Untitled (18 page)

       Bellywasher's was closed, but I was on duty at the bank. Munching on the peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwich I'd brought for lunch, I sat at her side while she made the phone call, just to be sure she asked all the right questions. Before she punched in the phone number of the cruise line, we decided that the information we wanted to draw out might involve a little sweet-talking. Bless her! Eve knew exactly what to do.

   I didn't have to hear the voice of the person on the other end of the phone to know it was a man. As soon as he answered, Eve went into full Southern belle mode. When she explained her predicament, her accent was as thick as honey and twice as sugary.

   She waited to hear what the man on the other end had to say before she responded.

   "A complete refund? My goodness! You don't say." The phone receiver to her ear, Eve looked at me and raised her eyebrows. "No, I didn't know that. And aren't you just the sweetest thing to tell me. I never would have guessed that you could get a full refund if you're dead." Her cheeks shot through with color. "I mean,
you
can't get a refund if you're dead. Because obviously, sugar, you're not dead. What I mean is that the person who bought the ticket can get a refund." Her golden brows dipped. She crinkled her nose. "But the person really can't, you know? I mean, that person's dead so even if she could—"

   Apparently, the man on the other end of the phone (who obviously was not dead), had had enough of Eve's own peculiar brand of logic and interrupted her. Lips pursed, Eve listened.

   "Yes," she said, nodding. "Of course I can send you the proper paperwork. And yes, you can mail the refund check directly to me." She gave the cruise line representative her address and spelled her name for him. "I'll make sure Miss Whittaker's sister receives the money. She can use it where she is."

   Again, Eve listened. She rolled her eyes. "Is Miss Whittaker canceling? Of course you have to ask. Just to be official. I understand. Why, yes, she most certainly is canceling. But what I was really wondering—"

   She stopped to listen, and my half-eaten sandwich in one hand, I leaned forward. We were getting to the meat of the phone call, and my blood thrummed inside me to the rhythm of every nervous heartbeat. Another piece of the puzzle was about to fall into place, and I couldn't wait to see what it was going to be. Would it be one of those flatedged border pieces that made it easier to fit everything else together? Or some formless blob of nothing that would only confuse us more?

   I held my breath. Which wasn't very hard—my lips were sticky with peanut butter.

   "No, no." Eve laughed the silvery little laugh that so often put people at ease. "It's not the massage Sarah had scheduled that I was going to ask about, though now that you mention it, if you could send a refund for that, too, it would be just the dearest thing. No, what I was really wondering about . . ." She looked at me, just to make sure she had her story straight, and peanut butter notwithstanding, I let go the breath I was holding.

   "What I was really wondering is if y'all are going to notify Miss Whittaker's companion of the fact that she won't be traveling on that cruise? And if he's canceled, too?" She stopped and listened. "Yes, of course I understand, he wouldn't get a refund, too, since he's not dead. But she did have a double occupancy cabin reserved, and you see, I'm not really sure if the person she was going with knows of Miss Whittaker's passing. I know you understand how awkward it could be for me, sugar. I mean, if I'm the one who has to break the news, well . . ."

   Eve paused.

   "He hasn't canceled? You will call him?" She smiled as

brightly as she would have if she was looking at the cruise agent across a ticket counter. "That is just the nicest thing in the world, and I am so very grateful. You see . . ." Another look at me. I nodded. She had laid the groundwork well. It was time to close in for the kill.

   "I mean, I do feel so silly admitting this." Just to prove it, Eve laughed. "But, well, you see, I just can't seem to locate his name and number. Isn't that the silliest thing you've ever heard? I mean, leave it to me to be such an airhead. But after all, I am a blonde. Natural, of course." Her voice was breathy with embarrassment.

   "I mean, I should call him, don't you think? That is, after you tell him about the unfortunate circumstances and that Miss Whittaker's portion of the cruise has been canceled. I should extend my condolences. After all, if he and Sarah knew each other well enough to be traveling together . . . well, you can see what I'm getting at here, sugar. It's an embarrassing situation for me not knowing who to call and all. And if I don't call . . . Well, that could be just as bad. Imagine making that kind of social faux pas!"

   Apparently, the man on the other end of the phone could imagine it quite well. He put Eve on hold and she gave me the thumbs-up.

   "He's gonna get the name." She mouthed the words, and before I had a chance to respond with an appropriate
hip
hip-hooray
, he was back on the line.

   "You have the name for me?" She made it sound like he'd gone far above and beyond, which, now that I thought about it, he actually had. "You are just the best ever. Now, before you tell me who her traveling companion was, you make sure you refresh my memory. What was your name again?"

   The man responded, and Eve nodded. "Grady Kovach. I'm writing it down here, sugar, because I am going to let your supervisor know that you were just the most helpful, the sweetest thing ever." She paused, and I have to give her credit, she really did write Grady's name down. I knew Eve was as good as her word. The man's supervisor would be hearing from her.

   Eve was pretty proud of herself. And rightly so. Her eyes glistened with excitement. "Now what's that you were saying, Grady, honey? About Miss Whittaker's companion. You said his name was—"

   Listening to the man on the other end of the phone, Eve sucked in a breath. Her face went as white as the linen tablecloth and her eyes widened. When Grady was done speaking, her voice didn't sparkle nearly as much.

   "Thank you," she said, and I wondered if Grady even heard her. She was already hanging up the phone. "Thank you very much."

   Eve sat with her hand on the receiver. Her expression was blank. Her face was still pale.

   And me? I couldn't stand it anymore.

   "Well?" I jumped out of my chair. When Eve didn't answer me fast enough, I bent down and looked her in the eye. "Eve! What did Grady say?"

   "He told me who Sarah was traveling with." Her voice was hollow. "But, Annie, I'm not sure it makes any sense. I mean, I thought he'd say it was Dylan and that would prove he was lying about the whole thing. Then we'd know for sure that he was guilty. But Annie . . ." She shifted her gaze to look at me.

   "It's not Dylan. It's Douglas Mercy."

Q
"
DOUGLAS MERCY KNEW THE QUALITY OF SARAH'S

       work wasn't up to snuff lately. But Douglas Mercy didn't."

   For a change, it was
my
train of thought that Eve wasn't following. She looked at me in wonder. And who could blame her? Thanks to what we'd learned from Grady at the cruise line the day before, we were both still in a state of shock. I pulled in a deep breath and prepared myself to once again try to explain.

   Anxious to continue the investigation, I'd left the bank precisely at five o'clock and, thanks to traffic that wasn't nearly as bad as usual, I made it to Bellywasher's in record time. It was a little early for our fashionably late dinner crowd, so there was no one in the restaurant except for Marc and Damien back in the kitchen and Jim, who had breezed through a few minutes earlier and promptly disappeared into the basement. Still, I wasn't taking any chances. We were talking about important and prominent people, after all, and I made sure I bent my head close to Eve's and kept my voice down.

   "Senator Douglas Mercy," I said. "When I talked to him at the funeral luncheon, he knew that Jennifer at the office had been picking up the slack on Sarah's work. He said that when it came time for employee reviews, he wouldn't forget all Jennifer had done. He told me that he knew Sarah's work had suffered because she was down in the dumps over her breakup with Dylan. Doesn't that seem a little odd?"

   "That she'd be down in the dumps because of Dylan? Not in my book." Eve was so sure of herself, her spine went rigid. "Sure, he's full of himself, but he's got every right, don't you think? Dylan Monroe is the handsomest—"

   "That's not what I meant." I knew I had to stop Eve before she got started, or we'd never get around to talking about the case. "I meant that I think it's strange that the senator would be so familiar with Sarah's work when his son— the other Douglas Mercy—isn't. When I talked to him, to Dougy, the day of the funeral, he told me Sarah was a lowerlevel staffer and that they weren't in contact much."

   "And he's the senator's chief of staff."

   I nodded. "Exactly. Seems, funny, don't you think, that the guy on top of the food chain knows what the underlings are up to when the guy who's supposed to supervise them doesn't?"

   As soon as I'd walked in that evening, we had started another list. Or at least, we'd tried. So far, there wasn't anything written on the page except "What We Know About Sarah and Douglas Mercy." The way things were going, it looked like the page might remain blank for a long time.

   Now, I tapped the pink Sharpie against the empty page. "We need to find out which Douglas Mercy was headed out on that cruise with Sarah," I said.

   "And how are we going to do that?"

   I already had something of a plan, but before I could run it past Eve to see if it made as much sense to her as it did to me, we were interrupted by a horrendous clunking sound from the direction of the basement stairs. The next moment, the door swung open, and Jim stomped into the restaurant. He had an armful of framed pictures stacked so high he could barely see over the top, and he staggered under the weight. On top of the pile was a long piece of wood that looked as if it had come out of some dark and dank corner of the alley in back of the restaurant.

   Sensing disaster, I shot out of my seat and hurried over to help. I grabbed the piece of wood. From the other side of the mountain of pictures, I saw Jim's eyes light up when he smiled.

   "Appreciate the help," he said. "I knew I'd grabbed one thing too many, but I could'na let
that
sit down in the basement. Not once I realized what it was."

   I looked at the piece of wood in my hands. What it was, as far as I could see, was a—

   "Walking stick." Jim must have been reading my mind. While he carefully set the pictures down on the bar and arranged them so that they wouldn't tip or get knocked over, he filled in the blanks. "Family legend says it once belonged to my great grandfather. Look." He pointed to a series of small, uneven marks near the bottom of the stick.

   "Grandpa Bannerman owned a terrier. Or so the story goes. Seems the little fellow was fond of chewing wood. And look at this!" Jim took the stick out of my hands and turned it over to show me the two tiny gold loops that had been screwed into the back of it. "Uncle Angus must have intended to display it and just never had the chance. That's why it wasn't hanging with the rest of his stuff. Good thing I was down in the basement looking around, or I might never have found it."

   "And you were down there looking around because . . ." I really didn't have to ask. Something told me I knew exactly what Jim was up to. I eyed him carefully. I'll say this much for the man: at least he had the good sense to look embarrassed.

   "It's not what you think," he said.

   "Good. Because I think we just took all this stuff downstairs for a reason. A good reason. Remember? Ambiance? And now, I think you're bringing it all back up again."

"Not all of it."

   I glanced over to the picture at the top of the stack. It was black-and-white and so grainy, I doubted if anyone could attest to what the little brass plaque at the bottom of the picture said it was: the Loch Ness monster. At least not without a few beers first.

   "Tell me you're not going to hang this stuff back up."

   "OK." As affable as always, Jim nodded. "I won't tell you. Except I was hoping to get your opinion. You know, about where to put everything."

   My sigh said it all.

   Jim, however, said nothing. Humming what I could only imagine was some old Scottish tune, he took the walking stick over to the wall and held it up to see where it would look best.

   I wasn't in the mood for a fight, and let's face it, I really did have more important things to worry about. I left Jim to it and crooked my finger at Eve. We ducked into my office and closed the door.

   "Here's what I think we have to do," I told her, and ignoring the sounds of a hammer banging against the wall out in the restaurant, I laid out my plan.

into action.

   Except I had one little problem: my real job got in the way.

   So did the fact that the people who ran our federal government didn't return their phone messages.

   It wasn't until the next day, a Thursday, that I was able to collect the information I needed. Don't ask me what was happening in Alexandria that night, but there wasn't a single place to park anywhere near Bellywasher's. I left my car in the only space I could find, a few blocks over, and walked in the front door, more anxious than ever to talk to Eve and tell her everything I'd learned.

   Ignoring Grandpa Bannerman's walking stick (now ensconced in a place of honor right over Michael O'Keefe's framed review) and the photo of Nessie (hung closer to the bar), I scanned the room and found Eve busy placating a group of elderly ladies in fur coats who were too cold when she seated them near the door and too hot when she moved them to a table closer to the kitchen. I left her to it, waved hello to Heidi, who rolled her eyes, poked a finger toward a table where three men were eating the day's special, lobster bisque, and mouthed the words, "Picky. Pickier. Pickiest."