by Sam Cheever
Professionally speaking that is.
“We never made that breakfast. One thing led to another and then…” Heat flared in my cheeks. Had I really said that? Good heavens! I’d been reading too many romance novels and gotten carried away.
“I mean…”
Deitz lifted a hand to stop me. “That’s okay. I don’t need those details.”
I had to cover my lips to hide the smile.
“Well…” He suddenly seemed unable to stand there any longer. “It was nice meeting you, May.”
I offered him my hand. “It was a pleasure meeting one of Josh’s friends. I can see why you two got along.”
Deitz held my gaze a moment longer and then frowned. “Funny, I wouldn’t have thought you were his type.” His eyes narrowed, and something passed over his face. It looked like regret. But that made no sense at all.
An awkward silence followed his declaration. I hurried to fill it. “No? Well, love doesn’t always make sense, does it?”
“No. It doesn’t.”
The intensity in his gaze deepened but I held my ground.
Finally, he said, “Well…” And then he left me, striding quickly toward the door and out.
I expelled the breath I hadn’t known I was holding. His perusal of me had been strange. Unlike anything I’d experienced before at one of my mourning jobs. It was almost like…
I blinked in surprise. No. It was exactly like he suspected me of something.
Did Mr. Eddie Deitz really think I might have had something to do with Josh’s death?
Surely not.
“Thank you for coming.”
I turned at the softly spoken words and found myself looking down at Mrs. Mitner. She was a small woman, probably not more than five feet three or four inches. There wasn’t a lot of extra flesh on her bones either. Like a lot of wealthy women, she probably starved herself and worked out excessively, so she looked good in her designer clothes.
But Mrs. Mitner didn’t strike me as that type of woman. The lack of padding on her small frame seemed more a case of her emotional upheaval than deliberate starvation.
I reached out and clasped her hand, trying to capture her gaze. But she kept her watery blue gaze pointed downward, toward the floor between our shoes. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The woman’s mouth tightened slightly, and she finally looked up. Her stare was hard, and I saw the anger flicker through her eyes. “I’m not ashamed of Joshua, you know. I loved my son.”
It was such a strange thing to say all I could do was nod. But the pain that slid into her eyes to replace the fleeting wave of anger made my chest go tight. I couldn’t help adding, “I’m sure he knew.”
She skimmed me a look. “Knew?”
“That you loved him.”
She sighed softly. “I hope he did. His choices were his own. I never wanted to make him someone other than who he was.” Her gaze slipped across the room to where her husband was having a very intense conversation with a smaller man whose balding head seemed to shake too often from side to side, and whose dark brown gaze kept sliding toward the casket as they spoke.
I couldn’t miss the hostility in her face when Mrs. Mitner glanced at her husband. Had Alex Mitner tried to make their son change his party boy ways?
“Josh would have understood that you only wanted the best for him.”
Her delicate jaw tightened. She opened her mouth and spoke to me through gritted teeth. “How would you know? You didn’t know our son. You shouldn’t even be here. It’s an insult to his memory. You’re a fake. A fraud.”
My stomach jumped at the accusation. It wasn’t even her words so much as the venomous way she’d said them. I was in a precarious spot. I didn’t want to try to justify my place there. If Mrs. Mitner didn’t believe we were doing a good thing, who was I to tell her differently? But I was proud of my work. I was pleased that we made a person’s grieving easier. If we gave them a reason to believe their lost loved ones had been happy in their last days…or that they were loved and would be missed…how was that bad?
I inclined my head, speaking softly to the distraught woman. “I know because I’ve met you and your husband. I can see how much you loved your son. Surely he could have never doubted it himself.”
My words seemed to take some of the heat from her anger. She shook her head. “I can’t stay here any longer.” She threw her son a last look and, with tears sliding down her pale cheeks, turned away and left the room.
Her leaving left me shaken. I didn’t like thinking that I was making her loss harder. That wasn’t my intent at all. But in the end, I was being paid to perform a service. I’d just never thought my work could cause more pain instead of less.
It appeared I should have thought of that. After all, everyone I spoke to ran scurrying from the room. I was starting to feel like the pooper of Joshua Mitner’s party.
Suddenly, I couldn’t stay there any longer either. I glanced toward Mr. Mitner, but he was gone, along with the man he’d been speaking to. I looked around and saw nobody I recognized. Nobody seemed interested in me.
I’d fulfilled my obligation for the viewing. I was free to leave.
Then, why did I feel guilty as I headed for the door?
The hallway was nearly empty. I hurried out of the room, heading for the front door. If I was lucky I could get out of there before Mr. Mitner returned and saw me. Not that he would care if I left, but I was afraid he’d ask me to ride in the limousine with him and his wife to their house.
I couldn’t do that to Mrs. Mitner. Her pain was visceral. For whatever reason, my presence was making it worse.
My shoes were silent on the thick, dark carpeting. I passed three other rooms which fed off the wide hallway. Two of them were empty and dark, the heavy wood doors closed. In the room nearest the front entrance, the doors were open and the lights were on, but there was nobody inside.
At least, I didn’t think anybody was inside. Until I heard the deep rumble of male voices. I skidded to a stop as I recognized Mr. Mitner’s voice. He sounded angry.
The other man’s tone was placating, his voice soft against the rumble of Alex Mitner’s deep voice. “Are you sure he didn’t see anything? What if he told somebody?”
“Of course he didn’t say anything. Why would you ask me that? Are you implying Joshua was killed because he found out…”
“Keep your voice down, Alex.”
Alex Mitner expelled air in a frustrated sigh. “I just want this to be over. I want to mourn my son’s loss and put it behind me.”
“We’ll get there,” the unknown man said softly. “But you need to keep your wits about you.”
“Why are you skulking around the potted plants?”
I jumped, spinning around to find Eddie Deitz smiling at me. “I…I was just…”
“Ms. Ferth? What are you doing?”
I closed my eyes briefly, opening them to find Eddie staring at me, curiosity clear in his expression. Forcing a smile, I turned to face Alex Mitner’s scowl. “I was just looking for you to tell you I’m leaving.”
“You’re coming to the house though, right? You need to come to the house.”
I could feel Eddie’s interest burning along my back. “Yes. Of course. I just have some errands…”
“I’d like you to ride with us,” my client said. “In the limo.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea…” I started to say.
“Just wait a few minutes and we’ll go.” He started to turn away. I panicked, throwing Eddie a pleading look.
To his credit, he didn’t need a brick over the head to see my plight. “She’s going to ride over with me, Alex. She promised to fill me in on what Josh’s been doing over the last few months.”
Alex Mitner held Eddie’s gaze for a long moment, then slid a speculative look my way before, with obvious reluctance, nodding his head. “We’ll see you there in an hour?”
“We’ll be there,” Eddie told him in a brisk tone of voice.
He clasped my arm gently but firmly and led me to the door.
I couldn’t believe my bad luck. I’d managed to escape the frying pan, only to be flung kicking and screaming, right into the dang fire.
3
We hadn’t even left the parking lot before Eddie was turning up the heat on that fire. “Tell me who you really are.”
I did my best to look surprised. “I don’t know what you mean. I’m Josh’s girlfriend…”
He was already shaking his head. “I know that’s not true. Tell me who you are.”
“Mr. Deitz…”
“Eddie. And just stop it. Don’t lie to me. You might have fooled Alex but you’re not fooling me. You’re after the Mitner money, aren’t you?”
I sat there, staring at him with my mouth hanging unattractively open.
He raised twin dark brows. “Blink once for yes.”
He was making fun of me. On top of accusing me of being a thief. It was just too much. “How dare you?”
“I dare because I care.” The words were bitter. A self-loathing screed. “I’ve been MIA in Josh’s life for months. I’ve let him down. I know that now. I should have been involved. I might have been able to help…” Eddie swallowed hard, his lips clamping shut.
Almost angrily, Eddie Deitz turned the key on his ancient blue truck and put it in gear. He didn’t say another word until we were in the street and on our way.
To where, I didn’t know. I only knew that the next hour was probably going to be the longest of my life. “It’s not your fault he was killed.”
He threw on the brakes as the light turned yellow, his head whipping around. “Oh, I know it wasn’t my fault, Miss-Whoever-You-Are. It’s yours.”
I reared back. “I beg your pardon!”
“You might not have killed him yourself, but you might as well have. People like you—gold-diggers, bloodsuckers—haunted Josh all his life. It’s the reason he couldn’t be happy, couldn’t rest.”
“Now you listen to me, Mr. Deitz…”
He opened his mouth to interrupt me again, but I stuck a finger in his face, my Irish coming up in a big way. “No! You put a stinky sock in it and listen to me for a second. In the three minutes since we’ve been in this truck you’ve accused me of being a thief, a gold-digger, and a murderer. You don’t even know me. You have no idea who I am. You have no right…” Words failed me. As always happened when I was really mad, the tears came. And that made me madder still.
I scraped a hand under my eyes and sniffled. “Why am I bothering? You’ve made up your mind already. You’re not even listening to me.”
We were on the move again, heading out of town, toward the oversized feet of the Smoky Mountains. I was pretty sure the Mitners lived in the other direction.
His hostility softening just a bit, Eddie handed me a tissue. “Well, at least this time the tears are real.”
And there it was. I was not only a thief, a murderer, and a gold-digger, but I was also a lousy actress. I sat there shaking with rage. The man was the worst kind of… I blinked as I realized where we were. He’d taken me to the last place I wanted to go.
Eddie pulled the truck to the side of the road and turned it off. He sat staring at the simple cross stuck into the ground next to the road. Someone had recently placed fresh flowers on the marker. They hadn’t even started to wilt in the metal vase yet. The debris had been cleaned away. Only the still-broken stop sign which Josh’s car had been shoved into when the truck rammed it indicated that anything had even occurred there.
I swallowed the sudden lump in my throat. It was one thing to play at knowing the deceased, and quite another to learn the painful details of his death. I was suddenly afraid to hear them. “We should really get back. The Mitners will be wondering…”
Eddie opened the door and climbed out. He walked around to the front of the truck and headed for the intersection. Before I knew what I was doing, I was climbing out too, toddling along behind him in my three-inch tall spike-heeled shoes. “Eddie? What are you doing? You should get back in the truck.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and kept walking as if I wasn’t even there. He stopped in front of the tilting sign, his gaze focused in the direction the truck had probably come from.
I stopped beside him and waited for him to give me some indication of what he was doing. I didn’t have long to wait.
“He always drove too fast. But he knew this road like the back of his hand. He drove it day and night, rain or snow. Drunk or sober…” The words were strangled under a soft sob.
I touched his arm, offering what little support I could. “Don’t do this to yourself, Eddie.”
He shook his head, tears sliding down his cheeks. “I should have been here.”
“And what?” I asked him. “Would you have been driving? Would he have listened to you if you’d been a passenger? Would you have realized that a trash truck was heading for the exact spot where you were going to be?”
Deitz sniffed, looking down the road as he struggled to get his emotions under control.
“This Stop sign is hard to see. Even if you know it’s here, if you’re distracted or not paying attention, it could sneak up on you. It was dark that morning, right? He was heading to work very early?”
Eddie nodded. “He hated working there. Hated the way his dad treated him. And the way everybody looked at him because they all thought he was skating through life.” Eddie gave a bitter laugh. “Josh was a player. He was unreliable and flighty. But he was one of the most decent men I knew.”
“He was your friend,” I said softly.
“Yeah.” He turned to look me in the eye.
His tone of voice should have warned me. But I was still caught up in the heart-breaking realization of the pain Joshua Mitner’s death had left behind.
“And that’s why I know you’re not his girlfriend. He would have mentioned you to me. But he never did, May…or whatever your real name is…he never mentioned you even one time. How do you explain that?”
I couldn’t. And even if I could have come up with a plausible reason, I knew Eddie Deitz wouldn’t buy it. He was sharp, and he paid attention to even the smallest details. I recognized the trait from my family, most of whom were cops.
I was the rare breed of Ferth who’d eschewed all that for a life pretending to be someone I wasn’t.
That was probably why I understood Josh’s mindset. Maybe better even than his friend Eddie could. I realized I had a choice to make. I could break my contract and tell Eddie what I was doing there. Or I could continue to lie to him and go on being a suspect in his eyes.
I really had no choice. “I told you, Eddie. I was Josh’s girlfriend. I can’t tell you why he didn’t talk about me. It actually hurts my feelings a little bit.”
He stalked closer, his jaw tight and his hands clenched into fists. “You’re going to tell me the truth. I won’t stop asking.”
I raised my hands, backing toward the truck. “What is your deal?” I asked. I let him see my fear, hoping he’d come to his senses…become more reasonable. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure Eddie Deitz had passed reasonable a while back and would have trouble finding it again.
I bumped up against the truck. Nowhere to go. He pushed his face to within a few inches of mine, well past my comfort zone. Eddie jabbed a finger at me, making me blink. “The only reason I can see for you to lie is if you have something to hide. I don’t know exactly what you’re up to, but I know you’re working for somebody else. Somebody who wanted Josh dead. I’m going to find out who and when I do, I’m taking you down for his murder.”
I grabbed his finger and pushed it out of my face, finally as angry as he was. “Don’t you threaten me, Deitz! I had nothing to do with Josh’s death.”
“We’ll just see about that, won’t we?”
“Yes, we will.” I turned away from him and started down the road, wobbling in my heels.
“May!”
I ignored him, dialing my brother the cop. Of cour
se he didn’t answer.
Gravel crunched behind me, and my hand stabbed into my purse. As he grabbed my shoulder, I spun around and sprayed him right in the face with mace.
Eddie screamed and raged, mopping at his stinging eyes and calling me just about every kind of villain he could imagine. I called my father the cop and got through. “Dad, I need you to come get me.” I cut Eddie Deitz a look and found him squint-staring at me, looking like a zombie with his fire engine red eyes. “I’ll explain when you get here.”
“You need to get a safer job, Punkin. Maybe you should become a cop.”
I gave my dad the patented Ferth female “look” that was supposed to drop him to his knees. Unfortunately, he’d grown immune to the Ferth equivalent of stink eye and didn’t even wobble. “I’m serious. I think there’s something strange about Joshua Mitner’s death.”
Police Lieutenant George Ferth signaled and turned onto my road, his distinguished, still handsome face wrinkling with dismay. “Based on a whispered conversation between the father and some guy you don’t even know? Punkin, that guy could be a weird uncle who borrowed money and didn’t return it. It could have nothing at all to do with this young man’s death.”
“I can’t explain why I feel this way. It’s just my gut.”
He skimmed a look over my flat tummy and smirked. “Punkin you don’t have a gut. You’ve got skin stretched tightly over bones and not much else. You need to come home for dinner more often.”
“Lieutenant,” I whined. That one always got him.
He shook his head, pulling up in front of my apartment building. “All right. I’ll read the report on the accident. But don’t get your hopes up. From what I’ve heard about it, that boy died in a tragic accident. He was quite the party boy, you know. There’s a good chance he was drunk and just didn’t notice the Stop sign.”
“It was like six in the morning, Dad.”
He shrugged. “Your point?”
I grasped the handle and pushed the door open. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
