by Nancy Bush
He smiled and greeted her with, “You clean up good.”
“I’m just in jeans,” she was quick to respond.
He spread his hands. If she didn’t want to be complimented, he could go with that.
She crossed the threshold and looked around his living room.
“I’ll get us something to drink. No Tecate, but I do have some wine.”
“I’m not drinking, thanks. I’m just here to work.”
“Okay. Come on in then.”
He headed back to the U-shaped kitchen and she followed slowly after him. He pointed to the two stools at the end of the section of counter that jutted out to form a bar. She perched on one as Taft pulled out a bottle of red, a medium-priced blend that he liked. He drew the cork and opened a cupboard to grab two stemmed glasses, then poured one for himself, leaving the other as an open invitation should she change her mind.
“I had vodka earlier,” she said.
“You don’t have to have wine. I could—”
“Actually, I’ve changed my mind. I’d like a glass, thank you.”
Taft inclined his head in agreement, recognizing how edgy she was. He poured her glass, then slid it across the counter to her. He leaned back against the counter perpendicular to the bar, waiting for her to make the next move. She was prickly in a way he hadn’t seen before.
It didn’t take long. She gulped half her drink, then set the glass down with a little more force than necessary. Exhaling on a deep breath, she stated, “Rayne Sealy’s dead. They found her body on a bank of the East Glen River. I talked to Detective Haynes. He said there was a small wallet in her back pocket with her ID. They think she fell from the overlook on the way to Percy’s Peak.”
She clearly hadn’t taken his advice to leave well enough alone, though it sounded like Haynes had been amenable. “She was on the trail above?”
“That’s what they think. They’re investigating.”
“An accident?” asked Taft.
“Maybe she crossed the fence to take a selfie.” She took another hefty swallow. “I know you told me to get out, but I wanted to know. I told Bibi I’d try to find Rayne and I just wanted to know.”
“Richards was there, too, you said.”
“Yeah, well . . .” She shot him a glance he couldn’t read. After a few moments, she added, “If it had just been him, I would’ve followed your advice. He was more interested in sucking up to Haynes than dealing with an ex-partner. He didn’t like me there, that was clear.”
Taft had had dealings with both Richards and Haynes. Haynes was a thinking man; he didn’t rush to judgment. Not so Ricky Richards, who was always trying to capitalize on a situation, looking for his own glory.
Mac added, “I wonder how Sharon Sealy’s doing with the news. She seemed to care about her daughter. But Rayne’s sister, Elise, was fairly harsh. Apparently, Rayne stole a boyfriend from Elise.”
“Do you think that plays in here somewhere to Rayne’s disappearance?”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. Sharon and Elise were both convinced Rayne had just run off, maybe with a boyfriend. She’s done it before, and Elise talked down about her, but if they’d known or even suspected she was dead, I think I would’ve gotten a different reaction.”
Taft asked a few more questions, but that was about all the information she’d gotten from the detective. She was clearly deeply bothered at learning of Rayne’s death. He knew the feeling of looking for someone and then suddenly it’s over. The person is gone. Like running into a wall.
“I was at the Waystation earlier with Seth and Patti,” she said, shaking her head as if getting back to the point at hand. “From there, they went home again.”
“The Waystation seems to be the extent of their limited social life these days,” he agreed.
Her eye fell on a plastic packet of hamburger buns that Taft had left on the counter.
“Are those buns from Goldie Burgers?” she asked.
The hamburger buns were in the distinctive plastic bag with Goldie Burger’s yellow, white, and green burger logo. Goldie Burger was a local Laurelton establishment that was known for its homemade buns. If their burgers were even half as good as the buns, they would be ten times as successful as they were. As it was, the buns were good, the beef patty kind of scrawny.
“Yep,” said Taft.
She snorted, which he took as a derogatory comment on their burgers. She was trying to change the subject, he realized. She’d reported, and now wanted to move on for a while. It was exactly how he’d seen cops react when confronted with hard facts. Some used gallows humor. Others dropped a subject like a hot potato, leaving it in the listener’s hands.
“You don’t sound like a fan,” he observed. “Is that because the burgers are terrible, or maybe because you’re going vegetarian or vegan.”
“Fat chance. Though my sister’s heading that way. She’s been touting the benefits of veganism ad nauseum, though I think she cheats.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“A stepsister, but we’re close. And how do you know anything about me anyway?”
She’d finished her wine and when he lifted the bottle and brought it close, she slid her glass over for a refill. “Ah, Ms. Laughlin, did you think I wouldn’t do some checking on you?”
“What did you learn?”
“Don’t panic. Your deep, dark secret is still safe, whatever it is.”
That evoked a half smile.
He brought his own glass to his lips. “So, now that Rayne Sealy’s been found, you have more time to work for me.”
“I want to know what happened to Rayne,” she said. “Maybe a selfie, that’s just so hard to accept. I feel I owe it to Bibi, and it makes me feel bad that I was just asking about her with her mother and then they learn her fate. Seems unfair. And unresolved for me, at least.” She took another healthy sip. “So I’m going to keep after it for a while. Seth and Patti aren’t doing much anyway, well, except Seth’s trips to Best Homes. Maybe he’s looking for another job.”
She then told him about Seth’s latest trip to Best Homes and his meeting with Troi Bevins. “Troi with an ‘i.’ Possibly another of Rayne’s exes.”
Rayne’s exes were starting to become part of his own investigation, Taft realized. “How many exes are there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, stick on Seth and Troi and let’s go from there.”
“Okay. You think they’re both dealing?”
“Possible. Keep them both in your sights.”
She inclined her head, but her brows drew together as if she had more questions. If that was the case, she didn’t ask them.
What Taft didn’t tell her was that Seth and Patti, and someone at Best Homes, possibly this Troi person, had gotten in the way of one of Mitch Mangella’s schemes to buy out Andrew Best from his own business. A hostile takeover. Taft hadn’t taken any sides in the corporate shenanigans; he didn’t really care how much money and power one guy had over the other, so he’d just done the investigating. What he did have an issue with was drug dealers of any kind. His surveillance had therefore morphed into his own need to quash the flow of drugs into his own community alongside his work for Mangella.
“You do Venmo?” he asked her as she finished her wine and set the glass aside, shaking her head when he asked her if she wanted another.
“Well, yes. I can do Venmo.”
“That’s how I’ll pay you, if that works.”
“I’d like to be paid what I was making with the department,” she said.
“Done,” he answered. “Tell me what it is, and we’ll go from there.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “That was too easy.”
“You are a suspicious one, Ex-Detective Mac,” he said as they exchanged information to make the bank transfers on their cell phones.
“Is there anything else you want?” Mackenzie asked.
He had a lot of one-liners that came to mind, but let th
em dissolve on his tongue before being spoken.
At that point there was pounding on his door and the scuffle and snorting of the pugs. Mac looked at the door and back at him in question.
“My neighbor,” he said. “I’m dog sitting.”
He walked to the door and threw it open. Tommy Carnoff was looking dapper in a black shirt and pants, a tan jacket, and his gray wool driver’s cap atop his flowing white hair. The pugs ran inside and straight to Mackenzie, snorting and snuffling around her feet.
“I didn’t know you had a guest,” Tommy lied as he greeted Mackenzie, sweeping off his cap and bowing at the waist before straightening and jauntily adjusting the hat back on his head.
“Who are these guys?” Mackenzie laughed, leaning down to offer the dogs her hand as Taft introduced her to Tommy. The pugs eagerly sniffed and licked her, curly tails wagging.
Taft was taken by the music of her laughter. He’d come to expect her to be wry and careful and maybe even a bit cynical. Tonight she’d been damn near humorless. “The black one’s Charles, and the fawn one’s Camilla.”
“Seriously?”
Tommy gave Taft a speaking look. “The black one’s Blackie. The fawn one’s Plaid.”
That did her in. Mackenzie nearly fell off her chair, chuckling and rubbing their heads as each vied for her attention.
“You’re going to be furred,” Taft warned.
“Well, I’m off,” said Tommy. “Winging my way to the land of one-armed bandits. Nice to meet you, Ms. Laughlin.”
“It’s just Mac.” She slid off the stool and went over to shake his hand. The pugs followed as if imprinted on her.
“Thomas Carnoff. Right next door. If you should ever need any help with this dubious man”—he pointed to Taft and winked—“I’m there most of the time.”
“Unless he has a date,” said Taft.
“Tsk, tsk.” Tommy waved a finger at him. “See you Monday.”
Tommy headed out the door and Taft corralled the pugs as best he could. They escaped and ran through his condo like sailors on leave, their flat faces smashed close to his belongings, checking things out.
He felt Mackenzie’s eyes on him and glanced her way. “What?” he asked.
“You have many facets, Taft.” She headed toward the door, placing one hand on the knob. “I’ll follow Seth and Troi. If you need anything else, let me know.”
“That’s it? You’re going?”
“I’m . . . yes, I’m going.”
He’d thought she’d intended to stay awhile and he was disappointed, very disappointed, that she wasn’t. “Would you like me to look further into the Rayne Sealy death?”
She glanced back sharply. “Well . . . no . . . but . . . you would do that?”
“She’s connected to both Seth and Troi and neither of them appears to be the soul of propriety. I, too, would like to know if Rayne’s death was just an unfortunate accident. I agree with you, Laughlin. It’s a question worth pursuing. I’ll check with my connections at River Glen PD.”
“Your connections?”
“I know a lot of the same people you do and some others as well.” He’d heard the skepticism in her voice and added on a drawl, “I do have some credibility left with the police.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “Thanks for the wine.”
And she was through the door and gone.
The pugs raced toward the door but they were too late to say goodbye. They turned to Taft and stared at him with their twin humanoid faces, whining a bit.
“You guys’ hearts are easily won,” he pointed out.
And what about you, little brother?
He looked up, expecting to see Helene. But tonight it was just her voice in his head.
* * *
Mackenzie phoned Bibi back after she left Taft’s. Bibi was clearly miffed that she’d been put off, though she burst into tears when she heard that Rayne was gone.
“I knew it. I knew it. I knew it,” she blubbered. “He killed her. He killed her.”
“The police are looking into it.” She didn’t go on that her death could’ve been the result of taking a selfie outside of the overlook railing. Not enough was known yet, and Bibi was in no state to hear anything other than what she believed.
“Would you keep looking into it? Please? Everything’s just shit and I need someone to . . . help.”
“I’ll do what I can,” Mackenzie promised, though she wasn’t exactly sure what that was. “You didn’t tell me Rayne’s had lots of ex-boyfriends.”
“Well, okay, yeah. Haven’t we all?”
“Can you give me some names? So I can get a picture of Rayne’s social life.”
Bibi reeled off several names and the one that resonated was Troi Bevins. She then hung up without a goodbye, shattered. Rayne’s death had hit her hard, amplified by her own marital problems, no doubt.
Mackenzie drove back to her mother’s house, let herself in, and turned quickly down the hall to her room to avoid talking to anyone. A lot had happened today and she needed some alone time to pick her way through it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cooper wrapped up his day at the department, sweeping a file off his desk that he wanted to go home and read more closely regarding Rayne Sealy’s death. It wasn’t that he didn’t know the information from cover to cover already, but her death bothered him. He’d tried to ignore the niggling worry that kept sending up warning signals in the back of his brain. He’d tried to remind himself that there was nothing in the report that showed Rayne’s death was anything but a terrible accident.
But . . . searchers had never found Rayne’s cell phone, which should have been lying somewhere nearby, in the brush on the bank or in the river itself. There wasn’t much of a current at the spot she’d been found but even so, there was no cell phone. He’d asked for a diver and been grudgingly allowed one for a few hours, but again, nothing.
Rayne’s car had been found at the Rosewood Center strip mall, parked in a spot not far from the trail head. On the other side of the center’s parking lot stood Ridge Pointe Independent and Assisted Living. Cooper hadn’t wanted to tell Emma that yes, she’d been right, a young woman had died, but Emma was nothing if not insistent. When the news was out about the victim, Emma had repeated in her blank way, “Rayne? She used to work at Ridge Pointe. She was a hot pants.”
Jamie had explained that one of the Ridge Pointe residents had made that particular claim, but that she was a known gossip, as were several others whom Emma knew from the assisted living center.
There had been nothing in Rayne’s car, nor at her apartment, which had already been re-rented. The new tenant had allowed them a quick search, which in turn had revealed nothing. Rayne had moved out, taking most of her belongings with her. What had been left were two broken cups and a lopsided swivel chair that had lost its ability to turn. The rest had been packed into boxes and stood in her mother’s garage. Sharon Sealy said he was free to look through the boxes, but Chief Bennihof had lost interest in the death of a thirty-something woman who posted dozens of selfies on her social media accounts and made the terrible mistake of stepping over the rail and losing her balance.
But . . . why had she been there? Cooper had looked at her accounts. Her selfies were with friends, at a bar scene, on a date, at a restaurant, on a car trip. Rarely were there pictures of her by herself. There were always others in the background. A number of different guys and a few girlfriends. Bibi Engstrom was around. Also several coworkers from the Coffee Club.
He’d thought about calling Mackenzie Laughlin. She’d been at the Sealy home the night they’d discovered Rayne’s body and had wanted to know what had happened to her, had been searching for Rayne at Bibi’s behest. Did she know anything more? She’d said she wanted to keep in contact. He’d made a comment about that and had seen the cloud develop over her ex-partner’s head. Richards didn’t like Mackenzie. Scratch that. Richards didn’t like anyone whom he considered to be in his way on his climb up the rungs of t
he department. Somehow Mackenzie had run afoul of him, probably over that Prudence Mangella thing. The man had been an unwitting cohort to Prudence. He’d truly believed she’d been interested in him as a person. Richards had enough of an inflated opinion of himself not to see what had been so patently evident to everyone else. At the time Laughlin had made the mistake of pointing out the truth, and he’d tried to kill the messenger. Cooper, himself, had attempted to explain that the woman had used him for her own purposes, but Richards wouldn’t hear of it. When Laughlin quit the department a short time later, Richards had used her departure as some kind of proof that he’d been right and she was the one who’d messed up, which had made no sense then and still didn’t. Maybe it was easier for Richards to have someone to blame other than himself.
Cooper hesitated, glancing at his desk phone, thinking of calling Laughlin. Verbena was just cleaning up her desk as well and looked over at him, eyebrows raised.
He shrugged and turned away. He had his cell phone. He could call Mackenzie any time. Might as well put work out of his head and go pick up Jamie for a dinner out. Harley was eating with Emma tonight at Ridge Pointe.
He put a call in to Jamie as he hit the remote on his Explorer.
“You ready for dinner?” he asked. “I’m just leaving.”
“Yes . . .” she said slowly.
“What?”
“Well, we have the house to ourselves. . . .”
His attention sharpened. “And . . . ?” A smile crept across his lips.
“I’m wearing an apron . . . and nothing else. And if you don’t get here soon I’m going to turn into a giant goose bump. It’s a little breezy in the back.”
“Stay just the way you are. I’m on my way.”
Too bad he didn’t have a siren on the Explorer.
* * *
Harley drove Emma and Duchess home in the green Outback that had once belonged to Harley’s grandmother, though it was now Harley’s. Harley had turned sixteen a few months earlier and it made Emma anxious to see the girl’s fingers tight on the wheel. She tried hard to remember Jamie’s words about how it was best not to distract Harley when she was driving, but it was all Emma could do. Duchess, picking up on her mistress’s anxiety, started a pitiful whining that caused Harley to glance back at the dog in the back seat.