There's Something About Marty (A Working Stiffs Mystery Book 3) (4 page)

Based on everything I’d heard, I couldn’t have agreed with him more.

∗ ∗ ∗

Back in the sixth grade Heather Beckett called me a psycho-bitch-freak in front of the entire class. Okay, I freely admit that my competitive nature had gotten the best of me during a game of
Truth or Dare
, and I shouldn’t have outed Heather as a liar at her own slumber party. It never occurred to eleven-year-old me that there would be retribution, that my classmates would tell their parents about what had happened, and I would never again be invited inside their homes.

Being the bastard of a B-list actress infamous for her nude photo spread in a men’s magazine had branded me as something of a local curiosity. But once the psycho-bitch-freak label was added it were as if Heather had doused me with kerosene and struck a match. The next morning, did I rise from the ashes a new creation? Not by choice, but I had a metamorphosis just the same. Suddenly, it seemed that I was no longer just my mother’s bastard.

I had become one scary bastard.

And I knew I was scaring the crap out of Phyllis Bozeman, who was squirming in the seat that Cameron had vacated five minutes earlier.

At least she had stopped crying, which was a good news/bad news thing since she was sitting wide-eyed, staring at me like I was some sort of voodoo princess capable of bending her to my will.

I wished. It would certainly make my job easier, especially today.

“How’s Aubrey doing?” I asked, painting an easy smile on my face.

Aubrey Bozeman had been tight with Heather’s cheerleader crowd and had treated me like a social pariah all through high school. I had no interest in the latest Aubrey news, but if some polite chitchat helped her mother breathe a little easier, I could fake it.

Unblinking, Phyllis swallowed. “Fine.”

“Good to hear.”
Relax. Blink!
“I heard she had another baby. Boy or girl?”

“Another boy,” she said after several seconds of hesitation, as if too much information about her grandchildren might put them in danger.

“Good for her.” I leaned a little closer. “And how is Grandma doing?”

She finally blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sure this has been a difficult day.”

Averting her gaze, Phyllis’s pale lips thinned, her puffy eyes starting to pool with a fresh round of tears.

I passed her the mini-packet of tissues I kept in my tote for tearful interview subjects. “I’m sorry. I know you lost someone you were close to.”

She eyed the packet as if I’d asked her to hold the snake we’d be sacrificing after the interview.

“I’m fine,” she stated, handing it back to me.

Sure you are.
“Then may I ask you a few questions?”

She pushed back a curl that had escaped her helmet of dyed black hair and nodded.

“Did you happen to see Marty yesterday afternoon?”

“We had a little birthday celebration around one. You know, we all gathered around to wish him a happy birthday and have some cake.”

“How’d he seem?”

“Fine.” A sad smile pulled at the network of fine lines around her dark eyes. “Happy.”

“No indication of any health issues?”

She shook her head. “Absolutely none.”

“Nothing that seemed out of the ordinary?”

“No.”

I wrote
seemed fine
in my notebook. “How would you characterize your relationship with Marty?”

“My relationship?” She blinked, sending a tear down her cheek. “We’re friends.”

“I understand that you and Marty used to be more than friends.”

Sniffing, she looked like she wanted to sic that snake on me. “That was a long time ago.”

Not that long ago. “And Marty broke it off shortly after he met Victoria.”

“It was a mutual decision,” she said, taking a swipe at another tear.

I didn’t believe her for a minute, but nothing she’d told me had waved any red flags. At least not yet.

I passed her the tissues. “And that probably led to another decision to avoid spending much time with Marty after work.”

With no resistance Phyllis reached into the mini-pack and dabbed her eyes. “I may be getting old, but I’m no fool.”

“Tell me, considering that your relationship with Marty had cooled, I’m curious why you bought him a birthday present.”

That same sad smile blanketed her face. “It seemed petty not to. Just because we’re not…. It doesn’t mean we can’t do something nice for one another.”

“What did you get him?”

“Salsa from a little shop we discovered on a trip to Arizona a few years back. We both loved the stuff, so I set it up to get a delivery every year—one for him for his birthday and one for me.”

“So this gift wasn’t a surprise.”

Phyllis narrowed her eyes at me as if she had just realized that I wasn’t so scary. I was just frighteningly slow on the uptake. “Hardly, not after three years.”

“Did you have the salsa shipped to your house?” I asked.

“No, I’ve had a problem with things disappearing from my front porch, so I had it shipped here. Arrived late last week.”

Where someone could have had easy access to it—someone who knew that a bottle of Marty’s favorite salsa would be arriving in time for his birthday, just like it had last year and the year before that.

Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on a bench at the marina munching on Duke’s takeout, when Detective Steve Sixkiller pulled up in his unmarked Port Merritt Police cruiser.

“What is this—a late lunch?” he asked, shading his eyes from the sun as he closed the distance between us. “You said in your text that it was an emergency.”

“It is.” Since I could eat my way through any emergency this guy obviously didn’t know me as well as I’d thought he did.

When the object of my first schoolgirl crush sat down next to me, I passed him the grease-stained takeout bag. “Want some fries?”

Crossing his long legs, he reached into the bag and pulled out a couple of lukewarm french fries. “I have a meeting in a few minutes so what I want is for you to give me the short version of this
emergency
.”

“Fine. If you’ve been anywhere near Duke’s today I’m sure you heard about Marty McCutcheon.”

“Yeah, that he had a heart attack,” Steve said, chewing.

“Technically, it was cardiac arrest, but based on what his family members have told me I wouldn’t be so cavalier about what caused his heart to stop.”

He turned to me, a tic above his jawline keeping pace with the seconds of stony silence between us. “Seriously? Frankie asked you to speak with the family?”

“It was to placate his ex because she was making some accusations about Marty being poisoned.”

Steve blew out a weary breath. “Poisoned.”

“That’s starting to look like a possibility.”

He wiped his fingers on one of the napkins I’d stuffed into the takeout bag. “In your educated opinion as an experienced death investigator.”

“Okay, I know I’m not—”

“Where did he die?”

“At the hospital.”

“I assume that someone from your office talked with the attending?”

“Frankie spoke with the doctor who treated Marty in the ER.”

“And?”

“He told her that Marty had a bad heart and a history of cardiovascular disease, and that led to his cardiac arrest.”

Standing, Steve tossed the remnants of my lunch into a nearby trash can. “I think this conversation is over.”

“But I have two witnesses who were there at dinner when Marty got sick, and they both think he was poisoned.”

“Dinner at his house out in Clatska?”

I nodded.

“Outside of my jurisdiction, so I can’t help you, Chow Mein,” Steve said, using the nickname he’d given me back in the third grade. He glanced at his wristwatch. “And I need to go.”

I tried to keep up with his long strides as he headed for the parking lot. “But what if they’re right?”

“People around here don’t die from being poisoned.”

“There’s always a first time.”

“I repeat—not likely, but if he ate something that killed him it should show up during the autopsy, and then Frankie will hand this case over to the Sheriff.”

“There’s not going to be an autopsy.”

Standing in front of his car, Steve met my gaze. “Because Marty died at the hospital after he went into cardiac arrest. That’s what the doctor said, and that’s good enough for Frankie, right?”

Especially since she didn’t want to bust the county’s budget by calling in a forensic pathologist for an unnecessary autopsy.

“Pretty much.”

“Then I’d say your work should be about done, Deputy.” He tweaked my nose like we were siblings instead of lovers who had been sharing a bed most of the last month. “See you later. Wear something sexy,” he said with a wink.

Despite the mixed messages, he left me feeling like the gooey s’mores we used to make as kids. But as I watched Steve drive away a cold reality washed over me, dousing the sexual fire he had ignited. One, because other than a pair of four-inch stilettos I had nothing in my closet that qualified as vixen attire—at least nothing that I could squeeze my bloated carcass into. That meant I was going to have to do some emergency shopping. And two, since I was pressed for time with few local options, that shopping would have to take place at the Valu-Mart south of town, where I’d heard that Austin Reidy worked.

I sucked in a breath, girded my loins, and popped an antacid for good measure. “Austin Reidy,” I said as I walked toward my car, “ready or not, here I come.”

∗ ∗ ∗

A half hour later, after finding a swingy black wrap dress with a plunging neckline that hugged me in all the right places, I handed my purchase to the cashier. “Do you know if Austin Reidy still works here?”

“Austin? Oh, he’s dat guy in sporting goods,” she said in a Slavic accent. “Rear of store.”

The sporting goods guy.
That seemed somehow appropriate for the former jock, I thought as I ran my credit card through the scanner.

What didn’t seem appropriate was me showing up where he worked without first letting him know I was coming. Of course, I didn’t have any problem with dropping by McCutcheon Floors & More unannounced. Then again, I didn’t have a history of throwing up on any of their shoes.

After the cashier handed me my receipt, I walked past the beauty product aisles and several rows of home decor and took a left, where I spotted a guy in a navy blue polo and khaki pants, demonstrating a treadmill to a customer. I looked around for other males outfitted in navy and khaki, but the jogger with his back to me appeared to be the only one working in Sporting Goods. This had to be Austin.

Hopping off the treadmill and onto a nearby elliptical, Austin looked like he’d kept himself in great shape, like he could still push a basketball up and down a court while barely breaking a sweat. Unlike me. Beads of sweat were popping out on my upper lip in anticipation of having to face Austin Reidy for the first time in almost twenty years.

“Sheesh, cool it,” I told myself when I ducked into a row of automotive accessories and fixed my face in the nearest mirror. It wasn’t like I was back in high school and wanted a date to the prom. Thank God. I was just going to ask him a few questions, then I was out of here.

“May I help you?” a male voice said behind me.

“No…I…” I didn’t recognize the dark, fleshy circles under his gray eyes or the paunchy beer gut hanging over his waistband, but the tiny mole on the salesman’s left cheek was unforgettable.

I pasted a happy smile on my face. “Oh, my gosh! Hi, Austin!”

“Hi.” His greeting sounded more like a question, like
who the heck are you?

Okay, he wasn’t the only one who had put on a little weight since high school. “It’s Charmaine.”

After an awkward moment of silence he cracked a smile as he reached out to shake my hand. “Nice to see you again.”

I bet it is.

“What good luck,” I said. “I needed to talk to you, but I also needed to do a little shopping on my lunch hour, and now, here you are.”

The smile slipped from his face. “Talk to me? Why?”

“Sorry, I should have mentioned that I’m with the coroner’s office.”

He grimaced.

Not the first time I’d received that kind of reaction. No one liked talking about death and dying. “Maybe Nicole told you that I might be stopping by?”

He gave his head a little shake. “I haven’t talked to her since last night.”

Curious. She’d obviously spent the night at her mother’s, but if I had been Nicole and had just lost my father, I would have expected a call from my husband at the very least.

“Then you don’t know that the Coroner has asked for a statement from everyone who was at your father-in-law’s birthday party. Is there someplace we could talk?”

“Now?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Austin blew out a breath that reeked of wine. From his bloodshot eyes and the sheen of sweat on his forehead, I guessed a lot of wine. “I do mind. I’m working,” he said.

“It will only take a few moments. Could you take a break?”

His gaze tightened as he looked down his nose at me. “I already took my break. We can just talk back here if it’s only going to be a few minutes.”

“Fine.” I followed him to a rack of barbells hung opposite a display of reflective apparel for joggers, an area of the store my flabby thighs could attest I’d never seen before.

Austin glanced up and down the aisle. “Okay, shoot, and make it quick. I don’t need any guff from my manager about being too chatty with the customers.”

Which sounded to me like this was something that had happened before. That piqued my interest, but wasn’t why I was here, so I cut to the chase. “Since we’re pressed for time, let me ask your impression of how things were going last night prior to when your father-in-law became ill.”

“My impression?” Austin shrugged. “Everything seemed okay. Marty was in a good mood. The food was great. I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Just tell me what comes to mind. For example, did everyone there seem to be acting pretty normally?”

“I’d just met Cameron, one of the guys from the shop, but yeah.” Staring down at the scuffed linoleum under his feet, Austin pressed his lips together as if he were replaying an unpleasant memory. “Pretty damn normal.”

“Everyone getting along okay?”

He smirked. “Sure.”

I didn’t need to be able to read his body language to see he was lying.

“So, no family drama.”

He folded his arms, resting them on his belly. “No more than usual.”

“Like what?”

He exhaled, blasting me with his stale breath. “Nic getting pissy about me helping myself to her dad’s scotch. It wasn’t like he didn’t offer it to me.”

I didn’t care what she thought about her husband’s drinking as much as I did about what he had actually consumed. “So you drank some of the scotch your father-in-law received as a present?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “Smooth.”

And obviously poison-free since Austin had suffered no ill-effects aside from a possible hangover.

“Excuse me, honey,” an older woman said as she reached for a pair of the wrist weights I was standing in front of.

I stepped aside. “Sorry.” At least she’d given me a legitimate excuse to escape Austin’s wine breath blast zone.

Wrinkling her nose, she sniffed the air and shot me an accusatory glance.

It’s not me. You’re in the zone.

I motioned to Austin to join me in front of a pink bicycle with training wheels at the end of an adjacent aisle. “I heard your father-in-law also received a bottle of salsa for his birthday. Did you try any of that?”

Austin shook his head as he straightened the display. “Not a fan of green stuff.”

Since he was packing around an extra fifty pounds I assumed “green stuff” included lettuce.

“Hey, if a list of what I ate and drank is all you need from me—”

“It isn’t.” I smiled politely. “Austin, a minute ago you gave me the impression that there may have been some underlying tension at the dinner table.”

Staring at the bike, he shrugged while I waited with my pen poised over my notepad.

He knew something; he just wasn’t biting.

“That’s the one,” a little blonde girl said, running down the aisle with her mother trailing behind her, a toddler in tow. “That’s the one I want!”

The girl hit the brakes and frowned up at me. “Hey, that’s my bike!”

Trust me kid, I don’t want your bike.
I just needed a couple more minutes in private to wrap up this interview, preferably without becoming asphyxiated.

“Cassidy, don’t be rude,” the kid’s mother said.

Too late. “Not a problem. I was just looking.”

“Do you have any questions about the bike?” Austin asked the mother.

Oh, no, you don’t.
“He’ll be back to answer your questions in just a minute.” I pulled him into the next aisle, backing him up to a stack of soccer balls.

Since I was running out of time and unoccupied aisles in the sporting goods section, I opted for the direct approach. “Any issues that you were aware of between Nicole and any other family members?”

“Yeah, I suppose you could call it an issue.”

Okay, now we were getting somewhere.

“Nic can’t stand to watch Victoria wrap her brother and father around her little finger.”

Since I had nothing but disdain for one of my former step-fathers, I couldn’t blame Nicole for feeling the way she did. “When you say Victoria wraps them around her finger, what does she do exactly?”

He screwed up his face. “Hell, I don’t know. She just has a way of getting guys to do things for her. It’s like one minute I’m making myself a drink, and the next I’m helping her make a salad, and it feels like it was my idea. It’s like a Jedi mind trick kind of thing.”

It must have been if Victoria had him in close proximity of vegetables.

“So I stay away from her,” Austin said, blasting me with his stinky breath. “I get in less trouble that way.”