Nuri came out at once to do it for her, dressed in his customary white shirt and slacks. “Good morning to you, Trooper,” he said politely. His eyes were not nearly so polite. Once again, they were working their way over and around every single inch of her body. “Shall I fill it up?”
“Yes, please,” she responded, shuddering slightly. She felt positively creeped by this man. She spotted Nema inside through their sparkling new front window and waved to her. Nema waved back, smiling broadly. “Have you had any further problems, Mr. Acar?”
“Not a one, as I anticipated,” he replied, starting in on her windshield with a soapy squeegee. “Everyone has been most supportive. Most particularly my fellow members of the Dorset Merchants Association, who have agreed to offer a cash reward of one thousand dollars to anyone who can provide useful information regarding the identity of these vandals.”
Des leaned against the side of the cruiser with her arms crossed. “You folks had your monthly meeting last night, am I right?”
“That is correct,” he said, clearing the soap from the window withcareful, precise movements. “At the Clam House. The surf-and-turf combo is particularly delicious, in my opinion.”
“Did you happen to see Donna Durslag there?”
“I sat right next to her,” he said easily. No hesitation or tinge of color to his cheeks, no nervous glance over his shoulder at his wife. “Very nice lady, Mrs. Durslag. So full of personality. Jolly is an appropriate word for her, is it not?”
“So she seemed in good spirits to you?”
“She did. Very upbeat and pleasant.”
“What did you two talk about?”
“Nothing very specific. Local business concerns. Tourism and so forth.”
“Do you remember what she had on?”
Now Nuri Acar glanced at her curiously, aware that her interest in Donna was more than casual. “A white dress, I believe. It was not anything fancy.”
“Like a peasant dress?”
“If you wish.”
“Did she happen to say anything about where she was going afterward?”
“I don’t believe so, no.” Nuri dumped the squeegee back in its soapy tub and returned to the gas pump nozzle, gripping it tightly as he finished filling her tank. “Why do you wish to know so much about Mrs. Durslag?”
“What did you do after the meeting broke up, Mr. Acar?”
“I came back here to help Nema. We stay open until ten.”
“What time did you get here?”
“Perhaps nine-fifteen,” he said, as the nozzle clunked to a halt. Her tank was full. “That will be twenty-two dollars even, please.”
“You came straight here?” she asked, handing him her credit card.
Nuri took it from her, scowling. “What is the point of this, young lady?”
“Mr. Acar, if you have anything at all to tell me, it’ll go down a whole lot better if you do it before rather than after.”
“After what, may I ask?”
“After I say out loud that Donna Durslag was murdered last night.”
Nuri’s eyes widened. “My goodness gracious. By who?”
“By her boyfriend,” Des replied, raising her chin at him. “Whoever he is.”
“I was not involved with that woman,” he shot back. “And I resent your insinuation.”
“I insinuated nothing. You asked me a question, I answered it.”
“How dare you doubt my veracity?” he demanded, highly indignant. Or staging one hell of an imitation, especially for someone who was so overtly smarmy. “I am a respectable businessman. A married man. How dare you?”
“I simply have a job to do, Mr. Acar.”
“Then you have a filthy, horrible job. A proper young lady would not hold such a job. She would not.” Glowering, he turned on his heel and sped inside to run her credit card. Service without a smile.
Des got back in her cruiser and waited calmly for him to return.
When he did, he refused to make eye contact with her. She was too far beneath him.
“I carry a pooper-scooper, Mr. Acar,” she explained as she signed the credit card slip. “I’m the girl who cleans up after the other human beings. You’re right-sometimes it’s not a very nice job. We’re not a very nice animal. In fact we’re the cruelest, most thoughtless animal on the planet. I try not to let it get to me, but, wow, some mornings it just turns me all upside down.” She tore off her copy and handed his back to him, treating him to her biggest smile. “You have yourself a good one, okay?”
Abby Kaminsky lived plenty large when she was on tour.
The best-selling children’s author had herself a condo-sized suite on the ninth floor of the highly choice Four Seasons Hotel on Boylston Street, complete with a drop-dead view of the lush green Public Garden, the Common, and Beacon Hill. It was a bright, crisp New England afternoon, the sky a deep blue, the clouds puffy and white. Off in the distance, the Charles River shimmered in the sunlight.
“It’s like I told you on the phone,” Abby chattered gaily as she showed Des in. “I am insanely busy today. I can only give you a few minutes. I have two bookstore appearances, a radio call-in show, and then I’m talking fish with the Zoom kids.” Jeff Wachtell’s estranged wife was a bustling, impeccably groomed little thing with a frosted head of architecturally designed, stay-put hair that made her seem a bit taller than she really was, which was barely five feet tall. “A stylist will be here in twenty minutes to make me gorgeous. It’s just a really tight, tight day.”
“Understood,” Des said. “I appreciate you squeezing me in.”
There was a fruit basket and a bouquet of flowers in the living room. There was a portable wardrobe rack full of Armani linen suits and silk blouses. There was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Abby clutching her new Carleton Carp book under a balloon caption that read: Go Fish!
And there was a goateed no-neck seated on the sofa, drinking a diet soda and staring at a rerun of Baywatch on the television.
“This is my escort,” Abby said. “Frankie, say hello to Resident Trooper Mitry. She’s come here all the way from Dorset, Connecticut.”
Frankie gave Des a brief nod, barely bothering to look her way. He was too busy maintaining his cultivated air of bad-assdom.
One whiff and Des could smell yard all over him. “Glad to know you, Frankie,” she said pleasantly. “Your last name is?…”
He glowered in silence for a long moment before he said, “Ramistella.”
“You work out of New York?”
“Bay Ridge.”
“What’s your address?”
He gave it to her, peering up at Des now with eyes that were heavy lidded and immensely hostile. “Why so many questions?”
“Behave, Frankie,” Abby ordered him. “She’s just doing her job. You need to leave us alone now, okay? Go take a walk or something. And have the car ready for me downstairs at two sharp.”
He got up very deliberately, turned off the TV, and started for the door.
“Oh, hey, cookie?” Abby called after him. “Take my cutout, will you?”
Grimacing with disdain, Frankie carried the cardboard Abby out of the room under his arm, shutting the door softly behind him.
“Can I get you anything from the minibar, Trooper?” Abby asked her. “Water, juice?”
“I’m all set, thanks.”
Abby sat on the sofa and kicked off her little pumps, one stocking leg folded under her, a box of Cocoa Pebbles kids’ cereal cradled in her lap. She reached inside for a handful and munched on it. “Want some? What am I saying? Of course you don’t. Pebbles are my own thing,” she explained merrily. “Can’t help myself. Now what can I
