A Novel Way to Die

TWENTY-FOUR





DARLA LOOKED UP. “REESE?”

She hadn’t seen him since the evening in the hospital, when he had come to take her statement. Jake had assured her that was no reflection on her. After all, she reminded Darla, he had a few other things on his list, like making sure there weren’t any other victims of Barry’s besides Curt and the building inspector. But Darla couldn’t help but wonder if his absence had something to do with the fact that he’d arrested the wrong person for Curt’s murder, and that Hamlet had been the one, for all intents and purposes, to solve the crime.

His expression unreadable, he strolled on in. Darla noted that he was back to the motorcycle jacket and jeans look. Either it was his day off, she thought, or he was no longer bucking for a promotion.

“So, holding down the fort alone?” he wanted to know.

She nodded. “Robert is next door with the Plinskis . . . it looks like he’s going to rent that garden apartment from them. And James doesn’t get here for another hour. So it’s just me and Hamlet taking care of business.”

Hearing his name, the feline in question opened a sleepy green eye and gave Reese a disdainful look. Apparently, Hamlet was not impressed by his human counterpart’s detective work. Not that he and Reese had ever been best buddies; still, the cat tolerated his presence.

Unlike with Barry.

“Oh my God, I just realized something,” she said with a small gasp. “Ever since the day Curt was murdered, whenever Hamlet saw Barry or sensed his presence, he would disappear. He didn’t want to be in the same room with him. He knew what Barry had done, and he was afraid of him.”

“Smart cat,” Reese observed.

He hesitated, and then went on, “I don’t like telling you this, but you’ll find out eventually. It turns out this wasn’t the first time the guy has been arrested for murder.”

“You mean, Barry killed someone before Curt and Toby?”

The detective nodded. “There was an incident about ten years ago in Connecticut. Similar scenario, though that time the weapon of choice was a tire iron. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any physical evidence to tie him to the crime, and the only witness statement got tossed for some reason. But I have a feeling the boys in Hartford will be reopening that case again soon.”

“Wow,” Darla replied in stunned disbelief. “I guess next time I decide to date a guy, I’d better be sure I get a paw’s up from Hamlet.”

And then, to her mortification, she began to cry, not stoic tears of fear or confusion, but loud, full-on sobs filled with equal parts outrage and self-pity. Reese handed her a handkerchief but wisely let her keep on crying until the storm subsided and the painful sobs had given way to the occasional sniffle.

“I’m sorry,” she croaked out once she’d blown her nose and dried her eyes. “I feel like an idiot. I’m fine, Hamlet’s fine, and Barry the bastard is in jail. So I don’t know what I’m crying about, except that my head still hurts and my throat looks like something out of a horror movie.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Red. If you were a cop and this had happened to you, you’d have got some mandatory days off and been sent in for counseling. But being the tough bookseller lady that you are, you’re trying to soldier through this on your own. What you’re suffering from is survivor PTSD.”

“Posttraumatic stress disorder? You mean, like what happens to soldiers?”

“And cops and firefighters and pretty much anyone who gets put in a life-and-death situation and manages to survive it. And a concussion on top of the mental trauma makes it twice as bad. You’ve got your nightmares, your feelings of helplessness and paranoia.”

All of which sounded uncomfortably familiar, she realized, thinking over her mental state the past few days.

He paused and gave her a keen look. “I’m not trying to tell you how to run your life, but you don’t do anything about this now, you walk away as a permanent victim. I’ll get you the names of a couple of people who know about that kind of thing. You might want to give one of them a call.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “All right, no more waterworks, at least for now. So, how’s the case going? How long before he goes to trial?”

“Depends on the court’s caseload, but it’ll probably be a good six months at a minimum. But don’t worry,” he added when she gasped a little, “no way Eisen is getting out on bail. You won’t have to see him again until you testify.”

Testify? She hadn’t thought about that, but obviously she was a prime witness in the case. “How about I send Hamlet in my place? After all, he was the witness to the original crime.”

“Yeah, about that.” Reese gave his head a resigned shake. “Jake told me that all you guys think he solved the case.”

“Well, he did. He knew it was Barry, and he told us so.”

She went on to explain in detail about the clues that centered on “murder” and “iron,” and how Hamlet’s final dictionary clued had led James to tie everything to Barry’s name. Then, not bothering to hide a small smirk, she finished, “I’m sorry that my sweet little kitty outsmarted you.”

“We would have figured it out eventually without him,” was the detective’s dry response. “But so you know, there was plenty of evidence pointing to Hilda Aguilar. I didn’t just pick her name out of a hat.”

“The pictures I gave to Jake?” Darla asked, remembering the photos that Curt had taken of Hilda, and how the woman had torn them to shreds.

He nodded, and to her relief didn’t mention the whole chain of custody thing. “That, and a series of threatening messages she left on Mr. Benedetto’s voice mail that were pretty damn incriminating. And it turns out that her relationship with her daughter wasn’t all sweetness and light. She and Tera had been fighting over the past couple of weeks. One of Tera’s friends overheard Hilda threatening to hurt her if she didn’t break it off with Curt. But the topper was that she’d bought a gun off some street guy.”

A gun? So Barry hadn’t been lying about that one thing, at least.

“You think about it,” Reese went on, “if Eisen had waited just one more day, there’s a good chance Mrs. Aguilar would have taken care of Benedetto for him.”

“Or maybe Bill the Porn Guy would have stepped in,” Darla added. “Did you ever find out why he and Curt were feuding?”

Reese nodded. “I dropped by to question him the day we located Tera’s phone in the Dumpster. Ferguson wasn’t willing to do much talking without a lawyer around, but he did manage to give me a little something. Apparently, Benedetto’s photography skills went beyond taking pictures of pretty women in parks.”

Darla held up a hand. “Don’t tell me. He was photographing all the people going into the porn shop and then blackmailing them?”

“Good try, but you’re not thinking like a true bottom-feeder. Turns out Benedetto had modified one of the video booths in the porn shop with a couple of strategic holes in the wall. That way, he could be in there pretending to watch movies, but the whole time he was secretly using his own video camera to record the action that went on in the room next to his.”

“That’s disgusting!”

Reese grinned. “Hey, it gets better. He owned one of those members-only porn websites. He was posting his home movies there and making a nice chunk of change doing it. Ferguson found out and was pretty ticked . . . but not because of any violations of privacy for his customers. He thought that since it was his place, he should be getting a cut of the action.”

“Ugh, bottom-feeder is right,” Darla said with a disgusted snort. “I’m seriously considering running background checks on all my customers after this. So what about Barry and Curt’s brownstone? What happens to it now?”

“That’ll be up to the courts . . . and by the time they figure it out, chances are the city will have already condemned the place and razed it.”

“I hope so,” was Darla’s fervent reply. Knowing that the place where two people had died—the same place from which she had barely escaped with her life—might one day be someone’s home or place of business was a chilling thought, indeed.

“And what about the scrap thieves?” she wanted to know. “It’s good to know they’re not the ones out there murdering people, but it would be nice to know that it’s safe to leave my nice metal fixtures where they are outside.”

“As a matter of fact, we haven’t had any more theft complaints since we arrested Mr. Eisen,” Reese said with a shrug. “It might be pure coincidence; maybe the gang found another neighborhood with better pickings and moved on. Or maybe that whole stolen scrap metal thing was another little side business that Eisen and his building inspector buddy had going. Don’t worry, I’ll let you know if I find out anything on that.”

With the subject of murders and scrap thieves exhausted for the moment, an awkward silence fell between them. She abruptly found herself wishing for a customer to conveniently drop in and dispel the mood. When that didn’t happen, she began, “So—”

“So—” Reese said at the same time and then broke off at the same moment that she did.

Darla smiled. “Let’s try again. You first.”

“I was going to say, so, that’s all I have,” Reese told her with a shrug. “You?”

“Pretty much the same.”

The awkward silence fell again. Then Reese said, “Actually, there is just one more thing.”

“Isn’t that what Columbo used to say?” she asked with a small smile. Then, at his questioning look—surely he wasn’t so young that he’d never heard of the quirky television detective before—she shook her head and added, “Never mind. What’s the one more thing?”

“I thought”—he paused for a breath—“well, since I kind of barged in on your dinner the other night at your apartment, I thought I could take you out after work, if you were up to it.”

“You mean, like a couple of friends going out?” she carefully asked.

He gave a quick nod. “Sure . . . I mean, like you said . . . a couple of friends.”

“That would be fun. But not Greek food, if you don’t mind,” she hurried to clarify.

He looked perplexed but agreed. “No Greek. I was thinking we stick with good old Italian, if that’s okay by you.”

“It’s okay by me. Shall we say seven-ish?”

“It’s a date! Well, it is, but it’s technically not . . . oh hell, you know what I mean,” he answered and beat a hasty exit to the door. “See you later, Red . . . I mean, Darla.”

“Red’s okay,” she heard herself saying, but by then the bells on the door were already jingling behind him.

She smiled a little and then glanced over at Hamlet, who had slept through the entire exchange—or, at least, had pretended to. She saw that both green eyes were open now and watching her. Her smile broadened, and she reached over to scratch him under the chin.

“What do you think, Hammy? He says it’s not a date. Should I believe him?” Then, when Hamlet made no reply, she persisted, “How about this? Blink once for yes, and twice for no.”

She didn’t really expect an answer to that one, either. And so she was surprised when the cat slowly blinked once.

Yes, believe him, it’s not a date.

And then a second time.

No, it is a date!

And then a third time?

Darla frowned. “Three blinks? What the heck is that supposed to mean? The only choices are yes, no . . . or,” her smile returned, “aha, your vote is a maybe. Well, so is mine.”

Then she noticed Mary Ann’s casserole dish, which she’d forgotten was still sitting on the counter near the register.

“Green bean casserole, not exactly my favorite,” she admitted. “Guess you were right on the money with this one, too. But I don’t want to hurt Mary Ann’s feelings.” Then, remembering Robert’s reaction to it, she went on, “However, I think this dish would make a nice little welcome-to-the-new-apartment meal for Robert tonight. What do you say?”

Hamlet stared back at her with unblinking emerald eyes for a long moment.

And then he winked.