Dirty Little Secrets (Romantic Mystery) Book 1 in the J.J. Graves Series

by Hart, Liliana

  “Business is great. Thanks for asking,” I said, sweet as sugar. I could have said something hateful like I was looking forward to him being one of my patients, but I refrained. I thought of something better instead.

  “Make sure you say hi to your wife for me,” I said with guileless innocence. It was common knowledge that Dr. Givens’ wife had left him Wednesday night to run away with her plastic surgeon. She’d told him she was going to help with the raffle at the Ladies of King George Lodge. I think if I was Dr. Givens I’d take notice if someone I lived with for twenty-five years was walking out the door with a suitcase and her new breasts.

  Jack’s grip on my shoulder went way past the point of pain, and I got a tiny bit of satisfaction at seeing Dr. Givens take a step forward like he was going to take a swing at me, but much to my disappointment he got control of himself and ignored me.

  Dr. Givens had known how much I’d hated giving up my position at the hospital, and the last thing he’d told me was that it was a sign from God that I’d been called to do other work. Meaning that if God wanted women to be doctors he wouldn’t have killed my parents. I personally thought God had bigger things to worry about than me being hired on at Augusta General. Call me crazy.

  “I’m sorry, Sheriff. I feel like I need to be present in the room while you question my patient,” Dr. Givens explained. “He is under great emotional distress and really shouldn’t go too long without being sedated.”

  “Dr. Givens, George Murphy is the prime suspect in a homicide, and I don’t particularly care what your recommendations are. As soon as we’re done speaking with him, he’s going to leave this hospital in handcuffs and sit in a cell like all the other criminals instead of trying to win an Oscar.”

  Jack left Dr. Givens in the hallway sputtering, and I followed him into George Murphy’s room. “That was great, Jack. That man doesn’t get put in his place nearly enough.”

  “Glad I could be of service,” he said dryly. “I figured it was a better option than punching him in the face.” So maybe I’d gotten a tiny bit out of control. Nobody’s perfect.

  George’s room was Spartan and hospital disinfectant fresh, and he watched us closely as we came to his bedside. He had the palest eyes I’d ever seen, and I shivered before I could control it. His dark hair made his face seem paler than usual, and his cheeks were gaunt with grief. His large frame dwarfed the hospital bed, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him look defeated. George always had a larger than life look about him, and he never liked for anyone to stand in his way.

  I’d once seen him flatten the umpire at the Bloody Mary/Nottingham Knights of Columbus baseball tournament for calling him out at home, and I’d seen him curse Hester Thibodeaux up one side and down the other when she’d forgotten to have the oil changed after three-thousand miles in her Cadillac. No one went to the Murphy’s house for Halloween. George was scary enough the other three hundred and sixty four days a year. That’s why the sight of George pale and shaken took me a little off guard. If he was faking, he’d sure missed his calling.

  “We need to talk to you a few minutes, George,” Jack said. I guess the sight of George surprised Jack a little too because his voice was gentle.

  “You’ve got to tell us what happened, George. We need the truth.”

  “She’s dead,” he said, tears trailing down his cheeks slowly.

  “What happened?” Jack repeated.

  “She left me. Said she didn’t love me anymore. I’m not exciting enough, not like I used to be. She said I wasn’t what she needed.” George stopped to take a shuddering breath. “We had a fight. It made me angry that she could say those things when I loved her more than I had since the day we met.”

  “What time did she leave?” Jack asked.

  “A few minutes before nine,” he said licking his lips. His voice was flat, and the tears continued to fall silently. “She’d been talking to her sister. She wouldn’t even acknowledge that I was yelling at her. She just packed up and walked out. Usually a good fight gets her revved, you know?” he said. “I yell and call her names, throw a few things for good measure. She yells right back, and then we make up and everything’s all right.”

  Jack and I exchanged a look. It looked like Fiona Murphy had been playing all of Bloody Mary for a fool.

  “Did you follow her because you were angry?” Jack asked.

  “I didn’t follow her,” he said. His eyes were pleading, begging us to believe him. “I swear. I yelled her name after she walked out and ripped the screen door off its hinges when I slammed it. Then I went and got drunk. What else was there for me to do?”

  “Did you abuse your wife, George?” I asked. I was curious if he’d answer such a direct question.

  George colored slightly, the embarrassed red on his cheeks was a shocking slash against his pale face. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Where did your wife get the bruises?” I asked.

  “It’s not what you think. I’d never hurt Fiona out of temper. I loved her.”

  “You hurt her out of love then?” I insisted.

  “Fiona was just unique,” he said. He put his head in his hands, his whole body shaking with grief.

  “Did your wife get the bruises during sex?” Jack asked.

  “She wanted me to. Even on our wedding night, and she’d never been with anyone before. I’d never hurt Fiona if she didn’t tell me to,” he said, sobbing.

  “Were you aware your wife was seeing a therapist?” Jack asked.

  The crying stopped and a pitiful hiccup replaced it. “No, she would have told me if she was going to see a shrink. We were close. We told each other everything.”

  “Didn’t you notice all the trips she was taking into Nottingham?” I asked.

  “She had a job. Had it almost five years now. She said she wanted to work, and I’ve got no problem with that. She worked evenings four nights a week. She seemed to enjoy it, even if we didn’t get to see each other as much. Sometimes the garage keeps me at work pretty late too,” he said. “But I thought things were still good between us. I didn’t see that she wasn’t happy,” he said as he started to cry again.

  “George,” Jack said. “Was Fiona having an affair?”

  George looked up at us with devastated eyes, but I caught a sliver of anger before he concealed it. “Fiona wouldn’t cheat on me. I gave her everything she wanted.” Even he didn’t look so convinced after he said that.

  “Didn’t you ever find bruises on her body that you didn’t put there?” Jack insisted.

  George didn’t meet Jack’s eyes when he answered. “I didn’t really pay attention,” he lied. “You don’t notice stuff like that in the heat of the moment. Fiona wouldn’t cheat on me,” he insisted.

  “Where’d she work?” I asked, switching topics. We weren’t going to be able to go on too much longer. George was breaking down in front of my eyes. He was choked up on leftover antidepressants and grief, but pretty soon the real George would come back to the surface, and I wanted to be far away when the explosions started. I was also scared to think what it meant if George was telling the truth—that he hadn’t killed Fiona.

  “She was in sales of some kind,” he answered. “I’m not sure exactly. All that female stuff gets on my nerves. She said she was glad to have some spending money just for herself, even though I make a good living at the garage. Fiona always has had an independent streak.”

  You could have fooled me, but I kept the comment to myself. I obviously knew nothing about Fiona Murphy, old friend or not. We left George’s room, Jack and I both lost in private thoughts.

  “In sales of some kind,” I said after I climbed into the Suburban and we were on our way back to Jack’s place.

  “Yeah, I think we can safely assume that Fiona was selling herself. She’d have to have another residence. Some place she could meet clients and hide the Lexus. If George wasn’t as exciting as he used to be maybe she was looking for someone more dangerous.”

 
“Looks like she found him,” I said.

  “I just can’t think of anything else she could have been doing to make all of that money,” Jack said.

  “It would certainly explain all the old ligature marks I found on her wrists and ankles during my examination.”

  “I need to do a property search and see if anything comes up in her name or a variation of her name. We also need to get financial records for Fiona and George as well as Dr. Hides. We’ll see if he had any large withdrawals over the last few years.”

  “Maybe they traded services so there was no money trail,” I said.

  Jack parked the Suburban at the front of his house. For some reason, I felt when he got out and went inside things would change between us. He looked at me for a long time before he spoke again.

  “I’ll keep at it,” he said. “It’s not like I have a lot of other homicides sitting on my desk. You’d better get out of here so you can get ready for your big date. It might be another four years before you have another one, and your writer friend doesn’t strike me as the type to be kept waiting.”

  “Jack,” I began, not really sure what I should say. “You’re the only constant I’ve had in my whole life. You know that, right?”

  “I guess I do,” he said, his dark eyes intense and serious.

  “I just wanted to make sure you know how important you are to me. I’d never do anything that would endanger that.” He smiled and rubbed his hand on the top of my head like he used to do when we were kids.

  “I know, Jaye,” he said. “Just don’t do anything tonight that I wouldn’t do.”

  “That leaves me with a lot of possibilities,” I said as I scooted over into the driver’s seat.

  “Smart ass. I think I’ll head back over to the square and see what time that boutique closes.”

  I was lighter of heart as I drove away. Jack and I would be fine. And I’d be even better if I could get my hands on Brody Collins. It had been a long time since I’d felt a man with a pulse.

  Chapter Eleven

  I looked like a million bucks. I just hoped I wouldn’t be paying that much when I got the bill at the end of the month.

  Grace, from the Alexandretta Boutique, had exquisite taste. And I only looked at the lacy scraps on my bed with slight trepidation. I was used to my underwear covering my entire behind. I looked into the bag to make sure there weren’t any how-to instructions, and when I found none I pulled the black lace on slowly to prevent it from tearing. Or disintegrating. Did people really wear underwear like this all the time?

  Every tick of the clock on the wall felt like a time bomb. I was running late, as usual. Who knew how long it took to shave legs, wax eyebrows and slough dead skin? I decided after I put on the dress that it was worth every penny. I felt like a girl. A pretty girl. And because of such I decided to go full out on the makeup and darken my eyes more than usual.

  My hands shook as I attached gold hoops to my ears, and butterflies danced in my stomach when the doorbell rang.

  The doorbell had long since lost its pitch and was painful to listen to, somewhere between an augmented fourth and a cat being neutered without anesthesia. It was on my list of things to be fixed.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said as I gave myself a last look and headed down the stairs to answer the door.

  “Nice doorbell,” Brody said when I answered the door. I blew out a breath and rolled my eyes. It was the bane of my existence that all the men in my life were sarcastic jackasses.

  “Thanks.” I wasn’t really sure what I should do next. He looked pretty amazing. He had on a dark suit and crisp white shirt without a tie, but he didn’t look uncomfortable like some men do—the kind of men who only pull their suits out of the closet when their wife’s best friend’s sister was getting married. He also looked cold.

  Should I invite him in? What if he was in the mood right now? He might be out of the mood later. Should I chance it? Or should we just go?

  “Well, why don’t we get out of here,” he said.

  I was glad he took the decision out of my hands. I didn’t want to start the night with any faux pas.

  Dante’s was a little family owned restaurant in Port Royal, which was located in Caroline County. It was also extremely difficult to get a table, and word on the street was you could buy a small country for the same price as a plate of lasagna.

  My friend Dickey had once told me that he’d had to make reservations a whole six months before his wedding anniversary to get a table. He put a reservation in for his mistress for the day after because he said he didn’t want her to be mad at him while they waited another six months for reservations. How Dickey juggled his love life, I’d never know. But both women ended up satisfied they’d gotten the Dante’s dining experience, so he’d managed to dodge another proverbial bullet.

  “How’d you get reservations so quickly?” I whispered as we walked in the heavy glass-front doors. Brody just smiled and patted my hand as we made our way to the maitre’d. I guess it was a secret.

  “Ah, Mr. Collins,” the dark man behind the podium said. His accent was Italian, but I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that it was authentic. When I was in medical school the guy who worked on my car used a similar accent, but he couldn’t hide his Bronx origins completely. Though it wasn’t exactly his accent that kept me from accepting his indecent proposition, but more of a lack of deodorant use.

  “Welcome back,” the accent guy said. “Table for two?”

  “Yes, please, Giovanni.” We handed our coats to another man who magically materialized.

  So this was how the other half lived. I could probably become accustomed if I let myself. I wondered if Brody ever had to wait in line at the bank or post office, or if they just ushered him to the front and left the commoners like me to curse him behind his back.

  We were led to a secluded corner booth that was in the shape of a semi-circle, and Giovanni waited for me to take my seat before slipping a napkin across my lap. A fat white candle sat in the middle of the table and the lights in the restaurant were dim. The only experience I’d had where a restaurant used low lighting was Luigi’s Pizza and that was just so you couldn’t see the roaches running across the floor.

  “Would you care for wine, Signore? Or perhaps champagne?”

  “Would you like champagne, Dr. Graves?” Brody asked.

  It was then I realized he’d never called me by name. Maybe I was just a brain to pick for him, and I’d spent all this money to look good for nothing. I got the sudden image of the two of us in the midst of the throes of passion and him yelling out, Dr. Graves, Dr. Graves, your Stryker Saw is so sexy. And then I came my brains out.

  “Dr. Graves?” he said, obviously confused by my side trip.

  “That would be nice,” I said. I waited until Giovanni had gone to complete his task before I brought it up. “You really need to stop calling me Dr. Graves. It makes me feel old and sexless.”

  “I don’t know your name. And I refuse to call a beautiful woman by her initials. And it’s not my intention to make you feel anything but. . .” He stopped to kiss my hand and all the spit dried up in my mouth, “desirable,” he whispered.

  It was probably a good thing that Giovanni came back with the champagne because I almost made Brody Collins my main course then and there.

  “You can call me Jaye,” I said instead.

  “J is still a letter. What’s your real name?”

  “Jaye is my real name. Or I guess technically it’s my middle name.” He still looked confused, so I spelled it out for him. “J-A-Y-E.”

  “Oh.” The tone of his voice was less than thrilled. I got the impressions it wasn’t romantic enough for him. “What’s your first name? Maybe I can call you that.”

  “Nope, nobody calls me by my first name and lives.” Not even Jack knew what the initial stood for in my first name. No way was I about to tell someone I wanted to become involved with.

  “Can you tell me about your book?” I asked to change t
he subject.

  “Why? Do you want to know if you’re in it?” he asked, smiling.

  “Of course not.” Okay, yes, I really did want to know, but that wasn’t something I was willing to admit to him.

  “Well, I hope you’re not disappointed, but I decided you were the perfect influence for my heroine. Her name is Aurora, and she’s beautiful and intelligent, just as you are. She’s leading my Detective Chandler on a merry chase. I just haven’t decided if I’m going to kill you off at the end or not. Sometimes the crime supersedes love. Life’s not always a fairytale, you know.”

  “Isn’t that just my luck,” I said. Our food was served and the conversation went back to the body currently sitting in a casket, prepared for burial the next day.

  “How often do you get bodies across your table?” he asked. I could tell this was information he was tucking away for later use because he got that little crease between his eyebrows like he did when I was explaining the autopsy process to him the day before.

  “It depends. I’m never swamped, if that’s what you’re asking. And deaths like Fiona’s don’t happen that often. It’s only the second homicide I’ve worked since I took the job. Bloody Mary has only had a handful of murders in the last hundred years. Some weeks I don’t get anyone across my table. Others, I’ll get two or three from natural causes.”

  “It must be hard for a woman to run a business that grim by herself and then add the pressures of being coroner. Don’t you ever get tired of doing everything on your own?”

  Boy, did I ever. But I kept it to myself. My parents had had each other to help shuffle the load and the stress of the job. I had no one.

  “I have a couple of college students who help me out a couple of days a week if I need a hand. It’s more of an apprenticeship. But really, I’m fine.” I was lying through my teeth, and by the skeptical look on Brody’s face I could tell he wasn’t buying it. I mean really, how desperate did I want to look for this guy? “Let’s just say that after my parents died, nothing was more important than carrying on the family tradition. It would have been simpler all around if I’d sold the business, liquidated all their assets and kept my apartment over by the hospital. But it felt right to come home.”