The Same Mistake Twice (11 page)

“Oh,” she said.

“Surprised you, didn’t we?”

Anne-Marie Kuhlbacher occupied one of the four chairs at the kitchen table. She looked as if she owned the house, and maybe the neighborhood as well. Diagonally across from her sat Rebecca Grogan. Diana wondered whether she could handle both women.

But another look told her she wouldn’t have to. Someone had already given Rebecca a bad day. She had a bruise growing under her right eye, and her upper lip was puffy. She sat hunched over in a way that Diana had seen before. The older woman must have taken some shots to her ribs.

“Your security isn’t very good,” said Anne-Marie. “Not for somebody in your line of work.”

“Since when do you know what I do for a living?”

“Rebecca and I here have been discussing it. All this time, and I didn’t know that.”

She paused.

“It might have made a difference, back when. Or maybe not.”

Diana nodded toward Rebecca. “What happened to her?”

“I was watching your place. I saw her go in, and I figured she didn’t have a social call in mind.”

“Why do you care?”

“Because,” said Anne-Marie, “you could say I owe you. You could say that going to prison was the best thing that ever happened to me. I learned a trade. I made some friends. I learned how to look out for myself, and I learned about men. Turns out that getting away from them is the best way to do that. Who knew?”

Anne-Marie got up from the table.

“I’m glad we’re not going to have another kitchen fight,” said Diana. “I don’t know how it would turn out this time.”

“I do.”

At the table Rebecca touched her black eye gently and flinched. Anne-Marie patted her shoulder, one BFF to another. Rebecca flinched again, and Diana didn’t blame her. The gesture came out more menacing than an explicit threat.

“Your friend here has some interesting things to tell you,” said Anne-Marie.

She started for the hallway, which would take her right past Diana.

“Can you stick around?” said Diana.

“No.”

“It would help to have a witness.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Oh. What about that little gratitude speech?”

“You didn’t listen. I said, ‘You could say it was the best thing that ever happened to me.’ Get it? You could say it. That doesn’t mean I do.”

Instead of brushing by Diana in the kitchen doorway, Anne-Marie stopped and made a point of getting in her personal space.

“You’re mine. Whenever I want you, you’re mine. Not hers. That’s why I stopped her. Think about that every night before you go to sleep.”

She stared. As soulless glares went, it was pretty good.

“I’ll be back.”

“And I’ll be here.”

Anne-Marie continued down the hall and opened the front door. For a moment the streetlight outside turned her into a lumpy silhouette in the doorway. Those stuffed pockets didn’t flatter her.

“Tell me something,” said Diana.

She wondered why she didn’t just let the woman leave. The answer came to her—she felt a need to prove that she wasn’t afraid, even if it meant lying to herself just a little. But now she had to think of something to say.

“Did you know James Zakrewsky?”

Oh, Diana thought.

She hadn’t seen that one coming.

Anne-Marie showed no surprise or hesitation. Prison must have purged those human tendencies.

“Sure,” she said. “Nice guy. He actually talked to me.”

“Did you ever hear what happened to him?”

“No. How would I? I was out of touch.”

“Never mind.”

Anne-Marie waited a moment for more. When nothing came, she turned again and left. The door slammed behind her.

Diana stood and breathed. When she was sure she could control her voice, she turned toward Rebecca. Something was off about the older woman. Rebecca had just lost twice over. She should have looked defeated, but she wore an expression of nasty triumph. When she realized that Diana had noticed the look, it disappeared.

“We’re going to talk,” said Diana.

“I could use some ice.”

“After we talk. That’ll give you a little incentive.”

Diana took a seat across from her.

“Did Gary Rennert put you up to this?”

“I don’t take orders from men.”

“Just from her.” Diana pointed with her chin in the direction of Anne-Marie’s departure. “I can sympathize.”

Rebecca followed the gesture with her eyes, and for a moment the nasty smile appeared again.

“Okay,” said Diana. “Tell me about ten years ago.”

“Why should I?”

“Because I could pick up where she left off. Maybe I’m as good, maybe I’m not. You want to find out?”

Rebecca’s glare faltered. She didn’t want another shot in the nose.

“A lot happened back then,” said Diana, “and I think you were in the middle of all of it. I want it all. Now.”

Rebecca waited a provocative moment before starting her story.

“You should have been able to figure it all out by now.”

“If it will make you feel better to call me stupid, I don’t care. But you’re going to stop stalling.”

“My husband called you.”

“That’s a start.”

“When a middle-aged man calls a strange number, a smart wife looks into it. It’s a cliché, but clichés are usually true. You know what I’m talking about. Another woman.”

“The old story.”

“So I took steps. I went to Gary.”

“Not those two friends of yours?”

“Friends? Please. I don’t socialize with people who empty bedpans. And explaining anything to them takes more time and energy than I care to spend.”

“Why would Gary Rennert help you? Were you an item at some point?”

“You see? That’s all someone like you can think of. No, we were not an item, as you put it. But our sons have been best friends since preschool.”

Diana couldn’t help laughing.

“A match made in heaven.”

“I’m glad you find this amusing.”

“Talk.”

“I knew I had to crack down hard. So I asked Gary for help with a personal problem, and he came through, no questions asked. He put me in touch with a guy named Phil Epstein. Ex-cop from someplace, had to resign under a cloud, called himself a private investigator. I don’t think he had a license, though. What he really did was fix things for people like Gary. I gave Epstein the phone number and asked him to find out who it belonged to. So a week later he came back to me and said the number was a pager that belonged to a whore. He showed me pictures of you that he had taken with one of those distance things.”

“Telephoto lens.”

“Whatever.”

“So you showed your husband the pictures to let him know you were onto him.”

Rebecca laughed.

“I don’t believe in temporary solutions. I hired Epstein to kill you.”

Diana looked at the woman and believed her.

“Did Gary know that?”

“I doubt it. He can be oddly squeamish about doing what needs to be done.”

“I have to admit, I’ve heard him called a lot of things, but never squeamish. So why am I still here?”

“I told Epstein I needed proof that the job was done. And a week later he came to me with a Polaroid of a young woman with dark blond hair. Her face was a mess, but her build and coloring were yours. And for ten years you’ve been walking around under my nose, while I thought he had done the job.”

“So the pages came from you,” Diana said. “You were checking up on Epstein, until he showed you the picture.”

Rebecca gave Diana one of her nasty smiles.

“You realize I’ll deny this. And there’s nothing to connect me. I don’t know who she was, or where her body went, and I doubt anyone else does. Obviously, no one has ever missed her.”

“The cops will get it from Epstein. Gary must know where he is.”

Rebecca’s smile became even more insufferable.

“Oh,” Diana said.

“So now you know everything. And it won’t do you a bit of good. No one can connect me to Epstein but Gary, and he doesn’t talk about business.”

A middle-aged man, Diana thought.

She knew the identity of Tillotson’s John Doe.

“Why kill Epstein, if he did the job?”

“Let me ask you a question. Strictly hypothetical, of course. Would you want anyone walking around knowing you hired a contract killer?”

Diana decided to wipe the grin off Rebecca’s face.

“So you and your two…associates went to the Salmon house to dig up the other grave.”

“What are you talking about?”

“With the dead girl and her boyfriend.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I have no idea who she was or where she is. We followed you there.”

“Oh. To finish Epstein’s job.”

It made a twisted kind of sense. Rebecca had paid to have Diana killed, and Diana wasn’t dead. Ten years changed nothing. She still had to die.

Diana got up.

“Don’t move. I’m serious. Or I’ll get Anne-Marie back here.”

“She might not be available.”

Diana wondered what Rebecca meant, but she didn’t have time to go into it. She went to the phone and started punching in Tillotson’s office number. She carried the handset down the hall, where she could keep Rebecca under observation without the other woman hearing her.

“Nice of you to call,” said Tillotson. “I have a BOLO out on you. I was about to ask for an arrest warrant.”

“For what?”

“Obstruction.”

“I was solving your case for you.”

She told him who was with her and what had happened.

“We’ve got absolutely nothing, you know.”

“She confessed to me about Epstein.”

“After you beat the hell out of her.”

“She attacked me.”

“She’ll say you attacked her.”

“In my home? I didn’t let her in here.”

“Okay, we can hold her on burglary charges.”

He hung up.

“The cops are coming,” she told Rebecca, who looked unimpressed. “How did you get in here, by the way?”

“You really shouldn’t do that key-in-the-fake-rock thing. Especially not in your line of work.”

“I guess it’s not there anymore.”

“I put it back where I found it.”

“You’re the perfect houseguest.”

Rebecca withered her with a look.

“I put it back on the off-chance that you were smart enough to check.”

“What was that last part?”

“What last part? ‘Smart enough to check’? What’s so difficult about that?”

Was it the words that set Diana’s hooker’s radar pinging, or was it Rebecca’s carefully nonchalant pose in the kitchen chair?

“Take your hands out of your lap,” said Diana. “Put them on the table. Now.”

Rebecca obeyed, but Diana didn’t like her attitude.

“Don’t try to look innocent. You of all people should never try that.”

Diana put her right hand on Rebecca’s shoulder and pressed down hard to remind the woman who was in charge. With her left hand she felt the underside of the tabletop. Something was there that definitely didn’t belong. Diana pulled the article loose for inspection. The small plastic ziplock bag contained a white powder. Rebecca had prepared the bag with double-sided sticky tape.

“I underestimated you,” said Diana. “You’re not just a thug. But you also underestimated me. I’m smart enough to check.”

She needed to move fast, before Tillotson arrived. She went to the sink and emptied the powder into the drain. She ran water, first to clear the sink and then to rinse out the plastic bag, which she took to the kitchen garbage can. The fragrant muck was overdue to go out. She plunged her hand in and buried the plastic bag deep in garbage.

“The cops wouldn’t believe it was mine,” she told Rebecca. “I don’t have anything to do with drugs, and they know it. I just don’t have time to explain it to them right now.”

She wasn’t as sure of that as she tried to sound. Things between her and Tillotson were far from normal.

He rang the bell as she was washing kitchen garbage off her hands and smoothing the disgust off her face. Diana kept her eye on Rebecca as she went to answer, but the older woman seemed out of dirty tricks for the moment.

Tillotson might still be angry with Diana, but he played his part well. He brought a Driscoll detective and two uniformed officers to handcuff Rebecca while he read her the Miranda warning. He didn’t want to give Rebecca time to realize how little the police had, but it was probably wasted effort. Rebecca already knew.

The Driscoll cops took her away.

Diana signaled Tillotson to stay behind. She explained what she had seen on the Salmon property.

“You can go back there, can’t you? Or do you need a warrant? I’m no lawyer, but isn’t that your crime scene?”

“We’ll handle it. Depending on what we find, I might need you. Stay home. God help you if you aren’t there this time.”

“You’re going to dig in the dark?”

“Before somebody else does.”

At the door he paused and turned back.

“We just ran into an old friend of yours. Anne-Marie Kuhlbacher. Remember her?”

“I tend to remember people who try to kill me.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about what she’s up to, would you?”

“I guess she’s out of prison.”

Lying to him, even through omission, still felt terrible.

“She’s on parole.”

He gave her a steady look and waited for a reaction. Diana wondered what an innocent person would say. She was forgetting what it felt like to have a clear conscience.

“Is she supposed to be out at night?” she said.

“In her job she’s on call twenty-four hours. She’s authorized to be out and about, but we can still search her anytime. Which we did. I guess she picked up a drug habit in prison.”

“Why?”

“Because she was carrying. Looks like cocaine. She swears it’s not hers, but I’d say she’s on her way back inside.”

He gave her a long look.

“Quite a coincidence, finding her in a neighborhood that just happens to be yours. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Who knows how her mind works?”

“Right.”

Tillotson left.

Now Diana understood Rebecca’s expression as Anne-Marie left. Rebecca must have deft hands, and Anne-Marie should probably clean out her voluminous pockets more often. If she did, it wouldn’t be so easy to plant something on her.