Scraps of Evidence: Quilts of Love Series Page 12

Tess stared into Logan’s eyes and felt as if she’d dropped into the deep end of the ocean.

  She told herself she was having this reaction because she was half-asleep, that she was relaxed from a lovely lunch and the warm sun beating down on her head and shoulders. The waves were hypnotic.

  But she knew the effect came from being near Logan. From being kissed by Logan. From his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her close.

  “We need to go.”

  “Do we have to?” he asked, his face so close his breath whispered across her lips.

  “I think we better.”

  With a sigh, he got to his feet and reached down to offer his hand. She took it, and he pulled her up to stand inches from him.

  “Logan.”

  He put his hand behind her head, brought her closer, and kissed her again. “Now we can go.”

  Smiling, she shook her head and let him keep her hand as they walked back the way they’d come.

  They stamped the sand from their feet when they got to the wooden steps up the dune and walked back to the car.

  “Maybe we can come do this again next week?”

  “Like the beach, huh?”

  He looked at her. “I like you.”

  “And I like you.”

  “How are we going to do this?”

  She started to say something, to ease the tension she suddenly felt, but the words dried up. He was looking at her so seriously and joking about it would be wrong.

  “I like to keep my private life private,” she told him. “I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business if we see each other and at some point if we don’t—”

  “Don’t project,” he interrupted, tugging at her hand to stop her. “Don’t talk like it’s not going to work out.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly.

  He reached out to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You sure we have to go to this thing?”

  “I promised I’d help Aunt Kathy with the food.”

  “I thought maybe you had,” he said and resumed walking. “That’s why I woke you up.”

  “It was a catnap. I’d have woken up in a minute.”

  He grinned at her. “Yeah.”

  They went to the party in separate cars, but Tess wondered if anyone would have noticed. Everyone was in the backyard already enjoying a cold drink and checking out the progress of the barbecue.

  Tess brought a fresh veggie tray and pasta salad and placed them on the long table loaded with all the items her aunt and others had made.

  “Hi there,” Logan said as he set a grocery store bag down on the table and began unloading half a dozen containers of dips and bags of chips and snacks.

  “Typical guy contribution,” she teased.

  “Hey, it’s what’s popular,” he told her as several children immediately ran over to help themselves.

  “So, who do you think you’re fooling?” her aunt asked her when she returned to the kitchen.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You think arriving in separate cars really fools anyone?”

  Tess rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Gordon’s taking credit for matching the two of you up.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Really? How does he figure he did that?”

  “He brought Logan here.”

  Tess snatched a chicken wing her aunt was taking from a tray and piling into a basket.

  “Wow, this is hot,” Tess sputtered.

  “You saw me just get them out of the oven.”

  “No, I mean it’s spicy!” She grabbed a glass and poured herself some sweet tea. “Can I take those and pass them around for you?”

  “Sure.” Kathy handed her the basket. “Just make sure you pass them around to more than you.”

  “Very funny.”

  She offered them to Gordon first as he stood supervising several barbecue grills. “Why, thank you!” he said, and then he bit in. His eyes widened and he gaped at her. “Whoa! Foul!”

  “Yeah, it’s fowl,” she said, pretending to misunderstand him. “It’s a chicken wing.”

  He grabbed for a beer he’d stationed on a nearby table and took a healthy swig. “What’d I ever do to you?”

  “Told Aunt Kathy you were responsible for getting Logan and me together,” she said, giving him a level stare.

  “Well, I did. I met him and recruited him at a conference.”

  “You made it sound like you were matchmaking,” she said severely.

  “Well, how’s that going?” he asked, giving her a shameless grin.

  She glared at him and walked away to offer the wings to a few other hapless victims—er, guests. Logan was next, then Smithers, and Ed. She got the same reactions she had from Gordon—cries of “Fire!” and “I need a drink!”

  “Don’t blame me, blame Kathy,” she said with a big smile.

  “I think you enjoyed that,” Logan said when she set the basket down on the table.

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she responded, looking at him with wide eyes. “Are you having a good time?”

  “Yeah, I am. You?”

  She nodded.

  Gordon clanged two barbecue tools together. “Meat’s ready! Who wants a steak?”

  Logan jostled Tess out of the way, as she grabbed a plate and got in line.

  “Hey!”

  “You’re just one of the guys here, remember?” he whispered with a wicked grin. “You didn’t want to let anyone think we’re dating.”

  She just stood there and stared at him and let him have the last word.

  This time.

  “Logan, Tess, you two sit here!”

  Logan glanced at Tess as they walked to one of the picnic tables set up in the back yard.

  “I thought—”

  “Just do it,” Tess said as she smiled. “Objecting’s just going to get noticed more.”

  Other couples sat next to each other. Like Noah’s Ark, thought Logan. He didn’t mind—he was quite happy to be sitting next to Tess. But he wondered how Tess felt about being seated with him so obviously.

  Kathy looked at his plate. “Honey, did you get enough food?”

  “More than.”

  “Well, you just remember there’s more where that came from,” she said, spreading a napkin over her lap. “Here in the South, we believe in making sure folks have more than enough when they sit at our table.”

  Tess grinned. “We know you’ve had enough when we have to help you push yourself away from the table.”

  “Detectives can eat like that,” Bill Reilly said. “But I never know when I’m going to have to run after a bad guy. Gotta keep my girlish figure.”

  There was laughter and good-natured ribbing. Everyone called Reilly “Big Bill” because he had the stature of a running back and had just been featured in a newspaper article for running down a suspect the day before.

  “Chief not coming?” someone asked.

  “Got the flu,” Gordon told them. He looked at Logan and Tess. “He’s taking some heat from the mayor about the latest murder. Told him to tell the mayor we have our best people on it. Don’t know how long that’ll hold him, though.”

  Logan nodded. “Public officials always take the heat when we don’t turn up a killer right away.”

  “Could we not talk about such things just one night?” Kathy said in a plaintive tone.

  Gordon gave her a withering look. “You knew what you were getting into when you married a cop,” he told her brusquely.

  He turned to the man next to him. “Big Bill, how are you liking the sauce on those ribs?” he asked, oblivious to the fact that his wife’s lips trembled and she looked ready to cry.

  One of the wives started to say something, but her husband shook his head and she subsided.

  “Aunt Kathy, I hope you made your Key lime pie,” Tess said.

  “Yes, yes I did,” Kathy said.

  Tess stood and picked up her plate. “Well, I’m ready
for dessert. Let me help you cut that up and serve it.”

  Logan watched the two women walk into the house. Tess’s suggestion had been so quick, so smooth, he wondered if she’d had to use such a tactic before.

  “Great steak,” he told Gordon.

  “There’s more.”

  He patted his stomach. “Couldn’t fit one in if I tried. And that pie is sounding good on a warm night like this. Anyone else finished with your plate?”

  “Don’t worry about that, Kathy’ll be out in a minute to collect them.” Gordon took a healthy swig from his bottle of beer.

  “No trouble at all.” Logan collected two more plates and started for the house. Yeah, let the little woman take care of the dishes, he thought.

  Kathy looked up from slicing the pie when he walked into the kitchen. “Logan.”

  “Came to make sure Tess wasn’t in here scarfing down all the pie.”

  “I made three,” Kathy told him with a smile.

  Logan set the dishes on the kitchen counter. “Can I help?”

  Tess reached for a nearby tray and began putting dishes of pie on it. “You can pass these out if you want.”

  They exchanged a look. Tess nodded to indicate that everything was okay.

  A floral arrangement caught his eye as he waited for the tray to be filled. “Anniversary?”

  Kathy shook her head. “No. Gordon sometimes just buys them for me for no reason.”

  “Doghouse flowers,” Tess murmured, as Kathy turned around to get another pie.

  Logan carried the tray out to the backyard, and Tess helped pass the plates of pie around.

  Gordon was holding court still, seeming to impress some of his guests with his knowledge of the Italian statesman Machiavelli and his brilliant work called The Prince about how to rise to power. Then, when some of his guests looked at each other blankly, he smoothly switched to regaling them with a tale of hunting down one of the more colorful criminals of years past. With his genial smile and good ole Southern boy drawl, he was apparently quite a popular guy.

  Likeable. But trying a little too hard, in Logan’s opinion.

  He shook off the criticism. It wasn’t like him to be judgmental.

  But he was glad on some level that Tess didn’t seem to like Gordon, although she never showed it, and was professional and unfailingly polite around him. She looked up to him as a mentor for police work, but her nature was nothing like his.

  This was the first time members of the department had gotten together since Logan arrived. It was much like the casual get-togethers back in Chicago although the accents were different. He found himself relaxing and enjoying the kind of easy camaraderie born of a mutual passion for the work and the area.

  The pie was a hit, and a little while later guests began leaving. Tess stayed to help her aunt clean up, so Logan did as well. He liked the grateful look Tess gave him, but that’s not why he did it. It just seemed the polite thing to do as a guest.

  He was walking under one of the trees when a big brown bug unexpectedly flew at him, and he tossed the paper dishes he was carrying up into the air and yelled.

  “What was that about?” Gordon asked, hurrying over.

  “Biggest roach I’ve ever seen came out of that tree,” Logan said as he bent to pick up the plates.

  Tess rushed out into the back yard. “Logan? What’s the matter?”

  Gordon crowed. “Boy saw a palmetto bug. Screamed like a girl.”

  “I did not,” Logan said. “Tess, I swear it was a roach that was a foot long, and it flew at me!”

  He could tell she was trying to stifle a laugh. “Welcome to Florida.”

  “Not funny,” he growled, not believing she was finding it funny.

  She patted his shoulder. “Time to take you to the alligator farm and see what you think of that. You haven’t seen Florida until you’ve seen your first alligator.”

  “They keep them penned up, right?” he asked as he followed her back into the house.

  “Yeah, but they’ve got this zipline you can ride over the pen full of them.”

  He put the plates into a garbage bag. “What, is that supposed to be some kind of good ole boy fun or something?”

  She laughed. “Tourists love it.”

  “Gordon likes that kind of thing,” Kathy said as she rinsed some silverware under running water and stuck it in the dishwasher. “He loves putting himself in danger like that. Said he’s tired of pushing paper around since he got his last promotion. But he sure works hard for those promotions and seems to enjoy playing politics to get them.”

  Logan thought about that. Some people really enjoyed that sort of thing.

  Tess’s cell rang, and she pulled it out and took the call. Logan could tell it was bad news right away. She told whoever it was she’d be right there and looked at him.

  “I gotta go. Mrs. Ramsey’s daughter called me. They took her mother to the hospital. Someone broke in and hurt her.”

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “You don’t have to—”

  He just gave her a look and crossed the room to give his hostess a hug. “Kathy, thanks for having me.”

  She patted his cheek. “We almost got through a whole evening without one of you being called out.”

  “Leave the rest of it, and I’ll come back tomorrow and help out,” Tess told her.

  “Okay.”

  Tess narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying to me.”

  Kathy grinned. “Oh, get going. There’s nothing much left to do. Maybe Gordon will help. I’ll bribe him with another beer. I hope Mrs. Ramsey’s okay. I’ll say a prayer for her.”

  “Me, too,” said Tess as she headed out the door with Logan. “Me, too.”

  15

  Tess walked into the emergency room waiting area and spotted Lindsey.

  “How is she doing?”

  “I don’t know. They made me wait out here,” Lindsey said, her lips trembling. “Her neighbor called me when she didn’t come to the door this morning. She was unconscious when they brought her in.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her hands. “Why would someone hurt an old lady, Tess? She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Let me go see what I can find out.”

  Tess glanced at Logan. He nodded and sat beside Lindsey, offering her a tissue from a box on a nearby table and talking quietly to her.

  She spotted a familiar face and headed toward her. “How’s Mrs. Ramsey?”

  Susan, an R.N. Tess had gone to school with, shook her head. “It’s not looking good. Dr. Langford is worried about her. She got bashed in the head pretty hard. She’s having a CAT scan right now. I was just going out to talk with her daughter.”

  “Is she able to talk?”

  “I’ll have to clear it with Dr. Langford—”

  “One minute. That’s all I’m asking. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important.”

  Susan nodded and hurried down the hall. When she returned, she took Tess to a cubicle.

  Mrs. Ramsey looked pale and shaky, but she was awake and recognized Tess. “Lindsey didn’t have to call you.”

  Tess pulled over a chair and sat beside the gurney. “Who did this to you, Mrs. Ramsey? Did you see who hurt you?”

  The woman started to shake her head, and then she moaned and held her hand to her head. “No, I woke up and someone was in the bedroom. The cats were hissing and carrying on. All I saw was this shape coming at me and then he hit me. Before I passed out, I could hear him yelping. I think one of the cats bit him or scratched him. I think it was Brutus.”

  She began crying. “My head hurts so bad. Is Lindsey here? Can I see Lindsey?”

  Tess patted her hand. “I’ll go get her. You take care and get better, okay? I’ll stop back by later and see how you are.”

  “My cats,” Mrs. Ramsey said. “I have to get out of here and take care of my cats.”

  “I’ll stop by and see your neighbor,” Tess promised her. “She has a key, right? I’m sure she’
ll be happy to take care of your cats until you’re back home.”

  Tess went out to talk to Lindsey and was glad to be the bearer of good news. Lindsey sprang to her feet, ready to go back and see her mother. Tess rose and touched her arm.

  “Logan and I need to go by and look over the scene,” she said.

  “I’ll call Mom’s neighbor and have her let you in,” Lindsey said, pulling out her cell phone. “I’ll be there right after I see Mom settled in a room.”

  The neighbor let Tess and Logan into the house, and then waited on the porch until they told her she could go inside.

  After donning booties for their shoes and plastic gloves for their hands, Tess went straight for the bedroom while Logan checked to see where the intruder had entered.

  “Logan!”

  He appeared in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “Look at this.” Tess waved a hand at the jewelry box on the dresser. It had been dumped and jewelry items lay in a heap. A diamond pendant and chain lay sparkling atop a pile of costume jewelry.

  “The diamond necklace?”

  Tess nodded. “Could be, could be a different one. But Mrs. Ramsey never said she had two and this fits the description. Oval stone, about a carat, white gold setting, and chain. We’ll confirm with Lindsey.”

  A cat strolled in, a big white Persian Tess thought looked permanently cranky. “Brutus?”

  The cat meowed and brushed up against Tess’s leg. An idea began to form.

  The forensics team arrived, and one of them poked his head into the room. “We found the sliding glass door forced open. Steve’s taking prints now.”

  Tess picked up the cat and petted it. Brutus reacted with a purr. The visits to Mrs. Ramsey had paid off in a cooperative cat.

  So far.

  She turned to the female forensics technician on the scene. “Sally, you like cats, right?”

  The woman narrowed her eyes. “Yeah. Why?”

  “The victim said she thinks Brutus here scratched the perp. I’m thinking if we can get some scrapings we can check the DNA.”

  “We can try,” Sally said. “If the cat doesn’t cooperate, someone will have to take it to a vet for the scrapings.”

  “Let me see if there are some treats we can bribe Brutus with first,” Logan suggested.

  “Good idea.”

  He returned with a bag of treats but Brutus just looked at them disdainfully. “What is it with cats?” he asked. “You can get a dog to do anything for a treat.”