“Have you called her relatives,” Bonnie asked, “her friends?”
He started nodding before she finished the question. “I called everyone. I’ve spent the whole day driving around and making calls. No one’s seen her or heard from her since early yesterday.” He ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “Bonnie, I don’t want to lose my wife. She’s having another man’s baby, I get that. I’ll raise it as my own. I just want her back home, safe.”
“Under the circumstances, Nina’s absence doesn’t look all that unusual.” Bonnie spread her hands. “I mean, try to look at it objectively, Mal. Your wife tells you she’s leaving you for another man, then spends the night away from home. Isn’t that almost to be expected?”
“Nina wouldn’t have stayed away for even one night without saying something to her girls,” he said. “She’s in trouble, Bonnie. The police have to do something.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Bonnie said. “If you still haven’t heard from her by tomorrow, come in and file a missing-person report.”
“By then it might be too late.” Mal gave Patrick a venomous look. “This bastard was happy enough when Nina was just a convenient piece on the side. But now it’s gotten complicated. Right, O’Rourke? The inheritance, the baby. Maybe he didn’t want to leave his family for her. Maybe that was all her idea, not his. Maybe it was time to make the whole problem of Nina Wallace go away.”
14
Delicate, Schmelicate
SOPHIE HALPERIN LIVED in one of Crystal Harbor’s historic homes, a nineteenth-century farmhouse located in a quiet residential neighborhood on the far west end of Main Street. Nevins House had been built in 1832 by Charles Rutherford Nevins, a member of the town’s “first family,” whose illustrious ancestor Jeremiah Nevins had founded Crystal Harbor in the 1650s by purchasing the land from a Native American chief.
The last remaining member of the first family, a reprobate snake-oil salesman named “Doctor” Archibald Nevins, had been run out of town in 1903 for treating the mayor’s rheumatism with a patent medicine that was a tad heavy on the arsenic, while treating the mayor’s comely young bride to vigorous and inventive rounds of physical therapy.
Nevins House was a symmetrical building with a front-facing central gable and chimneys on either end. The colonnaded porch extended the width of the house, each column topped with lacy fretwork brackets. The narrow clapboards were painted yellow, the shutters dark green, and the front door a deep, rich red. The picket fence was—you guessed it—white.
To me, this old place had about a thousand times more charm and appeal than the contemporary mini-mansion I’d inherited from Irene. This was a warm and welcoming home, made all the more so by its current owner and her outsize personality.
I rang the bell. After a few moments the door swung open and I faced Sophie’s new housekeeper. I counted on her being too polite to slam the door in my face.
“Hi, Maria,” I said. “May I come in?”
“The mayor isn’t home.”
“I know that.” It was Monday morning and Sophie was at work, busy performing whatever mayoral duties demanded her attention. “I came to see you.”
“What about?”
“I’d really like to come inside,” I said. “It’ll only take a minute.”
She hesitated, then stepped aside and led the way to the front parlor, with its high ceilings and eclectic furnishings. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee was overlaid with the tang of cilantro, and I knew I’d interrupted her cooking. I suspected Sophie had hired Maria for the express purpose of ensuring a steady supply of her locally famous guacamole.
Maria didn’t invite me to sit or offer any of that coffee, which was okay because I had no desire to prolong the encounter.
“Irene left a note, Maria. She wanted you to have this.” I pulled three heavy velvet bundles out of my straw tote bag and set them on a hand-hewn maple console table.
She frowned, looking from me to the bundles. She loosened the tie on one of them and unrolled it to reveal the glint of gold, platinum, and precious stones. “She gave me her jewelry?”
I nodded. “She was very clear. All of it is to go to you. To show her deep gratitude for your many years of service.”
Her expression didn’t soften. “Where is this note?”
“I left it at home.”
We stared at each other for long moments. Behind her dark eyes, I watched pride duke it out with self-interest. Finally she said, “I appreciate what you’re doing, but Mrs. M would not have written a note like that.”
I hadn’t expected this to go smoothly. “Irene wasn’t good at expressing affection. You took such good care of her, and we both know she didn’t make it easy.” When she didn’t respond, I added, “I can show you the note if you really need to see it.” Silently I prayed she wouldn’t force me to compound my lie with forgery.
Maria lifted an elaborate emerald-and-diamond earring and let it dangle from her fingers. She was familiar with Irene’s jewelry collection, though she probably wasn’t aware that, according to the latest insurance appraisal, it was worth close to three hundred grand.
Full disclosure: Right about now you’re thinking, Oh, that Jane Delaney, what a noble, selfless person she is. Okay, I’ll just say it. The original artwork on Irene’s walls is worth twice what her jewelry is. Of course, I’m not yet free to sell the artwork or give it away, and I might choose never to do so, but I just wanted to, you know, set the record straight.
“I’m not taking this back with me, Maria,” I said. “It’s yours. Sell it and use the money for your retirement. Or if not for yourself, spend it on your grandchildren.”
I watched that tough woman. I watched her stony features begin to crumple. I watched her eyes fill and felt the answering sting of tears in my own. I swallowed them back. Maria composed herself with an obvious effort and carefully replaced the earring on the velvet.
She cleared her throat and looked me in the eye. “Thank you, Jane.”
“Don’t thank me,” I said, “I’m just the delivery girl.”
The hint of a smile told me Maria wasn’t buying it for an instant. “Would the delivery girl like a cup of coffee?”
I grinned. “You read my mind.” I set my tote on the floor and followed Maria into the homey country kitchen, with its white-painted walls and cabinets. Daisies sprouted from a cluster of mismatched bud vases in the center of the big, rustic pine table. Guacamole ingredients sat out on a counter. Déjà vu.
She poured coffee into two mugs and handed me one, remembering I take it black.
I asked, “Any news from Sophie about Nina Wallace?” I assumed the mayor was in regular contact with the cops, who’d begun a full-blown investigation over the weekend. Plus Sophie always seemed to be the first to know anything about anything in this town.
Maria shook her head, stirring cream and sugar into her coffee. “She’s been missing for four days. It doesn’t look good.”
“You’re assuming she didn’t just run off,” I said.
“And leave her kids? Mrs. Wallace is not my favorite person, I’ll admit it, but she’s a devoted mother.” She lifted the metal dome of an old-fashioned cake keeper, revealing half of a coconut layer cake. She pulled a small china plate from a cabinet.
“Breakfast of champions,” I said, watching her cut a slice.
“None for me,” she said. “I need to lose a few pounds.”
“Oh, do you really think so?” I said, out of politeness. As long as I’d known Maria, she could stand to lose a few.
She joined me at the table. I lifted my fork and stared at the slice of cake while a memory shimmered, just out of reach.
“What, you don’t like coconut?” she asked. “I have brownies.”
“No, it’s not that. It looks delicious. I just…” A mental image coalesced, of another piece of cake in another kitchen. “Maria, do you remember the morning I told you that Irene had died?” I asked.
“How could I forget?”
&n
bsp; “Well, there was a piece of carrot cake.” I saw it clearly now in my mind’s eye. The nut-studded layers, the cream-cheese frosting decorated with a little orange frosting carrot, all of it enclosed in a clear plastic clamshell bearing the familiar white-and-gold label of Patisserie Susanne, a popular bakery and café on the ground floor of the Crystal Harbor Town Hall building.
“It was in the fridge the night she died,” I continued. “I saw it when I spilled that smoothie. But by the time I returned the next morning, the cake was gone.” My subconscious mind had registered that something was absent, but my conscious mind had been unable to fill in the blanks. Until now.
“I didn’t move it.” She shrugged. “I never even knew it was there.”
“I didn’t know Irene liked carrot cake.”
“She hated carrot cake.” Maria smiled. “It was the carrot thing more than the cake thing. She must have been expecting Dr. Diamond.”
“Jonah?”
She nodded and sipped her coffee. “Susanne’s is his favorite lunch spot, and he can never get enough of their carrot cake. Whenever he was coming over, Mrs. M would send me out to buy a piece for him. The day you’re talking about, it was a Wednesday, my day off. She must have picked it up herself.”
“But Irene wasn’t expecting Jonah the day she died,” I said. “He told me he hadn’t heard from her since the poker game six days earlier. Could she have bought the cake for someone else?”
Maria shook her head. “Dr. Diamond was the only one. It was kind of a tradition with them, you know? He comes over and examines her, checks her BP or whatever, and then he sits down and has his carrot cake and a cup of coffee. Mrs. M would have a dish of ice cream or a martini, depending on the time of day.”
“Right, she was very strict,” I said. “No booze before ten a.m.”
Maria offered a rare grin. The two of us had known Irene better than anyone. Nevertheless, since her death, I’d begun to feel that I hadn’t known her nearly as well as I thought I had.
“I’m sure you were upset the night Mrs. M died,” Maria said. “Could it be that you just imagined seeing the cake?”
“Could be,” I said, though I hadn’t imagined seeing it. Nor had I imagined lifting the clamshell container from the fridge shelf and wiping spilled smoothie off it, before abandoning the cleanup effort. “Let’s make sure I’m not imagining this one.” I forked a bite of Maria’s coconut cake into my mouth and gave her a rapturous thumbs-up.
______
Before today, Sexy Beast and I had never visited the town dog park. Irene hadn’t believed in it. She’d envisioned a flea-infested medical-waste dumpsite where marauding packs of rabid pit bulls preyed on small, helpless poodles with buckfangs and silly names. My arguments in favor of canine socialization, not to mention regular play and exercise, had fallen on deaf ears.
Sexy Beast was not what one would call a well-socialized animal. He simply hadn’t had adequate opportunity to interact with other dogs. He started barking well before I led him through the entrance gate, and didn’t seem to know what to make of the four-legged creatures running around and wrestling one another and generally having a swell old time.
The dog park turned out to be a lovely field carved out of the southeast corner of Nevins Park, the town’s waterfront playground. There were benches and shade trees, not to mention a poop-bag dispenser and a water station. A mild breeze carried the welcome scent of new green things. It was late afternoon, close to dinnertime, but the day was unseasonably warm for mid-April, and the mild weather had brought about a dozen dogs and their owners to the park.
I was glad most of them were on the other side of the fence that separated large dogs from small. SB had only to deal with a Pomeranian and a French bulldog. He answered their friendly butt-sniffing with furious barking, followed by an attempt to scale my legs. I sighed and picked him up. Well, baby steps, right? I smiled and waved at the little dogs’ owners, who sat chatting on a bench and ignored me.
I gazed longingly over the fence, where the popular kids hung out. Medium-size and big dogs happily chased one another, occasionally sprinting up to their owners for a pat before resuming their play. It was hard to ignore the largest dog, a black Great Dane you could have saddled. A lavender bandana was tied jauntily around her neck. I’d never met her before, but I was willing to bet this was Daisy, Jonah and Rachel Diamond’s pet. How many black Great Danes could there be in a town the size of Crystal Harbor?
Okay, the truth? I knew the Diamonds often came here. I was hoping to run into Jonah so I could ask him about the magical disappearing carrot cake. It had been bothering me all day since my conversation with Maria.
I scanned the dogs’ owners, who stood chatting in groups. Sure enough, the Diamonds were among them. Rachel and I spied each other at the same moment. She jogged over to me and we exchanged air kisses across the chain-link fence. Rachel was a pretty woman in her late thirties. Her glossy chestnut hair was clipped back today, exposing simple pearl earrings. Though she was dressed casually, I suspected her designer jeans cost more than I could get for my car on a good day. Ditto for the Kate Spade diaper bag she set on the grass at her feet.
“I’ve never seen this young gentleman here before.” Rachel scratched behind SB’s ears and was rewarded with a lick.
“Well, we’re trying some new things.” I didn’t need to add, Now that Irene’s not around to stop us.
“Including a trip to the groomer’s, I see.” She tipped her head, admiring SB’s new do. I’d swung by the local canine boutique and bought him a military-styled camo dog jacket. If possible, he looked even more preposterous in the überbutch GI Joe outfit than he had in the frilly pink sweater.
There was a sudden commotion in the small-dog section. A white Chihuahua in a rhinestone-studded halter strutted through the gate as if she owned the place, tiny head and tail held high. Her exuberant barking needed no translation: Let’s get this party started! The Pomeranian and French bulldog were all over that. OMG, look who’s here! I’m so excited I don’t know what to do with myself! If I don’t sniff another butt right now, I’ll explode!
Sexy Beast growled low in his throat. I shifted to block his view of the action. The newcomer’s human, a young woman in a crisp business suit, nodded to us and joined the other owners on the bench. Apparently the regulars were well acquainted.
“That can’t be Gabe.” I squinted toward Jonah, who wore a baby backpack currently occupied by a sturdy-looking one-year-old with blond curls. “He’s gotten so big. When’s the last time I saw him?”
Rachel pondered that as she caught her husband’s eye and waved him over. “Probably a few weeks after he was born. We ran into you at Janey’s Place around then, remember?”
“That’s right. You had all the kids with you that day.” The Diamonds had two other children, ages six and ten. Before they were born, Rachel was a professional fund-raiser. Not that she needed to work, having chosen her parents wisely. But her lofty social connections and persuasive personality made her darn good at transferring truckloads of cash from the fat cats who didn’t need it to the charities that so desperately did. I knew she planned to resume her career once Gabe was in school.
Jonah joined us at the fence. We exchanged greetings and I oohed and ahhed over the pink-cheeked baby in his backpack carrier. Jonah appeared happy and relaxed, in contrast to the last time I’d seen him, just over a week ago at the tournament. I recalled thinking then that he looked like his dog had run away. Obviously she hadn’t.
When Gabe spied SB, he bounced excitedly and reached for him. I lifted the poodle within petting distance as Jonah reminded his son, “Gently, gently.” The stubby little fingers gently, gently patted SB’s fluffy topknot, before seizing a fistful and yanking hard. SB emitted ear-splitting yelps as Rachel pried open the baby’s fingers.
SB continued to whine pitifully and Rachel fell over herself apologizing.
“Oh, please, he’s fine,” I said. “Sexy Beast is the original drama que
en. He’ll milk this atrocity for every scrap of pity he can get.” I tipped his chin up and stared into his dark little doll eyes. “Where’s your pride, dog?” He licked my nose and offered a few more halfhearted whimpers.
“Isn’t it terrible about Nina Wallace?” Rachel handed Gabe a teething biscuit from the diaper bag. It looked disconcertingly like the dog biscuits I carry around for SB. “How many days has she been missing now? Three?”
“Four,” I said. “Mal last saw her Thursday morning.”
“I know the husband is usually the first person they look at in cases like this,” she said, “but I can’t believe Mal would do anything to Nina, even under the circumstances.”
“The circumstances?” I asked.
“Well, you know. The affair. Patrick O’Rourke.”
“Patrick denies they were involved,” I said.
“Well, he can deny it all he wants,” she said, “but it’s true. Nina told Jonah all about it. Patrick wasn’t happy about the baby.”
Jonah gave his wife a gently chiding look. “She told me all that in confidence, honey, as a patient speaking privately with her doctor.”
She glanced around and lowered her voice. “Well, you told Bonnie Hernandez, didn’t you?”
“That’s different,” he said. “I want Nina’s disappearance solved.”
“That doesn’t sound like a recipe for romantic bliss,” I said. “I mean, why would Nina have been leaving Mal to start a new life with her lover if he was upset about her pregnancy?”
“Maybe he pretended to change his mind,” Rachel said, “to lure her away and… do whatever he did to her. What a family.” She shook her head, incredulous. “First the O’Rourke girl kills Irene, and it turns out that Colette, of all people, put her up to it. And now Patrick… well, we can’t know for sure, not yet, but I’d be shocked to find out he’s not behind Nina’s disappearance.”
“Woops, time to call in the backhoe.” I pointed toward Daisy some distance away, hunched with unmistakable purpose.
Jonah and Rachel both blurted, “Not it!” but he beat her by a nanosecond. His wife gave him a wry look as she reached into his jacket pocket for a couple of latex medical gloves and headed for the poop-bag dispenser. As I watched Daisy daintily sniff the elephantine pile she’d deposited, I decided that if they let animals that size in this place, they should provide a hazmat-suit dispenser.
Undertaking Irene Page 20