[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  It was Heather’s turn to shake her head. “Julio never wants to stand in the way of my career. Maybe I can meet him early, and then come by your house later.”

  As they started talking about specific times, I excused myself to wander off, leaving the two of them and Kieran together.

  It was just another few steps later that I came across another familiar face. Beau the beautiful house boy was here, in his jeans and leather jacket, although with an Oxford-shirt shielding the rest of his gloriousness from view. He was engaged in an animated conversation with several Realtors – all of them gay men; the profession attracts more than its fair share – and he flashed me a grin and a finger-wave, but didn’t stop discoursing to say hello. I could hardly blame him for the omission; the Realtors were hanging on every word that fell from his delectable lips, and I felt certain he’d pick up more work than he could handle from this appearance. Of course it’s horribly gauche to ply one’s trade at a funeral, but Lila would have approved; had she been alive, she would probably have done the same thing.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The party – excuse me, funeral – broke up shortly thereafter, as all the Realtors – and Beau – ran off to their next appointments. I headed out myself too, although I didn’t have an appointment to go to. Before I went, I looked for Detective Grimaldi, to share what I had just found out about Heather Price, and to suggest that she look into the background of Beau Riggins, whom I knew swung his feather-duster in the house where Kieran had been robbed, and who, considering he’d been present at Lila’s funeral, might have a connection with the Worthington property as well. But the detective was nowhere to be found. When I tried to call her, her voice-mail picked up. I hoped her disappearance meant that she had caught a break in the case and was on her way to arrest someone for Lila’s murder, but in actuality, it probably just meant that someone else had dropped dead, and her focus had shifted from Lila onto some other unfortunate victim. I left my information on the voice mail and went home.

  I didn’t have any plans for the rest of the evening, so once there, I did like Connie Fortunato and made myself comfortable on the sofa with a bodice ripper novel and a glass of white wine. But no sooner had I gotten to the first love scene, than the phone rang. The number on the display was familiar, and I felt my heart start to speed up. It took effort to keep my voice steady. “Hiya, Dix.”

  “Do you want the bad news or the worse news first?” my brother answered.

  I arched my brows. “I’m not sure. If you’re telling me both, I don’t suppose it matters.”

  “And it isn’t like you care what anybody says about Collier anyway,” Dix said.

  I pretended I couldn’t hear the sarcasm. “I prefer to make up my own mind. So you’ve spoken to Cletus?”

  “I’ve listened to Cletus,” Dix corrected. “Cletus spoke to me.”

  “I see,” I said.

  “No,” Dix told me, “you don’t. I called him and said I wanted to check up on a story that Todd Satterfield had told me about Rafe Collier, and that was all I got out, because Cletus started raving. Is it true that Cletus’s ex-wife is living with Collier?”

  “She’s taking care of Rafe’s grandmother,” I said. “They needed a nurse, she needed a job, and I don’t think Rafe’s there a whole lot, so I guess she has to live in. At least that was how he explained it to me.”

  “It isn’t how Cletus explained it to me,” Dix said.

  “Marquita is 300 pounds and has all the cuddliness of a Rottweiler. I’m sure Rafe can control himself.”

  Dix didn’t answer. “He went on and on for hours – at least that’s what it felt like – but eventually he cooled down enough that I could ask him about Elspeth Caulfield.”

  “And?”

  “And he confirmed that there was something between them in high school.”

  “Between Elspeth and Rafe?” Stupid question – the answer was obvious – but it gave me a few extra seconds to think.

  “Of course between Elspeth and Rafe.”

  “Damn,” I said. “Darn, I mean. I didn’t want it to be true.”

  “Sis...” Dix began, and his voice was worried, like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “Oh, get real, Dix. How often do I have to tell you I’m not interested in him that way?”

  And even if I were, what he was doing twelve or fourteen years ago wouldn’t be any of my business anyway.

  “But,” I added, “it’s awfully difficult to imagine Elspeth having anything to do with him, isn’t it? He’s not so bad now, but back then, he was nothing but trouble, and if I remember correctly, Elspeth was a prim and proper preacher’s kid.”

  “So you’re thinking that if something happened between them, she was forced?”

  “Maybe not forced, exactly. I don’t think he would force himself on anyone. Coerced, maybe. Prevailed upon.” Teenage boys can be very persuasive when they want to be, and Rafe could probably be more persuasive than most. “Didn’t Cletus tell you what happened? According to Todd, he was there when whatever it was, did.”

  But Dix said that Cletus hadn’t gone into detail. “All he said was, there was something between them back then. It was during his and Collier’s last year at Columbia High – your first year, my third. The next fall, her parents took her out of school and she never came back.”

  “Rafe was in jail by then,” I said. “That fight with Billy Scruggs happened during the summer.”

  “And that didn’t have anything to do with it?”

  Not as far as I knew. “Rafe said Billy Scruggs had beaten LaDonna black and blue, and when she refused to report him, Rafe decided to show Billy how it felt. He didn’t say a word about anyone else being involved.”

  “In that case,” Dix said, “I’m sure no one else was. Elspeth could have been four or maybe even five months pregnant by August or September, which would put whatever it was back to April or May.”

  “If she was pregnant at all,” I reminded him. “And the only person who’d know that, is Elspeth.”

  “And Collier,” Dix said.

  I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. “He’d know whether she’d had the opportunity to have gotten pregnant, at least by him, but she’s the only one who’d know if she did. He’d only know if she told him. And that is if she told him the truth.”

  Dix conceded my point. “So what does that mean? You’ll have to talk to Elspeth?”

  I grimaced. “It may come to that. My main concern isn’t actually with whether she was pregnant or not. That’s personal, and none of my business. Although if she did have a baby and it’s out there somewhere, Rafe ought to know.”

  “But surely it isn’t your place to tell him,” Dix protested.

  He was probably right. Although someone should. “Todd intimated that whatever had happened back then, didn’t reflect well on Rafe, and if she can accuse him of rape, that’s not going to help his case with Detective Grimaldi at all.”

  “I see,” Dix said. He didn’t say anything else, but I could hear his thoughts loudly and clearly.

  “I love you, Dix,” I said. “Don’t worry, OK? If I thought he was dangerous, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him.”

  “That’s good to know,” Dix said in a half-choked voice. “Are you out of your mind, sis? He is dangerous, and you know it; you just refuse to acknowledge it.”

  “Let me rephrase,” I said. “If I thought he was a danger to me, I wouldn’t have anything to do with him. But he’s not. He won’t hurt me. On that score, at least, you can relax.”

  “I’m not sure that’s possible,” Dix said and hung up. I made a face and did the same.

  And then I tried to get back into the bodice ripper, but found that the token struggles of the petite, blond heroine left me cold. More than that, chilled. Somehow, she ended up looking a lot like Elspeth Caulfield – a glorified Elspeth, since I couldn’t remember her well enough to picture her features – while the dark and dangerous rogue in whose arms
she was swooning, had Rafe’s face and physique. I closed the paperback with an irritated snap and tossed it across the room. I meant for it to land on the other chair, really I did, but somehow it smacked against the wall instead. Hard. Quite unintentionally, of course.

  I got to my feet. It was still early; maybe I could get hold of Rafe and ask him what had happened. If nothing had – nothing illegal, immoral or embarrassing – maybe he wouldn’t mind telling me.

  * * *

  The house at 101 Potsdam Street was mostly dark, except for a flickering light in the kitchen window. I knocked on the door and waited.

  “Oh,” Marquita said when she saw me, “it’s you again. Rafe ain’t here.”

  “I assumed as much,” I said, “seeing as there’s no motorcycle. When will he be back?”

  Marquita shrugged. She was wearing turquoise scrubs today, and they undulated gently whenever she moved. I glanced across her shoulder into the semidarkness of the house.

  “Is Mrs. Jenkins around?”

  “She’s sleepin’,” Marquita said, in a tone that dared me to do something about it. Of course I didn’t, not only because the poor old dear needed her sleep, but because there wasn’t anything she could tell me. She hadn’t known Rafe when he was in high school.

  “Would you mind if I asked you a question?”

  Marquita blinked, and I could see that she was weighing her options. Refuse outright, or play along while retaining the right to refuse later? “What?”

  “You knew Rafe in high school, right?”

  “Sure,” Marquita said.

  “Do you remember a girl named Elspeth Caulfield?”

  “Bitch,” Marquita said.

  I blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Why you wanna know ‘bout Elspeth Caulfield?”

  “Your ex-husband told my brother that Elspeth and Rafe had... um... been together in high school. I was just wondering if it was true.”

  Marquita folded her massive arms across her even more massive chest. Dolly Parton, the queen of cleavage, has nothing on Marquita. “You gonna stop chasin’ him if I tell you it’s true?”

  “I wasn’t aware of chasing him,” I answered, with dignity. “But you know what? You don’t have to tell me. I’ll just ask someone else instead. Like Rafe. Or Elspeth.”

  Marquita muttered something. It sounded like a repetition of that word that rhymed with witch, so I decided not to ask her to elaborate. Instead I just added sweetly, “Don’t bother telling Rafe I here. I’ll probably see him before you do. He knows where to find me when he wants me.”

  Marquita’s only comment was to slam the door in my face. I wasn’t surprised; in her position, I would have done the same thing. If I could have. The door must have weighed almost as much as she did, and Marquita managed to close it with a no doubt satisfying bang.

  It was way too late in the day to drive down to Sweetwater to track down Elspeth, but that was OK. Common courtesy dictated that I should call ahead to tell her I was coming.

  Or maybe not; maybe it would be better to take her by surprise. It’s horribly ill-bred to show up uninvited and unannounced, but mother would never know, and the surprise might make Elspeth more inclined to talk. If I called first, she might try to put me off, or make sure not to be there when I arrived. I didn’t have any plans for the following day, now that Gary Lee and Charlene had cooled on the house-hunting, so maybe I could just get up tomorrow morning and head for Elspeth’s house. I could be there by ten and back home by one, without anyone being the wiser.

  That settled in my brain, I looked up Elspeth’s address online and printed out a MapQuest so I’d know where to go, and I then went back to my book again. This time I skipped the love scene and went on from there, not wanting to tempt fate again. But no sooner had I got into the action, than the phone rang once more.

  “Ms. Martin?” Tamara Grimaldi’s voice was terse, and my heart started speeding up. What had happened now?

  “Yes, Detective? What can I do for you?”

  “I got your message. I’d like to talk to you a little more.”

  “Sure,” I said, settling into the sofa.

  “Could you come by my office in the morning?”

  “Oh. I suppose.”

  “Thank you.” She made to hang up, and I yelped. She added, impatiently, “What?”

  “Is something wrong? You sound strange.”

  “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” This time she really did hang up. I went back to the book, but gave up after ten or fifteen minutes, when I realized that I’d just read the same page over and over, and I still had no idea what it said.

  * * *

  Nashville Police Plaza is located in downtown, in a modern brick building across the street from the municipal offices and the newly renovated courthouse. Detective Grimaldi’s office is on the second floor, and she was waiting for me when I got there at a few minutes after nine. “Come in, Ms. Martin. Have a seat.”

  There were two chairs in front of her desk, one piled high with a leaning tower of folders, the other conspicuously empty and free from dust. She must have cleaned it off before I came.

  “Thank you,” I said, touched and a little uneasy. She sat, too, folding her hands on top of the desk. She looked horrible, with tight lips and dark rings under her bloodshot eyes. I added, with a mounting sense of dread, “What’s wrong?”

  She looked at me in silence for a moment. “There’s been another murder.”

  “Another...? A murder like Lila’s, you mean? Who died?”

  “Not a realtor this time. The owner of a house in Brentwood, that was also on the market. She must have surprised a burglar when she came home yesterday afternoon, and he killed her. Her jewelry is missing, and so is a priceless painting that was hanging on her wall. She was found by a friend who came by to spend the evening with her while her husband was out of town.”

  “Oh, my God!” I said, wild-eyed. “You’re not talking about Connie Fortunato, are you?”

  This may sound like a giant leap of deduction, but in actuality, it wasn’t so big. Connie owned a house in Brentwood, which was for sale. I had seen the priceless Georgia O’Keeffe on her wall. Her husband was out of town, and I had heard her arrange with Heather Price that Heather would come by last night.

  “You know Mrs. Fortunato?” Detective Grimaldi asked.

  “Of course I know Mrs. Fortunato! I spent Sunday afternoon at her house, hosting an open house for Tim. I saw her again on Monday night, at the planning meeting for the Eye Ball – she’s another of the volunteers – and she was at Lila’s funeral yesterday. She asked Heather Price to come over to her house last night, to give her advice on staging it.”

  “Ms. Price was the person who called us,” Detective Grimaldi said. “Which is why I called you, because I knew, from the message you left me, that you know Ms. Price.”

  Silence reigned for a moment, while I tried to catch my breath and get my brain around the fact that another woman I knew had been murdered. Detective Grimaldi started talking, more to give me time to gather myself than because these were facts I needed to know.

  “When Ms. Price left the funeral yesterday afternoon, she drove to East Nashville, where her boyfriend has his home and his business. They had an early dinner together, and then she left and drove to Brentwood, to the Fortunatos’ house. She got there around 7:30. When there was no answer to her knock, she tried the door. It was locked, but she carries one of those digital key-code boxes that Realtors have...” I nodded, “...and she used that to get the extra key and open the door. Mrs. Fortunato didn’t answer when Ms. Price called her name, and Ms. Price thought it was strange, seeing as Mrs. Fortunato had told her she’d be home alone all evening. Also, Mrs. Fortunato’s car was parked in the garage.”

  “And when Heather walked into Perry and Connie’s bedroom, she found Connie?”

  Detective Grimaldi nodded. “Tied to the bed and strangled, just like Lila Vaughn.”

  “Oh, my God!” I said, burying my face
in my hands. “What’s going on? Who is doing this?”

  “If I knew,” Tamara Grimaldi said, “I’d be arresting him, not sitting here talking it over with you. There was no sign of forced entry, and so far, we’ve gathered a surprising amount of physical evidence – hairs, fibers, fingerprints – which isn’t so surprising after all, if you hosted an open house there this weekend. Do you keep a list of the people who visit those things?”

  I nodded. “I can keep in touch with them until they either buy something, or die of old age. Would you like a copy of my list?”

  Detective Grimaldi said she would, and gave me her fax number so I could fax it to her when I got home. I wrote it down, and then I hesitated for a moment before facing the music. “I may as well tell you. Rafe Collier’s name is going to be on that list. He showed up at the Fortunatos’ house after you finished with him on Sunday afternoon.”

  “You don’t say?” Tamara Grimaldi said.

  “He told you he would, didn’t he? Anyway, I’m sure, once you get around to matching your physical evidence, you’ll find his fingerprints all over the place. Along with a lot of other people’s, of course. There are eighteen names on the list, if I remember correctly. And then there are all the other people – prospective homebuyers and their agents – who have been visiting the house in the three weeks it’s been on the market.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any idea where Mr. Collier was yesterday afternoon or early evening?”

  I hid a grimace. “I’m afraid not. He wasn’t with me.”

  And he hadn’t been home, either. Unless Marquita had lied. Which was certainly possible; she’d never made a secret of wishing I’d stay the hell away from Rafe.

  “If you should happen to speak to him today,” Grimaldi said, “let him know I’d like another word, would you?”

  “You’re not arresting him, are you?”

  She looked up at that. “No, Ms. Martin. Not yet. I’ll need more evidence before I can arrest anyone. I just want to know if he can provide an alibi for yesterday.”