Carlton grinned excitedly to himself as he stepped up to his front door later that evening, wondering what was waiting for him on the inside of the house.
He couldn't help himself as he opened the door, calling out, "Honey, I'm home!"
"Hi," Juliet said cheerfully, stepping into the front room while wiping her hand on a dishtowel that she had slung across her shoulder.
Determined to make this feel like some version of normal, Carlton went to her and dipped his head down to place a quick kiss on her lips. Not that he didn't want more then that… She had changed out of her pants suit at some point once leaving the department and was now wearing an actual long, flowing floral skirt to go with her pink top. What were those things called? Peasant skirts? Something like that… Names aside, the point was that no matter how much he never would've envisioned her wearing the ensemble, she looked absolutely ravishing in it. The fact that she was wearing his pistol-print cooking apron didn't hurt matters either.
"What smells so great, beautiful?" he asked, glancing around the room.
Juliet blushed up at him, saying, "I made a pot roast."
He looked down at her with raised eyebrows. "I could get used to this."
"You might not want to," Juliet said, turning to go back into the kitchen while he trailed after her. "I decided to play housewife a little today until I get things figured out with what to do now that I don't work for the department."
"I can see that," Carlton said vaguely, glancing around the kitchen and noticing the same things that he had in the living room. Namely, she had put some décor up around the house and most of his evidence boards were nowhere to be found. "Hey, honey, where is all of my case stuff?"
"Oh," Juliet turned from the stove to look at him, saying, "I put everything but the ones documenting your current cases in the spare bedroom; I hope you don't mind; I thought it might be an okay compromise. I figured this way it would look more homey and inviting for if and when we have visitors come over. Besides, this way the cases that you see all the time are the ones that you need to be concentrating on anyway. Oh! Speaking of which," Juliet pointed with the spoon that she held to a case file whose contents lay spread across the kitchen table amidst cutting boards and spices. "I think I may have cracked one for you."
"Which one?" Carlton asked, his eyebrows drawing together as he approached the table and scanned the copies that he had of the official documents that remained at the department.
"The Harrison Jerome case."
"That's a cold case from when you were still in Florida," Carlton said in confusion.
"Yeah," Juliet nodded, "But I guess a fresh pair of eyes might be just what it needed. It caught my eye because I thought I remembered hearing something about it back in Miami at the time it had happened, so I looked it over a few times. I didn't see where you guys had checked into his girlfriend."
"Yes, we did," Carlton said, thinking back and unearthing his memories of the case. "The woman had an airtight alibi. She was in Hawaii for her sister's wedding – and then came back to Santa Barbara to hear that her boyfriend had been killed."
"No," Juliet contradicted, her eyes bright as she came to stand beside him and held up a sheet of paper that he knew hadn't come from his file. "Not that girlfriend; the other one."
"'Other one'?"
"His Puerto Rican one night stand."
"What?" Carlton said sharply, snapping up the piece of paper. "How did we miss that there was a whole other woman?"
"Probably incompetent police work on the side of the then-recently promoted head detective," Juliet teased. He glared at her, but she just continued her explanation. "So, Harrison and his girlfriend lived in Santa Barbara, and were pretty much your normal suburbanites, but Harrison's brother was absolutely loaded."
"He'd sold some information on the higher-ups in his company to the right people," Carlton recalled.
"And used some of that money to buy a condo in Miami and a private plane that he stored with the condo," Juliet added. "Before taking pity on his little brother and sharing in the bounty. Now here's what I think happened: Harrison goes for a ride in his brother's plane; lands in Puerto Rico where he meets his one-tome mistress; they have their night together, and then Harrison goes home. Three years later, Harrison doesn't know that he has a son, and the kid's mother, who was already poor, has become pathetically destitute. Then she remembers that her son's father seemed to have some money, so she calls him up and begs him for help. He agrees to meet her, but only on his home turf, which is how the case is in your jurisdiction, but it's also why we could never find the culprit. So, anyway, the mistress comes to Santa Barbara, but she brings pictures of her son, hoping the thought of having a son will loosen Harrison's pocket strings, but all it does is make him panic."
She pointed to copies of the couple of Polaroid photos on the table, and Carlton shook his head, muttering, "We never could connect those pictures to anything."
"That's why you need me," Juliet said perkily.
"So, how exactly did this go down, if you've figured everything out?"
"He meets her late at night in the restaurant that he manages once everyone else has gone home, and freaks out when she explains that the boy in the photos is Harrison's son. The two of them fight, it gets physical. There in the back of the restaurant, which means plenty of possible weapons, and, in a panic, Ms. Puerto Rico grabs a knife and – bam – its lights out for Harrison Jerome."
"That's a nice story, Juliet, but how exactly are we supposed to check it out?" Carlton asked with a sigh.
"I may or may not have made a call or two to my old coworkers in Miami and asked them to check out some things on their end…"
Carlton threw his head back and groaned his young wife's name.
"What? It's not like I report to the SBPD anymore!"
Carlton shook his head, looking around him with a disbelieving smile on his face. "This is what you call playing housewife? It sounds to me like you've been playing detective."
"When I left the department, I went to the store, bought food, some curtains and a couple of table runners. I came home, put the pot roast in the slow-cooker, hung up the curtains, and laid out the table runners, then started shifting your boards around, which is when I came upon this case. So I guess I've done both today."
Carlton probably should have been upset, but he found that for once in his life, he couldn't be; not with Juliet, and not when she was obviously just trying to find a new place for herself because of having to quit the department.
Instead, he kissed her again, going to the cabinets to retrieve a couple of plates, saying, "Let's see if your cooking is as good as your detective work."
Reviews make my day if you feel so inclined, especially since I'm not sure how good of a job I'm doing at writing these characters. Thanks!:)