The door chime trilled again and another female voice joined the mix. Lacey’s sale was pulling in the customers, all right. I’d been lucky to grab a little private time with her. A few moments of muted conversation followed and then Nina’s voice rang out loud and clear—as long as I kept my ear plastered to the door.
Oh, please. Tell me you wouldn’t have done the same thing.
“I was only eight years old when Ernie Waterfield supposedly killed himself,” Nina declared, “but even then I knew there was something fishy about it.”
Sure you did, I thought. A regular little savant.
“And how could Sophie not have known about him before they got married?” she continued. “Unless she didn’t want a normal, hetero man for a husband. There are women like that, you know. I’m not saying the mayor’s one of them necessarily, but you have to wonder.”
I had it on good authority that Nina, currently the president of the Crystal Harbor Historical Society, intended to unseat Sophie during the next mayoral election. Clearly she meant to take advantage of any opportunity to sully her opponent’s name—a venerable Crystal Harbor tradition.
The newcomer spoke. Her voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Do you have any theories about who might have killed him?”
I almost guffawed when Nina said, “I hate to speak ill of anyone, particularly an elected official, but I feel a responsibility in this case to share my misgivings. I personally would not be surprised if it turns out Mayor Halperin did away with her husband.”
“What do you base your suspicions on?” the woman asked.
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but Ernie’s mother bribed Sophie—thirty million is the figure I heard—not to divorce her son once she realized he was a homosexual. And she got remarried shortly after his supposed suicide, so who knows? Maybe she got tired of keeping up appearances with her gay husband and decided she wanted a real marriage plus the money. It’s a credible scenario, is all I’m saying.”
I pulled the robe closed, tied the sash belt, and yanked open the door. Who the heck did Nina Wallace think she was, spreading a rumor like that around town? Had she no shame?
As if I hadn’t learned the answer to that one long ago.
I stalked right over to her, teetering on the four-inch stilettos and weaving around a rack of shapers (your grandma’s girdle by another name), ignoring everything and everyone else in my determination to shut down her rumor-mongering ASAP.
Nina looked as ladylike and put together as always, in a sleeveless floral maternity tunic and white capri leggings. If anything, her baby bump only emphasized her otherwise trim figure. She sported a glowing midsummer tan and a new, short hairdo, her dark hair sleek and feathery around her pretty face.
I got right in that pretty face, my finger wagging. “You have no right to spread vicious rumors like that, Nina. It’s irresponsible and self-serving. First you paint a picture of a happily married fruit fly, then in the next breath Sophie Halperin is a greedy, scheming murderer. Well, which is it? You can’t have it both ways.”
I towered over petite Nina in my ridiculous shoes. I was surprised to see her rear back, her silver-gray eyes wide in alarm. The Nina Wallace I knew was ballsier than that.
“And who are you?” the new customer asked.
I wheeled on the woman and spat out my name, about to admonish her for stoking the gossip mill. Only then did it begin to dawn on me what was going on here. My gaze flitted from the familiar-looking woman, who held a microphone, to her companion, a sturdy young man hoisting a big camera on his shoulder.
I found that camera and its bright light aimed at me as I tugged my robe tighter, belatedly recognizing Miranda Daniels, a TV reporter with the popular cable show Ramrod News. Hers is the kind of shrill “investigative reporting” that seeks out the most lurid angle of every story, inventing one when necessary. The show is not my preferred viewing. Okay, maybe once in a while if there’s nothing better on.
This, I realized, was why Nina had pretended to be terrified of me. She’d been playing to the camera.
Miranda perked up at the mention of my name. “You must be the Jane Delaney who found Ernest Waterfield’s skeleton.”
“Talk to Jane,” Lacey murmured as she slunk through the doorway to the back room. “She knows a lot more about all this than I do.” Clearly she wanted no public association with a sordid story like this, particularly on a sensationalist show like Ramrod News.
Nor did I, especially in my current state of dishabille. Granted, the naughty undies were concealed by the robe, but still. I cast a longing look at the door to the fitting room, but Miranda and the cameraman had deftly shifted position to block that particular escape route.
Miranda shoved the mic in my face. “Tell us how you discovered the skeleton, Jane.”
My heart tried to crawl up my throat. “I, uh, I just looked under the tree and there it was.” My chuckle sounded like an asthmatic chicken.
“What were you doing in the cemetery immediately after a major storm?” she asked.
I glanced at Nina, silently praying for help. Yeah, right. She looked like a cat teasing a trapped chipmunk. “I... can’t reveal what I was doing there that afternoon.” Miranda’s eyebrows lifted toward her bleached roots. I swallowed hard. “I mean, it’s... it’s classified information.”
“Classified?” A mean little smile. “Sounds mysterious.”
“It has to do with my business,” I said. “I respect my clients’ privacy.” As the reporter opened her mouth to pursue this line of questioning, I tried in vain to scoot around her. “You know what? I really don’t think I want to say any more.”
“What kind of business brings you to cemeteries at all hours?” she persisted.
There was that hateful mic again, inches from my nose. An angry flush stung my face. “I’m the Death Diva, okay? I’m the damn Death Diva. I do stuff to dead people, and I have no intention of talking about it.” And yeah, maybe I could have worded that better.
Miranda plowed ahead. “You seem pretty certain Mayor Halperin had nothing to do with her first husband’s murder. What about the bribe she accepted from Ernie’s mother?”
“It wasn’t a bribe, for crying out loud, it was a gift.”
“Thirty million?” Miranda showed me her sharp little teeth again. “That’s some generous mother-in-law.”
“It was three million bucks,” I said. “I don’t know where Nina got that thirty million figure. Now, could I please—”
“You seem to know quite a lot about this strange case, Jane.” Miranda edged closer as I tried to melt into a rack of lace negligees. “Have you shared your insights with the Crystal Harbor Police Department?”
Nina cocked her head as if to say, Good question, Jane? Have you?
“All right, I’ve had enough.” I shoved the mic, and Miranda Daniels, with just enough force to make her back off. In that instant Sexy Beast appeared, barking like a, well, like a real dog. He attacked Miranda’s leg, sinking his little fangs into her slacks and hanging on for dear life, snarling and scrabbling for purchase. Protecting me again, the sweet, deluded little fur-ball.
“Get this thing off me!” Miranda shrieked, trying to shake off the tiny poodle, who clung to her slacks with... rabid? can I say rabid? not in the, you know, diseased sense... Okay, whatever, with rabid canine determination.
“Don’t you dare hurt my dog!” I yelled, while attempting to grab SB, no small feat as he was jerked this way and that, firmly attached to the hem of Miranda’s no doubt very expensive ivory silk slacks. “If anything happens to Sexy Beast, I will sue you and your horrible show back to the Stone Age!”
The cameraman took his eye off the viewfinder just long enough to quirk a questioning eyebrow at me. Yeah, so I’m metaphor-challenged, what of it?
Finally I managed to catch SB on the upswing and pry his jaws from the reporter’s pants. I tucked him under my arm and, sweaty and thoroughly disheveled, sprinted back to the fitting room.<
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5
Graphic and Disturbing
Six hours later, I parked my crappy old Civic in the circular cobblestone courtyard in front of my big brick-and-stone house. I carried my shopping bag up the steps of the covered portico flanked by white double columns, fished my keys from my purse, and let myself in through the massive double doors. The sack I carried through the foyer and dining room to the butler’s pantry was not, alas, pale yellow printed with the gold UnderStatements logo. It was a plastic sack from the supermarket.
I unpacked the contents: Fruity Pebbles, two-percent milk, frozen fried chicken, and orange soda for me; Vienna sausages and cheddar for Sexy Beast, who’d come running in from the living room to greet me. I gave him a sausage and put away the rest of the food in the adjacent kitchen, pulling a cold orange soda from the fridge and tearing open the box of cereal.
I sauntered into the sunken game room, a sunlit space separated from the breakfast room by a low wall. I still thought of it as the game room, though one of my first acts as the new owner had been to give Irene’s fancy poker table to her lawyer and longtime friend Sten Jakobsen. I didn’t play poker, and I couldn’t look at the well-used table without missing Irene terribly.
And yes, technically Sexy Beast is the property’s owner, but if I left decorating decisions up to him, the house would be filled with tennis balls, shoes, dog-biscuit dispensers, fire hydrants, and random garments that smell like me and/or his dearly departed Irene.
I flopped onto the ivory leather sofa, really an enormous horseshoe-shaped seating area strewn with squishy pillows and throws in shades of rose, slate, and pale green. It was my favorite spot in the house. Well, next to the whirlpool tub in the master bath.
Instead of curling up next to me, Sexy Beast trotted up the two steps into the living room and gave a couple of imperious barks. I froze in the act of picking up the TV remote. That was his herding bark. Not that poodles are herding dogs, they’re in fact water retrievers, but SB liked to gather his humans into one spot, the better to watch over them and keep an eye out for the random suburban grizzly bear.
Only, who was he herding? No one else was in the house. It was just me and—
“I hope that’s not your dinner.”
—Martin McAuliffe. The padre sauntered down the two steps from the living room, looking like he owned the place. Which wasn’t far from the truth since not even the most high-tech locks and security system seemed capable of keeping him out. Not that he let himself in on a regular basis. It had been months since he’d done so—to my knowledge at least. For all I knew, he could be sneaking in every night and standing over my sleeping form with a chainsaw and a machete, trying to decide. Lord knew Sexy Beast would do nothing to stop him, the padre being one of his favorite bipeds.
I swigged from the bottle of soda. “As a matter of fact, no. I have a date later.” So there. It was a little before six now. At eight I was scheduled to meet a man I’d corresponded with on dog-loving-singles.com for dinner at the Harbor Room. The waterfront restaurant was a local historical landmark thanks to its venerable age and connection with Prohibition rum-running.
Martin toted a black plastic liquor-store sack. He set it on the carpet and settled on the sofa right next to me, ignoring the leather acreage extending in either direction practically to the adjoining towns. In return, I ignored the bare feet he propped on Irene’s six-thousand-dollar coffee table. I still thought of the house and its furnishings as Irene’s, a habit hard to break. SB jumped onto Martin’s lap, nudging his hand every time the padre stopped rubbing him.
“Fine by me,” he said, meaning my date. “SB and I will order in. It’s a junk-food paradise in there.” He tipped his head toward the kitchen. “Don’t you ever eat anything without two dozen ingredients?”
“Who said you could stay here while I’m gone? When I leave, you leave. In fact, I don’t recall inviting you in. The door is right through there.” I pointed.
“Did I forget to mention?” He reached into the cereal box and grabbed a handful of Fruity Pebbles. “We’re roomies now. I’m going to live here.”
I sat speechless, staring at him. “You didn’t just say—”
“We’ll have pillow fights, do each other’s hair. I’ll be fun. Not to fret, I took the maid’s room.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the laundry room, next to which was a modest-sized bedroom with en-suite bathroom. “Miles away from your palatial suite upstairs. You’ll never even know whether I’m in the house.”
“How reassuring.” I turned to face him directly. “Listen to me, Padre. You are not moving in with me.”
“Already did. Borrowed Mom’s car and got it done in one trip. This room is just crying out for a state-of-the-art video-game system,” he said, indicating the three-thousand-inch flat-screen TV mounted on the opposite wall. Okay, I don’t know how many inches it really is, all I know is it rivals the big movie screen in the home theater downstairs.
“Not in this house, no way,” I said. “And I still didn’t say you could stay here. Your stuff is being hauled to the town dump the next time you walk out of here.”
“Crystal Harbor has a town dump?”
“You know what I mean. This is my house and I get to say who stays here.”
“I believe it’s his house.” The padre stroked Sexy Beast, who promptly rolled over and presented his downy stomach for stroking. “And he seems to want me around, don’t you, boy?”
SB made that satisfied, guttural rolling-R sound I thought of as his doggie purr. Et tu, Sexy Beast?
“I brought you a present to say thanks.” Martin reached down to the bag he’d brought and presented me with a bottle of my favorite añejo tequila. He smiled, watching my face. This was pricey stuff, and the last bottle I’d owned had been a birthday present from Irene three years earlier. I’d made it last, but it had been months since I’d had a sip of this nectar of the gods.
I dragged my gaze from the gorgeous bottle to the padre’s face. “Yeah, right. You brought it to bribe me.”
He shrugged and set the bottle on the coffee table. “Semantics.”
Speaking of bribery and accusations of such...
“What do you think of this whole business with Ernie Waterfield?” I tucked the box of cereal between us. Sexy Beast licked his lips and I fed him one piece. A blue one.
“I think Sophie better have a good criminal lawyer.”
I sighed. “Sten hooked her up with someone, a big name from the city. It’s so unfair. She couldn’t possibly have committed murder.”
He was silent for a long moment. “You can never say for sure what a person is capable of when push comes to shove.”
I shifted in my seat to face him. “We’re talking about Sophie here. She’s... she’s one of the best people I know.”
He raised his hands. “I’m not arguing that, but people do things under duress, that’s all I’m saying.”
I thought about that, and about the man sitting next to me. Martin McAuliffe’s background was a mystery, but I had my suspicions. I’d already decided I’d rather not know.
“I visited Sophie today in her office at Town Hall.” I told him about my anonymous client and my annual trip to place flowers at a cemetery in New Jersey. “I thought maybe she’d hired me in secret to pay her respects to the man her late husband had accidentally killed. She denies it was her and I believe her. And Lacey Vargas doesn’t know who it could be. She was Tim’s girlfriend. Then I thought, well, maybe it was someone else who was close to Ernie.”
“Such as...?” he asked.
“His mom.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Teddy Waterfield I’ve heard about,” he said. “Making a coat out of Dalmatian puppies, maybe. Memorializing the victim of her son’s boneheaded prank? Not so much.”
“I know, but I’m at a dead end here.”
“Why don’t you hire Ben to look into it for you?” Martin asked.
“I can’t afford a private detective.” Ben Ralston wa
s a local PI and a friend of Martin’s.
“A thing like that’ll take him no time. I bet he’d do it as a favor if Mom asks him nicely.” He grinned. “Why do you think I’m bunking with you? Ben is moving in with her. I like Ben, but that’s one small house, and when a mouse sneezes in the attic, you hear it in the basement. Plus that cat of hers creeps me out.”
I’d met the cat, an ill-tempered Siamese named Miss Persephone. I’d met his mother, Stevie, too. She was a youthful sixty-one, having had Martin at age nineteen. He had no contact with his father, a married deacon and the son of Irene’s late husband.
Yeah, don’t even try to figure out the family tree, you’ll get a headache.
Bottom line: I liked Stevie and I liked Ben. I was glad those two had found each other.
“You really think Ben would do it for free?” I asked.
“Buy him a bottle. I’m told it works wonders.” There was that devilish grin again.
“Then sure, let’s see what he can dig up,” I said. “If I can discover who’s behind my trips to Tim’s gravesite, it could shed some light on all this. Such as, is my client a local? Why would someone in New Jersey hire someone on Long Island to schlepp flowers to a Jersey grave?”
“Because you’re the only one who does this sort of thing?” he asked. “Aside from me, that is.”
Martin had recently launched a competing Death Diva—Death Divo?—business, specifically by raiding my clients. That had been a few months earlier when he was miffed at me. I don’t think he’d done any Death Divo’ing lately. He made his living bartending and... well, like I said. I’d rather not know.
“Hey,” I said, “aren’t you supposed to be at Tierney’s now?” Tierney’s Publick House was the Southampton watering hole where he worked, and summer was high tourist season. Martin must make a bundle in tips this time of year.
“A buddy’s covering for me.”
Uprooting Ernie (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 2) Page 6