* * *
“Want a beer?” Steve asked when I followed him into his kitchen two hours later.
I’d already blown my diet with the mashed potatoes and gravy. I didn’t need to add to my bloat with more carbs. “Nope.” I also knew I shouldn’t stay too long, not when I had a restless dog in my car. “Want a dog? You have a nice fenced yard here.”
“Nope.”
Heaving a sigh, I took a seat at the kitchen table and looked up at the French country wallpaper border—a chicken-themed leftover from when his mother owned the house. “He’d be better company than these chickens.”
Joining me at the table, Steve set down his beer bottle and tossed the mail he’d collected from his box outside into a fruit bowl two feet in front of me. “At least they’re quiet. That dog would be outside all day, barking at the neighbor’s cat.”
“Probably,” I said, wondering how many days of mail that bowl contained.
“So, are you going to tell me what that was all about?”
I shifted my gaze to the cop guzzling the beer next to me. “You know my mother. She has weddings on the brain.” And now so did I. Darn it.
Steve folded his arms across his chest. “I meant that phone call.”
“Oh. That was just something that I’m working on for one of the prosecutors.”
“Which one?”
Like I was going to tell him. “Never mind which one.”
“Because I wouldn’t want to hear that it had anything to do with Little Dog’s case.”
I smiled sweetly. “You won’t hear that from me.”
He gave me a hard stare. “I’m serious.”
“I know, and I have a dog outside who is going to be seriously unhappy if I don’t let him out of my car soon. So, if you want me to stick around for a while, would letting him into the house be too much to ask?”
“Fine, but if Cujo growls at me in my own house, he’s outta here.”
I scooted to the edge of my seat to give him a peck on the lips. “Deal.”
“Not so fast.” Steve pulled me onto his lap and gave me a beer-infused kiss.
“Mmmm,” I murmured, savoring the taste of him. “Much nicer.”
“Are you sure you want to go get that dog?” He nibbled at my neck. “I have a comfortable couch we could make out on.”
“Sounds good to me.” I pushed off of him to grab my car keys. “Be sure to save me a seat.”
Picking up his beer bottle, Steve headed for his living room. “If you’re lucky, I’ll even find you a chick movie to watch.”
I was feeling luckier by the minute, especially once I heard him start channel-surfing for that movie. And while I knew I should trust the man I loved to pick the right moment to tell me about hearing from the woman he almost married, I felt sorely tempted to rifle through the contents of the fruit bowl I’d been left alone with.
But would I want someone to enter my apartment and start poking their nose into my personal business? Absolutely not.
On the other hand, if I knew that Steve had yet to read the invitation, I could relax in his arms a little easier tonight and stop waiting on pins and needles for that moment to come.
It was a feeble argument at best and I should have walked away.
Seconds later, I wished I had followed my moral compass and done exactly that.
Because I found an opened white linen envelope near the bottom of that fruit bowl.
Chapter Sixteen
AFTER SEVERAL HOURS of tossing and turning with that wedding invitation on the brain, I brewed a pot of coffee and declared a truce on the war of obsession I’d been waging the last two days.
“I mean it,” I said, waking the dog curled around my dining room chair. “Either you trust him or you don’t.”
Fozzie whimpered, and I reached down to chuck him under the chin. “Not you. The other male in my life.”
So Steve had withheld some information. It wasn’t like he didn’t have some preoccupations of his own with the arrest of one of his best friends.
I could only imagine how he felt. And I could barely do that because Steve couldn’t talk to me about Georgie’s case. More accurately, wouldn’t let me talk to him about Seth Lukin, much to my frustration. Because Steve had his own suspicions about the guy?
That would only be true if Steve were convinced of Little Dog’s innocence.
That was the one truth that I’d had the most certainty of this week. Plus, it explained the cease and desist lecture I’d been given. Steve wanted to keep me out of harm’s way.
Understandable and explainable.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I wrapped my arms around Fozzie’s neck. “I knew Georgie didn’t do it.”
No matter how emotionally conflicted he had been when I talked to him Monday night, there was no way he could have left Colton Ziegler to die on the other side of that fence.
Georgie might be full of bark, but it wasn’t in his nature to be cruel or that stupid.
No. Someone did this who knew about some of the history between Little Dog and Colt.
Someone like Seth Lukin.
I stood, feeling lighter on my feet than I had for days. “I think this calls for a celebration, don’t you?” I asked the resident fur ball.
Following me into the kitchen, Fozzie wagged his tail as I scooped a cup of kibble from the almost empty sack I had taken from Colt’s apartment.
“I need to buy some more of this today,” I said, dumping it into his bowl. “Fortunately, I know a place that carries this brand.”
And that would give me the perfect opportunity to have another chat with Seth Lukin.
* * *
After I got to work and caught up on the last of the filing, I went to my computer to look up Boynton House Painting. They didn’t have a web page, but a home services information site listed their Clatska address and phone number, so I made a note of both and gave them a call. That promptly led to a recording, inviting me to leave a message.
Since I didn’t want to tip my hand to the guy with the black Cougar or any of his pals, I disconnected, and glared at the note on top of a stack of files that one of the assistant prosecutors had left for me during my hour-long absence from my desk.
Her request was simple enough. The time it would take to grant it was the problem, especially since she needed the copies made for a meeting this afternoon.
Everyone on the third floor knew that the cranky behemoth humming in the copy room didn’t respond well to pressure. Neither did this frequent operator of the finicky machine, but I didn’t have the luxury of overheating and shutting down for a power nap during my lunch hour. No matter how much I may have needed one after it jammed seven times and finally quit on me.
What I needed more was information, so I used the short walk to my car as a cooling-off period and headed to the feed store, where Seth Lukin was stocking a shelf near the front counter.
“You’re back,” he said in a tone that made it clear how he felt about it.
I forced a smile. “I’m out of dog food.”
“Was there a particular brand you were using?”
“Actually, it’s the one Colt Ziegler was using.”
Seth did a double take. “You’re feeding his dog?”
“I have his dog, for now.” I looked around, but didn’t see anyone else in the store. “Is Mr. Ortiz here? I wanted to put up a little poster on his bulletin board.”
“At lunch.”
Good. I wouldn’t have to ask permission to talk to Seth.
I nodded. “I’ll check back with him later, then. I had hoped that Jessica might want the dog, but I understand that your apartment manager doesn’t allow pets.”
A crinkle etched a path between his brows. “No.”
“Too bad. He’s a nice dog.” I turned up the wattage of my smile. “You probably saw him at Colt’s apartment.”
“I never went into his apartment.”
“But you went there, right?”
He blinked. “Ye
ah. Once.”
“Saturday night, right?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to—”
“Someone saw you pounding on his door that night.”
“I…uh…just wanted to talk to him.”
“And did you?”
“He wasn’t home.”
“How about Sunday?” I asked as a buzzer announced the arrival of a customer.
Seth looked as relieved to see an elderly man shuffling toward the back room as I felt to have a witness in the event this chat started going sideways.
“I should probably see if he needs some help,” Seth said, his feet already in motion.
“He’ll let you know if he does.” I pulled him into the dog food aisle. “You were about to tell me when you saw Colt on Sunday.”
“What? No, I wasn’t. Besides, I wasn’t even around much on Sunday, which was exactly what I told the police.”
Maybe, but that muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth wasn’t helping him sell this story. “But you wanted to deliver a message to Colt on Saturday, so it only makes sense that you’d try again the next day.”
“I was with Jessica all Sunday. She can tell you.”
She had, and about as convincingly.
“She said you went for a drive. I’m betting that you ended up somewhere in the vicinity of her old apartment.”
“You’ve got this all wrong. It’s like I told the detective. Jessica didn’t want anything to do with him.”
Steve wouldn’t have been any more satisfied with that answer than I was. “But you did, because you had a few choice words for him.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t kill him.”
And that may have been true. He was getting so twitchy I couldn’t tell.
I needed more time with him to make sure, but once Seth bolted to help the customer shuffling up to the counter with a bag of fertilizer, I knew I’d gleaned all I was going to get out of him without someone with a scarier badge standing by my side.
With nothing more to say, I grabbed a small sack of dog food and got in line at the counter.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Seth asked with obvious indifference as he rang up my purchase.
I pulled out the last of the cash from my wallet. “For now.”
While he counted out my change, something that he said the first time I met him niggled at me, and I flashed him a smile. “I thought of one more thing I need. You mentioned that Colt said something about having problems with Little Dog.”
He shrugged. “Yeah.”
“When did he talk to you about that?”
“A while ago.” Seth seemed to be inspecting one of the many scratches that had been dug into the wooden countertop. “I don’t know exactly.”
Since his muscle twitch was back, I knew why he couldn’t tell me when.
The conversation never happened. But I suspected that something else had happened that gave Seth the impression that he wasn’t the only one having trouble with Colt Ziegler.
“You saw Colt at Bassett Motor Works Sunday night, didn’t you? Maybe even witnessed him being escorted out the front gate?”
Seth paled. “I told you. I never saw him on Sunday.”
I picked up my dog food. “Yeah, that’s what you said.” I didn’t believe you then either.
* * *
I was driving to my apartment when I spotted Steve’s cruiser parked in front of the Roadkill Grill.
The Grill wouldn’t offer me the family discount I received at Duke’s or let me make my own salad, but since my favorite cop was inside and I wanted to tell him what I’d just found out, that was a good-enough bargain for me.
I pulled into the crowded parking lot and was lucky enough to find a spot near the cruiser. Although I would have felt a heckuva lot luckier if I hadn’t emerged from my car to see Steve approaching with a full head of steam.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, blocking my path.
“Aren’t I allowed to grab some lunch?”
He scowled. “Since when do you eat here?”
“I saw your car and thought you might like some company.” I tried to match the intensity of his gaze. “Clearly, I was wrong.”
Steve’s lips curled as he eased toward me. “Nope. It’s only bad timing since I was just leaving.”
Dang. “Do you have to go? I was hoping to talk to you about something.”
“Want to go do that in my office?”
Now I was the one scowling. “But you don’t like me to come to your office.”
“Because you always show up, wanting something I can’t give you.”
Okay, he had a point. But that wasn’t why he was currently shielding me with his body.
I tried to peek around him. “Is there some reason you don’t want to be seen with me?”
He took me by the shoulders and fixed me with his gaze. “Hardly.”
Steve could be very persuasive, especially when his warm hands were on me and that mouth of his stretched into a lopsided grin.
And he knew it.
But his smile didn’t relax the tension in his jaw, so his powers of persuasion weren’t quite as effective as usual.
“Then there’s something here you don’t want me to see,” I said, watching him for a reaction.
Nothing.
“Chow Mein, that job of yours is making you suspicious.”
I continued to stare at him. “No, you are making me suspicious.”
“Don’t know why, and as fascinating as it is to have a staring contest with you in the parking lot, I have to go,” he said, giving me a peck on the lips.
Watching Steve walk away, I was completely confused. Had I misread him? Had I become so consumed by Georgie’s case that I was starting to see problems that didn’t exist?
Steve glanced back over his shoulder. “You coming? I have a meeting at two, so if you want to talk it needs to be soon.”
I did want to talk to him and as soon as possible. “I’ll be right there. I’m just going to grab some takeout.”
He nodded but didn’t look especially pleased about it.
I was too hungry to spend the rest of my lunch hour trying to interpret Steve’s body language, so I stepped inside the Roadkill Grill and breathed in a mouth-watering fusion of all the greasy foods I wouldn’t be eating.
“Hiya, Char,” said Janine, one of the longtime waitresses, greeting me from behind the register. “We don’t see you here very often.”
“I was in the neighborhood.” I left out the reason why.
After I ordered and paid for a chicken Caesar to go, I scanned the crowd to see who else had been in the neighborhood.
Other than Gloria, the Julia Child lookalike who worked in the county clerk’s office, I didn’t see anyone from the courthouse. Nor did I see anyone connected with Georgie’s case, so I failed to understand what had caused Steve to think that I needed a human shield.
Something had. Of that I was certain, but short of having the man here to explain himself, I didn’t think any answers were going to be forthcoming.
Since I wasn’t accomplishing much beyond working up a powerful craving for a burger and onion rings, I sat at the counter and checked my email on my phone until a white to-go box with my salad was set in front of me.
Putting away my phone, I thanked Janine and turned to face a guy in paint-stained coveralls standing at the register.
Rather attractive despite a slightly crooked nose, he had two days of stubble, tan skin, and dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Two similarly dressed Hispanic men in line behind him stood a little shorter, one of them in a Seattle Mariners ball cap. And I had a feeling I was looking at what Steve hadn’t wanted me to see.
I slapped a smile on my face when Ponytail Guy caught me staring.
He nodded as he reached for his wallet.
“Working on a job in town?” I asked, trying to maintain a calm demeanor while beads of sweat popped out on my upper lip.
Ponytail Guy gave me
a quick once-over without registering any interest. Fine by me. I wanted to see what I could find out about him, not a date.
“A few blocks away from here,” he said, handing a twenty to Janine. “One of the Victorians up on the hill.”
“I’ll have to show my grandmother. She’s been talking about getting her house painted, but wasn’t sure who to talk to about that.”
Setting aside his disinterest in sweaty, zaftig women, anyone breathing should have recognized what I had just tossed out as a money-making opportunity and pounced on it like a dog on a pork chop.
He pocketed his change, and then pulled out a business card. “Have her give us a call.”
I dropped the card into my tote so that I wouldn’t appear too eager to find out who he worked for. “I’ll definitely do that. Thanks.”
As I made my way toward my car, I cursed the wisdom of that decision because I couldn’t find the darned card. But standing next to the Jag as if I were searching for my keys provided me a good excuse to scan the parking lot for an older-model black car.
Nothing appeared to fit that description, but I did see a white cargo van leaving with the guy in the ball cap at the wheel, so I hopped into my car to follow it up 2nd Street.
Once it took a left on J and pulled in front of the two-story Victorian getting a fresh coat of dusty rose, I turned into Mrs. Nolan’s driveway three houses to the north.
Mrs. Nolan was a former Duke’s pie happy hour customer who was now wheelchair-bound. She was also a little deaf, so I didn’t think she’d come out to complain about the cowbell solo taking place in her driveway while I waited for the paint crew to get back to work.
Once I saw Ponytail Guy climb some scaffolding with a spray gun in hand, I figured I could do a slow drive-by without attracting his attention. Because I wanted to snap a picture of the black car parked in front of that van.
Chapter Seventeen
“WHAT EXACTLY AM I looking at?” Steve asked, frowning at the image I was showing him on my cell phone.
“See that?” Standing by his desk, I pointed at the blurry emblem of the cougar on the car’s front grill.
Dogs, Lies, and Alibis Page 12