Wendy Delaney - Working Stiffs 02 - Sex, Lies, and Snickerdoodles Page 16

  “There’s a work thing that I’m trying to figure out,” I said to him with a nod, my promise to him that I’d make this as quick as I could.

  He reached for his coffee cup. “Shoot.”

  I didn’t want to supply Gossip Central with any new information about the night Russell Falco died, so I knew I needed to proceed with caution. “You’ve done your fair share of fishing out on Merritt Bay.”

  Alice cocked her head. “This is about fishing?”

  In a roundabout way. “Sort of. It’s about boating.”

  “That leaves me out of it,” she said, flattening another ball of dough with her rolling pin.

  Duke waggled his bushy silver eyebrows at me. “You, young lady, have come to the right place.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I scooted my wooden stool a little closer to him so that I could paint him a picture in the layer of flour coating the table. “Here’s the scenario: It’s nighttime, and a guy is alone on his motorboat and is heading back to the marina after being out on Merritt Bay for a couple of hours of fishing.” I drew a line in the white dust with my index finger while using a strip of dough to serve as my marina. “Halfway there he turns off his engine and drifts for a while.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” Duke asked.

  “That’s what I want to know.”

  He frowned at my flour dust scene. “It’s dark, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Shouldn’t be much to see. A mechanical problem would be my guess. If he smelled or heard something he might stop to take a look at the engine—”

  “The engine’s running fine.”

  “Then … hell, I don’t know. Maybe he dropped something and was shining a flashlight in the water to look for it.”

  “Maybe.” Since Russell’s cell phone was missing it would be impossible to prove that he didn’t drop it into the water.

  “What if Russell wasn’t out there alone?” Alice asked, leaning on her rolling pin.

  “Uh …” I had a sinking feeling my hypothetical jig was up.

  She met my gaze. “That’s who we’re talking about, right?”

  I nodded. “But everything else in this conversation is strictly speculation.”

  “Fine, then put this into your speculation pipe and smoke it,” Alice said. “There’s no reason Russell couldn’t have met up with another boater and he shut his engine off to talk for a few minutes.”

  I turned to my great-uncle. “What do you think?”

  “We could practically hear his twin diesels from here.” Duke pushed off his stool. “So if he wanted to carry on a conversation with somebody, that’s as good a reason as any.”

  And certainly better than anything that I’d come up with because it opened up another possibility—the person responsible for Russell Falco’s death could have been on that other boat.

  After picking up a replacement roll of antacids at Clark’s Pharmacy on my way to the office, I turned left on 3rd to see if Steve’s cruiser occupied its usual spot in the police station parking lot. Fortunately for me it did. Even more fortunately, I’d arrived with reinforcements.

  “Hey, Wanda,” I said to the chief’s secretary, poking her head out from behind her computer monitor when the door chime announced my arrival.

  “Mornin’, Char.” Her watchful eyes zeroed in on the white bakery bag and to-go cup in my hands like they had the dozen times over the summer that I had made deliveries for Duke. Luckily, Wanda didn’t have x-ray vision or she would have seen me carrying two hard-boiled eggs—my diet breakfast I’d planned to have at my desk.

  I raised the bag and cup to the video camera mounted in the corner. “Special delivery for Detective Sixkiller. Buzz me in?”

  Wanda hit the button next to her desk that released the security door separating John Q. Public from the restricted area of the fourteen-person police force. “I don’t see how that boy’s cholesterol isn’t up to the moon with all the junk food you bring him.”

  “Tell me about it.” I headed down a narrow hallway, hoping he’d never tip her off that not one of these deliveries had been his idea.

  “Knock, knock,” I said, rapping on Steve’s open door. “Since I missed you at breakfast, I thought you might be hungry.”

  Looking over his computer monitor, his eyes narrowed as they raked over me. “What happened to you after I left last night? You look like that chocolatini thing kicked you to the curb.”

  And then teamed up with the calzone to land several kidney punches.

  I turned up the wattage of my smile, which probably would have been a more effective look if I’d applied some lipstick before I left the house. “I’m perfectly hunky dory.”

  “Sure you are.” He reached for the bag. “What’ve you got?”

  “Breakfast.”

  Steve opened the bag. “This has to be the worst bribe I’ve ever seen.”

  I snatched back the bag and plopped down in the hardback chair opposite him. “Okay, so it’s my breakfast.”

  He popped the top of my coffee cup and took a sip. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this very bad bribe?”

  “I’d like to continue the conversation we were having last night.”

  “Yeah? I think I’ve already said everything I want to on that subject.”

  Truer words had probably never been spoken, but I still needed him to talk. “I’d like the names of the teenagers who were joyriding in their dad’s boat early Saturday morning.”

  He set the to-go cup in front of me and then leaned back in his chair. “Why?”

  “I want to talk to them, find out what else they might have seen that night.”

  “I’ve already taken their statements.”

  “May I have a copy?”

  “Nope.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ve done your job and it’s time to stop playing junior investigator.”

  “I’ll have you know that an important part of my job is to interview witnesses on behalf of the County Coroner so that she can make informed decisions as to the cause of death.” She hadn’t exactly told me that in so many words, but I thought it sounded good. “And if I think there are still some unanswered questions about what happened that night—”

  “If there are, they won’t be asked by you.”

  “You know what? You’re being a real jerk about this.”

  His lips stretched into a lopsided grin. “Jerk? We’re not talking about sharing toys here.”

  Springing up from my chair, I grabbed the paper sack and the to-go cup. “I know! We’re talking about you not being willing to work with me on this case.”

  Steve crossed his office in three long strides and shut the door. “Let’s get something straight,” he said, looming over me. “We aren’t partners. There’s not even a case!”

  “Obviously! But those kids could have seen another boat that night—a boat that hightailed it out of there before Pete Lackey came along.”

  Steve’s mouth twitched a split second before he clamped it shut, and I knew that I’d just hit a bulls-eye.

  “Ha!” I pointed at his mouth, creating a mini coffee tsunami that sloshed over my wrist. “I’m right, aren’t I? They saw something.”

  “No.” He took the cup from me and passed me a tissue from the box behind his desk. “And stop dripping on my carpet.”

  “What do you mean, no?” I asked, mopping up as he drank my coffee.

  “I already asked. They didn’t see any other boats in the area.”

  “What about their father back at the marina? He might have—”

  “Nothing there either. The boys pulled into the slip. He chewed them out there at the dock like you’d expect, then he escorted their asses home. End of story.”

  “Doesn’t mean that another boat couldn’t have come and gone a few minutes before the boys came along. I don’t think there was much of a moon that night. And being kids, with beer I assume … ?”

  I got a grunt accompanied by a lit
tle nod, which I interpreted to mean that they were being typical teenage boys with access to Dad’s mini-fridge. “So they probably weren’t paying a lot of attention until they spotted Russell Falco’s running lights.”

  “Well, Deputy, that’s not bad deductive reasoning … for a rookie.”

  I didn’t bother admitting that I’d had a little help from Alice and Duke. “Gee, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s not get carried away here. I told you the truth last night when I said that we don’t have any witnesses to suggest that this is anything other than an accident.”

  “But you don’t believe that it’s an accident any more than I do.”

  “I believe what the evidence tells me,” he said, his lips inches away from mine.

  “Uh-huh. I believe what I see, too, but sometimes that doesn’t tell the whole story.”

  Smiling, he opened the door. “Have a nice day. And thanks for the coffee.”

  I arrived at work ten minutes later to Patsy crooking her finger at me.

  “We have a little emergency,” she said with a wolfish gleam in her brown eyes.

  I had a bad feeling that my nice day was about to be sliced, diced, and fricasseed, especially after I followed her swaying hips to the copy room.

  She then left me alone with a box full of manila folders bulging like overstuffed strudel and a copier bigger than Duke’s two industrial ovens, along with instructions to make two copies of everything.

  Four hours later, that copier was putting out heat like one of those ovens, making me feel like a well-roasted eggplant. With both of us in need of a cooling off period, I drove to my grandmother’s house for lunch and a thirty minute power nap.

  “What good timing!” my mother exclaimed when I stepped through the back door. “Never mind, Mama. Charmaine can take me.”

  Standing in front of the refrigerator as if she wanted to crawl inside the stainless steel box to avoid this conversation, my grandmother rolled her eyes. “Lucky you.”

  Since the stories about Marietta totaling two of my grandparents’ cars got retold at every family wedding and funeral, she knew better than to ask for the keys to Gram’s Honda. But that meant I’d frequently receive the dubious honor of providing her my chauffeuring services.

  “Do you want me to drop you somewhere on my way back to the office?” I asked her.

  Marietta’s unnaturally white teeth clenched into a tense smile. “Not exactly and if we’re going to get there on time, we should leave in the next five minutes.” Dropping the smile, she squinted, scrutinizing me from head to toe “Plenty of time for you to … freshen up. Honestly, sugah, you don’t look so good.”

  Like she was telling me something I didn’t know. “I’m as fresh as I’m going to get today.”

  “Okay.” Her tone dripped with disapproval. “Then let’s go.”

  “I haven’t had lunch yet.” Something my growling stomach had been insisting upon the last couple of hours and had no intention of being denied.

  “Want me to make you a sandwich, honey?” Gram asked.

  “There’s no time for that, Mama. I’ll buy her drive-through.” The gold bangles at Marietta’s wrist clattered as she skittered to my car as fast as her five-inch stilettos would carry her.

  I turned to my grandmother. “What’s this about?”

  She shrugged. “I know as much about it as you do.”

  Criminy. I followed my mother out the door. “Why the big hurry?”

  “I have a meeting in Port Townsend.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. Ever since she’d slipped off the B-list, Marietta Moreau didn’t have meetings unless divorce attorneys were present.

  Sliding behind the wheel of my Jaguar, I watched as she checked her lipstick in the passenger side mirror. “What kind of meeting?”

  “A business meeting.” She flicked her left wrist, the clanging bangles setting my teeth on edge. “Come on, let’s go.”

  “Anyone else joining you at this meeting?” I asked as I pulled out of the driveway.

  “No.”

  “What about your agent and your business manager? Do they know about this?”

  “My business manager! I should’ve fired his ass years ago, before …

  “Before what?”

  She shook her head, her jawline set like tempered steel. “I made a mistake not letting your grandmother drive me. There wouldn’t have been such a third degree.”

  She and I both knew that was a lie. Ben Santiago had nothing on Gram when it came to cross-examination.

  “So where in Port Townsend is this meeting being held?” I was pretty familiar with the gallery and restaurant district of downtown, but the outlying areas not so much.

  “The Grotto. It’s near the waterfront from what I was told.”

  “I know it.” I had interviewed for a job there when I first moved back to Port Merritt. Nice place but spendy. Whoever had arranged this meeting would be dropping some big bucks for lunch.

  After a few moments of silence, I noticed my mother fidgeting with her engagement ring.

  Crap. She looked as nervous as the first time I accompanied her to an audition.

  “Do you want me to go in with you?” Marietta appeared to need an ally and I’d at least get an overpriced salad out of the deal.

  She patted me on the thigh. “That’s sweet of you to offer, but Lance is expecting just me.”

  “Lance Greenwood, that artist?”

  “Of course. What other Lance do I know around here?”

  “What does he want?” And it had better not be any more of her money.

  “All he mentioned when I ran into him yesterday was an opportunity that might be mutually beneficial. That’s worth a listen, don’t you think? Plus I’ll get a free lunch.”

  As my grandfather used to tell me, there was no such thing as a free lunch.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “About time you got home,” my grandmother grumbled as I schlepped in two bags of groceries from my car.

  Was I that late? I glanced at the clock on my way to the refrigerator. Nope, since it was only five fifty-two I had a feeling that I wasn’t the source of Gram’s irritation.

  “We needed a few things.” At the top of my list was my mother’s seltzer water that was in my best interest to replace before she noticed it was missing. The bottle of aspirin I’d picked up for my copy machine-sized headache ran a close second.

  “Did you buy more water?” Marietta asked from the living room.

  Busted. “Yep.”

  “Her and her fancy water.” Gram took a mallet to the skirt steak on the cutting board in front of her like she was playing Whack-a-Mole. “What’s needed most around here is for everyone to exercise a little common sense!”

  Marietta stood at the kitchen door, her green eyes firing daggers at her mother. “Hand me one of those waters if you would please, Chahmaine.”

  Knowing it was prudent for me to do my best Switzerland impression during this kitchen range war, I passed her a bottle. “I take it your meeting with Lance Greenwood went well?”

  She sat at the kitchen table and took a sip. “It went very well, thank you.” She aimed a frosty glare at Gram. “Despite what some people think.”

  “There is nothing good about a man you’ve known for less than a week asking for money,” Gram said, taking another whack at our dinner. “Although, heaven knows you’ve had plenty of experience in that department.”

  Oh, Gram. Low blow.

  “He’s not asking for a handout, Mama! It’s an investment opportunity.”

  I took the seat next to Marietta. “What exactly are we talking about?”

  She brightened. “Lance is putting a small investment group together to buy the Benoit Art Gallery here in town and expand it into a performing arts center and—”

  “And by small investment group,” Gram chimed in, “she means he’s trolling the local waters for whales to back this grand scheme of his.”

>   My mother was more of a minnow than a whale, but since that wasn’t the impression she’d left Lance with last Saturday, I wasn’t surprised he’d put her on his short list of potential investors.

  “Mama, really! You don’t need to make him sound so … mercenary.”

  “I can only call it as I see it,” Gram said. “He’s clearly someone with big ideas—in this case, a big expensive one—and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn’t cost you anything.”

  Especially given her poor investment track record.

  “Sounds very ambitious.” And much like the restaurant he chose to reel in his whales, very spendy.

  “Maybe a little ambitious but nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Marietta averted her gaze and inspected a lacquered nail. “Plus it could be a wonderful opportunity since both Lance and I are in the process of putting down roots in the community.”

  Stated with all the conviction she could infuse into each word, but the way my mother was chewing on her lower lip told me Gram and I weren’t the ones she was trying to convince.

  “But you can’t afford to do this,” I said, gently stating the obvious before Gram came over with her meat mallet to beat this expensive pipedream out of her daughter. “Can you?”

  Marietta shrugged. “Probably not, but I told Lance that I’d think about it.”

  “More importantly.” Gram whacked the skirt steak like she wanted to get my mother’s undivided attention. “What did you tell Barry when he came to pick you up?”

  Marietta focused on her water bottle. “That I’d had a successful afternoon of shopping, which I did after lunch, so—”

  “Mary Jo!” Gram dropped the mallet on the counter. “He’s the one that you’d be putting down these roots with and you still haven’t told him about your financial situation?”

  My mother’s eyes widened, her face flushing to match her strawberry red lipstick. “Mama, we are not discussing that right now!”

  “I already know,” I admitted. “And Gram was right to tell me.”

  Her gold bangles clanging, Marietta folded her arms under her double Ds and glared at her mother. “Is anyone else around here privy to what was supposed to have been a private conversation?”