Who Creamed Peaches, Anyway? - Softcover
Teddi usually ignored Drew Scoones's warnings to stay out of his cases...
After all, who in her right mind would give up steamy post-arrest debriefing sessions with Detective "Swoons"? But when Drew's partner is accused of murdering Peaches Lipschitz—aka the "Hooker Housewife"—the department promptly takes Drew off the case. Now he's looking at a major lifestyle change and finally doing the one thing that really rattles Teddi... proposing marriage!
So "Long Island's Most Dangerous Decorator" is doing the impossible: "breaking up" with Drew to investigate on her own...and making her snobbish mother happy for the first time ever. And she's finding that slipping Drew clues undercover is as hot—and dangerous—as revealing Peaches' secret clientele. But Drew isn't going to stay sidelined for long—or let one irresistible interior decorator get away scot-free....
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Setting the mood in your house is more than just a matter of furniture. Lighting and music can change your room from calm to wild, from funereal to party-ready. Baking bread says "come on in."
TipsFromTeddi.com
The parking lot outside L. I. Lanes, the bowling alley I just finished redecorating, is dark and cold. It's almost midnight and a couple of the streetlights are blinking furiously, trying to illuminate the parking area, but they aren't up to the job. As far as I can tell, there's no moon and no stars. Inside, there's a party going on to celebrate the "Grand Reopening" and the music is loud. It's cold, I'm tired, and I should just take my bow and, basking in the kudos, go home and crawl into my bed.
Only, there was this phone call...
Which is why I've raced out here to the icy parking lot after my on again/off again boyfriend, Homicide Detective Drew Scoones, wearing ridiculously high heels that only an idiot or a hooker would wear in this weather. I must have been crazy letting my thirteen-year-old daughter, Dana, doll me up for this party so that Drew would realize how hot I am, so that he'd say, "Teddi, I want you and I'll accept you on your terms." These include not pressuring me into a second marriage mistake, accepting that my children have to come first, and forgiving me the mother from hell.
That's what I'd like him to say. Only what he actually says is, "Damn it, Teddi! Let go of the car." He's using his I-am-the-police-and-you-must-obey-the-law voice. He should know better, but it looks like he expects me to just let go of the door handle and back away. This, even though the phone call I heard was from Hal Nelson, Drew's partner, calling about someone named Peaches Lipschitz possibly being murdered.
Sounds juicy, no? The phone call, I mean. Not Peaches. Except for the couple of times when he thought he was rescuing me from the very jaws of death, I've never seen Drew so rattled. Rattled enough, I think, to actually pull out of the parking lot with me hanging on to the door handle of his little blue Mazda RX7 as he goes.
Discretion being the better part of valor, I let go. Heck, I've got the keys to my own car in my pocket and how hard can it be to just follow Drew to this Peaches' place? As dark as it is, I'm pretty confident I can tail him without being noticed.
After all, I've learned from a master.
Him.
Maybe if it hadn't sounded like Peaches was dead. Or maybe if it wasn't that Hal—who I dislike intensely—appears to be involved. Then I could just let him go, do his job and hear the details later. I mean, having redecorated the whole bowling alley cum billiards parlor, I wouldn't mind hanging around for a few compliments.
Only, the thing is, I've gotten pretty good at this detective stuff and if I've learned anything from my close association with Detective Drew Scoones—besides where my own G-spot is hidden—it's that the first twenty-four hours after a murder are crucial to solving the case. It's that 24/24 rule that Drew is always talking about—the last twenty-four hours the victim was alive and the first twenty-four after she's been killed.
And I'm not missing out.
Maybe Drew is right. Maybe I am becoming a homicide junkie. But examining my psyche while trying to tail Drew like a pro is probably not the best idea I've ever had. And, trust me on this, I've had some other not best ideas in my time. And my time starts way before my first client died and I met Drew. All the way back to Husband Number One. Now there was a really, really not best idea.
Anyway, thirty minutes and a trip down motive lane later, Drew pulls into the driveway of a well-kept, two-story split-level in a nice neighborhood in New Hyde Park. I'm a half block behind him. I figure that's a safe enough distance for me to stop. I pull over to the curb and cut my engine. Drew gets out of his car and sends a glare in my direction which says that I didn't fool him for a second but that he doesn't have time to argue with me.
Despite the dark and the fact that he's the length of an entire Costco aisle away from me, I can still see his frown. I could be on the other side of Long Island and still see that frown, I know it so well.
I start to open my door, but he shakes his head. Nodding, I put my hands up in mock surrender, gesturing no argument here. Hey, if the man is gullible enough to believe I'm staying in the car, is that my problem? I mean, our relationship goes back three years now, and if he hasn't learned more than how to start my engines, he doesn't deserve to be driving my car, if you get my drift.
I lose sight of him as he heads up the front walk, my vision blocked by evergreens, the contours of the house and the darkness of night. I let myself out of my car, closing the door behind me. I do this as soundlessly as a six-year-old car will allow, which means that there is a bit of creaking. Actually, that may be my knees, since I've lowered myself behind my car just in case he steps back for a second look.
"Tire trouble?" a man's voice asks, and I jump, gasping like whoever murdered Peaches is out to get me.
Which, since I'm outside her house, is not beyond the realm of possibility.
"Didn't mean to startle you," he says, crouching next to me and studying my tire before assuring me that it looks all right to him.
By now, I'm standing up and stomping to keep warm, trying to look like I'm more than capable of taking care of myself and anyone else who comes along. I make up something about how the tire was kind of thumping, but that he is absolutely right—it does look fine. I run my hands down my clothes to neaten them and realize I'm still in the Hooker Barbie getup for the "Grand Reopening" celebration party back at the bowling alley—the same clothes my mother said made me look like a hooker housewife.
She'd said it in front of Drew just before he got the call from his partner, and he'd laughed. Then, after the call, he'd said something to the effect of I don't know how you Bayers do it. A housewife hooker. Isn't that what your mother just said?
If I was the type who put two and two together, which I am, I might put that comment and Peaches Lipschitz in the same sentence, and you know what I'd get?
Could Peaches Lipschitz be a hooker housewife? Or, make that could she have been?
The man beside me comes slowly to his feet, taking in every inch of me as he rises.
"You must be cold," he says, staring at me like I'm wearing even less than I am. "You, uh...?" He gestures toward the house in front of which I'm parked.
With as much dignity as I can muster, I tell him that I was actually going down the block, and I point my chin toward Peaches' house. The man smiles broadly. Too broadly, showing too many teeth of the better-to-eat-you-with-my-dear variety. "Let me walk you there," he says. "I happen to be—"
Instinct takes over. Some desire to protect Drew, if not Hal. To protect the integrity of the investigation... Oh, I love how that sounds. I decide that's exactly what I'm doing when I say, "Look, you seem like a nice man. Take my advice and go home to your wife." I'm protecting the integrity of the investigation.
The man stiffens, but his grip on my elbow doesn't loosen. He tells me he isn't married.
"Yeah," I say sarcastically. "And I'm not vice." I swear it just rolls off my tongue.
"No kidding," the man says, his hold on my elbow now painful. "I knew that right off. Wanna know how I knew?"
Sadly, I have an inkling. It's confirmed when he pulls out his badge and identifies himself. That happens just before he starts talking about arresting me.
"First off, Officer," I say, and I give that word all the contempt I can muster, "I in no way solicited you. In fact, I did quite the opposite, if you recall."
"Your outfit did the talking for you," he says.
Once more I think about killing Dana for dressing me up to make Drew jealous. But to do that I'll have to get out of this mess and get home. "Secondly, I'm here with Detective Scoones on police business and—"
"Scoones is here?" he asks, clearly taken aback. "What the hell is Scoones doing here? Besides screwing up my bust."
"So then Peaches really was one of those housewife hookers?" I ask as I ease my arm out of his grasp.
"Was?" he says, and I see his face go pale in the streetlight. "Whaddya mean was?"
IT SEEMS TO BE my lot in life to stand in kitchens with dead women at my feet and Drew Scoones staring at me like it's somehow my fault. The vice cop who escorted me into the house has the same look on his face, only he's directing it at Hal Nelson, who is nervously jiggling the change in his pocket and shooting eye darts at Drew.
In an effort not to make eye contact with, well, anyone, I study the kitchen. After all, kitchen redos are my bread and butter. Decorating is what I do for a living. I have to say that if Peaches Lipschitz really was a hooker, she had a great cover going in this house. There are no whips, no chains, no red velvet curtains or leather club chairs. In fact, rather than a bordello, I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole and wound up in Ozzie and Harriet's kitchen. I expect Ward Cleaver to come up the den stairs at any moment, asking where the Beav is.
"You know how long this operation has been going on?" Vice Cop asks Hal, who doesn't answer him. "Eight months. Eight months down the drain. What the hell was Homicide doing here, anyway? I didn't hear any call."
Hal looks at Drew. Drew looks at the floor. And it dawns on me and Vice Cop at the same time that Hal wasn't here in his official capacity. No one says a word. In the distance I swear I can hear Shelley Fabares singing "Johnny Angel." We're all so silent I can hear what sound like skips on an old LP.
Everyone's eyes dart around, each of us taking in the details while they bandy about things like TOD, which I take to mean time of death (approximately 10:00 p.m.); COD—cause of death (GSW, or gunshot wound); trajectory of bullet (straight and up close), etc. Drew is, not surprisingly, studying the blood spatters, though they will call in an expert. Vice Cop is staring at the curvaceous body on the floor—hopefully to determine the cause of death. Hal is blinking hard and keeping one eye on the front door.
And me? I'm carefully avoiding looking at Peaches Lipschitz, the hole in the back of her shirtwaist dress and the blood puddle oozing out from beneath her. Instead, I'm marveling at her Formica counters with the boomerang pattern, wondering where on earth she found the stuff, if it's genuine or repro. I'm noticing that her refrigerator is an old-fashioned separate-freezer-door-on-top one, with notes stuck on it that say things like "Remember to bake a banana cream pie for the weekend" and "I love my man, I love my life."
Shouldn't that be plural?
There's a newspaper folded in thirds on the counter the way a man might read it while riding the subway. I can see part of an article about the D.A.'s hopeless bid for reelection. One of the kitchen chairs has a banner that says King of the Castle. Next to it is a pair of men's slippers.
In the dining room the table is set for breakfast. There's a Betty Crocker mix on the counter, and I can smell the coffee in the coffeemaker.
And I'm thinking how wrong it is to be taking in decorating details when a woman is dead not ten feet from me.
And that's about when it hits me. The woman in the eyelet-trimmed cobbler's apron is somebody's wife. Maybe even somebody's mother. I think I sway a little. That or the room tilts. Someone swings a chair around and plants me in it. I expect a nasty crack from Hal about how at this point I usually throw up, but none is forthcoming.
"I told you not to come in," Drew says while Vice Cop pulls out his cell phone. "I'll call it in," Drew barks at him.
But Vice Cop shakes his head. "You had plenty of time," he says. And then we all listen as he reports the homicide and the fact that Detectives Nelson and Scoones found the body.
"Just Nelson," Hal corrects and I start to corroborate his story. I was, I tell him, with Drew when he got the call from Hal. Vice Cop isn't impressed, and Drew instructs me to go on home, take a hot bath and get into bed. "I don't think so," Vice Cop says, and I agree, reiterating the fact that, after all, I'm Drew's alibi. Only Drew says Vice Cop isn't thinking about what to charge him with, and I remember how I'm dressed.
"I was at a party," I say. "At L. I. Lanes." And I start going over all the sordid details until the guy tells me to save it for the homicide squad.
I remind him that I am standing with two members of the homicide squad, to which he mumbles something on the order of not for long.
Drew says I wasn't involved and that I am leaving and that if Vice Cop doesn't like it he can lump it. Okay, he doesn't say that he can lump it, but I'm too embarrassed to say what he actually told Vice Cop to do. Suffice it to say that Vice Cop would have had to arrest himself if he did.
In the end, I wind up leaving, shouting over my shoulder that Drew was with me all evening just as two other homicide detectives show up along with some uniforms. I realize I should probably stop saying that, dressed as I am and walking out a hooker housewife's door.
Drew calls my name and I stop and turn. He tosses his coat to me gallantly. I don't know if he's worried I'll catch a cold or catch something else.
I slip into the jacket as I hurry to the car, a cat whistle or two following me as I go. I push my hands into Drew's pockets and feel a slip of paper in one.
Once I'm in the car, I take out the paper and turn on the dome light. "Keep your mouth shut, Teddi. Please."
He's underlined please three times.
At least he's asked me nicely.
NOT AS NICELY, however, as Captain Schultz has asked me to open my mouth and spill my guts the following morning. And then there is the whole authority thing of being in the police station, in the Captain's office, his shield staring up at me while a clerk takes down my statement.
"Again, the reason you were at the crime scene?" he asks me.
I have to admit I followed Drew. "And again, the reason you were dressed as...in...?" he asks, fumbling for a way to describe my hooker outfit, which is apparently detailed in the report on his desk.
I tell him about the party, about Dana trying to help me capture Drew's attention, about how surprising that is, in light of her desire for me to get back with her father. Basically, I tell him anything that pops into my head which has nothing to do with the case against Hal Nelson.
He asks me to describe in detail everything I saw at the scene.
I remind him I'm a decorator, and ask if he's sure he wants all that detail. And then I proceed to tell him name brands, color choices, guessing at paint brands and suggesting better choices Peaches could have made, discussing the quality of her furniture, estimating the age and the cost until the man's eyes nearly cross with boredom.
Drew is pacing outside the office, and I know that the longer I'm in here, the more sure he is that I've given away state secrets.
Setting the mood in your house is more than just a matter of furniture. Lighting and music can change your room from calm to wild, from funereal to party-ready. Baking bread says "come on in."
TipsFromTeddi.com
The parking lot outside L. I. Lanes, the bowling alley I just finished redecorating, is dark and cold. It's almost midnight and a couple of the streetlights are blinking furiously, trying to illuminate the parking area, but they aren't up to the job. As far as I can tell, there's no moon and no stars. Inside, there's a party going on to celebrate the "Grand Reopening" and the music is loud. It's cold, I'm tired, and I should just take my bow and, basking in the kudos, go home and crawl into my bed.
Only, there was this phone call...
Which is why I've raced out here to the icy parking lot after my on again/off again boyfriend, Homicide Detective Drew Scoones, wearing ridiculously high heels that only an idiot or a hooker would wear in this weather. I must have been crazy letting my thirteen-year-old daughter, Dana, doll me up for this party so that Drew would realize how hot I am, so that he'd say, "Teddi, I want you and I'll accept you on your terms." These include not pressuring me into a second marriage mistake, accepting that my children have to come first, and forgiving me the mother from hell.
That's what I'd like him to say. Only what he actually says is, "Damn it, Teddi! Let go of the car." He's using his I-am-the-police-and-you-must-obey-the-law voice. He should know better, but it looks like he expects me to just let go of the door handle and back away. This, even though the phone call I heard was from Hal Nelson, Drew's partner, calling about someone named Peaches Lipschitz possibly being murdered.
Sounds juicy, no? The phone call, I mean. Not Peaches. Except for the couple of times when he thought he was rescuing me from the very jaws of death, I've never seen Drew so rattled. Rattled enough, I think, to actually pull out of the parking lot with me hanging on to the door handle of his little blue Mazda RX7 as he goes.
Discretion being the better part of valor, I let go. Heck, I've got the keys to my own car in my pocket and how hard can it be to just follow Drew to this Peaches' place? As dark as it is, I'm pretty confident I can tail him without being noticed.
After all, I've learned from a master.
Him.
Maybe if it hadn't sounded like Peaches was dead. Or maybe if it wasn't that Hal—who I dislike intensely—appears to be involved. Then I could just let him go, do his job and hear the details later. I mean, having redecorated the whole bowling alley cum billiards parlor, I wouldn't mind hanging around for a few compliments.
Only, the thing is, I've gotten pretty good at this detective stuff and if I've learned anything from my close association with Detective Drew Scoones—besides where my own G-spot is hidden—it's that the first twenty-four hours after a murder are crucial to solving the case. It's that 24/24 rule that Drew is always talking about—the last twenty-four hours the victim was alive and the first twenty-four after she's been killed.
And I'm not missing out.
Maybe Drew is right. Maybe I am becoming a homicide junkie. But examining my psyche while trying to tail Drew like a pro is probably not the best idea I've ever had. And, trust me on this, I've had some other not best ideas in my time. And my time starts way before my first client died and I met Drew. All the way back to Husband Number One. Now there was a really, really not best idea.
Anyway, thirty minutes and a trip down motive lane later, Drew pulls into the driveway of a well-kept, two-story split-level in a nice neighborhood in New Hyde Park. I'm a half block behind him. I figure that's a safe enough distance for me to stop. I pull over to the curb and cut my engine. Drew gets out of his car and sends a glare in my direction which says that I didn't fool him for a second but that he doesn't have time to argue with me.
Despite the dark and the fact that he's the length of an entire Costco aisle away from me, I can still see his frown. I could be on the other side of Long Island and still see that frown, I know it so well.
I start to open my door, but he shakes his head. Nodding, I put my hands up in mock surrender, gesturing no argument here. Hey, if the man is gullible enough to believe I'm staying in the car, is that my problem? I mean, our relationship goes back three years now, and if he hasn't learned more than how to start my engines, he doesn't deserve to be driving my car, if you get my drift.
I lose sight of him as he heads up the front walk, my vision blocked by evergreens, the contours of the house and the darkness of night. I let myself out of my car, closing the door behind me. I do this as soundlessly as a six-year-old car will allow, which means that there is a bit of creaking. Actually, that may be my knees, since I've lowered myself behind my car just in case he steps back for a second look.
"Tire trouble?" a man's voice asks, and I jump, gasping like whoever murdered Peaches is out to get me.
Which, since I'm outside her house, is not beyond the realm of possibility.
"Didn't mean to startle you," he says, crouching next to me and studying my tire before assuring me that it looks all right to him.
By now, I'm standing up and stomping to keep warm, trying to look like I'm more than capable of taking care of myself and anyone else who comes along. I make up something about how the tire was kind of thumping, but that he is absolutely right—it does look fine. I run my hands down my clothes to neaten them and realize I'm still in the Hooker Barbie getup for the "Grand Reopening" celebration party back at the bowling alley—the same clothes my mother said made me look like a hooker housewife.
She'd said it in front of Drew just before he got the call from his partner, and he'd laughed. Then, after the call, he'd said something to the effect of I don't know how you Bayers do it. A housewife hooker. Isn't that what your mother just said?
If I was the type who put two and two together, which I am, I might put that comment and Peaches Lipschitz in the same sentence, and you know what I'd get?
Could Peaches Lipschitz be a hooker housewife? Or, make that could she have been?
The man beside me comes slowly to his feet, taking in every inch of me as he rises.
"You must be cold," he says, staring at me like I'm wearing even less than I am. "You, uh...?" He gestures toward the house in front of which I'm parked.
With as much dignity as I can muster, I tell him that I was actually going down the block, and I point my chin toward Peaches' house. The man smiles broadly. Too broadly, showing too many teeth of the better-to-eat-you-with-my-dear variety. "Let me walk you there," he says. "I happen to be—"
Instinct takes over. Some desire to protect Drew, if not Hal. To protect the integrity of the investigation... Oh, I love how that sounds. I decide that's exactly what I'm doing when I say, "Look, you seem like a nice man. Take my advice and go home to your wife." I'm protecting the integrity of the investigation.
The man stiffens, but his grip on my elbow doesn't loosen. He tells me he isn't married.
"Yeah," I say sarcastically. "And I'm not vice." I swear it just rolls off my tongue.
"No kidding," the man says, his hold on my elbow now painful. "I knew that right off. Wanna know how I knew?"
Sadly, I have an inkling. It's confirmed when he pulls out his badge and identifies himself. That happens just before he starts talking about arresting me.
"First off, Officer," I say, and I give that word all the contempt I can muster, "I in no way solicited you. In fact, I did quite the opposite, if you recall."
"Your outfit did the talking for you," he says.
Once more I think about killing Dana for dressing me up to make Drew jealous. But to do that I'll have to get out of this mess and get home. "Secondly, I'm here with Detective Scoones on police business and—"
"Scoones is here?" he asks, clearly taken aback. "What the hell is Scoones doing here? Besides screwing up my bust."
"So then Peaches really was one of those housewife hookers?" I ask as I ease my arm out of his grasp.
"Was?" he says, and I see his face go pale in the streetlight. "Whaddya mean was?"
IT SEEMS TO BE my lot in life to stand in kitchens with dead women at my feet and Drew Scoones staring at me like it's somehow my fault. The vice cop who escorted me into the house has the same look on his face, only he's directing it at Hal Nelson, who is nervously jiggling the change in his pocket and shooting eye darts at Drew.
In an effort not to make eye contact with, well, anyone, I study the kitchen. After all, kitchen redos are my bread and butter. Decorating is what I do for a living. I have to say that if Peaches Lipschitz really was a hooker, she had a great cover going in this house. There are no whips, no chains, no red velvet curtains or leather club chairs. In fact, rather than a bordello, I feel like I've fallen down the rabbit hole and wound up in Ozzie and Harriet's kitchen. I expect Ward Cleaver to come up the den stairs at any moment, asking where the Beav is.
"You know how long this operation has been going on?" Vice Cop asks Hal, who doesn't answer him. "Eight months. Eight months down the drain. What the hell was Homicide doing here, anyway? I didn't hear any call."
Hal looks at Drew. Drew looks at the floor. And it dawns on me and Vice Cop at the same time that Hal wasn't here in his official capacity. No one says a word. In the distance I swear I can hear Shelley Fabares singing "Johnny Angel." We're all so silent I can hear what sound like skips on an old LP.
Everyone's eyes dart around, each of us taking in the details while they bandy about things like TOD, which I take to mean time of death (approximately 10:00 p.m.); COD—cause of death (GSW, or gunshot wound); trajectory of bullet (straight and up close), etc. Drew is, not surprisingly, studying the blood spatters, though they will call in an expert. Vice Cop is staring at the curvaceous body on the floor—hopefully to determine the cause of death. Hal is blinking hard and keeping one eye on the front door.
And me? I'm carefully avoiding looking at Peaches Lipschitz, the hole in the back of her shirtwaist dress and the blood puddle oozing out from beneath her. Instead, I'm marveling at her Formica counters with the boomerang pattern, wondering where on earth she found the stuff, if it's genuine or repro. I'm noticing that her refrigerator is an old-fashioned separate-freezer-door-on-top one, with notes stuck on it that say things like "Remember to bake a banana cream pie for the weekend" and "I love my man, I love my life."
Shouldn't that be plural?
There's a newspaper folded in thirds on the counter the way a man might read it while riding the subway. I can see part of an article about the D.A.'s hopeless bid for reelection. One of the kitchen chairs has a banner that says King of the Castle. Next to it is a pair of men's slippers.
In the dining room the table is set for breakfast. There's a Betty Crocker mix on the counter, and I can smell the coffee in the coffeemaker.
And I'm thinking how wrong it is to be taking in decorating details when a woman is dead not ten feet from me.
And that's about when it hits me. The woman in the eyelet-trimmed cobbler's apron is somebody's wife. Maybe even somebody's mother. I think I sway a little. That or the room tilts. Someone swings a chair around and plants me in it. I expect a nasty crack from Hal about how at this point I usually throw up, but none is forthcoming.
"I told you not to come in," Drew says while Vice Cop pulls out his cell phone. "I'll call it in," Drew barks at him.
But Vice Cop shakes his head. "You had plenty of time," he says. And then we all listen as he reports the homicide and the fact that Detectives Nelson and Scoones found the body.
"Just Nelson," Hal corrects and I start to corroborate his story. I was, I tell him, with Drew when he got the call from Hal. Vice Cop isn't impressed, and Drew instructs me to go on home, take a hot bath and get into bed. "I don't think so," Vice Cop says, and I agree, reiterating the fact that, after all, I'm Drew's alibi. Only Drew says Vice Cop isn't thinking about what to charge him with, and I remember how I'm dressed.
"I was at a party," I say. "At L. I. Lanes." And I start going over all the sordid details until the guy tells me to save it for the homicide squad.
I remind him that I am standing with two members of the homicide squad, to which he mumbles something on the order of not for long.
Drew says I wasn't involved and that I am leaving and that if Vice Cop doesn't like it he can lump it. Okay, he doesn't say that he can lump it, but I'm too embarrassed to say what he actually told Vice Cop to do. Suffice it to say that Vice Cop would have had to arrest himself if he did.
In the end, I wind up leaving, shouting over my shoulder that Drew was with me all evening just as two other homicide detectives show up along with some uniforms. I realize I should probably stop saying that, dressed as I am and walking out a hooker housewife's door.
Drew calls my name and I stop and turn. He tosses his coat to me gallantly. I don't know if he's worried I'll catch a cold or catch something else.
I slip into the jacket as I hurry to the car, a cat whistle or two following me as I go. I push my hands into Drew's pockets and feel a slip of paper in one.
Once I'm in the car, I take out the paper and turn on the dome light. "Keep your mouth shut, Teddi. Please."
He's underlined please three times.
At least he's asked me nicely.
NOT AS NICELY, however, as Captain Schultz has asked me to open my mouth and spill my guts the following morning. And then there is the whole authority thing of being in the police station, in the Captain's office, his shield staring up at me while a clerk takes down my statement.
"Again, the reason you were at the crime scene?" he asks me.
I have to admit I followed Drew. "And again, the reason you were dressed as...in...?" he asks, fumbling for a way to describe my hooker outfit, which is apparently detailed in the report on his desk.
I tell him about the party, about Dana trying to help me capture Drew's attention, about how surprising that is, in light of her desire for me to get back with her father. Basically, I tell him anything that pops into my head which has nothing to do with the case against Hal Nelson.
He asks me to describe in detail everything I saw at the scene.
I remind him I'm a decorator, and ask if he's sure he wants all that detail. And then I proceed to tell him name brands, color choices, guessing at paint brands and suggesting better choices Peaches could have made, discussing the quality of her furniture, estimating the age and the cost until the man's eyes nearly cross with boredom.
Drew is pacing outside the office, and I know that the longer I'm in here, the more sure he is that I've given away state secrets.
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- PublisherHarlequin Next
- Publication date2008
- ISBN 10 0373881509
- ISBN 13 9780373881505
- BindingMass Market Paperback
- Number of pages288
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Who Creamed Peaches, Anyway?
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ISBN 10: 0373881509
ISBN 13: 9780373881505
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