Death in Daytime (16 page)

"The cops are on their way," Paul said, entering the living room. "I told them to notify Jakes and Davis."

I must have given him a dirty look, because he put his hands up in apology and sat down on a chair.

"I--I don't want to talk about this anymore," Julia said. She turned her tear-streaked face to me. "What am I gonna do, Alex? I'm all alone."

"Don't you have any relatives? Aunts or uncles?"

"My dad has a sister back east, but they don't talk. Haven't for years. I--I couldn't call her."

"Well," I said, "we'll worry about that later. Julia, the police will be here soon and you'll have to talk to them--"

She grabbed my hands and gripped them tightly.

"You won't leave me, will you, Alex?"

"I--I don't know if they'll let me stay--"

"I won't talk to them if they make you leave," she said. "I won't."

I couldn't tell her that Jakes might put me in handcuffs right away. Maybe her dependence on me would put that off for a while.

"All right," I said, "all right, we'll make them let me stay."

In the distance I could hear a siren.

Two patrol cops arrived first; Paul talked to them and showed them the body. One of them stayed with it while the other one waited at the front door for the detectives. When Jakes and Davis arrived, Jakes looked over at me and shook his head. Then he and his partner went to look at the body. They took Paul with them, leaving the one officer at the front door. When Jakes returned he was alone--minus his partner and without Paul.

"Alex," he said, "sorry we missed you at the hospital this morning. We must have got our signals crossed."

"Yes," I said, "we must've." Was that all he was going to say?

"Would you introduce me to the young lady?" he asked.

"Detective Jakes, this is Julia Roswell."

"Julia," Jakes said, "I understand you've had a rough time of it lately, but if I'm going to catch whoever killed your mother and your father, I'll need your help."

"W-what can I do?" she asked.

"Well, for one thing, you can talk to me," he said, gently. "Can you do that?"

Julia underwent an amazing transformation right in front of me. She went from weepy child to smitten young woman.

"Of course," she told him, pulling away from me. "I can do that."

"Good. Alex?"

I looked at him, then took the hint.

"Oh, sure," I said. "I'll, uh, go make some coffee, since we're probably to have still more people traipsing through here." I looked at Jakes. "Can I do that?"

"If all you touch is what you need to make coffee," he said, taking the seat I had just vacated. That put him right next to Julia, who ran her fingers through her hair and then sat primly with her hands clasped between her knees. So much for wanting me around.

"Now Julia," I heard him saying as I walked away, "why don't we just start at the beginning, huh, sweetheart? How old are you, by the way . . . ?"

Julia wasn't the only one who had undergone a transformation. I was shocked at how gentle Jakes was being with her, and I knew it was both that gentleness and his good looks that had managed to put Julia at ease with him. I should have been glad, but it irritated me. Why was he so abrasive with me? Or was he?

Maybe it was just my perception of him, but he always seemed on the verge of sarcasm, even down to the way he said my name.

The kitchen filled with the aroma of coffee. I'd found a special blend in the cabinet. It was something Henry Roswell had ground for himself at a coffee shop I'd never heard of.

While I was waiting for it to brew I decided to snoop some more. I had put on a pair of the rubber gloves just to be on the safe side, so I started opening drawers and more cabinets. I even studied the notepad and magnets on the refrigerator.

"That smells good."

I turned and saw Davis standing there.

"Is it ready?"

"Oh, sure," I said. "How do you take it?"

"Just black," he said. "Good coffee should always be drunk black."

I poured the coffee into a heavy cardboard mug I'd found in the cupboard, behind the plastic ones. I wondered about a rich man who has special coffee blended for him, then keeps disposable cups in his cupboard.

"Looking for clues?" he asked, with an amused look on his face.

His attitude made me mad.

"I seem to be the one finding the bodies." I said.

"Why not the clues, too?"

"Touche, Ms. Peterson."

"You can call me Alex, Detective," I said.

"Actually," he said, "you're more Tiffany to me."

"Okay," I said, "I'll settle for Ms. Peterson. Your partner is amazing with Julia. She wasn't going to talk to any cops without me. Now look at her."

"He has a way with, uh, women," Davis said.

"Really?" I asked. "I hadn't noticed that, myself."

"The man is an acquired taste."

"Even for you?" I asked. "Did you become partners just recently?"

"No," Davis said. "We've been partners for five years."

"Really?" Another surprise. "And he didn't know your child's name?"

Davis smiled.

"He knows it," Davis said. "He never forgets anything."

"You sound like you admire him."

"He's a great detective," Davis said.

"And you're not?"

"I'm a good cop," Davis said, and let it go at that.

"Can we talk?"

"About what?"

He smiled and gestured toward the office with his cardboard mug, saying, "That."

"Oh," I said, and then realized he'd been putting me at ease before he questioned me.

I had the feeling that Detective Davis was much more than just a good cop. In fact, I was learning more about both of them.

Others came into the kitchen looking for the coffee, including Paul, the cop at the door, some of the technical people and even the man from the medical examiner's office. In between pouring coffee for them I answered Davis's questions.

No, I hadn't heard anything from inside the house when we arrived.

Yes, I did see something unusual, the drop of blood outside, in the back.

No, I hadn't noticed any movement when we entered the house through the already-open door. Yes, I had met the man before, but he hadn't said anything to me to indicate he feared for his life. Yes, I had met the daughter before--at the same time--and no, she didn't tell me anything he should know. (I decided not to tell Detective Davis that Julia told me she was glad her mother was dead.)

"Alex," he said, "why did you run out of the hospital today?"

I told him about the quack doctor who hadn't even bothered to check me for any injuries when he examined me the night before, but simply assumed I was an attempted suicide.

"I guess that would piss me off, too."

"Do you want to feel the bump?"

"Huh? Oh, no, no," he said, nervously. I realized that at that moment he was thinking of me as Tiffany again. "I'm sure it's there."

"Which means somebody hit me on the head and knocked me out."

He nodded and said, "Well, that's one thing it could mean."

"What else could it mean?"

"Maybe that you hit your head by accident or maybe that you did it on purpose."

"I hit myself on the head on purpose?"

I raised my voice to the point that several men in the other room turned to look, as did Jakes and Julia from the sofa.

"Tiff--uh, Ms. Peterson," Davis said, keeping his voice low, "we're just talking about some possibilities, here."

"And do you think it's a possibility that I killed Henry Roswell last night?" I hissed at him.

"Of course not," he said. "You were in the hospital with a man on your door."

Who, I suddenly realized, had been put there to keep me in, not to keep anyone out.

"Well," I said, "thank God for small favors."

They were far from finished with the crime scene a couple of hours later, but apparently finished with me. And Julia.

Jakes came to talk to me in the kitchen. I couldn't complain about being relegated to coffee duty because number one, I volunteered, and number two, I knew I was not a suspect in this particular murder.

"Alex," Jakes said, "I should take you in for running out of the hospital that way."

"Why?" I asked. "I had every right to sign myself out."

"But you didn't sign yourself out. You snuck out the back door."

I waved my hand. "A technicality."

"You're a pain in the ass, you know that?"

"Detective," I said, "I've been called far worse in my life. That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

My hand was on the countertop. He moved his hand over it and said, "I need to ask you a favor."

I was startled by this unlikely intimacy, but for some reason left my hand there. His skin felt warm and smooth. I wondered if the rest of him was the same. Before I had too much time to think about it Paul walked in, and I quickly snatched my hand away.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked. I swear I blushed. It's a curse. I've been a blusher my whole life. Whenever I try to be cool, my red face betrays me.

"Detective Jakes was just going to ask me a favor," I said.

"Oh? What kind of a favor?"

"It's Julia," Jakes said. "She has no place to go."

"What? You want Alex to take her home with her?"

Paul asked. "For Chrissake, you suspect her of killing the girl's mother."

"I think we can assume, after last night's incident, that she's off that list."

"Really?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes, really."

"You mean, you don't believe I tried to commit suicide, like that idiot doctor--"

"I pretty much figured out the idiot doctor on my own, Alex," Jakes said. "No, I don't think you tried to commit suicide. For one thing I think you're very smart, and if you had wanted to kill yourself, you would have succeeded."

"Detective," I said, fanning my face with my hands, "this rash of compliments--"

"Yeah, yeah," he said, interrupting me. "Look, I can take her to a hotel, but she's a kid. She's never stayed in a hotel alone--"

"Isn't she eighteen?" Paul asked. "She's of age. She can be on her own."

"If I could leave her here I would, but it's a crime scene. She can't stay here. Besides, I don't think she should be alone. She's still a child, and she may be in danger."

"How can you expect Alex--"

"I'll take her."

"What?" Paul asked.

"Thank you, Alex," Jakes said. "I'll go and get her, and then the three of you can leave."

As Jakes went off to get Julia, Paul went off on me.

"What are you doing? You don't have to be responsible for this girl--"

"She's scared, Paul."

"Didn't you hear what the man said? You're out of it. You're not a suspect anymore. You can walk away from this whole mess."

"No, I can't," I said. "Somebody tried to kill me, and they may try again."

"I'll stay at the house with you--"

"I think it would be better if Jakes put a cop on the house," I said, cutting him off. "I don't want anyone inside, scaring Sarah, or even Julia."

"You're saying I'd scare--"

"Paul, please don't argue with me," I said. "I just want to get out of here, get Julia out of here and go home to my daughter."

Paul was fuming, and I thought I knew why.

"What was . . . that all about?" he demanded.

"What?"

"You know what," he said. "The . . . flirting, the blushing . . . What's going on, Alex?" 

"Paul, you're being silly. I wasn't flirting with anyone."

"That's not the way it looked to me."

"Are you going to harp on this all the way home, or should I call a cab?"

"You know what, Alex?" he said. "Maybe you should do that."

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

He turned and stormed off, and I bit my lip. I hadn't really picked a fight with him, but it seemed that I did manage to light his fuse. Did I do that on purpose?

Jakes came back to the kitchen with Julia and asked,

"Where's Mr. Silas?"

"He had to leave."

"Do you need a ride home?" he asked.

"Yes, please." I looked at Julia. "You okay, kiddo?"

"I--I don't know," she said, with a shrug. It seemed her crush on Jakes had lifted her spirits for only so long.

"Let me just clear up a few things and I'll drive you home," Jakes said.

"Um, Detective, I'll need you to run interference with the press. Is there anything you can do to get rid of them?"

"I'd like nothing better." And he immediately pulled out his cell and started barking orders. As he walked away Julia said, "I really don't want to be alone right now, but I don't have anywhere to go."

I was sure Julia had money of her own, certainly enough for a hotel, but I was equally sure she'd never been to a hotel alone. With no mother to raise her she probably had a doting father who spoiled her. Unprepared for the real world, she was suddenly thrust into it.

"That's okay," I said. "You can come home with me."

"But for how long?"

"We'll figure it out."

I looked over to where Jakes was talking to his partner, Davis, who seemed agitated. Jakes waved, pointed and then came walking back over to us.

"Problems?" I asked.

"No," Jakes said, "I told him I was driving you home and he got . . . pissy."

"Why?"

"Because he wants to do it," Jakes said. "Come on, let's go. My car's out front."

I assumed the car we were in was Jakes's own. It was a Toyota, and looked too new and clean to be a police car; besides, there was no radio in it. In fact, Julia eventually asked him about that.

"We do a lot of communications with cell phones now," he told her, "although we have portable radios, as well. But we usually do drive a department car. We were actually going off duty when this call came in."

After that, Julia, relegated to the backseat, fell silent.

"I don't see anything in this car to indicate children," I said. "Does your wife have her own car?"

"I don't have a wife or kids, Alex. That's my partner, remember?"

I was trying to make conversation, and didn't want to talk in front of Julia about her mother and father being murdered. I also found myself a little curious about his status.