“Apparently somebody tossed Duncan’s office and apartment in Boston, cleaned out his records, his computers. Which points to his client being his killer, unless you’re convinced I killed him. But they talked to you, knew you saw me here at nearly two in the morning and around six in the morning. Not just hard for me to pull all that off in four hours—not possible for me to pull it off. They knew there wasn’t enough time.”
“That depends.” She took another drink. “If you’re Wolfe and I’m a big, skanky lying ho, that puts me on the slippery slope to co-murderer.”
“Jesus Christ.” Eli set his glass down to press the heels of his hands to his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re not insinuating I’m a big, skanky lying ho co-murderer. Wolfe doesn’t believe he can be wrong about you killing Lindsay, which means you had to have killed Duncan, which means I’m a big, skanky and so forth. I’ve known people like him. They absolutely, without question, believe they’re right, so everything that calls that rightness into doubt is a lie, an evasion, a mistake.”
She slugged down some wine. “People like that make me . . . impatient.”
“Impatient?”
“Yes, right before they piss me off. The other detective, Corbett, he wasn’t buying it. He was careful, but he wasn’t buying I colluded with you to kill Duncan, or very much interested in Wolfe’s line of questioning leading to us having not only met long before you came back to Whiskey Beach, but carrying on a hot, sexy, secret affair, which naturally means we’re both complicit in Lindsay’s death.”
She shifted, unconsciously nearly mirroring the mermaid pose. “I told him, frankly, I haven’t decided if I’m going to have hot sex with you, but I’m leaning toward it, and if I do, it wouldn’t be secret and wouldn’t necessarily qualify as an affair, or not as he termed it, as neither of us is married or involved with someone else.”
“You told them . . .” Eli just sighed, picked up his wine again.
“Well, he made me impatient then pissed me off. Seriously pissed me off, and I’ve got a pretty high temper threshold. Suddenly I’m a liar, a cheat, a home wrecker, a tramp and a murderer. All because he can’t accept he pushed the wrong buttons and you didn’t kill anyone.
“Asshole.” She topped off her wine, offered Eli the bottle. He only shook his head. “So. Your turn.”
“Not much to add. I gave them the rundown, which would’ve run parallel to yours, and Vinnie’s—who Wolfe may think is a dirty cop to go along with my other friend, the skanky, lying ho.”
“And co-murderer,” Abra reminded him with a lift of her glass.
“You take it well.”
“Now, after peeling and dicing potatoes, and drinking a glass of wine. But back up, someone got into Duncan’s office and apartment in Boston and now there’s no record of his clients, who might have hired him to investigate you. And all his things were cleaned out of the B-and-B. So it’s a very logical leap to that client. The police have to make that leap.”
“Not if it’s Wolfe. I’m his white fucking whale.”
“I hated that book. Anyway, nobody who knows Vinnie is going to see dirty cop. And as we didn’t know each other until you moved here, it can’t be proven otherwise. Add to that my sex fast, and it’s really hard to box me as a big ho. All of that just weighs on your side, Eli.”
“I’m not worried about it. Not worried,” he insisted when she just lifted those eyebrows again. “That’s not the response. I’m interested. It’s been a long time since I’ve been interested in anything outside of writing, but I’m interested in figuring this out.”
“Good. Everyone should have a hobby.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“Not really. You’re not a cop or an investigator, but you are a legitimately interested party. And now, so am I. We have a hobby to share. Full disclosure. I saw your notes in the library.”
“Okay.”
“If you have something you don’t want me to see—such as that fabulous sketch of Mermaid Me, which I’d love if you replicated on good paper so I could have it—you need to put it away. I have a key, and I intend to keep using it. I was looking around for you.”
“Okay.” He did feel a little weird about the sketch. “Sometimes doodling helps me think.”
“That wasn’t doodling, it was drawing. Doodling’s what I do, and it looks like half-ass balloon animals. I liked Devil Vampire Wolfe, too.”