Swimsuit Body (11 page)

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

He examines my card. “Rest Easy Property Management. Clever. Though it does strike a rather macabre note under the present circumstances.”

I smile thinly. “The same thought occurred to me.”

Drinking has begun in earnest, I see from the flushed faces all around me and the overloud laughter I hear when we rejoin the other guests. A buffet supper has been laid out in the dining room that's adjacent to the great room. One of the other guests, a dark-haired man wearing a turtleneck, is playing a tune on the baby grand piano. I spy Liam Brady and walk over to him.

“If it isn't Tish Ballard herself.” Liam kisses my hand. “And looking quite fetching I might add.” His blue eyes travel over me in a way that has me thinking he couldn't possibly be gay unless he's the best actor on the planet. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“Brianna scored me an invitation.” I remind him that our host is her uncle.

“Ah, yes, I heard she was working for you now. So she's gone to the dark side, has she?”

“I only worship the devil on weekends. And it's just temp work while she's in town.”

Liam's smile falls away, and he replies in a bitter voice, “We're all caught like flies in a web, are we not? Wriggling while the spider decides which of us to feed on next.” I can guess who the “spider” is, but it doesn't parse with Spence's take on the investigation. “And if they don't find their man before it's time for us to move on? Will they detain me? Confiscate my passport?”

I'm thinking of my brother as I reply, “None of us can breathe easy until the killer's caught.”

“
If
he's caught.”

I eye Liam speculatively, wondering what, exactly, he means by that. If he's the killer, he could be hinting that he's too clever to be caught. “The spider always gets the fly in the end.”

“I'll drink to that.” He raises his glass, his eyes crinkling in a wry smile when my gaze lingers on it. “Ginger ale,” he says, adding with a rueful shake of his head, “More's the pity.” He doesn't appear to have gotten the memo on the men's dress code. He wears faded blue jeans and a buffed black leather motorcycle jacket over a plain white T-shirt. James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause
.

Liam introduces me to his fellow cast members. It's weird because although I'm meeting them for the first time, they seem as familiar as people I've known all my life. I know Jillian Lassiter from the movies in which she plays the redheaded sexpot, a role she was born to play with her curvy figure and fire-red hair. Jolly fat man Rick McVittie used to crack me up when he was a regular on
Saturday Night
Live
,
before he started making lame comedies for the beer-funnel-and-bong set. Mandy Drexler, a Halle Berry look-alike, is familiar from her breakout role as a stripper who turns her life around in the movie
Fan Dance
, which gained her an Oscar nomination. Delilah's replacement, Taylor Ramsey, who currently stars in the HBO series
Jungle Red
as the lesbian CEO of a cosmetics company, is the grown-up version of the cute, bespectacled blonde in
Tara Times Two
,
while mustachioed Brent Harding still looks the same as he did when he starred in
Steele Case
,
the hit nineties TV show about a Pittsburgh PI, due to the wonders of cosmetic surgery—you could bounce a quarter off his cheeks.

Brent shares the happy news that his wife is pregnant with twins as a group of us stand chatting. They had been trying for over a year before artificial insemination did the trick, he says. “All it took was pointing my swimmers in the right direction.” He seems prouder of his sperm count than he does about becoming a dad. The young woman standing next to him, a spiky-haired platinum blonde wearing black velvet hip-hugger jeans and a clingy top made of shiny gold fabric, smiles in a way that seems forced. I assume she is his wife, because of the possessive way she keeps touching his arm, until I learn that Mrs. Harding is home in L.A.

Inevitably, talk turns to Delilah. I mention that I was the one who found the body, wanting to see how the others will react. It's a showstopper. There are gasps and exclamations all around. Jillian Lassiter recalls seeing me on the news. She thought I looked familiar when I first walked in, she says. Rick McVittie jokingly remarks that I could sell the movie rights. Taylor Ramsey takes the opportunity to gush about what a “huge honor” it is for her to have taken over Delilah's role in the movie. “I idolized her as a kid. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up.” Never mind she and Delilah couldn't have been more than six years apart in age.

Brent Harding is the only one who seems interested in hearing the details. A little too interested. “Did you find anything besides the body? A bullet casing … a name scrawled in blood?”

“She was shot in the head,” I remind him. “I imagine she died instantly. Besides, I never heard of a homicide where the victim wrote the killer's name in blood. I think that's only in movies.”

“Maybe you saw someone fleeing the scene, then. Don't hold out on us.” Brent's tone is playful, but I notice the avid gleam in his eyes behind the mask that cosmetic surgery has made of his face. He's trying to provoke a reaction. He's had too much to drink, and this is what drunks do.

“It's an ongoing investigation. I'm not at liberty to discuss what I may or may not have seen,” I say to mess with his head. I hate how he reminds me of what I was like before I got sober.

After I've drifted away from others, I notice a woman around my age, slim and attractive with chestnut hair cut in a layered bob, wearing a simple black dress, sitting alone on the padded bench by the fireplace. Greta Nyland, Delilah's sister-in-law and the director of the charitable foundation, Full Bucket, established in the memory of her late brother. I recognize her from the photos on the foundation's Web site. She's in several of the pictures from Delilah's phone as well. The resemblance to her brother is striking: the same pronounced cheekbones, Roman nose, and gray-green eyes. I'm walking over to her when I run into Liam, who's headed in the same direction.

He introduces me to Greta. “As grand a girl as you'll ever meet,” he says to me, draping an arm over her shoulders. “Not like our lot. Her soul hasn't withered and her heart hasn't turned black.”

“And you're still full of blarney, I see.” Greta smiles fondly at him.

I offer my condolences after Liam has wandered off to talk to some other people. “It still hasn't sunk in,” she says, her eyes pooling with tears. “I'll go to call her, and as I'm picking up the phone …” She trails off, dabbing at her eyes with the handkerchief she pulls from her Coach handbag. “We were planning our next fund-raiser. Now I'm planning her memorial service.”

“Have you set a date?” I ask.

“Not yet. I want to accommodate as many people as I can—they'll be coming from all over the world—and the arrangements … well, you can imagine. My feet have barely touched the ground since I arrived!” I recall that she flew in from New York when she got the news about Delilah.

“Let me know if there's anything I can do to help.”

“Thank you. You're very kind. Will you excuse me?” she murmurs in a choked voice before hurrying off to step outside.

I follow her onto the deck, where we're alone for the moment. “I'm sorry,” I say, placing a hand on her shoulder. “This must be so hard for you.”

She nods, seemingly overcome with emotion. It's a moment before she regains her composure. “She was like a sister to me. We each were the only family either of us had after Eric died.”

“It's like that with me and my brother. We lost both my parents.”

She dabs at her eyes. “I'm afraid I handled it badly with Brianna.” She looks past me through the glass slider to where Brianna stands chatting with the assistant director, David Abramowitz, a good-looking guy in his thirties, medium height with a shaved head and a diamond stud in one ear. “She's just so …” Greta makes a vague gesture. “I couldn't cope with it on top of everything else.”

“She can be kind of … intense,” I agree.

Greta goes on some more about Delilah, about how she couldn't have gotten through the dark days following her brother's death without her sister-in-law to lean on. They talked on the phone every day, sometimes for hours at a stretch. They kept each other from falling apart, she says. Listening to her speak of a Delilah, who'd been kind and caring, I find it hard to believe she's describing the same person who turned on Liam. It's more in keeping with the sweet, down-to-earth woman I met. Greta says her one prayer is that the murderer will be brought to justice. “Justice is cold comfort,” she adds with a bleak smile, “but cold comfort is better than none.”

“I just hope it's not my brother they arrest,” I blurt out. She looks startled, and I explain about Howard Sedgwick's allegations, which dovetail with the DA's eagerness to name a suspect. “People can be so ignorant. Just because someone's mentally ill doesn't necessarily mean he's a threat to society!”

Greta appears sympathetic. “Detective Breedlove said they were questioning everyone who knew Delilah or who had any connection to her.”

“Except none of the others left town in a hurry without telling anyone where they were going.”

“That
does
put him in a bad light,” she agrees.

“Believe me, I'm doing everything I can to clear his name.”

She smiles. “I saw the article about you in
The Huffington Post
. ‘Badass' was how the writer described you, I believe.” My fifteen minutes of fame in the local news the previous summer, following the arrest of my would-be murderer who is currently awaiting trial, led to a few human-interest stories in national newspapers and magazines.

“I don't know about ‘badass,' but I've been known to kick ass,” I reply modestly.

“If I could have saved Eric, I would have moved heaven and earth,” Greta says with quiet intensity.

Just then, I hear a low moan from the dark recesses at the other end of the deck. When I peer into the shadows, I see a couple going at it. They have their hands up each other's shirts, and their tongues down each other's throats from the looks of it. They draw apart briefly, and the light from inside falls over them. I see that it's Brent Harding and the spiky-haired blonde who is not his wife.

“Get a room,” I mutter under my breath.

“I pity his poor wife,” Greta says in a low voice.

After I've gone back inside, I chat with some other people and join in a chorus of ‘Stardust'—Delilah's favorite oldie, I'm told—at the piano, then it's time to call it a night. I get a Coke from the bar to fuel me for the drive back to town and visit the powder room. I find Liam standing outside waiting to use it when I emerge. “I'm glad I caught you.” I retrieve my Coke from the hall table where I left it and take a sip. “I didn't want to leave without saying good-bye.”

“Good-bye is it?” He makes a disappointed face. “Ah, but the night is young, Tish Ballard.”

I glance at my watch. “If I stay any longer, my coach will turn into a pumpkin.”

“Can't let that happen.” He kisses me on the cheek. He smells of expensive aftershave with a note of curry from the samosas that had been among the buffet options. “Till we meet again, love.”

I find Brianna, and we go to say our good-byes. Bartosz won't hear of us leaving so soon. I explain that I have to be up early for work tomorrow. Brianna, however, is persuaded to stay the night when David, the assistant director, comes over and slips his arm around her waist. “One for the road?” Bartosz eyes me expectantly.

“I'm driving,” I remind him, saying nothing of the fact that I don't drink, which I don't generally share with new acquaintances unless they're a “friend of Bill” as we say in the program.

“Let me refresh that for you, then.” He relieves me of my Coke and returns with a full glass, after a trip to the bar. I don't want to be rude, so I stick around long enough to finish my drink. Then he walks me to the door, promising to have his niece back in time for work tomorrow. I can feel his thumb lightly stroking me through my dress where his hand rests against the small of my back. “Drive safely!” he calls after me. I glance back to see him standing in the doorway, his white mane making him look like a cockatoo on its perch, eyeing a tasty morsel.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Halfway home, I find myself becoming drowsy. I fight to remain alert as I navigate the hairpin turns of Highway One, but my eyelids only grow heavier and my movements more sluggish. At one point, I see I've strayed over the center line. I yank on the wheel, only to come close to driving off the road when I overcorrect. I slow to a near crawl, breaking into a cold sweat. Each year, this perilous stretch of highway claims more than one life. If I don't watch out, I could become another fatality.

It's weird because this is how I used to feel after a night of barhopping, and I haven't touched a drop in over four years. I know I should pull over, but where? There's only the sheer rock face on one side and the steep drop to the ocean on the other, separated from the road by a narrow shoulder, which I can barely make out in the fog that's rolled in. A thick white mist obscures the landscape and the road ahead except where the glare from my headlights forms a tunnel. Vehicles whiz past unseen in the oncoming lane, their lights blooming briefly amid the fog. This is crazy.
I have to pull over before I get killed. … Or kill someone.
A hysterical laugh claws its way up my throat. A head-on collision or plunge to my death—those are my two options.

The one time I had surgery, when my tonsils were taken out at the age of twelve, the anesthesiologist had me count to ten as I was going under. I'm currently at the count of five.
What's wrong with me? Am I having a stroke?
I slap my face to stay awake, and in lifting my hand from the wheel, I almost veer off the road again. I do a quick course correction, and once again miscalculate. I hear the blare of a car horn, but the sound is muffled as though I had cotton balls in my ears.

Somehow, I manage to keep all four wheels on the road as I make the next hairpin turn. I'm moving at a speed of fifteen miles per hour—any slower and I'd have to worry about someone plowing into me from behind—and I'm so scared, I'm shaking. But even with adrenaline coursing through my bloodstream, I have a hard time keeping my eyes open. When I hear the
whoop whoop
of a siren and see a lightbar flashing atop a black-and-white in my rearview mirror, I could cry with relief, which is ironic because in my drinking days I would have been freaking out.

Miraculously, the fog thins as I round the bend and I spot a turnout up ahead. I pull over and brake to a stop. I'm drenched in sweat, my dress plastered to my body beneath my coat. I hear the sound of tires crunching over the gravel behind me, followed by the slamming of a car door. Moments later when I lower my window, I'm confronted by the stern face of a CHP patrolman. He doesn't show concern or ask if I require medical attention. He doesn't request a driver's license and registration. Instead, he speaks the words that I once lived in fear of.

“Ma'am, please step out of your vehicle.”

“Party's over.”

Hours later, I'm woken by a different male voice as I lie dozing on a cot in the holding cell at the police station. I open my eyes to see Spence looking in through the bars wearing a stony face. He produces a set of keys and unlocks the door while I struggle into an upright position. I don't know what time it is, or whether it's day or night. My head is pounding, and my eyelids seem to have lead sinkers attached to them. I have only a fuzzy memory of what occurred after I got pulled over. I only know I flunked the field sobriety test, or I wouldn't be here. I muster my remaining faculties in a show of bravado. “Gee, and just when they were playing our song.”

Spence is not amused. “Keep talking, and I might decide to book you.”

“On what charge?” I say as I wobble my way into the corridor.

“Driving under the influence. Reckless endangerment. Failure to comply. Should I keep going, or is it coming back to you now?”

“I'm not drunk. I need to see a doctor.”

“I was going to drive you home, but I can take you to the hospital if you'd prefer.” His voice is flat.

“No, that's okay. I … I want to go home.” I'm suddenly on the verge of tears.

Spence shrugs, unmoved. “Suit yourself.” He takes hold of my arm, half supporting and half pulling me down the hallway that leads from the secure area to the bullpen. I notice the collared shirt he wears isn't tucked into his jeans all the way, as if he threw his clothes on in a hurry.

“This is what I get for sticking my neck out,” he mutters.

“I told you, I wasn't drinking!”

“I thought we had an understanding,” Spence says as if I hadn't spoken. “I was even starting to think I could trust you. Christ, what an idiot!” He shakes his head. “I should have known.”

“Aren't you going to at least give me the benefit of the doubt?”

He comes to an abrupt halt and faces me. “The only reason you're not under arrest,” he says in a tight voice, “is because I need this like a hole in the head and because the officer who brought you in is a friend of mine. Seems you were muttering my name.” He regards me with disgust. “What the hell happened to you, Tish?”

I'm flooded with shame, a kneejerk response. How many times have I heard those words spoken by other people? Friends, coworkers, employers. “I-I don't know. I swear I'm not on anything.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“It's the truth! You'll see when you get the results from my blood test.”

“The suspense is killing me.”

We're buzzed through the door at the end of the hallway. He returns my personal items, then we're outside, where the night air is cool and clear. “All right, take me through it,” he says in a calmer voice when we're in his car, turning out of the parking lot. I glance at the clock on the dashboard. It's one a.m. The buildings of the municipal complex are closed up tight, windows dark except for those of the police station.

I give him an account of my evening, not mentioning my ulterior motive for being at Bartosz's party or that I wrangled an invitation. I remind him that the director is Brianna's uncle.

“I heard you'd hired her,” he remarks. “Why Brianna?”

“She was the most qualified person for the job.”

“She's also a person of interest.”

“Because she worked for Delilah? Please. She's no more a murderer than my brother is.” Or so I keep telling myself. I can't stop thinking about the story she told me about her college roommate.

“Speaking of whom …”

“I have an idea of where he might be headed. I'll let you know as soon as I can confirm it.”

“You do that.” He cuts me a mistrustful glance.

I know I'm on thin ice, but I venture nonetheless, “In the meantime, it would help if I had my driver's license.” Spence didn't return it along with my other personal items.

He gives a harsh laugh. “Nice try. You'll get it back if and when your story checks out.”

“How am I supposed to get to work?”

“Not my problem.”

I mutter, “You're all heart.” When he doesn't respond, I try a different approach. “Listen, I know how it looks, but I swear I haven't touched a drop. And no, I didn't pick up somebody else's drink by mistake. I didn't start to feel funny until I was driving home. I was looking for a spot to pull over when your friend came along.”

“You on any kind of medication?”

“No, and I got a clean bill of health at my last physical.”

Spence grunts. It's obvious he still doesn't believe me.

I open my window a crack, and the cool air blowing in has a restorative effect. My head starts to clear. The car he's driving, a black Mazda sedan with a child seat in back and a pack of Wet Ones in the side pocket of the passenger door, clearly isn't an unmarked, and I'm reminded that he's a family man who is currently without a family, or at least one in which everyone is living together under one roof. I study his face in the dim glow of the dash. He looks tired. The kind of tired that doesn't come just from being pulled from bed by a phone call in the middle of the night.

“From the look of you, I'm not the only one having a rough night,” I observe.

He exhales audibly. “I had the kids over earlier.”

“I'm guessing it didn't go so well.”

“They were fine until it was time for them to go, then Ryan threw a fit, and that set Katie off. They wouldn't get in the car, and I couldn't get them to calm down, so I had to get Barb to come over. She wasn't too happy about it. She thinks I'm using them to get back together with her.”

“Was that what you were doing?”

“No.”

He says no more. For a while there's just the hum of the engine. Outside, darkened streets lined with houses stream past. The night air grows cooler, and I roll up my window. “I've been sober four years,” I say quietly. “That includes recreational drug use, which was never my thing. So unless someone slipped something in my Coke—” Suddenly it hits me. “That's it!” I recall setting my drink down before I went into the powder room. I ran into Liam on my way out, so that makes at least one person who had the opportunity; Bartosz was another—he handed me a fresh glass of Coke as I was leaving the party. “I was drugged. It's the only explanation.”

“You seriously expect me to believe that?” Spence speaks in the same tone I do with my brother whenever he tries to convince me he's being followed by CIA spooks or that he picked up alien transmissions from outer space.

“Don't you see? It makes sense,” I insist.

“Why would anyone want to drug you?”

“I don't know. Date rape? Bartosz was hitting on me. He could have roofied me.”

Spence shakes his head. “You'd be out cold. Also, you'd be with him and not me.”

“Okay, so I wasn't roofied. But someone did
something
, unless I'm suffering the effects of a stroke.”

“You wouldn't still be talking if you'd had a stroke,” he notes drily.

When we arrive at my house, my nerves are shot. The homes on Seabright Avenue were built in an era when people didn't always lock their doors and a dog was the only security that was needed, and even in this day and age, it's a safe neighborhood for the most part, but I'm on edge nonetheless. I'm thinking that the murderer might have broken into my house if it's the same person who drugged me. Did I remember to set the alarm? I muster my courage to leave the safety of the car. I have one foot out the door when I feel Spence's hand close over my wrist.

“Wait. I don't want you going in alone.”

I nod wordlessly, grateful. He's not such a bad guy, I'm realizing. He only let me out of jail because it suited his purposes, but at least he doesn't want me to be murdered in my own bed.

It turns out I remembered to set the alarm. But Spence has a look around anyway, as I imagine he does when he has to reassure his children that there are no bogeymen in the closets or under the beds. “All clear,” he calls from the back of the house while I stand in the kitchen with my heart racing.

“Do you want some coffee?” I ask when he rejoins me. I'm surprised when he accepts. He's not one to consort with the criminal element, so he must have decided to give me the benefit of the doubt.

“I didn't know you had a dog,” he says when we're seated at the kitchen table with our coffees, Prince at my feet, looking up at me expectantly. If he thinks I'm walking him at this hour with a murderer on the loose, he's got another think coming. He'll have to make do with the backyard.

“He's not mine. Remember when I told you that Delilah's dog was lost?”

“Yeah. Now that you mention it.”

“Well, he was found and now he's with me. At least until Brianna can find him another home.”

Spence reaches down to scratch the Yorkie behind his ears. “Cute little guy. What's his name?”

“Prince. After Prince Harry. Seems he was a gift from His Royal Highness.”

Spence smiles. “Every girl deserves a prince.”

“Yeah, except I want one who's taller and doesn't slobber when he kisses.” Spence smiles, and I feel my cheeks warm, remembering when I was in ninth grade and thought I'd die of happiness if he were to kiss me.

“My kids are after me to get a dog. Their mom is allergic, and they're hoping Dad will come through.”

“If only to show there are some benefits to divorce.”

He chuckles knowingly. I toy with the idea of asking him if he'd like to take Prince off my hands, but for some reason I'm reluctant to do so.

It's weird to have Spence seated opposite me at my red dinette, his large frame—his very maleness—seeming to fill the space I think of as mine alone. Even weirder, it doesn't feel wrong. It feels … companionable. He doesn't seem as stressed as he was earlier, and I'm feeling more relaxed as well, sleepy as opposed to whacked out. Coffee and conversation—sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference. He finishes his coffee and rises to his feet.

“I should get going,” he says. “And you should get some sleep.” I walk him out, and he pauses to nod toward the alarm console by the door. “Do you always set that before you go to bed?”

“I will from now on,” I vow.