Mug Shot

by Caroline Fardig

  He smirked. “I have to know what you said to Rodgers at the front desk to make him throw you in the zoo.”

  “Ryder, come on. I’m not proud of it.”

  He stopped at a red light and turned the full force of his smile on me. “Please tell me.”

  I could never say no to that smile. “Fine. I dared him to lock me up. And then I called him a pig.”

  Laughing, he said, “That’ll do it.” He pulled up to an old diner in a not-so-nice part of town. I didn’t dare let on my feelings about the neighborhood, because Ryder would have busted me about acting like my rich prick friends again.

  As we were walking in, I said, “You know, I probably should have gone home to change first. I look ridiculous.”

  “Are you kidding me?” We sat down in a corner booth, and he leaned across the table toward me, ogling my dress. “I’ve been dying to take you and this dress out on a date ever since I laid eyes on you tonight.”

  I hoped I didn’t appear as giddy as his comment had made me feel. “I’m sorry, did you say this is a date?”

  He shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah. Why not?”

  There were probably a million reasons why not, but it was difficult for me to think of any of them at the moment. Ryder’s smile had me a little mesmerized. “Well, if you’re calling it a date, which it isn’t, I guess that would make it our first date.”

  Furrowing his brow, he said, “Did you forget about the time we went to Mixology?”

  I laughed. “No, I went to Mixology with some perv named Seth Davis. And Ryder the PI didn’t take me anywhere but to bed.”

  “Good point,” he said, his eyes sparkling.

  We both ordered burgers and fries, and they were heavenly. He kept watching me while I ate, and I finally couldn’t handle it anymore. “What? Why are you staring at me? Do I have ketchup on my face or something?”

  “It’s sexy to watch a woman in a ball gown go to town on a greasy diner burger.”

  “Really?” I asked, wiping my mouth self-consciously. “Because it sounds like you’re feeding me a line.”

  “That hurts, babe.”

  Something had been nagging at me since we left the precinct. I was trying to put it out of my mind, but I couldn’t quite let it go. I put my burger down and asked, “Ryder? I know you said not to worry about it, but I need to know something. What happens to Pete after his arraignment?”

  “You know, part of the reason why I wanted to take you out was to get your mind off your worrying.”

  “And I thought it was the dress.”

  “Are you sure you want all the gory details?” he asked hesitantly.

  I nodded.

  “Okay. Here goes. At the arraignment, he will be formally charged with murder, and bail could be set. If the judge decides to grant him bail, and if Pete can pay it, he’s home free until the trial. If the judge doesn’t grant bail, or if it’s too high for Pete to make it, then you can worry. If that happens, they’ll transfer him to county, and I can’t look after him.”

  “That did not make me feel better.”

  “I kind of told you so.”

  I glared at him.

  “What I’m trying to say is, let’s not worry about something bad happening until something bad happens.”

  I pointed out, “My best friend is in jail for a murder he didn’t commit. I’d say that is pretty bad.”

  He took my hand. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think he did it. I saw the look in his eyes this morning, and it was the same look I had after I heard about what happened to my wife.”

  “Then why can’t you do something to get him released?” I pleaded.

  Sighing, he said, “The evidence is stacked against him. Even if it were my case, I’d have to arrest him, no matter what my gut says. That’s how it works. They can always find contradictory evidence after the full autopsy is completed, but for now, we have enough to hold him.”

  The more I had thought about Stan running to tell the cops about Pete’s fight with Cecilia at the park, the angrier I got. My mind also started zeroing in on something Pete had said about Stan being at the park as well, plus the fact that with Cecilia gone, he inherited a gold mine.

  I blurted out, “What about Stan?”

  “Stan is a douchebag.”

  “Yeah, sometimes.” I took a breath, hoping not to come off as callous as I felt for saying this. “I guess I’m asking why the police aren’t looking at Stan. Did you know he was also at Centennial Park the night Cecilia was killed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then why isn’t he in jail instead of Pete?”

  “For being a douchebag hanging out at the park at night?”

  I threw a french fry at him. “Did you know he inherits Hollingsworth Industries now that Cecilia is dead?”

  His face went serious. “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “And you call yourself a detective,” I scoffed. That remark got me one of Ryder’s trademark glares. “Ooh. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re adorable when you get mad?”

  He grinned. “I think that’s my line.”

  “I know. So since Stan had both motive and opportunity—”

  “You’re using some big detective words there, Scooby.”

  Ignoring him, I went on, “I think it’s enough reasonable doubt that you could release Pete.”

  “Nice try, but that’s all circumstantial evidence. If we don’t find any of Stan’s fingerprints or DNA at the crime scene, or at least something that can place him inside the tent, we don’t have a leg to stand on in court.”

  “Just because you don’t find any physical evidence doesn’t mean he or someone else didn’t do it. What if the killer wore gloves and a hat? He could have done the deed without leaving anything behind.”

  “Have you been watching CSI reruns again?” he asked.

  I made a face at him.

  He relented. “Will it make you feel better if I ask Cromwell to take another look at Stan?”

  “Yes.” Well, it would make me feel better about Pete, but I felt a little regret for narcing on Stan. I basically did to him what I got mad about him doing to Pete.

  “It’s been a long day. Are you ready for me to take you home? You look tired.”

  “You really know how to talk to the ladies, don’t you?” I asked dryly.

  Chuckling, he said, “You know it.” He led me outside and helped me into his car.

  When we got to my apartment, Ryder again helped me out of the car. He caught my hand and started walking toward the stairs leading to my apartment.

  “And just where do you think you’re going?” I asked.

  “To your apartment,” he replied innocently.

  “Slow your roll, there. I’m not that easy.”

  With a mock wounded expression, he said, “Did you think I was trying to get into your pants?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m hurt. I was only going to…check your apartment for bad guys. I hear sometimes they hang out there.”

  I didn’t laugh. “Too soon.”

  “Oh, lighten up. No harm done. See?” He lifted up his shirt so I could see his healed wound from the last time he checked my apartment for bad guys. I held back a sigh. His abs could put a washboard to shame. I had nearly forgotten.

  “If you’re trying to entice me with your body, it’s not working,” I lied, not taking my eyes off him.

  “I’m almost out of ideas, then. Wait. I need to go in your apartment because…I want to see your new carpet and couch. What about that?”

  “Also not gonna happen. I know all of your tricks.” We were at my door now, and it took some serious willpower not to invite him in, but I stuck to my guns.

  He snaked his arms around my waist. “Oh, you don’t know all of my tricks.” He swiftly dipped me back and kissed me, giving me one of his kisses that blotted out the rest of the world. After lifting me back upright, he asked, “Can I see you tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I said dreamily. “Hey, than
ks for everything you did for me today, and for Pete. You were there for me above and beyond what could have been expected from anyone. You didn’t have to do any of that, and I appreciate it.”

  He tucked a lock of hair that had escaped from my updo behind my ear, caressing the side of my face in the process. “When are you going to get it through your thick head that I like you, and I would pretty much do anything for you?”

  My mouth dropped open, and my heart started hammering in my chest. I said in disbelief, “You like me?”

  “Never stopped.” He gave me a sweet, too-quick kiss. “See you tomorrow.”

  I let myself into my apartment and took off my jacket. Wait, it was Ryder’s jacket. Hurrying back out the door, I called to Ryder, who was already at the bottom of the stairs. “Hey, Ryder!”

  Looking up, he asked, “Did you come to your senses and realize you want me?”

  I smiled. “Sorry, but no. You forgot your jacket.” I threw his jacket over the railing, and he caught it. “Good night.”

  He clutched his chest. “Juliet! ‘O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?’ ”

  The man knew his Romeo and Juliet. Sexy. I leaned over the railing to quote the next line to him, “ ‘What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?’ ”

  He faltered, a little embarrassed. “Um, that’s all I know. My buddies and I used to use that line on girls all the time in high school.”

  “Did it work?”

  Shrugging, he admitted, “Usually.”

  I shook my head. “It takes a little more than one line of Shakespeare to get me in the mood.”

  “What do you need? A soliloquy? I’ll study up for tomorrow.”

  “You do that, Detective,” I called as I retreated back into my apartment.

  Once I was alone, I wanted to enjoy the thrill of finding out that Ryder still had feelings for me, but suddenly all I could think about was my poor Pete sitting in his jail cell. Going out with Ryder had given me a break from my incessant worrying, but now that I was alone, the reality of today came crashing back. I angrily brushed my tears away, steeling myself for the work I had ahead of me.

  I was going to prove Pete’s innocence if it was the last thing I did.

  Chapter 11

  I barely slept, switching off between worrying about Pete and having horrific nightmares about Cecilia and Pete and Stan. As much as I wanted to sleep in, I knew I had to get up and go see Gertie before she read the Sunday morning paper, because there was sure to be a story about Pete being arrested for Cecilia’s murder. It would be big news. The story was probably on the late evening news last night, but Gertie went to bed well before nine, so there was little chance of her finding out that way.

  First, I went over to Pete’s house to get him a suit for his arraignment. I found a nice gray one and a crisp white shirt. After grabbing a dark blue tie, I went to his dresser to get socks and underwear. Feeling a little ambivalent about going through Pete’s underwear drawer, I plucked out the pair on top and quickly shut the drawer. Being elbow-deep in his sock drawer didn’t bother me nearly as much, so I waded around to find a pair that would look nice with the suit. In the bottom of the drawer, my hand bumped into a strange object. When I looked to see what it was, I nearly fell over.

  After I had graduated from Belmont and decided to stay in Nashville permanently, Pete had gone home with me to Indiana to help pack up my things. My mother had kept way too much stuff from my childhood—every horrible art project I ever did, all of my report cards, a physical copy of every photo anyone had ever taken of me (good or bad), and countless other pieces of crap that didn’t need to be saved. For some reason, she expected me to take all of it with me to my new place. I wasn’t having it. But as fast as I could toss things in the trash, Pete was grabbing them out, insisting I save the junk.

  —

  “Jules, this is what’s left of your childhood. You can’t just throw it all away.” Pete held up a battered contraption made of Popsicle sticks and yarn. “Look at this. It’s adorable.”

  “I can’t keep everything,” I complained, not intending to keep any of that old junk. “Besides, you’ve seen how small my apartment is.”

  “But these things are memories,” he argued.

  “Things aren’t memories. Memories are in your head,” I pointed out, pitching a horribly misshapen clay bowl toward the trash can.

  Catching the little bowl before it hit the trash, he said, “I know, but…maybe you’ll want this stuff someday. You could show it to your kids.”

  “I’m not having kids. I’m going to be a famous musician. I won’t have time for drooly little crying babies,” I scoffed.

  He regarded me for a moment. “You don’t want kids?”

  “Not especially. Do you?”

  Pete smiled. “Well, yeah. I mean, someday.”

  I laughed. “You’re such a girl.”

  “Am not!” he fired back, picking up the nearest pillow and slugging me with it. A major pillow fight ensued, and we ended up laughing until our stomachs ached.

  —

  I never knew he had pocketed the bowl that day, nor did I ever imagine he would have kept it all these years. I suddenly realized I’d been sitting on Pete’s bed, hugging his pillow and crying the whole time I was thinking about the stupid clay bowl. My pity party was not doing him any good, so I dried my tears, put the bowl back where I found it, and left his house.

  I zoomed over to Gertie’s place and snagged her newspaper, which was thankfully still on her doorstep. It would probably give the old girl a heart attack to get a knock on her door this early on a Sunday morning, but I had to do the task Pete had given me. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

  Knocking tentatively, I called, “Gertie? It’s Juliet.”

  After a few minutes, Gertie appeared at the door in her nightgown, sporting a length of toilet paper bobby-pinned to her head to protect her hairdo from getting mussed while she was sleeping. She looked adorable, except for the sour expression on her face. “What in damnation are you doing knocking on my door at this ungodly hour of the morning? I nearly shit the bed when I heard all the racket.”

  “I’m sorry, Gertie. I need to talk to you.”

  “Hell’s bells! Why didn’t you call me on that damn cellphone you fart around with all the time? You didn’t have to scare a poor old woman to death by trying to break down her door.”

  Gertie could be a real ballbuster. I replied contritely, “Next time, I’ll call. This is important, and I didn’t want to tell you over the phone.”

  She peered behind me uneasily. “Is Pete with you? He’s not hurt, is he?”

  “No, but…I think we need to go inside so we can sit down and talk.”

  “Okay,” she replied uncertainly, opening the door. We went in and sat in her living room. I loved her house. It reminded me of my grandmother’s house—tiny and crammed full of antique furniture and family photos. “You’re making me nervous, Juliet. What the hell’s going on?”

  “I don’t know if you heard, but Friday night Cecilia was murdered.”

  “I heard,” she said, frowning. Gertie couldn’t stand Cecilia, but like me, she would be worried about how Pete felt. “Pete came over and told me last night. He wasn’t taking it too well. Have you talked to him this morning? How’s my Pete holding up?”

  “Not great. He…um…The police seem to think he had something to do with it.”

  “WHAT?” she exploded, tearing into a stream of cursing that I could never in a million years repeat.

  I waited until she was finished. I took her hand as she sat there breathing heavily from the shock of my revelation. “Gertie, he’s in jail.” She opened her mouth to start another tirade, but I put my hand up to stop her. “He’s fine, for now. You remember Seth, from the coffeehouse?”

  “Yes, but what in the hell—”

  “You remember that I told you he’s actually a cop?”

  She nodded uncertainly. “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s promised m
e that he’ll look out for Pete while he’s being held downtown at the metro precinct. Pete is in a private cell, so he’s safe, and we don’t have to worry about him getting hurt.”

  “All I care about is how we get him out of that hellhole.”

  I sighed. “I agree. He’s going to be arraigned tomorrow morning, and Ryder—that’s Seth’s real name—says that’s when the judge will set bail, if he’s going to allow Pete out on bail. His bail will probably be pretty high, so we need to discuss how and if we’re going to be able to pay it.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’ll sell my soul to the devil to get my baby out of jail.”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  After wiping her nose indelicately on her nightgown, Gertie straightened up and announced, “I want to go see him.”

  I nodded. “I figured you would. I called the station on the way over here and made arrangements for us to see him at nine.” It turned out that the police were really accommodating about letting you see your loved ones when you asked nicely and refrained from calling them pigs. Who knew?

  —

  I ushered Gertie into the police station, and luckily my friend from my previous visit was not working the front desk. We were shown to the same room where I saw Pete last night. After a few minutes, the door opened, and a uniformed officer led Pete into the room. The moment he saw his grandmother, his eyes filled with tears. Gertie started crying, and then I started crying, so the officer had to raise his voice to let us know that we could only have fifteen minutes with him.

  Pete looked horrible, but I had never been happier to see him. His clothes were wrinkled and he desperately needed a shave. His poor eyes were red and had deep, dark circles under them. The man was a wreck.

  He reached out his shackled hands to Gertie, and she grasped them. “Gertie, I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t you dare apologize to me, young man. I don’t know who killed your bitch-ass girlfriend, but I know it wasn’t you. Now let’s talk about getting you the hell out of here.”