Life Without Parole: A Kate Conway Mystery (11 page)

“That’s funny,” Victor said. “All Andres talks about is how he’s worried about you.”

I turned to Andres, whose gruffness had been replaced by an embarrassed half smile.

“Why are you worried about me?” I asked.

“A crew looks out for each other,” he stammered. “We’ve got your back, making sure you get the shots you need, even the ones you forget to ask for, and you’ve got our backs, dealing with the clients, covering for us if we fuck up.”

“Have I been forgetting shots?” I felt suddenly defensive, even though, at least as far as I could remember, I’d been getting everything we needed.

“That’s not why we’re worried,” Victor jumped in. “It’s because you’re spending so much time alone. And you’re letting your usual hotness factor slip a few notches with all the ponytails and shapeless turtlenecks.”

“It’s winter,” I pointed out. “I’m dressing for warmth. Everybody does that.”

“That’s not really what we’re talking about either,” Andres said gently, but the damage was done. I swept a stray lock of hair behind my ear and clenched my jaw.

“This isn’t one of those ‘nobody on their deathbed says I wish I’d spent more time at work’ speeches, is it?” I asked.

“No,” the men answered together. They both looked a little nervous. Men always look a little nervous when a woman is about to get mad at them.

“But nobody writes songs about work either,” Victor said quietly. “You ever notice that? People write love songs, not ‘I really love my career’ songs.”

“What’s your point?” I asked. “
I have to make a living. And anyway, I’m not about to become one of those ridiculous characters in a romantic comedy who thinks my entire existence is defined by whether I have a man in my life.”

“You don’t seem to have
anything
in your life,” Andres said. “What do you do when you’re not working?”

“I watch television.” A pathetic defense, but it was all I had. “And I…” I let the sentence trail off because my voice was starting to quiver.

“Sorry, Kate,” Victor said. “It’s just that you’re losing your”—he looked over at Andres—“you know, your edge.”

Andres half nodded, half shook his head. “You let those inmates flirt with you, you brought one of them books—”

“That was a bribe.”

“And you were batting your eyelashes at that chef,” Victor added.

“I was not. I was talking about hot dogs.” I felt a little flushed. “And what difference does it make? I’m allowed to flirt if I want to. I’ve gotten some of my best interviews that way.”

“This is different. It’s not tactical,” Andres said. “It’s…” He looked to Victor for help.

“You’re not being nearly as tough on these rich assholes as you would have been a year ago,” Victor said.

“So now I’m not as good a producer as I used to be?” My voice took on a hardness that I didn’t entirely intend. It must be an evolutionary thing that any attack, even a verbal one—even a
mild
verbal one—causes a person’s defense mechanisms to go into hyper mode.

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Andres said. “It’s just if you’re sad about Frank, it’s only been seven months.”

“I’m not sad.”

“But if you were,” he pressed. “If you’re lonely…”

“I thought we were talking about Victor,” I said.

“I’m fine,” Victor said a little loudly, his defense mechanisms rising to meet mine. “The point is, Kate, you have friends. You have me, and Andres and Vera, if you let her.”

“She has enough problems of her own,” I said as I gulped the last of my hot chocolate, dribbling a little on what had been my favorite shapeless blue turtleneck.

“
What problems?” Victor asked. “Doug’s hanging with the wrong crowd but he seems okay.”

I snorted dramatically. I’d promised to keep my mouth shut, but this was Victor and Andres. Vera was a regular whenever Victor’s band played, and she had somehow become an alternate on Andres’s bowling team. I told them about my dinner at Vera’s and the death threats. I started feeling better immediately, the way I always did when it was someone else’s life getting dissected. I’d have to remember this next time Ellen went on a tear about my lackluster complexion.

“But you can’t say anything,” I said when I finished. The favorite words of all gossips everywhere.

“She has to get away from those people,” Andres said.

“She’s worried about Doug. She thinks maybe someone is trying to hurt him by going after her. It’s Vera logic, so it doesn’t make any sense, but she’s not going to just walk away,” I explained.

Andres and Victor exchanged looks.

“We weren’t going to say anything,” Victor started.

“Because it doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” Andres finished the thought for him. “But when I was checking the tape after the tasting, you know, just to make sure we had it, I saw something.” He paused and looked at Victor, who nodded. “I didn’t notice it when we were shooting because I was focused on the main action and this was in the background, but I saw Ilena pass Doug something. It looked like a note. And their fingers lingered just a little too long, if you know what I mean.”

“But I thought she was having an affair with Erik,” I said. “I saw them giggling like schoolkids.”

Victor leaned his elbows on the table. “Maybe she giggles with all the boys.”

A
ndres propped his camera on the table, pressed “rewind,” and let me watch through the viewfinder. The picture was tiny and it was in the background, but I could definitely see Ilena passing Doug something as Walt served up dishes for the tasting. What she had handed to Doug, however, wasn’t clear.

“See how she kind of tickles his fingers with hers?” Victor pointed out. It was silly and childish, but it was spot on. Something was going on between Ilena and Doug. But it wasn’t the fingers touching that made me sure; it was Doug’s quick glance at Vera as the exchange was made. As if he were making sure she hadn’t seen anything.

“Damn it,” I said. “We have to show this to her.”

“But it’s going to hurt her,” Victor said.

“Yeah, well, life hurts.” Both of the guys looked shocked, but I shrugged. “See? I haven’t lost my edge.”

We’d stayed away just over the half hour that had been requested, and when we got back it looked at first as if we’d missed all the fun. Ilena was on the phone making dinner reservations, Walt and Roman were joking about the menu, and Doug was doing a crossword puzzle.

“I’m stuck on this one,” he said as I approached. “A five-letter word. Michael J’s breakout role.”

“Alex P,” I told him. “As in Alex P. Keaton, Michael J. Fox’s character on
Family Ties
.”

“I don’t know that show,” he said. “I don’t watch a lot of TV.”

Another strike against him. And not just because I work in television. I don’t trust people who say they don’t watch TV. Either they’re lying, which is usually the case, or they’re filling their time with productive endeavors—helping the poor, or running marathons, or something, which just makes me feel lazy and inferior. Since Doug didn’t seem the marathon type, he must have been a liar.

“
How are you enjoying all of this?” I asked. “Opening a restaurant must be quite a challenge.”

“It was on my bucket list,” he said. “You know what that is?”

“It’s a list of things you want to accomplish before you die.”

“I had seventy-three things on it. A lot of them are dumb, like surviving a zombie attack, but I’ve got some good ones too. Like this one. Though it’s a lot harder than I thought it would be.”

I let the zombie attack comment slide. It was just the sort of thing to make me dismiss him as a harmless nerd, and I’d worked up a pretty good case against him as a con artist asshole. “How is it harder?” I asked.

He tapped his pen against the crossword. “It just seems like things are slower than they’re supposed to be. And there’s a lot more hands out looking for a little incentive to get things done, if you catch my drift.”

“Yes,” I said. “It must be frustrating for all of you. Has Ilena ever mentioned anything about how she’s feeling?”

“I don’t deal with Ilena too much,” he said, a sharpness in his voice. “Roman’s really the one in charge.”

“Yes, he seems very…” I searched for a phrase. “Certain of his power.” Doug nodded but seemed disinclined to add anything, so I switched topics. “Do you know where Vera is?”

“The kitchen, I think. She and Erik were talking about tablecloths.”

“She’s really throwing herself into this. It must make you happy that she’s taken such an interest in your business.”

He looked confused. “I guess. I didn’t really want her involved in this. Too much of a risk, but she practically insisted.”

I smiled. Either Vera or Doug was lying, and my money was on Doug. “I guess I should go find her,” I said. “I have something to show her.”

As I walked toward the kitchen, I’d lost whatever small doubts I had about showing her the video. I might have wanted to sound tough around the boys, but I took no pleasure in the idea that Vera would be hurt. If showing her the tape got her to leave this crowd behind, though, it would be worth it. She would be safe, and I could go back
to the uncomplicated pleasure I got from not being friends with my late husband’s girlfriend.

I looked around the kitchen, in the pantry, and even in the office area. But Vera wasn’t there. I walked back out into the main dining area and saw the others huddled together staring out the window. When I looked to see what the action was, it was quite a show. Vera and Erik were standing on the street outside the restaurant, circling each other like boxers in the ring, Erik throwing his hands up in frustration and Vera shaking her head insistently. I had a front row seat on the action. Only problem was, through the double-paned windows, I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Andres looked toward me, holding the camera up for my approval, but I shook him off. No sense in making Vera look bad on camera when I’d already cast her as the nice one. Annoyingly, I realized there was more to it: I didn’t want Vera to look bad. I felt uncomfortably protective, so I tried to focus on the argument outside.

After about a minute, Erik threw up his hands a final time and stomped away, getting into a black BMW and tearing down the street.

Roman shrugged his shoulders. “Lovers’ quarrel,” he said, then wandered toward the kitchen. I caught Walt’s amused look, but neither Ilena nor Doug seemed to find anything funny in the situation.

Doug walked out of the restaurant toward Vera, and she practically fell into his arms. He kissed her head, and she looked up at him. They kissed on the lips, a long, sweet kiss. I shouldn’t have watched, but I felt stuck in place. If they wanted privacy, they shouldn’t be having a private moment on a public street. After a few minutes, Doug kissed Vera’s cheek and went walking up the street in the same direction as Erik’s car.

I walked outside. “You okay?”

Vera sniffed a little, but quickly composed herself. “Fine, thanks.”

“Where did Doug go?”

“He had a meeting. He didn’t want to leave me after what happened with Erik, but…”

“That was quite a scene.”

She shrugged. “I’m not very confrontational.”

“
You seemed to be holding your own. What was it about?”

“Nothing. Just a difference of opinion on how to market the restaurant. I don’t want to be part of something that seems shallow.”

“And Erik took that characterization a little too personally?”

“I guess.”

Andres and Victor walked out of the restaurant and stopped a few feet away from us. “Everything okay?” Victor asked.

“Yes. But I think we’re going to call it a day,” I said. “There’s no construction, and we’ve done all the interviews about this stage in the process. They need to get a little further before we can continue.”

“So I should put the camera away?” Andres asked, each word enunciated, his eyes widening and his head tilted. If he’d been any less subtle, a dead man would have picked up on the cues.

“Yes, Andres, put the camera away.” I wanted to add,
Vera is in no mood for videotape of her cheating boyfriend
, but she was two feet away, so
my
widened eyes and tilted head had to be enough of a clue that I knew what he’d meant.