Chase and Odelia thanked Rilla, and then closed and locked the door to Calista’s office and pocketed the key. He explained that a forensic team would drop by to give the office a more thorough search, and also the rest of place, then told Rilla and Tosha to go home. Star Calypso was now closed for business.
Chapter 9
When Marsella walked into Toneu Motors on Rutherford Street, she didn’t know what she expected to find. Her fianc? in the arms of another woman? Lipstick on his collar? A girl’s nylon stocking in the pocket of his blazer? Whatever it was, she decided not to let this Mary-Lynn control her every thought from now on. She was simply going to tell Dewey what Mary-Lynn had told her and see how he’d react. She reckoned herself to be a pretty good judge of character and his response would probably tell her everything she needed to know.
But when she walked in, she found Dewey ill at ease and looking tense. He was pacing the showroom, where gorgeous Italian cars stood blinking appealingly to anyone who passed by. Only there weren’t that many people in the place. A few who were browsing and one who was being shown the interior of a Lamborghini by one of Dewey’s salespeople.
“Are you all right, darling?” she asked.
“Will you look at that,” he grunted, gesturing irritatedly to a couple who were in the parking lot examining a Ferrari Portofino. They were taking pictures of the car, with the wife posing on the hood while the husband snapped a couple of shots. “I should tell them to buzz off,” he said. “I need buyers, not lookers.”
“Lookers can become buyers, unless you tell them to buzz off,” she reminded him gently.
“I’m sorry, darling,” he said, pressing a quick peck to her cheek. “It’s just been awfully quiet lately. If this keeps up I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“It’ll be all right,” she said, having heard this particular lament many times before.
“It’s that moron Izban,” he said, repeating another one of his favorite gripes.
She placed a hand on his chest.“Listen, we need to talk caterers,” she said, hoping to distract him from his worries. “We need to make a decision soon, or else we won’t be able to feed our guests.”
“Just pick one,” he said, clearly not in the mood to talk wedding minutiae.
“I don’t want to just pick one,” she said. “I want us to pick one together.”
“Look, the ones we discussed are all excellent. So just pick one. It’s fine.”
She studied him for a moment. He seemed more tense than usual.“Are you sure it’s just the business that’s got you worried?”
He turned to her.“Of course it’s the business. What else would it be?”
“I don’t know. I just…” She thought about the best way to broach the topic, but then realized that this was neither the time or the place to hold such a delicate discussion. “Why don’t we go out tonight? We can visit the caterer at the top of our shortlist and then if we like what he’s got to offer we can decide on the spot and lock him down.”
“Sounds like a great idea,” he said, forcing a smile.
He was an attractive man with a full crop of dark hair, now slightly graying at the temples, and still sporting an athletic build in spite of the fact that he was a good fifteen years older than she was. It wasn’t hard to imagine his enduring popularity with the ladies, even as he was nearing the end of his fifth decade. And even though she’d decided against the PI idea, she was still determined to have it out with him once and for all.
You couldn’t build a marriage based on lies.
And if he did lie, she’d catch him at it.
When she walked out, she saw Odelia Kingsley walk up, along with her husband Chase, the cop. They were accompanied by two cats, a small sort of grayish-beigeish fluffball and one big and orange.
She offered them a smile in passing and wondered if they were in the market for a new car. It never occurred to her they could be there on official police business.
Chapter 10
The owner and proprietor of Toneu Motors didn’t look like any car salesman I’d ever seen. For one thing he wasn’t overly garrulous and avuncular and didn’t try to grab our attention the moment we walked in and extoll the virtues of his exclusive and expensive wares. On the contrary, the man seemed very hard to find. Finally his salesman, who was busy convincing an elderly gentleman that a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car was exactly what he needed, steered us in the right direction: the office at the back of the showroom.
Chase knocked on the door and we all filed in without awaiting the man’s response. One of the perks of being a cop is that you don’t need people’s express permission to start bombarding them with all kinds of awkward and sometimes very personal questions. Like whether they enjoy paying for sex on a regular basis.
“Chase Kingsley,” Chase curtly announced, flashing his badge. “Dewey Toneu?”
The car dealership owner sat behind his desk, looking sort of moody and out of sorts. And the sudden arrival on the scene of a cop didn’t improve matters much, I could tell.
“Yes?” he said in a sort of surly way, just bordering on incivility. He wasn’t going to sell a lot of cars with that attitude, especially at the price points he was advocating.
“We’re here to talk to you about your relationship with Dotty Ludkin, or Dotty Berg as she also liked to be called.” And to show the other man he meant business, Chase pulled up a chair and plunked himself down in front of Mr. Toneu’s desk. Then, when he realized his faux-pas, he immediately got up, and offered that same chair to his highly pregnant wife, who gratefully took a load off her feet and carefully lowered herself onto the chair.
Mr. Toneu stared at Odelia’s belly with a touch of alarm, then finally said, “I’m sorry, but there must be some mistake. I don’t know any Dotty Ludkin or Dotty Berg.”
“And we have it on good authority that you do. To refresh your memory, here is a recent picture of Dotty.” He took out his phone and showed the picture Dotty’s dad had sent him. It showed the girl in all her youthful splendor. It was taken when she’d spent a day at the beach with her dad.
Dewey stared at the picture for a moment too long, then finally demurred.“Never seen her before in my life.”
“Dotty was murdered last night,” said Odelia, speaking for the first time. “Strangled to death in her apartment. We talked to one of her colleagues who said she worked for Star Calypso as a call girl. This colleague also told us you were one of Dotty’s clients.”
“Please don’t lie to us, Mr. Toneu,” said Chase. “This is a murder inquiry, and frankly I don’t have the patience right now to deal with people who refuse to tell us the truth.”
Dewey finally relented.“Yeah, all right. I did hire Dotty a couple of times in the past, but this was before I got engaged. So if you could please not mention any of this to my fianc?e?”
“Where were you last night, Mr. Toneu?” asked Chase. “Let’s say between midnight and two?”
“Home in bed.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“No, I live alone. My future wife is conservative that way. She doesn’t believe in premarital relations. Wants us to move in together once we’re married and not a minute sooner.”
“Who is your fianc?e if I may ask?”
“Marsella Horowicz. She runs the Vesta Muffin Animal Shelter. I don’t know if you know it?” He gave a pointed look at me and Dooley, as if assuming we were well acquainted with the animal shelter. A common misconception, of course. It’s not as if all pets like to hang out at night at the shelter for drinks and a pleasant chat.
Chase grimaced.“We know it.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about Dotty?” asked Odelia. “Maybe something she mentioned that could shed some light on her murder?”
Dewey frowned.“Like what?”
“I don’t know—maybe she felt threatened by a client?”
He slowly shook his head.“Dotty never talked about her other clients. She was very discreet that way. The only person she ever mentioned was some guy who runs a shoe shop, but that’s because I’d complimented her on her footwear which I could tell was high quality. She said she got it from Garwen Blemish because he was a regular and he gave her a twenty percent discount. But that was the only time she mentioned a name to me.”