A Body to Die For (23 page)

He thought for a second, giving nothing away by his expression.

“I want to drop this off at the station before we have dinner,” he said. “There’s a very good chance it
was
from the murderer. And you, miss, need to be very careful.”

“How fortunate, then, that I have a police escort for the night.”

He looked mildly bemused by my comment. I knew, of course, that the mouse
might
be from the murderer, but there was another possibility, one that I couldn’t share with him. The mouse might be a warning
from someone involved in release massage at the spa.

I fastened my seat belt and noticed that Beck didn’t bother with his. Maybe that was why I liked him. Even though he was a
cop, I suspected he had a renegade side—and I’d always been a sucker for that. With my infatuation for Jack, I’d hoped I’d
finally burned off the last of my bad boy fascination, but maybe I really hadn’t.

Beck had no apparent interest in making small talk during the ride, and that was okay with me. My wise-ass comments were going
to be boring even me before long, but I wasn’t sure how else to play it. Shutting up seemed to be the best strategy. We rode
in silence, with me glancing from time to time surreptitiously in his direction. It was hard to see much in the green glow
from the dashboard.

The stop at the station took about fifteen minutes. He left me in the car with the heat running and the radio on. I started
to relax a bit, to feel less nervous about the notion of being with him. The minute he slid back into the car, however, my
heart took off at a reckless gallop again.

Leo’s turned out to be one of those old-style Italian places with red-and-white-checked tablecloths and a poorly painted mural
of Venice on the wall. It was half-filled with diners, though most of them seemed to be in the final stages of their meals.
The owner greeted Beck with a nod of recognition and led us to a table at the far back, with empty tables on either side.

I ordered a glass of Chianti, and Beck did as well. He was off duty, he’d said. I guessed he must have still been wearing
his holster and gun, however, because he hadn’t taken off his suede jacket.

“Do you come here a lot?” I asked, switching from cocky comebacks to hackneyed clichés.

“From time to time,” he said. “The food is decent. And it’s close. So what’s the deal with you and Mrs. Hubner? I thought
you were only doing some kind of work project for her?”

“Well, I am. But we’re also old family friends—she and my mother go way back. I thought I could be someone for her to lean
on this week. And besides, I needed to be sure you saw the mouse.”

He gazed at me with his deep blue eyes slightly squinted, as if he were calculating how much truth there was to what I said.

“She’s lucky to have you as a friend,” he said. His face was inscrutable.

“I’ve been lucky to know
her,
” I said. “I have to say, I was pretty shocked to hear that you’d been questioning George. What would his motive be?”

I knew he wouldn’t offer anything up, but I was interested in seeing how he’d go about shutting me down.

“You know I can’t discuss the case with you.”

“So you brought me here just for the pleasure of my company, then?”

“Like I told you, I wanted to keep you out of trouble,” he said with half a smile. “That’s my job.” He took a long sip of
his wine, watching me all the time over the rim of his glass.

“All right, fine, I won’t try to discuss the case with you. There’s just one thing I think is important for me to mention.
William Litchauer’s son, Matt? I had the unfortunate experience of meeting him, and he’s a very angry man. Anna’s sister told
Danny and me that Anna thought she was being followed last summer, right around the time Litchauer’s father died at the spa.
Shouldn’t he be considered a suspect? Maybe he wanted to avenge his father’s death.”

Beck’s eyebrows had risen a millimeter as I spoke, and I was sure I was about to get a lecture on the value of minding my
own business. But I didn’t.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, straightening his knife on the table. “Since you’ve been so nice to do some thinking on behalf
of the police department, I’m going to share one fact about the case with you. And then we’re going to order dinner and not
talk about it anymore. Mr. Litchauer has a rock-solid alibi. He was in his bar that night and never left the premises according
to the twenty people we interviewed.”

I wanted to press for more details, but Beck had said all he was going to—and I didn’t want to annoy him.

The waiter returned, and without having glanced at the menu, Beck asked for a veal chop. I ordered the chicken with white
wine and mushrooms.

“How come you’re able to get away from your job so easily?” Beck asked, pushing his chair back from the table as if the space
constricted him.

“I’m a freelancer,” I said. “I write for a bunch of different places, and I do most of it out of my apartment. One magazine
has me under contract for six or so articles a year, and I have a tiny office there. But I can come and go as I please.”

He asked about the types of articles I did, and I described a few stories I’d worked on, intentionally picking some human-interest
ones. Beck wasn’t stupid. He knew I wrote crime stories and that I was intrigued with Anna’s death. But if I rattled on about
my crime pieces, he might begin to suspect just how much I liked detective work—and the real reason I’d come back to the Cedar
Inn.

“What about you?” I asked. “How did you end up becoming a cop? You’re not from one of those cop families, are you?”

“No,” he said with a wry smile. “My father, believe it or not, is a retired banker. My parents were horrified when I decided
to do this.”

“Where are you from?”

“Chicago.”

“Right in the city?”

“Suburbs, actually.”

“So then how did a banker’s son go into law enforcement?” I asked.

“I had planned to go to law school after college and become a trial lawyer, but I spent a summer as an intern in a law firm
and I hated it. I started questioning what had made me want to go down that road to begin with. And I realized that it was
law enforcement that fascinated me.”

He’d been to college and considered law school. My assessment of him required some revision.

“So how did you end up in this area?” I asked.

“I’d spent some vacation time in the Berkshires. The town’s a decent size. Not so quiet that the only thing you ever do on
Saturday night is throw guys in the drunk tank. But on the other hand, you’re not dealing with crackheads and gang shootings.
Plus, there’s an interesting mix of people. You’ve got the locals with their basic issues, but also the tourists. They’re
always full of surprises.”

“Are you including me in that mix?”

“I guess I’d say you’re a tourist. And you are definitely full of surprises.”

“So are you.”

“Is that right? How so?”

“For one thing, you live alone. I would expect a guy like you to be married by now.”

“A guy like me?” he asked.

“Successful, attractive.”

“I could say the same about you.”

“I was married once. It was a disaster. Have you ever tried it—marriage, I mean?”

“No, never. I’d like to, I think. Someday. I just haven’t been ready.”

So he was gun-shy, like me. An image of Jack came unbidden to my mind, accompanied by a side order of guilt. I pushed it away.
After all, it wasn’t as if I was out on a date with Beck.

Our dinner came and Beck ordered a second glass of wine. I didn’t because I already felt a buzz from nerves. I sensed that
he didn’t want to linger on the personal stuff, so while we ate I asked him what kinds of murder cases turned up in this area.
And though he flashed me a look that seemed to say, Don’t even
think
about luring me back to a discussion of Anna Cole’s murder, he described several cases he’d overseen, including one in which
a nineteen-year-old girl had chopped off her mother’s head. It was clear he liked talking about his work, and for the first
time since I’d met him, he seemed to relax. I listened with my head lowered just a bit because I couldn’t bear to look at
him straight on. It felt too intense, a little dangerous, like staring at someone on the New York City subway. Earlier I’d
thought my attraction to him was just a physical thing, but tonight I could see that he was smart and intriguing.

Before our coffee came, I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room. In the mirror I noticed that my face was flushed. Nothing
serious, just the same degree of red you’d see on someone who’d been scorched by a blowtorch or was in the throes of scarlet
fever. Though how I felt was obvious, what
wasn’t
clear was where this was headed. There was a chance that he’d taken me out tonight just to figure out what my agenda was.
Yet never once in the evening had he pumped me—about Danny or George or the case. But even if he truly was attracted to me,
dating might very well be against the rules. And that might be a good thing. Not only was I supposedly trying to rekindle
my romance with Jack (and burning a hole in the bed in the process), but there was an even bigger geography issue with Beck
than with Jack. Did I really want to start something with a guy who was a three and a half hour drive away? There was the
fling option, of course. Would that be so terrible?

Once I was back at the table, he allowed me two sips of my coffee before he glanced at his scuffed leather watch.

“I better get you back to the inn or they’ll call the police,” he said. I offered to pay half the check, but he shook his
head as if I were being silly.

We drove the whole way back in silence. I felt nervous suddenly, as if I were a high school sophomore on my first date with
someone.

“I’ll wait till you get inside,” he said as we pulled up in front of the inn.

“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for dinner.”

“See,” he said. “I don’t bite.”

“That’s too bad.” God, one glass of wine and I’d thrown all caution to the wind.

He leaned over, reached behind the back of my neck with his hand, and pulled me toward him, kissing me hard on the mouth.
I could taste the wine on his breath. His tongue found its way into my mouth for just a second, and then he pulled away.

“Good night,” he said, his voice deeper than usual.

I said nothing, just looked briefly into his eyes and slid out of the car. He had said he’d wait to leave until I was safely
inside, and it wasn’t until I shut the door that I heard him gun the engine and take off. The older dude was at the reception
desk, talking on the telephone. Otherwise the place was empty. I raced up the stairs two at a time, my key already in my hand,
and hurried down the hall to my suite. The floor made a creaking sound and I turned quickly to check behind me, but there
was nothing there.

Once I was in my room, I slammed the door behind me, bolted it, and leaned against it, breathless. I felt like someone who
had just shoplifted a pair of diamond stud earrings: guilty and deliriously giddy at the same time.

Giddy because I had liked that kiss, reckless as it had seemed. And guilty because of Jack. I’d offered to give things a go
with him, thrashed around in the sack with him, promised to see him Saturday night, and now I was considering a fling with
Beck. Yet at this point I hardly owed Jack my fidelity. He’d bolted this summer, and as far as I knew, he could do it again.

I kicked off my shoes, stripped off my clothes, and padded across the room in my underwear to get a nightshirt from my bag.
Earlier I’d unpacked just the stuff that could wrinkle. My hand stopped as it reached for the nightshirt. The three pairs
of socks that I had last seen balled together at the edge of the bag were now scattered apart. My mind raced replaying the
moments when I’d dressed for dinner earlier. I was positive they’d been in one particular location, because I remembered noting
that I hadn’t brought my warm ones. Someone had searched through my things.

I
SWUNG MY
head around toward the bed to see if the chambermaid had turned down my sheets. No. Taking a deep breath, I searched through
my bag to see if anything was missing. There wasn’t. Next I checked the closet. Everything looked normal, though the flap
on a jacket pocket was oddly askew and I didn’t think it had been that way before. As rattled as I felt, I was relieved I’d
stuck my composition book in my purse before going out.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I thought back to when I’d retrieved the cooler from my suite. I’d been in a hurry, anxious
to be back with Beck, but I’d made sure the door had closed firmly behind me. I was watching my back, after all. That meant
the snoop must have had access to room keys. Josh sprang to mind. He could have laid his hands on keys easily. So could Eric.
And George. In fact, anyone who worked at the inn probably could have. The one person on my suspect list who wouldn’t have
had entry was Matt Litchauer, who was looking less and less like a valid suspect.

I dragged a small rattan side table in front of the door. I knew no one could get in with both the dead bolt and chain on,
but I needed it for my peace of mind. Outside, the wind howled and rattled the windows. It felt more like November weather
than October. I dressed for bed slowly, letting my eyes scan the room for anything else that seemed odd or out of place, but
there was nothing. I turned off the lamp in the living area, but left the bathroom light on. Once in bed, I pulled the duvet
cover up to my chin. I lay there forever, thinking of Beck and the kiss and the mouse and everything.