Fatal Reservations (30 page)

“And then he fell overboard?” I frowned. “And you just let him drown?”

“No, no. We weren’t on the boat. He died because of the stab wound. It was an accident. But he bled like crazy and I panicked, couldn’t think what to do. So I dragged him aboard and then dropped him back in the sea once we got out into open water. Unfortunately, the body floated ashore faster than I ever imagined.”

Edwin fell silent and I pictured the way he must have justified Bart’s death as penance for his daughter’s.

“Then I came ashore and went to Cheryl Lynn’s house to tell her she had to get help. I didn’t believe Bart would have killed her. I hoped he was jerking my chain. When I got inside I saw his things everywhere. He must have been staying with her. And I panicked, thinking that she would be blamed for his death.” He choked back a sob, took a moment to collect himself.

“And then your goofy friend Lorenzo came up the path. I hid in the closet and saw him find the fork on the counter.”

“Not the fork you’d used in the stabbing?”

He shook his head impatiently. “I threw that overboard, of course. But this was bloody, one of the implements from his ridiculous meat-juggling act. Lorenzo must have been worried about her, too; he washed the fork off and put it away in her drawer. When he went upstairs, I got the idea of diverting the cops toward him. So I wrapped the fork in the cloth from his tarot table and threw it in the Dumpster.” He paused, his face and shoulders frozen. “I phoned in an anonymous tip. I’m sorry for the trouble to Lorenzo, but I was trying to protect Cheryl Lynn the way I couldn’t protect my daughter. I simply didn’t believe she’d already been murdered.”

As Edwin talked, the boat had bobbed closer to the dock. Suddenly a big wave washed in from a yacht speeding by in the distance. Our little motorboat rocked precariously, and the rusty water on the floor
sloshed from stem to stern. I bolted up, but as I prepared to dive overboard, he lunged for me. He knocked me off my feet and slammed my hip into the gunwale of the boat. I somersaulted backward into the cold water, hearing the sharp report of gunshots as I kicked away.

Moments later, he was in the water, too. He grabbed my legs and I scissored furiously, determined to fight to the bitter end. I broke through the surface to gasp for air. He knifed through the water beside me, and I slapped at his face, choking and sputtering.

“For god’s sake, Hayley, it’s me.” Bransford. As the adrenaline drained from my body, I went limp, rubbery with exhaustion.

Bransford half carried, half dragged me through the weeds in the shallow water, and I reached for the arms of the cops who crouched on the dock. They pulled me up, and Bransford levered himself out of the water. Only yards away, Edwin Mastin was handcuffed, shoved in the back of a cruiser, and whisked off.

“There’s a man locked in the trunk of a blue Jaguar,” I said.

“We already found him. We’ve got it,” Bransford said.

I clutched my hands together so he couldn’t see them shaking. “Thank you. I don’t know what would have happened—” My whole body began to shake, rivulets of water running from hair to T-shirt to sneakers. One of the cops grabbed a silver space blanket from his cruiser’s trunk and draped it over my shoulders.

“I know what would’ve happened,” Bransford said through clenched teeth. “You would’ve been killed, left somewhere like yesterday’s carcass. Like Cheryl Lynn Dickenson or Bart Frontgate, only a smaller package.”

“Yesterday’s carcass?” A white-hot fury bubbled up. “Why do you have to be so mean?”

“You bring out the worst in me,” he said. “I see you lurch off into something so stupid with danger that it boggles my mind. I can’t think how to get this across to you: It’s not your job to catch criminals. It’s my job. It’s the police department’s job. It kills me to see you in harm’s way, but I don’t seem to have any effect on you.” He reached for me and reeled me in toward him, then kissed me with a fierceness that drove everything else out of my mind. Then he pushed me away.

“I’m not up for an on-again, off-again situation,” I stammered, weak in the knees, mind whirling. “Been there, done that.”

“This time I plan to date you until you beg for mercy.”

“I need to take things really slow,” I said. “I almost died here, remember?”

He grabbed me by the elbows and kissed me again until my legs felt like rubber erasers and my whole body hummed. Once I had pulled away, his eyes widened and I tried to focus on the cleft in his chin and ignore the wicked smirk.

“Meet me and Ziggy at the dog park at eight a.m. tomorrow?”

Eight a.m. was a lot earlier than I liked to get up and out. Especially after a night like this. “Make it eight thirty.”

“Seven thirty, then,” he said.

“Sure,” I heard myself say.

28

Nothing reveals itself so dramatically as an egg gone bad.

—Barbara Ross

By the time the cruiser dropped me off at Houseboat Row, Lieutenant Torrence was delivering Lorenzo. “Oh my gosh, am I glad to see you!” I threw my arms around him.

“And likewise,” he said, hugging me back.

We tromped up the finger to the houseboat. The little white kitty was out on the deck with Sparky and Evinrude. She seemed to do a double take when she saw Lorenzo. Then she darted over, scrambled up his leg to his torso, scampered across his shoulders, and bolted back down the other side.

Miss Gloria and I burst out laughing. “I think she’s glad to see you.”

Miss Gloria herded us inside to the living room. “I’ll make some tea,” she said. “And we’ve got Hayley’s amazing baklava. And your mother called. She wants to hear everything when you get a minute. Sam’s got all kinds of research for you on copyright infringement, though I don’t suppose you need that anymore. And Janet’s booked her ticket back down in ten days because Sam insisted. As for you, mister,” she said to Lorenzo, “we really hope you’ll stay the night.”

“I appreciate that invitation so much, I do,” he said, stroking little Lola, who was now splayed across his lap like a limp dishrag. “I have so much to process. And after that jail bunk, I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.”

I took a steaming-hot shower and then joined them at the kitchen table, with a glass of wine and a big hunk of honey-drenched pastry, to explain the night’s events. “Detective Bransford”—I knew I was blushing as I said his name, but I couldn’t help it—“said he saw me leave the meeting. When I didn’t come back, he went out and ran into Louis, who told him what happened with Edwin. Then they found Maureen screaming bloody murder in the storage shed, and they were able to track her husband’s car with his cell phone’s GPS.”

“That Edwin wasn’t much of a criminal, was he?” asked Miss Gloria.

I shook my head sadly. “He was so desperate about the news of Cheryl Lynn. And his own daughter.” I reached for Lorenzo’s hand. “I’m sorry about your friend.”

“At least there’s some closure,” he said sadly.

Miss Gloria piped up after a minute of heavy silence. “He has some good news, too. He got a phone call while you were in the shower.”

“Sort of,” said Lorenzo with a grimace. “A group of the performers called to ask me to stand in as president of the gang at Sunset. I can’t say I want the job, but it’s nice to be recognized.”

*   *   *

The next morning I woke up as the dawn light crept in, fed the cats, and made coffee for Miss Gloria. We all felt a little lost without the adorable white kitten Lola
underfoot in the kitchen. On the one hand, it was an utter relief to have Lorenzo out of jail and back at his New Town home. I planned to go down to the Sunset Celebration later this evening to make sure he was back in his usual place on the square.

For the cats, the loss of Lola was more visceral. They batted at each other, scurried around my ankles, and leaped onto the kitchen table, knocking silverware, the saltshaker, and a little bowl of sugar to the floor.

“Get out—go outside and play,” I said, shooing them out with a broom. “Don’t you know life is a series of adaptations?”

Miss Gloria came out of her bedroom, giggling. “Aren’t we waxing philosophical this morning?” she asked. “How do you feel?”

“I feel fine,” I said rubbing the side of my hip. “My leg’s a little sore where I hit the side of the boat, but considering the shape I could’ve been in—”

“I don’t even want to think about it,” she said.

I didn’t say that inside I felt numb. Frozen in time and space. Bransford’s words and my reactions sat like a little frozen Tupperware of goodies in the back of my freezer mind, waiting to be unpacked. I ate a quick bowl of granola and headed off to
Key Zest
. When I hadn’t been able to sleep the night before, I’d gotten back out of bed and written the piece on the cemetery that I’d promised to Wally and Palamina. I talked about how things circle about but eventually stay the same. How every thinking person should visit the graveyard from time to time to learn lessons from our ancestors—to remember that the things we sometimes judge to be critical to our hectic lives turn out not to be so
important after all. And to remind ourselves that our time here is limited. And so very precious.

Wally was already in the office; I tried to sneak by him, but it didn’t work. “How are you feeling?” he asked, poking his head out of his door.

“I’m fine,” I said mustering a grin. “Everything is fine.”

“Let me get you some coffee,” he said, coming out of his office. He patted Danielle’s desk chair. “Sit for a minute. I can’t believe you even sent that article last night after all that happened. And it was excellent. Some of your best work. Palamina will think so, too. And I loved your lunch article, especially the opening.” He read it aloud. “‘Some folks treat lunch like a highway rest stop—keep their expectations low and visit quickly, so they won’t be disappointed. But here at
Key Zest
we wonder why every meal shouldn’t be the best it can be.’”

He paused, fidgeting with the collection of ceramic fowl on Danielle’s desk. He moved the single white chicken out of the circle of colorful roosters and hopped her across the gigantic planner on her desktop, toward me.

“How about between us? Are we okay? I had the feeling that you were really disappointed the other day.” He bit his lip, his expression all concerned.

“You know what?” I said. “I’m really fine. I would have called things off first, but I was afraid to hurt your feelings. Afraid to give you one more sorry bit of news in your life. With your mom so sick, I hated to break the news that you were a lousy boyfriend, too.” The one zinger slipped out before I could bite it back, so I tried to make up for it by flashing a real smile. “But I’m looking forward to working with you. One thing I’m not
letting go without a big fight, and that’s my job at
Key Zest
. I love this magazine, and Palamina’s not the only girl with great ideas and dreams for where we could go with it.”

“Good,” he said, a mixture of relief and sadness on his face. “Great. I want you on the team.” He looked like he was going to either hug me or start to cry, and either one would feel unbearably sad. So I bolted.

As I arrived at the dog park on my scooter, across from the beach and Saluté, the restaurant where we’d held Connie’s shower last year, Torrence pulled up in a squad car. He rolled the window down and pushed his sunglasses to his forehead. I got off the scooter and pocketed the key.

“What the H-E-double-L are you doing up so early? I thought you were supposed to be home taking it easy.”

“Too antsy to stay home.” I gave a sheepish shrug. “Besides, I’m meeting Bransford.”

“Crap,” he said. “Not him again. That guy is a sack of snakes, a nest of hornets, a—”

I cut him off. “I’m only going out with him once, see where it goes. Have coffee first, and then maybe lunch. Take it nice and slow. I know he acts like a jerk sometimes, but I don’t believe that’s the real him.”

“You’ve told me a hundred times that he’s the rudest person you’ve ever met.”

I blushed. “I think he’s rude and brusque because
he’s trying to cover up the fact that he really does care about me. Besides, he makes my synapses crackle,” I said, feeling a silly grin spread over my face.

“You’re beginning to sound like a pulp romance novel,” he said. “Don’t you know that bad wiring equals burned girls?”

“But—”

“Have you ever tried electroconvulsive shock treatment, the kind that fries your brains?” Torrence asked. “Have you ever stuck your finger into a light socket while soaking in a tub? That’s what dating Bransford would be like.”

“But—”

“Have you ever tried to jump-start a car? But you touched the wrong terminal when you were connecting the cable to your battery and got blasted half to kingdom come? That’s what dating Bransford would be like.”

A little corner of me agreed. I had been singed by him before. And we still had to deal with the issue of his ex. Was she gone for good or simply waiting in the wings, ready to pounce if he drew closer to me?

“I could set you up with a nice man,” Torrence continued. “Remember last winter, when Officer Ryan helped find your brother? He broke up with his girlfriend not too long ago. And he asks after you all the time.”

The very same Officer Ryan who’d walked me into
the school library a couple of days ago. He was adorable and sweet, but at this point, I practically had a master’s degree in identifying sparks. In this case, there were none. Not one. Nothing but warm, brotherly feelings.

The wire gate separating the big dog pen from the little dog pen squeaked open; then the main gate opened. Ziggy darted across the grass and leaped into my arms, all shiny fur and squiggling angles. He lapped my chin with his pink tongue. The anti-cat. Evinrude would despise him. Bransford followed the dog out and stalked over to where I stood next to Torrence’s car. He hadn’t shaved and he wore a ratty sleeveless T-shirt, half-soaked with sweat. I felt an immediate charge.

Lieutenant Torrence glared at Bransford and then pulled his sunglasses down to cover his eyes. “It’s possible—no, it’s likely—that I’ll kill you if you screw things up,” he said to Bransford, tipping his chin at me. And then he rolled his window up and drove
away.