Unscrewed (6 page)

“That is to say, I think it’s important that you examine your true feelings for your wife before you make any firm decisions.”

He twitched and glared. The clock ticked. He twitched again.

“Perhaps returning to her will make your life a living Utopia—or perhaps it will only further degrade your self-esteem.”

He said nothing. I carefully abstained from jumping to my feet and roaring at him. The woman had cheated on him…while wearing his pajamas…with the
meat
guy.

“Hence, you must determine what you truly miss, then decide if the pleasure of her company, or the return to your former life, is worth your efforts.”

He bounced his knees up half an inch and shot his gaze toward the window. I waited to the count of five.

“Tell me, Mr. Lepinski, how does your wife make you feel when you—”

“What about sex?” he croaked.

I paused. “Pardon me?”

“Is it worth degrading my self-esteem for sex?”

“Uhhh—”

“I mean…” His face was as pale as a full moon. People get damn freaky during full moons. “It’s not like we did it all the time or anything.”

“You and Sheila.”

“Not much more than four times a week.”

I felt my proverbial jaw hit my proverbial knees. “Four—”

“But it was better than nothing.” He was whispering now, a secret. “Don’t you think?”

“Four times—”

“She wasn’t very nice sometimes.” He paused, agonized. “Called me a weenie little sliver of a man and…”

Four times a week? I hadn’t had sex four times in the past…Holy shit, I wasn’t sure I’d had sex four times.

“…a waste of oxygen,” he said.

I clicked my mind into gear. “Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, people sometimes say things they don’t mean when—”

“A germ turd.”

All right. All evidence suggested that the woman was a first-rate bitch, but I had to give her top scores for imaginative insults. “When people fight they often—”

“We didn’t fight.” His brows were beetled over his magnified eyes and his voice sounded musty. “Or talk.”

I cleared my throat. “Just, ummm…just the sex, then?”

He nodded dejectedly. “Pretty much.” He glanced up, straightening abruptly. “But even that’s better than nothing, isn’t it?”

“Well, that would be…” My mouth felt a little dry. I reminded myself not to squirm in my chair. Squirming was for oversexed teenagers who played the tuba and couldn’t get a date for the prom. I’d been a hell of a tuba player. “That would be for you to decide.”

“Life is short, you know, but…” He seemed to be searching his soul. It looked painful. “I suppose there should be more. Maybe I could find someone who didn’t call me names and would still be willing to sleep with me.”

Four times…a week. “I’ve heard it’s been done.” My own voice sounded kind of scratchy.

“Yeah,” he said, then stronger, “Yeah. Hey.” He glanced up, giving me a hard look from behind his Coke-bottle glasses. “You busy Saturday night?”

7

T
HE NEW CHRISSY felt a lot like the old Chrissy by the time she got home. Tired, beaten, and kind of mucky.

I’d been tempted to stop at McDonald’s for some deep-fried fat, but had, in honor of the new me, gone to the supermarket instead. By eight o’clock I was trudging up the sidewalk with a bagful of organic vegetables and free-range chicken. The new Chrissy was going to learn to cook nutritious, low-fat meals. In fact, it might be fun. Just Harlequin and me, laughing in the kitchen, experimenting with avant-garde recipes, eating off the same spoon.

I fumbled around the grocery bag, shoved my key in the lock, and proceeded inside. The new Chrissy had a decent security system, ’cuz people kept trying to kill the old Chrissy. You’d be surprised how motivating death threats can be, even when you can’t afford the Sunday paper. I punched in my code, turned…and issued a soundless scream.

Rivera stood not three feet away.

My stomach dropped to floor level. He remained absolutely still. His eyes were dark and brooding. Hell, his hands were dark and brooding.

“It’s Monday,” I warbled. It’s strange what you’ll say when your stomach is lodged somewhere in your right ankle.

He leaned a shoulder against the wall of my vestibule and stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“You work late on Mondays,” I said, trying to reestablish my intellect.

“You must have known I was here.”

“What?” My mind was chanting,
“It’s just Rivera, just Rivera, he’s a cop.”
But my memory kept projecting a dead girl with staring eyes. The grocery bag jiggled a little in my hands.

“Jesus, McMullen.” He pushed away from the wall, looking tense and angry. “How many damned death threats do you need to get before you start taking precautions? My Jeep’s parked across the street. You must have noticed it.”

“It was dark.” And I’d been thinking about the sauce Chin Yung’s puts in their hun sui gai. It tasted like liquid ambrosia. I kind of doubted if even the new Chrissy was capable of concocting liquid ambrosia.

“What about the dog?” he asked.

Harlequin, I noticed, was circling him rather madly, hind end wiggling like an earthworm.

“Dog?” I repeated, thinking it sounded better than
“What?”

“Doesn’t he usually greet you at the door?”

“Not always. Sometimes he’s—” I paused, gave myself a mental smack, and launched a belated attack. “What the hell are you doing in my house?” My tone was justifiably angry, but my skin still felt a little creepy. The last time I’d unexpectedly discovered a man in my living room there’d been a lot of screaming, a good deal of scrambling, and a bit of blood. I was hoping to avoid all three in this instance.

He titled his head, watching. “You scared of me?” he asked, and took a step closer.

I resisted backing up. Backing up wouldn’t help. A .45 might be handy, though. “How’d you get in?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

I raised my chin like a flyweight ready to take it on the chin…well, maybe a lightweight. “No, I’m not scared of you. I’m—”

He scoffed at me, tossing back his head a little, cocky as hell.

“Okay, I’m scared,” I snapped. Pushing him aside, I stomped through to the kitchen. If he was going to kill me at least I was going to get one last meal. In which case I should have bought fudge and a couple dozen cartons of cigarettes. “Why wouldn’t I be scared?” I plopped the groceries on the counter and glared. “We were supposed to be on a damned date. A date.” I may have snarled at him as I slapped the celery onto the yellowed Formica. “You get a call. Say it’s your father. Fine, I say.” Broccoli joined the celery. “Fine. All understanding. All trusting. So you march off. And voilà!” I made a poofing motion with a bunch of green-topped carrots. “Two hours later a woman’s dead and you’re lying on the floor with some guy’s knees—”

“Sounds more like pissed.”

My lips moved. No sound came out. The carrots drooped between us. “What?”

“You sound more pissed than scared,” he explained. Reaching into the bag, he pulled out the chicken and glanced at the label. “Jesus. Free-range organic? What the hell does that mean?”

I tried to snatch the package from his hand. He tightened his grip. “They’re humanely treated.”

“They’re chickens.”

“Humanely treated chickens.”

“Christ! Seven forty-nine a pound. That’s not chicken that’s a fucking felony.”

I made another grab at the meat, came away the victor, and slapped it on the counter.

We faced off. He crossed his arms. He was wearing a ribbed charcoal V-neck sweater. It was stretched smooth over his shoulders, pulled away from his wrists, and laid loose where his belly should be. Rivera’s too ornery to have a belly.

“Go ahead and ask,” he said, voice low.

I stared at him, mind spinning, eyes almost tearing up at the sight of him. Maybe the old Chrissy had kind of liked him. Had kind of hoped he was the one. The new Chrissy turned and set the carrots primly beside the other veggies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I wasn’t sleeping with her.”

I resisted turning toward him. Resisted…everything. Silence echoed around us, lonely and cold.

“Not anymore,” he said.

I turned. Resistance was futile. “Not anymore?”

“No.”

“Since when?”

A tic jumped in his jaw. “It’s a long story.”

I stared at him, fighting hard, then turned and pulled a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil from the bag. The sight of it didn’t exactly make me want to burst into song, but I couldn’t help remembering the tune Rivera’s phone had played. The memory didn’t do a lot of good things for my mood. “I bet it is.”

“Don’t get so pissy,” he said, and grabbed my arm.

For a second I actually considered braining him with the oil bottle. It was glass. The new Chrissy was determined to avoid contact with polycarbonates.
“Pissy?”
My voice sounded a little like Satan’s. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. I just—”

“Your father! You said you were going to see your father. She didn’t look like your father, Rivera.”

“I didn’t say I was going to see
him.
I just said there was trouble with him.”

I jerked my arm from his grasp, yanked open the refrigerator, and shoved the olive oil inside.

“Jesus, McMullen, what the hell’s wrong with you? A woman’s dead. And you’re worried about semantics.”

I closed my eyes. The air from the refrigerator felt good. I considered crawling in. There was plenty of room. Beside the olive oil sat a can of coagulating sweetened condensed milk and some green cheese. “Were you in love with her?”

“Listen—”

“Were you in love with her?” I turned slowly in the open doorway.

He glanced toward the window. The muscle worked in his jaw again. “Not anymore. Maybe never.”

I drew a careful breath, thoughts jumping like sautéed shrimp. “How’d she die?”

Emotion flashed across his face. Anger, frustration, things I couldn’t identify. “You think I killed her?”

My stomach felt crappy. Which sucked, ’cuz if this was going to be my last meal, I wanted like hell to enjoy it.

His eyes narrowed from dangerous to deadly. But I wasn’t feeling so jolly myself anymore. “You think I’m capable of that?” His voice matched his expression.

Silence again, heavy as death. I pursed my lips and reached into the grocery bag. “In my line of work, you learn pretty early that people are capable of a great deal, Rivera. The complexities of personalities are so vast and—”

“God damn it!” He slammed his palm against my counter.

Harlequin and I jumped in unison. Rivera moved in close. I could feel his breath on my face, crowding me into the fridge. “Fuck your cock-assed psychobabble. Do you think I killed her or not?”

Fear stung like an icicle in my soul. Maybe he had murdered her. Maybe he was insane. Maybe I’d be a moron to risk upsetting him further. If I had a brain in my head I would soothe him, calm him. Lie to him. “I don’t know,” I said.

He stared at me for half an eternity, and then he nodded, moved away, looked out the window above the sink.

I stepped out of the refrigeration, legs a little squiggly.

“She said she needed to talk.”

So I’d been right, but somehow that knowledge didn’t make me feel a whole lot better. “That was her personalized ring tone.”

“Madonna was her favorite. Sali…she liked to make people think she was born with a silver spoon. Made everything look easy. But she scraped for everything she got. Maybe she related to Madonna.” He shrugged, grinned crookedly. “She was a wizard with technology. Got the song off the Internet. Somehow programmed it into my phone. Laughed when I couldn’t figure out how to change it back.” He shifted his gaze, his expression, looked at me, eyes dark as sin. “She sounded scared when she called. She didn’t scare easy.”

He seemed fairly rational for a nutcase. I chanced a question. Could be I’m the nutcase. “What was she doing there?”

“At Dad’s house? Funny story,” he said, but his tone suggested that it might not really be hilarious. “She lived with him.” He drew a breath, carefully, as if to keep things from boiling past the lid, from seeping out of control. “For the past few months.”

“You never told me.” Childish. Childish response. The new Chrissy was ashamed and reached for the carrots to cover her feelings.

“I always thought he was just seeing her to fuck with me. Get under my skin. Then Mama calls.” His voice had dropped half an octave. “Says he plans to marry her.” He huffed a laugh. “Marriage! And she’s, what? Half his fuckin’ age.”

“And that disturbed you.”

“Disturbed me?” He leaned in, tilted on the edge of anger. “Christ. You’re a piece of work, McMullen. Sometimes I don’t know who’d like to see me fry more…you or Graystone.”

Oh, yeah, he was mad. But I wasn’t so tickled, either. I stowed the carrots in the fridge. “Would now be the time to tell you that love is ageless? Like granite and…” I gave my hand a cleverly flippant twist. “…diamonds.”

Rage warred with something else in his eyes. It might have been humor. Then again, I thought, it might have been insanity. “I think I’m beginning to understand why Hawkins wanted to kill you,” he said.

The hair lifted on the back of my neck. Doctor David Hawkins had been one of L.A.’s premier psychiatrists, and my mentor. There had been a time not so long ago when I’d thought he was the cat’s pajamas. That was before he tried to kill me in my own kitchen with a butcher knife. “Professional jealousy?” I suggested, and pulled a bottle of stevia from the bag.

Rivera snorted and turned away.

“How long did you date?” I asked.

“Salina and me?” He ran his fist along the countertop. Thinking back. “A year or so. She worked on the senator’s first campaign. God, she was young. Not long out of high school. I thought I had seen it all by then. Nineteen, just applied to the police academy.” He stopped, glanced at me, drew a heavy breath. “She looked so fragile. I should have known better. Even then. But she was so damned pretty. Not dumb pretty. Smart. Savvy. Not taken in by his crap. God, I loved that about her.”

“Whose crap?”

His eyes took me apart, analyzed me. No need for the Rorschach test.

“You probably think he’s a saint,” he said.

“I
am
Catholic,” I agreed. It would have been nice to pinpoint his mood, to know exactly which way the wind was blowing, but so far I was feeling buffeted from every direction.

“And
he’s
an asshole,” he said.

I didn’t mention the fact that his old man also looked great in Armani. “Why do you resent him with such fervor?” I opened the cupboard and shoved the sweetener inside.

He shook his head. “Go do your therapeutic mumbo jumbo somewhere else, McMullen. I’m not in the mood.”

I watched him. “Okay. What makes your dad an asshole?”

“Murder.”

I felt my eyes pop, my heart stop. “You think he killed her?”

He didn’t answer. It was answer enough.

“Do you have proof?”

He laughed.

My mind was humming, dredging up shards of memories. “You said he was there. At the house.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.” Maybe. Or maybe my mind was muzzy from lack of sleep and junk-food deprivation.

He shrugged. The movement was stiff. “Could be I was imagining.”

“Imagining what?”

He stared at me for a lifetime, then spoke, voice low and hard. “On my way there I thought I saw…” He shook his head, closed his eyes for an instant. “Him.”

“Where?”

“Los Liones.”

“Alone?”

He glared.

He hadn’t been able to tell. A pet rock could deduce that much. “It was dark,” I said, reading his eyes.

The corner of his mouth jumped. “I realize that, McMullen.”

“He was inside a vehicle. Could you see what kind of car?”

He said nothing.

“You were on your way to his house, geared up for a confrontation. Maybe you—”

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” he gritted.

“Okay.” I rested my butt against the counter and stared at him, trying to look casual, but my nerves were cranked up tight. “What’s his motive?”

“You sound like a fuckin’ whodunnit.”

“Why would he want to kill her?”

Emotion crackled in his eyes. “The senator likes to call the shots.”

I blinked, trying to align my mental picture of Miguel Rivera with his son’s. They were miles apart, shifted at odd angles. I searched for a question. “What shots?”

“It wouldn’t have been the first time she threatened to leave him.”

“Is that what she said? On the phone? That she was leaving him?”

“She said she needed a change. That things were going to be different.”

“What did that mean?”

He shook his head. I could see the grating uncertainty in the way he held himself. It didn’t fit the image I had of him.

“You think she was leaving your dad for someone else?”