Dead In Red (4 page)

I replaced the cover and set the box
behind me, grabbing the one that had been right next to it. The
collection of items in this box was much more varied. Piece by
piece, I withdrew an ordinary blue Bic pen, a plain white, soiled
cocktail napkin with no embossed name of a bar printed on it or
other clue as to its origin, an unsigned birthday card with a
lipstick kiss. The last item was a small black velvet pillow with
the name Veronica embroidered on it in DayGlo pink thread. I picked
it up by its pink-ribboned hanger, and was assaulted with the same
image I’d seen when we met Cyn Lennox:
Hands. Bloodied.

Startled, I dropped the pillow so fast, it
went flying. Nerves jangled, I sat there for a few seconds waiting
to recover. God, I hated that flashes of insight could catch me off
guard like that—sour my stomach and make my muscles quiver. And I
was glad Richard hadn’t witnessed it.

I took a couple more breaths to calm down
before retrieving the pillow, lifting it by its hanger with the pen
and replacing both items in the box before setting it aside,
too.

The idea of checking all the shoeboxes was
not pleasant, but it had to be done. Methodically, I went through
every one of them, making sure I handled each item. No insight, no
creepy feelings. Each box held just as curious collections of
oddball items that could have meaning only for Walt—and none of
them with the emotional investment the first two had had. Had the
shoes been gifts to his lady friends? Why had Walt kept the boxes?
If the sparkly shoe I kept seeing was representative of the rest,
they were not cheap.

I replaced the boring boxes, closed the
closet door and picked up the two interesting ones, tucked them
under my arm, and returned to the living room.

Richard sat at the desk, Walt’s receipts and
papers spread out before him on the blotter. He looked up, zeroing
in on the boxes. “What’s so special about those?”

“I’m not sure,” I lied. “But I think I’ll
take them home with me. Find anything worthwhile?”

Richard scooped up the papers, replacing
them in the manila folder. “All his bills and receipts are
segregated into envelopes by year. You want the latest?”

“Sure. I’m most interested in credit card
and phone bills.”

“Looking for anything in particular?”

“Yeah, a clue to his sex life. I think his
death may have hinged on that.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Richard
selected a couple of envelopes from the lower left-hand drawer,
pushed it shut and handed them to me. “This ought to hold you for a
while. You about ready?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Richard followed me to the door. “Brenda’s
making shrimp scampi tonight.”

“With garlic bread?”

“You got it.”

I closed and locked the door behind
us. Richard trundled down the stairs without a backward glance, but
something tugged at my soul. I turned back to stare at the
featureless steel door.
Find the
truth,
something whispered inside my head.

Walt or my conscience?

I’d have to figure that out.

# # #

CHAPTER 3

Richard’s after-dinner Drambuie sat on a
Venetian tile coaster. He’d parked behind his grandfather’s big
mahogany desk, pouring over yet another book. But this wasn’t some
dry, medical tome. Fuzzy black-and-white photographs checkerboarded
the pages, with short paragraphs of text annotating each one.
Brenda brushed past me in the doorway, clutching the latest Tess
Gerritsen hardback. “Run for your life,” she hissed. “He’s parked
back on Memory Lane again.”

Amused, I watched her make a beeline for the
stairs.

I cleared my throat and stepped forward.
“That your high school yearbook?” I asked Richard.

He didn’t bother to look up. “One of
them.”

I entered the room and rounded the desk to
stand behind him. He tapped a faded color photo that had been used
as a bookmark. “Here’s Cyn Taggert—er, Lennox.”

The now-buxom blonde had been a skinny
brunette with timid eyes some thirty years previous. Hard to
believe the little waif had grown into the hardened businesswoman
I’d met earlier that day.

I hadn’t told Richard about the flash of
insight I’d experienced in Cyn Lennox’s office. On its own, it
meant nothing. Maybe Walt had once applied for a job at the Old Red
Mill. Perhaps he was an old or a new friend—someone Cyn had known
Richard hadn’t trucked with. The fact that Walt had been in the
place, only yards from where his body had been found, wasn’t proof
of anything. Yet it did give me a starting point. Something I was
pretty sure the Amherst Police didn’t know.

I hadn’t asked Cyn if she’d known Walt. The
timing wasn’t right. I needed to know more about the dead man
before I went that route. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t hear the
truth from Ms. Lennox anyway.

Once again Richard had a sappy look on his
face, still studying Cyn’s picture.

“I thought you went to an all-boys Catholic
high school.”

“Yeah, Canisus guys always hung out with the
girls from Nardin.”

“You enjoyed those years, didn’t you?” My
words came out like an accusation.

Richard didn’t seem to notice. “Yes, I
did.”

Why shouldn’t he sound satisfied? He hadn’t
been wrenched out of his freshman year at the three-quarter point
from an inner city school and dumped across town with a bunch of
snotty rich kids. He had fit in from day one. He hadn’t been beaten
to a pulp on his first day, either.

I moved around the front of the desk and sat
in one of the leather wing chairs, surprised at the depth of my
bitterness. I tried to let it go. “What if your friend Cyn knows
more than she’s telling about this murder?”

Richard looked up from the decades-old
pages. “Cyn’s a good person. I’m sure she’s told the police
everything she knows.”

“You knew this woman over thirty years ago.
You don’t know who she is today.”

“Yeah, but people don’t change that much.
Look at you.”

“Me?”

“In some ways, you haven’t changed at all
from when you were fourteen.”

Anger flared within me. I’d come a long way
from that cowed boy who’d been forced to go live with strangers. I
changed the subject. “Once I wire up the light over the dining room
table, the apartment is finished. I guess we ought to think about
calling movers to come and I’ll be out of your hair on a daily
basis.”

He closed the yearbook, a smile raising the
edges of his mustache. “You ready to leave the nest?”

“Moving sixteen feet across the driveway is
hardly leaving the nest.”

He shrugged.

The loft apartment over the three-car garage
had been empty for at least twenty years before I got the brilliant
idea to make the place my own. I’d intended to give it a good clean
and move right in, but Richard wouldn’t hear of it. The next thing
you know he’d hired a contractor, put in a new heating and cooling
system, all new wiring, had the hardwood floors sanded and sealed
and the walls painted. All the planning had kept him occupied for a
few hours a day while he recovered.

Brenda had entrusted her friend Maggie
Brennan to help her decorate the place. I’d introduced the two
women. At the time I thought I might have a shot at a relationship
with the lovely Ms. B. That hadn’t worked out, but I also hadn’t
given up on the idea, either. Gut feeling told me we’d be more than
just acquaintances one day. I listened to my gut.

“Go ahead and arrange for movers whenever
you want. It’s on me,” Richard said.

Yeah, like everything else these last few
months.

He’d reopened the book, his attention back
on the picture of young Cyn Taggert. Was it the memory of puppy
love that made his smile so wistful? The present-day woman gave me
bad vibes. I’d have to pursue that avenue of investigation.

And if Richard found out his long lost love
had some deadly secret—how much would he blame me?

* * *

I punched
the
rheostat switch and bright white light flooded the apartment’s
empty dining area. I cranked it back to a tolerable level, grateful
the pills I’d taken earlier had quelled the headache that had
threatened.

My gaze traveled around the pleasant room.
There was no reason not to call a bunch of movers for estimates
first thing in the morning. And yet, I wasn’t quite ready to move
in and I wasn’t sure why. The most painless route was to do the
deed while Richard and Brenda were on their honeymoon.

Painless. What did bloody hands have to do
with Walt’s death? Okay, he’d bled to death. But I was pretty sure
the image of the hands had nothing to do with his death. I’d had
flashes of clairvoyance and they were different than seeing things
from the past. The shoe was the past. The bloody hands were
something yet to come. So who was Veronica and why was she in
danger? Perhaps the next victim?

The phone rang, making me jump. Once,
twice. I never pick up until at least the fourth ring, just to
thwart telemarketers, who usually hang up after three. Besides,
only Richard, Brenda, and the employment form I filled out for Tom
at the bar had my new telephone number. I had only one sort-of
friend in Buffalo, Sam Nielsen, now a reporter for the
Buffalo News
—and I hadn’t even given
him the two-week-old number.

I picked up the phone. “Hello?

“Where do you get off involving Richard in
another one of your dumb psychic schemes? Haven’t you done enough
to the poor man?”

I should’ve just hung up, but the voice was
vaguely familiar. “Excuse me?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said. Who is this?”

“Maggie. Maggie Brennan.”

Ah, the lovely Ms. B. Only now I was on the
fiery end of her Irish temper. Brenda must’ve given her the
number.

“Did Brenda ask you to say something?”

“Well . . . no. She wouldn’t. But
I thought—”

“Yeah, well you thought wrong. Just butt out
of my family business, will you?”

“No, I won’t. Brenda and Richard are my
friends. And in case it escaped your attention, you nearly got
Richard killed at Easter.”

“Hey, I was the target. Richard pushed me
out of the way.”

“Yeah, well it’s still your fault.”

A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t
need
her
to tell me
that.

“If that’s all you called for—I think it’s
time we ended this conversation.”

Silence.

I counted to ten. “Was there something else
you wanted to say?”

“I guess not.” Did I detect reluctance in
her voice?

When we first met, we’d connected almost
immediately. That is, until we found a body in her ex-lover’s
condo. That had definitely put a damper on what seemed like the
beginning of a meaningful relationship.

I decided to take a chance. “You want to go
out with me sometime?”

More silence.

I counted to ten again.

“Maybe,” Maggie answered at last, and again
her tone was soft. “What did you have in mind?”

I remembered the Holiday Valley brochure in
Walt’s shoebox. “Just a ride in the country. A day trip.”

“A magical mystery tour?” Aha!
Intrigued.

“Something like that.”

Again silence.

This was like a replay from my high school
days. My sweaty hand tightened around the receiver as I counted to
ten one more time.

“Okay. When?”

I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d
been holding. “Saturday.”

* * *

I never
drove
to the bakery up on Main Street. I’d walked there in snow, rain,
and on starless nights to find Sophie Levin standing behind the
plate glass door in her faded cotton house dress, maroon cardigan
sweater, and silver hair tucked into a wispy bun at the base of her
neck, ready to usher me into her backroom inner sanctum. That night
was no different.

“In, in already,” the elderly woman said,
locking the door behind me. I followed her to the small card table
she had set up beside a pallet of collapsed bakery boxes. She
pointed to my usual seat, a metal folding chair, and settled her
bulk on the one adjacent. The coffee was hot and my favorite
macaroons, still warm from the oven, sat piled on a chipped white
plate.

I set the plastic grocery bag with the
shoeboxes on the table.

“Show and tell?” she asked, her brown eyes
riveted on it.

I took the boxes out, shoved one of them
closer to her. “I’ll show and you tell me what you think.”

She leaned on the wobbly table, clasping her
hands before her and studied the box. “Hmm. Fancy shoes once lived
in this box.” Her voice, with its slight Polish accent, held
reproach. She rested her fingers on the top of the other box. “Hmm.
This one, too.”

I sipped my coffee and nodded. I thought of
Sophie as a kind of psychic mentor, although her inner radar was
much different than mine. She saw auras—colors, she called them—and
then she knew things. And it made me feel less of a freak to have a
kindred spirit to confide in.

Sophie traced a finger along the first
box top. “Not the kind of shoes a
nice
woman wears.”

I tried not to smile. “Depends upon your
definition of nice. But in this case, I think you’re right.”

She raised the lid, setting it aside. Her
gaze fell on the contents and she frowned. “Hmm. Not too
interesting.” She selected the Holiday Valley brochure. She stared
at it for a few moments, then ran her fingers along the long edge.
“A good time was had.”

“That was my impression, too. But that was
all I got. Take a look at that little scrap and tell me what you
think.”