Love You to Death (6 page)
And then there was Ted Puck in July. You know what happened there.
And Henry this month. (Ditto.)
What happened to Ted was all over the evening news. I couldn’t
not
watch it. There weren’t many more details, except that there were no witnesses. He’d been shot to death around eight o’clock last night, but he hadn’t been found until early this morning by the workers.
No witnesses. He’d been completely trapped, with no one around to help. What had Ted been doing down at the end of the pier on a cold January night anyway? There was nothing down that far but boats, and Ted didn’t own a boat. Perhaps he’d been meeting someone who did own a boat? Had been out for a jog? Ted was a runner. Was he meeting someone? Why down there? Why not in a restaurant? Or a bar? If he’d been having an affair, he couldn’t very well rendezvous on the street. In the cold.
He hadn’t been robbed, so there was no way it was a random shooting. He’d gone down there for a reason, and had been shot to death. Maybe he’d gotten involved in something shady, like gambling. Or drugs. But Ted was a banker on the up-and-up, as far as I knew. Or maybe he was a cheater in love
and
in business? He was very likely booby-trapped, set up.
I doubted the good detective would be spending so much time on me if Ted’s BlackBerry had contained any notations about meeting someone down at the pier last night. Nothing on his calendar and nothing on his voice mail, home machine or e-mail—I was sure. Nor anything suspicious about Ted’s coworkers or business associates or his habits, whatever they were. Ben and his partner seemed very thorough. Unless, as I suspected, Ben was tracking me and Fargo was investigating all other areas of Ted’s life.
They were focusing on me because I, as the spurned girlfriend, made the most sense. So maybe they should be focusing on Ted’s
other
spurned girlfriends. I had no idea who they were, but I had no doubt they existed in the hundreds. Both unfortunately and fortunately, Ted didn’t kiss and tell.
“Women always ask, but they don’t really want to know,” he’d said during our early dates when I asked him, ever so coyly, about exes.
I
needed
to know. Perhaps that was information I could get from Ben. Yeah, right. Mr. I Can’t Discuss The Case. There had to be ways to track down former girlfriends.
But first I needed to see where Ted was found. Maybe it would jog my memory of something he’d said, a reference he’d made. Or maybe it would just make me very, very sad.
I called Jolie to ask if she’d meet me at the pier.
“You have no idea how you’re going to react,” she said. “Don’t go alone. I’m working late, but I can go with you tomorrow if you really want to see it with your own eyes.”
Rebecca basically said the same thing.
But I needed to go
now.
As I tried Olivia and Opal, I had no doubt both would make up crazy excuses. No one answered at Olivia’s house, which meant she was screening, since she had caller ID and was definitely home at six o’clock at night. Opal answered her cell phone, but was at a rehearsal dinner for her rehearsal dinner. (Very likely a first.)
Shelley to the rescue; she immediately said she’d cancel her plans with Baxter. “We’re just going to hang out at my apartment and watch TV—
again,
” she complained. “He never wants to go out! Anyway, I’ll meet you down there, Abby. But I don’t know if it’s a good idea. What if there’s blood?”
But there couldn’t be blood because of all the rain. It would just be the same old beautiful pier with the same old beautiful boats docked for the winter. Except it couldn’t possibly be beautiful anymore.
Turned out I was wrong; the pier was still beautiful. The lights shone on the dark water, and the boats bobbed. I stood at the base of the pier, squinting down the length of it. There wasn’t much to see. There was some yellow tape. That was all.
“Abby!” came Shelley’s voice from up the block. She waved and jogged over, her wild brown curls bouncing all over the place in the wind. “It’s so cold,” she said, rubbing her gloved hands together. “And it must have been this cold last night. So what was he doing out here?”
I shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been wondering. Maybe he was involved in something illegal. Why else would he be hanging around the edge of a pier in the dead of winter? He must have been meeting someone.”
Shelley nodded. “Whatever it was, the police will figure it out. So don’t worry about all their questions, okay? They’re just doing their job.”
“I can’t believe he’s really…gone,” I said, staring down the pier. “Jerk or no jerk, he was so full of life, with grandiose plans. It’s so hard to believe that he’s just
no more,
just like that.”
“You really loved him, didn’t you?” Shelley said, slipping her hand through my arm.
I nodded.
“You know what drove me nuts?” I said. “That Mary-Kate looked so much like me. If he was going to pick someone to cheat on me with, to fall madly in love with, couldn’t he have picked a tall blonde or a redhead? If he was going to pick a woman who was practically my double, why not just stick with me in the first place?”
Shelley nodded in commiseration.
“Eh, that’s stupid,” I said. “Lust and love are about chemistry. Not a checklist, like long brown hair and big boobs. He fell for her, plain and simple, because of who she was.”
“Don’t excuse what he did,” Shelley said. “Yeah, he fell for someone else. But the way he handled it was absolutely disgusting. He was a pig, Abby. But you’re right. He fell for her because of who she was—a slutty, cheating pig! I mean, who goes to someone’s party and gives that someone’s boyfriend a blow job on that someone’s bed?” She shook her head. “If I hadn’t been there, Abs, I don’t even think I would have believed it.”
“Yeah, you and the forty people at my party,” I said. “Anyway, I’m glad Baxter wasn’t there that night. At least there are a few people who don’t know the story, weren’t there to witness my utter humiliation with their own eyes.”
She glanced at me sheepishly. “Uh, I did sort of tell him about it. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. That’s what a boyfriend is for, right? Speaking of which, I really appreciate that you canceled your plans. Not many women do that.”
“I never want to be one of those women,” she said. “Baxter would like me to be, but I can’t.
He’d
cancel on
me
in a second if a friend needed
him,
but he really wants me to always be available for him. He wants me to move in, but I don’t know. If we’re going to live together, why not just get engaged? And if we’re just going to sit around and watch TV, why bother at all?” She gnawed her lip. “I don’t know what I want.”
“What does Baxter want?” I asked.
“He says he loves me like crazy but wants to wait until he’s at least into his residency before getting engaged. He wants to give me a huge wedding. And since my parents are gone, he’d have to pay for it.” She took a deep breath, as she always did when talking about her mom and dad. They’d been killed in an accident almost five years ago.
When my dad died three years ago, soon after I started at
Maine Life,
Shelley was the only coworker who came to the funeral. She sent a beautiful card, f lowers, even homemade lasagna, her specialty. We’d been close friends ever since. Our dads were buried in the same cemetery, and we often went to visit their graves together.
“Well, I’m never going to have a relationship last long enough for moving in,” I said. “Six months was my longest since college.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said.
“So I just have bad taste in guys?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Or maybe you’re only twenty-eight and haven’t met the right guy.”
“Thanks,” I said. I hoped that was it.
“Let’s skip this and go get pizza,” she said. “I don’t think looking at where it happened is going to give you any closure. It’ll just make you think of it. What if you have nightmares about it?”
I shook my head. “I need to see where it happened.” But when I tried to step forward, I stayed rooted to the spot.
“Hon, you don’t have to do this,” Shelley said, her brown leather glove on my shoulder.
“I do. I just need to make it real for myself so that I can believe it’s not just some surreal nightmare.”
“Okay, let’s go,” she said.
We headed up the long pier. I could see the yellow “crime scene” tape at the end. I could also see someone standing there, not moving, not doing anything.
I froze. “I think that’s Mary-Kate Darling,” I whispered to Shelley.
As the woman bent to place the bouquet on the ground, I could see that it
was
Mary-Kate. She stood up and stared out at the water for a few moments, then snatched up the bouquet, ripped off the petals and threw them down at the ground. Because of the wind, the petals scattered all over the place.
Shelley and I eyed each other.
“That was weird,” I whispered.
“Very weird,” she said.
Mary-Kate then f lung the green stems on the ground and turned and started running. She froze when she saw me, her expression pure hatred, then she ran.
I turned and watched her until she disappeared onto Commercial Street.
“She didn’t exactly look like the grieving widow,” I remarked.
“More like the black widow spider,” Shelley said.
I
n the morning I found Ben’s card in the empty candy dish on the console table in my foyer. I hadn’t realized he’d put it there. Maybe he’d forgotten that he’d already given me one yesterday morning in the conference room. Yeah, like he forgot anything. I called, eager to let him know about Mary-Kate and her petal tantrum, but he wasn’t in.
Because he was on his way to my apartment, of course. Not five minutes after I called, he buzzed.
“Got that list for me?” he asked. He stood in the doorway. As usual, every thought went out of my head at the sight of him. He was that good-looking. That
hot.
I nodded. “Come in,” I said, stepping aside.
He didn’t take off his coat or his gloves. Hopefully because he was in a rush to go out and catch the killer, not because he was going to haul me “downtown” to the station.
I handed the list to him, and he scanned it. “What exactly are you going to do with my list of romantic involvements, anyway?”
“I really can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” he said. “Speaking of which, I understand you were at the crime scene last night.”
Interesting. So Mary-Kate had reported in? Considering that she’d been the one acting suspiciously, I was surprised. Then again, maybe she was smart. Maybe she was covering her tracks, alerting Ben that she’d been there as the grieving fiancée, while making sure he knew I, as the spurned ex, had been there, clearly to hunt for any evidence I might have left behind. Like an earring or a scarf.
“I just needed to see where it happened,” I said.
“Do you know that most killers return to the scene of the crime soon after?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t know that,” I said, my legs turning into rubber. “And if you know I was at the scene of the crime, you must know that Mary-Kate Darling was, too. Since I assume she reported my presence there.”
“Mary-Kate was Ted’s fiancée,” Ben said. “It makes sense that she’d want to see where he was last living and breathing. For closure, for self-torture, I don’t know.”
I stared at my shoes. “I loved Ted, too,” I said. “I mean, not lately. But I loved him until he—”
“Cheated on you with Mary-Kate?”
I nodded. “When someone you love does something so awful to you, it’s easy to fall out of love. Not so easy to shake the hurt. But that was six months ago. I got over Ted fast.”
“By dating Mr. Fiddler,” Ben said. “Who then ditched you in L.L. Bean rather than witness a bris.”
“This is just embarrassing,” I said. “And it’s possible that Mary-Kate killed Ted. Maybe she caught him cheating on her, and she flew into the rage you accused me of f lying into. Maybe Ted dumped her, and she was the spurned woman who killed him. Why isn’t that a plausible theory?” I told him about the f lowers.
“So perhaps she was angry. Grief affects people in different ways, Abby.”
“I know all about grief,” I snapped.
“In any case, Mary-Kate Darling has an airtight alibi for the night of the murder,” he said. “You don’t.”
“Where was she?” I asked.
“I can’t discuss that with you, Abby. It wouldn’t be professional, and it’s also not relevant. She’s not a suspect.”
“Am I?” I asked.
“You’re a person of interest,” he said.
“Have you investigated Ted’s other ex-girlfriends?” I asked. “Maybe one of
them
snapped.”
“Abby, I can’t talk about the case with you. What I can do is assure you that we are investigating all areas. I’m not focused on you at the expense of other potential suspects.”
That was a relief.
“Thanks for the list,” he added, folding Abby’s Romantic Involvements into his breast pocket. “I’ll be in touch.”
And then he was gone.
“How can I find out what Mary-Kate Darling was doing the night Ted was killed?” I asked Jolie and Rebecca later that night. They’d come over to cheer me up.
“You do what lawyers do when they need information they can’t just ask for,” Jolie the paralegal said. “You track down the info in newspapers or online. Do a Google search for Mary-Kate. Or just read some of the news articles about Ted’s death. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was interviewed and mentioned what she was doing the night he was killed.”
Jolie handed me her
Portland Daily News.
There were two articles about the murder.
In a heartbreaking twist, Ted’s fiancée, Mary-Kate Darling, had been registering for wedding gifts at Crate and Barrel when the murder took place. “I can’t believe I was dithering over china patterns when Ted—” she said, breaking down in tears. “When my beloved Ted was killed,” she finally managed to say amid heart-wrenching sobs.
How airtight could that alibi be? It wasn’t as if a salesclerk had been mooning over her for two hours. Why couldn’t she have slipped out to commit a little murder and then rushed back to finish choosing salad bowls? Anyone who’d cheat with someone else’s boyfriend at that someone else’s own birthday party was coldhearted enough to be a cold-blooded killer.
I loved Crate and Barrel. Every time I walked into the store, I felt like someone who had a love life. There was something about all those glasses, all those vases and candles and interesting pillows, that said
couple living together.
It was eight o’clock at night; the store would be closing in an hour, and it was packed. With couples living together. I’d never seen so many guys in a store in my life. Well, except Sharper Image.
A month into my relationship with Ted I’d gone to Crate and Barrel to find a birthday gift for Opal, and I’d been unable to resist playing registry. There were brides-to-be walking around with their sheets of paper and pens, picking up forks and studying them as though they were the most important aspect of married life.
I’d picked up a glass and studied it. A bride-to-be had smiled at me. “Ooh, are you thinking of those?”
“Yes, I think Theodore would love them.”
She laughed. “Michael would hate these. Way too girly, he’d say.”
For those five minutes I was a bride-to-be. A woman with a crappy track record, but in a good relationship of one nice month. Things had been looking up. I’d cut myself a break and let myself pretend I was one of them, even if I didn’t have the paper or the pen. Or the ring. Or, say, a grip on reality.
I headed over to the registry computer and typed in
Darling and Puck.
Eight sheets came out.
Huh. Maybe she
had
been there for three hours.
“Excuse me,” I said to a salesclerk who was straightening candlesticks on a display. “I’m looking to buy a gift for this person.” I held up the registry. “I was wondering if you could help me choose—”
The guy put his hand on my arm. “I am so sorry to tell you this, Miss, but didn’t you hear? The groom was
murdered.
”
“Yes, I know,” I said. “I’m a friend of the bride’s, and I thought I’d buy her something that she wanted for their life together, something to commemorate what they would be sharing. Something more for her, or perhaps decorative. I think she’d like that.”
I sure wouldn’t.
“That’s a lovely idea. Let’s see,” he said, glancing from the registry sheets to displays. “She did register for that adorable old-fashioned alarm clock, the one with the pug on it.”
That was actually a relief. Maybe she
was
a dog person. A pug person, at least. Clinton might be in good hands.
“Wow, she really picked out a ton of stuff,” I said. “She must have been here for hours.”
He nodded and began straightening glass vases. “Oh, she was. I helped her for most of it. She said she wasn’t too good at this kind of thing.”
“I hope she took a break for coffee or something. Three hours of straight shopping isn’t easy on anyone, even an excited bride.”
“You’d be surprised. Some brides are in here from opening to closing. But come to think of it, I did see her leave about an hour after she arrived. Then she came back about a half hour later. She probably went for coffee.”
Bingo. Got you, cousin Mary! You’re toast.
“Probably,” I said.
Or she might have, say, slipped out to murder her fiancé for no reason I could think of right now.
I couldn’t wait to tell Ben!
