“What in the world do you think…?” The words stuck in my throat as my eyes took in the empty room. Rob was not here. The kitchen was immaculate. The white Formica counters were spotless. The butcher-block island was clean of everything except the knife block, and that’s when I noticed the empty slot. One of my knives was missing. My Chroma.
Had he taken my favorite knife? The bastard. That knife had cost over two hundred dollars, which he, of course, had thought was ridiculous. I’d explained to him that a good knife was the essential chef’s tool. “Like a surgeon’s scalpel.”
“Hardly the same thing,” he’d said quietly, clearly not appreciating a chef being compared to a surgeon, even indirectly.
I decided to deal with his suitcase in the morning, and get him to bring back my Chroma at the same time. By now I was aching all over, and all I wanted was to climb into bed.
“Okay, Jackie. Time for pee-pee.” In the mudroom, I picked up the unsoiled wee-wee pad. “Good girl. You didn’t even go on your pad.” Rob must have let her out before leaving. That was nice of him. I realized I missed him, then jolted the feeling away. What the heck was wrong with me? My emotions were whipping around like a dingy in a category-five hurricane.
I unlatched the doggie door, and Jackie was out like a shot. I listened to her yipping while she ran back and forth in my postage-stamp-sized backyard.
I waited. That was odd. Normally, Jackie was back in under ten seconds, just as long as it took her little bladder to empty.
I opened the door. “Jackie.” Even on a warm June night like this she never stayed out longer than necessary. Jackie Chan was not the outdoor type.
“Jackie,” I called out again, then heard her whimper. I fumbled in the dark for the light switch and flipped it on. Brightness inundated the yard, momentarily blinding me. When my eyes adjusted, it was to a scene out of a nightmare, and for a few seconds I thought I was imagining things.
There, at the bottom of the steps, was Rob. He was lying on his back, his eyes open and staring blankly up at me. On his chest was a large dark stain much like a bull’s-eye, and sticking out of the middle of it was my Chroma.
i’ve heard a lot of stories in my time
This was a joke, right? Some kind of sick joke? Rob’s idea of getting even. He was punishing me for ordering him to move out. He couldn’t be…could he?
“Rob,” I called out faintly. He didn’t move.
“This isn’t funny, Rob. Stop it right now.” He didn’t as much as flicker an eyelid. With my heart thudding wildly, I walked down the steps. He was so pale. Oh God, blood.
“Rob,” I whispered, bringing my hand to his face, and immediately jerked away as if I’d been stung. His skin was cool.
What was I supposed to do? Check his pulse. But I couldn’t bring myself to touch him again. I picked up Jackie and ran back in, too shocked to think clearly. I put her down and just made it to the kitchen, and threw up all over my floor. I was gasping, trying to catch my breath and slow my heart. The phone—I had to call 911. I raced throughout the house, hunting for the stupid phone. But this time the phone was in its cradle—the last place in the world I would ever have expected it to be.
I tried to punch in 911, but my hands were shaking so much that I managed to drop the receiver twice before completing the call. When the emergency operator answered, I fell apart.
“Are you hurt?”
“It’s…not…me. It’s…” My words came out in strangled sobs.
“Take a deep breath. I need you to keep calm and speak slowly. I have you on my screen as calling from 215 Shaw Street. Is that correct?”
My throat clenched shut, and I could barely get a word out. “Yes.”
“What is the emergency? Do you need the police, fire department or ambulance?”
Between snuffles, I managed to answer. “I don’t know, but I think he’s dead. Murdered.”
“Don’t move, ma’am. I have the police on their way.”
I hung up, my heart still pounding, then picked up the phone again and pressed a speed-dial button.
“Toni,” I wailed. “He’s dead. Rob is dead.”
“What?”
“Rob. He’s dead. Lying there. My knife, his chest…” Everything was coming out in a jumble. “The police are on their way.”
“Nicky, what have you done?”
“Not me!” Her assumption jolted me. “I didn’t kill him. He was dead when I found him.”
“Call me back the minute the cops leave. In the meantime I’ll call Steven,” she said.
Toni thought I’d killed him? If my best friend thought I’d killed him, what would the police think? I couldn’t handle that. I picked up Jackie and paced up and down the length of the hallway, never venturing near the back of the house. That was when I clued in that Rob’s things were still here. The ugly African sculpture he’d insisted on displaying in the living room, his collection of tribal masks on the wall, all those annoying things that clashed with my lovely décor. Now it broke my heart to look at them. My stomach churned again and I sprinted upstairs, barely making it to the toilet.
I was in the kitchen, on my hands and knees, starting to wash the floor when I heard the wail of a siren from up the street. The red light of a police cruiser swept across the wall.
I held Jackie in my arms as I opened the door. The first officer, a thin graying man with the face of a weasel, introduced himself.
“I’m Police Constable Crawford.” He jutted his inadequate chin toward his partner, a tall beefy man with a nose the color and texture of blood oranges. “This is my partner, Constable Sanders.”
I didn’t trust my voice yet so I just nodded.
The officer continued, looking over my shoulder, “Is there anybody else in the house with you?”
I shook my head.
He looked down at Jackie. “Your guard dog,” he said as he ruffled the top of her head. Jackie made a lunge for his fingers and snapped. “Whoa! Nasty little critter, ain’t he?”
Jackie was not the friendliest dog, but never in her entire life had she tried to bite someone. I wanted to apologize for her but words wouldn’t pass through my throat.
“You called to report a murder, ma’am?”
My voice came out at last, in a strangled squeak. “A murder, I think.”
Two steps behind Crawford, Sanders spotted Rob’s suitcase against the wall. His eyes narrowed.
“Are you planning to go somewhere, ma’am?” he asked.
“No, that’s Rob’s suitcase.” They both looked at me blankly. “My boyfriend…the victim,” I explained. “He’s in the yard.” Without waiting for me to lead, they stormed off and stopped before the half-cleaned puddle of vomit.
“I’m sorry. I got sick after…” I pointed toward the back.
They nodded, stone-faced, and stepped over the mess. Crawford pushed open the back door open and jogged down the steps. Through the window, I watched as he bent over, picked up Rob’s wrist and stood still. He turned to Sanders, still standing beside me, and shook his head. I understood the meaning as clearly as if he’d shouted it. Something inside me broke.
Images of Rob laughing, Rob sleeping, Rob making love to me, flashed through my mind. A few hours ago, I’d imagined spending my life with this man. Now…most of me had already known he was dead, but I’d hoped the police would tell me otherwise. I stared at my Chroma glimmering in the sunrise, and I got it. This was a nightmare I would never awaken from. Rob really was dead.
The room began to spin.
“Careful there,” Sanders said, steadying me. “You okay?”
The wooziness passed, and I nodded. “I’m all right.”
He turned away and spoke into his cell phone. “Oh yeah, he’s a goner all right. Yep, it’s murder. The knife is sticking out of his chest.” He listened. “She’s right here.” He glanced at me, scrutinizing me as he spoke, his eyes unreadable. “She’s pretty upset but I think she can give us a preliminary statement.” At last, he hung up. “The coroner’s on his
way, ma’am. In the meantime is there some place we can talk?”
Crawford hurried up the steps. “I’ll do the interview. You wait for the medical examiner.”
My heart did another little dip. Crawford didn’t look nearly as sympathetic as Sanders.
On my way through the kitchen I grabbed a handful of tissues and continued down the hall. Clenching the tissues in my hand, I motioned for Crawford to sit.
I pulled a chair and flashed to the image of myself ordering Rob out of my life. Guilt flooded over me. If only I hadn’t stayed behind at the restaurant. If only I’d gone home with him, Rob might still be alive. What if this was my fault?
Crawford was speaking to me, I realized. “What…?”
“I said, I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. It won’t take long.”
I nodded and settled Jackie on my lap.
“Can you give me your name, please?”
“Nicky. Nicole Landry.” I spelled it for him.
He jotted it down. “You don’t mind if I call you Nicky, do you?”
“I don’t mind,” I lied.
He looked up from his notebook. “And the name of the victim?”
“Rob. Robert Grant.” Speaking his name was painful.
He scribbled fast. “Who was his closest relative?”
“Rob’s mother. I’ll have to tell her.” She’d be devastated.
Crawford shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. We’ll contact her.”
I gulped, relieved, and gave him Mrs. Grant’s address and phone number. The trickle of questions continued—my age, where I worked, how long I’d known Rob.
Crawford’s furtive eyes were on me. “Did you touch anything when you got home?”
“I live here. I touch everything all the time.”
“I need to know where your fingerprints might have covered somebody else’s,” he explained.
“I picked up Rob’s suitcase,” I said, trying to remember all of my movements since I’d walked in. “I touched the knobs to both the front and back doors, the light switches.” Was there anything else? “Oh, I almost forgot, the knife block.”
“The knife block?” he looked at me questioningly.
“The wooden block where I store my knives. I touched it when I noticed that my Chroma was missing. Oh, and the telephone.”
“What’s a Chroma?”
“A chef’s knife. The one that…that…” I gestured toward the back.
“The murder weapon belongs to you?”
“I think so. Yes.”
His eyebrows shot up and he jotted something in his notepad. “And the victim lived with you?”
I shook my head. “Not officially. He lives, er, lived in an apartment over his mother’s garage. But he kept some clothes and things here.”
“I see. Why don’t you tell me what happened. Start with when you got up yesterday.”
Yesterday? What day are we? I began tentatively. “Let’s see. I was giving a dinner party…for Rob.” From there, I tried to fill the details. How I’d walked to work, the time the guests had arrived and how I’d stayed behind after the party to clean up the kitchen. Everything, that is, except the embarrassing details—that I’d expected him to propose, the scene in the restroom and my confrontation with him later.
Crawford’s probing was as casual as a game of patty-cake, lulling me to drop my guard. Slowly his questions became more aggressive, until I was walking a minefield.
He stared at me, his eyes narrow slits. “So let me get this straight. The victim was your boyfriend, correct?” I nodded. “You threw the guy a big party and he had a suitcase packed up the same night?” He smirked and leaned in. “What are you not telling me?”
That was all the prodding I needed. “I found out he was cheating on me,” I whined, feeling ill again. And the entire story came tumbling out—the brunette in the washroom and my argument with Rob later. As I came to the part about finding Rob’s body, I noticed that Crawford’s ferret eyes were now gleaming with excitement.
“Anybody can understand how you lost control, Nicky,” he said, his voice saccharine. “I mean, there you were, throwing the guy a big party. That had to cost you a pretty penny.” He put down his pencil and leaned back in his chair, still watching me slyly. “Then you find out the guy was cheating on you? I think if I was you, I’d have wanted the guy dead, too.”
“I didn’t kill him,” I exclaimed, aghast. “Wanting someone out of your life and wanting them dead are very different.”
“Come on, Nicky.”
I cringed every time he used my name.
“You just admitted that the two of you argued and that you ordered him to leave. So what happened after that? He was still here when you came home, right? Then what?” He leaned forward and I was assaulted by the stale odor of cigarettes. “You had a few more drinks and lost control?”
“No, no it wasn’t like that. My business partner came by the restaurant after Rob left. We had a few drinks and talked. I fell asleep at some point and when I woke up, she was gone. I only got home—” I glanced at my watch, “—thirty minutes ago.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s your friend’s name and number?” He took down the information. “At what time did this Toni leave the restaurant?”
“I don’t know exactly,” I shrugged. “Sometime after two-thirty this morning. I was asleep when she left.”
Crawford nodded at me for along moment, and for the first time since the interrogating got heavy, I began to relax. Then the blow came. “I’m no fool, Nicky. I’ve heard a lot of stories in my time, but yours…” He sneered. “If this is your idea of an alibi, it’s pretty weak.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said, panicked. “I told you the truth.”
Crawford completely ignored that and smiled smugly. “Then there’s the part about the murder weapon. Let me see if I got this straight. You admit the knife that killed him belongs to you. You admit you found out he was cheating on you, and you also admit that you and he had an argument just a few hours ago. Unless there’s somebody out there with a better reason to kill him…”
“I don’t know,” I replied plaintively. “Rob was a doctor. He saved lives. Who would ever want to hurt him?”
He studied me with his penetrating eyes. “I rest my case.” Before I could refute that, the doorbell rang. “That’s the coroner.” He stood. “You stay put. I’ll be right back.”
“Coroner?” My heart skipped a beat. I had a sudden image of Rob being zipped up in a black body bag.
not a word without
your lawyer present
Judging by the footsteps, the house must have been swarming with police.
“You know what I think happened, Nicky?” Crawford leaned in, sniffing at me the way Jackie Chan sometimes did. “I think you had a few too many at the party.”
Shit. Why had I drunk so many martinis last night? I brought a hand to my mouth and sniffed my breath. I smelled like a distillery, and now he thought I’d killed Rob in a drunken rage.
“It wasn’t like that,” I argued. “I was feeling sorry for myself and had a few drinks with my girlfriend. My boyfriend and I had just broken up.”
“Right.” He nodded. His derisive smile showed me he was imagining an entirely different scenario. “Sometimes, when we ‘feel sorry for ourselves,’” he mimicked me, “we do stupid things. Under the circumstances, Nicky, I think I might have gone crazy and stuck a knife into his chest myself.”
Suddenly, footsteps marched down the hall again. The front door opened and closed, followed by the sound of car motors starting.
Sanders popped his head in the door. “They have everything they need until the forensic team arrives. The police photographer just left, and the coroner’s packing up.”
I glanced out the window just in time to see the body bag being carried down the steps. The man I’d hoped to marry was inside that bag. My throat tightened. In my lap, Jackie whimpered. Now that my tears had dried, my nose was running like a faucet and
I was out of tissues. Sanders left the room and reappeared a moment later with the box. He handed it to me. His small sympathetic gesture made me feel excessively grateful.
“Thank you.” I blew my nose while Crawford drummed his fingers on the table.
“You’ll have to come down to headquarters for the official statement.” He stood. “Is that what you were wearing when you found the body?”
I nodded and looked down at Jackie. I could swear she was concerned for me. She rested a paw on my arm, and I noticed the blood.
“Oh no, she’s got blood all over her. Are you hurt, baby?” I tried to determine where she was injured. To my relief and confusion, I couldn’t find a wound. “She must have stepped on Rob.” Then I saw the smudges of blood on my mango sweater.
“You’ll have to give me your clothes.” Crawford’s eyes were expressionless. He looked down at my feet. “And the shoes,” he added. As I left the room to change, I overheard him whisper to Sanders, “Guaranteed she did it.” I glanced back. He was brandishing his notebook. “This one’s a slam dunk.”
That’s when the extent of my stupidity hit me. Anybody who watched TV cop shows should know the rules: Don’t say a word until you speak to your lawyer, keep your mouth shut, and don’t divulge any information. Son of a bitch. Too many martinis, a mostly sleepless night and the shock of finding Rob had dulled my common sense. Now this moron was convinced I was the killer and, with Rob’s blood all over my clothes, he had enough to arrest me.
I didn’t want to get arrested. My mind reeled as I hurried upstairs. The moment I was in my bedroom, I punched in Toni’s number. She picked up on the first ring.
“Damn it, Nicky. What took you so long to call back?” Without waiting for me to speak, she continued, “Are you all right?”
“The police think I killed him. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me, considering that’s what you thought too,” I said reproachfully. “What time did you leave last night? The last thing I remember is you serving me another martini.”
“I was there until a few minutes after four. You were sound asleep when I left. Snoring, in fact. I’ve already called Steven. He may have been a lousy husband, but when it comes to criminal law, he’s the best. He’s on his way to your place now. Wait for him.”
Getting Skinny (A Chef Landry Mystery) Page 6