| |
––––––––
SIX HOURS LATER, I parked my crappy old Civic in the circular cobblestone courtyard in front of my big brick-and-stone house. I carried my shopping bag up the steps of the covered portico flanked by white double columns, fished my keys from my purse, and let myself in through the massive double doors. The sack I carried through the foyer and dining room to the butler’s pantry was not, alas, pale yellow printed with the gold UnderStatements logo. It was a plastic sack from the supermarket.
I unpacked the contents: Fruity Pebbles, two-percent milk, frozen fried chicken, and orange soda for me; Vienna sausages and cheddar for Sexy Beast, who’d come running in from the living room to greet me. I gave him a sausage and put away the rest of the food in the adjacent kitchen, pulling a cold orange soda from the fridge and tearing open the box of cereal.
I sauntered into the sunken game room, a sunlit space separated from the breakfast room by a low wall. I still thought of it as the game room, though one of my first acts as the new owner had been to give Irene’s fancy poker table to her lawyer and longtime friend Sten Jakobsen. I didn’t play poker, and I couldn’t look at the well-used table without missing Irene terribly.
And yes, technically Sexy Beast is the property’s owner, but if I left decorating decisions up to him, the house would be filled with tennis balls, shoes, dog-biscuit dispensers, fire hydrants, and random garments that smell like me and/or his dearly departed Irene.
I flopped onto the ivory leather sofa, really an enormous horseshoe-shaped seating area strewn with squishy pillows and throws in shades of rose, slate, and pale green. It was my favorite spot in the house. Well, next to the whirlpool tub in the master bath.
Instead of curling up next to me, Sexy Beast trotted up the two steps into the living room and gave a couple of imperious barks. I froze in the act of picking up the TV remote. That was his herding bark. Not that poodles are herding dogs, they’re in fact water retrievers, but SB liked to gather his humans into one spot, the better to watch over them and keep an eye out for the random suburban grizzly bear.
Only, who was he herding? No one else was in the house. It was just me and—
“I hope that’s not your dinner.”
—Martin McAuliffe. The padre sauntered down the two steps from the living room, looking like he owned the place. Which wasn’t far from the truth since not even the most high-tech locks and security system seemed capable of keeping him out. Not that he let himself in on a regular basis. It had been months since he’d done so—to my knowledge at least. For all I knew, he could be sneaking in every night and standing over my sleeping form with a chainsaw and a machete, trying to decide. Lord knew Sexy Beast would do nothing to stop him, the padre being one of his favorite bipeds.
I swigged from the bottle of soda. “As a matter of fact, no. I have a date later.” So there. It was a little before six now. At eight I was scheduled to meet a man I’d corresponded with on dog-loving-singles.com for dinner at the Harbor Room. The waterfront restaurant was a local historical landmark thanks to its venerable age and connection with Prohibition rum-running.
Martin toted a black plastic liquor-store sack. He set it on the carpet and settled on the sofa right next to me, ignoring the leather acreage extending in either direction practically to the adjoining towns. In return, I ignored the bare feet he propped on Irene’s six-thousand-dollar coffee table. I still thought of the house and its furnishings as Irene’s, a habit hard to break. SB jumped onto Martin’s lap, nudging his hand every time the padre stopped rubbing him.
“Fine by me,” he said, meaning my date. “SB and I will order in. It’s a junk-food paradise in there.” He tipped his head toward the kitchen. “Don’t you ever eat anything without two dozen ingredients?”
“Who said you could stay here while I’m gone? When I leave, you leave. In fact, I don’t recall inviting you in. The door is right through there.” I pointed.
“Did I forget to mention?” He reached into the cereal box and grabbed a handful of Fruity Pebbles. “We’re roomies now. I’m going to live here.”
I sat speechless, staring at him. “You didn’t just say—”
“We’ll have pillow fights, do each other’s hair. I’ll be fun. Not to fret, I took the maid’s room.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the laundry room, next to which was a modest-sized bedroom with en-suite bathroom. “Miles away from your palatial suite upstairs. You’ll never even know whether I’m in the house.”
“How reassuring.” I turned to face him directly. “Listen to me, Padre. You are not moving in with me.”
“Already did. Borrowed Mom’s car and got it done in one trip. This room is just crying out for a state-of-the-art video-game system,” he said, indicating the three-thousand-inch flat-screen TV mounted on the opposite wall. Okay, I don’t know how many inches it really is, all I know is it rivals the big movie screen in the home theater downstairs.
“Not in this house, no way,” I said. “And I still didn’t say you could stay here. Your stuff is being hauled to the town dump the next time you walk out of here.”
“Crystal Harbor has a town dump?”
“You know what I mean. This is my house and I get to say who stays here.”
“I believe it’s his house.” The padre stroked Sexy Beast, who promptly rolled over and presented his downy stomach for stroking. “And he seems to want me around, don’t you, boy?”
SB made that satisfied, guttural rolling-R sound I thought of as his doggie purr. Et tu, Sexy Beast?
“I brought you a present to say thanks.” Martin reached down to the bag he’d brought and presented me with a bottle of my favorite añejo tequila. He smiled, watching my face. This was pricey stuff, and the last bottle I’d owned had been a birthday present from Irene three years earlier. I’d made it last, but it had been months since I’d had a sip of this nectar of the gods.
I dragged my gaze from the gorgeous bottle to the padre’s face. “Yeah, right. You brought it to bribe me.”
He shrugged and set the bottle on the coffee table. “Semantics.”
Speaking of bribery and accusations of such...
“What do you think of this whole business with Ernie Waterfield?” I tucked the box of cereal between us. Sexy Beast licked his lips and I fed him one piece. A blue one.
“I think Sophie better have a good criminal lawyer.”
I sighed. “Sten hooked her up with someone, a big name from the city. It’s so unfair. She couldn’t possibly have committed murder.”
He was silent for a long moment. “You can never say for sure what a person is capable of when push comes to shove.”
I shifted in my seat to face him. “We’re talking about Sophie here. She’s... she’s one of the best people I know.”
He raised his hands. “I’m not arguing that, but people do things under duress, that’s all I’m saying.”
I thought about that, and about the man sitting next to me. Martin McAuliffe’s background was a mystery, but I had my suspicions. I’d already decided I’d rather not know.
“I visited Sophie today in her office at Town Hall.” I told him about my anonymous client and my annual trip to place flowers at a cemetery in New Jersey. “I thought maybe she’d hired me in secret to pay her respects to the man her late husband had accidentally killed. She denies it was her and I believe her. And Lacey Vargas doesn’t know who it could be. She was Tim’s girlfriend. Then I thought, well, maybe it was someone else who was close to Ernie.”
“Such as...?” he asked.
“His mom.”
“That doesn’t sound like the Teddy Waterfield I’ve heard about,” he said. “Making a coat out of Dalmatian puppies, maybe. Memorializing the victim of her son’s boneheaded prank? Not so much.”
“I know, but I’m at a dead end here.”
“Why don’t you hire Ben to look into it for you?” Martin asked.
“I can’t afford a private detective.” Ben Ralston was a local PI and a friend of Martin’s.
“A thing like that’ll take him no time. I bet he’d do it as a favor if Mom asks him nicely.” He grinned. “Why do you think I’m bunking with you? Ben is moving in with her. I like Ben, but that’s one small house, and when a mouse sneezes in the attic, you hear it in the basement. Plus that cat of hers creeps me out.”
I’d met the cat, an ill-tempered Siamese named Miss Persephone. I’d met his mother, Stevie, too. She was a youthful sixty-one, having had Martin at age nineteen. He had no contact with his father, a married deacon and the son of Irene’s late husband.
Yeah, don’t even try to figure out the family tree, you’ll get a headache.
Bottom line: I liked Stevie and I liked Ben. I was glad those two had found each other.
“You really think Ben would do it for free?” I asked.
“Buy him a bottle. I’m told it works wonders.” There was that devilish grin again.
“Then sure, let’s see what he can dig up,” I said. “If I can discover who’s behind my trips to Tim’s gravesite, it could shed some light on all this. Such as, is my client a local? Why would someone in New Jersey hire someone on Long Island to schlepp flowers to a Jersey grave?”
“Because you’re the only one who does this sort of thing?” he asked. “Aside from me, that is.”
Martin had recently launched a competing Death Diva—Death Divo?—business, specifically by raiding my clients. That had been a few months earlier when he was miffed at me. I don’t think he’d done any Death Divo’ing lately. He made his living bartending and... well, like I said. I’d rather not know.
“Hey,” I said, “aren’t you supposed to be at Tierney’s now?” Tierney’s Publick House was the Southampton watering hole where he worked, and summer was high tourist season. Martin must make a bundle in tips this time of year.
“A buddy’s covering for me.”
“Wait, what time is it?” I snatched up the TV remote.
“A few minutes past six. When’s your date?”
“It’s not that. I’m missing Ramrod News.”
“What, I’m not sleazy enough?” Martin asked. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as a Ramrod viewer.”
I gave him a brief recap of that morning’s catastrophe as I switched channels. Within moments I was staring at Miranda Daniels’s hateful face, larger than life and in high definition. I could count her false eyelashes. Her frown of concern almost looked sincere.
“I must warn you,” she gravely intoned, “the footage you are about to view is graphic and disturbing. If you have young children, you might want to send them out of the room.”
Thank goodness. She must be featuring a different story. Maybe our sensational three-decades-old murder wasn’t sensational enough. My relief was short-lived as an image of my own slutty-looking self filled the enormous screen.
“Yowza,” was all Martin said.
“Shut up.” I raised the volume.
The lady on the screen—that couldn’t really be me, could it?—had long, disheveled, strawberry blond hair and wore a dark green kimono that revealed pillowy, hoisted-to-there cleavage and the lacy top of a hot pink bra. Fishnet stockings and do-me mules completed the fetching ensemble. The best part? Under the camera’s bright light, the robe was sheer.
Yeah, that’s right. You could see straight through it to everything underneath. The push-up bra. The garter belt. The thong. The granny panties under the thong.
Martin leaned forward and squinted. “What’s that you’ve got on under the—?”
I smacked him with the cereal box. Multicolored pebbles flew in all directions, much to Sexy Beast’s delight.
The camera homed in on my angry face as I said, “Sophie Halperin is a greedy, scheming murderer.”
I bolted upright. “What?”
“You said that?” Martin asked.
“No! I mean yes, I said that, but I didn’t say that. They took my words out of context.”
Miranda again. “That was Jane Delaney, one of Mayor Halperin’s closest friends and the person who actually discovered the skeleton of Ernest Waterfield. The mayor is the widow of Mr. Waterfield and the prime suspect in his murder. If you’re wondering what kind of people she calls friend, keep watching.”
Another shot of my furious face. “I’m the Death Diva, okay? I’m the damn Death Diva. I do stuff to dead people, and I have no intention of talking about it.”
“Wow,” Martin said, and snatched the cereal box away from me before I could smack him again.
The TV screen was now split between Miranda’s talking head and a bespectacled older man wearing a tie and tweed sport coat against a backdrop of shelved books. Miranda introduced him as Dr. Charles Amos, professor of religious studies at Peconic University.
Miranda’s frown did not extend to her Botoxed forehead. “Dr. Amos, you’ve studied the footage we shot earlier today. What can you tell us about this self-described Death Diva, based on your expert knowledge of satanic cults?”
The professor straightened his eyeglasses. “The history of sexual deviancy in such cults is well documented. Wild orgies, black masses, tales of sexual slavery... This so-called Death Diva, with her salacious garments and shocking lack of modesty, fits right in with what we know of modern devil worship. As for the unusual garment she’s wearing under her, um, underpants, that no doubt has ritual significance and demands further study.”
My jaw hung open. The padre placed a Fruity Pebble on my tongue and made the sign of the cross. “Exorcisms are my specialty. For you, no charge.”
“Can you explain the significance,” Miranda asked the prof, “of this vicious dog? For the benefit of those just joining us, the animal belongs to Jane Delaney, known in satanic circles as the Death Diva.” Cut to video of Sexy Beast attacking the hem of Miranda’s pants as she screams and flails her leg. From his spot on the couch, SB growled at his own image on the screen. But then, he growls at anything with four legs.
“This animal is what’s known as a ‘familiar,’” Dr. Amos said. “The purpose of a familiar is to assist its master in various malevolent acts and to offer protection.”
I turned to Martin. “Familiars—aren’t they for witches? Is he saying I’m a witch now?”
He shrugged, staring at the screen. “All right! Was that a nip-slip?”
I gasped. “No!” I was once more onscreen, shot from above as I attempted to disengage SB’s teeth from the reporter’s pants. My robe was in disarray, the sash undone, my “salacious garments” on full display. I didn’t see an errant nipple, but I did see the ritual white granny panties in all their baggy, saggy glory as I snarled at the reporter, “If anything happens to Sexy Beast, I will sue you and your horrible show back to the Stone Age!”
Cut to a perplexed Miranda, grinning, shaking her head. “Professor? Can you enlighten us? Who or what is ‘Sexy Beast’?” She dodged an imaginary lightning bolt. “Should I be afraid to say the words out loud?”
Dr. Amos chuckled. “Satan is known by many names, as I’m sure you’re aware. Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Prince of Darkness, and of course Beast as in six-six-six, the mark of the Beast. ‘Sexy Beast’ is obviously how this oversexed devil worshiper and her cohort refer to Satan.”
“Isn’t there a movie by that name?” Miranda asked.
“Yeah,” I hollered at the screen, “the movie my dog was named after, you dumb—”
“Is there?” Dr. Amos asked. “It has nothing to do with this animal. Have you had your rabies shots?”
“He never even broke skin!” I yelled at the TV. “I hate you. I hate you both.”
Martin patted my arm. “They can’t hear you.”
Miranda thanked Dr. Amos for his contribution, but she wasn’t finished yet. “Let’s hear from another Crystal Harbor resident, one who’s a bit more—” she tittered “—normal.”
Here was Nina Wallace, with her tasteful grooming and adorable baby bump, looking and sounding like everyone’s favorite Sunday-school teacher. “I hate to speak ill of anyone, particularly an elected official, but I feel a responsibility in this case to share my misgivings. I personally would not be surprised if it turns out Mayor Halperin did away with her husband.”
I groaned, my face in my hands. “Sophie will never speak to me again.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Martin rubbed the back of my neck. It felt like heaven and was almost worth what I’d just gone through. “She knows how these vultures operate.”
I switched off the TV as Miranda wrapped up her commentary and moved on to another hard-hitting news story, this one about taxidermy classes aimed at preschoolers. “Well, my business is in the crapper for sure. Who’d hire me now?” I made air quotes. “An ‘oversexed devil worshiper’ who turns on her best friends.” I was perilously close to tears. SB did his doggie hug, sitting up with his belly and front legs pressed against me. He licked my chin.
The padre stripped the seal on the tequila, eased out the cork, and handed the bottle over. When I just looked at it, fighting back sniffles, he tipped it to my mouth. The pale golden liquid slid over my tongue and warmed my insides. Tequila like this has more in common with a fine cognac than with the stuff Martin dumps into the blender at Tierney’s with margarita ingredients.
“Don’t stop,” I murmured, as his strong fingers kneaded the tight muscles of my neck and shoulders.
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he whispered, his breath warm on my ear. He urged me to take another sip, then commandeered the bottle and took one himself before handing it back.
We stayed like that for several minutes, passing the bottle back and forth as he continued to massage away my tension. A heady intimacy suffused me, one I was loath to end. I could have stayed like that all evening, being comforted by a sexy man of mystery, my dog, and a bottle of the best booze on the planet. I felt Martin shift closer and wondered distractedly if he was going to kiss me.
The doorbell rang. Sexy Beast leapt off the couch and ran barking through the living room and into the foyer. I sighed.
Martin patted my back. “Stay. I’ll get it.” He followed SB. I heard the front door open, then a male voice.
“What are you doing here?” Dom. SB yelped in excitement, greeting him.
“I live here,” Martin said. “What are you doing here?”
“That better be a joke. Where’s Janey?” Dom stalked into the game room and took in the sight of his ex-wife drinking straight from a bottle of high-end tequila.
“Did you see?” I asked miserably.
“Why do you think I’m here?” He sat next to me, in the spot recently vacated by Martin, who sat on the steps to the living room, giving SB scritches. “I heard about what happened at Lacey’s store this morning,” Dom said, “so I tuned in to the show.”
“Oh God, it must be all over town. Everyone saw me make an ass of myself on that awful program.”
“For the record, you didn’t make an ass of yourself,” he said. “That Miranda person did it for you.”
“Gee, thanks,” I groaned.
“No, I mean...” Dom started rubbing my neck, taking over where Martin had left off, which felt a little surreal. Also flattering. I wasn’t accustomed to that much physical masculine attention in one day, if you took a certain seven-pound canine out of the equation.
Dom said, “What I mean is, she obviously manipulated your words. Anyone who knows you will see that.”
I looked into his kind, dark eyes. “You think so?”
He nodded.
“But there’s all the rest of it, that satanic business.” I started to lift the bottle to my lips. Dom gently took it from me and inspected the level of liquid in it.
“Did you drink all this?” He set the bottle on the coffee table.
“I had help.” The fact is, I was a little tipsy and liking it.
Dom looked at Martin, still perched on the steps. “He says he’s living here now. A joke, I assume?”
I sighed.
“Janey?” He tipped my head to look at him. “You’re not shacking up with this guy, are you? I’ve told you before, he’s bad news.”
“I’m right here,” Martin said pleasantly. “I can hear you.”
“Of course I’m not shacking up with him,” I said. “He needs a place to stay, is all.”
“That’s what hotels are for,” Dom said.
“It’s temporary.” I gave Martin a pointed look. “Only until he can find permanent accommodations.”
“No, Janey.” Dom shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t like it.”
Yeah, well, I didn’t like divorcing you and watching you rack up two more marriages, a fiancée, and three kids—kids the two of us should have had together—but I don’t recall having had a say in any of it.
Except the divorcing part. I’d spent the past seventeen years regretting that one monumental mistake. Now that Dom was eager to remarry me, however, I found that thirty-nine-year-old Jane Delaney, after everything she’d endured and accomplished on her own, just might not need him anymore.
“No one’s asking you to like it,” I said. “I’m capable of choosing my own houseguests.”
Dom opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He looked at Martin, then at me. “If he stays here, then so do I.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”
“I don’t trust this guy, Janey, and neither should you.”
A memory flashed then from three months earlier, of Martin shouting at me to run and save myself. To leave him in what had become a death trap when it looked like there was no way to save us both.
Before I could shake off my reverie and formulate a response, Martin spoke up. “Look, man, you don’t even know me, and the way I see it, you don’t get a vote.”
The two men stared each other down while I choked on testosterone fumes.
“I’m moving into your room, Janey,” Dom said at last. “To keep you safe. I won’t take no for an answer.”
“No,” I said. “There’s your answer.”
Abruptly Dom rose and strode into the kitchen. I craned my neck to watch as he located my purse, pulled out my wallet, and extracted the spare house keys he knew I always carried in the change compartment. He returned, pocketing the keys.
“Good grief,” I said, “Martin isn’t even sleeping upstairs. He’s staying in the maid’s room, back there.” I pointed toward the far back corner of the house.
Dom thought about that. “Then I’ll take the room across from yours.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “The upstairs is mine alone. If you insist on staying here, Dom, you’ll have to sleep down here on the couch or something. And...” I raised a finger. “You both pay rent.”
“I thought I was a houseguest,” Martin said.
“If you stay free, there’s no incentive to find your own place,” I said, and tossed out the first figure that leapt into my cranium. “A hundred bucks a night. Nonnegotiable.”
“Deal,” they said in unison.
“Paid weekly in advance. And I’m not feeding you.” Considering the effect that humiliating Ramrod News broadcast would no doubt have on my Death Diva business, I’d probably need the guys’ rent money just to keep myself in Fruity Pebbles and orange soda.
I stood. “I’m going to go call Sophie. Then I’m going to get ready for my date.”
“Oh, you have a date?” Dom made a conspicuous effort to look okay with that. “Anyone I know?”
“No,” I said.
“It’s someone she met on Dog Loving Singles dot com,” Martin informed my ex.
“How do you know that?” I demanded. “You know what? Don’t answer that.” Martin had a history of sneaking into my house to snoop around, starting when Irene was alive and its sole resident. He and his step-grandmother hadn’t exactly been best buds.
“And one more thing.” I picked up Sexy Beast and headed for the curved staircase in the foyer. “If you boys decide to kill each other, do it outside.”
