Swept Up (4 page)

Cal pulled me into his arms and kissed me.  He kissed me hard and long.  “Listen you crazy, infuriating woman, I wasn’t going to scold you.”

“You weren’t?”

“No.  I know—just like Randolph obviously knows—that you’re going to do what you’re going to do, whether I like it or not.  But Quincy, this one’s dangerous.  Whoever murdered Mellie Adams wanted the cops looking at you.”

I nodded.  “Yes.  That’s what I said to Charlie.  I think whoever killed Mellie put the Mortie there with purpose. I don’t think it was the murder weapon.  I didn’t see any blood, and her head didn’t look bashed in like Mr. Bannings.” It was sad that I knew what a bashed in head looked like. 

“
I think it’s a distraction,” I continued.  “The killer wants the cops looking at me and at my family, or at the movie in order to distract everyone from them and his-or-her motives.”

“The kill
er has already proved he-or-she is dangerous.”

“I know.  I promise I’ll be careful.  I—”

“
We
.”  This time he gave a word emphasis.

“We?”  I didn’t understand.

“Yes, you and me.  I’ve talked to the Chief and I’m taking some personal time.  I’ve banked a lot of vacation, so it’s not a problem.  I’m taking time off and
we
are going to look into this together. Well, I can’t really look into another cop’s investigation, but I’m going to follow you around as you look into it.”

I must have looked as confused as I felt because Cal said,
“I’m not going to try and talk you out of it.  I’m not going to try to convince you to trust Randolph.  He seems like a good cop.  I made some calls and asked around and he’s well respected.  But I’m not willing to trust even the best cop with our friends and family.”

I melted.

We.

Our.

Our
friends and family.

I toyed with the engagement ring I still wore around my neck.  When Cal had proposed to me the Christmas before last, I told him I loved him and I wanted to marry him.  But I needed time.  Time to stand on my own two feet.  Time to figure out who I was and what I wanted.

He gave me that time.

I’d mentioned making our engagement official on our anniversary, but suddenly waiting that long seemed silly.  I didn’t need time to know who I was—who I was was better when Cal was with me. And I didn’t need time to know what I wanted.  I looked at the man standing next to me and knew without a doubt just what I wanted.

I unhooked the clasp on the gold chain and slid the ring off.

Cal didn’t say anything.  He simply watched as I took the ring and handed it to him.  “Cal, will you ask me again to marry you?”

He grinned and sank to one knee. “Quincy Mac, will you marry me?”

I took the ring, slid it on my finger, and practically knocked him over as I threw myself into his arms and cried out, “Yes.”

With my sparkly ring in place on my finger and our kissing done, I looked at him and said, “So after
we
figure out who killed Mellie Adams, we’ll start to plan a wedding.”  I was thinking something small and intimate, but I had a feeling Tiny and my Mom wouldn’t be thinking that at all.

I refused to worry about that now.  I kissed my fiancé—no almost about it.

It might not be the way most people would want to start their official engagement, but it seemed appropriate for us.

Chapter Four

After Charlie finished interviewing everyone who was still at the party, we finally left Jerome’s house, which was now a crime scene. 

My ex said he’d get a hotel with Peri until the house was cleared and they could go back.

I insisted they come stay with me.

Now, I know most people wouldn’t invite their ex and his current wife to stay at their home.  But Peri is one of my best friends, and Jerome and I— 

Well, we’d established we were better off co-parenting than being married.  We’d become friendly over the years.  It worked for us.

Tiny and Sal came over, too.  There are times when a woman needs to be surrounded by friends—this was one of those times. 

I’d asked Dick over as well, but he had a meeting with some media muckety muck about his new show—Every Body, Inc.  He offered to cancel, but let’s face it, there wasn’t anything he could do, so I sent him on his way.  But while I was delighted about how well his show was doing, I did notice the irony of the title, given the fact I’d found yet another body.

On our drive home, I called the boys—thankful they’d left before we found Mellie—and filled them in on what was going on.  “Not again, Mom,” was pretty much the gist of Miles and Eli’s response.  And Hunter said something like that, then added, “Gross.  Just for the record, I’m switching rooms.”

“I’ll tell your dad,” I promised. 

“And I want new furniture.”

“I don’t blame you,” I said. 

Jerome’s house had eight bedrooms, so it wouldn’t be a huge problem for him to let Hunter move into another one.

I told each of the boys I’d like them to write down everything they remembered from the party—even the most minute detail could make a difference.  They said they’d e-mail me their lists.  After I hung up with them, I called my mom’s phone and left a voice message.

By the time we got home, it was lunch. 

Before I found Mellie, I’d planned on going to bed and spending the day there, but I was too wound up for that now.  So I ordered pizzas and the six of us—my best friend and partner, her husband who was a lawyer, my ex and his wife, who was also a good friend and my fiancé and I sat around and went over everything again.

“Quincy, where’s your white-board?” Tiny asked.

I used a white-board like one of my television detective heroine’s,
Brenda Leigh Johnson
from
The Closer
, when I looked for Mr. Banning’s murderer, then again when I tried to figure out who’d stolen clients’ paintings and replaced them with forgeries.  That small mystery I don’t talk about had been at home in Erie and my mother had supplied a white-board for that. 

My white-board had been a star in and of itself in the movie.  The scene where Cilla, playing me, tried to get it in the house was comedic genius.  That’s not me being cocky about my writing, but rather me paying homage to Cilla’s acting talents.

My white-board was tucked up in the shed out back with the boys’ bikes, skis, and other sports equipment.  I thought that’s where it would stay.  To be honest, I didn’t—and don’t—have any interest in becoming a professional amateur sleuth.

But it seems my intentions didn’t matter.  Here I was, back in the thick of it again.  

Cal and Jerome went out to the shed and hauled the white-board back inside.

This time, rather than being relegated to a bedroom, we set it up in the living room. 

I didn’t need to try to hide the white-board from Cal this time.  Nor did I have to hide the fact I was going to look for Mellie’s murderer. 

I watched
Cal clean the dust of the board and felt my heart melt just a bit.

I know, I know, I sound like a romance novel with phrases like
my-heart-melted
, but there it was.  It did.

There were so many things about Cal I loved.  I just added the fact that he believ
ed in me and he was helping me find the murderer to the list.

After the white-board was set up and Cal was sitting next to me, the six of us went to town.  Peri gave us a copy of her guest list.  Then we went online to NMD (Net Movie Data) and pulled info and pictures on everyone who was in the industry.  My printer went full-speed
and as a backup, I sent copies of everyone’s pictures to my cellphone.  I figured I’d have them on hand if I needed them.  Then we put pictures and pertinent info on everyone up on the white-board.

Everyone talked and, in a weird way, seemed to enjoy working together to compile the information.  But once it was together, we stared at the board and the room got quiet, except for the sound of serial yawning.  One person would start one, and slowly the yawn would work its way through all of us.

We stared, serial yawned, and got nowhere.

Frankly, we were all running on fumes. 

“This is ridiculous,” I finally said.  “None of us has slept since night before last.  We’re not going to get anywhere this way.  Let’s call it a night.”

My ring must have caught Tiny’s eye because she squealed and grabbed my hand.  Then Peri joined her.  Sal and Jerome took a step back.

“When?” Tiny asked.

“Tell us everything,” Peri commanded.

“While Cal and I were waiting for Charlie to finish the interviews at your house, I realized that life was short and I didn’t want to be without him, so—”

“Wait, are you telling me you finally made your engagement official at a murder scene?” Tiny asked.

I nodded.  It seemed romantic at the time, but when she put it like that, it didn’t.

The engagement news took some time to play out.  Peri and Tiny were already discussing my wedding plans.  I shot Cal a help-me look.  He just shifted closer to Jerome and Sal. 

Cowards.

“Really, we all need to get some sleep,” I said.

They both did stop, much to my surprise.

Tiny hugged me.  “I’m so sorry that you’re in the middle of something like this again.  This shouldn’t have happened to you.  It was your night.  The press is going to have a field day.”

I groaned.  “They definitely are.”

“Don’t come into the office
,” Tiny continued.  “Theresa and I will manage everything there.  And when you get calls, we’ll take names and numbers.  You should probably think about talking to someone in the media.  Throw the press a bone.  And maybe you can make find a way to make the press work for you.  I’ve been reading JD Robb’s series, and her heroine has one reporter friend she works with all the time.  Maybe you need to cultivate a reporter.”

I didn’t plan on being involved in another investigation after this, so I didn’t need to cultivate anyone.

But I said, “That’s a good idea.  Maybe I’ll talk to Charlie and see if there’s someway I can use the press coverage to help the investigation.”

Sal hugged me next.  “Don’t do anything illegal, and if you do, don’t get caught.  But if you do get caught, call me immediately and don’t say anything until I get there.”

I leaned down and kissed his cheek.

Peri and Jerome went to bed in Hunter’s room. 

Cal and I were finally alone in the living room.  I waved my glittery ringed hand at him.  “No second thoughts?”

“About marrying you or about working on this with you?” he asked.
              “Both or either,” I said.

“No doubts at all.” 

We sat on the couch and he wrapped his arm around me. 

It felt like coming home.

I stared at the white-board. 

“I didn’t think I’d ever do this again.  Dick and I were discussing what I should work on next.  I wanted to try my hand at writing a romantic comedy.”

Cal didn’t laugh or say anything about romantic comedy.  Instead he snored softly.

I’d gotten used to that as well this last year—his snoring, not his falling asleep mid-conversation.

I twirled the engagement ring on my finger.

It felt right.

I looked at the man sleeping on the couch next to me.  He felt right.

He’d asked me to marry him on Christmas the year we met…in August.  That was fast.  I’d married fast once.  And while I’d gotten three wonderful sons from that marriage, it hadn’t lasted.

I’d been afraid to trust the feelings I had for Cal. 

It was over a year since he’d asked, and this summer we’d celebrate knowing each other for two years.  And I realized that it wasn’t the amount of time that made me feel confident
that saying yes to marrying Cal was the right thing to do…it was Cal himself.

I loved him so much, and I felt confident he loved me, too.

He was taking time from work to help me figure out who killed Mellie.

For the first time, we were going to work together.

And that felt right, as well.

I leaned down and kissed his forehead.  He woke up and pulled my kiss lower, to his lips.  “Come to bed
,” he said, his voice all
Sam-Elliotty
with sleep.  “We’ll work on this after we’ve had some sleep.”

I didn’t argue.

I followed the man I loved—the man I was going to marry—to bed.  I’d start interviewing people who were at the party myself after I got some sleep.

After-I-got-some-sleep
was three hours later.

Jerome and Peri were still in bed.  So was Cal.

I was wearing a pair of sweats, and a sweatshirt that Peri had made up for the cast of
Steamed
.  It had a picture of Cilla in a French maid’s outfit, her well-manicured fingers clutching a feather duster.  The caption read,
Cleaning is Murder on a Manicure.

I studied the three-page guest list.  I knew my family and friends wouldn’t kill a fly and had no motive for murdering Mellie.  I started crossing them off. 

When I was done I looked at the much shorter list.  The people who were left were mainly the cast of the movie and the caterers from Honey’s restaurant,
Psst
.  

If you’d asked me before the Mortie Award Ceremony who I thought was capable of murder, I’d have said Mellie—hands down. 

Without a doubt. 

She was a megalomaniac.  She hated that she was playing a secondary character. She really hated that Cilla had been cast to play me. 

Basically, she didn’t seem to like much…other than herself.

Unfortunately, Mellie couldn’t be the murderer.  And though I was pretty sure anyone else in the cast would have liked to have killed her more than once, I didn’t honestly think they had.  But while I’d take my family and friends off my suspect list, I didn’t feel I knew the cast well enough to simply remove them.

So I kept their names in my suspect column.

But that gave me a much shorter list.

Detective Charlie’s pool of suspects was going to be much larger than mine because he couldn’t immediately eliminate my family and friends.  I thought that might give me a better chance of catching the murderer.

Granted, my crossing people off my suspect list like that wasn’t logical.  But I wasn’t a real detective.  I never wanted to be a real detective.  So I didn’t care if my method was logical.  I didn’t care if it was procedure.  I didn’t even care if it made me ditzy.  I just wanted to find out who killed Mellie.  And I was sure that everyone I’d crossed off my list hadn’t done it.

I sent Honey a text and asked for a list of everyone who’d catered the party.

But frankly, they weren’t high on my suspect list.  Why?  Because they didn’t know Mellie well enough to have a motive.  I mean, I’d spent most of my adult life working in a service industry.  I’m sorry to say there are a lot of people like Mellie, but most self-involved people didn’t notice service people.  We were invisible to them.  It’s hard to annoy someone so much they want to kill you if to you they’re invisible.

I was leaning toward someone in the cast.

And that was awful because other than Mellie, I’d liked everyone in the cast.

I pulled up the movie credits on Net Movie Database and rolled the sweatshirt cuff around in my fingers as I stared at the cast list.  Most everyone, while nice to me, hadn’t come to my house.  Cilla and Dylan had.  Cilla spent a week trailing me after she’d signed on to play me in the movie.  We’d become close.

Her husband, Dylan, was cast as Big G.  Despite the fact they were actors, they hadn’t put on airs.  They seemed like a normal, happy couple.  The kind of married couple Cal and might hang out with once we were married.  I reached for the ring on its chain and then realized it was on my finger now. 

I’d start thinking about the wedding after I solved this case.

When I’d investigated Mr. Banning’s case, I’d been anonymous.  No one noticed another maid or caterer. 

When I’d investigated the stolen paintings, I hadn’t been exactly anonymous, but I’d had Dick as my sidekick, playing an insurance investigator.

And my Christmas mystery?  I’d had access because everyone knew me.