Sketch a Falling Star (12 page)

“How did he make a living?” Rory asked.

“I have no idea. He never brought it up, and on the few occasions when I asked him outright, his stock answer was always ‘finances—it’s too complicated; you wouldn’t understand.’ After his conviction, I decided I’d be better off not knowing.”

“Did he ever go for counseling?”

Clarissa had cut a small wedge from the crumb cake and was nibbling on it, one hand cupped under the other to catch any wayward crumbs. “I took him to at least a half dozen therapists over the years,” she said, abandoning the cake to a napkin as if she’d already lost interest in it. “Thousands of dollars and about as useful as putting the money through a paper shredder. By the time he reached his teens, he refused to go at all. How do you help someone who doesn’t believe he needs help?”

Since the question was purely rhetorical, Rory wagged her head in empathy and waited a suitable few moments before pressing on with her own questions. “I’m having trouble reconciling Brian’s efforts to avoid more jail time with the risk he took every time he appeared on stage. What if someone in the audience had recognized him from an earlier scam?”

“I know it seems counterintuitive, but from what the therapists told me, it actually fit right in with my son’s diagnosis.”

“May I ask what that diagnosis was?”

“He was a classic psychopath,” Clarissa said grimly. “Bright and charming, but without a conscience. He didn’t know guilt or remorse. You’d be horrified if I told you some of the things he did as a child.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as if trying to exorcise those memories. “Anyway,” she went on, “he needed to be the center of attention, and appearing onstage seemed to feed that need. So he convinced himself it didn’t put him in jeopardy. After he got out of prison, he told me the police would never catch him again, because he was onto their game, whatever that was supposed to mean.”

Listening to her, Rory felt as if she’d unearthed something slimy and foul in her garden and was deeply relieved to find that it was dead. Distressed by the intensity of her reaction, she tried to shake it off. Whatever else Brian Carpenter may have been, he was Clarissa’s son, and she shouldn’t have to deal with Rory’s emotions on top of everything else.

“When was the last time you spoke to Brian?” she asked, once she trusted her voice to sound normal.

“Two days before he left on the trip to Arizona,” Clarissa said, a little frown pinching the skin between her eyes. “It actually struck me as strange. After all the years of moving from place to place and living under different aliases, he suddenly wanted to let me know he was going to be away for a week.”

“Did he say he was concerned something might happen to him? Did he seem nervous or agitated?”

Clarissa shook her head. “He didn’t say anything like that, and to be honest, I don’t think Brian knew what it meant to feel nervous. It was part of what was missing in him.”

“So nothing else about that conversation set off flares?”

“Well, I don’t know if this is in any way connected or relevant, but he did say he was thinking of moving off the Island.”

Taken together, the two remarks made Brian sound like a man who’d sensed a shift in the wind and wasn’t planning to wait around until the hurricane blew ashore. For the first time since hearing about his death, Rory began to believe in the crazy possibility that Clarissa and Zeke might actually be right—that the flash flood provided a would-be murderer with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“He didn’t say anything about a business deal or romance gone sour?” she asked, hoping to jog something loose in Clarissa’s memory.

She laughed as if to say “you’ve got to be kidding.” “Those were two subjects he never discussed with me.”

“Did you ask him why he was thinking of moving away again?”

“Why bother?” She shrugged. “I’d played his games long enough to know he wasn’t going to tell me the truth.” She glanced at her watch, then back at Rory. “I think I’ve told you everything I know that might help the investigation. If you have no other questions…” she said, rising from her chair. “As you can imagine, my schedule’s all backlogged, what with everything that’s happened.”

Rory had a mental image of Clarissa checking items off a list: buy cake—check; conversation with PI—check; mourning—check. She immediately chided herself for being judgmental. The woman had clearly done her mourning long before her son’s physical death.

Clarissa was walking her to the door when she came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the living room. “I almost forgot—tomorrow morning I’m going over to Brian’s apartment to clear out his belongings. I thought you might want to meet me there. Maybe you’ll find something useful to the case.”

“Absolutely,” Rory said, buoyed by the prospect of an actual clue.

Clarissa gave her the address, and they agreed to meet at the apartment at nine thirty the next day. Rory had just reached her car when her cell phone signaled that she had a new e-mail. It had come from her home computer and was only two words long: “COME HOME.”

Chapter 12

T
he sender of that message had to be Zeke, unless Hobo had recently acquired a new skill. She considered writing him back, but that was always more frustrating than it was worth. If he wasn’t at the computer, he wouldn’t receive the message. And even if he was still there, it was never a quick process. He’d proven to be obtuse when it came to learning the abbreviations that were common in that form of communication, although she suspected it was the principle of the thing more than any real inability on his part. He often complained that the present generation was murdering the English language and that he refused to help dig its grave. Rory had come close to pointing out that he was often guilty of the same crime. In any case, she wasn’t in the mood to listen to another of his lectures about the deficiencies of the modern age.

The trip home took a quarter of the time it had taken during rush hour, which was still more than enough time for Rory to imagine several terrible reasons for the marshal’s abrupt message. When she arrived home, she found out she’d been wrong on every count.

Hobo met her at the door with all of his normal, fur-flying enthusiasm. He jumped up in his version of an embrace, with his front paws on her shoulders, and started lapping her face. At least nothing was wrong on the canine front. With Hobo still up on his hind legs, she did a little sidestep dance with him to the keypad to turn off the alarm.

Zeke popped in while she was trying to convince the dog that four legs on the floor were preferable to two. She threw in a promise of ear scratches to seal the deal. With Hobo back on the ground, she turned to face the marshal.

“Okay, I’m here—what’s the big emergency?”

Zeke’s expression was grim. “We’ve got trouble.”

“Could you narrow that down a bit?” she asked, walking over to the bench beneath the stairs to kick off her shoes. Being home meant being barefoot.

“Someone broke in while you were gone.”

“But the door was locked. I had to use my key to open it,” she said, trying to make sense of this information. “And the alarm was set.”

“I wasn’t here at the time so I can’t tell you how he got in. I heard the mutt carryin’ on somethin’ awful, but I didn’t pay it no mind ’cause he does that with the mailman, the paperboy and every squirrel he sees trespassin’. But then he got quiet too suddenly. None of the easin’ down like he usually does. You know, what you call his grumblin’. That’s when I dropped in to see if he was okay.”

Rory tried to push away the memory that sprang to mind of Hobo nearly dying from the poisoned meat someone had thrown into her yard back in the fall. “And?”

“He was merrily chewing away on one of those stuffed toys he loves.”

“He does that all the time.” Exasperation was seeping into her voice.

“Not with a frog. You never bought him a frog, did you?”

“No,” she said, her brows bunching together with a mixture of concern and confusion. “So someone broke in here to give Hobo a present?”

“I never said it made a lick of sense.”

“I guess I should be grateful that the intruder likes dogs.”

“It’s sure a heap of a lot better than the last time.”

“But why break in at all?” she murmured thinking out loud.

“I’ve been rollin’ that around in my head. I think the intruder’s tryin’ to tell you that you’re bein’ watched. That he can get to you if he wants to.”

“That’s pretty damn creepy. Sort of sounds like a stalker.”

“No, I don’t think so. I can’t say for sure, but the timin’ leads me to think this has to do with Brian’s death. Could be he wants you to stop your investigatin’.”

“Then why be so vague about it? Why not just throw a brick through my window threatening to kill me if I don’t drop the case?”

“Who knows how any of these guys think. Maybe he’s just playin’ a game in your brain.”

“I think you mean ‘playing mind games’.”

Zeke scowled at her. “This is serious, darlin’. He’s probably been stakin’ out the house to get a handle on your schedule so he could break in when you weren’t home. That tells me that he’s not lookin’ for a confrontation just yet.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t leave a threatening note or maybe a bomb somewhere?” she asked, only half kidding.

“No, ma’am, I went through this house from stem to stern, and far as I can tell, he didn’t take anythin’ or leave anythin’ except the frog.”

“Did you—”

“Course I did. I checked that toy every which way as soon as I saw the mutt chewin’ on it.”

Rory had run out of questions, with no answers in sight. It was bad enough that someone had broken into the house and managed to turn off the alarm in less than a minute, but how on earth had he or she reset the alarm without knowing the code and then relocked the front door without the key? She felt as frustrated as when she watched a highly skilled magician. There had to be a trick to it, but she couldn’t figure out what it was, and that drove her a little crazy.

She padded into the kitchen with Hobo at her heels, the frog still stuffed in his mouth. Zeke was already sitting at the table waiting for her. “What’s goin’ on in that pretty head of yours?” he asked warily.

Rory opened the freezer and rummaged around until she found a pint of strawberry ice cream hidden behind a frozen pizza. “There’s got to be a way to find out who broke in here, but I’m coming up empty.” She popped the lid off, and grabbing a spoon, she joined him at the table. Hobo dropped the frog and settled down next to her waiting for a handout.

“I guess I could dust the house for fingerprints,” she said, digging into the container, which was only a quarter full, “but whoever did this was way too professional to make such a rookie mistake.”

“You’re overlookin’ a bigger concern,” Zeke said. “How are we goin’ to keep you and the mutt safe from someone who ain’t stopped by locks and alarms? I don’t mind standin’ guard for you, but I can’t keep that up without rest.”

“Maybe I should buy a junkyard dog to protect us,” she said without humor.

“Now hold on there; one dog’s my absolute limit.”

“Just kidding.”

“I think maybe you should stay with your folks until we get this sorted out.”

“I’m not running and hiding,” she said, scooping a bit of the ice cream into her hand for Hobo to lick, which he did with gusto.

“What about askin’ Leah to arrange for some protection?”

Rory finished the last spoonful and got up to toss the container in the garbage and the spoon in the sink. “I’d like to see where this is headed before I start crying wolf.”

“You think maybe this is goin’ to escalate into flowers and candy?” Zeke asked, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.

Rory didn’t respond. A strange-looking tag on the stuffed frog had caught her eye. She picked up the toy, soggy with Hobo’s saliva, to get a better look. There was the usual tag, like the ones that came on clothing and generally listed fabric content, washing instructions and the name of the country where it was manufactured. But beside it was a second, larger tag, which on close inspection had clearly been sewn on by hand, a very unskilled hand. Someone had used an indelible marker to write a message on it. Unfortunately, the tag had been so badly mangled by Hobo’s teeth that it was indecipherable.

“What’ve you got there?” Zeke asked, appearing beside her.

Rory held the tag out so that he could see it without coming any closer.

“Damn, how’d I miss that?” He sounded chagrined at his failure.

“Hey, I almost missed it, and I’m familiar with the tags they use these days. But on the positive side, this tells us something else about the intruder.” With any luck she might be able to detour the marshal from the safety debate.

“Is that so?” Zeke said, smiling at her as if she were a prize student.

“Whoever did this never owned a large dog, or he would have known his message wasn’t likely to survive.”

“Which isn’t such good news for us in the end,” Zeke pointed out, his expression dead serious again. “We don’t know what this guy’s after or what he’s expectin’ of us, but now he thinks we’ve gotten his message. That could lead to some problems.”

“I think there’s actually a computer program that may be able to reconstruct what was on the tag,” Rory said. “It’s at least worth a try.”

“Would Leah have access to somethin’ like that?”

Rory could tell he was already trying to maneuver back to the topic of her safety. “Possibly. But my money’s on BB’s friend Reggie.”

“You’re goin’ to ask some guy you never met, rather than your best friend?” Zeke sounded testy.

“It’s just less complicated that way,” she said, trying not to be drawn into an argument. “I’ll tell you what; I’ll give BB a call right now.” She stepped around Zeke to pluck the phone from its wall mount and started to punch in numbers before he had a chance to raise any more objections.

W
hen Rory reached the office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner, she was told that Dr. Browning, otherwise known as BB, was away for the week. If she liked, she could leave a message on his voice mail. After she did that, Rory checked her address book for BB’s home number, since a week off didn’t necessarily mean a week away. Although she also had his cell number, she had no intentions of using it. If he was out of town on vacation it didn’t seem right to bother him with anything short of an emergency. Zeke might consider this to be one, but she didn’t. As it happened, BB answered his home phone on the first ring.