Night Game by Alison Gordon Page B

insult?
    “Can I break up this meeting of the cast-iron stomach society?” Jeff asked. “I’d like to get home to bed.”
    “Me, too,” I said.
    “That makes three of us, again,” Sargent said. “But I got a job to do.”
    He pulled a notepad out of his jacket pocket.
    “Names?”
    We told him.
    “Address?”
    I gave him the name of our hotel, and our room numbers.
    “You’re not together?”
    “No,” Jeff said. “We work together.”
    “You were working at two-thirty in the morning?”
    “I can’t see that it’s any of your business,” I said.
    “Okay, it’s like that,” Sargent said.
    “No it’s not,” we said, overlapping each other.
    “Not what?” Sargent asked. Jeff began to laugh. So did I.
    “What’s funny?” Sargent asked, suspiciously.
    “Nothing’s funny,” I said. “My sense of humour just kicked in.”
    “About time, too,” Jeff said.
    The tension broken, Jeff and I got on with the job of describing everything we had seen when we found Lucy on the beach. It didn’t take long. Sargent got up and put his notebook back in his pocket. We got up, too.
    “So we can go?”
    “Not until you talk to Detective Sergeant Barwell.”
    “And that will be when?” I asked.
    Sargent shrugged.
    “When he’s through outside.”
    “Finished with the splatters,” Jeff said.
    “You got it,” Sargent said, looking almost cheerful.
    After he left, I went to get another coffee, and almost bumped into a good-looking guy wearing jeans, cowboy shirt, and ostrich-skin boots. We’d last seen him at The El Rancho, slightly less rumpled. I thought he was another hotel guest, until he asked for Dr. Wilson.
    “Are you the splatter guy?” I asked. I couldn’t resist.
    “Yeah,” he said. “Who are you?”
    “Witness,” I said. “She’s out back.”
    “Thanks,” he said, looking confused. “Haven’t I seen you before somewhere?”
    “Could be, cowboy,” I said, and sashayed back to my seat.
    “Cute,” Jeff said.
    “This sitting around is getting me punchy,” I explained.
    “It’s pissing me right off.”
    “Right. I feel like we’re suspects, not witnesses.”
    “Look who’s talking,” Jeff said. “The cop-lover.”
    “That’s a specific, not a generic, attraction,” I explained, yawning. “Oh, God. I wish I’d brought a book.”
    “Maybe Barry will lend you his Bible.”
    “Another ten minutes and I might ask for it.”
    I was saved from sanctity by the arrival of the second sweatsuit.
    “I’m Detective Sergeant Troy Barwell,” he said, crossing the room. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
    “No sorrier than we are,” Jeff said.
    “We’ll do anything we can to help,” I added, sending Jeff a look. Why antagonize the guy?
    He looked to be about thirty-five, muscular under a layer of fat, like an athlete past his prime. He was wearing an old grey sweatsuit that looked worn and comfortable, and he was good-looking, in a beady-eyed sort of way.
    “I’ve seen what you had to say to Detective Sargent,” he said. “I just have a few more questions.”
    “Go ahead,” I said.
    “Did you see or hear anyone else as you walked down the beach? Anyone at all?”
    “No,” we both said.
    “You’re sure,” he said.
    I shrugged.
    “Why would I lie? Yes, I’m sure.”
    “You left the bar at two a.m., is that right?”
    “Whenever they closed.”
    “And you reported the body at two forty-seven.”
    “I guess so. I wasn’t looking at my watch.”
    “But The El Rancho is ten minutes away from here,” Barwell said. “What took you so long?”
    I blushed. Bad habit.
    “We stopped for a while,” Jeff said.
    “I wanted to rest,” I added, quickly.
    Barwell looked from me to Jeff and back again.
    “Had you been drinking?” he asked.
    “You could say that,” I agreed.
    “So there were times on the beach when you might not have been aware of everything going on around you,” he said. “Would that be fair to say?”
    “Maybe,” Jeff said.
    “We would have