I winced. Roy had been a troubled young man who’d blasted heavy metal music and apparently had taken the violent lyrics to heart. It was the music, looping over and over, that had led the superintendent to his grisly discovery. If Vivian had extricated brain matter from the ceiling, a little blood on the upholstery and carpet would be a cinch.
“Free air freshener,” Mrs. Bingham added cheerfully.
“Er, thanks. I’ll call.”
Grant walked up and saw the business card in my hand. “That can wait. I need to get our own forensics person in here.”
That made sense, of course. I marveled over how all of my training and know-how seemed to have moved to the recesses of my mind in the wake of needing legal advice rather than doling it out. I informed Mrs. Bingham where I was staying and told her she could have my daily Atlanta Journal-Constitution for the time being.
“If that friend of yours stops by,” Mrs. Bingham said, “I’ll let her know you’re going to be gone for a while.”
“Friend?”
“The pretty blonde,” the older woman offered. “She was here yesterday asking which apartment was yours. She didn’t give her name, but she said she was supposed to meet you for lunch and had gotten delayed in traffic. Said she wanted to slide a message under your door.”
I froze. There was no blonde friend, no lunch, no message. But I had an inkling of who it could have been. “Was the woman tall?” As in long, lethal legs.
“Why yes, she was quite tall. And slender, like a model.”
Leora Painter. “What time was that, Mrs. Bingham?”
“Around noon. I remember because I was coming back from checking the mail.”
I said goodbye, then rushed to fill Grant in on the presumed identity of the woman. “It must have happened like you said—she followed Daniel here after the charity dinner and killed him! And framed me!”
Unfortunately, Grant didn’t share my excitement. “But the detective said the Painter woman didn’t raise their suspicion.”
“So she’s a good actress. It’s too much of a coincidence that Leora is at my apartment the same day Daniel is murdered in my apartment.”
He lifted his hand and rubbed my jaw line with his thumb in a comforting gesture I realized I’d missed since our split. “Let’s let the police handle it, okay, Renni?”
“You’ll tell the detective to look into it?”
“You know I will.”
I climbed into my car and followed Grant to the small house in Virginia-Highlands we’d once shared. As I parked in the driveway behind him, a wave of nostalgia swept over me. The daylilies I’d planted around the mailbox had multiplied and were well-maintained. The tarnished birdbath Grant hated from the day I’d dragged it home from an antiques market was filled with seed on one side, fresh water on the other. He’d even painted the shutters the bright yellow I’d always wanted.
I was suddenly nervous standing behind him as he unlocked the front door. I felt small and selfish, my heart burning over the way I’d abruptly ended our marriage mid-sentence and for no tangible reason, leaving him open-mouthed and broken. It wasn’t him, I’d said, it was me. I couldn’t admit that I’d found his fastidiousness suffocating, his organization unnerving. I’d known those things about him when we’d dated, but after the wedding, his compulsive behavior seemed to intensify. I found myself watching him and watching myself…and found him watching me as well, silently disapproving every time I opened a box of crackers on the wrong end or snorted when I laughed. The affection I’d once felt for him had withered under the tension. I had begun to understand how husbands and wives could snap and murder the other person in his or her sleep. I’d had to get out of there.
“Welcome back,” Grant said, swinging open the door.
I stepped inside to see the same leather furniture situated the same way, the same silk floral arrangements on the same end tables, the same botanical prints hanging on the same walls. I half-expected to see a pair of my sandals tucked under the chair where I used to sit watching Grant watch me.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” I joked, and he laughed, an unbridled noise that surprised me.
“I’ll sleep in the guest room,” I said, then added, “if it’s still a guest room.”
“Everything is pretty much the same as when you were here before,” he said, as if I’d been a visitor then, too.
“Do you mind if I take a shower?”
“Go ahead. The soap you like is in the vanity.”
I didn’t ask why that was—it seemed perfectly natural that Grant would anticipate my needs. Besides, I was single-mindedly focused on getting to the shower. Once there, frothy with ginger-orange soap, I lost it and cried like a little girl. For whatever reason—sex, companionship, or sheer laziness—Daniel Hale had been compelled to visit me last night…and was dead because of it.
***
“BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU say at work today,” Grant told me over morning oatmeal. I wondered if his cholesterol was still high, his arteries clogged with the stress of a disorderly world.
I set down my spoon. “Grant, I didn’t kill Daniel.”
“Of course you didn’t,” he replied easily, then took a drink from his coffee cup. “But until you’re cleared, anything you say can be misconstrued. The important thing is that people see you getting back to normal.”
I squinted at him. “I can’t simply behave as if nothing has happened. A coworker and a man I used to date was murdered in my apartment. Don’t you think everyone would expect me to be traumatized?”
“I didn’t realize you got that attached to people,” Grant murmured.
A direct hit. It felt good, actually. I’d often regretted not giving Grant the chance to tell me what he thought of me for walking out—it would have hurt less than living with the fact that I’d robbed him of even that satisfaction.
“I wasn’t in love with Daniel,” I said evenly, “but it’s not every day someone gets murdered on my couch.”
“I saw you and him together once.”
I blinked. “When?”
“A few months ago, in a restaurant. You looked happy.”
I wiped my mouth with one of the cloth napkins Grant preferred—I was more of a paper towel girl myself. “Grant…I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For leaving you with no explanation. You deserved better.”
He shrugged. “Water under the bridge. Right now let’s concentrate on getting through this mess.”
That you created.
His unspoken words hung in the air next to the light fixture with the little shades that had tiny uniform ducks circling the edge. It was true. If I hadn’t been so susceptible to Daniel’s charms even after he’d cheated on me, I wouldn’t be sitting here eating steel-cut oats with my former husband in my former breakfast nook. The surprising thing was…it wasn’t so bad. Well, except for Daniel being dead. But the knowledge that Grant could forgive me to the point of defending me made me feel humble and philosophical, and gave me the strength to face my boss and my coworkers.
Unfortunately, Leora Painter was the first coworker I saw walking in from the parking garage. The woman did a double-take before falling into stride slightly in front of me.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” she said, then stabbed the button for the elevator.
“Maybe we can have that missed lunch,” I suggested sweetly. “My neighbor said you stopped by my apartment the day before yesterday. Funny, but I don’t remember us making plans.”
She turned narrowed eyes on me. “Nice try. But I gave the police the text message I got from you to meet you there because you wanted to tell me something about Daniel. Little did I know it was a ploy to get me out of the way so you two could have a quickie rendezvous.”
I gaped at her as the elevator doors opened. “I didn’t send you a text message. There was no rendezvous.”
“Whatever.” She stepped onto the elevator, then held up her arm to prevent my entry. “I think
you’d better wait for the next one.”
I did, if only to digest the information that I had allegedly sent Leora a text message to meet me. I pulled out my phone and, to my horror, found the message in my “sent” folder amidst other business and personal messages. In a panic, I deleted the message while my mind churned for an explanation. My cell phone typically sat on my desk in my doorless office, accessible to anyone who happened by. And hadn’t I read somewhere that anyone with a gadget from the cable company could hack into someone’s phone within a half-mile radius?
I was sweating copiously as I made my way to my tiny office. I tried to meet everyone’s cagey eye contact with a mournful—and innocent—smile while scrutinizing the foot traffic patterns in the vicinity. Out of about fifty employees, I deduced half of them could have been in or around my office without raising suspicion: everyone from Daniel’s two partners in the firm to the roving coed intern whose eyes were red-rimmed. Julie had been crushing on Daniel, I recalled, and made a mental note to tell Detective Salyers when I next spoke to her.
The mood was solemn but busy as everyone tried to recover from the office being closed most of the day before upon hearing the news of Daniel’s demise. I tensed when I saw Sarah Finn, Daniel’s secretary, heading my way. She was an unmarried scrupulous woman approaching fifty, and the only fool she suffered was Daniel. I exhaled when she handed me one of two cups of hot green tea she carried.
“I thought you could use this,” she soothed. “How are you holding up?”
I sipped. “Still trying to absorb everything. I didn’t know what kind of reception to expect here.”
“Mr. Wallace called us together yesterday morning before he closed the office and reminded everyone you were presumed innocent until proven otherwise.”
Nice of him, I conceded. “Sarah, did Daniel have any enemies?”
She dunked her tea bag up and down. “Like I told the police, from knowing Daniel, I’d say his murder was motivated by lust. It’s no secret he was a whoremonger.”
The tea scalded my tongue. I waited for the prim woman to burst into flames for using such raw language.
She gave me a contrite little smile. “No offense.”
“None thaken,” I murmured thickly.
Rick Wallace, one of the remaining two partners, rapped on the glass wall of my office and stuck his graying head inside. “Good morning, Renni.”
“There’ve been better,” I returned.
He inclined his head, but it was clear he didn’t want to engage in small talk or assurances. “We’re having a memorial service for Daniel tomorrow morning in the chapel at the church across the street. Sarah, I need to talk to you as soon as possible about reassigning Daniel’s cases to Eric.”
“I’d be happy to help pick up the slack,” I offered.
“We’ll see,” he said without looking at me. Sarah followed him out.
I tried to pretend it was any other workday, but it was impossible not to think about Daniel at every turn. In my desk drawers were matchbooks from restaurants we’d gone to. In the break room by the coffee machine sat his Vanderbilt University mug. I walked by his office once. Eric North, the attorney who presumably had inherited Daniel’s cases, was inside with Leora Painter, their heads and hips close. But when they looked up, Leora pinned me with a glare.
When I got back to my office, my phone was ringing. I sank into my chair and picked up the receiver, hoping to be immersed in a hairy real estate legal issue, something that would bend my mind away from the murder matter. But it was Grant.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“It’s awkward, but I’m hanging in.” Then I remembered the damning text message I’d stupidly deleted. “I have some information…and a confession to make.”
A shadow fell across my desk. I looked up to see Detective Salyers standing there holding a document I recognized as a search warrant. And from the pointed look she gave me, I knew she’d overheard my last comment.
***
“STANDARD PROCEDURE,” Grant assured me over a dinner of grilled fish and mixed vegetables. Grant could stoke a mean grill and had done all the cooking when we were married. “I would expect the police to search your office and Hale’s, too.”
“They took my cell phone. I shouldn’t have erased that text message.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. “But don’t worry.”
Nice try. I lay awake that night in the guest bedroom reliving all the mistakes I’d made in my life, including abandoning my marriage. I hadn’t been wholly happy here with Grant, but I’d wanted to be. He had loved me, and wasn’t that worth something? Maybe a counselor could have helped us…or maybe if I’d been honest with Grant about how claustrophobic I’d felt….
I wiped my eyes. I realized now the sense of freedom I’d felt after the divorce, like a balloon being cut from a child’s too-tight grasp, was actually the sensation of being afloat and bumping along the horizon, lost.
I heard a noise at the door and when the knob turned, my heart catapulted to my throat. Grant stuck his head inside, his glasses askew and his hair ruffled.
“Is something wrong?” I asked, sitting up.
“Just checking on you,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I can’t sleep.”
“Try to rest, you need your strength.” He started to retreat.
“Grant? Stay with me?”
He walked over to the bed and sat down, stretched his legs out on the mattress next to me and leaned against the headboard. He sandwiched my hand between his. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”
I’d been a fool to run from this man’s love, and I was ashamed it had taken something so sordid to bring me to my senses. I deserved to be tossed in the clink for stupidity alone. I exhaled against the sleeve of Grant’s starched pajamas, repentant.
When I woke the next morning, I felt more rested than I had in months. The spot next to me was cool, but I heard Grant in the kitchen.
When I shuffled in, he was whistling under his breath.
“You’re in a good mood,” I ventured behind him.
He turned and smiled. “It’s nice to have you here.” Then he sobered. “Even under these circumstances. Do you want me to go to the memorial service with you?”
I shook my head. After last night’s revelation, I was feeling too vulnerable to ask anything more of Grant.
“The police will be there,” he warned.
“Surely they won’t arrest me at a funeral,” I said with a little laugh.
“Probably not,” he agreed, although by the tone of his voice I could tell he was more worried than he’d previously revealed.
“Did your forensics people go through my apartment?”
“Yes. Other than one unidentified fingerprint, it’s all you, Renni.”
***
AT THE CHURCH, the laser stares of my coworkers penetrated my skin as the minister talked about justice in the afterlife even as justice on earth seemed elusive. Guilt oozed out of my pores. Instead of reflecting on Daniel’s life and his good deeds that were ticked off as if St. Peter himself were taking notes, all I could think of was how Daniel had manipulated so many people, and the law, for his own selfish ends. How he had plowed through hearts and beds with no regard for the outcome.
And what kind of person did it make me that I’d gone back for seconds?
I started to cry, great guffawing sobs for the random senselessness of his death and of my life. Faces turned to stare. Only Sarah Finn, Daniel’s assistant, was kind, taking my arm and leading me out of the church into the parking lot where she lent me a tissue purse-pak.
“Nice performance,” a voice behind us said.
I turned to see Detective Salyers standing there.
“Will you excuse us?” she asked Sarah. After Sarah was out of earshot, I steeled myself for the handcuffs. Instead Salyers removed her sunglasses. “Feeling guilty, Miss Greenfield?”
“Feeling sad.”
“No. Have you questioned everyone in the office?”
“Finishing up today.”
“You might want to ask Leora Painter about the message she told my neighbor she was going to slip under my door as a ruse to find out which apartment was mine.”
“I will.” Then she angled her head. “The intern at the office, Julie Sun, told me that you and Miss Painter used to be friends.”
“I thought so. I was wrong.”
“Has Miss Painter ever been inside your apartment?”
“No.”
“So you can’t explain why her fingerprint would be on a bookend in your living room?”
I felt my mouth open, then close. “She was there. She killed him.”
“Maybe. Or maybe you brought home something from the office that she touched and planted it. Or maybe you and Miss Painter are still friends, thinking if you point the finger at each other, you’ll both get away with murder.”
I heard my inner lawyer’s voice whisper to stop talking now.
“Miss Greenfield, are you still staying with your ex-husband?”
“I was thinking I might go back to my apartment tonight.”
“Just so I know where to find you.” Salyers walked away.
The others were emerging from the church, heads down and hands in pockets as they headed for their vehicles. Julie the red-eyed intern watched me nervously. The partners kept their gazes averted, but their body language told me I should be looking for another job. Leora Painter and Eric North hadn’t sat together during the service but now their bodies converged. I stood there until they passed me. Haughtiness twisted Leora’s face: She was glad Daniel was dead. I wanted to tackle her and press my thumbs against her eyeballs until she confessed. Or had Eric killed Daniel so he could have Daniel’s clients and Leora?
Crazily, I felt a pang of jealously. What would it feel like to have someone so madly in love with you that they would commit murder? The idea pinged a chord in my subconscious…as if I’d once humored that very thought, the thought of killing someone for love—for lust—but had buried it in a grave of unwanted memories.
Love Can Be Murder (boxed set of humorous mysteries) Page 84