Fat Chance (4 page)

I wish. My cheeks felt warm. I’m not sure whether it was because I was imagining Liam and myself together or remembering that he’d declined my offer to do just that. “Sam probably knows someone.”

“True, but I doubt he knows anyone as hot as Liam McGarrity.”

“Sure he does.”

Jane shot me a glare as she reached for a wedge of cheese. “
Heterosexual
hot guys.”

Liv reclined on her elbows, her gaze fixed on the house. “Are you going to name it?”

“Name what?”

“The house. People on Palm Bach name their houses. You know, Hidden Palms. Restless Waters. Something beachy and pretentious.”

“You really think I need to call my house something?”

Becky rushed out and said, “This place is a crime scene.”

“It is not. It just needs a redo.”

“No,” Becky said in a single, clipped syllable. “I mean it’s an actual crime scene.”

“So someone stole the appliances and some of the fixtures. It’s not like—”

“No, Finley! Call the police. I just found a dead guy in the closet.”

T
HAT
IS DISGUSTING
,” I said, speaking over the lump of revulsion lodged in my throat.

That
was a partially visible body protruding from a half-rotted box shoved into the back corner of the master bedroom closet. Even more disgusting was the state of the corpse. The arm hanging out of the trunk was almost all bone, but from what I could see from my vantage point, the skull still had long brown hair attached in places. “I don’t think it’s a dead
guy.
”

Becky gagged, backing into me as she retreated, hand over her mouth. “Of course it’s a guy. It has an opposable thumb. See?”

Looking at the curled, fleshless fingers, I agreed that the remains were human. “Look at the hair, though,” I said. “I think it’s a dead girl.”

“Girl, guy, who cares? Dead is dead. We have to call the po
lice,” Liv insisted. “Let them figure out the gender
after
they get it out of here.”

“I think we should wait outside,” Jane quavered, her voice shaking slightly. Understandable, since she was already falsely arrested for murder earlier this year. “Does anyone remember what I touched?” She pulled a tissue and a trial-sized container of Purell from her purse and wiped down the doorknob. “Where I might have left prints?”

“Don’t worry about that,” Liv said. “There’s no way we can get into trouble for this. That poor soul has been dead for too long.”

“But we should definitely wait outside,” Jane insisted.

“We should,” Liv agreed. “If only to get away from the creepy factor.”

“Let’s go.” Becky backed out of the room.

I wanted to be right on their heels, but I waved them on, an odd tightness in my throat as I fixed my gaze on the small round object clutched in the deceased’s curled fingers. My heart seized in my chest as I focused on the familiar green enameled palm fronds just visible through the cracks in the finger joints.

Glancing over my shoulder to make certain I was alone in the room, still battling my revulsion, I made a first, tentative grab for the medallion. I got within a hair of the skeleton, then snapped my hand back while swallowing the squeal of serious
eewww
in my throat. It took three tries until I was finally able to grip the medallion with my fingernails and give a tug. The medallion came loose, as did the forefinger of Dead Girl.

I grimaced as the bone dropped to the floor, then rocked back and forth before settling against my instep. I leaped away from the bone as if it might bite me, all the while wondering if I could be charged with some crime for de-fingering a corpse.

Putting aside any thoughts of the legalities of my actions, I inspected the medallion cupped in my hand. Though it was badly tarnished I could tell it was silver and approximately two inches in diameter. The side facing up was familiar. It bore the green enameled palm fronds and polo stick logo of The Palm Beach Polo Club. Adrenaline raced through my veins like a triple shot of Brazilian Roast. I knew I had to turn it over to the police, but I hesitated as a million fears, questions, and possibilities raced through my mind.

“Stop making yourself strange,” I chided in a whisper. “What are the chances?” I slowly flipped the medallion. My heart fell to my feet as I read the inscription…

I’d had those words engraved on the medallion myself. A gift I’d given nearly twenty years earlier. A memento to Jonathan for being named Club Player of the Year at The Palm Beach Polo Club. I hadn’t seen it in forever. I’d assumed my mother had either thrown it away or tucked it into one of the zillion boxes she had in storage units all over the county.

So how did a gift I gave Jonathan when I was ten end up in Dead Girl’s fist? Did my mother know? No. My mother wouldn’t cross the threshold of a place in this condition, let alone go ferreting through closets. Melinda would have to know. Hard to believe she’d moved out without checking the closet. I glanced at the skeleton again. Maybe not. I was no expert, but based on the way the skeleton was shoved in between the exposed framing, it almost looked like the skeleton was a recent addition. Except that she was holding Jonathan’s medallion.

Distant sirens split through the silence of the early evening.
Panic welled up inside me. I didn’t know how my long-deceased stepfather’s medallion had ended up in the hand of a corpse, but I figured it was something I wanted to keep to myself until I had answers.

Knowing the police would be there in a matter of seconds, I freaked out wondering where to hide the thing. They were sure to go over the house with a fine-tooth comb—which surely would include my purse and tote—so I had no choice but to sneak it past them. Unfortunately, neither my adorable skirt nor my cute cami had pockets, and I’d left my suit jacket in Becky’s car. The only viable hiding place was my bra. Quickly, I stuffed the cool medal, covered no doubt with dead person cooties, into place and rushed out to join my friends.

My first mistake was making eye contact with Becky. One look and she knew something was wrong.

“What did you do?” she asked.

Her question-slash-accusation drew the attention of my other two friends. Suddenly I had three pairs of eyes trained on me just as four police cars came screeching to a halt. One, I noted, parked on the lawn, leaving deep tracks in the grass.

As fully armed officers descended upon us, I could only remain mute and hope it wasn’t called a wonder bra for nothing. And as if robbing a corpse wasn’t bad enough, an unmarked West Palm Beach car arrived a fraction of a second later. Palm Beach does have a police force, but it’s small, and I could only conclude that for serious matters such as dead people, they called for reinforcements. Unfortunately for me, out stepped Detectives Steadman and Graves.

They hated me.

Graves, who looked a lot like the star of the Ving Rhames cable remake of
Kojak,
had a body of solid muscle and the person
ality of a toad. His partner, Detective Steadman, was one of those women who confused being assertive with being a bitch. She was square and compact, a lot like Sponge Bob. Having a history with the two detectives didn’t bode well for any of us. Particularly Jane, who, I could see, had started to shake. Not that I could blame her. These were the same detectives who had dragged her off to jail and charged her with Paolo Martinez’s murder.

The fact that she was exonerated probably screwed with their case closure rate, not to mention the fact that it must have caused them some personal embarrassment. At any rate, neither detective looked too happy to see us huddled together in the front yard.

The feeling was mutual, but I slapped a smile on my face and tried my very best to appear grateful for their presence. “It’s in there,” I said, pointing toward the house. “I mean,
she’s
in there.”

Steadman went inside with the other officers. Graves was expressionless as he took out his notepad and pen. He wore an ill-fitting white shirt. It wouldn’t have been ill-fitting if he’d (a) worked out less, or (b) gotten a decent tailor. He was so muscle-bound that the girth of his own lats hindered his movements.

“Ladies,” he said, though there wasn’t much sincerity in the greeting. “Name of the deceased?”

“Dead Girl,” I answered, proving my mother’s assertion that I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to be a smart-ass. In my defense, it’s a nervous condition. The more scared I am, the more sarcastic I get. Becky elbowed me in the rib cage.

“The remains are skeletal,” Becky explained in a very lawyerly, reasonable tone. “There could be identification with the remains, but as soon as we discovered the body, we exited the house and called you.”

Graves made a note, then looked at me again. “But you think the victim is female?”

“Based on the hair,” I replied. “Then again, nobody’s seen Fabio for a while, so I guess—
umph
.” Again Becky slammed me with an elbow to the ribs.

With a cock of her head, Becky took Graves and steered him a few feet away. Liv had one arm around Jane and was patting her hand with the other. “We can’t possibly be suspects,” I said, mostly for terrified Jane’s benefit. “It takes more than three hours for a human body to turn to bones.”

“She’s right,” Liv told Jane, then gave her a gentle squeeze. “They’ll go after the previous owner—”

“Who would be my mother,” I said. I was suddenly filled with conflicting emotions. My wounded inner child didn’t object to the idea of my mother being grilled like freshly caught tilapia, but my DNA demanded that I warn her. Or at the very least, let her know what was happening. Only problem? My cell was in my tote and my tote was on the kitchen counter. In addition to letting her know that she should expect a visit from the police, I also had a few questions of my own about the medallion. The last time I saw it was just after Jonathan died fifteen years ago. It was lying on top of his dresser in the bedroom of their Palm Beach home.

Not this place, but a massive, twenty-five-thousand-square-foot house about a mile down the beach. After Jonathan’s death, my mother lived there for another five years, with husband number two. She sold it after marrying husband number three. He came with a thirty-thousand-square-foot house. It was a trade up.

The sound of a car engine backfiring caused me to jump. Even knowing I was nothing more than the innocent bystander who happened upon a body, I was more spooked than I thought. I glanced over my right shoulder in the direction of the noise.

Just behind the police cars, a familiar ’64 Mustang coughed another cloud of blue smoke before the engine was turned off.
For an instant, as my last encounter with the owner of the Mustang replayed in my mind, I seriously considered running into the house and joining the skeleton in the closet. I look way better in Lilly Pulitzer than I do draped in the memory of one of my worst personal humiliation moments.

As Liam McGarrity stepped from what I could only generously describe as his car, I donned the expression I normally save for the occasional drunk frat boy spewing a really bad pickup line. He’d told me he was in the process of restoring the thing. He’d also told me he wasn’t interested in having sex with me. Forget the car. The way he’d rejected me still stung.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been rejected. Mostly by credit card companies and my mother. You’d think I’d be able to let it go, but for some reason hearing Liam tell me to take a hike stuck in my craw. And I don’t think I even know what or where my craw is.

“Now that is a thing of beauty,” Liv sighed softly as Liam walked toward us.

“Beauty fades. Asshole is forever,” I muttered through my tight smile.

As usual, Liam was dressed in jeans, a faded Tommy Bahama shirt that was at least three seasons old, Reef sandals, black hair mussed. I suspected the not-so-ex Mrs. McGarrity was the musser as I pretended not to be affected when his deep blue eyes locked on me.

The fact that he looked like he had…might have…could have…probably…maybe just rolled out of his ex’s bed was as irritating to my ego as my own foolish desire to run my fingers through his hair. Hair, schmare. There wasn’t an inch of his six-foot-plus frame I didn’t want to run my fingers through, and I hated myself for being such a jerk. Worse yet, I didn’t know if my strong desire was real or if I just wanted to prove to him that
he’d missed a great thing when he’d sent me on my way. How masochistic is that?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, wishing it didn’t sound so pissy.

“Heard your name on the scanner. Wondered what you’d gotten yourself into this time. Liv, Jane,” he added with a slight nod of his head, though his gaze never left my face. “Anything I can do to help?”

Hold me? Kiss me? Get eaten by sharks?
Biting my tongue first, I held out my hand. “Can I use your cell?”

Unclipping it from his waistband, Liam handed me a cell phone that was big and bulky and I half expected to be rotary dial. It was a far cry from the sleek iPhone I’d just bought for myself—another breakup consolation gift. “Thanks,” I said, then turned my back and dialed my mother’s number.

“You’ve reached 561-blah-blah-blah.” I sighed heavily as I waited for the answering machine to beep. “Mom, if you’re screening, pick up. There’s a major problem with the house and—”

I heard a quick click of the receiver being picked up. “You own the house, Finley,” my mother said without preamble. “I am not your landlord, so any problems are yours to handle. It’s called being responsible and—”

“I don’t think my responsibilities include the skeleton in the closet.”

“All older homes have histories, Finley.”

“I didn’t mean a metaphorical skeleton, Mom. A real one. Why did you really evict Melinda? Did you have any suspicions? Did she happen to mention—”

“Suspicions about what? I only knew the woman through Jonathan. If she left the place in disarray, that’s your problem.”

Through gritted teeth, I said, “A skeleton is not disarray. Like it
or not, you need to tell me what you know so I can tell the police why there’s a Dead Girl in the closet of the house you sold me.”

“I can assure you, I have no knowledge of any…dead person. The fact that you think I could be involved—”

“I don’t. I just need you to tell me how to get in touch with Melinda. She’s the one the cops need to talk to.”

“Since I haven’t spoken to her except through my lawyer, I have no idea how to reach her. Why are you assuming Melinda would know anything about a skeleton? It’s probably the work of one of those miscreant children she housed.”

“She has to know something, since the Dead Girl is holding Dad’s—” I shut up the instant I saw the detectives at the front door. Cupping my hand over the mouthpiece, I said, “Call your lawyer.
Now.
”

“Holding Jonathan’s what?” my mother asked. It was the first time I could remember hearing genuine fear in her tone.

“The police are going to want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

I rolled my eyes. “You just sold me a house with a dead person in it. I may be wrong, but I’m thinking they’ll have a few questions for you.”