that would be fine.
I changed into day clothes, then gave myself a status report in the mirror. My fingers hurt, and the knuckles were swollen, but I could move them, and there was no visible bruising. The gash on my forehead looked calmer, too, less angry. But now I had a golf-ball-sized bruise on the side of my chest from the collision with the Strat, and the marks on my throat were clearly visible, if somewhat faint.
I used makeup to cover what I could, and was headed downstairs when the doorbell rang.
It was Hoffman and Marcus. He was wearing a duplicate of his work suit, and she was going with another slacks-blouse-blazer combo, and when I opened the door she shot me a grin, and when I didn’t return it, it crumpled like rice paper.
“I was on my way out,” I said.
“This won’t take long,” Marcus said. “Could we come in?”
I tried to look past them without being obvious about it, tried to determine if the Parka Man was watching. Leaving them to linger on the porch was only going to make matters worse, but letting them inside might get Tommy killed.
“What’s this about?”
“Let’s go inside, we can talk.”
My hesitation was growing obvious, and I caved, letting them through and then closing the door fast behind them. I had to hope Parka Man wasn’t watching, that he was confident in the scare he’d thrown into me the night before.
They waited, followed me down the hall to the kitchen. Hoffman held up just inside the archway, watching me with her cop look, the one that made it impossible to read her emotions. Marcus went to the table and took a seat.
“What’s this about?” I asked again.
“Have you seen your father in the last twenty-four hours?” Hoffman asked.
“Nope,” I said, and I sounded convincing to me.
“He was staying at your brother’s place, did you know that?”
“I’m not surprised. I don’t think he had anywhere else to go.”
“But you haven’t been to see him there?”
“Why would I?”
“You haven’t been there?” Hoffman asked again.
“No, I haven’t seen him since the funeral.”
“He’s not at your brother’s,” Marcus said. “We went by to talk to him this morning, early, and he wasn’t there.”
Hoffman’s expression faltered, her brow creasing, and I knew she was trying to figure out why I’d gone cold on her, and I only hoped she took it the wrong way.
She said, “Normally, someone doesn’t answer the door, we don’t make a thing out of it. They’re out or they’re asleep.”
“Both possible,” I said.
“That’s what we’d be thinking, too, except that Allan, here, he saw something that got us a little worried. He saw some blood, dried blood, on the front step of the condo.”
She paused, waiting for me to react. I didn’t say anything.
Marcus picked it up. “Blood at a crime scene, that’s not unusual, you know. And your brother’s place, that’s a crime scene. So I’m all fired up to go in, hey, it’s blood, maybe there’s trouble. But Tracy here, she’s cooler than me, she says wait a sec, she pulls out her phone, gets one of the state techs on the line, one of the guys who processed your brother’s murder. And she asks them if they pulled any blood evidence from outside of the house. You know what the answer to that is?”
I shrugged, shaking a cigarette loose from my pack on the counter. It was easier to look at the yellow box of smokes than at either of them.
“The answer was no, there was no blood pulled from outside. So we effected an entry, because that’s probable cause, you see.”
“Your father’s missing,” Hoffman said. “There’s a large amount of blood—and it’s new, it’s not your brother’s—in the living room there. Your father’s clothes are still in the guest room. How’d you cut your forehead, Miss Bracca?”
It was the refusal to use my first name that did it, made me see where they were going.
“I took a spill,” I said.
“Looks nasty.”
“I was pretty loaded.”
There was silence. Marcus and Hoffman waited. I tried to think of something to say, and it occurred to me that any lie I gave them now was only going to make things worse. If they knew it was Tommy’s blood on the carpet, then they had probably found some of mine, too; if they had, then they’d be able to match it to the samples they’d taken from my towels and sheets and so on when they’d searched my own home.
Which meant they’d know I had been there. It was only a matter of time.
Marcus asked, “We’re wondering if you’d be willing to come downtown with us and answer some more questions.”
“I really can’t,” I said. “I have an appointment I need to keep.”
“It won’t take long,” Marcus said.
“I’m thinking I should call my lawyer.”
“As always, that’s your prerogative.”
Hoffman didn’t say anything.
I found Chapel’s number and called his office as they watched me. When the receptionist answered, I gave her my name and said I needed to speak to Mr. Chapel.
“I’m sorry, Miss Bracca, but he’s busy at the moment,” the receptionist said.
“It’s Joy, right?” I asked.
She seemed pleased that I’d remembered. “Yes, it is.”
“Joy, could you tell him that there are two detectives in my kitchen asking me to go downtown with them?”
“Just a second,” she said.
The hold music, appallingly enough, was Rosie 105 FM, and they were halfway through the second verse of “Lie Life.” I thought about singing along, and decided against it.
As the third chorus was ending, Chapel came on the line. He was brusque.
“It’s Hoffman and Marcus?”
“Yeah.”
“Put one of them on,” Chapel said.
I extended the phone to Hoffman. “He wants to talk to you.”
She took the phone out of my hand, meeting my eyes. There was anger, and there was hurt, and I tried to give her nothing in return. She put the phone to her ear and said her name, and then for most of a minute, didn’t say anything else.
Then she said, “No, you’ve made that perfectly clear,” and offered the phone back to me.
“They’re leaving,” Chapel told me. “I’ve told them that they are under no circumstances to question you about anything without me present, and that if they want to take you downtown, they’re going to need a warrant. I’m going to stay on the phone. You follow them out, make sure they leave your property. I’ll wait.”
“Gotcha.”
I set the phone down on the counter, and Marcus was already halfway to the front door, Hoffman following. I went after them. Marcus exited first, but Hoffman stopped on the porch to pick up the morning paper and hand it over.
“Don’t make last night a mistake,” she said. “Let me help you.”
I shook my head, said, “I don’t need help.”
And I shut the door on her.
