by Kylie Logan
“You know everyone in Meghan’s circle. What about Corrine? She strikes me as being pretty sketchy.”
“In a completely nonthreatening way. Like I said, Corrine is a little flaky, but I’ve never known her to be—” As if they’d been snipped with scissors, my words cut off.
“I just remembered,” I explained. “Right before I left California. Meghan and Corrine, they had a fight.”
“That was a year ago.” Declan didn’t need to remind me. “What you told Gus about how you feel about getting fired last year applies here, too. Nobody holds a grudge that long.”
“Probably not, but hear me out. This wasn’t just a fight like Corrine didn’t fold the morning paper just right when she brought it up to Meghan in bed. Or Corrine forgot to tell Meghan about a scheduled interview. Corrine did stuff like that all the time and, surprisingly, Meghan never really complained. But that time . . .” Thinking, I squeezed my eyes shut. “It was something more serious than just some slipup. I remember Corrine, she said something to Meghan about how Meghan shouldn’t forget the favors Corrine did for her.”
“Did she do her favors?”
“Seems to me Meghan was the one doing Corrine the favor. She’s not the brightest bulb in the box, and Meghan was hardly patient. Yet Corrine’s had her job for years.”
“So it sounds like Meghan was the one doing Corrine a favor. But that’s not the way you heard it. You heard Corrine say she did Meghan a favor.”
“That’s right. And the way Corrine said it . . . well, I suppose my imagination is just running wild. I mean, with everything that happened today. But the way I remember it, there was the promise of a threat in Corrine’s voice.”
“It might mean something.” Big points for Declan for not blowing me off completely. “Let’s think about it and see where it gets us. Who else should we be looking at?”
“Well, Ben, I think. Don’t they say that when someone is murdered, the police always look at the spouse first?”
“That doesn’t mean every marriage is a disaster waiting to happen.”
Declan jumped in with the disclaimer so fast, I couldn’t help but think he’d been reading my mind. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “I’m not talking about every marriage.” How’s that for a slick way to waffle out of a sticky situation? “I’m talking about Ben and Meghan. He’d come to see Spencer and they’d have epic fights.”
“About . . . ?”
“Spencer, for one thing. Ben didn’t approve of the way Meghan was raising him. Meghan would say if he didn’t like it, Spencer should live with him. Other than that . . .” Thinking, I pursed my lips. “Hard to say. They never had a knock-down, drag-out right in front of me. They were usually behind closed doors and I only heard bits and pieces.”
“And both Meghan and Ben have had other relationships since.”
I had to admit he was right.
“So who’s Meghan’s latest main squeeze? Maybe we should be looking at him.”
I had to think about it. But then, I’d always pictured Meghan’s bedroom as having a revolving door. “There’s that What’s-His-Name. You know, the guy in the car movies. But . . .” I dismissed the thought with the lift of one shoulder. “I just read somewhere that he up and married some former nun. If anyone was going to be angry about that, it would have been Meghan, not him.”
“Okay, then we won’t worry about What’s-His-Name. Anyone else?”
I didn’t mean to, but I rolled my eyes. “Dozens. But let’s face it, how many of them are hanging around Hubbard, Ohio?”
“I never expected to see Benito Gallo here.”
I barked out a laugh. “I bet Ben never expected to be seen in Hubbard, Ohio. He was on the evening news, you know. Did you catch it? He gave an exclusive interview and talked about how sad he is and how the world has lost a great treasure.”
“You think he means it?”
“I think he sees Meghan’s death as a great opportunity to get some publicity and no . . .” I looked Declan’s way. “Before you can say it, I don’t think that would give him reason enough to kill her. Heck, he just married that Italian countess. Their picture is on the front of every magazine and every tabloid around. He doesn’t need to get any more publicity for himself.”
I’d brought a cup of coffee into the office with me and I took a sip, realized I’d been deep in thought for so long that it was ice cold, and made a face. I glanced at the closed office door.
“Busy out there tonight?” I asked Declan.
“People are disappointed Luigi Lasagna isn’t here.”
“It didn’t seem right having music here tonight, not after what happened to Meghan. We’ll have Luigi back next week. So if I go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, am I going to have to dodge a dozen reporters?”
“More than a dozen. But they’re all ordering food.”
He was trying to cheer me up with the good news about our bottom line. I was picturing the gauntlet I’d have to get through just to get as far as the kitchen.
Before I could convince myself to have a go at it, Declan popped out of his chair and grabbed my cup. “I’ll get coffee, you stay put.”
“And when you come back . . .” He went to the door. “You could bring me a slice of pizza.”
He pulled open the door. “Your wish is my command! You just stay here.”
It was good advice. Too bad I didn’t listen. One look at the tables of customers in our overflow area outside the office and I bolted out of my chair, raced into the dining room, and stood at the table nearest the dance floor, where a woman with fine features and silvery hair sat eating with a teenage boy.
“Wilma!” I don’t know why I was surprised. Somehow, it seemed as if all of Hollywood had suddenly been transplanted to Hubbard. “Wilma, it is you, and . . .” I looked at the kid who was just about to shove a slice of pizza into his mouth. “Spencer! What are you two doing here?”
* * *
• • •
“I THINK IT would be best if we didn’t look too conspicuous.” Wilma said what I would have if I’d been thinking straight. She glanced past me to the packed waiting room, no doubt checking for paparazzi, and with one hand, she patted the tabletop. “Why don’t you sit down, Laurel?”
I grabbed the nearest empty chair and pulled it over to the table.
“What are you . . . ?” Like his father’s, Spencer’s hair was coal black, but he had his mother’s fine features, her well-shaped chin, her green eyes, her fine-boned hands. His nose . . .
As always when I thought about it, I was taken aback by Spencer’s nose. It was wide and long and so doughy, it gave his face the appearance of having been slapped together by a preschooler with too much clay to play with and no concept that some didn’t have to be used. He had a baseball cap on his head, the brim low over his eyes so that most of his face was in shadow.
“I’m very sorry about your mother, Spencer,” I said.
He washed down his pizza with a glug of cola. “Whatever. This is where it happened, huh?”
“Yes. I’m sorry about that, too. It can’t be easy for you to be here when—”
“We can get another pizza, right?” Spencer looked to Wilma. “I’m starving!”
Her smile was soft. But then, in all the years I’d known Wilma Karlsson—Meghan’s longtime housekeeper—I’d never known her to be anything but kind. “You can get anything you like,” she told Spencer. “You’re a growing boy. You need to eat.”
Eat, he did.
While Spencer wolfed down another slice of pepperoni/mushroom/sausage/olive pizza, I scooted my chair closer to Wilma’s.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her. “You couldn’t have heard what happened to Meghan and gotten here so quickly.”
She shook her head. Wilma was a woman of seventy with smooth, clear skin and eyes the color of a summer sky
. As always, her hair was pulled back into a severe bun, and every last hair was exactly in place. She’d been born in Sweden and even after years of working in Hollywood, she still had the trace of an accent. It was charming, as were her manners—formal without being off-putting, friendly without being fawning. She was quiet, efficient, and kept Meghan’s household running like a well-oiled machine. Meghan could always count on Wilma, and I knew I always could, too. When it came to planning parties, organizing dinners, ordering food, or buying new china, Wilma and I worked hand in hand, and we always got along.
“We had no idea, of course.” Wilma’s skin was as pale as snow so when two spots of color rose in her cheeks, they were impossible to miss. She glanced at Spencer, but the kid was so busy ogling Inez when she walked by, I got the feeling he didn’t know—or care—what we were talking about. “We couldn’t have known what was going to happen to Ms. Cohan when we left home on Wednesday.”
Wednesday.
The same day Meghan had learned where I was and came looking for me.
“Why?” I asked.
She looked again at Spencer and she lowered her voice. “Spencer heard his mother was leaving and he . . .” Her hands fluttered like butterflies over her plate of untouched pasta. “He wanted to tag along and—”
“Come on, Wilma, get it right.” Spencer talked with his mouth full. “I said there was no way in hell she was going to leave without me again.”
So Spencer had been listening.
His sneer was a little less threatening than he intended thanks to the pizza sauce in the corners of his mouth. “Go ahead, tell her the whole story. If you don’t, I will.”
“Well . . .” Wilma cleared her throat. “Spencer asked his mother if he could accompany her wherever she was going, and when she said no, he decided he was going to follow her.”
“And I would have done it, too. All by myself if I had to.” His top lip curled. “I wasn’t going to let that bitch—”
“Now, Spencer.” To be sure we hadn’t attracted any attention, Wilma glanced around. “You mustn’t speak that way. Your dear mother is dead.”
“Good riddance.” He gulped down the last of his cola and waved to Inez to bring more, and when she was done refilling his glass, he pushed back his chair.
“Going to the head,” he said, and he shuffled off in the direction of the men’s room.
“Is he all right?” I asked Wilma.
“A little too all right considering his mother’s just been murdered.” She watched the men’s room door slap shut. “Or are you talking about his heroin habit? I assure you, Laurel, he brought no drugs with him on this trip. He’s as clean as he’s been in the last months.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Spencer and I had never had much interaction, and when we did, he always seemed to find a way to reinforce the fact that he was sullen, resentful, and ridiculously spoiled by a mother who provided every physical thing he wanted and none of the affection he craved. His father wasn’t much better. Ben buzzed in and out of Spencer’s life, and even when he did come and visit, he never stayed long. Every year, he took Spencer “for the summer” and every year, he brought the kid back in less than a week, haranguing Meghan when he did about Spencer’s lack of manners, his lack of respect, and his lack of decency.
He was right on all counts.
“This can’t be easy for him,” I said.
“No. Which is why I told him we shouldn’t have even come here tonight. I thought I would call you. I thought if he needed to see the place where his mother died, we might come when it is not too busy. The last thing he needs is to get hounded by the press.”
“But you came, anyway.”
“He can be so like his mother.” Wilma punctuated the observation with a sigh. “It is impossible to say no to the boy, you are aware of that. I knew if I didn’t bring him, he’d come alone. It is exactly what happened last Wednesday when Meghan said she was leaving for a few days.”
“Did she say where she was going?”
“No. She simply packed up . . . well, Corrine packed up. They packed up and left. We weren’t anticipating any trips and Meghan’s private jet, it is being serviced. She had to fly on a commercial airliner like any other person. Spencer said he was going to follow her, and I knew he would. Yes, yes, I know, the boy is seventeen. Practically a man. But he’s immature. He’s never been held accountable for anything and he has no idea how to get along in the real world. I couldn’t let him go off like that with no one to care for him so I came, too.”
“Were you surprised when you arrived?”
“I was surprised enough to know we were flying to Pittsburgh. And disappointed that though we were on the same flight, Meghan never realized her son was there. But then, she could be very good about not noticing anyone but herself. Then we drove to a place called Austintown. Meghan and Corrine checked into a Holiday Inn. Can you believe it? Spencer and I waited outside for a while, then we checked in, too, and he staked out the lobby so he could keep an eye on his mother.”
“Did he tell you what he saw?”
“He said he didn’t see her at all. But then, from what I’ve seen on TV, Meghan wore a disguise when she came here to the restaurant last night. She must have left the hotel wearing it. Her own son didn’t recognize her.”
“But why did he want to follow Meghan in the first place?”
“It is like I said, he’d had it with his mother. She was a good employer, you know that, Laurel. Well, you did know it before she turned on you. But I worked for her for years, and I never had any complaints. She let me run the household and she was generous.”
True enough. When I worked for Meghan I made more money each week than a month’s worth of Terminal profits.
“But when it came to her son, she was a cruel woman,” Wilma added. “She never had time for him. She never cared what he was doing or who he was hanging out with. When she should have been giving him hugs, she was throwing money in his direction. The school would call and report trouble, and Meghan would tell them Spencer was a free spirit and they must leave him alone. When he started using drugs, she said it was because he was trying to find himself. I swear, Laurel . . .” Wilma’s silvery brows dropped low over her eyes and her voice, always so mild and pleasant, suddenly sounded more like the growl of a mother lion intent on protecting her cub.
“All he ever wanted was for her to notice him. Everything he ever did, he did it to see how she would react, when she would finally pay attention. He wanted nothing more than for her to give him a fraction of the time she gave her career and her lovers and all the drama in her life.”
“And she never did.”
“It is inexcusable. Look what it has done to the poor child!”
Over the years, I saw exactly what it had done to Spencer, but I’d never realized before what it had done to Wilma.
Maybe she didn’t, either.
Breathing hard, her teeth clenched, maybe even she didn’t realize she’d grabbed the knife next to her plate, and she was holding on to it like she would have loved to use it as a murder weapon.
Chapter 9
I had more suspects than I knew what to do with.
Really. I’m not kidding.
There was Ben, who, in spite of what he said about working closely with Meghan for the benefit of Spencer, could never be in the same room with her without a fight erupting.
There was Wilma Karlsson, who might have been the world’s best housekeeper but made no secret of the fact that she thought Meghan was a terrible mother who was shortchanging her son when it came to discipline and good ol’ motherly love, and she apparently harbored some nasty feelings because of it.
As much as I hated to even think it was possible, there was Spencer, too. Not exactly the poster boy for a son’s devotion to his mother, and he did make it a point to follow her to Ohio.
At the time of
the murder, they were all conveniently in or close to a town where they had no business, all with convincing stories, all with alibis.
None of which made me believe any of them.
But wait! As they say on all those commercials, there was even more.
Jason Fielding, for example. Yeah, I know, the PI who’d been looking for me for the last year claimed to have an alibi. That didn’t mean I believed him. And who knew what kind of drama had built between him and Meghan in the time he worked for her?
Then there was Dolly . . .
Yeah, I know, just thinking that our newest Terminal waitress might have had something to do with the murder gave me the willies. But Dolly sure did know a lot about Meghan’s life, and Meghan’s career, and where Meghan had left her rental car. And that couldn’t help but make me wonder what else Dolly knew that she wasn’t talking about.
Last but certainly not least, there was Corrine.
I had a legal pad on the table in front of me, and I scrawled her name at the bottom of the long list, but no sooner had I written it down than I crossed it out again.
Out of all the people I’d ever seen Meghan deal with, Corrine was the only one Meghan was ever nice to. What reason would Corrine have to kill her employer? She made tons of money in a job she wasn’t very good at. She traveled the world. She lived the high life in homes from Malibu to Maui to Tuscany, just as I always had when I worked for Meghan. What reason would Corrine have for wanting Meghan dead?
“Unless the murder had nothing to do with warring personalities or old hatreds. Maybe it was all about money.”
I was in the kitchen at Pacifique, just finished with Sunday-night dinner and talking to myself even though Declan was over by the sink putting the dishes in the dishwasher.
“Huh?” was his natural question.
“Just thinking out loud,” I told him at the same time I shoved away the legal pad and the less-than-helpful ideas I’d written on it. “Maybe it all comes down to what’s in Meghan’s will. Gus and Corrine called her attorney. Did Gus say anything to you about what they found out?”
