by Angela Henry
“Good. For a minute there I wondered if maybe you were interested in him.”
Images of Lewis lounging in my tub and wrapped in my bath towel popped into my head and I could feel the tuna melt threatening to make a re-appearance. The horror must have shown on my face. She threw her head back and laughed, and my spine stiffened in annoyance.
“Honestly, I’m not sure how I can help but I assure you that money is my only incentive to try.”
“I’m just teasing, Kendra.” She reached out and squeezed my hand, and I instantly felt foolish for getting annoyed. But I stood to go anyway.
“I should go. I’ve taken up enough of your time, Dr. Kirkland.”
“Here,” she said, pulling a silver card case from her purse. The initials JK were spelled out on the front in small emeralds. She handed me a cream-colored business card. “Just in case you have any more questions about Lewis. I want to help in any way I can. And, again, please call me Joyce.”
“Thanks, Joyce,” I told her, as I shoved the card into the front pocket of my purse. “And don’t think I won’t take you up on that.”
“I’m counting on it,” she replied and then her face lit up as looked past me to the office door. I looked, too. A thin, bearded white man in navy chinos and a yellow sweater stood smiling in the doorway. He had a green winter parka draped across his right arm and was holding a battered leather briefcase. He was very handsome in a distinguished professor kinda way with salt and pepper hair and a killer smile. He was as opposite from Dibb Bentley as it was possible to be. He smelled like a mixture of pipe tobacco and breath mints.
“Hope I’m not interrupting. I was just checking to see if you were ready to go home.” He walked over to Dr. Kirkland and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
“Kendra, this is my husband, Dr. Paul Kirkland. He’s the chair of the English department.”
“Nice meeting you, Dr. Kirkland.” I stuck out my hand to give his a quick shake and noticed his thumb was wrapped in a bandage that came down and wrapped around his wrist. There were shallow cuts on two of his other fingers as well as his palm. He noticed me looking and chuckled softly.
“A glass broke in my hand the other day. Luckily my thumb took the brunt of it and I can still type.”
“My hubby’s a bit accident prone,” said Joyce Kirkland giving her husband an affectionate grin. “Took eight stitches to close the gash in his thumb.”
“Six stitches. She exaggerates,” he gave me a flirty wink, and I noticed Dr. Kirkland’s smile tighten just a bit. It was time to go.
“Ouch,” I said, backing towards the door. “Well, I really need to get going. Thanks again, Dr. Kirkland...I mean Joyce.” I nodded to her husband and left.
Eight
Queenie wasn’t the only one waiting for me when I got home. Detective Blake Mason was parked in front of Mama’s when I arrived. I couldn’t imagine what in the world he wanted with me. A knot instantly formed in my stomach as he got out of his car and walked towards me. Although, looking at him all buff in his faded jeans and black leather bomber jacket, the knot could very well have been because he was so damned fine, and not because I was nervous about him finding out I was interfering in his investigation.
“Uh, oh. Should I be worried or flattered that you’ve taken time out of your busy day to come see me, Detective?” I kept my tone light and teasing, which was hard to do when the look on his face was anything but warm and friendly. Could he have found out already that I was working with Sharon Newcastle? And if so, who spilled the beans?
“Actually, my day’s over. I just came by to check on you and see how you’re doing.”
“Well, I can report that the brakes on my rental are working just fine. And according to the mechanic working on my car, my brake line was rusted to hell and back and could have snapped if someone blew too hard on it,” I said as we walked up the porch steps together. I fumbled in my purse for the keys trying to ignore how wonderful he smelled as he stood a little too close for comfort. It wasn’t cologne. He smelled fresh and clean, like he’d just stepped out of the shower.
“That still doesn’t account for your brake light not coming on. Let me guess, the light bulb blew out, right?” he concluded, sarcastically.
“Wow. And here I was thinking I was the paranoid one.” Mason shook his head and rolled his eyes as I pushed the door open, flipped on the light, and gasped. The placed was trashed.
The plastic cover on Mama’s prized white living room sofa had been slashed with something sharp. It lay on the floor like a shredded snakeskin. The cushions were scattered on the floor, similarly slashed with the stuffing coming out. The coffee table had been overturned, and all of Mama’s porcelain angel figurines that had been lining the mantle over the fireplace, which she’d collected for years, had been swept off onto the floor and lay broken on the brick hearth. The only one still intact was the one my late grandfather had given her for their first wedding anniversary, which had miraculously landed on the carpet a few feet away. The sight of it lying there and of my grandmother’s living room, which was her pride and joy, wrecked and violated brought instant tears to my eyes. A sob escaped my throat as I started to rush over to pick up the solitary angel. Instead, Mason drew his gun from his shoulder holster and shoved me behind him.
“Not so fast, Kendra. They could still be here.”
“I hope they are, because I owe them an ass kicking,” I said, my voice thick with tears as I tried once again to get past him. Mason gave me a hard look that froze me in my tracks.
“Don’t you move a muscle. I mean it. I’m going to check the rest of the house.”
He disappeared into the darkened family room before I could come up with a snappy response. And, honestly, I just didn’t have it in me. Mama had trusted me to look after her house, but what had I done? I’d caused a crazy person—who had most likely killed two people and framed a third—to break into my grandmother’s house and wreck it trying to find the thing I was keeping from Lewis’s lawyer and the police. Hot tears of shame ran down my face until I suddenly remembered Queenie and my heart leapt into my throat. Usually the beagle ran to the door to greet me whenever I came in. Blood pounded in my ears and I was suddenly lightheaded and nauseous. Broken ceramics were one thing, but a dog was something else. Oh, dear God. Please don’t let her be...
“Queenie!” I shrieked and ran in a blind panic into the family room and straight into Mason, who was carrying a wriggling Queenie in the crook of his left arm. His gun was still in his right hand. Queenie wriggled right out of his grasp and into my arms and relief flooded through me as the beagle enthusiastically licked my face, obviously as happy to see me as I was to see her.
“She was in the basement. Stay put while I check upstairs.”
A minute later, Mason was back downstairs and on his cell phone calling in what had happened to the station while I surveyed the wreckage. Tears were replaced with white hot anger. The family room was in a similar state as the living room; the kitchen and pantry were the least damaged, with only the contents of the cabinets emptied and the drawers and cabinet doors hanging open. Whoever had done this hadn’t had time to get to Mama’s bedroom or upstairs and had gone out the same way they’d come in, which was the back door. The glass in the door had been broken out, allowing the person to reach through and unlock the door.
“Let’s wait outside, Kendra.” Mason guided me out of the kitchen but not before I noticed blood on the broken glass in the door and drops of it on the floor. I looked around the living room on my way to the front door and noticed small drops of blood on the couch cushions. They’d cut themselves. Good. I hoped it had hurt like hell and left a lasting scar.
After the house had been processed by the crime scene techs, Mason had me go through the entire house to check and see if anything was missing. I made a good show of checking everything. But I knew damned well what they’d been after. They’d been looking for the ledger, which as far as I knew was still locked in my desk drawer a
t work. Just as soon as I ditched Mason, I planned to head back to work to check. And that meant whoever had broken in had been watching me and probably following me, too. Thanks to Dibb’s murder, my apartment was considered a secondary crime scene, so they couldn’t get in there. But Mama’s house was an easy target. And speaking of Mama, how in the world was I going to tell her someone broke in and trashed the place?
“Anything missing?” Mason asked, making me jump. I’d been making a half-hearted show of looking through the kitchen cabinets when he’d walked up on me.
“Didn’t mean to scare you. You okay?”
“Sorry, I’m just jumpy. And unless you count a can of tuna and a box of crackers, which I’m pretty sure I ate, nothing’s missing as far as I can tell.”
“You sure about that?” I couldn’t quite look Mason in the eye and simply nodded.
“Is it okay for me to clean this mess up? I’d like to get to bed before midnight.”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” He was looking at me like I was crazy.
“What?”
“Kendra, the glass in the backdoor is broken and you won’t be able to get someone out here to fix it until tomorrow. Whoever broke in here could come back. You need to stay somewhere else tonight. Is there a friend or relative who could put you up for the night?”
“Are you kidding? It was probably just some kids with too much time on their hands and nothing else better to do. I just want to clean this mess up, take a hot bath, and crawl under the covers.” Mason leaned against the doorjamb of the kitchen door with his arms crossed, giving me a laser-like stare.
“Why are you so hot to get rid of me?”
Crap! How did he always know when I was trying to ditch him? I had to get back to the literacy center. The building was still open for an adult basketball league in the gym but would close in half an hour. At the very least, I needed to move the ledger someplace else until I could figure out how to get rid of it. The only thing left to do was to call his bluff.
“I have no clue what you’re talking about, Detective Mason. But you’re more than welcome to stay and help me clean up because I’m not going anywhere, and you can’t make me. You’re even welcome to sleep on the couch if you’re so worried about me. Hey! We can order a pizza and make it real sleepover. It’ll be like old times. But I’m afraid I’ll have to draw the line at sharing my hot bubble bath with you.” Now, why the hell had I said that? Mason’s slow, seductive smile made my cheeks flush hot. For a moment we stared at each other and it took everything in me to return his gaze and not flinch. Then he suddenly clapped his hands and rubbed them together.
“Sounds like a plan to me,” he said, as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and gave me devilish smile. “Spiro’s has a killer veggie supreme pizza. Have you had it?” He didn’t wait for me to answer before he ordered a large veggie pizza with extra cheese and green olives while I did a slow burn. Damn him! Was he serious? Was he actually going to stay the night? And was I actually going to eat a pizza with no meat on it?
“Uh..okay. Yeah, that sounds cool. I’ll just go get the trash bags and a broom.” I glanced at the clock and realized that Detective Blake Mason was going to be harder to get rid of tonight than lint on a black sweater. I’d just have to wait until morning. At least that’s what I thought until I remembered I’d used the last trash bag and would have to go out to get more. Then as if fate was smiling upon me after all, Mason called out from the family room.
“Gotta go pick it up. One of their delivery trucks is down tonight and deliveries are taking up to two hours.”
“Can you pick up some trash bags while you’re out?” I called out hopefully. I still had twenty minutes to get to the school and get the ledger before they locked the building. If I left now, I could get there and back before Mason returned. And why did this feel so familiar? Probably because it had happened before. I’d tried to ditch him when he’d been assigned to babysit me last year to go spy on someone and he’d caught me. But I wasn’t going out like that this time.
“Any particular brand?”
“Whatever’s on sale,” I called out and was relieved to hear the front door open and shut. I ran and looked out the peephole, and as soon as his car pulled away from the curb and out of view, I ran out the door and hopped into my rental. Mason would be gone at least twenty minutes or more and I could be to the center and back in less than fifteen.
Despite the fact that I managed to catch every red light between my house and the literacy center, I got there in seven minutes flat, five minutes before they were about to lock the building up. I noticed the gym was empty as I ran past. Manuel, the custodian, who was mopping the floor outside the gym, looked up in surprise as I raced past and gave me a quizzical look.
“It’s okay Manuel. I just forgot some homework I need to grade!”
I took the steps to the second floor two at a time. I was through the classroom door and it wasn’t until I saw my desk drawer had been pried open that I realized the door was unlocked. I frantically searched all my desk drawers for the ledger, even though I knew it was gone. Then I remembered the photocopy I’d made. I searched the drawer the ledger had been locked in; to my utter amazement it was still there, flipped over so the writing on the front wasn’t showing. Whoever took it wouldn’t have been expecting me to have made a copy, let alone for it to be hidden alongside the real ledger, and probably just grabbed it and ran. Relief flooded through me as I leaned against the desk, hugging the copy of the ledger to my chest. Then someone flipped on the lights and I whirled around thinking it was Manuel. Only it wasn’t Manuel. It was Mason. And he didn’t look happy. Great!
“When are you going to learn you can’t fool me, Kendra?”
“How did you..?” I began but he cut me off.
“I knew you were up to something. I parked around the corner until I saw you fly past like a bat out of hell and followed you. And before you try and lie and tell me what you’re holding is homework you forgot to grade, I’d like to remind you that obstructing a murder investigation carries a stiff penalty.” He walked over and held out his hand. I reluctantly placed the copy of the ledger into it. He flipped through the pages in confusion.
“It’s not what you think.” But who was I kidding? It was exactly what he thought. I was interfering in his case. But there had to be a way I could salvage this.
“What the hell is this?”
“I’ll tell you over pizza.” His head snapped up and he glared at me. “You did actually order one, right? Or was that a bluff, too?” I realized I was on thin ice. but I take food very seriously, especially pizza, even pizza with no meat on it.
“Let’s go.” He stepped aside to let me walk out in front of him.
I turned to remind him that I still needed trash bags and was shocked to discover he’d been totally checking out my ass.
Over the next hour and half a dozen slices of Spiro’s killer veggie pizza, which was actually amazingly delicious, I’d told Mason everything. Well, almost everything. I didn’t tell him I was working with Sharon Newcastle as a consultant on Lewis’s case. I hadn’t done anything illegal and I needed the money. But it didn’t matter because Mason still wasn’t convinced the ledger had anything at all to do with Lewis’s case. He still thought revenge and jealousy were the reasons Lewis had killed Brenda and Dibb and not a decades-old prostitution ring with pissing hookers named after gemstones. And in that respect, he wasn’t much different than his former partner, Trish Harmon. Harmon was completely devoid of any kind of gut feelings, let alone women’s intuition, and was strictly a “facts and only the facts” kind of cop. Lucky me.
“If it’s not important then why break in here and my classroom looking for it?”
“Oh, I thought you said bored teenagers broke in? Now, you’re telling me someone was looking for that?” He gestured towards the copy of the ledger lying on the kitchen table.
“Well, what else was I going to say?” I replied irritably around a mouthful of veggie
s and cheese.
“Want to know what I think?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not unless you want an obstruction charge.”
“How’s it obstruction if you think the ledger isn’t connected to the case?” He stopped eating, his eyes narrowed, and I could absolutely see him slapping cuffs on me. “Fine. Whatever. Thrill me with your brilliant theory.”
“I think Dibb Bentley got out of prison a broke and broken man. He needed money and knew he could use that ledger to blackmail the people in it. He probably even contacted some of them. But before he could actually cash in on it, Watts murdered him in retaliation for kidnapping him and holding him hostage.”
“Even if I believed that which, by the way, I don’t, that doesn’t explain Brenda. Why would he kill Brenda? Even if she was cheating on him, with his ego he’d have considered it her loss and just found another woman.”
“What if, hypothetically speaking, Brenda was cheating on Lewis with Dibb, the man who Lewis Watts blamed for ruining his rep all those years ago and labeling him a snitch who couldn’t be trusted? How do you think he would have responded to that? Because believe me, no man wants to find out his woman is sleeping with the enemy.” That last sentence had practically been spat out with a grimace on his face.
I was so taken aback I stopped chewing and stared at him. Was he speaking from personal experience? I knew Detective Blake Mason was an ex-Marine and health food nut with a giant sweet tooth. But I knew next to nothing about his private life, though I had the uncanny and uncomfortable feeling that I’d just gotten a glimpse of something intimate and unpleasant. When he noticed me watching, he looked away and took a big swig of his bottle of root beer.
“Are you saying Brenda was cheating with Dibb? How’d you find that out?”
“I said hypothetically, Kendra. I was simply pointing out that there are circumstances in which even the most calm and peace-loving men could become killers. And no offense, but if we’d found out that kind of info, you’re the last person I’d tell.”