Body Movers (17 page)

Carlotta shuddered, then looked at Wesley. “Do you see

your boss’s vehicle?”

“No, but he’s probably parked near the house.”

“I’l pul over and wait a few minutes. If you don’t come

back or call my cel , I’l know you found him and I’l go.”

He sighed. “You worry too much.”

“I know. Go.”

He scrambled out of the vehicle and disappeared down

the driveway. Carlotta pul ed over to the curb and put the

car into Park, giving the cop a little wave. Headlights shone

in her rearview mirror, and then a car parked behind her.

A suited man climbed out and walked by her car, his

destination obviously the house. With a shock she realized

it was Detective Jack Terry, just as he turned and

recognized her. He stopped and tapped on her window.

Reluctantly, she zoomed it down.

“Ms. Wren, what are you doing here?”

“Just dropping off my brother, Detective. He got a job with

a local funeral home operator who contracts with the

morgue to…uh…move bodies.”

He pursed his mouth. “Did he now? Wel , that explains

why a hearse was parked in front of your place a couple of

days ago.”

She glared. “Stop spying on us.”

His gaze raked over the Monte Carlo and one side of his

mouth lifted. “I like the car—not exactly what I thought

you’d be driving, though.”

She put her hand on the gearshift to keep from swinging at

him. “Good night, Detective.”

Suddenly another set of headlights shone in her rearview

mirror, these from a smaller car approaching very fast.

Detective Terry flattened himself against the Monte Carlo

as the little car careened past and screeched to a halt at a

haphazard angle, leaving the smel of burnt rubber in the

air. It was a dark Porsche, but she couldn’t discern the

model.

“Looks like the husband is home,” the detective said, his

voice rueful. “This is always the hard part.”

Carlotta felt an unexpected stab of compassion for the

detective as he walked toward the man who flung himself

out of the car. How horrible it must be to work with angry,

distraught, and sometimes violent people, day in and day

out.

And based on the body language of the man who was

trying to push past the detective, those were just the

survivors.

Riveted, she watched as Detective Terry visibly tried to

calm the man. They were about the same height, but the

detective’s bulk gave him the advantage of leverage. He

led the man to where they could look down upon the

house. From the way the man bent over and gripped his

knees, she presumed they could see the pool from where

they stood—and the body. Then the husband turned, as

though to gather himself, and lifted his head in Carlotta’s

direction.

The breath froze in her chest as recognition slammed into

her.

Peter Ashford, looking disheveled and inebriated.

She glanced at the monstrous house, eerily il uminated by

uplights and headlights. This was Peter’s house?

Which meant, she realized with dawning horror, that the

woman who was dead was…Angela Ashford.

14

The lost look on Peter’s face made Carlotta’s heart swell in

agony. Before she had time to think, she was out of the car

and moving toward him in the semidarkness. “Peter?”

He turned at the sound of her voice and when he saw her,

his face creased in confusion. “Carlotta? What are you

doing here?”

“I dropped off Wesley. He’s here…in an official capacity,”

she said vaguely. “We had no idea this was your

house…that Angela—” She broke off, at a loss for words.

He embraced her and she could feel desperation palpating

through his heated skin. She could also smel the gin on his

breath and on his shirt. He was drunk, and she wondered

how much his clinging to her was to keep himself upright.

Then he buried his face in her hair and pul ed her body

against his. She ached to give him the comfort he sought,

but when she realized that Detective Terry was gaping at

them, she reluctantly pul ed away and cleared her throat.

Detective Terry’s eyebrows sat high on his forehead. “I

take it you two know each other?”

“Old friends,” Carlotta supplied quickly, then her gaze

caught on the pool about twenty yards below them,

shrouded in the mist that rose from the surface of the

heated water. Angela’s body, clad in black, lay on the pale

background of the concrete pool surround, her limbs at

awkward angles. Carlotta swallowed hard against the cold

truth that Angela was dead.

Peter looked at the scene and dragged his hand down his

face. “I have to go to her,” he said, and the detective

relented with a nod, falling into step behind him.

Carlotta didn’t know whether to stay or to go, or to walk

down with the men. She didn’t relish seeing the body up

close, but she also didn’t want to just leave. She hugged

herself, running her hands up and down her arms to ward

off the damp chil that blanketed everything that didn’t

move—which would include Angela’s body, she noted

rueful y.

Peter turned back. “Carlotta…I could use a friend right

now.”

She hesitated, darting a glance at the detective, who

looked extremely irritated at the idea of her going with

them.

“Try to stay out of the way,” Detective Terry said, then

continued tromping down the incline.

She fol owed them, careful to stay behind while stil in

Peter’s peripheral vision. She couldn’t take her eyes off

him. He seemed so…so…disconnected. She wondered if he

was in shock. No tears, no prostrate hysterics. Maybe the

alcohol had numbed his senses, but back when they had

dated, alcohol had always made him more emotional.

He moved like an automaton, staring straight ahead, his

hands hanging limply by his sides as he walked by the

vehicles parked in the paved turnaround in front of the

house, including a car with the medical examiner’s shield

on the side and a plain white van that Carlotta assumed

belonged to Cooper Craft. As they approached the tall

wrought-iron fence that enclosed the pool, Carlotta

glanced around nervously.

She took in the palatial lines of the brick house, the

sweeping steps that led from the turnaround, the huge

fountain, the two-story entryway and the soaring Palladian

windows, eerily dark. The house looked cold,

empty…dead. By contrast, the gated pool area adjacent to

the house was blazing with lights, the deep water an

unnatural blue. With steam rising from the surface, the

water resembled a witch’s cauldron. Taking deep breaths

against the turmoil in her stomach, she fol owed the men

down a short lighted stone path to a gate that had been

propped open. The scent of chlorine burned the air, which

seemed swol en with humidity and sadness.

Wesley and Cooper stood off to the side of the pool next

to a small waterfall, apparently waiting for the police to

complete their investigation. A youngish man with Medical

Examiner on his jacket stood over Angela’s body, taking

photos. Carlotta made eye contact with Wesley, who

looked confused at her appearance. Then his gaze went to

Peter and back to her, wide-eyed. She nodded, trying to

answer the questions that must be whirling through his

mind, and walked over to where they stood.

“Isn’t that Peter Ashford?” Wesley whispered.

“Yes,” she murmured.

“And that’s his wife?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus,” Wesley said. “Nice place.”

“Wesley!”

He looked contrite and pressed his lips together.

“Do you know the family?” Cooper asked them asked

under his breath.

“That’s sis’s old boyfriend,” Wesley offered. “The one she

was crying—”

“Do you know what happened?” she cut in, shooting

Wesley a lethal look.

“Accidental drowning is what I was told,” Cooper offered

quietly. “She must have fallen in.”

Her gaze cut to Angela’s stil body and the gray wetness

around her on the concrete from her saturated clothing.

When she’d been shopping for swimsuits, Angela had

mentioned that she didn’t know how to swim. She was stil

wearing the chunky-heeled black knee boots that Carlotta

had sold to her—they must have felt like lead when she’d

gone under the surface of the water. The pool was about

twenty-five feet wide—she would have been a mere

body’s length from safety. The vision sent a shudder

through Carlotta. The entire scene was surreal, an

unimaginable nightmare.

“The maid found her,” Wesley added, nodding to an open

sliding glass door leading into the house. A small, older

woman stood in the doorway, her shoulders hunched, a

handkerchief covering her face.

The uniformed officers apparently had been waiting for

Detective Terry to arrive because when they saw him, they

straightened from the body. Peter’s knees buckled and

Detective Terry steadied him, guiding him toward the

open door into the expansive house. She heard the

detective say something about coffee. The maid scurried

aside and turned on a light. The wall facing the pool was

made almost completely of glass. From where Carlotta

stood, she saw Peter sink into a chair around a table in a

room that appeared to be a sunroom or a casual dining

room. He covered his face with his hands.

Carlotta’s body strained toward him, but she forced her

attention away from the man with whom she had been so

recently and so bizarrely reunited and back to the scene

unfolding around the pool.

The officers talking to Detective Terry gestured toward the

water, perhaps indicating where they had found the body.

At the end of the pool sat an outdoor kitchen with a stone

fireplace, appliances and a bar. From her vantage point

she could see at least two bottles of gin, along with a silver

flask that looked like the one Angela had drunk from in the

dressing room. Behind the bar area was a small cottage—

the guesthouse, Carlotta presumed, recalling what Peter

had said about the pool addition being more than he had

envisioned.

But she silently applauded Angela’s ambition. It was a

garden paradise, with huge sago palms in clay pots, beds

of lush flowers and a flagstone path to a hot tub lined with

mosaic tiles. It was a picture out of Better Home and

Gardens…except for the body lying poolside. Angela

Ashford hadn’t lived to enjoy the luxurious addition to her

posh home.

Next to the pool, Detective Terry had been in discussion

with the medical examiner, and now knelt over the body,

pulling a set of plastic gloves from his jacket pocket. He

snapped them on and lifted the mass of golden hair that

had fal en across Angela’s neck. Then he lifted her lifeless

hands, one at a time. Carlotta tried to reconcile the stil

form lying on the concrete with the animated, angry

woman who had been so alive just hours ago. Her stomach

rol ed, sending acid to the back of her throat; she thought

she might be sick.

“Maybe you should go,” Cooper suggested quietly, his

mouth near her ear. “This isn’t something that everyone

should see, especially if you have a connection to the

deceased.”

She nodded, breathing deeply, and turned to leave. She

walked to the open door where Peter sat, staring off into

the distance, his jaw clenched. He looked up and a

desperate look came into his eyes. He lifted his hand to

her. With her heart clicking, she stepped into the house,

immediately assailed by a sense of grandeur—the scale of

the woodlined ceilings alone was awe-inspiring.

“Wil you close the door?” he asked, turning his head

away.

She did, glad to shut out the sounds of hushed voices and

staticky police radios. The vacuum of the door closing

sealed her into a room where the air was surprisingly stale,

as if the house was rarely used. Through the wide doorway

in the back of the room Carlotta caught a glimpse of the

maid bustling around in a large kitchen. Hallways and

stairways that extended out of her line of vision spoke of

the house’s spaciousness. The scent of strong coffee

wafted on the air.

The room she stood in was another designer feat, a den

with a soaring brick fireplace, built-in cherry-wood

cabinets jammed with expensive-looking bric-a-brac, over-

stuffed leather couches and chairs, plus a long carved

mahogany table and twelve matching chairs. Peter sat in

the chair near the end of the table, his back to the pool,

fingering the tip of a flower in what had to be the most

hideously huge silk flower arrangement that Carlotta had

ever seen.

“We argued about this stupid flower arrangement,” he

said, stil staring straight ahead.

She stood motionless, letting him talk.

“It didn’t matter that it was ugly,” he said with a laugh.

“What mattered was that some upscale florist came to our

house and designed it especially for Angela. He even gave