The Bride Wore Size 12 (19 page)

“Officer,” Rashid says, following me toward the car. What is
with
these people? “I’m so sorry. We were offering Miss Wells a ride home, and my associate got a bit carried away.”

“Is that what you call it?”

Detective Canavan is wearing aviator-style sunglasses, the lenses mirrored, making it impossible to see his eyes. I’m able to see the way his shaggy gray eyebrows are raised in skepticism over the gold-rimmed frames, however.

“You know where Miss Wells lives?” Canavan asks.

“Well, no,” the prince admits. “But I was hoping to spare her a train ride.”

“A train ride,” Detective Canavan says drily. “Of course.”

In the passenger seat beside the detective, a younger, heavier-set man, also dressed in plain clothes says, “But, Sarge, I thought you said Ms. Wells lives right around the—”

“Turner, remember what we discussed? When I need your opinion, I will ask for it.” Canavan puts the unlit cigar in his mouth. “Wells,” he says to me. “This is your lucky day. You got multiple grown men”—he eyes Rashid—“ . . . well, semigrown men, anyway—vying for the chance to drive you home and spare you a train ride. Who’s it gonna be, me or these mutts?”

The prince raises his own eyebrows, which are neither shaggy nor gray. “I beg your pardon?” He’s not used to being called a mutt, which is police slang for a generally unpleasant individual.

“Gosh, Detective,” I say, batting my eyelashes. “You know I’m the kind of girl who can never resist an invitation to ride in a real undercover police car.”

I grab the handle to the rear passenger door and slide into the Vic, my heart still thumping at my narrow escape.

Canavan looks at the prince and says conversationally, “Kid, don’t take it personally. She’s got a thing for cops. In fact, she’s marrying a PI in a few weeks.”

“PI?” I hear Rashid echo. Between “mutts” and “PI,” his head is probably spinning.

It could be my imagination, but as I settle into the back of the unmarked patrol car and slip on my seat belt, I notice Hamad’s gaze seeming to burn into me.

Maybe it’s not my imagination, though. A second later, the bodyguard steps off the curb and strides toward the car, thrusting an index finger passionately in Rashid’s direction.

“Mutt?
Mutt?
Do you have any idea to whom you are speaking?” he demands of Detective Canavan. “This man is the Crown Prince Rashid Ashraf bin Zayed Sultan Faisal, the most sovereign heir to the kingdom of Qalif, and you will address him with the respect he—”

“Aw, zip it,” Detective Canavan growls, and puts his foot on the gas pedal at the same time as he lays his finger on the control button of his window, closing it on Hamad’s temper tantrum.

The Crown Vic slides smoothly out into the traffic on Washington Square West, leaving the bodyguard behind, shaking his fist at us in anger.

“Nice to see you’re still doing such a swell job with customer service at the dorm there, Wells,” Canavan observes. “Probably going to win employee of the year. Or what’s that thing they give you administrators? A crocus award?”

“Pansy. And in case it wasn’t clear, that was the crown prince of Qalif,” I say. “His dad, General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Sultan Faisal, donated five hundred million bucks to the school.”

“Oh, well, la-di-da,” Canavan says, holding his cigar out like it’s a teacup, one pinkie raised. “What the hell was all that back there?”

“It looked like the A-rab was trying to stuff her into the Escalade,” Turner says helpfully, “and she didn’t want to go. Probably going to force her into one of those sex-slave rings, or a harem, like in that Liam Neeson movie
Taken
.”

“Once again, when one of your brilliant insights is needed, Turner, I will ask for it,” Canavan declares, “but not before. I was asking the girl.”

“Sorry, Sarge,” Turner mumbles.

“I’m not entirely sure what that was about,” I admit. “It could have been simple overzealousness, or it could have been something more. I want you to know, though, that I had the situation completely under control.”

Canavan’s only reply is a grunt that he somehow manages to fill with skepticism.

“I did,” I insist.

“Sure you did, Wells.”

“Whatever,” I say. “So how did you happen to come driving by? It seems a little coincidental.”

“It wasn’t. Your boyfriend, Cartwright, called me and said I was going to hear from you, but that if I didn’t, I should go check on you, since you were probably in trouble. Given that we at the New York City Police Department have nothing better to do all day but jump at the command of every two-bit private eye in town, I hightailed it over here to save your ass, as I am wont to do on what is becoming a regular basis. And what do I find, but that you are, indeed, in trouble. You, Wells, are what we in the force like to call a shitkicker. If there’s any shit around, I always seem to find you in the middle, kicking it.”

I’m torn between righteous indignation over Detective Canavan calling Cooper a two-bit private eye, me a shitkicker, and the idea that I’d need rescuing in the first place.

Although the overwhelming sensation I’m feeling is waves of love toward Cooper for having done such a dopey, masculine, wonderful thing like call in the cavalry to come rescue me when he himself couldn’t be there to do the job. I fish in my purse for my cell phone, pull it out, discover that I’ve left it turned off all afternoon, turn it back on, and text Cooper:

So you called Canavan to come rescue me? You’re going to get a lot more than a finger sandwich when you get home. Love you, you big lug.

I push send before I remember I still don’t know what a finger sandwich is (sexually).

“First of all,” I say to Canavan, from the backseat, “I am perfectly capable of looking out for myself. Secondly—”

“It’s a good thing we came looking for you,” Canavan’s seemingly irrepressible trainee interrupts. “We almost had another body on our hands.”

“Turner,” Canavan says, in a warning tone.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “Hamad wasn’t actually trying to kill me. The prince wouldn’t have allowed it. I don’t think so, anyway. And besides, I was ready to give that guy my patented Heather Wells chop to the shins—”

“I didn’t mean you, Miss Wells,” Turner interrupts again. “I meant the kid from the student center, what’s his name, again, Sarge? Ripley something or other?”

I feel a cold grip on my spine. “
Cameron Ripley,
the editor of the
New York College Express
? He’s
dead
?”

“Dammit, probie,” Canavan grumbles. “How many times do I have to tell you to keep your fat yap shut?”

“Sorry, Sarge.” Turner looks guilty-faced.

“What are you two talking about?”
I demand, my heart in my throat.

“Cartwright told us about the little visit you paid to Ripley earlier today, and the tip you gave him, about how the last person who leaked intel about the prince to the school paper ended up dead,” Canavan explains. “So we contacted campus security, told them they might want to keep an eye on the kid. Unfortunately, the rent-a-cop got there a little late. Kid had already been strangled. Sorry, Wells. Like I said, you’re a shitkicker.”

22

I
feel a sudden urge to vomit, even though it’s been hours since I had anything to eat, and then it was only tiny pieces of bread with delicate slices of salmon between them.

“Stop the car,” I say, reaching woozily for the door handle. “I need to get out now.”

It’s only when the door won’t open that I remember I’m in a police car, even if it’s an unmarked one. Of course the door won’t open.

The backseat of police cars is for suspects.

“What’s going on here?” I demand. “Am I under arrest? I didn’t hurt that boy. What happened to him wasn’t my fault!”

Except that it was. Cooper tried to warn me.

Now Cameron Ripley is dead, and his only friend in the world, a baby rat, will die of starvation because no one else will be kindhearted enough to leave slices of pizza lying around for him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Canavan notices my frenzied attempts to escape in his rearview mirror. “I said the kid was strangled, not dead. He’s up at Mount Sinai. He’s in serious, but stable, condition.”

I quit pounding on the door handle and sink back against the seat, my heart slowing its riotous beating.

“Oh,” I say, relief pouring over me. “Well, why didn’t you say that?”

“I did,” Canavan says crankily. “Strangled doesn’t mean dead. Did I say dead? No, I did not. Kid had a cord wrapped around his neck pretty tightly, cutting off his windpipe, so he’s not going to be doing any swallowing—much less talking—for a while, but he’s going to be all right eventually. Now why don’t you tell me just what in the hell is going on over there at that lunatic asylum where you work. Your husband-to-be wasn’t too clear when he called. But that’s probably because he seemed to think you were in mortal danger, and he’s stuck somewhere in traffic uptown.”

This only partly explains why Cooper hasn’t called
me
in so long, I think, pulling out my cell phone again and checking it for a return text.

Nothing. But this isn’t so unusual, I assure myself. Cooper would never talk or text on a cell phone while driving.

Still, you’d think someone convinced I’m in “mortal danger” would have texted, or even left a voice mail, earlier in the day to that effect.

Quickly I fill in the detective on the addition of Prince Rashid to Fischer Hall’s student population, and the subsequent death of Jasmine Albright, and the determination by the U.S. State Department that the investigation into the case be handled by them, and not the NYPD.

“Can they do that?” asks Detective Turner, Canavan’s newly assigned, much younger, and much less cynical “probie” (detective-in-training, still under probation).

“They can do whatever they want,” Canavan mutters as he drives. “It’s the government.”

“But they can’t possibly argue that
Cameron
’s attempted murder falls under the purview of the State Department,” I say. “Prince Rashid’s room isn’t anywhere near the student center. And they can’t know why someone wanted him dead, unless they’ve figured out, like we did, that Jasmine was the leak. Have they?”

“Do I look like a guy who’s got connections with the U.S. State Department?” Detective Canavan demands. With his half-chewed cigar hanging from one side of his mouth, he looks more like a guy who’s got connections with the Mob.

“What did Cameron say he saw when you questioned him?” I ask.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” Canavan sounds annoyed. “That kid’s not going to be talking for a month. His windpipe was practically severed. Whoever strangled him knew what they were doing. The hospital’s got him so doped up on painkillers, you could ask him if the sky is green and he’d write
yes!
on the dry-erase board they’ve given him to communicate. Nobody’s going to get anything useful out of that kid for days.”

“Well, what about the security guard?” I ask. “Did the security guard see anyone fleeing the premises when he found Cameron?”

“Fleeing the premises?”
Detective Canavan echoes sarcastically. “Have you been watching
Castle
again?”

“It’s a reasonable question,” I say. “And
Castle
’s a very good show.”

“When Security Officer Wynona Perez—it was a female guard—exited the elevator to the student center’s fourth floor,” Detective Turner says, reading from notes he’d evidently taken on his iPhone, “she found the door to the
New York College Express
ajar, and the victim, Cameron Ripley, on the floor, apparently having been dragged from his desk chair by his headphones, the cord to which had been wrapped around his neck twice and tightened until he lost consciousness. The offices of the
Express
had been ransacked, pizza boxes and empty soda containers thrown across every surface—”

“Uh,” I interrupt. “The offices weren’t ransacked. That’s how they looked when I was there. Cameron’s a student . . . and a writer. That’s how writers are.” Private eyes are too, but I don’t feel that admitting this will add anything to the investigation.

“Oh,” Turner says, looking dubious, and continues, “So Perez unloosened the cord and performed CPR, requesting emergency services via radio, which responded to the student center approximately five minutes later, three forty-five today—”

“Turner,” Canavan interrupts in a bored voice. “What have I told you about using that thing for note taking? What are you going to do when there’s a real emergency in this city and you can’t access any of your data because your wireless service has crashed because it exceeded its bandwidth?”

Turner looks confused. “That can happen?”

Canavan digs his notepad from his belt. “You know what’s never gonna exceed its bandwidth? Paper. And what have I told you about sharing incident reports with suspects?”

“Not to,” Turner says shamefacedly.

I gasp. “
Suspect?
You think
I
tried to kill that boy? I thought you said you came by to pick me up because Cooper was worried about me. I thought you said you were here to
protect
me.”

“Well,” Canavan says with a shrug. “That, and because you’re one of only two people caught on the hallway security monitors going into that kid’s office today, besides him.”

I’m flabbergasted.

“So you
are
arresting me? Who’s the other person? Why aren’t you arresting him? Or her?”

“We’re having a little trouble identifying the other person,” Canavan admits. “Due to the fact that the security tapes are not in our possession.”

“What do you mean, the security tapes aren’t in your possession? Who possesses them?”

“They were confiscated from the college security office about a half hour ago by someone named Lancaster.”

Hearing the name, I begin to fume. “He’s with the—”

“—State Department,” Detective Canavan finishes along with me.

“So they
do
know about Jasmine being the leak,” I say, then chew my bottom lip nervously. I’d chew on my thumbnail, but I only have a month till I get married, not enough time for it to grow back, though my future sister-in-law Tania assures me I can get gel nails that will look almost completely natural.

Surely, I tell myself, it isn’t my fault Cameron was attacked. Cooper had to have been wrong about someone following me into the offices of the
Express
. I hadn’t seen anyone I’d recognized . . . except, of course, Hamad.

But it couldn’t have been Hamad, since I’d seen him going into Fischer Hall shortly before I had . . . unless, of course, he’d doubled back and attempted to kill Cameron.

If Hamad had been the killer, wouldn’t he be skilled enough in assassination techniques to have stuck around to make sure he finished the job?

Except who else could have reason not only to suffocate Jasmine, but attempt to choke the life out of the editor of the college’s daily news blog?

One of the first principles of criminology—which will be my major at New York College (if I ever get through all my prerequisites and am allowed to begin taking classes in my major)—is that crimes are committed for very few reasons: Financial or material gain (greed) is a major one. Passion, such as anger, jealousy, lust, or love, is also way up there, along with a desire to cover up another crime.

Whenever a crime is committed, a good detective always asks herself one question:

“Who benefits?” I ask, a little more loudly than I’d intended to.

“No shouting from the backseat,” Canavan snaps. “The no-yapping rule goes for you too, Wells, as well as Turner here. Can’t you see I’m driving? Why I haven’t put in for retirement is beyond me. I could be home barbecuing a nice juicy steak in my backyard right now if it weren’t for you two yahoos.”

“I’m serious,” I say. Detective Canavan loves his job, and he knows it, even if training newbies and “rescuing” the girlfriends of private eyes aren’t his favorite things to do. “We’ve failed to ask ourselves the crucial question of criminal investigation: who benefits from the death of Jasmine Albright?”

“Aw, jeez,” Canavan says, rolling his eyes behind his aviators. “
Castle
again?”

“Whoever killed Jasmine—and meant to kill Cam—benefited by silencing them about something only they knew,” I continue, ignoring him.

Detective Turner likes this game.

“It had to be something about the prince,” he says. “And most likely something that happened the night of the big party. Right?”

“Right,” I say. “Only
what
? Who would benefit most from keeping that secret?”

“The prince!” Turner cries.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Canavan mutters.

“I think so too,” I say. “And the prince’s bodyguard Hamad—the one you saw grab me—clearly feels highly protective of the prince. If Rashid were to be shamed in some way—like being kicked out of school for having drugs, or something—the bodyguard would definitely have a lot to lose . . . not only his cushy career, but maybe even his life, if he were ever to go back to Qalif. They have people executed there for things we take for granted, like fornication.”

Turner looks confused. “What’s that?”

“Premarital sex. So Hamad would benefit big-time from hushing up any scandal concerning the prince.”

“We need to find out if it’s that Hamad guy on that security tape from the student center,” Turner says.

“Totally,” I agree. “Or we need to find Jasmine’s phone, which has been missing since the night she was killed. Because I’m guessing whatever happened the night of the party that the killer wants to cover up, she recorded it, and was going to send it to the
Express,
but never got the chance, because the killer stopped her.”

“Maybe,” Turner says excitedly, “that A-rab guy and the prince are lovers, and the girl filmed them having a homosexual interlude at the party, and the A-rab wants to keep it quiet so he and the prince can continue their shocking affair of the flesh.”

Both Canavan and I turn our heads to look at him. Turner goes slightly red around the collar of his shirt.

“What?” he asks. “I saw that in a movie once.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Canavan says darkly.

“If fornication is against the law in their country, you can bet homosexuality is too,” Turner goes on excitedly. “Sarge, we’d better bring that Hamad guy in for questioning right away. I think Ms. Wells is right, there’s something hinky about him.”

“Turner.” Canavan tightens his grip on the steering wheel as he fights for patience. “Need I remind you that in this country, homosexuality is not a crime?” His voice rises in volume with each word. “And we are not going to cause an international incident by bringing in the bodyguard of the heir to the throne of Qalif for questioning without one shred of evidence against him because a half-assed probie like you thinks there’s something
hinky
about him.”

Turner begins to mutter something apologetic when Detective Canavan suddenly cries, “Shit on a cracker!” and slams on the brakes.

At first I think he’s reacting to a brilliant insight he’s had about the crime, but then I see he’s reacting to something else.

We’ve been driving in circles around Washington Square Park—the most circuitous route I’ve ever seen anyone take to get to the Sixth Precinct—continuously passing the same joggers, dog walkers, and pedestrians hurrying from work. We’re about to pass them once again when I notice what’s caused Canavan to slam on the brakes: a group of students, ignoring the “Don’t Walk” light, who march straight out into the middle of the street to cross to the college’s main administration building.

If the detective hadn’t braked in time, he’d have run right into them. Several other vehicles, including the free New York College trolley, have done the same. All of them are honking angrily, the taxi drivers shouting obscenities.

The students ignore them, marching up the curb and into the administration building, their expressions either stony-faced or tearstained.

“Kids today,” Turner says, shaking his head in disgust. “They all think they’re so entitled. Don’t even have to obey traffic lights because Mommy and Daddy always told them how perfect they are, and their coaches all gave them awards for participating, not even winning. I should get out and write each of them a ticket for jaywalking. If I were still on patrol, I would.”

“I bet you would,” Canavan mutters.

“I know those kids,” I say from the backseat.

“What?” Canavan says. “You know those kids? Are they retarded, or something?”

“Yes,” I say. “I mean, yes, I know them, but no, they aren’t retarded. Those are the RAs who got fired from Fischer Hall for partying with the prince.”

Canavan whistles. “No wonder they look so pissed off.”

“That’s where the president’s office is,” I say, leaning down in the backseat to see if I can spot the top of the building. I don’t know why. It’s not like I’d be able to spy President Allington up there, through his plate-glass windows. His office is too high up, and he’d said he was leaving at five, anyway. “I bet they’re going in there to demand their jobs back. It won’t work, though. The office will be closed.”