that.” She squatted and reached for the handle of the black duffel bag that she’d stuffed under the table. “Good night, Detective Vernelli.”
“I’ll drive you to your hotel.”
She shook her head.
He looked as if he wanted to spit nails. “Fine. I’ll get you a cab.”
She held up a finger. “Detective Vernelli, I am grateful for your assistance today. To say I wasn’t would be lying. But you and I both know that nothing good can come out of our having anything to do with one another. So, don’t call me a cab. Don’t call me period.”
Chapter Three
Sam dialed Cruz’s cell as he walked to his car. When Cruz answered, Sam asked, “Hey, can you talk?”
“Yeah,” his partner said. “It’s just me and a couple cheeseburgers sitting in my car. I thought you and Claire were grabbing a bite.”
“Yeah, well, she eats fast. So what do we know about Sandy Bird?”
“She’s got two kids, ten-year-old twins. She’s the president of the Arlington Heights Parent-Teacher Organization.”
“None of that makes any sense. What would she be doing breaking into an apartment on Maple? Is she married?”
“Yes. For the last ten years. To Fletcher Bird. He’s a pharmacist, works in the Loop.”
“What’s your read on him?” Sam asked.
“He’s shook, doesn’t know what to tell his kids. Said that he had no idea why his wife would have been in Claire’s apartment. The names Claire Fontaine and Nadine Myer didn’t mean anything to him.”
Sam closed his eyes. Nothing was ever easy. “Okay. You want to start the process for us to check the phone and computer records?”
“Request is already in. He and his wife both had a cell and a home phone. PCs at home and his office. Claire has a laptop and she and Nadine each have a cell and one landline. You know, this used to be easier before everyone needed to be connected 24/7.”
“I know.” Sam wondered if Claire had any idea that her privacy was about to be compromised. “I had The Weasel snap pictures of both Nadine and Claire. I don’t want to push the husband too hard when he’s got his hands full of funeral arrangements, but I think we need to see if he recognizes either of them.”
“Maybe she just picked today to go off the deep end,” Cruz suggested. “Maybe her husband’s name finally drove her over the edge. By the way, I pulled the full robbery report. I was going to call you but I didn’t know if you’d want to be interrupted.” His tone was full of suggestion.
Sam started his car and pulled out into the heavy traffic. “I told you, she’s Tessa’s sister.” Cruz and his boss were the only two in the department who knew the story. “We grabbed a bite to eat and she’s on her way to a hotel.” No need to add that she’d done it without a backward glance in his direction.
“She’s a beautiful woman. Nobody was questioning why you decided to leap tall buildings to save her.”
Sam sighed. “I was doing my job, Cruz.”
“Half the guys trooping through her apartment today plan to ask her out. The other half are either gay or too afraid she’ll shut them down and they’ll never recover from the pain.”
“That’s ridiculous. She’s only twenty-four.”
“Last time I checked that was six years past legal.”
Sam switched lanes quickly and horns blared in response. Yeah, so what that he’d noticed that she looked really good in her black leggings and long sweater that was snug in just the right places? He was human, wasn’t he?
Debatable. At least from Claire’s perspective. She’d made it pretty clear that she wasn’t impressed and no doubt would make her call first thing Monday morning.
The case would be reassigned and he’d be out from under this rock. Good.
ON SUNDAY MORNING, Cruz bumped his leg against Sam’s desk, carrying a stack of manila folders, two large coffees and a white sack. Sam reached for the coffees and Cruz dropped the folders on the desk. “So much for Sunday being the day of rest,” Cruz said. Then he opened the sack and pulled out some kind of egg and sausage thing on a biscuit with cheese dripping over the side.
“You used to eat cereal and bananas in the mornings,” Sam said.
“That’s what Meg liked for breakfast.”
He could let it pass. He probably should. “Here’s a news flash, Cruz. It’s your arteries that are getting clogged. When you eat that stuff, you’re not hurting her.”
Cruz pulled a file from the stack. “Practice your amateur psychology on somebody else,” he said. He flipped the file onto Sam’s desk. “The report on the robbery at Claire’s apartment is on top.”
Sam opened the file and skimmed over the information. When he got to the list of items taken, he slowed down. One flat-screen television. Three necklaces. One ring. Approximately ten pairs of panties. He raised his gaze and looked at Cruz. “Did you read this?”
Cruz nodded. “I don’t remember Claire mentioning the panties yesterday.”
Sam shook his head. “No. I’m pretty sure Sandy Bird and Claire wouldn’t wear the same size.”
“You’re right. I called the morgue this morning and they checked her personal items. White cotton, size eight. Claire’s were a size five. And truthfully, Claire doesn’t look like a white cotton girl to me.”
Neither one of them had any business thinking about Claire’s underwear. “Did they get any prints from Claire’s apartment?”
“There was one set of prints that didn’t belong to Nadine or Claire. They aren’t Sandy’s either. So, A, if Sandy was the thief, she was careful and wore her gloves like a good girl. Or B, the prints belong to the thief, but he’s a new thief with no record. Or C, the prints belong to some jerk they had over for beers one night who had nothing to do with the robbery. Basically, we don’t know squat, except that the thief likes women’s underwear.”
The thought of some sick idiot running his hands over Claire’s stolen panties made Sam think his coffee might make a return appearance. He swallowed hard and focused.
“Eat fast. We need to go talk to Sandy Bird’s neighbors. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to the people who work at the drugstore by early afternoon.”
A half hour later, they were walking down Sandy and Fletcher Bird’s street. It was edged with trees, just blocks away from the train line that ran through downtown Arlington Heights. The houses were two-stories, there was an abundance of swing sets and the neighbors were naturally curious.
They had known Sandy and liked her. At the third house, the one directly across the street, Sam and Cruz heard something interesting from the thirty-something woman who answered the door with a toddler on her hip.
“Sandy
