Passion to Die for

by Marilyn Pappano

  If he voiced those possibilities to Kiki, she would counter with the likelier possibility: the hair had fallen after Ellie had hit Martha with her car, then got out and checked to make sure she was dead or dying. The same time she’d gotten the blood on her skirt.

  If it was blood. The lab would have to tell them that.

  Deliberately he focused on Kiki’s earlier comment rather than the evidence that did, on the surface, lead straight to Ellie. “Okay, Isaacs, this is me teaching. You consider her a suspect?”

  “Hell, yes. Any reasonable person would at this point.”

  “Then why haven’t you read her her rights?”

  Her gaze narrowed, her mouth thinning.

  “Come on, you were questioning her. You were demanding her clothing and her vehicle. What happens when you question a suspect without reading her her rights?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “A good lawyer sees that none of it makes it into court. You learned that in Cop 101, Kiki.”

  She shoved at a strand of hair that had fallen over her eyes. “Okay,” she said, taking a slow breath. “But we’re allowed to interview people about the victim and the circumstances of her death without Mirandizing them.”

  “Not when you’ve already tagged them as a suspect in said death. You want to go into court and testify under oath that you didn’t consider Ellie a suspect before you questioned her? Because you should know now, I don’t perjure myself. Not for you, not for anyone.” Not even Ellie. Though if anyone could tempt him to break that rule…

  Kiki kicked a piece of gravel that skittered across the lot, then leaned against the Charger. Her lower lip jutted out in a pout. “You’re only being so picky because you like her.”

  “I can make the argument that you’re only being so careless because you don’t like her. And believe me, if I can make it, Robbie can, too, and he’ll be a hell of a lot more persuasive.” He glanced up as the sound of a familiar engine came clearly on the thin morning air. “We don’t have all the evidence yet. We don’t have a cause or a time of death. We don’t have a motive. We don’t even know that getting hit by the car had anything to do with her dying. She could have passed out, hit her head and died before the car struck her. She could have had a heart attack. There are a lot of possibilities, and we’re nowhere near ruling them all out.”

  “We can’t lose possible evidence because we don’t have enough answers yet.”

  “Our only risk of losing evidence right now is if you keep bulldozing through this. We’re going to do it by the book.”

  “I don’t remember seeing the page in my book where it says the lead detective should lawyer up for the suspect,” she grumbled as Robbie’s Corvette turned into the alley.

  Tommy watched Copper Lake’s best criminal defense attorney—Ellie’s criminal defense attorney; what a weird thought—pull into a nearby space and shut off the engine before he looked at Kiki again. “Tell me you wouldn’t do the same for Sophy.”

  Her only response was a grudging shrug.

  Robbie looked as if he’d been dragged out of bed four or five hours too early. He combed his fingers through his hair, then rubbed one hand across his jaw as he approached them. “You know, some of us like to get up at a decent hour.”

  “You think we wanted to get called out at 5:00 a.m.?” Tommy responded mildly.

  “You’re up then anyway, except on Saturdays. Where’s Ellie?”

  “In the kitchen.” Tommy wished he could go inside with him, could sit beside Ellie and offer moral support or something. Of course, that wasn’t even in the realm of possibility. He, Robbie and Ellie would all have to be fools to allow that, and Robbie, at least, was no fool.

  Besides, she didn’t want Tommy’s support.

  Or anything else.

  Ellie sat numbly in the back dining room, a bottle of water open in front of her, a croissant untouched on the saucer beside it. She’d talked with Robbie awhile, maybe fifteen minutes, maybe an hour. Nothing seemed real. Time didn’t pass, nothing made sense, everything was out of control.

  Pete Petrovski stood in the doorway, arms crossed, gazing out the windows that lined the back wall. He’d brought her the water and scrounged around the kitchen until he found the croissant left over from yesterday’s breakfast. He’d even offered to go down to A Cuppa Joe’s for her just before Robbie had arrived and sent him away with nothing more than a look.

  Now Pete was back, and Robbie was outside, talking to Tommy and Kiki. She didn’t move, though. She wasn’t sure her legs would support her.

  Martha was dead. Ellie was stunned, yes, but not sorry. The emotion churning inside her was for herself. Had Martha’s threat to reveal her past died with the woman, or would it all come out anyway? As long as her death remained a police matter, Ellie wasn’t safe. They would look into Martha’s background, gather her belongings from the bed-and-breakfast. They would find the originals of the files Martha had given to her Wednesday night, and they would figure out that she’d been attempting to blackmail Ellie.

  One more reason to consider her a killer.

  Dear God, had she done it? Had she left the deli last night, run down her mother in the street and left her there to die? Was she capable of that kind of desperate act, that kind of rage?

  She didn’t want to believe it. There had to be another explanation. Her mother, her car, her past, her clothes, but someone else was guilty.

  Even she didn’t buy it.

  The back door closed, and then a moment later, Tommy, Robbie and Kiki came into the dining room. Kiki pulled a garment from the canvas bag she carried and shook it out, then nodded to Ellie. “Come on. We need your clothes.”

  “Anamaria sent a dress for you,” Robbie said in explanation. Probably a maternity dress, since Ellie hadn’t been long and lean like her in a lot of years.

  It took monumental effort to get to her feet, then follow Kiki to the women’s bathroom. When she would have gone into a stall, the woman stopped her. “Change out here.”

  The police want to take my clothes and my car, Ellie had said on the phone. Robbie, they think I killed someone!

  They’d discussed Kiki’s request when he arrived, and he’d advised her to cooperate. If she didn’t voluntarily turn over the costume and the car, the police would just get a warrant. It would prolong the process, but in the end, the result would be the same: either way, she was giving up both clothes and car before she left here.

  The dress Anamaria had sent was grass-green, a simple sheath, stopping short of the knees, the sleeves ending above the elbows. She stripped off the peasant blouse, the scarf and the skirt, handed them to Kiki, then tugged the soft cotton over her head.

  She looked ragged in the mirrors above the sinks. Her hair stuck out every which way, her eye makeup was smudged and a bruise darkened her cheek. Nothing new there. Last night hadn’t been the first time Martha slapped her.

  But it was the last.

  “Is that where she hit you?”

  Her gaze shifted in the mirror to meet Kiki’s, and she nodded mutely. Tommy had told her about it, had also, no doubt, told her that Ellie had wished Martha dead mere hours before she was killed. No wonder, with everything else, that Kiki looked at her as if she’d already been convicted.

  No wonder Tommy had stopped the questioning and told her to call Robbie. Bless him for that.

  Running her hands under cold water, she managed to bring some order to her hair. Kiki gave her another minute to wipe away some makeup with a damp paper towel, and then they left the bathroom. Kiki went into the kitchen with the costume; Ellie returned to the back dining room. Through the window, she saw a couple of people in the parking lot, examining her car. They wore T-shirts marked CSU on the back, and they were looking for evidence that she was a killer.

  Shuddering, she sat down, Tommy to her left at the small table, Robbie to the right.

  Tommy broke the silence. “How did you know Martha Dempsey?”

  Tell the truth, Robbie had advised. Getting caug
ht in a lie, especially one that didn’t relate directly to Martha’s death, would just make the cops wonder what else she was lying about.

  Easy for him to say when he didn’t know the truth. She’s my mother. Truth. My selfish, hateful, abusive mother who threw me out of the house when I was fifteen for something I didn’t do. Motive.

  “I knew her growing up,” she said, staring outside though she couldn’t see the activity in the parking lot.

  “In Charleston?”

  “Atlanta.” She felt his gaze intensify. Yes, she’d lied about that. She’d lied about so many things. If she stopped now, all the untruths would collapse and bury her beneath their weight…or send her to prison.

  “Was she a neighbor, a teacher, the church organist?” The tension that sharpened his voice radiated in the air, as well, raw and edgy against her skin. “Was she involved with your father?”

  “Yes.” True, as far as it went.

  “And he’s dead.”

  “Yes.” Completely true, and a relief. If she weren’t so worried about being blamed for Martha’s death, if she weren’t wondering whether she was guilty, she would feel nothing but relief over it, too. Giddy, free-from-the-past relief.

  “Last night you said you’d agreed to meet her after church today. About what?”

  “She wanted to talk. To relive old times.” Oh God, she didn’t want to tell any more lies. She wanted to grab hold of Tommy, tell him she couldn’t remember the night before, that she didn’t know if she’d killed Martha. She wanted to cling to him, lean on him and let him make everything all right. That was what he did, after all—served, protected and made people feel safe.

  “And you didn’t want to.”

  “I don’t like talking about the past.” Finally she faced him head-on, for the first time since he’d given her his cell phone. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t gotten more than a few hours’ sleep, and the expression in his dark eyes was grim. Beard stubbled his jaw, and the way his mouth was set, she would bet he was really wishing he hadn’t given up smoking last year. Don’t feel you have to do this for me, she’d said after one particularly testy day, and he’d grinned, looping his arm around her waist and drawing her near.

  I’m doing it for me. When we start having kids, I don’t want to be outrun by a two-year-old.

  Her throat constricted, and a tear or two pricked at her eyelids. No kids for her. No marriage. Even if she ran away, even now that Martha wasn’t alive to follow and threaten her, she would still have to get Tommy out of her system before she could even think about another man, and that wasn’t likely to happen. Some broken hearts were permanent.

  Did he see something in her face, or was that deepening scowl his typical expression for interviewing murder suspects?

  “How much did you have to drink last night?”

  “I don’t know. I guess too much.”

  “Who was working the bar?”

  “Deryl.” What would Deryl tell him? That she’d gotten bombed, announced she was going to kill someone, then staggered out of the bar? Or that she’d had only one drink for courage before leaving the bar, that when she’d returned, there had been blood on her skirt and her car was banged up, that she’d gotten bombed then to forget?

  “Who else did you talk to last night besides Deryl?” Tommy asked.

  “I don’t remember anyone.” Lifting one hand, she kneaded the taut muscles in the right side of her neck. “After running into—” Bad choice of words. “After seeing you and Martha, I wanted a drink. I’ve never had a drink in my own bar. So I came in through the kitchen, I went to the bar and I…had several drinks. Too many.”

  “I thought you didn’t know how many,” he reminded her, his expression impassive.

  “Look at me!” she snapped. “I look like I’ve been run over—” Horrible choice of words, shuddering through her with revulsion. “Like I’ve been through the wringer. I stink of booze. I smell it, I taste it. I slept on the couch in my office in those awful clothes and that awful wig, my head is throbbing and I’m seriously thinking about puking up my guts again. Does that sound like too many drinks to you?”

  “Yeah. It sounds like about ten times more alcohol than I’ve seen you drink in the five years you’ve lived here. Why last night? What was it about Martha that made you decide it was a good time to get drunk?”

  Chilled, Ellie hugged her arms to her chest. “I didn’t decide. I just wanted a drink.” One drink, to take the edge off the tension that had been screaming through her. She was pretty sure she hadn’t even intended to finish it. Just a few sips, to get warm, to relax a bit, to get the nerve to climb into the car and leave. Flee.

  Just one drink. But it must have done such a great job of taking the edge off that she’d ordered another. Surely even a nondrinker like her couldn’t get stinking drunk and pass out from just one drink.

  Abruptly Tommy took another tack. “Martha said that she had a good twenty-five years left and she was planning to spend them with you. She said you were going to be a family again.”

  There wasn’t a question in there, but Ellie shook her head. It never would have happened. First she would have run the hell away from Georgia. She’d taken money from the bank, her bags were packed and in the car—

  Her gaze jerked once more to the rear windows. They were going over her car with a fine-tooth comb. They would find the suitcases. Soon they’d find out about the bank withdrawal, and they would discover Martha’s blackmail material at the Jasmine. Motive upon motive.

  Kiki came around the corner into the dining room and took the seat across from Ellie. Her manner was bristly, her expression almost blank, but smugness eased in around the edges. “What do you say, Ellie? Want to go to jail today?”

  Ellie and Kiki had never been friends, but things had gotten worse since Tommy had started dating Sophy. Kiki, it seemed, thought Ellie was standing in the way of her best friend’s happiness, because Tommy had been in love with her.

  She’d never wanted him to love her. Sex was easy, dating was easy. But needing, loving, committing…She had too many secrets. Too little trust. Too little faith in herself, in him, in anyone’s ability to see what she’d been, to know what she’d done, and want to know her anyway.

  She didn’t want to know her.

  “What do you have, Kiki?” Robbie asked.

  “Preliminary tests show it is blood on both the skirt and the car. Of course, the lab will have to tell us it’s Martha Dempsey’s. The crime scene guys found some clothing fibers caught in the crumpled metal around the bumper. I’m sure the lab will also identify those as belonging to Martha Dempsey, as well. And, hey, the car was packed up. Like you intended to leave town in a hurry, Ellie.”

  Tommy and Robbie both swiveled around to stare at her, Tommy’s dark eyes filled with hurt, Robbie’s blue gaze with smoldering anger. She wanted to apologize to them, but she was too stunned by the first part of Kiki’s announcement. That was definitely blood on her car, on her skirt. She’d curled up on the couch in her office and slept the night through with her mother’s blood soaking into her skirt.

  Oh God.

  Lurching to her feet, she dashed to the bathroom and shoved the door open hard enough to make it bounce. Kiki’s “Hey!” sounded distant, along with the scrape of a chair and heavier footsteps coming her way. Her stomach heaved, sending blood rushing through her ears, blocking out the steps, and her vision turned blurry as the retching started again.

  When it stopped, she leaned weakly against the stall wall. She knew it was Tommy waiting on the other side of the thin partition, though he hadn’t spoken, hadn’t come any closer than the bathroom door. She could hear it in his breathing, could feel it in the air, in her own taut muscles.

  I’m good at waiting, he’d told her the first time he’d proposed to her, the first time she’d turned him down. One of these days, you’ll change your mind, and I’ll be here. She’d never changed her mind, but he’d always been there.

  She wished he would le
ave, not just the bathroom but the restaurant. She wished he didn’t have to see her this way, looking like death warmed over, smelling that way, too, vomiting, giving lousy answers to important questions, suspected of killing someone. She wished she could preserve a little dignity. She didn’t have much, but she needed it.

  But he wasn’t going anywhere, and the god-awful taste in her mouth left her no choice but to leave the stall. She flushed the toilet, then opened the door, keeping her eyes downcast as she washed her hands and rinsed her mouth with water scooped from the tap.

  “You were leaving.” His voice was soft, his tone not dismayed or disappointed, but disillusioned. “Without saying goodbye. And you weren’t coming back.”

  And finally she had no choice but to face him. The lie was there, ready to come out—I needed a break. Just a few days. Charleston or Savannah or Beaufort. I would have been back later in the week. But all she did was nod.

  It was as if something in him snapped. He advanced on her, backing her against the wall, not touching her but holding her there all the same, his body mere inches from hers, his hands on the wall on either side of her head, his face bent to hers. “Why?” he demanded, the question all the more fierce for its low, insistent tone. “Because of Martha? Who was she, Ellie? What did she want from you? Where were you going? What about us?”

  She took a breath, painful, shallow, and whispered, “There is no ‘us.’”

  He didn’t move. The distance between them, small as it was, remained the same, but somehow he seemed closer, looming, but not threatening. “What about Anamaria, Jamie, Sara? Robbie and Russ and Carmen? What about your friends, Ellie? Don’t you owe them better than that? Don’t they at least deserve a goodbye?”

  She was so raw inside that even the faint shake of her head sent pain throbbing through her. “I—I couldn’t…”

  “So you were just going to run away. Disappear. Give up everything you’ve got here and leave us to wonder the rest of our lives what the hell happened to you.” Now he sounded disappointed, and bitterness added its own flavor. The look he gave her was scornful, disgusted, as he moved away.