[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  “Todd said that Cletus Johnson would know.”

  “So why aren’t you asking Cletus?” Dix wanted to know. “Afraid of what he’ll say?”

  “Of course not,” I denied quickly. “I just don’t want to cause any more gossip. Cletus Johnson is a deputy sheriff, and if I call him and start asking questions about Rafe, he’ll tell Sheriff Satterfield, who’ll tell mom, who’ll ground me for the next hundred years. I’ll be like Sleeping Beauty, locked in a tower away from everyone. Except when I get out, I’ll be 127, and no one will look twice at me.”

  “At 127 you’ll be dead,” Dix said. “So what do you want me to do? Call Cletus myself?”

  “Would you? He might be more inclined to tell you rather than me. All you have to do is give him that same old excuse: that you’re worried about your sister getting involved with Rafe.”

  “Excuse?” Dix muttered, but he didn’t say it loudly. “All right. For you. I’ll give him a call later on today, and let you know what he says.”

  He saw my mouth open and preempted my protest. “No, I’m not going to do it now, while you’re sitting here. It’s too early in the morning, and I don’t want to have to worry about what you hear. I want to filter the information I get first.”

  “Just don’t leave anything out,” I warned, getting up to go.

  “Not to worry, sis,” Dix answered dryly, “I won’t.”

  * * *

  I considered – I really considered – driving over and knocking on Elspeth Caulfield’s door, but in the end I decided against it. Not only would it be rude to show up unannounced, but it was probably better to hear what Cletus Johnson had to say first, not to mention Rafe himself. Or Marquita. If Cletus knew something, maybe Marquita did, as well. Although, just as Cletus was firmly anti-Rafe these days, Marquita was pro-Rafe, and I wasn’t sure I could trust her testimony any more than I could trust her ex-husband’s. It just goes to show that one should always attempt to get the dirt right from the horse’s mouth, and even then, take everything with a grain of salt.

  * * *

  Lila’s memorial service took place in the ballroom at the downtown Sheraton, without Lila herself. Lila’s mother had taken her daughter’s body back to Detroit for burial, and this was just an excuse for the rest of us to get together and eat, drink and be merry, speeding Lila on her way in a manner of which she would have approved. I did my best to keep a smile on my face, although I admit it wasn’t easy. A huge photograph of Lila, blown up to many times life-size, hung on the wall above the banquet table, and every time I looked up at it, a new wave of guilt swamped me. The food looked and smelled exquisite, but I couldn’t choke down more than a few carrot sticks. Leaving my plate behind, I started circulating instead, and after a few minutes I came across Tamara Grimaldi, who was standing with her back against the wall near the door, dressed in the same boxy business suit she’d worn to Brenda Puckett’s funeral a few weeks earlier.

  “You know,” I said as I stopped beside her, “I always knew there would come a time when I’d be reading the obituaries looking for the names of friends who had passed away, but I didn’t think it would happen so soon. This is the third funeral I’ve been to in less than a month, and it’s freaking me out.”

  “There’s been a veritable open season on Realtors lately, hasn’t there?” Detective Grimaldi agreed. “You’re being careful, I hope?”

  “You sound like my mother. Yes, I’m being careful. I’ve even considered buying myself a weapon of some sort, to keep in my handbag. Just in case.”

  “That might not be a bad idea,” Grimaldi said, “although you did a fine job of apprehending Mr. Lamont with your lipstick.”

  “I couldn’t have shot him with it, though. But I don’t think I want a gun. Carrying a gun is an invitation to shoot someone, don’t you think? I’d rather have something nice and safe and girly, like defense spray.”

  “I’ll give you the name of a store,” the detective said. “It might not be a bad idea to take some self defense lessons, too, while you’re at it. If nothing else, you’ll learn never to open the door to strangers.”

  “I already know that,” I said and lowered my voice. “Are you any closer to finding out who killed Lila?”

  A shutter came down over her face. “We’re working on it. An arrest is not imminent. Although we’ve found a witness who saw what we think was the murderer come out of Lila’s building in the early hours on Saturday morning. Wearing coveralls and carrying a black duffel bag.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. The next time you see Mr. Collier, maybe you’ll be so good as to tell him to hold himself in readiness for a lineup?”

  I swallowed. “Sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem. So... um... are any of your suspects here?” I looked around the room.

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Detective Grimaldi said. “Although there are people here I’ve spoken to. That’s the victim’s ex-husband over there, in the yellow. Malcolm Rodgers. He was the one who found her.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that,” I said, diverted, while I looked at Malcolm. He was a flashily good-looking black guy with his hair in cornrows, dressed in a too-spiffy mustard-colored suit. “Malcolm, I mean. You’re looking into him, I’m sure. He used to beat her, you know.”

  “No,” Detective Grimaldi said, “I didn’t know. I’ll have to look into that.”

  “He put her in the hospital once. After that, she filed for divorce and got a restraining order, I think.”

  Grimaldi nodded. “Mr. Rodgers says he got a phone call from Lila sometime on Friday night – not a message, just her number on caller ID while he was out – and he waited for her to call back. When she didn’t, and she didn’t answer her phone in the morning on Saturday, he decided to stop by. When he got there, he found her dead.”

  “He probably thought she wanted him back,” I said. He looked like the type who would.

  Detective Grimaldi shrugged. “He has a record for petty theft and drug dealing. It’s some years ago now, and he swears he’s clean, but she might have thought he knew something about the robberies.”

  “Or maybe,” I said slowly, “she recognized him. Maybe that was why she didn’t seem as distraught as Kieran Greene about what happened. And maybe she threatened to expose him, and he killed her, and then pretended to find her.”

  Detective Grimaldi smirked. “Have you ever thought of writing thrillers, Ms. Martin?”

  “God forbid,” I said piously. If I were to write anything, it would probably be a steamy romance novel, since that’s what I tend to read. “Anyway, Kieran was scared out of his mind, and I would have been too, but Lila didn’t seem too worried, did she? She even managed to flirt with one of the burglars. Which makes sense if he was her ex-husband and she recognized him. He even has pretty, brown eyes.”

  We both looked at him.

  “That’s true,” Detective Grimaldi admitted. “He’s tall, too. Not as muscular as I expected from the witness descriptions, but in padded coveralls, possibly muscular enough. Although, if Lila recognized him, do you think she’d have described him accurately?”

  “I guess that depends on how much she wanted to keep him out of jail,” I said. “Or how afraid she was of him. Kieran Greene saw him too, and the descriptions match.”

  Tamara Grimaldi nodded. “I think I’ll have another talk with Mr. Rodgers. Find out if he has an alibi for either robbery. If he has a history of spousal abuse, that’s going to count against him. By the way, the medical examiner estimates time of death between eleven and midnight. Your boyfriend doesn’t have an alibi.”

  “My boyfriend,” I said sourly, “doesn’t need one. If you’re talking about Rafe, he’s not my boyfriend. And he didn’t kill Lila. Come on, Detective. You’ve met him. Do you really think he has it in him to rape and then strangle someone?”

  “They don’t pay me to think,” Detective Grimaldi said, and relented, “It doesn’t matter wha
t I think, because on the evidence, he does. He has a conviction for assault and battery, and he’s been a suspect in quite a few other violent and non-violent crimes. Just because he wasn’t charged, doesn’t mean he didn’t do them.”

  “It doesn’t mean he did, either.”

  She looked at me for a second. “I try very hard not to arrest the wrong person, Ms. Martin. It looks bad, and opens us up for nasty lawsuits. If I arrest Mr. Collier, it will be because there is compelling evidence against him.”

  “I’m not sure that’s helpful,” I muttered. She shrugged. “So is there compelling evidence against him?”

  Her voice and face were smooth, giving nothing away. “As of right now, not enough. He fits the description of one of the burglars, and he has no alibi for the time of the murder, or for the time of the robberies. His background indicates that this is something he might be involved with. He has a rudimentary understanding of the real estate business – that would be through you, Ms. Martin – and it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to hear that someone had suggested that he tie her up and have his way with her. However, it’s all circumstantial. And whereas I could probably get permission to arrest and charge him, based on circumstantial evidence, I probably wouldn’t get a conviction.”

  “Good to know,” I said. And then added, repentantly, “I’m sorry you’re not making progress as fast as you’d like. We all want you to get whoever this guy is off the streets.”

  “No problem. I’ll find him. And when I do...” Her smile was so cold I could hear the ice cubes clinking together, and I felt a chill creep down my back. Tennessee is still a death-penalty state, and I knew that when she caught him, she’d recommend he swing. Or fry. Or die by lethal injection, which I guess is the way they do it these days.

  She added, looking around, “I don’t see Mr. Collier.”

  I looked around too, automatically. “Did you expect him to be here?”

  “He was at Mrs. Puckett’s funeral.”

  “That was mostly because he wanted to talk to me, I think. He was still trying to find his grandmother then, and he might have been hoping that she’d be there.”

  While showing up here would only reinforce the idea that he’d had a connection to Lila, and he was much too smart to do that.

  “Why, hello, Detective!” a syrupy voice said, tearing me out of my reverie. “And Savannah, too. How... surprising, to find the two of you together again.”

  I turned my head and saw Tim, who was standing in front of us, bouncing on the balls of his feet and beaming. Without the calming influence of Walker to remind him to dress down for the occasion, he was kitted out in skin-tight pants, a shimmery satin shirt open halfway down his beautifully tanned chest, and a blazer. All of it was unrelieved black, and it set off his coiffed blond hair and veneers wonderfully, but of course it was hideously inappropriate, even so. As was his demeanor, not that there was anything unusual in that.

  Heidi Hoppenfeldt was standing behind him, with a plate piled high with hors d’oeuvres in one hand and a glass of punch in the other, chewing. “Hello, Heidi,” I said politely. “I didn’t expect to see you here. I didn’t think you knew Lila.”

  Heidi shrugged, causing her voluminous tent-dress to sway. She had probably come for the food.

  “Lamont, Briggs and Associates wanted to be supportive,” Tim said smoothly, “so we came out in force.”

  “Lamont, Briggs and Associates?”

  He smirked. “Walker agreed that a name-change was in order. Under the circumstances, it seemed like a good idea. I’ve already notified the NAR, the TAR, and the GNAR.”

  “Great,” I muttered. It had been just over a month since I’d received my first batch of business cards with ‘Walker Lamont Realty’ on them, and now I’d have to toss them all in the trash and start over.

  “And how have you been, Detective?” Tim turned his 200 watt smile on Tamara Grimaldi, who smiled back, though not as brightly.

  “Very well, thank you, Mr. Briggs.”

  “I suppose you’re here in your official capacity? Lila’s misfortune was your gain, so to speak, in that you get paid to find her murderer.” Tim’s baby-blue eyes were bright and malicious. Detective Grimaldi’s official capacity didn’t seem to worry him overmuch, or at least not so much that he curbed his tongue. However, Tamara Grimaldi wasn’t the gal to take any of Tim’s nonsense lying down.

  “Much the same way Mrs. Puckett’s and Mrs. Webster’s misfortunes were your gain, Mr. Briggs,” she answered smoothly. “I wasn’t aware that you knew Ms. Vaughn. It appears I’ve been amiss. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  Tim looked like he minded, but under the circumstances, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do. He had clearly let himself in for the extra attention. I made my excuses and left them alone, resisting the urge to pat Detective Grimaldi on the back to congratulate her on a superb job of getting under Tim’s skin.

  Heidi drifted back to the buffet table, and I continued my circuit of the room, saying hello to people I knew and offering my condolences to people who looked like they had known Lila. About halfway around I came across Kieran Greene, who was conversing with the vice-president of the local association of Realtors. Unlike Tim, Kieran was somberly dressed in a beautiful, charcoal gray suit and pale pink ascot, and he was clearly in an absolute tizzy over something. When I came closer, I saw that he had buttonholed the vice-president to tell her that but for the grace of God, it could have been him lying on a cold slab in the morgue. Or rather, by now, six feet under in Detroit. The vice-president looked haunted, and I took pity on her and cut Kieran smoothly off in mid-sentence. The vice-president escaped, with a grateful nod at me, and I turned to Kieran. “How are you?”

  That simple query turned the torrent of words on me instead, and I smiled politely and let them wash over me, like water off a duck’s back. I’ve spent many an interminable hour sitting through less scintillating conversation, with my back straight and an expression on my face that said I was hanging on every word. My mother had made sure I could do it in my sleep. I could also mouth the appropriate platitudes without even thinking about what to say. “I know what you’re going through, Kieran. I blame myself too. But she has gone to a better place.”

  Kieran lowered his voice. “I saw you talking to the detective, and now she’s talking to Tim Briggs. Does he know something about what happened?”

  “As far as I know, nothing at all,” I answered. Kieran looked disappointed. I was just about to explain that Tim and Detective Grimaldi had gotten off on the wrong foot during the investigation of Brenda Puckett’s murder, when someone else spoke.

  “Hi, Savannah. I didn’t realize you knew Kieran.”

  It was Heather Price, who stuck her arm familiarly through Kieran’s and kissed him on the cheek.

  “I didn’t realize you knew Kieran,” I answered.

  “Oh, sure.” She grinned. “He’s kind enough to send me business once in a while. I return the favor when I can, although it’s not often. His clients sometimes have use for my services, but my clients usually come to me with a real estate agent already attached.”

  “Although Heather’s boyfriend has been quite helpful in decorating my humble abode,” Kieran said, smiling demurely.

  “I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I don’t know what you do. Are you involved in some aspect of real estate, too?”

  “I’m a stager,” Heather said. A stager, for those of you not in the know, is a special kind of interior decorator who comes on the scene when a house is ready to go on the market and stages it to show to its best advantage. Something like a make-up artist for houses. Some stagers fill empty houses with stylish furniture they keep on hand for the purpose, while others just go through what’s already there and put it together in better ways. Most people have way too many knick-knacks and personal items sitting around, and a stager is adept at cutting through the clutter. Tchotzkes and family photographs disappear into drawers, along with throw-rugs and refrigerator
magnets, until what’s left looks like a glossy magazine page.

  “Did you stage Kieran’s clients’ house?” I asked. “The one that got robbed three weeks ago?”

  Heather bit her lip, nodding. “Poor Paul and Simon. They lost all the paintings that Simon’s family had spent so long gathering. I felt so bad for them.”

  “It was terrible,” I agreed. “Although compared with what happened to Lila...”

  “Oh, of course,” Heather said quickly. “Paintings are just things; they can’t compare to someone’s life. Still, it was a terrible loss.”

  “I’m sure.”

  I was gearing up to ask if she had also staged the other house, the Worthington property where Lila had encountered the robbers, when an interruption occurred. This was the first time I had noticed Connie Fortunato being present, but here she was, standing at my elbow, talking past me. “You know, Heather, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about your work. Our house has been on the market for three weeks now, with no offers, and I thought maybe you’d be able to come by and give me some pointers on what to do to make it more appealing.”

  Personally, I had found the Fortunatos’ house plenty appealing, except for the mirrored ceiling in the master bedroom. I also didn’t mention that in a market where average days on the market are one hundred and twenty, three weeks isn’t much at all. Far be it from me to keep another struggling young woman from making a living. Heather lit up. “I’d love to! When?”

  “How about tonight? Perry is going out of town, and I was just planning to open a bottle of wine and take it easy. I’d love some company.”

  Heather hesitated. “Julio and I were planning to get together after he gets off work, but I suppose I could call and cancel...”

  “Oh, no-no-no!” Connie shook her head. “I wouldn’t dream of depriving you of an evening with that handsome Latin boyfriend of yours.” Kieran giggled. “Tomorrow will be fine. Or the next day. I’m not in that much of a hurry.”