Killer Cocktail

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  “And that fascinating theory is based on …” Detective Cook didn’t even turn to look at me, she just glanced back over her shoulder. Kyle gave me another warning look, but I returned this one. Why should I let this woman snark away at me and not respond? She was an officer of the law, fine, but she was also a leggy blond who was standing a little too close to my … male friend of an extremely intimate nature.

  Then again, did I want to give her the satisfaction of knowing how far under my skin she was getting? Maybe a sudden change in course would help keep her off-balance. While I would have found it quite pleasurable to yank her hair out by the handful at this juncture, I refrained. “Hope,” I chirped. “I’m hopeful I’ll find a way to help.”

  I couldn’t get a feel for whether my change in attitude since the wee hours this morning was disarming her, but it was making Kyle very nervous. He knew I was up to something and he wasn’t sure what it was. And all it was was a fairly blatant attempt to distract Detective Cook, from me and from Kyle.

  However, all I succeeded in doing was eliciting a steely stare over the top of her sunglasses. She tipped her head forward and the sunglasses slid a little down the bridge of her nose, then stopped as if she had them trained. “I want your cooperation, not your help, thank you,” she replied coolly.

  “Then you have a suspect? And a cause of death? And a murder weapon?” I pursued.

  With each question, Kyle’s face got a little darker. But Detective Cook listened impassively until she was sure I was done. “This is an ongoing investigation and I’m not at liberty to share that information with you.”

  “So you don’t have any of those.”

  Detective Cook looked at Cassady and Kyle in frustration. “Is she always this bad a listener?”

  “She’s a good listener,” Cassady answered quickly.

  I nodded in affirmation. “It’s a big part of my job. Don’t you find the same?”

  “Molly,” Kyle ventured, “there’s probably a better time—and way—to compare notes with Detective Cook.”

  “No, this is actually a fine time,” Detective Cook corrected him as she marched over, grabbed my arm in almost the exact spot where David had grabbed it, and marched me away from Kyle and Cassady. As I twisted in her grasp to keep my footing, I caught a glimpse of Cassady starting to follow us and Kyle stopping her. There was an explanation I was going to look forward to.

  Especially since I wasn’t sure I was looking forward to the one I was about to get from Detective Cook. “Since you have a ‘friend’ who’s a homicide detective, you must not have some issue with cops in general,” Detective Cook began. “So why can’t you get out of my face?”

  I literally dug my heels in, throwing my weight back so the four-inch heels of my Stuart Weitzman Dramahalt pumps dug into the soft lawn and yanked us both to a stop. Detective Cook fumbled for her footing while I silently hoped serving as a drag anchor wouldn’t ruin the black satin on my shoes. Nevertheless, extreme situations require extreme gestures.

  I decided to let the “friend” thing go for a moment—just a moment—and concentrate on the larger question. “Me in your face? I’ve been a heck of a lot nicer to you than you’ve been to me.”

  Detective Cook let go of my arm but looked like she was thinking about going for my throat. “‘Nice’ isn’t in my job description. I have to be good, I don’t have to be nice.”

  “What about being right?”

  Detective Cook bared her teeth at me in a grim approximation of a smile. For a moment, she resembled a lioness ripping the flesh off an innocent zebra. I, of course, was feeling very pro-zebra. I was about to tell her so when she blindsided me. “What’s the deal with your ‘friend’ anyway?”

  “Excuse me?” I took a moment to pull my heels out of the soil and pull my thoughts together. Was she deliberately changing subjects to hide a larger intent?

  “Is he single or are you two a couple?”

  How dare she ask a question I didn’t dare ask? I did my best to mask my surprise with a more generalized offense. “How can that possibly be relevant?”

  The lioness’s smile got bigger and lazier. Contented even. “Don’t want to classify it or can’t?”

  “Don’t want to get your own life or can’t?”

  Detective Cook’s mouth contracted into a tight knot of discontent. “You’ve got a hell of a lot of nerve giving me attitude when you’re withholding information.”

  “I am not,” I protested sincerely. How could I withhold information when I didn’t have any yet? Suspicions and feelings aplenty, but no information. “If I had information, I’d give it to you. You think David Vincent did this, but he’s innocent.”

  “And your impassioned stance is based on …”

  “Lisbet wasn’t wearing her engagement ring when she died. She and David had a fight after the party last night, she took the ring off and threw it away. I think she went off and got into a fight with someone else, not David, because he didn’t know she’d taken off her ring and he would’ve noticed that. Even a guy would’ve noticed that.”

  “So you’re suggesting …”

  “Someone else killed her. Someone who was irrationally upset with her behavior last night.”

  Detective Cook thought a moment, then picked up on my train of thought. “Someone who resented the way she’d acted and the way it reflected on David.”

  “Exactly”

  “Someone who wasn’t so much mad at her as …”

  “Protecting David.”

  “Someone with an investment in David or the family.”

  For a shining moment, I liked Detective Cook. Liked her a lot. Because she was thinking what I was thinking and that’s always a grand place to begin a friendship. It was a little early to invite her over for a beer and a barbecue, but it was a start. “Yes.”

  “Maybe even a family member with a weak alibi.”

  “What?” So much for liking her. So much for being on the same wavelength.

  Detective Cook shrugged. “Someone who was alone. Or vouched for only by friends.”

  I gaped at her in horror, unable to get my mouth out of neutral and say something that would stop her in her tracks the way she’d stopped me. I tried to cut her off, but she kept talking. “You can’t seriously—”

  “Friends who insist upon telling me who’s innocent.”

  “Think that it’s—”

  “The only person who meets those criteria is …”

  “Tricia.”

  Detective Cook smiled at me with tremendous satisfaction. I swore I could see shreds of zebra meat caught in the lioness’s teeth.

  6

  Maybe you should just stop helping.”

  While some may find it naive, blindly optimistic, or futile, my worldview is shaped by the notion that you’re supposed to do the right thing whenever possible because if we all did that, the world would be a better place. Plus, if you do the right thing when no one else is doing it, you get a good seat on the moral high ground and there’s a pretty nice view from up there.

  Of course, once you’re up there, it’s amazingly easy to lose your balance and tumble headfirst from that good seat and watch your ethics, dignity, and ego go splat on the pavement. But with any luck, you’ll survive long enough to hear someone you really care about say, “I told you so.” Or, as some translate it, “Stop helping.”

  It had not been my intention to get David out of trouble by getting someone else in trouble, especially Tricia. And it had never been my intention to get myself in trouble with anyone in the process, especially with Kyle.

  We were back in the deep green room, a place for which I was quickly losing affection. It was starting to feel a little oppressive. Though not as oppressive as the bordello room, to which Tricia and Detective Cook had retired since the detective had latched on to the ridiculous idea that I was suggesting Tricia was somehow connected to Lisbet’s death. I wanted to go kick the door down and explain to Detective Cook just where in the order of evolu
tion I placed her, but Kyle was not in favor of that plan. In fact, Kyle was not in favor of my ever talking to Detective Cook again, even to comment on the weather.

  “She’s talking to Tricia to tick me off,” I protested.

  Kyle fixed me with his amazing blue gaze. I felt both chastened and breathless, which was not a combination my already precarious emotional state could incorporate easily. “Cook’s talking to her because you presented a pretty logical construct for Tricia’s motive,” Kyle explained with thinning patience. He wouldn’t sit down and I couldn’t figure out if he wanted to keep his distance from me or if he was just moving to hold his temper.

  “No, I was leading her away from David,” I insisted.

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s not guilty and Tricia asked me to help prove that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she loves her brother.”

  “But she’s worried enough about how it looks that she needs to bring in outside help.”

  “She’s afraid. Wouldn’t you be?”

  Kyle shrugged with maddening objectivity, moving back in my direction. “I don’t know everything Tricia knows. And I don’t have all the evidence.”

  “Neither does Detective Cook,” I said, thinking of the show Lisbet put on before her death. I couldn’t shake the feeling that her display was linked somehow to her demise.

  He slid his hand up under my hair, cupping my cheek but not pulling me to him. Yet. I didn’t want him to feel me clenching my jaw, so I held my breath to help me concentrate. When you’re first attracted, strongly attracted to a man, you find yourself thinking that maybe you should just kiss him so you can get past obsessing about what that first kiss is going to be like. The problem is, if the first kiss is great, you wind up obsessing about getting another one and it wreaks havoc with your powers of concentration.

  He rubbed his thumb lightly along my cheekbone. I’d like to claim it’s an acupressure point and that’s the reason I felt light-headed, but Kyle has had this effect on me from the very beginning, despite all my best efforts to be resolute. Or at least, a little coy. I should at least get points for not melting into his arms right then and there.

  “I’m not on the job and you shouldn’t be either,” he said quietly, but with notable authority. “I know you want to help, but sometimes, the best way to help is to stay out of it.”

  I was about to admit that he was right when I had a disturbing flash of Dustin Hoffman gaping at Anne Bancroft. I slid his hand away from my cheek and took a step back. “Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?”

  Kyle made a sound that was part laugh, part question mark. “Molly, I’m trying to offer a little perspective here. I think it’s time to go home.”

  Nothing makes me want to stay in a place more than someone telling me I ought to leave. But this was more than being contrary. I still had the feeling that we were all overlooking something and I didn’t want to leave until I’d found it. Or helped find it. And now that I’d created questions about Tricia, I needed to clean up my mess before I went home. “I can’t.”

  Kyle nodded, hands sliding deep into his pockets. Apparently, this was the answer he’d expected. No way I was getting predictable this early in a noncategorized relationship. Was I? “Most people see a dead body and they can’t wait to run the other way. Why do you want to stick around?”

  “Unresolved childhood traumas, no doubt,” I said, sounding only slightly snippier than I felt.

  “Let’s work through them somewhere else,” Kyle said, sounding quite a bit snippier than I felt he should feel.

  “I thought you came out here to help me.”

  “I came because you called. Good move on my part.”

  “It was a good move. I appreciate it. I just don’t appreciate being told it’s time to go.”

  “Sorry It is.”

  “And that’s your decision to make.”

  “Yes.”

  “As the professional.”

  He reached for me again. “And the personal. Someone who—”

  In the split second before the verb came out, all the blood in my body raced to other locations in anticipation of some monumental statement. What we got instead was the door to the room banging open and Aunt Cynthia charging in, wearing a black dress and a blacker expression.

  “Where’s Cassady?”

  “I’m not sure,” I admitted, wondering if we looked like we’d been interrupted doing something inappropriate.

  Not that Aunt Cynthia was interested at all. Her focus was elsewhere. “I need a lawyer. Mine is already on his fourth cocktail and not being particularly helpful.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Policemen are going through my garbage,” Aunt Cynthia said with disdain. I wasn’t sure if the disdain was for the police or for their task.

  Kyle was already heading for the door. “Wonder what they’re looking for.” Aunt Cynthia followed him quickly, her bangles bouncing noisily.

  “I thought we were leaving,” I called after them, more angry that Kyle hadn’t finished his sentence than at his sudden departure.

  He shot a dark look back at me, but Aunt Cynthia answered. “You can’t leave before the brunch. It would be unseemly. Besides, I need your young man,” she said as she swept him out of the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

  Yeah, well, I needed Kyle, too. I needed Kyle to finish his sentence. I also needed a chat with Tricia and Cassady. I was determined to stay put until I’d solved this thing for myself, if not for the police. Or for Eileen, of whom I had mercifully not thought for some time.

  As I emerged from the house, I found Richard and Rebecca on the back patio, not so much waiting for me as lurking in my expected path. Richard was drinking a Bellini, but Rebecca was cradling a coffee cup.

  “The police are back,” Richard said, without benefit of preamble.

  “I heard.”

  “What else did you hear?”

  I shook my head, feeling awkward and defensive. “I don’t know any more than anyone else.”

  Rebecca pressed her coffee cup against her chest as though it could warm her. “Then why did you tell the detective to question Tricia?”

  “I didn’t. I said something the detective misunderstood. It was her idea to talk to Tricia.”

  Rebecca’s eyes misted. “And you couldn’t stop her?”

  I didn’t know which was more troubling, Richard’s anger or Rebecca’s sorrow. “I don’t have any influence with her.”

  “But you brought a cop in from Manhattan,” Richard said.

  I shook my head emphatically “He’s … here for personal reasons. And I don’t have any influence with him either.”

  Richard didn’t seem to like any of my answers, but he accepted them. For the moment, anyway. Rebecca wiped her eyes delicately with her cocktail napkin, expertly managing not to smear a bit of makeup. She put her arm through Richard’s and started to walk him away. “I hate this,” she offered in parting. I nodded in agreement and continued on my quest.

  Cassady and Tricia were farther out on the lawn. I’d expected Tricia might be shaken by her encounter with Detective Cook, but she was infuriated. With Detective Cook and not me, much to my relief.

  “That woman has no manners,” Tricia said as I hurried up to them.

  “She went to the police academy, not finishing school,” Cassady pointed out.

  “You can be flip. She didn’t interrogate you,” Tricia snapped.

  “Not yet. But give Molly another try and I’ll be in the hot seat before you know it,” Cassady said with a wink.

  “I never intended to say anything disparaging about you, Tricia,” I assured her. “And I didn’t. She just sort of backed me into a corner and then pounced before I knew what was happening.”

  “I saw that movie on Cinemax. Three times,” Cassady said. She was doing an admirable job of trying to prop up everyone’s spirits.

  “Where’s Detective Cook now?” I asked.
/>   “Her partner came and got her to go look for something.” So that’s where the warrant came from. As I tried to figure out what particular object they could be seeking, Tricia continued. “But not before she made me give her Lisbet’s ring.”

  “How’d she know you had it?” Cassady asked.

  “I told her Lisbet wasn’t wearing it,” I confessed.

  “I don’t think either one of you should talk to policemen without me present from here on in. And,” Cassady continued, eyebrow slanting, “we may have to put Kyle on that list if you’re not careful.”

  Tricia frowned. “It’s awful to have someone accuse you of doing something terrible.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “I remember how I felt when Kyle suspected me.”

  “Twice,” Cassady said. “Tell me again why you two are together?”

  “I’ve seen relationships start off on worse footing,” I protested.

  “Name one,” Cassady challenged.

  I had to scan my memory banks for a moment, but Tricia had the answer immediately. “You and Kevin McNamara,” Tricia said with a tip of her glass to Cassady.

  Cassady’s lower lip curled in a showy mix of revulsion and petulance. “That was different.”

  “Because you had someone else arrest his girlfriend instead of doing it yourself.”

  “For the record, she was guilty.”

  “Of tax evasion.”

  “Good enough for Capone.” Cassady sighed expansively. “Okay, it was a little over the top, but who among us hasn’t gone a little too far to clear the path to a man?”

  Of course. That made more sense than anything else so far. “Including murder?” I asked.

  Cassady looked like she actually was scanning the memory banks now, but Tricia zeroed in on my meaning right away. “You think Lisbet could have been killed by someone who wants Davey?”

  “Or wants David back.” As the possibility took shape in my mind, I realized it was quite likely that an ex could lose control, pushed by the weight of accumulated anger and hatred. “How many of David’s exes are here this weekend?”

  Tricia’s shoulders slumped. “Dear lord. Look at it this way. I think the only people we can safely exclude from that list are my mother and my aunts and the three of us.” She hesitated. “I can exclude the three of us.”