Perforating Pierre (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 3)

by Pamela Burford

  He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket, looking around the foyer with its high, vaulted ceiling, curved staircase, and obscenely expensive macassar ebony floor. “Where do you wanna do this?” he asked. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  I ushered him into the adjoining living room. Here the ebony floor was partially covered with a mosaic-patterned silk rug lovingly hand-crafted by a secret order of nimble-fingered French nuns. Or something like that. Hand-woven silk drapes adorned the towering Palladian window. More silk, in the palest yellow, covered the walls, on which hung a genuine Edward Hopper, a genuine Marc Chagall, and a genuine Henri Matisse—modern masterpieces that triggered not the slightest blip in Detective Cullen’s bored gaze. I motioned to a pair of armchairs upholstered in ivory linen and arranged, along with a matching oversize sofa, around a glass-topped coffee table with a burl-wood cube base.

  Okay, for the record, five months earlier I was living in a dank little basement apartment in a working-class town far, far away from this rarefied burg. Then my friend and best client, Irene McAuliffe died—well, she had help with the dying, but that’s another story—and left me this mini mansion on five acres, this dog, and enough money to maintain them both. Actually, to be precise, Sexy Beast owns the house. I’m just taking care of it for him.

  Stop snickering, it’s just a legal, you know, technicality.

  I offered the detective a cold drink. He declined and I perched on the other chair, holding Sexy Beast to keep him from making a nuisance of himself.

  “I don’t know what more I can tell you that I didn’t tell Bonnie this morning at Dewatre,” I said.

  “Detective Hernandez took herself off the case.” Cullen’s notebook was tiny, perhaps three by five inches, spiral-bound at the top. He flipped to a clean page. “Conflict of interest.”

  I frowned. Bonnie Hernandez had materialized at the restaurant that morning shortly after the responding cops had determined that yes indeed, there was a corpse lying there with a big old knife sticking out of its chest. She’d done what police detectives do, questioning me, looking for evidence, and bringing in the crime-scene specialists and ME. What kind of conflict of interest could have, unless…?

  Oh. For real? Swing and Bonnie? It wasn’t inconceivable. I recalled that the chef’s reputation wasn’t limited to serving up endangered critters. He’d been quite the ladies’ man. Had he done his love-’em-and-leave-’em thing with the beauteous Detective Hernandez? If so, I could only assume it had happened before she’d met Dominic Faso, my ex. She and Dom had been engaged now for eight months if you didn’t count a three-month break this past spring and summer when Dom had tried to convince me to remarry him.

  He’d only been the love of my life since eighth grade, and I’d only regretted our divorce during the entire seventeen and a half years since it had occurred, and he was only tall, handsome, and rich. Really rich. So why should I say yes when he begs for a redo? You don’t want to jump into these things too quickly. Best to give yourself a chance to think about it long and hard so that said love of your life—he who you know darn well can’t go for long without a significant other—can end up renewing his engagement to smart, beautiful, stylish Bonnie Hernandez.

  I still don’t know if remarrying him would have been the right move, but it would have been nice if he’d given me enough time to figure it out.

  “Conflict of interest?” I said. “If you don’t mind my asking—”

  “Detective Hernandez is engaged to be married to a person of interest in this case. What time did you arrive at Dewatre this morning?”

  “Wait, what?” I shook my head to clear it. It didn’t work. I could have sworn he’d said… “She’s engaged to Dom Faso. He’s not a person of interest.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but that’s not for you to decide. Now, if you would—”

  “Trust me.” I leaned forward, clutching SB until he yelped. “Dom is my ex-husband. There’s nothing at all interesting about him. I mean… I mean, you know, related to Swing’s death. He couldn’t be less involved.”

  Detective Cullen balanced the little notebook on his knee. He met my gaze. “What makes you so sure?”

  The prudent corner of my brain, the corner I have a habit of ignoring at inopportune moments, whispered, Careful. I’d talked myself into trouble before, with Detective Hernandez. It would be nice to think I’d learned from that blunder.

  “It’s just… he’s a good guy. I mean really, Dom wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s a vegetarian!” I didn’t add that he happened to be a vanishingly rare breed: a vegetarian who hunted. He donated the meat to soup kitchens, but still.

  Cullen stared at me. “Faso’s a vegetarian?”

  “Yes! I’m telling you, you’re on the wrong—”

  “So maybe he’s involved with this SEAR outfit,” he said. “If he likes animals so much.”

  “What? No!” I reared back. “He’d never have anything to do with those creeps. The things they do… It’s no secret that Dom despises SEAR and its tactics. He and that Romulus Tooley guy, their spokesman, the two of them even got into it publicly last fall when Dom opened some new branches of Janey’s Place in Jersey and Connecticut.”

  “Janey’s Place. That’s the health-food chain Faso owns.” Cullen was scribbling. “Named after you?”

  Yep, this guy was a crack detective, all right. “Dom started it back when we were dating,” I said. “Listen, those SEAR people, they’re who you should be looking at. They even signed their work!”

  “Say, you might be on to something there.” His expression had morphed from impassive to condescending. It was not an improvement. “Wish I’d thought of that.”

  “Okay, I get it. Anyone could have written those initials at the scene to implicate SEAR and throw you off the scent. But you must know how that organization operates. Heck, it’s not even an organization, not really. There’s no structure, it’s just a bunch of independent cells all over the world. Some of the cells are just one person.”

  “You seem to know an awful lot about them,” he said.

  “Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes. “As if they aren’t on the news all the time for the horrible stuff they do. Or the stuff that’s blamed on them anyway. Or that they didn’t do but take credit for. They use saving endangered species as an excuse to destroy property, blow stuff up, all of that. Everyone knows about those bastards.”

  The “signing their work” thing reminded me of other aspects of the crime scene that pointed to SEAR. I said, “Detective Hernandez asked me not to tell anyone about what they did to Swing after they killed him.” At Cullen’s questioning look, I added, “The platter? The parsley? Making it look like the chef was being served up for dinner?” The same way he’d supposedly served up endangered animals. That was the unavoidable message.

  “Oh yeah, that.” He actually chuckled, making me want to belt him.

  “Anyway, Bonnie wanted those details withheld from the public,” I said. “You know, to aid the investigation? Because it’s something only the killer would know?”

  He tossed a hand. “Yeah, might as well keep mum about that.” Even though it made no difference because he’d already decided who did it. “So this tussle between Faso and Romulus Tooley. Tell me about it.”

  “Tooley blasted Dom for making a ton of money in the health-food biz and not devoting the profits to saving animals,” I said. “It was all over social media for a few days. Got picked up by some of the news outlets. You didn’t catch it?”

  “I’m not a Facebook kind of guy,” he said.

  Nor was he, I suspected, a New York Times or a CNN or even an online news kind of guy.

  “So Faso hangs on to his money.” Cullen shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that. You don’t get rich by giving it away. That’s not how America was built.”

  I didn’t like this police detective with his smirky arrogance and dismissive attitude. I especially didn’t like that he was looking for me to help him go after a man I… well, a man I still h
ad feelings for. Just don’t ask me to look too closely at those feelings. It didn’t even matter anymore now that Dom was back with Bonnie.

  “The thing is, he doesn’t hang on to all of it,” I said. “He donates a sizable portion of his profits to various charities.”

  “So then, what’s Tooley’s beef with him?”

  “Some of the organizations Dom supports are involved in conservation and saving endangered wildlife,” I said, “but a lot of his money goes to humanitarian causes, especially world hunger.”

  “So it’s not just animals.”

  I didn’t bother reminding Cullen that starving human children are animals too. “No,” I said, “and that’s what has the SEAR people so worked up. In their twisted thinking, only nonhuman animals count.”

  “So the two of them got into it on Facebook and what-all,” Cullen said.

  “Tooley and his minions took advantage of every opportunity to fan the flames and get more media attention for SEAR. They threatened Dom’s suppliers, spread false rumors about adulterated food at Janey’s Place. They picketed some of the locations, intimidating customers. Dom had no choice but to respond, as calmly and reasonably as he could.”

  “How’d that work out for him?” Smirky McSmirkster asked. “The calm and reasonable approach.”

  “Okay, not so well,” I admitted, “but the important thing is that Dom kept his cool and never lowered himself to their level. Eventually Tooley and the other SEAR crackpots got bored and moved on to their next public-shaming victim. But the whole thing caused a lot of aggravation and ate into Dom’s profits.”

  “Something like that’s bound to make a guy mad.” Cullen leaned back in his chair. “Me, I’d be itching to get even.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I guess Dom’s a better person than either of us, because he put it behind him and got on with his life.”

  That earned me an icy stare. I stared right back and we sat like that for a good two or three seconds until the sound of my back door opening caused me to blurt, “What the heck?”

  My alarmed tone put Cullen on the alert. “Anyone else have keys to this house?”

  “No. Oh. Hmm…” Strictly speaking, not everyone required a key to get into my house. A certain someone tended to come and go as he pleased, state-of-the-art locks and security system be damned. Before I could verbally backtrack, the detective was on his feet and moving fast, reaching into his jacket as he followed the sound through the family room, breakfast room, and kitchen to the laundry room, where the back door was located.

  “Don’t shoot!” I yelled, racing after him. Sexy Beast brought up the rear, barking with militant zeal.

  I managed to scoot past Cullen and precede into the laundry room, where I found the interloper raising the lid of the washing machine and reaching for a bottle of detergent.

  “Hey, Jane,” Martin said. “Hey, Paulie.”

  Paulie?

  Detective Paul Cullen looked like he’d just washed down a mouthful of stinging nettles with a swig of battery acid. “What are you doing here, McAuliffe?”

  “A load of darks to start.” Martin turned on the machine and poured in detergent. “Then I figured I’d move on to the lights, and last but not least, the gentle cycle for my dainties.” He gave SB a little scritchie love before dumping the contents of his laundry bag onto the sorting table.

  I glanced from Martin to Cullen, and jerked when I spied the gun in his hand. “Put that thing away!” I barked—probably not the best way to address an armed, pissed-off cop, but the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

  His dubious glance took in the two of us. “’Scuse me, ma’am, but who’s this dirtbag to you?”

  “He’s a… a friend. He’s allowed to be here.” I sent Martin a look that said, We both know that’s not true and you owe me big-time for covering your hot little butt.

  Cullen scowled. “You said no one else had a key to this place.”

  “I, um, left the back door open for him.”

  From the look Cullen gave Martin, I suspected he saw that statement for the bald-faced lie it was. If these two had a history, as it appeared, then Cullen knew all about my visitor’s impressive talents. And the adorable set of lock picks he never left home without.

  Martin McAuliffe was six feet tall, with pale blue eyes and sandy hair buzzed ultra-short. I wasn’t lying about the hot butt, though I must admit I’ve never seen it in the flesh, so to speak. I’ve seen it encased in snug jeans many times, in wet swim trunks once, and on a couple of memorable occasions, in well-fitting black priest’s pants. No, he’s never taken holy orders, but he finds it convenient every so often to impersonate a man of the cloth for less-than-legitimate purposes.

  And for the record, I never invited him to do his laundry at my house. The least he could do was bring his own detergent.

  “I heard you found Swing,” Martin said to me as he tossed one last item, a black tee-shirt, into the washer and closed the top. Nodding toward Cullen, he added, “Must be true if our friend Paulie decided to pay a visit. What kind of beer you got?” He led the way into the kitchen, where he started rooting through the fridge.

  Cullen puffed himself up. “Get lost, McAuliffe. I’m conducting official police business here.”

  “Jane wants me to stay.” Martin gave me a meaningful look, intended to remind me of another occasion when his presence during a police interrogation, or questioning, or whatever the heck it was, had proven fortunate. “Don’t you?”

  I suspected that if Cullen considered me a “person of interest” in his murder investigation, I’d know about it by now. Still I replied, “Why, yes I do, Padre. Make yourself at home.” Not that he’d ever needed an invitation.

  Cullen said, “‘Padre’? Do I even wanna know?”

  If he expected an answer, he was to be disappointed. But I don’t mind telling you. The priest getup? Martin happened to be wearing it when I first met him, hence the nickname. He hadn’t cared for it at first, so I made sure to keep using it, and now I think he kind of digs it.

  Martin plucked a bottle of good Belgian beer out of the fridge, along with a half-full takeout container of pad thai left over from last night’s dinner. Cullen eyed the bottle as if there were a picture of a naked lady on the label. Sorry, Paulie. Even if he weren’t on duty, I wouldn’t offer him one. I mean, come on, the guy was trying to lock up Dom.

  “So how far did you two get?” Martin set the food and bottle on the big granite island that separated the kitchen from the breakfast room. Being better acquainted with my house than I was, he shuffled items in the junk drawer until he came up with a pair of paper-wrapped chopsticks, one of the many sets I’d squirreled away from various food deliveries. He turned to Cullen. “Did you tell her about Dom punching out Swing?”

  “What?” I cried. “That’s crazy. He would never.”

  “If you’re gonna stay here, McAuliffe,” Cullen said, “keep your trap shut. I told you, this is official police—”

  “Yeah, I had a feeling you hadn’t heard about that,” Martin told me as he deftly lifted a wad of rice noodles and shrimp with the chopsticks. “Both Dom and Swing tried to hush it up.”

  And yet somehow Martin knew about it. I wasn’t surprised. “Dom doesn’t punch people out,” I insisted. “He’s never been that kind of person. And Swing? The two of them are friendly.” Were friendly, I mentally corrected myself. I looked at Cullen to pronounce yea or nay on Martin’s ridiculous statement. He only glared at the other man.

  I remembered then. Swing’s black eye. I’d sat paralyzed on the floor of the restaurant kitchen after calling 911, holding a squirming SB to my chest and trying to make sense of the scene before me. It was during those interminable few minutes that I noticed details other than the knife protruding from Swing’s chest. The flesh around one eye was swollen and purple. He had a small cut on his cheek and a puffy lip.

  My overtaxed brain had conflated those injuries with the stabbing. I’d assumed they’d happen
ed at the same time. Now that I thought about it, I realized a shiner like that takes time to blossom.

  I couldn’t believe I was asking Cullen the question. “Did Dom beat up Swing?”

  He nodded. “We have a witness. Faso’s daughter was there.”

  “Karina?” This story was only getting more bizarre. “Kari lives with her mom. Where did this happen? When did it happen?”

  “Saturday morning,” Martin said. “At Dewatre.” The same place he died two days later.

  “Shut up, McAuliffe,” Cullen demanded, “or get out. You’re interfering—”

  “Excuse me, Detective,” I said, “but this is my home and I have a right to include anyone I want in our conversation.” Martin offered an approving wink.

  Obviously Cullen had a mental script in place dictating which details he would divulge to me and in what sequence, the better to maximize the information he could extract from me in turn—information he intended to use against his one and apparently only person of interest. I had zero desire to facilitate that process. The guy didn’t strike me as either a creative thinker or a hard worker. And wouldn’t it be a feather in his cap if he was able to “solve” the crime within the first twenty-four hours?

  Cullen tried a different tack. “Let’s you and me go finish our talk in the living room—”

  “No.” I lifted Martin’s beer bottle and took a fortifying gulp. Good stuff. Brewed by monks, supposedly, and too fine to swig from the bottle. Which was far from my biggest concern at the moment. I took another deep pull and faced the detective head-on.

  “First you try to make it seem like Dom has it in for SEAR,” I said, “for that guy Tooley, and never once do you mention that he fought with Swing two days before he died. When exactly were you planning to lay that little nugget on me?”

  “Oh, I get it.” Martin offered a couple of noodles to Sexy Beast, who grabbed them and ran to the sink rug, his preferred snacking spot. To Cullen he said, “You figure Dom killed Swing, then tried to blame it on the SEAR people for coming after him last year. Two birds, one knife.”