by Sharon Pape
“He did, but Clarissa doesn’t agree with him. I’m pretty sure she has the right to her own opinion under the law,” Rory added sweetly. She could tell by the way Stuart’s eyes narrowed that he’d caught the sarcasm beneath the candy coating. “And as long as she’s willing to pay for my services, I intend to help her find whatever closure she needs.”
Stuart opened his mouth then closed it again without uttering a sound, obviously at a loss for words. “I get it,” he said finally. “She has the right to hire you, and you have the right to investigate for her. But I also have some rights here. Like the right to protect my interests. Our little theater doesn’t exactly come rent free. And I can’t be expected to mount a quality production with a bunch of surly actors who can’t remember their lines.”
“Then it’s in everyone’s best interests for me to proceed at full steam and finish up the investigation as quickly as possible,” Rory said brightly.
Stuart wasn’t doing any cartwheels over her solution. Had he actually expected her to be so abashed by his plight that she would close the case, return Clarissa’s money and never darken the theater’s doorstep again?
“At the very least,” he said, glaring at her, “I expect you to stick to the facts that are germane to the case and avoid pitting the actors against one another unnecessarily.”
“Do I hear an ‘or else’ in there?” Although she knew it wouldn’t serve anyone’s purposes to ratchet up the animosity between them, the words spilled out before she could stop them.
“Of course not. I would never stoop to threats.” The director’s lips almost slipped into a smile before he shut them down.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Rory said, “because I don’t respond well to threats. Probably left over from my days as a detective.” She could tell from Stuart’s face that he’d received her message loud and clear. “And I’ll do my best to keep your guidelines in mind,” she added. She would have preferred to tell him where he could stuff them, but it wasn’t lost on her that he could easily retaliate against her via her aunt. Helene would be devastated if she were relegated to minor roles or sidelined completely.
Since Stuart seemed to have run out of momentum, Rory took the opportunity to wrap up the meeting. She said she was glad they’d had a chance to discuss their positions, and the director mumbled a few words that sounded roughly like ‘Thanks for nothing.’ ”
He’d turned and was starting toward the door when he suddenly stumbled. Flapping his long arms in a desperate effort to stay on his feet, he looked like a gooney bird on takeoff. After several, comical seconds, gravity won out, and he slammed onto the hardwood floor, his knees and hands taking the brunt of the impact. His head missed the door frame by inches. Rory and Hobo had jumped back before he could take them down with him.
“Are you all right?” she asked, kneeling down at his side.
Stuart gathered his gangly legs into a sitting position with a grunt. “What the hell did I fall over?” he asked, looking at the floor around him. Rory saw Hobo’s tennis ball at the same moment the director did. It was lying against the nearby wall where it had come to rest after he’d tripped on it.
“Where’d the damn ball come from?” he demanded. “It wasn’t there when I came in or I would have seen it.”
“I have no idea,” Rory said, trying to look as perplexed as he did. “But it couldn’t have just appeared out of thin air.” Of course, it might have been transported there by rather unconventional means, but she had no intentions of sharing that bit of information. She extended her hand to help him up, but he ignored the offer and dragged himself to his feet on his own.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No, nothing,” he grumbled. “I’d just like to get out of here in one piece.” Keeping his eyes on the floor in case any other objects decided to make their debut, he limped out of the house without another word. Rory was about to close the door behind him when she noticed a police cruiser driving slowly past her house. She watched it continue down the street until it disappeared from sight beyond the curve. The police were not a common sight in this neighborhood. A security alarm or a resident must have alerted them to a potential problem. Rory wasn’t sure whether it was instinct or simple curiosity that caused her to remain at the door, but less than a minute later, she saw the cruiser come down the block again. This time it pulled to the curb directly across the street from her house and parked.
Chapter 17
As Rory approached the police car, the patrolman opened his window. He was young, around her age, thirty tops, with blond hair that made him look like a California surfer with a bad sense of direction. She’d never seen him before, but that didn’t surprise her. When she’d worked for the department, she’d been assigned to headquarters out east in Yaphank. This guy was from the local precinct and junior enough to pull protective surveillance.
“Ms. McCain,” he said smiling and clearly giving her the once-over.
“Officer…?” Because of her angle, she couldn’t make out the name on his steel ID tag.
“Cooper, Todd Cooper. Pleased to meet you.” He reached awkwardly across his chest to offer her his right hand. “I hear you were a detective before going the PI route.”
Rory gave his hand a quick shake. “Yes, a sketch artist.”
“Ah, an artist, huh?”
She could tell from his tone that she’d dropped several notches in his esteem with that admission. She tightened the lid on her already parboiled anger. Todd might be deficient in the social graces, but he wasn’t the source of her irritation.
“Who assigned you to watch over me?” she asked, doing her best to remain cordial.
He shrugged. “Some detective at headquarters.”
“Does the name Russell ring a bell?”
“Yeah, now that you mention it, Russell sounds right. Anyway, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’m here to keep you safe.”
“How nice,” she said. “I’ll finally be able to sleep tonight.”
If Officer Todd heard the sarcasm in her tone, he chose not to respond to it.
When Rory left her house the next morning, she saw that another cop had taken Todd Cooper’s place across the street. She didn’t bother to introduce herself. If she had anything to say about it, he’d be gone before she returned.
The parking lot was mostly empty when she arrived at the Suffolk County Police Headquarters in Yaphank before eight o’clock. She parked in a spot designated for visitors and went inside. Being in the building again felt both familiar and strange, like the time she’d gone back to visit her elementary school after moving on to junior high. She knew the location of every loose floor tile, every scuff mark on the wall, yet she didn’t belong there anymore.
She’d planned on grabbing a few minutes with Leah before her friend was inundated with work and swept out of reach for the rest of the day. But she hadn’t factored people into the equation. Since she’d only been gone six months, nearly everyone she knew was still there. And nearly everyone wanted her to stop and chat. By the time she made it over to Homicide, Leah was already working at her computer and engaged in a testy phone conversation. Her face lit up with surprise when Rory walked in. With one eyebrow arched as a question mark, she held up her index finger to indicate she’d be with her in a minute. Rory signaled back that she’d wait for her in the break room.
The break room was unoccupied, everything exactly as it had been. The walls still needed a fresh coat of paint and the furniture a trip to the landfill. The coffeemaker hadn’t budged from its spot on the smaller of two tables with chipped Formica tops. The carafe was half full. Beside it were the coffee fixings and a box of chocolate-covered doughnuts with its top pushed back. Four mismatched chairs, two metal filing cabinets and a small refrigerator completed the decor. Seeing the room again, Rory remembered she’d left her coffee mug behind when she’d cleared out her personal effects. She opened the single cabinet above the refrigerator and there it was, waiting patiently to be rescue
d. She took it down and was pouring herself a cup of coffee when Leah walked in.
Leah came straight to her and gave her a hug, gentle enough to keep the coffee from sloshing out of her cup. When she stepped back, her brow had lowered into a frown. And Rory knew why. She’d automatically tensed at Leah’s touch. Although she’d meant to leave her irritation at home and have a quiet, rational discussion with her friend, it had hopped aboard anyway, riding shotgun to her best intentions.
“Okay, what’s going on?” Leah asked, studying Rory’s face for clues.
“Look, I know your motives are beyond reproach,” she said trying to keep her voice from tightening too, “but this time you’ve overstepped your boundaries.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Leah sounded so genuinely bewildered that Rory had a moment’s hesitation. But there was no getting around the fact that a police cruiser had been stationed across the street from her house since the previous evening.
“Do the words ‘police protection’ jog your memory?” She set her coffee on the table, no longer in the mood for it.
Leah’s expression morphed from confusion to concern. “Rory, I arranged for the protection after you requested it. Please tell me you remember doing that.”
“I didn’t request any such thing.”
“Here, I’ll show you.” Leah pulled her phone out of her pocket, scrolled down and handed it to her:
Urgent—received note threatening dire consequences if I pursue current case. Need protection.
As soon as Rory read the e-mail she realized what was going on. Zeke was once again trying to protect her. She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. But first she had to come up with an explanation that Leah would buy.
“Did you honestly think I sent this?” she asked, handing back the phone. “It sounds like a telegraph in an old B movie.”
“Well, I did think it was peculiar, but all I really focused on was the ‘threatening note’ part. Yesterday was like a three-ring circus around here, and then I had to leave in the middle of everything because Jake fell out of a tree and broke his arm again. I literally arranged for the patrol car on my way to the hospital. I figured I’d call you today and find out what was going on.”
“Whoa, I had no idea,” Rory said feeling both foolish and insensitive. “How is he?” At eight, Jake was Leah’s youngest, a fearless daredevil who was always stumbling into, or out of, one kind of trouble or another.
“He’s fine.” Leah sighed. “I, on the other hand, am the proud owner of a fresh new crop of gray hair. So tell me, what gives with the weird e-mail?”
“I think my dad must have sent it. He was at my house when I got the note. But it wasn’t a threat; it was a quote that didn’t even make sense to me. Someone must have dropped it in my mailbox by mistake. Listen, I apologize for my dad and for me. I should have known you wouldn’t order protection for me without asking me first. Or at least trying to bully me into it,” she added to lighten the mood.
Leah was still frowning, not yet ready to let the matter go. “Was there an address on the envelope? Writing of any kind?”
“There was no envelope.”
“We should at least check the note for prints.”
Rory shrugged. “I was so sure it was nothing that I threw it away.” She couldn’t very well say she’d turned to Reggie for help instead of her best friend.
Leah closed her eyes briefly and took a deep breath as if she were counting to ten. “Okay,” she said evenly. “Humor me—what was the quote?”
“The old ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ thing.”
Leah laughed. “Have you been dating a married man in your spare time?”
“I would never do something like that and not tell you,” Rory said, laughing along with her. “I think the note was meant for someone else and wound up at my house by mistake. Trust me, Leah, if I thought—”
At that moment she was saved by Leah’s partner, Jeff, who appeared in the doorway. “Good to see you Rory,” he said. “Sorry to break up the homecoming, but we’ve got a body that’s decomposing as we speak.” He was gone before the last word left his lips.
“I’m there,” Leah called after him. She turned back to Rory and locked eyes with her. “You’re 100 percent the note wasn’t a threat?”
“It was just a quote, and not even an accurate one. You can call off the troops.”
There was no patrol car to be seen when Rory drove down her street an hour later.
“Why did you call off the police?” Zeke demanded, materializing only inches away as she stepped inside. He hadn’t even bothered to flicker the lights first, an omission no doubt meant to further unnerve her. No way was that going to work. In fact, she had some complaints of her own to lodge.
“Why did you contact Leah behind my back?” she asked. Although he hadn’t left her much wiggle room, she maneuvered around him to deposit her handbag on the bench and her loafers beneath it.
“Someone had to. And you weren’t showing any inclination to do it.”
“I don’t need the police to babysit me,” she said, turning her back on him and padding off to the kitchen in her socks.
Zeke was leaning against the center island when she got there, arms crossed in front of him. She’d become so accustomed to his leapfrogging ahead of her that she didn’t even bother to pause in her remarks when she moved from one room to another. “But more importantly, if I ever do, it’ll be my call to make, not yours.”
“Okay, then,” he said soberly. “Sounds reasonable enough. I don’t get to decide all on my own about somethin’ that involves you.”
“Exactly.” That was easier than she’d anticipated. At the very least she’d expected another lecture on safety and experience—her safety, his experience. She pulled a box of granola down from the pantry shelf and poured some into a small bowl. She hadn’t eaten any breakfast before heading off to Yaphank, and her stomach was grousing about it.
“I assume the same rules apply to you as well,” Zeke said. “You don’t get to decide all by your lonesome about somethin’ that involves me.”
“That’s only fair,” she agreed warily. She had the sense that he was leading her along a lovely garden path and straight into a trap that suited his agenda. But before she could figure out what that might be, he disappeared. She was sure he wasn’t finished with her, not by a long shot, but maybe she’d at least get to eat breakfast in peace.
She went to the refrigerator for milk and was pouring it over her cereal when Hobo emerged from beneath the table, one of his favorite places to snooze. He’d been sleeping so soundly that he hadn’t even heard her come home. That was fine with her. It meant he was fully comfortable with his strange, new family. He stretched, a long luxurious stretch, first with his front legs, then with the back ones. His lips peeled back in a comical yawn as he ambled over to her to say “hello” and see if he could coax her into giving him some goodies.
She offered him a granola cluster that he sniffed thoroughly before finally accepting. “We can’t eat filet mignon all the time,” she chided him as she carried her bowl to the table. He followed, settling down beside her in case she was feeling generous. She was only a few spoonfuls into her breakfast when Zeke popped into the chair across the table, her sketch pad floating a few inches above his hands. He’d opened it to her most recent sketch, the woman she’d drawn from Eloise’s description.
“You ought to practice what you preach, darlin’,” he said with the satisfaction of the cat that had nabbed the canary and thought it was particularly tasty.
“How did you find that?” Rory asked, indignation trumping guilt for the moment. Staying out of her bedroom was one of the bylaws he’d agreed to when they’d first worked out their living arrangements. “I left it in my bedroom.”
“Let’s see,” he said, inclining his head as if he were considering her words. “Nope, I’m pretty certain that’s not the right reaction. Given the circumstances, I was expectin’ someth
in’ more along the lines of an apology.”
“Any apologizing had better start with you.” She knew she wouldn’t win any awards for diplomacy, but she couldn’t help herself. If he’d broken his promise, their relationship, even their partnership, had to be reexamined. “If you’ve been abiding by our agreement, how did you know where it was?”
“I happened to see you walk into the house with it the other day. You took it straight into your bedroom. Far as I know you’ve always left it in the study. So I was curious. But I didn’t follow you in there. When I give my word, I don’t take liberties with it.” His tone had sharpened to a steely edge. “This was the first time I’ve been in your bedroom since I met you. And seein’ as how you were down here, I knew I wouldn’t be intrudin’ on your privacy up there. In fact, I had trouble even findin’ the damn pad, precisely because I didn’t see where you hid it.”
He’d slammed the ball squarely into Rory’s court, and she found herself unable to fire it back. Although she didn’t like being bested in any match, she believed he was telling the truth. If she’d learned anything about the marshal over the past six months, it was that he lived by a strict, if sometimes odd, moral code. If she expected the truth from him, she had to live by it as well. She wasn’t going to cut herself any slack.
“I didn’t show it to you because I knew we’d just wind up arguing about it,” she said. Not much of an excuse given that here they were arguing about it anyway.
“You’ve been visitin’ with Eloise, haven’t you?” He sounded like a cop grilling a suspect.
“Yes, not that it’s any of your business. You don’t have veto power over my relationships.” Why was he bent on making this one molehill into a mountain range? A startling possibility popped into her head. “You know who the woman in the sketch is, don’t you?” she said. That was why he’d immediately associated the drawing with Eloise—Eloise, who seemed able to see into the future and the past.