Holmes & Moriarty 02 - All She Wrote (MM) (23 page)

“Sort of. I’m not sure I feel like eating, though.”

He patted my back. “You’ll work through it.”

One look at J.X. and it was love at first sight for Ricardo, the slim, blue-eyed and vaguely waifish waiter at Mamma Zini’s Ristorante.

“Can I help you reach a decision, gentlemen?” he inquired pointedly, smiling into J.X.’s eyes after we’d been seated and handed menus. “Any questions about the specials?”

J.X. had a couple of questions about the specials which Ricardo interpreted as an invitation to flirt. He did pretty much everything but wave his breadstick in J.X.’s face. J.X.

remained stoic and focused on culinary matters throughout the performance. After my initial irritation, I started to find it sort of funny.

“Now
that’s
a twink,” I said when Ricardo finally departed with our drink order.

J.X. gave me what is commonly referred to as a speaking look.

I grinned, enjoying his discomfiture. “I’m kind of enjoying being with the best-looking man in the room.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he retorted.

“That I was enjoying being with the best-looking man in the room?”

“That I’m with the best-looking man in the room.”

I snorted.

J.X. fastened a surprisingly bleak and beady eye on me. “There you go again.”

“What?”

“One thing I want to get straight between us right now. I don’t want to hear the M word out of you anymore.”

“Murder?”

He was not amused. “Middle-aged. Let it go, Kit.”

I set my menu aside. “Jeez, you young whippersnappers need to learn to lighten up.”

His expression grew reminiscent of those generally worn by villains in illustrations of Edgar Allan Poe’s more macabre works.

“Okay. Fine. I’m only as young as I feel, which tonight is older than both of us put together, but whatever. When I get back to L.A. I’m going to buy myself a BlackBerry and a slew of French-cuffed shirts. Possibly a nipple ring.”

J.X. relaxed. “That I’ve got to see.”

At that point Ricardo reappeared with our drinks. G&T for me, Jack Daniels for J.X. I had a feeling it was going to be a while before either of us opted for wine again, regardless of the meal.

J.X. was brisk and businesslike about ordering our meals, and I wondered if he really was concerned about my possible insecurities. I’d never really thought of myself as insecure. Even after the personal and professional disasters of last year, I didn’t think I was insecure.

Necessarily. My career
was
in a slump, I
was
getting older, and my domestic partner
had
dumped me for a younger man. Was I not allowed to mention that stuff for fear of looking insecure?

Ricardo departed, greatly subdued, and J.X. sipped his drink and regarded me in that solemn way that always made me want to check whether my fly was open.

“Aw. Look at him.” I nodded after Ricardo. “He’s heartbroken. He was all hopeful because he thinks you knock me around.” I winked my still-colorful eye at him.

J.X. swallowed the wrong way and started coughing. We nearly had Ricardo rushing back to the rescue, but I waved him off, briskly smacking J.X. between the shoulder blades.

J.X. wheezed protest.

“There now, there now,” I said absently, still patting him.

“Bastard,” J.X. gulped when he could speak.

I laughed and reached for my glass.

We chatted about absolutely nothing important until the food came. Lasagna with meat sauce for J.X. and linguini in white clam sauce for me. Ricardo brought more drinks and warned J.X. to leave room for scrumptious dessert.

“I feel like I’m missing something.” At J.X.’s expression, I clarified, “About Sara’s death and the attempts on Anna’s life. I keep feeling like there’s something obvious and I can’t see it because I’m too close to it.”

“Of course you’re missing something. You’re trying to solve a crime without access to almost any of the evidence, either physical or testimonial.” He added in the tone of a man who knows his good advice is going to be ignored, “Which is why you should leave this for L.E. to solve.”

“I’m afraid your beloved law enforcement is going to settle on the first and obvious solution.”

“Which you think is what? That the handyman did it? Are you so sure he didn’t?”

I shrugged.

J.X. put his glass down. “Okay, let’s recap for the at-home viewers. Luke does have motive. He’s in Anna’s will, right?”

“According to you, motive is irrelevant.”

“I never said it was irrelevant. I said it’s not the most important factor. It is
a
factor, obviously. It’s hard to know what might be sufficient motive for someone else. One thing’s for sure, a substantial inheritance is usually considered solid motive.”

“I don’t know how substantial Luke’s inheritance is, but substantial enough that Anna felt obliged to comment on it.”

“So motive and certainly opportunity. He works on the grounds.”

“That doesn’t automatically give him access to the wine cellar.”

“We don’t know that Victoria’s wine was in the wine cellar. It could have been sitting out on a counter.”

“True.” I doubted it in a household as well organized as Anna’s, but…true.

“He certainly had means. He works in the garden and the wine was laced with poisonous seeds. Those other accidents too—assuming they weren’t accidents—falling on ice, a falling flowerpot, faulty brakes…that’s all stuff he could probably contrive. Motive, opportunity and means. He looks good for it, Kit.”

“It’s too pat. Here he is, right on the scene. An ex-con with motive, means, opportunity.”

J.X. said with aggravating patience, “That’s usually the way it works.”

“It’s too easy.”

“Why is he in Anna’s will, by the way?”

“I don’t know. Everyone seems to be in it one way or the other. You’re probably in it now.”

“Probably not.”

Perhaps he was right. Anna hadn’t seemed to cotton to J.X. much more than he’d cottoned to her.

“The ladies hinted that Luke and Anna had some kind of romantic relationship, but I didn’t get that vibe from Anna. Although she’s pretty good at hiding her feelings.” I stopped, remembering the day I’d arrived and Anna’s comment about having someone in her life again. I hadn’t really considered the implications of that. Who was this person? If it wasn’t Luke, it wasn’t someone I’d met. The thing with Rudolph had been over for awhile, so that couldn’t have been what she meant—although Anna had been a bit defensive when I’d asked her about Rudolph. Her housekeeper had assumed it was Rudolph calling from Anna’s bedroom. But, again, that could simply have been because Rudolph was the man most likely to take charge in the event of an emergency.

“Interesting,” J.X. remarked. “Kind of a Lady Chatterley thing going on with the groundskeeper?”

“Maybe. Anna’s been married twice and in between the wedded bliss she and Rudolph have had this unofficial thing forever. She’s still…active sexually. I could see her taking a young, virile lover. Why not?”

“Could her lover be female? Could there have been something between her and Sara?”

The idea startled me, though it shouldn’t have. “She’s always been strictly heterosexual.

At least as far as I know.”

Sara and Anna? No way. I hadn’t picked up that vibe at all. But what about the fact that Rudolph and Sara had apparently been lovers? Sure, that was partly speculation, but…there had been something between them. Something they had taken pains to keep under the radar.

“Let’s leave Luke for now,” J.X. said. “He’s at the top of my list, but I could be biased given my former day job.”

“
You
? No way.”

I think it hurt his feelings. “You know, you have your biases too, Kit.”

“I know. Sorry.” I sipped my gin and tonic. “The irony is both Anna and I were thinking Sara might be behind the attempts on her life.”

His brows drew together. “You were?”

“Well, I was. Anna wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell she was leaning that way. Sara’s story submission to the Asquith Circle was a manuscript she’d apparently only ever let Anna see.

Anna tried to persuade her to publish it, but she never would.”

“What was the story about?”

“About a woman who got away with murdering her sister when they were children.

Apparently Sara’s own sister died under some possibly mysterious circumstances.”

J.X.’s brows drew together. “You think Sara showed the manuscript to Anna and then regretted it and tried to kill her?”

“When you put it like that…Sara chose to show the manuscript to the entire group, so that doesn’t quite make sense. Then again she was in Anna’s will too. And I
think
she may have had designs on Rudolph.”

J.X. looked taken aback.

“Yeah, he was a little old for her,” I agreed.

“Yeah, and it was a hell of a lot more than five years.”

I let that go. “Which gives Sara motive, opportunity
and
means.”

“Except she’s dead.”

“Oh yeah.
That
.” It wasn’t funny, of course, just a touch of gallows humor. “That could have been an accident. The hand of fate stepping in. Or poking in. Whatever hands do.”

Following this without trouble, J.X. said, “I see. So Sara poisoned the wine, but Sara had a weak heart or something and ended up killing herself?”

“Sure. Works for me.”

“You no longer suspect Poppy or Victoria?”

“You’re humoring me,” I said sourly.

He smiled into my eyes, his own shining in the candlelight. “A little. I figure it’s better if we talk it all out now so we can focus on other things tonight.”

My cock found itself in unexpectedly cramped quarters, and—much more disconcerting—my ass seemed to itch with unseemly anticipation. What on earth was that about?

Surely I wasn’t wanting
that
again? I was still tender from the afternoon.

I reached for my glass, drained it. “Poppy,” I said briskly, ignoring the desire crawling through my guts. “Although I can’t see what her motive would be. If Poppy is behind this, then I think Victoria must have been her target, not Anna, and certainly not Sara.”

J.X. shifted in his chair, cleared his throat and said, “Um, right. Poppy. So Poppy wants Victoria dead because Victoria knows the truth about what happened to Poppy’s husband?”

“Right.”

“Poppy gives Victoria a bottle of poisoned wine which is accidentally handed off to Anna.

And Poppy deliberately crashes her car in an attempt to kill Victoria—but misses Victoria and kills Nella. Not to mention nearly killing you and herself.”

“Right. The problem is—” I broke off as the door to the restaurant opened and two newcomers bundled against the cold stepped inside the crowded dining room. They were laughing and pushing back parka hoods from damp hair.

“The problem is what?”

“Look who just walked in.”

I had to give J.X. credit. He raised his eyebrows but didn’t turn. “Who?”

“Bachelor Number Four. Little Ricky is here with a chick who looks like she’s auditioning for the last of the gold diggers.”

Ricky stopped by our table, leaning over and planting one hand on J.X.’s shoulder and one hand on mine. I winced. There was a faint whiff of bourbon as he said, “Great minds think alike. I guess you couldn’t take the mausoleum either.”

J.X. gave him a look that ordinarily would have sent Ricky bouncing back from the force field. But we were all running low on dilithium crystals that evening.

“How are you feeling?” I inquired. The last time I’d seen Ricky he’d been crawling along the upstairs hallway, sicker than a dog, but the horrors of the night before seemed strangely long ago.

“As you see.” Ricky offered a big smile. “Ter-rif-ic.”

The bravado was clearly for the sake of the bimbo, who gazed smiling and glassy-eyed from one of us to the other. It still felt sort of inappropriate given the circumstances.

I said, “I guess you didn’t know Sara very well.”

“Frosty bitch.” He heard that and made a face. “Sorry. Not exactly politically correct, I know.”

I wasn’t sure what the political implications were of Sara’s death, but tactless, callous, oh yeah. He got it goin’ on.

“She meant a lot to your mother.”

“Anna’s not my mother.” The affable mask slipped and for a moment his face was hard and much older.

“Right. I only meant—”

“I know what you meant. I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a hypocrite. Sara never had the time of day for me, and I can’t say I’m broken up she’s dead. I didn’t kill her, though. As I told the fuzz.”

J.X. raised his head and said coolly, “Sara wasn’t the target. Anna was.”

The effect on Ricky was instantaneous. He dropped the buddy-buddy act and straightened up. “Says who? Anna?” There was no faking the scorn there.

“You don’t believe Anna was the intended victim?”

Ricky laughed, a short, harsh sound. “I think all of us were poisoned last night—except you, Chris—and yet Anna leaps instantly to the conclusion that
she
was the intended victim.

That’s just Anna all over. She’s always got to be the center of attention.”

“You have a different theory?” I asked.

“I’m not a mystery writer. No. I don’t have a theory. All I know is I could have died last night like Sara. I’m not going back to that house. No way.”

“Gosh!” the blonde said. She looked from Ricky to J.X. to me. “
Gosh
.”

Ricky gave her a squeeze. “Don’t worry about it, babe. It’s all over.”

Nice to be so sure. I said, “Do you have any idea of who might want to kill Anna?”

“Take a number. Not everyone loves Anna as much as she believes.”

I shrugged. “I’ll buy that. But who dislikes her enough to want her dead?”

“I’m going to guess
a lot
of people. You’ll never meet a more controlling manipulative bit—broad than my stepmother.”

That was apparently his last word on the subject. He gave his blonde a little pat on her parka-ed behind and followed her to their table.

We watched their retreat. “I don’t know why the hell Anna is so bound and determined to protect him. He sure doesn’t reciprocate.”