Plateful of Murder (3 page)

“I don’t follow you.”

He hiked up his baggy pants. “Cops don’t think of security guards as anything but cast-offs. So we play respectful, but it ain’t what any of us feel.”

It was obvious he didn’t like the police. That could make it easier for me to get some information he didn’t give up to them. Besides, this guy had underdog written all over him. I could identify with that. “Yeah, they don’t always pick up on what a guy on the inside, like you, knows.”

“Got that right. Take Miss Adler. Why’d anyone want her dead?”

Not knowing if it was a rhetorical question or not, I waited.

He leaned on the wall with his foot flat against it. “Could be some folks think her latest lover got possessive. My money, though, is on a bigwig’s missus.”

“Really? Did you see something that night?” Had he noticed Eagleton’s wife stomp out of the building after she’d confronted me?

“Nah. I’m just shootin’ the breeze.” He pitched the toothpick into the trashcan. “Anyway, I gotta go make my rounds.” He ambled off.

I followed and handed him my business card. “If anything you think is important comes to mind, please call me.”

He shot me a look that told me not to hold my breath. But he did take the card.

I got back in my car and called Michael. The picture he’d painted of Constance didn’t match the one everyone else gave me. Either he didn’t really know his sister or he’d purposely left out the more colorful aspects of her life. Which was which? I’d worked with untrustworthy clients before, but those were on he-said-she-said cheating spouse cases. Dishonesty was the basis for those situations. I had only taken on this case because Michael seemed so needy and alone. Now I realized he may not be what he appeared to be. Nor so alone. Lies about his sister could be keeping him company.

Needing to dig into the facts of the real Constance, I headed back to my office. My computer was firing up when my phone rang. I checked to see who it was, hoping the guard, Ed, had a revelation.

No such luck. It was my Aunt Lena.
Why now?

“Claire, honey. Did you forget? You were supposed to come help me at the cafe. Your father’s here, but he keeps trying to dip a spoon into the whipped cream. I can’t hold him off forever.”

I pushed my hair away from my forehead. “No, I didn’t.”
I did
. “I’m in the middle of a client’s case but I can wrap it up and be there before you know it.”

My aunt sighed. “Hurry. I need you here. We’re crazy with customers.” Her voice got louder, “Frank, put that spoon down.”

Like the rest of the women in my family, my aunt thinks nothing of having two or three conversations at once, so before she got involved with my dad, I looked at my watch. “Give me twenty minutes.” I hung up and frowned, realizing my miscalculation. It’d take me at least twenty-five minutes to get there.

All the way to my aunt’s bakery,
Cannoli’s
, I tried to fit everything about Constance’s murder and what she was really like, together. It was a puzzle where you have the border pieces, but none of the inside ones. Impossible to make out the picture.

I drove past the bakery’s front window and noticed my father standing there. No doubt assigned by Aunt Lena to watch for me.

Before I got through the restaurant’s kitchen door, my aunt confronted me, waving a mixing paddle around. Dots of cream flew everywhere. “Your father’s gonna eat me out of business.”

I kissed her flushed cheek. “Sorry.”

She sniffed, which meant I wasn’t totally forgiven. “Everything’s going crazy. Kiss your father hello, then take over at the counter.”

I rang up enough cakes and pastries to give half of Ohio diabetes. My feet screamed for mercy. Aunt Lena was the official owner of C
annoli’
s but the whole family had agreed to pitch in while her niece Josie, daughter of her deceased husband’s brother and her kitchen assistant, was nearing the end of her second pregnancy. A twinge of guilt plucked at my heart when I realized so far, my father had done most of the helping.

At long last, it was time to close up shop. Aunt Lena took off her apron and asked, “So who’s the big client you couldn’t interrupt to help your aunt?”

My dad jumped in. “Lena, she got here and worked hard. Leave it alone.”

I swallowed the last bite of a small éclair that had teased me with its glorious ganache all evening. “The client needed some handholding, that’s all.”

My aunt squinted at me. “I hope that’s all he held.”

“Someone murdered his sister.” I regretted the words as soon as they fell from my chocolate-tinged mouth.

My aunt sucked in a breath and my dad leaned in toward me. “Claire Marie.” The last time he used my middle name was when I ran over a stop sign with his new car. “I never liked that private detective job for you. But this is too much. If someone hurt you, I’d have to kill them myself.”

My aunt joined in. “Why can’t you work here? There’s plenty to do. You don’t have to run around with some hoodlum.”

I slumped against the glass case, realizing this battle had just begun. “He’s not a hoodlum.”

My aunt threw up her hands. “Frank, she’s protecting a hoodlum.”

I kept my voice steady and spoke slowly, telling myself it was like talking to people who were unfamiliar with the English language. “I’m helping the police here. Nothing more. End of story.”

Aunt Lena sniffed and began to wipe down the counter. My dad started to clean off the tables. The sound of it all in a silent room was deafening. I laid my hand on top of my aunt’s. “I promise I’m in no danger. I’m not his guard. More like a friend.”

She looked at me, her eyes moist. “You know I worry. Since your mother died, I feel extra responsible for you.” She placed both of her chunky hands over her heart and looked toward the ceiling. “Promised her I’d look after you.” She wiped a drop of sweat from her upper lip. “How will I face her in heaven knowing, instead of settling down with a nice man, you’re hanging around with no-goods.”

I put my arms around her soft, ample middle. “I’m sure Mom thinks you’ve done a great job with me. And don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”

She hugged me back, and then pushed me to arm’s length. “Okay. But now don’t do anything to embarrass the family.”

I wanted to laugh. My family specialized in doing things to embarrass the rest of us. There was the time my tipsy Aunt Julia whipped off her wig and tossed it at the same time the bride tossed her bouquet; or when my cousin Tomasina tried to climb inside her ex-husband’s coffin. It’d be hard to top times like those. “Aunt Lena, you have my assurance there’s nothing I can do to embarrass this family.”

Belly overfilled, I shuffled back to my car and chastised myself for gobbling that third éclair and, as with every other time I took a shift at the bakery, was thankful not to be working there full time. It was one of my biggest fears that my body would look like a meatball. Let’s face it. Eating is a huge passion of mine. Combine that with my fat-welcoming genes and I’m almost doomed to someday shop in the plus, plus-size section of Macy’s.

After a satisfactory grieving time for needless calories, my mind moved on. There was a crime to solve. Tracking down Triton’s security guard, Ed, again was the best way to work the case and burn some calories.

I yawned and checked the time and was surprised to see it was after 11:00 p.m. The only way to talk to Ed tonight was by waking him up. No, it’d be better to go home and hope to come up with what to do about Michael. Maybe my dreams would accomplish that.

There was enough time for me to slip into my jammies, but not enough to slip into dreamland, before my phone rang. It was Michael. A spark of dread ran down my spine. Knowing it couldn’t be good, I still picked up the phone. 

H
is words rushed together. “Someone broke into my house. Every room is ripped apart.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. “Are you okay?”

“Just shaken up.”

“Call the police. I’ll be right there.” I scrambled out of bed and threw on some clothes, all the while scolding myself for not seeing this coming. But then, the cops hadn’t thought about it either.

The police got there first. I’d no sooner stepped through Michael’s door when Detective ‘Blue Eyes’ Corrigan snarled, “Doing a bang-up job of working with the police, I see.”

My eyes became saucers. To say I was blindsided was an understatement. “What do you mean?”

Corrigan waved a piece of paper under my nose. “Did you happen to see this?” Before any words managed to pass my lips, he leaned in so close I could smell his spicy cologne, and it was tempting to just close my eyes and inhale. His stern tone stopped me mid-breath. “It’s evidence. You know what that is, don’t you?”

My first impulse was to step back. Instead, I held my ground. It wouldn’t look good for Michael’s PI to weasel away. “Yes. Of course.” I crossed my arms then remembered this gesture could be viewed as a sign of self-protection, and uncrossed them. No need to let Corrigan think he intimidated me, even if he did. “But I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” He rapped the paper against the palm of his hand. “It happens to be a list of initials Constance Adler wrote down before she died. The funny thing is, we might never have seen it, if this break-in hadn’t occurred.”

“I’ve never seen that piece of paper before.” It might have helped if Corrigan had let me read the list, but it was plain to see, cooperation wasn’t on his mind. Maybe Michael could tell me the list’s meaning after the police were gone. If he knew.

I made it a point to turn my back on Corrigan. After all, Michael’s welfare was my job, not arguing with a detective carrying an attitude along with his badge.

Speaking of Michael, the poor guy sat in a chair in his torn-apart living room. His clothes were so wrinkled it was like he’d been knocked down and walked on. Angry shaving nicks covered his face. Only a fool would believe Michael was coping with his sister’s murder. Everything about him shouted his misery. I fought the wild urge to cradle him like a little kid who’s skinned his knee. I crouched down and kept my voice soft. “Michael, did you see anyone lurking around the house?”

He shook his head, his jaw clenched. But the look in his eyes surprised me. I expected fear, maybe shock, but his stony glare shouted angry-as-hell to me.

Corrigan tapped his foot. “We’ve already been through that.”

I took a deep breath and waited. “Michael?”

Michael’s legs bounced up and down and his hands clutched the armrests so tight his knuckles were white. “Didn’t see anyone, but this had everything to do with Constance’s murder.”

Almost in unison, Detective Corrigan and I said, “We’ll get whoever did this.” For a second I thought we could continue working with that same cohesion and maybe even goodwill. But he destroyed that notion with his next words. “Of course, it would help if Ms. DeNardo kept us informed.”

Trying my best to ignore Corrigan and his unhelpful comments, I asked Michael, “Do you want to spend the night here or go to a hotel? A hotel may be best, at least for tonight.” Most people wouldn’t be comfortable sleeping in a house right after someone had broken into it. A shiver ran through me at the thought of someone breaking into my home, maybe even going through my underwear drawer. I resolved to do laundry tomorrow.

“I’m staying.”

Corrigan shook his head firmly. “Not a good idea. Whoever did this might return.”

Michael’s voice was controlled fury. “I’ll be ready.”

Whatever he had in mind couldn’t be good. “You’re angry and that’s understandable. But sometimes it makes people do the wrong thing, make bad decisions.”

Corrigan joined in. “She’s right. Don’t do anything stupid.” With a sideways glance at me, he added, “And you, Ms. DeNardo, let me do my job.”

I wanted to dig my heel into Corrigan’s foot, but that’d just get me arrested for assault. “Come on, Michael, I’ll take you to the Marriott. You’ll be safe there.” I gave him a look I hoped he’d interpret as, “Just agree, so we can talk alone.”

He turned toward the hallway. “I’ll go grab a toothbrush.”

After checking in at the hotel, Michael still looked jittery but telling him to relax would’ve sounded so callous. Instead, I allowed my mouth to operate before my brain knew and broke Gino’s Rule Number Two: “Never drink with a client.”
This was different though. No hidden motives. I plastered on a smile as fake as my old neighbor’s pink, plastic flamingos. “Let’s get you a drink.” Without waiting for an answer, I steered him toward the hotel’s lounge.

The alcohol might have gotten him talking about Constance and that list Corrigan called me on. Of course, he would have needed to drink at least some of it. Instead, he stared down at his finger and ran it around the rim of his glass. On the other hand, I was so dry it felt like a cactus had taken root in my mouth. But it wouldn’t look good for me to down a drink in a single gulp. Besides, I needed all my senses about me. Just one glass of wine on a practically empty stomach, and I’m doing karaoke even without a karaoke machine.

I pushed my hand against my stomach as it growled. It was now about breakfast time and we hated going hungry. “Sorry you’re going through this, Michael, but there are some questions that need answering.”

He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. The dark circles around them confirmed he hadn’t slept much. He quickly slipped the glasses back on. “Don’t be sorry. Anything to help.” He took a sip.

It seemed so cold to forge ahead when he was in so much pain, but what had transpired between Corrigan and him before I arrived was important. I downed a bit of my drink for courage. “What did the police ask you?”

Michael swallowed hard. “They wanted to know if she had kept any letters from…” He sighed deeply and his shoulders slumped. “Her lovers.”

“Did she?” If so, the police or the killer surely had them by now.

“No.” He hesitated. “She didn’t keep any
letters
. A few days before she was killed, though, she made up a list with a bunch of initials.”

“That’s what Corrigan was waving around?”