Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

Ricky had the grace to flush. He fussed with his cutlery and napkin. He glanced at me, and then he looked directly at Mom. “That’s not what I meant, Mrs. Richardson. I apologize.”

“Thank you.” Mom fluffed her napkin and returned it to her lap.

“In my defense,” he said, “I suggested Mom and I go out for dinner, and she said she wanted to be alone and would order room service, watch TV, and go to bed early. I told her to call me if she changed her mind, and yes, I went into town and found a low-life bar. It was not only low-life but low action, and I was back at the hotel by ten.” He glanced at me. “Alone.”

“Have you given any more thought as to why your dad would have been in Nags Head?” I asked.

“I’ve thought of little else, Lucy. I’ve been talking to people at the office—those who will take my calls, at any rate. Everyone says Dad seemed perfectly normal on Friday when he left at his regular time. A couple of people were in over the weekend, and they didn’t see him. Dad was still in bed when Mom left for the airport early on Sunday morning and she didn’t wake him. He simply didn’t show up at the office on Monday morning at his usual time. As for me, I haven’t seen or spoken to Dad for days.”

“What does your housekeeper say?” Mom asked.

“Mrs. Lopez? Mom and I both spoke to her. She wasn’t at the house on Sunday, she doesn’t work weekends, and she didn’t see Dad on Monday, which is normal, as he goes into the office before she arrives for work. She didn’t know anything was wrong until she got Mom’s call on Tuesday morning to say we’d be home later than planned and why.”

“Has she been with your parents for long?” I asked. “Meaning, is she likely to know their secrets?”

“Less than a year,” Ricky said. “Mom has … uh … trouble keeping staff. When I spoke to Mrs. Lopez, she told me a suitcase seems to be missing from Dad’s closet, as are some of his clothes and shoes and his traveling toiletry bag.”

“How many clothes?”

“Does that matter?”

“It matters very much. Two days’ worth? A week? What you’d take if you were skipping the country forever? What about his passport?”

“I didn’t ask her.”

“Ask,” I said.

Ricky made the call and asked the housekeeper to check his dad’s closets again. While he was waiting, our meals arrived, and we picked up knives and forks. Ricky tucked the phone between his chin and shoulder and sliced his sausage, and I applied a liberal helping of ketchup to my home fries and sprinkled hot sauce on top.

I saw my mom, who was picking at the blueberries on her parfait, eye the mountain of food in front of me. Once upon a time, she would have made a comment about keeping oneself slim or the perils of overeating.

Demonstrating how things had changed between us, she said nothing.

“We haven’t decided when we’ll be home yet, but I’ll keep you posted. Thanks.” Ricky put his phone away. “She can’t tell for sure, but not much seems to be gone, and he took a carry-on suitcase, not one of the bigger ones. She’s never seen his passport and doesn’t know where he keeps it. It’s probably in the safe—always was when I lived at home. The police, by the way, have been to the house asking the same sort of questions.” Ricky speared a slice of sausage and put it in his mouth. “You think Dad might have been planning to leave?”

“The thought crossed my mind. If he had more debts to unsavory elements than he could possibly hope to repay, he might have thought fleeing was the best option. That would explain why he came to Nags Head. To either get your mother or to say good-bye to you both.”

“I can’t see it,” Mom said. “Rich simply didn’t have the imagination.”

I wasn’t so sure, but I said nothing. Who knows what lengths people will go to if they believe they’re in danger.

If Rich had been fleeing organized crime, and if, realizing his intent, they’d killed him, then it really would be none of my business.

I could only hope. But, until we knew that for sure, I intended to keep asking questions. “This is going to be difficult for you to answer, Ricky,” I said, “but the question has to be asked. Was your dad perhaps involved with another woman?”

Ricky’s head jerked up. “What kind of a question is that?”

“I’m just thinking out loud. Maybe he was planning to run away with his secretary or someone and came to tell your mom so.”

“He wasn’t involved with Jackie McKenzie, who’s happily married.”

“That doesn’t always—” Mom began.

“In this case it does. Jackie’s married to a woman.”

“Oh,” I said.

“She was in the office all day Monday, remember, scrambling to rebook Dad’s appointments. As for anyone else—honestly, Lucy, I’ve never heard so much as a whiff of any rumors like that, and I would have if they’d been going around the firm. I hadn’t recently noticed any change in his behavior either.”

That, I thought, meant nothing. It was unlikely Ricky had ever paid much attention to his dad at all.

I was scraping my plate clean when Mom said, “There they go.”

I threw down my fork, grabbed my bag, leapt to my feet, said, “Catch you later, Mom,” and ran out of the restaurant.

“Detective,” I called. “A moment, please.”

Watson stopped. He sighed and slowly turned around. “How can I help you, Lucy?”

“A quick question, if you don’t mind.”

“Only one?”

“One to start with. Did Rich Lewiston have his passport on him?”

“He did not.”

“Oh.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“No one knows what he was doing in Nags Head. I thought maybe, if things were getting bad enough financially for him, he might have been thinking about leaving the country and came to get his wife.”

“That doesn’t appear to be