Roses Are Red

eightysomething-year-old grandmother.
    This was so good. Jannie, Damon, little Alex, and I were greeting everybody on the front porch as they arrived. Alex was in my arms, and he was a very social little baby. He had happy smiles for everyone, even for my partner, John Sampson, who can scare little kids at first because he’s mammoth — and
scary.
    “The boy obviously likes to party,” Sampson observed, and grinned broadly.
    Alex grinned right back at Two-John, who is six-nine and about two hundred fifty pounds.
    Sampson reached out and took the baby from me. Alex nearly disappeared in his hands, which are the size of catcher’s mitts. Then Sampson laughed and began to talk to the baby in total gibberish.
    Christine appeared from the kitchen. She joined the three of us. So far, she and Alex Jr. were living apart from us. We hoped they would come join Nana, Damon, Jannie, and me in this house. Just one big family. I wanted Christine as my wife, not just as a girlfriend. I wanted to wake little Alex in the mornings, then put him to sleep at night.
    “I’m going to walk around the party with little Alex. Shamelessly use him to pick up pretty women,” Sampson said. He walked off with Alex cradled in his arms.
    “You think he’ll ever get married?” Christine asked.
    “Little Alex? The Boy? Sure he will.”
    “No, your partner in crime, John Sampson. Will
he
ever get married, settle down?” It didn’t sound like it bothered her that
we
weren’t.
    “I think he will — someday. John had a bad family model. His father walked out when John was a year old — eventually died of an overdose. John’s mother was a drug addict. She lived in Southeast until a couple of years ago. Sampson was practically raised by my Aunt Tia, with help from Nana.”
    We watched Sampson cruise the party with little Alex in his arms. He hit on a pretty lady named De Shawn Hawkins, who worked with Christine. “He really
is
using the baby to hit on women,” Christine said in amazement. “De Shawn, be careful,” she called to her friend.
    I laughed. “Says what he’s going to do, does what he says.”
    The party had started around two in the afternoon. It was still going strong at nine-thirty. I had just sung a duet with Sampson, Joe Tex’s “Skinny Legs and All.” It was a howling success. We got a lot of laughs and playful jeers. Sampson was starting to sing “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything.”
    That was when Kyle Craig from the FBI arrived. I should have told everybody to go home — the party was all but over.

Chapter 4
    KYLE WAS CARRYING a colorfully wrapped and ribboned present for the baby. And he had balloons! The gifts didn’t fool me. Kyle is a good friend, possibly a great cop, but he isn’t social and avoids parties as if they were viral diseases.
    “Not tonight, Alex,” Christine said, and she suddenly looked concerned, maybe even angry. “Don’t get involved in some scary, terrible case. Please, Alex, don’t do it. Not on the night of the christening.”
    I knew what she meant, and I took her advice, or warning, to heart. My mood had already darkened.
    Goddamn Kyle Craig.
    “No, no, and no,” I said as I walked up to Kyle. I used my index fingers to make a cross. “Go away.”
    “I’m real happy to see you, too,” Kyle said, and beamed. Then he gave me a hug. “Multiple homicide,” he whispered.
    “Sorry, call back tomorrow or the next day. This is my night off.”
    “I know it is, but this is particularly bad, Alex. This one has really struck a nerve.”
    While he was still holding on to me, Kyle told me he was in Washington only for the night and he badly needed my help. He was feeling a lot of pressure. I told him no again, but he wasn’t listening, and we both knew it was part of my job to assist the FBI on important cases here. Also, I owed Kyle a favor or two. A few years back he’d let me into a kidnapping-and-murder case in North Carolina when my niece disappeared from Duke University.
    Kyle knew Sampson and a few of my other detective friends. They came over and chatted with him as if this were a social visit. People tend to like Kyle. I do, too — but not now, not tonight. He said he had to peek in on little Alex before we talked business.

Chapter 5
    I WENT ALONG WITH KYLE. The two of us stood over the Boy, who was now asleep amid colorful stuffed bears and balls in a port-a-crib in Nana’s room. He held on to his favorite bear, which was named Pinky.
    “The poor