What the Lady Wants (13 page)

"Fine," Mae said automatically, knowing that she was supposed to be eating herself into a coma but not finding the energy to do it. Most Sundays she tried, just to please Gio because she loved him, but this Sunday her heart wasn't in it.

"Then why are you picking at your food? She's picking at her food, Carlo. What's wrong, Mae? You can tell us." Gio peered at her anxiously. "I don't want you worrying, baby. You can tell us."

"It's that Peatwick jerk," Carlo rumbled.

"No, it's not the Peatwick jerk," Mae said irritably. "In fact, he's been wonderful. It's Armand."

"Armand is dead," Gio said.

"Yes, but before he died, he sold everything he had including the house, and now the money had disappeared. It's gone." Mae felt her voice quaver and stuck out her chin. "So Mitch and I are looking for it. And when we find it, everything will be fine."

"Mae, you want money, I'll give it to you," Gio said. "How much do you want?"

Mae shook her head. "I don't want you to give me money, although I may have to ask you to take on Harold and June. I can't afford to keep them if I don't find the money."

Gio scowled. "What happened to your trust fund? You get that pretty soon, don't you?"

"It's gone," Mae told him. "Uncle Armand told me that most of it had gone in some bad investments years ago."

Gio's face went hard. "Armand told you that?"

Mae shrugged. "I checked when he told me. He was right. There was only a couple of thousand left."

Gio sat back. "I wish that bastard wasn't dead so I could kill him myself."

Mae shook her head. "Just because my trust fund is empty, it doesn't necessarily mean that Armand stole it. And besides, it doesn't matter. It's gone. What matters is finding what happened to the money and the stuff that's disappeared lately. Mitch is looking for it, and if it can be found, he'll find it. He never gives up. Mitch makes pit bulls look flighty."

Carlo scowled at her from his end of the table.

"He takes good care of me, Carlo," Mae said soothingly. "And he never makes a pass. Never. He's a good detective."

"Does Claud know about the trust fund?" Gio's voice was short and cold, not the usual warm honey that flowed over her.

Mae blinked. "I suppose so. I never discussed it with him."

"Hmmph." Gio's eyes went to Carlo. "Armand."

"I know," Carlo said. "I told you we should have—"

"Never mind," Gio broke in. He turned back to Mae. "This P.I. He's not giving you any trouble?"

"I told you." Mae's voice was patient. "He's wonderful. He's funny and kind and smart and hardworking, and he never makes a pass, and he's doing everything he can to help me. He's wonderful." She stared down sadly at her lasagna.

Gio exchanged glances with Carlo. "Well, that's good. You let us know if he gets out of line."

"He won't get out of line," Mae said glumly. "He's a real gentleman."

"I'm going to kill him," Carlo said.

Mae looked up, startled. "Why?"

"It's just a figure of speech," Gio told her. "Just an expression." He glared at Carlo.

Mae cast a wary eye at Carlo. "Don't do anything, Carlo. I mean it."

Carlo frowned at his lasagna.

"Have some more lasagna," Gio said, heaping more on Mae's already laden plate. "It's good for you."

"I mean it, Carlo," Mae said.

"Eat!" Gio told her, and Mae picked up her fork and began to work her way through three pounds of lasagna.

"Why can't we eat someplace better than this?" Newton surveyed the clean, bright, plastic surroundings with distaste.

"Because this is what I can afford. Eat your Big Mac. You know you like it. You're just being a snob." Mitch bit into his sandwich, trying to ignore the fact that there wasn't enough room for his legs under the table.

"You've won the bet," Newton persisted. "You don't have to live like this anymore."

Mitch swallowed. "I like living like this. Now, concentrate. What would Armand have done with the stuff? Or with the money from the stuff."

Newton's eyes glazed over as he thought, and as he did, he absentmindedly bit into his sandwich, chewed and swallowed. "The missing items are paintings, antiques and collectibles, correct?"

"Correct."

"If he sold them, there will be a record of the sales. Try antique dealers, art galleries, known collectors. If you can't find any record of sales, look for well-guarded storage facilities and bank deposit boxes."

"And if I find out he's sold the stuff?"

"You know where to look. Swiss bank accounts, real estate purchases, bonds." Newton shook his head. "This doesn't make sense, Mitch. He wasn't planning on absconding. He was married. His position in the community meant a lot to him. If he were the type to swindle people and then go to Rio, I'd say that was what he was up to, but not Armand Lewis. He'd stay where being a Lewis meant something. It makes no sense that he'd be liquidating his estate."

"What if he was being blackmailed?" Mitch suggested. "What if he was paying somebody to keep his mouth shut?"

Newton shook his head. "Not Armand Lewis. He was used to risk. Not unless whoever it was had something that would really ruin him. Something that would put him in jail, for instance."

Mitch nodded. "Like the diary. The only problem is, he seems to have had the diary the night he died, and he'd been liquidating the estate for a couple of months. And if he was being blackmailed, it would make no sense to kill him. He'd be the goose that laid the golden eggs."

"Do you really think someone murdered him?" Newton sounded incredulous. "I thought that was Mabel's fantasy."

"Mabel is not a stupid woman." Mitch's voice was defensive. "Although I'm not even sure she really believes that he was murdered. She has ways that are murky. But there is something wrong here. Really wrong. And she's stuck in the middle of it." He looked at his sandwich, his appetite gone. "I think she's in trouble, Newton. I'm pretty sure that son of a bitch stole her trust fund. Unless I find out what he did with the cash he had, she's broke."

"Maybe she found out about the trust fund and killed him." Newton bit into his sandwich and missed the glare Mitch shot at him.

"Mabel did not kill her uncle. Gio might have if he'd had the chance. That quarter of a million must still rankle. Carlo would have killed him in a minute for turning him in to the police. Even Claud might have killed him to keep the family name from the gutter. But Mabel? Not a chance. She's a good woman, Newton."

Newton blinked at him. "I thought she was Brigid."

Mitch gazed at him in disgust. "Mabel is not Brigid. Stormy might be, though."

"Stormy doesn't have the concentration to be Brigid," Newton said flatly.

Mitch raised an eyebrow. "You've met Stormy?"

Newton shrugged. "Briefly. She's quite..."

"Harebrained?"

"Brains aren't everything."

Mitch shook his head in disbelief. "She got to you, too. I thought you'd be immune."

"Nonsense," Newton said.

And then he grinned.

"Yes," Mitch said, knowing that Mae would go ballistic at the thought of anyone taking care of her.

Well, what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Somewhere, Armand had stashed a hell of a lot of money.

His last call was at Stormy's condo, and she was delighted to see him.

"I can only stay a minute," he began, but she pulled him down beside her onto a huge overstuffed sofa and leaned into him, and for one confused moment, Mitch wasn't sure which was sofa and which was Stormy, there was so much softness pressing against him.

"I'm so glad you're here," Stormy breathed into his neck, and Mitch winced and pulled away a little. Her perfume was exotic, and a week ago he'd have been breathing deeply, but lately, he'd developed a preference for women who smelled like soap.

"I just have a couple of questions about Armand," he told her, and she leaned closer again. He felt her softness give against him and wondered once more why Armand had ever left her for Barbara. Then he wondered why he was wondering that instead of enjoying the experience of having Stormy climbing up his arm.

Stormy was evidently wondering the same thing; she pulled away from him, confusion evident in her eyes.

"Did Armand leave anything here?" he asked her. "A box, maybe, or an envelope?"

"No."

Stormy flounced a little on the sofa and everything shifted under her sweater, and Mitch noted it with appreciation and moved on. She was fun to look at, but she wasn't Mabel. "Did he leave—"

"He was never here," Stormy said impatiently. "All his stuff is at the town house. Harold packed up Armand's clothes in boxes, and put his stuff that wasn't clothes in another box, and threw out all his underwear and socks, and took the things in the box home with him, and that's all there was. Armand was never here. I like you a lot."

"Good," Mitch said absentmindedly. "I like you, too. Did he—"

Stormy's lips closed on his as she slithered into his lap, and his arms went around her automatically as all her pneumatic roundness pressed against him. "Mae said it was okay," she breathed into his ear.

"She said what?" Mitch said, outraged, and then Stormy kissed him again, and he concentrated on getting out of her octopus embrace so he could go yell at Mae for setting him up. He pulled his lips away from hers with an audible pop. "No. I'm really flattered, Stormy, but Mae lied. It's not okay."

Stormy slipped off his lap and onto the couch beside him. "Are you sure? She seemed sure."

Mitch stood up before she could leap on him again. "I'm sure. Listen, if you remember anything that Armand left behind, call me—uh, Mae. Call Mae, please. It's important."

Stormy frowned up at him. "Usually, men really like kissing me."

"And I did, too," Mitch assured her. "Absolutely. Well, I gotta go now." He beat a hasty retreat to the door, wondering in the back of his mind why he was fool enough to leave this beautiful woman, and knowing in the back of the back of his mind exactly why he was leaving her.

He was seeing too much of Mabel. She was clouding his thought processes, and he didn't have many to begin with. That was going to have to stop.

He got into his car and checked his watch. He was meeting Mae at eight, and he was definitely going to have to shave and shower before then so she couldn't smell Stormy's perfume on him. Not that she'd care. She'd told Stormy that it would be okay to rape him on a couch. Well, the hell with her. He wasn't even going to dress up to see her. He didn't care, either. Jeans and an old T-shirt, that would show her.

He sighed as he drove toward his apartment. Somehow, lately, all his thoughts of Mabel were depressing. He was definitely going to have to solve this case and stop seeing her.

But first, he had to see her.

"Hello, Mabel. Nice T-shirt," he said and she stood back to let him in, enjoying the fact that he was there and kicking herself for enjoying it.

"What did you find out?" she asked, trailing him into the library.

Mitch sat down and looked at her with sympathy, and she knew it was going to be bad. "He sold it all. I can't tell you if I tracked down everything until I get a look at your list, but I found where he offloaded most of the stuff you'd mentioned, like the Lempicka and the chess set."

Mae sank into a chair across from him. "So where's the money?"

Mitch sighed. "I looked. As far as I can tell, he doesn't have a stash. I even went to Stormy's new place—"

"Did you?" Mae said coolly.

"And she didn't know anything either. Which shouldn't have come as a surprise, somehow. Is she naturally dopey or does she have chemical assistance?"

"So how is Stormy?" Mae asked, steel in her voice.

"She's fine." Mitch seemed suddenly wary.

"Really." Mae tightened her lips. "How fine is she?"

Mitch blinked at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb." Mae scowled at him. "I've seen your real dumb, and this is not it. How was she in bed?"

"What?"

Mae began to tap her foot. "I said, how was she in bed?"

Mitch tried to look injured and innocent. "I wouldn't know."

"She didn't make a pass at you?"

"Of course not." Mitch swallowed.

"You're lying."

"Everybody lies. Except me. Can we talk about something else?"

"No. I'm paying for this information." Mae took a deep breath. "Did you sleep with her?"

"No." Mitch scowled at her. "Not that it's any of your business, boss, but no, I didn't."

Mae bunked at him. "You know, I believe you."

"Thank you."

She sat back in her chair, irrationally relieved. "So what was the problem? Was it a lousy pass?"

"No." Mitch surrendered. "It was a great pass. She's a very warm woman."

"Hot," Mae corrected.

"Throbbing," Mitch agreed.

"So what went wrong? Was it because she wasn't a librarian?"

Mitch shrugged. "I wasn't."

"Wasn't what? A librarian?"

"Throbbing." Mitch sank down a little into his seat. "Could we talk about something else?"

"No. Why weren't you throbbing?"

"Well, I'm not sure." Mitch's exasperation was apparent. "I think you've made me impotent."

"Oh." Mae smiled complacently. "That's nice."

Mitch shot her a nasty look. "My day rate just doubled."

Mae ignored him. "So she couldn't make you throb, huh?"

"I was concentrating on my work. Nobody makes me throb when I'm working. I'm a pro." Mae smiled at him, and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Forget it, cookie. You're not my type. Now can we get back to Armand?"

"Sure." Mae felt cheerful for the first time in days. "What do you want?"

"I want to see that box of Armand's things that Harold brought back from the town house."

Mae shook her head. "Mitch, there's nothing in there. I looked, Harold looked—"

"And now I want to look. Do you want to sit here and explain to me why I don't need to look at the box before we go get it, or do you want to just cut to the chase and go get it?"

Mae sighed. "I'll go get it."

"Good for you, Mabel." Mitch nodded at her approvingly. "You're learning. Slowly, but you're learning."