Blind Dates Can Be Murder (16 page)

“Wait a minute,” he said, waving a hand in the air. “You’re saying that the guy who abducted and replaced your date was in turn killed by somebody else?”

“It’s possible, Danny. The question is, why? Not only why did he do what he did to Brock, but also why did someone kill him?”

Danny thought about that for a moment. If Malone had been killed, more than likely it would have been through his involvement with the mob. Death by pet-induced asthma would be a fairly clever way to off someone and have it look like an accident—but, then again, it didn’t exactly sound like a mob hit.

“Maybe you had a double stalker,” Danny suggested. “Somebody stalking the stalker. Maybe someone knew what he was up to and was trying to protect you.”

“Yeah, but if so,” she replied, “wouldn’t they have used something a little more direct? Frank Malone told me his asthma had been acting up for days. Seems like a pretty slow way to kill somebody.”

“What does the chief say?”

“He’s going to have the fur analyzed. At least they’ll know if it’s feline or canine or whatever. And they’ll try to get some fingerprints off the pillow, though he didn’t sound very hopeful about that because of the type of fabric.”

“Does he think Malone might have been murdered?”

Jo tucked her phone into her purse and looked out at the road.

“Who knows, Danny? This case is so bizarre, I think he’s ready to consider almost anything at this point.”

By a quarter to four, Lettie was so bored she had practically made an entire petting zoo out of tinfoil. She had hung out at Dates&Mates all afternoon, hoping to catch wind of some conversation about Jo Tulip or otherwise absorb through osmosis the information Mickey wanted her to get. Nothing of the kind had taken place; she knew no more now than she had when she first arrived.

Lettie didn’t know what she might do to help the situation along. Mickey was probably expecting her to get into conversations with people, chat them up, find out what they knew. But Lettie could no more strike up a conversation with a stranger than she could flap her arms and fly. There was just no way.

Finally, when she couldn’t take it anymore, she scooped the foil animals into her purse and simply left, ready to find the Palace, the hotel where she would be staying. She followed a series of turns that led her to what looked like some sort of warehouse district. The name of the place she was looking for made her cringe even before seeing it. In her experience, the grander the name, the more scummy the accommodations. Sure enough, she realized as she turned the final corner, the Palace was a real loser, with an overflowing dumpster in the parking lot and a sign at the front of the building that advertised “Poo, P ones, Ca le TV.” A fleabag all the way.

Lettie turned into the dusty parking lot, turned off her car, and climbed out with a heavy sigh. Clutching her purse, she headed inside, pushing her glasses up on her nose. The lobby was empty, so she rang the buzzer near the counter and waited as an old man shuffled out from a back room.

“Help you?” he asked, pausing to spit in a nearby trash can. His bottom lip protruded strangely, and Lettie realized that it held a wad of chewing tobacco.

“Um, yes. I have a reservation,” she said, removing her glasses. “For Smith?”

“Lettie Smith? Yeah, got it right here. Cap called me this morning.”

He pulled a card from a drawer, made some markings on it, and filed it in a box.

“Cap?”

“Yeah, your boss. Cap Paglino. He’s an old friend of mine. We went to high school together.”

“My boss’ name is Mickey.”

“Yeah, well, back then we called him Cap. You know, like kneecaps? Baseball bats? He had the reputation for not taking no for an answer. ’Course, if he’s your boss, I’m sure you know all about that.”

Lettie shuddered. Though Mickey had never laid a hand on her, she knew he had it in him. Sometimes, when one of the girls made him mad, he got the same glint in his eyes Lettie knew all too well from her own stepfather. Men who were working themselves up to violence all took on that same cast—clenched fists, dead eyes, tongue rapidly licking at lips. Lettie knew the signs, and she knew when to make herself scarce.

“You’re in 129,” the old man said, interrupting her thoughts. He slid a key across the counter. “Maid service on Fridays, but if you want the sheets changed, you gotta strip the bed yourself before she gets there. No food in the rooms, on account of I don’t want no ants. Also, no parties, and one parking space per unit. Any questions?”

Lettie picked up the key, curling her fingers around the plastic key chain.

“Nope, that should do it.”

8

T
he last thing Jo felt like doing was going to some man’s house to talk about a consulting job. She didn’t understand why she had let herself get pulled into that. She figured it was the multitasker inside of her who always felt that she could squeeze in one more thing. She expressed her thoughts to Danny as they drove.

“Yeah, I do that too. I always try to fit too much in,” he said. “But, hey, at least you have good intentions. And you still manage to accomplish ten times more than everybody else.”

Jo smiled at him, thinking what a naturally affirming guy he was. It was Danny’s second nature to zero in on the positive, especially when she was feeling down on herself. He did that with everyone, which was probably one reason he was so popular with the ladies. What woman wouldn’t want a man who always focused on her best qualities—and didn’t even seem to notice the bad ones? His generosity of spirit came, Jo felt sure, from growing up in such a loving and stable home. It took someone with a healthy sense of his own self-worth to impart respect to others. Considering that the home Jo had grown up in had been neither stable nor loving, she had to wonder if she ever imparted that same sort of respect.

Jo glanced over at Danny, sensing something in the air, something in his attitude. He seemed somehow confident. Energetic. Maybe even a little macho, for lack of a better word. It looked good on him.

“You seem different today,” she said, glancing again at his sparkling eyes, his squared-off shoulders, his aggressive grip on the steering wheel. “Do you have a hot date tonight or something?”

“Actually, I want to spend some time with you tonight, Jo. We need to talk.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, but I’ve got some big news. Two bits of big news, in fact.” Her eyes widened, but, as if reading her mind, he added, “Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with Frank Malone or any of that stuff. Completely unrelated.”

“Good.”

So he had two bits of big news, huh? Jo turned in her seat a bit and tried her version of twenty questions, but Danny wasn’t in a teasing mood—and he wasn’t giving any clues. Evidently it was more serious than that.

“I figure when we leave this guy’s house,” he said, “we can drive around the area until we find a little park or something where we can have some privacy. Maybe bring along some takeout and have a dinner picnic and just talk.”

A dinner picnic? This
was
serious. Suddenly, Jo’s stomach fluttered. What if Danny had
really
big news, like he had been offered a job with
National Geographic
or something, and he was moving away? Though she knew it was his dream to work for the big guys, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle that on top of everything else that was going on right now. Danny was the single most important person in her life. As happy as she would be for him, from a purely selfish standpoint, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

“I have plans tonight,” she said, a surge of emotion caught in her throat. “But I can cancel if it’s important.”

“What plans?”

“Bible study. My single women’s group. We meet every other Saturday night. Tonight it’s my turn. At my house.”

Danny was silent for a moment as he thought that over.

“I don’t want to cancel your group,” he said. “How about tomorrow? After church?”

“Tomorrow I have to go see Grandmother Bosworth at her house in the Poconos.”

“You’re going out of town? In the middle of an investigation—one which may or may not involve a murder?”

“You know I have to go. It’s my quarterly visit. Besides, I’ll only be a few hours away.”

“But, Jo, you could be in danger. You could be needed by the police. You could be…I don’t know. You shouldn’t go.”

Jo looked out at the scenery, which was becoming quite hilly. She knew Danny had a point. She also knew that he had very mixed emotions about her visiting with her mother’s side of the family. The Bosworths were a tough crowd—rigid, old money, emotionally remote. Danny knew from a lifetime of experience that when Jo interacted with them, she always came out of it feeling hurt, depressed, and frustrated. He was simply trying to protect her.

“Why don’t you come with me?” she asked softly. “I know a special place we could go afterward. There’s a trail up there that leads to a waterfall. We could bring a picnic and sit down and talk. It’s secluded, but not so secluded that we’d be in any…” Her voice trailed off without finishing the sentence.
Danger
. They wouldn’t be in any danger. “And, hey, aren’t you ready to get out of town and away from all this police-related stuff anyway?”

Danny exhaled slowly, tapping out a rhythm on his steering wheel.

“I guess I am. Okay, I’ll go.”

“Super. We have to leave right after church, though. She’s expecting me at two.”

“Not a problem.”

Danny was quiet for a moment, and Jo realized that he was glancing at the directions and then looking up at the road.

“What is it?”

“You see that?” he asked, pointing ahead. Up to their right, loomed a very big hill.

“I think that’s our turn.”

“Yeah, it says Candle Road.”

He slowed, took a right, and soon they were winding up a steep incline as the road wrapped around the hill. There were houses dotted in and among the trees, and the higher they went, the fancier the houses became. They rode in silence for a few minutes, and as they came around the top curve there was a break in the trees, revealing a million-dollar view below. Jo gasped.

“We’re up so high,” she said. “This is more like a mountain than a hill.”

“You’re not kidding,” Danny replied, handing Jo the map. She found their position, indicated by the deeper green of higher elevations. “At least we’re almost there.”

They rounded the final curve and veered off into the driveway marked “Trumble.” The drive ended at a beautiful stone-and-glass home perched on the hillside like an aerie.

“Sweet,” Danny said softly, tugging on the parking brake.

“I don’t know,” Jo replied. “If this house is too unconventional or modern, it won’t serve our purposes all that well. I need a place that looks like the home of your average Joe. Well, your average well-off, tasteful Joe.”

They climbed from the car and walked toward the house. The door swung open as they stepped onto the landing. Waiting for them was Peter Trumble, the evening newspaper in his hand and a frown on his face.

By 4:30 Lettie was fully moved into her room at the Palace and sitting on the bed with nothing to do. The dresser was just musty enough that she hadn’t wanted to put her clothes in it, so moving in hadn’t been complicated or time-consuming. Now the evening stretched in front of her like an eternity.