For Old Crime's Sake (Chase Charley Mystery Book 1) Read online

  “It’s no problem.” He flashed a brilliant smile my way.

  I sat down and the waiter came over right away with a menu.

  “Do you come here often?” Officer Marquez laughed. “Sorry, that sounded like a pickup line.”

  “That’s okay,” I said as I put the menu down.

  We placed our orders. When the waiter walked away he said, “How are you tonight?”

  I knew he really wanted to know why I had asked him for that information.

  “I’m okay. It’s a beautiful evening.”

  He stared. “Yes, the view is beautiful.”

  I tried not to blush, but it was impossible to stop. I took a sip of water, placed the glass back on the table, and then said, “I need to find information about someone.”

  He stared at me and I felt my face flush. “Does this have anything to do with your investigative reporting?” he asked.

  Yes, I hadn’t even thought about that. How could I have forgotten? I’d tell him I needed the information for that reason.

  The waiter brought our wine. Officer Marquez took a sip and I couldn’t help but notice how gorgeous his eyes were as he peered at me over the top of his glass. Finally, he placed the glass on the table. “What is the case?”

  I tried to act as if I didn’t know what he was taking about. It would give me time to think of something. The case I was currently working on had nothing to do with these men. I would have to make up something.

  It was time for me to stall by taking a drink of my wine. I stared at him over the top of my glass as I took a drink. He watched me and then a slow smile spread across his face. I placed the glass down.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You have hazel eyes.”

  I hoped that I didn’t blush. I still didn’t know how to take a compliment. “How did you know they were hazel? It’s kind of dim in here. Most people just think they are green.”

  He picked up his glass. “You have small specks of brown in your hazel eyes.”

  I couldn’t hide my smile. “That’s impressive.”

  “It’s my job to notice details,” he said with a smile.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” I said.

  “So what was the case you’re working on?” he asked again.

  I knew he wasn’t going to let this drop. Since I was investigating the police, I had to make up a story to tell him so that he wouldn’t be suspicious.

  “It’s just a small case really. It has to do with a shop around the corner that’s been scamming customers. I was just trying to get an address so that I could get an interview. I want to get each side of the story.” I picked at my napkin, hoping to hide my anxiety. “Here’s the license plate number.” I pulled a paper from my purse and pushed it toward him.

  He stared at me for a moment. “I suppose that’s a good reason. I guess I could see what I could do.”

  I couldn’t believe that this might work. But now I felt guilty for lying to him.

  “I can call you tomorrow with any information that I find.” His eyes were dark and mysterious as he gazed into mine.

  I shifted in my seat and looked away. “That would be fantastic.”

  Now was the time to ask about his partner. I picked at the white linen napkin in front of me. “What about your partner? He didn’t care for me much. What was that really all about?” I flashed Officer Marquez a smile in the hopes that would make him want to tell me everything he knew.

  He looked down, avoiding my gaze. “I don’t know much really. Like I said, we have just started working together.”

  I nodded and played with my rim of my glass. “Don’t you think it’s strange the way that he acted with me? Does he do that with everyone he stops?”

  “He is a little rough around the edges.” The flicker from the candle on the table highlighted Officer Marquez’s handsome features.

  “That’s a little more than the edges. But you still didn’t answer the question, so I’ll take that as a no, he doesn’t act that way with everyone. Can you tell me why? What did I do wrong?” I stared at him and he finally looked up at me.

  He leaned back in his chair. “I take it that you have met the officer before.”

  Now I was getting somewhere. So Phillip West had said something to Officer Marquez.

  “That was really all,” he said. “I would tell you if there was something more.”

  Sadly, I believed him. I had hoped that he would be able to tell me more. Now I was back where I started. I needed to know more about Phillip West. Officer Marquez could be the person to do that for me. How would I convince him to do that though?

  “How do you like working with him?” I asked.

  Officer Marquez chuckled. “Like I said, he’s a little rough around the edges, but he’s okay with me. I feel bad that the only reason you came to dinner with me was because you wanted me to look up that information.”

  I hadn’t expected him to say that. Strangely enough, I realized that wasn’t the only reason I’d come to dinner with him. “You didn’t give me a chance to come for any other reason,” I said.

  He nodded. “Fair enough. Maybe we could do this again sometime and I could give you a reason.”

  My cheeks turned red. I nodded and look down at the table. “Sure, I guess that would be okay. So will you look into him for me?”

  “You want me to find out if my partner is into something bad?”

  “Yes, that’s the gist of it.”

  He blew out a deep breath and ran his hand through his hair. “I guess I can’t say no. I mean, if he did something wrong, it’s my job to find out.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I wasn’t going to say anything, but that’s exactly what I thought.”

  He laughed. “I’m so glad you understand. I’ll let you know what I find out.”

  Just then the waiter brought our food. After he placed the plates in front of us and walked away, Marc said, “How about we talk about you for the rest of the night?”

  “You really want to be that bored tonight?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Try me.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But I want to know more about you too.”

  “Now that is something boring.” He pointed with his fork.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” I said.

  “Okay, I’ll start. What made you want to do investigative reporting?” he asked.

  I took a drink of wine. His gaze practically melted right through me. “I think I just stumbled into the job. I worked for another station out of college and then was offered this position several years later.”

  “But the investigative part intrigues you?” His intense stare was still on me.

  I placed my glass on the table. A bit of the wine spilled down the side, staining the white tablecloth red around the stem of the glass. I couldn’t deny my answer to his question. “Yes, it does intrigue me. I suppose the same as your work intrigues you. What brings you to the New Orleans Police Department?”

  “I just decided this was a place I wanted to be.” He took another drink.

  His expression changed and I wondered if there was a deeper story.

  “Where are you from?” I stared at him.

  He shifted in his seat. “I moved here from New York.”

  I thought I’d picked up an accent. “That’s a long way. Why this place?”

  The waiter appeared and Marc looked relieved. “How about dessert?”

  I looked over at the tray of desserts. “Sure.”

  Marc ordered chocolate mousse for us and the waiter left our table.

  “You still haven’t told me much about your past,” Marc said.

  Obviously he was trying to take the topic off his own past. “Like I said, my life is boring. I was born here, grew up, and live here.” I smiled.

  The waiter had just brought our dessert and I’d sunk my fork into the chocolate decadence when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. When I looked up and saw Phillip West standing by
our table, I lost my breath and dropped my fork.

  “What’s for dinner?” Phillip West stared right at me.

  Marc stood from the table. “Is everything all right?” He motioned for the bad cop to follow him across the room.

  I didn’t like that they were now talking in private. It was even worse that Officer West had shown up at our dinner. It was time for me to get out of there. I grabbed my clutch, pulled out cash and tossed it on the table. Without saying a word to Officer Marquez, I hurried out of the restaurant.

  Chapter Ten

  The next morning, I woke with the sun shining through the window onto my face. As I stretched and yawned it hit me. I jumped up and looked at the alarm clock. I was already thirty minutes late.

  I stumbled over to my closet and attempted to pick out something that matched. Black pants and a white blouse would have to do. Maybe I’d had one too many glasses of wine last night when I’d gotten home.

  Marc had called after our dinner. When I asked how he’d gotten my number, he’d remained silent. It wasn’t a shock that he’d found me though. He’d apologized for Officer West showing up. Maybe I shouldn’t have taken off without saying a word, but I hadn’t wanted to get into another confrontation with Officer West. Marc wanted to take me out again to make up for it, but I wasn’t sure that was such a good idea under the circumstances.

  When I stepped out into the apartment building’s hallway something crunched under my feet. Twigs. I knew right away what this was. But why was it in front of my door? Last time it had been in front of my neighbor’s door. If I knew Wanda Perkins, and I thought I did, she would want to know why this kept showing up at my building. I didn’t have answers. Then she would remind me that I was an investigative reporter. But I could only do so much.

  I wouldn’t even tell Courtney about this. No way was I going through the ordeal of getting rid of it again. I didn’t have time since I was already late. As long as Courtney didn’t know about it, then it would be no big deal. And she would never know because I would never tell her. It was all just superstition anyway. She would just make a big deal about how I needed to get rid of it properly. She would just worry so I knew that I was making the right decision by not telling her.

  The air hadn’t reached the stifling hot level yet, and blue sky stretched as far as my eyes could see, so I considered that another perfect day for walking to work. Although since I was running behind schedule, I probably should have driven. With the traffic at this time of the morning, it probably wouldn’t do me any good though. People strolled the sidewalks, but it wasn’t too crowded yet.

  I checked the time on my phone; I didn’t even have time to stop off for coffee. It would make for a long day without caffeine. In the past I had tried to drink the office coffee, but it was nothing more than dirty water. My boss made it, so everyone was afraid to tell him how much it sucked.

  As I made my way down the sidewalk, I wondered about the men who had followed Dangerfield—Doug and Russ. I didn’t think they’d give up this easily. I had tried to call Dangerfield last night. It wasn’t my fault that he hadn’t answered. That had probably been for the best, because after a couple glasses of wine I probably would have said something I’d regret.

  I supposed I still should try to get in touch with him. He was annoying, but I couldn’t deny he was a little bit charming too. He knew just the right things to say to beguile everyone. If you liked that kind of thing. I wasn’t falling for his charm though. Plenty of people on TV would fall for him, but I wouldn’t be one of them.

  I was almost to my office building. It was within sight. My window was visible from the sidewalk. As I neared, something caught my attention. The noise sounded as if it was coming from behind me.

  I spun around, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. People walked around me, looking at me like I was crazy. I turned around and continued down the sidewalk. I was daydreaming about solving this mystery and trying to forget about how Oscar would yell at me when a noise sounded behind me again.

  After a few more steps I knew that someone was behind me. I whipped around again, clutching my bag in front of my chest for protection. This time I saw that I was right; someone had been following me. Without even thinking, I raised my arms up and punched. At the same time I also gave the man a swift kick to the groin.

  Lucky for him, I missed that region. Instead, I just hit him in the thigh. I needed to take that self-defense class again.

  Dangerfield clutched his leg and stumbled to the ground. “What did you do that for? Why are you always hurting me?” he asked.

  “Because I thought someone was attacking me.” I still held my arms out in a defensive stance.

  “Are you always so paranoid?” He rubbed his leg.

  I narrowed my eyes. “Do you always attack women on the sidewalk in the morning or do you usually wait for the cover of night?”

  He released a half-hearted chuckle. “Okay, we could go on like this for hours.”

  “You could go on like this for hours, but I have work to do.” I gestured over my shoulder.

  “Oh yeah? What are you working on?” he asked.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I said with a smirk.

  He inspected his leg and at this point I was sure he was faking the injury. “So you aren’t going to tell me. Fair enough.”

  “Are you going to stay down there all day? People are staring at us.” I glanced around.

  He climbed to his feet. “I need to talk with you.”

  “What do you want to talk about? Haven’t you ever heard of a telephone?”

  “This was important and I wanted to tell you in person,” he said.

  This couldn’t be good. I placed my hands on my hips. “What is it this time?”

  His expression turned serious and worry flashed in his eyes. “Okay, try to remain calm, there is no easy way to put this, but I think someone is following you.”

  I snorted. Was he serious? “Who would be following me?” Other than the cop and the two men who had followed him. Minor details that I wouldn’t mention to Dangerfield at the moment. Dangerfield knew about Phillip West, but not Doug and Russ. “Was it the cop?”

  Dangerfield’s expression didn’t change. I looked around for the cop. Suddenly it wasn’t so funny.

  “No, not the cop.”

  “Are you being serious? I can never tell with you. Maybe you should have been an actor,” I said.

  The spark in his baby blue eyes had now turned to frustration. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

  Was I actually irritating Bill Dangerfield? “Is that right? Let me tell you something. Someone is following you.”

  He folded his arms across this chest. “Why didn’t you tell me before now?”

  “I tried to call you but you didn’t answer my call.”

  “I guess I was busy last night,” he said casually.

  I waved my hand. “I don’t even want to know what you were doing last night.” Okay, maybe I did a little. After all, I’d had plans last night too. “I had a date last night and I still managed to find time to call you,” I said with a satisfied smile.

  “How was your date?” Dangerfield looked over his shoulder. “Don’t answer that. So tell me about the men you claim are following me.”

  I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. How would I tell him without letting him know that I had been following him? I didn’t want to tell him that I had been at the coffee shop and that I had followed him. Maybe I could skirt around the issue. I would pretend that I’d just happened to be there at Café Mojo. That was actually the truth.

  “There were a couple of men following you yesterday. I watched them and then followed all of you for a little bit.” I shifted my bag, still holding it in front of me as if it would offer some kind of protection from the strangers who might be lurking just outside of my vision.

  “Where did this happen?” Dangerfield asked.

  “At Café Mojo, the coffee shop around the corner.”


  He frowned. “I don’t know these men or why they would be following me. Why didn’t you say hello when you saw me at the coffee shop?”

  I shook my head. “That is what you are worried about the most? Not that these strange men were following you?”

  “I didn’t say that I didn’t care about that. Maybe they weren’t following me.”

  “Oh, they were following you all right,” I said.

  “How do you know?” He eyed me up and down.

  “That is where it gets tricky. I was contacted by these men yesterday. They wanted me to follow you or something weird like that.”

  “They what?” he asked with a little bit of astonishment in his voice.

  “Exactly,” I said, shaking my head. “I told them that I wasn’t interested.”

  He blew out a deep breath. “What did they look like?”

  “Both of them are tall.” I held my arm up to emphasize their height. “Doug has dark hair and Russ blond. Why don’t you come clean with me? You know who they are, right?”

  He stared at me with his long-lashed blue eyes. “No, I don’t know them. I’m being honest with you.”

  “Okay, so who was following me? Was it the same people I described?”

  “No, there was only one man.” He held up one finger.

  “Why didn’t you stop him?” I asked.

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw as if lost in thought. “I would have, but he left before I had a chance to say anything.”

  I looked at Dangerfield suspiciously. “Okay, I guess I have to buy that excuse.” I wondered if the man he’d seen was the cop, Phillip West. Dangerfield would have recognized him though since he’d seen him that night at Michael Hook’s mansion. “What did he look like?”

  Dangerfield gestured with his hand. “He was about my height with the same color hair. Dark beady eyes and a mean-looking face.”

  “He sounds like a very mean looking man.”

  He ran his hand through his sun-streaked hair. “Just rough-looking. I could have taken him down if he tried anything funny.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure you would have taken care of him.” I wondered if Dangerfield noticed my sarcasm. “I don’t understand what makes you think that he was following me.”