he was touching her when heat shot up his arm. He let go immediately and picked up his coffee mug. “Thanks for getting them, though. I’ll pay you back.”
She returned to her seat, and he got a mouthwatering glimpse of her upper thigh. “You’re racking up quite a tab.”
Tab. He pausing before drinking the coffee. “I paid my tab at the bar and left. I headed down the street … toward my apartment, but I saw … something.”
“Somebody you knew?”
Automatically, he shook his head. He didn’t think he’d talked to anybody. Since he wasn’t much on conversation, he was fairly certain he’d remember having one. Hell, he could have tripped over a damn dog and banged his head on the sidewalk for all he knew.
But even a bungling move like that wouldn’t have sent him to drown his sorrows at O’Leary’s.
“Somebody hit you,” she said, breaking into his thoughts.
Startled, he stared at her. “How do you—”
“You told me last night. You weren’t sure at first whether you’d gotten hit or the Yankees lost ‘cause they couldn’t, but since a picture of the Yankees manager kicking home plate is on the front page of the sports section, and you’ve got a bandage and a headache, I’m pretty sure you were the one involved in hitting.”
Sometimes, for no reason at all, he found himself tempted to smile at her. “You’d make quite a detective.”
“No, thanks, the job perils are a little steep for me. Who’d hit a cop?”
He shrugged. He had some basic assault cases pending on his desk, but nothing that would warrant clobbering a cop. And it’d been years since he’d made the mistake of sleeping with a married woman.
Job. She’d jarred his memory again. He’d been doing his job after the bar. He had a vague picture of a short, dark-haired guy wearing a ball cap and overcoat running down an alley. He told as much to Calla.
“Why was he running?” she asked.
“He was a thief?” he asked rather than said, though the reason sounded right.
“How did you know he was a thief?”
“He was running away.” But he hadn’t worn his uniform since the swearing-in ceremony two years ago when he’d made detective. How had the guy made him for a cop? Or had he? “He had a bag, a red lady’s handbag,” he said finally as a flash of the scene came back to him. “I was pissed cause I had to chase him. I knew I’d be late for the wedding if I had to arrest him.”
He’d known Calla would be furious. Plus, he’d wanted to see her in her bridesmaid’s dress.
“Did you catch him?”
“No. Everything goes black then.”
“That’s when you got hit.”
“I guess.”
“We can be fairly certain. The ambulance picked up you and another man from an alley.” When he looked questioningly at her, she added, “After you passed out last night, I made a few phone calls.”
He recalled a ride in an ambulance, EMTs snapping orders, the scream of sirens, flashing lights. His memory also provided a vision of his purse snatcher’s battered face. Why was that so vivid and yet he only got a fuzzy image of Calla in her bridesmaid’s dress?
Life isn’t fair, Antonio. You ought to know that by now.
“I called the ambulance,” he said slowly, sliding off his stool to pace the living room floor. The pieces were falling into place, and the picture they formed wasn’t pretty. “When I woke up, my suspect was unconscious next to me and beat all to hell. We were alone.”
Calla angled her head. “So somebody hit you, then ran him down, attacked him, dragged him next to you and left you both there bleeding?”
The fact that she hadn’t immediately wondered if he’d beaten the suspect was a loyalty he had no idea how he could have earned. Along with anger and worry, something sweet and pure shot through him.
Something he had no business enjoying.
“Pretty implausible, right?” he commented.
“It actually seems like the only explanation. Conversely, it also explains—” She paused, her gaze jumping to his.
“Why I’ve been suspended?”
She bit her lip. “Remembered that, have you?”
“The whole rosy scene is fairly clear now. How do you know? Another one of your phone calls?”
“I went to see Lieutenant Meyer when you didn’t show up at the wedding. That’s how I found you at the bar.” She crossed her arms over her chest, looking like an outraged fairy. “He honestly thinks you beat up a suspect then knocked yourself out?”
“I’m not sure what he thinks, but since that’s the story my purse snatcher told the cops, I’ve been suspended pending investigation of his assault.”
Calla’s jaw dropped. “The thief told them you beat him up?”
“Yep.”
“But you were knocked out, too. Who’s investigating your assault?”
He sneered. “I imagine that’s pretty low on the list of priority cases.”
3
CALLA SLAMMED THE skillet in the sink and began to scrub, though she knew it was ridiculous to dream that Devin’s mess could be so easily cleaned up. “This is outrageous. Meyer’s taking the word of some two-bit, scummy purse snatcher over one of his own detectives?”
“Probably not,” Devin said, still pacing, even though he had to be dizzy by now. “But the incident has to be investigated. You gotta admit the whole thing is strange. The suspect—who Meyer referred to as a witness, by the way—says I started chasing him for no reason, then whaled on him once I caught him in the alley. And nobody found a purse on him. He had his own wallet in his back pocket, and that was it.”
“Obviously whoever hit both of you took it.”
“That much has occurred to me in the last few minutes. But unless this mysterious attacker shows up and confesses, the lieutenant has an investigation to run. I’m a suspect and out of the department until he does.”
“Heaven forbid he should stand by you.”
“He has to stay impartial. Dirty cops are serious business. I’m sure Internal Affairs will be knocking on my door very soon.”
Calla plopped the rest of the plates in the dishwasher and slammed the door. “Maybe the thief had a partner, and he didn’t want to split the booty, so he clobbered his buddy and took off.”
“The booty?”
She let out a huff as she marched toward him, wondering if it was possible his head injury had made him even more difficult than normal. “Loot, plunder, goods, ill-gotten gains. Pick your term. I’ve got a thesaurus on the bookshelf that’ll help you find dozens more if you like.”
“Seems like a lot of effort for one purse.”
Calla flopped on the sofa. “You’re sure it wasn’t there when you woke up?”
“I don’t think so, but I was pretty groggy.”
“And yet you managed to call for help.”
“An obvious flaw in the logic of this guy’s story. I’m the one who called the ambulance. Why would I do that if I’d gone to all the trouble to kick the crap out of him?”
“None of this makes sense. We need to find you a lawyer.” She picked up her phone from