A couple hours later, Nick Garnett stood on my doorstep, a carry-on bag in one hand, a bouquet of black-eyed Susans in another. The flowers were a little joke between us stemming back to a serial-killer story we’d worked on together.
“Surprise, Riley. I rented a car at the airport.”
Frantically, I pulled him inside. He figured it was because I missed him terribly and wanted to hold him close. Really, it was because I didn’t want the neighbors to see him.
Once I got him past the threshold and slammed the door, I felt torn. I wanted him to kiss me long and hard because we hadn’t seen each other in a month. But it was a few minutes before ten and I also wanted to watch the news.
I compromised by pushing him onto the couch, kissing him quickly, and fumbling for the remote. I found Channel 3 in time for us to hear Clay Burrel leading the newscast with the gossip murder and word that he’d just learned—exclusively—that the killer had shot Sam Pierce to death.
“At least I don’t own a gun,” I said.
“Hard to prove a negative,” Garnett replied. “And just as easy for a woman to pull a trigger as a man. Now if your pal had been fatally beaten, size and strength might be a factor.”
He put his fingers around my upper arm like he was measuring my muscle. I shrugged him away, clicking the remote off when the newscast shifted from violence to politics.
Clay had also latched on to this homicide. And to be honest, I was impressed that he, being new to Minneapolis, had gleaned another hot lead early in the investigation, even though the cause of death can come from numerous sources.
I know journalists are supposed to have tough skins, but in the early days in my news vocation, I’d thought that feature only applied to our professional work, not our personal lives. Being on TV, I’d learned otherwise—nothing was off-limits to the public. Over the years, I’d built a successful career pointing the finger at wrongdoers and now was discovering that I didn’t like having the finger pointed at me—as either an adulterer or a murderer.
So I reminded Garnett I still didn’t want us to be seen together in public. Forget holding hands. I didn’t even want to walk down the street with him.
“Well, then it’s a good thing we’ve got the blinds pulled.”
As he unbuttoned my shirt, he pointed out that Minnesota prisons don’t allow inmates to have conjugal visits, so I better rendezvous while I could.
I whacked him over the head with the yellow and black bouquet he’d brought, leaving a dusting of sticky powder in his barely gray hair, but I was happy he’d flown back to Minneapolis and glad not to be alone that night. And not just so I’d have an alibi if anyone else I knew was murdered.