Crime and Retribution Read online

  “So he hasn’t contacted you?” asked Logan.

  “No, he has not. I got a call from Abigail—she and Emil have been so supportive throughout—and she told me Mariano was transitioning back, but I told her I didn’t care. He could transition into a Martian or a muppet. He was never going to see his son again. Not after what he put us through. Do you know he never paid child support? Not a cent. And Abigail told me he was loaded.”

  “Abigail told you about the money he collected?” I asked.

  “She sure did. Mariano boasted to her about it. Said he’d bought a big, fancy villa, a new car, and that he was treating himself to a trip to Europe. So if he thought for one second that he was going to get visitation rights to Nuncio, he was sorely mistaken, and that’s what I told Abigail.”

  “Did he ask about Nuncio?”

  She shook her head, biting her lip. “Nope. Wasn’t interested. That’s the kind of man Mariano Piney was. A self-centered bastard. He only cared about himself. So I hope that whoever killed him hurt him well and good.”

  “Mariano didn’t suffer, ma’am,” said Logan. “Death was instantaneous.”

  “Too bad,” said Tonja. “That man deserved to suffer.”

  “Can you tell us where you were last night, Mrs. Summers?” asked Calvin.

  “Right here at home. When you have a two-year-old you don’t go traipsing all over the place, Mr. Diffley. Besides, my little boy had a fever so I called the doctor. I’m sure he’ll be able to confirm. Do you and your wife have kids?”

  “Oh, I’m not his wife, Mrs. Summers,” I said quickly. “I’m his sister.”

  “Oh! Of course. Now I see the resemblance.” Her eyes cut to Logan. “What about you, Detective? Do you have a family?”

  “Not yet,” said Logan.

  “Don’t wait too long, Detective. There’s no greater joy than bringing a baby boy or girl into this world, even if you have to do it all by yourself, like me.”

  I caught her looking at me, so I said, “No family for me either.”

  “You should find yourself a nice guy and settle down,” she said. “What about Detective Munroe? He’s single. You’re single. Why not give it a shot?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “We don’t even know each other.”

  “Yeah, we just met,” said Logan, also shaking his head.

  “It’s a funny story, actually,” I said. “We met at the apartment of your ex-husband, Mrs. Summers. Detective Munroe was there and I barged in and…” I laughed. “You weren’t happy about that, were you, Logan?”

  “No, I sure wasn’t,” Logan agreed with a hint of a smile.

  “You see, Logan here doesn’t believe in civilians inserting themselves into his investigation. You felt pretty territorial about that crime scene, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I sure did,” Logan said, still smiling.

  “And then when he found us crashing the coroner’s office…”

  “I was surprised, that’s all,” said Logan. “I’d just told you off and there you were again, like a bad rash. I just couldn’t seem to get rid of you.”

  “And then you arrested us,” I said with a laugh. “That was hilarious.”

  “Not so hilarious,” Logan said. “I meant it when I told you I was going to arrest you. Though to be honest I think I was still upset about that stick in the butt crack you made.”

  “Oh, enough already,” Calvin grumbled.

  “Aren’t you the cutest couple?” asked Tonja.

  “Couple! We’re not a couple,” I was quick to point out.

  “You’re not? But you’re so cute together!”

  “We’re not—we’re not together,” said Logan.

  “No, they’re definitely not together,” said Calvin, frowning. He emitted a mirthless chuckle. “The thought is simply ludicrous. Absolutely ridiculous.”

  “Though we could be,” I said, simply to spite Calvin.

  Logan looked up at this. He seemed surprised. “Huh?”

  I stuck my arm through his. “I said, we could be a couple.”

  He glanced down at my arm, then at my face, and said in a low voice, “What are you playing at, Saffron?”

  “Yeah, what are you playing at, Saffron?” Calvin asked.

  “Kissy!” suddenly Nuncio shouted, clapping his hands with glee.

  “Don’t listen to him,” said Tonja. “He’s learning new words every day.”

  “Kissy kissy!” the toddler yelled.

  “There will be no kissy kissy,” Calvin admonished him sternly. “In fact this is only a one-time deal. We won’t be seeing Detective Munroe once this investigation is concluded. Will we, Saffron?”

  “Kissy kissy kissy!”

  “It’s my fault,” said Tonja, a little embarrassed. “He’s seen me kiss my new boyfriend. He’s a colleague at Happy Bays High. Teaches Math.”

  “KISSY!” Nuncio insisted.

  “There will be no kissing,” Calvin insisted. “Not now, not ever. We don’t even like Detective Munroe, do we, Saffron?” He gave me a penetrating look.

  “I think Saffron is old enough to make up her own mind,” said Logan.

  “Yes, I’m old enough to make up my own mind, Calvin,” I said.

  “Saffron,” Calvin said warningly. “The man is a cop.”

  I smiled at Logan. “I know. That’s what I like about him.”

  Logan gave me a look of surprise, and I could see his pupils widening. And then, out of the blue, I planted a kiss on his lips. Just a brief one, mind you, but still a kiss. I think I did it more to show Calvin what an ass he was than because I was suddenly overcome with a wave of passion. Still, my heart was beating a mile a minute, and that weird fluttering sensation in the pit of my stomach was back in full force. And it definitely wasn’t a butt bark.

  There was silence in the room. Logan looked shocked, Calvin even more so, and me most of all. Then Nuncio clapped his hands again, and shouted, “Kissy!”

  “What the hell was that?” cried Calvin the minute we were back in the car.

  “It was an accident,” I said, feeling pretty mortified.

  “An accident! An accident is when you drop a bottle of beer on your big toe, not when you kiss a cop you barely know!”

  “You were egging me on!”

  “I was egging you off!”

  “Well, next time don’t!”

  We both stared out through the windshield, arms folded, mutinous expressions on our faces. I watched as Logan got into his car, directing a curious look at the both of us, then drove off.

  “Oh, God,” I said, burying my face in my hands. “What did I do?!”

  “You kissed a cop and you liked it,” Calvin muttered.

  “Well, I did. Like it, I mean. In a weird sort of way.”

  “This is all my fault. I should never have brought you along. You’re too young. Too immature to join the company. I’ll tell Grandma that we’re going to wait another year. Or ten.”

  “No, you’re not!” I yelled, turning to him. “You’re the one who’s immature. You kept giving me that bug-eyed look and telling me I shouldn’t kiss him—so of course I did!”

  “Of course. Because whatever I tell you, you do the opposite. What do you think this is? Kindergarten? We’re conducting a murder investigation, Saffron. And you just kissed the detective in charge. Just like that!”

  “You don’t have to remind me,” I said. “I was right there.”

  “So what are we going to do about this?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “How can we make this right?”

  “For starters you can begin by treating me like an adult, not your kid sister you have to protect from the big, bad cop,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Fair enough. I guess I may have overdone things a little.”

  “A little! You practically told me to perform an exorcism on the man. First you tell me to seduce him, then you tell me to stay away from him.”

  “I never told you to seduce him!”

  “You
did. So I did. And now that we’re peacefully coexisting, you’re upset. You know what your problem is? You don’t know what you want.”

  “All I wanted was for you to charm him a little. Get him off our backs. Not for you to get on your back.”

  “You take that back!”

  “Okay. I take it back.”

  “I can’t believe you just said that!”

  We were both silent for a beat, then he said, “The good news is that he probably won’t be arresting you again. He seemed to enjoy that kiss.”

  I turned to him enthusiastically. “You think so? Cause I wasn’t sure he liked it as much as I liked it.”

  He stared at me, horrified. “Oh, my God! You’re really into this guy!”

  Chapter 22

  We’d returned to TransCent. After the interview with Tonja Summers I was feeling kinda lost. Well, that kiss probably had something to do with it, of course. It isn’t every day you go into an interview with a suspect in a murder case and end up kissing the lead detective in the case.

  If Amy was surprised to see us again so soon, she didn’t show it. In fact she seemed happy. “And? Have you found Mariana’s murderer?”

  “Not yet, but we’re getting there,” I said, projecting more confidence than I was feeling. We were nowhere, and that wasn’t an exaggeration.

  “We just wanted to ask you if Mariana had any other enemies you might have heard about,” Calvin said.

  Amy raised an eyebrow. “Well… you can always talk to Peggy Hysteria.”

  “Peggy Hysteria?” Calvin asked with a laugh. “Is that her real name?”

  “No idea. But that’s what we call her. She’s always causing a fuss outside the building. She’s a very religious person and really hates transgenders for some reason. Maybe you saw her when you came in? The guard told us she was back.”

  “No, she must have taken a break,” I said. “There was no one there when we arrived.”

  “Thank God,” said Amy. “It’s not much fun to have to pass her every day. We’ve called the police but there isn’t much they can do, apparently. As long as she doesn’t physically harm anyone, they can’t touch her.”

  “As long as she doesn’t touch you, they can’t touch her,” Calvin muttered.

  “And then there’s Ada Shelley, of course,” Amy continued. “I probably should have mentioned her when you were here the last time, only I forgot.”

  “Who’s Ada Shelley?” I asked.

  “She’s the daughter of a woman who bequeathed her entire inheritance to Mariana last year. Gilda Paisley. She was a great believer in the cause, though Miss Shelley seems to feel Mariana may have used illicit means to get her hands on her mother’s money. She’s fighting the will.”

  Calvin was jotting all this down when there was a disturbance in the vestibule at the other end of the corridor.

  “Oh, dear,” said Amy, looking worried. “Looks like Mrs. Hysteria is back again.” She hurried towards the reception desk and picked up the phone. “Please escort Mrs. Hysteria from the building,” we heard her say. “Under no circumstances let her pass.”

  “This is our chance,” said Calvin. “We better talk to this woman before they kick her out.”

  I hurried after him, down the long corridor and into the main lobby of the building. We arrived just in time to see two female guards evict a little old lady from the property, propelling her through the door.

  “You big bullies!” the feisty old lady was yelling. “You can’t do this! You can’t kick me out!”

  The guards wasted no time arguing, but simply picked her up, each grabbing one arm, and carried her through the revolving door and then deposited her on the sidewalk.

  “And now stay out,” one of the guards said. “Or we’re calling the cops.”

  They walked in while we walked out—though I decided to wait until they were in so as not to get caught in the revolving door—those things give me the creeps for some reason. When I arrived on the sidewalk, I saw that the cops had arrived, and that Logan and Calvin were once again toe to toe. Oh, God. Not again.

  “I’ve got this, Munroe,” said Calvin.

  “No, I’ve got this, Diffley,” Logan grunted.

  “I was here first.”

  “And I’m the cop. So guess how this is going to end,” Logan said, rattling those cuffs again.

  “You can’t arrest me,” said Calvin. “Chief Whitehouse told you not to.”

  “He didn’t mention anything about arresting disturbers of the peace,” said Logan. “And from where I’m standing, you are disturbing the peace.”

  “I’m not disturbing the peace—she is!” Calvin cried, pointing at Mrs. Hysteria, who stood eyeing the scene with remarkable calm.

  “Oh, throw the old lady under the bus, shall we? Real mature, Diffley.”

  “Hey, who are you calling an old lady, cop?” asked Mrs. Hysteria.

  Both Calvin and Logan turned to her. With her stooped posture, cane, wizened features and purple hair, she was the epitome of elderliness, but she didn’t seem to see it that way.

  “I’m only eighty-five!” she cried. “I’m in the prime of life!”

  “Sure you are,” said Calvin.

  “Hey, don’t get fresh with me, young man.”

  “With all due respect, ma’am,” said Calvin, “but shouldn’t you be spending the twilight of your life in some nice retirement home, playing pinochle or something?”

  At this point, the old lady seemed to have had quite enough of Calvin’s ‘freshness’ and she rapped him on the head with her cane.

  “Ouch!” Calvin cried. “What did you go and do that for?”

  “For insulting me! Twilight of my life my ass.” She turned to Logan. “Are you a cop?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Logan, who had a hard time suppressing a grin.

  “Arrest this man.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Insulting a senior citizen.”

  “I’m afraid there’s nothing in the penal code that warrants such an arrest, ma’am,” said Logan, and I could tell he was genuinely sorry he couldn’t arrest my brother.

  “We’re actually here to talk to you, Mrs. Hysteria,” I said.

  “What did you call me?!” she yelled, fixing me with a nasty glare.

  “Um… Peggy?”

  “Peggy Wisteria,” she said. “Not Hysteria.”

  “Mrs. Wisteria, did you happen to know Mariana Piney?” I asked.

  “That foul tramp,” the woman scoffed. “Of course I knew Mariana Piney.”

  I exchanged a quick glance with Logan. This looked promising. Maybe he’d be able to arrest someone after all—Mariana Piney’s killer. Calvin hadn’t missed the brief interaction between Logan and me, and he wasn’t happy about it, as his next words indicated. “Stop ogling the cop, Saffron,” he grunted.

  “I wasn’t ogling anyone!”

  “First you were kissing him, now you’re ogling him. This does not reflect well on the reputation of Diffley & Sons.”

  “So why is it that your company is called Diffley & Sons while you’re so very obviously a daughter?” asked Logan.

  “Exactly what I’ve been asking him for two days!” I said. “I’ve been telling them to change the name to Diffley & Sons & Daughter or Diffley & Co or even Diffley Insurance but he tells me the uncles have to approve the change.” I rolled my eyes. “As if we can’t decide for ourselves what to name our company.”

  “I like Diffley & Sons & Daughter,” said Logan with a slight grin.

  “Well, I don’t,” Calvin snapped. “And since the operative word is still Diffley and not Munroe, I suggest you butt out, Detective.”

  “Butt out,” I said with a snicker, remembering Logan’s butt bark crack. He seemed to remember, too, for he gave me a grin.

  “Trading inside jokes now, huh?” Calvin asked. “This is even worse than I thought.”

  “Hey!” Mrs. Wisteria yelled. “What am I, chopped liver? I thought you had some questions for me ab
out that harlot Mariana Piney?”

  “Right. Of course,” I said. If Logan kept distracting me like this, maybe Calvin was right, and this whole thing—whatever it was—I had going on with the cop might not be such a good idea after all. “You were saying?”

  “I was saying that Mariana Piney was one of those filthy transgenders.”

  “Why was she filthy?” I asked, genuinely puzzled.

  “I don’t think Mrs. Wisteria is referring to Mariana’s sense of personal hygiene, Saffron,” said Logan. “But more to the fact that she didn’t like her.”

  “You’re damn right I didn’t like her! God made man in his image, then took his rib and created woman. It’s no business of ours to go messing with his grand creation! Besides, if God wanted us to change genders he wouldn’t have created them in the first place! He would have made us all unisex. But since he didn’t, we shouldn’t mess around. It’ll only come back to haunt us in the end.”

  “You mean, like at the end of days?” asked Calvin.

  “Sure! At the Last Judgment those perverts are all going to be thrown into the bottomless pits of hell! Fire and brimstone will be their part! Mark my words!”

  Now I was starting to see why Amy wasn’t too fond of Mrs. Wisteria. The old lady seemed a little—or a lot—unhinged. And she was very loud, too.

  “So did you kill Mariana Piney?” asked Calvin, surprising both me and Logan.

  “No, of course I didn’t kill her! Why, is she dead?”

  “Yes, she is,” said Calvin. “Someone bashed her head in the day before yesterday.”

  “Well, hallelujah and praise the Lord!” Mrs. Wisteria cried, a little insensitively, I thought. “Good riddance! So my prayers are being heard after all.”

  “You wished for Mariana to die?” I asked, shocked.

  “I wish for all those freaks to get their just punishment!”

  “And are you sure you didn’t give the Lord a helping hand when doling out this punishment?” asked Logan.

  “You’re asking me if I killed her again, aren’t you? You’re just rephrasing the question. Trying to make me incriminate myself. Well, it ain’t gonna work, cop. I know my rights. You can’t make me say anything incriminating.”