Part 5 (1/2)

I thought for a moment. Getting grilled about a murder could be mitigated by eating a big burger. I accepted, knowing exactly where I would take him.

Eight.

It was a Tuesday night and Sadie's, right in the center of town, wasn't crowded. The hostess gave us a table near the bar but tucked in a corner of the restaurant. She took our wet raincoats and our drink order at the same time.

Crawford motioned to me. ”What would you like?”

I thought a moment. ”I'll have a vodka martini, straight up, with a twist.”

The hostess looked at him. ”A gla.s.s of cabernet. Thank you.”

Cabernet, I thought. I would have pegged him as a draft beer kind of guy. You never know.

He clasped his hands together in the center of the table. ”I'm sorry I just showed up out of the blue.”

I shrugged, like I was accustomed to homicide detectives in my kitchen every night of the week. ”Not a problem. Do you live around here?”

He looked down. ”Manhattan.”

Hmmm. Depending on where he lived in Manhattan, he was at least forty-five minutes from home. We sat in silence until the hostess reappeared with our drinks. I was relieved when she returned; I could cease examining the painting next to our table like I was an art curator and focus on my martini instead. The uncomfortable silence would be eliminated by the slurping of alcoholic beverages. I made considerable work of preparing my drink for the first sip-swirling the vodka, taking out the twist, twisting it again. I took a drink and tried not to sigh aloud at how good it tasted. ”So, what did you want to ask me?” I inquired.

He reached in the pocket of his jacket and took out his notebook. After flipping a few pages, he looked at me. The close proximity allowed me to study his face. Green eyes, angular features, and short, brown, cop hair. One ear stuck out a little bit more than the other. At this late hour, a slight stubble was beginning to appear on his jawline and under his nose, but not enough to make him swarthy. He cleared his throat. ”Did you know Kathy Miceli well?”

Hadn't we done this already, like, fourteen times? I guess they didn't take the ginkgo biloba advice. I took a slug of my drink. If I was going to get grilled, I might as well be baked. ”Sort of. Her mother was a few years ahead of me in school, but we overlapped at the college for two years. I saw Gianna a few times while Kathy was here, so having that connection made us a little more familiar.”

”Did you know her boyfriend?”

”Vince?” I asked, and winced. ”A little.”

He looked at me questioningly. ”What's up with Vince?”

”Vince seems like a jerk.” I stopped there.

”What kind of jerk?”

I thought about how to phrase it. Vince went to Joliet, but spent a lot of time on our campus doing his Stanley Kowalski impression, screaming Kathy's name outside of her dorm room, either drunk or stoned. That's what I had heard, anyway. ”He's possessive, crude, and coa.r.s.e. She was a nice girl who deserved a nice boyfriend. She never seemed incredibly happy when they were together.” And you should be happy if you're in love, I thought to myself. I was nothing if not gifted in hindsight.

He jotted a few notes in his notebook. I guess a repeat of ”professor thinks Vince is a jerk . . . knew Kathy a little bit.” How many times was he going to write that down? The waitress appeared with menus, and we studied them a tad too intently given there were only about six choices for dinner. I settled on the bacon burger, figuring I would need my strength if I had to walk everywhere. Crawford ordered the crab cakes and told the waitress that he wanted to see a wine list.

”This calls for conjecture,” he admitted, taking a sip of his wine, ”but do you think that he is capable of violence?”

”Do you?”

He looked back at me. ”I asked you.”

I thought for a moment. ”I can't say. Who knows? If someone had asked me a year ago if my husband of seven years had had a secret vasectomy and was capable of having not one but four affairs during the course of our marriage, I would have said no, but I learned the hard way.” I took a deep breath and laughed ruefully. ”Did I say that out loud?”

He nodded and smiled. The waitress came back to the table with the wine list. ”Do you like red or white, or does it matter?” he asked.

”It doesn't matter. Whatever you like.” I took a sip of my martini. I guess grading papers this evening would be out of the question, between the martini and the wine.

He chose a nice red wine that I would have chosen myself. Either the city of New York was picking up the tab, or cops got paid better than I thought; it was on the high side of the price list. He looked down, seemingly unable to make eye contact. He focused on his place mat. ”How do you have a secret vasectomy, by the way?”

I laughed. ”Why? You in the market for one?”

”n.o.body to keep it a secret from,” he said, and drained his winegla.s.s.

That was good information to have. ”You wait until your wife goes on a visiting professors.h.i.+p to Ireland for six weeks, and you schedule it. She comes home, your b.a.l.l.s look none the worse for wear, and n.o.body is the wiser. Particularly the wife.” I put my napkin on the table. We were now into my ”loose lips sink s.h.i.+ps” portion of the evening. ”And with that confession, it seems like a good time to visit the ladies' room. Excuse me.” I pushed my chair back from the table. He stood as I departed.

I went into the restroom and locked myself in a stall. I put the seat down and sat for a moment. I didn't have to go to the bathroom; I just needed a break. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and hit speed dial #1 for Max. She answered after four rings, out of breath.

”It's me. Did I take you away from someone or something?”

”I was running on my treadmill.”

Liar. She doesn't run, and she doesn't have a treadmill. ”Hey, you'll never guess where I am and who I'm with.”

”You're right. I won't. Just tell me.”

”Remember Detective Crawford?”

Her sharp intake of breath confirmed that she did.

”He came by my house right after I got home from school and said he wanted to ask me some questions. Then, he asked me to go to dinner. What do you think that means?”

”He was hungry and working overtime?”

I could tell she wasn't into this conversation. I would remember this the next time she called me from the shoe store looking for advice on two pairs of Jimmy Choo pumps. ”Thanks for your help.”

”Maybe he'd be a good Rebound Man,” she said.

”I don't need a Rebound Man,” I reminded her for the fiftieth time. Hey . . . we're breaking up,” I lied, slamming my cell phone against the side of the stall. I knew where this conversation was headed. ”Gotta go.”

I unlocked the door of the stall and faced the huge wall of mirrors. I guess it would have helped to visit the restroom earlier in the evening, judging from my sad appearance, but what was done was done. I wet a paper towel and wiped the mascara away from under my eyes and ran the towel over my face.

I whispered to my reflection in the mirror, even though there was n.o.body else in the bathroom. ”Did I just say 'b.a.l.l.s' in front of the detective?” I pushed my hair back from my face, hoping to achieve some kind of tousled coif instead of a rain-soaked rat's nest.

I had been having such a good time that I realized that I had not told him about my ”meeting” with Peter Miceli. I was sure that I would get a lecture for not telling him first thing, but I could deal with that. I took a deep breath and left the bathroom.

When I returned to the table, the wine was there, as was our food. My burger looked bloated and obscene next to his three crab cakes and rice pilaf.

”Wine?” he asked, and held the bottle aloft over my clean gla.s.s.

”Sure.” I started cutting my burger into smaller pieces, gave up, and put a big hunk in my mouth.

He flipped through his notebook again. ”Was it common knowledge on campus that the Micelis were a Mob family?”