Their Baby Girl...?. Marie Ferrarella

his girlfriend.”

      Culpepper came over to join them. “No guy I know paints women’s fingernails.”

      C.J. frowned at the other man. “That’s because every guy you know has just learned how to walk upright without scraping their knuckles on the ground.”

      “Hey,” Rodriguez protested, walking into the room in time to catch the tail end of C.J.’s comment, “I take exception to that.”

      C.J. inclined her head toward the youngest member of their team. “Present company excepted, of course.” She became serious again. “But what I’m talking about is when a guy tries to pamper a woman.”

      She looked from one man’s face to the other and knew that as far as they were concerned, she was speaking a foreign language. She turned her focus on Rodriguez. After all, he was the one who was getting married and should be informed about this kind of thing. Her guess was that he was generally ignorant of the little niceties that women craved.

      “You know, draw her bath, wash her hair for her in the sink, do her nails.” Nothing. Rodriguez’s face was still blank, and Culpepper was laughing. She threw up her hands. “What am I, speaking in tongues here? Haven’t any of you guys ever heard of pampering a woman?”

      Culpepper stopped laughing. “That kind of thing really turns women on?”

      She patted his chest. “Try it tonight on Adele and see.”

      He snorted, waving away the suggestion. “If I try washing her hair, she’ll probably think I was trying to drown her.”

      “You’re not supposed to drag her by her hair to the sink,” C.J. pointed out, then shook her head as she looked at Warrick. “See what I mean? Neanderthal. I rest my case.”

      Warrick had the impression she was saying more to him than the actual words conveyed. But then he told himself to knock it off, he was starting to babble in his head.

      Wanting to kiss a woman did that to a man.

      He shut his mind down.

      Culpepper regarded her with blatant curiosity in his eyes. C.J. thought for a second that perhaps she had a convert. “How about you, Jones? Does that kind of thing turn you on?”

      She might have known better. This was getting a bit too personal. “Solving murders turns me on.”

      “Oh, tough lady,” Culpepper deadpanned.

      “Yes, and don’t you forget it,” she cracked, returning to her desk. She wondered if another canvass of the area where the last victim was found would yield anything. Maybe someone remembered some thing they hadn’t mentioned the first time around.

      She felt as if they were going in circles.

      “Hey, Jones,” Rodriguez called. “I almost forgot. It’s your turn to field the crank calls.”

      She groaned, rising again. The more time that passed since the murder, the higher the ratio of crank calls to actual informative ones. “What are they down to? A hundred a day?”

      Rodriguez sat down at his own desk. “Give or take.”

      She groaned louder as she walked into the adjacent room.