by Nancy Martin
“Detective Bloom,” I said. “Somehow I knew you’d turn up.”
Libby looked completely relaxed, but I knew every molecule in her body had just vibrated to attention.
Benjamin Bloom stopped beside our table and proceeded to do a plausible imitation of a Little Leaguer accidentally barging into the wrong locker room.
“Hi, there,” said Libby.
Bloom glanced between the two of us, scantily wrapped in pink robes, and he fought down a blush. The detective wore a neatly pressed coat over a sweater, wrinkle-free khakis and clean white sneakers. Sometimes I wondered if he still lived with his mother. He had liquid brown eyes in a narrow, trustworthy face. Unfortunately, I’d discovered he wasn’t as trustworthy as he appeared, especially when he wanted information that might boost his career out of the sleepy suburbs and into a big-city homicide squad. When he wanted details on a crime, he could be as relentless as a jackhammer.
He had an interesting mouth and a lithe body, however, which Libby noticed right away. Surely she also noticed that he was considerably younger than herself, but that didn’t seem to matter. She smiled, transparent as cellophane in her need to be desired by the only man in radar range. Plus, she looked as if she could actually cause a man with a breast fascination to collapse of a heart attack.
I wanted to kick her.
“Hi.” Bloom avoided intense exposure to the searing rays of my sister’s sexuality by looking straight into my eyes. “Feeling okay? I heard you fainted.”
“I’m fine,” I said briskly. “Do you remember my sister? Libby Kintswell. Libby, this is—”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “We’ve met.”
She slipped her hand in his, as if expecting him to kiss her fingertips.
He did not. Instead, Detective Bloom tried to shake her hand without actually looking at her. He had encountered my sister before, of course, during the investigation into Rory Pendergast’s death just a few months earlier. Bloom looked as enthusiastic about renewing his acquaintance with Libby as he might with an amorous anaconda.
“Mrs. Kintswell, my superior would like to speak with you.”
Libby’s brows flew up. “Why?”
“You were nearby when Rushton Strawcutter’s body was discovered, ma’am. We need to get information from you while it’s still fresh in your mind.”
“Where is your superior? Is he here?”
“She,” Bloom corrected, “has asked me to take you to our office.”
Libby suppressed her disappointment admirably. “Now?”
“As soon as you get dressed.”
“Oh. Well, all right, but I’ll need to pump first. If you’ll excuse me?”
She departed in a flourish of naked skin glimpsed beneath her robe.
Detective Bloom frowned. “She lifts weights?”
“She’s not pumping iron,” I said. “She’s—Well, you don’t want to know.”
“I hate to say it, but she scares me.”
“You have good instincts.” I checked my watch and calculated how soon the baby would need his next meal. I hoped the baby-sitter could convince him to take a bottle, but quickly lectured myself that Libby could handle her own child care without my intervention for once.
Bloom sat down in her vacated chair. “I just came from the hospital. Your sister Emma—”
“Is she all right?”
I must have looked frightened, because he put both hands up as if to stop a speeding car. “She’s going to be okay. We’d like to talk to her, but a guy turned up who claims to be her lawyer. I gather you called him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you did her a favor. He’s refusing to allow anyone but medical staff within ten feet of his client. In the meantime, I hope you can answer some questions.”
I knew what was coming. This would not be the first time Detective Bloom had asked for my input in a murder investigation. He’d previously used my connections to a social circle that was foreign to him, and as a result he’d received two letters of merit in his official record.
“What can I do to help?”
He turned sideways in his chair. From that position he had a good view of my bare legs, which he tried not to inspect for more than five seconds. “You okay?” he asked. “Really?”
“I’m worried about my sister. And upset about Rush Strawcutter, of course.”
Bloom opened his notebook but didn’t need to refer to his scribbles. “Rushton Strawcutter was killed by at least three blows to the head from a blunt object.”
Oddly enough, I didn’t find death by blunt object nearly as horrifying as death by gunshot. Calmly, I asked, “Could he have been kicked by a horse?”
Bloom shook his head. “It was something small.”
“Libby said you found a riding crop in the straw.”
“Is that what it’s called? It was a small whip. I was surprised that it had such a heavy handle. Like there’s steel in it.”
Years ago when I’d done a little riding myself, I had carried a crop—sometimes known as a riding stick—and knew it had a loaded grip on one end and a light tasseled whip at the other. “But surely it wasn’t heavy enough to kill someone.”
“Maybe not,” he agreed. “The injuries were severe.”
“Do you know when it happened?”
“Early this morning—probably between three and four A.M.”
“Before the fox hunt began.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t anybody see them earlier?”
“It was an empty stall, not used for a horse lately. Somebody went looking for extra straw after the hunt and found him.”
“Have you started questioning everyone at the hunt breakfast?”
He nodded. “We took names and will be in touch with most everyone eventually.”
“You didn’t keep everyone at the club? When Rory Pendergast was killed, you didn’t allow people to leave for hours.”
“This situation is a little different.”
I took a deep breath. “You believe Emma did it.”
“Now, let’s not start—”
“Please don’t patronize me. She was found nearby and was covered with blood, I know. And that was her riding crop.”
“We’re doing everything according to procedure. Everything’s going to the city forensics lab, and we’ve got a team going through the barn now. But suddenly looking for a needle in a haystack doesn’t sound so funny.” He hesitated. “I won’t lie to you, Nora. It looks pretty bad for your sister.”
I didn’t realize I’d been weeping until he passed the handkerchief from his pocket. I pressed it to my eyes and tried to think sensibly.
At last, I said, “What about the envelope found with Rush’s body?”
“How—Did you touch it?”
“No, Libby saw it.”
He frowned. “Well, we’re looking at it, of course.”
“What was inside?”
He hesitated, then obviously decided not to answer my question. “Let’s focus on what you know. What can you tell me about Strawcutter? How come he goes by that name?”
“His father-in-law insisted when Rushton married Gussie Strawcutter. It’s not as uncommon in certain circles as you think, especially when a family line is going to die out. Gussie is an only child. There’s a dynasty to consider.”
“A dynasty, huh? How did Rushton feel about changing his name to join a dynasty?”
I pictured Rush in my mind. He had been tall and a little gawky, with floppy brown hair and a ready smile. “I didn’t know him well, but Rush always seemed happy.”
“Marrying into several hundred million dollars, who wouldn’t be happy? Except his wife isn’t exactly the prettiest girl on the block. Or the smartest.”
“You’re wrong. She’s brilliant,” I corrected. “Don’t be fooled. Gussie has been her father’s right hand for many years and can read a bottom line better than most thousand-dollar-an-hour tax attorneys, which I believe is what she studied in college. She’s
extremely smart, just not good with people.”
“You have to be good with people to run a big company.”
“Her father had social grace in spades. Now that his role in the company has diminished, I think Rush was starting to supply the people skills. He was sweet and even-tempered. He genuinely loved animals, and people respond to that—especially in their business.”
“Maybe that’s what drew him to his wife,” Bloom said dryly.
“Are you calling her a dog, Detective?”
“Take it easy. Does your sister Emma know the Strawcutters as well as you do?”
I stiffened.
Emma and Rush were undoubtedly acquainted from the Tri-County Horse Club. Although Emma didn’t have the kind of money it took to belong to the club, she was often an invited guest because of her horsemanship. She frequently coached people who wanted to improve their riding, especially new people just getting started riding to hounds. New people like Rush, perhaps.
I said, “I don’t know if they knew each other at all.”
“I hear Emma has relationships with a lot of guys.”
“She likes the company of men,” I said carefully. “Emma is young and single. She’s allowed to have a social life.”
“Does she tangle with married men a lot?”
“As far as I know, never.”
Bloom gave me an assessing look. “You’re not as informative as you’ve been in the past.”
“Can you blame me?”
“It’s okay,” he said smoothly. “I don’t think we’re going to need you on this one, anyway.”
I felt a zing of anger. “Because you think you’ve already got the killer? Look, if you think I’m going to stand around waiting for you to convict my sister when I know she certainly didn’t kill anyone—”
“How do you know?”
“She just wouldn’t, that’s all.”
“Even under the influence of alcohol?”
I took a deep breath.
“She’s got a problem with booze,” Bloom said.
“She’s been drinking more than usual these last couple of months, yes, but she’s still getting over the death of her husband.”
“She was married to that football star, Jake Kendall, I hear. That must have been quite an experience. How long has it been since he died?”
“Two years,” I said shortly. “Emma was in the car, too, and suffered severe injuries.”
Combined with a recent broken arm just a few months earlier, Emma still hadn’t worked her way back to riding at the top-notch level required of a Grand Prix competitor. The emotional and physical toll of the last two years had been very hard. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen Emma entirely sober. The realization unnerved me.
“Emma’s had a lot of problems,” I admitted finally. “She’s doing her best to get her life back on track.”
“Jake was a pretty famous guy. I still see reruns of some of his great plays. Too bad he never made the Super Bowl. He had a lot of potential, even with all the drinking he did.” Bloom continued to observe me. “Does your sister still go to football games, or has she just tried to forget?”
“You’re trying to trick me into confiding more, Detective, and there’s nothing to confide. Emma might be an emotional mess, but she’s not a killer.”
Bloom closed his notebook without writing down a single word. Softly, he said, “I hope you’re right. But forgive me if I don’t have much faith in your judgement.”
I felt a lecture coming.
He said, “You have a history of trusting the wrong kind of people, Miss Blackbird.”
“We’re not talking about Emma now, are we?”
“I hear Abruzzo took a powder.”
I should have guessed Bloom had more than just an open-and-shut murder investigation on his mind. He had obviously decided this case was going to be easy, and he was looking around for something more promising to work on. He had a lot of ambition, and dabbling in organized crime cases might attract the attention of his superiors.
More calmly than I felt, I said, “Michael is on a vacation.”
“You’re sure it’s a vacation?”
“He hasn’t run away from anything, if that’s what you mean.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“I don’t know.”
Bloom and Michael shared a past that started in juvenile court and concluded with some jailhouse justice that left Michael serving a longer sentence and Bloom finally making his way into the police academy. Neither man had spoken of the details to me, and I had not asked to hear the story. I only knew there was no love lost between them.
Bloom said, “When he gets back, there’ll be a lot of questions for him to answer. I hear there’s some new evidence in a money-laundering scheme.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Bloom shrugged. “Well, sounds like Emma isn’t the only one who’s in hot water right now.”
Chapter 4
After Bloom left, Reed came over to the table, careful not to look at any of the other spa patrons as they lingered in their pink robes. “Phone call.”
I thanked him and accepted his cell phone with shaking hands.
From across the Atlantic Ocean, Michael said, “Do you want me to come home?”
Yes, yes, yes!
But I said, “I’m coping reasonably well on my own at the moment, thank you. How did you hear?”
“I’m traveling with Josh, remember? My lawyer. He got a call from his partner, who’s at Emma’s bedside right now. Are you all right?”
“Just the usual stupid fainting spell, but somebody caught me when I fell.”
“Anybody I ought to be jealous of?”
“I think it was Libby. But Detective Bloom was just here.”
Michael laughed. “That chickenshit. He waited until I was a couple thousand miles away to make his move on you, didn’t he?”
Michael had gone off on a fishing trip to broaden his horizons. Cheerfully admitting he was ignorant of the world beyond New Jersey, unless you counted the auction yards where he bought and sold muscle cars, he decided out of the blue he’d explore rural Scotland, of all places, with a handful of unlikely buddies. In addition to his lawyer, who may well have been billing the time, for all I knew, Michael traveled with a mysteriously wealthy cousin who baked bread, and a young man who wrote poetic articles for fishing magazines.
While listening to their plans, I thought they made their expedition sound like a grand adventure to an exotic land.
Michael said, “Bloom has stars in his eyes every time he looks at you. Come to think of it, so do I.”
I smiled shakily and was glad he couldn’t see how frightened I was. “Michael, Emma’s in big trouble.”
“Tell me the whole story.”
I did so in a low voice, gathering my composure as he listened to the details.
When I was finished, he said, “So who killed the dog food king?”
“He wasn’t the king. A prince, maybe. I don’t know who killed him. I just know it wasn’t Em.”
“Think Detective Gloom and his pals are going to bother looking for anyone else?”
“I think they’re going to try to prove Emma’s guilt first, and when that doesn’t work, they’ll get around to looking for another suspect.”
“When the evidence is cold.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to get involved again,” he guessed. “In another murder investigation.”
I knew he didn’t like me snooping around in dangerous affairs. I didn’t like it, either, but I had been forced to help friends and family before. This time, however, Michael wasn’t available to watch my back.
Before he could object to my plan, I said, “I’ll be careful this time.”
“Who are you going to talk to?”
“I’m not sure yet. Rush Strawcutter was very easy-going. I’m having a hard time imagining who could have been angry enough to kill him.”
&nbs
p; “Maybe it wasn’t anger.”
Now and then I was uncomfortably reminded that Michael looked at crime from a different point of view than I did. “What do you think it could be?”
“The usual. Money. Sex. Revenge. Maybe a family thing. Or if he was such a prince, maybe self-defense, but that’s rarely it. In my experience, a dead guy usually deserves getting smoked.”
I closed my eyes and forced myself not to speculate about how many dead guys Michael had encountered in his life.
“Sorry,” he said, guessing what my silence meant. “You can send a Jersey boy to Scotland, but he’s not going to wear a kilt.”
I laughed unsteadily. “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re there.”
“Why?”
“I hear you’re number one on the police hit parade again.”
“Oh, that.”
I wanted to ask more. Half the time I wanted to know everything about him because I knew firsthand what devastation too many secrets could wreak upon a relationship. I wanted to understand his efforts to remain estranged from his father and assorted ne’erdo-well half-brothers who were heavily involved in the Abruzzo crime family and seemed to take turns serving prison terms. But I counseled myself to trust Michael’s judgement when it came to not sharing the parts of his life he believed might shock me. We were still wrestling with how much truth to share.
But I didn’t want to address that now. Once again, the tug of needing him felt stronger than my fear that his business affairs might ruin both our lives.
So I said, “How is Scotland?”
“Beautiful. The fishing’s like none I’ve ever done before. And they make some pretty good moonshine. We’re staying in a castle—very swanky. You’d fit right in. It’s no wonder Braveheart turned blue, though. It’s freezing at night.” After a pause, he said, “I think of you in bed.”
I closed my eyes again and immediately imagined myself skin-to-skin with him under an eiderdown. Our relationship had not slipped into the bedroom yet, though there was plenty of sexual attraction going on. Okay, he wasn’t handsome, exactly. In fact, his face sometimes scared people. But he had a quick laugh, an endearingly old-fashioned sense of protectiveness and an intuitive mind that appealed to me.
I might as well also admit he had astonishing shoulders, a supple stroll and a tight behind that any woman in her right mind would give up chocolate to get her hands on. He made me think of long, long nights between sweaty sheets, followed by mornings doing unmentionable things in the tub, against the bathroom sink, on the rug. . . .
