“Now that’s kinda bitchy.”
Mimi butted in. “Like you weren’t thinking the same thing.”
I was. I didn’t want to say it aloud, but I hoped like hell she’d been smart enough to use a condom. I had to ask, because I knew Mimi was too chicken, and I had to know. “So, is he any good?”
Cortnie put her hand out, palm flat, and wiggled it. “I’ve had better. But he thinks he’s Rico Suave.”
“I guess I wouldn’t do him, then,” I said. “A crime of passion?”
“He’s a cop,” Cortnie defended him. “Do you think he killed her? And why?”
“Has anyone talked to him since this incident?”
Cortnie shrugged.
“Do you know if Gabe ever left that night? Was he at the sting operation the whole time?” I asked.
“I never see him while the girls are working. It’s usually just me, the girls, and the other vice officers. Gabe has never been hands on with the decoy program, except the first night.”
“Maybe he couldn’t take seeing his girlfriends trolling for johns.” Mimi couldn’t help but get a jab in.
“Now might be a good time to have a talk with the little shit.” I stood. “Come on, let’s go.”
Cortnie stayed seated.
“You, too.” No way I was letting her off the hook this easy.
“Do you mind if I stay here?” Cortnie practically begged.
“Yes, I mind. You shouldn’t have gotten involved personally with a client. Now get your ass up and let’s get to the station.” I put my hand out to help her up.
Mimi came around the desk and stood between us. “No, she stays here. If I was her I’d want to punch him, kick him in the nuts, or maybe cut them off. We don’t need to be bailing our employee out of jail. Besides, we’re shorthanded as it is.”
I reminded them, “You know we can’t discuss the murder case in any way, so I’m not sure what we’re going to talk to him about.”
“I’ll talk to him about the decoy program. Get his take on it and how he thinks it’s going, if the girls are doing a good job, what we should be doing differently, what he thinks of Cortnie.” Mimi winked at Cortnie.
Cortnie stuck her tongue out at her. “My taste in men sucks.” She stood to leave the room. “Oh, and by the way, we’d decided to keep it platonic as long as the decoy program continued. He said he’d had enough problems at his last precinct, and he liked his job.”
We headed out, and Cortnie headed to her office.
She stopped at the door. “Hey, wait a minute.” She handed Mimi the box we’d found in Lena’s desk. “See if this is from Gabe. You can say it dropped out of Lena’s purse on her way to her car or something.”
“Do you mind if we stop by my house first?”
“No problem.” We started to leave, and then I had a thought and called down the hall, “Cort, where did Gabe work before he came to Salinas?”
“Midwest. Minneapolis, I think he said.”
103
Mimi
Did I mention Charles had rented out his old house and purchased a new home on Carmel Avenue in Salinas? To me Carmel Avenue was the 17-Mile Drive of Salinas. And 17-Mile Drive was a stretch along the coast of California, that ran through Pebble Beach, where some of the most expensive homes really were located. The homes where the wealthy people lived when I was growing up. So much from my childhood no longer existed. The phrase “the more things change, the more they stay the same” always made my stomach turn, because it made me long for my childhood.
We turned off Pine Avenue onto Carmel, and I could see the arched entry of Charles’s new home. His house fits the style of home for this street, with the stucco siding and the red tile roof. The yard boasted a postage stamp lawn and a few dwarf bushes, along with a short path to the porch.
I pulled my Land Rover into the driveway. “You want me to wait here?”
“Sure. I’m going to check and see if he made it home okay. I’ll be right back.” Charles hopped out of the car. “Thanks.”
The thanks alone let me know he was nervous. This was a side of Charles I’d never seen. He was always so sure of himself, and always in a relationship. I mean, if I looked like him, I’d never have been alone a day in my life, either. Even straight men would have been looking at me, the way straight men looked at Charles, with envy. They wanted to be him.
I looked at my watch. So much for being right back out. I put the car in park and turned off the engine. It was a very nice neighborhood, so I left the key in the ignition, just begging a thief to come and take my car. I walked up the path and stopped at the front door, which was ajar. Something told me it wasn’t okay to just push the door open and walk in.
I pulled my gun from the holster, clicked off the safety, and stood to the side of the doorway. I had adjusted all of my weight to my right leg and was ready to kick the door open when Charles opened the door and walked out.
“What the hell are you doing?”
I looked at him. His hair was a mess and his face looked like he’d been rubbing the skin.
“I could ask you the same thing.”
He stepped back inside. “Come on in.”
Now you know how well Charles had decorated the interior of our offices, right? So I’m sure you’re expecting me to give you a mouth-watering description of his home. I’d love to, except, it was nearly empty.
“What’s going on? I thought you’d ordered furniture. Isn’t the housewarming party in a few weeks?”
When they’d moved, they rented out the old house completely furnished, and planned a new start in Salinas, with a completely different decorative style. I’m not sure what, but different from the style of the old house. Only the personal stuff had come with them, and it was packed in boxes in the garage until they were ready for the unveiling at the party.
There was a bare minimum of a love seat and end table, which had to have come from Charles’s mother because no way would he accept second hand furniture otherwise, and an antique coffee table. I also saw a breakfast nook that looked like it folded down from the wall. Oh, that definitely wouldn’t last past the renovation process. I snickered.
He picked a piece of paper up off the counter. “The order was canceled last week apparently.” He shoved the paper at me.
“Oh, shit.”
“Follow me.”
I followed him into the bedroom. A simple king size bed was placed against the far wall, with a night stand, correction, a card table, next to it. At least the sheets looked like they were silk. I was surprised Charles hadn’t broken out in hives. Then again, he was too stoic to let something so petty bother him. He’d take care of this in due time.
He opened the closet door. “My clothes.”
Neatly folded in a pile on the floor were Charles’s socks and underwear. The rest of his clothes hung from thick wood hangers by color and style. “He’s gone.”
“No shit.” I closed the closet door, because he didn’t seem to have the energy. “Did he leave a note?”
“Just a rent check.” He showed me a check from Anthony’s account.
“I don’t get it.”
“He’s renting the house I own. No community property if you’re a homo. So in reality, Anthony is the one who got it in the ass in this deal, because we didn’t have joint checking or savings. Everything was in my name. I’m the one who had the money, and he rode my skirt tails.”
“Coattails.”
“Whatever.”
“So now the ball less twat will be paying me rent until I can have him evicted.” Charles stormed from the room.
I chased after him. “What’s been going on with you two? In all the years I’ve known you, this doesn’t seem like behavior either of you indulge in.” I gasped. “Charles! Did you cheat on Anthony?”
You could have heard a hair split.
“He cheated on me.”
I looked Charles up and down, imagining him naked. Yes, I’m human. I imagine hot men naked, and Charles was
one hot specimen. Who the hell would cheat on that? I mean, in that relationship, Charles was the hottie. Anthony would be lucky to ever find someone so good looking, so indulgent, so loving, so patient, oh, I could go on and on. My head was ready to explode. “When did this happen?”
“Right about the time you had your meltdown.” Charles collapsed against the wall, his head in his hands. “I couldn’t tell you. You had enough problems. And we’d decided we were going to work through it. I loved him, I was willing to forgive and forget. He said it was a one-time drunken indiscretion. ”
Charles wasn’t whining, or even on the verge of it. He was just explaining. He’d stay strong.
I slid down the wall and sat with him. “I should have been there for you. I suck at being a friend.”
He put his hand on my knee. “Yes, you do. You have very bad timing.” He laughed.
“Thanks.” My heart felt like an elephant had stepped on it.
He looked up. “Do me a favor?”
“Sure.” Anything.
“Leave me here for a bit. I need to be alone. I need to process this, and I can’t do it with someone here. I’ll be no good to you at the police station, because I’ll be somewhere else.”
“Sure.” I stood. “You call me when you want me to come get you.”
“I have a company car here.” He didn’t even look up.
I walked out and closed the door, making sure it was locked as I left.
* * *
Gabe was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone when I walked into the police station. I avoided him for the moment, I wanted to make a quick detour to see Nick first, because we needed to put the business of Lena’s murder behind us.
Nick was on the phone, too. I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. I’d never done that in the police station before. It felt good. He smiled at me and put up a finger. I plopped down in the chair next to his desk and waited. This chair looked much more comfortable than the one next to Gabe’s desk.
“Right. So Wilma’s recollection is a little off. Right… right… is there any way you can overnight a copy of the murder book?”
I fiddled with my phone, texting Charles to see if he needed anything. No response.
“Why didn’t I think of that? Your office has time to scan it today?” Nick wrote notes in his illegible handwriting. “I really appreciate it. I don’t really think they’re related, it’s just weird. So close together, and same M.O… right, not exactly the same, but strangled none the less.”
This sounded intriguing. Nick finished his call and placed both hands on his desk with his fingers spread. “That was different.”
“Different good or bad?”
“Totally cooperative. It’s a cold case, and they’re open to any leads. The mom was being looked at as a viable suspect in the beginning, but ruled out. Then she and Lena moved to California, and the trail ran cold. That’s where we are now.” He gathered his paperwork into a neat pile. “What’s up with you? And where’s your better half?”
I told him about Charles and Anthony, and he frowned. Like me, he’d never have guessed this would happen. The bombshell was when I told him about Gabe, Lena, and Cortnie.
He smirked. “I’d think Cortnie would have better taste.”
I guffawed. “Are you kidding me? He’s hot.” I fanned myself.
“If you go for that Hispanic look.” Nick didn’t seem impressed.
I leaned in and kissed him on the lips this time. “I go for your kind of looks.”
“This is not very professional, young lady.” He looked around the office. “I say we take this somewhere more private and get naked.”
“Let’s go.” I was already standing up.
“Not so fast. There’s a lot going on here.” He shuffled through his notes. “Jane’s murder is interesting, to say the least. No funeral, and the body was never claimed.”
“Really?” How odd.
“I’m waiting for a call back from their records department on the death certificate.” He pulled a piece of paper from the stack. “Wilma’s mother was also murdered.”
This just kept getting weirder. “Let me guess, cold case.”
“Yep, only Octavia Dahl wasn’t strangled. She was smothered in her sleep.”
“Same last name?” This could be for so many reasons, Wilma didn’t change her name when she married, she never married.
“Yes, I’m looking into that, too. Octavia was never married, and there’s no record of Wilma ever marrying, either.”
“Now that you mention it, there’s no mention of a husband or father from either one of them. Not that I’ve had that much contact with them.” Wilma was a curiosity, and not in a good way.
“The detective in Minneapolis said investigating the case was difficult because the women had no friends. The people who did know them said they rarely spoke about themselves, so it was impossible to find out much.”
“Richard mentioned to Cortnie that Lena was on the bank bowling league here,” I offered. “Maybe she made better friends here. Remember the girls she blew off on Friday night? I could talk to them.”
“Actually, I need your team to back off. I’m catching some flack about Charles flashing his private detective badge and calling himself a detective.”
I’d have been mad at Charles, but Nick was smiling. “Sorry.”
“It got the job done, but he may have been a little overzealous. Because of that, I have Reginald coming in this afternoon to talk to us, instead of us going to see him. And you won’t be a part of the questioning.”
I tried not to let the disappointment show on my face. Not that I had been thrilled to be meeting up with Reginald again, but I had wanted to grill him, and put him under the microscope. Being the spouse of a politician, you’d think he’d be more discreet. He didn’t really seem to care about his wife’s political aspirations, except that once she made it far enough up the ladder, he would no longer have to work.
“So what about Lena’s friends?”
“They were brought in last night and questioned. They’d been drinking and were very loose lipped, but it didn’t help in any way other than to tell us that Lena liked married men.”
“That we already know. Well, this might be something. Gabe worked out of Minneapolis before he moved here.”
Nick’s expression surprised me. I expected surprise, but he looked angry. “Stay away from him. Do not go down that path right now, Mimi. Promise me.”
Taken aback, I said, “Okay.”
A uniformed cop I’d never seen before stepped inside the homicide offices. “Detective Christianson, there’s a Reginald Wick here to see you.”
Nick grinned and I rolled my eyes.
“Stay here. I’m going to take him into the first investigation room for questioning. Once you see that he’s in there, you can go in on the other side and listen.” He grabbed a pen and pad of paper as he stood.
“What if someone asks what I’m doing?” Not everyone in the department knew me.
“Hernandez, can you take Mimi into the investigation room?” Nick called down to the detective on the far side of the room.
Hernandez stood. We’d met before, but I didn’t really know him. He was a younger detective, maybe thirty, with rosy cheeks and a pockmarked face. “Now?”
“Give it a minute. She’ll know when to go.” Nick looked back over his shoulder at me. “We cool?”
“Cool,” I said. It was best I didn’t get involved with Reginald if Nick wanted this to go well. The night Reginald had been arrested, I’d been on the street with the girls, he’d lunged at me and promised to kill me next time he saw me. We all knew he wouldn’t follow through, but why tempt fate?
Hernandez walked up to me. “What’s that all about?”
“He’s questioning someone, and it’s a guy we busted with the decoy sting operation. He wants me to listen in, but he doesn’t want him to see me.” I turned to look out the window as Nick escorted Reginald across the room. “We need him to
remain pleasant.”
Hernandez chuckled. “You do seem to bring out the worst in people.” Then he nodded toward Nick’s desk. “I see you two are finally making nice again.”
I smiled. “Finally.”
We watched the two men disappear into the interview room. Hernandez said, “Ready?”
He escorted me across the station and into my own private voyeur station, closing the door behind me as he left.
Reginald and Nick were both seated by the time I got the TV turned on.
“So, my wife talked some sense into you?” Reginald sat back in the chair, away from the table, with his right ankle over his left knee. He wore a pale yellow polo shirt and pearl gray slacks. When he crossed his legs, I saw the tan lines around his ankles. He wore leather loafers and no socks, so the tan lines were obvious. He sported golf logos like he was being sponsored. Heck, maybe he was. He played in enough charity tournaments.
Reginald Wick was in his fifties and looked every day of it. Leathery from his time on the golf course, his hair was an unnatural shade of blond. Don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful color, with the right amount of highlights, but not a single strand of gray, and that was the unnatural part. He was overdue for a trim, and as such his waves grazed the collar of his shirt. His blue eyes should have looked sexy against the tanned complexion. Instead, they looked watery, like color floating in egg whites.
“Your wife was here, but there’s not much I can do for you, or her. I work Homicide, not Vice,” Nick offered casually.
Suddenly, Reginald wasn’t so relaxed. His foot popped off his knee and hit the floor hard as he flew forward. “Then what do you have me here for?”
“Mr. Wick, the woman the police department used as the decoy in your solicitation arrest was found dead last night.”
He sat back, but didn’t cross his legs again. “Good.”
I couldn’t see Nick’s face, but I imagined he frowned at the comment. “Really? You get a solicitation ticket, a small fine, your name in the paper, and you wish the woman dead? Classy, Mr. Wick.”
Gotcha Detective Agency Mystery Box Set Page 77