Free The Detective & the Chinese High-Fin by Michael Craven Page A

breath, “What the fuck?”
    I walked into their little yard until I caught Sydney’s eye. As she did a slow roundhouse kick that didn’t comevery close to her husband’s face, she held up a finger to me. Like: hang on one sec.
    I nodded and watched them finish their routine.
    An interminable four minutes later they stopped, bowed to each other, and looked over at me. With a smile, Sydney said, “Mr. Darvelle. Hello.”
    Back to “mister.”
    I introduced myself to both of them and told them to call me John. Sydney had chestnut brown hair, manipulative light brown bedroom eyes, smooth skin, a rosebud mouth. She had a curvy, sexy body. Really quite fetching, physically. Geoff was in shape—not huge, but it looked like he worked out—and he stood about five-ten. He had a sort of dim, blank look in his eyes. And he had a low hairline, with his dark hair brushed forward. It gave him a simian, Neanderthal quality. But he didn’t seem aggressive or mean. He seemed pliant, a pushover. The kind of guy a sexy girl could talk into the whole hippie-slash-fake-karate thing they were fronting.
    I looked around. Their yard was on the small side—most of the yards on the canals are—but well kept up. Their house wasn’t particularly large, but it had a designed, contemporary-California, state-of-the-art feel. One or both of them had money.
    We all sat down on some little chairs they had in the backyard. I couldn’t resist: I said, in a genuine enough tone, “So what were you guys just doing? That was your workout?”
    â€œWe invented it,” Sydney said, a touch defensively. “It’s got the beauty of a karate fight without the violence.”
    She pronounced it “kuh-rot- tay .” She stared at me with an insecure but defiant look in her eyes, not blinking at all, wondering whether I was going to question it. I looked at Geoff. He didn’t roll his eyes. They were barely open, but he didn’t roll them. I was impressed. I moved on. “Thanks for talking to me.”
    â€œAbsolutely,” Sydney said. And then, to Geoff, “We should feed Zucchini.”
    Geoff nodded.
    â€œDog or cat?” I said. “I love animals.”
    Now some fire appeared in Sydney’s eyes. “Zucchini’s our daughter. She’s asleep inside.”
    It got very quiet for what seemed like two hours but was really about ten seconds. I could hear the ripples on the little river. Some wind blowing through some nearby palms. A distant bird.
    â€œMy apologies,” I said. “Anyway, I know you talked to the police a year and a half ago or so. And I know that at the time of the murder you were with your family in Chicago.”
    She nodded. “With Geoff, who didn’t even know Keaton.”
    And, like everyone else in the file, Geoff and Sydney had all sorts of corroboration. Confirmation from United Airlines that she and Geoff had flown direct to Chicago two days before the murder and had flown back four days after it. Credit-card receipts documenting essentially their whole trip. Dinner at Gibsons the night before the murder on Geoff’s card. Starbucks the morning of—at almost the exact time of—the murder on Sydney’s card. Two ventiCaffè Lattes, an Iced Lemon Pound Cake, and a Petite Vanilla Bean Scone purchased at 8:06 a.m. Chicago time . . . Not to mention four of Sydney’s family members verifying their day-by-day presence in the greater Chicago area.
    Geoff stood up, threw a thumb toward the house, and said, “I’m gonna go . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence. He did that thing that people do a lot where they just say half a sentence and expect their audience to fill in the rest.
    I thought he was going to say: go feed Cauliflower. Or whatever the child’s name was. He was probably also heading in because he didn’t want to hear his wife talking about her dead ex. Again. I was cool