Joan Pickart - Body of Evidence

“No dessert. Your dinner was great. I’ll have some of that coffee, though.”

Maggie rose. “I’ll bring it to the living room. Please let me do a few things in here…I won’t be a minute…then I’ll join you.”

Josh got up. She was suddenly nervous as a cat. Because of what she’d said about not being able to imagine things she hadn’t experienced? What was that supposed to mean?

But he really had no wish to keep her strung out, so he nodded and walked from the kitchen. “The bathroom?” he called.

“Down the hall. On the right,” Maggie called back. She put her forehead against the refrigerator and wished the floor would open up and swallow her. She’d given away enough information tonight for a half-wit to figure her out, and Josh Benton was no half-wit. Was it because her tongue and privacy inhibitions had loosened from the wine she’d drunk, or would she have found a way to make a fool of herself without ingesting a drop of alcohol?

Maggie forced herself to put away the leftover food, then quickly cleared the table by putting the dishes in the sink. She would deal with them later, after she got rid of Josh. It was strange how her priorities had changed. She’d wanted him in her home badly enough to lie about it, and now she could hardly wait for the moment when he would say “Thanks for dinner and good night,” or something to that effect.

She filled two cups with coffee, put them on saucers on a small tray and went into the living room. Josh was again using the sofa, and when he saw the tray he shoved things aside on the coffee table to make room for it. Maggie set it down and stood to go to a chair, but he caught her by the arm.

“Sit here, by me,” he said quietly.

Her heart nearly burst through her chest wall. “I…I think I, uh, might have given you the wrong, uh, impression during our dinner conversation,” she stammered.

“You gave me the impression you wanted me to have. Sit down, Maggie. I won’t lie and tell you I don’t want you, because I do, and I’m sure I don’t have to spell out in what context. But no woman’s ever been in danger of having her principles compromised by me. One word is all I ever need to hear, one little word. It’s no, Maggie. Say it once and everything stops. Do you follow me?”

“You have assumed far too much from some of the silly things I said because I was half-tipsy throughout dinner.”

Josh frowned. “That sounded like a no right out of the starting gate. Was it?”

Maggie gulped. Yes or no? This was the moment of truth. The awful truth, actually. She didn’t want Josh to know she was still a virgin!

“It was a no,” she said in a shaky whisper.

Josh slowly rose. “Would you like me to leave? Never mind, you don’t have to answer that. I’ll make that decision myself and tell you it’s time for me to go.” He went to the closet for his overcoat and looked at her while putting it on. “Something odd is going on with you, Maggie. Maybe I’m part of it. I sort of feel as though I am.” He stopped to think a moment, then asked with a frown, “Did I lead you on ten years ago? Make you think something could happen for us?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“That’s a relief. I enjoyed all of the Sutters’ company, but I never thought of you back then as anything but a cute kid. Decent men don’t fool around with teenagers.”

“You don’t have to rub it in. I know the score now. According to what you told me the other day, men don’t fool around with women who want more than a roll in the hay from them, either.”

Josh’s eyes widened. “Are all of my sins written in concrete so that you will never forget them?”

“Why would I give a damn about your sins? I have enough of my own to worry about.”

Josh went to the door and turned to look at her. “You know, that’s where I think you’re pulling my leg. You don’t have any sin in your past, do you? Oh, maybe a romantic love affair or two, but no real sin.”

Maggie’s breath almost stopped in her throat for good. As she’d already known, he was no half-wit. He was very close to figuring out her every secret. He would have hit the bull’s-eye exactly if a twenty-six-year-old virgin wasn’t beyond his realm of realistic thinking.

“You’re right,” she said after catching her breath. “There’s no real sin in my past. I left that for you to handle, Detective. Here, let me unlock the door for you.” Maggie moved next to him and began unbolting the locks. She felt his eyes on her profile and flushed hotly. Expecting a pass any second, she finished quickly and stepped back. “Good night.”

Josh touched his forehead in a semblance of a salute. “Dinner was delicious, and I have to say one thing before I go that you’re probably not going to like. You, Maggie Sutter, are a flaming coward. Good night.”

He vanished through the door, closing it behind him. Maggie wilted into a weak-kneed heap while struggling to lock the dead bolts.

Then she fell onto the sofa and cried her eyes out. She hated Josh Benton.

But the real truth, she realized with another spate of tears, was that she didn’t hate him at all. She loved him. Madly, passionately, eternally. With all her heart and soul. She always had, from the first time they met when she’d been a starry-eyed teenager and he’d been her big brother’s friend until this very moment. It would go on, she knew. It would never disappear and let her lead a normal life. She was destined to die alone and miserable.

But her apparently indestructible feelings explained one thing very clearly. It was no wonder she’d never slept with another man-none had ever come close to measuring up to Josh.

J osh slept restlessly that night. Along with images of Maggie haunting his dreams, he couldn’t clear his mind of Franklin Gardner’s premature demise. Something told him they were getting closer to the truth in the case, but there were still some perplexing pieces missing from the puzzle.

By morning Josh was feeling testy and out of sorts. It was a gray, cloudy day, which didn’t lift his spirits any. Grumbling about the lousy weather, he put on a pot of coffee to brew and then opened the door of his apartment to retrieve his copy of the Sunday newspaper from the hallway.

There, on the front page, was an inflammatory headline: Politicians Demand An Arrest In Gardner Murder.

Josh sank onto a chair at his kitchen table and read the article, which harped mostly on one theme: The police department was being pressured by everyone in the city with a modicum of power to find and arrest the murderer of Franklin Gardner. Various persons were quoted and had expressed shock over the heinous crime and perhaps some laxity in what should have been a speedy arrest. “After all,” one public figure stated, “it was a simple burglary until poor Franklin tried to protect his possessions. I understand that one of the missing treasures from his home is a priceless and very identifiable jade Buddha, carved in the sixteenth century. Now, how is the killer going to pawn something like that?”

“ Moron,” Josh muttered. Anything could be sold. Besides, the items that had gone missing that night, according to the housekeeper, were not “priceless.” Valuable, maybe, but not priceless. Josh never had believed the burglary theory, not when Franklin ’s killer could have taken things that might truly be categorized as priceless.

But Josh knew that anyone wanting to put their image before the public jumped on any bandwagon that happened to pass through their territory. An article like this one often got results, though. Josh might hate the pressure the media had the power to apply, but he couldn’t deny its effectiveness. Everyone involved with this case would feel bullied and unappreciated today, him included, but they would work just a little bit harder to find the killer and bring him to trial.