Flipped Out (25 page)

“Because she asked. And because she didn’t do it.” Or so she said. “And because if she didn’t, then someone else did. And if Melissa goes to jail for it, then that someone else gets off.”

And besides, I liked the idea that Melissa would be indebted to me. You never know when something like that might come in handy.

“I don’t like it,” Derek said.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid. I promise. For starters, I’m just going to ask the staff at the Waymouth Tavern whether they noticed Nina and Tony the other night. And after that, and after dinner, I’m going to go online and see if I can find anything about the TV station they worked at in Missouri. If someone from there is sending them both letters saying ‘I know what you did,’ they must have done something.”

“It would seem that way,” Derek agreed as he pulled the car into a parking space outside the Waymouth Tavern, next to a small, blue Honda. “Looks like Josh is here, too.”

“Probably having dinner with Fae again.” That wouldn’t make Shannon happy.

“Stay out of their business,” Derek warned as he helped me down from the car.

I’d felt pretty icky after going Dumpster diving, and seeing Melissa looking stunning even in jail while I looked like something one of the cats had dragged in had made me even more eager for a shower and clean clothes. I had made Derek stop at Aunt Inga’s house for thirty minutes to let me get clean and changed into something more appropriate for dinner. Part of the appropriate attire was sandals with high heels—perfect for showing off the nail polish I indulge in on my toes!—and I guess he thought I could use some assistance. Little did he know I’d spent my formative years—teens and twenties—wandering around New York City in shoes that were a lot less practical than these. This pair had ankle straps and platform soles, and I was perfectly comfortable getting in and out of the truck in them. That didn’t mean I eschewed the help; I’ll take any excuse to snuggle up to my boyfriend when he offers.

He helped me down and then held me for a moment, looking down at me. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you, Avery.”

“I know. And I appreciate it. I’ll be careful.” After a second, I added, with a grin, “Josh won’t hurt me if I interfere in his love life.”

“I didn’t mean Josh,” Derek said, into my hair, “and you know that very well.”

I did. And since it was nice to be wanted and nice to be held, I didn’t try to be funny anymore, and just enjoyed standing there until he let me go and headed for the door to the restaurant, an arm around my shoulders.

I couldn’t resist keeping an eye out for Josh and Fae on the way to our table by the window, and spied them over in a dark, romantic corner on the very opposite side of the tavern. Josh’s attention was focused on his companion, and all I saw of her was a fall of long, black hair fastened with a couple of sparkly star-shaped clips. Neither of them noticed us going by on the other side of the room.

“Did you work two nights ago,” I asked the hostess as I slid into my own side of the booth, with a quick glance at her name tag, “Cali?”

She nodded. “I work Sunday through Thursday. Someone else works Friday and Saturday.”

“Do you know who Tony Micelli is?”

Another nod. “He comes in all the time.” And then she corrected herself. “Used to come in all the time.”

“Monday?”

“Sure. He had someone with him. Not the fiancée. Someone else. She was a little older, but she was another blonde. I guess he must like those.” She shrugged, tossing her own blond hair.

“You heard what happened to him, right?”

She nodded. “Oh, sure. It was on the news last night.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed anything about him and the blonde? Anything they talked about? Anything in particular that seemed off or wrong? Did they argue, maybe?”

But Cali shook her head. “I don’t see people for very long,” she said apologetically. “I just seat ’em, you know? And then I leave, and the waiter takes over. I can get the waiter who took care of them on Monday for you, if you want.”

“That’d be great. Thanks.”

“Here are your menus. Someone will be with you shortly.” She bustled off, a Candy lookalike, but in a short, black dress and high heels, and with stick-straight hair down around her shoulders.

“I can’t believe Wayne’s letting you question people for him,” Derek said, opening his menu. “Next you’ll want to be deputized. You know what you want?”

I didn’t bother checking the menu. “We’ve been here enough. I’ll probably have what I always have. And it isn’t like I won’t tell Wayne anything I find out, you know.”

“I know. Crab cakes?”

“At least I know they’re good.”

“You don’t have to justify yourself,” Derek said. “I’m having what I always have, too.”

Burger and fries, in other words. It’s always struck me as funny that he lives here on the craggy coast of Maine, where lovely seafood abounds, and he’ll order a hamburger and French fries when he goes out to dinner. Then again, he goes to the little deli in downtown and has a lobster roll at least once a week, too, so it isn’t like he’s not getting his share of omega-3s.

“So at least we know that Tony and Nina really were here the other night,” I said.

“Was there any doubt?” Derek answered.

“I guess not. Wonder if the waiter noticed anything?”

“Why don’t you ask?” Derek indicated the white-shirted young man approaching.

“Hi.” He stopped beside the table. “I’m Grant. Cali said you wanted to talk to me?”

A stray thought buzzed through my brain for a second, but I didn’t have the time to chase it down. “Hi, Grant. Did you wait on Tony Micelli when he was here on Monday night?”

Grant, a persnickety-looking blond in his midtwenties, looked from me to Derek and back down the full length of his nose. “Who wants to know?”

“Actually,” Derek said, “the chief of police does.”

“You’re not the chief of police. I know him.”

Grant and everyone else in town.

“No,” I said, with a glance at Derek, who was grinning, “but he sent us. Or rather, when we told him we were coming here, he said to ask.”

Grant pondered for a moment. “All right,” he said eventually. “Yes, I waited on Tony Micelli the other night. So?”

“You heard what happened to him, right?”

“Sure. It’s all over the news.”

“We . . . I mean, Wayne . . . that is, the chief of police wanted to know whether you’d noticed anything when he was here. Did he say anything that stuck out to you? Did anything happen that was unusual?”

Grant pondered. “Can’t say it did.”

A man of few words. I tried to sound as official as I could. “Maybe you could tell me about it? In your own words?”

Derek smothered a smile, and I grimaced at him across the table.

“Sure,” Grant said, with an elegant shrug of his narrow shoulders. “They got here around seven thirty, I guess. Tony and a blonde. Not the Realtor, another one. Older. Very well dressed. Out-of-towner. They sat over there.” He pointed to a booth farther up the row.

“He had the surf and turf, no starch. Watching his weight, I guess. She had the salmon Caesar. And a bottle of wine.”

“By herself?”

Grant shrugged. “The bottles aren’t that big.”

“Did they have dessert?” Derek asked.

“Black coffee for her,” Grant said. “Cappuccino for him.”

Sounded like they were both dieting. The curse of working in television, I guess. Tony had to keep trim for the camera, and for Nina, it was probably just habit.

“Did you hear anything they said?”

“They stopped talking whenever I got close,” Grant said. “It seemed deliberate. She actually hushed him once. I only caught a few words: ‘never meant for it to happen.’ ”

“Never meant for what to happen?”

“No idea,” Grant said, with another shrug. “I told you, I only caught a few words.”

“Well, did they seem to get along? We’re they arguing? Flirting? Acting like old friends?”

Grant thought for a moment, his head tilted to the side, birdlike. “They weren’t flirting. He’s engaged, you know.”

Was, rather. “Yes, I know,” I said.

“And they weren’t arguing. Although the conversation did seem intense. Their body language was a little stiff, but they didn’t seem uncomfortable with each other. Old friends, maybe. Used to be close, hadn’t seen each other for a while.”

Bull’s-eye. “But you have no idea what they were talking about?”

“I just heard the one sentence. At one point, I thought she said Rory, but it could just have been ‘sorry,’ I guess.”

Or Corey. Laurie. Or Maury. Or Tory or Glory. Maybe gory.

“How about when they left? Were they still getting along OK?”

“Seemed to be,” Grant said. “He paid. Opened the door for her when they left. Put his hand on her back on the way across the parking lot.” He shrugged. “What can I get you guys to drink?”

Derek ordered a beer, I ordered a Diet Coke. And since we were ready, we also ordered our food. Grant said he’d be right back and left us there.

“So that was a whole lot of nothing,” Derek said.

I nodded. “But at least we know that Nina wasn’t acting murderous when they left here.”

“She could have turned murderous in the car.”

“I suppose. Although he dropped her at the B and B before he went to the house on Cabot.”

“So she says,” Derek said. “No one actually saw her come in.”

“He texted Melissa, though. He wouldn’t have asked her to meet him if he still had Nina in the car.” I thought for a second and added, “If he did text Melissa.”

“What do you mean?” Derek said. “Wayne would have checked that, don’t you think? Made sure she really did get a text message asking her to go to the house?”

“I’m sure he did. I was thinking more along the lines of it maybe not being Tony who sent the text, but whoever killed him.”

“Ah.” Derek sat back on the seat. “Go on.”

“Well, Tony and Melissa may have been in the habit of sending each other text messages. Some people are. But wouldn’t it make more sense for him to call her? Or even just stop by? It was late. She wasn’t working, so he wouldn’t be interrupting anything. And she might not hear a text coming in, but she’d hear the phone ring. So calling would have been safer if he wanted to make sure to get hold of her.”

“That’s a good point,” Derek said. “Unless he was hoping
not
to get hold of her, but he wanted it to look like he tried.”

“True. But someone else could have texted, hoping she’d think it was Tony, to set her up. Get her to the house on Cabot to implicate her.”

“What else?” Derek wanted to know.

I shrugged. “Just a thought that buzzed through my brain earlier. When Nina and Wayne and I were talking about those letters, she said at first she thought they might be from someone who blamed her for what happened to Stuart. The former host.”

“So?”

“I had this idea that someone might be trying to ruin the show. I even suggested it to Fae, and she laughed at me.”

“Yeah?”

Grant brought our drinks, and Derek nodded his thanks.

“Wilson told me the show had a different host before Stuart. His name was Grant, and he was fired after the first season. Not personable enough.”

“Grant?” Derek said, looking after the waiter’s back as he bustled toward the back of the restaurant. “Not that Grant?”

“I’m sure it isn’t. Wilson said the guy looked like Tony, and the waiter doesn’t look anything like that. But the name reminded me.”

Derek tipped the bottle up and took a swig of beer. “So what are you saying? The former host of the show arranged the accident so he could get his job back? Or just out of spite because they fired him?”

“If he wanted his job back, I think he would have approached Nina, don’t you? It was probably just to ruin the show. They fired him, so he didn’t want them to be successful.”

“He took his time about it, then. They’ve been on the air for three or four seasons, haven’t they?”

“Four, I think. It would have been three years ago that he was fired. Or his contract wasn’t renewed, or however they do things in television. That does seem rather a long time.”

I swirled my straw around in the Diet Coke, watching the ice cubes dip and bob. “This is frustrating. If Melissa didn’t kill him, who did? And how do the letters fit in? Melissa didn’t send them; she didn’t even know Nina existed until a couple of days ago. Unless Tony talked about her, but I don’t really think he would. Maybe Tony did it?”

“Sent the letters? To himself?”

“He could have done that to divert suspicion. If something happened twenty years ago, he’d be the logical person to know about it, since he seems to be the only one who knew Nina back then. Maybe
he
sent her the letters. Via a friend he made in Missouri back when he lived there. And maybe on Monday night he told her he did. Maybe he threatened to go public with whatever it was he knew unless she paid him.”

“Blackmail?” Derek said, interested. “Why? He had plenty of money.”

“Maybe he wanted revenge. Maybe she dumped him back then. But she realized that as long as he knew, he’d always be a threat to her, and so she decided to get rid of him instead of paying him off. Maybe he waited for her outside the B and B so she could get her checkbook, and when she got back in the car, she insisted he drive her to the house on Cabot. She may even have had a gun.”

“If she had a gun, why didn’t she just shoot him?”

I shrugged. “Ballistics? Afraid someone would match the bullet to the gun? Or that the police would check and find out that she has a gun license for the same caliber weapon? And then she remembered the conversation we had earlier in the day, about thieves and empty houses, and she decided to kill Tony and take the tools to make it look like a robbery gone wrong.”

“And Melissa?”