Loose Screws

by Karen Templeton

  So basically, my life is still a mess, but I’m plugging along, alternating between abject misery and irritatingly cheerful optimism.

  Which I’m guessing is kind of how my furry companion is feeling. At the moment, he’s not looking any too cheerful. Which might have something to do with the fact that he hates everything I’ve tried to feed him, with the not surprising exception of steak and chicken. I thought dogs had appallingly indiscriminating palates, joyfully scarfing down anything even remotely resembling food. Not Geoff. To date, I have tried out no less than a dozen different brands of dog food—dry, canned, and pouched—and all I’ve gotten for my efforts is a sniff, a pathetic whimper and The Doleful Expression.

  There might be a solution, but it’s one I’d hoped to avoid. However, I’ve run out of options, other than either buying T-bones for this mutt or watching him waste away. So I drag out my Day-timer, look up the precinct business card Nick gave me, and dial.

  The desk sergeant answers. Guy sounds about as thrilled as a walrus with hemorrhoids.

  “Oh, hi,” I say. “This is Ginger Petrocelli, and, um, see, I’m taking care of Brice Fanning’s dog—he’s the guy who was, um—”

  “Hold on.”

  A couple seconds later I hear “Wojowodski” grunted into my ear.

  Damn. Precisely what I was hoping to avoid.

  “Nick, hi! It’s Ginger.”

  Silence. “Yeah?”

  Never has one four-letter word conveyed so much.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask to be put through to you, I’m sure this is something someone else might be able to handle…”

  “What?”

  Oh, God. I can visualize his whole body going on alert. He thinks I’ve got a lead or something. Talk about feeling stupid.

  “See, it’s like this…I can’t get Geoff to eat—”

  “Geoff?”

  “Brice’s dog?”

  “Oh. Right.” His voice deflates. “So, what’s this got to do with me?”

  “Well, nothing, really. Which is why I was just going to ask the desk guy if maybe someone could go over to the apartment, see if there’s any dog food. You know, since nobody else except you guys can get in. Because I’ve tried just about every brand of food I can find, and he’s not eating any of it.”

  “I’ll have it taken care of.”

  Click.

  I should be relieved he’s not feeling chatty, right?

  Forty-five minutes later, my doorbell rings. Geoff lifts his chin off his paws, his ears all aquiver. But it’s clearly an effort. Because he’s starving to death and all. “Shall we see who that is? Huh? Shall we?”

  Judging from Geoff’s expression, I’m guessing he thinks I really need to get a life.

  I call down through the intercom, but apparently some trusting soul has already let the person in. I suddenly realize I’m wearing a faded, misshapen T-shirt with dried mango juice all down the front, no bra or makeup, and my hair is pulled back into a ponytail that makes me look like an abused Barbie doll.

  In other words, I hope whoever this is is either a female officer or blind.

  I open the door.

  “Hey, Ginger. Howya doin’?”

  Wrong on both counts.

  Seven

  The only good thing about this, I ponder over my jitterbugging stomach, is that maybe my present appearance will scare him off. Except then he gives me one of those deadly grins and I inwardly swear.

  “You’re looking good, Ginger.”

  “And you’ve obviously been hitting the sauce,” I reply, which dims his smile somewhat.

  It’s those eyes, damn him, that throw me. That classic heavy-lidded gaze, simultaneously blatant and inscrutable, the blue so clear it seems almost translucent. And the five o’clock shadow. Which, come to think of it, he always seems to have. Of course, for all I know maybe electric razors come with some sort of stubble attachment, giving a guy the option of the chic bad-boy look all day long. And why, pray tell, do so many women—present company included—find that such a turn-on? Like who needs beard burn on their tits?

  And don’t ask me why my thoughts are going down that path, because I’m not even the slightest bit turned on. Because this is Nick and I’m too hot. Hot hot, not horny hot. And then I think, huh—if the man’s this sexy when he isn’t trying to come on to a woman, can you imagine what he’s like when he is?

  It boggles the mind.

  Anyway, I eventually tear my gaze away from the eyes and the stubble and…the…mouth…to notice he’s lugging an enormous, already open bag of some hotsy-totsy dog food in one arm and a large brown paper bag in the other, from which emanates the aromas of ginger and brown sauce. Geoff has decided this is worth dragging his lazy little butt over to investigate.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  I tilt my head. “You brought the dog Chinese food?”

  “And I had one helluva time deciding whether he’d like pepper steak or Szechuan beef better,” Nick says, deadpan. “So I got both.”

  With that, he saunters past me into the apartment, where he sets the Chinese food on the counter, the dog food on the floor in front of it. Leaving Geoff to paw and whine at the dog food bag, Nick continues into the kitchen, starts opening cupboards.

  “Why do women keep so much crap in their kitchens?” he asks, I’m assuming rhetorically. He’s on the fourth cupboard by now and I can tell his patience is wearing thin. “Where the hell are the dishes?”

  Of course, I’m still standing in the doorway, my jaw sagging open. Yes, yes, I know he did me a favor, bringing over the food, but that doesn’t stop the kick-to-the-gut reaction to having my precious, private space invaded. Sure, I have people over all the time, but…

  What Nick just did? Barging in like this? Well, that’s precisely the reason I opted for somebody like Greg in the first place. I don’t much like being around people who throw me off balance. And if it was one thing I could say about Greg, he wasn’t prone to throwing curve balls. Well, with the notable exception of that little number he pulled a couple of weeks ago. But still. Greg never encroached on my space, either physically or mentally—or I, his—except by mutual consent. I was comfortable with that.

  I am not comfortable with…this.

  Now what? I suppose I could simply thank Nick for personally bringing over Geoff’s food, and then politely, but firmly, send him and his Chinese food packing. Or I could grit my teeth and go with the flow, which would be my growling stomach’s first choice. Since Nick’s already set my table with two stoneware plates and napkins and is now rummaging through my drawers—kitchen, not personal—for serving utensils, I figure Option Number Two is probably the most logical choice. Even if it is making me break out in a cold sweat.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Nick looks up, shrugs, opens the first carton. He fishes out a piece of something—beef, I guess—and tosses it to the dog, who gulps it down without chewing. “Because I was gettin’ off work anyway and figured it was just as easy for me to go look for the dog’s food as to assign somebody else to do it. And because it was gettin’ close to dinnertime and I figured you might be hungry, too. And since you wouldn’t go get a cup of coffee with me, when this opportunity popped up, I said to myself, Hey, why not take advantage of it?”

  Against my will, I think about an opportunity that popped up ten years ago which we both took advantage of.

  Speaking of invading spaces.

  But that was ten years ago. And I will readily admit I encouraged whatever happened between us. I’m not encouraging anything now. Besides, I know I’m not the same person I was then. I somehow doubt Nick is, either.

  “Does…” I ransack my brain for the name. “Does Amy know?”

  “Yeah, Amy knows. I called her and told her what I was doing. We’re supposed to get together later tonight, when she gets off her shift at the hospital.” His brow knots. “Let me guess. You don’t like surprises.”

  “Not much, no.”

  “Huh.�
� He jabs a pair of chopsticks at the table, then grins. “Tough. So sit. Eat. You know you want to.”

  Yeah, I do. But I don’t, too.

  I inch closer to the table. “You sure it’s okay for you to be fraternizing with a possible suspect?”

  Shaking his head, Nick sits, begins dishing out rice onto his plate. “You’re not a suspect. Your alibi checks out. You got any soda or tea or something?”

  I drift to the fridge, frowning. “But I said I was alone. Here, in the apartment, getting ready for work. Nobody saw me. Cherry Coke okay?”

  He grimaces, but says, “Fine.” I hand him the soda; he pops off the top, then jabs another spoon into the next carton, rooting around in it for a second before dumping whatever it is over the rice. Then he looks up at me, again with that deadpan expression. “Y’know, if you’re gonna walk around naked in here, you might want to consider closing your blinds. One of these days, you’re gonna give the poor old guy who lives in the apartment across the street from yours a coronary.”

  When I recover from this tidbit of news, I manage, “Gee, you guys are thorough.”

  “Your tax dollars at work, ma’am. You like cashew chicken?”

  Wow. It’s a little surreal, this being-friends-with-a-man concept, but I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. No, I really do. Hey, Nick’s been here for two hours, and my nipples haven’t perked up once. Well, not after the first fifteen minutes, anyway. I mean, now that I’ve actually had a chance to talk to the man, it’s so obvious that there is no way in hell anything serious could ever develop between us—Greg or no Greg—I don’t even know what I thought I was afraid of. Now, when I look at his shadowed jaw, all I can think of is, sheesh—go shave, already.

  But the evening sure hasn’t suffered from lack of conversation. I found myself going on about my crazy, disjointed childhood, and in turn, he told me about how gunshy he was for a long time after his wife left. Of course, I did do the male-female time-continuum conversion, fully realizing that a man’s definition of “a long time” rarely coincides with a woman’s use of the term. But he really did sound sincere when he said he’d see Paula and his brother Frank with their kids and how much he wants to have something like that, too, before he’s too old to enjoy it. The thing is, though, he loves his work (just as I’d suspected, even though why somebody would love to make himself a target is beyond me) and isn’t about to give it up, but where’s he gonna find someone with the balls—his words—to marry a cop, have a family with him? And I have to admit I thought, beats me, buddy. I sure as hell wouldn’t want to.

  In any case, he said he thinks maybe Amy is the one, because she works in the ER, so she’s got guts enough to withstand the stress. Maybe.

  If you want my take on it, my guess is he’s not in love as much as he’s simply gotten tired of looking. How do I know this? Well, his eyes don’t light up when he talks about her, for one thing. Bet he doesn’t know that. What he also doesn’t know is that his career is the least of any prospective Mrs. Wojowodski’s worries. The Italian side of that family—the side I know and avoid as much as possible—is nuts enough. From what I saw of the Wojowodski clan at Paula’s wedding, they’re no paragons of sanity, either.

  However, it’s been interesting, to say the least, getting a male perspective on relationships. I’ve heard it rumored that men take rejection even harder than women, but until tonight I’d figured that to be just another ploy to get a first date into bed. Fifteen years of dating in this city tends to make a girl a bit cynical. But underneath Nick’s tough-cop exterior, when he talked about his wife leaving him, I could hear the hurt.

  Not that we’re talking a man in touch with his sensitive side, don’t get me wrong. I had to strain at times to hear the subtext humming underneath his words. But I did hear it. Or more accurately, felt it.

  Anyway, since we spent the last fifteen minutes discussing Gloria, the ex, now I’m talking about Greg, and my own ambivalence. When Nick stiffens, starting in again about how badly Greg had treated me, I can only say, “But what if there’s some reasonable explanation for the way he acted? What if his bolting is really a cry for help or something?”

  That gets a snort, which only confirms my earlier conviction that this is a pretty typical male sitting across from me.

  “Okay, so maybe that’s pushing it. But I mean, he didn’t actually come right out and say to cut my losses.”

  “That’s called hedging his bets, Ginger.”

  “Maybe. I’m not saying I’m walking around with my heart on my sleeve. For one thing, too much has happened since then for me to ruminate about that one aspect of my life. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep things simmering on the back burner for a little while. Just until I’m absolutely sure.”

  One side of his mouth hitches up. “Like keeping the stew warm in case somebody shows up for dinner?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  He stares at me for a long moment, then says, “I just don’t see you as the doormat type, you know?”

  My shoulders square. “There’s a difference between leaving the door open for forgiveness and being a doormat, Nick.” I lean forward, suddenly understanding myself what it is I feel, what it was Phyllis was trying to make me understand. “Greg and I fit each other. We wanted the same things out of life, had similar goals, similar outlooks, similar ideals. Yes, I’m confused and angry and hurt about what he did, but that was so out of character for him—”

  “In other words, Munson was everything your childhood wasn’t.”

  I start, then nod. “Yes. I suppose he was. Is.” I angle my head. “You think that’s a bad thing?”

  Nick chomps the end off an egg roll, shakes his head, frowning. “I think maybe it’s easier for you to stick with what you know than try something new.”

  One brow lifts. “Says the man who just admitted he was leery of getting involved again after his wife left him.”

  “I got over it,” he says with a grin, then frowns. “Besides, that didn’t mean I thought about getting her back. What would have been the point?”

  I lean back, poking at a piece of limp onion on my plate. “Do you have any idea how few sane, normal men there are out there?”

  He chuckles. “You’re askin’ this of a cop?”

  “Then you should understand why it’s not that easy for me to just let go.”

  After a moment he says, “I understand that you’re scared to let go, yeah.”

  Okay, time to change the subject. “So. Any clues yet as to who might have killed Brice?”

  He studies me for a second. Adjusting to the gear switch, I imagine. Then he shakes his head. “You know I can’t talk about that, Ginger.”

  My brows lift. He sighs.

  “All I can say is, we’re working on it.”

  “And the longer it takes, the less likely the case is to be solved.”

  From across the table, his gaze rams into mine.

  “I read that somewhere,” I say.

  He shovels in one last bite of eggroll, leans back in his chair, his brow crumpled. “It’s a funny thing. I started out working in the East Bronx. Back then, murder wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence, but we usually had a pretty good idea who to look for. Doesn’t mean the cases were easy to wrap up, not with the judicial system the way it is, but at least I could do my part, y’know? We’re not talking perps with acutely developed minds. Here, I can count on one hand the number of homicides the precinct handles each year. But I’m dealing with a different breed of killer now, somebody who knows how to cover his or her tracks.”

  “Are you saying you might not find Brice’s murderer?”

  His smile was half-assed. “If I thought that, I’d turn in my badge tomorrow. No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying these cases are more of a challenge. Since I’ve never been one to do anything the easy way…” He finishes his sentence with a hitch of his shoulders.

  The food goes cold; the conversation eventually winds down. It’s not quite eig
ht-thirty when he gets up to leave. As I walk him to my door, I am acutely aware that he’s making no move to touch me, not even an innocent graze of my arm. I try to palm off leftover Chinese food—the man brought enough for six people—but he refuses to take it. I open the door; he squats to scratch Geoff’s ears, then says, “You didn’t say everything you were thinkin’, did you? When I was talking about Amy?”

  I give a nervous, startled laugh. “What makes you say that?”

  Nick stands, his jacket draped over one forearm, his hands crammed into his pockets. I’m wondering what he’s done with his gun and holster. His eyes bore into mine, not threatening so much as…demanding, in some way I can’t quite define. Razor-edged awareness once again shimmers between us, but on a level even more elemental than sex, if that’s possible.

  “I’m a cop, Ginger. I’m real good at reading body language. And you’re pathetically bad at keeping a straight face. So when I was goin’ on about Amy, how come you didn’t just say what was on your mind?”

  Okay, so maybe he’s a tad more intuitive than I’d given him credit for.

  “I…don’t know. Maybe because most men aren’t really interested in listening to a woman’s opinion?”

  One brow lifts, but he doesn’t comment. Although I get the feeling it’s because he decides not to, rather than because he’s got nothing to say.

  “’Night,” he says instead, then turns, his steps sure but tired as he walks slowly down the hall. I watch until he’s on the elevator, then turn to the dog, who’s standing—if you can call what a corgi does standing—in the doorway.

  “Did you notice he didn’t even suggest we get together again?”

  Geoff yawns, completely disinterested.

  Which is what I should be, if I was smart.

  It’s now been a week since I lost both my job and my apartment. My eyesight has gone down the tubes from reading so many classified ads and my cell phone has become permanently attached to my ear. I swear I hear the damn thing ringing in my sleep.