Page 60 of Sinful Sorrow

“We are the cops, Mayet! Dammit, woman.” I jam my thumb against the speaker button and take her off, then I bring the phone to my ear while Fletch practically plasters the side of his face to my hand. “What thing did you do that I have to protect you from?”

“Well…” She opens a car door, so the creak of metal hinges forms an image in my mind. Then she climbs in with a huff and slams the door shut to create the privacy I’m relieved she thought to find. “So, you know how I kinda know Sophia, right?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” That name alone sets alarm bells ringing in my mind and iron bars marching into place to separate me from my wife. “She is not good for your future prospects of freedom. Jesus.”

“Yeah, well, I consider her the opposite. She has ways of doing things, right? She knows everything about both of us, and yet, she provides freedom instead of taking it away.”

“What did you do, Delicious?” Growing impatient, Fletch leans closer. “We have shit to do, so get to the point.”

“So I had the thought that the knife Connor used to stab Naomi was reasonably unique. Not, like, only five ever made unique. But it’s an order that folks notice, for sure. I thought, to help you along, I would get a list of every store within ten blocks of the haunted house that sells that knife. Then I could get a list of people who bought it. Ten blocks, of course, is a narrow subsection of the city, and that doesn’t include online orders, but I’m new at this, so I figured I’d start small.”

“You’re new at doing someone else’s job,” I snarl. “You don’t get to call up and demand that kind of information, Mayet.”

“But I did anyway. Like I said, I had spare time. What I didn’t have was computer whizz know-how.”

“So you called Sophia,” Fletch inserts. “Great. The fake cop, phone spy weirdo is now our silent partner. Does no one else think she’s setting us all up to burn later?”

“Speaking of fake cops,” Minka sniggers. Way too fucking casual about all this. “Sophia said she could use her computer and find that information easily, but she didn’t have the time or manpower to dedicate to the task today. She was busy breaking into someone else’s information and didn’t feel our investigation should be prioritized.”

“She was breaking into?—”

“She said she could teach me to do it myself, but it would take entirely too long, and that was for someone who has a certain ability with computers in the first place. Which, I admit, is not me.”

“Get to the fucking point, Mayet.”

“So she gave me her fake badge number and told me to use that.”

Done. I palm my phone off to Fletch and shove away from the car. Because my wife is going to jail today, and call me a fucking cynic, but I feel they won’t let us share a bunk, or hell, a cell block even if I were to confess to some shit and get my ass thrown into Gen Pop, too.

I stalk twenty feet across the lawn, grabbing at my hair and pulling until it stings. Because I’d rather feel that than the alternative.

“You’ve gone and stressed him out now, Delicious.” Fletch holds the phone to his ear and shakes his head. “He’s pacing and sweating and pissed at you.”

“Send her to jail! It’s fine. Not like I was attached, anyway.”

Chuckling, his chest and shoulders bounce for the first time today. “Yeah. He’s ready to testify against you. What did you do with the fake badge? Who did you call? Are you going to prison?”

“Give me the damn phone!” I stalk back to the car and yank the device from his hand, bringing it to my ear while Minka is mid-sentence. “Start again. Tell me everything. Then go get the cat. We’re moving to Sheboygan County. I hear the people are all related there and never hit on each other.”

“You are being entirely too dramatic right now, Archer. Geez. Sophia instigated an entire exhumation with this badge, and not once was she flagged for it.”

“Probably because she’s spent a lifetime lying and grifting! It’s a skill she’s developed. You, on the other hand, are not her.”

“Well, it worked out. Because I have a spreadsheet of sales for that knife in the last six months. I extended my search, since it turns out the list I’d discovered was pretty short. Sure, our killer may have been one of the three I’d already found, but since I was on a roll, I pushed my search right across the city and turned up eleven more sales. That’s fourteen for you to look into. Some have names. Some paid with cash. Fourteen is a reasonable number for you to run through, and who knows, maybe I helped you find your killer.”

“You bring stress to my life,” I groan. “So much stress! And it’s not like today isn’t already one of the stressful kind. Fletch’s life is on fire. Mia saw some shit. Cato is the better uncle right now, which is clearly messing with me. And now my wife is flirting with jail time.”

“What shit did Mia see?” She cuts through all the nonsense and stops on that one detail. Because that’s who Minka Mayet is: a protector of the innocent before anything else. “What happened?”

“Jada split.” I walk away from the car again, giving my partner space so he doesn’t have to hear me repeat his issues. He knows I’m talking about him, of course, but he doesn’t have to re-hear the details. “She tossed the apartment, took every pill she could find, stole some valuables, and ran.”

“That bitch! She ransacked his place right in front of her own daughter?”

“Fletch and Mia were asleep. But she was in their room, Minka. While he slept and Mia was vulnerable, she tossed his stuff and took anything she could sell for a few dollars. He’s not making a police report, so he can’t claim sweet fuck all on insurance. And now she’s gone, which means he lost the money he paid to Ridgewood, since they’re non-refundable. She completely fucked him over, and now he’s out here with a broken spirit and a metric ton of guilt sitting on his shoulders. Especially after this thing with Fifi last night.”

“She hasn’t come into work today.” Like a kick to the gut, she delivers her words simply. And yet, with the power of a thousand strikes. “She called in while Patten was still on shift and left a message to be passed on to me. Sick today. Can’t come in. Blah, blah, blah.”

“For fuck’s sake.” I draw a deep breath and fill my chest until it expands. Then I exhale again and look across at my best friend. “If I tell him that, he’s gonna hurt more.”

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