going to find anything," I called after her. "All we're doing is prying."
"We're investigating." Her voice came from down the hallway.
"We're being nosy," I reminded her.
"We're being detectives."
Ah, yes, being detectives. There was that.
I tried to stop myself—honest, I did. But even before I realized I was moving, I was out of the kitchen and searching for evidence.
Seven
O
Q I WON'T BOTHER WITH A PLAY-BY-PLAY OF OUR NEXT
day's visit to Tyler at the police station. It's an ugly tale and, in the great scheme of things, pointless.
Let's just suffice it to say that after a long tirade about minding our own business, leaving police work up to the real police and—I mention this reluctantly—a thankfully brief but nonetheless bruising remark about how he'd never had the bad fortune to meet two women who were more incredibly foolish, he didn't buy into our theory that Sarah had not taken her own life.
Not when we told him about the red cocktail dress.
Not when we explained about how rare and expensive Doc was.
Not even when we showed him the other crucial pieces of evidence we found when we looked through Sarah's apartment: a letter from the dog breeder in Japan that showed Sarah had been on a waiting list for a puppy for eighteen months and a ticket on a cruise ship scheduled to sail out of Fort Lauderdale just after Christmas.
To us, none of this spoke of a woman who was planning on killing herself.
To Tyler . . . well, like I said, I won't repeat his comments word for word. There are folks who are sensitive about that kind of language.
It should come as no big surprise that Eve was discouraged by his treatment of us. Personal feelings aside, I think Eve always had and always would think of Tyler as a kind of superhero with a badge, the good guy in blue who could swoop in on wrongdoers and fix the world's woes. This time, he refused to swoop. He stood by the ruling from the medical examiner. The one that said there was Valium in Sarah's system, and her wounds were self-inflicted.
I on the other hand, felt empowered. Yes, justice had to be served, but this time, it was more personal than that. Sarah's life was too precious to sweep under the rug. If any fixing was going to get done, I knew I was the one who would have to do it.
The good news is that I was aware from the start that I had options. The better news is that after a rallying speech, I convinced Eve that things weren't as bleak as they looked because (1) the cruise ticket we found was based on double occupancy, and that meant somebody could tell us more about Sarah's plans, and (2) the funeral luncheon was, after all, scheduled for Bellywasher's. If there were murder suspects to be interrogated, surely that would be the place to start.
This all sounds carefully thought out and enormously logical, I know. Believe me, it was. What I haven't bothered to mention, though, is that while I knew w hat I had to do, the how of it eluded me. I know, I know . . . Eve and I had solved a murder just a few months earlier. But that was then, and this was now, and as much as I would have liked to believe we'd acted professionally and competently in the matter of Drago's murder, I knew what we'd really been was just plain lucky. This time, I didn't have any idea what to say or where to start. And as always when I was pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, I was scared to death.
I guess that's what I was thinking about that morning as I took one last look around the restaurant to make sure everything was ready when the crowd returned from the cemetery. There weren't enough tables in Bellywasher's to accommodate the kind of crowd we expected, so with Charlene's approval, we'd decided on a buffet luncheon. I double-checked the table set along the far wall where we would put the food, made sure the vases with their single white roses were on every table, and
"We're investigating." Her voice came from down the hallway.
"We're being nosy," I reminded her.
"We're being detectives."
Ah, yes, being detectives. There was that.
I tried to stop myself—honest, I did. But even before I realized I was moving, I was out of the kitchen and searching for evidence.
Seven
O
Q I WON'T BOTHER WITH A PLAY-BY-PLAY OF OUR NEXT
day's visit to Tyler at the police station. It's an ugly tale and, in the great scheme of things, pointless.
Let's just suffice it to say that after a long tirade about minding our own business, leaving police work up to the real police and—I mention this reluctantly—a thankfully brief but nonetheless bruising remark about how he'd never had the bad fortune to meet two women who were more incredibly foolish, he didn't buy into our theory that Sarah had not taken her own life.
Not when we told him about the red cocktail dress.
Not when we explained about how rare and expensive Doc was.
Not even when we showed him the other crucial pieces of evidence we found when we looked through Sarah's apartment: a letter from the dog breeder in Japan that showed Sarah had been on a waiting list for a puppy for eighteen months and a ticket on a cruise ship scheduled to sail out of Fort Lauderdale just after Christmas.
To us, none of this spoke of a woman who was planning on killing herself.
To Tyler . . . well, like I said, I won't repeat his comments word for word. There are folks who are sensitive about that kind of language.
It should come as no big surprise that Eve was discouraged by his treatment of us. Personal feelings aside, I think Eve always had and always would think of Tyler as a kind of superhero with a badge, the good guy in blue who could swoop in on wrongdoers and fix the world's woes. This time, he refused to swoop. He stood by the ruling from the medical examiner. The one that said there was Valium in Sarah's system, and her wounds were self-inflicted.
I on the other hand, felt empowered. Yes, justice had to be served, but this time, it was more personal than that. Sarah's life was too precious to sweep under the rug. If any fixing was going to get done, I knew I was the one who would have to do it.
The good news is that I was aware from the start that I had options. The better news is that after a rallying speech, I convinced Eve that things weren't as bleak as they looked because (1) the cruise ticket we found was based on double occupancy, and that meant somebody could tell us more about Sarah's plans, and (2) the funeral luncheon was, after all, scheduled for Bellywasher's. If there were murder suspects to be interrogated, surely that would be the place to start.
This all sounds carefully thought out and enormously logical, I know. Believe me, it was. What I haven't bothered to mention, though, is that while I knew w hat I had to do, the how of it eluded me. I know, I know . . . Eve and I had solved a murder just a few months earlier. But that was then, and this was now, and as much as I would have liked to believe we'd acted professionally and competently in the matter of Drago's murder, I knew what we'd really been was just plain lucky. This time, I didn't have any idea what to say or where to start. And as always when I was pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, I was scared to death.
I guess that's what I was thinking about that morning as I took one last look around the restaurant to make sure everything was ready when the crowd returned from the cemetery. There weren't enough tables in Bellywasher's to accommodate the kind of crowd we expected, so with Charlene's approval, we'd decided on a buffet luncheon. I double-checked the table set along the far wall where we would put the food, made sure the vases with their single white roses were on every table, and
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