Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder (31 page)

“Sure. Whatever you want to know, I hope I can be of help. You’ll spend the night. Even better, why not stay a few days? I’ve got plenty of room, and I could use the company. The girls are always off at the beach being girls and the few times they’re around, their conversation isn’t exactly stimulating.”

He sounded so nice, so welcoming. The worry knot eased. “I really appreciate that. Thanks.” She hadn’t thought about the drive back at night. “Expect me around six, traffic permitting. I’ll call from the road when I’m close. I’ll get directions from Margot.”

“Bring her along.”

“Warren . . .”

“I know you don’t want to get involved, but try. Please. I’d appreciate it.”

Here was another person yearning, Lori thought after disconnecting. Everyone she knew was hungering for something or someone, herself included. Beth and Callie for their lost husbands, Alec for his lost partner Chris, Ellie for a new love, Jess for her first boyfriend, Janet for reassurance, Seth for his money, Mrs. Ashe for a new home. Rob must want money to pay his debts, and his new wife back. Jonathan? Lori remembered the moment of regret on his face during their dinner together. She suspected he too was aching for something. More money, more girlfriends? Fame? Or was she being unfair? Maybe all he ached for was the loving father he never had. He hadn’t called back. Lori wondered if Mrs. Ashe had given him the message. She needed to talk to him before more time elapsed.

“Jonathan? Hi, it’s Lori. Is this a bad time?”

“I’ll always have time for you. I’m sorry I didn’t return your call, but I’ve been bogged down with my mother and that apartment she insists on buying against my better judgment. She’s accusing me of being cruel, so I’m giving in. It is her money. Look, I’m glad you called. About this weekend—”

“That’s why I’m calling. Look, I’m not up to going. I’m sorry. I really am. I was hoping to tell you in person, but I have to drive to Cape Cod this afternoon to see Jess and I’m staying the night.” The words were coming out so quickly, Lori felt she was blabbering. “It has nothing to do with you. I had a wonderful time Sunday night. Really. I mean if Jess hadn’t called we would—” She stopped, not knowing what to say next.

“But your daughter did call and we didn’t and now you’ve changed your mind.” His voice was neutral, and Lori couldn’t tell whether he was angry or didn’t care.

“You’re a very attractive man, Jonathan. It’s just that I’m not ready.” She was grateful to him for reawakening her sexual desire and for wanting her, but after meeting Alec, she knew she would never fall in love with Jonathan. Making love to him would have been only a trifling thing that would leave her with a hole in her heart waiting to be filled. She understood Beth now. “Please forgive me.”

Jonathan laughed. “Nothing to forgive. I was about to cancel on you.”

“Oh. How come?” she asked in a small voice.

“I have to close a deal on Saturday.”

The Saturday of the Fourth of July weekend? Did he really expect her to believe him? “Then it’s all right,” she said. “No harm done on either side.” Well, she did feel a little insulted, but it proved her point, didn’t it? Jonathan was not the dependable type. She thought this over for a second and burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m laughing at myself. It’s all right for me to cancel, but I don’t like it one bit when you do.”

“Does that mean there’s a chance for a rain check?” He had moved his phone closer to his lips. His voice was low, seductive again.

Lori suppressed a giggle. He was really a silly, vain charmer. “A platonic rain check would be great.”

“Sorry, but you’re much too attractive for that.”

“So are you.”

“Okay, then. I’ll call you in a month or so. Sound good?”

“That sounds fine.” And then she remembered what Ruth had told her. “Jonathan,” she tried to keep her voice light. “There’s something I want to ask you.”

There was silence at the other end of the line.

“You knew Valerie, didn’t you?”

“Valerie?”

“Yes, Rob’s wife,” Lori said. “Last week, when I wanted to know more about Valerie, Beth mentioned that you might help as you two traveled in the same circles. Did you know her?”

“When I drove you to Rob’s apartment,” Jonathan said, “I told you I’d never met her, didn’t I?”

“I don’t remember that,” Lori lied. She’d never get the truth out of Jonathan if she put him on the spot.

“Well, I did know her. In fact, I dated her for a while. I’m sorry I lied to you, but I didn’t think you’d see me anymore if you knew about Valerie.”

“You’re right.”

“She was much too aggressive and fixated on money. I walked away.”

“She must have been upset,” Lori said.

“Look, it was a long time ago. Why did you ask?”

It was her turn to tell the truth. At least part of it. “I learned that Valerie had been very much in love with someone before she met Rob and I was wondering if it was you.”
And if it was you,
Lori thought silently,
you might have killed her for marrying Rob.

“I’m flattered, but I’m not the guy.”

Lori had no reason not to believe Jonathan and yet something bothered her. Maybe it was his rebuff. She hoped she wasn’t that vain.

“Listen,” Jonathan said, in a tone that made it clear the conversation was over. “I’ll call you in a couple of months.”

“In a couple of months.” Lori said goodbye, thinking he was not the kind of man who accepted having his ego bruised. Jonathan would never call again. That thought didn’t bother her at all.

Rob was on the phone with a client when Lori slipped into his office. The room was one of those corner offices that young lawyers dream about as they sweat their eighty hours a week of grueling work. One wall held a row of windows facing east, overlooking the equally coveted corner offices of the surrounding skyscrapers and a jagged rectangle of sky. The other walls were covered with chrome bookshelves loaded with law books. These, Lori knew, were for show, as Rob hadn’t cracked open a law book since he’d been moved up to this office. That was work for the peons.

Rob’s hunched back was turned away from the door. He would have seen Lori walk in only if he had raised his head and caught her reflection in the window. Lori sat in one of the two chairs facing the desk, the one farthest from Rob, and waited for the phone call to end. She eyed the uneaten sandwich sitting in the center of the desk—a tuna melt by the look of it—and a sweating can of iced tea. At least that habit hadn’t changed. It was lunchtime and Lori was hungry. To distract herself, she looked for changes in the room since her tenure as Rob’s wife.

When Rob had been promoted to this office, she had offered to help him decorate, help that he refused. She would only make it look cozy, he claimed, when an office needed to express the seriousness and stature of its occupier. To her the result was cold and uninviting. A long glass and chrome table for a desk, a slightly smaller and lower twin for a coffee table. The sofa and two armchairs were upholstered in taut black leather that in the summer always stuck to her thighs. The phone was black, the pen and pencil holder was black, the halogen lamp was skinny, black, long-necked, and Italian. The wall-to-wall carpet was a rough, thick sisal that Lori was sure would scrape her knees if she ever fell on it. The chair she sat on was chrome and leather with no hind legs. It sank when she sat in it.

Rob hung up and turned around. When he saw Lori the expression on his face remained weary, lifeless. His jaunty defiance was gone. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi, Rob.” They stared at each other for a few seconds, Lori overwhelmed by a sense of futility. All those years together to end up staring, barely able to speak to each other.

“Kate sent your check this morning,” Rob said.

“I didn’t come for the check. I mean, not only for that.” Looking at Rob’s face, Lori was reminded of a deflated balloon, wrinkled and ready to be discarded. Was he overwhelmed by grief or fear? Both? “Do the police have any news?”

“I expect them to arrest me any minute.”

“Because Valerie’s death made you rich?”

Rob picked up his black pen, twirled it between his fingers, and said nothing.

“I know about Seth. Who else do you owe money to?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Lori slammed her hand on the glass desk, rattling the plate the sandwich was on. “But it does! The people you owe money to could be suspects. Look, I’m trying to help. I know you didn’t kill Valerie. Talk to me. Maybe together we can point the finger away from you.”

Rob put the pen down, picked up a pencil.

“Please, Rob, for Jessica’s sake, don’t stonewall me.”

His fingers now twirled the pencil. “What do you want to know?”

“About Waterside Properties. About being in debt and not paying back your investors. About claiming someone was trying to kill you and then denying it. About rushing to write a will.”

Rob swiveled away from her and looked out of the window. Lori followed his gaze. In the office just opposite, a man was talking animatedly on the phone while trying to change into a clean shirt without losing his grip on the receiver.
Put the phone down and press the damn speaker button!
Lori wanted to shout at him. She turned back to Rob. “Please, Rob. Talk to me.”

Rob kept looking at the man struggling with his shirt. Then he said, “Over lunch the day Val died, after we signed our wills, she told me she was in love with someone else. I had been begging her to help me out, and she told me about this other man, and that I had to get out of the mess I was in by myself. She didn’t want to understand that I got into this mess because of her. The apartment, the car, the expensive restaurants, the engagement ring, the gifts she wanted. Everything had to be top of the line with her. She was convinced men wanted to marry her only for her money. I had to prove to her I was as rich as she was.” Rob looked across at Lori with woeful eyes. “Val had terrible self-esteem.”

Lori reached for a sandwich half and bit into it. She thought tuna melts were an insult to gastronomy, but she needed to stuff her mouth before she said something she’d regret.

Rob’s eyes dropped to his hands splayed on the desk. “After she told me about having loved this man for years, the crazy thing is I should have walked out on her right then and there, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to. I dragged Val out of that place and took her home and we made the best—”

Lori swallowed quickly. “I don’t need details, Rob.”

He was too lost in his own story to apologize or to realize she was eating his lunch.
He probably doesn’t even realize he is talking to his ex-wife,
Lori thought, taking another bite. Instead of being hurt by his tactless confession, she found herself intrigued by his inability to accept defeat. She had, while married to him, never noticed the extent of his ego.

“I never thought of leaving Val,” Rob said. “She assured me it was over between them even if she still loved him. I was going to make her love me. I knew I could do it.”

His eagerness almost made Lori feel sorry for him. “I’m sure you would have.” She put what was left of the sandwich down. “Did Valerie tell you who the man was?”

“I asked her not to. I didn’t know she was going to get killed that night.”

“I hope you told the police about this man.”

“I got a skeptical grunt for an answer.”

“Valerie’s office manager confirmed your story.” Rob’s expression didn’t relax. Maybe he was thinking the story would get to the papers and he would look like the fool he was. “Tell me what happened with Waterside Properties?”

“I committed to buying shares because Val was going to go in with me, plus Seth and two others you don’t know. Then she backed off. I tried to scrounge up some more money but couldn’t.”

“What about the powerful clients you’ve helped through the years?”

“I stay away from former or possible future clients. Something goes wrong and that’s the end of me as their lawyer.”

“And something did go wrong.”

Rob lowered his head in acknowledgment. “I used the money for Waterside Properties to pay off a loan. I thought I could stall for time, not let on that the deal wasn’t going to happen, but the word leaked out anyway and my investors wanted their money back. The night the car almost ran me over, I thought Seth was giving me a warning. Pay back or else. I didn’t think that for long, but I played it up for Val.”

“So she’d worry about you and lend you money?”

Rob lowered his head in answer. “I insisted we write up our wills right away. No time to lose. I might get killed any moment.” His voice held no emotion. “Val was okay with the wills and called the lawyer, Warren by the way.”

“I know. My divorce lawyer. Funny choice.”

“Her funny way of getting back at me for needing money. I was in too much of a hurry to object to Warren. After all that she still wouldn’t lend me any money even though she knew I’d give her back every cent with interest.” Rob leaned back, tilting his chair to the wall. Lori noticed the dark patch under his chin, where his razor had missed. “She was really fixated on money.”

“Did you tell Seth the two of you were writing your wills?”

“He called me Monday morning while I was in a cab on my way to meet Val at Warren’s office. I told him to get off my back. Val was going to give me the money I owed him any day now. I was still thinking she was going to come through.”

“Did you mention you were on your way to rewrite your will?”

“Yes, I did. I don’t know why.” Rob picked up the half-eaten part of his sandwich and took a bite. “You think he killed her so I’d inherit and pay him back?”

“It’s as a good a motive as any, but what the police think is what matters.” Lori stood up and swept crumbs off her lap. If she was going to drive to Cape Cod, she had better get going. “Thanks for talking to me, Rob, and good luck.”

Rob stood up. “I’m truly sorry about us.” His face was stricken. Moved by the sincerity of this expression, Lori looked away at the building opposite. The man was still getting some urgent point across over the phone, but his transformation was now complete, the clean shirt neatly tucked in, buttoned. If only it were that easy.