Chapter 7 #2
I should have expected it, I suppose. I had taken one final, unobtrusive look around the dining room at Sambuca before we walked out, and I hadn’t seen Mendoza there.
I had assumed he was in the kitchen, picking up more plates of food, but he must have left while Greg and I were finishing up dessert, because now he was standing in my house.
He had taken off the bowtie and thrown a zip-up hoodie over the starched, white shirt, but he was still wearing the same black slacks and black sneakers as earlier.
There was a whiff of lemon-butter in the air around him, unless that was me.
We’d both been splattered with the stuff, after all.
I opened my mouth to say something, found I didn’t know what to say, and closed it again, in favor of burying my face against Edwina’s fur.
“Detective Mendoza?” Greg said.
“Mr. Newsome.”
Mendoza moved into the hallway and extended a hand. To me, not Greg, and not at an angle for shaking. I nudged Edwina off my lap and took it, so he could haul me to my feet. Edwina gave herself one of those full body shakes that started at her head and moved down to the tip of her tail.
Mendoza watched her with a grin, and only when she’d caught her balance and headed for her water bowl and a drink, did he let go of my hand and turn his attention to me. “Good evening, Mrs. Kelly. I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. She was going crazy.”
Behind me, I felt Greg shift.
“Of course not,” I said. It was the only thing I could say, although the breezy “I hope you don’t mind,” didn’t explain how he’d made it through the door.
I knew very well that I had locked it before I left.
I remembered doing it, and besides, I would never not lock my door when I left the house.
Not after everything that had happened, and certainly not with Edwina inside by herself.
Greg cleared his throat. He must have decided that enough was enough. “Is something wrong, Detective?”
“Not at all,” Mendoza said cheerfully.
Greg nodded, but not as if he believed it. I didn’t, either.
“I just thought we should talk,” Mendoza added, with a look at me.
Yes, of course we should. I wanted to talk to him. I just hadn’t thought he’d make it so easy. I figured I would have to painstakingly track him down while he did his best to avoid me, and that I’d have to force him to tell me whatever was going on.
But Greg didn’t know any of that. He hadn’t seen Mendoza at Sambuca—or if he had, he hadn’t mentioned it.
Now he cleared his throat. “I should get going. If you’re all right on your own, Gina?”
I nodded. “Of course. Thank you for a lovely evening.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” Greg said politely and turned towards the front door.
“Let me see you out.” It was the least I could do. Not only did Greg deserve that, after a nice evening, but Mendoza—after three weeks of silence—didn’t need to gain the impression that I would drop everything, including Greg, just because he showed up.
I fell into step beside Greg on our way down the hall to the front door. “You’re spending time with your mother, and with Cressida and Tara, this weekend, you said?”
He nodded. “I’ll call you on Sunday. Maybe we can do something together then, if you’re not busy surveilling body shops.”
And not busy doing whatever it is you’re doing with homicide detectives, hung in the air, unsaid.
“I’m sure I won’t be,” I said. “They’re not open on Sundays.” Although I might be sitting outside Nick’s apartment, or down the street from Megan’s little house in Charlotte Park, or be angling for another invitation to Sambuca.
Or not. Mendoza would ask me to stay away from there, no doubt.
Then again, what better reason to go back?
Greg stepped across the threshold onto the front porch and turned to face me. I pulled the door shut behind me so Mendoza couldn’t hear what was said out here.
Not that much was. Greg examined my face for a second before he asked, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I don’t know what he’s doing here—like I said, I haven’t seen him since you left for Italy—but I’m not worried. Probably just a question about something.”
Greg nodded. He squeezed my hand. “Let me know when you want to stake out Sambuca again. I wouldn’t mind another go.”
I promised him I would, and then I held my breath as he leaned in.
I thought he was aiming for my mouth—he had kissed me on the lips last time we’d had dinner together, and a very pleasant kiss it had been, too—but whether it was the fact that we hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, so he wanted to build up to it again, or whether it was because Mendoza was waiting inside, maybe even watching, in this case he veered off and kissed my cheek instead.
“Goodnight, Gina.”
“Goodnight, Greg,” I echoed, and stood there and watched him walk to his Jaguar and fit himself behind the wheel.
And then I waited while he fired up the engine and took off down the driveway.
Once his taillights were out of sight on the road below, I shut and locked the door and headed back down the hallway.
Mendoza had moved to one of the stools by the kitchen island, and Edwina was sniffing his shoes and the bottoms of his pants with every appearance of interest.
“Stop that,” I told her as I stepped into the kitchen from the hallway. “Get away from those, Edwina. You don’t know where they’ve been.”
Mendoza grinned, and that damn dimple popped up in his cheek. “She might not, but you know exactly where they’ve been.”
“All the more reason for her not to be licking them.” I nudged her with the tip of my boot. “Shoo, Edwina!”
The terrier danced away, even as she gave me a wounded look over her shoulder. I relented. “You can have a biscuit instead. Will that make up for it?”
It would, at least judging from the response I got.
Edwina has a limited vocabulary, but ‘biscuit’ is in there, and so is ‘car ride’ and a few others.
I dug a bone-shaped treat out of a box in the pantry and offered it to her.
Edwina took it between her teeth and scampered off to her pillow, where she bit through it with savage delight and a shower of crumbs.
“So,” Mendoza said, and I turned to him. “You’re still seeing Newsome.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “Yes. Or seeing Newsome again. He’s been in Italy for the past few weeks.”
“Must be nice.”
“Beats waiting tables, I’m sure.”
He sighed. “I should have known you’d show up sooner or later. You always do.”
“I was having dinner with my boyfriend,” I protested. I hadn’t gone to Sambuca looking for Mendoza. Why would I? “And that’s not true, anyway. Usually, you’re the one who shows up.”
He didn’t respond to that, and I continued, “You showed up when David died, and you showed up when Mrs. Grimshaw reported me for suspicious behavior, and you showed up when Harold was shot—”
“You called me when Harold was shot!”
“Well, of course I did,” I said. “What else did you expect me to do? Ignore it?”
He rolled his eyes, and I added, “It’s your own fault. If you had told me you were working at Sambuca, I would have stayed away.”
“There was no need to tell you. It’s none of your business what I do.”
I ignored what felt a bit like a stab wound to the heart. “Clearly not.” Or he would have been in touch at some point during the past three weeks.
He must have realized how I’d taken it, because he sighed. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m working.”
“Undercover, you mean?”
He shrugged, which was as good as admitting it.
“Who died?” He was a homicide cop, so it made sense that someone had.
“No one you know,” Mendoza said. And relented. “No one at all. Not so far. I’m on loan to the organized crime division.”
Organized crime?
“Oh my God,” I said.
He looked up. “What?”
“Greg suggested organized crime. I told him we don’t see much of the Cosa Nostra around here. I can’t believe he was right.”
Mendoza’s face hardened. “What do you mean, Newsome suggested? What does he know about it?”
“Nothing at all,” I said. “We were batting ideas back and forth. He’s a thriller writer, you know.”
Mendoza rolled his eyes. “Yes, I know. I looked into him when his brother died, remember? I figured, if anything made someone a good candidate for murderer, it was that.”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, just added, “So was Newsome the reason you ended up at Sambuca tonight?”
I shook my head. “I suggested it, actually. We were supposed to go to Fidelio’s.”
He sighed again, like I was making him very tired or something. “Let me guess. When you said you were with your boyfriend, what you actually meant was that you were snooping, and you were using Greg Newsome as cover. And he allowed it.”
“He was happy to do it,” I said smugly. “In fact, he offered to do it again. But of course he didn’t see you there, so he doesn’t know that you’re working undercover.”
“Right.” He nodded. “If you show up again, I’ll have you arrested.”
I snorted. “I’d like to see you try. There’s nothing illegal about having Italian for dinner.”
That didn’t seem to impress him, so I added, “By then it’ll be too late, anyway. Everyone in the dining room will have heard me say, ‘why, hello, Detective Mendoza; I didn’t expect to see you here.’”
“You wouldn’t.”
Probably not. Although I wasn’t quite ready to admit it. “Just tell me what’s going on, and I’ll stay away on my own.”
He snorted. “That’ll be a first.”
“No, it won’t. I have no interest in interfering with a police investigation. It’s got to do with the guy in the Porsche, right?”
“What guy in what Porsche? Gio Abruzzi?”
“Early forties,” I said, even as I memorized the name, “black hair, olive skin, expensive suit, leather briefcase. Drives a vintage Porsche registered to some LLC out of Syracuse. New York, I suppose, unless there’s a Syracuse, Tennessee, I’m unfamiliar with.”
Mendoza nodded. “Sounds like Gio. How did you discover him?”
“I followed him from the Body Shop to Sambuca earlier today,” I said.
Mendoza didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he let his breath out in a huff. “For fuck’s sake.”
I blinked. That’s language I don’t usually hear from him. “What?”
He shook his head. “I should have known better than to think leaving you alone would save me trouble.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He narrowed his back. “What do you think it means? I knew you were camped out across the street from the Body Shop and I left you there, because I thought it would be easier than having to deal with you.”
“That’s not very nice,” I told him. “And how would you know that I was camped out—as you say—across the street from the Body Shop, anyway?”
And then the shoe dropped, and I added, “Wait. Are you camped out somewhere watching the Body Shop, too?”
If so, we could watch the Body Shop together. It would make the time go faster, and I’d certainly enjoy the company.
But—
“I’m not,” Mendoza said. “There’s no need to watch the Body Shop. Nothing’s going on there.”
“There’s plenty going on there. Everyone who works there looks like they’re waiting for the guillotine to drop.”
“That’s because it’s about to,” Mendoza said.
“Is it really? In what way?” Was it something I needed to know so I could tell Jacquie about it, if it would affect Nick?
He eyed me critically. “I still don’t understand how you got mixed up in all this.”
“I don’t really understand what I got mixed up in,” I admitted. “But it isn’t complicated. Jacquie hired me.”
“Jacquie?”
“Demetros,” I reminded him. “The twit David was sleeping with when he died.”
Mendoza’s lips twitched. “What would make you agree to go to work for your late husband’s mistress? Hasn’t she done enough damage?”
Yes, thank you. “I felt sorry for her,” I said. “And she offered me money.”
“Sure.” He sounded… it was either amused or cynical. Or somewhere in-between. “And what did she hire you to do?”
“She thinks her boyfriend’s cheating on her. He works at the Body Shop.”
“I know he does,” Mendoza nodded. “He isn’t.”
“Cheating? I didn’t think he was.”
Not only had he told me he wasn’t, but I hadn’t seen any sign of it in the two days I had spent watching him. I added, “I just have to prove it to Jacquie.”
“It’s hard to prove a negative,” Mendoza said. “You can prove someone’s cheating by bringing in a photo of them cheating. You can’t prove someone’s not cheating by not having a photo.”
No, you couldn’t. “I’ll just have to keep sitting there and reporting that nothing’s going on. Eventually, she’s just going to have to accept it.”
Mendoza seemed doubtful, but he didn’t say anything.
“So tell me what’s going on,” I added. “You know you have to.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Mendoza told me. “Although I might as well. If I don’t, you’ll just keep being a bother. This way, I can at least tell you enough that you won’t accidentally stumble into my investigation and get hurt.”
“Big of you,” I said dryly. As if I hadn’t stumbled into his investigation already.