Murder in the Aisles (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Felicia was surprised that Blake took her up on her offer to drop by for a bit. The weather had grown increasingly troublesome since Detective Rizzo left, and the forecasters said that the snow would last at least until ten. But as Blake had said when she called, it had been a while.

Felicia and Blake's relationship, if it could be categorized as such, was one of convenience and need. When they'd met at a congressional dinner two years earlier, it was all chemistry and nothing more. Both of them were devoted to their careers: he a rising star in the U.S. Congress and she one of the foremost researchers in the country. Under normal circumstances they would make a formidable couple and had even danced around the idea in conversation, but quickly discarded the notion. They were both too self-involved to be able to give anything more than superficiality to someone else. They agreed on that.

Felicia believed in that agreement from the center of her being. Besides, who would be able to contend with all of her foibles and phobias? She could never be her true self again in a real relationship. A man would see her with her veil removed and run screaming. To compensate she surrounded herself with books and learning and things and transient relationships that had no hope of evolving.

Yet, even as she filled Blake's tumbler with Stoli and listened to him regale her with stories of his day, with atmospheric jazz playing in the background, she couldn't help but wonder what all this would be like with someone that she really cared about and who cared about her. Maybe someone like Mark.

“Word on the Hill is that Dr. Dresden had a heart attack. Damn shame,” Blake was saying as he set his glass down on the end table. “Couldn't make it to the service. Bill was up for a vote. Heard the service was very nicely done.” He got up and came to sit beside her on the couch. He draped his arm across her shoulder.

“Yes,” she said softly.

He curled a lock of her hair around his finger. “I know you two worked together.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I'm really sorry.”

Blake was a beautiful specimen of a man. Beyond that he was actually very intelligent. What would he think of her take on what happened in the aisles? “Thanks,” she said instead.

Blake gently caressed her cheek. “We could be really good together, Felicia. If you were willing to try.”

Her gaze jumped to his. Where was this coming from? They'd been down this dead end road. Felicia sat up and pulled the sheet to her chin. “Don't be silly,” she said, trying to make light of his comment. “We would make each other crazy.”

“Crazy might not be so bad.”

The suddenly softened timbre of his voice and the intensity in his gaze set off warning alarms.

“You're serious?”

“Yes, I am.” He leaned over and lightly kissed her on the lips. “I don't want to continue to be some guy you screw when the need arises. You deserve better. So do I. Don't you think so?”

Felicia's lashes rapidly fanned. “This is that good liquor talking,” she teased, even as her heart raced. “By the time you get home it will have all worn off.” She forced a smile.

Blake's brows flicked. “No, it won't. It's easy for you to deflect how you feel with jokes and sarcasm. I'm being real with you. One day you're going to let your guard down and be real with me.” He drew in a long breath. “I'll wait. But not forever, Felicia.” He stood. “Get some rest. I'll let myself out.”

Felicia sat frozen in place as she listened to the front door close behind Blake. What the hell had just happened? She stared at the closed door. Blake was only trying to be deep. There was no other explanation. She laughed. This time tomorrow he'd call and say that he wasn't sure what had gotten into him and not to take him seriously because things were fine between them just the way they were.

She stood and headed to her bedroom. Pursue a relationship with Blake? She shook her head. They'd never even been out together in public. The whole idea was ludicrous. The last time she'd been in what she thought was a relationship she was a junior in college, and one night changed her forever. Any man that followed only filled a physical need and nothing more.

Her fingers began to tingle. Her heart beat a bit faster and she felt the slow but steady tightening in her belly. Her temples began to pound.

Felicia jumped up off of the side of her bed and began her yoga breathing exercises in the middle of her bedroom floor. After the ten-minute ritual her heart rate had returned to normal and the tingle in her fingers had subsided, but she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. Instead she went into her kitchen, opened and emptied all of the cabinets, washed them down and then methodically replaced each item that she'd removed. By the time she was done it was nearly one a.m. She felt reasonably calm and had reclaimed her equivalent of normalcy.

This was why she could never be in a real relationship, she thought as sleep slowly overcame her. The mere thought of what it could do to her…well…it sent her over the edge.

* * * * *

“Nothing you've told me says that this
closed
case is worth reopening,” the captain grumbled. He shot a finger toward Mark. “Not to mention that you went behind my back and you fucked up the chain of command with that disk. Even if there was something for you to prove, which there isn't, you'd never be able to use the disk.”

Mark took his dressing down in stride. He waited and arranged his expression in a dutiful mask of humility. With the captain it was always the darkest before the light. He'd give him another two to three minutes of ranting and accusations before he'd be given the green light.

“I should put your ass on desk duty.” He leaned back in his chair. “But…you might have something.”

Light was breaking through the clouds
.

“You can keep digging. Nothing official. I'm going to need more in order to open the case back up.”

“Yes, Cap.”

“By the book, Rizzo.”

“Of course, Cap.”

“And keep that Swift woman out of the way. Civilians tend to be trouble. And if your hunch is accurate, we may have a killer on the loose and we don't need any more bodies. Got it?”

“Yes, sir. Got it.”

The captain cocked his head toward the door. Mark took the hint. “Thanks, Captain.”

He swaggered out. This was cause for celebration, a good excuse to ask Felicia out to dinner: one, to explain the great turn of events, and two, to ease the blow of telling her that she had to remove herself from the investigation. Best to do that face-to-face.

“I take it the meeting went well,” Eddie said.

“Yeah.” He frowned in a moment of disbelief when he looked across at his desk partner. Eddie McKnight did not have his feet up on the desk and he wasn't talking to him from behind the pages of
The Washington Post
. He looked like he was actually working. He had files opened on his desk, the computer was on and he was writing notes. “Uh, whatcha doing there, Ed?”

“What does it look like?”

“Looks like you're working…on a case.”

“Good detective work, Detective.”

“No, seriously, what's going on?”

Eddie exhaled and placed his palms flat on the desk. He stared Mark in the eye. “You inspired me. Figured I'd take out one or two of the unsolved and have another look. Keep me sharp. Ya know.”

What Mark did know was that he'd just been shoveled a load of crap. He could see it in Eddie's eyes. As much as Eddie pretended that he didn't care that he no longer got the big cases anymore, Mark knew better. Eddie sat behind his newspaper to keep the squad room and its activity at bay and to hide the hunger that still lingered in his eyes.

“Cool. Let me know if I can help.”

“Yeah, sure.” Eddie buried his head in his work and Mark redirected his attention to his case. He needed to give Elaine a call.

* * * * *

Felicia took the elevator up to Dr. Wallington's office. She'd called ahead. He was expecting her.

“Good morning, Lucy. How are you?” Felicia asked, stopping at the secretary's desk.

“Day by day.” She offered up a weak smile. “Go right in.”

“Thank you.” Felicia crossed the short distance and knocked lightly on the door.

“Come in.”

“Good morning, Dr. Wallington. Thank you for seeing me.”

Dr. Wallington stood behind his desk. “Of course. Please have a seat.” He folded his hands atop his desk, which had a thin layer of papers and books. “How are you?”

“Doing well, Doctor. Thank you for asking.”

“How is the project coming along?”

“I got a lot accomplished the other day. I plan to get back to it this afternoon, but I wanted to ask you a few things…about the poet laureate Steven Hollis.”

He frowned in confusion. “What about him?”

“Are you the only person involved in the selection process?”

His cheeks flushed and his chest poked out. “Yes. It is my responsibility, one that I take very seriously. Why are you asking, Dr. Swift?”

Felicia crossed her feet at the ankle. “It would not be something that you would pass along to someone else, say for a second opinion?” she asked as delicately as she could.

“I am not sure what you are implying and I am not sure that I like your tone.”

“Please, Dr. Wallington, I mean no disrespect. I was only inquiring because…I was thinking of putting some of the details together for archival purposes and I wanted to know that process,” she said totally on the fly. “I think the vetting process that you perform, which I'm sure has very strict criteria, can be replicated. When we do a search for Dr. Dresden's replacement…at some point…in the future for example.” She watched him slowly come down from self-combustion to simmer.

He cleared his throat, removed his glasses and cleaned them with a handkerchief that he took from the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “I see. Makes perfect sense. I can have Lucy prepare the file for you.”

“Thank you so much. I'd really appreciate it. Did Dr. Dresden ever participate in the selection?”

“No. Why would he?” He glanced off and a shadow of a smile lifted his thin lips. “Paul was too absorbed in the past to wrap his mind around the present.” He glanced back at her and she saw once again the pain of loss in his eyes.

Felicia stood. “Thank you for your time, Dr. Wallington.”

“Of course,” he murmured.

Felicia walked out and shut the door quietly behind her. She stopped at Lucy's desk. “Dr. Wallington will ask you to put some information together for me. When it's done, rather than send it interoffice, would you mind giving me a call? I'll pick it up.”

Lucy was accustomed to all sorts of requests. “I certainly will.”

“Thank you, Lucy.” Felicia hurried down the long corridor to the bank of elevators.

When Felicia returned to her office, anxious to get started, she was perplexed by the reality that Dr. Wallington apparently had no knowledge of anyone requesting information on Steven Hollis, nor did he pass along anything to Dr. Dresden. She dictated that information into the notes on her smartphone. There was the smallest possibility, however, that Dr. Wallington would never admit infallibility by needing the help of someone else, even if the someone else was his best friend Paul Dresden. Wally would see it as an intellectual weakness. She dictated that bit of insight as well.

For the next hour she jotted down notes, asked herself a litany of questions like: who benefitted from Dresden's death and how? Was Dr. Dresden the intended recipient of the disk? Was he the one who asked that the research be done? And if so, why and who would he have asked to do it?

The first person Felicia put on the list was herself. Paul trusted her. She was one of the foremost researchers in the country. Maybe that was the reason he
didn't
ask her, because he felt it was a waste of her skills. Then who? Perhaps Harriette Blaine. She worked in the Manuscript Division in the Madison Building. Then there was Emily Windsor, but she'd said that she hadn't been working on anything special. It wouldn't hurt to ask again. Then there was Derrick Weathers over in Copyright and Research. He was in the Madison building as well. Or Paul may have asked someone that didn't work there at all.

Momentarily stymied, Felicia pressed back into her seat. She dictated her notes into her phone and shredded the pages that she'd written. All of her notes were saved to the mystical cloud where she alone had access.

What she needed to do was get back in Dr. Dresden's office. Any day now the custodians would begin to clean it out and pack up what was left behind. She took her tote bag from her bottom desk drawer, packed her iPad, notebook and pens then headed to Dr. Dresden's office. She had no idea what she was looking for but she was certain that pieces of the puzzle were somewhere in that office. She poked the elevator button repeatedly while tapping her foot. Finally the doors swished open.

“Oh. Dr. Swift. Hello.”

“Emily. How are you?” Felicia stepped on the elevator.

“Fine, thank you,” she mumbled.

Felicia's thoughts were on fast forward but came to a grinding halt. She turned toward Emily. “I know I asked you this before but I don't remember if you were clear in your answer.”

Emily's cheeks flushed. She pushed her glasses up on her nose and blinked wildly behind her thick lenses. “Asked me what?”

The doors slid open. Emily stepped out and turned to face Felicia.

“What were you working on for Dr. Dresden?”

She gave a slight shrug. “Just the usual stuff.” She smiled wanly and the doors slid shut.

Instead of getting out and going to Dr. Dresden's office, as planned, Felicia's orderly mind needed to stay on track with what she'd just started, so she decided to pay a visit to the other two possible research candidates on her list. She pressed the down button and went to the basement. From there she took the underground tunnel that led from the Jefferson Building, where she worked, and connected to the other two structures: the Madison Building and the Adams Building. The tunnels were not readily accessible to customers unless they were part of a tour. However, employees had access and the tunnels came especially in handy on bad weather days when one needed to get from one building to the next without going outside.