Swift Justice (25 page)

Could Jack— I didn’t want to go there. “C’mon, we’ve got to get inside,” I said, nudging Linnea off the bench. Metal bleachers were not where I wanted to be in an electrical storm.

Rain began falling in earnest as we scurried down the ramp, but Linnea stopped me short of the tunnel that led to the locker rooms. We huddled under a shallow overhang. “Do you think the Falstows killed her because she wouldn’t give them Olivia?” she asked, her green eyes troubled. She looked young and confused and wet, no longer the doctor wannabe capable of coping with a medical emergency. “If I’d told someone . . .”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. “No way. You should call the police, though, and tell them what you know. It might help with their investigation.”

Her face registered “unconvinced,” and a second later she was dashing away from me, legs pumping hard. She spun into the center of the field, lifting her arms as the rain sluiced down, washing over her.

“Please tell me you didn’t really steal a car and drown someone,” I said to Gigi as I walked into the office half an hour later, drenched to the bone. I immediately kicked off my pumps and stripped away my sodden knee-high stockings; barefoot was better than squelching. I wanted a snifter of cognac but made do with a Pepsi.

Gigi looked, if anything, worse than I did. Grass and some squishy greenish substance speckled her expensive knit suit, and her coiffure looked like someone had been at it with a hay baler. Her eyes, though, sparkled in a new way, and she rolled her chair over to my desk as I plunked into my chair, inhaling Pepsi.

“It was a golf
cart
,” she said, hitting the
t
hard, “and I didn’t really steal it—just borrowed it.”

She launched into a tangled report of serving Connie Padgett with her summons, and I became lost in the tale of the golf cart chase, enraged golfers, and malevolent geese. It seemed, though, that Gigi had managed to serve Padgett in the end.

“So after I talked the golf course manager out of suing us over the cart,” Gigi finished her story, “I took Connie home and made her a cup of tea, and we talked—and before I left I gave her the summons and the name of the best divorce lawyer in town!” She flourished her pink cast in the air triumphantly.

“Yours?”

“Les’s.”

“Good work, Gigi,” I said. I felt a twinge of guilt over what Gigi had gone through and suggested, “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off? And get your suit dry-cleaned at the agency’s expense. We can write it off.” I sniffed. “What have you got all over it, anyway?”

“Goose poop,” Gigi said, her enthusiasm fading somewhat as she surveyed herself.

We both wrinkled our noses, and Gigi gave me a tentative grin. Before I knew it, we were laughing.

“Go home,” I said. “I’ve found it pays to keep a change of clothes in my car. If you’re going to stay in this business, you might want to think about having a gym bag with extra clothes here, too.”

“Good idea,” Gigi said. “I’ll put one together tonight.”

I was pretty sure the bag—probably Louis Vuitton—would weigh fifty pounds by the time she chucked in some designer shoes, a five-hundred-dollar sweatsuit, enough makeup to last the Rockettes a year, and moisturizing lotion made from rare sea snails and the petals of an exotic flower only found in the Andes (or something equally expensive). Still, she was trying; I had to give her that. I didn’t want to burst her bubble by telling her Padgett was effectually served when she opened the
door. Maybe tomorrow I’d let her know she could’ve just said “You’re served” and dropped the papers in the foyer.

As Gigi walked out, I flipped a quarter to determine whether my next call should be to Montgomery or Jack Van Hoose. Heads—Montgomery, tails—Van Hoose. It came up tails. I called Montgomery.

“We got a complaint about you today, Swift,” he said when he heard my voice.

Seth Johnson moved quickly. “Look, Johnson’s a—”

“You must have pissed off a lot of people. It wasn’t someone named Johnson. It was Zachary Sprouse. He said you assaulted him. He wants a restraining order.”

That dickhead. My ears itched ferociously. “
I
assaulted
him
? Did he tell you he was trespassing on my property? Did he tell you—”

“Calm down, Charlie,” Montgomery cut off my sputtering. I could tell he found the situation humorous. “I talked him out of filing charges.”

“Big of you,” I said grudgingly. This was what I got for giving into a compassionate impulse. “I owe you a beer.”

“You owe me dinner. Your place. Six o’clock.”

“Nice try. Margarita at Pine Creek.” I named the restaurant a stone’s throw from my house. “Six thirty. I need to change. And we’re doing the bar menu on the patio.” The restaurant also offered a five-course meal inside its quirky, multiroomed dining area for a set price, and I didn’t want Montgomery thinking he’d done me that big a favor.

“Done.”

He hung up. It was already almost five thirty. My conversation with Jack Van Hoose would have to wait until tomorrow.
Feeling equal parts relief and guilt about not confronting him today, I locked up and headed home for a hot shower and a dress designed to make Montgomery regret that I was completely unobtainable.

“So, this Fenn girl says she heard Sprouse tell the Falstows she was keeping the baby?” Montgomery asked. “Damn, this is good.” He spooned the last bit of lime panna cotta from the dish.

I leaned back in my chair, enjoying the twinkling lights strung in the trees over the patio, the cool night air against my shoulders bared by a halter-top sundress, the quiet conversations of other diners, and the crisp sauvingon blanc I’d ordered with my ahi tuna. The sight of Montgomery across the table, his dark eyes sweeping over me appreciatively, added to my enjoyment. “Yep. Sounds like a darn good motive, to me.”

“Killing her didn’t get them the baby,” Montgomery pointed out.

“Well, you said her death could’ve been an accident. Maybe they didn’t mean to kill her. Maybe they didn’t know she’d already stashed the baby with Melissa Lloyd.”

“Or maybe they had nothing to do with it.”

I shook my head, feeling my hair swish against my neck. “You didn’t see how obsessed this woman was with getting hold of Olivia. She even followed me, hoping I’d lead her to the baby.”

“Which you almost did.” Montgomery’s grin gleamed white in the gathering darkness. He’d liked that part of my story. He
stretched his long legs to the side of the table and crossed them at the ankles.

“Elizabeth had a pseudo-boyfriend, too, at least at one time. A high schooler named Wes Emmerling. I’m talking to him tomorrow. He’s a possible. And Seth Johnson . . . there’s something weird about him,” I said. I swirled the wine in my glass, took a sip. “He stopped short of actually threatening me, but I could see him terrorizing Elizabeth.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. But Linnea said Elizabeth told her he almost raped her in a classroom at the church.”

“Hearsay.”

“I’m not suggesting you throw him in jail, damn it, just that he’s worth talking to. He keeps trading in his wives for younger models, and one of them died in a hiking ‘accident’ where he was the only witness.” I’d looked up newspaper accounts of the death on my home computer. “Also, he called me a third-rate investigator.”

“Ah-hah. Now I know why you want me to roust him. Not going to happen. He may be everything you’ve said, but he’s also the governor’s buddy, and we have no evidence whatsoever that he committed any crime or that he even had any contact with the Sprouse girl after she left home.”

“Contact . . . what do her phone records tell you?”

“Her cell phone—if she had one it must have been one of those pay-as-you-go deals—is missing, and the only calls on her landline are to the punk managing her apartment complex—”

“She probably wanted him to do something about the rodent infestation.”

“—and Melissa Lloyd’s numbers, and since she worked for Lloyd, there’s nothing to follow up on there. The most recent call was the Friday before she had the baby.”

“Okay, then who do you like for it?” I challenged him. The server unobtrusively removed our dishes and left the check at Montgomery’s elbow. Sexist. I slid it over and put my credit card on it.

“I’m leaning toward the stepfather,” he said. “I think the girl went to her mother after the baby was born, looking for help, and her dad lost it. But, unless the mother cracks, we’re not likely to put him away for it. And, frankly, I’ve got other cases that are higher priority than what may just be illegal dumping of a body. My team’ll be burning the midnight oil on the body that turned up in the trunk of that car on Constitution. We haven’t even ID’d the vic yet.”

“You’d better get back to work, then,” I said, rising.

“Everyone’s got to eat.” He stood, too, draping his arm casually across my shoulders as we walked to the exit. His warmth and closeness made me stumble on the uneven flagstones of the patio. He’d shed his sport coat, draping it over his arm, so there was nothing between me and his skin but the fine cotton of his shirt. The realization made every inch of me supersensitive, and I tried to squirm out from under his arm. His grip tightened.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said, his breath warm against my ear.

“That’s okay. I walked,” I said, fighting to keep my voice level. “And you’ve got to get back to work.”

“It’s only eight thirty. Midnight oil-burning doesn’t start for almost four hours.” From the way he smiled, I knew he
knew the effect his closeness was having on me. Damn the man. I did not want to ruin an extremely useful professional relationship, or get emotionally entangled with a man five years younger (who reminded me way too much of my ex-husband), to satisfy a temporary physical urge. Summoning all my resolve, I pulled away.

“Really, it’s a short walk.”

“A gentleman always escorts—” His cell phone rang, and he looked at the number before cursing and answering it. “Montgomery.”

He listened for a moment, his body language segueing from seductive to alert. “Fifteen minutes.” He snapped the phone closed and gave me a rueful look.

“Duty calls?”

“Exactly. Otherwise . . .” He leaned over and pressed a hard kiss against my lips before I could back away. “Dinner’s on me next time.”

“What makes you think there’ll be a next time?” I called after him as he strode to his car. My voice lacked conviction, and he just laughed, lifting a hand in farewell as he put his car in gear.

I set out to walk the two blocks home, heading north on Pine Creek Road past the large carrot sculptures at the entrance to Margarita. By the time I made the turn onto Tudor Road, the clanking and conversation from the restaurant had faded, and I listened to the whisper of the wind in the grass and the scurryings of night creatures in the underbrush. Passing St. Paul’s, I noticed a dark form moving on the far side of the parking lot. A metallic clang sounded loud in the stillness, and I jumped. Was someone breaking into the church? A car
approached from behind me, and its headlights swept the parking lot, illuminating the ursine figure snuffling at the Dumpster. My bear! I paused, something about seeing the huge predator in this semiurban environment catching at me. Another car passed, and the bear turned his head toward me, eyes gleaming red, long muzzle working the air as he sniffed. I kept walking, hoping he was too engrossed in the treasures to be found in the trash to follow. The rectory was dark as I passed, and I wondered if Dan was out on another date. Not wanting to analyze my annoyance at the thought, I marched up the steps to my porch and unlocked the door. Safe inside, I might have shut the door more firmly than necessary, but there was only the bear to hear.