Better Than This (37 page)

“Thanks.” I grinned holding up my offerings and when I placed the roses in her arms she clasped them automatically. “I’ve got good news.”

It was only then that I registered her expression. She looked shaken.

“What is it?” I asked. Even as I spoke I noticed the stranger standing in our hallway behind her. He was in his fifties and wore an ill fitting suit with a cheap tie. Sally stood aside.

“Nick, this is Detective Morello.”

My insides turned to liquid and a lump formed in my throat. My heart started beating wildly like a trapped bird. I felt as if I’d lost all feeling in my face and my features arranged themselves into a slack look of surprised fear instead of the mildly inquisitive smile I intended.

“Detective?”

“San Mateo County Sheriff’s department, Mr. Weston. Hi, how are you?” He came towards me with outstretched hand, which

I took automatically. “I’m sorry to drop by like this and interrupt your celebration.”

“Celebration?” I remembered the champagne and flowers which I suddenly wished would just vanish. “Oh, right. That’s okay.”

I all but snatched the flowers back from Sally and went on through to the kitchen where I put them on the bench with the champagne before closing the door and going back to the hall. It must have seemed odd behaviour but to me they were like a smoking gun. I felt as if I had the word murderer tattooed across my forehead. Morello gave me a strange look.

I tried hard to appear normal “So, is there a problem?”

He looked towards the living-room door he’d emerged from. “Could we sit down? Your wife is a little upset.”

“Of course.” I took Sally’s arm. “Are you okay?” I asked her. I kept my back to Morello hoping she would give me some clue as to what the hell was going on.

“I think so.”

She looked dazed rather than upset. We went back into the living room and when Sally was sitting down Morello said, “I was explaining to Mrs. Weston before you arrived that the body of a man I believe you know was found yesterday. A Mr. Dexter. Larry Dexter.”

“Yesterday?” I said.

“That’s right. Looks like his car went over a cliff into the ocean near Montara.”

“I didn’t see anything on the news.” Before the words were out of my mouth I knew it was dumb, but my brain wasn’t functioning properly. Morello, however, didn’t seem to notice.

“No, it wasn’t reported,” he said casually.

I realized there was no reason it should be. People died all the time. Murders happened every day. A car going over the cliff was no big deal. From the corner of my eye I noticed Sally looking at me with a vaguely puzzled frown.

I shook my head as if the news was only just penetrating. “Larry dead? Sorry, it’s hard to believe.”

To my own ears I sounded patently insincere. My mind was in two places at once, slowly starting to grind into action. On the one hand I was trying to pay attention to what the detective was saying, and figure out the appropriate response, and on the other I was trying to beat down my rising panic and think clearly. Morello wasn’t acting as if he was there to arrest me. In fact he appeared a little bored, as if this was routine. He opened a notebook.

“The thing is I’m trying to establish Mr. Dexter’s movements so we can figure out what exactly happened.”

“We really didn’t know him that well,” I said.

He looked up at that, and his eye flicked to Sally. For a second he looked as though he was trying to reconcile what I’d said with our reactions.

“Your wife tells me he was a business associate.”

“I wouldn’t say that exactly. We both work in advertising, but not together.”

“Yeah. Mr. Dexter worked for KCM I understand. And you have your own firm. Carp Deem?”

“Carpe Diem.”

“What is that, French?”

“Latin. It means Seize The Day.”

“Latin huh?” He sounded unimpressed, as if he wondered who the hell spoke Latin anyway. “So, you and Mr. Dexter were competitors?”

I hesitated, unsure if I liked the direction he was heading. “I suppose. Strictly speaking.”

Morello looked up. “Strictly speaking?”

I shrugged. “I never thought of it that way.” My mind was working feverishly. If Morello was trying to figure out what happened to Dexter, why was he here? What did he know? I wondered if he was playing some kind of game, trying to slip me up. How the hell had he connected me to Dexter anyway? Hundreds of people in the business knew him, why pick on me? Morello took some gum out of his pocket and put a piece in his mouth and started chewing.

“I quit smoking,” he explained, and offered the pack.

“No thanks.”

“So, your wife tells me the last time you saw Mr. Dexter was about five nights ago. At a restaurant called Marios? You were there with friends?”

Christ! I looked at Sally wondering what else she’d told him. “That’s right. We did now that you mention it.”

“He stopped by your table?”

“Yes. We talked for a minute, and then he left.”

Morello made a note. His pen made a scratching sound as he wrote, and he stopped to give it a shake, then frowned and tried again. I tried to appear calm but my heart was beating way too fast and my palms were sweating. I would have given anything to know exactly what Sally had already told Morello so I could anticipate where this was all leading to. He knew Dexter had talked to us. Did he know what about? Had Dexter told someone what he had planned that night. Brinkman maybe?

Morello looked up. “What did you talk about?”

I fought the impulse to look to Sally for a hint. “Nothing in particular. He just stopped to say hello when he saw us.”

“Did you happen to notice if he was with anyone?”

I made a show of thinking. “I don’t think so. But I’m not sure.” I tried to make it look natural when I glanced at Sally for confirmation. She shook her head. I couldn’t fathom what was going on in her mind but something in the way she was looking at me sent alarm bells ringing in my head.

Morello didn’t appear to notice. “Okay. Your wife didn’t remember anyone either. I’ve already checked with the restaurant and they thought he was alone, though he didn’t eat. Somebody remembered him talking to you, which is how come I’m here, by the way. I’m going to need to talk with the people you were with.”

“Of course.” I gave him Marcus’s and Alice’s names which he wrote down.

“Mr. Dexter didn’t happen to mention if he was meeting anyone or maybe say anything about where he was going that night did he?”

“Not that I remember.”

“What kind of mood would you say he was in?”

“Mood?”

“Yeah. I mean did he seem upset or worried about anything?”

It struck me that Morello was hinting that maybe Dexter killed himself, which I supposed wasn’t out of the question when somebody drove their car over a cliff. “No more than usual.” I tried to make it sound as loaded as possible.

“You mean other times he gave that impression?”

“I mean Larry was very intense. Sometimes I got the feeling he let things get to him.” I was making this up on the hoof. I imagined Morello would ask other people who knew Dexter if they went along with the things I said, so I couldn’t lay it on too thickly. “He was sort of a loner. He didn’t have a lot of friends in the business.” I shrugged. “I mean who knows what goes on inside someone’s head.”

It was at least enough to make him think suicide was a possibility. Morello scribbled notes, and when he was finished he looked thoughtful. “Well, that’s about it. I guess I’ll leave you alone.” He stood up. “Sorry again to bust up your celebration. Good news huh?”

“Sorry?”

“I couldn’t help overhearing when you arrived with those flowers. They were beautiful roses by the way. I should buy flowers for my wife sometimes.” He looked at Sally and smiled. “Anyway, it’s none of my business. Thanks again for your time. Thanks to you too, Mrs. Weston. Sorry to bring such terrible news.”

I showed Morello to the door. There were a lot of things I wanted to ask him, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself.

“Your wife took the news of Mr. Dexter’s death badly,” Morello said quietly as he left. “It happens with some people like that, even if the deceased isn’t a close friend or a relative or anything. Better take care of her, Mr. Weston.”

“Yes I will,” I assured him. “By the way. I gather from what you were saying that you think Larry might have driven over that cliff deliberately?”

“Well, we’re not sure it was an accident.”

“Really?” I willed him to tell me more.

“It’s kind of hard to say for sure at this point. Devil’s Slide is a bad stretch of road. Perhaps he’d been drinking. He’d been in the water over the weekend, probably since the night he was at the restaurant. That’s the last place anybody seems to have seen him anyway. Actually that’s kind of strange.”

“What is?”

“Well I only knew he was there because of a match book that was found in his car. But the restaurant said they didn’t know him, so he wasn’t a regular, and he didn’t go there to eat. It’s kind of out of the way up there. Not the sort of place you just drop in. So what was he doing there?” He pondered that for a second, then shrugged. “Well, we’ll know more when we get a full ME report. Anyway, thanks again for your help.”

“Anytime. Sorry I couldn’t tell you more.”

“That’s okay. Call me if you think of anything.” He handed me a card. “And if you could ask the friends you were with to give me a call in the morning, that would be great.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Okay. Have a nice evening.”

“You too, Detective.”

I closed the door, and took a deep breath to calm myself. A feeling of dread settled sourly in the pit of my stomach. I waited until I heard the sound of his car before I went back into the living room, but Sally wasn’t there. I found her in the kitchen looking out through the window into the yard with her back to me. She must have heard me come in but she didn’t turn around.

“He’s gone,” I said eventually.

She turned to face me and she searched my expression with an intensity that I couldn’t entirely fathom, but it made me uncomfortable none the less.

“Hard to believe, isn’t it?” I went to a cupboard and took out a glass. “I think I need a drink. How about you?”

She shook her head in response.

“You sure? You look pretty shaken up.” I busied myself getting ice and fetching the scotch bottle, talking all the time, uncomfortably aware of Sally’s continued scrutiny. “I’m not going to pretend I ever liked Dexter, but it’s still kind of a shock to hear that somebody you know is dead, isn’t it? Makes you think about our own mortality or something I guess.” I was trying to affect the right mixture of surprise with a hint of regret. I didn’t want to overdo it but I didn’t want to sound callous either. I wished Sally would say something instead of staring the way she did. I took a mouthful of scotch and it tasted good enough that I had to restrain myself from gulping down the entire glass. At least my hand wasn’t shaking.

“You sure you don’t want one of these?”

She shook her head mutely again.

“You know I hate to say it, but this actually removes a problem for us.” My glance fell on the champagne and flowers on the bench. I put the champagne away in the refrigerator. I could feel Sally watching me but she didn’t ask what the good news was that I’d intended us to celebrate. When she did speak at last her tone was flat.

“I heard that detective say they think it wasn’t an accident.”

I took another mouthful of scotch. “What?”

“At the door.”

I tried to treat it lightly. “Well, he said they didn’t know for sure. I think he was just covering the bases.”

“You asked if Dexter had deliberately driven his car off a cliff.”

“That’s what I thought he was suggesting.”

“And you let him think…” She stopped, her brow furrowed as she thought back trying to remember exactly what had been said. “You said he was intense. What were the words? He let things get to him? A loner.” She peered at me as if she was seeing me through a fog, trying hard to make me out.

I spread my hands. “Sally, what is this? I was trying to help.”

“But you know he wouldn’t have killed himself. He wasn’t depressed or unhappy when we saw him.”

“I couldn’t tell Morello that, could I?”

“But you encouraged him to think Dexter might have killed himself.”

“I just told him what Dexter was like. Who knows what goes on in somebody’s mind.”

But Sally wasn’t really listening. Her brow creased deeper in thought. “He said the last time anyone saw him was at the restaurant.”

“Well I don’t think they know that either, it’s as far as they’ve been able to trace his movements so far.” I didn’t like all these questions or the way Sally appeared to be sifting things through her mind, looking for something that she knew was there. “Sally, you’re upset. It’s a shock I know, but leave it to the police to figure it out. Anything could have happened. What was he doing down there on the coast in the middle of the night anyway? Perhaps he was robbed or something.”

“The middle of the night?”

“What?”

“That’s what you said. But Detective Morello didn’t mention anything about it happening in the middle of the night.”

“Are you sure? I don’t know. I just assumed… Look, can we just drop it?” I said, feeling suddenly exasperated. I desperately wanted another drink but I couldn’t look away. I felt like I had to hold her gaze. She didn’t say anything for a second.

“You went white when you saw that detective,” she said at last.

“Of course I did. Gave me a hell of a scare. I wasn’t expecting to find a cop in the house.”

Silence. A moment passed, and then another. “You said it wasn’t on the news.”

“What wasn’t?”

“Dexter. You said it wasn’t on the news. Why did you say that?”

“I did? I don’t remember.”

“I thought it was odd. Detective Morello said Dexter’s car went over the cliff and you said you didn’t see it on the news. As if you expected that you would.”

I spread my hands. “I don’t know what you mean.”

There was another silence, and when Sally began to speak again I could almost see fragments of incidents tumbling into her mind. “That night, after we got home from the restaurant. I woke up and you weren’t there.”