Grounds to Kill Read online

  “What did the cops say when you told them about you and Misty?”

  I thought about the vein that began pulsing on Detective Kellum’s head.

  “I think he was, um, concerned.”

  Mitch turned to face me on the sofa his eyebrows raised in question as he took a deep pull from his beer. “Concerned in that I should plan on working with someone else for the next ten to twenty years?”

  “Of course not!” I said abruptly. I sure hoped not! “I was very truthful and told the detective about how I went over to talk with Misty because I found out about her and Arthur.”

  “Is that the truth? You were just going to talk to her?”

  “Well...”

  “Ah geez.” Mitch rubbed the stubble on his chin roughly, then finished his beer and went to the kitchen for another.

  “Spit it out,” he demanded when he sat back down. “Everything.”

  I picked up my third tequila shot and drained it.

  “Let’s just say there may have been, um, other shit involved.”

  Mitch frowned and hung his head. Mojo was yawning and stretching in front of us and Mitch scooped her up and allowed her to snuggle in his lap.

  “Where exactly are Frick and Frack tonight?”

  “Beth and Mallory? They’re away on a weekend of spiritual enlightenment and they’re not allowed to use their cell phones.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “How the hell did Mallory convince Beth to do that?”

  “All three of us were supposed to go but, um, I canceled on account of my six month anniversary with Arthur.”

  “That worked out just peachy now, didn’t it?” he said sarcastically. “Fine. Give it to me straight. The whole story. Not your long bullshit version either.”

  He nursed his second beer for an hour and patiently listened while I told the entire truth, poop and all. It took a while and a couple more shots of tequila before I was able to share the complete ugliness of the night, leaving out my message in the mirror. By the time I was done telling my sordid tale, I was drunk and he was giving me long looks of sympathy. Then again those might have been looks that asked the age old question “Is she drunk enough to sleep with me?”

  Truthfully, there may have been a time when Mitch and I would’ve ended the evening with a lip lock or in sweaty sheets but somewhere over the years of slinging java together, I’d begun to realize he wasn’t interested. I think he found me mildly amusing and somewhat annoying. Not what you’d call the basis for a great romance.

  I locked the door behind him around four-thirty in the morning and stumbled in the direction of my bed. I wondered if I’d ever be able to sleep. The harsh truth of the night was that out there in the world was someone who hated Misty even more than I did. And that was saying a lot.

  I didn’t feel tired when I crawled into bed, but the sandman worked with the tequila-bed-spins man and together they rocked me into a dead sleep. I woke up just before nine to a banging noise. At first I thought it was just the pounding of my hangover headache but soon I realized someone was at my door and they weren’t going away.

  Mojo was at the door barking her angry, high-pitched bark. Dragging my aching body through my apartment, I looked through my peep hole and saw Arthur looking red faced and pissed off. He was in uniform but it did nothing for me.

  With my eye still against the peep hole he hammered the door with his fist again, causing me to cry out, grasp my head and moan in agony.

  “Open the door, Jen! I can hear you on the other side.”

  “Yeah? Hear this...” And I screamed, “Go to hell!” Then I whimpered a little.

  “I’m not leaving even if it means I bang on your door all day. I’ve been fired from my job because of you, so I don’t have anything better to do.”

  I opened the door.

  “You were fired?”

  “Not exactly.” He pushed his way into my apartment and kicked the door shut behind him. “But I’m on desk duty until they finish investigating Misty’s death. Thanks to you.” He blew out a long breath.

  “Detective Kellum knew about our fight and I couldn’t exactly leave that part out,” I said.

  “I know, I know,” he said, then shook his head ruefully. “I can’t believe someone actually killed her. That’s awful.” He continued to shake his head, but stopped all of a sudden and regarded me. “So...did you do it?”

  “Of course not!” I slugged him in the stomach, and he let out a whoosh of air.

  Mojo snorted a backward sneeze of indignation on my behalf and went to the corner of the room to watch Arthur warily from behind her fuzzy eyelashes.

  “Fine. I believe you.” He held up his hands in surrender. “Why didn’t you call me? I had to hear about it from Kellum.” He let out a low whistle and snarled, “Having that guy breathing in my face at the crack of dawn wasn’t exactly heaven.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes.

  “Poor you. I can see you’re all broken up about your girlfriend’s death.”

  “First of all, she wasn’t my girlfriend and, second, you were the one who hated her long before I got involved.”

  “Not enough to kill her!”

  Arthur flopped onto my sofa and put his feet on the coffee table and I passed him to go directly into the kitchen. My throat felt like sandpaper. I opened the fridge, grabbed the orange juice and drank a few gulps from the carton before I returned to confront him.

  “She was your secret lover and then she got murdered. And somehow it’s my fault you wound up on desk duty?”

  His face softened and he just let out a sigh.

  “We’d only rolled in the sack once, Jen. In my defense, she could be pretty convincing.”

  I knew that was true, but as my boyfriend he was supposed to be impervious to Misty’s feminine wiles.

  “I’ve looked, but I didn’t find your backbone left behind in my apartment,” I said.

  “Yeah? Well, the world is really messed up. How could someone just slit her throat and leave her to die? Awful. I don’t get it and I see stuff like this all the time.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re a traffic cop. The closest you get to murder is when someone tries to run you over.”

  “Oh yeah? How about last year when that woman killed that old man just ten feet from me?”

  “The woman had a heart attack at the wheel and ran over a pedestrian. If you hadn’t been causing a traffic delay, she probably wouldn’t have blown a gasket and the guy would still be alive. It was all very sad, but it wasn’t murder.”

  “I’m in training to move to vice, you know. Won’t be long now.” He winked then asked, “How about some coffee?”

  “I make coffee for a living, remember?” I snapped. “You want coffee, make it yourself.”

  “Fine.” He got to his feet. “Looks like you could use some too.”

  I didn’t respond and instead shuffled down the hall to my bathroom. I opened the medicine cabinet and rooted around through old tubes of lip gloss and eyeliner to find a bottle of Tylenol. I choked down a couple of tablets and sighed. The reflection staring back at me in the mirror was not the carefree twenty-five year old woman I strived to be now that I was thirty. Nope. The woman looking back at me had tired eyes, pale skin and over-processed hair. Maybe I’d feel better if I freshened up. I took out my toothbrush and makeup bag and thought about making myself look presentable. Then I stopped.

  Arthur no longer deserved the pretty me.

  Back in my kitchen I swatted Arthur’s hand as he began spooning beans into the grinder.

  “Get out.”

  “Hold on.” He shrugged me off, flipped the switch to grind the coffee beans then turned to face me. “Let’s have a cup of coffee together at least.”

  “Nope.
We’re done, remember? Get out.”

  “First, let me hear it from you.”

  “Hear what?”

  “That you broke into Misty’s apartment and threw shit at her TV after she was dead.” He leaned back against my counter and regarded me with his attempt at a serious cop face.

  I fisted my hands on my hips.

  “I did not break in. Her door was open.”

  His head slumped forward and his shoulders began to shake. Oh God, I made him cry.

  “Look, I’m sorry she’s dead,” I said. “Sure we had our differences and you shouldn’t have been screwing around with her behind my back, but nobody deserves to die like that, not even Misty, and—”

  He glanced up and I noticed he hadn’t been shaking because he was all broken up over Misty. The idiot was trying to contain a smile. Now he let out a loud guffaw.

  “That is so you! Instead of talking it out like a normal person, you freak out and throw a handful of shit. The guys at the precinct are going to be talking about this one for years.” His face was beet red from trying to contain his giggles. “I don’t want to even know where you got the poop from.”

  My hands were shaking with fury. I picked up my empty I Heart Seattle coffee mug and whacked him in the head.

  “Ow!”

  “Arthur, I’m going to count to ten and if you’re not gone by then, I’m going to go back to my poop supply and rub your face in it.”

  “Poop supply?” He was rocking back on his heels and clutching his sides.

  “One,” I said in warning. When he didn’t move I continued, “Two.”

  “Okay. Fine.” He held up his hands and made his way to the door. Glancing over his shoulder, he added, “You found the body and everyone knows you had a big hate on for Misty. I might be on desk duty, but things aren’t looking so rosy for you either.” He winked meanly. “Hope you’ve got an alibi.”

  He slammed the door as he left.

  What the hell did I ever see in that man?

  Well, besides the obvious sexy good looks. I resented the fact that he looked handsome on the outside while being such a low, deceitful ass on the inside.

  My phone beeped to announce a text message. I snapped up my phone. Finally, my friends were returning my frantic messages from the night before. We arranged an emergency meet-up. I scrubbed my face, brushed my teeth, threw on some clothes and grabbed my Seahawks hoodie on my way out the door.

  Twenty minutes later I walked into 2-a-Tea and immediately spotted Beth and Mallory at our usual corner table.

  I ran over and asked, “What are we drinking?”

  “Earl Gray,” Beth said, pointing to her little teapot. “Like usual.”

  “I’m drinking Oolong,” Mallory stated. “I’ve been feeling a little sluggish. It’ll help boost my metabolism and—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I waved my hand impatiently. “I’ve got lots to tell you guys so just tell me what kind of tea to get. I’m hung over big time.”

  “Ginger tea with honey,” Mallory said firmly.

  Mallory was the real reason we’d started coming to 2-a-Tea. She believed the right herbal teas could cure most anything from hair loss to genital warts. Beth and I both felt that was a lot to ask of dried leaves that mostly looked like something you should roll and smoke. Before Mallory could lecture me on poisoning the inner sanctum of my body with evil alcohol, I walked to the counter and told Snake Girl I needed a pot of ginger tea.

  We’d been meeting at 2-a-Tea for over a year now, and the only person that ever worked the counter was Snake Girl. She probably had another name, but she had a large tattoo of a cobra that curled around her neck, up the side of one cheek and across her forehead. Even if she told us her name, she’d always be known as Snake Girl to us.

  “Honey, lemon or milk?” Snake Girl asked in her usual monotone.

  “Honey.”

  “Go or stay?”

  “Stay.”

  I watched as Snake Girl put the leaves in a little tea bell, plunked it in a tea pot and poured boiling water over it. She put the teapot, cup, saucer and a teensy container of honey all on a tray in under fifteen seconds and charged me three dollars. I was beginning to think that I was serving up the wrong hot beverage. Coffee could be a lot more complex. Just yesterday I had a twelve-year-old order an extra-ice frappe with one pump mocha, one pump caramel, one pump white mocha, two scoops vanilla bean powder, two shots of espresso double-blended with whip and a caramel drizzle. And then the kid looked annoyed I didn’t deliver it in under ten seconds.

  “Are you hiring, by any chance?” I asked, hopefully.

  “I work alone,” Snake Girl said and thrust the tray in my direction.

  Turning to the enclosed pastry case, my eyes narrowed.

  “Hold on, are those lemon scones?”

  “One for a buck twenty-five, or two for two dollars.”

  “Those are Charlie scones.” I pointed a finger at the offending scones and then at Snake Girl.

  “Actually they’re lemon.”

  “I mean they’re from Fresh! Fresh! Fresh!” I explained. “That’s Charlie’s bakery.”

  Snake Girl looked at me impatiently.

  “Do you want one or not.”

  “Not,” I said. “But Charlie’s only supposed to sell those for Merlot’s.”

  I don’t know why it bothered me that Charlie sold his specialty Merlot scones to others, but it did. Wasn’t there a baker’s code or something?

  I brought my beverage over to the table and sat down with a sigh.

  “I’ve had a rough night.”

  “I got your message about Arthur. Sorry to hear you broke up. Well, not really sorry. He’s an asshole,” Beth said.

  She was the no-nonsense friend—the one who told you point blank that your newest hair color would only work if you were employed by Ringling Brothers. However, if you had trouble with men, her girlfriends’ code was very clear. It was always the guy’s fault.

  “I’m so sorry to hear you’re hurting,” Mallory said, reaching out and placing a warm hand on my arm. “I felt awful when I turned on my phone this morning and got your messages.” She reached across the table and patted my hand. “You know we would’ve gotten back to you sooner but we were at that Mind Free Seminar and part of the agreement was we’d turn in our cell phones until check out so we didn’t get the news until this morning. So sorry we couldn’t be here for you last night.”

  “Wait a second, how come you called Mallory five times and you only called me twice?” Beth demanded.

  Leave it to an accountant to see the numbers in any situation.

  “You usually turn off your phone after ten,” I pointed out. “And Mallory doesn’t.”

  “I don’t always turn it off at ten. Only when I’m working.”

  “You’re always working.”

  “I would rather have been working instead of going to that stupid Mind Free workshop getting my chakra aligned,” Beth spat.

  “I thought you liked that workshop,” Mallory said, hurt in her eyes.

  “I only said that, because if I didn’t say I liked it, you’d get that look in your eyes like I just kicked your puppy.”

  “I would not,” Mallory said, her bottom lip jutted out and she blinked back an injured look exactly like the one Beth predicted.

  “You just did!” Beth laughed.

  “Can we just get to the real reason I asked you guys to meet me?”

  “Wait a second, we’re not here about Arthur?” Mallory blinked her eyes in confusion. Her golden hair hung in a long braid down her back. Mallory was very in touch with her spiritual side—a card carrying vegan bent on converting the world one carnivore at a time through peaceful T-shirt-slogan advertising. Today she wore a green T-shirt that stated I Love Animals,
But Not for Dinner.

  “What’s bigger than one of your semi-annual cop breakups?” Beth demanded.

  “Misty.”

  “What’d she do this time?” Beth asked with a sigh. “Did she put lubricant on your car windshield again?”

  “No. She got murdered.”

  “What?” both my friends gasped simultaneously.

  As they searched my face to see if I was joking, I nodded. Suddenly saying it out loud struck me painfully. At one time Misty and I could’ve been close. I took the first scalding sip of my ginger tea. It needed more honey. Actually, it needed to be all honey with a dollop of tea. It looked like piss and tasted like sweaty armpits.

  “What happened?” Beth demanded.

  “She was murdered in her apartment.” I tried to block the image of Misty from my mind. “Her throat was cut.”

  “Oh my God!” Mallory covered her face with her hands.

  “Don’t worry. I know a really good lawyer.” Beth picked up her Blackberry and began scrolling through her contacts.

  “It wasn’t me!” I cried in exasperation.

  “You’re sure?” Beth asked.

  “I think I’d remember slitting someone’s throat!”

  “Wow.” Mallory sat back in her chair and slowly shook her head. “Karma.” She pointed a finger in my face. “I always told you to let the universe handle her.”

  “Yeah, well, the universe had me show up to find the body and I don’t exactly appreciate that part of it.” I closed my eyes against a flashing vision of Misty’s death grimace and shuddered. “Even Misty didn’t deserve that.”

  We were all quiet a moment. My friends were trying to absorb what I’d told them and I was trying to pretend it had never happened.

  Beth tilted her head to the right and frowned. “How come you found her?”

  “Well, I went over to talk to her about—”

  “Aw-w-w geez,” Mallory murmured, pressing her fingers to her temples.

  “What?” I asked sharply.

  “Well, last time you went to talk to Misty, you both ended up rolling on the floor pulling each other’s hair out.”

  “Yeah,” Beth agreed. “You haven’t exactly been on talking basis since—”