The Devil's Luck Read online

  Sanger interrupted, “That’s not quite fair, Clementine. Going after Ethan was your idea and he was already after you. You know it was only a matter of time before…”

  “Shut up, Aaron,” she cut him off. “Then there was that time your girlfriend shot herself in front of us after you dragged me with you to question her about trying to kill her husband. And have you forgotten we got arrested last week?”

  He turned into the parking garage at the Federal Building and flashed his badge. As they were pulling away from the toll booth, he said, “I’ll cop to Tori. That was all on me. I shouldn’t have brought you with me to question her. But I’m not taking all the blame for Ethan, and last week was almost entirely your fault. You were a very willing partner in crime both times.”

  He found a parking spot and pulled in. After he killed the engine, he turned in his seat to look at her. “And I’m sorry the nightmares got so bad after Tori. I really am. You do forgive me, don’t you?”

  His sincerity and concern pushed out all her aggravation and she said, “Of course, I do. But I mean it, Aaron. No more dead bodies. No more running your cases by me. No more, ‘hey Clementine, I’m going to text you this picture from the morgue. Anything seem off it you?’”

  “That was only one time…” he started.

  “One time that you didn’t wait for me to text you back and tell you it was ok, so I wake up in a hotel in Jersey City, after playing two back-to-back Stanley Gerard memorial shows in a row, to a dude with a slit throat and a ripped-out lip ring on my home screen.”

  He grinned at her in appreciation. “Blew the case wide open. The M.E. missed it. Thought the killer missed and slashed the victim’s face…”

  “Whatever,” she said. “My point is that ever since Rex became your partner, you’ve been leaning on me too much for work stuff.”

  Sanger sulked, “I know and I’m sorry. It’s just, I need another set of eyes and ears. That’s what a partner is for, you know? Ernst was so brilliant…”

  “You’re brilliant, too, Aaron,” she said gently.

  “Yeah, sometimes, but not on my own. I can’t trust Rex like I should. I have to explain everything. He just doesn’t get it. It’s like I’ve got half the puzzle put together and he’s still looking at the box trying to figure out how to open it.”

  “You need a new partner. What does Uncle Ernst say?” she asked, already knowing the answer. After the autopsy incident, she’d called her godfather at four in the morning, demanding that he talk some sense into his former homicide partner.

  “Same as you. I should ask for a new partner.”

  Q hopped out of the truck and slammed the door. Sanger met her near the tailgate, leaning sideways against the matte black finish that had been painted on with a spray can. She shoved her hands into her back pockets and mirrored his posture.

  “What is it, Aaron? What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Look, you go on home. I’ll go upstairs and try to be charming on my own. You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you to do this. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He paused. “No, that’s not true. I was being selfish. You shouldn’t be involved in anything like this.”

  She slipped her arm around his waist and guided him towards the elevator. “Come on, I think I can handle Jeffries.”

  He tossed his arm over her shoulder. “Really?”

  “Really,” she said, leaning into his happiness. “I can’t leave you all on your own with that woman. You’ll either end up fucking on the desk or killing each other.”

  He kissed the side of her forehead. “I’ll talk to Rex. I promise.”

  Q rolled her eyes, making it obvious that she didn’t believe him. “Yeah, yeah.”

  As soon as they stepped off the elevator, they found Jeffries standing in the hallway waiting for them with her arms folded and mouth flattened into a tense straight line. She glanced dismissively at Sanger and continued scowling at Q. “Ms. Toledano. What is this pertinent information you have for my case? You’d better not be wasting my time.”

  Make nice. Be charming.

  “Can we maybe talk in your office?” Q asked, trying to buy herself some more time to come up with a believable cover story.

  “Can you maybe explain what he’s doing here?” Jeffries asked.

  Q eyed Sanger sideways and made the executive decision to lie her ass off. “I have no idea. I bumped into Aaron in the parking garage. He said he was here to see you. I told him he’d have to wait his turn because I have an appointment and he doesn’t. Isn’t that right, cowboy?”

  Sanger grinned all the way through his eyes. “That is exactly what happened, ride or die.”

  Jeffries scowl deepened as she regarded Sanger affectionately squeeze Q’s shoulders against him and turned without saying a word.

  The three walked towards a dull grey door and Jeffries led them into a duller and greyer room. She sat behind her desk and gestured for them to sit in the chairs in front of her.

  “So, what’s this urgent information you have for me?” she asked.

  Q bit her lip and said, “I don’t really have any information for you.”

  “Get out,” Jeffries said, pointing to the door.

  “Wait. Let me explain,” Q said. “Look, my dad was an ADA. My godfather was a homicide detective.” She pointed to Sanger. “My best friend is a homicide detective. My uncles were all judges. So, like justice is my family’s business.... at least that’s what my dad always says. I’m very familiar with how inconvenient it is when an investigation gets interrupted or interfered with, and I felt bad... for interfering with yours. Especially since it might involve the murder of a friend of mine.”

  Jeffries gestured to a file box to the side of her desk and Q recognized Sanger’s sloppy print on the outside of it. “There’s nothing in the files to suggest anything other than suicide.”

  Sanger cleared his throat and Q smiled at him. “Regardless. I wanted to make it up to you.”

  She reached into her satchel and pulled out an envelope, handing it across the desk to Jeffries. “I’m performing with Dark Harm at the Orpheum in a few weeks. I’d like to invite you as my guest. There are two orchestra tickets in there.”

  Jeffries’s mouth dropped at the seventeen-hundred-dollars’ worth of tickets in her hand. “I can’t accept these. It might look… inappropriate.”

  Q snatched back the tickets with more force than was probably necessary and slapped the envelope against Sanger’s chest. “Here’s two extra tickets to the Orpheum show, cowboy. Give them to someone who won’t sell them.”

  He gave her a sideward grin. “Maybe you should give these to someone else. Everybody I know hates Dark Harm.”

  Q tilted her head towards Jeffries and said, “Not everyone. Look, I know she pissed you off, taking your files and cutting you off the case and all, but maybe there’s a trade y’all can work out.”

  Sanger glared at her. “Subtle, Clementine. Real subtle.”

  Jeffries folded her arms and frowned at them both. “You two are about as subtle as a striptease.”

  Q replied, “Actually, I run a burlesque review and there’s quite a bit of subtlety to it.”

  Sanger shook his head, laughing to himself. “Look, Agent Jeffries. Mike Ackerman is my case. His death may or may not have had anything to do with him selling guns on the side. This whole stupid scheme was my idea. I didn’t know how much of a hardass you’d be about giving me my files, so I talked Clementine into helping me with a bribe.”

  When Jeffries didn’t look amused, he continued, “My dumbass partner didn’t make a copy of the case files. You have the only copy. I’m at your mercy…” He fanned the envelope he held in his hand and said, “But I have two fourth row…”

  “Second row,” Q corrected. “Who you talking to, cowboy?”

  “I have two second row tickets that say I’ll play nice and respect any boundary you like. Just give me my case files back, or at least, let me make a cop
y of them.” He flashed his easy smile and this time Jeffries’s guard was down.

  She flushed and tried not to look amused. “And if you don’t?”

  “You can arrest me,” he said. “And my dumbass partner. Just promise me, you’ll arrest him first, so I can watch.”

  “And I’ll introduce you to Derek,” Q added. “And he’ll tell you every single one of Aaron’s failings. He’s pretty good at it. He really does call him ‘Spot.’ And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

  Jeffries reached across the desk and took the envelope. “You can take your files if you answer me one question.”

  “Anything,” Sanger said.

  “There was vomit in the street. You told the CSU not to test it for DNA. Why?”

  Sanger started to speak, and Q cut him off. “It was mine.”

  Jeffries glowered at both of them. “I knew it. You went into that crime scene, didn’t you?”

  Q held up her hands defensively. “No, I didn’t. I went up on the porch when Sanger came out of the house to ask him what happened to Mike. It reeked like cigarettes and whiskey. I had morning sickness really bad. The smell made me sick. But I swear I didn’t go in there.”

  “You’re pregnant?” Jeffries asked.

  “Not anymore,” she replied quietly, and looked down at her hands. “I had a miscarriage last week. Anything else you’d like to know?”

  Some semblance of sisterhood broke through Jeffries’s obvious desire to hate everything about Q Toledano and she silently shook her head. “There wasn’t anything in those files to help me anyway. You can take them with you, Detective.” She tilted her head and studied Q for a moment. “You would have made a good cop.”

  “Nah,” Q said. “I’m way too funky for law enforcement.”

  They left Jeffries’s office with Sanger wearing a broad, triumphant grin as he carried his files into the elevator.

  “Alright, ride or die,” he said. “Next stop: Wanda Jacobs.”

  “No. Absolutely not. I mean it, Sanger. That was my last ride. I’m not your partner.”

  “Depends on who you ask.” He nudged her with his hip and she shoved him away. “What if I call Rex and have him meet us?”

  “Seriously?” she asked.

  “Seriously,” he said. “I’ll give you a front row seat, so you can see this train wreck up close and personal.”

  “But why do you need me there?” she whined.

  “You knew Mike. We’re getting nowhere with his widow on our own. Maybe if you’re there, we can make some progress without her dissolving into hysterics.”

  “That good, huh?”

  He gave her an annoyed look. “That good.”

  As they navigated through the morning traffic, Sanger pulled out his phone and called his partner to ask him to meet them at the Bywater home of Mike’s widow. Q watched Sanger speak with his partner and had a sudden vision of her godfather doing the same thing four years before. When he hung up, she said, “Ernst used to think you were a dumbass.”

  Sanger’s face twisted in bewilderment. “He did not.”

  “He did.” Q smiled at him. “I’d forgotten until just now. Y’all were working a case and he was convinced it was the wife that was the doer and that you were a dumbass.”

  “And…?” he asked, clearly not remembering.

  “You called him. We were at lunch and you called him. Told him that it couldn’t have been her because…” Q smiled at the memory and struggled to bite back the joyous laughter that was bubbling up inside her. “Because she danced in the rain.”

  Sanger raised an eyebrow at her. “What in the good fuck are you talking about?”

  “You saw her – the wife. You went to question her, and it started to rain, like it does every afternoon in the summer, and she left her house without an umbrella. Splashed through the puddles without her shoes. You saw it. That it was a habit. There would have been water on the floor if she’d killed him, but there wasn’t. Ernst thought you were a dumbass, but you solved the case.”

  “I don’t remember any of this,” he said.

  “It was his mistress, not the wife. You got her to confess.”

  “Whatever. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that maybe every senior partner thinks the new guy is a dumbass.” She grinned at him.

  “Maybe so, Clementine, maybe so.”

  He parked in front of a bright pink and yellow double shotgun that Q knew almost as well as her own home and she asked, “Sanger, what are we doing here?”

  Pointing to a two-story purple house across the street, he said, “That’s Wanda Jacobs’s place. Rex won’t be here for a while. Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

  Q glanced back at the house beside her and replied, “You mind if I see if my friend’s home? That’s Pete’s old apartment. His landlady is a friend of mine and I haven’t seen her hardly at all for the last year.”

  “You got it.” He lay back in his seat and closed his eyes. “You go on. I’ll wait here for Rex and call you when he gets here.”

  “Forget that noise. Come on, I’ll introduce you. You’ll love her.”

  She jumped out of the truck and sprinted up the three steps on the right side of the house. Pounding out a grinding twelve bar blues rhythm on the wood frame of the screen door, she was greeted with a chorus of Chihuahuas yapping in response. The front door opened, and Arlene Lemoine smiled broadly when she saw Q on her front porch.

  She immediately shoved the dogs away with her foot and opened the screen door to pull Q into a snug embrace, enfolding Q in the silky cloud of scarves and flowing clothes that her friend wore. Arlene had changed her hair since Q had seen her last. Q pushed back to admire the new look. “You look great as a blonde! Why haven’t you tried this before?”

  Arlene’s naturally mouse brown and stick straight hair had exaggerated her broad nose that did little to hide the fact that she’d been born with a different set of chromosomes than her current outer appearance would suggest. The new lighter color and curls she’d added were a flattering change.

  “I never wanted to be one of those high-maintenance women. It’s enough maintenance just keeping the hormones right.” She self-consciously touched her hair. “You really like it?”

  “Love it.” Q turned and pointed to Sanger on the sidewalk. “Hope you don’t mind me just dropping by. My friend is dragging me along on a police investigation and he pulled up right at your front door.”

  Arlene admired Sanger and leaned down to whisper in Q’s ear, “Your friend could drag me anywhere he likes.”

  Q grinned at her and Arlene invited them in for coffee and some form of homemade baked good that was enticing any nose within three blocks to come to taste it.

  She guided them through her book-lined living room and into the kitchen, passing through her neat bedroom on the way. Sanger and Q sat at the yellow- and gold-flecked Formica table and Arlene loaded the espresso maker on the counter.

  “So, Q, ma bébé, what brings you to my neck of the Bywater? You never come this far downtown anymore.”

  She said, “Aaron’s looking into Mike Ackerman’s death. He dragged me along to talk to his widow.”

  Arlene set two steaming cups of espresso on the table and gestured to the creamer and sugar cubes before returning to the counter for two large blueberry muffins. She sat in the chair across from Q and said, “I apologize for the pedestrian breakfast. It just sounded good this morning.”

  “Arlene is quite the French baker,” Q explained. “Her brioche is amazing.”

  “It also takes three days to make and I just wasn’t in the mood this week.” A member of Arlene’s Chihuahua pack whimpered at her feet and she pulled the small dog into her lap. “Poor Wanda. I think she always held out that she and Mike would spend their golden years together after he retired. She’s been fixing up houses all over the neighborhood and renting them out or selling them ever since the Storm, getting a little nest egg together for them to grow old on. She’s b
een a wreck since the day it happened.”

  Sanger took a bite of his muffin and audibly sighed. “This is really good,” he said around his bite. “How well do you know Ms. Jacobs?”

  “Oh, she and I have been neighbors for going on two decades. She’s real sweet. Has the same problem with strays that I do.”

  “What problem is that?” he asked.

  Q interjected, “Arlene has a collection of stray humans she tries to help. Usually, her favorite lost cause is living in the apartment on the other side of that wall.” She pointed to the middle of the house and the mirror image of Arlene’s apartment that stood on the other side. “Pete Fontain used to live over there.”