I.L. Wolf - Her Cousin, Much Removed Read online

  “Well, whatever.”

  “You mean the toasted rice?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Sure,” said Venetia, “but can I get settled first?”

  “Why not? The water has to boil.”

  Venetia put down her stuff and headed into the little kitchen to plug in her electric kettle. Darn, she’d forgotten to pick up her mail on the way in, she’d have to run back downstairs. She wondered what time Package Watch would begin, and if there really would be Thai food involved, she was getting hungry.

  “So are you going to the funeral?” Billie called from the other room.

  “Of course, I’ve got to. You?”

  Venetia came back to the living room, where Billie was standing over her desk, pushing papers aside.

  “What are you doing?” There was a thick document in Billie’s hand. The incorporation papers. Venetia snatched them from her. “Seriously, what are you doing?”

  “What was that?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “Why would I know?”

  “Why are you looking through my things?”

  “I was bored, Venetia, I was looking around. What is wrong with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re like extra-jumpy with a side of whoo-whoo,” she said, circling her finger near her temple.

  “You just got out of jail, Billie, I’m a little, I don’t know, confused.”

  Billie turned and faced her full-on. “Do you think I did it? Are you seriously telling me that after all the years we’ve known each other, you think that I could have something to do with Delenda dying? Dying?”

  She grabbed her purse, angrily zipped it all the way shut, and flung it over her shoulder. “I expected some skepticism from a lot of people, Venetia, but after all this time, I didn’t expect it from you.” She swept open the door and stepped out. “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, even though I don’t really feel like it right now, and assume that you are under pressure because you’re going to have to go spend a day with your lunatic Aunt Sissy. But it would be really great if you could maybe remember who your real friends are.”

  She slammed the door behind her, the frame reverberating from the impact. Sometimes Billie was a sulker, she’d have to get over it. It was odd that she’d honed in directly onto those corporation documents, too, with all the papers all over Venetia’s desk. She didn’t know how much she could trust a guy who popped out of the back of the van telling her there were people out to get her, but those papers had come from Delenda, and where she was, Billie was. Usually.

  She grabbed her keys and headed out, locking the door behind her. She needed to get the mail before she was barricaded in for the night. She didn’t want to risk meeting the package guy, though, and it probably wasn’t late enough to qualify as “tonight” yet. Assuming he was prompt.

  And not trying to kill her.

  She got about three floors down when she heard a scream and a thump. Running the rest of the way to the lobby, it occurred to her that it was possible she was going the wrong way, but decades of friendship won out over suspicion.

  There was a tangled heap at the bottom of the stairs, a puddle of blonde hair collected on the bottom riser.

  “Billie?” she said, looking around. The small, tiled foyer was empty except for the two of them, the inside door completely closed. There was a slight chill though, as though the door had been open seconds before.

  “Billie?” She bent closer to her. She was pale, and wasn’t moving. “Billie? Are you OK?” There was no response. Gingerly, she put two fingers on Billie’s neck.

  There was a pulse.

  She brushed the hair away from her face, enough to get a hand in front of her nose. She was breathing, too. She patted her pockets, but she’d left her phone upstairs. Billie’s purse lay under her hand, top zipper open, on the floor next her. She rummaged through, found her phone, and dialed 911.

  Chapter 7

  Venetia tried to get comfortable in the stuck-together waiting room chairs, but it seemed like they’d been designed specifically as devices of torture. She stared at the linoleum floor, watching one scratching of brown lead to another scratching of brown. Every now and then, there were overhead beeps and announcements, and the air felt empty.

  No one had been out yet to tell her how Billie was doing. They’d only been there for about thirty minutes, though, so maybe it was too quick to expect information.

  Maybe.

  And now she felt bad, she shouldn’t have let Billie leave so angrily. What was she thinking? There’s no way she could have been involved.

  “Venetia?” she heard, and she looked up. Dane stood awkwardly in the doorway of the waiting room.

  “What are you doing here?” she said.

  “Well, it’s Billie,” he said. “I couldn’t not show up.” He sat next to her, not in the seat immediately attached to hers, but with a gap between. “Besides,” he said, producing a cup of coffee, “I thought you could use this.” She realized he was holding two.

  “Thanks,” she said. “So.”

  “So.”

  They were silent for a minute. “Any info?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “She’d come over, and then she got mad, and then she left. I went to get my mail, and, well…”

  He sipped his coffee, their sitting side-by-side making the not looking at her a little less clumsy. “Any idea what happened?”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “Or how she’s doing?”

  “Doesn’t that go along with the no info part?” she said, putting the coffee down. She rested her elbows on her knees, put her head in her hands, and breathed for a moment. “Sorry,” she said. “First Delenda, now Billie.”

  “Is Billie, um, gone?” he said, his color draining a shade.

  “No, no, not that I know. When I found her I couldn’t be sure she wasn’t.”

  “Look, Venetia, I understand that things are weird between us. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, but we both care about Billie, and we both want to make sure she’s OK.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said.

  “When we parted ways—”

  “I seriously don’t think this is time to have this conversation, Dane.”

  “You never think it’s time to have the conversation. You haven’t even closed out your files at the office,” he said.

  “I couldn’t go back there after.”

  “There was nothing you could have done about it, Venetia. You did everything right. Sometimes it still happens.”

  She looked at him directly for the first time since he walked in. “That wasn’t the only reason I didn’t want to go back,” she said flatly.

  “That was a long time ago, you know.”

  “But, as you point out, we’ve never talked about it.”

  “I don’t think this is necessarily the time or place,” he said, eyeing the people walking past the waiting room. The shade of color he’d dropped came back, along with a few extra shades of red.

  “So when is the time and place? You brought it up. You came here. We haven’t been in the same room since then, what do expect me to think about? What do you expect me to bring up?”

  “It was a lapse in judgment. Not everyone’s perfect”

  “It was the worst kind of lapse in judgment, and you know it.”

  “And this is why we don’t talk anymore,” he said.

  “No, we don’t talk anymore because I don’t want to talk anymore. You know why I didn’t come back to close out my files? I couldn’t step foot in that office again. The thought of it turns my stomach.”

  “You couldn’t have stopped her husband from killing her, Venetia.”

  “You think that’s all of it? Are you kidding me? Did you wipe the rest of it from your mind, or do you not think it’s that big of a deal?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “How about me coming back to the office on the self-same
day that the news broke about Brenna, to find you sleeping with someone in our office? Only without the sleeping part?”

  “Oh, that.”

  “Oh, that? Oh, that, Dane? She was a client. An honest-to-goodness paying client, and so help me, I could have gotten you disbarred in a heartbeat for it. You’re lucky all I wanted to do is dissolve the practice.”

  “What is going on in here?” Detective James said as he walked through the door. “Venetia, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “but aren’t you supposed to be…”

  “Covered,” he said, glancing at Dane. “It’s covered. What’s all this about disbarring?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Detective Cadby James,” he said, sticking out a hand. “I saw you at the station.”

  “Right. Dane Froxen.”

  “The erstwhile law partner,” he said.

  “Detective, you said?” Dane picked up his coffee, took a long swig, and threw the empty cup in the trash. “Erstwhile is an interesting word.”

  “For a cop?” The corners of the detective’s mouth went up, but his eyes were measured.

  “I didn’t say that,” said Dane, remaining on his feet. Though he was about three or four inches shorter than the detective, he seemed to take up more space.

  “Any information?” Detective James said, handing Venetia a cup of coffee. She placed it next to the other one.

  “Not yet,” she said, feeling a slight sense of déjà vu. “Any news about—”

  “Not yet,” he said, taking the seat immediately on her right. The room, already feeling steeped in the tension of all the people who had waited before her, was now absolutely dripping with it.

  “Who’s the person who brought in Billie Kay?” said a young woman in a white coat, stethoscope casually thrown over her neck. Venetia raised her hand, and the woman indicated that they should step into the hall.

  “How is she?”

  “She’s stable,” she said. “But she’s not awake at the moment. She’s got some bruising and swelling. You say she lost consciousness?”

  “I think so. I mean, she seemed unconscious when I found her.”

  “Well, we took some scans, and it doesn’t look like there’s any swelling in her brain, and there are no bleeds that we could see, but we’ll want to keep her here for a while.”

  “She’s still unconscious?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, and raising a hand to smooth her drooping ponytail, “sorry, I’m the on-call resident, it’s been a long shift. She’s not unconscious, she’s sleeping. We gave her something for the pain.”

  “So she’s going to be OK?”

  “It’s looking that way,” she said, “but she’s going to be out for a while, and she needs the rest. You can see her tomorrow,” she said.

  “What should I do with her stuff?” She indicated Billie’s purse, which she’d kept on her arm with her own.

  “We can lock it in the room, if you’d like, or you can take it with you.”

  She thought of the twelve calls she’d gotten from Billie after she’d finally sprung for the $400 bag. “I’ll hold on to it,” she said. The resident smiled wearily, and hit the button to open the automatic doors back into the ward.

  “She can’t see anyone until tomorrow,” Venetia said, as she walked back in. She took the coffee Detective James brought her. She picked up Dane’s from the floor, and looking directly at him, tossed it in the trash. “It’s gotten a little cold,” she said.

  “Venetia, I think we need to finish our conversation.” Dane glanced over at the officer. “Later.”

  “What is there really to say? But you’re right about one part of it. It’s really time to close out those files.”

  She was most of the way to the elevator before Detective James caught up with her. “Want to tell me what that was about?”

  “Does it have to do with your current investigation?”

  She sidestepped a group of doctors walking the other way, and then stabbed at the down button with her finger.

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” She kept poking at the button, over and over “Hey,” he said. Her eyes stayed firmly on the elevator doors, her hand still pressing the button as though it would make the elevator come faster.

  “Hey,” he said again, this time grabbing her hand. She looked at him as though she just realized he was there. Her hand stayed in his for a moment, and then, at the same time, they drew their hands away. “What’s going on?”

  “It has nothing to do with Delenda,” she said. “Nothing.”

  “I can still listen,” he said, waiting for her to get in the elevator first.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?” he said.

  “I’d really rather not talk about it,” she said. “Besides,” she said, “it really has nothing to do with anything.”

  “That might not be entirely true,” he said, stepping back to make room for the people getting onto the elevator.

  She waited until everyone exited on the main floor, and checked that there was no one else too near. “So it’s not only about listening,” she said. She walked quickly and wondered if she could hail a cab outside the hospital.

  “I’ve got a murder to solve,” he said, “and besides, look at it from my vantage point. We were supposed to wait to see what happened with the guy who broke into your car. Your friend gets knocked out leaving your building, and then I come to the hospital to find you arguing with her lawyer. Loudly.”

  Venetia shrugged. “And? So?”

  “How did Dane know she was there?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. She pushed her way through the revolving door. He followed. She checked both ways, but saw no cabs.

  “I’ll give you a ride,” he said.

  “I don’t need a ride.”

  “You do need to get home. And we’re going to the same place.”

  “You can’t possibly mean we’re still going to sit there and wait? Obviously, he’s already been there. And he found Billie. And he shouldn’t have.”

  “Venetia—”

  “What? What can you possibly say? My cousin died. My friend of more than two decades is in the hospital. There are documents with my name all over them, and I’m starting to wonder if this is all my fault.”

  “How could it be?” he said. “That’s silly. Come on, I’m parked this way.”

  “No,” she said, her hand up, with no cab in sight. “And don’t patronize me.”

  “All of this is not your fault. It seems like it’s connected to you, sure, but it’s not your fault.”

  “Right,” she said. She glimpsed a cab heading down the street a block up, but it didn’t turn in her direction. “And you can say that how? It’s not like you know who killed Delenda. Or who attacked Billie.”

  “I do know things I’m not totally at liberty to tell you. And I can say, whether you like it or not, that I’ll be sitting either outside your apartment tonight or inside it. Your choice.”

  “I’m no delicate flower,” she said, “I can take care of myself. I have. I do.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” he said, glancing at her hand, still jammed in the air. “Let me give you a ride.”

  “No,” she said again, looking for the cab that didn’t seem to exist. It was early evening, where the heck were the cabs?

  “If you let me drive you home, I’ll tell you something I’ve been debating telling you.”

  Her arm slowly sank down. “What kind of something?”

  He raised his hands, palms out, near each shoulder. “You’d have to get in the car to find out,” he said.

  She crossed her arms. “I don’t know.”

  He watched over her shoulder, in the direction the previous cab had gone. “I’ve got to get there,” he said, “you might as well come with me.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Fine.” He pointed her in the direction and they began to walk, his eyes still focused somewhere behind her. She turned in the direc
tion he was looking. “What is it?” she said.

  He shook his head. “We should go.” Walking more briskly, he stayed a little behind her all the way up the stairs and through the parking garage.

  “Don’t you get some special cop parking?” she said.

  “Nope,” he said, directing her toward a big old Ford. Unmarked, it had a light bar across the back, but only if you really looked for it. He opened her door, went around the car and got in.

  “That was unnecessarily chivalrous,” she said.

  “Manners don’t go off duty,” he retorted as she settled herself against the loose springs of the seat.

  “What were you looking at back there?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said, “but I didn’t want to risk it.” They were both quiet as he maneuvered his way through the dark, narrow parking structure. He flashed his badge at the gate operator, who let him through.

  “So much for not getting special cop parking.”

  “I didn’t say I had to pay for it,” he said. “Besides, it would be your tax dollars at work anyway.”

  “So what are you going to tell me?”

  “I told you I was thinking of telling you.”

  “But you told me you would tell me if I got in the car.”

  “True, I did say that,” he said, half smile on his face. The only sound in the car was the turn signal.

  “You can’t not tell me now, that would be cheating.”

  “Cheating.”

  “Yes.”

  “In a murder investigation.”

  “Now that you put it that way, maybe I see how it sounds, but yes.”

  “Someone was watching you outside the hospital,” he said. “Pretty intently.” She got a sudden chill, the hair on her arms standing up.

  “Just now?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “If I knew that, it would make all of this a lot easier, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, what did he look like?”

  “It wasn’t a he.”

  “A woman?”

  “Yes,” he said, “it was a woman. Good use of logic there.”

  “Really?” she said. “Really. You’re going to be like that.” He said nothing as he changed lanes. “What did she look like?”

  “Middle-aged. Short hair, kind of broad, not too tall, not too short.”