Driven to Ink (32 page)

Maybe I wouldn’t find a body in my trunk when I came home from Lake Mead.

Ray Lucci was the impetus for all of this. What had he done that caused someone to kill him and stuff him in my trunk? That dead rat—Snowball—still nagged at me. I realized we were close now to Rosalie’s complex. I pointed it out, and Tim turned right. Fewer lights than before. I had a hard time distinguishing one area from another and got us lost a couple of times, Tim circling the parking lot.

“Someone’s going to call the cops thinking we’re casing the place,” Tim muttered.

Casing the place? I ignored him, not wanting to banter. I wasn’t in the mood.

Finally, I spotted Rosalie’s place. I recognized Bernie’s white rental car out front.

“How did you not see that the first two times we passed it?” Tim asked.

“We passed it two times?” I honestly hadn’t noticed.

He pulled up behind the white car and cut the engine. I peered out the windshield at the town house. No lights in any windows. Not even a glimmer or a glow.

“It’s not that late,” Tim mused.

I’d lost all track of time, and I could totally do with going to bed right now, so I wasn’t one to speculate on when Sylvia and Rosalie decided to retire.

We got out of the Jeep and went up the steps to the front door. I pushed the doorbell, and we could hear it echoing inside.

We waited.

And waited.

Finally, Tim pushed the doorbell again, and again we could hear it inside.

This time, however, we also heard footsteps. The curtain in the kitchen window next to the door fluttered, then the outside light went on over our heads. We heard the dead bolt unlatch, and the door opened. Rosalie’s head appeared around it.

“Brett?” she asked, her face scrunched up in a frown. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes moved from me to Tim, lingering on him for a second; then she added, “This must be your brother.”

No kidding. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt because she’d been asleep. Her hair was all mussed up, and she had little creases in the side of her face from the pillow.

“We’re looking for Sylvia,” I explained. “There’s been an accident. Jeff . . .” The words caught in my throat.

The door swung wide now, and Rosalie clutched her white bathrobe around her torso. “An accident?”

I nodded. “Jeff’s in the hospital.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“We need to see Sylvia,” Tim butted in. “She should be at the hospital when Jeff comes out of surgery. We’re going to take her there.”

Rosalie shook her head. “Sylvia’s not here. She and my dad had a big fight. I don’t know what it was all about, they wouldn’t tell me, but they left.”

“W
here did they go?”I asked.

Rosalie shrugged. “I figured they’d go back to Dad’s house. Or Sylvia’s, maybe.”

“Can we call your father?” Tim asked.

Rosalie stepped aside and let us come in. She led the way into the kitchen and to a phone on the counter. She picked up the receiver.

“Why is their rental car still here?” I asked while Rosalie dialed.

“They took my car,” she said. “Dad’s going to take it to the shop tomorrow morning for me. I need an oil change.” She put the phone back in its cradle. “No answer.”

“What about Sylvia?” I asked.

“You don’t have her number?” Rosalie asked.

I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t. I’d never needed to reach her anywhere but at Murder Ink. Neither Sylvia nor Bernie had cell phones, which was why we couldn’t reach them right after I found Ray Lucci in my trunk.

Rosalie was already dialing. Tim and I waited. Finally, she hung up, frowning. “That’s funny. No answer there, either.”

I had a bad feeling about this. Where could they be? On a whim, I took the phone and dialed Murder Ink but got only the recording saying the shop was closed.

“Where could they be?” I asked no one in particular.

I thought about how they’d disappeared after their wedding. It wasn’t unusual for Sylvia to do things spur of the moment, but considering Rosalie, I wouldn’t think Sylvia would run off again and not tell anyone where she was going.

Maybe she and Bernie had stopped off for a late drink somewhere.

I said as much to Tim, who shrugged, agreeing with the possibility. But Rosalie didn’t look so convinced, the worry etched into her forehead.

“What happened with Jeff? You said it was an accident?” she asked.

“He was taking me home,” I said, “and a car ran us off the road. And then the guy shot at us.”

“Someone shot at you? Who?”

“I don’t know. Could’ve been Dan Franklin. Or Will Parker. Or Martin Sanderson. Take your pick.”

“What are you talking about? Will? Dan?” Rosalie’s worry turned into confusion. “What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” I said.

“How well do you know the men your husband worked with?” Tim asked, turning into cop mode.

Rosalie’s eyes settled on the wall behind Tim as she shrugged. “Well, I work with Dan, so I know him pretty well.”

“How well?” Tim asked.

Her lips pressed together in a grim line for a second, then, “Not that well, if that’s what you’re implying. Lou thought the same thing.” Rosalie’s fingers went to her eye, where the remnants of the bruise remained. The gesture didn’t get past Tim, whose expression softened.

“Your husband did that,” he said matter-of-factly. “Dan Franklin must have known about that. Do you think that would have given him a reason to harm your husband?”

Rosalie frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”

“Did Franklin feel he had to avenge your honor or something? Did he feel he had to save you? Would he have killed your husband to do that?”

“It wasn’t like that,” she said.

“So tell me what it was like,” Tim said, more gently now.

Rosalie hung her head and brushed a lock of hair off her forehead and behind her ear. “They all told me to leave him,” she whispered. “But I couldn’t.”

I opened my mouth to ask why not, but Tim shot me a look and I stopped.

“I understand that, but would Franklin have taken matters into his own hands?”

She raised her eyes to Tim’s face, a small, sad smile tugging at her lips. “Lou was very intimidating. Even with men.”

“So you don’t think Franklin killed him? I mean, your husband got run down by a car. That’s not exactly a face-to-face confrontation that he could control.” Something had changed in Tim’s expression; the cop was gone. My brother, the one who protected me, had taken his place, but this time, I could see he was feeling protective toward Rosalie.

I started to get a little worried. Rosalie may have been a victim of domestic abuse, but it was clear she knew how to use her feminine wiles, so to speak, to bring a man over to her side. And a thought began to germinate. What if Franklin
had
run down Lou Marino, but she was the one who put the idea into his head? What if she had said some things at work that would have made him think about it? She couldn’t have been blind to how he felt about her, and maybe she wanted to see how far he’d go to save her. What if she was the mastermind behind her husband’s death?

Personally, I wouldn’t blame her. And there probably wasn’t a jury in the world that would convict her. Dr. Colin Bixby had tended to her injuries in the hospital. There were records that could prove years-long abuse.

Maybe Ray Lucci’s death had been the impetus. And Will Parker’s claim that a red convertible had tried to run him down. And then Lou got mugged. Maybe that was for real, and then she’d figured another attempt on his life would be more believable. She’d turned on the charm with Franklin, got him to feel sorry for her, and—
bam!
—he runs down Lou Marino.

Okay, so I was getting a little carried away. None of that would explain why he would go after Jeff and me. Unless that was a total non sequitur. Nothing at all to do with Lou Marino. And what about Ray Lucci and that clip cord and my car?

“Do you think Franklin could have killed Ray Lucci?” I asked Rosalie, without waiting to find out whether she thought he’d killed her husband.

Rosalie looked at the floor. After a few seconds of hesitation, she said firmly, “Dan Franklin did not kill Ray Lucci.” As though she knew that for a fact. And if she did . . .

“So who did?” Tim prodded, picking up on this, too.

She blinked several times and shrugged. “Why ask me?”

“Because I think you know something,” Tim said. “What is it? What do you know about Ray Lucci’s murder?”

“I—I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she insisted.

For a split second, I wondered whether she’d killed Lucci. But she must weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet, and Lucci was a big guy. Well, not so big he couldn’t fit in my trunk, but it would’ve been really difficult for Rosalie to have strangled him and then stuffed him in my car.

But she knew something. I was willing to bet on it. And in Vegas, bets are everything.

“If you know something, it would be best to tell us,” Tim said softly.

Rosalie sighed as she wrung her hands in front of her, her jaw tight. She was debating what she should say. I opened my mouth to ask another question, but Tim gave a short head shake and a glare, so I closed it again. He knew what he was doing. Me—well, I was just along for the ride.

Rosalie finally nodded. “Okay,” she said, her eyes locked with Tim’s. “I do know something, and I guess it doesn’t really matter now. Lou’s dead.”

As she paused, I wanted to scream, “Out with it!” but I didn’t think it would go over well. I forced myself to be patient.

Finally, when I thought I couldn’t stand it another minute, she spoke.

“Lou killed Ray Lucci.”

“W
hy?” Tim asked.

Me—I wanted to know how she knew, but he didn’t seem bothered by that at the moment.

“They got into an argument. Ray tried to kill him. He had a knife; Lou got all cut up.”

“So the story about the muggers—” I said.

“Wasn’t true,” Rosalie admitted. “The cuts he had were from the fight he had with Ray. He couldn’t tell anyone where he really got them.”

“But he told
you
,” Tim said.

Her lips quivered for a second, and then she whispered, “I was there.”

Tim and I exchanged a look before Tim said, “I think you should tell us what happened.”

We were still standing in her foyer, next to the table with the candles. The scent was starting to get to me, and I reached out and took Tim’s arm to steady myself.

“Come on in,” Rosalie said, leading the way into the living room. She gave a glance back at me, assessing my scrubs and tweed jacket. So I wasn’t ready for the runway. Not as though I didn’t know that.

I plopped down in a plush armchair, but as soon as I hit the seat, it was as if a million little daggers stabbed me in my back. I winced. Tim noticed.

“Are you okay?”

I blinked a few times to keep from crying. “I’m fine,” I said, not wanting to miss this.

Rosalie settled herself on the sofa, pulling her bathrobe close and crossing her arms in front of her chest. She had a sort of waifish look about her: long dark tresses cascading over her shoulders, large smoky eyes, and almost transparently white skin. I could see why men would want to protect her. Or overpower her.

She was quiet a few minutes, her eyes focused on the floor, her fingers fiddling with the sash on her bathrobe. Finally, she lifted her face and sighed. “I went over to the chapel that day, you know, to see my dad and Sylvia get married. I knew they were in the car and it wouldn’t be a normal type of wedding, but I was happy for him. Sylvia’s wonderful.” For a second, Rosalie’s face lit up with the memory, and then it faded. “When I got there, I thought I’d surprise Lou, too. So I went to the dressing room to see him. But he was really angry. He thought I was checking up on him. I tried to tell him I was there for my father, but he didn’t believe me.” She cast her eyes down into her lap. “He hit me.”

I was pretty sure where this was going. “Ray Lucci saw him do that, didn’t he?” I asked.

“Ray walked in right when Lou hit me,” Rosalie said, her voice still slightly more than a whisper. “Ray pulled me aside, asked if I was okay; I said he shouldn’t worry about me; he said something about how he hadn’t planned it this way, but circumstances called for it. He had a knife in a sort of sheath under his jacket, and he pulled it out. I screamed for him to stop, hoping someone would hear and come help, but no one came, and he nicked Lou a few times. But Lou knows how to throw a punch,” she said wryly, touching her eye again, “and he flattened Ray. At that point, I knew I couldn’t stop him. I just watched as he strangled him.”

Rosalie stopped, her eyes wide.

“Lou told me I couldn’t say anything. That if I did, the cops would come after me as some sort of accomplice. And then he’d have to kill me, too.”

“Accessory,” Tim corrected. “He lied to you, Rosalie. If you’d told the police what you witnessed, they would’ve been able to protect you from him.”

I could feel her fear, though. It was alive in this room, probably lurking under the sofa, the chair I was sitting in. She’d lived in fear of Lou Marino, and it wouldn’t have been too hard for him to convince her to keep quiet.

We all jumped when Tim’s cell phone started ringing. He took it off his belt, glanced at the caller ID, and stood, walking out of sight, down the hall and into the kitchen. I could hear him murmuring, but I couldn’t make out the words.

Rosalie shifted on the sofa, pulled her feet up underneath her. It looked as close to a fetal position as she could get into while sitting up.

“You really think I won’t get into trouble?” she asked softly.