For the next several days, Anna Blake’s death and her connection to both Robert O’Malley and Daley & Palmer were splashed across the Richmond Times-Dispatch and the local news. Having no concrete leads, I stayed home with Granddad and Higgins.
The cat resented the intrusion.
He’d obviously gotten used to having the run of the place in the daytime.
Periodically, I called Dr. Dick. He kept telling me to stay home since there weren’t enough patients to warrant coming into work. He wanted to give the adverse publicity time to cool down and then he and Marcy were both going to personally call their clients and assure them that it was safe to return to the office. What he didn’t say, but I surmised, was that both he and Dr. Palmer were afraid that in the meantime their clients would find other psychiatrists to help them.
After all, Daley & Palmer was still a fledgling firm. At least both doctors had their hospital clients to fall back on if the private practice didn’t work out. I had nothing. Well, nothing but Temp$ 4 Hire. And I didn’t even want to consider that.
Today Anna Blake would be laid to rest. I felt like I should be there to say goodbye. And to see who else attended. My thinking ran along the lines of the guilty party always returns to the scene of the crime, or in this case the gravesite. So, I threw on my basic black dress, the one I used for dates and more recently for funerals.
My Honda was finally back from the shop. As usual, they’d done an amazing job of fixing it. It purred like a contented cat. Not that I knew what that sounded like. I lived with Higgins.
Running late, as usual, I sped out of my granddad’s neighborhood onto Patterson Avenue and headed west to Westhampton Memorial Gardens, where Grams was buried. It was a lovely cemetery, as those places go.
Well kept lawns, winding roads, and vases with colorful flower arrangements everywhere.
I bypassed the road that led to my Gram’s gravesite and followed the signs for the Blake interment.
Nearing the funeral tent, I glanced at the clock on the dash. Two o’clock—the time the paper gave for the graveside service. But my car, the hearse and a couple of others were the only vehicles I saw. I thumped the clock on the dash and checked my watch. Right time. Maybe I’d misread the paper.
I didn’t have any trouble finding a place to park, and I got out of my Honda, slowly approaching the tent.
A simple spray of white roses covered the pale wooden casket. No other flowers, just the roses. A man dressed in a black suit had his back to me and spoke in soft tones to someone who stood in shadows behind the coffin, someone I couldn’t see.
“Excuse me,” I spoke up.
The man in black turned, and I saw that he was a minister. “Did I miss the service?”
“No, we’re just about to start. Please have a seat.” He gestured to the side of the casket where the chairs were located.
Uncomfortable, and feeling sad that so few people had come to celebrate Anna’s life, I took a seat at the end of the row, my view of the other mourners blocked by the clergyman.
I heard the crunch of gravel and turned to see who else had arrived. Dr. Daley and Dr. Palmer nodded and slipped past to take seats in the middle of the row. When I turned to look at them, I got a good look at the only other mourner. I almost fell off my chair. Max Chernov. Well, well, well. Very interesting. And a bit disturbing. If I was right about the murderer returning to the scene of the crime, it suggested one of these three was the guilty party. Gulp!
Dr. Daley pulled his suit coat tight across his chest as if he were offended to have to sit so near Max.
Dr. Dick was probably just uncomfortable being here and saying goodbye to another patient. As for Marcy Palmer, I noticed that she looked neither left nor right, but stared straight ahead at the wooden casket. I realized how difficult it must be to lose a patient, someone you’d worked closely with, someone you were trying to help. At least it hadn’t been a suicide. Not that that helped Anna Blake. Dead was dead.
I leaned back to look down the row at Chernov and discovered him staring back at me with dark, impenetrable eyes. His expression gave nothing away.
“We are here today to celebrate the life of Anna Maria Blake,” the minister intoned. I’d heard those first few words too many times before in my young life, had said good-bye to too many people. Tears sprang to my eyes. I cried not only for Anna and the poor showing at her funeral but for all of the people I’d loved and lost.
Thankfully, the service was brief. I sobbed through most of it. Dr. Dick appeared annoyed at my obvious show of grief. Marcy didn’t seem to notice. Max, well, Max ignored all of us and spoke only to the minister. They shook hands, and then Max walked away.
I ran after him. “Hey, wait up. Aren’t you even going to speak to me?”
He stopped before getting into his car, a light-colored mid-sized sedan I hadn’t seen him drive before.
“It was nice of you to come, Becca.”
I blinked. What the hell did that mean? “I liked Anna. I’m sorry she’s gone.”
“We’re all diminished by a death.”
“Mr. Chernov, a moment please.”
The minister and another man I hadn’t noticed before hurried over to the car. “As the person paying for the funeral and the internment, you need to sign this.”
Max was paying for Anna’s burial? Why?
Annoyed, Max hastily scrawled his signature on the card thrust in front of him. The minister shook Max’s hand again and murmured his sympathies.
The other man, obviously a cemetery employee, disappeared as quickly as he had appeared, signed card in hand.
Before I could summon any questions, Max got in the car and drove off.
“Who was that?” Dr. Daley asked as he joined me in the middle of the narrow lane.
“A friend of Anna’s,” I replied.
“He seems to have upset Marcy.”
Dr. Dick nodded in his partner’s direction where she continued to sit in front of the casket.
“Why? Did they have words?” I couldn’t imagine when that could have happened, but Marcy had been seated closest to Max. He might have whispered something to her. What, I couldn’t imagine.
“Not that I’m aware of. It was just a passing comment she made.”
I shrugged and tried to laugh it off. “Oh, that’s just Max’s way.”
“Max who?” He reacted like a hound on the scent.
“It doesn’t matter.” I flipped my hand dismissively and tried to get past my boss.
“How do you know this man?” Dr. Dick blocked my forward progress.
“He’s just someone I know.”
Don’t ask me why, but I felt the need to protect Max’s identity from my employer.
“Becca, how good of you to come.” Marcy had gathered herself and joined us. Her eyes were red-rimmed.
I wondered why everyone seemed so surprised to see me. I was part of the practice. I’d had as much contact with Anna Blake as anyone else at D & P. “It’s the least I could do. I’m kind of shocked at the poor turnout.”
“Anna had separated herself from people over the last several years. It’s one of the things she and I were working on,” Dr. Palmer replied, dabbing a lacy handkerchief at the corners of her eyes, even though I couldn’t see any moisture.
“But what about Joe? Joe Rizzo?” I clarified.
Marcy appeared shocked that I knew the connection between Anna and Joe. “That’s privileged information. You know I can’t discuss that.” She whipped her sunglasses out of her Gucci purse and put them on.
“Dick, are you coming?”
Talk about dismissing someone.
Where had my good bud gone? I tried again. “Aren’t you surprised that Joe isn’t here? I mean he loved Anna, or so he said.”
The sharp intake of Marcy’s breath wasn’t lost on either Dr. Dick or me. “What do you know about that?” To my utter shock, she advanced on me. She’d never looked at me with such fury before. I mean, never. I backed up and moved behind Dr. Dick. Okay, so I wasn’t so brave, but Marcy had long, sharp nails and she looked angry enough to scratch someone’s eyes out. I didn’t want them to be mine.
“Joe confided in me that he loved Anna and wanted her back,” I decided to answer.
Another sharp intake.
“He had no right…”
Dr. Dick leaned forward and kept Marcy from coming any closer to me. “Easy, Marcy. You’ve done all you can. Leave the matter to the authorities.”
What the heck did he mean by that? Ohmygosh!
It suddenly became obvious. My employers suspected that Joe Rizzo was responsible for Anna’s death. But how, why?
What did they know that I didn’t?
Did they have any concrete evidence?
I started to ask, but Dr. Dick turned Marcy around and ushered her toward her sporty little red coupe.
“You should go home now,” he informed his partner. “You’re overwrought.” He spared me one final glance over his shoulder. A glance that said: Go home. Or maybe it said, shut the hell up. Both expressions looked pretty much the same to me.
I headed toward my car, my brain buzzing with this latest information. Had Joe been arrested? Was that the reason he wasn’t here? And what about Max? How were he and Anna connected? Sure he’d admitted to knowing her, but to pay thousands of dollars for a funeral and burial site went beyond generosity and probably meant there was more to the story than I currently knew. I had to find out.
Ryder seemed my best connection to the police. I drove to the office and scanned the lot for his SUV. Bingo. I hopped out of the Honda and hurried toward his suite.
I pulled on the door and met resistance. Locked.
But his car was in the lot. He had to be here. “Hey, Ryder!” I yelled as I tugged on the door. Maybe he was napping. “Ryder! You in there?”
The receptionist for Temp$ 4 Hire peeked out into the hall and I waved sheepishly at her. “Sorry. Have you seen Ryder?”
She shook her head and ducked back into the Temp$ office space. And shut the door. I half expected to hear her lock it, too. Well, I guess I could check them off my list of future employers should D & P go under.
Undeterred, I rattled Ryder’s doorknob and rapped hard on the door with my fist.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’re more than a little annoying?” Ryder stood blocking the small opening in the door.
Impossible to see past him.
“I need your help,” I said, ignoring his question.
“I think we’ve had this conversation, Bec.”
Bec? Since when did he call me Bec? What was that all about? “Ryder, I need to know…”
“Now is not a good time.”
He started to shut the door on me.
“It’s not a good time for me, either.” I stuck my black pump in the open crack. Ryder pulled up just short of slamming the door on it.
“What the hell? Are you trying to get hurt? Do you know I could have broken every bone in your foot?” He threw open the door all the way.
I could see into the suite and straight into his private office where a buxom blonde sat, one shapely leg slung over the other. Well.
So he was hiding a blonde. And not just any old blonde. A very attractive one. No sunglasses or floppy hat on this woman. But when she saw me staring at her, she averted her face, which led me to wonder what it was with Ryder and mysterious women.
“Look I didn’t mean to disturb your meeting,” I said as I nodded my head in the direction of Ryder’s private office.
Ryder glanced over his shoulder and realized that I had seen the blonde. He pushed me out into the hall and joined me there before pulling the door closed behind him.
“I guess you aren’t going to go away until you get what you want. What is it?” he asked reluctantly. I sensed he wasn’t mad, anymore. Not quite amused. More exasperated. But, hey, I’d take what I could get.
“I need you to check with your police buddies and find out for me if there have been any arrests in the Anna Blake murder investigation. Especially someone named Joe Rizzo.
His humor faded in the face of his dawning anger. “You interrupted me for that? I told you to leave the investigation to the authorities.” He ran his hand over his shaved head in exasperation.
“I am leaving it to the police. That’s why I’m asking you to find out for me if they’ve arrested someone. I just came from Anna’s funeral. There were only a handful of people there, Ryder. It was so sad. The docs, the minister, me, and oh yeah, Max.” Ryder looked down at me and those baby blues turned as hard as steel. He put his hand on my left shoulder and propelled me toward the building’s exit.
“Go home, Bec. If I get a moment, I’ll check into it. And stay away from Chernov.” I started to object, but Ryder’s hardened gaze silenced me.
I waved meekly and started off down the hall. After a few feet, I turned back to see if Ryder had retreated into his office. No, he still stood there making sure I left the building. I waved again and took off. There was nothing left for me to do except hope Ryder would come through for me.
And that his interest in the blonde was business-only.
Two hunky men who didn’t want anything to do with me. Feast or famine. And I was starving.