Night of the Living Dandelion (29 page)

Let’s be honest
indeed. I forcefully removed my hand from his. “You’re wrong.”

He placed his hands on the arms of my chair. “I’m never wrong. I’m an expert at reading women’s desires. And I have to say, your little cat-and-mouse game is quite a turn-on.”

“Okay, I’m going to have to end this now. Would you give me my pen, please?”

He leaned toward me, his gaze fastened on my lips as he said seductively, “We needn’t end anything,
Gabriella.
This is our beginning.”

Fearing that his next move would be to kiss me, I quickly felt alongside the chair for one of my crutches, intending to follow Marco’s advice and smack him with it. Before I could lay my hand on it, however, there was a quick rap on the door.

“What?” Holloway snarled, turning just as the door opened and his nurse stepped inside. She was followed by Marco.

I breathed a sigh of relief. The cavalry had arrived.

The doctor erupted in a fit of temper. “What’s the meaning of this?”

Steely-eyed, Marco instantly calculated Holloway’s close proximity to me to assess my immediate danger, then started toward us. I gave him a quick shake of my head to let him know that my safety hadn’t been breeched, and then I saw him visibly relax. The nurse had disappeared.

“Who are you?” Holloway bellowed, jumping to his feet. “How dare you barge in here!”

Keeping his gaze fixed on the surgeon, Marco said to me, “Let’s go.”

As I packed up my notebook and slid my purse over my shoulder, Holloway charged toward the door, bellowing for his nurse. Marco stepped into his path, shutting the door so the doctor had nowhere to go.

“I demand to know who you are!” Holloway raged, backing away from Marco’s hard stare.

Balancing against the chair, I wedged the crutches under my arms and hop-stepped toward Marco. Without a word, he opened the door to let me through, then followed me out and shut the door behind him. We started down the hallway together, saying nothing. As I passed the reception desk, I caught Holloway’s nurse covering her mouth, trying to hide a grin. I gave her a smile and continued on.

 

“That was exciting,” I said, as we left the clinic.

“Did you get your questions answered?”

“Most of them, until Holloway decided I was lusting after him.”

“So much for being able to handle frisky men,” Marco said, helping me into the car.

“Trust me. Holloway wouldn’t have gotten far.” I gave Marco a playful punch in the arm. “But I’m glad you showed up anyway. And you would have been proud of me. I got Dr. Wonderful to say Lori’s name. He told me she tried to ruin him for rejecting her advances, just as Courtney Anne had said. And get this—when I asked how he’d handled the crisis, his answer was ‘by careful planning.’ ”

“Did he explain that?”

“He would only equate it with planning a vacation. So I asked what his destination had been and he said
redemption
. I tried to get him to clarify that, but he wouldn’t. Maybe all he meant was that he had a financial plan to pull himself out of debt, but if that were so, you’d think he would’ve told me. If he hadn’t gone all Lusty Louie on me, I might have gotten more out of him.”

“Next time we talk to him, we’ll use the direct approach.”

“Next time? Holloway wouldn’t talk to you before, Marco, and he’s certainly not going to talk to either one of us now.”

“I think he will. His nurse was nice enough to tell me where he hangs out after hours. Tonight, eight o’clock, we’re going to be there.”

“And where is that?”

“The casino boat.”

“He told me he’s opposed to gambling.”

“According to his nurse, blackjack is his game.”

“So Dr. Speedo lied to me twice.”

“Yep. He and Jerry Trumble are now two for two.”

“Speaking of Jerry, I almost forgot. I’m meeting with his wife’s two friends at closing time today.”

“When did you set that up?”

I thought back over the past two days. “So much has happened, I can’t remember. This morning, I think.”

“Do you want me there?”

“It’d be better if you weren’t.”

At ten minutes to five, Grace came into the workroom to report that a pair of women were in the coffee-and-tea parlor asking to see me. By the time I grabbed a pen and notebook and wheeled into the parlor, Grace had poured them coffee and put out the last two scones of the day, along with a bowl of clotted cream.

One of the women had already spread cream on her scone and was nibbling at the end, while the other stirred sugar into her coffee. Both appeared to be in their midthirties, one a pleasant-looking woman with short, curly brown hair that framed her round face, the other a lean woman with the physique of a runner, her brown hair in a high ponytail.

I introduced myself, and at their curious looks, explained about my ankle.

“I sprained my ankle once,” the runner said, “but all the doctor did for me was tell me to stay off of it. I’m Alison, by the way.”

“I’m Becky,” the other woman said with a sweet smile, shaking my hand.

“Thanks for coming over.” I noticed Grace hovering, so I said, “Would you close up shop, please? We might be a while, so I’ll see you and Lottie in the morning.”

I waited until Grace had left the room, then said, “Before I explain what I want to do for Dana, how do you happen to know her?”

“We went to college with her,” Becky said. “We shared an apartment for our last two years at school.”

“Until she met Jerry,” Alison said drily, “and he talked her into moving in with him.” She glanced at Becky and they shared a private look.

It seemed pretty clear that they didn’t like Jerry, but I hated to assume it and end up offending them. I had to be tactful. “You mentioned on the phone not wanting to be involved in anything if Jerry was included. Would you mind telling me why?”

The two again shared a look; then Alison said, “Because he murdered Dana.”

And I’d been worried about being tactful.

I
glanced from Alison to Becky. “Jerry murdered his wife?”

They nodded in unison.

“Do you have proof?” I asked.

“No,” Alison said, “but in the last months before she died, she told us that if something happened to her, we should tell the police Jerry did it. So we told them, and they acted like we were airheads. Turns out both detectives we talked to knew Jerry through the pharmacy.”

“Everyone thinks Jerry’s Mr. Nice Guy,” Becky said. “He’s an expert at hiding his true personality.”

“Except in front of us,” Alison added. “He hates us. He did everything he could to keep Dana away from us. We’d steal her away from work at lunchtime so he didn’t know.”

“Dana went along with that?” I asked.

“She was scared every moment,” Becky said, “but she went along with it.”

“Did he physically abuse her?” I asked.

Alison tapped her temple. “He played mind games with her. He’d be sweet for a few days. Then he’d accuse her of having affairs, of turning their son against him, of hiding money so she could leave him—”

“While he was actually the one being sneaky,” Becky finished. “When Dana found out, she confronted him. It caused a big fight that ended with her telling him she wanted a divorce. The next thing we heard, they were taking a trip to Australia to fix their marriage.”

I saw Alison roll her eyes, so I said, “You don’t believe that?”

“Dana wanted out,” Alison said. “Their marriage was beyond repair. The only reason she would have gone was to let him down gently.”

“Then Dana got a blood clot on the way home and ended up in intensive care,” Becky said sadly, “giving Jerry the perfect setup.”

“How conveniently it all worked out for Jerry,” Alison said.

“You don’t think it’s possible that the nurse gave her too much heparin?” I asked.

“Sure, it’s possible,” Alison said, “but it’s more probable that Jerry knew Dana wasn’t going to stay with him and planned a way to kill her that would make him appear innocent.”

She’d just voiced my theory. “Do you think Jerry is one of those guys who can’t stand the thought of Dana being with anyone else?”

“With Jerry, it would be about the money,” Becky said.

“He was a control freak,” Alison said. “He watched every dime Dana spent. He’d go berserk if she bought a new lipstick before the old one was gone.”

“Are you absolutely sure Dana was going to leave him?” I asked.

“That’s how she was talking before they left,” Becky said. “After she got on that plane for Australia, we never heard from her again, so there’s really no way to know what she was thinking then.”

“Of course she was going to leave him,” Alison said to her friend. “She told us so.”

“She could have changed her mind,” Becky argued.

“No way,” Alison retorted. “She was determined to get away from him.”

Both women took sips of coffee, as though they needed to calm down.

“I think it’s time to tell you why I wanted this meeting,” I said.

Over the last of the coffee, I explained the investigation into Lori’s murder. Neither Alison nor Becky was offended by my ruse, and both were delighted that Jerry was finally being investigated.

“Do you think Lori found something that proved Jerry murdered Dana?” Becky asked.

“That’s the only way it makes sense for him to kill Lori now,” I said. “We’re going to interview Jerry again, so I hope I can get him to let something slip. And that reminds me. You mentioned that Dana caught him sneaking around. Do you know who the woman was?”

“He wasn’t having an affair,” Becky said.

“That we know of,” Alison amended. “Dana found out he was gambling again. He’d gotten them into deep financial trouble about six months earlier and had supposedly sworn off gambling. But a few weeks before Dana died, someone she worked with saw Jerry at the boat.”

At the word
gambling
, my ears began to buzz. “Do you know which boat?”

“The Calumet Casino,” Alison said.

That was quite a coincidence.

“Then she found out he’d been going there on a regular basis,” Alison said. “He had been able to hide it because he handled their finances. Once Dana looked into it, she found out they were up to their ears in debt again.”

“Do you know whether Jerry took out an insurance policy on Dana before she died?” I asked.

The women glanced at each other. “No, but we’ve wondered that for years,” Becky said.

“Even if he didn’t,” Alison said, “with the settlement he received from that lawsuit, he has to be set for life. First thing he did after the case was over was to get himself the biggest, fanciest truck money could buy. For a guy supposedly grieving over his wife, Jerry has been one happy camper.”

 

As soon as Alison and Becky were gone, I called Marco. “I’ve got great information on Trumble. I’ll tell you about it when I see you. Is it okay for me to come down by myself?”

“No vigilantes in sight, but I’d still rather come get you.”

“Is Vlad there?”

“You want
him
to come get you?”

“No, silly. I was just checking to make sure he hadn’t had a problem getting to work.”

“Are you referring to the incident with the men in the white van carrying baseball bats, which you somehow forgot to tell me about?”

“I’m sorry, Marco. There’s too much going on. I can’t keep track of it all. I guess it was Vlad’s story to tell anyway.”

“Luckily it had a happy ending. I’ll be right down.”

 

As I kept pace with Marco, I told him about my meeting with Dana Trumble’s friends, their strong beliefs about Jerry being responsible for Dana’s death, their surprising revelation about Jerry’s gambling at the Calumet Casino, and our speculation as to whether he might have used both the insurance money and the settlement money to pay off his gambling debts.