Double Shots, Donuts, and Dead Dudes Read online

  No problem though. All I had to do was wait. He placed his order in his gruff voice—four lobster rolls—then, as he turned away from the window, ended his call and put his phone in his pocket, giving me a full view of his face.

  I gasped.

  “Caleb!” The bookie.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I regretted it the second his name burst from my mouth. Sure, I wanted to talk to him—in theory at least—but just accosting him at Sandy’s wasn’t exactly how I’d planned it. In fact, I had no plan, which was part of why it was a bad idea to just yell out his name in a public place. Although, at least we were in public, so I was probably safe.

  “Do I know you?” he rumbled.

  In my panic the night before, I hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at him. He was young—probably in his early to midtwenties, tall, stick skinny, with blond hair and glasses. His name fit his appearance even if it didn’t fit his job or his voice.

  “Um, n—no, not really,” I stammered.

  He cocked an eyebrow. “But you know me?”

  “Well, I, um, uh—”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re the drunk girl from last night.”

  I had a decision to make. I could deny it, or I could own it. But I wasn’t sure which one would get me the information I wanted. Possibly influenced by who I was talking to, I decided to take a gamble. “Yup, that’s me!” I tried to infuse confidence I didn’t feel into my voice.

  He took a step closer to me. It would have been menacing if he weren’t so completely inoffensive looking. “You wanna tell me why you were hiding in a broom closet?”

  I took a deep breath and put on a stone face I used to use when my old PR clients were demanding unreasonable things, like that I erase an embarrassing video and all mentions of it from the internet. “Could we talk somewhere a little more private?” I gestured toward an empty corner of the restaurant. I only wanted it to be a little more private after all. Not someplace where he could shove me in the ocean without being seen.

  Now both of his eyebrows shot up. I suspected he wasn’t often on the receiving end of that kind of suggestion, but he followed me in that direction anyway.

  When we got there, I realized I’d made a mistake. I’d led the way and walked myself straight into a literal corner, with a table blocking any escape to one side, a wall to the other, and Caleb looming in front, staring at me, his arms crossed over his chest. For the first time, he actually looked as intimidating as he sounded. It didn’t help that he wasn’t saying a word, just looming and staring. I wasn’t short, but I felt that way standing in his shadow.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Pablo.”

  His eyebrows, always seeming to find higher places on his forehead to move to, went up yet again.

  “I understand he owed you some money.”

  The eyebrows twitched in an upward direction.

  This was dangerous. I hadn’t put much thought into this, but when I had, I’d imagined that Caleb would be much more forthcoming with his information. In my mind, just bringing up Pablo would lead to a tearful confession after which I’d call Mike to make the arrest. This wasn’t going that way.

  I struggled desperately to figure out what to say that would get Caleb talking. At this point, all I cared about was that he spoke. What his speech consisted of didn’t matter.

  “How do you feel about the Celtics this year?”

  His eyebrows, incredibly (though not surprisingly at this point) inched higher.

  “I mean, they’re good, right? I don’t really know anything about basketball, of course. My boyfriend’s the sports guy. But he hasn’t been yelling at the TV too much during the games, so I figure they’re doing well. Who’s playing for them now? Larry Bird retired, right? He—”

  “Why do you want to talk about Pablo?”

  I was stunned into silence. I hadn’t expected to get him to say anything, let alone anything about Pablo. “Um—because, uh—” I searched for the words that would convince him to tell me everything, but they danced just out of reach. “He was my friend. I was there when he died. I’ve spent time with his family.”

  Caleb didn’t even blink. In fact, had I seen him blink at all? I wasn’t sure.

  “He was a good man who a lot of people cared about.” I figured I may as well be honest. “And I want to know.”

  He shifted his feet into a slightly wider stance. One that I knew from my kickboxing classes was perfect for throwing a punch—or defending against one.

  I shifted my feet the same way. It was a little narrow in this spot to get a good roundhouse kick going, but I could probably get a decent punch in if I needed to.

  Instead of making a fist and positioning himself to deliver it, Caleb uncrossed and recrossed his arms the other way. “What do you want to know?”

  Again, in my imagination, Caleb had been completely forthcoming with all his information, so it took me a few seconds to figure out what to say. “Did you kill him?”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it was completely the wrong thing to say. What on earth had possessed me to straight-out ask a man I suspected of being a murderer if he had killed someone? It was probably the single stupidest thing I had done to that point in my life.

  Caleb laughed.

  He laughed? It took me a second to process the sound, but when I did, I recognized it as a definite chuckle, complete with crinkles at the corners of his eyes.

  “You think I killed Pablo?” He chuckled again. “And you think that if I did, I would just come out and tell you? Here? In the middle of Sandy’s?”

  Well, we weren’t exactly in the middle. We were in a back corner that was seeming darker and more secluded by the second.

  He laughed again. It was apparently the funniest thing he’d heard in a while, based on how amusing he seemed to find it.

  “What’s your name?”

  “My name?” I wasn’t sure if I should tell him. But just to prove I didn’t know how to make good choices, I did. “It’s Fran.”

  “Fran? I’m Caleb. But you seem to already know that.” He stuck his hand out as if to shake mine, but I couldn’t help wondering if it was a trick and he was going to do some kind of ninja move and flip me over his head. I shook it anyway.

  “Nice to meet you, Caleb.”

  My politeness amused him even more, apparently, since he chuckled yet again. “Why do you think I killed Pablo?”

  What should I do? Laugh it off and say it had all been a joke? That was probably what a sane person would do. I swallowed hard. “He owed you a lot of money. And he died.”

  Again with the eyebrows. “He had a stroke.”

  “An overdose of blood thinners can cause a stroke. Especially in someone with high blood pressure, like Pablo.”

  “What are you, a doctor now?” The corner of his mouth twitched up. I was amusing him, and that annoyed me.

  “No. Just someone who knows how to observe the world around me and see where things look suspicious.”

  Unfortunately, that amused him too. “Okay, Fran. Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say Pablo owed me some money—maybe I gave him a friendly loan. And let’s say you’re right and his stroke was from some kind of overdose and not just because some blood vessel in his brain burst and poured blood into his brain.”

  I cringed at the gruesome description, but Caleb went on.

  “How does that help me? Pablo’s dead. I don’t get my money. Then I’m out forty large. Seems like a lose-lose to me.”

  It took me a few seconds to get over his casual suggestion that Pablo owed him forty thousand dollars. I had never dreamed it could be that much. I regained my senses and blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Life insurance.”

  An eyebrow quirked. “I don’t think Pablo listed me as a beneficiary.”

  “Well, no, but the money would probably go to his brother or his ex-wife or his kids, and then you could go after them for it.”

  His eyebrows shot to their high
est point yet. “You think I would try to get money out of somebody’s grieving family? From a widow? Or some kids? I’m a businessman, not a monster.” He looked and sounded genuinely offended.

  “Well, I just assumed—you know, in movies—maybe it’s a warning to other people who owe you money. That you’ll kill them if they don’t pay up.”

  “Risking a murder charge to try to convince some guys that they should pay up? That would be very bad business, Fran. Besides, I have other ways of being persuasive.”

  “Like with Kevin? I heard you threatening him.” Despite the voice in my head screaming that I needed to shut up, I didn’t. The words just kept falling out of my mouth despite their obvious stupidity.

  “Kevin? Kevin’s a schmuck. He deserved a little reality check.”

  “And did Pablo? Deserve a reality check, I mean?”

  Caleb shifted his feet and adjusted the cross of his arms again. “Pablo was paying me a generous portion of his monthly salary. Small reminders certainly helped him continue.” He chuckled. “But I heard the bank might have been giving him one anyway.”

  “The bank? What bank?”

  Caleb held his hands up and started backing away. “I think we’ve talked enough now, Fran. But trust me, Pablo was worth more to me alive than dead. I didn’t kill him. I don’t kill anybody.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The greasy bag of food I carried in my hand as I left Sandy’s had suddenly lost its appeal. If the bookie didn’t kill Pablo, who did? Or was his death from natural causes after all?

  It was a good thing I’d walked these streets so many times that I knew them like the back of my hand because I was completely lost in thought on my way home. I ran the case over in my head again and again. I understood why everyone thought that Pablo’s death was as simple, straightforward, and unsuspicious as they came, but if that was true, why had I been able to find so much evidence that pointed to it being murder? When my mother died, there was no sudden information about her owing a lot of money to anyone. I knew that better than anyone, having inherited her house and business. All her finances were in impeccable order. And that was far from the case with Pablo.

  But above everything else, the reason I kept pushing forward was some gut instinct I had deep inside that Pablo’s death wasn’t natural. And as devastated as I was when my mother died, I never felt that way. I was surprised, heartbroken, disappointed that the children I hoped to someday have would never meet her. But I never felt like she’d been murdered. And with Pablo, I did.

  But the bookie was a dead end. I couldn’t say that it made sense, but I believed him when he said he didn’t kill people. Maybe it was the business reason. Forty thousand dollars was a lot of money to kiss goodbye just to make sure other clients repaid their debt, especially since bookmaking wasn’t exactly a legal profession and Caleb couldn’t just write off the losses on his taxes.

  So who else could it be? Who else could have wanted him dead? And who had the means to do it?

  I stopped on the sidewalk. A chill went through me that wasn’t caused by the breeze. There was someone else who could have killed him.

  I put the Sandy’s bag down, reached in my pocket, and pulled out the business card I’d stashed there earlier. I held it in both hands and stared at it. Surely not. But now that I’d thought of it, it seemed like the most obvious thing in the world.

  I got my phone out and dialed the number. He picked up after two rings.

  “This is Fitz.”

  “Hey, Fitz!” I tried to sound as casual as possible. “This is Fran. From Antonia’s Italian Café.”

  There was a pause and then, “Hey, Fran! What’s up? Did you remember something else about your mom’s medical history?”

  This time, talking about my mom’s health—or pretending I was—served my purposes nicely. “Actually, I did.”

  “Oh yeah? What’d you find out?”

  “Well, it’s kind of complicated. I’d rather talk about it in person if we can. You’re not still in town, are you?” I crossed my fingers and prayed for him to say yes.

  “I was just headed out, but I’m not in a rush. I could meet you somewhere if you want. Are you still at Antonia’s?”

  “Actually, I’m on my way home—”

  “Sure. If you give me your address, I’ll meet you there.”

  That wasn’t exactly what I meant, but I did really want to talk to him, and if meeting him at my house was what it took, I would do it. I gave him my address and agreed to meet him in about fifteen minutes. As soon as I hung up, I called Matt.

  “Hey, gorgeous, I’m sorry. I’m running late. I got pulled into a last-minute meeting about the Prestonwood project,” he blurted out by way of greeting.

  “How far away are you?” If I was going to meet with Fitz at my house, I wanted Matt there.

  “I haven’t left yet. I won’t be able to get out of here for at least another fifteen minutes.”

  That meant he wouldn’t be home for forty-five minutes. If I didn’t postpone, I was going to be alone with a man I suspected to be a murderer. But if I did postpone, I might never get the opportunity to talk to him again.

  “Okay. I’ll try to keep your burger warm for you.”

  “You got burgers?”

  “Yup.”

  “From Sandy’s?”

  “Yup.”

  He groaned. Matt loved the burgers from Sandy’s. “Maybe I can get out of here a little sooner than I thought.”

  I knew I could also just tell him what I was up to and he would probably find a way to leave immediately, but he would also try to talk me out of it. That might have been okay except that I was afraid he would succeed. So I didn’t say a thing about it.

  We said goodbye, and I resumed my walk home, moving a little faster now because I wanted to have as much time as possible at home before Fitz got there.

  I managed to get the burgers in the oven to keep warm, feed Latte and take him out, and turn on every light in the house before Fitz arrived. I also opened the curtains for good measure, just in case something did go wrong and one of my neighbors happened to be walking by at the moment when it happened. The vast majority of them were older people who wouldn’t be able to do much more than go back home and call 911 since none of them carried their cell phones with them, but it made me feel a little better anyway.

  I ushered Fitz into the living room and got him a glass of water. I calmed my nerves in the kitchen, reminding myself that he thought he was there to talk about my mother’s health. He had no idea that I suspected he murdered Pablo.

  We chitchatted for a few minutes, mostly about Latte. Like most people (myself included at one point), Fitz thought Latte was a generic mutt instead of the purebred Berger Picard that he was. I’d told him all about the breed and how I’d come to adopt Latte before we finally got around to talking about my mother’s supposed medical history.

  “So, you remembered something about your mom’s health before she died?” he asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t know how I forgot. She had high blood pressure,” I lied.

  “Sure. That’s not uncommon. Was it well controlled?”

  “Mostly, I think. But I know she had to take some days off from the café to rest when it got bad. I was living in New York until this past summer, so I didn’t really know unless she told me.”

  “Hmm, well, that doesn’t sound good.”

  “And you were talking about blood thinners earlier? I remembered when I got home that I found a bunch of medication bottles after she died. I think some of them were blood thinners.”

  “Sure, they could have been. Did she have any other heart problems?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” I was grateful that he didn’t seem suspicious at all. Not yet anyway.

  “In that case, the medications shouldn’t really have caused any issues. There are always exceptions, of course, but if she was on some kind of blood pressure medication, diuretics maybe, and the blood thinners, there aren’t usually any
problems with that combo.”

  “What if she took too many of her blood thinner pills?”

  “Like an overdose?”

  I wasn’t sure, but it sounded like there was a touch of suspicion in his voice. I wasn’t ready to tip my hand, so I tried to play it cool. “By accident, of course. Like if she forgot she’d already taken them or something.”

  “Sure, that happens. It shouldn’t really cause any issues unless she was already predisposed to something. Just one extra dose wouldn’t hurt. She would’ve had to take a lot to cause any harm.”

  “What if she took several extra doses?”

  Now he definitely looked suspicious. Or at least confused by my line of questioning.

  “Sometimes her memory was really bad,” I said quickly.

  “It wouldn’t have caused a heart attack. A stroke is much more likely.”

  Suddenly, I really wished I had a clock in the living room so I could see about how much longer it would be before Matt got home. I had my phone next to me, but looking at it would be too obvious. I wanted to stall, but the conversation had led exactly where I wanted it to.

  I took a deep breath. “You mean like the one Pablo had?”

  He hesitated a fraction of a second before answering. “That kind of stroke, yes.”

  “And that would just look like a regular stroke, nothing unusual about it?” My heart was racing, but I was trying desperately to stay calm, at least on the outside.

  His eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “Why do you ask?”

  I wasn’t ready to answer that. “Did you know that Pablo had a gambling problem?”

  “What’s this about?”

  I ignored the question. “Apparently, he owed his bookie forty thousand dollars. He was late on his child support payments to his ex-wife because he’d spent all his money gambling. He borrowed a lot of money from his brother to feed his gambling addiction too. And his coworkers at the restaurant.”