Camilla T. Crespi - The Breakfast Club Murder by Camilla T. Crespi Page B

you.”
    Those were two details Scardini got right. Jess was sweet and Lori would have been upset if she had known Valerie was driving them back. Maybe not upset, more like jealous. She’d lost a husband to that woman. She didn’t want to lose a daughter. Now, of course, there was no danger of that. Maybe Scardini would think that was an added motive. Lori slipped the spoon out of Scardini’s hand and stirred the washed and chopped escarole into the pot. She and Mitchell watched it wilt.
    Scardini kept talking. “You know your daughter’s back. You get in your car, drive fast to Caldwell Road, park the car in the middle of the road, hide in the trees. Dr. Fenwick comes along a few minutes later. You hail her down or your car blocks her way. She gets out of her husband’s new BMW—a car you know, because he picked you up at the airport when you came back from Italy.”
    “I see my ex has been very talkative.”
    “From your vantage point all you can see is the car and a tall person—Dr. Fenwick was only two inches shorter than Mr. Staunton—dressed in chinos, a man’s shirt, wearing your ex’s baseball cap. You’re blinded by fury, by the darkness in the trees. You aim, shoot, and kill the dentist instead of the ex.”
    Lori added the chicken broth to the escarole, turned the meatballs to brown evenly. “I would say that’s an impossible scenario. First of all, Valerie would have had to stay put at Margot’s for at least ten minutes in order for me to reach Caldwell Road in time to stop her, and secondly, even blinded by fury and the dark, I would still recognize my husband just by the sound of his footsteps. Sixteen years of marriage does that. Besides, I love my daughter too much to kill the father she adores.”
    “That’s a good point,” Mitchell said.
    Scardini didn’t let up. “So maybe you knew who you were killing. Three-day-old wife, bang, bang, dead. Like you saying to the ex: ‘So much for your new life, buster.’ ”
    “Did you find tire tracks on the road to match to my car?”
    Scardini pushed a finger in the air. “Now that’s a good point. We’ll need to take your car.”
    Lori dropped the wooden spoon and stared at him. “You’re kidding, right? How am I going to get around? Public transportation stinks where I live.”
    Scardini shrugged. “Rent.”
    While Lori glared at Scardini, Mitchell bent down to pick up the spoon and handed it to her.
    “Thank you,” she said and pointed to the dangling button. “Be careful with that. You’ll lose it.” He gave her a smile that almost made up for the other guy. “The car’s at home.”
    “Okay, tomorrow,” Scardini said. “And don’t try cleaning anything because we’ll spot whatever was in there.”
    Lori washed the spoon, dried it. “I thought that worked only on TV.” Renting a car was not in her budget and she was about to ask how long they’d keep the car, but she was afraid the answer would only make her feel worse. Maybe Margot would lend her one of her cars—the least fancy one. She had three.
    Mitchell took a deep breath. “The soup sure smells good.” He had a baritone voice, the kind that wraps itself around you like a blanket on a cold day.
    Lori gave him a smile. He was trying to make her feel better. “What about the gun?” she asked. Being under suspicion did not stop her from being curious. “Did you find it?”
    The look on Scardini’s face stopped Mitchell from saying anything.
    “I can answer that myself,” Lori said. “You found nothing.”
    “How’s that?” Scardini wanted to know.
    “You asked me if I or Rob owned a gun. If you’d found it you’d know already who it belonged to.”
    Scardini shook his head. “It’s that fast only on TV.”
    Lori lifted the pot lid and stirred the soup. Neither of the men moved. “Any more questions?” she asked after a few minutes of silence. She couldn’t think of anything else to ask.
    “If we do, we’ll let you know,” Mitchell said.