Close Knit Killer (7 page)

Seven

Ke
lly
leaned against the faux granite kitchen counter and looked out into what would soon
be Jennifer and Pete’s great room. Jennifer was right. The living and dining rooms
were more spacious than normally found in most smaller three-bedroom houses. Another
tribute to Steve’s architectural ingenuity.

Right now, the entire great room was filled with boxes, boxes, and more boxes as her
friends unpacked books, files, decorative objects, framed pictures, maps, and more
books. A sofa, love seat, two chairs, and several bookcases were barely visible beneath
the boxes.

“Okay, for drinks I’ve got three super-sized iced coffees, two diet colas, and one
lemonade,” Kelly read from the small memo pad in her hand. And six super burritos,
two Mexicali, two beef and cheddar, two veggie. Did I forget anything?”

“Yeah, bring one of Pete’s pies, preferably blueberry.” Marty looked up from the box
of books he was unpacking.

“And don’t forget vanilla ice cream,” Greg added, as he pulled a framed map of the
United States from a packing box.

“You guys,” Lisa chided, lifting a large garment bag from the sofa. “Can’t you wait
till dinner tonight for dessert?”

Marty looked at her, horrified.
“Blasphemy!”

“We need sustenance for the last laps,” Greg added, setting the map against the wall.

“You better not drip any berry juice on the furniture,” Megan warned as she pulled
out a desk drawer, then placed several files inside it. “I’ll be checking.”

“Will she really?” Greg asked Marty.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Dude, how do you stand that?”

Marty grinned. “She looks so cute when she’s annoyed. Sometimes I drip stuff on purpose.”

“What!”
Megan stared at him, aghast.

“That’s cute?” Greg pointed to Megan’s half-annoyed, half-shocked expression.

“Oh, yeah.”

Greg shook his head, opening another packing box. “You two are seriously strange.”
He lifted some hardcover books from the box. “Hey, they’ve got a collection of Charles
Dickens classics. I may ask to borrow one of these.”

“Better check the title page,” Steve advised as he lifted two metal bed rails to his
shoulder. “Pete collects old books with original engravings. I don’t think he’ll lend
you those.”

Greg flipped to the title page of the hardbound book and his eyes widened. “Whoa,
eighteen seventy-six!” He turned the page. “Wow, look at this.” He pointed to a surrounding
page with an engraved picture.

Steve paused on his way to the master bedroom. “I told you. Be careful with those.
Now, who wants to help me set up the queen bed?”

“I will,” Lisa volunteered, following Steve. “Now that you mention it, I didn’t see
any other beds at their apartment. The kid needs a bed.”

“Ooooh, good catch,” Megan said, glancing around. “We have a fold-up cot in the garage.
But a bed would be better.”

“I’ve got one in storage,” Steve called from the bedroom. “We can bring it tomorrow.”

“I’d better go get the food,” Kelly said as she grabbed her car keys and cell phone.
“We don’t want Marty keeling over from hunger.”

“You need any money, Kelly?” Lisa asked, from the door of the bedroom.

“Naw, my treat,” Kelly said, walking toward the well-lit foyer.

“Why don’t you call in the order before you leave?” Marty suggested. “My stomach’s
growling already.”

Kelly laughed as she headed out the door. Once outside, however, she scrolled through
her phone’s directory and punched in the café’s number. She might as well give the
grill cooks a head start on those burritos.

She settled in her car, which was parked in front of the cozy and comfortable ranch-style
house on the corner of Steve’s Wellesley development. It was only two blocks from
the house where Steve and Kelly lived and one block from both Lisa and Greg’s home
and Megan and Marty’s.

The phone at Pete’s café rang several times. Saturday lunch crunch, Kelly surmised,
and waited. Finally she recognized Julie’s voice answer. “Hey, Julie. Kelly, here.
I’ve got a big order for the gang. We’re moving Jen and Pete today, remember? We started
at seven this morning, and we’ve been living on donuts. Time for some real food.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sure, Kelly. Tell me what you’ve got, and I’ll get Eduardo and
Frank right on it.”

Kelly recited the lunch order. “I’m in Wellesley now, so I should be there in ten
minutes or so. Depending on traffic, of course. On a gorgeous summer Saturday, there’s
usually lots of people and lots of cars.”

“All right, I’ll tell them to get right on it. Oh, you’ll have to enter through the
Lemay Avenue driveway. Police have blocked off the Lincoln Avenue entrance entirely.
Customers from the café and the shop are parking along the Lemay driveway and onto
the grass. It’s a mess.”

It took a few seconds for Julie’s words to sink in. “Why did police block off the
Lincoln entrance? Is there a marathon going along that route or something?”

“I wish it were. Some guy died in his car last night, I guess. He was parked next
to the trees across the driveway from Lambspun’s front door. I haven’t had time to
even go look outside, we’ve been so slammed with customers. But early this morning,
one of the temp waitresses said she talked to police when she walked over from the
bus stop. It must have been six o’clock.”

“Good Lord! Did he commit suicide or something? Who would park in our driveway and
do that?”

“Who knows, Kelly. I gotta get back to work. See you in a few minutes.” Julie clicked
off.

Kelly tossed her phone to the adjoining car seat, then revved her car’s engine. What
on earth would possess someone to end it all in a parking lot?

* * *

“I’ll
be back in a few minutes, guys,” Kelly told the busy grill cooks. “I’ve gotta go
see what’s happening outside.”

“Nothing to see, Kelly,” Eduardo said, deftly sliding a veggie-stuffed omelet onto
a plate. “Frank checked a few minutes ago, and the cops have taken everything away.
Ambulance came for the guy’s body over an hour ago, I think.”

“Yeah, and the tow truck was hooking up to take the car away,” the thin, bearded man
said as he turned sausages on the grill. Pete’s homemade sausage patties sizzled,
emitting a savory sage-and-herb aroma into the air. Kelly’s nostrils twitched. Breakfast
temptations started warring with the lunch aromas floating through the café.

“Well, I’ll see if Rosa or Connie know anything,” Kelly said, as she headed for the
hallway that led to Lambspun.

As she neared the classroom area, she spotted Rosa supervising a woman working on
one of the small portable looms. She must be teaching a Saturday class, Kelly decided,
and veered back toward the yarn rooms at the front of the shop. She skirted around
the Mother Loom and the shelves filled with cones of colorful threads and trims and
lacy ribbons of yarn. Through the opening into the front room, Kelly spotted Connie
behind the counter helping a customer. Four more customers waited patiently in line.
Two of them stood staring out through the large, multipaned front windows.

Kelly gave Connie a wave and walked to the window to look out. Three police officers
were outside, along with two suited men, whom Kelly figured were detectives. She didn’t
recognize either man. But she did recognize something else. A tow truck was sitting
at the end of the driveway, which opened to Lincoln Avenue. The driver obviously was
waiting for a policeman to remove all the orange-and-white traffic cones that had
blocked the entrance.

Kelly stared at the dark car that was being towed by the truck. It was a familiar
design. A popular and expensive road car. A high-performance European road car. Exactly
like Jared Rizzoli’s car. She stared at the license plate and glimpsed the last three
digits—592—before the truck pulled the car around the corner onto the street. Kelly
couldn’t remember ever noticing Rizzoli’s license plate, but something about those
three digits looked slightly familiar.

Kelly glanced back at Connie, choosing her words carefully. “I think I recognize that
car, Connie. How about you?”

Connie looked up from the skein of bright daffodil yellow yarn she was holding and
met Kelly’s gaze. She nodded. “Ohhhh, yeah. So do I. It’s him.”

“Who’s ‘him’?” a woman in line asked Kelly.

“Just some guy who showed up here in the shop looking for someone who owned a piece
of canyon property. He wanted to buy it, from what I heard,” Connie replied.

The woman glanced to a younger woman standing in front of her. “I wonder if he was
killed over a piece of land?”

The young woman shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time. This is the West. People
fight over land and water.”

Kelly zeroed in on their conversation. “Uh, excuse me, but did you say ‘kill’? I thought
it might be suicide.”

“Nope,” the young woman said authoritatively. “I was walking through the garden trying
to get into the shop by way of the café. And I heard one of the cops talking on his
cell phone. I distinctly heard him say the guy was killed.”

Another woman who was browsing among the assortment of knitting needles and crochet
hooks turned around. “And I saw the medics removing his body to the stretcher. There
was a lot of blood on the front of his suit.”

Kelly simply stared at them as those images formed in her mind. It was clear that
Jared Rizzoli had enemies. He’d cheated scores of people in town. Many lives were
ruined. But, still . . . “Why would someone kill him in the Lambspun parking lot?
It doesn’t make sense.”

“Look around,” the younger woman said, gesturing outside to the driveway and golf
course adjacent. “Lots of trees and bushes over in that spot. Later in the day, not
that many people are playing golf. It’s not full summertime light yet. Someone could
have killed him that evening when everyone here and in the café was gone. No one would
see them or find him.”

The older woman standing beside Kelly shivered visibly. “That sounds awful.”

Kelly watched the policemen and detectives conferring. “Have the police asked you
and Rosa anything?”

“They sure did,” Connie said as she handed a package with a Lambspun sheep logo to
her customer. “They came in around nine o’clock this morning and questioned Rosa and
me. I told them I didn’t even notice the car when I came in because I drove in through
the Lemay Avenue entrance. And Rosa did, too. So, neither of us saw anything. And
once we opened the shop, it’s been nonstop busy with customers, so we haven’t had
time to look out the windows.” Connie picked up the skein of yarn the next customer
in line handed her.

“Don’t be surprised if they come again with more questions,” Kelly advised. “From
my experience, police detectives keep asking questions as they investigate and learn
more.”

“Have you ever been questioned by the police?” The older woman next to Kelly stared,
clearly apprehensive.

Kelly had to smile. “Only as a witness, not as a suspect, thank heavens.” She declined
to go into detail. “Incidentally, have you called Mimi and Burt to tell them?” she
asked Connie.

Connie made a face. “Not yet. I really hate to spoil their mini-vacation, but I guess
I have to. I’ll wait till five o’ clock, right before we close up.”

“That’s a good idea to wait until later, Connie. Otherwise Burt would be itching to
drive back here right away.”

“Don’t we know it,” Connie said, totaling the bill. “Once a cop, always a cop.”

Jennifer leaned around the corner that led to a back way into the café and beckoned
to Kelly.

Kelly caught her gaze and walked over to the counter. “Excuse me, Connie. I want to
catch Jen up on the moving project.” She scooted behind Connie, who was still working
the customer’s yarn purchases.

Jennifer stood around the corner in the passageway that opened to the rear of the
café and grill. “Julie told me she updated you on what happened this morning. I would
have called you, but I misplaced my phone somewhere around here yesterday. I looked
all over the café but couldn’t find it, then I had to run to the office. I used the
phone there. We’ve been so busy since I got here this morning, I haven’t even had
a chance to check the shop yet.”

“I’ll take a look around before I leave. By the way, I glimpsed the car being towed
out of the parking lot. That was Rizzoli’s car, wasn’t it?”

Jennifer glanced over her shoulder toward the grill. Eduardo was talking to tall,
skinny Frank. “Yeah, it was Rizzoli’s, all right. I finally had a second and went
into the shop to look out the window, and I recognized his car. I didn’t have time
to watch what the cops were doing, but I spotted the ambulance when it turned out
of the Lemay driveway toward the hospital.”

“A woman in the shop said she saw his body come out on a stretcher and there was a
lot of blood on his suit front.”

Jennifer grimaced. “Please, no details. I’ve been unfortunate enough to be around
two dead bodies. I don’t need any more gruesome images in my mind.”

“Sorry, I forgot.” Kelly stared out into the café alcove where Julie was serving a
table of four. “Wow. That guy had a lot of enemies in town. You know all those stories
in the newspapers, interviewing people who’d been cheated by Rizzoli. It’s gotta be
someone like that, don’t you think? Someone who was still holding a grudge.”

Suddenly two images flashed before Kelly’s eyes. Barbara confronting Rizzoli in the
garden patio. So angry she was shaking. And Malcolm, yelling at Rizzoli in the driveway,
furious, blaming Rizzoli for ruining his life. Two people she knew and cared about.
Two people who hated Rizzoli, whose hatred still burned bright after twelve years.

Kelly looked at Jennifer and read the same concern in her eyes. “Oh, no, Jen! Barbara
and . . . and Malcolm. Both of them confronted Rizzoli. In front of other people!”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Barbara was enraged. And she even went down to
his seminar. I don’t know what to think.”