Goodbye Dolly - By Deb Baker Page 0,42

he replied, looking at her with those deep, piercing eyes. "Didn't your mother teach you any manners? It's polite to greet me warmly to throw me off guard before any type of verbal assault. It's a rule. Care to start over?"

"Keep my mother out of this." Gretchen crossed her arms defiantly, then thought better of the defensive poseand swung her hands to her hips. Being around Matt always threw her timing off. "You're going about the entire investigation all wrong," she said.

"Ah, so you came over to tell me how to do my job." He tucked the notebook in a back pocket and pushed off from the table.

Shelley Mack leaned across her doll table, squeezing her arms together to expose as much cleavage as possible.

"Anything else I can do to help, Detective Albright?" She was obviously even more affected by the cologne than Gretchen. Shelley batted goo-enhanced eyelashes.

"Thanks, Shelley. That pretty much wraps it up. You've been a big help."

"I'll be right here if you need me."

Matt stepped away from the doll table, and Gretchen followed.

"Let's go outside," he said. "I can't breathe in here."

"Don't you want to hear my alibi?" she said when they found a slice of shade under a palm tree.

"Do you feel you need one?"

"I think I do, since you've been asking everyone else about it."

"Shoot."

"Shoot?"

"Tell me where you were when Ronny Beam was

killed."

Gretchen told him about Bonnie's offer to watch her table and about the Boston group discussing Blunderboos.

"Milt remembered that I was there, and your mother can tell you that she wanted me to see the club's Kewpies."

"I still see a gap in time where you aren't accounted for," Matt said. "But I don't think it matters. I think we have our man."

"Steve? You don't still think he did it?"

"He argued with the deceased shortly before the murder. His fingerprints are on the knife, and several witnesses saw him out in the parking lot before Ronny was killed. How much more evidence would you like?"

"But what about the real murder weapon?"

"The tire iron didn't have any prints on it."

"Steve isn't capable of murder."

"Everyone has the potential."

Brett, Percy O'Connor, and Ronny Beam were connected through a trail of Kewpie dolls. So was she, for that matter. The messages inside the Kewpies made her fear she was involved more deeply than she wanted to be. Should she tell him everything she knew?

If she told him about the deliveries, he might think she was making a clumsy effort to shift suspicion away from Steve. Would he look more closely at her?

Matt Albright was too full of himself to see the truth. Arrogant, self-absorbed, stubborn . . . She searched for more adjectives to describe him. Why did she even think for one moment that she could confide in him?

The detective standing in front of her with the ridiculous smirk would probably scoff at her concerns and dismiss them out of hand as sheer fantasy.

"Has Steve requested legal representation yet?" Gretchen asked instead.

"I offered, he refuses. Says he's waiting for you. That's one of the reasons I circled your name in big bold red pen. Any idea what he's talking about?"

"None," Gretchen said. Was Steve trying to protect her?

How chivalrous of him to come through for her. Finally. But too late. "Can I see him?"

"No. He's still in a holding cell. Until he's charged, he can't have any visitors."

"How long can you hold him without charging him?"

"Not much longer."

His eyes locked onto hers. Gretchen squirmed under his gaze. What was it about this man? He induced too many conflicting emotions.

"I wouldn't have pegged him as your type," Matt said.

"I thought you'd go for someone . . . I don't know . . . more sensitive, more artistic."

"Really?"

"Anyway, I'm sorry it happened to you. Your boyfriend's in a heap of trouble."

"I don't know how many times I have to say this . . ."

Gretchen didn't finish the sentence. Why bother?

She stomped back to her table, plopped into her chair, and selected a five-piece toddler doll from the repair pile. Before Gretchen could immerse herself in repair work and temporarily forget all the peripheral intrigue going on, Nina, canines in tow, walked the few steps from April's table. "I kept an eye on your table, but nobody wanted to buy anything. The place is starting to clear out. What's wrong? You're so pale."

"Steve's still in jail. I guess witnesses saw him in the parking lot." She leaned back in the chair. "Matt must think I know what happened or that