“Besides,” I added, “this wasn’t even really a threat, was it?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s going to be annoying to clean up, of course. I may have to paint the door if I can’t get rid of all the red. But it isn’t blood. And there’s nothing all that scary about a thirty-dollar gallon of paint.” Not beyond the initial shock of seeing it and assuming the worst.
“If you say so,” Greg said. He sounded doubtful.
I smiled up at him. “I do say so. Right now I just want to get inside and comfort my dog. But I promise I’ll contact Mendoza as soon as she calms down. He’ll know what to do.”
This was most likely related to either Jacquie or to Nick and the mob. The only question was whether it was a gift from someone who knew I had found Nick’s body, and who wanted me to know that they could come after me next—although I had no idea why they would bother, when I had no idea what was going on—or whether it was Kenny who had decided to pay me back for the scene at Fidelio’s. He knew better than anyone where I lived—it had been his father’s house for eighteen years—and all in all, I rather thought it had his touch.
Chapter Fourteen
I got Greg on his way and Edwina settled down, and then I did send the image to Mendoza with the caption, Someone painted my door. When the phone rang five minutes later, the number was unknown, and I guess I should have been prepared for that. When I answered it with a diffident, “Hello?” a voice I knew said, “Reggie? It’s Jaime.”
He must still be at Sambuca, I figured—it wasn’t as late as it felt—and he probably had a burner phone he used there so his own wouldn’t get traced back to Detective Mendoza.
But Reggie? Short for Regina, maybe?
“Hello, Detective. Or am I not supposed to say that?”
The voice turned amused. “No, you can say whatever you want.” The emphasis was on the second word, which I took to mean that while I could, he couldn’t, because there were people in the background who were, or might be, listening.
“So you got my picture,” I said. “I came home from dinner and found it like that.”
He made a humming sound. “I can’t do much about it right now.”
“That’s all right. I didn’t expect you to. I thought maybe you’d send someone out tomorrow morning to take a look. When the sun’s up.”
“You don’t mind waiting?”
“I’d mind more having a bunch of people crawling around my front door with floodlights at this time of night,” I said. “It’s not like anyone’s hurt. The house was empty except for Edwina, and she’s fine. Hysterical when we got here, but she’s calmed down now.”
I glanced at her, where she was curled up next to me on a sofa cushion. She must have heard her name because she looked up and her tail beat against the cushion once.
“Yes,” I told her, “I’m talking about you.”
She thumped her tail again before putting her head down.
“You’re sure she’s all right?” Mendoza sounded concerned.
“She’s perfect. Locked inside the whole time. Probably saw the perp. It’s a shame you can’t interview her.”
Mendoza agreed. “Any idea who it might have been?”
“It looked like blood at first, so I thought of the mob. Although I don’t know how they’d know about me, and besides, it’s not like they need to scare me. I don’t know anything about anything. Or nothing that no one else does.”
Mendoza agreed.
“It’d probably be real blood anyway,” I added. “If it were the mob. Don’t you think?”
Mendoza agreed that it would. “Anyone else?”
“Kenny. Kenneth Kelly, my stepson. David’s son. He was at Fidelio’s when Greg and I got there. Having dinner with—wait for it—Jacquie Demetros.”
He sounded interested. “No kidding?”
“None. And it seems like something he’d do. Childish and spiteful.”
