Murder 101 Part 15

"I'll do the laundry," he repeated, and picked up the basket. "I'll be right back."

I lay back down on the bed. Fine. Do the laundry, you big baby. "The washer is in the bas.e.m.e.nt!" I called after him.

My house is small-twelve hundred square feet-and old enough that wherever water is running, it can be heard throughout the house. The water rus.h.i.+ng through the pipes told me that he found the washer and even figured out how to turn it on. That was more than Ray had accomplished in seven years of marriage. It was nice to be involved with a grown-up bachelor; he could take care of himself, and most of his daily functions wouldn't involve me. How refres.h.i.+ng.

He came back up and sat at the bottom of the bed, one leg dangling over the side. I asked him why he slept on the couch, and he shrugged. "It seemed like the right thing to do."

If you've just gotten out of the seminary, I thought. "You look tired."

"So do you." He yawned. "I haven't gotten a lot of sleep in the past few weeks. Not enough surveillance, I guess." He grinned sheepishly.

I patted the pillow beside me. "Come on up here." He rearranged himself and came up beside me, putting his head on the pillow. I faced him and brushed his hair off his forehead. "You smell like bacon."

"So do you."

I kissed him, and he kissed me back. "I love bacon," I said. He wrapped his long arms around me, and I threw a leg over his body. "Where's your gun?" I asked.

He pulled back. "Why?"

"I'm still a little nervous after last night. I like for you to have it handy."

He reached around to his back and pulled it out of the waistband of the sweatpants. He held it a safe distance from me, on display, and then put it on the nightstand behind his head. "Better?" he asked.

"Better," I confirmed. I drifted off to sleep in his arms and didn't wake up until I heard the water drain through the pipes, signaling that the wash was done. I looked at him; he was in a deep sleep, his mouth open slightly. I didn't know too many men who would choose sleep over the more romantic alternative; he must have been exhausted. I took myself gently out of his arms and got off the bed.

I went down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and opened the lid of the was.h.i.+ng machine, pulling out the wet and twisted clothes. Crawford's jeans took up most of the was.h.i.+ng machine, and were heavy when wet; I shook them out before throwing them in the dryer. I thought about the night before. The kidnapping, the ride in Vince's car, his screaming about the papers, and the crash. Crawford was right: I could have been killed. I shuddered, thinking about waking up in the back of the SUV, surrounded by deployed air bags, and said a silent prayer of thanks for being able to do a simple thing like laundry.

What did I have that could possibly make Vince, and his seemingly innocent sidekick, John, risk life and limb to get? It didn't make any sense. I turned the dial on the dryer to the timed setting-one hour-and went back upstairs.

Crawford was still asleep on the bed, but had turned onto his back and was emitting loud snores. His hands were folded over his stomach. I gently pushed him onto his side, and he stopped snoring but didn't awaken. I went into the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, and turned on the shower. While I waited for it to get hot, I looked at myself in the mirror. The bruise was a little deeper in color today, and my eyes were bloodshot. What the h.e.l.l did he see in me? I was a mess. I puked all the time and cried a lot. I am sure that he had gleaned that I wasn't easy, so it couldn't be that. It had to be pity. I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind and got into the shower.

I showered quickly, wrapping both my hair and body in towels when I was done. I opened the bathroom door and let the steam flood the room. I looked over at Crawford and almost became concerned that he had slipped into a coma, but he groaned and changed positions, and I felt relief. I thought about our trip to campus; I didn't want to do it his way. I wanted to do it my way. I wanted to empty folders, go through my books, search my desk, and think. If I had him there, we'd be wearing rubber gloves, cataloging everything, and sniping at each other. "Go without him" flashed in front of my eyes, and I breathed in sharply. The plot germinated in my brain and while I was a little nervous at how mad he would be, I pushed that thought aside and promised myself I would do everything as quickly as possible so he wouldn't be that inconvenienced.

I ran as quickly and as quietly as I could down to the bas.e.m.e.nt and put all of the almost-dry clothes into the wicker hamper, including Crawford's jeans and boxer shorts. I grabbed a pair of underpants, a bra, a s.h.i.+rt, and my jeans and hastily threw them on, realizing that I didn't have shoes. I looked around the bas.e.m.e.nt, which was packed with detritus-rakes, hoes, a lawn mower that hadn't worked since the midnineties, and a.s.sorted half-filled paint cans-my eyes finally landing on a pair of rubber gardening clogs. I wasn't a big gardener, but I thought the clogs were cute and had ordered them from L.L.Bean. I grabbed them and dusted them off, sliding them onto my feet. They were roomy and comfortable. I put the basket on my hip and made my way up the stairs. I looked around the kitchen and spied Crawford's car keys on the counter, along with his badge, phone, beeper, and wallet.

Laundry basket in hand, I quietly exited the house and tiptoed down the walk to the Pa.s.sat, which was next to the house. I pushed the keypad like I had seen him do and the car chirped, scaring the h.e.l.l out of me. I looked up at the bedroom window, but he didn't appear. I opened the hatchback door to the trunk, threw the laundry basket into it, and went to the driver's side. I climbed in and backed the car down the driveway.

I was at school in twenty minutes, and in my office in another five. I thought about Crawford waking up in my bed and realizing I had his clothes-particularly his underwear-and his car. He would be furious, but hopefully he would get over it. I had left the gun, hadn't I? I wasn't a complete idiot. Maybe he would focus on that and not turn it on me when I came back home.

I sat behind my desk. I let out a strangled scream as the phone rang unexpectedly; apparently the custodial staff had replaced the cut phone cord. I knew who it was. "Hi," I said casually.

"Where's my underwear? My jeans? My car?" he growled. Interesting order, I thought. I would have thought my stealing his car would have upset him the most.

"I'll be back in an hour. I promise," I said.

"Now you can add grand theft auto to your resume along with the breaking and entering." He let out a loud, exasperated sigh. "You are a royal pain in the a.s.s. Why did you leave without me?"

"Because I didn't want to do it your way." I looked around at the mess. "And I'm not in here 'w.i.l.l.y-nilly.'"

His voice dropped an octave. It sounded like the voice he had when he gave me the speech on breaking and entering. "Alison, your office is a crime scene."

"I get it," I said, kicking around a couple of files on the floor, the phone between my shoulder and my cheek. "I won't compromise anything."

"Just being there is compromising. Get out of there as soon as possible."

"Hey, I've got your car, so I can go shopping. What do you want for lunch?" I asked. I figured if I kept the conversation light and happy, his anger would dissipate. I was wrong.

"I'm not hungry." He hung up.

"I'm not hungry,'" I repeated in an imitation of his low growl. I picked up a stack of files from the floor and began going through them, one by one. It only took me five minutes to figure out what was missing: All of the files for my current courses were gone. I went through everything a second time to make sure and confirmed that not a file from the current semester resided in the mess.

I opened my desk and rummaged through the middle junk drawer with its pens, pencils, and folder labels, and then through the drawers to my right. Everything seemed to be there, even though the drawers were a mess. I started sneezing as the fingerprint powder that dusted every inch of every surface in the office started to fly around the air with my movements.

I leaned back in my chair. Did the "papers" that Vince was screaming about have something to do with something I was teaching this semester? I grabbed my grade book from the top right-hand drawer and Crawford's car keys and left, locking the door behind me.

When I was back in his car, I looked at the clock on the dash. It was noon. I didn't have any cops at my disposal to pick up lunch and hand off to me on the Deegan, so I decided to take a little detour myself on the way home and stop on Arthur Avenue. I knew he was really mad at me; if the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, I had a lot of shopping to do.

I drove across the Bronx, past the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo on the way to Arthur Avenue. Parking was a nightmare, so I drove around the block a few times, finally finding a small s.p.a.ce in front of an Italian deli and bakery. I said a silent prayer as I pulled the Pa.s.sat up a full car length next to the car in front of the spot, and gently eased it into the spot, only hitting the b.u.mper of the car in back of me twice. I got out and looked at the back b.u.mper of the Pa.s.sat, and everything looked fine.

The deli had a few tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk, and a few old men were sitting, drinking espressos and enjoying the weather. The rain had pa.s.sed through and it was now bright and sunny. I walked past them, into the shop and took in the large, gla.s.sed-in display, full of lasagna, ziti, chicken cutlets, and salads. Above the counter hung several hundred dried and cured meats: pepperoni, salami, soppressata.

"Help you?" The young guy behind the counter wore a white tank top and a large gold Jesus head on a chain around his neck. Furry black hair peeked out of the top of the tank top. He took a paper bag from a stack next to the cash register and a pencil to write down my order.

"Yes, thanks," I said. "I'll have a salami," I said, pointing to the one directly in front of my face, "four of those cutlets, two pieces of lasagna, a pound of macaroni and a pound of potato salad, and . . ." I reached behind me to the wire rack that held bread and grabbed a seeded Italian loaf, ". . . this, and two containers of the tiramisu."

He looked at me and smiled. "Anything else?"

I looked into the case. "Oh, and four pieces of that eggplant rollatine." I took a salted homemade mozzarella from a tray on top of the counter. "And this." Who doesn't love mozzarella?

"Hungry?" he asked as he set about getting all of my food.

"Starving," I said. And in huge trouble. "Hey, what does tiramisu mean?" I had always wondered about that.

He turned around from his position in front of the refrigerator which held meats and cheeses and gave me a sly smile. "Hold me closer."

"Oh," I said slowly, thinking, not against that chest hair.

After parting with thirty-five dollars, I had a large bag of food. I put it in the trunk, next to the clean laundry, and set off for home thinking about Italian translations, missing files, and the amount of trouble I would be in if I couldn't fast-talk my way back into Crawford's good graces.

I thought I'd lead with salami and see where that got me.

Twenty.

I went through the front door, calling Crawford's name. The bag of food was on top of the laundry in the basket as was my grade book; I set them both down on the floor. He wasn't downstairs, so I went up to my bedroom, balancing the basket on my hip. He was in my bathroom, s.h.i.+rtless and in the sweatpants, shaving with my pink Lady Schick and the shave gel I used on my legs. His hair was wet and his back was damp. He had one hand on the sink, and he leaned in toward the mirror to get a good look at his face as he shaved. Half of it was covered with green gel. I stood in the bathroom door and took in his half-naked form.

"I've got salami," I said. Not exactly an olive branch, but close enough.

He kept shaving, not responding.

"And chicken cutlets, lasagna, eggplant rollatine, and bread." I went into the bathroom and stood behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist. I leaned my head against his back. "And mozzarella. And tiramisu." I pulled him a bit closer. "I heard that tiramisu means 'hold me closer' in Italian."

"Funny. I heard it meant 'you just did a really stupid thing.'" He rinsed the razor in the basin, which was full of water, shave gel, and whiskers. He took a towel from the ring hanging next to the sink, rinsed his face, and dried it with the towel. He let the water out of the sink and then turned around to face me. "I'm still mad at you."

I hung my head in mock shame.

"This isn't funny, Alison. What if I had gotten beeped or called? What was I supposed to say? That nutty professor has my clothes and my car? I can't do my job because I'm trapped in her house without any underwear?"

I hadn't thought of that. "Actually, I'm a nutty doctor of literature."

He didn't think that was very funny, either.

I tried to give him some good news. "I know what's missing from my office," I said brightly.

He looked down at me.

"My files from all of my current spring courses."

He thawed a little bit. "Why would anyone want those?" he asked, dubious. "With all due respect, Dr. Bergeron."

I went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. "I don't know. But I thought we could eat some of the food that I bought and hash it out. What do you think?"

He walked into the bedroom. "I'd be able to think better if I had my clothes." He leaned down and took his jeans, underwear, and T-s.h.i.+rt from the basket. "If you'll excuse me?" he asked, and closed the bathroom door. He came out a few minutes later, dressed, his hair combed. "I used your toothbrush," he stated. He looked at me for my reaction, but I had none. "To brush my hair. Payback's a b.i.t.c.h, huh?"

I grimaced. "Are you still mad at me?" I got up from the bed and walked over to him, putting my arms around his neck and kissing him. His arms hung at his sides for a few minutes, but he finally relented and put his hands around me and up the back of my s.h.i.+rt.

"You have tiramisu?" he asked, kissing my neck.

"And salami." I put my hands into his toothbrush-styled hair.

He let me go after one last kiss. "If you've got salami, I'm fine. Let's go downstairs so we can go over what's missing. I want to know who's in each one of those cla.s.ses." He went over to the nightstand and put the gun in the back of his waistband.

We went downstairs, and I picked up the bag of food from the hallway floor. All of the food was in microwaveable containers, so everything was hot in no time. I put the salami and cheese on a plate, cut up the bread, and asked him what he wanted to drink. Then I remembered I didn't have anything to drink besides a frozen bottle of vodka and the leftover wine from the night before. "How's water?"

"Fine," he said.

I handed him a couple of plates, forks, knives, and two bottles of water. We sat at the table and dove into the smorgasbord. "Cut me off a piece of that salami," I said.

He took his knife and cut off a big chunk, holding it out to me. I opened my mouth and he dropped it in. I chewed on the tough piece of meat and opened my grade book. "I'm teaching Creative Writing II, Freshman Comp, Intro to Shakespeare, Literature of the Hudson River, and Senior Seminar."

He told me to start with Creative Writing. I ran down the list of students. "Any of those names ring a bell?"

He plowed into the lasagna and shook his head. "Do Hudson River." He forked a big hunk into his mouth, sauce on his lips. I now had proof that he wasn't the dainty eater that had sat at the same table the night before.

I read off the names from that cla.s.s; three of those students were also in the creative writing cla.s.s. I went on to Shakespeare: Costigan, Martin, Carlyle, Rivas, McCarthy, Dumont, and Franklin. He perked up at the name Martin. "She was the roommate."

"Right." I said.

He wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. "Freshman and soph.o.m.ore years."

"You questioned her, right?" I asked.

He nodded. "First thing. All she did was cry and carry on. She didn't have anything to give us, and we haven't spoken with her since." He took a piece of eggplant and put it on his plate. "How's she been in cla.s.s?"

"The same. A pain in the a.s.s. She's on my back about returning her Macbeth report, but normal." I ripped a piece of bread in two and layered a piece of mozzarella onto it. I looked at the Senior Seminar and read those names off: Troy, Manning, Slater, O'Toole, and Davis. He shook his head; he didn't know any of them.

We ate some more and made a big dent in the food. "Ready for dessert?" I asked.

He stretched his arms over his head. "Give me a few minutes. I ate a lot."

I closed my grade book and pushed it to the side. The doorbell rang just as I was polis.h.i.+ng off the remains of my lasagna. He looked at me. "Expecting anyone?" he asked, getting up and putting his hand to his back, drawing his gun out of his waistband and holding it close to his leg.

"No." I got up and padded down the hallway to the door and looked through the frosted gla.s.s panel on the side of the door. It was Ray. Crawford stayed in the doorway of the kitchen, his hands in his pocket.

I opened the door and let him in.

"I was hoping I would catch you at home," he said, coming into the doorway. He stopped short when he saw Crawford. "What is he doing here?" he asked, eyeing Crawford nervously. He s.h.i.+fted from one foot to the other.

Crawford took a few steps forward; the gun was nowhere in sight. "We were just discussing the case, Dr. Stark."

Ray sized him up. "Can we have a moment, please? I need to talk with my wife alone."

I looked at Ray and wanted to remind him that I was not his wife. Now we were in an alpha male p.i.s.sing match. I half expected Ray to undo his pants and pee in the corner to mark his territory.

Crawford stood and stared at Ray a few more minutes, the air in the hall becoming charged with pheromones, testosterone, and every other male hormone. Crawford looked at me. "I'll be outside."

I led Ray into the kitchen and told him to sit down. "Are you hungry?"

He looked at the leftovers on the table, the two plates, and the two water bottles. "You fed him?"

"Yeah. That's the trouble with cops. Once you feed them, they keep coming back," I said. "Do you want a plate or what?"

He shook his head and took a long breath. "I just wanted to come by and thank you for helping me out the other night. With Klein."

A little overdue, but nice, nonetheless.

He pushed Crawford's plate out of the way and put his hands down on the table. "Alison, I had nothing to do with this," he said, his tone pleading. "You have to believe me."

I still wasn't sure if I could believe him considering our history, and I wasn't sure I could give him the benefit of the doubt anymore. "I guess I have to take your word for it," I said, but it came out almost as a question.

"Thank you," he said immediately, and then thought back on what I had said. "I guess." He c.o.c.ked his thumb toward the front door. "Did he give you any idea as to who the other suspects are?"

He thinks you did it, Ray, I wanted to say, but didn't. "No."