Dead on Her Feet (An Antonia Blakeley Tango Mystery Book 1) (29 page)

The computer roared to life and she was so touched that Christian had used her name she nearly burst into tears.

Christian had saved his e-mail password so getting into his account was easy. She clicked on Inbox and found eleven new messages, all dated that day and unread. It was impossible for her to tell whether any e-mails had been deleted. She searched for Nathalie’s name and was relieved to find nothing. She scrolled through the most recent two weeks of archived messages. Most were RSVPs for the Halloween party. Some from Emory e-mail addresses also cc’d Barbara.

She’d gotten through a third of the Sent e-mails for October before she found anything of interest. Written the same date as the Halloween invitations, the outgoing message to Eduardo Sanchez Jaury from Christian’s computer was unsigned.

If you want to know what your precious girlfriend is doing behind your back you’d better come to Shawna Muir’s Halloween milonga.

Wow. That explained why Eduardo had shown up at the party so unexpectedly.

The tone of the message sounded more like Barbara than Shawna but Antonia couldn’t see why either of them would poison Christian to prevent him from finding out they’d sent Eduardo an anonymous e-mail. Plus it hadn’t been deleted so by definition, this wasn’t it.

She started on the bookmarks hoping something would jump out. Some antique furniture stores, those would be Shawna’s. Brigitango, Tango Lyrics, Sanctuary Latin Nightclub. She’d sent Christian those. How was she going to know if he’d deleted a bookmark or if someone else had?

 She clicked on My Recent Documents. Someone had purged the listing of recently accessed files. That might be important. She opened the directory and read the folder titles, hoping something would cabeceo her and say, “pick me.” Nothing did. She’d have to go through each folder. She double clicked on one that read, “Words,” clicked on the icons to find the most recently modified file. She opened it and read.

Locked inside.

That didn’t sound like a song. It must be one of Christian’s poems. Was this where he hid them? She had never seen his work. Did he show it to anyone? Probably not, he would have shared them with her if he did; at least she hoped they had that kind of relationship. She parsed through a few samples and decided that, however well they offered a window to his inner life, they were getting her nowhere on the question of who had tried to end it. And time was ticking away.

Shawna said Christian kept a file on Nathalie but there was none to be found. Antonia opened up the recycle bin but it was empty. Was it possible to recover a deleted folder? The police would be there any moment. She had to decide whether to try to break into the other computers, take off with Christian’s laptop, or keep reading.

“This is crazy. I don’t even know what I’m looking for.” She leaned back in her chair and ran her fingers through her hair. It desperately needed washing, as did the rest of her.

It finally occurred to her to pull down the menu showing which websites had been most recently accessed. When she did so the computer gave up a URL she hadn’t seen before. She opened it and studied the home page: Japanese martial arts, selling samurai swords and other ninja warrior equipment. They accepted e-commerce orders to the US. All very nice and lethal, she thought, but the murder weapon was an ordinary kitchen knife and the site wasn’t exactly Williams & Sonoma.

She scrolled down the page and tried to imagine what if anything might have stuck out in the murderer’s mind as worth risking exposure to erase. One image showed a fan decorated with a scene from Mount Fuji. Shawna had carried a fan as part of her Halloween costume but that wasn’t much of a connection. Curious to see what a fan was doing on a site full of weapons, Antonia clicked on the picture for the description.

The fan played a role in Japanese etiquette, especially on formal occasions, and was rarely ever out of a samurai's possession.
The folding war fan usually had eight to ten metal ribs and was used as a weapon of both attack and defense.

The smell of Christian’s vomit returned full strength and Antonia was overpowered with a wave of nausea.

Dead Letters

11/4, 1438, Nathalie LeFebre’s apartment, Buckhead.

MORROW KNEW THERE WAS NO POINT
in kicking himself but it was hard not to want to. He’d missed something important at Antonia’s party—some detail that had caused Nathalie LeFebre’s murderer to see Cookerly as a threat—and nearly gotten the kid killed. Seeing the unsinkable Antonia Blakeley so close to tears had made it worse.

They’d search Cookerly’s place when the search warrant arrived and interview him if and when he came to. Until then the only way to help Christian and Antonia was to work Nathalie’s murder. The best use of his time at this point was to return to the dead woman’s home to help Jackson with the search. Jackson had been at it off and on for two days, going through her papers.

Nathalie LeFebre’s apartment was the sort of place that any normal man would run from. White carpeting, couch, chairs. Fancy draperies dragging on the floor. He found Jackson in the living room crammed into a chair at the dead woman’s desk; a spindly, feminine affair of white and gold painted wood. Jackson had evidently made progress, judging by the neatly sorted stacks of file folders and the bemused look on his face.

 “Anything interesting?”

 Jackson extricated himself and stood up. “Miss LeFebre saved everything and I mean ever-y-thing. Kept her love letters in manila file folders like it was a business.”

“That’s cold.”

“You
know
that’s right. She was writing to all of them: Guest, Sanchez and Cookerly.”

“Playing them off each other, no doubt.”

“The dates from Guest’s e-mails overlap when he was engaged to Miss Muir. He was two-timing her with Miss LeFebre.”

“That all fits.”

Jackson opened one of the folders and handed him a letter. Morrow scanned its contents. What Guest lacked in originality he more than made up for with specificity. “Whew.”

“Porno, if you ask me, sir. Christian Cookerly sent her poems. At least I think they’re poems. They don’t make much sense.”

“Really?”

“See for yourself.” Jackson handed him a second manila folder. Morrow opened the file, selected the top page, and read:

Locked inside,
My passions are declared to no one
You hold the key to my heart
If only you knew how I see you.
Remote and beautiful,
You are the lodestar I steer by
But I am a fearful navigator
If I follow
Where will you take me?
Be there dragons?

“Dragons?”

Jackson shrugged. “Wait till you see what
she
wrote.”

The dead woman’s e-mails to Christian Cookerly had started out flirtatiously but they didn’t stay that way. The young man’s replies expressed the usual sad arc of hope, desperation, disillusionment and anger.

Nathalie’s final communication to Cookerly, dated the afternoon of the party, read,

You’re deluded. Stay away from me.

Christian’s retort was heartfelt and to the point.

See you in hell.

Nathalie LeFebre had led Cookerly on and then skewered him. And he’d tortured himself at the Halloween party by watching her flaunt her triumph with Guest.

 “Here’s a couple from Eduardo Sanchez you’ll want to see.” Jackson handed him two sheets of heavy stationery. Each carried the Argentine’s initials engraved at the top of the page. Morrow picked out one of the lines:

Be on that plane, my beloved, my infuriating darling, or I will send someone to collect you. I will not wait any longer. Your devoted Eduardo.

The second one, written in early October, had changed tone. The letter ended:

Querida, if I ever find you have betrayed me with another man, I will kill you both.

Morrow refolded the letter and passed it back. “What do you make of that?”

Jackson gingerly lowered himself into an upholstered chair that looked too delicate to support his weight. He shook his head. “Motive is great but like you said we have to prove means and opportunity. If he’s the bad guy he couldn’t have planned it because he didn’t know Miss LeFebre and Roland Guest had, uh, gotten together until the night of the party. As far as we know,” he amended. “Do you think he meant what he wrote, or was he just showing off?”

“Good question. My experience? It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch.”

“If that’s true then Christian Cookerly—”

“He’s out. According to Antonia Blakeley Cookerly left her house before the bottle went missing.”

“You believe her?”

“This time? Yes. In any case we’ll ask Sanchez to corroborate.” Of course someone could easily have doubled back and snuck in. Antonia’s house was one big security leak.

 “So
that
dog won’t hunt. Why do you suppose Miss LeFebre did this, sir?”

“Ego, maybe. Scalp collecting. Bargaining power. What’d you get on the financial front?”

“She didn’t seem to need money. She paid her bills on time and didn’t have any overdrafts or anything.”

“What’s the word on the autopsy?”

“Should be finished today or tomorrow.”

Morrow pushed aside the cushions on the couch to make a place for himself and sat down across from his partner. He sorted through the neatly stacked magazines on the glass coffee table.
Martha Stewart Living
.
Town and Country
.
Elegant Bride
. “Ever read these things?”

“Well sir, my wife likes Martha Stewart for the recipes. Last week she made me those little square cakes. ‘Petty fours,’
she
says.”

“Three months of bridal magazines here. Looks like she was planning her wedding without the groom.”

“Do you think she was, maybe, hoping?”

Morrow flipped through the most recent issue. Ads for wedding gowns, engagement rings, honeymoon resorts and breast-enhancing tablets cluttered the pages. “You should broaden your horizons.”

Jackson scratched his ear, looking sheepish.

Morrow turned the page expecting to find one of the usual tipped-in postcards and instead found two pieces of paper folded in half. The first was a handwritten invoice in Spanish from Klement Antiquedades in Buenos Aires, Argentina, recording the sale of a Regency mahogany and ebony drum table to Roland Guest of Rothenberg Guest European and Asian Acquisitions, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The second invoice, from the same shop, described a Colombian emerald, also sold to Roland Guest. In feminine handwriting someone had converted the pesos to U.S. dollars.
Ooh-rah.
He passed the invoices to Jackson. “Is that Nathalie LeFebre’s handwriting?”

 “It sure does look like it, sir. Rothenberg called these guys before he died. This could tie her to the Rothenberg case.” Jackson bobbed up and down in his seat. “But how did she get the invoices in the first place?”

 “She had a key to Guest’s place on her key ring. Maybe she went through his desk when he wasn’t home.”

“Do you think she was in on some sort of conspiracy?”

“Or wanted something on him. Why do you think she filed these in a bridal magazine?”

“Hiding them from Roland Guest?”

“What woman would leave bridal magazines around for her intended husband to fall over?” Of course Nathalie LeFebre might have gotten her kicks from hiding Guest’s invoices in plain sight. Knowing his fear of commitment she could count on him not to leaf through her bridal magazines.

“Maybe the invoices were her hold on him?”

“Blackmail in exchange for marriage? Could be. No sign here of anything made out of mahogany and ebony. Any emeralds running around loose?”

“No safe, but there’s a jewelry box in the bedroom.” Jackson trotted out of the living room and returned with a miniature silver casket. He opened it and laid its contents out on the coffee table. “My wife has five times more stuff than this. First it was a birthstone ring. Then it was earrings. Now she’s at me to buy her an eternity bracelet.”

Morrow picked up one of the earrings and examined it. “This is costume jewelry. Where do people hide their real stuff?”

“Sock drawer, cereal boxes, draperies—oh.” Jackson went to the window, knelt and patted down the hem of the dead woman’s curtains. “Got it.” He drew out a silk drawstring pouch. Pulling it open he produced a gold chain, a pair of gold earrings, and a tiny zip-lock bag containing a green gemstone.

“Now we’re cooking.”

“You
know
that’s right. Think this is the same emerald?”

Morrow held it up to the light. “We’ll have to authenticate it. Either way we’ve got enough for a warrant.” His cell phone rang. He took the call. “Yes?”

“The trash was empty but it was in the recently accessed files.” Antonia, who he’d foolishly trusted to be safely stowed was, instead, on the line. “You have to come over right now. How soon can you get here?”

“Hey, slow down. You’re going fifty in a twenty-five zone. Where are you?” He mouthed to Jackson, “Antonia Blakeley.” Jackson edged his chair closer to the couch and Morrow held the phone away from his ear so Jackson could hear her end of the conversation.

 “Someone tried to erase it,” Antonia continued, acting like she hadn’t heard his question. “But they didn’t realize, or maybe they forgot, the computer tracks the last few web pages, and I found it.”

Computer? Christ on a stick. “Where are you?” By that point the question was rhetorical.

There was a hesitation at the other end of the line and then she answered in an aggrieved tone, “I didn’t break in, I have my own key.”

“Didn’t I tell you we needed a search warrant to take the computer?”

“You said
you
needed one. I know what that meant. You wanted me to go. You practically begged me to.”

Morrow tried to keep his voice level. “You realize you’ve just destroyed evidence.”