Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow (16 page)

When I’d first come up with the idea of Suzanne, Marcus, Nick, and me going out to dinner, getting Suzanne out of the house for at least a few hours had seemed like a real brainstorm. I couldn’t forget the image of her all alone in her dark living room, sitting in a rocker without rocking.

But now, as I took in all the chaos of the restaurant— the waiters and busboys whirling by, the deafening chatter and laughter and clinking of glasses, the aroma of the other patrons’ perfume mixed in with food smells—I wasn’t so sure. It all seemed so overwhelming.

“Relax, Jess,” Nick insisted. “I think this was a great idea. They’re probably just running a little behind schedule. You said yourself that Marcus warned you that he probably wouldn’t get here on time. Here comes our waiter. Let’s order a bottle of wine.”

As I was telling myself that the worst that could happen was that Nick and I would simply have dinner alone, I noticed Suzanne weaving her way through the crowd toward our table.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly.

Nick glanced up, his polite expression instantly morphing into a look of astonishment. “Wow!”

I had to agree. Here I’d been worried that if Suzanne showed up at all, she might be wearing a bathrobe and a pair of bunny slippers. Instead, she looked as if she’d gone all out for our little night on the town. Her flamered hair had been brought back to life, or at least washed and styled by a professional. From the looks of things, the pros had also worked on her hands, creating ten perfect scarlet tips so shiny they still looked wet. Her makeup was a bit on the heavy side, by my standards— the luminous lip gloss, the thick coating of mascara—yet even I had to admit that the effect was dazzling. Then there was her dress, a clingy emerald-green number that fit her voluptuous curves the way a casing fits a sausage. The strappy black patent leather high heels were just the right touch.

Yet one element of her outfit struck me as out of place: a small gold heart-shaped locket that I’d never seen before. It looked like something a little girl would wear. A present from Marcus, I suspected.

“You look great!” I told her sincerely.

She forced a little smile as she sank onto the banquette next to me. “Thanks. I figured I’d go all out. That maybe looking good would help me feel better.”

I didn’t have the courage to ask if it was working.

“How are you doing?” I asked solicitously.

She responded by shaking her head. “We’re not talking about any of that tonight. For once, I’d just like to take a break from—” She stopped mid-sentence and glanced around the restaurant. “No sign of Marcus?”

“Not yet.” Quickly, I added, “He probably hit traffic.”

“Right.” Suzanne grabbed her napkin and, with a snap, flattened it and spread it on her lap. “So, Nick, how’s law school?”

“It’s great—especially if you’re the kind of person who enjoys having surgery done without an anesthetic.”

I laughed, glad that the tension was dissipating. Maybe this really is what the doctor ordered, I thought.

Good old Nick. He launched into one hilarious anecdote after another, describing his quirky law professors, the details of some of the more bizarre cases he’d studied, and the eccentric people in his study group. I laughed along with him and Suzanne, but kept sneaking peeks at my watch.

Where is Marcus? I thought, noting that he was over half an hour late. At the very least, doesn’t the man own a cell phone? The three of us had already gone through a bottle of wine. The waiter, meanwhile, kept hovering near our table, no doubt agonizing over how he’d ever manage to squeeze in a second seating.

My annoyance was forming a knot in the pit of my stomach. Still, it was better than the other emotion I was trying hard to suppress: the fear that Marcus was about to disappoint Suzanne, big time.

When I finally heard his familiar voice booming, “...I’m meeting some friends, including an incredibly foxy lady—oh, there they are!” I didn’t know if I felt like throwing my arms around him in relief or reading him the riot act.

I did neither. “Hey!” I called, plastering on a big smile. “We were about to send out a search party!”

“Tell me about it,” he replied, pulling out his chair. Like Suzanne, Marcus had pulled out all the stops this evening. Then again, he always looked pretty well-groomed, a by-product of his vanity. The fact that he was exceptionally tall helped, although I always found him to be pretty gawky—if not out-and-out geeky. He was wearing what I knew he thought was his “cool” outfit: jeans and a white T-shirt, along with a sports jacket. His blond hair was cut short, little more than stubble.

“Parking in this town’s an absolute bitch,” Marcus grumbled as he sat down. “You’d think that now that all the tourists have gone home...” He leaned forward and gave Suzanne a perfunctory peck on the cheek. “Hey, babe. How’s it going?”

My eyebrows jumped. Was I just imagining that there was a distance as wide as the Grand Canyon between them? I glanced over at Nick, anxious to see if he was reading what I was reading. At the moment, however, the only thing he seemed to be reading was the menu.

“Hey, this appetizer sampler, the Seafood Sonata, looks good,” he said. “Lobster, shrimp, scallops...four different dipping sauces...I say let’s go for it.”

Thank goodness for food, I thought. The ultimate distraction. And the four of us actually managed to get through another bottle of wine—with most of the credit for our accomplishment going to Marcus—as well as our salads and appetizers before any mention of Suzanne’s situation snuck into the conversation.

I was telling a story about a dog I’d recently performed surgery on after he’d eaten bread dough—the yeast ferments in the animal’s stomach, causing alcohol toxicosis—when Nick turned to Suzanne and asked, “How’s the vet business?”

Instead of answering, Suzanne glanced at Marcus. From the look on both their faces as their eyes locked, I knew we’d just crossed into dangerous territory.

“I’ve closed my practice,” Suzanne said somberly.

“No!” I cried.

“It’s only temporary,” she replied, sounding strangely matter-of-fact. “Just for now, I’m referring all my clients to Marcus. There’s no way I feel up to working. Ever since the police showed up at my house last week, acting as if I were the murderer, I’ve just been too upset. So I decided to take a little time off.”

I glanced over at Nick. He looked as horrified as I felt. If something as dramatic as closing down one’s place of business didn’t spell guilt, especially in the eyes of the police, I didn’t know what did.

“Does your lawyer think that’s a good idea?” I asked cautiously. “It might be better to act as if nothing in your life has changed.”

“I agree with Jessie,” Nick added. “Proceeding with your life the way you normally do might be the best thing.”

“Jerry didn’t really seem to have an opinion,” Suzanne said uncertainly. She grabbed a roll. With nervous, jerky movements, she began pulling off piece after piece and stuffing them into her mouth.

“Hey, Jerry’s the best lawyer there is,” Marcus insisted. “If he thinks it’s okay, then I’d go with that. You gotta trust the guy’s instincts. I mean, he’s been doing this for, what, ten or twelve years?”

Personally, I’d have preferred a lawyer who’d been “doing this” for twenty or thirty. Not to mention one who actually had a track record as a criminal lawyer. Helping immigrants with the paperwork required for a green card was fine. Defending an innocent woman who the police suspected of murder was something else entirely.

Still, I knew that Jerry Keeler was here to stay, at least for now. I grabbed a roll of my own and began scarfing it down. When the going gets tough, I always say, go for the carbs.

“Besides,” Marcus went on, speaking a little too loudly for the intimate space we were in, “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about. We all know that Suzanne’s innocent. There’s no way she had anything to do with what happened to Cassandra Thorndike. So I think we should all relax. After all, why shouldn’t justice prevail? Why should we believe for even a moment that anyone would ever be capable of convincing a jury of twelve clear-headed, objective, intelligent individuals that Suzanne did something she’s obviously incapable of even
thinking
about doing?”

Dead silence fell over our table. When I dared glance over at Nick, I saw that he was poised to speak. But then he snapped his mouth shut, as if he knew only too well what he was dealing with. Suzanne, meanwhile, had tears in her eyes. Tears of joy or maybe even gratitude, I surmised from the way she was looking at Marcus.

My hero!
she seemed to be thinking.

I was glad that our waiter chose that moment to come over with our entrees. Focusing on who’d ordered the Thai Pepper-Crusted Ahi Tuna with Wasabi Ginger Ponzu and who got the Fettuccine Jambalaya in Cajun Tomato Cream Sauce was much easier than listening to Marcus Scruggs’s diatribe on the effectiveness of the American judicial system.

Especially since the question of whether or not justice was likely to prevail loomed so dreadfully close to home.

In fact, it wasn’t until I’d eaten my way through what I had to admit was probably one of the best meals I’d ever encountered that I remembered that I’d dragged my posse to G for more than the Wasabi Ginger Ponzu—or even to get Suzanne out of the house. The dessert list that the waiter presented to us with high drama was a great reminder. In fact, as I scanned it, my blood ran as cold as the strawberry drizzle that apparently accompanied the vanilla bean gelato.

I waited until Marcus was monopolizing Suzanne’s attention with a long, detailed anecdote that, not surprisingly, centered around him. Then I whispered, “Nick, do you notice anything interesting about the dessert menu?”

“You mean aside from the fact that it doesn’t include a warning from the Surgeon General?”

“Look at it carefully,” I insisted. “Does it sound familiar?”

“Raspberry–Blueberry Swirl Cheesecake,” Nick mumbled, reading aloud. “Cinnamon Brioche Bread Pudding. Espresso Crème Brûlée with Chocolate Coffee Beans.” Slowly, a look of comprehension crossed his face. “Now that you mention it, this list does sound a lot like an inventory of the box of goodies you brought home yesterday.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“So there’s one of two things going on here,” Nick said. “Either your friend Jean-Luc is in cahoots with the pastry chef here at G—”

“Impossible!” I interrupted. “Jean-Luc told me Preston is a fraud—not to mention a thief who steals his competition’s recipes, employees, and anything else he can get his hands on. He hates Preston’s guts. Although, being French, I suspect he’d put it more delicately.”

“Okay,” Nick said. “Another possibility is that every restaurant on the East End has pretty much the same repertoire.”

“There
is
a third possibility,” I told him. “The one Jean-Luc complained to me about. And that’s that Preston DeVane has been robbing him blind. Not only has he been stealing his staff; he’s also been stealing his desserts. Jean-Luc told me he’d co-opted one recipe, but I had no idea he’d stolen all of them.”

“Hmm,” Nick said thoughtfully. “Sounds as if there may be a dessert war going on.”

I had to agree that that sounded like a distinct possibility. In fact, I was starting to see Dr. Atkins’s warnings about the dangers of carbohydrates in a whole new light. “What did you think?” I asked Nick as we drove west along Sunset Highway, leaving the East End behind.

“The food was great, but I shouldn’t have had the appetizer. It was too much, even though that was the most incredible shrimp—”

“Not the restaurant,” I interrupted. “Suzanne. And Marcus.”

Nick cast me a wary glance from the driver’s seat. “You know I’d rather have a root canal than spend an evening with that guy. As for Suzanne, she seems to be holding up okay. Why? What did you think?”

I remained silent for a minute or two, thinking. On the surface, the evening appeared to have gone just fine, although Nick was right about eating too much. Yet I’d definitely picked up on an undercurrent between Marcus and Suzanne. Or, more accurately, from Marcus to Suzanne. Something was going on from his end, and I suspected that it wasn’t good.

“I guess it went okay,” I finally said in response to Nick’s question. It was easier than getting into a long explanation—and safer than voicing my fears.

“I’m pooped, and I’ve got to get to school early tomorrow,” he announced after we’d gotten home and performed the usual ritual of greeting each of my pets, letting the dogs out, and checking all the water bowls. “I’m going to bed. Care to join me?”

“In a few minutes. I’m still wound up from the evening. I think I’ll check my e-mail.”

“Don’t hesitate to give me a poke,” Nick offered. “Just because I’m snoring, that doesn’t mean I’m not available for entertainment purposes.”

His eyes were so bleary and he was yawning so much that I already knew I wouldn’t take him up on his offer. “Okay, hot stuff. I’ll be in soon.”

I scooped up Cat before sitting down at my desk, then gently positioned her in my lap. She purred, letting me know she was grateful for the company.

“How’s my favorite pussycat?” I asked, stroking her soft fur as my computer booted up. Tinkerbell didn’t seem to mind. She was too busy rolling around at my feet, batting a thread that had come loose from my sock. I was noticing that while Tink had absolutely no problem bossing the dogs around, there was clearly no doubt in her mind who was top cat. She also kept her distance from Prometheus. I didn’t blame her. The mere sight of his no-nonsense beak was enough to keep anybody in line.

I scanned the list of new mail in my in-box, noting that I’d received a few messages from the usual array of friends, veterinary organizations, and purveyors of various drugs and devices designed to work wonders on any substandard body parts I might own.

But there was one name I didn’t recognize. The e-mail address was intriguing: [email protected].