Dead Giveaway (7 page)

  ''Hey, guys,'' I said, taking the empty molded chair alongside my boss.

  Angel gripped my neck, pulled me close and kissed me on the cheek. The strength of his Polo cologne nearly knocked me off my chair.

  ''How's my best detective?'' He tugged at the cuffs of his pristine starched shirt.

  I smiled. ''Was that cheek swipe you gave me a metaphor for another kind of kiss?''

  ''Me? Kissing butt?'' Angel said with a laugh.

  ''I almost believe you're sincere, except I also know you could sell sand to an Arab. What's this meeting about?'' I looked at Jeff.

''It's about working this case,'' Jeff said.

  ''Oh, I get it. That's why you left the Knights' house. You're pissed off because—''

  ''Hold on, Abby,'' Angel said. ''From my conversation with Jeff, I did not get the impression he is upset with you.''

  ''Why do we need you as a mediator then?'' Jeff might not be mad, but I was getting fired up and I wasn't sure why.

  Angel patted my knee. ''I'm here as a friend to you both. From what Jeff's told me, your adoption investigation and his murder case seem to be trains on parallel tracks.''

  ''Maybe.'' I looked at Jeff, trying to read him. No such luck. His expression only revealed what had been there before. Fatigue. ''Is that your take, Jeff?''

  He took out his pack of Big Red and offered us some. I refused, but Angel took a stick and after unwrapping the gum, carefully folded the paper into a tiny rectangle before putting it in the wastebasket behind us.

  ''Here's what I know, Abby,'' Jeff said. ''You're as competitive as I am when it comes to cases. That could cause us some serious problems on this one, personally and professionally. I don't want that.''

  ''You think I do?'' I snapped.

  ''Stop with the defensiveness,'' Angel said. ''What I told Jeff, what I'm telling you, is that these two trains, they're not in a race. Do you see that, my
amiga
?''

  ''Okay. So how—''

  ''These trains, they might come to a crossing and one might have to slow up and let the other pass. You see this, too?'' His dark eyes had softened, like Daddy's used to when he tried to calm me down.

  I said, ''What you're saying is that if Verna Mae's death is connected to Will, I have to back off?''

  Jeff shook his head. ''No, that's not it.''

  ''Then quit dancing around and tell me what you want from me.'' What was it with these guys? Did they think I might explode or, worse, start crying when I got the whole scoop on this little deal they'd cooked up before I arrived?

  ''Sorry,'' Jeff said. ''I have a hard time thinking anyone but me can solve a case. Ask all my former partners. Anyway, since I've worked with Angel's agency in the past, I don't see why I can't again.''

  I paused, realizing this wasn't at all what I'd expected. ''Since technically I work for Angel, we can . . . collaborate?'' I could feel my defenses melting away, feel my stomach unknot. Jeff was behaving in a mature, thoughtful way, something my ex-husband never would have done in a trillion years. Funny how past pain had me reading this as a hostile encounter before I had all the facts.

  ''You're in,'' Jeff said, smiling for the first time. ''I can't waste time chasing down a connection to Will Knight that might be a total dead end unrelated to this murder, old information that might only have to do with
your
investigation.''

  I grinned so wide it hurt. Jeff and I on the same case? Very cool.

  ''You'll be under Angel's supervision, like you're supposed to be,'' Jeff said quickly. ''That's gotta be in my paperwork or I'm in deep shit. You haven't been doing this job long enough yet.''

  ''Please keep reminding me of that,'' I said.

  Angel tousled my already scary hair. It's not like I had any time to do anything with it this morning, since I'd jumped straight from the shower into my car.

  ''You make me laugh, Abby girl. She's something, no, Jeff?''

  ''She's something,
yes
,'' he answered. He said this with such obvious sincerity, he won back all the points he'd lost by reminding me I still had to be supervised.

  ''Now that we have an arrangement,'' Angel said, ''I have to leave. New detective to train. He's not a fast study like you, Abby. He thinks investigating is like working in some Hollywood film. Wait until he's done ten divorce surveillances, then we'll see what movie he thinks he's playing in.''

  I rose and stepped aside so Angel could leave. He shook Jeff's hand before flashing a white smile as impeccable as his shirt.

  Once he was gone, I moved over to the chair Angel had vacated to be farther from the busy aisle that ran between the cubicles. Good thing, because a greasyhaired guy in cuffs was being ''helped'' out of the office and might have landed right in my lap had I not moved.

  Jeff leaned back, his chair resting against the modular desk behind him. ''I think this will work, don't you?''

  ''As long as I remember which train I'm engineering. There is something I didn't get a chance to tell you.'' I explained my theory about Verna Mae possibly being Will's biological parent, how her obesity might have concealed a pregnancy. ''I want to compare his DNA to Verna Mae's.''

  ''You got a sample of her DNA last night?''

  ''Oops. I'll need that, won't I? Maybe Burl will let me grab her toothbrush or something.''

  ''Since we have her body, we've got more than enough to spare. Tell me where to send a sample.''

  ''Thanks. I think I'll like working with you.'' I gave him the name of the lab, and he jotted it on his calendar blotter. He always has about a hundred notes and numbers scribbled all over the place, and I wondered how he kept them straight.

  ''We probably won't see much of each other in the near future, Abby. I'm following a gang angle on this murder, and getting a gang lead is about as tedious as it gets.''

  ''Gang angle?''

  ''We found the Olsen woman's car in the lot— thanks for the tip on that. The bad guy probably climbed right in while she was waiting for you, made her drive around behind the coffee place. Drove back after he killed her, got in his own car and took off. Crime scene people are processing it now, looking for a trace that could lead us to the killer.''

''What does that have to do with gangs?''

  ''We've had some carjackings in the past few months, elderly women beaten and robbed. Previous tips indicate a gang connection in those cases. Doesn't exactly fit the M.O., since the Olsen woman was younger than the other victims and her car wasn't stolen, but it's close enough to follow up on.''

  ''Why
not
take her car? It was expensive.''

  ''Maybe too expensive, too flashy. The bad guy figured we'd find him easily. The thing had GPS, the whole nine yards.''

  ''Any witnesses?'' I asked.

  ''Crowded busy place, that lot. Believe it or not, the busier the place, the less likely people are to notice a snatch. We'll be interviewing plenty of people anyway, and that's not something you need to be involved in. If you don't know about witnesses, you won't have much to tell reporters should they come calling.''

  ''Oh. Because of Will's being a collegiate star athlete?''

  ''Yup.''

  ''Are you hedging? Do you have a witness who says Verna Mae was carjacked in the lot and driven around back?''

  Jeff sighed. ''You don't quit, do you?''

  ''Never. Is that what happened?''

  He sighed. ''No witnesses so far. We can only hope we find something the killer might have left behind besides coffee grounds on the floorboard. Fingerprints would be a bonus.''

  ''I don't know, Jeff. Don't you think a struggle, even in a busy lot, would have been noticed? He must have had a gun or—''

  ''Or she knew him. Anyway, solving the murder is my job. You have plenty to do on your end.''

  ''Yeah, but think about this. What if someone knew Verna Mae planned to meet me? What if that person didn't want the meeting to happen? Could that be why she ended up dead?''

  Jeff grinned. ''I think your daddy would say you have a total lack of ignorance. If you find out anything supporting your theory, come see me. Meanwhile, I have to look in more obvious places. Like gangland. But only after I slog through paperwork hell. Time for you to go.''

  ''I'm out of here.'' I came around his desk and took his face in my hands before he could protest. I planted one on him and found his mouth sticky-sweet with gum, just how I liked it.

  ''Go before one of the nosy jerks I work with sees us. We now have a professional relationship, remember?''

  ''No sleepovers?''

  ''Well . . . we will have to discuss the case,'' he replied, his eyes glinting.

  ''Glad we're on the same page.'' I smiled and left.

  Unlike Jeff, who seemed to go days without sleep, I went home and crashed. I awoke hours later to find my sister, Kate, standing over me.

  ''Are you okay?'' she whispered.

  ''I'm fine. Unless there's a reason you're whispering.'' I sat up and rubbed at my eyes. Diva stuck her head out from under the quilt and blinked a few times, then ran out of the bedroom. She was ticked. Her visit to cat heaven had ended too soon.

  ''I was whispering so I wouldn't startle you,'' Kate said.

  ''What are you doing here?'' I asked. ''Don't you have patients to see?''

  ''It's Saturday, Abby.''

  ''Is it?''

  ''Yes. I saw your car in the driveway and you weren't downstairs. Since it's after two o'clock, I was wondering if you were sick.''

  ''You've been spending too much time with Aunt Caroline. I'd expect her to come in and check on a break in my routine, not you.'' Aunt Caroline is Daddy's sister and she's always on the look out for ways to meddle in my business. I swear she drives down my street twice a day to see what's going on.

  ''Please don't compare me to her,'' Kate said.

  ''Sorry,'' I said quickly. ''I just don't want you to run home for your homeopathic playbook, okay?'' Kate loves to take care of me with the most god-awful herbal concoctions on the planet.

  ''You haven't napped since you were three. What's going on? And what happened to your hair?''

  You'd think twins, even fraternal like us, would have plenty of similar traits, but Kate got the good hair, hands down, her dark brown hair so shiny and bouncy she could have done shampoo commercials.

  ''I was up late on a case and wasn't exactly concerned about my personal grooming. It's sad, though, isn't it? You could probably shave my head and make a hay bale.''

  Kate laughed. ''I'm with you there. Is the Knight case making you lose sleep?''

  I nodded. ''That woman who found baby Will on her porch was murdered.''

  Kate sat next to me on the edge of the bed. ''Oh, my God. That's awful. Did you ever get to talk to her?''

  ''Yes. Finding her was easy. The Knights had all the newspaper articles about the abandonment. But the way she died wasn't at all easy. I feel so terrible about the whole thing, Kate.''

  ''Is her death connected to Will's case?''

  ''It's kind of a long story. While I take my second shower of the day to wake me up, would you mind running home for some green tea? Then we can talk.''

  She looked at me like I'd asked her to go on a safari. ''You're serious?''

  ''Just plain green. None of that chai stuff.''

  ''Sure, but—''

  ''I promise, the tea is all part of the long story.''

  While she went home—eagerly, I might add—I showered, used about half a bottle of conditioner on my hair and dressed. The hair did show some improvement, but now I smelled like a peppermint.

  Hot green tea for us both was waiting when I came downstairs, and we sat at the kitchen table while I filled Kate in on the events of the last few days.

  When I finished, she said, ''You went to Verna Mae Olsen's house in the middle of the night? By yourself?''

  ''You have to leap on an opportunity when it presents itself.'' I drank the last of my plum/berry green tea, deciding it was pretty good even without much sugar.

  ''What's your next move?'' Kate asked.

  ''The social worker. Maybe she knows how Verna Mae found out about Will. Then there's that blanket. The brand name is POSH PRAMS

                                . I'm hoping I can trace it.''

  ''From nineteen years ago? How?''

  ''Don't know yet. Got any ideas?''

  ''Hey, you're the investigator. My concern is Will. How's he handling this emotionally?''

  ''Very maturely. He's an awesome kid.''

  Kate smiled. ''I think so, too. Sensitive, but tough. If you think Verna Mae was his mother, who was the father? Obviously not Jasper Olsen.''

  I rested my elbows on the table and supported my chin with my fists. ''That's another challenge. Maybe we can get back inside the house, look for clues to lead us in the right direction.''

  ''We?''

  ''I could use your help. That woman had a lot of crap.''

  ''Don't we all,'' Kate said.

6

Though I'd hoped Kate and I could get inside Verna Mae's house Sunday—Kate didn't see patients on Sunday—Burl Rollins said it would be another day or so before the property would be turned over to Will. After this disappointment, my sister convinced me to take a day off, and we spent Sunday shopping on the Kemah Boardwalk, then overdosed on shrimp and crab at Pappas Seafood Restaurant. It was a good distraction, one I needed.

  My appointment with Molly Roth, the social worker who had worked Will's abandonment case, was for nine a.m. Monday, so I was on the Southwest Freeway heading toward Roth's office in Sugarland by eightthirty. Houston freeways at that time of day? Basically a cuss-off with hand signals.

  I'd researched Roth and discovered she'd left Children's Protective Services many years ago and currently ran a private agency that supplied parents with certified nannies—that according to the sales pitch Roth had insisted on delivering over the phone when I called her for an appointment. I wasn't even sure I'd convinced her I had no interest in hiring anyone from her agency unless they wanted to babysit a spoiled cat.