four years ago. And that just turned out to be a lover’s quarrel.”
Outside, Soave and Yolie pulled up alongside of Des’s cruiser and got out. Each of them clutching a Bess Eaton take-out coffee container. Each of them wearing an angry glower. Soave’s lips were tightly compressed. Boom Boom’s chin was stuck out. They’d been spatting. Or they were just getting on each other’s nerves. It happened. Partners had to spend a lot of time together. And that’s not easy-especially when the case they’re working suddenly goes way bad.
Soave seemed relieved to see Des standing there in the office doorway. “Another early start to the day, hunh?” he said, forcing a weary smile onto his face. His eyes were bloodshot, his bulky shoulders slumped with fatigue.
“This could get to be a habit, Rico.”
“God, let’s hope not.”
Yolie couldn’t get away from the man fast enough. “I’ll check the register, put together a list of guests for us to canvass,” she told him hurriedly as she started inside, wearing a bulky yellow cotton sweaterthat made her entire upper body look huge. “Maybe one of them saw somebody, recognized somebody…” She halted in the doorway, smiling brightly at Des. “ ’Morning, girlfriend.”
“Back at you, Yolie. You’ll find the victim’s car behind the bungalow.”
“I’m on it.”
Des led Soave toward the crime scene, their footsteps crunching on the gravel. As they made their way across the courtyard two more cruisers pulled up, followed by a team of tekkies in a cube van. The uniformed troopers secured the perimeter. The tekkies got busy unloading their gear.
“I swear, that damned Boom Boom is going to drive me crazy,” Soave complained. “Right away, she wants to brace our movie star this morning. She’s convinced that Esme Crockett’s behind all of this. Her and Jeff Wachtell both, since each is the other’s alibi.”
“That’s interesting,” Des said. “Mitch went there, too.”
Soave glanced at her coldly. “So, what, Berger ’s backstopping my investigation now?”
Des let that one slide on by. “What did you tell her, Rico?”
“I told her we don’t have enough yet. This is Esme Crockett we’re talking about, not some gang-banger. She can hire the best team of criminal defense lawyers in the world. We have to get all our ducks in a row before we go anywhere near her.”
Des had to smile at this. When they were a team it was always Soave who was Mr. Great Big Hurry, Des who was Ms. Go Slow.
“So guess what she says back to me.”
“Rico, I can’t imagine.”
“She says I’m not secure enough in my manhood to accept her input. That I feel, quote, sexually threatened by her performance on the job, unquote. And that she finds it hard to respect me. Can you believe that?”
“She possesses what my good friend Bella Tillis calls moxie. Got to like that in a girl.”
“You’ve got to like it-I don’t. She’s busting my balls, Des.”
“She’s hungry, Rico. Better that than a slacker, don’t you think?”
He shook his head at her. “Somehow, I knew you’d take her side.”
“Chump, I’m not taking anyone’s side,” Des shot back angrily. “And I have an excellent idea-solve your own damned personnel problems, okay?”
“Real sorry, Des,” he apologized, reddening. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just, I got like two hours of sleep last night and this case is now totally out of hand. I appreciate your input. Really, I do.”
They arrived at the bungalow. Soave went inside to take a look at Donna’s body on the bathroom floor, his face tightening. “Did you know her?”
“I did. This was a nice lady, Rico. A professional chef. She ran The Works with her husband, Will.”
“If she was such a nice lady what was she doing here?”
“Playing in the dirt.”
“Who with?”
“I wish I knew. As questions go, that’s the big kahuna.”
The crime scene technicians wanted to squeeze in there and start taking pictures.
Soave made way for them, moving back outside. “No, Des,” he countered. “The big kahuna is how does this fit into the Tito Molina death?”
“You think the two are connected?”
“Don’t you? Two violent deaths three days apart in a town this size-they can’t be unrelated, can they?”
“I agree, Rico. Although there was no effort to make this one look like a suicide.”
“That could have been dictated by circumstances,” he suggested, taking a noisy slurp of his coffee.
“Again, I agree. But why did Donna pay for the room with her damned credit card? What kind of way is that to sneak around?”
“Des, I can’t get my mind around what’s going on here, can you?”
“Not even.”
“Tito Molina and Donna Durslag are both dead and there has to be a reason why,” he mused aloud, smoothing his former mustache. “You know what I keep coming back to? I had me a very wise lootonce who had this saying: ‘It’s never complicated. It’s about money or it’s about sex. Or it’s about money and it’s about sex. But it’s never complicated.’ ” He paused, grinning at her. “She was a wise person, that loot.”
“Still am, wow man. Don’t kid yourself.”
They stood there in silence for a moment. A car drove by on Boston Post Road, the driver slowing for a look before he sped past.
“Any chance Donna was romantically involved with Tito?”
“I doubt that, Rico. If she was mixed up with Tito then what was she doing here last night? Or, more precisely, who was she doing here last night?”
“You have a point there, Des.”
“Then again, so do you.”
“Which is?…”
“That Donna wasn’t so nice. She slept around on Will. Mitch did tell me they were having marital problems. Let’s say she was involved with Tito. Say Tito wanted to break it off, and she didn’t, and she killed him in a jealous rage. Maybe someone else, someone close to Tito, figured it out and paid her back last night.”
“Like who?” he wondered.
“Then again,” she went on, “it’s not as if her killer brought a weapon along. He had to use a drawer to beat on her.”
“Meaning we could be looking at a spontaneous crime of passion,” Soave said, nodding.
Yolie came charging across the courtyard from the office now. She took a look inside the bungalow at Donna, then reemerged, grim-faced.
“Rico, we’d better notify Will,” Des said.
“Would you mind delivering the news?”
“Not a problem. I can try to feel him out while I’m there, if you’d like. He might know who her boyfriend is.”
“Go for it,” he urged her.
Yolie joined them now, hugging herself tightly with her big arms. She was either cold or freaked by the sight of Donna. Both, maybe. “Check it out, are we thinking it was a man who did her?”
Soave shot a blank look at Des, then turned back to Yolie, and said, “Why, where are you going with this?”
“That bed wasn’t slept in,” Yolie replied. “Her nightie was never worn. They can’t say for sure until they swab her, but it sure doesn’t look like she had sex before she died.”
“So he killed her before the two of them got busy.” An impatient edge crept into Soave’s voice. “So what?”
“So if there’s no evidence she had sex with him then there’s no evidence it was a him,” Yolie answered, her own voice getting sharp.
“She’s right, Rico,” Des agreed. “A reasonably strong woman could have done this.”
