A Justified Murder (Medlar Mystery #2)(60)
Chris was looking at Kate. “I know you. Or at least I’ve seen you before.”
“She sells real estate for Tayla. Half the town has seen her.”
“No,” Chris said. “It was somewhere else.”
“I know,” Kate said. “When I first came to Lachlan, you and another man were outside the fire station. Do you really have a dalmatian?”
“It’s tradition. You mind?” He motioned to sit beside her.
“No, of course not.” She moved to the side and he sat down beside her. She ignored Jack’s glower.
“So you really sell real estate?”
“I do. Need something? A house? An apartment?”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking of getting my own place. I have two male roommates now.”
“Ah.” Kate realized he was telling her that he wasn’t married and had no live-in girlfriend.
“Would you like to go out with—”
“No!” Jack said. “She’s busy. Very, very busy. I think Bill’s calling you.”
Chris smiled. Nice teeth. “No, he’s not.” He looked back at Kate. “How about I stop by your office on Monday at ten a.m.?”
“That would be perfect. What are you looking for?”
“Small, cozy. Somewhere I can grow tomatoes.”
“I know just the place.”
He stood up. “I look forward to seeing you then. Jack.” He left.
“Did you just make a date?” Jack sounded incredulous.
“A business appointment.” She was smiling.
The waitress came and they ordered beers and nachos. “And a couple of Reubens,” Jack said without consulting her, and the waitress left.
“What if I want a salad?”
“Do you?”
“Heavens no! After this week I may take up drinking whiskey.”
“With random firemen?”
She gave him a look to behave himself. At the end of the room, some musicians were beginning to set up. “Do you sing with them?”
“Sometimes.”
“Really?”
He laughed at the way she sounded like a preteen groupie.
When the nachos arrived, he ate a couple of the hot cheese–dipped corn crisps, and leaned forward. “How are you doing about...you know. The case.”
“Which part? Murder? Suicide? Lies spoken in church?” She lowered her voice. “Or my father?”
“That last one.”
“Every time his name is mentioned, I find out something new. And none of it has been good.”
“At least people liked your dad.” He ate a clump of chips and drank of his beer.
“I still can’t see our fathers as friends. Would brains and brawn fit together? But then, that’s like you and me and we get along well enough.”
Jack grinned. “You think I’m brawny?”
“I think I’m the brains so you get whatever is leftover.”
Jack gave a snort of laughter.
“The more I hear—all told in tiny pieces, by the way—I think our fathers may have been more alike than we think. The same but opposite.”
“You mean that my father was loud so yours was...”
“Quiet. Mine escaped, but yours...”
“Got caught. Often,” Jack said.
“My father was a cat burglar while yours was...”
“A six-gun outlaw.”
Kate sighed. “Mine may have stolen diamonds.” She looked at him to reply.
“No one knows where Dad got the money for that big Harley. It just appeared one day.”
“Think our fathers rode away together on a stolen motorcycle while clutching a bag of misappropriated jewelry?” When Jack didn’t laugh as she’d expected him to, she looked at him. He wasn’t smiling.
“My father had a big mouth. He loved to brag, thought it made him seem tough. But from what I hear of your father, he kept things to himself. If he did anything illegal, he did it alone and didn’t tell anyone.”
“You’re saying that Roy was what he seemed but my father, Randal, hid inside a facade of charm.”
“Pretty much.”
“What you’re really saying is that we don’t know what happened with... I guess with anyone.”
“We sure know a lot of facts, but we don’t seem to have put them together at all. Sylvia, Janet.”
“Tayla, Gil.”
“And maybe Carl Olsen. Fat now skinny. Skulks around but no one knows why. I think—” He broke off when the band began to play. “I think we should forget it and dance.” He held out his hand and she took it.
It was a slow dance and Jack pulled Kate close. He was half a foot taller than she was, but with her heels, they fit together perfectly.
“What shampoo do you use?” he whispered.
“Behave or I’ll dance with Chris.”
“You should know that half the women in town have dumped him.”
She pulled back to look at him. “Did you know that when you lie your left eye twitches?”
“Until last year, Chris lived with his mother.”
“Like you live with your honorary grandmother and me, your sort of sister?”