“Sure. Be right back.” She eyed Monica before standing and leaving us.
I studied Monica, who’d raised her eyebrows. “Do you have something to say?”
She fingered her gold serpentine necklace. “Me?”
Good grief. I looked at Bernie. “I don’t see anyone else here. Yes, you.”
She gazed in the direction Sylvia had gone. “Uh, no. Nothing.” Monica peered at Bernie. “Did Dr. Moore’s wife die?”
Bernie cleared his throat. “Not that we’re aware. If you know something that might be useful in our investigation, I suggest that you tell us, Ms. Stewart.”
She batted her eyes. “Call me Monica.” Her gaze slid toward Sylvia’s office again. She turned to Bernie. “I don’t think—”
“Here you go, Detectives. My receipts.” Sylvia strolled into the room and handed me the receipts as she narrowed her eyes at Monica.
Hunh. A warning? I noted the times on the receipts coincided with what she’d told us.
Monica looked away and busied herself on the computer. We wouldn’t get anything else out of her with Sylvia there, if ever. She appeared frightened and nervous. Of what? Or whom? Sylvia definitely played a role.
“Thank you, Mrs. Frakes. We’ll be in touch.” I handed her and Monica business cards and took one from Monica’s card holder on her desk. Bernie and I took off. I planned to call Monica after business hours.
I noticed Sylvia never asked who had died at the Moores’ house.
Chapter Three
Bernie opened the driver’s side door and found his cell phone on the seat. Maybe he’d sat on it after it slid out of his pocket. The rain had stopped, but the air felt heavy and warm.
“All right. What were you saying before we got to Frakes?” I asked.
“I wasn’t saying anything. I seem to recall you doing all of the talking.”
“Why won’t you do an online ad when you were one of the reasons I tried it? I don’t get it.”
“Nothing to get. Forget I said anything.” He sighed, cranked up the air conditioning, and started the car.
“Don’t give me that shit. Talk.” I turned to stare at him as I adjusted my seatbelt shoulder strap.
He mumbled something, looked out the window, then rolled away from the curb.
“What? Speak up.”
“Khrystal’s pregnant.” As if on cue, lightning lit the sky, and it poured. Bernie ramped up the wipers.
“Huh?”
“You heard me. Khrystal’s pregnant.”
“Since when? And the baby’s yours?” Of course it was. Why did I have to ask?
He frowned and skimmed a hand over his hair. He’d just had his hair cut to less than an inch long. A few short strands of gray I hadn’t noticed before were sprinkled through his dark hair around the temples. “She says it’s mine. She just told me she was pregnant when we split up.” He gazed at me, frowning. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“No.” I stared out the window, confused. I was a little hurt that my friend hadn’t told me she was pregnant with my partner’s child. Well, all right, I hadn’t spent much time with her since the two of them got together. Then, there’d been work and everything. But, still…
“She called me a couple of days ago. Dropped the bomb.”
I scoffed. “Seriously? You’re going there?” I shook my head.
“Syd, you know that I wasn’t ready for this.”
“Then, you should’ve kept it in your pants.” I couldn’t believe it. What the hell?
“I’ll deal with it.”
“How?”
“Is this any of your business?”
“I guess not.” I went back to looking out the window. “No. Hold it!” I spun around in my seat. “You can ask me about my love life, but yours is off-limits?”
“Okay. Listen.” He sighed. “We’re talking about trying again,” he said.
“A baby is not a reason to get back together with someone. You guys need to figure out why you broke up and work that out before your bouncing bundle of joy arrives.”
“And suddenly, you’re a relationship expert? Anyway, I wasn’t ready before.”
“And now you are? What changed?” His alcohol consumption had. That’s for sure.
“I miss her,” Bernie said. “She’s moving back in with me tomorrow.”
“Doesn’t answer the question. At all, actually.”
“I think I’m ready. I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want another man raising my child.”
“You do realize children aren’t property, right? You never know, another man might be a good father.”
“My child doesn’t need a good father. He or she would have me.” He laughed. “That didn’t come out right.”
“I knew what you meant. Anyway, I hope you’ll both be happy. Together or apart. Doesn’t matter. Mostly, I want you to be focused while you’re on the job.”
“I always am.”
“Yeah. Until you’re not.”
“Where’s this coming from?”
“Are you forgetting you were unconscious when you were hit over the head during the CPS case not that long ago? You were out cold for a couple of days.”
He grinned. “So, you’re worried about me, huh?”
“No, dumbass. I’m worried about me.” I glanced his way. “Distractions get cops killed.”
“I agree. I never let anything distract me before. Why start now?” With that, he pulled into the station parking lot.
I went to my desk and checked Missing Persons for anyone matching the description of Jane Doe. I came up empty. I’d been notified that the canvassing of the Moores’ neighborhood had produced no results. I checked the database on the Moores, Monica Stewart, and Sylvia Frakes. Nobody had a criminal history. I headed home next.
Later that evening, I sat on a barstool at the island in Brad’s kitchen. I hadn’t been there since he’d finished the renovations. I scanned the room. He’d removed the laminate countertops and installed granite in a milk-chocolate brown, cream, and black. The color combination gave the kitchen a luxurious feel. The glass backsplash coordinated in clear, cream, and a lighter brown, which reminded me of steaming-hot tea with lots of milk added. He’d ripped out the original tile floor, which was cracked and had grimy grout, and installed gleaming oak hardwood floors throughout the house. The man had skills.
I nodded, impressed. “I can’t believe you did all of this.”
“Why not? It’s how I make my living.”
“How did you get into flipping houses? You never said.” I picked up the camera lying on the island and looked through the viewfinder at him. His usually trim golden-blond hair had grown longer, and the ends were curly.
“Do you remember I told you how I was burned out from the corporate world? With engineering, in general?”
I took his picture and nodded. “I think what you actually said was your job was killing you.”
“I guess that was a bit dramatic.” He laughed. “And I like working with my hands. I figured why not make money doing something I loved? I left my job after I’d saved up enough money to support myself for a year.”
I took a couple more pictures then tried to figure out how to view them. “And you’ve been doing it for two years, right?” I flipped the screen to the side and scrolled through the pictures. Not bad. Maybe I’d found a new career.
“Two and a half on my own, but some of that time was while I was still working my job. My parents have been doing it for a lot longer, and I used to help them. They were flipping houses way before all of those TV shows became popular.”
“How many houses have you flipped?” I watched him slice tomatoes as he talked, wondering how he managed to keep all of his fingers. Surely, I would’ve noticed if any were missing. I counted—to make sure.
“I’ve flipped nine on my own. The first one took the longest because I contracted out too much of the work and ran into problems. Live and learn. You know?”
I continued to view photos as
he spoke, and I’d passed the ones I took and had reached some of his. They contained pictures of houses: interiors, outside landscaping, and pools. Some were obviously before-and-after shots. The transformations were amazing. “Are these the houses you flipped?”
“They are. When I finish the reno, I take pictures and post them online so that potential buyers can see the house.”
My stomach rumbled, and he glanced at me.
“Hungry?”
“You heard that?”
“It’ll be ready soon. Have patience. Your master chef is at work here.” He flipped a knife in the air, and it landed, tip down, on the butcher-block cutting board.
That got a laugh out of me. I’d fallen off the wagon of semi-meatless eating and planned to have one of Brad’s self-proclaimed world-famous turkey tacos as soon as he finished making them. The knife he was using on the lettuce, tomatoes, and other veggies for the tacos and salad looked as if it could slide through someone’s throat easily. Always a cop.
I thought about the body in the hot tub.
What the hell happened there? Who was she? We would have to wait until Dr. Lee, the ME, and her team provided more information. We didn’t even have the person’s age yet, but my guess ranged from twenty to thirty.
I’d received a call from Dr. Moore’s wife, Joan, before the end of my shift. She, or someone using her ID and ticket, had boarded a plane to Phoenix that morning. We ran the couple’s DMV reports and checked their IDs, and Joan Moore was a tall woman—much taller than her husband. Of course, she could’ve lied about her height on her driver’s license. Not likely. Women usually reduced their weight when asked to report it on anything. They would lie about their age, as well, if they could. Men typically increased their height. I laughed as I envisioned the Moores standing side by side. Bowling ball and pin.
“What’s so funny?” Brad smiled as he looked up from his slicing and dicing of tomatoes.
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking about someone I met on a case earlier.” I shrugged, nearly ready to jump over the counter and grab a tomato. “How much longer?” How many veggies did two people need for one meal? Was he planning to feed an army?
“In a few. You know if you’d help it could be done sooner.” He raised his eyebrows, grinned, and held the knife handle out to me. After rolling two tomatoes across the island toward me, he set a bowl close by.
I put down the camera, hopped off the barstool, and went to work, hoping I didn’t chop off a finger with his chef-quality knife. Focus. I didn’t want to end up in the ER, bleeding and starving. Can’t have that. My cell phone buzzed as it danced on the counter. I glanced at Brad then the display. Bernie.
I propped the phone between my ear and shoulder. “Yeah?” I continued chopping, but the phone’s small size made it difficult to hold there, and it slid into the bowl of chopped tomatoes. I shrugged, grabbed the phone, and handed the knife to Brad. “Sorry.” I wiped the phone with a napkin then put it to my ear. “I’m back.”
“Syd, I heard from the ME. Our Jane Doe had skin and blood under the nails of her right hand. It’s with forensics now.”
I glanced at Brad, who looked down while slicing… and listening, but was pretending he wasn’t. I waved a hand in front of his face and mouthed, “Be right back.”
He nodded, grim-faced and possibly thinking another date would end because of my job. He could be right.
I pulled open the patio door, hurried outside, and went around the corner. “Did you just say there might be some DNA evidence?” I whispered.
“Yep. And she said the girl’s approximate age was eighteen through early twenties.”
“Was there any other evidence found on her body?” The call waiting on my phone beeped.
“No, but she’ll get back to us. It could be a few days. She’s got some high-priority cases to get to first.”
“Maybe more political than high-priority.” I roamed through Brad’s backyard. He’d done a lot of work back there. When did he find the time? “Anything else? Fingerprints?” My phone beeped again.
“Nope. Not yet. I checked Missing Persons, and nobody matching her description has been reported missing in the last six months.”
“Yeah, I checked, too. Same results. Anything else?”
“Nope. Later, Syd.”
We ended our call, and I connected to my sister, MacKenzie. “Hi, Mac.”
“Syd, where are you?”
“At Brad’s. What’s up?”
“We need a babysitter for Josh for this weekend.” Mac sounded out of breath, and I heard zipper sounds. Already packing before she asked me? “Mike and I are going to Vegas for our anniversary.”
“Sure. What time should I be there?” I hadn’t introduced Brad to my family yet. It wouldn’t happen before the weekend, either. I didn’t know what I was waiting for, though.
“We want to leave late Friday evening, after Josh goes to bed. We figured traffic would be lighter by then. We’ll be back Sunday afternoon, maybe around two or three.”
“All right. I’ll be there.” We hung up, and I prepared myself to tell Brad. He’d been complaining about us not spending enough time together. I decided to call Monica Stewart’s cell phone before I went back in. No answer, so I left a voicemail, slid my phone in my back pocket, then went back inside.
Brad looked up, with suspicion and a bit of disappointment in his eyes. “You have to go, don’t you?”
I smiled. “Trying to get rid of me?” I made a beeline for a tomato slice. “When do we eat?” I’d decided to postpone telling him about the weekend. I was a coward. Maybe he already had plans, and I wouldn’t have to say anything. When did I get so nervous?
Brad handed me a crystal bowl of veggies and a glass of lemonade. “I wanted to have wine, but figured it was risky if you had to go to work.” He led me into the dimly lit formal dining room. He’d placed a pretty lace tablecloth on the table. A stunning bouquet of pink and yellow roses in a crystal vase sat in the center. Candlelight danced along the walls and made the vase sparkle. Romantic. I shook my head.
“Wow.” I set the bowl and my lemonade on the table. He held my chair then took a seat opposite me. Nice. I looked at all of the prep he’d done and felt guilty about the weekend. I should’ve asked him if he had plans before I’d agreed to babysit. Suddenly, I didn’t want to ruin my chance with Brad.
“Hello, Earth to Sydney.” Brad clinked his fork against his glass. “Where did you go?” He sighed. “Were you thinking about work? The phone call earlier?”
“Nope.” I grinned and felt my face heat up. “Actually, I was thinking about us.”
“What about us?” He leaned forward, smiling like a kid at Christmas.
“Don’t get any ideas, buddy. Not yet.” I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. He needed encouragement and all that—like a puppy to be trained.
“If not that, then what?” He sipped his lemonade, peering at me over the rim.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and Brad groaned. Uh-oh. I slid it out and glanced at the display. Dispatch. I sighed. “I’m so sorry.” As I hurried into the living room, I listened to Dispatch telling me where I needed to go. I pulled my notebook and pen from my purse to jot it all down. I headed for the door, with Brad following. He handed me a bag. When I disconnected, I glanced inside and saw a Tupperware bowl. I stared at it then gazed at him. When had he done that?
He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. What a guy. “Another dead body needs your attention?”
“Yeah. On the other side of town.” I stood on my toes, gave him a quick kiss, and held up the bowl. “Thank you. I’ll cook next time.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “You’ve got a deal.”
With that, I was out the door, on my way to deal with a homicide once again.
Chapter Four
Brad had packed me three soft tacos loaded with turkey, vegetables, cheese, and sour cream. I wolfed down two on the way to the scene. They were outstanding, and I’m sure I moaned as I drove. What ot
her talents did he have? I intended to find out. I arrived at the scene, stepped out of the car, and realized I’d spilled tacos on my shirt. I hopped back in the car and brushed myself off. I didn’t want to leave anything at the scene, contaminating it. Before getting out, I checked the rearview mirror. I had sour cream at the corner of my mouth, in my hair, and on my chin. What a slob! I peeked in the bag Brad had given me. He’d packed napkins, too. How thoughtful.
By the time I’d cleaned myself up, Bernie had arrived. The body lay in the middle of the street. A cemetery was on one side of the street and an open field on the other. The area had been cordoned off by the first uniformed officers on the scene. Official vehicles clogged the area. I left my car at the barricade and walked toward the body. The victim lay facedown, and blood pooled on the pavement beneath him. He was a white male with gray hair. He wore shorts, a T-shirt, and one running shoe. The other shoe was fifty yards away and I’d passed it as I walked from my car. The foot missing a shoe appeared to have been crushed, and his legs were mangled. From what I could see of his face, it looked shredded. It was a bloody mess and the bones of his cheek were visible. One ear was missing.
No ID was found on or near the body. I scanned the area and didn’t see any vehicles, other than those of law enforcement and the coroner. There were no houses or people, other than us, in the area. The street led to an unfinished bridge about a half mile away. According to dispatch, the body had been reported by an anonymous source.
“Looks like a hit and run,” Bernie said. He smelled of booze.
“No kidding.” I slid my notebook out and jotted a few notes on the location, victim’s description, and condition of the body. I walked down the sidewalks on both sides, looking for anything that may have come from the victim or the vehicle that hit him. I didn’t see anything.
We left word for the techs to let us know when they ran his fingerprints. I wondered what was taking so long on the prints for the woman in the hot tub. Surely, not politics. We needed to call Dr. Lee and our techs in the morning about her. In the meantime, there was nothing left for us to do at the scene. Until the guy could be identified, we couldn’t talk to anyone who knew him.
Sydney Valentine Mystery Series: Books 1-3 (Boxed Set) (A Sydney Valentine Mystery) Page 24