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Luther opened up his very clean ashtray and plucked out a peppermint, unwrapping it expertly and quickly. At times like this, he wanted a cigarette so bad he could almost taste it.
Truth was, another pair of eyes would be a good idea. Russell looked at everything from a different slant, and, like it or not, that made them good partners. What one missed, the other often saw.
“Sure,” he said. “And don’t forget to bring your ID.”
Russell growled, and Luther smiled. The last time they’d gone out for a drink, Mikey had gotten carded.
“Dress casual, and let’s go in separately and keep it that way.” Yeah, another pair of eyes would be great. “There’s a barmaid about your age, pretty girl named Lizzy. You can cozy up to her and pick her brain over the next few days.”
Russell nodded. The kid loved undercover work, even something as simple as this. “That’s great. What about Cleo? Should I try to pick her brain, too?”
It was true, Luther usually let Russell interrogate the women. They just seemed to crumple when he smiled and asked them questions. A woman who was intimidated by Luther would fold in a heartbeat for Mikey.
But he had a feeling Cleo never folded. Besides, she’d chew the kid up and spit him out before he had a clue he was in trouble. Besides…
“Cleo is mine.”
Chapter 4
The last person Cleo needed or wanted to see, as she pushed through the club door, was Malone. The man was a menace. And he stood at the bar talking to Edgar as if he owned the place! Confident, supremely relaxed, he looked like he belonged here as much as she did. And it was her place!
He turned to watch her walk toward him, his eyes squinted against the afternoon sun that shone brightly behind her as the door swung slowly shut.
“We’re not open yet,” she said.
“I know.” Malone nodded to Edgar. “He let me in.”
First Syd and now Edgar! Her friends were turning against her. Cleo gave Edgar a warning glare, and received a shrug in return. She headed for the office, and heard the annoying clip of Malone’s step as he fell in behind her.
“I suppose you’re here for a reason,” Cleo said, without glancing over her shoulder.
“Maybe I just wanted to say hello.”
Cleo snorted softly as she opened her office door. “You don’t strike me as a social butterfly, Malone. I doubt you ever drop by anywhere just to say hello.”
Every nerve in her body went on alert when he shut the office door behind him. She didn’t like being this close to him, pinned in, wondering why he was here. She didn’t have to wonder long.
“Jack didn’t jump,” Malone said curtly.
Her heart lurched. “How can you be sure?”
“He was probably unconscious when he went off…when he died. There was a substantial amount of a drug in his blood—not enough to kill him, but more than enough to knock him on his ass for a while.”
Cleo rounded the desk and sat down. Something about Malone and the news he always carried with him made her knees weak. “Maybe he took it on purpose. Trust me, Jack wasn’t above a little recreational—”
“No grown man uses furniture polish for recreational purposes,” Malone interrupted. “Even if it is a furniture polish that takes a nasty turn when ingested.”
Cleo tilted her head back and looked up at the detective. Usually she didn’t care for this position. She preferred eye-to-eye and nose-to-nose. Not right now. “So somebody gave Jack something to make him…easy to handle, and then pushed him off the roof?”
Malone stood on the other side of her desk, his eyes on her. Did he still think she might have killed Jack? For the first time, Cleo was really scared. No one had wanted to see Jack dead more than she. If she were investigating the case, she’d definitely suspect her.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Malone continued. “There are easier ways to kill an unconscious man than throwing him off a roof. It looks like he was already out of it when he was taken up there. That wasn’t easy.”
Cleo swallowed, wanting nothing more than for this man to leave. Quietly. Without another word. Without another opportunity for argument. “Why are you telling me this?”
Malone placed his hands on the desk and leaned forward, bringing his face close to hers. Eye-to-eye, nose-to-nose. “I don’t think you killed him,” he said. “But I think you know the man who did.”
“How do you know it’s a man?”
“Ever tried to drag a body up several flights of stairs, across a roof, and then toss it over the side? There was a four-foot rail. Whoever tossed Jack over had the strength to lift that unconscious body over the rail. You don’t have that kind of strength.”
She wanted to argue with him. These days she didn’t let any man tell her what she could and could not do! But he was right. And she would be a complete fool to argue with him about that particular point.
“Why do you think I know the man who killed Jack?”
Malone shook his head. “If whoever did this just wanted Tempest dead, he could’ve poured more furniture polish down his throat, or smothered him with a pillow. The job could have been finished in any one of a dozen other ways that were simpler and cleaner than this. That’s not what happened. When the killer tossed Jack and the grapefruit over the side of the building, he was sending a message.”
“To me?” Cleo whispered.
“To you.”
Malone backed away slowly, and withdrew a small notebook from his jacket pocket. A slim pen followed. The way he sat there, half sitting, half leaning against her desk, made his dark jacket gape open. His shoulder holster rested at his side, snug and somehow natural looking against the plain white shirt. The gun housed there was small, a compact.
“I’m going to need the names of everyone you’ve dated in the past two years.”
“I don’t date.”
Malone latched his dark eyes to hers. “Come on, Ms. Tanner. You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”
His skepticism stole away her fear and made her angry. Thank goodness. She much preferred anger. “I have my own business, Detective Malone. It keeps me quite busy.”
“Too busy for…” He let the question die away.
“Yes,” she snapped. “Too busy for.”
He closed the notebook and returned it, and the pen, to his pocket. Very smoothly, he traded the implements of his profession for a wrapped candy, a strawberry-shaped sweet he deftly unwrapped and popped into his mouth.
“What’s with the candy, anyway?” she asked sharply. “You have a sweet tooth or something?”
“I ask the questions here.”
She ignored him. “Are you determined to buy your dentist a new car?”
He laid his dark eyes on her. “If you must know, when I quit smoking I relied on candy to help me get by. Now I have to find a way to get rid of the candy.”
Cleo smiled. “Oral fixation.”
“Excuse me?”
“You just traded one oral fixation for another.” She rather liked the fact that such a hard, seemingly perfect, man had a weakness. Even if it was for something so ordinary as hard candy.
“Thank you, Dr. Tanner,” he said dryly. “But now that we’re through analyzing me, let’s get back to—”
“So the only way to get rid of the candy,” she interrupted, “is to trade it for another oral fix. Back to cigarettes?” she teased. “Or maybe you can start sucking your thumb.”
Cleo was so sure she had the upper hand with this latest turn in the conversation, and then Malone threw her for a loop without uttering a single word.
He stared at her mouth.
“I, uh, haven’t dated in the past two years, I swear,” she said, lowering her voice. “To be honest, it’s been a lot longer than two years.”
Malone allowed his gaze to drift upward. “There must’ve been someone.”
Cleo shook her head. And felt guilty for not telling Malone the truth when he’d asked about the roses. Knowing what she knew now, she had no choice.
“I have had a secret admirer sending me notes and flowers for the past four months,” she said, trying to sound casual. “It’s the sort of thing that happens all the time when—”
“A secret admirer?” Malone asked, shooting up off the desk and standing tall, and menacing, before her. “And you just now tell me about it?”
“I didn’t think—”
“No, you didn’t.”
She took a deep breath to calm herself. Malone had every right to be peeved, but there was no reason for him to lose his cool. She was certain the man who had written her those innocent letters couldn’t possibly be a murderer. “The letters are very sweet, and he sends me flowers about once a month. That hardly makes him an obsessed madman.”
Should she tell him about Eric and her stray thought that he might be the man sending her notes and roses? No. Eric didn’t have a violent bone in his body. Turning Malone on him would be downright cruel. And senseless. There was no way Eric could have killed Jack. Oh, but she was going to have to talk to Eric and Edgar about lying for her! Their intentions had been good, she knew, but sooner or later the truth would have to be told. Sooner would be better.
“Tell me you kept the letters,” Malone muttered.
Cleo sighed. “Yes. They seemed more like fan letters than any kind of threat.” She slid open the bottom drawer of her desk and riffled through the small stack of bills there. She kept the notes and other fan letters she got on occasion, just beneath the bills. As she searched, a sharp discomfort grew. “They’re not here,” she said.
“What?” Malone rounded the desk and dropped down to his haunches to search the drawer himself. He pulled out his pen and used it to lift the bills and other papers in the drawer, being careful not to actually touch anything.
“I’m telling you,” Cleo said, “they’re not here.”
“When did you see them last?”
“A few days ago,” Cleo said. “Maybe last week.”
“Don’t touch anything else,” he ordered, glancing up at her. “I’m going to have the office dusted for prints.”
Cleo grinned. “Do you have any idea how many people are in and out of this place? And I haven’t polished this desk in…okay, I’ve never polished this desk. It’s got to be covered with prints.”
“It’s a long shot, I know,” Malone said as he stood. “But right now, it’s all we’ve got.” He offered his hand to help Cleo to her feet. “Except you.”
For a split second he had thought she was lying. How did a woman who looked like this one go so long without a date? He could see guys lining up to date Cleo, and he could see her going through them the way a normal woman went through tissues. Use one and toss it away. Grab another.
But that thought hadn’t lasted long. The man-eater toughness was a part of her act; it was the way she kept men away. Thanks to Jack, he imagined.
Luther sat at a table near the center of the room. From here he could see everything. Lizzy, her long brown ponytail swaying as she leaned against the bar, Edgar barely mouthing the words to the song Cleo was singing, customers scattered about the room with drinks before them and their eyes and attention on the stage.
And Mikey sitting in the corner. Once he’d come in and made himself comfortable, he’d started hitting on Lizzy. And quite successfully, too. In his jeans and denim shirt, and wearing that devil-may-care smile, Russell looked nothing like a cop.
Right this minute, Russell behaved just the way all the other customers did. He stared at Cleo and listened closely. The place was so quiet as she sang. No one so much as whispered. Luther had scanned the room for a potential obsessed secret admirer, for a potential killer, but had seen nothing suspicious. So now he listened like the others.
She sang old forties tunes, mostly, in a resonant voice that filled the room and seeped beneath his skin. Cleo Tanner was a smart-mouthed, tough broad, but when she sang…when she sang there was nothing else. He could see it in her eyes, in her relaxed posture. She didn’t care if anyone listened, if the room was full or empty. She sang from the heart.
Of course she had secret admirers. There were probably a dozen men who came to listen to her sing and dreamed of being the one to break through her tough facade to find and claim that heart she sang so beautifully from.
Was one of them a killer? Would one of them kill Cleo’s ex-husband because he was a thorn in her side? Or was someone trying to point the finger in her direction to lead Luther away from the real killer? That supposition made just as much sense as anything else.
She was singing a heartrending version of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans,” when the couple arrived. Cretins, they talked to one another in normal voices and broke the spell that filled the room. Luther turned to watch them walk to the bar, removing their coats as they went, talking loudly even though they received a number of sharp glares.
The woman was tall, reed thin, and had her dark blond hair cut in a chin-length bob. Her coat was expensive. So were the diamonds in her ears and on her fingers. Money. The big fella who walked beside her carried himself like a man who was accustomed to being waited on. His well-cut suit downplayed his size. The watch on his wrist was gold. More money.
Edgar shushed the noisy couple when they reached the bar, and in turn they both pursed their mouths in disapproval. But they did shut up. The others in the room returned their attention to the stage.
Luther listened to Cleo, but he kept his eyes on the newly arrived couple. They didn’t belong here. They were country club people who held themselves stiffly, as if to touch anything in this place would dirty them. Eventually they laid their eyes on Cleo, and he could have sworn the woman sighed and shook her head just slightly.
Cleo was finishing up with “Do Nothin’ Till You Hear from Me,” when a cell phone rang. The patrons knew where that noise came from, and several turned to glare at the well-dressed man who dug in his jacket pocket to retrieve his phone. One customer, a small, elderly fellow, tossed a balled-up napkin in the couple’s direction as the man answered and stepped toward the corner of the room, one hand to his ear so he could hear.
Cleo left the stage to a hearty round of applause. God, half the men in the room were in love with her, Mikey included. And she didn’t know it, Luther realized as she left the stage. She had no idea how her voice and her appearance sucked a man in.
If she’d known where his mind had taken him this afternoon when she’d started talking about “oral fixation,” she would’ve kicked him out of her place by now.
Cleo walked to the bar, where Edgar had a glass of water waiting. Luther headed in the same direction, hoping to arrive about the same time she did. The sight of the tall blond waiting at the bar caused Cleo’s step to falter.
“Thea,” Cleo said as she reached the bar. “What are you doing here?”
The woman Cleo called Thea sighed. It seemed well-practiced. “We heard about Jack, and Palmer and I are here to offer our support.”
Cleo’s eyes flickered to the man in the corner. He had his back to them and was still talking on the phone. Was that panic he saw in Cleo’s eyes? Maybe. It was gone too quickly for him to be sure.
Luther stepped to the bar so he stood behind Cleo and could see everything that happened. He leaned there and nodded to Edgar, asking for another cup of coffee.
“Thank you,” Cleo said to the blonde. “But I really don’t need any support. I’m fine.”
“Cleo, your ex-husband was murdered,” Thea said, lowering her voice.
“I know that,” Cleo answered. “I appreciate you coming, but there’s nothing you can do.”
Thea, who had obviously hoped for a warmer welcome, squared her shoulders. “Well, we will at least stay for the funeral. Someone should represent the family. When will it be held?”
Cleo turned slightly and tilted her head back to look at Luther. “Do you know when the funeral is?”
“Friday.”
Cleo dropped her eyes and returned her attention to Thea, who leaned to one side to get a glimpse of the man Cleo had spoken to.
