Sweet Poison (3 page)

“So, what are you planning to do tonight?” asked Mary, pointing at a section of the leather seat he’d missed. “I assume you’re going out.”

Corey did a quick swipe with the rag, then tossed it aside and screwed the cap back on the polish. He had something important he’d been waiting to do since his first day out of the hole. “Not sure. I’ll probably just go for a ride.”

“You keep your nose clean.”

He grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You work in the morning?”

“Nah. It’s Sunday.” He’d found a job as a mechanic at a car dealership in Crystal. It was close to the halfway house, but it took him nearly an hour in rush-hour traffic to get there now, which annoyed
the hell out of him. It paid pretty well, which was good because electronic monitoring wasn’t cheap. The state didn’t pick up the tab, he did, to the tune of three hundred bucks a month. The head mechanic at the dealership had served time himself, so he was willing to cut another felon a break. His aunt had offered him a job with her cleaning crew, but the last thing Corey wanted was to be released from prison so he could go clean houses and office buildings for the rest of his life. He wasn’t about to be anybody’s servant.

“You better change your clothes before you leave,” said Mary. “Don’t wanna go out looking like a grease monkey.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Put on some of that nice aftershave you bought yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what, ma’am?”

Her eyes narrowed. Pulling his head toward her, she planted a kiss on his cheek. “If you say ‘ma’am’ one more time, I’m gonna muck up the shine on your chrome.”

“You wouldn’t do that.” He raised his fists and threw a couple of mock jabs at her.

“Hey, I understand your lawyer is speaking over at your old high school tomorrow tonight. You might want to go hear him. If all the polls I’m reading are correct, he may be our next governor.”

“Yippee freakin’ skippy.”

She regarded him silently.

“Why should I care? What did he ever do for me?”

“He got you the minimum sentence.”

“For something I didn’t do.”

“He gave you what he thought was his best advice. And don’t forget, he worked for free.”

“Yeah. You get what you pay for.”

“Stop it right this minute. I didn’t have the money to hire a high-priced lawyer. Neither did you. You could have gone with some overworked, underpaid defense attorney the state provided, someone with
so many other cases to work that, even if he wanted to, couldn’t give much time to yours.”

“And Lawless did?”

“Yes, Corey, he did. I’ve cleaned that man’s house—
and
his daughter’s house—for over fifteen years. When I went to Ray for help, he was more than willing to give it.”

“You see goodness everywhere, Mary. I don’t.”

“Well, maybe you should start looking a little harder.”

Or you should, he thought, though he kept it to himself.

L
ate Saturday night, Jane and Cordelia lugged four giant pumpkins into the screened porch attached to the back of Jane’s house and dumped them next to the wicker couch. Turning to look outside, Jane gazed up at the moon. Harvest moons always reminded her of Humpty Dumpty before he fell off the wall. And that made her think of the book she was currently reading—
Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries
.

“What are you thinking?” asked Cordelia, catching her breath as she draped her supersized frame across a comfortably padded chaise.

“Humpty Dumpty and black holes.”

“Silly me, I should have guessed.” Under her breath, she added, “Why did I ask?”

Cordelia Thorn was Jane’s oldest and best friend. She was the creative director at the Allen Grimby Repertory Theater in St. Paul, which in her case meant she wasn’t much interested in galactic gas clouds, quasars, and being torn apart—atom by atom—inside a black hole. Their common ground was food, theater, literature, film, and a shared history that covered almost three decades.

Cordelia swatted one of the last flies of the year away from her
face while Jane leaned over to unclip the leash from her dog’s collar. Once Mouse, a frisky chocolate Lab, had trotted into the yard for his evening ablutions, she sat down on the rocking chair.

“I love pumpkin hunting.” Cordelia gazed lovingly at the large round orbs. “Almost as much as I love pumpkin carving. Say, changing the subject, your dad sure dodged a bullet today. I don’t trust small planes.”

“They’re usually very safe.”

“Yeah, well, but when they’re not, you’re hundreds of feet above the ground. Doesn’t matter, though. He’s okay. And he’s going to win. Perry Mason always wins.”

“My dad isn’t Perry Mason.”

Cordelia waved away the comment. “When he does, I’ll get to say I knew him when.”

“When what?”

“Well, for instance, when he taught us how to play tennis that one summer and I sprained my ankle and he carried me home.”

“I think you stubbed your toe.”

“No, no. It was a sprain. I still have a bad scar.”

Jane could have pointed out that sprains didn’t leave scars, but Cordelia didn’t much care for that kind of corporeal detail. “Where’s Melanie tonight?”

Melanie Gunderson was Cordelia’s new—old—girlfriend. They’d been together years ago but had broken up because they fought all the time. Last May they’d reconnected in a big way. Since then, Melanie had given up her teaching position at St. Cloud State and was now living in Cordelia’s loft, working as an investigative reporter for an alternative newspaper.

“She’s on assignment,” said Cordelia. “Down in Rochester.”

“How come you didn’t go with her?”

“Too busy at the theater. You knew I was directing a Nilo Cruz play in January, didn’t you?
Anna in the Tropics
. And anyway, she keeps everything she’s working on these days a secret. By the way, she may be moving out.”

“What?” Jane turned to look at her. “Out of your loft? You’re kidding me.”

“It’s possible. She’s found something she likes better.”

“Better than you?”

“I said
something
, not someone. No, we’re still an item. But a little space might be good for us. I’ll tell you more about it when I have something definitive.”

Everything Jane knew about Melanie and Cordelia led her to believe that they were an impossible match. They were both imperious, both know-it-alls, both high-strung and opinionated. On the other hand, when they were able to work through—or ignore—their differences, they had this mad passionate attraction thing going for them, though, in Jane’s opinion, it wasn’t the best basis for a long-term relationship. Still, when they weren’t throwing pots and pans—or verbal grenades—at each other, they seemed happy.

“You know,” said Jane, stifling a yawn, “I’m beat. And I’ve got an early morning meeting at the Lyme House.”

“Boring!” huffed Cordelia. “Boring, boring
boring
. What you need is more spice in your tamale.”

Right. “Want a beer?”

“Oh, I suppose. One beer and them I’m off. I feel like doing something decadent and sophisticated after spending an evening in the pumpkin patch.”

They hadn’t actually been in a patch, just a large outdoor market. But for Cordelia, who didn’t “do” the outdoors, it probably felt disturbingly rural.

Jane gave the pumpkins a friendly pat, then pulled out her keys to unlock the back door. As soon as she cracked it open, she heard the phone ringing, but by the time she raced through the kitchen, it had stopped. “Damn,” she said, hoping she hadn’t missed a call from her dad.

She waited for the red light to blink, telling her that she had a message. When it did, she hit the star button, then pressed 98.

“Ah, hi. Jane?” It was a male voice, one she didn’t recognize. “I hope
I have the right number. You don’t know me. My name’s Neil Kershaw. I, ah, I need to speak with you. It’s … not something I want to discuss over the phone. I know you own a couple of restaurants in the Twin Cities. I’m in Cambridge at the moment—Cambridge, Massachusetts. I do some teaching at Harvard. Among other things.” He paused, gave an uneasy laugh. “Look, I’ll be arriving in Minneapolis tomorrow. I’ll try to catch you at one of your restaurants.” Another pause. This one longer. “I guess that’s it. Talk to you soon.”

She replayed it. When it was over, she whispered, “Why didn’t he leave a number? Weird.”

“Who was that?” asked Cordelia, ambling into the kitchen. She looked sufficiently ridiculous in her bib overalls and spiky pink hair. She wore the overalls only on their yearly pumpkin hunt. The hair was another matter. After some prompting from Melanie, she’d gone to her salon and had her long auburn curls cut and dyed. The color changed periodically, depending on her mood.

“A guy named Kershaw. Anybody you know?”

“Never heard of him. Where’s my beer?”

“In the oven. Where do you think?” Jane grabbed one from the refrigerator for herself and handed another to Cordelia. They drifted into the living room.

“Stop,” said Jane, holding up her hand.

“You know, Janey, you might want to turn on the heat sometime before December—unless you like your home to have that nice meat-locker feel.”

“Just stop for a minute and sniff the air.”

“Why?”

“Do you smell something … unusual?”

She looked at Jane out of the corner of her eye. “Give me a clue. Animal, vegetable, or mineral.”

“There’s a foreign scent in the air.”

“Foreign as in … Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet foreign? Or are we talking
reallyreally
foreign, like ET or Gort?”

“Be serious. Don’t you smell it?”

“No.”

It wasn’t a scary smell. To the contrary. It was familiar—something out of her past.

“Maybe you sprayed too much Febreze.”

“I don’t use Febreze.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

“Are you saying my house stinks?”

Cordelia angled carefully past Jane into the living room. “Of course not.”

“Just because you sashay through the world in a miasma of perfume, doesn’t mean everyone wants to.”

She stared at Jane a moment. “What are you suggesting? That someone was in here while you were gone?”

“Doesn’t seem very likely, does it.” She checked the front door. “The door looks fine. So did the back. Just stay put. I’ll look around.”

“Turn up the heat while you’re at it.”

Jane spent the next few minutes searching the house. The scent seemed strongest in her study, just a hint of something spicy sweet. She looked everywhere but couldn’t locate the source.

On her way back to the living room, she let Mouse in the back door. He followed her into the living room and lay down next to Cordelia, who was sitting in one of the wingback chairs by the front windows, her legs crossed, one leg bouncing casually as she sipped her Corona.

“See, he doesn’t smell anything out of the ordinary,” said Cordelia. “Maybe it was Peter.”

“I doubt it.”

Jane had hardly seen her brother over the summer. Partly, she assumed, it was because he was sick of arguing with her, although mostly she knew he was buried in work. Peter had been hired as the official campaign photographer, but because he was also shooting a documentary of the campaign, a conflict arose. The campaign didn’t have the money to pay for the documentary, so her father was financing it now out of his own pocket. That meant her brother had to cut all financial ties to the campaign.

Last June, Peter and his wife, Sigrid, had moved from their apartment in south Minneapolis to a double bungalow in Elk River, about thirty miles away. Jane figured it was his way of putting some distance between him and the rest of the family. Distance allowed him to hide certain things from their dad that he didn’t want him to know. For instance, his marriage was, for all practical purposes, over. After the election, he and Sigrid would file for divorce.

Peter and Sigrid’s lives were a chaotic mess at the moment, born of the best intentions. Their little girl, Mia, sat directly at the center of a growing emotional firestorm. Jane feared that a custody battle wasn’t far off. The problem was, the battle couldn’t take place in a court of law because Peter had purchased forged adoption papers. Thus, they were at the mercy of their anger, frustration, and desire for revenge. It would be months, perhaps years, before that struggle would play out. For now, they were on their best behavior—publicly. Privately, it was all-out war.

“Doesn’t your neighbor have a key?” asked Cordelia.

“Evelyn? Oh, sure.”

“Maybe she came in for some reason. She’s just like me, right? Likes her perfume applied with a paint sprayer?”

Jane closed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t call her until tomorrow morning. She goes to bed at ten, right after
20/20.”

“What about your housekeeper? What’s her name?”

“Mary Glynn? She has a key, but she was here yesterday and isn’t scheduled again for two weeks.”

Cordelia tipped the beer bottle back and took a final swig. “You want my advice?”

“Of course. I think. Maybe.”

“Forget about it.” She raised her arm and pointed at her glitzy gold wristwatch. “Better hit those bricks if I’m going to get in a little partying before the bars close. Later, babe.” She gave Mouse a scratch on her way out the front door.