Little Black Book of Murder Read online

  As I closed my ancient laptop, a fragrant steam began to surge out of the oven door. Michael grabbed a mitt and pulled the pan out from under the broiler. He got busy with the final preparations of the food, and I watched him. He worked with an economy of motion, but his thoughts were far away.

  When he set a plate in front of me, I inhaled the mouthwatering scent of lemon sole and fresh asparagus. “Wow, fine dining,” I said. “Can we afford this?”

  “I splurged on a lemon. The asparagus came from Father Tom’s garden. The fish was on sale.”

  On sale because it would go bad in another day or two?

  As Michael sat down across from me, he caught my hesitation and laughed. “The fish is fine. I figured I’d better feed you something besides pasta.”

  Immediately, I felt contrite for having brought up my weight gain. I knew we were eating a lot of spaghetti because it was what we could afford. Why was inexpensive food so fattening? But I said, “Don’t feel guilty about the pasta. I love that you do most of the cooking. I should have been more careful about portions, that’s all. I’m sorry I said anything about it.”

  “You look great to me.” He poured some wine into my glass and splashed a more sizable portion for himself. We were down to the last few bottles in the collection he had amassed while studying wine with his usual acute focus.

  I lifted my glass. “Welcome to the world of the working poor.”

  “Yeah.” He touched his glass to mine but didn’t drink. “I guess that’s what you are now. And it’s partly my fault.”

  “Not even remotely. Unless—­are things still bad with Gas N Grub?”

  I wasn’t the only one with money trouble. After a rogue employee embezzled from him while he was incarcerated last fall, Michael was struggling to keep his string of gas stations afloat. He could have sold one to get our heads above water, but selling real estate took time, and the market was bad at the moment. Taking a loss on the property seemed foolish in the long run. We had decided to try living as frugally as we could manage and see what happened.

  He said, “I paid my employees last week. That’s good news. I don’t know about next week, though.”

  “What can you do?”

  “Raise the price of gasoline.”

  “Will that take care of your problem?”

  He shrugged. “Until customers start looking for a cheaper way to fill their tanks.”

  “So it’s a short-­term solution?”

  “Very short,” he agreed. He slugged some wine and picked up his fork at last. “Tell me what happened at your party this afternoon.”

  I toyed with an asparagus spear, aware that he had changed the subject. “The party was lovely. Picturesque.”

  “How picturesque was the shooting?”

  “Oh, that. Marybeth looked very well dressed with her musket in hand. Of course, that doesn’t mean she has the right to go around shooting at his new wife, but—”

  “Especially with you standing in the wrong place.”

  “Believe me, I’d have headed for the hills if I’d had any clue she was showing up with a gun.” I twirled my fork. “Before she pulled the trigger, she was shouting about something, though. Her ex and her brother, Tommy, are partners in some kind of farming venture. They’re raising pigs—­high-­end pork, probably for Tommy’s restaurant. But one of the pigs important to the breeding went missing. A special pig her grandfather had bred.”

  “Who’s her grandfather?”

  “Howie Rattigan,” I said. “Of Howie’s Hotties fame.”

  “The hot dog guy?” Michael grinned with delight. “The old coot who looked like a pig? Did those TV commercials with the hog calling? Is he still alive?”

  “No. And the family sold Howie’s Hotties to a big food conglomerate for a lot of money. But they’re still breeding hogs, I guess. Marybeth seemed very upset about the missing animal—­as if this particular pig is extremely important, the family legacy, that kind of thing. She claims Swain has it, but he says it disappeared.”

  “Kinda hard to hide a pig. I mean, look at Ralphie. We try to keep him penned up, but he’s not exactly—” Michael’s face went still. “Wait. When did this important pig go missing?”

  “I don’t know.” I let Michael think it over.

  It took him less than a second. “You think Ralphie is the pig they’re worried about?”

  “That was my first thought. What are the chances a pig wandered onto Blackbird Farm around the time the Howie’s Hotties pig disappeared?”

  “Slim to none,” he said, no longer amused.

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” I argued. “Nobody ever came looking for him, and surely they’d have put out a search party if he was as valuable as Marybeth was saying.”

  “Well, don’t go telling anybody about Ralphie,” Michael said. “He belongs here now.”

  “You’re actually fond of a pig!” I said. “A misbehaving pig, in fact.”

  “A kindred soul.” He smiled at me across the table. “I should have let him rough up your editor today.”

  I tried the asparagus. It tasted like springtime—­a welcome flavor. Swallowing, I said, “The young man who came here today with Rawlins. The one with the hat. Did he see Ralphie?”

  “Ralphie’s kinda hard to miss. Why?”

  “He was Pork—­er, Porter Starr, Swain’s youngest son. Marybeth’s son, too. I don’t know if he’d recognize Ralphie, since he doesn’t seem to be involved in the farm side of things. He used to be on television, in a sitcom, as a child. Now he’s a talent scout.”

  I told him about Libby and her plan to get her twins into the entertainment business.

  Michael laughed again. “Anybody who thinks he can teach those twins anything must have some stones. But what’s the talent scout doing with Rawlins?”

  “Libby said Rawlins gave Porter a ride a few weeks back.”

  “They’ve been hanging out together ever since? What does Libby say about that?”

  “You think they shouldn’t be friends?”

  He smiled again. “You always see the good side of people, Nora.”

  “I see flaws, too,” I said at once. “But I choose to think the best of everyone.”

  Michael gave me a longer look, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He shook his head. “I didn’t like something about the Starr kid. And Rawlins was acting shifty, too. They were up to something.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Michael concentrated on his plate as if trying to find a way to explain something. “Growing up? My delinquent brothers and me—­we spent most of our time beating each other up or throwing blame so we could get ten minutes alone just to—­I dunno, be alone, I guess. That friend Rawlins brought around had the look. Like he was trying to get away with something.”

  I forgot about Rawlins for a moment. Michael rarely talked about his childhood. “Your brothers sound . . . challenging.”

  “I hated them,” Michael said without emotion. “They hated me more—­the bastard half brother that Pop seemed to favor. Little Frankie and I fought like animals. It was good practice for prison, I guess.” He caught himself and tried to brush off the memory. “I spent a lot of time with the family next door.”

  I knew Michael never had the kind of home life other people did. This new footnote in his life intrigued me. “What was that family like?”

  “Fun. They collected all kinds of junk to play with—­trash can lids for shields so we could pretend we were saving the planet from aliens, that kind of stuff. We shot a lot of basketball in the driveway, too. The parents were always laughing—­not laughing at anybody’s mistakes or weaknesses, but, you know, having a good time.” His smile faded. “But I got into some trouble—­broke Little Frankie’s arm and went to a foster home for a while. When I got back, they had moved. Anyway,” he said, firmly tucking his memories back down
inside, “I guess I know shifty when I see it. Rawlins was uneasy. And the other kid had an agenda.”

  Michael’s instincts for trouble were finely tuned. I hadn’t realized how deeply into his childhood that particular instinct was rooted. My heart ached for the boy who’d had such a volatile youth, and I wondered what had happened to the other family who’d made a difference.

  But he was finished talking about himself, I could see, so I said, “You think Rawlins is in trouble?”

  “I dunno. How much trouble can a white-­bread kid like him get into? Whatever it is, it’ll all shake out soon enough.”

  “I have a problem of my own,” I said on a sigh. “Gus wants me to dig up some dirt on Starr’s wife, Zephyr.”

  For the last week, Michael had listened to me brainstorm my article, and he knew the story of the Starr marriage. His interest sharpened. “There’s dirt on the model?”

  “She seems perfectly nice to me. I mean, there are the usual rumors that she has done some drugs and partied with infamous people back when she was modeling, but I don’t think that’s what he has in mind.”

  “Zephyr’s the one from West Virginia, right? I know a guy who’s connected there.”

  “I need to find out why Starr gave up his career so abruptly. Gus seems to think it has to do with Zephyr.”

  “Playing Old MacDonald doesn’t quite have the same luster as hobnobbing with beautiful girls, I suppose. Why do you think he retired?”

  “To make his wife happy?” I ventured.

  “Makes sense to me,” Michael replied with a smile that turned his eyes very blue. He reached across the table to touch my face.

  • • •

  In the morning the house was colder than ever, so I wrapped up in two sweaters and made pancakes while Michael Skyped with his teenage daughter, Carrie, who was still serving in Afghanistan. Their standing video appointment wasn’t always easy—­they were going through a rough patch in their already tenuous relationship—­but this time Michael closed his laptop with a smile.

  After breakfast, we went down to the cellar to coax the furnace with a technique I remembered my grandfather using—­a lever pushed here, a well-­aimed kick there. The huge motor groaned and something gave a terrifying bang before it revved up again.

  Michael laughed and gave me a high five. “Show me that trick one more time.”

  Upstairs, glad to have heat in the radiators again, we read the Sunday newspapers for a while. I looked through the advertising pages to see if I could find a Filly Vanilli toy for Emma. No luck. Not entirely playfully, Michael and I argued about the politics shouted on one of the morning pundit shows, and then Michael decided he’d go to Mass.

  I hoped he wasn’t going to seek absolution for something I didn’t know about yet.

  After he left, I pulled on my jacket and went outside to do some work in the garden. With the sun shining, it was almost warmer outside the house than inside. While I puttered, I thought about Rawlins. I hoped he wasn’t getting into a bad friendship with Porky. I had helped him with his essays for his college applications, and I knew he was feeling restless these days.

  I cut some of the dried hydrangeas off the bushes and arranged them in the big marble urn by the back porch. The urn had come from Europe when my grandparents returned from their honeymoon. My grandmother said she found it in a Paris flea market. All her life, she kept the urn full of something from the garden during every season, and since moving back to the farm, I tried to do the same. I wanted to make a home for Michael and me that included some gracious traditions.

  Last night’s asparagus had also gotten me thinking it would soon be time to get some veggies started in the garden. In the fall, I had spent a week putting the garden to bed, so the spring cleanup was going to be a snap. Ralphie sat in the grass, blinking in the sunshine as he watched me rake up the straw.

  I said to him, “This garden is not going to be your buffet.”

  He gave me a happy grunt that sounded like a request to hurry it up and plant something juicy.

  I was down on my knees in the dirt with a trowel when I saw a fat blacksnake.

  It was sunning itself in the dark earth a few yards away. One second I saw it, and the next second I was standing on the porch, doing a dithery dance.

  About that time, Emma’s red pickup came rumbling up the drive. She was towing a horse trailer. She parked by the pony fence but came over when she saw me hugging myself on the porch. At her heel trotted her speckled spaniel, Toby.

  “What’s with you?” she asked.

  “A snake.” I pointed a shaky finger. “In the garden. A really big black one.”

  “Blacksnakes are good snakes.”

  “I don’t care. I want it gone.”

  “Jeez, Nora. You live on a farm. Time to get over the snake thing.” Emma strolled over to the garden and took a look. For all her tough talk, though, I noticed she didn’t exactly stride confidently into the rows where I planned to plant lettuce. She kept her distance and peeked. A moment later, she came back, shaking her head. “You must have scared it away.”

  I sat down on the top step of the porch, and Toby licked my face with sympathy. Ralphie poked me with his snout. I said to him, “Thanks a lot, Ralphie. You could have earned your keep by killing that snake for me.”

  Ralphie gave a snort to say he didn’t like snakes, either.

  “Mick around?” Emma asked casually. She leaned down to scratch Ralphie between the ears. He gave a sigh of pleasure and leaned against her legs.

  “Michael went to church.” I pointed at her trailer. “Are you here to pick up ponies?”

  “Nope, just dropping off a horse. And I got some extra work making livestock deliveries in the neighborhood, so this is a drive-­by. I’m taking some heifers up the road.”

  By the sound of it, she was taking any work she could get. I admired her hustle. Like a child begging for a parent to hurry up, one of the young cows in the trailer gave a plaintive moo.

  I said, “What horse are you dropping off?”

  She grinned. “Your favorite. Mr. Twinkles.”

  I did like Emma’s jumper, a splendid chestnut she hoped to ride in summer competitions. I said, “Is he healthy enough to jump this year?”

  “I think so. But I can’t afford to board him at Paddy Horgan’s stable. Mind if he bunks here for a while?”

  “The more, the merrier.”

  Toby and Ralphie followed us to the trailer and watched while Emma unfastened the tailgate and went inside to unload Mr. Twinkles. The nervous gelding hated riding in any vehicle, but he must have smelled familiar territory, because he came down the ramp in a rush and nuzzled my sweater.

  “Hi, bad boy.” I rubbed his neck and let him snuffle me.

  Emma led Mr. Twinkles over to the paddock and turned him loose. He took off at a gallop and bucked with joy at being free again. Ralphie went to the fence and watched the horse with interest. Eventually, Mr. Twinkles cantered back and stuck his nose down to sniff the pig.

  “Well, I’ve heard of dogs and goats keeping horses company,” Emma said, “but never a pig. Ralphie will behave himself, right?”

  “If he doesn’t, we’ll have ham for Easter.”

  Emma laughed. “I doubt it.”

  “Where are you off to now?”

  She checked her watch. “I’m supposed to deliver these heifers to Starr’s Landing. A guy I know owns a dairy farm, a good one, and he sold three heifers to Swain Starr for his fancy farm experiment. Anyway, I was actually hoping you might ride along this morning.”

  “Why me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Zephyr Starr was giving me the stink eye a week ago. Like I was there to hit on her antique of a husband. I mean, he could barely walk. If you’re along, I won’t have to deck her.”

  “Was he flirting with you?”

  “No. I
n fact, he looked half sick. But the power of Viagra,” Emma said, “gives some women exaggerated ideas about what their husbands can do. Can you come?”

  “Sure.” With the snake in my garden, I wasn’t keen on going back to digging in the dirt. “Let me change my clothes and—”

  “We’re not invited to a party,” Emma said. “I’m just delivering cows. With luck, nobody will see either one of us. I’ll just turn ’em loose in a pasture and leave.”

  “Okay.” I dusted the worst of the garden earth from my jeans. “Let’s go.”

  In a few minutes, we were speeding up the road ­toward Starr’s Landing in Emma’s cluttered pickup. I’d had to shove aside an old coat and an extra shirt to sit on the passenger seat, and my feet got tangled in a couple of halters on the floor. I saw a six-­pack cooler there, too. I had to put my feet on top of it. Toby sat on my lap with his head out the window, tongue lolling.

  The Delaware River ran smoothly on our right. Fishing season hadn’t started yet, but in a few weeks the river would be full of anglers wading out into the silvery water. With a pang of dismay, I realized Michael wouldn’t be fishing this year. His house arrest forbade it.

  To Emma, I said, “Having any luck finding that Filly Vanilli toy?”

  She sighed. “I tried to wrestle one out of the arms of a scary grandma at Toys ‘R’ Us yesterday. It was the last one, too. I lost.”

  “Childbirth might have diminished your killer instinct. Anyway, you don’t want to get arrested for assaulting a grandmother.”

  Emma rubbed her shoulder. “She had a really good right hook. But she made me more determined than ever. I gotta keep looking. It’s a mission for me now. I’m like one of those navy SEALs—­swift and deadly. The grandmas won’t see me coming.”

  “Just don’t hurt anybody. How was your date last night?”

  “Date?”

  “You said you had a date. Jay, the dishwasher.”

  “Oh yeah. It was nothing special. Tell me about Swain Starr’s fancy party.”

  “It had a surprise ending.”

  I told her about Marybeth and her musket.