“I confess, they are from the florist on Main Street. I picked them up the other day for a little color.”
“This place is stunning. I had no idea. And yet you don’t entertain—?”
“Not to speak of. Camilla has been over for the occasional lunch, as have a couple of other select people I do not despise. Sit down. Take off your coat,” he said, pulling out a chair for me. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.” I looked around me, feeling dazed, at the scrubbed white walls, the gleaming silver appliances, and the custom-made backsplash of blue tile, on which was painted something that looked familiar.
“Is that—da Vinci?” I asked.
“Good eye. It’s a reproduction of one of his drawings—he sketched it for ten years, honing the image until he was finally ready to sculpt it. This one is called The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior. I’ve always admired it.”
“So naturally you had an artist re-create it as a backsplash in your kitchen,” I joked.
“Naturally.” He grinned. “Listen, I’m afraid these first few waffles came out sort of—crispy. I’m sure there’s a secret to it, but I’m still getting the hang of it. I’ll do it until I succeed, if I have to pile waffles to the ceiling.”
“It smells amazing in here. This is so nice of you, Sam.”
He walked toward me, holding a serving plate; his natural gait looked deceptively lazy, just as his jeans and V-neck sweater could almost fool someone into thinking that they weren’t expensive. My eyes lingered for a moment on his jeans, his sweater, and the curling brown chest hair visible at the edges of his collar. He reached the table and leaned over me, setting down a plate. His scent was clean and masculine and inexplicably erotic. “There you go. Give them a try.”
“I should be all polite and wait until you sit down,” I said. I was already putting two waffles on my plate and reaching for the butter. He had a bowl of pecans sitting there, too—something else to sprinkle on an already indulgent feast. I thought with guilt of my cupcake snack with Camilla. Would this town make me fat in a matter of weeks?
“I would be disappointed if you didn’t eat them while they were hot.”
He stood for a moment, watching me. I glanced at him briefly and noted that his hair was still slightly damp where it curled against his ear. Then I returned my attention to my food. I forked off a huge bite and shoved it into my mouth. “Mmmm,” I said, smiling at him with syrup-coated lips.
He grinned. “Let me get your coffee.”
“You didn’t smoke today, did you?”
His expression was both surprised and distracted. “Uh—no. I was busy.”
He brought coffee for me and for him, then another plate of waffles. “It’s delicious, Sam. Thank you again.”
“You’re very welcome. It’s only fun to cook for people who enjoy eating.”
“I’d be embarrassed by that if there were any point in it.” I was still savoring the flavor of the food in my mouth. There was something special about these waffles—they had a vanilla aftertaste and some other flavor I couldn’t name—and they had been specially made just for me. “I might have to eat an unusually large number of waffles just to be polite.”
He laughed, sipped his coffee, and put some food on his own plate. Then he pointed to his windowsill, where I saw the manila envelope that contained my contract. “I looked that over,” he said. “I suppose you know that Camilla has been very generous.”
“I had that idea. But she suggested that I have someone look it over for me, because she wanted me to be sure.”
“You can be. She’s even put in some extra codicils for your protection. First, you can back out at any time if you feel that the arrangement is not beneficial to your career. She defines that more clearly in the part I marked with a yellow tab. Second, you have opportunities for salary raises every six months, assuming you meet certain criteria. Those are marked with the red tab. She’s put a lot of thought into this. The pay seems fair—”
“It’s more than fair.”
“And she allows a great deal of latitude regarding your hours and your workload.”
“She’s amazing. And so is this waffle. This is like a fantasy town where all my dreams come true. It’s like Brigadoon.”
His face closed for a moment, and I set down my fork. “I’m sorry. I know it hasn’t been that for you. I’ve been thinking about it a lot—how horrible it must have been to have them turn on you that way, when they clearly don’t know what they’re talking about. They don’t know a thing about you!” I said indignantly.
He studied his fork, smiling slightly. “Neither do you. Why would you defend me?”
“Because you’re a nice man. You told me you have no idea what happened to your wife, and I believe you. I have good instincts about people.”
He poked at his food without actually taking a bite. “I assume you’ve been warned away from me.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said.
“You’re a bad liar. Lena, it means a lot to me that you would take my side.”
I picked up my fork again, stealing a glance at him, focusing on his eyes, then lowering my gaze to his sweater. It was a cerulean color and seemed to be cashmere; it would be outrageously soft to the touch . . . “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.” He sipped his coffee.
“Your wife—I don’t see how she could just disappear without them being able to trace her. I mean, are you thinking she ran away?”
He shrugged. “I suppose I hope so. I hate to think she was the victim of foul play. We were—estranged at the time she disappeared, which of course makes me look fishy to the police—but I didn’t wish any harm to Victoria.” He sighed and stared into his coffee cup. “Still, after a year, it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which she runs away, yet doesn’t use her credit cards, or call friends or family.”
“What about her phone? Can’t they trace that?”
“The police have the phone. She left it behind. She hadn’t used it for quite some time.”
“Oh. Wow. But—I mean—you hear stories about people who get new identities and things. I don’t want to sound foolish, but is there any chance that she—planned to run away?”
He leaned back, his face solemn. There were deep laugh lines next to his mouth and tiny creases next to his eyes, so deep that one could touch them with a gentle finger and sense the struggles of the man beneath the skin. “She was the kind who ran away—from problems, from fights, from confrontations. She would tell me, when we were at odds, that someday she was just going to sail away. Or fly away. Or run away. She had a variety of metaphors, but they were all graceful images of retreat. She wasn’t much of a stay-and-deal-with-it type of woman.”
This made me sad for Sam, but also for Victoria, who sounded troubled. “She was unhappy?”
Sam sighed. “Not exactly. But she was selfish, and that can lead to discontent. There’s no doubt Vic was self-centered. It’s one of many reasons we were splitting up. She was all about herself. She had ruined her company—she had her own fashion line—and had declared bankruptcy a few months before she disappeared. And she was dabbling in drugs. Pot, at first, but I thought she was getting into harder stuff. We were so different, with opposing stances on almost everything, and one day we looked at each other and couldn’t even imagine why we were together—God, I’m talking too much. And I don’t think I even answered your question.”
On the contrary, he was supplying me with information I’d been craving since I’d met him. “Could there have been another man?”
He sighed. “It’s funny you would say that. I tried to argue that a year ago. I told them that she had been texting constantly a week or two before she disappeared, on a phone I had never seen before—a red phone. When I asked where she got it she just shrugged, said a friend had lent it to her so she could decide if she wanted to buy one for herself. That seemed plau
sible enough.”
“Sure. Did the police try to trace this phone?”
“They can’t—we don’t know who gave it to her. And frankly, I’m not sure if they believed me. Remember Harrison Ford in The Fugitive, telling everyone about the one-armed man? No one thought there was really a one-armed man. He had to prove it to them.” His jaw tightened, and he looked out at the beautiful bluff.
“Wow.”
He sighed. “Anyway, I asked her what her latest obsession was—she had an obsessive personality, and she would go through things, hobbies, people—in waves. She’d be fascinated for a certain time, and then eventually she was done. That was the pattern of our marriage, as well. We fascinated each other, at the beginning.”
I leaned forward. “So it was probably a man, Sam! Who else would give her a phone when she already had one? He wanted her to have something private, something you couldn’t check, because she was having an affair!”
He shrugged. “Why would she bother? We were all but divorced. She could have started a relationship with anyone she wanted. We were only still living together so that we could sort through our possessions. How pathetic does that sound?”
“It doesn’t. You’re not the first person to get divorced. Were there—any children?”
“No. I’m glad of that now.”
I swirled a bite of waffle in some syrup; I had lost interest in eating, though. “It still sounds like there was a man.”
“Maybe. But even if she ran away with someone—I can’t believe that Vic, despite her selfishness, would let me take the rap for all this. She wasn’t an evil person. There—you hear that? I’m talking about her in the past tense. The cops picked up on that, too, and then they made their decisions about me.”
“Oh, Sam.”
He said nothing. He ate his food and looked out the grand windows.
I thought about what he had told me. “If she had the red phone with her, she would have been able to call or text you, right?”
“Yes. But there’s nothing. The phone is either off or destroyed. It’s never registered once since she left, so we can’t trace the account. It’s a dead end. It drives me crazy thinking about it, since that phone probably has all the information we need. As does Vic, if she’s still out there.”
His face looked briefly tormented before he resumed his normal closed expression. I realized suddenly why he had probably spent so much time renovating this house. He kept busy so that his thoughts wouldn’t consume him.
“What about the friends you spoke of? Did you talk to them?”
He nodded tersely. “She had lots of acquaintances, and one best friend named Taylor Brand. She’s in fashion, too, and has some annoying blog that I never read. Vic and Taylor spent lots of time together, so I tried to get information out of Taylor after Vic vanished. Taylor blamed me; she said that I was cold, and that Vic had met someone who was good for her, someone passionate and devoted. I tried to get a name out of her, and she admitted she didn’t have one. She said Vic had told her it was brand-new, and she was keeping it to herself for a while, but that she loved how jealous this new man was.”
“Jealous?”
He nodded, his face regretful. “Vic was one of those women who needed a lot of validation. She would try to make me jealous a lot, early in our marriage, and I just—didn’t respond to it. It disappointed her, but I didn’t want to live out some reality-TV-type drama in my own life.”
“But this new man was jealous! There’s a motive right there.”
“I told the police. They spoke with Taylor and said they were satisfied that she knew nothing concrete.”
“There has to be something,” I said. “What about the man you hired?”
“He’s working hard. I give him credit for that. There’s just nothing to go on. All I could give him was one thing—one word I had seen on her new phone: ‘Nikon.’”
“Nikon? Did she have a camera or something?”
He shook his head. “No. She took all her pictures on her phone. And it wasn’t so much the word as the way she reacted when I saw it. Like I had stumbled on some big secret.”
“What did she say about it at the time?”
“It’s just a word I saw over her shoulder when she was texting. She turned off the phone and said it was nothing, that I should mind my own business.”
“So she was protecting some kind of information. Could someone have taken—I don’t know—incriminating pictures or something?”
“God only knows. I didn’t want to keep asking her about it; I figured if she wanted to keep secrets, that was her business. To be brutally honest, Lena, at that point I just didn’t care what she did. I had no idea how important it would be. The things we know in retrospect . . .”
We sat for a moment in the bright and fragrant kitchen, thinking our thoughts.
Finally I said, “She was very beautiful, wasn’t she? Your wife. Could someone—predatory—have lured her into a relationship? That sort of thing happens every day, and not just to unsuspecting teens.”
He nodded. “I tried to get the police to explore that idea. They seemed to think that I was trying to create a red herring. And without her phone, there was nothing for them to pursue. I think it’s just easier to suspect that I killed her. It explains her disappearance and gives everyone a scapegoat.”
“It’s a terrible situation. I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this alone. Don’t you have family, friends who have stood by you?”
He cleared his throat and looked at his watch. “We should stop talking about this. You came by for a little advice, and I burdened you with my problems.”
“You didn’t burden me; I asked. And they are significant problems. I want to help you.”
He studied me for a moment with his compelling eyes. “Lena,” he said softly, leaning in to touch my hand. His doorbell rang. He got up and went to his refrigerator; from this angle I could see a small box to the left of the fridge that seemed to be a security camera. “Oh, shit,” he said. Then he pressed a button. “Come on in—it’s open.”
Seeing the question on my face, he said, “It’s the cops. Maybe they don’t like the fact that you’re in here. Maybe they fear for your life.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.
A moment later Doug Heller and a woman in a brown pantsuit were standing in the kitchen. Doug Heller’s face was about as friendly as a wood plank. His voice was almost as hoarse as it had been the evening before. “Mr. West.”
Sam nodded. “What can I do for you, Detective Heller?”
Doug sighed. “The fact is, I’m doing something for you. I don’t have to be here, I want you to know that.” He shot a look at me that said he was surprised and a bit wounded to find me at West’s table. “I’m here to suggest that you might want to get on the horn with your lawyer. Let him know that I’m waiting on a warrant for your arrest, at which point I will be fielding an extradition request from New York. I don’t know exactly when this is going to happen, but it will be soon. I am telling you because I know you won’t run, and because I thought you might want time to—get your affairs in order.”
I felt Sam’s tension from across the table. “What’s happened? Did you find Victoria? Is she dead?”
Doug Heller’s gaze flicked to me, then to West. “Police have located a significant amount of blood at your New York apartment.”
“Blood?” Sam asked.
“This is ridiculous!” I shouted. “He hasn’t been there, he’s been here! If there’s blood, it must be new, right? Didn’t she disappear more than a year ago?”
Doug Heller looked at the tips of his boots. The woman with him said, “Mr. West has recently visited New York.”
I looked at Sam, who nodded. “On business. About three weeks ago.”
“Come on, Doug!” I said. “Have you ever really listened to the details? She�
�s not dead! This blood has appeared very conveniently, hasn’t it? Can’t you see what’s happening here? Someone is framing him!”
No one said a word, but Sam West looked at me as though he had never seen me before.
Heller said, “Mr. West? What do you want to do? Officer Dillon here is ready to accompany you to New York if you’d like to go before the warrant comes down.”
“This is crazy! He’s had just about enough of this!” I yelled, and grabbed some pecans from the bowl, which I hurled at Doug Heller and his partner. The nuts bounced off their jackets and landed on West’s polished wood floor. Both cops stared down at them, their eyebrows raised.
“Call your lawyer, Sam,” I said bitterly. “See what he advises. See if this is even legal.”
West pulled out a phone. “That does seem to be the next step. Excuse me for a moment,” he said, and went into the hallway.
“What are you doing here, Lena?” Doug Heller rasped, his face grim.
I shook my head. “I had some business with Mr. West. Don’t give me that disappointed look. I’m disappointed in you, Doug. You’re a cop. You should care about the truth. And so should you!” I said to the woman, who was still studying me with her mouth open.
“Lena, I told you—you haven’t got the whole story,” Heller said under his breath. He ran some fingers through his hair and then settled both hands on his hips.
“Neither have you. What have you found out about all the texting Mrs. West was doing on the red phone before she went missing? What have you found out about the word ‘Nikon’ that Sam saw on her phone when she was texting some mysterious person?”
Heller looked on the verge of saying something, then sighed. He exchanged a glance with his partner, which, from my point of view, seemed to say, “Don’t acknowledge her—she’s insane. She threw nuts at us.”
Sam West walked back into the room. I couldn’t look at him; I stared at the table, with its bright flowers and the breakfast that had been ruined.
“Give me a moment to pack a bag, and I’ll meet you at the door,” West said. “My lawyer will be waiting at the airport. I appreciate the heads-up. It will be better to go there on my own steam than to be hauled in like a criminal, so thanks. And thank you for being my advocate, Lena.” He moved toward me and pressed a key into my hand. “Would you look after the place for me? I just have a few plants by the window there that need watering, and if you could take in the mail, I’d appreciate it.” He turned and left the room; we heard him jogging up the stairs.
A Dark and Stormy Murder (A Writer's Apprentice Mystery) Page 13