Max poured the drained pasta into the large pan with the sauce and tossed everything together. “I would be willing to swear it’s one of two people, or it might be both of them working together. My old boss, Solomon, and an ex-girlfriend, Angelica Johansen.”
“Oh, my God. I know them,” I said. “Are you sure?”
“Does Solomon have a last name?” Gabriel asked, already typing something into his smart phone.
“Probably, but he never used it. Just went by Solomon. I think he tried to get his name changed legally but the court wouldn’t go for it. I don’t think anyone knew his last name.”
“Huh. Like someone else I know,” I said, casting a long look at Gabriel, who’d never revealed his last name to me. Even his business card simply read GABRIEL.
Derek checked on the toasting bread, then turned to me. “What did you know of these people, Brooklyn?”
I finished setting napkins and flatware around the kitchen table as I told them of the brief time I worked with Solomon and Angelica.
It was at least ten years ago, when I was twenty-one or twenty-two. I was an overachiever so I’d already gotten my master’s in art, and Max knew I was thinking of becoming a teacher. He was a rising star at the Sonoma Institute of the Arts and he recommended me for a summer job teaching a bookbinding class. It was a great opportunity for me and I was thrilled. But first I had to meet his boss, Solomon, the head of the department.
“I liked Solomon a lot at first,” I said as I took the bowls Max filled and put them at each place setting. “He came across as funny and charming. I watched him teach, too, and he was charismatic, very attractive, and really artistic. But over the weeks I saw that he could also be demanding and mercurial. I tried to stay out of his way as much as possible, but he threw these Friday-night parties and expected the entire staff to attend, so I had to deal with him on those occasions. It was uncomfortable.”
“Did that bastard hit on you?” Max demanded.
Gabriel opened a bottle of red wine, and Derek brought out the bread, golden brown and fragrant. He tossed all the slices into the bread basket Max had provided. I smiled at him as we sat down to eat. Everything looked and smelled heavenly. I had to take a bite before I could do anything else.
“This is fabulous,” I said. Seemed like I hadn’t eaten in hours and that just wasn’t right. The sauce was tangy, rich, and chunky, and it made me and my taste buds stand up and cheer.
“Anyway, yes, he did hit on me. Frankly, he hit on every woman,” I admitted finally. “But I just played dumb. It wasn’t hard to do since I was such a newbie. I got out of more than a few awkward situations by acting like I simply didn’t know what in the world these guys were talking about.” I batted my eyelashes to demonstrate.
“He was an arrogant jerk,” Max said.
I stared at him. “I just now realized why everyone was always leaving the party to go to the bathroom. That’s where the drugs were, right?”
“Good guess.”
“Just like every other party in the known universe,” Gabriel said, then added, “This pasta is fantastic.”
“Thanks,” Max said, then peered at me. “You really were a youngster back then.”
“Young and ridiculously naive.”
“Darling, thinking back, can you imagine Solomon killing someone?” Derek asked.
I thought about it as I scooped up another bite of pasta, then shook my head. “He was creepy, but not in a murderous way. Not back then, anyway.”
“Tell us about the woman,” Derek said, pouring a bit more wine into my glass. Ah, cabernet.
Max swallowed a bite of pasta, then said, “Angelica was a renowned letterpress artist and teacher. Her résumé was awesome.”
“Her résumé,” I said, choking back a laugh. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“Very funny,” he said, making a face.
I turned to Derek. “She was nutso.”
Max chuckled. “Well, now I might agree. But back then, I just thought she was a little intense.”
“You say tomato.” I put my fork down. “Come on, Max. She never let you out of her sight. Her possessiveness was weird. Verging on psycho, really. She was especially vigilant whenever I was around.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Because she didn’t show you that side of her. But I caught the vibe right away.” I popped a warm chunk of bread into my mouth and savored the flavor. “You know I always looked up to you, Max. We were friends. I hate to say it, but Angie seemed jealous of our history together.”
Gabriel leaned forward. “Did you spend much time with her?”
“God, no,” I said quickly. “Whenever I came around, she would make up an excuse to leave, always dragging Max off with her. The few times I spoke with her alone, she mostly issued veiled threats.”
“I’m sorry to say, I can believe that,” Max said.
“She threatened you?” Derek looked aghast. “You can’t be serious.”
“It was usually vague,” I said, “but basically she warned me not to hang around Max and their friends, or she’d make me sorry I was ever born.” I took a sip of wine. “Now that we’re talking about it, I remember being scared to death of her. I was afraid she would slip something into my drink someday, so I stopped going to the department parties.”
“I’m sorry,” Max said, then slid into a thoughtful silence.
“It’s not your fault,” I said after a minute.
“Yeah, it is.”
We all ate quietly for a while, each of us absorbed in our own little worlds.
“This pasta is incredible,” I said, trying to coax Max back to the conversation.
“Thanks,” he said, tearing off a slice of toast. “It’s funny now to hear your side of things, Brooklyn. You’re right: Angie was too possessive. I knew it all along. But she was gorgeous, wildly talented, and larger-than-life, so I put up with it. I thought she made me look good. And, I’ll admit, I enjoyed the wild side of her.”
“Men,” I muttered, not for the first time.
“A man will put up with a lot of grief for a beautiful woman,” Gabriel murmured, swirling his wine.
“She was a gorgeous disaster,” Max admitted. “And it didn’t hurt that Solomon was jealous of my relationship with her.”
“No, that wouldn’t hurt,” Derek said, flashing me a quick grin. “Men can be ridiculous sometimes.”
“I can see now that I was a complete idiot,” Max said cheerfully. “As Brooklyn would probably concur.”
“Well, I would now,” I said, and everyone laughed. “But back then, Max was like a celebrity. He had a huge following in the book arts world. His techniques for making paper were considered revolutionary and groundbreaking.”
“Okay, now you’re getting carried away,” Max drawled.
“No, really,” I said, looking at Derek and Gabriel. “He had groupies.”
“They were my students,” Max protested.
I laughed. “No, they were your fans. Solomon absolutely should have been jealous of you. You were years younger, taller, and better-looking than him. He was your boss, so I guess he could have fired you, but he couldn’t afford to lose you. I’m sure a decent percentage of people enrolled in classes at the institute because of you.”
“Thank you for the positive PR, Brooklyn, but Solomon was mainly jealous of my relationship with Angelica, not my work. After we’d been together awhile, Angie confessed that she and Solomon had dated briefly in the past, before I came to work there. She often mentioned that he wanted her back. But for some reason, she was in love with me.”
“Do you think she was seeing Solomon on the side?” I asked.
“Ah, a love triangle,” Derek mused. “Murder would be a natural outcome.”
I couldn’t help but smile when he talked like that. Clyde the cat wound his fuzzy body around my ankles, then planted his entire body on my feet.
“We were hardly in a love triangle,” Max demurred. “Angie
told me about her earlier fling with Solomon only to keep me on my toes. She insisted she didn’t like him anymore, but tolerated him to keep the peace. At the time I thought she was sincere, but now who knows what the truth was?”
“The institute sounds like a hotbed of thrills and intrigue,” Derek said dryly.
“Apparently, it was rife with drugs and promiscuity,” I said, then laughed ruefully. “And I was completely in the dark.”
Gabriel wound a small amount of pasta around his fork, then looked at Max. “So why do you think the shooter might be Angelica, if she professed to love you so much?”
We gobbled up pasta as Max collected his thoughts.
“I’d been thinking of quitting my job because Solomon was making my life miserable,” he said. “His rantings had increased and he was making the strangest departmental decisions. He’d become a petty dictator. One night after we’d been drinking for hours, Solomon suddenly threatened to kill me if I didn’t stop seeing Angelica.”
“That’s bizarre.” I stared at him, shocked.
“You have no idea,” Max said. “Solomon fancied himself a warrior and he was well-known for collecting exotic weapons. He told me he knew of ways to kill me that wouldn’t leave a trace. I took the threat seriously.”
“How did I not know this?” I wasn’t expecting an answer and didn’t get one. But none of it was fair. “He was your boss. You should’ve reported him to the school.”
“Your naïveté is charming,” Max said dryly, then faced Derek. “Solomon practically ran the school. He was on the faculty board and they made the decisions concerning scheduling, hiring, firing, which teachers got which classes. All of that.”
“So Solomon was starting to lose it,” Derek prompted. “Where did Angelica fit in at this point?”
“She was becoming more jealous and irrational with every passing day. I finally accepted that our relationship had run its course and I broke up with her. She wasn’t happy about it. She called and e-mailed constantly. Left messages for me everywhere.”
“What kind of messages?” I asked.
Max took a bite and chewed slowly, thinking. “She wanted to get back together. But then I would run into Solomon on campus and he would gloat that he and Angelica were dating again. Then I’d get another phone call from Angie denying it. They were both making me nuts. A few months later, I quit my job.”
“While I sympathize,” Derek said finally, “I still wonder how this relates to you faking your own death.”
Max smiled. He’d grown more relaxed as the meal went on. The few sips of wine he’d had must have helped. “About six months after I broke up with Angelica and quit the institute, I met a woman. We fell in love.”
“Emily,” I said.
“Yes.” He sighed. “Emily was wonderful, adorable, kind. She loved children and animals and represented everything that was good in the world. I was crazy in love with her. We announced our engagement and planned a great party to celebrate. A week or two before the party, my cell phone rang. It was Angelica. She’d gotten back together with Solomon a while before this, so I wondered why she was calling.”
“Yes, I wonder, too,” I said, bemused as always by Angelica’s logic.
“She warned me to leave town or go into hiding because Solomon had gone off the deep end and was threatening to kill me again.”
“Were you still living in Sonoma?”
“Yes. I’d planned to move to San Francisco, but then I met Emily. She taught first grade at a school near Santa Rosa, just a few miles away, so I stayed in the area. Probably my biggest mistake.”
“Get back to the phone call,” Derek said, his voice professional, crisp. “What else did Angelica say about Solomon?”
Max shook his head. “She was frantic. She said Solomon was convinced that she and I were still sleeping together. I had a sneaking suspicion that she was the one who’d put that thought into his head. She was always playing games like that with me, testing to see how jealous I could get.”
“What a witch,” I muttered.
“Yeah, she was. She told me Solomon had threatened to come after Emily, too.”
Derek leaned forward. “Did you suspect she was trying to cause trouble between Emily and you?”
“Absolutely. That was my first thought,” he said. “But that night, I parked across the street from Emily’s and when I stepped into the street, a car gunned its motor and drove straight for me. I was grazed and thrown backward. I must’ve hit my head on the sidewalk, because I was unconscious for a little while. When I woke up, I called the police. I’d recognized the car. It belonged to Solomon.”
“What did the cops do?”
“Nothing.” Max gritted his teeth in disgust.
“Why not?” I asked, outraged.
“Because Solomon was an esteemed professor at the prestigious Art Institute and by then I’d quit the institute. As far as the cops were concerned, I was just another local artist who’d once been busted for smoking pot.” He shrugged, though I could see it cost him. “There were no witnesses. Just my word against Solomon’s, and guess who they believed?”
“Oh, that’s great,” I muttered, then explained, “The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department wasn’t exactly known for its enlightened views a few years back. They have a new sheriff and things are much better now.”
“Lot of good that did me,” Max muttered, then shook himself out of his brief bout of self-pity. “So, anyway, I decided to write off the hit-and-run as one of Solomon’s drunken rants and ignore it. But over the next five or six weeks, there were a number of disturbing incidents. The brake line in my car was cut, Emily’s tires were slashed at school, and then one of her six-year-old students was kidnapped.”
“He kidnapped one of her schoolkids?” I cried. “That’s horrifying. Are you sure it was Solomon?”
“I know it was,” Max said flatly. “The boy was returned unharmed after twenty-four hours. He told his parents and the police that a nice, tall man in a mask took him to a house in the mountains, gave him hamburgers, and let him watch all his favorite TV shows. His only complaints were that he was blindfolded during the drive and that all the lights were out in the house.”
“So they kept the kid happy and in the dark.” Gabriel shook his head in disgust.
“Did you suggest to the police that they investigate Solomon for the kidnapping?” Derek wondered.
“Yeah. And I was warned that I could be sued for slander for dragging a good man’s name through the mud.”
“What happened when your brake line was cut?” Gabriel asked.
“I was lucky,” he said. “One of my neighbors was also my mechanic. He would check out my car whenever he had time, and he noticed it before I’d driven very far. But later, I was able to use the brake-line story to stage my death.”
“But why was Solomon doing this?” I shook my fist, appalled at the injustice. “What was the big deal? Not that you were, but even if you had been screwing around with Angie, why would he go to these lengths? He needed to snap out of it and get a life. Damn fool.”
Derek reached for my hand. “People have killed for less.”
“True.” I guess I was getting a little overwrought, but, really, that guy was a nut job.
“Solomon was obsessed,” Max said, “and he was getting worse all the time. And every day or so, Angie would call and warn me again.”
“I’ll bet she was in on it,” I grumbled.
Gabriel nodded. “She was getting off on the danger and the drama.”
“One of the last straws,” Max continued, “was when I got into my car one morning and heard ticking.”
“You’re kidding,” I whispered.
“No. I tore out of there and called the police. They wouldn’t even come and check my car. They just blew me off, pardon the pun. I was completely on my own.”
I reached over and touched his arm. “Poor Max.”
“What happened to your car?” Derek asked.
Max paused
, then forced himself to answer. “The following morning, I went out to the car and found an envelope tucked under the windshield wiper. I opened it up and a card slipped out. It said BOOM.”
“Oh, what a creep.” I rubbed my arms. “That gives me chills.”
“I was half insane by now,” he admitted. “The police were certain I was a deranged troublemaker. I probably was. Deranged, anyway. I was desperate but helpless. I’d never felt like that before.”
“I can imagine.”
“Mostly, I was scared to death that something horrible would happen to Emily. The kidnapping had almost destroyed her.”
“I’m so sorry, Max.”
“It had been going on for about a month when Emily’s mother, Laura, was attacked.”
“Emily’s mother was attacked?” I couldn’t take it all in. Who would carry out such a relentless campaign against another human being and his loved ones? And how had I not known about it while it was happening?
“Laura made the mistake of coming to visit my place the day Solomon tricked up my stairway with an electrical-wire device. She took a bad tumble and wound up in the hospital with multiple injuries, including electrocution.”
“She could’ve been killed,” Derek said.
“Yes. By the time the police arrived, Solomon had managed to whisk away the wire, but Laura told me what happened. She’s not a flighty person. If she said she was tripped and electrocuted at the same time, I knew it was all true. I swear, Brooklyn, by then I was considering hiring a hit man to kill Solomon.”
“I don’t blame you,” I said darkly.
“The only thing that made sense was to fake my own death. So I took Robson into my confidence and he helped me clean up my affairs, write up a will, and arrange my own death.”
“Did my father help you, too?” I asked a little too sharply.
Max frowned, then admitted, “Yes, and I was damn grateful. After I told Robson the whole story, he called your father first thing. He’s the one who met me in Big Sur and helped rig my car to drive off the cliff. Then he drove me up to Oregon and we camped out in the Columbia Gorge for a few weeks until Robson completed the purchase of this house.”
One Book In The Grave Page 9
