Undertaking Irene

by Pamela Burford

  “I know how he feels about it. It makes him nuts. To hell with him.” He sat on his bed and idly punched buttons on Irene’s phone. “I spent too many years being that man’s dirty little secret.”

  It seemed to me that Martin had far more reason to be ashamed of Hugh than Hugh had to be ashamed of Martin.

  He casually patted the bed next to him, an invitation to sit. I hesitated, but after all, I told myself, the door was open and his mom was right downstairs.

  Good grief, this man turned me into a nervous teenager. I sat, not too close, and leaned across to look at the phone. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking out the calls she made and received.” He scrolled to the top of the list, which displayed names, phone numbers, and the date and time of each call. “Here’s the day Irene died. Looks like you were the last person to talk to her.”

  I took the phone and saw Jane, cell, on the screen, along with my number. Apparently I’d made the call at 8:07 p.m., not long before she died. My throat tightened with emotion. I recognized the names of a couple of her friends who’d phoned her earlier in the day.

  Martin peered at the list over my shoulder. He’d moved closer. I found I didn’t mind. “Jonah Diamond called, too,” he said.

  The call from Jonah, cell, had come in at 5:12 p.m. “I know what this is. He was supposed to be at Irene’s at six, but he had to cancel.” I filled Martin in on the carrot-cake drama and Jonah’s unwarranted conviction that he’d let Irene down.

  “So he throws away the cake?” he said. “Doesn’t that strike you as a little suspicious? I mean, the guy’s patient croaks and he takes pains to make sure no one knows he was supposed to be there that day?”

  “Stress makes people do dumb things,” I said. “And speaking of dumb things, we already know who killed Irene.”

  “By accident, supposedly. I can’t help it, though, the cake thing just seems fishy.” He took the phone from me and swiped his finger up the screen, swiftly scrolling through Irene’s calls in the last weeks and months of her life.

  “You aren’t going to give that back to me, are you?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Hey, I know this guy,” he said, peering at the screen. “Ben Ralston. His name comes up a few times.”

  I frowned. “Why does it sound familiar?”

  “I’ve known Ralston for years,” he said, “since before he took his police pension and set up shop as a PI.”

  “Oh, right. Sten mentioned him. Ben Ralston’s the guy Irene hired to get the goods on Nina during the election.” I could only imagine what sorts of dealings Martin might have had with a cop turned PI.

  “Wonder if he called to tell her he found out who Nina was getting it on with,” he said.

  “I suspect that if Irene had lived long enough to find out that said mystery lover was none other than her own beloved son Patrick, she’d have paid Ben’s bill and added a big bonus to keep his mouth shut.”

  “Marty!” Stevie called up the steps. “Shake a leg. We’re supposed to meet Lexie at the caterer’s at three-thirty.”

  Martin rose and lazily descended the stairs, leaving me to follow. “We’ve been through this,” he told his mother. “Maia just wants to go over the final menu. You two don’t need me for that.”

  Stevie had finished her hair and makeup. Her colorful outfit—dress and leggings, suede boots, and unconstructed blazer—was funky and flattering. Young looking, but not too young. “Lexie wants you there,” she said, as if that settled it.

  “I don’t know why,” he said. “I’d just be in the way. Women are better at that stuff.” This from the man who’d recently catered Uncle Morty’s shivah spread for Sophie.

  Stevie gave me the fed-up look women have been giving one another for millennia: Men!

  When I’d spied Martin chatting with Maia Armstrong at the tournament, I’d naturally assumed it was a boy-girl thing. Then later I’d just as naturally assumed he was using her to horn in on my business. Now it appeared the two of them had indeed been discussing a catering job, as he’d claimed. I suppose stranger things have happened.

  But what kind of catering job? And who was Lexie? My imagination readily filled in the blanks, and in a way I didn’t particularly care for, but hadn’t I just learned the folly of making assumptions?

  “Anyway,” Martin said as he grabbed SB and ushered me out the door, “Jane and I have an urgent appointment.” He pinched my arm before I could say, We do? “Piggies in a blanket,” he called to a fuming Stevie as he slid into the passenger side of my Civic. “You can never go wrong with piggies in a blanket.”

  I stopped Martin from tossing Sexy Beast into the backseat and instead attached the dog’s safety strap to his seat belt. SB settled on his lap and commenced car-whining. As I pulled away from the curb, I asked Martin why we weren’t taking his lovely new Mercedes instead. Turned out it now belonged to Stevie. The man who had no use for family had given his mother a brand-new, bells-and-whistles Mercedes Benz.

  “Anyway, I prefer my bike,” he said. “If you want, we can take that. I have an extra helmet.”

  “Right,” I snorted, “that’ll happen.”

  Will you be shocked if I admit I entertained a momentary fantasy of clinging to the padre’s sinewy flanks as his big, bad motorcycle ate up the miles and the engine vibrations did unruly things to my body?

  Yeah, that’s what I thought. Already you know me too well.

  “So who’s this ‘urgent appointment’ with?” I asked.

  “Here’s a hint.” Martin lowered his voice to a rumbling baritone and crooned the opening lines of Irene’s ring tone.

  “We’re on our way to see John Shaft?”

  “Wrong black private dick.”

  “Ben Ralston?” I said. “What can we learn from him? Except maybe that Patrick is the guy Nina was sleeping with, and Ben never got that far in his investigation before Irene died.”

  “I want to hear it from him.” Martin muzzled SB with his fingers, commanding him to shut up. The dog wrenched his snout free and whined louder. “Ralston’s a tenacious SOB. I can’t see him just dropping an investigation.”

  “His client died.”

  “Let’s just see what he has to say.”

  “You know,” I said, “you could just pick up the phone and call him.”

  “Face-to-face is always better.”

  I realized that our dropping by unannounced might not be the swiftest move. I didn’t know much about the PI biz, but I was willing to bet Ben was bound by some sort of confidentiality rule. At the very least, he wouldn’t want it getting around that he blabbed about sensitive investigations to anyone who asked. So I pulled over, called Sten, and persuaded him to phone Ben and grant permission, as Irene’s executor, for him to discuss his investigation with me.

  Ralston Investigations occupied a modest office on the top floor of a venerable three-story brick building on Main in Crystal Harbor. It was just him, no receptionist. Ben was a black man in his late forties, just under average height and fit looking if you didn’t count the slight paunch beneath his red polo shirt.

  He’d been expecting me, thanks to Sten’s call, but was surprised to see his old pal Martin tagging along. He made friends with SB and gestured for us to sit on the well-worn, leather-upholstered guest chairs. “What’s a seemingly decent girl like you doing hanging with a bum like this?” he wanted to know.

  “Funny,” I said, “someone else said pretty much the same thing today.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  I jerked my head toward Martin. “His mother.”

  Ben laughed. “Well, I guess Stevie knows her boy. So.” He thumped his desk, signaling an end to the small talk. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that our very own Marty McAuliffe—” he tossed his hand toward the padre “—is somehow related to the Crystal Harbor McAuliffes, seeing as you guys are here to discuss the assignment that Irene Hardy McAuliffe hired me for. How am I doing so far? Do my po
wers of deduction thrill and amaze?”

  Martin might have known Ben for years, as he claimed, yet he’d never bothered to fill him in on his connection to the “Crystal Harbor McAuliffes.” I wasn’t surprised.

  “Irene was my step-grandma,” Martin said. “Her late husband’s son Hugh had an extramarital fling with Mom way back when.”

  Ben said, “So that means I have to get married and/or win the Lotto to have a chance with Stevie?”

  “Don’t worry, she got over the rich-family-man thing,” Martin said, “around the time Hugh McAuliffe sicced a squad of high-priced lawyers on a pregnant, homeless teenager.”

  I spoke up. “Stevie was homeless?”

  “When Mom started showing, her folks kicked her out of the house.” To Ben he said, “Give her a call. She thinks you’re cute.”

  “Hey.” Ben indicated himself with a flourishy gesture. “It doesn’t get much cuter than this. So.” He pulled a large brown envelope off a stack of folders. “You guys know why Irene hired me, right?”

  The padre and I answered in the affirmative.

  “Then you also know that before her death,” Ben said, “I was able to report that there was compelling evidence that Irene’s election opponent, Nina Wallace, was doing the nasty with a man who was not her husband.”

  “By now the whole town knows that,” I said, “which I guess was the point. Now that Nina’s gone missing, we thought you might—”

  “Hold on.” Ben straightened. “Nina’s missing?”

  “You didn’t know?” Martin asked.

  “I’ve been out of the loop for a few days. Had to fly out to Chicago to see my mom. Medical emergency.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “I hope she’s okay.”

  “She’s fine.” Ben waved away my concern. “Audrey Ralston is the queen of the fake stroke. And fake pneumonia. And fake sudden-onset paralysis. One time she decided to mix it up and give herself a case of fake flesh-eating virus.”

  “Let me guess,” Martin said. “By the time you rush out there…”

  Ben spread his arms. “An immediate and miraculous cure, Lord be praised! It’s not like I never visit, but when that woman takes it into her head that she wants to see me, she means now. You’d think I’d stop falling for it. I mean, people pay me to tell them when other people are lying, and I’m very good at it.”

  I chewed back a smile. “But it’s your mom.”

  A frustrated growl rumbled in the PI’s chest. Sexy Beast lifted his head and offered a halfhearted response, then snuggled back into my lap.

  “Anyway,” Ben said, “I just got back to town about an hour ago. So Nina Wallace is MIA?”

  “For five days now,” Martin said. “Since last Thursday.”

  “I flew out Wednesday night,” Ben said. “Missed all the excitement. Who’s handling the investigation?”

  “Bonnie Hernandez,” I said.

  Ben gave an approving nod.

  “I thought you two had issues,” Martin said, “from when you were on the force together.”

  “We don’t always see eye to eye, but Bonnie’s a capable detective,” Ben said. “Is she leaning on the husband?”

  “Mal’s the one who sounded the alarm,” I said. “He’s really broken up over it.”

  Ben looked skeptical. “I’m betting he knew his wife was stepping out on him.”

  “Not until Nina told him she was leaving him for the other guy,” I said. “Mal still wants to salvage his marriage.”

  “That’s what he says. Bonnie’s talking to the boyfriend, too, I assume?”

  “Patrick O’Rourke’s at the top of the suspect list,” I said.

  Ben frowned. “What’s O’Rourke got to do with it?”

  Martin and I exchanged a look. “That’s who she was screwing,” Martin said.

  “I don’t know where you got that,” Ben said. “Sure, the guy was at her house a lot, doing odd jobs, but the most intimate thing he did was nibble her muffins—and no, that’s not code.”

  I said, “Then who…?” and watched the hint of a smug smile form.

  “Nina and her boyfriend took great pains to keep their affair under wraps,” Ben said. “They were good, but I’m better, and just before I left town, I was able to get these.” He slid a stack of eight-by-ten photos out of the envelope and pushed them across his desk.

  Martin and I leaned forward. The top photo was an expanse of gray interspersed with thin horizontal slivers revealing the interior of a room. It took me a moment to realize the shot had been taken at a downward angle through the narrow gaps between closed window blinds. Anyone viewing the window straight on or from street level would never see past the blinds.

  I was just able to recognize Nina Wallace. She appeared to be setting her purse on a chair near the window. I saw a tile floor and the edge of a utilitarian cabinet.

  I was about to ask where the picture was taken when Ben said, “I was on the rooftop across the street with a telephoto lens. Here’s a better angle.” He slid the top photo aside. The next one showed Nina unbuttoning her blouse.

  “Now it’s getting interesting.” Martin lifted the picture, and that’s when I noticed it.

  “She’s in a doctor’s office.” I squinted at the sliced-up image. That certainly looked like an exam table, partially shrouded with white paper.

  “Bingo,” Ben said.

  In the next shot Nina was stepping out of her slacks, leaving her in a black-and-ivory lace demi-bra and matching thong.

  “Damn blinds,” Martin grumbled.

  “Wait,” I said. “You can’t take pictures of someone at the doctor.”

  “I told you,” Ben said. “I’m good.”

  “No, I mean it’s an invasion of privacy.”

  Martin had moved on to the next shot. He said, “Whoa,” and tried to show it to me. The pig. I pushed it away and crossed my arms.

  “It’s just wrong,” I told Ben. “It’s a violation.”

  “Jane.” Martin waggled the picture. I refused to look.

  “There have to be limits.” I was all hopped up on moral outrage. “You can’t just invade someone’s—”

  Martin grabbed my head, turned it, and shoved the photo in my face.

  In this shot Nina had been joined by a second person. She sat perched on the exam table, her arms and legs wrapped around the man. Even at the downward angle, and with most of the image obscured by the window blinds, and with the couple tangling tonsils as he reached around to unhook her bra, there was no mistaking the identity of Nina’s mystery lover.

  Dr. Jonah Diamond.

  16

  Employees Only

  “I KNOW THE guy’s a concierge doctor,” Ben said, “but this brings personalized service to a whole new level.”

  “Nina and Jonah?” My overtaxed brain struggled to make sense of this new reality, to fit it into what I knew about Nina’s disappearance.

  “Didn’t I tell you Ben’s tenacious?” Martin said as he pored over the rest of the photos, squinting to fill in the blanks behind the window blinds. I myself had seen more than enough. “He’s a regular pit bull.”

  “If that’s a compliment,” Ben said, “I’ll take it.”

  I yanked the photos away from Martin and shoved them back at Ben. “So you continued the investigation Irene hired you for even after her death?”

  “She paid me a hefty retainer,” Ben said. “I felt a responsibility to see it through.”

  “With no one to report the results to?” Martin asked.

  Ben shrugged. “The truth? I’m not used to throwing in the towel. Gives me hives.” He held his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. “I was this close.”

  “Nina and Jonah had to be meeting somewhere besides his medical office,” I said. “How many doctor visits can a healthy woman like her have before it begins to look suspicious?”

  “Oh, they were definitely hooking up somewhere else,” Ben said, “but I was never able to catch them at it until they decided to play doctor. Du
ring the day when her kids are in school, Nina runs errands and visits friends. She spends a lot of time at the Historical Society, of course, but Jonah’s not a member and I never saw him go in there.”

  “Did the two of them ever leave town at the same time?” Martin asked. “Like for a secret weekend getaway?”

  “Never,” Ben said. “There’s something else. I did a little digging into Jonah’s background. It seems he and his wife Rachel signed a prenup when they got married.”

  “I’m not surprised,” I said. “As I understand it, he couldn’t even pay back his med-school loans when they met, and her family is made of money.”

  Ben nodded. “Rachel’s daddy got his lawyer to craft an airtight contract.”

  “Let me guess,” Martin said. “There’s a cheating clause.”

  “Is there ever. If he strays, she cuts him loose without a dime. He can kiss the big, fancy house goodbye.”

  “Ditto for the country club,” I said, “the luxury cars, high-stakes poker games, all of it.”

  “Nina was pregnant,” Martin pointed out. “She told Mal she was leaving him for the baby’s father.”

  “Her parents were fairly well off, but they’re gone now and so is their money,” Ben said. “She owes her lavish lifestyle to hubby’s successful career as an investment banker.”

  “So Jonah’s looking at a drastic lifestyle change if he leaves Rachel for Nina,” I said. “Or if Rachel even finds out he’s been getting some on the side.”

  I was surprised and kind of touched when the padre added, “Not to mention, he’ll for sure lose custody of his kids.”

  I recalled how rattled Jonah had appeared during the poker tournament. He might have an excellent poker face, as Irene had noted, but you try looking serene when your secret lover has just told you she’s pregnant. I envisioned Nina taking him aside right before the tournament started, sharing the exciting news, telling him the time had come for the two of them to leave their spouses and start a new life together. If that’s what had Jonah upset on the day of the tournament, he seemed to have gotten over it by the time Ben took his dirty pictures four days later. Then I remembered something else.