Jennifer Crusie - GETTING RID OF BRADLEY

“I’m sure there was. When did you meet him?”

Lucy came back to earth. “Sorry. We got married June first. We met in the middle of March.”

“And you got divorced in February.” Zack looked up from his notebook. “Any particular reason? Did he begin acting suspiciously? Did you find more money in your checking account than you could account for? Any…”

“It was the blonde,” Lucy said.

“Oh.” Zack winced for her. “Another woman? Sorry.”

“Girl, really. Very young. Maybe twenty.”

“That could be his wife,” Zack said.

“His wife?” Lucy said faintly.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry to drop it on you like that. He was married.”

“Oh,” Lucy said.

“Bianca Bradley. Also blonde and young, twenty-four. He must have a thing for blondes.” Zack looked at Lucy’s impossible black hair and looked back as his notebook. “So…”

“That’s funny,” Lucy said. “Her maiden name was the same as his Christian name.”

“No, her maiden name is Bergman. She…”

“Where did the Bradley come from?”

“What Bradley?” Zack said.

“Her last name.”

“When she married John Bradley,” Zack said, his patience wearing thin. “The same John Bradley you married.”

“I didn’t marry John Bradley.” Lucy sat up straight. “I married Bradley Porter. I don’t believe this. You’ve been asking me questions about the wrong Bradley. What’s going on?”

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” Lucy said. “I mean, first you grab me in an alley-”

“Listen.” Zack fixed his eyes her. “ John Talbot Bradley is six-five and weighs about two hundred pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and he’s in very good physical condition. He used to be a high-school phys-ed teacher. Does he sound like your ex-husband?”

Lucy opened her mouth and Zack held up his hand. “Think about it before you answer. I know it sounds dumb, but think about it.”

Lucy shook her head. “No. Bradley’s blond and good-looking and a little out of shape. I bought him sweats once so he could run with me, and he told me that physical exertion was for people who didn’t use their minds. The height is close. But his eyes are gray.”

Zack began to slap his notebook with his pencil. “He still might be able to pull it off. You met him in March and that’s when John Bradley went missing in California.”

Lucy shook her head again. “Then definitely not I met him in March, but he’d already been branch manager of his bank for a year.”

“Branch manager of a bank?” Zack stopped frowning. “Two Bradleys, two banks. And then the phone tip and the diner. There’s got to be a connection here. All my instincts tell me there’s a connection.”

“All my logic tells me there isn’t,” Lucy said. “Your logic is wrong,” Zack said absently. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why were you in that diner today?”

“I told you, I was at the courthouse…”

“Were you supposed to meet Bradley at the diner?”

“Not exactly. I was supposed to meet Bradley at the courthouse. But he’d sent me a note, asking me to have lunch with him at the diner after the hearing, and then when he didn’t show up at the courthouse and my sister Tina wanted to talk, I suggested the diner, just in case he’d be there.”

“So you went to the diner to meet Bradley.”

“No,” Lucy said patiently. “I wasn’t even sure he’d be there. But Tina insisted on lunch so she could convince me to become spontaneous and irresponsible, and I picked the diner just in case he might be there. And then thanks to her, I beat up a cop.”

“You did not beat up a cop. I told you, I wasn’t fighting back.” Zack leaned forward until he was almost touching her, his blue eyes blazing into hers. “Now, listen. Concentrate.”

Lucy blinked at the heat in his gaze. “Okay,” she said, trying to remember what they’d been talking about. He was doing something to her brain, scrambling her thoughts. I bet he’s murder on cell phones, she thought, and then dragged her attention back to what he was saying.

“My partner and I were there because a woman called and told us that Bradley was going to be there,” Zack said, speaking very clearly as if he thought she was slightly backward. “That is all she said. ‘Bradley’s going to be at Harvey ’s Diner on Second at one.’ Now, could that have been your sister?”

Lucy pulled back a little so she could think. “My sister would love to see Bradley arrested and shot, but even she wouldn’t call and tell you he was going to be there if there wasn’t any reason for you to arrest him. Trust me, Tina does not think that Bradley is involved in a crime. And neither do I. And neither do you. You’re just annoyed because your instincts failed you.”

“No,” Zack said. “Somebody shot at you this afternoon. Remember when I grabbed you by the alley?”

“Vividly.”

He leaned forward suddenly and touched the cut on her cheek, and she jerked back. “How did you get that?”

“A car hit a stone…”

Zack shook his head. “Somebody shot at you and missed and the bullet kicked back a piece of the brick wall. I saw it hit you. That’s why I dragged you into the alley.”

“Oh.” Lucy digested the information. “So you thought you were saving my life while I thought you were mugging me.”

“I didn’t think I was saving your life, I…”

“And then I beat you up. I’m really sorry.”

Zack closed his eyes and then looked at Lucy again. “Listen to me carefully. Somebody is trying to kill you.”

She glared at him. “Listen to me carefully. Nobody is trying to kill me, and if you looked at this logically, you would see that.”

“Wait a minute.”

“There are two people standing against the wall. One of these people is a mild-mannered high-school teacher whose students all adore her. The other is a condescending police officer who grabs innocent women and drags them into alleys and who has probably alienated everyone in the greater Riverbend area. Now, which of these two people is most likely to be shot at?”

“You,” Zack said. “My instincts tell me you.”

“Your instincts stink,” Lucy said and blinked. “I’m sorry. I’m usually not rude. I’ve had a bad day.”

“That’s all right,” Zack said. “People are rude to me all the time.”

He shoved his notebook back in his jacket and stood. “Listen, we’ll argue about this later. Right now, I’m going to look around the outside of your house. You stay inside.”

Lucy stood, too. “I beg your pardon?”

“Inside. You. And the dogs.” Zack looked down at Heisenberg. “Stay. All of you.”

Lucy put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “Who do you think you are?”

“Me?” Zack said on his way out. “I’m the guy who saved your life, so you owe me. Stay put.”

He glanced back and grinned at her as he went out the door. Lucy said, “Listen, you, you didn’t…” and then he was gone.

“Who does he think he is?” she asked the dogs. “He just comes in here, out of the blue, and tells me somebody’s been shooting at me, and orders me around. Just what I needed. Somebody else ordering me around.”

Only she hadn’t let him. She’d fought back.

And it really felt good.

“I think I’m on to something with this independence thing,” she told the dogs. “I really enjoyed arguing with him.”

Of course, it hadn’t had much effect on him. He’d just glared at her and charged on ahead. And he hadn’t been all that mad, anyway. A minute after the glare, he’d been grinning at her again. She pictured him again, those bright blue eyes heating her and that crazy grin scrambling her thoughts, and she had to remind herself that she was mad at him. “This is my problem,” she told the dogs. “I’m too easygoing. I should be mad at him. I should want to kill him.” She stopped on the last thought.

He’d said somebody was trying to kill her.

Who would want to kill her? That was ridiculous. That was something that happened on TV. A car backfired and kicked up a stone. People did not go around shooting guns in downtown Riverbend.

He must be wrong.

Wrong, but gorgeous.

She pictured him again, much against her better judgment. That grin, that swagger, those blue, blue eyes that connected with hers with such impact on her breathing. “The thing is,” she told the dogs, “even though I know he’s a policeman, he doesn’t look like a policeman. He looks like a very, very sexy bad guy.”

She heard a noise in the vestibule and looked up to see Zack leaning in the doorway, and she blushed so hard she almost passed out.

“You talk to the dogs,” he said.

“Well, of course I talk to the dogs.” Lucy prayed he hadn’t heard what she’d said. “It’s not like I talk to plants or anything non-sentient.”

“What I was going to ask was why you have such expensive locks on this place. You must have dropped a small fortune on the front doors alone, and from what I can see from the front, the windows are locked, too.”

“Oh, they are,” Lucy said, eager for a change of subject. “Even the attic windows. Did they really cost a lot?”

“So they weren’t your idea.” Zack looked satisfied. Smug, even. “Bradley ordered them, right?”

“No. It was my sister.”

His satisfaction disappeared. “Your sister was afraid you’d be robbed?”

“No, my sister hates my ex-husband. She did it to annoy him. She said it was to keep him from taking anything out of the house that I might possibly be able to strip him of in the divorce. My sister plays hardball in divorce court.”

“I bet she does,” Zack said, taking out his notebook again. “And when was this?”

“Oh, she had them put on as soon as I told her about…the blonde. I mean, within the hour, the locksmith was here with a crew. That was about two weeks ago.” Lucy thought back. “The end of January.”

Zack went out to the vestibule. “Do you have burglar alarms?” he called back to her.

“No.” Lucy followed him. “Look at this place. Does it look like it needs a burglar alarm?”

Zack glanced around the high-ceilinged hall. “It’s not bad. It’ll be nice when it’s fixed up. So, for protection, you’ve got the locks and the dogs.” He looked down at the three dogs who had followed them to the vestibule and were now sitting in a row, watching him.

“Don’t make fun of my dogs,” Lucy said.

“I’m not making fun of your dogs. Dogs are a good deterrent for thieves. They make noise. Thieves hate noise. Killers aren’t crazy about it, but they’ll cope.”

Lucy folded her arms. “Nobody is trying to kill me.”

Zack spread his arms wide. “Look. Humor me, okay? Just in case somebody really is trying to get you?”

“Who would want to get me?”

He cocked his head at her. “Well, ex-husbands have been known to go after the wives who locked them out of their houses.”

“Bradley didn’t want this house. He signed the divorce papers without a fight. He didn’t want the house or me.” Lucy stopped. “Sorry about that last part. I’m not really that pathetic, it’s just that-”

“You’re not pathetic at all.” Zack flashed his grin at her. “Bradley, however, must be an idiot.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said.

“You’re welcome,” Zack said. “Now stay inside.”

ZACK WALKED AROUND the house, checking the windows and the back door. The basement door was in the back near the neighbor’s alley on the right, an old-fashioned, sloping wood door that had two metal bars across it, both with locks. The locks, like every other one he’d seen on the house, were very new, very efficient, and very expensive. Sister Tina either hated Bradley a whole lot or really worried about Lucy.

And possibly she had a reason to be worried. Zack frowned at the scratches on the basement-door lock. He was peering into the lock with his penlight when someone screamed at him, startling him so much that he dropped the light as he spun around.

“I’ve called the police so you might as well run off like all those other young punks,” she screeched. “Go on. Go on!”

“Damn it, lady, you scared the hell out of me!”

The gray and wizened woman on the back porch of the next house was hunched over the rail in a nothing-colored coat three sizes too big for her. Her clawlike hands waved at him while the pleats of skin on her face worked soundlessly for the moment in indignation. Then her voice came back.

“Get out,” she screeched. “Smart-mouthed good-for-nothing!”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Zack said, gritting his teeth. “I was startled. I’m a police officer.”