“It’s very … manly.”
Jackson grinned as he led me into the kitchen. “I’ve had no reason to redecorate.” The kitchen attested to that with its old-fashioned cupboards and linoleum floor. Only the appliances were new.
He poured us large mugs of coffee he had ready and we went to the back porch to enjoy the day, sitting on old wicker chairs that he’d likely inherited with the rest of the furniture, judging by the squeaks and groans they made under us.
The back yard wasn’t much larger than the front, and was equally barren, with only a tool shed at the back that I’d wager didn’t contain any gardening tools. It might have held a large grill. I could imagine him having friends over for a barbeque.
Then again, I’d never met any of his friends, if you didn’t count his old colleagues from his homicide detective days. And I knew nothing of his family, other than that his childhood hadn’t been nice. But he’d had the uncle, so maybe there were other relatives he could invite over.
I liked that image.
Tall fences separated the yard from the neighbors’, but I could see from the porch that both had those huge round fiberglass pools that were easy to install. They took up pretty much the entire adjoining lawns, but there was still at least some vegetation. Jackson barely had grass growing in his.
“This looks easy to maintain.”
“I’m not exactly a gardener. Now, are you ready to talk?”
I groaned. “It’s embarrassing.”
“More embarrassing than falling into a dumpster?”
“Infinitely.”
“This should be good, then.”
I sighed. “I was driving home from my parents’ when I spotted my scumbag of an ex’s car, and the next thing I know I’m parked outside your house.”
Jackson tried so hard not to smile that an honest-to-God dimple that I’d never seen before appeared on his cheek. Then his better side lost the battle and he burst out laughing.
“He really did a number on you, didn’t he?” he asked when he finally could talk again, wiping his eyes.
I nodded, miserable. “The worst thing is, I thought I was over him. But I simply haven’t dealt with it at all.” I’d buried myself so deep in work I’d been too busy to think about my failed marriage. No wonder I hadn’t been interested in dating.
“I’m not exactly the best person to have this kind of talk with, you know.”
“Tough. You’re the only person I got.”
I startled when I realized it was the truth. I used to have a close girlfriend, Jessica, my old roommate, but since she’d moved in with her boyfriend I hadn’t even spoken to her. And when I was waitressing there were always women I worked with that I could share my worries with, but now I only had Jackson. And Cheryl of course, but it wasn’t often I had a chance to sit down with her and gossip.
We drank our coffees in silence for a few moments.
“You knew he lived next to you?”
He didn’t ask who. “Of course.”
I struggled with myself and lost. “So who is she?”
“His wife.”
My entire being tightened in shock until I felt like I would snap in two. I felt sick and seriously contemplated throwing up.
His wife? Why hadn’t I come to think of that? The blood coursing in my ears was so loud I barely heard when Jackson continued.
“Her name is Nicole, and she’s thirty-one. They’ve been married for a year and a half. The house and the bar were her father’s and she inherited them when he died.”
That finally caught my attention. “So he married money?” That was so much better than if he’d actually achieved something himself. “I could totally do that.”
“Where would you find a rich guy?”
“That’s the tricky part. But if I found one, I could.”
He lifted his coffee mug. “I’ll drink to that.”
I toasted back.
“They arrested Larry Williams,” I said, purposely changing the topic.
“I know. Blair called me.”
It took me a moment to figure out who he was talking about. Detective Kelley was such a formidable figure I didn’t dare to use her first name, even in my thoughts.
“What will you tell his wife?”
“I already called her and told her we need to meet. The police didn’t tell her anything when they arrested him.”
“Today?”
“Yep. I don’t usually do house calls on weekends, but I thought it best to make an exception.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “In fact, I have to get going.”
“Can I come too?”
“Absolutely. We can even take your car,” he said with a smile.
“It’s a great car,” I defended my vehicle.
“And such a brilliant color.”
We exited his house and headed to my car. My mind was occupied by Mrs. Williams—the first— the second?—and so I didn’t notice the danger until it was too late.
“Tracy!”
I swiveled towards the voice hailing me, and although I hadn’t expected to run into the bastard, I managed to keep my cool.
Yay me!
Scott was still dressed in the faded, low-riding jeans and T-shirt that hugged his delicious torso. His dark blond hair was a sexy mess, but I totally didn’t drool. My mouth was too dry for that.
“Scott. What brings you here?”
I didn’t even squeak.
“I live here.” He waved his hand in the general direction of his house. Then he cast a curious look at Jackson, who was holding the door of my car open for me. “And you? Do you live here?”
“No. I came here to meet my…” An overwhelming urge seized me to claim that Jackson was my boyfriend, just to see the look on Scott’s face, but I managed to hold my tongue. Although, if Jackson hadn’t been here, all bets would’ve been off.
“Boss,” I said instead.
“You work for Dean?”
“Yes. I’m a private detective,” I added, just in case he thought I was his housekeeper or something.
“That’s great.” He sounded like he meant it, but I shrugged like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Beats waiting tables.”
He flushed lightly. “I own the bar.”
I blinked, baffled. “Good for you. But I actually meant I was waiting tables before I became a P.I.” Very recently, but I hoped he wouldn’t ask any details.
“Ah. So how’ve you been?”
“Good. You?”
“Good.”
We looked around, seeking inspiration—or a fast escape. “I hear you got married,” I managed to say.
“Yeah.” He glanced towards his house as if checking if he was being caught. “Her name’s Nicole. She’s great. What about you?”
“I’ve been too busy.”
“Right. Crime never sleeps.”
Or waitresses.
“So where did you disappear the other night?”
So he had noticed from his smooching.
“I … got a phone call I had to take outside. It was very loud in the bar,” I added unnecessarily.
“Sure, sure.” He looked as uncomfortable as I felt. “Well, it was nice running into you. Maybe we can do it again at a better time?”
“Sure,” I said, and got in the car before I blew the whole thing. Jackson rounded the car to the passenger seat. “Don’t say a word,” I told him as I started the engine.
“I wasn’t going to.” But the whole drive he shook in barely controlled mirth.
Chapter Seven
Larry and Hannah Williams lived in Bushwick, the northernmost neighborhood of Brooklyn before Queens, so I got to drive through the entire borough—as if I hadn’t done enough driving already for one day. Hope Gardens was a massive housing project from the 80s that spanned an entire large block, with a green area in the middle—not that it was currently very well maintained. Their apartment was in the tallest, fourteen-story building, with a view towards the park and over much of the area.
Jackson
and I sat side by side on a faded leather couch in their living room, feeling acutely uncomfortable. I was, anyway. It was difficult to tell how Jackson was feeling; he had retreated behind his professional mask. My current life goal was to be able to do the same, but for now I had to settle with the myriad of smiles I’d developed during my six years as a waitress. I had one for every occasion, and they hid my true feelings pretty well too.
But I couldn’t smile here.
“We can only give you the facts that we have,” Jackson told Mrs. Williams, who was sitting opposite us. She was in her early forties and would probably have been pretty if her eyes hadn’t been puffed up from crying. She’d been crying when we came, nothing to do with us. She was tall—much taller than her husband—and large—not fat, but big boned. Sheila had been delicately built and short, so it seemed Larry Williams had an eclectic taste in women.
“I’m afraid your husband was being unfaithful,” he continued. I admired how he formulated it. It gave the truth but not the whole truth. We’d agreed that until we knew for sure, we wouldn’t reveal the bigamy to Mrs. Williams. It would make her upset—more upset.
Mrs. Williams sobbed. “I knew it. He was always away from home at the oddest times. He claimed he was at the racetrack but I didn’t believe it.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Who is she?”
“Unfortunately, we haven’t got that far in our investigation yet. We just wanted to give you an update in the light of today’s events.”
We actually knew the name of the woman Larry Williams had spent the night with—Carol Marr—but Jackson didn’t want us to divulge it either, as it might hinder the murder investigation.
“I just don’t understand why they arrested him. Larry wouldn’t hurt a fly, and they told me he … he killed a woman.”
“At the moment he’s a person of interest. We’ll know more when the coroner has the time of death determined.”
“So there is a dead woman?” She looked slightly green.
“Yes.”
“The one he was…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.
“She wasn’t the woman he spent last night with, as far as we know, but we can’t rule out at this point that he was having an affair with the dead woman as well.”
Since he and Sheila were married, I’d say he was definitely having an affair with her.
Mrs. Williams went completely still. “He had more than one woman?”
I understood the shock and pain in her voice. I’d only caught Scott doing that one groupie, but who knew how many of them he’d had behind my back. Women had been throwing themselves at him everywhere the band played.
“Should I bring you a glass of water?” I asked, worried when she went alarmingly white underneath all the puffy red. She nodded and I shot up and headed to the small kitchenette. It was clean and sparsely furnished, like the entire apartment, only the bare necessities in every room. Cupboards were almost empty too, as I noticed when I was trying to find a glass. No staples there even. Who didn’t have at least coffee in their cupboard?
When I returned with the water I took the opportunity to check the photos on the living room wall. Family and friends in them, as you’d expect. And there was their wedding photo too, taken, if I wasn’t very much mistaken, in Las Vegas.
I gave the glass to Mrs. Williams, who held it with both hands so it wouldn’t shake. I sat back down, trying to come up with a way to bring up their marriage. In the end I went with the direct approach.
“Have you been married long?”
“Four years. You’d think a man could remain faithful for four measly years.” Mine couldn’t remain faithful for a year, but I kept that to myself. “We met in Vegas and it was love at first sight. So romantic. We were married by the end of the week.” She sighed. “Perhaps it was too hasty. But our troubles didn’t start until we moved here a couple of years ago. We lived in Vegas at first.”
“You’re not from around here?”
“I’m not. But I don’t have any family and Larry wanted to be closer to his, so we moved here. It was very exciting at first, but then I couldn’t find a job. It’s not fun being all alone in a strange city without a job.”
“Does Larry have a job?”
“Nothing permanent.”
We left soon thereafter. I kept my questions to myself until we were back at my car. Jackson wanted to drive, and since I was pretty tired of all the driving I’d already done that day, I let him.
“Are you expensive?”
“What?” His startled look made me smile.
“Your fees. You can pretty much choose your clients, can’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And the kind of surveillance we did for Mrs. Williams, hours of it, is extra expensive, isn’t it?” He nodded and I continued: “So how can Mrs. Williams afford it? She’s unemployed and lives in a project. Her cupboards were empty. Even if she were on food stamps there’d be something in them.”
Jackson nodded, contemplating. “Good point. She paid the advance promptly and didn’t even try to haggle.”
“I think that’s very odd.”
“We’re not being paid to investigate Mrs. Williams’s finances,” Jackson said sternly.
“Couldn’t we at least take a peek?”
“No.”
“Then how about finding out how it was possible for Larry Williams to marry two women?”
“If the marriages were registered in different states, it could be no one noticed. Especially since one of the marriages was held in the Chapel of Love.”
“So you saw the photo too?”
“I did.”
We dropped the topic, but I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something odd about the situation.
Jarod was watching TV and eating Chinese takeout on the sofa when I got home after a detour to Jackson’s to leave him off. The scent of his food made my stomach growl, and I realized I hadn’t had anything but coffee since lunch. I plopped next to him and pilfered a spring roll.
“Did you have a good day?”
“Yeah. Cyber threat avoided.”
“You don’t look happy.” He looked miserable, actually.
“Term starts tomorrow.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?”
“No.”
“You’re not bullied, are you?” I asked, worried. For all that he was a genius he was slightly clueless about life in general. Plus, everyone in his post grad class was older than him. He’d graduated from college at the age most people started it.
“No.”
Then the real reason for his misery hit me. “You’re afraid you’ll run into your ex-girlfriend, aren’t you?” He’d broken up with her at the start of the summer when she accused him of spending more time with his computers than her. Then she’d smashed said computers with a baseball bat.
“Bound to,” he said, crestfallen.
“I ran into my ex-husband today and survived the encounter.”
“Yeah? My girlfriend is dating the captain of the college football team now. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t survive an encounter with him.”
I had to laugh. “My ex is now married to a long-legged blonde with fake—I hope—boobs who gave him a bar to run.”
That elicited a smile from him. “You win.”
“I totally do.” I jumped up, as full of energy as I’d been without a moment earlier. “Come on, the mall’s still open and I have a car. Let’s go buy you school stuff. That’ll cheer you up.”
We ended up having a good time at the mall, and when we got home we stayed up later than either of us had meant to. When my alarm woke me up at six the next morning I almost threw it against the wall. But I’d set the time myself, so after a few moments of self-pity I forced myself up. The next step took considerably more willpower: putting on my new jogging gear.
Jarod hadn’t been the only one shopping last evening. Of all places, I’d ended up in a sportswear store. I blamed it on the weird day I’d had. It had absolutely nothin
g do with wanting to be in great shape the next time I ran into Scott.
Absolutely nothing.
The salesperson at the store had spotted an easy mark and had tried to sell me everything I might need and half the things I didn’t, and all of it with the highest price possible. I’d stayed firm and bought only what I needed. Still, he had somehow managed to sell me tight, knee-length spandex—or Lycra or whatever—shorts that took a lot of tucking and rolling of my hips to pull over my bottom. They squished my flesh nice and tight, but the result was so unnerving that I rummaged through my closet for an old pair of cut-off sweat shorts to wear over them. The purple spandex—or whatever—tank-top got to stay though. I looked great in it, if I could say so myself. It squeezed my boobs and managed to hide the tummy rolls. Well, most of them anyway.
The running shoes were turquoise and felt unlike anything I’d ever worn, definitely nothing like the last pair I’d bought in high school. They were light and breathable and felt almost like I had nothing in my feet. Even if I only went running this one time, I was keeping the shoes.
I tiptoed out of the apartment so that I wouldn’t wake up Jarod, and took the stairs down as an expression of my new, sportier life. I pushed the front door open and stepped out to embrace the world.
The early morning air hit me so hard it cut my breath short. I was instantly freezing in my tank-top and shorts. Perhaps I should’ve worn a sweatshirt after all. But I wouldn’t go back for it or I’d never leave my home again. I dashed to my car and put the heater on at full blast. Fifteen minutes later I was banging at Jackson’s door.
Chapter Eight
“Rise and shine,” I sang when Jackson finally opened the door. It took him so long I’d begun to freeze again, but I didn’t let that mar my good mood.
“Tracy? What the fuck?” He looked like I’d managed to wake him up, rumpled, bleary-eyed, and kind of confused. Pretty cute, actually. He was wearing boxer briefs—I looked, so sue me—and had a sweatshirt on backwards, so he must have pulled it on in haste.
His legs looked every bit as fine as I’d always thought they would, by the way, lean and strong.
“I’m starting a new life and I’ll be damned if I do it alone. So put on your running gear and take me to the park.”
Tracy Hayes, P.I. and Proud (P.I. Tracy Hayes 2) Page 4
