Page 19 of 3rd Tango
As much as I’d like to share any potential leads, we have nothing solid.
I shake my head. “We don’t have anything yet. It’s a bust so far.”
“Are you done?”
“No. We both have a few more to look at.”
Charlie purses her lips and gives me her squinty eyes. “We need to stall Mom. You have research to be done.”
My sister. Brilliant. “You want to give Mom the rest.”
“It’ll keep her occupied and buy us time.”
I meet Jerome’s eye just as he flips his folder closed. “Works for me.”
Pushing out of my chair, I straighten my reports. “Ditto that. We’ll let Mom chase her tail instead of us.”
9
Charlie
Six o’clock comes and I haven’t heard from JJ, no doubt because of the meetings. I take a bath, put on a silky robe, and bring his favorite strappy stilettos to the dining room with me. I’ll slip them on as soon as he texts me to let me know he’s coming.
I picked up a rotisserie chicken on the way home and some sides. I open a cab sav and pour a glass, sit in front of my laptop, and start working.
One of my clients calls an hour later, telling me her husband is working late again, and she wants me to get the pictures she needs to prove he’s having an affair. I don’t usually do cheating spouse cases—Matt does. But in this situation? The husband is an esteemed member of our city council, and the divorce proceedings will have to be handled carefully if she goes through with them, since he has deep pockets and a bunch of people around the city, including two judges, in them.
The last thing I feel like doing on this hot summer night is trekking out to follow him and sit for hours in my car, hoping to get a picture of him with his girlfriend. I text Matt, who’s home alone—he was bemoaning the fact Taylor was going out with friends before he left the office—and he’s more than happy to do the surveillance. I send him the details and go back to the research I’m doing for another client.
When my doorbell rings a few minutes later, I scramble from the table to grab the stilettos. JJ didn’t text me, and I fumble with one of them, the strap not cooperating with my fingers in my haste to switch from private investigator to sex kitten. The new lipstick I bought—a man-eating red—is waiting on the table by the door.
It’s unusual for him to not simply let himself in. He has a key. The thought pulls me up short, and I wobble to the door, one shoe on and one off, to peer out the transom window.
From the other side, my mother calls, “Charlie, it’s me!”
For half a second, I bow my head. I thought we gave Mom plenty to keep her busy for another day or so. Why is she here?
Begrudgingly, I open the door. She brushes past, eyes flicking over my robe and the shoe disparity, but not seeming to register that I’ve decided to relax this evening.
I need more wine.
She carries a binder and what looks like an old telephone book in her arms, making her way into the dining room and slamming the two on the table.
“Mom?” I close the door and follow. “What’s up?”
She looks at me as though I’m dense. “I’m here to work on Gayle’s case.”
I pointedly glance at my stuff on the table. “I have other things to do tonight.”
She scans the robe, the shoe I’m holding, and glances at my laptop. “Fine, but I need some help. I’d like you to look up a couple of the hardware stores in the area where those bodies were found. I need to know if they’re still in business, and their phone number.”
“Why?”
“The bodies were found in contractor grade garbage bags. Those had to come from somewhere. Gayle might’ve gotten them from a hardware store nearby, and maybe I can figure out which one and call around…”
Even to her own ears this must sound a little farfetched, because she trails off and looks at the phone book. “I’m sure I can trace Gayle buying the supplies he needed to bury them.”
The phone book is from the county the cabin is in. It looks to be a good ten or fifteen years old. “Where did you find that?” I point.
