The paramedics had come and left quickly with Daisy packed up on a gurney. A couple of cops had come as well to check out what happened. I heard Mrs. Shedd tell one of the officers that it appeared Daisy had a seizure. CeeCee and Elise were still at the table, not sure what to do.
“Molly, this is a disaster,” Mrs. Shedd said, stopping next to me. She looked around the area we had set up for the event. Most of the seats were empty and there were a lot of books, DVDs, and such that had been abandoned.
Muttering to herself, my boss went off and started to retrieve the unsold merchandise. She seemed to be operating on nerve and was in shock like everyone else.
But then everything changed when one of the cops got a call that she had been DOA when she reached the ER. They started rolling yellow tape across the front of the bookstore and told the small crowd that was left that they would need statements.
It wasn’t the first time I’d been through something like this and I knew I was going to be there for a long time. I realized I better call home and alert them I was not coming home to take over Marlowe’s care and I couldn’t say when I would be back.
Peter answered and he wanted to know all the details of why I was delayed, somehow thinking I had gone out on a date. When he heard about Daisy, I heard him let out a groan. “Don’t even think about it. You can’t get involved with playing detective to find out what happened to her. You’re supposed to be working for me. I need you to stay focused on Miles Langford. I want to have yea or nay soon—hopefully yea, so I can take his money and start putting all the pieces together.”
I hung up, shaking my head in disbelief at my son’s reaction. Someone had just died and still his mind was all on his business. Just like his father had been.
CeeCee and Elise both still seemed stunned and I went to talk to them. They were both upset and wanted to leave.
The two cops had been joined by four more and they circulated among the people still there and began separating everyone, ordering us not to talk among ourselves.
“Too late for that,” Elise said, looking at the other people who had been clumped together and clearly were talking.
She had barely gotten the words out when the cops came to separate us.
“She works for the bookstore,” one of the cops said and I was singled out. They didn’t say it, but I knew it was for more advanced questioning.
I skipped to the head of the line as the cop took down my basic information and then led me to the enclosed area I had called the green room, explaining that the bookstore owner had given them permission to use it.
The three chairs I had set out were still there. Two were empty and the third was filled with Detective Barry Greenberg. “I didn’t see you come in,” I said while I tried to collect myself. It was the first time I’d seen him since our breakup and I had a flood of confused feelings.
“We have our stealthy ways,” he said. If he felt as uncomfortable as I did, it didn’t show. He was dressed in a suit that was impervious to wrinkles. The white shirt and tie appeared fresh, too. There was just a hint of a five o’clock shadow on his chin to hint that it had probably been a long day.
“Maybe you should have someone else question me,” I said.
He shook his head. “I can handle it,” he said. “But if it’s too uncomfortable for you, I can get somebody else.”
“I’m okay,” I said.
“Good,” he said with a nod. “We’re adults. We realized we’d made a mistake and moved on,” he said in his benign cop tone. He looked around the enclosure for a long time, which seemed like a way to stall before he continued. “I’m back with Carol.” He was quiet for a moment. “It’s not like it was with you, but it works.” Our eyes met and a spark of heat passed between us and I knew he was thinking back to those nights in Hawaii, as I was. He looked down at his clipboard, trying to get back in professional mode. “She’s okay with my lifestyle and the hours I keep. And Jeffrey is good at watching her kids when both of us are working.” Carol was an ER nurse who probably worked all kinds of crazy shifts herself. Jeffrey was his son and was nothing like Barry. He was into theater and had always seemed mature for his age. I had a soft spot for the kid and wondered how he felt about the situation. But I didn’t feel comfortable about asking.
“About Cosmo,” Barry said, referring to the black mutt who was technically his and Jeffrey’s dog but was residing at my house. I crossed my fingers that he wasn’t going to ask to take the dog now that he was back with Carol. “He’s better off staying with you.” He glanced at me and then away. “No guarantee he’d be taken care of with us.” I felt a twinge at the way he said “us.” Could he really move on so easily after saying that I was “the one”?
“What about you?” he said. “Are you doing okay?”
The feeling of discomfort was going away and I’d even forgotten that I was there to be questioned about a death. I told him about Marlowe being dropped off, but didn’t mention what Peter had asked me to do. It was none of his business and I knew he would not approve. Not that it really mattered what he thought, I was going to do what I was going to do regardless.
Then he got to what he really meant and asked if I was back with Mason.
I choked on a laugh. “Are you kidding? I’m sure he hates me.” I gave Barry a hard look. “What was I thinking? I should have known it wouldn’t work with us. That nothing had changed.”
A cloud passed over his face before he turned away. When he turned back to face me, he was back to Barry the detective. “So then, why don’t you tell me what happened,” he said in his cop voice.
I straightened and began to describe the evening. “This is probably a waste of your time. It looked like she had a seizure. So no crime, no murder, no suspects.”
“That’s for me to determine,” he said. He was trying to stay in cop mode, but he finally shook his head with a hopeless smile. “Some things don’t change—like you trying to tell me my business.”
• • •
When I finally left the bookstore, the Channel 3 news van was parked out front. The doors opened and the reporter and camera person hopped out and managed to turn everything on in the time it took me to walk to the corner. They rushed up behind me and Kimberly Diaz Wang stuck a microphone in front of my face.
“Hello, Molly. Can you tell us what happened?” she asked. I’d made the mistake of talking to her in the past and she’d given me the moniker of murder groupie because somehow I had been at a number of crime scenes. Not going to happen to me this time.
I looked at her with a smile. “No.”