Laura Caldwell - Red Hot Lies

Her car was a ninety-thousand-dollar Mercedes; glittering navy-blue with ivory leather interior. She looked pretty in the car. Whenever she parked it by her florist, whom she visited every week, it seemed that sunlight flooded out of the door when she opened it, as if the sun had been trapped inside by those ivory seats and Lucy’s finespun, blond hair. Mayburn wondered if Lucy’s husband ever noticed these things. He doubted it.

Mayburn trailed Lucy’s car down Armitage Avenue and onto Clybourn. He knew then where she was going, and he groaned. He trailed her for another two blocks, then drove past her as she pulled in to the parking lot of Gym Matters, a business that taught gymnastics and movement skills to toddlers. Lucy had a three-year-old, and she took her here two afternoons a week. So far Mayburn hadn’t followed her inside. Too risky. But maybe the break he needed on this case was inside Gym Matters. Maybe he could get closer to Lucy this time. Maybe her friends would be there and she would discuss plans to redo her kitchen or her bathroom. If so, Mayburn could find out when that work would take place and he could show up early in the day, posing as a plumber. Or maybe Lucy would talk about a vacation they were planning, and while they were gone, Mayburn might be able to start a contained fire near the house and get inside with the firefighters. Mayburn had thought about doing that when the DeSanto family was in town, but he hated to scare Lucy and the kids, and from what he could tell, DeSanto was such a control freak, he’d get right inside with the firefighters, which would mean Mayburn wouldn’t get a chance to look at his computer.

Mayburn turned his car around and doubled back toward Gym Matters. He pulled in, parking far away from Lucy’s Mercedes. Inside the front doors was a long, narrow waiting area that overlooked a large room with a matted floor, where two instructors led around a pack of hyped-up kids. Lucy sat by herself at the far end of the waiting area. She had a pile of hot-pink thread in her lap, and it looked as if she was knitting a tiny cap. When Mayburn stepped up to the front desk, only six or so feet from her, she raised her head. For a moment, Mayburn was both anxious and thrilled that she was about to see him, and for the first time.

But Lucy DeSanto only looked through the glass wall until her eyes found her tiny daughter, Eve. She smiled-one of those contented private smiles that people make when they’re lost in their thoughts. Then she returned her attention to the bronze knitting needles, which made a pleasant click-clacking sound.

Mayburn told the clerk he was looking for information about programs for his daughter.

The clerk put a promotional sheet in front of him and invited Mayburn to watch the class in progress. He took a seat about four feet from Lucy.

It was exciting to be so close to her without her husband or girlfriends around. But the problem with her current solitude was the fact that he couldn’t learn anything from her that would help him get inside the DeSanto house.

He sat for a tedious hour, watching the group of toddlers race from one station to another, jumping on mini trampolines, climbing on large blocks, throwing themselves onto the padded floor in a fit of giggles. If anything, the kids seemed to pick up energy as the hour went by, as if someone had slipped speed into their juice boxes. He wondered how Lucy was ever going to get that kid to take a nap.

Lucy kept to herself and her knitting. Once, she answered her cell phone, giving Mayburn a burst of hope that some detail would filter through the room, but from what he could hear, the caller was her sister, and the discussion consisted only of what gift to order for their mother’s birthday.

When the hour came to an end, Lucy and her daughter went to the car.

He followed, frustrated, and got in his own car.

His cell phone vibrated from inside his jacket pocket. He took it out and saw the display, Isabel McNeil cell.

“Hi, Izzy,” he answered in a flat tone. “What’s up?”

He watched Lucy get in the front seat and start the car. She was about to drive off. And again he had no leads on this case.

“Mayburn, you’re going to help me.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know you turned me down yesterday, but I need some serious assistance here. The cops aren’t looking into Forester’s death. The feds are investigating Sam, but they’ve pretty much told me to move on with my life. The thing is, I think Sam must be gone for a reason. I’ve got to figure out what that reason is. And I have to find out if someone hurt Forester-whether it was Sam or someone else-because I told him I would. This is the last thing I can do for him.”

“Look, take a breath. Can you log in to Sam’s e-mail?”

“I did that already. He hasn’t sent anything since he disappeared. Doesn’t seem to have received any e-mails that are suspicious.”

“Okay, try to find out if he took any flights.”

“He usually flies United. I got onto their site with his password, but there was nothing except the flight for our honeymoon.”

Mayburn grunted, impressed by Izzy’s tenacity. “Credit cards?”

“Checked ’em. Nothing. C’mon, help me. Give me a discounted rate or something.”

Mayburn watched Lucy’s glittery blue car pull out of the parking lot. He thought about how to package his rejection to Izzy. But then, the spark of an idea came to him.

“I might be able to pool together some money for you,” Izzy was saying. “It won’t be much, but-”

Lucy’s car disappeared into the two streams of traffic flowing down Clybourn. He smiled for the first time that day. “Izzy,” he said, interrupting her, “I think I know a different way you can pay me.”

An hour after I’d called him, I was sitting with John Mayburn at RL, the restaurant owned by Ralph Lauren, right around the corner from Ralph’s store on Michigan Avenue. It was apparently a favorite of Mayburn’s, which kind of surprised me. It was an elegant, refined place, and although Mayburn wasn’t exactly coarse or unrefined, I wouldn’t have expected him to suggest it. The place was cozy and cavelike, decorated in deep, rich mahogany. The walls were packed with oil paintings and photographs, to which there was little continuity of theme. A canvas showing a turn-of-the-century hunter hung next to a black and white of Mick Jagger.

Usually a table was hard to come by, but since it was between the lunch and dinner rush, we scored a banquette in the back. Still, the tucked-away positioning couldn’t stop the paranoid feeling I had that someone was watching me. Except it wasn’t paranoia. The feds probably were watching me.

I grabbed the chair with my back to the room, so that if someone was tailing me, they wouldn’t be able to see what I was saying. The thing was, although I didn’t have anything to hide, the thought of someone observing me, studying me, was unsettling. As Mayburn took a seat on the banquette, I couldn’t help but swivel my head around. Was the man by the door an agent, the one looking into the crowd as if searching for another diner? Could it be the guy in the blue business suit getting seated by himself?

“What’s wrong?” Mayburn asked.

I turned back to him. “Nothing.” I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to talk about the fact that I was probably being followed.

“I have a proposal for you. I’ll work your case if you work mine.”

“You need some legal work?”

“No, I need a female operative to assist on a few cases, one in particular.”

“A female operative?” The waiter came and took our drink orders-sparkling water for me, an iced tea for Mayburn.

“Here’s the deal.” Mayburn pushed aside his leather menu and leaned forward on his elbows. He was wearing a nice camel sport coat over black pants. “I’ll help you try and track down Sam, and we’ll look into what happened to Forester Pickett. If he was killed, we’ll try to find who did it. In return, I want you to work a case of mine.”