Darci smiled. “I guess your head is feeling better.”
“About as well as my stomach right now,” Jackie answered with a smile. After another bite of the burger and a couple of swallows from the can of diet cola, Jackie wiped her mouth with a paper napkin and put on her serious face. “What do you expect me to say about this letter?”
“What do I expect? You read it, right?”
“Yes, a couple of times.”
“And?”
“And what? Kenny wrote a letter changing his mind about the other letter. There’s nothing strange about that.”
“The letter is strange, Jackie. Why would he write a letter for me when all he had to do was call Mr. Clayton?”
“Darci, you have to remember Kenny wasn’t thinking clearly. He killed himself. Maybe he thought Mr. Clayton would detect some distance in his voice.”
“Argh!” Darci waved off her cousin’s words. She didn’t want to hear that.
“Did you think you’d come racing in here and have me agree with that warped thinking of yours because of this letter?” Jackie’s eyes widened when Darci didn’t reply. “You did. Sweetie, neither this letter nor anything else will change what is. You have got to get over this. It’s not good for you.”
“What’s not good for me is my loved ones not believing me.”
“That’s not fair.” Jackie took another bite of her burger and put the rest aside. After a few more sips of cola, she popped a stick of gum in her mouth. “We do believe in you, but when it comes to this issue, you won’t see reason.”
“I see reason, Jackie. I know how things look. I just can’t push aside what my instincts are telling me.”
Darci’s thoughts raced back to Steed’s words prior to his epiphany. Warwick is dead because he killed himself, just like my father is dead because he followed some instinct that was wrong! She shook her head. Steed was wrong. Her situation with Kenny was different.
“Let’s say you’re right and Kenny didn’t kill himself. How will that truth make you feel better?” Jackie asked.
“It will give his parents and me some closure,” Darci answered without hesitation. “It will confirm I was right to trust my instincts, and most importantly it will put the person who did this behind bars.”
“That’s just it, Darci, there’s no person. An autopsy was performed. The authorities did their jobs. A self-inflicted gunshot wound killed your best friend. Hoping for some miracle evidence, some proof you’ll never get, won’t change that.”
Darci shook her head. “I’ve heard this speech from you and Steed too many times, and I can’t listen to it anymore. There’s something missing. Something is not right about this.”
“Darci?”
The pity in Jackie’s voice and the look in her eyes as she shook her head in that “poor thing” way was all Darci could stand. She grabbed the letter from the desk and stood. “I need to go now.”
“Don’t rush off,” Jackie said.
“There’s no reason for me to stay.”
“We can talk.”
Darci looked at her cousin. What could they possibly talk about now?
“Sit down,” Jackie directed, as Darci remained firmly planted. “Please.”
Darci flopped back into the chair and folded her arms. “I don’t know why I’m staying.”
Jackie returned to her chair. “You know.”
“I’m not crazy. I’m just trying to understand.”
“Sometimes we never understand things. Everything doesn’t have a solution, but this is one instance where the answer you have is not the one you want. You can’t change this, Darci. Kenny is gone, and it’s because he made the choice.”
Darci shook her head. “No.”
“Yes.” Jackie sighed. “Do you think he’d want you going on like this?”
“Absolutely. I think it’s the main reason I still have these doubts. I can’t explain it. I know my thinking is irrational. Trust me, I know. But I can’t shake this. Sometimes, I swear I can hear Kenny calling out to me.”
Jackie groaned. “Oh, boy.”
“See, that’s why I hadn’t said anything to you about this before now. I imagine Steed’s reaction would be identical.”
“Is there any wonder why? You know what’s true, but you don’t want to accept it, and now you’re telling me Kenny’s talking to you?”
“I didn’t say he was talking to me. He’s calling to me. Just saying my name over and over, like he needs me to hear him. To hear his cry. I hear it, Jackie. I can’t ignore it.”
“Do you care what I hear? You talking like you don’t have a rational brain cell in your head.”
Darci frowned. She’d just had this talk with Steed. Had he called Jackie? Was she in the middle of part two of some one-on-one intervention? “Did Steed call you?”
“No, I haven’t spoken to Steed since we all had dinner the other night. Why?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I know how it sounds, Jackie, but there’s something about this.” Darci clutched the letter in her hand. “I’m going to figure out what.”
“And if you don’t?”
“I will. I have to.” Darci returned the letter to her purse and stood. She wouldn’t give her cousin another opportunity to display her “poor Darci” look. “I’m going to leave now. Enjoy the rest of your burger.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you.”
Arguing that point occurred to Darci. Jackie could’ve helped, but she wasn’t keen on sugarcoating, so she didn’t bother. It was her way. “Me, too,” Darci said. “See ya.”
Darci bundled her jacket tighter around her as the frosty fall air chilled her to the bone. Hyped when she left for the food, she hadn’t felt the near-freezing temperatures. Now she felt every bit of it—cold, harsh, unrelenting, much like the opinions of her loved ones in regard to Kenny’s death. An opinion she would probably share if the shoe were on the other foot. Unfortunately, the shoe was on her foot.
She activated the keyless entry and ignition starter for her car. The horn beeped and headlights flashed as she thanked whoever had invented heated seats. She would go home, make some cocoa, run a hot bath, and soak her tensions away. Then, she would read this letter again and again until she figured out what nagged her about it, because Jackie and Steed were of no help.
“Darci!”
She turned to find Jacob Benjamin approaching. Jacob had a face that belonged on the big screen, but a body that belonged on a treadmill. A fact that made seeing him run up to her like an out-of-control bull a bit disconcerting. Moments later he reached her, gasping for breath.
“Hey, I thought that was you.” Even with the chilly temperatures, sweat glistened his forehead. “Whoo!” He fanned his face. “What are you doing here?”
“I was visiting my cousin.”
“That’s right, she’s a professor.”
“Mathematics.”
“So, what do you think about the turn in the case?”
Darci squinted. That little jog must have gone to his head. “What are you talking about? What case?” she asked.
“Kenneth Warwick’s.”
“Kenny?”
Jacob pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his heavy dark coat and mopped his shiny forehead. Darci detected an almost gleeful glow in his eyes. She couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing, just as she couldn’t decide if the uneasy fluttering in her stomach meant whatever he had to say was something she wanted to hear.
“Detective McGraw didn’t tell you?”
“Steed and I don’t talk much about Kenny’s case.”
Jacob grunted. “I can understand why,” he muttered.
Darci jammed her hands in her pockets and balled them into tight fists. “What is it, Jacob?” she asked, in no mood to witness this one-sided pissing contest he seemed intent on having with her absent boyfriend.
“You might have been right.”
“Right about what? Just spit it out already!”
“There was
another set of fingerprints found on the gun used to kill Kenny. The case has been reopened.”
CHAPTER 15
Ten minutes after leaving the station, Steed reached Hyde’s boarding house. The owner, Flora Dupree, a sassy, white-haired, brown-eyed grandmother showed him to Jason’s room. Her pink house shoes brushed softly against the spiraling hardwood staircase as she ambled up the steps and shuffled down the hall to the third door on the left. She pulled a ring of keys from the pocket of her lime green housedress and unlocked the door.
“He paid up the rent until the end of the year, so I couldn’t show the room to anyone else,” she said with the faintest hint of a Creole accent. Curious eyes turned to him. Her tiny frame blocked the path to the door. “Jason’s not in any trouble, is he? I know he had a bit of a checkered past, but he’s a good boy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“I can’t say that he is, ma’am. I’m just wondering if there’s something in his room that can tell me where he went.”
“Do you have a warrant? I watch Law & Order. I know you need a warrant to search his room.”
Steed chuckled. This old lady reminded him of Nana Jean. She watched Law & Order, too.
“I do need a warrant to search his place, but I’m not looking for anything that would get him into trouble, and his mother wanted me to come. I’m trying to help him. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him, would you?”
“No, I wouldn’t, but I do think I should go in with you.”
Steed opened the door and extended his hand through the walkway. He would show Rogers and everyone else how much of a people person he could be. “Feel free,” he said.
“This isn’t going to take long, is it?” She checked the slim gold watch on her left wrist. “My show comes on in ten minutes.”
“I’ll try to be brief, ma’am, but if you need to leave, I won’t hold you. I like my shows, too,” he added with a wink.
Her brown eyes widened. “You watch the shows?”
Steed nodded. “Sure do. I like the one on Channel Two at three,” he confessed with a laugh. The officers at the precinct would flip with the knowledge of his guilty pleasure and the fact he recorded it religiously every day.
“That’s my show, too. Such nice-looking young men on there.” A deep rouge colored her caramel cheeks. She bowed her head slightly. “Just like you.”
“Why, thank you. I’ll take that as a high compliment.”
Her wrinkled old hand covered his. “You’re a nice young man. I like you.” She raised an eyebrow and smiled broadly. “Are you married? I don’t see a ring.”
“No, ma’am, I’m not married, but I am spoken for.”
“Too bad. There’s a young lady next door that— Oh, what does it matter now? Let’s go on in.”
Steed stepped inside the room and looked around. A bed, mirrored dresser, and chest of drawers. Nothing struck him as unusual. “Are his things still here?”
“Yes. I haven’t touched anything.” The shrill ringing of a telephone turned Mrs. Dupree’s attention to the door. “That’s down the hall,” she said. “You go on and look around. I think I’ll go downstairs when I’m done and get ready for the show.”
“You go ahead. I’ll be fine.”
She nodded and hurried out as fast as her old legs could carry her. Steed did another scan of the room. He had a hard time buying into Jason Hyde being connected in any way to Kenneth Warwick’s death. There had to have been a mix-up in the lab when he ran those prints the second time. Warwick committed suicide with his own gun, so there’d be no fingerprints other than his. But for Darci’s sake, and that of his job, he would continue to look around.
Finding nothing under the bed, Steed tried the drawers, and except for some jeans, shirts, underwear, and girlie magazines that were at least fifteen years old, got zip there, too. He eyed the door straight ahead. Probably his closet. He’d check there and be on his way.
The powerful scent of mothballs nearly knocked him out when he opened the door. He shook his head. An old lady definitely owned this house. He flipped the light switch and performed his final search. There wasn’t much there—a few shirts and suits hanging perfectly centered, and a couple of pairs of shoes. He checked the pockets of the suits and found a ticket stub from a movie seen on September second and seventy-three cents.
Steed sighed. Well, he’d tried. Stepping back to close the door, he spotted a piece of paper on the floor next to some scuffed white sneakers. He picked up the small sheet and turned it over. Kenny’s name and the call letters and address to the television station were scribbled in red ink. He pocketed the paper and checked the closet again. Wire hangers scraped the metal rod as he pushed through the clothing. There had to be something else here.
He shoved the clothes to the left side of the closet and stuck his head inside. An expletive fell from his lips from the sight on the right side wall—a veritable shrine dedicated to none other than Kenneth Warwick.
* * *
Darci sat at a booth at Sophie’s, staring blindly at the letter she’d gotten from Kenny’s. She couldn’t believe the turn this day had taken, and more than that, she couldn’t believe Steed could have shared this information about Kenny’s case and chose not to. Why didn’t he tell her?
Jacob returned to the table with two large cups of coffee. “Are you all right, Darci?”
“No,” she answered flatly, pushing the cup aside. “Why did you tell me this?”
“Are you upset because you didn’t want to know, or because you wanted to know from your boyfriend and he didn’t tell you?”
“What do you have against Steed?”
“I don’t have anything against McGraw. I just want him to do the job the city is paying him to do. This is a big deal.”
Darci agreed, but she refused to let Jacob know that. He seemed to be getting some perverse pleasure at the idea of her being angry with Steed, and she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing she was. “If Steed thought this was a big deal, he would have told me,” she said.
“But he didn’t.”
“Exactly. Steed is a wonderful investigator, and neither of us have reason to question his abilities in regard to this case.”
“But you have questioned it, Darci. I didn’t tell you to come to me and ask that I light a fire under the Sterling Police Department; you did that. You wanted answers to what happened with Kenny, and now that you’re getting them, you’re angry.”
“Darci?”
Miss Sophie’s warm voice rescued Darci from the abyss of anger she found herself falling deeper into. She turned to the old lady with a smile. “How are you, Miss Sophie?”
“I’m fine. Real fine.” She checked around the small room. “Steed’s not with you?”
“No, ma’am, he’s working.”
“Ahem! She’s here with me, Miss Sophie,” Jacob said.
“Where is that sweet wife of yours, Jacob Benjamin?”
“Home.”
Miss Sophie’s hands found her hips at Jacob’s curt response. Annoyance turned her full, smiling lips into an unhappy scowl. “Who put a bee in yo britches?”
“You’ll have to excuse him, Miss Sophie,” Darci spoke up. “The mayor has a lot on his mind.”
“It seems so.” Miss Sophie grunted and turned back to Darci with a smile. “You having some lunch?”
“No, ma’am, just the coffee,” Darci answered, fiddling with the corners of the letter.
Miss Sophie motioned to the pages. “What you got there?”
“A letter from Kenny.”
“Really?” She wiped her hands on a dishtowel tucked inside the pocket of her apron. “I remember how Kenny would sit right over there,” she jutted to the row of stools at the counter, “coding those letters you would write to each other.” Miss Sophie laughed her bubbly laugh that warmed Darci from the inside out. “After a couple of minutes, he would smile and tell me just what you wanted for dessert, and when you’d be here to eat it. And you would do the same thing wi
th him. Y’all two would come up with some things.”
Jacob cleared his throat, tapping the sugar dispenser against the table. “Thanks for sharing the memories, Miss Sophie, but Darci and I need to discuss some things in private. If you don’t mind,” he said pointedly.
“I’ll talk to you later, Darci.” Miss Sophie gave her a kind smile. “You tell Steed I said hello when you see him.”
Darci nodded. “I will.”
Miss Sophie shot Jacob a hard glare and then took off to exchange warm greetings with her other patrons.
Darci scowled at Jacob. “That was uncalled for.”
“Forget Miss Sophie for a minute. What are you going to do about what I told you?”
“What am I going to do?”
“Yes. McGraw kept something from you. If this is such a strong relationship, it should be based on trust.”
“You’re not giving me relationship advice, are you?”
“I’m making a point. Did he tell you about the promotion?”
“Yes. Did he get it?”
“With your reaction to the case reopening, why would you think he would?”
“What does my reaction have to do with his promotion?”
“Everything. You don’t know the details?”
Darci closed her eyes, groaning. “Just spill it, Jacob.”
“His job was to keep you quiet. To prevent you from making a big deal out of Kenny’s case. If he did that, proved he could handle the case and you, he would get his promotion. The case isn’t handled, and I’m not so sure you’re going to keep quiet about this. Why do you think he didn’t tell you the case was reopened? Think about it, Darci. It’s all about him and his promotion.”
Darci’s face grew hot, violently hot, as her body trembled from memories of Steed’s declarations of love and his insistence she get past her feelings about Kenny for her own good. Mocking laughter echoed in her head. Her own good. It was never about her, but about his promotion. She was just a means to an end.
Not Quite Right (Indigo Love Spectrum) Page 14
