Page 27 of Dirty Liars

“She was in danger?” Jack asked. “Is that why she had a fake name and background?”

Dickie was a pretty okay poker player, but we knew him well enough to know when he was lying. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you do,” Jack said. “You always twitch your lip like that when you lie. Who was she really? We’re trying to find out who killed her. And right now you’ve got a pretty strong motive, so you should probably help us out here.”

“I didn’t kill her,” Dickie said, outraged. “I wanted to marry her.”

“Except she married another man anyway. Which gives you another good reason to kill her.”

Dickie’s mouth dropped open in surprise as he thought things through, and then he fell back into the chair and covered his face with his hands.

“You want to know the ironic thing about this mess?” he asked. “I actually introduced her to Theo.”

“Do I even want to know how you know the son of the former Greek ambassador?”

“He’s a business associate of my dad’s,” Dickie said. “They’ve known each other a long time. Mom and Dad vacation in Greece from time to time, and have even stayed at the embassy there.”

“What’s Chloe’s real name?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, and then he held up both hands when Jack looked at him skeptically. “No, really, I don’t. I just know that Chloe’s not her real name. I met her last June while she was waiting tables at The Corner Café. That’s the little place in DC I like to go after we go to the theater. I was with some business associates and we stopped in late one night. It was almost midnight.”

He stopped and smiled at the memory, rubbing his damp hands on his slacks. “She was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen in my life. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. There was just something so vivacious about her—the way she moved, the way she talked. She had a great personality and was obviously smart. She charmed everyone in our group. But there was something else about her too, like she was always looking over her shoulder. It made me want to protect her.”

That was probably one of the most honest things Dickie had said since he’d walked through our door. Dickie had a savior complex. I was pretty sure it was because he had daddy issues, but he was always a sucker for a sad story and he’d been taken advantage of plenty of times because of it.

“I knew the first time she introduced herself that Chloe wasn’t her real name,” he said. “She had to think about it too hard before she said it. And when I called out to her she didn’t turn around to answer. I never pressed her on it. I thought maybe she was running from an ex or something.”

“How’d she meet Theo?” Jack asked.

“Theo and I have known each other in passing for years,” he said. “But we connected at a fundraiser for a senator who was up for reelection. Theo told me he’d bought a house in Newcastle and had several business interests in the works here and abroad. He’s got dual citizenship. Theo has always just dabbled in business. His parents are loaded, and Theo received a pretty sizeable inheritance from his grandfather if I remember right.

“Theo mentioned he was opening up several restaurants in the area and needed a business manager,” he continued. “And I know that Theo has a lot more money than business sense and that he’d probably overpay whoever he employed. Chloe was always adamant about paying her own way. It made her very uncomfortable when I’d try to cover things for her. I knew she was struggling. She was living in a hotel and paying with cash from her tips every week. I offered to help a couple of times, but it made her mad to even bring it up.

“So I introduced Chloe and Theo that night.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Stupid of me. I knew he was probably pushing fifty, so I didn’t think anything of it. He even offered her a room in his house. I helped her move in. Not that she had many belongings.”

“She and Theo didn’t share a bedroom?” I asked curiously.

“No,” he said. “There was a downstairs suite he gave her that even had a little office attached so she could work from home if she wanted to. He gave her a car since she’d have to drive to the different restaurants. It wasn’t hard to see there were wounds behind the resilient exterior. I thought Theo saw them as a father would for his daughter. He must have gotten a lot of laughs at my expense. Some friend, huh?”

“Dickie…” Jack said, but there was really nothing either of us could say. It was obvious Dickie had really cared for her, and nothing we could say would make any of this okay.

“I guess when it came down to it Chloe decided what Theo could offer her was more appealing than what I could.” Dickie shrugged like it was just par for the course, but he couldn’t hide the pain and anger on his face.

“You don’t know that,” I said. “I don’t know Chloe or Theo or what her motives could have been. But I know you, and as cynical and skeptical as you are of people, you typically can size them up pretty quickly and be accurate about it. If your gut told you that Chloe really loved you and that she wanted to be with you, then maybe she really did. Maybe she just didn’t have a choice in the matter and couldn’t find a way to tell you. All we know is she was running from something, and that something caught up to her and shot her seven times.”

Dickie winced.

“If you’d been the one to marry Chloe it could have been you on Jaye’s autopsy table today,” Jack told him.

He sucked in a breath. “Theo’s dead too?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “We haven’t ruled out a professional hit on them. Tell us more about Chloe. Anything you know about her past that might lead us to who did this to her.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I think I’m just in shock. I really need a drink.”

“If I give you one you have to sleep in the guest room,” Jack said.

Dickie thought it over quickly. “Fine. Bring the bottle.”

---