I took a calming breath and said, “Maria, I want you to know that my offer still stands. I can write you a referral, maybe ask around to see if anyone needs a—”
She hung up on me. I blew out a gusty exhalation. Could I blame her?
I certainly didn’t need or want a full-time housekeeper, and I doubted she’d agree to work for me in any event, but maybe one of Irene’s friends needed someone. I made a mental note to see what I could do.
I returned to the kitchen and stood staring at the contents of the refrigerator. Again I got that nagging sense that something was missing, that some item had mysteriously disappeared after I’d shifted things around in there gathering treats for SB and spilling that smoothie. I concentrated hard for a few seconds, then gave a disgusted shake of the head. Not a good time to get sidetracked by my imagination.
There was only one fridge-related question I needed to concern myself with: Why had Patrick lied about bringing Irene smoothies? On second thought, make that two questions: Why had he snuck into this house to search for that last one, the one I’d accidentally knocked over? I had to assume that’s what he was looking for, considering he lied about having brought them.
I reached into the fridge for a can of orange soda and grabbed a couple of biscotti from the cookie jar. Not my number-one choice for breakfast, but Irene didn’t stock Fruity Pebbles, so I had to make do. I sauntered through my game room and into my living room. I crossed my mosaic-patterned silk rug, opened my hand-woven silk drapes to let the sun stream through my towering Palladian window, sank back into my oversize sofa upholstered in mushroom-colored linen, and propped my feet on my glass-topped coffee table with the burl-wood cube base. My my, I could get used to this.
Outwardly I was the picture of indolence, slumped into the cushions sucking on my soda and chasing errant cookie crumbs. All the action was occurring inside my cranium, where pieces of a jigsaw puzzle bumped and shoved and jockeyed for position. An image was beginning to form, and it was an ugly one.
I’d never known Irene McAuliffe to suffer a stomachache, yet in the days before her death she’d started chewing antacids. She’d also been exceptionally irritable—because of stomach pain or, as her personal physician seemed to think, a worsening cardiac condition? Maria had told me the smoothies Patrick brought were supposed to be good for her stomach but tasted terrible. Yet the one I’d had at Janey’s Place was delicious.
Was it possible the ones Patrick had brought Irene diverged in some significant way from the original recipe? As in a secret ingredient meant only for the woman whose death would make him a multimillionaire?
And for that matter, had Patrick known he was going to inherit her wealth? Had she told him ahead of time or had he learned about it only after her death when Sten called him? I couldn’t ignore the fact that he had a sketchy past which included run-ins with the law.
In any event, the smoothie he’d come searching for was long gone. I’d rinsed the dregs down the kitchen sink myself and tossed the cup in the garbage.
Abruptly I sat up and was rewarded with an epic soda belch, the kind that erupts violently via your nostrils and makes your eyes water. Yeah, that’s me, Lady Jane Delaney.
I slammed the soda can onto the coffee table—no coaster for Lady Jane—and ran back into the kitchen. The under-sink garbage can was empty. What had Maria said last time I saw her? She was going to tidy up and take out the garbage. I experienced a moment of panic as I tried to recall the garbage-collection schedule for this neighborhood. I was pretty sure it was Thursdays and Mondays, around six a.m. Which meant the last pickup would have been a few hours before Maria tossed the kitchen trash, which meant the bag with the smoothie cup should still be in one of the two big garbage cans by the side of the house.
I went out through the garage and stood in the blowing snow flurries, gloomily considering the hulking garbage cans and their contents before returning to the kitchen to locate Maria’s rubber dishwashing gloves. I buttoned my suede jacket and pushed up the sleeves, went back outside, and set to work searching for that last Janey’s Place cup. I pulled out the first white garbage bag and tried to untie it. No such luck. I tore a hole in it and peeked inside. Papers and bathroom trash. I set it aside and repeated the process with the bag under it, reeling back from the stink when I tore it open.
I must be certifiable, pawing through gross, days-old kitchen garbage in this kind of weather. I turned my head, sucked in a deep breath and held it, then groped the contents, shoving aside rotten orange peels, fish bones, wilted salad, a liquefied tomato, grimy paper towels, and a dead bouquet of birthday flowers I’d given Irene almost two weeks earlier. I squatted there staring at those now-shriveled pink roses, recalling her smile of delight as I’d handed them to her. I felt the ghost of her warm kiss on my cheek. My eyes stung from more than the swirling snow.
You are not going to do this, I thought. Blubbering will accomplish nothing. The best thing you can do for her right now is to find that stupid cup.
The sensible part of me asked, And then what? I shushed her. Sensible Jane could be such a nag.
I worked my way to the bottom of the bag. No Janey’s Place cup. The wind whipped my hair into my face. I tried shaking it back, tried nudging it back with my shoulder. I would become a godforsaken vegan before I touched my hair with those icky gloves. I lifted the ripped bag to place it back into the can, but the wind had other ideas and I found myself sprinting after tumbling eggshells and paper napkins.
I slammed the lid on the first can and started in on the second. Hold breath, tear bag, grope grope grope. I began to think the cup had entered an alternate universe when suddenly it appeared in my gloved hand. It was crushed, but clinging to the inside was the prettiest thing I’d seen all day: a residue of dried orange smoothie.
9
More Groping
WHERE THE HECK was Sten? I stood just inside the entrance to the ballroom of the Crystal Harbor Country Club, scanning the ten elliptical poker tables for the lawyer’s distinctive tall frame. He had to be here. He always entered the annual charity tournament, even though, to my knowledge, he’d never come close to first place or even been one of the top five players, the lucky few who strolled out of there with serious swag and insufferably smug grins.
The prize for first place was always a luxury vehicle, which is how Irene came to own those three swell cars. Over the years she’d won a grand total of nine such pricey rides. Each time she’d had to sell one of the older ones just to make room in her three-car garage.
Speaking of which, I had to arrange a time for Patrick to pick up the vehicles he’d inherited. Considering my blossoming suspicions, I wasn’t eager for another one-on-one with him. Maybe I’d ask Dom to be present when I unlocked the garage and handed over the keys.
Colette had come in first place almost as many times as Irene, which is the only reason she and Burt had been able to drive their BMW. More often than not, they sold the prize, cash in hand being of more use to them than another car.
Second prize was most often a Rolex or something of that sort, and third prize was a paid vacation for two to Hawaii or the like. Third and fourth prizes were almost always generous gift certificates to Broadway plays and high-end restaurants.
The powers that be capped the number of players at one hundred, and invariably there was a waiting list. This tournament enjoyed quite a reputation, and players flocked to it from as far away as Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The buy-in was five thousand dollars. Eighty percent of the resulting haul went to the Historical Society for its work in landmark preservation and maintaining the town’s little museum and botanical gardens. The rest went to the prizes.
The Historical Society didn’t skimp on the amenities, starting with the elegant country-club venue. Professional dealers dealt the cards and narrated the play-by-play. Uniformed wait staff circulated with top-shelf drinks. Masseuses wandered from player to player, dispensing shoulder rubs. On the other side of the expansive ballroom, buffet tables
groaned under a gut-busting assortment of your snootier snacks, everything from shrimp and avocado sushi rolls at one end to bourbon-pecan mini tarts at the other. In truth, the buffet served mostly as a consolation prize for those who wiped out in the first hour or two of play. The most serious, skillful players weren’t thinking about sushi as they concentrated on the game and watched their stacks of chips grow.
There was always a buzz of excitement as players made their bets and won and lost hands, but this year the air crackled with an unprecedented energy. The players seemed more intense, more driven. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. Within the past week, the tournament had lost its two most formidable players, Colette O’Rourke and Irene McAuliffe, long recognized as the practically unbeatable grande dames of the game in these here parts. Accomplished players who’d watched the coveted top prize go to one old lady or the other year after year now had a reasonable shot at taking home this year’s tricked-out red Mercedes and the bragging rights that went with it.
The Wild West had come to Crystal Harbor, New York.
I didn’t see Sten, but I did spy my ex-husband at a distant table. When I noticed who sat next to him, my heart tripped over its own aorta. Martin McAuliffe. Automatically my fingers slipped into my jacket pocket and felt the battered calling card Patrick had handed back to me an hour earlier. What was the padre doing here? I couldn’t imagine where he’d gotten the dough for the buy-in.
On second thought, I could imagine it all too well. When you fenced a stolen bauble worth a hundred grand, you could afford to throw away a measly five thou on something like this. The tournament had started about an hour and a half ago and not only was he still in the game, but he had a respectable pile of chips in front of him. I frowned. Martin had more chips than Dom did, and Dom was a skilled player. I watched as the two men tossed some of those chips into the center. Martin said something and they both laughed.
Just then Martin glanced up, his blue eyes homing in on me like heat-seeking missiles. He lifted his glass of dark beer in a silent toast. Dom looked from Martin to me, his curiosity clearly piqued as he pondered the connection between his ex-wife and his new poker buddy.
Well, ponder away, I thought. To hell with you both. I skirted the tables, still hoping to find Sten. The other Posse members were present and accounted for. Jonah Diamond and Sophie Halperin shared a table with four other players and four empty seats representing folks who’d already bottomed out. Jonah appeared to be holding his own, but you wouldn’t know it by his glum, preoccupied expression. Who knew? Maybe that was his revealing tell. If I perused Irene’s exhaustive notes on her Poker Posse, the entry on him might read something along the lines of, Jonah looks like his dog ran away when he’s holding a full house or better.
Nina Wallace, in her capacity as president of the Historical Society, basically ran the tournament. Her responsibilities kept her too busy to play, which I’d assumed would irk her. However, she appeared to relish her role as Empress of All She Surveyed. At that particular moment she was consulting a clipboard and taking stock of the players left at each table.
I made my way toward the buffet area, where a dozen or so people stood snacking and chatting. These were the players who’d forfeited all their chips, and their five grand, early in the game. Sten Jakobsen was easy to spot among this crowd. He was six four, his blond hair and trim beard now mostly white. Intelligent amber eyes gazed out through wire-rimmed glasses. Age had diminished neither his regal posture nor his sharpness of wit. In short, the man had presence.
Sten kissed my cheek and gave my hand a fatherly squeeze. I’d been about to ask if we could find a quiet place to talk, but he beat me to it, handing his empty wineglass to a passing waiter and leading me to a corner near some kind of potted tree.
“Is that…” He squinted at the sleeve of my suede jacket. “Coffee grounds?”
I looked. Well, wasn’t that just lovely. I’d been in such a hurry to find Sten, I hadn’t noticed. There could be a rotten banana peel clinging to my back, for all I knew. I brushed the grounds off into the potted tree.
“I did not expect to see you before our meeting next Friday,” Sten said. He asked how I was doing, with his usual slow, measured delivery. “And the little dog?” he added.
I bit back a smile, knowing his aversion to uttering the little dog’s name. “Sexy Beast is fine. I’m here to ask you a favor. You’re the executor of Irene’s estate. You’re the one who can make decisions. Um, sensitive decisions.”
“Let us cut to the chase,” he said. “What is on your mind, Jane?”
“Has Irene been… Has the cremation occurred yet?” I held my breath.
“Possibly. It is scheduled for today.”
“Oh God,” I groaned. “Can you call them to stop it? If it’s not too late?”
If this seasoned lawyer was surprised by my request, he didn’t show it. “I could try if there is a compelling reason to do so.”
Don’t talk so damn slowly! I wanted to scream. In the time it took Sten to get to the end of a thought, Irene could go from being a hundred-thirty-pound dead person to a two-pound dead person.
“I have reason to believe someone might have poisoned Irene.” There. I’d said it out loud for the first time. It didn’t feel as weird as I’d thought it would. Sten didn’t react. Either he had a high regard for my judgment or he was really good at hiding his disdain.
“You want an autopsy performed,” he said.
I nodded, glancing around to make sure our conversation was still private. “I know Jonah signed the death certificate, I know he believes it was a heart attack. I’m not questioning his expertise, I just… There are things I can’t ignore.”
“What would these things be?” he asked.
I didn’t like implicating Patrick without firm proof, but I had no choice. I told Sten all about why I suspected the smoothies in general and Patrick in particular.
He pursed his lips. “It is not an overwhelming amount of evidence.”
“I know that, and it’s why we need the autopsy. They’ll check for chemicals that shouldn’t be there, right? Isn’t that part of it?”
“A toxicology screen is generally part of the process, yes,” Sten said, “but results can take weeks to come back.” He started to shake his head. “Jane, I do not think—”
“I have this, too.” I pulled the crushed Janey’s Place cup, securely double-bagged, out of my purse. I told him about my budding career as a dumpster diver. “This is what Patrick was looking for. So he could get rid of the evidence.” In a small voice I added, “Maybe,” and wondered how big a fool I was making of myself.
He sighed. “Well, if we are talking chain of evidence, there are definite problems with a cup pulled out of old garbage by a civilian.”
“Meaning it could be contaminated,” I said, “or deliberately messed with. I get that. But if you can get an autopsy done, and they find something suspicious in her system, they can compare it to what’s in here.”
I handed him the bag, and to his credit, he didn’t shy away from taking it. He turned it in his hand, examining it and thinking. I saw the beginning of another negative head-shake.
“Sten.” I took a step closer to him, lowered my volume. I wasn’t beyond playing dirty. “I know I’m not the only one Irene cared about. I know you two had a close friendship.”
His gaze snapped to my face. Suddenly he appeared even taller, if that was possible. I wondered if I’d gone too far, but I wasn’t about to backpedal now. Too much was at stake.
“Maybe not so much in recent years,” I continued, looking him right in the eye, “but for a long time you and Irene maintained a very close, very discreet… friendship.”
Sten had been married to the same woman for more than forty years. I happened to know that for the last thirty-eight of those years she’d been in and out of mental institutions and required a full-time aide at home. Theirs hadn’t been a marriage in the real sense for decades. Yet to his credit, he’d taken care of
her in the most tender fashion the whole time. I didn’t blame him for any happiness he’d found with Irene, and I had no desire to cause him trouble.
He said, “I fail to see what bearing that has—”
“It’s only that I know how much she meant to you.” I beseeched him with my eyes. “We owe her this, Sten. If there’s even the smallest doubt.” I paused to collect myself. “You can tell me what an idiot I am later, after they find nothing. In the meantime, we have to try.”
He looked at me steadily. “You should have gone to law school.”
“You’ll do it?”
A ghost of a smile. “If I say no, I shall never hear the end of it.”
From me or from his conscience, I knew, now that I’d sown the seeds of suspicion in his mind.
“Excuse me.” Sten produced his cell phone, located a number on his contact list, and had a short, pointed conversation with Lenny Ahearn. “Call me back either way, Lenny.” He hung up and told me, “Irene has already been transferred to the crematory. He is going to cancel the cremation if it is not too late, and bring her back to the funeral home.”
I nodded. “But why the funeral home? Shouldn’t she be taken to the medical examiner’s office?”
He shook his head. “The ME would not be interested. Irene’s personal physician said she died of natural causes, and there is not enough evidence to the contrary. I can arrange for a private autopsy. I know a good pathologist who does this sort of thing. She can do it right at Ahearn’s.”
I chewed my lip. “But the toxicology results can take weeks, you said. Anything can happen in the meantime.” Like the murderer cramming sixteen million bucks into his Samsonite and hightailing it to Venezuela.
“We would be using a private lab,” he said, “and I can put a rush on it. At the very least, we should have preliminary results within a few days, even if the full report takes longer.”
Undertaking Irene Page 12