“It’s technically a half mullet. The back is only to her collar,” Travis says. “And she needs to lose that pantsuit. It’s so polyester. It looks like Sandra Bullock’s pajamas in Heat.”
They giggle.
“Omigod, I love that movie. We should watch it so we can get our inner cop on,” Michael says.
“I get to be Sandra Bullock,” Travis says.
“Okay by me. I love Melissa McCarthy,” Michael adds.
“You guys are not cops. You need to remember that,” I reprimand.
“Jamie’s right. We’re more like The Hardy Boys,” Michael says.
“I get to be Frank,” Travis says.
Michael seems to consider this. “All right. I think I’d make a decent Joe.”
“Oh, you totally would.” Travis bobs his head in agreement.
Do they do this same thing when I’m not around? How do they get any work done? “Can we get back on track now?”
“Sorry,” Travis says.
“So what’s her deal?” Michael asks.
“She had the biggest crush on Veronica in high school. Terri was really nerdy and she had pretty bad acne so you can imagine how Veronica and her group of gorgeous friends treated her. They were super mean. They shoved her into her locker and left her there.”
“That’s awful,” Michael says. “High school kids can be so vicious.”
“Do you think she’s there at the arraignment to gloat?” Travis asks.
“I don’t know. Could be,” I study the clip, looking for an answer in Terri’s face.
My cell rings. It’s London.
“Jamie Bravo,” I answer.
“Can you come by the station?”
“Sure. I just need to get dressed.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” London teases.
Thank God she can’t see me turning red over the phone.
“Do I have enough time to stop and get donuts for Chubby?”
“Get me a Boston crème while you’re at it?”
“For you, anything,” I respond without thinking. “Within reason,” I quickly amend.
“Damn,” London says. She clicks off.
I look at Travis. “That was London. I’ve got to go down to the station.”
The boys’ eyes light up.
“And no you can’t come.”
They both look crestfallen. I head for the shower.
Travis calls after me, “We’ll just stay right here and work, work, work.”
“You really want to help me?” I yell over my shoulder.
“Yes!” I can picture both of them jumping up and down in excitement. I crush their hopes by saying, “Then make me another coffee. I’ll take it with me.”
I turn on the shower so I can’t hear their response.
Twenty-Five
“My favorite,” the desk sergeant says. He stuffs a whole jelly roll into his mouth.
“I know,” I say, passing through the half door. Giving him free donuts is paying the toll to cross into the inner sanctum. Kind of like feeding the troll who lives under the bridge. In other words, it’s a troll toll.
“What’s in the bag?” he asks with his mouth still full of jelly donut. He looks like a vampire having a snack.
“A Boston cream for London.”
“Those aren’t my favorite,” he says, his mouth a little less full of jelly donut.
“Good thing, because you’re not getting it,” I say over my shoulder.
London is pouring over a stack of papers when I knock on her doorframe.
“Ah, the donut girl arrives,” London says. “I need some sugar. I’ve been here since the wee hours getting all my paperwork done so I can focus on our case.”
I love hearing her say ‘our case.’ If that means what I think it means, Veronica stands a much better chance of not spending life in prison.
I hand over the donut. “You’re not having one?” London asks.
I hold up my wrist, showing off my Fitbit.
“What the hell is that?” London asks.
“It’s my minder. My trainer, Zelda, will know if I have a donut and she’ll make me run around the track ten extra times.”
“You have a trainer?” She does the elevator eyes thing, checking out my body. Her eyes linger on my backside. I think my butt blushes.
“Not because I want to. I got roped into it because I’m helping a friend start her own business. She wants me to be her poster child.”
“Well, your friend does good work.”
Now my cheeks get warm. The cheeks on my face, that is.
“Do you want me to turn around and eat my donut?” London asks with a teasing grin.
“That’s okay. I had a protein smoothie for breakfast.” Travis made me a week’s worth of smoothies and froze them for me. Now I don’t have any excuses for not eating healthy. I should be grateful. But I’m not.
“You sure?”
“Not necessary. I’ll enjoy watching you enjoy it. It’ll be like eating a donut vicariously.”
“Kind of like food porn.”
“Exactly.”
“I promise not to chew and show like Mr. Jelly Roll up front.”
“I’ve never seen anyone stick an entire donut in their mouth. It’s a wonder he doesn’t choke.”
“He has and believe me it wasn’t pretty getting it out,” London says. She takes a normal sized bite of the donut then hands me a sheet of paper. “Have a look at this.”
I look it over. It’s an insurance policy for Beth Ellen Warren. It pays out a cool million dollars when she dies.
“Guess who the policy holder is?” London says.
“The ex-husband. Who, by the way, was out of town but back in town the same night.”
London raises an eyebrow. “I did not know that. Good work.”
“It was my glam team. They’re calling themselves The Hardy Boys.”
“Let me guess, Travis is Frank.”
“You got it. He called Clark Warren’s secretary at the book agency. She gave him the rundown.”
“That’s good leg work.”
“I’ll tell him you approve.”
London finishes her donut and licks her fingers. God, I think I could watch her lick her fingers all day.
“I thought I’d take you on an official inquiry of Mr. Warren,” she says.
“Really?”
London smiles. “You did bring me a donut. It’s the least I can do.”
Twenty-Six
Clark Warren lives in a two story brick house in a gated community. His house is one of four variations of styles. Each house is nearly identical to the one next to it. Even the placement of the trees on the lots looks planned. I’ve always wondered how the owners pick out which house is theirs when they’re drunk. Do they ever wake up in their neighbor’s house? The only thing I know for sure is that these houses stink of money and lots of it.
“Well, we know he’s got plenty of dough,” I say while eyeballing the three-car garages. “It takes a lot of cash to live in Stepford.”
“Or he’s up to his eyeballs in debt,” London counters, sloppily pulling the Crown Vic into the driveway of Clark Warren’s house. The car angles across the driveway, like a drunk person parked it. She turns off the engine.
“I have to ask something,” I say.
“Is now the right time to discuss us?”
“Us? I was just going to ask if we should park in his driveway. He looks out his window and sees this car, a Crown Vic, and he’ll know we’re cops. He may make a run for it.”
London raises an eyebrow. “If he runs just because we pull up and park in his driveway, then I’d say he’s guilty. Wouldn’t you?”
“You have a point.” I think for a moment. “What was the ‘us’ stuff you meant?”
She ignores my question. “Once I went up to a perp’s house just to do a routine questioning. I rang the bell and ten seconds later he had the garage door open and raced off.”
“Did you catch him?�
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“Yeah, but it involved a high speed chase and that’s never good for anyone. Now I take precautions,” London says. “If he leaves, he’ll have to do it on foot.”
So that’s why she angled the Crown Vic across the driveway. She’s blocking off any escape route. “Good idea.”
“I’m full of good ideas.” Her tone is teasing. Sexy even. Now I don’t know if she’s talking about ‘us’ or not.
I follow London up to the door. I stand behind her as she rings the bell.
A man answers. He’s wearing a white button down shirt and khaki trousers with white cross trainers. He looks like the boy next door. Imagine what Opie Taylor would look like grown up. Oh yeah, Opie did grow up. He became Ron Howard. Yep, this guy looks a lot like Ron Howard but with more hair.
“May I help you?” he asks.
“I’m Detective Wells and this is Jamie Bravo.” She flashes her badge. He barely glances at it. I hold out my business card. I have nine thousand nine hundred and ninety seven left in a box at home. I’m really hoping he’ll take this one, but he doesn’t even look at it.
“Please come in,” he says. His tone seems pleasant enough and he doesn’t exactly look grief-stricken. But it’s hard to tell with men since they typically aren’t big criers—except for my father and Zio Tonino. I haven’t interviewed any murder suspects before, so I don’t know how the victim’s estranged husband is supposed to look.
He leads us to the living room. The inside of the house is clean and streamlined. Some might even say sparse. It’s completely devoid of books, magazines, movies, knick-knacks—it looks like a showroom for a furniture store. Maybe Beth Ellen took all the stuff when they divorced. There’s only one painting on the wall. It’s an abstract in grays. It matches the gray furniture and carpet and paint. Makes me wonder if this guy is color blind.
London looks around. “Looks like your ex-wife got all the good stuff,” she remarks.
“No. When she left she only took her clothes and a picture of her parents. She was an only child, you know. Her parents died in a boating accident three years ago.”
“I see.”
“Please sit down. Can I get you a refreshment?” he asks.
“I’ll take a cup of coffee. Jamie?”
“Sure.” I sit on the edge of the only chair. London sits on the couch. That means if Clark sits down, he has to sit on the couch between us.
He heads off to the kitchen.
Now I know what’s bothering me about this place. It’s too neat. Usually guys living alone have socks lying around and a stack of empty pizza boxes on the coffee table. “He’s pretty neat for a guy,” I say. “A straight guy.”
“Are we sure he’s straight?” London says.
“What d'ya mean?”
“Maybe both he and Beth Ellen batted for the other team but didn’t get a handle on it until recently. With her parents dead, maybe they both felt it was time,” London says.
Clark returns with a coffee tray containing cream, sugar, sweetener, and a silver coffee carafe. The coffee cups are square. I’ve never seen square coffee cups before. He pours. “I wasn’t sure what you took in your coffee. I brought everything. Help yourself.”
He sits between us.
I pour creamer in my cup and add a couple of spoons of sugar. London takes hers black. Clark pours cream in his, no sugar. We all sip from our cups then London opens her black notebook. I pull my notebook and pen out of my back pocket and open to the first page where I’ve written ‘dog food’ and ‘tampons.’ I turn to a fresh page.
“First off, we’re sorry for your loss,” London says.
“Thank you. These past few days have been wretched.” He wrings his hands. He looks bereft now. Who knows, maybe he did miss Beth Ellen. Could a murderer miss his victim? He doesn’t look like a killer. What does a killer look like anyway? Probably most killers don’t look the part. If they did, I’d be out of business.
“We have to ask you a few questions. It’s routine. We have to rule out all possible suspects,” London says.
“I understand. I know that in most murders like this the victim often knows the killer. I want you to know, that no matter what, I would never have killed her.”
“How was your relationship with the deceased? You were estranged, correct?” London asks.
“Yes, but I hadn’t given up on a reconciliation.”
“And why is that?”
“We’d been married eighteen years. One doesn’t just walk out of a marriage without possibly reconsidering one’s choices.”
I jot down ‘eighteen years.’ That means they’d married when Beth Ellen was twenty. I also note that he used the word ‘one’ as if using such an innocuous word lessened the blow of his wife leaving him. Like she was more of an object to be recovered than his wife. Detachment? I jot that down, too.
“How old were you when you married?” London asks.
“I’m two years older than Beth Ellen. I was twenty two. We married when I finished college. Beth Ellen completed her degree two years later.” As if intuiting her next question, he says, “I have a degree in English Literature and Beth Ellen got hers in Communication. She never worked, however.”
“Was that her choice or yours?”
“Hers. She was quite content to run the household. She had her friends. She enjoyed playing golf and tennis. She seemed happy until…well, she fell in love with Cindy Harris, her golf instructor. It all seems so passé now. How ordinary to fall for the golf instructor like every other bored suburban wife.”
His cheeks color when he mentions the golf instructor. There’s obviously some hurt feelings still lingering. And maybe some anger, too. Both are good motives.
“How do you feel about that?” London asks.
“How do you think I feel? I loved my wife.”
“Were you angry?”
“Of course I was angry,” Clark says. He seems to catch himself. “I mean, not angry enough to kill her. You might want to check with the golf instructor. Beth Ellen and I had been talking a lot recently. Maybe she found out and in a moment of passion…”
“Talking about what?” London asks.
“About the divorce. Like maybe she was having second thoughts—at least about Cindy,” Clark says. His hand trembles as he sips his coffee. He quickly sets the coffee cup down and rubs his hand.
“It’s perfectly normal to be nervous about a police interview,” I say.
“Well, yes, I can say truthfully I’ve never done this before,” he says.
“Really? Because according to my records you have talked to the police before,” London says. “You have a record. Isn’t that right? You were stalking a woman and she pressed charges?”
That surprises me. Clark looks too mild mannered to be a stalker.
“That was a long time ago,” he sputters. “The whole thing got blown way of proportion and, besides, the charges were dropped.”
“What happened?” I say in my most compassionate voice.
“It was in college before I met Beth Ellen. There was this girl. Another English major. I thought she was. . . the romantic sort. I left her notes. I got all caught up in being her secret admirer. I figured I’d be her secret admirer and then ask her out. Whet her appetite for romance first, you know? She took it the wrong way and said I was stalking her. The campus police got involved and discovered it was me. I stopped doing it immediately. And that was all there was to it,” Clark says. “It was extremely silly of me and I didn’t mean to frighten her.”
“I see,” London says like she doesn’t see at all.
“Look, it was a long time ago. I’m not some weirdo stalker. When I told Beth Ellen the story she thought it was cute.”
“What’s the girl’s name?” London asks. “The one you stalked. What’s her name?” She sips her coffee and eyes him over the top of the square mug.
“Why?”
“We just like to check out every possible avenue, no big deal,” London says.
�
�I don’t know where she is now. It was twenty years or more ago,” he says.
“We’ll find her. What’s her name?” London asks
“Holly Ryder,” he says, without enthusiasm.
“Spell it for me,” London says.
He does. I write it down.
“Where were you the night of the murder?” London asks.
Clark blinks. “Should I be getting a lawyer?”
“You can. We could go down to the station and carry on with this,” London says.
Clark stands and smoothes the wrinkles out of the front of his pants. “I want to call my lawyer before we talk anymore.”
“Your prerogative,” London says with a shrug. She gets up. “In the meantime, don’t go anywhere.”
The temperature in the house seems to dip twenty degrees.
“I wouldn’t think of it,” Clark says. He shows us the way out.
When we’re sitting in the car, London asks, “Write down anything good in your little notebook?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Can we make a stop on the way back? I need to pick up some dog food and tampons.”
Twenty-Seven
My phone buzzes. It’s my mother. She starts talking before I can even say hello. “You have to come over right this minute. Zio Tonino has questions about the bird. Oh, and your father read something in the paper and he wants answers. I’m making a nice tortellini salad. Zio Tonino hasn’t pooped in days. He needs roughage. I’m serving it on a nice head of Romaine lettuce. He lied to the doctor so he’d get out of the hospital. Did you know that if you have an operation they won’t let you come home until you poop? What is that, like the fascist poop brigade?”
“Ma, enough with the poop,” I say. I give an eye roll to London who’s silently laughing while still driving. I cover the phone with my hand and say, “Sorry, it’s my mother. She wants me to come over right now.”
“I’ll see you in ten minutes,” Ma shouts into the phone then hangs up. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing, my mother expects me to come running at her beck and call. And to do it in ten minutes or less.
I pocket my phone. “She made lunch,” I say.
“What’d she make?”
Till Beth Do Us Part (A Jamie Bravo Mystery Book 2) Page 16
