Five Uneasy Pieces

Detective White emerged, along with a uniformed officer, reminding me of circus clowns packed in a VW Beetle. I’d been bugging Ed to expand that closet. Who knew it could hold so much?

*****

After the police read Roz her rights and took her away, I sat in the kitchen with Mr. Greeley. I couldn’t believe the whole thing. While he downed Ed’s Scotch, I sipped herb tea with honey.

“Thank goodness that’s over,” I said, feeling like a deflating balloon.

“It appears you’re in the clear.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Roz doesn’t strike me as the sort to have taken the fall for you. Say, per a prearranged financial incentive?”

“But she did fall, Mr. Greeley. She fell when you knocked her down.”

He laughed in the mirthless way he had when I first met him. “C’mon, Mrs. Hastings. You’re really not that innocent are you?”

I thought about how often Roz said that I could win men over by flirting with them. I decided to test her theory. I raised a hand to my breast and batted my eyes. It felt silly and frivolous, but I did it anyhow.

“Really, Mr. Greeley,” I said, in a breathy voice. “I may not be that innocent, but I’m not the Devil.”

I waited for his laugh. He smiled and blushed. “No, I don’t guess you are, are you?”

Golly, I thought. Roz was right.

Excerpt from

Least Wanted

CHAPTER ONE

Shanae Jackson breezed into my office like she owned the place. Not even a knock or word of greeting. Pint-sized and wiry, in jeans and a plain orange T-shirt, Shanae projected an attitude to compensate for her lack of stature.

Her daughter, Tina, trailed behind her. Though she was quite tall for a 13-year-old—taller by a couple of inches than her mother—she slouched as if standing up straight carried too much responsibility. Tina slumped into a chair and began reading a book, while Shanae took the other seat and glared at me.

“Hi,” I said, hurriedly closing out the online research I’d been doing. “You must be Shanae Jackson.”

“You got someone else you meetin’ at two o’clock today?” she asked. Her piercing brown-eyed gaze pinned me to my chair.

“Um, no.”

“Then I guess I must be.” She spoke in a tone reserved for the village idiot.

I plastered on a big smile and refrained from telling her to fuck off. Standing and extending my hand, I said, “I’m Sam McRae. It’s nice to meet you.”

I half expected another snappy comeback, but she remained seated, looking at my hand like I’d just blown my nose into it. After a moment, she reached out and grasped my fingers.

I risked further sarcasm and turned to the girl. “And you must be Tina. Hi.”

Tina glanced at me. “Hey,” she said and glued her eyes back on the book.

In contrast to Tina’s slouch, Shanae sat bolt upright, her posture as intense as her gaze. Her abundant hair was plastered back from a dark chocolate face with high cheekbones and angular lines.

I sat down and opened the thin file containing notes of my earlier phone conversation with the angry woman sitting before me.

“Is that the paperwork?” I asked, nodding toward an envelope clutched in her left hand.

Shanae thrust it at me. I pulled out folded copies of the police report and other papers concerning her daughter’s case. Smoothing them out on my desk, I took some time to review them.

“This looks pretty straightforward,” I said. “As I mentioned on the phone, I’ll need to speak to your daughter alone.”

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Shanae’s expression hardened.