“Holy shit. Why would you ever need to?”
“You never know. And probably I’ll never have to find out. The world is supposed to end in a few months anyway.”
“Good point.”
Kate got up and let me have the chair. “Stay as long as you like. I’ll be here for a while, so just ask if you hit a snag.”
I was going to ask Agent Savage if there was a way to get rid of my information. Big Brother didn’t need to know that I was late for my pap smear, though that reminded me about Dr. Isobel Lee. I plugged in the information like Kate had showed me. There were a lot of Isobel Lee’s in the state of Georgia. Six of them were doctors—two specializing in gynecology. I dug deeper on both of them and was finally able to narrow it down with financial records. One of the Dr. Lees made significantly more than the other, and the deposits were being made by the same company who’d deposited the money into Amanda Whitfield’s account.
Digging even further into her life, I was able to see that she’d been an infertility specialist at one time, but she had a few marks on her record and had lost funding and credibility because some of her experimental treatments hadn’t turned out well for the patient.
“I guess we know what Sirin is holding over your head,” I murmured. “They’re probably the only place you could get a job.”
She no longer had a private practice and her place of residence was listed as 227 Broad Street in Savannah. I was willing to bet Dr. Lee’s office occupied one of those middle floors of the Sirin building.
I shifted my searching to Becca Gonzales and Andi Bachman, and I occasionally glanced at the phone, cracking my knuckles as I willed it to ring. I hadn’t heard a peep from Nick. Not even a text message. He was probably armpits deep in dead bodies, but I was pretty sure morning after etiquette at least included a casual hello or a phone call.
Those little insecurities that had plagued me after Greg had thrown me over for Veronica were starting to surface—Why wasn’t I good enough? or Was I that bad in bed?—the kinds of questions that made women raving lunatics and drove men to drink. I’d never ask the men in my life those questions, because I had pride, but I sure as hell couldn’t keep them from sneaking up on me.
I turned my attention back to the job at hand, putting Nick as far out of my mind as possible. I was fascinated by the life of ill repute. If I were Natalie Evans, I’d ask for my own reality TV show. There was sex and money and scandal in spades, so they’d make a killing in the ratings.
“Well, holy shit,” I said.
I’d definitely hit the jackpot. And Noelle Price, the fourth friend in the quartet of call girls, was the icing on the cake. Especially since she was dead. I printed all the information out, practically jumping in my flip-flops with excitement. I grabbed all the papers and headed next door to Kate’s office. Her head was buried in paperwork, so she didn’t hear me when I came in.
I glanced up at the clock and saw it was after eight o’clock. Nick still hadn’t called, but I’d passed the point of getting my hopes up where that was concerned. What did have me concerned was that Kate was still in the office when I knew damn good and well she and Mike always reserved Saturday night for their date night.
“Why are you still here? I thought it was date night?” I asked.
Kate looked up briefly, but her face betrayed nothing. “I have work. Some of us do that for a living.”
“Well, ouch,” I said, heading over to the Keurig to make myself a cup of coffee.
Kate winced. “Sorry. That was out of line. But I’m busy here, Addison. We can gossip later.”
I just doctored my coffee the way I liked it and set the papers I’d brought in aside. We could get to that later. I took the seat across from her desk and just waited, staring patiently at her until she couldn’t stand it anymore. When she finally looked up I was horrified to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes. Kate never cried.
“Jesus, are you okay?” I asked. “You’re not dying or anything are you?” I leaned over the desk and grabbed her hand. “Did you find a lump?”
She shook her head and the tears actually fell. Panic started to build inside of me. Kate was the calm one. The one who always knew what to do in a crisis. This was the equivalent of Diane Sawyer standing on top of her news desk on live television and screaming that the world was about to end.
“We can fix this,” I promised her. “Whatever it is.”
“I think Mike is having an affair,” she said.
My eyes popped open wide at that news. Mike was the last person on earth I’d ever suspect of having an affair, but Kate was a pretty good judge of character, so if she suspected, then something was probably up.
“Do you need help hiding the body?” I asked. “I’ve always thought the bayou was a good place. Of course, we’d have to weigh him down pretty good so he didn’t churn back to the surface in a bad storm. Sheriff Rafferty would probably suspect you first thing, even though he is dumber than hair.”
Kate gave a watery laugh and reached under a stack of papers for one of the case files she put assignments in. A ball of dread, like weighted lead, gathered in the pit of my stomach when she placed it in front of me.
“All the information is inside,” she said. “Treat it like any other case.”
I wanted to jump out of the chair and say, hell no, but I restrained myself because I’d do anything she asked me to help her out. I only hoped she didn’t regret it. I knew from experience it was a lot harder to see first hand than to suspect.
“Oh, Kate. Are you sure?”
“I need the proof. I need to be sure before I can leave him.”
I wanted to ask when things had gotten bad between them. This all seemed rather sudden. But I kept my mouth shut and took the file. “I’ll let you know,” I promised.
“He’s on duty tonight until ten. He’s been working a lot of extra shifts lately,” she said bitterly.
“I’ll take care of it,” I told her.
And if he was cheating on her I still had a tranquilizer gun I could use on him. Probably it’d be a fair deal to let Kate take her vengeance out while he was unconscious. And there’d be less screaming. I wasn’t sure I was built to witness intentional violence. I sometimes wanted to throw up watching old episodes of Nip/Tuck.
Kate dried her tears abruptly and shuffled me out the door before I had a chance to ask too many questions. I guess she wanted me to go into the case with an open mind. Considering I’d already offered to help her hide the body, I was thinking it was too late. I gave her a quick hug and invited her to stay the night at my house, but she declined, locking the door behind me and heading back to work.
What she and I really needed was a vacation. I needed to whisk her away to the Keys, where she could sip drinks with umbrellas and lay on the beach as she ogled sexy Latin men in Speedos. Of course, she’d have to pay for it since it was out of my budget at the moment.
I still had some time to kill while I waited for Mike to get off work, so I swung though Dairy Queen and used the spare change I had in the center console to buy a strawberry sundae. The thing with Kate had kind of thrown me off my stride, and I’d completely forgotten to tell her what I’d found out using the search programs. As much as I hated to admit it, I probably needed to go to Agent Savage with the information. I’d have to make sure to wear my chastity belt and put chicken manure on my lips to keep him far from kissing distance.
I blared Beastie Boys from the stereo and drove back to Broad Street, parking in the same place Savage had earlier that day. The street was still busy with traffic, so I blended in easily enough, but the Sirin building was getting no action. All of the floors were dark, and no one was coming or going from the building.
I didn’t have a lot going for me normally in this job, but I had pretty good instincts. Mostly. It was listening to them that was my problem. My gut was telling me anything having to do with this building was a waste of time. Natalie Evans had kept her records and businesses clean, and the dirty work woul
dn’t be done here.
What I really needed to get a hold of was her client list. But short of breaking into her house and searching for it, I was at a loss on how to get it.
A shadow darkened my window and I jumped in surprise as a pale, round face stared in at me. Rosemarie’s face was plastered with a grin and she waved with the silly incoordination of someone who’d had one too many drinks at happy hour. Her red lipstick was slightly smeared and she had mascara under her eyes.
Rosemarie kept her hand on the car as she made her way unsteadily to the passenger side and opened the door.
“Boy, I was just thinking about you. And here you are,” she said, giggling. “It’s like magic. Or voodoo. Or voodoo magic.”
She thought that was hilarious and laughed so hard she snorted, sending her into another fit of uncontrollable giggles.
“I was just thinking that,” I said. “You’re not driving, are you?”
“Of course not!” She was so scandalized by the suggestion I had to grin. “You’re here. Now I don’t have to call a cab. I’ve got good luck. My mama always said, Rosemarie Valentine, you are the luckiest duck I ever did see. I bet I could charge people to rub up against me and then they’d be lucky too.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal in the state of Georgia.”
I looked at the time and winced. There was no way I’d be able to get Rosemarie home and make it back by the time Mike got off his shift.
“Is there a friend you can stay with here in the city? I’m still working, otherwise I’d be happy to take you home.”
“Oh, don’t mind me. I told you I’m lucky. If you’re headed out to catch vile seducers and criminals then you probably want me to ride along with you. Don’t worry. I’ll do it for free on account of how we’re best friends.”
“I appreciate that, Rosemarie.”
I just closed my eyes for a second, knowing it was futile to argue. At least she wasn’t wearing bright colors, so there was the possibility that she’d blend in a little better than usual. Of course, she was wearing a black halter-top that showed about three miles of white fleshy cleavage and a black skirt that looked like it belonged on a fifteen-year-old Catholic girl looking to seduce a priest.
I started the car and cursed as I navigated the one-way roads until I’d found the one that would take me to the Savannah-Chatham Precinct just a few blocks away. Mike and Nick were stationed out of the same house, by far the busiest since it was responsible for two counties, but Mike worked out of the Property Crimes division, so they didn’t work together. Which was a good thing, because cops had a tendency to stick together and keep each other’s secrets. It was some stupid brotherhood code as far as I could tell. Even if the brother was a douchebag.
“So what were you doing out tonight?” I asked. “Was it a girls’ night out?”
“Nope. Mostly I was just trying to get laid. You can’t do that in Whiskey Bayou.”
This was true. The minute a woman walked in to Clampett’s Bar the men knew she was fair game, and pretty much the first semi-sober guy that could get to her would be the lucky winner. Respectable women didn’t go to Clampett’s. Not even borderline respectable women went to Clampett’s.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone someday.” Though I wasn’t too sure her dogs would ever welcome anyone new into the family fold.
“Well, I tried,” she said, disgusted. “But I kept waiting for the Jason Mamoas and Colin Farrells to walk into the bar, but all I kept seeing was the Jack Blacks and David Spades.”
“That does make it difficult,” I agreed. “Physical attraction is definitely a must for good sex.”
“Not always. I was married once,” she said, changing the subject abruptly. “Did you know that?”
Considering I’d been at the wedding, I did indeed know that bit of information. But since Rosemarie was slurring her words to the point she sounded like English wasn’t her first language, I wasn’t going to hold it against her for not remembering. She didn’t wait for me to answer.
“He was a rotten son of a bitch,” she continued. “And he was ugly as homemade sin, but he could fuck like a racehorse.”
I swerved to avoid a car and wondered if I’d blacked out for a second. I tried to get the picture out of my mind of Roger Valentine pounding away at Rosemarie, but I was pretty sure I was scarred for life. Saying he was ugly as homemade sin was an understatement.
“Then I started putting on a little weight, and he told me he couldn’t fuck properly if he actually had to look at me. I told him I’d managed just fine over the years by pretending he was Gerard Butler, but he didn’t appreciate that much.”
My mouth quirked a little and I decided being with Rosemarie was like watching a live soap opera. “Bastard,” I said. “You’re better off without him.”
“Damn right,” she said. “And anyway, it turns out I had a glandular problem, which was what was causing the weight gain. But what really put the kibosh on our marriage was when we found out I couldn’t have kids. Turns out he’d been planning to populate Whiskey Bayou with his seed and forgot to tell me. We tried and tried, but according to the doctors, I’ve got the eggs of a ninety-year-old wizard.”
I had no idea what the hell that meant, but I didn’t want to interrupt her story to ask.
“Good riddance to him,” she finally said, spitting into the hole in the floorboard of the car to seal the deal. “He knocked up Denise Grizzoldi before the ink was dry on our divorce papers, and now they’ve got six kids and she’s the size of a monster truck. Serves him right. But I still hope his balls fall off and he’s cursed with constant diarrhea.”
I felt the need to make the sign of the cross, but I refrained. It was a hell of a curse to put on someone. One that only the Holy Mother could cure.
I parked down the street from the gated parking lot the on duty cops used so their vehicles wouldn’t get vandalized while they were trying to serve and protect. I left the engine running, but I cut the lights, slouching down in my seat some so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself.
Rosemarie was humming the theme to Star Trek and searching through her giant handbag for something. I took the time to look through Mike’s file while we were waiting. Mike was a big man—not fat—but just big. He was six foot six and solid as a brick shithouse. His hair was carrot red and he was a genuine throwback to Scottish chieftains, and he looked like he’d be perfectly comfortable tossing cabers across a field.
I looked over the picture of his vehicle and his license plate just to make sure I had it committed to memory, even though I passed it sitting in his driveway most mornings.
Mike was a creature of habit. Usually. He played poker on Thursday nights, he and Kate had date night on Saturday, and every fourth weekend they’d take a little trip somewhere.
But all of that stopped three weeks before. According to Kate, he’d been taking extra shifts to make a little extra money. That right there would have made me suspicious as hell. Kate and Mike were rolling in money. She made so much from the agency that Mike didn’t even have to work. And they lived in the Park Hill area of Whiskey Bayou, where all the mansions sat above sea level so they didn’t have to worry about flooding or sinking into the Atlantic like the rest of us did.
Kate put in the report that he’d been working past midnight most nights, and when he did get some time off, he didn’t seem to want to spend it with her. He hadn’t taken her to bed in over a month.
I sighed because that was a pretty good sign that Kate was probably right. When a man went that long without asking for sex, he was probably getting it from somewhere else. This is something I also knew from experience, only I’d been stupid enough at the time to think Greg was being respectful of my needs since I’d been under so much stress with the wedding.
Rosemarie found the stick of gum she’d been searching for and was now playing Angry Birds on her phone while we waited.
“You know what would make this a whole lot better?” she asked.
; “Chris Hemsworth sitting in the backseat with his shirt off?”
She blinked at me owlishly. “I was thinking cake. I could eat a whole fucking cake right now.”
“That was my second choice,” I said.
It was past ten and a few of the other cops getting off duty slowly trickled out of the station and to their cars. I could see Mike’s white Ford F250 from where I was parked, so I knew he hadn’t managed to slip by me. Another fifteen minutes passed, then thirty, and Mike still hadn’t left the station. Rosemarie snored lightly beside me, her head pillowed on her breasts, and I was really starting to wish for that cake. I’d skipped dinner.
It was just shy of eleven by the time I saw Mike come out of the station. I waited until he pulled out and was a good block ahead before I turned my lights on and started to follow.
Rosemarie jerked against her seatbelt as I stopped at a red light, and she looked up, wild eyed and disoriented.
“What’s happening? Do I need my gun?”
“Jesus, please tell me you don’t have a gun in your purse.”
“I left it in the toilet tank at home before I left for the bar. I didn’t want to scare any of the men in case they caught a glimpse of it.”
“Good thinking,” I said, heading north on West 37th street to the Savannah Parkway. We were headed into a purely residential area of middle class tract homes and apartment buildings built in the seventies. I had a squishy feeling in my stomach. My cell phone rang, but I was afraid if I looked down long enough to answer then I’d lose Mike.
“Ooh, it’s Nick,” Rosemarie said. “That is a sexy beefcake of a man. I bet he knows just what to do with a woman in bed.”
I figured it was probably best to stay silent. Nick had his doctorate in fornication. Unfortunately, his morning after technique needed a little work.
“I’ll call him back later,” I said. “Grab the camera from behind your seat.”
Whiskey Sour (Romantic Mystery/Comedy) Book 2 (Addison Holmes Mysteries) Page 10