Guilt by Association by Gregory Ashe

Author:Gregory Ashe [Ashe, Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Gregory Ashe
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

SOMERS STRAIGHTENED HIS TIE. It didn’t seem to help. If anything, it had made things worse. He had dressed nicely for dinner with Naomi, but the tie was askew. And the jacket was wrinkled. A little. He’d found it under the bed, and a crease under his arm was gray where dust had adhered to the fabric. The shirt needed ironing—just a quick job, just a couple of minutes, tops. But he hadn’t ironed it.

He hadn’t had time. That was all Hazard’s fault. They’d come back from Dudley’s house, and Hazard had stuffed his face with burgers from River Drive-In, and then he’d marched Somers up to the station to dig through files. Marched in the literal sense. They’d walked the ten blocks from River Drive-In to the station because Hazard wanted to talk about Cassella, about the case, and about their suspects. In the end, though, Hazard hadn’t said anything that they hadn’t already known: there was something fishy about Cassella, they still had three suspects who could have killed the sheriff, and they didn’t have any hard evidence that might close the case. Hazard was convinced that they hadn’t dug deep enough into their suspects’ backgrounds, and Somers had left him at the station, his dumb, Neanderthal face blue in the monitor’s glow.

And then Somers had quick-stepped it the whole ten blocks back to the Interceptor, and he’d raced home, and he’d changed, and now here he was, sitting outside Manzi’s, adjusting the damn tie. He yanked it one final time and headed into the restaurant.

Manzi’s wasn’t haute cuisine. It was family fare. Italian, with a splash of urban design: lots of exposed brick, the vents and ducts overhead painted black, the traditional red-checked tablecloths laid over ultra-modern stainless steel tables. Naomi was already waiting; she was facing the door, and Somers took a seat opposite her.

Naomi Malsho shared some of her looks with Somers’s wife. Both women were slender, dark-haired, and beautiful with a kind of waifish fatigue. Where Cora wore flannel and denim as often as not, Naomi looked like she never dressed in anything that hadn’t come straight off a runway. Tonight was no exception: she wore something black and shimmering that made her eyes deep and dark as hell.

“I ordered a red. If you’re going to have something else, at least try to pace yourself.”

“It’s nice to see you too.”

“Where’s your guard dog?”

Somers flipped open the menu. “What’s good here?”

“So. You didn’t let him come. Good. Did he throw a fit?”

Running a finger down the appetizers, Somers paused at the bruschetta. Roasted tomatoes. Goat cheese. Balsamic vinegar.

“He must have been furious. But he did what you told him to do, didn’t he? He wagged his tail and got right into his crate and let you turn off the lights and leave him in the dark.” Naomi laughed. “Oh my God. You know what? You really could make him sleep in a crate. He’d do it for you. You know that, don’t you? He’d curl up like a dog if you so much as smiled at him.

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