Wicked Game (24 page)

“Me, too. I’ve already got a couple of calls in to the rest of the guys.”

“And?”

“You were right. The Third downplayed it, but he got a note.”

“He
did
?” Becca stood still.

“Zeke didn’t. Not yet, anyway. And I haven’t got a hold of Jarrett or Mitch. Or Scott, for that matter. I was going to see them this morning.”

“I want to go with you,” she said and poured two cups of coffee from the pot on the counter. “I want to see the other notes.”

Hudson hesitated as she handed him one of the mugs. “I’d like to know more before we take this to the police.”

“If Glenn got a note, do you think it might be at his house?”

“I thought you said it burned.”

“It did…at least in my vision.”

He nodded but she sensed he was having some trouble with the whole vision thing. “Do you want to ask his wife? Gia?” he asked.

Becca grimaced as she tried to imagine what Gia Stafford must be feeling this morning. Last night at the fire, Gia had been sobbing wildly and clinging to everyone within range. She wouldn’t want people descending on her with their own agendas. Then again, she might be interested in anything connected with her husband’s death. “It’s hard to say how she’ll react. If it were me, I’d want to know every scrap of information that might help explain how the person I loved was suddenly taken from me.” There was a pause and Becca asked, “Why Glenn? Was it an accident? Arson? How do these notes fit in?”

“What if the fire was set on purpose?” Hudson suggested, staring into his coffee mug. “Maybe to get rid of Glenn? He was drinking himself into a stupor and no one was around. It was a perfect opportunity.”

“Well, they were really lucky to just happen to have their firestarter arsenal with them—the night Glenn decides to tie one on?”

“Maybe he tied one on a lot.”

Ringo was dancing at her feet, whining and trying to catch her attention. “Oh, buddy. Sorry.” Opening the pantry door, she found the bag of dog food and measured a ration into his bowl. The dog was on it in an instant.

“Maybe it was planned in advance,” Hudson said as she closed the pantry door. “By someone who knew Glenn’s habits and waited for the right moment. And last night was it.”

“Who are you thinking of? Gia?” Becca asked.

“I can’t picture her planning anything so detailed,” he admitted.

“And the notes?”

“We don’t know for certain that Glenn got one,” Hudson said carefully.

Becca knew he was right, but she was inclined to believe in her vision. “Maybe we should ask Gia.”

He reached for his cell phone without hesitation. “She might not be up to a visit.”

“Let’s go see.”

“Where are you going?” Gretchen demanded as Mac grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and made for the nearest exit of the police station.

Her hair was pulled back severely, causing pressure at her temples and straining her eyes so she had a Siamese cat appearance. It looked uncomfortable and he figured it wasn’t going to help her temperament. He’d tried to be absent when she arrived at the station this morning, but he’d gotten caught up in the case and suddenly it was eight-thirty and Gretchen was there with a box of doughnuts.

“Home to bed,” he told her. “Pulled an all-nighter.”

“Doing what?”

“There was a fire. Glenn Stafford and Scott Pascal’s restaurant. Looks like Stafford’s dead.”

“Are you for real?”

He nodded, slid his sidearm into his shoulder holster, and grabbed his jacket.

“Why wasn’t I called?”

“Because the fire investigators haven’t labeled it arson, so there’s no homicide. And it’s outside of our jurisdiction.”

“Bullshit. It involves our case.” The wheels were turning in her mind, the box of doughnuts dropped unceremoniously onto the corner of his desk.

Mac headed toward the door, his head full of images from the night before. He intended to do just as he’d told Scott Pascal the night before: he was going to ask the Preppy Pricks about the notes. He’d made a couple of calls already and was on a mission.

Gretchen was hot on his heels, her footfalls short and angry as she followed him outside. “Your attitude sucks, McNally. I’m this close to reporting you.” She held her hand out, so he could see the index finger and thumb separated by only a hairsbreadth.

“To who?” Mac asked at his own personal Jeep. He’d parked the prowler around the back since he was going off duty—at least officially.

“D’Annibal, for starters. The chief if I have to.”

He’d had it with her. “I don’t know what your gripe is, Sandler. You’ve been to a number of interviews. You think the Jessie Brentwood investigation’s a waste of time, my personal white whale. You hate everything about being my partner. Do whatever the hell you want.”

“You should have called me when you decided to go to the fire.”

“Wake you up at two in the morning for something that might not be a crime?”

“It was Pascal and Stafford’s restaurant! That’s critical to our investigation!”

“What investigation?” Mac finally snapped back. “You don’t give a damn. All you want is a fresh body, not a twenty-year-old corpse.”

“Fuck you.”

“Back atcha.” He slammed into his Jeep and drove away, wishing the pavement was gravel so he could peel out and choke her with the dust. He slipped a pair of nearly forgotten sunglasses onto his nose as shafts of rare winter sunbeams slipped through the clouds and bounced off the wet pavement.

Christ, she was a pain. And he didn’t need the headache. Between his obsession with this case, the other cases he was investigating, and his home life, which was centered around his kid, he didn’t have time for Gretchen Sandler’s histrionics. Not for the first time he wondered who she’d slept with to make detective. Worse yet, she had a way of making him lower himself to her level. The fact that he’d just baldly and gleefully lied to her pleased him in a way that defied explanation. Maturity was highly overrated, he concluded as he turned the Jeep away from the direction of his home and toward the garage where Mitch Bellotti spent his days.

Hudson had checked on Glenn’s address and found the house without difficulty. It was a white-pillared colonial with an excruciatingly steep driveway and little ceramic gnome-like creatures hiding in an expansive yard. There was a brown older model Chevrolet sedan parked precariously on that slope. Hudson parked Becca’s Jetta on the street below and they walked up a set of steps that switchbacked through sliding mud and bark dust, courtesy of the nearly incessant precipitation.

An older woman with coiffed gray-white hair answered their knock and looked at them with suspicion. “Yes?”

“We’re high school friends of Glenn’s,” Becca said. “We wondered if we could see Gia.”

“Well, Gia’s sleeping right now. This isn’t a good time. She’s been medicated.” She was brusque and determined.

“I understand. Would you tell her Becca Sutcliff and Hudson Walker came to see her?” Becca added.

“Oh. I think Glenn mentioned you.” She glanced past them to Becca’s car. “I’m Gia’s mother. I don’t think it’s worth your while to stay. She could be out a while and when she’s awake, oh, dear, the medication makes her a little…unclear.”

Becca half expected Mama Bear to slam the door on them when Gia herself appeared on the stairs beyond. Tousled and red-eyed, clutching a bathrobe closed with one hand, she walked barefoot to the entry. “Who’s here?”

Mama Bear kept trying to close the door but Hudson put a palm on the panels and pushed it back open. He received a glittered glare for his troubles but Gia gazed at him with shadowed eyes, full of misery.

“You were there last night…?” she asked, her voice drifting off.

“I’m Hudson Walker. Glenn and I knew each other in high school.”

“Oh! Yes! Hudson.” Tears filled her eyes and she came flying forward, throwing herself into his arms, bawling like a baby calf. Mama Bear seemed startled by this turn of events, stepped backward, and Becca used the moment to squeeze in behind Hudson. She felt Gia’s pain like a live wire between them, though they weren’t touching. Her grief filled the room and it made Becca feel like a charlatan, given her reasons for being here.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Gia was saying over and over as they stood beneath a huge chandelier in the foyer. She was petite and soft, her round body giving her a cherubic look. “We wanted to have a baby. We were planning on it. Now what am I going to do? What am I going to do!” She pulled away from Hudson to the waiting arms of her mother.

Becca heard the word “baby” and her heart lurched. She hadn’t known the circumstances of the Stafford marriage, but this window into their now-unfulfilled hopes and dreams burrowed deeply into her own heartache.

Gia’s mom gave her daughter a hard hug, and Gia’s already red eyes puddled up all over again.

Hudson said gently, “I’m sorry to bother you right now.”

“It’s not a bother. You were friends. Glenn talked about you…all of you.” She swept a hand toward Becca. “I know you were all worried about the dead girl, Jessie.”

“Glenn believed Jessie was dead?” Hudson asked.

“No…I don’t know. I guess I just assumed.” She swallowed once, seemed to think about it some more, then her eyes flooded again. “And now Glenn’s dead, too. Oh, God, oh, God. I’m…sorry…this is all so new…so unexpected. He was my soul mate. We were going to be married forever.” Her voice cracked, but she huddled into the safety of her mother’s arms.

“We hate to bother you, but we wondered if you could answer a question for us.”

“Not now.” Gia’s mother bristled but Gia gazed up at him blankly.

“What?” she asked.

“Did Glenn receive any note recently?”

“What kind of note?” Gia asked emotionlessly.

“A nursery rhyme,” Becca said.

Gia turned to her. “Is that a joke, because it’s not funny.” She slowly released her grip on her mother.

“I think this has gone on long enough,” Mama said.

“I received one,” Hudson said, “so we wondered if Glenn had, too.”

“A nursery rhyme. Let me see it.” Gia stuck out her hand and Hudson, after a brief hesitation, reached into his pocket and handed over the note and the blue envelope.

“It came through the mail.”

Gia shook her head. “Who sent it?”

“We don’t know.”

“You think it was the dead girl,” she said with sudden understanding, and her mother drew in a hiss of breath and looked around as if evil spirits were about to materialize. “Glenn said something about nursery rhymes and that girl. She was a tease.”

“We don’t even know if Glenn’s note exists,” Hudson said. “Another friend, Christopher Delacroix, received one.”

“The Third. I know him. The same as this?” She glanced at the card, her nose wrinkling.

“That’s what I understand. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“And you think Glenn may have got one. Why?”

“It’s a mystery,” Becca said. “We’re trying to figure out who received them, who sent them, and why.”

“Well, if he got one, I never saw it.” After a moment, she said, “Have you told the police? Like maybe that’s why Glenn’s dead…something to do with that Jessie?”

“We haven’t talked to anyone but you,” Hudson said.

“It’s like she killed him,” Gia said suddenly, and her mother shook her head. “That’s what she did, that bitch! She reached right out of the grave and burned him up!” Gia started crying in earnest again, and after a few awkward moments where Becca and Hudson could only stand by while Gia’s mother rocked her daughter in her arms, they expressed their condolences again and took their leave.

“Are we going to see The Third?” Becca asked.

“Next on the list.”

Mitch Bellotti was in overalls that tightened around his bulging middle. He was wiping his hands on a gray rag as Mac slammed the door of his Jeep and crossed the asphalt apron that led to Mike’s Garage, a surprisingly clean establishment where tools hung on the wall in precise rows. An older-model blue Triumph was on a lift and Mitch was conversing with a skinny, sixtyish man whose craggy face practically fell in on itself, it was so lined.

Hearing Mac’s door slam, Mitch looked his way. There was a moment or two of blankness, then recognition dawned. He didn’t offer to shake hands, just kept wiping his own on the rag as his expression grew grimmer. Mac introduced himself but it wasn’t necessary as Mitch responded with, “I knew you’d come. You’ve talked to everybody else. But God, man, on this day? You know about Glenn, don’t you?”

“I went to the scene last night.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Especially now.” The smell of oil and grease permeated the air and an old greyhound was lying on a rug near the back door.

Mac realized Mitch was fighting back tears and felt a twinge of pity. He’d never really thought Mitch had anything to do with Jessie’s disappearance, then or now, but he felt he might know something—maybe something he didn’t know he knew. “I’m sorry about Glenn,” Mac said, meaning it.

“You think it has something to do with—Jessie? Is that why you’re here, man?”

“Do you?” Mac asked curiously.

“I guess it could just be a coincidence.” He sounded as doubtful as Mac felt.

“We’ll know more after the fire investigator’s report.”

“Has to be arson, doesn’t it?”

“Why do you say that?”

Mitch gazed at him guilelessly. “Well, things like that don’t just happen. The restaurant just goes up. How? A gas leak? Or a burner on the stove left on near something flammable? Grease fire? Doesn’t sound like it from what I’ve heard.”

“What have you heard? Who called you?”

“Scott. He was freaking, man. Glenn and I were friends, but Scott was his best friend. They were kind of mad at each other, but it was like they were brothers.”

“Scott thinks it’s arson?”

“I don’t know for sure. He just said Glenn was inside and it shouldn’t have happened. He said she cursed us.”

“Jessie?”

“Yeah, Jessie.” His face flushed as if he heard the idiocy of his statement. “Who else?”

“What happened all those years ago, Mitch?” Mac asked quietly. He felt his pulse rush a bit, wondering if this was the moment someone finally opened up to him.