Person of Interest (A Celeste Eagan Mystery) (7 page)

He glared at me for a long moment. “Finished?” When I nodded, he said, “The people working at the coffeehouse hadn’t seen her. They didn’t, I repeat, did
not
verify
her
alibi.”

“So that was all for naught. Figures. Women like her would be missed. Of course she would. She’s pretty and perky and dumb as a stump. Me not so much. I’m smart, can carry on a conversation without referring to myself in third person, and no one looks twice at me.” I was working myself up to a full head of righteous indignation.

“Look, Celeste, I can’t say I understand why you’re dropping yourself smack-dab in the middle of my investigation, but you have to back off and let me, and my department, handle this. If you’re innocent—”

“If? See, this is what I’m talking about. I am innocent.”

“If you’re innocent, we’ll figure that out.”

Right, I wanted to say. I thought of Colin being arrested. Hell, even myself getting arrested. Twice. People were lying, my boss was dead. Muldoon and his department didn’t seem to be any closer to the truth than I was.

“You need to back off.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“You don’t think I can do my job?”

“I’m sure you’re a great detective. But I think whatever crap is going on between you and Colin—and don’t give me that look, you all but sneer every time you say his name—I don’t think you can be completely objective. I know the players involved—”

“Do you even know what’s going on?” His hands tightened on the steering wheel.

“Apparently not. Tell me.” I turned in the seat toward him.

Muldoon held my gaze for a moment, then restarted the car. He pulled back into traffic before he spoke again. “Last warning. Back off or you’re going to end up in jail. Again. Don’t make me have to arrest you myself and keep you locked up until the end of the investigation.”

* * *

Muldoon parked in front of my house. Early evening darkened the street, but it didn’t take a trained observer to see my front door hanging wide open. “Where’s your daughter?”

“At Colin’s. She’s staying with him for a few days.”

He reached for the driver-side door. When I started to open the passenger side, he grabbed my wrist. “Stay in the car. Do you hear me?”

“Yes.” I nodded and gulped. He had me a little bit scared.

I released the door handle. Muldoon closed his with little more than a click. He had his gun unholstered before he reached the front porch. It took all I had to stay put while the detective was out of sight. I could imagine any number of things befalling him inside the house, from a burglar to my great-grandmother’s throw rug in my office.

It seemed like an eternity before the porch light lit as well as the one in the foyer. Muldoon emerged and waved me to join him.

My legs were shaky as I hurried up the walkway. “I’m afraid to ask, but how bad is it?” I asked in a whisper when I was within whisper-earshot.

“Messy. But nothing’s broken that I can tell.” He settled his hand at the small of my back and ushered me inside.

Muldoon flipped on the light to the living room. From the foyer I could see every stitch of furniture out of place. Cushions littered the floor. The club chair was lying on its side. Even the damn pictures hung askew.

“Did you turn on your alarm when you left?” He motioned to the control panel by the front door.

Sliding the cell phone from my purse, I snapped several pictures. “It doesn’t work.”

He pulled up short as his dark brows slashed down together. “Celeste.”

I tucked the phone away. “The house was hit by lightning during a storm several years ago. It fried the control panel and a bunch of the appliances. The insurance didn’t cover it by half.”

“And you didn’t think to replace the alarm?”

“Haven’t needed it.” I was getting defensive, but it was not the time to yell at me. A book skidded off my toe when I moved away from him. Not a single book was left on the shelves. “Why? Why did this happen?” I glanced around my living room. DVDs were strewn everywhere, too. All the knickknacks and picture frames had been removed from the mantel and were piled in a heap next to the fireplace.

I jumped when he spoke quietly, his breath feathering across my ear. “Can you tell if anything is missing?”

“At first glance? Absolutely not.” Someone could have stolen half my possessions but I wouldn’t be able to tell with them spread out everywhere.

“Let’s go from room to room and see if you can tell if anything’s gone. But don’t touch anything. Okay?”

Muldoon followed me through the house but didn’t so much as breathe too hard. Just listened to me gritch at the mess left behind. I looked in closets and under beds and not one single thing seemed to be gone. All the high-ticket items were still in place. “The other laptop’s not here,” I said when we walked back into the hall. “But Paige usually takes it with her when she visits her dad.” I mentally ticked off things worth stealing. The heirloom jewelry I’d inherited from my grandmother when I got the rug was still sitting in my jewelry box next to my engagement ring. I was saving that for Paige if she wanted it later. The diamond earrings I’d splurged and bought myself last Christmas were still there as well.

I searched one more time throughout the house and as far as I could tell, all was present and accounted for. “What would someone be looking for?”

Muldoon leaned his against the arm of the sofa. “You tell me?”

“I haven’t the slightest clue.” I slammed my hands on my hips. “I don’t know what was stolen from the school—assuming this even has anything to do with that.” I turned my back on Muldoon and walked farther into the living room.

“Nothing we know of.”

I swiveled on my feet. “What?”

Muldoon picked up a sofa cushion off the floor, righted it into place and sat. “We don’t know what, if anything, was taken.”

“Then why did you come barging in here first thing the other morning?”

“I knew you’d been there. I thought maybe if you had taken something, I could rattle your cage enough to tell me what it was. Then Cooter showed up.” He leaned his elbows on his knees and dropped his head to his hands. “This is the most screwed-up case I have ever been involved in.” He sighed. “I have no business telling you this, but I’m afraid if I don’t, you’re just going to keep nosing around trying to figure out what’s what.”

I flipped over my club chair and sat. Then I stood again and yanked the godawful granny dress off over my head. Clad in a pair of spandex biker shorts and a tight T-shirt, I sat back and waited for the detective to continue. “What?” I asked when he peeked at me through his fingers. “It was uncomfortable. Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to go digging through my trunk and find another snappy outfit to get my own information?”

Muldoon leaned back on the sofa. “I don’t understand how someone like you wound up with Cooter Eagan.”

I’d heard the comments when Colin and I got married.
He can have anyone
.
Why’d he marry her?
It hurt then. Coming from Detective Muldoon, it was like a slap in the face. “What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think someone like me can snag a man like him?”

“Quite the opposite. How did he land a woman like you?”

Heat infused my cheeks. It wasn’t often that someone other than Levi took up the cause of me. Not that I was a mope-ish, poor-me sad sack, but still it was nice to think I was worthy in the good detective’s eyes. I gave a quick mental shake. He was still the detective determined to put someone behind bars for Chad’s death, and if it turned out I was the most viable suspect, I didn’t think he would bat an eye at throwing my butt in the clink.

He looked at me somewhat expectantly and I remembered he’d asked me a question.

“I told you. Nightingale effect. I ran him over, then nursed his wounds. I mean, I didn’t
really
hurt him that bad. He just wrenched his bum knee a little. But you get the idea.” It wasn’t love at first sight, or rather first hit. At least not on my part. I didn’t want to admit that to anyone. He was attractive, sure. Over the years, I got a lot of looks that said I’d married up while he...no one seemed to know why he married me. “Believe it or not, he was funny.” I paused with my hands at the tops of the knee highs. “We laughed a lot.”

“I think it was something more than that. I do have to give the man credit. I’d always figured he’d marry some airhead sycophant.”

“I don’t know whether I should be insulted or thank you.” I slipped the knee-highs down my calves, a little unnerved at his eyes following my every movement—but he was a cop, maybe he couldn’t turn off the scrutiny. “I don’t get why you dislike him so much. I don’t ever remember him mentioning you, but clearly something in the past went on between you two.”

“High school was high school. Boys competed against each other in every area. And Colin and I were no different.”

“But that doesn’t explain all the animosity.” I settled back into the chair.

Muldoon held my gaze. “I was at Peytonville Prep on scholarship and he never let me forget it.” He dropped his head to the back of the sofa and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Snide remarks here and there. Shoving stuff in my locker. Hiding my football gear. Stupid shit. Never-ending but stupid shit.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“Still.” I shifted and tucked my feet up under me. I sat quietly for a long moment. How did one apologize for something their ex did? “It must have been hell to go to school with him. Then you come into this case and who is smack-dab in the middle of it? I didn’t know him then, but he’s not a bad guy now.”

His head shot up. “You divorced him.”

I waved away the comment. “Apples and oranges.”

“Whatever you say.” Muldoon shook his head and stood. “I still shouldn’t let it affect my job.”

He held out his hand to me. When I grabbed it, he pulled me to my feet. I didn’t want to examine the little rush of jitters that skittered down my back. Probably left over from being locked up twice—right, and eating Krispy Kremes standing up eliminates all the calories. Muldoon held onto my hand a fraction longer than politely required. A slight tint darkened his cheeks.

What the hell was that all about?

“I’m, uh.” He let go and slipped his cell from his pocket. “I’m gonna call the fingerprint guys out to dust, but I doubt we’re going to get any hits.”

“Can I go wash my face real quick.” I scratched at a flaky patch of makeup on my cheek. “It’s getting itchy.”

“No, sorry. We need to get back out and wait.” He guided me back out the front door onto the porch.

“Gotcha.” I looked longingly toward the bathroom as I followed him back out the front door. An itchy face should be my penance for such a stupid idea. “We don’t want to contaminate the scene, right?”

Muldoon laughed. Out loud. Straight white teeth flashing and all. “Something like that.” Before long, we were accompanied by several members of the Peytonville police force.

It was hours before I was finally left alone in my house. I righted some of the furniture but left the bulk of it for later when I could keep my eyes open. Despite my nerves when I crawled into bed—with all the lights on—I slept better than I had since Chad’s death. First thing the next morning I was, however, awakened abruptly by a phone call.

* * *

“Thanks for coming by so quickly.” Annabelle locked the door behind me. She’d called, frantic, half an hour earlier. “When the alarm company called me I knew I needed to get some help.” She walked me back to the far end of the theater into a short hallway I hadn’t seen before. An acrid smell wafted over us as we hurried through. “My apartment is through here.”

“You live here?”

Annabelle smiled. “I own the building. As much time as I spend here, I figured I might as well build an apartment onto it. Save myself from paying mortgage to a place I was rarely at.”

“Makes sense.” I crinkled my nose as the smell got worse. “What happened?”

“I have a date tonight and I was rehearsing dinner.” Annabelle pushed open the heavy door into a small living room. “And it was a good thing. I set the food on fire. Twice. The second time, it set the alarm off in the theater.”

A thin haze hung over the small, square living area. A half wall separated it from the kitchen, where pots and pans littered the countertops.

“And you called me because...” I still hadn’t quite figured that out yet. But as I was all alone, with Paige at her dad’s, my Saturday morning was wide open until I met Levi for lunch—after he picked up his car for the impound lot. That conversation hadn’t gone well.

Annabelle turned and faced me. She wrung her hands in front of her. “You’re a mom. You were married. Surely you know how to cook. Something. Anything.” A half grimace, half smile tilted her mouth. “Please tell me you know how to cook.”

I bit back a laugh. “I do.”

“Oh, thank God. Takeout is the strongest culinary skill of anyone else I know. And you owe me one—you said so yourself—when you borrowed the mustache. If you don’t mind, I’d like to collect on that. Pretty please.” A decided whine had entered her voice.

Coming from anyone else, it would probably grate on people’s nerves. But as with just about everything with Annabelle, it was charming. She could do no wrong. Other than cook, apparently. I won’t admit that made me feel a little better.

“I don’t know how fancy I can make it, but I know a few surefire meals.”

Annabelle squealed and bobbled up and down on her feet. “Thank you, thank you.”

“First order of business, we need to air this place out.” She and I went around and opened as many windows as possible to get some of the thicker smoke out.

We ran to the store and grabbed the ingredients for my famous—and by famous, Paige and Levi raved over it—pot roast. I convinced her to buy a crockpot once I assured her it was foolproof. She picked out a wine. That, I had no clue about. Any wine found in my home was Levi’s doing. He’d often leave a sticky note on the bottle with a list of what it would go with. I found I went through the dessert wines more often than any of the rest. Go figure.

Annabelle also grabbed several scented candles in case the smoky odor hadn’t fully dissipated by the time her date arrived. We had just put away the last of the groceries when she leaned against the edge of the counter. “How did your undercover work go?”