Tango Key Read Online Free Page B

certainly knew what she was talking about, because he was already on his feet and following Eve before Aline had even risen from her chair. He stopped in the doorway and looked back like he'd just remembered she was here. A frown worked down between his walnut eyes. "You going to take a look at this stuff, Al?"
    "Sure."
    He waited for her in the doorway. "You okay?"
    She wished he would stop asking her that. "What artifacts?"
    "Cooper was an amateur archaeologist and supposedly has an impressive collection of ceramic artifacts. Pre-Columbian. Weren't you listening?"
    "No, I was watching you salivate."
    She shouldn't have said it. Not now. Not here, in the doorway of a house where a man had just been killed. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" he snapped.
    Like he didn't know. Like somewhere deep inside him there wasn't a small, tiny voice whispering, She's Monica . She looks like Monica. She walks like Monica . Like he was totally oblivious to the purely physical reactions of his body. She felt like weeping. She felt like pressing her face into the soft fabric of Murphy's shirt, and beating her fists against his chest like women did in the movies. Instead, she glared at him. "You figure it out." And she walked past him into the den where Eve had disappeared.
    A spacious room, paneled in pine. The entire south wall was filled with law books. Along the east wall were filing cabinets and a fancy computer and printer. The north wall was home to a dozen or so artifacts that rested on a low bookcase under the window. No gold, no silver, just ceramic objects that seemed incongruous with the law books and computer, misplaced in time.
    "I can print out that list of clients I mentioned, Detective Murphy," Eve said
    Murphy, standing in the doorway, smiled. "Great. Thanks."
    Aline suddenly hated him. She hated him and she hated Eve Cooper and she hated herself most of all for her moiling confusion, the violent swing of her emotions. She was supposed to be investigating a homicide, not measuring the temperature of Murphy's libido.
    "We'll also need the name of your husband's attorney, Eve," she said.
    "Carlos Ortiz."
    She said it as if they would automatically know who he was, as though he were an F. Lee Bailey, a Melvin Belli, another media star. But, in fact, Aline did know who he was—and not because he was a spotlight lawyer. When you had lived most of your life in a place as small as Tango, a place whose year-round residents numbered about five thousand, you knew almost everyone by name. Ortiz was a Cuban who'd made a reputation for himself as an honest lawyer. So bully for Doug Cooper and his good taste in attorneys.
    Aline watched as Eve's long graceful hands booted up the computer. A few minutes later the list of clients had been printed out and she had moved onto the business of the mysterious artifacts. She was opening a safe in the wall that had been hidden behind a rather hideous abstract painting. Aline's only thought was that it wasn't exactly an original hiding place for a safe.
    "Doug's real love was archaeology. He traveled all the time. On digs, you know," Eve said.
    "Alone?" Aline asked.
    She shook her head; it made her shiny black curls bounce. "No, I don't think so. Sometimes I think Ed Waite went along. He's head of the archaeological foundation here on Tango. Maybe Ted Cavello went, too. I don't know."
    "You didn't go on the digs?" Murphy inquired.
    "No. He just got home from his last trip a couple of days ago."
    "Where'd he go?" Aline asked.
    "Somewhere in Colombia, I think."
    You think? You don't know?
    The door to the safe swung open. Inside were ceramic statues of animals and people, of birds and plants, and all of it smelled of antiquity. Eve held up a ceramic necklace, a plate, utensils, stuff so ancient that Aline was certain it would dissolve to dust before it was returned to the safe.
    "Impressive," remarked Murphy.
    "Yeah, I guess," Eve replied.
    "Is this all of it?" Aline asked.
    "As far as I