Steamed (A Maid in LA Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

had a topless-woman-washing-dishes fetish.  Maybe I went nuts and did him in.  You don’t know.  If that’s the kind of investigation you run, then I’m doomed.” 
      Oh, geesh, way to go Quincy.  Try and convince the cop you did it.  I shook my head.
      He was shaking his head as well.  “Did you have an affair with him?”
      “No.”
      “Did you kill him?”
      “No.  But you don’t know that,” I pointed out. 
      “Ah, but now I do,” he grinned, as if he’d won some point.  “You just told me.  And how about helping me out some more and telling me what I need to know?”
      “Like I said, I can’t talk to you without my lawyer.”  I should have slammed the door and taken a chance at assault charges, but curiosity won out.  “But what exactly did you want to know?”
      “I want you to tell me everything you can remember about what the house looked like before you cleaned it.”
      Great minds think alike. 
      I guess I had detective potential after all.  I’d been on the right track.  Trying to remember what the house had been like...that was a great idea.
      And his request sounded innocent enough.  Not as if he was looking for a way to convict me, but rather like he was looking for the real killer.
      “So, can I come in?” he asked with an endearing little grin that probably made women between the ages of eighteen and eighty not only say yes , but say oh, yes to anything he asked.
      I glanced over my shoulder.
      The boys’ packing debris littered the living room.
      I was tempted to say yes anyway, but didn’t want him thinking I was a pig.  I was a maid...I should have a clean house.
      “Sorry, but no,” I said.
      “Are you hiding something?”
      Sure I was hiding something...a huge mess.  But I wasn’t about to tell him that.  “Unless you have a warrant, you are not coming into my house.”
      The endearing grin faded away, replaced by a narrowed-eyed look. 
      Slowly, he said, “I could probably get one.”
      “How long would it take?” I asked, trying to decide if I’d have time to clean up before he could get back with one.
      “Why?” he asked.
      I shrugged.  “Just because I’m curious.”
      “Listen, I’m not here to arrest you, I just want some information about the condition Banning’s place was in when you arrived.”
      I didn’t say anything.  I was glowing with the knowledge that I’d been on the right investigative track and feeling more than a little a bit smug. 
      At least I felt smug until he said, “Fine, if I can’t come in, then let’s take this down to the station.  You can call that lawyer of yours and have him meet us there.  But I’d advise you to cooperate.  I might not think you had anything to do with the murder, but I might just start thinking about obstruction charges.”
      Darn.
      I didn’t want to go to the station, but I wasn’t about to let him in my house.
      Thinking fast, I said, “How about a compromise?”
      “A compromise?”  His eyes were still narrow as he studied me.  I was used to the pretty-boy well-waxed eyebrows of Hollywood.  Detective Parker was not one of those.  As a matter of fact, his eyebrows bordered on bushy, but not in an offensive way, but rather in an I’m-a-real-man-with-a-real-job sort of way.  And since right now his job was finding Mr. Banning’s killer—a mysterious someone I knew wasn’t me—I found his sort of bushy eyebrows comforting.
      I realized he was waiting for me to respond as I studied his eyebrows, so I nodded.  “Yes.  I don’t want to let you in, but I don’t want to go to the station.  So, let’s go somewhere else and I’ll tell you what I can remember.”
      “And your lawyer?” he asked slowly.
      “I don’t think he’d mind my cooperating with your request.  After all, I might remember something that will help you find the real killer.  And I can’t tell you how much I want you to find the