I narrowed my eyes at him. “Our customers respect us. No one has ever grabbed my ass or tried to stick a dollar bill inside my—”
“Inside your thong? Oh, Christ. You’re wearing a thong?” Somehow Labeck managed to make “thong” sound like live sex shows featuring dogs and donkeys.
“I am not wearing a thong! But I’ll wear one if I feel like it! You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t wear. You lost that right when you went storming off to Montana without me.”
“It was for a job, not a vacation. And not going was your choice, Mazie. You chose that stupid mystery-shopping job over me, which turned out to be a disaster.” He lobbed his coffee cup into the trash. “You’re a walking, talking disaster magnet.”
“And you’re a self-centered, conceited, control freak!”
I found my purse and hitched it over my shoulder. “You know, you almost had me with the postcards. All that garbage about how much you missed me. You made me think you’d changed, Ben. But you haven’t. You only want me if you can somehow turn me into this—this cross between Hairdresser Barbie and Martha Stewart.”
“That’s crap.”
“That’s why you’re dating Aspen, isn’t it? Little Miss Perfect. I’ll bet she never has run-ins with sign-wielding wackos or psycho arsonists.”
“You see what I’m talking about here?” Labeck was yelling, flinging his arms out and stomping around the room. “I didn’t ask you to go around grilling Professor Plums or whatever the hell other crazies you find under rocks. It’s dangerous, and you’re going to get hurt.”
“Stop telling me what to do. You remind me of my older brothers.”
“You remind me of a train wreck.”
We stood there glaring at each other. Then I took a deep breath and said, “I’m pretty sure I hate you right now, Ben Labeck, but you’re still my responsibility and I’m not turning my back on you. You can have my car if you want, or I can come back here after work and bring you—”
“I’m not some big baby who’s been dumped on your doorstep. Anyway, I won’t be here later.”
“Where will you be?”
“I don’t know yet. But I wouldn’t tell you if I did know.”
“Because you don’t trust me?” My voice rose and cracked.
“It’s not a matter of trust. Look, I’ll find a way to get in touch with you. In the meantime, I don’t want you going down in spooky basements, looking in closets for the strangler, or pulling any other scatterbrained stunts.”
“Aren’t you going to tell me not to run with scissors and to look both ways before crossing the street?”
“Mazie, you make me want to bang my head against a wall.” He jammed his hands in his pockets, scowling at me. “At least be cautious. Because I don’t want what happened to Rhonda happening to you.”
I waved it off. Strangler, schmangler.
“And Vince Trumbull knows you helped me last night. He’s going to come after you.”
“I’m ready for him.” I marched toward the door. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”
“Wait—what are you planning to do?”
“I’m going out to buy a thong.”
Chapter Nineteen
When your mother calls, it doesn’t matter if you’re having a root canal, having your tax return audited, or having sex—you still have to talk to your mother. There are no exceptions to this rule.
—Maguire’s Maxims
Lieutenant Vincent Trumbull did not look happy as he slammed through Hottie Latte’s door, stalked across the room, and thumped my cellphone down on the sscounter.
“Cute, Mazie. Real cute,” he snarled.
I stared at him with wide, innocent eyes. I was a far cry from last night’s boat-jumping, police-evading badass. I was wearing lipstick, makeup, and a baby-pink sweater and skirt lent to me by Heidi. Giselle had done my hair so it fell in soft waves, and Juju had sprayed me with a fragrance that smelled like sugar roses on a wedding cake. I could have auditioned for the Sandy part in Grease. Just looking at me would make you feel like you’d guzzled a bucket of corn syrup.
“You found my phone!” I squealed, reaching to pick it up. “I’ve been looking all over for it.”
Trumbull smacked a large, square hand over the phone like a bear guarding a log full of ants. He glared at me. “Don’t give me that crap. You know damn well where you left that phone.”
Customers set down their coffees and stared uneasily at the lieutenant. One of our regulars, a delivery-truck driver named Hank, who was nearly the same size as his truck, slowly rose to his feet and started moving toward us, but Heidi frantically motioned him to sit down.
Trumbull leaned in at me until we were nearly nose to nose. The fumes from his hair spray made my eyes water. “You and your lowlife boyfriend stuck this thing on a bus, wasting my department’s time and manpower while they chased it all over town.”
I made my eyes go even wider. “You had people hunting for my phone? Gee, I didn’t even report it missing. That’s amazing police work—I mean, your tax dollars at work!”
“Cut the bull crap!” Trumbull was shouting now, his big conk of hair flopping into his eyes. We both knew I was lying, but he couldn’t admit in public that he’d authorized an illegal listening device. “I know damn well you met Ben Labeck last night. The two of you fled from police officers, resisting lawful commands to halt. You aided and abetted a fugitive, you obstructed justice, and you—you did whatever the hell else I say you did.”
I shook my head. “Must have been someone else. I broke up with Labeck six weeks ago.”
“You think I’m blind? I saw you on that water taxi. You weren’t twenty feet away.”
My phone rang.
Everyone stared at it.
Trumbull picked it up and handed it to me, smirking. “Go on, answer it.”
“Hello?” My heart started beating wildly. What if it was Labeck? What if Trumbull’s team was triangulating him at this very second?
“Mazie?”
“Mom?” Automatically, I tugged my skirt hem down.
“Of course it’s me. Or have you forgotten what my voice sounds like?”
“I know it’s you, Mom, I just—”
“You sound funny. Do you have a cold?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You’re taking those special vitamins I bought for you, aren’t you? You know you get anemic in the winter.”
“I’m—Mom—this is kind of a bad time.”
“You don’t call me for two weeks, then you tell me it’s a bad time?”
Years of yelling at my brothers had given my mother a loud, clear voice that was perfectly audible to every person in the restaurant.
“Sorry, Mom. I’ve been busy.”
She sniffed. “I understand. Everything else is more important than your parents.”
“Mo-om. That’s not it, I just—”
“Where are you? What’s that noise in the background?”
I hunched over the counter, turning my back, trying for privacy. “I’m at work. I’ve got a new job. In a coffee shop.”
“A Starbucks?”
“Sort of.”
“What happened with your old job? You didn’t get fired, did you?”
“Umm … How’s Dad?”
“Your father is fine.” She sighed. It was her why-did-God-give-me-ungrateful-children sigh. “All right, the reason I’m calling. You are planning to be at your brother’s for Thanksgiving next week, aren’t you?”
“Aww, Mom, you know I don’t—”
Trumbull reached around me and hit the End button.
“Hey—she wasn’t done yet!” Juju yelled.
“I don’t have time to stand around listening to her jabber with some broad,” Trumbull snapped.
“Don’t call my mother a broad!” I forgot I was supposed to be a harmless twit, and was ready to rip Trumbull’s comb-over out of his scalp, greasy clump by greasy clump.
“What kind of guy don’t let a girl talk to her own mothe
r?” This from a guy in a hard hat and orange safety vest.
“A guy what his own mother didn’t raise too good,” another man chimed in.
Trumbull looked like he wanted to stun-gun every customer in the place. He grabbed my arm. “You’re coming to the station with me. I’m putting you in an identity parade.”
“Am I under arrest?” I asked.
Trumbull gave a humorless chuckle. “Soon, Maguire, real goddamn soon.”
“She don’t have to do nothing unless you got a arrest warrant,” yelled Hank the delivery guy. “I saw it on Law and Order.”
“You got to read a person their rights if you’re arresting them.” This from Ray, who ran the optometrist shop next door.
Other customers chimed in.
“She gets to have a lawyer.”
“Don’t say nothing, Mazie!”
“Yeah, you got the right to remain silent.”
“Sue the bastards for false arrest.”
“Police brutality.”
“Get out your phones, you guys—we’re filming this!”
The café was in an uproar. Any second now, chairs were going to fly. Trumbull, his neck red as a turkey wattle, looked like he wanted to call for backup, but he was on City of Milwaukee turf here, not Brookwood, and was starting to realize that he shouldn’t have braced me in front of so many witnesses.
This was all my fault, I thought. If Hottie Latte got a reputation as a trouble spot, it might lose its operating license. “It’s okay,” I said hastily. “I’ll go along voluntarily.”
“Then I’m going with you,” Juju declared, throwing down her order pad.
“So am I!” Carleen said.
The other waitresses jumped in, too, insisting that they were going with me even if it meant closing up the shop. This renewed the uproar. The customers didn’t want to see me dragged off, but they didn’t want to be kicked out of their nice warm nest of bosoms and behinds either.
“I’m going by myself,” I yelled at everyone, shrugging into my borrowed coat, a burgundy wool bouclé Samantha had lent me because my pea jacket would have been too identifiable. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
“Don’t count on it,” Trumbull muttered under his breath.
Outside on the sidewalk, he motioned me toward the police cruiser, double-parked in front of the café. The Doyennes, who’d been lethargically clomping around all morning, suddenly came to life, gathering around like vultures, watching with avid interest.
“Did you arrest her for soliciting johns?” asked Mrs. Uncle Sam, her face alight with interest.
“Are you throwing her in the calaboose?”
“I hope you’re going to grill her.”
“Slap her around until she confesses.”
Trumbull ignored them. “Get in the car,” he ordered me.
“But you said I’m not under arrest.”
He gritted his teeth. “Not yet.”
“Then I’m driving my own car.”
Trumbull looked like he was choking on his own bile. No doubt he’d prefer dragging me into the cruiser by my hair, but there were too many witnesses around, so he contented himself with snarling “Be there,” before slamming into his car.
Chapter Twenty
The day you’re in a police lineup will be the day you’re wearing the pantyhose from hell.
—Maguire’s Maxims
The minute I walked into the Brookwood police station, I started getting heart-pounding flashbacks to the day I’d been arrested for my husband’s murder. My throat tightened, my breathing became shallower, and my fingers went numb. The environment was chilly and hostile. There were no coworkers or customers to protect me here, just hard-eyed cops who looked as though they wanted to see me locked in an airless cell with an overflowing toilet. I caught a glimpse of Josie Wheeler in a nearby office, but she merely glanced up, gave no indication that she recognized me, and went back to work. As a mole, Josie was a little too good; it would have been nice to have at least one person here who wasn’t regarding me as though I were E. coli bacteria.
I stood at the front counter, stammering out my reason for being there to a scowling desk sergeant. A minute later, Trumbull appeared. Here on his home turf, he’d regained all his bullying swagger.
“Ready for your close-up, Maguire?” he inquired, smiling as though he’d just learned that thumbscrews had been okayed as an interrogation device. “Come with me and I’ll get you set up for the witness ID.”
He led me back through a maze of hallways. “Nothing to worry about, Maguire. Since it wasn’t you with Labeck last night, you can relax, enjoy the experience.”
I had the feeling that this experience was going to be as enjoyable as a pelvic exam.
Trumbull left me with my old chum Officer Krumholz, then went off, probably to check the supply of fingernail extractors and rubber hoses. I wondered whether I ought to compliment Krumholz on the slick job she’d done bugging my phone, but there is a time to smart off, and this wasn’t it. She escorted me into a long, narrow room, took my purse and coat, and handed me a laminated sheet with the number three in a large font.
“Hold this up in front of you,” she growled. “Chest level.”
One wall of the room was marked with height lines. In my three-inch heels—also a loaner from Samantha, whose feet were the same size as mine—I was flirting with the five-six marking. A long window ran along the opposite side of the room, its surface dark glass that flung back my own reflection.
I knew it was a two-way mirror because I’d seen lineups on TV cop shows. The witness stands behind the window and tries to pick the suspect from a group of six or seven people. My stomach jittered, and I wished I’d had time to use the bathroom. Who was on the other side of the glass? Someone who’d point to number three and state with absolute certainty they’d seen me with Labeck last night? Maybe a passenger on the water taxi or a person we’d jostled running along the Riverwalk?
Two women walked into the room, holding sheets that identified them as lineup participants one and two. Both wore jeans and casual tops. Judging from the rays of hostility they were shooting at me, they were undercover police officers. A middle-aged blonde woman entered the room with a sheet identifying her as four. She wore a starched white shirt and navy pants with a stripe up the sides. She looked as though she’d been pulled off meter maid duty. Josie Wheeler was the last one into the room, wearing her red rhinestone glasses and a red sweater.
I had a bad feeling about this lineup. Chi Chi Dominguez, an inmate serving time for bank robbery, had once explained to me while we both worked steam-press duty how lineups can be rigged. Legally, the police have to select lineup participants who bear a physical resemblance to the accused. If the suspect is a skinny Sudanese, for instance, they can’t throw a bunch of overweight white people into the mix so the suspect stands out.
In this lineup, I stood out. Josie was the only other person here who even had dark hair, and her skin contained a lot more melanin than mine did. What next, an albino dwarf?
The door closed and a bored voice spoke over an intercom. “Face the window.”
A bright light came on overhead and I blinked. The light must mean the witness was in place behind the mirror. Should I smile? No—the same rules applied here as in prison: smiling invited predators. To survive in a hostile environment you maintained a poker face.
Thirty seconds passed. A bead of sweat popped out on my forehead. None of the other lineup participants were sweating. Sweating was bad. Sweaty people were guilty people. The sweat trickled down my face, salting the Rhonda scratches beneath my layer of makeup and setting up a maddening itch. I’d never wanted to scratch anything in my life as much as I wanted to scratch my cheek. It was torture not scratching that itch.
I could feel eyes boring into me through the glass. For some reason this made me want to blink a lot. Blinking was another telltale sign of guilt, so I forced my lids to stay open. But now I became aware of how dry my lips were. My lips felt like apr
icots in a solar dehydrator. I desperately wanted to run my tongue over them, but lip-licking was another guilt tic.
Then I became aware of my pantyhose. I was wearing satiny underpants under pantyhose apparently manufactured in newborn size. The pantyhose waistband was gradually creeping from my waist to the middle of my stomach, while its crotch was gathering momentum, heading toward my knees. The face itch was now replaced by the irrepressible urge to tug up my pantyhose.
When I was seventeen, I was in the Miss Quail Hollow pageant. Contestants had to glide across a stage, announce their name and life goal into a microphone, and then walk down a runway, wearing an evening gown and high heels. Walking along that platform, praying I wouldn’t trip, with every eye in the audience critically watching my every step—chin up, stomach in, shoulders back but not too far back because, God forbid, that would give you blade wings, and smile until your gums ache—was the most nerve-racking experience of my life.
Until now. The police lineup was, hands down, worse.
I focused on watching the second hand on the wall clock creep around. It must be a special psychological-torture clock, manufactured to make time cycle backward.
“Turn left,” ordered the disembodied voice.
My left, or the left of the person at the window? I turned the way I thought they wanted me to turn and accidentally bumped the blond meter maid.
“Asshole,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth.
“Turn right,” said the voice.
I did it correctly that time.
“Center,” ordered the voice.
We turned back and stared straight ahead. I concentrated on sending telepathic messages to the person on the other side of the glass: Pick the blonde, pick the blonde…
The light turned off. The voice said, “That is all. Thank you.”
What did that mean? Nobody had been fingered?
I followed numbers four and five out of the room. As I exited, Vincent Trumbull stepped out of the rodent hole where he’d been lurking, looking ominously pleased. “Maguire, come with me,” he barked.
Heart sinking, I followed him. Now what?
Crazy for You: Life and Love on the Lam (A Loveswept Contemporary Romance) Page 13
