Loose Screws (9 page)

It's now nearly noon. I've made my dreaded calls to cancel my appointments, sidestepping the real reason for standing up my clients—as per Nick's instructions—by alluding to a personal emergency. Which wasn't exactly a lie, since, although the situation clearly had more of an impact on Brice than it did me, I was definitely facing a real emergency.

My stomach growls—the latte is long gone, and I hadn't eaten breakfast. Carole's in with Nick now; I decide the world won't collapse if I run down to the restaurant on the corner and snag a sandwich to bring back with me. The sergeant at the desk has other ideas.

“Uh, no, Lt. Wojowodski says you're to stay put until he's done with you.”

I sigh. “Can I order in?”

His face screws up for a second, then says, “Yeah, I s'pose so.” He pushes a couple of mangled photocopied menus in my direction. “Here. Live.”

I pick a deli a couple blocks away, order a roast beef on rye with mustard and a cherry Coke, then decide to order another sandwich and a coffee for Nick. Why, I have no
idea. Just one of those seize-the-moment kind of things. And, natch, I no sooner hang up the phone when Carole emerges from the interview room and Nick gestures me inside.

“I'll call you when your food comes,” the sergeant says, and I nod.

“Have a seat,” Nick says as I enter, so I do. Again, we're talking boringly typical, here. Table, couple of chairs, a two-way mirror. At least the air-conditioning is decent, for which I'm very grateful.

Nick sits down on the other side of the table, flipping over a page in his notepad. I frown.

“You look beat,” I say, and his head snaps up. Then he drags one hand down his face, muffling a wry laugh.

“They called me in at five-thirty. I wasn't supposed to be on duty until eight, but with summer vacations and everything, they're short-handed. I'd just gotten to sleep around three-thirty, four.”

“Up because of another case?”

After a far-too-lengthy pause, he says, “No.”

Heat stings my cheeks. “Oh,” I say, completely unable to stop the images that flash through my head. So I clear my throat and say, “Am I under suspicion for real this time?”

Nick's expression turns just this side of blank. “No more than anybody else who worked for Fanning. This is just a preliminary investigation. Information gathering, y'know?” He straightens. “Although I can't prevent you from having an attorney sit in on this with you, if you want.”

I laugh. “Let's see…do I own a gun? No. Do I even know how to fire a gun? No. Was I anywhere around 78th Street at the time of the murder? No, again.”

A half smile tilts one side of Nick's mouth. “This guy have any family that you know of?”

Something—his lack of enthusiasm, maybe—tells me Nick's asked these questions a dozen times already. “Never heard him mention anyone, although I don't suppose that means anything.”

“No.”

“There were lovers, I know, but nothing long-term.” I hesitate. “I suppose you know he was gay?”

“Yeah, kinda figured that out from the earlier interviews. You know any of these lovers' names or their whereabouts?”

“Haven't a clue. Brice never…entertained during work hours. He didn't keep his homosexuality a secret, but he didn't make an issue of it, either. I guess he figured it wasn't anybody's business but his own.”

More notes. Then, “You know anybody who might have it in for him?”

“As in, an enemy?”

“That'll do.”

“Well, nobody liked him much, if that's what you're asking.”

He writes that down. “Did you?”

“Hell, no. He was a total jerk.”

His gaze meets mine. “That could be incriminating, you know.”

“Like I'm worried. Look, he treated his clients like gold and his employees like dirt, and everyone in the industry knew it. Maybe he didn't have any actual enemies, but he sure as hell didn't have many friends, either.”

He nods, as if he's heard this before. “How long have you worked for him?”

“Seven years.”

Nick narrows his eyes at me. “You worked seven years for a man you didn't like? Why?”

I shrug. “The money. The prestige. A healthy survival instinct.”

A knock on the door interrupts us; it's the sergeant, saying my food's here. I go out, pay the delivery man, bring the bag back inside.

“I got you a roast beef on rye,” I say, emptying the contents of bag onto the table, “and a coffee. Hope that's okay.” The resulting silence makes me lift my head. “What?” I say to the obviously dumbfounded male in front of me.

“You got me lunch?”

“Yeah. So?”

“Why?”

“Because it's lunchtime and I figured you were probably hungry?”

He continues to stare at me, then cracks a grin. “You tryin' to influence an officer of the law?”

“No. Trying to feed one.” I push the wrapped sandwich toward him. “There's a pickle, too. Which I'll take if you don't want it—”

“No, no, I like pickles.” He stares at the sandwich, much like Adam must have the apple.

“Hey.” I lean over, nudge the sandwich an inch closer. “I'm Jewish
and
Italian. You don't stand a chance.”

After a moment, another slow grin slides across his face. Chuckling, Nick unwraps the sandwich, takes a huge bite. “You know—” he manages to say with his mouth full “—if you turn out to be the perp, I'm gonna be real ticked at you.”

The interview lasts another ten minutes, maybe. I tell Nick what I know about Brice and his life, which isn't much. Slouched back in his chair, silently chewing, he watches me—for telltale body language would be my guess—occasionally jotting down something I say. Something tells me he's good at what he does. Dedicated. Focused. I sure as shootin' wouldn't want to do it, but I have to admire his selflessness.

Suddenly he leans back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest. “Okay, that's it.”

“We're done?”

“For now.”

I reach behind me to unhook my purse from the back of the chair. “Hey,” Nick says softly. “You okay?”

His expression, when I turn back around, is thoughtful. “More or less,” I say. “I still think I'm maybe a little in shock, that it hasn't sunk in yet.”

“I'm not talkin' about this. I'm talking about the other.”

“Oh…that.” My hand drifts up to fiddle with my hair, then I shrug. “I'm coping. Or at least I was until a few hours ago. But, hey—” I spread my hands “—life goes on, right?”

He grunts.

“What about you?” I try a smile. “I guess you're doing okay in the romance department, huh?”

“C'mon,” he says, getting to his feet. “I'll see you out. You at the same place, if we need to get in touch with you again?”

“Oh. Um, sure.” For some reason, his dismissal throws me off balance, although I recover enough to give him my cell phone number, which he scribbles on the next blank page along with my name.

We walk down the short hallway to the front desk in silence, in front of which a uniform is struggling mightily to hang on to a wriggling, snarling, furry sausage with twin radar screens on its head.

“Hey, Lieutenant—be
still,
you stupid mutt!—we found this in Fanning's apartment. Scared to death, damn thing nearly took off my hand when I tried to catch him.”

“Ohmigod!” I say on a gasp. “It's Geoffrey! Brice's corgi!”

Relieved brown doggy eyes meet mine. But with a slight edge. Sort of a cross between
Thank God
and
It's about damn time.

“You know this dog, lady?”

“Of course I do.” I reach for the dog, whose enormous ears immediately tuck against his skull like a pair of dragon wings. Nick grabs my wrist, yanks back my hand a second before Geoff's tongue makes contact.

“Jesus, Ginger—you wanna lose a finger?”

“Honestly, you'd think
you'd
know a submissive pose when you saw it,” I say, twisting my hand from Nick's grasp. I go for the dog again, who has turned into a shuddering blur in anticipation of sympathetic human contact. “I'd forgotten all about him!” I turn to Nick. “Brice used to bring him down to work with him sometimes.” I look back at the poor orphaned creature, who is slathering my hand with hot dog spit and giving me one of those I'll-do-anything-you-say-just-don't-send-me-to-the-pokey looks.

Uh-oh.

“He looks like an irradiated rat,” Nick observes. Geoff growls. Took the words right out of my mouth.

“You got any idea what we should do with him?” Since the officer is looking straight at Nick when he asks this, there is no reason for me to feel that the question is somehow directed at me. “Y'know, until we find out if the victim had indicated any preference as to the dog's disposition?”

I just keep scratching Geoff behind the ears, refusing to look at anybody else.

“I suppose the best thing would be to just keep him at the pound until we find out,” Nick says.

The officer looks at me. Nick looks at me. The two vagrants seated on the bench five feet away look at me.

And don't even ask me what the dog is doing.

“Stop staring at me like that!” I snap, at the dog mostly, but I make sure everybody else gets their fair share of my annoyance, as well. “Hey,” I said to Geoff, “the pound is great, you know? You'll get fed every day and there's all those delicious doggy smells and everything. And it won't be forever. Just until they find out who Brice wanted to get you….”

I feel myself falling into those limpid, pleading brown eyes. And I can hear the questions: What if the keeper is mean? What if the food sucks? What if nobody cleans my pen and I have to sleep with my own poop?

“It's going to be fine,” I say, because I think I really need to hear those words right now and nobody else seems to be forthcoming. “After all, this is a New York City agency, right? What could possibly go wrong?”

Out of my sightline, somebody laughs. And Geoff slowly lowers his little chin onto the cop's arm and just…stares.

No.
No.
Okay, so maybe I always wanted a dog, but God knows I do not need one now, not even temporarily. My life is a shambles, I just lost my job, I like the option of being able to sleep past 7:00 a.m. if I want to….

And will you be able to sleep at all knowing that if somebody slips up, somewhere along the line, Geoff could accidentally get sent to pooch heaven?

The dog gives a heartfelt sigh. Almost as heartfelt as the one I give immediately afterward.

“You guys got a piece of rope or something I could use for a leash?”

Three people take off like a shot to do my bidding. A minute later someone thrusts an actual leash into my hands, although one clearly designed for an elephant.

I hook the lead to the dog's collar; we walk outside, the leash dragging between us like the chains on Marley's ghost. Geoff doesn't seem to mind. In fact, now that his immediate needs have been met, he doesn't seem too torn up over Brice's death, either.

Nick frowns down at the dog. “Are his ears supposed to be that big?”

The dog looks up at me. “Ignore the clueless man,” I say, then squint at the clueless man. “Well, I guess we'll be moseying along….”

“Hey, listen…would you like to maybe go get a cup of coffee or something sometime?”

My brows go up. “As in, a date?”

“As in, a cup of coffee.”

Nick's eyes are even bluer in the daylight. With that beard shadow, he looks positively dangerous.

I glance away, the heat and sun stinging my eyes. Geoff tugs on the leash. “Just a second,” I say irritably, and the dog heaves a sigh, flopping down in the scrap of shadow at Nick's feet.

“It's about whoever kept you up—” I blush “—until 4:00 a.m.?”

“Dammit,” he mutters under his breath. “What is it with women that they assume if a man asks them to have a cup of coffee with him, it means he's coming on to them?”

“Oh, I don't know…experience?”

That gets an exasperated sigh. “Okay. You just bought me lunch. Did that mean you were making a play for
me?
”

“Of course not! That was just a…a friendly gesture.”

“So how is this any different?”

“Because it just…is.” I cannot believe he doesn't get this. “Hey, I didn't make up the rules. But I do know what they are.”

He crosses his arms. “And some rules don't make any sense.”

“You really expect me to believe you just—
just
—want to be my friend?”

“Yeah. What's so strange about that?”

I manage not to roll my eyes. “Uh-huh,” I say. “You can really look at me and not think of sex.”

“I really can,” he says, too quickly, which somehow doesn't reassure me the way I think it should.

“I see.”

“Oh, for chrissakes…”

“What?”

“You should see the look on your face, like I just insulted you.” His mouth gets all twisted up. “A guy cannot win, you know that? If he lets a woman know he thinks she's hot, she goes off on one of those ‘men just want one thing' tirades. If he says he's
not
attracted to her, she gets all depressed and wonders what's wrong with her. No matter what we do, we're screwed.”

Had to admit, he had me on that one. “So…what
does
it mean, if a man says he's not attracted to a woman?” I mean, God knows, I've heard that enough in my life. Figured, seeing's as Nick seems to have pondered the subject in some depth, I might as well get some insight.

“It means
he's
not attracted to
her.
You know, because maybe the timing's not right, or he's got somebody else…whatever. Doesn't mean she's not attractive.” Although this is accompanied by a sheepish grin and a half shrug. “Necessarily.”