One Hot Mess (32 page)

“What's that supposed to mean?” I asked, and tugged at my arm. He didn't relent.

“So you decided on a thug instead of milquetoast?”

I stiffened, finally catching up. The noise Harlequin
had heard was Rivera at the door. D had left his boots in front of the window by the door.
Holy crap!
I thought, but kept my tone butterscotch smooth. “I hardly thought it would be possible,” I said, “but Officer Tavis—”

“Glad to hear the dearth is ended,” he said, but he didn't sound glad.

“And how,” I said.

His eyes darkened a shade. “So Curly Top lost out.”

Anger coursed through me. Anger, and maybe a little madness, but I batted my eyelashes. Innocent as a butterfly. “Why would you say that?”

His lips thinned. “Some men don't like to share.”

I smiled. “Some do,” I crooned.

For a moment I thought he might explode, erupt like a volcano, but he remained as he was—dark, quiet, and pissed. “I want you to get the hell out of here.”

“I'm just asking a few questions.” I yanked at my arm again. He tightened his grip more.

“If I remember correctly, you asked a few questions of the last couple guys who tried to kill you,” he gritted.

A man passed by carrying a Bible. I gave him a smile. Rivera nodded. If he was any more congenial than that, his head would have popped off. “Why wouldn't Rebecca have told anyone about working for your dad?” I asked.

“Maybe she wasn't as hot for him as you are.”

I was far past trying to mollify him. “And maybe she was,” I said, and jerked free.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he hissed, but I was already slipping into the crowd.

Despite Rivera's glowering presence from across the room, I examined everyone. Not a soul looked familiar. Easing through the crowd, I offered my condolences to
the husband, then studied his face and tone and body language for any smidgeon of guilt, but sorrow and shock seemed to be his only emotions. After a moment he was drawn into another's condolences.

“I don't believe we've met,” said a voice from my left. I turned. It was the man with the Bible.

“Oh, I'm Christina McMullen.”

He smiled benevolently. “And how did you know Rebecca?”

“We … umm …” I glanced toward Rivera. He was momentarily distracted. Possibly making some sort of pact with the devil. “We worked for the senator together.”

“Oh?” He canted his head a little. “What senator is that?”

“Well, he wasn't actually a senator then. Just a mayor.”

He still looked confused. I refrained from scowling.

“Reverend, if I could have a moment,” someone said, and he turned away with an apology.

I spoke to four other people. None of them had any idea Rebecca had worked for the man who might very well be the next President of the United States.

I glanced to the right, and Rivera was there, not three feet away. I kept my heart firmly in my chest.

His cheek twitched. “Have you lost your mind completely or do you have some reason to think she had an affair with him?”

I considered refusing to speak to him, but he was so … loomy “Other than the law of averages?”

He snorted. “The woman was a saint.”

“Why only one child, then?”

He glared a question.

“Even the Virgin Mary had a bunch of kids, and she was a virgin.”

“I'm surprised you even know the meaning,” he said.

I stared at him a full fifteen seconds, then cracked a faux laugh and turned toward the crowd, but he grabbed my arm. “Who was it?” he asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Tell me you didn't really sleep with that damn smalltown crossing guard.”

I faced him, breath stopping in my throat. “Why do you think it was anyone?”

His brows dipped a little lower.

“You should have rung the doorbell,” I said. “As long as you were in the neighborhood.”

The world pulsed around us. “I'm not that fond of orgies,” he said.

“Too bad,” I quipped, and glided back into the crowd.

There was a woman standing alone, watching a little girl twirl like a top in her gauzy black skirt. I approached from a tangent.

“It's unfortunate Becky never had more children,” I said.

The woman was short, plump, pretty in a bland sort of way. She smiled.

“The Lord's will, I guess,” I continued.

She narrowed her eyes a little. “Or her fallopian tubes.”

“What?”

“I don't necessarily believe in God,” she said. “But I have a lot of faith in a good healthy reproductive system.”

“And?”

She smiled, seeming to draw out of herself. “I don't recognize you. Do you work at Children's?”

“Becky and I worked for the senator together a long time ago.” Lying is like most things. Practice makes perfect.

“What senator is that?”

Crap.

“Senator Rivera. Are you a nurse?”

“A doctor. Obstetrics.”

Huh. Who would have thought I was sexist.

“Rebecca volunteered there. She also initiated a program to counsel couples with fertility problems.”

“Did she have one? A fertility problem? I mean, she seemed the type to want a whole house full of kids.”

“She and Delbert tried for years. But endometriosis can be a real bitch. They finally tried in vitro fertilization. Obstetrics threw her a party when they found out she was pregnant with Shane.”

“So Shane was her first child.” I realized after I spoke that it sounded like I didn't know the deceased from the Parthenon. “We've been out of touch for decades,” I said. “I just happened to hear of her awful death.”

“Breech. Seven pounds, two ounces,” she said. “I was the attending when he was born. She had a lot of Demerol. Yammered like a parakeet. Funny, though,” she said. “She never mentioned working for a senator. Or you,” she added, eyeing me.

“I'm just one of those people who fade into the woodwork,” I said, and, glancing to my right, saw that Rivera was watching me. Eyes dark, mood stormy.

Apparently I hadn't faded yet.

N THURSDAY, I did what I do. Psychoanalyzed, watched the SuperSeptic guys do nothing in my backyard, wondered if Rivera would ever speak to me again.

Laney would be leaving the next day, so she came by that night, but things felt strange. A little strained. I wasn't ready for her to get married. I certainly wasn't ready for her to get hitched to a guy who, if inverted, could be used as a broom.

“How's engaged life?” I asked. We were sitting on my couch, Harlequin between us.

She fiddled with Harley's ear. “I gave the ring back.”

“No kidding?” My heart did a little burp, then soared with hope.

“I told him I just wanted a plain band; I couldn't lift my hand,” she said, and grinned, knowing exactly what I'd been thinking.

“I don't know why I ever liked you.”

She laughed, still the Laney I loved, despite her inexplicable attraction to subspecies.

“Tell me you're not giving back that…
planet
in exchange for a cigar band,” I insisted.

“I'm looking forward to babies. Twelve of them.”

“What if they look like the Geekster?”

“Ohhh.” She lifted her shoulders in a soundless expression of glee. “Wouldn't that be great!”

“You are one sick woman.”

“Yeah. Lovesick.”

I rolled my eyes. “You're making me sick.”

“Marriage will be nice.”

“Sometimes it's not, you know.” My tone was petulant, but I knew that despite Solberg's irritating habit of being himself, he'd be good to her. That or I'd strangle him with his own entrails.

“We're eloping tomorrow.”

“What!
How the hell—” I ranted, but she was already laughing.

“I almost forgot how easy you are.”

“I'm not easy.” I might have been pouting a little.

“Tell that to Rivera.”

“He'll never believe it. Not at this juncture.”

“What do you mean?”

I shrugged. Still childish.

“Have you seen him lately?”

I considered lying, but my heart wasn't up to it. “At a funeral home.”

“You've always had such strange dates.” She had her legs curled up under her and was drinking some sort of green slop that would probably make her live forever.

I thought about her statement for a second and decided I didn't want to talk about my dates just then. And possibly never. “Why do you suppose Rebecca Harris would avoid telling people about her time as the senator's secretary?”

She shrugged, frowned a little—kept up to speed, I was sure, by Solberg, who needed to tell her everything. “Maybe it just wasn't very interesting.”

“Working for Miguel Rivera?” I was skeptical.

“Do you think he came on to her?”

“Is he a man?”

“Do you think she accepted?”

“Donny's father said the senator was excellent at avoiding child support.”

“So you think there was a child.”

I shook my head. “I don't know. I had convinced myself there was. That Rebecca had gotten knocked up and gone off to bear the baby in shame. But turns out she had endometriosis and couldn't get pregnant without in vitro fertilization.”

“Endometriosis? Isn't that…” She paused, staring at me as if she should perhaps remain silent, but she spoke finally “Isn't that sometimes caused by abortions?”

I stared at her for a full five seconds, then launched myself from the couch, scurried into my office, and wrote
abortion
under Rebecca's name.

When I glanced back, Laney was standing behind me in the doorway. “You need a new hobby,” she said.

“Well, there are only so many geeksters to reform,” I said.

She smiled. “You can't be sure about the abortion,” she said.

“No.”

“How about the others? Are you sure about their”—she made air quotes—“sins?”

I shifted my gaze over the wall for the thousandth time. “All except Bunting.”

She was silent for a moment. “If you're right, they've broken just about every commandment in the book.”

“Didn't there used to be more?”

“They've been revised. More sinner-friendly now,” she said. “How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“You broken any lately?”

I refrained from fidgeting and went for clever. “I've wanted to, but I've been kind of busy. With the murders and whatnot.”

“How about New Year's Eve?”

I put down my marker and returned to the living room. “Asleep by nine.”

“Yeah? Who woke you up?”

I turned on her, a little peeved. If she had to be gorgeous, it was her God-given duty to be dumb. “Tell me the truth, do you have spies?”

She laughed.

“Bugs? Little cameras hidden in my teeth?”

“Did Rivera come over or what?”

I shook my head.

“Donald Archer?”

“No.”

“The cop?”

I sighed.

“Who, then?”

“Do you remember D?”

She narrowed her eyes and thought back. “The gangster?”

“Apparently that term isn't very politically correct.”

She raised her brows and stared at me. “Did you sleep with him?”

“No. Absolutely not. That would have been stupid. I'm not stupid.”

She stared at me some more. I was beginning to itch.

“I mean… I haven't had sex for…” I thought back but couldn't remember how many months it had been. Or maybe they haven't invented a number that large yet. “If I did … I'd know. Right?”

olberg took Laney back to LAX. I didn't accompany them, because I don't like to see grown men cry. Well… sometimes I do, but that's another story.

Friday dawned, almost cool. Harley and I went for a run before the weather took a turn and tried to kill us again.

I called the senator sometime around noon and asked with my usual tact if he'd had an affair with Rebecca Harris. He flatly denied it. Which meant that she probably didn't have an abortion and was, in fact, the saint everyone proclaimed her to be. Which meant that my entire theory was probably nothing more than fantasy.

By the time I returned home, I felt out of sorts. Tomorrow would be Saturday, which, according to my theory, should be the next day for a murder. I wandered into my
office to glare at the wall—and my faulty theory. I mean, yes, all the deaths did take place on different days of the week, but not all were consecutive.