Lead a Horse to Murder (21 page)

“Exactly how many people are in this study group?” I asked.

“Just four, besides me.”

“All right,” I agreed. The last thing I wanted was to be a bad sport. Even if I suspected that having that many people inside my tiny cottage at one time violated the fire code.

“Great,” Nick said, sounding relieved. “Jess, you’re the best. No wonder I’m so crazy about you.” He hesitated. “Would it be pushing my luck to ask you to hold down the fort while I take a quick shower? The members of the group should be here in a couple of minutes. If you’d just let everybody in—”

“Of course. In fact, I’d be happy to.”

“And I stopped at the supermarket and picked up some stuff for everybody to eat. But I didn’t have time to do the Martha Stewart thing and make it look all nice and presentable. . . .”

“I’ll take care of that, too,” I assured him. I just hoped he didn’t have any illusions about me coming even
close
to Martha’s standards.

As I pulled bottles of soda and wine out of the refrigerator, I actually found myself looking forward to the evening ahead. Meeting some of Nick’s fellow law school students will be fun, I thought. I pictured all of us relaxing together after the group’s intense night of debating the fascinating intricacies of the law, sipping wine and intelligently discussing world events. In fact, this whole law school thing was starting to sound better and better. Nick’s involvement in a brand-new sphere was bound to open up an entire world of clever people with a burning commitment to maintaining justice in an increasingly chaotic and confusing world.

I was even inspired enough to hunt down six matching glasses. Then I dumped a box of crackers into a crystal bowl that had somehow found itself in my possession, first wiping it out to remove the dust. Next I set out some cheese—a slab of Jarlsberg and a wheel of Brie—on a wooden cutting board. All right, so I wasn’t exactly ready for my own televison show. But it would do.

When the doorbell rang, I almost wished I owned a long velvet skirt or some other garment that was the female equivalent of a smoking jacket. I scooped up Max before answering, figuring a cute, fluffy white dog was a nice touch. After all, I wanted to convey the image of a sophisticated woman who felt at home among both intelligent humans and our animal friends.

By that point, I was expecting to find Cary Grant and Diane Sawyer standing on my doorstep. My enthusiasm was dampened by a quick dose of reality.

“Am I in the right place?” A tall, scrawny guy—at least six foot four and maybe one hundred fifty pounds—leaned forward and peered at me through the thick lenses in his tortoiseshell eyeglasses. The heavy frames were completely out of proportion, given his gaunt face and small, beady eyes. He was dressed in jeans that looked as if they’d been dry-cleaned. His light blue shirt was obviously brand-new, since the creases that demonstrated precisely how it had been folded in the package created a grid across his sunken chest. I just hoped he’d remembered to take the pins out.

But it was the bow tie that really got me. He didn’t come close to carrying it off the way Winston Farnsworth did.

“Are you looking for the study group?” I asked politely. “Nick Burby?”

“That’s right. We’re looking for Nick.” A short woman who bordered on rotund stepped out from behind him. She was dressed in a batiked skirt that reached almost to her Chinese canvas shoes. A shawl made of coarse, undyed fabric was wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Even so, I could see she’d draped half a dozen strands of colorful beads around her neck. Her long red hair, shooting out from her head like an aura, was just as coarse. My first impression of her face was that she reminded me of a pug. But while a flat, squishy nose and small dark eyes looked unbelievably cute on a canine, on her those features didn’t have quite the same effect. “Is Nick here?”

I forced myself to smile. “You’ve come to the right place.”

“Good,” the geeky guy said, pouting. “I was sure we were lost.”

The woman looked me up and down critically. Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, she demanded, “Who are you?”

“Jessica Popper. Nick’s girlfriend.”

“Nick didn’t say anything about a girlfriend.”

“He told us we were meeting at his friend’s house,” the man insisted.

“Yes, but he didn’t say it was a girlfriend’s house,” the woman hissed back.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get your names,” I said as politely as I could through gritted teeth.

“I’m Wendy Harnik. And this is Jerome Sidlanski.”

And here I’d been so sure they were going to introduce themselves as Cary and Diane.

As I was ushering them inside, I saw that another member of Nick’s study group had arrived. A remarkably thin woman who’d pulled her shiny black BMW up onto the grass, taking out a few of Betty’s flower beds in the process, slammed the car door. Then she headed toward the cottage, teetering on a pair of high heels that didn’t quite mesh with the badly paved piece of road that served as my driveway. She wore a black pantsuit and several pieces of large jewelry and was clasping a cell phone tightly against her ear.

“I don’t give a
damn
what they told you,” she shrieked into the phone. “A deal is a deal. You tell those bastards—look, I can’t talk now. I’ll have to get back to you on this.” Her thickly lipsticked mouth was frowning as she slammed her cell phone closed, then stuck it into the tremendous leather purse that dangled from her shoulder. She strode toward me, arranging her mouth into a smile when she realized someone was watching.

“Nick Burby’s place?” she asked.

I nodded.

“And you are—?”

“Nick’s girlfriend. Jessica Popper.”

“Oh, that’s right. The vet. He told us all about you.” She sighed tiredly, as if she’d already heard quite enough. “So can we call you Jessica? Or are we supposed to call you Dr. Pepper?”

I ignored the reference to soft drinks, accidental or otherwise. “Jessie is fine. And what should I call you?” I’d already come up with a few ideas of my own.

“Stephanie Walcott. God, is there someplace I can get a glass of wine around here? Oh, damn!” The last comment was in response to her cell phone, which had begun to bleat out an annoying melody. Rolling her eyes, she jammed her hand deep into the mailbag in search of it, muttering to herself when it failed to materialize.

I was actually glad when the fourth and final member of Nick’s study group came up behind her and I had an excuse to turn my focus elsewhere.

“I got so
lost
!” whined the pudgy young man with a remarkably pasty complexion. “Nobody told me you couldn’t see the house from the road! Why didn’t anybody say anything? I’m not familiar with this area at all. How were we supposed to
find
this place?”

“Well, you’re here now!” I told him brightly. “I’m Jessie, Nick’s girlfriend.”

“Ollie Sturges. Actually, Oliver J. Sturges the third. Oh, my God. That’s not a
cat,
is it? Nick didn’t say anything about any cats. I’m
so
allergic. You’ve got to put that animal outside. Oh, my God, did I bring my
inhaler
?”

By this point, Nick had emerged from the bedroom, his skin still flushed from his shower. Buttoning the cuff of his shirt, he said, “Hey, everybody. Glad you found us.”

I picked up Cat and shut her inside the bedroom, then grabbed the dogs’ leashes.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” He frowned, pushing the damp strand of dark brown hair out of his eyes. “I don’t want you to feel you have to leave your own house.”

“I don’t mind.” In fact, I was tempted to tell him I could hardly wait to get out of there. “Come on, Max. Let’s go, Lou.”

As I hurried out the door with my two canine pals, I could hear Ollie Sturges III whining, “This Brie is
cold
! It’s
supposed
to be served at room temperature!”

But before anyone could respond, he was cut off by the singsong chirping of Stephanie’s cell phone.

I sat in my VW for a few minutes, thinking. My dogs couldn’t understand what we were waiting for. Max kept jumping up on the window, and Lou wouldn’t take his nose away from the glass—their way of saying, “Are we there yet?” Even their extraordinary cuteness wasn’t enough to pull me out of my dark mood. I was too busy feeling rejected by Nick—or at least left out in the cold by his decision to reinvent his life and himself.

I whipped out my own cell phone and dialed. “Hey, Forrester. How’s it going?”

“Hey, Popper,” he replied breezily. “What’s up?”

“I have a new theory,” I told him. “What do you think about Peyton being the murderer?”

“MacKinnon’s older daughter, right?”

“Yup. She told me she and Eduardo were lovers. And she claimed she had an alibi, but—”

“Sounds like you’ve come up with some great stuff,” he interrupted. “But I’m about to head into a town board meeting I’m covering. Some big blowup over a proposed zoning change. Can I catch up with you later?”

I’ve got bigger plans for “later,”
I thought—
and they
revolve around Nick, not playing “Clue.”
“How about tomorrow evening?”

“Perfect. Dinner, okay? We’ll talk.” And he was gone.

It seemed like the ideal occasion to take Max and Lou to the beach for a run on the sand. Or maybe I was the one who needed to get away from it all. Long Island may be congested, but it has what I suspect are the most spectacular beaches in the world. There are rolling blue-green waves on the South Shore and calm waters guaranteed to soothe the soul on the North Shore. Both are lined with velvety white sand as far as the eye can see. Add a few seagulls to keep things interesting by driving my canines wild and you’ve got yourself a relaxing interlude with Mother Nature.

Of course, I couldn’t help bringing at least some of my baggage with me. Even as Lou played tag with the gulls and Max cavorted in the surf, I kept thinking about Eduardo. I pulled off my shoes and trudged through the waves, watching the water swirl around my ankles. I had to agree with Forrester. Any one of the people who’d known him could have killed him. Peyton MacKinnon, the jealous lover who had lied about having an alibi. Diana Chase, the
other
jealous lover—at least, the only other one I knew about for sure. There was also Vivian Johannsen, who could have been a jealous lover—or not. And Callie, who claimed to hate him but had yet to explain why.

And those were just the women in his life. Then there was Pancho Escobar, who’d admitted to me that having Eduardo dead wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Scott Mooney, who seemed too good to be true. Andrew MacKinnon, who said himself he’d thought of Eduardo as a son but whose daughter claimed he couldn’t accept adding an Argentine to the MacKinnon family tree.

Winston Farnsworth? Possibly, although I had yet to determine a motive. There was just something about him I didn’t trust. The same went for Jillian. For all I knew, she’d poisoned him in a drunken rage and didn’t even remember it. Johnny Ray was someone else who made me uncomfortable—and he certainly didn’t have much good to say about the dashing young polo star.

My head was spinning so hard from running down the list of murder suspects that I didn’t notice that the sun was about to go down. When I finally did, I let out a sigh. The sky was streaked with pink and purple, creating one of those truly breathtaking moments that gets stored away in your memory forever.

I decided to think about something more comforting than Eduardo Garcia’s murder. Something like . . . Nick.

I waited for a feeling of peace to come over me. Instead, thinking about Nick didn’t turn out to be much better than thinking about Eduardo.

Why did things suddenly seem so unsettled with him? I wondered, kicking at the surf and noticing for the first time how cold my feet were getting. Here we were supposed to be working on our relationship, and here
he
was pursuing an exciting new course in his life . . . yet it seemed as if we kept getting our wires crossed. Now, we were under the same roof—if only for a few days. And even now our schedules didn’t mesh. How were we supposed to walk hand in hand into the sunset when I seemed to be the only one who managed to pencil in any beach time?

I gathered up my companions and headed home. As I pulled into the driveway, I saw that Nick’s Maxima was still parked in the same spot. Fortunately, by this point, it was the only vehicle that remained, aside from my van. From inside the cottage, I could hear Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin howling about his plans to give me his love.

I found Nick in the kitchen. Not surprisingly, he hadn’t heard me come in. He was too busy dancing to the song’s throbbing beat while drying my wine glasses. If there was any food left over from his study group’s little get-together, it was packed away. In fact, both the kitchen and the living room looked neater than I could remember them looking in months.

“Hey, you’re back!” He stopped dancing long enough to give me a welcome-home kiss. “Everybody told me to thank you for letting us use your place.”

I had my doubts about that. “How did it go?” I asked.

“Great. I learned a lot.”

“Good.” I wandered back into the living room and dropped into the overstuffed chair that, for once, was free of four-legged creatures. “Well, I’m bushed. I think I’ll turn in.”

Nick came out of the kitchen, looking astonished. “But it’s so early!”

I raised my eyebrows. “Isn’t this what’s commonly known as a school night?”

“I guess. But this is a special night.”

I thought for a few seconds, wondering what I was missing. “And why is that?”

He looked surprised that I didn’t know. “It’s our first night as roommates.”

Temporary
roommates, I thought. But I kept the correction to myself.

“Right. Uh, exactly how long did you say it’s going to take the painters to finish your apartment?”

“Just a couple of days. I can probably go back this weekend.” He dropped onto the arm of the chair and put his arm around me. “That is, if you can bear to let me go.”