Tom shifted in his chair. “Last time, Lisa, I bought a house.” Those of us who’d been there shared a moment of silence, remembering the assorted traumas of Tom’s detonated house.
I was right next door to Valerio’s mixed emotions, which included three or four different flavors of agitation. Otis, at his end of the table, was making guarded eye contact with Valerio.
“Tony?”
“Yeah, Allie. Otis and I talked this afternoon. I drove by and looked. That’s one very big house your Ms. Stone is in. Way too many exits and entrances. Way too—” He broke off, remembering.
“She’s a sitting—She’s vulnerable in there. Otis and I think this Heidi, being the one with a brain, is hoping for a fatal accident. Tidy. A fall. A little breakdown in the carbon monoxide detector. An overdose of sleeping pills if she’s taking those. Which I bet she is. I would if I was her, trying to get a decent night’s sleep in that joint—Anyway, something that fits.”
“Or suicide,” Otis added. “She’s murdered her husband. She’s all alone, in the coldest, darkest end of winter. Guilty, jumping at shadows.”
To punctuate this theory, the thud of a heavy wave jiggled the house under our feet.
Sitting duck. I was beginning to wonder if Patti would survive the night.
I reminded myself about the unexpected snow storm. Car tracks. Boot prints. Muck trailing all over. Not optimum. Somebody up there was watching over Patti, and her new housekeeper Monica, for us this evening. Maybe the complications of crappy Cleveland weather had saved Patti up until now.
Things got quiet. We were all sorting our ideas about who killed, or didn’t kill, or was about to kill, who. I was watching Jay who had more opinions about Patti to rearrange than anybody. I figured he was out of his depth. Poor Jay.
“I’m the newbie here, right—Lisa, were you in on this party last year?”
“Nuh uh. Ex officio. Not invited. Not as newbie as you, though.”
“So I’m new, but I know that house, Lisa. Top to bottom. And I can go there any time without anybody getting antsy. Steve definitely assumed I was gay. He has a stereotype for everything. He believes all women are hot for him—”
He pulled his phone out and started poking and swiping. “I’ll send you the house plan, Otis. Tony. Give me your emails. I have window measurements. I know what’s installed everywhere. I’ve even been in the basement. It’s a rat’s fantasy.”
He raised his shoulders and dropped them. “I cannot stand that woman, you guys. She appalls me. She insults my friends. I hate her guts. No remorse about that for me. But brace yourselves. This is the worst thing you may ever know of me.”
We waited.
“Okay. I kept taking work from her even while I thought she was a murderer. She’s paid me a barrel of money over the last five years. And because she has such conventional taste, and her new house is so wonky, the work is still a fun challenge. Like when I put your dressing room past her, Allie. That chaise—”
Chaise.
Tom, without his dark glasses these days, had much better access to his eyebrows for a private communication. I ignored him as best I could. But Margo said, “Heh.”
Fortunately, Lisa picked that moment to respond to Jay’s confession. “Oh, stop that, Jay. You think you’re the only one who ever took a slutty job for the money and the challenges? You ever watch 16 News?”
“Every once in a while. You’re the best thing on it. Your sports dude doesn’t suck either. I play a little game where I chug for the commercials. That helps.”
This earned him points, I could see. Lisa squelched a giggle and salvaged her dignity by glaring at the memory of 16.
Whoa. Jay was not nearly as out of his depth as I’d supposed. He rolled on. “From what I’m hearing, our first job is not to nail Steve and Heidi, even though that’s where the most fun would be. It’s to keep Patricia alive and protect your guard, Monica, until we can locate Steve and flush him out into the open. We do this, we’ve won and nobody gets shot or kayaked or anything. If we can prove he’s alive, we’ve got him.”
“Got him for what, Jay?”
“It must be a crime to fake your own death, Lisa. I mean at least he’d be in trouble about the helicopters and the Coast Guard. Not to mention cops everywhere for several days.
“And our goal here is not justice. It’s keeping Patti alive long enough to die a mean, lonely old bi—person. Look. If I were trying to decide who the world would be better off without, Steve, Heidi, and Patricia would be neck and neck. Once we have Steve alive again he should stop being a threat. Patricia won’t be a suspect in his murd—my bad—his disappearance anymore. She’ll be the victimized, exceedingly wealthy taxpayer. Steve would be done. But—Heidi.” He stopped to catch his breath.
Otis stepped up. “Yeah, Jay. When all this dies down, Heidi’s still a threat. It’d be good if Steve rats her out. Excellent chance of that once he finds out he’s in big, awkward trouble and not going to be rich again. He’ll realize he’s been set up to be Heidi’s murder weapon. Disposable too. If he doesn’t figure that out, someone—possibly a cop—could explain it to him. He’ll blink a coupla times and start incriminating her.”
Tom was nodding agreement. Around the table the nod-rates indicated considerable sign-on.
Jay was a hit.
I was dazzled. Jay had a wonderfully devious mind. Also, I nudged myself, he’d fooled Patti and filched my two hundred bucks. We’d need to talk about that. I couldn’t have this guy thinking I was a pushover.
“One thing?” Valerio.
“Jay’s right, we have to keep Ms. Stone alive until we flush Steve and Heidi out and catch them at it. The problem is they’ve been patient a long time. The longer it takes, the more danger she’s in and the harder it will be for us to protect her. Monica will be slowing them down now. Which is good and bad all at the same time.”
While the rest of us were spending probably sixty percent of our focus on our eyes, Tom was alone in the dark with his unique skills. True, he could be distracted by the bubbling aromas from Margo’s stove and the warm, affectionate proximity of Princess, but I understood how, as he listened to Valerio, he was watching a woman—alone and vulnerable—in a house exponentially more treacherous than the mansion we’d survived last summer. We’d put Monica in there with her too. Tom was our expert at appreciating the danger that comes in the night. “We need to flush them out faster.”
“And we gotta have some really huge caliber ammo for the flushing!”
Tom grinned, “Margo? You have some huge ammo in mind?”
She was off and running. “How about this? How about we get Patti to tell Heidi she, Patti, is going to take a nice, long vacation. Someplace warm and not even slightly Cleveland. A fancy-ass resort with palm trees and tiki drinks, handsome half-naked guys bringing the tiki drinks. Whatever. That’ll wake Heidi up. Then we pull Monica out. That should flush ’em good.”
Tony shifted in his seat. He didn’t want to get crosswise of Margo, but he had a question. I’m Tony’s friend so I asked it for him. “Margo, once we flush them. How do we make sure we stop them from actually killing her?”
“Huh. Dunno. Gimme a minute.”
“I have a plan for that, Margo.”
She yawned. “That’s good, Jay. My ace detective brain needs a break.”
“I’m The Designer. I’ll ‘convince’ Patti that ‘since she’s going to be away for a while,’ I could set up ‘a few projects we’ve been discussing: HVAC, painting what’s not already been painted, painting over what’s ‘not working.’ Whatever’s not ‘been done.’ Or needs ‘doing over.’ You know. ‘The usual.’”
Jay could do fingerless finger quotes professionally if there was any market for that. I thought his current profession might be that market. I was getting large, colorful mental pictures for everything he was not actually planning to do.
>
“We’ll have to pretend to get estimates from the home improvement hoards but I could ‘email them to her.’ If Steve and Heidi are watching and listening—and how can they not be?—they’ll see vans and ‘design professionals.’ And me. The service entrance is through the garage and the garage is around back and under the house. Otis, you can put a vanload of your folks very quietly inside. There’s a ‘lovely servant’s wing.’ Of course. Where they can hide. Lots of bathrooms. Stakeout heaven.”
“Then,” He was rocking along with his drama now. “The decorating hoards go off ‘to put together their estimates.’ Things quiet down. Patti is leaving town “early next week,” after all. It’s Tuesday night. We could be set by Friday night.
“Estimates are in. Patti is packing. She ‘lets Monica go.’ We’ve done everything we can. If nobody tries to kill her, we’ll regroup and fine tune. Or let them kill her. Kidding. For the most part.”
“Downside?”
“Surveillance, Tom.” Downside was Valerio’s specialty. “Are they watching the house? Listening? How could they not be? We should be doing this in1993, it’d be a hell of a lot easier. We’ll need to make sure they’re aware of the opportunity opening and the door closing. Observing, but not too close. How competent would this Steve and Heidi be, Jay?”
“Medium. Steve could have got electronics put in place before he headed out to drown. Heidi has money for that sort of thing. Neither one of them is what I’d call systematic about anything. Wildcards.”
“Anyone involved in this caper a heroin addict who’d overlook a gas leak?” Tom couldn’t let go of the T&A’s wildcard of last summer.”
Otis jumped on that. “No stakeout at the scene for you guys, Tom. Not this time. All we need is to find Steve—with or without Heidi—I’m betting both—in the house and it’s over. They’re nailed. Steve-alive is almost for sure all the evidence we need to save Patti.”
“One more thing. Money.” Jay raised a hand. “I’ll need a couple of high-end suppliers out on short notice with their logo-identified vans. Can’t do that unless you bribe the living daylights out of ’em. Not,” he eyed Tony and Otis, “not a bribe-y bribe. A bonus for good, fast service.”
“Keep talking, Jay. This is so cool.” Margo had been silent but Margo-alert. All this talk of high-end everything and bribe-y bribes was front and center in her wheelhouse.
“I’m about done, Margo. The thing is, Patricia Stone is in danger but she is the same cheap…individual I’ve worked with for years. She knows about the T&A, obviously. I bet she’ll expect you all to pick up the tab. It could be a good bit.”
“Allie.”
Tom’s tone was the ultimate power play. I remembered yet again how unforgivably hot he was. “Explain to Jay the one advantage the T&A has over all other detective agencies.”
“No need, Tom. I believe he got the drift when you said to Lisa, ‘Last time, I bought a house.’ Is there anything else we’re overlooking?”
Valerio was wearing his standard grumpy Valerio face. “Bound to be. Otis, what are we missing?”
“Something. But this sounds pretty solid. If I can get four or so guys in there by Friday night we’ll be set. Steve and Heidi come in, we’ll be waiting. I’ll think more about this and we’ll go over details tomorrow. Can we eat now?”
Margo’s dinner was pasta fagioli, salad, and her tiramisu. We had a plan so fabulous it almost took our minds off the sniper problem we had no plan at all for at the moment. This case would be handled by the weekend.
If we could have reached across the Viking’s table, there would have been high fives all around.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
10:30 p.m.
Otis dropped Tom and me back at the house on his way to deliver Jay and Lisa to her place.
Lisa had tuned into the many new possibilities of Jay—As a designer, Allie—her glare telegraphed to me as she pounced on him. “Jay? Do you do discounts for the T&A? I just moved to Atelier 24 and I need to make it more, you know, me—”
Jay pounced right back, “Say no more, Lisa. I’m your guy. I have been dying to get in there. Maybe a photo spread in Cleveland Magazine. ‘At Home With Lisa Cole.’”
Those two were meant for each other. Opportunists, the both of them. They agreed that if Otis were kind enough to take them both to Lisa’s place, Jay could Uber home.
I’d follow up on that last part. Tomorrow. Or the next day. I was a Margo-In-Training.
The snow continued as if it hadn’t been informed its “up-to” was twelve inches. It kept burying the world in more sodden, slippery inches-per-minute as the Raven Black vehicle carved its way down around the twists and turns of our driveway.
Bless you, four-wheel drive.
We said good night all around. The garage detail welcomed us in. The door closed behind us.
* * *
We hung up our cold, wet coats, and turned, as a single conscious entity, to press our still-shivering bodies into each other. For the sharing of warmth. As solace for the sorrows and challenges of the day. As a reward for choosing to help old wretched Patti, instead of sitting around being scared. Also in honor of the one thing I’d had in mind since we climbed into the leather backseat of the Escalade at Margo’s.
“Tom,” I murmured, the awe of a new realization beginning to warm me from within. “It will take Otis at least a week to get to Lisa’s place and back in this snow. Security is deployed. We are all alone in this giant house. Which is, as you know, a large, very private—twenty-nine-dollar-an-hour motel. We could do—anything—anywhere. The possibilities are—”
“Alice.” Tom’s tone was stern.
Stern?
“What?”
At least he hadn’t let go of me. If anything, I was feeling a little smushed. And much, much warmer in the electricity of his embrace. A consolation for the severity in his voice.
“I thought we shared everything, Allie, and you—you were supposed to give me a complete picture of our environment. In detail. For my safety. And enjoyment. You always say that’s part of your job description.”
Puzzled now.
Oh. Wait.
“Tom, is this about the chaise?”
“It is.” He was still holding me tight against him. I couldn’t see his expression, but I could read his body. Like braille. He wasn’t nearly as offended as he was trying to sound. “It seemed a very comfortable place to sit. Is it a true Victorian or a fake vintage thing.”
“True, Tom. In every respect. True.”
“And you saw fit to exclude me from the knowledge of this. Until yesterday?”
“You’re so sexy when you talk like a professor. Or a PI.”
“Don’t even think about trying to distract me.”
“I told you I was saving it.”
“Saving what I now know is a red velvet, authentically Victorian chaise?’
“Our chaise. For a surprise. As I mentioned yesterday.”
I may have been seriously imprisoned in his arms, but I had unabridged access to my hands. I put them to good use. He pretended not to notice, but I read the little hitch in his chest. Like braille.
“Okay. I’m game. Go ahead. Take advantage of our rare opportunity for doing anything, anywhere. Surprise me.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
“Oh, honey. You have no idea.”
Understatement. The room was toasty and romantically lighted by my favorite swiped lamp. The chaise anticipated our every move and even proposed a couple. The wind raged and icy sludge pounded the windows, but we were so warmed by our—everything, we didn’t need Margo’s shawl.
It was the perfect storm. All the Victorians in Heaven were fanning themselves and blushing tonight. This was their chaise after all.
“Tom.”
“Mmm?”
“I don’t think we should fa
ll asleep here.”
“Because of not being able to walk tomorrow?”
“That’s my concern.”
“Mine too. But while we’re so—completely together, describe this room to me again, Alice Jane. And don’t leave out anything this time.”
“No problem.” I pulled him back down to me and kissed his handsome mouth. “It’s ‘The Victorian Snow Globe of Hot Sex.’”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Wednesday, March 7
7:00 a.m.
Last night’s snowfall was collapsing under its own soggy weight. After clogging up roadways, bending a lot of fenders, freeing lucky kids from school, and maybe—wild surmise on my part—shutting down all the Ubers in town on behalf of Lisa and Jay—the potential multiple feet of “white stuff” was turning to mush. Slinking away in embarrassment.
That’s another thing about March in Cleveland. Nothing lasts.
The morning light was wobbly at best, but the mounds of snow melting onto Otis’s deck sported a few dazzling patches of sunlight. Waves from the storm were roughing up the shore. The wind was down but not out.
I ran through my Sniper Risk Assessment: Challenging weather for a sniper. No workable spot for a sniper to set up between here and Canada—I hadn’t read more than a few bone-chilling pages of the handbook, but I knew that much. Team Otis would fend off any sniper who showed up with a regular old handgun. All was well.
When I’d wandered into the kitchen at six-fifteen, feeling perky and generally satisfied with life, Otis invited me down to his place for coffee and waffles. Warm syrup too. I was good with that, but my guard was forty percent up.
“You’re wondering why I invited you down here.”
I was. An invitation to the man cave was a hot ticket, but this felt like a bribe-y bribe. “Yeah. You don’t get the urge to feed me waffles down here at seven a.m. Very often. Ever.”
He rubbed at his eyes. Tired and worried. It was early, and Otis already had trouble in mind. Part of that had to be our brand-new case. The rest was probably the not-dead old case. I empathized.
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