by Scott, D. D.
I pictured him rubbing his forehead like he always does when a case is giving him fits.
“Have I ever mentioned Sam’s extended family to you?”
“Yes. But what do the Bellesconi arm of the Italian mob have to do with this case?”
I’d always been impressed with Todd’s memory, especially when it came to names. Hell, I had to keep notebooks and family tree diagrams for the characters in my books. But once Todd heard a name, he never forgot its significance or place in the world.
“Well, the heads of the Bellesconi family are here at the lake house. All of them. Right now. And before you even ask, I’m not joking.”
As that sunk in, for a long and rather awkward moment, the conversation ceased.
“Damn. I’m on my way.”
• • •
Once I had the whiteboard set up on an easel in the center of the living room, Sam took up one of the dry erase markers and began sketching out what we knew about the case and the time frame surrounding each fact.
Even though Captain Allen didn’t look like he was entirely into the idea of deferring to us “non-professionals,” he sat back with a bemused countenance that seemed to invite us to show him what we’ve got.
I was sure Sam caught his look and knew exactly what it conveyed in regards to his attitude toward our makeshift bull pen, but it would take a lot more than his skepticism to shake her rock solid confidence in her abilities.
If the Captain was just humoring her with the intention of stepping in and pointing out the flaws in her ideas, then he’d made a serious tactical error.
Sam and I had worked together through the details of many fictional crimes, and she took great pride in knowing the ins and outs of a crime scene investigation. She knew both sides of the nitty-gritty too. She was just as comfortable with the criminal element as the police procedural world. Not much escaped her resolute determination to get every piece of the puzzle right.
Once the Captain had a firm grasp on who he was dealing with, he would probably react in one of two very different ways.
He’d either become testy with Sam’s Bellesconi bravado and tell us all that we should leave this sort of work to the professionals. Or, he’d recognize the benefit of what the group of people in my living room could offer and agree to continue to allow us to collaborate.
The first option would not be in the best interest of seeing this case to a close. However, in my experience, the vast majority of law enforcement officers would be likely to react that way.
Captain Allen, however, struck me as the sort of man who was more likely to choose the second option. But there was no way to know for sure. Granted, Sam and her family could be a bit much. Over the top didn’t come close to describing them.
But I couldn’t wait to see which it was going to be. And either way would prove to be highly entertaining, even though I was still sweating it out as to whether or not I’d be the fall guy.
“First, we have a body at Nicky’s farm with a COD of apparent blunt force trauma to the head. Our vic was a competitor of Nicky’s. Nicky’s fence post driver, which could have been used to cause such an injury, is missing. We also have Nicky’s rooster kidnapped and found tied up in a potting shed, again owned by Nicky, several miles from where it was last seen. The last fact might be an attempt to send some kind of message.”
“We’ve also got a travesty of justice right here in the living room,” Aunt Liza piped up, squirming in her handcuffs. “When can I get outta these damn things?”
Captain Allen turned to face her. “I’ll remove them at the proper time, ma’am.”
“Well, it better be damn quick, Huckleberry Hound. Hell, it ain’t like I really did anything wrong. Back at the farm, I shoot old Sweet Pea till the cows come home.”
“Let me be clear. We are not on your farm. You discharged your firearm in a residential area, and I have every right to detain you. Whether I remove those handcuffs at the jail during processing or before then is largely up to you. I need to be convinced that you do not constitute a threat to myself or the public at large.”
Suddenly, Captain Allen didn’t sound as accommodating.
I could have cleared that up in about a nanosecond, but my honest assessment wouldn’t have done Liza any favors, so I kept my mouth shut.
The Captain’s words must have made an impression, because, amazingly enough, she said no more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Despite Aunt Liza’s verbal shenanigans, Captain Allen had thankfully not told all of us to mind our own business, and the dynamics of the room had clearly shifted. The more we worked the whiteboard, the more we had the feel of a group actually working together toward a common goal. But yeah, I’m pretty sure Liza was still way outside the perimeters of our new circle of trust.
Sam had laid out a schematic of what we knew about the case, and the Captain had not interrupted once. I actually think he was impressed with her skills just as much as everyone else in the room appeared to be. When it came to the whiteboard, she was an ace.
“The piece we’re missing is our vic’s time of death. Because of the damn snow, that critical element could prove to be a bear,” Sam said, pacing the floor in front of the board, capping and uncapping her marker like I’d seen her do on many occasions when a plot point of one of my books was out of whack.
“A bear that’s out of hibernation earlier than we expected,” Todd said, surprising even me, and I’d known he was coming.
I didn’t have a clue how long he’d been listening from the shadows or what he’d heard.
“I just got a call from the ME that puts an entirely new spin on this case.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” Sam said, her marker uncapped again and ready for action in the blank she’d left next to ‘TOD’. “Out with it.”
“The ME estimates the time of death as two to three days prior to when the body was found,” Todd said, switching his focus from the whiteboard to me.
“So, where were you two to three days ago, Nick?” He asked.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
I took a deep breath, trying to keep the extra weight from crushing my lungs. There was no way I was going to come out on the plus side of this. If anything, I’d be even more of a person of interest.
“Well…it didn’t sound like too tough of a question to me,” Grams said, breaking the beyond awkward, soundless tension. “Are you going to answer it or do we have to do it for you?”
What was that supposed to mean?
I looked to Sam for clarification, but she seemed to have taken a sudden keen interest in the pattern of the Persian rug underneath her feet.
“I was in Chicago, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” I said, trying to convince myself too that it didn’t matter.
“Can you alibi that out for us?” Captain Allen asked.
Another simple question. But one without a simple answer. It didn’t matter what I said or how I said it. No one would like my alibi, even though it was the truth.
“You can call a woman named Dina. She’ll be able to verify I was in town…”
I cleared my throat. How was I supposed to say this with all of these people in my living room? Let alone my mother. And Aunt Liza too, who amazingly enough, still had her big mouth clamped shut.
“And let me guess,” Sam said, as her eyes zeroed in on mine, “she’ll also be able to identify who you were with, right?”
“I’m sorry,” my mother said, setting her tea cup on the small table next to her rocking chair. “I don’t think I’m following this.”
“Your son has an escort service at his beck and call,” Sam said in that sing-song tone she uses when she’s so pleased with herself for making me squirm.
“Don’t worry, Sis. Perhaps the Captain here would let you borrow my shotgun,” Liza said.
She then patted my mom’s shaking hands while looking between her and Sam to see which one would like to take a shot at me first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The truth is, when the need arises, I use an escort service. Successful men who aren’t in relationships but still need dates to an endless string of social events do it all the time.
Hell, you think a guy like me can just take it on faith that a woman is actually interested in me and not my money or celebrity?
One thing was for certain. Being back in Chicago and out on the town with one of Dina’s girls would be preferable to the metaphorical firing squad I was facing. I’d have given anything to get the hell outta there for a little while and enjoy the company of a beautiful woman who didn’t want to wail on me.
I was already on the hot seat for murder. Now, I was also likely to be at the business end of a shotgun barrel held by Sam, my mother or Aunt Liza.
Let me put it this way…it didn’t look like it would be long before I’d be the one talking to plants, if not permanently sleeping beneath them.
I never would’ve thought, however, that it might be one of my high-dollar dates who might just save my ass. That is, if any of them even remembered being out with me. I hoped Dina kept good records on who she fixed up her clients with and when.
“So let’s hear about your little Chicago trip,” Sam said.
She then made two new entries on the whiteboard: ‘TOD: 2 to 3 days prior’ and ‘Nicky in Chicago.’ She then attempted to collate my time in Chicago with the timeline that included me picking her up at the Indianapolis airport.
“Fine,” I said, coming to terms with the fact that I’d rather be caught with an escort than framed for murder.
“To maintain my sanity, I needed a break. You’d been pushing me hard on this book deadline. And quite frankly, the thought that you were arriving in a couple of days, with the sole intention of being under my nose till I wrote ‘The End,’ had me more than a little on edge. I needed to escape. Okay, given the circumstances, that’s probably not the best choice of words. But that’s the truth. That’s why I went to Chicago.”
“When did you leave?” She snapped out the question, turning quickly back to the board.
“I think it was last Saturday.”
“What do you mean you think it was Saturday? Was it Saturday or not?”
“Saturday is accurate,” Roman cut in.
We all looked at my royal guest, totally caught off guard by his verification of my whereabouts.
“Once you talk to Dina, I’m fairly certain you’ll be able to confirm that Nick arrived in the city on Saturday and was set up for dinner and drinks with a woman named Chelsea at Optics on Hubbard Street.”
“And you would know this…how?” Todd asked, looking even more flummoxed than the rest of us.
With Roman’s unsettling knowledge of my exact whereabouts, another elephant had now entered the room.
“Let’s just say I have excellent sources,” Roman said, while his Dad and R returned his casual smile.
“I was upset at dinner that night. I’d received a nasty call from Betty, a mutual friend of Sam and I.”
I mentioned this, not thinking it really mattered much, but figuring I needed to tell all, since the Bellesconi clan likely knew everything anyway.
“First, she’s certainly not a friend of mine. Second, what did that bitch want?” Sam asked, causing everyone to pause a moment for a sip of tea or, preferably, brandy-spiked cocoa.
“First point…got it. Thanks for the clarification. Second, she was all riled up because my release had been pushed up and Jack’s pushed back. You know how much she’s always adored Jack.”
“So, I take it this Betty then doesn’t adore you?” Todd asked me, taking out his notebook.
“Are you kidding? She hates Nicky!” Sam answered for me and laughed.
Now that we were creating additional negatives to add to my profile, I felt even more uncomfortable.
“She hates you more,” I said.
“I’ll shoulder that one with pride, my friend,” she said, while filling in the board with the latest timeline details.
“So what time was this call?” Todd asked.
“Let me think. It was before dinner. So…”
“Your reservations were at 7 PM. If that helps your memory,” Roman said, acting as if the fact he knew my schedule better than I did was nothing out of the norm.
I got the distinct feeling that I could simply sit back and let him fill in the rest of the details regarding my dinner date. As much as that unnerved me, it also bolstered my confidence that I would eventually be cleared of all wrong doing.
“Okay…that means my conversation with Betty ended around 6:15 to 6:30-ish,” I said.
Suddenly, a seismic tingle descended my spine. Whoa. Wait a minute. Yes. The way Betty ended our conversation could be significant.
“It ended after she told you that you’d pay dearly for what you’d done to Jack, right?” Roman asked, leading in the mother of all elephants.
So much for my temporary feeling of confidence.
For the first time, it occurred to me that Betty’s words might not have been an idle threat. And the way she’d worded her vitriolic statement didn’t exactly do anything to make me sound like Mr. Innocent. I was suddenly much less sure that I’d come out of this situation unscathed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Testing,” I muttered into the microphone as instructed by and set up by Todd and Captain Allen.
Even though I was hooked into what was going to be a recorded conversation with Bitchy Betty, I still couldn’t believe what I was about to do. Sure, I thought the woman was a total ice queen. But murder? Or conspiracy to commit murder? I definitely didn’t see that coming.
Looking across the dining room table in my Chicago penthouse, I waited on the cue from the detectives that were hooking up Sam’s mic.
The second they gave me the thumbs up, I dialed Betty’s cell phone and waited.
With each ring, my gut twisted even tighter. If I ever made it out of this with part of my sanity in tact, my local masseuse was going to have her work cut out for her.
“Don’t you have more important things to do than call me?” And with that, Betty’s snark started the tape rolling. “Like, perhaps, clearing your bestselling name…of murder?”
After hearing Betty’s zingers, it was painfully obvious that Sam had already exhausted her meager stockpile of patience, and it was also clear that I was sitting across from a human Vesuvius that could blow any second.
“I thought that was your job.”
I swore I saw actual puffs of smoke escape Sam’s lips as she spoke up in response to Betty.
“What the hell did I do to deserve to be wasting time with both of you at once?”
Not even the cheapest audio recording equipment in the world could have failed to pick up the contempt lowering Betty’s voice to such a dark octave loaded with challenge.
“That’s exactly what we’d like to know, wouldn’t we, Nicky?” Sam asked, her tone even darker.
“Probably a good point to start with,” I said, drumming my fingers on the glass tabletop, unable to sit still.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Are you insinuating that I had something to do with Jack’s death?”
“Interesting you would immediately jump to that conclusion, don’t you think?” Sam asked.
Her lips curled into a wry smile as she looked right at Todd, who was standing next to me.
“I didn’t jump to any conclusions, Aldredge. I know you. You’re baiting me.”
“Perhaps. But you took the bait, and I’m going to enjoy watching you choke on the hook.”
Sam’s smile was immense. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so happy. And damn if she didn’t deserve to be gloating. Brilliant move.
“We’ll see who chokes first and on what,” Betty said, followed by a laugh that chilled me more than the second blizzard of the week now blowing in off the lake.
Todd motioned with a cutting gesture across his throat indicating that we should end the call
.
Using the button they’d shown me, I cut the connection.
“Perfect. Let’s see what that does to get some wheels turning,” Todd said while dialing his cell.
“We’re ready for you, Your Royal Highness,” he said with a good-natured smirk.
Apparently, Todd and Roman had hit it off more than well.
I guess that really wasn’t too surprising. Todd wasn’t just a local county detective. For years, he’d been training with international security consultants. In fact, he spent most of his vacation time from the Sheriff’s Department getting paid to train diplomatic & executive protection units all around the world. Heck, he and Roman probably knew some of the same people.
Bitchy Betty had better watch her step. She had a royal family with connections watching her every move in The Big Apple. And, when given the order, they were ready to pounce.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I normally went to the farm to escape the hectic day-to-day bustle of the city, but my world had been turned on its head. Compared to the insanity I was leaving behind on the farm, though, Chicago’s magical metropolis on Lake Michigan seemed like a sea of tranquility, newly blanketed by another major snow storm.
Who was I kidding? No one lately. That I knew for sure. I also knew that I didn’t have any seas of tranquility left.
Sitting in the window seat in the corner of my penthouse living room, my mood continued to fall, along with the huge snowflakes tumbling from the ominous clouds resting on the rooftop of my glass sun room just outside.
The very idea that Aunt Liza had somehow gotten mixed up with and joined forces with the rest of those off-their-rockers Mom Squad-ers was enough to give me ulcers. It was impossible to envision any scenario with more potential for trouble.
Before all of this drove me slowly off my rocker, I really just needed to get a grip.
Sam sure as hell seemed to be taking it in stride. Actually, she appeared to be thriving on the madness, just like she always did when we were getting ready to wrap up a new plot line.