Knock 'em Dead (2 page)

The detective stood next to my dresser, stiff and devoid of expression. He reminded me of the guards outside Buckingham Palace. Not that I’ve ever been to see the queen, but it is on my list of things to do and places to go.

Reading the gold nameplate above the badge dangling out of his right shirt pocket, I locked eyes with the detective. I didn’t even attempt to soften the contempt in my tone. “Detective Graves, Jane’s in shock or something. Maybe you should—”

“EMS will check her out,” he said. He asked me for identification, then reached into his back pocket. He pulled out a small memo pad and took a nub of a pencil from inside the spiral binding. I grabbed my purse off the nightstand and pulled my license from my wallet.

My thoughts were fractured, racing in every direction. Jane, Paolo, blood, and the inappropriate memory of finding the pink Chanel wallet at the outlet mall. So what if the clasp was broken? It wasn’t like I passed my wallet around, so my secret was safe. No one, not even my closest friends, knew that I’d been reduced to buying factory seconds. But I couldn’t think about that now. Jane’s predicament was far more pressing than my tenuous financial situation.

He dispensed with the standard questions—name, age, etc.—all while comparing the answers to my driver’s license. “Please tell me your version of tonight’s events.”

“Version?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, pencil poised. “Approximately what time did Miss Spencer arrive?”

“Before I had a chance to make coffee,” I said. I wasn’t trying to be snotty, I just couldn’t help myself. The detective had coffee breath and it didn’t seem fair that he’d gotten his while I was expected to provide lucid answers without an ounce of caffeine in my system.

His single, bushy unibrow pinched between his chocolate-colored eyes. He was also African-American, but unlike his partner’s, his complexion was very dark. He either worked out religiously or had a serious steroid problem. His neck wasn’t a neck so much as a thick stump. His biceps and oversized chest strained against the fabric of his blue oxford shirt. And his tie was at least five seasons out of date and knotted wrong. The thinner black-and-gray-striped strip hung pathetically about two inches below the front flap. In fact, now that I had an opportunity to look at him, I realized he’d worked out so much that his body no longer fit conventional clothing. The waistband on his slacks bunched beneath his cinched belt. Because of the bulk of his thighs and calves, the seams on his khaki slacks were stressed almost to their breaking point.

While some women find muscle-bound men attractive, my brain goes in only one direction. If a guy’s lats make it impossible to lower his arms completely to his sides like a normal person, how does said guy aim to pee?

“The time?” he prompted.

“Five twenty.”

“You noted the
exact
time?”

“Cursed it, actually.” I glanced through the slit in the door, trying to catch a glimpse of Jane. I couldn’t hear her conversation with Detective Sensible Shoes, but every so often the muffled sound of Jane hiccupping wafted into my room. “She’s really distraught, Detective. I know she needs medical attention.”

“She’ll get it,” he said. “Now, if we could get back to your statement?”

Raking my fingers through my hair, I was about to give him the abbreviated version. Screw Becky’s advice. In fact, screw Becky, she should have been here by now.

The radio clipped to his belt crackled, and then an almost unintelligible voice said, “One-eight-seven confirmed at 636 Heritage Way South.”

Graves grabbed the radio, depressed a button, and asked for more details. “Hispanic, approximately five-ten. According to his wallet, the vic is Paolo Martinez. Palm Beach address. The ME hasn’t gotten here yet, but COD is definitely multiple stab wounds and…uh…mutilation.”

“Mutilation?” Graves asked. For the first time real interest seemed to kick in.

“Yeah,” the voice on the radio answered. Like Jane, he seemed to have a difficult time describing the injury. “There’s been an, well, um, a—”

“For Chrissake,” I cut in, my hands slapping against my sides. “The killer cut Paolo’s penis off.”

“Yeah,” Radio Voice agreed. “What she said.”

“Signs of a struggle?”

“Negative. We’ve been unable to locate the missing, uh, er—”

I glared at Graves. Why was it so hard for men to say the word yet so easy for them to adjust it in public whenever the mood struck? Amazing. “Penis.”

“Yeah. We haven’t found it.”

“Keep looking,” Graves said.

I thought about that assignment, repulsed as I imagined how it must feel to be the one assigned to find the penis.

Graves asked me all sorts of pointless questions. Did I know Paolo?

No.

Was the deceased Jane’s boyfriend?

Heck no.

Would I characterize Jane as a violent person?

Hell no.

Graves seemed frustrated by me, my answers, or both. He left me under the watchful eyes of the uniformed officer as he slipped into the living room. Balancing on the edge of the bed, I leaned to the right, hoping I might be able to catch bits and pieces of the huddled conversation between the detectives.

Silently, I tried to send Becky an urgent telepathic message to move her ass. Especially when I saw the vacant look in Jane’s eyes. Hearing a knock at my front door, relief washed over me, but it was short-lived. Instead of Becky, two paramedics lumbered in, carrying what looked like large red tackle boxes.

I stood, only to have my progress blocked by Officer Useless. “Keep your seat, ma’am.”

Kiss my seat, and don’t call me ma’am.
“I don’t understand your problem,” I muttered.

“Standard procedure,” he said, as if that explained the whole divide and conquer thing they had going on.

“She’s a dear friend who’s suffered a terrible trauma. I’d simply like to offer some moral support.”

“I can’t let you do that, ma’am.”

I swear, if he “ma’amed” me one more time Paolo wouldn’t be the only one in Palm Beach County missing a body part.

The EMS guys checked Jane for injuries, flashed penlights in her eyes, and then declared her injury-free.

“Like hell,” I yelled loud enough so the group in the other room could hear me. “Look at her, she’s obviously in shock.”

“This will be a lot easier on everyone if you calm down, Ms. Tanner,” the officer insisted.

“Why the hell should I?” I asked emphatically, standing up and tugging at the edges of my robe.

The officer opened his mouth to say something just as Detectives Steadman and Graves slapped handcuffs on Jane.

“Have you all lost your minds?” I demanded as I pushed past my official babysitter. “Why are you handcuffing her? At best she’s a witness and at worst, an almost-victim.”

“Stand back,” Graves warned in a very official tone.

“But!” I started to argue, then realized I had nothing convincing to say beyond “Vacant-expression Jane is my friend and I know for a fact she would never de-penis a guy.”

My phone rang then and I was torn between answering it and a strong urge to muscle my way through the throng of cops to save my glassy-eyed friend as she was being led toward the door. Counting paramedics, there were six of them and only one of me, so I went for the phone.

“Yes?” I snapped into the receiver.

“The whole parking lot is cordoned off. They won’t let me past the police line.”

I added this bit of information to my growing list of irritations. “Hey, Kojak,” I called to Graves, who had one hand on Jane’s bound wrists and a brown paper sack in the other. He glanced in my direction as his latex-gloved minion was depositing my pashmina into an evidence bag. “We’re being denied our right to counsel.”

“You and Ms. Spencer will be afforded an opportunity to make a call from the station,” he replied blandly.

Me?
What had I done? What had Jane done?
Shit.
“Our attorney is right outside. Her name is Rebecca Jameson and I happen to know she has every right to be present during arrest and questioning.”

Both he and his partner gave me that “you’re a real pain in the ass” look. Not that I cared. I just wanted Becky here to put an end to the idiotic notion that Jane was in any way responsible for Paolo’s death.

Graves made a call on his radio and within a matter of seconds, Becky was rushing through the door. In the forty-seven minutes since I’d made the frantic call to her, Becky had obviously been busy.

I was a scrunchie and a bad shoulder tattoo away from looking like a skanky warehouse shopper. Jane was a zombie, a barely conscious, bloody, La Perla–clad mess. Becky, however, looked polished and professional.

Her red hair was twirled into a loose knot, secured by a couple of lacquered chopsticks in the same shade of coral as her blouse and wedge sandals. With her cream jersey skirt, she had the perfect casual business look of a no-nonsense attorney. I’d berate her later for taking the time to accessorize and applying a full complement of makeup, but for right now, I was just glad she was here.

I’d known Becky since our freshman year of college, so I recognized the look of horror that flashed briefly across her face when she saw bloody Jane cuffed and surrounded by sheriff’s deputies.

She introduced herself, conveniently leaving out the part about being a contracts attorney who hadn’t seen the inside of a courtroom since her moot court assignment when she was a third-year law student. “Who is in charge here?”

“That would be me,” Detective Steadman said, stepping out of the small group. She didn’t offer Becky her hand. “I’m the lead on the case and this is my partner, Detective Graves.”

Graves nodded, then walked out on my patio when his cell phone rang. His part of the conversation consisted of a series of grunts—lots of “umms” and “uh-huhs” and “reallys?”

“Do something,” I mouthed to Becky.

“Unless you have cause to hold Miss Spencer, I want the handcuffs removed now.”

“That isn’t an option,” Steadman said without inflection.

“Why not?”

“Miss Spencer is under arrest on suspicion of murder.”

Suddenly my babysitter twisted my hands behind my back and slapped handcuffs tightly around my wrists. “Ow!”

Steadman’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “And I’m taking Miss Tanner in as well.”

“For what?” I practically screamed.

“Accomplice, material witness, assaulting a witness after she was told to stay in the bedroom. Take your pick,” Graves said, his dark eyes flashing something that looked annoyingly like pleasure.

Steadman turned to Becky and added, “You have thirty seconds to vacate these premises. Based on evidence found at Miss Spencer’s home and the blood trail here, I’m designating this apartment a secondary crime scene.”

O
n the plus side, even in boxer shorts, a matching cami with demi robe, and my pink rubber beach flip-flops, I was better dressed than the half dozen prostitutes chained to the railing along the front edge of the bench. Most of the pros looked pretty haggard, except for the statuesque brunette seated next to me.

I thought about offering some free advice concerning a career change, but figured it wasn’t my place. Looking down at her gigantic, scuffed leather Kate Spade shoes, I wondered if I was the one in the wrong line of work.

She noticed that I wasn’t handcuffed to the bench at the same time I noticed she had an Adam’s apple. I almost blurted out “You’re a man” but then I figured he/she already knew that.

What the hell was talking them so long? It was well after nine o’clock. I’d been sitting on the hard bench for what felt like hours. My butt was numb. My temper was not.

The desk sergeant, after some serious threatening of a civil suit on Becky’s part, agreed to remove the handcuffs. It was progress. Jane’s plight trumped mine, so I hadn’t seen Becky or Jane since they’d been sucked into the “Authorized Personnel” area.

Across from the booking bench—a term I’d learned about twenty minutes ago—was a long wall. It was scuffed and desperately in need of a fresh coat of paint. There were large plate-glass windows that allowed me to see out into the public waiting area. Though I couldn’t hear it, I could see a grainy picture flickering from the television mounted high up on corner brackets.

I winced when footage of Jane and me doing the perp walk out of my apartment played for the umpteenth time. Hopefully no one I knew was up this early on a Sunday morning to see the humiliating images. The way my luck was running, that didn’t seem like a realistic expectation.

I was sure Margaret Ford, the office receptionist and self-appointed thorn in my side, was probably gleeful seeing me on the early morning news. She’d be doing a happy dance between the traffic update from Captain Jodi, hottie helicopter pilot, and pet picks (viewer-supplied photos of everything from snakes to schnauzers), as the local station had aired the footage of Jane and me in handcuffs.

It caused an instant knot to form in the pit of my stomach. I was still on moderately shaky ground with the ultraconservative law firm of Dane, Lieberman and Zarnowski, my employers and the providers of that great thing called my paycheck. As an estates and trusts paralegal, I was expendable. Especially to Maudlin Margaret and her band of jealous secretaries—um, administrative assistants.

A few months back, I’d almost been killed trying to solve a series of murders related to an estate I’d been assigned. My direct supervisor is Vain Victor Dane, managing senior partner and king of the buffed and manicured nails.

Because she’d been there for twenty-five years, Margaret considers it part of her job description to rat me out at every opportunity. My guess is that she had Vain Dane’s home number on speed dial by now. Or maybe she’d gotten so excited that she’d driven to his posh Palm Beach waterfront digs to deliver the news in person.

Vain Dane had been furious over my actions during the Hall investigation, so I knew for a fact he wasn’t going to be thrilled with the news that I was again on the wrong side of the law. Particularly if he was being spoon-fed selective and unflattering facts by Margaret.

Bitch.

The passive-aggressive relationship I shared with Margaret started about ten minutes after I was hired. She didn’t like that my salary exceeded hers. Forget that I actually have a degree and she doesn’t. In Margaretland, all that matters is seniority.

Margaret and the Mediocre Maidens—her posse from the file room—call me FAT behind my back. Sometimes she doesn’t even bother waiting until my back’s turned. It has nothing to do with my size, either. I’m a respectable size 4. The nickname comes from my initials—
F
-inley
A
-nderson
T
-anner. May sound like a classic DAR name, but in truth, it’s a family name. Names, actually.

Forever ago, my mother had an incredible voice and was at the beginning of a promising career with the Metropolitan Opera. Her career was derailed when nodules were found on her throat and the resulting surgery weakened her voice. Apparently, during her brief career at the Met, she’d been sleeping her way through the tech guys when she discovered she was pregnant. I should fault her for not practicing birth control, but that would mean I wouldn’t exist, so I can’t really go there. Based on simple math, she narrowed the potential fathers down to two, Steven Finley or Jeff Anderson.

But by the time I came along, both men were long gone—and as far as I know, neither of them knows about me to this day. Maybe I should suffer some sort of identity crisis or daddy abandonment issues, but I’m relatively normal—thanks to Jonathan Tanner. I was eighteen months old when he married my mother. Thirteen when I found out he wasn’t my biological father. Mom does enjoy keeping her dramatic little secrets. By then it didn’t matter. Jonathan was my father in every way even though we didn’t share DNA. He loved me, which is more than I can say for my mother.

He died when I was seventeen. Since then, my mother has devoted her life to serial marriage. It’s worked out pretty well for her too. Between divorce settlements and death benefits, she’s got enough money to support her search to find hubby number six in fine style. Though she never admitted it—especially to me—I’m not sure she can really love another man after Jonathan.

No doubt she’d already seen the morning news. It wouldn’t dawn on her to come to my aid. Hell, she’ll personalize it so that by the time we actually do talk, she’ll have found a way to make the horrifying ordeal of finding my friend soaked in blood and hours in police custody some intentional and diabolical choice on my part to humiliate her. She’s probably already on the phone to her travel agent and/or shrink.

I checked the clock on the wall behind the desk sergeant. Who, by the way, was sipping coffee from a foam cup. The last time I’d been awake for almost five hours without a hit of caffeine, I was in the womb.

While I was sympathetic to Jane’s predicament, I knew she hadn’t maimed and killed Paolo or anyone else. “What the hell is taking so long?” I grumbled. Again.

He/she patted my leg, saying, “What’sa matter, honey? Got someplace to be?”

“Logged in to eBay,” I replied benignly as I inched my leg away from his/hers.

He/she looked at me as if I’d just uttered the atomic number for barium. “Is that your outcall service?” He/she lowered her voice. “What percentage do they take?”

“Outcall? No. EBay is an auction site. There’s a Betsey Johnson dress in my size—worn once—and I was hoping to get in at the last second.” Was I really sharing my clandestine shopping habits with a transvestite-for-hire? Apparently I was. Talk about a Fellini moment.

“Ooh. You’re pretty enough. If you ever want a job, you just head on down to Riveria Beach and ask for Raylene.”

Mouth dry, I nodded and stared at the floor. The good part was I doubted the he/she would out my bidding on a used dress thing to my friends. It wasn’t as if I was frugal—far from it. That’s the problem. Well, part of the problem.

My mother, in what she liked to call a character-building exercise, stopped subsidizing the very free shopping habits I had learned at her feet. It was her control-freak countermove to my decision not to go to law school. So, for the last seven years, I’ve been forced underground, into the scary but affordable world of knockoffs and online auctions. I’m pretty good at it now. By finding a decent dry cleaner that can remove almost anything and learning the archaic skill of sewing, I’ve beaten the master at her own game.

And believe me, Cassidy Presley Tanner Halpern Rossi Browning Johnstone is a formidable foe. If you’re me. If you happen to be my perfect sister Lisa, the pediatric oncologist engaged to the blue-blood surgeon, planning the fall wedding of the century, you’re golden. Truth be told, I do like my sister, even if we have drifted apart over the years. We just don’t have anything in common.

Right now, I actually feel sorry for her. Between the iron-willed snobbery of David Huntington St. John IV’s family and the society-pleasing whims of my mother, Lisa is having the wedding she never dreamed of.

She’ll be wearing a custom Vera Wang and a St. John diamond-encrusted tiara that some descendant of the family brought over on the
Nina
, the
Pinta
, or the
Who-Gives-a-Shit
. Or maybe it was the
Mayflower
. Me? I’d be in diamond-encrusted heaven. Lisa? She’s more the hospital scrubs and Jesus sandals type. She doesn’t just wear Birkenstocks, she actually likes them. At any rate, seven hundred guests will be gathering in three short months at the St. John estate in Buckhead for the event of the season.

It’ll be the first time Lisa’s worn heels since she abandoned stilettos for a stethoscope.

Like I had any room to mock my sister’s footwear. I’d just been offered a job by a ho.

“Miss Tanner?”

I was well past the point of preserving dignity. Leaping off the bench, I hurried past the come-hither scent of coffee to where Detective Steadman waited on the opposite side of a swinging gate.

The hinges squeaked loudly as she held it open and jerked her head in the direction of Interrogation Room One. The slap of my flip-flops echoed, drowning out the various telephone conversations and clicks of fingers entering information into computers. Even with the smell of too-strong, hours-old coffee, the place stunk of sweat and desperation.

She pushed open the interrogation room door and motioned me inside. The quiet click of the door shutting us in was unnerving. I was a little surprised, and a lot nervous, because Becky wasn’t in the room. “Where’s my attorney?” I asked as I scraped the metal chair away from the table and took a seat.

“She’s with Miss Spencer.”

“Doing?”

“Miss Spencer is being processed. I need your statement,” she said in a no-nonsense tone as she pressed the Record button on a small tape recorder set on the table between us.

I reminded myself that I was an innocent bystander, but my heart was racing, and my clasped palms started getting clammy. “Shouldn’t I wait for Becky?”

“Your call, but she could be a while.”

“If you’re going to arrest me—”

“I don’t have grounds to arrest you at this point, Miss Tanner. I simply need you to tell me what happened, beginning with Miss Spencer arriving at your apartment. The statement will be typed, and you’ll have an opportunity to read it and make any corrections before signing it. However, for your protection, I need to read you your rights. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. You have…”

My mind drifted as she enumerated each of my rights. I knew them by heart. I’ve watched enough episodes of
Law & Order
to know them at least as well as she did. I wanted her to move along so Jane and I could go home. Too bad I didn’t have a constitutional right to tell the officer she was totally wrong about Jane.

When she finished, I said, “I already told Detective Graves everything I know.”

She gave a dismissive little nod. “Miss Spencer arrived at your apartment at approximately five thirty this morning?”

“Five twenty,” I correctly smugly. The air conditioner kicked on, sending a low hum and rush of musty, cool air into the room. Tightening the belt on my demi-robe, I spent the better part of twenty-five minutes recounting the wee hours of the morning. That should have been it, but it wasn’t.

“How well did Miss Spencer know the victim?”

“If this is going to take a while, may I have some coffee?” I knew by the smell that the coffee here would be thick and disgusting. I wanted it anyway. Caffeine was caffeine and because of the air conditioner, I was nipple-poking freezing.

The detective rose, pressed a button on a grimy intercom before barking a request for coffee, then retook her seat at the table. I was absently tracing the gouges in the laminated Formica tabletop that spelled out
A-S-S-H-O-L-E
, silently agreeing with the sentiment as Steadman’s black eyes narrowed in my direction.

She was a daunting-looking woman. Tall, lean, and athletic. She had man hands and she bit her nails. I’d bet my Christmas bonus—the same one I’ve spent three times already and it’s only July—that she’s never had a manicure.

Then the door opened and some mousy underling brought in a Styrofoam cup. I’d been given the nectar of the gods. The fact that it was bitter, stale, and eating away at the cup was immaterial. It was coffee and it was mine.

“How well did Miss Spencer know Mr. Martinez?”

I met the woman’s level gaze, wondering where she was going with that question since I’d already told Graves and anyone else who’d listen that Jane and Paolo were virtual strangers. Didn’t they talk to one another? “I told you, she didn’t know him at all.”

“But she took him home with her?”

“Yes.” Was the detective judging Jane? “The last I heard, depending on your religion, that’s a sin but hardly illegal.”

“Is she in the habit of taking men home on the first date?”

I swallowed a healthy amount of coffee. I didn’t feel comfortable answering questions. I knew with every fiber of my being that Jane could not have killed anyone, so I didn’t want to risk saying anything that might get her in more trouble.
Like there’s more trouble than being arrested for murder?
“Jane isn’t in the habit of dating. Period.”

“Why is that?”

An image of my boyfriend, Patrick Lachey, popped into my head. He was kind, sweet, dependable, completely nonneedy, thoughtful, and, on paper at least, the perfect man for me. He’s a pilot. Blond, blue-eyed, and genetically perfect. His salary is good, with decent growth potential. In the two years we’ve been dating, he’s never been anything other than an ideal boyfriend. He’s everything I should want in a man.