Loose Screws. Karen Templeton

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      As of this moment (she says without the slightest shame whatsoever) I’m burrowing so far into my comfort zone, nothing on God’s earth is going to blast me out of it.

      Not even the memory of a brief, hopeful smile beneath discouraged eyes.

      Five

      So here I am the next morning, clicking smartly down 78th Street in my tobacco-colored linen sheath (short enough to be chic but not slutty) and my new Anne Klein pumps, my fave Hermes scarf billowing softly in the breeze, when I notice a small herd of police cars clogging the street about a half block away. Which would, coincidentally, place them just outside the building where the offices for Fanning Interiors, Ltd., reside. It is not, however, until I notice the trembling band of yellow police tape stretched from one side of the entrance, around the No Parking sign out by the curb, on around the Clean Up After Your Dog sign, then back to the other side of the steps that I get that awful, knotty feeling in the pit of the my stomach that this does not bode well for my immediate future.

      Still, I’m doing okay until I see the chalk outline on the sidewalk. Somebody screams—me, as it turns out—which garners the attention of at least three of the cops and one sanitation engineer across the street. Okay, so maybe my reaction is a bit over the top, but just because I live in Manhattan doesn’t mean I stumble across body outlines on anything resembling a regular basis. Besides, I haven’t had my latte yet. Not to mention that it’s barely eight-thirty and the temperature/humidity index is roughly equivalent to that on Mars. And I was already in a bad mood because my hair looks like Great-Aunt Teresa’s wig, which, trust me, is not a good thing.

      “Jesus, Ginger,” I hear a foot away, which makes me scream again. I pivot, my purse smacking into some gawker who is dumb enough to come up behind a hysterical woman, to see Nick Wojowodski frowning at me. “What the hell are you doing here?”

      His rough voice, the creases pinching his mouth, give me a pretty good idea he’s not having a wonderful morning, either. My shaking hand clamped around my still-lidded latte, I stare at him, but all I can think of is that outline. And the dark red stain I saw ooching out from it. I shudder, then say, “I work over there.”

      “Oh,” he says, a world of meaning crammed into two letters. By now, onlookers are beginning to clot around us, including a couple of the other designers, the receptionist, the lady who does most of our window treatments.

      “Would everybody who works here please go check in with Officer Ruiz?” Nick says, his baritone piercing the burr of voices beginning to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I hear a gasp or two, but more out of surprise than actual shock. Or dismay. I don’t hear what Nick says next, or what anybody else says, either, because my stomach has just dropped into my crotch and I’m thinking that shape of the outline was suspiciously…familiar. Like it might have belonged to a shortish, balding gay man of about sixty or so who took great pleasure in regularly making my life a living hell. Next thing I know, Nick is hauling me off to one side, encouraging me to take a sip of the latte. I nearly gag on it, but I manage. It’s at this point that I notice the guy who owns the brownstone next door talking to one of the cops. He doesn’t look so good.

      Nick follows my gaze, turns back to me. “You know that guy?”

      “Nathan Caruso. Lives next door.”

      “He positively ID’d the body,” Nick says softly. My eyes shoot to his, dread making my stomach burn.

      “Who—?”

      “Brice Fanning. Your boss, I take it?”

      “Shit!”

      Nick’s expression goes a little funny, which I guess isn’t too surprising, considering my reaction.

      Oh, God. I am a horrible, horrible person. A man is dead, most likely not from natural causes, and all I can think is, “This is so freaking unfair!” Okay, so Brice was a mean, petty little man and I couldn’t stand being in the same room with him for more than five minutes—which made weekly meetings a bit problematic—but he was still a human being and thus deserves some respect, at least, if not an indication of sorrow.

      I hold my breath for a second or two…nope, sorry, not gonna happen. Didn’t like the guy when he was alive, don’t much care that he’s dead.

      If you want to leave now, I’ll completely understand.

      But, God. Brice was Fanning Interiors. I was just a minion among many, one of the small army of designers Brice’s prestige and reputation were able to keep busy. I’d recently begun to get a serious leg up on establishing my own rep apart from Fanning’s, but there is not a doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t be living the lifestyle I was today had it not been for Brice’s taking me on seven years ago. In many ways, I was indebted to the man.

      And now he’s nothing but a schmear on an East Side sidewalk. Oy. That poor guy who found him…

      “How did he die?” I ask over the constant squawking of the police radio nearby.

      Nick’s face undergoes this whole impersonal-police-mask thing, but his jaw is stubbled, as if he hasn’t had time to shave, and there are bags under his eyes. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

      For some reason, this irks me. So I tuck one of the many curls that will spring forth like snakes from my French braid over the next fourteen hours and say, “I saw the blood, Nick. Somehow I doubt he was pecked to death by a rabid pigeon.”

      Nick gives me this look. “Pigeons don’t carry rabies. And besides, you’re just assuming that was blood.”

      I give him a look back. Then he sighs and says, “He was shot.”

      I visibly shudder. I don’t much care for guns. Especially when they’ve been used on people I know. I take another sip of latte. “When?” I whisper.

      “Real early this morning.”

      I look up. “Any witnesses?”

      “No.”

      “The man was shot in the middle of 78th Street and there were no witnesses?”

      “Another assumption. We found him in the middle of 78th Street. Doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where he was shot.”

      “Oh,” I say, then frown in concentration, which earns me another heavy sigh.

      My brows lift. “What?”

      “Please don’t tell me you dream about being an amateur detective.”

      “Not to worry,” I say. “I don’t even like to read murder mysteries.” He looks relieved, at least until I ask, “I don’t suppose you know who?”

      Nick shakes his head, rubbing the back of his neck. “Nope. Which means we’ve got a lot of questioning to do. Starting with everybody who worked for him.”

      “Today?”

      “Yeah, today. What did you think?”

      I shake my head. “Sorry, but I’ve got a ten o’clock, then appointments СКАЧАТЬ