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The man finally got hold of each of her wrists. She tried to move them and screeched when she couldn’t, then hurled a string of expletives at him that could have peeled paint from the walls. I kept expecting someone to come running to see what was going on, but I guess all the noise up front drowned it out.
Eventually, she stopped. She stood there, glaring at the man and sniffling.
He waited a few moments, then let go of her. “Don’t ever do that again,” he said.
“Men.” She hurled the word at him like an accusation. “I hate you. All of you.” She marched toward the door. I went back to leaning casually, and she stormed past without even a glance in my direction.
There was a quieter exchange I couldn’t make out between the other two. After a few seconds, I went inside.
The man had close-cropped, dark hair, and a beefy triangle of torso, with broad, well-developed shoulders tapering down to a trim tummy and hips. He surveyed me with a puzzled, wary expression.
“Bruce Schaeffer?” I asked.
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m Sam McRae. Melanie Hayes’ attorney.”
He gave me a cold stare. “Well, that’s nice. What the hell do you want?”
I sensed he would have been less polite if I’d been a guy. He had a round, boyish face, but he was no pushover. His arms were corded with muscle. His yellow T-shirt hugged tight, revealing a ripple of perfect abs.
The woman stood off to the side. Her back was to the storage closet, so her face was in shadow, but the light played off her tousled, honey-blonde hair. She had a chunky frame squeezed into a pair of jeans and a skin-tight shirt with a scoop neck that revealed an awning of cleavage.
“I’ve been having a hard time reaching Melanie,” I said. “I wondered if you might know where she is.”
“Are you shittin’ me?”
“You haven’t by any chance seen her? Or spoken to her?” The caller ID had clearly shown his number. I wanted to ask him why, but I didn’t want to get into how I knew about the call.
His mouth twisted into a contemptuous grin. “Like I have any reason to talk to that bitch after what she did to Tom.”
“She wouldn’t have thrown him out if he hadn’t hit her,” I said.
“Throwing him out did him a favor. I’m talking about how she whacked him.”
“Hold on,” I said. “You don’t know she did that.”
“Right.” He muttered something that sounded like “fucking lawyers,” and then said, “Excuse me,” and walked off.
I watched him leave, then turned to the woman. “That went well.”
She smiled. “He’s a little sensitive about Tom right now.” She had a three-pack-a-day voice. “They were friends. And he found the body in his own apartment.”
“That is horrible,” I said, trying to ingratiate myself a little. “I certainly didn’t mean to offend.”
“You’re just doing your job.”
“I couldn’t help but notice that little scene with the other woman. What was that all about?”
She shrugged. “Beats me. I just work with Bruce.”
“Did you know Tom, Ms. ...?”
“Rhonda. Rhonda Jacobi.”
As she stepped forward, I got a better look at her face and flinched when I saw the scars. Plastic surgery had smoothed some of the damage, but the right side of her face carried the evidence of burns. Tragic in itself, but even more so when you looked at the other side, which was flawless. I felt awful about my instinctive reaction, but either she hadn’t seen it or chose to ignore it.
“I know he was friends with Bruce,” she said. “Can’t tell you much else.”
