Death of a Chorus Girl (The Delacroix Series Book 1) (4 page)

“Know what?!”

Sabene sits up, wiping the tears from her eyes, panting for breath, and holding her sides.  “Em, that’s the cop I went out with a few years back.  The blind date Teddy set me up on.”  Teddy is Sabene’s coroner friend.  In fact, now that I think about it, she was at the scene today.  We don’t know each other well and I doubt she recognized me.  It has been probably six months since I last saw her.  By the time I arrived at the bar to meet Sabene, they were three sheets to the wind and all over a couple of guys.  I only remember Teddy’s name from some of Sabene’s stories.

“The random guy you gave my number to who never called?” I ask, slack-jawed.  Surely, the world isn’t that small!

“The
exact
same one,” Sabene confirms.  “And he wasn’t a random guy.  He was a cop and came highly recommended.”  I shake my head.  There is a large Italian population in New York.  There has to be another Richard Giordano.  “Dark hair?  Striking blue eyes?  Tall as a tree and fit as a fiddle?”  Everything matches except for tall as a tree.  He’s tall, but I wouldn’t call it exceptionally so.  Although, anyone over 5’6” is tall to Sabene.  “You still don’t seem convinced.  I’ll prove it to you.”

With that, she whips out her phone.  There is no time to protest before she has it is up to her ear with a finger in my face that tells me to shush.  “Teddy? ... Yeah, this is Sabene. Hey girl, I don’t mean to interrupt your evening but I got a quick couple of questions for you … You still friends with that cop you set me up with a few years back? ... Is he a detective now? ... Wasn’t his name Richard Giordano? ... By any chance did he meet a choreographer today? ... That was Em. The phone number I gave him. … Seriously, same one!  Can you tell me what he thought of her? ... Excellent! … How you handle him is up to you, but I’ve already told her. … Hey, thanks.  Enjoy your evening. … We need to get together, and it sounds like soon!”

“You aren’t kidding!” falls out of my mouth when Sabene hangs up the phone. I was so upset two years ago when she told me not to give him a hard time when he called, then so grateful when he hadn’t.  She even tried to get me to call him, having retrieved his number from Teddy.  I never did.

Given the instant attraction I felt today, what could the last two years have been like?  My heart fluttered when I got that lone smile from him.  It started racing when he brushed the lock of hair from my face.  But it stopped when I was trying to hand him my card and he parted and wet his lips.  And that was it.  I am full on infatuated with this complete stranger who makes me feel like I’ve known him all my life.  Once this case is over, Detective Richard Giordano is definitely someone I need to get to know better.

Richard Giordano: Haven

Frisco is going to kill me.  I am twenty minutes late.  Some helpful tidbits that will potentially lead us to Annie’s lover manifested this afternoon.

“I found a carpet fiber in the heel of the dead girl’s Jimmy Choo’s,” one of the female lab rats told me when I joined Steve in evidence.

“Okay,” I expelled slowly.  “What the hell is a Jimmy Choo?”

“It’s a designer shoe.”  Her tone added the silent “you moron” to the end.

“And that’s important because?”

“Because between her Jimmy Choo shoes and Michael Kors handbag, this girl had expensive tastes but we didn’t find a phone.”

“Did you look in the expensive handbag?” I questioned, making sure to cover all the bases.

The female lab rat rolled her eyes.  “Well, gosh, detective!  That never occurred to me.”

Steve chuckled under his breath.  “Easy there,” he said, “this is just how Dick is.  It’s nothing personal.”

The lab rat settled down,
some
.  “As I was saying, the girl’s phone is missing.  It wasn’t among her belongings at the theater.  It
wasn’t
in her handbag and the crime scene unit just confirmed that it isn’t at her apartment.”  That was confounding.  Everyone has a phone nowadays.  “And, yes sir, we’ve already put a trace on it based on the number Detective Beauregard got from the witnesses.  It doesn’t appear to be on right now, but we’ll keep looking.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it under control,” I said to her.  “Let me know if anything new turns up.

Steve and I left and walked down the hallway to our desks.  “What did you get out of the witnesses?” I asked.

“She definitely had a phone,” he answered, “according to the rest of the cast.”

I sniffed with contempt.  “
I got that, Steve.  Any persons of interest?”

“Hey, captain celibate.  Don’t take your lack of a sex life out on me because the first woman you choose to be interested in is untouchable at the moment.”

“Persons of interest?” I growled.

“Fine!  Yes, there seems to have been a boyfriend that
no one
met.”  Steve tensed at that admission and a dark shadow crossed his eyes.  “She apparently talked about him all the time but never shared his name or profession with anyone.  So far, no one saw them together either.  A couple of the girls stated that Annie always met him at his place.”

“Sounds like one hell of a guy,” I retorted to which Steve stiffened.  “My money is on him for at least the lover.  When is DNA coming through?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered.  “We’re putting a rush on it since it’s high profile.  You don’t think the killer and lover is the same person?”

“I have my doubts.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know for sure,” I admitted.  I am what they call a gut detective.  I get feelings that tend to be right, but I still have to collect appropriate evidence to prove them.  “Frisco said asphyxiation is the official cause of death, but Annie also took a beating from the rig.  It’ll be hard to separate defensive bruising from the trauma of the crash.  Rats able to pull anything off the lighting rig?”

“Nothing other than blood and hair.  That’s going to take a while to sort through.”

The light changes at the crosswalk and the swarm bustles around me.  I shake off the memories of the case and send Frisco a text apologizing for my tardiness.  I include an offer to pick up a drink for her from the bar.

While I wait for the bartender, I find Frisco in the balcony.  She waves down at me.  There’s a knowing smile on her face.  One that tells me she knows the torment Steve and the guys gave me all day.  The work hyenas had descended on me as if I was a fresh carcass when word got out that I was ensnared by a skirt.  Today was my version of hell and I don’t even have the skirt at home waiting for me.

I open a tab after the bartender delivers my drinks before making my way upstairs, Em firmly residing in the back of my mind.  Frisco takes her drink when I get to the table. “Rough day there, Rich?”

“You know damn well it was,” I snarl as I sit.  She clinks our glasses together before I can bring mine to my lips.  I intend to sip my bourbon but end up throwing it back.  Maybe I can drown Em’s specter from my mind.  The second my empty glass hits the table I signal for another.  Frisco’s wide-eyed bewilderment amuses me, and I chuckle in response.  “And tomorrow is going to be the same, I wager.  Frisco, how did I, of all people, get tangled up in a skirt?”

She stretches her arm across the table to set her hand on mine.  The mockery is gone.  “That’s why we’re here.  I’m here to be your friend.”  I know she means it and, therefore, feel bad for lashing out at her.  The waiter sets down my drink, but I don’t immediately pick it up.  I do fidget with it, though.  “She’s a beautiful woman.  Even I can admit that.”

She’s breathtaking.
  “I’ve run across beautiful women before,” I reply, hoping she won’t notice the lie with my eyes glued to the glass.

“She’s special,” Frisco offers.  I shrug my shoulders.  All I really know about this woman is that my heart responds like a jackhammer at the mere mention of her name.  Steve taunted me with it all afternoon.  “She didn’t fall for any of Steve’s phony lines.  He told me as much.”  Now that makes me smile.  I definitely respect Em for this trait.  Plus, it seems she also isn’t wrapped up in that Worthy guy either.

I dare to look into Frisco’s eyes to confess my fear.  “Yeah, well, that doesn’t mean I’m her type,” I admit.  “This whole thing will implode if it turns out that I let some ritzy girl knot me up by only to learn that she wants nothing to do with me.”

“Rich Giordano, I ought to slap you right now for being an idiot.”  Frisco will do it too.  “Granted, I wasn’t there to witness the exchange but many of our co-workers agree that she seemed as into you as you are into her.  Did she or did she not ask if she could contact you about matters
outside
of the case?”  Em had, but Frisco already knows that.  She folds her arms over her chest and glares at me.

“Yeah,” I finally confirm.

Frisco shakes her head in frustration as if I am a puzzle she can’t solve.  It’s not quite the boost I am hoping for.  If Frisco can’t figure me out, who can?

“How is it that an attractive man like you lacks confidence when it comes to the fairer sex?”  Her tone is sheer amazement, and not the good kind.  “I know you have it. I’ve seen it in every other area of your life.  At work, with your family, you’re this self-assured guy.  Yet, even mention dating a woman and you regress into this anxious prepubescent.”

“She works in the theater.  I can’t afford the theater.  She probably likes art and the symphony.  I doubt I could spell symphony.”  Frisco sniffs at me contemptuously.  “She probably wears designer.  I wear sales rack.  I live in Brooklyn.  The number on her card tells me that she’s a Manhattanite.  She’s out of my league, Frisco.  Even if she’s interested now, it won’t last.”  It hasn’t before.

Her brow furrows.  “Is that all that’s stopping you?” 
All?  Isn’t that enough?
  “Since when did you become such a coward, Rich?  You’ve been spending too much time with Steve.”

Her ringing phone saves me.  I down my drink and signal for another while Frisco fishes her phone out of her purse.  She touches the screen after squinting at the number then twists away from me in her seat and puts the phone to her ear.  “Hello? … Yeah. … Hey, I’m actually in the middle of something right now. … Sure, just make them quick. … Yeah. … How’d you know?” I get a little nervous when she sounds hesitant and starts speaking slower.  Anything that worries Frisco, worries me.  “
Yeah, how’d you know?! …
You’re shitting me!”  Okay, that is a switch.  She isn’t wary anymore.  She peeks over her shoulder at me with a shit-eating grin on her face and finishes the conversation that way.  “I believe the term he used was intriguing. … This is crazy! … Oh, I definitely will now. … Absolutely, bye.”

The glint in Frisco’s eyes tells me I was the subject of her unexpected call.  “What was that about?” I ask before sipping my refill.

“I’m not sure I want to tell you.”  The sympathy from before has disappeared.  “You know you’re probably right.  Em probably is out of your league.”

Excuse me?
  It is one thing for me to be self-deprecating.  It is something else altogether for Frisco to dog pile on my pity party.  I sit up and square my shoulders ready to set her straight.

“Besides, you’ve already made one colossal blunder with her,” Frisco continues with no concern about my feelings.  “It’d be too risky for you to make another.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I charge. The breach in protocol was Em’s idea, not mine. 
She didn’t ask me to shut off the camera and microphone or close the blinds, though
.

“You never called her,” Frisco accuses evenly.

“I just got her number this morning,” I explain.  “Surely you didn’t expect me to have already called her.  Frisco, I don’t have any follow-up questions.  All the evidence is still coming in.  It’s not like I can ask her out right now anyway.  She’s a key witness in my case and hasn’t been completely ruled out as a suspect.”  Why is Frisco giving me such a hard time about this?

She swings her head back and forth with a “tsk, tsk, tsk.”  “No, Rich.  You’re about two years too late in calling her.”  Okay, now I’m lost.  I know I drank more tonight than normal, but there is no way I can be two years too late in calling someone I… just… met. 
Shit!
  “Ah, you remember now.  I didn’t recognize her at all.  The couple of times I’ve met her before, I was pretty wasted.”  Em couldn’t be!  My jaw must have dropped because Frisco reaches a hand out to close it.

“Who called?”  I ask even though I already know the answer.  I say those three little letters in my head as Frisco voices them aloud.

“My EMT friend, Sabene.  The one you went out with.”

Of course it was!  Until that afternoon, I haven’t thought about Sabene in years.  I drop my head into my hands and try to massage away the tension headache building behind my eyes.  “I’m a fool,” I mumble under my breath.

“Easy there.  Don’t be so hard on yourself.”  Frisco moves to stand beside me and puts an arm around my shoulders.

“She know?”

“Yeah, Sabene said she already told Em.  I think the call was proof of the truth.”  Well, my chances with Em hadn’t been great before.  Now they are zilch.  “How about we close out your tab and I drive you home?”

“Yeah, that is probably a good idea,” I agree.