Dead In Red Page 3

  Back in the tidy galley kitchen, the cabinets housed plain white Corelle dishes and Coke glasses from fast-food restaurant giveaways. In the closet pantry, cans were stacked in descending sizes, heavy on store-brand tomato soup and mac and cheese. I’m no gourmet, but when it came to dinner prep even I could do better than Walt.

  I wasn’t eager to touch everything, but already I understood a lot about Walt Kaplan, a man who listened and rarely gave much of himself to others. There was no sense of joy in his home. Nothing that mirrored the smile he had given someone in Cyn Lennox’s office.

  The spotless bathroom brandished much-washed, frayed brown towels on the racks by the sink and bathtub. I poked through the medicine cabinet and found mint mouthwash, toothpaste, dental floss and a prescription bottle of anisindione. “Rich?” He poked his head around the door and I handed it to him.

  He read the label, frowned. “It’s an anticoagulant. You might be more familiar with the commercial name, Coumadin.”

  “What do you think was wrong with Walt?”

  Richard shrugged. “Blood thinners treat deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolus, arterial fibrillation—any number of things.”

  “So what’s that mean?”

  “Prevents strokes.”

  He might’ve said so. Richard scrutinized the label again. “Being stabbed while on this dose would’ve greatly speeded up his death.”

  The thought made me shudder.

  Richard went back to the living room.

  The bedroom door was ajar; the place most people stored their secrets. Not a wrinkle marred the fiberfill burgundy quilt that lay across the full-sized bed. Like the living room, no reading material littered the flat surfaces of the dresser or nightstand. No dust, either.

  A dresser stowed underwear, socks, and golf shirts folded with expert precision, although the contents had been disturbed—probably by the cops. Suits, shirts and slacks hung in color-coordinated order stuffed the pokey little closet. A plastic shoe rack attached to the back of the door contained six pairs of Walt’s shoes, polished to a glow. A stack of nine identical, nondescript shoeboxes sat huddled on the closet floor. No manufacturer’s name graced the generic boxes. A couple of year’s worth of Victoria’s Secret catalogs sat beside them in a tidy pile. Pretty tame stuff. My gaze kept wandering to the stack of shoeboxes. I knelt and ran my right palm over the front of the boxes. It gravitated toward one in particular on the top left of the pile. I pulled it out to examine it.

  The wide box was standard gray cardboard, nothing out of the ordinary, and no different than the others. I held it in my hands and the red sequined shoe flashed before my mind’s eye once again, bringing a stab of pain with it. I ground my teeth and concentrated. This time, the view was from the back; pear shaped, cupped to accept a soft-skinned foot upon its tapered heel, the ankle strap looping to look like an overgrown, sparkling halo. No saint wore shoes like those. And why associate Walt’s death with the shoe? It was gaudy, flashy—not at all Walt’s style. I hadn’t come across any sex toys—not even a box of condoms. I doubted he’d ever brought any of his playmates home.

  And come to think of it, in my vision I only ever saw one shoe.

  I lifted the lid. Empty, except for a couple of papers: A brochure of Holiday Valley, the ski resort south of Buffalo, and a scrap with four hand-written numbers: 4537. Pin number? Combination lock? Last four digits of a phone number? And I got the feeling that the collection was incomplete. Walt had hoped to add more things to it. His time had simply run out.

  I replaced the cover and set the box behind me, grabbing the one that had been right next to it. The collection of items in this box was much more varied. Piece by piece, I withdrew an ordinary blue Bic pen, a plain white, soiled cocktail napkin with no embossed name of a bar printed on it or other clue as to its origin, an unsigned birthday card with a lipstick kiss. The last item was a small black velvet pillow with the name Veronica embroidered on it in DayGlo pink thread. I picked it up by its pink-ribboned hanger, and was assaulted with the same image I’d seen when we met Cyn Lennox: Hands. Bloodied.

  Startled, I dropped the pillow so fast, it went flying. Nerves jangled, I sat there for a few seconds waiting to recover. God, I hated that flashes of insight could catch me off guard like that—sour my stomach and make my muscles quiver. And I was glad Richard hadn’t witnessed it.

  I took a couple more breaths to calm down before retrieving the pillow, lifting it by its hanger with the pen and replacing both items in the box before setting it aside, too.

  The idea of checking all the shoeboxes was not pleasant, but it had to be done. Methodically, I went through every one of them, making sure I handled each item. No insight, no creepy feelings. Each box held just as curious collections of oddball items that could have meaning only for Walt—and none of them with the emotional investment the first two had had. Had the shoes been gifts to his lady friends? Why had Walt kept the boxes? If the sparkly shoe I kept seeing was representative of the rest, they were not cheap.

  I replaced the boring boxes, closed the closet door and picked up the two interesting ones, tucked them under my arm, and returned to the living room.

  Richard sat at the desk, Walt’s receipts and papers spread out before him on the blotter. He looked up, zeroing in on the boxes. “What’s so special about those?”

  “I’m not sure,” I lied. “But I think I’ll take them home with me. Find anything worthwhile?”

  Richard scooped up the papers, replacing them in the manila folder. “All his bills and receipts are segregated into envelopes by year. You want the latest?”

  “Sure. I’m most interested in credit card and phone bills.”

  “Looking for anything in particular?”

  “Yeah, a clue to his sex life. I think his death may have hinged on that.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Richard selected a couple of envelopes from the lower left-hand drawer, pushed it shut and handed them to me. “This ought to hold you for a while. You about ready?”

  “Yeah, let’s go.”

  Richard followed me to the door. “Brenda’s making shrimp scampi tonight.”

  “With garlic bread?”

  “You got it.”

  I closed and locked the door behind us. Richard trundled down the stairs without a backward glance, but something tugged at my soul. I turned back to stare at the featureless steel door. Find the truth, something whispered inside my head.

  Walt or my conscience?

  I’d have to figure that out.

  # # #

  CHAPTER 3

  Richard’s after-dinner Drambuie sat on a Venetian tile coaster. He’d parked behind his grandfather’s big mahogany desk, pouring over yet another book. But this wasn’t some dry, medical tome. Fuzzy black-and-white photographs checkerboarded the pages, with short paragraphs of text annotating each one. Brenda brushed past me in the doorway, clutching the latest Tess Gerritsen hardback. “Run for your life,” she hissed. “He’s parked back on Memory Lane again.”

  Amused, I watched her make a beeline for the stairs.

  I cleared my throat and stepped forward. “That your high school yearbook?” I asked Richard.

  He didn’t bother to look up. “One of them.”

  I entered the room and rounded the desk to stand behind him. He tapped a faded color photo that had been used as a bookmark. “Here’s Cyn Taggert—er, Lennox.”

  The now-buxom blonde had been a skinny brunette with timid eyes some thirty years previous. Hard to believe the little waif had grown into the hardened businesswoman I’d met earlier that day.

  I hadn’t told Richard about the flash of insight I’d experienced in Cyn Lennox’s office. On its own, it meant nothing. Maybe Walt had once applied for a job at the Old Red Mill. Perhaps he was an old or a new friend—someone Cyn had known Richard hadn’t trucked with. The fact that Walt had been in the place, only yards from where his body had been found, wasn’t proof of anything. Yet it did give me a starting point.
Something I was pretty sure the Amherst Police didn’t know.

  I hadn’t asked Cyn if she’d known Walt. The timing wasn’t right. I needed to know more about the dead man before I went that route. And I was pretty sure I wouldn’t hear the truth from Ms. Lennox anyway.

  Once again Richard had a sappy look on his face, still studying Cyn’s picture.

  “I thought you went to an all-boys Catholic high school.”

  “Yeah, Canisus guys always hung out with the girls from Nardin.”

  “You enjoyed those years, didn’t you?” My words came out like an accusation.

  Richard didn’t seem to notice. “Yes, I did.”

  Why shouldn’t he sound satisfied? He hadn’t been wrenched out of his freshman year at the three-quarter point from an inner city school and dumped across town with a bunch of snotty rich kids. He had fit in from day one. He hadn’t been beaten to a pulp on his first day, either.

  I moved around the front of the desk and sat in one of the leather wing chairs, surprised at the depth of my bitterness. I tried to let it go. “What if your friend Cyn knows more than she’s telling about this murder?”

  Richard looked up from the decades-old pages. “Cyn’s a good person. I’m sure she’s told the police everything she knows.”

  “You knew this woman over thirty years ago. You don’t know who she is today.”

  “Yeah, but people don’t change that much. Look at you.”

  “Me?”

  “In some ways, you haven’t changed at all from when you were fourteen.”

  Anger flared within me. I’d come a long way from that cowed boy who’d been forced to go live with strangers. I changed the subject. “Once I wire up the light over the dining room table, the apartment is finished. I guess we ought to think about calling movers to come and I’ll be out of your hair on a daily basis.”

  He closed the yearbook, a smile raising the edges of his mustache. “You ready to leave the nest?”

  “Moving sixteen feet across the driveway is hardly leaving the nest.”

  He shrugged.

  The loft apartment over the three-car garage had been empty for at least twenty years before I got the brilliant idea to make the place my own. I’d intended to give it a good clean and move right in, but Richard wouldn’t hear of it. The next thing you know he’d hired a contractor, put in a new heating and cooling system, all new wiring, had the hardwood floors sanded and sealed and the walls painted. All the planning had kept him occupied for a few hours a day while he recovered.

  Brenda had entrusted her friend Maggie Brennan to help her decorate the place. I’d introduced the two women. At the time I thought I might have a shot at a relationship with the lovely Ms. B. That hadn’t worked out, but I also hadn’t given up on the idea, either. Gut feeling told me we’d be more than just acquaintances one day. I listened to my gut.

  “Go ahead and arrange for movers whenever you want. It’s on me,” Richard said.

  Yeah, like everything else these last few months.

  He’d reopened the book, his attention back on the picture of young Cyn Taggert. Was it the memory of puppy love that made his smile so wistful? The present-day woman gave me bad vibes. I’d have to pursue that avenue of investigation.

  And if Richard found out his long lost love had some deadly secret—how much would he blame me?

  * * *

  I punched the rheostat switch and bright white light flooded the apartment’s empty dining area. I cranked it back to a tolerable level, grateful the pills I’d taken earlier had quelled the headache that had threatened.

  My gaze traveled around the pleasant room. There was no reason not to call a bunch of movers for estimates first thing in the morning. And yet, I wasn’t quite ready to move in and I wasn’t sure why. The most painless route was to do the deed while Richard and Brenda were on their honeymoon.

  Painless. What did bloody hands have to do with Walt’s death? Okay, he’d bled to death. But I was pretty sure the image of the hands had nothing to do with his death. I’d had flashes of clairvoyance and they were different than seeing things from the past. The shoe was the past. The bloody hands were something yet to come. So who was Veronica and why was she in danger? Perhaps the next victim?

  The phone rang, making me jump. Once, twice. I never pick up until at least the fourth ring, just to thwart telemarketers, who usually hang up after three. Besides, only Richard, Brenda, and the employment form I filled out for Tom at the bar had my new telephone number. I had only one sort-of friend in Buffalo, Sam Nielsen, now a reporter for the Buffalo News—and I hadn’t even given him the two-week-old number.

  I picked up the phone. “Hello?

  “Where do you get off involving Richard in another one of your dumb psychic schemes? Haven’t you done enough to the poor man?”

  I should’ve just hung up, but the voice was vaguely familiar. “Excuse me?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said. Who is this?”

  “Maggie. Maggie Brennan.”

  Ah, the lovely Ms. B. Only now I was on the fiery end of her Irish temper. Brenda must’ve given her the number.

  “Did Brenda ask you to say something?”

  “Well . . . no. She wouldn’t. But I thought—”

  “Yeah, well you thought wrong. Just butt out of my family business, will you?”

  “No, I won’t. Brenda and Richard are my friends. And in case it escaped your attention, you nearly got Richard killed at Easter.”

  “Hey, I was the target. Richard pushed me out of the way.”

  “Yeah, well it’s still your fault.”

  A lump rose in my throat. I didn’t need her to tell me that.

  “If that’s all you called for—I think it’s time we ended this conversation.”

  Silence.

  I counted to ten. “Was there something else you wanted to say?”

  “I guess not.” Did I detect reluctance in her voice?

  When we first met, we’d connected almost immediately. That is, until we found a body in her ex-lover’s condo. That had definitely put a damper on what seemed like the beginning of a meaningful relationship.

  I decided to take a chance. “You want to go out with me sometime?”

  More silence.

  I counted to ten again.

  “Maybe,” Maggie answered at last, and again her tone was soft. “What did you have in mind?”

  I remembered the Holiday Valley brochure in Walt’s shoebox. “Just a ride in the country. A day trip.”

  “A magical mystery tour?” Aha! Intrigued.

  “Something like that.”

  Again silence.

  This was like a replay from my high school days. My sweaty hand tightened around the receiver as I counted to ten one more time.

  “Okay. When?”

  I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Saturday.”

  * * *

  I never drove to the bakery up on Main Street. I’d walked there in snow, rain, and on starless nights to find Sophie Levin standing behind the plate glass door in her faded cotton house dress, maroon cardigan sweater, and silver hair tucked into a wispy bun at the base of her neck, ready to usher me into her backroom inner sanctum. That night was no different.

  “In, in already,” the elderly woman said, locking the door behind me. I followed her to the small card table she had set up beside a pallet of collapsed bakery boxes. She pointed to my usual seat, a metal folding chair, and settled her bulk on the one adjacent. The coffee was hot and my favorite macaroons, still warm from the oven, sat piled on a chipped white plate.

  I set the plastic grocery bag with the shoeboxes on the table.

  “Show and tell?” she asked, her brown eyes riveted on it.

  I took the boxes out, shoved one of them closer to her. “I’ll show and you tell me what you think.”

  She leaned on the wobbly table, clasping her hands before her and studied the box. “Hmm. Fancy shoes once lived in
this box.” Her voice, with its slight Polish accent, held reproach. She rested her fingers on the top of the other box. “Hmm. This one, too.”

  I sipped my coffee and nodded. I thought of Sophie as a kind of psychic mentor, although her inner radar was much different than mine. She saw auras—colors, she called them—and then she knew things. And it made me feel less of a freak to have a kindred spirit to confide in.

  Sophie traced a finger along the first box top. “Not the kind of shoes a nice woman wears.”

  I tried not to smile. “Depends upon your definition of nice. But in this case, I think you’re right.”

  She raised the lid, setting it aside. Her gaze fell on the contents and she frowned. “Hmm. Not too interesting.” She selected the Holiday Valley brochure. She stared at it for a few moments, then ran her fingers along the long edge. “A good time was had.”

  “That was my impression, too. But that was all I got. Take a look at that little scrap and tell me what you think.”

  Sophie replaced the brochure. Her weary, red-rimmed eyes widened when she picked up the paper fragment. “Now this is more interesting.”

  Intrigued, I leaned forward.

  She closed her eyes, concentrating. “Hmmm.”

  “What is it? What do you see?”

  Sophie opened her eyes and frowned at me. “You aren’t usually this impatient.”

  I backed off. “Sorry.”

  She rubbed the scrap between her forefinger and thumb, her head bobbing. “Yes. That’s it.”

  “What?”

  She reached over, grabbed my hand, pressing the fragment into my palm with her thumb. A negative image burst upon my mind; trees, a rural mailbox with the numbers 4537 glowing upon it. Then the pressure was gone and I found myself sitting there, open-mouthed, staring at Sophie’s self-satisfied expression.

  “Wow. How’d you do that?”

  She flicked the paper from her thumb and it drifted back into the box. “It’s a gift.” Her smile faded. “But knowing it’s a house number doesn’t tell you where to find the house.”