Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
I got Greg on his way and Edwina settled down, and then I did send the image to Mendoza with the caption, Someone painted my door.
When the phone rang five minutes later, the number was unknown, and I guess I should have been prepared for that.
When I answered it with a diffident, “Hello?” a voice I knew said, “Reggie? It’s Jaime. ”
He must still be at Sambuca, I figured—it wasn’t as late as it felt—and he probably had a burner phone he used there so his own wouldn’t get traced back to Detective Mendoza.
But Reggie? Short for Regina, maybe?
“Hello, Detective. Or am I not supposed to say that?”
The voice turned amused. “No, you can say whatever you want.” The emphasis was on the second word, which I took to mean that while I could, he couldn’t, because there were people in the background who were, or might be, listening.
“So you got my picture,” I said. “I came home from dinner and found it like that.”
He made a humming sound. “I can’t do much about it right now.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t expect you to. I thought maybe you’d send someone out tomorrow morning to take a look. When the sun’s up.”
“You don’t mind waiting?”
“I’d mind more having a bunch of people crawling around my front door with floodlights at this time of night,” I said. “It’s not like anyone’s hurt. The house was empty except for Edwina, and she’s fine. Hysterical when we got here, but she’s calmed down now.”
I glanced at her, where she was curled up next to me on a sofa cushion. She must have heard her name because she looked up and her tail beat against the cushion once.
“Yes,” I told her, “I’m talking about you.”
She thumped her tail again before putting her head down.
“You’re sure she’s all right?” Mendoza sounded concerned.
“She’s perfect. Locked inside the whole time. Probably saw the perp. It’s a shame you can’t interview her.”
Mendoza agreed. “Any idea who it might have been?”
“It looked like blood at first, so I thought of the mob. Although I don’t know how they’d know about me, and besides, it’s not like they need to scare me. I don’t know anything about anything. Or nothing that no one else does.”
Mendoza agreed.
“It’d probably be real blood anyway,” I added. “If it were the mob. Don’t you think?”
Mendoza agreed that it would. “Anyone else?”
“Kenny. Kenneth Kelly, my stepson. David’s son. He was at Fidelio’s when Greg and I got there. Having dinner with—wait for it—Jacquie Demetros.”
He sounded interested. “No kidding?”
“None. And it seems like something he’d do. Childish and spiteful.”
He hummed. “Any idea what’s going on with them?”
“Not beyond the fact that he seems to like her. Greg suggested that he might have been the one to introduce her to David in the first place.”
“Greg did.”
It sounded less like a question than a statement, but I confirmed it. “He’s good at making up scenarios.”
The voice was definitely amused this time. “I bet.”
“He wondered whether Kenny might be involved with the mob. Or whether Kenny might have known Nick back when they were still teenagers getting in trouble. They’re about the same age.
You wouldn’t think they’d run in the same circles, but who knows?
Greg thought that might be how David met Jacquie in the first place. Some sort of long con on Kenny’s part.”
Or Nick’s. Or Jacquie’s.
“Something to look into,” Mendoza said. “Although I looked at…” He stopped and cleared his throat.
The rest of that sentence would probably sound too much like cop-speak to anyone who might be listening in.
“Listen, I gotta go. I have food up, that needs to get to the tables. I’ll call you back after my shift, OK? ”
“Tomorrow,” I said firmly. “Jacquie’s supposed to stop by the office in the morning, either to explain about her and Kenny, or to ask for her money back. And we still have to update Zachary on what happened to Nick.”
“I’ll try to stop by. You sure you’re OK on your own?”
“I’m not on my own,” I said, even as I wondered what he’d say if I told him I wasn’t OK on my own. Would he insist on coming over?
“Newsome staying the night?”
“Not at all,” I said. “It’s just me and Edwina. She’ll wake me up if anything happens.”
“The idea is for nothing to happen.”
“You wouldn’t be able to stop anything from happening even if you were here.”
He was definitely amused now, and I wanted to hit my forehead against the coffee table a few times to knock some sense into myself. “Maybe not. But at least there’d be someone else there who could use the phone if something happened to you.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I said. “I’m almost positive the paint thing was Kenny. It’s the kind of passive-aggressive, cowardly, thing he’d do. He’s not going to do anything that’d actually get him in trouble.” Like attacking me.
Besides, why would he? The whole restaurant, including Greg, had seen him with Jacquie, so it wasn’t like he could keep that part quiet by silencing me.
And it isn’t like it’s illegal to want to get in your father’s mistress’s panties anyway.
“Go back to work,” I told Mendoza. “Edwina and I are going to kick back with a few episodes of HGTV and a glass of wine. Maybe I’ll get an idea for what to do with my door now that it’s half red and half wood.
And if you could send someone out to look around tomorrow, I’d appreciate it.
Just in case Kenny was stupid enough to leave a paint can with his fingerprints all over it next to the driveway. ”
Mendoza said he would. “Sleep well, Reggie.”
“You too,” I told him, “Detective.”
I put the phone down on the coffee table and turned to Edwina. “Someone’ll be here in the morning.”
She thumped her tail against the cushion.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” I said. “Come on. Let’s go get a big glass of wine and a biscuit, and then head upstairs to bed. No reason to stay down here any longer than we have to.”
She uncurled herself, jumped off the sofa, and trotted after me into the kitchen.
Mendoza showed up at seven Monday morning, which was earlier than I’d expected but not an imposition for all that.
I’d gone to bed after two tranquil hours of HGTV, thinking I was calm and relaxed and that everything was fine.
Recurrent nightmares full of blood—not red paint—and shadows sneaking around my house disabused me of that notion.
When I woke with a shriek for the second time—setting Edwina off again, and giving both of us a heart attack—I gave up on sleep and headed down to the kitchen, where I drank too many cups of coffee while I kept walking into the hallway to look at the red-spattered glass in the door.
Edwina heard Mendoza arrive first, and announced his presence with her usual frenzied barking.
I watched through the paint streaks as he got out of the Jeep and peered at the door for a moment before fishing a brown paper bag out of the Jeep.
He headed around the corner, and I followed along inside the house and met him at the kitchen door.
He looked annoyingly well-rested for someone who’d probably worked until after midnight.
That’s youth for you. I’d done my best with eyedrops and makeup, but nothing could hide the fact that I was a forty-year-old widow who’d had a bad night’s sleep.
“Morning,” Mendoza said brightly. “I brought breakfast.”
“Kind of you.” I stepped aside to let him in, and Edwina immediately launched herself at his legs. He handed off the bag before crouching down to greet her properly, scratching behind her ears while she wriggled with joy.
“At least someone’s happy to see me,” he observed.
“She has questionable taste in men,” I answered, and then wanted to kick myself when his dimple appeared. “I’m happy to see you, too. And not just because you brought me… what’s this?”
Whatever it was, it smelled divine. It also smelled like about a thousand calories, which he didn’t have to worry about, but I definitely did.
“Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich,” Mendoza said and stood up. His knees didn’t even crack, the bastard.
“Are you trying to fatten me up?”
He grinned. “Just feed you. I thought, after last night, you might not have felt like cooking.”
I hadn’t. Just the thought of food turned my stomach. But now, holding the bag and smelling the bacon and hot biscuit, my stomach couldn’t have been happier, exorbitant calorie count aside. I’d just have to do an extra twenty minutes on the elliptical tomorrow.
“Let’s take a look at that door,” Mendoza said, and headed down the hallway. I put the bag down on the kitchen island—Edwina’s nose twitched, and she looked from the bag to Mendoza and back, as if she couldn’t decide who—or which—mattered more.
I followed Mendoza, of course—there was no contest for me—and tried to keep my eyes off his rear end in the faded jeans he favored.
In the morning light, the red streaks did look less like blood and more like what they were: cheap red paint, garish and obvious against the dark wood of the door. Still jarring, but not as sinister as they had seemed last night.
Mendoza opened the door and stepped out, careful not to get his sneakers into the puddle of red that had pooled at the bottom of the door.
I assumed it would be dry by now, but it was probably best not to take any chances.
He walked back and forth slowly, examining the splatter pattern, the pooling on the threshold, the way the paint had run down the wood grain.
He pulled out his phone and took several photos from different angles.
“I didn’t see a paint can when I drove up,” he said eventually. “I’ll check the trash can and recycling bin, but most likely whoever did this took the can with them when they left. It’s what most people would do.”
“Of course they did.” I wrapped my arms around myself. “Why leave evidence when you don’t have to?”
He nodded. “Exactly. What time did you get in last night?”