He hung up and I did the same. And then I finished my crackers and Brie before it was time to head out to Erin Armstrong’s house.
Chapter Ten
The place was a lot quieter today than yesterday. No cars were parked at the curb when I drove up, and there were no other signs of life. When I rang the doorbell, no one answered.
My mother brought me up properly, so it was 6:30 right on the nose. Obviously Erin’s mother hadn’t been as conscientious as mine, or maybe Erin just wasn’t as much a slave to her upbringing as I was. Either way, she breezed up ten minutes late, in a dark blue Lexus SUV, without so much as an apology. “Have you been waiting long?” was all she said as she unlocked the door.
Since it would be impolite to tell her I’d been waiting since the time we’d agreed to meet, I just smiled. “A few minutes.”
Inside the house, it looked like a cyclone had been through. The place was empty, of course. The dining room table, which had been groaning under the amount of food piled on it yesterday, was bare but for an ostentatious flower arrangement in funereal white. Lilies, carnations, and baby’s breath. But everything else was in disarray. There were dirty footmarks all over the hardwoods from people traipsing in and out yesterday, dragging rainwater and mud inside. Sofa pillows were on the floor, picture frames were askew on the walls, and there were crumbs and splotches of food everywhere.
“I can recommend a cleaning service,” I said, “if you’d like.”
“I have one,” Erin answered with a glance around. She grimaced. “They can’t come any too soon.”
There was no arguing with that.
My apartment is small, so I don’t really need help keeping it clean—nor can I afford it—but I grew up with a cleaning service that came in on a weekly basis to keep the mansion spic and span. My mother doesn’t get her own hands dirty. Obviously Erin didn’t, either.
“Let’s sit in the kitchen,” Erin said. “It’s friendlier.”
Sure. I followed her down the hallway to the back of the house, where I hadn’t been yesterday.
The kitchen was a bright and sunny room, bigger than it appeared in the internet pictures I’d seen. It was a painted a pale green, with tile floors, granite counters, and the standard stainless steel appliance package, including the obligatory gas-fed stove. Everything was messy, with the same dirty footprints, crumbs, and splotches from the party, and a sink full of dirty dishes.
Erin looked around. “Sorry.”
“It’s no problem. You have more important things on your mind.”
“Can I get you something to drink?” She made a beeline for the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of Chardonnay.
I shook my head regretfully. I love white wine, but— “I’m working.” And I wanted my wits about me, both because she was Tim’s client and I wanted to do right by her and by the company, and because I wanted to be sure to notice and remember anything interesting she might say, so I could tell Detective Grimaldi later. Not that a few sips of Chardonnay would impair my abilities, but this wasn’t a social occasion and we weren’t friends.
Erin filled her own glass and stuck the bottle back into the refrigerator. Then she leaned her back against the fridge and downed half the contents of the glass in one swallow. “That’s better.” She put her head back and closed her eyes.
“Rough day?” I took stock of her, while she couldn’t see me looking.
She wasn’t much older than me, but the California tan made her skin look leathery and tough.
“You can’t imagine. Although Saturday was worse.”
“I’m sure it was.” That would have been when she got the news that her husband had been murdered. “I’m sorry for your loss. How can I help you?”
“I think,” Erin said, straightening, “that it might be best if I take the house off the market for the time being.”
“Of course.”
“With everything that’s going on, it’s hard to keep up with everything. And I’m not sure I’m up for making the place look nice every time there’s a showing.”
“Of course.”
“And because of the way Brian died, people are coming to gawk at the place. I’m afraid there’ll be a stigma.”
Most people probably had no idea there was a connection between Brian Armstrong—who had featured in the news only as an unidentified naked male found in Shelby Park on Saturday morning—and this house, but I didn’t say so. Stigmas, unfortunately, are only too real. Someone dies in a house, and immediately it becomes a hundred times harder to sell, as well as irresistible to a certain segment of the population. The ghost hunters, the para-psychological, the ghouls.
“Of course,” I said again.
Every time I said it, it seemed Erin felt compelled to come up with yet one more reason why taking the house off the market was a good idea. “There are probably issues with selling, too, now that Brian’s gone.”
“Possibly.” I’ve never had a client die on me in the middle of a transaction—though one or two have come close—and I hadn’t taken the time to look it up, since I’d come here with the impression that she didn’t want to work things out, she just wanted to withdraw the listing. But chances were that yes, when one of the parties to a transaction dies, there are probably issues with signatures and survivorship and the likes. What’s a pretty straight-forward situation when everyone’s alive and kicking, becomes infinitely more complicated when one party croaks right in the middle of the transaction.
“I really think it would be better for everyone if we just took the house off the market.”
“Of course.”
“I won’t have to worry about packing up and moving...”
She trailed off, as if realizing she’d said too much. I pounced. “Did you guys have another place picked out?”
Erin hesitated. Looked at her glass and the wine swirling at the bottom of it. “We were separated.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He called me the day he died.” Her eyes were filling up with tears. She was either a very good actress, or sincere. “He asked if we could talk on Saturday. I think maybe he was thinking about changing his mind.”
“Was splitting up his idea?”
But she must have said too much and realized it, because she clammed up again. “I’m sorry. This isn’t something you need to worry about. Just... let me know what I have to do to take the house off the market for now.”
“Of course.” It wouldn’t do me any good to push, I figured, so I didn’t. Instead, I fished a piece of paper out of my briefcase. “This is a withdrawal form. If you’ll sign it, I’ll fill out the address and dates and take it to the office tomorrow and get the listing taken down. There may be other paperwork that’s necessary too, to close the file, but I’ll let Tim deal with that when he comes back.”
She nodded, scrawling her name on the dotted line. “Where is Tim?”
“I don’t know.” I slipped the signed sheet back into the briefcase. “I haven’t spoken to him since Saturday morning.”
“Saturday?”
“I ran into him in the office.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t say anything at all. Just asked me if I could take over his open house yesterday.”
Erin looked worried. “You don’t think anything’s happened to him, do you?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” Erin said. “Do you think he could be dead too?”
I thought it much more likely that he was on the run after killing Brian, but of course I didn’t say so. She didn’t need to hear it, and besides, I had no proof. And to be honest, I did have a hard time imagining Tim killing anyone. Too fastidious. Like my mother, he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.
Then again, I’d had the same impression of Walker Lamont—a well-dressed, well-spoken, sophisticated, gay-as-a-meadow-lark businessman—until he’d revealed that he’d killed several people, a couple of them up close and personal.
Erin shrugged.
“Well, was there something going on between them?” She looked like she might be taking offense to the suggestion, so I added, quickly, “Were they friends? Is that why you’re using Tim as your real estate agent?”
“Brian did that,” Erin said. “I’m not sure how he knew Tim. Or how well they knew each other.”
Right. And I couldn’t really ask Erin whether she and her husband were splitting up because Brian had a hidden gay streak. It just isn’t done. So I let it go, and prepared to leave, closing the snaps on my briefcase and getting to my feet. “I’ll have Tim get in touch with you as soon as I talk to him. In the meantime, I’ll get the house taken off the market for you.”
“Thank you,” Erin said.
“Would you like me to remove Tim’s sign from the yard while I’m here?”
“That would be great,” Erin said.
I put my briefcase on the front seat of the Volvo and made my careful way through the dead wet grass of the yard, my high heels sinking into the moist ground, to haul the LB&A sign out of the dirt and drag it back to the car. Clumps of dirt fell off the spiky metal legs and into the clean interior of my trunk. Wonderful.
Erin stood on the front step and watched me, wine glass in hand, so after it was done, I traipsed back up to her. “Anything else I can do for you right now?”
She shook her head and glanced down the road. Maybe she was waiting for someone.
“Let me know if there’s anything more I can do for you.”
She said she would, and I headed back to my car, while Erin went inside the house and closed the door behind her. I pulled away from the curb and headed for home.
I was three blocks away, going along at my usual sedate pace, when a car passed me, zipping in the other direction. It was a small bright blue Mini Cooper with white stripes.
I knew someone who drove that kind of car. I’d met him about six months ago, outside another of Tim’s listings. His name was Beau Riggins, and he was a house cleaner. He’d been on his way into the house when I’d been on my way out, and we had gotten to talking. He had pulled down his zipper right there on the porch, to show me his ‘uniform’—a pair of Wonderjocks™. I’d found out later that he’d slept with one of his clients, who had ended up dead. For a while, I’d suspected him of being a murderer.
Now that I thought about it, I’d noticed his business card in Tim’s desk drawer this afternoon, when I’d been at Tim’s house with Tamara Grimaldi. It hadn’t really registered at the time—I’d opened the drawer just when she’d called me to come into the bathroom to look in the linen closet—but now I remembered. The slogan on Beau’s business card was, Feeling dirty? Call the house boy! and that kind of thing is hard to forget.
What was Beau doing here?
If indeed it was Beau in the car, and not some other owner of a blue Mini Cooper. That certainly wasn’t impossible; there are plenty of Mini Coopers around, and I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
But even so, I turned at the next corner, and then backtracked until I could go down Erin’s street again.
There was no sign of the car I’d seen. Not outside Erin’s house, and not anywhere else on the street. But when I peered at Erin’s house, and at the lighted windows, I swear I saw the outline of two silhouettes behind the curtains.
I pulled up to the curb and stopped, but it had only been a glimpse. Now there was nothing to see. So I got out of the car and stood for a second on the slick pavement, staring at the house and thinking.
There was no way I could skulk around in the yard trying to peer in through the windows. It was latish and dark, but someone might see me. Erin might see me.
Much better to go knock on the door and pretend I’d left or lost something. If nothing else, I might get a look at whoever had arrived, to determine whether it was Beau Riggins or not. They probably hadn’t quite made it to bed yet.
If anyone was here at all, that was.
So I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. And waited. It took a minute or two—and another ding of the bell—before Erin answered.
“Yes?”
Impatient. And out of the severe business suit and into a... was that a robe?
It was. Not revealing in any way, but a soft, purple velveteen that covered her from shoulders to floor, with a belt tied around the waist. All someone would have to do would be tug on the knot and it would open.
“Hi again.” I smiled winsomely. “Sorry to bother you. I wondered whether I left my cell phone here? I got halfway home and realized I didn’t have it.”
She hesitated. “I’ll look.”
I had my mouth open to tell her I could look myself, but she’d already shut the door, leaving me standing there on the stoop.
Rude. But it did make me think she had something to hide, something she didn’t want me to see. Why else would she care if I came back inside?
I peered through one of the sidelights as Erin made her way down the hallway to the kitchen. No one else was in sight.
She came back just a few seconds later, without the cell phone. Obviously, since it was in my pocket. I fumbled the ringer off; that way, if it rang while she had the door open, at least she wouldn’t be able to hear it.
“I’m sorry,” she said when the door was open a crack. “I didn’t see it.”
“That’s OK.” I gave her another smile. “Maybe I left it somewhere else, and just didn’t realize it until now. Keep an eye out for it, would you?”
“Of course.”
I hesitated, but when she didn’t say anything more, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I conceded defeat. “Have a good night.”
She thanked me and closed the door, but when I looked over my shoulder before getting into the Volvo, I could still see her silhouette outlined against the wavy glass of the sidelight. She clearly wasn’t going to leave the front hall until I had driven away.
So I did. But although I made another trip around the block, in hopes I’d get lucky, there was nothing to see when I came back around in front of the house. Erin’s silhouette was gone, and so was the other silhouette I had—or thought I had—seen.
Chapter Eleven
I smelled spaghetti sauce before I even put the key in the door. Rafe’s not much of a cook, but he does know how to boil pasta and heat sauce out of a can.
He must be feeling guilty, I figured. Cooking isn’t something he usually does. For ten years, he didn’t have anything resembling a home life, and I have a feeling he ate in restaurants and bars, and ordered takeout whenever he needed a meal. Since he moved in with me, we’ve eaten at home a bit more. Often because we couldn’t drag ourselves out of bed until it was too late to go anywhere, true, but also because I was doing my damndest to show him the charms of domesticity.
He’d had a miserable childhood and youth, then spent two years in prison, and after that, he’d gone undercover. During all that time, as far as I knew, he’d never had a normal romantic relationship. There’d been women, sure. Lots of women. He couldn’t have gotten as good as he is without considerable practice. But they hadn’t been what I’d call normal relationships. He’d told me once that he’d never thought about the future because he’d never dared to trust that he’d have one. Now he did. He had a chance at a normal life again, and I was bound and determined to keep him happy so he’d stay with me.
Sometimes it scared me just how crazy I was about him, especially as he wasn’t someone I was supposed to have those kinds of feelings for. “Not our people,” as mother would say. Yet the idea that something could happen to him and I could lose him, kept me in a state of constant terror. That part of it had gotten a little better now that he’d stopped working for the TBI and stopped risking his life every day. Nowadays, I was more worried that he mig
ht get tired of me and leave. So for the past two months, I’d done everything in my power to make simple domestic life seem as appealing as possible. Home cooked food, clothes, lots of sex whenever he wanted it—not that I didn’t benefit greatly from that, as well.
Anyway, he was home. He was cooking. I smelled the spicy sauce in the hallway, and by the time I’d unlocked the door and let myself into the narrow hallway, it was all around me.
The scent, not the sauce. The sauce was in a pan on the stove, simmering and popping, probably making a mess I’d have to clean up later. The spaghetti was already drained and sitting in a colander in the sink under a lid, and I thought I detected the underlying hint of garlic bread toasting in the oven. From where I stood, I could see that the dining room table was set with plates and stemmed glasses, napkins and silverware. He’d forgotten the coasters.
I raised my voice. “Rafe?”
There was a sound in the back of the apartment, and then he appeared in the bedroom doorway on bare feet, with faded jeans slung low on his hips and a blue T-shirt stretched tight across his chest and shoulders. His hair—the little bit he has—was still wet from what must have been a recent shower.
My mouth watered. Or maybe that was the scent of the food.
Either way, there was warmth in his eyes. Not heat, although there might have been a hint of that too, but warmth, like he was happy to see me. “You’re out late, darlin’.”
“Business meeting,” I said.
“I made dinner.”
I nodded. “I see that.”
“You wanna change into something comfortable while I get the food on the table?”
I tilted my head, considering. What I wanted to do, was push him backwards through the doorway into the bedroom, and keep going until the backs of his knees hit the bed and he tumbled... but that’s not something a properly brought up Southern Belle admits to wanting, let alone does.
Unless...
He was grinning at me, as if he knew just what I was thinking. When I walked toward him, he didn’t move out of the way, just watched me come closer. When I put out my hand and gave him a push, he took a step backwards. And another. Just before he fell backwards onto the bed, he grabbed me and pulled me down on top of him.
Change of Heart Page 10