“Yeah, I remember. I begged Mom to cut my hair just like Jessica’s, and then when she did, I hated it.”
“You hated playing baseball too, if I recall correctly.”
“It’s not like that, Dad,” I said, hoping he wasn’t about to launch into a discussion about how I was just as beautiful as Bethany. I so didn’t need to hear that with the way I was feeling.
“I think it is, honey. You admire how he does the job so much that you don’t see how valuable you are. Every time I speak to him he tells me how helpful you’ve been since that very first case.”
“Oh, I thought…” I stopped myself. “You know, ever since Mom died, I’ve wanted to solve things. I don’t know if it’s because I feel like I wish I could have figured out what was wrong with her before it was too late or something else. That’s why I took that job at that website, even though I never really wanted to spend my time helping others invade people’s private lives. I know everyone probably thinks I have no business trying to help the police solve crimes, but I want to because I feel like it’s a calling I’ve never really listened to before.”
“I know, but I think you put less value on your abilities to figure things out than you do on his.”
“Alex is so much smarter about people than I am. I wish I was more like him with that. He says so little and never jumps to conclusions like I do. He’s all mind and I’m all gut, but I’d rather be like him.”
Bringing my hand to his lips, my father kissed my fingers like he used to when I was a little girl. “That’s why you make such a good team. You’re different but in ways that work together. Not everyone can be Sherlock Holmes, Poppy. But sometimes the greatest detective finds useful ideas from Watson.”
I hung my head at his description of me as the hapless sidekick of the world’s most famous detective. “I don’t want to be Watson. All he does is fumble around with every case. He’d be lost without Holmes.”
My father stood from his perch on the case of booze and kissed the top of my head. “I love you no matter which one you are, Poppy. Promise me you won’t stay too long in here, okay?”
I saw the concern in his eyes and didn’t want him to worry, so I pretended our talk had made me feel better. “I’ll be out in a little while.”
“What do you want me to tell Alex and Bethany if they ask where you went off to?”
Doubting they’d even still be out at the bar, I smiled and said, “Just tell them I’m not feeling well. Thanks, Dad.”
“Will do, honey.”
He left me sitting there wishing I was anyone but Poppy McGuire and Alex’s version of a hapless sidekick. Or even worse, someone who’d never been to some club in Baltimore or anywhere else, for that matter.
Chapter Twelve
Grey skies greeted me when I awoke, a truly symbolic continuation of the night before as far as I was concerned. By the time I came out of the stockroom at McGuire’s, Alex and Bethany were gone, but he’d left me a note saying he’d see me at eight at The Grounds like always and he hoped I was feeling better soon. On the bottom, right before his name, he wrote, “If you need anything, call me.”
I could have been on fire and I wouldn’t have called him. Who wants to be the person to interrupt a date or…
Rolling over, I buried my head in the pillow and told myself I didn’t want to think about what else I might be interrupting. Better to remain as ignorant as possible in situations like this. I wasn’t sure it was bliss, but it sure as hell was better than knowing what happened between him and Bethany after they left the bar.
My alarm did its morning job, and when I grabbed the phone to turn it off, I saw a message from him. He’d sent it at right after one in the morning.
Hope you’re feeling better. Let me know if you can’t make it to breakfast and I’ll deliver.
So he was up and likely alone at one. Interesting. Maybe she left early or maybe they didn’t do anything after leaving McGuire’s. Or maybe…
Enough with the maybes, Poppy! Stop thinking about this! You’re obsessing, sister, and that’s never good. They’re together now. Accept it. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it. Alex is with Bethany. It’s time to buck up and move on.
After I’d given myself the pep talk I would have done for any of my friends in the same position, I texted Alex to let him know I wasn’t at death’s doorstep just yet. Part of me felt guilty for letting him think I was truly sick and not just miserable, but then again, he was the reason I felt miserable, so there it was.
I’ll be at The Grounds at eight. See you there!
My text sounded far more chipper than I actually felt, but maybe by the time I got there and downed some caffeine I’d start to come around to some happiness again. If only I could find the strength or ambition to get out of bed.
The phone vibrated against my nightstand, and I looked over to see a text from him. Swiping the screen, I saw his message and smiled.
Good. I was worried about you last night. We have work to do on this case and I need you at your best. See you in a few.
Why did he have to be like that? What couldn’t he be gruff and unfeeling? Then I’d be able to tell myself he wasn’t someone I should care about anyway, but this guy was exactly the type of man women wanted.
Smart, sexy, sweet.
I covered my eyes with my arm and willed away all those thoughts of how wonderful Alex was. He wasn’t mine to be wonderful with, and that was the reality I needed to wrap my brain around ASAP or I was going to be spending an awful lot of time in the stockroom of my father’s bar feeling like some stupid, lovesick girl.
With some newfound, albeit temporary, strength, I rolled out of bed to start my day. A nice hot shower, my hair pulled up into a ponytail because of the heat, and a light covering of makeup later, I left my house ready to work this seemingly unsolvable case with my partner.
Alex waited for me at our table in the back of The Grounds. Saturday mornings were typically a mob scene at the coffee shop, but for some reason this morning the crowds had cleared out already, leaving just us and two teenage girls who sat on the other side of the restaurant. Dressed in his blue police uniform, he looked very official as he sat drinking his coffee. And very stereotypical.
“You don’t think this is sort of a cliché? You know, a cop sitting here in a coffee shop drinking coffee? I think all you’re missing is the doughnut,” I teased as I sat down in the seat that made me face away from the rest of the patrons.
He smiled, either amused or annoyed by my jabs. “I see you’re feeling better this morning.”
I looked around, uncomfortable in my seat. “I don’t like sitting like this. I can’t see anything behind me. How do you sit like this all the time? I feel like someone’s going to come up behind me and do something.”
Shrugging, he said, “I sit there because you usually sit over here. I have the same feeling every time I’m over there. I have to fight the urge to turn around constantly.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me you wanted to switch seats?” I asked as I read the writing on my coffee cup. Two sugars and three creams. Just how I liked it.
“Because you like sitting here.”
Damn, why did he have to be so wonderful? Why couldn’t he do something terrible to make me hate him at least a little bit?
Before I told him something I’d regret, I switched the topic to our case. “So where are we on the murder of Canton Walters?”
Alex looked confused by my quick change, but it didn’t take him long to recover and turn all business. “As of this morning, nowhere yet. We’ve got a few good suspects and no real leads to connect any of them to the murder of Walters. No matter how I read it, we’re no closer than we were when we started.”
I understood his frustration. At every turn with this case, we learned something new only to find out it didn’t get us any further toward figuring out who had actually buried that knife in Canton Walters’ back or why.
“Why don’t we go over everything, just t
he two of us talking over some coffee? Maybe we missed something along the way.”
He didn’t seem terribly interested in my suggestion, but even as his expression told me he didn’t want to rehash what we knew so far, he nodded. “Okay. I guess it couldn’t hurt.”
“Good. Let’s look at each suspect for motive, means, and opportunity. Who’s first?”
Alex opened up his notepad and flipped to the page where the investigation began. “Elizabeth Freely.”
“Our favorite hotel desk clerk from the wrong side of the tracks,” I said as I lifted my cup to take a sip of coffee.
“We have no motive for her yet. She and Walters at first seemed to be associated with the Naughty and Spice Sex Toy Company, but the problem with that is he wasn’t employed by them since they have no male party givers. We have no evidence to show she even knew him. Means is weak, at best. I have no doubt Miss Freely could hold her own with most men, but kill one? I don’t know. And with a knife? Again, weak. As for opportunity, that’s a little stronger. As an employee of the Hotel Piermont, she’d be able to get in and out and would know where the cameras are.”
“Okay, well Elizabeth isn’t our strongest suspect. Who’s next?”
Flipping a few more pages in his notebook, he looked up and smiled. “The lovely couple, Dr. and Mrs. Roberts.”
I still couldn’t imagine Delilah Roberts killing anything. She likely couldn’t kill a spider or a fly without feeling bad.
“Do you still think Delilah should be a suspect? I just don’t see it, Alex.”
“I agree, but my gut tells me she’s involved with this somehow. Maybe she and Canton were lovers after she met him at one of her parties when he was the male dancer her friends hired. She wanted to leave her husband and run away with her dancer boyfriend, but he couldn’t get away because he has a wife and three kids at home. They fight and she stabs him.”
“As he sits at his desk filling out expense reports?” I asked, in effect ruining his perfect set-up for the murder.
“It’s not one hundred percent. I’ll admit that.”
“So how did she get into that hotel? She doesn’t have the opportunity with the night desk clerk at the hotel there all night.”
Alex sat back in his chair and let his shoulders sag. “Okay, how about her husband, Mr. Personality? Say he found out about an affair his wife was having with our victim. There’s motive. I have no doubt he’d be able to stab our victim. That’s only leaves opportunity.”
“Which gets us to the same place as his wife. How did he get past that night clerk? And once again, who stabs a guy while he’s doing paperwork?”
“Maybe he made friends with him and lulled him into a false sense of security so Walters would let him into his hotel room.”
“That sounds a little thin, Alex.”
He blew the air out of his lungs slowly and nodded. “I know. That’s why this case is frustrating me. None of these people seem to have been able to do it, except for the one who could, but he couldn’t have.”
“That only leaves Mary,” I said even as I silently discounted the possibility of her being able to kill anyone.
“Mary Jessick, the beautiful young widow of a husband she claims was murdered. Mary Jessick, the only one we can put together with our victim the night he died. Remember our witness, Mrs. Stark.”
I tapped on his notebook and corrected him. “She said Mrs. Stark was wrong. She says she wasn’t with him or any man on Tuesday, and until around midnight we know from my father that she wasn’t with anyone and that Canton Walters never came into the bar that night.”
“I know. I know. You don’t think she should be a suspect. The problem is that she has more connections to our victim than anyone else. Mrs. Stark identified the man getting out of the car with her as him. Are you saying she was wrong on the day and the man she saw?”
“I don’t know. I just know that I can’t see Mary killing anyone. Call it a gut feeling. You know, those great instincts you think I have? Well, they tell me she didn’t do it.”
“Well, my gut tells me she’s hiding something and when I have enough to bring her in for questioning, she’s going to have to explain how she knew our victim better than she saw him once at a party. I might be able to believe that nosy neighbor of hers made a mistake on when she saw her with Walters, but I don’t buy she made a mistake when she identified him as likely the man she was with.”
“It seems our guts are at odds,” I joked, hoping to break some of the tension that had crept into our conversation. I knew Alex believed in what I thought, but this case seemed to be making him edgier than I’d ever seen him.
He sighed and took a drink of his coffee. “I trust your gut as much as I trust mine, Poppy. I just wish what we’re thinking would finally make sense.”
“What if we took another run at the night desk clerk this afternoon when he starts his shift? Maybe we can see if he remembers anything more than when you talked to him last time?”
“It’s worth a try. I’ll swing by and pick you up after I get off. I should be there right after four.”
“Okay. Sounds good.”
Suddenly, now that we’d finished talking about work, we didn’t seem to have anything more to say to one another. The fact that I knew next to nothing about who he was other than as an officer who I investigated crimes with bothered me. I wanted to be able to say I knew the person I called my partner.
“Alex, what do you do when you aren’t working?”
Not my smoothest line, but in my attempt to not get too personal, I went for the whole nine yards. His expression told me I’d surprised him with my out of the blue question.
He thought about it for a moment, and then said, “I watch a lot of sports. Summer it’s baseball. That’s what I was doing when I texted you last night.”
“Since when are baseball games on at one in the morning?”
“The Orioles-Jays game ran into extra innings. It took them seventeen innings to get a winner.”
“Oh.” Then I remembered my father mentioning about the All-Star Game. “Isn’t it the All-Star break in the season now?”
“Next week. Why do you sound like you don’t believe me?”
So much for catching him in a lie. I didn’t even know why I thought he’d lie to me. He’d never shown me he had before.
“Is something wrong, Poppy? You’ve never asked me about anything but work,” he said as he looked at me with concern in his dark brown eyes that felt like they were staring right through me to see my real motives for my strange question.
Affecting my most casual tone, I smiled and said, “No. I was just wondering. I guess I realized last night when you guys were talking about that club that I knew very little about you other than as the person I work with on cases.”
“Ah. I never much liked that club, you know that? Too loud for my taste. I prefer something more intimate so I can at least talk to the person I’m with.”
I knew exactly what he meant. Big groups of noisy people had never been my thing, even in college. I’d always been more of a one-on-one kind of person. I liked hearing he didn’t enjoy the club scene like I knew Bethany did.
“You aren’t missing anything by never going there, Poppy. Trust me.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m not into that kind of thing anyway.”
We sat there at our usual table at The Grounds not saying a thing after that, but that was okay too. I may not have known much about Alex outside of work, but what I did know I liked.
When we finished our morning coffees, we left to go about our days. I walked home as it began to drizzle and forced myself to think about our case instead of what happened between Alex and Bethany that had him alone watching baseball at one in the morning.
It was strange, but I preferred to think about murder.
“Ready to meet Mr. Steadman, the night clerk at the Hotel Piermont?” Alex asked as I quickly closed the car door to avoid getting soaked any more than I already had by the sudden downpour
that had rolled into town.
“Ready and willing.”
He scanned my body covered in a drenched green t-shirt and white capris. “You know, they have these things called umbrellas.”
“I lost mine, so I had to dodge the raindrops. I guess I’m not very good at that,” I said with a smile while I wrung out the ends of my shirt.
“There’s not even a spare towel in here. I do have an umbrella, though,” Alex said with a playful lilt to his voice.
A stream of rainwater ran down my calf with the last squeeze of my t-shirt, and I looked over at him wearing a silly grin on his face like he thought he was amusing. “Funny. Really funny. We can go at any time, or do you have more jokes to tell?”
“None that I can’t save for another time,” he said as he put the car in drive and headed toward the Hotel Piermont.
“Then let’s go talk to that night clerk. I had an idea while I was waiting for you.”
Alex arched an eyebrow and glanced toward me. “Anything you want to share?”
“Actually, no not yet. I will if anything comes of it with him.”
An expression full of hurt crossed his face as he drove up the hill to the hotel. “We’re keeping secrets from each other now? That’s not how partners work.”
I didn’t say anything until he parked the car and turned toward me. That look I’d seen when I told him I didn’t want to share my idea about the case had settled into his features, and he frowned at me. I didn’t want him to think I was hiding anything, so I tried to lighten what had become a very dark mood between us.
“A girl’s got to keep some part of her a mystery,” I said sweetly, more joking than anything else and hoping to ease the tension. The frown on his face told me I hadn’t succeeded.
“Poppy, don’t you trust me?”
The way he said those words like each one was torn from his throat made my heart flutter. If only he knew how much I trusted him. “More than you can possibly know. Don’t you trust me, Alex?”
“More than you can possibly know.”
I couldn’t tell by his answer if he was teasing me or angry with me. The tone of his voice sounded sort of playfully serious, but the face looking at me remained unhappy.
After Hours Page 13