Whiplash

15

Tuesday morning

Erin let a well-dressed, heavy-eyed Bowie Richards into her apartment the next morning at seven thirty.

"You don't look good, Agent Richards. You on an all-night bender with those wild agents from Washington?"

"All I can hope is they had as miserable a sleepless night as I did. We all drank espresso, and the stuff was so strong it could have blasted a rocket into space. That and thinking about this gnarly murder kept me up until nearly three a.m."

Erin cocked her head to one side, tried to look uninterested, but polite. "And what did you decide after all that thinking?"

He eyed her, realized he liked the oversized white shirt over the black leggings, the ballet flats on her feet. Her hair was pulled back in a French braid, big dangly hoops in her ears. She looked all dancer this morning, not a whiff of P.I. "About what? Oh, the murder. It's interesting, we found a waiter at Chez Pierre last night who'd heard the murdered man on a cell phone saying he'd made up his mind and to leave him alone-" Bowie stopped, frowned, shook his head. "Forget I said that, I shouldn't have. Shows you my brain is still singing the espresso blues. Where's Georgie? We've got to leave for school pretty soon."

Yeah, sure, I'll forget it. It's already emblazoned on my brain. Erin said, "I heard the murdered guy's name on the news this morning. Helmut Blauvelt."

"Yeah, I forgot we let out that information."

"It's lucky the waiter at Chez Pierre understood German, isn't it?"

"Oh, he didn't. Blauvelt spoke in English, only a slight accent, Estafan told us, until the end, then Blauvelt switched to German-what's wrong with me? Keep that confidential, okay?"

Erin said easily, "Not a problem. Georgie! Your dad's here."

"I'm eating oatmeal," Georgie called out from the kitchen. "You want some, Daddy?"

Bowie rubbed his eyes. "Oatmeal? She never eats oatmeal. How'd you manage that?"

"I've got a special recipe passed down from my great-grandfather. Georgie took one bite and blissed out. She doesn't want to let the oatmeal out of her sight. Have you had breakfast yet, Agent Richards? Maybe Great-granddad's oatmeal will glue things back together again in your brain."

"Call me Bowie, please."

"All right. Call me Erin."

"Erin." He took a quick look at his watch. "I really don't have time, I've got so much stuff to do and-your great-grandfather's recipe, you say?"

"Yep. He was Polish, but he always claimed he'd learned how to make it when he lived in Inverness for three years. Come on, Bowie, come into my kitchen. It'll just take a minute. Believe me, Georgie isn't going to budge from the kitchen table until she cleans out her bowl, and it's a big bowl."

Erin eyed him as he took a tiny bite, nodded, then went to work on the oatmeal with brown sugar sprinkled on top, nodding some more as his daughter spoke nonstop to him, at him, really-about how she took a running start and landed right in the middle of the red beanbag in the living room, and then Erin tried it but she was too big and fell off the side, before switching to Erin's bedtime story about a ballet dancer who hated wearing a tutu.

Erin knew Bowie's nods were automatic-he was thinking about Blauvelt's murder, she knew, that or he was thinking about falling back into bed and sleeping around the clock. How to get more information out of him? Like, did they have any witnesses who'd seen her fall out of Caskie Royal's bathroom window? If so, had these witnesses described her?

She took a sip of her tea. "Georgie, you've told your father everything, down to the color of your socks. And you've eaten every stick of oatmeal."

"Oatmeal is gooey, Erin, there aren't any sticks."

"Hmm. Okay, you're stalling. Go brush your teeth and get your sweater, it's cool today." She waited until Georgie had cleared the kitchen door, then went for it. "That break-in at the Schiffer Hartwin headquarters, did it have anything to do with the German guy's murder? Wasn't he found right out behind the building?"

Bless her Polish great-granddad. It was the best oatmeal Bowie had ever eaten in his life. Actually, now that he thought about it, this was probably the only oatmeal he'd ever eaten. His mom hated the stuff, never made it for him or his siblings. "Break-in? Oh yeah, that was weird, truth be told."

"Why?"

He said after a moment of chewing and savoring, "I keep forgetting, you're a P.I. You've got terminal curiosity, don't you?"

If only you knew. She nodded easily. "You've got a point. Come on, Bowie, what was weird about the break-in? What was taken? Do you have any ideas who it could have been?"

Shut your mouth-too many questions, don't make him suspicious.

"All we know is it was a woman."

Had someone seen her running from the Schiffer Hartwin building? Not good, not good. "How do you know that?"

He took a last spoonful of oatmeal, sat back in the kitchen chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. "I do believe I've got my hundred-watt bulb back. That was delicious. Thank you, Erin. She went out a bathroom window that's too small for a guy."

How could I forget that wretched window was small? It's okay, then. Not a big deal. Was that all they knew?

Bowie rose when Georgie came skipping back into the small kitchen. "Thanks again for feeding me, Erin. I'll have Georgie work on you for the oatmeal recipe. Hey, you ready, kiddo?"

Georgie nodded and took his hand. "You look tired, Daddy. If you went to bed at eight o'clock like me, you wouldn't be."

"That's a fact," he said. He smiled at Erin. "Thank you for taking Georgie in. I hope she didn't give you any grief after you called me last night at bedtime?"

"Not a bit, particularly since it was well after eight o'clock when I found out when her bedtime actually was. Well, maybe I did threaten to make her do barre exercises if she wanted to stay up so late." Erin head-rubbed Georgie, and the little girl laughed and ran out of the kitchen.

"I'm going to have the strongest legs in ballet class!"

Erin waited a moment until she heard Georgie at the front door. "This murder and break-in deal, you think you'll get it solved pretty soon?"

"Oh, you're wondering how long you'll have to keep my kid as a roommate?"

No, you idiot, Georgie can stay here forever. "Yeah, I stewed about it all night. She's such a trial. No, of course not, Georgie's just fine. Forget reevaluating tomorrow, okay? Unless you think you'll have everything figured out by noon, hotshot that you are?"

"Maybe, we'll see. The big fed hotshots sent to run the investigation, turns out they're pretty okay."

"That's lucky. Now there are three hotshots cleaning things up here. Do you know, I ran into a fed once on a case and I would have sworn he wanted to pull off his wingtip and bash me with it."

He grinned, as she'd meant him to. "Did you smart-mouth him?"

"Nah, well, maybe a little bit. The jerk. So these guys are smart?"

"There are two of them, they're married of all things. The guy, Dillon Savich, he's big and tough-looking, and he's got a look about him that would scare anyone with a brain. Sherlock, his wife, she's pretty, sweet smiles she uses very effectively, but you know in your gut she'd kick your butt all the way to Vermont if you crossed her. I'm meeting them at the police station now to talk things over."

He looked better, she thought, his eyes clear, back straighter, more focused now. Yeah, Mr. Hundred-Watt was back.

"What's wrong? Do I still look like crap?"

"No, I was thinking you look human again-the wonders of Scottish oatmeal. Have a good day, Bowie. Will you be coming by tonight before Georgie's in bed?"

"I'll try." He looked down at her, but not that far down. In her ballet flats she was about five ten, maybe eleven. In heels, they'd be eye-to-eye. "You teaching a ballet class today?"

"What? Oh, because of my getup. Yeah, this afternoon. I'm working at home until then."

"Are you working on a case yourself ?"

"Yeah, but it's no biggie. Have a nice day."

"Some guy hire you to follow his wife around?"

She gave him a smile to freeze his lungs. "Oh yeah, I might even get to hide in a bedroom closet and take a video." Then, to his utter surprise, she drew back her fist and smacked him in the arm, hard.

He was rubbing his arm when Georgie shouted, running right at him, "Daddy, I'm ready! Let's go or I'll be late."

Call him Mr. Smooth. "I guess that was a kind of stupid thing to say, wasn't it? Sorry. Bye, Erin."

"Bye, Erin. I'll see you at ballet class this afternoon." Georgie gave her a huge grin, and shook her finger at her. "Don't be late. Daddy, what did you say to Erin that was stupid?"

Erin closed the apartment door and latched the chain. She pushed the red beanbag back into the corner and paced. So they knew a woman had broken into Caskie Royal's office, no surprise there since the small window made it pretty obvious, but they couldn't have a clue it was her. She wasn't anywhere near their radar, and why should she be? They also believed the murder was connected to the break-in, but she was safe-unless she sent all her evidence, all the Culovort papers she'd copied off Royal's computer, to the media. Then they'd track her down and fry her.

But what if I get the Culovort documents to the media anonymously? I'd be safe then, wouldn't I? Dr. Kender would get to nail the bozos and we'd both walk away.

It could be done, but it was scary. Thank God there was time to think about it. She wondered what Dr. Kender would have to say.

Erin put the few dishes in the dishwasher, swiped down the kitchen, and got to work.