by Kylie Logan
“Why?”
Corrine pressed her lips together. “She didn’t say.”
“Yeah, because Meghan was so good about keeping her business to herself.” She would have had to be unconscious not to catch the note of sarcasm in my voice. “Come on, Corrine, help me out here. I’m trying to figure out who killed Meghan.”
“Well, I just sort of figured . . .” She darted me a look and raised her scrawny shoulders. “I just naturally thought it was you.”
I barked out a laugh. I’m not sure why because really, it wasn’t funny. “I didn’t kill Meghan,” I told Corrine in no uncertain terms. “I had no reason to kill Meghan.”
“She fired you.”
“That was more than a year ago.”
“You were mad. When it happened. I was there and—”
“Yes, I was mad. It was unfair. And Meghan wouldn’t listen to reason. But, news flash, Corrine, I don’t care. Not anymore. I’m happy here.”
“You’re happy . . .” As if she’d just woken up from a long and troubled sleep, Corrine looked around the room with its utilitarian furnishings and its view of the air-conditioning unit out in the parking lot at the side of the building. “You’re happy here?”
“I’m happy with my life. With the decisions I’ve made since I left California. I had no reason to kill Meghan. But someone else must have.” I thought back to my trashed house, the trashed restaurant. “Why was Meghan looking for me?” I asked Corrine.
When she shook her head, her hair drooped in her eyes and she pushed it back. For a woman as drab and plain as she was, Corrine had fine-boned hands and long, elegant fingers.
“She never said.”
“She dragged you all the way from California to Ohio and she never said why?”
Corrine threw those beautiful hands of hers in the air and paced away from the window, then back again. “You know how she could be, Laurel. She didn’t give explanations. Not to anyone. Especially not to me. Last Wednesday we were in Malibu getting ready for our move to Maui for the summer and the next thing you know, we’re heading to the airport.”
So Meghan’s decision was sudden. Maybe that was because she’d just found out where I was.
I tucked the thought away.
“And so you showed up here and Meghan did what?”
Corrine’s top lip curled. “We went to a thrift shop. Can you even imagine it? Meghan in a thrift shop?”
“That’s where she found the clothes for the man’s disguise she wore on Thursday and the old-lady costume she was wearing when she was killed.”
“I told her it wouldn’t work.” I didn’t believe this for a moment since in as long as I’d known both of them, Corrine had never even dreamed of contradicting Meghan. Corrine knew that I knew—that would explain why her face flushed with color.
“Well, I didn’t exactly tell her it wouldn’t work. I just told her to be careful. I reminded her that you knew her well and—”
“So you did know Meghan was here to find me.” Big points for me, I did not poke an accusing finger in Corrine’s direction and shout Aha! “Why, Corrine? Why would she come all this way just to see me?”
“I don’t know.” Corrine could mewl with the best of them. “She never said. I never asked. No one ever asked Meghan to explain herself, no one but you. It’s one of the reasons she dumped you, you know.”
“I thought it was because Meghan assumed I’d leaked information about Spencer to the press.”
A small, satisfied smile tugged at the corners of Corrine’s mouth. “Yeah, that’s what she told everyone, but she’d been thinking about getting rid of you long before that bit about Spencer and his addiction showed up on all the cable channels. I knew all about what she was planning. Of course I knew all about it. I knew everything about everything Meghan did.”
“Then you know why she wanted to find me.”
“I didn’t say that. I said—”
“Gads, Corrine, you are so annoying!” The words popped out of me before I could stop them, and listening to them fall flat against the stuccoed ceiling, I realized they were true, and something I’d been wanting to say to Corrine since I’d met her.
“You never just answer a question, Corrine. You waffle and you shuffle and you dodge. You’re unorganized. You’re scatterbrained. You’re not good with people. Why on earth would a high-powered woman like Meghan even want you for a personal assistant in the first place?”
Corrine squared her scraggy shoulders and lifted her pointy chin. “Meghan and I went back a long way. We were friends. Back then . . .” A smile tickled the corners of her mouth. “People have always said that Meghan and I looked enough alike to be sisters.” Those people, I decided right then and there, needed glasses, but before I could point this out, Corrine went right on. “We treated each other like sisters, too. Then and now. We were friends, and real friends are loyal to each other.”
“Even when one of them isn’t very good at her job.”
“I’m not the one who got fired.”
I told myself I had a snappy comeback to this hurled insult, and actually might have found it if there wasn’t a tap on the door. I opened it and Declan stepped into the room.
“So . . .” He looked back and forth from Corrine, who was breathing hard over by the window, to me, and since I could feel the heat in my cheeks I’m sure he knew something was up.
“The police are on their way,” he said because he’s a smart guy and he knew there was no use asking what was going on. Hey, he has sisters. He knows better than to get between women who are fighting. “They asked us to stay here and wait with you, Corrine.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She huffed to the chair and plunked herself down on it. “There’s nothing I can tell them, just like there’s nothing I can tell you. I came here because Meghan wanted me to. And when she went out Thursday night—”
“To trash my house.”
“Did she?”
Was that a sparkle of amusement I saw in Corrine’s dark eyes? Since I didn’t want to go another round with her, I ignored it.
“I have no idea where she went or what she did while she was there.” Unconcerned, she melted into the chair and let her head rest against the back of it. “The same thing happened Friday when she went out again, and I knew better than to ask what she was up to. Maybe . . .” The thought hit, and just like that, Corrine bolted up, her bottom lip trembling. “Maybe if I asked some questions, maybe if I paid more attention to what was going on, Meghan would still be alive.”
* * *
• • •
“LAUREL, I JUST got a call from the station. There’s someone over there and I’d like you to stop by and talk to him.”
Since we’d just left Gus at the Holiday Inn with Corrine, I was surprised to hear his voice on the other end of the phone as we drove back to Hubbard.
Instead of having a chance to ask him if he’d gotten any more out of Corrine than we had, all I could say was, “Who?”
“You’ll see.” The sound of Gus chuckling is reminiscent of chains dragging across a metal sewer grate and always takes me aback. “Just stop in there, all right? It’s practically on your way home.”
It was, and we were there in only a few minutes and ushered right into Gus’s office, where a muscular guy in his forties with a pencil-thin mustache, a bald head, and a sparkling diamond stud in his left earlobe was waiting.
“Jason Fielding.” The man stuck out a hand. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to finally get to meet you in person.”
“Meet . . . me?” Just to be sure, I poked my thumb at my own chest. “I don’t get it.”
One of Gus’s fellow detectives had been waiting in the room with Fielding, and now he stepped back to allow me to take the guest chair in front of Gus’s utilitarian gray metal desk. Fielding perched himself on the edge of Gus’s desk.
“I feel like we’re practically best friends,” he said. “After all, I’ve been looking for you for just about a year.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. When they did, they landed in my stomach with a thud. “You’ve been looking for me! Because—”
Fielding threw back his head and laughed. “Because Ms. Cohan paid me to, of course.” He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a wallet, and took out two business cards. One he gave to Declan, the other to me. “I’m a private investigator.”
I could see that. Fielding Investigations had an address in Brentwood, a tony LA suburb.
I eyed up Fielding. His ear stud winked at me.
“Why?” I asked.
When he shrugged his shoulders his black cashmere sweater pulled across his chest. “I don’t ask questions. I do what my clients want me to do. I provide results. I get paid. Only you . . .” His smile told me that while the search may have been frustrating, he appreciated the challenge. “You made it tough for me.”
“I wasn’t exactly living under an assumed name. Or under a rock.”
“No, you were not. And that’s what had me all confused. See, when Ms. Cohan asked me to take the case, she told me you were a high-end sort of chef.”
“Which she is.” Declan stood behind me and he put a hand on my shoulder. “Laurel is the best.”
“Which is why I never thought I’d find you in a town like this.” As bemused now as he must have been when he discovered the truth, Fielding grinned. “It was very clever of you.”
“I wasn’t trying to be clever. I was trying to make a living.”
“Well, whatever you were trying to do, you did it well.”
“Then how did you find Laurel?” Declan asked.
“Ah!” Fielding wagged a finger at me. “I don’t think I would have except that it looks like you just inherited some property.”
“Yes, Pacifique.”
“Well, the property records led me to your door, so to speak.”
“And you told Meghan where I was.”
He pursed his lips. “No crime in that.”
“No one is saying there is,” Declan said before I could. But before he could ask the questions burning in me, I beat him to them.
“You told her last Wednesday.” Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a question, but it was a way to worm my way to what I hoped would be useful information.
“I did.” Fielding nodded.
“And she showed up here in Hubbard.”
“I hear she broke into your house. I just want you to know, Ms. Inwood, I did not help, and I do not condone that sort of behavior. I do everything by the book. Strictly by the book.”
“Did she tell you why she was looking for me?”
“It’s not my business to ask.”
“But you did know she was here.”
His eyes narrowed, Fielding gave me a careful look. “You’re not saying I might have been involved in Ms. Cohan’s murder, are you?”
“I’m saying you seem to be one of the only people who knew she was here in Hubbard.”
“Only I wasn’t.” He pushed off from the desk. “Here in Hubbard, that is. I came into town last week to verify your real estate transaction. I checked out that restaurant where you work to make sure it was really you and just to be sure, I sent Ms. Cohan some pictures.”
“You’ve been following me around? Taking pictures?” The thought made my stomach swoop. So did the cold realization that I’d never known I was being tailed.
“Not to worry,” he assured me. “It’s all strictly professional and it was only to make sure you were who I thought you were. Ms. Cohan, once she saw the pictures, she said it was you, all right.”
“And then she came here.”
“Well, obviously, since this is where she died. Only I didn’t know that. You see, I called her last Wednesday and gave her the news, and then I left here and drove to Cleveland. I’ve got relatives there and I’ve been with them ever since. So if you’re thinking I might have had something to do with Ms. Cohan’s death . . . well . . .” He sauntered to the door. “Sorry to disappoint you, folks. I may have been following you, but I sure didn’t kill anybody, and I’ve got the alibi to prove it.”
Chapter 7
Just as we were getting ready to leave the police station, I got another call from Gus. This time he said he was on his way over to the county coroner’s office in Youngstown and he asked us to meet him there. By the time we arrived at the nondescript brick building, Gus was just getting out of his car. He had Corrine Kellogg with him.
Corrine’s usually ruddy cheeks were ashy. The moment she spotted me, she rushed over and grabbed my arm with both her hands. “They want me to identify the . . .” She gulped and looked at the building as if it were a snake, reared back and ready to strike.
“Meghan is here.” Corrine sniffled. “They want me to identify the body.”
“It’s just a formality,” I assured her. “You were the one who last saw Meghan alive so you—”
“But you did, didn’t you? Friday night at the restaurant?”
Had I mentioned that to Corrine? I wasn’t sure, and not being sure always has a way of making me suspicious of the facts I’m being fed.
“She called you,” I said, and I knew I was right when Corrine’s blubbering stopped. “You said you had no idea where Meghan went when she left the hotel Thursday and Friday evenings. But then how did you know she spoke to me at the Terminal on Friday? You wouldn’t know, not if she didn’t call you and tell you she’d seen me and talked to me.”
Her bottom lip jutted out. “She . . . she didn’t. You told me.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Well, you must have.” She threw her hands in the air and turned on her heels to follow Gus into the building.
“You’re coming, too, right?” Gus asked me and Declan.
I wasn’t planning on it, but Declan and I exchanged looks and followed along.
The coroner was expecting us.
Then again, so were the two dozen reporters camped out in the lobby.
“Detective Oberlin!” A man I recognized from the evening network news stuck a microphone in Gus’s face. “What can you tell us about the latest developments in the case?”
“No comment.” Since Gus’s reply accompanied a snarl of epic proportions, the reporter gave up without a fight. He scanned the rest of our little group. Declan and Corrine—lucky folks that they were—were strangers to the media.
Me, not so much.
If I needed any more proof that my name had been mentioned in the media circus and someone had come up with a picture of me to go with it, I found it when the guy pretty much drooled the moment he caught sight of me.
“Ms. Inwood!” He swung the microphone around at the same time he darted in front of me, blocking my progress. “We’ve been told that you found the body, and our viewers know you knew the victim better than most. It must have been a terrible shock to see Meghan dead.”
“No comment.” Big points for me since I managed to say this pretty clearly even though my teeth were clenched.
I kept walking and the reporter had no choice but to fall back. Believe me, I knew it had nothing to do with my not-so-intimidating presence; Declan stepped right in front of me, and he moved through the crowd like he did everything else, no messing around. One look at the fire in those incredible gray eyes of his and the crowd parted in front of him and we pushed our way through a set of double doors.
The sheriff’s deputy who stepped up behind us made sure those reporters didn’t get any farther.
By this time, Corrine wasn’t just sniffling, she was outright sobbing. She pressed a hand to her heart. “I don’t think I can do this!” she wailed.
“Oh, come on, Corrine. Don’t let those jackals out there get to you. You’r
e used to paparazzi.” Yeah, I know, Corrine is the last person I should have felt sorry for, but there was something about the sheer terror in her eyes that tugged at my heartstrings. “Just handle them the way Gus and I did.”
She swallowed hard. “The reporters . . . they ask so many questions . . . and when they find out I was the one who identified Meghan’s body . . .” She stared at the door to our right, the one marked MORGUE. “You have to come with me, Laurel.”
“I don’t know if Gus wants me to—”
“It’s fine.” Gus opened the door and stepped back so Corrine and I could go inside. “If it helps Ms. Kellogg relax so she can make the identification, yeah, you can go right ahead.”
We were done in a matter of minutes. But then, it didn’t take long for Corrine to take one look at the body laid out on a metal slab and dissolve into tears. The heavy stage makeup had been removed from Meghan’s face and the wig she’d worn when last I saw her alive was long gone. There on the cold metal table, she looked like the glamorous star so familiar to millions of fans—the porcelain skin, the perfect jawline, the high cheekbones. She seemed to be asleep, and only the wound on her head from the force of a heavy object, said otherwise.
“Poor Meghan.” I grabbed Declan’s hand and squeezed it, grateful to have him to hold on to at a time like this. “She could be tough to deal with, but she sure didn’t deserve this.” I cleared away the sudden lump in my throat. “No one deserves to die like this.”
“Knocked unconscious and left to freeze.” The coroner replaced the white sheet that had been over Meghan’s face when we walked into the room. “That’s one nasty way to go. It takes someone with a cold, cold heart to commit a murder like this.”
Bad pun notwithstanding, I knew he was right.
I also knew that all the while we’d been in the room with Meghan’s body, Gus had been watching me carefully. I didn’t hold it against him; if I thought I was a murder suspect, I would have been watching me, too.