Heart-Shaped Box (Claire Montrose Series) (16 page)

As she stretched her hamstrings, she watched Dante. He had pushed the pillow away from his face and sunk back down into sleep, his fists slowly uncurling. His mouth had fallen open, showing strong white teeth. She admired his hawk-like nose, the dark shock of hair, the contrast of his olive skin against the rumpled white sheets. If only she could crawl back in beside him and go to sleep - but she knew that if she did, her dreams would just catch up with her again.

In the elevator, she ran her tongue over dry lips and decided to stop by the breakfast buffet to get something to drink. The dining room - called “The Feed Trough” - was nearly empty. Only a few couples sat at the scattered round tables topped with tablecloths printed to look like burlap feed sacks. The food buffet was self-serve, with Sterno keeping stainless steel tubs of mini-quiches and hashbrowns warm. Claire was surprised to see Belinda ahead of her, piling a plate high, until she realized the woman she thought was Belinda was really a girl - no more than sixteen. This must be Belinda’s daughter, Claire decided, as the girl’s hand wavered between a muffin and a cinnamon roll before finally choosing both. They shared the same pudgy body, dishwater blond hair and nearly lashless eyes. Claire got another shock when she saw who Belinda’s daughter was sitting with - a boy with the same broad face and jutting nose as Wade Merz. He was perhaps a year or two older than the girl. While Claire watched, the girl fed the boy a bite of muffin, and he playfully nipped her fingers.

What would it be like, Claire wondered, as she snagged both a cup of Coffee People coffee and a glass of orange juice, to have a child who resembled you so strongly? And what would it be like to have a child who was nearly an adult? She liked to think that she had years left to make the decision about having kids, but most of the people from her class were nearly done with childrearing.

Claire drank both her coffee and her juice while reading a copy of the
Minor Mail-Tribune
someone had left behind at one of the tables. The paper was just sixteen pages, filled with local news (“County Fair to Open Wednesday”), in addition to cartoons and a couple of stories from the wire services. Cindy’s murder must have happened too late to make it into print, but judging by the paper’s contents, it would be big news when it did. Minor didn’t seem to have a lot of crime. The half-page “For the Record” column was mostly taken up with notices of divorce filings and a few drunk driving arrests. Claire wondered just how much experience Tyler really had in solving murders.

As she was leaving the dining room, Claire ran into a couple she vaguely remembered from high school. They had been inseparable from ninth grade on, constantly nagged by the hall monitors to eliminate their PDA - public displays of affection. Claire felt a little prick of surprise (or was it jealousy?) that after twenty-plus years together they still walked with their arms around each other, hips - a little bit more ample now - bumping companionably.

“
How are you guys doing?”

“
Awful!” said the woman. Her round face was happy and animated. What was her name? Sherry? Cherry? Sharee? “We just heard about what happened to Cindy. We’d already gone to bed when it happened, but imagine - a murder only a couple of hundred yards from where we were sleeping!”

The husband - Tim? Tom? Ted? - squeezed his wife’s shoulder. Claire wondered now how she had recognized them. Seen closer to, they looked like fun-house mirror reflections of their old selves - wider, spread out, and even a little shorter. “The wife wants to leave, but I told her it’s pretty obvious who did it.”

“
Who?” Claire asked.

“
That husband of hers. Kevin Sanchez. Only he’s a soon-to-be-ex-husband. We read about it in the
Mail-Tribune
. They filed for divorce six months ago.”

Claire was surprised. “But he was here with her last night.” Although maybe
with
wasn’t the operative word. Cindy’s husband had been seated off to one side, sipping his drink, eyes at half-mast and face expressionless as he watched his wife work the room.

The woman snorted. “Cindy always had to make sure she had an audience. She must have found some way to talk him into coming. That way she could make a fool of herself doing those cheerleading routines” - she waved imaginary pom-poms in the air - “and still be sure there was at least one person to clap.”

“
If that was the reason he was here, he didn’t look like he was playing along,” Claire said.

“
That’s right,” said the man. “Maybe they had an argument out in the parking lot about how she was acting. Or maybe she went out there to have a rendezvous with someone and then Kevin discovered them. I mean, it makes sense if he did it. Just look at all the people who get murdered. Nine times out of ten, it’s the spouse.” He and his wife exchanged a glance Claire couldn’t interpret.

“
Maybe you’re right,” Claire said, filing away the information for future reference. If Cindy’s husband were the killer, then there was no need to worry that the heart-shaped box was a killer’s calling card. “So what are you guys up to these days?

“
We have a shared practice.” Doctors? Claire wondered, and then rejected the idea. She couldn’t see the two of them submitting to long hours of study about anything except the other. Dentists, then? Her internal musings were interrupted when he slipped a cream-colored rectangle into her hand. “Here’s our card. Well, we’ll see you around later today, okay?”

Without waiting for an answer, he and his wife turned and walked away, as close as a pair of Siamese twins, steps perfectly matched. They would be a cinch to win the sack race. Claire remembered how self-absorbed they had been in high school. She realized they hadn’t asked a single question about her own life. At least now she could find out there names. She looked down at the card in her hand. In flowing script, it read: “Cherie and Todd Walter, pet psychics. What is your beloved pet thinking? Learn what they want and need. Past-life regressions also available. Readings can be done in person, via photographs or over the phone.”

Claire wanted to throw the card away, but she was afraid that the Walkers might see. Instead, it went in the waist pouch that held her Walkman. What kind of people hired a pet psychic, Claire wondered. Charlie’s cat had died about five years before, and the older woman hadn’t been able to bring herself to get a new one. But maybe Dante would like to invest in the Walker’s services for the two white kittens he had rescued from a dumpster. For all he knew, in a past life they had been worshipped by Egyptians, pampered by Marie Antoinette, shared tidbits of fried baloney with Elvis Presley. And to think that all of that might be revealed from a photograph.

Claire glanced at her watch before she reached out to open the door. Nearly eight o’clock. Stepping outside, she slipped on her sunglasses. The day was already warm. She started to tuck the buds of her headphones into her ears.

“
Hey, Warty!”

Damn. How come everyone remembered a nickname she hadn’t thought of for twenty years? She turned around. It was Jim, a mischievous grin splitting his face. His tanned face was definitely lived in, but still Claire felt her breath speed up. How could a man with wrinkles still be sexy? It wasn’t fair. “Don’t call me that,” she said, but her voice came out more sultry than sulky, betraying her.

“
How you doing this morning?” He gave her a little nod and a once-over that Claire couldn’t help noticing. She hoped it wasn’t too obvious that she was holding in her stomach and standing with her shoulders back. “I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about - you know - going out to that parking lot. But in my dreams, I always woke up right before we found her.”

Behind him, the yellow and black crime scene tape fluttered at the edge of the hotel’s parking lot. Claire shivered. “Yeah. I won’t pretend I liked Cindy, but it’s hard to believe she’s dead. I dreamed about it all night, too.”

There was a pause while Jim turned to look over his shoulder at where they had found the body. “So, who do you think did it?”

“
At least you’re asking, instead of telling me it has to have been Logan. I couldn’t believe the way everyone in the bar started acting like he must have done it.”

“
You and me - we’ve known Logan since grade school. Most of those other people didn’t meet him until high school, so by the time they got to know him, he was already starting to go off the rails. Logan’s no crazier than you or me now. Maybe even less.” His smile was more a twitch of his lips, as if he was thinking of something that wasn’t really funny. “Besides, a whole bunch of people didn’t like Cindy. Then there were all the guys who were halfway in love with her, at least back then. Maybe someone followed her out to the parking lot hoping they could get a kiss for old time’s sake, and she said no.”

“
That doesn’t seem like much of a reason to kill someone,” Claire objected. “Especially in such a - a personal way. It’s not like they stood ten feet away and shot her, just made one little mistake that they couldn’t take back. But strangling? Somebody had to put their hands around her neck and squeeze for a long time. They had to have meant it.”

“
Well, at least we know it was a guy. That eliminates half the potential suspects.”

This was Tyler’s scenario, too, but Claire realized what had been bothering her about it. “Why, because someone tried to rape her? Are you sure about that? Do you remember how Cindy looked when we found her? Her panties looked as if no one had touched them.”

Jim looked away. “Well, maybe the guy shot his wad too soon or couldn’t get it up.”

“
Or maybe someone just wanted to make it look like a rape. Which means a man or a woman could have done it.”

“
A girl wouldn’t be that strong.”

“
A
woman
,” Claire emphasized the word, correcting him, “a woman still might have done it. Women are stronger than they used to be. Where I work out, half the people lifting weights are women. And Cindy wasn’t that big. I’m at least six inches taller than her. And she probably made more women angry at her than men. She didn’t suck up to women as much. Cindy wanted attention and beautiful things and to be lusted after - and women weren’t really in a position to give those to her.”

“
What about Belinda? She was Cindy’s best friend.”

“
Yeah, right,” Claire said. “She was Cindy’s go-fer. Cindy’s sycophant. Somebody there to tell Cindy how great she looked. Somebody willing to trade being the most popular person in school’s best friend in return for being treated like dirt. And for Cindy, Belinda was someone she didn’t have to make sure she looked her best around. She knew Belinda would love her, no matter what. I’ll bet Belinda saw the real Cindy more than anyone else ever did. But that doesn’t mean that Cindy liked Belinda for anything more than what she could get out of her.”

“
So what are you saying? Do you think Belinda did it? That she strangled Cindy and then pretended to have been the one to find her? Ran in to us crying crocodile tears and all the while she was the one who killed her?”
It was an interesting idea, and one that Claire hadn’t thought of. “I’m not saying she’s a natural-born killer. But what if she and Cindy had a fight and she ended up killing her accidentally? Then she would naturally be hysterical and upset.”

Jim shook his head. “I can’t believe Belinda would do that. Besides, Belinda didn’t have any marks on her. I can’t see how someone could do that and not have marks.”

“
Think of the way Cindy’s throat looked, though. The finger marks were on the front of her throat, not the back. I think the person who did this stood behind her. Even if Cindy struggled, she might not gave been able to reach whoever did this.” Claire found it was less upsetting to keep thinking of Cindy this way, in pieces, reducing the memory of her body to a neck or a pair of untouched panties.

“
But Belinda’s not in the best shape, and Cindy certainly kept her figure.” His expression was noncommittal.

“
You’re probably right,” Claire admitted, “that it was a guy. Maybe one of the guys she slept with in high school. From what I hear, that would be half of the guys at Minor High.” She watched Jim out of the corner of her eye, but his face betrayed nothing. Claire had always wondered if Jim had slept with Cindy a time or two. Cindy liked to take chances, to walk on the wild side. When the silence became uncomfortable, Claire changed the subject. “Are you going to tell me where you went last night?”
“I went home and checked up on my girls. They were all sleeping and the house was locked up nice and tight. Sometimes they’re not as careful about that as they should be. And what if there’s some nut out there killing girls?”

Relief washed over Claire, followed quickly by annoyance. “Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place? Why did you ask me to lie for you?”

“
Don’t you remember? It was just my luck that old Tyler decided my car was part of the crime scene. I had to” - he cleared his throat and looked away - “
borrow
someone’s car. And I didn’t exactly have permission.”

Some things never changed, Claire thought, shaking her head. Jim slipped easily back and forth across the line between right and wrong, which for him wasn’t a line at all, but a gray area a mile wide. “So how old are your kids again?”
“Nineteen, six and four. The oldest is from my first marriage. The younger two are from my second.”

Claire had noticed his bare left ring finger last night. “But you’re not married any more?”

With his eyes on the ground, Jim ran the back of his thumb across his mouth. “Last summer, she just woke up one morning and decided she didn’t want to be married any more. And she didn’t want kids, either. She wanted to” - he hooked his fingers in quote marks - “see what she was missing. Live life while she still could.”
“That must be hard.”