Never Happened

“It’s seven-oh-two but I’m here,” Alex said in acknowledgement of her silent chastisement. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Guten morgen, Alexis.”

Alex shifted her attention to the man lounging on the sofa and perusing today’s Miami Herald. “Same to you, Professor.” He liked showing off his command of various languages. So far she’d recognized six. She’d hired the Professor, aka Barton Winstead III, four years ago when he’d “defected,” as he called it, to Florida from his homeland of Boston. He’d left his career in anthropology behind, as well. To this day Alex had no idea at which university he’d taught or the reason for his decision to leave. He didn’t talk about it, she didn’t ask. She liked him. He had that distinguished look about him. Even his thinning gray hair added an air of dignity. But it was the extreme intelligence that radiated from those caring hazel eyes that she liked most.

“Marg hasn’t come in yet, and Madonna is waiting in your office.” Shannon glanced up from the computer monitor and peered knowingly at Alex over her reading glasses. “She’s not happy.”

“She’s never happy,” the Professor noted aloud, his regard remaining fixed on today’s headlines as if he hadn’t made the aside.

“Perfect.” Alex braced for battle and headed for her office. If she hadn’t been running behind herself this morning she might have noticed that Marg hadn’t left yet, either. Alex just loved starting her morning off with worries about Marg.

Never Happened was made up of only four rooms. Reception in front, which wasn’t that large, about sixteen by twenty, a narrow hall that led to Alex’s office, really small, an even dinkier lounge directly across the hall from her, which her mother used as a sort of office, and a huge storeroom which occupied the rest of the building and included an employee’s restroom and a side exit to the alley. The latter had been the key selling point for Alex. All her supplies were housed in that storeroom. The handy side exit leading to the alley allowed for easy loading and unloading of the necessary materials for any given assignment.

Unlike the neighbor’s less than considerate pet owners, most knew better than to park in front of an entrance or an exit. Especially since the city’s Dumpster sat right outside the door. Two days per week the south end of the alley remained clear all day; there wasn’t a Miami driver around who would dare challenge a garbage truck on pickup day.

The interior of Alex’s portion of the building was nothing to brag about. No fancy carpet or paint job. Just practical commercial tile on the floor and plain white walls with little or no decorating. The business license and various other permits hung on the wall above the front counter that separated Shannon’s desk from the sofa and two chairs that served as lobby seating. Shannon had donated the sofa and coordinating chairs the last time she’d redecorated her den. Alex had purchased the rest of the mismatched furnishings at garage sales and business closeouts.

She gulped another drink of her latte for courage and reached for the knob of her closed door. Might as well get this over with. Inside her ten-by-twelve space sat her only other employee, with the exception of her missing mother. Leslie Brown, perched rigidly in the only chair besides the one behind Alex’s desk, heaved an impatient breath as if the boss’s arrival was long overdue.

Brown wore a double-breasted black suit reminiscent of the one Madonna had donned in her Vogue music video. The platinum wig and heavy makeup, including blood-red lips and a black mole, completed the sultry image.

“Good morning, Brown.”

He cut Alex a withering look.

“Excuse me. Madonna,” Alex amended as she scooted around the corner of her desk and dropped her bag onto the only vacant spot on the floor near her chair. After grabbing a quick sip of her latte, she pushed aside a stack of papers and set the cup in the cleared spot. To say her office was cluttered would be a monumental understatement. Files, including incoming shipment invoices and outgoing payment receipts, were stacked on the corners of her desk, but it was the test products, many still in their boxes, sitting here and there around the room that made maneuvering the most difficult. Shannon hated it. Threatened Alex all the time about the chaos. But Alex knew where everything was. She rarely lost anything.

“So.” Giving Brown her undivided attention, Alex propped her elbows on her desk and laced her fingers. “What seems to be the problem this morning?”

Brown lifted his chin defiantly. “I need Friday off and Shannon refuses to okay my request.” The thick Latino intonation made his every word more resounding.

That was odd. Unless something came up, giving him a day off with advance notice wasn’t generally a problem. Unless Shannon knew something Alex didn’t, she didn’t see the problem. “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised. Didn’t sound like a big deal. She relaxed. This had certainly proven far easier than she’d expected. Generally if Brown had a problem, it was a little more daunting.

Unfortunately, judging by the look on Brown’s face and the fact that he made no move to leave her office, Alex had counted her chickens before they hatched.

He leaned forward and warned, “It’s because of the convention. She doesn’t want me to participate. She can’t do that.” He tapped his chest in the vicinity of what Alex could only imagine was a heavily padded bra providing the hill and valley effect of breasts. “I know my rights,” he warned.

Alex snapped her gaze back up to his irate expression; a bad feeling churned in her gut. “What convention?”

“The Ms. Miami convention. I’ve been signed up for weeks. Don’t you remember? You sponsored me. Friday is the first day. Registration and screening. I have to be there.”

Alex struggled to swallow back her first reaction. She vaguely remembered sponsoring him for some sort of convention, she just didn’t remember it was this particular convention. “Not—” she cleared her throat “—a problem. I’ll take care of it.”

“Fine.” Brown stood. Smoothed a hand over his elegant and decidedly feminine jacket. “I hope you’ll come to cheer me on.”

Alex managed a nod.

Brown hesitated at the door. “I’ll send Shannon in to see you so you can tell her right away.”

Alex felt her head move up and down again, the smile frozen on her lips.

Twisting his narrow hips with all he had, Brown flounced out of her office.

Alex took a breath, told herself she was cool with this. It was a free country after all. No reason Brown shouldn’t go after his heart’s desires. It wasn’t as if she was ashamed of him or had a problem with his alternative lifestyle.

Okay, that was a lie. She didn’t have a problem with it as long as he didn’t bring it to work in a way that would hamper business. There simply was no way to have him, without having his eccentricity—it was a package deal. But using his stint in the Ms. Miami pageant as a possible means of advertisement was definitely previously unexplored territory.

Shannon walked in, closed the door behind her. “He told you.”

Before Alex could stop the words, she demanded in something that should have been a whisper but came out more like a muffled shout, “Don’t you have to be a woman to enter that thing?”

Shannon shrugged her shoulders dramatically. “How the hell do I know? Should I call and ask?”

Alex shook her head adamantly. “We don’t want to draw any attention to him or us. Let’s just stay calm and pray someone notices at the registration and screening.”

Shannon’s head bobbed. “How could he win or even get in? I mean—” she lowered her voice to the whisper Alex had been aiming for “—I’ll admit that he makes a somewhat attractive woman, but this is a beauty pageant, right? With rules and judges?”

Alex did the bobbing this time. She told herself it wouldn’t matter that Brown had killer legs or that his unusually high cheekbones were to die for. “Of course you’re right. We have nothing to worry about. No way he’ll win. He’ll probably be disqualified before the pageant even officially begins.”

“Probably.”

For about two minutes after Shannon left Alex’s office, she pondered the question of why Brown seemed to be confused about his sexuality. Some days he appeared completely happy with his masculinity, others he wanted nothing to do with it, showed up for work as some Hollywood diva. Maybe the good doctor next door could shed some light on the subject. Alex was certain he’d noticed Brown’s unusual fashion sense on his feminine days.

Putting her curiosities aside, she turned her attention to the day’s schedule. An elderly couple, dead two weeks, had been found in their Coral Gables home. Cause of death was listed as natural by their attending physician so the police wouldn’t be holding up the scene. Apparently both had suffered from serious heart conditions. There was no way to be sure who died first, but the death of one of them, evidently, was brought on by the other’s fatal attack. With no family in the state to look in on them and the neighbors under the assumption the couple had gone on vacation, no one had realized there was a problem until the stench reared its ugly head.

Brown and the Professor would head out around eight to take care of that one. The family, who’d arrived in town just yesterday, had requested additional services to include cleaning the carpet throughout the home and washing down all walls and ceilings.

Thank God the couple’s air-conditioning had kept the house below seventy-five degrees. The mess would be bad enough, but there was nothing as bad as a body that had roasted in Miami’s summer heat. The July climate turned a closed-up, non-climate-controlled house into a virtual oven. Not a pleasant situation.

The Professor poked his head through her door. “Have you read the Herald this morning?”

Alex tossed the work order aside and picked up her latte to cradle it in her hands. “Haven’t had time. Did you find something interesting?” She savored the sweet concoction as she waited expectantly for him to share the news she’d missed.

“I think perhaps you should read this for yourself.”

He made the short journey to and around behind her desk. Alex leaned back out of the way while he spread the paper in front of her. He tapped the headline Detective’s Death Under Investigation.

“Isn’t he a friend of yours?”

Somehow her cup found its way back to her desk as she skimmed the front page article recounting the tragic automobile accident of a longtime criminal investigations detective…

Detective Richard Henson…

“Ohmigod…” Alex looked up at the Professor. “I talked to him last night.” I slept with him three months ago…

Dread or hurt or something she couldn’t quite label welled in her chest. How could this have happened? He’d been fine last night.

The Professor gestured to the paper. “According to the article, the accident likely occurred between eight and ten last night. There aren’t that many details given.”

Her thoughts whirling, she grappled to recall the approximate time he’d called last night. After Marg had come home. Sweating to the Oldies. Alex had considered having another beer.

Eight-fifteen, eight-thirty maybe. Nine at the latest.

Jesus.

He could have died only a few minutes after they’d talked. Why hadn’t she said…something…like how good it had been to see him that day? Why hadn’t she just said yes to dinner?

Henson was dead.

“Thanks, Professor.”

Alex didn’t notice when he left the room, but he was gone the next time she glanced around her office. She blinked, trying to reconcile herself to what she’d just read.

Henson was really dead.

She forced herself to read the entire article. It didn’t specify the details, but it did mention that the one-car accident was under investigation.

When he’d called he’d said he was going to see the computer whiz kid who’d unofficially analyzed the contact lens.

Had he made it to the guy’s house?

Did the police even know where he’d been headed?

Alex sagged in her chair, let the cold, harsh reality wash over her.

Henson was dead.

She was repeating herself but she just couldn’t get past it. She’d liked him. Now she’d never get to tell him that if she’d been the type for commitment, he could maybe have been the guy. She should have told him that. But she hadn’t. She’d let him believe that he didn’t have the “it” she was looking for. That had been a lot easier than explaining what she really felt. She didn’t even know what she really felt. She only knew what she didn’t want—she didn’t want long-term.

No man ever understood that.

Hell, she didn’t even understand it, she simply accepted it.

Enough, she ordered. She couldn’t sit around here feeling sorry for herself. She had spoken with Henson last night, possibly only minutes before he died. Any information she could offer that might help the investigation was not only her civic duty, it was her obligation as a friend.

Alex finished her latte, grabbed her bag and put thought into action.

The Professor and Brown had this morning’s schedule under control. Unless something new came up, she could spare a couple of hours. The final reports she’d been meaning to type and the other paperwork she needed to review could wait.

Her friend was dead.

That wouldn’t wait.

The Miami Beach Police station was located at 1100 Washington Avenue in a building that defined the Art Deco style. The Criminal Investigations Unit called the third floor home. The division was laid out in a grid pattern with dozens of metal desks floating amid a sea of beige carpeting. The walls were a matching shade of beige. The only interruption in the beigedom was the stacks of red and blue folders atop the desks. Kind of reminded Alex of her own office.

She waved to a couple of the female detectives she’d worked with on occasion and basically ignored the guys who openly leered. Not that she minded when a man showed his appreciation for her hard work and good genes, but these guys were just being jerks. Most had wives and kids at home.

Yet another reason to stay unattached. You didn’t have to worry about a cheating husband if you didn’t have one. Didn’t have to worry about mismatched socks. Dirty boxers or dishes piled in the sink. Life was just less complicated when one stayed unattached.

She wove through the maze of desks until she reached the one belonging to Detective Jimmy Patton. He and Henson hadn’t been partners that long, only since Henson’s longtime partner had retired and moved to Maine about six months ago.

When Patton looked up Alex recognized the exhaustion and the pain in his eyes. He’d likely been up all night.

“Jackson,” he said, acknowledging her presence but immediately returning his attention to the file in front of him. She was pretty sure his reluctance to maintain eye contact was about keeping his emotions to himself.

“Hey, Patton.” She sat down in the chair next to his desk. “I heard about Henson. Man, I can’t believe it. Do you know what happened?”

He shook his head, spared her another brief glance. “Techs are…ah…checking out his car for mechanical failures, but it looks like he fell asleep at the wheel. Just ran off the road. He’d been putting in way too many hours lately. I tried to tell him.” The sigh that punctuated that final statement as well as his emphatic attempts to refocus his attention on the file gave away just how badly Henson’s death had shaken him.

But his words were what hit Alex the hardest. Henson hadn’t sounded the least bit sleepy or even tired when she’d spoken to him. In fact, he’d sounded hyped. She couldn’t say why, but her intuition was humming like crazy. She’d at first thought that she was merely in denial about Henson’s death, but it was more than that.

Stay calm. Take it slow. Hysterics won’t get you anywhere. “That’s why I came by,” she said, unsure whether what she had to say held any relevance but certain she didn’t want to keep it to herself in case it proved somehow significant. “Henson called me last night at around eight-thirty, maybe nine.”

Patton picked up a small spiral notepad and shuffled through the pages until he’d found what he was looking for. “Yeah, we got that from his cell phone. I know you did a cleanup on an unattended suicide he’d covered. I was going to touch base with you and see if the call he made to you had anything to do with that.” His gaze connected with hers then. “Or if maybe the two of you…”

He let the sentence trail off. Alex didn’t have to say anything; he read the truth in her eyes. She and Henson hadn’t started going out again. Patton looked away as if he’d rather she’d lied to him. Partners talked about their personal lives. She wouldn’t have expected any less.

Turning her attention back to the real problem, she asked, “He didn’t talk to you last night?” Alex found that possibility unreasonably disturbing considering she’d passed along a piece of possible evidence that Henson had obviously been excited about. Wouldn’t he tell his partner that?

Patton scrubbed his hand over his face. “I was at the hospital until I heard about the accident. My wife went into labor a little early.”

A new baby. She’d forgotten his wife was expecting. Well that explained his being left out of the loop last night. “Is everything okay?”

He grinned but the effort was a little dim under the circumstances. “Yeah. A girl. Eight pounds one ounce. She’s a doll.”

Something far too similar to longing pierced a tender place deep inside Alex. She evicted the sentimental ache and gave herself a swift mental kick for even allowing the senseless emotion to rear its pointless head. She’d made her decisions about husbands and kids long ago. Hearing about other people’s kids didn’t usually bother her…the emotional roller coaster this morning was about Henson.

She still couldn’t believe he was dead. She kept expecting to turn around and hear him tossing some silly joke at her or asking her if she had plans this weekend.

His death had rattled her. This wasn’t really about the nonrelationship they’d shared…he was a friend, of course she’d be unsettled by his death. She didn’t allow regrets. She preferred her independence. She liked taking care of herself and not having to rely on anyone else for anything. This was just a normal reaction to losing a friend.

Shaking off the disturbing thoughts, she rejoined the conversation and did what she’d come here to do. “I don’t know if this makes any difference,” she began, unsure exactly how to explain the situation, “but I gave Henson a piece of what may have been evidence from the Crane suicide scene.”

Patton sat up a little straighter, his attention sharpening a bit. “What sort of evidence? Henson’s report says the incident was cut-and-dried. No questions on his end. I haven’t seen the autopsy report yet—they’re a little backed up over at the morgue—but the M.E. didn’t mention expecting anything unusual, according to Henson’s notes.”

She nodded. He was right on all counts. Henson hadn’t said anything different to her. “I gave him a peculiar…” God, how did she say this? “It looked like some sort of contact lens, except different.” Well that surely explained what she meant. Frustration brimmed. “Henson took it to a friend for unofficial analysis,” she offered in lieu of a better explanation. “When he called me last night he was wound up about it. He said he was going over to pick the lens up and that he’d be taking it to the state lab this morning. He sounded pretty excited.”

Patton’s gaze narrowed with keener interest. “Do you know who he was going to see?”

Alex shook her head. “Not a clue. Some computer whiz. Like I said, he sounded excited. I can’t see him falling asleep at the wheel when he’d sounded fully alert when we spoke.”

Patton glanced at his watch and swore. “I have a meeting.” He stood. “Listen, if you think of anything else Henson said that might sound relevant, give me a call.” He passed Alex a business card that included his mobile as well as his home number. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything about the memorial service.”

Alex tucked the card into her bag, thanked him and made her way through the maze of cold metal desks and warm bodies without stopping to chat with anyone. She wanted to get out of here and to some place where she could think. The idea that just yesterday Henson had been hanging out here had her on the verge of hyperventilating.

A detective who looked vaguely familiar almost bowled her over as he bounded past her. Alex felt like slugging him but didn’t want the hassle. She needed out of here. She couldn’t breathe.

“Patton,” she heard the cop who’d been in such a hurry say, “I’ve got the preliminary on that house explosion on Morningside.”

Alex’s feet slowed. Maybe it was oxygen deprivation. Morningside? Wasn’t that where Henson had said the whiz kid lived? She lingered, wanted to hear the rest of what the detective had to say.

“They found a body, but it was burned so badly it’ll take some time to ID it.”

Alex told herself she was probably overreacting. A lot of people lived in Morningside—this explosion could have nothing to do with Henson’s friend who lived there. It could be anything from a meth lab to a gas leak.

“You take a ride over there,” Patton suggested. “I’ll join you after my meeting.”

Alex turned around, waited for Patton and the other detective to catch up to her. There was one more thing she had to know. “By the way, where was the scene of Henson’s crash?” The paper hadn’t given the location.

Patton looked mildly annoyed that she had waylaid him or maybe the exhaustion was making him testy. “Over on I-95 near Hallandale. Why?”

She shrugged. “Just wondered.”

Patton eyed her suspiciously. “If you have other information, Jackson, I need to know. He was my partner.”

She shook her head. “It’s nothing like that.” The white lie felt bitter on her tongue. She should just tell him. “I was just curious that’s all.” But she couldn’t. He already didn’t really believe her. What was it he’d said? If you think of anything else Henson said that might sound relevant…? Until she could make sense of this herself, she was wasting her time trying to clarify it to anyone else.

“See ya around,” he muttered.

Watching Patton go, she realized what she had to do next. She had to know why Henson’s vehicle had been found way north of where he’d told her he was going. But first she wanted to know if a computer genius had lived in the Morningside residence where the explosion had occurred.

She also wanted to know if the crime scene techs had found the contact lens in Henson’s car. Or if they’d found anything at all that suggested the accident wasn’t an accident.

She wanted to know a lot. She needed enough to give Patton reason to consider Henson’s death suspicious. And since she wasn’t a cop, the chances of Patton telling her were slim to none.

But she had her own sources and methods. Patton wouldn’t like it if he found out. She’d never let a man stand in her way before. She wasn’t about to now. She owed it to Henson to look into this. Patton wasn’t taking her seriously. He was preoccupied, she understood that, but he clearly thought what she’d told him was nothing of consequence. Convincing him might just be impossible, but she had to follow through, either way.

She might not be a detective, but she definitely knew her way around the scene of the crime.

All she needed was access.

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