Kitabı oku: «Straight Silver», sayfa 3

“Honey, you think I pay any mind to you in the morning? I know you’re ornerier than a gut-shot she-boar. It don’t faze me none, because you get it from me. Carl burped at the breakfast table one morning over fried eggs, and I stuck my fork in his arm. It stood right up on its own. Had to change his Sunday shirt and we were late for ten-o’clock service. Had to tiptoe and squeeze in next to Loretta Knolls with her big behind and her husband who smelled of pork fat. Carl didn’t burp at the breakfast table ever again.”

Carl was Aunt Peggilee’s third husband. Matrimonial mistakes are another thing I inherited from the Le-Grande women. Except Momma, who said she loved men too much to marry one. As I get older, Momma gets wiser to me.

“You’ll mellow with the years, Silver.”

I rubbed my forehead.

“Rough night?” Aunt Peggilee’s gaze was on my black-and-blue wrist.

“Paul was seen leaving Della’s apartment yesterday morning. The police picked him up for questioning. I went down to the precinct. We had dinner.”

Aunt Peggilee shook her head, her beehive wobbling and threatening to give way. “Silver, Silver,” was all she said, but she looked at me like I was a calf being led to slaughter.

I took a swallow of coffee. “He drank to you.”

“The man would toast Beelzebub himself if it meant a good gulp.”

Must have been the fact I’d been foolish enough to marry him that made me feel compelled to defend him. “A lot of gals have done a lot worse.” It was a weak argument, but it was all I had.

“Silver, don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind the man myself. I just mind him with you.”

“He’s not with me. We had pasta together.”

Auntie raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, I had pasta. He had several bottles of red. He and Della had been running into each other—”

“Like Mack trucks, I imagine.” Auntie took a delicate sip of soy milk.

“And I wanted to talk to him about her.”

Auntie eyed me over her glass. “Did you learn anything?”

I shrugged. “Pretty much what I expected. She was really shook up by her brother’s death and in a bad way.”

Aunt Peggilee studied me. “It’s not your fault, Silver.”

“I know. I just don’t know why…” I shook my head, too much caffeine and too little sleep making me sappy. “I wish I’d called her. Or she’d gotten in touch with me.”

Auntie Peggilee put her hand on mine, squeezed. “She did, honey.”

I DRANK ANOTHER CUP of coffee while I dressed. I went to my underwear drawer, opened a small box next to a dried-out honeysuckle sachet and took out an elastic. A new day, a new rubber band. I closed the drawer, picked up Paul’s keys from my dresser top. I jangled them. Besides his car keys, there were others, house keys, office keys, a smaller one that probably opened a locker. I dropped the keys into my purse on the kitchen counter and grabbed two Tootsie Pops out of the cupboard. I locked up, Auntie having left for breakfast bingo and Adrienne knocking off a despised but required phys ed credit with an early-morning fencing class. I started the car, got the air conditioner blasting. I unwrapped one pop, stuck it in my mouth and headed out.

By the time I’d gotten to my second candy-coated chewy center, I’d called Paul on my cell phone twice to tell him I was on my way but there was no answer. If I couldn’t rouse him before Macro, I’d leave the keys, and he could call a cab.

Paul lived in a small but well-designed modern home on the edge of one of the tony neighborhoods. Tips on the greens had gotten good.

I went to the back door, didn’t even bother to knock, twisted the doorknob before pawing through my purse for the keys. The door clicked open. The house had a security system, but the alarm hadn’t been activated. Liquor might make the old pathetic but it gave the young a sense of invincibility. Paul, at thirty-five, was on the cusp.

I called out hello, not expecting an answer. “Paul?”

The back door opened into a kitchen with stainless steel appliances whose constant reflection would make a woman past forty take a sharp object to their surface, but was a perfect panorama for a premiddle-age country-club pro. The room was arranged for a House Beautiful spread, the uneven trio of chairs around the table instead of the expected four the only touch of whimsy. Paul was a fastidious housekeeper. I’d watched him cotton swab a heating grate once for twenty minutes and still didn’t understand. Funny the things that endear a person to you.

As I walked into a spacious, open living room with a vaulted ceiling, I saw the bleached white briefs first. Directly eye level, Fruit of the Loom, waist size thirty-two. Paul always wore Fruit of the Loom, waist size thirty-two. Mundane details such as these allowed me to step toward the body in the white briefs hanging from the ceiling rafters.

“Damn.” I fumbled for my phone in my purse as I ran into the kitchen. I grabbed a knife from the end of the built-in butcher-block cutting board, found my phone as I ran back into the living room, dialed 911. “Damn,” I told the woman’s voice as I righted the missing kitchen chair under Paul’s dangling body in the spotless white underwear. I climbed onto the chair.

“Ma’am, do you need…”

As I reached high for the rope, I saw the red garter necktie with the gold double D around Paul’s throat. I sawed at the rope with the knife.

“Ma’am…”

The body spun full circle. I looked down from the rope, directly into Paul’s dead eyes, sputtered the only other recent savior I’d met. “Serras.”

I sawed harder, my weight pushing against the body. The body swung back. I lost my balance. The chair tipped. The phone dropped from the tuck in my shoulder. I clutched Paul’s red-gartered neck with the gold double D charm, wrapping my legs around his hips in a position that we’d actually both been quite fond of in our past. We twirled Cirque du Soleil for several seconds, then our weight ripped us loose. We went down, me clinging to my dead ex-husband as if climaxing. My head struck something hard, sharp. Until death do us part. Hell, like I’d ever meant that literally. Down I went into darkness.

Chapter Four

I woke to a civil servant with a gun and Apollo ancestry hovering over me. I hadn’t gone to heaven yet. But it wasn’t quite hell, either.

Serras looked down at me. “Silver LeGrande. Everybody’s favorite emergency contact.”

I mustered a grimace as I attempted to gain a vantage point by rising. The marching band in my head made the worst morning-after I’d ever experienced seem like a Sunday in the park. Cymbals clashed along my frontal lobe, laid me low again. Serras’s eyes narrowed as if he’d heard them, too.

“Easy,” he said. One of the ambulance attendants flashed him a dirty glance, no one certain who Serras spoke to. I liked to think all of us. I looked past him. The area around the scene was being secured. A cop was sketching the room. Another was photographing the corpse from different angles. I winced as the Polaroid flashed.

The attendants’ hands were gentle as they rolled me onto a stretcher. Yet my body stiffened. They strapped me in. My eyes met Serras’s as I was lifted.

Easy.

With the hope of intravenous pain killer and the gaze of my newfound Greek-god-guru, I let myself be carried away. The stretcher began to roll. Serras began to walk. He was carrying my purse.

“You assigned to hold my hand?” I like to play it tough when I’m feeling tender.

“You called me, remember?”

“I’m getting the idea you’re not going to let me forget.”

Past Serras, a cop knelt down to examine the marks on my dead ex-husband’s neck. Paul’s handsome face was discolored, distorted. His eyes were frozen as if still seeing his killer.

“You going to find out who did this to him?”

Serras baited me with one arched brow. Behind the skepticism, the gears were shifting. A dead junkie stripper. Maybe it had been an accident in the carnival of carnal excess, maybe it had been deliberate, a game of rough-and-tumble gone too far. Didn’t much matter because obviously the guilty party had gone straight for atonement by leaping off his dinette chair. Murder-suicide. Wrap a red bow around it, and another day of detective work well done.

“Sometimes a cigar is more than a cigar, Serras.” Even Monica Lewinsky had her moments. So did I as I got a grin from Serras. The attendants slid me into the back of the ambulance. The door slammed on Serras. The attendants were fussing, checking pulse, heartbeat, breath. I closed my eyes. Della and Paul stared back at me. Blank, vacant gazes.

“Hey.” I opened my eyes to the attendant leaning over me. “Someone murders someone but wants to make it look like suicide. How could they slip up?”

The attendant got a gleam in his eye as if about to administer pure oxygen.

“Say we’re talking about what happened back there. Say the victim was strangled first, then hung. How would you know?”

The attendant’s expression turned matter-of-fact. “There would be two sets of marks. If the victim was strangled with a rope or cord—”

“Garter belt,” I interrupted, remembering the red satin strip around Paul’s neck, the double D gold charm swaying delicately along his Adam’s apple.”

“Sure, anything like that. There would be a bruise in a straight line circling the neck.” The attendant drew a slash along his own throat. “Probably also a big bruise at the back of the neck where usually the most pressure is exerted. Now, if the victim was strangled with bare hands, usually you see signs of struggle, internal and external damage to the neck. Many times too much force is used. The contusions, abrasions are more severe.”

Silver thought of Della. The line around her neck had been straight, tidy.

“But the marks on the neck from a hanging are different. The rope causes an inverted vee on the neck.” The attendant drew the shape in the air as if conducting a symphony.

I tried to concentrate past the cacophony in my brain. The red garter, the red pinpoints of blood vessels, Paul’s eyes bulging as if he’d walked into a surprise party. Which he obviously had. Surprise of his life.

My head throbbed.

At the emergency room, I was poked and prodded, stitched up, told to take over-the-counter ibuprofen for any discomfort and thrown back into the melee of society without sympathy. Waiting to catch me was Serras, leaning against a wall, arms crossed, wearing an expression the English comp T.A. would phrase “sardonic.”

I moved in to a dangerous foot away from being in his face. “Got the killer yet?”

“Which one?” He didn’t smile.

“The one who seems fond of strangling my friends.”

His eyebrow arched. Sardonic to the soul.

“That’s your theory? Your ex-husband was strangled by someone and strung up to make it look like suicide? His tone didn’t say whether he was buying it or not.

“Were the bruises on his neck in an upside-down V?” I imitated the ambulance attendant’s maestro move.

Serras’s expression didn’t change. Not easily impressed, I was reminded.

“Or was there a bruise in a straight line beneath the garter belt, circling the neck?” Christ, my voice actually sounded hopeful.

“C’mon.” Serras put his hand on the small of my back in another of those unexpected gestures that could mess a gal up royally. I stepped away from his touch.

“I’ll drive you over to pick up your car.”

“What’s the official word, Serras? Paul murdered Della, then took his own life?”

Serras’s dark eyes were on me, taking me in beneath twin sharp brows. I suspected his lips’ clean line of contempt was natural rather than mastered like most cops. He didn’t even have to open them. I knew. He wasn’t going to tell me a damn thing.

“That’s one theory.” He stopped at a standard-issue squad sedan.

“What’s yours?” I ignored the door he’d pulled open. I’d learned long ago height had its advantages.

His gaze would have given another whiplash. I was glad I’d planted my feet. “Get in, LeGrande.”

I didn’t move. Neither did he. Yet he seemed to loom larger. Neat optical illusion. “You’ve got to give me something, Serras.”

His mouth jerked up at the corners. If nothing else, his amusement was worth the effort…and enough to give me encouragement.

“Why?”

I used a shoulder roll I’d often employed on stage. “Tit for tat.” If his gaze so much as flickered in the direction of my notable bosom, it was all over between us.

His gaze stayed its intimidating course. My illusions remained intact, a rare claim for someone of my age and colorful background. I grew grateful. Maybe Serras was one of the good guys after all.

“I did have dinner with Paul last night. Was probably one of the last people to see him alive,” I reminded, my voice going to a soft lull of insinuation.

Serras gave me the flat look that was probably a course itself at the academy. Nothing in his face flinched. Give this guy a table in Vegas and he’d clean up. I waited for the obstruction-of-justice spiel.

“You like to play with big boys, LeGrande?” In the scheme of things, he had the power. We both knew it. Yet so far, he hadn’t pulled any trump cards. My estimation of him went a little higher. Also made me worry what he was saving them for.

“Two people I know dead in two days, Serras. Doesn’t exactly put me in the mood for pinochle.”

His lips twisted into a smirk, confirming I sounded like the bad-B-movie imitation I’d imagined. “I can either give you a ride or call someone to pick you up.” If the man was hungry for what I might know, he wasn’t showing it.

“When did I become your responsibility, Serras?”

“Civic duty. Comes with the cool car.” The smirk was faint but there. I didn’t make a move. The smirk widened into a smile as if he appreciated a good standoff.

“C’mon, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, LeGrande, and you can spill your guts.”

“You think that’s all it takes?”

“You found your ex-husband strung up like a piñata and got a nice headache yourself in the process.” He reached over and brushed the strands of hair away from the four stitches above my temple. “I’d say it’s the best offer you’ve had today.”

I slid into the car. Best offer I’d had in years, but Serras would have to stick around a little longer than a double latte to find that out.

He pulled into a diner not far from the hospital. We settled across from each other in a high-backed booth. The waitress slapped two menus on the laminated table.

“Coffee?” She asked automatically.

We nodded. She turned over the thick white ceramic cups on the table and filled them with the pot she had brought with her. “I’ll be back in a moment to get your orders.” She moved on to another table.

I added several sugars and creams to my coffee. Without adding anything, Serras raised his cup to his lips.

“I bet you used to smoke, too.” I swirled cream into my cup.

He smiled above the rising steam. “Pack and a half a day.”

“What made you quit?” I tested my coffee, reached for another packet of sugar.

“I decided there were better ways to kill myself.” He heard his words. “Sorry.”

“I’m an ex-stripper, Serras. I’m not exactly renowned for my refined sensibilities.”

The waitress returned, pen poised above her pad. “What’ll you have?”

“Hungry?” Serras’s expression revealed nothing, but I decided I was making progress getting past his professionally honed defenses.

I shook my head. He ordered the number three special with an extra side of ham.

“Paul didn’t kill himself,” I said as soon as the waitress was out of earshot.

He sipped his coffee. “Then someone sure went to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.” He eased back against the bench seat. “Okay, what’s your take?” He said as if doing me the favor.

I propped my elbows on the table and leaned in. “I’m not a morning person to begin with, Serras. Imagine the funk I’m in today. Don’t patronize me.”

“I didn’t bring you here because of your bubbly personality, LeGrande.”

I came in closer. “You think Paul was murdered, too?”

The arrival of the number three special with a side of ham interrupted the conversation. The waitress aimed a teeth-baring smile at Serras. “What else can I do for you?”

“This is fine for the moment, thank you.” Serras picked up a knife and fork, paused to look at me before digging into order number three. “No signs of struggle. Nothing was taken. No evidence anyone else was there, let alone broke in. The crime scene will do a full report, but the preliminary findings all say it was suicide. What makes you so sure your ex-husband didn’t kill himself?”

I relaxed back, adopting an easiness I was far from feeling. “Not his style. Paul preferred to do it slow, leisurely. One drink at a time.”

Serras stabbed his egg with a toast triangle. He sopped up the yolk with the bread. He ate with obvious pleasure. The man had a lusty appetite. I sensed it extended to other areas besides eating.

He gave me the ol’ one-brow lift. Its angle said, That’s it? Not easily impressed, I remembered.

The waitress returned with the coffeepot. I let her fill my cup, added sugars and cream, stirred nonchalantly before I raised my eyes to his.

“What happened after you and your ex-husband left the station last night?”

I steadied my gaze on him. “C’mon, give it up. You don’t think it was suicide, either, do you?”

“Let’s see what the M.E. finds out. In the meantime, why don’t you tell me what happened last night?”

“If you guys had had surveillance on him, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” I challenged.

He speared a sausage link, popped it whole into his mouth and chewed while contemplating me. Finally he swallowed and said, “How do you know we didn’t? Maybe I’m just making sure we didn’t miss something.” He stabbed another sausage. “Maybe I just didn’t feel like eating breakfast alone.”

“My great-aunt once stuck a fork in her husband’s arm because he burped at the breakfast table.” I moved in and in a cut-the-crap tone, warned, “Like I said, Serras, LeGrande women aren’t morning people.”

He smiled. Mr. Sardonic. “You’re trying to tell me your mood was better last night when you left with your ex-husband?”

I eyed the silverware he’d slid out of my reach. “We picked up Paul’s car, went to Dino’s off of Jackson. Separate cars. I ate, Paul drank. I took his keys, offered to drive him home. He wasn’t ready to call it a night.”

“You didn’t give him back his keys?”

“No. I’d already seen enough death for one day, thank you. Gave him one last chance, he refused. I told him I’d stop by in the morning, pick him up and give him a ride to his car.” I reached for my coffee cup. “You know the rest.” The memory of the morning after fell on me as if to flatten me. My hands threatened to shake. I put down the coffee cup and was thoroughly disgusted with myself.

“Did your ex-husband talk about his relationship with Ms. Devine?”

Again Serras’s formal use of Della’s stage name was not lost on me. If he was trying to get into my good graces, it was working.

“Sure, he said he ran into her one night at a place downtown about six months ago. Della and I were pretty close at one time. For some of that time I was married to Paul.”

Serras cleaned the last of the egg yolk from the plate, pushed the plate away from him and signaled the waitress for coffee. “What happened?”

“I stopped drinking. He didn’t. We got divorced.”

Serras smiled thinly. “I meant between you and Ms. Devine?”

“Nothing happened. I left the club. She didn’t. We didn’t see each other every day any longer. She wasn’t tough, Della. They probably ate her up alive at the Oyster.” I sat on my hands as they began to shake. I glanced at the wall clock as if I had someplace to be.

“You looked out for her.”

“Most knew not to mess with Billie’s girls but on occasion…” I took a long breath. “She could act the act, but she was a kid. A screwed-up kid who didn’t stand a chance.” I slid my hands free from beneath my backside. Under the table I gave the elastic a good snap. Straighten up.

“Who looked out for you?”

The guy threw a good curve. I flattened my hands on the tabletop as if about to lay out my terms. “I did.”

He tapped my wrist. “What’s this?”

“A rubber band.”

“Yesterday’s was blue. Today’s is red.”

Detectives and details. Like peanut butter and jelly. “Depends on my mood.”

“Why do you wear one on your wrist all the time?”

“Secret weapon.”

“Against what?” His eyes held mine.

“Against losing control.”

“You don’t like losing control, LeGrande?”

“I like to say when and where.”

He leaned back, smiled as if he liked me. “Was your ex-husband depressed?”

It took me a minute to catch up. I suspected the sudden shift in conversation was deliberate on Serras’s part. I sharpened my gaze. “Paul? He was the life of every party.”

“Was that what last night was? A party?”

“Paul preferred a light touch to life. Depression was too strenuous.”

We both shook our heads as the waitress approached with the coffeepot. She set down the pot, ripped off the check from a pad in her pocket, slapped it facedown on the table and gave Serras another grand grin before moving on.

“Did you and your ex-husband argue?”

“Last night?” He’d caught me off guard again.

“Any night.”

I gave him a cool shrug. “What married couple doesn’t?”

“Besides his drinking, did your husband have any other bad habits?”

“You mean other women?”

Serras waited. I leaned in low. “Don’t you think if I was going to murder Paul, I would have done it when we were married and he was sleeping with the upper east side of Memphis.”

“Your ex-husband slept with female members of the country club?”

“My ex-husband believed in customer service.” I relaxed back. “But if you and your pals are worth a fraction of the taxpayers’ money, you already knew that before my anesthesia wore off.”

Serras neither confirmed nor denied. He was playing it close to the chest.

“You’re wasting your time here, Detective. We weren’t exactly Ozzie and Harriet, but no matter what Paul did during the course of our ill-fated marriage, I’d never wish him dead.”

Serras threw some bills on the table. I slid out of the booth.

“So what exactly was your ex-husband’s relationship with Ms. Devine?”

“He said they’d get together now and then. Have a party.”

“Private parties?”

“I’m sure they did it at least once or twice in the coat checkroom at a club downtown just for kicks.”

Serras gave a low chuckle. “That’s good, LeGrande, but c’mon, that’s all you got for me?”

“For now,” I alluded.

He leveled a look my way. “You wouldn’t be thinking of going into my line of work, now would you?”

“I’m an ex-stripper, Serras. I’ve already had my share of glamour professions.”

DELLA’S BODY was released Tuesday. The funeral was on Thursday. I failed my macro exam on Wednesday.

Thursday morning I slipped on a black sheath that did double duty as my dinner date dress. Dinner dates, funerals. Sometimes there was only a thin line.

My fingers shook as I tried to clasp the gold cross around my throat. I muttered a curse, slammed the necklace on the bureau. I held my hands out in front of me. They trembled like a virgin’s thighs. I opened the top dresser drawer, stretched two elastics onto my wrist. Definitely a double-rubber-band day.

It was a thin group at church. If Della had had any surviving family, they hadn’t been found. Billie was footing the bill and sat ringside, her face shiny, dark and solemn. I recognized many of my ex-co-workers, but a lot of the faces were unfamiliar. Some were probably from the Oyster. Others I had the suspicion were employees Billie had persuaded with a strong arm to show at the service even if they hadn’t known Della. Billie believed in a packed house. She had done her best, but there were still too many empty seats.

Serras came in, turned out in a gray pinstripe. He sat down beside me without invitation, scanned the crowd before giving me a nod. He unbuttoned his suit jacket. I saw a flash of the standard-issue Glock before he shifted. I slid over in the pew to make more room for him and banged into Auntie who was giving Serras her serious roving eye. I was glad to see him. His presence meant the department was taking Della’s death seriously.

Serras nodded at Auntie. She leaned over me, the scent of Aquanet Extra Hold strong.

“Did you know the deceased?” Auntie whispered.

“No,” Serras answered. “Did you?”

“No.” Auntie leaned back. “So, that’s the dick?” she whispered to me out of the side of her mouth. Auntie was a fan of Raymond Chandler.

“That’s the dick,” I answered.

Serras continued to survey the room. I followed his lead. Faces looked wan and puffy in the morning light. Tears were few. It took a lot to make a stripper cry in public. The service was brief and impersonal, the sunlight deepening the stained-glass windows offering little comfort. There would be no graveside service. The attendees filed out, slipping on sunglasses against the perverse sunshine, concealing their blank expressions. They stood in small groups, not knowing whether to leave or stay. They smoked with shallow, nervous drags on slim cigarettes, speaking in undertones with abrupt flutters of their hands. I hugged several of the girls I’d worked with at Billie’s. Some went stiff in my arms. I’d seen their glances inside, the rolling eyes of some of the resentful who wondered what right I had to be there. Several looked thinner than I remembered. Some looked older. We’d been a boisterous group at Billie’s. Today we talked in murmurs like the incessant sounds of small rodents running through walls, a paltry expression of “I exist, I exist.”

Billie paused on the church’s top step to survey the group. Her gaze settled on Serras, who’d already pulled loose his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. They nodded to each other as if partners. She glanced at her diamond watch cutting into her dimpled wrists. Beneath her we all had a hungry look. “The club will not be open for business today,” she announced in her low contralto. “Come. Join me there to remember our colleague and friend.” She added a gracious flourish of her small, plump hand so the invite seemed less like an order.

The groups split into smaller parts, moving toward cars. Billie came down the stairs with a feline grace and dark half-moons under her eyes. She moved to Serras, took his hand, whispered something to him as he leaned forward to kiss her offered cheek. He was smiling as he straightened. Fifty-five and easily 225 pounds naked, but she still had it. She knew it and so did we.

“Now you give me something to smile about, Lexi.” Billie leaned her head to the side, her gaze thinning. “Who did this to my girl?”

“She wasn’t your girl when she died, Billie.”

“Who’s girl was she then, my handsome friend?” Billie’s soft lilt lingered in the silence.

“You keep a tight bead on the circuit. You know more about what goes on in any club within a fifty-mile radius than some of the owners do, darlin’.”

Billie released a light breath, let her shoulders drop dramatically. “As you pointed out, chère, Della had left me. What you know I know.”

“You said `your girl’ had to be let go because of her untidy habits.”

Billie gave Serras a shrewd look.

“M.E.’s report showed no traces of illegal substances. Della Devine was clean when she died.”

Billie clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth. “Normally that would be good news, chère.”

“Della had cleaned up her act?” I asked, a new sadness seeping into my rubbery bones.

“The toxicology reports showed no traces of drugs in her system.”

“But even Paul had said Della was having a hard time between the drugs and the drinking.”

Aunt Peggilee patted my arm. “Paul wasn’t exactly a model of credibility, dear.”

“He had no reason to lie.” I looked at Serras. “Or murder Della and then take his own life.”

The trio looked at me but withheld any pity. I wasn’t certain why I was defending my cheating, alcoholic now-dead ex-husband. Maybe because I had once loved him. And he had loved me. Even if it’d gone sour, loving someone and being loved isn’t something you turn your back on lightly.

Aunt Peggilee gave her gaze to Serras. “I don’t suppose my niece’s ex-husband’s toxicology screens were clean.”

“The report’s not back yet.”

“So she dried out, kicked it for a few days. Good for her,” Billie said. “Shame this had to happen when she was on her way back up.”

“But if Della’s habit was as heavy as everyone claims, traces of the drug would have stayed in her system for over a month.” I’d read the pamphlets. “If she was clean that long, it seems she was the only one who noticed it. What about the autopsy?”

“There was no autopsy.” Serras offered no apology.

“What do you mean?” I straightened, ready to choose my weapons.

Billie laid a restraining hand on my forearm, her mandarin nails exerting pressure. She had known me a long time. “Come. They are waiting for us at the club. I need an absinthe. I suspect you do, too, my handsome friend,” she spoke to Serras. “We will have a drink, and you will explain why Royce sent you only to appease me.”