Али Брэндон - Double Booked For Death

She had flipped over the card to read the email address that Morris had scribbled on the back. “Jake,” she said as her friend halted beside her in concern, “Reese still has that lipstick note that Hamlet found, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

Darla took a deep breath. “I think I know now who wrote it.”

TWENTY

“LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT, DARLA. YOU SNUCK INTO A private memorial service hoping to get the dirt on someone?”

Reese’s tone was disapproving, and his words were all too familiar. In fact, it was a virtual repeat of the conversation she’d had with him a few days earlier regarding the Lone Protester. Given the fact she had been proven correct then—and, it would seem, now—Darla met the detective’s disapproving look with equanimity.

They were downstairs in Jake’s basement apartment, in the middle of polishing off a hasty supper of spaghetti that Jake had put together. “Ma whips up a huge batch of sauce and meatballs anytime she visits. I freeze it for emergencies like this,” she had explained with a grin when Darla marveled at the speed with which she had managed a homemade meal.

With afternoon traffic, their return from the Hamptons had been longer than the trip out. Once they arrived back at the brownstone following Valerie Baylor’s posh memorial, Jake had put in the call to Reese to stop by on his dinner break. Darla, meanwhile, had made a quick stop to check on things at her own store before make a beeline for Bygone Days Antiques.

“No time to talk, Mary Ann,” she breathlessly had told the old woman. “I need to see if you have something old and expensive in the way of a cigarette lighter.” A few moments later, as Mary Ann brought out a few possibilities for her to examine, she added with an apologetic wince, “But I don’t actually want to buy anything. I just need to borrow one for a day . . . police business, you know.”

“So long as you bring it back undamaged, you are welcome to take any one of them,” the old woman agreed with a smile. “But I will expect a full explanation later, my dear, or else I will perish of curiosity.”

Then, with a quick look over her shoulder to the back of the shop, Mary Ann had added in a conspiratorial whisper, “We just won’t mention this to Brother. Now, which do you prefer, the green enamel with silver, or the gold with the embossed swan?”

Since Jake had proved equally successful in her mission to persuade Reese to stop by, enticing him with the twin draws of home-cooked food and some potentially interesting information regarding Valerie Baylor, their plan had seemed to be falling right into place. Then Darla scored the final point. After running upstairs to feed Hamlet and change from her funeral garb into jeans and a sweater, she had taken a deep breath and with shaking fingers, dialed Morris’s number.

She had been surprised when he actually answered the phone, even though she’d been pretty sure that, in the Hamptons, the neighbors did not all gather together after a funeral to share a covered-dish sit-down. But perhaps he would have lingered at the gravesite. Her plan had been to leave a message and hope for a return call, so she had been taken off guard when he picked up almost immediately.

Morris’s tone had been polite if puzzled by her unexpected call so soon after the funeral, until she mentioned the expensive cigarette lighter she supposedly had found. When she suggested that he stop by to identify it as Valerie’s, silence had met her words. She had feared for a few uncomfortable moments that she had crossed a line of some sort. Then, to her relief, he responded in the affirmative to her invitation.

“I don’t often go out,” he explained, “but perhaps I can manage, since this has to do with my sister. Would one o’clock tomorrow be convenient?”

With the plan in place, the three of them—Darla, Reese, and Jake—now were gathered for what Darla privately called a war conference and what she suspected Reese thought of as an annoyance wrapped inside a darned good meal.

She had waited until they had made significant dents in their respective overflowing plates before launching into an account of the day’s events. But she had barely begun her explanation when Reese stopped her with his words of disapproval.

Now, she reminded him, “I was supposed to be on the guest list for the memorial service. It’s not like I bribed someone to find out where it was being held. Hillary Gables gave me the directions herself. So why don’t you quit acting like Miss Manners and let me tell you the rest?”

While Reese went back to shoveling in spaghetti, Darla went on to explain her shock at realizing that Morris was actually Mavis. She waited for Reese’s reaction to that, only to realize when none was forthcoming that, as Jake had suggested, he must have known this already.

“Yeah, your buddy Morris gave me his real name and address when I took his statement,” the detective confirmed, grinning a little at her disappointment. “He did leave out the part about being Valerie Baylor’s brother, though, which is suspicious, but not really enough to make the case active again. Still, score one for you, Red . . . er, Darla.”

She bristled a bit at that last but let it pass, going on instead to recount Morris’s strangely brief eulogy. She wrapped up by asking, “Besides the YouTube video and some conflicting witness statements, the only other potential evidence you have is the lipstick note that Hamlet found. Correct?”

He gave a noncommittal shrug. “The key word is actually had . In case you missed the memo, Ms. Baylor’s death was ruled an accident, and there wasn’t sufficient evidence or eyewitness testimony to keep the case open beyond that.”

“What would you say if I had another sample of handwriting that matches it, and the writing just happens to belong to one Morris Vickson, aka Mavis?”

Darla tossed Morris’s business card—carefully sealed now in a plastic zip-top bag—onto the table, her smile as triumphant as if she were throwing down a winning poker hand. The three of them stared at the back of the card where Morris had scribbled his personal email address. The resemblance between the two samples was unmistakable . . . at least, in Darla’s opinion.

She was gratified when Reese picked up the bag and studied the card inside more closely. “Yeah, it’s similar,” he conceded. “I suppose I could get one of the handwriting guys to take a look. But I have to warn you this is still pretty slim as far as evidence goes, even if it turns out that the same person wrote both. The note wasn’t exactly a smoking gun or a confession, and I can’t see this”—he flapped the business card—“being enough to open the case again.”

“And that’s why we’re luring Morris to the store to see if he’ll squeal,” Darla proclaimed, hoping her cop-speak wasn’t too dated.

Reese rolled his eyes and looked over at Jake. “ We? Are you part of this, Martelli?” he asked with a sigh.

Jake’s answering smile was a touch sheepish. “Yeah, well, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to do a little of the dirty work for you,” she admitted and went on to explain their plan about the cigarette lighter.

When she finished, Darla hurriedly added, “I called Morris right before I came down here. He said he’ll come by the shop tomorrow around one to take a look at what we have.” Then, exchanging hopeful glances with Jake, she waited for Reese’s response.

The detective wiped his mouth a final time and leaned back with a sigh that had nothing to do with the meal he’d just finished.

“Technically, I should tell you to call off this little meeting. Case is closed, what you’re planning to do borders on harassment, et cetera, et cetera. So let’s pretend I didn’t hear this plan of yours, and you let me know later if anything comes of your face-to-face, okay? But now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta get back to the precinct.”