Dad grinned. “Your new job isn’t all bad, then.” He still had his reservations about my becoming a P.I. The entire family did. But I couldn’t keep waitressing my whole life, and there weren’t all that many jobs available for college dropouts.
“And having you over for a Sunday lunch is definitely an upside.” As a waitress I’d seldom had a chance to attend family lunch. “How’s your weekend gone?”
I shrugged. “At work.”
“Anything interesting?”
I itched to tell him about the body, but I didn’t want to ruin the beautiful day. “I aced at lock-picking today,” I declared instead, delighting him.
“Excellent. Legally?”
The clarifying question was justified, so I just smiled. “Witnessed by two cops and one P.I.”
Trevor pulled over on the street and crossed the yard to us in a few strides. He still lived at home because he claimed he couldn’t afford to live on his own, but I think he was just being lazy. Here he had clean clothes and food waiting for him without any input from him. He grinned when he saw me.
“Do I dare come closer?”
“Yes. I don’t smell anymore.”
“Why did you smell?” Dad asked, and I sighed, resigning to the inevitable glee.
“I fell into a dumpster.”
“Did you hurt yourself?”
“No, and thank you for asking. No one else did.” This made Dad wrap an arm around my shoulder and pull me into a hug, but I could swear he sniffed my hair as he did. Or maybe he just kissed me on the top of my head.
Trevor leaned against the porch railing and crossed his arms over his chest. “We found Larry Williams. He’d gone home to his wife.”
I lifted my brows. “The wife that hired us, I presume.”
“Since the other one is dead, he could hardly go to her.”
“Unless the third woman is his wife too.”
Trevor groaned. “Please don’t complicate this with your theories.” Dad wanted to know what we were talking about and Trevor gave him the basics. Dad shook his head.
“I’ve never understood bigamy. One wife is work enough.”
Mom came to fetch us to eat just then and she heard him. “What did you say?”
“That you’re the world’s most wonderful wife and I love you,” Dad said promptly, and we all followed her to the kitchen.
“Tracy needs a car and I thought we’d give her yours,” Dad said to Mom when we’d sat down.
“Won’t she need it herself?” I asked, stunned by his high-handed announcement. I had nothing against getting a car, but I wouldn’t inconvenience Mom for it. She was a nurse at a nearby maternity clinic and used the car to get to work.
“That’s a very good idea,” Mom said calmly. “I can always take the bus.”
“And I can drive her,” Dad added. “Gives me something to do.”
“But—”
Mother cut me off by lifting her hand. “I’d much rather you had a car so I know you have safe transportation in that job of yours.”
You wouldn’t know it by looking at her, but Mom held the last word in our family. She was shorter than me, with a soft, round body, strawberry blond hair she always kept in a bun, gentle green eyes, and a friendly countenance. But when she made up her mind about something, it was very difficult to make her change it.
So I didn’t even try. Furthermore, Mom changed the topic of conversation, so as not to even give me a chance. “There’s a new doctor at the clinic.”
The random opening threw me at first, but then I saw the meaningful look she gave me. I groaned—silently, inside. “Is there now?” I asked, since she clearly expected me to.
“Yes. He’s thirty-four, single, and very well liked by the staff, mothers, and children alike.”
This wasn’t the first time since my divorce that Mom had tried to fix me up with someone she thought would suit me—not that we had the same definition of suitable. I’d managed to avoid getting on actual dates with any of them by claiming to be extremely busy, but I wasn’t working ten hours a day, seven days a week anymore.
“I’m only just starting in my new job, and it’ll take some adjusting. I don’t think it’s a good time for me to start dating right now.”
“And when would it be a good time,” Mom asked, annoyed and disappointed simultaneously.
I wanted to say never—one failed marriage to a cheating SOB was enough—but I shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll happen one of these days.”
“You could do worse than a doctor.” I agreed and she let the matter be—for now.
After lunch, I followed Dad and Trevor to Mom’s car that was parked by the street. It was a small, six-year-old Ford Fiesta, and deliciously cherry red. Mom was excessively proud of it. She must be really worried about me to give it up so lightly.
“It’s not exactly inconspicuous,” I noted.
“Good. No need for you to trail anyone in your car,” Dad said.
I’d say they were both extremely worried about my job.
“Do you know how to drive?” Trevor asked. Considering that he and Dad had both taught me to drive, the question was stupid. But truth was, I hadn’t really driven all that much in the ten years since I’d got my license. Unless you counted the year I was travelling with my bastard of an ex’s band—which I didn’t. It hadn’t exactly been a luxury tour, and we’d all worked our share, driving included.
“I’m sure it’ll come back to me. It’s like riding a bicycle, isn’t it.”
“When was the last time you rode a bicycle?”
“Do you even own a bicycle?” Dad added.
I ignored the comedians and took a seat behind the wheel. To hide my nervousness I spent some time adjusting the seat and mirrors. Trevor sat next to me.
“Let’s take her around the block a couple of times. Nice and easy.”
It didn’t take me long to remember how to drive, although I twice switched on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. Once I got the hang of it, we ended up cruising around southern Brooklyn. It was mostly residential neighborhoods and quiet, wide streets where all I had to remember was slow down at crosswalks and not to take one way streets the wrong way. But then Trevor got ambitious and directed me onto the Belt Parkway, a six lane highway that rounded Marine Park from the south.
“It’s better that you try it in Sunday traffic.”
I was so scared that my knuckles turned white as I clutched the steering wheel, but I made it.
After two hours of driving I was sure he would never let me go home, but then his phone rang. He exchanged a few words before hanging up.
“I guess you can drive me to work next.”
“What’s up?”
“We’re ready to question Larry Williams.”
“Can I come too?”
“No you cannot,” he said with emphasis.
“But it’s our case.”
“Your case was to find out if he was having an affair and you did. Good job. Case closed.”
“But—”
“No.”
“Fine. See if I’ll help you if you need anything.”
“I’ll live.”
Chapter Five
I drove Trevor in mutinous silence back to our parents’—I didn’t quite ace the parallel parking yet when I pulled over between his and our neighbor’s car—and he got into his own car and drove off. Mom and Dad were waiting for me on the porch, looking worried.
“Where have you been this long?” Mom demanded to know. “We feared you’d crashed the car.”
“I wasn’t that bad. In fact, I was so good Trevor made me cruise around half of Brooklyn.” And my shoulder muscles wouldn’t thank him for it come tomorrow.
“So you’ll keep the car?” Dad asked.
“I’ll keep the car.” I hugged them both. “Thank you.”
We emptied Mother’s things from the car and she patted the hood wistfully. “Take good care of her. No eating takeout on a stakeout, you hear.”
I smiled at her feeble joke. “I’ll bring her back when I buy my own car.”
“I’ll never get her back, then.”
I couldn’t exactly argue with that.
Dad gave some instructions about oil changes, check-ups, and what gas to put into her—which I didn’t really listen, because he would remind me again, or do them himself—before letting me go. Alone in the car, I got nervous again. Trevor had been a calming and encouraging presence next to me, advising me on correct lanes and best routes. Now I didn’t even seem to know the way home, as if it was different than when I was sitting in the passenger seat.
Gathering myself, I got the car moving, though my palms were a little damp and my hands kept gliding on the steering wheel before I dried them on the legs of my jeans. I drove south to 18th Avenue, where I should’ve turned east, but I didn’t want to take Ocean Parkway with its multiple lanes, so I turned west instead. It would be a small detour through a residential area, but much quieter.
In my eagerness to find an easier route, I completely forgot that on the 18th there was a certain Irish bar that had to be avoided at all costs. Not because it was a favorite among the cops of the 70th Precinct, my brother included. Not even entirely because it was owned by Scott Brady, my cheating bastard of an ex-husband, although that was reason enough.
No, it had to be avoided because I’d made an utter ass of myself there.
I’d avoided even thinking about that Saturday two weeks ago. Or tried to avoid thinking of it. My mind kept returning to it like an addict to a fix, making me feel worse every time I recalled the incident.
It should’ve been simple. Go in, say hello to the bastard, ask what he’d been doing the past six years since I’d found him dipping his dick into a groupie in a back room of a concert venue and consequently divorced him.
Instead, I’d stood transfixed when he performed a song with his gravelly whiskey voice, reminiscing about the good things in our short marriage—I’m not saying it was only about sex, but my good places got all tingly—and then had stared at him tongue-tied when I finally came face to face with him. And just as I’d been about to say something, some bleached bitch with fake boobs had stuck her tongue down his throat, and he’d let her.
I have no recollection of how I got out of the bar and into Trevor’s car. He’d had the good sense to follow and he’d driven me home.
He’d tried to reason with me. “You’ve been divorced for six years. Scott was bound to find someone new.”
“I haven’t found anyone. Why should he?” Although, the man had cheated on me, so it shouldn’t have come as such a shock that he had. Yet I’d been barely operational.
“That’s because you haven’t dated in six years.”
“How would I have found time for dating when I was working ten-hour shifts seven days a week?”
“Meanwhile you’re twenty-seven and you aren’t even trying.”
“You’re thirty-one. I haven’t exactly seen you with a steady girlfriend.”
“At least I date occasionally.”
We’d wisely left it at that, but I hadn’t returned to Scott’s bar since—and that was another gripe. I was busting my ass off simply to pay the rent and he’d had money enough to buy a bar?
I kept my attention on traffic as I neared the bar, deliberately not looking towards it. I lucked out and the street I needed to take turned off right before it. I sighed in silent relief and slowed to give way to a car that was pulling out from the curb.
That’s where my luck ended.
I glanced at the driver of the fine black SUV and my heart clenched in shock. As if I had conjured him, my bastard ex was sitting behind the wheel, and next to him was the skank who’d been checking his tonsils with her tongue. They were smiling at each other. Happily.
My first reaction—straight from my suddenly aching gut—was to hit the brakes, turn the car around and flee as fast as I could, one-way street be damned. Second reaction, probably from another organ entirely, was to accelerate and ram the side of their car. The satisfaction of imagining it felt so good that it eased the pain in my stomach.
So I did neither. I simply let them pull out.
And then I followed.
I didn’t mean to. I hadn’t even spied on Scott with all the resources available for me at the agency—I was really proud of my self-control, by the way—but now he was here and I had a car.
At first it was just a matter of having to drive behind them—it was a one-way street after all—but when they turned east on Lawrence Avenue, I did too. Then they took Ocean Parkway south and I didn’t even hesitate getting on it, even though trying to avoid it had led me to this situation in the first place.
I barely registered the traffic. Feverish excitement and determination kept me in its hold, sharpening my mind. I had to find out where they were going. Nothing was impossible for me, not even navigating a four lane highway. I was even happy there was traffic; it allowed me to keep a car or two between ours so he wouldn’t notice me.
Scott drove all the way to Avenue U, where he turned east toward Marine Park. It was a really nice neighborhood, the kind we couldn’t have afforded back when we were married. I’d been a twenty-year-old college dropout and he’d been a leader of a band that never made it. We hadn’t even had a permanent home. His band was on tour the whole time we were married, and I’d followed them. I wasn’t entirely sure a tame middle-class neighborhood like this would’ve even been our style.
It still wasn’t my style, but I guess he’d changed.
He drove to the northeastern corner of the park from which the neighborhood got its name, a large area of saltwater marsh and recreational spaces that stretched all the way to Jamaica Bay, before turning north on 38th Street. One side of the road was redbrick row-houses, nice and neat, and the other was semis with different façades on every half. He drove into the tiny driveway of one of the larger semis; their half was pink and the other half light blue. I didn’t slow down but continued on before pulling over a couple of houses up between two cars that would hide mine.
I aced the parallel parking this time round. Nothing was impossible for me in my current state.
I watched from the side mirror as Scott and that woman exited the car and took groceries from the trunk. He looked good in low-riding jeans and a T; she looked skanky in tight shorts and a spaghetti-strap top that barely contained her assets, her long blond hair in a ponytail. Laughing at some joke, they went into the house.
The moment they disappeared, the spell that had kept me going released. I looked around, bewildered, not believing what I’d done. I’d actually followed my ex-husband across half of Brooklyn. Had I really turned into that woman?
Angry with myself, and hugely embarrassed, I was about to drive home, never to return, when someone knocked on my side window. I shrieked and put a hand in my pocket to dig out my pepper spray—that wasn’t there—but then Jackson peeked in.
“Tracy? What the hell are you doing here?”
It took a moment for my heart to stop thumping out of my chest. I lowered the window. “Cruising?”
“Outside my house?”
“You live here?”
I took a proper look at my surroundings. I was outside a semi that was half white shingles and half really nice grayish-blue clapboard, both sides in good repair. The tiny front yard between the houses was half expertly landscaped garden—the white side—and half dried grass. Jackson’s car was parked on the short driveway next to the barren patch.
“Let me guess, the blue half is yours?”
“Are you saying you didn’t Google my address the first chance you got?” he asked amused. I had Googled it, actually, with the street view even. I just hadn’t paid attention to where I was driving.
“Out with it. Why are you here?”
“I was trailing a car.”
“Whose car? And where did you get this car?”
I decided to go with the latter question first. “It’s my mom’s. She and Dad
insisted I take it.”
“Pretty. Cheryl will be green with envy.”
“I know,” I said, smiling. Cheryl loved all things pink, but a cherry red car had to come a close second. Even I loved the color and I wasn’t terribly into reds.
Jackson opened the door for me and I got out. “Let’s have a cup of coffee and you can tell me all about it.”
Chapter Six
I followed Jackson into his house and looked around, shamelessly curious. A small hall opened onto a living room-dining room combo to the left—although the dining room appeared to be his home office—and a kitchen at the back of the hallway. Narrow stairs led upstairs. Judging by the size of the downstairs, I presumed there would be two or three small bedrooms and a bath there.
The place was done in muted tones, brown leather and wood; the old-fashioned wallpapers were rather faded, and the hardwood floors could’ve used a new coat of varnish—and a good vacuuming. The furniture was less eclectic than my 70s collection from the Salvation Army thrift store, and much older, but they were oak or some other hardwood that had aged well. Only the leather recliner and the large TV were modern.
“This is nothing like I expected.”
“I inherited this from my uncle, like I did the agency.” He pointed at a photo on the hallway wall of a man in his late fifties who was portly, balding, and wearing a brown suit and a trench coat. The only thing missing was a fedora. Then he’d have looked exactly like I thought a P.I. should. Jackson had initially been a bit of a disappointment in that respect, but I’d got over it and now thought that his uniform of black jeans, black T-shirt and black sneakers with a black blazer was exactly how a P.I. should look.
According to Trevor, Jackson had quit the force four years ago because his partner had been killed during a murder investigation. Jackson hadn’t spoken about that, but had told me that his uncle, who had started the agency, had died childless and had left the agency to him. But I wasn’t ready to discard Trevor’s version either. My boss had hidden depths he wouldn’t reveal easily.
Tracy Hayes, P.I. and Proud (P.I. Tracy Hayes 2) Page 3
