Ditching David

by Jenna Bennett

  “And speaking of cheaters, I don’t suppose the Other Woman’s here?”

  “Jacquie?” I shook my head. “I’m sure Detective Mendoza warned her to stay away. Did I happen to mention I now have a police record? She swore out a restraining order against me.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish,” I said. “But no. I have to stay a hundred feet away from her at all times. While she can come to my husband’s memorial service and stand up in front of everyone and say I killed him.”

  Diana’s eyes widened. “She did that?”

  “She most certainly did.”

  “Would you like to sue her for slander?”

  “I’d like to,” I said, “but I doubt she has anything I want. And anyway, when the police figure out who killed him, everyone will know it wasn’t me.”

  Diana shrugged. “Let me know if you change your mind. So what happened?”

  “After she made her announcement, you mean? Everyone gasped and stared at me. Detective Mendoza removed her. She didn’t show up for the graveside service, so I figure he must have put the fear of God in her.”

  “Or the fear of the law,” Diana said. She shook her head. “I don’t suppose anyone got a picture?”

  Oh, God.

  “Now that you mention it, I think the funeral home taped the service. Just in case I wanted to watch it and remember later.”

  I have no idea why Anselm Howard would think I’d want to do that. There was no part of me that wanted to relive any part of today. Most especially the part where Jacquie accused me of killing David.

  “Imagine that falling into the wrong hands,” Diana murmured.

  Thank you. “I’ll make sure to pick it up personally.” And burn it.

  Diana grinned, as if she knew what I was thinking. “Anything else I should know before I go?”

  I thought about it. “I don’t think so.”

  “In that case I’ll head home. Steven and I are going on a date.”

  Steven was Diana’s husband. I had never met him, but I knew he was a professor at one of the universities, and that they’d been married a long time. It was nice that they still had date-nights.

  “Have a good time,” I told her. “I assume you gave Judge Miller a copy of David’s paperwork, too?”

  “Messengered it over this afternoon. I decided to give myself the pleasure of serving Anton personally.” She smiled toothily. “We should hear something on Monday. I’ll let you know.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and walked her to the door. “Have a good weekend.”

  “You, too.” She gave me a look. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Stalking Jacquie and getting yourself thrown in jail.”

  I hadn’t planned to do that. “I’m going to have a nice, quiet weekend while I try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.”

  “Famous last words,” Diana said, and walked out the door. Halfway down the stairs, she had to sidestep to avoid running into a man coming up. He muttered something—I don’t think it was an apology—and pushed past me and inside. “Charming,” Diana said, looking after him.

  “Krystal’s boyfriend.” Trailing a reek of marijuana behind him. “I think he’s some sort of musician.”

  Diana didn’t comment, just shook her head and continued down the stairs. I waited for her to drive away before I headed back inside the house.

  Rachel was in the kitchen, replenishing platters. “Everything OK?” she asked when she saw me.

  I nodded. “What can you tell me about Krystal’s boyfriend?”

  She glanced past me to the door to the dining room. “Problem?”

  “Not as far as I know.” When I walked through, neither of them had been there. I guess maybe they were huddled in the music room or something. Or maybe Krystal had dragged her boyfriend back outside to air him out and get rid of the fumes. “I think he’s been smoking pot.”

  “He does that,” Rachel said, her fingers transferring canapés from one tray to the other. “Mr. Kelly was upset about it.”

  “David? He didn’t approve of Krystal’s boyfriend?” He hadn’t mention anything to me about that. “Is he a new boyfriend?”

  “They’ve been dating for a year or so,” Rachel said, “on and off.”

  I blinked. “Why didn’t David tell me?”

  Rachel didn’t look at me, just kept her attention on the food. “Maybe he didn’t want to worry you.”

  Or maybe he thought I wouldn’t be interested. Krystal and I had never been close.

  Or—hell!—maybe he was already screwing around with someone else by then, and was unburdening himself to them instead.

  I tried to imagine Jacquie taking an interest in Krystal’s boyfriend—in any way but the obvious one—and couldn’t.

  But who better than Krystal’s mother?

  “Sandra told me she had a fling with him six months ago,” I said.

  Rachel didn’t look up, but her lips tightened.

  “Did you know about that?”

  “I knew about all of them,” Rachel said.

  All?

  My lips felt stiff. “How many were there?”

  She looked up, and when I looked into her eyes, I felt the bottom drop out.

  “He’s been cheating for years. But most of it was like with the former Mrs. Kelly. Brief flings. Ms. Demetros was the first time it got serious.”

  “How many?”

  “I didn’t keep count,” Rachel said.

  “But more than the two of them.”

  She nodded. “Several more.”

  I took a deep breath and straightened my fingers. They were curled into claws, and I knew it was unfair to attack Rachel. She wasn’t who I wanted to hurt. I wanted to hurt David, and barring that, Jacquie and Sandra and every other woman he’d slept with. But mostly I wanted to hurt David.

  Wanting to hurt the dead doesn’t feel good. Not only because it’s impossible to get any kind of satisfaction, but also because it makes you feel bad about yourself.

  Although Rachel was standing right in front of me, and I was upset with her, too. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I needed to work,” Rachel said.

  And if she’d told me what David was doing, he would have fired her.

  I understood that. But I still couldn’t keep myself from saying, “Well, I hope you’re happy now.”

  “I’m not,” Rachel said. “And anyway, in the end, it was all for nothing.”

  She lifted the tray and headed for the door to the dining room.

  I trotted after. “What do you mean?”

  She gave me a look over her shoulder. “I mean now that Mr. Kelly is dead, I’m out of a job anyway.”

  She passed through and into the dining room, where she placed the tray on the table. Four different people elbowed her out of their way to get to it.

  “Farley isn’t keeping you?” I asked when she came to stand next to me. “But you run the place!”

  “Mr. Hollingsworth prefers to do his own running.” Her voice was carefully neutral.

  “What will you do?”

  Rachel shrugged. “I’ll have to find another job. Mr. Hollingsworth gave me a three month severance package, so I have a little time. I won’t have to settle for the first thing that comes along.”

  “That was nice of him,” I said stupidly. Rachel gave me a look that told me, eloquently, just how stupid I was. Farley had fired her. He wasn’t being nice. “Why doesn’t he want to keep you? You were doing a good job. And he’ll need someone to answer the phones and greet the clients.”

  Rachel shrugged. “After today, it’s none of my concern.”

  Wow. So not only had he fired her, but it had taken effect immediately. David went in the ground, and Farley cleaned house.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  Rachel looked at me. “No offense, Mrs. Kelly, but between the two of us, I think I got off easier. At least I get severance pay. According to
Mr. Kelly, you’re not getting squat.”

  Oh, really? “Is that what he told you?”

  She shrugged.

  “Well, I’ve got news for you,” I said. “I found his hidden accounts. And by now both his lawyer and the judge know about them. And my lawyer says we stand a good chance of getting the prenup thrown out, because nobody likes a cheat.”

  Rachel smiled—a real smile, not the close-lipped professional version she usually gave me. It transformed her face, made her look younger and even a bit thinner. “Good for you.”

  “Thank you. And if there’s anything I can do to help you with the job hunt...”

  “No offense, Mrs. Kelly,” Rachel said again, “but after what happened this afternoon, I’d say your credibility is pretty low.”

  Ouch.

  “I didn’t kill David,” I said, raising my voice just enough that those of David’s friends and associates who were hovering near the table could hear me. “So the police won’t be able to prove I did. Sooner or later they’ll find the real killer, and then everyone will know it wasn’t me.”

  And on that note, just like in a TV movie, the front door opened, and Detective Mendoza stood on the threshold. The wind lashed the rain behind him, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled.

  “Mrs. Kelly,” he told me, “I need you to come with me.”

  Chapter 12

  YOU COULD HAVE heard a canapé drop.

  In fact, one did. Gwendolyn Oliver was holding a shrimp puff, and it hit the floor with a sound halfway between a splat and a soggy thump. The hand that had held the puff flew to cover her mouth, and she stared at me over it, her eyes round.

  Everyone else was staring, too.

  “Of course, Detective,” I said calmly. “Just let me get my coat.”

  Mendoza glanced around the room. “We’re just going to the garage.”

  Ah. “In that case, I think I’ll probably be all right without it.” I turned to Rachel. “Will you keep an eye on things here?”

  She nodded. “Of course, Mrs. Kelly.”

  I turned to Mendoza. “Lead the way, Detective.”

  “After you, Mrs. Kelly.” He stepped aside and bowed politely as I brushed past him into the hallway and from there over to the interior door from the house to the garage.

  “What’s going on?” I asked him when we were inside the garage with the door closed between us and the teeming crowd in the house. I had no doubt that some of them had gravitated to the door and were now doing everything short of pressing their ears to the wood to try to hear what we were saying.

  “I need a witness,” Mendoza told me, looking around at the dim interior of the two-car space, “and it is your garage. Is there a light in here?”

  “Of course.” Next to the kitchen door. I reached out and flipped the switch. A couple of hundred-watt bulbs came on, bathing the convertible and the empty space next to it—the one that used to be occupied by David’s Porsche—in brilliance. At the same time, it probably enhanced every wrinkle and enlarged pore on my face.

  I took a step back. No sense drawing attention to those parts of myself. It had been a long day, and I hadn’t had time to refresh my makeup. “Would you like to tell me what we’re doing here?”

  “Looking for something,” Mendoza said, still looking around instead of at me. I should be grateful, although I admit it made me feel a little unimportant.

  “Looking for what?”

  “A pair of grease-stained overalls and a knife.”

  I opened my mouth, but found I couldn’t speak. When I didn’t say anything, Mendoza turned to watch me, interestedly. “Cat got your tongue?”

  I closed my mouth, opened it, and tried again. “What makes you think there’s a pair of grease-stained overalls and a knife in my garage?”

  “Anonymous tip,” Mendoza said, going back to surveying the room.

  “Someone called to tell you there’s a pair of overalls and a knife in my garage?”

  He nodded.

  “Who?”

  “We don’t know,” Mendoza said. “That’s why it’s called an anonymous tip.”

  Well, duh. “Don’t you have caller ID?”

  “Of course we do,” Mendoza said. “The call came from here.”

  “Here?”

  “Your house. Your landline.”

  My landline.

  I swallowed. “So anyone in the house could have called.”

  “Including you.”

  “Why would I call you to tell you there’s a pair of overalls and a knife in my garage? If there’s a pair of overalls and a knife here, you’re the last person I’d want to know about it.”

  “Good to know,” Mendoza said.

  “You know what I mean. You already suspect me. If the overalls and knife are here—” the overalls and knife used to cut David’s brake lines, I assumed; and I’m sure Mendoza did, too, “—that’ll just make me look more guilty.”

  “If the overalls fit,” Mendoza said.

  “Well, if they don’t, there’s no point in leaving them here, is there?”

  I didn’t wait for an answer, just stepped off the small staircase and began walking along the wall. “Did this anonymous tip tell you where in the garage the overalls and knife are supposed to be?”

  “It wasn’t a long conversation,” Mendoza said. “All he said was, ‘there a pair of overalls and a knife in Gina Kelly’s garage.’”

  Great. So the stuff we were looking for could be anywhere.

  I went in one direction, and Mendoza in the other.

  It seemed to me that there were two explanations for the anonymous call. Someone might have happened to notice the overalls and knife while in the garage on an entirely innocent errand. If so, the stuff must be out in plain sight.

  Or the caller might have been the person who put the overalls and knife there—David’s murderer—and if so, the stuff could be anywhere.

  “Here,” Mendoza said.

  I raised my head. He was over against the other wall, on the side of the garage where David’s car used to be parked.

  “You found it?”

  He nodded. “Come take a look.”

  I made my way around the convertible and over to him, in time to see him snap on a pair of thin rubber gloves he must have pulled out of his pocket. “I have to go to my car for a paper bag,” he told me. “Don’t touch.”

  I promised I wouldn’t, and ended up standing there, with my hands clasped behind my back, while I waited for him to come back.

  There was no doubt he’d found what we’d been looking for. Up against the wall just inside the electronic garage door, was a wooden box with a sloped lid, a bit like an overlarge salt cellar. It came up to mid-thigh on me, and it was full of sand. The house sat atop a hill, with a long, sloped driveway down to the street. And while we don’t usually get a lot of winter weather in Nashville, it happens. The sand was there so we could use it on the driveway in case of snow.

  Now the lid was propped open, and inside I could see a bundle of utilitarian fabric. It looked a lot like what Bud the lube guy had worn yesterday. I couldn’t see the knife, but I figured the overalls were probably wrapped around it, and when Mendoza took the bundle out of the sand box, he’d find the knife inside.

  “Here.” He nudged me aside. He was carrying a big, brown, grocery style bag that he opened and put on the floor. When he reached into the sand box and lifted the bundle of fabric out, I took a step back. My DNA wasn’t on it now—I’d never seen it before—and just in case DNA could transfer over short distances of empty air, I wanted to put more space between myself and the stuff.

  Mendoza unfolded the bundle carefully—probably expecting to find the knife inside, too. It started sliding, and Mendoza guided it into the paper bag before shaking out the overalls.

  “One thing I can tell you,” he told me, “whoever called it in either put the stuff here, or poked at it. The knife wasn’t visible until I unrolled the fabric, so no one could have known it was there just
by looking.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  He shot me a look. “Relax, Mrs. Kelly. If I thought it was you, I’d have arrested you by now.”

  Good to know. At least until he added, “Although I could change my mind. So watch what you do.”

  “Yes, Detective,” I said meekly.

  The overalls, when unrolled and held up, looked like they might fit me reasonably well. They were too big, of course—a man’s size—but I’m tallish for a woman, so I could have rolled up the sleeves and legs and gotten away with wearing them, especially in the dark.

  They were bulky, though. If I did want to crawl underneath someone’s car in the dark, I might have chosen to wear something that was easier to move around in. Yes, I’d run the risk of ruining whatever I was wearing, but sacrificing a pair of yoga pants and a T-shirt to the endeavor would have been worth it. And I would have had plenty of time to get rid of the evidence on the drive home. There were any number of dumpsters and trash cans between Fidelio’s and home, along with a hospital, a college, and several apartment buildings.

  Naturally I didn’t tell Mendoza any of that. And besides, that wasn’t what the real killer had done, anyway. He—or she—had held onto the knife and overalls, to plant in my garage.

  Mendoza folded up the overalls and stuffed them into the paper bag. “These will have to go to the lab.”

  I nodded. “What are the chances you’ll find anyone’s DNA on them?”

  “Pretty good,” Mendoza said, “unless they were washed. What are the chances I’ll find yours?”

  I made sure my voice was steady. “Very slim. If they touched the little shovel that’s in the sand box, and I touched the shovel last winter, or if whoever put the stuff here rubbed the overalls against the door handle of my car...”

  “Right,” Mendoza said, folding the top of the bag over. “We can worry about that later.”

  Or I could, at any rate. There was no reason for him to worry, either way.

  “Thank you for taking care of Jacquie earlier,” I said. “At the funeral.”

  Mendoza’s lips quivered. “My pleasure.”

  “And thanks for convincing her she shouldn’t come to the graveside service or the reception. I was afraid she might throw herself on top of the coffin as it went into the ground.”