No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (No Such Thing As...: A Brandy Alexander Mystery) (24 page)

“Listen,” Bobby said. “You wanna split a pizza? My treat.”

Before I could give him an answer my phone rang. I checked the readout. It was Nick. “Yeah, pizza sounds good,” I said. “Why don’t you grab a table and I’ll be with you in a minute?”

It must’ve been cop instinct that made Bobby reach out and pull the phone from my hand. Either that or the way my face went neon red when I saw who was calling.

“Santiago,” Bobby said coolly, reading Nick’s name off the Caller I.D. He tossed the phone back to me.

“You could’ve just asked me,” I said, flipping open the phone.

Bobby shrugged. “More fun this way.”

I knew he was mad, but if he was going to act like an ass I wasn’t going to worry about it. I turned my back to him and said hello into the phone.

“Hello, Angel.” I felt my cheeks go red again. Good thing I’d turned around.

“I just got off the phone with Anthony Mitchell’s sister, LaShawna,” Nick said. “She’s agreed to talk to you about her brother.”

“Nick, that’s great. Does she know how I can get in touch with Anthony?”

“It would be a neat trick if she did. Mitchell’s dead.”

“Dead? Is she sure?”

“She’s sure. She flew down to Miami last month to identify the body. Official cause of death is listed as a heroin overdose. LaShawna doesn’t buy it. She works a 3-11 shift at some convenience store down on Patterson, but she said to meet her at her place tomorrow night after she gets off.”

“Tomorrow night?” I quickly scanned my brain to see if I had anything else going on. Well, there
was
that “Facts of Life” marathon on TV Land, but I guessed I could tape it. “Where does she live?” I asked.

“Ninth and Indiana.”

I gulped hard. “The Badlands?” The Badlands is a local term for a good chunk of the southern part of North Philadelphia. It has the distinction of being one of the worst drug-infested and dangerous areas of the city.

From behind me, DiCarlo let out a steady stream of curse words. Jeez, I’d forgotten he was there. “I’ll call you back,” I said to Nick and disconnected.

I turned back to Bobby. “So,” I said brightly, “how about that pizza?”

He pulled me by the lapels of his leather jacket until we were flush against each other. I could hear his heart beating at twice its regular pace. It sounded pissed off. “Tell me you’re not serious about going there,” he said.

“Okay, here’s the thing,” I said into his chest. “I’ve got a really good lead on this witness in the Harmon case and—”

“I’ll go with you.”

I couldn’t possibly have heard him right. “What did you say?”

Bobby did a big “put upon” sigh. “I said if you’re so hell bent on going there, I’ll go with you.”

“Look, it’s nice of you to offer and all, but you know as well as I do nobody’s going to talk to me with a cop trailing after me.”

“Then I guess you’re out of luck because you’re not going alone.”

“I never said I was.”

“Santiago’s going with you?” I gave a brief nod. Bobby held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and stepped back. “Well, that’s just fucking fine by me.”

I yanked off his jacket and handed it back to him. “Y’know what? I’m not hungry anymore,” I told him, which was a humongous lie. I was freakin’ starving. “I’ll see you later.”

I left him standing on the sidewalk and marched back into DiVinci’s to retrieve my coat. Tina and Danny were just leaving. They had the leftovers in a box. “Oh, uh, thanks for the pizza,” Danny said. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed.

Now that I had officially skipped lunch I had a lot more time on my hands, so I sat in the parking lot ruminating about what would trigger the kind of behavior Danny Lang had described. I had a strong feeling I already knew, but I needed to hear it from an expert. I took out my cell and called information for Dr. Levi’s office. She was in between patients and graciously allowed me to run it by her.

“Well,” she said after I’d filled her in, “I wouldn’t normally diagnose someone over the phone, but from what you’ve told me, my guess is the young woman had been sexually molested as a child, quite possibly over an extended period of time, so as an adult she tried to fix it.”

“Fix it? How?”

“By replaying the scene over and over, but changing the outcome so that she would have the power she lacked as a little girl. As I said, without ever having met her, this is only a guess.”

“Dr. Levi, I read somewhere that this kind of thing is often perpetrated by someone the victim knows and trusts. Like a babysitter or a family member.”

“That’s true, which makes it all the more tragic.”

I thanked Dr. Levi for her time and hung up. Something Danny Lang had said was bugging me. I hadn’t picked up on it before, but now it was foremost in my mind. I punched in his number.

“It’s Brandy,” I said when he picked up. “Listen, when I spoke to you on the phone earlier today, you said Laura never told you her real name.”

“That’s right.”

“And that she made you call her by some cutesy nickname. Do you happen to remember what it was?”

“Yeah,” he said. “She told me to call her ‘Kitten.’”

Oh my God.

I called Bobby on my way back to the office. “Sorry,” I said when he picked up. “You were being really nice to me and I acted like a jerk.”

DiCarlo gave a long whistle. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming. Thanks.”

“Yeah, well, I just thought I’d tell ya.” What I didn’t tell him was that Sophia was the luckiest kid in the world to have a dad who would love and protect her instead of a father like Laura’s. Ethan’s words reverberated in my ears.
“Laura was the light of his life. He used to call her Kitten.”
How could he do that to his own kid?

“I know a way you could make it up to me,” DiCarlo said and I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Yeah? How’s that?” I didn’t say I
would
make it up to him but I had to admit I was curious about what he had in mind.

Before he could give me the details, his call waiting beeped. “Damn, it’s the station. Hang on a second.” He was back in a flash. “Gang killing on Snyder. Looks like you’re off the hook for now.” Rationally, I was relieved. Hormonally, it was a different story. “Oh, and
for the record
,” Bobby said, “I just ran into Tina outside of DiVinci’s. It wasn’t like we were on a date or anything.”

“Oh? I really hadn’t given it any thought.”

“Sure,” Bobby laughed and hung up.

It was almost 4:30 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten anything since my early morning encounter with the powdered jelly doughnuts. I decided to call it a day and go home. There was a turkey pot pie in the freezer and some Rolling Rock in the fridge. What more could a girl ask for.

My mom called on the drive back to my house. “Brandy, honey, is that you?”
She called my cell phone, who did she think it would be?

“Yeah, mom, it’s me.” I swallowed the Tastykake I bought at the Seven-Eleven to tide me over until I got home and asked why she was calling.

“We’re invited to Aunt Henna’s tonight for dinner. She’s really hoping you can join us.” Aunt Henna is my mother’s aunt. Her real name is Silvia, but she’s been Aunt Henna ever since the 1960’s when she gave herself a Henna rinse and all her hair fell out. It had since grown back and is now in the process of falling out again. The last time she was in Carla’s salon, she insisted on hair extensions. Aunt Henna is a hundred and eight.

“Mom, I’d love to, only I’m swamped with work. You guys go and enjoy yourselves. I’ll see you when you get home.”

Half an hour later I pulled up in front of the house, took out my stun gun, checked for stalkers and sprinted up the steps. Adrian greeted me as I walked through the door. I went into the kitchen to nuke the pot pie. My parents had already left for Aunt Henna’s. My mom had left some brisket in Adrian’s food bowl. It was untouched. I guess he’d learned a little something from the meatball incident.

I’d only been home alone for an hour but I was already starting to regret my decision not to go to my great-aunt’s. I didn’t like being alone. And worse, I hated that I didn’t like it. I called John and invited him over.

“I thought we could put on my mom’s old Richard Simmons’ exercise tape, “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” and sit in front of the tv and eat ice cream sundaes while we’re watching it.”

“Sorry, doll face,” he told me. “I’ve got a date.”

“Oh.”

I guess he could hear the disappointment in my voice because he asked me if I wanted to come along. “We’re going to the art museum. They’re having a ‘by invitation only’ viewing of ‘Japanese Literati Culture in the Edo Period,’ but I could probably scrounge up an extra ticket.”

“No, that’s alright. I’ve already seen it.”

John choked back a laugh. I don’t know what he thought was so funny. I
could’ve
seen it. “Well, if you change your mind, let me know.”

I decided to give Mike Mahoe a call and give him a chance to redeem himself for ratting me out to Bobby. Mike was still at work, he informed me, and was very busy. Way too busy to talk.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said. “I’ve got an extra ticket to the hockey game tonight.”

“Really?” he said, perking up. “Oh, hey, as it turns out, this report I’m typing up isn’t due until next Thursday, so I’m free as a bird.”

“Uh huh.” I said.

Mike sighed. “There are no hockey tickets, are there?”

“Come on Mike. Just one little favor. I would’ve asked Bobby, but he’s out investigating a gang murder. Honest, it’s not going to get you in trouble.”

All I wanted was an update on the status of Jeff Rhineholt. I sort’ve felt responsible for him, seeing as I was the one who’d sent the Jersey cops sniffing in his direction in the first place. “Do this for me please, Mike?”

“I can’t believe I ever liked you,” Mike grumbled. “You’re a pain in the rear.”

I took that as a yes and waited for him to call me back.

Thirty minutes later the phone rang. “Are you sitting down?”

“I am now. What’s up?”

“You know that guy Richard you kept going on about?”

“What about him?”

“He turned up. Claimed to be the father of Tamra’s unborn child. He made a statement this afternoon. He said Tamra was planning to leave her husband for him… I really shouldn’t be telling you all this.”

“Just tell me one more thing. How bad does it look for Rhineholt?”

“On a scale of one to ten, he’s off the charts.”

Jeff Rhineholt answered the phone on the ninth ring. His voice was boozy and his words accusatory, but there was no real rancor behind them. All things considered, he was fairly mellow… or semi-conscious. I think he’d had a lot to drink.

“I can’t believe you’ve got the nerve to call me,” he said when I identified myself. “Haven’t you done enough damage?”

I couldn’t believe I had the nerve to call him either. “Look,” I said getting right to it, “I don’t think you killed Tamra.”

“Is that right? Well, you’re the only one who doesn’t. They’re going to arrest me any day now. There’s an unmarked car sitting in the front of my house in case I try to make a break for it. As if I had anywhere to go. My own family is afraid of me. I’ve been put on mandatory leave from work.” A sob caught in his throat. “You want to know what’s funny?” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked softly.

“They think I killed my wife, but with Tamra gone I’ve got nothing left to live for.”

I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach which I chose to ignore. “Jeff, I really want to help you. But you need to be straight with me. The last night you spent with Tamra you said you were arguing about work. What were you really fighting about?”

“You wanna know what we really fought about? I’ll tell you. Hold on.” I waited while he blew his nose. Rhineholt was starting to slur his words and I was wondered if booze wasn’t the only thing he was self-medicating with.

I heard him swallow something and then he got back on the phone. “My lawyer doesn’t want me talking to anyone.” He emitted a short bitter laugh. “What the fuck does he know? Nobody wants to talk to me. Only you and your reporter buddies.”

And the cops who are probably tapping your line.

“Jeff, about that night,” I prodded.

“Tamra wanted a baby. I didn’t. She’d been pregnant twice before. They both ended in miscarriage. I never thought she’d get over it. I—I didn’t want her to go through that again.”

“So that’s what the fight was about?” I asked. “She told you she was pregnant?”

“No,” he said, crying openly now. “I found out that night that she had been pricking holes in my condoms. I didn’t know she was pregnant until the autopsy report.”

“Did it ever occur to you that you may not have been the father?”

“No. Stupid, huh? I agreed to a paternity test because Tamra swore to me she wasn’t having an affair and I needed to believe that. I loved her.”

“Jeff, are you alone now?” He didn’t sound right and I’d had enough experience in high school with wayward friends to know when someone was in trouble. “Jeff?”

Shit.

“…and then I called 911 and told them I thought he had overdosed, and the cop that was sitting in front of his house went in there and called the paramedics.”

My first impulse was to call the station with an exclusive, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I called Janine instead. I knew the news would get out eventually, but Jeff had enough trouble without me adding to it. Guess I’ll have to work on my “killer instincts” if I’m going to make it in the news business. My conscience is always getting in the way
. Stupid conscience.

“So did you find a date for Paul’s bar mitzvah?” Janine’s not one to dwell on the negative. God bless her.

“I’m working on it,” I told her and hung up.

My parents came home at 11:00. My dad had his arm around my mother’s waist, guiding her through the front door. She was giggling. It’s not often I hear my mom giggle. It was a kind of disconcerting.

“Your mother’s a little tipsy,” my dad informed me. “She was hitting the vino pretty hard.”

“I had to do
something
to choke down that meal,” my mom told me. She leaned into me, summoning up her best stage whisper. “Your aunt is a
terrible
cook.”