Mayes, Casey - A Deadly Row

The second I was back upstairs in our suite, I dialed his number.

To my surprise, his assistant Steve answered.

“May I speak with Zach?”

In a lowered voice, he said, “Sorry, but he can’t be disturbed.”

“Is he sitting in a corner, staring at the junction where the walls meet? Are his feet up on something? His hands are locked behind his head, aren’t they?”

Steve sounded agitated when he answered. “How could you possibly know that? Were you just here?”

“No, but I’ve seen it often enough. He’s got a thread he’s following in his head, and you could set off an M-80 under his chair and I doubt he’d notice it.”

“You two are something, have I told you that?”

“You did. When he comes out of his trance, have him call me, okay?”

“Will do.”

After we hung up, I paced around the room. I had a lot to talk to Zach about, but it would be less than productive doing it while he was on a track of his own. I knew better than to try to break through to him when he was that deep in thought. It would just have to wait, and I was going to have to deal with it.

In the meantime, I had a puzzle to create, and not an easy one, either.

I STARTED PLAYING WITH IDEAS FOR MY NEXT PUZZLE, REmembering that I’d promised Derrick something more complicated than I’d been doing lately. I hadn’t promised him anything much more difficult though, so I decided to do a sequencing puzzle this time.

After an hour and a half of erasing pairings and changing the numbers, I finally had a puzzle I was happy with.

Now I just had to write the snippet, and I’d have Derrick off my back for another day.

Puzzles are like people. Some are easy to figure out the second you see them, while others are more complicated from the start. But over time, I’ve found the most interesting people, as well as puzzles, appear to be simple initially, but are in fact much more complex once you get below the surface.

I read it again, and still wasn’t exactly sure what I’d meant by it. Some snippets were like that, coming to my conscious mind unbidden, as if I were channeling them as I typed, if I believed in that kind of thing. Though the horoscopes appeared close to my puzzles in many of the newspapers that carried them, the two were worlds apart. My puzzles were based on logic, and used the ability to take a limited amount of information to solve a conundrum. However horoscopes were inspired by the authors and how they perceived the stars and planets, I was pretty sure that even they would agree they weren’t based on my particular brand of mathematical reasoning.

I checked the puzzle again, solving it myself, and thought it was okay. Not great, but good enough. And until things settled back down in my life, that was going to have to suffice.

I WAS IN THE CAR ON MY WAY TO MEET ZACH FOR LUNCHwhen my cell phone rang. I fumbled for it in my purse, and said, “Hello?”

“Is this a bad time?” Sherry asked.

“Are you kidding? It’s never a bad time to talk to you.” I was just starting to realize that what I’d missed most about Charlotte were not the beautiful architecture or the advantages to the big city like restaurants and culture, but the people I’d known there.

And my former neighbor was at the top of the list.

“I don’t want to interrupt any deep puzzle thoughts,” she said.

“I just finished it and faxed it to my editor.”

“Good. You made quite an impression on your visit back.”

“Don’t I always? You make it sound as if it’s hit or miss.”

“I’m not talking about me, you goof. I mean Betsy. She keeps gabbing on and on about what a thrill it was to meet you. I’ve got to be honest with you. If I didn’t love you already, I’d be sick of the sound of your name.” I could hear the smile in her voice as she said it.

“What can I say? I may have just three fans, but they’re all very vocal about it.”

“You’ve got more than that, and you know it.”

I pulled into the police station parking lot and shut off the engine. “Is that why you were calling, or was there something else on your mind?”

“I don’t know what your schedule’s like, but could you swing by the house tomorrow after the kids go to school? They only have four more days, and then they’re with me all summer.”

“You love it, and you know it.”

“I do,” she admitted, “but when my free time is winding down, I try to jam as much living into it as I can. What do you say? Will you throw your old friend a life preserver?”

“Absolutely. Hey, if you’d like, we could have breakfast in the hotel restaurant. You can order anything on the menu.”

I was about to tell her about my open tab when she interrupted. “I was thinking more along the lines of eggs and toast at my kitchen table. That’s not too mundane for you these days, is it?”

“Are you kidding? It sounds like paradise.”

“Great. I’ll see you around eight.”

“Let me guess. The kids are gone by seven fifty-five.”

She laughed, and I enjoyed the warmth of it for a moment. “You got me. See you tomorrow.”

“Till then.”

I got out of the car and headed toward the front entrance. I suddenly realized that I needed to call Lorna and cancel our breakfast date tomorrow. I was just punching her phone number in when I ran into Davis on the steps outside.

“Hey, Chief,” I said as I killed the phone call.

“I still can’t get used to being called that,” he admitted.

“Don’t worry; you’ll get used to it. Is Zach upstairs?”

Davis shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve been barred from the task force room, if you can believe that. In my own building!”

“It shouldn’t come as some kind of big surprise. You know how Zach works.”

“I realize that the man likes his privacy, but Steve Sanders comes and goes as he pleases.”

“Don’t be so sure about that,” I said as I tucked my phone back into my purse. “Zach’s the only one with a key. If he’s not there, Steve has to wait outside the door in the hallway like everyone else.”

That made Davis smile, so I had to ask, “What’s so amusing about that?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the police chief said, “You know he was expecting to get my job, don’t you?”

“I heard he was being considered for it,” I admitted.

“Well, he jumped the gun and started making promises he couldn’t keep. When he lost out to me, he made a lot of people mad at him around here. To be honest with you, I was kind of surprised when Zach chose him to help out on this case.”

“That’s not the way it happened at all. Steve volunteered, and I think Zach didn’t have the heart to say no.”

Davis nodded. “That makes more sense.” He paused a moment, and then asked, “So, tell me. What exactly is going on up there? You’ve got more access to the investigation than I do.”

“He’s still collecting information,” I said.

“I heard he’s left the building a few times. Any idea about exactly where he went?”

What was going on here? Even if I knew, I wasn’t about to tell anyone what my husband was doing in his investigation, even if it was his boss asking the questions. “You’d need to ask him that. I’m just a simple puzzle maker.”

“We both know better than that, Savannah.” His phone went off as he was getting ready to tell me something else, and after a moment of whispering, he said, “Sorry, I’ve got to take this. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“See you,” I said.

I walked upstairs and found my husband still in his corner, with his feet propped up and a blank stare on his face. I tried to back out of the door silently, but my elbow hit it and rattled it in its frame.