Murder Melts in Your Mouth

by Nancy Martin

  “I’ll go with her,” I said.

  “She’s not going to be happy about it,” Michael warned.

  “That’s okay.” I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Michael.”

  He shrugged, taking no credit for doing a good deed. “What about the kids? You want me to go to the farm?”

  At the farm, he’d have to meet my parents again.

  I smiled grimly. “No, the kids are safe enough. I’ll call Rawlins just to be sure, but they seem fine.”

  “If you decide they need somebody to go out there, call me. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can’t get rid of the reporters long enough for you and Lexie to make a quick entrance.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I can try.”

  Heaven only knew what ruse he had up his sleeve. Michael had orchestrated more than a few distractions in his lifetime. But he said, “Crewe, what do you say you and me go get a beer?”

  Crewe stood on the sidewalk looking shattered. The color had drained from his face, and his hands hung limply at his sides.

  I touched his arm. “Give her time, Crewe. This won’t last, I promise.”

  I gave him a kiss on the cheek. Then, without saying good-bye to Michael, I went down the sidewalk and climbed into the passenger seat of Lexie’s car.

  Behind the wheel, Lexie snapped, “Are you my new au pair?”

  “Consider it payback,” I replied. “Remember the night Todd died? I didn’t want anybody with me then, but you insisted. Look, I brought chocolate.”

  She glared at the gift bags in my hands and blew a sigh. “Close the door and fasten your seat belt.”

  I obeyed. She put the powerful car into gear and we pulled away. I had only a fleeting glimpse of Michael turning Crewe by the shoulder and walking in the opposite direction.

  Finally, I noticed that the covering around the steering column of Lexie’s car had been broken. “What happened to your car?”

  “I didn’t feel like hiking across town to pick it up with all the reporters badgering me. So I asked your beau to bring it to me. He has many talents.”

  Including how to hot-wire a BMW.

  But Michael’s proficiency for boosting cars wasn’t the only reason Lexie had asked him to come for her. I’d been to the Roundhouse myself a few times, and the grimy police station was no place for a sensitive man like Crewe. Lexie had wanted Michael because he knew the conditions she’d been subjected to. And he wouldn’t make a big deal out of her suffering. Crewe, on the other hand, would have been shocked and sympathetic—exactly the kind of empathy Lexie wouldn’t want.

  Trying to sound nonchalant, I said, “You okay, Lex?”

  For two blocks, she didn’t answer. But her hands were tight on the steering wheel, and I noticed she paid the strictest attention to the speed limit. She was forcing herself to focus on the job of driving.

  At last, she said, “Michael has the most interesting lawyers. They’re all smiles and jokes until some invisible switch is thrown, and suddenly they’re wolves.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of the table, that’s for sure.”

  We passed the museum and headed into the curving avenue that led to Boathouse Row, the stretch of picturesque Victorian houses built along the Schuylkill River and owned by various regional colleges for their rowing teams. Lexie had managed to purchase one of the buildings—by way of payoffs and at least one shady deal, I was certain. Her house stood in the middle of the historic row. On either side of her property, racks of rowing shells threw shadows across her well-tended lawn.

  By the time we reached her home, half a dozen cars were roaring away from the curb where they had been waiting. I assumed Michael had pulled off whatever diversion he used to lure the reporters away. He worked fast.

  Lexie pressed a button, and the automatic gate opened. She drove between the wrought iron posts, and the gate closed behind us.

  She said, “Those damn kids next door have a portable john now. It’s like living beside a fraternity house. I should call the police. They’re public servants. They ought to be serving me a little, too, don’t you think?”

  “Do you still have your Ambien prescription?”

  She shook her head. “I want to stay mad for a while.”

  She drove into the boathouse and closed the garage door behind us, and we got out of the car. Lexie reset the security system, and we went upstairs to her home.

  Inside, Lexie’s house was a pristine space with simple furniture and a drop-dead art collection that she rotated according to her whim. Lately, she had hung her tall Warhol portrait of Elvis over her fireplace. A vibrant riverscape by a local artist glowed on the opposite wall. The carpet, walls and furniture were white, so the pictures were almost living creatures against the pure backdrop.

  She threw her keys into a Waterford crystal bowl and kicked her shoes off onto the thick white rug. The air-conditioning made the house as cold as a Jersey beach in January.

  I dropped my things on her dining room table and went into the kitchen to find a bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge. Lexie followed me. While I opened the bottle, she rummaged through the gift bag and free chocolate samples. She found the artisan truffles someone had pressed on Crewe. She opened the box and inhaled their scent.

  Then she put the box on the white counter and left the kitchen without a word. I heard her go into her bedroom and close the door.

  I puttered. I tidied up her kitchen, put soap into the dishwasher and started the machine. Then I tapped on Lexie’s bedroom door. When she didn’t answer, I poked my head into the room to check on her. I heard the shower running in her bathroom and figured she was doing as well as anyone could expect.

  I closed the door again and went to the living room, where I phoned Blackbird Farm. No answer. Concerned, I called Rawlins on his cell phone.

  “Hey, Aunt Nora,” my nephew replied when I identified myself. He sounded just as laid-back as before. “Whassup?”

  “Rawlins, I’m held up in town for a while, so I’m calling to check up on you again.”

  He laughed. “Will you give it a rest with the mother-hen routine? Mom leaves us alone all the time.”

  “Not at my house, she doesn’t. Wait, come to think of it, that’s exactly what she does. But look, nobody’s answering the phone at the farm.”

  “They’re probably outside saluting the sunset or something.” Rawlins yawned. “I get off work pretty soon. I’ll go make sure everything’s under control.”

  “Thanks. Rawlins, one more thing. If a guy named Chad calls looking for me or for Michael, don’t give him the address of the farm, okay? I don’t want him showing up there.”

  The discovery of Elena’s bruises had made me think Chad wasn’t as harmless as we’d first thought.

  “Whatever you say, Aunt Nora.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for the update. I’ll call you later.”

  He was laughing. “Anytime.”

  “Rawlins? I love you.”

  But he had disconnected.

  I snapped my phone shut. “I’ll never be a parent,” I said.

  Although the shower had stopped, Lexie still hadn’t come out of her bedroom, so I collected the mail from the front hallway and put it on her desk. I turned on lamps and went outside to listen to the river and to collect my thoughts. Lexie’s kayak sat upside down on the deck. Next door, one of the rowing clubs was having a party. I could hear rap music and someone vomiting in the bushes. Not an atmosphere conducive to my quiet reflection.

  I went back inside the house and put on a CD of classical music—loud enough only to drown out the rap next door—and I read yesterday’s newspaper.

  About half an hour later, Lexie came out wearing a demure white nightgown and a light robe thrown around her shoulders. She had showered and washed her hair. But she looked exhausted.

  “I’m ready for wine,” she said.

  We trooped into the kitchen, and I poured us each a glas
s. I went looking for some food. As usual, Lexie’s refrigerator contained little more than chilled wine, some bottled water and a selection of dried-up condiments. There was a take-out container that might have been sitting in the fridge for a week or six months—I couldn’t be sure. A bowl of spoiled pears sat on the countertop.

  At last I found peanut butter in the cupboard and a box of cocktail crackers. I opened the package of crackers.

  Lexie sat on one of the stools, and as if continuing a bizarre conversation she’d started with herself in the shower, she said, “I love my work. The company was important and successful when my father ran it, but I like to think I’ve made it something even better. I value the reputation I’ve built.”

  Soothingly, to keep her from bursting into the hysterics that seemed to bubble beneath the surface, I said, “You deserve credit for what the Paine Investment Group is today, Lex.”

  “Not all,” she said. “But a lot. And now the whole damn place is going to collapse like a house of cards.”

  “No, it isn’t,” I protested.

  Lexie’s face had looked drawn a moment ago, but now the tendons in her neck tightened. “Yes. The situation is very bad, Nora.”

  “Can you tell me? Can I help?”

  She smiled wryly. “I doubt you can help, sweetie.”

  “I’m a good listener, you know.”

  “Yes,” she said, and quelled a tremor with effort.

  She needed food. Perhaps she hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Quickly, I opened the jar of Jif and got a knife out of the drawer. Wine and peanut butter—my comfort foods. I slathered the crackers and lined them up in front of my friend.

  As I hurried to feed her, Lexie said, “About a week ago, one of our midlevel accountants didn’t show up for work. We were worried, of course, and called his home, contacted his family. We discovered he had left the country. That’s a hell of a red flag in my business.”

  “What happened?”

  “He disappeared. His departure triggered an immediate internal audit. And the auditors came to me with the news that some of our accounts had been tampered with. He’d been helping to move client money without the proper authorizations.”

  “How does that happen?”

  “It shouldn’t happen at all, of course.” Calmer, Lexie explained, “When we move large amounts of cash, we require two officers to sign off on the transaction, not to mention other safety controls. Which Hoyt Cavendish helped set up. He knew how to beat them, Nora. Turns out, this accountant had been juggling accounts at Hoyt’s request, then hightailed it to a lovely hacienda by the sea.”

  “You mean they stole the money from the firm?”

  “Technically, Hoyt stole the money. He’d been pilfering accounts for a couple of years, and the accountant helped cover his tracks. Last week they must have realized they couldn’t make the books appear to balance anymore, so Hoyt paid off his accomplice with a final lump sum. A couple of million dollars.”

  “Hoyt’s been giving the money away, Lex.”

  My conversation with Daniel about Hoyt’s inability to pay the rest of his debt for the Stradivarius made sense. If Hoyt had made charitable donations all over the city—cash he’d stolen from Paine Investment Group clients—he might have made “withdrawals” from client accounts periodically, not just one big theft.

  Lexie said, “Yes, I realize now Hoyt has been throwing donations at every charity and orchestra that will sit still long enough to catch his largesse. The little prig loved the spotlight. I assumed he was flashing around his own dough. But, of course, it wasn’t his.”

  “How much cash is missing?”

  She massaged her temples. “At least a hundred million.”

  The sum rocked me back on my heels.

  Acknowledging my shock with a nod, Lexie said, “We reported the losses to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. Over the weekend, the IRS got involved. They found a secret witness—someone who had evidence that would prove when Hoyt’s wrongdoing got started—someone who obviously had something to gain by playing along. On that person’s evidence, I believe, the Treasury Department intended to arrest Hoyt in our offices yesterday.”

  “They called the meeting of all Hoyt’s clients, so they’d be there for the arrest?”

  She shook her head. “It was dumb luck the two meetings happened on the same day. As soon as I learned about Hoyt’s stealing, I had to break the news to our clients that their money was gone. I wanted to assure them that I intend to repay them, of course. And I had a repayment plan ready.”

  “So soon?”

  “We worked all night on it. If I didn’t have a plan, I’d have been out of business within ten minutes of the world discovering Hoyt’s scheme. Who would leave their life’s savings with a company that loses their money like socks in a dryer?”

  “My God, Lex, can you come up with a hundred million?”

  “It’s going to take time and,” she added grimly, “quite a bit of personal sacrifice. But I’ll do it. Otherwise, I might as well close the firm and start knitting.”

  My heart went out to my friend. Not because she stood to lose an incredibly huge amount of money. It was her reputation that mattered most to Lexie. Just looking into her eyes, I could see she was devastated at the thought of losing her most precious possession.

  I said, “How did your clients take the bad news?”

  “The meeting went as well as could be expected. At first, almost everybody took it calmly. Then Hoyt showed up—uninvited—and all hell broke loose.”

  “What happened?”

  “The Treasury Department people burst in and announced they were going to arrest Hoyt on the spot. Scooter Zanzibar started shrieking about needing money for a movie. His grandmother, Elena, said something about the marriage being off. Did you know Hoyt was going to marry Elena Zanzibar, of all people?”

  “I just learned it myself. Chad Zanzibar was at the meeting?”

  “Yes, the little troll.”

  So he could have run down the street after killing Hoyt, I thought, and shown up at the restaurant fast enough to almost have an alibi. “What about Tierney Cavendish? Was he there?”

  “You know Tierney? No, he wasn’t at the meeting. But he had visited the office earlier in the day, looking for his father. Heavens, I forgot all about that.” Lexie frowned, as if trying to recall details.

  Perhaps Lexie hadn’t been aware of Tierney’s return to the Paine Building. But Crewe and I had seen him in the stairwell, so he had certainly gone back to see his father. I wondered why.

  “The Paine Group situation must have been embarrassing for Tierney, too,” I murmured.

  “His father stealing from friends? Yes, that would be pretty awful.”

  Lexie caught herself. “Sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean to rub salt in your wound.”

  “I know. Forget it.” My situation paled by comparison with hers. “I can imagine how Tierney felt the moment he realized his father was a crook, that’s all.” I pushed a cracker into Lexie’s hand.

  She accepted the cracker, but didn’t eat it. “If I’d known the Treasury Department intended to ambush Hoyt in front of everybody, I’d never have called the meeting. And I certainly didn’t know they had a secret witness in the wings for added drama.”

  I took a breath to tell her who the secret witness was.

  But Lexie kept talking. She said, “It was such bedlam, let me tell you. Scooter threw a temper tantrum. Elena was so furious I thought she’d have a stroke. And Brandi Schmidt went into hysterics on the spot. Others were angry, too, of course. And Hoyt looked like he was going to collapse. It was a real melodrama. I immediately called a halt to the meeting. I’d been blindsided, too, but I knew shouting wasn’t going to help. I insisted everyone clear the room so I could get Hoyt’s story straight.”

  “That’s when you argued with him.”

  “Yes.” One-handed, she continued to rub her forehead. “I’m so ashamed, Nora. I was furious. He stole money from people
who trusted me, but I—I shouldn’t have lost control the way I did.”

  “What did he say? Did he defend himself?”

  She laughed shortly. “Believe it or not, that’s when he punched my painting.”

  I winced. “What did you do?”

  She shook her head, unable to say more. I saw her quiver with emotion—fear or revulsion or anger, I couldn’t be sure.

  I reached to cover her hand with mine. “Lexie, we’ll help you beat this. The police must realize they’re wrong about you. The pressure’s off you now.”

  “Nora—”

  “Crewe and I have been asking around.”

  “Don’t.” She pulled away from me and shook her head. “I don’t want either of you dragged into this.”

  “But—”

  “I’m serious, sweetie. It’s my problem. Let me figure it out.” Her eyes were wild again. Then she clasped her hands until the knuckles turned white while she fought for control. I wanted her to cry, to let out the tension that clearly thrummed inside her. But she didn’t.

  Coldly, she said, “For one thing, I want to know who this damn secret witness is.”

  “Oh.”

  “Whoever it is may have triggered the whole thing. Of course, I know it all starts with Hoyt. But this goddamn secret witness has some explaining to do, too.”

  “Oh, Lex, I sincerely hope not,” I said on a sigh.

  “Why?”

  “Because the secret witness,” I said, “is my father.”

  Lexie stared at me. Then she said, “Oh, hell.”

  Chapter Twelve

  My phone rang on the counter and I picked it up. I didn’t recognize the number displayed on the screen, so I answered warily.

  “It’s me,” Michael said. “How’s the patient?”

  “Not bad.”

  “Would she flip out if a couple of guests dropped in?”

  “You mean you? Now?”

  “And Crewe. He just got a hot tip that’s going to blow the lid off your murder case.”

  I took a look at Lexie, who was still absorbing my bombshell about Daddy. I said, “I think she can handle it.”