Pup Fiction

by Laurien Berenson

  “You should have told me you were coming,” he said. “I’d have fixed you something special.”

  “You can try to make that sound like a treat, but I’m not buying it,” I said with a laugh. Relatives who dropped by the café were often made to sample Frank’s culinary works in progress—whether they wanted to or not.

  My brother placed both hands over his heart and pretended to be wounded. I wasn’t buying that either.

  “How about something from the menu?” I studied the board on the wall behind him. “Maybe a chicken salad platter?”

  “Coming right up,” Frank said. “Go grab a drink and a booth. I’ll send it over when it’s ready. Are you on your own today, or are you meeting someone?”

  “Meeting someone.” I fished out my wallet and offered him a credit card.

  Frank waved my hand away. “I know it’s not Bertie. She and the kids are visiting her family in Michigan.”

  “Which is why I’m not having lunch with your wife,” I pointed out unnecessarily. “Now don’t be nosey. It’s no one you know.”

  The door to the café opened behind us. Frank gazed at the newcomer over my shoulder. “That guy?”

  I turned and had a look too. The man who’d entered the café was the right age to be Bradley Luft. In his mid-forties, he wore a madras shirt that he’d left untucked to cover an expanding waistline. His sandy hair was thinning in front and long in the back. The topsiders on his feet weren’t just scuffed, they were battered to near oblivion.

  “Possibly,” I told Frank.

  His brow shot upward. “You don’t know?”

  Brothers. Why do they always think they’re in charge?

  “I’ll find out in a few seconds,” I told him. I crossed the room and smiled. “Bradley Luft? I’m Melanie.”

  “Call me Brad,” he said. “I see you’ve already ordered. Find us a place to sit, and I’ll be right over.”

  While Brad placed his order, I poured myself an iced tea and slid into a booth near the café’s front window. He joined me there a few minutes later.

  “Is it my imagination, or is the guy behind the counter looking at me funny?” he asked in an undertone.

  “It’s probably not your imagination.” I sighed. Then I turned around and glared at Frank—a clear signal to knock it off. “He’s my brother.”

  “Your brother works at The Bean Counter?”

  “My brother owns The Bean Counter,” I corrected him. “But try not to hold that against it. It’s still a great place to eat.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Brad muttered. “He’s not staring at you.”

  I slid out of my seat and gestured for him to do the same. Then I reached into the booth and switched the position of our two drinks. “There.” I pointed him back to where I’d been sitting. “Now he can’t see you. And he won’t dare stare at me because he knows I’ll go over there and smack him.”

  Brad smirked as he took his new seat. “Much better. Now I just have to hope he doesn’t spit in my food.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. Frank takes the quality of his food very seriously.”

  Brad didn’t look entirely convinced. He and I made small talk, mostly about the weather, until our food arrived. My chicken salad platter looked wonderful. Brad’s Ruben sandwich came with a mound of french fries. Too bad I didn’t know Brad better—because then I could have nabbed a few.

  The café was quickly filling up with customers. The line to order at the counter now stretched nearly all the way back to the door. Once Frank was too busy to pay any more attention to us, Brad and I both relaxed.

  He wolfed down half his sandwich in three quick bites, then said, “Since Emily’s the one who got us together, I’m assuming you want to talk about Will?”

  “Yes.” I swallowed, then continued. “Emily told me you and Will grew up together. And that you’ve been best friends for years?”

  Brad nodded. “He and I met in kindergarten. We bonded over our mutual loves for red licorice and kickball.”

  “So you must have known him better than anyone.”

  Brad put three fries in his mouth at once, then chewed slowly as he considered. “I guess you might say that. At any rate, our relationship lasted longer than either of his marriages.”

  “Do you have any idea what he might have done to get himself killed?”

  This time, Brad didn’t hesitate. Not only that, but his quick answer came as a surprise. “I have lots of ideas about that.”

  “You do?”

  “Sure. The police detective asked me the same question, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about it. Did you ever meet Will?”

  “No.” I popped a cherry tomato in my mouth. “By the time I got to know Emily, the two of them were already divorced.”

  “Will was a great guy. Easygoing, fun to be around. The kind of guy who wants to be everybody’s friend. You know?”

  I nodded.

  “But there was another side to him too. Once Will was your buddy, the wheels in his brain would start turning. He’d be trying to come up with ways that you could be useful to him. That was Will’s sharpest skill actually. He was great at convincing other people to do stuff for him.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Pretty much anything that would put money in his pocket. Will always had something running on the side. When we were in grade school, he was convincing kids to shoplift candy for him. In high school, he was the guy you went to if you wanted to buy a term paper instead of writing your own.”

  Brad grinned appreciatively. “I have to hand it to him, Will was clever. I wish I had the gift of being able to profit from other people’s work.”

  I put my fork down on the side of my plate. My lunch was good, but the conversation was even better. I wanted to concentrate on it fully.

  “Did he ever get caught?” I asked.

  “Oh sure. Will talked himself out of more tight spots that most people ever even get into. He was a master at letting someone else take the fall. One of his frat brothers got kicked out of college for a scheme that Will was behind. At least that’s the way he told the story.”

  Brad sounded full of admiration as he recounted Will’s exploits. As if he was proud of the things Will had been able to achieve. And more than a little envious.

  “He must have been a hard person to be friends with,” I said.

  “Yeah, for most people.” Brad shrugged. “But Will and I went way back. I knew him for who he was. I also knew better than to let him take advantage of me. Whenever I got mixed up in one of his deals, I made sure to do it on my terms, not his.”

  “Because you didn’t trust him.”

  “Hell no,” he said with a laugh. “Only an idiot would have done that.”

  “But you did do business with him.”

  Brad’s amusement suddenly vanished. Now he looked wary. “Yeah, maybe once or twice. No more than that.”

  “Recently?”

  “No,” he replied quickly. “The stuff Will was mixed up in, that’s a young man’s game. He liked living on the edge and never knowing where the next big score might come from. After a while, all that did was make me nervous.”

  I let Brad think about that for a minute. While he did, I resumed eating. Slices of hardboiled egg were fanned around the rim of the plate. I ate them one by one.

  “It turned out you were right to be nervous,” I said eventually.

  “What do you mean?”

  I would have thought the answer to that was obvious.

  “Will is dead,” I said. “Somebody shot him. Probably someone he’d taken advantage of.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

  Brad had finished his sandwich. And no wonder. He’d been shoveling food in his mouth almost faster than he could chew. It looked as though maybe my questions had been making him nervous too.

  “You’d be the perfect person to know something about that,” I said mildly. “Since you were Will’s closest friend.”
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  Brad blinked, then swallowed heavily. He grabbed his diet soda and drank it down, then slid out of the booth. “We’re done here,” he said.

  I watched as Brad quickly made his way through the crowded room. Seconds later, the door slammed behind him. He ran down the outside steps and got in his car.

  When I turned back to the table, Frank was standing in front of me. He shook his head sadly. “You always did have that effect on men.”

  “Oh stuff it,” I said.

  * * *

  The next morning, I took Sam up on his offer to drive the boys to camp. I wanted to talk to Detective Sturgill of the Stamford PD, which meant I would need to head in the opposite direction. While I’d been poking around on my own, I knew the detective’s official investigation would have been proceeding in a more orderly fashion.

  Sturgill and I had met the previous summer when a member of my book club had been murdered. At the time, the detective had made it very clear that he neither needed nor wanted my assistance. But in the end, I’d been able to provide him with some useful information. Maybe I could do so again. And if I was lucky, maybe he would share some of what he’d learned with me.

  The Stamford Police Department was situated in a brick and glass building whose imposing exterior was probably meant to intimidate. It succeeded brilliantly on that score. Just climbing the wide concrete steps and walking inside gave me the willies. And I’m usually not guilty of anything.

  A woman officer was behind the reception counter. I gave her my name and told her I was there to see Detective Sturgill. She wasn’t impressed.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  She waited for me to elaborate.

  I didn’t.

  After a standoff that seemed to last at least a minute, the officer picked up a nearby phone and made a call. Then she motioned me toward a row of uncomfortable-looking chairs lined up against a wall. It looked like a place where people who’d been arrested would sit while they waited to be processed. I moved away from the counter and opted to stand instead.

  Eventually, Detective Sturgill came striding down a hallway from the back of the building. He was at least a decade older than me—and judging by the lines on his face, they’d been hard years. The detective’s body was thick all over, but he moved with an air of authority that commanded attention. Dark, bushy eyebrows lowered in a scowl when he saw me.

  “I should have known you’d show up again sooner or later.” Sturgill’s voice was deep and gravelly. “To what do I owe the pleasure this time?”

  “Will Grace’s murder,” I said in a low tone. The woman officer was trying to eavesdrop on our conversation. There was no point in making it easy for her.

  “How’d you get mixed up in that?”

  “Emily Grace is a friend of mine. She asked for my help.”

  “Help,” he repeated. He didn’t sound happy. “If she wanted help pertaining to her ex’s murder, she should have come to me.”

  I shrugged. It hadn’t been my call.

  “And now you want to talk?”

  “Maybe we can compare notes,” I said.

  A sharp spurt of laughter erupted behind me. The woman quickly turned it into a not very convincing cough. Sturgill didn’t look happy about that either.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go to my office. And you can tell me everything you know.”

  Chapter 21

  I followed Detective Sturgill down the hall.

  If he expected me to tell him everything I knew, I decided, then he’d better be prepared to offer me something in exchange. Either that or threaten to arrest me. But I wasn’t about to spill my guts for nothing.

  “Here we are.” Sturgill stopped and pushed open a door.

  It led to a small, square room with a minimal amount of furniture, all of which appeared to have been chosen for practicality rather than comfort. At least there was a window, which was now firmly shut. Icy air blasting through vents near the floor had lowered the temperature in the space to somewhere just north of arctic.

  Maybe Detective Sturgill was cold-blooded, I thought. That would explain a lot.

  “Take a seat,” he said.

  Aside from the chair behind his desk, there was only one other chair in the room. It was made of metal and had a hard seat. That was freezing too. The thin fabric of my summer clothes didn’t provide much of a buffer from the chilly surface. I sat down gingerly and tried not to shiver.

  “Sorry, I don’t have any control over the temperature,” Sturgill told me. “The whole building’s regulated from a central source.” He gazed around. “I guess maybe I could close a vent or two.”

  “Thank you.” I clasped my arms over my chest for warmth. “I’d appreciate that.”

  Detective Sturgill fiddled with a few levers, then sat down behind his desk. He folded his hands together in front of him and gazed at me across the width of his blotter. His expression was one of resignation.

  “So, Emily Grace is a friend of yours?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “Both my sons attended her nursery school. And one time, years ago, I was a substitute counselor at her summer camp.”

  The detective sighed. “You keep unusual company, Ms. Travis. You know that, right?”

  I wished I could refute that, but I couldn’t. Instead I just nodded.

  “Could be that your old friend shot her ex-husband.”

  “She didn’t,” I replied.

  “How do you know that?”

  “Emily doesn’t own a gun,” I said.

  “Sad to say, these days they’re not hard to come by,” Sturgill replied. “Nor to dispose of.”

  “Emily had no reason to want to kill Will.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she also mention that he cleaned out their bank account and left her for another woman?”

  “That happened a long time ago,” I told him.

  Sturgill shrugged. “Some people carry a grudge.”

  “Other people divorce their husbands and move on,” I retorted. “Are you aware that in the days leading up to Will’s death, other strange things were going on at Graceland School?”

  Finally, he appeared to be mildly interested. “What kind of strange?”

  “An old truck that was parked in a carport went careening down a hill into a pond.”

  “On its own?”

  “No one was driving it.” I wiggled my toes to keep the circulation moving in my feet. Of all the days to have worn sandals. “But somebody had to have put the truck in neutral and given it a push.”

  Sturgill nodded. “Anyone hurt?”

  “No, but a few days later, a stove caught fire in the kitchen. No one should have been in there at the time.”

  The detective frowned. At least he was listening. “Was there a lot of damage?”

  “Again, no. A counselor saw smoke and raised the alarm. Emily and Mia were able to put the fire out.”

  “It sounds like Ms. Grace is having a string of bad luck,” he allowed. “Though neither one of those incidents sounds particularly concerning.”

  Thank goodness I hadn’t told him about her smashed mailbox or loose puppies, I thought.

  “If Ms. Grace was worried about those things,” Sturgill said, “she should have mentioned them to me when we spoke.”

  “Emily was upset,” I told him. “She felt as though you were treating her like a suspect.”

  “There’s a reason for that. She is a suspect. And the fact that she didn’t tell me about those other events makes me think that maybe she was involved in them too.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I snapped.

  Detective Sturgill shrugged. “Ms. Grace strikes me as a smart woman. Maybe she thought a few distractions would throw us off the scent.”

  “Or maybe somebody’s out to get her.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Do you have any proof
of that?”

  “Malcolm Hancock owned the property on which Graceland School sits. He leased it to Emily nearly twenty years ago. The lease is up for renewal in eighteen months, and Malcolm’s heirs would rather sell the land for development than continue with the current contract.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Sturgill said.

  “Maybe there’s someone who doesn’t want to wait that long. Someone who’s trying to make Emily vacate the land sooner.”

  “One of the heirs, you mean?”

  I gritted my teeth. The man was being deliberately obtuse.

  “Yes. Emily’s been dealing with Peyton Hancock. Have you spoken with him about Will’s murder?”

  “I’m not going to divulge that to you,” Detective Sturgill said. “Just to be clear, you and I are not comparing notes. You may tell me any facts you have that you think might be pertinent to my investigation. In response, I may or may not acknowledge whether I was already in possession of that information. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I replied grudgingly.

  “Now, is there anything else you think I should know?”

  I considered standing up and leaving in a huff. But aside from saving me from becoming a human icicle—what would that accomplish? Detective Sturgill and I were both working toward the same goal. Even if I was the only one of us who thought we were on the same team.

  I had come to tell him what I’d learned. I might as well get on with it.

  I started with everything I’d found out about the kind of man Will Grace had been. Then I mentioned that Will’s second ex didn’t think any more highly of him than his first wife had. And that his closest friend appeared to know a lot more about Will’s shady dealings than he wanted to let on.

  I also described the argument I’d witnessed between Emily and Steve Lambert, the head of Greenfields HOA. And I pointed out that the person who’d discovered Will’s body was also a Greenfields resident. Like maybe Detective Sturgill would want to make a connection there. He just shook his head about that.