We sat on the sofa, at opposite ends. I watched while Solomon typed the last of an email, drew his finger over the mouse pad, then tapped the button.
"I like the ring," I said, examining it as I held my ring finger aloft. It looked like platinum with a small stone embedded in it. I figured it couldn't possibly be a real diamond so it was probably paste. Even so, it was pretty and, funnily enough, it was exactly like something I would have picked if I were in the market for a wedding ring. Unbidden, the thought sprang into my mind that Maddox and I hadn't even gotten around to key rings, replete with each other's keys yet, never mind anything more. Pang. I scrubbed the thought of him from my head. I wasn't going to think about him every waking moment. I was going to be strong. I was going to do my job and I was going to move on. I was, I was, I was, I told myself. "Good choice," I said out loud, after easing the ring back over my knuckle and sliding it into place. "What are you wearing?"
Solomon relaxed as he held up his hand. A thick, plain, ring hogged his ring finger, bright and matte against his dark skin. A perfect fit. It looked like it was made to be there. It looked like he’d thought this through. Hmmm...
"Good to know you're traditional."
"In some ways."
"Hopefully not in the three-times-a-week, national average way," I quipped before closing my eyes, realizing what I said.
Solomon looked up from his laptop. "You want it more often?" he deadpanned.
"No!" I finished my juice with a gulp, ignoring the stomach flip as I leaned over to see what he was doing. I didn't have to crane my head far to see Solomon's screen. He turned it a couple of inches towards me and I watched as his email program disappeared, leaving a folder open.
I focused on it with resolved eyes. The itch that I was hoping Maddox would scratch very soon was currently dormant and I didn't need it rearing its ugly head to the tune of Solomon. I repeated in my head, I am a busy, professional woman who lives to work. Right now, anyway. I could probably sustain the workaholicism for this op at least. "What are you doing?" I asked him to get my mind off my inner voice.
Solomon slid into business mode easily. "Reading up on the case. My contact sent me the personnel files."
I feigned shock. "Not Lucas?" If it was plugged into the net, Lucas could get into it. Since working with him, I was a lot more scrupulous about what I browsed using my work laptop, though I wouldn't put it past him to snoop on my personal laptop if he had a yen to. Given the proper circumstances, I suspected Lucas was a cyber menace; possibly a large chunk of the reason why Solomon hired him, alongside his jolly band of ex-detectives, agency men and... me, ex-temp, failed cadet, and whoops, he just put a ring on it, single lady.
"Tomorrow."
I assumed tomorrow meant we'd know everything from the victim’s shoe size to the last entry in her diary, along with her life history, as held in the virtual space.
"What do we know about the deceased?" I asked, my hangover finally fading while my brain suddenly perked up.
"Jillian Connor was twenty-nine. She was working as an administrative assistant at Fort Charles for eighteen months on a part-time basis. No husband, no kids. Not sure about a boyfriend."
I recalled Solomon's comment about the volume of men in one small base. "On a base with how many thousand men?"
"That's something for you to find out. No man has come forward." I glanced at Solomon as he opened a file, his eyes sweeping over the contents, taking in everything, and missing nothing. "She enrolled in evening classes at college. Accounting," he told me.
"Yawn."
Solomon gave me an eye roll. "Pay attention. Her sister, Roxanne, works on base, too. She's... huh. It doesn't say. We'll find out. You'll need to make friends with her."
"No problem." I could make friends with anybody. The wallowing pit of despair in the back of my head chose that moment to point out I couldn't keep a boyfriend though. I squashed the mental bug and focused, asking, "What about Jillian's death?"
"I'm getting to that. She was found ten days ago in the office she worked in. Because she was working after hours, no one else was around, and she wasn't found until the morning. She died from blunt force trauma. The ME says it was something solid and heavy with no particular markings. Maybe a baseball bat. Something around that size and weight. The notes say it was wielded with enough force to fracture her skull on the first impact. That was probably the blow that killed her."
I winced. "Did it say what kind of force was needed to kill her?"
"No, it could have been a man or a woman, but she was hit repeatedly. Twelve times total. The trajectory of the blows suggests it was someone taller, though she could have been on the floor at the time of the attack. The ME needed to get the dental records to make a positive identification it was Jillian."
Double wince. That kind of rage could only have come from someone who hated her. Or was desperate. "That doesn't seem overly personal to me," I observed. "Like if it happened in the heat of the moment, a guy would just use his fists, not grab a weapon. And a soldier would have access to real weapons. A gun or a bullet would seem a more likely choice. But a bat?"
"Or something similar,” Solomon reminded me. “Could have been sheer opportunity."
"Maybe. It's a lot of rage though," I said, thinking about the twelve blows. If she died quickly, why continue beating her?
"Too much to be completely impersonal," Solomon decided, leaning backwards and rolling his neck as though it were stiff. "A robbery would be quick, in and out. This beating took too long for that. This was overkill."
I hated to ask. "Sexual assault?"
"No sign of it."
"How big was Jillian?"
"Five-foot, three inches and she weighed a hundred and twenty pounds."
"So she wasn't a big girl. A man could have beaten her to death quite easily."
Solomon latched onto my thoughts. "You thinking a woman would have probably looked for a weapon?"
"That was my first thought. She's a little smaller than me, but weighs a little less; so if I wanted to cause damage, I would need a weapon."
"Maybe the guy didn't want to bruise his knuckles?" Solomon suggested, his voice far too matter-of-fact for the brutal crime.
I gave him a skeptical look. "Would you stop to think about your knuckles before you beat someone to death?"
"If I thought the body would be found, and I didn't want any incriminating evidence on my hands, maybe."
"Huh. So, maybe this person was thinking first, making it premeditated? They found a weapon first, then went to her office when they knew she was alone," I hypothesized, trying not to wonder if Solomon had ever... no, not going to think about it. "I take it the weapon wasn't found?" I asked, knowing what the answer would be.
"No."
"Could they dump it somewhere close by?"
"Possibly. We'll check the location tomorrow. There's been a lot of foot traffic since she was found. I would have preferred to come here earlier." Solomon shrugged like it wasn't a big deal, but I understood. In ten days, the crime scene could have been obliterated by the military police, city police, and who knows what else.
"Noted. That kind of beating would create a lot of blood spray, right?"
Solomon nodded, leaning in to open another file. An image of a stained wall came into view. When I moved closer, I realized it was blood. It spattered the walls and covered a waist-high reception desk. "Tate had her blood on his clothes.”
"So much that he could have done it?" I asked, looking away from the photo, hoping that I wouldn't have to view Jillian's corpse. It wasn't that I was particularly squeamish. I'd already had the bad fortune to come across more than one dead body, but it didn't mean I wanted to see any more. There was something impossibly sad about seeing a corpse.
"Not from what my contact told me, but Tate could have worn a jacket that he dumped. He's not talking anyway."
"Not even to protest his innocence?" I asked in a flash of surprise.
Solomon held his palm
s up. "He said he didn't kill her and that's it. Clammed right up."
I went into the kitchen and poured another juice, then one for Solomon. I brought them back and handed his glass to him, saying, "Tell me about this guy, Tate," before taking a sip.
"Sergeant Nathaniel Tate is thirty-two. He's a gym instructor and has been based at Fort Charles for three years. We have confirmed that he knew the victim, but it doesn't seem they were ever involved romantically. He's six feet tall and weighs a hundred and ninety pounds."
"Big guy," I mused, trying to envision the scene in my head. I tried to imagine him seeing Jillian was alone in the office, topping her by more than a head and sixty pounds, and still needing a weapon to attack. It didn't seem plausible, given the height and weight differences. Instead, I imagined him not knowing who was in the office and grabbing a weapon to defend himself. But even so, why defend himself against a woman so much smaller than he? And when he knew the victim too? "He wouldn't arm himself to go after a woman of Jillian's build. Maybe he didn't plan on killing her? He could have grabbed something in the office in a moment of rage or panic."
"Whole lot of questions. Not a lot of answers."
I pulled a face. "Is it the same for the military police?"
"Seems so. I have Lucas trying to access their files so we can see where their investigation is going."
"Is that illegal?"
Solomon mumbled something into his drink, then looked up and... winked. Oh, great. Now we were committing crimes against the military. I wondered how many years that would get me. I had a momentary flash of losing my wardrobe in favor of a giant neon onesie. I decided to go for plausible deniability. "I didn't ask."
Solomon continued, "So far, I'm glad we haven't seen it because I want to go into this with open eyes. We might see something they missed."
"And her friends might talk to us because we're not Army," I finished, ignoring the ominous “they” as I drained my juice. A small pang of hunger hit me at the same time as I thought about the morning’s hangover donuts. I missed lunch, and with the queasiness gone, I could kill for some greasy food. I put my glass on the coffee table and sat back. Fastening my hands together, I pushed them out and stretched my arms, feeling the stiff aches of my body slipping away.
"No time like the present to find out," said Solomon as he pressed a few buttons, wiped the screen, and powered down. He checked his watch. "There's a bar on base where a lot of the civilians hang out. I figured we'd go there, get something to eat and start introducing ourselves."
The thought of alcohol and promise of food had the simultaneous effect of making my head reel and my stomach grumble.
"I need to change my shirt. This one is rumpled. Give me five minutes to freshen up," I said, easing myself off the small couch and making my way to the bathroom. I shut the door behind me. After frightening myself in the mirror with tired eyes and pale skin, then smoothing the flyaways with my hand, I tweaked my ponytail. I also freshened up my makeup as I looked around the small room. It wasn't much. Basic, cheap tiles; easy to clean and maintain with a small window overhead. To the right was a shower stall with a fold-back door, wedged into the space next to the tub. I peeked inside the shower. Solomon had brought our things in while I slept and now his shower gel hung neatly next to mine, our toothbrushes side-by-side on the sink. I opened the small, mirrored cabinet. There were even his and hers razors. I was glad he hadn't unpacked my makeup, since apparently, I needed a lot more help to look effortless than he. I shut the shower door again, pulled a monstrous face in the mirror, and grinned.
It was only for a couple weeks, I reminded myself, then I would be back in my own apartment, preferably with another solved case under my belt. All I had to do was talk to a few civilians; make chatty with Jillian's friends and skulk around as Solomon's faux wife. No problemo at all. As for our toothbrushes lying together... well, sharing the cramped apartment with Solomon would be no worse than growing up in a house with three older brothers and a perfectionist sister. And not once would I think of him naked in the shower. Except for now, but that didn't count.
I braced my hands on the sink and took a deep breath, feeling my chest constrict and release. I closed my eyes, willing away the panic attack that bubbled through my diaphragm. Getting away was a good thing. Leaving Montgomery behind, along with Adam Maddox, was a good thing. It was he, not I that was the problem. I would do just fine. The space and separation would be the tools to help me heal. The focus on the job would occupy my mind. When I got home, I'd be able to face the reality that Maddox wasn't a part of my life anymore. There wouldn't be any embarrassing phone calls and showdowns, or the aches and pains of revisiting the places where we had fun. I was going to be okay.
I opened my eyes and looked into the mirror.
How hard could it be? We'd be out in two weeks tops and back to our normal lives.
"You wish, jellyfish," I said to the mirror me.
~
As far as bars go, this wasn't the most exciting I'd ever been in, but since it was a weekday night, I figured it probably livened up on the weekends. A dark, polished bar spanned the length of one wall, leaving a stretch of tables and chairs between it and two pool tables. The pool tables were snagged already, the players drinking while quietly talking, and a couple of tables were occupied. One held two women; the other had a larger group of men. No one wore uniforms. The sound of laughter drifted towards me.
After pointing me to the bar, Solomon excused himself to the men's room. I hopped onto a stool at the center of the bar and caught the barman's attention. He gave me a “one minute” signal with a finger before turning back to the refrigerator he was currently re-stocking. I waited while he finished, shut the door, and faced me, turning in a graceful movement and grabbing the towel slung over his shoulder. He stepped towards me and automatically began to work on a spot he saw on the spotless bar with the towel he pulled from his shoulder. He was average height and wiry, with neatly cropped, sandy brown hair, and a goatee. A silver bar ran through the top of one ear.
"What can I get you?" he asked, pausing in his mission to have the shiniest bar in the state and tossing the towel back over his shoulder.
"White wine and a beer please."
"Any particular kinds? Separate glasses?" he joked, his mouth breaking into an easy smile.
"Chardonnay if you've got it. Um, hold the beer," I added as an afterthought, looking across the taps to the bottles in the illuminated coolers. I figured Solomon would probably want to order whatever brand he preferred. "I'm not sure what... he'll probably want to order his own," I finished lamely.
"Coming up." The barman grabbed a glass from the shelf and a wine bottle from the refrigerator, bringing both to me, and pouring me a large glass of wine. "You're new," he said, pushing the glass forwards and taking the payment.
"That obvious?"
"Yeah. Just transferred here?" he asked, glancing up from the register with a smile. He handed me my change and deposited the bottle back in the refrigerator before returning to rest his forearms on the bar.
"No. Well, not exactly. My husband—" I tried not to choke on the word. It was going to take some getting used to "—got a job working as gym instructor here. The last instructor is apparently... uh, indisposed." I waited, hoping the barman would pick up on that and run with it. A murder on base had to be the hot topic.
The barman nodded, clearly knowing exactly what I implied. "That was some bad business," he told me. "But I assure you, it's not a regular thing." He held a hand out. "Welcome to Fort Charles. I'm Kevin Zabriskie, everyone's favorite bartender."
"Pleased to meet you, Kevin." I shook his hand, finding his grip dry and warm. "I'm Lexi."
I turned, dropping Kevin's hand, as I saw in my peripheral vision a body taking the stool to my left. I smiled, expecting Solomon, and faltered when I saw the muscle-bound jock in front of me. With his blond crew-cut and white smile, he could have been a poster child for healthy living.
One side of his
mouth slid up in a confident grin. "How much does a polar bear weigh?" he asked.
I frowned, startled, and then jumped as Solomon leaned around me, his hand resting proprietarily on the small of my back. "Enough to break the ice," Solomon said, his voice low and frosty. Then he kissed my cheek, sending a rush of warm blood to the spot where the feel of his lips tingled, even after he pulled away. The hand traveled up my back to rest between my shoulder blades, then back down again. I concentrated on not falling off the stool.
"Whoops. Sorry, man. Didn't realize the lady was here with someone." The blond held up his hands in defeat. "No offense, okay?"
"None taken," I said with a smile, breaking the ice before the polar bear could. I nudged Solomon in the ribs, very carefully, with the point of my elbow, reminding him we were here to make friends.
Behind the bar, Kevin laughed and rubbed the bar a little harder, waving a hand from the blond to me. "Derrick, meet Lexi and her husband, our new gym instructor."
"Solomon," said Solomon, leaning over to shake Kevin's hand, then the chancer's. "You've obviously already met my wife."
"I wasn't hitting on her, I was trying to be nice," Derrick continued to backpedal as he sized up Solomon, who was taller, broader and probably played dirtier.
"Don't worry about it. If we weren't married, I'd hit on her too," Solomon said and the tension dissipated.
Good to know I wasn't losing my touch.
Derrick didn't seem too worried about his little faux pas, and hung around while he ordered another drink and paid for Solomon's beer too, both appearing swiftly in front of them.
"What do you think of Fort Charles so far?" Kevin asked, reaching for a bottle of water and uncapping it. He tipped his head back and took a long drink.
"Quiet," I said. "Not what I was expecting."
"It'll get livelier soon," Kevin told us after Derrick said goodbye, shaking hands with Solomon again, and retreated to the pool table on the far side of the room.
"Why's that?" I asked.
"Troops are back from Afghanistan next week. Lots of celebrating to be done. I doubled my booze order."
Command Indecision (Lexi Graves Mysteries) Page 4
