Killer Deal (16 page)

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Authors: Sheryl J. Anderson

BOOK: Killer Deal
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“There are a lot of women in this town with heavily encrusted hands,” I replied.
His eyes narrowed. “You can’t be this sure it’s not Gwen unless you’ve got a suspect of your own.”
I shook my head. “I can discount one suspect without naming another.”
“Imagine that, Donovan,” growled the voice behind me, “my girlfriend’s a better detective than you are.”
ONCE, I THOUGHT IT MIGHT be a very impressive thing to have two men fight over me—duelists maybe, or gunfighters, or even just two guys willing to punch each other out over the question of my honor, my beauty, or even my ability to bake a cherry pie (much of this has its roots in my fascination with American folk music growing up). Interestingly enough, two homicide detectives going toe to toe over my forensic instincts had never appeared on that list.
It wasn’t so much that they were asking each other to step outside as that they got so animated in their discussion that Tricia, Cassady, and I decided in the interests of decorum, discretion, and potential property damage to usher them outside so they could cool off. A public scene wasn’t going to help anybody.
“Subcontracting your cases out now, Donovan?” Kyle spat as Cassady took him by the arm and walked him several feet away.
“Not hiding behind a bunch of skirts, that’s for sure,” Detective Donovan snapped as Tricia did her best to walk him several feet in the opposite direction. Which left me standing in the middle, trying to catch my breath and assimilate the facts I’d learned before chaos erupted again.
My theory that it was one of the Harem girls was looking
better all the time. All the Harem girls had the perfume. They knew the hotel routine. Garth wouldn’t hesitate to let them into his room. It all still worked. I just had to figure out which of those bracelet-wearing advertising Amazons had snapped.
Or at least snapped off her bracelet.
Could the bracelet be the key? Pushing my theory forward, I hoped I was taking a stride, not a leap, to focus on their sterling badge of honor. It was clearly significant to all of them, yet Tessa wasn’t wearing hers when I met with the group. What if she hadn’t broken it? What if she just couldn’t bring herself to wear it after she’d destroyed the man who’d given it to her, especially with what the bracelet meant to the rest of that tightly wrapped and tightly knit group? But what could have driven Tessa to the breaking point?
I had to figure out a way to talk to Tessa alone, but first, I had a mess to clean up. But where to start? Did I thank Kyle for being so supportive but ask him to rein it in a bit? Or did I tell Detective Donovan that while I appreciated his desire to make himself a star, I wasn’t sure I was the one to help him?
I decided to approach Kyle and Cassady first, mainly because I could hear her laughing from where I stood and I was anxious to discover what part of this she found amusing. Probably my part, but it was worth confirming. As I walked up to them, she bit her lip guiltily. Kyle was still pretty grim.
“Is it one I’ve heard before?” I asked.
“It’s not even a joke,” Kyle said.
“I’d always thought that pissing contests were about distance, but Kyle was explaining that they’re about duration. It makes so much sense, I don’t know why I didn’t see that a long time ago,” Cassady said, still chuckling.
“You all right?” Kyle asked tersely.
“I’m fine. And I appreciate your coming, even though it wasn’t—”
“Yes, it was necessary. Can we go now?”
Cassady looked at me even more expectantly than Kyle did, reacting to the toughness in his tone. “I can grab Tricia and we’ll talk to you guys later,” she volunteered.
“Sounds good.”
Kyle almost did a double-take, he was so unprepared for my agreement. He knew I still wanted to talk to Detective Donovan, but I knew Detective Donovan wasn’t going to be at all forthcoming in front of Kyle. Besides, Detective Donovan didn’t seem to be following my path of reasoning at all, so I felt under no obligation to offer him my theory. Yet.
“Thanks for joining us, sorry it was so brief,” I said to Cassady as we hugged each other good-bye. “Tell Tricia—”
“Tell her yourself,” Tricia said, walking up behind me.
I turned and looked past her for Detective Donovan, but he had disappeared. “We’re going,” I said.
“Detective Donovan asked me to apologize to all of you and said if he could be of any further assistance, feel free to call him,” Tricia reported, handing me one of the two business cards in her hand. I looked quizzically at the second and she smiled. “This one’s for me,” she said, tucking it into her bag.
“Do you have dinner plans, Tricia?” Cassady asked with a touch too much enthusiasm.
“No, Cassady, I’m free,” Tricia responded in kind.
“These two kids are headed home for the evening, I would hope, so wanna grab a bite with me?”
“That’d be great.” Cassady and Tricia went off, arm-in-arm, to find a cab.
“And then there were two,” I said quietly, mainly because I couldn’t think of anything of substance to say that wasn’t potentially inflammatory.
“Did they leave because of me?” he asked, watching them walk away.
“Of course not, why would they?” I answered sincerely.
“I came in and busted up your party.”
“Didn’t Cassady explain that they came with me precisely
because you said you didn’t trust Donovan, so they wouldn’t let me see him alone?”
“But you still had to see him.” I started to answer, but he held his hand up to stop me. “I want you to write a great article. I tried to stay away. But I thought about you getting mixed up with that cretin and I …” He sighed and looked up and down the street. “Wanna eat around here or closer to home?”
I slipped my arm through his. “We could order in.”
“No, it’s okay. I can be social.”
Good thing, too, because a voice called out my name and we were suddenly shaking hands with Lindsay and her husband as I introduced them to Kyle. They’d just stopped by Ronnie’s office so Lindsay could drop off some artwork and were on their way to eat at Girasole, a little farther north. They invited us to join them. Much as I wanted the opportunity to talk to Lindsay, I was going to politely decline. But Kyle accepted their invitation, much to my surprise and their delight.
The low-ceilinged, warmly glowing restaurant was a great place to talk and I was pleased Lindsay wanted to. “I’m so glad we ran into you,” Lindsay said, reaching across the table to pat my hand once we were settled in. The charm on her bracelet clinked against the tabletop and I seized the opportunity.
“Such a beautiful bracelet.”
She caught the charm in her right hand, as though apologizing for the sound. “I love it. It means so much, especially now that he’s gone.”
“I’m surprised Tessa hasn’t made a point of getting hers back from the jeweler. Wouldn’t you miss yours?”
Lindsay snuck a look at her husband, who was explaining his work at Rising Angels to Kyle. “I really would,” she said, dropping her voice.
“Is that a secret?”
“Daniel doesn’t like the bracelet. He calls it my sterling shackle, says it’s a symbol of servitude. Daniel’s a little anti-authority.”
“But he’s a lawyer.”
“Was a lawyer. Because he wanted to save the world. He’s much happier in a nonprofit environment where he’s calling the shots and seeing tangible evidence of his work. Which helps balance the fact that it’s the same hours for half the pay.” She made a face that she probably intended as wry, but it looked pretty weary.
I glanced at Daniel myself. “You work pretty hellacious hours, too, I bet.”
“Usually. I’ll probably go back to the office after we eat. But I love it. It’s just hard because I’m trying to compete—I mean, keep up with the rest of the group and they don’t have the obligations I have. And once we start a family …” She trailed off, glancing over at Daniel. I expected it to be one of those longing looks of love that make single women gnash their teeth, but it was a look of pained sadness.
I’ve seen that look before, so I stepped carefully into delicate territory. “Are you hoping to start soon?”
Lindsay looked back at me quickly, smiling with effort. “Hoping. Trying. Praying. The whole range.”
I nodded sympathetically, having watched friends struggle with doctor’s appointments and ovulation predictors and cruel calendars. “Does it qualify as irony,” Cassady asked once, “that all our single friends are praying not to get pregnant while all our married friends are praying to conceive?”
Lindsay took a deep breath. “So where are the two of you on the whole range?”
I laughed in surprise. “I’m not sure we can even see the range from here.”
“Really? You truly have that ‘great couple’ vibe.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to figure out how to get the conversation back to her and the Harem and as far away from my romantic future as possible. “You guys do, too,” I said, desperate for a segue, then pressed on before she could respond. “So at work, you’re the only one who’s married, but aren’t any of the rest of them in relationships?”
She shrugged. “Some of them are, but the job always comes first. My father used to tell me, ‘Never work for a
man who doesn’t want to go home at night.’ Women who aren’t anxious to get home are even worse.” She smiled, but there was a startling edge to her pronouncement and I could imagine more than a few testy exchanges between her and some of her cohorts. She seemed to catch the edge herself because her smile and voice both lightened as she said, “I think the real reason Tessa hasn’t gotten her bracelet back is because she had such a rough time drinking for her charm.”
“Drinking for it?”
“It was this bizarre game Garth had us play at the party. When we unwrapped our bracelets, the charms were separate. He dropped each charm in a champagne glass and we had to drain it and come up with the charm in our teeth without spilling anything. If you didn’t get it all in one move, you had to do it again and again.”
“And, like any good drinking game, it gets harder the more you try because you’re getting blitzed.”
“Tessa wasn’t just blitzed, she got sick. In front of everybody. Garth picked on her about it for days afterward and she didn’t take it well. Things were kind of prickly between them for a while.”
“I can imagine.” And I did imagine. I pictured Tessa making a mess out of herself, trying to excel at yet another task from the boss, and failing at this one to the point of embarrassment. And then I remembered Tricia getting hit with the champagne glass to her mouth and wondered what might have happened to her front teeth had she had a sterling silver charm between them at the time. Then I imagined Tessa again, this time exacting revenge on a man who had humiliated her by hitting him in the face while he tried to drink for his charm. Which would be exceptionally hard to do with someone pointing a gun at his head or his crotch.
The urge to leave the table was overwhelming, but I didn’t know where to go. Could I come up with a reason to track Tessa down? Could I enlist Lindsay’s help to do that? Should I compare notes with Detective Donovan? Should I tell Kyle I had a headache and ask him to take me home? Or
should I sit there and pretend that this was no more interesting or shocking than anything else Lindsay had said, lest she get suspicious and somehow alert Tessa?
I decided to stay put, let the idea percolate, and see what else I could get Lindsay to divulge.
“Had Tessa and Garth made up when he died?” I asked, trying to sound not much more than politely interested.
“I think so, but still—I’d bet that when she looks at the bracelet now, it brings back the negative as much as the positive. That would be hard.” She rubbed her own charm between her fingers, an automatic gesture I’m not sure she was aware of. She frowned suddenly. “You won’t put any of this in your article about Gwen, will you?”
“No,” I said, figuring it was the truth because if I was right, the article wasn’t going to be about Gwen anymore. “Do you think you’ll all stay together once Gwen and Ronnie have things running smoothly?”
She thought about that for a moment and my ears drifted over to check on the guys, who were discussing music. “I really don’t know. I think some of them are hoping things will be different, that we’ll be less equal, you know?” Lindsay said after a moment.
“More personal recognition?” I asked, thinking of Wendy’s Borg comment.
“I think the team’s more important, but that’s not a very popular point of view. Especially with Gwen and Ronnie coming in, everyone’s jockeying for position.” She cut herself off, tucking her bracelet into her sleeve, then folding her hands on the table.
“Tessa seemed to be setting the tone this morning,” I said, trying to ease the conversation back to her again.
Lindsay paused again, fingers slipping up her sleeve to adjust the bracelet again, and smiled. “Can’t hold her champagne, but otherwise, Tessa’s strong. She got us all focused again after Garth died, helped Gwen make the transition. She’s still a step ahead of everyone. We’ll just have to catch up.”
Kyle threw his arm over the back of my chair, startling me. “Can you believe this?” For a split second, I had the absurd notion that Kyle and Daniel had been talking about the murder, too, and Kyle had reached the same conclusion I had. But I knew better. Still, what could the problem be?
“What’s wrong?” Lindsay asked, taking Daniel’s hand.

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