Love You to Death (8 page)
I picked up the phone. Ted had a cousin he’d been close to. I’d met him twice. Unless the guy believed I was the guilty one, maybe he’d talk to me. And maybe I’d get him to tell me a few things about the sobbing, flower-destroying fiancée.
“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” Jonathan Alexander said, shaking four packets of sugar into his coffee. We were at Starbucks in the Old Port—coffees, a brownie for him and a giant chocolate chip cookie for me, on the little table between our club chairs.
Jonathan, Ted’s cousin on his mother’s side, was in his late thirties, married and the father of three—triplets. He looked a bit like Ted, except that he wasn’t quite handsome. And he had a paunch. And he wore a navy sweater with tiny red lobsters all over it. I couldn’t imagine Ted in a sweater like that. But I could imagine Ted married with triplets. I’d imagined him married to me, father of our triplets. Well, twins, maybe.
The two occasions I’d met Jonathan were barbecues at Jonathan’s house. One was a birthday party for the triplets, who were now six. Ted had splurged on a new swing set for the kids, which had been installed that morning in the backyard. The structure had come complete with a slide and ladders and a huge fort at top, where Ted had spent a good deal of time playing pirate with the kids. He’d been so involved in their play, their joy, their changing-every-five-seconds mood swings from full-out sobs to shrieks of joy, that I’d fallen fast in love with him that day.
I wished I could just remember the bad. But Ted had had a wonderful side, too.
“I can’t believe he’s gone, either,” I said. “He was so much larger than life.”
Jonathan nodded. “He came to my house for Thanksgiving every year. He didn’t have anywhere else to go. His parents were gone, and he was an only child. I guess that’s why he had so many girlfriends at once. Just in case one of them didn’t work out, he’d have another in reserve.”
Bingo. Now it was my turn to pull out my little notebook.
“So Mary-Kate wasn’t his one and only?” I asked.
Jonathan bit into his brownie. “Actually, she was. Before her, I meant.”
Oh. Meaning me.
He froze, a chunk of brownie wedged in his cheek. “Uh, I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings by telling you that, Abby. I figured it was all ‘been there, done that’ kind of stuff.”
That was a good way to put it. But even though I’d “been there,” I was still “doing that.” My inability to judge Henry Fiddler as a jerk proved that.
“So I guess I should tell you that the police asked me about you,” Jonathan said. “They asked me about all Ted’s girlfriends, actually. I said you were the nicest.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that. Especially because as his last ex-girlfriend, suspicion is falling on me for no real reason.”
“They asked what I thought of you,” he said. “And I told them I’d be shocked to find out that you killed Ted.”
Amazing. A total stranger, someone I’d met twice for a few hours months and months ago, had no doubt of my innocence. But everyone I dealt with on a daily basis had no doubt I was a cold-blooded killer.
I sipped my latte. “Just out of curiosity, Jonathan—what makes you so sure I didn’t have anything to do with Ted’s death?”
“Because when my sons pushed my daughter off the fort, you ran over to her and sat her on your lap and dried her tears and braided her hair and taught her how to make a daisy chain,” he said. “I don’t think killers do that.”
Why did I doubt Ben would agree?
“And when she blew her nose all over your hand, you didn’t get grossed out and push her off you,” he added.
“It was pretty gross,” I said.
He laughed. “Yup, but it demonstrates self-control, if you ask me. And empathy. You’re hardly a psychopath.”
“So you told the police that I wasn’t the only woman Ted was seeing during our relationship?”
“I told them he was dating a couple of other women, but that they only went out a couple of times. It wasn’t a relationship like you and Ted had.”
Hmm. Knowing Ben, he must have paid both women a visit and eliminated them as suspects. Maybe they were out of the country the night Ted was killed. Or maybe they were good liars.
“What was your take on Mary-Kate?” I asked.
“She was Mary-Kate,” he said. “Nose in the air. Polite enough, but I wouldn’t say
nice.
”
Interesting. “So is she from a very wealthy family?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She said she was from Barmouth, and you know how that can go. Multimillion-dollar mansions on the water or tiny capes on side streets.”
“Wait a minute. Are you sure she said she was from Barmouth?” I was from Barmouth. Ben was from Barmouth. How could neither of us know her or her family? There were no Darlings in Barmouth, and I’d certainly remember someone with that name at my school.
He nodded. “Positive. I remember her saying she was vice president of her class.”
Mary-Kate didn’t look like a vice president. Not that smart girls couldn’t grow up to become trampy slutty bitches.
To quote
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
things were getting curiouser and curiouser.
“So why do you think Mary-Kate was his one and only? I mean, if he had a bunch of girlfriends in the hopper at once, why would a not-so-nice one be his one and only? What was so special about her?”
He shrugged. “Beats me. She was very pretty, but no prettier than you or any of Ted’s girlfriends. He did say—” He blushed, then waved his hands. “Eh, forget it.”
“No, you can tell me,” I said.
He leaned forward. “She was kinky. She’d do anything. Threesomes. Swinging. Sex clubs. Anything. Ted was in heaven. I sure hope he is now.”
That seemed to deserve a moment of silence, so I sipped my coffee and picked at my cookie. Kinky, huh? That was the way to Ted’s heart? Disappointing.
“Did you meet any of Ted’s other girlfriends?” I asked. “The ones he dated while he was seeing me?”
“I met both of them once, randomly. I ran into Ted with Ariella at the lighthouse park. They were having a picnic. She had a really loud, weird laugh. You know, like the Janice laugh from
Friends.
”
I smiled. A staffer at
Maine Life,
the production manager, had a laugh like that. Sort of sounded like a bloated seal.
“How did you know they were dating?” I asked. “Maybe they were coworkers having lunch, or third cousins?”
“His head was in her lap, and she was leaning down to kiss him,” he said. “He had a finger dipped inside her bikini top. I had to shield all my kids’ eyes. Not easy with six eyes.”
Oh. “And the other one?”
“Twinkle. Not her real name. Apparently had a thing for gold and diamonds, so everyone called her that. I ran into them at the mall. Ted introduced her as his girlfriend. I just assumed you guys had broken up.”
“So there was the
Friends
-laugh girlfriend, the jewelry girlfriend, the not-so-nice girlfriend-slash-fiancée, and me. What was I?”
He smiled. “You were the sweetheart. That’s how Ted described you, anyway.”
Funny how the sweetheart was the one suspected of his murder. Irony, anyone?
Unbelievable. While I was busily in love with Ted, spending my free time writing “Abby Puck” on napkins, he was choosing which girlfriend he was in the mood for that night.
And then he dumped us all for the kinky girlfriend. Maybe Ariella or Twinkle didn’t like that. Maybe Ariella or Twinkle
snapped.
Or maybe Ted had started seeing them again. Maybe he’d been cheating on Mary-Kate. And maybe she’d found out about it.
Arg. There was no way Ben would have let this kind of information slip through the cracks. He must have checked out Ariella and Twinkle and determined they’d had nothing to do with Ted’s murder. Unless, of course, they were excellent liars, like all psychopaths were.
The good news for me was that I now had three suspects.
“Jonathan, would you happen to know Ariella’s and Twinkle’s last names?” I asked.
“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t even know Twinkle’s real
first
name.”
Okay, so that was bad news for me. But I was sure there was a way to ferret out the info. Maybe from Miss Darling herself.
I raced home to check my yearbooks for anyone named Mary-Kate. Not my year. There was a Mary-Katherine Mulch a grade ahead. And she was vice president of the class. But unless Mary-Katherine Mulch had been an
Extreme Makeover
recipient, she and Mary-Kate Darling were not one and the same. Mary-Katherine Mulch had wildly curly light blond hair that stuck out in odd directions. She also had some nose. And light blue eyes, the kind that looked sort of demonic rather than angelic. She reminded me of Carrie from the movie based on the Stephen King novel. I tried not to imagine mean girls throwing tampons at Mary-Katherine Mulch.
I grabbed my white pages and looked up Mulches in Barmouth. None. I called information for Mulches in Barmouth. None. In the surrounding towns. None.
“I have no Mulches in the county,” the operator said.
“Are there unlisted Mulches?”
“I’m not at liberty to say” was her response.
Was that the latest catchphrase?
My head hurt. I was going to have to talk to Mary-Kate Darling myself.
If
she’d talk to me.
W
hen I arrived at the offices of
Maine Life
magazine the next morning, Marcella was not pointing, giggling or full of snark. Instead, she greeted me with a gushing hello and held out an open bakery box.
“Rugelach?” she asked. “There are three kinds—chocolate, raspberry and apricot. Take one of each. I know how much you
love
rugelach.”
Okay. What was this all about? Marcella French never shared.
“Um, thanks,” I said, plucking a chocolate one. And a raspberry one.
She shot another megawatt smile at me. “I love your boots.”
Okay, something was definitely up. Marcella French hadn’t complimented me once in the two years she’d been working for the magazine.
On my way to my cubicle, my coworkers either took one look at me and darted into their cubicles or they also gushed hellos and were full of compliments. Hmm. When my father died three years ago, I came back to work after four days’ bereavement leave to business as usual and a condolence card on my desk, signed by everyone. My ex-boyfriend died, and everyone was falling over themselves. Something was definitely up.
I peered into Shelley’s cubicle, but she hadn’t arrived yet. Uh-oh. The photograph of Baxter was missing from its usual spot next to her
Maine Life
pencil holder. Which meant Baxter was in the doghouse or possibly permanently in the outhouse. If Shelley didn’t show up in the next ten minutes, I’d call her. She and Baxter had broken up briefly at least five times in the past year, but they always got back together. Still, she’d never taken the picture of him off her desk.
My message indicator was blinking like crazy on both voice mail and e-mail. I had twenty-seven voice mail messages and thirty-six new e-mails.
The first four voice mails were from Henry Fiddler.
“Abby, this is Henry Fiddler. I’d like to apologize for my behavior last Sunday. I was under the influence of cough medicine and not myself.”
Cough medicine! Delete.
“Abby, it’s Henry Fiddler again. I think you should know that I’ve filed an order of protection against you. That means you cannot come within fifty feet of me or I can have you arrested. I want to make sure you know that I will call the police if you violate the order.”
Delete!
“Abby, it’s Henry. I hope you’ll understand why I felt the need to do that. I do have elderly parents to take care of, and if something happened to me, they’d be destitute.”
Oh, brother. Double delete.
“Abby, me again. I forgot to add that it’s not that I think you’re guilty. Bye now!”
I hit Delete and slumped over my desk.
“Abby?”
I glanced up to find Marcella standing in my doorway with the box of rugelach.
“Why don’t you take the whole box,” she said. “You’re so thin, you can afford to gobble them all up. I love your shirt. New?”
Ah. Now it made sense. Ben had questioned everyone I know, everyone I’ve ever known, in connection with my list of romantic involvements. He’d probably checked my alibis from every conceivable angle.
Abby says she was at her half sister Opal’s engagement party, but perhaps you saw her walking down the street, following an attractive young man and looking around for trucks?
Or maybe you saw her a couple of months later at the pound while you were adopting a cat or dog? Did she happen to be looking at pit bulls?
“If you want me to file your finished reader mail letters, just let me know,” Marcella added, leaning over as far as she could to set down the box of rugelach on my desk without having to get too close to the murderer.
You won’t kill me for laughing at you the other day and making your life here a living nightmare, will you? If you spare me, I’ll talk you up to Finch!
“Thanks, Marcella,” I said, opening the box and taking a moment to choose a particularly delicious-looking apricot one. Hey, if being a murder suspect was going to get me presents and compliments, fine with me. “I do
love
rugelach.”
She f lashed her smile again and flitted away.
I ignored the blinking red light on the voice-mail register on my telephone and checked my e-mail.
Hi, Abby! Remember me, Laura Corry from Barmouth Elementary? I just wanted ou to know I am so sorry for how I treated you in the fifth grade. I was jealous of how good you were at fractions. Anyway, I’ve been meaning to e-mail an apology for like twenty years. I’m moving to Alaska, so I can’t stop by. Best, Laura
Laura Corry tormented me at recess by sticking sucked-on lollipops in my hair while whispering a menacing “Tell and you’re dead meat, beanpole.”
So Ben was going back that far? Maybe he’d paid a visit to Raymond Phipps to ask if he’d seen me skulking around his house. This was so embarrassing! Did everyone really know that I was a suspect in a murder case?
Put it all out of your head. Focus on your real life. The life that makes sense. Answer some reader mail. You’re now two days behind. I took the first letter from the stack in my in-box.
Dear Best Of Editor,
I’m getting married in eight months and would like you to go through your last Best of Bridal column and send me a list of the very best in all the categories. I already have my gown, so you can skip that.
Yours,
Darlene Carl, Cape Elizabeth
I was surprised the letter wasn’t from Princess Opal.
I reached into my file drawer for a form response. “Dear Reader, Our volume of reader mail precludes me from personally answering every letter. Please check our next issue to see if your query has been covered….”
The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Abby, it’s Oliver Grunwald, your brother-in-law.”
“I recognize your voice,” I said. “How’s Os—”
“Just great,” he interrupted. “Look, I wanted to remind you that you
are
next on our list of godmothers for Oscar. You weren’t
not
chosen because we don’t trust you with our baby—I mean, of course we trust you.”
Of course you do. That was why you had me drive all the way up to your house to sit me down in your formal living room to tell me that given my history of inappropriate boyfriends, I couldn’t be counted on to marry a man of quality, and therefore, you and Olivia were choosing a more mature person as godmother. He was sure I understood.
“So I’m next on your list?” I asked.
“That’s right. Next.”
“Meaning, if something happens to the person you
did
choose, I’ll be godmother.”
Silence.
“Well, yes, I suppose,” he said.
“Aren’t you worried I’ll kill the person you’ve chosen so that
I’ll
get to be godmother?” I asked while rolling my eyes heavenward. “Who is it, anyway?”
He hung up on me.
Shelley was bringing me another cup of tea (not because she thought me guilty but because she thought I needed soothing) when Ben called ten minutes later.
“Oliver Grunwald has filled out an order of protection against you. You’re not to go within fifty feet of him or Oscar Grunwald.”
“Wait a minute! What? That’s crazy! I can’t go near my own nephew? Does Olivia know about this?”
Ben said he had another call and would be in touch.
Click.
Phone receiver in hand, I dialed Olivia’s number. This was ridiculous! She’d set Oliver straight, I was sure.
“Hello?”
“Olivia, it’s Abby.”
Silence.
“Olivia?”
“Abby, I really can’t talk right now. I’ll be in touch, okay?”
“From fifty-one feet?” I asked.
“I’ll call soon,” she said, and hung up.
I stared at the receiver in my hand, tears stinging the backs of my eyes. Oliver was one thing; he’d always been an arrogant jerk. But Olivia?
I heard a discreet cough and whirled around.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” Marcella said, tucking her thin brown hair behind her ears, which she always did when she was nervous. “I really wasn’t. I didn’t hear anything.”
“Did you need me for something?” I asked.
Nervous smile. “Mr. Finch would like to see you in his office.”
“I’ll be right there,” I said, and she darted off in her ridiculously high heels.
“Am I being fired?” I whispered to Shelley. “Could you get fired for being a murder suspect? You probably could.”
Your discrimination lawsuit has been thrown out, Miss Foote. If your boss believes you might kill the entire staff, he may fire you.
“Don’t worry,” Shelley said. “Maybe he’s just going to give you the rest of the week off until this crazy circus dies down. Come on, Abs, he’s known you for three years. There’s no way he thinks you could have killed anyone.”
“My brother-in-law has known me for four years and thinks I not only killed one person but tried to kill two more.”
She squeezed my hand. “Tell me everything Finch says.”
I stood up. “Lunch today?”
“You’re a sweetie,” she said. Shelley and Baxter had lunch together every day except Fridays, when he had a staff meeting, and now that they’d broken up, she would probably be feeling very weird come noontime. She’d arrived a half hour late today, a little red eyed from crying. She and Baxter had broken up two days ago because she wouldn’t move in without a ring, and he wouldn’t offer a ring without a trial run. “But stop worrying about me. I’ll be fine. Baxter and I will be back together by next week. Maybe. If he coughs up a diamond.” She sighed. “I’d even take a cubic zirconia.” Her eyes teared up again. “But forget my stupid love life,” she said, dabbing under her eyes. “Just go see what Finch wants. And report back. Then we’ll deal with your dumb brother-in-law. I’m sure if you talk to your sister, she’ll get her husband to undo the order of protection.”
I squeezed her hand. I might be a murder suspect, but at least I had friends.
I headed down to Finch’s corner office. Cutting through the kitchenette, I almost knocked into our contracts manager.
“I am so, so, so, so sorry!” he said. “I do hope you’re all right.”
This was the same man who had literally barked at me last week for taking the last of the awful office coffee.
I assume you’ll be making a new pot!
“Did you want a fresh cup of coffee?” he asked. “I’d be happy to make some. My turn!”
Yeah, right.
I ignored him and continued on to Finch’s office.
I knocked and walked in. “You wanted to see me?”
“Ah, there you are!” he said in his proudest, most fatherly tone. “Yes, indeedy, I did. Why don’t you have a seat? Would you like Marcella to bring you a cup of coffee? A scone from the bakery downstairs?”
“Yes, actually, I would,” I said. I might as well milk this for all it was worth—at Marcella’s expense.
He buzzed her with my order. “Abby,” he said, turning back to me, “I have good news. You’re being promoted to associate editor.”
My heart leaped. I’d only been after this promotion for the past year. Working overtime, asking directly. I’d gotten the “just keep doing what you’re doing” speech.
“You’ve done fine work here for the past three years,” Finch said. “You’ve been a real go-getter, and you’re being rewarded for your hard work and dedication to the
Maine Life
magazine organization. Of course, you’ll receive a
ten
percent raise—that’s a bit more than our usual promotion raises, but you deserve it!”
Hey, wait a minute. Was I promoted? Or was Finch just protecting himself and his staff from a murderer? The last time I’d asked for more meaningful reporting assignments, Finch had sent me to “hang around” outside Stephen King’s mansion in Bangor in February without informing me that the famous author and Maine resident wisely wintered in Florida.
My promotion was more protection for Finch and his staff. I had no doubt. Still, a promotion was a promotion. “Thanks, Gray. I couldn’t be happier. Will I be assigned a particular area of the magazine to cover?”
“Well, I’d actually like you to build the Best Of column into a real feature,” he said. “And I’d like to start off your increased coverage by sending you on an all-expenses-paid trip to a wonderful locale to do your research. Leave in the morning. Spend the entire weekend.”
Oh, please tell me I’m going to Camden, I thought. I loved Camden. Or maybe Augusta, the capital. Moosehead Lake? I’d go anywhere to get away from Portland this weekend. Away from Ben and his questions. Away from my family, who clearly thought I was capable of murder.
Don’t leave town…
“Where am I headed?” I asked. Wherever it was, I’d just clear it with Ben. He could investigate me without me, couldn’t he? I had a cell phone. And a laptop with e-mail. He could e-mail me questions like
I’ll ask you again—did you try to kill Riley Witherspoon by letting a pit bull loose in his house?
And I could type back a simple
I did not.
He smiled. “Moose City! Pack your bags ASAP, since it’s a long drive. Marcella’s booked you a lovely room at an inn for a few days.”
I frowned. A few days in Moose City—practically the farthest north you could go and still be in the United States. The Moose part applied, as Moose City was eighty percent moose, twenty percent people. It was the city part that was misleading. Not too many people needed to know where you could get the best manicure or the best custard in Moose City.
Fishy. Very fishy.
“Um, Mr. Gray, I think I might have to clear this with Detective Orr,” I said. “I was told not to leave town. In case he needs my help in solving Ted Puck’s murder.”
“Oh, don’t you worry your head about that,” he said. “I’ve already cleared it with the police.”