Foods, Fools and a Dead Psychic, Maria Swan [reading list TXT] 📗

what?” the woman cop asked in a forced but sweet tone of voice.

It was my turn to glance from one face to the other.

“It’s okay Monica, they know about the bra,” Kassandra sighed.

The man stared at me openly and I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“Perhaps we could get a brief report from both of you?” the she-detective suggested with the same sweet-sour voice as before.

“Sure, over a drink? I mean, it’s happy hour isn’t?” I heard the man chuckle, but the she-cop wasn’t amused.

“Coffee and water are free at the precinct.” Her tone was not as cut and dried as her hairdo, but close enough. Mercy me.

“Do you know Officer Clarke?” My feeble attempt at clearing the adversarial atmosphere I’d helped create. Clarke was the only local policeman I knew.

“Miss...” She stared at me and waited.

“Oh, Monica, I’m Monica Baker. I’m a realtor here at Desert Homes Realty.” I offered my hand. She ignored it.

“Miss Baker, we are detectives, Homicide detectives.”

“How exciting...” Fingers crossed, she’d buy my joyful act. “Like Blue Bloods. I just love that show.”

Nope, didn’t work on her, but her male counterpart fought to keep a straight face. Maybe he liked watching his partner getting all worked up over nothing. Me being the nothing, at least in this case. Was there a connection between Miss Fortune and Kassandra’s bra? Returning it to the owner? Poor woman, trying to be helpful and something happened to her? Something? These two were h-o-m-i-c-i-d-e cops as in dead, murdered. Poor Miss Fortune. That’s when it hit me, Miss Fortune? Say that fast, what do you get? Misfortune... a bad omen for sure.

I hoped Sunny would make an appearance and tell the detectives to leave so she could lock up. What was keeping her?

“This séance? You two went together?” the detective asked.

“No, no.” Why did I rush my answer? “I’ve never done, I mean, been. Never been to a séance. Kassandra told me about it that morning when — you know, she — I — she had no bra and since she’s the receptionist.” I was babbling and Kassandra didn’t seem too happy about it.

“How do you know she wasn’t wearing a bra?” The tone of the female detective could freeze an erupting volcano.

How did I know? Seriously? Was she blind? I gave a sideways glance to Kassandra and put my hands up to my flat chest as if gripping a large watermelon. Kassandra rolled her eyes in disbelief, the she-cop shook her head in disgust, and the guy just snickered. Luckily Sunny interrupted my brief miming performance. “What’s going on?”

Thirty minutes later, after the detectives collected enough information, or so they said, we locked up the office and headed home.

The instant Sunny’s Cadillac left the parking lot, my cell chimed. “Yeah, where to?” I asked.

I followed Kassandra’s beat-up Kia to North Italia for their $20 happy hour special. It got a bit complicated because parking at North is strictly valet and the poor kid who rushed over for Kassandra’s car couldn’t get the Kia to move without a lot of strange engine noises. And the other young man had problems fitting his long legs in my Fiat 500.

But once inside the place, twenty dollars bought us a bottle of their house wine that happened to be an excellent Pinot Grigio, and their chef’s board to share. We were in a splurging mood and for three dollars more we got to feast on their bowl of paper-thin fried zucchini chips.

We sat on the outside patio. The tall shrubs and potted plants that shielded us from the engine noise of the cars zipping by on 40th Street didn’t stop a lingering setting sun from accenting Kassandra’s cinnamon colored hair, if only for a nanosecond.

“I’m giving you the short version, and then we’ll forget all about it, deal?” Kassandra said.

I shrugged, “It’s your bra, your séance. I’m a spectator. And your friend. Go ahead, spill the beans,” I said, gingerly stuffing my mouth with crispy zucchini.

“I can’t believe the poor woman is dead. I hardly knew her, except for Facebook, but in person? Only met her that evening. Where has she been all this time? She’s from Tucson, according to the detectives, her body was found in the canal a week ago, with my bra tied around her neck.”

Kassandra stopped to breathe just as our server arrived with the wine. Lucky for us I had my mouth closed when she shared Miss Fortune’s — misfortune — or I would have sprayed out my food. Instead, I tried to chew quietly, out of respect for the poor dead woman.

“What else did detectives Adam and Eve tell you?” I fought to wipe the mental image of a dead body floating in a canal wearing someone else’s bra around her neck.

“Monica, cops don’t tell, they ask. Supposedly it was all over the news because they treated the case as a Jane Doe. Did you hear about it?”

I shook my head no and spread some of that soft cheese on my grilled bread. Apparently the mental image wasn’t affecting my appetite. “How can they not know who she was and yet track the bra back to you? Makes no sense.”

“You’re right. I didn’t think about that. There was nothing special about the bra. I usually buy them when they go on sale at Macy’s. You buy one at regular price and you get the second half off. I think I’ve lost my appetite.”

She drank her wine and played with one of the olives that were part of the offerings on the chef’s board. I don’t like olives, something that always makes me the subject of snide remarks because I’m Italian and apparently liking olives should be part of my DNA.

“That’s it. Your DNA.” I said it a little louder than I meant to, and I could see more than one head turning to stare at our table. Great.

“Get real Monica. The body had been in the water for at least a week according to the detectives.