Diner Knock Out (A Rose Strickland Mystery Book 4) (9 page)

“Do you think that’s the best approach? You heard what Buster said. The men who run this club are dangerous. Might be more prudent to feel him out, let him know that Rob’s dead. Gauge his reaction.”

“He may not even be there. It is Sunday.”

“Nothing ventured,” Andre said, and started the engine.

We drove in silence, but I welcomed it. I was too lost in my own thoughts. If Rob had been killed, and I believed he had been, someone had gone to great pains to make it look like a suicide. That took some serious planning, and suggested that Rob knew his killer. Why would a stranger go to such lengths?

When Andre pulled into the auto complex, red, white, and blue balloons had been placed in intervals throughout the parking lot. It was much busier today than it had been on Friday. Mostly couples and a few families strolled through the lot, peering into cars.

Andre parked a distance from the showroom. Before we reached the door, John the Car Salesman walked forward to meet us. He’d ditched the suit today and wore a short-sleeved plaid shirt. Mirrored sunglasses shielded his eyes, but large beads of sweat dotted his forehead and upper lip. He smiled and wagged his finger at me. “You’re back. I knew you would be. Remind me again which car you were interested in buying.”

He had me confused with a real customer. “I’d like to speak to Al Bosworth.”

The toothy grin melted off his face. “Right. That was you. He’s not here today. And before you ask, Mr. Carlucci isn’t here, either.”

“What about Rob Huggins?” I asked. “Is he in today?”

“Who?”

“Rob. Huggins. He does odd jobs around here.”

He peered at me over his sunglasses. “Odd jobs? Never heard of him.” He glanced behind me and must have spotted a real customer, because the shit-eating grin was back on his face. He darted around me and trotted off.

“I guess that nails it,” I said. “Rob didn’t work here. Al Bosworth must be privy to the fight club, because he played along.”

“That would be a logical deduction.” Andre whipped his head around and watched John descend on his next victim. “I despise salesmen.”

I gazed up at him. All these revelations in one day. Blackjack. Boxing. Salespeople. If he kept this up, I’d know more about my taciturn boss than I did about Sullivan. That was an unsettling thought.

Andre drove back to the office. “You’re still not going to tell me what else you’ve got up your sleeve?”

“No. Maybe later, but not right now.”

He shook his head. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re making a mistake. Please be careful.”

“How’s it going with Ted Benson?”

He gazed out the driver’s side window and muttered something under his breath.

“Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

“I said I put a tracker on his car.”

“Oh.” Took everything I had, but I refrained from gloating. “I’ll see you tomorrow?” I hopped out of the car and stuck my head back inside. “Assuming I’m still on the payroll?”

“For now, Miss Strickland.”

Andre and I were back on an even keel. I’d apologized and so had he. But he and I didn’t see eye to eye on much of anything, so I didn’t know how long this truce of ours would last.

I zoomed home, grabbed a snack, and made another attempt to reach Sullivan. When I heard his recorded voice, I punched the end button in frustration. Double damn.

Tossing my phone on the futon, I huffed to the bathroom and took a long, cool shower. After straightening my hair, I used drugstore-brand makeup to try to achieve the same natural look that Sofia had given me. I didn’t do too badly, especially when I added the expensive new lip gloss. Then I slipped into my nicest black dress and one decent pair of heels. I couldn’t keep up with Roxy and Sugar’s colorful sensibilities, but I cleaned up all right.

An hour later, I sat parked in front of my parents’ three-story house. They lived on the edge of a golf course where all the homes shared a cookie cutter sameness that never failed to depress me. But the scent of freshly clipped grass permeating the air cheered me up. Mmm, the smell of summer.

After smoothing a hand over my tresses, I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. Time to face my mother. She didn’t approve of me or my lifestyle in any way, which made it hard to ask for a favor. But I needed to talk to Will Carlucci. Since Sullivan wasn’t returning my calls, I was out of options.

During the summer, I normally stopped by my sister’s house every Sunday after work. Her husband, Allen, would cook steaks on the grill, and I’d visit with my nephew, Scotty. But tonight we were celebrating Allen’s birthday, hence the dinner at my folks’ place. Not knowing what else he liked, I’d bought him a set of golf balls and threw them in a gift bag.

I rubbed my glossy lips together as I walked the path to the beige front door. The flowers flanking it ranged from coral to fuchsia. Not a weed dared sprout. My mother didn’t tend to them herself, of course. She employed a part-time gardener. Her yard, much like her life, announced to the world that Barbara Strickland didn’t get her hands dirty, bitches, and you’d best not forget it.

When my mother opened the front door, her gaze immediately clamped onto my better-than-natural face. Then she scanned my outfit, all the way down to my shoes.

“Rosalyn. You’re nearly presentable. For once.”

Chapter 9

Coming from Barbara Strickland, that was high praise.

“Thanks, Mom. You look nice too.” The lightweight wrap dress matched the color of her front door, accentuating her tiny waist and nonexistent ta-tas.

She’d switched up her champagne blond hairdo. Wispy strands now framed her face. I was guessing she’d also paid a recent visit to her plastic surgeon, because her cheeks seemed slightly fuller than normal. My mother would never do anything obvious like lip injections or a boob job. At least not until her friends did it first.

“Thank you. You’re on time for a change. So nice to see you putting forth an effort.” She spun on her heel. With her spine as straight as a plumb line, she walked to the informal living room. Though really, there was nothing informal about it. The stiff, neutral furniture and highly polished wood tables were expensive, but not inviting.

When Scotty saw me, he jumped up and raced toward me. “Aunt Rose.” He’d shot up in height these last few months, so when he threw his arms around me, he reached my waist.

“Hey, Sport. What’s going on?” I bent down to kiss the top of his white-blond hair. He smelled of sunshine and shampoo.

He gazed up at me with those huge baby blues. “I got in trouble at French class on Friday,” he loudly whispered. Since he was missing his top two front teeth, class sounded like
clath.
School came out as
thcool.
As for French class, my sister had enrolled him in an immersion course this summer so that his little brain wouldn’t atrophy before he hit first grade. I didn’t think there was much chance of that. The kid was too smart for his own good.

I rubbed a hand over his back. “Uh-oh. What did you do?”

“I told Madame Crosby (
Crothby)
she had fat knees. She gave me a red card, and I didn’t get recess. She called me
enfant difficile
. Mom says that’s French for ornery.”

Jacks stood and walked toward us with a glass of white wine in her hand. “And what did we talk about, Scotty?”

He dropped his arms from my waist. “Don’t ever call a lady fat. Especially if it’s true.”

She patted his shoulder. “Close enough. Go show Grandma your new tablet.” Jacks leaned over and kissed my cheek. “How’ve you been?”

“Good. Busy. You?”

“Same. Listen, I know you hate setups, but there’s—”

“No.”

She pressed her lips together. “Just hear me out. There’s a recently single internist that Allen knows. He’s in his early thirties. Tall, dark, and muscular. I met him at a cocktail party. And”—she lowered her voice—“he has a butt you can bounce a quarter off of. He told me I was lovely, so I told him I had a sister who looked just like me.” Jacks and I did look alike, despite the fact that she had six years on me. Also, she was more polished, poised, and put together than I’d ever be.

“You’re ogling another man’s ass? Whatever would Allen say?” I glanced to where Jacks’ husband stood in the corner, wearing his golf shirt and khakis—identical to my father’s. His features were pleasant and his personality reminded me of rice pudding—nothing you’d choose off the dessert cart, but palatable when you had the flu. Still, he loved Jacks and Scotty. That was all that mattered.

“I only look,” Jacks said. “I never touch. Believe me,
all
the wives were ogling that night. Come on, Rose, you haven’t had a date in ages.”

In the last several months, there were a lot of things I’d kept from Jacks. But Sullivan topped the list for many reasons—one being that she and my mother would interrogate him like a pair of CIA operatives. While Sullivan could handle himself, I wasn’t ready to throw him to the Strickland she-wolves just yet.

Also, they’d harass me for details. Frankly, it was embarrassing to admit how little I knew about him. Though I’d fallen ass over teakettle in love with Sullivan, I didn’t know much more about him now than I did six months ago when we first started dating. If I asked him pointed questions, he’d go radio silent. I’d learned to pipe down and sometimes, when he was relaxed, he’d reveal little snippets of himself. He lived near a river as a boy, and he missed the smell of the water. He liked slow jazz songs and cold winter days. When he had time to relax, he watched Quentin Tarantino movies. From studying him carefully, I’d learned that Thomas Sullivan was brilliant and watchful and guarded. The wheels in his head never stopped turning. Even when it looked like he wasn’t paying attention, he saw everything. He could sum up a person in a heartbeat. But as for how he got that little scar on his chin or whether his parents were still alive—nope. Not a clue.

What Sullivan and I had wasn’t a conventional relationship, which was why I planned on keeping him to myself a while longer. “I don’t have time to date anyone, Jacks. I’m working two jobs.”

“Just think about it.”

My dad walked toward us, holding his scotch in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. “Here you are, Rosalyn.” He leaned down and kissed my cheek.

“Thanks, Dad. How’s work?”

“Same old.” My father was a podiatrist, and since foot talk was discouraged by my mother—“no one wants to hear about hammer toes, John”
—
he was a man of few words. Good thing she hadn’t married a chatty proctologist.

Barbara stood at the French doors leading to the dining room and clapped her hands. “Time for dinner, everyone.” She glared at me. “Rosalyn, don’t dawdle.”

I held back a sigh. “Yes, Mom.”

We all settled around the table. My mother had prepared Allen’s favorite dinner—chicken Kiev. Throughout our meal, I successfully deflected most of Barb’s barbs and tried to talk to Allen about his practice. It occurred to me that as a pediatrician, he might have the inside track on the Children’s Hospital. And since Will Carlucci sat on the board, maybe Allen could provide an introduction. Thus, I could bypass my mother and keep my sanity.

“You have such a successful practice, Allen. It must be really satisfying treating kids.”

“For the most part.” He didn’t elaborate.

This was going to be more challenging than I’d thought. “Do you do much work at Children’s?”

“No. I have privileges at Memorial,” he said.

Jacks stopped eating and looked at me a little funny. I kept going. “I hear Children’s is doing some cutting-edge research.”

Allen speared a green bean with his fork and popped it in his mouth. “I’ve never been all that interested in research. Of course, they’re a teaching hospital, so they have the funding for it.”

I nodded, as though I understood the correlation. “Does the foundation have anything to do with that? The fundraising, I mean.”

Allen opened his mouth to answer, but my mother beat him to the punch.

“What is all this about, Rosalyn?”

I shrugged and tried to appear nonchalant. “Nothing. I overheard someone at the diner talking about a fundraising thing.” 

Her gaze sharpened. “And you’ve suddenly become interested in charitable endeavors, have you? How unusual.”

To keep from responding with a sarcastic reply, I grabbed my glass and downed half the wine.

My mother wasn’t through with me. “Tell us, dear, what are you doing at that little investigation company of yours?”

“It’s not mine.” I set the glass down. “And filing, mostly.”

Her expression remained stony. Could have been suspicion, could have been the Botox. I’d never know for sure.

Shifting in my seat, I glanced down the table. “Played any golf lately, Dad?” I was desperate to get the spotlight off of myself. “How’s your handicap these days?”

I could feel Barbara’s eyes staring through the back of my skull. Made me itch. But I ignored her while my dad droned on about birdies.

We lingered over dinner. Eventually, Jacks slipped off to the kitchen to retrieve Allen’s birthday cake. A carrot cake in the shape of a golf ball. That summed up my brother-in-law perfectly.

Allen opened his presents, oohing over the golf balls I’d bought. Afterward, he and my father wandered off to watch a baseball game. Scotty ran to the living room to play Candy Crush on his tablet, leaving the three Strickland women to clean up. My mother may not touch the garden, but she insisted on a tidy kitchen.

When Jacks stood to help clear the table, my mother stuck her nose in the air. “I’ve heard that too many video games can rewire a child’s brain, Jacqueline. Perhaps you could help him practice French.” A calculated move to get me alone. That didn’t bode well.

Jacks’ eyes flitted between us. “Oui.”

Once she left, Barbara pinned me with a steely glare. “Tell me why you’re so interested in the Children’s Hospital Foundation. What are you up to?”

I began moving around the table, collecting dishes, piling them on my forearm. “You’re being totally paranoid right now. I simply wondered about service opportunities. And I like kids.” That might be the whopper of the night.

Here was the thing about my mom: if I came straight out and asked for what I wanted—an intro to Will Carlucci—she’d play a power game and push every one of my buttons, putting me in a position of weakness. Instead I planned on dropping hints, thereby whetting her voracious curiosity. Something I inherited from her side of the family, along with my flat chest.

“No, Rosalyn, you never just wonder. Does this have something to do with that new job of yours? And while we’re discussing that particular subject, snooping into people’s personal lives is a very distasteful way of earning a living.”

“Somebody’s got to do it.” I walked to the kitchen and placed the dishes in the sink.

She marched after me. “Well, it doesn’t have to be you.”

“I like it.” A bit of an exaggeration. Performing background checks didn’t make me squeal with delight. But now that Andre and I were on the same page, searching for Rob Huggins’ murderer, maybe he’d start seeing me as more of an equal.

“The Children’s Hospital,” she said softly, more to herself than me. “You mentioned the board. Why would
you
be interested in fundraising?”

I shook off the jab. If I reacted to every one of her taunts, I’d be here all night.

I turned and walked back to the table, clearing it of glasses while she picked up the silverware. In the kitchen, I carefully placed the crystal on the granite countertop.

“Don’t tell me someone absconded with research funds.” She flipped on the faucet and filled the sink with hot water. “A patient-killing nurse? Doctors bilking insurance companies?”

“You’ve got quite an imagination there.”

She took a deep breath through her nose. “Do not insult my intelligence. You’re involved with something. What is it?”

And just like that, I’d reeled her in like I had with that Ozark crawdaddy all those years ago. “Okay, you’re right. I’m in the middle of a case.” I watched her don a pair of pink rubber gloves.

“Of course you are.”

“What do you know about Will Carlucci?”

She narrowed her blue eyes. “What exactly are you looking for?”

I grabbed a towel from the drawer. “Your overall impression.”

She dumped the silverware into the suds. “He’s an odious man in every way. He’s crass and flashy and likes to talk about how much money he has. However, he’s generous to various charities, so he’s tolerated. His wife is a member of the Junior League, but she doesn’t fit in. Very blond and very dim. The daughter is as tacky as they come.”

Carlucci’s success might have bought him a golden ticket into parties with the upper echelon, but he’d never truly be accepted by this town’s elite. His money was so new it still squeaked. For all his business acumen and charitable efforts, to the who’s who of Huntingford, Carlucci was nothing but a jumped-up car salesman.

She angled her head to one side. “The Rutherfords are hosting a cocktail party tomorrow night.”

I dried the wet fork she’d handed me. “A cocktail party on a Monday night? Isn’t that a bit unusual?”

“Independence Day is right around the corner. Everyone’s trying to squeeze in their event at the last minute. You could come, if you like.” She said it so smoothly, dangling the invite like a shiny, forbidden apple. Daring me to take a bite.

“And Carlucci will be there?”

“It’s a distinct possibility. It’s a fundraiser for remodeling the old opera house. If he’s not in attendance, his wife and daughter will be.”

I needed to meet Carlucci himself. “The wife and daughter can’t help me.”

She set down the plate she’d been scrubbing. “Honestly, have you learned absolutely nothing from me? You can ask a man anything, and he’ll never give you a satisfactory answer. Befriend his wife and children, you’ll get insight into the man himself.”

Crap on a cracker, she was right. It nearly killed me to admit it, but that was actually good advice. “Who else will be there?” I threw it out as casually as possible, but my mother knew me too well, sniffing out my ulterior motive faster than she could spot a fake Prada handbag.

She barely faltered in wiping a plate, then resumed scrubbing, her tone just as casual as mine had been. “Who do you want to be there?”

“Wyatt Sanders.”

Her hands froze as she turned to glare at me. “Wyatt Sanders is a successful businessman. Well-respected in the community. How on earth is he involved with a car salesman?”

I could point out that Will Carlucci was one of the richest men in town, but it wouldn’t matter to my mother. She admired rank over bank every time. “That’s what I’d like to find out.”