There's Something About Marty (A Working Stiffs Mystery Book 3) (8 page)

…going out.

Nope. Technically, he and I had yet to go on a real date.

…going steady.

Hardly. And I’d been away from the dating circuit for so long I didn’t even know if couples our age did that anymore.

“…together.” More or less, and usually at his house in the middle of the night.

“Steve and you,” Rox said as if my pairing with one of our best friends left a bad taste in her mouth.

I nodded.

She stared at me. “Together.”

I nodded again.

“Holy moly,” Donna said on a sigh. “I sure didn’t see this coming.”

The intensity of Rox’s gaze sharpened. “Considering you’d always said that would never happen I don’t think anybody did.”

Me included. “I realize this is a bit of a shock but….”

“Yeah, understatement of the year.” Rox jutted her chin. “Especially since I see you almost every day!”

I didn’t know whether to let her vent or try to explain something I barely understood myself. “It just sort of happened.”

“When?”

“Around a month ago.” Actually closer to five weeks, but I didn’t want to make it sound worse than it already did.

Her mouth gaped. “A month?”

Donna swatted my arm. “And you didn’t tell us?”

“I couldn’t.” If it blew up in my face, it would be devastating enough for Steve to walk out of my life. I couldn’t risk forcing our mutual friends into a situation in which they had to choose between us, especially Rox and Eddie. “I wasn’t ready.” Like that day would ever come, but I couldn’t keep this a secret forever. Not in this town. And it was killing me to keep it from Rox.

Cocking her head at me, she leaned back in her chair. “Not ready, but in the meantime you let me and Donna set you up with some dates. Really, don’t you think you could have said
something
?”

Donna swatted me again. “Yeah, what’s wrong with you?”

“Ow!” I rubbed my arm. “That only happened twice and you practically ambushed me.”

“I did not ambush you last night!” Rox protested. “I facilitated.”

She and I both knew that was a lie. “Big difference.”

“I thought you liked Kyle Cardinale!”

“That was almost two months ago!” I said, matching her volume. “And I was only mildly interested before I found out he was seeing someone else.”

Rox’s cheeks reddened as if I’d slapped her across the face. “Well, how would I know that when you don’t talk to me!”

“So, there’s nothing going on between you and Dr. Yummy?” Donna asked, making me wonder if all the years of hairspray had clogged her ears.

“No!” Except one stupid moment when I let my guard down and he kissed me.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the kitchen door swing open and a frowning Eddie heading our direction. “Everything okay out here?”

Donna answered with a nervous giggle. “Everything’s fine. We’re just having some girl talk.”

“Yeah,” Rox said, her eyes aiming daggers at me. “We girls were having a long overdue chat…”

I glared back at her.
Yes, you have a right to be pissed. Now get over it.

“…and finding out about the new man in Char’s life.”

Eddie stood behind his wife, his hands on her shoulders. “Yeah? Anyone we know?”

She snorted. “I’d say so because he’s your best buddy.”

Eddie blinked. “Steve?”

“We’ve been seeing one another.” I braced myself for some teasing.

He gave me a crooked smile. “What do you want from me, my approval?”

“I don’t think I need it.” But I wanted it just the same.

He winked. “Atta girl.”

“So, Steve didn’t say anything to you about it?” Rox asked him.

Eddie shrugged. “Why would he?”

“Yeah, why say anything to a trusted friend?” Rox pushed out of her chair and grabbed her cup.

“Rox,” I said to her back. “It wasn’t about trust.” Okay, maybe it was a little.

“I have to get back to work. I’m sure Donna does, too.”

The implication was clear. She wanted me out of there. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.” Alone and soon, before the damage I’d caused had an opportunity to fester.

Rox waved me off and stalked toward the kitchen. “Sure you will.”

I come from a long line of women who eat in times of crisis. Not that my last twenty-four hours constituted a full-blown crisis. But with Steve not wanting to talk about the revolving door of poisoning victims at our local ER, and Rox not wanting to talk to me period, it should have come as no surprise when I found myself roaming the Red Apple Market in search of something comforting. It’s just that the doctor perusing the deli section wasn’t what I had in mind.

I did an about face and zipped into the express checkout line, where I grabbed a candy bar from the rack of sugary treats next to me and tossed it onto the conveyor belt.

Unfortunately, Millie, one of the chattier checkers, was working the register. “I know, I couldn’t have been more shocked when I heard about it,” she said to the middle-aged customer in front of me as she took her time scanning a can of dog food. “He was in here with his wife on Tuesday. Pretty thing. Beautiful skin.”

I jingled the five quarters in my hand to give Millie the clue that I was in a hurry.

Oblivious, she rested her palm on the second can as if she could divine its price. “I hear she’s been through three husbands.”

There was no question about the topic of the gossip du jour—Victoria McCutcheon.

The dog food lady glanced back at me and lowered her voice to a whisper. “She either has the worst luck or she knows how to pick ’em.”

I felt like telling the woman that I could still hear her.

Millie nodded. “Or both. Still, I feel sorry for her. They were so cute together.”

I felt sorry for her, too. Victoria’s husband had been taken from her and in one of the most horrific ways that I could have imagined.

“That’ll be three twenty-seven, hon.”

As the dog food lady rummaged through her wallet I saw a package of brie cheese land on the conveyer belt behind my candy bar. One of the better quality brands, too. Someone knew her cheese.

I looked back to see if the epicurean behind me was anyone I knew.

Correction,
his
cheese along with several large mushrooms, a bunch of chives, and a bag of fresh spinach. All organic, no doubt.

Kyle had a twinkle in his eyes when they shifted to my candy bar. “If you eat that you’re going to spoil your lunch.”

“It’s…” I couldn’t think of a believable lie that wouldn’t make me look like I was PMSing. “It’s a snack for later in case—”

“In case you don’t like what I’ll be feeding you?” He put my candy bar back on the rack. “Trust me, you’re going to like it.”

I’d always been wary of men who asked me to trust them, especially the ones who reminded me of my ex.

I smiled politely. “I’m sure I will.”

Millie winked at me like we were the second cutest couple she’d seen this week when she rang up his cheese. “Oooh, looks like he’s making something special for you.”

“Sure looks that way.” And way too much like a date, dang it.

I needed to get out of there before anyone else I knew saw us together and came to the same conclusion. “I’ll wait for you outside,” I said to Kyle.

A minute later, he joined me where I had been staring out at Merritt Bay and wishing I could have a redo of my morning. “So, did your meeting end early?” he asked.

Abruptly was more like it. “Yeah, it didn’t last as long as I thought it was going to.”

“Want to come over now and make it brunch?”

Not really but I needed to talk to him, and the sooner the better. “Sure, that would be great.”

He looked around, squinting against the glare of the sun at my back. “Where’d you park?”

I pointed to the side lot, where I had tucked the Jag away behind a dusty Red Apple panel truck so that I could stuff my face without an audience. “Back there. How about you?” The only red car in the lot was Millie’s old Saturn.

“I walked.”

Of course he had. The marina was only a block away.

He inched toward my car. “Can I hitch a ride with you? I’d love to check out your interior.”

If this had been any other day I would have nailed him on his double entendre. Instead, I injected enough frost in my glance so he’d know that I hadn’t called him to play sexually charged games.

But he had eyes only for the car as we approached. “You don’t see the red leather in an XJ6 every day.”

“I wouldn’t know. It was my ex-husband’s.” I clicked the remote to unlock the driver’s door. “Give me a second and I’ll open your door.”

“The remote won’t unlock it?”

“Nope.” That was just one of a long list of things that had gone wrong with the Jag in the four months since Chris handed over his car keys to my divorce attorney.

I got behind the wheel and reached across to open the passenger door.

“Might be the actuator,” he said, climbing in.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what my mechanic told me.” Actually, my high school buddy, George at Bassett Motor Works, had said that he wouldn’t know what was wrong with it until he took it apart. Since that sounded scary expensive I’d been in no hurry to get it fixed.

Looking around, Kyle leaned in my direction to check out the back seat. “Nice.”

I breathed in his scent, the same fresh combination of soap and sandalwood that I’d noticed last night, and concurred with him on a sensory level. Then I met his gaze and felt color flooding into my cheeks when I realized that he might not have been referring to the car.

“Okay, then. On to brunch!” I announced a little too loudly as I started the engine.

“Charmaine—”

“Char. Only my mother and strangers call me Charmaine.”

I watched the corners of his lips curl in amusement, his brown eyes warm and kind. “Well, I wouldn’t want you to think of me as a stranger.”

After last night that would be impossible.

I forced a smile and was about to shift into reverse when his hand touched mine.

“And I’d like you to relax. I may have overstepped when I kissed you last night, but I assure you that nothing is going to happen today that you don’t want to happen.”

He had missed on that promise by at least a half hour, but he was right about the two of us. Nothing was going to happen.

∗ ∗ ∗

Twenty minutes later, I was on Kyle’s sailboat, sipping mineral water at the table he’d set for two. “Are you sure I can’t do anything to help?” I asked as I watched him slice the mushrooms he’d bought.

I knew he didn’t need me crowding him in his one-person galley, but we had an hour to kill before the egg dish he was preparing would be ready, and I was running out of safe subjects to talk about.

“Nope, I’ve got this.” He transferred the mushrooms into a sauté pan.

“Smells good. What are you making?”

“Spinach brie frittata. My grandmother’s recipe.”

“Passed down generation to generation?” I asked, imagining Kyle in braces, cooking with his mom.

His face split into a smile as if I’d said something funny. “No, my mother doesn’t cook. Everything I know I learned from my nonna.”

Sounded like we had that in common, too. Only my grandmother was English-Irish, not Italian.

“What’s your mother do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Focusing on the mushrooms he was sautéing, he shrugged. “Let’s see, she shops and travels, and redecorates the living room every few years.”

Jeez, he was describing my mother in the flush years following her TV series.

“And to be fair,” he added, “she also volunteers at my dad’s hospital and sits on the board of a couple of nonprofits.”

“Back up. You said your dad’s hospital. He’s a doctor?”

“A neurologist back in Boulder. He also teaches there at the university.”

“Sounds like someone who has a lot of letters after his name.” And some big bucks for each one of those letters. Maybe that explained the sailboat and the expensive dinner last night. Kyle came from money.

His expression darkened as he added several cups of chopped spinach to the pan. “Something like that.”

I had the feeling that I’d struck a nerve. Some father-son thing? I didn’t want to intrude into Kyle’s personal life more than I already had, but this seemed like an opportunity to shift the conversation toward the subject where I needed his expertise.

“Had you always wanted to be a doctor?”

“Hell no, I wanted to be a rock star.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, but he certainly had the looks to be the front man in a band. “Decided you didn’t want to buy a bus and play a different city every night?”

“Hey, when I was thirteen I thought that sounded pretty cool. Twenty years later there are days I still do.”

“It must be interesting though, working in the ER.” Not the smoothest segue, but it would have to do. “Oh, speaking of the ER, one of my friends from high school was there last night with her two-year-old.” I paused, hoping that he’d turn toward me so that I could read his reaction.

When he did I continued. “Jordan Makepeace.”

Nothing registered except the same feigned expression of interest I got from Steve whenever I talked about my job.

“His grandmother—Phyllis Bozeman, if you know her—found him outside eating a plant and rushed him to the hospital.”

Again, no flickers of recognition. If Phyllis or Jordan had made prior trips to the ER, they hadn’t been on Kyle’s watch.

“Is he doing okay?” he asked.

“Seems to be. From what I heard it sounds like his grandmother got him there in the nick of time.”

“Good for Grandma and Jordan then. Plant toxins can be very dangerous.”

Yes, they were, as I had recently learned. “Is that something you see very often?”

He cracked an egg into a bowl. “No, and usually the parents say that they have no idea what the kid ate or drank.”

“But you’re able to run some labs and find out, right?”

Reaching for another egg, he grinned at me. “Someone’s been watching too much TV.”

He was sounding like Steve again. “Okay, so it’s not that easy, but if Phyllis hadn’t known what Jordan ate, there should be a way to tell, right?”

“There’d be traces of the plant in his vomit. But no matter what he ate or didn’t eat, he’d present with certain symptoms, and we’d go from there.”

I pulled the computer printout from my tote and unfolded the three-page article on the galley counter next to the bowl. “What if you saw these symptoms?”

Kyle removed the pan from the burner, leaning on the counter as he leafed through the pages. Less than a minute later, he handed them back to me, his eyes hooded. “This is what you wanted to talk to me about.”

I nodded. “Which I tried to indicate on the phone.”

His jaw tightened. “So, you didn’t dig up enough information last night about how Marty McCutcheon died?”

“I’m trying to do my job and gather all the pertinent information surrounding his death so that the Coroner—”

“I know what your job is. I can even appreciate that you’re willing to do what’s necessary to get that job done, but I can’t help you. Not this time.”

I knew he was referring to a research project he had helped me with when one of his patients had died suddenly a few weeks back. “I’m just trying to understand—”

“And I’ve told you everything you need to know for a cause of death. Mr. McCutcheon was in ventricular fibrillation upon arrival. He arrested about thirty minutes later. That’s all I have for you.”

“That’s all there is to it?” I asked, watching him carefully for a reaction.

“That’s all I saw. The medics who brought him in reported he was experiencing paralysis and ventricular dysrhythmias. In other words, his heart was out of rhythm. He had to be shocked, several times.”

“But why was this happening?”

“Given his history, like I told you last night, my guess would be advanced coronary artery disease.”

He was telling the truth, dammit.

I stared down at the paper in my hands and saw the words,
paralysis
and
irregular heartbeat
. “It seems like one of these poisons would be a great way to kill someone, especially with that kind of history.”

“Don’t let me give you any ideas, and not that Mr. McCutcheon’s death was caused by anything other than a very unhealthy heart, but you’re right. It could be an effective way to kill someone.”

I stared at him. “Because you can’t just run a few labs and find out that someone was poisoned?”

He smirked. “Not around here. Takes some seriously expensive equipment and highly trained toxicologists that county hospitals can’t afford.”

I sighed. I could only hope that the state crime lab had some of that equipment.

Kyle glanced down at the bowl between us. “If you’re done pumping me for information, I’d like to eat sometime today.”

“I’d prefer to call it asking a friend for his help with a problem.”

He grabbed a whisk. “Yeah, I like that better, too. Still feels like I was pumped for information though.”