Free In Bed With the Badge by Marie Ferrarella

voice level. “You’ve both been through an awful ordeal and you came out of it alive. That doesn’t always happen with victims of a robbery,” she emphasized. Turning toward the man’s wife, Riley said, “Now, you were saying, Mrs. Wilson?”
    “One of them smelled of garlic,” she told Riley, then specified, “The one who tied me up. He seemed like the younger one.”
    “Because his ski mask wasn’t as old as the other guy’s?” Wilson asked, mocking his wife’s assumption.
    “Because his voice sounded younger,” she answered him defiantly with a toss of her head.
    Good for you, lady, Riley thought, keeping her expression deliberately blank.
    “Anything else?” Sam coaxed, looking from one to the other. “Either of you?”
    Not to be left out, Wilson repeated what had already been assessed. “They were thin, tall. And they seemed to know their way around.”
    That led them to one possibility. “Have you had any workmen in the house in the last six months?” Sam asked.
    It was obvious that Wilson started to say no, then changed his mind as he remembered. “We had our bathrooms remodeled.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Wilson began to breathe more heavily, a bull pawing the ground, working himself up to attack. “Do you think someone from the crew could have—”
    “We’re just covering all bases,” Riley interrupted him. “If you could give us the names of the people or the name of the company you hired to handle the remodeling, that would be a good start.”
    “Sure, right away. I’ve got the file in my office,” Wilson said. “Lousy bastards,” he cursed as he led the way down the hall.
    “We’re not saying they did it,” Sam emphasized. Wilson didn’t seem to accept anything unless he was shouted at. “But there was no sign of forced entry so unless you let them in yourselves or left a window on the ground floor opened…”
    He let his voice trail off, waiting for a contradiction—or an admission of negligence. Some people still left their doors unlocked.
    “Everything was closed tighter than a drum,” Wilson assured them.
    Reaching his office, he walked in. The condition of the room was like all the others. It had been summarily tossed in the search for valuables. Grumbling about what he wanted to do to the robbers if he ever got his hands on them, Wilson went to his desk and opened one of the drawers. It took him several minutes to find the file he was looking for.
    “Here,” he said, handing the file to Sam.
    It was a rather thick file, Sam noted. He didn’t feel like having to root around through the victim’s personal papers.
    “Just a business card’ll do,” Sam told him, handing the file back to Wilson.
    Muttering under his breath, a man on his last nerve, Wilson rummaged through the file.
    In the interim, Riley started to hand Shirley Wilson her card, only to stop and realize her business cards still had her old number from the homicide division. She would have to get new ones, she thought. Frustrated, she turned toward Wyatt.
    “You have a card, Wyatt?” she asked, holding out her hand.
    He paused to take one out of his wallet and gave it to her. She in turn handed the card to Mrs. Wilson. “If you think of anything, anything at all,” she underscored, “please give us a call. Day or night.” She pointed to the last line on the card. “That’s my partner’s number.”
    “Don’t you have a number?” Shirley asked. She looked sheepishly at Sam, then said, “I’d rather, you know, talk to you if there’s anything that comes up.”
    “Dial that number and ask for me,” Riley told her. “My partner will transfer the call,” she assured her, then added, “I don’t have my cards yet.”
    “Oh.” Shirley cast a quick, covert side glance at her husband who rifled through the file and had reached the end of his patience. “I know how that is,” she said in a lowered voice.
    Riley wasn’t sure exactly what the woman was driving at,