Murder 101 Part 12

Sixteen.

Rather than return to my office, which was now a crime scene, I left the campus immediately upon the completion of my last cla.s.s and went to the train station. It was a gorgeous day-sunny, mild, with a few fluffy clouds in the sky. I had no idea what time the next train happened by, but I thought I would take my chances and wait on the platform. If I had a long wait, I would stare at the river until the train came. After the day that I had had, I thought that might be a nice thing to do.

As I descended the hill, I heard the train approaching the station. I took off running. Who was I kidding? I didn't want to stare at the river. I wanted to go home. I reached the parking lot as the train pulled into the station. I saw the conductor hanging out the window of the engine car and yelled to get his attention. He acknowledged me and yelled that I should hurry if I wanted to make the train.

Once on board, I rested my head against the headrest of my seat and closed my eyes. I dreamed of sand, waves, the ocean, and Seaside Heights. Thoughts of my senior prom and my seafoam-green-polyester dress floated into my head. Had it only been a day since I walked along the sand with not a thought in my head? So much had happened. Seconds later, or so it seemed, the conductor screamed out "Dobbs Ferry" and I awoke with a start. I exited the train and began my walk up the hill.

I arrived at the house and headed up the driveway to the back door. My neighbor, Terri, peeked out from the row of hedges that separated our two driveways. She called out to me.

"Alison! Hi!" she called.

I stopped in the middle of the driveway. "Oh, hi, Terri."

She was a pet.i.te blonde who was often in either workout or tennis attire. Today, she had on a little sundress and looked perfect. I felt like a giant, sweaty behemoth standing across from her. She seemed to want to chat.

She ran a hand over her blond ponytail. Her pink scrunchie matched her sundress, which, for some reason, really annoyed me. Maybe because I was wearing black and yellow and looked like an oversized b.u.mblebee. "I heard about what happened with your . . . with your car and all." She paused. "It was terrible." Another pause, this one of the pregnant variety. "The dead girl went to your school, didn't she?"

I nodded.

"That was terrible."

I thought we had already established that.

"Did they find out who killed her?" she asked.

"I don't think so."

"Did you know her?"

I nodded again.

She looked at me questioningly. "There was something in the paper today that said the police had Ray in for questioning. Is that true?"

I was surprised. I had stopped reading the paper, so I had no idea that Ray's name had been mentioned in connection with this. It made sense. "Yes, it's true. But they let him go. They didn't have enough to keep him."

"Does he have good representation?" she asked.

I was sick of talking about Ray already. "I think so. I think Mitch Klein has taken the case."

She gasped. "The lawyer who . . ."

I knew it by heart. ". . . defended the guy who shot the kid on the subway," I repeated in a monotone.

"Well that makes me feel better," she said, a little too concerned with Ray's well-being for my comfort. She wrapped her arms around her little body. "Is Ray OK?"

"I guess," I said, trying not to let on how little I actually cared. Why did she care so much?

"If you talk to him, tell him that I was asking about him," she said, not able to look at me.

That's when it hit me. I took a step back. "You . . ."

She looked at me, all doe-eyed and perky. "What?"

I shook my head. "Nothing." But I knew. Terri had been one of Ray's affairs. I was surer of it than I had ever been of anything. And I was furious, all over again. "Good . . . then . . ."I said, picking up my briefcase. "I'll see you later. Say hi to Jackson. Your husband," I said pointedly as I went inside. That was mature, I thought as I stood in the hallway. I closed the door and closed my eyes, banging my head against the doorframe, murmuring "stupid, stupid, stupid . . ."

When the shock of this new revelation wore off, I took my shoes off and left them inside the front door, along with my briefcase. I padded up the stairs and sat on the edge of my bed, looking around. Magda wasn't coming for another four days, and my house needed a cleaning desperately, and not just because there was fingerprint dust everywhere; there was your regular garden-variety dust as well. I guess I knew what I'd be doing over the weekend. I didn't know if Crawford had been serious about coming over, but if he was, I figured I had a few hours before he showed up, so I decided to take a nap before I broke out the vacuum and the rubber gloves.

The room was dark when I awoke. A soft wind was blowing through the window of the bedroom, and I heard rain hitting the pavement outside. I sat up with a start and squinted to see the clock next to my bed. It was seven, three hours after I had arrived home. I threw my legs over the side of the bed and rested a moment before getting up.

I heard footsteps on the stairs, the person coming up treading so lightly that they hardly made any noise. I tensed. The room was pitch-dark, except for the glow of the clock-radio numbers. I heard my name being whispered and before I could find anything to defend myself against the intruder besides a paperback copy of the latest Harry Potter book that was on my nightstand, the doorframe was filled with an outline of a body. I grabbed the book and hurled it with every ounce of strength that I had.

As my eyes adjusted, I could see that the shape was unmistakably Crawford's, but the book was already out of my hands and flying through the air. Tall and lanky, yet broad-shouldered, the detective stood in the doorway. He was dressed as he had been earlier, sans the gun and s.h.i.+eld. He let out a shout as the book hit him in the gut. "What the h.e.l.l?" he yelled.

"Sorry."

He kicked the book back into the room but stayed in the doorway.

"You can come in, you know. It's not the inner sanctum or anything."

He came in and walked over to the bed, bending over me.

"No kissing," I reminded him as his face got close. Had my teeth been brushed, I might have broken the rules, but the taste in my mouth told me that this kiss might be my last.

He stood up. "I was going to take your pulse," he lied.

"I wasn't sure you were coming," I said, not fully awake. "If I knew you were coming, I would have baked a Bundt," I said, referencing a commercial from my childhood.

"I wasn't sure I was coming either," he admitted. "What's a Bundt?"

I stifled a yawn. "You're going to get in trouble."

"I'm off duty," he said. "Besides, I've already run the Sister Mary gauntlet today. What else could happen?"

"How did you get in?" I asked.

His tone got serious. "Through the front door. Don't you think it would be a good idea to lock it, considering the events of the last few weeks?"

He had a point. "You smell like garlic," I said, getting a whiff.

"There's pizza downstairs. I'm just glad you'll be alive to enjoy it," he said, and turned to go downstairs.

" 'I'm just glad you'll be alive to enjoy it,'" I mimicked, and got up off the bed.

My jeans and a clean s.h.i.+rt were hanging on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. I pulled off the khakis and put on the jeans, which were noticeably looser than they had been a few weeks earlier. I tried to recall when I ate last and flashed on the Devil Dogs, bottled coffee, and chocolate donut. Hours ago. My brush was still on the dresser, along with a thin sheen of fingerprint powder; I brushed my hair, flipping my head over and giving myself an instant head rush. I stood up straight, let the dizziness pa.s.s, and pulled my hair into a ponytail. I slipped on my trusty clogs.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth. There was nothing I could do about the dark circles under my eyes, so I went with clean over glamorous and left off the makeup. Crawford had seen me in all states, and clean would be an improvement over many of them. I went downstairs.

"What did you come up with from my office?" I asked, not really in the mood for small talk.

He really didn't have too much to tell although he was still fixated on the "X" that had been etched in my desk. "Someone with an unoriginal Zorro complex is looking for something and leaving their mark," he said, pausing for a moment. "It was on the dash of the car, too, but n.o.body's supposed to know that."

I guess he really did trust me. "That's one of those things you keep from the public, right?"

"Yeah, we don't want that getting out because every lunatic in the Bronx will come out of the woodwork to confess." He opened a box of pizza-there were two on my countertop-and the smell hit me in the nose, making my mouth water. "I'm off duty, though. Remember? No shop talk." Next to the pizza boxes was a bag from the store around the corner, from which he pulled out paper plates, napkins, forks and knives, and a bottle of wine. He had found two winegla.s.ses in my cupboards and had taken those out as well. "I've got one plain and one extra garlic and sausage. You looked like an extra-garlic woman." He looked at me, waiting for my answer.

"You were right," I said, and got up to get a piece of pizza. He pulled a slice from the pie and handed it to me on a paper plate.

He also gave me a stack of napkins. "You also look like an extra-napkins woman," he said, a twinkle in his eye. I shot him a look, but took the stack of napkins anyway. He was right about that, too.

He pulled a Swiss army knife from his pants pocket and got out the corkscrew to uncork the wine. "Do you want a gla.s.s of wine or a big can of Foster's?" he asked.

"Funny," I said.

He had the bottle open in a few seconds and poured two gla.s.ses, one of which he handed to me. He took his gla.s.s and tipped it toward me. "A toast?"

I thought for a moment. "To solving this case?"

"You can do better than that," he said, his gla.s.s raised and still tipped toward me, a smile on his lips.

"I don't think I can," I said.

He thought for a moment. "Then I'll try," he said. "To you," he said softly, and clinked his gla.s.s against mine. I averted his gaze and took a sip, my face flus.h.i.+ng. "You blush a lot," he remarked.

I blushed a deeper red. "It's kind of like your sad face. It only comes out sometimes."

"Sad face?"

I pulled my mouth down into my imitation of his face, drawing my lips thin. He laughed heartily, spraying wine into a napkin. On a roll, I continued, "Then, you've got the really bad-news face," I said, and did my impression of that expression.

His laugh was a deep bellow, punctuated by snorts. I generally wasn't a fan of the snort-the only component of Max's belly laugh and one that I was accustomed to-but because it was him, I accepted it. I actually found it attractive.

"Do they teach you that in cop school?" I asked.

"It's called the Academy, and no, they don't teach us to make faces," he said.

"Do they teach you how to deal with suspects who vomit?"

"I'm down one pair of shoes, remember?"

"What do they teach you, then?"

"Oh, I don't know. How to deal with criminals, shoot guns, how to drive a cruiser," he said pointedly and looked at me, ". . . eat donuts . . . you know, the regular stuff."

"I think they should add Vomit 101."

"I'll mention that at the next cop-school meeting."

I sat at the table and he joined me with his wine. I dove into my pizza like it was my last meal. I don't know where he got it, but it was better than any pizza that I had tasted in my life. Or I was just starving, and it was just the same c.r.a.ppy pizza from the c.r.a.ppy pizza place around the corner. He watched me for a minute. "You were hungry. When was the last time you had a meal?"

"If you count three Devil Dogs, a bottle of coffee, and a chocolate donut as a meal, this morning around eight." I finished my pizza in three more bites and got up to get another slice. "You ready?" I asked, opening the box.

He was still on his first piece and shook his head. I found it hard to believe that you could be as big as he was and eat pizza as slowly as he did, but apparently, it was true.

I returned to the table with another slice. I chewed on my thumb for a minute. "I thought we weren't going to see each other in a social capacity anymore."

"This isn't a social call. I'm guarding you," he said, unconvincingly.

"I don't think that's going to hold up in front of a police review board."

He focused on a piece of sausage on his pizza and didn't respond.

"Besides, if you have me under surveillance, shouldn't you be asleep?" I asked.

"There is a difference between guarding and surveillance." He ate the sausage. "We cover that in cop school, too."

I ate my pizza in silence. When I was done, I got up and got another slice and the bottle of wine. "One more?" I asked. He handed me his plate, and I gave him another slice; I poured more wine in both of our gla.s.ses. "How's your stomach?"

He rubbed his midsection. "Harry Potter?"

I bowed my head solemnly. "There are many life lessons to be learned from Master Potter."

"Like?"

"Like love thy neighbor." I paused. "Something my ex-husband apparently took to heart." He looked at me, puzzled. "I'm pretty sure that Ray had an affair with Terri, next door."

The look on his face told me that he wasn't going to comment. I didn't feel the need to elaborate, either.

He changed the subject. "Save some room," he said. "I brought cannolis from Arthur Avenue." He motioned to a box on the counter and when I opened it, there were four beautiful cannolis wrapped in wax paper; the ends were sprinkled with chocolate chips. Arthur Avenue was a street in the Bronx noted for its spectacular Italian restaurants and decades-old bakeries, which specialized in pastries like cannolis, napoleons, and eclairs. I stopped myself from falling instantly in love with him; my love of the cannoli was greater than even my love of G.o.d and country. "I hope you like cannolis," he said.

"Just a little bit," I said, putting my index finger and thumb together. I was disappointed that he brought only four; I had been known to eat at least that many by myself. I sat down again and got to work on the third piece of pizza, confident that I would have room for dessert. When I finished that slice, I drank the rest of my wine, and poured more into my gla.s.s. I was feeling pretty good now, full and more than a little drunk.

"How did you get to Arthur Avenue to get cannolis? You're a pretty busy guy." I stared at him closely. "Do you have a clone?"

"Honestly?" He looked away, a little bashful.

I nodded.

"I radioed a cop from Motorcycle One to pick them up and meet me at the Van Cortlandt Park entrance to the Deegan."

"You did a moving-vehicle cannoli handoff?" I asked, incredulous. "You are a crime-fighting Irish superhero."

"No, we pulled over." He ate his pizza. "He owed me. I got his kid out of a jam."