The phone was just starting to ring as I took my coat off. My first thought was that it would be the police with more questions. Or worse, the press with some questions of their own.
“Not now, damn you.” I decided to let it click to voice mail. But no sooner had it rung four times and flipped into voice mail, then it started ringing again. Then again.
Damn it. A glance at the display simply showed “Outside Call”, which meant the caller was blocking caller ID. No messages either.
I’d been half surprised to see that Dylan wasn’t back yet, but when I looked out the window I could see him pulling his bike into the parking lot. Damn, he looked good on that thing. My gaze took in long legs straddling the powerful bike. I also took in the fact that he didn’t have his cell phone pressed to his ear. Whoever was calling, it wasn’t Dylan Foreman.
“Oh, just give it up will you. Or leave a message already.”
Who the hell calls ten times?
Truthfully, I didn’t want to answer it. I just couldn’t get my mind around the concept of new clients right now, not while the murder of Jennifer Weatherby still hung over my head. Worse, I thought it might be Detective Head asking me why the hell I’d not brought Jennifer Weatherby’s receipt, deposit record and contract (yes, the non-existent paperwork) in to the station yet.
So I glared at the ringing phone and willed it to stop, scrunching my eyebrows in concentration. I wanted it to stop. Specifically, I wanted it to stop before Dylan walked in. The only thing worse than avoiding a call I really didn’t want to take was having someone else know I was avoiding it. Having Dylan know it...
The door to my office started to swing open. Shit. I dove across Dylan’s desk and lunged for the phone, making a very unflattering oomph/slide across the oak surface.
“Hello, Dix Dodd speaking.”
Dylan arched a questioning eyebrow. I mouthed the words ‘had to pee’ and pressed the phone back to my ear in time to hear a female voice.
“Oh.” A pause. “Oh, I was just about to hang up.”
Well don’t let me stop you.
“Just got in the door,” I lied to the still unknown caller. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m calling for Dylan Foreman. Is he there?”
“Oh.”
“Ma’am? Is he there?”
“Certainly. Just a moment, please.”
I was just about to hand the phone over to Dylan when she said, “And er, sorry to rush your pee break.”
Grrrr.
Oh, great, THIS I was able to mouth silently.
I handed the phone to Dylan.
“I’ll be just a minute, Dix.” Dylan hooked a leg casually over the edge of his desk. With the mouthpiece end of the receiver pressed against his shoulder, he waited. And waited until I got the message.
I turned and walked into my own office.
I closed the door between our offices. Well, almost closed it. I heard him laugh deeply, while my leather chair made a rude sound as I plunked my ass down on it. Nice, Dix. Chances were Dylan heard that, if not the caller on the other end of the line. Great, now they’ll think I’m incontinent and a farter!
All I needed now was to... oh, crap!
Mrs. Presley’s hospitality came back to haunt me. I belched spicy pepperoni.
Feeling about as attractive as Steve Buscemi, I sighed and turned my attention to my desk. Picking up the yellow legal pad I’d used when Jennifer Weatherby had been in the office, I examined my doodles. Stairs going nowhere; tight little circles. The crazy, meandering duck tracks. For some reason, I wanted to laugh. And not a good laugh.
“That’s it! I’ll just hand this over to Detective Head,” I muttered to myself. “There you go, Detective! Proof positive Jennifer Weatherby was in my office. Case closed against Dix Dodd, your friendly neighborhood ball-buster!”
“Dix?” Dylan called from the outer office. “Did you say something?”
Damn. “I said I need another good... wall duster.” The smack of my hand to my forehead felt just about right.
He resumed his conversation, and I went back to glowering at my yellow pad.
About five minutes later, Dylan’s voice went lower and I couldn’t even make out bits and pieces of the conversation. Not that I’d been listening—like, a lot. I heard his deep chuckle—the one that just rolled itself up my spine. He hung up and before I could adjust my position from straining forward in my chair to casually leaning back with my feet up on the desk, the door opened.
“Sorry about that,” he said, looking anything but sorry. “We’re busy as hell, I know, but I really had to take that call.”
“No problem,” I said. “You know I don’t mind personal calls at the office. Not at all.”
Now was the time for Dylan to tell me it wasn’t a personal call. I waited. I waited some more.
“Thanks.” He smiled.
“Sure.” I couldn’t resist. But nor could I look at him as I asked. “How is your mother, anyway?”
“Great, Dix. Mother’s great.”
“So nice of her to call.”
“She didn’t.”
Oh, wonderful, Dodd. Real mature!
It wasn’t that I couldn’t read his expression, it’s that he didn’t really have one. He was offering neither excuse nor explanation.
But I noticed he wasn’t looking at me either as he’d answered—his eyes were staring into his own yellow legal pad full of notes.
I quickly (quickly before I said something even more stupid) told Dylan what I had learned from Mrs. Presley: that Billy Star had been a frequent visitor to the Underhill. With a blonde. Dylan, of course, pointed out there were lots of blondes in the world.
“Maybe our boy Billy was with a hooker,” Dylan offered. “A blonde favorite, perhaps?”
I shook my head. “Hookers don’t hide down in the seat and send the john in to register. It works the other way around. No, Mrs. Presley was positive she wasn’t a prostitute, a regular or otherwise. And with her years at the desk of the Underhill, she would certainly know.”
“Maybe Star had himself an under-aged girlfriend.”
I considered that for a moment. But only a moment. I knew Mrs. Presley. If there were any underage hanky-panky going on, well, it wouldn’t be for long.
But what was the connection between Billy Star, Ned Weatherby, the late Mrs. Jennifer Weatherby and the blonde mistress we sought? I guess it could be coincidental, but it sure as hell didn’t feel coincidental. It felt like there should be a connection there.
“Maybe we were right,” I mused. “Maybe Billy and Ned were fighting over the same woman.”
“Our mysterious mistress?”
“Yeah, Blondie gets around.”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, that theory was just some wild speculation. And well, it kind of seems far fetched.”
“Far fetched is all we’ve got to go on, Dylan.”
I cleared my throat.
As if reading my mind, Dylan strode to the coffee pot in the corner. Ever ready, he flicked a switch and the hardest working thing in the office kicked into gear.
“What did you find out from talking to the neighbors?” I asked.
“It was interesting, to say the least.”
“How so?”
He ran a hand over his chin, drawing it long. He often did this when carefully arranging his words. “According to everyone I talked to, they hardly knew Jennifer Weatherby.”
“Hardly surprising. I mean in this day and age, it’s not like people sit out on their front porch swings and chat over lemonade.”
“Still, you’d think she’d have at least one friend in the neighborhood. But there was... I don’t know... almost an animosity towards Jennifer.”
I could feel my eyebrows arching. “Anything specific?”
The coffee gurgled and started sputtering into the pot and I silently blessed it.
“From what I understand, Mrs. Weatherby didn’t much get along with the other rich ladies on Ashf
ield Drive. She wasn’t one of them.”
“Old money versus new money?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The homes are new out that way, so it’s all new money. No, I think Jennifer was just one of those women that didn’t fit in. You know, not the wine and cheese and charity ball kind of chick.”
Dylan Foreman was one of those rare guys who could say ‘chick’ and not have it sound condescending. Actually, he made it sound downright sexy. Granted, he could probably make rice pudding sound sexy.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Any specific incidents that would have made her enemies?”
“None that I could uncover. Just general stuff. You know, not attending neighborhood functions, not sending cards at Christmas, or pretending she didn’t know the neighbors when they met at Ryder’s.”
“Ryder’s on Main?” Ryder’s was about as high end as it got, unless you wanted to jet off to New York or Paris.
He nodded. “Apparently, that’s where all the ladies of Ashfield Drive shop. And apparently, whenever Jennifer bumped into one of them, she’d duck out of the store as quickly as possible. Wouldn’t even say hi.”
“Ryder’s,” I repeated.
On the one hand, it didn’t really surprise me that Jennifer Weatherby shopped at Ryder’s. She could certainly afford it. On the other hand, when she’d come to my office, she’d looked anything but stylishly dressed.
Stress? Maybe. It could do a helluva number on a person.
The coffee was ready, and I poured Dylan a mug as I got my own. “So Jennifer Weatherby wasn’t popular with the ladies of Ashfield Drive. But did anyone hate her enough to kill her?”
“They’re a cliquey bunch,” he said. “But no. I don’t think anyone wanted her dead.”
I steered the conversation back to Billy Star, frequent flyer at the Underhill, and his skulking blonde date. Again we tossed around the theory that the heated argument between Billy Star and Ned Weatherby had been over the same woman.
“Long shot,” he said.
“It’s a shot though.” I held the cup in both hands, warming them even though they were far from cold.
Dylan nodded. “Okay, where do we go from here?”
The phone rang just exactly as I opened my mouth to speak.
Dylan rose to get it in the outer office. A bit too quickly.
“Here,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
I thought it must be the same woman calling for Dylan again. This time, I was determined to show how mature I was. Coolest boss EVER. How what-a-great-boss-who-isn’t-hot-for-her-much-younger-assistant I was. And this time, I wouldn’t ask if it was his mother. I picked up the receiver before the second ring finished.
“Dix Dodd speaking.”
“Well if it isn’t the she-stalker herself.”
Ah, fuck!
“Hello, Dickhead,” I said. “How goes the quitting smoking? Bet you’d like one right now, huh?” Yes, it was dirty, but a girl had to score her points where she could. “Why don’t I go pick you up a pack? I could have them delivered. Ahhh, can’t you just feel that lovely tar filling your lungs right now?”
He laughed. Not his belly-shaking, everyone-run-here laugh, but a deep chuckle that unnerved me.
“Funny, Dixieland,” he said. “Very funny. And here I was calling to give you some information. Just trying to be friendly.”
Said the python to the rat.
“What’s up?” I asked, cautiously curious.
“I just got off the phone with Ned Weatherby. He gave me his wife’s itinerary for the last week.” Detective Head paused, dramatically. My heart began to race.
“Well, good for you, Dick!” I said. “Itinerary’s a pretty big word! Five syllables! Call back next week and we’ll work on...”—oh, shit, what was a good six-syllable word?—“... an even bigger word.”
Okay, yes, the world’s dumbest retort. But I was getting a little stressed here; he was so happy. Just what did Dickhead know that I didn’t?
I forced up a chuckle.
“Laugh all you want now, Dix Dodd,” Detective Head said. “You won’t be laughing for long.”
“You going to get to the point today, Detective?”
“The point is that Jennifer Weatherby wasn’t anywhere near your office on Monday. The late Mrs. Weatherby was at the Bombay Spa for her weekly treatments. Left early in the morning, came home late at night. You lied, Dix. There is no way in hell that she was in your office.”
I could feel my grip on calm slipping. Dylan moved closer, his gaze intent on my face, no doubt reading the growing panic there. “There has to be a mistake...”
“The mistake is you messed with the wrong people, Dix. I’m going to haul you in.”
“Give me forty-eight hours.” The words were out before I’d clearly thought them over.
“Why should I?” Dickhead asked, clearly enjoying himself.
“Because I’ll deliver the murderer to you by then.”
Now I appreciated his pause. He was thinking it over. And then I realized: there were no blaring sirens on the way to pick me up. No cops banging on the door. No police dogs sniffing my car. Detective Head, though he would dearly love to see me in jail, wouldn’t let the real killer get away.
“Okay,” he grumbled. “You got your forty-eight hours.” Then he hung up the phone.
“Where do we go from here, Dylan?” God, was it just two minutes ago that he’d put that question to me? It felt like hours. I swallowed hard, but when I spoke, my voice was as strong as I could make it. “I’ll tell you where we’re going. To the Bombay Spa.”
Dylan slowly nodded, erased the whiteboard and we began again.
And when the phone rang, we ignored the damn thing.