Читать книгу Mean Sisters: A sassy, hilariously funny murder mystery - Lindsay Emory - Страница 13

I was orienting myself in the Chapter Advisor’s office when there was a knock at the door. Without waiting for me to say anything, the door opened and in walked a cute policeman who, inconceivably, didn’t seem to like me much.

‘What are you doing back here?’ I asked.

‘I came to see you.’ The flat line of his mouth showed that he wasn’t that excited about it. Which hurt the ego a little, if I’m telling the truth.

I glanced at the door in irritation. ‘Men aren’t allowed back here.’

‘A man showed me back here.’

I rolled my eyes. I was so right when I talked to Amanda. Hatfield didn’t understand sororities at all.

‘That’s the house brother.’ Hatfield still didn’t look like he understood. ‘He’s a house brother,’ I repeated, a little slower this time to see if that worked.

‘I know what a house brother is,’ he said irritably. ‘I just think it’s a stupid name for someone you hire to wash dishes.’

I so wasn’t getting into this conversation. Delta Betas were expected to exhibit the highest standards of housekeeping. And who we hired to help us with the dishes was our business.

‘Can I help you with something?’ I asked, pointedly.

Hatfield came into the office and shut the door behind him. He leaned against a bookshelf and crossed his arms. I tried not to notice how that stretched his police department polo shirt across a nicely built chest and his firm upper arms. He had a whole young Matthew McConaughey meets John Wayne vibe going on, all tanned, laconic and suspicious.

‘How well did you know Liza McCarthy?’

‘I didn’t, really,’ I admitted. ‘I just met her yesterday morning when I came into town.’

Hatfield looked like he was trying to decide something. ‘They don’t have anyone to release the body to,’ he finally said.

I nodded. ‘She had no family. They’ve all passed.’

His eyes narrowed on me. ‘I thought you didn’t know her.’

‘One, I learned that from a sister here. Two, I don’t appreciate the implication that I am dishonest. Debs are always honest.’ It was in our creed.

But I couldn’t waste time on being sassy with a police officer. He might throw me in the clink again. Accidentally. And I had promised Aubrey that we were going to be there for the departed Chapter Advisor. ‘So what’s going to happen to Liza?’

‘The coroner’s holding the body for further tests. Since she doesn’t have family …’

I cut him off right there. ‘She does have family. Her Delta Beta …’

Hatfield rolled his eyes. ‘Cut that out already.’

‘Excuse me?’ As much as I was trying to avoid the back of a police car, I couldn’t let this slide.

‘Stop acting all high and mighty. You and I both know this sorority stuff is a crock of bull.’

‘I do not know that,’ I assured him, affecting the posture of someone most offended.

He reared his head back, studying me for a long moment. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

Taken aback, I searched his face while I searched my memory. A long, tall drink of water with a bad attitude against sororities seems like someone I’d definitely remember. ‘No.’ I tried to be polite. ‘Should I?’ Something occurred to me. Hatfield, Hatfield … ‘What’s your first name?’

‘Ty.’

Ty Hatfield. I rolled the name around in my head for a moment, but here’s the thing about me. I am really good with names for about a month or two. After that, my brain has to release that information because someone like me, travelling as I do, constantly meeting new people? There’s only room for eighty names in my head at any given time. A hundred, max. And maybe the name Ty Hatfield rang a bell. But maybe it sounded like a thousand other names I’d learned in the last six years.

‘When did we meet?’ I asked, tentatively, since he didn’t look like we’d been close.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he spat out. He reached for the door handle. Oh no he didn’t. He didn’t get to walk in here, be both suspicious and annoying and then walk out.

‘Why did you come over here?’ I had the distinct feeling he hadn’t told me everything yet. ‘And what did you mean by further tests?’

Maybe I wasn’t good with names. But I was pretty damn good with remembering details about my sisters.

Ty Hatfield looked at me long and hard. Under other circumstances, with those baby blues, it was something I could get used to. Right now, I felt like he was about to bring out the handcuffs. And not in the good way. ‘There’s been some inconsistencies with the preliminary report on Ms McCarthy’s death.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like they haven’t determined a cause.’

I frowned. ‘Is that normal?’

Ty folded his arms. ‘You tell me.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ I said in exasperation. ‘I don’t know why you don’t like me, but I’m not a bad person. I’m just trying to help. That’s my job. Helping people.’

Ty looked around the room. ‘This is her office?’

I had a bad feeling. ‘Filled with confidential sorority information,’ I said quickly.

He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Any objection to me looking around?’

‘Objection,’ I said clearly. Big time objection.

‘I could get a warrant,’ he said.

‘You could, if there was something illegal going on.’ Don’t mess with the Law & Order mega fan. I knew all about warrants. Then I gasped when a thought occurred to me. ‘Is there something illegal going on?’

I saw when Ty Hatfield decided to sort-of trust me. ‘The medical examiner doesn’t think the death was natural.’

My mouth formed an ‘O.’ Because if it wasn’t natural, that meant it was … ‘Murder?’ I whispered.

‘They’re doing additional tests,’ Ty repeated, not acknowledging the ‘m’ word.

I sank back down in the chair. Here in Liza’s office, I was surrounded by her things. It seemed unreal that someone who had sat here just hours before me was now dead and that she may have been murdered. I shivered.

‘Nothing’s conclusive,’ Hatfield said.

‘It’s not possible,’ I said, sounding pretty confident that it was true.

‘Why?’ Ty’s eyes sharpened. For a small town cop, he was pretty intense.

‘I was there,’ I said quietly. ‘We all were. We would have seen something, heard something. Liza couldn’t have been murdered. Not in front of fifty witnesses.’

Ty lifted a shoulder. ‘One person’s witnesses are another person’s suspects.’

I was so caught up, remembering the moment of Liza’s passing that his words didn’t fully impact. But then they sank in.

‘Excuse me?’ I said that a lot around Ty Hatfield, it seemed. ‘Are you implying …’

‘Nothing’s conclusive.’

I couldn’t even wrap my brain around the idea, the accusation, the thought …

‘She was our sister!’ I finally said.

‘The medical examiner’s report shows no sign of natural death. No hemorrhage, no heart attack, no stroke.’

‘We have standards!’

‘The people I talked to last night all said that Liza was here, in the house, all day before the meeting. According to the sociology department, she had no classes on Mondays because she saved Mondays for chapter work. The security log from her parking garage shows she left her apartment Sunday night and never returned.’

‘We have morals,’ I hissed at the policeman, coldly rattling off facts like he knew what he was talking about.

‘The only people Liza McCarthy saw in her last day alive were all here, in this sorority house.’

It was too much. ‘You obviously don’t understand sororities, Officer Hatfield.’

‘It’s Lieutenant Hatfield,’ he said. ‘And I’m pretty sure I do.’

‘So are you arresting someone? Are you getting a search warrant?’ There was a hesitant look in his eye. He didn’t have as much as he thought he did.

I took a stab in the dark. ‘No one believes you. Is that it?’

‘The tests are inconclusive,’ he bit out. ‘And yeah, no one at the college or in town are going to call this murder until it’s slapping them in their face.’ He took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I need your help.’

Ah. A cat-eating-the-canary grin settled across my face. Someone needed my help. Now we were getting to it. ‘What exactly do you need, Lieutenant Hatfield?’

His jaw tightened before he threw an arm towards the desk. ‘Information. Liza’s records, notes, letters, phone calls.’

They were things he couldn’t get without a warrant. Especially if I was sitting in the Chapter Advisor’s seat.

‘Let me get this straight,’ I said slowly. ‘You’ve basically insinuated that Liza McCarthy was murdered by someone in this chapter, by one of her own sisters. And you want to review confidential sorority information to confirm your suspicions?’

Muscles twitched in his jaw and around his eye. ‘Yes.’ He cut me off before I could answer. ‘Don’t you want justice for your ‘sister’?’

That hit me harder than I thought it would. Of course I did. I wanted justice for all. That was in the Delta Beta creed. Or was that the pledge of allegiance? It didn’t matter. They were pretty much the same thing.

I looked around the office at the piles of papers and books. It looked like Liza had used the office for her doctoral studies and not just chapter business. I recognised some of the official Delta Beta handbooks and policy manuals. But there were scribbles on notepads, sociology tests and journals that I did not recognise. Sorting through Liza’s papers was going to be necessary, no matter any impending investigation. As her sister I had a duty to get her affairs in order, to protect the chapter and to ensure justice was done.

Ty must have seen the look on my face. ‘Let me guess. You’re objecting.’

I held up a hand. ‘I’ll make you a deal.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘A deal? You’re trying to make a deal … with the police?’

‘Sure. Why not?’

‘Your arrogance is impressive.’

I drew back. I was pretty sure he meant something else. Like confidence. Or competence. Or fashion sense. Whatever. I went on. ‘Obviously, I can’t just let you go through sorority papers, willy-nilly.’

‘Obviously.’

‘I have to go through all this first.’ I waved my hand at the piles of paper around the room. ‘And I’ll let you know if I find anything … interesting.’

‘What’s the deal?’

I looked at him squarely in the face. ‘You do the same for me. I need to know the truth about Liza’s death as soon as you know it.’

‘You’re not the next of kin.’

He really didn’t understand. ‘I’m the next thing to it,’ I said sadly.