by Lisa Aurello
“No, I meant, poor guy if he’s innocent, of course. I mean, he seemed like such a nice person when I spoke with him the other day.”
Fitzgibbons snorted. “People say that about almost every piece-of-shit murderer—not that I’m saying Mr. Caldwell is one. But for every convicted killer, there’s always someone to swear he was a helluva guy.”
He turned toward Jane and said, “Ms. Jensen, thank you for your time. As I asked before, please get in touch with us should you remember anything else that might be pertinent.”
“Sure. Um… was she killed in her house? I mean, if she was, it would make me feel uncomfortable staying here.”
Kelvin took this one. “No, she was gunned down on her way home from work, at the train station parking lot. She drove her car to the station and took Metro-North into Manhattan.
As soon as the detectives walked out the door, Mel turned to Jane. “How fucking creepy is that? You might have a murderer living next door to you, Jane. God.”
“It’s just supposition at this point. They haven’t arrested him for it, so it must mean they have no evidence.”
“Yeah, well, it’s still creepy. And I’m wondering if I’ve met that detective before. He looked so familiar.”
“Is that why he kept staring at you?”
Mel’s head whipped over to look at her friend. “No, he was staring because he probably couldn’t quite believe that anyone could be so gorgeous.” She paused, giving Jane a chance to laugh at her joke.
“I didn’t like him much. He kept shooting me these looks, as if he didn’t believe a word that came out of my mouth. He was… ornery.”
“An ornery cop? Stop, there’s no such thing. So,” Mel said, breaking off a corner of the brownie Jane gave her and popping it into her mouth, “I wonder what Mason does for a living?”
Jane shook her head “No idea. Why don’t you ask Officer Fitzgibbons?” She couldn’t help the smirk on her face. Mel saw it.
“Wipe that smirk off your face. There’s nothing there… yet. If I have anything to say about it, though, I’ll have him in bed before the month is out. He’s got a great build, don’t you think?”
“I guess.” Jane’s fingers worried a small tear in the fabric of her frayed yoga pants. Cops made her nervous. Maybe she was a lawbreaker?”
“I bet he has a big dick too.”
“Mel, for God’s sake, did you have to put that image in my head?”
She wore a wicked grin. “What’s wrong with having that image? He’s hot.”
Hard knocks at the door startled them. “Yes?” Jane called out.
A muffled voice barely penetrated the heavy wood door. “Detective Fitzgibbons again.”
As Jane cackled, a red-faced Mel jumped to her feet to open it, swinging it wide for the quarterback cop. “Yes, Detective? Did you forget something?”
“Yeah,” he replied, staring at her chest. Mel had pulled off her sweater and had on only a slinky camisole underneath. She had fairly big breasts for a slim girl as Fitzgibbons was now learning. “Uh, just wanted to let you ladies know,” he hauled his eyes back up to her face as he quickly continued, “not to divulge anything we said about this case.”
“Of course not.” She looked over her shoulder. “Jane, you know not to do that, right?”
Jane nodded, mustering a token grin in the presence of the cop. “As long as you’re here, Detective Fitzgibbons. We were wondering what Mason Caldwell does for a living. Can you tell us?”
“He runs a commercial real estate firm. He and his partner redevelop blighted properties. They do nice work actually.”
“Ohhhh. Sounds like a good thing. Environmentally friendly. Don’t have to rip out more trees, right?”
Fitzgibbons rolled his eyes at Mel. “Oh boy. One of those, huh? Good day, ladies.” He tipped an imaginary hat and took his leave. Mel turned around and bestowed upon Jane the most mischievous smile.
She definitely liked that cop.
Chapter 14
Jane stared down at the nonstick pan, watching the eggs fry, the whites turning crisp and brown at the edges while the center around the yolk bubbled and cratered. After a moment of staring intently the eggs disappeared, and she was instead seeing chocolate. Bubbling, boiling chocolate in a huge cauldron-like pot at a different stove, a big commercial stainless range, and she was laughing… with someone. Someone else was with her and they were laughing. Someone with a deep voice.
A man. But she couldn’t see his face. Could it be the man at the hospital? Ed Jensen? Was he her boyfriend?
It couldn’t be. If she had someone, he’d have come forward by now, reminded her of his place in her life. No one had. Maybe Ed Jensen was just someone who’d seen the accident and was concerned about a stranger?
But she’d been taking birth control pills. She found them partially taken and saw the reminders on her calendar. Why? Jane could find out easily enough—she’d schedule an appointment with her gynecologist and ask her the reason for the BC. It could be medical.
But often she had this odd sense of missing someone… or perhaps something. She chalked it up to having huge tracts of her life missing… but maybe it was more specific than that. The not knowing was beyond frustrating.
Her solution to the lonely feelings was that she should get a dog. The more she thought of it, the more she liked the idea. After breakfast, she’d do some research on what kind of dog to adopt.
Mel had gone home for the weekend and wouldn’t be back until Tuesday morning so Jane had to amuse herself for the next three days. She thought maybe she’d look into buying some furniture for her new house. Living like a college student waiting for the financial aid check to come was getting old.
She took a bite of the eggs with a piece of buttered toast. What was all that chocolate for, she pondered?
Fudge, came the answer, sliding right into her head as if someone simply answered her question.
Fudge? She knew how to make candy?
“Who was making the candy with me?” she asked aloud, thinking maybe the answer would come just as easily as before.
It didn’t, but this time she got a flash of a beautiful smile, with straight white teeth and a dimple on one side. No matter how much she concentrated, she couldn’t get anything else. Pushing away the half-eaten breakfast, she folded her arms on the table and slumped her head on top, closing her eyes. She was tired of the disjointed images coming at her in both sleep and consciousness. Trying to make coherent sense of them was taxing all her strength.
Upstairs she grabbed a pair of jeans and a shirt out of the closet. When she pulled on the jeans, she laughed. They were way too big on her. She tried cinching them with a belt but it looked ridiculous. Chewing her lip as she gazed into the mirror, she tried to think of what else to wear.
Mel had promised her they’d be going shopping soon to buy Jane a new wardrobe. Meantime, she’d have to stick to yoga pants with a drawstring and T-shirts. She found the black pair that fit her best, threw on a light pink T-shirt and a thick gray cardigan on top of that, slipped on her Mary Jane ballet flats and went out. She just had to get out of the house for a little while. As she walked, she once again tried to figure out what those memories that came back to her last night were all about. The one today about the chocolate was just too fragmented. It was just a snippet.
The earlier one had to have something to do with the car accident since there was an ambulance—of that she was positive. What else? That blond girl. Who was she? Jane thought she might be someone from high school—her face looked so familiar. Just as that thought made its way across her brain, the name Kendra flashed in front of her eyes.
Kendra? Kendra.
Kendra Ortalano. One of the girls who made Jane’s life a living hell in high school and who Jane loathed with every molecule of her being. Why the hell was Jane remembering her above all others and why was she figuring so prominently in her memories?
Jane hadn’t seen Kendra probably since high school graduation. That
was seven years now. It was bizarre that her hated face would pop up into Jane’s mind now, when she was instead searching for good memories that would help her regain her equilibrium. That horrible bitch. Why, though, was she near the ambulance? There were a lot of other kids around too. It couldn’t be the car accident.
Jane scoured her mind for any high school memory where someone got hurt enough for an ambulance to be called, but she couldn’t find any. Then again, she barely remembered high school.
After buying a couple of novels at the independent bookstore, Jane headed to Whole Foods to pick up some groceries and stopped in the liquor store to stock up on wine for Mel. Because she couldn’t yet carry anything without hurting her ribs, she took them out in a cart until she found a cab outside the market. As she got into the car, she felt a moment of panic seize her but it passed quickly. Odd that she didn’t feel any fear when Mel drove her home from the hospital. In fact, Jane had started thinking right then that she should look into buying another car.
Chapter 15
“How long you know Jane Jensen?”
Mel had been sitting outside a coffee bar having a text argument with her sister when who of all people should stroll up to her but the hot detective. Fitzgibbons. How the hell did he know how to find her?
He laughed at her no-doubt-confused expression and repeated his question.
“Um, about two years. Maybe a little longer. How did you find me?”
“I’m a detective, remember. I’m on my lunch break. Wanna join me? My treat.”
“Aw, that’s so nice of you.” She looked at her watch. “As it happens I’m on my lunch break too. We’ll go local, right?”
“Nah, we’ll fly to Paris for some snails.”
Melanie tried really hard not to roll her eyes. Why did he have to say such stupid things? He was handsome and had a totally hot bod, but she wasn’t sure she could tolerate his cop-sarcasm and dumbass remarks.
“C’mon,” he said more meekly now. “I know a good pizza place two blocks from here. You’ll love it.”
“If it’s pizza and it’s within a mile radius of me, it’s pretty much guaranteed I’ve eaten there at least ten times.”
“Aha. So you like pizza?
“What the hell? Do I look like a freak to you? Of course, I do. Does that elevate your opinion of me?”
He tossed his head back as he laughed. “Matter of fact, it does. I could never like anyone who didn’t like pizza. It’s downright un-American.”
“All right. Take me to this paragon of pizza parlors. I happen to be starving.”
“Let’s go.”
As they walked, side by side when the crowded sidewalk allowed it and her in front when it didn’t, Melanie considered the situation. After a moment, she had to ask, “Are you hoping for some inside dirt on Jane and her neighbors from me? Is that why you’re here?”
Detective Fitzgibbons’s eyes dropped to his scuffed black boots as he strode alongside of her. “If you have any information you think might help my case, I’d certainly welcome it. But no. I’m here because I happened to be in the area and knew from my investigation that you worked around here. I was planning on going up to MT’s floors to find you but then there you were, on the bench outside in the plaza.”
“Yeah, my sister was thoroughly pissing me off. Text fights are mad frustrating ‘cause you’re typing so fast you don’t notice the autocorrects till it’s too late. You end up sending an incomprehensible message.”
They reached the pizza place and he opened the door, holding it wide so she could step in first. “Do you and your sister often argue by text?”
“My sister and I argue by any means available. Why?”
He gave her a lopsided grin. “I just think it’s funny is all. Angry typing.”
“Yeah, well, if you knew my sister you’d lose all your good humor. She is one toxic female.”
“Speaking of which, that takes me back to my original question: you said you know Jane about two years?”
“Are you calling Jane poisonous?”
“Maybe,” he said lightly. “At this point, I’m not sure about anything except that a young woman with everything to live for is dead, murdered way before her time.”
“When is the right time to get murdered then?” Mel quipped.
The man behind the counter heard what she said and took stock of them. “What can I get for you folks?”
Fitzgibbons looked at Mel, his expression so serious it was comical. Apparently, he didn’t take good pizza lightly. “I recommend the plain and the Sicilian. Put too much on top of pizza and it spoils it, in my opinion.
Mel nodded, trying not to laugh at him. “I’ll take a plain slice.”
“Yeah, we’ll take two regular slices and one Sicilian, please.” He turned to Mel. “What would you like to drink?”
“Water. Thank you.”
He wouldn’t let her pay. “My treat, no strings attached to this pizza, except those made of mozzarella.”
Mel laughed. Fitzgibbons was sort of fun, in addition to being smoky hot sexiness on two rubber-soled boots. But a cop?
Once they sat across from each other Mel gave him a long look. “So… to what do I owe this visit?”
“I like you, Melanie. And I’m worried about you.”
“Worried?”
“Yeah.”
“About?”
He just looked at her with a stony expression.
“Worried that my boss is overworking me? That I’m nearing thirty without a marriage prospect in sight? That I drink too much alcohol? Care to elaborate, Detective?”
“Worried that your friend is dangerous.” He sighed. “Look, I just don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
Mel quickly chewed a bite of pizza. It was so lava-hot she’d shredded the roof of her mouth with the first taste, but she wasn’t about to let third-degree burns stop her from eating it; employing a mammoth effort, she put it down for a minute to cool off. “…Tell me why you think Jane is toxic?”
Rob took a huge bite of his pizza and continued to chew as his narrowed eyes watched her. She waited patiently as he swallowed. “It’s not that I’ve made up my mind that she is… I’m just not sure yet what’s what.” He put his pizza down and placed both of his hands flat on the table. “Let’s look at the facts.
“Mason Caldwell’s wife is gunned down by a professional hit man. It was clean, quick, and unseen. What do we have? OK, we have a spouse who may or may not have sociopathic tendencies. Caldwell is a friendly enough guy but judging from surface appearances he seems to be vain, self-centered, and a little shallow. I can’t call him a murderer—not yet—but he’s not the sincerest widowed husband I’ve ever met.”
“He’s also a young guy and no doubt used to getting things easily,” Mel interjected before he could continue.
“Maybe. Now, next door we have a woman who went to high school with Caldwell. By her own admission, she mooned over him, but he never noticed her. Then with an entire big city to choose from, she just happens to move next door to him and—”
“Wait,” she interrupted. “He moved next door to her. Remember?”
Fitzgibbons picked up his napkin and wiped grease from his hand. “Possibly, though the Caldwells went into contract before Jane Jensen did. They merely asked for a later closing date.”
So… Jane hurried up and bought the house next door and then rushed into contract? Seemed farfetched.
If the detective noticed her skeptical expression, he didn’t show it as he continued to lay out his case. “From all accounts so far—and we’ve interviewed a few people who knew both of them in high school—Jane was sort of a stalker when it came to Mason Caldwell. Everyone we talked to—admittedly not a high number—remembered her following him around like a lost puppy. She didn’t hide her obsession much. As for Caldwell, he barely recalled that Jane Jensen went to the same school as he did.”
Mel hiked her shoulders, feeling a chill pass through her. “So what? She had a c
rush on a hot guy in high school who didn’t know she existed. There are a lot of people in the world who could say the same—doesn’t make them murderers. Not everyone could be popular in high school, you know. All a boy has to do is be athletic and he’s in.” Her hand sailed through the air.
Fitzgibbons smirked and hiked his left eyebrow. “Is that so? Well, guess I was in since I was a quarterback.”
She sniffed and picked at the burnt edge of cheese on her slice. “Not surprised. What’s your point?”
Laughing, he shook his head. “No point. Anyway, the thing is—I don’t know yet who contracted the hit, Melanie. But I can’t rule out your friend yet. I will say, though, that she has to get in line, one that’s becoming longer by the day.”
“Why are you telling me all of this? Isn’t it against the closed-rank cop handbook?”
Fitzgibbons chuckled. “Yeah, as I said before… it’s not the brightest thing I’ve ever done. But I like you for some reason—”
“Smooth. You like me and you want to trash my friend in my presence?”
“Just giving you a warning, that’s all. I wanna make sure you’re not in any danger.”
“Danger from Jane? Come on.”
“Don’t repeat anything I’m telling you.”
“I won’t tell a soul, not even my dog. Cross my shriveled-up black heart.”
He shook his head, suppressing a grin. “What kind of dog do you have?”
“I don’t actually have one. But my parents do, so he’s still sort of mine. He’s a Bernese mountain dog. Pierre. I love him madly. So… go on.”
He’d just taken a big bite and now he used the small rectangular paper napkin to pat the oil shine from his lips. “Turns out,” he begins with his mouth full, and then finishes chewing and swallows, “there may have been trouble in the Caldwell marriage but that’s all I’m saying. I’ve gotta be crazy to be telling you even this much,” he said under his breath.
Mel gasped quietly. The Caldwells were basically still newlyweds and besides, Mason was super hot and his wife was beautiful. Why would they stray? If that’s what he meant. “I’m actually shocked. So the range of suspects expands?”