I rolled my eyes.
The next call came from my landlord, Nathan Dunn, which surprised me. I’d only met him once about a year after I’d moved in. I guess if your apartment gets ransacked, you have a vested interest, but I was still surprised by a personal call. “Hello, Ms. Hannon, this is Nathan Dunn, the owner of your building. I’m calling regarding your break-in last night, and am hoping this message finds you in good health. The police have informed me that you were out of your apartment at the time of the burglary.” They were calling it a burglary. My first piece of good news. “That was very fortunate. The damage seems to be … in the extreme. Please let me know when the apartment will be available for cleanup. I’ll send my carpenters over at your first convenience. I am anxious to get this fixed, as I’m sure you are as well.”
I raised my brows. Nick shrugged.
The next call was from Marcy. She sounded panicked, which was likely genuine. Marcy Talbot loved her routine more than the Queen loved her tea, and even the smallest upset put a serious wrinkle in her demeanor. She was the only gal pal I’d ever had—or even toyed with having. We didn’t do sleepovers or get pedicures, but there was a connection there. She ended her call with, “… and if you ever scare me like that again, I’ll make your life a living hell. You can count on it, princess.” Click.
The next call was from my neighbor Juanita Perez, a fifty-something Latina divorcée who’d never quite gotten the hint, like everyone else in my apartment building, that I despised small talk. Instead, she behaved quite the opposite. “Hola, Chica,” her heavily accented Spanish stretched across the phone line, then dropped to a rough whisper. “Dees is Juanita Perez, jour neighbor here. Somteen baaad has happened. The police, they tell me you are not at home when the crashing and the banging start, but I know you are still in there. I hear you come home in the night, but I weel not tell. I weel keep it quiet from them. Since they did not find you in there, I theenk you must get away anyway. I keep jour secret, but oh, Chica, the damage, it es sooo much. I weel pray for you.” Click.
I pressed lucky number seven to erase her message from my phone forever. Then made a mental note to thank her by buying some of that Patrón tequila she always talked about. Maybe then she’d forget she ever made this call. Though having a neighbor who would gladly lie to the police for me, without my asking, was definitely a huge bonus. Juanita could be a thorn in my conversational side, but now I knew for sure she had my back. If anything, this phone call should teach me to be a better neighbor. It paid off.
The next call was the one I’d been hoping for, and Pete’s voice came on the line calm and precise as usual. “Molly, it’s Pete. Looks like there was some trouble at your place over the weekend.” I could hear him in the background shuffling papers. “It says here you weren’t at home during the time of the … assault.” He read off the page, “Bed was made, no sign of struggle, blood in your living room, rope fragments on the balcony. Lots of speculation here. Looks like the place was roughed up quite a bit, possibly by someone’s … pet?” I could hear the surprise in his voice.
The police wouldn’t have a good way to explain the massive amounts of fur or the gouged claw marks all over my floors. Bringing your pet to a crime scene was highly unusual. Anyone with a brain would know that the fur samples taken from my apartment could be matched to their pet exactly, making them guilty.
Pete continued in his monotone. “Your purse was found at the scene, but you were MIA. Looks here like a call to your office found you were … camping?” The inflection in his voice showed this piece of information was still under speculation by all. “Ray’s got your case. Call me.” Click.
“Oh, for fucksake!” I yelled, throwing the phone onto the dashboard in disgust. “Just drive straight to jail and drop me off. If Ray’s on the case it’s not going to be a fair investigation anyway, so we may as well save the taxpayers some money.” Anyone but Raymond Hart and I’d have a shot of talking my way out of this mess. I glanced at Nick and he shook his head in sympathy. “Is it too much to ask to get someone who doesn’t have a wicked vendetta against me to take the case?”
“Apparently it is,” Nick answered. “Do you really think he’d pass up the opportunity to nail you to the wall? He probably had to trade all his good cases in order to get your crappy one.”