Untitled (12 page)

   "Got you there." There was a little too much satisfaction in Tyler's voice and in the tiny smile that played around the corners of his mouth. "Mr. Peterson didn't have an apartment. He lived in a town house. Over near the Clarendon Metro station. That's where we found the receipt."

   "In his town house."

   "At the Metro station." Tyler had already turned to head back into the kitchen, but I wasn't going to let him cut me off so soon or so completely. There was still plenty I wanted to know.

   I slid off the barstool and stood in his path.

   "You found the receipt for Brad's cooking class at the Metro station? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

   "It does if the receipt was in Brad's pocket. Or should I say, the receipt was in what was left of his pocket."

   I didn't like the sound of that. While I thought it over, I stood there at a loss for words. Of course, that's the reaction Tyler was hoping he'd get out of me: dazed and confused. That's why he left the information dangling.

   He didn't expect me to, but it's also exactly why I bit.

"What was left? That must mean there was some kind of accident. But you said he was murdered. Are you sure?"

   As long as I'd known him, Tyler had never been Mr. Open-and-Sharing. It was one of the things that made him such a good cop and such a bad everything else. But since I hadn't cringed at that w
hat was left
comment, I guess he figured he owed me the details.

   "He died at the Clarendon Metro station, all right. But it wasn't an accident," Tyler said. "Somebody pushed Brad Peterson off the platform. Just as the nine o'clock train was pulling in."

   I tried not to picture the scene. It wasn't easy. I knew the station well, and I could imagine the press of early morning commuters, the surge forward as the train approached. I shook my head.

   "Like I said, it must have been an accident." I could see no other explanation. "Why do you think—"

   "Kind of hard to avoid the facts. And the tape from the security camera . . . well, I'll tell you what. I don't think that's anything you could stomach, Annie, but it is one cold, hard fact."

   Jim must have sensed that I felt light-headed. He rubbed my back with one hand and asked what I would have asked, if only I wasn't imaging what had happened and feeling a little queasy because of it.

   Jim nodded thoughtfully. "You've got the murder on tape, then. That must make your job easier. Why come around looking for details if you know who did it?"

   Tyler's smile was sleek. "We've got the murder, all right. But not the murderer. The tape shows a person in a beat-up hoodie who follows Brad into the station. That same person stands behind Brad and shuffles forward a little at a time. When Brad is close to the edge of the platform . . ." His palms flat, Tyler pushed both his hands out in front of him. "By the time the police got there in response to the frantic calls from the people waiting for the train, it was too late. Brad Peterson was dead, the hooded sweatshirt was in the nearest trash can, and now here I am, following one of the threads of my investigation. I'll just take a couple minutes and talk to the people in your class." He didn't ask permission for this, just edged past me and went into the kitchen. "While I'm here, I might as well find out all I can."

   It was too late to stop him, and what was the point, anyway? Tyler got what Tyler wanted. He had the badge to make sure of it.

   The closer we got to the kitchen, the more we heard the excited buzz of conversation. No big mystery what everyone was talking about. I heard Brad's name mentioned and someone say, "He wasn't such a bad guy."

   Obviously, it was someone who didn't know Brad well.

   The moment we stepped into the room, the place went dead silent.

   Tyler waved a dismissive hand toward the class. "You can continue doing what you were doing. I'm going to come around to talk to each one of you. Anything you can tell me will be helpful."

   Margaret Whitemore had been deep in conversation with Jorge and Kegan. She turned toward the door and wiped her hands on her apron. Don't ask me how I knew she was going to say something she shouldn't; just believe me when I say I saw it coming. Otherwise, my heart wouldn't have banged like a pile driver. My knees wouldn't have turned to jelly. Before I could come up with a way to stop her, Margaret stepped forward.

   "We've been talking about it, of course," she said. She looked around the room to include her fellow students. "And we've decided that you don't need to take your time to talk to each of us. We can help you right now. We know who did it, you see." As if she was giving a presentation, Margaret clutched her hands together at her waist. "It was that Eve girl. The one who was here the first night of class. You remember . . . all of you . . ." She looked around, and as one, the students nodded. "It must have been Eve. She knew Brad, and she came right out and said it. She said she wanted him dead."

       Brad Peterson were acquainted before I ever walked in here."

   I suppose Tyler was trying to make me feel better when he patted me on the back.

   It didn't work.

   When our students were finished cooking—and done telling Tyler everything they remembered about Eve's appearance at class that first night—I volunteered to stay in the kitchen and clean up. I was less than thrilled when Tyler stayed with me.

   I slanted him a look. "You could have told me right from the start."

   He grinned. "What fun would that be? Besides, I was interested to see how far you would go to stick up for a friend. Are you willing to go all the way to prison for Eve?"

   "That's ridiculous." It was, and I reminded myself not to forget it and not to get bullied into believing anything else. That was the only thing that kept me from collapsing beneath the weight of my worries. "You know Eve would never kill anybody."

   "I know that normally, Miss DeCateur wouldn't be inclined to kill. But if she had a strong motive . . ." He whistled low under his breath. "There's no telling what a girl like that would do if she felt she'd been wronged."

   "She didn't kill you when you broke up with her."

   "Oo-wee!" Tyler threw back his head and laughed. "You have changed from the days when Miss DeCateur and I were seeing each other. You wouldn't have dared speak up like that back then. Maybe that's because you had a husband around then to keep you in line, huh?"

   With a nasty look, I warned Tyler to back down. Just in case he didn't get the message, I was sure to tell him loud and clear. "You're not doing anything to endear yourself to me. If you expect me to help you with this case—"

   "Hold on. Right there." Tyler was a traffic cop when he first joined the force, and I guess old habits die hard. He held up one hand to stop me. "You don't actually think I'm here to ask for your help, do you?"

   "There's no other reason. It certainly can't be because of Eve. She'd never resort to violence, and you know it."

   Tyler leaned in close. "Not even when Brad Peterson made it impossible for her to get that job she really wanted?"

   So Tyler knew about that.

   I shrugged like it was no big deal. I hoped it looked more convincing to him than it felt to me. "She's way over that," I said. "She told me just the other day that she realized that if she had gotten the job in that boutique, she wouldn't be working here. She said Bellywasher's is the best thing that ever happened to her, and she wouldn't trade it for anything. So you see, Brad Peterson did her a favor."

   "Uh-huh. That's why . . ." Tyler had his notebook tucked in his pocket, and he took it out and opened it. He flipped through a few pages before he found what he was looking for. "Ah, here it is. You say Brad Peterson did Eve a favor. Is that why on Monday, just two weeks ago, she raced into the kitchen here, pointed a finger at the man, and told him that if she had a gun, she'd shoot him dead?"

   I didn't appreciate Tyler's smile, and I glared at him just so he didn't get the idea that I did. "That's not the way it happened, and you know it," I told him.

   "Then how did it happen?"

   I shrugged again. This time because I knew there was no avoiding the truth. "She walked in here, yes. And she was surprised to see him. That's all. She spoke in the heat of the moment."

   "Only she didn't threaten him until after class was over and the students were eating. And that was what, an hour or two later? Hardly the heat of the moment."

   "She didn't threaten him at all." I'd had it with standing still and listening to Tyler vilify Eve. I grabbed a nearby towel, wet it at the sink, and went from workstation to workstation, removing the pans and utensils the students had used, carrying them to the sink, then wiping off each table. "All she said was—"

   "I hate his guts. I wish he was dead. He's going to be sorry he was ever born." Tyler read through the witness statements our students had given.

   I was wringing out my cleaning cloth and I leaned against the sink, my back to Tyler. "Actually, it was, 'I'd like to kill that man.' "

   "Got that one a few times, too," he replied. "Since I heard it from a couple different people, I figured that was the one closest to what she actually said."

   "And you know it doesn't mean a thing." I tossed down the rag and spun to face him. "People say angry things all the time. That doesn't mean anything."

   "Not when the people they say angry things about go right on living. But when they're murdered . . . well, that's a whole different story, isn't it?"

   "It is. But come on, Tyler, think about it." I scrambled for anything I could come up with and hit upon it in one aha moment. My eyes lit, and for the first time since Tyler had butted his way into our cooking class, I smiled. "It couldn't have been Eve," I told him. "And you know that as well as I do."

   "I do?"

   "You do. Because you know Eve as well as I do. Or almost as well. When was the last time you saw her, Tyler? Whenever it was, I'll bet she was dressed as if she just stepped out of the latest issue of Vo
gue
. She's always dressed that way. Eve would never be caught dead in a hoodie, beat up or otherwise."

   It was a brilliant deduction, and Tyler could have done more to acknowledge that than laugh. When he was done (it took him a while), he bent forward and looked me in the eye. "That's the whole point," he said. "When people don't want other people to know who they are, they wear something people don't usually see them wear. That's why it works. That's why it's called a disguise."

   At the mention of the word, did I gulp as loud as I thought I did?

   Maybe not, because Tyler didn't seem to notice.

   He didn't mention Penelope Cruz wigs or sunglasses, either. For this, I was grateful. Instead, he asked, "When did you last talk to Eve?"

   I thought back to all my unanswered phone calls. "Yesterday," I said, meeting his look eye to eye just so he didn't think I had anything to hide. "We talk every day."

   "But not today."

   "I've been at work at the bank all day. I just got here before class started. Eve had things to do today. It's her day off."

   "And you haven't talked to her."

   "No. Not yet. I will."

   "Have you tried calling?"

   "Yes, I did." I raised my chin. "And I left her messages, but she hasn't returned them yet. And you know what that proves, Tyler? Absolutely nothing. Except that she's busy."

   "Busy doing what? That's the question."

   I'd had enough. I turned the water back on, rinsed my cleaning rag, and went over to the table where Marc and Damien did tonight's cooking demonstration. They were chefs, not dishwashers (at least not unless we desperately needed them to be); they left the table a mess. I set the rag down and started stacking measuring cups and spoons in the big pottery bowl Jim had pulled out of the storage closet for marinating the shrimp. I am not usually the type to abandon a friend in need, and I felt guilty for even thinking what I was thinking. Until I reminded myself that Valerie Conover wasn't a friend. And Eve really needed me.

   I lifted the bowl and cradled it in my arms. "Eve isn't

the only one who had it in for Brad," I said. "If you know what Brad did to Eve, you probably know that, too."

   Tyler tipped his head, encouraging me to say more.

   "There's this whole group, Women Against Weasels, and—"

   "Weasels?" Leave it to Tyler to find another place to laugh inappropriately. "You're kidding me, right?"

   "I'm telling you what you need to know in order to find out who really killed Brad Peterson. There are other sisters . . . er, women in the group who hold a grudge against Brad. I've got a list, if you're interested."

   "Only if they're all blondes."

   Tyler can be a sexist pig with the best of them, but this was over the top, even for him. I pinned him with a look that he defended with a roll of his eyes.

   "Just doing my job," he said. "Not making any remarks about the way any woman looks. How many of them are blondes do you suppose? You know, like Eve?"

   I have to admit, at this point, I didn't see where he was going. Because I'm inherently honest, I think everyone else is, too. Mistake number one. I figured that because I was willing to be up front with Tyler, he'd return the favor.

   I should have known better.

   "I can't possibly say which ones are blondes and which aren't. I've only met one of them." I thought back to our visit to Valerie Conover's apartment. I remembered how messy it was and how before she sat down, Valerie had plucked a sweatshirt off the chair. I grasped at the straw of this information and refused to let go. "One of them is named Valerie Conover," I told Tyler. "And I know for a fact that she owns a hoodie. I saw it in her apartment."