The Devil's Own Game

by Annie Hogsett

  I gave Ruth’s breathing exercise a shot. One round. I breathed and observed my anger. Then I took another calming breath and flipped the TV—and also Lisa and her dumbass anchor—off.

  I found myself the opened bottle in the fridge and poured a large glass of decent chardonnay all over my freak-out. It worked. I lay back down on the chaise, enfolded myself in the healing essence of Tom’s robe, layered on the solace of my Margo shawl and—not right away but sooner than I might have expected—I was asleep.

  My last, drifting thought was, “Lisa Cole. You bitch. You are so screwed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sunday, March 4

  8:00 a.m.

  On Sunday morning we woke up to a Richter-Scale-magnitude paradigm shift.

  Tito Ricci was dead.

  His sniper was the freelancer from hell. He’d signaled a change of command by executing Tito in a manner that asserted—with shocking clarity—both his icy skill and his ruthless savagery. We were pretty sure he was not now—nor had he ever been—Tito’s messenger. He was the virtuoso killer who’d orchestrated the events of the past five days to serve his own ends.

  Yesterday morning before dawn, he’d laid out his agenda so we couldn’t miss exactly who’d been in charge from the beginning. And who’d been the pawn. The crime scenes said it all. At one end of the arc of benches, Kip’s body. At the other end of the arc, Tito’s. The murder of Kip had been a heads-up for us. The murder of Tito told us who was the real boss around here. The barbaric removal of Tito’s hands was the signature of a fearsome adversary.

  Tito’s severed hands underscored the transfer of power and did double duty as the ultimate threat to a blind man. Tom’s hands fused him to the world. Neither of us was ready to discuss that.

  Sometimes, an ah-ha moment is not good news.

  Understatement.

  I was a hot mess.

  So, when the phone rang, at the moment I was pouring my first, conceivably life-saving, cup of coffee of the day, I answered the call in the persona of Allie Harper, Ticking Time Bomb.

  “Allie.”

  It was D.B. Something had knocked all the snotty off his tone. The urgency in his voice disarmed me. At least temporarily.

  “What, D.B?”

  “Your dead guy? The one you had to identify. Who wasn’t me.” He caught that one on the way out of his mouth. “Obviously.”

  Regrettably.

  I admired myself for showing an ounce of restraint by not saying that out loud. Lee Ann was gone again. Besides, she still had a soft spot for D.B. If my personality ever got split for real, Lee Ann would claim the sluttier side.

  “What about him, Duane? He’s dead. Somebody shot him and cut off his hands so he couldn’t be identified.”

  “Well, hell, Allie. I can identify him. His name is—was—Tito Ricci.”

  WTF? The name—however bogus—was not common knowledge. In spite of Lisa Cole’s friend-shafting, journalistic efforts—it was still not even being bandied about on Channel 16. In theory, nobody knew the body’s identity yet unless they were directly involved in killing Tito. Or were the M.E. Or on Olivia Wood’s team, who were supposed to be keeping his name under wraps for as long as possible. Or us.

  “How the—? How did you know that, D.B.?” Chill, Alice Jane.

  “He’s—he was—my next-door neighbor, Allie. Atelier 24.”

  D.B. had trained himself over the course of several years not to listen to my mind screams. So he totally missed my suppressed 120-decibel response to his revelation. His self-satisfaction rolled on unabated. “I’d seen him around, but I never noticed he looked like me—Atelier 24 has two penthouses, Allie. Side by side. Top floor. He was in the other one.”

  I had enough presence of mind left to be aggravated by D.B.’s callousness. The man was too excited about his “new digs” to stick with “dead neighbor” for a half second. But D.B. was closing the circle on yesterday’s clues and suspicions. Moving Tito and maybe the sniper into an apartment on the twenty-fourth floor of Atelier. With a view that encompassed the crime scenes.

  “You knew him?”

  “Not really. He kept to himself. In the other penthouse. He had a housemate too. Showed up, maybe a month or two ago?” Disapproval reared its ugly head. “I don’t think he was gay, but that other dude was…disturbing. Cops knocked on my door looking for him. After I talked to you.”

  Just to confirm. “Let me take a stab at this one: Fit. Maybe five ten? Way blond—white-blond. ‘Like Swedish children.’ Pale, kind of silvery, eyes. Wears a lot fitness gear. Quiet, not gregarious.”

  I added, Neutral. Like clear water to myself. I was leaving a lot unspoken in this conversation. D.B. would find the water description “frivolous.” I remembered it as the scariest thing Gloria said to me about the man. It scared her too, I’d heard that in her voice. Her fear of his cold blood.

  Justified.

  “That’s him. You know him, Allie?”

  “Yes. No. I knew of him. He’s most likely involved with—with what’s been happening, including Kip Wade, and now Tito Ricci. Is he around? Because—”

  “No. Nobody’s been around, except a major cleaning crew, according to the manager. Place is emptied out, except for big stuff, she said. She tells me things like that because I’m—She calls me Tenant #1 because I moved in the first month after they opened. To the penthouse. She told me Tito’d been there even before it opened. Signed a waver that he didn’t care if he fell down the elevator shaft. But I’m still officially Tenant #1.”

  I commented to myself about D.B.’s penchant for petty satisfactions. The more bootlicking deference the better. And his fucking penthouse. For the fourth time, but who was counting? Delusions of grandeur. I let the second mention of “Tenant #1” hurtle into the dark, empty stillness of AT&T.

  I could come up with a more creative title than that. With a #1 in it too. I think he got the unspoken vibration.

  “One more thing. How did you figure out my “guy who looked like you” was your next-door neighbor? In the other penthouse? D.B.?”

  “Another neighbor. I met her in the elevator. She lives several floors down—” Disdain and satisfaction. The D.B. Harper Deluxe Combo.

  I rolled my eyes. The Valerio 360. “And?”

  “And she actually discovered the body, Allie. She walks her dog around the lagoon in the mornings. Dog’s name’s Van Gogh.”

  Stick with “Vannie,” D.B. You kinda butchered Van Gogh.

  “And she said?” I applauded the neutrality of my tone. I wanted the damn info so I could hang up on my ex-idiot. Dammit.

  “She said, ‘D.B., you won’t believe this. The dead guy looked a little like you.’ But you’d already told me that. It kind of clicked then. I hadn’t noticed a resemblance. Even when you called. I mean, he was okay looking, but—”

  My cue to sign off. “Thanks for the information, D.B. We’ll be getting back to you. You can count on it.”

  Killed the call. Loved doing that.

  We would be getting back to him, all right. His prattling was chockful of critical information he didn’t even know he had. I bet Cleveland Homicide Detective, Olivia Wood, and Officer Anthony Valerio would soon be calling us about the non-sniper tenant of the twin penthouse. What’s more, I had not known, until D.B. blathered on about it, Tito was lurking at Atelier 24 since well before the grand opening. Now we knew where he’d been. At home, at least for the last couple of months, with the ghost who was now our new deadly enemy.

  D.B.’s gaydar was predictably defective as a rule, but even a blind pig can find a nut sometime. Tom would get a kick out of applying that to D.B. I hustled to find him and Otis. Otis was nowhere to be found. Tom was running away from it all.

  * * *

  Our new, more youthful house featured a higher-tech workout room than the previous one. This one had the t
readmill to pass up our old one like it was standing still. It had the same expansive view of multiple decks, a—tightly covered—pool, and the sullen lake. Tom was not there for lake view. He was seeing a route he kept stored in his memory. Dressed for summer in shorts and a raggedy T-shirt, a sheen of perspiration on the back of his neck, he looked a couple of different kinds of hot. His thigh muscles flexed with every step too. He’d shaved, though. More’s the pity.

  I’d heard all about how he used to do four miles, when he was in grad school at Emory in Atlanta. First thing in the morning, every day. “Like clockwork.” Back when he was younger, fitter, and not the least bit blind. Now, pounding along on the exceedingly stable and responsive machine, he could relive the smell of asphalt cooking in Atlanta heat and the percolating green sweetness of trees and grass. Dust. Sweat.

  No matter how skillful he might become at reading his surroundings, Tom would never again charge down a new, untried path at a breakneck pace. But the imprint of those moments on his body’s memories helped him recreate all that, and the machine gave him the freedom to go as fast as he wanted.

  He loved it.

  Me? I hated the stupid thing. Loathed its air of upscale, tech-savvy self-satisfaction. Also its metallic guts. Merely walking by it made my calves burn and elevated my desire to lie down and read something. I understood Tom’s passion for it, but that only made me jealous. Of an inanimate object. Worse, I had to climb on the thing and run to keep up with him in the fitness department. Abs and calves as fine-tuned as Tom’s deserved better than the weak little couch potato who lived in my soul. I reminded myself that I had not been Tom’s weak little couch potato last night. In any case, sooner or later on this day, I’d have to grit my teeth and do my thirty minutes. Or less.

  Fortunately for me, however, the torture device was occupied at the moment. Tom was under his headphones, reading as he ran. I had to raise my voice above the hum of the machine and the voice in ears, “Tom! What are you reading?”

  “The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. It’s fascinating.”

  Our lead detective in training. “I bet. Have fun.”

  I gave my young, hot Sherlock Holmes one, last, appreciative glance that included his well-toned buns, and those thighs—a glance I was confident he could shrewdly discern all over himself—and went to check on my UPS package.

  As I went, I shouted back over my shoulder, “Tom, D.B. called. He and Tito were next-door neighbors at Atelier 24. Sniper Man too.”

  Tom nodded to communicate how nothing would ever surprise him again, so why was I bothering him with this?

  Kept running. Didn’t miss a beat.

  “Penthouse floor, I assume?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It seemed like a smart idea at the time.

  On Friday I’d ordered myself a paperback copy of Long-Range Shooting for Beginners from Amazon—my source for books I didn’t want librarians or bookstore people—or Otis—to know I was reading. A few of my previous selections were a lot more entertaining than the incoming “50 Shades of Sniper” could ever be, but challenging circumstances demand sacrifices.

  The person who arrived a half hour later with my package wasn’t uniformed in the standard brown. Not by a long shot. Otis’s current guard in the gatehouse called me on my cell. “Allie? Rick. UPS dropped a package off. I checked it over. It’s not a bomb or anything. It’s—Well, I guess you know what it is.”

  Busted. By an off-duty cop.

  “Yes.” A humiliated croak.

  My secrets were not even safe with Amazon these days. Probably never were. I cleared my throat. “Bring it in when your shift is over?”

  “Well. Actually. There’s a person here I believe is okay to send down with it. Wants to see you. I’ve checked him out. He’s who he says he is. Tons of ID. And the former owner of your house confirmed he’s working for her. Plus I have to say no criminal I’ve ever seen would drive the vehicle he arrived in.” He put his hand over the phone, but I heard him say, “No disrespect, sir.”

  “Oh, please, Rick. Go ahead. Send him. I can’t wait.”

  The vehicle, flashing playfully among the trees along the drive, could have been the twin of the car I’d driven back in the days before the Mondo. My now-exiled Salsa Red VW Bug convertible, the Flying Tomato. To be candid, that was the car I was not-driving back then because I didn’t have the cash for a nine-hundred-dollar brake job/tire replacement/ new set of windshield wipers, and whatever it needed to pass its E-check. New catalytic converter maybe. It got fixed by Tom’s money and then stuck in the garage “for security reasons.” My little car was apparently too cute, too red, and too me to be safely anonymous.

  What Mondo money giveth, it taketh away.

  This vehicle differed from the Tomato in one striking way. Somebody had painted each of the distinct sections of this bug—hood, front and back fenders, and both doors, its own unique color. Turquoise, yellow, pink, green, and much, much more.

  The guy who jumped out of it with my package was plenty cute enough, and on first appraisal, unthreatening. Given my past experience with likable young strangers, this cut no ice with me. Nonetheless, Officer Rick was a pro, so I figured I could at least let the dude hand me the book I was already embarrassed about buying. He parked and climbed the steps. I opened the door.

  “Hi. I’m Allie Harper.” I held out my hand. “And that’s my incredibly intimidating black and silver book.”

  “Do you even have a gun?”

  “No. But you may have noticed I have licensed gun-toting individuals all over the place. So don’t underestimate me.”

  “I would never. I saw the dog.” He handed me the book and looked up at me, standing on my top step with one foot in the door. “Ms. Harper, I’m Jay Sawyer. I’m doing a design makeover for the ponderous mansion now owned by the former owner of your lovely, much more user-friendly mansion.”

  Flattery and curiosity tipped me over. Plus I agreed with Officer Rick about the car. “Come on in, Mr. Sawyer. Honestly? You’re doomed. That woman will never be happy with any place, no matter how—” I fished for the right word.

  “Venerable?”

  “Exactly. But why are you here? She couldn’t get out of this house fast enough.”

  “She sent me to get something she claims was left here in error. I redesigned her dressing room a couple of years ago and she—”

  Ah-ha!

  “She wants her chaise back? And you’re the one who found it. I knew it couldn’t be her. You’re the romantic who made that gorgeous room. Aren’t you. Aren’t you? You are. Where’d you get the chaise?”

  “Isn’t it cool? House sale. Nice lady loved it. Got it from another lady who loved it. Who got it—you know how it goes. Passed along hand-to-hand after funerals, for generations. And I had to go and squander it on her ladyship. I bet the only reason she ever went in there was to get a bottle of Chardonnay out of the fridge and watch the shopping channel. She had her wardrobe headquarters in its own suite with bath. How did you know?”

  “Well, I’m pretty intuitive and it clearly wasn’t her style.”

  “You are so right. She didn’t give a fluffy fart—sorry—She never even looked at it. She was the sort who’d like the idea of a ‘vintage room’ but she didn’t give a hoot how it turned out. I’ve heard all about how much she ‘didn’t care for it,’ but now she’s discovered how much the chaise was worth.

  “I took an invoice over there after work one night and she made me have a glass of Chardonnay with her and told me she’d seen it or ‘one exactly like it’ in a movie with Jean Harlow or somebody. I had to come on over here and get it right back. To threaten to sue you for it. As if. She hit on me too. So not my type. And she said such provocative things. Like, “Jay, your hair is so blond and your eyes are so blue.”

  We rolled our eyes to signal mutual solidarity.

  Then I sho
ok my head. Mock dismay. “Bad news for you, though.”

  “What.”

  “I sold it.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too.”

  “Honey, they’ll sell that one after your funeral. And you know it. Or you’ll pass it on to your daughter.”

  “Uh uh. I don’t have one of those.”

  “You will. Trust me. I know these things.”

  I couldn’t think of a smart comeback for that. “I can’t pass it on to anybody. Because, I told you. I sold it.”

  “How much did you get for it?”

  “How much should I have gotten for it?”

  “Well, if you were savvy about antiques—At least eight thousand dollars. Which is what I billed her. It has great bones and an iron-clad pedigree. No movie credits I know of. But you’d have been more interested in finding it a good home. And you clearly don’t need the money. So, five hundred.”

  “Who do you think I sold it to?”

  “A really nice lady named—uh—Sylvia, whose grandmother had one just like it. Too damn bad you don’t remember her last name. Or contact information. You don’t, do you?” He wrinkled up his handsome face in a caricature of disdain for my absentmindedness.

  I shook my head, spread my empty palms to demonstrate bewilderment. “Sylvia is all I got. And she paid cash. Here, let me get you the five hundred. Tell Whatshername I’m devastated. Just…devastated. And point out there are not enough lawyers in this world to scare me.”

  I grabbed the five bills out of the petty cash Otis kept in the tea canister on the kitchen counter and handed it over, but I wasn’t done hearing what I could tell Jay was dying to tell me. It was tough for me to find a truly delectable catty conversation in our current household. I was entitled to this one.

  “Would you like a glass of wine, Jay? If I promise not to hit on you.”

  “Sure. If you promise.”