Ditching David

by Jenna Bennett

  The other driver rolled past without glancing at me. I watched as he pulled into a parking space in front of Kenny’s building and got out. And then I watched as he climbed the stairs and let himself in through Kenny’s door. After a few seconds, the light went on in what I knew to be Kenny’s kitchen.

  I left the complex while I fumbled for my phone.

  * * *

  MY FIRST CALL was to the police switchboard in downtown. When the phone was answered, I asked to talk to Detective Jaime Mendoza and was transferred to homicide. There, another voice answered, and I asked for Detective Mendoza again.

  “He’s gone off duty for the night,” the voice on the other end informed me.

  “It’s kind of an emergency,” I said apologetically. “Or not really an emergency, I guess. Nobody’s in danger or anything like that. But it’s something he should know now, not tomorrow morning.”

  The voice hesitated. Or the person it belonged to did. “What’s this about?”

  “The Kelly homicide,” I told her. “I’m Regina Kelly. The wife. Widow.”

  There was another pause. Then— “Hold, please.”

  I heard a click, and dead air. Then another few clicks. She was either transferring me, or hanging up.

  Then there was a ringtone, cut short. “This is Jaime,” a voice said.

  “Detective?” There was music in the background. I couldn’t have sworn to it, but it sounded like the theme song to Scooby-Doo. But while Mystery, Inc. may have been appropriate entertainment for a detective, wasn’t it a little juvenile?

  He didn’t say anything, and I was so busy trying to identify the music that I didn’t realize immediately that he probably didn’t recognize my voice. “I’m sorry. This is—”

  “Mrs. Kelly.” He sounded resigned. Or maybe reluctant was a better word.

  “I’m sorry to bother you at home,” I said.

  “That’s OK.” His tone of voice made it very clear that it wasn’t. And when he spoke again, to someone on his end of the line, I understood why. “Daddy won’t be long, Elias. I’ll get you your juice in a minute.”

  Argh. He was at home, with a child. And probably a wife somewhere around. Good thing I hadn’t gotten past covering him with sheets in my fantasy earlier.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “I just wanted to tell you something.”

  “It couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

  Argh. “No. Or probably not. Tomorrow might be too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “I’m not explaining this right,” I said. “I was sitting outside Kenny’s apartment just now—”

  “Why?”

  “Looking for him. Because I thought he might not have gone to work yet.”

  “What did you want to talk to him about?”

  “I didn’t want to talk to him,” I said. “I wanted to see where he worked.”

  There was a beat. “So you were sitting outside your stepson’s apartment, waiting for him to go to work, so you could tail him there. Why?”

  “Because I don’t know where he works. And I wanted to know whether he worked last night. He said he did, but I thought he might be lying. So I was going to follow him there, and then call and ask someone whether he’d really been there last night—”

  “Let me save you the trouble,” Mendoza said, while the kids from Mystery, Inc. started talking behind him. “He works at Murphy’s Law. It’s a bar.”

  “I know that.” Not only because Kenny had told me he was tending bar, but because I was familiar with it. And its location. “It’s just a block from Fidelio’s.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Mendoza said. “I was there today. And before you ask, yes, Kenneth Kelly worked the evening shift last night. Five to closing.”

  Five to closing? “So he was a block away when David’s car was sabotaged.”

  I waited for Mendoza to make some kind of sound to acknowledge my point. When he didn’t, I drove it home. “He could have taken a five minute break to run down the street and cut his father’s brake lines.”

  “Yes,” Mendoza said, “but why would he?”

  “I’m sure he needs money. He always needs money. David was making noises about cutting him off if he didn’t settle down to keep a job longer than six months at a time.”

  “You didn’t mention that earlier,” Mendoza said.

  “I didn’t think about it.” But it opened up new and interesting vistas. Vistas that drew me in completely. I pictured the scene last night: Kenny ducking out of the bar for a smoke break and hoofing it down the alley to Fidelio’s, where he slithered under his father’s car, cut the brake lines, and hoofed it back to Murphy’s Law without anyone being the wiser.

  “Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” Mendoza’s voice cut through my ruminations, and I came back to myself with a jerk.

  “I’m sorry. No.”

  He sighed. It wasn’t very loud, but I heard it.

  “I’m sorry!”

  “I heard you. Listen, Mrs. Kelly, I’m alone here with a thirsty five-year-old, so if you could hurry it up...”

  I was tempted to stick my tongue out at the telephone. But since I figured he wouldn’t have been rude unless he really did need to get back to the kid, I spoke fast instead. “I was sitting outside in the parking lot waiting for him to leave. But he never came out. So I gave up and started to drive home. And as I was exiting the condo complex, another car drove in. A big, rusty pickup truck with California plates.”

  “OK,” Mendoza said.

  “I got a look at the driver. It was my brother-in-law. Daniel.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “You said you’d spoken to him, right? Was he in California then?”

  “I assumed he was,” Mendoza said. I arched my brows. A pretty big assumption, wasn’t it?

  He couldn’t have seen me, but when he continued, he sounded defensive. “I called him on his landline. And he answered. It seemed like wasted time and resources to have the local police check and make sure he was where he said he was.”

  “Well, maybe you should do it now,” I said. “Because I’m pretty sure he’s in Nashville at the moment. And if he drove here in the truck I saw, he didn’t leave California this afternoon.”

  It takes a bit longer than four or five hours to drive from the West Coast to Nashville. I wasn’t even sure he would have had time to fly here in the time since Mendoza spoke to him.

  Mendoza sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Yes. You should send someone over to Kenny’s apartment to talk to Daniel. The sooner, the better. I don’t think he noticed me, but I could be wrong about that. And anyway, if he’s here, and he killed David, he probably won’t stick around too long.”

  “I’m...”

  “Home alone with a five-year-old. I know. Isn’t there someone else who can go?”

  “Yes,” Mendoza sighed.

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “Being open to the possibility that maybe I didn’t kill my husband. Will you do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Will you let me know what you find out? Whether that really was Daniel? Or whether I’ve totally lost my mind?”

  Mendoza sighed again—deeper this time. “Yes, Mrs. Kelly. I’ll let you know. But tomorrow, OK?”

  “OK,” I said. “Someone will go over there tonight, though. Right?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Kelly. You can leave it to me.”

  “Thank you,” I said. And then I hung up before I could exasperate him any more than I already had. And since I was out driving around anyway, and since I’d rather be doing this than sitting at home with my glass of wine and my thoughts, I turned the nose of the convertible in the direction of midtown and Jacquie’s place. Might as well see how the other woman was spending her time.

  * * *

  BY NOW RUSH hour was over, and driving was a breeze. It was less than fifteen minutes before I was parked in my usual spot outside Jacquie’s building.r />
  Yes, I had been there enough to pick out a usual spot. Unlike the first time I’d followed her home, when I’d ended up parking in a metered space on the street, I had since found a nice little loading dock down the street, where nobody bothered me this time of night. All the deliveries had been done for the day, and I had the place to myself. So I backed in, killed the engine and the lights, and pulled out the binoculars I kept in the glove box for these occasions.

  Yes, I had gone to the trouble and expense of purchasing a pair of high-powered binoculars for these occasions.

  You may think I’d gone a little overboard, and you may be right.

  In my defense, I didn’t actually look into the apartment. I couldn’t have, even if I’d wanted to—and I didn’t particularly want to. I knew what David and Jacquie were doing up there; I didn’t need to see them in action. And anyway, I was on the ground while the apartment was several stories above me, so I wouldn’t have been able to see much anyway. Mostly it was just ceiling. I only saw people if they stood in front of the windows.

  Today, someone happened to be standing in front of one of the windows. I trained the binoculars on her, and adjusted the sharpness.

  It was Jacquie, and she was braced on her hands, looking down at the street. As I watched, she turned in my direction, and I slid down in my seat, heart jumping. But then I told myself she couldn’t have seen me. Sure, my car was somewhat distinctive—a pale blue convertible—but she couldn’t see me. Not in the dark.

  Then I saw what she’d been looking at. A pickup truck rolled past me and came to a stop across the street from Jacquie’s building. The horn honked once, and Jacquie lifted a hand before disappearing from the window. After a second, the light turned off upstairs.

  I assumed she was on her way down, so I turned my attention to the truck. It was a nondescript dark pickup, black or blue or dark green, like ten thousand others driving around Nashville. It wasn’t Daniel’s truck, though. Too new, too shiny, and too well-kept.

  I couldn’t see the driver in the dark, and he—or she; let’s not be sexist—didn’t turn on the interior lights. Or light a cigarette or make a phone call or anything else, that might enable to me to catch a glimpse of his or her features.

  Thirty seconds later, the door to the building opened, and Jacquie came mincing across the street. I sharpened the binoculars and zoomed in on her.

  I had plenty of time to stare. It took her a small eternity to cross the street. Her heels were easily four inches tall, and she was balanced on what looked like a one-and-a-half inch platform. The rest of her curvy little body was poured into a pair of jeans that rode low on her hips, and a skin-tight top that showed her belly button plus a lot of cleavage. Her boobs jiggled when she walked. Her hair was blown out, and her lips lacquered red. If she was mourning David, she did a good job of hiding it.

  I glanced guiltily down at myself. It was years since my boobs had done anything that came close to jiggling. These days, they needed help staying up. And I had no room to talk about clothes inappropriate for mourning, since I was wearing pink with sequins. If Jacquie was on her way out to drown her sorrows in a pitcher of margaritas with her girlfriends, who was I to judge? I only wished I had girlfriends of my own to share a pitcher of margaritas with.

  I watched each agonizingly slow step across the street and around the truck to the passenger side, and it was when she opened the door and the ceiling light came on, that I got my first look at the driver.

  Not female. A young man with dark hair.

  The same young man I’d seen come out of this building once before, just before David went in.

  The interior light went out again when Jacquie closed her door, and they pulled away from the curb with a roar of the engine. The streets were fairly empty, so I gave them some time to get ahead of me before I turned my own lights on and followed.

  I think I may have mentioned this before, but it’s a lot easier to follow someone when there’s a lot of traffic. When traffic is sparse, you have to stay much farther back so the people you’re following don’t see you. And because you have to keep a good bit of distance between your cars, you run the risk of losing your quarry.

  In this case, I did. After only a block, they zoomed through a light on yellow. I got caught by the red, and by the time I got going again, the truck was nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 6

  I THOUGHT ABOUT calling Detective Mendoza, to tell him I’d seen Jacquie head out in the company of another man, dressed to kill, and did he think there was any chance that she had a jealous ex-boyfriend who might have killed my husband... but I figured I’d already exasperated him enough for one night, and besides, I didn’t really want him to know I was following Jacquie around. So I figured I’d just go home instead, and finish my Cabernet and watch TV until I fell asleep.

  But first I decided to take a tour of the neighborhood, just in case I’d missed the truck somewhere, and they’d parked and gone inside a building while I was lingering at the red light a few blocks back.

  And that’s when I hit pay dirt. There was a dark blue truck parked in the lot behind Rotier’s—a little hole in the wall on Elliston Place, that is said to serve some of the best burgers in Nashville—and the hood was still ticking. I pulled into an empty parking space a few slots away, and got out. When I placed my palm flat on the front of the truck, the metal was still warm.

  It might have been someone else’s truck, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a look inside. So I hitched my purse more securely over my shoulder and headed for the back door.

  Here’s the thing. I didn’t grow up wealthy. When David met me, I was a struggling college student, waiting tables at night to make ends meet while I tried to keep up with the studying for a marketing degree. The color I’d used to turn my hair from red to blonde back then had come out of a box, because trips to the spa were out of the question. It was years—decades—since I’d been inside a dive like Rotier’s, but walking through the door brought back memories. The low light, the dingy floor, the smells. The neon beer signs decorating walls covered in ugly 1970s paneling.

  It was a narrow space. A row of booths against one wall and the bar against the other, with a line of small tables between the two. The waitresses were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and so were most of the patrons.

  I stopped just inside the door to let my eyes adjust to the gloom, and to see if I could see Jacquie and her date.

  And lo and behold, there they were, in a booth in the corner. Jacquie had her back to me, but I recognized the guy. When I came in, he looked up, and then looked me up and down for a moment before turning his attention back to Jacquie. I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered that he looked, or offended that he didn’t look at my face, but since it was for the best that he didn’t recognize me, I guess I should simply be grateful that he was a lout.

  “Help you?” one of the waitresses asked.

  The table next to Jacquie and her companion was occupied, and so was the one on the next row. There was no way for me to get close enough to hear what they were talking about. The best I could hope to do, was keep an eye on them for a while.

  I smiled at the waitress. “I’d like to order a hamburger to go.”

  “On French bread?” When I didn’t answer immediately, she added, “It’s our signature burger.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. I’d just have to do another twenty minutes on the elliptical tomorrow.

  “With some sweet potato fries?”

  I really shouldn’t, not if I wanted to keep my girlish figure—and seeing Jacquie in those painted-on jeans and that skimpy top had brought home with a vengeance just how far beyond twenty-five I was—but that did sound good. And anyway, it was probably another specialty. I would offend her if I said no.

  I threw caution to the wind. “Sure.” An extra hour. But it would be worth it.

  “I’ll go put in the order. Why don’t you have a seat at the bar while you wait?”

  Why not?
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br />   I wandered over to the bar and scooted up on a stool. In the mirror, I could see the corner with Jacquie and her companion. She was leaning forward stabbing the table in front of him with her finger. He was leaning back with his arms folded across his chest.

  Classic defensive posture. While hers was classic offensive. I saw her lips moving, but of course I had no idea what she said. Lip-reading isn’t a skill I’ve cultivated. I could tell he didn’t like it, though. He was pouting.

  He was a good-looking guy, other than the pout. Young, of course. Jacquie’s age, or maybe a year or two older. Dark-haired and brown-eyed. They might even be siblings.

  “Get you something?”

  The bartender’s query dragged my attention away from the couple in the corner. “Sure. Um...” It didn’t look like a place where the wine would be good. And anyway, I was driving. “Sweet tea?”

  He nodded and moved away. A minute later he was back with a glass. “I’m waiting for a to-go order,” I said. “I’ll pay for it all together when the sandwich comes.”

  He just shrugged, so I assumed that was going to work.

  In the minute or two I’d been busy elsewhere, the dynamics in the corner booth had changed. Now it was Jacquie’s companion who was leaning forward, stabbing the table, while she was leaning back, pouting. Her folded arms pushed her breasts up and out, and I’m sure it wasn’t an accident. The guy kept getting distracted from what looked like a tirade. Every so often his eyes would drop into her cleavage and he’d stop talking for a few seconds while he just stared.

  “Friends of yours?” the waitress asked, and I jumped. She chuckled and put the bag with my hamburger on the counter in front of me. “Total’s $10.91.”

  Not bad for a burger and fries. At Fidelio’s, even the appetizers are in the fifteen-dollar range. And of course there are no burgers. “And the tea,” I said.