“For Little Orphan Annie,” he said. It was at least appropriate.
“Still no,” I replied, settling beside him.
“Mmmrp!” The cat in question jumped over to the bed and sat at the end staring at us as she wrapped her tail around her paws.
“See?” I said to Elliot. “She agrees with me.”
“Oh, you speak cat now, do you?”
“Absolutely. Once you adopt a cat, you learn to speak its language.”
Elliot snorted. “Eat your sandwich, cat-whisperer.”
I unwrapped it, approving of the thick layer of turkey and what looked like cranberry preserves, mustard, and some sort of stuffing-esque relish, and Elliot opened up a big bag of chips between us to share.
“So it went okay?” he asked.
“I mean, I didn’t feel like I was in any danger, personally,” I replied. “So yes in that sense. But it was a little… weird.”
“Weird how?” he asked around a mouthful of sandwich. His looked like roast beef.
I told him how the deputy who had eventually met with me hadn’t really seemed all that interested in any of the details about where or how we’d found it. In fact, he’d asked me almost no questions at all and hadn’t done any of the paperwork that I was used to filling out, sometimes until I thought my eyeballs might start bleeding.
“I honestly don’t know if he’s even going to log it,” I finished.
Elliot was frowning. “You should tell Val,” he said.
“I texted him,” I replied grimly.
“What did he say?”
I pulled out my phone, then opened up my texts with Hart and handed the phone to Elliot.
“‘Those fucking fuckheads. If they fucking bury this, I will fucking destroy their careers.’ Which is pretty much vintage Val.”
“It definitely is,” I agreed. “But he also can’t do anything until there is actually evidence of wrong-doing.”
Elliot snorted, handing my phone back. “And how are we going to findevidenceif they destroy it or just neverdoanything?”
I sighed. He wasn’t wrong, and I’d known that even as I’d texted Hart. That didn’t mean I was happy about it, of course. “I don’t have a good answer,” I replied. “I wish I did.”
Elliot made a soft grunting sound, then took another bite of his sandwich.
The cat chirped.
He looked up at her. “Eat your cat food,” he replied, pointing at the bowl on the floor. “This is our food.”
“Mew.”
Elliot rolled his eyes. “No, Annie.”
“We arenotcalling her Annie,” I informed him.
“Then pick something else,” he replied.
I studied the animal, her reddish brown fur, big yellow eyes, the slight lightening of her coat under her legs and on her chest, the darker streaks on her forehead and the end of her tail. “Cinnamon?” I suggested. “Nutmeg?”
Elliot made a face. “If you name her after spices, it’s just going to make me hungry all the time,” he complained.
