I decided to head down to his real estate office. My mother pointed out the office regularly when I was a kid. She would then curse under her breath. She was no fan of Roy, who apparently enjoyed messing with fellow real estate agents. She’d repeatedly called him “an unethical ass.” My mother fancied herself an “Earth first” hippie and lover of all mankind (unless you were her daughter and regularly screwed up), so that was saying something.
I wasn’t surprised to find a crowd hanging out in the small park next to Roy’s office. I recognized a few of the faces well enough that I could put names to them. I would need a gentle reminder on a few others. Two or three were strangers.
I approached Erin Higgins first. I recognized her from high school. She’d been two years behind.
“Hey, Erin.”
She sat on a bench, a tissue clutched in her hand as she dabbed at her red-rimmed eyes. It was obvious she’d been crying, and it made me wonder when news of Roy’s death had spread. I’d assumed everyone found out the previous day, because Shadow Hills couldn’t keep a secret.
She looked up through teary lashes and took a moment to place me. “Stormy?”
I nodded and forced a tight smile as I sat next to her. “How’s it going?”
The look she shot me was incredulous.
“I mean ... other than the obvious.” I felt like an idiot, but I forced myself to swing the conversation to a place I could get information. “Obviously this is a very sad state of affairs.”
“Oh, you think?” Erin shook her head as she swiped at her smearing eye makeup. “Roy was the best boss ever. He didn’t deserve this. He was a nice guy. Well, kind of. Either way, he paid well. Now what am I supposed to do?”
“You worked for Roy?”
“Yeah. I figured that was why you were here, to pay your respects and stuff.”
Ah, well, this is where things got sticky. “I’m definitely here to pay my respects. I haven’t been able to sleep since I found him yesterday.” That wasn’t true. I slept just fine under the nurturing hand of whiskey. She didn’t need to know that, though.
She jerked up her head. “You found Roy?”
Well, that answered that question. I thought for sure everyone would already know that tidbit.
“They said a waitress at Two Broomsticks found him, but I had no idea it was you.”
“It was my first day back on the job.” I shot her a rueful smile. “It wasn’t a very nice welcome home.”
“I’m sure Roy thought that, too.”
I studied the street, the people who passed. “Do you know who might’ve wanted to kill him?”
Erin looked offended by the question. “No. He was a wonderful man.”
She was covering, but I couldn’t blame her. In her mind, I was probably casting aspersions on her boss. He might be dead, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t loyal.
“He was an ass,” a new voice volunteered from my left, causing me to snap my head in that direction. Sandy Gellar was in her thirties — she’d graduated when I was in middle school — and looked great for her age. In fact, if I didn’t know her, I would peg her age at twenty-five.
“Sandy.” I flashed a smile. I had fonder memories of her than Erin.
“Stormy.” She returned the smile, taking a long moment to look me up and down. “I’m sorry to see you back.”
I knew she didn’t mean it as an insult, but it bothered me all the same. “Yeah, well ... .”
“You were the talk of the town when you sold that first book. Heck, you were the talk of the town before that, first because you actually got out of here to attend college and then because you dumped Hunter Ryan.”
Ugh. Why did everyone have to bring up Hunter? Yes, we were close for a time as teenagers. That was a decade ago. We were both adults and he’d clearly moved on — as he’d told me repeatedly. “I doubt I left him broken-hearted.”
“But you did. He moped around here for months. Actually, now that I think about it, it was more like years. But he’s over it. He has a girlfriend.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been hanging around Phoebe Green?”
She made a disgusted face. “Why would you suggest that? Phoebe is like toe jam.”
“What’s toe jam?”
“That gross stuff you scrape out from between your toes.”
It was an oddly apt comparison. “I’m not here to talk about Hunter. I’m interested in Roy.”
“I hear Hunter is investigating Roy’s death,” Erin noted. “I wonder if he’ll interview us.” She looked happy at the prospect, but then caught herself. “Not that Hunter hanging around would make up for Roy being dead or anything. It’s very sad.”
“Nobody is happy about Roy’s death,” Sandy shot back. “He was our boss. Finding a new job is going to be a pain.”
“You worked for him, too?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. I didn’t understand how she could work for a guy like Roy.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Her smile was benign. “Roy didn’t have the best reputation.”
That was an understatement. “No, he didn’t.”
“He was a wimp when someone called him on his actions, though,” she explained. “He cornered me near the copy machine one day. I told him that it wasn’t going to fly — I’m not going to put up with crap like that — and he immediately backed off.”
“Did he try it again?”
“Once. At a Christmas party.” She smiled at the memory. “There are about five real estate agents who work out of this office. They all had dates or spouses, and some of the bank people were at the party, too, because we work with them all the time.
“I was a little tipsy — and he was way over the line — so I yelled at him in front of everyone. He was mortified,” she continued. “I wasn’t sure he would remember the next day, but he must have. He never said an untoward thing to me again.”
“Still, he couldn’t have been easy to work for.”
“He wasn’t, especially for anybody new and single.” She rummaged in her purse, coming back with a cigarette, and lit it before continuing. “Sometimes I don’t think he even realized that what he was saying was rude or derogatory. Like, if a single woman came in he’d always be, like, ‘Your husband must be running late.’ In his mind, it was a perfectly acceptable thing to say.”
“But I get where he was coming from,” Erin interjected. “It’s almost impossible to buy a house without a second income.”
“You don’t have to be loyal to him now that he’s gone,” Sandy argued. “He can’t give you that disapproving look that you hated so much.”
“He never gave me that look!”
“Oh, please.” Sandy rolled her eyes as she blew out a cloud of blue smoke. She clearly had little respect for the young secretary and had no problem making sure the overwrought woman knew it. “He gave all of us that look. It was his way. Well, all the females. He was different with the men.”
Now we were getting somewhere. “How was he different?”
“He respected men.”