Dying for Dinner

by Miranda Bliss

  I was speechless. Truly. Thanks to Eve, we’d accomplished everything we’d set out to do. Sure, eliminating Victor Pasqual left us without a suspect in Greg’s death, but it was still an important step forward. Now the only thing I had to worry about-

  “There’s my little sweet’ums.” While I was busy thinking, Eve grabbed Doc out of Jim’s arms and gave him a ferocious hug. “Good news, my little honey bunny,” she cooed to the dog. “When we get home, we’re going to get your collar out of that nasty pawnbroker’s shop. And I think I won just enough…” By this time we were all staring at her, and Eve knew it. That’s why she smiled at Doc. “I think I won enough to buy you a new outfit. And one for me, too.”

  Fifteen

  SURE, IT WAS DISAPPOINTING TO HAVE TO ELIMINATE Victor Pasqual as a suspect. After all, without him, we really didn’t have any suspects.

  But honestly, by that time, I’m not sure any of us cared.

  We liked Victor Pasqual, and besides, we were all so relieved that Eve hadn’t lost her money, there was nothing that could have destroyed our good mood.

  Well, almost nothing.

  Down in the lobby, we decided to go out to breakfast before we began the long drive back to Arlington. We even included Peter (like I said, we were in good moods) on the sole condition that he stop calling us the Scooby Gang, and never breathe a word-to anyone-about the fact that for a brief moment in time, Victor Pasqual was a murder suspect.

  But no sooner had we stepped out of the Pasqual Palace, onto the street, and out of the neon aura that surrounded the hotel than a curious thing happened.

  I heard a car door slam and I was so wrapped up in getting all the details of the card game from Eve, I didn’t pay any attention.

  I should have.

  Then I would have noticed the dark sedan parked nearby, and the man wearing a ski mask who jumped out of it, darted forward, and grabbed Norman.

  “Back off.”

  The voice wasn’t familiar to me, but I knew in an instant that Norman recognized it. His mouth dropped open and even the green neon glow from down the street couldn’t add color to his cheeks.

  Jim shot forward, but the man in the ski mask wasn’t taking chances. There was a knife tucked into his belt and he grabbed it and waved it at us. Jim was closest to the flashing blade; he had to lean back to stay out of harm’s way. My stomach went cold.

  “I said, back off,” the masked man grumbled, and he tightened his hold on Norman and yanked him toward the waiting car.

  Honest to gosh, I don’t know what possessed me. I knew it wasn’t wise to try to fight off a man with a weapon. I knew it was smarter just to let the man take Norman, to commit the license plate of the dark sedan to memory, and to wait about half a nanosecond once they were gone and then call the police.

  But I’ve got to say, one look at that masked man holding on to our friend…

  One thought about the way that knife had come too close to Jim for comfort…

  Well, truth be told, I snapped.

  Eve was standing next to me so I barely needed to move at all to give Doc just a little pinch on the butt.

  Predictably, the dog wasn’t happy.

  Doc doesn’t bark. Not exactly. The sound that comes out of that tiny body of his is more of a yap. A loud, interminable, annoying-as-not-much-else-can-be yap.

  Just for good measure, Doc threw in a snarl and lunge, too.

  At the same time Eve struggled to keep the dog in her arms, Jim grabbed Norman and pulled him-hard-out of the masked man’s grip.

  And me? Taking my cue from Doc, I let out a scream that shook the windows of the buildings around us.

  I kept right on screaming, too, until the front doors of the Pasqual Palace swung open and a couple of valets and a bellhop ran outside to see what was happening.

  The masked man took one look at the commotion and ran back to his car.

  And me? I was still screaming when he started up the engine and peeled rubber down the street.

  “Ya pure mad dafty!”

  I was pretty sure I’d just been insulted, but since Jim raced forward then hugged me tight when he said it, I didn’t hold it against him. “You could have been hurt.”

  “You could have been hurt.” I pulled away long enough to look into his eyes. But only until I realized I’d missed another opportunity. By the time I untangled myself from Jim’s arms and raced to the street, the black sedan-and its license plates-were long gone.

  “Wow.”

  During the confrontation, I had lost track of Peter. Now he stepped out of the shadows where he’d apparently (and very wisely) scooted to stay out of harm’s way. He was slack-jawed and winded when he looked from Jim and me to where Eve was consoling Doc and Norman at the same time. “You guys… I thought you were kidding when you said you… I mean, I didn’t think you were serious when you told me… You really are investigating a murder, aren’t you?”

  Call it the fallout of a shock; I started to laugh. So did everyone else but Peter. Oh, and Doc.

  Doc just kept on yapping.

  MY SIGH WAS AN EXACT ECHO OF EVE’S, AND THE sounds overlapped and rippled the air. It was the first noise any of us had made since we sat down to consider the current status of our case, and I looked from Jim, sitting on my right, to Norman, and from Norman to Eve, and from Eve to (believe it or not) Tyler. Notice I do not mention Peter. We hadn’t breathed a word of this meeting to him and, though it made me feel a little guilty, I knew it was the right thing to do. A man who hid in the shadows while his friends fought off a kidnapper was not good under pressure.

  Because we were being careful, we’d decided to mix things up and meet at my apartment rather than at Jim’s house, and we were crammed around my kitchen table. I’d poured iced tea the minute everybody got there, and there was an open bag of thick, salty pretzels on the table. No one was eating them.

  But then, kidnap attempts can have that sort of effect on people.

  It was Saturday, and after driving through what was left of the night to get back from A.C., Jim had already worked the lunch crowd at Bellywasher’s and was getting ready to head back for the dinner rush. He hadn’t said a word in protest when I suggested this meeting, but I knew he was exhausted. The fact that he was such a good sport and such a good friend to Norman meant more than I can say. Not that I didn’t want to say it. But every time I thought about what a great guy Jim was, and how much he supported me and believed in me, I got all choked up.

  As for Norman himself, he wasn’t saying anything-not out loud, anyway-but I could tell he was disappointed as well as worried. He’d pinned his hopes on finding out something useful from Victor Pasqual. When that portion of our investigation went bust, and now that we knew the killer was hot on our trail, Norman ’s hopes of ever living a worry-free life again had vanished.

  Norman was edgy and out of sorts. He didn’t speak a word all the way back from New Jersey, and now he drummed his fingers against my oak table, tapped his foot against the linoleum, and kept looking over his shoulder to my one and only kitchen window. Seeing as how we were on the fourth floor, I’m not sure what-or who-he was keeping an eye out for; I only knew that when he didn’t see anything or anyone, he looked relieved. At least for a second or two. Then the drumming and the tapping and the looking over his shoulder started all over again.

  As for Eve and Tyler… well, it should come as no surprise that I was not enamored of the idea of inviting Tyler to our little meeting, but I wasn’t (as Jim had so eloquently put it) pure mad dafty, either. It was obvious that whoever the man in the mask was, he’d been following me. First to Fredericksburg, then all the way to Atlantic City.

  It was just as obvious that I’d led him right to Norman.

  We weren’t taking any more chances. We had called in Tyler for muscle.

  Did I feel better or worse having him there? I couldn’t deny that I felt more secure. Now if only he’d offer a little professional advice. If he had any to offer. So far, that hadn’t
happened, and the only thing he’d done was plunk himself down next to Eve and pat Doc (who was sitting in her lap) in a halfhearted way I suspected was designed to win Eve over.

  It was apparently working. When I got up to get the pretzels, I noticed that they were holding hands under the table.

  “Not a good idea.” I was talking about Eve and Tyler, and I was talking to myself. It came out louder than I expected.

  Maybe it was just as well; at least my comment pulled everyone out of the doldrums.

  Doc’s ears perked up. Eve’s eyes glistened. Jim turned my way. And Norman stopped the drumming and the tapping and the looking. Thank goodness! I hadn’t realized how annoying all that noise was until it was quiet.

  “If you mean traipsing all the way to Atlantic City for nothing, you can say that again.”

  The comment came from Tyler and since he was the one I was thinking about in the first place (and since what I was thinking wasn’t very charitable), I wasn’t exactly pleased. I didn’t need him to remind me of the shortcomings of my investigation. I grabbed a pretzel just as Tyler did. Across the table, we stared each other down and chomped.

  “You should have called me,” he said.

  He was probably right. Which didn’t stop me from saying, “And told you what?” It was hard to talk with a mouthful of pretzel, so I chewed and swallowed. “That we had a suspect who maybe wasn’t a suspect so maybe we should talk to him?”

  “Or I could have. Talked to him, that is.” Tyler brushed crumbs from the front of his button-front plaid shirt. Since it was the weekend, he was officially off the time clock, and he wasn’t wearing an impeccably tailored suit like usual. Or one of the dress shirts that are just a teensy bit too small so they show off the breadth of his chest.

  Tyler was not the jeans and plaid shirt type.

  He was still plenty intimidating.

  But let me make one thing perfectly clear: that is not why I dropped my head on the table. I dropped my head on the table because I felt the weight of the investigation on my shoulders and it was too much for me. I dropped my head on the table because I was worried about Norman, and sorry about Greg. I dropped my head on the table because I saw Eve scoot her chair just a little closer to Tyler’s, and there was something in that one little movement-something so intimate-that I knew once and for all that my best friend had lost her mind. Again.

  Oh, yeah, I dropped my head on the table because I knew there was trouble coming.

  And I knew there was nothing I could do about it.

  “We should have called you,” I groaned, agreeing with Tyler in what was probably a world’s first. “You could have saved us the cost of gas to New Jersey and then Eve wouldn’t have had to risk the money she got from pawning Doc’s collar and-”

  “Oh, honey!” I looked up long enough to see Eve wave a dismissive hand in my direction. How she’d had time for a fresh manicure since we got back from New Jersey was anybody’s guess. “It’s the least I could do and you know it. Besides…” No one preens like Eve. She beamed a smile at all of us that rested just a bit longer on Tyler. “I did great at that card game. That Victor Pasqual, he’s a darned nice guy.”

  “Which doesn’t mean he isn’t the killer.” Tyler ’s gaze swung to me as he said this, and the message was clear. If I was running this investigation, I was doing a mighty poor job of it.

  My spine stiffened and I sat up. While I was at it, I grabbed another pretzel.

  “Victor Pasqual doesn’t care about money. We all saw that.” I glanced around, taking in Norman and Jim and Eve, who I knew would back me up if I needed it. At least about this. “He tipped the waiter with a hundred-dollar bill.”

  “So…” Tyler snaffled another pretzel. “That means he can’t be a killer?”

  “It means he doesn’t have the motivation. If money doesn’t mean anything to him-”

  “You mean if one hundred dollars doesn’t mean anything to him. That’s a far cry from three hundred thousand dollars. For three hundred thousand dollars… well, there’s no telling what a man might do for that kind of money.”

  I bit my pretzel. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see him. Victor Pasqual is a really nice man.”

  Tyler ’s top lip curled. It made it easier for him to trade me crunch for crunch. “Nobody that rich is ever a really nice man. How do you think he got that rich in the first place?”

  “And what difference does that make?” It was Jim’s turn to get in on the action. He did it with his usual level-headed thoughtfulness. “What matters is that the man has an alibi for the night of the murder. He was out of the country. Surely the police can check that, right? You can tell if his passport was used.”

  “And that’s important.” It was, too, which was why I shot a smile Jim’s way to thank him for pointing it out. “But what’s more important is that Norman didn’t recognize his voice. And he did recognize the voice of the guy in the black sedan. Victor Pasqual is not the guy.”

  “But he could have sent the guy who was the guy. You know, a hired killer. That would explain why the guy back in Atlantic City was so persistent. A hired killer,” he pointed out, as if we all didn’t all watch our share of B movies and cop shows on TV, “is not going to quit. He’s going to try again. As soon as he can.”

  Of course we’d all thought of this. But none of us had been callous enough to say it.

  Norman ’s eyes went wide. His face went pale. The drumming and the tapping and the looking over his shoulder started again.

  If my legs were long enough, I would have kicked Tyler under the table.

  “This is getting us nowhere.” Once again, Jim was the calm, rational one, and I was grateful. It’s hard to be the voice of reason when you have a mouthful of pretzel. “You’ve told us, Tyler, all the things we shouldn’t have done. But what we really need to know is what we should do now. This maniac is still after Norman and-”

  “We’ll take care of it.” Tyler said this like he knew what he was talking about, but I don’t think one of us there around the table believed it. Not even Tyler. So far, the police had zilch. Just like we did. “We’re following leads, we’re questioning people. We’re-”

  “What leads? What people?” I had swallowed my mouthful, so I was prepared to speak again. “How can you have any leads, Tyler, when we don’t know any more now than we did the night Greg was killed? Or have you been holding out on us?” Call me naive, but I hadn’t thought of this before and, just so the notion couldn’t choke me, I grabbed another pretzel. I pointed across the table at Tyler with it. “Is there something you haven’t told us?”

  “Something like mind your own business?” Tyler reached for a pretzel, too. He bit it in half. “You’ve been going around in circles, chasing your tails,” Tyler said. “You haven’t accomplished a thing. Except…” I’ve never seen a glacier. I mean not out in nature. But I know that sometimes because of the way the light hits the ice crystals, glaciers look blue.

  Tyler ’s eyes are that color.

  They’re just as warm.

  His frosty gaze swiveled to Norman. “Except to find out your friend here is a petty criminal.”

  “The statute of limitations has run out on all that stuff,” I reminded him. Though I didn’t realize I’d done it, I found myself on my feet, staring Tyler down. “None of what Norman did justifies anyone wanting to kill him. So we’d better figure out what’s going on.”

  “No. What you’d better do is back off and let the professionals do what they’re supposed to do,” Tyler shot back.

  “He’s right, honey.” Eve didn’t look any happier supporting Tyler than I did hearing her do it. “We’re getting nowhere and-”

  “All we need to do,” Jim interrupted her, “is give Annie a chance. She’ll find the answers. She always does.”

  “No, what we really need to do is just forget the whole thing.”

  This comment came from Norman, and it was so unexpected, and spoken so quietly, it got all our attention. His shoulde
rs rose and fell before he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

  “None of this is worth watching you guys tear at each other,” he said. “It won’t bring Greg back, and it won’t keep me safe. Don’t you see? You can’t do that. None of you. If someone’s out to get me… well, maybe next time I won’t be so lucky and get away.”

  “We’re not going to let that happen.”

  Tyler and I answered together and when our gazes snapped and met, there was one second of unspoken challenge between us. That was right before we realized we were on the same page. If we could agree about this, maybe we could find common ground on finding Greg’s killer, too.

  Big points for Tyler, he let me be the one who delivered the message. I lifted my chin and fisted my hands at my sides. “We’re going to find the guy,” I told Norman. My steely demeanor may have been more convincing if pretzel crumbs didn’t dot my black T-shirt. I didn’t brush them away. “Really, Norman. We’re close. I know we are. I’ve done this sort of thing before. Tyler ’s done this sort of thing before. Plenty more times than I have.” As a sort of conciliatory gesture, I glanced Tyler ’s way. “All we need to do is reason our way through things. You know, look at everything we’ve already discovered. Think about things in a new way, from new angles.”

  Tyler slapped a hand against the table. “Exactly.”

  “So where do we begin?” Norman asked.

  That, of course, was the hard part. But I wasn’t about to let Norman know that. Instead, I collected myself and sat back down, and, hey, if I sounded far more confident than I felt… well, Norman didn’t need to know that.

  My voice cool and steady, I walked us through all we’d recently found out. “Victor Pasqual has a motive, and no opportunity, and he’s a nice guy. Three hundred thousand dollars is chump change for him. We were lucky we even got that close to him and we wouldn’t have if not for the fact that Eve pawned Doc’s collar and-”