by Susan Fleet
“Would you care to join me for dinner? I’ve got a reservation at the Top of the Hub.” He smiled, a boyish smile that revealed even white teeth. “Sorry. We’ve only just met and you may be meeting someone else for dinner. But I hope not.”
She returned his smile. “I hadn’t thought about dinner. I’m still trying to figure out if I can salvage my article. The Top of the Hub sounds lovely. I’ve never been there.”
Oliver waved to Lori, told her to put both drinks on his tab and gave her a credit card. When Lori returned with the credit card slip, he signed it with a flourish and stood. “If you’ve never been to The Top of the Hub, we should stroll the Skywalk. Then we’ll have a drink and, voila, it will be dinner time.”
“Enchante, M’siur. Votre idée est tres bien.”
He stared at her, clearly impressed. No, not impressed, captivated.
“You speak French,” he said. “And with such a charming accent.”
Be who they want you to be. She smiled, enjoying the moment, the thrill of seduction, the delicious anticipation of what might happen next.
“I lived in Paris for a while.”
_____
New Orleans
They zoomed at him like bubbles on a 3-D screen-saver, but they weren't bubbles, they were appalling images: the hole in Peterson's forehead; Corrine Peterson's tears when he asked how the kids were doing; Tex Conroy's grief-stricken mother; Morgan Vobitch, his eyes melancholy.
After he and Kelly made love he usually felt fantastic. Now his body was sated, but his mind was spinning like a cement mixer.
He had to find Natalie. But how?
"Hey, Spaceman," Kelly said. "What are you thinking about?"
"Thinking you're the best wench in the whole wide world."
“Well, I am enjoying my postcoital bliss, but now I’m hungry. Are you?”
“You always make me hungry." He kissed her lips. "Hungry for more.”
“Same here, cowboy, but if I don’t eat soon ...”
“Want to go out?” He traced his fingers over her well-muscled stomach.
“Nah. I’ve got a barbequed chicken in the fridge.”
“Should be plenty. We already had the main course.”
She tousled his hair and gave his cheek a love-tap. “Hey, wise-ass, I'm a cop, remember? I know a deceptive statement when I hear one. You’ll probably eat the whole chicken.”
"I might. That'll give me energy for dessert. Round Two."
They got dressed and went in the kitchen. While he opened bottles of Bud Light, Kelly put the chicken in the oven. She looked gorgeous, white shorts contrasting with the tan on her long legs, legs that felt fantastic wrapped around him. Already he wanted dessert. His dark mood was gone. Goofing around with Kelly always made him feel better.
“Fill me in on the Peterson case," she said. "You know, the stuff you’re not telling the media.”
“Morgan likes the hit theory. Peterson’s wife is one possibility.”
“You think she hired someone to kill him?” Kelly asked, gazing at him, her sea-green eyes intent.
“Actually, I don't. She seems angry but beaten. She knew her husband was screwing around, but I don’t think she’d hire someone to kill him. When I asked how the kids were doing, she started to cry. Man, I hate it when women cry. I never know what to say.”
Kelly gazed at him, somber-eyed. “You knew what to say when I told you what happened to Terry.”
“That was different. You lost your husband in a senseless accident, and he wasn’t screwing around on you.”
Her eyes got a faraway look in them. She shook her head, as though banishing a bad memory. “Peterson’s assistant is another suspect?”
“Right. He's a self-important asshole, yap, yap, yap, like a little dog. I like big dogs. They give you a nice deep woof. All the little ones do is yap.”
“Yeah, but the bigger they are, the more they eat.”
When they began dating two years ago, she’d told him her husband used to bring stray dogs home. Too many, she’d said. A touchy subject. Time to lighten up. “Dogs are better than cats. When I interviewed Conroy’s mother, I go in the house and this awful stench hits me. She must have two dozen cats. It was horrendous, fur balls on the floor, cat hairs on the furniture. I had to take my slacks to the cleaners.”
“Must be an animal hoarder.” Kelly went to the oven and took out the chicken and a foil-wrapped loaf of garlic bread. His stomach rumbled as delicious aromas filled the room.
"Let's eat in the living room. I've got a surprise for you. I had a copy made of the hotel security video."
"The mystery woman? Great! Go set it up. We can watch it while we eat." Kelly sipped her beer. “Did you see Romeo Is Bleeding?”
“I don’t think so. What’s it about?”
“Lena Olin plays a Russian assassin, outwits a bunch of Italian mobsters that put out a contract on her. She sleeps with the hitman and he falls for her.”
“Hey, whadda you expect? Good-lookin broad like dat? Well-hung?" When Kelly rolled her eyes, he said, "When did this female assassin thing start? Kenyon and I were talking about The Last Seduction. I forget when it came out.”
“Mid-nineties maybe? Did you see Nikita? Or the remake with Bridget Fonda, Point of No Return?”
“Nope. More female assassins, right? I better check them out.”
“Frank," she said firmly, "go set up the video.”
He took his briefcase in the living room. An Ansel Adams print hung on the wall above the sofa, a wide vista of snow-covered mountains below a cloud-filled sky. Kelly said she attributed her success as a detective to her creative side. She'd said it as a joke, but he thought she was right. Sometimes you had to line up the facts in a creative way to solve a difficult case.
But creativity wasn't going to help him find Natalie Brixton.
He took the security video out of his briefcase, put it in the tape deck and turned on the TV. It was tuned to the Weather Channel and they were updating Hurricane Gail, which had strengthened to a Category-4. When the meteorologist put up the cone of possible land strikes. New Orleans was smack dab in the middle of it.
Kelly arrived with a tray of barbequed chicken, garlic bread and a dish of potato salad and set the tray on her coffee table. He gestured at the TV screen. “Morgan was right. If the mayor mandates an evacuation, forget the Peterson and Conroy murders. We’ll all be pulling traffic duty.”
“And that'll be a nightmare, four-hundred-thousand people trying to get out of town.”
He sampled a chicken leg and the garlic bread while Kelly switched to the video. She handed him the clicker. “You know the parts to skip.”
He fast-forwarded to where Peterson entered his room and hit Pause. “See the time stamp? Ten o'clock. The woman shows up ten minutes later.” He fast-forwarded the tape until the door to the fire stairs opened and hit Pause. “Heeeeere’s Johnny!”
Kelly laughed. “Frank, you are so bad.” But when he hit Start, she leaned forward, gazing at the screen as the woman stepped into the hall. He let it run until the woman entered Peterson’s room and hit Pause.
“You can’t see her face at all,” Kelly said. "The hat. The sunglasses."
“I figure she knew about the security camera, which means she was up to no good, and I’m not talking criminal solicitation.”
But was it Natalie?
Kelly polished off a chicken wing while he forwarded the tape to where the woman came out of Peterson’s room. He hit Play, let it roll until the woman disappeared into the stairwell and stopped the tape.
“No one else goes in the room until the security guard shows up.”
“Can you roll it back to where she comes out of the room? I think I spotted something.”
He rewound the tape and ran it again. The woman left the room and began walking toward the fire stairs. "There," Kelly said. “Stop the tape.”
He hit Pause and the grainy image quivered on the screen.
“What? I don’t see anyt
hing.”
“See the inside of her left ankle? Looks like a tattoo near her ankle bone.”
He squinted at the screen. “Man, how did you spot that? Kenyon and I watched this tape a half-dozen times and we didn't catch it."
"Of course not. You were too busy admiring her other endowments."
"Yeah, well ..." Maybe she was right. Or maybe he didn't want to believe it was Natalie because he felt sorry for her. "It's too small to see what kind of tat it is.”
“I bet if a crime lab tech enhanced it and blew it up, you’ll could.”
“Very good Detective O’Neil. Just for that, you get an extra-special treat tonight.”
She made her eyes go wide, her lips twitching as she tried not to smile. “And what might my extra-special treat be, Detective Renzi?”
He grinned. “Round two in your bedroom. But I’ve got something else to show you first.”
CHAPTER 12
He dug the Pecos High School yearbook out of his briefcase and showed her Natalie Brixton’s photograph.
“Beautiful girl,” Kelly said. “Exotic looking eyes, part Asian maybe.”
“In 1988 her mother was murdered in New Orleans. Natalie was ten."
“Wow. She had a rough life, but you’d never know it from her picture. She seems very self-confident, smiling, looks right at the camera. You think she’s the woman in the video?”
"Maybe." Everyone else seemed to think so, but he wasn't convinced. He flipped to the Drama Club page and showed her the photo of the dancers.
“She's tall, like the woman in the video," Kelly said. "Too bad you can't see her ankle. If she had a tat, that would clinch it.”
"True, but nothing about this case is simple. I want to talk to the lead detective on the mother's murder case. Jane Fontenot. Vobitch knows her, but she retired last year. Unfortunately, when Vobitch called to set up a meet, he got a voicemail message saying she's in Africa. On safari."
"An adventurous woman."
"I wish she'd chosen some other time for an adventure. She won't be back till the twelfth of August."
"Bummer."
"All I can do is read the case file, see if anything leaps out at me. I'll call Ellen Brixton and Natalie's friend, Gabe Rojas, too, and ask them if Natalie had a tat on her ankle in high school." But would his two reluctant witnesses tell him?
“She doesn’t look like a killer to me,” Kelly said, “not in these pictures.”
“No, she doesn't." Maybe that was the problem. In the photograph Natalie looked young and innocent, just another pretty teenager. Now she was thirty. Was she the woman on the video? Was she a killer?
He tapped the motto below the picture. “Freedom and justice for all.”
Kelly stared at him. “You think she killed Peterson because he killed her mother?”
“No. In 1988 Arnold Peterson was living in Chicago."
“So why would she kill him?”
“Good question. If I find her, I'll ask her. The DA leaned on Vobitch today, said he'd pull us off the case if we don't solve it soon. Vobitch wants me to bring her in, but nobody in Pecos knows where she is.”
Except for Gabe Rojas, who claimed he didn’t. But he was pretty sure Rojas had stayed in touch with Natalie after she left Pecos. The week after she witnessed her cousin Randy fall off a cliff.
_____
Boston
As they strolled around the Skywalk Observatory, Oliver laced his fingers in hers as though they were lovers. Maybe they would be. So far she liked everything about him: his rugged looks, his easy banter, his obvious intelligence. Did she dare to hope? It had been a long time since she'd enjoyed a lover with these qualities. Too long.
The Skywalk on the fiftieth floor of the Prudential Center offered breathtaking views of Boston. Oliver pointed out landmarks: the Charles River, Fenway Park, the Hatch Shell where the Boston Pops played on the Fourth of July for the fireworks.
When she said she’d seen this on television, he said, “Being there is better. If you’re here next July, maybe we'll watch it together. Where do you live? You don’t have an accent. Except for your delightful French.”
The question caught her flat-footed. He knew her name, but she didn’t want him knowing where she lived. “I grew up in the Midwest, but I live in upstate New York now.” Lies, but she had driven through upstate New York and could talk intelligently about it if he asked. But he didn’t.
On the north side of the Skywalk, he said, “On a clear day you can see New Hampshire from here. The border is only forty miles away.”
She knew that. She lived there. But Oliver wanted to show off and play tour guide. Be what he wants you to be. Make him feel important.
When they entered the restaurant the Maitre-d greeted him by name. “Hello, Mr. James. Follow me.”
Flanked by tall windows, their corner table offered a stunning view of the sunset. They ordered drinks—another Manhattan for Oliver, a glass of red wine for her—and she sank back in her chair. This was much nicer than being home by herself. After the stress and anxiety in New Orleans, it felt wonderful to be able to relax and enjoy the company of an interesting man.
He sipped his Manhattan, set the long-stemmed glass on the white linen tablecloth and gazed at her. "Tell me more about your writing career, Robin. Did you go to journalism school?”
“No, but writing always came easily to me. My high school English teacher said I’d probably write a best-selling novel and become rich and famous.” She laughed. “Didn’t happen. Where did you go to school?”
“I majored in business at Harvard, and art history.” He grinned and tiny lines crinkled at corners of his eyes. “I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up.”
“I still can’t,” she joked. He laughed and drew a “one” in the air.
Oliver James was exceedingly charming, a very attractive man. A bit like George Clooney without the gray hair. She was enjoying herself immensely. Dangerous. She had to keep her eyes on the prize. After all the suffering and heartache she had endured, nothing was going to prevent her from completing her mission. Two weeks from now she would appease the angry Ancestor gods and avenge her mother.
The waiter came and took their order and departed.
“What were you doing in Paris?” Oliver said.
Her heart jolted. How did he know? Then she remembered. She’d told him in the bar. “Studying art. Good thing I didn’t give up my day job.”
“What was your day job?”
She recited her usual story. “I clerked at Shakespeare’s Bookstore. Back then my French was terrible, and mostly English speakers go there.”
“An interesting shop. Smells musty though, all those books crammed floor-to-ceiling. Pity I didn’t meet you then. We could have had fun in Paris.”
“Yes. It’s a beautiful city.” A lump formed in her throat. She and Willem had enjoyed many wonderful times in Paris, until everything fell apart.
“We have remarkably similar interests. I gather art didn’t turn out to be your calling?”
“No. After a year of lessons it was clear that I wasn’t destined to be a famous artist, either. By then my French had improved, so I got a job waitressing at a nice restaurant.”
“Which one?”
She waved her hand. “I doubt you’d know it. There are a million great restaurants in Paris.” If you don’t lie about details, you don’t have to remember them later.
“How long did you live there?”
Why all the questions, she wondered. It was making her nervous.
“Five years.” Five long years that ended in heartbreak, with many traumas along the way. “What sort of art dealer are you?”
He studied her for a moment, blank-faced, then sipped his Manhattan. The silence went on so long her antenna went up. Was he concocting a story? She knew the symptoms. She'd done it often enough herself.
At last he said, “I deal in antiquities.”
“Interesting. I know nothing about ancient art. I like mod
ern paintings. I love the Orsay Museum.”
“So do I. Any favorite artists?”
“I love Manet, especially The Pfeiffer. You can almost hear the boy playing his little flute.”
“The Olympia is my favorite. She looks so imperious, lying there naked, confronting the viewer.”
Correct. Olympia lying there naked like the courtesan she was, accepting a bouquet from a client from a maid. She loved the painting too, but it hit too close to home. “Did you ever use your Harvard business degree?”
“Oh, I used it all right. Used it to make a lot of money.”
She made her eyes go wide. “Really? How?”
“Remember the one-word answer Dustin Hoffman got in The Graduate?”
“Plastics.” She’d watched the video three times. She loved Ann Bancroft.
“Correct. For me, it was stocks. Playing the market is risky. You can lose your shirt if you don’t know what you’re doing, and I didn’t have a lot of shirt to lose. I made a fortune, but after a while I didn't find it very satisfying, so I got out and began dealing in European and African antiquities.”
“That sounds complicated. Tell me about it.”
“I got stiffed a few times at first. That’s when I started tracking down people who deal in stolen art.”
Tracking down people. A frisson of fear prickled her skin.
Oliver smiled his George Clooney-smile. “Don’t worry. I don’t work for the feds. But I’ll have to report the 10th-century Greek urn I saw today. Beautiful piece. Unfortunately, the provenance was an obvious fake.”
She digested this as the waiter arrived and served their dinners. A moment ago, she’d been ravenous. Now, the odors wafting up from her plate nauseated her. Oliver James might not work for the feds, but it sounded like he had law enforcement connections. Her stomach cramped.
She picked up her fork and forced herself to eat, even managed to chatter about inconsequential topics. When she set her plate aside, Oliver said, “How were your scallops?” Gazing at her with his oh-so-seductive eyes.
“Delicious." Despite the tense knot in her stomach, she'd managed to eat most of them. She gestured at the window where the sun was a huge red ball hovering over the horizon. "And the view is spectacular.”