No Place to Die

by Jaden Skye

  Olivia felt her heart start to pound.

  “What secrets?” she asked.

  Finally Alana looked directly at her.

  “You weren’t the only girl he brought to the restaurant,” she said. “I saw them all.”

  Olivia reddened.

  “We’ve only been dating five months,” she said. “He had a right to a life before me.”

  Alana shook her head. “I’m sorry for you, honey,” she replied.

  “Sorry for what?” Olivia asked, her anger rising.

  “Some of them,” Alana said, “were only a few weeks ago.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It was dark out when Olivia left Alana’s place. Her thoughts flew in all directions as she first called for a cab and then walked back up the dirt hill. It had grown cooler now with the scraggly trees lining the hill, blowing in the wind. She clutched the piece of paper in her shaking hand, as she felt her life collapse around her.

  Who had Todd taken to the restaurant in the hotel? Olivia kept wondering. Why hadn’t he mentioned anything about these women to her? She started to grow anxious again and then stopped herself. It was too easy to listen to rumors and get blown apart. There certainly seemed to be a thin line between fantasy and reality down here and Olivia couldn’t necessarily believe everything she was hearing. So far she had no solid evidence of what Alana told her, not a shred of it. Olivia had to steady her heart which was beating too fast, or else she herself would end up getting pulled into dreams and rumors.

  Olivia got in the cab, gave the driver the scrawled address, and tried to breathe as they drove there. Was Alana spouting lies? About everything? If this address was real, if Tomas had a true alibi and someone who knew it was at this address, then Olivia would have to face the truth. But what would Olivia find?

  They finally reached the address, a shack in an even poorer neighborhood. All was pitch-black. Olivia jumped out, told the cab to wait, and knocked on the door a good five minutes, just to be sure.

  But no one answered. Either no one was home, or the place was abandoned.

  Olivia got back into the cab and rested her face in her hands, overwhelmed.

  “Take me back to my hotel,” she finally said.

  *

  It was late when Olivia returned to the hotel and she was hungry. To her surprise, when she walked into the lobby, Wayne was standing there, in blue slacks and an open plaid shirt, waiting for her.

  “Busy day,” he commented as he walked over to Olivia.

  Olivia looked at him without answering.

  “I know it’s late,” he went on, “but I wondered if you might have a few moments to talk?”

  This definitely wasn’t a casual visit and Olivia wondered what he had on his mind. “Are there new developments in the case?” she asked.

  “In a way,” he responded. “Could we grab a quick bite in the café?”

  “Sure,” said Olivia, as they walked to the small café in the hotel overlooking the now dark water. The place had just been reopened and its wooden tables were covered with printed tablecloths. A sprig of fresh flowers in a hand-painted vase was perched on each table.

  As Olivia and Wayne sat across from one another, a sense of urgency gripped her.

  “Sorry about this late meeting,” Wayne said, “but I remember your father said you both were planning to leave Key West shortly. Neither Lorna or I were sure when.” He looked at Olivia questioningly.

  “I’m not sure yet myself,” Olivia replied. She wondered how long her father would stay down here with her. He ran a large company that made many demands made on him. She knew this was a strain on him and her mother as well. It disturbed Olivia.

  Wayne seemed to relax a bit then, as the waiter came and they quickly ordered. “I heard that you went to see Tomas this afternoon,” he immediately continued.

  “I told you I wanted to speak to Tomas,” Olivia defended herself.

  “And Lorna and I told you he was in custody,” Wayne replied.

  Olivia looked Wayne directly in the eye. “I didn’t do anything illegal.”

  “Not illegal, but out of the ordinary,” Wayne replied honestly. “It’s raising suspicions about you too, naturally.”

  The waiter quickly brought their food and stepped away.

  Suddenly Olivia realized that Wayne had his own suspicions about her. He had obviously rushed here to question her further before she left.

  “What is it you want to know about me?” Olivia asked, forthrightly.

  “I want to clear up some questions that are floating around,” Wayne replied. “I need to know about your relationship with your first fiancé, Paul?”

  Obviously Doug was spreading doubt about her, Olivia thought. “My relationship with Paul was fine, we did well together,” Olivia replied. “Naturally, his illness took a toll on everyone. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “No one suggested his illness was your fault, did they?” Wayne looked at her directly.

  “Not in so many words,” said Olivia. “Why?”

  “Doug has been talking to Paul’s family,” Wayne continued.

  Olivia grew silent a moment. “You can imagine how hard Paul’s illness was on them,” she replied. “At the end they blamed everybody.”

  “I can imagine,” Wayne said softly. “Then you met Todd.”

  “Two years later,” said Olivia.

  “Why did you love Todd so much?” Wayne was pushing the limits now.

  Olivia had no idea how to answer that. “There’s no way to explain love, is there?” she murmured.

  “You can try anyway,” he said.

  But Olivia didn’t want to. “You can’t, it’s a mystery,” she finally said. “I can list Todd’s qualities on paper, check them off and say that’s why I loved him. But that’s not how it works.”

  “No, I know that,” said Wayne. “So let me put it differently. What drew you to him?”

  “I don’t know that either,” said Olivia quietly. “It was just that the first moment we met I knew we’d be together forever, or longer.”

  A sudden breeze blew in from the water and tossed against them. “It didn’t happen that way exactly, though,” Wayne replied.

  Olivia sat rooted to the spot she was in. “No, it didn’t turn out the way I imagined it would,” she finally replied. “From the looks of it now, he’s gone.”

  “He is gone,” Wayne confirmed.

  Olivia held her silence. This wasn’t the conversation she’d been wanting to have with anyone at the moment.

  “I’m sorry,” Wayne said, suddenly relenting. “I have to be extra thorough in questioning possible suspects these days. I’ve become involved with restorative justice. The police force aren’t thrilled about it, naturally.”

  “I know what restorative justice is,” Olivia remarked, upset to hear the police force wasn’t supportive of it.

  “You do?” Wayne was taken aback.

  “It’s bringing murderers and the families of the victims of the crimes together. A recent client of mine just did a book on restorative justice,” she said.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Wayne’s interest was piqued. “How do you know this? What kind of clients do you have?”

  “I’m a book publicist and oddly enough, have just been working on the book about restorative justice,” Olivia replied. “The family of the victim visits the murderer in jail over and over to tell him all about the person he killed. Hopefully, the killer can ask for forgiveness and the family can extend it to him. Sometimes they all even build ongoing relationships. It’s an incredible healing process.”

  “It certainly is. I’m impressed,” said Wayne.

  “Don’t be impressed,” Olivia replied. “It’s easy enough to write about it, but something else to be out on the street like you, exposing yourself to danger. That’s something to be impressed with.”

  “Thank you,” Wayne said quietly.

  Wayne was different from Doug and Olivia appreciated it. She felt jarred by her run-in wit
h both of them, though. It definitely seemed as though the tide had turned and the investigation was focusing more on her now.

  “Is there anything else you want to know?” Olivia wanted the interview to be over with now. “I wish I could be of more help.” Olivia suddenly felt tears falling down her face. “I miss Todd so much, and I’m scared, very scared,” she finally burst out.

  “Scared of what?” Wayne looked at her, startled.

  “Scared that he may have cheated on me,” she said. “That there may have been other women.”

  Wayne sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Have you looked into this?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “There’s not much to look into,” he said. “It’s not like we have a list of all the women he’s seen. Or that we can assume most of them are even still in Key West. If you have a lead, we would follow up. Do you? Do you know any of their names?”

  Olivia shook her head sadly. Perhaps Alana was lying after all.

  “I’m also scared to consider another possibility,” said Olivia.

  “What?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath. “That Todd used arsenic himself to commit suicide.”

  The minute she said that, Olivia felt sorry. Wayne looked astonished. “Why would you think that?” he asked.

  Olivia had no choice but to answer. Actually it felt good to finally say what she’d been thinking. She’d held it inside for too long.

  “I’m beginning to think that was the surprise Todd had for me,” Olivia went on. “He kept saying he had a surprise for me down here. Of course, I’d hoped he was going to propose, and he did. But maybe that was just part of it. For all I know he was planning to die all along.”

  Wayne was clearly shaken. “But I thought you two were happy.”

  “So did I,” whispered Olivia, “but who else could have killed him? We were together every minute before he got sick. There was no way anyone else could have done this.”

  Wayne zeroed in. “Was Todd in trouble, or depressed?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Olivia.

  “Did he give you some sign that he was suicidal?” Wayne wasn’t letting go. “Suicidal people give warnings.”

  “If he gave me signs, I didn’t recognize them,” Olivia whispered. The horror of this had been weighing heavily on her. Had she missed something that could have saved him? “He had all kinds of moods,” she went on. “I thought they were normal.”

  “Everyone has moods,” Wayne replied. “Had Todd made any previous attempts at suicide?” Wayne’s eyes now became piercing. “Was he seeing a mental health professional?”

  “Not that I know,” Olivia repeated. “But maybe he had?”

  “Seems you didn’t know very much about him at all.” Wayne’s voice grew clipped.

  “That’s right, I didn’t,” Olivia answered. “We’d only been dating five months.”

  “I know that,” said Wayne, “you told us that already.”

  “Todd and I didn’t spend our time going over the past, or complaining about what had gone wrong in our lives,” Olivia continued. “This was a new start for both of us. We focused on what lay ahead for us.”

  “Was someone you or he knew upset about your relationship?” Wayne became more focused. “Did you two step on someone’s toes?”

  “Not that I know of,” Olivia repeated, feeling more and more ghastly as the discussion went on.

  “You guys kept your relationship quite secret.” Wayne forged ahead. “I mean it’s strange to get engaged without meeting each other’s family, isn’t it?”

  “It is strange,” Olivia agreed, “but Todd wanted it that way, and so did I. As you know, I’d been engaged before and the relationship caused a great deal of pain to my family. I didn’t want them going through that again. I was waiting to give them wonderful news.”

  “What else about your other engagement was so painful?” asked Wayne.

  “Not the relationship itself, but what happened to him.” Olivia bristled. “Paul and I were compatible, met in college and enjoyed doing all the same things. When we graduated, the next inevitable step was to get engaged. Everybody expected it and we did. But then came the illness. He just kept getting worse and worse. It was a long, slow process, watching him die.”

  “Awful,” Wayne agreed.

  “Yes, awful,” said Olivia. “You can see why I wanted my relationship with Todd to be entirely different.”

  Wayne looked at Olivia closely. “Yes, of course I can see,” he replied. “You’ve been to hell and back.”

  “Yes, I’ve been to hell and back,” she murmured, “and now it looks like I’m on the way back to hell again.”

  Wayne closed his eyes a second. “You need to take it easy, rest a bit,” he said.

  “I feel better when I’m involved,” said Olivia. “I want to find out what happened to Todd as badly as you do. What should I do next? Who should I talk to? Tell me.”

  “I can’t suggest anything on the record, of course,” Wayne replied. “But if you’re determined to understand Todd better, why not change your focus? Talk to the people Todd worked with down here. One of his colleagues from New York, Gabe, is still in town. He came down for the memorial and hasn’t left yet. Ask him if Todd had been depressed and your suspicions have any basis. You’ll feel better after that.”

  That made good sense to Olivia. “I will,” she instantly agreed. “Tell me where Gabe is.”

  *

  After her interview with Wayne ended Olivia returned to her room alone. Her father was out speaking to the lawyer again and she relished this time to herself. Olivia looked around the room and then at the empty bed. She’d be sleeping in it alone again tonight, she thought, and maybe forever.

  Olivia felt warm tears starting to fall once again. It was upsetting to dwell upon Todd’s murder deeply; not really Olivia’s style. In the strange silence that lay heavily upon her now, Olivia heard the soft vibration of her phone. She realized she hadn’t checked her messages for a long while. The world outside seemed far away. At times it was even hard to remember the life she used to have.

  Olivia now reached for her phone and to her amazement saw a long string of texts waiting for her, from Allison and other friends and colleagues.

  I know this must be hell, Allison’s first text message said. I want to come down and help you. Can I? Your mother said I should wait until I hear from you.

  Olivia took a long, slow breath. It was interesting that her mother discouraged Allison from coming down. She was probably hoping Olivia would return to New York as soon as possible, Olivia thought.

  Olivia, how are you doing? We’re all frantic up here. All kinds of strange bits of news are dribbling up. Is it true that Todd’s death is being considered murder? How is it possible?

  Olivia could not respond. She scrolled down through the messages quickly, and then stopped at one. In the midst of endless texts from Allison, one slipped in from Fredericka, Olivia’s boss.

  Olivia, needless to say we are all horrified here. Please take the time you need to sort things through and recover. Your job is waiting for you. We all look forward to seeing you again when you’re ready. Keep in touch.

  Olivia was grateful for that. Fredericka was a class act, in her mid-forties. She did a wonderful job running the publicity department and she and Olivia enjoyed working together.

  Thanks, Fredericka, Olivia texted back immediately. I do need a little time right now. I’m grateful for your message. Will see you soon.

  Somehow Olivia couldn’t bring herself to respond to Allison though. Strangely enough, Allison had warned Olivia over and over that she wasn’t comfortable with her relationship with Todd. She’d probably sensed something. Now Olivia felt disturbed that she hadn’t listened more fully to her best friend.

  The door to the suite opened quickly and Olivia’s father entered, looking worn. “I’m glad you’re back here, very glad,” he said. “We’re leaving soon, Olivia,” and he threw his jack
et over the couch.

  Olivia couldn’t bring herself to tell her father that she was far from ready to go. There were friends of Todd she needed to talk to. It was crucial that she get a better understanding of who Todd had been, and what could have led to this before she and he met.

  “I’m booking us on a flight for the day after tomorrow,” her father went on.

  Olivia cringed. She had to stay down here, and she knew it. Todd wouldn’t leave anything half done or take no for an answer. She couldn’t either now. She had to do this for both of them.

  “Maybe I’ll go in a few days,” she said softly to her father. “There are a few more people left to speak to.”

  “What do you mean maybe?” Olivia’s father looked deeply upset. “You’re not the detective here, Olivia. In fact, you’re the one who could be in trouble right now. What do you really know about Todd, anyway, and the world he lived in?”

  “Not that much, Dad, and I have to find out,” Olivia answered fiercely.

  “No, you don’t, not anymore,” he replied. “But you do have to take care of yourself!”

  “Todd meant a lot to me,” Olivia went on, “and I have to find out if I was crazy. I thought we were perfect for each other. We didn’t even have to talk, could be in different places, and I always felt he was right with me. I was never lonely with him, ever.”

  Her father seemed startled. “Were you lonely with Paul?” he asked. Her father and Paul had been close and Paul’s death had taken a real toll on him.

  “I was lonely with Paul a lot of the time,” Olivia said softly. She couldn’t tell her father how intense the loneliness had been. And how different it was with Todd.

  “You never said that before.” Her father seemed crestfallen. “Paul was good to you, kind.”

  “Yes, he was the perfect fiancé, but I was lonely with him,” Olivia couldn’t help but cry out. “I was never lonely with Todd. I even feel him here with me now.”

  “You’re imagining things.” Her father seemed frightened.

  “I’m not imagining,” Olivia insisted. “Todd is with me forever. I feel his strength.”