Little Black Book of Murder (27 page)

Emma's expression hardened. “Hand me the bag, Nora.”

“Tell me what's in it first.”

She cranked down her window and pitched her cigarette out into the darkness. Then she made a swipe for the bag, but Porky slumped between us and hampered her effort.

I unzipped the bag and peeked inside. Even more thoroughly confused, I lifted out a piece of equipment—­plastic and metal with a cone at one end and something like a trigger at the other. A medical device. Or an instrument of torture.

I gasped. “Em, what in the world have you been doing to him?”

“I haven't done a damn thing to him! It's a breast pump!”

“A—? What are you doing with a breast pump?”

“What do you think?” With both hands, she indicated her substantial cleavage. “I've been pumping!”

“You—? Why?”

“For the baby, of course! Hart and his idiot wife were feeding him formula, but he has a—­like, a delicate stomach. So the real thing, you know, makes him feel better. And I thought the kid ought to have the extra nutrition from breast milk. It has all kinds of good, like, benefits.”

“So that's what's in the cooler? Breast milk?”

“Well, yeah.” Emma was starting to look sheepish. “I pump, then bottle it and freeze it at the Rusty Sabre. They've got a big freezer there, and Jay keeps an eye on it for me. A couple times a week I drop off a supply so the kid can, you know, drink it.”

“Em, that's—­I'm surprised.” Flabbergasted was more like it. “I thought you didn't want to have anything to do with your baby.”

“I don't. I'm not. I just—­twice a day I have to pump myself like a dairy cow or I feel like I'm going to explode. And I'm already starting to leak.” She pressed her forearms to her breasts and held her breath to stem the tide of what surely must have been a substantial flow. “So you have to wait here with Porky while I go into the bathroom and take care of it.”

I put the pump back into the backpack. “The toy you've been looking for. The Filly Vanilli thing. Is that for your baby, too?”

“He's not my baby.”

“Is the toy for Hart's baby?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He likes music. I thought the Filly Vanilli would be a nice, you know, going-­away present.”

I was glad to be sitting down, because I probably would have fallen over otherwise. I held out the backpack. “Okay, go. I'll babysit your passenger. Then we're going to have a discussion.”

She eyed me with a gratifying amount of trepidation. “I can guess what that's about.”

“Yes, you can,” I said dangerously. “Michael told me what happened between you two. But first, go pump. Here.”

“Thanks,” she said, grabbing a strap. “Just one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“If you tell Libby about any of this, I'm gonna kill you.”

The last thing either of us wanted was a weakness that Libby could jump on the way a night owl comes screaming out of the darkness to sink its talons into a helpless field mouse. She would be relentless with Emma—­giving advice, offering unwanted opinions, the works. I didn't envy Emma the difficulty of keeping her secret from our pushy older sister.

She slammed out of the truck and disappeared into the hotel, leaving me with a softly snoring Porter Starr.

So Emma hadn't been able to give up her child as easily as she pretended. Three months later, she was still pumping—­and delivering milk to the home of Hart, her lover, and his new wife.

I tried to put myself in Emma's shoes. I found myself remembering the long months of her pregnancy. Her hormones had made her überemotional. She had spent months constantly hungry, and eating day and night. She had lost her waistline early and developed an enormous belly fast.

As I counted up her list of symptoms, suddenly the sky opened up over my head, and a bright light penetrated my thick skull. The illumination electrified every nerve ending in my brain, and the angels sang. I put both hands on my stomach as the shock dissipated into woozy amazement.

When Emma returned and got behind the wheel, she took one look at my face and said, “What's wrong?”

“Em, we need to find a drugstore.”

“Sure.” She started the engine. “Now?”

“Right now.”

“What for?”

I swallowed hard. “I'm pretty sure I need a pregnancy test.”

I
felt foolish for having missed the signs. But I'd spent nearly a year after a heartbreaking miscarriage trying to get pregnant, with no results. Every month, I'd dreaded the recurrence of my period. Eventually, it had gotten so depressing that I stopped keeping track of the dates. For the last few weeks I must have been firmly in denial. When I started gaining a little weight, I assumed it was because I couldn't resist all the food Michael had lovingly made for me. Lately, when I hadn't felt great in the morning, I'd assumed I was suffering the aftereffects of discovering a dead body.

But now I suspected otherwise.

And the possibility made me giddy. Elated. Also a little scared. But definitely eager to find out for sure if I was carrying a baby at long last.

Unfortunately, when I came out of the drugstore with my plastic bag, Porky Starr had begun to regain consciousness.

“Yo,” he said woozily when I climbed in beside him. “Who're you?”

“Doesn't matter,” I said. “We're not a long-­term thing.”

While struggling with my seat belt, I fumbled the bag, and it upended. Into his lap dropped the box containing the home pregnancy test.

His grabbed it, and his eyes widened. “Yo! Not you, too? Did we do it, baby? How were you?”

“Me,
too
?” I repeated, holding the box up so he could see exactly what it was. “Do you know who else needed one of these things?”

He tried to collect his wits by shaking his head adamantly. “No way I'm talking, yo.”

Curious, Em said to me, “What's up?”

To Emma, I said, “I found a pregnancy test in the car Rawlins was driving. And the test was positive.”

“You've been holding out on me, Sis.”

“I thought if anyone had information that shouldn't be mentioned to the police, it was better if I kept it to myself.”

“So? Who's pregnant? Besides maybe you?”

“I assumed Rawlins. Libby said he had a girlfriend.”

She looked surprised. “Hasn't Libby had the Talk with him yet?”

“Of course she has. And she started giving him condoms before he hit junior high. He must have made a mistake.”

“A very big mistake.” Emma wasted no time grabbing Porky by his ear.

“Hey!” he cried.

“Shut up, nimrod. You're in no position to deny us anything at the moment. Who's pregnant?”

“Nuh-­uh,” he said. “That's nobody's business but ours, yo.”

“Yours?” I asked. “Not Rawlins's?”

“Rawlins? You mean the kid with the cool car?”

“You don't even know his name?” I cried. “He's under suspicion of murdering your father!”

Blearily, Porter rubbed his face with both hands. “I could use something to get my buzz back, yo. You girls have any good stuff on you?”

“Listen, Yo Yo,” Emma said. “I'm gonna stuff something down your throat in a minute, like maybe my fist. Who's pregnant?”

He let out a whine of frustration and finally said, “Zephyr.”

“Zephyr?” Emma and I said in unison.

Em said, “Who's the father?”

Porky began to turn green before our eyes. “Yo, I think I'm gonna be sick.”

“Tell us who the father is. You? Or her husband?”

“C'mon, I'm gonna blow!”

I bailed out of the truck and helped Porky to the pavement. He staggered over to some bushes at the edge of the parking lot, and the next minute we could hear him dry heaving.

Emma stayed in the truck, but she was shaking her head. “He's a moron. But a stubborn moron.”

“I don't think we're going to get any more information out of him,” I said. “Zephyr's hold on him is too strong, and she's dangerous.”

“Huh?”

“Zephyr has a surprisingly long record when it comes to murder.” The idea that the black widow might be pregnant gave me the willies. “I say we go to Blackbird Farm and regroup.”

“You got it,” Emma said. “Climb in. He can find his own way home, yo.”

Emma spun the wheel and pointed the truck ­toward Blackbird Farm. I said, “Or maybe we should be going to Hart's house first? To drop off the contents of your cooler? You put on that dress just for the occasion, didn't you?”

She grinned at the road ahead. “Yeah, maybe I did. To show him what he's missing.”

I didn't like Emma's habit of dating married men. It had come too close to home for me when she tried to seduce Michael. I knew that kind of behavior suited her—­good sex without commitment or the risk of intimacy that she found so difficult after the death of her much-­loved husband.

But I said, “Did you ever think to try the opposite tactic?”

“What tactic?”

“Show Hart what you've got on the inside, Em.” As she stayed silent, I said, “Michael told me. About asking you to leave the farm.”

“He didn't exactly ask,” Emma said. “And, okay, I deserved it.”

“You did. But I know what you were doing. And it wasn't just looking for quick sex.”

“Mick's a sexy guy.”

“Don't be flippant,” I said. “I'm being serious here. He may come from the wrong side of the tracks, and he may have done some bad things, but Michael is surprisingly dependable.”

“He's a good guy,” Emma agreed quietly.

“Yes,” I said. “So I know why you wanted to turn to him. You need someone in your life who doesn't run away when things get difficult. Is Hart that kind of man?”

Emma's jaw was tight as she drove, as if she didn't trust herself to answer.

“When you find someone you really want, Em, you have to open up first. You have to show your tender side, too.”

She snorted. “I don't have a tender side, Sis. What you see is what you get.”

“I see a woman who's pumping milk for a baby she gave away. A baby she hoped to forget about.”

“The alternative is sore tits.”

I shook my head. “Part of you can't let go of that child. Part of you wants to be with Hart and your baby. But you haven't told him that, have you?”

“He doesn't want to hear it. He's with Penny now.”

“Is he really?”

“He married her! He made his choice. And he has the kid, too, so what else is there?”

I heard the anger in her voice. Also a note of vulnerability. More gently, I said, “You had something wonderful with Jake, Em, and now you're afraid to try again. I know exactly how scary it feels to throw yourself off that cliff again and wonder if somebody's going to catch you.”

“Hart's not the type to catch anybody.” The acid was back.

“Then why do you like him so much?”

“I dunno. Maybe I don't.” She slammed the steering wheel with her fist. “I hate the mess in my head!”

In the resulting quiet, I said, “I'm worried about you, Em. About what you said last night. About not having anything left to lose.”

She let out a bitter laugh but didn't answer.

“Setting fire to Swain Starr's barn. Em, that was a terrible thing to do.”

“Not if it protects Rawlins.”

“We could have found another way,” I insisted. “A way that didn't include committing a crime. We know Rawlins didn't kill Swain Starr. Eventually the police are going to figure that out, too. But destroying property was wrong.”

“Nobody was there. Not so much as a piglet. Besides, if Zephyr wants to rebuild the barn, she has more money than God to do it, and she'll employ half the county again to make it perfect.”

“That doesn't make what you did—”

“Nobody would have known it was me if you hadn't come traipsing out to talk to me last night.”

“You're off the rails,” I said. “You're taking bigger and bigger risks. First it was riding dangerous horses, and now it's lighting a match to gasoline. You're breaking the law! What's next?”

“I can take care of myself. It's Rawlins I'm worried about. Do you think he was at the farm the night Swain was killed?”

At last, I told her about the keys I had found near Swain's body.

The news made her curse. “You found his keys, and I found his jacket? I was right to guess there might have been more of his stuff at Starr's Landing. What the hell was Rawlins doing?”

“I hope he wasn't there at all. I think Porky was there. I think Rawlins lent him the car—­ there was a new scrape on the bumper, and Rawlins would never have put a tiny scratch on that vehicle. That's why I think Porky had the car that night. Maybe Porky killed Swain and left the keys and the jacket to implicate Rawlins. And I think Porky was the one who went to the hotel with Zephyr. At least, I hope so. The other option is that Rawlins was with her that night, but that doesn't seem likely. Does it?”

“I dunno. Maybe. Back up. Porky doesn't seem smart enough to throw blame and plant evidence.”

“I know.” I slumped in the seat and rubbed my forehead. I hoped my hormones hadn't scrambled my wits. “There's another possibility.”

“I'm listening.”

“Maybe Zephyr killed Swain.”

I filled in Emma on Zephyr, the serial killer supermodel.

“Holy shit!” Emma barely kept her truck on the road. “And you left her alone with Mick?”

“Michael has half his father's crew stationed at the house, plus a new bodyguard. I don't know why, but they're prepared for D-­Day.”

“Yeah, things are hot in Mob Land. Down at the gas station, all the guys are pissed off about Mick shutting down the gambling. With the March Madness basketball tournament coming up, he's making a big dent in everybody's income. There's a turf war going on. One dude shot another one outside the Dairy Queen.”

“Oh, Em!” This news horrified me.

“He's alive. Took a bullet in the butt, nothing serious, which shows they're probably amateurs. But there's something big brewing. If all the bad guys settle their differences and unite to push Mick to do what they want, it could get ugly.” She caught sight of my face. Hastily, she said, “But hey, don't worry. You and Mick, you're out on the farm, surrounded by the hired muscle. You'll be fine.”

I fervently hoped she was right.

At Blackbird Farm, there were extra cars parked behind the house. I didn't recognize most of them, except a state police cruiser. Emma was right. Something big was definitely stirring in the underworld.

“Another poker night?” Emma asked, pulling up next to a plain black sedan that had to be government owned.

“I don't think so.”

She rolled down her window and lit a cigarette. “About changing tactics,” she began, blowing smoke away from me. “With Hart.”

“Yes?”

“You really think that's . . . worth a try? Tonight?”

“It depends on what you want from Hart,” I said. “If you're hoping for something besides sex, maybe leaving the triple X duds at home would be a worthwhile change of pace. For once, you could talk to him instead of getting naked.”

She eyed my Dolce and Gabbana—­sexy, but more sedate than anything in her closet. I could see her weighing her options.

I said, “Want to switch?”

“You serious?”

“C'mon,” I told her. “I will if you will.”

In the darkness, we unzipped and undressed. I helped her into the black suit with the pencil skirt, and she looked great. Her shoes were all wrong, so I gave up my kitten heels, too. It was more of a struggle getting me into the hot pink Versace, but we managed.

Emma gave my décolletage a long look. “Wow. You really must be pregnant.”

My head spun again, and I laughed. Grabbing my drugstore bag, I said, “I'll let you know what I find out. Meanwhile, good luck with Hart—­if that's what you want.”

I jumped out, and she put the engine in gear. I barely had time to close the passenger door before she pulled away and tooted her horn. I watched her go, wondering if I was aiding and abetting adultery. Or helping her decide one way or the other if Hart was a man worth fighting for.

I went up the flagstone walk in Emma's shoes, which, a size too big, were making me a little wobbly. I let myself in the back door. Zephyr and Dolph sat on either side of the kitchen table, staring deeply into each other's eyes, as if trying to make a psychic connection. He was munching on an apple. She was picking raspberries out of a bowl and eating them one by one. But the thing that hit me was his size—­a good four inches shorter than Zephyr.

When I closed the door a little too hard, she tore her attention from Dolph and blinked at me, docile as a cat.

She said, “That's not your usual look.”

I wasn't the only transformation. The kitchen was overflowing with fresh groceries. There were bananas on the counter, fruit in the bowl, a basket full of onions. The canned goods hadn't been put away yet. Three more paper bags of supplies sat on the counter, as yet unpacked. On the floor sat a fifty-­pound sack of something labeled
PREMIUM SWINE FEED
. Even Ralphie was going to eat well tonight.