Murder Notes (Lilah Love 1)

She stands up, and reading her intentions to come to me, I quickly stand as well, immediately walking in her direction, because no way in hell am I going to get trapped at my table with her overstaying the welcome that doesn’t exist. Unfortunately, she charges forward, rather than hesitating or waiting on me, her navy heels, which match her navy suit dress, clicking on the tiled floor as she continues her approach.

“I heard you were here,” she says, meeting me in the center of the diner with a number of guests sprinkled at various tables that are thankfully out of hearing range.

“After that press conference this morning,” I say, “I’m pretty sure that even Jane Wise’s pet cow knows I’m here.”

“She still has that cow,” Alexandra tells me with a strangled kind of laugh. “Lucy is her name. And she’s famous, you know. That cow—”

“Was on Farmland,” I say of the now-defunct kids’ show. “I know. And she also handled her fame better than most of the human residents in this town.”

“Of that, you will get no disagreement from me,” she assures me, swiftly changing the topic. “Have you seen Kane?”

The question doesn’t surprise me. If anyone other than Kane knows how inseparable we once were, it’s my ex–best friend. “He showed up at the crime scene last night.”

“And?” she asks, lowering her voice, as if this is some big secret. It’s not.

“And I had a dead body on my mind.”

“A dead body,” she repeats. “Not his hot body?”

“Dead and hot are not two words I often use together.”

“Not often, but sometimes?”

“Yes,” I agree, thinking of one particular serial killer whose good looks got him into six dead girls’ pants before he brutally murdered them. “Sometimes.”

“This would be one of those times we’d get drunk and you’d explain what the hell you are talking about.” Once upon a time, I think. But not now, and she must see that in my eyes, because she clears her throat and adds, “What’s the word on that murder last night? Are you handing me a killer to convict, or what?”

“That’s a question my brother, the police chief, can answer.”

“Oh come on, Lilah. You’re FBI and you showed up with a dead body.”

“The only body I showed up with is my own, which I assure you is not dead.”

“You went to the crime scene,” she points out.

“I was here and I did what I do for many law enforcement agencies. I went. I evaluated and I shared my evaluation with the real man in charge: my brother.”

“If you didn’t come for that case, which I guess is obvious, since it was waiting on you when you arrived, then why are you here?”

“Personal business,” I reply, and when she reaches up and swipes her chin-length, blunt-cut brown hair behind her ear, the ring on her finger tells me she’s now married and I don’t know for how long or to who.

Her dress starts ringing and she shoves a hand in her pocket. “I just need—”

“Take the call,” I say, giving her my back and returning to my seat, her eyes heavy on me, but my waitress and my coffee save me on my return to my table.

I claim my seat, chat a minute with Rose while doctoring my coffee with lots of cream and Splenda. I’m aware of the exact moment that Alexandra has claimed her seat, which is the same time that Beth chooses to make her appearance.

She enters the diner, and I watch her approach, sizing her up the way I do everyone old and new in my life, every observation one I might draw on in comparison with another person in an investigation one day. In Beth’s case, she’s tall, thin, and alert as she scans the diner before spotting me, lifting a hand, and heading in my direction. Her black, pinstriped pants she’s paired with a matching jacket are definitively masculine, while the black, silk, long-sleeved blouse she wears softens her. This tells me she feels her femininity works against her for some reason, but she’s also not willing to completely emasculate her womanhood either. I get it. Thus my loose use of the F-word that I wear as easily as I do my pink lipstick.

She closes the remainder of the space between us with long strides, the confidence I’ve always admired in her still alive and well, unlike the naked woman who’d become our shared specimen the night before. That Beth manages to detach herself from death as readily as I do perhaps says a lot about why we connect. This probably makes her the closest thing to a friend I will ever have, and since I haven’t talked to Beth in years, friend can’t be placed in the context of literal any more than the claim that chocolate is better than sex. At least, not good sex.

Beth slides into the seat across from me and sets her oversize Gucci bag beside her, the expensive brand name a reminder that she, like most around here, comes from a family of money. In her case, real estate investors who’d rather she play with decorations than with dead bodies.

Rose stops beside us, eyeing Beth, a pot in her hand. “Coffee?”

“The whole pot please,” she says, turning over her cup. “But I’ll start with this.”

Rose fills her cup and looks between us. “Something to eat?”

Beth and I shake our heads, and the minute Rose is gone Beth lowers her voice and leans in closer. “What the hell is going on?”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’m here in East Hampton,” she says, as if that explains everything.

“You live here,” I say, and a light bulb goes off. “But . . . the medical examiner’s facility is in Hauppauge, and you just said you finished the autopsy this morning. There can’t be proper facilities here for that.”

“I’d call the facility I used early this morning acceptable at best.”

“Then why do it here?”

“Exactly what I said when I got the request, and I insisted that it be done in Hauppauge. Thirty minutes later, my boss—”

“As in the Suffolk County medical examiner director,” I confirm.

“Yes. Bridget Johnson. She called me and told me she was keeping this off the books for forty-eight hours. I needed to do the autopsy here.”

“I’m not even sure that’s legal.”

“You and me both.”

“Why do this?”

“She said Hauppauge is heavily staffed and filled with people who might talk too much. That point was made after she reminded me that East Hampton was filled with powerful people who don’t want to end up with news crews in their front yards.”

“My father did a press conference today. I think she’s misguided. The news is out.”

“A news conference in which he all but inferred there was a suicide, not a murder, last night.”

“Fuck me. Tell me he didn’t do that.”

“I wish I could.”

I slide my coffee cup aside. “What the hell is he thinking? He’s going to look like a liar.”

“He’ll say he was misinformed.”

“By you,” I supply, the quickness of her answer making me wonder whether this is a repeat offense.

“I do believe I’m the likely fall guy, especially since your brother backed him up.”

“Did you confront them?”

“I never got the chance. They made sure of it.”

“What’s the endgame here?”

“Rivera came to me this morning, hovering until I completed the autopsy report.”

“Which told you what?”

“Aside from what you and I both surmised from the crime scene, distance and height of the shooter, and the normal, random data you’d expect. No DNA. No trace evidence. No sign of struggle.”

“Tattoo?”

“No.” She frowns. “And you asked about that last night. What’s with you and the tattoo? Is there a connection you’re looking for?”

“I’ve found body markings tend to tell a story,” I say without missing a beat. “I look for them.”

“Well. None in this case to help you out. Frankly, this is as clean as it gets. Unless there’s a witness, the body isn’t telling u

s this story.”

And yet, it is, and she is. Clean. Professional. Planned. These things tell me about our killer. “Is there any way this can be twisted into a suicide?”

“One does not put a bullet through one’s eyes at a full foot away, which is what forensic evidence supports. Nor do you do so and have the gun disappear.”

“In other words, they were trying to calm everyone the fuck down to get some distance from this thing.”

“You’re here. You’re FBI. And you were at the crime scene.”