Obsession, Deceit And Really Dark Chocolate

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s self-destructing,” Rick mumbled.

“I would,” Johnny said. “You’d have to be pretty self-destructive to marry that broccoli guy! You do know she’s married to the guy who wrote Broccoli for Life. Can you imagine how much gas he must have? I know, I know, it’s a gross thing to think about, but it’s funny since—”

“She was arrested for drunk driving at seventeen,” I said, completely ignoring Johnny and holding up my fingers to count off Brooke’s faux pas. “When pressed, she admitted to taking all sorts of drugs in college, she had an abortion at the tail end of her first trimester when she was in her early thirties, and a former coworker from her private-sector days is claiming that she slept with her boss in exchange for promotions and raises. Furthermore, we know that she cheated on her previous husband at least two times. This woman makes Clinton look like a poster boy for moral behavior. And now there are accusations that she cheated on her taxes and broke one of the fifty million rules regarding campaign fund-raising. But no one knew any of that stuff before she announced her run for Congress. Now, look me in the eye and tell me that Fitzgerald didn’t hire Eugene to dig that information up so it could be leaked to the media.”

Rick swallowed hard and evaded my obvious attempts at eye contact. “Brooke’s problems have helped our camp,” he said begrudgingly, “but that has nothing to do with Eugene or what he did for the campaign.”

Just then a large group of waiters materialized carrying a huge piece of chocolate cake and singing a perfectly harmonized version of “Happy Birthday.”

“You guys did this for me?” Johnny asked. “This is great! Isn’t this great?”

No, it wasn’t great. Rick was lying to me; I was sure of it, which meant that I was right about the dirt-digging stuff. Some of the accusations floating around about Brooke were so bad that if anyone was able to prove them she would most likely lose her freedom right along with the election. If Eugene had been able to prove that she had done something really awful she might have felt the need to shut him up quickly. Ruthless political ambition mixed with a healthy dose of survival instinct. It was a dangerous combination. And one that scared me, a lot.

The rest of the evening passed without any more revelations. Johnny continued his pathetic attempts to flirt with me and Rick and Mary Ann became more and more enamored. We eventually parted ways after Mary Ann and Rick exchanged numbers. I gave my number to Johnny as well, but only because he said he might be able to convince Maggie Gallagher to agree to an interview. All I wanted to do was go home, curl up in front of the television. But any hope I had of achieving a state of calm went out the window when I saw Anatoly sitting on my doorstep.

“You lied to me,” he snapped.

“How is that possible?” I quibbled. “I haven’t been talking to you.”

“You spoke to me for five minutes the other day, which is apparently all the time you needed. Did it ever occur to you that the reason I wasn’t ready to commit was because you were so rarely honest with me?”

I blinked in surprise. “That’s the reason?”

“No, but if it was it would have been a logical one.”

“I think I hate you.”

Anatoly’s mouth turned up slightly at the corners. “Another lie.”

“Why are you here?”

“Your friend Melanie O’Reilly called me.”

“What! Why?” The pounding in my temples increased in force. “How the hell did she even get your number?”

“I’m listed in the phone book under private detectives. That is my vocation if you recall.”

“Yes I recall,” I emphasized the last word to underscore my feelings about his condescension, “but Melanie doesn’t need a private detective. She has me.”

Anatoly lifted his eyebrow. “Explain to me how this is helpful.”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve been gathering information for her!”

Anatoly took a step forward and put a hand on each one of my arms. “I know I’ve said this before, but since you never listen I’ll say it again. You are not a detective. You are a writer. You have no business running around the city trying to solve murders.”

“I’m not trying to solve a murder. I’m just doing a little research.” I unlocked the door to my building and tried to close it in Anatoly’s face, but he was too quick for me and scooted into the lobby.

“I’m not in the mood for this, Anatoly,” I snapped. “If you want to talk to me you call me. You do not get to just show up at my place unannounced.”

“I called your home and cell. You didn’t pick up.”

“Bullshit.” I reached into my purse and fished for my cell phone. “I’ve had this on all day and you didn’t…oh.” I looked at the words “one missed call” printed across the screen of my Nokia. The restaurant had been a little noisy. “So you phoned,” I grumbled. “You still shouldn’t have come over without talking to me first.”

“We can talk now,” he said. “Melanie told me that Flynn Fitzgerald hired Eugene to get the goods on Anne Brooke.”

Melanie told him that? “Tell me something I don’t know.”

He crossed his arms and leaned his back against the wall of mailboxes. “I think there’s a chance Eugene’s death might be politically motivated.”

“Really?” I tried to swallow my panic. Hearing that idea vocalized by someone else gave it a validity that I didn’t want it to have.

“Melanie offered me a significant sum of money to look into Eugene’s death. She said she wanted to hire me before but you told her I was unavailable.”

“You aren’t available…at least not emotionally.”

“I’m going to take the case,” Anatoly said.

“You are?” Maybe this was a good thing after all. He was forcing the issue of my talking to him, anyway, so now I could give him the information I had collected so far and start focusing on my next book. And if I did have to talk to him, this was the way to do it, in my lobby while he was being too obnoxious to be attractive.

“But I’m going to tell her I have one condition,” he continued. “I don’t want you involved in the case at all. You are not to question people or research Eugene O’Reilly’s death in any way.”

I blinked in disbelief. “Excuse me? What gives you the right to tell me that I can’t be involved?”

“Sophie, in the past few years you’ve ticked off several people and a few of them have been murderers.”

“So I’ve had a few guns pointed at me. You even pointed a gun at me once.”

“You were wielding a broken bottle at the time.”

“It wasn’t a rock-paper-scissors game. There was no need for you to trump me.”

Anatoly shook his head in annoyance. “What I’m saying is that you have been very lucky. You have behaved stupidly in extremely dangerous situations and yet you have managed to stay alive.”

“Which is more than they’re going to be able to say about you unless you change your tone.”

“This time you may need more than luck,” Anatoly said, completely ignoring my threat. “If the motivations for this killing can somehow be traced back to Eugene’s actions in the FBI, or worse yet, his position on Flynn Fitzgerald’s campaign, then Eugene’s death isn’t so much a murder as it is an assassination. As dangerous as it is to antagonize serial killers, it’s even more dangerous to antagonize professional assassins. I may not be able to protect you this time.”

I laughed bitterly. “What the hell are you talking about? The closest you’ve ever come to protecting me is when you put on a Trojan!”

“This is too dangerous, Sophie. Let me handle it.”

“And what makes you more qualified to handle this than me? Oh, let me guess, it has something to do with the Y chromosome.”

“No, it has to do with my service in the Russian and Israeli armies.”

“Being a mercenary doesn’t make you more qualified to deal with professional killers.”

“First of all, I’m not and have never been a mercenary. I was a citizen of both countries at the time of my service. Second, of course it makes me more qualified! What the hell do you think a mercenary is?”

I leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. “I told Melanie that I’d help her and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Getting me to take her case is helping her. You’re done now.”

“Um, I don’t think so.”

Anatoly glared at me. “You’re making a big mistake with this, Sophie.”

“If that’s true it’s my mistake to make. I’ve already interviewed Flynn Fitzgerald and his top adviser, and I have an appointment to interview Anne Brooke.” Okay, that last part was a lie but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m in this now. If Melanie wants to hire you, fine, she can do that. But if you actually plan on solving this case and not just bilking her for thousands of dollars for no reason, then you might want to start working with me instead of treating me like a spoiled five-year-old.”

“It would be easier to treat you like an adult if you’d start acting like one.”

“This from the man who three months ago bought a bunch of lawn chairs to use for his living room furniture.”

“They’re comfortable!”

“They are so not comfortable. I’m going upstairs now.”

Anatoly smirked. “Is that an invitation?”

“Yes. I’m inviting you to walk out of my building before I call the police.”

“The police?” Anatoly laughed. “Are they still taking your calls?”

“Out!”

Anatoly shook his head resignedly. “There’s nothing I can do to convince you to stop investigating this case, is there?”

“Nope.”

“Fine.” Anatoly yanked the door open. “I’ll call you about the information you’ve gotten so far and accompany you to your interview with Anne Brooke.”

“You’re not going on that interview.”

“If you don’t invite me I’ll tell her people about the time you signed a petition supporting the death penalty, and then you know she’ll refuse to see you.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

Anatoly raised one eyebrow and then strolled out onto the street, leaving me seething in frustration.

It wasn’t until I was back up in my apartment that I realized that I had just insisted on doing something that I didn’t want to do.

I cursed under my breath and plopped myself down on the love seat where Mr. Katz was sleeping. What if the cat message on the phone had been a death threat after all? What if the caller was actually Eugene’s killer and now he had decided that I was going to be his next victim? I should call Anatoly right now and tell him I’d changed my mind.

Then I thought about the smug expression he would be wearing if I did that.

No. I couldn’t back out now. There were very few things in this world that were worth risking your life for. Pissing Anatoly off was definitely one of them.

6

Politicians are like cartoon characters. With a few charming one-liners and a lot of corporate support, they persuade people to excuse their violent and stupid behavior and learn to love them.

—C’est La Mort

“Did I hear you correctly?” Marcus asked as he ran his fingers through my hair, his handsome brown face scrunched up in confusion. “You are going to investigate Eugene O’Reilly’s murder, even though you don’t want to, and now Darth Vader is threatening your cat?”

I sighed and studied Ooh La La through the mirror in front of me. One of the things I liked about the salon was that the stations were far enough apart and the music just loud enough so that you were able to converse with your hairstylist without worrying about being overheard. That and the fact that they served free cappuccinos and mimosas.

“I didn’t say he was Darth Vader, although now that you mention it, the synthesized voice did kind of have a Darth Vader-like quality, so who knows? It’s as likely as anything else at this point. But he didn’t threaten my cat. Whoever called really likes cats. He was emphatic about that,” I said. “And I do want to investigate this. I just don’t think I want to.”

Marcus shook his head hard enough to make his short, well-groomed dreadlocks jiggle. “You lost me.”

“What I’m saying is that I want to do it more than I don’t want to do it. I just have to figure out why that is.”

“I thought you were helping out your mentor.”

“That was the original excuse, but I’m not sure that holds up anymore. She asked me to get her in touch with Anatoly so she could hire him to investigate. I was the one who suggested that I do my amateur-sleuth thing. So technically Anatoly was right when he said that my obligation to her ended as soon as he took the case.”

“Technically he was right? Honey, he was completely right. He was absolutely right. Pick any positive adverb, place it in front of the word ‘right’ and that’s pretty much what Anatoly was.”

“Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I’m still not going to stop investigating this case.”

“Because you want to.”

“Yes.”

“Even though you don’t think you want to.”

“Don’t ask me why, but I feel like I need to do more for Melanie than what I’ve done for her so far.” I tried to turn to face him but Marcus held my head in place, so I was forced to talk to the mirror. “Besides, if I stop investigating now Anatoly will think it’s because he told me to stop. I can’t give him the satisfaction.”

“So you’re proving a point.”

“Kind of.”

“You realize that’s insane.”

“No, it’s not,” I insisted. “Do you remember what you told me right after I caught my dear ex-hubby screwing that dancer?”

“I said that he was an asshole.”

“Yes, but you also said that someday I would be an incredibly successful and famous writer and I would be able to flaunt that success in front of Scott. You said he would suffer every day of his life because he would know that he blew his chance to reap the rewards of my accomplishments and that I would gain an enormous amount of satisfaction from that.”

Marcus grinned. “And look at you now. C’est La Mort was on the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks straight. I am wise and all-knowing.”

“No, you’re not because Scott fell off the face of the earth so I have never had the chance to rub it in his face. He’s probably living like a king in some third world country where they have legalized gambling and women waving around I-will-hook-for-food poster boards. Living well is only a good revenge if those you’re trying to get revenge on know you’re living well.”

“And this is pertinent because…?”

“Because I don’t repeat my mistakes. I’m seriously pissed at Anatoly and I want to show him that I’m better at his job than he is. This is my chance to make him miserable and I just can’t pass up an opportunity like that.”

“Okay, right now you’re putting out a ‘Kathy Bates in Misery ’ kind of vibe.”

“I’m not crazy!” I snapped. “But I’ll admit that maybe I sound…well, a little bit less than sane. If I were to give one of my characters this motivation, Publishers Weekly would tear me apart. That’s why you need to help me come up with a good cover story. Melanie has left me five messages asking me to leave this whole investigation to Anatoly and I have to find a way to change her mind about that.”

“But aren’t you too busy for these kind of games? Shouldn’t you be writing a book or something?”

“Well, yeah. But, Marcus, did it ever occur to you that investigating this case is going to help me write my next book? What better way to research a cozy mystery than to start volunteering as a real-life amateur sleuth?”

“This has nothing to do with research.”

“Of course it doesn’t, but if anyone else asks me about this, that’s what I’m going to say. There! That’s my reason. Or does that sound dumb?”

“Don’t underestimate yourself, you’re way past dumb, now you’re moving toward idiotic.” Marcus plugged in a curling iron. “Honey, think about what you’re getting yourself mixed up in. You said it yourself, this murder could have been politically motivated. Eugene could have pissed off the wrong Democrat.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said with more conviction than I actually felt. “Democrats don’t kill people.”

“Are you sure about that?” Marcus asked as he parted my hair at the side. “Maybe this is the party’s new strategy for getting the support of the NRA. And then there’s that cat message. Sounds like code-speak to me and code-speak is something government agents are likely to use. You know how they talk—” he bent down so he was ear level and said in a low, dramatic voice “‘—the eagle has landed—shoot the moon.’”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“It’s from an old Sean Penn movie…at least I think that’s how it goes. Nonetheless, the cat thing probably means that you’re dealing with a politician who’s coveting the support of fanatical animal rights organizations, and as it so happens, Ms. Brooke recently announced that she’s going to write a big ol’ check to help save a few endangered toads. You could be dealing with the next Stalin!”

“I probably should reserve judgment on Anne Brooke until I meet her, but I have to say, she doesn’t really strike me as the Stalin type.”

“She bears certain similarities,” Marcus said as he attacked my split ends with his sparkling silver clippers. “I saw her interviewed on Channel Two Morning News….”

“Didn’t you tell me last month that you were going to start dedicating your mornings to reading your favorite authors?” I asked.

“That was the plan, but somebody absconded with my Lee Nichols book before I had a chance to read it.”

I winced. “I guess I told you I was going to return that last week, huh?”

“Yes, you did, and I’m very cross about it. But back to Anne. I saw the interview, and girlfriend’s definitely on the paranoid side. She was complaining about being mistreated by the media, which you know is just another way of saying that she wants to control the media. Also, Stalin paid lip service to the teachings of Lenin, and in this interview Brooke actually quoted the lyrics of a song by Lennon from his Imagine album or something. And to top it all off, I heard that Brooke’s insurance carrier is State Farm.”

I wrinkled my brow. “Why is that important?”

“Are you kidding? Honey, where do you think Stalin sent all those poor peasants? To the State Farm!”

“Not the insurance company, you dork!”

“Still, it’s a sign.”

I watched as little snippets of my hair fell on the cream marble tile floor. “I’m going to do this, Marcus.”

He released a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why I continue to fool myself into believing that you’ll ever take any of the advice I give you. You wouldn’t be you if you suddenly became rational.”

“Rational? This from the man who just likened the Beatles’ lead singer to the founder of the Communist Party?”

“Johnny wrote a whole song telling people to imagine a world where there wasn’t any religion and everybody shared everything—basically just a rockin’ version of The Communist Manifesto. But seriously, I worry about you, Sophie. I hate the thought of anyone hurting even one chemically treated hair on your head.”

“I won’t get hurt. I can do this…with a little help from my friends. Can I count on you to help me with this marginally important mission?”

Marcus stopped cutting my hair and pretended to consider the question. “Will I help you put your life in danger for no good reason whatsoever? Hmm, I’m going to go with no.”

“Will you at least help me think of a reason to give Melanie for my continued involvement?”

“Tell her…oh, I know! Tell her that while Anatoly is a great P.I., he’s also a recovering alcoholic and that you need to work with him in order to make sure he stays on the sobriety wagon.”

“Hey,” I said slowly, “that’s good! But what if she talks to Anatoly about it?”

“Tell her that he just recently joined AA and that he doesn’t want anyone to know. As I see it, she’ll either fire him, in which case your revenge will be taken care of and you can relax, or she’ll ask you to keep tabs on him, which means that you’ll have to stay on the case, which is what you claim is your unconscious desire.”

“Marcus, that’s genius!”

“Of course it is. My smile isn’t the only reason they call me brilliant.”

The minute I left Ooh La La I was on the phone to Melanie. It was surprisingly easy to convince her of Anatoly’s alcoholism and it wasn’t much harder to get her to agree to my continued participation in the investigation. I suspected that she had hired Anatoly out of guilt. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of putting me at risk by asking me to investigate a murder. But guilt aside, I think deep down she wanted me to be involved. Melanie was a private person, and furthermore she wanted people to think fondly of her deceased husband. She knew that if Anatoly or I discovered information that would cast Eugene in a negative light, I would do everything in my power to make sure that information stayed out of the papers, even if that meant withholding information regarding a criminal act from the police. Perhaps Anatoly would do the same without my urging, but she didn’t know that.

So, as far as I was concerned, it was a win-win. I could help a woman in need while simultaneously sticking it to my chauvinistic ex. I was certain that Ms. magazine would be proud.

7

A little competition never hurt anyone…with the notable exception of the losers.

—C’est La Mort

“These napkins smell funny.”

I gave Leah a weird look before taking a sniff of my own cloth napkin. Four days had passed since I had told Marcus I was going to continue to investigate Eugene’s violent death, and now I had just made the same declaration to my sister as we prepared to have brunch in a new restaurant located in downtown Pleasanton.

We had chosen this place for two reasons. One, she was contemplating whether the restaurant was suitable for a bridal shower she was coordinating, and two, in a few hours I would be meeting with Anne Brooke in her nearby Livermore campaign headquarters. I had finagled the appointment by posing as a freelance journalist for Tikkun magazine, a famously liberal Jewish publication. I didn’t actually read Tikkun (I was turned off by the magazine’s lack of fashion tips and celebrity gossip), but I knew enough about the causes they championed to convince Brooke and her people that I was writing for them. The best thing about the appointment was that Anatoly knew nothing about it. I had asked him to meet at Boudin in Fisherman’s Wharf this afternoon so we could come up with a new game plan. By the time he figured out that I wasn’t going to be showing up it would be too late for him to do anything about it.

“Stop thinking about Anatoly and tell me what you think of that smell,” Leah said.

“They smell like fabric softener, and how did you know I was thinking about Anatoly?”

“You had that wicked look in your eye,” she said with a disapproving sigh.

“I wasn’t having wicked thoughts, at least they weren’t wicked in the way you’re implying.”

“Whatever. I’m not going to recommend this place to my client unless the management is willing to switch to a lavender wash. And I have very mixed feelings about this china. Why are they serving continental cuisine on plates with fleur-de-lis accents?”

“To remind the customers that they serve French toast?” I suggested. I actually liked the restaurant. It was light and airy and the hostess had mistaken me for the instructor on her workout video. “Melanie doesn’t think that Eugene’s time in the FBI has anything to do with Eugene’s murder,” I continued, hoping to circumvent a conversation about the restaurant’s flatware. “She said that Eugene did most of his work behind a desk and the little fieldwork he did was undercover. So with maybe one or two exceptions, the bad guys Eugene helped put away don’t even know that he was the reason for their misfortune. Plus, as she pointed out, if a man wants to return to a life of crime after being released from prison he’s not going to hunt down the officer who arrested him. Instead he’ll steer clear of the cops and the feds and hang out with those who are more supportive of his nefarious activities.”