“Wait,” I said. “Why?”
“Why what?” an exasperated Cullen asked.
“Why did Dom beat up Swing? And why would he let his daughter witness something like that? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Karina was already there,” Martin said.
“At Dewatre? On a Saturday morning when it’s closed? Why would…?” I let that hang there as the possibilities—one unsavory possibility in particular—scrolled through my cranium. “No.” I shook my head. “No, she’s a kid!”
“Karina Faso is sixteen,” Cullen said. “A felony in the state of New York.”
“She didn’t,” I said. “She wouldn’t. Not Kari. She’s a good kid.”
Cullen snorted at that, which made me want to punch him.
“No one said she’s not a good kid.” Martin dangled another rice noodle in front of SB, who did his customary snatch and run.
“Careful with that stuff,” I said. “No more for him.”
I thought of Karina Faso. Dom’s first child. The first child of my beloved ex-husband, who’d sworn up and down as a twenty-year-old newlywed that he never, ever wanted to be a father. It’s what had broken up our marriage eight months after the I do’s. If we’d had that critical conversation before getting hitched, I never would have gone through with it, as much as I loved him.
I’d always wanted children. The need to be a mother was in my bones. Yet here I was, six months away from the big four-oh and fearing it was too late. All because I’d spent the past seventeen and a half years carrying a torch for Dom, while he racked up two more ex–Mrs. Fasos and added three little Fasos to the world. Funny how things work out, huh?
Dom isn’t one to stay single long. Within days of our divorce, he’d met Dr. Svetlana Khorkov, a Russian-born endocrinologist eleven years his senior, and married her four months later. Apparently Svetlana had seen no need to consult her bridegroom before going off the Pill. Kari was born nine months after the wedding. Ivan made his appearance eleven months after that. Five years later, following a second amicable divorce, Wife Number Three, a renowned poet named Meryl Hanover, presented him with his third child, Jonathan.
I recalled the day Karina was born. Dom was the happiest, proudest papa you ever saw, once Svetlana had taken the decision away from him. Silly me for wanting to give him a say. He was thoroughly and hopelessly besotted with little Karina. I thought he’d never stop grinning. I can still feel the bittersweet ache of watching him cuddle his newborn daughter, watching them coo to each other, watching her wrap her tiny fist around his finger. Soaking in the heartwarming image while knowing it wasn’t our child in his arms and never would be.
Even after his subsequent divorces from Svetlana and Meryl, he remained an involved, loving dad. He’s always gotten along with his exes, who both live in Crystal Harbor. It didn’t hurt that he worked hard to keep the break-ups civil and is exceptionally generous with child support.
I said, “Kari has too much sense to get involved with someone like Swing.”
“Kids that age aren’t known for their common sense,” Martin said.
“‘Someone like Swing’?” Cullen said. “What does that mean?”
“Oh, you know,” I said. “Just that he’s older, older than her dad even, and he has a reputation for being with a lot of women.”
“Some girls would find that a turn-on,” Martin said. “He’s older, powerful, rich. A famous chef. He’s on TV all the time. You telling me Kari would be immune to that?”
“Well, what about Swing, then?” I said. “He has women falling all over him. Why would he mess with a sixteen-year-old and risk being charged with statutory rape?”
“If a girl’s persistent,” Cullen said, “that can be hard for a guy to resist. Also, some of these girls lie about their age. I’ve seen fourteen-year-olds, they put on the makeup and the push-up bras and all that, you’d never know they aren’t of age. They set the trap and some poor bozo falls right into it, then he’s the one has his life ruined.”
“Okay, can we focus on Kari?” I said. “Kari isn’t the type to ‘set a trap.’”
Cullen’s smirk said, If you say so.
“She’s an honors student,” I persisted. “President of the art club. She volunteers at the local animal shelter, for heaven’s sake.” I saw Cullen perk up at this. “And no, there’s no SEAR connection there, so don’t even start.”
Martin glanced at Cullen as he wrangled the last of the noodles. “So Dom thought Swing and his daughter were involved?”
“You don’t get to ask questions,” the detective sneered.
I said, “So Dom thought Swing and his daughter were involved?”
Cullen gave a disgusted sigh. “What do you think? He finds the two of them alone, meeting secretly, he decides to teach the guy a lesson. That part, I got no problem with. I mean, I have a daughter myself.”
“It’s quite a leap from punching the guy out to sticking a knife in his chest,” I said. “I mean, two days later? You’d think Dom would have cooled off by then.”
“Or not, if it looked like Swing was up to his old tricks,” Cullen said.
I tried to think like a detective. “I assume you found Dom’s fingerprints at the scene since he was there two days before. What about on the knife? Any prints there?”
“I’m not prepared to divulge—”
“Yeah, yeah, police business,” I said. “Have you contacted Swing’s family at least? He told me his folks have been gone for years, but there’s a brother.” Swing had mentioned him a couple of times. They were close, despite the geographical separation.
Martin spoke up. “His brother Victor is on a flight right now from Paris.”
“How do you know that?” Cullen barked. “Who’s feeding you information?”
Martin just smiled and drained his beer bottle. I had little doubt the padre had friendly contacts in the police department. He might have a checkered background—I’d probably never learn the particulars and wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to—but there was no doubting the man was a charmer.
“I have things to do, Detective,” I said. “Are we done here?”
“We never even got started.” He set his notebook on the kitchen island and clicked his pen. “What time did you arrive at Dewatre this morning?”
3
The Chutzpah!
“I LOVED HIM!” Karina Faso screamed. Her pretty face was damp with tears and scarlet with rage and grief. She faced off with her father in the living room of his ultramodern waterfront mansion. White walls and a bleached-wood floor provided the perfect backdrop to elegant black and gray furnishings.
It was almost nine p.m. and fully dark outside. During daylight hours I would have been able to stand there and gaze through the floor-to-ceiling windows past the lush back lawn of the five-acre property, complete with pool, tennis court, and guest house, to the bay and Long Island Sound beyond.
Dom reached for his daughter. She jerked away. At five ten, she was only four inches shorter than her dad. When she wore heels, as she did now, they stood practically eye to eye. In addition to impressive height, she’d also inherited his brown eyes, but she had her mother to thank for her hair color, a light golden brown, several shades darker than my own strawberry blond. She wore it long and straight, and appeared oblivious to the strands clinging to her tear-streaked face.
“I loved him and you couldn’t deal with that,” she said, “so you killed him!”
“Kari, honey, you know that’s absurd.” He maintained an air of paternal calm in the face of his child’s anguish, though the effort clearly cost him. “When you’re less upset, you’ll see—”
“I’ll never be less upset!” Her eyes looked wild, like a trapped animal’s. “Don’t you get it? You destroyed my life. It wasn’t enough just to beat him up, was it? I hope they put you away for the rest of your life. I hope you rot in jail. I’ll never forgive you!” She turned and sprinted past me into the foyer and up the curved staircase. After a few moment
s we heard a door slam upstairs.
Dom sat heavily on the arm of the nearest sofa. I’d never seen him look so helpless. After Detective Cullen had finally left, I’d gone straight to Dom’s, needing to get his version of events and see how he was coping with the person-of-interest nonsense. I’d found myself in the midst of a wrenching family drama.
He ran long fingers through his curly, dark hair. “I don’t know what to do for her, Janey. Neither does Lana,” he said, using his ex-wife Svetlana’s nickname. “Kari’s accusations, they’re insane. How do I get through to her?”
I’d never been a mother, but I’d been a teenage girl. “No one’s going to get through to her right now, Dom. She’s hurting and instinctively she’s directing the pain outward. It’s not a conscious thing. She doesn’t really hate you.”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “We’ve had arguments, it comes with the territory when you’re raising a teenager, but it’s never been like this.”
She’s never been in love with a murder victim. I didn’t say it. I didn’t have to. And as for the being-in-love thing, we were talking about an adolescent girl in the throes of her first big crush. Did she even know what it meant to be in love?
Then again, at her age I was already deeply in love with her father. By that point we were inseparable. Nothing and no one could tear us apart. Or so I’d assumed in my youthful optimism.
“It’s too bad Bonnie was taken off the case,” I said.
He gave me a guarded look. We hadn’t spoken much in the six weeks since he and Detective Bonnie Hernandez had become re-engaged—shortly after he’d promised me plenty of time to decide whether to remarry him. This was not the time to lay into him about that.
“She took herself off it,” he said. “Conflict of interest.”
“Yeah, that’s what Cullen said.” I took a seat on the far end of the sofa he’d perched on. The sofa was gray, the pillows I pushed out of the way black and cream. My ex-husband’s decorator had combined refined fabrics, rich textures, and a dramatic color palette to craft a space entirely devoid of warmth or hominess. The result was so at odds with Dom’s outgoing personality that I couldn’t help but find it a bit sad.
The black-and-white theme carried over into the foyer and giant kitchen. At least his den had been done in warm colors, and there were splashes of red in the second-floor bridge flanked by railings. Altogether, the twelve-thousand-square-foot house felt more like a museum, complete with curved walls and loads of framed art photos illuminated by spot lighting.
“I was surprised to learn that you and Swing actually fought,” I said. “As in serious punches thrown.”
“It was kind of one-sided, I’m ashamed to say.” Dom crossed his arms. “He shoved me when I got in his face, and I used that as an excuse to deck him. I can’t remember ever being that angry.”
“It’s your daughter,” I said. “You’re allowed.”
He sighed. “Well, it’s done. I can’t take it back. And the worst part is, it only made things worse. With Kari. She witnessed the whole stupid thing and it made her more—” air quotes here “—‘in love’ with Swing.”
“No, the worst part is, it made you a suspect in Swing’s murder,” I said. “I get the feeling Cullen’s not inclined to look any further.”
“I’m innocent,” he said. “The facts will show that.”
Okay, you might be thinking right about now that my ex is dangerously naïve. Anyone who follows the news knows that innocent people are convicted every day of crimes they didn’t commit. It wasn’t naïveté on Dom’s part so much as a perpetually positive outlook. The glass is always half-full in Dominic Faso-land.
“I get why you hushed up the fight,” I said, “but why did Swing keep quiet about it? Any idea?”
“One, I beat the tar out of him, so you have the macho thing going on. He wouldn’t want to advertise that fact. But also, well…” He looked at me. “I’m wondering if it might have been for Kari’s sake. To keep people from talking about her.”
“That sounds almost gallant.”
“Either that or he didn’t want his name publicly linked with an underage girl.”
“So how did he explain the black eye?” I asked.
“I gave him a black eye?”
“A real shiner. Maybe he blamed it on one of the SEAR protestors. They’re always out there picketing the studio when he goes into Manhattan to tape a TV segment. I mean, when he went in. You know what I mean.”
“Seems a lot’s getting blamed on them lately,” Dom said.
“You don’t think SEAR had anything to do with his murder?”
“Those vermin might not have the tightest grip on reality, but even they wouldn’t be clueless enough to leave a calling card.” His expression softened as if he were seeing me for the first time that evening. “Janey. God, that must have been horrible for you. Finding him like that.”
Dom sat next to me. He put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him. I wish I could claim to be immune to the comfort he offered, to the warmth and familiar masculine scent of him. I leaned into the embrace and let myself bask in it, knowing it would end soon enough.
“It was horrible.” I would only have admitted it to Dom. I squeezed my eyes against the image that seemed etched into my memory banks. Could it have been only that morning that I’d walked into Dewatre and discovered Swing lying dead? I hauled in a shaky breath. “I hope I never see anything like that again.”
Dom pressed his lips to my hair, his breath warming my scalp. “I wish it had been me instead. Who found him. I wish I could have spared you that.”
After a moment I looked at him. “Did Cullen ask where you were this morning? When Swing was murdered?”
“Of course.”
When he didn’t elaborate, I said, “You were at work, right?” At the Janey’s Place corporate headquarters there in Crystal Harbor, where his staff could vouch for his presence during the critical window of time.
“No.”
I waited. Nothing. I shifted to face him squarely. “What do you mean, ‘no’? Cullen never said, but I assume Swing died not long before I got there, which was around ten-thirty.”
He nodded as his gaze slid from mine. “The medical examiner estimates he was killed between nine-thirty and ten.”
“So today’s Monday,” I said. “Aren’t you at work by nine?”
“Usually, but today there were unforeseen circumstances.”
My skin prickled. “What kind of unforeseen circumstances?”
He sighed in defeat. “I didn’t spend the night here, first of all.”
Bonnie hadn’t moved back into Dom’s house after they’d renewed their engagement—her decision, I assumed, but whether that held any significance, I couldn’t say. Obviously it didn’t keep them from sharing a bed on a regular basis.
It shouldn’t still get to me, after his two subsequent marriages and his on-again-off-again engagement to Bonnie. He’s allowed to spend the night at his fiancée’s place, for heaven’s sake. But it did still get to me, after all these years.
Hey, I’m in touch with my feelings. Shouldn’t that count for something? Oh, what do you know?
The fact that Dom was well aware that stuff like this still got to me was a great big glob of mortification icing on the humiliation cake.
None of which kept me from gamely pretending I didn’t give a darn. “Okay, so you were at Bonnie’s all night. So?”
“So she left the house before me this morning and then Frederick slipped out the gate and I spent three hours looking for him.”
Frederick was Bonnie’s magnificent standard poodle, the perfectly behaved, hardworking, blue-ribbon-winning poodle against which all other poodles are to be judged.
Sexy Beast and I hate Frederick.
“Three hours?” I said. “As in the critical three hours?”
Dom flopped back against the sofa, head lolling, eyes shut. “Stupid mutt chased a rabbit into the woods.” So much for the “pe
rfectly behaved” part.
“Did anyone see you looking for him?”
He rocked his head in the negative. “It was the woods, Janey. Not exactly teeming with people on a Monday morning.”
“Well, did you call anyone? You had to call work, right? So they’d know you were delayed.”
“I told them I was working from home this morning,” he said. “If I mentioned Frederick, I knew it would get back to Bonnie and she’d pitch a fit.”
“So there’s no one who can vouch for your whereabouts during the hours in question.”
He tipped his head toward me, his expression baleful.
“Too Law and Order?” I asked.
“I’m getting enough of that from Cullen. Did you know he showed up here this afternoon with a search warrant?”
“Really? What was he looking for?”
“Shoes,” he said. “He took all my sneakers, everything with that kind of sole.”
“Ah. The bloody shoe prints.”
“You saw them?” he asked.
“Briefly. I was trying hard not to look at… all of that.”
He squeezed my hand.
I nodded toward the ceiling, and by extension, Karina. “Is she staying here tonight?” She and her brother Ivan lived with their mother, but visitation was flexible.
He nodded. “Lana’s been dealing with her all day. I think she’s reached her limit.”
I sympathized with Lana, but I didn’t think that Karina staying at her dad’s place, while she was trying so hard to convince herself he murdered the man she was trying so hard to convince herself she loved, was the best thing for her current state of mind. And Dom had his own person-of-interest headaches. He was not equipped to give his daughter the attention she needed right now.
I sighed.
“What?” he asked.
“I might come to regret this,” I said, “but I think Kari should stay with me tonight. Neutral territory.” I’d always gotten along well with the girl. “I’ll get her to school in the morning.”
He was about to dismiss the idea, I could see, but then he stilled and thought about it. He looked at me. “You’re okay with that?”
Perforating Pierre (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 3) Page 3