Mattress Mart Murder (9 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Chloe walked out to her car, she saw that Detective Thicke was waiting for her with his arms folded. 

Chloe was confused.  “What are you going here?”

He didn’t waste any time going after her.  “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

“I just had a very interesting conversation with Jason Diamond,” Chloe replied. 

“It seems like you’ve had a number of interesting conversations today.”

“What can I say?  I’m a social person.”

“Am I supposed to believe it’s just a coincidence that all your conversations have been with murder suspects?”

“Marty Diamond’s murder has been on everyone’s mind,” Chloe said. 

The detective stared her down.  “Nice try, Ms. Cook.  I know you’ve been interfering with my investigation, and I don’t like it one bit.”

“I’m just trying to find out the truth.”

“This is official police business.  It’s my job to find out the truth.”

“And how close are you to doing that?”

“What part of official police business did you not understand?  I’m not sharing details about a case with you,” Detective Thicke said. 

“I see you haven’t arrested Kristina Miller, or any of the other suspects.  I guess that means you weren’t able to pull prints off of the murder weapon,” Chloe replied. 

Detective Thicke became short with her.  “That’s none of your business.  Now stay away from this case before I have you arrested for interfering with an official investigation.”

And there it was, a fitting end to a wildly stressful day.  Despite the detective’s warning, Chloe was determined to find Marty Diamond’s killer.  But first, she needed to give her mind a break.

***

Chloe knew that stopping by her parent’s house would give her a much-needed change of pace.  At the least, she could guarantee that a door wouldn’t be slammed in her face.  What she didn’t anticipate was how dogged her mother Amanda would be in pushing her own agenda.

“Have you decided about the blind date yet?” Amanda asked. 

Chloe never had to wonder where she got her directness from.  Amanda Cook wasted no time with small talk.  As it was, Chloe was barely able to take a seat at the dining room table, no less take a bite of her lobster roll before her mother peppered her with the first question. 

Grandma Betty laughed and shook her head. 

Amanda became self-conscious.  “I didn’t know I said something funny.”

“Dear, everyone in this town is abuzz about the murder that just occurred, and you’re more concerned about a blind date with Dr. Foot,” Grandma Betty said.

“Maybe I prefer to talk about rosier topics than people being murdered,” Amanda replied.

So much for Chloe telling her family that she was investigating the case.  

Chloe’s father Robert jumped in.  “That’s my darling wife, alright.  When she sets her sights on something, she refuses to take no for an answer.”

Grandma Betty nodded.  “Politicians should thank their lucky stars that Amanda had no interest in public office.  She’d wipe the floors with the lot of them.”

With true tunnel vision, Amanda brushed off the jokes, and continued with her agenda.  “Just so you know, Dylan’s last name is not Foot.”

“What a missed opportunity.  Talk about a great name for a podiatrist that would be,” Grandma Betty joked. 

“What matters most is that Dylan is a great guy,” Amanda insisted. 

“So you keep telling me, but you and I have some differing opinions of what makes a great guy sometimes,” Chloe said. 

“Not this time.  Take my word for it, if you go on this date, you won’t be disappointed,” Amanda replied.   

“Uh oh.  There’s the hard sell.  Good luck saying no to that,” Robert joked. 

Grandma Betty could attest to that.  “Tell me about it.  I’ll never forget that blind date she set me up with Lance Messner a few months ago.  What a mess he turned out to be.  The man was as much fun as getting a mammogram.”

Amanda didn’t like anyone messing with her sales pitch.  “Hey, don’t taint my daughter’s mind--”

“With the truth?  Lance was a walking calamity.  It’s not my fault that not all octogenarians are created equal.”

Amanda decided to ignore Betty’s statements and focus directly on Chloe. 

She turned to her daughter and stared deep into her eyes.  “Have you decided about the blind date?”

“Not yet,” Chloe answered.

Amanda groaned.  “Well, why not?”

“I’ve been a little busy,” Chloe replied. 

Amanda furrowed her brow.  “Doing what?”

Now would be the time for Chloe to reveal that she’d taken up sleuthing.  She decided that she didn’t want to draw that much attention to herself and get dragged into an inevitable lecture about how she was putting herself in harm’s way. 

Chloe instead went in a different direction with her answer.  “Just relaxing.”

“You mean sitting around?  Love isn’t going to come to you dear.  You have to go out there and grab it yourself.  That’s why this date is going to be so good for you.  You’ll see love is right there for the taking,” Amanda explained. 

Grandma Betty laughed.  “Love?  She hasn’t agreed to even go on a date yet and you’re already filling her head with delusions that love is in the air.”

“It’s not a delusion,” Amanda argued. 

“Maybe, maybe not.  But one thing is for certain.  You’re putting her in a crazy bind, pressuring Chloe to go on a date she hasn’t expressed interest in, knowing I had a bad experience when you play matchmaker with me,” Grandma Betty said. 

“Past missteps don’t ensure future failure,” Amanda replied. 

“True, but think of it like this—if she doesn’t say yes, she’ll be disappointing her mother.  If she does say yes, the date may leave her a different kind of disappointed.  That’s what you call a no-win situation, and rarely do thing end well when people are backed into corners,” Grandma Betty declared. 

Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in Chloe’s head. 

“That’s it,” Chloe said. 

Grandma Betty was confused.  “What’s it?”

Chloe’s mind was racing like crazy.  The answer to cracking the murder case had been right in front of her this whole time, she just couldn’t see it until now.  Yet at that moment, things became crystal clear. “Everything makes sense now.”

“I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talking about,” Amanda replied. 

Chloe turned to her family with a big smile on her face.  “I know who killed Marty Diamond.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

The next morning, Chloe parked on the sidewalk a few houses down from Lucy Lemke’s place.  Chloe waited patiently for Lucy to walk out to her car to head to work. 

The minute Chloe saw Lucy leave her place and get into her car, she pulled into Chloe’s driveway and parked right behind her, blocking Lucy in. 

That left Lucy briefly startled, which was just enough time for Chloe to get out of her car and approach Lucy’s driver’s side window. 

“Just the woman I’ve been waiting for,” Chloe said. 

Lucy became furious.  “What do you think you’re doing?  I warned you to stay away from my house.”

“It stinks being backed into a corner, doesn’t it?  Although you should be used to it by now,” Chloe suggested. 

“I’m telling you for the last time, get out of here--”

“Or what, you’ll kill me like you did Marty Diamond?”

“I didn’t kill Marty.  I was at a movie,” Lucy insisted. 

“Right, Love Until It Hurts.  About that, I don’t know about you, but it just wrecked me when Nate died at the end of that movie,” Chloe said. 

Lucy had almost no conviction in her voice as she agreed.  “Uh, yeah.  Me too.”

Chloe smiled.  “Gotcha.”

Lucy furrowed her brow.  “What are you talking about?”

“Nate didn’t die at the end of Love Until It Hurts.  If you had actually watched the movie, you’d know that.  But you didn’t.  After the first movie, you left the theater to kill Marty Diamond.”

Lucy went into full denial mode.  “No.  That’s not--”

Chloe pressed on.  “Marty put you in a no-win situation.  If Stewart stayed with you, you’d get to keep your boyfriend, but forever lose access to the money both you and your father had been craving from the Diamond family since Marty jobbed your dad out of a hefty lawsuit settlement years before.  At the same time, if Stewart chose his inheritance over his relationship with you, you’d lose both your boyfriend and the inheritance money you’d been eyeing.  The only way you’d be able to keep both was for Marty to be out of the picture.  So you waited for Marty to come out of the mattress mart, stabbed him in the back as he was walking to his car, then called in an anonymous tip to the police framing Kristina Miller, didn’t you?”

Lucy erupted with rage.  “Yeah, I did it.  I killed Marty.”

Lucy then swung the door of her car open with as much force as possible.  The door hit Chloe and knocked her back.

“Now I’m going to do the same to you,” Lucy said.  

Lucy bull rushed Chloe with her hands out, ready to choke her. 

Chloe used her self-defense moves to sidestep Lucy’s attack, then grabbed Lucy’s arm, and flipped her on the ground. 

It was then that Detective Thicke and a slew of deputies came out from the side of Lucy’s house, where they had been hiding all along. 

As the deputies drew their guns on Lucy, Chloe got out of their way and joined the detective. 

Knowing she was caught, Lucy let her emotions fly.  “Marty Diamond has been the root of my family’s unhappiness for as long as I’ve known him.  He took money out of my father’s pocket, and he was threatening to take even more from me, including the love of my life.  He had to be stopped.”

“You stopped him alright, and now you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars paying for what you did,” Chloe said. 

Detective Thicke turned to his deputies.  “Cuff her, boys.”

***

As the police deputies loaded Lucy Lemke into the back of a squad car, Chloe and Detective Thicke shared a moment alone. 

“I told you my friend Kristina was innocent,” Chloe said. 

“You sure went a long way to prove your point,” Detective Thicke joked. 

“Hey, if you’re going to do something, do it well.”

“What’s your day job again?”

“I sell cosmetics,” Chloe said. 

The detective’s eyes opened wide.  “You don’t see that every day.  Veteran detective upstaged by gumshoe cosmetics saleswoman.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“After twenty years with the force, I thought my days of being surprised were over.  After all, I’ve seen some crazy things on this job.”

“That being said, I think we should take a moment and focus on what’s really important,” Chloe suggested. 

“You mean whether you have any other hidden talents other than solving crimes?  Like say, rocket science…or lion taming,” Detective Thicke joked. 

The detective’s ego had taken a serious beating.  He seemed completely baffled as to how Chloe could have gotten the better of him.  The forced humility was manifesting itself in all kinds of awkward jokes. 

“No.  The fact that the real killer is now in custody,” Chloe replied. 

“You’re right.  By the way, thanks for cracking the case.”

“It’s like I said, I just wanted to help keep my friend out of jail.”

“Still, after some fine detective work by you, I can’t help but wonder if you’ve ever considered quitting your day job?”

Chloe shook her head.  “Nah.  I’ll leave the detective work to you boys in blue.”

Detective Thicke stared at her.

“Starting next time,” Chloe continued.  “Maybe.”

Detective Thicke gave Chloe another critical look. 

“I’m just kidding.  A badge makes a horrible fashion accessory,” Chloe added. 

Detective Thicke laughed. 

“Besides, I like selling makeup too much to give it up.  You know what they say, if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life,” Chloe said. 

“Unfortunately, I’ve been working both long and hard.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Although wearing the badge does have its perks,” Detective Thicke said. 

“Such as?”

“There’s always plenty of donuts to go around.  Want one?”

Chloe shook her head.  “I’m much more of a pie kind of girl.”