Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate (32 page)

“I understand your concerns,” Anatoly said as we followed Sam into the living room and I took a seat on the couch. “We’ll do everything we can to make this transition as painless as possible.”

I surveyed my surroundings. The coffee table looked to be hand carved out of redwood, and there was a beautiful dark wood grandfather clock against the wall. Someone had gone to great pains to ensure that the place struck the delicate balance of being both elegant and comfortable. There certainly wasn’t anything cutesy about it, no figurines, no stuffed animals.

“You understand that my concerns about my wife’s fidelity may very well be nothing more than unjustified paranoia,” Sam said as he sat down on an expensive-looking brown leather armchair and propped his feet up on the ottoman. “Darrell has been following Anne for three weeks and he has yet to catch her in the arms of another man.”

“You don’t say,” I mumbled distractedly, still studying the room. “Do you guys have a pet by any chance?”

Sam furrowed his brow and Anatoly gave me a sidelong glance, both clearly confused by my seemingly irrelevant question. “A pet?” Sam repeated. “No, we don’t have any animals.”

“I see. Does Anne
like
animals?” I asked. “I mean, does she ever talk about getting a dog, maybe a wolfhound or something?”

Now both of my male companions looked completely baffled. “Why a wolf hound?” Anatoly asked.

“I don’t know. Anne just struck me as the kind of woman who would have a dog. A really big
furry
dog.”

“We don’t have a dog, and Anne’s never mentioned wanting one,” Sam said slowly.

“Okay, I guess I was wrong about that. Anyway, what were you saying before about your suspicions?”

“He was saying that Darrell hasn’t caught Anne doing anything incriminating,” Anatoly said crossly. He then smiled at Sam apologetically. “I’m hesitant to tell you this because I sincerely like Darrell…”

Bullshit.

“…but he’s not exactly a stellar private detective. As uncomfortable as it may be to switch detectives three weeks into the investigation, it’s probably for the best,” Anatoly explained. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Anne knew she was being followed and that was the reason for her chaste behavior.”

Sam sucked in a sharp breath. “You think she knew? Jesus Christ, what if she figured out who hired him!”

“She probably just figured it was one of Fitzgerald’s goons checking up on her,” I said dismissively. “I personally hope Anne wins the election. She seems like a candidate who would really go out of her way to protect the environment. What is her position on the upkeep and funding of wildlife preserves? Is Anne…you know…
passionate
about wildlife?”

“Sophie, we can talk about Anne’s politics later,” Anatoly said quickly, but now his tone was more bewildered than irritated. “Sam, why don’t you tell us what it was that made you think Anne might be being unfaithful.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re familiar with her history. Everyone is, thanks to Fitzgerald. She did have her reasons for cheating on her first husband. I’m not excusing it, mind you, but she didn’t have the connection with him that she has with me.”

Oh, so he was one of those she-won’t-cheat-on-me-I’m-different types. I sighed inwardly. When will people learn that men and women don’t cheat because of the way they feel about their partners? They cheat because of the way they feel about themselves.

“I’ve never loved a woman the way that I love Anne,” Sam continued. “I didn’t ever feel this strongly about my first wife, and I did love her.”

“You were married before?” Anatoly asked with practiced casualness.

“Yes, when Anne met me I was a widower.” Sam coughed out the last word as if it took a little extra effort to say. “Jocelyn was killed in a drive-by shooting when we were living in Oakland.”

“That must have been a very hard thing for you to cope with,” Anatoly noted. “Did the police ever catch the person who did it?”

Anatoly and I both already knew that they hadn’t. Anatoly was feeling Sam out. Trying to gauge his reaction to his questions. Of course, if Anatoly had taken half a second to listen to me, he would have known he was barking up the wrong tree. Anne was the “goddamned furry shit” we were looking for, not Sam.

“They never did.” He started fiddling with a corner of a throw pillow. “Jocelyn did a lot of volunteer work, and that night she was in one of the city’s poorer areas handing out clean needles, and then some car just drove by and she was shot. No one saw a thing.”

Of course they hadn’t. No one ever sees anything in the poor neighborhoods of Oakland. Better to suffer from periodic bouts of blindness than be pegged as the person who ratted out a gang member to the cops.

“It was almost ironic that Jocelyn would die because of her own beautiful idealism. She was younger than I and had just received a master’s degree in political science. She honestly believed that with compassion, love and reason she could change people. Make them better, more whole. Before she met me she had a habit of dating abusive, controlling men with the hope that she would be the woman to get them to face their childhood issues and become better human beings. Anne would never subject herself to the kind of treatment Jocelyn put up with, not for a second. She knows there are villains out there, men who love war and materialism. Anne lashes out against them. She doesn’t try to convince the people who are in power to be good. She fights to give all the power to the good people.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. There was a big problem with this strategy. Assuming you weren’t talking about people like Mother Teresa and Ted Bundy, “good” and “bad” were subjective terms. If you weren’t going to discuss ideas with people who you thought were bad and gave all the power to the people who you alone decided were good, then you were basically advocating fascism. But the dreamy look in Sam’s eyes told me that he didn’t see it that way.

“Oddly enough, it was my wife’s death that brought Anne and me together,” he continued. “We met at an anti-gun rally. We were both speakers. She talked about the legislation needed to get guns out of the hands of civilians and I spoke about my personal experiences, driving home the point of why gun control is necessary. We had a drink afterward. We were both going through a difficult time…she was only recently divorced and her son had actually
asked
to go to boarding school—he’s still there now. He has less than a year before he graduates high school and Anne only gets to see him on holidays and long weekends. We comfort each other. We only dated six months before she proposed.”

“She proposed?” Anatoly asked.

Sam gave him a pitying look. “Anne and I don’t believe there should be any difference in the roles of the sexes. She decided she wanted me to be her husband so she asked and I said yes. We went to a locally owned jewelry store that afternoon and bought an engagement ring that was made by Pueblo Indians. It was love. It still is.”

“But now you’ve hired a private detective because you suspect she’s cheated. What makes you think that?”

Sam looked so pathetic and sad, sitting there with his legs propped up, picking at the fringes of a throw pillow, that I almost felt embarrassed for him. He lacked both confidence and bravado, two qualities you would expect to see in a killer.

“A month ago I went on a yoga retreat,” he said. “I was supposed to be there all weekend, but I wasn’t happy with the meals they were serving—can you believe that they were actually trying to serve us cereal that contained high quantities of corn syrup?”

“My God, what is this world coming to?” I asked. Anatoly coughed into his hand.

“My thoughts exactly,” Sam continued. “I brought it up with the director and we had a bit of a row so I left a day early. When I got home Anne didn’t hear me come in and I inadvertently overheard part of her phone conversation. She was talking about Fitzgerald and speculating on what he was going to do next. It was probably just a business associate—that’s what she told me later when I asked. But there was something about her tone that was more intimate than what she usually uses with her staff, and she called the person on the other end of the line ‘baby.’ I know there are women who use that term of endearment for any person they’ve known for more than five minutes, but Anne isn’t one of them. Lord, I don’t think she’s called me by a pet name since we took my niece to Disneyland for her seventh birthday!”

I perked up. “You guys went to Disneyland?”

“Yes,” Sam said, “but that’s not really the point….”

“I just love Disneyland,” I said quickly. “What did Anne think of the place?”

“She liked it, I suppose,” Sam said uncertainly.

“Did she get really, you know,
cozy
with Mickey Mouse?”

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Anatoly said quickly, “but would you mind if I spoke to my partner alone for just a moment?” He stood up, grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. “We’ll be right back.”

Anatoly dragged me out of the house, releasing me as soon as we got to the driveway. “All right, Sophie, what’s with the animal references?”

“I think Anne is an animal person.”

“So?”

“No, I mean a
real
animal person. As in a person who periodically dresses up like an animal.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“And when she’s dressed up,” I continued, “she gets a little frisky.”

Anatoly’s eyes slanted. “Have you been drinking?”

“I wish, but no. Listen, this is what I was trying to tell you earlier. Dena and I found out that Peter is both a furry and a plushy. Do you know what that means?”

“Evidently, it means that my mastery of the English language isn’t a strong as I thought, because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“No, it’s not an English problem,” I assured him. “You’re unfamiliar with furries and plushies because you’re a moderately normal person.”

“Shall I take that as a compliment?”

“If you choose. Now, allow me to give you an overview of the dark underbelly of the furry world.”

I detailed everything I had discovered in Peter’s apartment and everything Dena had taught me about furries and plushies. When I began, Anatoly looked skeptical and a bit confused. By the end he looked mildly horrified and a little sick to his stomach.

“He had sex with toys,” Anatoly said slowly, clearly trying to make sense of the new information.

“And people dressed up as animals—that’s where Anne comes in. Or at least that where I
think
she comes in.”

“I suppose that would make sense,” Anatoly agreed. “If any of this could possibly qualify as making sense. Eugene could have found out about Anne’s perversion….”

“Dena likes to think of those who belong to these groups as eccentrics. She thinks ‘perversion’ is too judgmental of a word.”

“I’ll remember that,” Anatoly said sarcastically. “But if Eugene did find out and then Peter killed himself, he might have held off for a few weeks before revealing the information out of respect for the dead. Or perhaps he was just waiting for a more opportune time, like a few weeks before the election when Anne wouldn’t have much of a chance to refute the charges and the Democrats wouldn’t have time to run someone else.”

“Either way, it gave Anne time to plot Eugene’s death,” I said.

“And then she could have thought that Melanie had found out.”

“But why would she think that?” I asked. “I’m sure Melanie didn’t know about this. This kind of information is way too bizarre not to share. So if she didn’t know, why kill her?”

“Maybe Melanie just found out. She could have come across some papers Eugene left behind detailing Anne’s fetish. Or maybe Anne just thought she did. She could have taken Melanie’s body to San Francisco just to get it as far away from Contra Costa County as possible, confuse the police a little. On the other hand, she could have done it because
we
live in San Francisco. She may have wanted to issue us a warning.”

“You think she knows that we’ve been snooping for Melanie?”

“Anything’s possible.”

“True.” I glanced back at Sam and Anne’s house. “So now what?”

“Now we go back there and ask Sam a few questions. But, Sophie?” “Yeah?”

“The animal questions can wait for another time. If Anne is a fuzzy—”

“Furry.”

“All right, if she’s one of those, then I doubt Sam knows anything about it. If he does, we don’t want to tip him off that
we
know. We may be able to gain a strategic advantage by playing this one close to the vest until later in the game.”

“Got it.”

When we reentered the house we found Sam sniffing the contents of a small brown glass bottle. “Aromatherapy,” he explained. “Cedarwood, to be precise. It has a calming effect.”

“Sounds interesting,” Anatoly said, clearly disinterested. We sat back down on the sofa and Anatoly cleared his throat. “I’m sorry about stepping out just now. Sophie and I recently finished a case involving animal abuse, and being an animal lover, she’s been anxious for any kind of assurance that the majority of people are as fond of our four-legged friends as she is.”

Okay, now that was a lame excuse. I waited for Sam to demand that we tell him the truth about what was going on, but shockingly enough he bought it.

“I have always found stories of animal cruelty to be particularly disturbing,” he said, smiling at me sympathetically.

“Thanks for understanding,” I said. “But none of that has anything to do with why you hired us. Other than that phone call, do you have any other reason to be suspicious of Anne?”

Sam hesitated and then took another sniff of his cedarwood. “There have been a lot of late nights at the campaign headquarters.”

“I would think that would be normal,” Anatoly said.

“It would be, except…I went by the office one time when she said she would be working late. I thought I’d surprise her with some homemade vegetable juice.”

“Lucky her,” I muttered. Anatoly jabbed me with his elbow.

“But she wasn’t there. I waited in the car across the street for a full forty minutes and she never showed up. I finally rang her cell and without telling her where
I
was I asked where she was and…”