Steamed (30 page)

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Authors: Jessica Conant-Park,Susan Conant

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Mystery Fiction, #Women Sleuths, #Boston (Mass.), #Cooks, #Women Graduate Students

BOOK: Steamed
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Eric’s father nodded dejectedly and rested his chin on his hands. “Yeah, I was paying off everything. Sheryl didn’t like it. She said we should let him bail himself out of his own mess. But I had to do it.”
 
“So you knew about his financial problems before he died.”
 
“Yes, yes. Just come sit back down with me.” He patted the spot next to him on the couch.
 
Fat chance, Phil.
I didn’t care what grief had done to him. Never again was I getting anywhere near him.
 
“I’m going now,” I told Phil. “Don’t call me. Ever. If you ever do anything to remind me of your existence, I’ll call the police.”
 
I bolted out of the house. My hands were shaking as I started the ignition. Thank God I hadn’t touched that whiskey. Cold sober, I was in no condition to drive. Only a few blocks away from the Raffertys’, I pulled over and called Adrianna, who picked up her cell right away. I told her about Phil’s horrendous attempt at seduction.
 
“Oh my God, Chloe! Are you okay? I hope you told that bastard off,” she yelled angrily. “Hold your head still, or you’re going to be lopsided,” I heard her say. “Sorry, I’m pinning up someone’s hair right now. Some girl is having her eighteenth birthday party tonight, and her mother hired me to do everyone’s hair. Okay, so you beat that Phil to a bloody pulp, right?”
 
“Yeah, right. I just told him to stay away from me or I’d call the police. But I did find out that he and Sheryl have been paying off all the money Eric owed,” I said, pleased to have taken advantage of Phil’s drunken pass to extract the information. “That’s what he said. And I believe him.”
 
“Chloe, I told you those people were bad news. How gross is that? Hitting on your dead son’s girlfriend?”
 
“Well, I did clear up the confusion about my being Eric’s girlfriend.”
 
“Whatever. Have you told Josh about this yet? I bet he’s going to have a fit. Maybe he’ll do something dramatic like run over there and defend your honor! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
 
“No, it would not be awesome. I don’t even know if I want to tell Josh about it. It’s making me want to puke just telling you. Anyhow, I’m going home to make something to eat and then I’m going down to see Josh at the restaurant. You want to meet me there?”
 
“Sorry, I can’t. I’m going to be working all night. The mother is paying me to stick around in case anyone needs their hair touched up. Talk about spoiled. I mean, special, right? Just kidding,” Ade said for the obvious benefit of her clients. “This must be so fun for you girls, huh?” she cooed sweetly. “I gotta go, Chloe. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
 
I’d calmed down enough to be safe behind the wheel, but my lousy mood persisted all the way home. Once there, I decided to tidy up in hopeful anticipation of returning home later that night with Josh. There was nothing romantic about making love amidst a pile of dirty laundry, so I grabbed a load and headed outside, down the back steps, and into the basement of the house. Doing laundry in the winter meant teetering down icy steps with a basket of clothes while praying for survival. On this occasion, the steps were safe, but there was a nasty surprise awaiting me when I opened the door to the laundry room. Sitting on top of the dryer reading
US Weekly
was Veronica, the Peroxide Queen.
 
“Hi.” She beamed at me. “Chloe, right? Noah said it’d be okay if I did my laundry here. My machine isn’t working. He went to Chicago for the weekend, though, so I’m alone tonight. What’re you doin’?”
 
“Laundry,” I said.
 
Her shorts were shorter than short. The weather wasn’t that hot, for Christ’s sake. Well, unless you were sitting on a clothes dryer relishing the vibrations of the wrinkle-free cycle. Although the last person I wanted to be stuck in a laundry room with was Veronica, she seemed chatty enough, and I wondered what she could tell me about Eric. At a guess, she knew nothing about my history with Noah. That, or she didn’t care.
 
With all the false friendliness I could muster, I smiled at her as I slowly started loading whites into the washing machine. “So, you and Noah, huh? That’s great.”
 
“Oh, yeah. He’s the best. Better than my ex, Eric, that’s for sure,” she scoffed as she flipped a page in her magazine. “Oh God. Sorry. I heard through the grapevine at Magellan that you were going out with him. And you found his body? How totally gross!” she squealed. “But I hear you’re with Josh now. Much better choice. I should know.”
 
In dignified tones, I said, “I had a blind date with Eric the night he died, so I barely knew him.
You
must be upset, though. I mean, I know you two had broken up, but still . . . he
was
murdered.”
 
“You know what? I’m not upset in the least. He was a big liar, and I don’t give a crap that he’s gone. I wasted enough time on him for nothing,” she spat out.
 
“Because he was broke?”
 
Without a hint of embarrassment, she nodded and said, “Yeah, you found out about that, too? I dumped his ass the minute I figured it out. What a moron he was. I mean, come on, who spends money like that when you don’t have it? I’m a freaking bookkeeper, for cryin’ out loud! Why he thought I’d put up with that is beyond me. After months of driving me around in his slick car, I find out he’s worth nothing? I don’t think so. Not for me. Broke up with him right after. Noah has tons more money than Eric did,” she confided. “He’s made really good investments.”
 
It was hard to believe that someone so superficial had a brain with the depth to handle numbers. “So why did Eric pretend he was going to invest in Tim’s restaurant? Obviously he couldn’t afford to, so what was the point of making Tim think he could?”
 
“Oh, Eric was such a jackass. He was so obsessed with that restaurant gang. It was actually pathetic how much he wanted to fit in with Tim and Maddie and everyone who worked there. It’s a tight group of people, and Eric was like some loser high-school kid trying to worm his way into the popular crowd. Nobody there particularly liked him, but he used to go into Magellan and throw money around—money, it turns out, he shouldn’t have been spending. He latched onto the staff when they went out to the bars after work and tried to pretend he was, you know, the leader of the pack. People mostly just ignored him and hoped he’d go away.” Veronica tossed her hair. I was pleased to see that she desperately needed a foil. “So anyway,” she continued, “when Tim opened up Essence, Eric just barreled ahead and tried to jump on board and become part of the new restaurant by claiming he wanted to invest a huge amount of money. So he was just angling to hang out there, get free food, and feel wealthy and important.”
 
“So,” I asked casually, “did you tell everyone at work why you broke up with Eric?”
 
“No way. I mean, at the time I was totally mortified. I would’ve looked like a complete idiot dating someone as fiscally irresponsible as Eric. I was furious at him for fooling me and making me think he was loaded, and I didn’t want
anyone
to know that I’d been tricked by a moron like Eric. So, between that and his awful parents, I was done with him.”
 
I had to nod in agreement. “Yeah, I’ve met them. They’re both pretty out there.” I paused. “Especially the father.” I glanced at Veronica, who was still perched on the dryer.
 
“He’s an asshole. Do you know, he frickin’ hit on me once?”
 
“No!” I replied in mock disbelief.
 
“Yeah, at a dinner party Eric’s parents had. Phil had downed, like, an entire bottle of scotch, and he grabbed my ass in the kitchen. He tried to grab something else, but Eric walked in.”
 
“That must’ve been a nice scene. Did Sheryl find out?”
 
“No. But then when I found out about Eric’s money mess, Eric said he’d make his father pay it all off. Eric told his father that if he didn’t fix all of his financial problems, he’d tell Sheryl that Phil had hit on me.”
 
“And Phil agreed,” I finished for her.
 
“You bet your ass he agreed. Would you want to piss off that woman?”
 
I shook my head.
 
“Eric thought he could get me back if he got Phil to pay off all his debt. At that point I didn’t care. I’d had enough of his lying and his drunk father trying to grope me.”
 
Was Phil so desperate to avoid paying off all the money Eric owed that he killed him? Was he trying to stop Eric from ratting on him to Sheryl?
 
“Did Detective Hurley talk to you?” I asked.
 
“Yeah, I told him what a prick I thought Eric was. Can you believe he actually suspected me of killing Eric? Because I was so mad at him for being such a jerk? Hardly. I was off the hook after about half a second because I was with Noah that night, if you know what I mean.” She might as well have wink-winked at me. But Noah had implied as much in saying that he’d had company, as he’d phrased it, on the night of the murder. “Noah said something about all of his women reporting him to the police, which I didn’t understand, since it wasn’t my fault they went to talk to him after me. He was my alibi, so what was I supposed to do? He’s a little nuts sometimes.”
 
Since Veronica and Noah alibied each other, it was possible that they’d acted together to murder Eric. Although Veronica’s ego had taken a blow at Eric’s deception, she didn’t seem to have cared enough about Eric to bother killing him.
 
I asked, “Veronica, do you know why Eric went around telling people he was dating someone? After you broke up with him. His parents and everyone at Essence kept saying they’d heard so much about me and that Eric had been talking about me for weeks, which is impossible, since I’d just met him that night.”
 
“Oh, easy. To see if he could make me jealous enough to go back to him. He was trying to spread rumors that he was hot and heavy with someone, hoping I’d hear about it and beg him to take me back. Yeah, right. I figured it was a bunch of bullshit, though. Sounds like he pawned you off as the mystery woman he’d been bragging about.”
 
I was mildly insulted but recovered in about thirty seconds.
 
Veronica pulled out a nail file and started sharpening her talons. The dryer turned off. “Oh, that was toasty!” she chirped as she hopped off her seat to unload her dry clothes. “Well, I’m off. Nice talkin’ to you, Chloe. Tell Josh I said hello and maybe I’ll see you guys at Magellan. Hey, you two and Noah and I should double some night!”
 
Practically gagging at the suggestion, I raised my eyebrows and nodded. “Yeah, why don’t you run that by Noah.”
 
“See ya!” Veronica waved and walked out of the basement.
 
As much as I loathed Veronica, who would forever be the skanky blonde I’d caught leaving Noah’s apartment, I had learned a few things from her. For example, tonight wasn’t the first time Phil Rafferty had tried to grope his son’s girlfriend or, in my case, alleged girlfriend. What would my classmates make of that revolting habit? Would they see it as some bizarre Oedipal twist?
 
I went back up to my condo. It was still too early to descend on Josh. But I was starving. I opened the fridge but found nothing of interest. Ordinary food had begun to pale by comparison with Josh’s cooking; I was rapidly getting spoiled. I decided to settle for boring cheese and crackers. Josh had left one of his small knives in my kitchen, and I used it to slice some cheddar.
Ow!
I sliced a mean cut into the top of my left forefinger. Dammit, that hurt! Rinsing my hand under water, I winced at the sting. With a dish-cloth wrapped around my hand, I went to the bathroom in search of a bandage. I probably needed stitches but was in no mood to waste five hours in a Boston ER on a Saturday night. It was hard to believe that a small knife had inflicted such a bad cut. My thoughts turned to the damage a large knife could do, a large, curved knife like cimiter used to kill Eric. One quick slice across the neck and . . . a wave of nausea rushed through me. I held onto the sink with one hand and bent over to send blood back into my head.
 
I needed chocolate.
 
My cabinets yielded the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies. I preferred to buy Tollhouse cookie dough, but with Josh in my life, I now felt obliged to cook from scratch. Besides, the wholesome activity of baking cookies might lift my spirits. As it turned out, what actually cheered me up was eating most of the batter. While the cookies baked, I changed into Josh-seducing clothes. With luck, my cookie-bloated stomach would shrink by the time he saw me naked, but for now I had to avoid anything too fitted. Also, I didn’t want to look too obvious.
 
Clad in a white V neck and casual pants, I fixed my makeup and touched up my hair. I grabbed a handful of hot cookies for the car ride, none of which I was going to give to Josh, since I knew better than to try to impress a chef with my cooking. I hoped I never had to make
him
dinner.

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