Last to Know: A Novel(57)

Rossetti sat back in his chair, taking in what he had just read. The woman was a drug runner on a high level. She had gone to Evening Lake to hide from whomever was after her, a prominent Mexican cartel, he suspected, and they were probably after her in the first place because she had either cheated on them, stolen the money, or the drugs, or both. Money, drugs, and sex were the factors in most crimes. Lacey Havnel, aka Carrie Murphy, qualified on two of those counts.

So, where did that leave Bea Havnel? Of whose existence there was no mention? The lovely, gentle, so blondly innocent “daughter”? Or accomplice.

Troubled, Rossetti needed to think. He called the dog, clipped on the leash, and went out for a walk. His footsteps took him, as they always did when he was troubled, to Ruby’s Diner, where Squeeze was greeted as a long-lost comrade, though in fact he’d been there just the other night with Harry.

“Sorry about your young friend,” Rossetti said when Doris came over with a biscuit for the dog and a Diet Coke for him.

Doris took out her iPad, ready for his order. “She was my niece,” she said shortly, and Rossetti caught the glitter of unshed tears. “Innocence comes in many forms,” Doris added, “and my Jemima was a true innocent. Which is why she was killed. She never saw the danger, the truth, until it was too late.”

Remembering what Harry had said, Rossetti asked, “You think it was somebody she knew?”

“Nobody who really knew Jemima would have done that,” Doris replied. “Nobody that knew her well, knew what a lovely girl she was. Sometimes I think ‘trust’ is a bad thing, these days,” she added. “And Jemima was too trusting.”

Rossetti thought she was probably right.

He lifted his cuff and checked his Rolex Oyster Perpetual, for once getting no pleasure from the sight of it adorning his wrist. Then he thought f*ck it, it didn’t matter what the time was in Paris, he needed to speak to Harry. He got up, went outside with the dog, got out his phone, and speed-dialed Harry’s. It was Mal who answered, though.

“Why are you calling him?” she asked in a stern whisper. “The poor man is sleeping. In fact that’s all he’s done since he got here. Except for a glass of champagne, that is. He fell into my bed with not even a bite to eat, nor … well … anything,” Mal added, making Rossetti smile. He didn’t believe her for a minute.

“Wake him up, Mal, this is urgent,” he said. Then realizing he was behaving like a rude cop added, “Please.”

There was a pause, then Mal said a reluctant okay.

Harry, though, sounded alert and not at all sleepy a second later when he got on the phone.

“So? How’s Paris?” Rossetti asked, because it was all he could think of for openers having just gotten a man out of his lover’s bed.

“Paris makes a better man out of me,” Harry replied, with what Rossetti thought, astonished, was his old carefree man-of-the-world aplomb. “At least it did until you called,” Harry added.

“I know you’re fearing the worst.” Rossetti wished he didn’t have to tell him, wished he had not called him, had left him there in his Paris dreamworld away from the reality of the woman stabbed in the eye then burned; away from Doris’s niece, Jemima, with her throat cut.

“I was in Ruby’s,” he said. “Squeeze got his usual bounty,” he added, to lighten things up a bit.

“Glad to hear it, and thanks, for Squeeze.” Harry glanced over his shoulder as, hearing the dog’s name, Mal groaned. “Best dog in the world,” he added, just to get at her. “Remember how he saved Mal’s life, that time.”

“How could I forget,” Rossetti replied, hearing Harry laugh. Mal had thrown a pillow at him.

“So? What’s up?” Harry sank back onto the bed, putting an arm round Mal’s shoulders. She flung a leg over and lay smoothly against him. It was almost too much to bear as well as talk sensibly on the telephone, but there was an urgency in Rossetti’s voice. Harry knew he was not calling simply to ask if he was having a good time in France.

Rossetti quickly brought him up to date.

“Interesting,” Harry said, alert now.

“I also spoke with the waitress, Doris,” Rossetti said. “Jemima was her niece. Remember?”

Harry remembered only too well. Jemima’s image floated suddenly in front of his closed eyes, her wild red hair, her pale eyes, her blood. “I know Doris,” he said.

“Well, Doris said something I thought interesting. She said, and I quote, ‘My Jemima was a true innocent. Which is why she was killed. She never saw the danger, the truth, until it was too late.’” Harry was silent. Rossetti cleared his throat. “And what that means to me, Harry, and I believe you will agree, is that Jemima knew whoever it was killed her.”

“Right,” Harry said. “I’ll be on the next flight out,” he added, consulting the watch which he had not taken off; even in bed he needed to know the time. “Expect me tomorrow. You are on the right track, Rossetti.”

He clicked off the phone and heard a groan from behind him. He turned and met Mal’s eyes.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” she said.





43


It was, Diz thought, a good idea to keep an eye on things. By which he meant through his binoculars. He’d seen some pretty strange stuff out at Evening Lake. Every now and again, for instance, he would spot old Len Doutzer rambling in his quick mountain-man stride, up the hillside opposite, shotgun slung over his shoulder and looking, Diz thought, very creepy. Sinister, in fact. He would make sure not to go to that side of the lake alone, not with a crazy guy like that around.