Janet Evanovich - Foul Play

“Don’t mess with me,” Jake said levelly. “I specialize in neutering.”

Two uniformed policemen strode into the dining room accompanied by a glowering headwaiter.

“I’m pressing charges,” Ponytail said. “This… veterinarian willfully destroyed an expensive microphone.”

The officer looked at Jake apologetically.

“Maybe you’d better come back to the station house with us.”

Amy held out her hands. “I’m going too. Do you want to handcuff me?”

“No ma’am,” the policeman said. “I don’t think you look dangerous.”

Jake stood and helped Amy to her feet. “A lot you know,” he said to the smiling policeman.

Outside the restaurant a crowd had gathered around the squad car. Amy faltered a moment when she saw the number of people who had been drawn by the flashing lights on the black-and-white. The crowd parted as the curious parade marched from the restaurant. Two policemen, Lulu the Clown, Jake the veterinarian, and the twenty-minute men complete with battery pack and video. One of the officers helped Amy into the back of the squad car.

Amy clasped her hands in her lap and swallowed back tears. She was disgraced. Publicly humiliated. Plucked from the ritzy restaurant like an undesirable fugitive.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the restaurant was just three doors down from the Times office. Without a shadow of a doubt, at least one of those people in the crowd had been a reporter. Tomorrow there would be more newspaper pictures. She could imagine the headlines. “Lulu Arrested with Lover Accomplice.”

Two hours later Amy and Jake were back in the little red sports car. “That wasn’t so bad,” Jake said. “They didn’t even arrest us.”

Amy took little solace in that fact. There’d been a horde of photographers everywhere she’d gone. She couldn’t blame them. She was news. Human interest in a bizarre sort of way.

Jake wistfully looked at the restaurant. “You think they held our table?”

“I think they’ve probably burned our table.”

“Didn’t feel like eating fish, anyway. How about a burger?”

“As long as I don’t have to get out of the car. If one more person clucks or cock-a-doodles at me I’m going to commit mayhem.”

“I know the perfect place. We’ll go to the McDrive-in We’ll get McFries, McShakes, McBurgers, and McCookies.” He pulled into the drive-through and shouted his order into the order machine. He grinned at Amy. “Is this romantic enough for you?”

Amy had to smile with him. He was invincible. He’d joked with the policemen and jollied her through the entire ordeal. He’d proudly announced their engagement to every passerby newsmen included. In fact, he seemed to be not at all bothered by the fact that his life was going down the toilet.

Nothing had gone right since he’d known her, she silently wailed. He’d ruined two ties, pitched himself into a Dumpster, been made a public spectacle, almost been arrested, and had his reputation slandered. This wasn’t going well. They weren’t just talking tremors here. They were looking at earthquake-quality vibes. She shrank back into the seat when Jake reached for the bag of food.

The girl behind the counter leaned out the drive-through window. “Hey, aren’t you the lady who cooks chickens? Like wow. Like omigod.”

Amy smiled weakly and nodded acknowledgment as Jake stepped on the gas and turned the car toward Main Street. “You’re getting quite a following. I never thought I’d have a wife who was famous,” he said, reaching for his chocolate shake.

“I think the word is infamous. I feel like Lizzie Borden.”

Jake took a long pull on the straw. She was mustering up a reasonable amount of bravado, but under it all she was really hurting, and he wasn’t sure exactly why. Part of it was a sense of responsibility to maintain a certain image for the children who had watched her, but it had to be more than that. She’d looked like an angel in the police station with her blond curls and serious wide blue eyes, responding politely to everyone. A credit to her acting ability, he’d thought, remembering the few unguarded moments when the facade had slipped, and she’d seemed so lost. Almost victimized. Like a piece of driftwood, floating downstream, unable to control its journey.

He snitched a french fry while he waited for a light. It was always dangerous to second-guess someone. Maybe he was reading too much into this. She’d led a very law-abiding, sheltered life. Maybe she’d just been overwhelmed by the police station. He didn’t want to be insensitive, but he also didn’t want to make more of this than it was. Hell, maybe they should just move to Arizona and start over.

They finished their meal on the back porch, topping it off with fresh strawberries and ice cream, watching the night sky spread a calming blackness over the earth. Jake played with the ruffle on Amy’s sleeve. “Is there something you’d like to talk about?”

She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to think. She was afraid if she thought too clearly, she’d have to make painful decisions, so she kept her eyes on the oak tree at the far perimeter of her yard. Its trunk was thick and gnarled; its branches spanned the house. A survivor, Amy decided. It had eluded the bulldozers that had leveled the land in preparation for her housing development. It had been in the appropriate place: a small swale between two lots. Perhaps that was her problem… she was never in the appropriate place.

A warm breeze moved through the leaves, producing a hypnotic clacking sound. She felt Jake’s fingers at the nape of her neck, stroking, caressing. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the pleasure of his touch, a lovely lethargy taking possession of her. Jake always knew how to make her feel better.

Rain. As if she wasn’t depressed enough, it had to rain. Not even a healthy rain that could be considered cozy, pattering on leaves and windowpanes. This rain drizzled. Gray, dreary drizzle. Amy pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. She didn’t think she could face another day.

She listened to Jake singing in the shower and narrowed her eyes. He had a lot of nerve waking up happy. Little Miss Mary Sunshine. He wasn’t Miss Mary Sunshine last night when he told her the pot roast was dry. And he wasn’t Miss Mary Sunshine at the office when she couldn’t find a file. Nobody was Mary Sunshine at the office. Everybody was walking around like their shorts were too tight.

It was almost a week since the damn rooster had gotten snatched and the customers were still uncomfortable. The boarding cages were empty, and Jake was eating so many doughnuts he couldn’t button his shirt. She flopped over onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. “Ugh.”

Jake strolled into the bedroom, dropped his towel, and pulled on a pair of freshly laundered briefs and jeans. He grabbed the lump under the quilt that was Amy’s toe. “Get up, lazy bones. You’ll be late for work.”

She stuck her lower lip out and scowled. “I’m not going to work today.”

Jake shrugged into his shirt. “We’ve been all through this. You weren’t going to work yesterday, either.”

“And you talked me into it, and it was a mistake.”

Jake looked wounded. “How can you say it was a mistake? What about lunch hour when we made love in the lavatory?”

“We made love in the lavatory because we were hiding from that group of animal rights activists camped out in the parking lot! The ones who hanged Lulu in effigy.”

Jake tugged on a pair of argyle socks and slid his feet into new loafers. “They won’t be back today. They’re picketing the White House.”

Amy got out of bed and stomped off to the kitchen. “I suppose you got that information from the cute little redhead who was young enough to be your daughter!”