Part 5 (2/2)
I thought for a moment. ”It's always been rumored but n.o.body ever knew for sure. There was the thing about Peter being involved in that strip club a few years back, but I guess regular businessmen can own them? Or am I being naive?” I blushed as I flashed back to my Joyce-reading lap-dancer comment. ”But it was the same way fifteen years ago when I was in school with Kathy's mother. We knew, but didn't discuss it.” I took a sip of my wine. ”Is that part of the investigation?” He didn't answer. ”If you tell me, you'll have to kill me?”
He laughed. ”Something like that.”
I s.h.i.+fted in my chair, ready to tell him about Peter. ”I have to tell you something.”
He continued eating but looked up at me while he chewed.
”Um, I went shopping with my friend on Sat.u.r.day, and when we came back, Peter Miceli was in my kitchen.” I tried to make it sound like a common occurrence, but we both knew that it wasn't. I let out a ridiculous-sounding giggle.
He dropped his fork onto his plate, making a small racket. ”What? Why didn't you tell me this on Sat.u.r.day, or at the very least, as soon as I got to your house tonight?”
Because I'd had two pounds of chicken salad in my mouth? ”Is it important?”
He rubbed his hand over his face. ”Uh, yes,” he said, as if I were an idiot. ”What did he say?”
I wasn't sure how to phrase this part, so I just blurted out, ”I think he's going to find out who did this and kill them.” I grimaced. ”I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
He was alone with his thoughts for a minute before he asked me to recount exactly what happened, word for word, or as best as I could remember. I told him about everything, including the weird bear hug, forehead kiss, and face holding at the end. He wrote everything down and continued writing even after I had finished.
He seemed to have lost his appet.i.te; he took his napkin off his lap and placed it next to his plate. ”You have to . . . Listen, you . . .” he stammered before getting his point across, ”you have to tell me everything that happens relative to this case. Peter Miceli dropping by is major. That is not something you should handle on your own.”
I think I understood that now. I nodded, contrite. ”I'm sorry,” I said again.
”It's OK. You just have to keep me in the loop on everything.” He put his napkin back on his lap. ”Everything.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, eating. I was waiting for the part where he would tell me why he asked me out to dinner and why he and Wyatt just didn't come to my office to ask me the questions, but that never happened. We finished, declined dessert, and he asked for the check.
The waitress came back and dropped it on the table. I made a move to pick it up, but he was faster. ”I asked you.” He put a credit card on top of the check and left it on the corner of the table. The credit card was upside down so I couldn't tell if I was guest of the police department or Detective Crawford. The waitress came back and swooped it up.
”Now I get to ask you a few questions,” I said, emboldened by a martini and half a bottle of wine and trying to lighten the mood.
He clasped his hands again, and said, ”Shoot.”
”Mets or Yankees?”
”Mets.”
”Rangers or Islanders?”
”Rangers.”
”Paper or plastic?”
”Paper.”
”Married?”
He hesitated for just a split second. ”No.”
”Kids?” In this day and age, the two were not mutually exclusive.
”Two. Twin girls. Not identical. Sixteen.”
”Do you live uptown or downtown?”
”Uptown. Upper West Side. Ninety-seventh and Riverside. That's where I grew up.”
So, he wasn't that far out of his way. As the crow flies, or if you swam down the river, we only lived about twenty miles apart. The waitress returned with the credit-card receipt. He signed it and stood up. Unlike me, he didn't have to consult a tip card and a global-positioning system to figure out the gratuity.
He stood and touched the back of my chair. ”Ready?” He put his hand lightly on my back and steered me to the coatroom. We got our raincoats and left the restaurant. I went out to the sidewalk and turned my face up to the mist that was falling. He stood directly under the streetlight and put his hand up to smooth his hair. I caught a glimpse of a very big gun on his right hip under the same tweed blazer that he was wearing the day he first came to my office. I thought about asking if that was his gun or was he just happy to see me, but I thought better of it and kept my mouth shut.
”I think I'll walk home,” I said.
”It's raining and”-he lifted his sleeve to look at his watch-”nine-thirty at night. I'm not letting you walk.”
”It's kind of like my new hobby,” I said. ”You know, no car and all.” I started down the hill in front of the restaurant, more than a little drunk and hoping to walk it off.
He caught up with me and grabbed my arm gently. ”You're not walking.”
”Hey, this is Dobbs Ferry, not . . .” I searched my brain for the name of a bad neighborhood, but couldn't come up with one, ”. . . somewhere else. I'll be fine,” I insisted.
He looked at me for a long time and finally relented. ”All right. Thanks for dinner and answering my questions.” In a move that surprised me, he pulled my hood up over my head and pulled the zipper up to my neck. He held on to the collar of my raincoat for a split second longer than I would have expected. If I hadn't been almost drunk, I would have been able to discern what the look on his face meant. In my addled state, it looked like he was going to give me a noogie.
”No, thank you” I said. ”This was much better than what I had planned to do to myself tonight.” I mentally smacked myself in the head. Stupid. Sounded like I was going to eat and m.a.s.t.u.r.b.a.t.e or something equally idiotic.
His car, a brown, police-issue Crown Victoria, was parked perpendicular to the curb a storefront down from the restaurant. He opened the door and put one leg in. ”Thanks, again.”
”s.e.xy car,” I remarked to myself as I waved and continued down the hill. I heard the car start and go into reverse. I turned around to wave again and saw that he had put the removable flas.h.i.+ng light on top of the car. The ground in front me turned yellow, then red, as the flasher on top of the car started revolving. He put the car in drive and followed me slowly down the hill. We continued like this for about two-tenths of a mile before he rolled down the pa.s.senger-side window. ”Do you want to get in now?”
”Nope. Thanks, though!” I called and plodded, in my decidedly uns.e.xy, rubber-soled clogs, down the street toward my block. I turned into my street and realized that I had another quarter mile of this humiliation and now, in front of the prying eyes of all of my neighbors. I stopped, and he pulled up alongside me, opening the pa.s.senger-side door. I got in. He reached across me, but instead of acting out my fantasy and kissing me like I had never been kissed, he pulled the seat belt out of the holder and strapped me in.
”Thanks,” he said.
”Are you always this controlling?” I asked.
”Are you always this stubborn?” He drove to my house and pulled up in front.
”You have my card, right?” he asked. ”In case you remember anything else?” he asked pointedly, referring to what was now known as the ”Peter Miceli incident” in my mind.
I nodded. ”What should I be thinking about?”
”Anything. Where you were when your car was taken, who you saw, anything about Kathy . . . anything.”
”Got it.”
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