While he checked, the officer asked me again, “Can you think of any reason someone might want to hurt you?”
I winced as Jack reached the area where my shoulder blade was and I sucked in a breath.
“There?” Jack asked.
“It’s the shoulder blade, not the spine. Whoever it was hit me pretty hard. And the only reason I can think that someone would hurt me is—” I hissed as he pressed his fingers into my shoulder, even if his touch was light.
“You ought to have an x-ray,” Jack said.
Like that was going to happen. “I don’t have insurance anymore.”
“Sure you do,” Bronson interjected. “They took it out of your paycheck on Friday. They might throw fits that you’re in another state, but I’ll take care of it.”
I ground my teeth together. “Great.”
“The only reason someone would want to hurt you is?” Officer Mitchell prompted again.
“Right. Because of the murder last weekend. I’ve been asking questions. But Detective Tingey has been asking questions too, and I doubt anyone tried to knock him out.”
“Have some sense, Tess, and leave the investigating to the professionals.” Jack started probing around in my hair on the back of my head. “You’re still bleeding back here, but it’s sluggish. It doesn’t look like a very big gash. Check her eyes.”
The last part must have been to his partner, because the man pulled a penlight from the pocket on the side of his thigh. “Close your eyes for a minute, will you?”
Jack put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m going to look at this shoulder blade, then we’ll load you up.”
“I’m not going into the ER in the ambulance,” I protested.
“Sure, sure. Lean forward.” He shifted the pillow I’d been leaning against.
The other paramedic had me open and close my eyes while his light added to the pain beating against my skull. Jack pulled up my shirt in the back to expose the injury. I was glad the shirt was oversized so it still covered me fine in front. “Some scratching, minor abrasions on the surface, but you’ll have a whopper of a bruise. You said he knocked the wind out of you?”
“Yeah.”
“Hey, quit touching her!” Bronson protested as Jack felt the damaged area with his fingertips. Jack’s touch was all very clinical, but Bronson didn’t seem to realize that.
“Jack’s a paramedic, you idiot,” I said with a grimace as he pushed an especially tender spot further down my back. “He’s doing his job.” The pain shot through my body. “Is that really necessary? I hurt, okay?”
“Oh, so it’s Jack. Is he an old friend as well?” Bronson asked. “How many old friends do you have in this town?”
“No, he’s not my friend. More like my new nemesis.” I winced as he lightly pressed around the edges of the bone. “Aren’t you done yet?”
“I think you have a concussion,” the partner said.
“I’m done.” Jack put my shirt down and came around to the front. “Now, about going in for that x-ray?”
I noticed that Officer Mitchell had given up on asking questions, but he appeared to be patient. I supposed he was used to sitting back and waiting for the paramedics to do their jobs before moving in for the kill. Might as well let them make me miserable first. Concussion. Now that was something I didn’t want to deal with. I wondered how serious it was.
“I can drive myself,” I said through clenched teeth. No one was going to strap me onto a gurney and wheel me into the hospital.
“No, you can’t drive yourself. You have a concussion,” Bronson protested. “I’ll take you.”
“Listen to the guy you’re not going to marry,” Jack said as he put things back into his yellow supply case. “If you won’t go in with us, let him drive. It’ll be easier on you if you do. Unless you’re considering getting a restraining order against him for not taking no for an answer, in which case, I’ll be happy to call Honey for you.”
I glared at Jack for a moment before I decided he had a point. “Call Honey.”
Bronson let out an exasperated huff. “Tess, don’t be foolish. I’m going to the hospital either way. I’m not leaving you alone like this.”
“Your blood pressure has gone up since we arrived,” the second paramedic announced as the air left the cuff again. He started pulling it off. The Velcro made a loud ripping noise that caused me to jump in surprise.
“You think? I wonder why that might be.” I couldn’t help the sarcasm; Bronson was reason enough to raise my blood pressure. The thought of going to the hospital wasn’t helping. I’d never been a fan, but after watching my grandma slowly die in one, I had no great love for the facilities.
Bronson folded his arms over his chest and stared at me. I decided I could get some really wonderful pain medications at the hospital, and sighed. “Fine, I’ll go in with Bronson.” I shot a glare at Jack. “Satisfied?”
“Very. Take care of yourself.” Jack stood and picked up the equipment he’d brought in. “I’ll see you around. My daughter is excited about your shop. If that cake was typical of your baking skills, I think I might be excited too.” He exited the room.
Was that a civil conversation I just had with Jack? Odd. And he liked my baking, even if he hadn’t mentioned it before. Hmmm. Wait, did he say daughter? Honey had mentioned he was divorced, but she hadn’t said anything about a daughter.
Officer Mitchell stood. “I’ll lead you out to the hospital. We can finish this discussion there.”
“Let me find you some shoes and a jacket,” Bronson said as he also stood and headed for the hall.
“Room on the right.” I supposed I was going to have to sort through Grandma’s stuff since I would want her bigger closet. I’d worry about that next week.
A minute later, Bronson brought a pair of shoes, socks and a jacket. He’d dug through my closet. Great. He pulled on my shoes and socks, kneeling at my feet, then helped me stand, slid the jacket over my shoulders, locked the apartment behind us and led me out to his car. He did all of this without a word of complaint or reproach, making me feel like he really did care about me. It felt kind of nice having him coddle me. It didn’t happen very often, but I rarely allowed him to coddle me, either. On the few occasions when I had felt under the weather or needed his support, I remembered Bronson had always been there for me. Always. How had I forgotten that?
As we pulled out of the parking lot behind Officer Mitchell, I thought my life couldn’t possibly get any more complicated.
Of course, one always thinks things are going to get better instead of worse, and I admit, I was relieved to learn that my shoulder blade was only majorly bruised instead of broken—I can’t imagine the kind of cast that would take. I was also happy about the pain killer samples they sent home with me, along with a prescription for more.
Officer Mitchell took the full report, admonished me to leave the detecting to the police and to add a security system—complete with floodlights—to the back of my building. I promised I’d make the call in the morning. He deserted me with a worried Bronson hovering over my shoulder. No matter how many times I told Bronson to sit in the waiting room, he was back again in minutes, checking to see if I needed a drink, a snack from the vending machine—as if we hadn’t eaten a huge dinner—Was I too hot or cold? He was driving me nuts.
When we reached my apartment, he followed me in, despite my best efforts to make it clear that he wasn’t invited. “Are you going to be okay? The doctor said you have a concussion,” he said.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him, as I had done a dozen times already.
“The doctor said you shouldn’t be alone tonight, that you should have someone waking you up every few hours. Maybe I ought to stay.” He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, studying my face.
“You are not staying over here.”
“You have another bedroom,” he pointed out. “You don’t need the second bed for yourself.”
I ground my teeth together. “It’s my grandmother’s room.
No one else has stayed there since she died, and the sheets haven’t been changed since the funeral, if not before that.”
“I can make a bed. I’ve been known to do it before.” He touched my cheek, using a finger under my jaw to lift my face until I was looking him in the eye.
I pulled out of his grasp. “Forget it. You have a hotel room.”
“Someone needs to check on you.”
He was right. The doctor had said I needed someone to make sure I was okay every hour. I hate doctors. “You have my cell phone number. Call me. Now get out of here so I can collapse into bed.”
“Tess, sweetie—”
“No, Bronson. You’re not staying here. End of story. Call and wake me up if you must.”
“Fine. If you don’t answer, I’m getting the ambulance back here, though, so don’t even think about turning the ringer off.”
In my head, I grumbled about bossy men. “All right. Get lost. I need my sleep if you’re going to wake me up constantly.”
With a look that said he wasn’t pleased with my choice, he headed out the door, saying good night over his shoulder. I wasn’t even settled properly into sleep when the phone rang the first time. He called me dutifully every hour on the hour after that.
Though I wanted to throttle him half the time, part of me was grateful to see he cared. He’d never acted so sweet and considerate before—or, not recently. It was almost enough to have me thinking maybe there was a way to put things back together for us. Almost.
My whole body ached the next morning, including several muscles I’d never realized existed. Though it took time to manage my morning routine and the stairs, I eventually made it to the restaurant. I came through the back door to grab the notebook off the front counter when my eyes were draw to the big picture window. On it in red spray paint, heavy with drips at the bottoms of the letters, was a message, the mirror image of “Leave it alone.”
As if the pain all over my body wasn’t plenty for me to deal with. My stomach tightened in a knot. Leave it alone. My neck and arms broke out in goose bumps as my breath caught. This hadn’t been there the previous night when we got home from the hospital. I knew it hadn’t, because we’d driven right past it and I would have noticed.
I didn’t move, frozen at the thought that someone had defaced my building. Well, my window anyway. I hoped that was all. I hurried to the front door and flipped the lock open, then stepped onto the sidewalk and studied the message, reading it again. I checked the brick for splatters, but was relieved to see that the paint was only on the window. It would be a pain to remove, but it would come off fine—which was good, because I didn’t have the money to replace the custom window or hassle with getting the paint off the bricks right now.
A black-and-white pulled up while I studied the vandalism, and Detective Tingey emerged from the front seat. “Do you know what that message is about?” he asked as he came over to stand beside me.
I shot him a look, but returned my gaze to the window. “I guess it’s about the murder.”
“Someone left you a message to leave the murder alone? What are you doing?” He crossed his arms over his chest, as all cops seem to do out of habit, even though he wore a blazer, rather than a uniform with the belt packed with cop paraphernalia.
Should I admit it? Jack had called me stupid the night before for trying to figure out what happened. Was he right? I wasn’t sure. “I’ve been curious about the murder, and talking to people about it.”
Detective Tingey’s irritated expression indicated he wasn’t happy with my answer, but perhaps wasn’t surprised, either. “Learn anything?”
I knew I should bring up the issue with Millie and the necklace, but wanted to feel out the conversation first. “Yeah, it sounds like half the people who knew Valerie had a reason to want her out of the way. Even the bride was upset about the way Valerie acted at the wedding rehearsal. It seems like the only people who didn’t have a grudge against her were her little girl and Tad’s family, and I’m not sure that’s true.”
“Why are you asking questions, though? Don’t you think I’m doing a thorough job of checking into it? You can’t think I’m actually working on anything else right now—not when we have a murder, which hardly ever happens around here.”
I studied him. He seemed to be competent, but I still didn’t know if I trusted him to find the truth, rather than going with the easiest answer. I thought of Dahlia again, of the way she sobbed into Tad’s shoulder as he carried her away from the murder scene, and knew I couldn’t let it go. “And have you learned anything interesting?” I knew he wouldn’t tell me—the cops in detective shows never shared any of the juicy information.
“I think pretty much everyone has a grudge against her. Yours seems to be a mild one compared to some of the others, which puzzles me.”
Considering I had spoken with the woman for no more than a few seconds, I didn’t understand why he was confused. Shouldn’t my grudge have been mild? “What do you mean?”
He unfolded his arms and set a hand on each hip. “If you don’t have much of a reason to have wanted her dead, and all this bad stuff is happening to you because you’re poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, why is it that yours are the only fingerprints on the murder weapon?”
I felt the blood rush out of my head and had to put a hand on the building to steady myself. “What? How? That can’t be.” If I could get my mind to work at all, it would have been racing to try to understand. There ought to be the prints of the hotel staff, at least.
“You okay?” He reached out and touched my shoulder.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. Really. Maybe.” I shifted and leaned back against the building as my head swam. “How come the murderer’s prints aren’t on the vase? Not even the shard in her chest?”
“I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station.”
“Are you arresting me?” I thought of everything I needed to do, and the likelihood that I’d spend the next twenty-five years rotting in prison. No way would I be allowed to participate in the regional cake show next year, in that case.
“No, I’m not arresting you. Not yet, anyway. I just want to talk to you in a more formal setting.”
I understood what he meant was that he wanted me in a more intimidating setting, even if he was trying to act nice about it now. “Would you take a report about the graffiti first?” I asked.
“How about if you get into the back seat of my car before you keel over from shock, and I’ll snap some pictures. I’ll take your statement while we’re at the station.”
I knew the reason he wanted me in his car: I’d be locked in the back seat, where he wouldn’t have to worry about me running away. I wanted to protest, but I wasn’t feeling too strong and could use a long moment to sit down. Could things get any worse? “I need to lock both the restaurant and my place upstairs. I only popped down here for a second.”
The detective must not have thought I was much of a threat, despite the fact that he saw me as a murder suspect, because he didn’t cuff me or anything. He followed me back into the building, locking everything behind him as we retraced my earlier steps.
I snatched up the notebook with my to-do list as we walked through. The walls looked beautiful with the new coat of paint, though the ceiling and trim hadn’t been done yet. I wondered what it would cost to replace the tables and chairs with something a little less dated and made a mental note to check restaurant auctions.
My mind should have been on the upcoming horrors of the interrogation room, the possibility of being locked up forever, but it wasn’t. This made me think I was either in shock, or there was something seriously wrong with me. Maybe the concussion had been worse than the doctor thought.
We finished locking up the building and Detective Tingey took me to his car, opening the door for me. I was grateful he didn’t handcuff me, but I still felt trapped in the back seat between two locked doors and a metal grate separating me from the front. I leaned my head against the
seat, still tired from the previous night’s multiple interruptions, which left me groggy. Bronson had taken his job a little too seriously.
The detective seemed to dawdle over snapping pictures, studying the sidewalk for any evidence and disappearing around the side of the building for a while. He returned empty handed—or at least it looked that way.
“Any clues?” I asked when he sat behind the wheel.
“Nothing useful, but it could be tied to the murder investigation. I’ll have someone check into it.” He started the car and pulled onto the road.
“Great.” I settled into the seat and paid attention to how we got to the police station. If I ever needed to come here when I wasn’t a suspect, I wanted to know where it was.
In the interrogation room, we started with my movements of the previous evening, prior to the attack, then continued through bedtime and this morning when he found me studying the new artwork.
“Are you sure you didn’t hear anything?” he asked, a pen scratching at his notepad.
“Nothing. I use a white-noise machine to drown out traffic, so they would’ve had to be really loud to wake me.”
“All right, we’ll see if anything turns up. Now, I want you to go back to Friday night and tell me what you remember from the moment you arrived at the hotel until the next morning when police got there.”
He took me through that scenario twice, despite the fact that he had already grilled me on Saturday and had my three-page written statement. I thought about my near-run-in with Jeff. “As I was leaving Friday night after I set everything up, Jeff and I almost collided in the doorway. I moved out of the way and bumped the pedestal with the vase of flowers. I remember I dropped my box and grabbed the vase, managing to catch it before it fell. Jeff apologized, we introduced ourselves and he let me pass him.”
The detective wrote something in his notebook. He looked up at me without tipping his head up. “You didn’t have plastic gloves on when you’d been working with food?”
Brownies & Betrayal (Sweet Bites Mysteries, Book 1) Page 11