by Cheryl Crane
“What do you think after seeing the Fab Four and their spouses last night? Did Angel seem guilty?”
“He was a total jerk. But did he seem like he’d killed his friend?” Nikki rose and pulled on her shorts. “I don’t know. Maybe.” She thought for a second. “The thing is, they were all acting weird. Tense.”
Victoria watched her dress. “You certain you won’t stay and have an early dinner with me?”
“No, I want to go home and relax for a little while, while the house is quiet. Alison thought Jeremy would be dropping Jocelyn off around six. She said she’d be home by then and make dinner.”
“You think they’ll be staying with you all week, or going back to Jeremy’s?”
She exhaled and pulled her T-shirt over her head. “I don’t know. We’ll see. Stanley! Oliver! Let’s go, boys!” The dogs sprinted past her and around the house. Nikki stood for a moment, wanting to say something, not sure what. “Mother . . .”
Victoria smiled. “You’re welcome, darling.”
Nikki walked away. Victoria waved from her chair; Nikki only saw her hand.
“Ring me later,” Victoria called.
Chapter 27
At home, Nikki opened the gate and set the dogs free in the backyard. Then she went through the front door, into the house, cradling her phone on her shoulder. She was on hold with Pizzeria Mozza, waiting for the sommelier, David, to come to the phone. David was one of Jeremy’s patients and always made a fuss when she and Jeremy had dinner there.
As Nikki walked into the living room, she heard the dogs barking. She wondered if Marshall was home and they could see him through one of the gaps in the fence. Sometimes, when he was there, if they barked, he’d let them come over and play.
While she waited, she pulled off her T-shirt, stepped out of her flip-flops, and slipped off her shorts. She left them by the door; they smelled of sunblock and she wanted to toss them in the washer.
“Pizzeria Mozza, this is David,” Nikki heard in her ear.
“David, hi. This is Nikki Harper, Dr. Fitzpatrick’s—”
“Nikki, of course. Need a quick reservation?”
“No.” She chuckled. “Actually, I have a question and it’s going to sound crazy, but . . . do you remember if Angel Gomez was in for lunch on a Tuesday three weeks ago?”
“He was.”
Nikki was completely taken aback by David’s quick answer. “He was? You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. It was the same day Ryan Melton was murdered. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. Such a sad day.” David’s voice was full of emotion. “I think Angel may have actually gotten the call that Ryan was dead while he was still here. I was in the back, but everyone said he got a phone call and then he got up and left. Tragic. Just tragic. I can’t imagine having your friend murdered. Strangled with a dog leash.” She heard him shudder. “And poor Dr. Fitzpatrick. Having his sister arrested.”
“Thanks so much, David,” Nikki said, lost in thought. So, was Harley mistaken about the day he saw Angel jogging? About the time?
“You’re welcome. I hope I see you and Dr. Fitzgerald soon.”
“Have a good day,” Nikki said. As she hung up, she realized the dogs were still barking out back. But now it was an odd bark. It was their there’s a stranger at the door bark.
Nikki went to the back door, slid the dead bolt, and opened the door to find Betsy Gomez. She was wearing a pink, flirty dress, high heels, and white dress gloves. And holding a gun.
Nikki took a step back, feeling like the whole scenario was a little bizarre. She was barefoot, in a teeny bikini. Angel Gomez’s wife looked like she was dressed for Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Nikki stared at the pistol, not fully comprehending what was happening.
Betsy walked in the door, followed by Hazel, who was also in a dress, four-inch heels, and white elbow-length gloves. Hazel was carrying a Fendi shopping bag on her elbow. They left the back door standing open.
“You want me to go back out and break in the door with that concrete block so it looks like—”
“We’ll do that later!” Betsy snapped at Hazel.
“What do you want?” Nikki stared at the gun barrel pointed at her. With a silencer. She thought about Albert Tinsley, but wasn’t any more afraid than she was a second ago, even though maybe she should have been. The silencer suggested these women meant business. “What are you doing?”
“Turn around,” Betsy ordered. Her voice trembled, but her hands were steady.
Nikki calculated that, at this distance, if Betsy pulled the trigger, she wouldn’t miss. The gun looked to be a .38. A shot in the back would likely kill her. Two or three would do her in, for sure.
And now Betsy was trying to corner her in the galley kitchen. Nikki knew she didn’t have a chance if they backed her up against a wall. Or the cabinets.
So Nikki turned her body slightly so that as Betsy backed her up, she stepped into the hall that connected to the living room, rather than deeper into the kitchen.
“You killed him?” Nikki asked, still slowly backing up, hoping her words would distract the women from what she was doing. “You killed Ryan?”
“No, I didn’t kill him!”
Nikki glanced over Betsy’s shoulder to meet Hazel’s gaze. “You did it?”
“No, thank God I didn’t draw the straw.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “I don’t know if I could have done it.”
“Drew the straw?” Nikki asked.
“Turn around!” Betsy stretched her arms out a little farther, the black gun with its long silencer pointed right at Nikki’s chest.
“You’re going to kill me? How do you think you’re going to get away with it?” Nikki tried to sound derisive. Intimidating. “You’ll never get away with it. Dombrowski will be on you within hours.”
“It’s going to look like a robbery,” Hazel explained. She held up the Fendi bag. “We’re going to take your jewelry. Your wallet and credit cards. Bury them.”
Nikki drew one hand over her chest. All she could think of was that she needed to stall them. Stall for time. Time would give her . . . time to think of something . . . or maybe even give Alison the opportunity to arrive. “Could . . . could I put on my shirt? I . . . I feel . . . naked.”
“Just turn around!” Betsy shouted. “You don’t want to see me do it, do you?”
“God, Betsy, let her put her shirt on.” Hazel looked at her friend. “Would you want to be found dead in your bikini?”
Nikki had backed her way far enough that now she was in front of the door where she had left her clothes. Watching Betsy, she squatted and grabbed her blue T-shirt.
The dogs flew into the house and came down the hall, barking. They startled Hazel and she did a little sidestep, wobbling on her four-inch heels.
“What are you talking about, drawing straws?” Nikki came to her feet slowly and pulled her shirt over her head. “If you’re going to kill me, you should at least tell me why you’re killing me.”
“We’re killing you because you wouldn’t mind your own business. We hired the lawyer. She would have gotten the dog walker off. But you couldn’t let it be, could you?” Betsy demanded.
The dogs were still barking.
“Shut them up,” Betsy warned. “Or I’ll shoot them first.”
That scared Nikki more than standing at the end of Betsy’s gun barrel. “Stanley! Oliver! Hush.”
Oliver jumped up on the couch. Stanley trotted around the two women and stood between Nikki and Betsy. He growled deep in his throat. It was a pretty big growl for such a little guy.
“So you hired Lillie Lambert?” Nikki asked Hazel.
“We did it together. All of us.”
“Hazel!” Betsy said. “Let’s just do this and get out of here. Turn around!” she shouted at Nikki.
“Please.” Nikki held up her hand. “I just . . . I want to understand what happened.”
Hazel looked at Betsy. “No one will ever know,” she said quietly. “And she was nice t
o us. No one’s ever very nice to us, unless they’re sucking up.”
Nikki took another step back. They were now in the rectangular living room. The fireplace was behind her; the couch, where Oliver perched, was to her left, under the windows. Unfortunately, the drapes were closed, to keep out the afternoon sun. No one driving or walking by would see that she was being held at gunpoint.
“We drew straws,” Hazel said. “Ryan had to die. Diara couldn’t just divorce him. He was going to tell people about our private parties. He was going to ruin everyone’s career. Ruin our lives.”
“Private parties?” Nikki asked.
“Hazel,” Betsy warned.
Hazel looked at Betsy, then back at Nikki. “He was blackmailing us so he could open his stupid club, which would fail, just like his stupid restaurant failed. And we were fine giving him the money for a while, even Diara pitched in. Julian said he wasn’t even asking that much, the idiot. Twenty-five thousand a month.”
“But then he asked for more,” Nikki said.
“How’d you guess?” Hazel asked.
“So you decided to kill him?” Nikki tried to figure out if there was anything in the living room she could use as a weapon. The fireplace tools were too far behind her. There was a vase made of green carnival glass on the end table, but it was so lightweight it wouldn’t be much help. “You said you drew straws. What did you mean?”
“That’s just what they call it,” Hazel explained. “It was toothpicks. At your mother’s party. Seven toothpicks. Angel broke the tip off one of them and held them out for us to choose. We each had to take one and whoever had the broken one had to kill Ryan.”
Nikki thought about that evening at the garden party, how the Fab Four and their spouses had all been standing together when Nikki was talking to Ryan. When she and Ryan approached the group, Diara had slipped something into her handbag. A toothpick. They had just decided who was going to kill Ryan, with him standing twenty feet away.
“And Gil got the broken toothpick,” Nikki said, as much to herself as to the women. Harley had seen Gil jog by the day Ryan was murdered, not Angel. They looked so similar that Harley had mistaken one man for the other. She thought about her mother, waving good-bye to her from the chaise longue this afternoon. And it was not Ryan who had waved to Alison. It was Gil. He had been there when she brought Muffin back. When he heard Alison, he sat in Diara’s chaise. Ryan had been found dead in his chair, not Diara’s.
“Gil did it? Oh, God, poor Gil,” Hazel said. She looked at Nikki. “We didn’t know which one of us got it. We weren’t supposed to say. That way, if we were questioned—”
“You wouldn’t know anything,” Nikki finished for her.
Hazel pointed at Nikki, the Fendi bag on her arm. “Right. That was Angel’s idea.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Nikki looked right at Betsy. “So that’s how you got here today? You drew straws again?”
“Last night, after the cocktail party. When Angel sobered up.” Again, it was Hazel who provided the explanation.
“That’s enough,” Betsy warned. We should just do this, Hazel, and get out of here.”
“We went to Kameryn and Gil’s last night,” Hazel went on, seeming as if she needed to confess to someone. Nikki was the perfect person because she could take the Fab Four’s secrets to her grave. “And Angel said we had to do something to protect ourselves. He said we would all go to jail. Maybe death row.” Her eyes began to tear up. “I didn’t want to draw straws again. I didn’t want to be the one to have to kill you, but Julian said I had to draw. He said it was only fair.”
“Cocktail straws,” Betsy murmured.
“Betsy got the straw Angel had cut. She was crying in the bathroom. I felt so bad for her,” Hazel admitted, “that I told her I would come with her. You know, for moral support. That’s when we came up with the idea of the robbery. That’s why we’re wearing the gloves. No fingerprints.” She held up her hands.
“Okay, enough,” Betsy snapped. “Nikki, either turn around or I’m just going to pull the trigger, and if you watch me, my aim might be bad. I . . . I might not kill you with the first shot. And . . . and I think it’s going to hurt.” She took a step toward Nikki and Stanley began to growl again.
“Wait, wait! One more thing, please.” Now Nikki’s voice was trembling. If these two women had participated in that elaborate scheme to protect their husbands and their friends, there was no reason to believe they weren’t going to do this. She couldn’t see how Tom wouldn’t figure out who did it eventually. But she’d still be dead.
“Alison,” she said. “Was the plan to make it look like she did it?”
Hazel shook her head. “There was no plan. If you got the short toothpick, you had to figure out a way to do it yourself. I guess Alison was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. Betsy and I felt bad for her. That’s why we decided to hire Lillie Lambert. Because we knew she’d get Alison off. Alison was always nice to me,” she added.
Betsy raised the gun.
Nikki’s breath caught in her throat.
Stanley growled. Oliver whined. Stanley growled louder.
“Call him off!” Betsy warned, “Or I swear to God I’ll shoot him.” She turned slightly, moving the pistol in the direction of the dog.
Nikki saw a flash of black and white and brown out of the corner of her eye. At the same time that Betsy turned toward Stanley, Oliver flew off the couch, hitting Betsy in the back. Oliver howled. Stanley growled and went after Betsy as she fell forward on her knees.
The pistol hit the hardwood floor and spun. Slid. Nikki dove for the gun.
Hazel screamed.
Betsy screamed and flailed as she scrambled to get to her feet and get the dogs off her.
Stan and Ollie shot out of the living room, through the dining room, and headed for the back door.
By the time Betsy looked up, Nikki was holding the pistol on her. Hazel began to cry.
“Get in the kitchen,” Nikki ordered. She had no intention of giving them any chance to get away. “Or I swear I’ll shoot you,” she threatened.
Hazel helped Betsy to her feet. In the fall, the heel had broken off one of her white Jimmy Choo shoes; she had to hobble to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Hazel blubbered. “I didn’t want to kill you. I didn’t want to kill Ryan. I swear I didn’t.”
Nikki escorted both women to the galley kitchen where she picked her cell phone up off the counter. She scrolled through her contacts and hit Send.
He answered on the second ring. “Nikki.”
“Tom.” Nikki’s voice quivered. “Could you come to my house?” She gave the address. “And send a patrol car. Now. You’re going to need to take someone into custody.”
He swore. “You okay?”
She managed a smile. “Going to be.”
“What happened?” Dombrowski asked.
“I’ll let Betsy and Hazel tell you when you get here.”
Chapter 28
“This is an awfully expensive gift, Nicolette,” Victoria declared, standing back to look at the fish tank, while Nikki fiddled with the timer on the light. “But it is beautiful.”
“I’m glad you like it.” Nikki hit the button once and nothing happened, then again and the light glowed, but didn’t come on.
She’d been surprised when her mother accepted the gift. She was even more surprised when Victoria said she wanted it in her boudoir. A 150-gallon fish tank wasn’t exactly old Hollywood.
“I just love the pink sand,” Victoria declared, clasping her hands. She was wearing her usual Saturday afternoon attire: white jogging suit, pristine tennis shoes, and her pearls.
Nikki squinted to read the miniscule directions on the top of the timer.
“Here, use my readers.” Victoria lifted her glasses from her head and handed them to Nikki.
Nikki slid them on.
“Now, what kind of fish do I have again? I want to know if someone asks.”
&nbs
p; Nikki could see the directions on the timer now, but they were complicated. “You plan to bring a lot of guests into your bedroom?”
“You think I’m too old to have guests?” Victoria sniffed.
Nikki smiled. “I got you the freshwater tank instead of saltwater. You’ve got rosy barbs and pink kissing gourami.”
“Silly names for fish.”
“Okay, I’m pushing the button six times, like the directions say, but nothing is happening. It was working fine yesterday when I left here.” Nikki removed her mother’s reading glasses. “What did you do to the light?”
“I just turned it on.”
“You’re not supposed to turn it on,” Nikki explained patiently. “It’s on a timer. So the fish have day and night.”
Victoria gave a wave. “Just leave it. That nice young man Saturn said he’d come by tomorrow and check on me. He can fix it.”
“Mars?” Nikki handed her the glasses. “At least it’s on now, so you can see the fish.” She reseated the lamp and stepped back to look at the very pink tank. Her mother had even picked out pink artificial plants and fake coral.
“Beautiful.” Victoria clasped her hands. “Now come sit and tell me how you are. I feel like I haven’t talked to you in weeks.”
Nikki followed her to the couch. Victoria had had Amondo move her TV over so she could sit on her couch and also look at the fish tank.
“I’m fine.” Nikki sat down. “I’m great. I can’t stay. Jeremy and I are going out to dinner tonight. Just the two of us. He got a babysitter.”
“Very nice, dear. So that means things are better between you?”
“We’re good.” She smiled, thinking about Jeremy. “We’re great. He was relieved to get Alison and Jocelyn settled into their new house in San Diego.”
“And they’re doing well?”
“Very well. Jocelyn is volunteering as a counselor at a kids’ summer camp and is loving it. And Alison has a new job, which does not involve dogs or party planning.”
“Well, I’m sure Lillie Lambert was disappointed to lose her client.”
“Probably not,” Nikki said wryly. “She gained seven. One with a murder one charge, and six with a conspiracy to murder charge. That should keep her busy for a while.”