Devine's Providence: A Novel Read online

  At that moment, though, I wished I did have a secretary, because they could’ve reminded me I had a client coming, and maybe I should tuck in my shirt, and straighten my tie, and run a comb through my hair. But I didn’t have a secretary, and thus didn’t have a tucked in shirt, straight tie, or presentable hair. I must have looked like a crazed, bleary-eyed madman coming out of my office. Turned out postponing my appointment with Mr. Walker probably wouldn’t have made much difference.

  It did not help things, I should note, that I made the situation infinitely more awkward by not saying anything. Not a damn word, for an uncomfortable length of time. Not for lack of trying, but I couldn’t. I was left speechless at the sight before me.

  From our terse phone conversation, I was picturing someone a little more…well, I don’t know what I was picturing, but it wasn’t the vision that had shown up in my office.

  “Bombshell” was the first word that came to mind, and I was caught in the fallout. Her stunning beauty seemed to be manifesting in a visible glow, radiating from her whole body. Her knee-length black dress was straight out of a Hitchcock film’s wardrobe department. It flattered all the right spots but was still modest and professional, though the leopard print heels below it commanded just as much attention. Her right arm was completely covered in tattoos, and a pair of angel wings were inked onto her chest just below her clavicle, making the view that much more heavenly. Her oversized sunglasses did their job at concealing most of her face, framed by large old-fashioned curls of shiny raven hair.

  The last strains of “If I Should Lose You” built into a crescendo and then there was nothing but static from the old record player. My brain finally thawed enough to fire the “SAY SOMETHING, YOU IDIOT” command through its neurons. This was the time, I thought, to unleash all of the Ol’ Devine Charm on full blast.

  Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. Start schmoozing.

  Instead, I blurted out the one word my brain could come up with.

  “Fuck.”

  What the hell is wrong with you, Harry?

  Her raised eyebrows let me know that I wasn’t the only one confused by my greeting.

  “I, uh, sorry,” I stammered. I attempted to tuck in my shirt, straighten my tie, and fix my hair all at once—in my mind, this could somehow be achieved in one smooth movement—and the result was an awkward, haphazard rubbing and pulling of my clothing, hair and skin. The woman’s eyebrows remained raised high enough for a tallship to pass under. Though her eyes were still hidden behind tinted lenses, I could feel them piercing right through me as I was sure she contemplated turning on her leopard-print heels and running out the door.

  “Sorry,” I repeated, and let out a deep sigh. I allowed the absurdity of the situation to catch up to me. I wanted to say, “I know how silly I’m looking and acting, but this isn’t me, I promise,” but all that came to the surface was a comedic shrug and the sound, “Gaaah!”

  I pride myself on being prepared for most anything, so this whole introduction was a highly unusual lapse in professionalism for me. Thing was, there was no way for her to know that.

  “Fine,” she said at last, though her eyebrows didn’t descend. “I know this whole introduction is a highly unusual lapse in professionalism for you.”

  Whoa.

  “Couldn’t have expressed it better myself,” I muttered. I held an open palm to my office. “Please,” I said normally for once, “Come in.”

  She wasted no time in walking briskly past me and sitting down, ready for business. A subtle waft of sweet, clean fragrance joined my gaze in following her.

  “Mr. Devine,” she said over her shoulder, not waiting until I could enter the room after her. “My name is Chelsea Woodstern.”

  “Oh. Fuck,” I said again.

  There wasn’t a lover of the mystery or true crime genres that didn’t know Chelsea Woodstern. Originally a tabloid writer for one of the big Hollywood gossip websites, she gained national attention when she exposed a high level of corruption within the Los Angeles police department. When a young college woman was found brutally murdered, the LAPD had forged evidence to protect a partnership they had with one of the local gangs.

  Through diligent digging, researching, interviewing, following money trails, and good old-fashioned snooping, Woodstern was able to chain together a list of names of dirty cops that reached all the way to the chief’s office.

  Her hard work had paid off for her, as well as the gossip website, when the California State Police opened up an official investigation and ended up clearing house at the LAPD. All thanks to her story. Chelsea knew, like everyone else, that most of the response was just for show. She didn’t actually “clean up” the city, she only helped to put away the ones stupid enough to get caught. But it was some justice for the young woman’s death, and launched Chelsea Woodstern into journalistic stardom.

  She did not spend her fifteen minutes of fame resting on her laurels, but rather used it as a springboard. She promptly left the gossip site (despite offers for promotions and raises), and was wooed by the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Globe. But Chelsea had something else in mind, and now the platform to make it happen.

  She launched her own website, SmoothCriminals.com, and hired a small investigative team. She traveled the country, researching cold, corrupt, or bungled cases, and drawing attention to them. Thanks to the spotlight her and her team have turned on cases over the years, dozens of unsolved or mishandled crimes have gotten the attention they had lacked and the justice they deserved.

  Now in her late-thirties/early-forties (I would guess), Chelsea was as popular as ever, though notoriously private. Her weekly blog and podcast kept her followers up-to-date with all the latest developments, but she refused all interviews and speaking engagements. Her most diehard followers didn’t even know what she looked like.

  I considered myself a fan. I had been following Chelsea and her capers for many years now, which turned out to be not a popular fandom amongst my cop buddies. Her unrelenting quest to expose corruption and fraud in law enforcement, while well-intentioned, earned her the reputation of being “anti-cop.” There were those with the school of thought that saying anything negative about a police officer, deserved or not, was akin to treason. These brave men and women, the vast majority of which were honest, good cops—stuck their lives on the line every day, putting themselves in danger the likes of which she’d never seen.

  As a former police detective myself, I certainly understood the sentiment. But I knew the ultimate good she was doing: weeding out those few bad apples for a better, more honest, more efficient agency. And I couldn’t help but be downright enamored with her intrepidness. Her hypnotizing, borderline-sultry podcast voice even helped to foster a bit of a celebrity crush within me.

  And now, Chelsea Woodstern was sitting in my office, infinitely more beautiful than any image I could have conjured up on my own.

  Most cool.

  I took the opportunity while her back was to me to actually tuck in my shirt and fix my hair—properly, this time—before sitting behind my desk and pulling out a notebook.

  “So, first off, Miss Woodstern,” I began.

  “Chelsea,” she corrected.

  I could feel myself blush.

  First name basis with a star already? This was worth missing the beach for.

  “Chelsea,” I continued. Her name poured out my mouth with a bit more lasciviousness than I had intended—I had intended zero amount of lasciviousness, so I was way off. “First off, I’m a big fan. Huge.”

  She swiped off her sunglasses revealing gorgeous green eyes and I melted a little. She replaced the shades with a pair of retro cats-eye specs from her purse.

  “I kind of gathered that, Harry,” she said dryly.

  “Please,” I interrupted, “Call me Harry.”

  Damnit.

  She said nothing
, but the faintest twitch of a smirk on the corner of her bright red lips let me know I hadn’t used up the entirety of her patience yet.

  Yet.

  “Look,” I finally said, sighing. “I’m not normally this...decomposed.”

  I had been trying to think of the right word to use to say “not composed.” Noncomposed? Uncomposed? Anticomposed? Decomposed is a word, use that!

  Stupid.

  “I just wasn’t expecting to meet someone whom I admire so much. I’ve been following you for years. You’ve done so much good work, it’s hard for a fellow investigator to not look up to your tirelessness and veracity. So I apologize for getting flustered, but you have my undivided, professional attention. Now please, what can I do for you?”

  She paused a moment, scrutinizing me. At last she spoke, “Mr. Devine…”

  DAMNIT.

  “…I appreciate the dedication of all my fans. But I need to make one thing perfectly clear from the start: As I’m sure you know, I am incredibly protective of my personal life. Even of my appearance. The perks of blogging and podcasting is I can stay relatively under-the-radar. That is, until people see my name. I of course prefer it that way. So I’m hoping—insisting, actually—on nothing but confidentiality in our exchange here.”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Knowing you’re a fan, I know how awkward this must be for you, me coming in here out of the blue like this, and for that, I apologize. You’re very sweet.”

  She smiled and my heart jumped up through my chest into my throat, before melting down completely into my stomach. It was a beautiful smile, and in that moment I made it my personal mission to see it again, as much as possible.

  It would be, I thought, further bad form to giggle uncontrollably like a child, so I opted for a silent, polite grin instead, my hands clasped in front of me on the desk. My island getaway was completely wiped from my mind. At this point, I wouldn’t even be interested in seeing Block Island on a postcard.

  “Now,” she said briskly, snapping me back to reality, “to the business at hand. We’re working on a case here in Providence, and we’ve hit a bit of a snag. So I was hoping you could help us.”

  Me? Help the notorious Chelsea Woodstern work a case?

  I wouldn’t have been more surprised if Larry Bird had showed up asking me to help him with his free-throws. I was a good investigator, sure, but Chelsea was the major leagues.

  “I’m not sure how much help I could be to you,” I said. “You have the best team in the business already. But if you need a local guide of sorts, then sure, I’m your man.”

  “Nonsense,” Chelsea held up a hand. “We’ve already vetted you. I’m positive you’re the one, and as more than just a tour guide...though that’ll come in handy too, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sorry,” I interjected. “You…vetted me?”

  Her bright red lips curled up into a definite full-on smirk now. “We’re very thorough. This case requires a particular finesse that your…let’s say ‘unique’ history makes you most qualified for.”

  I bristled. I didn’t like dwelling on my ‘history’ very often, and preferred to keep it as such. I tried to put as much time between me and my past as possible—something that was getting easier with each passing year. I wondered how much of it I would have to excavate. Some things were better off staying buried.

  Chelsea must have sensed my discomfort, because she quickly changed tracks.

  “Plus, you really have the best record out of any other P.I. in the area. Great how you caught that guy out at the strip club last night.”

  My head spun a little. I guess she really was thorough with her vetting.

  “And,” she added with a wry smile, “you have by far the best Yelp reviews!”

  I snorted a laugh. It was clear that something in the meeting had shifted. I could tell she only busted out that wry smile when she needed to. She was trying to sell me on letting me on the case, not the other way around. She seemed good at getting what she wanted. But I wanted to keep my upper hand in the conversation as long as I could, before I was inevitably steamrolled again under her prowess and incredible, intense eyes.

  God damn, those eyes.

  “Well, if I take the case,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “I’m going to need a little more to go on. What are you working on?”

  Chelsea shifted in her seat and adjusted her glasses, the first tells of discomfort she’d shown since she arrived.

  “It’s a bit complicated,” she said. “And it could potentially be really big. I’d love to lay it all out for you.”

  “Lay it on me,” I quipped.

  “Not here,” she replied. “Tomorrow night at eight, if you’re free. At my hotel?”

  Holy hell.

  Questions sprang up in my mind like whack-a-moles.

  Was the femme fatale really asking the private dick to discuss a case in her hotel room? At night? Didn’t this only happen in pulp novels and film noir movies and…other types of movies? Surely it’s not what it sounds like, it’s only my schoolboy imagination, right? And since she’s the better investigator, does that actually make me the femme fatale? Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming, this is all too much.

  I decided to ask for clarification on the subject.

  “You want me…to meet you…tomorrow night…at your hotel?”

  Her phone vibrated in her purse. She picked it up and started texting furiously while she spoke, not making eye contact with me.

  “Mmm-hmm. If you can, that is. I know your schedule’s clear for the week so I was hoping you could make it. We booked a conference room and that was the only time available, sorry it’s so late. But my team’s put together a whole presentation to fill you in.”

  I’m a licensed detective by trade, so I was able to detect how much of a complete fool I had made out of myself. Luckily, I didn’t think Chelsea had noticed.

  She put her phone away and stood up, now staring at me intently.

  “Unless of course,” she said, the smirk returning, “you’d rather just come up to my room and let me seduce you.”

  I didn’t need that detective license to detect the sarcasm. I rose to my feet to walk her out.

  “I wouldn’t dare push my luck,” I said. “But I’ll see you tomorrow at eight, then.”

  “Excellent,” she said, “The Downtown Hyatt.”

  “Downcity,” I corrected. “It’s a Providence thing.”

  “Quite,” she said, swapping her specs for her shades. I was sad to see her eyes disappear behind the tint.

  I opened the door to let her out, and was surprised to see a man standing on the landing. It took me a second to recognize the guy who was my barstool neighbor not even twelve hours earlier.

  Jim looked a bit more casual and a lot more relaxed than he had in the Pink Parrot. He was leaning against the railing, hands in the pockets of his designer jeans.

  “What the…Jim?” I stammered. Something made the hairs on my arm stand up. I didn’t like being caught off guard. Something was definitely up.

  Jim smiled broadly and warmly.

  “Hi, Harry,” he said. “So tell me: The name you gave me…Sam…that was after Sam Spade, I assume?” He tugged on his ear the way Bogart did in The Maltese Falcon. He spoke with the lilt of a British accent, something that wasn’t present the first time we met.

  “Honestly, Marc,” said Chelsea. “I told you I’d be fine by myself.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Marc who? You know each other?”

  Chelsea looked annoyed but Jim/Marc/Whoever kept his ever-so-slightly smug smile plastered on his face. I was starting to feel as annoyed as Chelsea looked.

  “Someone wanna tell me what the hell is going on here? Why do I have the feeling I’ve been duped?”

  “Oh, come now, Harry,” said Marc. “We both know you were wary of me last n
ight. I couldn’t dupe you. That’s why we picked you, partly.”

  Chelsea sighed and scrunched her nose. She clearly didn’t like any information being released not on her terms.

  “Marc—Marc Winters—works for me,” she said. “He’s the best there is. Except when it entails hanging around half-naked women, apparently. You were supposed to meet him at the meeting tomorrow night, but well, here he is.”

  My face flushed with embarrassment.

  “I, uh, don’t normally go to those types of places,” I said.

  “You’re an adult. You’re allowed. It’s a free country,” said Chelsea, smiling coyly. “But yes, Mr. Devine, I know you don’t.”

  “Harry’s fine,” I said softly.

  “Sorry for just dropping in unannounced,” said Marc. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t being followed. Then I thought I owed the old boy here an explanation.”

  “Old?” I asked, being ignored by all.

  “You know I’m more careful than that,” said Chelsea. “I wasn’t followed.”

  “Is that quite right?” asked Marc. “Because you didn’t seem to notice me. And you know me better than anybody, love.”

  “You’ll have to excuse Mr. Winters,” Chelsea huffed. “This particular case has gotten him even more paranoid than normal. Anyway, I’ll see you tomorrow night. Marc, I can find my way back myself, thank you very much.”

  I held the door open and she started to go through, but stopped when she was closest to me. It was only then I had noticed that she was a good half-foot or so shorter than me, even in her heels. Up until then I had pictured her as towering over me, but I guess that was just the difference in our personalities.

  She looked up at me and furrowed her brow. How was it, I wondered, that someone so smart and so tenacious and so intimidating could be so adorable?