by Arlene Kay
Miel won the restaurant trifecta—French comfort food, attentive service, and stylish décor. Meribeth Foye must have agreed. She was waiting for me at the entrance, shifting giddily from foot to foot like a nervous filly in the breeding shed. We took our seats and exchanged wan smiles.
“It’s so kind of you, Ms. Kane. This is such a special place.” She adjusted her headband, sweeping nonexistent crumbs off the table. Headband! Even I knew that style had gone the way of scrunchies and frosting caps.
“I need your help,” I said as Meribeth buttered a breadstick. “What does the name Byron mean to you?”
She furrowed her brow. “Byron. Like the poet?”
I shrugged. “Close your eyes and say anything that comes to mind.”
Meribeth was a trooper. She closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and crunched. “Just one other thing. That man who called Ms. Swann.”
My heart lurched. “What about him? You’re sure it was a man?”
“I guess so. The voice was deep, but I didn’t pay much attention. Just took the message and gave it to Malcolm.” Meribeth snorted. “I’m not a secretary, you know. That’s his job.”
I clucked sympathetically and probed a bit more. “Did you catch the caller ID?”
“Maybe. Let me think.” Meribeth ran a hand through her scraggly locks. “Nope. Sorry, I just don’t remember. It rang on his desk, but of course Malcolm was gallivanting somewhere. Thinks he’s too good to be a secretary, you know.”
Her diatribe stopped when our waiter arrived. He patiently recited the entrées du jour as Meribeth debated the merits of half the menu. Whatever shortcomings she had, the woman certainly appreciated French food—all five courses of it.
“I just remembered,” Meribeth said over scrumptious Pistou soup. “Ms. Swann had several calls that day that really upset her.”
“Oh? Any idea why?” I spooned soup into my mouth, acting normal.
She wrinkled her brow. “Oh, I know! Something about her mother. That’s it.”
“Anika?” A glacial chill descended, causing me to shiver.
Meribeth shrugged as she swallowed an asparagus spear. “I didn’t catch the whole thing, but it had something to do with that doctor. You know, her therapist.”
I forced myself to remain calm. CeCe had been negotiating with someone, probably Wesley Townsend, about those discs. Part of the negotiation had involved a handgun, but she’d gone to that rooftop armed only with a smile. Something allayed her suspicions. When CeCe scented victory, nothing deterred her, even a phobia she’d wrestled with for years. She’d sublimate her fears if it meant saving her mother.
“Is something wrong, Ms. Kane?” Meribeth’s lips puckered. “I thought of something else. Of course, it probably doesn’t mean anything.”
Who was the patron saint of forbearance? I needed heavenly help to keep from pinching her chipmunk cheeks. “I value your insights, Meribeth. Anything will help.”
“Ms. Schwartz stayed late that Friday night. I mean, she always stays late but not usually on Fridays.” Meribeth smirked. “Date night, you know.”
My mental wheels starting clicking. Pamela Schwartz had a deep gravelly voice that might easily be mistaken for a man’s. Could she be the elusive Byron? I was positive that her boudoir exploits eclipsed anything George Gordon ever tried. The stumbling block was motive. What arrangements would she possibly consummate with CeCe on that rooftop? More importantly, why would Pamela kill my friend?
“Did you hear me, Ms. Kane?” Meribeth’s chestnut eyes gleamed with malice. “We all thought Ms. Schwartz might get married. She hinted around about it.”
“No kidding. Who’s the lucky man?”
She lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Why, Mr. Swann of course. Your fiancé.”
“Deming?”
Meribeth nodded sagely. “Ms. Swann went berserk when she heard that. They really had it out. I happened to be outside her office getting a file.”
I forced myself to button my lips. She’d blab if I just stayed silent. Guaranteed. It was a rare opportunity in an otherwise humdrum life for her to claim the spotlight.
Meribeth averted her eyes in girlish demurral. “I abhor gossip,” she said. “It’s un-Christian. But you of all people understand why Ms. Swann was upset. Her very own brother. Her twin. She said, ‘The only way you’ll marry Deming is over my dead body!’”
Every muscle in my body went on red alert. I leaned forward, oblivious to the crème brûlée congealing on my plate. “How did Ms. Schwartz take that?”
“She moved in real close and hissed. I mean it. She actually hissed.”
Chills swept through my body despite the restaurant’s perfect temperature control. “Too bad you couldn’t hear what she said.”
Meribeth gave me a superior smirk. “Are you kidding? I heard her loud and clear. She said, ‘Over your dead body? That can be arranged, Cecilia.’”
I gulped down an enormous swig of Perrier, anything to calm my nerves and keep the conversation flowing. “She must have been kidding. Pam Schwartz doesn’t look like an assassin to me.”
Meribeth Foye pursed her lips. “You’re right, I’m sure. Ms. Swann was livid. She stormed out of that office, grabbed her briefcase, and slammed the main door. That wasn’t like her at all.”
“High stress jobs! I’m sure everything was forgotten the next week.”
She closed her eyes while inhaling a spoonful of chocolate mousse and dabbed the corners of her mouth with a delicacy that surprised me. “They never got the chance to patch up their quarrel,” she said. “Ms. Swann died that Sunday.”
I PAID THE CHECK and drifted out to the curb in search of a cab. My head spun with a dozen different theories, none of them good. Blaring horns shocked me back to reality as I narrowly missed death by cement mixer. I staggered back to the curb, dazed.
“For Christ’s sake, Eja. Have you no sense?” Deming flung open the passenger side door of his Porsche, oblivious to the murderous looks and hand gestures of fellow drivers. “Hop in, unless you’re planning ritual suicide.”
I tried to act civilized. His love life was no business of mine, and I did need a ride. Instead of shrieking, I burrowed into my purse, found the envelope, and thrust it at him. “I spent some for lunch, but the rest is here. Thanks for the gesture.”
Deming surprised me. I expected a harangue, not the reaction I got.
“I wasn’t patronizing you,” he said softly. He clutched my hand, gently kissing each finger. “Sometimes I’m insensitive. I know that. You’ve spent most of your time helping us with Cecilia instead of working, and I just thought . . .”
I was prepared for anything but kindness. I closed my eyes to suppress any emotion. Revisiting Meribeth’s gossip helped to stiffen my spine. My response was terse, fueled by anger and uncertainty. “I had no idea you and Pam Schwartz were so close. That she expected to marry you.”
“What? Who fed you that garbage?” Deming’s face lost all color, and his lips formed a cold, hard line. “I thought you knew better than that, Eja. You disappoint me.”
A cab pulled in behind us, blaring its horn. Deming ignored it as I gave him a quick but thorough account of my lunch date.
“The woman’s bonkers,” Deming said. “Meribeth, not Pam. I can assure you that marriage was one issue Pamela and I never discussed. She’s already had two husbands and wants no part of a family.”
That floored me. “Family? You don’t seem like the family type.”
His lips twisted in a sly grin. “I could be, with the right woman. Every man wants a son.”
Tread softly, Eja. Dangerous territory. As a childless woman who had never been pregnant I was ill equipped for this discussion. For all I knew, I might be as barren as the Gobi.
“Pam admitted she had a blowout with CeCe right before she died.
” I shrugged. “Could be she had designs on you after all.”
Deming skillfully maneuvered the Porsche into the flow of traffic. “No sense asking. She’d only deny it. Besides, are you seriously suggesting that Pamela Schwartz lured my sister to that rooftop and murdered her over me? Sounds like one of your novels.”
Déjà vu time. He’d managed to erase all my warm, fuzzy feelings with one caustic comment. I was proud of my books despite Deming’s snide remarks. I’d worked hard to succeed, but a man who measured success by dollar signs would never understand that.
“We’ll see.” I flashed a Mona Lisa smile and said no more. CeCe might well have charged out onto that roof if she were meeting Pam. Even as a kid she’d never backed away or turned down a dare. It wasn’t in her nature. “There’s more,” I said.
After hearing Malcolm’s confession, Deming uttered a vivid scatological term. “We don’t know that he’s telling the truth. He may have engineered the whole thing. Probably did, the bastard. My sister could have ended his career or gotten him tossed in jail. Now that’s motive.”
He hooked a sharp left turn and sped down a side street.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Where are we headed?”
“My place. I thought you could use a drink. Frankly I need one.”
“But . . .”
I’d never been to his home, or what CeCe called Deming’s lair. Like everything about him, it was exclusive, elegant, and very private. The building’s official name was the Carleton House, but insiders called it the Old Ritz. As Boston locations go it was primo: on the park where Commonwealth Ave kissed the nape of Newbury Street.
He valeted the Porsche and shepherded me through the cloistered lobby to the elevators. Everything was smooth and effortless as one might expect in a property that claimed to be the most coveted residential real estate in Boston. After inserting the elevator key, we sped silently up to the tenth floor. Deming had commissioned a total renovation by a Manhattan firm that was a regular in Architectural Digest. I steeled myself for grandeur, but the joke was on me. The room was a monument to Asian minimalism, a spare, yet oddly sensuous aesthetic rather like Deming himself. Even the colors reflected restrained passion: muted grey, black, and cream with crimson splashes.
“It’s lovely,” I said, glancing around. “The perfect bachelor pad.”
He grunted something unintelligible and headed straight for the bar. “Pumpkin martini? Hope I got it right.”
I was touched by the gesture. “You said the mere thought sickened you. What changed?”
Deming shrugged. “I tried one, just for fun. They’re not half bad.” He turned away as he wielded the silver cocktail shaker like a pro. Suddenly classical music flooded the room from some unseen source. Mozart I think, although it might have been Beethoven.
Deming led the way to the sunken living room and gestured toward the couch. My body parts tingled as I nestled into the sofa’s downy cushions awaiting the unknown. Deming sat across from me in a charcoal wing chair, staring with such intensity that I quivered.
“You like this place?” he asked. “Most women do.”
That subtle statement reminded me I was one in a pack of females who had graced the premises. Perhaps Deming got a volume discount. No problem. Romance aside, we shared only one goal. Anything else was unimportant.
“What happened at the police station?” I asked. “Did Mia Bates freak out?”
“Not hardly. That woman was colder than snow. Told Pam that Jem Russell was still a person of interest. Oh yeah, she mentioned you.”
“Me?”
“Said you should butt out of her investigation, and I agree with her.” He folded his arms as if he were the Lord High Executioner and that settled the issue. Words like arrogant and pigheaded immediately sprang to mind.
“Thanks for the advice,” I said, taking a healthy swallow of my martini. “Did you, Lieutenant Bates, or Pamela happen to solve CeCe’s murder? That’s what we’re here for, after all.”
Deming’s passion hiked my thermostat to the ceiling. I took a deep breath, ignored my carnal urges, and focused on the case. “We’ve narrowed down the suspects. That’s half the battle. If we just . . .”
He slammed his fist down on the black lacquer side table. “Stop! You’re delusional. We’re no closer to finding my sister’s murderer than we were a week ago. This isn’t a game, Eja. You’re playing with fire.” His voice softened. “If something happened to you, I couldn’t bear it.”
I crossed the room and perched on the arm of his chair, ignoring the urge to touch and comfort him. Suddenly Deming whirled around, taking me by surprise. He folded me into his arms, blanketing me with a wall of rock-hard muscle. “I’d rather have you with me than risk your life,” he whispered.
“Even if means that we never find her murderer?”
“Don’t you get it? I care about you.” Deming laid his cheek next to mine. “Damn it, I love you.”
I opened my mouth to say something—anything—but words eluded me. Everything I’d dreamed of and yearned for welled up inside me with volcanic force. My throat closed, forcing me to swallow convulsively.
The ringing of his cell phone shattered the mood. Deming answered it, listening without comment to the caller. When he hung up, everything had changed. His manner was grave, his eyes unfocused.
“There’s been a development,” he said. “Jem Russell’s gone.”
Twenty-One
MY SENSES WENT on overload. The point/counterpoint of love and death was beyond my ken. I blinked furiously, trying to process everything.
“Gone as in dead, or missing?”
Deming shrugged as if it were irrelevant.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “About Jem, I mean.”
“That was my dad. He just spoke to Lieutenant Bates.” Deming stared vacantly into space, as if he’d entered a different cosmos.
“Did Jem leave a note or something?” I tripped over my tongue, trying to elicit information without appearing ghoulish.
“Pam went to his place. She had a key.” Deming leapt to his feet and began pacing. “It’s an admission of guilt. Has to be. Why else would he vanish?”
Jem Russell was the most self-centered male I’d ever encountered. He was also the least likely candidate for suicide or recriminations. There was no time for delicacy.
“So he’s not dead? No signs of mayhem?”
“Not that I know of, but the cops consider his disappearance suspicious. Apparently they found something—my sister’s missing laptop and BlackBerry.”
“In his condo? Oh, my God!” My pulse quickened as I visualized it. CeCe’s personal and professional life was encapsulated on those gadgets. Jem Russell with his pigmy brain and goofy grin could barely spell technology, let alone access it. He’d readily take her things to pawn, but he simply wasn’t the type for sentimentality or souvenirs.
“Big deal,” I said. “That means nothing. If Jem found that stuff, it probably freaked him out. You know how cowardly he is. He’d bolt.”
Jem’s disappearing act was a boon for the police and the real murderer. Dead men tell no tales. Neither do ones who vanish. If Euphemia Bates pressured Jem, he would have sung like the celestial choir. Someone or something had spooked him.
“Get your things,” Deming said. “I’ll drop you at your place.”
“Wait a minute. Where are you going?”
He averted his eyes until that legal training kicked in. Then Deming Swann, Esquire, shrugged, summoning that blank, guileless look that spelled treachery. “My dad asked me to do some errands. Business.”
In a departure from his lovey-dovey mood, he flicked a wing of coal black hair over his ear and grimaced.
“Poor Pam,” I said, watching him closely. “She must be devastated.”
His elaborate shr
ug was a dead giveaway. “I suppose.”
“Drop me at your parents’ house. Maybe Anika and I can comfort Pam. Female solidarity. You know the drill.” I forced myself to call his bluff and damn the consequences. Deming’s errand had nothing to do with business: He was going to Pam. I saw that with astounding clarity even as I slipped out of his arms, pretending to believe him.
I focused instead on the convenient loss of Jem Russell, a sad sack with the moral compass of a felon. CeCe compared him to anti-freeze, sweet tasting and lethal as hell.
He loved playing angles, thinking he was smarter than God or nature ever intended. This time his luck may have finally run out. Jem had a highly developed fight-or-flight instinct with emphasis on flight. Ten to one, he was either dead or holed up somewhere licking his wounds and seeking consolation.
The alleged evidence didn’t faze me. Anyone can fabricate evidence. Television shows schooled us all in the basics of police procedures. Planting things in Jem’s apartment was someone’s quick, tidy solution to a thorny case. Jem had no motive to kill CeCe, and I wasn’t buying his absence as an admission of anything other than panic.
“Eja, listen to me.” Deming wore his serious, Perry Mason face. “You need to go home. Mother’s not up for visitors right now.”
“Maybe Bolin wants company,” I said. “After all, I’m used to dealing with the press.”
I saw the signs of seismic eruption. Deming Swann, emperor of all he surveyed, was seriously pissed. His reaction reinforced what I’d always suspected. Deming needed a different kind of woman, someone credulous who’d swallow his line of nonsense with a sweet smile. Not a caustic scold like me.
“For Christ’s sake, let it go. He murdered my sister. Why can’t you accept that?” Deming grabbed my shoulders as if he might shake them.
Acting on pure reflex, I speared his shin with my high heel. “Don’t threaten me, Deming Swann. Ever.”