Stilettos & Scoundrels (30 page)

There was that Vegas connection again.
Interesting how it kept coming up.
So much for
‘
what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas
’.

“Maybe we can talk to his ex-wife. Do you know her?” Maybe this would give them some good inf
ormation. Not to mention I
was curious to know who on
e
arth would have ma
rried Bobby. He married after I moved to Chicago, and I
didn’t attend the wedding
, so I
had never met his now ex-wife.

“No,” Katy said. “She wasn’t from here and they didn’t live here for the brief period they were married. I’m not sure where she’s at now. Probably as far away as she can get.”

“Damn! Oh well, I’m sure it has nothing to do with Senator Daniels’ murder
,
but it would have been fun to get her thoughts on Bobby.”

Katy had to get back to work
, so we
made plans to be in contact later and
I
headed home.
My cell phone rang, knocking me out of my
driving trance. The
phone displayed my
parents’ number.
What have I done now?
I wondered, looking at my watch. Was I
late for something?
I tried f
rantically to recall if
I had made
any plans
with them;
I
was turning into a nervous wreck.

“Hello.”

“Pres. Where are you?”

This can’t be too bad if dad’s the one calling
. “I’m on my way home. I should be there in a few minutes. Why?”
I was a
nnoyed
that
they were checking up on
me
.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but when your mother and I got home
,
we found that
someone had thrown a rock through the window with a note attached,” he replied calmly, as if asking
me
to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home.

“What?” I
screamed, almost driving off the road. Annoyance quickly changed to fear.
I
almost wish
ed it was my
mom on the phone.
I
couldn’t believe he was being so calm about everything.

“Now,
s
weetheart, calm down. It’s no big deal.”

I could hear my
mother yelling at him in the background. “See
,
I told you! You should have waited for her to get home. Now she will speed and not pay attention to her driving. Do you want her to get in an accident?” She was not as calm about this whole thing as he was.

Dad ignored her and kept talking, “Everyone is fine
,
and I’ve called Derrick. He should be here in a few minutes.” He paused, “Actually, I see him pulling in the driveway now.”

“Did you see who did this? You said there was a note. What does it say?”
My
words tumbled out.

“Don’t worry about it, King. Concentrate on driving
,
and when you get here we can figure this all out.”

Concentrate on my driving after hearing this?
Was he freaking kidding me?
How can he be so calm about this?
I
thought, snapp
ing my
phone closed and
accelerating. While my
panic had subsided a little, I
was
still
really worried.

“C’mon, c’mon! Pick up!”
I
said
into
the phone. The voicemail kicked in.

“
Cooper,” I
said urgently. “Call me the minute you get this.
” My
next call was to Katy, who didn’t answer either. Wasn’t the point of cell phones to be reachable at all times? In the city, people kept their phone glued to their ear
s. I threw my
phone
onto
the passenger seat out of frustration. It rolled off the seat and onto the floor
, taking me
from frustrated to pissed
—at my
self. How stupid. Now if someone
tried to call, I
would have to stop to get the phone or risk reaching over to get it while drivin
g and swerving off the road. I gritted my
teeth to keep from screaming.
Deep breath in, and…exhale
. In with the good and out with the bad. That never wor
ked for me
in yoga class
, and it sure didn’t work for me
now.
It’s okay
, I told my
self.
I’ll be home in a minute.

The last few miles seemed to take forever. As
I
pulled in,
I
noticed Dirt’s county-issued Tahoe was already there
on my parents’ driveway
. Then
I saw a car following me
up the driveway. Who the hell drove a
red truck? Then it clicked. I was going to kill my
mother. The red truck belonged to Brian. She must have called him.
Arg!
Why? As if what hap
pened wasn’t bad enough, now I
had to deal with Brian. I wanted to bang my
head against the steering wheel in frustration.

I
jumped out of the car and jogged up to the porch where
I
saw
my
parents and Dirt waiting.

“So
,
who did this
,
Dirt?”
I
asked breathlessly.
I
needed to start getting some exercise. Whew!
I
was winded just from running a few steps.
I
thought if
I
didn’t wait for Brian to get out of his truck, he might get the hint. No such luck as he was right behind
me, a
nd not winded at all. Of course.
Bastard.

“Who the hell did this?”
I
demanded again. “Someone tell me what’s going on.”

As
I
spoke, Brian started rubbing
my
arm,
I
assumed in an attempt to console
me
or something.
Are you kidding me?
I
thought, trying to subtly move away from him with a little side s
tep. He was starting to creep me
out. Did he h
ave amnesia and not remember our
discussion the other
night? Had he not understood me clearly enough?
What part of “let’s just be friends” did he not understand?
Why did I
always have to dea
l with those things? The men I
wanted were difficult to get
, and the men I wanted to leave me
alone couldn’t take no for an answer.

Dirt looked strained. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Pres. That’s what we are trying to figure out here.”

“Who have you been
bothering, Presley Thurman?” My
mother asked sternly. “The note said to quit interfering or more than a window would be broken. I told you to leave people alone.”

“Seriously, mother, the only person I’ve ‘bothered,
’
as you put it, was Ruth. And I hardly think she came by the house and threw a rock at your window.” Normally
her behavior would tick me
off
,
and
I
would go on the defensive and fire right back.
But after what had happened, my
mother was justifiably upset and
I
figured she had the right to bitch at
me
.
I
even felt bad enough
that I
thought
I
might even volunteer to help her in the garden. Ok,
I wouldn’t volunteer, but I
would feel the right amount
of guilt to give in quietly if I
were to
be
ask
ed
.

“Now, now,
s
weetheart. It’s not her fault.”
My
dad was always trying to be the peacemaker.

“I haven’t done anything
,
M
other.” Although now may be the time to come clean about seeing Helen and the mystery man in a heavy make-out session the other night. Not so m
uch for my
mother, but for Dirt’s sake.

“Thank God no one was home when the ro
ck went through the window,” my
mother said. She kept staring at
me, making me
want to squirm. Why did i
t seem that she somehow knew I
was keeping things from Dirt? She couldn’t possibly know anything. Maybe it was that
“
Mother’s intuition
,”
but more likely
,
she was just mad.

“That’s one reason we don’t want to blow this out of proportion. Obviously, the person who did this made a point to do it when no one was home. That means they were probably not out to hurt anyone,” Dirt resumed talking. “As much as we’ve been able to narrow down, it happened sometime between the time your parents left at two and four
-
thirty, when they came home about a half hour ago.”
I
looked
at my
watch, a knock-off Cartier
but completely authentic looking
, and saw it was a little after
twelve thirty
p.m.

“Did you talk to the neighbors yet?”
I
asked, moving away from Brian who kept inching closer and clos
er. As big as this porch was I
was about to run out of room.
I
noticed
out of the corner of my eye that my
dad
was looking at me
and
t
rying to hide a smile. Leave it to him to be amused
by my
discomfort while having to deal with a broken window. “Maybe it was kids. You know, just a prank.”

“No one heard anything
,
and I doubt it was kids. Their pranks include mailboxes and graffiti. Usually not something as close and personal as breaking a window,” Dirt replied.

That wasn’t surprising. My
parents didn’t have any close neighbors
,
and those in the area had kids who were all grown. It would have been easy
to pull this off undetected. I
started to ask Dirt something else when another car pulled into the driveway. What was this
,
th
e new Grand Central Station? I
squinted into the sunlight. It looked like
Cooper’s SUV. I
was relieved he was here
, but also tense because I
knew Dirt wasn’t going to take kindly to
Cooper
stopping by.
I
hadn’t really th
ought that part through when I called him. I just knew I
wanted him to know what was going on and wanted him
t
here.
Cooper
knew what kind of treatment he was bound to get since he knew Dirt would be here.

I
looked over and saw
that
Dirt
had
noticed Cooper
’s SUV. Brian was oblivious to the entire thing, focused solely on
me. If it wasn’t so annoying, I
might find his persistence cute.

“What are you doing here?” Dirt asked
Cooper
as he stepped up on the porch. “This is none of your concern.” Dirt took a step forward and
my
dad put a hand on his arm. For a second
,
it looked like Dirt wasn’t going to back down, but then he stepped back.
Cooper
just stood there, not saying anything, which was probably smart under the circumstances.

“I called him,” I
said
,
defiantly taking in how good
Cooper
looked in his faded jeans. “I thought he should know.” Even though
I had my
own issues with
Cooper, I
was even more annoyed
by Dirt’s
attitude. Couldn’t these guys just talk about things and get past this
—
whatever
“
this
”
was
? Wasn’t solving the murder more important than some kind of pissing contest?
Men.
“Do you think it could be related to the Senator’s murder at all?