“Are you being serious right now?” We may have been screaming a bit by then.
That’s when the doorbell buzzed, and we heard Detective Clooney’s voice on the other side of the door.
“Mr. Ramos, Ms. Freire Valls, I need to speak with you.”
25
“You two don’t lose any time, huh?” said Clooney when David opened the door.
He was still shirtless. I was wearing his T-shirt over my underwear, and Clooney noticed it right away. I mean, I guess you didn’t have to be the most sagacious detective to realize neither of us was completely clad.
“I wish. This is really not what it looks like. It could be, but it isn’t. By the end, we were sort of having an argument,” I said, more to myself than for Clooney’s sake.
“Yeah, I could hear you from the landing. These wallsarethin.”
“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company, officer?” David gracefully intervened. “We really need to go back to our argument.”
“One thing is clear, you two are funny. Possible murderers and, at the latest, you’re clearly hidingsomething. But funny nonetheless,” Clooney said with a chuckle.
“We strive for entertainment,” I said, acidly.
“You two wouldn’t by any chance know something about a car in the garage owned by Dashing Henry?”
“George just told us something about a car being found at the garage, yes.” I was opting for the deflection technique until it was no longer possible.
“It’s been broken into. Anything you may know about that?”
I crossed my arms. “George also told us about it. Still not sure how he’s always two steps ahead of you.”
“Funny, again,” Clooney said, but I knew this time he wasn’t actually thinking that. “You wouldn’t happen to see or know who broke into the car, right?”
“Does it look like we could have seen anything in this condition?” I gestured to my and David’s states of disrobement.
Clooney was having none of it. “Answer my question, please.”
“Is this turning into another interrogation, Detective?” I said. Once deflection was no longer possible, you never lied. You did something better. “Because we can continue this conversation, but we’ll have to wait for our lawyer.”
“I see how you’re playing this.” His smile didn’t meet his eyes. “You know this doesn’t look good for you both, right? It’s almost as if you’re hiding something,again.”
“On the contrary. But I’m a lawyer’s daughter and I do what my dad has always told me to do: I call him when I feel something is not quite right.” That sentence rang so true right then.
“Your dad, I mean your lawyer, called to let us now that you were prepared to make a statement in case we decided to consider Mr. Ramos’s reporting of the deceased in relation to the murder investigation,” Clooney said, and it was almost as if he knew or intuited that David didn’t know about Henry’s attempt with me. I was glad I’d already told him.
“And I’m prepared to do it. Tell me when and where, and I’ll be there—with my lawyer,” I said. “Or I can make him come now if you want.”
“That won’t be necessary at the moment, but you two keep reachable,” he told us.
“We will,” David said. With that, we bid our goodbyes to the cop and closed the door.
I was going to say something the moment Clooney was no longer in sight, but David brought his index finger to my mouth and his other index finger to his in what was probably the sexiest way of telling someone to shut up.
He looked through the peephole and, once he made sure Clooney was in the elevator and out of earshot, he took his finger from my lips. I missed his touch instantly.
“You really want to talk to the cops about Henry? About what he did to you?” David started.
“I want them to know you didn’t have any reason to kill Henry because he’d sued you for libel, and the charge had no foundation.”
“Brenda would vouch for me. She’s one of my first on-the-record sources. There’s no need for you to get involved.”
