by Kristen Lamb
I was waiting for Meyerson to handcuff me and haul me into questioning when he said, “Y’all can go.” He snapped on a set of latex gloves. “Don’t leave town. We’ll question you later.”
As we walked away stunned, Sawyer mumbled, “I’m really starting to dislike that guy.”
Chapter Fourteen
Sawyer dropped the boys off at JC’s store and did the apologizing and explaining so I didn’t have to. We drove in splintering silence all the way back to the trailer park. I picked up Nana’s car and he tailed me to the hotel. On the drive back, alone, the aroma of that familiar perfume grew stronger than before. It was all around me, unearthing bittersweet memories I’d have preferred remain buried.
Sawyer parked behind me and stepped out, truck engine idling, and fished the electronic key to my room out of his back pocket.
“What’s wrong?” he said, cocking his head.
“Nothing. Key, please. I need sleep.” I stared off at the parking lot, the smattering of work trucks in a field. Crews were busy erecting monument signs for a coming strip mall. A family of creatures lay in crushed mounds of fur and blood in the road, and I was profoundly ashamed of all I’d taken for granted.
“Something’s up.” He refused to give me the key. “What’s wrong?”
“That smell. It’s stronger.” I lifted my arm to his face.
He shook his head. “No, sorry. Are you sure you aren’t rattled from what happened?”
I arched my eyebrow. “I’m hallucinating perfumes?”
He shrugged. “Hallucinations can be brought on by stress, and you’ve had plenty.”
“You know you’re pissing me off, right?”
“Sorry, I don’t smell anything,” he said defensively. “Hallucinations aren’t only visual. They can be auditory and yes, even affect smell. I once worked a case where—”
I ground my teeth, and said in a low voice, “Stop talking before I hit you.”
“I’m only trying to help. You’ve been through more than most people can handle.”
I lowered my voice. “I am not most people. I am not hallucinating and I know this perfume.”
“Great. You recognize a perfume. Women wear it all the time as I hear, and Cunningham was in a room full of females last night,” he said, an impatient edge to his voice. He glanced at the time on his phone.
“No, not this.” I pointed at the inside of my wrist. “This perfume is one of a kind and I can smell it.”
He scowled.
“Superior perfumes are made with ambergris not just for aroma, but also to last. Powerful stuff. Body heat makes the fragrance stronger. It’s why I’m smelling it more now than before.”
“Yet I smell nothing. Are you going somewhere with this?”
“If I had any money I’d bet money this is my old perfume, but that can’t be possible.”
“Then why are we talking about it?” His gaze cut to his running vehicle.
“It’s important because the perfumier Phil used only made one custom formula per client. Rich people want to be unique, and pay premium to ensure no one wears the same outfit…”
“Or the same perfume.” His tone piqued with interest.
“This fragrance was mine, made for me, only I threw it away when Phil disappeared well over a year ago . Last night, Claire wasn’t wearing it and Cunningham hadn’t yet come into contact with whoever was, because I have a hell of a nose. I’d have noticed.”
“I get that.”
“Someone wearing my old custom perfume came into contact with Cunningham before he was murdered, the same unique-never-made-again-fragrance sold to only one client on the planet”
“Phillip Gerald,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Are you suggesting Phil not only wears heels but now women’s perfume?”
“Why do you even ask me questions if you aren’t going to take me seriously?” Deep down I knew he was trying to get me to lighten up, but for some reason that ticked me off even more. I hurt inside and out and all I wanted was to go to sleep and never wake up.
“Romi, come on. Don’t—”
I closed the distance between us and spoke quietly, my words hardened by indignation. “Someone connected to Phil got close enough to Cunningham for this fragrance to transfer to him and then to me when I hauled his body out of the water trap. And this person either saw him before he died, knows who killed him, or did the killing. You even said someone my size could have taken him by surprise.”
“Plausible.” He stared down at me like I might leap up and gnaw on his head, and as mad as I was, I couldn’t promise I wouldn’t.
I backed away, and forced calm into my words. “Have the Medical Examiner swab and test for ambergris. Then you can apologize for treating me like an idiot.” I grabbed his arm and scrubbed my wrist hard against his.
“What are you—?”
“A theory,” I said then snatched the key out of his hand.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” he called after me.
“On that we agree,” I said over my shoulder and struck for the front doors. As I entered, I saw him still watching me and didn’t know how to feel about that.
When I made it to my room, I nearly tripped on the local paper the hotel staff left on the threshold. I ripped up the pages and stared at the front page. Its headline read Barrington Wines Comes to Bisby. The cover photo, taken last night at the restaurant, included Mark and Claire Cunningham, Mayor Ferris, some guy named Joseph Thoolen, and a woman I’d never seen before but who seemed oddly familiar, though it was hard to tell because she was laughing and wore chic black-framed glasses. I checked the name under the image. Daphne Idensloph, Owner of Halcyon Financial Services. This was the woman who now owned my mom’s gingerbread, probably the one who brokered the deal to plow over my home.
How dismally ironic.
She fit in perfectly and oozed Old Money. She even wore a suit I could have sworn was almost identical to one I’d once owned. Phil had it custom-made for me by a fine Italian designer as a Christmas gift. Only this woman’s suit was red and mine had been blue. Whether it was the same designer or not, I knew it cost a small fortune. Phil never let me forget the cost of anything he bought me.
Another sting.
I slipped the electronic key in the door then stopped at the mirror in the narrow entryway of the hotel room. It was uncanny how much I looked like Heather’s double in this getup. Hot pink and sparkles might have been adorable on her, but I felt like a joke. I didn’t want to look like Heather or dress the same as this Daphne character. I wanted to be me, though wasn’t quite sure who that was.
I showered hastily and tended my injuries, then dressed in Sawyer’s T-shirt and sat down at the small desk and studied the article. I now understood why JC and Kim hadn’t been aware of what lay ahead for Bisby. The deal hadn’t been finalized until yesterday, and Claire had managed not only to grab up the land where my home now sat, but all the surrounding acreage as well. The old Eisler Ranch and some adjacent properties would make her new vineyard one of the largest in the state. I flipped through the small-town paper and the only other thing of interest was a follow-up article about a van full of geologists and petroleum engineers killed in a freak rollover accident after surveying the land where the vineyard would be built.
I rested my head on the coolness of paper. My body ached and so did my heart. If it was in fact the same perfume, it scared me Phil might be close, but the real pain was I’d been so easily duplicated.
A knocking at the door startled me. I must have drifted off and had no idea how long I’d been asleep only that my hair was dry and my feet cold. Another knock then I heard, “It’s me.”
“Go away,” I called through the door.
“I can smell it.”
When I opened the door, Sawyer stood there, face apologetic.
“May I come in? Please.”
I let him in. He carried a folder tucked under his arm.
“So, I’m not a moron?”
&nbs
p; “I apologize.” He scowled and brushed his thumb across my cheek gently. “Newspaper ink.”
“Fell asleep.” I backed away from his touch and stretched the kink out of my neck. “We’re in a closed space. That’s why I rubbed my skin on your wrist. I’d hoped that—”
“Once I was out of the breeze and the perfume warmed, I’d smell it too.”
I nodded and sank onto the edge of the bed.
“It worked. I only made it a few miles from here and started smelling citrus. I did as you said and asked the Medical Examiner to swab the body and test for this ambergris substance.”
“No, you were right. Who cares?”
“I do.”
“It only proves Cunningham hugged some woman wearing fancy perfume. You only have my assertion it’s the same fragrance, and there were a half dozen filthy rich women in that room last night.”
“But it’s a step. What if we assume it is the same?”
“What are you going to do? Execute search warrants for fancy perfume? It was dumb.” I tucked my legs underneath me suddenly very aware I was in only a long t-shirt.
“I think we need to arrange for you to stay in a safe house until we can get this sorted.”
“Are you high?”
He leaned against the armoire across from the bed. “You’re clearly in danger. If you’re right about that perfume, someone close to Phil is here, hidden in plain sight. We’ve been searching for a male killer, but this opens us up to an unknown female, and my resources only go so far.”
“A safe house. Far away from here,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied, buoyed. “A new start. I still have some favors I can call in.”
I thought of Seattle, of the endless green and rain and long walks on foggy cold beaches of stone and shells. I almost asked, then Dammit. “No, no safe house.” I felt ill. “I have to go to work tomorrow. My family needs me and I have a killer to find.”
“This isn’t all fun and games, Nancy Drew,” he said, burying his face in his palms. “People are dying. The circle is closing. We’re no longer talking dead bodies in Mexico or Florida. We are talking here. Right here, right now.”
“What precisely did you learn at the crime scene?” I narrowed my eyes.
“I’ve already told you too much.” He stared at the floor, unwilling to meet my stare.
“I’m confused. You used me as bait and now you’re shocked it worked?”
“I didn’t use you as anything.”
“Sure. Say that enough times and maybe you’ll believe it.” Like invisible tumblers in a lock, I suddenly saw the bigger picture. “If you really thought I was running off to meet Phil, you’d have never introduced yourself to me in Fort Worth. You’d have followed me and then arrested us both.”
He stewed in silence.
“No, you wanted someone to see me talking to you. You used me to press someone’s timeline, didn’t you?”
He didn’t reply.
I could tell I’d hit on the truth. “And I ask the little questions about Cunningham and you say you can’t reveal too much?”
“Romi—”
“You even said it last night. Guys like Phil always screw up. Make mistakes. Especially when under pressure. ” I stood, no longer caring I was half naked.
“We need to move you. You’re in danger.”
“We have no proof of that, and I’m unwilling to jump at shadows. You used me to push someone’s buttons, to get them to make a mistake. Now I’m supposed to run off and hide?”
“You’re right. We…I did use you. People were dying and…” He rubbed his forehead. “Things are getting out of hand.”
“You wanted a honey trap, and that’s what you got.”
“Romi.”
I shook my finger. “Ah, ah, ah. One thing we country folk learn early is not to name things or you get attached.”
“Why are you being this way?”
“Because all I have left is my family and finding whoever killed my mother. I can’t do that from a safe house.”
“Fine.” He threw up his hands. “You win. After dinner, Cunningham returned to the resort with the owner Joseph Thoolen and some of the party members, including Mayor Ferris. They wanted to keep drinking. Claire Barrington-Cunningham had an early spa appointment and she went home. The party broke up slightly before midnight. Everyone has a solid alibi.”
“Did you interview this Thoolen guy? If he was staying at the resort, maybe he killed him.”
He gritted his teeth then in a low voice, said, “Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it.”
“Thanks for the fortune cookie message, but I have to go buy work clothes.”
“We’re certain Thoolen didn’t kill Cunningham. He has a rock-solid alibi, too. He was with his mistress.”
“Allrighty, good luck with the investigation, then.” I searched the room for those idiotic flip-flops and wondered how I was going to go shopping in only a t-shirt, since Sawyer stood between me and my Piggle Wiggle bag of clean clothes.
“There’s more.” He closed the drapes and flipped on a light.
“What?” I continued hunting for where I’d kicked off the flip-flops.
He hesitated then said, “Thoolen’s mistress is Heather. Your sister.”
I teetered for a moment then dropped into a nearby chair. “That’s impossible.”
“I had a security guard make me copies.” He withdrew a stack of time-stamped surveillance images and set them in front of me one by one. My sister parking her truck at eight forty-five. My sister in her maid uniform pushing a vacuum. Thoolen entering his room at twelve thirteen p.m. My sister entering Thoolen’s room at twelve twenty p.m. Room service delivering a tray of strawberries and bottles of champagne at one forty-five a.m. My sister leaving Thoolen’s room at six oh-four a.m.
After a few minutes of staring at the images, I finally found my voice. “I guess the bright side is there’s proof Heather didn’t kill him.” My head was spinning. My sister had told me there were bigger things I didn’t understand, that I didn’t have a dog in that fight. What had that meant?
“Your sister’s very pretty,” he said.
“Your point?”
“If someone as rich as Thoolen took a shine to her, she could be trying to find her way out of The Cactus Flower in her own way.”
“God and we wonder why everyone thinks people like us are gold-diggers.” I dropped the images on the table.
“Romi,” he said and scooted a chair across from me. “Cut her slack. She’s been the one taking care of your family, and we both know that’s no easy job.”
I nodded and hated myself for judging her. He was right. I’d run off to college and left her with the mess. I’d always assumed she’d run away from the mess with me. I’d never expected her to stay. I let out a cynical laugh.
“What?”
“Oh, the rich and their hypocrisy. Claire made it a point to humiliate me last night. Invited me to some party of hers, but it was against resort policy to fraternize with the help. I suppose screwing the help is different.”
He stroked my hand.
I felt tears clot my throat. “No wonder she landed me a job so quickly. Wonder if Thoolen’s into ‘almost-twins’?” I said. “Can spring me from The Cactus Flower, too. Maybe buy me something pretty.”
“Stop it.”
I swiped up the bag of clothes and fished out some yoga pants and a shirt. Modesty be damned, I slipped on the pants then turned my back and pulled off Sawyer’s T-shirt. I needed to get some air, to think. I was tired of being a pawn pushed around in a game I couldn’t win.
Then I felt his hands on my bare shoulders, his body close. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“There’s something I need to tell you. I shouldn’t and it might cost me my job and…”
“And?” I could feel his warmth on my back.
“And you might hate me, but right now I don’t care.”
“What?” I braced, unce
rtain how much more I could take.
“I’ve known you a lot longer than you realize.”
“Go on,” I said, my voice unsteady.
He stroked his hands lightly down my arms. “We…I’ve been watching you since right after Verify shut down. I saw you struggle. Saw how you cared for Ida. Watched you try so hard and never could tell you that you weren’t getting out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Cunningham didn’t blackball you, not completely,” he said.
“What?”
“We did.”
“The FBI,” I said and staggered to the bed, forgetting I was in nothing but yoga pants and a bra. I felt so violated. My sister? Now this? I had no idea who I could trust.
He sat next to me and continued to talk, but it was as if I were listening from underwater. “We really believed you were laying low for Phil. We waited. Watched for ways he might have been secretly sending you money. We thought if we put the pressure on long enough, you’d crack sooner or later and lead us to him.”
