Promised Lies (A Detective Blanchette Mystery)

by Ashton, Marguerite

  “Do you know how that’s going to look to the others?”

  Pop’s face hardened. “I don’t care how it looks, just make it happen. And if this should become a problem for others then you know what to do with them.”

  Vic’s eyes dropped down to the miniature desktop globe, spinning slowly on its axis. One tug of the cord from the wall and the globe would come to a halt. It was similar to the power his uncle had. You did what he said or suffered; wondering when Pop Surace was going to end your services if you didn’t follow his orders. “Consider it done.”

  “What did you find out about Riley Street?”

  “It was a bad deal from the jump. Our guy, who lost his tongue, was giving information to DEA since last summer after getting caught picking up some whore outside a bar on the north side of town. Riley Street was supposed to be the big bust, but they failed.”

  “The woman, was it a set up?”

  “No one knows. But that’s what he gets for not listening. I’d warned him and the other jag-offs to keep a low profile by staying at home with their wives or girlfriends, and not to use drugs. It’s simple.”

  “These young ones today don’t use their heads. They’re too modernized. Lazy. Just the other day I heard on the radio that more men are staying home while the wives work. That’s crazy. Can you imagine what it’d be like if a woman was head of our organization?”

  “It’s not like it’s not happening, Uncle. You’ve heard the stories over in Sicily, New York, and Chicago. Women are stepping in to take over after their husbands go to prison, so they can take care of the family.”

  “Pfftt.” Pop Surace pushed back against his seat and let out the foot rest. “I want to tighten the reins on who we let in. I want a semi-legit business so we can still make enough money and portray some form of respectability. Make it good for my son.”

  “That’s why we sell marijuana only, while it’s legal in some states and everybody’s claiming medical use. It’s our ticket in. Now isn’t a good time to dip into the other stuff.”

  “Then make sure everyone knows the way to handle this. I don’t want any more trouble with the goddamn FBI or DEA.”

  Chapter 22

  November 19, 7:41 a.m.

  Winds rustled against the old Georgian Colonial as Deena Blanchette stepped out of the butler pantry with her latte and strolled over to the paneled door looking out at the brick patio. This was the point where she’d wished she could take back all of the mistakes Lily was going to call her on after everything was said and done.

  Guilt flooded over her.

  No one, especially not the ones closest to her, would understand her relationship with Landon. She’d wanted to end their affair for years, but the two ties that bound them together weren’t something she could readily erase.

  “Mrs. Blanchette’s in here,” Sharon said.

  Deena adjusted the sash on her knee-length black dress and faced Evan and Alec as they walked into the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

  Evan stepped forward. “It’s a hard time for you and we respect that, but we need to ask you a few more questions about the night Collin was killed.”

  “I answered all of your questions over the phone. I didn’t hear what my husband and Landon argued about.”

  “But you could see. Can you tell me what you remember?”

  “When Landon went to the bar to order our drinks, I saw him turn to his right. He was speaking to Collin. Not long after that I saw my husband stand and in the same instance, Landon dropped downward. Julius stepped in to stop the fight and Collin left.”

  Alec pulled out his notepad and began jotting something down.

  “After Collin left, what did Landon do?” Evan asked.

  “He came back over with the drinks and I told him I was leaving.” Deena sipped her latte and sat it down on the counter. “That’s when I learned my husband didn’t want to see me.”

  “Did that make you angry?”

  “Not angry enough to kill my husband.”

  Evan pulled out his phone and touched the screen. “After the fight, did Landon hang around?”

  “No. Landon left before I did. I took a call from a client and left a few minutes later.”

  A glaze of suspicion filled Evan’s eyes. “Is that when you found your husband?”

  Deena’s hand trembled as she picked up her cup. “Yes.” She held back tears as she set her cup down. How many questions was he going to ask? She’d already been reliving what happened that night over in her head. Did they really think she did it? Or was it routine?

  She couldn’t help but feel like what happened to Collin was her fault. If she hadn’t been at the pub with Landon that night, or if she’d just been a good wife and kept her relationship with Landon at bay, none of this would have happened.

  Turmoil wretched Deena’s insides while she battled with the notion that Landon had something to do with Collin’s death. From the beginning Landon knew my girls came first. He knew not to force me into a position where’d I have to choose. He’d assured me that he understood.

  Or did he?

  “What was the reason for you two being at McGinley’s?” Evan asked.

  “We were there discussing a personal matter.”

  “Did any of it have to do with your husband?”

  “Some of it.”

  Evan looked over his shoulder at his partner who nodded slowly. “I have to ask,” he said, turning back and pinning his eyes on Deena. “Were you and Landon having an affair?”

  “If you’re asking me if Landon killed Collin, I can honestly say that I don’t know. But I do know that I’m exhausted and have to finalize the funeral arrangements for my husband. So please show yourselves out.”

  “One more thing,” Evan said, holding up his phone to Deena. “This is a screenshot of a threatening text message Collin received before he left for Green Bay. Did he tell you about it?”

  Deena shook her head.

  As the two detectives turned around, she said, “Evan, you’re the one Lily should’ve married.”

  Evan paused in midstride. Without looking back, he continued out of the kitchen.

  *

  Julius tossed his keys on the kitchen counter and set his briefcase down on the floor. “Babe?” He spot checked a couple of the rooms for Lily but she wasn’t there. He shot up the staircase, taking two at a time. As he reached the landing, he checked both the master and guest bedrooms, but they were empty.

  Her truck’s in the driveway. Where is she?

  Heart thumping, Julius raced back downstairs and outside. He glanced through both the attached garage and the storage shed at the back of their lot. His riding lawnmower and tools were exactly as he’d left them. Still, no Lily.

  Once back inside and on the second floor, Julius stopped and listened.

  Shuffling noises came from above. Julius looked up and stared at the water stain on the ceiling. The attic.

  He went into the hallway and looked up the steep, narrow staircase leading up to the attic. “Babe?”

  “Up here.”

  Julius climbed the steps, pushed open the door and moved deeper into the attic. Open rafters with naked bulb fixtures illuminated the steep gabled ceilings. Dirty dormer windows added mottled lighting and showed clouds of dust drifting over the steamer trunks. Crates of Christmas decorations and the stacks of old comic books that were once scattered on the floor were now freshly piled by the chimney.

  He studied Lily who was sitting on her knees, going over the blueprints from the house. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I even checked outside to see if you’d taken up gardening.”

  His wife laughed. “You know me better than that. I work on the inside. You’ve got the outside.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I wanted to work on my attic.” Lily pushed off the floor, dusting her hands on her jeans.

  “You just lost your dad three days ago. Is now the time to start remodeling?”

  “Better
time than any.” Lily walked over to where a box of screws and a cordless drill lay and got down on her knees. “I think it can all be done without adding dormers or raising the roof.” She pulled the hose on the shop vac, dragging it closer. “Dad and I liked working around the house when Mother wanted to change or update parts of the Colonial. Dad did it to keep Mother happy. I did it because it took me out of the real world for a moment to ignore the heavy tension between my parents, which they never acknowledged.”

  “Yeah…Babe, maybe they were trying to protect you and your sister. I wish my parents would’ve done the same for me. At least when we decide to have kids, hopefully, we’ll handle things better than our parents did.”

  The corner of Lily’s eyes crinkled as she looked at Julius. “Anyway, it allowed me to step back into time and bring an old house back to life.”

  Julius moved in closer, taking it all in. His attempt to be caring and lighthearted about their parents and having children had been shot down. There has to be something else that I can do to let her know I love her. “If you’re ready to work on the attic, I’m ready to help.”

  “Just a sec.” Lily turned on the shop vac, balanced herself on the ceiling joists and sucked out the window wells. She backed out, shut the vacuum off and pointed at the building materials on the floor. “Can you slide me another sheet while you’re there?”

  Julius lifted a piece of sub-flooring and handed it to Lily. He watched as she lined up the screw and drove it into the joist. “Nice position. But that’s not the kind of screwing we’ve enjoyed.”

  Lily ignored him, dropped in another screw and drilled it into the floor. She repeated the steps six times before she spoke. “Thanks for your offer to help, but this is my way of unwinding. And if you give me a few minutes to put these last two sheets down, I’ll warm up those pulled pork sliders you like, get you a beer, and you’ll have the lower level all to yourself.”

  He smiled as he considered his wife’s offer. Rarely did she give up any part of the house because she was always in and out of rooms taking measurements and running remodeling ideas past him with the hopes of restoring the Victorian’s interior out to its gutters.

  The look on her face told him that she needed to be left alone. “Okay. That’ll work.”

  “By the way, there’s something that I have to do tonight.” Lily backed out, sat up, and rested her weight on the back of her heels. “It’s about Dad.”

  “I thought Evan’s working that case.”

  “He is. But I have a lot of questions about what happened to my dad. And at this moment there’s only one person that I think might have the answers.”

  An Asian beetle flew past Julius as he moved closer toward his wife.

  He should’ve known that Lily was going to start digging for the truth after finding her working in the attic that they were supposed to start on next spring. “Do Evan and the others know about this person?”

  Lily shook her head and got to her feet.

  “And you’re not going to say anything else about it because it’s work?”

  “Thanks for understanding.” Lily rolled up the house plans, slid them into the tube and capped it.

  “Can’t you at least tell me where you’re going?”

  “I’m going to the Hawks Nest.”

  His chest stuttered. “No way.”

  “You don’t get a say.”

  “I get to be worried. They’re responsible for what happened on Riley Street. That poor sap’s tongue was cut out because he talked to cops. The mob hates cops.” There was a long silence before Julius exhaled and said, “I get this is your job, but having you find trouble before it finds you is asking too much from me.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “You’re my wife.”

  Lily strolled over to the chimney and rested the tube against the bricks. “I have to do this.”

  Julius reached for Lily’s hand and squeezed. If it was the other way around, he’d do the same thing. It was in their blood. It was what they did for a living. The situation was similar to if he had to go overseas and cover the updates during the Afghan war.

  He just wished it wasn’t his wife.

  *

  Later that evening as Lily entered downtown Fort, the bank clock flashed thirty-one degrees. The air was clear and so was the sky. She slowed for a pedestrian and turned south east on Bark River Road. She drove for several minutes, passing aging farms, abandoned silos and new sub-divisions mixed with failing barns.

  Soon the billboard indicating that the Hawks Nest was a half-mile down the road came into view. Before she had time to think about what she was going to say to Mr. Surace, she was turning into the gravel parking lot while her headlights danced over the rusty swing-sets and horseshoe pits.

  Lily pulled into a parking spot near the road, shut off the engine on her truck, and climbed down. As she shut the door, she eyeballed the popular sports bar and absorbed the small horde of female college students leaving with a handful of guys straggling behind, wandering the parking lot, trying to find where they parked their cars.

  She made her way into the bar, darting between people dancing mindlessly to the top 40 music pumping from the tower speakers placed in each corner above the black and white checkered floor tiles. Strobe and motion lights swiped across the faces of couples and loners hanging out at their tables enjoying the atmosphere around them.

  Lily’s eyes traveled around the room until they met the bartender’s—his eyes holding hers. It was too late to turn back. The burden to confront the stranger her dad had called a friend; bowed her shoulders.

  She went over to the polished oak bar with mid-rise stools and claimed one of them.

  The bartender toweled off a glass and placed it underneath the bar. “What can I get you to drink?”

  Lily looked at the toned and trimmed male standing on the other side of the bar and wondered if he had something else under the bar besides the glasses. “I’m here to see Mr. Surace.”

  “Then I’ll buy you a drink.” The bartender went over to the tap, poured her a glass of beer and set it in front of Lily. “It’s a honey ale. Your dad’s favorite.”

  They know who I am.

  “You must be Lily,” a man said from behind.

  Lily turned on her stool and saw a man dressed in a tailor-made white suit, holding a hat in one hand and a drink in the other. “You’re not Mr. Surace?”

  “I’m the closest you’re going to get to him. Grab your drink and I’ll take you to my favorite spot.”

  She followed the man around the bar and up a set of stairs to the second floor. Men who were sitting at a table got up and stepped to the side against the railing.

  The man in the suit waited for Lily to take a seat. Then he sat down at the table across from her, leaned back in his chair, and said, “I’m Vic.”

  “I know who you are.”

  “Mind telling me why you wanna see my uncle?”

  “I think Mr. Surace might know who’s responsible for killing my dad. Unless it was Mr. Surace who had my dad killed.”

  Vic gave Lily a hard smile. “I can assure you we played no part in what happened to Collin. In fact my uncle was very angry when he found out about it.”

  Sweat trickled under Lily’s arm. “Would he be able to help me find who killed him?”

  “That broad’s crazy coming in here asking for our help,” said one of the men.

  Vic shot out of his chair and grabbed the man by his shirt. “You shut your mouth.” He pushed him against the wall and turned back to Lily. “I’ll talk to my uncle. Your dad was a good man. Should we learn anything, we’ll give you a call.”

  “Thanks.” Lily stood and rushed out the club.

  Several moments later, Lily maneuvered her vehicle through the parking lot and pulled out onto the road. She glanced up at her rearview mirror and stared at the pair of beams casting a reflection in the glass. As she turned off Bark River Road, so did the dark car behind her.

  She cont
inued down the street, blowing yellow lights.

  So did the dark car.

  She came upon the bank and pulled along the curb.

  The dark car flew by Lily and kept going straight, speeding up to beat a red light.

  Her heart raced. It was too late to worry about the consequences for barging in a place where she wasn’t welcomed. If she was being followed by one of Surace’s men, then let them follow. It’s time to see what kind of loyalty they really had towards Dad.

  *

  “C’mon Vic, you’re not serious about helping out this broad. She’s a cop for Chrissakes,” Orso said. “The only thing she’d be good for is a quick bang. Like her sister.”

  Vic glared at the thinly built punk who’d been with the family for years. Capo or not, Orso was out of line. “Cop or no cop, she’s not to be touched. Those orders come straight from Pop Surace.”

  “I’m not going to defy the boss. I’m just sayin’.”

  “You’re sayin’ you’re still bitter over being tagged by the black lady cop for a DUI back when she was on patrol.”

  “That was a hundred years ago, Vic. I’m more pissed at the no good for nothin’ reporter she’s married to. Word on the street he’s digging up dirt about us for that lawyer bitch downtown.” Orso downed his mixed drink. “He’s lucky he’s not wearing a pair of cement shoes.”

  “Your beef with the reporter is a different story. Just make sure that everyone knows Detective Lily Blanchette is to be left alone.”

  Chapter 23

  November 22, 6:49 a.m.

  Lily woke up to the phone ringing. She reached for the corded receiver. “Hello?”

  “Lily?”

  It was Deena. She didn’t think she’d hear from her mother, even though today was her dad’s funeral. “Yes ma’am. Are you okay?”

  “I’d like for you to speak at your Dad’s funeral. I just can’t find the strength.”

  Lily hadn’t had time to emotionally reconcile all the events of the last forty-eight hours. Having to say good-bye to the man who had been her confidante for years, the one who knew just about all there was to know about her, only made matters worse. Will I be able to keep it together?