Dead Ringer Page 10

  I nearly choked. “We aren’t lovers,” I said quickly.

  “But things were headed that way.” She swirled her wine and took another sip. “No doubt he found you quite . . . amusing.”

  My body flooded with humiliation. “You don’t seem upset.” I had to force the words out through my constricted throat.

  “Why would I be? I know what Hans is like. He enjoys little diversions now and then, but he always comes back to me. It’s been that way for years.”

  “Years?” I echoed her last word in a hollow voice.

  “We met in Germany when he was working in Munich.”

  Germany. They really had been together a long time. My stomach churned and I had to blink back hot tears.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that he wasn’t honest with you,” she went on. “He does have a tendency to keep secrets.”

  Secrets.

  The word resonated in my head.

  “Jeremy was blackmailing him,” I blurted out. Then I bit my lip, wishing I could take the words back.

  “The dead guy, you mean? Yes, that’s true.”

  My numb mind finally kicked back into gear. “Wait. You know about that?”

  “Oh, yes.” Elena refilled her wineglass. “He hadn’t got around to telling me about you yet, but he did fill me in on the blackmail fiasco. I told him weeks ago that it was foolish to lie about his last job, but he’s a typical man and always thinks he knows best.”

  Although finding out about Elena and Hans had kept me off kilter, my desire for answers worked its way through my shock. “He lied about his job in Uppsala?”

  “There was no job in Uppsala,” Elena said by way of confirmation. “He last worked in Germany, but he was asked to resign due to certain indiscretions involving a very beautiful first violinist and an equally beautiful flautist.” A superior smile flitted across her face. “Apparently, neither one was too pleased to find out that she wasn’t his one and only.”

  My humiliation grew exponentially. I was one in a long line. His interest in me had probably been nothing more than a game, a distraction. My stupidity astounded me. I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen through him. And to make matters worse, Elena knew all about my foolishness.

  “Of course, Hans didn’t want that to affect the rest of his career, so he fabricated the position in Uppsala. Yet another one of his little diversions helped him out by acting as his reference.”

  “But how did Jeremy find out?” Despite my overwhelming emotions, I couldn’t dampen my curiosity.

  Elena drained her second glass of wine. “Apparently he knew someone in the Uppsala orchestra. They mentioned that they’d never heard of Hans and, well, I guess the guy saw an opportunity to get some extra money.”

  A car door slammed somewhere outside.

  “Maybe that’s Hans now,” Elena said. “I’m sure you want to chat with him.”

  I shook my head, backing up into the hallway. “No.” Hans was the last person I wanted to talk to right then. “I’ll be on my way.”

  I turned and fled for the front door, careful not to look at the living room. I didn’t want to see the spot where Hans and I had shared our last kiss.

  As I wrenched open the door, my throat constricted. I was afraid I would come face-­to-­face with Hans. Luckily, the front stoop was deserted. I hurried down the pathway to the sidewalk. A shadowy figure stood by the street, and for a second I thought I was about to run into Hans after all.

  “Dori?”

  Intense relief washed over me. “JT?”

  He came toward me. “I thought you weren’t going inside.”

  His voice held an unusual edge of annoyance. It was catching.

  “And I thought you were staying home.” I didn’t mean for my words to sound accusatory, but that’s how they came out. “I told you I’d be fine.”

  “You don’t look fine. You look . . . rattled.” Concern replaced some of his annoyance. “What happened?”

  I brushed past him and climbed into the passenger seat of his blue pickup truck. He remained standing by the curb for a second before circling around the truck to the driver’s side. By the time he settled in behind the wheel, I regretted my reaction from moments earlier.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, clutching my purse in my lap. “You’re right. I am rattled. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  “What happened?” JT asked again. “Did Clausen do something to upset you?” His hand went to the driver’s door as if he were about to get out.

  I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Hans isn’t even there.”

  “Then how did you get inside?”

  I glanced up and down the street, not wanting to wait around until Hans arrived home. “Can we get out of here? I’ll explain in a minute.”

  “Dori—­”

  “Please, JT.”

  He buckled his seat belt and started the engine. He pulled away from the curb and headed down the street, casting glances at me every few seconds. When we were three blocks away from Hans’s place, some of my anxiety drained away. Unfortunately, that made room for my humiliation to resurface.

  A minute later JT pulled into the parking lot of a 7-­Eleven and shut off the truck’s engine. “Now can you explain to me what you were doing in the house of a suspected murderer when he wasn’t even home?”

  “My plan was to talk to Hans out on the front porch.”

  “And when you realized he wasn’t home, you broke in?”

  “No! Of course not!” I exhaled a huff of air. I didn’t want to tell him what had happened. It was too embarrassing. But his eyes were fixed on me, and I knew he wouldn’t let me get away without explaining. “Hans wasn’t home, but his girlfriend was.”

  There was a moment of stunned silence. I closed my eyes, waiting for JT’s response. It came a ­couple of seconds later.

  “His girlfriend?”

  “I didn’t know about her! I swear!”

  “Of course you didn’t.” JT gripped the steering wheel so hard that I thought he might break it.

  “And apparently . . .” I swallowed, finding it hard to get the words out. “Apparently I’m just one in a long line of women on the side.” Tears pricked at my eyes as a fresh wave of hurt and humiliation crashed over me. “You were right. Getting involved with him was a huge mistake. What was I thinking? How could I have been so stupid? To think I actually believed that he . . .”

  I choked back a sob and shut my eyes tight to keep my tears from escaping. I didn’t want to cry, but the situation had truly sunk in now. I felt like the dumbest person alive. I’d thought I was special to Hans, that there was the possibility of something great between us. But I was nothing more than a temporary amusement.

  How did I not see this coming? What signs did I miss?

  “Hey.” JT lifted the hair that had fallen across the side of my face and tucked it back over my shoulder. “You’re not stupid. He’s the idiot.”

  I shook my head. “You knew it was a mistake for me to get involved with him. So why didn’t I?”

  “I didn’t know it was a mistake. I just had misgivings. But for entirely different reasons.”

  I wiped away the one tear that had managed to escape from my eyes and drew in a deep, shaky breath. “Hans Clausen is a lying, cheating bastard.”

  “I won’t argue with you there.”

  “But, JT,” I said, my voice strained by my overpowering emotions, “I think he might also be a burglar and a murderer.”

  Chapter 11

  “YOU REALLY THINK he’s the killer?” JT asked. “And what do you mean by a burglar? Did I miss something?”

  I rested my head against the back of the seat and focused on his first question. “I don’t know. I really don’t. He’s not the person I thought he was, and he’s obviously deceitful, but I know that doesn’t necessarily make hi
m a murderer. Still, I can’t help doubting everyone and everything, him included.”

  “Why would you say he might be a burglar?”

  “Because of my adventurous time at Jeremy’s landlady’s house.” I went on to explain about the basement intruder and the fact that Jeremy had blackmailed Hans.

  “So Clausen had a motive to kill Jeremy,” JT concluded.

  “Yes,” I said with a sigh. “He did. But even though I have doubts about him, I’m still not convinced he’s guilty. Some things don’t quite fit.”

  “Such as?”

  “I can’t say for certain that the intruder wasn’t Hans, but my first impression was that the burglar was smaller than him. And the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced of that. Plus, if the police already knew about the blackmail, why would Hans need to break into Jeremy’s place?”

  JT tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, staring out through the windshield as he thought things over. “Maybe he wanted to hide or destroy evidence that would implicate him in something beyond the blackmail.”

  “Like murder?” A chill ran down my spine as I pictured Hans wrapping his hands around Jeremy’s neck and squeezing tight.

  “Maybe.” JT dropped his hands from the steering wheel. “Then again, maybe he wasn’t the burglar. Clausen could be innocent of everything except being a lying bastard, or the killer and intruder could be two different ­people.”

  “But that’s the thing,” I said, my frustration rising. “It’s impossible to figure out!”

  “It’s not your job to figure it out,” JT reminded me. “Leave it to the police. Please.”

  “But what if they never figure it out?” That was a scary thought. “I don’t want to keep suspecting my fellow musicians, wondering if one of them is a killer.” I let out a sound of frustration and unbuckled my seat belt, climbing out of the truck.

  “Where are you going?” JT asked as he exited the vehicle through the driver’s door.

  “I need a Slurpee.” I headed for the 7-­Eleven, JT jogging to catch up with me.

  He beat me to the door by half a step and held it open for me. “At this hour?”

  He had a point. It was after ten o’clock, and that amount of sugar would wind me up further and keep me awake half the night. But all I’d eaten since breakfast was one cookie and my mood was crying out for junk food.

  “I need something.” I bypassed the Slurpee machine and snagged a bag of Doritos off a rack.

  “Dori, I know it’s been a crappy week, but things will get better.” He grabbed a bag of potato chips for himself. “Give the police a chance to do their thing. I know it’s hard, but I think you should try to focus on something else.”

  “You’re probably right.” I plunked my Doritos down on the cash counter and reached into my purse.

  “I’ll get that,” JT said, pulling out his own wallet and handing the clerk enough cash to pay for both our purchases.

  I gave him a smile of thanks and followed him out of the convenience store.

  “Tomorrow is Jeremy’s memorial ser­vice,” I said once we were back in the truck. “Maybe once that’s over with things will start to get better.” I opened my bag of Doritos and reached in to grab a chip. “After all, I don’t see how they could get much worse.”

  THE DORITOS DID little to assuage my hunger, so once JT dropped me off at my apartment, I fixed myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Thank goodness I’d managed to buy some groceries earlier that day. I didn’t need a growling stomach keeping me awake. I had enough other problems threatening to do that already.

  As I munched on my sandwich, I tried not to feel morose, but it was hard to dispel the gloomy cloud that seemed to hang over my head. As sweet as it was for JT to say that I wasn’t the stupid one, I sure felt like I was. I should have known better than to get involved with Hans. I didn’t know if there were signs that I had missed, ones that would have alerted me to his deceit, but it didn’t really matter now.

  The fact was, I’d been fooled into thinking our relationship had real potential. Hans had hurt my pride, and even my heart. At least I hadn’t fallen in love with him yet, but I had liked him. A lot.

  I cringed at the thought of facing him again, and lost my appetite when I imagined Elena delighting in my stupidity and rubbing it in for the rest of my career. Despite the inevitable unpleasantness, I’d have to deal with the consequences of my less-­than-­wise decision to pursue a relationship with the man who held my professional fate in his hands. Would he be annoyed with me for finding out about Elena? Would it be too awkward to be in the same room together from now on?

  If so, I could be in trouble. The orchestra meant so much to me, and I didn’t want to lose my place in it. Sure, I now knew that Hans had lied about his past to get the job with the PGP, but I wasn’t about to blackmail him into keeping me in the orchestra. I was upset with him, but I wasn’t spiteful, and despite his indiscretions he was a good conductor.

  I was relieved that a very limited number of ­people knew about our relationship. I wouldn’t have to suffer my humiliation publicly, and that was something at least. But it wouldn’t be easy to see Elena on a regular basis, to have her look down her nose at me with her smug superiority.

  Ugh.

  I’d survive, though, even if it wouldn’t always be a walk in the park.

  As I got ready for bed, I thought over what JT had said earlier. I no longer had any real reason to try to prove Hans innocent. Even though I wanted to know who the murderer was, to feel safe and no longer suspect my fellow orchestra members, I could leave the investigating to the police.

  It was time for me to focus on something other than murder and unwise relationships. As much as possible, I would put Hans and Elena out of my mind and keep my nose firmly out of other ­people’s business. Things would get back to normal soon.

  At least, that’s what I hoped.

  IN THE MORNING, I dressed in black pants and a blazer over a printed blouse. My dark clothing matched my mood. Despite my determination to forget about my relationship with Hans, a thunderous mixture of emotions hung over my head like a gloomy cloud. I hoped it would drift away in time, but for the moment I focused on fastening my hair in a twist at the back of my head and pulling on black, high-­heeled boots. After forcing myself to eat a quick breakfast of toast and green tea, I rode the bus to Jeremy’s funeral ser­vice.

  It was being held at the same church as our recent rehearsals, a fact I’d found surprising at first, considering Jeremy had met his violent end there. However, our assistant conductor, who notified the orchestra of the ser­vice, had explained that Jeremy’s sister had chosen the location because she and Jeremy had attended the church as children. I’m not sure that would have been enough reason for me to hold a family member’s funeral ser­vice at the scene of their murder, but it was, of course, her decision.

  When I arrived at the church, I found several familiar faces in the small crowd milling about in the narthex. Katie Urbina and Winston Chiu, two violinists from the PGP, had gathered together with violist Evan Katz. Two percussionists and a clarinet player from the orchestra huddled together a few feet away, and Clover the bass player stood near the stairway where I’d found Jeremy’s body. She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, her eyes flitting over the crowd, never settling.

  I wondered if she’d ever had any feelings for Jeremy, or if their relationship had been purely physical. She certainly didn’t seem at ease at the moment, but whether that was because she was upset about Jeremy or because funerals in general made her uncomfortable, I didn’t know.

  Although my first instinct was to join Katie and Winston, I changed course and headed for Clover.

  “Hey,” I greeted as I stopped next to her.

  Clover’s eyes darted in my direction for only a fraction of a second. “Hey.”

  “How are you doing?”


  “Fine,” she said, the word clipped. “I mean, considering we’re at a funeral.”

  “Right.” I paused, trying to figure out how to broach the subject of her relationship with Jeremy. “I understand you and Jeremy were close.”

  Her head jerked my way, her eyes fearful. “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh,” I said, feigning confusion. “I thought you and he were . . . together.”

  “What?” The fear in her eyes had turned to panic.

  “You were seen together. Kissing.”

  Clover’s frightened gaze darted over the crowd in front of us. “We tried to keep it a secret,” she said so quietly that I barely heard her.

  I nodded with what I hoped would come across as understanding. “So his girlfriend wouldn’t find out.”

  She seemed to relax a bit. A tinge of pink colored each of her cheeks. “And my boyfriend.”

  “Were you and Jeremy still . . . together when he was killed?”

  “No. He got engaged to his girlfriend and said he wanted to be true to her.”

  Although she tried to hide it, I could tell the breakup had hurt her. A red flag went up in my mind.

  “You must have been upset with him.”

  She looked at me sharply. “Of course I was upset. But I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  That was what I was suggesting.

  The fear returned to her eyes as she focused on something over my shoulder. “Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

  Without another word, Clover hurried past me to join a big beefy man who had emerged from the hallway leading to the washrooms. She hooked her arm through his and led him away from me.

  Her boyfriend had to be at least six-­foot-­five, and could probably bench-­press a small car. He had a jagged scar on one cheek, and his dark, beady eyes didn’t look the least bit friendly. I had no intention of saying anything to him that might tick him off.