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SB RAN UP to me, barking a greeting. I gave him the obligatory scritches and he ran off to rejoin the menagerie.
The rest of my belongings were piled in boxes and leaf bags near the wide-open cellar doors. Martin stepped out of the car and opened the trunk, unable to drag his gaze from Sexy Beast and his glamorous new look.
“I’m going to get him a new sweater as soon as I have time,” I said, “so just shut up.”
“I didn’t say a thing.” He lifted a leaf bag crammed with my blankets and bed linens, and lobbed it into the trunk.
“You didn’t have to.” I wedged a box of toiletries next to the bag. “Don’t stare at him like that, you’ll give him a complex.”
Sexy Beast approached Luba, the orange chicken, and assumed the doggie play stance, chest down and butt high in the air. He gave a sharp Play with me! bark. Luba inspected him with jerky nods, then started pecking at the pink boa fringe of his sweater.
The side door of the house slammed and Mr. Franckowiak appeared, carrying a partially filled casserole. I estimated his age at somewhere between ninety and a hundred thirty. He hadn’t changed after his morning jog, I noticed. Orange gym shorts showed off his skinny white legs, while a white wife-beater, open bathrobe, and gigantic hearing aid completed the elegant ensemble.
I made introductions. Martin’s priest getup wasn’t lost on Mr. F. “I got no use for religion,” he declared. “Meaningless mumbo-jumbo designed to keep the proletariat in their place. Read your Karl Marx!”
“Yes, sir,” Martin said. “I’ll relay your message to the pope.”
Mr. F shuffled over to the big steel food bowl and shoveled the remains of the casserole into it. The cats made a beeline for it, as did the chickens and Sexy Beast. The animals shoved one another and jockeyed for position. Mindy yawned and scratched her flank. The plump dog didn’t need to compete with the rabble for kitchen scraps. When Mr. F prepared his meals, he always filled two plates. If he got Hamburger Helper and canned peas, with a Fudgsicle for dessert, so did Mindy, who sat on a kitchen chair across from him.
Martin watched the animals gobble food from the bowl. “What are they eating?”
“You’re not going to like this,” I warned. “Chicken stroganoff.”
I saw the instant my words registered, saw his helpless dismay as he watched the two hens attack Mr. F’s leftovers with gusto. “That is so wrong,” he murmured.
Within fifteen minutes the car was packed and we were back on the road, this time with Sexy Beast on my lap, secured with a safety strap connecting his harness to my seat belt.
Martin negotiated the side streets of Sandy Cove, shooting irritated looks at the dog. “Does he have to do that?”
The instant SB gets in a car, he begins to whine—a high-pitched mewling sound from deep in his throat. I’d long ago learned to tune it out.
“He gets excited in cars.” I stroked SB’s silky, newly detangled ears. “Just ignore it.”
“How do I ignore something like that?” he demanded. “When’s he going to stop?”
“When we get there.”
Martin shook his head and grumbled something I was just as happy I couldn’t make out. He turned onto Route 109, a four-lane leading to the expressway. “You’ll be happy to know I have an answer to the big question of the day,” he said.
“I neither know nor care what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, sure you do,” he said. “It’s the question you tantalized me with for hours, you coy vixen. As in, What does Patrick O’Rourke have a motive for? Answer: Why, murder, that’s what. Old lady croaks, he rakes in millions. I’d call that motive.” One glance at my face and he crowed, “Yes! I knew it,” prompting an answering howl from Sexy Beast.
So it had been an educated guess on his part, which my expression had conveniently verified.
In case you were wondering why I don’t play poker, you have your answer.
I blew out an exasperated breath, wishing I’d stranded the padre at Mr. F’s and driven myself back to Crystal Harbor.
He said, “Hard to believe someone despised that old bitch more than I did.”
“I don’t think he despised her,” I said. “I think he was just... greedy, I guess. Impatient for that inheritance.”
“Then he knew Irene was leaving her fortune to him?”
“That’s what Sten said.”
“Have they arrested him yet?” he asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “Well, maybe. The cops must have questioned him by now. Sten called them this morning after the tox screen came back.”
“Tox screen?” Martin frowned. “He poisoned her?”
“You know, I really don’t think we should be talking about—”
“Sure we should,” he said in a soothing tone. “Tell Father Martin all about it, child. Unburden yourself.”
I rolled my eyes. “Next you’re going to tell me gossip is good for the soul.”
Oh, what the heck. It would be all over town at the speed of light, if it wasn’t already. So I told Martin about Irene’s unprecedented indigestion and the daily smoothies hand-delivered by Patrick, whose connection to her remained a mystery. I told him about that last smoothie cup and the autopsy and the insecticides.
He grinned. “I missed seeing you paw through garbage? You should’ve called me to come over.”
“You would have helped me?” I asked.
“Hell no, I’d have paid to watch.”
I chewed back a smile. “How much?”
“Fifty bucks. American.”
“Just fifty?” I asked, with mock indignation.
“A hundred if there was a bikini involved. A little topless action and we could be talking serious bread.”
I shook my head. “You have no shame, Padre.”
“I believe this has been established.” He turned onto the entrance ramp to the northbound SOB. The afternoon rush was an hour or so away and traffic was moving well on the six-lane expressway.
“Patrick didn’t have to do that,” I said.” Kill Irene, I mean. She was in her seventies. She had a heart problem. If he’d just been patient, he could have gotten his inheritance without the risk. Now all he has to look forward to is a life behind bars. I feel so sorry for Barbara and the kids.”
What would become of Cheyenne now, with her dad in the hoosegow? I tried to reconcile Patrick the murderer with Patrick the concerned father trying to keep his daughter from reliving his mistakes. It was not a good fit.
I leaned toward Martin’s side of the car, trying in vain to glimpse the speedometer. “You know, we don’t need to set any land speed records. You can let up on the accelerator.”
“The sooner we get there, the sooner my brain will stop hurting.” He jerked his head toward Sexy Beast, whose incessant whining formed a nerve-jangling duet with the engine of Mr. F’s jalopy as it thunk-thunked through the spin cycle.
“After I found Irene’s will,” Martin said, “I went all through her papers looking for a connection between her and O’Rourke—besides him being her former friend’s son. Nada. And this was a woman who kept meticulous records. I mean, I found a receipt for golf balls she bought Arthur in 1986. I searched the house, top to bottom. I kept thinking, there’s got to be a clue here somewhere. Drove me crazy. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sten knows,” I said, “but he’s not telling. Lawyer-client confidentiality. And I asked Patrick outright, but his lips are sealed. Out of respect for Irene, he claims.”
“Taking the patient, wait-for-her-to-die approach might not have paid off for O’Rourke,” he said. “Irene was in decent shape for someone her age. Yeah, she took digoxin for a hinky heart rhythm, but according to her medical records, she was doing pretty well.”
“Jonah told me she was overdue for a pacemaker.”
“Well then, maybe she just put on a good act,” he said. “She certainly seemed indestructible.”
“That’s how I always thought of her too.” I offered a sad smile.
“Look at it from O’Rourke’s perspective,” he said. “The guy’s getting on in years. He’s, what, around sixty? And not in the best shape. Lived a hard life, did a lot of drugs when he was younger.”
“Maybe he was afraid Irene would outlive him,” I said. “Maybe that’s what sent him over the edge.”
“And where does Nina fit in to all this?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” I fluffed the boa fringe on SB’s sweater.
“She’s banging O’Rourke. He kills Irene. She despised Irene.”
I stared at him. “You think she could be involved?”
“Those two women were on the outs even before Irene started that rumor about Nina,” he said.
“Yeah, but come on. It’s one thing to hate someone. It’s another to hate someone so much you’re willing to commit murder.”
“What if Irene was on the verge of discovering who Nina was screwing?” he asked. “What if she taunted her with it? Like, ‘As soon as I know who you’re getting it on with, the whole town will know.’ I could see her doing that.”
Unfortunately, so could I.
Martin exited the expressway and merged with traffic on a busy four-lane artery. “Think about it, Jane. A vague rumor about an affair is one thing. If that gets back to Mal, Nina could always claim it was a case of dirty politics. He’s such an agreeable guy he’d probably buy it.”
“But if her mystery lover is identified,” I said, “she stands to lose Mal and maybe even the kids. The thing is, I know you think she’s going to dump Patrick, but I don’t necessarily agree. I think she might be planning to make a new life with him.” And the baby they were expecting.
“What do you base that on?”
“It’s just a feeling,” I said.
I tried to recall Nina’s exact words after she’d tossed her cookies during the tournament. Hadn’t she used the word we? She’d said something like We’re not telling people yet. Her husband hadn’t known she was pregnant, but maybe the real father did. Patrick. I chose not to share Nina’s condition with Martin. She asked me to keep mum, and unless our idle speculation about her involvement in Irene’s death turned out to be true, I saw no reason to go back on my word.
“Let’s not forget,” he said, “O’Rourke’s married too. Though as motives for murder go, inheriting sixteen mil beats saving a marriage.”
“You’re an incurable romantic.”
“That’s one thing I’ve never been accused of.” He zipped around slow-moving traffic, seemingly oblivious to the posted speed limit. “So is it true that Irene hired a PI to get the goods on Nina?”
I nodded. “Sten already received his bill.”
“My guess is that she had no intention of calling off the investigation just because she lost the election,” he said. “If I knew Irene, the defeat would make her even more determined to seek revenge—to find out who Nina’s mystery man was so she could wreak maximum havoc.”
“But if the mystery man turned out to be someone Irene was close to?” I asked. “She must have cared deeply about Patrick to leave him all that money.”
Martin nodded. “If she even suspected he was the one Nina was sleeping with, she would’ve found some other way to attack her—some way that didn’t involve O’Rourke.”
“What was that you said earlier,” I asked, “about Nina’s poker tell? She taps her fingernails?”
“Yep. When she’s bluffing. Why?”
I’d seen Nina do that nail-tapping thing not too long ago. I struggled to recall the circumstance. “It’s nothing, I guess. I can’t remember.”
He gave me a searching look. “What was she saying when she did it? Think.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I thought back to that day at Janey’s Place when Nina and I were talking, before she got doused with chili. We were discussing Irene’s death. She was offering cloying false sympathy.
My eyes flew open. “Jaws. She said Irene was watching Jaws when she died.”
“Was she?”
“Yes, but no one knew that but me,” I said. “Well, Jonah knew, but I asked him not to spread it around. I didn’t want everyone in town talking about it, you know? He said he wouldn’t, and I believed him. Still do. Nina told me she didn’t remember where she heard it. That’s when she did that nail-tapping thing.”
“She was lying,” he said. “So the question becomes, how could Nina Wallace know what Irene was doing at the time of her death?”
“Unless she was there.” My breath caught. “Maybe those were her wet footprints.”
Martin glanced at me, a question in his pale blue eyes. I told him about the footprints in the laundry room the night Irene died. “I thought maybe Irene went outside for something after the rain started,” I said, “but they could have been left by someone entering through the back door.”
“Since when does Nina Wallace know how to pick locks?” he asked.
“Nina Hannigan Wallace,” I said. “You’re forgetting her illustrious family heritage.”
“Oh, right, she’s Hokum Hannigan’s, what, granddaughter?”
“Great-granddaughter,” I said. “You know, Hannigan’s criminal activities didn’t stop at bootlegging and rum-running. That guy was one scary dude.”
I thought of the framed black-and-white photo of Hokum that held a place of honor in the Prohibition museum Nina had constructed in the basement of the Historical Society. He’d stared right into the camera. Everything about the image, from the angle of his fedora to the way he held his cigar to his menacing sneer, said, You don’t want to mess with me.
“You think Nina got the bad gene?” Martin asked. “Three generations later?”
“It’s just something to keep in mind. I’m brainstorming here.”
“I thought Irene was poisoned by something in the smoothies Patrick brought her.”
“She was,” I said, “but maybe Nina really was in cahoots with him, like you said. Maybe she went there to deliver some kind of coup de grâce.” I entertained a mental image of Nina slipping in through Irene’s back door, wearing a black ski mask and carrying a plate of yummy baked goods. She never visited anyone without bringing yummy baked goods. “You know...” I waved away the thought. “Nah, forget it, it’s nothing.”
“Nothing’s nothing at this point.” He shot me a commanding look. “What is it?”
“It’s just that, you know, Nina’s always baking. She brought homemade cookies and stuff to the Poker Posse games all the time. It would have been easy for her to... No, that’s stupid,” I said. “I’ve been eating those cookies. So has everyone else. No one but Irene got a stomachache.”
“Okay, but that gets me thinking about the assumptions we’re making.” He turned onto the road that would take us into Crystal Harbor.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we know that O’Rourke brought Irene smoothies,” he said. “We know that the smoothies contained poison. Who’s to say he’s the one who poisoned them?”
“Well, I suppose Nina could have done it without his knowledge, but—”
“You’re ignoring the obvious,” he said.
It took a few moments for the implication to sink in. “Maria?”
“She had access to all of Irene’s food,” he said. “Hell, she made all of Irene’s food. Did they get along?”
“Well, outwardly they did, but privately Irene treated her like crap and she resented it.” I saw what Martin was getting at. “If Maria poisoned her employer’s food, everyone would know it was her. But if she poisoned the smoothies that someone else brought her...”
“Then the deed gets blamed on the someone else.” He blew past a traffic light as it turned red.
I frowned, mentally grasping at something that kept skittering away. “Oh,” I said when I caught up with it. “Hmm.”
“‘Oh hmm’ what?” he asked. “And don’t tell me it’s nothing.”
“I don’t know how thoroughly you searched Irene’s house. Which is my house now,” I added, “so you can just stop it.”
“Why? What did you find?”
“Well, I saw something under the kitchen sink,” I said. “I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Wasp spray.”
“Which is a kind of insecticide.”
“Yeah, but... well, everyone has bug spray and stuff like that lying around.”
“Irene left Maria zilch in her will,” he reminded me. “Well, almost zilch, which is worse. After how many years of service?”
“Twenty-eight,” I said. “But the thing is, Maria thought Irene was leaving her a wad of cash. Enough to retire on. That’s what Irene told her.”
Martin emitted a low whistle. “Good reason to want her dead. She could have dosed the smoothies with wasp spray and made sure there were leftovers sitting in the fridge.”
I followed his train of thought. “So that in case anyone got suspicious, the evidence would point away from her and toward Patrick.”
“Imagine,” he said. “Maria murders her employer for the inheritance, and then finds out the old woman left her enough for a couple of fill-ups at the gas station.”
I glanced out the window and jerked upright. I’d been so absorbed in our conversation I hadn’t noticed where Martin was taking us. “What are we doing at the cemetery?”
“A little detour.” He drove along the narrow main road, past rows of headstones. “This won’t take long. Where’s Seventh Street? Okay, there’s Sixth.”
I knew Martin’s grandparents weren’t here. They’d been cremated. “Are you looking for relatives?”
“Why would I?” he asked. “They never looked for me. Anyway, Clan McAuliffe is over in the north section. Green Valley, they call it.” His mouth twisted. “You see any valleys around here?”
Valleys, no, but there were a few stretches of open lawn and more than a few willow trees sheltering stone benches. Whispering Willows Cemetery was a pleasant, well-maintained boneyard, for which I was grateful since my chosen career brought me here on a regular basis.
Martin turned left onto Seventh and slowed to a crawl, peering at section markers. Finally he stopped and got out of the car. He gestured for me to follow.
“I’ll stay here,” I said, trying to control Sexy Beast, who was excited by the fact that we’d reached some sort of destination and also by the interesting aromas that had him sniffing to beat the band. Considering where we were, I chose not to think about what his turbocharged nose detected that mine didn’t. “Anyway,” I added, “I’m pretty sure dogs aren’t allowed here.”
He bent to grin at me through the open window, his blue eyes luminescent in the sunlight. “And you always follow the rules, don’t you, Jane?”
I sighed, looking around the cemetery. Other than an elderly couple in a distant section, the place was deserted.
“Come on.” Martin thumped the car hood. “I need an assistant.” He turned and strolled among the headstones, looking for one in particular, clearly confident I’d follow.
Which made me want to stay put to spite him, but SB was scrabbling at the door and barking, and curiosity gnawed at me. Assistant for what?
I exited the car with SB, who strained at the leash, wild to investigate this wonderful new playground. I indulged him until he started to lift his leg on a headstone. “No!” I cried. “SB, no! Hold it in!” I shortened the leash and trotted him to the nearest willow tree. Anxiously I peered around while SB watered the tree, expecting at any moment to be busted by a cemetery employee.
By the time I joined Martin, he was standing before a granite headstone, studying a small index card he held which was covered in scribbled notes. I looked at the stone. Roberta Lynton Montero, who’d died five years earlier at age sixty. The name was familiar, though I couldn’t place her. The stone next to hers belonged to a Roberto Alejandro Montero—her husband, I assumed. Roberto and Roberta. How adorable is that? He’d died seventeen years ago.
After a minute Martin nodded to himself, slid the card into his pocket, and retrieved his cell phone. “All right, let’s get started.”
“Why are you talking like that?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“You know darn well like what,” I said. “Like an Irishman. From Ireland.”
“Well now, I’m just getting into character, aren’t I?” He tapped the screen on his cell and handed it to me. Another smart phone. Good grief, was I the last holdout?
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked.
“Stand here.” Martin positioned me off to the side. “You’re going to be shooting video. Start with an establishing shot. Do a sweep of the whole graveyard, then home in on Roberta’s headstone for a few seconds, make sure it can be read, then move out to frame me and the stone in the shot. Try to keep the dog quiet.” He adjusted his clerical collar and brushed lint off his black priest’s outfit.
“‘Establishing shot,’ huh?” I was tempted to remind him his last name wasn’t Scorsese. “I don’t even know how to work this thing.”
“Nothing to it.” He indicated a little red icon on the phone. “Just touch that. As long as it’s blinking, it’s recording. Let’s go.” He circled his finger as if to say, Roll ’em.
What the heck. I looped the leash handle over my wrist and told SB to lie down and then stay. He looked like he had other plans, but he obeyed. “Good boy.” I reached into my purse for a slender, pepperoni-style dog treat that I hoped would keep him busy for a while.
I started the video and did as Martin had instructed, getting a sweeping view of the rows of tombstones before zeroing in on Roberta’s. Martin cleared his throat and I realized I’d lingered a little too long on her stone, still trying to remember how I knew this woman.
I backed up until I had both Martin and the stone framed in the shot. The little red dot was blinking. So far, so good. Then the padre started to speak.
“Oh, Roberta, my beautiful, sexy darlin’, how I have missed you.” If anything, the Irish brogue got thicker. “When I close my eyes, I imagine I can still taste your luscious lips, your silken shoulders...”
He went on to list the other parts of Roberta he could still taste, in XXX-rated detail. My mouth sagged open.
“You were the only woman who could make me forget my vow of celibacy, my darlin’ Roberta,” he went on, with feeling. “From the very moment we met, all I could think about was the wicked, sinful things I yearned to do to you.”
He commenced to describe those wicked, sinful things, one by one, as my face heated. And yeah, that wasn’t my only physical response. There, I said it. You happy?
Part of me wanted to stop the recording, to demand what in the world was going on. Another part of me wanted to hear what other dirty stuff Father Martin intended to tell the corpse moldering under our feet. Guess which part won.
He continued, “I’ll never forget that time we slipped away from the potluck supper and made savage love in the church coatroom. I know I was rough with you then, my darlin’, but I couldn’t help myself. You always brought out the beast in me.”
To hear the padre tell it, their rough coatroom sex involved a variety of inventive acts and acrobatic positions.
My brain chose that moment to slide the pieces together. Roberta Montero. I’d helped arrange her funeral reception five years earlier. The client who’d hired me? Roberta’s good friend Veronica Sheffield, my Death Diva cash cow.
The very same Veronica Sheffield I’d watched Martin chat up at the poker tournament.
My gasp of outrage brought an answering yip from SB but had no effect on Martin, who was in the process of wrapping up his filthy little monologue.
“Memories of that last time,” he said, “in the church school bus, are what keep me going during the long, cold nights—”
“You bastard!” I stalked up to him with the phone, framing a close-up of his hatefully handsome face. Sexy Beast jumped up, barking excitedly at this new game. “You raided my client!”
He plucked the phone out of my hand and shut off the video camera. “No need for a second take. I can delete that last bit before Veronica sees it.”
“You copied my business model.” I shoved his chest. Hard. He didn’t seem to notice. “I’m the Death Diva, Padre. I’ve been doing this for more than twenty years. You can’t just waltz in and... and make off with my idea. My clients.”
I’d spied him talking to Maia Armstrong, too, at the tournament. The caterer. Maia and I had been referring clients to each other for years. Obviously he intended to horn in on that action as well. I thought Martin had just been taunting me that night at the bar when he’d said he might try his hand at what I did for a living. Doing sick things to dead people was how he’d put it.
He jerked his head toward Roberta’s tombstone. “Veronica’s pal here had a thing for Irish priests. She wanted to give Roberta a little something to keep up her spirit in the afterworld.”
That certainly sounded like flaky Veronica. “She should have come to me,” I said.
“Roberta was into priests, not nuns.” His grin was salacious. “Although if you ever take a job that calls for hot lesbian action, give me a call. I’ll hold the video camera.”
“Can you be serious for one second?”
“Hey.” He spread his hands, all innocence. “I’m just offering to return the favor.”
“I didn’t mean I’d have, you know, stood here and...” I made a vague gesture toward Roberta’s grave. “But I could have... well, I could have subcontracted it out. Found a guy to dress up like a priest and put on an accent and all that.”
“It wouldn’t have been the same. Admit it.” He slathered on the brogue. “You got yourself all hot and bothered listening to Father Martin’s naughty ramblings, now didn’t you, lass?”
“Oh, good grief.” I turned and headed for the car so he wouldn’t see how on the mark he was. “Come on, SB, we’re done here.”
He kept pace with me. “It was Veronica’s script, not mine. Well, I embellished a bit.”
“I’m sure you did,” I said. “That’s not even anatomically possible. That last position. In the, um, school bus.”
“Is that so?” His voice held the hint of a dare.
I picked up the pace, jerking poor SB away from this and that fascinating thing he paused to sniff. I grabbed him up, hurled us into the passenger seat, and slammed the door. It felt darn good and I got a chance to do it again when I realized I’d caught the leash in the door.
Martin took his place behind the wheel with exasperating calm. He reached across my body and I shouted, “What are you doing?” just before he pulled the seat belt and buckled me in.
“What’s got you so jumpy all of a sudden?” His silky half smile made me want to beat him with Mr. F’s tire iron.
“This is the worst possible time for you to horn in on my business,” I said, as he drove toward the exit. “A lot of my jobs came from Irene. With her gone, my income’s going to take a big hit.”
“You talk like you haven’t just inherited a big-ass house worth millions.” Before I could speak, he added, “And spare me that crap about how it really belongs to the dog.”
“Well, technically—”
“My grandmother’s dream house does not belong to any damn poodle!”
His outburst caused the damn poodle in question to stop car-whining. Martin’s features were rigid, his knuckles pale on the steering wheel.
After a few moments I said, “Of course it doesn’t. That’s just a... it’s a legal device.” I watched him take a deep breath and slowly exhale. I wondered about his mysterious past, about the experiences that had shaped him and taught him to control his anger. “Your grandma McAuliffe chose that house?”
He didn’t answer right away and I wondered if he’d shut me out. He turned out of the cemetery onto the town’s main road and said, “They had it built as soon as they could afford to. Their sons were grown by then—it was the mid-sixties—but Grandma had wanted a house like that her whole life, and Grandpa was finally in a position to give it to her.”
“Yeah, but when they divorced about twenty years later,” I said, “Arthur ended up with the house.”
“Irene was on the lookout for a rich old husband, and he fit the bill,” he said. “So the old bitch pried him away from Grandma, but that wasn’t enough. She knew how much Grandma loved that house, how she’d built it to her specifications. Grandpa was still in thrall to Irene at that point, and she persuaded him to fight for the house and put her name on the deed. It was all too much for Grandma.”
“Anne died not long after Irene and Arthur married, as I recall.”
“Eight months,” he said. “That’s when Grandpa realized what a monumental mistake he’d made. He never got over it.”
He died a few years later, and Anne McAuliffe’s dream house went to the scheming second wife. And eventually to Jane Delaney, Death Diva. And a neurotic little poodle.
“Are you thinking the house would have gone to you,” I asked, “if your grandparents had remained married?”
He shrugged, as if that were of no concern. “It would’ve stayed in the family, that’s all that matters.”
“I thought you hated the McAuliffes.”
“That’s not the point.” He wore an enigmatic smile as he added, “The younger generation aren’t so bad.”
The younger generation? Was Martin in touch with Anne and Arthur’s grandchildren? Or was he referring to the great-grandchildren? I didn’t even know how far the McAuliffe dynasty had spread.
“So that’s why you’re doing this to me?” I asked. “Sabotaging the business I worked two decades to build because I happened to end up owning your grandmother’s house? I don’t know what you think, but I never asked for it or... or schemed to get it. I was stunned when I got the news.”
“Oh, I forgot,” he sneered. “You’re just a helpless pawn in all this. You are in no way responsible for any part you might have played in Irene’s malignant little games.”
Malignant game. An apt description for loading the ashes of anti-firearms activist Anne McAuliffe into shotgun shells. I was tempted to remind him I was just following orders, but it would have sounded as lame to him as it did to me. Hadn’t I already decided I wasn’t off the hook for trying to steal the brooch for Irene? I should have challenged her all along instead of doing her bidding without question for all those years.
And if I had, would she have left me her house?
Martin glanced at me and I knew he read it on my face. The doubt, the self-recrimination. Instinct told me to go on the attack.
“Speaking of games,” I said, “you deliberately flirted with Veronica Sheffield just to get this sex-talk gig. Deny it.”
“What’s your point?”
I sat up. “Wait a minute. Hold on.” I’d been so outraged by Martin’s raiding my clients, it hadn’t occurred to me to ask the obvious question. “How did you know about Veronica?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” I twisted in my seat to face him. SB perched on my hip to whine out the window. “How did you find out she’s one of my clients? And Maia too—that we throw business each other’s way?” These were things he couldn’t have learned from Irene’s files.
“Have you always been this suspicious?”
It hit me like an anvil. “You broke in to my apartment!”
“You need better computer passwords,” he said. “Your anniversary? Really?”
“You got into my computer?” I thought of my out-of-date laptop, sitting there all vulnerable on my rickety kitchen table.
“It took me less than a minute, literally, to guess it,” he said. “I mean, your anniversary? How long has that marriage been over?”
“I’ve been meaning to change it,” I muttered. “Wait, how do you know the date Dom and I got married?”
“It’s printed right there on the invitation. Page one in your wedding album.”
“You went through my wedding album? You were in my bedroom?” I’d kept the album on a closet shelf, in a box with other memorabilia. Pictures of Dom. Pictures of me and Dom. Little gifts from Dom. Birthday cards from Dom. Love letters from Dom.
I couldn’t decide whether to throw up or faint, imagining Martin reading Dom’s youthful, lustful letters to me.
“When...” I could barely speak. “When did you do this? When did you break in to my place?”
“Last Friday. I waited till you left.” He turned onto my street. “You looked totally hot, by the way. You should wear that green dress more often.”
That was the day I’d gone to Ted Seabrook’s funeral, playing the part of his sexpot mistress. I’d left my bedroom strewn with clothing and shoes, after trying on practically every item in my closet in an attempt to find an outfit sexy enough for the gig. And then there was the matter of choosing the right underwear to go with the slinky dress. I groaned, recalling the thongs and push-up bras I’d left littering the bed.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you finish my tequila?”
“There was a sip left.”
“There was a good, solid shot left in that bottle. I was saving it.” I could have used it right then. “So who else?” I demanded. “What other clients of mine have you gone after?”
“Well, Sophie Halperin’s uncle Morty just kicked the bucket,” he said. “She has me ordering a bunch of food for the folks sitting shivah. What do you think? Nova or belly lox?”
“That job was supposed to be mine!” I said. “Morty’s been teetering on the edge for months. I had the menu picked out and everything.”
“You snooze, you lose.” He turned onto the long, tree-lined drive to my new home. “Sophie had doubts about trusting the job to some shaygetz she’d just met, but I assured her I’ve catered plenty of kosher events. And that I’m half-Jewish.”
“You lied, in other words.”
“Plus I undercut your prices by twenty percent,” he said. “Plus I’m cute as all get-out.”
“Who’s that?” I squinted at the dark sedan parked in the courtyard. I didn’t recognize it.
Martin frowned. “Plainclothes.”
“What?”
“A cop.” He pulled in behind it.
“How can you tell?” I asked, then realized I probably didn’t want to know.
The occupant of the unmarked vehicle got out at the same moment we did and I found myself standing face-to-face with Detective Bonnie Hernandez.
Dom’s fiancée wore a smart burgundy pantsuit and heels. Her dark hair was cut short and feathery around her face, and she was as pretty as I remembered from Dom’s Christmas party last December when he’d introduced us. If Bonnie was surprised to see me in the company of a priest, she hid it well.
Of the many thoughts vying for attention at that moment, the one that whined loudest was, I hope she doesn’t think this heap is my car.
Sexy Beast, the anti-Frederick, strained at the leash, barking ferociously at the interloper. I picked him up and hushed him, causing him to mutter indignantly about not being allowed to do his job.
“Bonnie. Hi. This is a, uh, surprise.” I forced myself to smile. She made no such effort. “Listen, I want to thank you for getting SB that appointment with Rocky.”
“You’re welcome. This isn’t a personal visit.” She retained a slight accent from her native Dominican Republic, from which she’d emigrated with her family as a small child. She stuck out her hand to Martin. “Detective Bonnie Hernandez, Crystal Harbor PD.”
They shook. “Martin Kade.”
How convenient. A middle name that sounded like a last name. I found myself wondering whether impersonating a priest is a crime.
“I have some questions that I’m hoping you can help me with, Jane.” Bonnie indicated the front door. “This shouldn’t take long.”
“Um, okay,” I said. “This is about Irene, I assume? I mean, I know Sten Jakobsen told the police—”
“Why don’t we discuss this inside.” She dismissed Martin with a curt “It was nice to meet you, Father Kade.”
“Jane, don’t talk to her without a lawyer,” he said. “You don’t have to talk to her at all.”
“What? No,” I said. “Bonnie just wants me to tell her what little I know—the same stuff I told Sten. Right?” I asked her.
“We’re wasting time standing around out here,” Bonnie said. “I’m sure you’re as busy as I am. The sooner we get started—”
“I know someone.” Martin tipped my face up, his gaze locked on mine. “He can be here in half an hour.”
“That’s... it’s insane. I don’t need a lawyer just to answer a few routine questions.” I turned to Bonnie, feeling my insides tighten. “Do I?”
At last, something that could almost be called a smile. “Not if you haven’t done anything wrong.”
