by Clea Simon
I didn’t believe that. Not anymore. Not entirely.
“I have been brought in to consult,” he said when my silence grew too uncomfortable. The waiter was hovering behind him, but I warned him off with a quick glare. “As a courtesy,” Creighton continued.
“Then as a courtesy, you need to know—”
“No, Pru,” he said. “I don’t. And neither do you.” He emphasized those last words, but before I could ask why, he went on. “Cheryl Ginger is not someone you can interrogate. Not someone I can, either.”
“I already have.” The waiter was gathering his nerve up to approach us again. I had to talk fast. “She’s hiding something. Literally, I think the collar had a secret compartment—”
“Be quiet!” He clamped down on my hands, leaning in as he hissed the words. Which did, in fact, shock me into silence. “Pru,” he said in a more usual tone. “Please, there are some things I can’t share with you, as much as I’d like to. But, please, Pru? Leave this be. This is a matter for the Feds, and not something either of us wants to be messing with. Waiter?”
The poor guy had seen it all, but he came over anyway.
“I’m having the burger. And you?” Jim turned back to me. I nodded. “Rare,” I added. I wasn’t going to get anything else.
Chapter Thirty-six
An hour later, I had a good idea why Creighton had taken me to lunch. Not to remind me of Teddy Rhinecrest’s fate—or not only. But because someone wanted to look through my house, without the benefit of a search warrant. I was furious, and I hadn’t been fooled. One advantage of being able to talk to your cat? She’s better than a watchdog.
“A man was here.” Wallis sauntered into the kitchen as I was putting my leftovers away. After that scene in the restaurant, my appetite had dwindled. Now I felt what I had eaten congeal into something cold and hard in the pit of my stomach. “He came inside.”
“What?” I whipped around to face my tabby. “Are you sure?”
She ignored my questions as unworthy of her notice, jumping off the table and proceeding to sniff at the bag. “Is that…mmm…beef?”
I left it on the counter as I ran into the living room to see for myself. I thought of Creighton as such a boy scout, but he was a cop, first and foremost. And he knew I’d hid things from him before. I cursed him as I pulled pillows off the sofa, looking for damage. Looking for…anything. Up in my bedroom, I started tossing clothes around, fury blinding me.
I can’t trust him, I thought. I can’t trust any of them. Men! And that thought stopped me as cold as if I’d seen a ghost. In a way, I had. I was sounding like my mother. She never did get over my father. And I?
Well, I knew I had inherited some of his bad habits. The empty bottles in the kitchen were proof of that. But hers, too? I looked around at the house that I had so recently restored. In my own way, I was as practical as she was. Maybe I even worked as hard. But that bitterness? That lack of trust? I had my own reasons to be wary, but they were rooted in my life. My reality. And I liked to think I could make my own judgments about people. I also liked to think I would have noticed that someone had been in my house had Wallis not said anything. I couldn’t be sure.
I also couldn’t be certain that Creighton had been involved. Despite that initial hot surge of certainty—and, I’ll admit it, rage—this didn’t seem like him. He knew I didn’t tell him everything. Sure, but he wasn’t the type to cross the line. Not this line. One day, I’d come home to find cruisers out front, I had no doubt. But this? The timing could have been coincidence. Or…well, I couldn’t be sure.
One thing I knew: the search had been professional. Despite my own whirlwind inspection, nothing was really out of place. In fact, before I’d rushed in, the mess was roughly at the same level as it had been when I’d left that morning. And nothing appeared to have been taken. My old turntable was still hooked up to the stereo. My mother’s pearls were still in their velvet-lined box, untouched since long before she’d died.
I descended the stairs with heavy steps. Wallis blinked in acknowledgment—she could read my apology in my thoughts and probably on my face as well. Then she turned toward that bag, and its foil-wrapped contents.
“And?” Out loud, I heard a rumbling mew that sounded more like a query than a command.
“Of course.” I wasn’t hungry anyway. I peeled the bun off the burger and scraped off the last of the onion. “Here.” Putting the bare patty on a plate, I slid it over to her. The rumble became a purr.
“He was quiet, but he knew you weren’t home,” said Wallis, between bites. “He took his time.”
“He knew…” I started to doubt myself again. To doubt Creighton. The delay in calling me back. The lunch downtown. “Was it cops? Or Feds?”
Wallis looked up at me, her ears going slightly flat as they did when she concentrated—or when she was annoyed. “You know, official?” I visualized uniforms. Jim.
“Perhaps.” She went back to eating. I didn’t press her. Wallis doesn’t like it when she doesn’t know something. I’d say it’s a cat thing, but I know the feeling myself.
“Creighton, hell…” My fury had burned down to simmering resentment. That was better than being frightened, but even as I grumbled, I told myself that I might be jumping to conclusions. After all, I’d originally thought that Creighton had taken me out to keep me from causing a scene. Wallis might react badly when her blind spots are exposed, but she’s nothing as bad as I am when I’m being told to lay off a line of questioning. There was also the possibility that he’d wanted a nice lunch, and thought to take me along. Or even, I let the thought surface, that he’d wanted to treat me. We’d been getting more serious, and I’d heard that people do such things.
Besides, he wasn’t the only one who would know that I’d not be home. Cheryl Ginger had seen me at The Pines, a good thirty minutes away. It was quite possible that she’d called someone as soon as she’d left to tell him that I was out—or even that she’d followed me to Marnie Lundquist’s. I’d been so distracted, I might not have noticed.
And anything I thought the redhead capable of was certainly true of Gregor Benazi. I like to think I’d have noticed his red sports car. We gearheads tend to be aware of each other. But I also suspected that the elegant gangster was the type to delegate. What else he might choose to offload to someone younger and perhaps less scrupulous wasn’t something I wanted to dwell on. What had he been saying to Cheryl Ginger? Something about the methods of his colleagues?
A loud bell sounded behind me and I jumped. My phone—I’d never turned the ringer back down, and I grabbed at it with irritation as Wallis looked on, bemused.
“Yeah?” I was ready to bite someone’s head off.
“Ms. Marlowe?” The voice was familiar. Female, but I must have been more flustered than I knew, and paused too long. “Theresa Rhinecrest here. I’m looking for Martin Parvis.”
“Parvis?” It had been more than twelve hours since I’d found his body. Then again, she wasn’t next of kin. I shook my head to clear it and took a breath. “You haven’t heard?”
“Heard what? Has that little sneak run off?”
“Not exactly.” I leaned back on the counter. I wasn’t looking forward to breaking the news. Wallis gave up all pretense of eating and watched me, tail flicking with interest. “I’m sorry nobody called you, Mrs. Rhinecrest, but, you see, there’s been an…incident.” I’d almost said “accident,” as if the private investigator had tripped and fallen on someone’s blade. “He’s dead.”
“Oh, that greedy fool.” Her response was immediate, and not what I expected. “That stupid fool.”
“Mrs. Rhinecrest?” Most people, you tell them of the death of an employee—even an acquaintance—they express shock. Horror. Sympathy. Then they ask how it happened. Teddy Rhinecrest’s widow had skipped a step or three.
“Look,” she kept talking, “I had nothing to do
with this. He was under strict orders to look for bank accounts—for financial assets only,” she said.
“You knew he was murdered?” I was only stating the obvious.
She sighed, and I could hear her as if she were in the next room. “I knew he wasn’t working only for me, no matter what he said. And that he was a greedy idiot. I didn’t think…” She paused just when I would have wanted her to continue. When she did, she seemed to have switched a gear.
“So, did he find anything?” Her voice was tighter. Anxious. “Were you able to give him any leads?”
“I never got to talk to him in person.” I was suddenly deeply tired. “I went to meet him. He never made it.”
“So he was planning on meeting with you.” She said it like she still doubted me. “Does that mean you found something?”
I should have denied it, but I was so tired that I hesitated a moment too long.
“You did, didn’t you?” Her voice took on an edge I didn’t like. “No, don’t tell me,” she said, before I could respond. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to end up like Parvis, and you should be careful that you don’t either.”
Chapter Thirty-seven
It was the collar. It had to be the collar. Only there was something I wasn’t getting. As soon as Theresa Rhinecrest had hung up, I’d gone out to my car. The gaudy thing was still in my glove compartment, and I kept it low in my lap as I examined it once again, looking for some reason this bit of froufrou should cause so much fuss.
Using my knife, I pried the remaining colored “jewels” off the leather. I’m no expert, but it seemed pretty obvious they were glass. Real topaz wouldn’t chip like that, and real emeralds probably wouldn’t have been glued in place. Still I tucked them in my pocket, wondering if I held the key to financial security as I did so.
They’d come out easily. Only the red one—the one I still thought of as the ruby—had anything like a hinge holding it on, and the tiny space between its concave back and the soft leather was empty. I poked at it with the point of my handy blade, and then rubbed the surface with my thumbnail to make sure, turning up nothing. Only a small cavity, big enough for a rolled-up bit of paper or—who knew?—some kind of small chip.
Whatever it was supposed to hold, it was gone now. Leaving me with only the conviction that the collar was more than a bit of doggie decoration. But why it should matter so much was beyond me. Even if the two lovers had used it to pass messages—maybe plan a murder—there was nothing incriminating here. In fact, I was the only one who could tie it to Cheryl Ginger or the dark-haired man at all.
That was not a comfortable thought. I recalled what I’d read and heard about the late Teddy Rhinecrest. He might never have been convicted, but he’d kept the kind of company that made his complete innocence of any crime highly unlikely. The kind of company that wouldn’t need a clear burden of proof before deciding on a death penalty. Then again, those kinds of people didn’t need evidence at all. If they knew the redhead and her outside man were responsible for the death of one of their own, the ski bunny and her beau would be gone by now. Not being questioned by the likes of Gregor Benazi.
As I sat there and looked at the collar in my hands. I was tempted to toss it. Drive out of town and fling it into the woods. Cheryl Ginger had tried her version of that, and I’d seen her. I’d be more careful, of course. And I knew these woods and these roads.
Only Benazi had come to me first. He knew I’d be talking to Cheryl Ginger, and he expected me to find something. And everyone seemed to know that I’d been the one to nearly stumble over Teddy Rhinecrest’s body, entering his apartment that morning.
The apartment. I looked down at the collar again, this time really seeing it. This wasn’t the key, or if it was, I didn’t know what secret it unlocked. No, there had to be something else going on—maybe connected to the tacky collar. Maybe not. I pocketed the thin strip of leather then, sliding my knife into my boot where it was almost as handy but wouldn’t make quite as obvious a bulge.
I’m not a possum. It’s not my nature to hide or play dead, and besides, I would rather be angry than scared. And since everybody from Theresa Rhinecrest to Gregor Benazi seemed to think I knew what was going on, it only made sense that I should find out.
Chapter Thirty-eight
This was one of those times when driving settled me. When the motions verged on automatic and focused my churning mind. The shadows had lengthened as I raced through Beauville, and I liked the dappling of the road for the cover it appeared to give. Dusk was approaching, the hour of the hunter, and my GTO soared like a hawk as I passed the outskirts of town.
I didn’t need the worried robin to remind me that I was acting precipitously. Even as she chirruped her concern, I knew of the predators in the area. Knew, too, that Creighton had done his best to warn me off, smoothing the message with a nice meal downtown. But he hadn’t even let me tell him what had happened, and by shutting me up, he’d relinquished any authority he had.
I’d been careful to lock up my house before I’d taken off. Wallis knew enough to keep herself safe—and to be on guard. But she and I were more alike than Creighton would ever know. We might not be the biggest predators in the woods out here, but we were hunters too. And I was sick of being played for a fool.
***
Someone had already searched the condo. Although I was ready to pick the lock, the door opened with a gentle push, and I ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape with no compunction. I hadn’t wanted to get involved in this, after all. I just wanted a way out.
I did find myself holding my breath, however, as I stepped into the unit and closed the door quietly behind me. The memory of Teddy Rhinecrest lying there, bloody and still, would keep popping into my mind. To deal, I made myself stare at the floor, which now held nothing but a dirty doormat. Dark footprints left by large men suggested that whoever had been here before me hadn’t cared about covering their tracks. Creighton’s men, the Feds who’d taken over, or some thuggish acquaintances of Benazi’s, I didn’t know. I’m not some kind of bloodhound who can figure out a man’s profession from his shoe size. All I knew is they—he?—had not worried about leaving traces of their presence.
I gave my eyes a moment to adjust. The condo didn’t get a lot of natural light, and at this time of day it was in shadow. Still, I hesitated before reaching for the switch. Whoever had been here had come and gone—the mud from last night’s rain had dried outside. But I remembered Benazi, appearing out of nowhere. I didn’t know if the building was being watched.
Once I had my bearings, I looked around. That wainscoting panel—the one that had been so badly repaired—had been torn loose. Ronnie hadn’t even used good nails, and I found the one he had bent and hammered into place, lying by that mat.
The rest of the condo had gotten as thorough a going-over as the entranceway. Boxes of fancy teas had been emptied onto the kitchen counter, and both the protein powder and Metamucil had been dumped into the sink. I needn’t have worried about the lights. The fuse box, by the back door, was open; the floor littered with the wires that had been pulled from it. Whatever was being searched for must be small if it could’ve been hidden there. I thought about the collar, about the multicolored stones I’d so casually pocketed. About the empty compartment. None of this was making any sense.
I’d followed the muddy footprints up the stairs with a growing sense of dread. Cops didn’t act like this. I’d expected the closets to be emptied—at least partially. Cheryl Ginger didn’t look like a woman who traveled light, and I knew that whoever was investigating had let her pack, even if they watched. But I didn’t think it likely that she’d been the one to pull out the drawers and toss them on the floor when she was done. Nor had she upset the mattress that lay tipped at an angle, suggesting it, and the box spring sprawled beside it, had been turned and inspected.
I was sorry then that I didn’t have Stewie with me. His
nose would have been invaluable, not only to tell me about who had done this but also, perhaps, whether they had found it.
I hoped they had. I didn’t care what it was. This thorough a search was disturbing. It meant somebody was not going to stop.
“Eat up! Eat up!” The trill of a robin, in the condo’s eave, broke into my reverie. He’d found a fat earthworm and was thrilled to bring it home to his mate, who was putting the finishing touches on an early nest. Spring was coming, despite it all, and the recent rain had softened the earth and driven that juicy worm up to the surface.
For a moment, I enjoyed the domestic scene. Then I froze. The rain—it had stopped earlier today. That mud that I had noticed? This condo had been searched before my house. And that meant that whatever was being sought had not been found.
I took a deep breath as I considered the implications. For Cheryl Ginger. For Creighton. For me. The leggy redhead’s urge to dump the collar was beginning to make sense. If both the Feds and Benazi wanted it, the gaudy thing was too hot to handle. What I didn’t know was why, and it struck me again that I had more questions for the spaniel. He might not understand the value humans would place on something, but I bet he could tell me something about who had been interested in it and when it had come into his life.
I was so busy thinking about the spaniel that I almost missed it. The low squeal of a door opening on the floor below. It was the footstep that alerted me, the heavy tread of a large man stepping past that dirty mat and onto the stone tile floor where Teddy Rhinecrest had lain only days before. I had just stepped from the bathroom back into the upstairs hall, and I racked my brain, trying to remember the location of the nearest large window and whether the building had any kind of fire escape.
“Hello?” The voice—deep, male—sent shivers up my spine, until it came to me: I knew that voice. That tread.