Stalking Steven Read online

  “I haven’t had a chance to check,” Mendoza added. Still on the subject of Araminta Tucker’s finances, I guess. “But retirement living doesn’t come cheap. If she needs cash, that life insurance policy alone will go a long way. And it’s not like she liked her sister-in-law.”

  No. “I guess you’ll go see her tomorrow?”

  “I think I’d better,” Mendoza said. “Both to take a look at that lease and to assess her potential for murderer.”

  “Will you let me know what you find out?”

  He gave me a jaundiced look, and I added, “About Edwina. If she doesn’t want Edwina, or can’t keep her, maybe she’d let me keep her. I’d be willing to pay for her, if money would make a difference.”

  Diana looked at me and I said, defensively, “She’s nice. A fun, little dog. I like her. And I don’t want her to end up at the pound.”

  Diana didn’t say anything. Mendoza said he’d let me know. “I don’t suppose you noticed a gun sitting around?”

  I hadn’t. “But if she’d just used it to shoot her sister-in-law, it isn’t likely she’d keep it on the coffee table. Is it?”

  It wasn’t. Mendoza turned to Diana. “I’m sorry to ask, but I’m sure you understand why I have to. Does Steven own a gun?”

  Diana nodded. “We both do.”

  Mendoza didn’t look surprised. I guess maybe I was, a little. It had never crossed my mind that she was packing heat.

  And she must have noticed, because she felt compelled to explain. “I get death threats sometimes. Sometimes, one party wants the divorce but the other party doesn’t. Some men take it personally when their wives leave them. And sometimes, someone hires me to help them negotiate a fair settlement in the divorce, but the other party doesn’t agree on what’s fair. And then they blame the fact that they have to pay so much alimony on me. So far it’s just been threats. Nobody’s tried to hurt me. But I carry a gun just in case.”

  Mendoza nodded.

  “Do I need a gun?” I asked.

  They both looked at me. I added, “If I’m going to follow cheating spouses around for a living, maybe one of them will decide it’s my fault his wife’s leaving him.”

  Mendoza hesitated. I got the pretty distinct impression that he wasn’t in favor of me carrying a gun. It was probably nothing personal. Most cops aren’t in favor of civilians being armed. It makes their jobs much harder.

  On the other hand, I was sure he could see my point. Especially after what Diana had just said.

  Eventually he settled for a bland, “Something to think about.” Which I took to mean that it might not be a bad idea, but he wasn’t going to be the one to tell me to arm myself. Probably afraid I’d end up shooting myself in the foot. And considering some of the things that came out of my mouth sometimes, he might not be too far off.

  “Where are the guns now?” he asked Diana, who told him she kept hers in her purse, and Steven’s was upstairs in the bedside table. “Would you go get them, please?”

  Diana opened her mouth, and then seemed to think better of it. She nodded and got up from the table. I waited until I heard her footsteps start up the stairs before I said, “Surely you don’t think she had anything to do with shooting Mrs. Grimshaw.”

  “It’s procedure,” Mendoza said.

  “Sure, but Diana had no reason to want Mrs. Grimshaw dead. She didn’t even know her.”

  “Steven did.”

  True. Steven did. Or it was reasonable to think he must have made Griselda Grimshaw’s acquaintance if Anastasia Sokolov had lived next to the old bat, and Steven had visited her. Araminta Tucker had said that Griselda liked to stick her nose in other people’s business. It was quite likely she had stuck it in Steven’s.

  “You think Steven shot Griselda Grimshaw so she wouldn’t tell Diana he was cheating on her?”

  “I’m not thinking anything,” Mendoza said, which had to be a lie. “I just need to see the guns.”

  “Do you know what kind of gun was used to shoot Mrs. Grimshaw?”

  “The ME finished the autopsy this afternoon,” Mendoza said. And added, before I could ask, “There was nothing interesting or noteworthy about it. Cause of death was as expected. Two shots point blank to the chest. She was dead before she hit the floor.”

  “That’s good, at least.” I wouldn’t have wanted her to suffer.

  Mendoza nodded. “Both bullets were from the same gun. A 9 millimeter Smith and Wesson M&P.” After a second he added, “Military and Police.”

  My jaw dropped. “The police shot her?” Or the military? Why?

  “No,” Mendoza said, with fraught patience. “The Smith and Wesson Military and Police issue is also widely available commercially. It’s a popular gun.”

  “Is that what I should get, if I wanted to get a gun?”

  “You should find another job,” Mendoza said, “where you won’t need a gun. I hear The Bag Shoppe is hiring.”

  It took a second, then— “The handbag store? You want me to sell accessories for a living?”

  “I bet nobody ever stabbed anybody over a designer purse.”

  “You’d be surprised,” I told him. “I’ve known women who’d kill over a lot less than that. But I don’t want to sell purses. I like what I do.”

  “You have no idea what you’re doing,” Mendoza pointed out, which was unkind of him, I thought.

  “I’m learning. I’m new at this.”

  “That’s why I’m telling you to get out while you still can. Before it’s too late.”

  “You mean, before I realize I’m good at it? Or before I realize I like it?”

  “Before someone comes along and shoots you for sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Mendoza said and turned to the door as Diana’s footsteps came back down the hallway. “Any luck?”

  She put her handbag on the table. “My gun’s in here. Where it’s been all day. Feel free to look.”

  Mendoza pulled the purse down on his lap and peered in while Diana continued, “But I don’t know what happened to Steven’s gun. It was upstairs yesterday. Now it isn’t.”

  She tried to sound calm, but I could detect a quaver in her voice, a little ribbon of fear.

  “Are you sure you saw it yesterday?” Mendoza had dug her gun out of the purse and was inspecting it. After a few seconds, he put it back and handed Diana the bag. “Can you vouch for Steven’s whereabouts last night and this morning?”

  Diana nodded. “He came home from work as usual last night. We had dinner. Worked a little. Watched some TV. Went to bed. He didn’t get up again until morning.”

  Neither of us said anything, but she added, defensively, “We slept in the same bed. I would have heard if he’d gotten up.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” Mendoza said mildly. “Where does he keep the gun?”

  Diana told him it lived in the bedside table drawer on Steven’s side of the bed. “He doesn’t carry it. Nobody threatens him, and anyway, the university is a gun-free zone. It’s just left over from before, when he traveled to some unsavory parts of the world.”

  Mendoza nodded. “I’ll look up the registration. If nothing else, it’ll tell me what kind of gun it is. I assume it’s probably registered?”

  “Of course,” Diana said.

  “Can you remember the last time you saw it?”

  But she couldn’t. “Most of the time, I forget it’s there. We’ve never needed it. Steven takes it out and cleans it once in a while, but I can’t remember the last time he did that. And I don’t go into his bedside drawer, as a rule.”

  “So the gun could have been gone for a while.”

  She nodded. “Should I be worried?”

  I’d be worried if it were me, although I didn’t say so. Mendoza didn’t, either. “We’ll figure it out,” he told her. His voice was reassuring, but I’m sure she noticed, as did I, that he didn’t actually tell her she had no reason to worry.

  Chapter 9

  By the time I got to the office to check on poor Ed
wina—and Zachary—it was after eight. Honestly, I expected them both to be gone, but when I pulled into the lot, Zachary’s little car was parked in the corner, and the light was on inside.

  I unlocked the door and raised my voice. “Hello?”

  There was a scramble from the back of the office. Then the sound of nails scrabbling on the floor, and furious, high-pitched barking as Edwina rounded the corner and came for me, bat ears flapping. I took an involuntary step back.

  She recognized me, though, and by the time she ran into my calves—because although her feet were no longer moving, she couldn’t stop in time—her stubby tail was wagging and her jaws were split in a delighted doggy grin.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” I bent and gave her a scratch as she danced excitedly in front of me, her hind quarters wiggling in delight. Running my nails through her short fur was a little like scratching a Persian rug.

  Zachary burst around the corner a second later, and took several steps down the hallway before he recognized me. “Oh.”

  He slowed down, and then collapsed against the wall. “It’s you.”

  I nodded. “I have a key. Didn’t you hear me let myself in?”

  He looked sheepish. “Guess the TV was up too loud.”

  “We have a TV?”

  “I was streaming Jessica Jones on the computer,” Zachary said.

  Of course he was. I decided not to say anything about it. It was after business hours, and he had stayed behind to take care of my dog. Or the dog Mendoza had given me responsibility for. Who cared if he was using the wifi? He could be watching much worse things than Jessica Jones.

  “I came to relieve you,” I said instead. “Of the dog. I can’t believe I forgot about her. But I went from Franklin directly to Diana’s house, and she just slipped my mind. Thanks you for staying to take care of her.”

  “It was no problem.” Zachary looked like he thought about saying something else, but then he thought better of it.

  “I saw Detective Mendoza,” I said. “He came by to show Diana the drawing you helped him make. Of the Russian girl.”

  Zachary nodded. “I only saw her for a minute. I’m not sure the drawing is a hundred percent. But it’s close. Did Mrs. Morton recognize her?”

  Mendoza had shown the image to both us before I left, and we’d both said we didn’t know the girl. I was reasonably sure I’d never seen her before. I’d only followed Steven that one afternoon—yesterday—from the college campus to the house in Crieve Hall. She’d already been there when he arrived, and I hadn’t gotten a look at her, and then I’d followed Steven back to the university. Zachary had gone to the door alone with the pizza last night, and this morning she’d been gone. There was no reason for me to have seen her, unless it was in passing, on the street, and if so, I hadn’t realized it.

  Diana had said the same. She was probably telling the truth.

  “Her name seems to be Anastasia Sokolov,” I told Zachary, and watched his eyes open wide.

  “The detective found her already? That was fast!”

  I shook my head. “Sadly, no. I found the name.” I told him about my trip to Franklin and Araminta Tucker. “She rented the house to Steven and his ‘daughter.’”

  I left out the air quotes around the last word. Zachary snorted anyway.

  “You’re too young to be so cynical,” I told him.

  He grinned. “You forget. I saw her. And she looked like a stripper.”

  Had she really? It’s hard to tell that from a drawing of a face. Although she’d certainly been very pretty, at least the way Zachary had described her. Blue eyes, long blond hair, Slavic cheekbones, plump lips. If she had the body of an exotic dancer on top of it, it was no wonder he’d been dazzled when he came back to the car last night.

  “Did you happen to mention that to Mendoza?” I asked.

  Zachary nodded. “We did a full-body sketch, too. I guess he didn’t show you that one?”

  He hadn’t. Trying to protect Diana’s feelings, perhaps.

  “She didn’t just have the body,” Zachary said, and added, pensively, “although boy, did she have that…”

  “But?”

  His eyes cleared. “She dressed like a stripper. Like she does her shopping at Fredericks of Hollywood or Hustler. Cut down to here and up to there—” He demonstrated, “and like it was painted on. Four inch heels with platform soles. The kind girls use when they hump poles.”

  Mendoza had definitely been trying to spare Diana’s feelings.

  “So…” I said. “You’re saying she might actually be a stripper?”

  He shrugged. “She dressed like one. Or like I figure a stripper might dress. Not like I hang out in those places.”

  No. He wasn’t old enough, was he? And looked younger than he was, with his freckled face and red hair.

  “I’m old enough,” Zachary said. “They let you in when you’re eighteen, as long as they don’t serve alcohol.”

  “Don’t those places always serve alcohol?”

  He shook his head. “A lot of them don’t. Less chance somebody’ll try to touch the merchandise, I guess.”

  Perhaps. “So you’re familiar with the Nashville stripping scene?”

  He squirmed. “I wouldn’t say familiar…”

  “Could you take a guess as to where a Russian girl might take her clothes off for money? Is there a Russian, or maybe an East European, part of town?”

  “There’s a Russian grocery on Thompson Lane,” Zachary said, “near Nolensville Road.”

  “Would they have strippers?”

  He shook his head. “Although I’ve heard the owner’s a former ballet dancer.”

  Really?

  “The girl I saw was not a ballet dancer. Too well endowed.”

  No doubt. I was familiar with the type of girls who appealed to middle-aged, married men, and young, perky breasts seemed a big part of it. “Nolensville Road and Thompson Lane is sort of on your way home, isn’t it?”

  Zachary shrugged. It wasn’t a yes, but it wasn’t a no, either.

  “Maybe you could drive slowly and take a look around for places the girl might frequent. And if you happen to see a Russian strip club, and they’ll let you in, maybe see if anyone knows her?”

  His eyes opened wide. “You’re asking me to go talk to strippers? On duty?”

  “I’ll pay you,” I said. “I mean, it’s part of the job. If we can figure out where the girl is, maybe we’ll find Steven, too. Diana’s pretty worried.”

  And she deserved to know something solid one way or the other. Even if it was that Steven was leaving her for a twenty-year-old Russian stripper. It had to be better than this deafening silence from a man who, for all intents and purposes, had just dropped off the face of the earth with no warning.

  The least the coward could have done, was tell his wife the truth. After fifteen years of marriage, didn’t she deserve that?

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Zachary said.

  “Overtime pay,” I told him. “Time and half.”

  He grinned. “I’ll go now.”

  “Take your time.” The strip joints, if there were any, probably didn’t start kicking until later.

  “You’d be surprised,” Zachary said. “A lot of husbands like to stop in on their way home from work in the afternoon.”

  Ewww. “Maybe that’s how Steven met the girl.”

  “Maybe.” Zachary hesitated. “If I find a place, I guess I can ask whether anyone’s seen him. I can probably find a picture of him on the internet, that I can flash around.”

  “I’m sure the university website has one,” I said. “Just be careful. You don’t want anything to happen.”

  “If I get arrested, Detective Mendoza will get me out of jail,” Zachary said. “He owes me.”

  He did. If Zachary hadn’t interceded last month, Mendoza and I would both be dead.

  I bent and scooped up Edwina. “I’ll take the dog home with me.”

  “I’ll help you carry,” Zachary said. H
e reached for the bag of dog food beside the door.

  I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. You fed her tonight, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Then she can wait until tomorrow morning. We’ll see you then.”

  “I’ll go turn off the TV and grab my coat,” Zachary said. He headed down the hallway again while I carried Edwina out to the car and put her in the passenger seat. Then I watched as Zachary came back out, shrugging on his jacket, and made sure he locked the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be here,” Zachary said, and headed for his car. I reversed out of my spot and drove to the street, where I took off in one direction, down Music Row toward the roundabout and the Gulch, while Zachary went in the other, up Music Row toward Belmont University and the interstate.

  * * *

  When the phone rang, I was pretty sure it was the middle of the night. It felt like the middle of the night. A quick glance told me that it was actually twenty minutes after six, though.

  Which isn’t exactly the middle of the night, but might as well be.

  I fumbled the phone up to my ear. “’lo?”

  “Gina!” Diana’s voice practically pierced my eardrum. “Gina, you have to come here!”

  I guess I ought to say that I assumed it was Diana’s voice. It was Diana’s phone number. And the voice was female. Pitched so high that Edwina’s ears twitched, all the way on the other side of the king size bed.

  But I wouldn’t have recognized Diana if I hadn’t already had her number plugged into my phone. She sounded frantic, hysterical.

  “Diana?” I ventured.

  “You have to come here!”

  I sat up and ran a hand through my hair. It was almost a month since I’d chopped it off, so it had had time to grow out a little, but I could still pretty much wash it and go. This morning, it looked like I wouldn’t even have time to do that.