A staring grimace and a final retort. “We’ll meet in the middle, but two weeks max.”
“That works for me.”
“No. You work for me, and please don’t forget it.”
I mentally crossed my fingers behind my back.
“What about Abby?” I inquired.
“Abby is not your concern.”
“She seems to think you wouldn’t care if she got kidnapped.”
Now Frank looked piqued. “My younger daughter has a flair for the dramatic. If you’ve spoken to her, you know.”
“Doesn’t mean she’s wrong.”
“How dare you imply…”
“I assured her you would move heaven and earth to get her back. You’ve hired me to mollify Chantal, shouldn’t you consider Abby’s feelings, too?”
Pressed lips and a sigh. “What do you have in mind?”
“Get your bodyguards to drop her at school on your way to work and pick her up after.” Surely the school had safety measures in place, but riding to and from could be a vulnerable time.
“I suppose they could do that.”
“What about at home?”
“We have an excellent security system on site.”
Considering last night’s incident, I decided to look into that myself, if only to assure Chantal that I knew my job.
“Okay,” I said decisively. “Will you tell Chantal about our arrangement, or should I?”
Roitman waved me toward the door. “Be my guest, Ms. Beck. Be my guest.”
Irony intended.
Chapter 26
I tried to speak to Chantal before I left the house but was forced to leave a message with Lana, the castle dragon. Whether it would get delivered was a crap shoot, but short of tossing pebbles against Chantal’s second-story window I didn’t know how to connect with my new assignee in her very large home. I didn’t have her cell phone number or even a hall pass, two details I would have to remedy ASAP.
Back in the pool house I did text Mike. “Update. Shot fired @ hse last nite. Cover blown, but all good. Roitman hired me 2 bodyguard Chantal. Lucky, eh?”
His return message was almost instantaneous. “You’re welcome,” was all it said.
I couldn’t dial Karen’s younger brother fast enough.
“What the hell does that mean?” I barked the second he said hello.
“You got to stay on, right? So you’re welcome.”
My neck and cheeks felt scorched. “You fired the shot?”
Silence.
“Tell me straight out, Mike. DID YOU FIRE THAT SHOT?”
“I don’t have to answer that.”
“The hell you don’t. You better tell me what you did right now, Mike Stoddard, or, or…”
“Or what? I’ll get coal in my stocking?”
I doubled over with exasperation. Then I spun around to try to calm my breathing.
“Knowingly or Recklessly Discharging a Firearm into or Towards an Occupied Structure is a 3rd degree felony, Mike. Do you hear me? And how about Placing an Individual in Fear of Serious Bodily Injury or Death? Chantal was halfway up the walk between me and the house. The shot scared her half to death. She’s still terrified. If it were up to me, I’d charge you with Attempted Murder and Total Stupidity. Seriously, dude. What were you thinking?”
“You’re giving me a headache.”
“Good. Now answer me.”
Mike exhaled heavily. “Toby was not suicidal, Lauren. He loved his life, his wife, they just bought a new house...”
“Now you tell me.”
“Dammit, Lauren. I’m trying to help.”
“Help,” I said as if I was thinking about it. “Please explain how taking a shot toward the house of a businessman, a businessman who happens to get death threats, help anything?”
“Frank gets death threats? Seriously?”
“Yes, Mike. He has a couple of thugs who escort him to and from work and a state-of-the-art security system here at the house.” Probably. Haven’t checked that out yet. If I ever figured out why the family dismissed the local cops, I might share that knowledge with Mike, but right now I needed him to stay away from his brother’s in-laws and my investigation into Toby’s death. My investigation and potentially my hide.
“I really don’t get it, Mike. Please. Tell me, what were you thinking?”
He collected himself with another deep breath before he confessed. “I figured if something scary happened before you got sent home, you would, I don’t know, volunteer to look into it.”
“You mean me or Lori Ruggles?”
“What’s the difference? I was your cover, so I thought you needed a different excuse to stick around.”
He was right, sort of.
“I SWORE AN OATH,” he shouted, imitating me. “Remember that?’
“Yeah,” I mumbled grudgingly.
“Admit it, Lauren. It was only a matter of time before you came clean with the Roitmans. I just gave you a good reason to own up.”
Good reason? GOOD reason! Unfortunately, I’d begun to see how his cockamamie idea made sense to him.
Still, I had to say it one more time. “It was a stupid, dangerous risk you took, Mike.”
“For Toby,” he said quietly.
“Yes,” I agreed. “And Mary,” I guessed. He hadn’t fulfilled her expectations, and even though he couldn’t tell her what he’d done, he needed to repair his self-image. I sympathized with that.
“Honestly, Lauren,” he mused. “If you don’t find out what happened to Toby, I don’t think anyone ever will.”
After I got him to promise not to do anything that risky again ever in his life, I quizzed him on the details. No, he hadn’t driven the orange Mustang, he’d put mud on the license plate of his wife’s hatchback. The gun was borrowed from a friend who managed a store that had been robbed a couple of times.
“Trusting friend,” I remarked, thinking of the risk he took.
“I told him I wanted to try it out at a shooting range. You know. To see if I wanted to buy one of my own.”
“You are so lucky I’m not still a cop. Now tell me what you were aiming at.”
“The ground. I was afraid to get too close to the house, but I couldn’t anyway because of the electric fence. I figured the noise would be enough for you to work with anyhow. Trouble was the gun kicked like a sonovabitch, so the bullet went further than I expected, maybe all the way across the pasture.”
Thank goodness the horses were inside. “Your side of the trees?”
“Yeah, I think.”
Now I really had a headache.
“How’s Mary?” I finally asked.
She was bored being on bed rest, but things were looking good for the baby. “I’m learning to do laundry,” Mike boasted. “Can you imagine?”
“Horrifying,” I said, which seemed like an appropriate answer.
I put my hair in a long braid while my sneakers thumped around in the dryer I’d found adjacent to a sauna. When the machine finally stopped, a misleading silence swallowed the pool house, not unlike sunshine the day of a funeral or a car radio continuing to blare rap music after a fatal crash. Of course when has ambience ever reflected what’s actually going on?
For sure, Mike’s confession had started my headache and the thumping sneakers didn’t help; but I’d missed lunch, too, and was now in the clutches of an anxious appetite.
Lana was nowhere in sight, but she must have relayed that I wanted to speak to Chantal because I found a note addressed to me on the kitchen table.
“Lori—,”it began. “Will drop by the pool hse after my nap. C. PS Lunch in fridge.”
Good, good, and very good. Learning whether Mike was in danger of being found out was much more urgent than confessing my sins to Frank Roitman’s daughter. Plus I could look into the estate’s security system at the same time. And lunch. I really really needed lunch. Bologna and cheese never tasted so good.
Revived, I plodded down the lumpy path all the way to the barn. New cl
ouds shadowed the fresh grass on the lawn to my right, and the deciduous trees yearned for rain to open this year’s leaves. Horses nickered in the pasture where Mike had discharged his borrowed handgun, and swallows shot through the sky overhead.
Lyle Dickens was saddle-soaping an actual saddle slung over a split-rail fence when I arrived at the gravel parking area beside the big red barn. In daylight he looked to be about fifty, attractive in the chiseled way of a cigar-store Indian—beautiful and immoveable.
A damp breeze whistled through the pines that bordered the pasture and blew stray hair from my braid against my cheek. After I brushed it back, I wasn’t sure what to do with my hands.
“Ms. Beck,” Lyle greeted me stoically, which answered the question regarding my hands.
I stuck out my right one and said, “Mr. Dickens. Did you know my name last night?”
“Yes ma’am, I did.” The hand he used to shake mine was hard and dry like his face. He wore an honest-to-goodness Stetson and a red and black buffalo plaid shirt under a denim vest. Right about then I envied him the flannel.
“And did you tell the police about me?”
“No ma’am. I did not.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “And why would that be, I wonder?”
“My employer prefers that the people he hires to do a job, do that job.”
“As opposed to the police?”
“It doesn’t come up often, but when it does, that would be his preference.”
“So why did he call them in the first place?” Does the family have something to hide?
Lyle consulted the arborvitaes. “Oh, lots of reasons. You were a cop. You tell me.”
I ticked off my thoughts on my fingers. “In case a neighbor heard, in case somebody got shot, in case sometime in the future the shooter returns and takes better aim…”
Lyle Dickens’s smile carved creases in his cheeks and made his moonstone eyes glow.
“Come inside,” he said. “You look like you’re freezing.”
He led me to a normal door in the side of the barn that opened into living quarters. An elderly springer spaniel resting on the blanketed sofa lifted her head with mild curiosity, and the spicy smell of chili emanated from an alcove kitchen. I detected a whiff of horse, too.
“Stay, Chloe,” Dickens told the dog, and she gratefully returned to sleep.
“Sit anywhere,” he told me, “except on Chloe.”
“Thanks.”
I chose a cushioned rocker. Lyle parked himself next to the dog. A rustic pine coffee table littered with magazines and used chili bowls spanned the space between us.
“Frank sort of hired me. Did you know that?”
Lyle leaned his elbows on his knees. “I did not know that. And what, pray tell, will you be doing for Mr. Roitman? Something commensurate with your previous employment?”
Not quite sure how to answer, I lowered my chin and looked at him askance. “Calming down his wife and daughter by pretending to be Chantal’s bodyguard.”
“Ah, pretending. Makes sense,” Lyle remarked as if he knew I was intentionally being tactful. “Chantal still a bit nervy, is she?”
“It would be astonishing if she wasn’t, don’t you think?”
Lyle sucked his teeth.
“You have anything on last night’s shooter?” I asked.
“Is that a pretend question or a real one?”
“Both.”
“How so?”
Unconsciously, I clasped my hands together. “Pretend because, unless you have something, I think last night’s shot is a dead end,” Lyle’s eyebrows flicked up, “and real because of the threats Frank’s been getting.”
“You psychic or do you know something about last night?”
“You first. Did your cameras pick up anything?”
The security man dropped his head. “I’m deciding whether or not to trust you.”
I waited, and soon he met my gaze.
“Were you a dirty cop?” he asked in a way that insisted on an answer.
“Were you?”
“I was not.”
“Neither was I.”
“And yet you are no longer in Landis, Pennsylvania, maintaining law and order.”
“That really isn’t any of your business.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
It was my turn to decide whether to trust him, but what is life if not a series of risks?
“I left when I was diagnosed with Hodgkins disease. It was a long recovery, and for a number of personal reasons I chose not to go back.
“Your turn,” I said. “Why are you here? Not that it’s any of my business.”
He snickered. “Same as you, I guess. Different details.” He flicked a piece of dry grass off his knee. “Our cameras don’t reach the far edge of the pasture, and I couldn’t see much of the car ‘cause the shooter didn’t use lights. What’ve you got?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “Can I see your system?”
“Anything to help you pretend.” His eyes shot back at me as he rose.
Through a door situated next to his bathroom was a bank of screens focused on various parts of the house and outdoor property. Lyle flicked a hand toward the monitors. “Motion-sensored. I patrol in a golf cart during the day—the horses don’t take much of my time and anyway there’s a stable boy who helps out on weekends. Another two guys work four to twelve and twelve to eight.” He meant the shift guys were also security.
“Gotta get your beauty rest.”
“Yeah, right.” His lips pressed into a sardonic line. “Course I was awake when whoever the hell it was fired the shot.”
“Speaking of shots, you have an opinion about Toby Stoddard’s suicide?”
We had backed out of the monitor cubicle and were gravitating toward the door to the driveway. Lyle stopped in his tracks with the question. I turned to face him.
“I guess he had his reasons.” His fists found his hips and a hard sort of curiosity narrowed his brow.
“You’re comfortable with the circumstances then?”
“I have no reason not to be.”
“Were you told specifically not to take an interest?”
Lyle inhaled deeply. Took his time exhaling. “I scarcely have enough time to do what I’ve been asked to do. I don’t need more.”
“The horses,” I remarked with a nod.
“The horses,” he agreed. “How about you?”
“Not in my job description either.”
“But…?”
“But I do have a personal interest in how Toby died.”
“Care to share?”
“Maybe when we get to know each other better.”
“Sounds good. Want to start now?”
I tucked my thumbs into the waistband of Karen’s slacks and gave the weathered cowboy a slow smile.
Chapter 27
“Sorry,” I told Lyle with a soft smile. “Chantal is probably looking for me.”
“Come back when you can. I’ll saddle up a horse for you.”
“What makes you think I ride?”
“A farmer’s daughter? No brainer.”
Did he also know that, thanks to Brent W. Cahill, TV news anchor and ex-love of my life, I didn’t care for beautiful men? Unlikely. Nobody could have gotten that in the two days since Captain George lifted my prints. P.S. Who was there to ask?
I started to take my leave with a girly wave but turned back at the doorway.
“The private things I told you were private, right?” It wasn’t so much that I cared who knew, although some details were more private than others. At the moment I preferred to let Frank Roitman think he was right about me. If he, or anyone else in his family, happened to be guilty of murder, a disgraced cop would be less of a threat than a retired, honest one.
Lyle Dickens zipped his lips and tilted his hat.
Trust. You’ve gotta trust somebody. I hoped I’d picked the right person.
Speaking of trust, Chantal was leaning against the door to
the pool house when I got back.
“You wanted to see me?”
“Yes.” Not that I expected the conversation to be much fun.
When I motioned her into my temporary digs, soft afternoon light made the beachy living room prettier than any other place I’d stayed, yet without question I’d rather live in a drafty attic or a borrowed bedroom with somebody I loved around.
Chantal settled across from me on the blue ticking furniture. Well rested and composed, she seemed to expect nothing less than a healthy child, nothing more than an inconsequential conversation.
Regretting that I was most likely going to ruin her mood, I told her I had a confession to make.
“Oh?” Still the benign anticipation, the pleasant smile.
I opened my hands. “My name is Lauren Beck,” I told her. “Karen Stoddard Beck is my sister-in-law.”
The smile lost some of its luster. “I don’t understand.”
“Mike and I aren’t really dating. He’s a very happily married man. Very.”
According to the wrinkles on Chantal’s forehead, my deception was beginning to take effect. It would only get worse.
“I’m afraid Karen and Mike both have misgivings about your husband’s death. And so do I.”
Toby’s widow drew in a raspy breath. “I still don’t understand. Why would you…why did you pass yourself off as someone else?”
Interesting that she focused on that, as if murder over suicide had some appeal. The human mind never ceases to amaze.
“Because I was once a cop in Landis, Pennsylvania,” I explained, “and cops there don’t specialize. That means I covered all sorts of crimes—including murder. I thought if your family was aware of that, I might not be able to look into Toby’s death.” I would also win the top slot on the killer’s hit list, but Chantal didn’t need to think about that.
She blinked, shook her head. “The trip was just us,” she realized. “Surely you don’t suspect my family.”
I waved that away. “I knew nothing at that point, Chantal. I just wanted to decide for myself whether Karen and Mike’s fears had any merit.”
“And now?”
Stalling, I patted my leg and blew out my cheeks. “I still don’t have much,” I admitted, “just the basic details and a few possible motives.”
Guilt Trip Page 12