Chapter 6 – Info

Ash was mulling over the way Browning had acted with them. "Didn't you find him odd?" she asked Scribbs.

Scribbs laughed. "What? The way he hated cops or the way he loved his money? Did you hear what he said? All that rubbish about his money. Sounded to me like he was jealous she spent any of it."

Ash sighed. "He was rather graspie about it." She noticed the puzzled frown Emma got on her face. "He kept saying 'my money.'"

Emma smiled. "So dear old wifey had it all, it seems. Clothes, money, that house," she blew a long whistle. "If she was a kept woman it looked pretty grand to me!"

Ash said sadly, "But she wanted a child and he didn't."

"Got that. I suppose she might have gone looking elsewhere for affection and a willing sperm."

"One way to put it."

Scribbs made a guttural noise.

"What?"

"Do you think she might have started thinking along those lines – some other man's donation as it were?"

Ash shook her head. "How to know?"

Scribbs chuckled. "Did she attend a health club?"

Ash glanced at the file in her hands. "Yep. Name of 'Terrific Bod.' What a name!"

Scribbs slowed at the next roundabout, and took a left at the second turn. "I know it. Used to go there."

"Oh? That where you taking us?"

"Yes. There was this guy I was dating..."

"Ah."

"Don't make it sound that way for heaven's sake!"

"Well just how way is it supposed to sound, Scribbs? Hmm?"

Scribbs sighed. "He worked there for a while. Got me a trial membership for a month, but I discovered trial memberships were free, and Phil was bonking all the new girls."

"Ouch."

Scribbs nodded. "Right. Seemed like a nice guy, at first."

Ash rolled her eyes. "But he wasn't."

Scribbs got a wicked grin. "Oh he was nice… all over… just not for any lasting reasons."

Kate tried to suppress a painful smile. "He was a serial monogamist." She'd been there herself.

"Yep, for about four weeks at a time." Emma sighed. "He was lovely though – with his clothes off."

Kate had been forming an opinion about Scribbs and her own comments confirmed it. Scribbs got around. "Why are all the good men taken?"

"Like Browning?" Scribbs chuckled.

"No. Not him. I mean…" she waved a hand hesitantly. "You know."

Scribbs took in the faraway look her partner got. "I know what you mean. Dependable, steady, handsome; able to pay for the meal you just ate. Likes music."

"They don't even have to be drop-dead gorgeous; just presentable. Manners as well and books – must like books. Or ones that aren't put off by the long hours and the business we're in. Like coming home with frontal lobe* on your shoe."

"Odd sorts get off on it."

"Ugh," Ash quivered.

Scribbs chuckled. "There is that."

Terrific Bod was in a converted store front between a veterinarian's office and a South Asian eatery. Ash eyed the property doubtfully. "This it?" The brickwork was cracked and splotched with faded mortar patches, the flashing neon sign in vibrant pink with animated female forms prancing across it spelled more strip club than workout gym. The front door painted in an eye-searing shade of electric green didn't change her first impression. She shook her head at Scribbs. "Really?"

Scribbs slid out of the car. "Sorry. He was cute."

No one in the workout club, not the assistant manager, or any members, could add any real information to the investigation. Yes they had seen Jenny Browning, no they weren't friends, just knew her enough to say 'hello' to, that sort of thing. No one knew where she might have gone off to or why.

Ash flipped through the file. "What we already knew," she muttered to Scribbs. "Waste of time."

They were starting to leave when the door opened and a teenage girl waltzed in. She was pretty in a racy sort of way, but for the metal stud piercing lip and nose, and the death's head moth tat on her neck below her left ear. The girl stepped behind the desk and clipped a name-tag to her blouse above her heart. It read Kandi. "You coppers?" she asked the detectives when they were by the door ready to be gone.

"Yes, we're police detectives," Ash corrected her.

"Still looking for Jenny Browning?" the girl asked them.

Scribbs nodded. "We are. Do you know anything about her?"

Kandi tossed her waist-length dishwater-blonde hair. "You might check next door."

"Whatcha mean?" Scribbs prodded.

"Sometimes this Browning woman stayed late. Once or twice I saw her meet up with the vet'nary," the clerk said. "Me and my girlfriend seen 'em at the pub as well – more than a couple times. My girlfriend works at the Tiger Pub over on Mulberry. Good music they have late."

Ash took her name and contact info. "Thank you. Did no one ask you about her? Why didn't you come forward before?"

Kandi shook her head. "I wasn't here when the other cops came in. Only heard she was missin'. I figured I'd tell somebody," she grinned. "Guess that's you."

Author's notes:

* frontal lobe – a cross-program reference to DCI Banks where DI Helen Morton (played by Caroline Catz) complains she 'has frontal lobe on her instep' at a murder scene.