“Captain . . .”
“We’re getting off topic,” she said, which Jason knew wasn’t true. Marci didn’t start up random conversations and then let them roam far afield. She had wanted to talk about what was going on inside his head so she could decide on his workload. “We were talking about your next move with the Drake file.”
“Yep. We were. My next move.”
He had no next move. He’d never had a next move. How to explain that it wasn’t so much about clearing Drake as it was about seeing Angela? Marci, a relaxed and tolerant supervisor in nearly all things—including encouraging the use of her first name—would bounce him off the case in half a second if she knew. It’d be re-filed in the tomb that was the CCD and that would be the end of it.
All this to scratch an itch (even without the Angela factor, the Drake file bugged him—there was something right in front of his face and he couldn’t see it) for a woman he barely knew.
“I’ve got some new records to look over,” he heard himself saying. Bad idea. Lying to the police or your boss is always a bad idea. Particularly when they’re one and the same. Bad bad bad. “But if there’s nothing there, I’m at a wall.”
She was nodding. “Yeah. Well. Do the best you can, but you’ve gotta know there’s a limit here.”
He did know. A lot of superiors would have nixed it right out of the gate. Especially when most people thought the killer had been locked away. “I’m thinking we’ll bounce it back to CCD by the end of the week. Sorry, Jase.”
“It’s fine.”
“I’ll tell the family if you want.”
“Not necessary.” Hand over my last chance to talk to Angela unless she kills someone and gets arrested? Nonsense.
“Good talk,” she said, rising from the chair.
No. Not really.
TWENTY
“Hey! You, in the smiley face shirt! Which I hate, by the way.”
Angela looked up from her computer to see Paul hanging in her doorway. Literally hanging; he was clutching the top of the door frame and his feet swung an inch off the carpet. He was shirtless; his right pec tattoo (plain black ink reading TATTOO) was showing. “Do I criticize your casual attire?”
“Frequently.”
“That’s fair.”
Paul’s feet swung and kicked. “I’m getting taller, I know it.”
“You’re twenty-three, little brother. You’re done growing. Vertically, I mean.”
He managed to cling to the door frame, swing, and glare at the same time. “Oh, what, you’re a doctor now?”
“No, I just have a rudimentary understanding of human physiology. Nobody gets a growth spurt for their twenty-fourth birthday. Are those my sweatpants?”
“Well, yeah. Who else’s would they be?”
“Yours! Because you have six pairs.”
“Eight if I count yours.”
“Then don’t count mine! The thing of it is, I wouldn’t even care if you did it because you were a cross-dresser or transgender or experimental or anything like that. But you’re none of those, you only take them to bug me.”
“Guilty.”
“Bugging me makes you happy. Weirdly happy.”
“You should be happy you make me happy. Make me happier and tell me where the tape measure is. I’ve shot up at least a sixteenth of an inch in the last fourteen months. I’ll prove it.”
“I’m not sure you know what ‘shot up’ means.”
“Since I’m the one doing the shooting up, I know all about it.” Pause. “That came out wrong.”
“Paul, you see all the paperwork, right? And the spreadsheets? And my harassed face?”
“Your face always looks like that. Now stop earning money to keep me in sweatpants and measure me, dammit.”
Wily to his ways, she had saved her document the moment he’d bellowed her name from the doorway—average height and build, but Paul had a voice like a bullfrog that swallowed a bullhorn—so she knew she could leap out of her chair without worrying about the half-finished doc. In half a second she was across the room and tickling his belly, forcing him to thrash, laugh, and let go, falling in a heap.
She stood over him in triumph. “Now that makes me happy.”
“Cheat.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re popular,” he informed her from the floor. He sat up and rubbed the back of his head, to no good effect since his dark brown curls always looked mussed. “The new cop on Dad’s case—Chamberlin?”
She froze in the act of bending over to give him a hand up. “Jason Chambers?”
“Prob’ly. Plainclothes detective, super shiny badge? Anyway, he’s in the kitchen. For you, of all things. Are you stuck? You’re all hunched over.”
“Oh, God.” The potential for disaster was staggering. Least important, but the first thing that came to mind: I look like hell. Most important . . . “Where’s Mom?” she scream-whispered.
“It’s okay.” Her irrepressible brother, the oldest of the boys, bounced up from the carpet and gave her a reassuring peck on the cheek. “She’s lying down for her post-lunch siesta. Prob’ly in preparation for her predinner siesta.”
“Thank God.” Her mother did not care for the company of those in law enforcement. Not even those trying to solve her husband’s murder. Sometimes especially those trying to solve her husband’s murder. It was almost like, as bad as her father’s murder was, her mother was afraid the police would find out something even worse. Just one more thing in the Drake dynamic that made no sense.
“Okay. I’ll go talk to him. Okay. Oh, my God, I’m so . . . I’m wearing— Okay. No time to— Okay.” She looked down at her T-shirt and leggings and swallowed a groan (the Horde must not find out about her crush). “Okay. He’s in the kitchen? Okay.”
“You’re not having a stroke, are you?”
“No . . . no. No, definitely not. Probably not. Okay.”
“Hey, it’s not all bad. He liked our weird doorbell.”
“He likes ‘Chick Habit’?” She was already half running down the hall. “Okay.”
TWENTY-ONE
She found Jason examining the papers all over the fridge and humming under his breath. Other families put up their kids’ artwork. The Drakes left each other various ransom notes
Mitchell, you fuck, you can have your Cokes back when you return my Little Debbies.
death threats
When I find out who filched my baby spinach, I will END THEM. I WILL END THEM.
and various to-do lists in progress
Grocery list: Eye of newt. Unicorn horn. Skim milk. Arsenic. Toilet paper.
He turned at once when he heard her come in the kitchen, looking bemused, nodded politely, then his gaze flicked over her shirt. She was fully aware she needed a shower and hadn’t run a brush through her hair for hours.
“That shirt,” he said, “is just one big mixed message.”
Said the sober-looking fellow in the black suit with the dimple and the crazy-ass socks. “Yes, it’s an oldie but a goldie.” Black T-shirt, large yellow smiley face, bright white lettering: I HATE YOU. “What can I do for you, Jason? Detective Chambers, I mean?” Jason, I mean. Long, tall stud in a black suit, I mean. Take me away from all the weird, I mean.
He smiled. “You were right the first time. I apologize for the pop-in, but I was reviewing the case with my captain a few hours ago—”
“Really?” In less than a month, Chambers had done more than Kline in the last five years. That’s not quite fair. Kline was CCD, Jason’s not. Oh, fuck fair. “That’s great!”
He shook his head. “Not really. I had nothing for her. I wanted to stop by to warn you—”
“Cheese it, le flics.”
“Detective Jason, this is my brother Paul.”
“Did you just call him ‘Detective Jason
’?”
“And the guy next to him is my cousin Mitchell.”
“Gentlemen.”
“No,” Mitchell said, shaking Jason’s hand. “Not at all.” He turned to his cousin. “I told you I heard ‘Chick Habit’!”
“Can we assume you’re here to tell us our dead uncle is still dead?”
She sighed. “And this is—”
“Your cousin Jordan.”
She blinked at the detective, surprised. He not only knew Jordan’s name, but he knew Jordan was a cousin, not a sibling. Dennis Drake had fathered three children out of wedlock with two different women, one of them a product of a one-night stand whom the family never met. After the trial, the cousins had to live with Emma, Angela, and her brothers. There hadn’t been any real choice—the cousins were basically orphans at that point. Thus, the Horde was born (all villains deserve a backstory). “Yes, that’s—”
Jordan was sizing up the sober man in the black suit. “Nice to meet you. But you’ve only met with Angela. How d’you even know who I am?”
The detective looked surprised by the question. “I read your father’s file. I, uh, memorized it. Accidentally.”
“Since you like memorizing reams of files, I guess you’re in the right job.”
“Yes.”
“Impressive.”
“No. Just my job.”
Angela was thrilled/mortified Jason was there, but that last comment was puzzling. The Drake case wasn’t his job; it had been closed years ago.
“What can we do for you?” she asked again. “And by ‘we,’ I mean ‘I’ because, I promise, the rest of them will bring nothing but chaos.”
“And brownies,” Jack pointed out. Angela smiled at him, she couldn’t help it, her smallest, sweetest brother/cousin.
“Yes. And brownies.”
“Brownies?”
Angela realized Jason hadn’t meant to say that out loud, because he immediately flushed. The smile she’d given Jack she now turned on him. “Skipped lunch, huh?”
“Paperwork.”
“Siddown,” Jack ordered, already tying on his Darth Vader apron.* “We have so much food, what with all the adolescents still growing and the adult male who thinks he’s still growing.”
A yelp from Paul: “Hey!”
“Won’t take two minutes to heat something up for you. Five if you want it fresh.”
“I’m aware that’s my social cue to say something like ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly’ or ‘I don’t want to impose,’ but your kitchen smells wonderful. Your whole house does. And I can linger. I went off shift an hour ago. If—if I’m invited.” Jason immediately sat at the turtle table. “I may have skipped breakfast as well.”
Jack looked delighted at the prospect of someone new on whom to practice his culinary wizardry and got to work. Paul gave Angela an inquiring look. “D’you need us?” and she shook her head so hard the room spun for a few seconds. No. God no. Go away and let me gaze dreamily at Jason Chambers. I’ll save you the leftovers from the leftovers. “You want us back in, just holler.” But they were already turning away, knowing the look of a cop who had no updates. Mitchell lingered long enough to lean over and murmur, “If Mom wakes up, I’ll try to keep her out of here.”
“Thank you very much,” she replied, then turned to Jason. “Drink? We have milk, chocolate milk, iced tea, pop . . .”
“Chocolate milk would be great.”
Gah, he likes chocolate milk. That is ADORABLE.
She brought two large glasses and sat across from him. Chocolate mustache, here I come. Because as awful as I look right now, I can always look worse.
“Sorry about the Horde. They tend to descend, create chaos, abruptly lose interest, and then vanish, emerging periodically to feed or do laundry.”
“Looks like a fun group.”
She snorted. “Let me guess: only child, right?” She’d heard such mythical, blessed creatures existed.
“No. Well, now I am. My brother was murdered when I was in high school.”
Shocked, she instinctively reached out, then remembered herself and yanked back her traitorous exploratory hand. “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful. Is still awful, I imagine.”
He nodded. “Twelve years last month.”
“Is that why you became a cop?”
“No, I entered the academy because I lost a bet.”
She blinked. Weird. “Oh.”
He quirked a small smile. “Kidding. Yes, that’s why I became a cop. And your father’s death was why you became a paralegal.”
“Well, that and my obsessive love for files and piles of paper and legal jargon and briefs . . . Jason, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
He leaned back in his chair and propped his right ankle on his left knee, which was the most relaxed she’d ever seen him. And she wasn’t going to check out his socks. No way. “Please don’t misunderstand, because we’re all grateful you took an interest when Kline retired. And you’re here on your own time—you could have been home a couple of hours ago—which is above and beyond and that isn’t a criticism at all. I think—we think you’re great to do this. But . . . why? There must be thousands of old cases. And you probably have a dozen open files at any given time.”*
He laughed. “Only on my days off. On my days on, I have more.”
“Right. So . . .” She spread her hands, palms up. “Why us?”
He answered at once, with zero hesitation. “Because your uncle could have been me. I was the druggie lowlife and my brother was the golden boy. Pure good luck that I’m not behind bars, and don’t have an arrest record. Pure bad luck that my brother’s in the ground.”
I can’t believe he told me that. I love that he told me that. What to say to that? That one, at least, she could answer. The Drakes tried, whenever possible, to ascribe to the K.I.S.S.* theory. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. To finish answering your question, my chart-obsessed captain likes challenged and productive detectives, and your family’s history resonated. We had to share a floor with CCD when one of our detectives was accidentally exposed to—”
“Scabies!” she cried. Ack. Don’t sound so enthusiastic. “I, uh, heard. It was the talk of the courthouse for a while. And it definitely wasn’t funny.”*
“No,” he replied soberly. “It wasn’t. They had to fumigate the entire floor as well as the booking area.”
“Awful.”
“The officer had to seek medical treatment.”
“These kids today.”
“It certainly wasn’t funny.” Maybe not, but he was smiling broadly at her. So broadly, in fact . . . Gah, dimple alert!
“No,” she managed, then gave up and laughed so hard she was dizzy with it.
When they both calmed down a bit, he continued, “While we were sharing space, Detective Kline would com—comment. He would comment on the case. Frequently. Over time, I was intrigued. And I saw you once. When you came to express your dismay at Detective Kline’s, ah, priorities.”
She remembered. She had expressed a great deal of dismay. So much dismay that she’d almost been arrested. So much dismay she hadn’t noticed the gorgeous Detective Chambers, doubtless a subtle and mature presence in the background. “Bad day,” she said shortly. “And Kline and I didn’t have a warm working relationship. Or even a cordial one. Or an effective one. Mostly because he didn’t think we were working together.”
“His error.”
“Thank you.”
“Your father’s case intrigued me and my captain didn’t mind me taking a look. But I’m sorry to say that, even with your help, I’m deadlocked.”
She nodded. “So my dad’s case goes back into the freezer, so to speak.”
“Yes.”
“I understand. I’m not thrilled,” she warned, “but I g
et it. And it was above and beyond for you to come by in person to tell me.” Agh. Presumptive much? “Tell us, I mean. Keep us all in the loop. That’s really all I wanted from Kline—to be in the loop, y’know?” To not be forgotten, the way my father’s been forgotten. The way my mother’s been forgotten, even by herself.
He nodded. “Understandable.”
“My mom, she’ll be relieved.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. She’s been after me to let Dad lie, so to speak. She hates all the time I’ve put into it. She mourns him, of course. But I think sometimes it’s more because she felt cheated of the chance to verbally smack him around some more. They had passion, but they weren’t a love match and also, why am I telling you this?”
“Because I like to listen?”
She snorted. “Good thing you’re a cop, then.” She realized she was leaning forward, almost hovering over him, and forced herself to ease off. “I’m not entirely delusional—I didn’t think we were in a seventies detective show, working together to defeat some nameless villain, evil is punished, roll credits, and cue the terrible soundtrack.”
“Something like ‘For What It’s Worth’ by Buffalo Springfield. Or Steppenwolf’s ‘Born to Be Wild.’”
She could feel herself light up. “Yes! Perfect.”
“Your doorbell. I like it.”
“Oh, God.” She hid her eyes with one hand. “Blame my brothers.”
“Or thank them,” he teased.
“They’re huge Tarantino fans. That song plays over the end credits of—”
“Death Proof. ”
She dropped her hand. “Tarantino fan?”
“Not really. He’s loud, and not subtle. But he thinks he is, which gets old.”
“You’ve described almost all of my blood relatives.”
He laughed again. “To be honest, his movies remind me of my job. So they aren’t escapist for me. But I love his soundtracks. They’re eclectic and, unlike virtually everything else he does, subtle.”
All I had to do was invite him over and let him lean on our doorbell and I could have seen a dimple! Argh, so many missed opportunities. And the dimple.
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