"I was thinking the same thing myself," he said.
"What?"
"We should just question all of them. Right here."
"How on earth did you know what I was thinking?"
"I'm the detective, remember? Actually, you said it ever so softly. You do know that you talk to yourself?"
"Damn. Another secret out in the open. You won't tell?"
"I'm very discreet. Ask anyone. You look good to -night. Different." He squinted, as if trying to figure out what it was.
It wasn't the dress or the flame job on my toes. It was the blow dryer. At Lucy's insistence, I'd resurrected the dusty Conair from underneath the bathroom sink. Unused for almost a year, it started up like a new car.
It was scary how quickly one could slip back into the tyranny of blow-dried hair. Instead of pulled into a ponytail, plastered against my skull, and stuffed under a hat, my long auburn hair was sleek and shiny and tucked behind one ear.
"No baseball hat, that's it. I don't think I've ever seen you without one," he said.
"It took me an hour to rub the Knicks logo from my forehead," I said, not comfortable discussing my appearance with the cop. What was next? My skin? My boobs? "I don't suppose you've had any success finding a witness to confirm Hugo and Anna's story?"
"I'm afraid not."
Just then, Jon returned with our drinks. "Hello, Michael."
"Jonathan." To me, Mike said, "I'm not much for parties. I just made an appearance to show my community spirit. I'll see you tomorrow around eight, then?"
I had no idea what he was talking about but found myself saying, "All right" as he left to mingle with a knot of people just to our right. Out of the corner of my eye, I found Lucy and signaled for her to join us. She and Jon exchanged CVs and theories; Jon was instantly smitten. As if her looks weren't enough, Lucy's experience in reality-based programming had him lapping at her feet and inundating her with questions.
"Hey, Jimmy Olsen, come up for air," she said. "This is a party, isn't it? Or have I once again been brought here under false pretenses? Make yourself useful and get me a glass of something, okay?"
Jon left to do her bidding before she finished speaking.
"Nice kid," she said, used to having acolytes.
"Maybe."
"Not my type, of course, too young. And there's something peculiar about that beard."
I cut her off because her new servant was back in a flash with her drink.
"I thought the Jeep was big," she said smoothly, as if we'd been talking about cars in Jon's absence. "There are SUVs outside bigger than my apartment."
"Like they all need them," Jon added. "Most of these folks don't do anything more adventurous than going to dinner without a reservation. I've got a Sunbeam Alpine," he said, trying to impress her.
"A Sunbeam? Is that so?" she said, not really caring since she didn't know a Sunbeam from a Sunfish. "I had to park near a bunch of cardboard crosses, too. What gives?"
"That's Arlington Cemetery. Memorial Day is coming." I was about to explain the suburban phenomenon of Holiday Harry when Springfield's illustrious congressman came into view.
Lucy recognized him right away.
"He's even sweatier in person," Lucy said, rolling her eyes in Win Fifield's direction.
Jon chugged some more wine. "And the blonde next to him? That's his mother."
"Wow. What's her doctor's name?" Lucy said.
As we made juvenile, mean-girl remarks, a young woman purposefully walked toward us. She had chin-length, blunt-cut hair, apparently requiring her to keep her head at a 45-degree angle at all times. She wore a dark, conservative suit and sensible shoes. The only hint of a personality came from her flaming red lipstick.
"That's Jess Colford," Jon whispered. "Loser's top aide. He'd be operating a car dealership if it weren't for her. Be careful: those ruby lips hide fangs." He dragged Lucy away, ostensibly to introduce her to someone, but I sensed it was to avoid a face-to-face with Colford.
Her eyes followed Jon and Lucy, but she quickly returned her gaze to me. "My name's Jess Colford. I'm an assistant to Win Fifield." Colford had a textbook handshake—not too long, not too short, not too personal. I could imagine her practicing it on herself. "The congressman would very much like to meet you."
The fangs were well hidden, so I thought why not (as long as Fifield didn't think I was going to hop into the backseat of his convertible). The small cluster of hangers-on parted as Colford and I penetrated the congressman's inner circle.
"Ms. Holliday, so pleased to meet you." Win Fifield extended a moist, hammy hand; I fought the urge to wipe mine after we shook. "Richard has spoken very highly of you. Very highly. And I understand from my mother that you've already increased the property values in her neighborhood with the job you've done." What a joker.
So far, he wasn't too horrible, just predictable. Then I noticed Jess Colford watching him like a hawk, as if they had rehearsed even this innocuous little greeting.
Three people from Nutmeg magazine converged on us and asked permission to take our picture. I only hoped it was a full-length shot so my freshly lacquered toes would be immortalized; Lucy would be so pleased. Jess Colford deftly plucked the wineglass from the congressman's hand and glided out of the frame.
"Unfortunate business, early on. Tragic, really," he continued, when the photographer left. "And now, of course, this other matter . . . very troubling. An honest, hardworking businessman . . . cut down in his prime, our—my thoughts and prayers go out to his family. . . ."
He was winging it now and babbling idiotic, soundbite clichés. Chiaramonte was a lot of things, but honest and hardworking were not among them. And he had no family. Not as far as anyone knew. With impeccable timing Colford stepped in to the rescue. "Congressman, you'll want to say hello to Mayor and Mrs. Pilkington. You will excuse him." She pushed him off toward the Pilkingtons, with a few words in his ear, probably reminding him what he was to say to them.
"The congressman is really quite impressed with your work. He's recommending the town turn the empty lot on Brookhaven Road into a small park honoring his predecessor. If it goes through, I feel sure he'll want your advice on how to proceed."
Colford cast a quick look in the congressman's direction and saw that he'd delivered his packaged greeting, so she excused herself and went to bail him out.
"What did Dragon Lady want?" Jon asked when he and Lucy returned moments later, when the coast was clear.
"I'm not sure. If I were the suspicious type, I'd say it was a gentle bribe."
"See, I told you there'd be potential clients here. Who's that one?" she said, surreptitiously pointing into the crowd. "We saw her at the nail salon."
"She's already a client, Caroline Sturgis." She saw us looking, so I waved, and she and another woman came over. They were working on a couple of martinis, and I had the feeling it wasn't their first round. Caroline's friend loudly claimed to need landscaping advice, so we chatted about that, and I gave her my thirty-second sales pitch and my card.
"PH Factor? What ever does it mean?"
When that line of conversation dried up, it was strictly party chat. Chappell went to hover around Win Fifield's group, making sure to steer clear of the over-protective Ms. Colford. Caroline and friend moseyed back to the bar for thirds.
"Your buddy Jon?" Lucy said.
"He's not my buddy. Just a means to an end."
"He's got some major acne scars."
"That's very grown-up of you. I've been too polite to stare."
"I can't help it, I'm observant. He's obviously growing the beard to cover them, but you can still see them even though he's using hair dye to fill in the light spots. They looked like that constellation—not the Big Dipper, the other one everyone knows, the crooked W."
"Cassiopeia?" I asked, the light dawning. "Or maybe W for Wellington. As in Wellington aerator sandals," I said. I was furious. "Where is that little rat?"
Her eyes widened. "Anna's prowler? That sneak
y little bastard."
I scoured the room for Mike O'Malley. This was something I did want to share with the group. I saw him leaving and called out across the room but couldn't catch his eye. Coming in as Mike left was a tall, white-haired gentleman in a gray, tweedy sport jacket and denim shirt that hung on his bony shoulders.
A clatter of glasses, then the crash of a drinks-laden tray caused a commotion off to my right.
"Let her have some air."
"Get a chair. Get some water. Where's Richard?"
"Richard!"
Margery Stapley had fainted.
CHAPTER 35
The party broke up shortly after Margery hit the deck and Richard whisked her away. The absence of our hosts gave us all license to leave and begin the business of serious gossiping in the privacy of our homes.
Lucy and I took our postmortem to the Paradise Diner. Jon Chappell had disappeared into the crowd when Margery fainted, and it was a good thing. I was ready to tear him a new one.
"Leave it to you to stare at a guy's pockmarks. What the hell was he doing snooping around my house and scaring Anna half to death?"
"This is the world in which we live. I bet he poked through your garbage, too."
Lucy was eyeing that morning's scones. "You don't want to eat those," I said under my breath. With that glowing recommendation, she got up, put two on a plate as if she worked there, and came back to the booth. Pete, the cook, was in love.
"Well, the air was certainly humming. And we seem to have gotten to the bottom of the Anna incident. What an asshole."
"Y Seńor Felix?"
"Nothing. Still in Mexico, I guess. I'll give him one more day before he goes on the DNR list—do not resuscitate. For all I know, that entire playboy story was something he lifted from a Mexican soap opera. I thought he'd at least come back for Hugo's sake."
"Too bad. I had high hopes there."
"For . . . ?"
"Why not? He's handsome and possibly rich. And you didn't seem to want him. Stranger things have happened."
"Which leads me to Margery Stapley," I said, dropping the subject of Felix.
"What do you think really knocked the old girl off her feet?" Lucy said, working on her second scone. "I wonder if they got that on video. It could be, like, Wedding Bloopers, only Senior Bloopers."
"I bet it had something to do with the older guy that came in just as O'Malley was leaving. The one in the denim shirt and tweed jacket. He had a familiar face. Did you notice him?"
"Just barely. Who'd you think it was?"
"This is probably crazy, but I thought it might be William Peacock, Dorothy's long-lost brother," I answered. "I've been looking at so many old pictures of Dorothy, I thought I saw a resemblance."
The swinging doors from the restrooms flapped against each other, and I felt someone standing over my shoulder.
"That's a damn good guess," Gerald Fraser said, sliding into the booth next to Lucy. "That was William. He was a teenager when he left. No one knew why."
"You think William found out that the woman he thought was his sister was really his sister's lover?" I asked.
"It'd be hard to keep it from him, once he got to that age. At the time, people thought he was just looking for adventure—too young to have been in the war, too old to stay home with his spinster sisters."
"And he never came back?"
"I couldn't say. Hillary recognized him right away, though, from all the pictures the sisters had."
He glanced quickly out the front door, and only then did I notice Hillary sitting in her Lexus.
"I'm gonna try to see him in the next couple of days. Care to join me when I do?" Gerald asked.
"Say when."
Gerald said good night and took off.
Lucy licked her index finger, picking up the last few crumbs from the plate. "At least someone's getting lucky to night."
CHAPTER 36
The next morning, I dropped Lucy at the train station and drove straight to the police station to see Mike O'Malley. The station was locked, so I jogged across the road to Babe's.
"How's it going?" I asked, looking around. The crowd was mixed—late laborers and early commuters but no cops.
"It's going," Babe said, juggling dishes and menus. "Want a menu or just coffee?"
"Just coffee. I overdid it last night."
"Suit yourself. You're the one who's always saying you shouldn't skip breakfast."
Common sense kicked in. I ordered.
"You seemed distressingly sober. Did I miss something?" she asked, bringing my setup. "Unless you had your own little party afterward." Babe had a vivid imagination.
"After coming here for some surprisingly tasty scones, Lucy and I went home and gossiped till about three A.M. I polished off a container of yogurt, but that was as rowdy as it got. You'll just have to live vicariously through someone else's exploits. What am I saying? From the looks of it, you're not exactly sitting home reading the Farm Journal every night," I said, referring to her handsome young date of the night before.
"Yeah." She smiled. "Neil and I thought it was about time we went public. I was convinced we'd be a scandal, but Neil didn't care. Then old Margery conveniently got the vapors and stole the show. I'll have to thank her next time I see her. Anyone know how she is?"
I gave her the flimsy explanation Richard had left on my answering machine the night before, but neither of us really believed one glass of wine was enough to knock the old girl on her keister.
"Something took her breath away and it didn't come from Connecticut's wine trail."
Back at Halcyon, my regular parking spot was taken by a silver-blue Springfield patrol car.
"We did say eight, didn't we?" O'Malley knew I thought he'd meant 8 P.M., but I wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of saying it. He held out a cardboard tray with coffee and what looked suspiciously like half a dozen donuts.
"Don't worry. The donuts are for me—sugar fix. I got you a couple of low-fat blueberry muffins."
"A couple? Have you any idea what's in those things? Besides, I've already had breakfast. C'mon, let's go around to the back. I'll watch you clog your arteries."
We sat on the brick terrace and Mike handed me a coffee.
"I looked for you last night," I said, peeling a triangle out of the plastic lid.
"I'm flattered."
"Don't be. It was about the person Anna maimed with my aerator sandals."
"You mean Jon Chappell?"
The coffee hadn't even made it to my lips. "Am I, like, half a step behind everyone in this burg?"
"This may surprise you, but I am a real cop. After a nutritious, low-fat, omega-whatever salmon dinner not long ago, I popped by your neighbor's place—where the noise was coming from. I gave him a few tips on how to be a considerate suburbanite and was heading back to my car when I noticed a vehicle pulled over onto the shoulder near the bird sanctuary. If Chap-pell's going to do undercover surveillance work, he really should get a less memorable car. Or at least not announce at a crowded party that he owns a Sunbeam Alpine. Someone spotted a Sunbeam in your neighborhood the day of Anna's incident."
The police had picked Jon up an hour ago, and Anna had already identified him.
"You think he's the one who sent me the e-mail and locked me in the green house, too?"
"He denies it. He's certainly been watching you, though. You might consider drapes."
"I might consider a burka, too, but I'm not going to," I said, a little too fast.
"What is your problem? First, you're annoyed that we're not doing our job, and then you're annoyed because we are. I've got to take things one step at a time. I can't go off half-cocked because some senior citizens have been filling your head with fairy tales. We got the bad guy. Granted, trespassing is only a misdemeanor, but at least we can put your conspiracy theory to bed."
"I'm not talking about finding Jimmy Hoffa. Hugo Jurado did not stab Guido. Certainly not over a hundred dollars and a few racy remarks."
"A few racy remarks? So you didn't know that Anna had a run-in with Chiaramonte the morning he was stabbed?"
I kept my head down, picking at a few stubborn weeds between the bricks so O'Malley wouldn't see the shock on my face.
"Yeah. He offered her a lift at the bus stop and it was pouring, so she said okay. Apparently, he introduced her to little Guido. She threw hot coffee on the little guy, Guido slammed on the brakes, hit the car in front of him, and Anna had to jump from a moving car. Some people might think that's a pretty good motive.
"Look," he said, blowing out air like a dying balloon. "Got milk?"
"What?"
"Ever read a milk carton? People go missing all the time. It isn't that I don't care, it's just that the more time passes, the less likely they are to ever be found. That's reality. I know it doesn't sell newspapers or make good television, but there it is. And it's extremely unlikely that Guido Chiaramonte was stabbed in retaliation for a girl that went missing thirty years ago. I am sorry about Hugo—and, I agree, it does seem out of character for him—but it doesn't look good. And other than an alibi from his intended, he can't account for his whereabouts the day Guido was stabbed."
"What if he could? I thought of something last night at the party. Maybe someone at the marriage bureau had a video camera. People video everything nowadays. I've been to a civil ceremony. Even though it's just two people signing papers, they bring flowers, throw rice—why not shoot video?" My voice trailed off. "You could ask. Maybe put an ad in the paper."
I knew he was thinking of my great candy evidence, which had gone nowhere. So was I. We were quiet for a few minutes; the only sounds were me pretending to blow on my cold coffee and O'Malley poking around in the donut bag. He took out the muffins and set them on a paper napkin on the terrace, a piece of waxed paper covering them. Then he left.
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