The Comeback Kiss

by Lani Diane Rich

  “So,” Matt said, shooting a look at Joe, “let me guess why you’re here. You need new gear?”

  “Nope, gear’s just fine. Thanks.”

  Tarpey raised his eyebrows, but didn’t look the gift horse in the mouth. “Your uncle needs Grace to hook him up with some more of her brother’s cod?”

  Joe smiled. “No. Believe it or not, the cod didn’t move that well last summer.”

  Tarpey scoffed. “Oh, yeah. I believe it.” He settled his grip on the club and lined up his shot.

  “Actually,” Joe began, but Tarpey made I’ll get it, I’ll get it noises to shut him up.

  “You’re here because”—he did the wiggle thing again—“you want another look at the Scuderi file.” He gave the ball a prodigious whack. It went straight for the hole, bounced up off the edge, knocked into the wall, and skittered down the hall.

  Joe smiled. “Feeling relaxed?”

  Tarpey straightened up. “Stupid fucking game.” He tossed his putter to the floor, walked around his desk, and sat down.

  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the wooden chair opposite his desk. As Joe settled, Tarpey reached for his coffee, which rested on his green desk blotter in a mug that read, Firemen do it with a big hose.

  Joe smiled. “Aren’t you supposed to be avoiding caffeine?”

  Tarpey raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, Grace, thanks for reminding me,” he said flatly. He took a large swallow. “So, what’s making you second-guess the Scuderi fire this time?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Joe said. “Just wanted to take another look.”

  Tarpey allowed a small grimace that passed for a smile. “What for? I’d expect you to be able to recreate it from memory by now.”

  “Thought maybe I missed something.”

  “You didn’t miss anything. Neither did the investigators who ruled it an accident in the first place.” Tarpey leaned forward, his old eyes smiling at the edges as he talked. “Look, I know you were close with Karen Scuderi. You used to work at her place a bit, didn’t you?”

  Joe shrugged. “I helped out there sometimes.”

  Tarpey leaned back. “You’re not the first guy to start volunteering after having a personal experience with a fire. That’s how I get a lot of my guys. And you’re one of the best on my team, Joe. But there comes a time when you’ve gotta let it go. The Scuderi case is closed.”

  “Then who does it hurt if I have another look?”

  Tarpey chuckled. “You ever think about maybe getting a hobby? Grace is dragging me out to the mini-golf place over on I-91 this weekend. You could go in my place. She probably wouldn’t even notice right away.”

  “Thanks. I’ll pass.” He leaned forward, jerked his chin to indicate the pile of papers on Tarpey’s desk. “Those your pictures ofVickie’s?”

  Tarpey sighed. “Yeah. Snapped a few before the county guys came in and took over.”

  “Did they find anything?”

  “Lot of charred tail feathers.” Tarpey raised his eyes. “Good thing that brother of yours got there when he did.”

  “Yeah.” Joe tapped his fingers on the arms of the chair. “Good thing.” He paused for a moment, nodded toward the pictures on Tarpey’s desk. “You think it was arson?”

  Tarpey shrugged. “Could be. Investigation’s still active.”

  “But you think it might be arson?”

  “Everything might be arson until it’s not.” Tarpey slid the papers and pictures into a manila folder. “At any rate, it’s out of our hands now. The county Cause and Origin team is on it, and we’ll know when we know.”

  Joe nodded. “I understand.”

  Of course, understanding didn’t do much to ease the tension in his gut. Tarpey didn’t shoot Polaroids on his own unless something struck him as suspicious. As fire chief, he knew that any evidence not taken by the official county team would be inadmissible in court. So if he was taking pictures, it was because of his own curiosity. And Tarpey, as a rule, was not an overly curious guy. Something was wrong here. Joe could feel it.

  And he was very possibly related to it.

  “So, you think you can call County for me, then? I can run down there this afternoon and pick the files up myself.”

  Tarpey plunked his coffee mug down on his desk, clasped his hands together, and leaned forward.

  “Did I ever tell you that Grace’s cousin died in a suspicious fire?”

  “No. When did that happen?”

  “Twenty-five years ago, before we were married. Hell, we hadn’t even started dating yet. I was determined to solve the mystery, be the big hero. But I didn’t have anything, really, other than a gut feeling. One day, Grace asked me to stop looking into it. Said she’d rather I help her move on than stay stuck on something we’d never know the answer to.” Tarpey gave Joe a brief nod. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  Joe leaned back in his chair. “I don’t understand what it has to do with the Scuderi files, no.”

  “Joe, Karen Scuderi died in a car accident.”

  “Running from a suspicious fire.”

  “The fire was also accidental. It was a bad convergence of events, nothing more.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And there’s nothing in those files now that wasn’t there the last five times you looked at them. Cause and Origin ruled it was an accident, and I’m inclined to trust their judgment.”

  “Then why did you take your own pictures of Vickie’s?”

  Tarpey sighed. “Look, Joe, if you’ve got a thing for Tessa Scuderi, get her some flowers. Don’t dig up her dead mother. It isn’t romantic.”

  Joe watched Tarpey for a moment, then spoke. “This isn’t about Tessa.”

  Tarpey tapped his big beefy fingers against the desk blotter as the wheels in his mind cranked.

  “No skin off my nose,” he said finally. “But I think you’re better off just taking her out to dinner. Somewhere out of town. Or maybe to mini-golf on I-91. We could make it a double.”

  Joe smiled, tapped the flat of his hand on Tarpey’s desk, and stood up. “Call me when I’ve got clearance to go get those files?”

  Tarpey gave a slight shake of his head, then waved one hand in acquiescence.

  Joe smiled. “Thanks, Tarpey.”

  “Hey, while you’re here,” Tarpey said, “you find someone else to take that damn bird yet?”

  “The macaw? You don’t like it?”

  Tarpey shook his head. “No, I like it fine. But Grace has allergies. She keeps sneezing and hacking and the thing is making her crazy, and she’s making me crazy. Bird’s likely to come to an untimely and violent death, it stays at my place much longer.”

  “I’ll come by and pick it up later.” Joe paused. “Hey, has anyone talked to Vickie?”

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Tarpey said. “Last I heard, no one had been able to get a hold of her.”

  “She didn’t leave any contact information with anyone? No cell phone number, no e-mail? The hotel where she was staying?”

  “What can I say?” Tarpey leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and smiled. “Woman knows how to take a vacation.”

  ***

  “No,” Finn said, wrenching his hands around the steering wheel of the car.

  “Oh, come on,” Babs said. “I’m hungry. I’m homeless. I’d like a nice slice of apple pie from the local greasy spoon. Is that too much to ask?”

  Finn shot her a look. “You’re not homeless. You’ve got a perfectly good home in New York. And since all the rooms in town are filled—”

  “All six rooms,” Babs said. “What kind of town has only six rooms for visitors?”

  “It’s the middle of winter, the middle of the week. It’s not exactly the hot tourist season.”

  “Well, it’s very frustrating. I think the least you can do is take me to the diner and get me some pie.”

  Finn shot her a sideways glance. “Fine. I’ll take you to Max’s—”

  Babs clapped her hands together, her fac
e lighting up like a little girl’s on Christmas morning.

  “—and you can go on inside and get your pie while I wait.”

  Babs rolled her eyes and slumped back in her seat. “Now that just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Finn turned the car onto Main. “No, it doesn’t give you what you want. It makes perfect sense.”

  “You’re just going to wait outside. In the cold?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re not hungry?”

  “Not hungry enough.”

  Finn pulled into the parking lot at Max’s. Babs shot a look at the backseat. “Talk some sense into him, will you, Wallace?”

  At the sound of his name, Wallace gave a short huff from the backseat. Finn watched him for a second in the rearview, but the dog didn’t say anything.

  Which was good.

  ’Cause dogs don’t talk.

  Finn pulled around the side of the diner to the employee lot, parking next to Tessa’s Thing. As Babs let herself out of her side, he opened the back door and looked at Wallace, who refused to move from his curled-up position on the backseat.

  “I’m not paying for this car to be detailed from you marking your territory,” Finn said. “Out. There’s a fire hydrant around here somewhere just waiting to be abused, I’m sure.”

  Wallace huffed again, then pulled himself up and hopped out of the car. Finn turned toward the diner, listened as the clack-clack-clack of Babs’s heels came up behind him.

  “You’re just going to let him off like that?” Babs said. “Aren’t you afraid he won’t come back?”

  “Nope,” Finn said. He scooted himself up on the trunk of the car and pulled out his pack of smokes. Babs tightened her grip on her shoulder bag and sighed.

  “I thought you said you were quitting,” she said.

  “I said I would quit when I turn thirty.” He flicked his lighter and lit the smoke. “That’s not for another eight months.”

  Babs watched him. He took a long drag, exhaled, flicked the ashes to the ground, and met her gaze.

  “Better go get that pie,” he said. “Tick tock, lady.”

  As if to prove his point, the town bell struck the half hour. Babs let out a heavy, dramatic sigh, then turned and headed into the diner. Finn stared at the brick on Max’s side wall and felt like he was seventeen again, out sneaking a smoke on his break. Didn’t help having Tessa’s big, flowered Thing sitting there. It was like a damn time machine, and for a moment he even had an impulse to run inside, grab an apron, and start bussing tables.

  Except he’d sworn after that last argument with Max that he’d die before setting foot back in that diner again, and he meant it.

  He tossed the cigarette down on the ground and hopped off the trunk to smash it out with his boot. As he did, some movement toward the back of the lot caught his eye, and he glanced up to see Izzy skirting through the parking lot in the direction of her house, arms crossed over her stomach, head down. It wasn’t until she’d passed him that he saw the soot on the back of her white coat.

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” he muttered as he walked after Izzy. “A healthy dose of distraction.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Izzy scrubbed at her hands in the kitchen sink, creating a mound of soap bubbles that came halfway up her arms, but still, there was soot under her fingernails.

  “Crappity crap crap shit,” she muttered.

  “Well, hello, sailor.”

  Izzy’s body jolted backward as she let out a violent scream. Suds hit the wall of the kitchen. She finally gained her balance, leaned back against the counter and turned to see Finn smiling at her.

  “Holy cats,” she said, putting her hand over her chest.

  “Now, that’s better.” He picked up the Mickey Mouse snow globe on the kitchen table and gave it a shake. “You have to watch your language. People will think you have no fucking class.”

  “What are you doing here?” she said. “Don’t you knock?”

  “I did. You must not have heard me.”

  Izzy took a deep breath. “Oh.”

  “Actually, that’s a lie. I didn’t knock. But imagine if I had. I would have missed the whole Macbeth act. Couple of witches and a cauldron, you could take that on the road.”

  Izzy stared at him. He gestured toward her with the snow globe. “Someday, you’re gonna get that joke, and man, are you gonna laugh.”

  Izzy snatched a towel off the oven handle and dried her hands. “I get it. Out, damned spot. It’s not funny.”

  “Oh, it so totally is,” Finn said, mocking teen-speak in a way that somehow wasn’t as annoying as when Tessa did it. He set the globe back on the table and eyed Izzy for a moment. “So, I thought you were smart.”

  “I am,” Izzy said.

  “Really?” he said. His face went dark. “Because I don’t think smart girls break into crime scenes thinking they’re gonna catch something the cops didn’t.”

  Izzy’s eyes widened and a chill went through her. She swallowed. “How... how did you... ?”

  “Just this morning you told me about Vickie and your mom. Doesn’t take a detective to see you covered in soot and put two and two together. Just takes not being brain-dead.” He gave her a confident smile and crossed his arms over his chest. “And for that, would you believe I just squeak past the qualification round?”

  Izzy sighed. “Well, I had to do something. You weren’t going to help me.”

  “Don’t make this my fault, kid. You crossed the border into Delinquentville all on your own. Besides, I never said I wouldn’t help you.”

  “You said to put the money back in my piggy bank,” she said. “Which, by the way, I don’t have.” It was a Hello Kitty bank. Which was way, way cooler.

  Finn pulled out a chair at the table and nodded toward it. “I think we need to chat,” he said.

  Izzy slumped, resisting the impulse to give the floor a petulant kick. “Fine,” she said in resignation, dramatically turning toward the refrigerator. “Want something to drink?”

  “A shot of your finest single malt.”

  Izzy shot a look over her shoulder at him. She wasn’t sure what a single malt was, but it sounded gross. He smiled at her, and she got a little tingle, a glimpse of what it was about this guy that got her sister all in a twist. She pulled two Diet Cokes out of the fridge and walked over, handing him one. Finn inspected it, one eyebrow raised. “You girls and your damn diets,” he said.

  Izzy popped the top on her soda. “It’s how we stay beautiful for you men.”

  “Oh, please,” Finn said, flipping the chair opposite Izzy and straddling it. “First of all, guys like curves, and anyone who tells you different is trying to sell you something. Second, it would take a thousand whacks with the ugly stick for you girls to lose your looks, and even then...”

  He stopped, stared down at the Diet Coke can in his hand, and shook his head. Izzy knew he was thinking of her sister—everyone was always thinking of Tessa—but she blushed all the same.

  “Anyway.” He set the can down on the table and leaned his arms against the back of the chair. “What’d you find?”

  “Find?” Izzy let out a frustrated sigh. “Nothing.”

  “Okay. We’ll assume for the sake of argument that I’m buying that crock of crap. What were you looking for?’

  Izzy shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do,” he said, his expression flat. “Think about it. Why would a nice girl like yourself violate a crime scene? Certainly not looking for the latest issue of Teen Beat.”

  Izzy gave him a black look.

  Finn grinned at her. “Seventeen?”

  “Quit making fun of me.”

  His face went serious. “An empty gasoline can and a pack of matches with the bad guy’s name and phone number scribbled inside?”

  Izzy sat up straighter. “No.” Kinda. “But it doesn’t matter, because I didn’t find anything. It was a total waste of time.”

  “I’m sure your warden will agree,
” Finn said, popping his soda open.

  Izzy felt a chill go down her spine. “What?”

  “Oh, yeah, baby. You’re big-time now. You just violated a potential crime scene, and based on those dirty little mitts of yours, you probably left a mother lode of prints for anyone who’s interested to find.” He took a sip of his soda, grimaced, and checked out the ingredients list on the side of the can. “Hey, turpentine has no calories. Who knew?”

  “But... they already did all that stuff yesterday,” Izzy said, her heart starting to pump madly. “They wouldn’t go back... would they?”

  Finn shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But I think you should brush up on your prison break movies just in case. I hear Stalag 17 really defines the genre.”

  “Oh.” Izzy swallowed against the panic forming in her gut. “Oh. Man. Oh, God. Tessa’s gonna kill me.”

  “Deader’n a doornail.”

  Izzy figured she must have looked as panicked as she felt, because Finn’s face softened, and he leaned forward “Hey. Don’t worry about it, okay?”

  “How can I not worry? If I get caught—”

  “It’s not if you get caught, babe,” he said. Izzy couldn’t help but warm to the term of endearment. “It’s when. Even in a town like this, there are people and technology that can track you. If you’re gonna be breaking into places, you have to be smart about it.”

  Izzy leaned back, tried to look casual. “Yeah. Like how?”

  “Nice try.” He watched her for a moment, and when he spoke again, his face was serious. “Do you want to be put back in foster care?”

  “No.” Izzy felt her chin start to tremble at the thought. Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. She’d already cried in front of him once today. Finn would think she was a total baby if she did it again, and she was not a baby.

  “Really? Because you’re acting like a kid who wants to be taken away from her sister.”

  “No!” Izzy took a deep breath, clenched her jaw, stared at her hands. The tears backed off. “I know I should leave it alone. I know I shouldn’t be doing these things, but...” She swallowed hard and met Finn’s eye.