The Brush Off

by Laura Bradley

  Clearly too chaotic.

  “Baby clothes?” He sounded skeptical.

  “Yes, rompers, jumpers, and those cute little onesies…” Thank the good Lord for big families, especially the mini-humans, my nieces and nephews.

  “Onesies?”

  “Brilliant inventions.” I smiled, nodding idiotically.

  “Cotton knit deals that button…”I started to demonstrate, Scythe’s gaze following as my hand went to my crotch. I blushed and dropped my hand. “Between their, uh, legs.” That one eyebrow half hitched. I rushed to fill up the air. “Kind of like the leotard I have on.”

  Both eyebrows shot up. He smothered a grin and looked studious. “Now, with the babies, I could understand that the design is one of convenience. For diaper changing, of course. For you, however, I fail to see the advantage of extra buttons. Unless it is some variation on a chastity belt,” he offered, glancing at Trudy in exaggerated question.

  Trudy looked at me thoughtfully. “Maybe that’s why you don’t get dates. You need to be more accessible!”

  “Trudy!” My face was blazing hot now, and I never blush. I didn’t even feel like myself. My tongue felt thick. My mind felt loopy. Zorita must have put a curse on me. Either that, or I wasn’t cut out for this investigating stuff.

  “So, who are you shopping for?” He’d had his fun. He was focusing back in on his prey.

  “Oh, one of the girls at Illusions.” Trudy jumped right in.

  “Is that right?” The corners of his mouth were dancing again. “I wasn’t sure those ‘girls’ had quite the right equipment to give birth.”

  “Just because you’re not equipped doesn’t mean you can’t be a parent.” I jutted my chin and met those laser eyes in challenge. “Bettina was such a help to us that we thought we ought to get her a little thank-you. And then Trudy remembered her talking about adopting a baby, and we thought that might be a way to show our appreciation.”

  Both Trudy and Scythe stared at me.

  “What did you decide on?”

  Trudy and I shared a look. Uh-oh, it said. “We couldn’t agree.”

  “No.” Trudy laughed. “One argument after another.”

  “Over onesies,” Scythe deadpanned. He was on to us but couldn’t prove it. Ha! Us 1, Them 0.

  “Oooh.” Trudy glanced from me to Scythe to her Seiko. “Look at the time. Mario will be missing me. I have to run, Reyn.”

  “Not so soon.” I grabbed her left upper arm with two hands, hard, leading her to the back door, which takes me straight into the kitchen. “Come in, have a glass of cab. We can talk about what gift to get Bettina, and I’ll run pick it up tomorrow.”

  Prying my fingers loose, she backed toward her car. “I’ll have to take a rain check.”

  “But I won’t,” Scythe said. “I have time for a glass of wine.”

  Trudy couldn’t have smiled bigger if she’d just found out they’d discovered a cure for cellulite overnight. Not that she had any, she was just obsessed with it. I glared. She ignored me as she deactivated her car alarm and slid behind the wheel of her lime-green VW Bug. “Thank you for the compliment, Lieutenant.”

  “You’re welcome, Mrs. Trujillo. Please call me Jack.”

  “Only if you call me Trudy,” she returned before buzzing off down the street.

  How cozy.

  Speaking of cozy. “Now, about that wine,” Scythe purred.

  “I thought you cops aren’t supposed to drink on the job.” I stood my ground. I didn’t trust this cat.

  “I’m not on the job.”

  “Right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “From what I understand, detectives can be called twenty-four hours a day. Besides that, you don’t seem the type able to leave a case at the office. I bet you hang on to an investigation like a pit bull.”

  “I see. You’re an amateur psychologist in addition to being an amateur detective?”

  “Touchy, aren’t we? What happened, did I hit close to a nerve?” I flashed a grin and let myself into my house. I felt a surge of confidence. I could deal with him. If he wanted to follow me in, well, he’d just better watch himself.

  I threw the keys and the barf bag onto the kitchen table. “Don’t you want to take that back, since I didn’t need it?”

  “Not yet, you haven’t.”

  What did that mean? I didn’t bite, though. Instead, I walked straight to the pantry, although kind of sideways like a crab, since I didn’t want him to see the list sticking out of my waistband. Then I flung open the pantry door like I was intent on dinner and he was imposing. He looked over my shoulder.

  “You aren’t the world’s skinniest woman, but there’s no way you can eat all the crap that’s in your kitchen.” He read off some labels. “Lemongrass sauce. Dark chocolate layered truffles. Bayou Beef in a can. What gives?”

  “I’m not the world’s skinniest woman, huh?” I jammed my hands on my hips. You certainly have a way with words. A bad way.”

  “Your friend didn’t think so.”

  “Ha! You were just trying to butter her up for information.”

  “There’s all kinds of ways to get information,” he said with a sly shift in that right eyebrow.

  “What way would you say you’re using with me, then? The insulting method? Do they teach that at the police academy? The piss-them-off method?”

  “Who says I’m trying to insult you? Who wants to be the world’s skinniest woman, anyway?”

  “Ninety-nine percent of the female population.”

  “”Really?” He looked interested in understanding the female psyche for a nanosecond. That quickly disappeared. “Well, that just shows how stupid women are. Have you ever slept with a really skinny woman?”

  I probably looked like I was going to hurl. I mean, it was one thing to rub elbows all day with transvestites, but I had to draw the line at imagining myself in bed with a skinny woman.

  “No. Have you?”

  Scythe looked a little disgruntled at my ability to reply. “None of your business.”

  “You made it my business when you brought it up.”

  “Now, about that wine.” He smoothly tried to change the subject, wandering over to the refrigerator. Who keeps cabernet in the refrigerator? I realized he must be a Bud man, because otherwise he’d be checking countertops.

  I was mulling over this likelihood so hard that I failed to remember that my refrigerator hadn’t been cleaned in at least six months. Once I did, I jumped up and tried to block him from getting the door all the way open. Too late. He stood staring into the chilling recesses of the Whirlpool. After what seemed like ages, he looked down at me.

  “I see your next murder weapon.”

  fourteen

  “WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?” ALL SORTS OF scenarios ran through my head. Had the murderer broken into my house and planted a murder weapon in my refrigerator? Had Zorita hexed me, turning a pickle into a pickax?

  Scythe, looking especially grim, reached onto the second shelf, extracted a clear Tupperware container, and held it between us. “This is what I’m talking about.”

  Something green and fuzzy was growing on an unrecognizable mound.

  “Penicillin cures,” I pointed out, folding my arms across my chest. He was standing a little too close for comfort. I had the list of suspects in my waistband to protect. I inched closer to the refrigerator door and away from him.

  “Do you realize how many people are allergic to penicillin?” Scythe countered. “Slip this tasty morsel to someone like that, and he’ll go into anaphylactic shock. It’s all over.”

  “When I do, I’ll make sure they hunt you down as accessory to murder.” I narrowed my eyes. “Youknow what they do to policemen in prison.”

  He raised both eyebrows. “No. What? Care to describe it to me?”

  I felt my face growing hot. I was not a prude. Why was my body doing this to me? I turned away, reaching to the wine rack on top of the refrigerator. “How about t
hat wine?”

  “Thought you’d never ask.”

  I discerned a chuckle in his voice but did not turn around to see if a grin accompanied it. The Us-Them score was even now, with that comparing-my-leotardto-a-baby-onesie trap I set for myself, walked in, and let him spring. I’d have to stop doing that. Running my fingertips over the tops of the bottles, I debated my options. I didn’t want to go too expensive; that would seem like I was trying to impress him—wrong message. I didn’t want to go too cheap, because that would make me look, well, cheap. Why was I thinking about this so hard for a man I’d already decided was someone who wouldn’t know a pinot grigio from a Popsicle?

  I paused at a mid-range French bordeaux. Nope, those French could be just too upright.

  I drummed my pointer finger on a Chilean malbec. Oh, no, those South Americans were known for being hot, spicy, sexy. Another mis-message.

  Still without looking at Scythe, I slid a bottle of Australian shiraz out of the rack—a mid-range import from a country that wasn’t passionate, wasn’t snobby. Nice, firendly, down-to-earth people, those Aussies. Besides, the wine tasted good.

  After all this, he probably wouldn’t notice, and I’d given myself an extra gray hair for nothing. Trying to act nonchalant, I spun around and set the bottle on the counter.

  “Where’s your corkscrew?” he asked.

  Ah-ha, so he knew about corks.

  “It’s in the drawer to your right.” I answered as I retrieved a couple of everyday wineglasses. Didn’t want to use the crystal. Wrong message again.

  I tried not to watch as his hands worked the corkscrew, but I couldn’t help an occasional glance. Exceptional hands. As he slid the cork out, I found msyelf beginning to forgive his irritating habit of homing in on my vulnerabilities. Then he opened his mouth. “I can see why you didn’t use going to the grocery store as your excuse.”

  “My excuse?”

  “For not telling me where you really went.”

  I didn’t try to deny it. I didn’t lie well on the spur of the moment, or even with a lot of prior planning. Obviously. “As if it’s any of your business where we went.”

  He poured the wine without responding. His face was unreadable. My chaotic mind finally zeroed in on the insult he’d intended. “Hey, what do you mean?” I demanded. “Why wouldn’t I have been to the grocery store?”

  “Because.” He put the bottle down on the counter and opened the refrigerator again. “You have an entire grocery store in here. What single woman eats this much food?”

  “Remember, now,” I said acidly, “I’m not the skinniest woman on earth.”

  “Even a six-hundred-pound woman couldn’t eat all this stuff. Portabello mushrooms, Havre cheese, an entire beef tenderloin, kalamata olives, New York cheese-cake, even kim-chee, for God’s sake. Unless, of course, there really is a Claude living here; he might be able to mow through all this.” Leaving the refrigerator standing open, he made a show of leaning into the stairwell that led upstairs to my bedroom and living area.

  Ignoring the Claude comment—let him wonder—I tackled the criticism head-on. “In my family, we are taught to be prepared. We’re big—”

  “Yeah, especially if all of you eat this way.”

  “Very funny. I’m a member of a big, extended family. Every one of us has to be prepared for invasions—”

  He looked askance into the refrigerator again. “Invasions of what? Dozens of Italian-Greek-Dutch-Koreans from the Bronx?”

  I jutted my chin. “If you were hungry, you would be glad I had all that.”

  “Who says I’m not hungry?”

  “It doesn’t matter if you are. You aren’t inviting yourself to dinner, too.” I slammed the refrigerator door shut and grabbed my glass, sloshing just a tad over the rim as I sat down on the kitchen window seat I’d cushioned with an old Chihuahuan woven blanket. I was careful to sit squarely in the middle so he couldn’t get a wild hair and sit down next to me. Then I swung my feet up to the chair closest to me, crossing the right Justin over the left, leaving him no choice but the chair at the far end of the butcher-block table. I glanced out the window, watching the fruit bats swoop at mosquitoes in the ocher light of fading dusk.

  “At this rate, we might both starve to death before I get what I came for.”

  Huh? I met his laser stare and resisted the urge to swallow hard. I knew the only thing he wanted from me was information. I knew he was using innuendo to throw me off-balance.

  My turn.

  “You’ll go first, because I have more fat stores than you do and can live without food longer, as I’m not the skinniest woman in the world.”

  “Would you drop that, already?” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. Ha! Score one for Reyn. He blew out a breath. He picked up his glass and promptly put it down again. He stalked to the kitchen table and looked down at me. “Good God, you’re like a dog with a bone. Give you a description made without really much of a thought, and you’re going to carry it around with you for the rest of your life?”

  I tried not to let him see how smug I was about disturbing him. “Maybe.”

  “Are you like this with everything?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. So you won’t be letting go of this investigation unless I knock you over the head with a club.”

  I jumped up, rose onto my tiptoes, and tried to meet him eye-to-eye. I narrowed mine. “I knew you were a Neanderthal.”

  He reached into the breadbasket on the counter, grabbed a baguette, and held it over his head, waving it threateningly. In all fairness, he didn’t know I’d bought the bread a week ago, and it might be more harmful than he realized. “I’ll show you Neanderthal.”

  Behind me, my kitchen door burst open, and a two-hundred-fifty-pound, five-feet-tall ball of fury dressed in rainbow spandex flew into Scythe with fists pounding. I recognized the bouffant snow-white hair and jumped out of the way as she pinned him against the windowsill, her hands wrenching the baguette away from him and jamming it up against the underside of his chin. I heard his head cluck against the window glass and cringed. Scythe had gone completely still, and I knew it was one of the only times I would ever see him truly surprised. I have to admit I took a moment to enjoy it.

  “Mama Tru!” I admonished, only slightly belatedly. Mario’s mother lived catty-corner across busy McCullough Avenue. Her neighborly connection was the reason I got my house and at such a good price. But nothing in life is free. I consequently have no secrets and frequent interventions from the Trujillo clan.

  “Cállate, Reyn,” she ordered without taking her glare off Scythe. “I won’t let the murderer kill you, too. It looks like I got here right in time. Hand me that butcher knife, and call the police.”

  “Mama Tru, the police are already here,” I explained patiently. Mario’s mother tends to overreact.

  “Why don’t they do something about this devil, then?” She paused to glance around while I hid a grin.

  “Where are they, Reyn?”

  “You’ve got him pinned against the window.”

  She shot me a look. “Yeah, sure. Don’t worry, I get it, Reyn. You have to say that. His accomplice is hiding in your pantry with a gun trained on you, right?” I opened my mouth to speak, but she soldiered on, jamming the bread farther up, clunking his head against the glass again. “Escuche, hombre,and whatever amigos you brought with you. Now there’s two of us here, and one is a tough old lady who’s not afraid to go to heaven if her time’s come. If I have to die to save my Trudy’s amiga mejor, then it’s God’s will. So bring it on!”

  Oh, Lord, Mama Tru was watching too much cable.

  Scythe looked from me to Mama Tru and back again, silently pleading with me to do something. I gave him credit for respect for his elders, because he was easily strong enough to brush her aside with the sweep of a forearm, yet he didn’t move. I didn’t, either. He looked kind of cute with a petrified loaf of bread under his chin. Besides, until he got over his good manners an
d told Mama where to stick it, I had him where I wanted him.

  Scythe must have seen it in my eyes, because for the first time, he looked scared. “Miss Sawyer…” he warned.

  I smiled and sidled up to him. “We’ll let you go, Lieutenant, once you answer a few simple questions.”

  He groaned.

  “Where did you spend the afternoon?”

  He squirmed a little. Mama tightened the baguette. Scythe gave up. “Searching Ricardo’s house.”

  “What did you find?”

  “That Ricardo was a clotheshorse, had expensive taste, and not much company unless he wiped down his house regularly. There was only one other set of fingerprints besides his. Are they yours, Miss Sawyer?”

  “Good try, Lieutenant. They are mine only if they are the only pair to have survived from a big Christmas party there five years ago. My guess would be they belong to his maid. Ricardo is—was—an extremely private man. He told me that he’d never entertain again, that people were way too nosy, even with nothing to smell. If he did any entertaining, it would’ve been at someone else’s house.”