Murder at Veronica's Diner Page 8

  Owen smiled at Joyce and bowed his head theatrically in appreciation of her compliment. An interesting thought popped into Alberta’s head: Owen was more a character than a man. She wasn’t sure, however, if he was comic relief or villain. She didn’t completely trust him, but she had to admit she enjoyed the fact that at her age she could still be surprised by people. And, in turn, she could surprise them.

  “Is there something strange about the clock?” Alberta asked.

  “No, not at all,” Owen replied. “Rather ordinary, I will say.”

  “You were studying it so closely, I thought you found something out of the ordinary,” Alberta replied.

  Owen’s green eyes shimmered, but Alberta couldn’t tell if it was with delight or disdain. “Clocks such as this, with their ornate carvings, often had figurines on them of country girls or farmers,” Owen explained. “This one either didn’t have it originally or it broke off at some point in its history.”

  The women knew that Owen was referencing the Swiss girl figurine Alberta uncovered in the alleyway, but both knew that was a fact that definitely needed to remain undisclosed.

  “The one we had as kids didn’t have a figurine on it, but that would be a cute touch,” Alberta said. “Do you have anything like it in stock?”

  “Alas, no, not at the moment,” Owen said.

  “Have you sold one recently?” Joyce inquired.

  Shaking his head, Owen replied, “I don’t recall, but you’re free to inspect the inventory. I’m sure you’ll find that my clocks are much more unique than that one.”

  “You know what I’d rather do?” Alberta said. “Use your ladies’ room. I’ve been drinking way too much coffee lately.”

  “You’re in luck,” Owen replied. “The bathroom’s just been fixed. The whole block has had a problem for a week, but the town finally made it a priority and they’re starting to make the repairs. It’s right back there through the curtain, first door on your right.”

  “Thank you.”

  Safely behind the curtain, Alberta opened and closed the bathroom door to make it sound as if she was using the facility and proceeded to snoop around the back room. There wasn’t direct light in that portion of the shop so it was hard to see clearly, plus it wasn’t very large. Alberta looked to the left and was able to see the window looking out at the alleyway, the same window she and Joyce used to watch Owen interact with Scarface earlier.

  Looking around the room she didn’t see any drawers to rifle through, nor was there anything on the one table in the back right-hand corner. So much for taking advantage of an opportunity.

  Defeated, Alberta was about to return to the main room when she realized she was supposed to be using the ladies’ room, and if she didn’t flush, that would seem odd or, at the very least, unsanitary. Abruptly, she turned around and stepped on something that almost made her scream. What felt like a mouse was actually a thick piece of foam. Bending down to inspect it she realized it was nothing worth inspecting and gave it a playful kick, which led to another revelation. Underneath the piece of foam was a prayer card from St. Ann’s Church. It wasn’t the same church she’d attended while living in Hoboken, but since it was named after same saint, Alberta took it as a sign that a higher power was offering her a clue, and she did what every determined detective would’ve done—she pocketed the card. She gave the toilet a quick flush, turned on the sink to wash the dirt and dust from the card off her hands, and returned to the main room, where she found Owen and Joyce in mid-conversation.

  “That sounds awful, Owen. I’m so sorry.”

  “What sounds awful?” Alberta asked.

  “Owen was telling me about his migraines,” Joyce said.

  “Ocular migraines, to be precise,” Owen corrected. “They can cause me to go blind for days at a time.”

  “Dio mio!” Alberta exclaimed. “That does sound awful.”

  “As long as it isn’t permanent, I find the intestinal fortitude to muddle through,” Owen said. “When you’ve suffered with as many physical ailments as I have, you learn to deal with the pain of life.”

  A character indeed. Alberta thought Owen sounded like one of those old Italian martyrs she remembered her grandmother talking to on the front porch. The women, all dressed in the same black dresses and sensible shoes, were always complaining about some medical problem and always trying to top each other with who had the most miserable life. Imagine trying to win a contest by being the worst. Luckily, Alberta had shed her pessimistic attitude and had learned to embrace life and all its possibilities instead of focusing on its shortcomings and heartaches. It hadn’t been a quick journey to be able to look at life’s glass as half full instead of half empty, but she had made the journey and that’s what mattered.

  The only other thing that mattered now to Alberta was to get the heck out of Owen’s creepy clockery.

  “Thank you so much for your time, Owen,” Alberta said. “If I can’t find an exact duplicate for my sister’s gift, I’ll make sure to come back and look through your inventory and find a worthy substitute.”

  “It would be my pleasure to help you find the perfect gift,” Owen said. “As I always say, if you can’t find the clock of your dreams at the Tranqclockery, that clock doesn’t exist.”

  Once again Alberta was stymied for a reply, so once again she lied.

  “That is a terrific slogan, Owen!”

  In the car, Alberta and Joyce made sure not to say a word until they were safely down the block and there was no way Owen could see them from his window. When they were in the safety zone, they still didn’t speak, but instead cracked up laughing.

  “I don’t know if he’s psycho or looney tunes,” Alberta said.

  “Like I said, he’s eccentric,” Joyce replied, “but harmless.”

  “Even though he’s a liar?” Alberta asked.

  “Well, there is that,” Joyce said. “Did you find any clues while you were in the back room?”

  “Nothing except the fact that Owen is religious,” Alberta conveyed, pulling out the prayer card from her pocket. “But no sign of Scarface. He must’ve gotten away.”

  “Also too, he may never have left,” Joyce added. “He could’ve been hiding in the shop the entire time.”

  “Oh Madon! You could be right about that, but I didn’t see a hiding place in the back room,” Alberta said. “We must find out who this Scarface is and how he’s connected to the Clock Man.”

  “Scarface and the Clock Man?” Joyce said. “Berta, this mystery gets more frightening with every clue.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Colui che aiuta se stesso.

  Gina “Jinx” Maldonado hadn’t always known that she wanted to be a reporter. For the longest time she’d wanted to be a firefighter because red was her favorite color. Then, after she and her family barely escaped a hurricane, she became fascinated with meteorology and thought being a weather girl on the local TV station would be the coolest job in the whole wide world. It was only when she took a journalism course in college to fulfill an English requirement that she had an epiphany and realized she was meant to uncover truths and tell people’s stories. As an added benefit, she hoped to become famous along the way.

  That desire to win a Pulitzer Prize or anchor her own nightly news program never faded during her four years of college and traveled with her five bags of luggage and her beloved but beaten up Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed animal when she moved from Eufala, Florida, to Tranquility, New Jersey, after graduation. She told everyone the reason she was moving was because she needed to break into a news market near New York, but her mother, Lisa Marie, knew it was because Jinx wanted to break her mother’s heart. Maybe not intentionally, but the result was the same.

  Lisa Marie knew the only reason her daughter was moving to New Jersey was to reconnect with her grandmother, from whom Lisa Marie had been estranged for over a decade. The arguments and contentious relationship between Alberta and Lisa Marie were legendary, and after a lifetime of fights and reconcilia
tions and more fights and fewer reconciliations, Lisa Marie had called it quits and moved her family a thousand miles south. When Jinx made the announcement that she was relocating, Lisa Marie wasn’t surprised—she had expected it to happen one day—but like every mother in the history of history, when that day came she wished for one more day alone with her daughter.

  Experience taught Lisa Marie not to fight with her own child. She gave her some sound advice, let her know that she wasn’t going to stand in the way of her reunion with her grandmother, and that she was welcome home anytime she wanted to return. Jinx couldn’t have been more grateful. She’d thought for sure that her mother was going to give her a hard time for moving so far away and specifically, so close to her grandmother. It did help that her younger brother, Sergio, had stayed close by and was still living at home, having gone into business with their father, Tommy. But not having to deal with family stress and a relentless mother constantly begging her to move back home where she belonged allowed Jinx to focus on her career.

  Now in her second year at The Herald, Jinx was evolving into a good reporter, article by article. She was honing her skills, collecting bylines, filling up her virtual Rolodex with sources, and surprisingly, learning that the work itself was more fulfilling than the potential prize. There was no doubt that Jinx was still ambitious, but she understood that ambition without hard work and a track record was, as Alberta liked to say, as foolish as making lasagna for one person; it just didn’t make any sense.

  Which was why Jinx was thrilled Wyck had given her a solo byline on Teri Jo’s murder. Not so she could make a name for herself, but so she could tell Teri Jo’s story. In order to do that, she first needed to uncover who Teri Jo was.

  “How can she not have any family?” Jinx asked, perplexed. “Everybody’s got a family.”

  The moment Jinx posed the question to Veronica, she realized she was speaking as a lifelong member of the Ferrara clan and not an objective reporter who should know that life is not the same for everyone. There were many people who were orphans or without siblings, parents, or others like Jinx, who had moved far away from their family roots, so they were essentially alone. Then there were the people who were abandoned by their families and had to forge ahead through life on their own. Teri Jo could have been any of those people.

  “Sometimes I forget that not everyone is as lucky as I am,” Jinx said. “But this isn’t about me, it’s about Teri Jo, so let me start over. Do you know if she had any relatives?”

  Sitting on a stool at the counter next to Jinx, Veronica twirled a long strand of chestnut-brown hair through her finger and gazed into her coffee cup as if searching for an answer. But none came.

  “She didn’t have anyone,” Veronica said. “She was an only child and her parents died a while back.”

  “Do you know where they lived?” Jinx asked. “Or even where Teri Jo was born?”

  “I wish I could help, but the answers to both your questions are no,” Veronica replied.

  Jinx paused for a moment and tried to determine if Veronica was telling the truth or deliberately evading her questions. She didn’t know the woman very well, so she didn’t know what type of relationship she’d had with Teri Jo. Veronica took her employee’s murder very hard, but Jinx sensed that Veronica took the fact that Teri Jo was killed while on the job even harder. As if she was stressed out because her business and livelihood had been interrupted instead of the tragedy that a woman she had employed had been killed. That’s it! Jinx thought. Teri Jo was an employee and every employee had to fill out an application to get a job.

  “What about your employment forms? Teri Jo must have filled them out before she started working. May I look at those?” Jinx asked. “They might fill in some of the blanks.”

  The hair intertwined around Veronica’s finger was now being yanked to the side. Veronica smiled nervously in an attempt, Jinx thought, to vamp for time so she could come up with a reasonable answer, but when she spoke Jinx didn’t think her answer was reasonable at all.

  “We’re a diner, we don’t have a human resources department,” Veronica replied.

  “You must have payroll,” Jinx insisted.

  “Sure, but all the information I need to process a check is Teri Jo’s address, which you have, and her social security number, which I can’t give to you,” Veronica stated. “Listen, I don’t know if you’ve ever worked in a restaurant, but employees come and go like clockwork. I’ve been lucky that Luis and Teri Jo stayed with me for so long, but everyone else? They’re here for a few months or less, and then they’re gone, sometimes without a word, they just never show up for work again.”

  “You’re right, I’ve never been a waitress and I didn’t realize it was as transient as you describe,” Jinx confessed. “I guess that’s why you and Teri Jo became so close.”

  Again Veronica smiled, but this time there was no awkwardness, only true emotion. Her eyes tried to hold on to the goodness she felt for Teri Jo and all the positive attributes she possessed, but after a few seconds, when the sadness took over, Veronica shook her head in an attempt to ward off the tears.

  “It isn’t fair,” she said quietly. “Teri was a good kid, she was working hard to get her life back on track. Not too long ago she was on food stamps, but she was determined to get off government assistence, and she did.”

  “My Aunt Helen said Teri Jo had a bit of a difficult upbringing,” Jinx conveyed. “Did she confide in you about things that happened to her while growing up?”

  “Nothing specific,” Veronica said. “Just that she never had a support system and always felt alone. I don’t know why she left home, but I know she was on her own for a long time, and when you’re by yourself you often find yourself scrambling to live instead of living.”

  Jinx let Veronica’s last words sink in so she would remember them. Yes, she thought they were insightful, but she also thought Veronica unconsciously revealed a part of her own life.

  “Thanks so much, Veronica, you’ve been a great help,” Jinx said. “I want my articles to be more about Teri Jo the person instead of Teri Jo the murder victim, so if you think of anything else, please give me a call.”

  “I’ll do that,” Veronica said, taking Jinx’s card from her outstretched hand. “Though now that I’m back in business and short staffed, I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to make a social call.”

  * * *

  On her drive to The Herald, Jinx didn’t have that problem.

  “Freddy!” she yelled into the air after she heard her boyfriend’s voice. “You will not believe what just happened to me.”

  “You found another dead body,” he replied.

  “No! Why would you say that?”

  “Dude! Because you and your grandmother are the grim reaper’s henchwomen,” Freddy cried. “Every time you go outside, another corpse drops out of the sky.”

  “Freddy! That is so not true!”

  “It is too true,” Freddy challenged. “It doesn’t change how I feel about you, and I figure if I keep you close, the reaper will pass right on by me, so I’ll be safe. Despite your name, you’re kinda like my good luck charm.”

  Jinx felt herself smile at the sound of her boyfriend’s flirtatious voice, but she didn’t want to get sidetracked. She had called him for a reason, and that reason had nothing to do with being flattered.

  “Don’t you think it’s highly suspicious that Veronica, who was Teri Jo’s employer, doesn’t have any records of Teri’s background?” Jinx asked.

  “No,” Freddy replied.

  “What do you mean, no?”

  Clearly, that was the wrong answer, and even someone like Freddy, who was laid-back, knew he had to act quickly to rectify the damage he accidentally caused. What better way to prove that he was worthy of her forgiveness than to remind her he was a terrific entrepreneur.

  “Veronica doesn’t run a business like I do, Jinx,” Freddy began. “Her employees come and go. If she gets a good vibe and thinks she can trust t
hem, she hires them. Here at Freddy’s Scuba ’n’ Ski Shoppe we do background checks, call references, and in some instances require certification. It’s a whole different ball game.”

  The smile returned to Jinx’s face, but this time she didn’t let her annoyance with the way her interview with Veronica turned out diminish the pride she had in Freddy for taking on a new business venture. A few months ago, Freddy’s boss decided to retire and was looking to sell the business. When Freddy found out, he decided it was time for him to take a few steps up the corporate ladder. He said good-bye to being a mere scuba-diving instructor and said hello to becoming a small business owner.

  With help from Sloan and the Ferraras, Freddy revamped the business that up until then only catered to scuba diving and snorkeling, to expand its reach and include winter sports such as skiing, snowboarding, and snow-tubing. Like all business ventures, there was a certain amount of risk, but Freddy had told Jinx he wanted to prove to her and, most important, to himself, that he wasn’t going to back down from a challenge. Jinx fell in love with him a little more that day.

  “I still can’t believe I’m dating a CEO,” Jinx said.

  “Me neither,” Freddy said. “Do I know him?”

  “Shut up!” Jinx joked. “Thank you for making me feel better. I still find it hard to believe Veronica couldn’t be any more help. It makes me wonder if I should trust anything she tells me.”

  “Wow, you sound just like Aunt Helen,” Freddy said. “She doesn’t like Veronica very much either. I filled in at the animal hospital and volunteered with her, and that’s all she talked about.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Ask her yourself.”

  Which is exactly what Jinx did.

  “Why are you asking me?” Helen said on the other end of the phone.

  “Because you seem to have known Teri Jo better than anyone,” Jinx explained. “So please meet me at The Herald. I’m trying to track down Teri’s family, and Veronica was absolutely no help whatsoever. I mean, she was Teri’s boss, and she acted like I was asking her about a stranger.”