Deadly Intent (17 page)

“Not well,” Rose admitted. “At least at first. From what Ian told me, Abbie wasn’t too pleased to see him.”

“Why not?”

“Probably because he wanted to borrow money. Although, in the end, she agreed to help him out.”

Help out a stepbrother she hadn’t seen or talked to in twenty-eight years? That was something worth checking into. “Do you know where Ian’s other sister is?”

“New York. She bartends at the Manhattan Towers. Ian went to see her on Wednesday.”

Ian McGregor had been a busy man in the short time he had been in town.

Rose’s eyes filled again. “What about the...body?”

“It will be released to you once we’re done with the autopsy. But before we do that, you’ll need to make a formal identification.”

She blanched at the thought. “When?”

“How about two o’clock? I’ll be glad to send someone to pick you up and bring you back.”

“That’s when my shift starts, but I’ll ask for today off. I don’t much feel like going to work anyway.” Then in a small voice, she asked, “Will you be there? When I identify the body?”

John nodded. “Where do you work, Rose?”

“I’m a waitress at the Golden Diner on Route 1. I just started a couple of days ago. I took the 2:00 p.m. to midnight shift to make some extra money.”

“So, when you came home last night, Ian wasn’t here.”

“That’s right.”

“Didn’t you find that unusual?”

“No. Ian hated to be cooped up. Did too much of that in prison. He liked to go out and have a few beers, but he’s never stayed out an entire night. When I woke up this morning and saw he still wasn’t here, I thought he had gone on a binge. That’s why I was a little short with you a while ago.” She sniffed into the handkerchief. “Sorry about that.”

“That’s all right.” John lay his notebook on the dresser. “There was no sign of struggle in the room?”

“No, although...” She stopped.

“What?”

“In the bathroom.” Her gaze swung back in that direction. “I had left my nightgown hanging on the shower rod to dry. When I got home, the nightgown was on the floor and the hanger was gone.”

That explained the garrote Dave had found near the body. It was possible McGregor had meant to use it as a weapon, but against whom?

He pointed at the wastebasket with the pizza box in it. “His dinner or yours?”

“His. I eat at the diner.”

Using a tissue, John took the box out of the trash and wrote the name and phone number of the pizzeria in his notebook. “Pretty large pie for just one person,” he commented. “Was Ian in the habit of eating a whole pizza all by himself?”

Rose frowned. “Heavens, no. Three slices at the most.” Her eyes opened wide, registering instant fear. “Oh my God, you think there was someone here with him? The killer?”

“We’ll know soon enough.” He took out his cell phone

and dialed Max Castelano, the CS tech he had talked to at the lake. “Are you almost done there?” he asked when Max answered.

“Just about, why?”

. “I need you and the other tech to come to the Clearwater Motel, room 11 and dust for prints.”

“I’ll be there in five.”

“Thanks, Max.” He folded the phone and saw that Rose was watching him. “Something wrong?”

“My phone,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I had a cell phone Ian was using. Did you find it?”

John took out his notebook again. “No.” He started writing. “Do you know the number?”

She recited it from memory and he wrote it down before snapping his book shut. “I’ll check it out. And I’ll send someone to pick you up at two.”

“Thank you.”

The two CS technicians arrived a few minutes later, and John quickly got out of their way. Back in the car, he checked his watch. It was almost noon and he hadn’t had anything to eat since that burger at three o’clock the previous afternoon. No wonder that pizza box in the wastebasket had made him salivate. Normally he’d content himself with some form of fast food and eat at his desk, but not today. Today, he would treat himself to something different, something special. And since he was a lovable kind of guy, he would take Tina with him.

Eighteen

Abbie was an emotional wreck. And looked it, she thought, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror of Campagne’s utility room. Small wonder. Once in bed, she had tossed and turned for hours, going over last night’s events a hundred times, wishing she had done things differently—like never agreeing to meet Ian at the lake.

By morning, exhausted and sick with worry, she had turned on the TV in search of local news, but there had been no report of a man being either killed or injured at Lake Carnegie.

And no news of Ian.

Claudia had already called twice—once at home, where she had left a message, and once at the restaurant. She was probably on pins and needles, anxious to hear how the delivery of the forty-eight thousand dollars had gone. Unfortunately, Abbie was in no condition to talk to anyone right now, not even Brady, who must have sensed her mood and was leaving her alone.

She had kept busy, concentrating on the many tasks at hand, supervising the staff and refusing to second-guess herself. Afraid people would pick up on her state of mind, she thought of bypassing her daily rounds today. But as the restaurant began to fill, she changed her mind. Taking the time to go into the dining room and welcome her guests was something her customers appreciated and looked for

ward to. Depriving them of that pleasure wouldn’t be right. Besides, the distraction would be good for her.

John’s stomach was growling by the time he pulled into the parking lot of the Princeton Township Police Department on Witherspoon, and the thought of enjoying a scrumptious meal for a change made him even more ravenous.

Detective Tina Wrightfield was just ending a phone conversation when he walked into the detective bay. The sixteen-year police veteran was a forty-something brunette with intelligent brown eyes and a sharp mind. The widow of a state trooper who had been killed in the line of duty, she was raising three daughters on her own and doing one hell of a job. She was also one of the most dependable partners he’d ever had.

This month, however, due to two retirements and one long-term illness, the PTPD was seriously understaffed, making it necessary to split forces. Tina had been assigned to a gruesome murder—the strangling of a young boy whose body had been found in the park along Herrontown Road. It was the third such murder this year, although the other two had occurred outside the Princeton jurisdiction. The case was proving more difficult than Tina had expected. The killer had left no clues—except that he strangled his victims with a rope. Since all three boys had been raped prior to being killed, the evidence pointed to a pedophile, one who knew how to cover his tracks. Not a speck of DNA had been found. No sperm, no hair, no skin residue, no fingerprints. Nothing.

Tina had been working non-stop and looked as tired as John felt, although she would never admit it. As the only female detective in the department, she wasn’t about to

elicit sarcastic comments from her male colleagues by wimping out.

“Yo, Wrightfield,” John called from across the room. “Want to go to lunch?”

“No, thanks,” Tina replied with a straight face. “I still have heartburn from that last place you took me to. What was it called again—as if I could forget? Hot Tamale?”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault. Grover in vice recommended it.”

“That should have been your first clue.”

John assumed a smug look. “Too bad. I heard Campagne serves the best food in—“

Tina looked up. “Did you say Campagne? On Palmer Square?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She gave him a suspicious look. “Since when do you eat at fancy French restaurants? Didn’t you tell me once that beeuf bourguignon was just another name for stew?”

“That’s why I’m inviting you to come along. I was hoping you’d keep me from making a fool of myself.” He started for the door. “But since you’re not interested, I guess I’ll go alone.”

“Who said I wasn’t interested?” She grabbed her purse, almost knocking her chair over in her haste. “Lead the way.”

Campagne was nestled between Ann Taylor and Banana Republic, overlooking the Green, where the locals played croquet on weekends and added to the area’s air of gentility. The rain had finally let up and dark clouds were slowly making way for blue skies, although the air pushing behind last night’s storm was cooler now, not at all typical of a June afternoon.

“How did you manage to get a last-minute reservation?”

Tina asked as they walked across the square. “This place is harder to get into than Fort Knox.”

“Charm, my dear Watson. Try it sometime.”

“I will, but right now I want to know why you’re taking me to Campagne when it’s common knowledge that your tastes lean more toward Wendy’s and McDonald’s.”

“Oh, come on, Tina. I’m not that bad. I know my forks.”

“Barely, but you didn’t answer my question. Why this particular restaurant?”

“An out-of-towner by the name of Ian McGregor was found stabbed to death at Lake Carnegie this morning.”

Tina took a compact from her bag, opened it and checked her make-up. “So?”

“The victim is Abbie DiAngelo’s stepbrother.”

She looked at him, wide-eyed. “The owner of Campagne?”

“That’s right.” He stopped in front of the restaurant and held the door open for her. “They hadn’t seen each other in twenty-eight years. McGregor was just released from prison, and when I heard he came to Princeton to visit his stepsister, I got curious.”

After their reservation was verified by a pretty hostess in a slinky black dress and black clogs, they were led to a small window table overlooking the two-hundred-andforty-five-year-old Nassau Inn, known to locals as “the Nass.”

“This is even nicer than I had imagined.” Tina’s observant gaze swept across the room. “It’s elegant, but still warm and colorful. And the aroma...” She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “This lunch is going to cost you, partner.”

“It’ll be my pleasure.”

Tina smiled as a waiter handed them a menu with a

watercolor of Van Gogh’s famous irises on the cover. The drawing was a perfect match for the single iris on each table. John looked around him, hoping to see the boss lady, but she was nowhere in sight.

“So are you planning to question Abbie DiAngelo?” Tina asked. “Here? Today?”

John continued to study the menu. “I see no reason to put it off, do you?”

“No. Not that I’m complaining, but why the lunch? Why didn’t you just go and question her, the way you do with all your witnesses?”

“Because I wanted a chance to observe her when she wasn’t on her guard, see what she’s all about in her own environment.”

“How will you do that when she’s in the back, cooking?”

“I happen to know that she comes out halfway through the lunch hour to greet her customers.” His gaze stopped on an item in the menu. “What’s a fougasse?”

Tina rolled her eyes. “Oh, Ryan, you are so not au courant. Fougasse is a flat Provencal bread studded with either olives or herbs, or both. It’s very good.”

After another few minutes of indecision, Tina finally settled on the baked bass with fennel. John, being a meat-and potato man, ordered the roast lamb. A glass of wine would have gone nicely with the meal, but they were both on duty, so John ordered a bottle of Evian.

They had just finished their entree when Abbie DiAngelo came out of the kitchen and began circulating from table to table, saying a few words to her customers and accepting compliments with a smile.

John’s first reaction was that the newspaper photograph he had seen in the Princeton Packet hadn’t done her justice. Her eyes, which he had thought were brown at first, were

in reality a stunning, smoky shade of gray, and sparkled when she laughed. Her hair was a warm chestnut brown and looked as if she, or someone else, had just raked her or his fingers through it. She was shorter than he had expected—five-four at the most—but perfectly proportioned. She wore tailored slacks the color of expensive cognac and a tan blouse neatly tucked in.