Live to Tell - Lisa Gardner [22]
Phil and Alex stood head-to-head in dark suits, apparently becoming fast friends. Both men looked up when she approached. Phil wiped a smile from his face; that already had her suspicious.
“Hey,” she tossed out to Phil, then turned her attention to Alex. “Back for more?”
“Glutton for punishment,” he assured her.
“We’re interviewing today, building profiles of the vics. Not exactly crime-scene material.”
The professor shrugged. “Never know when you might learn something useful.”
She remained skeptical. Alex wore a charcoal-colored jacket over a blue dress shirt, dark slacks. He should be sweating, she thought, given the heat. It bothered her that he didn’t sweat, especially when she could already feel the first bead trickling down her spine to pool at the small of her back.
“Okay,” she said crisply, unfolding her paperwork. “We have two primary targets this morning. Mrs. Patricia Bruni and Mr. Dexter Harding. In the interest of time, I’ll take Bruni. You two can take Harding.”
Phil looked her. Alex looked at Phil.
“What?” she demanded.
“It would be better if we did them together,” Phil told her. “Multiple impressions of what the individual has to say.”
“Three on one? We’ll intimidate them before they say the first word.”
“Then you take the lead,” Phil replied easily. “We’ll hang back, blend into the backdrop.”
“Ride my coattails?”
“Exactly.” Phil took the first sheet from her. “Patricia Bruni. Lives four houses up. Let’s go.”
He started walking before she could say another word. Alex paused a beat, then fell in step beside her. “Heard you had an interesting night at the hospital,” he commented.
“Not really.”
“I caught the Red Sox game myself.”
“Never follow baseball.”
“More of a Patriots fan?”
“More of a homicide fan. In case you forgot, fieldwork doesn’t keep regular hours.”
She sounded prickly even to herself. Alex just grinned. That was it. He and Phil were up to something.
“What are your thoughts on Italian food?” Alex asked.
“Food is good,” D.D. allowed.
“Great. We’ll have to get some later.”
They arrived at Patricia Bruni’s house, another triple-decker with a broad front porch. D.D. was distracted.
“When? Do you mean for lunch?”
“Something like that,” Alex said, and with that enigmatic grin still on his face he followed her up the front steps.
Patricia Bruni turned out to be a wizened old black lady who went by Miss Patsy and believed in serving her guests, even cops, megaglasses of iced tea. D.D. had a good feeling about Miss Patsy, and not just for the cold iced tea; in D.D.’s experience, wizened old ladies always knew the most about what was going on in the neighborhood.
Miss Patsy invited them inside, “out of the heat,” she said, and they gratefully followed her into her lower-level unit, where window air conditioners chugged away at full throttle. Her home was modest, boasting six rooms, lots of furniture, and an impressive collection of Hummel figurines. From what D.D. could tell, if it was small and breakable, Miss Patsy collected it.
D.D. took up the antique wooden chair across from Patsy. It was fun to watch Phil and Alex stand awkwardly in front of the camel-backed love seat, trying to figure out how to sit on its broken-down form. Alex finally perched gingerly on the edge. Older and heavier, Phil reluctantly followed suit. The love seat groaned, but held.
“You’re here about the Harringtons,” Miss Patsy said straight off, patting her tightly coiled hair. “I tried to tell that officer last night, don’t you be thinking this was drugs or any of that other nonsense. Patrick and Denise were nice folks. Good Christian couple. We’re lucky to have them on the block.”
“They live here long?” D.D. asked, sipping her iced tea. Sweet and cold. She loved Miss Patsy already.
“Bought the house last fall,” Patsy provided, confirming the timeline D.D. already had in her head. “Duffys lived in it before that. Kept a lot of late hours,