Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) (13 page)

“You know of any link between this woman and Andrew Marconi?”

Leigh shook her head. “No, but she could have been involved in his purchasing the building.”

“Or possibly the zoning battle,” Maura added.

“Case closed!” Leigh said cheerfully. “Good. I never liked that woman.” She thought again of Sonia Crane’s overexuberant greeting of Warren, and it occurred to her that she had completely forgotten to question him later about how they knew each other.
Damned mushy brain!

“It could be a woman,” Maura mused, thinking out loud. “Carrying dead weight up a ladder and shoving it through a trap door wouldn’t be easy for most, but Marconi was a little guy. Just five feet five and a hundred and ten pounds. A strong woman could do it.”

“Sonia’s no bigger than Lenna,” Leigh admitted. “But she could have had an accomplice.”

“I’ll check her out, Koslow,” Maura promised. “In the meantime, don’t talk to her. Don’t talk to anyone else about her, either. It will be interesting to see how the news about Marconi affects her desire to buy the property.”

Leigh couldn’t help but smile. Generally, when she found bodies, the killer ended up being some obscure player she never suspected until the last possible moment, usually after she had somehow gotten herself thoroughly embroiled in the mess, unwittingly endangering herself and possibly even getting arrested. But this time was different. This time she had the obvious answer right out of the gate and no reason whatsoever to be any more personally involved. She could merely sit back, relax, and watch the professionals get their woman.

What could possibly go wrong with that?

Chapter 9

“By the way,” Leigh said later that night as Warren got ready for bed, “you never did tell me how you know Sonia Crane.”

Her husband threw her a guarded look. “Didn’t I?”

“Um… no,” Leigh responded, stroking the black Persian cat that lay purring on her stomach as she reclined. Mao Tse was as old as the hills and barely weighed enough to be a paperweight, but in her few waking hours, the cat still had spark. “Obviously, you met when you were chairing the County Council. My guess is she wanted something from you.”

Warren had the nerve to smirk.

“Stop that!” Leigh said irritably. “You know what I mean. Now tell me what happened with her. And
why
you didn’t tell me before.”

“I did tell you before,” he said calmly. “I told you about it when it happened, four years ago. Remember the huge flap over that condominium development on the North Side? Sonia’s firm stood to make a lot of money if the project got approved, but there was strong opposition from some local interests, as well as competition from a rival development company out of state. The woman drove me and everyone else on the council absolutely crazy with her lobbying. She would show up outside every meeting with these crazy-high heels on and start handing out plastic pens with dollar signs on them. We would go to the parking garage to find our cars mysteriously washed and polished with another pen stuck under the wiper blade. Fruit baskets appeared outside office doors — casseroles at people’s houses. The day of the vote, a skywriter spelled out “Say yes to progress!” over Point State Park. Never mind what was ethical, the woman skirted on the absolute edge of what was legal — and probably crossed it a few times, though she never did so blatantly enough where we could prove it.”

Leigh started to sit up, but when Mao Tse unsheathed her claws to hang on, Leigh quickly lay back down again. “Wait… I do remember. That was when I found the carton of baked ziti on our doorstep and some weird pen stuck behind the mailbox flag. Right? But I thought the lawyer doing all that was a man!”

Warren tried, but failed, to conceal another smirk. “Did you? I don’t know why you would. I’m quite sure I never mentioned a gender one way or the other.”

Leigh growled under her breath. “You are…” Then a thought struck. “Wait a minute. You approved that development!”

“As it turns out, yes.”

“You let her get away with it!”

Warren frowned. “I didn’t let her get away with anything. There were very sound reasons to approve the project. The joke was on her, actually, because her efforts were a complete waste. I knew from the beginning the proposal was almost certain to pass.”

“But you didn’t tell her that?”

“Why would I?”

“Gee, I don’t know, maybe so she’d keep her clothes on?”

Warren sighed and sat down on the bed. Mao Tse lifted her head toward him and spit-hissed.

“Good kitty,” Leigh responded, stroking her lovingly. There really was something magical about having a cat that worshipped you and hated the entire rest of the world. “You should have told me it was a woman at the time,” she said sulkily.

“Leigh,” Warren began patiently, “being pestered by lobbyists was always a part of my job when I was in politics. You know that. You also know I could handle it. Was it so wrong for me to shield you from some of the more unpleasant details about some of the more unpleasant people I had to deal with? There was no benefit to your knowing — it would only upset you.”

Leigh growled under her breath again. “So what you’re telling me is, to this day, Sonia Crane
thinks
her efforts to schmooze you were successful. That’s why she was fawning all over you when she saw you at the building.”

He shrugged. “Possibly. I don’t care what she thinks.”

“Even if she murdered Andrew Marconi?”

Warren made a face.
“What?”

Leigh summarized her conversation with Maura that afternoon, confident that “don’t tell anyone” didn’t include Warren. “So,” she finished, “if Sonia’s enthusiasm for buying the building suddenly cools now that word about Marconi is out, we’ll have our woman.”

Warren looked skeptical. “Not buying it.”

“Why not?” Leigh questioned, annoyed. “It makes perfect sense!”

“No, it doesn’t,” he argued. “If she had managed to buy the building, what would she do with the body then? Who says she could dispose of it any better the second time? And if she didn’t, she’d be the obvious suspect — much more obvious than if she’d left the whole thing alone. You just said that before now, she wasn’t a suspect at all.”

Leigh considered. She gnashed her teeth. “I still think she did it. Which is a good reason to keep the Pack out of there.”

“We’ve been over this,” he countered. “The Pack made a very eloquent case earlier for why they should be allowed to finish their jobs in the basement. There is absolutely no reason that a murder committed nearly a decade ago should pose any risk to anyone working in the building today. Maura agreed.
You
agreed.”

“Under duress, and against my better judgment,” Leigh maintained. “There are some things kids shouldn’t be exposed to.”

“I agree, but the fact remains that they’ve already
been
exposed, and unavoidably so. Under the circumstances, I think it’s healthier for them to go back and work through it than avoid the place forever. They said so themselves. You should give them more credit.” His brown eyes turned suddenly resentful. “You should give
me
more credit.”

Leigh didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about. “Warren,” she began apologetically, “I
told
you, my first instinct was to tell you about the body; I would have told you as soon as I could talk, but we got distracted.”

“You had plenty of time before I left,” he insisted. “You could have taken me aside where the Pack couldn’t hear.”

Leigh felt terrible. Then she got inspired. “Was it so wrong for me to shield you from some of the more unpleasant details of my career as a corpse magnet?” she posed. “There was no benefit to your seeing the body — it would only upset you.”

Now Warren’s teeth clenched. His brown eyes, however, betrayed a sparkle. “Fine. I’ll let it go. No more guilt trip. But you have to promise the same. No more questions about me and my ancient history with Sonia Crane — or any other female lobbyist, for that matter. Deal?”

Leigh considered. “Deal.”

Warren smiled at her and leaned in for a kiss, but Leigh suddenly drew back. “Wait! Just one more question. Sonia didn’t really ever take her clothes off, did she?”

His eyes twinkled with amusement. “No. She did not.”

“Okay, then,” Leigh said, sitting up a bit to finish the kiss without crushing the cat on her abdomen. “We have a deal.”

Mao Tse spit-hissed again. But this time, neither of them paid attention.

***

The message Leigh received from her corgi was clear.
I can do this all day, you know.
I’ve got nothing but time.
For the last half hour she had been pacing restlessly from one side of her house to the other, staring out the windows at nothing and doing a U-turn around the kitchen table. With every step Chewie had been attached to her heels, hoping against hope that this time, when she got to the kitchen, she would reach into the bin on the counter and give him a treat. He had hit the jackpot twice already.

“You’ve had enough to eat today, Chewie,” Leigh announced, stopping a moment. “Why don’t you go lie down and relax?”

The dog stopped when she stopped. Then he sat politely and stared up at her with the same intense, eternally hopeful expression with which he looked at anyone who ever said anything to him at any time.

Feed me.

“You need to get out of the house, boy,” Leigh declared, stooping to scratch behind his giant perked ears. “We both do. All this peaceful silence is driving me bonkers.”

If she thought she would enjoy a day of restful solitude in an empty house without kids or husband, she was wrong. Ordinarily, it would sound like heaven. But she had taken a week off work at her advertising agency, not knowing how things would go with Allison’s surgery, and even if she chose to renege now, she had nothing at home to work on. Warren was busy with meetings in town and virtually the entire rest of her family was
there.
Cara had insisted on supervising the Pack herself today, removing any need for Leigh to return. And Bess had both Frances and Lydie busy there today as well. Tonight was the first real rehearsal, and Bess was in a tizzy over having lost an entire day from her renovation schedule due to what she dismissively referred to as “the unpleasantness.”

Leigh’s yard needed work, but it was raining again. The house needed— She broke off the thought with a snort.
To hell with that!
She was still technically on vacation. Computer work was out; she was too restless. But what else could she do with herself?

Feed me.

“Chewie, my man,” Leigh stated, “Grab your leash. We’re going for a drive. Maybe we’ll go surprise your Aunt Mo.”

The corgi didn’t move a muscle.

Feed me?

Leigh looked into his earnest brown eyes and sighed. Chewie took in a lot of human words. He just assumed they all meant the same thing.

Her cell phone rang. She crossed over to pick it up from her desk and looked at the screen. It was Bess.
Whatever she wants,
Leigh coached herself,
just say no.

“Hi, Aunt Bess.”

“Hey, kiddo! Listen, you’re not busy are you?”

“Swamped. I have—”

“Good, good,” Bess interrupted. “Look, I made an absolute mountain of lasagna to feed everybody tonight, since the Pack wanted to stay late again and see the beginning of the rehearsal. But then I drove off this morning and just left it all there in my refrigerator. Could you be a dear and swing over to my house and fetch it for us?”

“You can—”

“And would you mind letting Chester out while you’re there?” Bess plowed on. “He can use the dog door, but he’s gotten so skittish about the rain lately, sometimes he’ll wait for hours until someone encourages him to go out—”

“I’m not—”

“And you know that’s not good for an aging bladder. Your father says it makes him more susceptible to infections. And with his liver already being—”

“Aunt Bess!” Leigh broke in firmly.

“Yes?”

“We both know perfectly well that you’re only trying to get me back in that damned building.”

“Well,
duh.”

Leigh exhaled with a groan.

“Come on, kiddo,” Bess cajoled. “We’ve been through this before. Neither you nor I can possibly avoid every place you’ve ever found a body. It simply isn’t practical.”

Leigh closed her eyes and groaned again.

“It’s better to get right back on the horse, as they say,” Bess continued. “Not to mention the fact that I really did leave the lasagna at my house, and it’s going to take a while to reheat. And your father did say that Chester—”

“All right,
fine!”
Leigh capitulated. “I’ll do it. But I’m
not
staying.”

“Yes, you will,” Bess said confidently. “Ta-ta!”

Leigh hung up the phone and gnashed her teeth. She was such a pushover.

Chewie, who had sat at her feet like a tin soldier throughout the entire conversation, nudged her shin with his nose.
Feed me.

Leigh gave up. She tossed the dog another treat, grabbed his leash, and headed for the car.

Nearly an hour later, she pulled into the building’s parking lot, looked around, and sighed. It was happening, all right. She’d been paying enough attention to the media to know that news of Marconi’s body being found, after all these years, in the very building he’d unsuccessfully tried to turn into a strip club, had hit all the local radio and television stations by dinnertime last night and made page one of both of Pittsburgh’s daily newspapers this morning. The community battle over Marconi’s adult entertainment enterprise and the intrigue over his sudden disappearance had never gotten off the local pages, but throw in a skeletonized corpse and suddenly the story was
everyone’s
business.

Judging by the traffic jam caused by rubberneckers on the street, and the fact that Gerardo had to guard the open door beside the dumpsters against intrusion by the people loitering on the sidewalks and in the parking lot, Leigh was guessing that her Aunt Bess’s folly was now the biggest local topic of conversation since the Big Dips coaster burned down in the old West View Park.