An Embarrassment of Itches Read online

  “She happens to be right here in front of you.” I managed to get the words out without a stutter.

  He quickly suppressed the smile that twitched across his lips. Holly came forward with a blanket she’d taken out of the trunk of her car and dragged it around my shoulders. I clutched it with both hands and looked blankly at her when she held out a rolled-up pair of regulation brown socks like a fat bagel.

  “You should sit down.” Joe indicated the patrol car. “Holly can take your statement where you can stay warm.”

  Perversely, his order made me want to do the exact opposite.

  “I'm fine,” I snapped. “I'm not stupid.”

  His brows beetled together as he stared at me. “I never said you were.”

  “You were thinking it. I shouldn't have gone in the water after her. There was no way she could be alive at the bottom of the pool. But I had to know for sure, you know? If there was the slightest chance at all...”

  His expression softened then. No attempt at being charming. No enforcement of his authority. Just a flicker of compassion in those hazel eyes, and then he said quietly, “Yeah, I get it. You had to know.”

  At that moment, maybe I hated him a little less than I had in the last twenty years. Only a little less.

  “Go on.” He nodded towards Holly’s car. “Get in the car where it's warm. We’ll check things out and then come back to you.”

  I started back toward the Forester, only to have Joe stop me with an abrupt command. I looked over my shoulder at him in some confusion.

  “The patrol car, please.”

  I repeated his words back at him dumbly. “The patrol car? But I’m still damp. And my car is right—”

  “This is a crime scene until proven otherwise.”

  “I agree. When you see Amanda, you’ll—”

  “Please get in the patrol car, Dr. Reese.”

  Well, that put my back up good and proper. I went rigid with outrage.

  Holly shoved the socks at me again, and I freed one hand to take them when Frank came around the corner of the house. “Yep. Dead as a doornail. Probably offed herself sometime during the night.”

  I spun towards him so rapidly the blanket fell from my shoulders. “Amanda did not commit suicide.” I stabbed my finger in his direction. “She had no reason to kill herself.”

  “Oh, honey.” Holly tried to placate me, but I shrugged away from her comforting pat on my shoulder. “If someone is depressed, they don't need much of a reason to take their own life.”

  “No.” I refused to believe it. “Look, her cat was outside when I got here. She would never leave Ming outside. Never. She loved that cat.”

  “I thought dispatch said there was something wrong with it. That’s why you were here?” Ah. Joe being the voice of reason.

  I whipped around towards him. “Ming has hyperthyroidism. One of the better old cat diseases to have because it often responds well to treatment. I'm telling you. She didn't kill herself because she was in despair over potentially losing her cat. And she would never have left him outside, no matter how upset she was.”

  Joe tried again. “Well, maybe the cat got out and when she couldn't find him...”

  I couldn't deal with any of them anymore. I put my hand over my face and jumped at the contact of my ice-cold fingers. Before I knew it, Joe had his hands on my shoulders and was steering me gently toward the patrol car.

  “Have you got anything hot you can drink? Anything with some sugar in it?”

  “No.” I started to cry.

  His fingers tightened on my shoulders and then relaxed to rub them briskly. “Okay. We'll get you something. You sit here in front of the heater until we get back.”

  He opened the driver’s door, and I sat down on the edge of the seat with my feet dangling out of the car.

  Joe plucked the socks out of my hand, and before I could stop him, he knelt to roll them onto my frigid feet. Not being able to indulge in pretty clothes most of the time, I had a secret passion for outlandish nail polish, which I reserved for pedicures, since I had to keep my fingernails short for work. At the moment, I was sporting a black metallic polish with an iridescent green shimmer like dragon scales. Whatever was wrong with my brain made me focus on the unbearable warmth of his fingers on my feet, and the realization that the polish on my right big toe was badly chipped.

  Grateful and mortified at the same time, I pulled my feet into the car and huddled beneath the blanket. My teeth began to chatter.

  Joe stood and held his hand out toward Holly. “Keys.”

  She tossed her keys at him, and he caught them one-handed. Reaching around me, he put the key in the ignition and turned it. Still leaning over me, he said, “Stay here and warm up. Someone will take your statement as soon as possible.”

  He left me with my mouth open and my protest lodged in my throat as he shut the door.

  At least I wasn’t in the prisoner section of the patrol car.

  With the engine running, I couldn't hear what they were saying, but having parked me on the sidelines, Joe had clearly taken charge. Frank went to Joe’s vehicle and spoke to somebody on the radio. Joe said something to Holly, who nodded intently and called out to Frank. After stopping at their own SUV to gather supplies, Frank rejoined them to dole out gloves and booties. Joe cast a quick glance in my direction before the three of them went around the house to the pool area.

  I waited for what seemed like hours. I held my fingers in front of the hot air blasting from the car’s heater, but it felt like I was trying to stave off hypothermia with a candle. Remy got tired of waiting for me to return to the Forrester and finally curled up in the back seat once more, disappearing from my view.

  Eventually, Joe came out the front door and hurried to his car. It surprised me when he headed my way carrying one of those tall insulated travel bottles. There was a weird dissociation as I studied his approach to the patrol car, like I was watching a movie instead of experiencing it in real life. He opened the driver’s door and held out the mug.

  “Relax.” He lifted an eyebrow, presumably in response to my sour expression. “It's just plain coffee.”

  “Normal coffee or the high-octane jet fuel you used to drink back in high school? Have you started throwing VPCs yet due to the extra caffeine?” I reached for the thermos anyway.

  “VPCs?” he asked.

  “Ventricular premature contractions. Brought on by too much caffeine.”

  “Careful. You’re starting to sound like your mother.” The fleeting smile he shot my way indicted he was teasing.

  “Them’s fighting words.”

  “You must be feeling better.” He made sure I had a good grip on the container before letting go of it. “I normally take it black, but I dumped a ton of sugar in it. You need something hot and sweet right now.”

  The urge to serve back a double entendre was so strong I worried for my sanity. What the hell was wrong with me?

  The first sip brought back old memories of the first time I’d tasted real coffee, not that instant crap my mother made. It was like discovering the difference between a Formula One race car versus a Dodge Dart, or like the time I rode an Olympic-trained dressage champion instead of my childhood pony. I’d turned my nose up at coffee until I found out what excellent coffee tasted like.

  Joe wasn’t kidding about the sugar. He’d added enough to turn the brew into syrup, and I made a face and gagged as I sucked it down.

  “Look out.” His warning came with a crease of concern marking his brow. “Go slow.”

  Sleet continued to pelt down into his hair, which defied gravity as it had always done. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t put on his sheriff’s Stetson. He’d always been a little vain about his hair. It was still as thick as ever and cut in the latest metrosexual fashion. I wondered who he’d get to trim his hair now that he was back in Greenbrier? Certainly not Andy. Seventy if he was a day, Andy was the town’s only barber. The local men went to him to get a buzz cut and have their b
eards trimmed.

  His jaw had the suggestion of a five o’clock shadow even though it was only nine am. I found myself staring until I realized my thinking was still muzzy from shock.

  “Well, don’t just stand there getting wet.” I tipped my head toward the house. “You’re the Big City Detective, after all. Shouldn’t you be investigating?”

  “Who’s to say I’m not?” The lift of his eyebrows paired with his slight smile was so familiar that it almost physically hurt to see it.

  I’m sure his manner was meant to be disarming, but I was familiar with all of Joe’s moves. So, I wasn’t entirely surprised when he crossed to the other side of the car and got in on the passenger side.

  Remy popped up from the back seat of my car, watching us through the window with the intensity that only a German Shepherd can muster.

  “Nice dog. What’s his name?”

  “Remington.”

  “No way. You’d never name your dog after a gun. You hate guns.” Joe leaned back slightly as though he’d encountered a Pod Person. “You can’t have changed that much.”

  It had been one of many points of contention during our long-ago relationship. Joe had planned to go into law enforcement from the get-go. While I’d played around with theater and chorus in high school, I’d always known I wanted to be a vet. Every fall I’d go hiking, and Joe would go hunting with his buddies.

  It didn’t help that my mother was a vehement NRA supporter.

  “When I started the house-call practice, my mother wanted me to carry a gun. I told her I had a Remington I took with me everywhere I went.”

  His bark of laughter startled me into a smile.

  “That sounds like your mother all right. I was sorry to hear about your dad, you know.”

  I shrugged. “The cancer wasn’t as bad as the dementia, until the very end.”

  When I’d first moved back home, I’d driven my dad around to every greasy spoon, every hole-in-the-wall diner, every Mom and Pop’s place in search of the perfect chocolate pie, just like his mother used to make. I scoured the Church Ladies cookbooks and begged for recipes from every acquaintance. I’d never win awards for my baking, but for my dad, I learned how to use a double boiler and how to make meringue. All to no avail. The chemo had changed his taste buds. We probably came across the perfect slice of pie half a dozen times and never knew it.

  An uncomfortable silence fell, only to be broken when I said, “I’m surprised to see you back here.”

  Ouch. That didn’t come out right.

  “I mean, given that your parents have moved to Florida. How are they, by the way?”

  Smooth, very smooth, Dr. Reese.

  He stared out the window as he thought about his reply. “They’re fine. Loving the warmer weather. As for me, life in the big city wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Coming back felt right.”

  Time hadn’t just been kind to him. It had made love to him and had his babies. Sure, he’d been good-looking in high school, but it had been in a half-formed, quasi-unfinished manner. Back then, some of the guys already had square jaws and chiseled cheekbones to go with their football uniforms. Many of them had peaked with high school graduation. Joe Donegan had only gotten better with time. Why couldn’t he have shown up a few months ago? If we’d run into each other in a coffee shop downtown, I could almost imagine the two of us picking up a light banter, like in a rom-com. Oh. Right. Not.

  “Coming back here was the second-hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” I purposely didn’t make eye contact.

  Let him stew on what might have been the most difficult thing I’d ever done. Whatever. That door had closed, and I wasn’t about to open it again, no matter how handsome the guy on the other side of it might be. There were more important matters at stake here.

  “What happens now?” I asked.

  His fingers beat a tattoo on his knee before he replied. “The coroner is on the way. He’ll determine the cause of death and arrange to have her body taken to the morgue. Next of kin will be notified. You want to tell me what happened when you got here?”

  I stared out the windshield at the splatter of ice crystals on the glass, noting how they trailed down the glass in a trickle of wet. The sleet was turning to rain. In an oh-so-casual manner, Joe flicked on the recording device on his smartphone.

  “I recently diagnosed Ming with hyperthyroidism. As old cat diseases go, it has a good prognosis, but there are steps to the treatment. I had an appointment this morning to go over initiating therapy and what to expect in the first month of medication. If all had gone well, she probably would have opted for radioactive iodine therapy, which can be curative.”

  Ming’s medical history was irrelevant to finding Amanda’s body, and I suddenly had more sympathy for my clients who couldn’t tell me why their cat was sick without explaining everything that had happened in the household for the last week. I lost track of my narrative and stalled out.

  A slight frown furrowed Joe’s brow as he nodded. “Then what?”

  “She didn’t answer the door. I could tell by the way the horses were milling about the barn they hadn’t been fed.” I indicated the horses down at the gate, huddled together in their blankets and looking a little miserable. “I rang the bell a few times and waited at the door, freezing my butt off before I sent her a text. I thought she might be down at the barn and didn’t know I was here.”

  It was my turn to frown. “I went back to the car ... Oh! Right. I wanted my coat, so I went back to the car.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Remy got out. He saw Ming and chased him around to the back of the house.”

  I turned to Joe and looked him dead in the eye. “Ming is never outside. Never. He’s an old, pampered house cat. There are too many coyotes and feral cats around here. If he got out by accident, Amanda wouldn’t have rested until she’d caught him again.”

  “Ginger—”

  “Don’t call me that,” I snapped. He’d lost the right to call me pet names when he’d left for D.C. “And don’t placate me. I’m telling you; something is wrong here.”

  “It looks like a suicide. She took her shoes off. She left her watch by the pool.”

  “I don’t care what it looks like. Did you find a note? Don’t suicides leave a note?”

  He made a small noise of exasperation, and for the first time I noticed the fine lines around his eyes, and the touch of silver in his sideburns. He looked ... tired ... and the realization startled me.

  “It’s a myth that suicides always leave a note. Two-thirds of them don’t.” He seemed to sense my appraisal, and something in his face hardened. “Then what? What did you do next?”

  I recited my next steps—chasing after the dog, finding Amanda in the pool, foolishly thinking there was something I could do, and then going off in search of a phone.

  “Why didn’t you use your own phone?”

  I shifted off my hip to remove it from my back pocket. “I forgot it was on me when I went in the water. I’m hoping if I put it in a bag of rice overnight, I might be able to salvage something. What about Amanda’s phone? Did you find it?”

  Some indefinable expression I couldn’t read flickered over his features. “I’m afraid I can’t say.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” I would have said more, only he cut me off.

  “This is a sudden death investigation. Until the coroner determines the cause of Ms. Kelly’s death, the farm and everything on it is part of the death scene. I have to treat it as such. If this were an animal cruelty case, you’d know there are certain things that have to be done by the book.”

  “Fair point. But if her phone is on her body, doesn’t that do away with the suicide theory?”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed briefly, as though he were trying to determine if I was somehow weaseling privileged information out of him. Then his entire expression relaxed. “Hardly. After all, you jumped in the pool without taking your phone out of your pocket.”

  “I wasn’t trying to kill myself. And how does
one fight the instinct for survival when trying to drown yourself anyway? Hanging, I get. One quick snap and you’re done. Or you choke to death if you didn’t set things up properly. Jump off a building and you have a few brief seconds to wonder if you made the right call. A handful of pills with an alcohol chaser and you just go to sleep. But drowning?” I shook my head. “Unless you swim out into the ocean so far you can’t make it back, drowning yourself in a pool seems mighty hard to me unless you also took pills beforehand. What’s to stop you from coming to your senses and swimming toward the side?”

  Joe gave me the Who the hell are you? look again. “You seem to have given this a lot of thought.”

  “Not especially. I just know a lot about physiology. I’m telling you, none of this makes sense.”

  “Either way, it’s up to the coroner now. Why didn’t you stay on the phone with dispatch?”

  “Huh?”

  I must have looked terribly confused because Joe spoke slowly, as though managing a toddler, “You called 911. Dispatch asked you to stay on the line, but you didn’t. Why?”

  “Oh, crap.” In my dismay, I brought my hands up to my face hard enough it could have passed for a slap. “I forgot to go back. I was so cold. I wanted to change out of my clothes and catch the dog. I didn’t even think—I mean, I didn’t hang up—I’m sorry.”

  He nodded as though he’d expected my answer. “Understandable under the circumstances. But you left the dispatcher wondering if something had happened to you.”

  I grimaced a second apology.

  He held out his hand. “I’d like to have your phone, though.”

  My fingers closed over it reflexively. “Why?”

  “It would be helpful to corroborate your statement. Besides, we may have better technology than a bag of rice to retrieve the information on your sim card.” His charming devil smile made an appearance.