Chloe Babineaux Private Investigator

by Lisa Clancey

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  I arrived back at my office to see, Cheri, Felicia, Nona, and Tammy sitting with feet propped up on the desk in the front office. The useless desk, the one no one ever uses because it’s just there for looks. Cheri was smiling broadly at me. With her long brown hair and light highlights, we could have been twins ourselves except she’s five-four and I was five-nine. Felicia has long dark blond hair, with bright blond highlights, green eyes and is average height. Nona is on the short side and only reaches my chin, with brown eyes and short dark brown hair. If you didn’t know better, you would think she was a pixie, but she has a temper. It was the Irish-Mexican mix that was coursing through her veins that gave Nona her unique personality. That was why I loved her. Last but not least was Tammy with bright blond hair, blue eyes, fair complexion and was the shyest of. Someone has to keep us out of trouble.

  “It’s about time you got here. You’re late,” Felicia said around a mouthful of a deli sandwich.

  “Yeah, I know, and I still don’t have anything to eat. I’ll be right back; otherwise, I’ll have to eat Nona.”

  “And you would enjoy every minute of it,” Nona said, very cocky with her eyes closed.

  I took off for the sandwich wrap shop at the end of the strip mall so I could get back to prop my feet up. They pulled a chair around to the front of the desk, so my back was toward the door.

  “You look like shit,” Nona said, shaking her head. “Who’d you drink with last night? You never drink alone.”

  “Okay, that answers one question,” Tammy said, smiling. “You didn’t call anyone at this desk. Who did you call and do we know him?”

  “What makes you think it was a man?” I asked, rolling my eyes. “I mean, I do have other friends.”

  “No one good enough to call to get drunk with after almost getting blown the hell up. You told me you wanted to be alone,” Nona said, with a touch of aggravation in her voice.

  “She told all of us she wanted to be alone,” Felicia said, with a lot of aggravation in her voice.

  I took a deep breath and said, “I did want to be alone. He wasn’t invited, he just showed up with no provocation on my part.”

  “Okaay, so…it’s someone who knew about yesterday. Think ladies, who knew about yesterday besides us?” Tammy asked, thinking hard.

  “The news mentioned something about it, but no names were mentioned, so it had to be someone in the know,” Nona said, also thinking a bit too hard.

  Cheri, bless her heart, changed the subject. “Look at that cloud formation. What does it look like to you?”

  The three women facing the door laughed. The glass wall on each side of the door had shades but was pulled open so the sky could easily be seen.

  I turned to face the glass wall and contemplated on the cloud. A few seconds after they laughed I said, “Oh my,” and turned back to the desk.

  “Took you long enough. How long did it take you about ten minutes?” Nona laughed.

  “She needs a date. Oh wait, she had one last night, didn’t she? And it still took her ten minutes?” Felicia said, laughing.

  “It did not take me ten minutes to see Johnson and his boys in a cloud formation,” I said looking at them hard. “And I do not need a date.”

  “Hi, Chloe,” came a man’s deep voice from behind me.

  “Awe, no,” I said widening my eyes. “Cody’s not alone is he?” I asked with a pained look on my face.

  “Nope,” they all said together, laughing.

  “And you call yourselves my friends,” I mumbled. My back was to the door, so they saw Cody and Rick walking in. They literally didn’t have my back on that one.

  “Hey, Cody, is that your new partner?” Nona asked, grinning.

  “Yeah, I’m Rick Thompson,” he said with a chuckle in his voice.

  They all went around introducing themselves. My friends are pretty so I wonder which one of them he was going to ask me to invite over for pizza tonight.

  “Nice to meet ya’ll,” Rick said, walking over to stand beside me since I didn’t turn around to look at him. He looked at me, grinned and asked, “You know, Chloe, if it took you ten minutes to recognize the cloud formation, I’d be glad to reacquaint you with…”

  “It’s okay,” I cut in. “I don’t need to be reacquainted…”

  “No. She doesn’t,” Cody cut in with a snarl.

  “And it didn’t take ten minutes to…my back is toward the window. I had to turn around which made it seem to take longer. And why am I explaining myself?” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Cody growled. “Let’s go to your office to talk.” With all the snarling and growling he was doing, any minute he was going to start barking.

  I narrowed my eyes at the giggling flirts and growled, “I hate ya’ll.”

  I pulled my chair with me to my office, but I didn’t have another for Cody and Rick. They looked around then sat with backs against the wall and their knees bent.

  Cody shook his head and asked, “Do all women talk about sex like that or just you and your friends.”

  “We all do,” I said with a blank face, avoiding Rick who was still smiling.

  “What happened this morning?” he asked, dropping the smile.

  I took a deep breath and said, “Not much. I just explained about my investigation. Sergeant Kawasaki asked me about my list, and I told him I didn’t have it with me. The inconsiderate jackass dumped everything out of my purse.” The men smirked. “I told him he could look in my truck ‘cause it needed to be cleaned out as well,” I smirked back.

  They shook their heads and rolled their eyes, and Rick asked, “What did he tell you about the body?”

  I shook my head, pursed my lips and said, “Not much. He just asked me if I knew there was a body inside. Shocked the hell out of me, I mean did he/she shoot him before I got there? Was he shot after he/she blew up the tank? Was this poor man being held at gunpoint?”

  “All good questions,” Cody answered, “but we have no way of knowing that. I called Sergeant Kawasaki and forensics couldn’t pinpoint the exact time. But he was killed approximately the time you were there. ”

  “Was he killed because of me?” I asked with my head in my hands. I wanted to cry. I had been laughing before they arrived but talking about it made me imagine that poor man.

  Rick got up leaned back against the desk beside me and pushed his fingers through my hair and said, “Don’t do this to yourself. It’s not your fault. You didn’t pull the trigger.”

  I jerked my head up and looked at Cody. He was looking hard at Rick. I leaned back in my chair and said with a slight smile, “I know. Thanks. But now I feel as though I really have to find the painting. What is so damned important about it? It makes me think of fools gold. You know, pretty on the outside but it’s really worthless.”

  “I don’t know, could be,” Cody said, pulling his eyes away from Rick. “But you’re right. If people are willing to kill for it, it should be found.”

  “I think I’ll charge Petunia an aggravation fee,” I said making a face.

  “Yeah, you do that. Meanwhile we have to get back to work. This is our lunch.” Cody gracefully rose from the floor. How does he do that? We were the same age, but there was no way I could get off the floor gracefully.

  We walked down the hall and Rick casually said, “You know, I sure could go for some pizza tonight.”

  Cody being oblivious stopped by the front desk turned to him and said, “So, eat pizza.” He then continued to the door.

  My friends were still at the desk getting ready to leave and widened their eyes at the mention of pizza. I wasn’t about to talk about it. What was he up to?

  “Yeah,” he nodded as if he was thinking, pursed his lips glanced at me and said, “I’ll have to call later and find out what time this woman I’m interested in wants me to come over.” He had a crooked smile on his face as he walked to the door.

  “Why are you so mysterious about this woman? Is she married?” C
ody grinned.

  “Single and very pretty. We’re not ready to go public,” he grinned, winked at Cody, and then with a laugh said, “I’m making her weak with my charm.

  They left talking about how men charm women and all four of my friend’s jaws dropped.

  “Oh. My. God,” Nona said amazed, “that fabulous body is eating pizza with Chloe tonight.”

  “That’s who she got shit faced with last night,” Felicia grinned. “He knew about the explosion, and Chloe looks like she’s ready to climb underneath the desk.”

  “Yeah, but get this,” Cheri laughed. “She claims she didn’t have sex last night.”

  “I didn’t,” I swore. “He stayed over because he thought I was a little bit jumpy after the explosion and all. When I woke up this morning, in all my trashed glory, he was in my bed because my couch wasn’t comfortable. Oh, and don’t tell Cody!”

  Tammy made a face, nodded and said, “Yeah…that’s it. What she’s saying is that she didn’t sleep with him but actually slept with him.”

  Nona and Tammy looked at their watches and Tammy said, “Man, I would love to hear about this, but I have to go. Later gators.”

  Felicia grinned and said, “Oh and Chloe? I and when I say I, I mean we, expect details of the pizza party.”

  I rolled my eyes and walked to my office. Right. Everything that happened. I hope they drank lots of caffeine to keep them awake. Because nothing and I mean nothing was going to happen.