“Five weeks, three days. Nevertheless.”
Tom sank into thought (or was again worried about too much sun exposure), and the other man turned to her and said with a smile, “I’m Abe Simon. This is my granddaughter, Hannah. And that’s our dog, Turquoise. Out!”
Ava, who had been brushing herself off, froze. “Out? Where—where do you want me to go? Oh. The dog. I’ve heard ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ and ‘come,’ but never ‘out.’” Turquoise was a yellow lab the size of a canoe and, like all labs, her tail was equal parts wonderful and terrible. She frisked around them, tail lashing and, when it made contact,
“Ow!”
stinging. It’s got a five-inch circumference! That dog’s butt should be registered as a deadly weapon.
Tom had shaken himself out of whatever thought process he’d gotten lost in, because he broke in with, “Apologies. Captain Capp, this is my … friend, Abe, and my niece.”
“Ma’am.” Ava shook his hand, which was like shaking hands with flesh-covered cords of rope. Was this guy a dockworker? Until yesterday?
“Hello, Captain,” the little girl piped up. “Is your rank a military designation or are you a civilian pilot?”
Ava tried not to gape at the child, whose eyes were the same deep brown as Tom’s. “Uh. I’m a commercial pilot for Northeastern Southwest.”
“You fly everywhere!” Abe said, delighted.
“Yeah, I sure do. The best money the airline ever spent was on those commercials. That jingle will haunt me to my grave.” Then, to the child, “My copilot learned to fly in the navy, if that helps.”
“Why would that help?”
“Uh. Good question.”
“We have to go now,” Tom said, abrupt even for him. “This is … we’re working.”
Abe, clearly familiar with Tom’s habits, nodded at the file folders. While Ava made with the chitchat, Tom had tucked away the horrifying pictures (good call). “I’ll bet. I was real sorry to hear about your friend getting killed. Tom’s been following the case—”
“Abe.”
“—and told me about it when he stopped in a few hours ago.”
“Abe.”
Ava ignored Tom’s obvious unease. Which was fine; so was everyone else. Including the dog. “You all live together?”
“Yes, since my daughter-in-law passed away a couple years ago.”
“That’s nice. I mean about living together. It’s a Three Men and a Little Lady thing. If the dog was a man. And if this was a movie.” And if I could shut the hell up for five seconds and STOP BABBLING.
“If our lives were a movie, it would not be family friendly,” Tom pointed out. “At all.”
Ava almost laughed, because of course that was perfectly true. Seven, maybe. Silence of the Lambs, possibly. Nothing by Disney. Although Disney did like to kill the moms off pretty much immediately … and the kids were always cute and precocious …
“Uncle Tom is the best forensic pathologist in the Midwest,” Hannah announced the way most children announced their love for ice cream: presenting it as immutable fact. “He’ll catch the perpetrator. Well. He’ll ascertain the perpetrator’s identity and then the police will catch him. There’s precedent to back that.”
“Jesus, you’re amazing!” She instantly remembered Tom’s fake swearing and could feel herself getting red. “Sorry. I meant jeepers.”
The little girl beamed, peeking up at Ava through dark blond bangs that were slightly too long. “You don’t have to apologize for complimenting me. Or breaking the Third Commandment. Although if you’re a Christian, you should probably apologize to God.”
“Hannah.”
“What? Those are the rules. If she identifies as Catholic, she would have to go to confession and tell everything to a male designated by the church hierarchy—”
“Hannah.”
“I apologize for overstepping. I am not judging your spiritual belief system.”
“Oh my God, you’re awesome.”
A triumphant beam revealed one missing front tooth. “See, Grandpa? Captain Capp doesn’t mind.”
“Captain Capp doesn’t mind one bit and would love it if you called her Ava.” She looked around at the wiry older man, the genius child, the frolicking dog, the weirdly compelling pathologist. “This is all really cool.” Except for the part about Danielle dying. But that probably goes unsaid. Right? Right. Jesus, I’m a monster. I mean jeepers.
“We must leave,” Tom said, though he’d calmed down a bit.
“Yeah, I get it, time and place and this is neither.” Ava turned to say goodbye. “It was lovely meeting all of you. Even you,” she added, scratching behind Turq’s ears. “It’ll be tough to explain why there’s more dog hair than human hair on my clothes, that’s for sure.”
“Why? ‘A strange dog jumped on me.’ See? Easy.”
“Thank you, Hannah. You’re quite right.”
“Oh, would your husband wonder about dog fur?” Abe asked with blatantly transparent intentions. She could smell a matchmaker a mile off, and Abe was only three feet off.
“I’m not married and I don’t have a boyfriend.” She spared a quick thought for Blake Tarbell, but they had never been boyfriend/girlfriend. Just bang buddies, a juvenile phrase she refused to drop because it horrified literally everyone who heard it.
“That’s hard to believe, Captain Capp, a pretty girl like you.”
Wow. Subtle this guy is not.
“I will see you at home. Abe, Hannah, good day,” Tom said, and if he’d produced a hook to drag Ava offstage, his intent could not have been more clear. Lesson of the morning: Dr. Tom Baker did not like it when his personal and professional lives collided. Which, given his line of work, was understandable. “Please come with me, Captain.”
“Ava.”
“Yes.” He bent, gave Hannah a hug, whispered something in her ear that made her grin, and then he was practically dragging her toward the park entrance. “I apologize.”
“Why? Your family’s great. How old is your niece?”
“Six years, four months, two weeks.”
“I’m sorry about your sister.” Ava wondered what could have happened, but held off asking. And she’d noticed the pause just before Tom introduced Abe as his friend. What did you call your late sister’s father-in-law?
“Thank you. Now as I was saying…”
“You were begging me never to call you Tommy, and then your sister’s father-in-law rolled up and called you Tommy. That’s who Abe is, right?”
“Correct.”
They were almost at the entrance and she was having to really move to keep up with Tom’s long strides. “Actually, just before that—agh, slow down!—I was asking why you were telling me about your theories. I get the ‘unique witness perspective’ thing, but this isn’t TV. Random pilots don’t team up with random MEs to catch random killers. Although if that was a show, I’d definitely watch it. The pilot episode at least. Heh.”
Tom smiled a little—and thank goodness, because he’d been clearly stressed by the park encounter. “As would I.” Then the smile faded from his face and he stopped walking, doubtless to emphasize whatever he was about to say, so yikes.