Winston Patrick Mystery 2-Book Bundle. David Russell W.

not good enough,” I replied.

      “I have a gun, and I can shoot my way in.”

      “That’s better,” I said, pressing the number six to admit Detective Andrea Pearson.

      Glancing at the clock, I saw it was nearly ten a.m. I had slept for almost seven and a half hours, some kind of record for me. Maybe things were getting better. Then Carl flashed into my barely conscious memory, and I realized things were likely to get worse long before they got any better. Stumbling out of the bedroom, I managed to make my way to the front hallway just as Andrea began to pound on the door. Fists of steel, that one.

      “Good morning, sunshine!” she beamed as I opened the door.

      “Hmmph,” was my reply, walking away from the door in the general vicinity of the bathroom. “I gotta whizz.”

      “Lovely. Maybe you could find some pants in your travels. This is how you greet me? In your boxers?”

      “I don’t remember inviting you,” I growled, closing the bathroom door behind me. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed the vast amount of sleep had done little to improve my overall visage.

      For informal clothing, I managed to find an old pair of warm-up pants. I rarely wore them, because they were those annoying plastic type that make swishing sounds when you walk. I hate announcing my pending presence. But for Andrea, they would just have to do.

      When I resurfaced from the bedroom, Andy had already placed scones in the toaster oven and was scanning the fridge for jam.

      “You need to shop,” she complained. “Don’t you have jam?”

      “In the cupboard,” I replied wearily.

      “Who keeps jam in the cupboard?”

      “I do.”

      “You’re supposed to refrigerate it.”

      “Only after it’s opened.”

      “How are you going to enjoy your jam if you never open it?”

      “This conversation is already wearing me out,” I groaned.

      Reaching into the cupboard above the sink, Andy let out a little cry of victory upon discovering a jar of Smucker’s Grape Jelly. I think I got it as part of my divorce settlement. With a slight grunt, she popped open the jar’s lid, pausing first to blow off the accumulated dust.

      “So?” she asked.

      “So what?” Sometimes we play beat around the bush games like this.

      “Well, you were sleeping at nearly ten in the morning, which for you is some kind of miracle. That means, I guess, that the remainder of the evening—after the point you blew me off and left me alone in a restaurant, I might add—must have been particularly tiring, meaning you were kept busy for some time with your client. Correct?”

      “I can see why you’re a detective,” I said, slowly beginning to wake up. Just the smell of coffee in the morning has that effect on me.

      “How’d it go?”

      “About as well as I could have expected. They had a warrant, they were determined to pick him up and hold him over the weekend while they gather more evidence.”

      Andrea frowned at this. In her mind, you didn’t make the arrest until you had ample evidence—and to her way of thinking, ample generally was meant to include more evidence than the prosecution could ever need. There is nothing worse than putting your heart and soul into an investigation and still finding you don’t have enough to get a conviction. I could tell Andy wasn’t pleased with the way this investigation was going, but there was little she could do without being accused of interfering with her fellow detectives’ work. This was especially true considering Furlo and Smythe would know full well about Andy’s friendship with me. Even if she had caught the case, she likely would have been forced to recuse herself as the lead detective because of my involvement.

      The toaster oven bell chimed, and Andy reached in, placed the four scone halves onto two plates and began applying large amounts of grape jelly to them.

      “Is the intent to completely disguise the taste of the baking?” I asked.

      “I told you. You’re too skinny. We’ll start with jam, then I’ll find something really fattening to feed you.”

      Placing the two plates at the small pass-through bar between my kitchen and dining area, she dragged a stool from the dining room side back to the kitchen so she could face me while we ate. “How’s your client?” she asked.

      “He’s lost. This is a man who probably hasn’t even driven through the neighbourhood the jail’s in, let alone set foot inside one. I hope he survives the weekend.”

      “You gonna see him today?”

      “Yeah, at some point.” I took a bite of the still-hot scone she had provided. “You still haven’t told me what brings you here, other than your ulterior motive of fattening me up for the slaughter.”

      Andy studied me a moment. “I’m here to help you solve the crime.”

      “What?”

      I waited while she wolfed down half a scone. “You really convinced that your boy didn’t do it?”

      “Yes. I am. I know it sounds ridiculous, especially considering he admitted to me last night that he did, in fact, have a sexual relationship with her, but I don’t believe he killed her.”

      “Good enough for me,” she said. “Your best defense on this one is going to be finding someone else to pin it on.”

      I scowled at her. “I’m not looking to pin a homicide on anyone.”

      “You know what I mean, Winnie,” she said with aggravation. “There’s something going on with this case that it’s being rushed through so quickly. Furlo and Smythe are both good cops. This is rushed even for them. There’s pressure, big pressure to get this solved, and the big ‘they’ may push ahead for prosecution with what little evidence, albeit pretty damning evidence, they’ve got.”

      “You know, that’s what I was thinking last night. Even if we stipulated to the sexual relationship, that sort of gives them circumstantial, but not much else.” I waited a moment. “Unless you know something I don’t.”

      “Even if I did, I couldn’t tell you, though you know I would. It’s locked up pretty tightly, ‘eyes only’ kind of stuff. A fellow can’t even do a little snooping out of interest on this one.”

      “That’s weird.”

      “Yeah, it is,” she agreed.

      I finished off the last of my scone. Andy, well ahead of me as always in the food department, had already crossed the kitchen floor to put two more scones in the toaster oven.

      “I think I’m fine with this one,” I told her.

      “We’ll see,” she replied. “So. What’s the first order of business?”

      “Well,” I told her, sipping my coffee, “Carl’s going to have to face bail hearings on Monday. And I’ve got to teach. So I’m going to have to call in some reinforcements. I’ll get on that today.”

      “You going to get a co-chair or something?”

      “At least someone who can pinch hit for me when I have to be in the classroom.”

      “Who you gonna get?” she asked.

      I smiled at her. “You don’t want to know.”

      Andy shook her head seriously. “Oh, shit, Winnie. You’ve got to be kidding.”

      “I’m not,” I replied as the toaster oven chimed.

      Derek