“I’ll write out a list of everyone I remember seeing at the party Friday night just before or after Bernie collapsed. I know you said it could have been one of the hired staff instead of a guest, but at least this would give you a place to start.”
“I can get the guest list from Mary Hancock.”
“Sure you can, and I know you will, but that won’t narrow down the guests who were still there when Bernie had his attack. I’ve thought about it, and I can identify a lot of the people who were standing around both before and after I went to Bernie’s aid. Besides, if you ask Mary about the whereabouts of guests at specific times, she may feel as if she’s incriminating them. It’s my guess she’ll be hesitant to do that. I, on the other hand, have no qualms about supplying you with information. And I know about Jerry Hawkins.”
“Who’s Jerry Hawkins?”
“A guest at the party who I have reason to believe is a suspect—and the reason you should talk to me.”
Damn. She was speaking his language, and there was no way he could turn down her offer for information. There should be no risk involved with that—not as long as she spoke only to him and didn’t let anyone else know that she was giving him the inside scoop.
No risk for her.
Being with Callie was always a risk for him. Tough to have a heart too stupid to know when it didn’t have a chance. Fortunately Max had a brain that did. He was meat and potatoes. Callie was caviar.
Besides, even if they got past that, he was lousy at dating, and his brief dive into the pool of matrimonial bliss had been a disaster. Things got too tangled when he tried to fit his life with someone else’s, and he hated tangles that didn’t end with an arrest.
His marriage had been years ago, when he was fresh out of college and a rookie on the force. It had lasted all of eight weeks, not even past what most would consider the honeymoon stage. She’d left him, claimed he was married to his job and had no time for a wife. He hadn’t fought the breakup since he figured she just might be right.
“We have to talk, Max,” Callie insisted.
“Yeah. I could meet with you sometime tomorrow,” he said, resigning himself to the fact that he’d have to face this like a man. Then again, that was the problem.
“I have an incredibly full day. What about tomorrow evening? Dinner at my place?”
He swallowed a groan. Dinner at Callie’s would mean a half dozen forks laid out like a puzzle, crystal stems that he’d probably knock over and break, and something he’d have to choke down like that raw fish wrapped in seaweed that was so popular these days. Worse, it would mean trying to digest food while his insides did weird things every time she smiled or made eye contact.
“Nothing fancy,” she said. “Come as you are.”
Sure, with a loaded gun on his hip and another in his trousers that could get him into real trouble. “What time?”
“Sevenish.”
“Cops don’t have sevenish on their watches. Seven-ten, seven-twenty, seven twenty-two, but not sevenish.”
“Seven-ten,” she said. “See you then?”
“I’ll be there. In the meantime, don’t talk to anyone about the fact that you’re providing me with information.”
“I hadn’t planned to spread it around, but surely I can mention it to Mikki?”
“No one. Not even Mikki.”
He sat staring at the open file in front of him after he broke the connection. He didn’t want to frighten Callie unnecessarily, but the Avenger was getting bolder by the murder. Who knew when he’d cross his own line, decide that his work was so important that it didn’t matter who he had to kill to protect himself and his mission? Max planned to make damn sure the threat didn’t extend to Callie.
Then as always when Max’s thoughts centered on Callie, the old memory started burning inside him. One night, eight long years ago. His breath caught as he remembered the pressure of her breasts pressed against him, the feel of her hot tears on his neck. The sweet, salty taste of her lips.
Now he was having dinner with her at her place. He had to be out of his mind.
IT WAS SURPRISING and somewhat alarming to Callie that she was getting such a high from her sideline involvement in a murder case. Not that she wasn’t extremely upset that Bernie had been killed. She was.
But solving a murder case was a whole lot different from puzzling over a medical case.
Both involved life and death and a lot of hypothesis, but the killer in Bernie’s case was a calculating human instead of a disease. That changed the game plan considerably. She’d started on her guest list immediately after her conversation with Max last night, and the task had so consumed her that she hadn’t fallen asleep until after midnight.
Worse, the case had crept back into her mind between every patient this morning and during the last twenty minutes while Matilda Golena had gone on and on describing every ache and pain she’d felt since the last visit. At eighty-nine, Matilda had lots of aches and pains.
Callie glanced at her watch as Matilda walked out of her office with a clean bill of health in spite of her age and complaints. Twelve twenty-five. If Callie hurried, she could grab a salad from the hospital cafeteria and have another thirty minutes to make notes about people on her list before she met with the head of nurses to discuss new staff requirements in the outpatient surgery center.
She took the elevator down to the cafeteria, chose her salad and was paying for it when she noticed Abby Hawkins sitting by herself at a table a few feet away. Callie felt a surge of adrenaline. She’d promised Max she wouldn’t discuss the fact that she was cooperating with him in the murder investigation, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t talk to friends, even one whose son was at the very top of Callie’s list. And if some tidbit of valuable information happened to fall in her lap, that was just good fortune.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked, stopping at Abby’s table.
“Please do.”
Callie took the food from her tray and set it opposite Abby’s. “Did you volunteer in the addiction unit again this morning?”
“Yes. Every Monday and Wednesday. I teach painting classes to the patients who are interested. Some of them are quite talented, but even the ones who aren’t seem to benefit from the release of splashing colors on a blank canvas.”
“I knew you volunteered. I never realized you taught painting or that you were an artist yourself, for that matter.”
“I hadn’t painted in years, but started dabbling again after the divorce,” Abby said. “I have a few paintings exhibited in Norton’s Gallery, but hope to do a show next spring.”
“I’m impressed. I’ll have to drop by Norton’s.”
“Don’t expect too much. My talent is minimal.”
“Jack Norton must not think so. Did Elizabeth and Jerry inherit your talent?”
Abby’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, so you met Jerry?”
“Yes. I ran into him as he was leaving Mary Hancock’s party Friday night and he introduced himself. I didn’t know you had a son.”
“He doesn’t visit often, but he’s off work recuperating from an injury, so he’s spending a couple of weeks with me.”
Whatever his injury was, it hadn’t been obvious at the party. “Where does he live?”
“Sacramento.”
“If he needs follow-up care while he’s here, perhaps I could see him or suggest another physician.”
“He’s