Smoked (The Alex Harris Mystery Series) (27 page)

“Well, he does design and sell rosary beads and I hope she bought a pair on the way out. Poor Sam. She was horrified,” I laughed. “That is
not
how I want to see my mother, John. And what’s up with putting it on her butt.”

“I suggest we don’t call your parents tonight. I have a feeling they’ll be busy.”

“My mother and father playing find the tattoo.” I shook my head. “Meme said she was kind of wild for a time when she was a teenager. Do you think she’s having a midlife crisis or something? Never mind. I can’t think about this anymore. Murder is a far more appealing topic. Why didn’t you tell me Ann saw someone arguing with Maria?”

“Because nothing ever came of it. She didn’t see a face, didn’t see the car and only heard a few words and probably couldn’t swear to that under oath either.” John went back to his latest Michael Connelly book while I dropped another stitch in the scarf I was making. Clearly I couldn’t talk, think, and knit at the same time.

“So who do you think it was, then?”

My ever-patient husband put his book down again and looked over at me. “We asked Ms. Connick if she ever had a confrontation with Maria and she denied it. She admitted to driving by the house a few times, though, so maybe she did stop but didn’t want to tell us because she felt it would make her look bad, which it would. And before you go ringing everyone’s doorbell on this street, we already talked with all the neighbors and no one else heard a thing. Including us.” John smiled and then went back to his book.

I looked into the small fire burning in our family room fireplace. It had become quite cold and I was glad I found some time to change our bedding over to the winter flannel sheets. We would certainly need them tonight. I had also dug out my flannel PJs, which were currently keeping me nice and toasty. Geesh. Even my mother and her tattoo exuded more sex appeal than I did.

I returned my thoughts back to the murders. My limited impression of Nena Connick was the woman didn’t seem shy. She had no problem marching into Sergei’s shop and demanding some answers from the man right in front of everyone else. So if she had confronted Mrs. Kravec and already freely admitted to driving by the house, why lie about talking to her? From a police standpoint I guess I could understand a reluctance to tell someone you recently had contact with a murder victim, especially while finding the identity of the killer was front and center in the authorities’ minds. So maybe Nena just omitted that little tidbit from her story to save her a lot of questions and maybe a trip to the big house. But I didn’t think so.

“I believe her,” I said.

“Whom do you believe?” John asked. “Want a cup of tea?” I nodded and he went to make us each a cup of an herbal concoction.

“Nena. If she said she didn’t confront Maria, then I believe her. Besides, if she was the one outside that night, then who killed her?” I watched John pour water from the electric kettle into a mug. I loved that thing. It was quicker than boiling the water on the stove and it tasted much better than microwaved water.

John shrugged as he came back with my tea. He set my cup next to my recliner along with an olive oil cookie. I know, it sounds horrible but the truth is they’re wonderful little cookies from Spain made with olive oil and anise; the perfect accompaniment to the tea and the cold night.

“Do the police still think the same person killed both women?”

“It’s the theory we’re following for the moment unless you have a better one.”

I finished knitting my row and put the scarf down. “No, I think it’s the same killer. I just can’t seem to find a connection to both women with any of my suspects.”

John returned to his book while I munched on the cookie. So who could the mystery woman outside Maria’s house be? Nadine? Carol Corliss? Julie Vang from the other former vegan- now-Vietnamese restaurant? Maybe all these women loved the charismatic Sergei or maybe Ann heard wrong. The windows were closed, mystery woman was further down the block, it was late and Ann was watching TV. Maybe I shouldn’t put too much stock into what she claimed to hear. The police certainly weren’t.

There was someone I needed to talk to but given the time it was going to have to wait until morning.

“You just about ready for bed?” John asked.

I walked into the kitchen and rinsed out our cups and placed them in the sink. John made sure the fire was out and then turned off the lights.

“Give me a head start,” I said as I headed upstairs. “I want to slap one of my tattoos on my butt.”

“Alex, come on in.” Sergei ushered me into his home and I untangled my scarf from around my neck. “What brings you here so early? I was just about to leave.”

I followed him into the living room and took a seat on a sectional sofa. “Are you aware the police talked to the neighbors and one of them remembered seeing Maria outside late one night arguing with another woman?” I asked.

“Yes, your husband and his partner questioned me about that. They didn’t have a specific date just the general time frame so I couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure of where I was at the time, but most likely here or at the store.”

“Not with Nena?” Geesh, I hated asking him about his affair, but he had been so open about it from the beginning.

“I think not. I’d been keeping my distance from her the last couple of months. She was getting too attached. Though I could have been if it was more than two months ago.”

“Sergei, excuse me for being so blunt, but what do you expect to happen with these women?”

He shrugged and leaned back in the chair across from me. “I never promise them anything. I am upfront from the very beginning and they always seem to be happy to have things as they are. Just some fun. A diversion.”

“I guess I’m old fashioned, but at a certain point I think women want a commitment. Maybe it starts out as fun and games, but it’s just our nature to want something permanent. Let me change course here. Did Maria ever mention this argument to you?”

He shook his head and crossed his big arms across his chest. “No. But she started writing those blogs about my shop then. Of course, I didn’t know about this mysterious visit with some woman until the police questioned me, but the timing seems about right. Up until a couple months ago she was going off on vegan restaurants and then suddenly she was writing all this nonsense about my shop and its unsanitary condition. You’ve been there. Does my shop look dirty to you? Did you see anything improper going on? I keep meats separate, cheese and the like in another place altogether.”

“You’re right. Your shop has always been spotless and the people working there certainly seem to be well trained in their jobs.”

“Exactly. So why would she go off on me like that? I always thought something was up but she would never talk about it. I kept asking her what was wrong. Nothing. She would say nothing.”

“Was she having problems with some other woman that you can think of?”

“No, nothing. She was gone from the university by then. She was never happy with Nadine, but those two,” Sergei smiled. “They used each other. Maria would get mad, fire Nadine and then think of something else she needed from her and would bring her back. I don’t understand why Nadine put up with Maria except I think she kind of looked up to her in a way. They needed each other in some strange way. Women. I will never understand them.”

I was having a pretty hard time understanding men right now. Sergei was so blasé about his affairs, which I thought, had been going on forever and had never seemed to give Maria much grief, which I also didn’t understand. So what the hell had set her off a couple of months ago so much so that she lashed out at his pride and joy, his shop? Or did it have nothing at all to do with Sergei’s affairs? Maybe Maria had met someone as well or maybe she just had a nasty streak and felt like toying with him.

Sergei stood up, his face serious. “If you have no more questions I need to get going.” Sergei, always easy going, looked as if he suddenly remembered his shop was on fire.

“Is everything okay?”

“Sure. Sure. Everything is fine. I just remembered something I have to do.”

The man walked me to the front door and with a forced smile on his face, practically pushed me out the door. Maybe he had a butcher emergency he needed to address or maybe something I said upset him. Or maybe he realized the police were closing in and he needed to pack and get out of town.

I walked back to my house and gathered my things for the office. I heard a car door slam and saw Sergei pulling out of his driveway from my living room window. I would love to follow the man but he knew my car and besides, I had a meeting and if I didn’t hurry I would be late.

After pulling some things out of the refrigerator for my lunch, I went to the garage and got into my car all the while with a strange feeling that something was about to happen.

An hour later I sat in my sister’s office with Marla and a Mrs. Fikert from a local area non-profit. Mrs. Fikert was a finicky woman with very special requirements and so Marla had been brought into the meeting to assure the woman we could provide her non-profit with all the reporting specifications they could possibly need. Marla had handled many non-profit accounts in her long career and by the end of the meeting we had a signed contract in our files.

“What’s with you?” my sister asked while Marla walked Mrs. Fikert out.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. I talked with Sergei this morning and he got really weird and said he had to run out. I was just wondering what he was up to.”

“Who knows,” Sam said. “Forget about him for a minute. We just signed a new contract and word on the street is We’re Just Your Type packed up in the middle of the night and left an office suite that still had another seven months on the lease. They’re gone. Packed up all their stuff and just left. Millie says the phone has been ringing off the hook this morning. We may need to hire one of our own temps to help her with the glut of work.”

“Wow. They just up and left? I wonder if they were providing more than just office temps.”

“Not everything is a mystery, Alex. They just did shoddy work and probably had a bunch of creditors after them.”

I left my sister’s office just as John was going into mine. I came up behind him and pinched his arm.

“There you are. I was in the area and thought I’d take a coffee break with my wife.” John handed me a chocolate croissant he picked up at one of our favorite bakeries and settled into a chair. “Where did that come from?” John asked looking at a picture of the two of us I had placed on my desk the day before.

“Everyone has a picture of their beloved on their desk so I brought that in.” It was a picture of John and me in Brussels on our honeymoon. “Do you have a picture of me on your desk?”

“As a matter of fact I do. It’s from a year ago when we went away for a weekend.”

“I’m impressed.” I gave him a quick kiss and then changed the subject. “I’m glad you’re here. I totally forgot to tell you last night about Ryan Reynolds.”

“Well, we were kind of busy looking for that little tree tattoo,” John smiled. “What about him?”

“Nadine thinks he’s bringing in more from China than crappy vegan products. She said by time she got her hands on the boxes they were almost empty. She thinks something else was in there and he removed it before he gave them over to her for cataloguing.”

“That would explain why he wants to carry on now that Maria is dead.”

“Nadine said the whole business was his idea to begin with. Do you think it’s all just a front for something else like drugs or guns?”

John took a big bite of his croissant while he thought this over. “Could be. Maria finds out and he kills her.”

I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. He’s up to no good and if Maria hadn’t died I don’t know how he would have handled things but I don’t think he killed her. The way I see it, he sorted through all the products, she did the writing, the research, the blogs. My guess is he would have tried to keep her from the boxes by taking that side of the business over himself, though how long he could keep her from looking inside, I’m not sure. Gee, maybe he did kill her,” I said. “Honestly, how long could he have kept whatever he’s up to from her? It doesn’t make sense. She must have looked in the boxes and they had it out.”

“I think it’s time I brought Mr. Reynolds into the station and do the good cop, bad cop thing.”

I smiled. “So exactly which one are you?” My husband was such a great guy, even tempered, and so patient with my goofy family. I hated to think he had a dark side but he was a cop and he dealt with all sorts of low life.

“For now I’m going to be the good cop. Whatever he’s mixed up in, I think he’s probably in over his head.” John tossed his napkin into the trash can and finished his coffee. “I’ve got to go.” He kissed my head and was gone.

The phone rang out in the reception area and then it rang again. Millie had her hands full and I took over some calls answering from my desk. By eleven-thirty the phones were finally quiet. Everyone left for some lunch but I decided to be good and pulled out my bag of cut veggies and a container of soup I grabbed from the freezer. Once heated I brought the soup back to my desk and munched on some carrots while it cooled a bit.

I still had Sergei on my mind. And Ellery. Could they really be in on it together? I didn’t think so. But I had another thought. If Sergei thought Ellery was involved I could see him taking the blame to protect his daughter.

I ate some of the soup and looked at the picture of John and me. Something was there in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t figure out what. I pulled my keyboard over and began typing. I logged onto Maria’s private email account and sat there, scrolling through the list until I came to one.

I opened it up and read through it several times. Nothing. I ate a few more vegetables and then read it again. Something was pulling at my memory. What the heck was it? I finished the soup and took the container into the kitchen and washed it up. I boiled some water for a cup of tea and when that was done I went back to my office and read through the email again while popping M&M’s. They go so well with a cup of tea.