Seven Sisters - Earlene Fowler [33]
His hand reached over and tickled my side. “Sure you do. Just like the first time we met.”
“I do,” I protested, wiggling away from his hand. “I cooperate with you at least three times a week.”
“Benni, you know it’s extremely important for you to tell Detective Hudson everything you know.”
“I did.”
“And whatever you find out.”
I was silent.
“Benni.” All his don’t-interfere, this-is-none-of-your-business, leave-it-to-the-professionals, you’re-going-to-really-get-hurt-someday lectures were summed up in that one word. Marriage shorthand. You gotta love it.
“Benni,” he repeated.
“All right, all right,” I promised, laughing.
He grabbed my waist, pulling me toward him. “Ms. Harper, what am I going to do with you?”
“I seem to remember you asking that very same thing the first time I was called into your office.”
“So I’ll do now what I was thinking about then.”
Some time later I said in a groggy voice, “That, Chief Oritz, was highly unprofessional of you. It might even be against the law.”
“So report me to Internal Affairs.”
7
THE NEXT DAY at the folk art museum, before I’d even taken off my Levi’s jacket, the phone started ringing. Though the murder happened too late to make the Tribune, it had been carried on the local morning news. Naturally my first phone call was from Emory.
“I’m goin’ to take your name out of my will,” he said, his Arkansas drawl thicker than normal this morning, probably because he hadn’t had his requisite three cups of espresso. “Why didn’t you call me when all this was happening last night? I could have come down and gotten a scoop.”
“For one thing, Gabe would have killed me. He loves you to pieces, Emory, but he hates your career choice. Two, you aren’t even the paper’s crime reporter, so what do you care? Three, you wouldn’t have gotten your lazy butt out of bed to do it anyway, so why are you bellyaching?” I chewed on the tip of my pen, unperturbed by the dramatic noises sputtering through the receiver.
“Since when has what the chief thinks about your escapades ever stopped you? I may not be the crime reporter, but I could have clued her in and garnered a favor of the gargantuan variety, and for your information, I wasn’t in bed, but you are right, I was doing my best to get there.”
“So how did your date with Elvia go?”
“We went to the melodrama down in Oceano. Dastardly deeds and damsels in distress. Reminded me of a day in the life of Benni Harper.”
“Very funny. Actually, last night did remind me of a crazy melodrama. People all over the ranch when the shooting took place, a rich, crazy family, and a detective straight out of central casting. A Texan, no less, wearing honey-colored ostrich cowboy boots and writing in a Beauty and the Beast notebook. I tell you, Emory, it felt like a TV episode penned by a sleep-deprived, schizophrenic script writer.”
“Now I’m even more perturbed. I would have surely enjoyed the spectacle. Why wasn’t I invited? I’m family.”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t make up the guest list. Though we recognize the fact that your father and my grandfather were first cousins by marriage and that your father also married my mother’s first cousin qualifies you as immediate family, I’m not sure they would. Believe me, you’ll be meeting the Brown dynasty at some point in the future since our families are now loosely, soon to be tightly, connected. I’m not sure how Giles’s death is going to affect the marriage plans of Sam and Bliss. It’s no surprise that no one got around to talking dates or anything.”
“What a nasty little bed of cottonmouths your stepson has stumbled into. So, who do you think did it?”
“Is that my cousin asking or a reporter?”
“Depends on the answer. Seriously, one of our reporters got a weird call about the Brown family shindig yesterday evening. Seems something was going down at the Brown estate that night, and this person wanted a reporter to be there to record it.”
“Something going down? That sounds like bad movie dialogue. Who called?”
“That famous fella Anonymous. Anyway, the reporter who