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“THIS IS SO NICE,” Chloe said. “I don’t think I’ve had anyone over since I moved here. Well, except for Swing, of course.”
“Really? No one?” I set my white pastry box on her kitchen counter. It was a nondescript kitchen in a nondescript house, a 1970s cookie-cutter ranch on the not-so-swanky outskirts of Crystal Harbor.
She seemed embarrassed. “Well, I don’t have any family and I haven’t met too many of my neighbors yet. I just took the place a couple of months ago. It’s a rental.” She started measuring grounds into a French-press coffeemaker. “Once we were engaged, Swing wanted me to live closer to him.”
I was kind of surprised she hadn’t moved into his fancy house in the heart of the gold-plated section of town until I recalled that the couple had made a conscious effort to keep their relationship under wraps for the sake of Swing’s career-boosting playboy image.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” I said, “so I got an assortment.” I lifted the lid of the box, adorned with Patisserie Susanne’s gold-and-white label, to reveal a Napoleon, a chocolate éclair, opera cake, and a pair of chocolate croissants. Yes, two of those, because it’s my all-time favorite dessert and if I’d gotten just one and Chloe had made a grab for it, I’d have had to hurt her.
Chloe oohed and ahhed, made the obligatory references to empty calories and aren’t we naughty, and pulled a couple of dessert plates from a cabinet. I had a reason for this visit, but now that I was there, I didn’t know quite what to say. I wanted to let her know she wasn’t alone and that others were thinking of her, stated a tad more diplomatically than: I’m sorry your man was a cheating sack of dog poo and that Miranda Daniels chose to make your humiliation public.
“How do you take your coffee?” she asked.
“Oh, just black, thanks.”
Once she’d poured, we took our plates and cups into the potpourri-scented living room. I sat on a love seat upholstered in taupe velour, she on the matching sofa. A framed photograph sat on the lamp table next to me: Swing and Chloe standing close, smiling into the camera. It appeared to have been taken at some affair. They were in formal dress and held wineglasses. Swing looked ridiculously handsome in white tie with his arm around his lady.
The table had a lower shelf. I spied a stack of bridal magazines and couldn’t help thinking that if my fiancé had been murdered, one of the first things I’d do is toss out such a painful reminder of the loss. However, if there’s one thing I’d learned in my years as the one and only Death Diva, it’s that people deal with grief in their own way.
“Okay,” I said, “this has been bothering me. I hope you don’t think I’m the one who spilled the beans to Miranda. About, you know, your engagement. It wasn’t Victor either.”
Chloe shook her head as if still coming to terms with the way she’d been ambushed. “I should have known better than to let her talk me into going back on that horrible show.”
“It’s what she does,” I said. “Anything for ratings.”
“Well, never again,” she said. “And don’t worry, I know you two had nothing to do with it. Now that we know what sort of person Detective Cullen is, I think we can be pretty certain who blabbed.”
“I don’t think there can be any doubt.” I pushed croissant crumbs around my plate. “Listen, I know how difficult it must be for you now, Chloe, with everyone knowing about your fiancé’s, um...” infidelity? cheating? shameless alley-catting? “About his continuing to see other women.”
She stiffened. Spots of color stained her cheeks. “People think they know Swing, even people who never met him. That’s how it is with celebrities. Well, I’ll tell you, no one knew him like I did. He wasn’t... He wasn’t... He was a good man. He loved me.”
I leaned forward and reached for her hand, but drew back when she failed to respond. “I know he did,” I said. “And I know he was a good man. I’m... I didn’t express myself very well. What I’m trying to say is, I know you’re hurting and I just... I’m here if you ever want to talk. Or maybe kick back a little, go for a walk, a drink at Murray’s, whatever.”
She avoided my eyes while she digested this, while she struggled to rein in her emotions. “Thank you,” she said at last.
I sensed she had no intention of taking me up on my offer. I was glad I’d made it, anyway. “So, um, getting back to Cullen and that caller’s allegations. The police department is conducting an internal investigation.”
Chloe frowned. “But didn’t the guy say Chief Larsen quashed the women’s complaints? How can there be a fair probe with him in charge?”
“I have to agree with you there. I’m sure it’s why Cullen hasn’t been put on administrative leave and is still in charge of Swing’s murder investigation.” I didn’t let her in on the identity of the anonymous caller. Sophie, Victor, and I were the only ones who knew, assuming none of the patrons at Murray’s that night noticed their bartender talking funny on the phone. If word got around that he was the one who’d made that call, Martin would be subject to unwanted police attention. Or I should say, he’d be subject to more unwanted police attention than usual.
Turns out the padre had heard the occasional whisper about Paulie the Perv and decided now would be an auspicious time to dig a little deeper. What he’d found out last weekend had convinced him the nickname had been earned. And with Larsen covering for his fishing pal, Martin had concluded that a call to Ramrod News was in order. As much as I hated to agree that the smarmy talk show was good for anything, it certainly had shone a spotlight on the problem, forcing Larsen to at least put on a show of looking into the women’s complaints.
Chloe set down her cup. “How can Swing’s murder ever be solved by such a corrupt police department?”
“The whole department isn’t corrupt.” I lifted my cup, thinking of Bonnie Hernandez. Not my bestest gal-pal perhaps, but I’d bet serious bucks she’s a clean cop. “The mayor’s aware of the situation, so I’m hoping for a positive outcome. Oh!” I looked down at my pale-blue shirt, now sporting a coffee stain.
“You’d better take care of that before it sets.” She pointed to the hallway. “There’s a bathroom right through there on your left.”
The john I found myself in was as boring and old-fashioned as the rest of the house. Green fixtures and tiles. Fake-wood paneling. I saturated a corner of a pink hand towel and dabbed at the spot on my shirt. It was a microfiber shirt, whatever that was, which meant I couldn’t use bleach, right? If I didn’t manage to get the stain out, this shirt would be added to my ever-growing pile of painting clothes. Ask me when I last painted a room, go ahead. I think it was the year before never.
Maybe Chloe had one of those handy little get-the-stain-out pens. I opened the medicine cabinet to check. It certainly wasn’t because I’m one of those nosy guests who like to paw through other people’s personal stuff.
Okay, I can hear you when you snort like that, so just knock it off.
Unlike me, Chloe kept her things neat and organized: deodorant, moisturizer, and so forth arranged just so. The part I could identify with was her preference for cheap drugstore brands. In that respect I could have been sneaking a peek at my own medicine cabinet—until I got to the shelf that had been set aside for men’s deodorant, shaving cream, aftershave, hair pomade, a razor, nail clippers, and comb. Here were the snooty foreign brands advertised in snooty magazines for men who could afford to shell out forty bucks for a little tube of cream destined to be scraped off the chin of a multimillionaire celebrity chef.
I lifted a small prescription bottle containing a common sleeping aid, according to the label, on which was typed the patient’s name: Pierre Dewatre. I’d already noticed the two toothbrushes in the ceramic holder and a man’s burgundy silk bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. I assumed she’d kept a few items at his place, too. Just because they lived separately didn’t mean there weren’t sleepovers, although I couldn’t picture Swing cooking in Chloe’s sad little kitchen with the plastic-handled knife set I’d spied and the electric stove. Don’t serious cooks prefer gas?
Back in the living room, I resumed my seat as Chloe refilled our cups and placed more pastries on our plates, followed by more of that we’re-going-to-hell and I’m-going-to-pay-for-this talk. I mean really, why can’t women ever just enjoy their darn food without making it sound like the moral equivalent of stomping baby ducks?
She forked up a bite of Napoleon. “By the way, I dumped Lee as a client.”
“Now, there’s a shock.”
“I did it in the green room,” she said, “right after the show. She actually seemed surprised.”
“After essentially admitting she tried to ruin the man you loved by starting that awful rumor?” I said.
“And now she’s going after Victor,” Chloe said. “She’s a very vindictive woman.”
“You think?” I bit into my second chocolate croissant and had to restrain a carnal moan. Yeah, that’s right, I really like these things. “Did you know Victor’s been getting death threats?”
Her eyes bulged. “That’s terrible! Because of Lee’s accusation?”
I nodded. “From those nutty SEAR people, for starters.”
“Wait, I thought they were happy that Swing was dead. Didn’t Tooley call Tucker a hero?”
“That was before Swing was publicly cleared of that endangered-species nonsense,” I said. “It embarrassed the whole organization. I mean, they lavished a lot of well-publicized venom on him over the past few years. And now here’s Victor, who supposedly did in his brother and then blamed it on SEAR. They’re not amused.”
“But it was Lee who started the rumor that ended up making them look foolish,” she said. “So why aren’t they going after her?”
“My guess? They’re scared of her. You saw her performance on Ramrod. I mean, you were sitting right there, for heaven’s sake. She had the public hanging on her every word. If that fierce lady decided to go head to head with SEAR?”
“I get your point.”
“But it’s other people too, threatening Victor,” I said. “All because Lee wanted to punish him for supposedly ruining her chance of getting that show.”
“Right.” Chloe’s tone was arid. “It couldn’t possibly have been her own fault. But Victor has the groupies, too, right? The ones Miranda mentioned.”
I grimaced. “You see them around town, anywhere there’s been a Victor sighting in the past—the pub, Janey’s Place, the Harbor Room restaurant, even the dog park. But the worst is the women who show up at the house.”
“Oh no,” she said.
“Oh yes. I chased a few of them away, but you get these really determined ones who sneak around the house, spying in the windows. One even threw rocks at my bedroom window in the middle of the night.”
“Your window?” she said.
“Must’ve thought it was Victor’s. I’m not talking gravel here. These were rock rocks.”
“That’s scary,” Chloe said. “Someone that obsessed, you don’t know what she’s capable of.”
“No kidding. ‘Groupies’ is too benign a term for these women. As far as I’m concerned, it’s straight-up stalking. I called the police and now Howie Werker’s handling it.” At her puzzled look, I said, “He’s a Crystal Harbor cop, a sergeant. And a friend of mine—nice guy. Howie’s got patrol cars swinging by all the time. Now, when the loonies start sniffing around, I just call Howie and either he comes himself or he sends someone.”
“Well, that’s good,” she said, “but I’m so sorry he has to go through that. You too.”
“Thanks. He can’t even go to the office anymore,” I said. “You know he’s been working at his firm’s SoHo branch, right? Well, on Tuesday he was recognized at the station and the next day a whole bunch of women—teenage girls, really—swarmed his train car. They were all over him.”
“What did the conductors do?” she asked.
“Stood there laughing. And taking pictures, natch. When the train finally stopped at Penn Station, he rode it right back to Crystal Harbor. Now he’s working from home. No more commuting for Hashtag Swing’sSexyBro.”
“I feel terrible for Victor,” Chloe said, “having to rearrange his life like that, and after all he’s been through. The idea of all these besotted females burning up Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and who knows what-all with posts about the poor guy. It’s just too absurd.”
“Hashtag VictorSighting,” I said. “Have you seen that one? Hashtag TeamVicInnocent.”
“I’m guessing there’s also a Hashtag TeamVicGuilty.”
“But of course,” I said. “Oh, check this out. They started sexting him. Sending him naked pictures and pornographic messages.”
Her jaw unhinged. “How on earth did they get his phone number?”
“Seems one of the groupies, a particularly resourceful one, phoned the Crystal Harbor Police Department and persuaded the dispatcher to share.”
“Wait a minute,” she said, “what kind of police dispatcher would release the phone number of a victim’s family member to a random caller?”
“A drunk dispatcher,” I said. “I got the lowdown from Howie. Seems the late-shift dispatcher is perennially inebriated.”
“Next question,” Chloe said. “How does a drunk keep a critical job like that? Who does he know?”
“She knows Chief Larsen,” I said. “She knows him very, very well from what I’ve been told.”
“Isn’t the chief married?”
“Oh, you’re such a stickler,” I teased, and instantly regretted it. Chloe was understandably sensitive on the subject of infidelity. Before she could react to my words, I added, “Anyway, Victor changed his number after that, but the packages keep coming.”
“Good grief, this just gets worse and worse,” she said. “Dare I ask what’s in these packages?”
“We don’t open them, we just give them to Howie as they come in. I mean, they could contain anything.”
She gave a disgusted nod. “Right. The death threats.”
“A bomb, anthrax, who knows? So far, though, they’ve contained nothing like that.” The suggestive look I gave her said the packages had contained nothing even remotely like that.
She stared. “Oh, don’t tell me.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.” I brought the last bite of croissant to my mouth.
“What?” She leaned toward me. “What was in them?”
“Howie tells me the PD is amassing quite the collection of naughty undies. They could open their own Victoria’s Secret outlet.”
“Good grief.”
“I’m telling you, Victor should feel honored,” I said. “A one-off murderer with a fan base this huge? He’s getting the full-on serial-killer treatment.”
The doorbell rang, clearly surprising Chloe.
“Two visitors in one day,” I said. “You’re on a roll.”
“Probably kids selling candy for their team or something,” she said as she headed for the front door.
The eye-stinging fog of Leonora’s perfume heralded her arrival even before she shoved past Chloe and marched into the living room. And to think, I actually used to covet that extravagant scent. Don’t let anyone tell you aversion therapy doesn’t work.
“I won’t stay,” she was saying, “I just wanted to get this back to you before you accuse me of stealing it.” She tossed a pink cardigan on the sofa and then noticed me. Her unpleasant expression grew even more unpleasant. “Didn’t mean to interrupt your little kaffeeklatsch.”
Behind Lee, Chloe rolled her eyes. Through telepathic hoodoo I begged her not to invite the woman to join us. Chloe was inherently polite enough to do it, and Lee was inherently mean enough to accept, just to make us uncomfortable.
Message received. Instead of asking Lee how she took her coffee, Chloe offered me an explanation as she lifted the cardigan and folded it. “It was cold in the green room the other day. I lent this to Lee.”
“Are you two having fun sitting here running me down?” Lee asked.
“A little,” I said, “but mainly we have more interesting things to talk about.” I was tired of this woman’s bullying, and Chloe certainly didn’t deserve it.
Lee acknowledged the gibe with a sneer worthy of the bitchiest girl in middle school. “Did Chloe tell you she abandoned me?”
“Seems to happen to you a lot.” I lifted my cup. “Think it might be you?” I took a dainty sip.
She gave me a hard look and turned her attention to her former agent. “I didn’t come by just to return your ugly sweater. I feel compelled to warn you, though don’t ask me why.”
Chloe frowned. “Warn me about what?”
“I know you think Romulus Tooley killed your precious Swing, but trust me, the guy couldn’t skewer a marshmallow. He couldn’t even toss a damn Molotov cocktail without setting himself on fire! Could you picture that bumbling fool running Swing through with a knife?”
I didn’t bother reminding Lee that Tooley had an alibi for the morning of the murder. It was public knowledge by that point. If he’d killed Swing, it was by proxy. She just wanted to hear herself rant.
I said, “Get to the point, Lee.”
She didn’t so much as glance at me. “Victor Dewatre had his brother killed. It’s taken long enough, but the police are finally beginning to put the pieces together. Meanwhile, guess who’s trying to pull his cute little French butt out of the fire by shifting the blame to someone else who was very close to Swing? Closer even than Victor himself, at least during the past year or so.”
Chloe paled.
“Chloe, ignore her.” I stood and joined them in the center of the room. “She’s just trying to upset you because you ‘abandoned’ her. We already know how vindictive she is. If Victor thought you had anything to do with his brother’s murder, he’d have told me.”
“He doesn’t think she had anything to do with it,” Lee said, “because he did it himself. Try to keep up, Jane. But I must say...” She pressed a hand to her heart. “It is simply adorable that you think your live-in crush tells you everything, shares everything, because you’re just so attuned to each other. Trust me, you have no idea what that man is capable of.”
“This is priceless.” I shook my head in wonder. “First you falsely accuse him of murder, in retaliation for an offense that exists only in your imagination. I mean, you admitted that to me, remember? In the bookstore?”
“I don’t recall any such conversation,” Lee said. “It seems like you’re the one with the vivid imagination.”
No surprise there. I didn’t expect her to admit it in Chloe’s presence. “And now,” I said, “you claim he’s doing the same thing to Chloe that you’re doing to him.”
Lee crossed her arms over her chest. “Tell me you never, not once, wondered if Victor might have murdered his brother.”
After a second I managed to mumble, “Of course not,” but her smug expression told me she heard my lie for what it was.
“You never mentioned who you do think did it,” she said, “at least not to me.”
“Well,” I said pleasantly, “from where I stand, you look guilty as hell.”
“Oh please,” Lee said. “If I’d killed Swing, why on earth would I deliberately invite all this attention to myself by telling the world about Victor’s guilt?”
Dom had asked that very same question the day I almost let him kiss me. My throwaway response had been that we weren’t dealing with the most rational person here. But if I was being honest with myself, I did not in fact think of Lee Romano as mentally unsound. Vindictive? This has been established. Mean, catty, and blind to her own faults? You’ll get no argument from me. But from what I could tell, the woman was sane, too sane to risk a murder rap for the vengeful pleasure of framing an innocent person.
Chloe’s voice quavered. “Did he really do that, Lee? Did Victor tell the police I did it?”
“Oh, Chloe,” I said, “can’t you see what she’s—”
“Yes he did,” Lee said. “He’s telling them it was out of revenge for Swing slipping around on you. The betrayal. The humiliation. You couldn’t take it and you snapped. He’s claiming he has evidence.”
“But... But Victor’s been so nice to me.” Chloe’s eyes glistened. “Why would he do something like that?”
“To protect himself. Why else?” Lee shrugged. “Remember, he’s making the whole thing up, trying to deflect attention from his own guilt. He’s doing it now because he knows the police are closing in.”
“She’s the one making it up, Chloe,” I said, “and you’re eating right out of her hand.”
“He says he has evidence?” Chloe asked in a small voice. She must have thought the cops were about to break down the door and haul her away in handcuffs.
“Okay, let’s just take a deep breath and think about it logically,” I told her. “If Victor really were guilty and he thought the police were ‘closing in,’ don’t you think he’d be on the first flight back to Paris?”
“Maybe,” Lee cut in. “The U.S. has an extradition agreement with France, but France doesn’t always honor it. I checked.”
Chloe was hugging herself, fighting tears. I wheeled on Lee. “Are you proud of yourself? You can never just let something go. What did she do that was so terrible? She stopped being your agent. And for a damn good reason—that evil rumor you started about Swing. Your vindictive acts just keep feeding on one another. I’d feel sorry for you if you weren’t so reckless.”
Lee made a show of haughty indifference, but a tic near her eye gave her away.
I got right in her face. “Fair warning, Lee. When you come for me, you’d better be ready for a fight. I’m not so easily bullied.” I pointed to the door. “Get out! You’ve spread enough sunshine for one day.”
