Got Your Number ((a humorous romantic mystery))

by Stephanie Bond

  He made a rueful noise in his throat. “It’s not your fault that Seger wasn’t the man you thought he was.”

  “It makes me feel foolish that I could be so blind, though.”

  “Maybe the way he acted around you was the way he wanted to be.”

  “You’re being generous all of a sudden.”

  He shrugged. “Nobody is all good or all bad. Even some of the worst criminals love their mother, or tell bedtime stories to their kids, or buy cream for their cats.”

  Okay, he’d managed to surprise her—and make her feel a tad better.

  “So we know he wasn’t a saint. And that it’s entirely possible one of his students could’ve dropped by and done him in.”

  She told him their theory on how the scarf had made its way to the crime scene.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Maybe we can find someone at the restaurant who saw him pick it up. One thing is sure—if the DA is relying on one of you to turn on the other, he doesn’t have enough evidence to convict.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “You or your lawyer?”

  “My lawyer is a narcoleptic idiot with a good ad agency. I handled everything.”

  He pursed his mouth. “You know an awful lot about the law for someone determined not to have anything to do with it.”

  She smirked.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I wasn’t at the arraignment, but I thought my time would be better spent looking for Cape.”

  “I guess you didn’t find him?”

  His mouth twisted. “No. He probably changed vehicles, maybe his appearance.” He looked over. “No offense, but you should’ve stayed in jail. You’d be safer.”

  “I filed a restraining order on Cape this morning, since I was already at the courthouse,” she said wryly. “And I have my pepper spray.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Is it possible Cape could’ve wrecked my van when he threatened Nell? I didn’t check it.”

  He shook his head. “Surely Nell would have noticed, or the police when they came to make the report.”

  Her laugh was dry. “I’m not overly impressed with the South Bend detectives, although Warner seems okay. But I don’t think they’re going to go out of their way to find another suspect. Did you tell them about Elise?”

  He nodded. “Last night when they were, um, taking you in. But you’re right—they didn’t seem very excited about the prospect of a new lead.”

  “Yet the more I think about it, the more I think she might be involved somehow.”

  “Why?”

  She wet her lips.

  “Dammit, Roxann, tell me.”

  She sighed—she did need a sounding board, and Capistrano was the most solid surface around. “Remember that Nell told me Tammy Paulen was holding something over Angora’s head? Well, it has something to do with a blond wig.”

  “What is it?”

  She waved her hand. “That’s not important, but whoever trashed the van knew about it, and knew that I knew about it. And it makes me think that Frank Cape isn’t in this alone.”

  “So you know what this girl had on your cousin?”

  She looked away. Too painful to think about—she never allowed the memories to fully materialize. Angora probably felt the same, which explained why they always skated around the topic.

  “You were involved in it, too, weren’t you?”

  She kept looking away.

  He dragged his hand over his face. “Okay, whatever it is—would Elise know?”

  “Possibly. If Tammy told her.”

  “They were friends?”

  “I don’t know, but she was going to school here when Tammy died.”

  “But how could Elise get hooked up with Frank Cape?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Okay, then we need to find Elise.”

  “That’s what I was planning to do today.”

  He pulled into the hotel lot and parked. “Oh, you’re working alone now?”

  She nodded and handed him a slip of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “An e-mail address where you can reach Melissa Cape. She’s willing to go to a local courthouse, be sworn in, and answer questions over a videocam about what she knows regarding the robbery. In return, though, she wants her ex-husband’s custody and visitation rights rescinded.”

  He looked up, his mouth parted. She’d succeeded in surprising him.

  “She’s expecting to hear from you,” she said.

  “This is breaking some kind of rule, isn’t it?”

  “Only all of them.”

  He folded the piece of paper in his hand. “Thank you, Roxann. Thank you for Officer Lafferty and his family. We’ll get Cape one way or another.” Then he angled his head and leaned closer. “But if I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to get rid of me.”

  She met his gaze squarely. “You got what you wanted, now you’re off the hook.”

  He sat back and a little laugh escaped him. “You don’t think very highly of yourself, do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that in the beginning, yeah, I wanted information on Melissa Cape, but now… hell, I’m interested.”

  “In the case?”

  “In you, since I have to spell it out.”

  She chewed on her tongue and studied his eyes, the set of his jaw. He was sincere… at the moment. And God, it was tempting to fall for him. But men like Detective Joe Capistrano needed a damsel in distress to whisk off the railroad tracks as the train was barreling down. And when she was out of harm’s way, he’d move on to another case, another damsel. Besides, even if this nightmare ended right now, she had too many issues to work out to be tying herself to a person or a place. Or a… situation.

  “I’m flattered,” she said. “But I don’t think so.”

  One dark eyebrow went up. “You don’t think so? That’s your answer?”

  “Yep,” she said, then lifted the door handle, climbed down, and slammed the door.

  His door slammed and he was right behind her. “Hey.” Then he caught her arm and stopped her. “Hey, I’m sorry. I have lousy timing.”

  “That, too,” she agreed.

  He took the box of junk from her. “But like it or not, I’m not leaving while Cape is still on the loose.”

  She turned and walked toward the hotel. “Suit yourself. As long as you know where I stand. Right now, I want to get a room and take the world’s longest shower.”

  “You’re not going to be able to find a room,” he said. “Not with so many people in town. I had to pull out my badge to get mine.”

  “Will you pull out your badge to get me one?”

  He sighed. “So I can camp outside your door in case our man shows? Look, your clothes are already in my room, and I can keep an eye on you there.”

  She stared.

  “And I won’t… anything.”

  She worked her mouth back and forth. “On one condition.”

  “What?”

  “Help me break into Carl’s house.”

  Chapter 29

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he muttered, pulling next to the curb a few yards away from Dr. Seger’s house. The weather had taken a nasty turn—cold and a steady drizzle of freezing rain. The truck’s antenna was coated with ice, as were the parked cars.

  Roxann pulled on knit gloves and tugged a wool hat down over her ears. “We couldn’t find Elise, so she’s probably long gone. The only way we’ll be able to connect her to Dr. Seger is if we find something in his files—a letter, a picture… something.”

  “I could lose my badge over this.”

  “Stop exaggerating and look small.” She opened the door quietly and slipped out into the frigid darkness. She heard a click, then Capistrano was next to her. The murder had obviously frightened the neighbors because outside security lights blazed, which didn’t help their cause. They moved carefully to the cover of the shadows cast by th
e trees between the sidewalk and the leaf-covered lawns, then walked in the ice-encrusted grass rather than taking a chance on the slick sidewalk. They passed a bundled woman walking a dog, but avoided eye contact.

  “Which door?” she asked as they neared the house, which stood out because it was the only residence in total darkness.

  “Front door,” he murmured. “The trick to breaking and entering is to act as if you’re supposed to be there.” Then he frowned. “Scratch that—I forget who I’m talking to.”

  When they approached the steps, a motion-activated light came on and she practically wet herself.

  “Relax,” he whispered.

  Her heart beat double-time and an uncontrollable shiver traveled through her body. The front door was plastered with yellow “crime scene” stickers. Capistrano was through the ornamental brass lock in less than thirty seconds, then pushed open the door.

  “What if there’s a security alarm?” she whispered.

  “The police wouldn’t bother setting it.” Then he frowned. “Scratch that, too. And stop asking questions.”

  After he closed the door, they stood in the darkness until their vision adjusted, then slipped off their shoes. The air in the house was deadly quiet and cold, with a chemical tang, probably left by forensics. Creepy stuff.

  “His office used to be in the library,” she whispered. “If I remember correctly, it’s ahead and to the left.”

  They found the room, and Capistrano gently removed the police tape across the door. Then he walked the perimeter with a penlight, closing doors and shutters before turning on a desk lamp. She scanned the room, skimming over the carpet where white tape crudely outlined the shape of Carl’s body where it had fallen next to the ottoman. The disturbing crime scene photos flashed ill her mind, but she inhaled and chased them away.

  The room was lined with bookshelves, and studded with nice furniture—a mohair couch, a leather club chair, a massive cherrywood desk. She thought she detected the faintest scent of Carl’s cologne, but she might have imagined it. To think that only two days ago he was alive.

  “You take the desk drawers,” Capistrano said, “and I’ll start on the bookshelves. Leave your gloves on.”

  She nodded, removed her hat, and set to work before she could think about the ethics of rooting through the personal papers of an ethics professor. The bottom drawer was filled with CDs and headphones, so she moved to the next drawer. Receipts and check registers, a calculator, and files for bills—nothing special, unless you counted the sizable charges on his phone bill to 900 numbers. The thought of Carl dialing for sex on top of exploiting female students put a rock in her stomach.

  The other drawers revealed nothing of import—files of class grades and minutes of faculty meetings. She closed the last drawer with a sigh. “Nothing here.”

  “Nothing here yet, either,” he said from the bookshelf. “Why don’t you start on the other end?”

  She did, experiencing a pang of sadness that Carl’s carefully collected volumes would have to be moved to a new home—probably the university library.

  “He had some nice editions,” Capistrano murmured.

  Roxann lifted an eyebrow at his broad back. So his reading repertoire extended beyond commercial thrillers. The man had layers.

  Systematically, she removed each book and flipped through pages to see if Carl had hidden anything inside. For thirty minutes they flipped and shook and reshelved. Then she reached a collection of Shakespeare with spectacular navy spines. She pulled out the first volume and stopped. “Detective. I think I’ve found something.”

  He joined her. “False books?”

  She held the book-inside-the-book she’d removed up to the light. “It’s a journal—1980 to 1985.”

  “More than one,” he said, removing another falsie. “Nineteen eighty-six to 1990.”

  She thumbed through the pages, scanning entries, and realized quickly that some of Carl’s literary efforts were bent toward erotica. She skipped the body-part words to look for names—would he be so bold? Apparently so.

  Janeese L… Carlo B… Marie A.

  “Are there any for 1992 and up?”

  He pulled out the last two volumes. “Yeah. Let’s take these with us.”

  “Isn’t that stealing?”

  “Technically, it’s called burglary. Let’s go.”

  They returned the false books, extinguished the lamp, then opened the shutters and doors. Replacing tape where necessary, they retraced their steps to the front door. He locked the door from the inside, then pulled it shut with a click.

  “Wait,” she said, wincing. “I left my hat.”

  To his credit, Capistrano only sighed. “Stay here, I’ll get it.” He handed her the journals, then broke in for the second time and disappeared inside.

  The bitter cold reminded her why she lived in the south. She shivered and moved from foot to foot to keep the blood flowing.

  She smelled him before she saw him. Then the motion-detector light came on, revealing Frank Cape, his menacing face framed by a black knit cap. Her pepper spray, she realized miserably, was safely tucked in her purse inside the Dooley.

  “Capis—”

  Cape clapped his hand over her mouth, then stuffed a cloth in her mouth. “This is good,” he said, jerking her forward and down the steps. “Thought I was going to have to shoot that guard of yours and leave another body here for the police to find.”

  Her eyes flew wide.

  “Oh, yeah, I killed the teacher man—lot of good it did me. Nobody keeps their word these days.”

  She grunted and fought to release one hand, kicking at his knees with as much leverage as she could gain on the icy ground. “Be still,” he hissed, then slapped her hard. “We’re going to see my wife.”

  Stars burst in her head, and tears streamed down her cheek from repeatedly gagging on the foul-tasting cloth. Her next strategy was to go totally limp, which wasn’t exactly brilliant because then she was easier to drag. She lost a shoe and was fairly certain her shoulder had been dislocated. Though disoriented, she grasped that they were approaching a car with its engine running. He yanked her upright and released one arm long enough for her to pull out the gag and scream, although it came out a weak gurgle. She elbowed him in the nose, and he emitted a gratifying grunt. But then he cursed and pulled out an automatic handgun. “You just don’t learn, do you?”

  For one terrifying second, she thought he was going to shoot her, but he raised it over her head for a knockout blow.

  Then Cape flew sideways, as if he’d been hit by a locomotive. Capistrano landed on top of him, and Roxann figured that would pretty much kill anyone. But Cape lived and had even managed to hold on to his gun. Capistrano grabbed the man’s wrist and aimed the gun in the air. Cape fired twice.

  “Roxann, get in the car!” Capistrano bellowed.

  Never one to follow orders, she looked for anything she might use as a weapon. Behind Cape’s car seat she found a tire tool. Another shot rang out and she flinched when it ricocheted off the open car door. Okay, she was scared to freaking death, but if she allowed Capistrano to be injured defending her, she’d feel obligated to… take him home or something. So she crept closer and waited for an opportunity to lend a hand.

  The men were pounding away at each other, rolling in the rain. She hacked at Cape’s legs with the tire iron, but it was so hard to see, she might have hit the detective a few times in the process. The next thing she knew, Cape was on top with his gun pressed against the detective’s head. Roxann lifted the tire tool and swung, delivering a striking blow to Cape’s back. He roared in pain, and the detective pushed him off. Frank rolled, but still had the wherewithal to raise his gun. Her heart vaulted to her throat. A shot rang out. She screamed and covered her face with her hands.

  When she spread her fingers for a peek, Capistrano was kneeling over Cape, feeling for a pulse.

  “Is he… ?”

  “Yeah, he’s dead.” He pushed himself to his feet, then
limped over to her and yanked the tire tool away. “I thought I told you to get in the car.”

  “I was trying to help.”

  He tossed her weapon to the ground. “Well, you damn near crippled me, and you could have gotten us both killed.”

  To her complete mortification, her eyes filled with tears. She blinked furiously. Her face was so cold, her cheeks ached.

  He cupped her face in his hands and sighed. Water dripped off his nose and chin. “Are you okay?”

  She sniffed. “I guess so. Nothing broken.”

  He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “He hit you?”

  She nodded.

  “I should shoot him again.”

  “He told me he killed Dr. Seger.”

  He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “Well, let’s hope he left some physical evidence at the crime scene, because I doubt if the police will take our word.”

  In the distance, a siren wailed. Capistrano lifted his head. “Speaking of which. Want to bet we’re the most popular 911 call tonight?” He looked back to her. “You let me do all the talking when they get here. Pretend you lost your voice.”

  She frowned.

  “I mean it, Roxann. Don’t say a word.” Two police cars came screeching into the neighborhood. “Hold up your hands and don’t move.”

  Roxann raised her arms and stood shivering, wondering if things had just gotten better… or worse.

  Chapter 30

  “I could have your badge for this,” Jaffey said to Capistrano. “Breaking and entering. Compromising a crime scene.” He gestured to the journals, swollen, the ink runny and illegible. “Tampering with evidence.”

  “It was my idea,” she started, then pressed her lips together.

  Jaffey looked at her. “Well, Ms. Beadleman, I’m glad to see your voice has returned.” Then he looked back to Capistrano. “And on top of everything else, a dead man—another dead man. Do you know what this kind of thing does for tourism? For the university’s image?”

  Capistrano drummed his fingers on the table. “Look, tell the press that the man who killed Dr. Seger was killed by a cop. Little kids can play outside again, the police are heroes, everybody’s happy.”