The Girl With the Dachshund Tattoo (5 page)

“Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt him?” Malone asked.

I shook my head. “It would be an assumption on my part to name anyone. I didn’t know him.”

He crossed his tanned arms. “Is that so?”

I waited for him to ask another question. I’d learned from experience his silence was a tactic to make me uncomfortable in hopes that I’d spill my guts. Well, believe it or not, I was perfectly comfortable waiting for him to make the next move.

The three of us stood together. Malone’s eyes darted back and forth between Betty and me. Only the noise of light traffic filled the lull of his barrage of questions.

“Cookie, what about Lenny. Or Ricky-Dicky’s bonkers wife, Gia?” Betty broke under the pressure.

I glared at my overly helpful assistant, warning her to keep her lips sealed. I knew how this worked. We’d point the finger at them. In return, they’d point a finger at her. And since she was the only one who’d publicly threatened the dead guy with a gun, she had the most to lose.

I swallowed hard, knowing it was time to spill the beans about Betty’s Dirty Harry impersonation. “Earlier, Richard, Mr. Eriksen—”

Suddenly, a microphone whizzed past my shoulder and stopped a few inches from Malone’s nose. “Detective, can you confirm Richard Eriksen has been murdered?” A deep male voice boomed in my ear.

Annoyance flickered across Malone’s stone face for a second. “No comment.”

What? Someone annoyed Detective Judd Malone as much as I did? I stepped aside and turned to face Callum MacAvoy, TV reporter for the local news. The newest pain-in-Malone’s-backside easily met the Hollywood standard of sexy scene-stealer. I wondered if the station’s owner had brought the new reporter on board for his good looks or because of his reporting abilities.

Alert green eyes zeroed in on Malone. “Do you know what happened?”

“We’re investigating.”

The reporter turned in my direction and sized me up. He flashed a camera-ready smile; his white teeth gleamed against his sun-kissed skin. I bet he spent more on his facial moisturizer than I did.

He lowered his voice as if he were sharing a secret with me and asked, “Would you like to be on TV?”

I felt like a young girl who’d been offered candy by a stranger.

“I would, handsome.” Betty raised her hand and bounced excitedly.

Good grief, that’s all we needed. A loose-lipped chatterbox talking to the town’s newest TV reporter, who was eager to make his mark in the community.

MacAvoy turned his body square with mine, blocking Malone and game-show-contestant Betty. “You wouldn’t mind answering a few questions on camera, would you, Miss . . . ?”

Seriously? He’d sized me up and deduced I was a girlish doormat he could seduce with a practiced smile, intimate body language, and a cocky promise of fifteen seconds on the twelve o’clock news? Mr. TV wasn’t even primetime.

I stepped closer. I wet my lips and stared dreamily into his green eyes. Calling up the soft Texas accent that I’d worked so hard to drop over the past few years, I spoke into his microphone. “Anderson Cooper already called, sugar. We have an interview date at nine.”

Malone coughed in an attempt to cover his laugh. I turned my head and winked at him.

“Nice one, Cookie,” Betty cackled.

The reporter studied me intently. I’m sure he was reassessing his snap-judgment opinion, backtracking to the moment when he’d drawn the wrong conclusion. Better luck next time, buddy.

“Salinas.” Malone waved over a uniformed officer. “Escort Mr. MacAvoy and his cameraman away from my crime scene. They can wait with the rest of the press.”

Once MacAvoy was out of earshot, Malone offered a piece of advice. “Don’t make an enemy out of the media.”

“Obviously, you don’t know my history as well as I thought you did,” I said dryly. “I don’t appreciate being underestimated because of how I look.”

My entire life people have made assumptions about my aspirations and intelligence based on my appearance. That included my mother. I no longer tolerated that shortsightedness. And I wasn’t about to apologize for it.

Malone nodded. “I won’t ever make that mistake.”

“You never have.”

I sighed. It was time to confess about Betty’s poor judgment. “Here’s the deal. Betty and Richard got into a rather loud and public argument earlier this morning.”

He shifted a questioning gaze toward Betty, who immediately clutched her chest dramatically. “He came after me. I was defending myself.”

Malone rubbed his unshaved face. “What happened?”

“That stupid man mistreated Zippy, and I told him so. He burst into a rage and lunged at me. I didn’t have time to use my self-defense moves. I thought he was going to kill me, so I pulled out my gun to protect myself. It’s nice one too. A 9mm Beretta Nano. Fits perfectly in my hand. That’s important, you know.”

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, replaying Betty’s words. It sounded just as awful in my head as when she’d spoken the words out loud.

Malone was all business. “Do you have a license for your gun?”

“Of course. I’m a law-abiding citizen.”

“I need your handgun, Mrs. Foxx.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” I muttered.

Malone’s cheek muscle twitched. “Why?”

“The girl with the dachshund tattoo took it,” Betty explained, edging closer to the detective.

He stopped her with a look. She batted her eyes and smiled. He shook his head, not willing to entertain her flirtatious behavior.

“Who?” he asked me.

I shrugged. “I don’t have a name. She’s filming a dogumentary,
The Long and the Short of It
. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her?” For a crazy second I allowed myself to believe he knew where to find the missing woman, along with Betty’s missing gun.

“No.” He was annoyed. The one-word sentences were a dead giveaway.

I pulled out the business card she’d given to Betty and handed it to him. “We’ve been looking for her. That’s what we were doing when Richard was killed.”

“You were together?”

“Yes.”

“No,” I said at the same time as Betty lied.

“You want to answer that again?” he asked Betty.

A nervous smile toyed with the corners of her mouth. “I was right behind Cookie; she just didn’t see me.”

Oh. My Gosh. She was making this a hundred times worse. “Can we have a minute?” I grabbed Betty’s elbow and started to drag her toward the dog park for a one-on-one chat to explain, again, why she had to keep her lips zipped.

“No.”

We froze.

“I want you both to stand over there by the trees with Officer Salinas and give him a description of this . . . woman. And you,”—he pointed at Betty—“you will behave yourself until I get back. When I do, we will have a private discussion. Understood?”

Betty’s grey eyes sparkled with romantic interest. She tossed Malone an exaggerated wink. “I’m saving all my lovin’ for you, big fella.”

Awkward silence hung in the air. His mouth opened, then it snapped shut. He closed his eyes for a second. I swear he looked like he was praying for patience. He turned his frustration in my direction. “Watch her.”

He bellowed for Salinas, and they chatted discreetly for a couple of seconds. Once Malone had finished with his instructions, he stalked off toward the crime scene while we followed Officer Salinas in the opposite direction toward the dog park. We ended up waiting near the food tents. My stomach rumbled as the aroma of fried foods filled my nose.

Betty opened her purse and pulled out her designer lip gloss. “I knew he liked me. It was only a matter of time before he recognized my animal magnetism.”

I pulled her a few feet away from where Salinas stood. He never turned his head, but I knew he was watching us.

“This isn’t a joke. You’re in trouble. And the only activity Malone is interested in is arresting you.”

“I know my way around a pair of handcuffs, Cookie.” Betty wiggled her smeared lipstick eyebrows.

I didn’t doubt her for a second. “Where were you? Really.”

“I told you. I was right behind you.”

I wanted to believe her, but she was acting cagier than usual. “What about before then? We were apart for over thirty minutes.”

She snapped her purse shut. “Melinda, I didn’t kill anyone.”

I am far from a hand-wringer, but cold apprehension rooted itself in my gut. That was the first time Betty had ever called me by my name. I didn’t believe for one minute she’d hurt anyone, but she was hiding something. And I knew from experience that never ended well.

Betty stared over my shoulder toward the park entrance. “Hey, Cookie. I thought you said your man was in New York.”

“He is.”

“Well, he’s back.”

It felt like my knees would buckle under the weight of anxiety that rippled through my body. What was Grey doing here?

There was zero time to formulate a plan. Not that it mattered. I worked best shooting from the hip. I sucked in the fresh air and pulled myself together.

As Grandma Tillie told me the night before I left for my freshman year at Stanford, “You gotta risk it, to get the biscuit.”

Chapter Five

I HESITATED, AND I hated it. That wasn’t me. I was an all-in-and-never-look-back kind of woman. Grey and I have an on-again-off-again history. During the “off” times, I had never doubted we’d end up together. Until now. I felt insecure and unsure. The worst part was that I had no one to blame but myself.

I took a couple of tentative steps toward him, then stopped. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself,” he said.

No one could pull off a tailored Tom Ford suit like Grey. My pulse raced as I waited for him to make the first move. I counted my heartbeats: one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six. Finally, he bent down and brushed his lips against mine. I closed my eyes and breathed in his woodsy aftershave scent.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as I opened my eyes.

“I’ve been reassigned,” he said softly.

I looked around making sure no could hear us. “You don’t look happy about that. I’m sorry.” The weight of those last two words hung so heavy between us it felt like I could pluck them out of air.

I reached out to caress his rugged face. My breath caught as he pulled back, and I glimpsed the hurt in his blue eyes. We still had unfinished business to discuss.

He trapped my hand and held it against his chest. I felt his strong heartbeat under my palm.

“Where’s your ring?” he asked.

This wasn’t the time or the place to confess I wasn’t sure he wanted me wearing it. Heck, I didn’t know if we were “on” or “off” at this point.

“I set it on the bathroom counter this morning getting ready. I forgot to put it back on.”

We searched each other’s face for some type of reassurance. I wasn’t sure if he found what he was looking for. I know I didn’t, and it scared me. He released my hand. It shook as I tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Why are the police here?”

I cleared my throat, thankful for a change in topics. “Richard Eriksen, one of the owners, was shot on the canyon road. He’s dead.”

“Are you okay?”

I nodded. After a quick glance over my shoulder, I said, “But I’m afraid Betty might be in trouble.” I quickly filled him in from the beginning, up to the last conversation with Malone.

“What do you think she was doing?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know. She’s not saying. You know, she has a thing for you. Maybe if you asked her . . .”

He placed his palm on the small of my back. “Let’s go talk to her.”

As we made our way back to my assistant, I savored the feel of his hand. I missed the natural connection we shared.

“Hey, good-lookin’,” Betty cooed. “Cookie said you were in New York. I guess you couldn’t stay away.”

Grey bent down and kissed her wrinkled cheek. “You’re looking good yourself. Melinda tells me you’re in a bit of trouble.”

She waved her hand. “You know Cookie. She’s exaggerating.”

“Hardly.” I rolled my eyes in exasperation at her insistence on making light of the situation.

Grey unbuttoned his suit jacket. “The police do not play games. If you can tell them exactly where you were, and who you were with, that helps them rule you out, and concentrate on finding the person who did this.”

Betty scrutinized him. “You seem to know an awful lot about how the police work.”

Grey shoved his hands in his pockets. “And you’re changing the subject.”

“You think the police believe I shot that idiot?” Betty huffed.

“You’ve got to stop calling him that.” I looked over my shoulder double-checking Salinas wasn’t close enough to overhear Betty’s rant.

“Even if it’s true?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“From what Mel’s said, I’d be surprised if you weren’t a suspect.” Grey, the voice of reason, leveled a stern look her way.

“I didn’t shoot anyone. Isn’t there some kind of test they can run? I thought these coppers were smart now, with their new technology.”

Grey studied a group of crime-scene techs walking toward their van. “We could ask them to run a test for gunshot residue.”

I groaned. “No good. Betty glommed onto Malone like a leach when he first arrived. He’d been at the firing range. Chances are Betty’s got residue all over her.”

She examined her top. “I don’t see anything.”

Grey shook his head. “You won’t.”

Betty crossed her arms. “Well, I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t care how crazy sexy that Malone is, he can’t make me confess to a crime I didn’t commit.”

GREY STEPPED AWAY to take a call while Betty and I waited for Malone, who was taking an extra-long time to return. Lenny and Pickles hung off to the side. Smart, since he’d publicly argued with the dead guy’s wife.

I spotted Darby surreptitiously snapping pictures of the crowd standing behind the crime scene tape. She still had Missy with her. I waved for her to join us. She rushed over, Missy bumbling behind her.

“I’ve been looking for you two,” Darby blurted. “What’s going on?”

“Cookie’s hunk-of-burning-love is back.”

Darby’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her blond bangs. “Grey’s here?”