Furry Godmother’s tip for using leashes: They require someone at both ends.
I met Detective Oliver on my porch the next morning with a box of canine carrot cakes and twelve dozen tuna tarts. The balmy wind clung to my skin and tousled my frizzy hair. “Detective,” I said, nodding in salutation.
“You should probably call me Jack.” He took my packages and traded me for a steaming go cup of café au lait. “This is what you drink, right?”
“Nice try,” I told him, “but I haven’t forgotten that line about keeping me on a leash.”
He shook his head and turned for his truck. “I thought you’d like the pet reference. Obviously, I have no intentions of putting you on an actual leash. What sort of things did you get into up north?”
I followed him to the sidewalk and climbed onto the passenger seat. “I’m not dignifying that with a response.” I buckled up and nestled my purse on my lap. “My dad would have taken me to get my car.”
He gunned the engine to life and pulled into morning traffic. “Like I said, it’s better to keep you close. I’m not getting a real think-ahead vibe from you.”
“Joke’s on you. All I do is think.”
He slid his eyes my way briefly but kept his thoughts to himself.
I sipped my latte and relaxed against the warm seatback. “Thank you for the ride and the coffee.” Summer sunlight drifted through the passenger-side window, warming my cheeks. I squinted at passersby and oak trees soaked in moss. “Did you really bring Miguel’s girlfriends to the police station for questioning?”
“Yep.”
“And?”
“We took their statements.”
I huffed. “I wish you wouldn’t play coy with me. This is important.”
An ornery smile raised his cheeks.
“I’m sorry, was something I said funny? This is my life you’re messing with.”
The smile fell. “Don’t even get me started, lady.”
“I’m sensing hostility. Maybe you need to settle down.”
“I suppose I need to remind you this is my job, and I’m pretty damn good at it. You’d know that if you weren’t running around digging holes like a dog with a bone and giving me fits. I’ve got to keep you safe and chase my own leads while you’re chasing your tail.”
“You took the dog references too far that time.”
“I probably could’ve closed this case by now if you’d listened to me and stayed out of it. Now my time and attention are divided between doing my job and saving your ass. How’s that for clarity?”
My mouth fell open. “Did you just swear at me?”
“Oh, believe me, there’s more where that came from if you don’t knock it the hell off.”
I snapped my lips shut and turned away from him. If I thought for a second I could have carried all my things the rest of the way to Furry Godmother without him, I would have. “If I’d left it up to you, I’d probably be in jail. I was your only suspect until I started asking questions.”
He took the next right. “You were the obvious suspect, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t exploring every option. The only person who expected me to keep you apprised of my work was you. It’s not any of your business. You weren’t arrested, were you?” He adjusted his grip on the wheel. “For the record, I brought the girlfriends in. They answered my questions. No, I’m not sharing my findings with you. There’s no grounds for you to be upset by any of that.”
I shook off the sting of his tone. “I’m curious. What did you ask them? What did they say? How do you know they told the truth?”
“I don’t believe anyone until I have reason to trust them.”
“So you assume everyone lies?”
He wheeled into the auto shop parking lot at the end of the next block and took the space beside my car. “Don’t they?”
“I don’t.”
He snorted and rubbed heavy palms over his sullen face, paying particular attention to his puffy eyes and wrinkled forehead.
I shifted for a better look at him. “Are you okay?”
He leaned across my lap and opened the glove box. “It’s just a headache.” He shook a pair of pain relievers into his palm and closed the compartment.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, I’m positive I have a headache.” He tossed the pills into his mouth and chewed them like a madman.
I climbed down from the truck and headed to the office. The squat brick building was covered in graffiti and posters for bars in the Quarter, but it was the cheapest tire place around. I turned back, thankful and aggravated to have someone looking out for me.
Jack loaded his arms with my box and bags. “Something wrong?”
“The note stuck to my tire said I’d end up like Miguel. What do you make of that?”
“It means dead.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t think the note was from his ex-partner, Levi. I don’t think anyone who knew him before he came here would address him as Miguel. Levi and the other people from his past knew him as Anthony.”
Jack seemed to consider this theory. “Maybe Levi didn’t know you knew Miguel as anything else. Imagine you were like anyone else in your position. You wouldn’t be researching the victim. You wouldn’t know Miguel was an alias. If he used the name Anthony in his note, anyone else would have wondered who that was.”
“I don’t think a guy who spent eight years in prison for a busted jewelry heist thinks that much about anything. I think the note and tire stabbing were a heat-of-the-moment thing. Whoever wrote it knew him as Miguel, too.” I swept inside, signed the bill, and collected my keys from the man at the desk.
Jack unloaded the contents of his arms onto my back seat.
“Thanks for the ride. I’ve got to go.” I slid behind the wheel and pulled the door. “I’m volunteering involuntarily on a parade committee today.”
He tapped my roof. “Good idea. You should stay busy doing your own job for a while.”
I white-knuckled my steering wheel. The man made me want to weed a garden.
* * *
Paige texted at nine to let me know she’d opened the shop and all was well. I made a stop at the Himalayan Rescue to deliver the tuna tarts and sign a contract for two more jobs with them before dropping the carrot cakes at Happy Tails.
The temperature gauge on my dash climbed by the minute. I swept my unruly hair into a messy bun and jammed a charcoal pencil through it. It was officially hotter than blue blazes, and the traffic lights on Magazine Street were set to aggravate me. I stopped at every intersection against my will.
A parade of dog walkers in brightly colored tank tops and tightly cropped yoga pants turned on a lightbulb in my head. I needed a peacock-inspired line for Furry Godmother. Jade-and-royal-blue feathered pieces with golden curlicues and those exotic eye-shaped patterns in purple. I yanked the pencil from my hair at the next light and drafted a messy sketch in shades of gray on a sales receipt. The look was perfect for pet pageantry: showy like Vegas and completely customizable. “This is my ticket into the big time.”
A car honked behind me, and I jumped into action, trading focus on my pencil for some effort with the gas pedal.
Ten minutes later, I dashed along the sidewalk toward my store, tapping details into the notes app on my phone. Pet pageants were like beauty pageants. I couldn’t make the same item for more than one contestant, but I could expand the concept for over-the-counter items to sell in the studio, like boas, hair clips, and one-size-fits-most wraparound skirts. My mind overflowed with things to work out as soon as I got to the studio. The big Animal Elegance gala would be the perfect venue to introduce a new line. I just needed time to make some prototypes and a pet to model for me.
I must’ve been more consumed than I realized because I screamed when someone grabbed my shoulder.
“Whoa, hey, it’s only me.” Miguel’s girlfriend, Sunshine, waved an extralarge smoothie cup between us. Condensation ran down the side and over her tanned fingers. “I met you the other night. Do you remember? You asked a lot of questions about my boyfriend, Miguel.”
I pressed my phone to my chest and thanked my stars she wasn’t a tire-popping lunatic. “Hi. Yes, of course I remember you.”
Her eyes glossed with tears. “The cops picked me up after that.”
Her voice cracked, and my heart stopped hammering. I went into caretaker mode. “Sit.” I motioned to the bench outside my shop window. “Let’s rest a minute.”
She wavered. Heartbreak reddened her eyes.
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “I wanted to talk to you again. I planned to come back to the Barrel Room, but this is better.” I sat and patted the space beside me. “Did you come to talk to me or is this a coincidence?”
“I came for you. You weren’t in the shop, so I got a drink to cool off and waited. We get discounts at Frozen Banana, so I’m up this way a lot lately.”
I cringed at the memory of the last smoothie to visit my storefront. “You get a discount?”
“Yeah. Mr. Tater gave cards to the Barrel Room employees. He has them for a bunch of places in town.” She lowered her body onto the bench and batted teary eyes. “Sorry. My emotions are all over the place this week.”
“I can’t imagine.” I gave her a thorough once-over. She wore threadbare flip-flops and a maxi dress that clung slightly to her middle. “How are you feeling besides emotional? You weren’t well the other night.”
She rested the drink in her lap and cupped protective fingers around her abdomen. “I’m fine.”
“You’re pregnant.”
Her eyes widened. “Yeah. I wasn’t really drinking the other night. That was grape juice. I would never hurt my baby.”
I nodded, recalling the odd hue at the bottom of her glass. Grape juice. I smiled. “Why are you hiding your pregnancy?”
She gave me a one-shouldered shrug. “Miguel wanted me to keep it a secret until he had a chance to break things off with Hayden.”
Wow. What a keeper. I cringed internally at judging him so harshly. He was gone, and creep or not, Sunshine now faced single parenthood. “Was Hayden the one you argued with in the parking lot that night?”
“Yeah.” She rubbed her nose. “Miguel and I were leaving here and starting over. He said he had something to take care of, and then we were going to go out west to make a life for ourselves. Just the three of us.”
“Do you know what he needed to do?”
“No. He didn’t say, but I know what you’re thinking. Mr. Tater was going on for weeks about all the local thefts and how important it was for us to stay vigilant at work. We were supposed to report any shady activity. But Miguel wasn’t a part of that. He’s out of the game.”
“Have you seen anything shady?”
She wrinkled her face. “This is New Orleans. I don’t even know what would classify here.”
Touché. “I haven’t heard of any new break-ins. Have you?” Not since her boyfriend had broken into my store.
Sunshine launched onto her feet. “Miguel wasn’t a thief anymore. He was done with that life. He told me so, and he never lied to me.”
“I believe you.” Well, I believed that she believed her lying, cheating baby daddy. Personally, I thought his criminal record spoke for itself. That and the fact he had broken into my studio.
“When was the last time you talked to Miguel? Did he seem like anything was bothering him?”
“No. He was happy. We were happy.” She swiped renegade tears from her cheeks.
“Did he have any enemies? Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt him?”
“No. Everyone loved him. Especially Hayden. She followed him around like a lost puppy, begging him to choose her. He said she showed up everywhere he went.”
“Did she know about the baby?”
“No. I don’t think so, but she was really jealous.”
I chewed my lip. “Do you think she was mad enough to hurt him? Maybe if she couldn’t have him, then you couldn’t either?”
She paled. “I don’t know. Oh my goodness, I hope not. Who would be that crazy?”
I didn’t dare tell her. Lots of people used that exact excuse to clobber cheating spouses and significant others. Still, it seemed a long reach, and Jack had let her go after questioning. “Did Miguel ever mention a guy named Levi Marks?”
“No. Who’s he?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.” I lifted my hand in the air and dropped it, unsure what I could do to comfort Sunshine. “I’m really sorry about your loss.” My gaze drifted to the gentle curve of her abdomen. She seemed far too young to carry so much loss and face so many challenges. “I’m sure your baby will be perfect and loved beyond reason.”
“Thank you.”
The street around me burst to life, infiltrating my single-minded focus. No matter what happened to me, I’d never be left alone to grieve or raise a child. I had an uptight, pretentious mother who meant well in her way and a father who, as far as I was concerned, hung the moon.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?” I asked. I didn’t have much at the moment, but I could listen. I could cook. I had a network she could access for prenatal care, housing, or anything she needed. Where did she live? Where was her family?
“Find out who did this. Give my baby justice.”
“I will.”
She squared her shoulders and tossed the cup into a trash bin. “See you around, Lacy.”