Impasse (31 page)

Clay took a seat in Stu's favorite recliner and made no move to stop Roff from walking to where Katherine stood bent over the bed without a stitch of clothing on. Stu knew that whatever Joseph Roff had his fingers into was dirty and, as he watched, the known criminal slid them right between the cheeks of his wife's fabulous ass.

 

CHAPTER 37

“No flipping way! Shut! Up! Are you kidding me?” Audry was animated. She ran through a series of almost-swear-words, occasionally repeating herself. And the way she was flailing with her arms, Stu worried about her driving.

“We need to calm down,” he said.

Audry took a deep breath. “You mean
I
need to calm down, right? Look at you. You're analyzing this, thinking it all through, like you do. Amazing. You should be more freaked out than I am.”

Stu put his hand on the wheel and eased her back into the proper lane of travel. “I don't think that's possible, but believe me, I'm plenty surprised and perplexed.”

“Perplexed? I'd think you'd be insanely jealous and furious. I don't get it; the average man would have gone nuts trying to stop that.”

Stu frowned. He'd considered stopping it. In fact, he'd felt like throwing a deck chair through the window. But if someone was trying to kill him, and if that someone was tied to a man like Roff, revealing himself might have put Katherine and Clay in immediate danger.

Whereas getting screwed isn't inherently dangerous.

“I had a good reason.” It sounded lame. Audry was questioning his masculinity. What kind of man didn't stop another man from doing his wife? His fiery associate probably thought he was the same pussy he'd been when he'd left.
And maybe I am.
He couldn't let it lie. “I haven't told you everything,” Stu said. “This isn't the most shocking thing that's happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Really? Wow!”

“But it could be related.”

“This I gotta hear.”

“No. It's time to cut you out. It's obviously dangerous, and it was selfish of me to involve you in the first place. I was … lonely.”

“Bullshit. Tell me. You can't stay at my place unless you let me in on what's going on.”

Stu hesitated. “I wasn't expecting to stay with you.”

“Where else can you go?”

“Motel?”

“Noble but stupid. I have a guest room. But you have to tell me what's going on.”

Stu had ideas. Theories. He realized that he wanted to talk them through. He
needed
to talk them through with someone else before he could believe them. Otherwise, they felt like invalidated little puffs of crazy drifting through his brain.

“I killed a man,” he said suddenly, throwing himself off the confession cliff, knowing that telling her about Ivan's death forced him to tell her everything.

“You said it was a bear.”

“I did that, too.”

Audry gave him a sideways glance. “Should I be calling the police?”

“Probably.”

“Great.”

“He tried to kill me first. Don't worry. I'm not a danger to anyone.”

But he was a danger. He could feel the capacity for mortal combat in him. It was like a new superpower—he could kill. He'd killed things all winter long.
Only to survive,
Stu told himself.

“Now I definitely have to hear the rest.”

“You're not scared?”

“This is maybe the most intense thing I've ever gotten sucked into. Hell yes, I'm scared! But I wouldn't miss this for the world.” She was sweating, but she was also smiling. “So tell me, who did you kill?”

*   *   *

Audry's apartment was spotless. Stu was a bit surprised, given how busy she was. He'd thought dishes would be stacked in the sink, the kitchen table piled with mail, grocery coupons, and bar review materials, maybe a yoga mat in front of a big-screen TV, unboxed workout DVDs, and an unreturned romantic comedy rental scattered about. He'd thought wrong.

She offered him a seat on her stylish but inexpensive-looking couch, then grabbed a computer tablet.

“Okay, where do we start our analysis?”

“I think I'm most comfortable treating this like a case. Then again, the man who acts as his own attorney has a fool for a client.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means it's hard to be objective when the case is about yourself.”

“Then I'll be your attorney.”

“You have one year of experience. No offense.”

“Zero years as an actual attorney, if you're going to get technical on me. And you're wasting time. What do we know?” She fired up the tablet, fingers tapping like frenetic raindrops on the touch screen. “I'll make a list of facts and theories.”

“Well, for starters we know Ivan tried to kill me. No doubt. Pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. He ran when it didn't fire.”

“Then you hit him with the ax?”

“Hatchet.”

“Jeez,” she mumbled under her breath. “What did he say, exactly?”

“He apologized. And he said I should be dead.”

“Doesn't mean he planned it. He could have meant he
assumed
you were dead, and he panicked when you appeared, because he'd blown the pickup and knew he was in serious trouble. Plus, you said he seemed high.”

“Agreed. But when I said things had worked out because I was alive, he disagreed with me. He said things
hadn't
worked out.”

“As though leaving you was a plan that failed.”

“Right.”

“Better, but still not conclusive.”

“He also said, ‘Sorry, dude, I don't even know you.'”

“He actually said
dude
before he tried to shoot you?”

“Yeah.”

“What a tool. Go on.”

“The fact that he didn't know me or steal anything from me means he had no personal motive.”

“Promising.…”

“He seemed surprised that there was a cabin. And here's the really creepy part: he said, ‘I was
supposed
to leave you there.'”

“Those were his words?”

“Verbatim.”

“You're sure? You've been through a lot here.”

“I'm sure. In fact, I'll never forget them.”

She tapped, then stared at what she wrote, thinking. “Somebody put him up to it. There's no other reasonable interpretation.”

“That's what I think.”

“I think it too.” She started a new paragraph. “Okay, what next?”

Stu took a deep breath, but he couldn't say it, so Audry did.

“The, um, gangster in your wife's bedroom is a bit of a red flag.”

“True. You can write down that a known criminal is blackmailing Katherine and my partner.”

Audry typed, then cocked her head. “Or not.”

“What do you mean?”

Audry gave him a sympathetic look. “I mean that we should consider all possible explanations.”

“That
is
the possible explanation.” Stu frowned. He didn't like where Audry was going.

“It's just that … they didn't
look
blackmailed.”

“Yeah? And how would you describe the blackmailed look?

“I dunno. Not-okay-with-it, maybe?”

“You think my wife looked okay with … with that?”

“Hey, it's just an observation. Woman's perspective, maybe. Just a feeling I got.”

“I don't do karma, remember?”

“Got it. But, for what it's worth…”

“It's worth very little.”

“Fair enough. I'm typing
worth very little
next to it in our notes.”

“Look, if I hadn't feared for Katherine's safety, I would have gone right in there.”

“I'm sure you would have.”

“He could have had a gun.”

“Can't imagine where he'd have hidden it.”

Stu stood. “I need a long hot shower. Where's the bathroom?”

The shower had a frilly white curtain and was littered with seven bottles of different types of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash, most of them pink and half full. The bar of soap was the size and shape of a potato chip. He used green-tea-scented liquid soap on his body and chose nourishing coconut milk shampoo that promised to “volumize” his hair. The first time he rinsed, the water was brown. He shampooed four times with different products before it ran clear. There was a razor, also pink.

Stu emerged forty minutes later wrapped in a towel with a rough goatee and his long hair swept back with sculpting cream to keep it out of his eyes. He looked vaguely like a middle-aged surfer.

Audry put down her tablet. “Wow. Look at you.” And she did look, shamelessly.

“Have you got any clothes that would fit me that aren't pink?”

“I think so. Want me to burn those?”

She sent him back into the bathroom with a UConn T-shirt and purple sweatpants that said
SASSY
across the butt. Audry giggled when he walked out, but assured him that he looked lovely.

They argued about calling the police, then switched sides and argued again to be sure they hadn't missed anything. In the end Audry reluctantly agreed that Stu's biggest advantage was that he didn't exist. He could investigate with impunity as long as he was a ghost. As soon as the police stepped in, any suspects would scatter or circle the wagons. But Audry made Stu promise that he would turn things over to them as soon as possible.

“In the meantime you should sleep,” she said. “You look exhausted.” She opened the door to her daughter's smallish former bedroom, which was home to a fluffy cat named Sasha. The room was as ridiculously tidy as the front room and, again, pink. The single bed was tiny—and the most comfortable-looking sleeping accommodations Stu had ever seen.

“Rest up,” Audry said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Tomorrow we go to work.”

 

CHAPTER 38

Katherine lounged on the brass bed, a heavy four-poster that sat solidly on the slightly tilted wide-plank floor of the historic Willimantic Inn's uppermost room. The huge 1700s house had also been a tavern in its heyday, and then a home for unwed girls during the downturn of the textile industry. A Kennedy had once slept in the very bed upon which she was stretched out like a yawning cat. Rich in history, the inn sat on ten acres of land in southwestern Windham County with easy access to Thread City, as historic Willimantic had been known when the American Thread Company, ATC, had been located there. ATC had been one of the largest producers of thread in the world at the time and the first factory ever to use electric lighting. There were still mill buildings on the river, which Katherine had spent hours shooting the evening before. Afterward she'd gone for a run, then purchased an armoire, which the Afterlife Antiques dealer promised he'd rush ship to New Bedford so that she'd have it waiting for her when she got home.

Home.

The beach house was beginning to feel less empty, and she thought she'd be ready to tackle it again after her little vacation. Moving had been a difficult and trying experience. She'd labeled more than one hundred boxes, and the movers she'd hired had failed to show up. She'd had to completely rearrange her schedule and call another company. She'd left the old appliances at the William Street house and gotten rid of most of the old furnishings, and she'd had to spend weeks shopping for new furniture. It was hard work, and when she was done, it would take another week of decorating and styling before she could throw a party to show the place off.

The photo trip had been a brilliant idea. She hadn't realized how exhausted she was from managing the move and buying things—and from the residual stress of her husband's disappearance, of course. It was the best vacation she'd had in a long time. It helped that Clay was in a good mood.

He sat at the room's antique desk in his underwear. Katherine noticed that the bikini style was starting to look a bit small on him; the flesh of his belly was creeping over the waistband. They'd eaten well at some fabulous restaurants over the last few months. And he'd been too busy at the office to work out, he'd said. Whatever the case, it looked like it was time for him to make the jump from bikinis to briefs or boxers.

“I'd like Margery to cater our housewarming party,” Katherine said.

“Sounds great. I'll invite our star clients.”

“I'd hoped our personal gatherings wouldn't always have to include the big two. Maybe some new blood? The chair of the arts commission, maybe. Or the operations manager at Acushnet—his sister went to UMass with me.”

“You need to keep in mind who's buttering your biscuit, darlin'.”

“I'm quite aware of that.”

“Good. Then it's settled.” He smiled. When she pouted, he walked to the bed and took her head in his hands. “Look, you're a social dynamo, but you need me to harness that energy, to point it toward the real money. Would you like some live music at your party?”

“Ooh, that sounds fabulous. A string quartet. Music students from UMass play for an hourly rate. And I'll invite the department chair. That's perfect.”

“See. You're a networking genius. And maybe he'd like to stay for the private after-party.”

“Puh-leez, he's seventy.”

“Then he'll be even more grateful.”

“You're wicked.” She playfully swung a pillow, which he caught and wrenched out of her hand. “But you're not serious, are you?”

Clay held her by the wrist, smirking. “No. We can't get his business. The university already has lawyers.” He gave her a firm buffet in the head with the pillow, then threw it on the nearby love seat and sat down beside her. “Besides, we're doing fine. It's funny, I'd almost lost hope that life could be this good. Guess it took a tragedy to make me realize it. He was a good guy, Stu. But you have to admit, he was holding us back. Both of us.”