Truth, Lies, and Second Dates - MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,65
in the separate dining area; she was a fourth of the way through her steak by the time he pulled his plate of chicken kebobs toward him.
“Thank you. For coming back here.”
“Thank you for going all Apollo Creed over those two. It’s nicer here anyway. Better food and more privacy.”
Yes. Privacy. To talk about the killer. And. Perhaps. Something more?
He did not know, and wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. So he avoided it with, “I like this carpet. It’s incongruously blue.”
She looked up from her plate and giggled. “It is incongruous, isn’t it? Most of these places have tan or brown or gray. Or a pattern. But this is very, very blue.”
“Like a moat.”
“A fuzzy, deep-blue moat.”
A short silence fell, which Ava broke with, “Where’d you learn to fight? Can all medical examiners do that, or just you?”
“I box at Top Team. It’s an excellent full-body workout as it’s a valuable balance of resistance and cardio. Abe got me into it.”
“Please tell me you don’t spar with Abe.”
“Not anymore.”
“Tom! One hit and you’d blast him through the ropes! And possibly the wall behind the ropes.”
“Like I said, not anymore.”
She groaned, then realized he was teasing and smacked him on the elbow. “Well, I’m officially thanking you for preventing my mugging and subsequent need for a new purse.”
“The important thing is that you weren’t hurt,” he said softly.
“No, the important thing is that neither of us were hurt. And speaking of hurt, will you tell me about the Mall of America murders?”
Never had he been so pleased to talk shop. “Murder, singular. It wasn’t murder so much as manslaughter. The restaurant had a new employee who was behaving foolishly with the machine they use to make eggrolls.”
“Am I about to be very glad we didn’t order egg rolls?”
“Perhaps. During the employee’s shenanigans—”
“Oh, man. Gotta give full props to anyone incorporating ‘shenanigans’ into a story about death by egg-roll machine.”
“—one of the blades violently detached and nearly amputated one employee’s arm. And while people were panicking over that, a cylinder somehow rolled loose and crushed the first employee. His chest cavity filled with blood and he suffocated.”
“Wow.”
“Yes.”
“Awful.”
“Yes.”
“So the takeaway here is to keep the shenanigans to a minimum when you’re making egg rolls. Got it. Y’know, I love this macabre shit, even though I spent ten years pretending otherwise. I’m sure someone died a horrible-yet-weird death right here in this building.”
“A banker had an allergic reaction to someone else’s service dog and went into anaphylactic shock. It wasn’t murder, but it was interesting.”
“It is interesting!”
“I’m pleased you’re pleased. But if you’ll allow me to go off topic—”
“No more carpet and egg-roll chitchat while you work up the nerve to tell me what’s really on your mind?”
That took him by surprise, which was foolish. Ava was many things; stupid was nowhere on that list.
“—you checked the peephole before you opened the door, yes?”
“Yep. Don’t worry, it definitely wasn’t Becka with a crowbar. Though I’m so hungry, I might’ve let her in if she’d had food.”
“Your text alarmed me.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to tell you what was going on. I called Jan, my union rep, too. To ask about Becka.”
This, too, was alarming. He set down his partially gnawed kebob. “Ava, I do not like your exposure here.”
“Don’t worry, Jan won’t say anything. And she didn’t give me much, either. Apparently Becka was a big fan of mine even before she started working for the airline.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Jan knew who I was asking about before I mentioned Becka’s name.”
He had picked up his kebob, then nearly dropped it. “I don’t like that, either.”
“Weird, right? But apparently she aced her psych exam. All her exams. And Jan didn’t think I was in any ‘physical’ danger from her.”
“That’s an interesting way to quantify such a thing.”
“That’s what I said! Then that rotten bitch hung up on me, which is only fair, but it’s still annoying. So what do we—salt, please—what do we know? Becka’s young—early twenties.”
He took the salt back. “Which could rule her out.”
“Except we can’t use the ‘she’s too young’ rule because she could have a partner. That’s why you suspected me at first.”
“Yes, but in her case, she’s—what? Eight or nine years younger than you are?”
“Yeah. So if she has a partner, it hasn’t been for long, is that what you’re saying? Because it’s a good point. And talking about Boston, that’s the other thing I wanted to know—how’d she know I was going to Boston and