Killer Cocktail (26 page)

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Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Women Sleuths, #Amateur Sleuth

BOOK: Killer Cocktail
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Mindful of the limited time, I hurriedly slid the clothes back into place, but one of Rebecca’s longer dresses caught on a classic Vuitton satchel on the floor of the armoire. I bent down to unsnag the hem and slide the satchel back into place. When I did, the satchel gave an unmistakable gurgle.
I knelt down and carefully unzipped the satchel. Cradled in a Nautica sweatshirt, the champagne bottle was turned so I could only see part of the back label. Pulling my sleeve down over my hand, I nudged the bottle around until I could see the front label. It was one of the bottles from the party. And the bottom right-hand edge of the label was torn, frayed, and pulled up from the bottle.
I sat back on my heels, light-headed. How had they kept this away from the police? Was Rebecca hiding the bottle for Aunt Cynthia? Had Aunt Cynthia planted it on Rebecca? Or had I been wrong? My heart thudded so hard I could barely hear myself think. Could Rebecca have done this?
Would
Rebecca have done this?
The most pressing question was, should I take the bottle with me or leave it there? I didn’t want to contaminate it but I didn’t want to lose it either. Where was I going to put it if I took it out of the room? It didn’t exactly fit under my skirt, but I couldn’t be sure of getting to Tricia without anyone else seeing me first. I stood, the bottle in my hand, still thinking. I turned around and almost stepped on Rebecca’s toes.
“Isn’t this a surprise,” she said with an ugly sneer, her fingers tapping languidly on the emerald necklace.
I kept the bottle pressed to my leg as though it could hide in the folds of my skirt. “I’m sorry, is this your room?” I asked as lightly as possible.
“Why are you in here?” she asked.
“Tricia asked me to get something for Aunt Cynthia and I guess I got the directions confused.”
“You’re not a very good liar, Molly.”
“Actually, I’m an excellent liar. I occasionally surprise myself. You just caught me unprepared. Good lies take time, don’t you find?”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you planning to?”
“Depends on what you tell me.”
“Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because I know what you did to Lisbet.”
“Prove it.”
A little voice in the back of my mind was screaming and encouraging my mouth to join in. But if I screamed now, there was too much of a chance that things would go awry. I was in her room without permission and holding a bottle that she might have already wiped her fingerprints off. Forget Regan Crawford, I was going to look like the nosy reporter mucking around where I didn’t belong.
Rebecca grabbed my arm and pulled it away from my side. “What is that?” she asked, looking at the bottle.
“So you’re a good liar, too.”
“I’ve never seen that bottle before.”
“Why else would it be in your satchel?”
“Because you put it there. You’re planting evidence to make me look guilty because you promised my vicious little sister-in-law that you’d make sure David went free. And you’d do anything for that conniving little brat.”
“I had no idea the two of you were so close.”
Rebecca smiled. It was the most genuine expression I’d ever seen on her, but it still looked twisted and ill. “So what are you going to do, Molly?”
“Take my chances.” I took a step past her, toward the door, but as I did so, she reached into the dresser drawer and brought out a small handgun. Now, I can pick out Jimmy Choos at twenty paces, but all I can tell you about this gun was that it was small and shiny and the ugliest thing I’d ever seen in my life.
“Bad choice,” she said, pointing the gun at me. I stopped.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, not anxious to be confrontational but not wanting to appear blase either.
“I told you if you didn’t leave this alone, you were going to be next. I’ve always heard it’s easier the second time.”
“That’s love, not murder,” I corrected her.
“We’ll see.”
The little voice suggested screaming again and I was starting to see the wisdom in that. It must have shown on my face, because Rebecca pulled me close, the gun nestled against my stomach. “Scream and I’ll shoot. I’ll say there was a struggle after I found you going through my things, planting the bottle and the gun.”
“I withdraw my earlier assessment,” I said quietly. “You’re a fantastic liar.”
“Thank you. Now you’re going to put the bottle back in the satchel and we’re going to take a walk. Throw a few things in the river.”
“Like you threw Lisbet in the pool?”
I was expecting her to be angry, but she was proud. “That slut was asking for it. And you know what, it was the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I was killing myself trying to get back in their good graces, but I kill her and all of a sudden,
I’m the best daughter-in-law in the world. They rely on me, they trust me, they believe me. Punching that skank’s ticket wound up being my way back in.”
“You killed Lisbet to get in good with the Vincents? I don’t follow.”
“She said she was better than I was, that she didn’t have to follow their rules. I tried to go my own way and Richard threw me out. It was all about being a Vincent and what people thought and all that uptight WASP crap. I wasn’t good enough.”
I wanted to ask how hard she could have been trying when she had wound up in the gossip columns and tabloids on a regular basis, but “That must have been so hard” seemed like a much wiser choice.
“Ripped my heart out. So I decided, I’d beat them at their own game. I’d be a good girl. I had to beg Richard to take me back, but it was worth it. And then David hooks up with Lisbet, who’s not only a pig but a slut, and everybody falls all over her. She gets a big party and she gets to wear the emeralds and she makes a fool of herself and nobody bats an eye. I’m so furious I can’t sleep and I take a walk by the pool. Aunt Cynthia comes out of the pool house, all disgusted, tells me Lisbet’s in there, drunk as a skunk and whoring around. So I go in to talk to her. To warn her, share my experience. Lisbet says to mind my own business. No one’s going to tell her how to behave. Especially me.”
I stared at her, chilled more by her matter-of-fact recitation of the facts than the facts themselves. She beamed. “Taught her, didn’t I?”
“That was worth killing her?” I asked.
“At the time, I was just furious. But it’s been incredibly worth it. I’m right where I want to be. Except now, you’re in the way.”
Glued to my hip, she nudged me back to the armoire. “Pick it up,” she commanded, tossing her head toward the satchel. I obediently snagged it and placed the bottle back in its sweatshirt nest. I held it up for her, but she shook her head. “I have my hands full with you and the gun. You carry it.”
She took my left arm like she was eight and I was her favorite friend, both arms wrapped around mine so her inner arm hid the gun from view, but not from use. It was pressed against my ribs, right by my heart. I was carrying the satchel in that hand, which made it awkward for us to walk, but gave her control over what I did with it, too. For a raving lunatic, she was pretty smart.
She guided me back to the door. I understood her willingness to shoot me, but still, how did she think she was going to walk me through a foyer full of people and not have anyone notice we had become extraordinarily close?
Because the foyer was empty. Everyone had gone in to be seated for the luncheon. Tricia had probably looked for me in Aunt Cynthia’s room and couldn’t figure out where I’d gone. Even if I risked screaming now, there was no guarantee in a monster apartment like this that anyone would hear me.
“Rebecca, you’re just making it worse,” I attempted as we got closer to the foyer. “Stop now and we can work something out.”
“I have everything worked out,” Rebecca insisted, getting strident. “You’re messing it up, but it’s going to be fine again, it’s going—”
“Rebecca?”
Mrs. Vincent entered the foyer in front of us. Rebecca and I stopped. I could feel the anger pulsing in her body and wondered if she could feel my joy.
“Mrs. Vincent—” I began, but Rebecca pushed the gun more firmly against my side, so I stopped to carefully construct what I was going to say.
“The soup’s getting cold. Where have the two of you been?”
“Molly and I need to step out for a moment, Mother. We’ll be right back. Start without us.”
“How is that going to look?” Mrs. Vincent asked. “It’s fine for Molly not to be there, but we’re making a statement of family unity and you’re spoiling it. Come to the table.”
Rebecca propelled me forward. “I said, I’ll be right there.”
“Rebecca, come to the table at once,” Mrs. Vincent repeated. Behind her, Richard and Mr. Vincent were moving into view as they came out of the dining room.
“This is what you wanted, isn’t it, Rebecca?” I asked.
“Shut up, Molly.”
“To be an indispensable member of the family?”
“Rebecca, in. Now,” Mrs. Vincent commanded, imperious finger pointing the way. But Tricia, David, and Aunt Cynthia had come out now and the guests weren’t far behind, lured by the scent of trouble in the air.
“Rebecca, explain yourself,” Mr. Vincent demanded.
Rebecca was all but dragging me to the door now. Mr. Vincent and Richard were coming for us and, worried that innocent people—besides me—were about to get hurt, I knew I couldn’t hesitate any longer. I literally dragged my feet. As we walked past the round table and its rug, I dragged my right foot so the beautifully tapered heel on my shoe caught in the fringe. “Oh, wait!” I exclaimed, “I’m stuck.”
It yanked us to a stop. Rebecca leaned to see where I was snagged and I did my plant-and-pivot move, shifting my
weight with sufficient force to separate me, Rebecca, the gun, and the satchel and send us all tumbling to the floor.
Screams filled the foyer as people saw the gun. Richard yelled for someone to call 911. Mr. Vincent yelled for calm. Mrs. Vincent yelled for Rebecca to behave herself. Tricia yelled for me to kick Rebecca’s ass and Cassady yelled for Tricia to say it again. Rebecca and I scrambled on our hands and knees after the gun. I grabbed it, but Rebecca got up on one knee and stomped on my hand with her stiletto heel. Even as I screamed, I tried to hang onto the gun, but my hand wasn’t responding and she yanked it away from me and got to her feet, waving the gun wildly and backing toward the front door.
Richard stepped closer and she leveled the gun at him.
“Don’t, Richard,” Mr. Vincent advised.
I scooted myself back across the floor until I was close enough to snag the satchel. Rebecca was so focused on Richard that she didn’t notice at first; when she did glance down, I froze and she looked right back up at Richard.
“This time, your father has good advice,” she told him. “Don’t mess with me right now, honey. I’ll explain it all later.”
I slid my hand into the satchel and wrapped my hand around the neck of the bottle.
“Would someone please explain to me what’s going on here?” Mrs. Vincent implored.
“Rebecca killed Lisbet and we have to go dispose of the murder weapon,” I explained as I pulled the bottle out and held it up for all to see.
The air pressure in the foyer dropped from all the sudden intakes of breath at the same moment. Rebecca screamed and turned to aim the gun at me, but I swung the champagne
bottle low and hard, catching her behind the knees and sweeping her feet out from under her. She fired off one shot as she fell, which sent everyone running for cover. I pounced on her the moment she hit the floor and smacked her hand with the champagne bottle to make sure she let go of the gun. It slid across the floor and people shrank from it as if it were a copperhead.
Tricia was the first one at my side, throwing herself on the ground to pin her sister-in-law’s legs down. “Careful, her heels are sharp.”
The crowd closed around us as Rebecca continued to writhe and wail, but I wasn’t about to get up until the police arrived. I looked up and saw a curvaceous blond on her cell phone. “Are you calling 911?”
She made a face of utter disbelief at me. “Get serious.” Someone at the other end of the line answered and she said, “Hi, it’s Regan Crawford. Is he in?”
“This is my story!” I protested.
“I don’t see you filing it,” she said. Then, into the phone, she cooed, “Peter, honey, I have the most amazing story.”
Life, love, and murders. Just when you think you have them figured out, they find a way to surprise you.
“
I hope I never
see you again.”
Tragically, there were quite a few people in my life that were in a position to be telling me that, but fortunately, the one who was saying it was someone about whom I felt exactly the same. Meeting Detective Darcy Cook had been unpleasant. Getting run down with her had been painful. Saying good-bye to her was delightful.
We were on the sidewalk in front of Kyle’s precinct. Detective Myerson had come to retrieve his partner, freshly discharged from the hospital, and go over the paperwork necessary to transfer Rebecca to the care of Suffolk County. Detective Cook was still learning to walk on crutches, but I had no doubt that she would soon be using them as instruments of punishment as well as transportation.
Tricia and Cassady had come along with me, mainly to make sure I actually showed up and spoke to Detective Cook because I would have been perfectly happy to let our relationship languish where it was. But my well-bred buddies had prevailed upon me, convincing me that the gracious gesture would also go far toward mending things with the more important homicide detective in my life.
Assuming they could be mended. I’d pushed Kyle to the
brink and I still wasn’t sure if I’d backed off in time or if he’d gone over. I’d actually spoken to Detective Lipscomb more yesterday, in the aftermath of Rebecca’s arrest, than I had spoken to Kyle. I’d picked up the phone half a dozen times last night, wanting to call him, then realized I had no idea what to say. This morning, he was standing back and observing as I attempted to mend fences with Detective Cook.
“I understand and I apologize,” I told her. Flowers or candy probably would have been too weird, but I wished I had some ceremonial offering other than a handshake. I’d even considered a bottle of champagne, but I didn’t think she’d see the humor in it. If I’d handed her an object, she would’ve been forced to take it, but as I stuck out my hand, I knew there was an excellent chance she was going to just stare at it.
But she shook it. And then she offered her hand to Tricia. “I’m sorry for your family’s loss. Losses. But it must help to have such a dedicated friend.”
Tricia smiled appreciatively. “Thank you. It does.”
“Friends, plural,” Cassady corrected, extending her hand.
Detective Cook actually laughed and shook her hand. “Plural.”
Detective Myerson gave us all a wave of farewell. “Stay out of trouble. And stay out of Southampton. Please.” He began the slow process of getting Detective Cook to the car.
I turned around to face Kyle. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the ground. At least he wasn’t pinching his lip.
Tricia patted me on the arm. “We’re going to walk down to the corner to get a cab. We’ll wait for you. Kyle, see you later,” she said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
“Don’t make her cry,” Cassady warned him before Tricia led her away.
Kyle’s brilliant blue eyes drifted up to meet mine. “Why does she think I’d make you cry?”
“Because I’ve been my usual calm, unemotional self lately and it wouldn’t take much.”
His eyes drifted back to the pavement. “You okay?”
“I didn’t get shot.”
One hand came out of his pocket and ran through his hair. “I know how that goes.”
“Kyle, I’m sorry.” This isn’t where or how I’d planned to say it, but I realized I couldn’t wait.
He looked up, surprised. “For what?”
“You want a list?”
He shrugged. “Just tell me if there’re any exclusions.”
I tried not to smile. “No, I’m sorry for the whole mess.”
He let himself smile. “Yeah, but since you turned out to be right, I’ll cut you some slack. Just don’t plan on using Cook as a personal reference anywhere.”
“What about you?”
He squinted thoughtfully and I plunged ahead. “I know it’s been six months, a little more, but—”
“Have you been talking to Lipscomb?”
I nodded. He shook his head and I wasn’t sure which of his partners frustrated him more at that moment. If I could still be considered a partner in any sense. “This is worth working out,” I said when he didn’t say anything.
He stepped in close. “Right again.”
“Just maintaining my batting average,” I said, trying desperately to sound cool, like I hadn’t doubted it for a minute.
“You need to leave before I engage in inappropriate public behavior and get in serious trouble.” He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek. “Call me when you get to work.”
“I’m not being tailed anymore.”
“No, but you’ll have decided where you want to have dinner.”
“I already know where I want dessert.”
“Deal.” He pressed his finger to my lips and hurried up the stairs.
“Kyle?” I called after him. He stopped and came back down. While we were resolving issues, I had another one to toss on the pile. “Speaking of phone calls. Last week, when you called right as I was leaving, you were going to ask me something and you never did.”
He nodded. “I’ve been busy.”
“What was it?”
“Does it matter now?”
“How can I tell when I don’t know what it was?”
He shook his head, amused. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to go away for the weekend.”
I would have kicked myself if my Blahniks hadn’t had such pointed toes. “Did I miss my moment?”
“Not at all. We’re just crossing Southampton off the list. We’ll talk about it at dinner.”
Tricia and Cassady were fidgeting on the corner as I floated up. Cassady’s eyebrow slid up to an appreciative angle. “Things back on course with New York’s finest?”
“Finest detective or finest friends?” I asked, linking arms with them.
“We were always fine,” Tricia protested.
“Liar,” I said.
“No, truly,” she insisted. “I was furious with you, and rightly so, but we were always fine at the foundation. Well, mostly fine. I honestly can’t imagine you making me so angry that I wouldn’t be your friend anymore.”
Cassady waved her hands in mock distress. “Tricia, please. You know how she loves a challenge. Don’t give her one.”
I checked my watch. “You two have time for coffee before work?”
“I consider it a medical necessity,” Cassady answered.
“I do,” Tricia agreed, “but do you? You have an article to write.”
“She what?” Cassady answered for me since I was dumbfounded and unable to answer for myself.
“You’re not going to let Peter Mulcahey have the last word on this tragedy, are you? Especially since I’ve instructed my family not to speak to any member of the press except you. Lunch is at one at Aquavit, by the way. Mother, Dad, Richard, Davey, and me.”
I looked to Cassady, anxious to share my disbelief. Cassady shook her head. “Let her take charge, Molly. It’s her way of grieving.”
As we walked down the street, I was profoundly grateful for getting—and taking—a second chance. Seems to me that even when you know how difficult the process will be, some things—falling in love, solving a mystery, making friends—are worth doing again because they give you another opportunity to understand and appreciate the complexities of the human heart. And those lessons, however hard won, help to reassure us that we’ve done the right thing and life will now fall into place.
For a little while, at least.

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