Double Dog Dare

by E J Cochrane

  “Where’s Leigh?” Kat asked.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “So you’re not with her?”

  “Not tonight.”

  “Are you guys—”

  “We’re just friends,” Maddie clarified, and Kat’s posture immediately relaxed.

  “I saw you together last night, and I wasn’t sure. You know how Leigh is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know, she drinks too much and then ends up with people she shouldn’t end up with.”

  Ignoring for the moment both her impending nausea at the thought of sleeping with one of her friends and the implication that Maddie could be a worse option for Leigh (or anyone on the planet) than Kat, she forged ahead. “Does that happen often?” Kat snorted into her already half-empty beer, a reaction Maddie took to mean yes. “She was never like that in college. I wonder when she changed.”

  Kat’s glare couldn’t have said “Are you really this stupid?” any more clearly than if she’d actually spoken the words.

  “I know she’s been having a hard time because of Lindsey.”

  “Bitch,” Kat spat the word and drained her glass. Maddie signaled to Kittens for another.

  “Not a fan?”

  “Let’s just say Leigh’s relationship wasn’t the only one Lindsey trashed.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Maddie said. She gave Kat’s arm a reassuring squeeze, and wondering if sympathy was the right angle, decided to leave her hand on Kat’s arm.

  “She was a selfish bitch.” Kat shrugged dismissively, as if to suggest she’d gotten over it.

  “Still, it hit Leigh pretty hard.” She tried to swing the conversation back around to where she wanted it.

  “You mean when she died?” Maddie had meant the breakup but didn’t see a problem with this slight detour. It wouldn’t be too challenging to segue from Lindsey’s suicide to Terry’s murder. “I can’t say I’m sorry she’s gone, but what a way to die. And poor Leigh. She’s hurting so much right now, but hopefully soon she’ll see she’s better off.”

  “In what way?” She tried to keep the judgment from her voice, but it wasn’t easy.

  “She still thought she stood a chance of getting back together with Lindsey, and she was never going to move on as long as she was in the picture. It’s horrible that it had to come to this, of course, but now maybe she’ll start seeing her options.”

  Certain Kat saw herself as one of those options, Maddie shook her head in amazement. She wanted to get away from this callous woman, but she still had questions she hoped Kat could answer. She opened her mouth to steer the conversation back to the information she really wanted, but the words died on her lips thanks to Nadia’s sudden presence beside her.

  “What’s going on here?” Nadia glanced at Maddie’s hand on Kat’s arm, and seeing how things looked from Nadia’s perspective, a wave of unwarranted guilt washed over Maddie.

  “You made it.” Hoping they could skip past Maddie’s perceived betrayal, she stood to kiss Nadia, who dodged her. Rebuffed, she sank back onto her barstool and wondered how she would fix this.

  “I thought you were here with Dottie.”

  “I am. She’s right over there.” She pointed helpfully in the direction of Dottie’s flock. “And as you can see, she’s a little bit preoccupied at the moment.” But Nadia didn’t see. She never averted her angry eyes from Maddie.

  “So you just wandered off to grope the first stranger you could find?”

  “She wishes I was desperate enough to let her grope me,” Kat sneered.

  “You’d be lucky if she did.” Nadia inexplicably rose to the defense of her allegedly untrustworthy date. Maddie couldn’t decide if she should feel more alarmed by her possessive jealousy or pleased by the fact that she’d been vindicated.

  “Whatever.” Kat rolled her eyes and, grabbing her beer, sauntered off to the back of the bar, leaving Maddie to deal with Nadia’s rapidly shifting emotions. She didn’t know where to begin. It was little consolation that she didn’t have to.

  “This is an unexpected side of you.” Nadia turned on her once they were alone.

  “I could say the same. What just happened?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure.” Nadia sank into the seat vacated by Kat and ran her hands through her hair. “It was a crappy day, and I was really looking forward to being with you. Then I got here and saw you with your hands all over that woman—”

  “One hand,” Maddie corrected. “And it was on her arm—hardly an erogenous zone.”

  “Why was it there?” The dismay in Nadia’s eyes tore at Maddie.

  “She was telling me about a rough breakup, and I thought she could use some sympathy.”

  “So I completely overreacted?”

  “Maybe a little.” She gave Nadia’s hand a gentle squeeze. While she couldn’t say she considered jealousy the most appealing character trait, she found Nadia’s earlier display oddly flattering. Nevertheless, she decided never to tell Nadia about her almost dinner with Murphy.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just—I just got you back. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  “I don’t want that either,” Maddie said and moved in for the kiss she didn’t get earlier.

  She knew they should talk more—about Nadia’s perplexing possessiveness and all the secrets Maddie kept. She knew ignoring their issues would only make them harder to deal with when they returned (and she had no doubt they would), but something about Nadia banished everything but physical need. Forgetting common sense and her own more modest nature, she grabbed Nadia’s shirtfront and pulled her in for a deeper kiss. If her whimper was any indication, she didn’t object to this forceful side of Maddie. In fact, she seemed ready to devour her, and Maddie was ready to let her.

  “Maddie, you can’t just go around kissing people in bars.”

  “Oh god.” Maddie buried her face in her hands. Meanwhile, Harriet, apparently finished with pool and free martinis and flirtatious lesbians, loomed over the recently oblivious couple.

  “Not even if it’s her girlfriend?” Nadia asked, more playful than hostile.

  “When did you get a girlfriend?”

  “Last night,” Maddie admitted.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “For this exact reason,” she muttered but had no time to say anything further.

  “Nadia, dear.” Dottie joined the multitude of onlookers, deepening the blush that engulfed Maddie’s entire head. This was probably why she never dated. “So good to see you again.”

  “You’re Nadia? The Nadia?” Harriet jumped back in but gave a flustered Nadia no time to respond. “This explains the extreme moping. Are you back for real or just long enough to make my sister sad again?”

  “This is your sister?” Nadia asked.

  Maddie dropped her head onto the bar. “Somebody get me a drink.”

  “I’d love one myself, but Carlisle has hijacked the bartender.”

  She lifted her head long enough to glance down the bar where a hyperattentive Kittens poured a glass of Maddie’s favorite bourbon for a demurely smiling Carlisle.

  “Perfect,” she groaned again and surrendered to the inevitable chaos of her worlds colliding—without the soothing effects of alcohol.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Harriet told me she met your lady friend.”

  Granny’s call interrupted Maddie’s total lack of progress in Leigh’s case. Considering that all of her effort the night before had gotten her absolutely nowhere, she had renewed her efforts to contact Terry’s friends and family—no small task given that her only source of information was names listed in an obituary that rivaled The Odyssey in length. Then she had to hunt down individual contact information (and really, the Internet could only get her so far), hope she found the right Michael Jones or Mary Smith in a sea of Michael Joneses and Mary Smiths, and finally convince these people to talk to her. It was an arduous (and in most cases fruitless) task, one she would be more tha
n happy to wash her hands of.

  Hearing from her grandmother would have been a welcome distraction had the conversation not started on a touchy subject about which Granny sounded so prickly. Though Maddie did not want to dissect her tenuous love life with Granny Doyle, she suspected she had little choice in the matter and less hope of redirecting the conversation. Once Granny seized something, she rarely let go. Still, she wanted to try to soothe her grandmother and downplay this discussion at the same time.

  “Purely by accident,” Maddie offered in an attempt to appease Granny.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you ashamed of her or us?” Granny snapped, and Maddie wished she’d thought her comment through. Clearly she had upset her grandmother through no fault of her own. Had it been up to her, Harriet and Nadia still wouldn’t have met. No matter, an upset Granny was not how she wanted to start her day. “I should think you’d want her to meet your family if she matters to you.”

  Maddie bit her tongue. Now that her dander was up, Granny would take almost anything she said the wrong way. She had no chance of winning.

  “Of course I want her to meet you.” Preferably after she and Nadia had more time to sort out last night’s misunderstanding and following the strenuous efforts to prepare her for the onslaught that could be her family (the minutest glimpse of which she’d already gotten thanks to Harriet).

  “Then I’ll expect you for dinner.”

  “Wait. What?” She couldn’t believe she’d walked into that.

  “You heard me, child.”

  “I heard you, but it’s kind of short notice.” And not at all what she had in mind for a third date.

  “What does she have going that she can’t take time to eat?”

  “Granny, Nadia works long hours. Sometimes she doesn’t get home until after eight o’clock. That’s too late for dinner.”

  “Then bring her for dessert.”

  She should have known a pesky thing like Nadia’s availability wouldn’t stand in Granny’s way. “I’ll see if she can make it, but I’m not promising anything.”

  “Just tell me what kind of pie she likes, and I’ll expect you at eight fifteen.”

  Exasperated, Maddie hung up the phone. Though she knew she should return to her futile efforts at detective work before her walkers showed up for the day, she felt she needed to warn Nadia as soon as possible, giving her the rest of the day to invent a believable excuse and reschedule with Granny, several weeks in the future if possible.

  “I hope you like pie,” she said when Nadia answered her phone.

  “You’re making me a pie?” Nadia was understandably confused.

  “Even better, my grandmother is making you a pie, which we are expected to enjoy with her tonight. Unless you don’t want to. I can find some excuse.”

  “And disappoint your grandmother? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “You don’t want me to try to get out of it?”

  “Well, I could be wrong, but I’m guessing your grandmother is as, um, strong-willed as her granddaughter, so it won’t be easy to change her mind.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “And I would like to meet her. She is partially responsible for us dating.”

  “In much the same way clocks are responsible for the passing of time.” She felt flabbergasted by the turn this conversation had taken. Of all the ways she thought Nadia might react, eager acceptance had not been an option. “You’re really all right with this?”

  “I really am. I’ve never dated a woman with such an invested family before.”

  “They can be a bit much,” she replied apologetically.

  “I like it. It’s nice they’re so accepting. I’m more accustomed to people wondering what the neighbors will think, so this is kind of nice in a mildly terrifying way.”

  “You are something else,” she said, her thoughts already turning over Nadia’s comment as she ended the call.

  Thanks to Nadia’s apparently rocky dating history, Maddie realized she’d neglected an easier path to information about Terry and kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner. Flipping through her notes, she found the name of Terry and Lindsey’s neighbor, the one she’d heard had not been a fan of Terry. If living in one of the more sociable areas of the city had taught her anything, it was that neighbors knew one another and talked. Unhappy neighbors talked more. Her recent association with Lester Parrish was testament to that. It was time for her to pay a visit to Esther Snodgrass.

  Though she’d considered her options throughout the day (even bouncing ideas off the animals in her care, who as it turned out, had no advice on human interactions), she wasn’t sure how she’d manage to talk to Esther. While she knew what building the woman lived in, her home could be any of the hundreds of units in that high-rise, and it wasn’t like she could go knocking on every door until she found the right one. Beyond that, other than her name and her distaste for a couple of dead women, she knew nothing about her. How could she possibly schmooze her way into this woman’s world? Not that she wouldn’t try. The attempt seemed preferable to making a thousand cold calls to strangers. But she doubted she would make it past the first obstacle in her path: the doormen at these high rises, who had historically never found it difficult to resist her total lack of charm. If she thought for a second Dottie was available and not a little peeved with her over the previous night’s failed mission, she would recruit her gregarious friend for this smooth-talking operation. For now, she would hold off on any further damage to her friendship.

  In the gap between her walk with Tabs Stewart and her visit with the feline Murphys (her final stop of the day), she took a small detour to the building where Lindsey had died and where Esther Snodgrass still lived. Fingers crossed, she hoped she would get more for her trouble than a bit of exercise. She cruised past the building once, still trying to decide the best approach to the doorman and Mrs. Snodgrass. In a perfect world, Esther would have a dog she could offer to walk, giving her a foot in the door. And if Esther was anything like her neighbors, once she was engaged in conversation, it wouldn’t be too hard to get Esther to talk about her neighbors.

  But for all she knew Esther hated animals and didn’t care much for chitchat either. If that was the case, she would have to be more direct and hope that Esther answered her questions, assuming she could even get in to see her, which was a rather large assumption. She probably would have been better off calling Mrs. Snodgrass, but since she was already at her building, she thought she might as well try to finagle a face-to-face conversation.

  Turning back around, she dismissed her nerves, determined to make the best of the situation. So focused was she on her internal pep talk that she failed to notice the person walking toward her until she was right on him. Her apology died on her lips as she stared up into the irritated gaze of Detective Fitzwilliam. As usual he looked about as happy as if he’d spent the last day and a half digesting a cactus.

  “Miss Smithwick.” He used the same incorrect pronunciation of her name he’d insisted on since their initial encounter. “Just out for a walk, or are you trying to complicate my life again?”

  “Neither, actually. I’m hoping to meet a potential new client in the building.” She offered a thinly stretched version of the truth and felt no guilt about it. If her machinations somehow managed to net her information that cleared Leigh (and possibly even pointed to the real killer), she was actually doing Fitzwilliam a favor.

  “How nice for you,” he drawled, his disinterest palpable. “I hope the dogs will keep you busy enough to stay out of police work. The last thing I need is a helpful citizen getting in the way.”

  “Not to worry, Detective Fitzwilliam. I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”

  “Again,” he added, and she wrestled with the choice commentary that lurked within her. The only thing that would get her was unwanted scrutiny from him.

  “Right. Again,” she agreed.

  “Keep it that way, Miss Smithwick.”

  She ground h
er teeth at his habitual abuse of her name. Was it really that difficult to say “Smiddick”? She didn’t think so. She’d been doing it since childhood.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have legitimate detective work to tend to.” He turned to go, missing her indignant expression, but before he got far, a tiny, bespectacled, silver-haired woman in a blue polyester dress came scuttling out the door, calling his name and waving frantically. In one hand she carried a plastic food container.

  “Mr. Fitzwilliam!” Maddie exulted in Fitzwilliam’s flinch at the “mister.” “You forgot your coffee cake.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Snodgrass.” He looked about as happy to accept it as he would a hug from a boa constrictor. He took the proffered container and continued on his way.

  She felt no surprise that he couldn’t muster any happiness about receiving baked goods from a sweet old lady. He probably spent his entire December tripping mall Santa Clauses. But his habitual irascibility aside, she celebrated the uncommon luck that had planted Esther Snodgrass in her path, no subterfuge required.

  “Excuse me.” She approached the older woman. “Are you Esther Snodgrass?”

  “Yes dear.” Esther, apparently pleased at being recognized, beamed and clapped her now empty, age-spotted hands together. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Matilda Smithwick. I was hoping you had a minute to talk.”

  Esther looked instantly flustered, as if she had asked her to choose between oxygen and food. “Jeopardy is about to start. Will this take long?”

  “I promise to be quick, Mrs. Snodgrass.”

  “What is this about, dear?”

  Instantly deciding the road to information was paved with deceit, she asked, “Do you have any pets?”

  Her eyes lit up, and Maddie (feeling only momentarily guilty) knew she’d made the right call. “Thelma and Louise are my babies,” Esther gushed. “Oh, I wish I could show you some pictures.”

  “Better yet, you could introduce us,” Maddie suggested, simultaneously hoping that Esther Snodgrass was and was not gullible enough to invite a complete stranger into her home on the string-thin connection of a professed interest in animals.