Rafe was insistent that we had to get to the FinBar before Grimaldi
and Mendoza did. It wasn’t until we got there, beating Grimaldi and
her ‘date’ to the punch, that I realized why. As he headed for a
booth in the back corner, and put himself with his back against the
wall, I saw the issue: if we’d gotten here last, he’d have had to
sit with his back to the room, and he doesn’t like to do that.
Grimaldi doesn’t, either, and when she came in and saw that we’d
already taken the front-facing seats, she didn’t look happy.
That was OK with me. She had Jaime Mendoza trailing her, and the sight of him made me angry.
For the record, I had nothing against Mendoza. He seemed like a decent sort. He’d complimented my husband on his handling of the insane serial killer a month ago. He’d handled my mother beautifully when she invited him to marry me, and he’d done it without making me feel rejected. He was managing Virgil Wright’s murder case as well as anyone could expect, at least as far as I could tell. Grimaldi had told me he was a good cop. And he was extremely easy on the eyes. I had no problem with him, other than that he was here as Grimaldi’s date.
Although I must say they didn’t look or behave like two people on a date. Grimaldi wasn’t dressed up at all, but arrived in the same severe business suit she must have worn to work all day. So did Mendoza, if it came to that. Then again, I’d had dinner with Grimaldi and my brother when she’d been wearing that same suit, and I was pretty sure that, at least, had been a date.
They sat down across from us, both of them clearly bothered by the fact that they had to keep their backs to the door.
Three cops walk into a bar... scrolled through my head, and I grinned.
Grimaldi looked at me. “Something funny?”
“Just watching the three of you jockey for position. We left early so Rafe could get the seat with his back to the wall. You have to admit it’s more likely someone will be gunning for him rather than the two of you.”
Grimaldi shrugged. “Police work has been known to create enemies.”
“Ten years undercover creates more.”
She didn’t seem to have an answer for that. Mendoza looked at Rafe. “Ten years undercover? How did you pull that off?”
Very carefully, I thought. In fact, it wasn’t until he got involved with me that his cover was blown. Sometimes I felt bad about that, about the fact that I’d cost him his career and had almost gotten him killed along the way. The rest of the time I was just grateful that he was out now, and wasn’t risking his life every day.
They got to talking about it, and I sat back and listened. And watched, for any sign of a special intimacy between Grimaldi and Mendoza. Hand-holding under the table, sideways glances, playing footsie. But if there was anything like that going on, I didn’t notice.
The waitress arrived in the middle of the conversation to take our drink orders, and seemed to be quite overcome by the testosterone hovering over the table. It took her two tries to get her voice to work, and when it did, she didn’t seem quite sure which of them to look at. “Something to drink?”
Rafe ordered a beer, and I asked for sweet tea. Mendoza waited for Grimaldi to order—beer as well—before he asked for a Coke.
The waitress could barely drag her eyes away from him. “Are you ready to order?”
Rafe chuckled. “I’ll have a burger. Darlin’?”
I’d had a burger too, yesterday, but today I wasn’t in the mood. “Chicken Caesar, please.”
Grimaldi ordered another burger, and Mendoza a Philly cheese steak. The waitress came close to stumbling over her own feet as she walked away.
“Can’t take you anywhere,” I murmured to Rafe.
He chuckled. “It ain’t me getting the attention this time, darlin’. That was all for tall, dark and handsome over there.”
Mendoza grimaced. “It’s a curse.”
I could well imagine it might be. I look OK, and I get my own share of attention from men, but I’d gotten sick and tired of how some women behaved around Rafe when I took him out somewhere. They acted like I wasn’t even there, so they could slaver over him.
“Does it bother you?” I asked Grimaldi.
She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. So that either meant that it didn’t, and she was wondering why I’d even think it might, or she didn’t care, because this wasn’t really a date and Mendoza was on his own.
“Have you spoken to Dix lately?” I asked, as the men went back to talking shop, or more specifically, talking about Rafe’s years undercover and Mendoza’s time as a cop. Male bonding, law enforcement style, I guess.
I must say the idea bothered me some. The bonding, I mean. Not because Rafe doesn’t deserve friends—he does, and he has very few, since spending your life deep undercover isn’t conducive to forming deep friendships. Not with the people who have to rat out next week or next month. But he was making friends with Grimaldi’s date. When Grimaldi’s date ought to be my brother!
“We talk every couple of days,” Grimaldi told me.
That sounded promising. “Have you been in Sweetwater since the wedding?”
“I’ve been working weekends this month,” Grimaldi said calmly. “And seeing as your brother works during the week, there’s been no good time.”
It was a good excuse, but that might be all it was: an excuse.
“You didn’t make it down for the Fourth of July picnic.”
“I worked on the Fourth,” Grimaldi said. “Holidays are big business for murder cops.”
“People kill each other on holidays?”
She nodded. “More so than the rest of the time. Tempers get short when families get together.”
No kidding. My patience is usually stretched pretty thin whenever I have to deal with my mother.
Although at the moment Mother was still on her best behavior around Rafe, and had been downright friendly during the picnic. I didn’t know how long it would last—probably not forever—but I wasn’t about to look that particular gift horse in the mouth.
“And the heat doesn’t help,” Grimaldi added. “It makes people cranky.”
“I would have thought it made them lazy.”
She shook her head. “It all contributes to making them angry. And when some people get angry they take it out on other people.”
I glanced at Rafe and Mendoza, still in conversation. “Do you think that’s what happened to Virgil Wright? The heat got to someone and they hit him over the head with a rock?”
Grimaldi glanced sideways too, before she answered. “According to the boyfriend, Mr. Wright ran the same route every evening. Someone who knew that about him, could easily have lain in wait in the only part of that route that was private and offered the murderer cover while he committed the crime.”
“Why would someone kill him? Was he rich?”
“He was doing all right,” Grimaldi said. “White collar job. Good salary and a bit of savings. Most of it from the sale of the house last winter, and from not spending the proceeds to buy another. But it wasn’t like there was a greedy nephew next in line for the fortune. That only happens in books.”
“Who inherits the money he’s got?”
“In general? Because I have no specific information about Mr. Wright’s case.”
“Sure,” I said. “In general. I guess.”
“Unless there’s a will, and most people our age haven’t bothered with one, it’s next of kin. Spouse, if there’s a legal marriage. Children. Parents. Siblings.”
I nodded. “Virgil wasn’t married, and I don’t think he had any children. I guess that would make his parents his heirs.”
“Unless he’d written a will in favor of his lover,” Grimaldi said.
“Meaning Kenny? I guess he might have. If they were that serious about each other. Although as far as I know they’ve been together less than a year.”
“You and your husband haven’t been together any longer,” Grimaldi pointed out.
“No. But we knew each other before.”
Grimaldi shrugged. As well she might, since Rafe’s and my acquaintance in high school hadn’t stretched much beyond a word or two in the hallway, if he thought nobody was close enough to listen.
“Now that Rafe and I are married,” I said, “if anything were to happen to me, I guess he’d inherit everything I own?” A run-down, seven-year-old Volvo that Bradley had paid for, and a lot of designer dresses and high heeled shoes I couldn’t fit into at the moment...
“Why ask me?” Grimaldi wanted to know. “I’m a cop, not a lawyer. The person you should ask is your brother.”
I shot a glance at Mendoza, who was still talking to Rafe, and showing no interest in what Grimaldi and I were saying. “Speaking of my brother...”
She didn’t roll her eyes, but she looked like she wanted to. “Really?”
“I’m just worried, that’s all. And curious. I thought you and Dix were... you know...”
“Your brother and I are friends,” Grimaldi said firmly.
I lowered my voice, with another sideways glance. “And you and Detective Mendoza are...?”
“Colleagues.” Her expression challenged me to disagree with her.
“So this...?”
“Isn’t a date.” She lowered her voice, too. “He’s still married, you know. And not about to do anything that would jeopardize his ability to spend time with his son. He may have screwed up in the past, but he’s toeing the line at the moment.”
Ah. “Sorry,” I said. “But if he wasn’t married...?”
She sat back against the seat. “You do realize that my love life is none of your business, don’t you? I didn’t ask you questions about your relationship with Mr. Collier.”
“You didn’t have to,” I said. “I volunteered information. Probably more information than you wanted to hear.”
She didn’t contradict me, and I added, “And I’m worried about my brother.”
It’s possible I might have imagined it, but I think her steely gaze softened. “You don’t have to worry about your brother.”
“He likes you.” And if she was going out with someone else, whether she called it a date or not, then yes, I needed to worry.
“And I like him,” Grimaldi said. “But he hasn’t even been widowed a year yet. And he has two daughters to worry about.”
“Abigail and Hannah are fine,” I said. “I’m sure dealing with Sheila’s death was easier for them than for Dix. They’re so young.”
“Losing a mother is hard for any young girl,” Grimaldi said, and since her own mother had died young, I figured she knew.
“I wasn’t saying it hasn’t been hard. But they’re children. They have a lot of other things to focus on. School and friends and things like that. Dix lost his wife and his co-parent.”
“Precisely why he isn’t ready to move on yet,” Grimaldi said.
“Just tell me what I’m supposed to tell him about this!”
“This?”
I indicated the restaurant, the table, and Detective Mendoza.
“You don’t have to tell him anything,” Grimaldi said. “I already told him I was having dinner with you tonight. He said to give you his best.”
“Did he offer to drive up and join us?”
“He had plans,” Grimaldi said. “Pizza and the latest Disney Princess movie with his daughters.”
“Did he ask you to join him?”
Her expression warned me that I was crossing the line, but she answered. “As a matter of fact, he did. And I told him I couldn’t. I’m on call this weekend.”
“But you could go out to dinner with us?”
“Here,” Grimaldi said, “I’m within fifteen minutes of any fresh body that turns up in Davidson County. At your brother’s house, I’m an hour away.”
So she had a point. And scored a few more when she added, “And when I’m there, I’m not doing something I want to stop doing. I enjoy your brother’s company. It’s nice not to talk shop. If I ever get serious about a man, I can tell you right now, he won’t be involved in law enforcement.”
“I guess my husband is safe from you.”
“Your husband has always been safe from me,” Grimaldi said. “Not that I would have gotten anywhere if he were my type. It was obvious from the first time I met you both you had no interest in anyone else.”
Good to know, although it was a little disconcerting that everyone but me had realized it long before I did. Not that Rafe was interested in me—I had known that, although it took me a while to realize the extent of his interest—but that I was in love with him. That had taken a lot longer than I’m comfortable admitting, since it makes me sound like a dunce for not seeing something that was right in front of my nose, that everyone else was seeing, clear as day.
But I digress. “In case you wondered,” I told Grimaldi, “if you consider a lawyer to be uninvolved in law enforcement, I’d love it if you and my brother worked things out. You’d make a much more interesting sister-in-law than Sheila. Rest her soul.”
Grimaldi looked daunted. I hadn’t realized I had the ability to do that. And it hadn’t even taken much effort on my part. “Thank you,” she said. “I think.”
“Besides, if Dix marries you, maybe Mother will go a little easier on Rafe. Since he won’t be the only unsuitable spouse in the family.”
Grimaldi arched her brows.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “Mother probably has her eye on some vapid blonde for Dix, just like she had her eye on Todd for me. He deserves better than a wife my mother picks out for him. I’m sure he loved Sheila, and it isn’t like it was an arranged marriage or anything like that. He met her and married her on his own. But Mother liked Sheila better than she liked any of the rest of us. If he isn’t careful, she’ll saddle him with a Sheila-clone.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Grimaldi said and looked up. “Here’s the food.”
It was. And since it was, I let the conversation lapse, even though I was pretty sure she’d been looking for a way to stop talking to me, and the food was just the excuse she needed.
The discussion moved on to Virgil Wright, and from there to Aislynn and Kylie and the anonymous letters.
“Your friend decided to drive up to Kentucky to spend the night with her parents,” Mendoza told me between bites of Philly cheese steak.
Grimaldi eyed him critically. “You let a suspect leave the state?”
“Just across the state line to Bowling Green,” Mendoza said. “She was so incoherent I couldn’t get anything out of her. I figured a day to calm down might be the best thing for her. Maybe tomorrow, she’ll make more sense.”
“If she comes back,” Grimaldi muttered.
“She’ll come back,” I said. “Her girlfriend’s unconscious in the hospital. Of course she’ll come back. And what do you mean, suspect? Surely you can’t suspect Aislynn of killing Virgil? Why would she? And have you seen her? She can’t weigh more than a hundred and fifteen pounds. She’d never be able to hit anyone hard enough to kill him.”
“She’s a waitress,” Grimaldi reminded me. “They’re usually pretty strong from carrying all those trays. But I wasn’t thinking she’d killed Mr. Wright. I was more interested in the possibility that she might have put her girlfriend in the hospital.”
My jaw dropped. “Aislynn? Hit Kylie? Why?!”
“A couple of possible reasons,” Grimaldi told me, while Rafe looked on, amused. I guess he’d already figured this out for himself. Everyone’s mind but mine worked along the same track. “You said they had an argument and then one of the women went to talk to her ex. The same ex the other woman suspects her of wanting to get back together with. What was to keep the woman who stayed home from hitting the woman who got back...”
“Please. Just call them Aislynn and Kylie. The woman who left and the woman who came back make me confused.”
Grimaldi sighed. “Kylie left to talk to her ex-girlfriend. When she came back, she and Aislynn may have gotten into an argument that ended with Aislynn hitting Kylie and then tearing the place up to make it look like a burglary.”
“But she spent the night with us,” I said.
“It could have happened before she arrived at your place.”
“But she said she walked there. That would have taken at least an hour. Maybe more like an hour and a half.”
“Or she took a cab,” Grimaldi said, “and told you she walked.”
Well... yes. She might have done that.
I turned to Mendoza. “Do you think she hit Kylie?”
He shrugged, his mouth full of sandwich. I looked at Rafe, who winked at me.
“You guys are depressing,” I said. “Always looking for hidden agendas everywhere. Always thinking that people are lying.”
“Thinking that people are lying’s saved my life a time or two,” Rafe reminded me calmly. “I’ll just keep thinking that, if it’s all the same to you.”
And since there was nothing I could say to that, I just forked up some lettuce and started chewing.