A Killer in the Rye

by Delia Rosen

  The place was on Seventh, between Broadway and Church. I smoked one of my “healthy” cigarettes on the way to chase away the jitters. I didn’t know why I felt them. I didn’t have a dog in this fight. If we got along, great. If she listened to me, fine. If she didn’t, okay. The worst thing that could happen was I’d waste some time and breath.

  No, I thought. The worst thing that can happen is she likes you and you don’t like her. You’ll feel obligated to see her now and then, harming yourself to keep from hurting her. Thanks, Dad. Damn you.

  As I walked, I heard a car horn toot to my left. I didn’t know if it was for me, but I looked over. It was Grant flying solo in his cop car. He pulled to the curb, rolled down the window, and asked if I wanted a lift somewhere.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “You want to get in, anyway?” he asked.

  I said sure. Because I was either a masochist or insane. Because Luke and Dani definitely were not.

  “What’s doing?” I asked.

  “Heading out to see Brenda Silvio,” he said.

  “Oh.”

  “The funeral is tomorrow, and she’s planning to leave town immediately after and stay with friends. I wanted to talk to her. This is my shot.”

  “What do you expect her to say?”

  He raised and lowered a shoulder. I didn’t know him well, but I knew that gesture.

  “You have something,” I said.

  “Just questions.”

  “What about?”

  “I can’t tell you,” he said.

  “Why?” I added angrily, before I could stop myself, “Because we’re not dating anymore?”

  He looked disappointed. “No, Gwen. Because I told you about the canine presence and you told a third party.”

  “Lydia?”

  He made an “uh-huh” face.

  “How did that come to your attention?”

  “She came to the station, asked to see me, wanted to know what it would take to put someone in protective custody.”

  “Who?”

  “Can’t tell you that, either,” Grant said.

  “Come on. She’s family. Almost.”

  He seemed puzzled. “How’s that?”

  I explained the connection. He listened without responding. Then he looked down the street. “You’re going to see your half sister,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. I was being bitchy but didn’t care. He accepted that.

  “Look, I just wanted to tell you that I assumed whatever I said to you was between us,” he said. “I would appreciate if you would respect that confidence going forward.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I hadn’t realized it was confidential.”

  “Why? Because I didn’t flag it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I expected better from you.”

  “I seem to be getting that reaction a lot lately.” I cracked the door. “We done?”

  “If you want to be.”

  I looked at him. “Are we still talking about the case?”

  “If you want to be.”

  I exhaled. The windows were fogging. He switched on the defroster. The hum had the effect of a vibrating bed inside my head. It shook my thoughts into a relaxed state.

  “I was upset when I left you that message,” he said.

  “I was upset when I got it,” I replied.

  “My work has always been important to me, Gwen. Not my job or my career, but my work. Keeping people safe, making Nashville a showplace.”

  “I know that,” I said. “I respect it.”

  “Well, then, understand that it was tough for me to shoulder that aside to make room for a potential relationship. No, I take that back. For an actual relationship. I like you a lot, we have—had—fun, and I felt you pulling away.”

  “I guess I just don’t have my feet under me yet down here. The deli takes time, I’ve got the past in my head like Scrooge’s ghost, and then we have Joe Silvio.” I took his hand. He didn’t flinch. That was a big thing, with him being on duty. “It’s a lot. I screw up when I try to juggle. I’ve never been very good at it. I dropped the ball on this. The Grant Daniels ball. You got bruised and rolled away. I understand. I don’t blame you.”

  “But are you upset?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I don’t mean about the relationship. I mean, do you miss me?”

  How to answer that. “I have missed you.”

  “As in a lot or as in a little?”

  “As in I would like to try again, if you would.”

  He smiled.

  “Would you have asked me that if you hadn’t happened to see me walking down the street?”

  “I would have,” he said. “I planned to stop by on the way back from Brenda’s to chat about the sanctity of whatever I mentioned, or mention going forward, in pil-lowless pillow talk.”

  “I got that message,” I said. “Loose lips sink investigations. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “I don’t think it did any harm,” he said. “She’s got other things on her mind.”

  “I know.”

  Grant looked at me. “Gwen.”

  That was an odd thing for him to say, especially as an entire sentence.

  “Yes, Grant?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “What kind?”

  “A potentially disastrous one,” he said.

  “Does it involve a second woman? Because I—”

  “Maybe later in the relationship,” he said.

  I was kidding. I hoped he was.

  “No, I was thinking that you should come with me.”

  Truthfully? That was a stranger idea than the other one. “Why?” I asked.

  “Because . . . And this is between us, right?”

  “My lesson has been learned.”

  “Jason McCoy has been making things miserable for me with the chief and with the union.”

  “How?”

  “He’s been saying crap like I shouldn’t be involved with this, because you and I have a relationship, that it should be turned over to another detective, who just happens to be a family friend, the man who brought him on the force—”

  “As if that wouldn’t be a conflict of interest. That’s lunatic!”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did you explain that that’s crap talk?”

  “I tried,” he said. “But we’re dealing with cover-your-butt bureaucrats. Officer McCoy has convinced the chief that he should be there with his sister to make sure that she doesn’t get treated badly, just because you and she had words.”

  “We had business words,” I said. “Those aren’t words. Those are negotiations.”

  “Gwen, you’re not in New York anymore. You say anything cross about any family member, and you’ve got Fort Sumter on your hands.”

  I guessed I should have realized that by now. Especially after Scott’s book report on the Hatfields and the McCoys.

  “They’re also afraid because the National is running its own operation,” Grant said.

  “What does that mean?” I had a feeling, and I didn’t like it.

  “The publisher, Robert Reid, wants to crack this one. According to some of my street sources, he’s got his staff crime reporter working with about a half dozen private investigators.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all. “Any of them women?” I asked.

  “Yeah, two. Why?”

  “Just curious,” I said. Because someone had watched me get my mani-pedi. Maybe it wasn’t Stacie after all. I wished I could wipe my left cheek. That prick Robert was going to get his, even if it cost me the Best in Nashville Award I deserved. “Why is he doing all this?”

  “My guess is ego. When his father ran the paper, it had a reputation for the three Cs: Courage, Clarity, and Crime Busting. Since he took over, it’s become known for soft news.”

  “Well, yeah. Family friendly, right?” I was praying hard in my head. I hoped it wasn’t showing.

  “Family friendly,
gay sensibility, I don’t know.”

  I almost gagged on my saliva. “Wait. Gay? Who’s gay? Robert Reid?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t know?”

  “No.” Oh, he was so going to die badly.

  “Well, so much for New York savvy. I thought you would have picked that up in the time it took you to slam and reslam your back door.”

  “No, I didn’t,” I sputtered. “I guess I’m still getting used to the difference between what is gentlemanly charm down here and what is gay.”

  Grant chuckled. “Didn’t you see Gone with the Wind?”

  “I did,” I said.

  “Rhett Butler?”

  “Yeah, but I always thought Ashley Wilkes was kinda gay.”

  He seemed pained.

  My mouth was saying kind and witty words, but my brain was boiling. That son of a bitch Robert had used me. He’d lied to my face, to my left cheek, to my chewing mouth so he could get close to me and find a way to use me for information. Or at least to make sure no one else got close for an exclusive. Yeah, he would’ve invited me back to his place—to interview me about what it was like when I found the body. The scumbag.

  Grant was suddenly very quiet. He flicked the wipers on and off to clear away the misty film. “So can your other business wait?” he asked.

  “To tell you the truth, it can and probably should,” I said. “My head’s not quite in that game right now.”

  He looked at me with a kind of intensity I’d never seen in him. It had been a long time since I’d had car sex, and then only once. We illegally, lustfully pulled over in Central Park during a snowstorm, on a date with an orthopedic surgeon. He was about twenty years older—I guess I was looking for a replacement for my sage, gray-haired NYU prof—and just as we were wrapping it up, he jerked funny and hurt his lower back. It was in the early days of cell phoning, and he had only a pager. I had to walk to Central Park West to call for an ambulance.

  Grant said, “So will you come with me to talk to Brenda?”

  It took me a moment to come back from snowy New York. “Sorry? Tell me why again?”

  Grant grew impatient. “Listen, Gwen. Reid with all his gumshoes and me with all my officers have come up with nothing so far. I need to know more about Joe, and the only ones who can tell me are his widow and his brother-in-law.”

  “Are they suspects?”

  “Not even unofficially,” Grant said. “Is this between us?”

  “No, I’m going to tell Reid.” I added as his expression darkened, “Kidding.”

  “Joe had a term life insurance policy that didn’t pay much, and the bakery was hers before they were married and is again, so there doesn’t appear to be any motive.”

  “Did you know that a guy named Stephen Hatfield wants to buy it?”

  “Rotten guy,” said Grant.

  “Well, they’re suing him for a variety of legal reasons.”

  Grant seemed impressed. “You’ve been doing some homework.”

  “I get around,” I said.

  “We know about that lawsuit, but Brenda and Joe were both on the same page there. No conflict. But what we just discussed is pretty much all we know about the two McCoys. The Internet is great for Lions Club archives, newspaper morgues, and finding old relatives and classmates, but it doesn’t tell you much about low-profile people with a privately held company.”

  “You’re thinking that with me there, it’ll be easier to open her up?”

  “Right. Jason McCoy’s been itching to talk to you. Why not let him? He won’t be able to watch after his sister and give you the third degree.”

  “Divide and conquer. Okay. But isn’t it a little tacky, right before the funeral and all?”

  “No reason you can’t come to the house to pay your respects.”

  “Except that Officer McCoy thinks I killed his brother-in-law.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Grant said. “He’s not even a good cop. He was grandfathered in—literally—because his uncle and grandfather were cops. His uncle’s former partner is his guardian angel.”

  “Is his family still on the force?”

  Grant shook his head. “His uncle started a private security firm about five, six years ago. More money in that. His grandfather is eighty-one and retired. Still does some PI work on the side.”

  The way he said that made me say, “Don’t tell me.”

  “Yep. He’s working for Reid. That’s how we got tipped off. He’s still sharp, but he tends to talk too much.”

  Grant tapped a Tic Tac from a container. He slipped the container back into his shirt pocket. I saw his gun in his shoulder holster. For some reason that turned me on. A man who cared about his breath and was equipped to protect me. I knew there was something primal that had appealed to me about this man.

  “The good news is, Jason will behave because of his sister and because mourners will be arriving about an hour after we do,” Grant said. “Hey, he never specified where and when he wants to talk to you. I’m just giving him what he wants.”

  A pawn in a game, I thought. The idea of being used by another Southern gentleman brought me down a little from my high. But he was right. I forced myself to focus on the game plan. “Shouldn’t we arrive separately?”

  “Frankly, it helps me if we don’t,” he said. “I can honestly tell the chief I thought the whole thing over and decided, yeah, my brother in blue deserves his shot.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “So I’m your little get-out-ofa-fix-free card, eh?”

  “Call it penance for dog saliva,” he replied.

  Okay . . . I deserve that, I thought. But it struck me as a perfect description of my life so far. I wasn’t the dog, I wasn’t the killer, and I wasn’t the dead man. Yet somehow, the bill still ended up on my plate. That wasn’t self-pity talking: I was a scrapper, not a wallower. It was a fact. Other people’s messes always seemed to find me—Phil’s mother issues, Dad’s wanderlust, my staff’s romances and spats, people dying while I’m trying to work, the guy I was hot for being gay. Maybe that was a way to bond with Stacie. Commiserating over people who left their trash on our psychological stoops.

  Grant was still holding my hand and gave it a little thank-you squeeze. It was worth whatever egg in the face this little undertaking would leave me with. It brought me back to the moment. For that moment, I felt content.

  He pulled from the curb, and less than two minutes later we were on 65, headed north.

  Chapter 16

  I’d always been fond of numbers. Maybe that was because so much of my life had never added up. Parents, dating, even friends growing up. I always picked the kids who were new on the block or were shunned by the cliques. The black girl, the girl with a Jewish mother and a Muslim father—talk about issues!—the deaf boy who liked rock concerts because he could feel the music through the floor. In math, I had control. There was only one right answer.

  In retrospect, thinking about how I tried to help those kids fit, remembering the single-minded zeal with which I tried to solve the Hopewell murder after he plopped into my gravy, I realized it was all to make the numbers work. There was a solution. I just had to find it.

  Like now. Only this one had more variables than the last, and none of them seemed to have much to do with the dead man. Sexual hookups among the dramatis personae? Had those in Stacie and Stephen, my dad and Lydia, Robert and not me. Motive? So far, nobody that hated Joe, but there were plenty of people who might’ve wanted to frame me, from the neo-Nazis who once targeted my uncle Murray to the owner of the Blue Elephant, who I knew was hurting and could certainly use the Best award. I didn’t know Singh very well. Scott had said he was dating his mother, but for all I knew, he also had eight kids and a mother-in-law. Murder could be both a mercantile tactic and an emotional release. My brain even reached so far as to wonder if Scott would kill to bring Lydia out of the woodwork and get me and Stacie together. Or Robert. Would he generate a gruesome homicide to show he had the chops to cover one?

  That’s wh
at I mean about variables and The L Word chart and numbers not seeming to tote up.

  Grant must have been considering a lot of the same things as we drove. Except for the occasional crackle of the police radio and the smooth mechanical voice of the GPS, we drove in complete silence. It wasn’t awkward, though. He was on duty. His brain was working. I was accustomed to that.

  We approached a quiet suburban street named Webster Drive.

  “There it is,” he said. “The one with the gated yard.”

  The house was the last one on a cul-de-sac. Nothing too fancy, nothing very expensive. It was a pretty brick house with flowers on the windowsill and a three-foot iron gate. There were small round solar lights lining the slate walkway.

  Grant pulled into the driveway and killed the ignition.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Surprisingly, yes.”

  “I won’t let him manhandle you.”

  “I won’t let him, either,” I said, my can-do feminist self-reliance meeting his cool macho head-on, like two stags on the plain.

  “Let’s do it,” he said, opening the door.

  We walked up, Grant in the lead. He punched the bell with a knuckle.

  Of course I heard a dog barking. Then another. Grant and I exchanged knowing looks, though he couldn’t have come across as many dogs as I had since this thing started.

  I heard the clack of approaching heels on hardwood floors and a woman shout, “Hitch, lay down! Macguffin, no!”

  The door opened a few feet, and the strong smell of cinnamon wafted out. A woman of about forty-five with long light brown hair, full bangs, big eyes, a round face, and a cute figure stood before us. She was about five-foot-two. Without the black stilettos she would barely top five feet. She was dressed in a black button-down blouse and a skirt.

  A cigarette hung from her lower lip. That would account for the rough voice I remembered.

  “Mrs. Silvio?” Grant asked.

  She nodded.

  “Detective Grant Daniels,” he said. “This is Gwen Katz.”