Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder (17 page)

“Thanks for inviting me. I can use a strong shoulder to lean on right now.”

“You got it.”

Warren, hand on her elbow, steered her through the open door into the club. As they walked by the round table in the center of the front hall, Lori said, “What a lovely scent.”

“The smell of money is always refreshing.”

Lori laughed. “I meant the flowers.” In the center of the table, a green ceramic pot held a tall grouping of yellow daylilies and lavender.

“They cost money, too.” Warren turned to her. “You look great, by the way. Divorce suits you.”

Lori had dressed up for the club in an off-white linen pantsuit she had taken pains to iron this morning. She was even wearing heels. She had only been here once before, for a Saturday dinner with Rob, Margot, and Warren. She remembered how shabbily dressed she had felt compared to the designer outfits the other women were wearing. And fat.

“I made a few phone calls.” Warren knew a lot of the power brokers of the city, was on chatting terms with the mayor. Born on a chicken farm in New Jersey, he had made his wealth from hard work and sound investments. Still holding on to Lori’s elbow, he walked her through the main room of the club, which was decorated in an array of green, tan, and pink stripes and plaids and a large quantity of mismatched throw pillows. “Your car is clean. They’ll probably bring it back tomorrow. If not, you’ll get it Monday.” As Warren walked, he nodded at the various members who crossed their paths on the way to the patio in the back. The women were in tennis shorts, khakis, Bermudas. Even jeans. So this time Lori was overdressed. Well, she wasn’t going to let it get to her. “Turn it around,” Ellie used to tell her when she’d come home from school moping about some embarrassment. She wasn’t overdressed. Those women were under-dressed. Besides, she had all that cream on her, which was bound to turn her into a thirty-year-old beauty any minute.

The patio was covered in flagstone and overlooked a vast lawn edged by flower beds filled with hothouse dahlias of every color possible. Warren chose a table far to one side, under a blue striped awning. Lori would have preferred to sit in the sun, but said nothing. Her face might start oozing.

“Let’s have a drink and then order.” Warren held out a chair for her.

How nice,
Lori thought as she sat down. It was a habit Rob had dropped once they’d married.

Warren sat next to her. “You’re not in a hurry, are you?”

“No. Jessica is happily at Playland with Angie for the day.”

“Angie is trying to take good care of her.”

“I know. She’s been wonderful. You’re lucky.”

“So are you. With our children, that is. Our mates a little less so. By the way, I’d like to take the girls up to Cape Cod tomorrow afternoon. I have some business I need to look into early Saturday. Would that be all right with you?”

Warren’s request flustered Lori. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask Jess. And with what Rob’s going through, she might not want to leave so quickly.” She was the one who didn’t want Jess to go.

“It’s the best thing for her.”

“Yes, I know it is.” But still.

“If you prefer, she can fly to Boston on Monday and we’ll pick her up.”

“I’ll let you know tonight.” She had been counting on a Sunday with Jess. Mrs. Ashe’s dinner over with, she would be free to take Jess to the beach, to the city, to anywhere she wanted to go. A chance to indulge in her daughter’s company before the void of the next two weeks.

A Filipino waiter with a round face and a wide smile asked, “Mr. Dixon, the usual?”

“Yes, Arnold. What will you have, Lori?”

“A Virgin Mary, thank you.”

“After what you’ve been through, make it a bloody.”

She’d fall asleep after lunch. “Sure. Why not?”

Warren held out his hand once the waiter left. “Give me a dollar.”

Lori opened her handbag and looked into her wallet. She wasn’t sure why Warren wanted money from her. “I only have a fiver.” She dropped the bill onto Warren’s open palm.

“Five will do. This is payment. Not a loan.”

“Cheap drink,” Lori said, still having no idea what this was about.

The waiter brought the drinks and two menus over to their table. Warren’s usual turned out to be beer on the rocks. “You have just hired me as your lawyer. I can now claim lawyer-client privilege, which means whatever you say to me stays with me. You understand?”

Lori stirred the carrot stick around in her glass, took a sip. She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or grateful. Annoyed that Warren thought she had something incriminating to say. Grateful that he wanted to help. Lori took a bigger sip. The spices and Tabasco zinged in her mouth, gave her courage. “I didn’t kill her, Warren,” she said in a low voice, “and if you don’t believe me I’m going to leave and never speak to you again.”

Warren brought his chair closer. “I would mind that very much but, dear Lori, believing innocence or guilt is not my job. And it won’t be your defense lawyer’s job either, should you need one. What I’m trying to find out from you is if the DA can come after you or not. For instance, why didn’t you answer your phone the night of the murder? Margot had to call you on your cell phone to get you.”

“I was home, in and out of sleep, waiting for Jess to call. I called the phone company this morning. They insisted there was no disruption of service. I can’t explain it.” She raised her glass and drank, hoping the alcohol would relax her. “Even if I’d inadvertently unplugged the phone, I would have had to re-plug it because I used it the next morning. I don’t remember doing that. Warren, I don’t know what happened.”

“Could someone else have unplugged and re-plugged it?”

“No one was at the house that night.” Lori tried to remember back to Monday afternoon. She’d been drinking wine with Beth, telling her about slapping Valerie. Margot called to invite her and Beth to dinner. She was pretty sure that had been on the home phone. She remembered not wanting to answer it because Beth was upset. Could Beth have unplugged the phone? What for? She had left shortly after that. And if Beth had unplugged it for some strange reason, who had re-plugged it? The next day the phone was working. “The phone company has got to be wrong,” Lori said. “There’s no other explanation.”

“It doesn’t look good, but I think you’ll be okay. Let’s order and then I’ll tell you why. I always have the same thing, but you choose what you want. The chef here is great.”

Lori picked up the menu. There was nothing like food to distract. A basket of toasted and buttered pita bread appeared as she glanced at the choices. Too many. She was tempted by the hamburger with mozzarella and bacon, the apple pancake with sour cream, the chicken quesadilla with cheddar cheese, avocado, and salsa, but after hearing the handsome slim woman two tables away ordering a junior Cobb salad without the blue cheese and house dressing on the side, Lori ordered the same. When in a foreign country do as the natives do, Ellie always told her clients. The waiter had no need to ask Warren what he wanted.

“You’re a creature of habit,” Lori said.

“I don’t do well with change. Comes from having a shaky childhood. My parents were drunks.”

This personal revelation surprised Lori. Warren came across as such a confident, well-balanced man that she had pictured him coming from a strong, supportive family. “I’m so sorry. It must have been very difficult, but look how well you’ve done.”

“It’s not information I share easily.”

To lighten the moment, she said, “Maybe you should pay me a dollar, then.”

Warren set his dark hooded eyes on her, his expression carved in stone. She suddenly felt like a deer being met by headlights, and for a fleeting moment Lori wondered if he were capable of physically hurting someone. She shook the thought away when he said, “You’re Margot’s friend, which makes you my friend. I trust you.”

Lori smiled at him. She was in a sorry state to have such an awful thought.

“Not liking change,” Warren said, after a long swallow of beer, “is one of the reasons I still pine for my wife. I also like having my way. I’ll get her back one day. Maybe not till she’s old, but I’ll get her back. And now for the interesting news. Rob—”

The waiter interrupted them by bringing Lori’s Cobb salad and Warren’s club sandwich.

Warren waited until the waiter was out of earshot to continue. “Rob is now in the hot seat.” He kept his voice low. “He’s being looked at very carefully by the Hawthorne Park Homicide Squad.”

“Because of Valerie’s will?”

Warren raised an eyebrow. “You know about that?” He didn’t seem pleased.

“My mother has connections.”

Warren bit into his club sandwich. It was huge, but so was his mouth. “Of course she has connections, she’s Italian,” he said, after he’d swallowed.

“Not nice, Warren.”

“You’re right. I apologize. I wanted the kick of surprising you with the news. Forgive me?”

“Of course.” She had heard many worse slurs against Italians in her lifetime. So many she was almost turning a deaf ear. Almost.

“Who’s your mother’s connection?” Warren asked.

“A friend of a friend.”

“You’re sounding vague.”

“That’s all I know.” Lori didn’t want to mention Joey Pellegrino’s name. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe because of Warren’s curiosity. Maybe because Ellie had a crush on Joey. For all she knew, they might even be having an affair. “Is it important who the connection is?”

Warren sat back and sipped his beer. “No. One thing I bet you don’t know is how much Rob is getting.”

“Please don’t tell me, Warren. I find it painful.”

Warren reached over and took her hand. “God, Lori, I don’t know what’s the matter with me. Of course it hurts.”

Lori slipped her hand back onto her lap. She wasn’t hungry anymore. Because of Jessica, she was worried about Rob. “They can’t really think Rob would be so stupid as to kill his wife on the same day that she changed her will, can they?”

“Sure they can. He had opportunity—that excuse about feeling sick wouldn’t convince an addled sheep. He had means—”

Lori started to object. He waved his hand to stop her. “Yes, I know, anyone can pick up a gun without making a dent in their wallet, but motive is the clincher. By signing over her money to him on her death, Valerie gave Rob the number one motive for murder. Greed.”

“You looked into his money situation for my divorce. Did you see anything that spelled trouble? Did Rob have debts?

Were there risky investments? Anything that might show he was in desperate need of money?”

“His accounts looked okay to me. He had some real estate investments that had done very well for him. Some high tech stuff I would have stayed away from, but he didn’t put in a lot of money, so even if the tech stuff went south, it wouldn’t hurt him. Of course, in divorce cases you get shown what they want to show you. For all we know, Rob could have made investments offshore. You didn’t want me to investigate that, remember?”

“I remember.” Lori had wanted to keep the divorce as dignified as possible.

Because Warren was eyeing her untouched plate, Lori took a bite, chewed slowly, swallowed. She eyed the woman two tables away, who was eating her Cobb salad with relish. To Lori it tasted of straw. “Rob didn’t kill her,” she said. That much she did know about her ex.

“That’s not the point. The point is he’s being investigated big-time, which means you are probably off the hook and that’s good news. Yes, I know you’re thinking about Jessica. All the more reason to let me take her to Cape Cod tomorrow. Get her away from here before she sniffs out that her sweet daddy might get indicted for murder. Has the media been hounding you?”

“A couple of reporters showed up at the house and I screen my calls.” Lori pushed the plate away. “What if Valerie was not the intended victim? What if the killer thought he was shooting at Rob?”

Warren looked up from his sandwich, eyes alert. “Have you got a motive besides jealousy?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then let’s not go there. Because if Rob was the intended victim, you’re going to start looking good again to those two idiots on the case.” Warren leaned forward his chair, beer mug and plate empty. “How about some ice cream? Guaranteed to slide down your throat no matter how upset you are.” He patted her arm. “Give it a try.”

He looked worried for her, so Lori said yes. Warren called Arnold over to order two chocolate ice creams and two coffees. While they waited, Warren said, “There’s a new man in Margot’s life.”

“I don’t think so,” she said in a soft voice to counter the bitterness of his.

“I want to know who it is. Can you do that for me?”

“If it was anyone important to her, Margot would tell me,” Lori said. “Women friends usually share that kind of information.” Even if she did know anything, which she didn’t, she wouldn’t rat to Warren. Margot was her friend first. “What makes you think she’s dating someone?”

“She looks more beautiful. She’s more relaxed. I’ve been through this before, of course. I get jealous each time, but I’ve never been worried. As you know, Margot has short-lived crushes—a month, two at the most, then she moves on like a bee to the next flower. She’s always told me about them if I asked. This time when I ask she gets angry, which tells me whoever it is, he’s important to her.” Warren took a cigar from his breast pocket, unwrapped it, snipped off the end with a gadget that looked like a mini guillotine. He contemplated the cigar for a moment—a cigar he was not allowed to smoke on the premises—with a rueful look, which he then shifted to Lori. “I’m a fool and I’m embarrassing you.”

It was true that he’d embarrassed her, but instead of thinking him a fool, Lori felt sorry for him. “Loving her so much must be very painful.”

“I don’t wish that kind of obsession on anyone.” Warren tucked his unlit cigar back in his breast pocket. “For you to tell me anything about Margot’s love life would be an egregious breach of loyalty on your part. I am the first to appreciate that. Can you forget I asked?”

“Of course,” Lori said just as the ice cream came. As they ate, Warren asked about her trip to Italy, about her plans to be a caterer, wanted her business cards as soon as they were ready to give out to friends at the club. He was caring and gentle, and Lori forgot the moment when his gaze had frightened her.