The Borrowed and Blue Murders (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries) (17 page)

T
ONY SWALLOWED SOME
T
YLENOL
and finally fell asleep in the recliner around two. Sam had already dozed off, snoring on the sofa under an afghan. Soon, Luke would be up and hungry, and I didn’t know if it was even worth it to go to bed. But I went upstairs with Nick and was brushing my teeth when I remembered my question.

“Maybe it was the jogger!” I blurted it out, but Nick had no idea what I’d said; my mouth was full of toothpaste. Excited, I speed- rinsed my mouth, talking the whole time. I was sure I’d figured out a key part of what had happened.

“The jogger?” Even after he understood my words, Nick had no idea what they meant. He lay back on his pillows, staring at the ceiling.

“Remember? She ran right into Tony and fell on him—remember what he said? How they held on to each other, how they shared a moment? So, I was thinking. What if she didn’t really trip—what if Agent Harris deliberately bumped into him, you know, pretending to fall—”

“Why would she do that?” Nick rubbed his eyes.

“I don’t know. But she was a Homeland Security agent. What if somebody was chasing her? A terrorist or something. What if she knew she was about to be caught—maybe she even knew she was going to be killed. And she’s running away and she sees this guy getting his newspaper, and she thinks, hey, maybe she has a chance to protect whatever she was carrying—”

“You’re saying she planted something on Tony?” Nick’s voice was clipped.

“You think it’s a dumb idea.” Oh well.

His eyes moved across the room slowly, landing on mine. “No. In fact, I think you’re a genius.”

With that, he was out of bed and at the hamper, pulling on the pair of jeans he’d just taken off. “When’s the last time you did the laundry?”

Was he serious? “This morning.”

“Really? Our hamper’s pretty full.”

“I did the kids’ stuff.”

“So what about the rest of it?”

I was getting annoyed. “Nick, if you want the laundry done, you can run a load yourself once in a while. I have enough to do, especially without Ivy and with your brothers staying here and our wed—”

But he was out the bedroom door, heading down the hall toward the steps. “Where are Tony’s clothes?” He assumed I was behind him. “The ones he was wearing that morning?”

Oh. I began to understand. He wasn’t criticizing my housekeeping; he was looking for clues. “I don’t know. Probably on the floor somewhere. He leaves everything where it falls.” I scurried after Nick, rounding the banister, pounding down the stairs. Finally, we came to the living room. Oliver, sleeping on the floor beside Tony’s feet, opened a groggy eye, blinked at us, yawned, settled down again. Sam snored on the sofa, his brandy snifter on its side, next to him, licked clean.

T
ONY’S CLOTHES WERE CRUMPLED
in a pile between the book- shelf and the sofa.

“What was he wearing that morning?” Nick asked as if I should know. As if it were my responsibility to keep track of what people wore. The worst part was that I actually knew; at least I had an idea. Tony slept in his underwear. I hadn’t found that out on purpose; the man was sleeping in my living room, and Oliver tended to run in there when I wanted to take him out in the morning. Anyway, going out to get the newspaper, Tony would have put on his pants. And whenever we’d had coffee in the morning, he’d been wearing sweatpants, the same pair with the same old gray hooded sweatshirt. I was pretty sure he’d have worn that ensemble the morning he’d encountered Agent Harris.

Sam’s snores shook the walls, rattled the windows, but nobody woke up as we turned on the lights and rifled through Tony’s worn and soiled clothes. Tossing aside underwear and T-shirts, socks and sweats, I finally retrieved the sweats. Nick examined them carefully, turning out pockets, shaking out fabric.

“Damn.” He dropped the clothes back onto the floor. “Nothing.”

Sighing, I gathered up the rest of the clothes and brought them into the center of the room. Maybe whatever had been in the pockets had fallen into the pile. Or maybe I’d been wrong about what Tony had been wearing.

Together, we searched the clothing, item by item, not knowing what we were looking for. Maybe a key? A coin? I thought of Tony searching for his lost quarters. Or maybe a stamp, like in that old movie
Charade.
Or maybe something we wouldn’t even recognize. A computer chip or some new technological device.

“Look for anything, no matter how small, even the size of a pinhead.”

I found some Life Savers, and Nick found a ChapStick, a comb, a condom, some breath spray and a piece of butterscotch hard candy.

“How about this?” I passed along a button that had been lurking in a shirt pocket.

Nick held it up to the light, turning it slowly. “Huh. Look’s like a button. Feels like a button.” He bit it. “Tastes like a button.”

The clothes, now scattered across the living room floor, revealed nothing unusual, certainly nothing that, might have cost a government agent her life. Nor did the items on the coffee table: Tony’s watch, keys, class ring and the wallet the muggers had already searched and rejected.

Nick stared at the pile, as if expecting something to jump out.

“So, there’s nothing here. Sorry, I guess I was wrong. She didn’t plant anything.”

“It was an excellent theory, though. It makes perfect sense. In fact, I’m annoyed that I didn’t come up with it myself.” He gazed at me, his eyes gleaming and proud.

Wow. Nick thought my theory was excellent. I felt myself blush.

“Well. It’s so late it’s early. Would you consider accompanying me to bed, Ms. Hayes?” Nick offered his hand, and I took it.

“It would be my pleasure, Detective Stiles.”

As we turned out the light, Sam and Oliver snored in harmony and Tony, out cold, was beyond being disturbed. Nick and I headed up the stairs, arms around each other’s waists. I thought I might have two hours before Luke woke up. I might even sleep.

But, as Nick and I headed toward our bedroom, a voice called behind us.

“Mommy?” Molly stood in her doorway, chin quivering, rubbing her eyes. “I had a bad dream, Mommy. Somebody was in my room, and they wanted to steal me.”

Maybe she’d sensed Eli, I thought. Not for the first or last time, I talked to Molly about her nightmare and promised her that it was over and she was safe, but she couldn’t stop trembling. Finally, I tucked her back into her bed. Minutes later, climbing under the covers, dozing off, I snuggled up, body curled against body. Blanketed with love, I felt oddly safe, protected from muggers and murderers, and even from bad dreams. And I wondered only briefly how Nick was doing, down the hall, sleeping alone.

W
EDNESDAY MORNING BEGAN WITH
a pulsing electronic shriek when Molly’s alarm went off at seven. She had an old- fashioned, beeping alarm, not a clock radio, and at first I thought it was the phone, then maybe the doorbell. I jumped out of bed, running in bleary-eyed circles, trying to identify the sound and kill it at the source. And, gradually, as my brain came awake, it occurred to me that I was in the wrong bedroom. Molly’s? And oh dear—I hadn’t gotten up to feed Luke; I must have slept through his early-morning cries. In a panic, leaving Molly to deal with the maddening beeps, I flew into the hall and ran to Luke’s room, found him lying in his crib, staring at his dinosaur mobile, playing absentmindedly with his feet. At first, his eyes gleamed, seemed happy to see me, but in seconds he seemed to remember that he was hungry. His calm face contorted, his mouth opened in accusatory rage, and he roared.

I picked him up, covering him with kisses. “What a big boy you are, Luke. Sleeping all the way through the night.” I cooed as I changed his diaper and put him to my breast. Molly joined us seconds later, wearing fresh underwear and socks, dragging a yellow hooded sweatshirt and matching pants, apparently her chosen outfit for the day.

“Mommy, you slept in my room.” She pulled her leg into her pants, pleased.

“How do you feel, Molls? Better?”

“Better? From what?” She pulled the sweatshirt over her head. “Mom, did you make my lunch yet?”

She seemed to have no memory of her scary dream.

“It’s in the fridge.”

“Oh, shoot. Is it peanut butter again? I’m sick of peanut butter.”

She was? For weeks, peanut butter was all she’d even consider taking for lunch.

“Since when?”

“Since forever. Do we have bologna?”

Bologna?

“Danielle gets bologna, and Lauren gets roast beef or sometimes turkey. I’m the only one with peanut butter.”

Molly went on, elaborating on her classmates’ luncheon fare, and gradually I began to understand. Apparently, her friends rarely ate the food their parents actually sent with them. They switched, and peanut butter had low trading value. Molly wanted bologna or maybe tuna, and wheat bread, not white, so that she could exchange for maybe chicken salad or pastrami. I wondered why she didn’t simply ask for chicken salad or pastrami but decided not to get involved in the black market for first-grade sandwiches. It was better not to know. Molly kept on chattering while Luke nursed until, downstairs, the doorbell rang and, instantly, Oliver started yapping.

“Mom. Somebody’s here—” Molly started for the door.

“Molly, stop.” She knew better. We lived in the city She wasn’t allowed to open the door by herself.

“But nobody’s up yet. And you can’t get it.”

The bell rang again, and Oliver was going nuts. Downstairs, nobody moved to answer. If Sam could sleep through his own snoring, he could certainly sleep through a doorbell. And Tony was probably in no shape to get up.

“Go wake up Nick.”

Molly sped down the hall, calling Nick’s name. He ought to be up by now anyway. Sure enough, he’d been in the shower. I heard Molly banging on the bathroom door, shouting, “Nick, somebody’s ringing the doorbell.”

He said something I couldn’t hear.

“No, she’s feeding Luke.”

Nick said something else, possibly that whoever it was would just have to wait.

“Should I go tell them?”

I’m sure he said no, because Molly ran back into Luke’s room, breathless and concerned. “Mom. He said he’ll go in a minute. But the people—”

Whoever they were, the people were impatient, even rude. The bell rang a third time, followed by fists pounding the door. Oliver was barking madly; I pictured him jumping, running in circles. Who the hell was out there? What nerve, to bang on our door, especially so early in the morning.

“It might be an emergency.” Molly’s eyes bulged, urgent.

But Nick was out of the bathroom; I heard his steps charging down the stairs, out of sync with the banging on the door. I heard his hesitation as he peeked through the peephole, viewing the visitors. I heard the unbolting of the lock and the opening of the door, and Nick’s voice. “What’s going on?”

Somebody, a man, barked an answer including the words “federal agents, FBI,” and “some questions.”

Downstairs, people entered the house as Nick protested the early intrusion. As Nick reminded the agent that he was a homicide detective, his voice was indignant but resigned, explaining that we weren’t up or dressed yet, that his wife—he used the word
wife
—was a nursing mother, and asking for a few minutes’ delay while he made sure the family was awake. The FBI agent was unimpressed, advised Nick to gather everyone together and cooperate with the investigation.

The next few minutes involved waking up Sam and Tony and grabbing some clothes. Luke finished nursing, and I managed to put him back in his crib long enough to brush my teeth and pull on some jeans. Molly clung to my side, asking questions. “Who are those people? What do they want?”

I tried to explain. The agents, I said, were there to find clues about the lady who’d been killed on the patio. Molly didn’t understand, though. “I know. But why are they here, Mom? Do they think somebody in our family killed her?”

“Of course not, Molls.” I tousled her hair, trying to seem un- fazed at the ease with which she discussed a murder. “It’s just their job to ask everybody questions.”

I popped a clip into my hair and joined Molly in the search for her sneakers. While Molly grabbed her book bag, I hunted, finding one sneaker under her bed. Oliver whimpered at Molly’s feet, and a sense of dread washed over me as I guessed what had most likely happened to the missing shoe. Sure enough, when we found it in the corner of Molly’s room beside her bookshelf, we saw that the toe had been chewed away. Demolished.

“Oliver,” I screamed. But Oliver, the perpetrator, had fled the scene.

Molly’s chin wobbled. “That’s the millionth pair of my shoes he’s eaten. I hate him. I really really hate him.”

I didn’t know what to say. At the moment, I wasn’t real fond of him, either. “He doesn’t mean it, Molls. He’s a puppy. He’s teething.”

“But now what am I supposed to wear? Those were my only shoes with yellow in them. I can’t go to school. I’m staying home.”

Wait, what? Molly had never been fashion conscious. She was only six years old and something of a tomboy. But suddenly, on that morning, she’d decided that her sneakers had to match her sweats.

I opened her closet, dug out an old pair of sneakers from the summer.

“Are you kidding?” She pouted, crossing her arms. “Those don’t go.”

“Of course they do, Molls. They’re blue. Blue goes great with yellow.”

“I hate Oliver.” She sniffled but accepted the shoes.

“Zoe?” Nick called from downstairs, sounded annoyed. “Are you almost ready?”

The FBI was waiting. But that was too bad. No one invited them, and I had to help Molly put together her ensemble.

“Well, I don’t really hate him. I just, you know, hate him.”

“I know.” I kissed her head and, hand in hand, we headed down the hall to get Luke. We were running late; the bus was due any second. Two agents stood in the hall, and Nick was in the kitchen, pacing. Without a word, I handed him the baby and pulled some bread and a package of sliced turkey out of the refrigerator. Molly stood in the doorway, staring openly at the agents.