Bonnie turned in her chair so that she was facing Rory again. “Look, I know she had a hell of a temper and she didn’t always treat people right, but from my perspective she was a dream customer. She knew exactly what she wanted. After she placed an order, she never called back to change it; she never second-guessed herself. She was efficient, punctual, and she had a fabulous eye for interior design.”
At least Gail seemed to have had some successful relationships in her career, with the notable exception of Elaine Stein, her former employer. But for all Rory knew, there were dozens of other disgruntled people in the decorating field whose experiences with Gail were less than wonderful.
The next morning Rory had called the manufacturer in North Carolina, using the phone number that was printed on the top of the order sheet. After being transferred from one department to another and back again, she’d finally spoken to a man who was willing and able to bring the invoice up on his computer. He told her that eight rolls of Flower Fields wallpaper had been shipped as per the original order and he would be more than happy to fax her said invoice.
Rory thanked him but declined the offer. Either someone had tampered with their records to cover up the mistake, or a roll of wallpaper had simply vanished into the ether. Maybe she should ask Zeke to look around for it in whatever dimension it was that he inhabited. In any case, that path of her investigation had run smack into a dead end.
When Rory approached the Deer Park Avenue exit, the black Jeep moved into the right lane as if the driver intended to get off there or was gambling that
she
would. In order to test her theory, Rory stayed on the expressway for another two exits. The Jeep stayed too. A few minutes later, it followed her off at Route 110 North. Coincidence? Leah insisted there were no coincidences in life. Rory hoped she was wrong. But she didn’t feel threatened or nervous. It would be light out for hours yet, and the roads were congested with traffic. Had she been on some lonely rural road she might have felt differently. In any event, she wasn’t planning to go straight home. It was the last day of the lease on Mac’s office, and there was one more carton of files that she had to take home.
The Jeep stayed with her as she made her way north into the town of Huntington, but when she was a block away from the office, it passed her. Curious to see where it would go, Rory pulled over to the curb at a fire hydrant. A few blocks ahead of her, she watched the Jeep take the right fork that led through Cold Spring Harbor to Laurel Hollow and points west.
With a lighter heart, Rory continued around the corner to the office. She spent a few minutes making sure that she hadn’t overlooked anything in the desk drawers and filing cabinets, since the furniture had come with the office. With Mac’s posters and diplomas gone from the walls, the suite seemed to brood with abandonment. Rory bid it a silent farewell, slung her pocketbook over her shoulder, picked up the remaining carton and headed for the door. She nearly walked straight into Casey Landis, who was coming in.
“Ms. McCain,” Casey said, glancing around the reception area. “It looks as if I’ve come at a bad time. Are you in the process of moving?”
“Just clearing out my uncle’s things,” Rory said, surprised to see the future Mrs. Oberlin there. She’d expected to have a difficult, if not impossible, time trying to set up an appointment to speak with her again and here she was.
“I have some information for you,” Casey said with a cool smile that bordered on smugness, “and I’m sure you’re going to want to hear it.” She was wearing skin-tight yellow capris that would have shown off every bump and bulge, had there been any to show.
Rory walked the few feet back to the reception desk and set the carton down there along with her purse. “Okay. As long as we’re out of here by midnight. Otherwise I have to pay for another month, or I turn into a pumpkin. I never remember which.”
Casey ignored the attempt at humor. She was looking at the single chair behind the desk. “Is there someplace we could sit down?”
Rory ushered her into the main office and took a seat behind the desk, leaving Casey to choose between the two smaller chairs in front of it. She’d briefly considered sitting next to her, but decided she needed whatever advantage being in the catbird seat offered. Casey was already one up on her, since she knew why she was there.
“My fiancé is a wonderful man,” Casey said without preamble, “but he’s as naïve as men come.”
How fortunate for you, Rory thought.
“He bought your little story without question. I, on the other hand, am not so gullible. You’re not typing up notes from your uncle’s case files so that you can send them to his clients. You’re investigating Gail Oberlin’s death. And you’re doing it for Jeremy.”
“And how exactly did you come to that conclusion?” Rory asked, trying for a bewildered expression.
Casey shook her head, causing her blonde hair to swing across her shoulders in a way that no doubt hypnotized men. “Are you really going to try to keep up that charade?” she asked wearily.
Rory leaned forward and locked eyes with her. “If you have something to tell me, Ms. Landis, spit it out. If not, this meeting is over; I’m way too busy to play games with you.”
Casey pursed her full, coral-coated lips and considered her options. “Well, here it is then,” she said, pausing a moment for dramatic effect. “You need to put Jeremy right at the top of your list of suspects.” She settled back in her seat with a satisfied little smile and watched for Rory’s reaction.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he have hired Mac to find out who killed his sister if he’s the one who did it? It’s not as if he needs to appear innocent. As far as the police are concerned, the case is closed. He’s not a suspect.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong.”
“Okay,” Rory said, intrigued in spite of herself. “You have my attention.”
Casey took her time crossing one slender, yellow-clad leg over the other. “To his mother he is still very much a suspect.”
Rory waited for her to elaborate, but Casey was not in any hurry. She was thoroughly enjoying the theatrics of the situation.
“And his mother thinks he killed Gail because . . . ?” Rory prompted finally, wondering if she was going to have to coax every sentence out of her.
“Well, there’s a bit of a backstory to it.”
“Like I said, I have until midnight.”
“I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but Jeremy has a gambling problem, a big one.”
“It never came up in conversation.”
“I’m not surprised. He probably didn’t mention that his family is rich either. I don’t mean a condo in Florida and a new Mercedes every other year rich. I mean major real estate holdings in Manhattan rich. I mean Lear Jet and sports franchises rich.”
Rory shook her head. It was unsettling to learn how much she didn’t know about her “client.”
“His father died a few years back, a stroke or something. And now his mother’s battling liver cancer. She threatened to write Jeremy out of the will if he didn’t clean up his act.”
“And he didn’t,” Rory supplied.
“A few months ago, he owed a couple of hundred grand to some mafia guy, and he asked Gail to bail him out again. She was a hardcore bitch, but she’d always had a soft spot for her baby brother.” Casey shrugged. “I guess even that gets old after a while. When she refused to help him this time, Jeremy was so desperate that he even asked David to lend him the money.”
“Did he?”
“He couldn’t even if he’d wanted to. Don’t get me wrong, David does okay, but he doesn’t have that kind of pocket change.”
Which, thought Rory, was why he and Casey were prominently featured on Mac’s list of suspects. She wondered if this little “tip” of Casey’s was actually an effort to shift suspicion to someone else.
“Anyway,” Casey went on, “according to Jeremy, not only wouldn’t Gail help him, but she was going to tell their mother that he was still gambling. Tough love or whatever they’re calling it these days.”
“So Gail winds up dead and now Jeremy has to prove to his mother that he isn’t a killer or a gambler?”
“There you have it,” Casey said with a self-satisfied smile.
Rory leaned back in her chair “I’m not sure why you’re telling me this,” she said. “I don’t have the sense that you and David are particularly broken up over Gail’s death. And I doubt that you’re such good citizens that you’re determined to see justice served. The fact is, with Gail out of the way you have clearer sailing to the altar. And given the timing of her death, you and David will inherit her very sizeable estate. It’s all rather serendipitous, wouldn’t you say?”
Casey recoiled as if she’d been slapped. Gone was the look of composure that bordered on arrogance. “I didn’t have to come here and tell you any of this,” she sputtered, rising from the chair. “I was trying to do the right thing, that’s all.”
She turned and stormed out of the office, the snap of her stiletto heals echoing along the hallway.
A few minutes later, Rory picked up the carton and her purse and left the office. She drove home looking forward to a quiet evening and an early bedtime. But when she turned the key in her front door it met no resistance. The door was already unlocked.
Chapter 20
R
ory hesitated outside the house, her heart thrumming a ragged tune that reverberated down through her stomach. She’d locked the door when she left in the morning, hadn’t she? No, she couldn’t be absolutely sure. It was one of those things that she did on autopilot when she was rushing off to work, like turning off the coffeemaker or putting the milk back in the refrigerator. But the coffeemaker could be relied upon to turn itself off after an hour if she failed to do it, and the milk could be replaced for a few dollars. Unfortunately, there was a lot more at stake if she forgot to lock the door.
She drew her gun from its holster, turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open. She stepped inside. The house was strangely still, as if in entering it she’d slipped into the eye of a hurricane. It took her a moment to realize why. There was no tone indicating the alarm system was on. No way in hell had she forgotten to set that too.
She held her breath, straining to hear sounds that would mean an intruder was still on the premises. No ancient floorboards groaned under mortal weight. No door hinges squealed. No whispers penetrated the silence. If anyone else was in the house, they must be frozen in place and holding their breath too.
Still, she forced herself to count to one hundred, Mac’s only bit of advice upon her graduation from the academy playing like a mantra in her head: “Never act in haste. Never act in haste.”
“Ninety-nine, one hundred.” Satisfied that she’d done due diligence in her uncle’s memory, she called out to Zeke. There was no response from the marshal, nor any sound that might mean a trespasser was making his way toward her now that she’d given away her position.
“Zeke?!” she tried louder. What good was living in a haunted house if she couldn’t even count on the resident ghost to scare intruders away? She’d be better off adopting a dog from the pound.
A moment later one of the high hats in the entryway flickered on, then off again, and Zeke appeared beside the bench. His hair and clothing looked more rumpled than usual, as if he’d just been roused from his bed. Of course, there was no actual bed, and as far as Rory understood it, the image he projected was, within certain parameters, his choice. Perhaps he was just trying to provide her with a picture of his current emotional state.
“You can put the gun away,” he said soberly. “They’re gone.”
“Who’s gone?” Rory asked, not ready to loosen her grip on the pistol. She noticed that Zeke was wearing his gun belt, the one he’d had on the night they’d met. Had he conjured it up again, thinking that it would make him more threatening to intruders? She was pretty sure that a ghost materializing in front of them, armed or not, would have done the trick.
“You’ve got no need to worry,” he said. “I’ve taken care of it.”
“Taken care of what?!” Rory demanded. “What’s going on here?!”
“Maybe you oughta have yourself a seat first,” Zeke said, clearly taken aback by the fire that flashed in her eyes and the deep flush of color on her cheeks. “You’re lookin’ a mite feverish.”
“I assure you, Marshal,” she snapped, “that I am not about to swoon or have a bout of the vapors, whatever they’re supposed to be.” She regretted her tone immediately. Zeke hadn’t done anything wrong, unless she counted concern for her as wrong. She’d just needed to vent her anxiety and frustration, and he was a convenient target.
“Yes, ma’am. You do whatever suits you,” Zeke said. “Let me know when you’ve calmed down some, then we’ll talk.” He started to fade away.
“Okay. Okay.” She took a deep breath and slid her gun back into its holster to prove that she was calming. If she let him go, she might not find out for hours what had happened in her absence, and that was even more unacceptable then being treated like she was made of glass. Besides, she had to remember that back in Zeke’s day women played the part of more delicate creatures and men were obliged to take care of them. If he was having a hard time figuring out what was expected of him in any given situation, who could blame him? She could only imagine how hard it would be if their roles were reversed and she had to fit into his world. Zeke was slowly coming back into focus, as though he wasn’t at all sure that he wanted to stay.
“I’m sorry, it’s been a long, trying day,” Rory said, doing her best to relax. “But I’m fine. Really. We can talk now.”
“All right then. About an hour ago, two fellas broke in here,” he said slowly, studying her face as if he still thought she might break down or faint at any moment.
With sudden clarity, Rory realized what had happened. The black Jeep
had
been following her to the office after all, because the driver wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going straight home.