the floor? I have a book that tells you how to get the worst stains out…but there was so much.”
Leah was in shock. That was obvious. I wanted to reassure her that Pergo didn’t stain, but it didn’t seem appropriate at the moment. “The blood’s going to go away, Leah. It’s all going to get better. Why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll make you a little tea with brandy?”
“Yes, if all else fails, get her drunk,” Anatoly muttered.
I shot him a warning glance before escorting them up to my place. Leah took a seat on my couch without bothering to take off her jacket, and I went to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Mr. Katz strolled into the living room undoubtedly hoping to cajole some food out of me, but once he saw both Leah and Anatoly he pulled a U-turn. He was too proud a cat to beg in front of company.
“After you found him you called Sophie. Did you call anyone else before you talked to the police?”
“Not before, no. After the police arrived and right before I came out and saw you I called Cheryl, Bob’s sister.”
Shit, I had forgotten about Cheryl. Usually that was a good thing, but in this case even Ms. Shallow deserved some consideration. “That couldn’t have been a fun phone call,” I said. “How did she take it?”
It was hard to tell from where I was standing, but I could have sworn that I saw a spark of annoyance in Leah’s eyes.
“She reacted like she always reacts—lots of dramatics and lamentations. You’d think that this whole thing was a personal assault against her, as if I weren’t suffering at all.”
I did a quick double take. That was a bit judgmental. Maybe Leah was returning to her old self again. “Well, he is her only living relative,” I pointed out.
“Please. She reacted the same way when Jason Priestley crashed at NASCAR.”
Yep, she was definitely coming around.
Anatoly seemed less impressed with her sarcasm. “Did the police find the murder weapon while you were there?”
“No, I showed them where Bob kept his gun, but it was missing.”
Great, just great. I could easily remember the debate Leah and Bob had over that stupid gun. She didn’t want to have one with a child around but he had insisted that it was a good security measure for the family. Apparently Bob was wrong.
Anatoly leaned against the counter that divided the living room and kitchen and shot me a look that said We’re in deep doo-doo. “Leah, I’m almost done. Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill Bob, or for that matter, anyone who held any kind of grudge against him at all?”
“No, everybody loved Bob.”
What drug was she on? Nobody loved Bob, not even her.
“He had lots of friends,” she continued. “The people who worked with him loved him. He was just offered a promotion. It was going to be announced in a few days. His employees couldn’t have been more loyal. Erika thought the sun rose and set around his head. No one wanted to hurt him—to my knowledge. Unless that slut he’s been sleeping with wanted to do him in. That’s always possible.”
I felt like screaming. The woman he had been sleeping with had no motive. Leah did. She had to see that. She had to realize how bad this all looked.
Anatoly cleared his throat. “Last two questions. Did you tell the police about Bob’s affair, or that he told you he was leaving you?”
“No, I…I couldn’t. The only people who know about that are the two of you, Erika and Miranda.”
I could tell by the look on his face that we were thinking the same thing. That was two too many.
“Leah, what’s Bob’s e-mail and password?”
I handed Leah a Post-it and she scribbled down Bob’s private e-mail address and handed it to Anatoly. “The password is June 21.” She hesitated a moment before adding in a much quieter voice, “That’s our anniversary.”
Anatoly waited a few seconds for her to reflect, but I sensed his chivalry was close to used up.
“Any other addresses? His work e-mail, for example?” he asked.
“It’s [email protected]. I don’t know what password he used there. I tried accessing his messages when I suspected…” Leah got another faraway look in her eyes.
Anatoly motioned with his hand for her to continue. “I know what you suspected. So what passwords did you try?” he prompted.
“Well, I started with our anniversary, of course. We use that code for all of our accounts, our checking, our various online retailers….”
“What other passwords did you try?”
“My birthday, the date of our engagement, my name, and I tried one other before I gave up…what was it? Oh, of course, the day we first met. None of them worked.”
Anatoly jotted it all down. “Did you try narcissistic?” he whispered under his breath.
I shot him a dirty look, but Leah didn’t appear to have heard him.
“Last thing,” he said. “Are there any questions that the police asked you that I haven’t, or vice versa?”
“No, I’ve answered all these questions before,” Leah said. “I don’t think newly widowed women are supposed to answer all these questions right away. I think they’re supposed to be too distraught to talk. Maybe I’m being callous.”
Maybe she was being crazy.
Anatoly studied her. I got the feeling he was trying to pull information out of her—that she didn’t want to voice. Finally, he shrugged and joined me in the kitchen.
“Come to help me with the tea?”
Anatoly didn’t even bother acknowledging the question. “Meet me at Leah’s at ten-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Is that a request or an order?”
“Ten-thirty, Sophie. And if you hear anything from the police, call me.” Anatoly left as the kettle began to whistle.
Leah entered the room and crossed to the stove to turn it off. “Skip the tea. Just give me the brandy.”
The next morning I awoke to the sound of grinding coffee beans, which would normally fill me with the kind of inner peace others only experience after visiting the Dalai Lama. However there was an odd pattern to the noise this morning. Normally when you grind coffee you press the top of the coffee grinder for a minute or so until the beans are as fine as grains of black sand. However the person preparing these beans was pressing the grinder for five seconds at a time, and, taking two-minute breaks in between to utter phrases like “Oh, my head!”
I pulled on a robe and went out to the kitchen to see Leah braced against the sink, the grinder currently silent beside her.
Her angry, bloodshot eyes zoomed
