Gafford steered a car to a curb and parked and then watched Clifton gaze out a window at a brownstone. “Why don’t you sleep on it and then call her in the morning?”
“Why don’t you mind your own business?” Clifton said.
Gafford shrugged. “Okay, well then, don’t let me keep you. But tomorrow morning, at the precinct, if anyone asks me why my partner’s staring at a wall as though he wants to wrap a rope around his neck, I’m saying ‘I mind my own business.’”
Clifton nodded. “I couldn’t advise you better myself.” He glanced at the brownstone. “But to be honest, if she tells me what I think I’ll tell me, taking up a noose will be the best thing she could do.” He opened the door and climbed out onto the sidewalk.
“Don’t kill anyone.”
Clifton waved, scaled the brownstone’s staircase, removed a keyring out a pocket, and unlocked a door. Inside, he ambled into an elevator, waved a key over a sensor, watched elevator buttons illuminate, and pressed the seventh floor. Upstairs, plodded down a hall past several doors to one labeled ‘seven thirty-eight’, unlocked it, and entered. He flipped a light switch, and a living room sofa, television, and bookcase appeared amid numerous potted plants.
He trekked to the sofa, pulled out a mobile phone, and gawked at it, chewing his lip.
“Don’t call her,” a voice said, and Clifton snapped toward a dim corner where a woman in an evening dress sat on a loveseat.
“She’ll ruin your evening,” she said.
Clifton scratched his head, slipped to several windows and examined them and then to the door and looked it over, as well. “My place was bolted. How did you get in here?” He turned and found her just behind him, scanning a plant’s leaves.
“Let me guess,” she said. “The plants were her idea, correct?”
He glimpsed at the plant and sighed. “What do you want, Nadine?”
Nadine smiled, pointed at him. “I knew I was right.” He shook her head. “But I wish I wasn’t—after that phone call of y’all’s, she clearly doesn’t want to see you be completely alone.” She caressed a leaf. “She’s already consoling herself—smart girl.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Clifton tore off his suit jacket, marched to a small table beside the sofa, and snatched up several envelopes, thumbing through them.
“Maybe I don’t. Maybe I do.” She walked to him and tapped the envelops. “But what I do know is all of those bills are past due.” She grinned and ambled through a doorway, and he inspected a couple correspondences, slapped them on the table, and heard a giggle.
“After six consecutive months of twelve-hour days solving cases, it would happen to anyone,” Nadine’s voice echoed.
“Are you not a lounge singer? Shouldn’t you be down at Club Calabria preparing to hit the stage?”
For a moment, a faucet turned on and then turned off. Before long, footsteps approached, and Nadine ambled through the doorway, carrying a glass of water.
“Yes, but I’ve tonight off,” she said and poured water into several plant’s pot.
Clifton plopped on the sofa, loosened his necktie. “Do you often do this on your nights off?”
“What?”
“Brake into law enforcement personnel’s homes, poke around their mail, and water their plants.”
“I wouldn’t know—I don’t often have a night off.”
He chuckled. “What’s that supposed to be? Some sort of alibi?”
“No, it’s supposed to be the truth.”