“It took that long because I forgot you,” I whispered.
I know I’m hard to like, and I’m sorry about that. I wish I could offer a reason for why I am the way I am, but even now, at my age, I still don’t know. I want to be different, I always have, and for a brief time, thanks to your grandfather, I was. I just wish I could figure out why I’m different with him so I can be like that with everyone.
I’m sorry for the length of this note. I didn’t intend for it to go on so long. I really just wanted to say, thank you. Thank you for being there for me and for Gertie this week.
Sincerely,
Martha (or Rapple, if you prefer)
I ran my tongue across the sudden dryness of my lips and slowly looked up at Andy. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“What?”
“This.” I shook the note. “This isn’t the Rapple any of us know.”
Andy’s mouth opened as if he was going to respond, but then closed a beat or two later.
“What?” I took one last look at the note and then tossed it onto my desk. “What were you going to say?”
He dropped his foot back to the ground with a labored exhale. “I think that’s the Rapple your grandfather knows.”
“So she’s good at turning on the charm when she wants to.”
“I think it’s more than that, Tobi. I really do.”
I searched my immediate surroundings for any sign of a camera or other recording device designed to tape my reaction to this bizarre conversation, but there was nothing. So instead, I yanked open my emergency snack drawer. I hated that I looked to sugar to get myself through difficult moments, but it’s how I rolled. A quick pass of the contents however, yielded nothing that jumped out at me as proper fortification for talk of Rapple. Instead, I closed the drawer, braced my elbows on my desk, and dropped my chin into my hands. “Okay, lay it on me.”
“I think she’s a different person around Stu because he lets her be a different person.”
“Huh?”
“Prior to Sunday, obviously, I’ve never heard you or anyone else talk too badly about Ms. Rapple when he’s around.”
“Because his presence makes all bitter pills easier to swallow. It’s just a fact.”
“Agreed. But that’s probably why he gave her a chance. And why she took it.”
For some strange reason, my face was getting warm, so I grabbed Rapple’s note and used it as a fan. “Can we talk about something else for a while?”
“Is this about whatever is bothering you?”
“Bothering me?”
He gestured toward my side of the desk and then hooked his thumb over his shoulder toward my door. “I heard what JoAnna said about you and not indulging in any candy out there… And you just did it again a minute ago with your emergency stash drawer.”
“Okay, so I’m distracted.”
“After everything you told me on the phone last night about Deidre’s viewing and her husband’s rope burns, and the apparent bad blood between Deidre and Cassie, I guess that’s understandable.”
I almost added in the part about my talk with Grandpa Stu, but I was still processing that. Instead, I merely nodded.
“So now what?” he asked.
“I called Cassie this morning right before my meeting with Gina.”
“And?”
“I asked her why the envelope she carried onto the stage Saturday night was different than all the rest. Why it didn’t have the same sparkles and trappings.”
He waited as I indulged in a sudden need to fold Rapple’s note, slip it back into the envelope, and stuff it into my backpack. When it was out of sight and thus, no longer distracting me, I continued. “Cassie said she didn’t know. That when she walked over to the table to get the final envelope, she noticed it was different. She asked a few backstage people if the correct envelope had been moved somewhere else, but she was told that was the spot. So she chalked it up to some sort of last minute change that didn’t allow for the normal glitz.”
“Interesting…”
“Someone wanted Deidre dead so badly they deliberately replaced the correct envelope—with Lexa’s name in it—with the plain one, containing Deidre’s.”
Andy stood, cupping his mouth briefly as he did. “So kill her in a restroom, or the parking lot, or wherever. Why go to such elaborate efforts in a place filled with witnesses?”
“Witnesses to her death,” I clarified.
“What are you saying?”
“Think about what you just said—about the elaborate efforts and the public forum. Doesn’t it seem as if a person who would go to that kind of effort in order to kill a person is after more than just the death itself?”
Intrigue propelled Andy around my desk until he was inches from my chair. “I’m listening.…”
“Deidre’s killer wanted to make sure her demise was”—I cast about for the right word to make my point—“seen—by colleagues and friends.”
“But why?”
Holding up my finger to buy myself a second, I opened the drawer just above the one that held my secret stash and pulled out the piece of paper I’d shoved inside upon Gina’s arrival. I unfolded it from the careless folding job I’d done, and smoothed it out across the top of my desk. “I called my grandfather after I got off the phone with Cassie to make sure I had them all. I’d forgotten mob contract, gang vengeance, and initiation, but I’m pretty sure we’re not looking at any of those in this case.”
Andy leaned around me to see my list, his breath, as he read each item aloud, both warm and comforting. “Hate crime, robbery, murder-for-hire, thrill killing, jealousy, crime of passion, obsession, revenge, greed, mob contract, gang vengeance, and initiation.”
I nodded.
“Why did you underline and star crime of passion?”
“Because I think our killer was super pissed off. How else can you explain the planning that went into Deidre’s death? Think about it Andy… The platform was rigged so it would drop when she stepped onto it with her award. Which would mean there would be a ballroom full of people there to watch her fall. A person who does that has to be angry, don’t you think?”
“Okay, yeah, that makes sense. But if you take that thought process out a step further, a few other things on your list could use a little starring and underlining, too.”
I knew where he was going and I was ready. Or as ready as I could be after a meeting that had required me to actually pay attention to my client… “So, operating on the assumption our killer was angry, the next step is figuring out why. Was it jealousy—like I suspect it was with Cassie as the killer?” I heard the pitch of my voice moving into excited now that I was getting to try out the theory that had started to form in my head as Gina was talking about lions, and tigers, and bears. “Killing her in front of everyone in our field would be the ultimate revenge, don’t you think?”
“You’ve got a point, that’s for sure. Although, the thought of it is pretty sick.”
He moved his finger to the fourth motive from the bottom. “But you can’t forget greed. Especially if there’s anything to what you told me on the phone last night before bed.”
“You mean with Deidre’s husband?”
“You said he had rope burns.”
“I did. Which is why, now that I think about it, my grandfather probably didn’t answer when you knocked this morning. He was probably all over the laptop I left him, trying to find out what he can about Todd Ryan.” I made a mental note to check in with him when Andy left and then moved on. “But even without knowing what, if anything, Grandpa Stu has unearthed, I just don’t see this guy staging such a public killing of his wife to get his hands on life insurance money. Why not do something quieter—like poison her morning tea, or take her hiking and push her off a cliff? Something with less witnesses, less chance of things going wrong in front of
a lot of people?”
Andy reached around me, opened my secret stash drawer, rooted around inside until he found a bag of pretzels held closed with a clip and, at my nod, helped himself to a small handful. “I guess I keep coming back to the rope burns if for no other reason than the timing, you know?”
I mulled his words as I watched him make short work of the pretzels. When he finished the first handful, I told him to take another as a new scenario began to play out in my head. “I still stand by the fact that the very manner in which Deidre was killed implies anger—a lot of anger. So, if I stick with that, the life insurance aspect makes even less sense. I don’t think greed spawns anger. Desperation, sure. But anger? Not so much.”
He perched on the edge of my desk so we were facing one another as he munched and I continued to hypothesize. “Soooo, if Todd is our killer, it has to be because of something that made him really, really angry. Like an affair.”
“Hmmm…”
“But I just don’t see Deidre as the affair-having type, I really don’t. Granted, I wouldn’t have guessed she was behind Bitch Pitch, but still, every time I did see her, and our personal lives came up, she literally gushed about her husband and her kids.”
“I’d say maybe she wasn’t the one having the affair, but that wouldn’t make any sense because—”
I ricocheted forward in my chair so fast I’m pretty sure the back legs left the floor. “Wait. Say that again!”
“Why? It doesn’t work with the whole intense anger thing and Deidre is the one who was killed, not her husband.…” Andy stopped eating. “Unless he was angry because she found out and she threatened to divorce him or something. But even if he were, he wasn’t in the advertising industry, was he? So how he’d have access to backstage and why he’d want to do it in front of those people doesn’t make—”
“Unless it wasn’t him at all, but, rather, the person he was having the affair with.” I grabbed a pretzel from his hand and worked at the salt with my teeth. “Maybe she is in the industry. Maybe she was the one who was angry because… I don’t know… Maybe Todd called it off, said he loved his wife more. Many a thriller has been born on the notion of a scorned mistress, right?”
“True. But Todd had the rope burns.”
And just like that, I placed the now salt-free pretzel back in Andy’s hand and flung myself against the back of my chair. “Crap. I forgot that part.”
He looked from the now salt-less pretzel to me and back again, and then, with a wink, stuck it in his mouth while I stewed. When he was done, he hooked his fingers underneath my chin and guided my gaze back to his. “Breathe, sweetheart. You’ll figure this out. I know you will.”
~Chapter Twenty-Three~
I was just starting to get into something resembling a productive flow when a soft tap at my office door brought it to a crashing halt.
Ugh.
Ugh.
Ugh.
Dropping my pencil onto my drafting table, I swiveled on the stool and waited for JoAnna to breeze in with a pink sticky note or a letter of some sort. But there was no breezing, and there was no JoAnna. Instead, my grandfather’s bald head appeared around the edge of my door.
“Got a minute, Sugar Lump?”
“Grandpa! Sure. Of course.” I slid off my stool and ventured over to the door. “Come in, come in.”
He stepped all the way in, gave me a quick hug that was still lacking its normal oomph, and then, as I was stepping back, pulled a wrapped deli sandwich from the pocket of his windbreaker and handed it to me.
“You brought me a sandwich?”
“JoAnna said you skipped lunch.”
“JoAnna talks too much.”
“I asked. She answered. I was passing the deli.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him my appetite was missing in action, so, instead, I leaned forward, planted a kiss on his weathered cheek, and then motioned him over to my desk. “Come, sit. We can share this.”
“No need.” He patted his opposite pocket and then pulled out another, slightly fatter wrapped package. “A ham and swiss for you, a Dagwood for me.”
“Perfect.” I looped around the side of my desk, plopped onto my chair, and made a show of unwrapping my sandwich even though I knew the likelihood I’d eat more than a bite or two was slim. “So, I came up with what I thought was a pretty solid motive for Deidre’s death starring Todd as the murderer, until, well, it didn’t exactly fit with the whole rope burn thing.”
“He’s a climber.”
I stopped fiddling with my wrapper to look at my grandfather. “What do you mean he’s a climber?”
“He’s a rock climber.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was doing research today, remember?”
“Right. Of course.” I broke off a corner of the bread and nibbled on a smidge of crust. “So I take it you came across something that said he’s a rock climber?”
“He’s won a few competitions across the country over the past few years.”
“So he’s proficient with ropes then?”
My grandfather wrapped his hands around his sandwich and took a big bite, his eyes rolling back in his head in pleasure. “He was at a competition the morning of the award show—not far from where I live out in Kansas City. From what I can figure by a news clipping I found online, he had just about enough time to get home and showered before heading back out with his wife for her big night.”
“Maybe he didn’t go.”
“He won both of his events, and he was in a few photographs.”
“But you didn’t go to the funeral so you can’t be sure it was even him, right?” I knew I was grasping at straws, but that was preferable to being back at square one.
“The photos had captions, Sugar Lump. And I remember seeing him at the award show.”
I felt my shoulders beginning to droop and didn’t bother to fight them. “And to think I was starting to warm to him as a possible suspect—”
“Tobes?”
Together, my grandfather and I looked toward the door and the sixteen-year-old peeking back at us through tired eyes. “Hey, kiddo, come in… How’d it go down at Callahan? Did you completely wow them?”
Sam pushed the door open enough to accommodate both him and his camera bag, set the latter down in a place it couldn’t possibly get stepped on, and then joined us at the desk, his gaze skirting our sandwiches a half second before his Adam’s apple rose and fell with a swallow.
“Have you eaten?” I asked.
Tiny pinpricks of pink appeared on his cheeks as he temporarily refocused his attention on me, rather than my sandwich. “They brought lunch for me. Thai, I think. Either way, it was good.”
“But you’re still hungry.”
He shrugged, but it lacked conviction.
“Course he’s hungry.” My grandfather reached across my desk, pilfered half of my sandwich, and handed it to the all too eager teenager. On a normal day, I would have protested, but since I’d done little more than eat a pea-sized piece of crust the whole time the sandwich had been within reach, it would’ve been silly. At least with Sam, I could rest easy knowing the pig hadn’t died in vain. “He’s a growing boy.”
“My mom says I eat enough for five boys.”
“I think she needs to up that assessment.” I winked first at Sam and then, dodging my grandfather’s eyes, surrendered the rest of my sandwich, as well. “So…tell us everything.”
And he did.
He told us the gist of the ad he’d been asked to shoot, the models he’d worked with and how impressed they’d been by his direction, the ideas they’d had for shots, and the way his suggestions for tweaks had been well received.
And he told us about the people he’d met, his face noticeably clouding as he did.
A look at my grandfather showed that he, too, had notic
ed the shift in Sam’s demeanor.
“Everything okay, young man?” my grandfather asked, setting what was left of his own sandwich back onto his wrapper and wiping his hands on the soft brown paper napkin he’d stowed inside his pocket along with his sandwich. “You look…troubled.”
Sam swiped the back of his hand across his mouth and sank into the second of the two client chairs I kept in front of my desk. “I think I finally really got why my mom is the way she is with guys.”
I traded glances with my grandfather over the unexpected change in topic and, at his nod, I took point. “Did something happen with Drew? Because I thought that was going okay.”
“It is. But I know she’s afraid of getting hurt. And until today, I never really got how hard it must’ve been.”
Yep, it was official. I was completely and utterly lost.
I considered feigning understanding until I could actually catch up, but that took more energy than I had in my tank at that moment. Instead, I went straight for the most obvious question.
“How hard what must have been?”
“My dad cheating on her. Especially once I was in the picture, you know?”
I did know. About the cheating part, anyway. But it was the bigger picture relevant to the here and now that I didn’t get, especially on a day when he’d just realized yet another professional dream at an age most of his peers were simply focused on grades and crushes.
“Did you get a call from your dad or something today?” I noted the way he clenched and unclenched his hands atop my desk and made a note to call Mary Fran the second he was gone. “Is that why you’re bringing him up?”
Sam exhaled into his clenched fist, puffing out his cheeks in the process. “No. Christmas doesn’t come around for another seven and a half months, so it’ll be that long before he calls again.”
I could feel my grandfather stiffen with disgust and rushed to head him off before he gave it words. “Okay, so do you want to tell us where this came from then? This stuff about understanding your mom better now?”
Since Sam’s hands were now below the sightline afforded by my desk, I had to rely on other visual clues to know he was fidgeting—movement in his elbows, a few restless glances at his lap, and, finally, a rise back onto his feet that kicked off what quickly revealed itself as aimless pacing. “He has two of them. One is maybe four, and the other is really little…like not even walking yet. I played with them both for a little while when their mom brought them out to watch. And”—he turned when he reached the window overlooking the alley and then headed back in our general direction—“they’re really cute, Tobes. Really cute. And she was super nice. Pretty, too…for a mom.”
And Death Goes to . . . Page 21