Chicken Soup & Homicide (19 page)

Carla let out a cry that was pure anguish. "I told you to stay away from me before your career was ruined." She pointed toward the door. "Leave now, before you get into more trouble."

Shepler sucked in a deep breath that made his muscled chest expand under his black long-sleeved T-shirt. "One, I can't get into much more trouble than I'm already in. Two, I got in trouble for punching holes in Pitts's flimsy case, not for being around you. As a detective, I can't sit back and watch him persecute innocent people, no matter who they are."

Bravo! Nice speech, and it tied in perfectly with hers. How could Carla not see their point?

He and Carla stared at each other as tears ran down her cheeks. Neither one moved. It looked like Carla was teetering on the edge. Did she finally believe she wasn't hurting Shepler's career? He held out his hand. Carla inched closer on the padded bench.

Amy stood. Time to make an exit courtesy of an imaginary load of laundry. "I need to go put some clothes in the dryer."

Neither one of them seemed to have heard her comment. She looked over her shoulder as she walked out of the kitchen. Carla was already sitting beside Shepler, her head resting on his shoulder as he traced his finger along her cheek. Step one in the reconciliation project was complete. Amy turned to leave the couple alone, but a car slowly passing by the house caught her attention out the window. Pitts was certainly stubborn about sticking to his whacked-out murder theories.

Twenty minutes later, Amy stood by the door and watched Carla back her car out of the driveway. The sneaky make-up meeting had turned into an earnest discussion that morphed into a steamy make-out session. She and Bruce had decided to relocate to Carla's loft after some heavy duty heart-to-heart revelations. They had talked so long that Amy ended up actually putting a load of clothes in the washer. Once the red Juke was out of sight, she did an awkward victory dance that was more arm-flailing and waddling than actual dance. She returned to the laundry room and began chucking damp clothes into the dryer. The doorbell chimed. Had the newly re-formed couple forgotten something? Or maybe they wanted some baked goods to fuel them through the reconciliation process. Her banana bread
had
played a part in getting them together.

She pinned a mental note to her brain—not to forget to finish loading the clothes dryer—and hoped it would stick. Forgetting about the laundry was something she was very good at, especially when she had a million other things to think about. Amy walked into the kitchen and froze. The chances of remembering the wet laundry decreased by about a million. Detective Pitts was standing on the other side of the kitchen door.

"Hello. What an unpleasant surprise," she said as she opened the door.

He smirked as he stomped his feet on the rug. "Always a pleasure to see you too. Now that your visitors are gone, I thought you and I could chat."

Said the Big Bad Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood.
Pitts stood in the middle of the kitchen, eying the clear glass jar on the island that was full of fresh peanut butter cookies. Would a bit of sugar sweeten him up?

Without saying anything, Amy placed a cookie on a small dessert plate and offered it to him. She didn't ask him to sit down. He didn't need to make himself comfortable. It didn't matter. He took the plate and hopped onto a stool at the island. So much for shooing him out in record time. Maybe plunging into the conversation he was intent on having would be easier than trying to get him to leave by being inhospitable. Kind of like ripping a Band-Aid off. Faster was better. "So what can I help you with, besides a snack, Detective Pitts? Are you feeling better? I saw you swoon on the morning news the other day."

She instinctively crossed her arms over her stomach when he smiled. The expression belonged on the pages of a comic book, drawn on the face of a crazed villain.

Pitts narrowed his eyes. "I'm fine. Just had some bad sweet-and-sour chicken or something. I saw your buddies were here. I bet you three were busy cooking up new alibis since I have a witness that saw Carla backstage at the expo right about the time Britton was stabbed in the heart."

"An innocent person doesn't need to make excuses for something they didn't do." No way would she tell Pitts that Carla and Shepler were actually repairing the relationship he had so rudely ripped apart with his wild accusations. There was no sense in adding more wood to the witch-hunt bonfire. "We're all friends and were just enjoying brunch together."

He ate half the cookie in one bite. She hoped he choked on it, because she wasn't offering him a mug of coffee or glass of milk. He'd just need to deal with the consequences of being a pig. He swallowed and tapped his finger on his chin. "You know…I have a new idea. I was wrong about why you wanted Britton dead. Maybe you didn't want to just win the soup contest. I think
you
were having an affair with the chef. Your husband is never around, and you got lonely. When the affair went south, you needed a way out so your rich hubby wouldn't find out about it. You have a big house and a new car…what a shame if you were to lose it all because of an arrogant asshole like Britton. So your friend decided to help you out and do a bit of heart surgery on your lover."

Amy willed herself to stay still. Every muscle in her body itched to twitch like she was being electrocuted. In a way, she was being zapped with Pitts's accusation. He had been watching her. A lot. He knew that Alex wasn't home often. She stared at him, knowing the tactic coming from all five foot two inches of her wasn't intimidating in the least. All he did was raise his eyebrows in a silent taunt.

"That's not what happened, and you know it." She tapped her finger on her chin to mimic him. "I have an idea too. Why don't you stop coming up with crazy theories to try to get innocent people to confess to something they didn't do? It's called extortion, and it's a very slippery slope for a police officer to be treading on. Here's another idea: look into Britton's life and figure out who he was really having an affair with. I guarantee it wasn't me or Carla."

"Britton changed girlfriends more than most men change underwear."

Gross. She took a step backward in case he was using his own hygiene to base his comparison on. "So don't spurned lovers often commit murders? Aren't stabbings often a crime of passion? Why don't you stop following innocent people around like a lost puppy and actually be a detective? Figure out who had a real reason to kill him."

He stared at her. Now that was an intimidating look. He stood, keeping her fixed in his hostile gaze for a few nerve-rattling seconds. Without saying a word, he stalked to the door and left. She watched him scurry down the driveway, his feet skittering over the fresh coating of snow. When he made it to the street, he held on to the back bumper of his car and puked on the street. Then he got in his car and roared away. Pitts was ramping up his campaign of terror, and now she was squarely in his sites. Amy snatched up the plate with the remaining half of the cookie and tossed everything in the trash. Even the plate was tainted by evil. Or maybe a flu virus. Either way, she didn't want to use it again.

* * *

Amy pried one eye open. A patch of blinding sunlight reflected off of the white closet door. When was the last time she slept in? Being accused of having an affair along with masterminding a murder didn't lead to a restful night. Pogo had even abandoned his comfy memory foam doggy bed in the corner of the bedroom. All of her tossing, turning, and sighing had driven him out around 2:00 a.m. At least her wiggliness didn't bother Alex, since he wasn't in bed at that time.

Spending the day burrowed under the sheets, napping and reading, sounded like the perfect antidote for being accused and mentally abused by a masochistic detective with a finicky stomach. She rolled onto her back and gasped when her arm brushed against something warm and hairy. Alex's arm.

"Good morning," he said as he propped himself up on his elbow.

"Um…good morning. Am I dreaming?" She poked him in the ribs as she sat up to look at the clock on his nightstand. It was 9:35 a.m. "You feel real. I can't believe you're actually here this late."

He flopped onto his back. "Go ahead. Take a few more jabs at me. I deserve them for being a jerk lately. I have a lot of things to explain."

She forced out the breath she had been holding in. Did she really want to know those things, especially if one was an affair? She needed to buy some time to prepare herself. "How about I make breakfast, and we can talk?"

"Sounds good."

Twenty minutes later they were seated at the table across from each other. Banana pancakes were piled on the plates in front of them. Golden maple syrup dribbled down the stacks and pooled around the edge of the bottom pancakes. Amy concentrated on not mimicking the syrup by melting into an anxious puddle on the floor. Fear over what Alex would say tempered her excitement over actually having him home.

The blade of Alex's butter knife clinked on the plate as he cut his pancakes. "I finally hired someone at work. I'm still training him, but soon I won't have to work nearly as much as I have been."

She looked up at him. "One person is going to make a difference? You've been working enough for four people."

He nodded. "You're right. My lead project manager quit right after Christmas. He left behind a ton of unfinished projects that I needed to take on to make sure our customers got what they paid for. I finally found someone qualified to step into the job, but I've heard from a couple customers that the former manager is trying to steal them away. I guess he's started his own company."

"That's horrible." Not only had he not been paying attention to her, he hadn't told her exactly what was going on with his work. So he had been hiding something. Was there anything else? "Why didn't you tell me about this before?"

"Because I didn't want you to worry. Because there's nothing you could do to make the situation better. I didn't want you to be stressed out too."

"You don't think wondering if you were having an affair wasn't stressful?"

"An affair?" He wiped his hand over his face. The whiskers that had grown overnight made a scratching sound against his palm. "Did you really think I was having one?"

"I hoped you weren't, but all of the trips out of town, the nights spent at the office. It isn't hard to imagine that you could be with another woman while telling me you're spending time at work. You never told me exactly what you were doing and why. So what was I supposed to think?"

"I see your point. I have a lot to make up to you. I'm sorry."

He reached across the table for her hand, but she pulled it away. She just nodded as hot tears ran down her cheeks. "And you have no idea how terrifying it is to have a sadistic cop harassing you."

"What? Tell me what's going on."

The whole messed-up story of Pitts accusing her of masterminding the murder because she wanted to win the showdown, or get rid of her fake lover, came out between sobs and hiccups. Alex scooted around the U-shaped bench until he was right beside her. She let him hold her as all of the emotions she had been holding in over the past weeks came pouring out.

"It'll be okay," he whispered in her ear as he stroked her hair. "I'm not going to let him mess with you anymore. If he approaches you again, call me. I'll set him straight. This has to end."

"I have a feeling this nightmare will be over soon, but I'm afraid of how it will end."

The scent of melted mozzarella and roasted tomatoes made Carla's stomach growl as she slid onto the vinyl bench across from Bruce. They had talked so much their voices were raspy. It had been an intense day and a half since Amy played sneaky matchmaker. They were both tender from the flood of emotions that poured out as they alternated between talking and making love. Hunger finally drove them out of Carla's loft to find dinner at DiCenzo's Pizzeria because there wasn't anything edible in her kitchen. Watching her life fall apart hadn't left much time for grocery shopping lately. They could've gone to someplace a little nicer that didn't have booths patched with electrical tape, but the low-key atmosphere fit their mood. The day had been about casually easing back into the relationship.

The waitress brought paper plates and silverware bundles wrapped in disposable napkins. As Carla slid a set of utensils toward Bruce, she said, "I still think there's a good chance that being with me will permanently damage your career. Why would you do that?"

Bruce tapped his straw on the red Formica table to free it from the clear plastic wrapper. He tossed the straw into the glass of Coke like a javelin. "When you love someone, you'll do anything to protect them, even when there are risks. It was my choice to take on Pitts. Not only because you are my girlfriend but because he's also doing shoddy police work. That reflects badly on our whole department." He grinned at her. "So, you see, I'm actually protecting my career."

"I have a saying for you—how about if you love something, set it free?"

He raised one eyebrow as he unwrapped his silverware. "I've heard that one before. But I think you're supposed to be happy when it comes back, not chase it away again with a club."

She wadded up a straw wrapper and tossed it at him. She hated it when people used logic on her when she was being illogical. "I have not used a club on you. Yet. If this gets any worse with Pitts, you need to get as far away from me as possible. I don't want to see you have to make a career change just because I have bad taste in men."

"Hey, I'm not a bad choice!" He did a muscle-man pose that made his biceps bulge under his shirt sleeves. "I've always been told I'm quite a catch."

"No, you're not the mistake. But Chet was, and now Pitts has latched onto the connection like a lifeboat."

The waitress brought the pizza, balancing the steaming hot pie on a metal pedestal. She set it in the middle of the table and slid a serving spatula underneath a piece. "Enjoy! Let me know if you need anything."

"Okay." Carla was too hungry to worry about taking turns with the spatula. She slid a slice off the all-veggie side onto her plate, then blew on her tingling fingers. "Thank you."