He leered again and, even though Tom was used to that gaping grin, it still turned his stomach. Unfortunately it was part and parcel with Frank Gray, and he needed this enforcer.
“Bowie may well be in rut,” Tom said, “but he’s not a romantic. And there’s something else that’s worrisome. A woman’s been calling here for him, and only him. The first time was the day before yesterday, twice this morning.”
Gray stopped grinning. “That shoots my theory all to hell. A new bedmate would call his cell phone.”
Tom nodded. “Bowie played dumb when I mentioned the calls, but if they’re traced back to this Collins woman, I want to know what her connection is to him and why he went to extremes to keep her from leaving.” Tom flapped his hand in the direction of the door. “Get on it.”
“Right now?”
“Drop everything.”
Gray worked his considerable bulk out of the chair. “If it does turn out to be something unromantic, how far do you want me to take things?”
“Bowie’s been a pain in my ass for too long. Far too long.” Tom gave him a look that didn’t require explanation.
Gray popped his chewing gum and flashed another misshapen smile. “I’ve been itching for some fun.”
“Don’t expect too much.”
John unlocked his back door and pushed it open, then stood aside and motioned Beth across the threshold into his kitchen. He didn’t like mess, he kept a clean house, but for the first time since he’d moved in, he was embarrassed by his rental, quaintly misnamed a “bungalow.”
It was at the end of a shadowy, potholed cul-de-sac, where similarly run-down dwellings were tucked between moss-laden live oaks, shaggy cypresses, and unidentified brambles. It was the perfect setting for a depressing Tennessee Williams drama in which every character was miserable and nothing went right.
As Beth was taking in the unattractive kitchen, Mutt wandered in from the living room. “Who’s this?” she asked.
“He answers to Mutt. His gene pool is murky, but he’s harmless.”
Proving him right, Mutt padded over and sniffed her hand, then gave it a lick. She didn’t jerk her hand back as John would have expected of her. Instead she addressed Mutt by name and introduced herself.
When she bent down to rub his bony head, her slender black slacks that hugged and delineated her shapely bottom were pulled even tighter across the curves, causing John to tell himself for the thousandth time what a bad idea it was to have brought her here. Because when she’d begun explaining the geometry of a blood moon, using phrases like “specific alignment” and being “perfectly positioned,” his mind had drifted away from the relationship between heavenly bodies and had instead entertained the thought of a relationship with her body. Which was also heavenly.
Made uncomfortable by his prurient thoughts, he said crossly, “Come on, Mutt. Out you go.”
Mutt seemed reluctant to leave her stroking hand, and who could blame him? But he ambled over to the door John was holding open. Before going outside, the dog looked up at him with a Did I miss something? expression.
He wanted to tell Mutt that there was a logical explanation for this notably attractive stranger being in their kitchen. Which was that, while still parked in front of the fast food restaurant, Beth and he had agreed that they needed someplace to talk in more depth about the relationship between the Mellin case and a blood moon.
“I checked out of my hotel,” she’d told him. “Where do you suggest we go to compare notes?”
His spontaneous reply had been, “My place.” She’d been about to shake her head no, when he jumped in ahead of her. “Look. You’re safe from me, all right? I’m not going to hit on you. But the subject matter we’ll be discussing is likely to get intense, and it would be easier to concentrate without the distractions of a public place like in the bar yesterday.” Having said that, he’d been reminded to ask her how she’d known about that dive.
“I grew up in Thibodaux,” she said. “When I was in high school, that bar was widely known to have relaxed rules about selling alcohol to minors so long as they didn’t drink it on the premises.”
“Encouraging kids to drink and drive.”
“Which is why it was shut down for a while. It’s changed hands since then, but I didn’t know how seedy it had become until I walked in yesterday. By then it was too late for a change of venue.”
“I can’t help but wonder, why the subterfuge? Why didn’t you just come to the station and ask for me?”
“Because you were the detractor. I didn’t want to rattle anyone until I’d had a chance to talk to you first.”
“Well, they are rattled.”
“Already?”
“Yes. Word is out that a woman keeps calling the department, asking for me and only me, and won’t leave her name.”
“Oh.”
“Right. We have to assume we’re on borrowed time before someone discovers you’re from Crisis Point. When they learn that, they’ll presume, correctly, why you want to talk to me. So, until we know the extent and outcome of this conversation, and I determine how disruptive it might be to my life—”
“To mine as well.”
“—it would be better if we’re not seen together looking like collaborators.”
Even though she’d been sitting in the passenger seat of his car, she’d propped her hand on her hip. “Then maybe you should have thought twice about creating that scene at the airport.”
“Maybe I should have, but I didn’t want you to get on that plane, forcing me to follow you to New York.”
He could tell she’d been surprised by that. “Would you have done that?”
“After yesterday’s parting? No. I was glad to see the last of you. But as of nine-thirty this morning, yes. I would’ve gone to New York if necessary to continue this.”
“What happened at nine-thirty?”
“A confrontation with the jerk who shut me down when I tried to extend the Mellin investigation.”