I took a sip of Diet Coke and a breath, and threw myself into it. “I had lunch with Lila two days ago, at Fidelio’s Restaurant...”
An hour later, we were still going strong. Detective Grimaldi had made more interruptions and repeated more questions than I would have thought possible, making me answer different variants of the same thing in different ways – I guess to see if my answers changed – although there was no denying she covered all the bases. Her detailed questioning kept my mind occupied, too, and I was grateful. I wasn’t looking forward to being alone with my thoughts. Already, the numbness was starting to wear off and I was beginning to shake.
At the end of the interview, Detective Grimaldi shut off the recorder. “I’m sorry to put you through that, Ms. Martin.”
“That’s OK. Lila was my friend. I want to help.” I swallowed and added, reluctantly, “I feel like this is my fault.”
She leaned back. “How can it be your fault?”
“I told her not to worry,” I said wretchedly. “I didn’t think she was in any danger.”
The detective arched a brow. “That doesn’t sound like you, Ms. Martin. I would have expected you to tell her to be careful.”
“I did! I mean, I did at first. But then…”
I trailed off. There was a thin line here, and it was one I wasn’t certain I wanted to cross. Of course I wanted the detective to know anything that might help her find Lila’s killer, but telling her that I suspected Rafe of being involved in the robberies surely wouldn’t make a difference when he couldn’t have killed Lila. And he couldn’t have. He just couldn’t.
“You know, Ms. Martin,” Detective Grimaldi said as she handed me a tissue, “it’s always better to tell the truth. The whole truth. And let us worry about what’s important and what isn’t. It’s our job.”
She sat back in her chair and started taking notes on a yellow legal pad. I sniffed into the tissue a few times before I mopped my eyes.
“It’s not that I didn’t tell you. I did. Just now. I just didn’t…” I just hadn’t spelled it out. I hadn’t wanted to. But now I felt like I should. “It’s about the man Lila met. The one she propositioned.”
“Let me guess. You’ve realized the description sounds a lot like someone we both know.”
It wasn’t a question. And she wasn’t looking at me, but kept her eyes on the legal pad, where she was doodling something. From the other side of the table and upside down, it looked like a hanged-man in the game that little children play. Gimme an R, I thought, gimme an A, gimme an F...
When I didn’t answer, she added, with a glance at me from under her own lashes, “Did you ask him about it?”
I grimaced. “Yes.”
“I don’t suppose you’d care to share his answer with me?”
“He said that if the open house robbers show up at my open house tomorrow, I shouldn’t tell them the same thing that Lila did.”
“A threat?” Detective Grimaldi said interestedly.
I shook my head. “Just a joke. You know Rafe. He never tells the truth if a lie will do, and there’s no telling what the truth is in this case. There are a lot of men out there with brown eyes. Every black, mixed-race, or Hispanic man in Nashville has dark eyes, and most of them have long, thick eyelashes, too. At least a few hundred must be over six feet tall, and I’m sure a lot of them call women darlin’. This is the South, after all.”
“True.” She didn’t say anything else. I waited until I couldn’t handle the silence any longer.
“So is that it? Can I go?”
“Unless you’d like to look at the rest of my crime scene photos. Or you’ve remembered something else. Or have any questions. Or you’d like to try again to convince me why Mr. Collier couldn’t have strangled Ms. Vaughn.”
She looked up, her eyes like knives slicing right through me. I shook my head. I had questions, but none that couldn’t wait. Right now, I just wanted to get out of this place, with its crime scene photos and dead bodies and bad memories. I’d save my breath for later, when it might do more good.
For the record, I didn’t think Rafe had strangled Lila. There was a time, not too long ago, when I’d been worried that he might strangle me; but he didn’t, and I wasn’t about to suspect him of strangling anyone else. If he had managed to control himself under the circumstances I’d put him in, he would have managed to control himself with Lila. But if I tried to convince Detective Grimaldi of that, I’d probably only make him sound worse than he was. It wasn’t difficult to do. As Todd Satterfield’s paranoidal background check a few weeks ago had revealed, Rafe didn’t have a job, didn’t have any visible means of support, didn’t own property or borrow money or pay taxes; he hadn’t even had a verifiable address before he moved in with his grandmother. It all added up to someone living slightly below the radar, which – considering his history – probably meant that he was involved in something illegal. If Todd could come up with that information, chances were the police could do even better. And although I didn’t think Detective Grimaldi was the type to arrest someone without the necessary proof, I might be wrong. Better to wait until then to argue my case.
Chapter 6
As soon as I was out of the Center for Forensic Medicine parking lot, I made a beeline for Potsdam Street. My hands were shaking and I wanted nothing more than to go home and curl up and cry, but there was something I had to do first.
101 Potsdam is a run-down Victorian house on a couple of acres in what isn’t the best part of town. It’s also Tondalia Jenkins’s house, where Brenda Puckett was killed a few weeks ago. As I had explained to Kieran Greene yesterday, Brenda had taken advantage of old Mrs. Jenkins’s dementia to con the woman into selling her home. Brenda signed Mrs. Jenkins to an illegal net-contract, under which Mrs. J would receive a paltry $100,000, with the rest of the profit from the sale going to Brenda. Who then listed the property for sale for three or four times what Mrs. Jenkins was due. Walker was aware of it, but it wasn’t until Rafe showed up and started asking questions, that Walker decided that Brenda had been a liability long enough. After the murders and Walker’s arrest, and with Steven Puckett’s help, it had been a fairly easy task to have the property returned to Mrs. Jenkins. Rafe had moved her out of the nursing home where Brenda had stuck her, and had hired a full-time nurse for her. This was the person who answered the door when I knocked, with a glare and an unfriendly greeting.
“What you want?”
Marquita and I had met before. We had gone to high school together, for one thing, although we hadn’t had any contact that I could remember. But she had been hanging around Rafe ever since he came back to Middle Tennessee, so I’d encountered her on a few occasions lately. She was a black woman a year or two older than me, with breasts the size of watermelons and a derriere that strained the fabric of the hot pink nurse’s scrubs she had on. She was fiercely possessive of Rafe, whom she had known (and wanted) since they were both teenagers, and she didn’t like me because she thought he was paying me too much attention. It didn’t seem to have crossed her mind that I would never, ever view him in the light of a potential boyfriend and thus wasn’t a threat to her plans of snagging him for herself. (Although I have to admit I haven’t always been above yanking her chain.) I wasn’t surprised at her tone of voice, or her aggressive stance, with hands on her hips and her chins jutting out.
I smiled sweetly. “Hello, Marquita. So nice to see you. You look lovely today. That bright pink is a good color for you.”
She folded her massive arms across her super-sized chest and scowled. “What you doing here?”
So much for softening her up. “I’m looking for your employer.” I glanced past her ample shoulder into the dusky interior of the hallway. She moved to block my gaze.
“He ain’t here.”
“And you wouldn’t tell me if he was. When do you expect him back?”
Her shrug was eloquent.
“Well, when was the last time you saw him?”
“He ain’t bee
n here much lately,” Marquita said grudgingly.
“Surely he comes home to see his grandmother?”
Marquita shrugged again.
“It’s important that I talk to him,” I said. “When you see him, would you tell him I’m looking for him? Someone’s dead, and the police are going to want to talk to him. Believe me, you don’t want him to get arrested so he can’t pay your salary. I know you don’t like me, but really, it would be best to tell him that I was here and what I said.”
Marquita didn’t answer, just took a step back and slammed the heavy oak door in my face. I thought she’d taken my point, however. Especially the one about her salary. I felt reasonably confident that I’d hear from Rafe at some point during the evening.
In all the hoopla, I’d forgotten that tonight was Saturday night and that I had a date with Todd. By the time I remembered, it was too late to head him off. I didn’t feel much like going, but he had reserved a table for dinner, and bought tickets to the theatre, and was probably already on his way up from Sweetwater, so I didn’t have much choice. Mother would never let me hear the end of it if I stood him up. And it might just help to take my mind off things. I rushed home and got ready in record time. In black, as a tribute to Lila. (And also because black is quite slimming and goes well with my blonde hair and pale skin. Not to mention how easy it is to accessorize.) I pulled my favorite little black dress over my head, threw on a pearl necklace and some matching earrings, pulled my hair back in a sleek (and easy) chignon, and stepped into strappy sandals. When Todd knocked on the door at 5 o’clock sharp, I was touching up my lipstick in front of the hall mirror.
We ended up at Fidelio’s again, of course. I don’t know why Todd kept insisting on bringing me there, but I’ve been too well brought up to inform a gentleman that I don’t like his choice of restaurant. I went along without demur. If nothing else, I could always count on the cuisine to be first-rate. No telephone calls interrupted the peace of our meal this time, and Todd was suitably sympathetic about Lila’s death and my interrogation by the big, bad detective.
“And they think her ill-advised remark last Sunday is to blame?”
“They think there’s a connection between the robbery and the murder, yes. That the murderer was one of the robbers, or maybe someone she told about the remark she made.”
“Or someone they told,” Todd suggested.
I nodded, even as the chicken piccata turned to sawdust in my mouth. “I’ve certainly told enough people, and there’s no telling whom they told. Gosh, I hope I didn’t inadvertently give someone the idea to kill her...!”
“Who did you tell?” Todd wanted to know.
I answered without thinking. “First there was you, of course, and Detective Grimaldi, and Rafe Collier, and Kieran Greene...”
Todd fixed on the only name in the litany that interested him. “When did you see Collier?”
I could have kicked myself, but I did my best to make my own voice sound calm and even. “The same night I spoke with you.”
Todd’s eyes narrowed. “I brought you home at ten o’clock!”
“I know you did,” I said.
Todd’s eyes narrowed further, and he started breathing through his nose. “Did he spend the night?”
“No, of course not.” I sighed exasperatedly. “My goodness, how stupid do you think I am? And how many times do I have to say it? There’s nothing going on with Rafe and me. We just talk once in a while, that’s all.”
“About what?”
I put my fork down. The conversation had made me lose what little appetite I had started with. “This and that. Life. Small-talk. Nothing in particular, mostly. This time I told him about my conversation with Lila, because it was on my mind.”
“And what did he say?”
I rolled my eyes. “That I shouldn’t make the same suggestion Lila did if the open house robbers stop by during my open house tomorrow.”
“Hmph!” Todd said. I shrugged. “You don’t suppose he might have had a hand in either the robbery or your friend’s death, do you?”
“No,” I said firmly, “I don’t.” And I was only answering the second part of the question, not the first; although of course Todd didn’t know that. “I refuse to believe that someone I know is capable of strangling an innocent woman.”
“There’s not much I’d put past Rafael Collier,” Todd said darkly.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I answered, in much the same tone, “but he’s never laid a finger on me, and I’ve never heard of him forcing himself on another woman, either. Frankly, I don’t think he has to. I’ve seen the way women react to him.”
I stopped, wondering what the hell had compelled me to add that last sentence, and to Todd, of all people, who couldn’t be trusted to know a bit of lighthearted humor if it jumped up and bit him in the nose. He flushed to the roots of his sandy hair. “When have you had occasion to see how women react to him? I didn’t think you spent all that much time together.”
“We don’t. But I saw the women at Brenda’s funeral, and the staff at Mrs. Jenkins’s nursing home, and Marquita Johnson, and Detective Grimaldi, and Tim...”
“Tim?”
“Timothy Briggs. He’s gay. Look, I’m sorry I mentioned it. I just don’t like the idea that someone I know is capable of something like this. Until I have definite proof to the contrary, I’d prefer to believe that Rafe is innocent of anything worse than misrepresenting his income for tax-purposes. OK? I see him occasionally, and it would make me feel better to believe that he’s harmless.”
“All right,” Todd said. But he didn’t sound like it was. It wasn’t long after that he asked me if I was ready to leave, and we headed for downtown and the performing arts center.
I wish I could say that I enjoyed the show, but honestly, I was too busy running things over in my head to hear the music at all. I watched the Phantom’s preoccupation with Christine and wondered if perhaps someone had had a similar obsession with Lila. A friend or boyfriend, or coworker or neighbor, who had heard about her remark to the robber last week, and who had decided to take advantage of it. The death might not even have been premeditated; the sex could have become rougher than Lila wanted, and she might have objected, and the murderer was trying to keep her quiet and went too far.
I was quiet myself on the way home, pleading over-stimulation after the spectacle we’d just seen. Todd was remarkably understanding; in fact, he was pretty quiet himself. Maybe the music and colors had affected him, too. As soon as we turned onto Main Street, I started looking around for Rafe’s motorcycle. He hadn’t called – and this time I’d wanted him to! – so I figured he’d turn up in person sooner or later, like he was wont to do. I didn’t see him outside the building, but I kept an eye out as we walked upstairs. Todd looked around, too, warily. And when he kissed me goodnight outside the door, I had to consciously tell myself to close my eyes instead of trying to peer past his ears into the shadows further down the hallway.
Todd left, frowning slightly, and I went into the apartment. I stopped just inside the door, without turning on the light, and waited. But there was no sign of life; no breathing, no foreign smells, no electricity in the air from another human body. Nevertheless, I turned on every light in the apartment and went through it, room by room. It was empty.
I fully expected to hear a knock on the door as soon as Todd had pulled away from the curb, but none came. After a suitable interval of waiting, I decided I might as well sit down. I couldn’t take my dress off, of course – the idea of receiving a strange man, especially Rafe Collier, in my nightgown was unthinkable – but I removed my contacts and kicked my heels off and curled up on the sofa. And there I stayed, watching late-night reruns of ‘The Cosby Show’ – ‘CSI’ cut too close to the bone – until I fell asleep.
When I woke up it was morning, and the sun was shining through the balcony doors. I was still alone, not that I’d expected otherwise. I was finally able to get out of the cocktail dress, which would be going str
aight to the cleaners to have the wrinkles removed, and then I spent the morning at home, just so Rafe could find me if he wanted to. But either he didn’t want to, or he couldn’t, because he didn’t show up. At a few minutes before noon, the phone rang, and I flung myself across the coffee table to snatch it up.
“It’s about time you called!”
“Gee,” a male voice said, “I didn’t know you were waiting.”
I blushed. Oops. “Sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
My brother’s voice was dry. “You don’t say? Would you like me to guess, or do you want to tell me?”
My brother Dixon is two years older than me, and a typical big brother. He worries about the men in my life and enjoys picking on me. He is not, however, in the habit of calling for no reason. We’re not that close. Or rather, we’re just as close as most brothers and sisters, but we don’t live in each other’s pockets. We see each other every few weeks, when I drive down to Sweetwater for a visit or – more rarely – when Dix has business in Nashville, and we talk when there’s something on either of our mind’s, but not usually otherwise.
“Neither,” I said firmly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. If by wrong you mean illness or accident befalling one of our family members. Sheila is fine, and so are the girls. Catherine and her brood seem OK, and mom’s… well, mom.”
“So what is it?”
“Can’t you guess? I saw Todd at church this morning, and he told me that you’re still seeing Collier.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not seeing Rafe. I just see him once in a while. Haven’t we already been over this?”
Dix said we had. “And I thought we settled it then. Until Todd told me you had a date with him at ten o’clock one night this week.”
“First off,” I said, flushing irritably, “it was not a date. I needed to talk to him about something, so I left him a message, and instead of calling back, he showed up on my doorstep. I was the one who had asked to talk to him, so I couldn’t very well turn him away. He only stayed for about fifteen minutes, just long enough to drink a glass of iced tea, and then he left again. And secondly, where does Todd get off spreading my personal business around to everyone he knows?”
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