Meanwhile, Ava was staring at him with wide eyes. To his annoyance, this made her more attractive; her gaze was penetrating.
“You think the killer was there, and … what? Saw me and made a point of coming back after hours to throw an ashes tantrum?”
“If they even left the funeral home.”
“Wait, so the killer spotted me, lurked like a creep, and when the place was empty he went on a table-tossing ash-spreading binge? That’s what you think?” She’d paled, the fork dangling in her fingers ready to drop and make a clatter.
“I think the killer finally realized that he or she killed the wrong girl.”
“Killed the wrong—” Now Ava did drop her fork, and it hit the plate. The café was noisy—cheerfully noisy, he supposed some would say, though the racket set his teeth on edge—so this brought no attention to them. Excellent. “Are you talking about me?”
That depends. Are you asking if I think you were the target, or if I think you were the killer? Because I myself don’t yet know. “I think it’s a strong possibility.”
“A strong possibility,” she reiterated, and for a second he wondered if she was hard of hearing. No—it’s shock. Or perfectly feigned shock. “But why wait ten years? Why would someone have wanted to kill me all those years ago, somehow screw it up and kill Danielle by mistake, hibernate for a decade, then see me last night and get pissed off all over again? Because that would mean—poor Danielle—she went through that, and it was a mistake?”
He opened his mouth, but before he could answer, she gagged, dry-heaved over her salmon scramble, then lurched to her feet and rushed past him to the exit, leaving her purse, tea, and scramble in her dash for the door.
He’d been left behind, too, but that was nothing new. He had been on actual dates that hadn’t gone so well. “Don’t worry,” he told the waitress, who had returned to tend to them and was staring after Ava. “It’s probably the murder, not the salmon. May I have the check?”
Fourteen
THE LIST: THINGS I LOATHE ABOUT MN
The winters
The springs
The weather
The way I regress to a dim teenager whenever I’m here
The way someone I care about got murdered here
The lack of edible bibimbap
The fucking weather
“A mistake?” she cried as Dr. Tom Baker hurried into the alley behind the restaurant. For a moment, she was sure he was going to bang his hip on the dumpster—could almost hear the thud—but he avoided it at the last second. “This psycho fuckmuppet didn’t just kill my friend, he missed? And then came back years later? And might want to fix his mistake? Because he didn’t think he was enough of a gutless monster? His murder bingo card still has some slots left?”
“Yes,” he said, handing her a doggy bag and her purse.
“Jesus!” She snatched her purse and started rooting through it. She knew she had a small packet of Kleenex, but by the Law of Purses, she wouldn’t be able to immediately find it. “And before you say anything, I didn’t almost barf like some wimpy dolt.”
“That’s correct. It was a dry heave.”
“It was the dill in my salmon scramble! It threw me off.”
“Dill: the most diabolical herb.”
She jerked her head up to stare at him and smiled in spite of herself. “No, that’d be cilantro. Who was the idiot who ate leaves that tasted like dish soap and declared, ‘You know what we oughta do? Put this in a bunch of food!’? Ha! Got you, you little sucker.” She grabbed a Kleenex and scrubbed her lips, then began what she suspected would be a vain search for Chapstick. “I hate this.”
“A simple organizational system would make your handbag more manageable.”
“No, I hate Minnesota.”
“To be fair, killers operate everywhere.”
“If you’re trying to cheer me up, it isn’t working.”
“I am not trying to cheer you up.”
“And if you’re trying to talk up Minnesota it also isn’t working.” No Chapstick, but she did have a small dirty pot of Carmex, Satan’s moisturizer, which she applied, then resisted the urge to scrub off. “Okay, you gotta tell me everything,” she said, almost gagging at the taste of Carmex. “Beginning to end. Starting with how you knew about Danielle—I know I didn’t talk about her last night.”
“No, when I got home after our, ah, time together, I looked you up. I had recognized you from the Captain Bellyflopper stories—”
“Argh.”
“—but didn’t know you’d been involved in a murder when you were seventeen.”
“Involved isn’t the right word, I think, but whatever. Can we get out of here?”
“I believe we have,” he said, gesturing to the alley.
“No, I mean leave the restaurant—”
“But we have left—”
“—and go somewhere else and you can give me the scoop?”
“It seems odd to linger,” he admitted, adding, “especially as we’ve finished our meal.”
“Yes. Right. Exactly. Inefficient to lurk and gag in alleys. C’mon. We’re gonna go somewhere private and where my dry heaves will attract no undue attention and you’re gonna tell me all the stuff I’ve studiedly ignored for the last decade and—and—”
“Yes?” His dark gaze never wavered; he just stood there holding her salmon scramble and waiting for her to finish, all tall and dark and broad-shouldered and intense and annoying.
“Well, I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”
And she strode out of the alley like she had a clue where she was going. But hey—when you’ve committed to the dramatic entrance (and departure), you had to stay committed. It was the rule.
Fifteen
“This isn’t what I had in mind.”
“My understanding is that you had nothing in mind.”
“Hey! Well, okay. Technically that’s correct.” Ava looked around the park and had to admit, it was a lovely day to talk about murder in a public place filled with frolicking children. But that was how Minnesota got you. It occasionally gave you a perfect summery day and tricked you into thinking it didn’t suck the rest of the time.
The most duplicitous state in the union! Besides New Jersey, which has a bad rap but is actually pretty great.
They’d walked a half mile to the Lowertown Dog Park (so they were going to discuss murder near children and their beloved pets), and Tom had had very little to say, which should have been awkward but wasn’t. When he did say something
(“That’s the building where the accountant was strangled with his ex-wife’s bra.”)
it was morbidly fascinating. Who knew the capital of Minnesota was such a hotbed of exotic/weird murders?
I should be alarmed. I should be very, very alarmed, or at least put off. But he’s so earnest. He really wants me to understand the area’s murder-ey history. He’s like a ghoulish tour guide! A ripped, intense, ghoulish tour guide.
Before long they were sitting at a picnic table while Tom outlined what he’d learned from Danielle’s case and last night’s shenanigans.
“Wait, you just carry these around?” she asked, indicating the files.
“Yes.”
Asked and answered. Dr. Baker is nothing if not straightforward.
“The police were unable to find a motive for Danielle’s death. She wasn’t pregnant, she wasn’t seeing anyone, she was well liked and had a healthy family life. She was going to graduate soon—”
Ava nodded. “Yeah, our grad was coming up in another few weeks.”
“—and was going to the U of M in the fall. No drama that anyone could find.”
“Clearly you don’t remember high school girls,” Ava pointed out. “Let’s amend that to ‘no unusual drama.’”
“As you like. So I got to thinking … what if Danielle wasn’t the target?”
“Well … maybe … but why assume I was? I wasn’t pregnant or seeing anyone, and I might not have been homecoming que
en, but I wasn’t the school Igor, either.”
“That’s what I’d like to figure out. First we hypothesize—”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“—and then we prove or disprove.”
“Well, what do the cops think?”
Tom sighed. “The police for the most part disagree with my theory. Which is understandable.”
“Because…?” Who could doubt this guy? This meticulous, efficient guy who pulled all-nighters and drove around with autopsy folders in his trunk and kissed like it was about to be outlawed? Someone like that wasn’t prone to wild leaps of imagination.
“Because it’s a cold case—though it’s been dusted off due to last night’s vandalism. I need more than a theory to rekindle their interest in solving Danielle’s murder.”
“Okay. But can I ask you something? Why this case? You knew all about Danielle before we met. You didn’t just learn all this last night. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you’re going over and above, but you’ve gotta have bunches of unsolveds in your files.”
He nodded. “Every medical examiner does. But I was only a teenager when Danielle was killed.”
“Join the club. You’re—what? Four years younger than me? Five?” So he would have been thirteen or so. Ouch.
He nodded. “Before Danielle was murdered, I thought I had understood the concept of death, if only from an intellectual standpoint. But that was the first time I truly understood that some people simply get away with murder, and often for no good reason at all. And”—he paused, then met her gaze and finished with—“it stayed with me. It always will, I think. Even if we solve it.”
We?
She glanced down at his folder, saw an autopsy photo, looked away. But that wasn’t enough, so she physically pushed the photos to the side and leaned forward. “Okay, so … what’s the plan?”
Tom ran his hand over his bare scalp and frowned. She assumed he was either deep in thought or worried about sunburn. Or both. “In progress. There is little I can do on my own, and you’ll be leaving the Cities by the end of the day. Would you consider making yourself available to me—”
Down, girl. Put your libido in park already.
“—via telephone and social media and the like?”
I can’t remember the last time someone said “telephone” instead of “phone” or “cell.” Adorable!
“Sure. I’d be glad to. But c’mon, Dr. Baker…”
“Tom, please. Unless you wish for me to use Captain.”
She waved it away. “We’re past that, Tom. I don’t even know why I used your title.” Please tell me I don’t have a latent Little House on the Prairie kink.
“Not Tommy, though,” he added with odd intensity. “Never Tommy.”
“Got it. I am making a mental note to never call you Tommy. Okay? So don’t worry. We’re in a Tommy-free zone.”
“Oh, Tommy?”
They both looked up at the same instant to see a smiling elderly man holding hands with a girl who looked about five. Tom’s eyes widened and he was on his feet before she had time to blink.
“What—what are you doing here?”
Before Ava could ask if there was a problem, she was hit by something with enough force to knock her right off the picnic table bench. Because that’s what kind of weekend this was. No matter where she was or what she was doing, something was always trashing her equilibrium.
Now what fresh hell is this?
Sixteen
“Ack! What the—agh, not there, that tickles!” Elbows flailing, Ava managed to heave the weight off her chest and struggle upright. She blinked up at the old man, the giggling girl, and an aggrieved Tom. She blinked down at the dog, who had rolled over for a belly scratch.
“I should have deduced you’d be here!”
“Why, Tom?” the elderly chap asked, extending a wiry arm. Ava was surprised at how easily he got her back on her feet. He looked like a stiff breeze would turn him into a human tumbleweed. “We haven’t taken Turq here for a month.”
“Five weeks, three days. Nevertheless.”
Tom sank into thought (or was again worried about too much sun exposure), and the other man turned to her and said with a smile, “I’m Abe Simon. This is my granddaughter, Hannah. And that’s our dog, Turquoise. Out!”
Ava, who had been brushing herself off, froze. “Out? Where—where do you want me to go? Oh. The dog. I’ve heard ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ and ‘come,’ but never ‘out.’” Turquoise was a yellow lab the size of a canoe and, like all labs, her tail was equal parts wonderful and terrible. She frisked around them, tail lashing and, when it made contact,
“Ow!”
stinging. It’s got a five-inch circumference! That dog’s butt should be registered as a deadly weapon.
Tom had shaken himself out of whatever thought process he’d gotten lost in, because he broke in with, “Apologies. Captain Capp, this is my … friend, Abe, and my niece.”
“Ma’am.” Ava shook his hand, which was like shaking hands with flesh-covered cords of rope. Was this guy a dockworker? Until yesterday?
“Hello, Captain,” the little girl piped up. “Is your rank a military designation or are you a civilian pilot?”
Ava tried not to gape at the child, whose eyes were the same deep brown as Tom’s. “Uh. I’m a commercial pilot for Northeastern Southwest.”
“You fly everywhere!” Abe said, delighted.
“Yeah, I sure do. The best money the airline ever spent was on those commercials. That jingle will haunt me to my grave.” Then, to the child, “My copilot learned to fly in the navy, if that helps.”
“Why would that help?”
“Uh. Good question.”
“We have to go now,” Tom said, abrupt even for him. “This is … we’re working.”
Abe, clearly familiar with Tom’s habits, nodded at the file folders. While Ava made with the chitchat, Tom had tucked away the horrifying pictures (good call). “I’ll bet. I was real sorry to hear about your friend getting killed. Tom’s been following the case—”
“Abe.”
“—and told me about it when he stopped in a few hours ago.”
“Abe.”
Ava ignored Tom’s obvious unease. Which was fine; so was everyone else. Including the dog. “You all live together?”
“Yes, since my daughter-in-law passed away a couple years ago.”
“That’s nice. I mean about living together. It’s a Three Men and a Little Lady thing. If the dog was a man. And if this was a movie.” And if I could shut the hell up for five seconds and STOP BABBLING.
“If our lives were a movie, it would not be family friendly,” Tom pointed out. “At all.”
Ava almost laughed, because of course that was perfectly true. Seven, maybe. Silence of the Lambs, possibly. Nothing by Disney. Although Disney did like to kill the moms off pretty much immediately … and the kids were always cute and precocious …
“Uncle Tom is the best forensic pathologist in the Midwest,” Hannah announced the way most children announced their love for ice cream: presenting it as immutable fact. “He’ll catch the perpetrator. Well. He’ll ascertain the perpetrator’s identity and then the police will catch him. There’s precedent to back that.”
“Jesus, you’re amazing!” She instantly remembered Tom’s fake swearing and could feel herself getting red. “Sorry. I meant jeepers.”
The little girl beamed, peeking up at Ava through dark blond bangs that were slightly too long. “You don’t have to apologize for complimenting me. Or breaking the Third Commandment. Although if you’re a Christian, you should probably apologize to God.”
“Hannah.”
“What? Those are the rules. If she identifies as Catholic, she would have to go to confession and tell everything to a male designated by the church hierarchy—”
“Hannah.”
“I apologize for overstepping. I am not judging your spiritual belief system.”
“Oh my God, you’re a
wesome.”
A triumphant beam revealed one missing front tooth. “See, Grandpa? Captain Capp doesn’t mind.”
“Captain Capp doesn’t mind one bit and would love it if you called her Ava.” She looked around at the wiry older man, the genius child, the frolicking dog, the weirdly compelling pathologist. “This is all really cool.” Except for the part about Danielle dying. But that probably goes unsaid. Right? Right. Jesus, I’m a monster. I mean jeepers.
“We must leave,” Tom said, though he’d calmed down a bit.
“Yeah, I get it, time and place and this is neither.” Ava turned to say goodbye. “It was lovely meeting all of you. Even you,” she added, scratching behind Turq’s ears. “It’ll be tough to explain why there’s more dog hair than human hair on my clothes, that’s for sure.”
“Why? ‘A strange dog jumped on me.’ See? Easy.”
“Thank you, Hannah. You’re quite right.”
“Oh, would your husband wonder about dog fur?” Abe asked with blatantly transparent intentions. She could smell a matchmaker a mile off, and Abe was only three feet off.
“I’m not married and I don’t have a boyfriend.” She spared a quick thought for Blake Tarbell, but they had never been boyfriend/girlfriend. Just bang buddies, a juvenile phrase she refused to drop because it horrified literally everyone who heard it.
“That’s hard to believe, Captain Capp, a pretty girl like you.”
Wow. Subtle this guy is not.
“I will see you at home. Abe, Hannah, good day,” Tom said, and if he’d produced a hook to drag Ava offstage, his intent could not have been more clear. Lesson of the morning: Dr. Tom Baker did not like it when his personal and professional lives collided. Which, given his line of work, was understandable. “Please come with me, Captain.”
“Ava.”
“Yes.” He bent, gave Hannah a hug, whispered something in her ear that made her grin, and then he was practically dragging her toward the park entrance. “I apologize.”
“Why? Your family’s great. How old is your niece?”
“Six years, four months, two weeks.”
“I’m sorry about your sister.” Ava wondered what could have happened, but held off asking. And she’d noticed the pause just before Tom introduced Abe as his friend. What did you call your late sister’s father-in-law?
Truth, Lies, and Second Dates Page 7