The Scent of Murder--A Mystery

by Kylie Logan

  “Mrs. Brody!” Jazz caught up with her just as Sloane turned toward the sidewalk. “I’m…” She hauled in a breath at the same time she scrambled to find the right word that would explain how she felt at finding the suspect’s wife at his victim’s service.

  Sloane saved her the trouble. “Surprised?” She was wearing a hat, sunglasses, an understated gray raincoat, the outfit designed so the media wouldn’t notice her. “I thought it was only right for me to be here. For me to … acknowledge … I don’t know if that’s the right word.” Her slim shoulders rose and fell; her breath trembled. “I needed to do something.”

  “It was very kind of you. Not to mention brave. If those reporters catch on to the fact that you’re here…”

  Sloane snickered. “They’re packing up and leaving,” she said, and when Jazz looked over her shoulder she saw Sloane was right. “On to the latest and greatest sensation. By next week, no one will even remember that girl’s name.”

  Jazz wondered if Sloane had already forgotten it.

  “You’ll still have to live with the story.” It wasn’t the first time Jazz had thought of the tsunami of consequences resulting from the blackmail, the affair, the murder. “It can’t be easy.”

  Sloane steadied her shoulders. “I’ve retained the best attorney in town to represent Tate. He’s innocent, you know. It was someone else. It had to be. Someone planted that evidence against Tate.” Sloane’s voice bubbled with anger, her pale-as-porcelain cheeks shot through with color.

  “You’re very loyal. After everything they’re saying on the news about—”

  “You believe that?” The sound that escaped her might have been a snort coming from someone less cultured. “Lies. It’s all lies. The media, they’re like sharks. They can smell blood in the water and when there isn’t any, they toss in some chum just to make things interesting. I hate every last one of them. Almost as much as I hate…” Her voice broke.

  Jazz gave Sloane time to compose herself, turning to watch, like Sloane did, when Eddie and Frank, the maintenance guys from St. Catherine’s, took Florie’s photo off the easel. Eddie folded the easel and slung it over his shoulder. Frank carried the picture out of the park.

  “I’m just sorry for everything.” Sloane’s shoulders sagged, her voice clogged with tears. “Obviously I’m angry about what’s happening to Tate, but you know, the truth is, I’m sorry for that girl, too. And I’m so sorry about the baby. That poor baby.”

  Baby?

  Jazz would have liked to ask what Sloane was talking about, but she never had the chance. Sloane turned and walked up the park path toward the street just as Jazz’s phone rang.

  “Nick!” Worry pounded at her insides and she barely squeezed the word out. “I need to talk to you!”

  He sounded tired. “So you told me in all those voicemails. I’ve been kind of busy and—”

  “Yeah, I know.” Jazz watched Sloane cross the street. “And I’ve got plenty to tell you, but Nick, first I have to know, did something happen to Lalo, you know, that kid Florie was taking pictures of?”

  He thought about it for a moment. “Not that I’ve heard. Why would you ask?”

  “Because Sloane Brody was here at the memorial service. She told me she felt bad about Florie, and about the baby. Naturally I thought of Lalo. Could she have meant…” The idea was preposterous.

  Or was it?

  “Nick, could she have been talking about Florie’s baby?”

  Jazz watched Sloane open her purse and peer inside, no doubt searching for her keys.

  “That’s weird.” Nick must have rapped a pencil against his desktop, because a sound started up, one in perfect rhythm to the frantic beating of Jazz’s heart. “Because Brody, when we interviewed him, he told us Florie told him she was pregnant.”

  “Was she?”

  “I’ve checked and rechecked the autopsy report. I called the coroner just to be sure. No way Florie was pregnant.”

  “And when…” Jazz swallowed hard. “When did Florie tell Brody she was?” she asked.

  “That night he told her he was breaking up with her. The night she died. My guess is she was just trying to hang on to him and she was willing to lie to do it.”

  “So when do you suppose Brody broke the news to his wife?”

  Nick didn’t answer. Instead, Jazz heard the same tap, tap, tap. “Checking the reports,” he finally said. “You know, one fact has a way of blending with another and this one—”

  When his words cut off, Jazz tensed. “What? What is it, Nick?”

  “That whole thing about the baby, it looks like Brody never mentioned it until last night when we interviewed him again. And he swore he never told anyone else, not even his wife.”

  “And since last night…” Jazz’s insides clutched. “Has he talked to Sloane?”

  “There’s no record of a visit or a phone call,” he told her. “What do you suppose—”

  “Nick!” Jazz was moving before she even realized it, running across the park, toward the street, toward where Sloane Brody’s expensive purse seemed to have swallowed her car keys. “Nick, I know who really killed Florie.”

  Nick said something that might have been “Are you nuts?” but Jazz wasn’t listening. Across the narrow street from where Sloane was so intent on searching for her keys she never noticed her, Jazz stopped and held the phone to her side, the call still connected. “Mrs. Brody, wait up! I need to talk to you.”

  There was certainly nothing threatening about the way Jazz said it, but some deep-seated warning went off in Sloane’s head. Her eyes wary, she looked at Jazz. She looked at Jazz’s phone. And she took off running.

  Her timing was perfect. A truck lumbered by going too fast for Jazz to cross the street in front of it and too slow for her to get around it quickly. She counted out the seconds, cursed under her breath, told Nick, “You’ve got to get over here to Tremont,” and when the truck had finally passed, she was just in time to see Sloane shoot across the street at the far corner of the park and disappear into an alley between a pizza place and a resale shop.

  “Jazz!” Nick’s voice sounded like it came from a million miles away. “What’s going on?”

  “She took off.” Jazz was already racing after Sloane, and her words bumped along with her breaths. “It’s Sloane Brody, Nick. She knew about the baby and if Tate didn’t tell her, how could she? She must have been there. In the building where Florie was killed. She must have heard Florie tell Tate she was pregnant. I’m following her—”

  “Don’t!” Even from the other end of the phone, from whatever bureaucratic desk he sat at, his voice rang with authority, with desperation. Now his words bumped along, too. He was grabbing his coat, heading out of the office, and Jazz heard him call another cop to come along, another car for backup. “If there’s the slightest chance she’s guilty—”

  “She’s getting away. I’ve got to keep an eye on her.” That same truck that had stymied her on the street in front of the school made a turn onto the cross street, and Jazz shot in front of it. Safely on the other side, she braced a hand against the corner of a building that housed a women’s clothing boutique and looked around, and when she saw the flash of a gray raincoat, she ran in that direction.

  “I’m heading down where all the fancy restaurants are,” she told Nick. “I bet she knows her way around here.” It was, no doubt, exactly why Sloane knew to duck down the alley that ran next to one of the neighborhood’s most fashionable spots. It wasn’t a part of the neighborhood where Jazz usually hung, but she knew there was a way out of that alley from the back, and her gut told her if Sloane got there first, she would disappear into the warren of buildings there. She had to get to the alley before Sloane did, and she told Nick so.

  Her legs pumping and her heart pounding, Jazz came up the alley from the far end, cutting off Sloane just as she was about to race out into the street. Sloane stopped and backed against a wall, fighting for breath. She’d lost her hat somewhere along the way, and
her blond hair gleamed in the spring sunshine, a golden halo of knotted mess.

  “You were there.” Jazz braced her hands on her knees and breathed deep. “You must have been. There’s no way you could have known what Florie told Tate otherwise. You were there inside the building waiting for your husband and Florie when they arrived, weren’t you? Once Tate left, you killed Florie and then you framed your husband. You … you planted the phone at his office. You planted that lanyard you used to strangle Florie in Brody’s car. You were getting even, weren’t you? Getting even because of the affair.”

  Sloane shook her head. She pressed a hand to her chest. “Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I bother? Why would I care?”

  “Why would you care?” Jazz considered the question. “Unless this wasn’t the first time and you were sick of playing second fiddle?” Sloane didn’t answer. Jazz didn’t expect her to. “But your husband, he told me he’d ended it with Florie. That night. You were there in the building. You must have heard him tell Florie. It was over.”

  “It wasn’t over. Don’t you get it? It would never be over!” Sloane’s mouth twisted. She ripped off her sunglasses and threw them on the ground. “I was there, all right, and I heard what she said. She was pregnant. That little bitch was having the baby…” Her voice broke with a wave of emotion that made her double over in pain. “She was having the baby I could never have. I didn’t care about the affair. I didn’t care about any of Tate’s affairs. But a baby…” She wept, gagging on every breath, swaying. “That girl … that little nobody was having the baby that should have been mine.”

  Jazz stepped closer to the sobbing woman. “Except she wasn’t.”

  Sloane’s head came up. “What?”

  “If you knew Florie better, if you knew her like I’ve come to know her, you would have figured it out. Your husband told Florie they were through and Florie played the only card she had. She told him she was pregnant. My guess is her next move … maybe in a couple weeks … her next move would have been to ask him for money to pay for an abortion. But see, that was Florie’s game. Blackmail. Mrs. Brody, Florie was never pregnant.”

  Just like that, Sloane’s tears dissolved. Her expression hardened. Her skin, streaked with tears and smudged mascara, paled to the color of ice. “Are you telling me I killed that little bitch for nothing?”

  Jazz chewed her lower lip. “I guess you did.”

  If years of good breeding, top-class education, and dealing with the upper echelons of society had taught Sloane anything, it was how to be cool in the face of adversity. Even when the world was falling apart. She shook her shoulders. She raised her chin. She pulled in one long breath and let it out slowly before she clutched her hands at her waist. “No matter who you tell about this, I’ll deny it. You know I will. Just as you surely know people are bound to believe me, not you.”

  “I’m sure that’s what you’ll try.”

  “And if the police find out…” She got her first indication that they already had when tires squealed out on the street and a siren pulsed through the air. “You can’t prove a thing.”

  “Actually, I can.” Jazz lifted her phone and wiggled it in Sloane’s direction. “I’ve been on the phone with the cops the whole time. That’s how they know where we are. And they’ve heard every word.”

  Jazz thought Sloane had started crying again. That’s how the sound started. Like a strangled sob. Then it gained strength and fury and echoed through the alley like the wail of a wounded animal. She came at Jazz, her hands raised, her fingers curled into claws that went around Jazz’s neck.

  And in the great scheme of things, Jazz supposed she should have been frightened.

  Except for the fact that she’d grown up with two older brothers.

  Just as Nick and his fellow cops bolted into the alley, Jazz dropped her phone, the better to pull back her right arm and make a perfect fist.

  Sloane Brody never knew what hit her.

  CHAPTER 22

  Nick canceled their coffee date the next day.

  Work conflict.

  Jazz canceled the week after.

  She had to help her mom with preparations for Easter dinner that weekend.

  The following Tuesday, Nick didn’t bother to either call or text, and Jazz wrote the date off.

  It was fun while it lasted, she told herself, but it was never meant to last.

  She’d already finished dinner—a tuna sandwich—when her doorbell rang. When she answered and found Nick on the front porch, a brown cardboard box next to him, she couldn’t have been more surprised.

  “I…” She kept one hand on the door and the other on the jamb, balancing herself and every word. “You don’t have to apologize for not being able to make it for coffee today. We’re both busy. We’re always busy. Facts are facts, Nick, and fact is, we’re never going to have enough time for each other.”

  “That’s a pretty negative way to think about things.” Though she was proud of herself for laying it on the line, for saying what they should have said to each other all along, he dared a smile. “I stopped by to give you a present.”

  “There wasn’t a reward for catching Florie’s killer, was there?”

  “Sorry. Wish I was bringing you a big, fat check. But hey, you have the satisfaction of having done your civic duty.”

  “It doesn’t feel all that satisfying.” A skitter raced over Jazz’s shoulders. “What a mess. And what a waste of a life.”

  “You mean Florie or Sloane Brody?”

  She slanted him a look. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for Little Miss High Society.”

  Nick made a face. “Not as sorry for her as I am for her poor sap of a husband.” He shook his head. “She knew he was messing around with Florie, and she vowed to get even. I guess she almost did.”

  “By making him look like the murderer.” No matter how many times Jazz thought about it, she still found it inexplicable. “She hated him.”

  “She hated what he was doing.” There was a difference, so Nick was only right in pointing it out. “It wasn’t the first affair he’d had.”

  “But it was the first baby. Or at least what she thought was the first baby.”

  He nodded. “She couldn’t get over it. They’ve been married something like ten years and a family is all she ever wanted. Never happened. And then…”

  “Then some kid with black leather clothes and piercings does what Sloane could never do. She gets pregnant with Brody’s child. At least Sloane thought that’s what happened.”

  “Florie’s last gamble, and it didn’t pay off. And though he hasn’t admitted it yet, my bet is Brody knew what was up. After we found the murder weapon in his car, he knew his wife was trying to frame him.”

  “But he never ratted on her.”

  He shrugged. “He might have eventually. I don’t know. Maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. You know, he was right on time for dinner that night at the restaurant, just like everyone said he was. Turns out she was the one who was late. That’s what got Brody thinking. I guess…” He pulled in a breath. “I guess he didn’t want to turn her in. He really did love her.”

  “Well, she had a weird way of loving him back. Framing him!” Jazz shivered. “It’s nuts, and I’m glad it’s over.”

  “I’m glad it’s over, too, and I’m glad you’re not sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong anymore. Leave the investigating to the professionals.”

  She could afford to smile. It had turned out well. “Hey, maybe next time there will be a reward.”

  “Maybe this will make up for there being no reward this time.” He picked up the cardboard box, and Jazz had no choice but to step back so he could walk into her living room. Nick reached into the box and came out holding a puppy.

  Black back and tail. Rusty-brown tummy and paws and muzzle, except for the smudge of black straight down the center between his eyes and down to his nose. Wiry coat.

  Jazz’s heart melted, but her resolve was strong. So was h
er skepticism. Beware handsome men bearing gifts.

  She tucked her hands behind her back. “It’s an Airedale.”

  “Yeah.” From the looks of him, the puppy was eight or nine weeks old, a bundle of wiggles and fur, and Nick lifted him up so he could look into the dog’s eyes. “Cute, huh?”

  Jazz didn’t even realize she’d put some distance between herself and Nick—and the dog—until she bumped into the chair that sat catty-corner from her couch.

  “Why do you have an Airedale?”

  “I’ve got a buddy who breeds them.”

  “You don’t have time for a dog.”

  “I don’t.” Since she’d moved so far away, Nick had to cross the room to hold the dog out to her. “He’s yours.”

  Jazz looked into the puppy’s brown eyes. She looked into Nick’s blue ones. “What am I supposed to do with an Airedale?”

  “Live with him. Love him. Train him. He’s going to grow up to be the most kick-ass cadaver dog in the known world. He told me so.”

  She shook her head. “Airedales are smart, but they’re as stubborn as hell. They’ve got minds of their own. They’re tough to train.”

  Like it was no big deal, Nick shrugged. “Okay.” He pulled back his hands and nestled the puppy to his chest and to the red T-shirt he wore with faded jeans. “If you don’t think you’re a good enough trainer to handle one little dog—”

  “I never said that.”

  The dog let out a tiny yip—half bark, half whimper—and this time, her heart overtook her head.

  She tried one last-ditch effort to come to her senses. “He’s not Manny.”

  “He’s not.” Nick stepped closer. “But word has it…” He bent his ear to the puppy’s mouth and pretended to be listening. “Word from the other side of the Rainbow Bridge is that Manny’s tired of watching you mope. He says you need a new best friend. Here he is.” He put the puppy in her hands.