Asking for Trouble - Leslie Kelly [78]
I rose on tiptoes and kissed his mouth. “Deal.”
Once he’d gone into his office to try to track down the attorney, I went outside in search of a cell phone signal. By some weird twist of fate, as soon as I saw a couple of bars on the phone’s screen, it began to ring.
Spying the number on the caller ID, I started to laugh. “Hey, how’d you know I was picking up the phone to call you?”
Mark probably didn’t hear me, since he immediately snapped, “I’ve been trying to reach you all morning, why the hell haven’t you had your cell phone on?”
“I did. There just isn’t any decent reception unless I stand on my head with three plates on my nose.”
Chuckling, he said, “Look, the whole family’s in the house.”
“I figured.”
“So I’ll be quick before somebody realizes I have you on the line and grabs the phone away.”
I’d been missing my family, but I didn’t want to get involved in a marathon Santori phone-fest. Mark would understand. Every one of us had been on the receiving end of the never ending pass-the-phone parties at some time or another.
I did not want to waste an hour having the same conversation with every person in the family. Including, most likely, the little ones. “Look,” I said, “I’ll call back to talk to the folks later, but I need to talk to you. I have a question you might be able to answer.”
I asked him about the accessibility of the crime-scene photos. And whether someone could possibly have gotten their hands on an evidence list that might name the kind of perfume in the dead woman’s purse.
His answer didn’t surprise me. “That’s a tough one. I mean, sure, the pictures could have gotten out. Or maybe some sicko took his own shots of the scene before the first responders secured it.”
Hard to imagine someone yanking out a camera and taking pictures of a woman lying in her own blood, especially if they weren’t sure whether she was dead or not. Then I thought about Princess Diana and realized it was entirely too possible.
“But the evidence list? I don’t know, that’s a little more tricky,” he admitted. “Which doesn’t mean someone sitting in the bar that night couldn’t have smelled the woman’s perfume and recognized it. And, of course, anyone who knew her might have known what she wore.” Then, obviously really thinking about my questions, he asked, “Why, Lottie? Why do you want to know this stuff?”
I thought about telling him everything, but knew he would just freak out. Being hundreds of miles away, he’d feel helpless and would order me to leave, abandoning Simon to whoever had been stalking him. And if I refused, I wouldn’t put it past him to walk into the house, tap Joe, Lucas and Tony on the shoulders and march them all out to his car for a little ride. To Pennsylvania.
That definitely nixed any idea of telling him the truth. Having four of my five brothers here would prove very beneficial in helping us search this house from top to bottom, which I intended to do as soon as I was finished my call. But they’d also be assholes to Simon the minute they realized I was sleeping with him. So I didn’t tell him.
“Just something that came up,” I said. Wanting to stop him from asking more questions, I continued. “Now, why were you trying to call me?”
“Uh, didn’t you ask me to look into this case for you?”
Well, duh. I’d gotten so worked up over what was happening to Simon now—on who was using his tragedy against him—that I’d almost forgotten wanting to know more about the details of that tragedy. “Of course. Sorry. What did you find out?”
He quickly went over the stuff I already knew, but then surprised me by saying, “The lead investigator did tell me they’ve learned a little more about the suspects. A family member came to claim the woman’s cremated remains several weeks after she died. I guess her brother was thought to be the only next of kin, but someone else stepped forward.”
“Who was it?”
“The person skipped out before investigators could talk to them.