack of qualifications has never stopped you before,” he smiled at me.

“Thank you. Now let’s go to work.”

Together we walked through the new entrance. I wanted to visit each planet today. So I left him and turned right so I could go to the kid themed planet first. This was same place where we met Jerome for the first time. It was different now. It was bright and colorful. You could read the signs. I would have taken the kids here when they were little. I heard the carousel music starting and decided to head that way. As I approached I was overcome with joy. Jerome was there. He was working on the carousel. I hadn’t seen him since the day of the hearing. I ran over and gave him a hug.

“Now ma’am, you’re going to get paint all over that pretty blouse of yours,” he said. But he was smiling and he gave me a real hug.

“I don’t care. I’m too happy to see you. How are you?”

“Well, I’m glad to be back at home with Marcella and the kids. You don’t realize how good your life is until it’s almost taken away from you.”

I smiled at him and agreed. I was there once; I completely understood how he felt. The carousel was looking great and I told him so.

“Well, ma’am she is my baby,” he said smiling at the horse he’d been working on.

“Jerome, we talked about this. Could you and Marcella please call me Misty?”

“I will try,” he said.

“Good. I want everyone here to be on a first name basis. Even the horses,” I said giving his horse a pat n the head.

“I’ll work on it. As for Matilda here, she’ll be ready for opening day.”

“Well that’s good. I hope everything else will.”

“Have faith, the Lord will help us if he deems us worthy.”

“Yeah, but does he?” I didn’t have faith as strong as Jerome did, but sometimes I wished I had.

Jerome smiled and nodded his head. “He does. By the way, ma’am, I mean Misty, did you hear the news?”

“About what?” I was worried, what was going wrong now?

“About Mr. Neuspech. They arrested him for the murder of his wife. Found the shovel in his garage.”

“Yeah, I heard.” Good, it seemed it wasn’t common knowledge that I was the one who found it.

“And that her blood was in that garage. Apparently he tried to clean it, but they have tools that can find it even if you use bleach.”

“Yeah, they do,” was all I said.

“Don’t worry; I’m sure William would do a blessing over the house for you if it would make you feel better.”

The house? Was it common knowledge that I wanted to buy the house? Instead I asked, “William? Marcella’s dad?”

Jerome nodded his head. “He’s the preacher at our church.”

“Oh. Yeah, that would be great, I’d feel better. In fact, you gave me an idea; we should do something like that for opening day here. Like a blessing for the park and the community it serves.”

Jerome smiled at this. “If you like, I could ask William and see if he wouldn’t mind arranging something.  If we could get all the churches in town to participate, that would be great for us.”

“In a number of ways. Yes, blessing the park and blessing the house would be a very good idea. I love it.”

“Yeah, poor, Mr. Neuspech. He could use a blessing right now.”

“Why do you say that, Jerome?”

“Because ma’am, I mean Misty, I think he’s as innocent as I am. He didn’t kill that woman. He never even spoke bad about her, even though she was very mean to him. The only one who knew her that spoke bad about her was Mr. Dirkmyer.”