No Hiding Behind the Potted Palms! A Dance with Danger Mystery #7 (19 page)

Less than ten minutes later,
escorted by two officers, I put my key in the front door and went
in to find a house torn upside down. The cushions of the sofa and
wing chair were sliced open. Every drawer in the nineteenth century
secretary that belonged to my dad’s family was upended onto a pile
in the middle of the room. Even the kitchen was ravaged. Cabinet
doors and drawers were left open. Food packages were opened and the
contents were dumped in the sink.

“What in God’s name were
they looking for?” I stood in the middle of the mess,
baffled.

“Do you keep a lot of
valuables in the house?” the first officer wondered.

“No,” I shook my head. “In
fact, I’m getting ready to move, so I’ve been trying to pack. Oh,
the boxes in my mother’s bedroom!”

I led the police down the
hall. Every box stacked up against the wall had been slashed open
and the contents were strewn across the floor. I sunk down on my
mother’s double bed, stunned.

“Why would someone do
this?”

“Can you tell if anything is
missing?” another cop wanted to know. I looked around,
baffled.

“Not just by looking at the
boxes,” I admitted. “It will take me a while. I have to go through
everything.

“Is the house on the
market?” the first cop wanted to know.

“No. I was planning to move
out before I started having the real estate agent show it, because
it’s so small.”

“You’ve been here for
awhile?”

“Yes, I’ve lived here for
the last few years,” I explained. “My mother died a few months ago.
I’m in the middle of relocating.”

“Where are you
headed?”

“To Jenkins Beach,” I
explained. “I was going to go back to my condo in Belle Haven, but
a family friend asked me to help care for his elderly mother. I’m
in the middle of having my possessions shipped up to the new
place.”

“Can you give us a
description of either man?”

“Not really.” It was true.
All I saw was a man in street clothes, fleeing the scene with a
stocking over his head.

Just then, a uniformed
officer showed up in the bedroom, accompanied by a pair of plain
clothes detectives, one female, one male.

“I’m Wallinski,” the woman
said, with a quick flash of her badge, “and this is my partner,
Zoros.”

“Ms. Sheffield, do you have
any enemies?” Detective Zoros asked. The question took me by
surprise.

“I’m a cookbook author. Why
would I have enemies?”

“Any unusual interactions
lately?” The older detective was taking notes. He looked at me over
his glasses. “Any relationships turned ugly?”

“Why?” I
wondered.

“Either someone was looking
for something specific here or was interested in sending you a
message. They left behind a lot of very valuable things. I think we
can rule out robbery.”

“
There is something you
should know. My tenant down in Belle Haven was attacked when he
went to my storage unit the other day. Three men in black masks
beat him up.”

“Why don’t you give us the
information and we’ll coordinate with the police department down
there?” The detective’s radio crackled.

“Back to the question,” a
female detective asked, pen in hand as she paused to take notes.
“Any relationships that went bad?”

“Tom came to see me. My
ex-boyfriend.” I went through the short version of the
story.

“Do you have the item he
wanted?”

“As a matter of fact, I took
it with me to have it appraised.” I pulled it out of my purse and
handed it to the male detective. “It was with me when those men
broke in. But why would they want it?

“What’s something like this
worth?” he asked.

“According to the antiques
dealer I know, about two thousand dollars.”

“For this?” He studied it
more closely. “What makes it worth so much?”

“It’s French, late 1890’s,
maybe early 1900’s,” I recited what my appraiser told me. I also
showed them the unusual numbers on the spice box.

“We’ll get some photos of
this. Do you know why your ex-boyfriend wants it back?”

“He said it has sentimental
value,” I said, skepticism in my voice.

“Why don’t you believe him?”
Detective Wallinski was holding the spice box in her left hand,
tracing the marks with her right. She looked up, her eyes
alert.

“He bought it on a trip to
Frankfurt,” I said, “when he was there on business. There’s
something about it that’s important to him. I just haven’t figured
out what it is.”

“What makes you say
that?”

“Because he started out
trying to convince me that we should get back together, and when
that failed, he asked for it back.”

“You have a contact number
for him?” She looked expectantly at me, as if she knew that Tom had
given one to me. I went to the kitchen to retrieve it from the
counter and she followed. The other cops were all looking over the
scene. She handed the number to one of the cops who was standing at
the counter, with instructions to get a hold of Tom and determine
his present whereabouts. “Who ended it?”

“What do you
mean?”

“The relationship. Who
called it quits?” I told her about Adelaide and my caregiver
duties. I also told her about the neighbor, Ingrid. She nodded,
scribbling in her notebook. “How about during the recent
visit?”

I explained about the
confrontation we had, about my concerns that he was threatening
me.

“What does he do for
employment?

““
He works for Vanguard
Advanced. They do simulation training. He mentioned it was some
kind of joint project between the Navy and Walden Medical Center.
Something about operating on the battlefield.”

“You lied to him about the
spice box. Why?” Detective Zoros wanted to know.

“Because I thought he was
lying,” I admitted. “And I wanted to know why he pretended to love
me again. Maybe I wanted to know if he pretended the first time
around.”

“Interesting. You think he
did?”

“His specialty is simulation
training. He’s good at making people do what he wants them to do. I
guess I wanted to know why he picked me. We never really had
anything in common, other than a physical attraction.”

“Maybe he’s just a
run-of-the-mill creep,” Detective Wallinski suggested.

“Maybe. But it was more than
that. He never told me he was married until we’d been together for
a while. And by then, he said he had left his wife. The next few
years were filled with waiting for the divorce to be
final.”

“What’s the ex-wife like?”
the detective wanted to know.

“I never met
her.”

“At all?” Her eyebrows shot
up in surprise. “Ever speak to her on the phone?”

“No,” I said. It was true. I
had never had any kind of contact with Tom’s ex-wife.

“Do you know what she does
for work?”

“I think he said she was an
emergency room nurse.”

“How long were they
married?” The detective had stopped taking notes. I wondered what
it was that had her so interested.

“Five years.
Why?”

“Was that his only
marriage?” That question really got my interest. As I thought about
it, I saw she was probing carefully, as if she suspected something
about Tom, something I missed.

“As far as I know. I mean, I
had no reason to ask him if he had been married more than
once.”

“But you talked about
marrying him,” the woman remarked. “Weren’t you ever curious about
the other relationships he had with women?”

“Every time we started
talking about our lives before we met, he cut me off. Or he picked
a fight.” As I sat there, those days and nights started to flood
back into my mind, like snapshots of moments. The more I looked at
the times we shared, the more I realized how much I had been
played.

“Detective,” said a cop,
holding the piece of paper with Tom’s contact information on it, “I
spoke with the man. He’s at work. No way he’s our guy.”

“Thanks, Dolcini. I guess
we’ll have to keep looking.”

My cell phone rang. Without
thinking, I reached for it, but then I hesitated, realizing it
might be Tom. A glance at the number revealed it was
Barry.

“How’s Jim?” I asked,
foregoing any semblance of a greeting. I was too intent on finding
out about his roommate. “Is he any better?”

“And hello to you too, Kim,”
Barry said, more his old self. “As a matter of fact, I wanted you
to know that he woke up this afternoon. He seems to have all his
marbles and the doctors think he’ll be able to go home in a couple
of days.”

“That’s great news,” I told
him, relief in my voice. As I spoke, I realized how guilty I had
been feeling for what happened to Jim. I wouldn’t have forgiven
myself if he had died.

“Your stuff is arriving
tomorrow. The moving men put it on the truck about an hour
ago.”

“Oh, Barry,” I sighed. “I
can’t believe you did that for me.”

“I didn’t do much. I gave
them the key and they did all the heavy lifting.”

“I still appreciate it.
Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The police left a short time
later, with instructions to contact them immediately if there was
any sign of a return visit.

Mac called and I filled him
in on the events of the afternoon.

“Are you okay,
Kimmy?”

“Not really,” I confessed.
“What if he comes back?”

“Tell you what. I’m coming
down. I’ll spend the night. And I’ll help you pack up again.
Tomorrow, we’ll start moving you out of there.”

Chapter Seven
--

By six, I had cleaned up the
kitchen enough to pull together a meal of honey-glazed chicken with
mango salsa, jasmine rice, and corn salad. Mac arrived with a
bottle of sauvignon blanc, a box of trash bags, and a couple of
rolls of packing tape half an hour later. We got to work while
dinner was in the oven, took a break to eat, and went back to the
task as soon as we were through. Mac tackled the debris. I focused
on re-packing the boxes I had prepared for the upcoming move. Of
the twelve of them, stacked in my bedroom closet, eight were still
intact, two were opened, and two were upended on my bedroom floor.
Once I checked the contents, I left them for Mac to seal
up.

I left the television on
while I was picking up the living room, half-listening to the
evening game shows. I didn’t even notice when “Dance, America,
Dance!” came on.

“They’re playing our song,
Kimmy,” Mac announced, appearing in the doorway of the living room.
“Shall we?”

“Don’t be silly,” I told
him.

“How can dancing ever be
silly? You didn’t think it was silly when I took you to the
prom.”

“You remember that?” I was
surprised.

“How could I not? You were
so lovely in your dress, with your hair piled up in that
chignon.”

“You’re just saying that,” I
laughed, as he took me by the waist and hand. “You don’t remember
that dress!”

“Sapphire blue satin,” he
began, describing the gown as he twirled me around. There was a
twinkle in his eye as he gazed down at me. “Tiny little iridescent
crystals on the bodice, spaghetti straps. You had beautiful
shoulders, Kimmy. I’d tell you that they’re beautiful still, but I
can’t see them under your exquisitely oversized tee
shirt.”

“Very funny,” I chuckled. My
mind was reeling with the realization that Mac really had found me
attractive all those years ago. I thought he was just being kind
when he told me I looked lovely that night.

“And those shorts,” he
sighed. “What could be more attractive than a pair of baggy
shorts?”

“Cute.” By now the song was
ending, and I found myself reluctantly pulling away. As I did, I
saw something in Mac’s eyes I didn’t recognize. Maybe it was
regret. Maybe it was sadness. But then it was gone, and he gave me
one last spin and let go.

“What’s for dessert?” he
wanted to know.

“Let me see what I have
available,” I told him. I checked my inventory. I had bananas,
vanilla ice cream, butter, and brown sugar. I checked the liquor
cabinet. I had rum and some banana liqueur from a dinner party I
hosted for Adelaide ages ago. I made a quick caramel sauce for
bananas Foster as Mac resealed some of the packed cartons. With the
banana liqueur in the skillet, I placed the banana halves in the
sauce, letting them gently brown. When they were golden, I added
the rum, swirling it around carefully until it ignited and burned
down. With the pan off the burner, I scooped vanilla ice cream into
dessert cups and carefully ladled the sauce on top.

“Mac!” I hailed him as I set
the dishes at the kitchen counter.

“That looks good,” he
decided, taking a seat. “You should be careful, Kimmy. You keep
feeding like this and you’ll break my heart.”