The back door Annelise’s daughter had locked the night of the murder.
If she was living her life underground, as Georgia Payne, cat lover, former glove seller, cooking student, who knew her? Especially since she had changed her looks somewhat. Just what kind of enemies could under-the-radar Georgia Payne make in the last two years since she had taken on that fake identity? Not one violent enough to kill her, I was betting.
Which kept bringing me back to her true identity as Anna Tremayne. But, here again, who were the enemies, besides the Belfiere crowd she unreasonably feared and hated? Any moonshining, parlor-game clubbers piqued enough at her to commit murder? Not likely. I think they were happy to see her go, happy to slap an Inactive status on her, and brush the dust from their collective hands.
So the question was . . .
Who was still around from her old life—up to two years ago—as Anna Tremayne, celebrity chef?
And although that seemed to be the key question, I couldn’t get around the fact that she had changed her looks. Changed her looks. As I hurried down the north side off Market Square to my car, hotfooting it around late-night amblers, I found myself stuck with what seemed like a truth I couldn’t shake: even if someone hated Anna Tremayne enough to kill her, how would he even recognize her? How?
* * *
The night was muggy enough that I thought we’d have a storm by morning, so I folded my blue butterfly chair and carried it inside with me. As I felt for the switch that turned on the track lighting in my little house, Abbie swished me as though we’d been friends forever, and I crouched to pet her. Which seemed like an acceptable delay tactic from me, in her eyes, until I got down to the serious business of a platter of chicken and liver. I speed-dialed Joe Beck and, when he didn’t pick up, left a message about helping me hunt down Donald Tremayne, who might be in his sixties by now.
As I set out a can of cat food on the counter and reached for a spoon, the breeze kicked up and sent something just a little bit moonlit and a whole lot floral through the screened window over the sink. Can the neighbor’s honeysuckle travel that far? Abbie landed on the counter just in case I thought I was going to dive into that chow without her. And then I froze. A shadow swept by the window, maybe ten feet away from the Tumbleweed. Although every instinct made me want to drop to the floor, clutching the cat, trying hard not to whimper, I did something totally counterintuitive: I leaned in for a closer look.
But, at what?
And there it was again. The shadow moved easily toward the front of my house. Setting the cat food on the floor, I frog-walked below the level of the windows, and reached up to flick off the lights. And, like Anna Tremayne that night, locked the door. The problem with my 130 square feet of living space was that it really came up short on hiding places. Or exits. If I survived the night, I was going to fire off some suggestions to the good folks at Tumbleweed.
But, hair-raising moments being what they are, I crawled into the corner and sat up against the wall, just behind the locked door, considering the situation. Which was when I heard stealthy footsteps come up my steps, and I remembered the Belfiere motto, Never Too Many Knives. Suddenly this motto seemed to contain all the really useful wisdom in the world, but any knives I owned that could do anything more helpful at the moment than peel an apple were lined up on the magnetized rack over the sink—and in plain view of the open window.
Abbie chose that moment to start meowing some comments on the fare.
Cats have no appreciation for danger that does not directly involve them.
17
From my spot in the dark I watched the brass doorknob glint as the shadow tried it.
Seriously, had I rattled enough cages, yanked enough chains, spewed enough clichés, to warrant a midnight visitor who was presumably not Joe Beck?
Could those actually be fingernails scraping at the door?
It’s fair to say my skin crawled.
And then I heard a deep whisper so close I’d swear the lips were touching wood: “Let me in, Eve.”
And now my scalp joined my skin. Because horror most definitely likes company.
“Eve,” it came again, “you’ve got to let me in!”
I sat up. “Landon?” I said in a fierce whisper.
Then came his characteristic knock in boogie-woogie time. At which point several things happened at once. I leaped up, Abbie leaped away, I slammed on the lights, and I opened the door to my cousin, who was getting an earful about scaring the bejeezus out of me. I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him inside. “Where have you been?” I yelled. “And what the hell’s the matter with you?” And: “What do you think of the cat?”
Landon looked ragged, like he’d been living on the edge somewhere, if only in his own head. He was dressed all in black—what I think they call a muscle shirt—and jeans—and I was guessing he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. Most of his great hair was tucked up under a black knit cap. With a quick look out to the road, I noticed his BMW parked on my gravel drive just off the road. He collapsed on the window seat, clutching one of my cushions to his belly. Abbie jumped up to inspect the newcomer, padding cheekily over the clutched cushion.
“Nice cat,” said Landon weakly, while I stood by shaking my head, not sure whether I should continue calling him out on his inexplicable behavior over the past two days . . . or make him a café mocha.
“It’s Georgia’s.”
And then my beloved cousin Landon Angelotta did something I had never seen in all my thirty-two years, not even when Uncle Dom died. He started to sob, his eyes shut tight. I was at his side in a flash, trying to hug him, but when that didn’t work, because he was flat out on his back, I held his hands, which were trembling. “Georgia,” was all he said through the sobs, his poor head turning from side to side like all he wanted to do was push away every bit of consciousness.
“Landon,” I said, squeezing his hands. “Landon. Some Perrier? A café mocha?” Although, if he chose the mocha, I couldn’t do anything more than tear open a packet and stir the powder into some hot water. Since a decision seemed beyond Landon at that moment, I grabbed a light comforter from one of my three shelves and spread it over him.
Abbie tried out the fabric with her claws as I pulled the Perrier out of the fridge and closed my fingers around half a lemon I still had. I sprinkled some ice into a glass, filled it with the carbonated water, and added a slice of lemon to the works.
With one hand I pulled over a chair and with the other I handed Landon this drink, coaxing him into sitting up. Abbie moved down to his feet while I plumped the cushions behind his back. Then I folded my hands between my knees and waited. For a few minutes, Landon sipped his drink and gazed out into the night. We both watched a set of headlights pass us out on the road and continue on to where it was headed. For all the unanswered—and maybe even unanswerable—questions we had between us about the murder of Georgia Payne, for a few quiet minutes it was just Landon and Eve all over again. And in those moments I actually believed nothing could touch us. He swiped the cap off his head, his fingertips touching the glass of the window like they were looking for cool air. Then he scooted over and raised a wing of the light cover, and as I snuggled in, I knew he was going to be all right. Because then I could lock my arms around him at least a little ways, and when he smiled faintly, I knew we’d be fine.
We shared the Perrier while he told me the story.
After we discovered Georgia Payne’s body and the cops came, he could tell by the way Joe Beck was acting that Georgia’s death wasn’t from natural causes. So he hunkered down and spent the next couple of days online, where he followed the trail from Georgia Payne to Anna Tremayne.
He found the restaurant reviews and reread the hysterical Anna T. blog post about Belfiere. But could the cops seriously think a few old tepidly critical reviews from her old life as Anna Tremayne would lead to a murder suspect? And co
uld the cops seriously think that one hysterical blog post about a meeting of some middle-aged chefs would lead to a murder suspect? As Landon let those points sink in, he started petting Abbie, who shot him one of those long, slow blinks that are always mysterious in a cat. But I sat there feeling kind of foolish, because what Landon had dismissed so easily in terms of the murder—anything, that is, arising from Belfiere or restaurant reviews—I had clung to like it was Maria Pia’s original recipe for osso buco that she keeps locked in a safe deposit box at her bank, with no existing copies anywhere.
He went on, “I couldn’t find a good alternative suspect anywhere I looked. Finally, I knew I couldn’t put off the visit to Detective Fanella, so I went. Just yesterday.”
“And—?” If it had been terrible, wouldn’t I have heard?
Landon sat bolt upright—the cat clung to Landon, the comforter did not—and hugged his knees. “It went okay,” he said with a tired little shrug, tucking his head into his knees for a brief moment. Then he shot me a quick, sad smile. “Only, as I sat there, saying as little as I could, Eve, without raising red flags for her”—he heaved a sigh—“I realized it was like waiting for the tsunami to hit your shore.” What was he talking about? “It was headed my way and there was nothing at all I could do to stop it. Or head it off. Or change its course.”
“Landon—”
He held up a hand, and I grabbed those same long fingers that used to be able to tag me out at first base back in our sandlot days, and I held on. “So here I am, Eve, because it’s going to get bad, and . . .” He slung a quick, gentle arm around my neck and pulled my head close to his. “I need you in my corner.”
Now I was scared. “Your corner? Why do you have a corner? There’s no corner.”
“I’ve run out of other suspects for the cops, Eve, and I can finally see the tsunami.”
“Landon, what is it? What are you talking about?”
He pulled away from me but kept his eyes on mine. And all I can say is, it’s a lucky thing I was sitting. “Anna Tremayne,” he said quietly, “was my half sister.”
* * *
So out came the Laphroaig.
And I lowered the white miniblinds at the window seat.
Abbie, unperturbed by these revelations, jumped down and sauntered back to the dinner bowl to work on the leftovers.
What followed was a whole mess of information sharing. I told Landon about the love letter from his dad to Annelise, which was news to him. As for what set him on what he was dramatically calling the path to prosecution, “It was the necklace,” he said simply. Then he reached a thumb under his black muscle shirt and tugged out a chain with a pendant: a tourmaline in a finely wrought silver birdcage. Our eyes met. “Is this Anna’s?” I whispered, remembering the one I saw hanging around her neck, the one that kept drawing Landon in for a closer look.
“It’s mine. My dad made it for me when I was a kid. I just never wear it.”
Uncle Dominic, plumbing supply baron and silversmithing hobbyist. “They’re identical.”
“Two of a kind,” he said wryly.
“Anna’s must have been her mother’s. Annelise’s.”
“I remember Dad’s telling me he had only made one other.” Landon half laughed. “I was eight and I thought, lucky thing, no way I was wearing this stupid birdcage around. And I was sorry for whoever got the other one.”
“Now we know.” From the lover to the lover’s only child. And there went Maria Pia’s certainty that all her son Dominic had gotten out of the love affair with Annelise “Tomaine” was some experience. Without a word, in the soft lamplight, I motioned Landon off the window seat, which I pulled out into a bed, at which improvement Abbie gave me a look like I had been holding out on her. Landon stripped off his shirt while I climbed into the loft and grabbed a pillow, which he caught one-handed.
Back down on the main floor, I lowered the other blinds, stopping for a second by the screened window to listen to the crickets. “Did he ever know about her? Your dad.”
“No,” said Landon, shaking his head slowly. “I honestly don’t think so.” He looked at me. “If he did, he would have done right by her.” I nodded. Uncle Dom had done right by me, and I wasn’t even his own child. He was a man who had a pretty broad interpretation of what doing right meant.
As Landon stared into what was left of the Scotch, he added, “But that’s not what’s going to bring me down, Eve.”
“What are you talking about?” I sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Anna Tremayne was my sister. My older sister.”
“So? You only just found out.”
He shook his head sadly. “That’s not the point.” Abbie was curled up and ready for the humans to get on with the business of sleeping. And she had chosen Landon. Cats always know. Besides, sacking out with the newcomer didn’t involve any complicated loft access problems.
“Then what is?”
He let out a little laugh. “I’m the prime suspect, kiddo.”
My heart started to pound. “Why?” I asked softly, ready to fight him on it.
“It’s all about the money, Eve.”
“What money? You were Uncle Dom’s only heir. Even if he had known about Anna, which we don’t think he did, he left everything to you.”
Landon lifted an eyebrow at me. “Dad’s everything, Eve, wasn’t so much everything, as it turns out.”
“What do you mean?”
“The company was tanking before he died, and yes, I got some inheritance from him . . .”
I opened my hands at Landon in the Italian gesture that translates as Your brain is as thin a pomodoro sauce made without San Marzano tomatoes.
“Most of my money, carissima, comes from Nonno.”
“Nonna?” I was confused. “Who’s still with us?” No comment.
“Not Nonna. Benigno. Nonno. Our grandfather.” He shrugged. “Not a man ahead of his times. Or particularly, oh, astute. He thought the fact that I hung out with guys made me macho.”
“Just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you’re not also macho.”
“But you get the point.”
“And the money?”
“A big fat honking bequest in his will. I went to Patty Pantuso today just to be sure I was right on the terms of Nonno’s bequest.” He leaned back. “It’s all come back to haunt me. Because now,” he said quietly, “now it shows motive.”
I could hardly get it out: “Motive?”
“The money, Eve. They’ll say it was the money. And for the life of me—and I do mean the life of me—I don’t know how to prove them wrong. I’ll never be able to convince them I didn’t know any of this until after she was already dead.” All of a sudden my beloved Landon looked about a decade older than his thirty-three years. “The money that bought my condo, my BMW, my Dartmouth days, my rich-boy lessons all over the place, my trips, my investments, the money that allows me to play at sous chef with you instead of having to get a real job—”
“Landon, talk sense—”
“It was all Benigno’s money, Eve. Not Dominic’s. It was all money our nonno Angelotta left specifically to his ‘oldest grandchild.’ ”
And suddenly—sitting there with him in the low light on a warm June night, where all I could handle listening to were the distant and dependable crickets—I understood.
“His oldest grandchild,” Landon went on, “who, up until just two days ago, before Georgia Payne came into our lives”—he gave me a wry look, both hands spread wide—“was me.”
* * *
That night I tossed so much I was surprised I didn’t toss myself right out of the loft into a heap on the floor ten feet below. Maybe I’d earn a framed picture of myself on Giancarlo Crespi’s polished mahogany bar next year for Grief Week at Miracolo. It’s always nice when you wake up and a course of action is clear. But in terms of sl
eep as a prerequisite to clear thought, I have always considered it overrated. Things weren’t necessarily any clearer on any given morning than they were the night before, only delayed.
By the time I had headed up my ladder to bed, I knew a couple of things for sure. To Landon, no one had a better motive than he did for the death of his half sister, Anna, which was understandably freaking him out. Which was why he placed the anonymous call to the sheriff’s department, setting them at the Belfiere crowd, which seemed like a good place for finding the true killer. And taking the heat off himself. So I was making it my business to get Landon out of the line of fire.
I had been so wrapped up trying to prove a case of motive against Fina Parisi or any of the rest of her Belfiereans—including Elodie Tichinoff—that I had dangerously back-burnered the other classic telltale clues of guilt for a murder—namely, means and opportunity. Much as it pained me to say the words, even silently in my own head, but Anna Tremayne had been killed at Miracolo, so it was back to the scene of the crime I would go.
But what really broke my heart were Landon’s last words before he drifted off to sleep in the presence of me and his half sister’s cat, Abbie. I slipped the cocktail glass out of his hand before it could slide from his fingers to the floor. I watched my beloved Landon shake his head dreamily. Then he murmured, “I never got to know her.”
And I knew there would always be that, even after we figured out the crime, even after we made room for her memory in our family, even after we named a particularly delicious veal dish alla Anna, even after we set a framed picture of her on the bar next year during Grief Week. There would always be Landon’s regret—“I never got to know her”—that nothing could make better. Even if it was shared. Because Anna Tremayne was as much my cousin as Landon was, more my cousin, a closer cousin, than Kayla. If it weren’t for the pesky fact that our grandfathers were brothers and she grew the best eggplant in the Tri-State Area, I would delete her from my phone contacts. (And, possibly, Joe Beck’s.)
Basil Instinct Page 22
