Love is a Many Splintered Thing

by Jamie Lee Scott

  Nick didn’t respond. He removed Mimi’s arms and sat down. “We can talk later, when we’re alone.”

  Mimi’s color went from pale to crimson, and then gray. The flood of thoughts showed on her face.

  “Max didn’t have much. He’s hoping you’ve been able to do a little snooping. He also said he hoped you’ve preserved the alleged crime scene.”

  I crossed my legs and folded my arms over my chest. “Not much I could do. I did get into the room though, and we were able to get lots of photos. If they’ve cleaned up, we still have some evidence with the photos.”

  “It’s not in their best interest to wipe a crime scene,” Mimi said, her voice sounding far away.

  “It is if one of their employees was involved. But we don’t know anything yet. Or so Max tells me,” Nick said, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Mimi.

  “I only have so much to work with, no forensics kit, nothing for a lab. Max and his crew will have a lot on their hands.” I stood. “Want something to drink?”

  Nick stood, too. “Yes. The plane was a puddle jumper charter out of Monterey. Not easy to get a flight to Cabo on such short notice. I haven’t had anything to drink in hours.”

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Mimi forgot her phone. I know how lost she is without it,” Nick said.

  “Thanks,” Mimi said. “Very thoughtful. I’m so sorry I left without telling you.”

  “Not now, Mimi,” Nick said.

  But I knew he wanted to talk. There was no other reason for him to come with Max. And I knew Max had broken the rules by bringing him along.

  “How’s the investigation back home going?” I asked.

  “Nothing I can share with you on it, but Gabe has taken over while I’m gone. I took leave for a few days.”

  I handed Nick a bottle of club soda. “So you’re almost finished?”

  “Nothing I can talk about,” Nick reiterated.

  “Not even with me?” I asked.

  Nick smiled for the first time since he entered the room. “Not even with you, sorry.”

  “It’s all good. I have enough on my hands at the moment.” I made myself a Bloody Mary, thinking it sounded good after watching Marvin and Clay enjoying them at the bar.

  Another knock on the door. Mimi almost sprinted to open it.

  “Max.” She threw her arms around him. Exactly what she should have done when she saw Nick, but didn’t.

  I restrained myself, since this wasn’t a social call. “Hey, it’s about time.”

  Max entered the room. “I thought we made pretty good time, considering.”

  “Want a drink?” I asked walking back to the minibar.

  “Water is fine. Bottled water. We are in Mexico, after all.”

  I handed Max a bottle from the refrigerator.

  “Sorry we don’t have time for pleasantries. I just wanted to let you know I was here. And I wanted to see what you’ve been able to find out about Alan.”

  “Sit,” I said. “Mimi and I can go over it with you.”

  Max walked over and took a seat next to Nick while I sat across from them.

  Mimi said, “You guys get started, I’ll be right back.”

  18

  Mimi

  I wanted to talk to Nick, but in my own time. Walking out of the room right then was bullshit, and I knew it. Every ounce of my being wanted to go back in and ask Nick to take a walk with me.

  I was three doors from our cabin when I heard a door open. I looked behind me.

  “Mimi,” Nick said. “Wait up.”

  I stopped. He knew me better than I knew myself.

  “Hey, aren’t you interested in what Charles has to say?” I asked.

  “I don’t care about this man who went overboard. I came to see you. I just didn’t want to end up arguing in front of Charles. He’s a gloater, and I’m in no mood for his comments.”

  “Want to go up top?” I had no idea what the ship term was, but the day was nice and I wanted to go outside.

  When we got to the elevator, a woman stopped Nick. She looked to be maybe five feet tall, about ninety pounds soaking wet, and wore a Hawaiian print summer dress and cute strappy leather sandals. No makeup and smooth skin until she smiled, and all the life and knowledge shined in her wrinkles. She had her hair in a top knot, and I wondered if she’d been wearing it that way before it became the fashionably lazy way to do your hair.

  She grabbed Nick by the forearm. “Excuse me, sir, do you know if this is the elevator to the front of the ship?”

  Nick’s eyes widened, then looked at me, then back at the woman. “Ma’am, I don’t think this ship has an elevator to the front.” He looked at me and seriously asked, “Does it?”

  Not wanting to make the woman feel bad, I said, “I think I heard the porter say it’s not working. Would you like us to walk to the front of the ship with you?”

  She smiled and showed us perfect false teeth. “No, I’ll be fine. I need the exercise. My husband just didn’t want to walk, but he wants to go say, ‘I’m the king of the world.’”

  I smiled and Nick laughed. The woman winked, grinned and walked away.

  We rode the crowded elevator that went to the top of the ship.

  A good breeze blew as we settled onto a couple of lounge chairs. A family played shuffleboard in front of us. We loved playing shuffleboard on a table, but I’d never played the ground game before.

  Lying back, I closed my eyes. Nick reached out and took my hand. “You know I had no idea about Dominic, right?”

  I sat up and turned in the chair, kicking my feet over the side, now facing Nick. “Which part did you not know?”

  “I didn’t know he was alive, and I didn’t know he was in Salinas. And I find it so strange he waited until we got married to finally resurface. And I’m not afraid to say, I hate him for it.” Nick stared at me as he spoke, no emotion in his eyes.

  “I hate him, too. And I’m embarrassed to say it. I feel so stupid and used, and stupid.”

  “You said stupid twice,” Nick said.

  “I know, because that’s how I feel. I’ll never really know if he loved me.”

  Nick sat up and sat in front of me. He held both of my hands. “Of course he loved you. But in the end, he loved himself more. Do you know what I mean?””

  I sucked in a breath and reminded myself to keep breathing so I wouldn’t cry. I had enough of crying. I looked down at our feet. “I do know what you mean. I’ve had a lot of time to think since I ran away. In fact, until this morning, all I’ve done is think about what happened.” Now I looked up. “He didn’t even tell me about being arrested. Over and over, I’ve thought about the weeks before he…died…disappeared. One night he called and said he wouldn’t be home. He had to make a quick run to Los Angeles for a customer to pick something up that didn’t get on a truck. I didn’t know much about the produce industry, so I took him at face value. And now I think that may have been the might he was arrested.”

  Nick squeezed my hands. “If it helps, I looked into the case against his father, and you’re correct, he was detained, but not arrested. They had enough to put him away for many years, but he decided to talk for immunity. He’d gone into WITSEC before the case went to trial. They had his deposition, everything they needed. I’m not sure what happened, but people started disappearing, evidence went missing and eventually, the entire case was dismissed without a trial.”

  I looked at Nick. “So Mr. Capurro was powerful enough to stay out of prison. He would never had gotten that far, and would likely have done the same for Dominic, had it come to that. But Dominic didn’t think about anyone but himself. He wanted to save his own skin, even if that meant turning on his own family.”

  “I’m sorry, but yes. And if he could do that, he didn’t love anyone as much as he loved himself. Does that make sense?”

  “So why go to the funeral?” That was the part I didn’t understand. Why step back into public as Dominic?

  “I’m not s
ure. Maybe he thought now that his dad was gone, he was safe. No one would want him dead. And he thought the world had come to a standstill, just waiting for him to reclaim his old life. It’s just a theory.”

  I leaned forward and kissed Nick on the cheek. “The question I kept asking myself since I found out is: who would I have chosen, you or Dominic, if he hadn’t been killed in that car bomb?”

  “Do you have an answer? Even though I’m not sure I want to hear it,” Nick let go of my hands and held my face close to his, with a hand on each cheek.

  “I’d pick you. I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. Even when you were so horrible, I loved you. You were the first and only man I’ve ever loved that way, and I choose you. You know why?” Tears now streamed down my face.

  Nick wiped them away with his thumbs, still holding my face close. “Why?”

  “Because you never would have done what Dominic did. You’d have taken whatever came your way like a man. You wouldn’t have turned in your own father to save your skin. And you wouldn’t ever do what Dominic did to me. And I know that, because I know now that you’re not that kind of man.”

  Nick let go of my face and leaned over, wrapping his arms around me. “You know me too well. I’d never have to make a choice to take you with me or leave you behind, because I’d never rat someone else out to save myself. At least not like that.”

  “I’m so sorry I ran. I know you can’t run from your problems, they just follow you.” I held him so tight, I never wanted to let him go.

  Nick let go first. “You want to finish this cruise, or do you want to go back with me today?”

  “I want to go home,” I said, sniffling and wiping my tears. “But first I want to know why we can’t find Alan, and who made him disappear.”

  Nick threw back his head and laughed so hard. “Now, there’s the Mimi I know and love. Let me help you.”

  We stood and walked around the ship as I got him up to speed on what we’d found out. What shocked me was when I found out what Max had told him about Alan Daly.

  19

  Mimi

  “No way, this is just too crazy.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” Nick said.

  “I wonder how Charles missed this,” I said.

  Max told Nick that Alan had upped his life insurance policy three months ago. If he died, his wife would get five million dollars.

  “The point behind the increase was his stake in the new restaurant. He didn’t want his wife to have to worry about money if he died. And his stake in the restaurant was a tidy sum. If it went belly up, like a lot of restaurants do, he wanted to be sure she was taken care of.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Wait, do you think this may all be for not?”

  “What do you mean?” Nick asked.

  “Could Alan have pulled a Dominic? But not because he was saving his own hide, but because he was saving Kendra’s?”

  Nick looked out over the railing at the dark waters of the sea. “It’s possible. There’s no body.”

  “He could have staged the entire thing, so Kendra would be free of him, and free of the debt.” I felt like I had a revelation.

  “And he could be sitting on a beach in Baja, California, sipping margaritas and living under an assumed name.” Nick seemed to like the idea.

  “If you’d met the guy, you’d say downing shots of tequila. But it’s really not plausible. Something had to have happened to him. And we need to find out what.”

  As we walked along the top deck of the ship, I told Nick everything we knew, which wasn’t much, and that no real suspects came to mind.

  “The only real suspects would be his wife and the girl he cheated with on the plane. And seriously, what are the chances they’d be on the same cruise?”

  “Right?” I said. “And the whole Twitter thing.”

  “I don’t understand Twitter,” Nick said.

  “Neither do I,” I admitted. “Thank goodness Uta does, since she places ads for us.”

  “Speaking of Uta, you need to call your mom. She’s worried about you.” Nick squeezed my hand.

  “You didn’t tell her about Dominic, did you? I’m not ready to explain it all.”

  Nick stopped walking and turned me to face him. “We aren’t going to sweep things under the rug just because we don’t want to deal with them. I told your mom everything, and I asked her not to bombard you with questions. That you’d explain your way when you felt the time was right.”

  I kissed Nick on the lips. “Thank you. And thank you for making me face the hard stuff.”

  We continued to walk, enjoying each other’s company, and smelling the fresh ocean air. When we got around to the port side, I saw a dozen men on the dock, dressed in military uniforms, carrying sub-machine guns. “Oh, my.”

  “Welcome to Mexico,” Nick said.

  Behind us, I heard a woman say, “I wonder if that’s the reason we can’t go ashore.”

  I turned to see Georgia Wallis talking to Bruce. How convenient. I whispered in Nick’s ear to tell him all about the couple. What I knew anyway.

  “Let me do the talking first, okay?” he said, pulling out his leather badge holder and flashing it at the couple. “Mr. and Mrs. Wallis, how are you today?”

  He didn’t look much like an FBI agent. He had tussled black wavy hair, a day’s worth of stubble, a wide-striped shirt in navy and tan, and faded blue jeans that fit his butt like a glove.

  “What’s going on?” Bruce asked.

  “I’m Nick Christianson, and this is Mimi Chr…Cappuro. We’re working with the FBI on the disappearance of Alan Daly.”

  I startled a little at him calling me Mimi Capurro, but when he explained who we were, I understood. It would seem odd if we had the same last name.

  Georgia looked back and forth between us, like she didn’t know who to address. “My sister called me this morning. She said her cabin had been completely trashed, and the staff was looking for Alan. I haven’t heard from her since she gave us her new cabin number, so I assumed they found him.”

  “What exactly is going on?” Bruce asked. He put his hand on his wife’s shoulder, as if to reassure her. Or was it to let her know he was there, and to keep her mouth shut?

  “We don’t know exactly. We’re retracing Alan’s movements from last night. We’ve talked to almost everyone associated with him, including a group of guys he played poker with last night,” Nick said.

  “Blackjack,” I said. “He met up with some graduates of Ohio State University, and they played blackjack together. In fact, I think they met at the table.”

  “Alan graduated from OSU,” Georgia said. “It’s great he met alumni on the cruise.

  Nick didn’t know as many details as I did, so I continued, even though he wanted to take the lead. “It was great. And they were the last to see him before he went missing.”

  “What about Kendra? Wasn’t she with him?” Bruce asked.

  Georgia gave Bruce a little shove. “Don’t you remember dinner last night? Kendra stormed out after that incident at the table with that girl.”

  Bruce suppressed a smile. “Oh, that’s right.”

  “Kendra said she never made it back to the room last night. She did say she’d been in the room, but Alan wasn’t there. She didn’t report him because she didn’t think anything was wrong.”

  “If Kendra didn’t make it back, maybe he went looking for her,” Bruce said.

  “It’s possible, except Alan hasn’t been seen since around midnight,” Nick said.

  “What does this have to do with us?” Bruce asked.

  “Witnesses say you had an altercation with Alan last night,” I said.

  Bruce laughed. “Altercation? Please, that was nothing. I just let him know exactly what I thought of him after the fiasco at dinner. And to think I trusted that man enough to partner with him.”

  “Kendra should have dumped him a long time ago. He’s a jerk.” Georgia crossed her arms under her breasts.
/>   “A jerk in what way?” Nick asked.

  “He claims to love her, but he’s always on the hunt. When he and Bruce had the restaurant together, he used to hit on women at the bar, right in front of Bruce, like it was no big deal. Did he think Bruce wouldn’t tell me? And that I wouldn’t say anything to Kendra?”

  “Did you say anything to Kendra?” I asked.

  Georgia squeezed her arms tighter across her ribs. “And have Kendra kill the messenger? No way. She’ll find out eventually.”

  Nick pulled his small notebook from the back pocket of his jeans. “What do you mean, kill the messenger?”

  “You’ve never heard that saying?” Bruce asked.

  “I have, but I’m wondering about the context here,” Nick said.

  “The husband or boyfriend can never do any wrong, you know? When the best friend, sister, or whoever, tells the girlfriend or wife that the man is cheating, that woman gets mad at the person delivering the news. She doesn’t want to believe her spouse is a SOB. So she gets mad at the person delivering the news. Our relationship is already strained, so no way was I going to be the bearer of that news.”

  “Strained? How?” I asked.

  “So many ways, all because of Alan and money. He just wasn’t good with money. I wish I’d known that before partnering on a restaurant with him.” Bruce shoved his hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts.

  “I heard he had a restaurant go under, and the partner bought him out.” I think that’s how it went.

  Bruce rolled his eyes. “Kendra and Alan have their own version of the story, but the real story is I didn’t buy Alan out. Alan owed me money. A lot of money. He’d been embezzling money, and I caught him. So I asked him to sign over his part of the restaurant to me and get out. In return, I wouldn’t file criminal charges against him.”

  “Kendra said he used the money from the buyout of the first restaurant to get into the second one,” I said.

  Georgia laughed. “He’s a manager at that place in downtown Chicago, not an owner.”

  “Why would Kendra lie to us about that?” Nick said, even though he hadn’t spoken directly to Kendra.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know the truth. She thinks Alan split with Bruce because Alan had been sleeping with a cocktail waitress, or something like that. I usually tune my sister out when she talks about Alan.”