The House of Wolves (House of Wolves #1)(37)

From Cantor’s youth, he remembered the expression “dressed to the nines.” But the woman across from him was clearly into much higher numbers than that. Pearl necklace. A diamond ring that looked as big as a golf ball. He assumed that the black sequined cocktail dress she was wearing cost more than his car. Even in the dim light of the bar, he suspected that she’d had some work done, especially around the eyes. But he could see, as a trained detective, that it had been artfully done. Maybe a tuck under the chin as well.

She was sipping on a martini. Cantor didn’t usually drink when he was working, but he had ordered an Anchor Steam beer to be polite.

“Thank you for meeting me,” he said to the second Mrs. Joe Wolf.

“Please call me Rachel. I stopped thinking of myself as the second Mrs. Joe Wolf after the reading of the will.”

“Well, then, thank you for meeting me, Rachel,” Cantor said, and clinked his bottle of beer against her stemmed cocktail glass.

He had looked her up online and knew that if she wasn’t lying, she’d been half Joe Wolf’s age when she married him. It made her slightly older than Jenny. She was tall, a couple of inches taller than Cantor even in low heels, and pretty. Not in the same way as Jenny, who didn’t appear to have to work at it, ever, and whose fair-haired beauty somehow made her look younger than she actually was. If Cantor hadn’t known better, he would have thought Jenny and her brother Thomas could have been twins—they looked that much alike.

Rachel Wolf, though—Cantor could see she worked like hell at maintenance. She wasn’t going to give in to getting older without a fight. She looked to have the size and figure of a beach volleyball player. The cleavage showing from the black dress, Cantor thought, was rather epic.

“I was frankly wondering when you’d get around to looking me up.”

Up and down, Cantor thought.

She picked her glass back up, raised an eyebrow, and smiled at him over it.

“Am I to believe I’m a suspect in my late husband’s murder?”

“Why would you assume it was a murder?” Cantor said. “I’m still looking at it as an unattended death.”

“A distinction,” she said, “without a difference.”

She took the tiniest sip of her drink. And smiled brilliantly.

“I’m quickly learning to watch what I say with you.”

“I’m mostly trying to get a complete picture of the family dynamics at work here,” Cantor said.

She laughed.

“The dynamics are simple in the Wolf family. They eat you if you let them.”

She turned to look out at the lights of the city, which seemed to stretch forever. Maybe she wanted Cantor to see her in profile. Like she was moving from one pose to another.

“Why did your marriage end?” he said.

“Is that relevant to your investigation?”

“I try not to look at anything as irrelevant. Keeps me young.”

She pushed her chair back slightly and crossed her long legs.

Then he said, “You had a pretty rock-solid prenup, correct?”

“My head is beginning to spin, Detective, with these sudden twists and turns in the conversation.”

“Perhaps it’s the altitude.”

“I signed it willingly,” Rachel Wolf said. “So he wouldn’t think I was in it for the money, the way his children are.”

Perish the thought.

“I had no idea that he would eventually treat me even worse in death than he did when he was still alive.”

“He mistreated you in life how?” Cantor said.

“By constantly accusing me of cheating on him.”

“Did you?”

“Never,” she said emphatically.

“I hope this line of questioning doesn’t offend you.”

She recrossed her legs.

“They all thought I cheated on him, to the point where I started to feel as if I might as well have.” She smiled again. “Just to have some fun in the bedroom again.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. There was a lengthy silence between them until she finally said, “You can’t possibly think I was the one who threw him off that boat, even as big a girl as I am.”

“Just checking boxes,” he said.

“Did you check one with the Iron Maiden?”

They both knew she was referring to the first Mrs. Joe Wolf.

“She’s a tough old bird,” Cantor said. “But I’m not sure she’s tough enough at her age to get it done.”

“Or maybe she waited a long time to get even with him for leaving her and had somebody do it for her.” She gave a tiny shrug. “Perhaps another way of looking at things.”

“I’m told you were pretty upset at the reading of the will,” Cantor said.

“Damn right I was. I thought I deserved more, especially since I did everything for that man when we were still together.”

“Then he screws you.”

“Figuratively,” she said. “Not literally.”

He ate some peanuts. He’d been trying to pace himself, not wanting to empty the bowl in her presence.

“I keep wondering if there was a way somebody had gotten a look at that will beforehand,” Cantor said. “And been in enough of a rage after seeing what was in it to take him out. With the exception of his daughter, of course.”