Justified

by Carolyn Arnold

  “What can I get started for you today?” asked a girl of about eighteen from behind the counter. She hadn’t come into her own yet and was stuck wearing braces into her young adulthood.

  “I’ll take a venti skinny caramel cap.” Madison took her gloves off and unzipped her coat.

  “That will be five twenty-eight.” There was a pause. “Actually, are you a cop?” The girl pointed to Madison’s waist.

  Madison looked down and saw her badge. “Detective.”

  The girl smiled, revealing a mouthful of metal. “Then it’s on the house.”

  “Okay? Why is that?”

  Madison had heard of cops being extended favors, discounted meals, free coffee and donuts, but thought the rumors circulated from small country towns. She’d never heard of free Starbucks. “How long has that been the case?”

  “At least a few years. The owner of this location and two others in the city made that policy. You sound surprised? But you must have been in here before. You knew exactly what you wanted when you came in.”

  Maybe her badge hadn’t been obvious before. “Oh, that little snake.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  Madison dismissed the girl with a wave.

  “Your cappuccino will be ready down there.” She pointed down the counter, and then spoke over Madison’s shoulder. “Can I help who’s next?”

  Madison moved out of the way.

  “What can I get started for you today?” the girl asked the next person in line.

  Madison couldn’t help but smirk. She had to hand it to Terry. He’d been taking five bucks from her every trip he made. There was no doubt in her mind that he knew about the freebies to police officers. He better run for cover, because the next time she saw him, she was going to beat on his shoulder until it lost all feeling. All these bets they make on cases… When he lost, he probably paid her with her own money.

  The barista put a cup on the counter in haste, already moving back to the machine to fill the next order. “Venti skinny caramel cap.”

  Madison grabbed a lid.

  Another cup hit the counter. “Tall macchiato.”

  Madison found an available chair in the back corner near the hallway to the washrooms. She could see the front door when afforded the glimpse between bodies of lined-up patrons. A mass of people seemed to filter in and then dwindle out—men and women of all ages, nationalities, and statures. Then she saw one she recognized: Terry.

  She rose to her feet and flagged him down. Maybe he’d brought a car.

  Terry came over and stood across from her. His facial expression was serious.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “We’ve got to go.” He looked over a shoulder toward the front of the Starbucks, but dropped into the chair across from her, and then he let out a deep breath.

  “We’ve got to go, but you sit down? Now I’m confused.”

  “Oh, forget it. Forget I said anything.” He fiddled with the zipper on his coat. “How was your walk? It must have been a cold one.” He moved his chair around the table, obstructing pretty much her entire view of the front door.

  “Why are you moving closer to me? What’s your problem?” She shifted her chair so she could see the front door, and the minute she did, Terry’s strange behavior had an explanation. Madison knew the man coming through the door, just not the woman on his arm.

  Who was she and why was she on Blake’s arm?

  “I’m sorry,” Terry said gingerly, his eyes full of concern.

  She swallowed roughly, blinking back tears. Her stomach sank as feelings of betrayal surged through her. How dare he propose that they be exclusive yet turn around so quickly and be out with someone else? Thank God she hadn’t fallen for his words. She cleared her throat. “Why are you sorry?”

  “This must be awkward…and I know that you’ve been dating for a while.”

  She couldn’t allow herself to give into her emotions. She was stronger than this. She notched her chin. “Why would it be awkward?” It hurt so badly inside as jealously entwined itself around her heart and squeezed. “We aren’t exclusive,” she added while trying hard to take her eyes off Blake and the brunette dangling on his arm. But she was failing miserably. The woman was laughing like an airhead at everything that came out of his mouth. The man wasn’t that funny. “Before you sat down, you said that we had to go. Was that just because of him?”

  “No. He’s why I sat down.”

  “Listen, Terry, it’s all right. We have an open relationship. We’re free to date other people.” She almost sounded convincing to her own ears.

  “And you? You’re okay with that?”

  Madison hated how Terry’s pressing the matter was threatening to expose her sensitive and vulnerable side. Maybe Darren Taylor had been right about love. It was simply an excuse for being vulnerable, weak. “It’s not really your concern,” she responded.

  “Heck, Maddy, sorry for caring.”

  She bobbed her head and took a deep breath. An emotional breakdown had been avoided, but sadly, it meant pushing her partner away.

  “Let’s go, then.” He slid his chair out from the table, the steel legs noisily scrapping along the floor, and then he got up.

  “Fine.” Her voice was barely audible. Coming to her feet, she felt like she had rubber legs, unyielding and uncooperative, as if she was a baby giraffe struggling to find its footing.

  Walking to the door, she looked everywhere but at Blake despite being aware of exactly where he was. And feet away from him, wafts of the woman’s perfume saturated the air, muting the smells inherent with Starbucks.

  The floral overtures thrust a dagger of jealousy into her chest. She had to get herself together. She didn’t need him. She was fine on her own.

  “Maddy?”

  Shit. It was Blake.

  She casually looked over at him, avoiding the urge to glance at the woman. But maybe she should. It would show she didn’t care. She forced a smile at Blake and the brunette pressed into his side, bouncing up and down as if warming herself by the movement. “Oh, hi,” she said to Blake, nonchalantly, indifferent.

  “It’s so cold out there,” the woman responded, her voice sickly sweet.

  Like a bimbo.

  The woman let out an insincere chuckle and pulled herself in tighter to Blake.

  Madison made sure that he noticed her eyes go from the woman to him. “Good day, Blake.” She walked out the door before he could say a word.

  “You really are cold as ice, aren’t you?” Terry followed her.

  Outside the door, she stopped walking, her soul grounding her steps. She sensed eyes on her, but stubbornly refused to satisfy her curiosity by turning around to see if it was Blake.

  Terry caught up to her and concern swept over his face. “So you said an open relationship?”

  Madison nodded.

  “How’s that going for you?”

  “Just fine.” She tossed in a shoulder shrug.

  “But the question is, are you fine?”

  She narrowed her eyes to slits.

  “Oh no, what did I do? I don’t like it when you look at me like that.” He pretended to wince, and protectively and preemptively put a hand over his shoulder.

  Ironically, the movement brought back another matter to her mind—the fact that he’d been ripping her off for the last five years every time he went to Starbucks. But maybe she wouldn’t bring that up just yet. After all, payback was a bitch. Now that thought brought a smile to her face.

  -

  Chapter 26

  MADISON GESTURED FOR TERRY TO move away from the driver’s door and reached for the handle. “Hand me the keys.”

  Terry flailed his hands. “I never get to drive.”

  “Now you got it.” She winked at him and he gave her scowl but placed the keys in her hand.
r />   He walked around to the passenger side and they both got into the car.

  She looked over at him. “So why did we have to leave Starbucks?”

  “I got a call from the cleaning service—”

  “We released Claire’s house?” Normally they were notified when a crime scene was released, meaning that everything deemed evidence had been collected.

  “They got the clearance. It would have had to come from Cynthia Baxter and the sarge.”

  “And he says I don’t communicate,” she mumbled. A few seconds passed, and apparently, Terry needed encouragement to continue. “All right, you got a call from the cleaning service and…what?”

  “They found Claire’s missing underwear.”

  “So the killer obviously didn’t eat them, then?” She put the car into gear.

  “Ha-ha.”

  She smirked and glanced over at him, but he was facing out the passenger window.

  “Officer Ranson will let us know once Taylor’s lawyer gets there,” he said without looking at her.

  “Good job.”

  He turned to her now. “See, I can handle things without you holding my leash.”

  “Oh sh—” She had been in such a hurry to leave that morning that she had this sinking feeling that she had forgotten to put Hershey in the kennel—again. “I’ve got to stop by the apartment for a minute.”

  AT FIRST, MADISON DIDN’T SMELL ANYTHING. Maybe Hershey had behaved himself while she wasn’t there. At least she could hope.

  “Hershey,” she called out as she moved around the apartment. “Hershey.” She had insisted it would only take a moment and made Terry stay in the car. It wasn’t easy as he kept insisting on a visit with his old friend.

  “Hershey.”

  Where could he be? She had been through the living area already. Then she saw him. He was so tiny, and his brown fur blended him into the shadows. He was at the end of the coffee table and his head lowered when he saw her.

  “What are you doing over there?” When she got closer, she got her answer and had to muster the strength not to strangle him. There were teeth marks in the corner of the table that her grandmother had left her.

  Hershey sank to the floor, sensing he’d done something wrong.

  “Bad dog!” Her roar frightened him to a pause, and he looked up at her. His eyes were large and his ears drooped. “In your kennel. Now!”

  He trembled but otherwise his paws were planted to the floor. She picked him up and put him in the kennel, latching the door behind him. She wagged a finger at him. “Bad dog!” The anger brought tears, and she let them fall.

  That coffee table was one of the few tangible things she had left of her grandmother. She quaked with rage as she ran her fingers over the damaged wood, trying to see some way of rescuing or reversing what had been done. But the table had been destroyed by the gnawing teeth of a canine. How could Hershey do this to her?

  She glared over at him and in that instant, she wanted to tote the entire kennel with the encased animal down the elevator and place it in her partner’s lap. After all, he was responsible for her having this four-legged chewing contraption in the first place.

  “Bad dog!” Her scream contained a few more tears. She couldn’t muster more than the two words.

  Her home phone rang, and she wiped her cheeks and answered.

  “You coming back?” It was Terry.

  “Why are you calling my home phone?”

  “Because I’m in the lobby. You coming back down or what? We’ve got to get to Claire’s house.”

  “I’m coming.” She slammed the phone down and her eyes drifted to the demon dog. As much as she’d like to just ignore him right now, she had to take him out before she left him again.

  OUTSIDE CLAIRE’S HOUSE, Terry said, “I had the cleaning crew stop all work as soon as they called.”

  “Sorry, I’m out of gold stars,” Madison replied sarcastically.

  He snapped his fingers, letting the action say the word. Snappy.

  He should be happy that all she was doing was spewing sardonic comebacks, because what she wanted to do, well, it could mean life imprisonment. Terry was to blame for the coffee-table-eating varmint she had in her apartment.

  They didn’t need to knock; the door was opened by an Asian man in his late sixties. “Detective Grant?”

  “Yes, and this is Detective Knight.”

  Madison hesitated to take a breath, the smell of blood permanently etched into her memory from their first visit here.

  “I just knew it might mean something. Come in.” He stepped back to let them inside and closed the door behind them. “It was just a little out of place. And there’s more than the underwear.”

  “What’s that?” Terry asked.

  The man brushed him off with a wave of the hand. “We’ll get to that. I assume you have your evidence collection kit?” His eyes traveled down their arms to their hands, settling on the kit in Terry’s hand. The man smiled. “Wife’s favorite show, CSI.” His clipped English became more apparent as he continued to speak. He stopped next to the couch and extended a hand to Madison. “Where are my manners? I’m Ramesh Huang.” He smiled, flashing a mouth full of chipped and yellowed teeth. It made Madison cringe, and by contrast she thought about Cole Richards’s perfectly white smile.

  A woman walked in from the kitchen, and Madison allowed herself a full breath. Thankfully the smell of blood and decomp wasn’t as strong as it had been when they got called to the crime scene days ago.

  “This is Lucia,” Ramesh said. “My wife.”

  The woman nodded but avoided eye contact.

  A pair of underwear sat on top of a couch cushion. Madison pointed to them. “Where did you find the underwear?”

  “The couch. My wife and I were in the room, same time. I was working on the couch—” Ramesh lifted another cushion and pointed to the crack between the arm and pillow “—found here.”

  “So just right there?” Madison was furious. How could the investigators be so careless as to miss finding them? Had they not searched there? Maybe the murder weapon was lodged in there somewhere, too. She glowered at Terry, although her disappointment wasn’t directed at him. Her cheeks flared, no doubt to a brilliant red, and the lobes of her ears were on fire. “This isn’t acceptable,” she said primarily to her partner, not really caring about the Huangs’ presence. “If this pair of underwear ends up factoring into the case, they will be inadmissible. The chain of custody has been broken!”

  Terry looked at the couple. “Excuse us for a minute.”

  The Huangs left them and slipped into the kitchen.

  “It was an oversight,” Terry began. “The investigators are only human.”

  “Human? That’s what you’re going with here?” Madison shifted her stance. “I just hope that this pair of underwear doesn’t end up being a pertinent part of this investigation.” Her gaze shot to the couch. “Can we be sure the murder weapon isn’t in there? And maybe they found it and are keeping it as some sort of novelty?”

  Terry glanced toward the kitchen, then back to her and cocked his head. “Yeah, I can see that happening,” he said sarcastically.

  Madison knew the probability was zilch. And the couple had called them regarding the underwear… She pulled the cell phone off her hip and hit the quick key for Cynthia.

  “What are you doing?” Terry asked.

  “I’m going to give Cynthia a piece of my mind,” she fired back.

  “Can’t let you do that.” Terry grabbed her phone and ended the call.

  “Everything’s been compromised,” she said through clenched teeth, tapping a foot. Anger surging through her made it impossible to stay still.

  “You’ve got to let it go.” He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder but removed it not long after making contact. He must have sensed her silent m
essage to get his hand off her.

  “I don’t understand why you’re staying so calm.” She held eye contact with him for a few seconds but he wasn’t going to amuse her with a response. She turned in the direction of the kitchen. “Ramesh Huang?”

  The man came out of the kitchen with his wife behind him.

  “You were both in this room when you found the underwear?” Madison asked, clarifying what he’d said before.

  “Yes.”

  “Your wife saw you find them there? She was looking at you when you pulled them out?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need you to go on record to that effect.” Madison knew they would never be accepted in as evidence, but the underwear still might provide them with some direction for the investigation.

  “Certainly.”

  “Perfect.” Madison directed Terry to retrieve the underwear, which he lifted with tweezers and placed into a paper bag. Clothing always went into paper to preserve trace evidence. “Now you said that there was something else?” Madison asked.

  “Yes,” Ramesh began. “Over here.”

  Madison motioned for Terry to do a quick search of the couch while she followed the older man toward the front window.

  “Right here.” He pointed out a smudge on the window.

  Tilting her head to alter the way the light refracted off the glass, Madison realized the smear was on the outside and that it was a palm print. She felt another surge of rage course through her. She would have remembered that being cataloged in the evidence file. Had they missed the entire living room?

  Terry came up behind her, and she turned to him.

  “Nothing else in the couch,” he said.

  She pointed to the window. “Mr. Huang, the cleaner, found a print on the outside of the glass.” How a cleaner had found all this when the trained experts hadn’t was beyond her comprehension. Maybe Ramesh should become an investigator.