by Carol Costa
"Good. He and Emily can help us with Del if Bruno comes in and spoils the party."
The gallery was filled with people that Dana and Marianne often read about in the Globe's social pages. Del Pitman had a golden reputation and the elite of Crescent Hills always turned up for his parties.
Dana looked around, wondering how many people in the crowd were members of Crescent Hills Country Club and knew Tony and Casey. Dana was worried about Casey and what was going to happen between her investigator and her new husband. Then, Dana spotted Judy Porter standing in the middle of the exhibit room, meeting and greeting the people who had come to view her paintings. The artist looked like she had just stepped out of a Swiss village with blond braids piled on top of her head and a long white dress embroidered with colorful flowers. Her friend Teddy was hovering close behind her. Dressed in a tuxedo, Teddy looked taller and more confident than he had when Dana had first met him.
"What a mess," Dana muttered.
"What?" Marianne asked.
"Nothing. Let's find Sam and Emily," Dana suggested.
"I want to look at the paintings first," Marianne said. "I'll catch up with you at the buffet table. I'm sure that's where Sam is hanging out"
"I'd better say hello to Judy first," Dana decided. "Come on, I'll introduce you"
Judy Porter greeted Dana with a hug. "I'm so glad you're here," she whispered in Dana's ear. "I'm a nervous wreck" Dana introduced the artist to Marianne, who said hello and then quickly moved off to look at the art display.
Teddy came up to Judy and Dana. "Hi, Teddy," Dana said, offering her hand.
"Hi, Miss Sloan. It's nice to see you again."
"Is your mother here?" Dana asked.
"No. She said she didn't have the proper clothes to mingle with the rich folks. My suit is rented"
Dana smiled at his boyish honesty. "You look very nice."
Another couple came up to talk to Judy, so Dana excused herself and went to find Sam. As Marianne had predicted, he was standing next to the buffet table with a plate of canapes in each hand.
"Are you extra hungry?" Dana asked, taking a place next to him.
"Here," he offered one of the plates to Dana. "Emily took off again and I can't eat my food while I'm holding hers. She can get her own when she comes back."
Dana shrugged and popped one of the canapes in her mouth. It was a cracker with some kind of gooey cheese on top of it. "Thanks. I'm starving," she said as she followed the cracker with a mushroom she dipped in ranch dressing. "How's it going?"
"You know how I feel about these things. Where's Bruno?" In the past, Sam and Bruno had found a corner where they could talk sports while Emily and Dana enjoyed the artwork.
"He's working, but he hinted that he might show up here and I think it may have something to do with the Porter case"
"New evidence?"
"That's what he hinted at on the phone. I was thinking that maybe you could watch for him and talk him into waiting until the show is over before he makes a scene"
Sam laughed softly. "Dana, you're the only one who has any influence over Detective Al Bruno."
"Then I guess there's going to be a scene" Dana's cell phone rang again. "I hope this isn't him," she said as she clicked the phone on. It wasn't Bruno. It was Casey and she was hysterical. "Casey, slow down. I can't understand you"
"He's dead," Casey sobbed. "Tony is dead"
Sam and Dana arrived at Tony Hunter's apartment and found Casey standing outside waiting for them. She was shivering and it wasn't entirely due to the cold February air.
"Have you called the police?" Sam asked.
Casey shook her head in a negative response. Dana thought Casey looked bad when she had shown up at her apartment that morning, and thought she looked worse after Dana had told her about Tony's past, but that was nothing compared to the way she appeared now.
"I'm afraid she may go into shock," Dana said to Sam. "Let's get her inside."
Sam and Dana brought Casey inside the building. Tony's apartment was one of two on the first floor and Dana saw that the door was standing open. As they approached the doorway, Casey stiffened.
"I can't," she whispered hoarsely.
There was a stairway leading to another pair of apartments on the second floor of the building. "I'll stay here with Casey," Dana told Sam. "You go in and see what happened"
Sam helped Dana sit Casey down on one of the lower steps and then hurried toward the doorway. Within a few seconds, Sam was back.
"Call Bruno on his cell phone," he instructed. Sam's tone of voice and his request for Bruno left no doubt that Tony Hunter's death was neither natural nor accidental.
Casey sat motionless, staring straight ahead. Dana stood up and Sam took her place on the stairs next to Casey. He put his arm around her, but she didn't seem to notice.
Dana walked outside. Bruno's cell phone number was on speed dial on Dana's phone. He answered on the first ring.
"I'm at the gallery," Bruno said. "Where are you?"
Dana quickly explained the emergency that had called her and Sam to Casey's side and gave him the address. He promised to be there in ten minutes. "I think we need the paramedics for Casey," Dana told him. "She's really a mess"
The paramedics arrived before Bruno. They took one look at Casey and hustled her off to their vehicle to check her vital signs. That gave Dana a chance to ask Sam how bad the death scene was.
"He's in the living room with a rather large hole in the middle of his forehead. There's a golf club on the floor next to him. That's really all I could see from the doorway and I didn't want to try and get a closer look and contaminate the scene"
They heard the squeal of tires outside and saw the flashing light that Bruno put on top of his car when he needed to get somewhere fast. In another minute, Bruno's linebacker body was filling up the space in the hallway.
Bruno put his hands on Dana's shoulders and gazed into her eyes. "Are you okay?" he asked.
11mfine."
"I took a look from Hunter's doorway," Sam told him. "He's on the living room floor with a golf club next to him. He was shot in the head"
"Anyone else go inside the apartment?"
"Casey probably did," Dana said. "But she's in no condition to be questioned right now."
"The lab guys are on their way," Bruno said as he walked away.
When Bruno was out of earshot, Sam spoke quietly to Dana. "Why don't you go out and check on Casey? I'll hang around here on the chance this turns into a bigger story than I think it's going to be."
Dana nodded and walked out into the frigid night air again. The back door to the paramedic van was open and Dana could see Casey sitting inside with one of the attendants talking to her. Some of the color had returned to Casey's face, but Dana didn't know if she was feeling better or whether the cold air was responsible for the flush that had returned to her cheeks.
As Dana walked closer the paramedic got out of the vehicle and met her halfway. "Your friend is still pretty shookup, but I don't think she needs to go to the hospital. Why don't you go and talk to her while I round up my partner?"
Dana climbed into the vehicle and sat down next to Casey. "How are you doing?"
"According to my vitals, I'm not going to have a stroke or even pass out. I saw Bruno go into the building. I'd better pull myself together. I'm sure he'll want to question me"
"He's busy at the moment. Can you tell me what happened?"
Casey nodded. "After I left you, I went back to my apartment and Floyd Flannery was sitting out in front waiting for me"
"Oh, no," Dana said. "He came to the office last week and threatened us. Bob had to knock him down and we had him arrested. Someone must have bailed him out."
"I didn't know that," Casey told her.
"I should have told you this afternoon, but I forgot all about him. What happened with him?"
"We got into an argument about my investigation of his garage and all the problems it had caused for him. I was so upset
over Tony that I just lost it and started screaming at him. The people who live downstairs from me came out to see if I was in trouble and Flannery ran off."
"Flannery is a loose cannon," Dana said. "He belongs behind bars"
Casey took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "Do you think he could have come here and killed Tony to get even with me? Oh my God. It could be my fault Tony is dead"
After the way Flannery had acted in her office, Dana thought it was possibility, but for Casey's sake, she quickly denied it. "How would he have known where Tony lived? No, it's impossible. Nothing you have ever done or said could have caused this to happen to Tony. So Flannery ran off and then what did you do?"
"I went upstairs and called Carmen and Cathy and told them what happened between Tony and me. They both came rushing over to talk to me. We talked for a few hours and ordered some food. They left about eight o'clock and I decided that I should call Tony and see if he'd calmed down. His line was busy, so I drove over here. I know it sounds stupid, but I thought that the fact that Tony hadn't been honest with me either would give me some bargaining power and maybe we could work things out"
"It's not stupid. It's a logical assumption. So, you drove over here about eight, eight thirty?"
"I guess so. I didn't have a key so I rang the bell. Tony's car was parked outside so I thought he had to be home. When no one answered the bell, I knocked on the door and it swung open. I walked in and .. " Casey stopped talking as her face crumpled and she began to cry softly.
Dana put her arms around her friend and let her cry.
The paramedic suddenly appeared again. "I'm sorry, ladies. We have another call."
Dana stood up and helped Casey to her feet. The paramedic helped them out of the vehicle and Dana led Casey back into the apartment building. Both of their purses were in the hallway on the staircase where they had left them. Dana retrieved her bag and took out some tissues for Casey, who had managed to stop crying again.
Despite the police vehicles, none of the other people in the apartment building had gathered in the hallway.
"Do you know anyone else who lives in this building?" Dana asked Casey.
"The upstairs apartments are being renovated so they are both empty, and the people who live on the first floor are in Europe."
"So no one else is around to have seen or heard anything from Tony's apartment."
"No. I remember being grateful for that this morning when he was yelling and pushing me out of the apartment "
Sam and Bruno were standing just inside the doorway of Tony's apartment watching the forensics team gather evidence.
Bruno turned, saw Dana and Casey, and hurried over to them. He looked at Casey. "Are you doing better now?" he asked in a concerned voice.
"No," Casey said. "But I think I can answer some of your questions now."
Once again, Casey and Dana sat down on the stairs and Sam joined them. Bruno took out his notebook and Casey began her story, but when Bruno asked her what she and Tony had argued over, she said it was nothing important, just a stupid fight.
"Okay, Casey," Bruno said kindly. "I won't push you now, but eventually you'll have to tell me everything."
"I know," Casey said. "And I will, but I'm so upset now, I can't think straight"
Casey did tell Bruno about Floyd Flannery. When Sam heard the name, his face flushed with anger, but he didn't say anything.
Bruno wrote down the name, but he didn't say anything either, just nodded for Casey to continue her story. She did, skipping ahead to Tony's phone line being busy and deciding to come over to talk to him in person.
"The telephone was on the floor, off the hook," Bruno said.
Casey nodded in agreement. "The door was open and I walked in and saw him on the floor," she said softly.
"Did you touch anything?" Bruno asked.
Casey shook her head vigorously. "No. I knew he was dead so I backed out of the apartment and called Dana."
"Why didn't you call the police?"
"I don't know. The first person I thought to call for help was Dana and she and Sam came right away."
"Okay," Bruno said, closing his notebook. "We'll talk again tomorrow."
"If you're done with Casey," Sam said. "I'll take her and Dana home. Emily called a while ago. Marianne drove her home from the gallery."
"Casey, why don't you stay with me tonight?" Dana offered.
"Thanks, but I think I'd better go to my mother's house. She'll be really upset if I don't get to her before the news of ... before the news breaks."
Bruno pulled Dana off to the side. "I'll be here for a while longer and then I have to write up the report. I'll call you in the morning. I've got a lot of questions for you too. How about I ask them over breakfast?"
"Sure," Dana said. "I'll talk to you then."
Sam escorted his two reporters out to his car. It was after eleven when they got to Nina Jordan's house. Sam and Dana wanted to come in and help Casey break the news to her mother, but Casey said she'd rather do it alone, so Sam just walked her to the door and made sure she got inside.
Sam returned to the car and looked at Dana. "Do you think that creep Flannery killed Hunter to get even with Casey?"
"I think it's a possibility, but I hope for Casey's sake it wasn't him. She lost it again when it occurred to her earlier that Tony may have lost his life over one of her investigations."
"I can understand that," Sam said as he pulled away from the curb. "By the way, while Bruno and I were alone, he told me about Hunter's background. I guess your instincts about the guy were right. Did Casey know before she married him?"
"No. I just told her this afternoon"
"She told Bruno they had a fight earlier today and she had left the apartment, but she wouldn't say what the fight was about. Do you know?"
Dana didn't think she should tell Sam about the master plan Casey and her friends had concocted. "I can't discuss it," Dana said. "Casey swore me to secrecy, but it was a fairly bad argument "
"Bruno will probably ask you about it in the morning. Are you going to tell him?"
"Not unless Casey says I can. Besides, I think he'll be more interested in my telling Casey about her new husband's criminal record. This has turned into such a tragedy."
"You know, Bruno is already thinking that Casey may have killed her husband"
Dana turned sharply and looked at her editor. "Did he tell you that?"
"No, but if he thinks a weak kitten like Judy Porter and her baby-faced friend killed her husband, it follows that he'd think the same about Casey, a tough, skilled investigator."
"I have to give Bruno credit for one thing tonight. He saw how torn up Casey was and went easy on her."
"I'll call Troy Kimball first thing in the morning and ask him to speak to Casey. Bruno won't be so kind the next time he questions Casey. She's going to have to tell Bruno everything that happened between her and her husband and Kimball should be with her when she does it."
Dana nodded. Sam was right. Casey was going to be questioned thoroughly about Tony's death and all the details of the master plan would come to light. Dana just hoped Bruno wouldn't see the plan as a motive for murder.
Dana's phone started ringing at 7 a.m. when Marianne and Bob called to find out where Casey was and how she was doing. Dana talked to them, giving each as many details as she had while she drank her first cup of coffee.
Sam called to say that he had not been able to reach Troy Kimball but had left a message for him.
Dana showered and dressed in a pair of jeans and a longsleeved orchid sweater. Her unruly curls had been tamed by a short haircut a few days earlier, so she was able to let them air-dry while she put on enough makeup to make her feel ready to face the world in general and Bruno in particular.
The phone rang again. This time it was Casey.
"How are you doing this morning?" Dana asked.
"Yesterday seems like a nightmare, unreal and impossible."
"What about your mom? How did s
he take the news?"
"My mom is like the Rock of Gibraltar. She was upset about Tony, but too concerned about me to show it."
"Did you get any sleep?"
"Not much" Casey paused for a long moment. "Dana, do you think I need a lawyer before I talk to Bruno again?"
"It's probably a good idea. Sam has a call in to Troy Kimball. Do you know him?"
"I've seen him in court. He's good."
"So I've heard. He'll be in touch with you." Now Dana paused for a moment. "Listen, Casey, Bruno is going to be here soon. He's going to ask me a lot of questions about what you and I talked about yesterday. How much can I tell him about the master plan?"
"You can tell him the whole humiliating story," Casey said emotionally. "Please. Maybe if he hears it from you first, he won't think so badly of me"
"Bruno is your friend, Casey. He's not going to hold something like that against you."
"He's going to think I killed Tony."
"That's ridiculous." Even as she said it, Dana remembered telling Judy Porter the same thing the day she picked her up from the hospital, but that was exactly what had happened.
Dana's doorbell rang. "He's here now," Dana told Casey. "I'll call you later."
Dana hung up the phone and went to the door.
"Good morning," Bruno said cheerfully. He was holding a grocery bag from Sunflower Market.
"What's in the bag?" Dana asked as she stood on her toes to kiss him lightly on the lips.
"Breakfast"
"You're cooking?"
"Cheese omelets, fruit, and biscuits. You can make the coffee"
Bruno handed Dana the grocery bag while he took off his overcoat and scarf. She carried it into the kitchen and set it on the counter. When Bruno joined her a few minutes later, she handed him a steaming mug of black coffee.
"I thought we were going out for breakfast," Dana said as Bruno began taking the ingredients he had purchased out of the bag.
"Not this morning," he said, placing a small platter of fresh fruit on the counter. "You want to set the table in the dining room or should we eat in here?"