Murder on the First Day of Christmas (Chloe Carstairs Mysteries) (33 page)

    
I didn’t correct her. Drag, exhale.

    
“And what was up with her and Trianos?” Angela asked. “Snaky, that girl, but she didn’t spike any drinks or tamper with any food. That much I know.”

    
“Maybe Jack did.” I suggested.

    
Angela sucked her cigarette down to the filter and used its last blinking ember to light another one. My lungs ached just watching her.

    
“I don’t know. On my suspect list, he wasn’t even in the top three. Y’all?”

    
“Not even in the top five,” I admitted. “We were thinking maybe Robin, maybe Nancy. Maybe even you.”

    
Angela’s laughter turned into a coughing fit. “It’s not like I didn’t think about it, but bottom line? I needed my job, and the perks that came with it.”

    
“Such as?” Mom asked.

    
“Access. Credibility…”

    
“Proximity?” I said. “To Saul, I mean.”

    
Angela attempted another laugh, but we saw the tears before she blinked them back. “Okay, I admit it. He was a mentor to me, and I read more into it than there was. Now who’s not as shrewd as they thought they were?”

    
We didn’t push, and as it turned out, we didn’t have to.

    
“When I heard Saul left Robin half his estate…” She shook her head and drew on her cigarette. “What a joke. What a lousy joke.”

    
“Tell us what you know, Angela,” I prompted. “There’s got to be more to it.”

    
“I know Meagan isn’t heartbroken about her dad. Saul chased away her last boyfriend. He was bisexual, but seemed to truly care about Meagan. Saul threatened to tell his parents. After that, Meagan only came home holidays.”

    
“What about Jack and the apple?” Mom pointed to the apple pushpin on the bulletin board.

    
“I think Oscar knew about or at least suspected, Jack’s affair with Robin. The apple was a warning - an Adam and Eve thing.”

    
Mom shot me a look, which I ignored as I kept the ball rolling. “And what about Nancy?”

    
“Saul knew about Nancy’s affairs, and he told Oscar. Not in so many words, but with broad enough hints that Oscar would’ve been a fool not to have picked up on them.”

    
Now that was news.

    
“How did Oscar take it?” I asked.

    
Angela shrugged and tossed another cigarette butt out the window. “Best I could tell, he got off on it.”

    
“What!” Mom was shocked.

    
“Nice, huh. He let Saul have his fun, blackmailing Nancy with the affair, while meanwhile Oscar was kind of encouraging her. Did he really need that work done on his pool house, and how many times a year do gutters need to be cleaned? Nasty.”

    
“What about Bunny and Gavin?”

    She shook her head. “Something’s up there. Saul could smell it a mile away, but if he ever found out what, he didn’t tell me.”

    
“Did he have any suspicions?” Mom asked.

    
“Not really. Maybe they’re swingers. Maybe she’s really a man, or he’s really a woman.  I don’t know what it is, but I can’t stand either one of them.”

    
“What else?” I pressed.

    
“I’ve told y’all plenty. You want the rest? Buy the book.”

    
“Come on,” I pleaded. “Just one really juicy thing.”

    
Angela considered my request, and I could tell she was tempted. “What the hell. But you’re going to die when you hear this.”

    
That got our attention for sure.

    
She smiled. “The hand - I know something about it.”

    
We were practically salivating now for the scoop.

    
“Saul was in on it.”

    
“No freaking way!”

    
“You’re joking,” Mom said.

    
“No ma’am. Some of those crooks Trianos set Saul up to interview? Seems some guy cheated them in some gambling thing, pocketed some money he wasn’t supposed to and got himself killed.”

    We nodded. That much we knew.

    “Anyway, the guys invited Saul to watch them interrogate the guy. Basically, they were calling his bluff, seeing if he could hang with the big boys.”

    “But he didn’t have the stomach for it,” Mom guessed.

    “Not even close. Things started to get out of hand – no pun intended – and Saul split. When he found the hand on his back doorstep, he thought Trianos’s friends had sent it as a warning to keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t resist using it to his advantage.”

    “And you were in on his scheme?”

    “Hell, no. I never would of gone along with something like that. That was what I was trying to tell you about integrity. I have it. Saul didn’t.”

    
“But you figured it out?” Mom asked.

    “Almost from the beginning. The pinkie ring? The rat? Saul added those. It’s the same kind of melodramatic crap I always had to ghostwrite out of his books. He always overplayed scenes.”

    “So it was all a publicity stunt?” I still couldn’t get my head around the situation.

    “Basically. Saul figured Stumpy couldn’t tell the truth about what happened, even if the police did find him, so he cooked up his little PR scheme.” She cranked the window closed. “But the joke was on him, wasn’t it? Because Trianos told me his boys didn’t leave the hand for Saul. Someone else did.”

    
None of it made any sense.

    
“I gotta get back to writing,” she said. “Truly, I don’t have everything figured out, but it’s only a matter of time. The police aren’t much competition, and persistent as y’all are, you two don’t stand a chance - no offense.”

CHAPTER 37

    
No offense, indeed. I was still fuming over that little parting shot three days later. Mostly because, at that point, Angela’s words seemed truer than ever.

    
We had called McGowan right after talking to her to tell him what we’d learned about the hand.

    
His first reaction had been underwhelming. “Sounds an awful lot like y’all are still investigating.”

    
Even after I had assured him we weren’t, that we had happened upon the information in a casual conversation with Angela, he hadn’t been impressed. “We still don’t know how the hand wound up on Saul’s doorstep, and Trianos’s claim of innocence doesn’t carry much weight.”

    
The part of our story that did interest McGowan? The fact that Angela had known something all along about the hand and had kept the information from him. I ended our phone call somewhat abruptly.

    
The case stalled completely on Thursday, and there was the little matter of Christmas to attend to. We Carstairs celebrate our Christmas on the twenty-fourth because Lily spends the twenty-fifth with her father. You wouldn’t think being shorted a single shopping day would make that much difference, but it does. It really does.

    
I spent Thursday fighting crowds at Brookwood Mall, looking for those inevitable last minute gifts. No matter how carefully I plan, no matter how early I shop, I always find myself at the mall the week before Christmas. True, I didn’t have the panicked, frazzled, lost look I usually have this time of year, but that was little consolation as I drove from parking deck to parking deck in search of a space.

    
After several hours I returned home with three books, some scented soaps, a blouse, a pair of slippers and the solemn conviction that I wouldn’t set foot in another mall until February. That, of course, was before Bridget called and asked if my parents and I wanted to go with her and Lily to see Santa. At Brookwood Mall. What auntie in her right mind would pass that up? So it was more parking deck roulette, more crowds, more last-minute gifts - all completely worthwhile.

    
On Friday, Lily, Mom and I baked up a storm - Latte Crisps, Snickerdoodles, Gingerbread men and Red Velvet mini cupcakes. These joined the Espresso Truffles and Orange Sablé Cookies Mom had already made in little cookie boxes Lily gold stamped before we delivered them to neighbors, Lily’s teachers and other friends.

    
All the while, like a low-level hum in my head, I worried obsessively about the case and my upcoming date with Jacob.

    
Talk about stress. Try getting ready for a date with your boyfriend of two years, when negotiations are at their most delicate stage and two unsolved murders hang over your head. I had to give Jacob some clue as to what he was missing without looking like I was trying too hard. My outfit had to project a sense of confidence with a hint of vulnerability.

    
Since technically we were broken up, my clothes should say “Look, but don’t touch.”  My makeup must appear fresh and dewy, a testament to my youth and ability to bear many children. A sexy tumble of curls for my hairdo was required, hinting at how I’d look waking up next to him, without in any way recalling the fright wig my mop usually resembled in the morning.

    
Oh, and my mascara had to stay in place. Firmly.

    
With an uncharacteristic lack of procrastination, I had completed the prep work for our date twenty-four hours early. The outfit had been chosen (swingy skirt, clingy halter, black boots, leather jacket), and there was a back-up outfit selected (pink-and-brown wool sheath, brown boots, pink car coat) in case outfit number one fell through. I had stopped all salt, soda and simple carbs the day before, so I retained no water. My sunless tan was streak-free, and a quick visit to Angelo, my hairdresser, had left my curls bouncy and manageable.

    
Jacob didn’t stand a chance.

    
Consequently, I was ready for my seven p.m. date by four-thirty. Not good.

    
Running early is as bad as running late because you second-guess yourself. Do these boots make my calves look chunky? Chunky calves, the kind rarely glimpsed outside a roller derby, are my secret shame. What if I tried to fix that one errant curl? Is that a zit trying to form? You know the kind of thing.

    
I also second-guessed my gift to Jacob, now neatly wrapped (ok, gift bagged) and ready by the door. I’d settled on a half-zip sweater and a pair of cashmere-lined leather gloves, striking the right balance between affectionate (on the off chance that he gave me a piece of small, but tasteful jewelry) and impersonal (in case I came home with a stuffed animal and a Christmas ornament).

    
These are the things that can be fraught with drama and disappointment.

     For instance, l
ast Christmas, my friend Heather bought her boyfriend some achingly expensive Bose speakers. He got her a velour tracksuit - size-small top, size-large bottoms - with the store’s security sensor tag still attached. They’re currently seeing other people.

    
So. Mustn’t dwell.

    
I could have balanced my checkbook. I had probably trained more clients at the gym in the last two days than I had in all of October. Everybody’s desire to look fabulous at holiday parties meant I was rolling in cash. But who are we kidding? I never balance my checkbook.

    
I could have wrapped presents. I still had three to go, Mom and Bridget’s broaches and a computer game for Lily. But, I decided not to risk a paper cut.

    
Before I could do anything, though, someone called me. McGowan.

    
“Thought you might want to know, Jack’s talking a lot more and I don’t much like what he’s saying.”

    
“Why not?”

    
“Because it doesn’t bring me any nearer to closing the case.”

    
“You had to know he’d deny everything,” I was only half-listening, too busy looking at myself in any reflective surface I could find.

    
“But I didn’t know his denials would make so much sense. Jack’s sticking to his story that when he got to your house, the back door latch was already broken. He wasn’t there to rob or hurt you, but was looking into an anonymous tip.”

    
“Sure. Uh-huh. Very plausible.”

    
“And in an instant of rare candor, he said he wouldn’t have killed Saul or Oscar - period. But if he had, he would’ve made damn sure he had those discs beforehand. And if he had the discs, he never would have sent them to you.”

    
I didn’t know what to make of that.

    
“And it gets worse. Jack’s making noises about charging you and Amanda.”

    
“For what? If he’s trying to say we assaulted him, he’s right. He was threatening to kill us.”