Ditching David

by Jenna Bennett

  I had no idea how she would know that, but I’d take her word for it. “It has to be a mistake. Who’d want David dead? Other than me, of course.”

  “Of course,” a voice said behind me.

  Diana closed her eyes in disgust. “Jaime.”

  He grinned. “Diana. Mrs. Kelly.”

  “Call me Gina,” I managed, resisting the temptation to fan myself with my napkin. That grin was something else. Ten years too young for me, but killer.

  Diana frowned, and Mendoza chuckled. “Perhaps we’d better keep this professional, Mrs. Kelly.”

  Perhaps that would be best. My rampant, middle-aged hormones to the contrary.

  He put his hand on the back of the chair between us “Mind if I sit?”

  “I suggested it,” Diana said, “so naturally I don’t mind.”

  Mendoza pulled his chair out. “I wasn’t sure you’d finished talking.”

  It was my turn to close my eyes. “About what I said...”

  He turned to me, brown eyes dancing. “Yes?”

  “I had nothing to do with it. I’d never hurt David. I’d never hurt anyone, but especially David.”

  Mendoza nodded graciously, but without giving the least indication that he believed me.

  “We were married for eighteen years,” I said. “And two months after my fortieth birthday, he told me he wanted a divorce because he had a new girlfriend. Oh, and by the way, she’s twenty-five.”

  Mendoza winced. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to kick him or not. He might have meant to be sympathetic, but in reality, he just reinforced that I had a right to feel old.

  Twenty-five was probably right up his alley.

  “I was angry with him,” I said. “Anyone would have been. But I’d never hurt him. He was my husband. I...”

  I stopped before I could blurt out that I’d still loved him. It wasn’t something Jaime Mendoza needed to hear, and besides, I wasn’t entirely certain it was true.

  Sure, part of me would always love David. We’d shared a house, and a bed, and Christmases and birthdays, for the best part of two decades. I’d become an adult while I was David’s wife. When he married me, I hadn’t been much more than a girl, easily swept off my feet by a rich and handsome older man.

  Probably a lot like Jackie-with-a-q was right now.

  And maybe that was the problem. The love hadn’t died, because it hadn’t been there in the first place. He’d bamboozled me with charm and presents, and I’d fancied myself in love with him, but it hadn’t been Love, with a capital L.

  But none of that was any of Mendoza’s business. I shook the thoughts off and came back to the present, just as the waiter stopped beside the table with Diana’s tonic and my tea. “Sir?”

  Mendoza said he’d stick with water, and the waiter departed. Mendoza turned back to me. “You were saying?”

  “I can’t remember,” I said, sucking on my straw until my cheeks were hollow.

  “You’d never hurt your husband because...?”

  “He couldn’t help it that he fell out of love with me. I’d never blame him for something like that.”

  “That’s very big of you,” Mendoza said while Diana rolled her eyes. I guess maybe I was laying it on a little too thick. “Tell me about Ms. Demetros.”

  I glanced at Diana, who nodded. “You probably know more about her than I do,” I told Mendoza. “She’s twenty-five. She lives in midtown. She’s pretty. She looks nothing like me. David left me for her. And that’s all I know. I’ve never spoken to her. And David didn’t tell me much.”

  “Would she have any reason to want your husband dead?”

  “If she did, I can’t imagine what the reason would be. David must have been a lot more valuable to her alive.”

  Mendoza cocked an eyebrow, and I expounded. “He was going to marry her, right? Or why else would he divorce me? If he was just going to keep screwing her—”

  Diana winced—a slight Freudian slip there—but I had no choice but to keep going and brazen it out, so I did, “—he could have done that while he was still married to me. And once they were married, all the money would be hers. I’m sure he was generous—he bought me a lot of presents while he was married to Sandra, too—but it’s not the same thing as marriage.”

  Mendoza shook his head. I think he may have been too fascinated—in the manner of someone watching a piano falling in slow motion and knowing the outcome but being unable to do anything to stop it—to speak. Watching as I dug my grave deeper and deeper.

  “So unless there’s something going on I don’t know about, I can’t imagine that she wouldn’t rather have him stay alive. At least until the wedding. Now she’s not getting anything.”

  “What about his business partner? Mr. Hollingsworth?”

  “Farley?” I shook my head. “He and David have been friends since college. He was best man at our wedding. And I’m sure David was much more valuable to Farley alive, too.”

  Mendoza tilted his head. “How come?”

  “I told you last night,” I said, taking a sip of tea and wishing it was something stronger. “Farley isn’t good with people. He’s a numbers-person. David is... David was the people-person. He brought in the clients while Farley handled the money. Without David, I’m not sure the business will survive.”

  Mendoza nodded. “And Mrs. Hollingsworth?”

  “Martha. If the business goes under, Martha’s cushy lifestyle does, too. Although she was born to money—old Belle Meade family—so she’s probably got plenty tucked away from her parents and grandparents.”

  “The children?”

  “They get money once David’s estate is settled,” I said. “Anton Hess would be able to tell you how much. But David was their father. They wouldn’t hurt him.”

  Mendoza didn’t look convinced. I guess he lived in a world where children occasionally killed their parents, for money or other reasons. “And the ex-wife?”

  “She won’t get anything. And doesn’t need anything. She went back to school after David dumped her and got a degree. She’s got her own income.”

  Unlike me. And while I’m sure Sandra hadn’t particularly enjoyed reentering college at thirty-plus and with two kids at home, it beat doing it at forty-plus, which was what I was looking at doing. David had married me before I graduated, so all I had on my résumé was eighteen years as a trophy wife, and the ability to arrange business dinners. Not exactly something that would keep me in wine and clothes going forward.

  “I spoke to your husband’s brother,” Mendoza said. “He lives in Santa Monica.”

  So neither Santa Barbara nor Santa Cruz. However, if he was in California and not in Tennessee, he couldn’t have sabotaged David’s brakes.

  The realization must have crossed my features, because Mendoza nodded. “I’m afraid it down to you, Mrs. Kelly. Unless you can help me out with some viable suspects, it looks like your head will be first on the chopping block.”

  Chapter 4

  MENDOZA DIDN’T END up staying for lunch after all. He dropped his bombshell, and then he got up and walked out, after saying goodbye to Diana. I was still too stunned to speak, if not too overcome to enjoy the view as he departed.

  “This isn’t good,” Diana told me, calmly, when we were alone.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t suppose you have an alibi for last night?”

  I didn’t suppose I did. I opened my mouth and then had to clear my throat before I could get my voice to work. “I spoke to David around four. That’s when he mentioned the prenup, and when I called you.”

  Diana nodded.

  “I spent some time digging out and reading through the prenup, to see if there was any chance I wouldn’t lose everything. I drank some wine while I worried about what I would do if I did. I couldn’t afford to keep the house, and I don’t have an education, so I have no idea what kind of job I could get. All I’ve ever been is David’s wife.”

  Diana nodded.

  “Eventually I decide
d I’d wallowed in self-pity long enough, and I decided to take a bath. But I didn’t have any wine left, so I had to make a trip to the liquor store first. And when I came back, that’s when Detective Mendoza showed up.”

  “While you were in the tub?”

  “I hadn’t gotten in yet,” I said, even as I thought guiltily about the fact that I’d answered the door in my robe and with a glass of wine in my hand. To anyone who didn’t know me—like Jaime Mendoza—it might almost look as if I were celebrating.

  Diana took a sip of her tonic. “This isn’t good, Gina.”

  “You already said that,” I told her. “On the bright side, if I get arrested for murder, I don’t have to worry about being homeless or about making a living.”

  “That isn’t funny,” Diana said.

  “It’s a little funny.”

  “There has to be someone else who’d benefit from David’s death.”

  Someone else, as in someone other than me? “Lots of people would benefit in some way. Krystal and Kenny would get money. So would Daniel, I think. Farley would get complete control of the business. There’s a gift to the cancer society in David’s will, since my mother-in-law died from cancer...”

  “I don’t think the cancer society cut David’s brake cables, Gina,” Diana said.

  “I don’t think anybody cut David’s brake cables. Daniel’s in California. Krystal and Kenny would probably rather have their father alive than dead. And I can’t think of any reason why Farley would want to oust David. The business is only as successful as the clients it brings in, and that was David’s job. Farley won’t be able to do it.”

  Diana nodded. “There has to be someone, though, Gina. Because if there isn’t, you’re looking at wearing Day-Glo orange every day for the rest of your life.”

  A fate worse than death. I shuddered.

  * * *

  AFTER LUNCH, I headed for the funeral home. By myself, since Diana had to get back to work, and since she didn’t really want any part of picking out David’s coffin and funeral music, anyway.

  I didn’t want any part of it myself, but someone had to do it, and I wasn’t about to leave it to Jacquie. If I did, David might go in the ground to the tunes of Dropkick Murphys and Going Out In Style. Which I suppose was nothing more than he deserved for taking up with someone barely out of her teens, but I couldn’t bring myself to let it happen. Besides, I was still his wife, and if it happened that way, someone might blame me for it.

  So I walked into my appointment with the funeral director aiming for maturity and good taste. Only to have all my good intentions go straight to hell when I came face to face with my stepchildren.

  That was the first time I’d seen them in a year, when we’d all been at my mother-in-law’s funeral.

  As I had told Detective Mendoza, they weren’t children anymore. Krystal was twenty-nine, dressed in a black power-suit with a pencil skirt and four inch heels. Her hair, a natural dirty blond, was bleached to the consistency of straw, and teased into a high bun on the back of her head. I’d seen that same look in the mirror this morning. It was what had necessitated the trip to the spa.

  Kenny was dressed down, in black jeans and a T-shirt under a blazer. The blazer was leather, and he was wearing snakeskin cowboy boots. Both of them eyed me with disfavor through identical, ice-blue eyes.

  David’s eyes.

  “We’ll take care of this,” Krystal informed me.

  I smiled, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I showed teeth. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Krystal’s eyes narrowed. “Like I said, you’re not welcome here.”

  “I made the appointment,” I reminded her.

  “He was our father!”

  “And he was my husband.”

  “Not for long,” Kenny muttered.

  I turned to him. “Be that as it may, as of yesterday we were still married. This is my responsibility. Not yours.” And certainly not Jacquie’s.

  “You’ve done enough!” Krystal informed me.

  Kenny added, “More than enough!”

  They’d always been close, and looked more like twins than siblings born three years apart. Same blond hair—Kenny had bleached his, too—same blue eyes, same narrow face and delicate features, and same pouty bottom lip. Same nasty attitude, as well.

  “I guess you’ve heard the news,” I said. “The police think David’s accident wasn’t an accident after all.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Krystal said, sticking her hands on her hips. Her nails were an inch long and blood red. “If you think that after murdering our father, we’ll let you arrange his funeral—”

  “—you’ve got another think coming!” Kenny said.

  They nodded in unison.

  “That’s ridiculous,” I told them, even though my mouth was so dry I had a hard time getting the words out. Rage, mostly. And shock. It was one thing for the nasty, suspicious mind of Detective Mendoza—the professional crimebuster—to suspect me of murdering my husband, but I hadn’t thought anyone who knew me would leap to that conclusion. “I had nothing to do with what happened to David. Why would I kill him?”

  “You only married him for his money,” Krystal said, tossing her head. Since her hair was gathered into that birds-nest bun on the back of her head, it swayed and almost fell. She put up a hand to steady it. “Now that you’re losing the money, you had no reason to keep him alive.”

  It wasn’t like I’d been keeping him alive up until this point. He’d been doing a pretty good job of that all on his own. And I hadn’t married him for his money, either. Although I won’t deny that the amount of cash he’d lavished on me during our courtship had done its part to woo me.

  “Speaking of money—” I said, eyeing Kenny.

  He bristled defensively. “What?”

  “What are you doing these days? Krystal’s still working in the music industry, right?” I glanced at her. She didn’t deny it. “But what about you?”

  “I’m a bartender,” Kenny said.

  “Is there a lot of money in that?”

  He shrugged. I took that to mean no, there wasn’t.

  “I suppose you have an alibi for last night?”

  “I was working,” Kenny said, not without a glance at Krystal.

  “And you?” I asked her.

  She sniffed. “I’m not telling you anything.”

  “That’s fine. Just be prepared to tell the police.” She’d probably like Detective Mendoza. He might like her, too. Last time I heard, she was still unattached, and just the right age for him.

  “The police won’t suspect us.” She tossed her head again. The birds-nest bun swayed.

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “I’m sure you could use the money. And he was planning to marry a girl younger than both of you. That had to be embarrassing. Not to mention that he might change his will in her favor and leave you with nothing.”

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Kenny said, glancing at Krystal.

  She added, “He didn’t when you married him.”

  “He was thirty-five then. Now he’s in his fifties, and bedding a twenty-five year old. Who knows what he’d promise her. She wasn’t with him for his good looks and stamina in bed.”

  “You don’t know that,” Kenny said.

  Actually, I did. Or at least I knew about the stamina. Unless he popped a pill first, David couldn’t keep it up long enough to have a normal session between the sheets. And believe me, he hadn’t liked being dependant on that little blue pill.

  Come to think of it, maybe that had been part of Jacquie’s appeal. He could take the pill before leaving work, and keep an erection through dinner and through having sex with her. She might not even know he needed it. Unlike me, who knew he couldn’t get it up without pharmaceutical aid. Something which probably made sex with me a turnoff for him. The fact that I knew he wasn’t a young, virile stud anymore.

  Maybe he hadn’t been planning to marry Jacquie after all. It wasn’t like he coul
d keep a dependence on Viagra quiet once they shared the same bathroom.

  More to the point, maybe he hadn’t gotten tired of me so much as he’d wanted someone who didn’t know quite so many intimate details about his failings. Jacquie probably fawned over him. She probably told him he was the most wonderful man in the world. I’d stopped doing that a long time ago. Living with someone 24/7 for a couple of decades has a way of ripping those rose-colored glasses right off.

  But that was neither here not there—other than that I will admit it made me feel better to realize that maybe he hadn’t found me lacking after all. It wasn’t that I’d cared all that much, or like it even mattered anymore, but still, the realization lifted a burden from my shoulders I hadn’t been aware I’d been carrying.

  And it made the smile I turned on Krystal and Kenny almost genuine. “I was your father’s wife for eighteen years. We were still married when he died. I’ve earned the right to bury him. If you’d like to stick around to make sure the service is acceptable to you, that’s fine with me. But I’m not leaving.”

  They exchanged a glance, and for a second I thought they were going to refuse to cooperate. But eventually Krystal tossed her head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Me neither,” Kenny added, ungrammatically.

  “Then I guess we’re in this together.” I sat down in one of the somber navy armchairs and crossed one leg over the other. Kenny gave me an appreciative glance, until Krystal elbowed him. They settled down a few chairs away.

  Mr. Anselm Howard, the funeral director, came to the lobby and retrieved us a few minutes later, and we started our tour of the facility, which ended in his office. With Krystal and Kenny’s help, the appointment took twice as long as it would have otherwise. They objected to every suggestion I made. If I mentioned a cherry wood casket, Krystal wanted mahogany and Kenny blue steel. And if I mentioned carnations, Krystal wanted lilies and Kenny “something peppy, like... I dunno... those yellow things with the black middles?” My suggestion of traditional church music—Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art—was vetoed in favor of contemporary Christian offerings.