Change of Heart

by Jenna Bennett

  As usual when he kissed me, my mind went fuzzy. It could have been a few minutes later, or more than a few, that he tipped me over on my back and got to his feet. “Food first.”

  I pouted and he chuckled. “I’ll get the food on the table. You get changed. Into something that it’ll be easy for me to take off you later.”

  He winked. It was a personal joke: once upon a time he’d asked me to dinner and told me to wear something comfortable. Because I was obsessively reading sexual innuendo into everything he said to me, my mind had made the connection between the request and the movies, where ‘something comfortable’ usually means a negligee. But since I wasn’t about to go to dinner in a restaurant in my nightgown, I’d ended up in a wrap dress, and if he’d wanted to, he could have untied the knot and spread the dress out like a picnic blanket. He didn’t. Instead he wined and dined me, took me home, kissed me goodnight—the memory of that kiss still had the power to curl my toes—and left for Memphis. I hadn’t seen him for weeks after that, and I’d spent all that time wishing he’d chosen to take advantage of me before he left. I fell into bed with him almost as soon as he came back. There’s a lot to be said for that old adage about absence making the heart grow fonder, or at least more amorous.

  There’s also a lot to be said for wrap dresses.

  He walked out into the living room and I got myself upright and over to the closet, where I exchanged the skirt and business blouse for the same dress I’d worn in September, before I headed into the dining room for dinner.

  His lips curved with appreciation when he saw me. “I’ve always liked that dress.”

  “Good memories.”

  “You had it on the night I went to Memphis, right?”

  I nodded.

  He gave me another appreciative up-and-down. “Took all I had to get on that bike and leave. What I wanted was to haul you up over my shoulder and carry you upstairs.”

  “I wanted you to.”

  He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I saved your life and you thought you owed me, but you were still afraid of me. You needed that time while I was gone to get your head straight.”

  Maybe so. Part of me had definitely been disappointed that he hadn’t chosen to take advantage of me before he left. The other part had been relieved, but there was that part that had wanted him to carry me upstairs and overcome my maidenly scruples. A part that was getting more and more vocal every day. “Feel free to haul me up over your shoulder and carry me anywhere you want from now on. If you can.”

  An eyebrow quirked. “You worried about my back or your weight, darlin’?”

  “My weight.” There was nothing wrong with his back.

  “You look just the way I like.” He pulled out one of the chairs and gestured.

  I seated myself, and let him bring the food, since he seemed to want to wait on me. And since he’d told me he liked the way I look, I didn’t say a word about the heaping helping of spaghetti he piled on my plate, nor did I mention the fact that the garlic bread was likely adhering itself directly to my hips as I chewed. I just enjoyed the food and the company.

  For a while. Until Rafe asked me where I’d been so late.

  I swallowed. “Mrs. Armstrong’s house. Tim isn’t back yet, and she wanted to take it off the market. I think maybe selling it was her husband’s idea. Or maybe they had to, to divide the assets.”

  “Divorce?” He bit into a piece of garlic bread. It crunched, and a few crumbs hit the table.

  “They’re separated,” I said. “She lives at the house, he had an apartment.”

  “So he wasn’t in bed with her when he was stabbed.”

  I shook my head. “Grimaldi’s CSI crew went over the house as well as the apartment. There was no blood, and she said there would have been.”

  He took another bite of bread. “How’s Tammy?”

  “Fine,” I said. “She said to give you her love.”

  “Surely not.”

  Fine. “She said to tell you hi.”

  Rafe nodded. I took a breath. “I stopped by your grandmother’s house with a steak sandwich this afternoon. You weren’t there.”

  I watched him closely. If I had expected to see a reaction, I was disappointed. Since I hadn’t—I know better than to expect him to give away anything he doesn’t want to—I wasn’t. He just quirked a brow and kept eating. “Yeah?”

  “Where were you?”

  “I imagine I was out getting a burger,” Rafe said calmly.

  “Oh.”

  “Lunchtime. I got hungry.”

  Of course. I flushed, feeling stupid.

  “So what did you wanna tell me over steak sandwiches?”

  “How do you know that I didn’t just want to see you?”

  “I’m sure you did wanna see me,” Rafe said, “but you had something you wanted to talk about, too. I know you. You ain’t the type to come find me because you want sex up against the wall in the afternoon.”

  I wasn’t? “Grimaldi and I found a sheet set in Tim’s house that matches the sheet Brian Armstrong was wrapped in. The flat sheet was missing.”

  “No kidding.”

  I shook my head.

  “Blood anywhere?”

  “None we could see. Grimaldi was going to send in a CSI team to make sure.”

  Rafe nodded. “You stab somebody that many times, there’s gonna be a lot of blood. Hard to get rid of all of it.”

  I didn’t even want to know how he knew that. “Remember back in September, just after Lila died? I met this guy named Beau Riggins. A housecleaner.” Of sorts.

  He looked puzzled for a second, before his face cleared. “The guy who slept with Perry’s wife?”

  “That’s him. I saw his business card in Tim’s office drawer.”

  “So?” Rafe said. “Tim’s a realtor, right? He probably recommends housecleaners all the time.”

  Probably. “Beau drove a blue Mini Cooper with speed stripes.”

  “So?”

  “I passed a car like that just after I left Mrs. Armstrong’s house tonight.”

  Rafe tilted his head. “You think it was him?”

  I shrugged. “By the time I got around the block, the car was gone. I knocked on the door and asked if I’d left my cell phone there, but Mrs. Armstrong didn’t let me in. She left me on the front step while she went to look.”

  “How rude,” Rafe said, grinning.

  “It was!”

  “I know, darlin’. But most people ain’t been as well brought up as you.”

  That was true. I’d had proper manners ground into me from a very early age. “Do you think she didn’t want me to see who was there?”

  “Maybe,” Rafe said. “If somebody was.”

  “Do you think it was Beau?”

  He shrugged. “Coulda been. Coulda been someone else. Coulda been nobody.”

  Could have. “Do you think I should tell Grimaldi?”

  “Can’t hurt.”

  “Now?”

  “Later.” He pushed his chair back and came around the table. “C’mon.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s later. Time for me to take the dress off.”

  I glanced at the table. “But the dishes...”

  “Can wait,” Rafe said firmly and pulled me toward the bedroom door.

  The next morning was a replay of the one before. He got up and showered and headed out to Mrs. Jenkins’s house to paint. I got dressed and went to work. There was no sales meeting this morning, and the place was dead, pardon the expression. Brittany was late, so it was just me in the office. I took advantage of the opportunity to call Tamara Grimaldi while I thought no one would hear me.

  “Ms. Martin.” As usual when she’s in the middle of a case she sounded tired. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can tell me whether your crew found any bloodstains in Tim’s house.”

  She hesitated, and for a second I thought maybe she’d tell me it was none of my business. Then she sighed. “No.”

&nb
sp; “So Brian Armstrong wasn’t killed there?”

  “We don’t know that. He could have cleaned extremely well.”

  “Is that likely?”

  “No,” Grimaldi admitted. “Most people, after they’ve committed a bloody murder, wipe up what they see, but they’re not usually cool enough to go to town with cleaners and bleaches and brushes and everything else.”

  “Well, then?”

  “But we can’t rule it out. The rest of the sheet set was found in his closet. And there’s that missing carpet from the guest bedroom.”

  And the Chlorox bleach and ammonia I’d seen in the upstairs bathroom.

  “So Tim killed Brian, and wrapped him in the sheet that was on the bed. He took the body to East Nashville and dumped it in the park. He went to the office and washed his hands. He went back home and tossed the rest of the sheets in the washer and dryer while he cleaned the bedroom to within an inch of its life. He discarded—somehow—the carpet that had been on the floor. And then he folded the sheets—with the flat sheet missing—and put them back in the closet before he left town? Does that make any sense?”

  “Maybe they weren’t the sheets that were on the bed,” Grimaldi said. “Maybe that was a different sheet set, that he took with him and threw in a dumpster somewhere, along with the carpet, because there was too much blood on them to get out. Maybe the sheet the body was wrapped in came from the closet, and he forgot that the rest of the set was there. He was probably rattled after it happened. Most people don’t think straight after committing a murder.”

  “But you just said he thought straight enough to clean his bedroom so well that there was no sign of blood there.”

  She was quiet.

  “I saw a business card in his desk yesterday,” I said, and went on to explain about Beau Riggins and his houseboy business. “You remember him, don’t you? Didn’t you talk to him after Lila Vaughn was murdered?”

  “I did.” She paused for a second, probably to bring the information into focus. “He worked for all three of the houses where the open house robberies took place. One of them was Timothy Briggs’s listing.”

  I nodded, although she couldn’t see me. “The two gay guys. One of them took off work every week to come home early and watch Beau swing his feather duster.” And his fanny.

  “It was a coincidence,” Grimaldi said, and continued before I could tell her that no, it hadn’t been; not at all. “He had nothing to do with the robberies or the murders, but I talked to him before we knew better.”

  “He slept with Connie Fortunato.”

  There was a second’s pause. “The second victim? Did I know that?”

  “I think I probably told you,” I said. “But maybe not. It wasn’t important to what happened. Anyway, Tim had Beau’s card in his desk.”

  “You think Mr. Riggins was the one who came in and cleaned up?”

  It was possible. I didn’t know Beau well, and had no idea whether he’d be willing to keep quiet about murder. That would depend on how he felt about Tim, I guess. His own morals had always struck me as a bit elastic. But he might not even have known what he was doing. Tim could have done the basic mopping up himself, and could have called Beau and asked him to do a more thorough cleaning.

  Then again, I hadn’t ever gotten the impression that Beau actually did much heavy lifting. He was more like sexual entertainment: a dishy guy in Wonderjocks™ bouncing around the house, flexing and bending, with a dust rag and mop.

  “I saw his car yesterday,” I told Grimaldi, and qualified it, “or rather, I saw the kind of car that he drove last fall. When I was leaving Mrs. Armstrong’s house.”

  There was a beat. “Maybe she uses him, too,” Grimaldi said.

  Maybe she did. In some fashion. I declined the bait, as befitted a well-brought-up Southern Belle. “It was late-ish. Seven o’clock. Past business hours. She had changed into a robe.”

  “Ah.” Grimaldi paused for a second before she asked, “And you say he slept with Mrs. Fortunato last year?”

  “That’s what he said. Did Brian and Erin separate because she was sleeping with someone else?”

  “Irreconcilable differences,” Grimaldi said.

  “Is that what she told you? Or what you’re telling me?”

  “It’s what I’m telling you. It’s none of your business why they separated. Thank you for the information. I’ll look into it.”

  Fine. Be that way. And since she was, I decided not to tell her about my second piece of information: the fact that Tim had had an appointment at Chaps on Friday night. I’d just go there myself instead. And if I found him—or more likely found out what he’d been up to on Friday, or who he’d been with—I’d tell her later. And gloat.

  “You’re welcome. Have a nice day.”

  I was just about to hang up when I heard her voice again. “Ms. Martin?”

  I put the phone back up to my ear. “Yes, detective?”

  “Did Mr. Collier come home last night?”

  “Of course he came home,” I said. “He even cooked dinner.”

  “Did you forgive him?”

  “There was nothing to forgive. He was out getting something to eat when I stopped by the house in the afternoon. It was my fault. I should have tried calling him first.”

  “Of course.” She was silent. “Have a good day, Ms. Martin.”

  “You too, detective. Let me know if there’s anything more I can do for you.” Or anything more you can share with me.

  I didn’t say it, but I knew she’d heard it in my voice.

  Since the office was still empty, I dug the folder for the Armstrongs’ house out of Brittany’s filing cabinet, added the withdrawal form I had gotten signed yesterday, and set to work removing the listing from the Multiple Listing Service. It had to be done electronically on Brittany’s computer, since she was the one with the company passwords, and I didn’t want to leave it any longer than I had to, since I didn’t want poor Erin Armstrong to have to deal with any more showings. It was a nice house in a desirable neighborhood, and the price wasn’t bad either, and she’d probably had a run on the doors ever since the house went on the market.

  I was in the process of getting the job done when Brittany’s—or rather, the company’s—mailbox signaled an incoming email with a little trill of sound.

  Chapter Twelve

  Normally I wouldn’t have bothered with it. It’s supremely bad form to look at someone else’s email correspondence. It may even be illegal. Opening other people’s snail mail certainly is. But just in case it was Tim, or something else pertinent to what was going on, I opened the email program and peered at the message.

  And... bingo.

  The message was from TBriggs @ LBA, which is short for Lamont, Briggs and Associates. In other words, the company we both work for. The message itself was short and sweet: Anything for me?

  I flipped through the little stack of messages on Brittany’s desk and found nothing. So I wrote back saying no, and added that, Mrs. Armstrong requested that her house be taken off the market after the death of her husband. Did you hear about that?

  I waited for a response, and just when I started to worry that one wouldn’t be coming, he sent one back. On the news. Did you withdraw the listing?

  I told him I had, just this morning, and added, The police were here yesterday.

  This time the response was much quicker. Why?

  They were at your house too, I told him. Where are you?

  Friend’s house.

  We should meet and talk.

  There was another longish pause, then finally: Who are you?

  Savannah, I wrote back. And imagined the consternation on Tim’s face when he realized he’d been corresponding not with Brittany, but with me.

  I didn’t hear from him after that, nor had I expected to. But at least I knew he was alive and well, and checking his email. So I sent one last message his way. The police found sheets in your house that matched the sheet Brian Armstrong was wrapped in. I re
ally hope you have a good alibi for Friday night.

  That done, I deleted—and double-deleted—the conversation, since there was no point in leaving it for Brittany to find. That done, I retired to my own office to work on a postcard mailing I had planned in an attempt to scare up a few clients.

  By eleven, I was bored and peckish—and still alone in the office—so I called Rafe to see if he wanted to go to lunch.

  “Sure,” he said readily. I could hear his voice echo, so he was still at Mrs. Jenkins’s house. (Not that I was calling to check on him or anything.)

  “What are you in the mood for?”

  There was a pause, and I imagined the slow smile on his face and the way his eyebrow tilted. I blushed, of course. He’s got me trained so that he doesn’t even have to be there anymore; I know what he’s thinking, and that’s enough.

  “I could go for a burger,” he said eventually, predictably, after he’d enjoyed listening to me squirm.

  “That’s fine.” I’m more of the Cordon Bleu type myself, but wherever there are burgers, I can usually count on finding some sort of salad too. “Where do you want to meet?”

  He named a place, not too far from Mrs. J’s house, on the border between the hideously expensive and the not-quite-gentrified parts of the neighborhood.

  “Are you ready now?”

  “Thirty minutes,” Rafe answered, and hung up.

  I made myself busy for another fifteen, and then I locked the still-empty office and got in my car.

  The joint he’d picked—I won’t honor it by calling it a restaurant—wasn’t too far away, but he was there before me. When I walked in, he was sitting in a booth in the rear, with his back to the wall—the better to see any threats coming his way—and the phone to his ear. He saw me coming, though, and finished up the conversation by the time I stopped beside the table. He even got up to greet me. He slipped a hand around my waist under the winter coat I was wearing and leaned in to—I thought—give me a polite and gentlemanly peck on the cheek. Instead, the kiss landed on my mouth and lasted a bit longer than a peck. By the time he pulled back, my knees were weak, and I was clutching handfuls of his T-shirt. That was probably why he’d slipped that arm around me in the first place.