by Nancy Bush
“That’s ’cause you know I’m right.”
I gritted my teeth.
He noticed and grinned like a devil.
I held on to my annoyance with an effort. One thing I’ve learned is don’t give in when a man switches from pig-headed to charming. It’s a ploy. As soon as you roll over and forgive, you’re had. I went on the attack instead. “I’ve been giving our relationship some thought and I’ve got some things that need to be addressed.”
“Our relationship? Yours and mine?”
“We’re working together. We don’t quite have a business partnership, but we could. At least that’s what I’m hearing from you. Let me know if I’m wrong.”
“No, that’s about right,” Dwayne said equably.
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he repeated, watching me.
I was gathering my courage. Points needed to be addressed. Clarified. It felt as if the moment had suddenly arrived when I needed plain answers instead of suppositions.
“I need some background on you, Dwayne.”
He lifted a brow. “I thought it was Violet you needed to interview.”
“I’m talking about us now. You and me.”
He spread his palms at my pugnacious tone. “All right.”
“I know your father’s name was Dwayne Durbin and you’re not a junior. Your middle name is different. Austin. You don’t get along with your brother, but you like his son, Del.”
“Stepbrother,” Dwayne corrected.
“You also don’t get along with your stepmother.”
“I’m difficult to get along with,” Dwayne agreed.
“I don’t know where you’re from, but you’ve got that southern twang thing that you trot out when it suits you. Somewhere you got in the P.I. business and ended up in Oregon. You have a sister, Angela, and a niece, Tracy, who live in Seattle. Is she a full sister?”
“Yep.”
“And she’s got a workaholic husband. Tracy’s a handful. Anyway, she was last summer.”
“Still is, I’m sure. She started high school in September.”
“So, that’s it. That’s the whole enchilada. The Dwayne Durbin bio.”
“I wish they served beer here,” Dwayne muttered, shaking the ice in his glass again and frowning.
“Are you trying to be a pain in the ass?”
He thought a moment, but didn’t meet my eyes. “What brought this on?”
“I just need to know.”
“Something to do with job security? Are you trying to buy your cottage? You’re doing a good job, Jane. You’ve been the whole business lately. Eyes, ears, certainly legs.”
“That’s not it!” I sputtered.
“Well, what, then?”
“I just want to know about you. That’s all. How did you end up in Lake Chinook? Let’s start with that. You didn’t grow up in Oregon. So, where did you grow up?”
He rubbed his chin. I was afraid he was going to fob me off some more, but he drew a breath and said, “All over the place. I was an Air Force brat. Product of Captain Dwayne Durbin and Naomi Durbin, deceased. One sibling, Angela. One stepbrother, Cal Riggert. Two stepsisters, Valerie and Patience.” He snorted. “My stepmama is a real piece of work. Evelyn. She sent me to Catholic school in Beaverton to get me away from the family. I’d been in a bit of trouble.”
“Where? What kind of trouble?”
“Outside of Grosbeck, Texas. I was hanging out with some friends. There was a vehicle with the keys in it, engine running. Decided to take it for a drive.”
“You stole a car.”
“A hearse, actually.”
“A hearse,” I repeated. Dwayne smiled faintly. “How old were you when you stole this hearse?”
“Almost fifteen.”
“That would be fourteen.”
“Yes, it would.”
“What happened?”
“The funeral director and the family wanted to prosecute. But I was a minor, and there was no real harm done, so it kind of blew over.”
I squinted at him. “What do you mean? Who wanted to prosecute? What family?”
“There was a body in the hearse. I took it for a ride. Didn’t know it was in there.”
Did I detect amusement? Undoubtedly. “You’re not Catholic,” I pointed out.
“Evelyn didn’t care much about that. She heard of this school and she enrolled me and I went.”
“A boarding school?”
He shook his head. “I lived with my mother’s sister, Aunt Helena. Angela stayed with her part of the time, too. That’s how she ended up in Seattle. My stepmama and the rest of them are still in Texas. Evelyn felt I was a bad influence on her girls. I never went back.”
“So you’ve been here for years.”
“Yup.”
“And you started the agency how long ago?”
“Oh, I don’t know…six years? I worked for a guy, an information specialist, for a few years before that. I had this idea of being in law enforcement, but things happened that interfered.”
“Like stealing a hearse.”
“Yeah. Things like that.” He tossed back some ice and chewed on it. “This is probably a good idea. If we’re in business together, you should know you’ve hooked up with an almost felon.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Wow. I feel dizzy from all the information.”
“I took criminology courses, like you,” he admitted, sliding his glass across the laminate tabletop, smearing the sweat ring into a line of liquid dots.
“What about relationships?” I asked carefully.
“Business relationships?” His eyes smiled, daring me to be truthful.
“The other kind.”
“Tab A and Slot B?”
“Yeah, that kind.”
He turned to look out the window at the still falling, but merely drizzling, rain. I examined his profile, the masculine line of his jaw, the hint of a beard, the intensity of his blue eyes. Classically handsome, Dwayne is not. But he’s lean and rugged, and his slow drawling style works like an aphrodisiac. I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself that I’m immune, that I only find Dwayne attractive after a few drinks. If I tell this lie to myself enough times, I’m sure it will become truth.
The moment was interrupted by my singing cell phone. I checked caller ID. Sharona. Her timing couldn’t have been worse. I hesitated, wondering if I should click her off.
“You’re not answering?” Dwayne asked.
Muttering, I twisted in my chair, giving him my shoulder as I hit the green button to accept the call. This shoulder thing is such a dumb thing. Like he can’t hear me? Like he’s been shut out? But it’s the best I could do in the circumstances. “Hey there,” I answered easily. “We finally connect.”
“Sorry it took me so long to get back to you,” Sharona apologized. “It’s been crazy busy around here.”
“Too many people committing too many crimes?”
“Luckily most of them are property damage. Angry neighbors who smash up fences, slash tires, that kind of stuff. It can get nasty, though.”
I’ve often pictured Sharona, her being a criminal defense attorney, in a courtroom next to a hulking, menacing thug, pleading for leniency after he’d raped, murdered and plundered. The idea that she might represent your basic suburban homeowner with anger issues made me feel better.
“I got a call from Booth the other night,” I said. “I got that he’s undercover on some job that’s taking all his time. He really wanted me to call you and let you know he was deep into it, and that he’d connect with you as soon as he could.”
“He left me the same message on my voice mail,” Sharona said. Was her voice a few shades cooler?
I could feel Dwayne’s gaze on me but I just hunched my shoulder more. “He didn’t tell me where he was or what he was doing. I got the feeling he couldn’t.”
“He can’t say anything right now. This new…path he’s taken.” She snorted. “Booth just up and decided to further his career. Didn
’t ask me what I thought. He thinks it’s a shorter route to making detective. Maybe it is. That’s why he’s signed up for hazardous duty. Drugs, gangs, assault weapons, teen murderers. It’s loads of fun.”
“I detect a healthy layer of sarcasm.”
“Jane, I appreciate that you’re trying to help Booth. And it probably speaks well that he involved you at all. Means he’s really worried. But he can’t ask me to put my life on hold just because he’s got to play Serpico. And just for the record, he’s enjoying this far more than he should.”
“It’s hard to fault him for trying to get ahead,” I said, feeling out of my depth.
“I’m not faulting him. But I don’t feel good about it, either.” She sounded tense. “He made a choice, and I appreciate that, but for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Things aren’t the same between us, and they won’t ever be again. They’ll be different. Maybe someday they’ll even be better. But not now.”
“Okay.” I felt chastised.
“He calls when he can. I’m just letting the voice mail pick up. I don’t want to talk to him. Not now.”
I sensed she was afraid and understood that most of her anger stemmed from that. “If he calls me again, I’ll tell him that’s why you can’t talk to him.”
“Tell him whatever you like. Sorry, Jane. I’ve got to go.” She hesitated. “I love your brother. You know that. But this is too hard.”
“Too hard?”
“I can’t think about this now.”
I heard someone speaking to her in a low voice. A male voice. She said to me, “I’ll talk to you later.” And she was gone.
“Well?” Dwayne asked.
“They’ve moved up the wedding date a few months.”
“Liar.”
“Fine. You were right. Things are not okay between them.” It felt like a weight on my chest. I hadn’t realized how much I was counting on Booth having a so-called normal life: wife, kids, picket fence. Now it felt like a personal hit.
My phone rang again, saving me from further explanation. It was Gigi. “Jane Kelly,” I answered perfunctorily.
“You wanted something?” she said without enthusiasm.
“Yeah, I just wanted to clarifiy. Your pictures were scheduled for two p.m. Did you post that information on a wedding Web site? Or anywhere on the Internet?”
“We just told the people when to be there. Why?”
I couldn’t see how it would do any harm to tell her the truth. “The Wedding Bandits arrived at your father’s house earlier than was their usual m.o. It seems like they already knew Roland would be gone before two.”
“Everybody thought the wedding was at two,” Gigi declared, “because of the stupid paper. I had a hell of a time reminding them to look at the invitation. It was at four, not two!”
“The paper?”
“The Lake Chinook Review. They screwed up. Had the time listed as two, not four. Morons.”
“So, the Review listed it wrong,” I said for Dwayne’s benefit. “Thanks.”
“That all you wanted?”
“For now.” I clicked off.
Dwayne looked thoughtful. “The Wedding Bandits got the time from the Review and thought the wedding was at two.”
“That kind of blows Larrabee’s theory about an insider getting information.”
“They still had to get the home addresses,” Dwayne pointed out. “You sure Gigi didn’t post on the Internet?”
“She says not.”
Dwayne shook his head. “Somehow they’re getting the addresses. Maybe following principal players home from work. Let’s say they followed Roland. They thought the wedding was at two. They showed up about one-thirty, maybe. Roland was already injured from Violet, maybe from the fatal blow, too. He was probably dead or dying, so the Wedding Bandits ran away.”
“Someone came between noon, when Violet left, and one-thirty to two, when the Wedding Bandits showed,” I said.
“They hit him with Violet’s tray, mortally wounding him.”
“There were no other fingerprints on the tray. So whoever hit him wore gloves, or used a cloth—say, a towel—some form of cover.”
“That implies forethought,” Dwayne pointed out.
“Which means someone meant to kill him,” I conceded. “Went to his house specifically with that in mind.”
“Why not bring a weapon, then? If I were going to kill someone, I’d sure as hell bring the means with me.”
“Me, too,” I admitted. “And what’s the motive?”
“Money. Revenge. Jealousy. If we take Violet and the Wedding Bandits out, the field’s wide open.”
“I’ll put in another call to her,” I said, reaching for my phone.
“Let’s widen the circle. Find out who was having problems with Roland, who the heirs are.”
“Gigi and Sean are the heirs,” I said automatically.
“Who’s the estate lawyer?”
“God help me. Please don’t let it be Jerome Neusmeyer,” I said with feeling. I’d had more than my share of run-ins with that particular lecherous attorney over the past few months.
Dwayne smiled. He knows all the lurid details about my dealings with Neusmeyer. “I don’t think you could be that unlucky.”
“Yeah? Watch me.”
“I’ll shoot Larrabee another text. See if I can get him to open up a bit, save us some time. He’s busy, but to hell with that. He can call back.”
“Quid pro quo?”
Dwayne threw some bills down on the table. “Yeah, he’s big on that. Might ask you on a date as payment.”
“Funny.” Dwayne smiled like he had me, so I said, “Well, okay, but I don’t have sex until a second date. And I want dinner.”
“Heavy petting?”
“Depends on how good dinner is.”
“Taco Bell?”
I pretended to think that over. “Maybe we won’t have to wait for that second date.”
“I love that you have standards,” Dwayne drawled.
The word I heard was “love.” I could feel my attention screech to a halt in the direction it had been traveling and center on Dwayne. Rather than get myself in trouble, I pretended to ignore the direction the conversation had taken and started digging through my purse, mainly as a distraction.
“Looking for your rule book?” he asked.
“Rule book?”
He gave me that lazy smile that I find alternately interesting and infuriating. It took me a moment to recall that I’d proclaimed I could never have sex with someone named Dwayne. That it was written specifically in my rule book: no Dwaynes. This was at the height of our new awareness of each other, just before Violet’s campaign to win him changed everything.
“I keep my rule book in a safe place,” I told him.
“I think I’m going to find it.”
“You never will.”
He just looked at me in a way that caused my blood to surge through my veins. I could feel my face flush, which nearly sent me around the bend. “Bastard,” I muttered with feeling.
Dwayne laughed. By sheer willpower I didn’t kick his shin beneath the table.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I heard the now familiar ring that denoted an incoming text message as I emptied my overnight bag onto my red quilted bedspread and started separating the clean clothes from the dirty ones. My cell also lay on my double bed. I snatched it up and read:
meet us tonite dawn
I made an impatient sound in my throat. Wouldn’t you know? Now that Dwayne wasn’t pressing as hard, Dawn was after me.
Did I want to go? Glancing out my bedroom window, I saw the rain still drizzling, but it was more like a mist. A definite improvement. I didn’t know what I wanted to accomplish at Do Not Enter, but I couldn’t completely back away. I texted Dawn back:
okay will see you after game ronnie
This took me some time to compose and send, and then she wrote right back:
tonite!! d
Hmmm…
two exclamation points.
I walked into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, turning my head from side to side, examining my face. A teenager I was not. I couldn’t even text-message with alacrity.
Once more I scrounged around for my Lake Chinook sweatshirt, which I’d wadded into a ball and thrown in the back of my closet after my escapades with the canoe. Now I pulled it out, gave it a good, long sniff, coughed a little at the mildewy odor, then ran it through the washer.
Binkster watched me go through my laundry routine from her favorite spot on the couch. While I worked I looked over occasionally and made smoochy noises. She invariably curled up her tail and wagged at me, even if she didn’t lift her head from the cushions. A few months back, right after she was foisted on me, I spent an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to get rid of her. Now it would kill me to lose her.
The cell phone rang as I was leaning on my refrigerator door, wondering if it was safe to eat the hamburger I’d purchased, now nearly a week past its pull date. Aren’t those dates just a guide rather than a warning? Like it’s okay, just not as fresh as it could be? The idea of tossing out the meat was an anathema. Yet…there was definitely some off-color there. I suspected if I pulled off the shrink-wrap there might be some off-odors as well.
Not that I was hungry. It had only been a couple of hours since Mook’s. Well, okay, I was sorta hungry.
I glanced hopefully at caller ID. Not Violet. Cynthia. “What’s up?” I greeted her, regretfully dropping the pack of hamburger into my trash bin. Why don’t I know myself better? If it isn’t frozen, microwavable and/or packed with preservatives, it’s just not going to work.
Cynthia asked, “What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“Nothing. Hopefully.” Twice now I’d been quizzed on this. As I said, I’m not good with holidays. For reasons probably buried deep in my psyche, my first reaction to affairs with lots of people, many of them relatives, is a desire to plead sickness or insanity, whatever works, to keep myself from facing some excruciating mealtime where everyone makes small talk and wishes they were anywhere else.
“I want you to have Thanksgiving dinner with me,” Cynthia said.