Hot Money

by Sherryl Woods

  “How come you want to go there?” he asked.

  “I’m a mother. Do I have to have a reason?” she responded, because to be perfectly honest, she didn’t have one.

  Though she’d thought about it all night, she couldn’t explain rationally exactly why she felt this compulsion to follow through on Tessa’s murder. Part of it had to do with friendship and protecting Liza, though her intrepid friend was certainly more than capable of standing up for herself.

  Maybe some of it had to do with the sense of satisfaction she’d felt when she’d played a small role in solving those previous cases.

  Maybe it even had to do with her approaching birthday and her vague need to feel that she was finally making something of her life, rather than just surviving.

  Hell, maybe she was still trying to prove to Hal DeWitt that the approval he’d always withheld didn’t matter anymore because she finally approved of her own worth. The first time she’d felt that way about herself had been when Michael O’Hara had really listened to her insights during his investigation of the murder of her condo president. She never wanted to lose that feeling of accomplishment and self-respect again.

  Of course, there was also the undeniable curiosity factor, she admitted ruefully as she awaited Brian’s response. She liked digging for clues the way some people liked sifting through rubble for artifacts from another era.

  “What do I want to look at an old house for?” Brian grumbled finally. “I wanted to go swimming.”

  Since telling him a visit to Vizcaya would be educational was likely to be regarded as only one step above eating broccoli, Molly hit on the one thing she knew would fascinate him. It was a low tactic, but guaranteed to work.

  “Someone died there last night,” she said casually. “During the party.”

  His eyes immediately widened with excitement. “At the party? Wow! Did you see him? What happened? Did he fall into the buffet table or something?”

  “Actually, she fell into the bay.”

  “Did a shark get her?” he asked with ghoulish enthusiasm.

  “No, a shark did not get her.”

  He looked disappointed. “Will we get to see her if we go?”

  “No. They took her away last night.”

  His interest began to flag. “Then why—”

  “We might be able to find clues that will help the police figure out what happened.”

  He regarded her worriedly. “I thought Michael didn’t want you doing stuff like that anymore.”

  Ever since he’d joined Michael’s soccer team, the little traitor thought Michael had hung the moon. When it came to choosing sides, she didn’t stand a chance. “I’m sure he’d think this was okay. It’s not like I’ll be questioning suspects or anything. Do you want to come or not?” she asked, losing patience. “You can stay here and do your homework, if you’d rather.”

  “I’ll go,” he said hurriedly. “Let me put my stuff away.”

  Molly paced impatiently as she waited for Brian to drop his pajamas and video games off in his room. Since that normally consisted of heaving the overnight bag into the middle of the floor, where it would rest until she picked it up, she couldn’t imagine what was taking him so long.

  Halfway to his room to check on him, she heard his voice. It was hushed and filled with anxiety. As she turned the knob on his door, he said a quick good bye and hung up in an obvious rush. By the time she had the door open, there was no mistaking his guilty expression.

  “Who was that on the phone?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Just a friend.”

  “Does this friend have a name?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course he has a name, Mom.”

  “Care to share it with me?”

  He considered the request, then shook his head. “Nah.”

  “Brian!”

  “Don’t I get any privacy around here?” he muttered in disgust.

  Since privacy was a big theme with the two of them these days, Molly found herself neatly caught between a rock and a hard place. “Okay,” she said finally, “but if I find out that the person on the other end of that line was Michael O’Hara, somebody around here is going to pay big time for tattling.”

  Brian met her gaze evenly in a look he’d obviously perfected since knowing the detective. It was even more disconcerting delivered by her son. Maybe she should have told him this tour of Vizcaya was educational and hoped for the best. The truth was, though, that she hadn’t wanted to risk his saying no. She wanted company as she wandered those grounds again, even in broad daylight. She didn’t expect to encounter any danger with police camped out there, but Brian’s cheerful presence might counteract the gloom.

  Based on that suspicious phone call, Molly was not all that surprised to find Michael waiting for them at the ticket booth at the entrance gate to the estate. He’d managed to time his arrival perfectly. If she’d noticed him there when she’d driven past on her way to the parking lot, she’d have kept right on going. She directed a sour look at her son.

  “I had to tell him, Mom. He and I have a deal. He thinks you’re too impet … impet … something.”

  “Impetuous,” Michael said for himself, ruffling Brian’s hair affectionately. His gaze was pinned on Molly, though. “Mind telling me what brought you by here this morning?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d buy a story about Brian needing to tour the place for a school project.”

  “Oh, I’d buy it,” he said agreeably. “But it does differ somewhat from his version.”

  “You really didn’t need to come running all the way over here. How dangerous could it be to take a guided tour?”

  “No tours,” he said, pointing to a sign on the ticket booth that she hadn’t noticed earlier. “It’s a crime scene, remember? The police don’t want a lot of people trampling on potential evidence.” “Oh.”

  He slid his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. “Okay, Molly, out with it. Why did you come back? It’s usually the murderer who returns to the scene of the crime. Since you weren’t out of my sight until after Tessa’s body was found, I think we can rule that out.”

  Molly considered skirting the truth yet again with some song and dance about simply wanting to walk the grounds, but it was pointless. Besides, with the gates closed to the public she couldn’t even get on those grounds alone. With Michael as an ally, she had a shot at checking out the theory that had come to her in the middle of the night.

  “Have the police found the murder weapon?” she asked.

  “If you’re talking about the silver candlestick, they hadn’t when we left here last night. I haven’t bothered Detective Abrams this morning. I’m sure he has enough theories of his own to check out without dealing with advice from me.”

  Molly ignored the implied reprimand. “I can think of two places it might be. They’re so obvious, no one would ever think of looking there.”

  “You don’t give the police much credit for clarity of thought, do you?”

  “Do you honestly want me to answer that?”

  “I guess not,” he told her. “Okay. Where did the murderer dispose of the weapon?”

  “You have to promise to let me check it out with you,” she bargained.

  “Molly!”

  “Promise. This is my theory, remember.”

  “Okay, fine,” he muttered with a resigned shrug. “Just spit it out.”

  “The pantry. I’ll bet there are other candlesticks stored in there. No one would notice if the caterer’s was just stuck in the middle, right?”

  “It’s possible,” he agreed thoughtfully. “What’s the other alternative?”

  “The catering truck. Neville saw the candlestick was missing from the buffet table. We don’t know if he ever searched for it later on the truck. It would have been easy for the killer to steal the candlestick, clobber Tessa, then slip into the catering truck and put it back with the other supplies.”

  “You could be right.”
r />   “Does that mean we can go look?”

  “It means we can tell the officer on duty here and maybe he’ll agree to let us go along on a search.”

  “Do you ever do anything that isn’t entirely by the book?” Molly inquired grumpily.

  “Plenty, according to my superiors.”

  “Then why are you so stiff-necked with me?”

  “For one thing you’re a—”

  “Don’t you dare make some sexist comment.”

  “I intended to point out that you are a civilian.”

  “Oh,” she said, somewhat pacified. Then she was struck by a distressing possibility. “You don’t suppose they let the catering truck leave last night?”

  “I doubt it, especially when they heard about the missing candlestick. I’m sure they’d want to take another look through everything in daylight before releasing anything that was on the grounds last night.”

  Apparently Michael was particularly persuasive with the duty officer. After a minimum of badge flashing and backslapping, he allowed them access to the pantry, sticking close by to assure they didn’t disturb any evidence or make off with any of the museum’s valuables. His presence hardly mattered since there was no sign of the missing candlestick amid the supplies stored in the room’s cabinets.

  Molly barely hid her disappointment. “What about the catering truck? Is it still here?”

  “Right outside, ma’am,” the officer said. “I think it’s locked up tight, though.”

  It was indeed locked, complete with a strip of crime-scene tape across the freight doors on the back.

  “Now what?” Molly asked.

  “Now we call Detective Abrams of the Miami Police Department and share your guesswork with him,” Michael said.

  “Couldn’t we maybe pick the lock?”

  The duty officer looked horrified. Michael merely shook his head. “Not unless you want to spend Sunday afternoon in a cell.”

  “They wouldn’t arrest you, if you did it,” she grumbled.

  “I wouldn’t count on that. Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go into the Grove and have brunch. Maybe we can even catch an early movie.”

  “Yeah!” Brian said enthusiastically, clearly bored by the lack of action here and fearing he might actually have to view the museum after all. “Can I have the biggest popcorn they’ve got? With butter?”

  “Only if you’ll share with me,” Michael said. “Molly?”

  “Oh, all right. If I can’t solve this mystery, maybe I can figure out why men are born with absolutely no curiosity whatsoever. The bookstore at Cocowalk probably has a whole section of books on that topic alone.”

  “All written by frustrated women, no doubt,” Michael countered.

  “Exactly,” she agreed. “No man would even be curious enough to try to figure it out.”

  “Are you guys going to stand around arguing all day?” Brian demanded finally. “I’m starved.”

  “You’re always starved,” Molly retorted.

  Michael rested his hand on Brian’s head. “Just another one of those idiosyncrasies we men share, right, kid?”

  “Right,” Brian said.

  Molly wondered, not for the first time, why the Cuban-American cop understood her son so much better than the Harvard-educated lawyer who’d actually fathered him. The easy rapport between Michael and Brian was just one of the things that made him dangerously seductive to her. It would be very easy to fall for a man who was as easy with kids as Michael was, while at the same time exuding enough sex appeal to stir the most jaded female senses. When his hand moved from Brian’s head to her hip, she stopped thinking about anything of substance at all.

  In fact, Molly decided eventually, it would probably take something of the magnitude of another murder to drag her attention away from the deliciously wicked way that faintly intimate gesture made her feel.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  Obviously, she’d tempted the fates once too often just by thinking that another murder might be the only adequate distraction, Molly realized on Monday morning. Her contemplation of a tedious new work week was interrupted first thing by the one other matter guaranteed to drag her thoughts away from Michael O’Hara, whose unexpected hint of jealousy on Saturday and whose attentiveness on Sunday had tantalized her all night long.

  “Your ex is on line one,” Jeannette said as she punched the hold button on the office phone. She rolled her eyes, indicating that Molly’s ex-husband was probably in one of his surlier moods.

  Molly suspected an already lousy morning was about to get a thousand times worse. She groaned at the prospect of dealing with Hal DeWitt, who was no doubt in the mood to pick a fight after reading the morning paper and its enthusiastic reporting of one more body. Seeing his ex-wife’s name in print was the only reason he ever called her at work.

  “I could tell him you are out, yes?” the Haitian clerk offered, her soft, lilting voice laced with sympathy.

  Molly considered the offer, then shook her head. “No. I’ll just have to deal with him sooner or later anyway. I might as well get it over with.” Reluctantly, she picked up the receiver and injected a note of cheerfulness into her voice, hoping to catch him off guard. “Hi. What’s up?”

  “As if you didn’t know,” Hal grumbled. “You were there when Tessa was killed on Saturday, weren’t you? Right in the middle of things … again.”

  “It was in the paper that I discovered her body,” she said with exaggerated patience, regretting deeply that Ted Ryan had somehow discovered that after all. “Did you expect me to deny it?”

  “I don’t know what to expect from you anymore.”

  His exasperated, aggrieved tone had her twisting the phone cord into a knot. It took everything in her to keep from snapping back with some sharp retort that would only add to his self-righteous annoyance. How had their once-happy relationship deteriorated to this ongoing stream of petty arguments?

  “What’s your point?” she said finally.

  He drew in a deep breath. “Things cannot continue like this,” he said flatly. “I won’t allow it.”

  Hal’s unusually calm tone sent shivers down Molly’s back. She’d learned how to deal with his sarcasm. She could even defuse his anger, but this quiet finality was something else.

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked equally calmly, refusing to acknowledge exactly how shaken she was by the unspoken threat in his voice.

  “You’re always telling me how bright you are. Figure it out,” he snapped in a tone that was more in character, but no less chilling.

  Before Molly could reply, he’d slammed the phone down in her ear.

  “Trouble?” Jeannette asked, regarding her worriedly.

  “Hal DeWitt is always trouble,” Molly replied wearily. “Sometimes I am simply amazed that I was once head over heels in love with that man.”

  “Perhaps you still have some ambivalence in your feelings,” Jeannette suggested, studying her intently.

  Molly shook her head. That definitely wasn’t what worried her. All she felt most times was irritation that she continued to allow the man to get to her at all. His vague threat had probably meant nothing, she told herself finally. It was just his way of tormenting her.

  And yet she couldn’t get it out of her mind, not until Liza called in midafternoon. It was the first time they’d talked since late Saturday night. Molly had called her apartment several times on Sunday, but either Liza had had the phone turned off or she’d been out. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d holed up, trying to get herself centered, as she explained it, whenever Molly inquired about her sudden reclusiveness. Lord knew, after the murder, getting centered was probably a very good idea. Molly wished she knew how.

  “What’s up?” she asked Liza now, determined not to plague her with questions it was obvious her friend didn’t want to answer.

  “Can you get free later this afternoon?”

  “Probably. Vince is out of the office and things are slow. Septe
mber’s not the best time to be shooting films or commercials in Miami. There’s still too much heat and rain, to say nothing of the threat of hurricanes. What do you need?”

  “I want to go see Roger and I really don’t want to go over there alone.”

  “Lafferty?” Molly said with some surprise. “Are you sure you want to pay a condolence call?”

  “You remember what Caroline advised. We need to get him to agree to set up a memorial fund. It has to be done today. The services are scheduled for the end of the week, so there’s still time to get some sort of announcement of the memorial in the paper. Please, Molly. I need to take care of this and I’d really like the company.”

  There was no mistaking the odd note of nervousness in Liza’s tone. That wasn’t the clincher, though. Molly couldn’t resist the opportunity to see firsthand how Roger was taking Tessa’s death. “You want to meet me here or should I drive to the Lafferty house and meet you there?”

  “You’re on my way. I’ll come by the office,” Liza said hurriedly, then added as if she felt a further explanation were needed, “There’s no point in taking two cars.”

  “I’ll see you when you get here, then,” Molly said, more puzzled than before by Liza’s hesitancy to go to the Laffertys’ alone. Why would a woman who’d stood in front of a bulldozer to stop destruction in the rain forest be afraid to pay a perfectly normal call on Roger Lafferty? Did Liza fear that Roger would publicly accuse her of the murder, for heaven’s sake? If not that, what?

  Coming up with no logical answers, Molly swiveled her chair around in time to catch a worried frown on Jeannette’s usually impassive face. “This is not a good idea,” she said, her tone ominous.

  “Oh, come on. It’s just a duty call on the bereaved.”

  The clerk regarded her skeptically. “I read the papers, my friend. This is no ordinary situation. For all you know, this man could have killed his wife.”