Divorce Is Murder

by Elka Ray

  “I went home.”

  “You didn’t stop at 7-Eleven or get gas?”

  Josh shakes his head.

  “Which way did you drive? You live in James Bay, right?”

  “Yes,” says Josh. “I’m renting a place on Montreal Street. Tonya is . . .” He swallows hard. “Was living in our house in Uplands. I took the scenic route along Beach Drive.”

  Detective Fitzgerald raises an eyebrow. “Why’d you go that way?” he asks. “It was dark, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s a nicer road,” says Josh. “And at night there aren’t any tour buses or pensioners driving twenty.”

  Detective Fitzgerald scratches his chin. “Doesn’t the scenic route pass by Hollywood Crescent?”

  I wonder where he’s going with this. Josh doesn’t answer. I see something—annoyance, or maybe fear—ripple across his face. He grips the edge of the picnic table.

  “Alana Mapplebee owns a place on Hollywood,” says Detective Fitzgerald. “Did you stop off and see her?”

  “No!” says Josh. He now looks openly irritated. “Like I told you, I went home. I was tired.” I try to meet Josh’s eyes but he won’t look at me.

  “What’s your relationship with Miss Mapplebee?” asks Detective Fitzgerald. I turn to see Colin Destin staring at me.

  Josh clears his throat. “We’re friends,” he says. “She sold me the house in Uplands.”

  “Nothing more?”

  Seated at this picnic table, Josh suddenly resembles a small schoolboy squirming at his desk. He studies the table’s scratched surface, then tugs at his shirt’s collar. “We were, uh, involved,” he says. “Romantically.”

  I feel my own face redden. So Chantelle Orker was right. When I’d asked Josh if he’d had an affair he’d denied it. He straight-out lied to me. Why did I believe him?

  For the first time, I see satisfaction in Detective Fitzgerald’s grey eyes, although his smile is as frozen as a crocodile’s. “Were?” he asks. “You’re no longer together? So when did your relationship with Miss Mapplebee start and finish?”

  Josh sighs. “We’re not together,” he says. “We started, er, dating about six months ago.” I cross my arms. That was back before he and Tonya were separated. He rubs his temples. “We saw each other for about four months. It wasn’t serious. But Alana’s going through a tough time, work-wise and . . .” He bites his lip. “Personally too, I guess. I never gave her the idea it was serious, but she’s having trouble accepting I don’t want to see her anymore.”

  Detective Fitzgerald wrinkles his nose. I feel like wrinkling mine too. “Are you still seeing her or not?” asks the detective.

  “Not,” says Josh. “The last time we, er . . . were, um . . .”

  “Intimate?”

  Josh nods miserably. Detective Fitzgerald clicks his pen. Josh takes a deep breath. “The last time we met was last month.” He gives his collar a fresh tug. “But she’s still been calling and following me.”

  “She’s stalking you?” asks Detective Fitzgerald. His tone is so neutral it sounds ironic.

  Josh shrugs. “Well, yeah, I guess you could call it that. Someone keeps calling me and hanging up. And she seems to turn up everywhere I go. Plus she’s sent me, um, photos of herself.” He’s being careful not to look my way. “You know, naked photos.”

  “But you didn’t report any of this?”

  Josh looks embarrassed. “No, of course not,” he says. “I didn’t want to make a big deal of it.”

  “Did Tonya know about the affair?” asks Detective Destin.

  Josh hesitates. If Chantelle suspected, Tonya must have too. When did she learn about the affair?

  Josh empties his water glass. “I’m sure she didn’t know,” he says miserably. “But I felt guilty, which is one of the reasons I decided to file for divorce.” He gives me a pleading look. “I wasn’t proud of myself, see? I hated that I’d turned into the kind of guy who was cheating on my wife. Alana was a wake-up call. It was time to admit that my marriage was a joke.” He spreads his hands on the picnic table. I’m amazed by their size. I look away. I have an unwelcome vision of those hands throttling Tonya.

  Maybe Detective Fitzgerald has the same thought, or maybe he’d been planning this attack all along. He leans forward, his face grim, and slides a photo across the table. I freeze in horror, as does Josh, the photo showing Tonya’s body, bloated and bleached-looking, facedown on a metal table. She’s wearing the tattered remnants of a tight, striped minidress, her legs and feet bare and mangled, like fish or crabs have been at her. Detective Fitzgerald slaps down another image: a close-up of the back of Tonya’s head, a dark splotch in her wet, tangled hair, a large gold hoop in one hideously swollen ear.

  Josh recoils in shock and presses a hand to his mouth.

  “Did you do this?” rasps Detective Fitzgerald.

  Josh leans back like he’s been punched. “Of course not!” he says. “My God!” He turns away, his face ashen. “How could you even think that?”

  When no one answers, he takes a deep breath, composing himself. I don’t know if the detectives are convinced, but his shock and horror seem genuine. If this is staged, he should have been the one pursuing acting.

  Josh rubs his eyes. “I was sick of Tonya’s drama, but I never, ever wished her dead.” His voice shakes. “I would never have hurt Tonya. Never. And I never emotionally abused her or any of that shit she accused me of.”

  “But you did cheat on her.”

  Josh’s nostrils flare. He stands up. “Is this over yet?”

  Detective Destin rises too. They’re around the same height, and look equally fit. The two men glare at each other. If this were a bar, I’d be ducking.

  I rise unsteadily to my feet. “Are you charging Mr. Barton?” I ask.

  Detective Fitzgerald’s grey eyes flick my way. “No,” he says. “We’re just doing our job, Miss Wong.”

  He turns back to Josh. “Stay where we can find you, Mr. Barton.”

  Josh is stepping out the door when Colin calls out to him. “Mr. Barton. Sorry, wait!” He sounds apologetic. “There’s one more thing. It’s important.”

  Josh swings around, nostrils flared. “What?” he asks, angrily.

  “I know it’s upsetting,” says Colin Destin. “But could you look at those photos again? A possible motive is robbery, and we need to know if anything’s missing. Some of Tonya’s jewelry, perhaps?”

  Josh’s face loses even more color.

  “We found a purse, with her ID, in the bay,” continues Colin. “Orange and pink. Marc Jacobs?”

  Looking shaky, Josh returns to the interview table. He doesn’t look at Fitzgerald. I retake my seat beside him.

  Detective Destin extracts the crime scene photos from their envelope, again. Josh’s hands tremble as he leafs through them. At a close-up of a ravaged hand, he stops. His lower lip quivers. “She usually wore her engagement ring,” he says. “A six-carat yellow diamond. It was square.” His Adam’s apple bobs. “Here, her left hand is bare.”

  Detective Fitzgerald makes a note of this. “Okay. We’ll look for it,” he says, curtly. “We haven’t finished searching her residence. Can you think of anything else of value that’s missing?”

  Josh shakes his head. “I don’t know. She had a lot of jewelry.”

  Colin looks thoughtful. “What was it worth, a ring like that?”

  “I bought it for a hundred and forty thousand.”

  Colin blinks, as if blinded by just the thought of that much bling. “Canadian?”

  “No, U.S.”

  I start to do the conversion in my head but give up. Who cares? Whatever the exchange rate, that’s a lot of zeros.

  Detective Destin thanks Josh for his time. It’s a relief when he slides the pictures back into the envelope. “We’ll be in touch,” he says. He escorts us back down the long hall to the lobby.

  I’ve stopped to say goodbye to Detective Destin when Josh rushes away, like he can’t stand another second in this place.
I turn to see him race into the street. It’s raining harder now and he’s forgotten his cap, raincoat, and umbrella.

  With a last nod to Colin Destin, I retrieve Josh’s and my stuff, then scurry after Josh. By the time I manage to raise my umbrella, I’m soaked again. Josh is at least half a block ahead of me, practically running. “Hey Josh! Wait up!” I call, but he doesn’t hear. His car is parked in a pay-lot on Store Street. The wind keeps catching my umbrella. I stagger after him.

  Josh reaches his car and stops. I hurry up behind him, but he doesn’t react. He’s just standing there, bareheaded in the pounding rain, with his keys in his hand. “Josh?” I ask again. The wind off the harbor is cold. I use my free hand to hold my jacket shut. I never got a chance to button it. Rain is blowing in under my umbrella, stinging my eyes.

  It’s only when I’m standing next to him that I can see what he’s staring at: there’s a big heart fashioned from red roses on the hood of his grey SUV. It’s the kind of thing people put on wedding cars, except these roses have been splattered with black paint. Is this a sick joke? The effect is more sinister than romantic. “Jesus! Who did this?” I gasp. I look around. No one else is in sight.

  A muscle in Josh’s jaw jumps. Over by Value Village some seagulls are shrieking. A floatplane is chugging overhead, preparing to land in the inner harbor. I wait for the noise to lessen before repeating my question. “Josh?” I ask, but he doesn’t turn. “Do you know who did this?”

  When he looks my way, his face is as grey as the sky. He sweeps a hand through his wet hair. “Do you think A . . . Alana did it?” he asks hoarsely.

  I shrug. Based on what he told Detective Fitzgerald it seems highly likely. How many romantic stalkers could the guy have? “Could it be someone else?” I ask, and Josh bites his lower lip. He barely seems to notice the water dripping into his blue eyes.

  “No, I don’t mean this,” he says, nodding toward the grim floral display. He places a hand on his car’s hood, as though suddenly dizzy. “I meant Tonya.” He blinks, his eyes haunted. “Do you think Alana killed her?”

  A cold wind is blowing in off the water, a sudden gust turning my umbrella inside out. I struggle to shut it. Rivulets of black paint drip off the roses on the SUV’s hood.

  Through a curtain of wet hair and rain, I see Josh grimace. Before I can stop him, he starts plucking handfuls of black flowers off the hood, his movements frenzied. “That bitch!” he says, tossing the flowers onto the pavement. “Oh God. This is all my fault!” He stops as suddenly as he began. He presses a fist to his lips, then bows his head. While black paint stains his fingers, his knuckles are bone white. Maybe that’s rain in his eyes, or tears. His wide shoulders shake.

  I want to comfort him, but don’t dare. Faced with his furious grief, I feel helpless—and alarmed. That big fist pressed to his lips is like a grenade, ready to explode.

  Out in the street a car honks. Josh shivers, then seems to remember where he is. He lowers his fist and turns to me, blinks. “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “Don’t be,” I say, although I’m not sure what the apology’s for. Because he lost it? Because he lied to me? I nod toward the soggy flowers, now scattered on the wet pavement. “We need to tell the police about this,” I say, then take a deep breath. “And Josh, if there were other women, the cops will find out. You have to tell them.”

  He shakes his head vigorously. “No! There weren’t!” His face crumples, beseeching. “I’m not like that, Toby.”

  I nod. “Okay.” But do I believe him? While his grief seems genuine, he lied to me about his affair with Alana. Again, I recall Chantelle Orker’s warning, not to get sucked in by Josh’s charm. Behind that handsome face, what else is he hiding?

  CHAPTER NINE:

  ON THE CASE

  Quinn and I are in the baby section of The Bay, near a shelf displaying electric breast pumps. I’ve just finished telling her about finding the creepy rose-heart stuck onto Josh’s car three days ago.

  “That’s insane,” says Quinn. “I mean it rained all day Wednesday. What kind of person would stand out in the pouring rain sticking black flowers onto their ex’s car?”

  “Would you do it in the sunshine?” I ask, but Quinn ignores me.

  “Did you call the cops?”

  “I did,” I say. “But not right away. By the time I called, Josh had already pulled all the flowers off his car.”

  Quinn gives me a disapproving look. “Seriously? But why? They were evidence supporting his claim about being stalked,” she says. “There could have been fingerprints on the tape or something.”

  “He just saw them and freaked out,” I say. “He said maybe Alana had killed Tonya and it was all his fault.”

  Quinn picks up a boxed breast pump. “Why would Alana Mapplebee kill Tonya?” When I don’t say anything she snorts. “Ech. He was sleeping with her, wasn’t he?” In the next aisle over, another pregnant woman glances our way, her face curious, yet disapproving.

  “Shhhh,” I say, and lower my voice. “Josh is my client. You know I can’t discuss his private life.”

  “He was your client,” says Quinn smugly. “He’s not getting divorced anymore. But whatever, I can guess the whole story. Guys like Josh are so pathetically predictable. I mean, come on, Alana Mapplebee?”

  “Well, Dan dated her, didn’t he?” I ask somewhat defensively. The fact that Quinn’s cool brother was with Alana makes me feel a tiny bit better about Josh having slept with her. Dan, after all, is proof that even nice guys can fall for bimbos.

  Quinn rolls her eyes. “Exactly. My brother’s a smart guy and Alana’s, well . . .” She grabs another breast pump from the shelf, frowning as she scans the box’s back cover. The front bears a photo of a blonde woman with what appears to be a set of plastic funnels festooned with rubber tubes clutched to her breasts. Japanese sex toy meets dairy farm.

  “Alana’s what?”

  “A total idiot,” says Quinn. “Her I.Q. is smaller than her bra size.”

  “But is she crazy?” I ask. “What was she like with Dan? Did he ever say anything?”

  When Quinn replaces the box I catch sight of the price tag. Four hundred bucks for what looks like a torture device. I feel queasy.

  Thankfully, Quinn has moved on toward a shelf of baby monitors. I follow shakily. At least the baby monitor boxes bear photos of babies sleeping like proverbial babies.

  “She dumped him,” says Quinn. “This was back when Dan was even more broke than he is now, back when he was waiting tables and writing screenplays at night. One minute they were all loved up, and then the next minute, she met some old guy with a mansion in Uplands and—poof—Dan was history.”

  “So she’s a gold digger?”

  Quinn hands me the baby monitor she’s selected. She needs to keep both hands free to grab other purportedly essential baby items. I had no idea that reproduction required so much expensive paraphernalia. And we’re not the only ones shopping. I’ve never seen so many women in various stages of pregnancy.

  “For sure,” says Quinn. “Like the guy she dumped Dan for was old . . . I mean really old, like eighty-something and totally decrepit.” She examines a massive bottle-sterilizer and frowns. When I see the price tag I frown too. “I don’t know how the old dude made his bazillions, but he was loaded.” She struggles to remember. “I think he was in fertilizer or something. Or was it pest control? You know, roaches and—”

  I break in. “So what happened?”

  Quinn passes me the bottle-sterilizer. I balance it on one barely-there hip with the baby monitor set precariously on top. Quinn adds a box of breast pads to this stack. I look for some staff member to help, but there aren’t any. They ought to supply carts in this section.

  “The old guy died of a heart attack two weeks before their wedding,” says Quinn. “It must have been a huge blow to Alana, since, if he’d held on for another fortnight, she’d have been entitled to major moola.”

  “Well, Josh is seriously rich,” I say. “May
be Alana felt that, with Tonya out of the way, she had a good shot at becoming the next Mrs. Barton.”

  Quinn peers at me. “Sounds possible,” she says. “Or maybe Tonya and Alana got into some kind of argument. They’d be natural enemies, seeing as they were competing for the same section of the food chain. Dan did say that Alana has a vicious temper.” She doubles back toward the breast pump section. The aisles seem extra wide in here, no doubt to accommodate the extra-wide pregnant women.

  Quinn’s finally made her choice when my cell phone rings. The mere sight of Josh’s name on my phone’s little screen gives me a thrill. I bite my lip, aware that this is getting out of hand. Having a schoolgirl crush on Josh was bad enough back when I was a schoolgirl; having one now is tragic. Time to nip this crush in the bud. First off, Josh is—or rather was—my client. Second, he has a clear preference for large-breasted blondes. And third, he is the prime suspect in a murder case.

  I take a deep breath and answer.

  If Quinn weren’t busy talking to a woman who’s expecting twins the week before her, I know she’d be eavesdropping. She’d be giving me a weird look too, because she knows me well enough to notice that my voice sounds strained. But luckily, Quinn’s busy discussing the danger of soft cheeses, so at least I can pretend I sound normal. “Yeah, and no Gorgonzola,” says Quinn, savoring every syllable.

  “Or Camembert,” says the other pregnant lady. I can hear the lust in their voices.

  “Toby?” says Josh. “I’ve been trying to call you for the past half hour.”

  “Oh. Okay. What’s up?” I try to zap the flutter of happiness that’s resulted from Josh sounding so grateful to have reached me.

  “The police have a search warrant to search my house and boat,” he says. “They’re going to start with the Great Escape. I’m on my way to the marina. Could you please meet me there?”

  Her forbidden cheese-porn conversation finished, Quinn is now unashamedly eavesdropping. Seeing my shocked expression she looks quizzical. “Who is it?” she mouths. I shake my head and ignore her. I have to think here. Josh, clearly, needs a criminal lawyer. I’d better call Jackie.