by Angie Cabot
I studied the table as he leaned on his stick.
“Getting beat up isn’t fun,” he said, “but I knew if I gave him some space, he’d calm down. He always does. Well, I guess he’s as calm as he’ll ever be now.”
I lined up a shot on the eleven. I drove the stick into the cue ball and it tapped against the twelve and stopped, leaving Carl an easy line on the one. I stepped out of the way, and leaned on my stick.
“Someone else killed him,” Carl said, knocking the one into the pocket. The cue ball rolled behind the five. “They’re setting me up.”
He tapped the five into the side pocket, and the cue ball bounced off the eight, sending it into a clump of striped balls.
“Sadly, I didn’t set myself up this time,” he said, walking around, looking at the potential angles. He frowned. “Eight in the corner.” He pointed at the corner with the cue stick. “I feel like I’m always being set up for failure.”
He tried to shoot the eight into the corner, but it bounced off a striped ball and came to rest against the rail.
I sighed. “You’d think with that many balls on the table, I’d have a shot.”
He pointed. “Ten in the side should be easy enough.”
“For you,” I said. “I suck at pool.”
“Yeah? Well, I suck at life. I’m in love with a girl who wishes I didn’t even exist. I’m about to lose my job so I can’t pay the mortgage, which was a bit out of my price range anyway. The A/C in my car doesn’t work, though I guess that doesn’t matter for a few months. Oh, and I’ve been framed for murder because everyone says a woman would never stab someone. That’s a lie, by the way. An ex-girlfriend once stabbed me in the arm with a steak knife. I had to get a tetanus shot.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her it wasn’t working.” He shrugged. “In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have said that in front of her parents at the Outback Steak House. Excellent steak, though.”
I tried to knock the ten into the side, but missed.
He lined up a shot on the eight, and easily knocked it into the desired pocket.
“Good game,” I said. “I think I managed to keep all the balls on the table. Didn’t even eliminate one of those little suckers.”
Like the suspects. I didn’t eliminate any of them, though one had been removed from the game.
“Want to play again?”
“Are you sandbagging?” he asked.
I placed my fingertips on my chest. “Moi?” I asked.
“No, thanks.” He dropped his cue stick on the table. “Somebody else killed Todd. It wasn’t me.”
“What if it was Zen?” I asked.
“She wouldn’t do that.”
“What if she did?”
He blinked. “Then when the cops get here, I’ll confess so she can live a better life.”
“Without you?”
“She’s doing just fine without me now. At least I could do something noble.”
“By confessing to a crime you say you didn’t commit?”
“I would do anything for Zen.”
“Even murder?”
“Except murder.”
“True love with a minor caveat,” I said.
He spread his hands. “Chivalry isn’t dead, it’s only slightly wounded.”
“I just have one more question,” I said.
“Like that TV detective. What was his name? Peter Falk?”
“Columbo,” I said.
“That’s him. What’s your one more question?”
“Did my aunt give you a message to pass to Todd?”
He blushed. “Uh, yeah.”
“Did you pass it to him?”
He nodded. “He told me what I could do with the message.”
“Sounds like him.”
“But you resisted him.”
“I wasn’t interested,” I said.
“Did he try to force himself on you?”
“No. He told me his door was open, and all I had to do was knock.”
He considered that for a moment. “Maybe I should say that to Zen.”
“Maybe you should find someone else to date. Someone who doesn’t work at the store.”
“No one will ever measure up to Zen. She’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“And that’s why some people think you killed Todd. He got her, you didn’t, so you eliminated him. His back was turned, so you snuck up and stabbed him right between the shoulder blades.”
He scuffed his toe on the floor. “I kinda wish I had. At least Zen would notice me.”
I closed my eyes. “Zen likes Alpha males.”
He sighed. “When you’re right, you’re right.”
I shook my head. “Find someone else.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Diana’s door was closed when I went up to check on her. Nico sat in front of the door, tail twitching back and forth. She scratched the wood, and meowed, wanting to go inside.
“Go away, cat,” Diana said.
“Well, at least she’s awake,” I said, bending down to pick up the cat.
Nico allowed me to hold her over my shoulder. She rubbed her head against my ear and gnawed at my hair.
“Cut it out,” I said.
She kept gnawing.
I knocked on the door. “Diana? It’s Kathy. May I come in?”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
“I know,” I said. “You don’t have to talk.”
She sighed. “Well, if you’re not going to go away, then come in so I don’t have to raise my voice.”
I opened the door. Nico squirmed free, and trotted over to the bed. She leaped up beside Diana, and meowed.
“Go away,” Diana said, shoving Nico off the bed.
The cat landed on her feet, jumped right back on the bed, and lashed out, raking her claws across Diana’s hand.
“Ow!”
Nico meowed at her, and sat down as if daring her to try to knock her off again.
I approached the bed. “Come here, Nico,” I said, and picked her up.
I sat down and placed her on my lap, stroking her back. She looked up at me, then moved around a bit to settle into a comfortable position. Comfortable for her, anyway. I had to hold my legs together to keep her from falling.
“I’m so sorry about Baltha… Todd.”
“Who would want to kill him?” Diana asked. “I mean, I know he can be a bit of a …” She waved her hand around, searching for a word. Whatever she was trying to say eluded her, so she brushed it off saying, “You know.”
I nodded, pretending I knew exactly what she was going to say. Get people talking. They’ll tell you what’s on their minds.
Diana patted the other side of the bed. “He was right here a few short hours ago.”
I took her hand and held it tightly, meeting her eyes, and sending her as much sympathy as I could.
She held my gaze. “It was Carl, wasn’t it?”
I shrugged.
“Who else would want to kill him?” she asked. “Who else would take away the love of my life and leave me all alone?”
Again, I shrugged.
Diana looked at her husband’s pillow. The indentation from where he’d laid his head drew my attention. Hers, too. She ran a hand over the pillow, and a tear ran down her cheek.
“We were going to go to Paris next year,” she said. “We scrimped and saved. I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower at night when the lights are on it. I wanted to sit in a corner cafe and watch people walk by. I wanted to have our picture taken in front of the pyramid at the Louvre.”
She sighed. “Then our car broke down, and the repair bill took our savings. Then it broke down again, and we had to buy the Jeep, which overextended us.”
“Living paycheck to paycheck is rough,” I said.
“Especially at my age. Now I’ll never get to stroll along the Seine at sunset. Todd wanted to wander through the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery to find Jim Morrison’s grave. He would have done som
ething silly like sing ‘Light My Fire’ as he danced before the tombstone.” She smiled at the thought, but reality settled in, and the smile faded.
I kept petting Nico. My right thigh started to cramp, so I tried to massage it with my right hand while petting the cat with my left.
“I didn’t want to share him,” she said. “Not with Zen. Not with anyone. I should have been enough for him.” She turned her back to me and cried.
I stopped petting the cat so I could place my hand on Diana’s arm.
She pulled her arm away.
“Please go,” she said. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”
“If you need anything, please let me know,” I said. They felt like hollow words. When someone has lost half of who they were, there’s nothing anyone can say to make things better. But I had to say something, and that was better than saying nothing at all.
That would be the greatest crime. In that sense, it didn’t matter what I said. The key was to let her know she wasn’t all alone in the world. That she existed, and that I knew she was hurting. It was a small connection, sure, but a connection nonetheless.
And I remember how all alone I felt after the divorce. I’d given up so much of myself to my ex-husband that I didn’t have any friends of my own. They all went with him, and he could replace me with another girlfriend or wife in a heartbeat, and his friends would all rally around him and forget that I ever existed.
I shook myself back to the present, and disturbed the cat. She jumped off my lap, and glared at me.
When I looked into her eyes, her glare softened, and she nosed up to me, and licked a tear from my cheek.
I didn’t even know I’d been crying.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Did I say you could come in here?” Zen asked.
“I go where the breeze carries me.”
At first, I couldn’t place the second voice. Then I realized it was Morgan. I got up from Diana’s bed, motioned for Nico to stay with her, and went out into the hall.
Zen shoved Morgan out of her room. “Let your stupid breeze carry you downstairs.”
“What’s the problem?” I asked.
“Morgan is high again, and she won’t leave me alone.”
Morgan turned her glassy eyes to me. “Why does Zen have two athames and I only have one?”
Zen pushed her toward the stairs. “Go away, you stupid little stoner.”
“Two athames?” I asked.
Zen turned to look at me. “Mine and Carl’s. I picked them up out of the snow yesterday afternoon.”
“When?”
“I didn’t check the time. I was out smoking a cigarette, and spotted the cases sticking out of the snow, so I went and got them. I wasn’t going to keep them both. I just haven’t had a chance to give Carl’s back yet.”
“You were going to keep it,” Morgan said. “You steal things from people. You take the things that really matter to them. Athames, husbands, boyfriends.”
Zen turned and spun Morgan around by her shoulder. Zen slapped her across the face.
Morgan’s hand went to her cheek, and she leaned back, eyes wide, mouth open.
“I don’t have to put up with your nonsense, too,” Zen said, and went into her room. She slammed the door.
Morgan’s surprised look shifted to amusement. “I must have touched a nerve.”
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“She’s so little, she can’t put any real power into a slap. It didn’t hurt, but it sure surprised me.” She laughed. “I didn’t know she had it in her.”
“You said boyfriends,” I said.
Morgan looked down, and played with her fingers. “Did I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“I didn’t mean to,” she said, and headed for the stairs.
I followed her. “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you in love with Carl?”
“No,” she said. “Of course I am. I mean…” She stopped on the stairs and leaned on the banister. She stared at the foyer floor. “Who am I kidding? He doesn’t even know I exist. And he goes for lost little waifs like Zen.” Morgan looked up at me. “Not her real name, by the way. Sandra told me her checks are made out to Brenda Nazel. Even her last name is fake, though who would want to be named for a nostril?”
“Nazel is a perfectly good name,” I said.
“If you’re into noses.” Morgan sighed. “Even her nose is perfect. God, I hate her.”
Did she hate her enough to kill the man Zen loved?
That was the real question.
“Maybe you should get some rest,” I said. “You didn’t spend much time in your room last night.”
I made up that last part because I hadn’t heard her leave the room.
“Are you spying on me?”
“No,” I said. “You’re just not as quiet as you think you are.”
“You haven’t liked me from the moment you met me.”
“You’re not high right now.”
“News flash,” Morgan said, leaning close. “I don’t get high. That’s all just an act so people will leave me alone.”
“Calm down,” I said.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” she said, and shoved me backward.
I lost my balance, and fell on the stairs, but landed on the top step.
“Oh no,” Morgan said, lunging forward. She grabbed me, and helped me up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you so hard.”
“Did you mean to stab my aunt?” I asked.
She stared at me, confused.
“Did you kill Todd to hurt Zen?”
“Whoa,” Morgan said. “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t like Todd or Elizabeth, but I don’t go around killing people. That’s against the law.”
“And you’re a law abiding citizen,” I said.
“Mostly,” she said. “You can’t go around accusing people of murder. Take it back.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll throw you down the stairs.” She grabbed me and pulled.
I yanked my arm free.
She breathed heavily, and stared at me, but she wasn’t angry now, just worried. “I didn’t kill anyone, Kathy. I’m normally more in control of my emotions, but there’s no real food here, and I’m starving to death.”
“Even more reason to kill my aunt.”
“I didn’t know there was no food. I mean, I knew it was bad food, but I didn’t think it would be quite that awful. But I’m not a killer.”
“Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. But you are fired.”
“For what?”
“You attacked me,” I said. “Then you threatened to throw me down the stairs. I may not like confrontations, but I’m not the doormat my ex-husband thought I was. You are fired. End of story. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars … unless the store owes you for the hours you put in, that is. We’ll pay you for that, of course.”
I wanted to smack myself upside the head. What started so well had trickled off and got lost in a snowdrift.
I needed a save.
I settled for pushing past her on the stairs, and going down them with a quiet dignity that was only disturbed when I missed the second to last step and almost fell.
But I did not fall, because I caught myself on the banister. I pretended like I meant to do that, and went to the kitchen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The chalk outline where Aunt Liz died was a little scuffed. So much for keeping the crime scene undisturbed. I tried not to look at it. I’d been feeling more than usual, and I didn’t like it. I needed to stay strong so I could get things done.
Sandra leaned against the kitchen counter eating a piece of toast. She nodded to me when I entered. The toast looked good, and it sounded like something my stomach could handle.
“How are you holding up?” I asked as I reached for the loaf of bread.
“I’m nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” she said.
“Two down, who knows ho
w many to go,” I said, taking two slices of bread and popping them in the toaster.
“I hope you’re talking about the toast,” she said.
“I wish.”
I opened the refrigerator, and frowned when I saw the margarine. Oh well, if I survived, I’d have a real meal when I got back to town.
I set the margarine on the counter.
“That stuff is nasty,” Sandra said.
“Tell me about it.”
She pointed at one of the cabinets. “I found some old jelly in the cupboard, but it expired three years ago, so I decided not to risk it.”
“Why would they keep expired jelly?”
“Your aunt probably brought it with her to torture us.”
“She only brought a suitcase.”
“Then she had Emma or Jenn bring it.”
“Or it was at the back of the cabinet and somebody missed it when they cleared things out for us.”
“At your aunt’s request.”
“Probably.”
“Just because it’s expired doesn’t mean it’s bad.”
“Feel free to eat it,” I said.
“I was thinking we could give it to Carl.”
“Tell him Zen will like him if he eats it,” I said.
The toast popped up.
“The knife there was only used for butter,” Sandra said. “No sense dirtying up another.”
But I’d already grabbed a butter knife from the drawer. Not that Sandra would put poison on a knife she didn’t think anyone would use, but paranoia works its tendrils into your thoughts when two people are murdered around you in two days.
I ate my toast. I was already sick of toast.
Sandra watched me for a moment, then said, “Did Todd hit on you, too?”
“I think he hit on everyone.”
“Except Morgan.”
“She’s in a mood.”
Sandra took off her glasses and polished the lenses with her shirt tails. “Everyone’s on edge, myself included. I couldn’t even write this morning. Fortunately, I finished the scene where Anastasia finally faces off with the princess of the planet Torunder to save her beloved.”
“The guy with the tentacles?”
She put her glasses on. “He can take human form.”
“We should check to see if we can get to the main road.”
