Darlene Scalera - Straight Silver

“You already knew she was planning on meeting someone after work?” So much for my hot tip.

“I figured you were trying to impress me.”

“Would it be that easy?”

“No.” Serras’s glance told me I was getting under his skin. At this point, a win-win situation any way I looked at it.

“Said he waited at her apartment. Said he was pretty tired.”

Interpretation: Paul’s happy hour had started at noon instead of three. Youth, brashness and a slightly above-average talent had gotten my ex-husband to the semipro golf circuit, but he’d lacked the discipline and true genius to go further. When I met him, he’d had one mediocre season and knew it was his last. When I found myself pregnant, he proposed to me in what I always figured was one last desperate stab at immortality. He wasn’t with me when I lost the baby, but when I told him, it was the first time I’d seen a man cry. We lasted two years. We weren’t friends but we weren’t enemies. We just weren’t meant to be. Last I heard he was the resident pro over at the Meadows, a country club for Memphis moneybags. An ex-stripper with an ex-husband who’s an ex-semipro. If life were a tic-tac-toe game, I’d have it made.

“Claims he must’ve fallen asleep because next thing he remembers is waking up on Ms. Devine’s divan.”

A cop who could be cute. Serras was getting under my skin.

“He doesn’t remember anything else.”

Since my husband’s idea of sobriety is adding lime to his tequila shooters, for once he could be telling the truth. Blackouts can do that to you. I knew.

“He has a lawyer?” Ex or not, the man had rights—just not in my bed anymore.

“He hasn’t been charged with anything yet.”

Police lingo for “no evidence.” “You’ve got nothing to hold him?”

“He’s got no alibi.”

“And no motive.”

“He’s nervous. He put in a call to Michael Kingsley’s office. They sent an associate down to hold his hand.”

I raised an eyebrow. Michael Kingsley was a high-priced mouthpiece to white-collar criminals. Not washed-up golf semipros.

“So, maybe Della’s murder is more than an unfortunate incident?”

“Let’s just say, your ex-husband has already phoned for a ride home.”

“Can I see him?”

“Why?”

Cops. Always a question. “Catch up on old times.”

Five foot eleven ex-strippers. Always an answer.

Serras cocked his head toward the benches in the hall on either side of the front desk. “You can wait, but he might be a while.”

“Not if Michael Kingsley has his back and you guys have nothing on him but a sleepover.”

Serras assessed me with a lean gaze and looking as good as an underwear ad. “What’s your stake in this, LeGrande?”

I tried to decide if behind that hooded gaze I was a suspect. “You mean besides the fact my ex-husband was sleeping with a friend of mine who was murdered last night?”

He added another weapon. Silence.

Suddenly I felt truly tired. “Maybe it’s just a small, small world after all, Serras.”

A door opened. A group of men came into the hall. I saw Paul before he saw me. He was tan, fit, looking like a vote for the charmed life except for the puffiness around his eyes and a viciousness in his gaze that only a hangover and being held by the police could cause.

“Somebody else here to give you a ride, Chumsky.” Serras said as the group approached.

“Popular fellow,” one of the cops in the group remarked.

Paul turned, gave me the good smile that told me I’d already given him a ride. I didn’t smile back. Being reminded what a chump I’d been makes me testy.

My ex-husband dismissed his hotshot lawyer and came toward me. He stood too close. The viciousness left his face. “Hey.” His voice was low and for a moment, I forgave myself for falling in love with him once. I turned my head as he leaned toward me. His mouth fell onto my hair instead of my flesh with its still-intact nerve endings. I can be suckered by dogs, children and fools—but at least I know it.

“Good to see you still care, Silver,” he murmured into my hair.

“Don’t go getting all sloppy on me, Paul. What do you know about Della’s death?” I whispered.

“Nothing.”

I pulled away.

“Heard you got a new gig, Silver.”

Yeah. Emergency contact. I glanced at Serras and the others watching us.

Paul turned to them. “Am I done here, gentlemen?”

“Make sure you stay where we can find you, Chumsky,” a cop built like a side of beef said.

Paul raked his gaze over the cop, stopping at the skinny red scratches on his forearms. “She must have been a hellcat.”

The cop took a step. Serras put a halting hand on the man’s arm, across the scratches.

“Take your ex-husband home, LeGrande,” Serras advised.

I pushed Paul toward the door. We reached the exit, stepped out into the moist heat.

“Still the charmer.” I gave him that much.

“It’s a gift.”

“Pretty impressive legal counsel.”

“Kingsley plays at the club. I cut ten strokes off his game. He’s grateful.” Paul smiled. If an actor, he would have been cast as a gigolo or a second-rate hood. “You look good, Silver.”

“I didn’t come here for compliments.”

“Why did you come here?”

Good question.

“Feeling guilty?”

That’s the problem with marriage. People get to know you.

“You’re not responsible for Della’s death, Silver.”

“Then who is?”

“The police are trying to find out.”

“Della was a stripper who snorted in her off hours. The only family that has come up was run over by a train several months ago. They won’t even have her buried before the case comes off the role call, and you know it.”

“Listen, all I can tell you is Della and I used to get together, have a few laughs. Yesterday afternoon, we’d gotten together. She said she was going to try and get off early at the club. Why not stick around? I waited. When she didn’t call, I fell asleep.”

I stopped short. “Della didn’t call you?”

Paul gave me the same patient look he’d given me the first time I’d told him I wanted a divorce.

“It’s been a long day, Silver. C’mon, we’ll pick up my car, and I’ll buy you some dinner.”

“One of the girls that worked at the Oyster overheard Della make a phone call last night from the club to meet someone after work.”

“She probably did call me. I fell asleep and didn’t hear the phone.”

“Was there a message on her answering machine this morning?”

“Now that you mention it, it was beeping.”

He was lying. That marriage-getting-to-know-someone deal is a two-way street.

“C’mon.” He smiled. “You can interrogate me over Italian.”

Translation: pasta for me, a bottle of burgundy for Paul. But he was hiding something and I wanted to know what. I stretched out my rubber band to the point of breaking, let it go.

“Dino’s is still good,” I suggested.

“Fine,” Paul agreed. Food wasn’t his primary concern anyway.

We headed to my car. Paul folded himself into the compact. “How’s Aunt Peggilee?” He put on the country club charm.

“She’s at Margarita Mania at the Elks.”

Paul went all teeth. “She’s a live one, your aunt Peggilee.”

I had to agree.

“I thought Della was yanking my chain when she told me you left Billie’s for higher education.”

His sidelong gaze told me he was picturing me in a short plaid pleated skirt and loafers with ankle socks. Paul liked fantasy in and out of the bedroom.

“She might have been yanking some things of yours, but that was the truth. When you’d two get together anyway?”