Madeline Mann (21 page)

My brothers, because they had stopped at a store on the way for God knows what reason, were across the room at another table, seated with strangers as far as I could tell. They occasionally sent a forlorn glance our way.

I had told Perez about Quinn Paley's search for his sister and that I'd seen her with Don Paul. For once she'd looked interested, and she made a call on her little cell phone.

When she came back to me, she said, “They're on it. So far they don't have much.” She sighed, took a sip of water, and said, “Now let's talk about your pen pal.”

My mother was still peering at us. Perez tapped her finger on the edge of the table and waited until ol’ Delia's curiosity cooled. Finally, when no one seemed too interested, she said softly, “I was going to say we could focus on the person who seemed to be staring at you, but you have a way of drawing attention.”

“I think it's my affiliation with you. I myself have never been considered that interesting. With a policewoman, however, I seem to have reached celebrity status.”

She nodded. “Who's the goon at the other table who keeps turning around?” she queried.

“That's Lyle Sylvane. The one I told you about, who admitted to trying to scare Logan out of town. And next to him is the mayor, who has been trying to look without looking, if you get my drift.”

“So that really narrows it down, doesn't it? You've got half the mayor's staff at this table, and more of the mayor's staff over there. Even the brother's been looking at you,” she commented, leaning sideways so that a young waiter could place a salad bowl in front of her.

I leaned sideways in my turn, wondering what sort of “brother” would be at Logan's funeral. Had he actually had friends among the religious?

“The brother?” I asked, scanning the room for something obvious, like a rosary or monk's robes.

“
His
brother,” she said, sounding a bit disappointed in my mental processing equipment. “He's been staring over here. Did you two ever have a thing going?”

I pictured Linus Lanford as a teen, his barely concealed scorn for Logan and his friends, which included me, and his amazing ability to convey distance with a glance. “Not hardly,” I quipped. “Maybe he's looking at, uh…” I looked around the table. No one really seemed to be of interest to Linus Lanford. Maybe Pamela, who was pretty. “Pamela?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” she agreed.

“Somebody call?” asked Pamela with a smile. The two of us hadn't really spoken since the telephone call, but I didn't want to be rude in front of Detective Perez, so I took the opportunity to introduce her to the table. They all made much of her and began to fire off questions about Logan's killer, especially wanting to know if he or she would be apprehended within the next five minutes or so, preferably as something to watch over dessert.

Detective Perez handled them with aplomb, but nicely managed to divert the subject to something more neutral by the time the main course arrived. It was some sort of lemon chicken platter, and it was delicious. I must confess that I lost myself in my food for a couple of minutes, forgetting even that someone in the room with me had pasted a threat on my windshield. When I began to get full, the nervous feeling came back. It was like a backward version of Maslow's hierarchy: I wasn't able to be fully fearful until my base needs were met.

At one point, when our table was loud with a discussion of the newest television drama, Perez asked me quietly, “What's your gut instinct, Madeline? You probably had an immediate thought when you realized what the note was. Who did you picture putting it there?” She had pushed her plate away, her fork placed tines down in the Emily Post fashion. She was fast becoming my new role model.

“I pictured the goon, Lyle Sylvane. I think he's done other dirty work for Mayor Paul, and it wouldn't surprise me, after my visit there, if they were fearful enough to attempt retaliation.” I turned my own tines down in an attempt to be delicate.

“I'm going to keep the note, okay?” she asked.

“Sure,” I answered. I figured it couldn't be in better hands.

“Meanwhile, your best bet is to do what the note says. At this point, they're just trying to scare you. If you lay off, they will. Right?”

The irrational side of my nature took over. Contrary to the thoughts I'd had upon receiving the note, which were that I would give up immediately rather than risk personal harm, I felt suddenly mutinous. “But Bill and I are doing our very first exposé. It means a lot for the paper, and we'll probably be doing more in the future, so if I let myself get scared off this one…” I leaned to the side for my dish of ice cream. Everyone at the table had started to list to the right in anticipation of dessert, and the group had become subsequently silent.

Detective Perez, therefore, merely shook her head and looked a bit angry.

My mother noted this and sent me a glance that said, “Have you managed to upset yet another person?”

I sighed and ate some ice cream. I looked across the room in time to discover that Linus Lanford was, in fact, looking at me, just as Perez had suspected. I held up a hand in greeting, since it seemed the thing to do, and then held up a finger to indicate that he should wait a moment. I had planned to talk to Linus today anyway. Why not do it now, when I had apparently alienated everyone at my table? I took one last bite of ice cream and excused myself to the officer, saying that I would return momentarily. “Watch my back,” I joked lamely. It didn't elicit anything close to laughter.

I passed Fritz and Gerhard on the way to Linus's table. Fritz reached out an iron hand. “Who's that girl with you?” he hissed. “The one who looks like Jennifer Lopez? You've been totally talking to her, so I'm sure you can put in a good word for me.”

I looked at Gerhard for support, but he seemed equally smitten with the young detective and was gazing at her himself. I knew that Perez was attractive, but apparently I hadn't realized just how winsome she was. I thought back to her strained relationship with Krosky and wondered if he had ever made a pass at her. That could really push a partnership to the breaking point.

“She's a cop, Fritz,” I said tiredly. “Go over and tell her you want to give her a statement about the last time you saw Logan. But get the ice cream out of your mustache first. And Gerhard, you stop looking entirely. Or I'll tell your girlfriend.” Gerhard looked so shocked at the thought that I felt a bit guilty for threatening him.

Fritz was taking me literally, cleaning crumbs off of his shirt in preparation for his meeting with Perez. “I'll invite her to the festival. Chicks love to hear a guy sing. I'll dedicate a song to her. Would that be cool, Madeline?” His face looked earnestly into mine, filled with the excitement that only self-centered pursuits could bring. Still, I felt a stab of pride, as if Fritz were going to the prom or some other unlikely scenario.

“Your best bet is to meet her first, Fritz. You might not—I mean, she might not be your type.” My little brother didn't notice the alteration; he marched toward her table with the swagger of a rock star who'd selected a groupie for a night of love.

eighteen

Linus Lanford stood
when I approached. He seemed taller than he had eight years ago, but somehow less forbidding. Perhaps because he was almost thirty and had quit scowling at women a long time ago.

“Hello, Madeline,” he said, offering up a smile that would turn a lesser woman's knees to Jell-O. I had no memories of a smiling Linus, but I now saw that he was probably capable of thrilling as many female hearts as his younger brother had done, if not more of them. “I don't think I've seen you since you were in high school,” he said, shaking my hand. “I'm sorry we had to meet again at such a sad occasion.”

Although he wore the appropriate black attire and a generally grave expression, I thought Linus looked pretty darn good for a grieving brother. He was tanned, for one thing, and fit, and his eyes didn't show the puffy redness one somehow comes to expect in the bereaved. His father, mother, and sister-in-law, all at the table with him, had the look I was searching for. Linus wasn't conforming to that particular mold.

“I'm sorry too. I guess a lot has changed since Logan and I used to bug the heck out of you,” I said with a wry smile. A comment like this might have wrung tears from my own eyes if I hadn't been investigating Logan's death. As it was, I felt too betrayed by Logan to feel much grief. Maybe the grief would come later, for me and for Linus. I wondered in the back of my mind if Logan had ever betrayed his brother.

Linus chuckled at my attempt at humor and waved toward an empty chair at his table. “Have you had enough to eat?” he asked hospitably.

“Yes, thank you. It was delicious.”

Linus nodded. He knew that already, his expression said. “My company is a supplier to Elizabeth House. They were one of my first clients. We have a mutually beneficial relationship,” he said, taking a sip of something that looked like a highball. Apparently Linus did get special treatment. It was just after noon.

“Your company supplies what, exactly?” I asked, waving at Wick, who was now looking in our direction.

“Restaurant supplies. Some food. Mainly non-perishables. We're expanding all the time, though.” I was guessing that Linus smoked, because he was patting his pocket and looking around the table in that lost way smokers have when they aren't allowed to indulge.

“And I understand you're a supplier to your dad's inns?” I asked.

Linus nodded again. “Yup. I've got several clients in Michigan now—in fact, twenty clients out of state. Dad gave me the initial investment capital, and I've been able to repay it all.” He managed to convey gratitude rather than smugness, so that his comments didn't sound like bragging. He was confident, though, very confident.

“So were you able to visit Logan while he was in Saugatuck?” I asked casually.

Linus's face hardened. “No. Not after I dropped him off. Logan and I didn't spend much social time together. For one thing, I work for a living, and work hard. We're different, my brother and I. I would never lie around for two months letting my family live from hand to mouth.”

The murmur of conversation at our table meant that Linus wasn't heard by anyone but me; still, he looked over his shoulder at Jamie before he added, in a low tone, “Not to mention the fact that he slept around. My little brother was a real class act, and I didn't have a lot of time for those kinds of shenanigans. I thought he'd cut it out when he graduated from high school, but he just kept it right up, even after his wedding. That poor kid deserved better than him. I have to say it, even if he is—was—my brother.” He seemed unwilling to change the tense, as though he hadn't been ready to bury his anger this quickly.

“Maybe Jamie married the wrong brother,” I said idly.

Linus's face turned suddenly red, and his expression suggested that we'd all just seen him naked.

“Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have.…”

Linus took another drink. “It's all right. I didn't know I was wearing my heart on my sleeve. Again. Pretty much everyone knows my silly little secret by now. Even Jamie. She was the first.”

“She guessed?”

“I told her.” He smiled wryly. “Back when I thought that her common sense would make her leave him and come to me. Noah was just a baby then. But then there was Cal, and…well, she's just hooked on him. Always has been.”

I thought suddenly of Pamela's contention that Logan and Linus had hated one another; perhaps, if it had been true, this was the reason at the bottom of it. Would Linus have killed Logan to get Jamie? Would he have killed him to avenge Jamie? Or could they simply have argued, and Linus lost his temper? Plenty of domestic disputes ended in shootings, after all. There didn't have to be a big mystery about the whole thing. Linus had brought Logan to Saugatuck, which put him on the scene of the crime.…

“Did you know that Logan was deserting Jamie when you drove him out there?” I asked.

Linus shook his head. “He fed me the line he fed my dad. That Jamie and the kids were in Peoria with the Donnellys, Jamie's parents. When I think of how he lied for his own selfish pursuits, I could just—” He broke off, perhaps realizing that he was getting into dangerous territory.

“Kill him?” I finished quietly.

“Yes.” He forced a smile. “Listen, Madeline. I know Logan was a friend of yours. And Dad tells me you're looking into his death. But do yourself a favor and don't waste time looking at me. I wasn't my brother's biggest fan, although I could have been if he'd just—” He stopped his tangential remark with a look of true regret, and the hint of tears. “Anyway. I didn't shoot Logan. I don't have a gun. I'd never kill another human being, much less my own brother. I want you to know that.” Linus's face, for a moment, looked like a carving of a defeated soldier. Then he straightened himself, let out a sigh. “And now, if you don't mind, I'd like to talk about something else.”

“Sure,” I told him.

“Do you ever have catered meals at the
Wire
?” he asked.

I couldn't believe he was going to talk business with me; then again, it was probably the only thing Linus knew how to talk about. “Sometimes,” I said.

He waved down a waitress. “Tara,” he said, “bring me one of the Excellence brochures, would you?” He turned to me. “We're called Excellence Restaurant Supply.”

I nodded, not sure what to say in response. The waitress hustled back with the requested pamphlet, and Linus handed it to me. “I'm starting a little catering as an extension of my business. So far it's going quite well, so I'm looking at expansion possibilities in Webley. I've got a great woman running it for me, and we'd give you a special rate.”

“That's great,” I said. “I'll have to run all this past Bill.”

“Sure, sure. What do you think of the brochure?” he asked. Linus was obviously a man in love with his job. He leaned over and looked with me, like a proud papa showing off baby pictures.

I felt his scrutiny as I perused the little booklet. It was filled with glossy color pictures: chefs with tall, pristine hats; diners with perfect smiles contemplating plates abundant with splendid culinary creations. I stared at a picture of a woman who was obviously smitten with her crème brûlée. What she'd always wanted. I felt a stab of inexplicable envy; was it because she was svelte, dark, and flawless, I wondered, or because pictures make happiness look so complete, so contained?