He arched one very effective brow.
“Might even be considered attempted murder if she made it herself,” I babbled on.
“If McCarthy made it, I’d say you had a case. Worst Lau’s coffee will do is strip your stomach lining.”
“Assault then.”
Armani inclined his head.
“Okay, I get it,” I said, exasperated. “Bad Tori, no cookie. You can spank me later. For now, can we start over?”
“You mean pretend it’s yesterday?”
“Yes, fine, pretend I followed you straight back to the station to make a statement. You know, it’s not like I meant to fink out on you—” I stared at the pea-soup walls of the interview room while I contemplated just how much weakness I was willing to reveal to distract Armani from prying. “I’ve just never witnessed a homicide before. I needed time to process. You know that the more distance you get, the more detail you’re able to remember.”
“And the more time your brain has to fill in gaps with things not actually seen.”
He had me there. Still— “I’ve had training. Besides, if I can’t distinguish truth from fiction you’re up shit’s creek when you get me on the stand. So, I guess it’s up to you. Do you trust me enough to look at mug shots now or am I just wasting your time and mine?” I challenged.
Armani glared me down, nostrils actually flaring, those wild, sexy brows lowered to shadow his eyes, darkening them to indigo.
I couldn’t help it; I winked. He snorted.
“Dammit, woman, you’ve missed your calling. I think you could talk rings around half the lawyers in this town.”
“Only half?”
“The other half work for Disney.”
“Point taken. Tell me, you sweet-talk all your witnesses this way?”
“Lady, if that passes for sweet talk in your world, you’re hanging with the wrong men.”
“Occupational hazard,” I answered with a shrug. “Whaddaya gonna do?”
He nearly had an answer for that, I could tell by his face as he bit it back. Armani’s face was exquisitely expressive, especially for anyone trained to notice. And observation was invaluable to a successful carney, whose whole effect could be ruined by choosing the wrong volunteer—one who would flinch or try too hard to become part of the act or, worse, a debunker. Fortune-telling, by far my most successful attempt to fit into the circus, was really nothing more than good old Holmsian observation. Totally about the read, the show, giving the mark something to talk about later with friends. No one with an iota of sense really wanted to know the future. The big, life-altering events, the ones true psychics most often glimpsed, were generally cataclysmic and not fit for a day’s entertainment.
Still, observing was a far cry from mind reading and there wasn’t much I wouldn’t give for the inside track on Armani’s thoughts. I didn’t think he’d trade them for the traditional penny, even inflated for the changing times. Of course, listening would probably have been a good start.
“—go over your statement before you run off again. So, why don’t you look this over and see if there’s anything we forgot or that you’ve thought of since yesterday while I go grab the mug books.”
I sighed and settled in for a long sit in the ergonomically challenged chair. Before I was halfway through the statement, I’d shifted three times, finally kicking my shoes off, tucking one foot underneath me and settling one elbow on the table to support the arm holding my head. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty turning my nose up at that coffee, I thought as I stifled a yawn.
“Green around the gills,” I muttered, reading from my own statement at the scene. “Did I really say that?”
Apparently, I had. And since Armani, as I knew from experience, had an eidetic memory, it had been duly noted. By the time Armani returned with the mug books, I was horrified by the facts and omissions, but most especially the many, many ways things could come back to bite me. Like if the police ever found the guy and wondered how I could miss the highly notable scales and webbing. Or if they never found the perp, as seemed more likely, and I was laughed out of the station house as a delusional freakazoid.
“Um,” I started brilliantly, as Armani sat beside me. “Any other witnesses mention anything odd?”
He pushed his chair back from the table to get enough distance to really watch me. “Nooo,” he answered slowly, “but I get the sense that one or two were holding back. Probably not ballsy enough to comment on any fishiness.”
I froze, hand hovering above the mug book I’d been about to open. Armani knew something.
“Oh?” I asked, hardly trying for casual since my little freeze-frame had no doubt given me away. “So that’s where you guys keep your courage—the balls. It’s a wonder you’re able to dredge it up fast enough in a crisis. See, us women, we’re just infused throughout. So, what’s fishy?”
“Think you’re going to get away with the balls comment through redirection?”
I peered up at him through my lashes. “Not really. Just interested to see how you prioritize your response.”
He growled, and I figured I’d pushed my luck about as far as I could go. Trying for my wings and halo, I flipped through a few pages of the book, studying each face as if I had some hope of finding the killer among them.
“They found piscine DNA mixed with human in the sample beneath Circe’s nails,” Armani said finally.
Based on his casual tone, which mimicked mine of earlier, I half expected to see him gazing nonchalantly down at his cuticles or whatever men did. I was not expecting to glance up directly into the supernova intensity of his gaze. He’d been studying me as he lobbed the information with a probing look that seemed capable of penetrating straight to my soul. No doubt I’d be squirming for an entirely different reason if I were guilty of some crime. As it was, it shot a tingle of awareness through me, starting round about my stomach and shooting all-point bulletins to the rest of my body. Oh yeah, it was getting hot in here. Surprisingly, Apollo hadn’t completely shorted out my system. ’Course, it seemed to be on a hair trigger when it came to Armani.
“Really?” I asked, trying to ignore the sudden hot flash. “Contaminated sample?”
He looked at me like he knew I knew better—which, of course, I did. Most people, unless it was in their interest to mislead, didn’t like to let a falsehood stand, mostly because it gave them a chance to one-up someone else. With Armani I wasn’t trying to catch him out, since he had exponentially more experience than me at interrogation; I just wanted to give him an excuse to keep talking.
Instead, he shook his head. “Your turn. I need to know—are you working this case or did your involvement end with Circe’s death?”
I debated the merits of cooperation.
“We’re working on a subpoena for all records relating to Ms. Holland, but you can save us a bit of time,” he added.
That decided me. Nothing to lose, information to gain.
“Sorry. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. I’ve got a client, as of this a.m.,” I answered.
“The one with the proposal?”
“No, someone new.”
“You’ve got to give me more than that. Name? Leads?”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly to give myself time to think. I really didn’t want to hear Armani’s surprise that Apollo Demas would come slumming to me. Plus, passing on the kind of leads I had would probably get me an express trip to a rubber room.
“Apollo Demas,” I answered finally. “And before you ask, someone told him I was already investigating.”
“Great, so we may have a leak in the department.”
I shrugged. “Could have been anyone at the salon yesterday. Place like that caters to the crème de la crème. Likely someone who knows someone overheard my name and figured they could curry favor by passing it along.” That or the Delphic Oracle, I thought. “I wouldn’t sweat it. Your turn.”
“Leads?”
“No way, all you’ve given me so
far is piscine DNA.”
I remained stubbornly silent thereafter and finally he grunted, guy-speak for whatever. “Well, if you hadn’t mentioned the perp’s unusual appearance, we’d just figure he worked at a fish market or something, go from there. As it is, we think he may be some kind of fetishist.”
“Gee, thanks for taking me there,” I said, wrinkling my nose. “Who came up with that theory?”
He gave me the stink-eye. “Beats Lau’s theory that you’re self-medicating a mental illness.”
Hard to argue with that when no doubt I’d think the same if positions were reversed. Armani had given me a whole lot of credit to take my observations, far out as they were, under consideration. I was touched. In the head, according to Lau.
Our eyes met and we had a brief moment of real connection, where I was startled enough to drop the in-your-faceness I normally used as a shield and Armani, seeing it drop, was startled enough to spot the person behind the banter. I had the strange urge to tell him everything—the crazy contract clause, “gods” walking the earth, dogs and cats living together. Okay, I’d borrowed that last one. Armani hit me that way. But I still only half believed it all myself. Besides, even family would betray you in the end, so there was no chance I’d be pouring out my heart to a virtual stranger any time soon.
“Thanks,” I said without a trace of irony. It wasn’t what I’d meant to say.
Armani nodded, the break in eye contact giving me the chance to recover from my temporary insanity.
I waved a hand at the mug books, back to business. “Well, I don’t see a single aqua-boy in the batch. Guess I’d better get back to work and drum up some leads to earn my keep.”
I was out of my chair and halfway to the door before Armani stopped me, an overheated hand on my arm transmitting warmth right through my sleeve. I didn’t turn, not sure I wanted to look him in the eye with my hormones getting jiggy.
“Word of warning—brass is all over this like ugly on an ape. Sharing information could take you a long way, but if you withhold evidence, if you get in the way…it won’t be pretty.”
“That a threat?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t. It was just easier to get my back up than acknowledge his concern.
“Tori,” he said, shocking the hell out of me and making me look at him, “I’m serious. You become persona non grata and it will be worth any cop’s badge to so much as talk to you.”
“Don’t tell me you’d miss me,” I teased.
“You’ve been useful a time or two,” he answered, but there was a glint in his eye.
It was ridiculous, really, the way any indication of interest from Armani gave me a little thrill. You’d think my gazillion failed relationships would have taught me better. No one withstood the spotlight of my attention for long. Not even my family had come through unscathed. Or maybe it was me who’d been scathed, since I’d only been trying to save my brother from himself, not open Pandora’s box. But even in the circus I’d been a freak among freaks.
It would almost be a blessing to lose my lifeline to Armani—that way I couldn’t be tempted to set myself up for rejection. Yeah, my mental mini-me scoffed, too bad you’re too damned proud to throw the game.
Chapter Five
“Some family trees bear fruit, some nuts. Take a wild guess about ours.”
—Kostas Karacus, youngest third of the Karacrobats to his first non-folk girlfriend, who lasted all of a week
If I was going to acknowledge Circe’s and Apollo’s existence on any level—and, despite myself, it seemed I already had—it was time to pull out the big guns. I found myself a nice, casual sidewalk café, chose a shady trellis table off to the side, ordered an iced latte and a scone from a hovering waiter and whipped out my cell phone.
I suppose it was a testament to my lack of a social life that Yiayia was number one on my speed dial. I couldn’t remember where the circus was supposed to be this week, but it hardly mattered what time zone they were in. If there were two things Yiayia rarely did, they were sleep and shave. Shave because, well, it’s pretty much antithetical to the whole bearded-lady gig. The beard? One of the more blatant demonstrations of the family’s gorgon blood I’d managed to ignore all these years.
According to “myth”, the gorgons not only had beards and serpents for hair, they had tusks as well. By all accounts a lovely bunch. Thankfully, tusks seemed to be recessive. Not a single freak growth in living memory—discounting my cousin Tina’s really aggressive overbite.
The whole insomniac thing was a little more complicated and a lot more lucrative. It stemmed from the fact that Yiayia was constitutionally unable to transition to sleep mode. It goes like this:
1. Yiayia’s brain had developed without a shut-off valve.
2. She’s paranoid about medication—not to mention inorganic food, vaccinations and anything with too many legs, but those are another matter—and refuses to take sleeping pills.
3. She has a particular obsession with the lives, past and present, of the Greco-Roman pantheon.
4. She is not exactly in danger of becoming independently wealthy or even garnering a decent pension plan working for the circus, and…
5. Ever since Pappous passed away—the strong man with the weak heart—Yiayia had needed a hobby.
She’d managed to turn her obsession and all that dead time into a fiscally rewarding, Internet-based sideline business called Mythography. Oh, she wasn’t silly enough to give away the current whereabouts of the various gods and goddesses. No one wanted to get on the wrong side of, say, the god of war, and Hera’s hissy fits were legendary. But everyone liked to be related to someone famous. What Yiayia did was family trees and histories leading back in some way to a Greco-Roman god, goddess or hero. The way they all went nuts with their begetting, it wasn’t too tough to do. If a family had any Mediterranean blood whatsoever, chances were she could find an “illustrious” forbearer. There was no telling how seriously the clients took the whole thing. I’d always thought it a load of crap, but Yiayia treated it as a mission.
Which was a really long way of saying that my grandmother pretty much had the goods on everybody. If I was looking for old blood, Yiayia was my one-stop shopping center for a suspect list with current whereabouts. Plus, she was one of the few members of the family still speaking to me.
She answered on the first ring. “Sweetie, honey, bubbelah—you don’t call, you don’t write.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yiayia, I keep telling you, nobody really talks like that out here. And we spoke last week.”
She spat out an obscenity in Greek that roughly translated to “bow-legged sheep lover”. “That was before the great witchy-woman crashed and burned. And you, my own flesh and blood, who I nursed through scrapes, stitches and broken hearts, didn’t even call to give your dear Yiayia the scoop.”
Uh oh, she was talking about herself in the third person. I was in for it. “I’m calling now,” I pointed out.
“Yes? Out of the goodness of your heart and to give me all of the dirt?” she asked facetiously.
“Sounds like someone already gave you the dirt. I swear, you’ve got a better network of informants than I do.” Not that that was saying much.
“It is true,” she announced smugly. “So, you called to pump me for information then? It will cost you. When do you come visit?”
“When pigs fly,” I muttered.
“What is this?”
“As soon as Lenny Rialto retires,” I amended.
“Agape, that is water under the bridge.”
“So he no longer spits when he hears my name?”
“Well—”
“I rest my case.”
“You will come when we are on hiatus. Or I will come to you,” she threatened.
And that was only the upfront fee. The hidden cost was that I had to go through my story three times—until Yiayia could repeat it virtually verbatim—before the wily old bat would dish her own dirt. My cell phone was down to the last bar before I finally got the
skinny on all area ancients. Who knew that Aphrodite had become the new Mayflower Madam or that Hephaestus now went by the name of Hiero Cholas, the reigning wunderkind of ILM?
Once Yiayia finally worked her way around to the fish-folk rumored to be in the area, I got more than I bargained for. I was hoping for something along the lines of Poseidon spotted completely knackered in some dive on Venice Beach ranting about how Circe’d done him wrong. Instead, I got an earful. It turned out a whole pod of oceanids and nereids had recently been spotted in the area, apparently having come to see the filming of a new mermaid movie. I knew vaguely of the film because Christie had been bummed that the timing of her Clairol commercial conflicted with the film’s casting call.
So, I had a plethora of suspects with no current whereabouts, since they’d dispersed when the filming moved on from the waterfront. The land-based gods, Yiayia informed me, were so much easier to track, but until someone tagged the oceanids… I wasn’t completely sure she was joking.
By the time we wound down, my latte was nothing but ice, my scone was mere crumbs, and the waiter, who must have heard enough to brand me a loon, was giving me sidelong glances.
“Okay,” I said, playing to my audience, “I’ll input those changes and have the revised script to you next week.”
Yiayia had a good laugh at my expense. “Maybe I should write a screenplay. Make it very juicy and let all the gods and godlings pay me to suppress it. I might finally have enough to retire.”
“Yeah, or you might find yourself turned into a shrubbery. Anyway, in order to blackmail someone, they have to have shame. Guessing that’s not real big with this bunch.”
Her sigh came through loud and clear. “Perhaps not then.”
Bad Blood Page 4