“Start with the short version.”

“Okay, I took the afternoon off to do a little shopping with Jess.  We stopped at the Club for lunch first.  I went into the restroom and saw a woman lying face down on the floor, so I went over to offer assistance.  I felt for a pulse, nothing.  I rolled her onto her back and found a large, bloody gash on her left temple.  And as I was leaning over her, my hands covered in blood, another woman came into the rest room and screamed.”

Lane paused, the woman was… well… screaming bloody murder.  At least she now knew exactly what that phrase meant.

“The next thing I knew, I’d given my statement to the uniformed officer and was looking into the disbelieving faces of Detective Hunter and his partner, explaining that I’d found the woman that way.   Ben, I can’t be certain, because I haven’t seen in her in years, but I think it was Carol Anne Woods.”

Carol Anne Woods had been a local on-air radio personality.  She’d taken a job in Denver; hoping that the bigger market would be just what she needed to spring board her into syndication.  She’d once dated Ben; but then most of the beautiful women, between the ages of 30 and 50 in the greater metropolitan area, had, at one time or another, dated or tried to date Ben.  He was, after all: tall, dark, handsome, rich, smart, witty, charming, and heterosexual. As far as Lane could tell, Ben only had two flaws.  He was drop dead gorgeous and he was 12 years younger than she was.  And, neither of them was ever going to change.

Lane prided herself on her ability to read people, but Ben was often a difficult read.  He’d been practicing law and honing his ability to hide his emotions for years.  She knew Carol Anne held the dating record with Ben at two full months. Since Lane had known him, Ben had never dated anyone longer than the six week mark.  She used to attribute it to a fear of intimacy and commitment. But, recently, their friendship had changed and they had started dating.  They had, in fact, long since, passed that crucial six week mark.

A few months ago, while she and Ben were on a road trip, he’d kissed her; it was then that she had finally realized that she and Ben had what many would call a dating relationship, and had since their first meeting.  Since they’d met, they had talked on the phone several times a week.  They spent nearly every Saturday together running errands.  And before dinner and a movie, they went to Mass together.  During those first three years, Saturday had been their day together.  But Ben had always held Friday in reserve as his date night.  He still held Friday night for date night and now that night belonged to Lane too.

Finally Ben said, “Carol Anne called me to say she’d be in town this week.  She wanted to get together for a drink.  I told her I was with someone now and that we’d have to play it by ear.  So, it could have been her.”  He and Lane were together now and he wouldn’t have jeopardized his relationship with Lane to meet Carol Anne, but he was still curious about what brought her back to Kansas City.   “Who’s Hunter’s partner on this?”

She smiled and winked at him.  “His partner’s a woman. Is the basketball league co-ed?  Is there any chance Detective Crane plays with y’all?”

Ben shook his head. “No. Volleyball’s Lila’s sport.”

The door opened.  Detective Crane entered the room and lyrics to the Joe Diffey song Third Rock from the Sun began playing in Lane’s head. “She walks into Smokey’s one hip at a time…”  Lila Crane was about five feet seven inches tall and athletic.  Her blue-black hair was pulled into a sleek pony tail and she had a gleam in her emerald green eyes as a smile spread across her full red lips.  She could have been a body double for Angelina Jolie in the Tomb Raider movies.

“Well, Counselor, long time, no see.”

Although Ben didn’t need to see her to know whose silky voice was talking to him, he turned and looked at Lila Crane.  The last time he’d spoken to Lila was three months ago.  It was over Memorial Day weekend that he’d called her to break a date, so he could help Lane with a favor for a friend.  His relationship with Lane had changed that weekend.  Lane had been crying and Ben wanted to comfort her, console her, so he pulled her into his arms.  The smell of her hair, the feel of her skin, the beat of her heart so close to his coupled with a healthy dose of lust and that was all it took.  He kissed Lane and never even thought of Lila Crane again. From what he knew of Lila, she might be the kind of woman to hold a grudge.  It would be better for everyone if she didn’t know that he was dating Lane Parker.

Ben was a babe magnet, yet to Lane’s observation, he didn’t encourage it.  Women sort of just flocked toward him.  Half of the beautiful women in the greater metropolitan area had their eyes on Ben.  The other half had already dated him and been dumped.  The question was, in which camp did Detective Crane belong?  In the three years since she’d met Ben, Lane had only met two of the women Ben had dated, and Lila wasn’t one of them.  Since Lila Crane wasn’t so much fawning over Ben as irritated by his presence, Lane was pretty sure that she was either an ex or that Ben hadn’t even given her the time of day.  She didn’t know which it was; and she could only pray that whatever the situation, it wouldn’t end with her in a jail cell.

Ben smiled.  Lane couldn’t tell whether it was polite, friendly, professional, cat that ate the canary, or maybe cat who wanted to lure the canary in.

Without taking his eyes off the detective, Ben replied calmly, “Detective Crane, I understand you have some questions for my client.”

Detective Crane took a seat across the table from Lane and Ben, and was joined by Detective Hunter.   Thank God Detective Hunter had come in,   who knew when the staring match between Ben and Lila Crane would have ended otherwise.

Detective Hunter took the seat next to Lila as he said, “Mrs. Parker what were you doing at the Club today?”

Since this wasn’t Lane’s first time in a police interview room, she knew the drill.  Answer their questions as honestly and as briefly as possible.  Most importantly, don’t elaborate and don’t offer any unsolicited information.

“My daughter and I were there for lunch.”

“Your daughter? Mrs. Parker you didn’t mention your daughter at the scene.”  Lila made it sound like an accusation.

Lane thought it was possible that she hadn’t mentioned Jess to the officer in her initial statement.  After all, Jess hadn’t been with Lane in the restroom, and the manager, who had come into the restroom when he heard the scream, had kept Lane and the screamer away from the other patrons until the first responders arrived on the scene.  That left Jess outside with all of the other curious bystanders.  It was one of the reasons she knew Jess would have called Ben.  Jess would have seen Lane with blood on her hands being not so gently led away and helped into the backseat of a police car. Then she would have seen the body bag being removed.  Jess was 20 years old and an aspiring actress who had landed several small roles on TV, while studying film making at UCLA.

“What relevance does Mrs. Parker’s daughter have to this, Detective?”

“It just strikes me as odd that she hadn’t mentioned her daughter before.  It makes me wonder what else she might have forgotten to tell us,” Lila said and then she raised her eyebrows and smirked at Ben.

They went through the normal questions

“What time did you arrive?”

“Around one o’clock.”

“When did you go to the restroom?”

“As soon as we arrived.”  When Jess arrived at Lane’s office, she’d given her mother some flowers. Lane had gotten pollen, sap, or something on her hands and wanted to wash before she ate. She looked down at her hands now.  They had taken blood samples from her hands and then let her use something like baby wipes to remove the blood. The wipes hadn’t done much good.  In fact it had mostly just smeared the blood around.