Free A Taste of the Nightlife by Sarah Zettel

day.”
    This earned me a rueful flicker of a smile. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.” It seemed to me that he was about to say something else complimentary, or at least pleasant, but a voice I didn’t want to recognize cut him off.
    “Chef Caine?”
    We both turned to see Little Linus forge through pedestrian traffic.
    “Detective O’Grady.” A whole string of thoughts dropped into place in my brain, resulting in complete nonsurprise. Of course someone at the police station had noticed a guy punching walls across the street. And pretty much the only reason Brendan Maddox would be punching walls on this block was that he’d just had a bad time with the P-Squad. So, of course, someone would have let the detective who had given him that bad time know what was going on, if he hadn’t seen it for himself.
    “Everything all right here?” inquired the cop.
    Brendan flexed his wounded hand, once, twice. “Fine.”
    O’Grady nodded, as if acknowledging a point, and turned to me instead. “Good to see you, Chef Caine. I was going to have you set up an appointment to do some follow-up with us, but since you’re here, maybe you’ve got a few minutes?”
    “Just a couple things to go over?” I suggested.
    “Paperwork details mostly, so we can get you your place back.”
    Well, he certainly knew how to get a girl to say yes. It did, however, leave me in the strange position of not quite knowing what to do with my lasagna. I’d originally brought it for Officer Randolph, but Randolph didn’t know that, and I’d just offered it to Brendan. Brendan and I, however, weren’t in the kind of relationship where I was comfortable with public displays of pasta.
    And in case you’ve never experienced it for yourself, let me tell you, having a cop staring at you puts a considerable restriction on what you’re ready to say to the cute guy whose cousin turned up dead in your restaurant.
    So, I looked “sorry” at Brendan and he looked “understand” back.
    I hefted my lasagna. “Whatever I can do to help.”

    Once we got past the cop-filled foyer where I had to pin a bright blue visitor’s badge to my shirt, and up the elevator that opened only after the detective swiped a card and laid down a fingerprint, the home of the Paranormal Squad looked a lot like any other office. Well, except for the large number of people walking around with holstered weaponry. The padded blue cubicle walls were a little frayed around the edges. Desk chairs squeaked as the cubicle denizens shuttled between shelves, file cabinets and flat-screen computer monitors. Then I noticed the camera clusters tucked into the ceiling corners and the fact that most of the thresholds had a kind of extra fragrafted onto them that made every doorway look like an airport scanner.
    But whatever it was they were looking for, it apparently did not involve basil and garlic. Nothing beeped, flashed or blared as O’Grady led me and my lasagna into a spartan conference room where a whole set of manila folders lay in neat lines on the scarred tabletop.
    I sat and put both pan and purse on the chair next to mine. O’Grady leaned across the threshold to say something to a woman going past and then locked the door.
    I tried not to be nervous. I did not succeed.
    The detective ran one hand over his scalp and looked at the folders. Without saying a word to me, he began piling them up. I tried not to squirm from impatience. I did not succeed in this either.
    When O’Grady had all the folders but one stacked and squared off, he sat down.
    He opened that last folder. “Now, Ms. Caine, you’ll be glad to know that we do not at this time think it’s likely that your brother killed Dylan Maddox.”
    “You don’t?” The words jumped out. Of course I knew Chet had nothing to do with this. The relief I felt just then was only because I was so glad the police knew it too.
    O’Grady politely pretended not to have heard me. “However, we are left with the question of who thought