[Cutthroat Business 01.0 - 03.0] Boxed Set

by Jenna Bennett

  But that’s neither here nor there. Todd and I talked about old times, and people we both knew, and his father, and my mother, and Dix and Sheila, and interests we shared, like theatre and art. Anything and everything except Rafe Collier, or any subject remotely related to him. No crimes – murders, rapes or robberies – marred the conversation, and by the time dinner was over and we were on our way back to my place, I was relaxed and mellow and feeling more kindly towards Todd than I had in a while. When he took me in his arms outside the door, I was pliant enough that the kiss developed into an embrace more passionate than I was comfortable with in the hallway outside my apartment.

  All in all I have to say I was relieved when he let me go and stepped back. My voice sounded funny when I thanked him for dinner, and so did his when he answered. It was husky and low. “You’re welcome. Any time. Good night, Savannah.”

  “Good night, Todd,” I said, and I didn’t look up until he had turned around and was walking away from me down the hallway toward the stairs.

  * * *

  Gary Lee and Charlene did not call me on Sunday morning, and neither did Beau Riggins. Beau I could forgive – he was probably sleeping in, after his no doubt exhausting night with his Latin spitfire – but I was seriously put out with the Hodgeses. Their behavior was totally inappropriate and disgusting, and I felt foolish for letting them con me again. They’d probably had themselves one last quickie under the mirrored ceiling while I was standing on the front porch waiting for them finish, and now I’d never see them again. Maybe everyone who’d warned me about getting into real estate had been right. Maybe I really wasn’t cut out for it. Surely Tim would have caught on much sooner than I had – especially considering how sex-fixated he was – and I wouldn’t be surprised if Rafe had had his suspicions last weekend, too, at the Fortunatos’ house. There had been something in his voice and his eyes at the time, that I had taken for just the usual amusement, but in retrospect, I thought he had probably been having a good, if silent, laugh at my expense.

  And where the hell was he, anyway? Wendell had assured me that he was still in town, so why didn’t he get in touch? I could understand why he’d want to stay away from Detective Grimaldi, who’d probably lock him up if she saw him, but surely he could spare the time to give me a call? Especially after the conversation we’d had in the car on Thursday, and the way we’d been interrupted.

  Or maybe that had all been an act, too. As gullible as I seemed to be, an accomplished liar like Rafe could probably play me like a violin. Which just went to show that I should just give up trying to make my own way in the world, and when Todd proposed again, which he was bound to do sooner or later, I could say yes and put all this aggravation behind me. I wouldn’t have to worry about making ends meet, or converting prospects to clients, or making sales… I could just marry someone who’d take care of me, and be the perfect wife and, in a year or two, the mother that my mother taught me to be.

  But first, there was Perry Fortunato’s open house to get through. And I was still a Realtor and had an image to uphold, so I dressed in proper business attire – black skirt and pink blouse with high-heeled pumps and pearls in my ears – and set out for Brentwood.

  The open house sign had been put in the yard – probably by Perry himself – and he was just leaving when I pulled up into the driveway. When he saw me, he got back out of his car and waited for me to stop mine before he grabbed the door handle and opened my door for me. “Good afternoon, Savannah.”

  Considering that his wife had only been dead for a couple of days, and wasn’t even in the ground yet, his gaze was a mite too appreciative. He had dark rings under his eyes, however, and looked like he had lost weight since last week, so I decided to cut him a break. “Good afternoon, Mr. Fortunato. Thank you.”

  He smiled. “No problem. Let me get that for you.” He leaned into the car, brushing up against me on the way, and grabbed my bag of paraphernalia – scented candles, sign-in sheets, pens, and so on – from the passenger seat.

  “Thank you,” I said again.

  “No problem. Let me walk you in.” He started up the stairs, and I had no choice but to follow, although I didn’t really want the company. It’s always recommended that an owner leave his or her open house to the agent, so as not to make any visitors feel uncomfortable, plus, I really didn’t enjoy Perry’s attentions. Bad enough that he’d been paying attention to me in the first place, being a good ten years too old for me and married to boot, but now, with his wife lying on a slab in the morgue…!

  However, I needn’t have worried. He opened the door and walked the bag into the kitchen, where he left it on the island and turned to me. “Anything else I can do for you before I go?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve been here before, I know where everything is.”

  “I put the open house sign in the yard,” Perry said, like a little boy fishing for praise.

  “I noticed. Thank you.”

  “There are sodas and things in the fridge if you get hungry or thirsty, and of course there’s the bar in the den…”

  “I’m on duty,” I said with a smile, “so I’m afraid drinking is out of the question, but thank you.”

  He looked around vaguely. “Connie had some magazines and such sitting around, in case you get bored. There’s no ad in the paper today, so you may not get a whole lot of visitors.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, wondering why he didn’t just leave. “Thanks for your concern, but I brought a book, just in case.”

  Perry stuck his hand into the bag and pulled the book out. It was the same bodice ripper I’d tried to read for the past few days, without luck. I’d figured if I brought it here, where I had nothing else to do, maybe I’d actually get through it. However, when Perry looked at the cover and arched his brows and pursed his lips, I flushed in embarrassment. Like all of Barbara Botticelli’s books, the cover showed a swooning blonde whose blouse was gaping open over her more-than-ample breasts, being leered at by a swarthy and bare-chested rogue. The rogue in this case was a pirate, as evidenced by the sea in the background and the skull-and-crossbones waving in the breeze. The girl was tied to the mast of the pirate ship, and the title, emblazoned in crimson letters across the top half of the book, proclaimed her as ‘Pirate’s Booty’. The double entendre was no doubt intentional.

  I waited for Perry to comment, but he didn’t, just dropped the book back into the bag, and asked, “Are you expecting company?”

  I wrinkled my brows. That was the point, wasn’t it? For people to show up?

  “Your boyfriend,” Perry clarified. “The one who was here last weekend. Are you expecting him again?”

  Oh.

  “He’s not my boyfriend. And no, I’m not expecting him.” Of course, I hadn’t expected him last week, either, but at least then I’d told him beforehand that I was going to be here. Today, it would take almost supernatural powers to find me. That realization was a little uncomfortable; not because I suspected Perry of anything in particular, other than of trying to flirt with me under circumstances when he really shouldn’t be, but because two women were dead and I didn’t want to end up as third time unlucky.

  For a second I thought about asking Perry to stay, but then common sense prevailed. I’d just use the phone to call someone as soon as he left. And if I kept the doors closed, and made sure I didn’t let anyone in who looked the least bit suspicious, I ought to be all right.

  “Why do you ask?” I added, belatedly.

  Perry made an apologetic moue. “I don’t mean to offend...”

  “Don’t worry.” My voice was dry. “I know him too well to take offense at anything anyone has to say about him.”

  “Well...” Perry still looked apologetic. “If you’ll forgive the impertinence, he didn’t seem like the type of person I’d expect would interest a well-brought-up young woman like yourself. I was wondering if perhaps he was using you.”

  “Oh.” I blushed. “No. He’s not.”

  �
�Not necessarily in a sexual way,” Perry said, with a penetrating look at me. “But perhaps... well, I wondered if he might have had something to do with what happened to my poor, dear Connie. That he was using you to gain entrance to the house.”

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I trust him,” I said firmly. “I know he wouldn’t kill anyone.” Stealing the painting, yes; I could maybe see that. But not murder. And certainly not rape and murder. “He’s not the type who has to resort to rape to get a woman. No offense.”

  Perry didn’t answer, just looked at me. For long enough to make me squirm.

  “If you say so,” he said – finally! – and headed for the door.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, which I did my best to hide with a breezy goodbye. And then I waited for him to disappear down the drive before I locked the door behind him and went back to the kitchen to find my phone.

  I wish I could tell you that the open house was a smashing success and that several people showed up who seemed seriously interested in buying the place, but unfortunately, such was not the case. In actuality, nobody showed up at all, save for a couple who seemed to find the opulence of the house a little oppressive, and a few gawkers who mostly were interested in seeing the bedroom where the murder had taken place. I’d dealt with the same phenomenon after Brenda Puckett’s death, when I hosted an open house at 101 Potsdam Street. The one where Walker tried to kill me. At least no one was trying to hurt me today, and no one was chanting and trying to contact Connie’s wandering spirit, either. Thank God.

  Just before 3:30 Beau Riggins finally called. “Good afternoon, gorgeous.”

  “Same to you,” I said.

  Beau giggled. “What are you doing with yourself?”

  “Hosting an open house at the Fortunatos’. You?”

  “Just rolling out of bed. Late night.” As if to provide proof, he yawned and then apologized.

  “No problem,” I said. “Now that I’ve got hold of you, would you be willing to answer a couple of questions for me?”

  “For you,” Beau said expansively, “anything.”

  “Thank you. It’s about the open house robberies and the murders. You know, Lila Vaughn’s murder, and now Connie Fortunato’s.”

  Beau shuddered. I could hear it through the phone. “Awful business. Just shocking. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to go back to the Fortunatos’ again.”

  After a moment he added prosaically, with most of the drama gone from his voice, “Of course, I may not have a job there anymore. With Connie gone, I doubt Perry’ll keep me on.”

  “Perry doesn’t swing that way?”

  I meant it facetiously. Beau took me seriously. “Oh, no. Perry’s got his problems, but that isn’t one of them.”

  “What kind of problems does he have?”

  I hadn’t contacted Beau to find out about Perry Fortunato – I was more interested in Beau himself, and the coincidence that he’d worked for all three of the houses that had had items stolen – but I thought discussing Perry might open the door for further confidences. If I gave him the chance to tell me about Perry first, maybe he’d be more willing to talk about himself later.

  “Money, mostly,” Beau said with an audible shrug. “He likes to visit pay-per-click porn sites, from what I understand.”

  Eeeuw. “How can he afford to pay your salary if he’s wasting all his money on the internet?”

  “Oh, it isn’t his money,” Beau said. “Or I guess it is now. But Connie was the one with the money. Her father made a pile in the stock-market – one of those guys who started with nothing and ended up raking in money the way the rest of us rake leaves in the fall – and he left it all to his little girl when he died. Perry’s been making inroads, but the money is Connie’s. Or was.”

  “So it was Connie who was paying you.” And presumably watching him swing his feather duster.

  Beau knew what I was thinking. “She was a nice lady. I’m gonna miss her.”

  “And her money.”

  Beau giggled. “There are plenty of other people who’ll gladly pay my salary, sweetie. I won’t be hurting. But I liked her. She deserved better than that idiot she married.”

  “Somebody else said that, as well,” I said. “That same someone also told me that you work for all three of the houses that have been robbed.”

  I had hoped for some kind of reaction, but I got none at all. “I work for a lot of people,” Beau said.

  “Mr. Givens,” I said, “and his boyfriend. The Caldwells and the Fortunatos.”

  “So?”

  “So don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that three of your clients have been robbed in the past three weeks?”

  “Maybe so,” Beau said, “but that’s all it is. A coincidence. I didn’t rob anyone. Why would I? I make good money doing what I do.”

  “Not as good as you could on what went missing. Paul and Simon’s art collection must have been worth a pretty penny, and I’m sure the Fortunatos’ O’Keeffe was worth even more.”

  Beau mentioned a price that made my jaw drop and my eyes bug out of my skull. “How do you know?”

  “Heard them talking about it,” Beau said. “I was dusting that little room of Perry’s behind the master bedroom, and I guess they didn’t realize I was there.”

  “Perry has a room behind the master bedroom? I never noticed it.” And as a result, never mentioned it to any potential buyers, either. Granted, in a house this size, one little room wouldn’t make much of an impression, but still: a room is a room.

  “You won’t,” Beau said, “unless you know it’s there. It isn’t a secret or anything; it isn’t even much of a room. More of a big closet, really, behind the other closet. With racks to hang clothes and shelves to store things on. He keeps his dirty magazines in there, and his collection of porn videos.”

  “Yuck!”

  “A lot of people have goody-drawers,” Beau said tolerantly. “Perry’s goody-closet is a little bigger than most, is all.”

  “Double-yuck! Oh, gack!”

  Beau chuckled. “You should see Paul and Simon’s goody-drawer. Perry’s collection looks tame compared to theirs. And there’s not much in the way of… um… tools. Anyway, I was there, dusting, and they started arguing in the bedroom. Perry asked for money, and Connie said no. He brought up the O’Keeffe, saying that she wasn’t hurting for money with that thing hanging on the wall, and she could afford to give him some more. But Connie refused, and told him if he didn’t stop wasting her daddy’s money on online whores she’d divorce him, and they got into a filthy row, which ended with him banging out and slamming the door.”

  “Yikes,” I said.

  “Yep. And then Connie freaked out again when she realized I’d heard the whole thing. I had to do some stuff I’m not proud of to calm her down.”

  He was on the other end of the phone line – for all I knew on the other side of town – or I’m not sure I would have dared to challenge him. “I don’t suppose you mean that you tied her to the bed and strangled her?”

  “Of course not!” Beau said. “I told you, I liked her. I’d never do anything to hurt her. If you have to know, I slept with her.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. It wasn’t that bad.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “I can’t imagine why she put up with Perry’s crap.”

  I couldn’t, either. Bradley has been normal to the point of boring in bed, but if my husband had had a goody-closet full of dirty magazines and videos, I couldn’t imagine letting him touch me.

  “So was that all you wanted to know, darling?” Beau asked.

  “Pretty much, I guess...”

  “In that case I’m going back to bed. All this talk about goody-drawers has put me in mind of certain things. I’ll talk to you later.” He hung up before I had the chance to say goodbye, let alone to thank him for his help.

  * * *

  Of
course the mention of Perry’s secret closet had piqued my interest. Not because I wanted to look at his collection of dirty magazines and videos, let alone his sex-toys, but we have a secret room at the Martin plantation too. Rumor has it that a Martin lady from the time of the War Against Northern Aggression hid a Confederate spy there while the Union soldiers were mucking about outside. Which was a whole different ballgame than what I found in Perry’s cubby.

  As Beau had said, the ‘secret’ room wasn’t all that secret once you knew where to look for it, and it also wasn’t much of a room. More of a walk-in closet, really. The access was through a wall of shelves that swung out when I pulled on it. I stepped into the small space and looked around.

  Beau hadn’t been kidding. There must be hundreds of dirty magazines in there, in stacks on the shelves. Most of them looked well-used, as if someone had been thumbing through them a lot. And they weren’t the soft, suggestive variety of which Dix had owned a couple back in his teens. (He’d hid them under the mattress in the old slave cabin so mother wouldn’t find them.) These were the hard-core kind, with nothing suggestive about them at all. If Perry had been my husband, he would have ceased to be so as soon as I got a look at his collection. To call it disturbing didn’t even begin to cover it.

  The movies were of the same caliber, with titles that made me blush, although a few looked like home movies. They were dated, not labeled. Counting back on my fingers, I realized that the last one was dated for Friday a week ago, which just happened to be the day of Lila’s murder. There was also a folder with photographs, some of which Perry must have downloaded off the internet, and some of Connie. One was of Connie with a man, one who looked a lot like Beau Riggins. I turned it face down, blushing. How totally icky of Perry, to photograph his wife having sex with someone else.

  Entirely apart from the fact that the display was making me feel nauseous and creeped out, I didn’t want to linger in the secret room too long. It was getting on for 4 PM and the end of the open house, and I had a duty to Perry – no matter how disgusting he was. I was just about to close the shelves behind me when I noticed a black gym bag over in the corner. It looked out of place; where everything else in Perry’s personal space was obsessively neat and orderly, the bag seemed to have been negligently tossed there at some point. Curiosity got the better of me, and I tiptoed back into the little room and dragged it out from under the shelf. It had a zipper across the top, and when I pulled it, the bag opened. I stuck my hand in, grabbed the topmost thing – black and woolen – and pulled. And dropped it with an exclamation a moment later. It was a black ski mask.