wondered what he was up to, and didn’t like any of the answers that sprung to mind.
Mark’s expression sobered. “I’m sure you’ve heard about the young girl who was murdered. She was one of our employees at Beau Elan, our newest development. She was a tenant too, a fine person. Charley and I are offering a reward.”
I waited for him to recognize that I was the woman who’d found his murdered employee. It didn’t happen. He was too busy waiting for my reaction.
“Wow,” I said, “that’s very generous.”
“The least we can do.”
Charley removed Eliza’s black and white from the assorted other shots and placed it in Trey’s inbox. The rest she shoved in her purse. I tried to sound curious and not confrontational.
“You decided not to leave them?”
Charley froze. “What?”
“The Mardi Gras photos.”
Her eyes snapped with annoyance. “I prefer more traditional shots, not this paparazzi crap.” She took Mark’s elbow again. “We’ll find a better one for Trey, sweetheart. In the meantime—”
“I know. The interview at Channel 11.” He exhaled loudly. “It’s such a tragedy, a young woman’s senseless death.”
“Eliza Compton.”
“Yes. So young.” He shook his head somberly, then held out his hand for a final shake. “Very nice to meet you, Tai. I assume we’ll be seeing you next weekend? At the reception?”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“Of course,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
***
Yvonne came to walk me out before I could return the fallen MRI to its proper place, so I left Phoenix with the contraband tucked in my tote bag. I hadn’t planned it that way, and was convinced alarm bells would go off and burly men would take me by the elbow as soon as I went through the doors.
To my astonishment, nothing happened. It was ridiculously easy.
I cranked the car and breathed a fervent wish that returning the thing would be just as easy. But first, I needed some answers. And that meant a call to Detective Garrity.
Chapter 8
I remembered Piedmont Park from the previous summer, when Rico and I had watched Casablanca one midsummer night, blanket to blanket with the soccer mom/buff gay guy demographic, drinking moscato straight from the bottle. At that time, barely a month had passed since Mom’s death, and I remembered feeling like I was in an overturned fishbowl, separate from the rest of the city. Every sensual detail had been as rich and distinct as an oil painting—the hazy islands of candlelight around us, the smell of crushed grass, the latent heat.
Now it was bright spring, dogwood time, and instead of Rico, Dan Garrity waited for me at the edge of the meadow, the spires of midtown jutting up behind the spreading green. He was dressed in his cop khakis and when he saw me, he tapped his watch. “You insist on seeing me during my lunch hour and then you make me wait?”
“I know, I know. I got lost.” I threw my tote bag under the tree. “Every other street in this town is freaking Peachtree—North Peachtree, West Peachtree, Peachtree Avenue Boulevard. Not a single actual peach tree anywhere.”
“They chopped it down last year. Miserable little thing. Had one peach on it, like a shrunken head.”
Garrity held a rolled pita sandwich in one hand, binoculars in the other. Every now and then he'd peer through them at the crowd on the meadow, scanning the green space. A uniformed policeman stood in the center with a microphone and a German shepherd at heel, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.
“What's going on over there?”
Garrity lowered the binoculars. “K-9 demonstration. That’s my buddy Lawrence, he works that unit. This is the dog’s first time out, and I’m making sure no PETA nuts show up and start making noise about turning man’s best friend into an assassin.”
Another person lumbered into the cleared center, dressed in gray sweats and a baseball cap, like a slovenly Michelin Man. I guessed he was the bad guy. Too bad real bad guys weren’t that easy to spot.
Garrity took a bite of his sandwich, which smelled like garlic and roasted meat. “You told me you wanted to talk, so start talking. I got thirty minutes.”
I decided to start with something safe. “You know the Beaumonts?”
“Those two, huh? What are they doing at Phoenix, filming some commercial?”
I explained what Mark had told me about Eliza and the reward he was offering. Garrity didn’t seem impressed.
“I’m not saying Mark doesn’t have good intentions, I’m just saying he never passes up a