Jealousy

by Nancy Bush

  September let that one slide. “So, who’s taking over the Linfield case?”

  “You’re looking at her, I suppose.”

  “Need some help?”

  Gretchen surfaced from her funk to eye September speculatively. “What’d you have in mind?”

  “I don’t think Lucy Linfield killed her husband. I want to talk to her, see if there’s anything else there. Wes told me about the burner phone from Glenn River and the orderly at Laurelton General. I want to see what she has to say about both of those.”

  “Pelligree was going to go to Wharton County and talk to the deputy.”

  “I can do that.”

  “That might piss her off. This is ‘police work.’” Gretchen slid September a faint smile.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “You and I never had this conversation.”

  So now she was outside the Linfield home. Whether she was going to apply for her old job back at the Laurelton PD was still up for debate, but she was determined to find out the truth about John Linfield in the meantime.

  * * *

  Kate narrowed her eyes across the table at Lyle wolfing down his evening meal without tasting it. She’d tried hard with the dish, one of his favorites, a beef stroganoff she’d always declared was one of her family recipes when she’d actually pulled it off the internet’s “All-Timey” Best Recipes, one of those homespun sites that specialized in doing everything by hand. Kate had substituted mushroom soup for the sauce with a little Worcestershire. Lyle never knew the difference.

  Mushroom soup ...

  She shuddered a little. She’d decided after John’s death that she would never eat another mushroom, but that wasn’t exactly practical. Still, she’d never liked those little caps of fungi anyway, and now when she saw them in the grocery store they looked evil. And if they were open? Those gills? She’d looked up Amanita ocreata online and had seen words like volva and veil and thought it all sounded slightly sexual and creepy.

  So, no. She wasn’t personally going to eat mushrooms, but a can of mushroom soup was benign enough. She’d tasted the stroganoff and forced herself to eat some, though Daphne had loved it before she ran off to her room, and now Lyle was forking it in like it could be his last meal.

  It was John’s last meal....

  Kate swallowed, pushing that thought aside. She needed to be a perfect wife tonight. She needed to talk to Lyle about a few things, and he’d become harder and harder to communicate with since the benefit and, well, before that, too.

  She’d sneaked his phone a few more times. Nothing for a couple of weeks and then wham-o, another mention of the pink scarf. There’d been no exchange of a scarf at the Pembroke the day she’d spied on him and Pat, so maybe it meant something else? Some kind of code?

  They were meeting again tomorrow afternoon, and now that she knew what Pat looked like, Kate intended to follow her after the meeting with Lyle, find out more about her. She had her wig and a whole lot of questions.

  But there were other topics she wanted to discuss with her husband first.

  Lyle looked over, caught her staring at him. He didn’t say anything. Just went back to eating, which kind of pissed her off.

  “You know, Layla’s surrogate is going to have her little boy in a month or so.”

  Lyle paused to take a healthy drink of water. He glanced over at his wineglass, which was empty. Kate got up and reached for the bottle of Cabernet on the kitchen counter, refilled his glass.

  What the hell? He didn’t seem to have any interest in sex anymore, so she plunged in and said, “What do you think about using her, or another surrogate, to have a boy?”

  Lyle clacked in the back of his throat. “Like we could afford that.”

  She was taken aback. “We can afford it.”

  “Not unless Stonehenge sells. Even downsizing the company takes a lot of money. Dad’s not sparing any until we get settled.”

  “Well, Stonehenge is selling. And you said you’ve eliminated positions already, and with John’s death ... I mean, that’s one less employee. . . .”

  “Dad finally let Miranda go.” He said this with a certain amount of satisfaction, and though Kate had always championed her husband against the old biddy, this time she felt a tweak of worry at his tone.

  “What about Lucy?” she asked, the words just popping out of her mouth.

  “She’s been too distraught to come in.” He dismissed his sister as he reached for his wineglass, but Kate saw the way his eyes stared into nothingness as he drank. Something wrong there.

  “But she’ll be back soon.”

  “Sure.”

  He went back for the stroganoff, ignoring the green salad and raw, cut-up carrot sticks, which she’d mainly put out for Daphne’s benefit, about the only vegetable she would eat.

  “I’d really like another child,” she said.

  “It’s a bad time.”

  “When would be a better time?”

  “I don’t know. Never?” He glowered up at her.

  “Lyle, we’ve always wanted to have—”

  “You’ve wanted it,” he cut her off. “You’re the one who says we have to have a boy, an heir for the ‘Crissman fortune. ’ That’s all you talk about. Just talk, talk, talk. Whine, really. Whine that all of this isn’t enough.” He threw out an arm to encompass their house.

  “Lyle . . .”

  “Kate, I need a break, okay? I need a big break.”

  She was stunned. Didn’t know what to say. She was the problem? She’d given her all to this marriage, above and beyond the call of marital duty. For him. For them.

  Daphne strolled in at that moment, clutching her American Girl doll, which she’d named Maddy after a long-ago friend, though the doll had come with some other name. Daphne hadn’t played with Maddy in so long that it caught Kate’s attention, and she nearly screamed when she saw Daphne had wrapped Kate’s pearls around the doll’s neck.

  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Kate declared, jumping from her seat. “What are you doing with my pearls?”

  “I just wanted Maddy to look nice.”

  “Those are expensive. You know how expensive they are? You don’t go into my room and steal my things!”

  “Oh, relax,” Lyle muttered.

  “No. No!” Kate practically yanked the doll out of Daphne’s arms and gently removed the pearls.

  Daphne blinked back tears. “Evie has jewels for Lisa.”

  “Who’s Lisa?” Kate asked, not really caring. She thrust the doll back to Daphne and kept the pearls.

  “Her stuffed animal. Her dog, from Lisa and Gaspard.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Kate.

  “Neither do I,” said Lyle.

  “It’s a cartoon! It’s about these dogs and they live in Paris!” She was sucking in air like she was going to cry. She whirled around and slammed Maddy into the couch, then stomped out of the room, yelling back, “I want to go to Stonehenge for Easter with Evie!”

  “I’m sick of hearing that,” Lyle muttered, knocking back the rest of his wine like it was a shot. Then he got up from the table, managing to pick up his plate and clatter it into the sink before he left the room.

  Kate looked down at the pearls clutched in her hand and noticed that the clasp was giving way. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered, enraged. She wanted to yell at Daphne and she wanted to yell at Lyle. She wanted to yell.

  Instead, she went back to the bedroom and said to Lyle, “I’m going to need the receipt on the pearls to take them in and have the clasp fixed.”

  “What?” he muttered. He was in the bathroom and the door was nearly closed.

  She pushed in and found him standing at the sink, staring at his reflection. His eyes met hers in the mirror. “I need the receipt for the pearls. The clasp is—”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “—broken. I can take care of it.”

  “No.”

  She thought about it a momen
t and said softly, “You don’t want me to see the price, do you? I think I can handle it.” She smiled broadly.

  “I don’t want you to see the price,” he agreed, giving her a tense smile.

  “What jeweler did you go to?” He’d dropped the pearls into her palm while her eyes were closed. They’d nestled into her palm, and when she’d opened her eyes, she’d gasped.

  “I’ll take them to get fixed.”

  “Lyle, I can—”

  “I’ll take them. Okay?”

  His glare was enough to stifle her, so she just nodded and said, “I’ll leave them on your nightstand?”

  “Fine.”

  Kate pooled the pearls on Lyle’s nightstand, looked at them for a moment, then returned to the kitchen and family room. Maddy was sitting on the couch, staring at her with glassy eyes that were kind of creepy, but Kate looked past her, concentrating on an inner vision of Lyle at Crissman’s jewelry counter, purchasing a strand of cheap pearls for under a hundred dollars to fob off as something expensive on his unsuspecting wife.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When the doorbell rang, Lucy was slowly chewing on the last bite of a grilled cheese sandwich—Evie’s choice—while Evie sat at the kitchen table and worked on a homework assignment with Lisa the bejeweled dog seated on a chair beside her.

  Lucy glanced at the clock. Seven p.m. She looked through the window to the heavy rainfall that had plagued them all day.

  “I’ll get it!” Evie yelled, nearly knocking over her chair in her haste to answer the door.

  “Wait.” Lucy followed her. God knew who it could be. The police, maybe. No, the police probably, Lucy decided, with a fearful nosedive of mood.

  She was right. Peeking through the sidelight, she saw the woman detective who’d helped her wrestle John into the Audi at the benefit standing on the porch. Oh. Dear. God. “Hello,” Lucy said carefully as she opened the door. What was her name? Something unusual, Lucy thought, but couldn’t call it up.

  “Mrs. Linfield, I’m sorry to bother you. I just wanted to talk to you. I’m . . . interested in what happened to your husband.”

  “I have an attorney now. Dallas Denton. He told me not to talk to the police unless he was with me.”

  The young detective’s interest sharpened on her. “I’m not with the police.”

  Lucy blinked. She sensed Evie beside her, taking it all in, and shooed her back to the kitchen and her homework. “I saw you on TV,” Lucy said, eyeing her.

  “Yeah. I imagine you did. But since then, I was let go by the Laurelton Police Department because I was the last hire and they were cutting expenses.” She flashed a smile. “So, I’m here on my own.”

  “Why?” Lucy asked. She didn’t really believe her. Not with everything that was happening.

  “Because I want to know what happened. Why someone anonymously called the Wharton County Sheriff ’s Department and told them to look for the angel of death mushroom poison as the cause of death, someone who obviously knew what would be found.”

  “And you think I did it?” Lucy asked, feeling dizzy. She clutched the doorjamb and fought the sensation.

  “No. I don’t. But someone did, and I’d like to know who that someone is. The police are still following your husband’s case. It appears to be a homicide. I know some of the things they’ve learned, but I . . . want to help.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She chuckled ironically and shook her head. “Call it the need to find a criminal. Or maybe it’s boredom from not having a job. Either way, would you mind talking with me? You can certainly call your lawyer. I’ve heard of him but never met him. I have met his brother, Luke Denton. We ended up working a case together just before I left the department.”

  Lucy looked into her face. September, she remembered. Her name was September. She opened the door wider and let her in, aware that she might be making a huge mistake, equally aware that she needed help.

  And though she had Dallas’s card and could call his work number, and maybe he would get the message tonight, she didn’t think she would place the call. Layla ran on instinct, and this time Lucy did, too.

  * * *

  Naomi appeared pleased to see Layla with Neil. Pleased and relieved. She led them into her house, which was comfortably messy, with a few dirty dishes left on the counter from dinner. Her husband was home, but he slid his plate into the sink and disappeared from the living room, shooing their children ahead of him. “Come on, kids, let’s see what’s on,” he said, stepping into a TV room while Layla and Neil talked to Naomi.

  “I’m big as a house,” Naomi half-apologized, but it was an out-and-out lie. She’d gained weight since Layla had last seen her, but it was all concentrated in her belly. Her face actually looked thinner.

  “You look great,” Layla said.

  “I guess it’s no surprise I’m happy to see you together,” said Naomi.

  Neil dropped in, “I’ve asked Layla to marry me.”

  Naomi brightened so much that Layla didn’t have the heart to disabuse her. And being here, in the warmth of her home, the scents of tomato sauce and garlic lingering around them, Layla could almost picture herself in the same loving picture.

  Almost ...

  Neil asked all kinds of questions, ones Layla felt she should be posing, but she’d never really felt comfortable about it. She sensed it wouldn’t be okay, like Neil would never accept those questions coming from her, which was ridiculous. Still, she kept her mouth shut for the most part and noticed there was something yearning about Neil that hadn’t been there before. Is this what impending fatherhood had done?

  What happened with Courtney’s baby?

  Was it even ever real?

  And why had Neil offered an additional thirty thousand dollars for Eddie, only to turn around and become this . . . ?

  Layla examined Neil while he was talking, really taking him in. He was earnestly interested in the baby, in Naomi’s health and ergo the baby’s. He truly, desperately wanted to be a father ... to a son. That irked her a bit. His insistence on a male heir had bothered her all along, but she’d let it slide. Now, though, Eddie was a fact, and so, here they were.

  Here. They. Were.

  On the ride home, Neil was pensive, which was just fine with Layla because she felt the same way. They’d shared a nearly silent meal at an expensive restaurant in the Pearl District, one of Portland’s chichiest areas, neither of them eating much of the sumptuous meals that had been laid in front of them by the renowned chef of a much-lauded French restaurant. The only discussion they’d had was a sober reflection on John Linfield’s death, which had ended with Neil musing, “Your sister doesn’t seem like she would kill anyone,” which, though she agreed with him wholeheartedly, had pissed Layla off to no end. Maybe everything Neil said or did pissed her off these days. Besides, she hadn’t wanted to turn the conversation away from their situation with Eddie’s upcoming birth, not even to Lucy. To that end, Layla hadn’t snapped, had kept her cool and tried to ask Neil more questions about what was motivating him. She’d wanted to get inside his head, but he’d closed himself off. Apparently, he wasn’t going to give her anything further after his profession of love, if that’s what you could call it, when he’d admitted he’d fallen for her. Maybe she was reading more into that than was there, but nothing about the new Neil made any sense.

  Once they returned to her apartment and he pulled up to the curb, she invited him in, but he declined, his vehicle idling, while she climbed out onto a rain-drenched street, though the rain itself had stopped for the moment. She slammed the door shut and was about to walk inside when he rolled down the passenger window.

  Before she could turn away, he said, “Wait.”

  “For what?”

  “I just want you to know. I’m making provisions. For the baby, and for you, if you want to be a part of his life.”

  She leaned in, regarded him soberly. “You know I do.”

  “I’ve been accused of being greedy.
It’s true, I am. I’ve got some things to work out, but I want you to seriously think about committing yourself to me and the baby.”

  “Neil, I am committed to Eddie. I’ve never—”

  “You know what I mean. I want us to be a family. Under one roof. Think you can do that?”

  Yes. Yes! She wanted to tell him yes, if that would get her Eddie. And the means to help her sister, if it came to that, which she sensed it might. Still, rational thought prevailed. “It’s all I’ll think about,” was all she said.

  “Okay.” He half-smiled, and she remembered why she’d trusted him in the beginning. “I’m going out of town for about a week. When I get back, I’ll ask for your decision.”

  * * *

  Lucy poured herself a second glass of wine while September covered her own glass with her hand to keep from having a refill. Lucy had ushered the ex-detective into her home as if she were a long-lost friend, and had poured out her heart about John, her marriage, raising Evie together, the closing of Crissman & Wolfe, and the uncertain state of her employment within her own family. It had all rushed out of her as if a dam had broken, though she had yet to tell the ex-detective anything about John’s death ... homicide ... nor the true state of the Crissman family finances, which was shit, if Lucy was reading the signs right, which she was.

  “What about you?” Lucy asked. “I mean, what are you really doing here?”

  “I thought I’d explained: I want to know what happened.”

  “I know, I know. But really ... why this? Why me? You’ve gotta have a reason.”

  Lucy squinted at her glass. Was it already half empty? When was the last time she’d even drank? At Denim and Diamonds . . . ? She’d hardly had anything then.

  “I don’t like people getting away with things,” September answered slowly, as if testing every word for its veracity.

  Lucy forced herself to focus. She had a point to make, and she was going to make it, by God . . . if she could just remember what it was. Oh yes. “Okay . . . so why are you here? It’s not your job. You said so.” She was having a little trouble tracking. “You know, I probably shouldn’t talk to you,” she decided, then couldn’t help asking, “Are you telling me the truth?”