strap-on tools, which is why I was just a classic-car buff and not a true motorhead. “So?”
“So guys are the same way with tools that they are with cars. They have their brands. That’s what they buy. You’ll never catch a Chevy guy driving a Ford.”
“You’re a Chevy guy. But you’ve driven my Ford.”
“Owning. I should’ve said owning, not driving.”
“So your point is?”
“The hacksaw we found in the back of Rouse’s truck was made by Craftsman.”
I blinked at him. “Do you know that you’re a fucking genius?”
He smiled. “Yes, I was aware of it, but thanks for recognizing it, too.”
I rolled my eyes at him and handed another bite of my lunch down to Myrtle, who was lying on the cool grass, in full shade, and panting anyway.
“What did you sense from Peter Rouse?” Mason asked.
I nodded slowly as I chewed, took a swig of Diet Coke to wash it down. “He’s a bundle of emotions, all of them intense, but I didn’t get the liar alarm going off, other than when he kept insisting the kids were there so you’d be less inclined to kick his ass.”
He nodded. “So you think he was telling the truth? About this...Noelle Baker?”
I reviewed my mental data. Inconclusive. “Maybe. But there was so much guilt coming out of him I can’t be sure. Seems like a stretch that his mistress would kill his wife just to have him all to herself, doesn’t it? I mean, he’s not the kind of guy who seems likely to inspire that kind of devotion.”
“Obsession. Not devotion. Very different things.”
“If you say so.”
“So we’re looking for a Caucasian female of about five foot two with curly brown hair and blue eyes.”
“Or a bottle of hair dye and a pair of tinted contacts,” I said. “We women...we’re like chameleons.” I sucked on my Diet Coke, even though it was all gone and I was just draining the ice cubes of their life’s blood.
“Is that so? Then how is it you never change?”
My brows arched up like hissing cats. I leaned back and set my empty cup down, eyeing him. “Is that a complaint?”
“No,” he denied too emphatically.
My jaw dropped. “It was. It was a complaint. You’re getting bored with me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Rachel. I am not getting bored with you.”
“I’ve only had my eyesight back for less than a year, you know. Jesus, I’ve only recently mastered the art of hair and makeup at all. If I go switching it up, I’m gonna have to start all over again.”
“Rachel, I’m not complaining.”
“Fuck you, Mason. Why don’t you go do something wildly different with your appearance, huh? You don’t hear me bitching that you never change it up.”
“Rache...”
“Don’t give me that warning tone you use on the boys, either.” I got up. “Come on, Myrtle. We’re going home.”
I was overreacting. I knew that while I was doing it, and I knew why, too. He’d told me about the new nurse who’d shown up at his door that morning, and that he’d gone ahead and hired her already without even asking what I thought. He’d called her on the way here, he said. Liked her initiative, he said. She was cheerful and sunny, and the boys thought she was great, too, he said.
It was my goddamn place to take care of him while he healed, and I was still stinging from him not wanting to move into my place to let me do that. I was starting to feel like this thing between us was getting a little shaky, and I knew it might be my own fault for not saying the L word back to him when he’d said it to me. And that pissed me off even more.
Of course, I wasn’t going to admit any of that to him. I tossed my soda cup into a nearby trash can, took my dog by her ludicrous leash (she didn’t need it, but it was the law) and stomped down the sidewalk toward my car.
Worst of all...he didn’t even try to stop me.
Well, shit.
He wanted a change, then I’d give him a change. I took Myrtle with me and headed out of town, going south, not north toward home, to the high-end salon where my sister liked to take me for mani-pedis.
They knew me there, though I didn’t frequent the place very often. I mean, you know, my hair is long and, aside from the odd trim, it doesn’t need much fussing. Still, they knew me, and I’d brought Myrtle along before. Never a problem.
So we sailed in through the front door, and everyone stopped what they were doing and looked our way. I swept the room, but wasn’t really looking at anyone. Instead I was using my inner radar to give each individual a brief read before I settled on the cute male stylist with the gel-stiff Mohawk and the to-die-for eyelashes, and said, “I need a change.”
“Oh, baby, you’ve come to the right place,” he said, and he patted his chair.
* * *
Mason didn’t know what to make of Rachel stomping off, so he let her go. Then he put in a call to Rosie, left a message on his voice mail and headed back to the house, along with a big container of spiedie chicken (aka chicken breast in bite-size pieces, marinated in Binghamton’s famous spiedie sauce) for the boys for lunch. He was a little bit pissed at Rachel. He’d wanted to talk to her about the boys and Josh missing Myrtle so much, and the puppy idea, and Jeremy’s impending graduation and...well, he’d just wanted to talk to her.
But she was in a snit, and he figured he’d done something, though he wasn’t sure what. He hoped to hell this wasn’t the beginning of the end. Hell, he’d better fix this. He didn’t want to lose her. But he was damned if he knew what to do because he wasn’t sure where he’d gone wrong.
Rosie called him back before he made it home. “Hey, partner. How’s the rest and relaxation goin’?”
Mason said, “Right. Listen, I talked to Peter Rouse this morning, and—”
“You did what?”
“You heard me, Rosie. Now listen, he says he was sleeping with a woman who went all Fatal Attraction on him when he tried to dump her. He says he thinks she’s the one who set the fire, then planted the hacksaw in his truck to frame him.”
“Mason, you’re supposed to be staying away from this case.”
“Will you quit changing the subject? The forensics report on the hacksaw said ‘incomplete’ when I read it before. Have they found anything else since?”
Rosie sighed. “I’m gonna call Rachel on your white ass.”
“Rachel’s pissed at my white ass right now, so it wouldn’t help. Now, will you tell me what Forensics says about the hacksaw?”
“Cantone will have my ass if—”
“Rosie, how long have we been partners?”
Silence stretched out, and then Rosie finally sighed into the phone. “A few metal fibers not inconsistent with the pipe that was cut at the crime scene, but you already knew that. There was also a human hair on the handle. No DNA. It broke off too far from the root, but it was long, curly and brunette. Rebecca Rouse was a redhead.”
“That fits. Rouse said the other woman was a brunette,” Mason said.
“That story sounds like something a guy caught red-handed would make up to cover his ass, Mace.”
“I know. I know it does. But listen, all the guy’s other tools are Snap-on, Rosie. The hacksaw was a Craftsman.”