Flowerbed of State (32 page)

“Perhaps it wasn’t a serious relationship?”

“No. Even if Joanna didn’t care for Brooks, even if it was just sex, a woman’s pride would still take a beating.”

I tapped my chin. “Alyssa had said the other day that most murders are crimes of passion, or something like that. I’d been thinking that Pauline had been killed because of something she found during the audit. But what if I’m wrong? What if this was a crime of passion?”

“How do you mean?”

“Joanna told me how Pauline had met Brooks at the last party she’d held. Pauline had arrived at the party hoping to get her hooks into a powerful man. She went after Richard Templeton first. But he turned her down.”

“Really? I wonder why. From what I’ve heard, he’s the kind of guy who has to have a new woman on his arm every night.”

“I think that’s just his media image. I haven’t seen that.”

Turner rolled his eyes.

“For whatever reason, he turned Pauline down. Undaunted, she charmed Brooks. It wouldn’t be difficult. He seems like a shameless flirt and has a reputation of taking up with women in the workplace, much to his sister’s horror.”

“Don’t you women follow something like the guy code, where you don’t hit on your friend’s girlfriend?”

“We do. I’m starting to think Pauline didn’t care. From what I’ve heard, she seemed to like drama in her relationships.”

“I’ve met a few women like that. They’re not worth the trouble.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” I agreed. “Brooks either didn’t care or didn’t notice the trouble he was getting himself into when he started to sleep with both Pauline and Joanna at the same time. But I’m starting to think both Pauline and Joanna noticed
and
cared.”

“Two strong women fighting over the same man. It could get messy.”

“I think it did. Shortly after Pauline arrived on the scene, Lillian learned about Brooks’s relationship with Joanna. How did she learn about it? We don’t know. But Lillian exploded and did everything in her power to ruin Joanna’s career. I wonder if Pauline could have been the little bird whispering in Lillian’s ear.”

“That would be a motive for murder.” He leaned forward. “Who was the mystery man with her in the park, though?”

“It could be Brooks.”

“Why would he kill Pauline? What’s his motive?”

“Perhaps Pauline was threatening to go public with their relationship. Seducing the woman auditing his bank must be breaking at least a few ethics rules.”

“That’s a possibility. But then why team up with Joanna? And why would Joanna agree to conspire with him? He and his sister ruined her career and her life.”

My shoulders dropped as I slumped over my coffee mug. “I don’t know.”

Turner reached across the table and tilted my chin up. The corner of his lips lifted. “You have good instincts. I think you might be on to something. We just need more information.”

“Really?”

“Have you known me to lie?”

That made me smile. “My grandmother keeps telling me that reading murder mysteries is a waste of time. I keep telling her that it’s research and training.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do.” My back straightened and my heart picked up just a bit. “Every mystery I’ve ever read tells me that whoever Joanna met in the park was a regular at her monthly salons. Did the Secret Service compile a list of the men she’d invite to her parties? We could go through the list and see who’s in town.”

“Now, Casey, you should know by now that I can’t talk about the investigation.”

“What good is having a sidekick if—”

“Whoa . . . sidekick?”

I waved away his aggravation. “Every modern-day amateur sleuth has a sidekick.”

“Sidekick?”

“Pick up any mystery novel, and you’ll see that I’m right.”

“I’m
not
a sidekick.”

“It’s either you or Richard Templeton.”

“You shouldn’t be talking about this case with Templeton. For all we know, he’s involved.”

“He’s not involved. He doesn’t have the right kind of shoes.”

“What?”

“You know, the shoes that the man who’d attacked me was wearing. Brooks Keller owns a pair.”

“How do you know Templeton doesn’t? Don’t tell me you’ve been so cozy with him that you were able to search his bags at his hotel.”

“Of course not.” My face heated.

“Then you don’t know. Be careful around him.”

“Don’t be jealous, Turner. I prefer you as my sidekick over Richard. You have guns. Not that I like guns. I don’t. I think the world would be much better off if they’d never been invented. But—but—” I sighed. “But since there are guns in the world and there are people who see nothing wrong with hurting someone else, it’s nice having someone around who can handle himself in a fight.”

“I’m not your sidekick.”

“I know. You keep too much important information to yourself to be of any use.”

He must have sensed my frustration. It wasn’t as if I tried to keep it hidden.

“Listen, we don’t know much about Joanna beyond what you know. Not anything that would really help,” he said, pitching his voice low. He was probably breaking a half-dozen rules by telling me this. “If we had anything concrete on her, the FBI would have picked her up days ago. As you said, she didn’t kill Pauline. Is she involved? We simply don’t know.”

“And does the Secret Service have a list of the men who attended her parties?”

He refused to answer, which only increased my level of frustration.

“Then we don’t have much to talk about, do we?”

“I think we do.” His voice softened. “I think you should tell me about your mother and that night you lost her.”

I stared into the creamy depths of my coffee mug. “I’ve never talked about her with anyone.”

Not even Grandmother Faye. We’d work side by side in the garden for hours without speaking a word. Sometimes in the comforting silence, I’d let my thoughts drift back to the time before I came to live with my grandmother, to memories of my parents.

I wasn’t about to discuss her now.

Turner’s rough hands rested loosely on his coffee mug. His chest rose and fell in a slow, even pattern.

Sure, he’d read my background check, a background check I’d been warned would be thorough and would include any major childhood incidents . . .
like a murder
.

More than once he’d mentioned that he believed the ghosts from my past drove my need to find Pauline’s killer.
He knew
. He might not know the entire story. I doubt anyone did. But he knew what had happened that night.

“I think my parents were criminals,” I said while watching the swirling eddies of steam rising from my coffee mug. I glanced up and met Turner’s steady gaze.

There was no reading his expression.

“They lived like criminals. Always moving from place to place. Always coming up with new names. They told me it was a game they liked to play. What did I know? I was only six.”

“Kids pick up on a lot of things adults are doing.” He sighed. “I know I did.”

I waited to see if he’d offer anything else about himself, about his background, his family. I’m sure he was waiting for me to do the same.

I went back to staring into my coffee mug.

“One morning I woke up to discover Dad was gone,” I said. “I clearly remember that morning. We were living in the United States for the first time in my life. Phoenix, Arizona. Mom wore this big, fake smile as she made chocolate chip pancakes—a treat reserved for birthdays and holidays. But it wasn’t my birthday, and Christmas was months away. Her smile never wavered as she tried to convince me Dad would return, but her hands shook when she’d flipped the pancakes. Looking back, I think Dad must have known trouble was coming our way and he fled.” I swallowed hard. “He deserted us.”

“Has he ever tried to contact you?” Turner asked.

I shook my head. “He was Grandmother Faye’s youngest child and only son. For her sake, I wish he would damn the consequences and reach out to her. As for me, I don’t want or need him in my life.” I shrugged. “I doubt he’s even still alive.”

Turner nodded. Did he know something? Did my background check include information about what had happened to my father?

I swirled the coffee in my mug. Some of it sloshed over the ceramic rim and splashed onto the table. I grabbed a napkin and wiped up the spill. “I don’t care. I don’t want to know.”

“So you were alone with your mom?”

“Not for long. The next night I was upset that Dad had left.” My insides clenched. I tried to stop the memories from replaying like a silent movie inside my head. Images of my mom flickered in and out of focus.

She’d been wearing a blue dress with little white flowers on the hem that morning. I’d forgotten about that dress. It’d looked so pretty on her.

“I’d whined and complained. I wanted ice cream. What a brat I was. Mom finally agreed to take me to the ice cream parlor I liked, even though it was on the other side of town. I manipulated her by using Dad’s abandonment as an excuse to get my own way. I did everything I could to make her feel guilty that he was no longer around for me.”

“You missed him,” Turner corrected. He reached across the table and unclenched my fist. His warm hand closed over mine. “You were just a kid acting like a kid.”

“But if I hadn’t . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that thought.

“On the way home from the ice cream parlor, your mother’s car was forced off the road?” he prompted.

“Is that what the police report said?” I nodded. “A car slammed into the side of Mom’s van. It jolted me out of the seat. We crashed into a brick building. Smoke poured out of the van’s hood. Mom told me to get down on the floor and to keep quiet. If I had obeyed . . .”

I squeezed my eyes closed.

“A man pulled open the driver’s-side door. He grabbed Mom and dragged her from the van. More men were shouting in a language I couldn’t understand. They sounded so angry.

“I was frightened. They’d taken my mom. I needed to know what was going on, so I disobeyed her. I peeked out the window to see what was happening. That’s when I saw the guns. They were pointed at my mother.

“I screamed. I screamed and screamed. One of the men, the one with stubble on his chin, reached back into the van and grabbed me. I kicked and squirmed, but he only squeezed me tighter. Holding on to my hair, he dangled me like a helpless puppy in front of my mom and laughed.”

Emotions as real and raw as when it had happened returned like a punch to the gut. The man with the stubble on his face frightened me more than the others. I had to open my eyes to get his face out of my head.

“I wanted to kill him.” My voice shook as I admitted it.

To this day, nothing had changed. I still wanted to kill him. How could I feel that way? Why cling to some childish and unhealthy desire to put an end to someone’s life? I abhorred violence. And yet all through college I’d taken one self-defense course after another. Had it been defense I’d been looking to learn or something else, something darker?

“You wanted to protect your mom and yourself. It’s nothing to feel ashamed about.”

If they had been simply feelings from the past, I don’t think they would have worried me as much as they did. But I knew if I met that stubble-bearded man today, I’d go for his throat. I’d squeeze, squeeze, squeeze until . . .

No, I couldn’t think about that.

“The men switched to speaking English. I think they wanted me to understand them. They shouted at Mom, demanding she tell them where Dad had gone. They wanted something he’d stolen from them and they wanted to know who had helped him steal it. Mom told them to go to hell. That was the first time I’d ever heard her swear. She was usually so gentle, so soft-spoken. I barely recognized this new tough lady.”

“A lioness fighting to protect her cub?”

“No. She was protecting
him
.” Tears filled my eyes. I blinked them away. “The man with the long face and stubbly beard hit her again and again. I screamed for him to stop, but he laughed at me and kept on hurting her. I was helpless to stop him.

“He told her that he’d let us go if she’d tell them where Dad had gone. But she refused. He demanded that she tell him what she knew and hit her until blood ran down her face. She still refused to talk, so he turned to me.

“He grabbed a fistful of my hair and caressed my cheek with his calloused hand. ‘So young,’ he said. ‘So innocent. I’d hate to have to hurt her.’ Mom didn’t say anything.”

I pressed a hand to my stomach and bent forward slightly, unable to save myself from drowning in a torrent of emotions. My own mother had refused to even look at me. I’d cried out for her. I’d needed her more than life, and she’d turned her head away . . . she’d turned away from me, her only child.

“The man roared with anger and frustration, screaming at her that he’d shoot me if she didn’t tell them what they wanted to know. I sobbed when he waved his big, ugly gun in my face.”

The words my mom had said next echoed like an unholy wind in my ears. “I’m so sorry, pumpkin.” I pushed her apology deep into the recesses of my memories where I wouldn’t have to hear them ever again.

“Her voice was cold as she told the man to stop stalling and go ahead and get it over with. She told him to shoot me. So he did. He shot me three times in the stomach.”

“
God
.” Turner’s eyes had grown dark.

“I was conscious long enough to watch him turn the gun on Mom.”

“He squeezed off just one shot.” My voice cracked. “The bullet hit her in the head.”

I touched the center of my own forehead.

“I know,” Turner said, his voice gruff. “I know.”

“She was dead. Even as young as I was at the time, I knew that she’d left me, that she’d never be around to tuck me in my bed or to hug me or to . . .” I shook my head and muttered, “Or to be there for me when I needed her the most.”