“It means that the two jerks Tommy owed the money to didn’t want to let him walk out of the bar without a beating.”
“And you stopped them.”
“And I stopped them,” I agreed. Then I added, “He’s got to get some help, Angie.”
“I know he does, Jeremy. I’ve talked to him about it until I’m blue in the face. Last week, Simon wanted to drag Tommy to an AA meeting, but that’s not the way to do it, and Simon understood that. It’s just that he gets so frustrated with my brother. Mostly for the kids’ sake. I mean, when Tommy’s sober, he’s a great uncle, but when he’s had a couple of drinks . . . well, at least he’s not a mean drunk, and he understands that he can’t get drunk in front of my children.”
“I know, Ang, but he still has to get some help. These guys tonight were low-level thugs, but they were still thugs. If I hadn’t been there, they would have hurt him.”
“I hear you, Jeremy. I’ll have another go at him tomorrow morning, when he wakes up. Then I’ll drive him down to get his car, so he can go to work. Anyway, thanks again.”
“Anytime, Ang, you know that.”
“And now that you’ve just done one favor, I have to ask you for another.”
“Fire away, kid.”
She took a deep breath and said, “A friend of mine, someone I play volleyball with at the Y, her husband was killed last week. Shot down in front of their house. The police say it was a robbery attempt gone bad.”
“And your friend doesn’t think so?”
“Rachel wouldn’t tell me why, but, no, she doesn’t. Or at least there’s enough doubt in her mind that she wants someone else to look into the situation. She talked to me about it at the funeral home, because she’d heard me mention once about you being a private investigator. She asked if I’d talk to you, see if you’d go and see her. I told her I’d ask you about it.”
“This was that shooting at The Poplars?”
“Yeah, that was it.”
“From what I remember, it seemed pretty cut and dried. The guy left his house to go to work, got shot to death a few seconds later. Cops figured somebody tried to mug him, the guy tried to fight the mugger off, got shot for his efforts. It’s been known to happen, Ang.”
“I know, Jeremy, but Rachel says there’s some other stuff involved. Look, I’m not saying she’s right, but she’s a friend, and if you could just talk to her, I think it might help. The lady’s in pain, Jeremy.”
“How well do you know her?” I asked.
“We met at the Y about six months ago, started going out for coffee after the games on Monday nights. I can’t say we’re best buds or anything like that, but I know her well enough to say that I don’t think she’s some wacko. Whatever she thinks is going on here, she’s very serious about it.”
“What about her husband? Did you know him?”
“Never met him. Rachel never said anything bad about him, at least not to me. From what little I know, their marriage seemed to be a good one.”
“Okay, Ang,” I said. “I’ll talk to your friend.”
Angie smiled and said, “Thanks, Jeremy. Just having someone like you listen to her, and maybe check things out a little, will probably make her feel a little better. I’ve got her phone number in the house. C’mon, let’s go say goodnight to the kids.”
As we stood up, she put her hand on my arm.
“I’ll talk to Tommy tomorrow, Jeremy.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m getting too old to be messing with thugs in bars. One of these days, someone’s liable to bounce me right out into the street.”
Angie stopped and looked at me for a minute. Then she led the way into the house, saying, “That’ll be the day, Jeremy. That’ll be the day.”
Chapter 3
After we got the kids settled, Angie went to get Rachel’s phone number while Simon and I had coffee in the kitchen. As we sat on stools at the center island, he just smiled at me.
“What?” I asked.
“She hasn’t talked to you about her friend, has she?” he said. “Not Rachel, the other one.”
“Un-uh,” I said. “Just Rachel, so far. What’s the situation with this other one?”
“Oh, I think I’ll let my wife handle that.” And he smiled again.
“Uh-oh. C’mon, Simon. What’s going on? Oh, damn, I just realized what it is. A blind date, right? Angie knows how I feel about blind dates.”
“Angie knows you need a good woman in your life.”
Simon and I turned to see Angie walking back into the kitchen. She handed me a slip of paper and said, “Here’s Rachel’s phone number. It’s Rachel Pendleton. I told her you’d probably call her tonight, okay?”
I put the paper in my pocket and said, “I’ll call as soon as I get home. Now, about this blind date.”
“It’s not a blind date, Jeremy, not really, anyway. I just think you and Laura should meet, that’s all.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back a little.
“Uh-huh. So tell me about Laura.”
“She works with me, transferred to Fairview at the beginning of this semester when a kindergarten position opened up at the school. You remember, Mrs. Seldon finally decided to retire, took up with that trombone player and moved to Phoenix.”
“Yeah, I remember that. So tell me about this Laura.”
Her name’s Laura Fleming. She’s about our age, a year or two younger, been teaching in the city since she graduated from college. She was over at Prospect, teaching 5th grade, but kindergarten’s what she really wanted, so when Louise’s position was posted, she applied and got it.”
“And you immediately thought, here’s the love of Jeremy’s life, I’ll just put the two of them together and get out of the way of the sparks. Ang, my social life is quite all right.”
“Your social life sucks, Jeremy,”
