Size 12 Is Not Fat (19 page)

“Right,” Cooper says. “Looks like my brother’s in good hands now. Shall we go?”

We go.

And none too soon, if you ask me.

The first person at the Sixth Precinct I tell my story to is a pretty but tired-looking woman at the front desk. She has her long black hair in a bun, which I assume is regulation hairstyle for policewomen.

I make a mental note not to major in criminal justice.

The woman directs us to a pudgy guy at a desk, to whom I repeat my story. Like the receptionist, he looks bored…

…until I get to the part about Jordan. Everybody perks up at the mention of Easy Street.

The pudgy guy has us wait a few minutes, and then we’re
ushered into someone’s extremely tidy office. We sit across from a very neat desk for a minute or two before the owner of the office walks in, and I see that he is none other than cigar-chomping Detective Canavan.

“You!” I nearly shout at him.

“You!” he nearly shouts back. He’s holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee and—what else?—a doughnut. Krispy Kreme glazed, from the look of it. Lucky duck.

“To what do I owe the pleasure this time, Miss Wells?” he asks. “Wait, don’t tell me. This wouldn’t happen to be about somebody crowning a Backstreet Boy, would it?”

“Easy Street member,” I correct him. “And yes, it would.”

Detective Canavan sits down at his desk, removes the unlit cigar from his mouth, tears off a piece of his doughnut, and dunks it in his coffee. He then puts the coffee-soaked piece of doughnut in his mouth, chews, swallows, and says, “Pray enlighten me.”

I glance at Cooper, who had remained silent at my side through two recitations of my tale. Seeing that he isn’t going to be any help this time, either, I launch into it for a third time, wondering, not for the first time, what it is I find so attractive about Cooper anyway, since he can be so uncommunicative sometimes. Then I remember the whole being-so-hot-and-kind-and-generous-to-me-without-asking-anything-in-return thing, and I know why.

Detective Canavan clasps his hands behind his head as he listens, tipping his chair back as far as it will go. Either he has forgotten his Mitchum for Men or he is just a very profuse sweater, because he has large perspiration stains underneath his arms. Not that this seems to bother him.

“So,” Detective Canavan says, to the water-stained ceiling panels, when I’m through talking. “Now you think the president of New York College’s kid is a murderer.”

“Well,” I say, hesitantly. Because when he puts it that way, it sounds so…dumb. “Yes. I guess I do.”

“But you got no proof. Sure, this guy here’s got a condom. A condom we could probably prove is his. But which wouldn’t be admissible in court. But you got no proof any crime has actually been committed, with the exception of this planter over the side of the terrace, which could have been accidental—”

“But those planters have been up there for years,” I interrupt. “And none of them ever fell down until today—”

“Coroner’s report on both dead girls states cause of death was accidental.” Detective Canavan quits gazing at the ceiling and looks at me. “Listen, miss—is it still miss?”

Unaccountably, I feel myself blushing. Maybe because if it hadn’t been for Tania Trace, by now it would have been Mrs. Although I sort of doubt it would have remained that way for long.

“It’s Ms.,” I say firmly.

Detective Canavan nods. “My wife’s a Ms. now, too. Anyway, listen, Ms. Wells. Kids that age? They’re dopes. Accidents are the leading cause of death for people ages seventeen to twenty-five. Kids are trying to find themselves, taking stupid risks—”

“Not those girls,” I say, firmly.

“Maybe not. The point is, Ms. Wells, you got nothing on this guy. You don’t even have a definite murder to pin on him. If the Backstreet Boy dies, then maybe we’ll have something. Maybe. But the coroner could just as easily rule that one as accidental as well.”

“Well,” I say. I have to admit, I feel very let down. Detective Canavan hadn’t laughed outright in my face this time, I’ll admit, but he hadn’t taken a single note, either. I pick up my backpack.

“Sorry to have wasted your time. Again.” I get up, and Detective Canavan looks at me like I was nuts.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demands. “Sit down. I’m not through with you yet.”

I sit back down, perplexed.

“What’s the point?” I ask Detective Canavan, with more asperity than is, perhaps, necessary. “You obviously think I’m some kind of nutcase. What do I need to stick around here for? I can get laughed at by my own friends”—I keep my gaze averted from Cooper’s face. “I don’t need to go to the police for that.”

Detective Canavan finishes the rest of his doughnut, then picks up his cigar. He looks at Cooper.

“She’s a fiery one,” he comments, nodding at me.

“Oh, she’s that,” Cooper agrees, gravely.

“Wait.” I glance from one man to the other, suspicion dawning. “You two know each other?”

Cooper shrugs. “I’ve seen him around the neighborhood,” he says, referring to Detective Canavan.

“Can’t swing a dead cat without running into this guy behind a parked car or mailbox, shooting film of some poor schmuck whose wife is leaving him,” says Detective Canavan, referring to Cooper.

“Great,” I say, feeling more inadequate than ever. “That’s just great. Well, I hope you two are enjoying your little laugh at my expense—”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Detective Canavan demands. “Do you see so much as a smile upon my face? Your boyfriend over there, I don’t see him laughing, either.”

“I see absolutely nothing amusing about the situation,” Cooper says.

I look at him. He isn’t smiling. And he hasn’t, I noticed, objected to being called my boyfriend. I look back at Detective Canavan.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I point out loudly—to what purpose, I cannot imagine. But I’m sure my cheeks are crimson.

Detective Canavan nods at me as if I’d said something along the lines of
The sky is blue.

“Now, Ms. Wells,” he says. “We do have a very high number of nutcases, as you call them, who come in here to report various crimes that may or may not actually have occurred. Some of these so-called nutcases are honest citizens who want to help the police to do their job. I would put you in this category. You have done your duty by relating your beliefs in this matter to me, and I, in due course, will investigate them.”

“Really?” I perk right up. “You really will? You’re gonna question Chris?”

“I will do so.” Detective Canavan sticks his cigar back in his mouth. “Discreetly. That is my job. It is not, however,
your
job. I strongly advise you, Ms. Wells, not to involve yourself any further in this matter.”

“Because you think Christopher Allington might try to kill me, too?” I ask, breathlessly.

“Because I think Christopher Allington might try to sue you for making false accusations, and he’d have a pretty good case, too.” Detective Canavan ignores my crestfallen expression. “What you’re suggesting, Ms. Wells, is that Christopher Allington is not only a serial killer, but a killer of such intelligence and skill that he not only leaves no evidence linking him to his crimes—save for an alleged condom—but leaves no trace that a crime has even been committed. I hate to disappoint you, but in my experience, killers aren’t that smart. They are, in fact, remarkably stupid people. That is why they have killed: They are so limited intellectually, they saw no other way out.”

Detective Canavan’s dark gray eyebrows furrow together in thought as he goes on. “And despite all the media hoopla around them, I have yet to meet an actual serial killer myself,
and I have investigated over seven hundred homicides. So I suggest you keep a low profile as far as Christopher Allington is concerned, Ms. Wells. I’d hate for you to lose your job over something like this.”

I’m so disappointed that I don’t think there’s anything I can do to hide it. My shoulders slump, and my head sinks down between them as I murmur, “Thank you, Detective.”

Detective Canavan hands me his card, tells me to call him if I think of anything else that might be helpful to his investigation, and, after asking Cooper a question or two about some case or other he’s seen him snooping around the neighborhood over, sends us on our way.

Cooper hails us a cab, and maintains an air of extreme seriousness all the way back to the house. He seems to have taken my accusation—that he thinks of me as a teen pop star—to heart, and is doing everything in his power to prove it isn’t true. He even tells me, in the cab, that he considers Detective Canavan a good man and a fine investigator, and says if there’s something to get to the bottom of at Fischer Hall, Detective Canavan is the man to do it.

Which makes me feel better. A little.

Once back at the brownstone—I know I really ought to head back to the office, but seeing as how I’m home now anyway, I decide I’ll just give Lucy a quick walk—I pause briefly in front of the antique, gilt-framed mirror in the front hallway to reapply my lip gloss, while Cooper goes back to his office to replay his messages. I’ve already glanced around to make sure that there are no signs of the love tussle Jordan and I shared on the runner the night before.

Still, when Cooper comes out of his office a second later and asks, “What exactly is going on with you and Jordan?” I nearly have a heart attack.

“Wh-what do you mean?” I stammer.

“Well, what was he doing outside Fischer Hall today, anyway?”

“Oh,” I say, relaxing. “That. Nothing. Just talking.”

“I see.” Cooper leans against the doorframe, his blue eyes brighter than normal. “So you wouldn’t happen to know anything about that blond he was photographed by the
Post
kissing on my doorstep?”

I almost swallow my tongue.

I can’t believe he’s seen it! Are things
ever
going to go my way? Or had I used up all my luck already? You know, those ten years of good luck I once read that everybody gets—one magical decade where nothing goes wrong…or at least, nothing major.

Had my decade of luck already gone by? And if so, can I have a do-over? Because if someone had asked me, “Hey, Heather, do you want your decade of luck between ages fourteen and twenty-four or twenty-four and thirty-four?” I’d have chosen the latter. I really would have.

Because who wants the best years of their life to be the ones they spent in
high school
?

I guess my extreme consternation must show on my face, since a second later Cooper has straightened and is going, “What’s the matter?” in a voice that—almost—sounds like he actually cares.

Which just makes me want to start sobbing, right then and there.

“It’s nothing,” I say. “Really.”

It isn’t nothing, though. I mean, everyone else can deny it, but I know—I
know
—someone is trying to
kill
me. I had sex with my ex, who is engaged to someone with a way better career—and much smaller butt—than mine. And, worst of all, Cooper’s seen the photographic evidence of my indiscretion…or at least, of what led up to it.

“Something’s wrong,” Cooper says, coming to stand beside me in front of the mirror. “Don’t deny it. I’m a trained observer, remember? There’s this little line you get between your eyebrows when you’re upset—” He points at my reflection. “See it?”

God. He’s right. I have a little worry line between my eyebrows. My God, if I keep this up, I’ll have wrinkles by the time I’m thirty.

With an effort, I force my face to relax.

“It’s nothing,” I say, quickly, averting my gaze from my reflection. “Really. That thing with Jordan last night—it was just a good-bye kiss.”

Cooper looks at me. Skeptically.

“A good-bye kiss,” he says.

“Yeah. Because it’s, you know, really over between us. Jordan and me.” I clear my throat. “You know. Really,
really
over.”

Cooper nods, though he still looks dubious.

“Right,” he says. “Well, if you say—”

“We’re both ready to move on,” I interrupt, warming to my story, “at last. You know, we needed to have some closure, because the way things ended—with me storming out like that, and all—well, it wasn’t healthy. Things are good now between us. We both know it’s really…over.”

“So if things are really, really over between the two of you,” Cooper asks, “what was Jordan doing in front of Fischer Hall this morning when that planter fell on him?”

Dang! I forgot about that!

But it’s okay. I have the situation under control.

“Oh, that?” I say, with a breezy laugh. Yes! I even manage a breezy laugh. Maybe I, like Britney and Mandy, have a film career in my future. Maybe I should be a theater major, like Marnie. Maybe someday I’ll have an Oscar to put on the
shelf next to my Nobel Prize. Wait. Is a Nobel Prize a statue or a medal? I can’t remember.

“Yeah,” I say. Still breezy. “He was just returning a, um, CD that I’d left at our place. You know, when I moved out.”

“A CD,” Cooper says.

“Uh-huh,” I say. “My, um,
Tank Girl
soundtrack. You can’t find it anymore. It’s very rare.”

“I see,” Cooper says. I try not to notice how, now that he’s taken off his leather jacket, his biceps—barely visible beneath the short sleeves of his plain gray T-shirt—are just as defined as his brother’s….

Only from actual work, not working
out
, I know. It’s not all sneaking around with a camera when you’re a PI. I imagine Cooper has to…you know. Lift things. And stuff. I wonder if maybe he ever gets sweaty doing it and has to take his shirt off completely, you know, because he’s so hot…

Whoa. I so need to go back to work.

But all this detective stuff has reminded me of something.

“Yeah,” I say. Now that the danger of tears has been averted, I’m feeling a little more daring. “In fact, now that Jordan and I have everything settled, I feel, you know, like celebrating.”

“Celebrating,” Cooper echoes tonelessly.

“Yeah. You know. I never go out anymore. So I thought, Hey, why not go to the, um, Pansy Ball tonight.”

“The
Pansy
Ball?” Cooper’s gaze doesn’t stray from my face. I hope he isn’t checking to see if I’m lying. I really
do
want to go to the Pansy Ball. Just not, you know, for the reasons I’m telling him.