“It was quite the, uh, undertaking.” The funeral director stretched his mouth into something meant to resemble a smile.
Ben leaned in closer and said, softly, “You can tell me. The guy’s still alive, isn’t he?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Jane...” Ben’s expression urged me to level with him. “I know you set this thing up. Wendell sitting there having a big laugh, right? When’s he planning to let everyone in on it? Is he going to take it as far as the cemetery?”
I said, “Ben, do you really think a guy Wendell’s age could sit there in that position, holding up that card, for hours on end?”
He turned to Lenny, lowering his voice further still. “You put some sort of support in his sleeve, didn’t you? Something to keep his arm steady.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Ben,” Lenny said, “but Wendell Webster is deceased.”
“If that’s true,” Ben said, “then hell yeah, I’m disappointed, ’cause I have fifty bucks riding on it.”
“Oh, don’t tell me,” I said. “Are you guys betting on this?”
Ben’s shrug said, What did you expect?
A strange sound squeaked up Lenny’s throat. “Gambling... here...” he moaned.
I scanned the crowded room. “Okay, where are Christopher and Kevin? They’ll put a stop to this.” They were Lenny’s sons who worked with him, in case you thought the name Leonard T. Ahearn and Sons Funeral Home might be some kind of exaggeration.
“They’re up there taking bets,” Ben said. At Lenny’s stricken look, he added, “Don’t worry, they’re making sure the house gets a cut.”
Lenny took off at a sprint, bulling his way through the mourners. Ben followed at a leisurely pace, chuckling at the mayhem he’d set in motion. Lenny was probably reconsidering the and Sons part of his business plan.
I was about to follow him into battle—I mean, I did have some responsibility, having arranged this bizarre wake—when Dom strolled up.
“Every time I think your Death Diva stuff can’t get any weirder,” he said, “you prove me wrong.”
“I’m just giving the clients what they want,” I said. Which is my general policy, except in cases where the client wants me to do something illegal, immoral, or too gross for words.
“Where’ve you been keeping yourself, Janey?” he asked. “I’ve missed you.”
Oh no, he did not get to do that, not after our history. “You saw me five days ago at the funeral,” I reminded him. “Your fiancée was there too, remember? Speaking of which, you two must be awfully busy getting ready for the wedding.”
He sighed. This was not where he wanted the conversation to go. Too bad.
“When’s the happy day, by the way?” I asked. “I haven’t received a save-the-date, but maybe I’m not invited. I mean, Bonnie probably doesn’t want your ex there. Oops, I mean your three exes.”
“Of course you’ll be invited,” he said. “You know that.”
I did know that. One thing about Dom, he strove to maintain a cordial relationship with all his ex-wives, even the one who wasn’t one of his baby mamas. Which, in case you haven’t been paying attention, happens to be yours truly.
Not that I’d planned it that way. I’d always dreamed of being a mother and had anticipated, when Dom and I had married eighteen years ago, that I soon would be. In hindsight, that’s a conversation we probably should have had before the wedding. Turned out my young bridegroom had zero interest in becoming a daddy. It’s what caused our breakup.
Then along came Svetlana, wife number two, who basically took the decision out of his hands, presenting him with his first two kids in rapid succession before it even occurred to him to ask, So you are on the pill, right? Wife number three, Meryl, gave him his third child. A happier, prouder papa, you never saw.
Yeah, that’s right, my mistake had been letting my husband have a say in whether to reproduce.
“You didn’t answer my question, Dom,” I said. “When’s the wedding?”
He looked uncomfortable. “We haven’t set a date.”
“Still? How long have you been engaged?” I was just torturing him. We both knew the timeline. Dom and Bonnie had been engaged for a year if you didn’t count a brief hiatus the previous summer during which he’d tried to persuade me to remarry him. The fact that he’d promised me time to think about it and then promptly gotten reengaged to Bonnie while I was doing said thinking still stuck in my craw. Okay, he’d sort of apologized for that, but still.
“Come on, Janey, it’s been a long time since we had dinner together,” he said. “How does tomorrow sound? I’ve heard great things about a new place in Greenlawn.”
Right. Greenlawn, which was a good fifteen miles from Crystal Harbor. None of our friends and neighbors were likely to spot Dom dining with a woman who was not his fiancée in Greenlawn.
“I have a busy day tomorrow,” I said. “I’d rather stick closer to home. Let’s go to the Harbor Room.” Which was a venerable local eatery and bound to be crammed with people who knew us. I enjoyed watching him squirm.
No, that does not make me a bad person. Dom deserved to squirm. He was the one trying to arrange a nice, intimate, romantic dinner—otherwise known as a date—with his ex, in a location remote enough to keep from fueling the insatiable Crystal Harbor gossip mill. I didn’t doubt he loved Bonnie. I also didn’t doubt his desire to keep his options open.
Sorry, Dom, this option isn’t cooperating.
“The Harbor Room...” he said. “Come on, aren’t you bored with that place?”
“You love their dinner salad with beets and goat cheese,” I said. “I heard you telling Bonnie about it. Hey, have her join us! The more the merrier.”
Dom wasn’t stupid. The look he gave me said, Okay, you win. I didn’t doubt he’d try again, but perhaps he’d put a little more effort into it, be a tad more subtle. Which he had to know would do him no good. I’d already made it clear he could expect neither hanky nor panky from me while he was in a committed relationship with someone else. For that matter, I couldn’t see him trying to sleep with me while he was engaged to Bonnie. Dom had his faults, but he was no cheating cur. I figured he was just trying to keep the kettle simmering, make sure my interest in him didn’t wane in light of my own newly invigorated social life.
Because, let’s face it, the tables had turned. I was the one with the options now, which he well knew. He’d been so complacent for so long, confident of my pitiful unrequited longing for him, our unfulfilled might-have-beens. It had to irk the heck out of him to see Martin cozying up to me, flirting with me. Dom had tried on numerous occasions to warn me away from the bad boy with the mysterious past, but would I listen? It was so much more fun not listening.
And then there was Victor Dewatre, the aforementioned French hottie. Not only was he leading-man handsome, but he was young, in his early thirties. I’d met Victor back in September when he’d arrived in Crystal Harbor following the murder of his brother, Pierre. He’d been my houseguest for a month while the investigation unfolded, which didn’t please Dom at all. Well, to be fair, Victor had been a suspect in his brother’s murder, so one could say Dom was concerned for my safety. One could also say he was feeling a wee bit possessive.
Dom had to be wondering whether Victor and I had become intimate during that long month. We hadn’t, but I had no intention of telling Dom that. It was none of his business. Besides, like I said, it was his turn to be miserable. Victor had invited me to visit him in Paris and take a side trip to his family’s bed-and-breakfast inn in Provence, and who knew what would happen between us then?
Okay, I was pretty sure what would happen, and I’m not embarrassed to tell you I was looking forward to it. I mean, have you seen Victor?
Likewise, Dom must be curious as to whether the padre and I had done the deed, which, as I’ve mentioned, we had not. For my part, there was that “precisely how bad is this bad boy?” thing. For Martin’s part, he assumed—okay, not withou
t reason—that I was clinging to the hope of a happily ever after with my ex. I suspect he wanted no part of something that messy.
The bottom line was that for the first time in eighteen years, Dom was being kept on his toes, as far as Ex–Mrs. Faso the First was concerned, and that was making him uncommonly attentive. Which is code for jealous. And yeah, I was determined to enjoy it while it lasted.
For the record, I've never been the kind of woman who plays one guy off another, or plays hard to get—but dang if it doesn't work! Of course, it would have been nice to get that memo before I was racing headlong toward forty candles. I say that, but the fact is, I've never been comfortable playing games with people's emotions. It's not who I am. If that means a lifetime marked by few casual relationships and fewer meaningful ones—and most depressingly, no children—then so be it. In the immortal words of my role model, Popeye: I yam what I yam.
Dom gave my hand a quick, hard squeeze. And yeah, it felt good. So sue me. “I’m around if you change your mind,” he said in that quietly intense way he darn well knew turned me all gooey inside.
I thought, And I’m around if you decide to end your engagement—for real this time.
Maybe.
“I almost forgot, I have a gift for you.” He reached into his breast pocket and extracted a five-inch spike.
“Thank you, Dom. This will come in handy next time I’m laying railroad tracks.”
“It’s a self-defense tool.” He dangled the thing by a little loop attached to it. “It hangs from your keychain. Weighs almost nothing. Feel.”
Obediently I took the spike from him. It was made from shiny purple aluminum and had finger grooves all down its length, the better to hold it steady while you gouge out your attacker’s eyes. “And you bought this for me why?” I asked.
“You have to ask? Considering the sketchy characters you deal with on a daily basis?”
There was one sketchy character in particular my ex would just as soon I jettison from my life. I suspect he purchased this adorable self-defense spike with the padre in mind.
He took it from me and tucked it into the pocket of my gray suit jacket. “Promise me you’ll attach it to your keychain. Do it today.”
“You know, you can be a real pain in the—”
“Promise me,” he insisted.
“I’ll think about it.”
“I MEAN in the hot tub?” Allison’s face on my computer screen was tear-streaked, her voice hoarse from crying. She crushed a damp tissue in her fist. “Can you imagine anything more clichéd? Well, actually, I can. Try this on for size, Jim. Grieving widow falls for hunky younger man before the love of her life is even cold. Hunk cheats on her with one of her own friends. That’s the very definition of cliché right there.”
She collapsed against the back of her easy chair, breathing hard, as if the effort to process her husband’s infidelity had sapped all her strength. I was breathing hard along with her, outraged, angry, hurting for her. Hurting for a woman I’d never really known but had come to consider a friend after watching about two dozen of her video diary entries.
It was Thursday night, or rather Friday morning, around two a.m. Sleep had eluded me, and little wonder with images of Wondrous Wendell and his seven of spades invading my mind every time I began to nod off. Only, in my dream Wendell wasn’t sitting still, and his mouth hadn’t been super-glued shut. Pick a card and remember it! he ordered, and Don’t let me see the card! and Don’t take your eyes off that card! I’m telling you, it was the most exhausting dream I ever had. All that work! And for a dead guy.
The date stamp on this video was December 11. This was the story Poppy had told me on Monday, how Allison had discovered Nick and Skye in flagrante and, rather than confront them then and there, had instead worked “behind the scenes” to quietly disinherit her husband and begin the divorce process. That conversation had left me with the impression of a woman who, if not coldly calculating, at least had her emotions battened down.
That was not the Allison I was witnessing in this video. This was a woman in the throes of heartbreak. Nick’s betrayal had cut her deeply.
Allison wore a pale blue bathrobe that might have been quilted silk. She dragged her fingers through her hair, which was loose. She grabbed a couple of fresh tissues, then mopped her face, blew her nose, and cleared her throat. “I went directly to Sten’s office. He saw me immediately. I could barely get the story out, I was so...” She bit her lip. “He was very sweet. I never knew he had that in him, that level of compassion and understanding. No judgment, no ‘I told you sos.’ I always thought of him as this distinguished old guy who never lets down his guard, but he was... exactly what I needed just then.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear this. I knew Sten Jakobsen better than most, and knew there were depths to him his casual acquaintances never saw.
Allison dragged in a deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. “Thank God Sten had insisted on that prenup. I—”
A knocking sound interrupted her. She looked to her left, where I knew her office door to be. “What?” she called. I heard an indistinct male voice. It sounded like a question. “I’m just editing some pictures. I couldn’t sleep,” she told Nick. Her calm voice betrayed none of her roiling emotions. He said something else. “I don’t know why I locked it,” she said. “Habit. Go back to bed. I’ll be up in a while.”
She waited a few moments, listening for his departing footfalls, before turning back to the camera. “I’d fought Sten on the prenup. Mitchell hadn’t asked me to sign one. I would have, though, if he’d wanted me to. I mean, I understand the concept behind it. Mitchell had started with nothing and had made millions with his ski resort. And believe me, he worked hard for every nickel. And here he was, marrying this girl who started with nothing and—” a wry smile “—still had nothing. But to him, our marriage wasn’t about that, it was a loving partnership from day one.”
Allison pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. Her gaze drifted, as if she were reluctant to face the camera lens. “But that’s not the only reason I didn’t want to make Nick sign a prenup. After everything... well, you know, that whole mess you and I went through. It left a bad taste in my mouth, to say the least.”
You and I? Was she still talking to the mysterious Jim?
“The last thing I wanted,” she said, “was to make my second marriage about who had less and who had more, the difference in socioeconomic status and all that. Well, all I can say is, thank goodness Sten was so persistent. When I send that cheating son of a bitch packing, he’s going to walk away without a penny of Mitchell’s money.”
“LET ME TAKE your coat,” I said.
“Thank you, but I can’t stay.” Joleen Gleason looked ill at ease, standing in my foyer with melting snow dripping off her navy wool coat onto the macassar ebony floor. “I just stopped by to ask a favor.”
“Of course,” I said. “Name it.”
“Well, this is somewhat awkward, so I’ll come right out and say it. It seems that two detectives from the Crystal Harbor Police Department have been asking questions around town. Questions about Allison.”
My stomach knotted. “Mrs. Gleason—”
“They want to know if she had any enemies. Did anyone ever stalk her. Did she ever express fear for her life. That sort of thing.”
“I can explain that,” I said.
“Doug and I already figured out that you’re behind it,” Joleen said. “I have to ask you to... to call them off. To get them to stop this. Our daughter’s death was an accident, nothing more sinister than that.” She swallowed hard. Her eyes were shiny.
So were mine. Shame welled up within me. “I never meant to cause you distress,” I said.
“It’s not me so much as... This has been especially hard on Doug,” she said. “He holds so much inside. He feels he has to be strong for me. Losing his little girl, well... And now to have the police treating it like a crime...”
“It’s not like that,”
I said. “It’s not an official police investigation.”
“I know that,” Joleen said. “The authorities—the experts—they examined her death from every angle and they found nothing suspicious. We have to trust that they know what they’re doing.”
It would seem Joleen had not been told about the decapitated doll someone had left in her daughter’s mailbox, and I had no intention of enlightening her. I’d caused her and her husband enough needless pain. The doll had been a stupid prank, the brainchild of some neighborhood thug in training. I’d had no business bringing it to the detectives’ attention, sticking my nose where it didn’t belong and causing the Gleasons more grief in the process.
In hindsight, I’d been primed to see evil where there was only blameless tragedy, my dark suspicions nurtured by two decades in my bizarre career, not to mention the town’s recent history of murders, for which I’d had a ringside seat.
Allison’s mother was right. Her death was accidental. End of story.
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Gleason,” I said. “I’ll call Detective Werker right away. No one will be asking any more questions.”
JOLEEN’S VISIT HAD made me wish I’d never accepted the mushroom-shaped salt shaker, had never found Allison’s flash drive and viewed her video diary. And yet, thinking it through, I realized that presenting the flash drive to her parents now, as if I’d just discovered it, would do little to ease their distress. They’d probably feel compelled to crack the password, which wouldn’t take long—I mean, hey, if I could do it—and then they’d come face-to-face with their daughter’s most private thoughts, the lows as well as the highs, not to mention that nasty headless doll. So then, what do I do with the thing? I certainly wasn’t going to present it to the young widower.
These thoughts bombarded my brain as I began playing the twenty-seventh and final video. I mean, after all, I’d viewed all the others. I couldn’t not watch the last one, right?
Oh, don’t be like that. You can’t tell me you’re not even a teensy bit curious.
Icing Allison Page 9
