I started to climb the steps, stopped when the pain in my ankle made further progress impossible, and took a deep breath. Stilettos just had to be the only shoes in my car other than flip-flops. A calmer person would have packed before leaving town. But then a calmer person wouldn’t have shot up her boyfriend’s trailer with her service weapon. At least I’d brought my personal gun, another Glock. Protection beat footwear any day, didn’t it?
“What’s wrong with your foot?” Jake asked. He was right behind me, his hand reaching out to cup my elbow in support.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? That didn’t look like nothing. It looked like you couldn’t walk on it. I mean, it is wrapped in an Ace bandage. There must be something wrong with it.”
I looked back at him, shook my head and then started out again on the other foot, willing myself to walk up the stairs.
“You are just as pigheaded as ever,” he muttered behind me. “Probably tripped on those spiky shoes of yours. You never used to dress like a…”
I whirled around. “Like a what?” I said slowly. “Go on, say it. Like what?”
Jake raised one hand in defense. “Well, you know, like a movie star.”
I didn’t think for a second that Jake Carpenter had meant a G-rated movie star, but Nina’s reappearance precluded any further argument.
“There’re two of them,” she whispered loudly. “They’re going through all the medicine cabinets and asking Aunt Lucy a bunch of questions.” Nina rolled her eyes. “Of course, she’s not making any sense.”
I clutched the banister and hauled myself up the last steps. “Where is she?” I asked.
“In the living room. Almost everybody else left.” Nina took in my disheveled appearance, then looked behind me at Jake and started to smirk. “You don’t waste time, do you?” she whispered to me. “Damn. If my Spike wasn’t so jealous, I’d be chasing him, too!”
“I am not chasing him,” I hissed back.
“Well…” Jake said. “She did attempt to tackle me, but that’s only because her bum ankle makes her move slow.”
“Shut up, Jake!” I pushed past Nina and left her to handle him.
I could hear Aunt Lucy’s tremulous voice coming from the living room, responding to questions that were murmured in voices too low to make out clearly.
I rounded the corner into the living room just as Aunt Lucy said, “Of course I knew where he kept his pills. I was the one gave them to him before he left every day—otherwise, he might’ve forgotten.” Aunt Lucy shook her head slowly and looked at a spot on the floor in front of her feet. “Who’d have thought they wouldn’t do any good when the time came?”
“Can I help you?” I said, limping in between the two plainclothes detectives and Aunt Lucy.
They looked up, clearly startled and yet recognizing the tone, the cop voice that, while asking a question, was really making a demand. The woman, in her thirties, dumpy and overweight, rose to her feet, an attitude brewing. She was a bleached, brassy blonde in a cheap gray polyester suit. Her pumps were sensible and her stockings had a run that snaked crookedly up her left leg. She made matters worse by wearing blue eye shadow and thick black eyeliner.
“Excuse me,” she began.
“You’re excused. Now, let’s take this into the kitchen, where perhaps you can show me your search warrant and explain why this expedition is so necessary at such an inconvenient time.” I stuck out my right arm, stiff, like a crossing guard, further cutting them off from Aunt Lucy.
The guy, older, gray buzz cut, his face lined with sun and smoke wrinkles, stood up, giving the senior-officer nod to his junior partner and indicating a move to the kitchen would be better than an incident in the living room.
I trailed behind them like a cattle dog nipping at their heels, jerking my head in the direction of the living room when I spotted Nina and Jake. Nina was a little slow on the uptake, but Jake steered her past us and out of the way.
“Now,” I said when we reached the kitchen, “I’m guessing you don’t have a warrant.”
“Listen, you,” the stocky blonde said.
I looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. “So, we should add rude to your list of character defects?” Before she could answer, I turned to her partner. “I’m thinking you were thinking to get into the house while my aunt was still reeling from the grief of burying her husband. Maybe you were thinking that because she’s old and a little infirm mentally, you could take advantage of her.” I shook my head. “That makes you stupid, in addition to rude and quite possibly incompetent.”
His face reddened and the little bulldog beside him puffed out her chest and prepared to yap some more. I interrupted her before she started.
“I’ll be in touch with our lawyer. If you have some burning need to search the house, get a warrant. You could have circumvented a lot of grief by simply telling my cousin or me, straight up, what the fuck was going on and what you needed from us. Instead you busted in here and upset my aunt.”
The guy was studying me, working his jaw muscles in an attempt to calm down. He knew that if he wanted anything at all from us, he’d need to eat some dirt and try a more civilized tack.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I apologize. Sometimes we get wrapped up in the case and forget our manners.”
“You see?” I said, turning to look at the bulldog. “Wasn’t that easy?” I smiled, broad and phony. I looked down at the little woman. “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar,” I said. “Don’t worry if you don’t get that one right away—it’s like a proverb. It might require some thought to figure it all out.”
The senior officer circumvented the blonde’s next explosion by saying, “I’m Detective Slovineck and this is my partner, Detective Poltrone.”
I nodded, not offering my name. “And what is it we can do for you, Officers?”
I felt Jake step silently into the doorway. I knew he was listening and watching, ready to help should I need assistance, which I, of course, wouldn’t require even upon pain of death or arrest.
“The initial toxicology report came back on Mr. Valocchi,” he said. “Long story short, we have confirmed that this was a homicide and not an accidental death or suicide as we at first thought. Apparently he was forced to ingest his entire bottle of nitroglycerine, resulting in his death. We needed to talk to the victim’s wife about who might’ve done this and also take all the medication with us for testing by the lab.”
I felt an icy hand clutch at my heart. So Aunt Lucy was right. Uncle Benny had been murdered.
“You’re saying someone gave my uncle too much of his medicine? Maybe he just took too much. Maybe the pain was real bad and he panicked.”
Detective Slovineck shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Whoever did this crammed the entire bottle of pills under his tongue and down his throat. There were signs that your uncle struggled, bruising on his neck and defensive wounds that showed he tried to prevent what happened. That’s why we’re ruling out our initial impression that this was a suicide. We’ll wait for confirmation from the coroner’s office, of course, but that’s what it looks like now. We need the rest of his medications to give to the M.E.”
It was as if the words just wouldn’t sink into my head. Why would anyone want to hurt my uncle? I looked at the two officers, trying to put myself in their place. They would start with the most obvious suspects. They would start with Aunt Lucy, because after all, who else would stand to benefit from Uncle Benny’s death?
“Okay,”