Criminal Deception

by Marilyn Pappano

  He didn’t surprise her. “You’re lucky it was the fuzzy one. His really are accidents. The brown one, though…she does everything on purpose.”

  “She’s just a puppy,” Liz said with a laugh.

  “She’s a half-starved, abandoned puppy who thinks she rules the world, particularly any corner of it that I try to claim for my own. She’s clearly familiar with the phrase ‘alpha,’ but she doesn’t seem to know that it’s usually followed by ‘male.’ She tries to mount the male, she stands me down and she’s not afraid to draw blood if you cross her.”

  “Wow, and you’ve only had her twenty-four hours. This should be fun.”

  With a scowl, he settled another stack of plates into the soapy water.

  Liz became aware of the murmuring voices outside the kitchen growing more distant. “Sounds as if everyone’s leaving.”

  “You thought I was kidding when I said I do dishes?”

  “I thought surely someone would help.”

  “Someone is helping.” He gestured to her with a sudsy hand. “Believe me, they pay attention. If you hadn’t stayed, Sophy would have, or Ellie or Jamie. The moment they see a willing victim walk through the door, though, they’re outta here.”

  A willing victim-that was her. And Josh. But not Joe. He hadn’t asked for any part of the events that had turned his life upside down. Did he regret it? The shooting, of course. But moving to Copper Lake, starting his own business, making new friends?

  “Do you regret it?” For an instant she was surprised that she’d asked the question aloud, but because she couldn’t take back the words, she pushed on. “Moving. Starting over. Moving here.”

  He washed the last dish, then started on the glass urns. “It wasn’t in my life plan.”

  “But sometimes good comes out of bad. You seem happier here than you were in Chicago.”

  “You should have seen me before yesterday,” he said drily. “I was damn near ecstatic.”

  She made a face at his back, then turned her attention to the kitchen. It was lovely, looking every one of its two-hundred-plus years but with all the modern conveniences, including the two dishwashers she’d mentioned earlier. She wasn’t surprised Joe had chosen not to use them. The dishes weren’t heavily soiled and could be done just as quickly by hand. Even she probably would have gone that route.

  After the paper plates and cups had been prohibited.

  “So what’s kept you busy the last two years? Besides Josh, of course. You never seemed to have time for work in Chicago.”

  Meaning he’d never seen her unless she was plastered hip-to-thigh to Josh. Except that one night. That was the closest she’d ever come to disaster, and that included waking up to find Josh handcuffing her to the bed and spending two years on the fugitive squad.

  “I’ve done a lot of things. I usually work for a while, save some money, then take a break.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Wait tables. Tend bar. Clerical stuff.” Josh had thought it funny to tell a few of his buddies that she worked out of their apartment as a phone-sex operator. Joe wouldn’t be nearly as amused by that as those guys had been. Talk dirty to me had become their standard greeting to her.

  “Most people who work those kinds of jobs have to keep working. They don’t get the luxury of months off here or there.”

  She hadn’t had an entire month off since college, and even then she’d worked part-time jobs. But she smiled sunnily and said, “Most people have obligations.”

  “And all you want to do is find Josh.”

  Ignoring his comment, she put away the last half dozen cups, laid the damp towels across a rod to dry and leaned against the countertop to watch him rinse the first urn. It was tall, the glass tempered, distorted to give the appearance of age. He didn’t take particular care with it but handled it competently, the way he’d handled the more delicate cups and plates. She knew without asking that he’d never broken a piece of the everyday china, never let a soapy urn slip from his hands, never lost his cool, calm confidence.

  Except maybe a little, on an emotional level. When it came to Josh. And her.

  If he were anyone else, she would like that she could throw him off his emotional balance.

  If she were anyone else, she would take a chance at letting him unbalance her.

  He finished the last of the cleanup in silence, then scooped up the urns, one in each arm. “Can you flip the light switch?”

  Accommodatingly she followed him through the house, turning off the switches he indicated, picking up the wicker basket from the dining table, securing the double doors behind them.

  It was nearly ten o’clock. The buzz of streetlamps was louder than the tree frogs’ song, but only by a notch or so. The scents of the river two blocks away mingled with the closer fragrance of flowers, and music drifted from somewhere nearby, something low and mournful.

  Liz took a deep breath and let it out on a sigh. “You made a good choice.” Sensing rather than seeing Joe’s curious look, she went on. “Coming to Copper Lake. Do you ever remember a night this calm in Chicago?”

  “Hundreds of them. It’s just a town, too.”

  “A great big, sprawling, noisy, crowded town.”

  “Too big for the Kansas farm girl?”

  She responded with an exaggerated frown before following him around the corner of the verandah, then down brick steps to the path. There she moved to walk beside him, through the gate and onto the sidewalk. “I’m not a farm girl.”

  Stopping beside her car, he shifted the urns, then extended his hand for the basket. She considered not giving it to him and instead heading across the street to the coffee shop, prolonging this moment with him. A short walk in the cool humid night, a few moments more of comfortable conversation, another few deep breaths that smelled of jasmine and coffee and faded cotton…

  She gave him the basket. “I’ll see you later.”

  His fingers brushed hers. “You’ll be hard to avoid.”

  She shoved her hands into her pockets. “You know how to get rid of me for good.” Tell me where Josh is.

  There at the side of the street, his arms loaded, still looking like a surfer boy but a tired one, he said flatly, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

  His voice lacked the insistence she was accustomed to from deceitful family members. He didn’t shift his weight or avoid her gaze or do anything to suggest dishonesty. That didn’t mean he was telling the truth, though. It just meant he was better at lying than most people she dealt with. He was smart enough to avoid the usual subconscious behaviors of an untruthful person.

  “Like I said, I’ll see you.” She clicked the remote to unlock the car door, then slid behind the wheel. He didn’t wait until she was safely on her way, but turned and strode across two intersections to the dimly lit coffee shop on the corner.

  Within three minutes, she was home. In six, she was stretched out on the sofa, her cell phone propped to her ear. The only light burning in the house was above the kitchen sink; it cast just enough illumination to deepen the living room shadows. The curtains were drawn back, giving her a good view of all three houses across the way.

  Pete Petrovski was home, and so was Natalia, babysitting Joe’s puppies. Their barks drifted through the open window, along with a cooling breeze. But the lavender cottage remained dark. Liz wondered if Joe was still at the shop, or if he’d taken advantage of the lovely night to take a ride around town, or if he’d somehow managed to sneak in through the back so he wouldn’t risk seeing her. Not an easy feat considering none of the houses had back doors.

  “Hey, I know you’ve had a tough day playing the grasping ex-girlfriend, but surely it wasn’t so exhausting that you can’t take part in a conversation for five minutes.” Mika Tupolev’s voice was chiding, but her expression, Liz knew from experience, wouldn’t match. Mika didn’t frown or scowl or sneer or smirk, or smile much, for that matter. Like the icy Russian mountains her family had once called home, she was all c
ool all the time. The boss should have sent her to Copper Lake instead of Liz. Joe wouldn’t have been able to melt the first layer of permafrost that encased her if he tried.

  Hell, Liz was hot-flashing just from seeing him. Just from thinking of him. And he wasn’t trying to get a reaction from her.

  “I’m listening, Mika.”

  “You’re not supposed to be listening. You’re supposed to be answering my question. Do you believe Joe Saldana when he says he doesn’t know where his brother is?”

  She wanted to think that he was well and truly done with Josh for at least the next fifteen years to life. After all, Josh was as big on screwing up as Joe was on responsibility.

  On the other hand, they were identical twins. They’d shared their mother’s womb, had the same face, the same eyes, the same DNA. Was breaking that bond permanently even possible?

  “I don’t know,” she said. “He sounds sincere.”

  Mika voiced what Liz was thinking. “Don’t all good liars?”

  They did. As far as anyone knew, Joe was an honest law-abiding man, but most honest law-abiding people would lie for the right reason. Look at her. Lying was a big part of her job, and she sounded damn sincere when she did it. And Joe had spent half a lifetime with a brother who lied as easily as he breathed.

  “My instincts say he or his parents are our best shot,” she said. “It’s always been Josh’s pattern. When he screws up badly enough, he turns to his family for help.”

  “We’re keeping tabs on the elder Saldanas as well. If Josh contacts them or shows up there, we’ll know.”

  There was a murmur in the background on Mika’s end. While she spoke to whoever had interrupted, Liz continued to gaze out the window. She wouldn’t have heard the whirring of tires on sidewalk if they’d been talking, but she still would have known Joe had arrived home. Her stomach muscles tightening and the hair on the back of her neck standing on end were her usual reactions to danger, always sensed before seen.

  He came into view through the window, coasting, one long muscular leg extended as he made the sharp turn to his house. He swung off the bike, then hefted it into the air and carried it up the steps to the porch. As he unlocked the door, he glanced toward Natalia’s cottage, then right toward Pete’s, but he didn’t look over his shoulder at Liz’s. Instead, he went inside, wheeling the bike with him, and closed the door.

  Across the small lawn, the door shut with a sense of finality. Liz imagined she could even hear the lock clicking, securely shutting out the world for the night.

  “Sorry about that,” Mika said, returning her attention to Liz. “The wiretaps haven’t provided anything of interest. Joe Saldana has renewed his membership in a group supporting green business practices. He’s agreed to help coach a baseball team made up of six-year-olds and he’s going to spend a small fortune taking two strays to the vet, where, at the appropriate time, of course, he’ll spend another one getting them fixed. Oh, yes, and he’s trying a new blend of coffee handpicked by gnomes on the northwest side of a volcanic Peruvian mountain only under a full moon and, therefore, commanding the price of a gazillion dollars per pound.”

  Liz grinned. Mika’s sense of humor appeared so seldom that she regularly forgot the woman had one. “Trust me, if it’s half as good as the stuff I’ve already had in his shop, it’s worth every dime. Besides, gnomes don’t work cheap, you know.”

  “Fortunately for America, we do.” Mika’s customary sobriety returned. “Other than calls to his parents, he has little contact with anyone outside the coffee shop. Since we got the wiretap order, he hasn’t made or received a single call on his home phone. Ninety-five percent of his cell phone use is business-related, and ninety-five percent of the calls made to or from the shop are boyfriend-related.”

  “Esther has a boyfriend?” Liz imagined the waitress first with a boy barely old enough to be legal, then with a man more her age with the same wrinkles, the same orange hair. Neither was an appealing image.

  “Not Esther. Raven.” If Mika had been given to grimacing, Liz was sure she would have been doing so at the moment. “God save us from young love.”

  “Better that you guys hear it than me.” What was Joe doing over there? Getting something to eat? Popping the top on a beer? Stripping off his clothes to take a shower?

  Better not go there.

  But it was too late to block the image of a long, lean body, of bare, tanned skin, wet hair slicked back as pounding water turned it dark gold.

  It had been too late for them from the first time she’d seen him. Even if she weren’t working, even if he weren’t a subject in an investigation, Josh and her lies would always be between them.

  “The trial is approaching quickly,” Mika said. “If we don’t have Josh Saldana in custody in time, the last two years will have been for nothing.”

  “Hey, that’s two years of my life you’re talking about.” But Liz knew she was right. The U.S. Attorney might get a conviction anyway, at least on some of the charges, or the Mulroneys could walk.

  There was a moment’s silence before Mika spoke again. “Do you think they paid him off?”

  It wasn’t the first time they’d discussed the question. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Josh could be bought, and probably pretty cheaply. If he’d had a chance to escape protective custody, avoid the trial and make some money doing it, he would have taken it. To hell with justice. To hell with the fact that the Mulroneys had tried to kill him, and had almost killed his brother. All Josh cared about was Josh.

  “No,” Liz said flatly. If he’d been bought off, then it meant someone in the marshals service or the U.S. Attorney’s office had been involved. His location had been a well-kept secret. He’d gotten no phone calls or mail; he’d had zero contact with anyone outside their two offices. Only an insider could have acted as a go-between for the Mulroneys, and there was no evidence to suggest that.

  Still, when your life was in other people’s hands, as hers and Mika’s had too often been, you couldn’t help but wonder…

  “Then he’s probably run through whatever resources he might have had. Mom and Dad and little brother Joe are his last hope.”

  “If he can find them.”

  “They’re keeping a low profile, but they’re not exactly under the radar. The extended family knows where they are, and while they’ve denied any contact with Josh, we can’t know whether they’re telling the truth.”

  Again, Liz knew Mika was right. The Saldanas had relocated, not gone into hiding. They were using their own names, and Joe was in business for himself. It might take a bit of effort, but people like Josh were willing to expend a great deal of effort to avoid being responsible for themselves.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  Before Liz could respond, Mika ended the call. No prolonged goodbyes for her. Heaven forbid Liz get the idea that she actually cared.

  Then a flickering light came on in the lavender house-a television throwing shadows in Joe’s otherwise-dark living room. Not caring, in that moment, seemed a damn good idea.

  Forties’ standards played on the café’s stereo Thursday morning, Esther’s music of choice. Even though she’d left half an hour earlier, Joe was letting the CD play out. The old tunes were comfortable, reminding him of his grandmother, who’d thought music began with Louis Armstrong and ended with Ella Fitzgerald. As kids, he and Josh had spent a lot of weekends at her house, taking turns dancing her around the table after Saturday night dinner while she’d told them stories of the grandfather they’d never known.

  It was eleven o’clock, too late for mid-morning coffee breaks, too early for people making a java run at lunch. He’d had ten minutes since the last customer and caught up on everything that needed doing up front. He could head into his office, a small corner of the backroom, and do some paperwork, but the idea didn’t move him from his spot leaning against the counter.

  There was always time for paperwork, and always paperwork to be done.

  He hated to
admit it, but he’d thought Liz would come by this morning. Even during the busiest moments of their a.m. rush, when Esther liked to complain that they met themselves coming and going, his gaze had kept sliding to the door and the streets outside, expecting to catch a glimpse of black curls and amazing legs.

  All morning he’d waited, and she hadn’t come.

  Scowling, he pushed away from the counter and took four steps toward the storeroom. Just as he reached it the sound of the doorbell made him pivot and return to the counter.

  Not Liz. Just a stranger, tall, with a hard set to his features and even harder eyes. His gray suit was well-made but stark, the shirt a shade lighter, the tie a shade darker. He rocked back on his heels at the counter and studied the menu board posted on the wall above, skimming over the usual whipped, blended and frozen drinks. “Medium chai tea,” he ordered in a voice as tough as his face.

  “For here or to go?” Joe asked, suppressing a grin. Sure, chai tea was popular with his customers-his female customers. Pregnancy made Ellie crave it at least twice a day. But from a guy who looked as if he should be ordering coffee beans-Don’t need no cup. I’ll just grind ’em in my mouth with a little hot water-it was a surprise.

  “Here.”

  Joe rang it up, made change for a twenty, then started the tea. Instead of taking a seat, the man stayed where he was, unmoving but giving the impression of loose energy, barely controlled.

  “Nice town.”

  Breathing in steam fragrant with nutmeg and cloves, Joe glanced over his shoulder at the guy, and the hair on his nape automatically prickled. There was no reason for it, he told himself. So the guy wasn’t a local, or even a good ol’ Georgia boy. Not with that accent- New York, maybe New Jersey, blunted by years elsewhere. He waited on strangers all the time with all kinds of accents. It didn’t mean anything.

  “We like it,” he said, sliding the porcelain mug across the counter.