Designed for Death, page 6
The grin he had been holding back broke free and spread all over his face. “Especially me. I’m a dangerous guy.” Did I imagine it, or was Lieutenant Rossi hitting on me? Before I could decide, he tucked his notebook in his shirt pocket. “I’ve got something of yours. Be right back.”
A minute later, he returned with a plastic bag from Publix Market. I looked inside. Neal’s pillow minus a small square cut out of the silk.
“The lab kept the blood sample.” He looked crestfallen.
“It didn’t match anything, did it?” I tried to keep the satisfaction out of my voice.
He hesitated, then loosened up enough to say, “No, and that’s all I can tell you.” He eyed the apricot shift and the Jimmy Choos. “Why waste the dress? Want to cruise for burgers?”
Did I? I was hungry, and if I couldn’t trust the homicide detective on the case, who could I trust? Besides, he was engaged to be married. This would be another business trip.
“Why not?” I tossed the pillow onto a chair, picked up my purse and headed for the door.
I felt safe in the car with Rossi. He drove an old Mustang with both hands on the wheel, eyes straight ahead. He didn’t talk much. Not like Jack, who’d considered driving and chatting a single activity.
“Buckle up” was all Rossi said before pulling out of the parking lot onto Gulf Shore Boulevard. We maneuvered up to Harbour Drive then took a left on Tamiami Trail, Naples’s Main Street.
Rossi took his eyes off the road for a second to glance over at me. “Been to Mel’s Diner? They make a killer burger.”
“No, I haven’t.” Why tell him as a general rule I avoid greasy spoons? I love fast food but, true to its name, it runs straight to my hips.
“I think you’ll like it. The décor—” he pronounced it day-core, “—is kind of interesting. They’ve got old stuff hanging on the walls. You know, from the forties and fifties.”
“Memorabilia.”
“Yeah. Old license plates, sports posters, a couple or three photos of Marilyn Monroe.”
“Sounds like fun.”
At Mel’s an ample hostess, her dumpling hips swaying to music only she could hear, led us to a booth by the window where we could see traffic lights streaking along the Trail. As soon as a server approached us, Rossi ordered animal fat, sodium and a dose of chemicals. “Two burgers well done. Fries. Diet Cokes.”
A regular take-charge kind of guy. When the server walked away, Rossi removed the notebook and stub from his shirt pocket and laid them on the table.
“Not again.” I groaned.
“Business before pleasure.”
I glared across the booth at him. “You know something, Rossi, I realize you’re all business. What you don’t know is I am, too.” He was getting married, and I was avoiding romantic entanglements, so I couldn’t understand why my ego felt bruised by his attitude, or why my face got warm all of a sudden, even though the AC was set so low my bare arms had erupted into goose bumps.
His dark eyes glittered as if he enjoyed getting a rise out of me. “Yeah, there’s a lot I don’t know about you.” He picked up his pencil.
“That’s right,” I retorted, wishing I hadn’t agreed to cruise for burgers.
“So fill me in. Tell me more about yourself. And about your husband. It’s got nothing to do with the case, I’m just curious. What did he do? What was he like? You know, the small stuff.”
I drew in a quick, painful breath, then slowly let it leak out. After all the questions he’d asked about Jack the day of the murder, I hadn’t expected him to jump in with more. It hurt. It hurt like hell. No way were we having a casual conversation about my marriage. Not over burgers. Not over anything. My personal life was none of his damn business.
I grabbed my handbag and slid out of the booth. “You want to know about Jack?” My voice had risen. The couple in the next booth looked up, fries forgotten. “I’ll tell you about Jack. When I was with him, all the lights in the world came on.”
“And when he died, they went out,” Rossi finished.
“That’s right! You don’t even come close to him.”
He tossed a few bills on the table and got up. “You’re a hell of a woman, Mrs. Dunne. Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m calling a cab.”
Abandoning all pretense of eating, the neighboring couple stared at us with their mouths hanging open. Rossi took out his badge and flashed it at them. “Your fries are getting cold,” he said, and taking me by the elbow, he march-stepped me out of Mel’s Diner.
I could have protested, yelled that I was being abducted, screamed my head off, but I knew I had already overreacted. Outside, in the dark, sticky air, Rossi dropped my arm.
“Sorry, Mrs. D. A big part of my job is probing old wounds. Sometimes no pain, no gain.” In the glare of passing headlights, his face looked grim and tired. He jerked his head toward the diner. “I’m sorry the pain in there was yours.” He held out a hand. “No more questions about your husband. Okay?”
I took his outstretched hand. It was warm and firm. “Okay.”
At his apology, all the fight went out of me, and I wished we’d stayed in Mel’s long enough to eat a burger. As we strolled over to Rossi’s car, I also wondered why he’d asked me about Jack but hadn’t said a word about his fiancée. I guess he figured she didn’t have anything to do with the case. But neither did Jack.
On the ride home, we didn’t talk much. When we reached Surfside, he said, “I’ll come in and look around—just to be sure.” With an efficiency born of practice, he gave the condo a thorough, swift search before leaving with a terse “Lock this door.”
As if I needed to be told. I kicked off the Jimmys, shot the dead bolt and went out to the kitchen to look for something to eat. The phone had developed a red tic. I pressed Messages and heard Simon’s voice.
“Deva, sorry I blew up. It’s been a tough day. Can you forgive me? They tell me St. George and the Dragon is a great restaurant. Let’s reschedule. Please. I want you to design my condo. The sooner the better.”
So I’d been forgiven. Big deal. Simon could stuff St. George and his quasi date, too. But, no, that wasn’t smart, I thought, peering into the practically empty fridge, then slamming it shut in disgust. Business was business, and I needed the income. In the morning, I’d start some preliminary sketches for Simon’s condo. Turquoise and shades of brown were holding up as popular colors. Not my favorite combination, but in his unit they would work. Brighten up that huge Hershey Bar sofa. Make it look like a planned object, not just a poor choice. It was worth considering.
Exasperated, I blew out a breath. So was Rossi.
Chapter Eight
In the morning, I decided to sketch ideas for Simon’s condo out by the pool. I showered, slipped into my orange Speedo and tossed on a cover-up. No need to turn into Freckle City just to get a little air.
Before going outside, I skimmed through the Naples Daily. Treasure’s murder had been reduced to a half-inch item in the local section. Television ignored the story completely. For a fresh dose of violence, Channel 2 had turned to the weather. Amy, the first tropical storm of the season, swirled off the coast of Africa.
“Amy’s no threat to us yet, but we’ll be watching her,” the anchor promised.
I snapped off the set, slid open the dead bolt, reset it and strolled over to the pool. Marilyn Parker’s blue pareo waved from the back of a lounge chair. Quiet and shy, Dick’s wife seldom had much to say, and lately I’d kind of given up on our ever having girl talk. Hoping today would be different, I dropped my sketching supplies on a patio table and walked around to the front of Marilyn’s chair.
Whoa.
Red-eyed and red-nosed, she sat in the sun crying her heart out. Judging from the pile of damp tissues surrounding her, she’d been at it for quite some time.
“Marilyn, what’s wrong?” I asked, a dumb question for anyone living in Surfside these days.
“Nothing.” She blew into a well-used tissue, dropped it next to the others and stared straight ahead as if eyeball contact had never been invented.
I gestured at the mess on the chair. “Something must be.”
She plucked another tissue from the box by her side, wiped her nose and continued to stare out over the pool at the row of waving palms. All around us birds flitted from tree to tree, and pink hibiscus bloomed their heads off. The rich perfume of gardenias was so fabulous it should have been bottled.
“It’s too beautiful to be blue,” I said, and without waiting to be invited, sank onto the foot of her lounge.
Actually, Marilyn had a lot to cry about. If the murder made Surfside notorious, that could be the kiss of death to Dick’s plans for an upscale development. We unit owners might have something to worry about, too, but I buried the thought whenever it surfaced. Our priority had to be finding Treasure’s killer. In comparison, everything else seemed far less important, even the prospect of losing Jack’s insurance money—all I had in the world—most of which I’d sunk into 104.
“Don’t be discouraged.” I tried to sound cheerful. “By the time Dick remodels the rest of the units, the public will have forgotten what happened to Treasure.” Judging from today’s news coverage, that, sadly, could be true.
She blew her nose again.
“Besides,” I went on, “we’ll make the units so gorgeous, buyers will be lined up—”
“I don’t give a damn about the condos.” Marilyn’s voice was flat, her eyes dull.
“You don’t?”
“To hell with them.”
Damn? Hell? From Marilyn, who’d never let on she knew what either word meant. A spark of fire lighting her eyes, she bent her knees and leaned forward on the lounge. With her face inches from mine, she gripped me in an eye lock I didn’t even try to break out of. “I’m sick of pretending. Dick’s at it again.” Slick with Coppertone, she sat up straight, back rigid, every flawless curve telegraphing defiance. “But this time he’s gone too far.”
“Dick’s at what?”
“He’s been cheating on me. Again.”
“No, Dick wouldn’t do that,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing.
“Believe me. It’s true.”
“He likes to flirt, but he’s just a big teddy bear. He doesn’t mean—”
The spark in her eyes turned to flame. “Teddy bear? Ha! He’s a snake.”
“So who is he—”
“Don’t ask. You won’t like the answer.” Marilyn lay back on the lounge, closed her eyes and raised her puffy face to the sun.
“But—”
“He was married before, you know. No wonder she dumped him. I’d leave him, too, but everything’s in his name. Even Surfside. He never wanted me to work so I don’t have any skills. At least none I can sell… Or do I?” She sat up straight again and peered at me through swollen lids. “You know, Deva, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Sell what I do best. Teach him a lesson.”
Uneasy about where this was going, I asked, “What kind of lesson?”
Marilyn set her jaw. “Never mind. But thanks for giving me a good idea.”
What idea?
“Yeah, I’ll teach him a lesson, all right.” She slapped the lounge seat with the flat of her palm and struck the edge of the Kleenex box. Like it was a bomb ready to explode, she snatched it up and flung it away. A soaring bird, it rode the air for a second before dropping like a rock, right into the pool.
Oh boy. A challenge for the filter system.
Stabbing her sunglasses onto her face, she turned her head away, refusing any more of our “girl talk.” Why, oh why, had I even started this conversation? But I figured she’d spewed out only empty bravado. As sure as I sat there with my chin slack, I knew Marilyn wouldn’t act on her anger. Looking at her stretched out on the lounge, a golden-blonde Barbie, an already perfect tan on her perfect size-two body, I wondered why Dick had strayed. More than once, she’d said.
So he took off his tool belt occasionally. Part of it, anyway.
Without making a sound, I stood and headed for the patio table and my sketching supplies. But my mind wasn’t on spinning the color wheel.
If Jack had cheated on me, I probably would have killed somebody. Most likely the other woman.
Halfway across the pool apron, I stopped dead in my tracks. Had Dick been having an affair with Treasure? She hadn’t hinted at it, though she’d enjoyed boasting about her love life. I collapsed on a metal chair in a patch of shade cast by the table umbrella. Even if Treasure had messed with Dick, no way could Marilyn have strangled her. Even maddened by jealousy, she wouldn’t have had the strength.
But what if she had an accomplice? Ashamed of my thoughts, I rested my elbows on the table, all desire to sketch a plan for Simon up in the air with the birds.
Should I go to Rossi with yet another betrayal of a friend and neighbor? Chances were he would consider my news little more than gossip. I could just hear his derisive tone… On the other hand, he’d said if I heard anything to let him know. I blew out a breath, moved my legs out of the sun before they fried, and did what I usually did in times of stress—took out my number two pencil, picked up the sketch pad and began drawing. As it often did, the work took me over, and the sketch soon crowded everything else out of my mind for a blessed little while…
The chocolate sofa against a light turquoise backdrop might do for Simon after all. I’d repeat those colors and add a little white to some pillows…install white louvers on the glass wall leading out to the lanai. They’d be a strong foil to all that big brown furniture, keep it from being so insistent.
Pleased with the concept, I folded a protective tissue over the page and put my art supplies back in their box. A lanai slider slammed open. Grim-faced, Dick hurried out of 102 and raced around the pool toward Marilyn. He bent over to murmur in her ear.
Whatever he said had a galvanizing effect. Her face rigid as stone, Marilyn leaped up and stalked off, the buttocks of her enviably shaped behind pumping up and down like pistons.
About to start after her, Dick spotted me under the umbrella trying to look like a little sketch artist who hadn’t noticed a thing. He didn’t buy that and marched over to me, wasting no time in getting at what bothered him.
“Marilyn been talking to you?”
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“I mean talkin’. She’s upset.”
Stalling for time, I examined my manicure. With only ten fingers to look at, that didn’t take long. “We’re all upset these days, Dick.”
“Yeah.” He eyed me suspiciously but let it go and broke into a good imitation of a smile. “I’ve got some news.”
“Really?” I said, thrilled to have the subject change.
“Homicide’s released Treasure’s condo. They got everything they need. So I want you to doll the place up. You know, have the rug cleaned. Add some color. Get some plants and stuff. It’s like a ghost town up there.”
“Can we do that? Legally, I mean. Doesn’t the condo belong to Treasure’s family?”
“What family?”
“She said she had a brother.”
“Well, she lied to one of us, then. She told me she didn’t have any relatives. What was the line she used? Oh yeah, ‘I depend on the kindness of strangers.’” Dick snorted in disgust. “She sure depended on the wrong type.”
He turned to go, but I had to ask him a question that had been on my mind for the past three days. “What about a funeral?”
“If no one claims the body, the city’ll bury her and seize her assets to cover the cost.”
“A pauper’s grave. We can’t let that happen, Dick.”
Like my words were gnats, he waved a hand in front of his face. “I got enough troubles. If you’re worried about a funeral, ask that detective when he rolls around again. He’s spending enough time here. Pretty soon he’ll be taking dives in the pool.”
Poor Dick. He had money troubles and woman troubles, two of the worst kind, but I needed some answers. “Before we make any changes, we have to find out if the unit belongs to Treasure’s estate.”
Impatient now, he snapped out, “It belongs to me. I told you she has no heirs. I hold the mortgage, and the payments are two months overdue. I also got a big bill coming from the decontamination company. So I got to make all that up. Until the estate clears probate, the unit can’t be sold, but until that happens I’m using it as a model. If the lieutenant wants to stop me, he can let me know. After probate, if the unit doesn’t sell, Marilyn and I’ll move in and sell 102. Or anyway, one of us will move in.”
Without waiting for more questions, he stomped off and headed for home. He had work to do in there. Lots of work.
He didn’t get too far when he stopped and yelled, “Hey, what’s that box of Kleenex doin’ in the pool?”
For some questions, there are no good answers. So I took the Fifth and, sketching finished, thighs burned a fiesta coral, I went inside just in time to grab the jangling phone.
“Mrs. Dunne?” Rossi was all business today.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” My chilly tone hopefully conveyed that his questions last night still rankled.
He paused for a couple of seconds. “Forensics wants a blood sample.”
“What!” Nearly shocked out of my Speedo, I sank onto a stool to catch my breath. “Why, for Pete’s sake? I didn’t leave any blood in 301.”
“You were the first on the scene. We need to eliminate you as a possible suspect.”
“But the blood up there must be Treasure’s.”
Another pause. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I trust you. So keep it under wraps, okay?”
“What?” I clutched the phone tighter, clamping it to my ear.
“The blood on the carpet didn’t come from the victim.”
“Whose could it be, then? The killer’s?”
The deep intake of a weary breath floated through the wire. “I wish it was that simple.”
“Rossi, what are you saying?”
“That’s all I can tell you.”
“Are you trying to pin a murder rap on me?”
