Some Like It Lethal (22 page)

"Is that so? Well, don't worry." Kelly waved her pen tantalizingly in front of Spike's nose, oblivious to his fierce glare at its pom-pom. "We'll take good care of him. Today's special is the deluxe grooming, which includes a bath, nail trim and— What's that smell?"

I plunked Spike, towel and all, on the counter. "We had a little problem this morning. Spike dug his way into the paddock where my sister keeps her horse. It was only a minute before I got there, but—"

Kelly began to look less perky. "He sure stinks."

Libby said, "That's actually his normal smell, just slightly intensified today."

"If you'd give him a bath, that would be great. Should we wait in the store while you do it?"

Kelly had finally become aware of Spike's steady snarl, too. "That might be a good idea."

"Great." I handed over his leash. "How long will it take?"

"I'll call you over the PA system when we're finished."

"Perfect!" I tried to exude confidence. "I'm sure you two will have fun together."

I grabbed Libby's arm and dragged her away from the grooming station.

Libby said, "It'll be on your conscience if that poor child is maimed."

"She's a professional. I'm sure she'll be able to handle a ten-pound puppy."

"Ten pounds of dynamite. Okay, now what?"

We stopped beside a display of litter boxes. I said, "This is the store where Rush Strawcutter had his office. See those steps over there? His office is upstairs."

"You don't plan on breaking and entering in broad daylight?"

A peek into Rush's office might answer a lot of questions. I particularly wanted to know if he had a camera or a darkroom on the premises. But reluctantly, I said, "I just thought we could ask around a little."

"In the store?"

"Right, among the people who worked with him every day. Somebody might have useful information. Get a shopping cart. We'll browse around and see who turns up."

"And maybe you'll have an opportunity to go upstairs? I get it. You brought me here to distract people."

I tried to ignore the steady, furious barking over in the grooming area, but it sounded as if Spike was disagreeing with the Pomeranian. Libby grabbed a shopping cart and we ambled around the huge store. The only clerk on duty was helping another customer sort through a daunting display of leashes and collars.

Finally, Libby's impatience got the best of her. She marched up to the leash display and said, "Oh, look at these rhinestone collars, Nora. What do you think?"

The store clerk finished with the other customer and turned to us. She was a large woman, and the color of her hair matched the orange of her store smock.

Her badge said,
LAKEETA, MANAGER.
She said, "I have a large inventory of rhinestone collars. What size do you need, honey?"

"Small," I said.

"Medium," Libby corrected. She found a black one she liked. "What do you think?"

"It's huge," I said. "It'll never fit Spike."

"Never mind Spike How does it look on me?" She held the flashy collar up to her own throat. "See? Wouldn't Placida approve?"

LaKeeta said, "Placida is your dog?"

I closed my eyes.

"No, Placida is my goddess within," Libby explained. "The goddess of tranquility, sexual adventure and weight loss. I worship her daily, and she rewards me with her gifts."

"No kidding." LaKeeta put one hand on her ample hip. "How's she doing with the sexual adventure part?"

"Well . . ." Libby slid her eyes at me. "The results have been mixed so far."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Yeah, what do you mean?" LaKeeta asked. "Who is this Placida chick? She gonna try leading me into temptation? 'Cause I can usually find that all by myself."

"Placida is my personal goddess," Libby assured her. "You might choose someone totally different, depending upon your needs and inner resources. Would you be interested in a goddess support group?"

"Hell, yes, if it gets me some sexual adventure."

"Libby," I said, easing away, "I think I'll go look around a little."

"Sure," Libby said. Then, to LaKeeta: "She needs a goddess, too, but she's a little unfocused right now."

I moseyed away from the two of them, ignoring another spate of barking over in the grooming department, followed by a crash and a human yelp.

I spotted the stairs and tried to stroll casually in that direction. When I reached a display of flavored pigs' ears, the front door of the store whooshed open, and Gussie Strawcutter walked into the store.

"Gussie!"

She hesitated, then recognized me. "Oh. It's you."

She was dressed for business in a plain navy pant-suit, and she carried a battered black briefcase that thumped against her knee.

"I'm so sorry about Rush," I said to her, unsure what the rules of etiquette dictated in such a situation. Her husband was dead, and my sister was primary suspect in his murder. But I couldn't walk away, so I said, "He was a kind and very sweet man, Gussie."

She peered into my face as if I were speaking a language she didn't understand. "Why do you say that?"

"I always respected his involvement with humane-society work."

"And his involvement with your sister?" Gussie began to glare at me. Her frizzy hair was almost tamed by a thick black headband, but her face was blotchy and her eyes looked as if they'd been tenderized.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Until this weekend, I had no idea they even knew each other."

She swallowed that information with no change of expression. But her voice went hard and accusatory. "Did she give him money?"

"Money? Emma is barely making ends meet right now, and I can't imagine—"

"I found sixty dollars in his sock drawer. In quarters and dollar bills, mostly. Sixty dollars."

Gussie let go of the briefcase, and it hit the floor at her feet. She groped for the counter and sagged against it. I realized she was ill and quickly grasped her arm. "Let's go sit down," I said. "You'll be all right in a minute."

"Not here." She began to weep. "Help me out of here. I'll go to my car. Anything—just don't let me make a scene in a place of business."

I picked up her briefcase and held her arm firmly. She leaned against me and we staggered out of the store.

Chapter 12

Outside, she took gasping breaths of cool air. "I haven't eaten anything. Not for ages. I should have had some breakfast."

"There's a restaurant across the parking lot."

"No, that place is too expensive. There's a bagel shop . . ."

I saw the bagel shop only two doors down in the strip mall. In three minutes we were inside, and I eased Gussie into a booth across from the display counter. I spoke to a young man behind the cash register, and he brought me two cups of coffee right away. I ordered a toasted bagel for Gussie, and he went to prepare it.

She accepted the coffee without thanks. When I slid into the seat across from her, she was reaching for a paper napkin from the table dispenser. "I'm sorry," she said, dabbing her cheeks. "I haven't been myself lately."

"Gussie, you should be at home," I said gently. "With everything that's happened, you need to take care of yourself."

"I have a company to run. There's too much to do. The annual report, the shareholders—"

"For a few days, you can trust your employees to manage things."

She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes with a
napkin. "My father always says it's vital to know what's happening with the company at all times."

Her father had been a controlling egomaniac, I'd once heard my mother declare, who drove his wife to an early grave with his obsession for making money. Here was Gussie, similarly driven.

Did she have a life? I couldn't remember seeing her attending any social events, and I couldn't recall hearing any people call her their friend. Now she was struggling alone to cope with one of life's most devastating blows. She obviously felt betrayed and abandoned. I recognized her state of mind.

"Take a few days, Gussie," I soothed. "You'll be able to think more clearly."

She stared at the cup I'd placed in front of her but didn't reach for it. "It's been horrible. Everybody's talking. All the questions, the police. I just want it to be over."

"I'm sure you miss Rush, too."

Tears flooded her eyes again. She hiccoughed and grabbed another napkin. She pressed the paper to her mouth and couldn't speak.

"I know it's hard," I said. "He was in your thoughts a hundred times a day, and now he's gone. Maybe it doesn't feel real yet, but it hits you every few minutes, doesn't it?"

Gussie heard me, but suddenly her stare intensified as if I'd sprouted horns and a tail. When she could speak, her voice was a rasp. "What do you want?"

"I don't want anything."

"Everybody wants something."

"Okay, I want my sister exonerated," I admitted.

"She was chasing my husband," Gussie said flatly. "You Blackbirds are always looking for somebody to mooch from."

I felt my face warm at her assessment of my family. "Emma isn't like that."

"I caught them together Saturday morning."

That was why Gussie had been crying when Hadley and I saw her at the hunt breakfast; she'd surprised Rush and Emma together in the stables.

I said, "I'm sure Emma and Rush were only friends."

"You're wrong. I saw them together. And I saw the pictures."

My pulse quickened. "The pictures?"

"She was giving Rush some photographs. I grabbed them and saw. They were lovers. She was going to use those pictures to get money from Rush. But my husband didn't have any money of his own."

I wasn't going to get any useful information if Gussie persisted in accusing Emma, so I asked, "If he didn't have any money of his own, how did Rush start Laundro-Mutt?"

The question didn't offend her. "He borrowed it. I told Rush that was a poor business plan, but he had to do it, he said."

"So he borrowed from Tottie Boarman."

"That was a mistake, too." Gussie said flatly. "Mr. Boarman was a very bad choice."

"I'm surprised Rush asked Tottie to be his partner."

"They weren't partners. Mr. Boarman only loaned the start-up money. Then he wanted a return on his investment sooner than expected. He pressured Rush to go public and issue stock. But Rush told him the groundwork wasn't ready."

"Did you agree?"

"I had nothing to do with Laundro-Mutt." She picked at a ragged tear beside one fingernail.

I must have looked as bewildered as I felt. "But
surely an investment from you would have prevented Rush from going to Tottie in the first place."

"Rush understood that all Strawcutter money has to stay where it is. He knew that before we were married. My father and I made Rush aware of our family policy from the start, to avoid misunderstandings. It was the only way to be sure Rush wasn't marrying me because—well, for the Strawcutter fortune." She flushed.

I felt a surge of pity for gruff, unattractive, badly dressed Gussie. "I see."

The bagel I had ordered for Gussie appeared. I wondered if Rush, like all newly married spouses, assumed he could break down the barriers imposed by a prenuptial agreement. After a few happy years of marriage, most prenups bit the dust. Had Rush gone to Tottie after finally realizing there was no hope of easing even a few dollars out of the Strawcutter coffers?

Had he further resorted to blackmail to raise the money denied to him at home?

Gussie picked up half of the bagel and took a bite. She only barely managed to choke it down. She sipped more coffee and seemed to calm herself. "I told Rush not to borrow any money, but he went looking for investors, anyway, and came up with Mr. Boarman. Debt is a bad way to start a business, my father always said."

"What should Rush have done instead?"

"Saved enough to start Laundro-Mutt himself."

"But a start-up like Laundro-Mutt must have taken millions."

"You can't have everything right away," Gussie said. "You have to work for good things."

Poor Rush. Saving the change from his lunch money
couldn't have raised ten thousand dollars in a decade. I did not point out that Gussie had been given one of the country's most profitable businesses on a silver platter. But looking at her, sitting in that bagel shop, I realized she was miserable. All the money in her family fortune did not make her happy.

Gussie leaned across the table. "You've been spared a great burden, you know. When your silly parents took off, they did you a favor, Nora."

"I guess that's one way of looking at it."

"No," she said earnestly. "You should be glad they spent all the money. A family fortune can be a terrible weight, an awful responsibility. It's better to have nothing than hundreds of millions of dollars."

"You could give it away if you hate it so much. So many charities are desperate for—"