"It’s like at your place."
I thought he was kidding, but he never broke a smile.
I nudged him. "You know, someone could go into your place and think no one was living there—it’s so fucking clean."
"Nothing wrong with cleanliness, Annie. You could vacuum now and then."
I pointed at the dresser that stood in the corner. "I shouldn’t touch anything. My fingerprints are on file."
"So are mine," Vinny said, whipping out a pair of surgical gloves and slipping them over his hands. He reached back into his pocket and gave me a pair.
"You already opened the front door," I said.
"And I’ll wipe it clean when we leave," he said.
We bickered like an old married couple who were used to breaking and entering together. How fucked-up was that?
The top drawer held what could’ve been a display at Victoria’s Secret. Lots of lacy pieces of string that wouldn’t cover anything, but then, that was the point.
Vinny picked up a red thong. "Why don’t you wear shit like this?"
"Because it’s uncomfortable?" I slapped the thong out of his hand and back into the drawer. "Anyway, I prefer to be unhindered by fabric while I’m fucking someone."
"Is that it?"
"Yeah."
He flashed the light up to my face, almost blinding me. I shielded my eyes with my hand. "What the hell?"
"You think we’re just fucking?"
He was serious. "I’m not sure this is the time or place to be having this discussion."
"Maybe it is," Vinny said. "We’re here, alone, no one to bother us, and we can’t get distracted."
He should speak for himself. "No," I said, trying in vain to keep the frustration out of my voice. "You know we’re not just fucking."
"Yeah,
I
know. But do you?" He’d moved closer now, his breath hot against my cheek. "What the hell did he do to you?" he whispered.
Tears sprang into my eyes, and I blinked a few times to keep them at bay. "Let’s just move on here, okay?" I said, my voice husky.
Vinny touched a curl at my cheek; his lips found mine and brushed them lightly. "Okay," he said.
I swallowed hard as he left the room. I stood for a few seconds, getting a grip on myself, before following him through the living room and into a den. He was checking out the phone on a wide desk, and the address book that sat next to it.
"You know, if you had caller ID, we’d be able to find out who was calling you," he admonished.
We’d been through this before. But I had considered it, especially in the last weeks, and I told him that.
"Too bad you didn’t set it up. We’ll call the phone company on Monday and do it," he said.
"Yeah, but if the star 69 tells me the number’s blocked, won’t caller ID?"
He didn’t answer as he tugged at the bottom drawer, the biggest one, but it wouldn’t budge.
"Don’t you have lock picks or anything like that, Mr. Private Eye?" I teased.
"Jesus, Annie, that’s on TV. Who do you think I am, Magnum?"
"You’ve improvised before," I reminded him.
"Stay here."
The light bounced off the walls as he left the room. It was creepy in here, standing in the dark, but not as creepy as it had been at Ralph’s. The light came back into the room before Vinny did, and he was holding something in his other hand.
"Tweezers?" I asked as he started to go to work on the drawer.
I wandered across the room, the light landing on a set of double doors that probably led to a closet. In my head, I went over the layout of the condo and figured that this closet was side-by-side with the one in the master bedroom.
I walked closer, my sneakers slipping a little on the hardwood floor, like it had just been waxed. Tugging at the latex gloves to make sure they were secure, I reached out and used both hands to grab the two door handles. I yanked them open.
"Vinny," I said.
"I’ve almost got it."
"I don’t think it’s important."
"It’s locked for a reason."
"Some things aren’t locked up."
Maybe it was the tone of my voice, but Vinny got up from his crouch and turned, pointing his flashlight in my direction.
A couple of misshapen wire hangers dangled from a rod that ran the length of the closet, which was the size of a small room. But that wasn’t what bothered me.
What bothered me was the blood that the light illuminated.
Vinny’s voice was measured. "Stop there," he warned.
"Too late." I couldn’t keep the waver out of my voice. I indicated my feet. "I slipped in it. It’s on my sneakers." So much for thinking the floor had just been waxed. I was going to track blood through the condo if we left now. The light moved up against the walls and across the closet, showing more blood splatter.
"Holy fuck," I said, glued to the floor.
"Don’t move. Not an inch."
No shit. I stared straight at the closet; through the corner of my eye, I could see the light bobbing behind me until it was dark in the den, the only light filtering through the window from the half-moon outside over the water.
In what seemed like hours but was really just seconds, the light was back.
"No blood anywhere else," Vinny announced softly. The flashlight showed that the only blood was right here, where I was standing, and in the closet.
"So why not?" I asked.
"Beats me," he said.
Vinny’s Maglite crossed the floor, into an area with no blood. "Take off your shoes," he said. "Do you think you can step far enough over here, where there’s no blood?"
I’m not the most flexible person, except in certain circumstances that Vinny was intimately aware of, but fear was a good motivator. "Sure," I said, even though I wasn’t. I stood one-legged like a flamingo as I wrenched off one shoe, then brought that foot down as far away as I could. I’d managed it. It was like playing a grisly game of Twister. How the hell was I going to get the other shoe off and that foot over where the bare one was?
"Toss me the sneaker," Vinny said, and I did. He held it by the back, then placed it carefully on the floor upside down, the bottom facing the ceiling.
Vinny’s hands were under my armpits somehow, and he lifted me up. "Keep that foot raised," he ordered, and I did as told.
I fell on top of him on the floor just beyond the splatter, my bloodied shoe high in the air. He wiggled out from under me and wrenched off the shoe. It joined its mate on the floor.
I stayed on the floor for a second as he sat, his knees under his chin, breathing hard. I knew it wasn’t because I was too heavy—or so I told myself—but because of the stress. "Gotta call the cops," I said softly.
"When we’re gone," Vinny said, picking up my sneakers and handing me the Maglite, which guided us back out the door.
He remembered to wipe the knob with the tail of his shirt.
We went to the elevator, trying not to make any noise, trying not to attract attention. I turned off the flashlight as we emerged in the parking area; the dim lights led us to the Explorer. I walked gingerly on the pavement, sand and small stones and, I think, a cigarette butt clinging to the bottoms of my bare feet. Vinny opened the back with his key fob. "There’s a towel," he said, and I knew what he wanted. I grabbed it and spread it in the back. Vinny dropped my sneakers in the middle and covered them with the towel.
"What are we going to do with them now?" I asked.
He didn’t answer me, just indicated I should get into the Explorer. I brushed my feet off before getting in. He backed out, and we moved back to the little road that would lead us out of the complex. Finally, after going over the second speed bump, Vinny spoke.
"We went in there without being invited. It puts us in a compromising position."
No shit. "But we still have to call the cops."
"Do you want to spend another night being interrogated by Tom?"
He had a point. "So what do we do?"
Another vehicle was coming toward us. He had his brights on, and I shielded my eyes, peeking out underneath my hands. It was a red Porsche convertible. Swanky, just like the complex. The driver looked at us as he passed, and I did a double take.
It was Jack Hammer.
Chapter 28
"Fuck," I said softly.
Vinny sped up. He recognized him, too.
"He said he had a condo on the water. Maybe it’s just a coincidence," I suggested as we passed the guardhouse. This time, the guard was leaning back in his chair, watching the TV we’d seen earlier. He sat up and looked out at us, but Vinny floored it and we ricocheted off the last speed bump, out of sight.
"It wasn’t a coincidence," Vinny said as we turned down Howard Avenue.
"How can you be so sure?"
We stopped at a light, and Vinny turned to look at me. The streetlight shone on his face, and I could see the concern in his eyes.
"When I saw you at the house on Arch Street"—Ralph’s house—"I followed him back here. That’s why I didn’t get home earlier."
"When you were on Arch, had you been following me or following him?" I asked.
"Him."
"I thought you were meeting with Felicia’s parents."
"Had a change of plan." He didn’t elaborate.
"But you didn’t know how to find Ashley’s unit. You said you hadn’t been here."
"I couldn’t get in before. I saw him drive in, but the guard was here. The guard let him in."
"So does he live here?"
Vinny sighed. "No. He lives in a condo in West Haven. On the water." He said it like he knew it for a fact, which he probably did.
So Jack hadn’t lied. But why would he be here, then?
"The guard let him in," I said. "Which means either he knows Jack, or Jack was expected. Probably the guard knows him, since he just got in now and we know Ashley isn’t there to ask."
Vinny could see the question at the tip of my tongue. The light turned green, and he turned right onto Sargent Drive. "I don’t know why he’s gone back there."
"Maybe he’s going back there to clean up the mess he made," I said, too flippantly, considering.
"Maybe." Vinny’s tone indicated my statement might not be off the mark.
"But why would he kill Ashley?"
"Who says it was Ashley?"
The question hung between us.
"You think maybe it’s Felicia?" I had another thought before he could answer. "You don’t think Ashley was setting you up, sending you over there? I mean, I called her on a cell phone—she could’ve been anywhere."
Vinny didn’t speak for a few minutes, then, "It’s time to call the police."
I could see where he was going with this. Call the cops and maybe they’d find Jack Hammer with a scrub brush and some bleach. But there was a flaw with that plan. "He saw us," I said flatly. "He might have taken off."
"Yeah, but either way we have to call."
I reached in my bag for my phone, but his hand covered mine. "No. Not that way."
"What way?"
"You’ll see."
We’d just turned the corner on State Street and Vinny pulled into the lot across the street from Café Nine. A couple of stragglers were outside, smoking. It was late, almost one thirty. Worst thing about Connecticut is that bars close at two a.m. and no one can buy liquor or beer or wine on Sundays or after eight p.m. the rest of the week.
Vinny found a pair of flip-flops in the back of the Explorer. They were too big, but I managed to curl my toes around the tops and they didn’t fall off when I walked.
Vinny talked the bartender into giving each of us a Scotch on the rocks, even though the lights had come on, indicating last call. It was a scary time at a bar; everyone was drunk and making last-ditch efforts to hook up. Vinny just needed a phone.
He borrowed one from some guy who’d just thrown up in the restroom. At least that’s what Vinny told me. And then he went outside and called 911.
We sat at the bar as the bartender put myriad glasses into racks to be cleaned.
"Do you really think Felicia’s dead?" I whispered.
Vinny swished the liquid around in his glass. "I don’t know."
I took a drink of my Scotch, let it burn all the way down my throat. "Whoever’s dead, do you think Jack Hammer did it?" Thinking about being alone with him earlier in Ralph’s apartment was starting to give me another panic attack.
He looked at me then, his eyes piercing into mine, but not in that good way.
"Not out of the realm of possibility."
"Do you think he’s the one who’s been stalking me?" I asked.
"He followed you to Arch Street," Vinny said. "He was downtown, on Chapel Street. I saw you leave Bangkok Gardens, get into your car. He was three cars behind you. I followed the two of you there." He paused.
"It wasn’t a coincidence that he showed up at that house."
We went back to Vinny’s apartment after our drinks and went to bed. No teasing about Victoria’s Secret. No fondling. No tongues.
I waited to hear his familiar snoring, the soft sounds that he made when he slept. But I fell asleep without his white noise.
The next thing I knew, I heard voices. Vinny’s. And a woman’s. Out in the living room, maybe the kitchen. The clock told me it was already ten as I pulled the sheet around my naked body and got out of bed, peering through the crack in the door to see who it was.
She walked by the hallway, and I pulled back, tightening the sheet around me. Damn. Vinny’s mother. She didn’t like me very much; she loved Rosie, Vinny’s former fiancée. I wasn’t Italian, even though my father—really my stepfather—was Joe Giametti, well respected in the community. But my mother was Jewish, and Vinny’s mother was uncomfortable because she had no idea who my "other people" were. Talking about my biological father, whom my mother divorced when I was a toddler and who apparently died in some sort of construction accident not long after that. Joe Giametti was the only father I’d ever known, and it didn’t matter if he was related to me genetically or not. I even went to St. Anthony’s High School, his alma mater. Going to Mass every morning, I felt, was enough induction into the Catholic faith as anything. But not to Mary DeLucia.