Hot Tea (10 page)

“It’s home in on, not hone in on.  Rumor has it Bush started the hone in thing, you don’t want to go there.”

“True.”

I scooted my chair closer, “I’m no longer waffling.  I think we can make the original plan work.  As you might recall, I actually talked to the magnificent Mr. AJ while you were sucking down dinner.”

“He is pretty magnificent isn’t he?”

“We’re staying on topic here.”

She nodded once, “Got it.”

“So, while you were doin’ the Hoover thing with your mondo-dinner, I was actually listening to what AJ had to say.”

“That isn’t fair.  I listened.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  Really.”

I raised my eyebrows and lowered my chin in challenge, “Then what did we talk about that will lead us right to the murderer of Mrs. Lily Ivy-Rosenbloom?”

“Ok, so maybe I wasn’t listening every second, but be fair, no one listens to you every second.”

“I understand that.”

She brightened, “So, what’s going on?”

“AJ is a computer genius.”

Her turn to look impressed, “A computer genius?”

“Yep.”

“He said that?  That’s kind of conceited.  That doesn’t sound like AJ.”

“He didn’t say the genius part, I did.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that computers are kind of a hobby with him.”

Her face shifted from impressed to puzzled, “How does that make him a genius?”

“Have you ever seen a guy that looks that good in linen pants, without even trying, and can deal with not just one of us, but both of us, and at the same time.  The man has got to be a genius.”

“Good point.”  She said, “So how does AJ being a computer genius lead us straight to the murderer of Mrs. Ivy-Rosenbloom?”

“You just don’t listen to a word I say.”

“That’s pretty much true.”

I yelped, “Don’t be a jerk.  The answer is on the Internet.  We’ve come full circle here.  All we have to do is input the right information so that the output tells us what we need to know so that we can figure out who the murderer is.  Then we can collect the reward in a timely fashion.  I’m thinking if we find out the murderer is not the husband, then he will be more than happy to share some of his vast wealth with us in return for that information.  If I play my cards right, I could end up with more than just the reward money.”

“That’s called blackmail Cara.”

“No, it would be blackmail if we profit by not telling the cops.  If it works out my way, and he didn’t do it; and we find proof and make that proof available to him and the cops, that makes us consultants.”

She smiled, “Consultant is better.  Less jail time.”

“Well, that depends on what you’re consulting on.  Think white-collar crime.  Seems to be running rampant these days, but I’m all about staying out of jail.  Horizontal stripes are a nightmare.”

“Agreed, although they might work on you.  One of the many advantages of being tall and thin.”  She sounded a little wistful, like maybe being all curvy wasn’t always ideal.  Hmmm…

She was immediately all business, “So how’s AJ going to help us?”

I’d been thinking about it all night, “I think he can help us narrow the search to get the right information from the Internet.  When I was looking online, I had so many hits on anything and everything that I couldn’t wade through the information.  There has to be some type of filter he can shoot all the information through so that I can find just what I need.”

“Cara, you can just go to the Google Web Search Help Center and they will tell you how to do that.  It’s in really simple steps.  Anyone can do it.”

“And you chose not to tell me this when I was telling you about my millions of hits because?”

She shrugged, “I figured you knew.”

“You’re kidding right?”

“No, I figured that now that you know how to work your email you would get nosey and start poking around.  Cara, you are the nosiest person I’ve ever met in my life.  I figured if I didn’t say anything, the fact that I hadn’t tried to push it on you would make it that much more alluring.”

“I gotta admit, that does sound like me.”

“Yeah, it does, so what happened?”

I pulled apart a paperclip and whined, “I’m not sure.  I’ve been in a kind of funk since Suzi left.  Maybe I have abandonment issues.”

“You knew the woman for a couple of years.  She was your roommate not your parent, partner, or even your stylist.  And she’s not dead, she just got married.”

“True.”

“So what do you think the problem is?”

I took a breath and confessed, “I guess I’m jealous.  Envious?”

“Of what?”

“Of Suzi.  One day she’s sitting at home, pretty much living the same life I’m living.  She gets offered this great job, right out of the blue, full of adventure and excitement.   Seems like the next day this guy is madly in love with her.  My cynical side thought it was a little quick, but it’s real.  They have something like Mom and Daddy.  I didn’t think that existed any more.  It does.  Why can’t I find it?”

Teagan said quietly, “I get it.  I’m living the same thing.”

“Oh come on Barbie, you just met your Ken and you know it.  I watched the two of you.  You’re perfect.  He’s even charmed by the fact that you’re basically a shrew.”

She screeched, “I am not a shrew!  I’m a very pleasant person.  I am generous of spirit.  Ask anyone.  People are amazed I’ve been your sister all these years and you’re still alive.  If I were a shrew, do you really think you would have lived this long?”

I tried not to laugh.  “Not that kind of shrew, although that was a mighty fine impersonation of one.  The mouse kind of shrew.  They eat seventy-five percent of their body weight each day.”

She had the good grace to look embarrassed, “Oh.  Sorry.”

“What crawled up your arse and died?”

She shrugged, “I have no idea, maybe it’s a separation thing?”

“Oh Lord, here we go.”

“I know it’s pathetic.  We only shared one dinner, and you were there.  I drove myself there and home.  I’ve never touched him.  You carried most of the conversation.”

“That’s because your mouth was full.”

“I eat when I get nervous, sue me.”

I almost whispered, as if he were in the next room trying to glean information, knowing full well that he wasn’t even in town, “If it is any consolation at all, I think he feels the same way.”

“Why’s that?”

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this.  Which, of course, means that I’ll tell you, but then you’ll owe me one.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever.”  She gave me a look that said she might owe me one, but it was going to be a challenge to collect any time soon.

“He was on the phone with Suzi.  He said that if she’d told him about you sooner, he would have moved in sooner, or something like that.  I didn’t quite hear all of it, I was eavesdropping.”

“Wow.”

“I know.”

Her eyebrows met in the middle, “That’s a little weird.”

“What?”

“I’m just saying that we have shared a meal and a couple of compliments, and he said he should have moved in with you sooner.  Why move in with you?  That’s weird.  Guys aren’t like that.”

I threw my hands up in the air.  Very dramatic, “I give up.”

Teagan said, “I’m gonna keep my eye on him.  You should too.  He could be my Ken, but he might be more like Ken Wittenlinker.”

Totally confused, I said, “Who is Ken Wittenlinker?”

“He’s the main character on that new CSI type show.  I think they’re going to weave his character back and forth through the whole series.  He’s this really spooky but spectacularly sexy guy.  You need to watch more TV.”

“Teagan, I don’t know how to break the news to you, but TV is fiction.  It’s made up.  It isn’t real.”

“I know that, but think about it.  The idea has to come from somewhere.  There’s no such thing as true fiction anymore, not like it used to be.  It seems to me there are only rewritten stories.  When is the last time you saw anything truly new?  We’ve lost our creative edge.  I blame over indulgent parents.  I know they’re trying to do the right thing, but when you schedule every moment of a child’s life, it leaves them no time to be kids.  What’s wrong with people?  Play dates before their little one can move on their own, that’s a clue it isn’t about the child, it’s about the parent.  And as the child gets older, it only gets worse.”

“Teagan what the heck does this have to do with fiction?”

She gave me that
you poor thing
look that always pisses me off.  Sometimes she acts as if I don’t have the brains God gave a flat rock. 

She explained, “If you go back and look at the really cheesy science fiction when we were kids, or even before we were born, they had imagination.  Remember that one series, they were all about a device you could walk around with and talk to other people.  Hello?  Cell phone.  The idea in the movies was in the mid sixties, wasn’t it?  Then the real cell phone started in the mid seventies.  Now everyone walks around with one attached to their ear.”

“Teagan, you can’t create a whole hypothesis based on one thingy.”

“Fine.  How about landing a spaceship on Mars?  Hello?  We have put rovers on Mars.  We landed on Mars back in the seventies.  Or the government spying on us through globes in space that can see in your house, listen to your conversations, track your movements and thoughts.  Have you thought about search engines and satellites?  Those first satellites went up in the fifties.  Think about it Cara, the Internet started in the early sixties.  Think of something as life altering as cell phones and satellites and Mars landings that our generation, or even Mom’s generation came up with.  I’m telling you, if science paid as well as Hollywood, we would be a lot further in our scientific development.  Our generation is all about image and cash, and we both know it.  Hollywood figures it out and science follows.”