A Crack in Everything Page 22

  I kept pace with the rolling car. “We didn’t just talk, Peter. We switched horses midstream. Nino’s old lease is dead. I’ve got two notarized copies of his new one. With all its valuable perks.”

  The Mercedes hesitated, the engine wavering between a growl and a scree. “You looking for walking around money? I don’t make payoffs, kid.” The car inched forward again, my hand still fixed to the roof. At the exit, Lombard nosed into the street. “You had no right to sign for Biondi.”

  “I had every right.”

  “I’d leave it alone if I were you. You negotiated against your client’s wishes. That’s fraud in my book. Biondi’s happy. You stir up trouble, you might find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit.” A faint electrical odor mingled with the smell of cigar as his window began to rise. Near the top it whined to a stop.

  Careful of my nose, I spoke into the gap. “I’d be happy to meet you in court, Peter. We can talk to the judge about Charles Renfrow. Was he a tenant of yours?”

  Slowly, without taking his eyes off mine, Lombard detached the cigar from his face and placed it in the ashtray. “No.”

  “I just spoke to Long Harbor Realty.” Truth and a bluff blended like coffee and cream in my voice. “Why are you suing them?”

  He started to speak, then wrestled the steering wheel sharply right and pulled away. A sound like cherry bombs erupted from the tailpipes.

  I ran back to my car, glad I hadn’t locked it. Seconds later, I was following a trail of visible fumes, the Mercedes itself nowhere in sight. A familiar headache unfurled behind my left eye. I had to catch up, had to make Lombard talk to me.

  At the second cross street I spotted the Mercedes wheeling around a distant corner. I hit the gas pedal, and the Beemer hesitated, then streamed ahead. The Mercedes picked up speed too, and Lombard wound through streets that were clones of each other while I tagged behind like an obnoxious kid sister.

  On Hammond he swerved into rush hour traffic. Four cars whipped past before I was able to dash out in front of a fifth. Arrogant sod, thrusting her middle finger at me. I leaned on my horn, and like a contrary child, the Beemer faltered again. Carefully, steadily, I bore down on the pedal but the speedometer sank, from forty to thirty to twenty to twelve.

  Ahead, the Mercedes coughed and shuddered. Cars darted around us. Ms. Middlefinger charged ahead. Lombard and I chugged past the Longwood Cricket Club. I couldn’t narrow the gap between us. Lombard couldn’t widen it.

  Just before Route 9, the Mercedes cut right and lumbered into the retail foods end of the Chestnut Hill Mall. My BMW limped behind. Right away Lombard found a parking space and hustled his blue-blazered self into the supermarket. I dithered briefly through the lot, then grabbed a handicap space and tore after him.

  Inside, I thought I saw his gray trousered leg disappear down the soda pop aisle but when I got there, he was gone. The front of the store was packed with after work shoppers. All the men wore blue blazers. None of them was Lombard. I ran back and forth, making two complete circuits, studying people hunched over meat coolers and dairy cases, picking over the grapes. My heart sank. Lombard had snookered me. In the classic dodge, he had walked in one door and out the other, while I chased after shadows.

  As long as I was here, I decided to grab the makings for tuna noodle casserole. With Michael on hold, my yen for comfort food had become a desperate ache. The only available cart had a wheel that splayed out at the least provocation, with a sound like maracas. I took it and pushed ahead, torquing gently toward canned soup in aisle three.

  And then, there he was at the deli counter, penned in by shoppers, pointing an elegant finger at a shrink-wrapped prosciutto. I left my cart by the noodles and pressed through the crowd until I was standing behind him.

  “Half a pound,” he was saying. “Cut it real thin. So my wife can read the newspaper through it.”

  “The world through ham-colored glasses,” I said, and he stiffened at the sound of my voice. “Was NGT going to be your new tenant? Is that why you wanted Tavola out?”

  He didn’t turn around. “Stop,” he said to the deli man.

  “Only got a couple ounces here,” the deli man said.

  “Good enough.”

  “Did Charles Renfrow promise to pour millions into your…let’s face it…decrepit Boylston Street building?”

  “Never mind the cheese.” He stepped back from the counter. The heel of his shoe touched my toe.

  “Was Renfrow planning to convert Nino’s kitchens to condos for critters…I mean, biotechnology labs?”

  “Got it right here.” The deli man held up a cream-colored brick.

  “Skip the cheese. And the prosciutto. All of it.” Lombard turned and, not looking at me, rammed his cart through the crowd.

  I hurried after him. “You were counting on those NGT millions, weren’t you? That’s why you offered Nino so many incentives.”

  At the end of the coffee aisle, he tossed a vacuum bag into his cart, turned right and vanished. I found him outside the florist’s walk-in cooler. “Peter, I’m not going away until you answer my questions.”

  He stepped inside, and I scooted right behind. Except for his succulent wheeze, it was dead silent in the chilled room. Buckets of numb flowers were stacked floor to ceiling along three mirrored walls. There was almost no scent. From a mass of plastic-shrouded bouquets he plucked out anemones, a choice that surprised me. I’d figured Lombard for a brash red rose man.

  I touched a speckled lily. “Did Long Harbor Realty interfere with your NGT deal? Think lawsuits will bring back the millions Renfrow promised you?”

  He turned and faced me, both of us reflected in the walls, clusters of Peters and Susans glaring at each other through the cut flowers.

  “My wife called with a list of things for me to pick up on my way home,” he said. “She’s a difficult woman, my wife, and I’ve already left the cold cuts behind. See this?” He held out the anemones. “Flowers fix everything. Now I am going to pay for my groceries.” He pushed past me and put his hand on the glass door. “What you’re doing here is stalking me. Don’t stalk me, Susan. Don’t harass me. Renfrow is not a tenant of mine.”

  “Not now. He’s dead.”

  “I read the papers.”

  He opened the door, and sound rushed at us, voices, the rumble of carts, the beep-beep of cash registers. I breathed in the fragrance of fresh-baked bread.

  “Charles Renfrow was murdered just hours after he signed a lease with Long Harbor Realty. You are threatening to sue Long Harbor. For contract interference, I’ll bet.”

  “Harassment,” Lombard said.

  “Renfrow walked away from your deal, didn’t he? He left you with an empty building and no rent coming in. Renfrow shafted you!”

  He pushed his cart toward the eight items only checkout lane. “Say another word, and I’ll call the police.”

  I let him go, a pudgy man in creased trousers, shielding himself with flowers. He wouldn’t have to call the police. Soon enough, the police would be calling him.

  I found my cart and added three pears. My credit card paid for the groceries, and a little later, for the gas and oil and coolant the pump jockey fed my strung-out car. The handicap parking ticket, I’d have to pay from my checking account.

  Not until I was pulling into my driveway did I remember the tuna. Oh well. I’d make tunaless casserole and life would go on. I hoped Michael had called. I couldn’t wait to tell him where Glendel had led. Michael had been right to chase paper trails.

  Nino had been right, too. Lombard’s thugs had put him away. And me? I must have been Chaz’s backup plan: Get close to Susan with a phony campaign. Then sweet-talk her into taking charge of Nino’s affairs, into signing away his old lease…in case the Navy Yard deal fell through. Chaz’s last lie, peeled away like a layer of onion. Tears welled up, but
the sulfur stink of betrayal passed quickly. Charles Renfrow had been no friend of mine, but like a kung fu master, he had used my own inclinations to topple me.

  Now the question was, had an angry Lombard toppled Chaz?

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Frenzy

  I put on the pasta pot and made a series of fruitless telephone calls trying to track down more information about Roddie’s release. Where possible, I left messages. Gordon, Lauren, Odette, they all knew how to reach me, and sooner or later, one of them would.

  While the noodles cooked I rounded up the rest of my ingredients: the cast iron skillet, the tin foil, the can opener, the can. Seven minutes later, I flipped the drained noodles into the skillet, whacked the opened can until the mushroom soup slid out in a gelatinous lump, and added enough water to make a kind of sauce. Everything took on the same gray tone, nothing a toasty oven wouldn’t fix.

  Pleased with my kitchen efficiency, I washed pot and spoon and rinsed the can for the recycling bin. My mother spent hours at the stove. I’d assembled and cleaned up in ten minutes flat. Good theme for a cookbook.

  While my casserole baked, I showered and changed and tried a last time to get through to Lauren. This time the line was busy. Good. She was finally home, maybe talking to Gordon. I decided to eat quickly, and then drive to Chestnut Hill. We could wait together for Roddie’s return.

  I turned off the oven and peeked under the foil. Something was wrong, I could see at a glance. The gray tones had deepened, the noodles developed an odd sheen. I replaced the foil and left the casserole on the counter. Tomorrow, I’d figure out how to rescue it, or maybe Michael would call and give me a few tips. I wolfed down a protein bar, grabbed an apple, and ten minutes later, pulled around the circular drive behind Lauren’s car.

  The evening sky was full of Easter-egg colors, clearer than it had been all day. But it was fully dusk under the portico, a few lights showing through downstairs windows. I rang the doorbell and waited for Lauren to let me in. From a distance came the shussh of traffic, and quarter chimes from Chestnut Hill College. Eight-fifteen. I rang again, then banged the knocker. The door swung back under my fist.

  “Hello?” I stepped into the entrance hall and listened for Lauren, who could be anywhere in the sprawling two-story house. “Anybody home?”

  A sound, soft as a beating heart, made my skin prickle with watchfulness. “Lauren? It’s me. Have you heard the good news?”

  “Susan.” The voice was so faint it might have been the whisper of my sandals on the rug as I moved through the dining room.

  I halted just inside the kitchen, no longer an epicure’s heaven, but a blur of shapes and colors in the halogen light. Details jumped out at me: A white stool flat on its back, a green tea kettle missing its lid. The overhead rack had collapsed. One end dangled from the ceiling, the other rested on a table strewn with copper pots, iron hooks, a poesy of dried flowers. There were dark smears on the wall, a pile of rags near the Aga cooker.

  I edged toward the rags…that were Lauren…curled on the French country tiles, her small face framed in a burst of yellow hair, her swollen eyes searching me out. Everywhere I looked, at her arms, her neck, her sleeveless dress, I saw blood. I had to hug myself to keep from falling. “Oh, God,” I said. “Oh God, Lauren.”

  “I grabbed his knife…” She seemed to be gathering and holding her breath, then forcing it out. “…tried to fight him…but he ran…” She lifted a hand, and I looked where it pointed, at a trail of blood from the Aga, across the room, to the open side door. I envisioned it dripping like candle wax down the steps to the driveway. Had Lauren really fought him off? Or had he heard my arrival and figured it turned the odds against him? The thought shook me. I started for the door, but Lauren whispered my name.

  “I’m cold,” she said, and I stumbled into the den, then back to the kitchen with her shawl, which I tucked around her, hiding some of the blood. The wall phone was hanging down. I reestablished a connection and punched in 911. Then I sat on the floor and held her hand. “Ambulance is on its way,” I told her closed white face.

  Footsteps hurried up the back steps. A shadowy figure filled the doorway. “What the hell’s going on?”

  Roddie.

  He rushed at me, wild-eyed, and I shrank away from him.

  “What happened?” His mouth was slack, his voice shrill. “Who did this?”

  “I found her here.” My words stuttered out. “I called an ambulance.”

  He dropped to his knees and touched Lauren’s foot. “Sweetie, can you hear me? Lauren? I’m home. Wake up.”

  She managed to open her eyes. Her hand stirred in mine, then she fell off a cliff, to sleep. I hoped it was sleep. I got up, and Roddie took my place. “Don’t quit on me, Laur.” Suddenly, he glanced around the room, a new urgency in his eyes. “Where’s Delia?”

  “It’s all right. She’s with Amanda Lester, they had a sleep over last night.”

  We heard sirens, a squeal of tires, and in seconds the house filled with first responders. Medics stabilized Lauren, shifting her to a wheeled cot while I spoke briefly to the police about what I’d seen. Then I accompanied Roddie and Lauren to the ambulance outside. “I’ll call the Lesters on the way to the hospital,” he said, patting his pocket for his BlackBerry. “Dammit, I don’t have their number.”

  “I’ll call them.” I squeezed his hand, but he did not look reassured.

  “Her name’s Georgina, husband is Bill. Ask if Delia can sleep over another night. Explain what happened, but play it down. Or no…tell them the whole story, just make sure they don’t tell Delia.” He climbed in beside Lauren, still giving me orders. “I’ll find somebody to drive her to Maine tomorrow. Be sure to tell them that.”

  “Roddie, let it go. I’ve got your back on this.”

  Back inside, I went straight to the den, but couldn’t find the camp directory, and had to dial information. Georgina Lester picked up in the middle of the first ring, as if her hand was welded to the receiver. “I agreed to one sleep-over,” she said. She’d been trying to reach Lauren all evening, had left message after message, would never have believed she could be so irresponsible. When she came up for air, I told her about the attack, and she wound down. “How terrible. Of course Delia can stay.”

  She promised not to say a fearful word about Lauren in front of the girls, and then Delia was on the line.

  “Where’s my daddy?” were the first words out of her mouth.

  “He’s with your mommy. She’s a little sick, and they’re going to see the doctor.”

  “When will she get better?” I thought I heard the skepticism of a child who had learned not to trust, but I’m no mother. I was probably wrong.

  “Your daddy will call you first thing tomorrow.” I changed the subject before she could cross-examine me. “Are you and Amanda having fun?”

  “We weared our same camp shirts today. And Fluffy sat on my lap!”

  “What’s a Fluffy?”

  She giggled. “Amanda’s cat. My mommy’s allergic to cats.”

  A few more words about cats and daddy and feeding the ducks, then as Delia and I said good-bye, two Newton detectives intercepted me. After I gave yet another statement, Detective Bowdon, the shorter one with the shaved head that made him look hip and wise, asked me to walk him through the house. “Mrs. Baird may have interrupted a robbery,” he said. “Maybe you can tell us if anything’s missing.”

  “I don’t really know the house, but I’ll try.”

  We cruised through the ground floor rooms where to my uninformed eye nothing looked amiss. Bowdon’s interest seemed perfunctory. Upstairs in Delia’s room, Curious George nested between two pillows on the canopied bed. Stuffed animals, dolls, picture books, filled two shelves. As far as I could tell, nothing had changed here since yesterday.

  In the master
bedroom, alertness crept into the detective’s carefully bland face.

  “The bed hasn’t been slept in.” I indicated the imprint of my body on the coverlet. “That’s where I rested while Lauren changed her clothes.”

  “Speaking of clothes…” He opened the walk-in closet. “Look at this.” At first I didn’t understand why he was pointing to the orderly rows of Lauren’s things. Then I saw that every skirt, top, dress, had been slashed to ribbons.

  He watched my reaction, a moment of unfeigned shock, and his hard eyes told me that even I was a suspect tonight.

  “Anything missing?” he said.

  I turned away from Lauren’s ruined clothes. “You don’t seriously think he came here to rob, do you?”

  “He may have wanted something to remember her by.”

  ***

  The surgical waiting room overlooked a courtyard and was filled with sofas and games and magazines, but no people except Roddie, asleep in a recliner behind a bank of ferns. He looked so defeated, I hated to wake him. “Roddie.” I whispered, as if a soft voice would make consciousness easier.

  Instantly, he opened his eyes, and we exchanged news. Lauren was still in surgery, but the doctors were hopeful. I told him about Georgina Lester. “Delia can stay as long as necessary,” I said. “But I’ll be glad to drive her to Maine tomorrow.”

  Without even a token protest, he accepted my offer.

  “I’ll pick her up at camp. Not too early. Around nine-thirty. That’ll give me time to stop for her clothes and your mother-in-law’s address.”

  “No way I can thank you.” He took out his house key and stared at it. “Sure you can handle going back? Maybe I should pack Delia’s things myself.”

  “Don’t be silly. Lauren needs you here.” I tugged, and he released the key. “I’m not afraid.” Not too afraid. “I’m armed!” Gil’s Swiss Army knife was inside the little kangaroo pouch at the front of my bag. I held it up. “See? It’s got ten different blades.” I pulled out the corkscrew, the only blade I had ever managed to open. “Wine, any time.”