License to Thrill (a romantic mystery)

by Stephanie Bond

  Kat smiled awkwardly, trying to squash the image of this woman with her best friend. “Detective Tenner would like to ask you some questions���may we come in?”

  Officers Campbell and Raines didn’t wait for an answer, but simply stepped into the apartment and split up. Gloria gave them a murderous look. “Know that anything you morons break is probably worth both your salaries for a year.” She turned back to the door and squinted. “Detective, um, Tenner, is it? Do you know who my father is?”

  “Yep… can I use your bathroom?” He rubbed his stomach. “The chili dog I had for lunch is working on me.”

  Kat smothered a smile.

  Gloria scowled. “Try the gas station across the street.”

  “Okay,” Tenner said cheerfully. “After we talk.”

  Anger lit her eyes, then Gloria stepped back sweeping her arm magnanimously. “I don’t know how I can help, but sure, come on in���what is this, Sunday afternoon?”

  The woman’s apartment was breathtaking, filled with expensive, smart furnishings and dressed in an offbeat flair that Kat bet was Gloria’s doing, and no designer’s.

  “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t offer you a seat,” she said, smiling tightly.

  “That’s all right,” Tenner said, rubbing his stomach again. “I probably should stand. Now then, can you account for your whereabouts Saturday morning between the hours of midnight and one o’clock?”

  Confusion clouded her pale eyes and she shook her head slightly. “Wait a minute���you think I broke into the museum?” She laughed in high-pitched amusement and dropped into an armless leopard-skin chair. “Detective, that is the most fun I’ve been accused of in a while.”

  “So you have an alibi?” Tenner pressed.

  She smiled dreamily, as if a life of crime was a direction she hadn’t considered, but might give serious thought. Then she looked heavenward. “Let’s see, I was at Barishka’s Friday night���or was that last night?” She glanced back to Tenner. “No, I’m sure it was Friday. Dragged myself home around three or three-thirty.”

  “That’s a lesbian bar right?”

  Gloria nodded. “Lesbians, drag queens, and wide-eyed, curious heteros.”

  “Did you go to the bar after you visited Denise Womack at Ms. McKray’s apartment?” the detective asked, pursing his lips.

  She gave Kat a surprised look. “Oh, you know about that. Well, I for one am glad it’s out in the open, although I’m not sure Denise is ready to deal with it just yet. She’s worried about what you’ll think, Katherine.”

  “What prompted your visit to Ms. McKray’s?” James asked, breaking his silence for the first time.

  Gloria flicked her eyes over him appreciatively. “To give Denise a check for a down payment on her condo���why she wants the dump, though, I can’t fathom.”

  Tenner grunted. “Did she need the check that night?”

  She shook her head. “I think she has a few weeks to get the money together. But Kat’s place is on the way to the club where I work out, and I wanted to give Denise some peace of mind. We had a cup of coffee and cold pizza.”

  “Detective,” Officer Raines interrupted, holding up a large black gym bag he’d pulled from a coat closet. Tenner walked over to retrieve it, then unzipped it and rifled through the contents.

  “If you’re looking for dirty underwear, you’re out of luck,” Gloria offered dryly.

  “Ms. Handelman,” James said, crossing his arms, “would you mind telling us why you left Jellico’s?”

  Gloria shrugged her bony shoulders. “Boredom���oh, sometimes it was exciting, but the day-in, day-out stuff was a drag.”

  “Yeah,” Tenner chimed in. “Working for a living stinks, doesn’t it?”

  Her thin mouth pulled back into an arrogant smile.

  He handed the bag back to Raines, then frowned at Gloria. “Ms. McKray tells us your family wanted that letter badly… bad enough for you to steal it?”

  Kat shifted nervously at the expression on Gloria’s face. Tenner was treading on thin ice���the woman could have him for a snack if she wanted.

  “Detective, my parents derive their enjoyment of having an expensive manuscript collection from being able to display it prominently and make all their rich friends green with envy. I can assure you they have no interest in something which has to be squirreled away for fear of prosecution.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m only interested in Victorian correspondence between homosexual lovers���if it turns out he wrote the letter to a man, call me. And as for as hiding anything���” Her gaze cut to James. “Everything about me is available for inspection.”

  One of James’s dimples appeared and Kat felt an irrational zing of jealousy. Gloria Handelman was notoriously bisexual.

  Tenner was growing impatient. “I’ll need the names of people who saw you at Barishka’s around midnight.”

  She shrugged again, searching her memory. “Everyone on the staff knows me, and the regular weekend customers were there���wait a minute.” A wicked smile crept across her face. “Here’s the name of someone you might know… Ronald Beaman.”

  Shock bolted through Kat. “Ronald?”

  “Jellico’s head of security?” James asked.

  Gloria nodded, pleased with herself. “Ron likes to dress up on his nights off���he has a bent toward long, feminine skirts and high heels.”

  Tenner expelled a noisy sigh and scratched his head. “Wigs?”

  “Dark, shoulder-length. Looks pretty good too.”

  The detective winced. “Damn.”

  “You should drop by there tonight. On Sundays they have a drag queen pageant at seven, with talent competition and everything.” She winked. “And Ron does a great Tina Turner impression.”

  *

  James felt more than a little self-conscious standing offstage with Tenner and Kat, waiting for Ron Beaman to finish a teeth-jarring rendition of “Proud Mary.” The detective had hoped to catch Beaman off guard, and from the gaped expression on the man’s face when he skipped off stage, blowing kisses to the audience, Tenner had certainly achieved his goal.

  “Nice duds, Beaman,” Tenner said sarcastically.

  “H-How…” The security guard was speechless, his hand to his fake bosom, his eyes darting from face to face.

  “Never mind how,” Tenner barked. “Where were you Friday night between midnight and one o’clock?”

  “H-Here,” Ronald whispered, dragging the wig from his head to reveal a stocking cap. Without the hair, his fake eyelashes and heavy makeup looked clownish.

  “I’ll take that,” the detective snapped, grasping the wig by thumb and forefinger. “And you’re lying because the bartender already told us you left before midnight.”

  Moisture welled up in Beaman’s eyes.

  “Okay… okay. I left w-with a man. I’ll give you his name, but you have to promise not to go to his house.” A tear slid down his rouged cheek. “His wife doesn’t know and neither does mine.”

  “Don’t even think about skipping town,” Tenner warned, shaking the wig at him. “If we’ve been on a damned wild-goose chase and it turns out you’re the bird, your wife’s reaction to your sideline will be the least of your worries, Tina.”

  Gloria Handelman, dressed in a painful-looking sling of black leather, lifted her hand in a little wave from the bar as they made their way toward the door, then added punctuation by giving Tenner the finger.

  “I think she digs me,” he said as they walked outside.

  The man was as smart as a tree, James decided. “Maybe you should join her,” he suggested. “That is, unless we can come up with just one more lead suspect before midnight,” he added sarcastically.

  The detective snorted. “Think it was Beaman?”

  James shook his head slowly. “I’d be surprised, although he could have been in on it with someone else.”

  “Ms. McKray,” Tenner said, turning toward h
er. “Do you have any theories?”

  Kat jerked her head up. “Are you saying, Detective, that you no longer think I’m involved?”

  He gave a curt nod. “We might never catch the person who staged that breakin, but I’m not interested in putting an innocent woman in jail. I’ll make a call to Ms. Pena’s office in the morning to ask her to drop the charges.”

  Relief flooded James’s body at the same time Kat’s face erupted into smiles, her openmouthed laughter music to his ears. Yet even as he gave her shoulders a squeeze, James felt his chest constrict. Should he leave now? The letter wasn’t any closer to being found, yet somehow he felt as if his duty had been done. So why did he feel torn?

  “Come on, I’ll give you both a lift,” Tenner said, taking Kat’s elbow. “His hotel and your apartment are on my way.”

  “Well, actually,” Kat said, biting her lower hp, “I’m staying at the Flagiron.”

  Tenner lifted an eyebrow.

  “In my own room,” she added hurriedly. “And just until I get the locks changed on my doors tomorrow.”

  “Good idea,” Tenner said as they stopped by his faded car. “Considering someone was able to waltz in and out of there like they knew the place.”

  James held open the front passenger door for Kat, then claimed the seat behind her in the boat-size, four-door sedan. The inside smelled moldy and he was rather glad the interior light had expired so he couldn’t see what scuffed and rattled beneath his feet.

  The detective rolled into the front seat. “So, Agent Donovan, when is a good time tomorrow for me and you to question this guy who’s supposedly fooling around with Beaman?”

  James realized with a start that at some point, the detective had passed him the lead in handling the investigation. Just when he was thinking of making his escape to New York… his escape from Katherine McKray. “I’m not sure of my schedule at the moment,” he said vaguely. “I’ll call you, Detective.”

  The ride to the hotel seemed interminable to James. Kat was talkative, no doubt buoyed by news of her impending freedom, and Tenner apologized for his men making such a mess of her apartment. When she responded that she would be moving soon anyway, James pursed his lips in thought. So she had decided to take the job in Los Angeles. Well, jolly good for her.

  He sat back against the seat and crossed his arms, frowning as something crunched beneath his left hip. Now when he remembered their brief time together in San Francisco, he couldn’t picture her moving around in her apartment, or listening to the jazz band at Torbett’s, or leaning over the side of a trolley car, smiling into the wind.

  Instead she’d be in Los Angeles breathing smog and getting shot at on the crowded roadways. He scoffed silently. Foolish woman���didn’t she know how dangerous it would be to live there alone?

  “L.A is terrific,” Tenner said. “Lots of nightlife, and celebrities everywhere. Young, pretty girl like you will love it���might even marry yourself a movie star.”

  While Kat murmured her thanks, James resisted the temptation to lean forward and bop the man on the top of his round head.

  “Here we are,” the detective said cheerfully, throwing the car into park with a lurch.

  “You don’t have to get out,” James assured him, scrambling out to open Kat’s door.

  But Tenner emerged and walked around to the trunk, holding up a key. “Don’t forget about your boxes���I wouldn’t want my wife to think I’d bought her a gift or something.” He laughed and slapped James on the back.

  James couldn’t hide his surprise. “You’re married?”

  “Hell, yes. Eighteen years. Three great kids���all girls.” He pulled up his polyester pants and rocked back on his heels.

  Good God, out of all the women in this gigantic country, how had Tenner managed to bumble onto the one girl who was desperate enough to marry him? And worse���James gulped���sleep with him, at least three times.

  “Most wonderful woman on the face of the earth,” Tenner said, his voice growing uncharacteristically warm. “Can’t wait to get home���she always has a nice cup of hot chocolate waiting for me. ‘Night, folks.”

  Kat shifted the box she held to her hip and watched Tenner drive away. “How sweet.”

  James grunted, realized he sounded like Tenner, then said, “Some people thrive on domesticity.” He hadn’t meant to sound quite so disdainful, but there it was and he couldn’t take it back.

  Kat tipped her head back and looked into his eyes. “And some people thrive on arrogance.” Then she turned and marched toward the hotel entrance.

  James followed, feeling grumpy, and caught up with her at the elevator. “I apologize,” he said, suddenly feeling tired. “Perhaps the time change is affecting me after all.”

  She was quiet for a full minute, the tension crackling across the few feet between them. “Perhaps you just can’t understand how a man could be happy going home to the same woman every night.” The elevator door dinged open and she stepped in first.

  When she turned around, he grinned. “That’s true.”

  But she obviously didn’t share his humor. Blocking his entrance, she said, “No, James, that’s sad.”

  Then she pressed a button and the doors slid shut.

  James scowled at the closed steel door, then stabbed at the up button to retrieve another empty car. When he unlocked his door, he found the box she’d carried upstairs sitting inside the connecting door���the panel on his side was standing open, hers was closed. And locked, he’d bet. The saleswoman had printed “Woman” and “Man” on the respective boxes. He exhaled noisily and carried his own Man box over to the desk, then stored his sister’s gift.

  As he removed his jacket and retrieved the television remote, his ears strained for sounds coming from her room. Nothing. James stacked the four bed pillows against the headboard, then slipped off his shoes and stretched out on the bed.

  His muscles sighed in relief and various joints popped and cracked as he sought a comfortable position. He was getting old, he thought wryly. Old and crotchety.

  He clicked through the channels, stopping briefly at an adult movie before frowning and going on to the news. It would do him good to be reminded that more important things were going on in the world, that he had isolated himself, making this little burglary case���and Kat���seem more significant than they really were. After all, in the scheme of things, it was one nonviolent crime, and she was one woman.

  To prove his point, he reached for his phone and booked a first-class seat on a direct flight to New York Monday night at eleven-thirty. He hung up with a smile of satisfaction on his face, but it was short-lived.

  His traitorous eyes strayed to the Woman box on the floor. Females were such complex creatures���changing moods at the drop of a hat, first giving, then withholding, seductive one minute, uptight the next���how did any man stick it out? The ones who did, didn’t know any better, he decided, nodding to the Man box on the desk for support.

  They didn’t know there was a world out there to travel, full of beautiful women and good food and wonderful adventures. Didn’t know that admitting vulnerability to a woman meant transferring the power to her���the power to woo or wound, as she saw fit.

  He glanced back to the Woman box, remembering her curvaceous lines with a rush of pleasure, then bit down on the inside of his cheek. Kat’s naked image rose up to mock him, the involuntary hardening of his sex a taunting reinforcement of his earlier observation of power flow between the sexes. The Maker had tempered a woman’s package by coupling a vexing will with a tantalizing body. Which was the bottom line, really. Their trump card. They had what men needed, and all the cat-and-mouse games in between revolved around it.

  James dropped his head back on the pillows and admitted defeat to the ceiling fen. Then he pulled himself up, retrieved Woman and sat her on the desk next to Man. “They’ve got us, but good,” he mumbled to his jade counterpart.

  He stepped back
into his shoes, then walked to the door connecting their rooms and, after a few seconds’ hesitation, knocked.

  It was nearly a minute before he detected movement on the other side. “Who is it?” she asked.

  Case in point, James noted wryly. “An arrogant man bearing apologies.”

  Silence, then, “Apology accepted.”

  He closed his eyes in frustration. “I’m leaving tomorrow night, Pussy-Kat.”

  Several seconds of tense silence passed, then the lock on her door made a thwacking sound and she pulled open the door.

  James blinked. She wore a long, white sleeveless gown of thin knit, reminiscent of a floor-length fitted T-shirt. Except the innocence of the fabric and the demure neckline was corrupted by the deep armholes and thigh-high slit on either side. Her hair was captured in a low side ponytail, loosely gathered beneath her ear.

  “I was ready for bed,” she said, her smile a bit shaky.

  All moisture had left his mouth. “So I see,” he managed to croak.

  “So you’re leaving tomorrow,” she said, suddenly fascinated with the doorknob she held.

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, I, um… I’m no longer needed here.”

  She glanced up, and he tried desperately to read her eyes. “You’re not going to try to find the letter?”

  “Our friend in Chinatown will stand a much better chance than I.”

  “And if it isn’t located?”

  He shrugged. “Then Lady Mercer will collect a few thousand pounds from the insurance company and perhaps an asterisk next to her name in a book someday.”

  Kat inhaled deeply, straining the nearly transparent fabric. Her nipples were clearly outlined, pebbled from the room’s chill, he supposed. His body, indifferent to the cold that had triggered her reaction, began to harden in response to something else.

  She laughed softly. “This has been the most eventful three days of my life.”

  His, too, but in a different way. James reached for her hand and twined her warm fingers with his, then leaned close, his body surging with desire, and whispered, “Let’s top it off with an eventful night, shall we?”