Death Under Glass (19 page)

“Who? Me?” I squeaked.

“You. Georgia Kelly. Let's walk.”

I glanced at Diana, who said, “I'm here. Go ahead.”

I grabbed one more stray magazine off the floor and set it on an end table. Detective Nolan waited to be sure I was coming then turned and led the way out of the
apartment. He stayed a couple of paces ahead of me down the hallway to the top of the stairway.

“You know,” I began, finally catching up to him. “When someone suggests taking a walk, they usually intend to walk
with
the other person, not race ahead. What's the rush, Detective?”

He sighed. “Christopher.”

“What?”

“My name is Christopher.” He walked down the stairs, and this time it was my hesitation that made me have to rush to catch him.

“I thought your name was Chip,” I said from a step behind him. “That's what Drew Able says.”

Detective Nolan—Christopher—reached the landing and paused. “I was Chip in grade school. And middle school. And people that knew me then are having a tough time letting me grow out of it.” He leaned toward me, bringing his face closer to mine. “But I promise you, I'm all grown up now. And you can call me Chris.”

All the wayward thoughts I'd had about the man returned in one knee-rattling rush. Eyes shrewd and warm, enough salt in his hair to wipe away youthful foolishness, smile all the more delightful because of its rarity.

I had to close my eyes and take a deep breath as I shook those thoughts away . . . again. “Um. Okay. Chris. Where are we going?”

He jogged down the remaining half flight of stairs and this time I decided he could just wait until I caught up. No way was I going to run.

Plus, it gave me a few more moments to gather my wits
and remember Tony's call, remember his laugh, remember we had plans. A little shiver of happy anticipation danced across my skin. Tony. I was going to a non-platonic dinner with Tony. At last.

At the bottom of the stairs, the detective held open the glass and steel door leading onto the steps of the apartment building. I passed through with a muttered thanks, dimly aware that the air-conditioned indoor temperature was a few degrees warmer than the outdoor air.

“So what's on your mind, Chris?” I skipped down the trio of steps and kept walking once I hit the sidewalk. Two could play the chase-me game.

He fell into step beside me. Once again he slipped his hands into his pockets. “I wanted to get your take on all of this.”

I opted against pretending cluelessness. “Mine? What good is my opinion? You're the professional here. And come to think of it, why are you here? Aren't there other detectives? Don't you ever have a night off?”

And there was one of his rare smiles. Wow, that was hard to resist. You know, for some people.

“Pace County currently has three detectives. We really could use one more, but no one's hitting exhaustion while we're short staffed.”

“Yeah, but—”

“But yes, I do have the occasional nights off. Yes, tonight was one of them. But at this point, the desk gets a call from anyone connected to Russ or Carrie Stanford, I'm the one they contact.”

“Okay. So it's your case is what you're saying? And
you really have connected the dots and admit these crimes aren't random?”

He let out a heavy sigh. “I connected those dots a long time ago, Georgia.”

We walked without speaking for ten feet or so, long enough for the subtle sounds of the neighborhood—a loud radio somewhere out of sight, the splash and shrieks of kids in a pool—to make an impression on me, and for one and only one car to zip past on the street.

“So then what do you need from me?” I asked. “What's the point of this stroll?”

“You know Carrie better than I do,” he said. “Naturally.”

“Naturally,” I echoed.

“And she'll tell you things she wouldn't necessarily tell me.”

“You mean you, Chris? Or you, the Pace County detective?”

He gave me a tight smile. “Both. Either.”

I stomped on a weed growing boldly in the crack of the sidewalk. “What makes you think I'd tell you anything she'd rather keep private?”

“I wouldn't ask you to do that,” he said. “What I am asking is your impression. She's insistent that Russ Stanford is her ex, but she still co-owns property with him, she still uses his last name, and she had dinner with him tonight.”

“So?”

“So are there any lingering feelings there?”

My forehead scrunched as I tried to sort through the logic. “What difference does that make?”

“Emotions are a difficult variable to pin down. If she still has feelings for him, she may be withholding information, suspicions . . .”

“You mean like if Russ was actually the guilty party here and Carrie was still in love with him, then she'd keep certain details to herself to protect him.”

He nodded. “Exactly that.”

“Or do you mean,” I started, and almost couldn't believe I was going to ask, couldn't believe I was suddenly worried about the answer, “that if Carrie is still in love with Russ, there's no point in you asking her out?”

Detective Nolan came to an abrupt stop. He pulled his hands from his pockets and set them on his waist. “Honestly?”

“Yes, honestly,” I said.

He shook his head. “No. I mean honestly, that's what you're getting out of this? I thought you had sharper skills of observation.”

I stood still, managed to do nothing other than blink rapidly. I knew the ground beneath my feet was solid, flat, and steady, yet I somehow felt I had lost all balance. “I'm . . . really confused.”

Huffing, he looked away from me, up the street where no traffic passed. “I have no interest in Carrie Stanford that isn't professional. And may I repeat, I thought you had sharper skills of observation.”

Shuffling backward a little, putting enough space between us that I could see his face and his posture and potentially read both, I nonetheless remained confused. It was my turn to huff. “Look, you know what? It's been
a long day. And the first person in this town that I could call a friend is packing her bags in a crime scene. So please, can you just ask direct questions and not play this police interrogation game where you try and trick me into giving up information I'd rather keep secret?”

His smile started slowly, but grew into a grin that seemed to dislodge the weight of law enforcement from his shoulders. “All right, then. Do you think Carrie is protecting Russ?”

“No. Next question.”

“Do you believe Russ's brother Gabe may have set fire to his office to destroy the prenuptial agreement between Russ and his new fiancée?”

I drew a breath through my teeth. “Not sure. He has motive, he has access to accelerants, and he's a serious jerk. But he would have no reason to break into Carrie's shop or her home. So I have to go with no.”

His brows rose and he nodded appreciatively. “What about the fiancée? Could she be trying to scare Carrie away, make sure she has no place in Russ's life going forward?”

I tipped my head. “Could be. Can I interrogate the fiancée?”

“No.”

“Then no comment. Next question.”

“Will you have dinner with me on Wednesday?”

Prepared to shoot back a quick yes or no to a question about Carrie or Russ, I opened and closed my mouth like a goldfish navigating sparkling water. The only word that threatened to fall from my tongue was
Tony
.

“Okay.” He nodded. “That's a no. Fair enough. You were right about asking direct questions. Much faster.”

“Oh, no, wait.” I had to explain. I couldn't let him think I had no interest at all, right? Because there was interest. And because what if me and Tony didn't really click after all?

Detective Christopher Nolan held up a hand to stop me. “One more question. Do you have any theories on what our perpetrator is looking for among Carrie's things?”

“No,” I said. “But can we get back to—”

Again, the hand came up. With his other hand, he reached to his belt and pulled a cell phone from its case. And in that one move, he put the cloak of law enforcement over his shoulders once more. “Thanks,” he said. “That's all I have. You can go back upstairs now.” He turned his back on me, phone to his ear, and started walking. “Nolan.”

I took one step, ready to hurry after him.

“Yeah, Steve, what do you have?” His voice faded as he moved away, and I stood still, incapable of taking another step. Unbidden, Grandy's voice rumbled through the back of my mind.
Don't chase after boys
,
Georgia
, the voice advised.
If he's really interested, he'll be back
.

Frustrated and disappointed in myself, I scanned the sidewalk cracks for more weeds. Reaching down, I grabbed a handful of dandelion leaves and wrenched them out of the earth. With a grunt of aggravation, I threw the weeds at the street. But they were weeds, leaves heavy with moisture from humidity and rain. Rather than sail toward the street and land where a passing car would crush them beneath unforgiving wheels, the weeds dropped
directly to the ground in a stunning display of the effects of gravity.

“Perfect,” I muttered. “Just perfect.” I sighed and headed back toward Carrie's apartment building.

“Well,” I told myself. “At least I will always have my cat to keep me company on a Saturday night.”

And then I swallowed down the lump of self-pity in my throat and went back
inside.

D
iana offered to stay behind at the apartment and wait for the twenty-four-hour locksmith to arrive. Of course, Carrie argued, feeling more herself and unwilling to impose on anyone. But Diana and her badge insisted. She promised to meet us there in the morning with the new key and help in the cleanup and inventory of Carrie's belongings.

Carrie clutched her weekend bag in two hands as we made our way down the stairs and out to the parking lot located adjacent to the building.

“Give me your car keys.” I held out my hand, waited while Carrie gaped at my palm. “Please,” I added.

With jerky motions, Carrie shifted the weekender to one hand and tugged her purse off her shoulder. “My keys,” she said. “To my car.”

I took the weekend bag from her, freeing her hands to dig through her purse. Circling around the back of the car, I said, “Pop the trunk when you find them.” Then I waited while Carrie, who swore she was calm and capable of driving her own car, found the keys in her bag and dropped them three times before pushing the button to unlock the vehicle.

The trunk lid lifted on its hinges enough for me to get my hand under and pull up. Inside, Carrie had a set of jumper cables coiled at the bottom of a milk crate, a snow scraper, a half-full container of windshield wiper fluid, a cardboard carton, and a plastic grocery bag stuffed with papers.

Cardboard cartons and plastic bags should not look familiar. But the bag was yellow, and the carton had a U-Move-It diamond logo emblazoned on its side.

I relocated the grocery bag to the milk crate and dropped the weekender into the trunk. When I returned to the front of the car, Carrie had settled herself in the passenger seat, belt and all.

Climbing into the driver's seat, I learned that though Carrie and I were of similar height, our driving styles differed. I reached beneath the seat to find the lever to slide the chair back. “Why is that carton in your car?”

The frisson of renewed energy that passed through Carrie was nearly visible. When she turned to me, her eyes were clear and color had returned to her cheeks. “Ugh. I was going to give them to Russ but after all his pathetic begging it went right out of my head,” she ground out.

“Ohhhh,” I said. “Is this the part I missed while I was on the phone?” I threw the car into gear and guided the
vehicle out of the parking lot and onto the quiet road. “Start at the beginning. What did he say after I went outside?”

“I thought we would be discussing the property and working out when we could go together to the insurance company and take care of whatever paperwork we needed to handle, maybe work out whether to rebuild or sell or whatever.”

“And that's not what happened?”

“No, I started to ask him what day would be good for him but then our food came”—she glanced to me—“and then he apologizes for not being able to eat with us and decides to explain why, saying he has to get back because, ‘oh, you probably heard me promising to bring Chinese food' and ‘I should probably tell you I'm involved with this girl.' He starts in trying to
break it to me gently
that he's going to go ahead and propose to his girlfriend.”

“Would that be Brittany who likes fried wontons?”

“That would be Brittany. But he's telling me about her, praising her to high heaven and watching me like he's waiting for me to fall to my knees crying.” Carrie's laugh had bitter undertones. “As if I'm going to have some sort of breakdown because he's off the market
after
I've divorced him.”

I sighed and shook my head, happy to commiserate on the oddities of men if it kept Carrie's mind off the break-ins. “Incredible,” I offered.

“Oh, you haven't heard the best part,” she said.

“Which is?”

“Do you know why he wanted to talk to me face-to-face?”

I obliged by shaking my head and asking why.

“It wasn't to talk about the fire or Herb or make plans to talk to the insurance company. No. He just figured with everything going on I was bound to hear that he planned on getting married again. He wanted to ask me not to contact Brittany and tell her any stories that make him look bad.”

“What?” I nearly shrieked. “Are you serious? Why would he think you would do that? Why would he think you even know who Brittany is or how to contact her?”

“That's what I asked him,” Carrie said. “I don't know where he got the idea that I would even want to know the girl's name much less seek her out and warn her against Russ. Although”—she shifted in her seat, moving the seat belt farther out against her shoulder—“now that he's brought it up, I am beginning to feel like it's the least I could do for her.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?” I grinned and turned onto the boulevard leading from Carrie's end of Wenwood to mine.

She turned to face me. “It's that old question. Would you want to know in advance if the guy you're thinking of marrying is a jackass? Would it matter? Or would you rather take that leap of faith?”

The tires
shoosh
ed against the pavement, the only sound that remained in the car after the internal echo of Carrie's question faded. Because I had to give that question hard thought. By some accounts—my own included—I'd been lucky to split with Eric before the walk down the aisle made it a legal issue. In that respect, I had known before the “I do” what I might have gotten into. But if
someone had told me the hue of Eric's true colors before I saw them myself . . . well, I don't know if I'd have believed what I was being told. Worse, I might have thought things would be different with
me
.

A signal light switched from yellow to red, breaking me free of the cobwebs of my thoughts. Applying the brake, I brought the car to a nice, smooth stop.

“Well?” Carrie asked. “Which would you rather?”

“I'm probably not the right person to ask.” I shook my head. “I'm afraid I might fall into the leap of faith category. Or I used to, anyway. Might be different now, I suppose.”

She folded her arms brusquely. “I'd want to know,” she said.

When the traffic light turned green, I started off again, watching for the turn I needed to take to get to Grandy's. “So are you saying you've decided to track down Brittany and tell her that Russ is a philandering donkey?”

“Jackass. And I wouldn't have to work hard to track her down. The police have already spoken to her. I could probably get Detective Nolan to give me her last name at least and after that she's just an internet search away.”

“Speaking of Detective Nolan,” I began. Once the words were out of my mouth, though, I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. I felt the swift sensation of wanting to keep my confusion to myself for a while, at least until I had time to sort out any deeper feelings lurking beneath that confusion.

“Speaking of Detective Nolan?” Carrie prompted.

I flicked on the turn indicator, thought fast. “Speaking
of the detective, did Russ tell you anything about what the police asked him? You know, while I was out?”

She held up a hand. “Please. All that man could talk about was—” She stopped herself and took a deep breath. “I'm not being fair,” she said on a sigh. “Here I am about to say all he could talk about was Brittany and the work he's going to have to do to reopen the office—even in a temporary space. But I would probably do the same. I probably have done the same.”

Making the final turn onto Grandy's street, I switched the headlights to high beams. The wide bright light illuminated not only a squirrel scampering across the road but the tree trunks and low-hanging branches on either side of the street, and managed to make the grass look as if the blades were glowing.

“Wait, so he went on about Brittany and about how much he has to do to set up shop again? What about what happened to Herb Gallo? Didn't he have anything to say about that?” I asked.

Carrie nodded. “He did mention that his workload would double since he has to take over Herb's clients, too.”

“Seriously, I think I'll never understand men,” I said, bringing the car to stop at the curb. I cut the lights and the engine and looked over at the house. Grandy had left a light on for me in the living room. Friday, backlit in the window, came to her feet and stretched like a miniature Halloween cat.

“Oh. I forgot about the creature,” Carrie said in a small voice.

“Not a creature,” I said. “Small cat.”

She sighed and pushed open her door. Releasing the seat belt and stepping out of the car she said, “I'm much more of a dog person, but I can't have one in my apartment. If I had a dog, I bet no one would have broken in.”

I walked to the back of the car to take Carrie's weekend bag from the trunk, but she beat me to it. “I think that would depend on what kind of dog you had. Not sure a Chihuahua would keep away a criminal.”

Both hands on the handles of the bag, Carrie turned for the house. “I always thought a German shepherd would be nice.”

“You wouldn't want a dog like Fifi? All slobber and noise?” I teased.

“Only if I could also have a German shepherd.”

With the keys to Carrie's car tight in one hand, I dug in my purse with the other. Somewhere in its depths I had house keys.

Carrie let out a noisy yawn as I unlocked the house and waved her inside. “Sorry,” she said. “Day's catching up to me.”

I gave her what I hoped was a sympathetic smile. “Don't worry about it,” I said.

She declined that soothing cup of tea after all, and I settled her in the spare bedroom with clean sheets, extra pillows, and a half a dozen cartons containing various remnants of my former life.

“Hey, I never asked you,” she said, sinking to the bed. She tugged the pillow from under the spread and hugged it tight. “What did Tony Himmel want?”

Probably any other day I would have added happy energy
to my response. Things being what they were, I kept it low-key. “He asked me to dinner tomorrow. I accepted.”

She waited a moment, I guessed for me to say something more, but I shrugged.

“That's it?” she asked.

“That's it. Just dinner.”

“Where is he taking you?”

“Cappy's.”

She nodded abstractly. “They have the best crab legs there.”

Wishing her a good night, I headed back downstairs. I grabbed my purse from the old wingback chair on which I'd dropped it and continued on into the workspace.

Perhaps I should have been tired. Maybe physically I was. But my mind was racing at top speed. Crawling into bed at that point would result in more tossing and turning than sleeping and dreaming. Plus Friday tended to be intolerant of my tossing and turning.

I flipped on the overhead light and the gooseneck lamp clamped to the end of my worktable. Before I stuffed my purse into an empty spot on the little bookshelf, I pulled out my cell phone and called the dine-in.

After I told Grandy that Carrie's apartment had been broken into, I waited what I thought was a reasonable amount of time while he went off about how things like this had never happened back when the brickworks was still in business. I thought he would eventually wrap up his diatribe and I could let him know I'd put Carrie in the spare bedroom. But he knocked that plan askew when he said, “This is why I told you to let the police handle things,
Georgia,” he said. “Nothing good would come of you sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.”

I wanted to inform him that Detective Nolan—Christopher; no, best to think of him as Detective Nolan—said I had good observational skills, but instead I went with, “If it wasn't for me sticking my nose in, you might still be in jail.”

“And you were damn lucky you didn't get hurt. Or worse,” he grumbled. “And this situation will get worse before it gets better, mark my words. After what happened to poor Herb Gallo”—his sigh echoed hollow on the phone—“Carrie's lucky she wasn't home at the time.”

But was she lucky she wasn't home? Or did the thief/burglar/perpetrator know she wouldn't be there? Whoever was behind the sudden crime wave clearly knew both Russ and Carrie. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility that either one of them had unknowingly told the criminal that they would be out to dinner.

“Well, she's here now,” I said. “I didn't want her to be alone, jumping at every gust of wind. She's in the spare bedroom.”

“With all those boxes? That may be braver than staying on her own.”

“Ha-ha very funny.” I pointed out that Carrie would have to be up and out in the morning to open the shop, that I'd be going with her, and apologized in advance if either of us woke him.

It wasn't until after we'd said good-bye and I plugged the phone in to be charged that it occurred to me: Grandy never said Carrie was safer with us than at her apartment.
He simply forgot, right? He really did believe she was safer where the arsonist/thief/murderer couldn't find her, didn't he?

Unless the criminal had set up his own personal stakeout and waited for Carrie to leave her apartment. In which case he knew what kind of car Carrie drove . . .

And he could have been watching while we all arrived after Carrie discovered the break-in. Watching while the police went in and out, while Detective Nolan and I strolled the sidewalk, when Carrie and I left. Had someone followed us? I never even thought to watch my rearview. There had been cars behind us at various points, of course. After all, it was Saturday night. People still went out. But had I not noticed anyone following us because I hadn't seen anyone? Or because I had no real experience in detecting a tail?

I hurried up the stairs to the front door. Usually on Grandy's nights at the dine-in I left the door unlocked for him. I flicked the locking lever. Tonight he'd have to use his key. I closed and locked the living room windows next. Anyone could walk up onto the porch and punch out a screen. Carrie was right: A dog was a good idea.