Ripped Apart (A Ripple Effect Cozy Mystery, Book 5) Read online

  “Three whole weeks of grieving, huh?” Poor bastard. How could anyone expect the widower to waste away in his house, no doubt crying his eyes out in angst, for an entire month? I wanted to ask. Especially when there’s a blond bombshell, built like a brick shithouse, who’s come sniffing around.

  I’d only asked Jessie about his comment because I thought maybe he’d heard something definitive regarding Reilly’s fate. Now I wished I hadn’t.

  “Be a whole month ’fore long.” Jessie evidently thought his remark was a justification for Walker to hook up with another woman already. I thought it was cold as a penguin’s tail feathers.

  “Are you married, Jessie?”

  “No. Used to be, but for some reason it didn’t last long,” Jessie said. “Must of us thought she could do better.”

  “I see.” I said, as I thought, I can safely say she could’ve done better―much better―and I don’t even know the woman.

  “Yeah. She was a piece of work. Expected me to come home after I’d put in a long day at work. Threw a hissy fit when I’d stop by the tavern and throw back a few beers with the guys instead.”

  “Imagine that. Have a good afternoon, Jessie.” I shook my head and turned to leave once again. As I walked out the front door, which hung lopsided from one hinge that’d broken loose from the frame by the hurricane-force winds, I added, “Don’t work too hard. This heat and humidity can be lethal, you know. Make certain to stay well hydrated. I don’t want to find you really dead on the floor in here next time I stop by.”

  “The next time?” He asked. He then must have realized his question sounded rude, so he added, “Yes, Rapella. I’ll be careful and drink plenty of water.”

  “See that you do.” I’m sure I sounded bossy, but my concern was for the man’s well-being, even though we’d only just met and he'd come across as a real jerk. Despite that innate trait of mine to worry incessantly about people―even jerks―and their sometimes questionable life choices, I walked away from Jessie Garza with that sense of foreboding I’d felt earlier coming back to me full force.

  “Have a good day,” Jessie said. “Thanks again for the vittles.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  There was a lot going through my mind as I walked back to the trailer. Could speaking of Reilly as if her death had been confirmed be more than just an assumption on Jessie’s part? Could it be the man knows more about her disappearance than he admitted? And why did he infer Walker was already open to the idea of a new romantic relationship, with his missing spouse not out of the picture for even a full month yet? Why had the woman’s body not resurfaced somewhere if she’d drowned? Could Reilly have left of her own accord and be hiding out, perhaps afraid of Walker’s wrath should she be located? Was the grief Regina said he’d been displaying just a show to ward off suspicion? Is the fact Rip and I have been involved in a number of murder cases in the last couple of years clouding my judgment and making me see signs of guilt where none exists? Am I going berserk?

  These questions raced through my mind as I retraced my steps to the Chartreuse Caboose. After a moment’s consideration, I decided to investigate the situation a bit further before I brought my apprehensive intuitions to Rip’s, or anyone else’s, attention. I had a good idea they’d be met with scornful disdain at this point. Even I knew I had nothing to base my suspicions on. It was merely a gut feeling, and my gut can occasionally be terribly unreliable―in more ways than one.

  Five

  I was met at the door of the trailer with the sound of a lumberjack sawing away on a mighty sequoia tree. Asleep in his recliner with Dolly, Rip was snoring loudly. Our seventeen-pound grey and white tabby was sprawled out across his chest and licking the orange residue of Cheetos off the fingers of his right hand. The venetian blinds on the window behind Rip’s chair were chattering as if another hurricane had struck and was rocking the trailer.

  I knew Rip was worn out from the long journey to Rockport and wasn’t quite up to one-hundred-percent yet. When a person hits the seven-decade mark, healing from open-heart and hip-replacement surgeries takes longer to recover from than if they were younger. As luck would have it, folks rarely need those surgeries until they’re much older. I tried to encourage Rip to walk the fine line between getting enough exercise to maintain good health without overexerting and pushing himself to the brink of exhaustion. For me, it was an exercise in patience sometimes to get him to exercise any at all. He was entirely too attached to his recliner, both emotionally and physically.

  When I noticed a small Ziploc bag on the end table with a couple of leftover cookies remaining in it, an idea hit me. Curiosity was killing me. I was dying to know what the buxom blonde had written on the post-it note she’d left with Jessie to give Walker. I realized it was in no way any of my business and that finding a way to read it was a total invasion of privacy of both the woman who penned it and the man it was written to. However, this did nothing to quell the overwhelming desire inside of me to discover what it said. It irked me that Walker could even consider a romantic relationship with a new woman at this juncture. His wife had not even been officially declared dead yet.

  An hour later, with Rip and Dolly still sound asleep, I quietly exited the trailer and softly closed the door behind me. I returned to the house next door, which was now under a noisy renovation. The Ford Explorer was missing, but two more trucks were parked in the driveway. One was an orange Chevy Avalanche with a magnetic sign on the door that read TNT Demolition. Painted across the back window of the cab was the slogan, “When we knock ’em down, they stay down.”

  The other vehicle was a beat-up white Ford F-350 with a caved-in tailgate. It looked like a number of tailgates we’d seen on trucks in RV parks over the years that had experienced the trauma of having the gooseneck of a fifth-wheel trailer coming unhitched and crashing down on them. The resulting dent was akin to a badge of shame for absentminded fifth-wheel owners who’d forgotten to put the jacks down on their trailer before pulling away from it.

  I knew no one would hear me rapping on the skewed front door over the buzzing of saws, whirring of drills, and pounding of nails, so I let myself in as if I owned the place. For a moment I thought I was going to be able to snap a quick photo of the post-it note with my phone and depart undetected. But just as I glanced down at the note, Jessie walked into the kitchen. He looked at me oddly. I’m quite sure I blushed. The sensation was like being caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

  “Um, hello again, Rapella,” he said with a dubious expression. “Did you need something else?”

  “Uh, oh, hello Jessie. Actually, I just came back to collect my Ziploc bags.”

  When the man just stared at me in disbelief, I began to ramble. “You see, when we retired a few years ago to become full-time RVers, we didn’t have a huge retirement fund to fall back on. My husband retired as the Aransas County Sheriff, but I tended to have only short-lived careers in a variety of different fields, none of which offered 401K’s or profit-sharing plans. I did everything from flipping flapjacks at Alice Fay’s to volunteering my time at Castaways, the resale thrift shop in town, so I have little to contribute to our income now. But I’ve learned to become ultra-conservative to help make ends meet. And even though you might not think of Ziploc bags as being a major expense, when you use several of them every day at a cost of up to a quarter apiece, it begins to add up. Now, if you put leftover meatloaf in one, it makes perfect sense to dispose of the greasy bag afterward, but with a toasted cheese sandwich, for instance, you can easily shake the remaining crumbs out of the bag and it’s practically good as new. Therefore, if you can reuse a majority of them, say seventy-five percent, you can save oodles of―”

  “Listen, lady. I have some plumbing work I need to get done today.” Clearly, Jessie didn’t feel inclined to listen to me babble on about plastic storage bags all afternoon, which was understandable. Frankly, by that point, I was even boring myself. “If you want the bags, I think I tossed them in the big
dumpster out front. I appreciate the food you gave me, but didn’t realize I needed to preserve the plastic bags you’d brought it over in.”

  As he spoke, I realized how ridiculous I’d sounded. Not that I don’t actually recycle Ziploc bags all the time; the activity just sounded more absurd coming from the burly construction fellow standing in front of me. Saying I was ultra-conservative with money had actually been an understatement. I was so tight you could bounce a quarter off me if you wanted to. Even so, admitting I reused plastic storage bags out loud was a bit humiliating.

  “Oh, well, that’s okay. No problem. We’ll just let those three bags fall into the twenty-five percent that aren’t recyclable.” I couldn’t make eye contact with him as I spoke. I was too embarrassed and just wanted to slink out of the house like a scolded puppy.

  Just before I began to back toward the door, I couldn’t resist casting another glance at the post-it note on the table. “JJ’s at 6 tonight. Bring the…” it read. I couldn’t make out the last word at all, but the next to last word looked like either “compact” or “compass”, or maybe even “compost”. I immediately dismissed the latter possibility. Why would Walker take decayed organic matter to JJ’s with him? “Contract” would make more sense, even though I couldn’t quite make an “r” out of any of the squiggly lines in the few seconds I had to study the memo. The lady’s scribbling was so messy, the only two letters I was certain of were the first two.

  JJ’s Cafe was a popular local restaurant with great food and reasonable prices, and it had always been one of our go-to places when we wanted a quick bite to eat that wouldn’t bust the budget. But Walker could easily take a contract concerning some form of agreement to the café or information about a contact his dinner date might need to get in touch with about some concern or another.

  Maybe the meeting at the cafe wasn’t a romantic date, but rather, strictly business-related. Perhaps Walker was signing a contract with the woman to have reconstruction work done on his and Reilly’s house. It stood to reason he’d be making agreements with all kinds of service providers during the course of getting his house back into a habitable condition. The woman could represent a painting company, she could be a window covering designer, or even own a tile and granite store. For that matter, she could be in the process of buying the tan Explorer currently for sale in the driveway and wanted a proper bill of sale for the purchase. Maybe this woman was a loan officer at a local bank. That was hard to fathom, however. What loan officer would make a house call, let alone a house call while dressed in hot pants?

  To think the get-together was anything but above-board at this stage was ludicrous. I had to stop myself from imagining there was something sleazy at play when this meeting was more than likely nothing but business. I had a tendency to envision scenarios that were above and beyond reason when I gave my imagination free rein.

  Dang it! If I’d only had one more second to peruse the note, I might have made out the last word in the message. That one word would surely have explained a lot and kept my imagination from running as wild as a couple of unchaperoned twelve-year-old boys at a carnival. Thinking of another excuse to return to the house might look suspicious. Even as this thought crossed my mind, Jessie picked up the post-it note he’d observed me looking at and stuffed it in the front pocket of his blue jeans.

  Still backing toward the door, I suddenly came up against what felt like a brick wall. When the brick wall inhaled sharply, because I’d stomped on its toes, I gasped and spun to face a deeply tanned man with dark brown hair and even darker eyes. His chest spanned the entire doorway between the kitchen and the living room, but his hips were slim and sexy. Like most of the other blue-collar workers in town, the man was Hispanic. When he smiled in reaction to my alarm, his pearly white teeth sparkled as if he were filming a Pepsodent commercial.

  “Mis disculpas.” I apologized in his native language to let him know I hadn’t heard him walk up behind me. I’d picked up some of the most common Spanish phrases from living in such close proximity to the Mexican border most of my life, although not nearly as much as Rip had as a law enforcement officer for so many years. He was multi-lingual, speaking fluent Spanish and Italian, along with English. His mother had been born in Milan, Italy, and had taught him her native language. Rip inherited his olive-colored complexion and shorter than average stature from her. As for the Spanish, he’d picked it up over time. There was naturally a heavy Hispanic presence in the area. Although the majority of them were fluent, or near fluent, in English, not all were and I didn’t want to appear rude by not offering an apology.

  “De nada, señora. Sólo camino en el fondo―” He began in a captivating voice that was almost melodic in nature. I thought the Spanish language was music to the ears to begin with, but coming from this handsome hunk made it even more beautiful. To me, he looked more like a Chippendale dancer than a construction worker.

  “Quiero semillas de aves para el desayuno.”

  “Perdóneme?” There was an amused expression on the large man’s face as he spoke. “No entien-”

  “Perdón, yo solo hablo un poco español.”

  After I cut in to inform the gorgeous fellow I only spoke a little Spanish, he nodded and responded in flawless English. “I kind of assumed that when you told me you wanted birdseed for breakfast.”

  I laughed along with him and Jessie before I apologized again for stepping on his foot.

  “No worries, ma’am. Besides, I only walk on the bottoms of my feet, so you might as well walk on the tops of them.” He smiled to let me know he was kidding, and I nodded with a grin that no doubt resembled a love-struck teenager who was being serenaded by Justin Bieber.

  Jessie chuckled, and said, “Ms. Ripple, meet Anthony ‘Bigfoot’ Torres. And, Tony, this nice lady is Rapella Ripple. Her daughter and son-in-law, Milo Moore, live next door. I’m sure you’re familiar with Milo.”

  “Sí. I’ve known Milo for years. Nice to meet you, Ms. Ripple. I go by Tony. My middle name is actually Noël, not ‘Bigfoot’, hence the TNT in TNT Demolition, the name of my company.” Tony moved a pair of vise-grip pliers he was holding in his right hand to his left and shook my hand. His hand was warm, but rough as coarse sandpaper from hard work, no doubt. “I’m in charge of the demo detail here. I guess you could say I’m better at tearing stuff up than building it back.”

  “Call me Rapella, please,” I said warmly. “It’s nice to meet you as well, Tony. I’m pretty good at tearing stuff up myself. The difference is that I can do a remarkable job of it without even trying. Just ask my husband, Rip.”

  “Rip?” The expression on Tony’s face was unreadable, but I instantly got the impression he and Rip had crossed paths before. “As in Rip Ripple, former Aransas County Sheriff?”

  “That’s the one. Have you two met?”

  “You could say that,” was his ambiguous response.

  When Tony didn’t appear inclined to elaborate, I stalled for an uncomfortable length of time before I said, “Well, I guess I best get out of you guys’ way now. I know you’re busy and don’t need me standing around keeping you from doing your work.”

  Tony shrugged. “I’m in no rush. I’m getting paid by the hour. You must have made the cookies Jessie gave me. Thanks, ma’am. They were delicious.”

  Before I could respond, Jessie added, “I couldn’t eat all twelve cookies by myself, so I shared half of them with Tony. Bruno, my drywall subcontractor, arrived at the same time as Tony, but, unfortunately, he’s on an insulin pump and avoids sugar as much as possible.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Well, I’m glad you gentlemen enjoyed the cookies. I’d be happy to drop some more off tomorrow if you’d like. I’ve got a few in the trailer that need to find a home before my willpower goes to hell in a handbasket. Better a moment on your lips than a lifetime on my hips, as they say.”

  Tony smiled in response to my remark, while Jessie glanced at my hips and nodded, as if in agreement, which was a bit disturbing.

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nbsp; “Any cookies you drop off over here will disappear quickly,” Tony said. Jessie’s expression seemed a little hesitant, but I tried not to read too much into it. Tony was more enthusiastic at the thought of another cookie delivery. He confirmed his delight when he said, “I can demolish snickerdoodles even faster than I demolish houses.”

  “What a coincidence. That’s exactly the kind of cookies I have.” Truthfully, I’d brought the men every cookie we’d had left over from lunch, and they’d been of the chocolate chip variety. But if the handsome demolition boss preferred snickerdoodles, I could always whip up a batch of those in the morning in no time at all. I was certain Rip wouldn’t balk if a few of the cinnamon-flavored cookies found their way to our kitchen counter, as well. I’d make a double batch and bring the bulk of them over for the construction crew at the Reynolds’s house. It’d give me another opportunity to nose around and ask intrusive questions―that were none of my concern―about the missing lady of the house. I can’t explain why I had a gut feeling there was more to the woman’s disappearance than having been blown off the pier while chasing after her dog during the extremely powerful storm. And you know what I said about my gut being totally untrustworthy. However, the fact her husband was more concerned about getting their house repaired than moving heaven and earth to find her was playing into my hunch.

  Although I had no personal connection to Reilly Reynolds, other than the fact she lived next door to my daughter, I couldn’t help but feel concerned about the situation. If she were merely missing, she needed to be found and reunited with her family. If a reunion with Walker wasn’t in the cards, and indeed the reason behind her disappearance, she needed to be placed in a safe place where she could go on with her life in as normal a fashion as possible. If she was a tragic statistic of Hurricane Harvey, her body needed to be located so that her husband, friends, and family could have closure. And, if by some odd chance, she was the victim of a horrible crime, justice needed to be served on her behalf.