When we finally parted so we could both inhale, his hands cupped the back of my head, his fingers probing deep into my hair. “I couldn’t wait any longer. Not after today. Not after walking into that fancy kitchen and seeing your face all white and frozen. When your freckles pop out, I know you’re in distress. I hate seeing you like that, Mrs. D.”
I looked up into his face. “Say my name. You never have. I want to hear it from your lips. Say it.”
He smiled into my eyes. “Deva. Devalera.” His smile widened. “Devalera. That’s a hell of a handle, Mrs. D.”
Dammit, he’d wrecked the moment. “I happen to love my name,” I lied, wriggling out of his arms. “You’ve got some nerve, Rossi.”
“Honey, I’ve got more than nerve.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Interested?”
A challenge. “I haven’t decided yet.”
He nodded and raised his hands in the air, palms out. “Okay, play it safe. Swim in the shallow end of the pool. For a long time, I’ve been that way myself. But I think I’m getting ready to change. So let me ask you something. When’s the last time you went to the moon?”
“The moon?”
“Yeah. Since you lost Jack, that is.”
“Three, four times last week. Twice yesterday”
His jaw dropped.
Aha! A hit.
“Yup. I’ve been the town pump, Rossi.”
He waggled a finger at me. A metronome. Left, right. Left, right. “Not a chance. You loved Jack too much to sleep around.”
A surge of emotion flared through me. “My feelings for Jack are none of your damn business.”
Serious again, he looked me straight in the eye. “I know you loved him. There’s no need to erase that, ever. Or to pretend that you don’t want another man in your life. Maybe I’m the guy.” He shrugged. “Maybe not. But think it over.”
“Let me ask you something, Rossi.”
“Shoot.”
“How many times have you been to the moon?”
“You know something, Deva. I used to believe I’d been there a lot, but lately I’m not so sure. I think those trips I took were to minor planets.” He cocked an eyebrow and waited.
I smiled. Who could stay mad at Rossi?
The cell phone in his pocket began an insistent chirping. Always at the wrong time.
He fished the phone out of his pocket and growled into it. He listened for a moment, his fingers tightening on the receiver. “I’ll be right in,” he said. “Leave the report on my desk.” He repocketed the cell. “Duty calls. Have to go.” He gave me a hurried, unsatisfying peck on the cheek and was halfway out the door when he turned back, a wicked gleam in his eye. “One last question, Mrs. D. You ever hear of the Big Bang Theory?”
Chapter Twenty
At eight the next morning I woke with a start, flung back the covers and leaped up, amazed that I had slept like a baby for hours. With my life in chaos, how could I have been so relaxed? The conversation with Rossi? Maybe. The kiss? More than likely.
I stretched, long and luxuriously, reaching for the sky, then took a quick, cool shower and scrambled into some clothes…a white string sweater and a bright orange skirt. Strappy tan leather sandals with four-inch heels. In them I’d look tall and towering-to match my mood.
On my way out, I left the Naples Daily lying on the front step in its plastic sleeve without even glancing at the headlines. I knew what I’d find. Why torture myself? What I didn’t know was what I’d find at the shop-a throng, a mob, or worse, deadly, empty silence.
I found Lee alone with worry lines creasing her forehead. No wonder. Having your employer discover two murder victims in less than a month didn’t add up to job security.
“Morning, Deva,” she said, forcing a wan smile. “Daddy just left. He told me what happened. I’m so sorry.”
“Daddy?” About to stash my handbag underneath the sales counter, I straightened in disbelief and the bag fell to the floor. “Isn’t he in Alabama?”
“He’s on his way back there today. He sold his place over in East Naples and was here for the closing.”
So Merle Skimp had been in town yesterday. I doubted Merle’s presence was enough to cause the tension I had seen coiling in Rossi’s back when he answered his cell phone yesterday. But who knew? If Merle had been in Naples at the time Jesus was killed, were the cops aware of that? And if not, would pointing out the possibility be the action of a rat fink? Or the best thing I could do for Lee and Paulo? Exasperated, I retrieved the bag and placed it under the counter.
With a tired sigh, Lee sank onto the chair behind her desk. “Daddy gave me a nice check from the sale. I know he worries about me…I didn’t tell him Paulo and I are getting married.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m afraid he’ll try to stop me.” She looked down at her lap. “But I took the check anyway.”
“Of course you did. Your mother would have wanted you to.”
“That’s what Daddy said. So I took it.” She glanced up, tears brimming under her lids. “In case…in case…”
“The shop fails,” I finished.
She nodded. “There’s just no way of tellin’, Deva. I’m so scared. Paulo knew that Jesus man. They worked together. He’ll be questioned again. Under suspicion again.”
She was right, Paulo would be under suspicion again, and so would I. I could think of no words of comfort for either of us. All we could do was play the waiting game. And pray. But somehow I felt far from defeated even though the shop was dead all morning, even though by one in the afternoon not a single customer had come through the door, not a single phone call through the line.
The truth was Rossi was keeping despair at bay. I knew Jack would understand. Months earlier, in my dreams, he had told me not to let his death keep me from living. I could still hear his voice with its lilting brogue: “When life closes one door, it opens another. A pretty marvelous phenomenon, don’t you think?”
I do.
Troubled about the lack of business, yet buoyant, I was such a contradictory bundle of nerves that when the phone finally rang in the middle of the afternoon, my hand shot out and I grabbed it before the second ring.
“Deva Dunne Interiors.”
“Deva,” Rossi said. Not Mrs. D. Pleased, I pressed the phone to my ear, bringing him in a little closer.
He cleared his throat, his voice lowering. “I appreciated your honesty during my…ah…interrogation yesterday.” His discretion told me he was calling from the station.
“I would never lie to the police.”
He laughed, an honest-to-God, deep belly laugh. I held the phone away from my ear and stared at it. That was a first. Grins, yes. Smiles, rarely. Smirks, definitely. But an out-and-out laugh? Never.
I brought the phone back to my ear. “I mean it, Lieutenant. I’ll cooperate whenever I can be of service.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. In fact, I may have some further questions for you.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Lieutenant.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
I hung up positively energized. Though business was dead, killed by all the lethal publicity, I was more alive today than I’d been since Jack died. Today nothing would defeat me. Nothing.
I glanced across the shop to where Lee sat behind her desk, patiently waiting to greet the first customer of the day. It was two o’clock. We had been open since nine.
Screw it.
“Lee, how would you like to have lunch at the Ritz Carlton?”
Her eyes widened into blue pools. “Oh, my. I’ve never been to the Ritz.”
“Well, high time then. Grab your purse and let’s go. We’re celebrating.”
“What all are we celebrating, Deva?”
“The good men in our lives.”
She rewarded me with the only real smile I’d seen on her face all day. Brighter than Ilona’s diamonds, it lit up the whole shop. “It’s the lieutenant, isn’t it?”
The bells on the door jangled, and we both turned toward the door.
>
Uh-oh. Mrs. Jessica Jones. In funereal black from head to foot.
She bounded into the shop, slamming the door so hard the bells jangled for another thirty seconds. “Did that bastard tell you what he did to me?”
“Which bastard is that?” I asked, taking the Fifth.
“Don’t pretend, Deva.” With a nod at Lee, Jessica took a seat on the zebra settee. “He served me with divorce papers, the son of a bitch.”
I heaved a sigh. This wasn’t going to be easy. “You handle anger well, Jessica.”
Her eyes narrowed at me, but she rested the Ferragamo tote on the floor next to her feet as if she planned to stay a while and crossed her legs at the knee.
At the knee. “Not to change the subject, Jessica, but have you lost weight?”
She ran her palms down her sides. “Ten pounds since Christmas. It’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years. Only forty more to go. I hope you don’t have any of those Christmas cookies left. I can do without the temptation.”
“You’re safe. They’re long gone.”
Lee dropped her purse back into a desk drawer. I guess she recognized that Jessica needed to vent, and that meant girl talk, lots of it.
Jessica picked up the Ferragamo and rummaged in it for a tissue. I hoped she wasn’t about to burst into tears. But no, she gave her nose a vigorous blow, tucked the tissue in a jacket pocket and said, “I like you, Deva, so I came to warn you, woman to woman.”
“Warn me? About what?”
Lee stiffened. I caught her alarmed glance and smiled, but her troubled expression didn’t change.
I pulled up a folding garden chair. Whatever Jessica had to say would be easier to take sitting down. I leaned forward. “What is it?”
“Don’t trust Morgan. He’s a bloody liar.”
“But-”
She held up a hand for silence. “Let me finish. I have proof. Wait till you see this.” She reached back into the tote, yanked out a bank statement and thrust it at me.
One glance and I knew. “All his accounts have been cancelled.”
“Right. And that’s just the Sun Trust Bank. The others are the same. He’s stripped every account. At least those I could find.”
I handed her back the statement.
“I had to take a hammer to his desk drawer to get this much information. Wait till he sees the damage. Not that I give a damn. What infuriates me is that he changed the password to his PC. God knows what he’s hiding in there. But one thing for sure, he’s holding out on me, Deva.”
This didn’t bode well for Jessica. Or for Deva Dunne Interiors, either. “I’m sorry to hear all this. You sounded so positive the night you telephoned.”
“Yeah. Well I was a fool to believe him. He knew you and I had talked about the new house. So he figured he had to tell me the truth about it. That kept me off his back until he could move his assets where I wouldn’t find them. And that little weasel helped him.”
“Weasel?”
“George Farragut. God, I can’t stand the creep. He’s as bad as Morgan with his precious collections. All those drab etchings. Not a one with any color to it. Just like him. The little prick.”
George’s etchings may be drab, but your language sure is colorful.
“I used to be such a lady.” Jessica uncrossed her legs and, spreading them apart, dropped her hands between her knees. “Now I’m a piranha. Out for blood. That’s why I’m here. I don’t want Morgan to screw you over-” with a wink to a wide-eyed Lee, “-metaphorically speaking, of course, the way he screwed me. So get your money upfront. Or else leave him hanging with a half-finished house. Slap a lien on it if you have to. He’ll have a tough time impressing his bimbo then.”
A housewife forever and now sliding down the fifties hill, Jessica had my sympathy, even though punishing Morgan, not protecting my interests, was her motive in coming here today. I couldn’t blame her for her fury, but she should be concentrating on her fiscal interests, not revenge. Anger must have her blindsided. I wondered what marketable skills she possessed but didn’t dare ask. Her ace in the hole was her husband, and it looked like she’d played that card. Unless?
“Have you seen a lawyer, Jessica?”
She looked up from her knees and shook her head. “A divorce lawyer? Not yet. First I’m talking to Morgan’s tax attorney. See if I can get the truth out of him. We always filed a joint return, so I know how much Morgan earned but not where it went. Simon Yaeger better not hold out on me.” She pounded a fist on the settee arm. “I have a right to know. Once I learn what’s what from Yaeger, I’ll contact a divorce lawyer. You know a good one? Somebody who’ll go for the jugular?”
I shook my head when what I wanted to do was slap myself on the forehead. Sometimes you can’t see the forest-too many trees in the way. Of course, they all knew each other. Simon, the Alexanders, George Farragut, and now the Morgan Joneses.
So not only did Simon handle legal affairs for Trevor and George, he apparently did so for the Morgans. That was something I didn’t find out the day I rifled-I mean glanced at-the documents on Trevor’s desk. The day Simon called and left that chilling message on Trevor’s answering machine. And of course both Simon and George did business with Trevor.
Now that I thought about it, there were a lot of loose ends, too. George had recommended the Russian art show to Simon. They had planned to meet there that night so Simon could return George’s briefcase. A briefcase Simon had been storing in his office for a week-the very week after Maria was murdered. For some unexplained reason, at the last minute George had skipped the art show. Had he seen Rossi lurking in his car outside the gallery? Could that have kept him away? It had to have been something serious. The next day he had arrived at Morgan’s house practically panting to get his briefcase back. Whatever it held had to have been valuable.
Not a laptop. It had been too light. Client records, then? Facts, information? Possibly. Or money. No. Suitcases full of cash only cropped up in B movies…
Somewhere, in the background, Jessica nattered on about how rotten Morgan was, how she was going to operate on him for a change. Her words were gnats buzzing in the distance. A cold sweat broke out on my skin, for in that instant, I knew without proof, without evidence, without anything except a growling in my gut that could not be denied-
George had rolled up the Monet and hidden it in his briefcase. And Simon had stored it for him. What better hiding place than the office of Naples’s most respected law firm? Which left me with two burning questions: Had Simon known what was in the case? And where was the painting now?
“…furthermore, Deva, I’ll bet that bimbo is a bag of bones. Wait till he bangs into her in the dark. Ha! He’ll miss me then.”
With a start, I came back into the moment. “I’m sorry, Jessica. What were you saying?”
* * *
The phone rang shortly after Jessica left. Rossi again? Or maybe a customer. I picked up fast.
“Deva. For you I have bad news. It is bad for me, too.”
“What is it, Ilona?”
“Our Wine Festival dinner is no more. It’s halott. Dead.”
Surprised but not stunned, I asked, “You’ve cancelled? Why?”
“Everybody we invite refuse. They will not come to my house. No matter how old my family, they do not come. Tonight, Trevor and I, we go to Port Royal Club for dinner. If no one sit with us then I know we are finished in Naples. Finished. It is not fair, Deva. We own two Monets, so we are victims.” A Hungarian sigh floated through the line. “No longer do we even own two. I go now. I must inform Cheep.”
“Your retainer, Ilona?”
“Never no mind, Deva. You keep. For aggravation.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” Especially since I had already spent it. Actually, Ilona was kind to excuse the two thousand. Maybe, after all, I had misjudged her. “What of the party supplies I stored in your garage? They’re all returnable.”
“Come get whenever you wish.” She lowered her voice
to a conspiratorial whisper. “The last number on code is three now, not five. But you may not need code. Tomorrow, our new housekeeper arrive. Another Maria, she is. I tell her to let you in whenever you call.”
“I appreciate your trust, Ilona.” I meant it. If the situation were reversed and I lived in a house where two people had been murdered, I wouldn’t trust a soul with my security code. I wondered why Ilona did.
“We are girls together, Deva. Of course I trust. It is the mens I no trust.”
Ah. My answer?
“Now, I hang up phone. I am too upset to talk more.”
I cradled the receiver. Poor Chip. He would be devastated. I glanced around my silent, empty shop. Deva Dunne Interiors already was devastated. I had a feeling it would remain so until the Alexander case was solved. That had better be soon. My pockets were too shallow to hold out much longer. With that thought, my temper flared. I hated feeling like a victim.
“Let’s call it a day, Lee. This place is as dead as a teetotaler’s party.”
She laughed. “You have funny sayings, Deva. Are they Irish?”
“Well, that one probably is.” I glanced at my watch. Three o’clock. Too late for lunch. “Come on, I’ll drop you off at home. I promise we’ll do a fancy lunch another day.”
“Would y’all mind dropping me at Paulo’s instead? He’s home working on a portrait. His first commission. You should see it. It’s beautiful. Two little children, a brother and a sister. Though to speak frankly to y’all, I think the momma should have asked for separate portraits. Someday, I declare, those two little ones’ll be fightin’ over who gets Paulo’s painting.”
Her love for her man shone in her eyes, on her skin, in the very way she pronounced his name. Shyly, as if her pride in him were pride in herself, she said, “When he has six or more portraits finished, the Von Liebig Art Center is going to give him a one-man show.”
“How wonderful! After that, he’ll be on his way.”
She nodded, happy to agree. “Uh-huh. ’Course he needs more commissions to get to that six number, but he’ll get them. Wait till people see those children.”
The Monet Murders Page 17