Donna Andrews - Chesapeake Crimes - This Job Is Murder!

“This is still an open investigation,” the detective went on. “And I will probably have more questions for all of you.”

But it looked as if he was letting us go for now. Good. I wished he’d hurry. As the detective handed out his cards and asked us to stay in the area, I found myself eyeing the two muffins still sitting on a small china plate at what would have been Dr. Grace’s place at the table. Part of the usual weekly tribute. The muffins were low-fat, sugar-free bran muffins-I’d once tasted a leftover one and found it about as appetizing as sawdust. But as hungry as I was, even the muffins were starting to look good.

Wait a minute. The muffins were there as usual. Beside them, also as usual, was the vase of fresh flowers that would grace the table during their meeting and Dr. Grace’s desk for the rest of the day. But something was missing.

“Where’s the latte?” I said aloud.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“What’s that?” the detective asked.

“Where’s Dr. Grace’s latte?” I asked. “Every morning Tiffany brings her a bran muffin from the organic bakery down the street. Amanda brings her fresh flowers from the stand by the Metro stop. Sometimes candy, if she can get to the Godiva store, but usually flowers. And Jessica always stops at Starbucks to bring her a low-fat, sugar-free latte with skim milk. Where’s the latte?”

Jessica’s face was fun to watch as it changed from annoyance to surprise to utter horror as she thought through what I’d just said. And like the rest of us, she was staring at the tall brown Starbucks paper cup in front of her own place at the table.

“Dr. Grace didn’t…I mean, knew she probably wouldn’t…”

Then she shut up. She didn’t actually say “I want my attorney,” but I had the feeling those words were in her future.

She looked at Tiffany and Amanda, as if pleading for support.

They both hitched their chairs away from her. Tiffany hitched hers so far she was sitting next to me.

“We knew Dr. Grace was thinking of letting someone go,” Tiffany told the detective. “But we thought it was-I mean, I suppose we should have realized it would have to be Jessica.”

“Some people truly are impossible, aren’t they?” Amanda said. She glanced at me briefly with a faint smile before turning to stare at a spot a foot above Jessica’s head.

Maybe in high school I’d have been tempted. But even in high school, I don’t think I’d have fallen for their overtures. I ignored them, and stood up.

“Can I still leave?” I asked the detective. “And is it okay for me to clean out my desk right now? I’m resigning, effective immediately, and I’d rather not have to come back to this snake pit.”

“Be my guest,” he said.

Tiffany and Amanda both rose, uttering feeble bleats of protest.

“Ladies,” the detective said. “I have a few more questions for all three of you.”

They sat back down again, looking forlorn. The detective led Jessica back to the office he’d been using as his interview room.

Packing wouldn’t take long. By the time he finished with the mean girls and hauled Jessica down to the station, I’d be long gone. Maybe I’d stop on the way home and buy some champagne to celebrate my freedom.

Better yet, maybe I’d stop at Starbucks and toast my victory with a latte.

Donna Andrews was born in Yorktown, Virginia, and now lives in Reston, Virginia. The Real Macaw , (July 2011, Minotaur), is the latest book in her Agatha- and Anthony-winning Meg Langslow series, and Some Like It Hawk will be released in July 2012. She has also written four books in the Turing Hopper series from Berkley Prime Crime. For more information: http://donnaandrews.com.

Keri is just setting out the silverware when the Colonel calls across from the living room with a new question. He’s watching the Military Channel and finishing up the cocktail she made for him-a thimble of Virginia Gentleman, a generous portion of soda, another light splash of whiskey on top to make it smell like a stronger drink. The Colonel’s house has an open floor plan from the kitchen through the dining room to where he sits, and as she’s finished up dinner, she’s listened to him arguing lightly with the program’s depiction of Heartbreak Ridge, reminiscing about his own stint in Korea, rambling in his own way. “Last rally of the Shermans,” he mused aloud, and something about “optics” and “maneuverability” and then-a different tone than Keri’s heard in the four months she’s known him-“Is the perimeter secure, Sergeant?”

“The perimeter?” Keri asks, cautiously. She’s grown used to these sudden shifts in subject-learned quickly just to roll along with the conversation, even in the first days after she and Pete moved in. But she still stumbles sometimes to catch up and find the right response.

The Colonel turns in his chair-turning on her, Keri thinks, expecting his regular confusion or the occasional rebuke-but he doesn’t look her way. He’s listening, it seems, his jaw fixed, his chin jutting more than usual. The tendons in his frail arms tighten, his tie tugs at the skin around his neck, his whole body perches alert, if unsteadily so. Medals and photos crowd the wall behind him. Round stickers dot many of them and almost everything else in the living room: lamps, books, bookcases, the chair itself. Red, white, and blue.

“Incoming,” he says.

“No one’s out there, Colonel,” she tries to reassure him. Not anymore, at least, since that pair of surveyors out in the woods had packed up their bags a half-hour before, one of them waving at her through the window before cranking up, heading out. They’d stayed late. She was glad to see them go.

“Vibrations,” the Colonel whispers. “A good soldier can sense these things. Life and death.” Just his mind wandering, she knows, just another bout of dementia, but for a moment the seriousness of his tone, the weight of his words, stop her. Despite herself, she looks toward the door. Has he actually heard something? The surveyors had forgotten something, returned unannounced. Or maybe Pete had canceled his Tuesday night classes in town to come home early. But no. There’s no knock at the door, and no sound of a key turning in it. No muddy shoes being brushed against the mat. No sound of tires on the gravel drive. Just the TV program rolling on. Strategies, skirmishes, victories, defeat.

“Did Pete call?” she asks.

“Negative,” the Colonel says casually, just the hint of disdain, and then he relaxes, settles back into his chair. “Radio silence has been maintained.”

There’s something melancholy in his answer, or maybe it’s Keri’s imagination this time. She wonders if he even notices how seldom the phone rings-for either of them. Calls come so rarely that she once raised the receiver to her ear just to make sure there was a dial tone there. More than once, actually.

“Lasagna’s ready,” she tells him, and the Colonel brightens up.

“Officer’s Club,” he says eagerly. Date night, she knows.

Other nights, mealtime is just “chow,” but on Tuesdays Pete always stays on campus late, and the Colonel seems to love those nights best. She’s not sure how she goes from being his staff sergeant to being his…wife? Girlfriend? Daughter? She’s not sure about that either: which role she plays. He doesn’t seem to know who she is at all, has never even spoken her name. But sometimes when Pete is out of the way, the Colonel reaches over and presses his gnarled fingers over her hand, pats, squeezes, breaking Keri’s heart a little each time.

“It’s a good deal,” Pete said after the interview with the Colonel’s daughter, after she’d offered them the job. Do a little housecleaning, make a couple of meals a day for the old man, and in exchange: free rent, a grocery stipend, a monthly bonus. A six-month stint. “The whole semester,” Pete went on. “Not just a good deal, but a great one, especially with teaching assistant stipends these days.” He didn’t need to add that Keri was unemployed herself, had been for a while.