Resting a hand on her baby bump, she crinkled her brow. “He looks pretty big.”
Eddie came up behind her with a bucket of ice from the kitchen. “Am I being replaced?”
“Not yet.” Rox pointed at the image on my phone. “And not with something that drools.”
“He doesn’t drool.” Much, anyway.
“What the heck is that?” Eddie asked, emptying the ice into the bin underneath the polished oak bar.
I turned the screen so that he could see it. “The dog that is going to be your baby’s best friend.”
He smirked. “No, it’s not.”
“Come on, you guys. He needs a good home.” And I was having a heckuva time finding him one.
“Who needs a good home?” Donna Littlefield asked while sliding her perfect little butt onto the bar stool next to mine. “Someone I know?”
Donna was one of my best friends since junior high, but she did have an annoying habit of interjecting herself into the middle of conversations. However, since she lived in an apartment building that allowed pets, I was happy to overlook it and showed her Fozzie’s picture.
She snatched my cell phone and held it in front of her nose. “Sweet. Does he come with a rich guy?”
I reached for the mineral water I’d ordered. “Nope.”
She promptly placed the phone down. “Then I’m out.”
“Fine.” I sucked down some water while wishing it was a tall glass of calorie-free chardonnay.
Rox delivered a Chablis to Donna and then set a menu in front of me. “Are you eating?”
“I’m waiting for Steve.”
“Not anymore, you’re not,” he said, tucking back my hair to plant a kiss on my right temple.
From the tap at the far end of the bar, Eddie aimed an index finger at Steve. “You still on duty?”
“I’ve got the night off, so start pouring.” Steve took a seat and then leaned into me to talk to Donna. “What’s going on? Are you girls having a meeting?”
“Char’s showing us dog pictures.” She flashed a dazzling white smile at him. “Hey, you have a fenced yard. Want a nice doggy?”
Steve leveled his gaze on me while Eddie delivered his beer. “Seriously? You still have that dog?”
I sighed. “Colt’s sister wouldn’t take him.”
“That’s Colt Ziegler’s dog?” Rox asked.
Donna placed her hand on my arm. “Honey, what on earth are you doing with his dog?”
That wasn’t a subject I wanted to delve into in front of Steve. “I was just trying to keep him out of the shelter.”
“Awwww,” Donna said, giving me a little pat. “The poor thing. His owner dies and then no one wants him. How sad is that?”
I stared into the bubbles of my drink. “I know.” Everything surrounding Colt’s death was sad.
She pointed at my phone. “Send me that picture, and I’ll post it at the shop. Maybe we can find a taker for him there.”
Donna’s shop was Donatello’s, the local cut and curl. It tended to be frequented by the more senior residents in town, and I doubted any of them would want anything bigger than a lapdog, but…
I picked up my phone and texted Donna the picture. “Done. Thanks.”
“Send it to me, too,” Rox said. “I’ll post it in the lobby.”
Which connected the eight-lane bowling alley to the tavern. “You got it.”
After I hit send, I noticed Eddie and Steve exchanging furtive glances. “Okay, you guys, what’s with the looks?”
Steve sipped his beer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Yeah, right. “The girls are just trying to help me find Fozzie a home.”
“I’m sure the pictures will go up tomorrow, but what are you going to do in a week, when no one has called about the dog?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Someone will want him.”
“What if they don’t? Are you going to be able to take that dog to the shelter?”
I locked gazes with Steve. “Someone will want him.”
They had to.
Chapter Thirteen
TWO HOURS LATER, I was unlocking my apartment door while Steve pressed himself against me and nuzzled my neck.
Any other night I would have turned around to give him easy access to his favorite body parts, but we needed to have a serious chat before I served up any after-dinner treats.
The second I cracked the door open, Fozzie filled the space, barking as if I were an intruder. “Jeez, dog. It’s just me.”
“He’s a pretty good alarm system,” Steve said, following me inside. “I’ll give him that.”
I ran my hand down Fozzie’s side while he took a defensive stance across from Steve. “He’s a good boy.” Most of the time.
The second I reached for Steve to divert him to the loveseat for a little chat, he pinned me against the wall. Cuffing my wrists with his hands, his lips were so close I could almost taste them. “Now, where were we?”
We were someplace Fozzie didn’t like, given the way he was growling with his teeth bared. “Uh-oh.”
Steve immediately backed away from me. “It’s okay,” he calmly stated. “No one’s being hurt.”
Sitting on my heels in front of Fozzie, I extended my hand to see if he’d let me pet him. “What’s wrong with you?”
Steve pulled a glass from a kitchen cupboard and filled it at the tap. “Nothing. He probably thought you were being attacked.”
While Fozzie sniffed my hand, I watched Steve drain that glass. “Everything’s okay. Steve’s a friend, so you two boys should learn how to get along.”
“Or while you have this houseguest, maybe we should plan on going to my place.”
I gave Fozzie a pat on the head and then joined Steve in the kitchen. “I could do that, but you’re here now, so…” Lacing my fingers behind his neck, I flattened my breasts against him. “We might as well make the most of it.”
Drawing back, Steve held my face in his hands, his dark gaze shifting to the dog panting next to my feet. “As long as Cujo here doesn’t get any ideas.”
“I think you’re safe.” I angled for a kiss. “Just don’t make any sudden moves.”
“So I shouldn’t rip off your clothes and have my way with you on the kitchen counter?”
Not when there was a comfortable bed in the other room. “Probably not advisable.”
“Too bad. That’s what I had planned.” His eyes gleamed with carnal intent as he started unbuttoning my cotton shirt. “Now we’re going to have to think of something else to do.”
Goody.
* * *
I was lying on my side, watching Steve pull on his blue jeans while Fozzie scratched at the other side of my bedroom door.
“I think your dog needs a walk.” He bundled up the clothes he’d peeled off me twenty minutes earlier and tossed them on the bed. “Get dressed and I’ll go with you.”
Fozzie had been whimpering at the door ever since I’d closed it. I didn’t think he wanted out as much as he wanted in. That didn’t mean I wasn’t happy to accept Steve’s offer, so long as we exchanged some information first. “Could I talk to you about something?”
Steve reached for his polo shirt. “I don’t suppose I need to guess what you want to talk about.”
“Probably not.” Sitting up, I pulled on the sheet to cover myself and waited for him to give me his undivided attention.
He sat at the edge of the bed to put on his shoes. “Okay, let’s have it.”
“You know I talked to Tami Ziegler yesterday.”
Steve’s gaze cut to me. “And you know I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Then just listen.”
His mouth flatlined, his eyes hard as flint.
“I understand why Mrs. Ziegler believes Georgie had a fight with Colt two years ago, but she’s wrong. Colt’s sister told me that Damon Sparks was the one who broke Colt’s nose because of some issues that were going on at her house at the time.”
“I was asked to verify Mrs. Ziegler’s statement.”
“Okay.”
Expecting to see some reaction, I searched his face.
I saw nothing but annoyance staring back at me.
He leaned closer. “Got a good-enough look?”
“You’re obviously not surprised, so you already knew about the issues between Kendra’s husband and her brother.”
Steve pushed off the bed. “I’m not going to talk about this case with you.”
“Will you just listen? I think Seth Lukin knows a lot more than he’s telling. Plus, he was seen at—”
“Char, what the heck do you think you’re doing?”
“Sharing what I’ve found out from interviewing—”
“That needs to stop right now,” he said, looming over the bed.
“But you should hear—”
“No, you should hear what I have to tell you.”
I didn’t much care for the finger aimed at my nose.
“You did your verification, so now you’re going to cease and desist.” He poked me in the sternum with that finger. “You got me?”
Fozzie barked, sounding like he was getting increasingly agitated with the rising volume in the room.
I couldn’t say that I blamed him and grasped Steve’s finger. “I hear you, but I was asked to talk to these people.”
“Beyond verifying that statement?”
“Well…” I pushed his hand away while I wracked my brain for a better comeback.
“That’s what I thought.” He leaned over and kissed me while Fozzie scratched at the carpet as if he were trying to tunnel under the door. “Are you getting dressed?”
“Sounds like I’d better,” I said on a sigh when the scratching got louder.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Looking like he was ready to shoot our intruder, Steve swung the door open. “No digging!”
Fozzie skittered out of sight, and Steve looked back at me over his shoulder. “That goes for you, too.”
* * *
“You’re here early,” Aunt Alice said as I dragged my weary butt through the Duke’s Cafe kitchen door shortly after dawn. “Couldn’t sleep?”
Not with Fozzie snoring like a buzz saw after Steve left. But the hours of staring at my eyelids had given me plenty of time to think about the digging I wasn’t supposed to have been doing.
Had I come up with enough to cause Ben to question the strength of his case against Georgie? Other than shedding some doubt on an old incident, I didn’t think so. But if I could find out what Colt Ziegler had been up to after he left Jessica’s on Saturday—even better, talk to that guy Lily saw in the parking lot—maybe we could unravel the mystery of what really happened Sunday night.
“Thought I’d be an early bird and catch that worm.” And I hoped it would be in the form of a juicy clue to identify the owner of that black car.
Squeaking to the worktable to fill Alice’s empty coffee cup, Lucille arched her pale eyebrows. “Any news?”
Not that I could share. “Little Dog’s out on bail.”
She scowled. “I could’ve told you that.”
“That’s all I’ve got,” I said grabbing a clean cup from the rack by the dishwasher. “But I do have a question for you.”
Lucille’s eyes gleamed with interest as she filled my cup. “Shoot.”
I took a seat on the stool across from Alice and reached for the gallon jug of milk in the center of the table. “Did you ever see Colt Ziegler come in with any friends—maybe a guy with a ponytail?”
Alice stopped zesting the lemon in her hand. “I don’t remember seeing him here other than to get takeout now and again.” She turned to Lucille, who had sat next to her. “Do you?”
Lucille shook her head, the points of her platinum bob brushing her jaw. “He came in with Tami a couple of times, but other than that, no.”
Since that matched my memories of Colt from having worked here for a couple of months last summer, I took a different tack. “How about a long-haired guy with a black car? Have you seen someone like that in town?”
“Hon, that could probably describe any number of the fellas living around here,” Lucille said.
“Order up!” Duke bellowed.
“Be right there.” Flattening her palms on the table, Lucille sharpened her gaze. “Why are you so interested in this guy?”
I painted an innocent smile on my face. “No particular reason.”
She puckered. “He has something to do with Colt getting whacked, doesn’t he?”
“I doubt it. I just want to talk to him.”
“Because he knows something.”
I shrugged and slurped my coffee.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” she said, squeaking away to deliver her order.
I picked up my coffee cup and followed her as far as the entrance to the kitchen, where I scanned the dining room for the other waitress working this morning, but I didn’t see one.
That left me one cantankerous short-order cook to question.
“Good morning.” I shot Duke a smile. “Lucille’s on her own this morning, huh?”
“Yeah, so I’d appreciate you not distracting her back there,” he grumbled.
“Fine, I’ll just distract you here.” And breathe in the heavenly aroma of the bacon that wasn’t allowed on my diet.
“Don’t you have a job to get to?”
“Yeah, in over an hour. In the meantime I was hoping that you could help me with something.”
“If it means that I don’t have to provide you with any free food, I’m in.”
“Whatever.” He knew I was good for it.
I stood next to him and looked out the front window at the cars being coated with a gloomy mist. “You have a good view of people as they park outside.”
The bell over the door jingled, announcing the arrival of a familiar old man in a raincoat, and Duke gave him a chin salute. “I can see the ones coming here on foot, too. So?”
I waved at the sweet ninety-year-old as he made his way to his usual yellow stool at the counter. “Mornin’, Stanley.”
Peeling off his raincoat, the old man’s eyes brightened behind thick glasses. “Looks like the help’s getting prettier back there.”
Duke elbowed me out of his way as he reached for a couple of eggs. “The only way she can help right now is to get to the point.”
I could take the hint. “Fine. I’m trying to locate a guy, probably close to my age, with hair pulled back in a ponytail. The only other thing I know about him is that he drives a black car sort of like an old Camaro.”
He cracked the eggs onto the grill. “There’s more than a few cars like that in town.”
“And it has some sort of cat on the front.”
“Did I hear you say ‘cat’?” Stanley asked, cupping his ear.
I didn’t want to broadcast my lame description of the car to everyone in the cafe, so while Lucille served a table in the back, I came around the corner and placed a mug in front of Stanley. “It might be chrome. The only description I got was that it was a metal car thing that looked like a cat.”
While he thought about it, I poured him some decaf.
He reached for the sugar. “Sounds like a Cougar to me. Is that the kind of car you’re looking for?”
“I have no idea. Would that look kind of like an old Camaro?”
“The early ones might,” Duke chimed in. “At least to someone who doesn’t know much about cars.”
While Stanley stirred his decaf, he stared into its murky depths. “One of the crew painting the house across the street from me had a black Cougar.”
I set the carafe on the counter. “What’d he look like?”
Stanley frowned, his horn-rimmed glasses slipping down the bridge of his bulbous nose. “Pretty much like you’d expect. Young, paint-stained coveralls, wore a hat. I didn’t recogn
ize him.”
With the way he was describing the guy, I didn’t expect that he would. But at least I had a possible make for the car.
Stanley pushed his glasses back up his nose. “The only one of the three I recognized was that Ziegler kid.”
My heart jumped into my throat. “You’re sure it was Colt Ziegler?”
“If it wasn’t him, then I don’t know why his Camaro was parked in front of my house when I got home last Thursday.”
Maybe the house-painting gig helped explain how Colt was able to pay his rent. Now, all I had to do was find the guy he had been working with.
Chapter Fourteen
AFTER GIVING FOZZIE a quick potty break, I changed into my black pantsuit, a silk blouse, and three-inch pumps—my power suit ensemble that I’d worn to the settlement hearing for my divorce.
Watching me from my bedroom doorway, Fozzie hadn’t appeared very impressed with my transformation from office grunt to officer-of-the-court-to-be-taken-seriously, but he wasn’t Eric Caldwell, the alpha dog I had an interview with at noon.
I’d also flat-ironed my hair and applied an extra layer of mascara for a little booster shot of self-confidence. But nothing had lifted my spirits more than getting on my bathroom scale and being down two pounds.
That even made spending most of my morning trying to come up with creative ways to cram case files into overstuffed metal cabinets bearable. At least until I had to kneel on the dusty floor to make some space in a bottom drawer and noticed a pair of brown oxfords next to the pumps I’d kicked off an hour earlier.
“You look a little overdressed for file duty,” Ben Santiago said. “Are you making a court appearance today that I don’t know about?”
I didn’t want to admit that I had dressed to impress a former homecoming king who had never once given me the time of day. “No, I have a lunch appointment.”
Which was mostly true.
Ben’s tan lips curled into a measured smile. “You’re obviously very busy today, but is there a chance you’ll have something for me later?”
I had already known that the criminal prosecutor wasn’t a man who liked to be kept waiting. While I thought I’d earned his trust over the past eight months, I knew better than to push my luck—or his patience.
Dogs, Lies, and Alibis Page 10