Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [781]
“Sure, I guess.” She walked back into the house, leaving him to follow.
The inside decor matched the outside, all designer pieces, a couple of signed lithographs on the wall and an expensive Oriental rug.
“How did you girls ever find this place?” Pakula asked. “It’s very nice. One of you a decorator?”
“Oh, God, no.” She laughed as she curled up into the corner of a leather sofa, tucking her bare feet under her. “Tina found it for us.” She shrugged as if it were as simple as that. “It’s not really my style. A little too much like living in my parents’ home, you know what I mean?”
He nodded instead of saying that it was probably too classy for her style. But at least he was getting her to talk. It seemed to be his talent, getting people to confide in him. And sometimes he relied on it too much, thinking he could talk his way out of any situation.
“Tina had a real talent for that kinda stuff, you know?” Finally Pakula could see a hint of moistness in Danielle’s eyes. “She could get people to, like, give her things or let her use stuff.”
“Really? What kind of stuff?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Like cars and stuff.”
“You mean like boyfriends?”
Forget the moistness, Danielle was back to rolling her eyes at him. “She goes for guys, like, your age. You know, she likes old guys for some reason. Oh, God! Not like I mean you’re old or anything.”
“Where does she usually meet these older gentlemen?” He tried not to sound offended.
“Oh, geez. I don’t even know where she met this last one. I get the idea he’s pretty pissed off at her right now, so they might have broken up.”
“What makes you think he’s pissed off at her?”
“Just that whenever I answered the phone lately and she, like, didn’t want to talk to him, so like, I’d have to make up some excuse and he’d get all postal with me.”
“So he called here?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“But you don’t know his name?”
“Just Jay.”
Pakula dug out the plastic bag from his jacket pocket and handed it to Danielle. “Did he give Tina this?”
“Oh, yeah. For her birthday in July. That seemed to be when things started to go downhill, ’cause I think Tina thought it should mean more and yet she didn’t see him changing anything.”
“A guy gives an expensive, sentimental piece of jewelry like this, I’d say that means something.”
“Yeah, you’d think so, but…you know, it’s kinda like I keep telling her, or told her…God, I can’t believe she’s dead.”
Pakula waited. This time Danielle seemed genuinely choked up. She had been slipping from present to past tense the whole time. Not unusual in an interview with someone who’d been close to a victim. But now it seemed to hit her. He bowed his head and waited. He’d learned that people really didn’t want to hear all that crap like, “It’ll be okay.” Most of the time they just wanted you to wait until they composed themselves. Waiting was tougher, though.
“So it sounds like you kinda figured out this relationship wouldn’t work long before Tina figured it out, huh?”
“It never does work,” she said, reaching around to a Kleenex box hidden behind a flower vase. She dabbed at her nose. “That’s the problem with dating older men. They always stay with their wives.”
CHAPTER 48
11:52 a.m.
Andrew kept trying to catch the eye of the woman behind the store counter, not an easy task with sunglasses on but also because she didn’t stay in one place for long. She hustled from one end of the long counter to the next, pausing just long enough to give them a nod when they entered.
Jared loaded up Andrew’s free arm, handing him everything from Tylenol, toothpaste and razors to chips, candy bars and comic books. It looked as if they were stocking up for a monthlong road trip.
Andrew continued to watch the woman, hoping, wishing she’d glance their way. Was it too much to hope for her to ask a few questions: “Where you boys from?” “Where you headed?” Instead, she kept moving, her gray-haired head down, small body scurrying from the little oven where she replaced mini pizzas with freshly made ones, to the hot-dog roaster, to the counter space where she constructed submarine sandwiches.