Cat and Mouse

Baptists,” I whispered to her. “You know they raise hell, but you can’t ever catch them at it.” Rosie purred agreement and chuckled to herself. We’re friends like that.
    When I finally came downstairs, I got “the business” from my kids. Even Rosie joined in the fun, racing around the living room like the family’s designated cheerleader.
    “You look so nice, Daddy. You look
beautiful.
” Jannie winked and gave me the A-OK sign.
    She was being sincere, but she was also getting a large charge out of my “date” for the night. She obviously delighted in the idea of my getting all dolled up just to see the principal from her school.
    Damon was even worse. He saw me coming down the stairs and started giggling. Once he started, he couldn’t stop. He mumbled, “beautiful.”
    “I’ll get you for this,” I told him. “Ten times over, maybe a hundred times. Wait until you bring somebody home to meet your pops. Your day will come.”
    “It’s worth it,” Damon said, and continued to laugh like the little madman that he can be. His antics got Jannie going so bad that she was finally rolling around on the carpet. Rosie hopped back and forth over the two of them.
    I got down on the floor, growled like Jabba the Hut, and started wrestling with the kids. As usual, they were healing me. I looked over at Nana Mama, who was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. She was strangely quiet, not joining in as she usually does.
    “You want some of this, old woman?” I said as I held Damon and lightly rubbed my chin against his head.
    “No, no. But you’re sure nervous as Rosie tonight,” Nana said and finally started to laugh herself. “Why, I haven’t seen you like this since you were around fourteen and off to see Jeanne Allen, if I remember the name correctly. Jannie’s right, though, you do look, let’s say, rather dashing.”
    I finally let Damon up off the floor. I stood and brushed off my snazzy dinner clothes. “Well, I just want to thank all of you for being so supportive in my time of need.” I said it with false solemnity and a hurt look on my face.
    “You’re welcome!” they all chorused. “Have a good time on your date! You look
beautiful!
”
    I headed out to the car, refusing to look back and give them the satisfaction of one final taunting grin or another rousing another rousing huzzah, I did feel better, though, strangely revived.
    I had promised my family, but also myself, that I was going to have some kind of normal life now. Not just a career, not a series of murder investigations. And yet as I drove away from the house, my last thought was,
Gary Soneji is out there again. What are you going to do about it?
    For starters, I was going to have a terrific, peaceful, exciting dinner with Christine Johnson.
    I wasn’t going to give Gary Soneji another thought for the rest of the night.
    I was going to be
dashing
, if not downright
beautiful
.

Chapter 16

    K INKEAD’S IN Foggy Bottom is one of the best restaurants in Washington or anywhere else I’ve ever eaten. The food there might even be better than home, though I’d never tell Nana that. I was pulling out the stops tonight, trying to, anyway, doing the best I could.
    Christine and I had agreed to meet at the bar around seven. I arrived a couple of minutes before seven, and she walked in right behind me. Soul mates. So began the first date.
    Hilton Felton was playing his usual seductive-as-hell jazz piano downstairs, as he did six nights a week. On the weekends, he was joined by Ephrain Woolfolk on bass. Bob Kinkead was in and out of the kitchen, garnishing and inspecting every dish. Everything seemed just right. Couldn’t be better.
    “This is a really terrific place. I’ve been wanting to come here for years,” Christine said as she looked around approvingly at the cherrywood bar, the sweeping staircase up to the main restaurant.
    I had never seen her like this, all dressed up, and she was even more beautiful than I had thought. She had on a long black slip dress that showed off nicely toned shoulders. A cream-colored shawl fringed in black lace was draped over one arm. She wore a necklace made from an old-fashioned brooch that I liked a lot. She had on black flat-heeled pumps, but she was still nearly six feet tall. She smelled of flowers.
    Her velvet brown eyes were wide and sparkling with the kind of delight I suspected she saw in her children at school, but which was absent on the faces of most