Crazy, Stupid, Dead

by Wendy Delaney

  “I imagine this would be the same gentleman who made the nine-one-one call.”

  I nodded. “Leland Armistead.”

  Frankie’s slate-blue eyes grew wary behind her wireframe bifocals. “And what did you say to Mr. Armistead?”

  I knew I had better exercise caution in choosing the next few words to come out of my mouth. “Nothing, really. I was in a hurry at the time, but he made it pretty clear that he had been expecting some sort of follow-up visit as part of an investigation.”

  Wouldn’t that be a good thing for me to do?

  “Steve spoke to him at some length when he responded to that call, so I don’t think any follow-up by this office is warranted.”

  Double dang.

  I heard a rap behind me and turned to see barrel-chested Deputy Criminal Prosecutor Ben Santiago filling most of the doorway.

  Holding a stack of manila files in his arms, he aimed his gaze at the sixty-one year-old behind the oak desk. “Do you need a few more minutes?”

  “No, we’re done.” Frankie gave me a cool smile. “Thank you, Charmaine.”

  Dang, dang, and dang again. I’d just been dismissed.

  “Stop by and see Odette when you have a minute,” Ben said to me, referring to his legal secretary. “She has a little copy project for you.”

  “Okay.” It wasn’t the assignment I had been hoping for when I stepped into this office, but at least I’d dangled it in front of Frankie to see if she’d bite.

  It had been worth a shot, I thought, clicking the door shut behind me.

  Then another thought struck me that put a spring in my step when I rounded the bend toward the administrative assistant bullpen. Frankie didn’t explicitly tell me not to talk to Mr. Armistead.

  I just couldn’t do it as a representative of her office.

  But as Leland Armistead had reminded me, he and I were old friends. So what that I barely remembered him. No one here should bat an eye at me visiting an old friend.

  Especially if I just happened to be in the neighborhood—something that another old friend might be able to help me with.

  Chapter Five

  DONNA’S EYES LIT up when the little silver bell over the door of her salon announced my arrival shortly before she closed at six.

  “Hey,” she said, angling around the long legs of the strawberry blonde in her chair to hit each perfectly coiffed tendril with a mist of hair spray. “You picked the perfect time to stop by, because we’re just wrapping up.”

  Considering that her customer, Renee Ireland, the newshound for the Port Merritt Gazette, had an assessing smile on her full lips as she looked up at me, I begged to differ. Because there was no way that I was going to bring up the subject of the visit I wanted to pay to Naomi Easley’s neighbors in front of a reporter.

  Instead, I eased onto the empty swivel chair next to her and grabbed the length of my ponytail. “You know how you’ve wanted to whack on this? I think I’m ready for a little change.”

  Donna patted Renee’s arm. “And you said it was a slow news day. There’s some breaking news for you.”

  The fifty-ish reporter dropped the smile. “Right,” she said, sharpening her gaze on me as Donna removed the plastic cape from her shoulders. “But there is some news breaking this week that I think my readers would be interested in—what’s going on with your mother, now that she has a movie coming out.”

  Renee had written a feature several months back about my mom’s return to her hometown shortly after filming wrapped up, so I wasn’t shocked by the reporter sniffing around for a follow-up. But given the fact that Marietta had agreed to that interview before she discovered that Renee had been Barry Ferris’s ex-girlfriend, I didn’t want to get sucked into the vortex of that old love triangle. “Marietta gets home this weekend, after the premiere, so maybe you’d like to ask her yourself.”

  “I hear Barry will be walking her down the red carpet,” Renee said, flaunting that tidbit of insider knowledge with icy satisfaction.

  Since she hadn’t heard that from me, and my grandmother would have mentioned it if someone from the local paper had called, that left just the one person to disclose his plans: Barry Ferris. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what he decided. After all, he is her husband.”

  Renee flashed a fake smile.

  I didn’t know which annoyed her most. My refusal to dish any dirt on my mother or the reminder that Barry had married her.

  “If you hear from your mom, do let her know that I’d like to talk to her,” Renee said, rising to her six-foot height and handing me her business card.

  “Will do.” Maybe, if the situation presented itself, and only because we both knew Marietta Moreau craved every opportunity she could get to add some luster to her waning celebrity status.

  Donna directed me to take the swivel chair Renee had just vacated, and then while they settled up at the front desk, I looked at my reflection in the mirror. For someone who had spent all of her adult life avoiding identifying with her glamorous mother, why did I have to see her green eyes staring back at me?

  Because I was being just as much of an opportunist?

  “Maybe this is a bad idea,” I said as Donna snapped a black cape behind my neck.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Freeing my hair from the elastic band, she shook it loose so that it hung past my shoulder blades like a dirty brown mop head. “Look at this mess. You haven’t let me layer it in months.”

  “Fine. Do your thing, but you should know that the main reason I came is that I need a favor.”

  She smirked. “Hon, when you show up out of the blue, it’s usually because you want something.”

  I didn’t much care for that smirk, but I knew that whatever little bit of irritation she was feeling would soon dissipate. “It’s a small something, and it might come off as an odd request, but could I go with you the next time you do Althea Flanders’ hair?”

  “Why on earth would you want to do that?” Donna asked, guiding me past the front desk to the shampoo bowl.

  “I haven’t seen her since her husband’s funeral. And that’s probably the one and only time I met her sister, so I’m overdue paying them a visit.”

  “Remember what I just said about you showing up out of the blue?”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, opting for full disclosure since I had a spray nozzle aimed at my nose. “I want to have a chat with Naomi Easley’s neighbors.”

  “If her death was an accident, why—”

  “I’m not saying it wasn’t an accident. It’s just so weird that they found her in that bathtub, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Tell me about it. I could be the last person to see the poor thing alive.”

  Closing my eyes while Donna doused my head with warm water, I thought of her doing the same thing to Naomi. “So she didn’t mention having any plans for later?”

  “Oh, I had forgotten about that. She did say that she’d be looking good for a little date she had that evening. When I asked her if she had a beau, she laughed it off. Said it was just a gin rummy date with a neighbor.” Donna sighed. “I guess she never made it.”

  Obviously not. But why did Naomi chase down a bunch of pills with a bottle of wine if she had plans for later?

  * * *

  After I left the salon with Donna’s promise to pick me up Sunday on her way to Althea’s condo, I headed home, where Fozzie immediately led me to the detective using my new elliptical machine.

  Since he was wearing a Port Merritt PD polo and cotton slacks instead of sweats, Steve clearly hadn’t come over for the exercise. “A little overdressed for a workout, don’t you think?”

  Giving me a sexy grin, he slowed to a stop. “That depends on what you have in mind.”

  I was hungry and tired and had only one thing in mind. “Dinner out somewhere?”

  “Then I’m not so overdressed after all,” he said, stepping off the pedals. “Did you notice anything when you c
ame in?”

  I fluffed my newly layered bob to clue him in that he also had something to notice. “Other than you look like you came here straight from work, no.” I glanced down at the canvas tool bag by his feet that Fozzie was sniffing. “But it does appear that Mr. Fix-it came with you.”

  Steve gave me a peck on the lips. “To fix that squeak of yours.”

  He made it sound like a personal problem. “I beg your pardon. I don’t have any parts that squeak.”

  “Not anymore you don’t.”

  Not that I had ever heard it because I had yet to use my newly acquired exercise equipment. But if Steve wanted to rid me of Marietta’s excuse of avoidance, my saddlebag thighs were quick to remind me to show some gratitude. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

  “How much?”

  I held out my arms as wide as they would go. “This much.”

  “Is that all? My labor doesn’t come cheap, you know.”

  I wrapped my hands around his neck and kissed him until we were both breathless.

  “That’s better,” he said, holding me close. “But I had something else in mind.”

  “Yeah?” I didn’t mind burning a few calories before indulging in the cheesy tacos I hoped to talk him into later.

  I reached for the tab of his zipper, but Steve took my hand before I found purchase.

  He pressed a kiss to my fingertips. “I was referring to you buying dinner.”

  Even better. “Deal if I get to pick the place.”

  “As long as they serve tacos.”

  He was a man after my own heart. My stomach, too. “If you insist.”

  When I started for the door, the black fur ball that had been trying to wedge between us raced in front of me. “I’ll just feed him first.”

  “Already done. Fed and watered, so let’s go.” Stepping around the chow mix tapping his toenails in the entryway, Steve’s gaze softened as he fingered a lock of my hair. “And yes, I like your haircut.”

  “You noticed.”

  “What can I say? As a detective I tend to notice stuff.”

  “Yessir, it’s hard to slip anything by you,” I said, my thoughts drifting toward what little I’d been able to glean about his most recent death investigation.

  But it wasn’t entirely impossible.

  Chapter Six

  AFTER WAKING UP to a text from my mother confirming that the Loving Lucian cast interviews would run in the second hour of the Today show, I wasn’t a bit surprised when my cell phone started ringing the instant I arrived at the office.

  I didn’t have to look at the display to know that it was Marietta again. Sheesh, I got the message. I’m recording the show.

  Now was not the time to deal with an excited mother, not when I could see Patsy giving me the stink-eye from her hall monitor post.

  “Welcome back,” I said to Patsy after the call went to voice mail. “How are you feeling?”

  With a determined set to her pointy chin, the tawny-haired legal assistant with the gray roots glared at the computer monitor in front of her. “I’ll live.”

  The angry swelling of her jaw line gave me fair warning to tread lightly in her vicinity. Unfortunately, the phone in my tote bag chose that moment to start chirping again like a hungry bird.

  Patsy slanted her glare in its direction like she wanted to wring its little neck.

  I reached into my tote to silence it and then spotted Rox’s name as the caller ID. “What’s up?” I asked, rushing into the break room so that if she were calling to tell me that she was in labor, I wouldn’t scream in Patsy’s ear and become the next neck to be wrung. “Is it time?”

  “No. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that this kid doesn’t ever want to come out.”

  Dropping my tote on the table in the center of the room, I pulled out a chair. “Patience is a virtue.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’m fresh out. But never mind that. Tell me that you’re near a TV ‘cause I just turned on the Today show and—”

  “My mother’s on. I know.”

  “She’s on, too?”

  “What do you mean, too?”

  “Chris is on. This very minute, teaching the co-hosts how to make chicken parmesan.”

  I knew that my ex-husband had recently released a cookbook. No doubt to cash in on his celebrity chef status after rocketing to fame on a cooking channel. “Good for him,” I said, trying not to sound as bitter as the coffee dregs simmering at the bottom of the carafe ten feet away.

  “Uh-huh. That scored a negative nine on the sincerity meter, but considering he was such a jerk, I think you’re being generous.”

  “How’s he doing?” I winced, hating myself for caring.

  “You should turn on a TV there and see for yourself. He’s making love to the camera like someone crowned him Prince Charming of the kitchen.”

  Of course he was.

  “Eww, I have to warn you, though. These chicks are fawning over Chris so much that you’ll probably spit up in your coffee.”

  There was a flat screen mounted in the conference room across the hall, but after almost two years of watching my ex’s charmed life from a distance, my dumped ass felt no compunction to see it in high definition. “My grandmother’s recording it. I can watch later.”

  “Just as well. They’re talking about his cookbook now, so it sounds like they’re wrapping up.”

  That was also what we should do so that Patsy didn’t come in and catch me on the phone instead of making coffee.

  And then Rox uttered a breathy “Oh, my.”

  I waited, expecting some sort of blow-by-blow account of what she was watching. “What?”

  “Are you freaking kidding me?”

  “What?!”

  “Your ex just made a little announcement,” Rox said, making it sound like I wouldn’t be happy to hear it.

  “How little?”

  “Uh … actually, pretty major.”

  Chris already had the book out that he’d been hyping, he’d had the TV deal for over a year, and he and his supermodel girlfriend had become social media darlings since getting together over the holidays. How much more fairy dust needed to rain down on the prince who couldn’t see his happily-ever-after happening with me?

  “Honey,” Rox said with an ache in her voice. “He’s engaged.”

  * * *

  Almost ten hours later, I sat cross-legged on my grandmother’s living room floor and stared transfixed at my ex-husband’s beaming face as he announced the news of his engagement to golden-haired, Danish beauty Raina Lassen.

  “Look at the act he’s putting on,” Gram muttered from her recliner. “That bozo’s never looked that happy in his life.”

  Certainly not in his life with me.

  I paused on the moment when the camera got a tight shot of Chris’s jubilant face as he waved to the bride-to-be to join him onstage. “It’s no act.” And why should it be? Chris now had the “more” he’d admitted he wanted the night he walked out of our marriage.

  “I get what the turkey sees in her,” Gram said when I played the rest of the segment. “Look at her. She’s gorgeous. But what does she get out of that relationship beyond a temperamental chef to do all the cooking?”

  I backed up to the part when Raina stepped out to join him wearing zebra-striped leggings, no doubt in a size that mere mortals past the age of puberty shouldn’t be allowed to fit into. “I don’t think she eats much.” Beyond that I didn’t want to know.

  “Maybe not, but I see a little belly.”

  All I could see was impossibly long, shapely legs. “Doubtful. She’s a swimsuit model.”

  “Not over the next six months, she’s not.”

  “What?” While I froze the image where the camera zoomed in on Raina, a pair of pink fuzzy slippers appeared at my right.

  “Yes, sirree. That girl’s gonna be eating for two.” My grandmother stabbed an arthritic finger in the direction of the flat screen where Rain
a was running a graceful hand over an unmistakable baby bump. “’Cause there’s a bun in that oven.”

  I shuddered, the air vacating my lungs as if I’d been sucker-punched by the guy who had insisted that he never wanted to have children.

  “You okay, honey?” Gram asked.

  “Sure.” I was just surprised is all. Because my ex had been a much better liar than I’d given him credit for.

  I pressed play to demonstrate how okay I was. Which might have been a good plan if Chris hadn’t kissed the future Mrs. Scolari’s cheek with such crushing tenderness that it made my eye sockets burn.

  “He makes nice with the cameras rolling, but a tiger doesn’t change his stripes. And that one there showed himself to be a real selfish bastard. For the sake of the little one, though, I hope they make it work.”

  For the sake of the baby that I had once wanted with that bastard, I sure hoped that my grandmother was right.

  * * *

  After several hours of fielding calls from well-intended friends and family members, including a ticked-off mother whose interview got cut for time, it came as a relief to hunker down the next morning with a copy machine that didn’t want to talk about my feelings.

  Some of the ladies working on the third floor who had known me most of my life gave me sympathetic smiles when we passed in the hallway, so the news about my ex had obviously made the rounds.

  As Donna had reminded me when she called last night, soon this would be yesterday’s news and it would all blow over. Marietta’s movie would come out and she would once again be the Digby that everyone in Port Merritt wanted to talk about. In the meantime, I just needed to act like Chris’s latest media foray was of no consequence to me, which it wasn’t.

  Not really.

  Of course, it would be much easier to talk myself into that little lie if I hadn’t just stepped into Duke’s for lunch and seen all heads turn to me.