Read Online Kissing Arizona by Elizabeth Gunn - Free Book Online

little puffy – as if she had done some weeping earlier today. Now there’s a surprise. Everything Sarah had heard from the Coopers’ children suggested that the dead couple had cold personalities and very few personal relationships. So was Phyllis crying over them, or herself?
    â€˜Now, Ms Waverly—’
    â€˜Oh, please, call me Phyllis, everybody does.’
    â€˜OK. Phyllis. Nicole tells me you’re the only one who goes all the way back with this family. Is that true, that you’re the one employee that knows all there is to know about Cooper’s Home Stores and the family that built them?’
    â€˜Well . . . yes, I guess . . . certainly if you’re just talking about longevity, there’s Willy, the maintenance man at the east-side store, and there’s me. Both of us go back almost to the beginning. Makes me sound like a duffer, huh?’
    â€˜Oh, I can’t imagine anyone would describe you as a duffer.’ Phyllis licked her lips and smiled, as pleased by the compliment as Sarah had intended. ‘But you’ve had a hand in the success of the stores all along, haven’t you? And the business has grown steadily?’
    â€˜Yes. That first little one-room store on Grant Road just sold paint and wallpaper. Now it’s two warehouse-sized buildings dealing in lumber, tile, glass, carpet – and besides the retail business we wholesale to contractors.’
    â€˜Were you working for them when they started?’
    â€˜No, I was still in high school then. Lois hired me the day after I graduated.’ She sighed, remembering. ‘They’d been doing all the work themselves for a couple of years, can you imagine? Open six days a week, and I think they restocked and paid bills on Sunday. Lois said, “I feel like I need a day off.” They had an apartment back of the store, and she was pregnant.’
    â€˜That would be Tom?’
    Phyllis shook her head. ‘Nicole. I know, Tom looks older. But Nicole came first, she was twenty-five in November. Tom’s a couple of years younger.’ She closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Poor Lois.’ She swallowed and her mouth twitched, as if she might be going to cry some more. But her wide hazel eyes were clear and dry when she opened them.
    â€˜I was married for a while myself, to my high-school sweetheart. We divorced after five years,’ she said. ‘I was always working, trying for a better life. He wanted a better playmate, so he found one.’
    â€˜Were the Coopers hard to work for? Is that why you’re the only employee who lasted?’
    â€˜Well . . . most retail stores have a high turnover. It’s hard work, on your feet all day, and the starting pay certainly isn’t the best. And then, yes –’ she cleared her throat – ‘Frank and Lois have always been a hard-driving pair. At Cooper’s a ten-minute break meant ten minutes, not eleven.’
    â€˜But you didn’t mind the pace?’
    â€˜No, I guess I’m a little driven myself.’
    I think that’s a safe guess. ‘When did you last see the Coopers?’
    â€˜Well . . . Lois, I haven’t actually seen since . . . let’s see . . . early in the week sometime. But we talked on the phone and emailed every day, sometimes five or six times a day.’
    â€˜Including this last weekend?’
    â€˜Saturday. Not Sunday. I work Sunday, but I’m the only one in top management that does – all the Coopers take Sunday off. They’re Catholic, I’m not. I take off Monday. Usually. Not today, obviously.’
    â€˜All that talking and emailing every day was about the business?’
    â€˜Sure, what else? Oh, you mean were we chums? Did we join a book club or go to movies together or something?’ She smiled broadly. ‘You didn’t know her, huh?’
    â€˜Just in the store. I was quite a