by Ellen Hart
“I’ve got it.”
“She should call me as soon as she makes a decision. The sooner the better.”
“Is someone else putting in a bid?”
“On this place?” She shuddered. Taking one last look around, she said, “Good luck. You’ll need it.”
Jane couldn’t help but laugh as she watched the woman scuttle out. Entering the third-floor theater from the rear, she came upon a scene that both surprised and fascinated her. Wearing a belted black sweater, gray skinny jeans, and black pumps, Octavia stood in the center of the stage looking up at a spotlight shining down on her. The interior acoustics must have been good, because Jane could hear everything that was being said. She’d seen Cordelia and Octavia go at it many times before, but never onstage. Standing in the shadows at the back, Jane felt as if she were eavesdropping on rehearsals for a Mamet play.
“And how is the prince?” asked Cordelia.
“My husband is not a prince,” said Octavia, still staring up at the spotlight. “He’s a count.”
“A vampire, no doubt.” Stopping to reorganize the drape of her white toga with gold edging, she continued. “What was it? Your seventh marriage? Eighth? Could it possibly be your ninth?”
“Why didn’t you come to Italy? Yours was the first invitation I sent.”
“You really think I should show up for every ceremony? I’d go broke.”
“Is a little sisterly affection too much to ask?”
“Vlad must miss you,” said Cordelia. She stopped circling long enough to adjust the belt on Octavia’s sweater. “I would think you’d want to get home to Transylvania before he turns into a bat and flies away.”
“I’m not the only one who’s been unlucky in love. Should I count up your failed romantic forays? We could start with the latest, Melanie Gunderson. You say it’s no big deal, that you saw it coming and prepared yourself for the worst, but I know you. She left you shattered. Mangled. Pulverized.”
“You make her sound like a blender.”
Octavia repositioned her belt the way it was before Cordelia had fixed it.
“Besides, my love life is off-limits.”
“But mine isn’t?”
Cordelia drew her arm wide and projected toward the last row of the balcony. “Your life, such as it is, my dear, is utter tabloid chaos. If the National Enquirer can discuss your comings and goings openly, surely moi can. May I point out,” she added, crisply enunciating each word, “that you said you have been gone from Italy for over a month. That brings up the next question. How much longer will you grace us with your presence?”
“You can’t act for shit, you know that?”
“Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard is what I’m aiming for. The question remains.”
“Am I that awful to be around?”
“Do you really want an answer?”
Octavia kept looking up but now shielded her eyes from the light. “The count wasn’t who I thought he was. How was I supposed to know that he saw me as a meal ticket?”
Cordelia dropped her arm, and her act. “It’s always something, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“People are forever letting you down.”
“They are. But”—she bared her teeth—“we always have each other.”
“Is that supposed to lighten my load?”
“Why is everyone always leaving me?” demanded Octavia. “This theater. It could be a new beginning for both of us.”
In the darkness, Jane cringed. She knew Cordelia hated the term “new beginning.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Octavia.
This time, Cordelia stood still as Octavia moved around her. “We agreed that we’d both take a fifty percent share of the business, right?”
“Only after you removed that travel-sized waterboard from your luggage and threatened to strap me to it.”
“But if we divide it equally, what happens if we have a disagreement?”
“Us? Impossible.”
“It’s an important question. What do we do when one of us wants one thing and the other wants something different?”
“Paper, rock, scissors?”
“We give a ten percent share to Jane. That way—”
“Wait a minute,” called Jane, rushing down the aisle toward them. “Leave me out of it.”
Cordelia tapped a finger against her chin. “I like it. Of course, since she’s my best friend, one would expect that she’d generally side with me.”
“Not if she has a brain,” said Octavia. “You have a working brain, don’t you, Jane?”
“Thanks for the kind words, but not interested.” She could tell she was being ignored.
“Now that we’ve got that settled,” said Cordelia, “let’s move on. My real estate agent said that the old chandeliers were still in the basement. Wanna go look?”
“Lead the way,” replied Octavia.
“So,” called Jane to their retreating backs, “you verbally torture each other for a few minutes and suddenly you’re Laverne and Shirley?”
“Snow White and Rose Red,” Octavia called from the bowels of stage left.
“What about my tour of the premises?” Jane called back to the empty stage. “I don’t have all night, you know.” Actually, she did, though she had no intention of telling them that.
Checking her phone, she saw that she had a text message. “Score,” she whispered, seeing Norm Toscalia’s name.
CHECKED WITH WILLIAM MITCHELL @
GEORGIA DIETRICH. NOT REGISTERED.
N.
“I knew it,” said Jane. Georgia was phony clear through. She was a manipulator. The skunk at the picnic. Jane couldn’t wait to give that little piece of information to Avi.
Sitting down in one of the seats, Jane pulled out her notebook and began to go over her chicken scratches. Noticing that there was one item without a check by it, she tapped in the number she’d found for the Carson & Keppler funeral home in Chicago, Antoine Moore’s employer.
Several rings into the call, a woman’s voice answered. “Carson & Keppler. This is Melody.”
Jane’s plan was to make it sound as if she knew Antoine. “Melody, hi. It’s Jane. I’m looking for Twan. Is he around?”
“You just missed him.”
“Nuts. We were supposed to get together for a drink later. Look, I don’t have his cell number with me.”
“Happy to help.” The woman repeated it, and Jane wrote it down.
“Thanks,” said Jane. “Have a good evening.”
She couldn’t believe it was that easy. Tapping in the number, she waited through several more rings until his voice mail picked up. A deep voice said, “You’ve reached Twan. If you’re part of the problem, hang up now. If you’re part of the solution, leave your name and number.”
She hoped she was part of the solution.
“Antoine, my name is Jane Lawless. I’m a friend of Alf Nolan, your uncle. I need to talk to you about your brother DeAndre. It’s important that we talk as soon as possible. Call me anytime, day or night.”
She repeated her number and then hung up. She had no way of knowing if he’d call back, or whether, even if he did, he’d have anything to add to what she already knew, and yet she had to cover all her bases.
34
Sometimes a woman had to perform triage on her own life. That was why Jane was at the hospital before dawn on Sunday morning. With so much in limbo—her drug arrest, the identity of DeAndre’s sister, the possibility of more murders, the fate of her relationship with Avi—Jane’s first priority today was Nolan. A nurse had called around four thirty in the morning, saying that Nolan had spiked a 103-degree temperature and that Jane might want to come down to the hospital. Jane didn’t ask any questions. She got dressed, took care of the dogs, and then hopped in her car.
Standing at his bedside, watching him breathe, in and out, slowly, steadily, she wished she believed in prayer. She felt so helpless. When a nurse came in to check his vitals, another nurse came
in directly behind her holding a syringe. “Dr. Schulman ordered a different antibiotic.”
“A third antibiotic?”
“It’s newer. We’re hoping this one will be more effective. This is his second dose.”
Jane waited while she gave him the shot.
By noon, she was standing at the window, watching a light snow begin to fall.
“Jane,” came Nolan’s raspy voice.
She rushed back to the bed. “Hey,” she said, “you’re awake. How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a freight train.”
She pressed a hand to his forehead. It didn’t seem quite as hot.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Noon.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A while.”
“How long?”
“Since five.”
“A.M.?”
A nurse came in. “Well, look at that,” she said, checking his plastic water jug. “Your eyes are open.”
“Can I have something to eat?”
“Are you hungry?”
“Something hot would be good. Soup? Toast?”
“I’ll order it up.” She took his pulse, his temperature. “You’re down almost three degrees. That’s major progress. Maybe we’ve finally found the right drug.” She patted Jane’s back as she left the room.
“You must be hungry, too,” said Nolan, lifting his eyes to Jane.
“I’m good.”
“I don’t know why you stick around when all I do is sleep.”
“It’s a quiet place to think.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
The edges of his mouth turned up. “Maybe you should take off. I’m sure you’ve got stuff to do.”
“I’ll stay a while longer.”
“Okay, until I’m done with lunch. Then you shove off, right? I’m not going anywhere. You don’t have to worry.”
“I’m not worried,” she said, cupping her hand around his. “You’ll be up and out of that bed in no time at all.”
“Damn straight, I will. Damn straight.”
* * *
Jane trudged through the freshly fallen snow up to the front door of Vince Bessetti’s house and rang the doorbell. A thirtyish woman in jeans and a bulky blue sweater appeared a few seconds later.
“Mrs. Bessetti? My name is Jane Lawless. I’m a private investigator.” She handed the woman her card. “I was wondering … I know this is a bad time, but I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.”
“Is this about my husband’s death?” she asked, her expression tight with fatigue. “The police have already been here.”
“I’m working on something else,” said Jane, “but it’s related.”
“Oh, I suppose,” she said, sizing Jane up before she let her in.
They sat down at an elegant dining room table. Jane could hear the TV on in another room.
“Did you know my husband?” asked Shelly.
“We’d met at his club a couple of times. I’ve been looking into the murder that happened there last weekend. The man’s name was DeAndre Moore.”
She shifted in her chair. “I thought the police caught the man who did it. A cook or something.”
“One of the dishwashers admitted to the stabbing. The young man who was murdered was in town looking for his sister. I have reason to believe that she may be behind the murder of several men, including your husband. I think it’s also possible, even likely, that she works at GaudyLights.”
Shelly crossed her hands on the table. “Go on.”
Jane handed her a copy of the Greek word she’d found in DeAndre’s hotel room, the same one she’d seen on Vince’s desk two nights ago. “Have you ever come across this word before?”
She glanced at it but refused to take it. “The first time I saw that word was last week after a friend of Vince’s, a man named Rudmann, was shot. The police stopped by to question Vince about it. They left a piece of paper behind with that word on it. I asked him what it meant, but he didn’t seem to know.”
“You saw it again?” asked Jane.
“Yesterday. Vince had just gone outside to get the Green Egg going on the patio. He seemed anxious that I follow right behind him with the steaks, which I told him I would, but then the phone rang as I was putting the meat on a plate, so, I mean, I had to answer it. It was my father. While we were talking, I heard a couple of pops. I didn’t think much of it. When I finally got outside—it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes—I found Vince lying in the snow behind the grill. It’s very secluded back there. His blood is still all over the snow,” she said, raising a trembling hand to her mouth. “What do I do about that? It’s still there.”
“Honestly,” said Jane, “I don’t know.”
Shelly brushed roughly at her bangs, trying valiantly to rein her emotions back in. “I thought he might still be alive, so I got down right next to him and tried to find a pulse. That’s when I noticed that he had something in his hand. It was a thin piece of metal, small, about an inch long and half an inch wide. That Greek word was stamped in the center. When the police came, they took it away with them.”
“Did they tell you what it meant?”
She shook her head. “I asked, but no one ever never answered.”
“I’m wondering,” said Jane. “Have you ever heard your husband talk about a man named Burt Tatum?”
“Tatum?” she repeated, hesitating. “May I ask where you got that name?”
“From a note DeAndre Moore wrote to his girlfriend. Apparently, his sister murdered this man while she was living in St. Louis. She took off before the police could arrest her. When she resurfaced, she was living in Minneapolis and working at GaudyLights.”
Once again, Shelly lifted a trembling hand to her mouth.
“I think Burt Tatum, Royal Rudmann, and your husband were her victims. I’m concerned that there might be more.”
“Wait just a second,” Shelly said, getting up and leaving the room. When she returned, she handed Jane a piece of yellow legal paper. “I found this on my husband’s desk last night.”
Jane read the names printed on the sheet out loud. “Royal Rudmann. Burt Tatum. Ken Crowder. Emmett Washington. Me.” She looked up. “Do you know Crowder or Washington?”
“Not Crowder, but Mr. Washington came to our house yesterday morning. He’s an airline pilot, flies for AirNorth.”
“Does he live in town?”
“St. Paul. I looked up his name in Vince’s Rolodex. The house is on Fairlawn, I remember the number because I used to live at 10927 Cottonwood Avenue in Spring Lake Park.”
Jane took out her notebook and wrote it down. Rudmann was dead. Tatum was dead. Vince was dead. There still might be hope for Crowder and Washington. “You’ve been a big help. You might want to call the police and give them this information.”
“If you think it would help.” She glanced away, wiping a tear from her eye. “We wouldn’t have made it, Vince and me. It’s hard to admit, although in a strange way, it’s easier now that he’s gone. He didn’t love me the way I loved him. I kept trying to work on myself, to make myself into the kind of woman he wanted.”
“That’s a tough way to live.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What happens to GaudyLights?”
She twisted her wedding ring. “My father gave Vince the money to start the place. Since he never paid my dad back, I guess he owns it now. Far as I’m concerned, I never want to hear that name again.”
“Makes sense to me,” said Jane.
“I’m glad you stopped by. The police didn’t have any answers. Sometimes it takes a woman to figure things out, don’t you agree?”
Jane smiled and extended her hand. “I do.”
* * *
Pulling away from the curb with Patty Griffin’s “When It Don’t Come Easy” playing on the radio, Jane headed straight for I-94, the freeway that would take her across the
river to Emmett Washington’s home. She had no idea how long it might be before Sabrina made another move. Rudmann’s and Bessetti’s murders had happened less than a week apart. Crowder was apparently another man in her crosshairs. Who knew if he was still alive or how to find him?
Washington’s house, a small one-story bungalow, sat close to the street with a single-stall garage tucked underneath and winding steps leading up to the front door. An aging, rusted station wagon stood in the drive. She rang the doorbell several times. When it seemed unlikely that anyone was going to answer, she removed a notepad from the pocket of her peacoat and wrote him a message. She asked him to call her ASAP, saying that she had information about Vince Bessetti’s and Royal Rudmann’s murders—and that his own life might be in danger. She left her card, with her cell number and her home number, stuffing both pieces of paper through the mail slot, hoping he’d call her sooner rather than later.
On her way back to Minneapolis, Jane called Sergeant Taylor and was, as usual, put through to his voice mail. She left a message, telling him what she’d learned. Her dad might have counseled no contact with the police, but Jane felt that, with several men’s lives hanging in the balance, she couldn’t just sit on what she knew. She hoped the police were getting close to arresting DeAndre’s sister, because, as it stood right now, she was still flailing in the dark.
* * *
Georgia sauntered out of the bathroom wrapped in Avi’s white terry-cloth bathrobe, vigorously towel-drying her hair. “I decided to work tonight after all,” she said, dropping down on the couch right next to Avi. “Have to be there at five thirty.”
Avi thought Georgia smelled great. She also thought she was sitting uncomfortably close. “You said you were going over to your boyfriend’s place to get the rest of your stuff tonight.”
“Ex-boyfriend.” Georgia reached for a joint and lit up. “Did they call you to come work?”
“Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“What about Dorsey? Now that we’re all living in the building, we could carpool.”
“I suppose I could go ask him.” It was an excuse to get up and put some distance between them. Even though she wasn’t all that attracted to Georgia, she wasn’t made of stone.
