Sea of Suspicion

by Toni Anderson

  “Did you ever do him?” Nick asked with a sly half grin. Her eyes bugged so wide Nick thought she was choking.

  “God, no!” She sputtered and knocked back a healthy measure of wine. “My ex ran off with his secretary.” She shook her head and the look she gave Nick summed up everything she thought about men in general. “I don’t shag married men and I don’t have sex with the boss.”

  “He ever ask you?” Nick asked.

  “What do you think?” Her smile was bright and slow, her eyes sliding over his body, which remained stubbornly indifferent.

  “A woman who looks as good as you do? Damn right he did.” Nick pasted on a smile, irritated because on the surface lies came so easily, and yet underneath he was drowning. He took a long swallow of water, closed his eyes. Susie’s stiff-backed image floated into his mind, and memories of the sweet kiss they’d shared flickered along his nerves.

  She was better off without him.

  His fist squeezed in his lap. This was bullshit. He didn’t want to be here, he didn’t want to hurt Susie—or Candace for that matter, who seemed like a nice woman. Christ, Candace had already told him almost everything he needed to know. Sitting straighter in his chair, he took out his notebook. “I’ll need the names of Tracy Good’s lovers.”

  She told him the names and he wrote everything in his illegible handwriting, jolting as she slipped a warm hand onto his thigh.

  “So…?” Candace smiled. “You’re not married and you’re not my boss.” She was attractive and available and definitely a no-strings encounter. “My place is just around the corner…”

  And there on cue was Susie Cooper ambling out the Mercat Wynd and crossing the cobbles of Market Street.

  Sweat beaded his brow. God, he wanted to have sex and his body finally reacted, but it wasn’t to Candace. Fan-bloody-tastic. Slowly he took Candace’s hand from his thigh and gave her fingers a quick press before letting go.

  “I’m flattered.” He really was. He managed a practiced smile that was much cooler than she deserved, and stood and gathered his jacket off the back of his chair. “Unfortunately, I have got to get back to the station.”

  “Later then?” Confusion brought high color to her cheeks, but then her eyes filled with understanding.

  “I’ll be in touch.” The words tasted bitter on his tongue because he meant about the investigation, but it sounded like a brush off. Avoiding eye contact, he left enough money on the table to cover the bill and headed out into the sunshine.

  Susie ducked into Bonkers, a gift shop on the corner of Market and Church Street that had been a favorite haunt of Chrissie’s. Nick hadn’t been inside in years. Even the smell fueled memories of Chrissie trying to turn their small rented flat into a home.

  Nick watched Susie through the huge plate-glass windows that were stuffed with carved puffins and oversized ceramic plates painted with cats. Susie frowned, clearly undecided whether to buy a red cat plate or a blue cat plate.

  She was pretty, biting her lip and trying to decide about something so inane.

  Abruptly she looked up and caught him staring. She froze, looking angry before pulling her bag higher up her shoulder and marching out of the shop to stand directly in front of him, checking her watch. He was curious as to what was going to come out of her mouth.

  “Sorry I couldn’t wait for you to finish your interviews, Detective, but I had work to do.”

  Cold, polite, brittle.

  Ah.

  “So I see.” Nick jerked his chin at the sparkling interior of Bonkers and let his irritation show. “Shopping. Much more important than a murder investigation.”

  “If you want to criticize my work ethic why don’t you come by the lab at 10 p.m. some night, or maybe on the weekend, when I’m usually in?” Her perfect eyebrows arched and her smile drove spikes into his chest. The exterior might be cool, but fire burned within. She turned and walked away up Church Street, brushing him off as if he was begging for change.

  He caught up with her. “I need to ask you some questions about Tracy Good.”

  She swept a hand through her hair, spun on her heel and stared at him, incredulous.

  “No. No, you don’t.” Her face froze into severe lines, pinched lips, shadowed eyes. “You’re playing with me and I don’t like it.”

  It was the hurt in her voice that nailed him. She began hurrying away, but he wasn’t ready to let go yet so he fell into step beside her.

  “Come on, Susie Q.” Hadn’t he just refused wild monkey sex with a woman who looked as if she was an Olympic athlete at the sport? Exasperated, he touched her arm, deepened his voice to raw honey. “You like it just fine.”

  She shook him off with a furious jerk of her hand.

  “Stop calling me that ridiculous name. Stop touching me and stop following me!” Fury vibrated through her voice like electricity through a live wire. “My life is none of your business. Last time I saw you, you were hitting on another delusional female you’d just met. Do I look stupid?”

  People veered around them on the pavement. Susie lowered her voice. “Pretending I don’t know what you are? Empty? Unfeeling? Knowing you don’t love me, that you’ll never love anyone but your dead wife?”

  Astonishment paralyzed every muscle in his body. Temper bobbed to the surfaced but he couldn’t grab hold of it. She shoved past him and he let her go. He swallowed and blinked away moisture that the wind had stirred up in his eyes.

  Chapter Ten

  The press, in addition to Nick Archer, had destroyed her day.

  Back in the Gatty Susie punched in the key-code to the aquarium, the sweet rancid smell of overripe seaweed besieging her senses. Moist air clung to her skin, and the noise of rushing water and fizzing air stones finally drowned out the shrill demand of the telephone, which hadn’t stopped ringing all afternoon.

  For a moment she leaned against a mustard-yellow tank. Something darted away inside, the vibrations zinging along the bones in her arm. She went upstairs where she had two octopi she needed to feed before she went home.

  She unlocked the padlocks and opened the lids. Three hundred and seventy million years of boneless evolution made octopods the Houdinis of the animal world. She fed them fresh shrimp, one at a time, and let their gentle caresses soothe her shattered calm.

  Susie checked the temperature of the water. Forty-six degrees Fahrenheit, eight degrees Celsius. Too chilly for cephalopod sex which was why she needed a CT room.

  The female octopus watched from a huge clay pot, shells and stones arranged over the entrance of her den like a garden. A smaller male sat in the opposite tank, his eyes on the female, wary but fascinated.

  Unlike most animals, except humans, octopods had face-to-face sex. It had nothing to do with anthropomorphic love. But cannibalism was rife once the female got the sac of sperm she needed from the male.

  Maybe that’s what Susie needed? A sperm donor. A baby without the hassle of a man. It sounded too good to be true. Susie frowned thoughtfully.

  Her mother would freak.

  Susie locked the tanks, made her way back to her office. Surely it couldn’t be that hard to find a nice guy to settle down with? Except…you never knew how long you had. Tracy Good had her life stolen by violence, Dela by an arterial gas embolism. Life was precious and there were no guarantees. Maybe it was time for plan B?

  Nick pulled up in front of Jake and Judy Sizemore’s detached Victorian on the outskirts of Anstruther. The door and window trims were painted British Racing green, matching the cast-iron railing that topped a low stone wall out front. The knocker was a big brass affair and Nick pounded the crap out of it.

  Susie Cooper could go to hell.

  He’d left Ewan going through witness statements at the station while a couple of uniforms finished canvassing Albany Park residents and checking Tracy’s phone and email records. Nick had pulled her bank statements earlier and there was nothing of interest except a student bursary which was hardly enough to feed a sparrow. His boss was gett
ing antsy.

  He knocked again, shifted his weight from one foot to the other when he heard a noise from inside the house. Excitement heightened his senses. He was so damn close. The door opened and revealed a young woman, barefoot, in yoga pants and a sports bra.

  “Is your mother in?” Nick frowned at what must be Jake’s youngest daughter. This was the kid who’d taken the picture of Chrissie that hung on Jake’s office wall. She had streaked mousey brown hair, a pretty oval face and huge eyes that were slightly disconcerting.

  “Hang on, I’ll see.”

  A second woman with an American accent shouted from another room. “Who is it, Callie?”

  “Tell your mother Detective Inspector Nick Archer wants a few minutes of her time, aye?”

  The girl raised her eyebrows, indefinable emotion moving through her blue eyes. She knew who he was. She turned back inside, hugging the door and not letting him in. “Mom, it’s the police.”

  A woman strode down the hallway, drying her hands on a dishtowel as she scowled at Nick. “You.” Her stance was rigid, her gray hair frazzled and pulled back into a thick ponytail.

  He tipped his head, kept his eyes fastened on hers. “Mrs. Sizemore.”

  “You weren’t so quick when the garden shed was vandalized last week, were you? Didn’t see any cops on the doorstep then, did we?” Her eyes were hard blue, her body shaking with what he had to assume was fury.

  “Can I come in?” He raised his eyebrows and kept his tone neutral. Murder was hardly in the same league as trashing the garden shed. Judy Sizemore looked at her daughter and some silent communication passed between them. Callie opened the door and stood back.

  He wondered what she remembered about Chrissie’s death. Did she know her father screwed everything he could get a hold of?

  Judy opened a door on her left and gestured for him to go ahead of her. It was a formal sitting room, full of old Victorian furniture that looked as if no one ever used it. Judy whispered something to Callie and closed the door on her daughter.

  “Must be weird growing up with a kid who has a different accent to you.” Nick studied Judy’s unfriendly eyes and her closed-off body language, trying to put her at ease.

  She put a hand on her hip, her practical wristwatch and wedding band her only adornments.

  “She was born in the States but doesn’t remember it. Should I tell her not to be like the other kids so they can tease her because she isn’t from here and doesn’t fit in?” The words were charged with bitterness. She hugged her waist, leaned back against the panel door. “I don’t fight what I can’t change.”

  Nick looked in her eyes and recognized truth. She wasn’t just referring to her daughter’s accent. He wandered around the room, picked up a glass perfume bottle shaped like a dolphin. “Did you hear another of your husband’s students is dead?”

  “You make it sound like they’re stacking up, Detective, and how that must please you.”

  He turned and looked at her, always surprised by the lack of value some people placed on human life. There were gangland bosses who were more empathetic.

  “Two young women are dead, Mrs. Sizemore. Nothing could please me less.” He resumed his pacing and stared at a glass cabinet full of knickknacks. Why did some people feel the need to hoard stuff from the past when all it did was bury him alive?

  He turned and noted her battle-ready stance. “Where were you between 8 and 9 p.m. on Saturday night?”

  Her eyebrows knit. “Eight and nine? I thought…”

  Nick smiled and her expression turned to loathing.

  “I guess you’ve spoken to your husband then. Got your alibis sorted?” He walked around the room and ran his finger across the mantelpiece of the fireplace, leaving a light streak through the dust.

  “Look, Jake went to work, but when he got home we stayed in. Ate dinner, watched TV and went to bed.” She shifted to a defensive pose. “He didn’t go anywhere that night.”

  And even if he’d murdered a dozen students, she’d stand by her man. Why? “Do you and your husband still have sex, Mrs. Sizemore?”

  Her nostrils flared. “That is none of your damned business.”

  “Did you know Chrissie was pregnant with Jake’s child when she died?”

  A flash of hurt crossed her face before she hid her reaction. “Says you.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.” And it still felt like a knife in his heart.

  He’d give anything to go back and change things, to make his marriage work, but there was no way to turn back time or undo death. The hope of justice was all he had now. He went to the door, knowing he’d get nothing from Judy. “I think you must be a hell of a wife to support a man who can’t keep his dick out of other women.”

  A thousand emotions battled on her face. “And you must be a hell of a husband to chase an imaginary killer for a wife who didn’t even want him.”

  Nick smiled, let the bitterness swell inside his mouth. “I was a hell of a husband. But you know what? Chrissie’s death isn’t part of this investigation, but Tracy Good’s sex life is.”

  He let the words sink in. Let them inflict pain. He pulled out papers from his jacket, handed Judy a copy. “We have a warrant to search the premises for anything resembling a murder weapon.”

  The sound of the door knocker thudded through the house.

  Blood leached from Judy’s skin as her hands grasped the air. “You son of a bitch.”

  Nick laughed. “You got that right.” Then he let the other officers in the door.

  Susie glanced uneasily at the clouds racing across the inky sky. Struggling to open the main Gatty door, she used her knee to balance a box of papers. She just wanted to get home. The effort of acting normal all day had left her exhausted. The only good thing that had happened today was she’d been invited to write a review article for the Journal of Shellfish Research.

  “I get that for you, Dr. Cooper.” Rafael Domenici pushed on the door above her head and scooped the box off her knee.

  “Thanks.” She eyed him with caution.

  His expression was one of polite deference. No lustfulness. No puppy dog eyes. No limpid stares. She sighed. One less problem to deal with in an over-complicated life.

  “Call me Susie. Dr. Cooper makes me feel about a hundred years old.” Once they were outside she held out her arms for the box, but Rafael shook his head.

  “I carry to your car.” He wore only a T-shirt despite the frigid wind. “I wish to talk to you, sim?”

  Apprehension shimmered over Susie’s flesh and gave her goose bumps. A murder had been committed here just a few nights ago, and what did she really know about Rafael Domenici? Only that he was young, good-looking and shifted his demeanor with octopus-like dexterity.

  “I want to apologize for my behavior when I arrived.” Rafael used perfect English, suggesting he’d been practicing the words.

  They started walking. Susie was relieved she’d parked on the embankment overlooking the beach, next to a campervan that was aglow with light as a middle-aged couple prepared supper.

  Rafael shot her a hesitant look when she remained quiet. “I come from a powerful family in Brazil, sim? Not as powerful as yours perhaps, but…” When he shrugged, young muscles bunched. “I no try very hard to get what I want.”

  “Especially women.” Her lips quirked because he actually blushed.

  “Sim.” He nodded slowly as they walked toward her car. “Especially women.”

  The incessant beat of waves pulsed through the night. “But I no want to get a doctorate like that.” A fervent light entered his eyes. “I want to earn it.”

  Susie recognized that look, the desire to be judged on merit rather than on your family’s fortune. Maybe she understood Rafael Domenici better than she’d thought.

  “I’ll make you earn it, Rafael,” she promised.

  He smiled, looking a bit embarrassed. “Obrigado, Dr. Cooper.” He shifted the box to the other arm and held out his hand. “Susie.”

&nbs
p; Susie shook his hand, satisfied they could work together now they’d got sex and politics out of the way. She inserted the key into the trunk of her car, frowned because she must have left it open. Annoyed with herself, she lowered the tailgate and felt the moisture in her mouth evaporate. Rafael started to lower the box onto the black vinyl, but she flung her arm across his chest. “Stop!”

  A rusty-looking hammer she’d never seen before and a canvas bag she recognized lay in the trunk of her car. The bag belonged to Tracy Good.

  Forty-five minutes later Susie sat on a bench and watched Nick and a uniformed cop load her Mini onto a flatbed truck to be taken so it could be processed for evidence.

  Why would a killer put that stuff in her trunk? She rarely used it, hadn’t opened it in at least a week. The chill penetrated her clothes and her teeth chattered. She didn’t resist when Rafael wrapped his arm around her in an effort to keep her warm.

  His cigarette smoke ribboned through the night air, but for once it didn’t bother her. The heavy box of papers lay at her feet, the breeze rolling the top sheet back and forth in time to the waves that churned on the beach.

  Nick approached and Rafael removed his arm and climbed to his feet. He crushed his cigarette beneath his heel before picking it up and flicking it into a nearby trashcan.

  “May I go?” Susie had hoped to never see Nick Archer again, and less than seven hours later, here he was.

  “You can go.” He pointed to Rafael, who looked more than willing to abandon her. “I need a word with Dr. Cooper.”

  When Rafael was out of sight, Nick took his spot on the bench and Susie was suddenly hyperaware of the space she occupied, the limits of her body redefined by his presence. Nick rubbed his hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut as if his head hurt. Murder investigations must be hell.

  “We have a problem, Dr. Cooper.”

  A girl had died so she swallowed any obvious retort. She’d had a lousy day, most of it due to him. She lifted an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue.

  “I handled things badly, earlier.” He leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees and looked at her. His expression softened. “I took Candace to lunch to push Jake’s buttons.”