“More to the point, will Kari be okay with it? After all, she can’t torture you as easily from my place.” I rose.
Dom remained seated. He tossed his hand as if to say, She’s all yours.
*
“MOM WANTS ME to go on the Pill.” Kari hovered a hand over the griddle, testing the heat.
“And you don’t want to?” I asked.
She answered with a shrug, her gaze on the griddle as she swirled butter onto it. The butter melted and foamed on contact, teasing me with its intoxicating perfume.
“So…” I wasn’t sure I knew how to do this. “What are you using for protection now?”
Another shrug. Part of me prayed the girl wasn’t already pregnant, while another part of me took in subtle clues in her expression and body language as she lifted the bowl of batter and started pouring. Those clues didn’t match up with what I was hearing.
We were in my kitchen making a midnight snack. Yeah, I knew she had school in the morning, but if she skipped first-period gym, it wouldn’t kill her. I could write the late note. After all, I was her stepmother. Kind of. Well, in a reverse-chronological sort of way, if that counted. And if she was still very upset, I could ask Dom about letting her stay home, although I suspected that sticking with her routine was probably the best thing for her.
We’d already gotten through the sobbing, the accusations, why she hate hate hates her parents and her stupid brother, and the professions of forever-and-ever love for a man who would now remain perfect in her eyes until the end of time. The time had come to decompress with food. Following his initial excitement over seeing Kari, Sexy Beast had curled up in his bucket bed in a corner of the kitchen to alternately gnaw his chew toy and doze.
Kari poured precise, uniform pancakes, each of which landed with a satisfying sizzle. “You’re pretty good at this,” I said, and meant it.
“I want to be a chef.”
“Oh yeah?” It would be so easy to say exactly the wrong thing at that moment. “I bet you’d make a great one.”
“Swing was teaching me.” She set aside the bowl and lifted a spatula out of the utensil caddy.
What else was he teaching you? “That’s… nice,” I said.
She looked at me. “It’s why I went to Dewatre every Saturday morning. He was giving me lessons.”
“Really? I mean, wow. Cooking lessons from a chef of his caliber. That’s something. Did your folks know?”
Kari directed her gaze back to the griddle. She shook her head. “It was going to be a surprise. I was going to make Thanksgiving dinner. Including vegetarian stuff for dad.”
“So where did your mom and dad think you were going every Saturday morning?” I asked.
“The library. Teen book club.” After a few moments she looked at me and said, “I want to know how it was. When you found him.”
I took a deep breath. “No, you don’t.”
She set down the spatula. “I’m not a little kid, Jane. The truth isn’t going to scar me for life or anything. I keep imagining all these horrible things and they’re probably worse than how it really was.” She waited.
“Well, it was pretty bad.”
“Was he lying on the floor?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And what?”
“And… the knife was still in him.” I cleared my throat. “In his, um, chest.”
She nodded thoughtfully. In a quiet voice she said, “There must have been blood.”
I nodded again.
“Okay.” She sucked in a deep breath and let it out, her gaze unfocused. “So his bloody corpse was lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of it.”
Even if I hadn’t been instructed to keep quiet about the platter and the parsley, I wouldn’t have mentioned them to Kari. Doing so would have served no purpose except to cause her more pain.
She said, “Did he look… scared or, you know…”
“No.” I shook my head vigorously. “His eyes were open, but there was no expression in them. He looked, well, peaceful. I think it was over in an instant, Kari. I didn’t see anything to make me think he suffered or… or that it was prolonged or anything.”
This was not strictly true. I happen to know that facial muscles, like all muscles, relax in death. If Swing felt terror at the end, we wouldn’t know it from his expression. And as for it all being over quickly… anyone who’d witnessed that murder scene and its blood pattern would tell you differently. You didn’t need to be a forensic investigator to discern Swing’s struggle to live. But there was no way I was going to share that with Kari. I hoped she now had enough information to come to grips with how Swing died and to find some peace.
“Thank you for telling me.” She hugged me, and our height difference made me feel like the kid. Her voice was watery as she added, “I really needed to know.”
I didn’t think more tears at this point would do either of us any good. I patted her back and handed her the spatula. “Don’t these things need to be turned?”
She shook her head. “Not until the bubbles pop and the holes stay open.”
“So I’ve been making pancakes wrong my whole life,” I said. “Tell me. How did you meet Swing?”
“My dad had this big pool party a couple of months ago. It was catered, but I made some hors d’oeuvres and Swing thought they were great. I mean he really liked them. He wasn’t just being polite.”
“I believe you.”
“So we, you know, started talking and he ended up offering to teach me some stuff.”
I opened a cabinet and pulled down a couple of plates. The smell of the pancakes had my stomach grumbling. Suddenly I realized that between Cullen’s visit and the drama with Dom and Karina—and oh yeah, Martin scarfing down my leftovers—I’d missed dinner. No wonder I was famished.
“So what happened to Tucker?” I asked. This was answered with another shrug. “I thought you two were still going out.”
“We are. Kind of. He’s like a little boy.” Kari started flipping the pockmarked pancakes. “Now that I know what it’s like to be with a grown man, I’m not interested in guys my age.”
There it was again, the feeling that this girl was having a little too much fun freaking out the adults in her life. “So. Kari.” I leaned against the counter and got a good view of her face. “Why don’t you want your mom to know you’re still a virgin?”
I watched in satisfaction as the pancake she was flipping fell half onto its neighbor. Yes! I was right.
Kari scraped the pancakes apart. “You don’t know anything about—”
“Don’t.” I held up my palm. “Save it for your parents.”
She maintained her mulish expression for a few seconds, then deflated with a gusty sigh. “I hate them.”
“I believe we’ve covered that ground.”
“My mom always assumes the worst,” she said. “I can’t talk to her. She’s old. She’s fifty!” She made a can-you-believe-it face, as if Lana were turning to dust before her eyes. “She’s not like you. I can talk to you. Why did you and my dad get divorced? I’d wish I were your kid.”
My eyes abruptly stung and I had to turn away. I busied myself getting out utensils and syrup. Just hearing this sweet, confused girl say she wished she were mine brought out all the maternal yearning and disappointment I’d spent decades struggling to suppress. When I felt in control of my voice, I said, “She must be worried about you to suggest you start using birth control.”
“They both worry, her and Dad.” Kari turned off the stove and deposited pancakes on our plates. “Nothing I do or don’t do makes any difference, so why bother?”
We carried our food to the round breakfast-room table. “So did Swing feel the same way about you that you felt about him?”
After a moment she said, “Sure.”
I waited.
“It’s just, you know, he didn’t feel free to express it,” she continued. “Because of my age and stuff.”
“Is that what he said?” I lifte
d a forkful of syrup-drenched pancake to my mouth and failed to repress a rapturous groan.
SB had taken up position next to my chair as soon as I sat. Yeah, I know you’re not supposed to let them beg at the table, but his original owner, Irene McAuliffe, never got that memo, and by the time he was mine, it was established routine. Plus, well, I hate to disappoint him. I cut a bit of pancake, which he sniffed, then delicately plucked from my fingers.
“We didn’t really talk about it,” Kari said. “I mean, we really did spend all our time cooking. He only had, like, an hour before he had to get Dewatre ready for the Saturday lunch crowd, so we were too busy to, you know, talk about it. But I could tell he cared,” she hurriedly added.
“Did Swing know that your parents thought you were at the library when you two were together?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It didn’t come up.”
I wanted to shake her. Instead I waited again.
Finally she said, “Okay, I get why my dad went nuts when he found us together. You know, alone at the restaurant when it was closed and everything. When he thought I was at the library. But he didn’t give us a chance to explain. He just, like, assumed!”
Considering Swing’s reputation as a Lothario, it wasn’t an unwarranted assumption. Yes, the chef had been my friend and I’d liked him, but I couldn’t say for certain how he’d respond to a pretty teenager in the throes of a major crush. Apparently his pal Dom thought he was capable of taking advantage of the situation.
“Why did your dad show up at Dewatre that morning, anyway?” I asked.
“To return a cookbook Swing lent him. A thousand and one ways to make quinoa or some slop like that.”
Dom’s children did not share his love for all things vegetarian. I looked down at SB, staring lovingly at my plate and licking his lips. I said, “All gone” in a singsongy tone he knew meant business. He retired to his bed, with a longsuffering sigh.
“He can see it’s not all gone,” Kari pointed out, reasonably. I still had plenty of pancake on my plate. “Why did he believe you?”
“To him, ‘all gone’ only means he’s not getting any more right now. I’ll put some in his bowl when I’m finished.”
She grinned. Even with eyes that were red and swollen from crying, she was a beautiful girl. It was good to see her loosen up after the fraught day she’d had. “You’re a good dog mommy. I want a dog—a border collie. They’re the smartest. Mom won’t let me have one because they shed. I told her I’d dust and vacuum up the hairs every day.” She shook her head at the injustice of it.
Yeah, I thought, and she’d walk the dog in the rain and clean up its poop and take it to the vet. Lana was just a teensy bit busy, between her medical practice and raising two teenagers. I didn’t blame her one bit for not throwing a high-energy, hard-thinking herding dog into the mix.
I was mentally debating how to persuade this girl to communicate with her parents when my phone rang.
Kari smiled at my ring tone: the 1950s Latin rock classic “Tequila.” Favorite drink, favorite song. What can I tell you? I’m simple.
I got up and retrieved my phone from the kitchen island. I didn’t recognize the number displayed on it. I sighed.
“Are you going to answer that?” Kari asked.
“The press has been hounding me for statements all day,” I said. “I stopped answering the phone.”
“Would they bother you this late? I mean, you could be in bed.”
“They have a story to write. They don’t care.” Suddenly I was angry. Kari wasn’t the only one who’d had a long, emotionally wrenching day. I stabbed the green “answer” icon and brought the phone to my ear. “What!” I barked.
After a moment an accented male voice said, “Is this Jane Delaney?”
“Seriously?” I demanded, looking at the stove clock. “At a quarter past midnight? You people are unbelievable. Do you have any idea what kind of day I’ve had? Well, of course you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be harassing me at midnight, would you? I found a murdered body this morning. My friend’s body. I had to look at his bloody corpse lying on the floor with a knife sticking out of it!” Kari offered a thumbs-up, clearly unfazed at hearing me parrot her own stark words. I added, “So I can safely say my day has been a little rougher than yours, buddy. Do not call this number again!” I broke the connection.
“That feel good?” Kari forked up the last of her pancakes.
“Felt great. Wish I’d been doing it all day instead of letting them go to voice mail.” I started cutting the last bite of pancake into itty bitty pieces for Sexy Beast, who abandoned his bucket bed and stood by my side, licking his lips. The smart little brat was fully aware what my dainty cutting motions meant.
“Tequila” started playing again. I looked at the screen. “The chutzpah! It’s the same guy.”
“Let me!” Kari wagged her hand toward the phone. “Pleeease?”
Yeah, that’s what I needed getting back to Dom and Lana—that I let their daughter cuss out a reporter. It could be someone from Ramrod News on the other end. I wouldn’t put it past those jackals to record the call and play it on air.
“Sorry, kiddo.” I answered the phone. “Listen, you—”
“This is Victor Dewatre.”
“What?”
“No, Dewatre. Pierre Dewatre was my brother.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, eyes bulging. Swing’s brother! I’d just said all that bloody-corpse stuff to Swing’s brother!
“What?” Kari looked alarmed. “Jane, what’s wrong?”
“Ms. Delaney?” The accent was definitely French. “Are you there?”
I pried my hand off my face. To Kari I mouthed, It’s Swing’s brother. She clapped a hand over her own mouth.
“I… yes, I’m here,” I said. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Dewatre. I… the press has been calling all day and I just assumed…”
“I understand.” He sounded tired. “My apologies for phoning at this hour. My flight just landed. I’m still on the plane. I wanted to touch base and see if you might be able to make time for me today.” His command of the language was perfect.
I frowned. “You want to meet with me?”
“I was told you discovered my brother’s body, and I suppose you just confirmed it,” he said.
I groaned. “That was… I shouldn’t have…”
“I’m hoping you might be more forthcoming about certain details than the police detective was on the phone,” he said.
Yet one more person who desired a description of Swing’s murder scene, in living color. I’d have thought my little bloody-corpse tirade would have sufficed. But I said, “I’ll help in any way I can.”
He said, “Will you be available during your lunch break? Say, one o’clock?”
“Of course.” I could carve some time out of my current assignment, selling the dead doc’s antique medical instruments. “Where are you staying?”
“I booked a room at one of the chain hotels near the airport,” he said. “All I need is your address. The rental car will have GPS.”
This poor man had just lost his brother in the most gruesome way imaginable. He’d been traveling for hours, and Paris was, what, six hours ahead of New York? He was dealing with grief, exhaustion, and a messed-up body clock. The last thing he needed was some crappy airport hotel and a miserable drive in an unfamiliar car on unfamiliar roads.
Swing had spoken highly of Victor, and I had a good feeling about him just from our brief conversation. Plus I felt I owed him for the, you know, bloody-corpse business.
“I won’t hear of you staying at a hotel,” I said. “I have more bedrooms here than I know what to do with. I’m picking you up.”
“That’s very generous of you, Ms. Delaney, but—”
“It’s Jane,” I said.
“Please call me Victor. Thank you for the offer, Jane, but I couldn’t possibly impose.”
“Oh please, like you’re not about to collapse.” When all else fails, turn into the Pus
hy American. “If there’s anyone else traveling with you, they’re welcome to stay too.” I was thinking no wife or girlfriend would let him make this trip alone.
“It’s just me, but you needn’t—”
“Which airport?”
He hesitated only a second. “JFK. Excuse me.” He turned aside briefly to ask someone a question in French, then told me, “Terminal One.”
“This time of night it should only take me about a half hour. Call me again when you clear customs, Victor. I can always wait in the cell phone lot. Oh, and I’ll be driving a red Mazda.”
“I will be the one asleep standing up.”
4
In Which Jane Gets Propositioned
IT’S A GOOD thing I recognized Victor. Which is to say, I recognized Swing. Victor was a younger version of his brother except for his hair color, which was light brown with no hint of gray. He wore it longish, swept back off his face and brushing the open collar of his pale blue dress shirt. The shirt was untucked, the sleeves rolled up. If he’d started out with a necktie, it was history. His gray suit jacket was slung over his shoulder on this warm night in early September.
I say it’s a good thing I recognized him because he was indeed nearly asleep on his feet, his bleary gaze staring into middle distance. I pulled up to the curb at the terminal’s pickup area, popped the trunk, and rolled down the passenger window.
“Victor!” I called.
He came to attention then, bending to focus on me. He flashed a quick, tired smile—Swing’s smile, Swing’s silver-gray eyes—before tossing his leather duffel into the trunk and sliding into the passenger seat.
He reached over to shake my hand. “You’re a lifesaver, Jane.”
“My pleasure. Really.” It was no lie. I’d thought Swing was hot stuff, but his younger brother took that hotness to a new level. Even with strands of hair flopping over his temple and serious beard stubble.
Oh, who am I kidding? Especially with the hair flopping and the stubble.
As I drove toward the airport exit, I asked, “Were you able to sleep on the plane?”
“No, I never do. And especially not tonight, with everything.” He gave a bleak little shake of his head.
Perforating Pierre (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 3) Page 4