Perforating Pierre (Jane Delaney Mysteries Book 3)

by Pamela Burford

  “It wasn’t…” Chloe said. “That’s… That’s degrading. How can you say something like that about Swing? Our love was pure, it was perfect.”

  “Chloe, Chloe…” I pleaded, “stop talking! You’re walking right into it.”

  “I know how I’d feel if my man were slipping around on me all the time,” Miranda said. “With actresses, underwear models…” Just in case the dimmer members of the viewing audience failed to grasp her meaning, she added, “Didn’t you ever just want to…” She mimed strangulation.

  Chloe fought back tears. “You don’t know anything about him. About us. I’m not… I refuse to talk about this anymore.”

  Miranda had now succeeded in establishing three of her four guests as suspects in Swing’s murder. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her go after Nina next. It was a sad day for law enforcement when Miranda Daniels’s bellicose brand of investigative journalism managed to show up a police investigation.

  “Fortunately,” Miranda said, “we have someone on the line who isn’t afraid to talk. For reasons that will become clear, he has requested anonymity. Thank you for joining us, sir. You’re on the air.”

  “Thank you, Miranda,” the voice said. “The name is Doe. John Doe.”

  Sophie said, “Since when does Sean Connery call in to Ramrod News?”

  “I do not believe this,” I muttered. “That’s Martin.”

  “Martin McAuliffe?” Sophie chuckled and reached for her Scotch. “Well, of course it is.”

  Miranda said, “You have information about the police investigation, isn’t that right, um, John?”

  “About the detective in charge of the investigation,” Martin said. “Paul Cullen, aka Paulie the Perv. That’s how he’s known by certain unfortunate members of the community he’s supposed to be serving.”

  As Martin spoke in his spot-on Connery burr, I heard background noise: multiple voices, the clink of glassware, muted bluegrass music. “He’s calling from Murray’s Pub!” I said. “He’s on the bar phone!”

  “Paulie the Perv?” Miranda snickered. “What does a cop have to do to earn a nickname like that?”

  “He has to abuse his position as a law-enforcement officer to sexually harass females suspected of minor crimes such as traffic violations. This has been going on since he was a patrolman.”

  “If that’s true,” Miranda said, “why has it been allowed to continue? Don’t these women file complaints?”

  “It is my understanding,” Martin said, “that Cullen threatened retaliation if any of his victims came forward. A few brave women did, though, over the years. Those complaints were swept under the rug by Cullen’s fishing buddy, Chief George Larsen.”

  “Larsen,” Sophie growled. “That guy’s always been a thorn in my side.”

  I asked, “Doesn’t the mayor appoint the police chief?”

  She nodded. “Larsen had been chief for about fifteen years before I was elected. Never did anything egregious enough to get fired, nothing I found out about, anyway. That might be about to change.”

  Victor said, “How long has Martin known about this?”

  “Not long, I’m guessing,” I said, “or we’d have heard about it before now.”

  “If your allegations are true,” Miranda said, “then this Detective Cullen doesn’t sound like someone I’d want investigating a high-profile murder.”

  “My thinking precisely,” Martin said. I heard an unmistakable metallic racket and pictured him cradling the phone with his shoulder while wielding a martini shaker. Yeah, that’s right, shaken, not stirred. “But you know what they say,” he added, “a fish rots from the head down. I’d take a hard look at Chief Larsen, too.”

  13

  #YouSlayMeVictor

  “THIS IS SO NICE,” Chloe said. “I don’t think I’ve had anyone over since I moved here. Well, except for Swing, of course.”

  “Really? No one?” I set my white pastry box on her kitchen counter. It was a nondescript kitchen in a nondescript house, a 1970s cookie-cutter ranch on the not-so-swanky outskirts of Crystal Harbor.

  She seemed embarrassed. “Well, I don’t have any family and I haven’t met too many of my neighbors yet. I just took the place a couple of months ago. It’s a rental.” She started measuring grounds into a French-press coffeemaker. “Once we were engaged, Swing wanted me to live closer to him.”

  I was kind of surprised she hadn’t moved into his fancy house in the heart of the gold-plated section of town until I recalled that the couple had made a conscious effort to keep their relationship under wraps for the sake of Swing’s career-boosting playboy image.

  “I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” I said, “so I got an assortment.” I lifted the lid of the box, adorned with Patisserie Susanne’s gold-and-white label, to reveal a Napoleon, a chocolate éclair, opera cake, and a pair of chocolate croissants. Yes, two of those, because it’s my all-time favorite dessert and if I’d gotten just one and Chloe had made a grab for it, I’d have had to hurt her.

  Chloe oohed and ahhed, made the obligatory references to empty calories and aren’t we naughty, and pulled a couple of dessert plates from a cabinet. I had a reason for this visit, but now that I was there, I didn’t know quite what to say. I wanted to let her know she wasn’t alone and that others were thinking of her, stated a tad more diplomatically than: I’m sorry your man was a cheating sack of dog poo and that Miranda Daniels chose to make your humiliation public.

  “How do you take your coffee?” she asked.

  “Oh, just black, thanks.”

  Once she’d poured, we took our plates and cups into the potpourri-scented living room. I sat on a love seat upholstered in taupe velour, she on the matching sofa. A framed photograph sat on the lamp table next to me: Swing and Chloe standing close, smiling into the camera. It appeared to have been taken at some affair. They were in formal dress and held wineglasses. Swing looked ridiculously handsome in white tie with his arm around his lady.

  The table had a lower shelf. I spied a stack of bridal magazines and couldn’t help thinking that if my fiancé had been murdered, one of the first things I’d do is toss out such a painful reminder of the loss. However, if there’s one thing I’d learned in my years as the one and only Death Diva, it’s that people deal with grief in their own way.

  “Okay,” I said, “this has been bothering me. I hope you don’t think I’m the one who spilled the beans to Miranda. About, you know, your engagement. It wasn’t Victor either.”

  Chloe shook her head as if still coming to terms with the the way she’d been ambushed. “I should have known better than to let her talk me into going back on that horrible show.”

  “It’s what she does,” I said. “Anything for ratings.”

  “Well, never again,” she said. “And don’t worry, I know you two had nothing to do with it. Now that we know what sort of person Detective Cullen is, I think we can be pretty certain who blabbed.”

  “I don’t think there can be any doubt.” I pushed croissant crumbs around my plate. “Listen, I know how difficult it must be for you now, Chloe, with everyone knowing about your fiancé’s, um…” infidelity? cheating? shameless alley-catting? “About his continuing to see other women.”

  She stiffened. Spots of color stained her cheeks. “People think they know Swing, even people who never met him. That’s how it is with celebrities. Well, I’ll tell you, no one knew him like I did. He wasn’t… He wasn’t… He was a good man. He loved me.”

  I leaned forward and reached for her hand, but drew back when she failed to respond. “I know he did,” I said. “And I know he was a good man. I’m… I didn’t express myself very well. What I’m trying to say is, I know you’re hurting and I just… I’m here if you ever want to talk. Or maybe kick back a little, go for a walk, a drink at Murray’s, whatever.”

  She avoided my eyes while she digested this, while she struggled to rein in her emotions. “Thank you,” she said at last.

  I sensed she had no intention o
f taking me up on my offer. I was glad I’d made it, anyway. “So, um, getting back to Cullen and that caller’s allegations. The police department is conducting an internal investigation.”

  Chloe frowned. “But didn’t the guy say Chief Larsen quashed the women’s complaints? How can there be a fair probe with him in charge?”

  “I have to agree with you there. I’m sure it’s why Cullen hasn’t been put on administrative leave and is still in charge of Swing’s murder investigation.” I didn’t let her in on the identity of the anonymous caller. Sophie, Victor, and I were the only ones who knew, assuming none of the patrons at Murray’s that night noticed their bartender talking funny on the phone. If word got around that he was the one who’d made that call, Martin would be subject to unwanted police attention. Or I should say, he’d be subject to more unwanted police attention than usual.

  Turns out the padre had heard the occasional whisper about Paulie the Perv and decided now would be an auspicious time to dig a little deeper. What he’d found out last weekend had convinced him the nickname had been earned. And with Larsen covering for his fishing pal, Martin had concluded that a call to Ramrod News was in order. As much as I hated to agree that the smarmy talk show was good for anything, it certainly had shone a spotlight on the problem, forcing Larsen to at least put on a show of looking into the women’s complaints.

  Chloe set down her cup. “How can Swing’s murder ever be solved by such a corrupt police department?”

  “The whole department isn’t corrupt.” I lifted my cup, thinking of Bonnie Hernandez. Not my bestest gal-pal perhaps, but I’d bet serious bucks she’s a clean cop. “The mayor’s aware of the situation, so I’m hoping for a positive outcome. Oh!” I looked down at my pale-blue shirt, now sporting a coffee stain.

  “You’d better take care of that before it sets.” She pointed to the hallway. “There’s a bathroom right through there on your left.”

  The john I found myself in was as boring and old-fashioned as the rest of the house. Green fixtures and tiles. Fake-wood paneling. I saturated a corner of a pink hand towel and dabbed at the spot on my shirt. It was a microfiber shirt, whatever that was, which meant I couldn’t use bleach, right? If I didn’t manage to get the stain out, this shirt would be added to my ever-growing pile of painting clothes. Ask me when I last painted a room, go ahead. I think it was the year before never.

  Maybe Chloe had one of those handy little get-the-stain-out pens. I opened the medicine cabinet to check. It certainly wasn’t because I’m one of those nosy guests who like to paw through other people’s personal stuff.

  Okay, I can hear you when you snort like that, so just knock it off.

  Unlike me, Chloe kept her things neat and organized: deodorant, moisturizer, and so forth arranged just so. The part I could identify with was her preference for cheap drugstore brands. In that respect I could have been sneaking a peek at my own medicine cabinet—until I got to the shelf that had been set aside for men’s deodorant, shaving cream, aftershave, hair pomade, a razor, nail clippers, and comb. Here were the snooty foreign brands advertised in snooty magazines for men who could afford to shell out forty bucks for a little tube of cream destined to be scraped off the chin of a multimillionaire celebrity chef.

  I lifted a small prescription bottle containing a common sleeping aid, according to the label, on which was typed the patient’s name: Pierre Dewatre. I’d already noticed the two toothbrushes in the ceramic holder and a man’s burgundy silk bathrobe hanging on the back of the door. I assumed she’d kept a few items at his place, too. Just because they lived separately didn’t mean there weren’t sleepovers, although I couldn’t picture Swing cooking in Chloe’s sad little kitchen with the plastic-handled knife set I’d spied and the electric stove. Don’t serious cooks prefer gas?

  Back in the living room, I resumed my seat as Chloe refilled our cups and placed more pastries on our plates, followed by more of that we’re-going-to-hell and I’m-going-to-pay-for-this talk. I mean really, why can’t women ever just enjoy their darn food without making it sound like the moral equivalent of stomping baby ducks?

  She forked up a bite of Napoleon. “By the way, I dumped Lee as a client.”

  “Now, there’s a shock.”

  “I did it in the green room,” she said, “right after the show. She actually seemed surprised.”

  “After essentially admitting she tried to ruin the man you loved by starting that awful rumor?” I said.

  “And now she’s going after Victor,” Chloe said. “She’s a very vindictive woman.”

  “You think?” I bit into my second chocolate croissant and had to restrain a carnal moan. Yeah, that’s right, I really like these things. “Did you know Victor’s been getting death threats?”

  Her eyes bulged. “That’s terrible! Because of Lee’s accusation?”

  I nodded. “From those nutty SEAR people, for starters.”

  “Wait, I thought they were happy that Swing was dead. Didn’t Tooley call Tucker a hero?”

  “That was before Swing was publicly cleared of that endangered-species nonsense,” I said. “It embarrassed the whole organization. I mean, they lavished a lot of well-publicized venom on him over the past few years. And now here’s Victor, who supposedly did in his brother and then blamed it on SEAR. They’re not amused.”

  “But it was Lee who started the rumor that ended up making them look foolish,” she said. “So why aren’t they going after her?”

  “My guess? They’re scared of her. You saw her performance on Ramrod. I mean, you were sitting right there, for heaven’s sake. She had the public hanging on her every word. If that fierce lady decided to go head to head with SEAR?”

  “I get your point.”

  “But it’s other people too, threatening Victor,” I said. “All because Lee wanted to punish him for supposedly ruining her chance of getting that show.”

  “Right.” Chloe’s tone was arid. “It couldn’t possibly have been her own fault. But Victor has the groupies, too, right? The ones Miranda mentioned.”

  I grimaced. “You see them around town, anywhere there’s been a Victor sighting in the past—the pub, Janey’s Place, the Harbor Room restaurant, even the dog park. But the worst is the women who show up at the house.”

  “Oh no,” she said.

  “Oh yes. I chased a few of them away, but you get these really determined ones who sneak around the house, spying in the windows. One even threw rocks at my bedroom window in the middle of the night.”

  “Your window?” she said.

  “Must’ve thought it was Victor’s. I’m not talking gravel here. These were rock rocks.”

  “That’s scary,” Chloe said. “Someone that obsessed, you don’t know what she’s capable of.”

  “No kidding. ‘Groupies’ is too benign a term for these women. As far as I’m concerned, it’s straight-up stalking. I called the police and now Howie Werker’s handling it.” At her puzzled look, I said, “He’s a Crystal Harbor cop, a sergeant. And a friend of mine—nice guy. Howie’s got patrol cars swinging by all the time. Now, when the loonies start sniffing around, I just call Howie and either he comes himself or he sends someone.”

  “Well, that’s good,” she said, “but I’m so sorry he has to go through that. You too.”

  “Thanks. He can’t even go to the office anymore,” I said. “You know he’s been working at his firm’s SoHo branch, right? Well, on Tuesday he was recognized at the station and the next day a whole bunch of women—teenage girls, really—swarmed his train car. They were all over him.”

  “What did the conductors do?” she asked.

  “Stood there laughing. And taking pictures, natch. When the train finally stopped at Penn Station, he rode it right back to Crystal Harbor. Now he’s working from home. No more commuting for Hashtag Swing’sSexyBro.”

  “I feel terrible for Victor,” Chloe said, “having to rearrange his life like that, and after all he’s been through. The idea of all these besotted fema
les burning up Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and who knows what-all with posts about the poor guy. It’s just too absurd.”

  “Hashtag VictorSighting,” I said. “Have you seen that one? Hashtag TeamVicInnocent.”

  “I’m guessing there’s also a Hashtag TeamVicGuilty.”

  “But of course,” I said. “Oh, check this out. They started sexting him. Sending him naked pictures and pornographic messages.”

  Her jaw unhinged. “How on earth did they get his phone number?”

  “Seems one of the groupies, a particularly resourceful one, phoned the Crystal Harbor Police Department and persuaded the dispatcher to share.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, “what kind of police dispatcher would release the phone number of a victim’s family member to a random caller?”

  “A drunk dispatcher,” I said. “I got the lowdown from Howie. Seems the late-shift dispatcher is perennially inebriated.”

  “Next question,” Chloe said. “How does a drunk keep a critical job like that? Who does he know?”

  “She knows Chief Larsen,” I said. “She knows him very, very well from what I’ve been told.”

  “Isn’t the chief married?”

  “Oh, you’re such a stickler,” I teased, and instantly regretted it. Chloe was understandably sensitive on the subject of infidelity. Before she could react to my words, I added, “Anyway, Victor changed his number after that, but the packages keep coming.”

  “Good grief, this just gets worse and worse,” she said. “Dare I ask what’s in these packages?”

  “We don’t open them, we just give them to Howie as they come in. I mean, they could contain anything.”

  She gave a disgusted nod. “Right. The death threats.”

  “A bomb, anthrax, who knows? So far, though, they’ve contained nothing like that.” The suggestive look I gave her said the packages had contained nothing even remotely like that.

  She stared. “Oh, don’t tell me.”

  “Okay, I won’t tell you.” I brought the last bite of croissant to my mouth.