“It looks to me like he got over the surprise part real fast.”
Mary Lisa nodded, looking all sorts of pleased with herself. “Yes, amazing, isn’t he?”
George Beverly struck a pose, fingers stroking his chin. “I seem to recall that Chief Wolf wasn’t at all amazing two weeks ago. I hadn’t realized that you were interested in each other. Indeed, there seemed to be a goodly amount of dislike on both your parts.”
She thought about that, and slowly shook her head. “Mr. Macho and his jail cell-ancient history, Dad. Isn’t life strange?”
Her father hugged her close. “I gave up long ago trying to figure out what life is,” he said, “I just try to live it.” She breathed in his familiar scent, rested her head on his shoulder for a moment.
She heard him say, “You look dead tired, Jack.”
“Not now, sir. Your daughter could rejuvenate a dead plant.”
Jack felt like he could run a marathon at that moment, that or have about six hours of sex with Mary Lisa, enough to last him for a little while. He remembered how he felt at the beach again, relived that endless moment when she’d climaxed and nearly rocketed him right over the edge, and tried not to shudder in his Italian boots in front of her father.
Mary Lisa looked at Jack, and the look in their eyes told George Beverly everything he needed to know, and a lot he didn’t want to know about. “You should rest, anyway, Jack,” he said. “Okay, sweetheart, you need to tell me everything that’s going on down south.”
“Detective Vasquez is still on it, Dad. The studio insisted I take off for a while, and the truth is, I really needed to get away. I thought about spending every day with Chico at his dojo and realized I needed to come up here to see Jack and you.”
Her father waved away her words as he looked from her to Jack standing behind her. “Definitely in that order, I see.”
She took Jack’s hand. “Well, there’s no denying this guy’s mojo. And he’s got all this stuff he’s got to deal with and I thought he could use my help up here.”
“No way,” Jack said.
“Well, I guess we’ll see-”
“There could be a jail cell with your name on it if you give me any grief, Mary Lisa.”
“Would I get a blanket this time?”
Her father, eyebrow arched, said, “I’m glad you’re home and safe, Mary Lisa. Can I take you along to the house?”
“Well, the thing is, Dad, both Elizabeth and Lou Lou are with me. I stashed them at the Goddard Bay Inn, told them I had to see Jack. They wanted to come but I begged them to order the blueberry pancakes from room service instead. It worked since Lou Lou’s a sucker for pancakes.”
“Why don’t all of you come stay at the house? Kelly moved back to her apartment two days ago.”
“I don’t think Mom would like three women invading her space. Not enough bathrooms, you know? Why don’t we all come for dinner this evening?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, I can see why you’d say that. Truth is, your mother is more than a little strung out, what with all that’s happened to Olivia. When Olivia isn’t at our house, Kathleen is at her house. It’ll be a pleasure to see Elizabeth and Lou Lou again, Mary Lisa. They’re both fine women, and good friends. You know anything more about Milo’s murder, Jack?”
Jack shook his head. “I really can’t discuss it, sir, I’m sorry.”
“When was the last time you had any sleep?”
“I look that bad?”
“Yeah, pretty much.”
Jack thought about it, slowly shook his head. He took Mary Lisa’s hand. He hadn’t thought about it before, but he saw she wore only one ring, a ruby set up high amid some small diamonds. It looked like an antique.
Mary Lisa hugged her father again. “I’ll be okay, Dad. We can hope Detective Vasquez turns up something while I’m out of town.”
George nodded, smiled at Jack. “You come to dinner as well, all right, Jack?”
FIFTY-THREE
Jack was surprised at John’s reaction when he heard Elizabeth, Lou Lou, and Mary Lisa were all at the Goddard Bay Inn. He insisted on calling them and inviting them all to lunch.
“Elizabeth is something, isn’t she, Jack?” John asked as Jack pulled his truck into traffic.
Now this was interesting. Had he been blind down in Malibu? He looked at the contented look on his friend’s face, and smiled. “She is.”
“She told me they’d stop eating breakfast right away.” And he gave Jack a fatuous grin. Jack nearly jerked the wheel into an old Pontiac parked on the side of the street.
“Hey, careful, Jack. You really needed a break, I can see that, and so do I. So let’s try not to talk about business for a couple of hours, capisce?”
“Since when did you get a transfusion of Italian blood?”
John merely shook his head and looked happy.
A few minutes later, Jack pulled up in front of the circular entrance of the old gray stone edifice built long before either of them was born.
John said as he got out of the truck, “I’ve always been grateful this place is nearly completely hidden behind all these oak trees. You only have to see those seedy old chimneys poking up through the tops of the trees. They look like smudge pots, all sixteen of them.”
Jack waved one of the parking attendants over. “Keep an eye on this state-of-the-art machine.”
“Yes, sir, dude-Chief, sir.”
They walked across the formal lobby with its overstuffed dark furniture and huge palm trees, whose sweeping fronds looked big enough to swallow them, to the creaky elevator that belonged in a scary movie. They got off on the third and top floor, took a right down a long, dismal hallway with an ancient cabbage rose runner, and knocked on 333B.
Lou Lou answered the door. “Hi, guys. Have you figured out why room 333B is on the third floor?”
John said, “Hi, Lou Lou. Old Man Willis built this place and died two years ago when he was nearly ninety. They say he chose all the room numbers at random.”
“Oh, I see, the ‘consistency is the hobgoblin’ theory?”
“I’m not so sure about that,” John said. “Mr. Willis was, to put it kindly, the local eccentric who did as he pleased.”
“You mean he was crazy.”
“Nope, he was too rich to be crazy. Definitely eccentric.”
Jack kissed Lou Lou’s cheek.
“Come on in, guys,” she said. “Hey, Elizabeth, Mary Lisa, we got both the big guns here.”
Mary Lisa contented herself with a smile and said, “Hello, Jack.”
“Mary Lisa.”
Lou Lou looked from one to the other and knew the air was cracking hot between them. A chief of police-who knew? And, Lou Lou suspected, he would be good for her, maybe a husband kind of good. She smiled, waved the men to sit down on the big eggplant sofa, the cracks in the leather as old as they were.
Jack sniffed. “The room smells like vanilla.”
Mary Lisa laughed. “Yep, I stopped at Ernie’s little ripoff 24/7 and bought some on the way over. I hope it helps. Smelled musty before.”
John said, his voice all awkward angles, which made Jack jerk his head around and stare at him, “Elizabeth, it’s really good to see you again. I’m glad you came up with Mary Lisa and Lou Lou. Ah, I’m surprised you could get away.”
“It required lots of shuffling, begging, calling in markers, promising favors, but Mary Lisa said she needed me.”
Lou Lou said slowly, eyebrow arched at Elizabeth, “I think one of the reasons you wanted to come up was to see this district attorney here.”
Elizabeth met John’s eyes, smiled. “Maybe so.”
“Good,” John said.
“And how is the investigation going, John?” Elizabeth asked, more naturally now. “We decided we might as well give you a hand. Anything you need done, we’re available. I was born for excitement.”