Broken Vows Mystery 01-For Better, for Murder Page 2

  I dialed the psych center now and asked to be connected to her floor. Tommye, the head nurse, answered the phone.

  “I think Erica called me this morning. I didn’t get to the phone. Is everything okay?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ray, Walter, and a handful of men I didn’t recognize surround the Ferrari.

  “No. She’s hallucinating again. The voice is telling her you’re in danger. I let her call you so she’d know you’re all right.”

  “I’m sorry. I had a … situation here. Where is she now?”

  “The doctor sedated her. She’s sleeping peacefully.”

  “Tell her I’ll come by later, okay?”

  After thanking Tommye, I dropped the phone in the cradle and watched Ray at work. He paid no heed to the gawkers outside my showroom window, and I could tell the guys from the coroner’s office listened to him with respect. Everyone listened to him with respect—except me.

  In fact, I’m sure if asked, he’d say I tried to turn him into road kill.

  Two hours later, after Tim Lapham’s body had departed in a black nylon bag, Ray tapped on my office door and stepped inside. I had a Windex bottle in hand, wiping residue from fingerprint dust off my laminated wood desk. I’d had to be fingerprinted to eliminate my prints from the crime scene, a rather unsettling experience. All I wanted to do was lock up, go home, and fool myself into believing all this never happened, but I knew Ray’s questions were just beginning.

  Ray rested his shoulder against the door, all masculine and muscled. “Have lunch with me. They opened a new Italian restaurant in the old carriage house. I’ve heard the food is good.”

  “No thanks. I can’t eat. Not after—” I jerked my chin toward the showroom.

  “They have chocolate chip cannolis covered in fudge sauce.”

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. “How do you know?”

  “I know.” He straightened and opened the door. “And I need to know everything you know about Tim Lapham. You can tell me at lunch or at the station where I’ll eat from the vending machines. Your choice.”

  I took my black wool coat off the brass stand in the corner of my office. Ray was a dedicated, hard-working public servant who deserved a decent meal at least once a day, and I still remembered the time he got salmonella from a vending machine sandwich. Nasty. And he did name three of my favorite things: a new restaurant, Italian food, and chocolate.

  When we reached the sidewalk, Ray opened the passenger door of his patrol car and looked at me expectantly.

  “I’ll drive myself.”

  “You’ll have to park on a meter or in the municipal lot. It’ll cost you, if you can even find an open spot this time of day.”

  I got in. He slammed the door. Wachobe was the western portal to the Finger Lakes region, an upscale tourist village highlighted by a heavily populated seven-mile-long diamond-clear lake, abundant shops, fine restaurants, and a dozen wineries. It was a picture postcard village that had attracted the likes of the Roosevelt family and the Clintons, with a year-round population of roughly 2,700. That number almost doubled in the summertime and fluctuated daily with visitors from all over the country and businesspeople from the two cities that squeezed our township like bookends. We were also a village that knew how to make a buck. Parking for Main Street and its offshoots was metered only—fifty cents for the first hour and ten every hour after. They were a gold mine.

  I returned the waves from two members of the Dickens Christmas cast strolling by arm in arm. The man wore a black top hat and a gray coat with a velvet collar, the woman an emerald green dress and matching cape with black velvet trim and a black bonnet with netting.

  As a member of the merchant’s association, I helped fund the annual Dickens festival. The cast appeared on the streets Saturdays and Sundays from Thanksgiving until Christmas, providing a two o’clock choral concert at the park gazebo both days. Father Christmas sat on the steps of the VFW Club and dispensed treats to all good girls and boys. At the library, Mother Goose read stories to the children. Free horse-drawn carriage rides were available on Main Street, and roasted chestnuts, hot cider or chocolate, and donuts were given away at various stores around the village. The event brought in hundreds of tourists each year. The official lighting of the village tree would occur tomorrow night at the gazebo, complete with caroling and a visit from Father Christmas. Even the weather had cooperated this year, dumping an early foot of snow on the ground. I wondered if the murder would affect this year’s celebration in the few weeks left until Christmas.

  Ray negotiated the weekend traffic with ease and found the one available space with his usual magnetic attraction.

  The new restaurant had opened in a two-hundred-year-old carriage house, allowing for a long, skinny dining room with booths lining the walls and a row of hardtops running down the middle. Traditional red and white checkerboard tablecloths covered their surfaces. A brick oven roasted pizzas at the rear of the room, blocking the view but not the mouthwatering aromas of the main kitchen beyond it.

  I ordered the lasagna. Ray ordered the gnocchi with spicy Italian sausage and sweet peppers. I sipped my Pepsi and waited for the interrogation to begin.

  “Tim wasn’t killed in your car. The body was in an advanced stage of rigor mortis, probably locked into a seated position before it ever entered the building. We only found traces of body fluids on the seat.” Ray peeled the paper lids off two creamers and dumped them in his coffee.

  I wasn’t sure what bothered me more—the reference to Tim as a “body” or the discussion of his fluids over lunch. Or maybe it was the thought that the Ferrari had taken on a whole new definition of used.

  Ray started firing off questions. “Who knows your alarm code?”

  “Cory. You. Erica. The alarm company.”

  He gave me the look, the incredulous, you-are-so-naïve look. “You haven’t changed it in all these years? It’s the same one your dad set up?”

  “Why would I change it?”

  Ray seemed pleased for some reason. “Okay, so we don’t know who your dad might have given the code to, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Did you ever hire a cleaning service?”

  “No, I’m still mopping the floors.” My customers were the most meticulous people. I only had to do it once a week to get the dust from the corners. It saved me money to do it myself, and money—specifically my lack of it—was my number-one business concern. Until I found a dead body. Money had now dropped to number two on my list of woes.

  “Any new customers lately?”

  I had a face that was way too easy to read. The “Duh, it’s December” thought in my brain must have displayed in neon lights, because Ray frowned before he continued.

  “Cory says he hasn’t brought anyone by the shop. True?”

  I thought a minute. Cory had a long string of love interests, all strapping males who loved to sit in my sexy, high performance cars. They loved to make out in them too, if I didn’t keep watch and rock the car on its chassis in warning. But I couldn’t think of anyone within the last three months. Winter was Cory’s slow season too, with the nearby Broadway quality professional theater on hiatus. A skilled amateur actor, he often played a teenage boy in the theater’s productions. “I can’t recall any. Did you ask him?”

  “Yep. He said he hasn’t had his engine lubricated since September, and he needs an oil change soon.”

  September? What did he have to complain about? My engine had seized years before that.

  Ray continued, “Have you had any problems with anyone? Noticed anything suspicious? Someone new hanging around? Phone calls? Funny looks? Footprints in the snow? Anything?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. This whole thing comes as a complete shock.”

  The waitress arrived with our salads and a basket of bread. Ray slid the basket over to me first. I munched a leaf of lettuce as he continued his barrage.

  “Tell me everything you know about Tim.”

  “Tim is
… was thirty-three, divorced from Becky with two children. Mark is eight; Emma is six. They had an amicable relationship and shared custody.” I rushed on, hoping to avoid any opportunity for Ray to compare our situation to theirs. “His parents live in Florida and he has a brother in Poughkeepsie who is also an accountant. Tim lived in a second-floor three-bedroom apartment on Rose Street, in the home with the beauty shop on the first floor. His landlady runs it.”

  The waitress delivered our dinners and cleared the salad plates. I took a few bites of the delicious but thermonuclear lasagna while Ray devoured half his plate of gnocchi.

  “Tim was a certified public accountant. He had private clients plus he did the books for the village. We voted for him, remember? And he was on the zoning board.”

  Ray nodded and kept on chewing. Apparently I hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know because he hadn’t even removed his notepad from his pocket yet.

  I took a few more bites as I searched my memory. “He had the kids Tuesday and Thursday nights. Usually he took them out to dinner, then back to his place for homework. They stayed overnight with him on Saturday. He took them to dinner and a movie. He bowled on Wednesday nights. During tax season, he didn’t see the kids except for Saturday. He liked opera.”

  Ray raised his eyebrows. He knew I hated opera.

  “What else do you want to know?”

  Ray wiped his lips and dropped his napkin on the table. “The important stuff, Jolene. What kind of car does he drive?”

  “A silver Ford Focus. He bought it last year.”

  “Sporty.” Through the sarcasm I heard Ray’s message loud and clear—this guy wasn’t right for you, Jolene. “It wasn’t in your parking lot. Who were his clients?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he ever seem stressed about anything while you were dating?”

  “No. He was always very pleasant.”

  “Pleasant.” Ray made it sound like a slur. “Did he mention other girlfriends or past relationships?”

  “Just that he’d dated a few people, but no one special.”

  “Any names?”

  “No.”

  “Did he sleep with them?”

  “I don’t know! I didn’t ask.”

  “How many dates did you have with him, including our high school reunion?”

  I tried to read his face and failed. I hadn’t been able to read it that night, either, when I walked in with Tim. “Five.” And I kept them all short to avoid getting involved. I knew Tim wasn’t right for me, but I was lonely.

  “Did you sleep with him?”

  “How is that important?”

  “I need to know if he was promiscuous. Maybe an irate ex or boyfriend stabbed him.”

  Could a man even be promiscuous? I thought that term was reserved for women only, but I didn’t quibble. “No, Ray, I didn’t sleep with him. He never tried to get past first base.” I put my fork down on the table with most of my lasagna uneaten.

  Ray eyed my plate. “Are you going to take that home?”

  “No.”

  “Can I eat it?”

  I handed it to him and watched him devour it, wondering what he would ask next. It bothered me that this murder had put me in the position of having to lay myself bare to him once again.

  When the waitress reappeared with the check, Ray waved it off. “Add a chocolate chip cannoli to our order, please.”

  She hovered uncertainly, perhaps sensing tension in the air. “For here, or to go?”

  I opened my mouth, but Ray got his words out first. “For here. Thanks.” He waited until she walked away. “Tim’s office is on Vineyard Street, right?”

  “In one of the old mansions.” Wachobe had lots of old mansions, some dating to 1796, homes where pre-Civil War reformists had lived. They contrasted nicely with the modern million-dollar mansions, euphemistically called cottages, ringing the lakeshore.

  The cannoli appeared. Ray motioned for the waitress to set it in front of me. I didn’t want it at first, but the smell of the fudge overcame me. I picked up the fork on my side of the plate—the waitress had thoughtfully supplied two so we could share—and scooped up the cheese and chips overfilling the end nearest me. I chewed, trying not to let my happiness show. Chocolate was definitely a comfort food.

  “Good, eh?” He picked up his fork and reached across the table to dig in, although he left the last bite for me. Since we were no longer a couple, I didn’t even mount a fake protest. I ate it. His amusement at my restored appetite showed in his eyes. I felt a pang of regret. Sometimes I missed that look in his eyes.

  He paid the check, snagged a couple mints for us from the dish by the register, and escorted me out the door. We drove to the shop in silence. I guessed he’d run out of questions. I didn’t have any answers anyway. In fact, the whole day had been so surreal that I didn’t believe Tim was truly dead.

  Ray backed into the driveway so my car door was closest to the shop entrance. Always the gentleman. I turned to look at him.

  “A couple more questions, darlin’, just for the record.”

  “Yes?”

  “I heard you and Tim had a fight last week, and you punched him.”

  “I did not!”

  Ray rubbed his chin, scraping over the rough of his whiskers and sending tingles up and down my spine. “Several people mentioned it to me earlier this week. You didn’t mention it at all.”

  Okay, I could see how that might look bad. I scrambled to explain. “Tim and I were talking about zoning and aesthetics. I asked him why the paint on the historic buildings can be peeling but my storefront has to be pristine and why the board approved the modern money-making parking meters but frowned on my flashy modern cars.” I realized I sounded resentful and stopped to take a deep breath. My father had taken a lot of heat from the town over the years about his “eyesore” garage. I often wondered if it had contributed to his fatal heart attack.

  “We were standing in the front window of the showroom. I was pointing to the street, he was pointing, and then I bumped him. It was not a fight. It was a discussion. You know I’d never hit anyone.”

  Ray cocked an eyebrow.

  I searched my memory. No, I was sure I had never hit him. Never, ever. I was not a violent person. “What?”

  “You did wrestle your sister into the closet and leave her there for six hours.”

  I felt my face burn red. “She planned to go out and pick up another guy from another bar and get AIDS or something. I saved her from herself.”

  “She could have hyperventilated and died in there.”

  “Well, she didn’t. And she forgave me. Besides, it was temporary insanity. You know me better than that.”

  Ray stared out the windshield. I wondered if he was recalling the time I ran over his toes.

  He had pressured me for years to have a baby, though he’d known before we got married that I didn’t plan to, fearing the child would be mentally ill like my sister and my mother. He told me we could face it. I told him I didn’t want to. He said he loved me. I said not enough. After ten years of marriage and six years of tension, the ulcer in my stomach had eaten its way up to my heart, leaving a hole Ray couldn’t fill. When Erica entered the psych center after her third suicide attempt, I’d had enough. I met Ray in the driveway with my suitcase one night and handed him the divorce papers. Then I leapt into my Porsche and tried to pull out of the driveway. I ran over his steel-toed shoes by accident when he tried to stop me. The next day I found the signed papers on my desk at work. He left a note that read “I’ve seen you show more respect for roadkill.”

  I decided to remain silent. Those were isolated and unfortunate incidents. He must realize Tim and I did not have the years of history behind us to generate such emotion. Of course, Ray knew the sports car boutique meant everything to me, since it used to be my father’s auto repair garage. I wondered if he knew about the zoning board’s grumblings that I should move my business from Main Street to a less visible location a
nd about Tim’s tacit agreement.

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Ray!” Crushed, I couldn’t find the words to respond, nor could I believe how stunned I was to realize his opinion of me still meant so much.

  He raised his hand to placate me. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t ask and enter the information into the record.”

  I took a deep breath and a leap of faith that he still believed in me. “So you’re going to handle the investigation?”

  Ray shot me the look again. “Did you want Walter to do it?”

  Although Walter Burnbaum was the Chief of Police, his primary service to our tiny community involved the collection of parking meter fees and writing the associated parking tickets. He did get to participate in a major statewide drug bust a few months ago. I think he drove the paddy wagon with a couple of the culprits inside. The village got a giggle out of his boasting, especially since rumor had it the scales his son kept in his bedroom were not for weighing justice.

  “Of course not.” I struggled to recall the prior evening, now faded in the light of recent events. “I left here at five, stopped for two slices and a salad at the pizzeria, and went home to watch HBO.”

  “What movie was on?”

  “Pride and Prejudice.”

  “I know you love that.”

  He knew because we went to see it together for our anniversary, one of the last joyous times we spent together. He called me Mrs. Darcy for a week afterward. I smiled at the memory.

  Ray leaned over and, for one wild moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. I smelled the sweet peppers on his breath. I closed my eyes. Nothing. I felt the rush of cold air as he pushed open my car door. I opened my eyes to find his face five inches from mine. He had that amused look in his eyes again.

  I scrambled out of the car, my face hot with embarrassment, and said, “Thank you for the ride. And thank you for lunch.” I was a very polite girl. I minded my manners even when I hoped the sidewalk would sink and drag me down into the center of the earth.