He was going at it with someone there on the kitchen floor, his hiking shorts bunched down at his knees. The naked woman was slender and pale and appeared to be quite young, although frankly Mitch couldn’t tell much about her because she had a canvas gunny sack over her head, the drawstring pulled tight across her throat. The whimpers that they’d heard were hers. She was pinned there beneath Dodge on her hands and knees, her wrists lashed together around a leg of the massive maple chopping block next to the stove.
As Mitch and Will burst inside Dodge tumbled back against the counter in surprise, reaching for a dish towel to cover himself. He laythere, his chest heaving, sweat pouring from him as Mitch and Will stood there with their mouths open, too flabbergasted to speak.
“W-We phoned,” Will finally stammered dumbly. “When you didn’t answer we got concerned.”
“No reason to be,” Dodge assured him with remarkable calm. “Another opportunity presented itself this morning, that’s all. What with me bunking alone and all.”
From the floor next to the chopping block, the woman bucked and strained against her wrist restraints, moaning incoherently inside of that gunny sack over her head. Mitch stood there, shuddering with revulsion. He felt as if he’d just walked in on a porn film that had been custom-tailored for ranking members of the Gestapo.
“There’s nothing unusual going on here, men,” Dodge pointed out, in response to Mitch’s look of sheer horror. “Just two adults having consensual sex.”
What Mitch wanted to do was run right out the door. Go straight home and wash out his brain with soap and water. But he didn’t. Instead, he crossed the kitchen floor and knelt next to the woman, who was so slender her ribs and vertebrae were plainly visible.
She recoiled in animal fright when he touched her.
“Sshh, it’s okay,” he whispered, gently removing the bag from over her head.
Her eyes were wild with panic and she was gagging for air-some kind of black material had been stuffed into her mouth. Her panties, Mitch discovered as he reached in and pulled them out. She immediately began gulping down huge lungfuls of air, her breathing rapid and ragged. Mitch dug his pocketknife out of his shorts and cut through the leather cord that bound her hands together. Her thin cotton summer dress lay in a heap next to her on the floor. Mitch helped her on with it.
Then he held his hand out to her, and said, “Come on, Becca, I’ll take you home.”
CHAPTER 10
“I didn’t hear Tito smack her around,” Chrissie Huberman insisted. “I didn’t hear anything-and you can’t make me say I did.”
“We’re not trying to, Miss Huberman,” Yolie said back at her, somewhat helplessly. “We’re trying to figure out what happened that night.”
“Well, don’t look at me, okay? And if I’m the best you can come up with as a suspect then you are just totally brain challenged.”
“You’re not a suspect,” Soave said, trying to cool the publicist’s jets. As if he or anyone else could. “We’re investigating an unexplained death.”
“Can you boys and girls even deal with a case this hot?” she wanted to know. “You should consider bringing in an outside consultant. I can pick up the phone and get you a retired NYPD chief of detectives here by three o’clock. He’ll be up to speed by the five o’clock news. You want me to make the call?”
“What we want,” Des said slowly, “is for you to relax and answer the questions that are put to you.”
“Fine, whatever,” Chrissie blustered, puffing out her cheeks.
They were grouped around a conference table in the spare conference room of Dorset’s musty-smelling town hall. The Major Crime Squad computers were up and running in there, and a couple of uniformed troopers were busy working the phones. Outside, there was total insanity-news vans with satellite transmitters lined up every which way on Dorset Street, reporters and cameramen waiting in a noisy, impatient cluster out on the curb for their twelve o’clock feeding.
Chrissie sat erect at the end of the table, dressed in a yellow silkblouse, white linen slacks, and suede loafers. Her hands were placed palm down on the table, fingers spread wide. She had big hands and wrists. She was a big woman, tall, rangy and very sure of herself. She was not pretty, but everything about her manner suggested that if you didn’t think she was then you’d been seriously misinformed.
“At present, we’re still trying to fill in the blanks,” explained Soave.
“What if I told you I’d like to have my lawyer present?” she demanded, glaring at the three of them.
“That’s totally your right.”
“Not necessary,” she said dismissively. “I have a law degree myself.”
“I thought you were a publicist,” he said, frowning.
“That doesn’t mean I can’t be well educated, does it?” Chrissie raised her longish nose in the air, sniffing. “You know, this building smells an awful lot like my grandmother’s house in Great Neck. What am I… Wait, that’s moth balls I’m smelling, right? And something else…”
“Ben-Gay,” Des informed her quietly.
“Definitely Ben-Gay,” she exclaimed. “God, I would have been up all night wondering about that. Thank you, Trooper.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Yolie said, “We understand from Esme that you’re planning to stay around Dorset, even though she’s terminated your services.”
“If by that you mean I was fired, I wasn’t,” Chrissie said smoothly. “Esme can’t fire me. I didn’t work for her-I worked for Tito. And now is when he needs me the most. His whole legacy as a screen star is on the line. The lasting image that audiences around the world will have of Tito Molina is being cast right at this very minute. I will not quit on him. Too much is at stake.”
“Pretty big story for you, too, I imagine,” Yolie suggested.
“What are you trying to do, girlfriend, fit me for a hooker hat?” Chrissie snarled at her angrily.
Yolie drew back, a bit overwhelmed by this savvy, hard-shell New York image broker. Clearly, this would go down as a learning day in Boom Boom’s personal diary. “I’m just wondering why you’re still around.”
“I’m around because I cared about that kid,” Chrissie said. “Both of them, actually, whether Esme believes it or not. She’s a helpless little lamb. If I don’t stay in town she’ll be slaughtered by those predators out there. Who else does she have watching her back? Her aging preppy bitch of a mother? Besides, I have another client passing through this area today, so it made no sense for me to go back to New York. I’m bunking at the Frederick House Inn for a few days.”
“How did you manage that?” Des asked her curiously.
“How did I manage what?”
“It’s the peak of the summer beach season. Plus every tabloid reporter in America is in town. How did you get a room there on such short notice?”
“No biggie,” Chrissie said offhandedly. “A writer for the Daily News swapped me her room for an exclusive.”
“What exclusive would that be?” Des asked.
Chrissie looked down her nose at her. “You don’t really care about shop talk, do you?”
“Just answer the question, please,” Des persisted, as Yolie watched them go back and forth, content to be riding the bench for now.
Chrissie shrugged her shoulders. “Okay, sure. I fed her that rough sex spin to explain Esme’s split lip. Kinky sex between two beautiful stars the public will eat up. Wife beating they will not-bad for Tito’s image.”
“Not to mention Esme’s lip,” Des said. “So you were the informed source close to the golden couple. Girl, you have you some skills. I’m impressed.”
“I work hard for my clients,” Chrissie said simply.
“Most definitely. But now you’ve got to show us the love, too.”
“What are you talking about?” Chrissie wanted to know.
“I’m talking about you sitting here telling us that you couldn’t hear what went on that night between Tito and
