“How?” she said. “The cops upstate are the only ones I spoke to about it, besides... Well, no one who knows about it would have spread it around.”
I did some quick cogitating. “What, you think the cops upstate aren’t going to talk to the cops down here, where your father lived? And for sure they questioned people who knew Mitchell and Allison. I mean, once something like this is set in motion, well, you can’t expect to keep it quiet.” Can I go now?
Brenda shook her head, clearly disgusted by the thought of town gossips making her private business public. “The police didn’t take me seriously, even though I had evidence. It was an accident, they said. As if any of those yokels could be bothered to conduct a serious investigation.” She met my gaze, her face a mask of pure hatred. “She found out Dad was going to divorce her. That’s why she killed him. She would’ve been left penniless.”
I knew I shouldn’t, but... “Penniless?” I said. “After six years of marriage? Allison would’ve gotten something in a divorce. Alimony, a cash settlement. Something. Your father told you he was planning to divorce her?” I was under the assumption Mitchell and his daughter hadn’t communicated, except for birthdays and holidays, when Allison had more or less forced them to interact like a real family, for the sake of Brenda’s three children. Of course, I was basing that only on Allison’s video diary. The actual situation might have been more complicated.
According to Allison, Brenda didn’t initially suspect foul play after her father’s death. She’d concocted the accusation only after discovering Mitchell had left everything to Allison and nothing to her—or to his grandchildren, a lapse that had bothered Allison and which she’d apparently decided to correct by placing four million bucks in trust for them.
Brenda said, “What I discussed or did not discuss with my father is no concern of yours.” She stood. “I believe we’re done here. Thank you for bringing the watch.”
THIS VIDEO WAS made in November. Allison sat on the upholstered chair in her home office as usual. Her hair was down and she wore a moss-green turtleneck, jeans, and high black boots. Her face showed strain.
“I found this in my mailbox today, Jim.” She held up two small items.
I squinted at my computer screen. “I can’t see what you’ve got there, Allison,” I said.
As if she could hear me, Allison got up and approached the camera, holding the objects closer to the lens. One of them was a Barbie doll, dressed in a snappy daytime outfit of floral pencil skirt and sleeveless rose-colored top, her unnaturally arched feet clad in high-heeled white plastic sandals. She would have been all ready to meet the other Barbies at some trendy lunch spot except for one thing: She had no head.
The other object Allison displayed was—you’re way ahead of me here, I can tell—Barbie’s head. The long hair had started out blonde but was now thoroughly streaked with black. I pictured someone going at it with a permanent marker. The hair in front had been chopped into irregular bangs.
Allison resumed her seat. “I found it like this, in two pieces. Nice, huh? Think someone’s trying to send me a message?” She tossed the broken doll out of the frame. It sounded like it landed in a wastebasket. “I showed it to Nick. He says he knows nothing about it. He thinks some kid is having fun. If it were Halloween, I might agree with him, but that was two weeks ago.”
“God,” I said, “I hope you showed this to the cops.”
“I know what you’re going to say, Jim,” she said. “I know you. ‘Did you go to the police?’ No, of course not. They would’ve laughed me out of the station. I mean, please, we’re talking about a doll.”
A doll that someone took pains to make resemble Allison Zaleski before decapitating it and presenting it to her like a dead mouse on her doorstep.
The cat analogy felt accurate. Cats are born predators. Whoever had executed this sick joke, if that’s what it was, possessed predator instincts. He or she wanted to freak Allison out. Despite her forced nonchalance, it was easy to see the effort had succeeded.
I might agree with Allison that this stupid practical joke was no big deal were it not for a piece of knowledge I possessed that she did not, namely that a mere six weeks after making this video, she would be dead. Granted, her death had been accidental, but this felt wrong on a gut level.
“That’s all I wanted to do tonight,” Allison said, “show you the little present someone left me. It makes me feel better, even though I know you’ll never see this. Over and out.”
6
A Clear Case of Police Brutality
NORMALLY MURRAY’S PUB would have been half-filled at best on a weeknight in the dead of winter, but this was Wednesday, trivia night, always a popular draw for the locals. Sadly, my team had come in last place, thanks to the fact that my tardy arrival had forced me to join up with a trio of middle-aged Japanese tourists who spoke zero English. And yeah, it would have been nice to get a heads-up about that one in advance. I chose the team name: Gotta Have a Sensei Humor.
Keiko, Akira, and Jinsei had discovered Murray’s in some online list of “iconic American bars that have been doing business in the same spot since well before you or anyone on the planet drew breath.” I know this because they all proudly showed me the site on their phones. What my teammates lacked in language skills, they made up for in enthusiastic participation. The more scotch they knocked back, the louder and more raucous were their random responses to the questions Maxine Baumgartner, the owner of Murray’s Pub, called out.
First-place honors went to a team called Wait, This Isn’t Speed Dating?, who won a fifty-dollar bar tab. They had a ringer in the form of Mayor Sophie Halperin, a certified geography whiz who nailed the round called Countries That Ain’t There No More. She did pretty well with Political Assassins Throughout History, too. The other two rounds were Name That Song (The Monkees edition) and Crazy Moms from Film and TV.
I liked my new Japanese pals. We had a lot of laughs despite the language barrier. They invited me to accompany them to the next stop on their All-American pub crawl. I heard the word “McSorley’s” and deduced they were on their way to the venerable Lower East Side pub, which had been established seven years before Abraham Lincoln took office. I politely declined amid a lot of bowing and watched them stumble happily out into a half foot of snow.
I sidled up to the bar—you’re not allowed to sidle up to anything else; I believe there’s a law on the books—and waited for Martin to finish filling a pitcher of beer for Mal Wallace, Nina’s husband, who was enjoying a boys’ night out with his buddies. He’d probably catch hell later for not staying home and giving Nina a break with the baby. Normally I might be on her side, but I mean, everyone in Crystal Harbor knew that little Laura had been fathered not by Mal but by a notorious figure from the town’s recent past. So I was willing to, you know, cut the guy some slack.
“Here you go.” The padre slid a small cognac glass in front of me, half-filled with a clear golden liquid.
I brought it to my nose and sniffed. “Martin, you know I can’t afford the good stuff.” This was my favorite añejo tequila, and I knew how much Maxine charged for a single shot of it. I shoved the glass back at him. “Give me a shot of well tequila. Plus some salt and lime to kill the taste.”
He slid the glass back across to me. “This is well tequila, Jane. Bottoms up.” Martin was looking particularly studly tonight in a black turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up, which advertised his well-developed forearms. Normally he wore his blond hair buzzed practically to the scalp, but he’d let it grow out since the summer, presumably to keep his head warm. The short strands had an appealingly rumpled look as if he’d just rolled out of bed. My fingers itched to smooth them down.
Instead I took hold of the snifter and glanced around to see if Maxine—Max to her friends—was in the vicinity. The pub’s owner might have something to say about her bartender swapping out cheap well tequila for the kind that costs ten times as much.
“You worry too much.” The padre grinned
.
I shrugged. “It’s your job on the line.”
“Max would never can me,” he said. “I bring in the customers.”
What he meant was that he brought in the female customers. Max had known what she was doing when she hired Martin. The man was single-handedly responsible for a startling and no doubt unhealthy increase in alcohol consumption by female residents of Crystal Harbor. I’m sure he was very proud of himself.
I took a sip and groaned from the sheer, sensual perfection of it.
He said, “Say, ‘Thank you, Martin.’”
“Thank you, Martin.” I sipped again.
Bracing his arms on the bar top, he leaned toward me and said in a quiet growl, “Do I know how to take care of you?”
My giggle morphed into a piglike snort which caused a mouthful of hideously expensive liquor to shoot out of my stinging nostrils. Well, I mean, come on. When a guy this hot says something that suggestive, what do you expect me to do?
Okay, you know what? It’s easy for you to sit there now and tell me what I should have said. And for the record, I don’t say things like that. I’m a lady.
And no, it is none of your business when I last had a hot date.
I turned and surveyed the thinning crowd. Only a couple of booths remained occupied, and the customers in one of them were getting ready to leave. It was nearly eleven and most of the bar-trivia contestants had to get up early the next morning for work. I waved to Denny Pinheiro, who was on his way out the door. Denny owned a company that cleaned up crime scenes and other icky stuff. We helped each other out with referrals.
The barstools were now empty except for a couple who sat at the far end. The back of the woman’s head was toward me. Black hair. Fake tan. Sparkly top. Short, tight skirt. Spike-heeled boots. I recognized Skye Guthrie’s voice before she turned and polished off her drink. It was only after she signaled Martin for a refill and I saw him tip a bottle of rum into her glass that I realized she was downing something with a heftier kick than straight cola.
Okay, I’m not the preggers police or anything, but really? That was not cool, no matter how far along she was. Did she think that just because she wasn’t showing yet, it was okay to get hammered?
The padre was well aware of Skye’s delicate condition. He served the drink and rejoined me, accurately interpreting my questioning look. He leaned in closer, keeping his voice low. “I can’t do anything about it, Jane, it’s the law. I can’t refuse to serve her unless she’s visibly intoxicated, which she’s not.” He appeared none too happy about the situation. And yes, there was one of those signs behind the bar that read DRINKING ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES DURING PREGNANCY CAN CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS.
“How many of those has she had?” I asked, as Skye leaned toward her date to snap a grinning selfie.
“That’s her third.”
The woman could hold her liquor, I’d give her that. Sure, she was laughing shrilly and playfully smacking her companion’s shoulder, but I chalked that up to her personality, not the booze. The guy was tipsier, probably trying to match her drink for drink. I didn’t recognize him and wondered if she’d met him using one of those hookup apps, the kind where you swipe left (ugh, no) or right (oh yeah, baby) on a prospective date’s picture.
“Oh good,” Martin said dryly, “I was hoping there’d be at least one messy scene tonight.”
I followed his gaze and saw Nick striding purposefully from the entrance toward where Skye sat cozying up to her date. I hadn’t thought the handsome young widower had it in him to look haggard, but that’s the word that popped into my head at that moment. There were puffy circles under his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept, or shaved, since the funeral four days earlier. He didn’t appear to notice me or Martin, or the other two remaining customers chatting quietly in a booth.
One of those customers was Howie Werker, a friend of mine who’d been promoted to detective during the recent shakeup in the police department. He was with a woman I didn’t recognize. She wasn’t his wife, Lillian, and Howie wasn’t the type to cheat, and even if this crackerjack detective were the type to cheat, he sure as heck wouldn’t do it on trivia night at Murray’s Pub in full view of dozens of his friends and neighbors.
Drawing on my own vaunted powers of detection—hey, I’ve been known to make a few good guesses!—I concluded that this lady just might be Crystal Harbor’s newest police detective. I knew the department had hired someone from the outside and that she was named Sugar or Candy or something like that. She certainly didn’t look like a Sugar or a Candy. Which is to say she appeared more professional than a cloying name like that would suggest. Her curly brown hair was pulled back into a messy bun. She wore eyeglasses with fashionable burgundy-colored frames, and funky little brass-and-glass earrings shaped like owls. Okay, not too professional.
Nick grabbed Skye’s shoulder and spun her to face him. “What the hell are you doing, Skye?” His bloodshot gaze took in her drink, her date, her swipe-right getup. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. You keep dumping my calls, ignoring my texts.”
She jerked out of his grasp. “You don’t own me, Nick.”
Martin’s body language was deceptively calm as he wiped down the bar near the squabbling pair. I knew him well enough to discern he was on high alert, prepared to leap over the bar if this dreary little scene threatened to escalate into violence. He caught Howie’s eye and I saw something pass between the two men, an unspoken communication. The female detective—Honey? Cupcake? Pumpkin Spice Donut?—appeared just as watchful.
If Skye expected her drinking buddy to confront the interloper and toss him out of the pub, she was to be disappointed. The fellow frowned at her. “You told me you’re single.”
“I am single!” She jerked her thumb toward Nick. “This guy’s out of my life.”
“How can you say that?” Nick demanded. “You’re having my baby, in case it slipped your mind.”
The barstool Skye’s date was sitting on became suddenly electrified. What else could explain the speed with which he sprang off of it?
She latched on to his arm. “Don’t go!”
“I don’t know what your game is,” he said as he extricated himself and grabbed his coat off one of the hooks near the entrance, “but I didn’t sign on for any baby.” He had his phone out of his pocket before he’d even opened the door. He was either opening a rideshare app or, more likely, on the prowl for another, more reliable late-night hookup. One without a bun in the oven and a baby daddy stalking her.
“Hey!” Skye called after him. “Who’s going to pay for these drinks?” She followed this up with a string of ripe cussing as the door closed on her date’s back.
“Skye, come on,” Nick pleaded. “You should be taking better care of yourself. You shouldn’t even be here.”
“Now you’re telling me where I can go? What I can do?” She tossed back the last of her rum and Coke and turned to Martin. “Give me another.”
“I’ll need you to take care of the tab first,” the padre said. “Sixty-one bucks.”
This triggered a fresh bout of foul language. Nick produced his wallet and slapped a few bills on the bar. “You’re just upset, bunny,” he told Skye, “and confused. Let’s get out of here. Come home with me. We can finally stay together all night in my bed. Won’t that be nice? And in the morning I’ll make you breakfast, something good for the baby like, uh, ham and eggs or something. The baby needs protein, right?”
“I’m not going anywhere with a loser like you,” she said. “Hey, bartender! Where’s my drink?”
Martin gave Nick his change. “Ran out of rum. I can give you plain Coke if you like.”
“Don’t lie to me, scumbag.” Skye pointed to the half-full bottle he’d recently poured from. “There’s plenty left.”
Martin turned to me. “Jane, do you see any rum in that bottle?”
I squinted at it. “Looks empty to me.”
“Me too,” Howie volunteered from across the room.
“Ditto,” said Cream Puff.
Having initially appeared perplexed by the sudden epidemic of Booze Blindness, Nick finally caught on. “There’s no more rum, bunny. Come on, let’s go.”
“You idiots all think you’re so smart,” she said. “Give me bourbon. Make it a double. On the rocks.”
“Okay, I’m getting you out of here,” Nick said in a surprising display of assertiveness. He tried to ease Skye off her barstool, but she fought him, punching and kicking and even biting him in response to his gentle coaxing.
Apple Fritter slid out of her booth and approached Skye. She flipped open her badge wallet to display the gold shield. “Miss, I’m Detective Cookie Kaplan.”
“Thank God you’re here,” Skye crowed. “This bastard refuses to serve me. That’s against the law, right?”
“I just witnessed you assaulting this gentleman.” Cookie indicated Nick.
“He assaulted me! Didn’t you see? He’s trying to force me to leave. I don’t want to leave. I want to stay here and drink.” She turned to Martin again. “Bourbon. Now!”
The padre busied himself arranging glassware.
“I’m going to fight that prenup, bunny,” Nick said. “I’ve got a new lawyer and he’s working an angle. I’ll tell you about it later.”
“How are you going to pay for a lawyer?” Skye sneered.
“That’s the best part,” he said. “I don’t have to pay him now. He’ll take a piece of whatever I end up with.”
“How big a piece?”
“Uh... I think he said thirty percent,” he said. “Maybe forty.”
Skye thought about this. I could almost hear the calculator in her head clicking away. “And that’s all you’ll owe him? The rest is yours?”
“Yeah!” He wore a proud grin. “Once that prenup is out of the way, I’ll get my one third, minus the lawyer’s cut. Not bad, huh?”
Skye faced him directly, as if to claim his full attention. “And you’re sure he doesn’t want any money up front? No retainer or anything?”
Icing Allison Page 7
