The Gossip

by Nancy Bush

  He cut himself off abruptly, then finished his beer. Mac waited till he’d given the high sign to the bartender for another before asking, “So when did you get with Rayne?”

  “It was even more casual than me and Elise. We were just . . . look, she’s crazy, and I mean, crazy. Well, she was crazy,” he corrected himself. “She’d do about anything. Elise has . . . some sense. But Rayne . . .” He smiled and shook his head, looking down at his empty glass, remembering. After a moment, he swept back his hair to reveal a tattoo in the shape of a key. “Talked me into this tat and that’s where I met Leah . . . you saw her, right?” He shot Mac a sheepish look.

  “At Inky-Dink?”

  He nodded, grimacing. “Leah gave me this key and Rayne got a lock and it was kinda dumb, but . . .” He cleared his throat. “Leah’s just a friend. Elise knows I know her. It’s nothing.”

  “I’m not going to rat you out to Elise.”

  “It’s nothing. It’s really nothing.”

  “So you and Rayne got tattoos together,” Mac encouraged.

  “It was a wild ride with her. She was working at that old people’s place. We had a make-out session outside the building and one of those old ladies about fell off her walker, trying to tap at us against the window. Rayne dared me to pull out my dick and wave it at her, but I didn’t.”

  “Ridge Pointe,” said Mac.

  He shrugged. “Rayne didn’t work there long. Moved on to Good Livin’.”

  “That’s where she met Seth.”

  “Wow. You know about Seth, too.” Troi looked surprised.

  “So, what happened between you and Rayne? You got the tattoos and then . . . what?”

  “It was fast and furious and Elise was screaming at me. She was really pissed, of course, and well, I don’t know. Rayne’s fun for a while, you know? I don’t want to say nothing bad about her. She was fun. But she wasn’t girlfriend material, you know?”

  Mac could feel her expression harden. “She was too easy,” she said neutrally, though she was starting to really resent the double standards surrounding Rayne.

  “Yep.” He had no idea the effect of his words on her.

  “So you broke it off.”

  “Yeah . . . we just started not seeing each other. I told Seth about her and he kinda liked her. He’s with Patti now, but they weren’t really together at that point, so Seth hooked up with Rayne. He did like her. Took her out to his dad’s farm and showed her how to shoot.”

  “And then he broke up with her for Patti.”

  “I don’t know all the particulars, but that’s what happened.”

  “So, after Seth, Rayne was a free agent.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Was she with anybody after Seth?”

  “It wasn’t me,” he reiterated. “I wasn’t with her after I got back with Elise, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “Truth is, after it was over? I tried to not know too much about her. Easier for me with Elise, you know? Elise is kind of the jealous type, anyway, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say too much about Leah. And Rayne. I swear, I never saw her after Elise and me got back together.”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not going to tell her all this?”

  “I don’t know Elise that well, Troi. It’s unlikely the issue would come up.”

  “Yeah?” He regarded her suspiciously.

  “Yeah.”

  He’d gotten his beer and now he took a long drink. Wiping his mouth and setting down his glass, he said, “You think something bad happened to Rayne.” There was worry on his face. Troi didn’t seem to be a terrible guy. He was filled with more heart than Seth Keppler, that was clear. He didn’t seem like he would purposely hurt Rayne, even if she wasn’t “girlfriend material.”

  “Something bad did happen to Rayne,” Mac pointed out.

  “Well, sure. But I mean like . . . it wasn’t an accident?”

  He regarded her anxiously, as if her answer really mattered.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “You should talk to Seth.”

  She nodded. All signs pointed to him, and he was the boyfriend of Rayne’s that Bibi had named. She was just trying to stay out of Taft’s investigation, and she also sensed Seth Keppler would be a difficult interview.

  “I saw you with Seth outside Best Homes,” Mac said, watching him. “In the parking lot. Seth was waiting for you.”

  Troi looked stunned. “What?”

  “You and Seth shared Rayne.”

  “NO. Well, I mean, Rayne and I were just a good time and Seth was interested, I just. It wasn’t like that.”

  “But you and Seth are friends,” she said, though Elise had told her they were sworn enemies.

  “No . . . no . . .” He was starting to sweat.

  Mackenzie narrowed her gaze at Troi. He was strangely innocent, in his way. Knowing Seth, she came up with a likely answer. “He’s your dealer.”

  “Shhh . . . God! No. I mean, just weed. Nothing illegal. Nothing!”

  “He supplied Rayne, too.”

  “It’s not illegal and no, Rayne was a wine drinker.”

  “Pinot noir?”

  “Whatever was around.”

  “Red Bridge.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “That was a pinot she liked.”

  “If you say so. But don’t be saying stuff like that about me and Seth. I’m just into weed, that’s all. Nothing else.”

  Mackenzie wasn’t so sure, but she wasn’t going to push it. At least she had a kind of verification that Seth was a dealer.

  “Don’t say anything to Seth.” Troi was upset.

  “I won’t. I don’t know Seth.”

  “But you’re asking a lot of questions. I think I’m done talking.” He half turned away from her on his stool. The interview was over.

  Mackenzie paid for her unfinished drink and headed outside, checking the time. A little after five thirty.

  She drove straight to Nolan and Stephanie’s and after a quick hello, headed to the pink room. She needed to talk to Nolan, who’d said he didn’t know Troi. It looked like Troi and Nolan had switched places, Troi from Laidlaw Construction to Best Homes and Nolan from Best to Laidlaw.

  But Troi was moving to the back burner for Mac. She didn’t see him as Rayne’s secret lover. Secret was not a word she could really ascribe to the man in any context.

  She dropped her bag on the bed and the notepad she sometimes jotted down things she wanted to remember fell out. She could see the top note to herself: One of the outrageously expensive apartments above the River Glen Grill had come available. Yeah, like that was going to happen. She needed something about one fifth the price or less. Ah, well. She called Mom and checked in on her to learn that she and Dan the Man were heading to the River Glen Grill for dinner. It was all Mackenzie could do to keep from blurting out, “Hang on to your wallet,” but she managed to extricate herself from the conversation before that happened.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cooper closed the file on his desk, leaned back, and stared up at the ceiling. Verbena, her desk catty-corner to his, asked, “What?”

  He dropped his gaze to meet hers, knowing he was about to tell her, once again, what she didn’t want to hear. “Engstrom didn’t do it.”

  She shook her head. “He did it,” she argued. She always argued. Detective Elena Verbena blamed the husband first, or the boyfriend, or whatever man was in the victim’s life. She rarely leaned toward a woman doer. Cooper found it extremely sexist, but more often than not she was right, so he just listened to her.

  And in this case whoever had killed Bibi Engstrom was male. The crime techs had recovered two tiny drops of blood from the kitchen, a part of the flooring that had miraculously survived the explosion that took out the garage. But the blood and the DNA recovered from it wasn’t Hank Engstrom’s.

  “I’m waiting for the full report,” Verbena said
again, like she had many times before. Bibi Engstrom’s body had been burned beyond recognition and was still being processed.

  “Whose blood was it?” Cooper asked again. They’d had this conversation numerous times.

  Verbena clamped her lips together. She knew she was being recalcitrant.

  “It was a homicide. Someone, a man, killed her. Someone whose DNA does not match Hank Engstrom. You’ve talked to him. I’ve talked to him. His story doesn’t change. He was having an affair, leaving his wife. He’s a cheater, but not a killer. His alibi is damn near watertight.”

  “He could’ve gone back to the house in that hour that his girlfriend was gone.”

  Cooper smiled at her. She knew. And though her stubborn ways were annoying, they also created good dialogue that forced creative thinking. Hank Engstrom’s alibi was his new girlfriend whom he’d been sharing an apartment with. She’d left him at the apartment when she’d gone to the liquor store before it closed. When she returned he was in the shower. He said he’d been working out while she was gone and the crime techs had found a shirt and gym shorts that attested to that fact. There was no blood on his clothes, nor any trace of Bibi on Hank himself or left over in the shower. The girlfriend said they’d had sex just before she’d made the liquor run, which hadn’t been part of Hank’s initial report. And then it came out that the girlfriend just threw that in to make it appear that Hank was with her longer than he was, or something . . . it was hard to tell because the lie hadn’t been well thought out. The upshot of it was that Hank had looked guilty and that his new girlfriend was lying for him.

  But . . . there was the blood. Someone’s blood.

  For good measure, Cooper added, “Hank’s phone was at the apartment the whole time. So, for him to sneak out, accost Bibi in the car or garage, render her unconscious or kill her, fill the garage up with carbon monoxide, set up the candle, and light up the place in the hour the girlfriend was gone . . . maybe less than an hour? . . . and get back to the apartment and in the shower before she returned . . . Can’t be done.”

  Verbena ran her hands through her dark curls. He knew that tell. She was coming around. “Who, then?” she asked.

  Cooper shook his head.

  “Some other man in her life?” she questioned. The same questions they’d run past each other for days.

  “No evidence of that.”

  “We both agree it’s homicide. So who wanted to kill her other than her cheating husband?”

  “Don’t know the motive yet.”

  “Take a stab at it,” she said.

  Cooper grimaced. A preliminary look at the Engstroms’ finances hadn’t turned up anything particularly suspicious. Bibi and Hank had been renters who were getting by on Hank’s salary as a home furnishings deliveryman. They didn’t own a lot of things, but they also didn’t owe much money, either. Everyone knew about the girlfriend, which was why Bibi had once thrown all Hank’s clothes onto the front lawn and locked him out of the house.

  Mackenzie Laughlin had dealt with the warring Engstroms, he believed. He thought it was time he talked to her about them.

  He glanced over at the chief’s windowed office on the far side of the room. The curtains were open and he could see Bennihof at his desk. The old chief had retired several years earlier and Bennihof had been appointed by the mayor. The man had silver hair and a trim physique that came from regular trips to the gym. Cooper had never had serious problems with him as he allowed the detectives to run their cases as they saw fit. There were rumors that he cheated on his wife, but that she stayed with him because of his social connections throughout River Glen. They had two children and Bennihof talked a lot about his son who was on the baseball team at his high school. This seemed to be his only conversation other than when they brought a case to him, when he invariably spread his hands and said something like, “You know what to do.” They had no serious guidance from him and that’s how the problems with Howie Eversgard’s case had developed. Bennihof hadn’t defended Howie. He’d pretty much done what he always did, washed his hands of the whole affair. Howie had been cleared of any and all wrongdoing in the shooting that had ended a man’s life as it was clearly self-defense, but it was no thanks to Bennihof. The chief didn’t have your back. Everybody knew it and Howie had been left to defend himself. The police union had been there for him, but Howie’s psychological trauma had sent him out of the department.

  Cooper had felt Bennihof hadn’t done nearly enough and his opinion of the man had soured. Plus there were rumors that Bennihof was handsy with women. He’d been seen with Katy Keegan from dispatch, his palm on her derriere. Verbena had marched straight to Bennihof and asked for an explanation. He’d assured her Katy had not complained and that she, Verbena, had misinterpreted him. Since Verbena was quick to blame men, no one had gotten all that excited about the whole thing. But then Katy had quit the force, and Barbara Erdlich, who preferred to be called the Battle-axe, had taken over.

  And then Mackenzie Laughlin, the talented and decidedly pretty recruit, had left and Cooper really didn’t know what had happened there. Maybe something with Bennihof. Likely something with Bennihof because she’d been considered a rising star and then suddenly Bennihof had started finding fault with her. Verbena had once again had a talk with the chief, defending Laughlin, but to no avail.

  “Something’s off,” Verbena had told Cooper quietly. “And I know you think I’m a man hater, which I’m not, by the way, but the chief’s become hypercritical of Laughlin all of a sudden.”

  Cooper had listened to Verbena, who added that Bennihof had told her Laughlin was difficult and couldn’t get along with her partner. There was talk of reassignment, splitting Richards and Laughlin up, but then Laughlin had abruptly quit. Cooper had seen for himself that there was no love lost between Richards and Laughlin, but it sure seemed like it was coming more from Richards. He was jealous of his partner’s likeability.

  Verbena had taken a phone call and now Cooper regarded her dispassionately. She was an attractive woman, too, but she was hard as iron. He sensed that Bennihof didn’t really know what to do with her. He’d seemed almost relieved when Howie quit the force, so he could team Cooper with Verbena. Before that, she’d floated between them as no one was seriously partnered at the department. Even now Cooper and Verbena worked together but a lot of time handled cases on their own.

  “I’m heading out,” he told her. He and Jamie were having dinner at the house of her friends Camryn and Nate Farland, who owned one of the most well-known estates in River Glen, the Stillwell property, which they’d recently renovated.

  “I’m right behind you,” she said, wrapping up her call.

  Cooper exited through the back door that led to the lot. He aimed for his own vehicle instead of his usual department vehicle, a navy Ford Escape. Since he was going off duty, he hit the remote for his black Explorer.

  As he was switching on the ignition Verbena came out the back and waved urgently to him. He lowered the window and she called, “We’ve got a body.”

  A body. Turning off the engine, Cooper climbed back out of his SUV. He’d been looking forward to dinner, but now it appeared that was not to be.

  * * *

  Taft wheeled into his carport about the same time Tommy Carnoff pulled into his spot with his black Mustang convertible. Today its top was up as rain had been threatening all day, though it had held off and currently the roads were dry.

  “Hello, Jesse,” Tommy said as he climbed out, pocketing his aviator glasses.

  “Hi, Tommy.”

  “I haven’t seen that pretty lady around for a while.”

  “You were gone,” Taft reminded him.

  “So, she has been around?”

  There was no use lying to the man. “Nope.”

  “You’re not working together anymore?”

  “I’m trying to find out some things for her.” He was a little abrupt. Tommy’s questions felt like a tongue probing a sore tooth.

  “What s
ort of things, may I ask?”

  Taft wasn’t in the best of moods. After losing Keppler he’d gone back to Good Livin’ to check on Patti, who would usually be waiting for Seth to pick her up before they drove home together. But not today. This evening she’d taken an Uber.

  “Come over and have a drink,” Tommy invited, apparently picking up on Taft’s mood. He started to decline, then decided why not? He had no dinner plans and he was at loose ends. He prided himself on his ability to be on top of a situation, but today he’d blown it.

  He said hello to the pugs, who were all about greeting him and demanding his attention. Tommy took off his cap and hung it on a peg by the door, then went into his kitchen, his unit a reverse design of Taft’s. A few minutes later he served Taft a gin and tonic without asking what he wanted, and he accepted it and sat down on the couch, letting the dogs curl on each side of him. He gave Tommy a quick encapsulation of Mac’s interest in Rayne Sealy, and Tommy cocked his head and looked interested.

  “The one who accidentally killed herself,” he said gravely.

  “Yes.”

  “Terrible story. Did your lady friend know her?”

  “No.” He decided not to go into Bibi Engstrom’s death. He’d said more than he intended to as it was.

  “I knew her,” Tommy said.

  It was Taft’s turn to pay closer attention. “Rayne Sealy?”

  He nodded.

  “From the Coffee Club?”

  “From Ridge Pointe. She worked there for a while. Friendly girl. I’m heading over to dinner there now.”

  “At Ridge Pointe?”

  He nodded. “A good friend of mine lives there now. Do you remember Maureen?”

  “Oh. Yes.” Taft recalled the lady who’d seemed to corral Tommy’s interest the longest.

  “She had a stroke,” Tommy explained, answering Taft’s unspoken questions. “She’s been at Ridge Pointe about a year and a half. I still go see her. I have a standing invitation from some of the women who share a table with her.” He eyed Taft closely. “You want to go? They all knew Rayne, too.”