Never Con a Corgi (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series)

by Edie Claire

  It looked like it had worked.

  "Sure, then," Leigh answered. "You guys run along and eat. But don't forget to help clean up the mess afterwards—"

  The children were already gone.

  Leigh stood silently as her cousin approached. No sooner had the throng of children run past her than Cara's fake smile morphed into an anxious grimace. "I cannot believe this," she proclaimed, patches of red now inflaming the cheeks of her ordinarily peaches-and-cream complexion. "I just can't. It's so unfair!"

  Leigh reserved comment. She could interpret the statement as sympathy for Brandon Lyle, but she knew better. Although her cousin was a kind, tolerant, and good-hearted soul who wouldn't ordinarily squash a fruit fly, when anyone or anything threatened one of her brood, the woman was downright scary.

  "That man!" Cara continued, "has been nothing but trouble for Gil since the day they met. And now... this!"

  Leigh reached down and released Chewie from his lead, against which he was straining in a vain effort to follow the children. Given the dog's proclivity for treating cars (and trucks, and motorcycles, and armed bandits) as friends, he was limited to his own yard by an electronic fence. But he nevertheless dashed off as soon as he was freed, determined to keep vigil as close to the property line as possible.

  "I'm sure it won't be a problem," Leigh lied. "People saw Brandon leaving the church after the fight. Someone must have seen Gil leave too, right?"

  Cara pushed a lock of her still long, still strawberry-blond hair over one shoulder. Leigh's always prettier cousin, who was two years younger, had somehow managed to emerge from their decade of mutual motherhood looking a full ten years younger. Fortunately, since they had grown up next door to each other feeling more like sisters than cousins, Leigh loved her enough to get over it.

  Mostly.

  "Of course he left the church," Cara responded, her voice cracking a bit. "But he didn't come home. At least not right away. He was really angry—he didn't want the kids to see him that way. So he drove to North Park and walked it off. He didn't get back here until around ten, and I have no idea when Brandon— Well, when it happened, but..." Her voice wavered; her beautiful blue-green eyes grew misty. "Leigh, what if no one saw Gil at the park?"

  Leigh's own stomach gave a flutter of panic, but she stifled it by gathering her cousin up in a hug. Her own bad luck in matters of police record was epic; but there was no reason to fear it had rubbed off on Gil. The man practically had Lady Luck grafted on his shoulder. He was blond, hazel-eyed, tall, gorgeous, and a self-made millionaire; and he was married to Cara and had two wonderful children. He might not have the sense of humor God gave a vacuum bag, but no one else seemed to notice that.

  "They're not going to find any evidence against Gil," Leigh assured. "Someone else murdered Brandon, and that's who the evidence is going to point to. Maura and the other detectives know their stuff. Don't worry."

  Cara drew back and smiled slightly, her eyes a mixed bag of gratitude and sympathy. The topic of false arrest was a touchy one in present company.

  "Come and sit down a minute," Leigh urged, leading Cara over to her patio, where they settled on a gliding loveseat offering a good view of the family's conjoined yards. "The Pack will be gorging themselves for a good half hour, at least."

  Cara complied, and Chewie, seeing an opportunity for immediate attention, promptly returned and hopped up into her lap. Cara stroked his tawny fur absently, her mind far away.

  Leigh studied her expression. "I know it doesn't look good that Gil and Brandon had that fight," she said carefully. "But I'm getting the idea that there's something else, here. Am I right?"

  Cara's eyes began to mist again, and she swiped at them with the back of her hand. "There is," she said miserably. "Nothing real. Nothing that would ever make Gil hate Brandon enough to hurt him—Gil could never hate anybody like that. But I'm worried, Leigh. Because if the detectives start digging back into their ancient history together... well... it's complicated."

  Leigh cast a glance toward her cousin's house. "Did you let The Pack into the marshmallows and the ice cream toppings?"

  Cara nodded guiltily.

  "Then we have time," Leigh responded. "So talk. When Gil first sent Brandon to Hook, he told me they went to college together. Brandon made it sound like they were old chums, but frankly, I didn't get that from Gil. He didn't even seem to like the guy."

  "Couldn't stand him," Cara confirmed. "Never could."

  Leigh started to ask, "So why did he work for him?" but bit off the question. She already knew the answer: the same reason she worked for him. It was business, and business paid the bills. Refusing to deal with criminals was one thing, but if you started turning clients away just because they were arrogant jerkwads, you'd best prepare to starve.

  "They met when they were fraternity brothers at Bucknell," Cara explained. "Brandon was one of those guys who was born with money and figured all he had to do to get more of it was snap his fingers. He wasn't stupid, but he was reckless and overbearing and just generally obnoxious. After college, several of the guys ended up in Philadelphia, where Gil was in grad school, and they pulled in some others and shared a house together. Gil hardly ever saw Brandon or the others he knew, but the rent was cheap and he was buried in student loans, so it worked out. But then..."

  Cara's voice trailed off. She pulled a perfectly manicured nail to her perfectly shaped, rosy mouth and proceeded to nibble.

  Leigh's eyed widened. Her cousin didn't nibble for nothing.

  "Cara," she said with concern, "what happened?"

  Cara gave her head a shake, as if to break an unwelcome reverie. "Once Gil got his MBA, he left Philadelphia. He didn't have any real contact with Brandon for over a decade, except for running into him at reunions. But apparently, several years ago, Brandon inherited a huge pile of money from his father. He tried to start up some retail venture with it, but he failed miserably. So when he decided to try again with real estate development, he looked up Gil, whom he knew was a business whiz. Once Gil set him up with the right people, Brandon finally started making some money for himself. But being the reckless oaf that he was, he eventually got greedy and started taking on too much risk. When he went ahead with two deals in a row that Gil had specifically warned him off of, Gil dissolved the relationship."

  Leigh nodded. "And that's when Lyle started getting into financial trouble."

  "Exactly," Cara agreed. "You know the rest. He got into this last development mess all on his own, but when he realized Gil had family ties to Aunt Bess and her church Brandon tried to pull him back in, the same way he tried to use you at Hook. Gil didn't want anything to do with him, but he didn't want him to fail, either—it never looks good for a client to go bankrupt, former or otherwise. So he did what he could, but all the while holding his nose, if you know what I mean."

  Leigh knew.

  Color rose again in Cara's cheeks. "Gil didn't go to that church meeting because Brandon was paying him!" she said defensively. "He wouldn't take another dime from the man; the last thing he needed was to have Lyle's soon-to-be-sullied name back on his client roster. You know why he went—he went because he was afraid things might get ugly, and he was concerned about Aunt Bess."

  Leigh's own cheeks reddened. In her case, out of guilt. Cara wasn't saying so, but it was Leigh's own fault her cousin-in-law had been in attendance at the church last night. She had told Gil about Brandon firing Geralyn and storming out of her office, specifically hoping that Gil might offer to referee. It wasn't either of their jobs to keep Lyle in line anymore, but she knew that Gil, like her, still felt somewhat responsible for the havoc Lyle's development plans were wreaking on Aunt's Bess's neighborhood.

  "You told me the meeting went badly," Leigh asked soberly, "but you never said exactly how."

  Cara shook her head. "According to Gil, it started off fine. Brandon made his presentation; the church members listened. The Council Chair, Sid Kendig, could have opened it up for discussion then, b
ut instead he chose to do a preliminary vote, to see if there was any interest in selling before the meeting went any further. The vote went something like twenty to one in favor of 'Hell, no.' There was applause, and people started to leave. That's when Brandon got upset. He started yelling, telling people that they were fools not to take whatever money was offered, because if they didn't, they would lose the land anyway, by eminent domain."

  Leigh's eyes widened. "I hadn't heard that part. Can he do that?"

  "Gil doesn’t think so," Cara answered. "But no one knew that for sure at the time, and some of the church members got really upset. A couple of them raised their voices back at Brandon, which is when Gil hustled him outside—you know, to cool off."

  Leigh's pulse quickened. She was feeling guiltier by the minute. Chewie, perhaps sensing the rise in tension, hopped off and disappeared behind the raspberry bushes.

  "Of course," Cara continued, "then Brandon got mad at Gil. Told him it was all his fault, that Gil should have been on the project from the beginning, that he shouldn't have let Brandon's other ventures fail. The guy was completely irrational. He started going on about how he was going to ruin Gil's business over this—how he would tell everyone what a fraud Gil's consulting firm was. Of course, there were any number of witnesses listening, which set Gil off as well."

  Cara's fingernail took another hit. She cast a glance at Leigh. "Gil's never been in a fist fight in his life," she insisted. "And he wasn't last night, either. All he did was threaten that if Brandon didn't calm down and shut up, he would call the police. And, well..." She moved to a fresh nail. "I take it there was a bit of name calling. That was when Brandon took a swing at him. Gil ducked it, and Brandon practically fell over."

  "All that was bad enough," Cara continued, his tone increasingly miserable. "But the worst was what happened after the swing. A couple of other men closed in around Brandon—and when he looked around and saw how things stood, he lowered his fists. But then he said something else."

  Leigh waited.

  Cara took a breath. "He made a reference to something that happened decades ago—back in Philadelphia. He couched it as a threat. Along the lines of: 'You're no better than me. You weren't back then, and you sure as hell aren't now. If these people knew what I know about you, we'd both be put away, wouldn't we?'"

  Leigh made a choking sound. "Holy—"

  "Yes," Cara said faintly. "That's what he said. In front of a dozen witnesses, no less. Last night it was merely aggravating. But now, it's..."

  Motive.

  Leigh cleared her suddenly parched throat. "What on earth was Lyle talking about?" Not for a second did she believe that Cara's Dudley Do-Right of a husband had ever done anything extortion-worthy, no matter how young he was at the time. The man was born square.

  Cara hesitated. "Leigh," she said tentatively, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "You know how well I know Gil. If I told you that he had told me something unbelievable, but that I believed it... would you?"

  Leigh hesitated. Then she thought about it. Cara and Gil were as close as she and Warren; and her cousin, despite being desperately in love, had never been anybody's fool. "Yes," she answered.

  Cara offered the slightest of smiles. "Something did happen in Philadelphia," she admitted. "Something illegal, involving the murder of a street thug, who was also a drug dealer. Brandon and a couple of the other guys who were sharing the house with Gil were either involved in it themselves, or knew who was. The police came and questioned them all, but no arrests were ever made." She paused and faced Leigh squarely. "There was some kind of cover-up. People lying about where everyone else was. Brandon seems to remember that Gil was a part of that—that he lied to the police along with the rest of them. But the crazy truth is, Leigh, that Gil never did know what happened. He wasn't there at the time, and none of the guys would tell him anything! Probably because they didn't trust him not to rat them out. They all broke the lease after that, and the group split up. To this day, Gil has no idea what the others were hiding. But Brandon seems to think—"

  Her voice broke off. "I mean, thought." She rose from the loveseat and let out a heavy breath. "I didn't say much to Maura; I just told her I thought Gil should call a lawyer before she questioned him, and she agreed. The detectives were on their way to talk to Bess first, then meet him downtown. Gil's probably talking to an attorney even as we speak."

  Her composure crumpled. "Oh, Leigh!" she cried. "Now do you see why I'm so worried? All those witnesses heard Lyle's threat. What does it matter if there's nothing to it?"

  Leigh rose and offered her cousin another sympathetic hug. "Maura will get to the bottom of it," she said firmly, "or she'll make sure the other detectives do. Innocence always wins out, you know. Aren't I living proof?"

  The crunching sound of wheels on gravel drew both their attentions to the drive, and Leigh's heart did a little leap. Warren was home.

  "I'd better go check on The Pack," Cara said quickly, wiping her eyes again. "I heard Mathias saying something about smoothies when he was running past, and they are not allowed to use the blender..." she was already walking away.

  "Make them clean up!" Leigh called, watching her ordinarily strong cousin drift away like a specter. The unwelcome vision of Brandon Lyle's staring, sightless eyes jumped suddenly into her mind, and another sick feeling surged in her stomach.

  A car door slammed.

  Leigh whirled around and walked toward her husband, having no idea how she would explain everything that had happened to her that morning. But when her anxious eyes met his soft brown ones, she realized she didn't have to say a word. He already knew.

  "How did you—" she stammered.

  "Mo called me," Warren answered, using the nickname that only he, among all living adults, was allowed to call Maura. In college, the trio had been inseparable. They were the Three Musketeers: the Creative Genius, the WonderCop, and the Future President of the United States.

  Leigh smiled. "She did?"

  Warren nodded. "She was concerned about you. So am I."

  He opened his arms, and Leigh walked into them.

  Chapter 6

  "So you see," Warren explained calmly, "there's nothing for any of us to worry about. The police will figure out who killed the man, and they'll put that person in jail. Your Aunt Mo's working on it right now, and she's very good at her job, so it shouldn't be long. But in the meantime, she does have to talk to everyone who knew him, and that means your mom and your Uncle Gil will have to answer a lot of questions. But there's nothing you two need to be concerned about. All right?"

  Two small faces stared at their father across the kitchen table, their expressions wide eyed. Leigh marveled at her husband's clever and calculated phrasing. Nearly two decades as a successful politician had definitely taught the man how to spin. Somehow, he'd managed to describe her role in the fiasco without ever mentioning the word "body," nor had he been specific about exactly where it had been found—a point which they both feared could affect the children's enjoyment of their Aunt Bess's glorious woods. Thank goodness they knew nothing of their mother's historical proclivity in such matters... all that had happened before they were born.

  The children remained silent. Allison's nose twitched.

  Leigh's eyes met her husband's. So far, so good. Thank you. "So," she announced, "are you guys okay? Do you have any questions?"

  "Yeah," Ethan said immediately, his gaze fixed on his mother with something like awe. "How many bodies have you found now? Like... six?"

  Allison leaned over the table toward her. "Were his eyes open or shut?"

  Leigh gulped. She threw a desperate glance at Warren, but he was struggling—curse him—to fight a grin. She turned to Ethan, "Why... What makes you think I've found other... I mean, others?"

  Her son sat back with a snort. "Who doesn't know? You're like... legend. But we understand if you don't want to talk about it."

  Allison nodded sagely. "If it grosses you out, Mom, it's okay. Some peop
le aren't comfortable with dead things."

  Leigh found herself speechless. Warren, who was doing a really bad job of trying to look serious, stepped in again. "You guys are right; Mom doesn't like talking about it. But I'm glad you're taking it so well." He cleared his throat. "Now... back to whatever you were doing."

  The children rose from the table.

  "But," Warren continued, "don't talk to your cousins about this yet—your Aunt Cara and Uncle Gil need to be the ones to do that. Okay?"

  The two looked at each other, then nodded. "We especially can't tell Lenna," Allison whispered to her brother as they turned and walked toward the back door. "You know how sensitive she is."

  The door slammed shut behind them. Leigh rose, still stunned, and Warren wrapped his arms around her with a chuckle. "They'll be fine," he said good-naturedly. "They come from strong stock, you know."

  Leigh looked up at her husband appreciatively. When they had first met, at eighteen, he had been tall, gawky, and a hopeless nerd obsessed with space movies. He was still tall, and he was still obsessed with space movies, but the gawky teen had been replaced by a confident, attractive man who still made her heart flutter after twelve years of marriage. Too bad it had taken twelve years of friendship first for her to realize what she'd been missing.

  She was still determined to make up for that.

  "Oh," Warren said heavily. Leigh heard the crunching of gravel that announced a car on the drive and looked up to follow his line of sight out the window.

  "Oh, no," she added gravely.

  "I really do have to get back downtown for that appointment," he said briskly, looking at his watch and reaching for his briefcase. "I rescheduled it once, but—"

  "Chicken," Leigh accused.

  He grinned. "Not that I don't love your mother, Leigh. But if she's here for what I think she's here for—"

  "She can't know yet!" Leigh protested. "Maura wouldn't tell her."

  "No," he countered, kissing her quickly in passing as he made haste toward the garage door, "but your Aunt Bess would."