Wine, Dine and Christmas Crimes by Maria Swan (brene brown rising strong .txt) 📕

of their way to make me feel at ease. The better to trick me into saying something stupid? Anyway, I liked Adam and Eve better. So that’s what I would call them, and I had no clue why they’d brought me there. She’d been scrambling to find me something to eat, and he left to grab stuff they wanted me to look at. They left the office door wide open, but few people walked by, some in uniform, others not. No one paid me any attention, and I fought to ignore the vibrations of the cell in my purse.

The purse sat on the floor, resting against my leg. And it was the only thing providing me any sense of reality. I worried about my car—would Gold Buttons get it towed? And the condo—why was it being “sealed?” I also worried that no one I cared for who really, truly cared about my well-being knew where I was on this early Sunday afternoon.

The duo had whisked me out of The Nest through the service entrance, well Eve had. Adam met us there with the dark, anonymous sedan. All that while Kay sat and stewed assuming I wasn’t doing my job, and Walter, the gold-button doorman, probably put a curse on me and my Fiat—and all that chain of events got started by my sharing an innocent observation in front of big mouth Officer Clarke while he sat on Aunt Brenda’s couch, petting our dog, Dior. What a sneak that Bob.

My self-pity inventory accounted for everyone except the one person who really mattered right now—Tristan Dumont, whose calls I never returned.

Eve’s return saved me from reaching for the cell and telling Tristan about my present awful predicament probably while bawling.

“Sorry Monica, it’s Sunday, and Christmas shopping is in full swing. Many of our desk people are actually assigned to major shopping centers this time of the year, and all I could find was some leftover birthday cake.” She set a plastic plate on the desk. The cake looked as depressing and abused as the plate.

I shook my head. “I’m good. I can wait. How is prison food? Still serving green bologna?”

She laughed. “Not since we have a new sheriff in town. Monica, we only want to ask you some questions. We are trying to establish a timeline and figured it would be better not to let anyone at The Nest know what’s going on until we are better informed. As far as everyone is concerned, you’re still at the 13th floor condo, working.” She couldn’t possibly think I was that naïve.

“So why not ask me while at The Nest? Why drag me all the way downtown? I bet that weird Walter is plotting on getting my car towed.”

Adam snickered. “What? He doesn’t like pink?” Had he heard my comment? How long had he been listening?

“I doubt it’s about the color.” I said.

“What then? Hates Italian cars?”

“He didn’t seem to mind Double Wide’s Maserati Quattro Porte the other night.” Nooo. Monica, shut up. A loud silence filled the room. And then it started.

“Who? What?” It was as if a large bucket of adrenaline had dropped from above, like biblical manna from the sky. Adam and Eve looked at me with a whole different attitude, and that didn’t make me feel one bit better.

“Oh, sorry.” I batted my eyelashes, summoning up my inner Audrey Hepburn in her winning performance of Roman Holiday. “Kassandra started it, anyway. Double Wide is a very unfortunate nickname for Dale Wolf, who by the way is not wide. He’s fit and...”

“Shssh, Monica, start at the beginning. When was this...man and the Maserati at The Nest?”

Busted. I told them the whole story from when I delivered the hors d’oeuvres to when I accidentally took the wrong turn and ended up by the main entrance behind the Maserati tail pipe. I truly expected some kind of enthusiastic thank you and then a limousine ride to my Fiat. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They moved their chairs so close I could see and almost hear the beard growing on Adam’s face, seriously.

“And you’re sure that was Thursday evening, the same Thursday evening as...”

“Hey, don’t take my word for. B&B Catering served dinner at Kay Lewis’s condo. Some kind of Christmas party, except, no one from our office was invited or allowed, so I couldn’t be a guest or Brenda’s assistant. I always work catering events, that’s why it’s B&B. The two Baker girls. Leta, who worked the party and met me at the service entrance, was interviewed by a local channel that same evening. You can’t get more ‘official’ than that. Better yet, ask your buddy Officer Clarke. He drove Brenda Baker to retrieve her Honda Pilot from the underground garage that you people had sealed off.”

“It’s okay, Monica. You made your point,” Eve said, her voice so low I thought maybe she needed the leftover birthday cake more than I did.

“Good. Can I go now? Oh, anyway you two being cops and all, can you find out if Double—I mean Dale Wolf—is in cahoots with Kay?”

They exchanged glances then looked at me, but I couldn’t tell what was going through their minds.

“Wait, how about you watch some of the tape we have and point out the people you just mentioned? Do you mind?” Adam said.

“Mind? No, let’s get it over with.” Part of me wanted to get this resolved, but a louder mouthed part shouted in my head, “Yes, yes. Now you’ll really get the dirt on Kay and Double Wide.”

Instead, the first face I encountered was that of Ana, the drowning victim, her eyes bore into my consciousness so deeply I had to divert my sight from it. Nothing escaped Adam and Eve. “What is it? You know her?” He said know, not knew...more of cops’ tricks?

“Saw her pic in the newspaper. She looked so sad. How old was she?”

“Twenty-two. That tape was from Tuesday, she died on Thursday. Recognize anyone else?” Eve sounded edgy, rushed.

“No, oh, wait. Tuesday?