Compromised (19 page)

“
Hey
, I’m capable of preparing a meal,” I said, pretending to be offended.

“All these recipes have been handed down from generation to generation and for what? You say you can cook, then show me.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“After we’ve nabbed the shooter.”

“Hear that, Gus? You’re a witness.”

He did the balancing thing with his two open hands. “Let’s see if I understand this. On the one hand, if we find the shooter quickly, we’ll avenge Yana’s death and have closure. On the other hand, if we find the shooter quickly, we’ll have to eat a Stephanie-prepared meal. Oh gee, that’s a tough one.”

I smacked his arm. “I see that dark new alliances were formed in my absence. You do know that the penalty for treason is death.”

“Anything to keep you out of the kitchen,” he chuckled. “You’ve got a lot of strengths, but cooking isn’t one of them.”

“You look a little lonely.”

Jack Burns was sitting on the front steps in basically the same spot where Gus said he had seen him earlier. He’d changed out of his robe, but looked like a person torn and conflicted without a clear direction in life.

“You come to keep me company, Detective? Your father used to visit me when I didn’t have any other friends. He hand you the baton or something?”

Gus was down the block in the car. Burns was an emotional guy, and we thought he’d react badly if the two of us ganged up on him. I had something of a connection with him because he and my dad had been friends, so we decided I’d probably get further with him than Gus would. “Mind if I sit?”

He didn’t answer but moved over to give me room. When he did, the gauze bandaging around his wrist was visible. “What happened to you?” I said, peering at his wrist.

“Ah, that’s nothing. Work related.”

“You better be more careful. Hard to be a handyman without hands.”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’ll live.”

It was too soon in the conversation to take him to task, so I transitioned to a more generalized question as covered in the detective’s textbook on Interrogative Strategy: 101—make the subject your friend. Make the subject forget whom he or she is talking to. “So what’s going on, Jack?” I casually asked.

He made a face indicating that he questioned everything he knew about the world and felt truly helpless.

“I know that you and your wife must be coming unglued over it, but we
will
catch this creep.”

“It’s getting to the point where it’s not going to matter,” he said dejectedly. “Sofia and me . . . we’re falling apart, and I ain’t exactly the best at patching up relationships.”

“Good at carrying a grudge, are you? Me too.”

“Sofia’s the only woman who ever gave me the time of day.”

“Everyone has their shit, Jack, but if you love her, you have to fight to keep your marriage going. I won’t tell you that putting Serafina’s killer away will solve all of your problems because it won’t. I have no idea what it takes to get past a tragedy like this, but people do it. Do they wake up with smiles on their faces every morning? I really doubt it. Time may not heal all wounds, but it will make them fade into the background. I hope the two of you are going to counseling. There are several groups that support loved ones after a devastating loss.”

“We were kind of hoping to see the bastard arrested before we did anything like that. You know, first things first—getting your ducks in a row and all that. It’s been so long, though. We didn’t think we’d still be in this kind of pain almost two months after Serafina was murdered. That’s why I’m sitting here like a bump on a log. Sofia got annoyed at me this morning and took off. She’s been gone all day. I’ve been sitting here waiting for her to come home the whole day. Didn’t even do the repair job I was supposed to do.”

“Sometimes waiting is all you can do. Don’t you have any friends you can talk to?”

“Friends?” He shook his head. “The only real friend I ever had was your dad. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly the kind of guy that people gravitate to.”

I’d been tiptoeing around the question but figured he’d given me a reasonable segue. “What about your old friend Reggie?”

He turned and gave me a hard stare. “Reggie? Why would you ask about him?”

“I didn’t do it to pry, but when I went through your old police file I noticed that Reggie was one of the boys you were with the night you were assaulted. I noticed he lives close by, so I just assumed that the two of you were—”

“Tight? You think that we’re tight? Well, we’re not, far from it. We bumped into each other a few times, but we’re not friends. I did some plumbing work in the building he manages, but I’m not going to do it anymore. He only gave me the job because he saw that I was still a basket case. I don’t want his sympathy. Shoot, he only moved into the neighborhood a short while ago. Before that I hadn’t seen him in almost thirty years.” He mumbled something I couldn’t hear, something unpleasant. “You know that Reggie’s the reason I got attacked, right?”

“No. I didn’t know that. I read that you were with my father, Reggie, and a third boy named Robert Cohen just before you were abducted. Why was it Reggie’s fault?”

It took him a moment to explain and I could see that it was unpleasant for him to summon up the memory. “We were playing skully—you know, that game where you shoot bottle caps into boxes on a board you mark in the street.”

“Before my time, I’m afraid. But go on.”

“Well, we were playing and I was being a jerk, I guess. I pounded my bat on the ground just as Reggie was going to shoot and made him miss. Somehow things got out of hand and that stuttering twerp played on everyone’s sympathies. No one would walk me home.”

“And that was when you were attacked?”

He nodded sadly. “I lived in a shitty area and used to carry a bat for protection, but those two guys came out of nowhere. They jumped me, took my bat, and threw me into their van. They were men and I . . . I was a skinny kid. Guess they figured I was an easy target.”

“I’m so sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to stir up painful memories. I
am
surprised that my dad let you walk home alone.”

“He wanted to and I think he was going to, but he would’ve been late to see his girlfriend Lisa.”

My eyes widened.
Ma?
It took a moment, but then it made sense. They had been high school sweethearts. I had a difficult time fighting back tears but somehow managed.

“Hey, you all right?” he asked.

“Yeah. I’m okay. I was just thinking about my dad.”

“Those two,” he said. “It was love at first sight. I knew it, but I hated her because she was taking Frank away from us. Your dad contacted me years and years later, and it sounded like he was still trying to find the two animals that attacked me. Can you believe it? He never gave up. Your dad, he was one of the good ones.”

Ma didn’t get around to telling me the story that explained why my dad became a cop. She no longer needed to. It was his devotion to Jack Burns that made him become a cop. I could feel it in my bones.

Burns got quiet for a moment, and I assumed he too was thinking about my dad. “But you didn’t tell me—why’d you go to the trouble of looking through my police file?”

“Because, Jack I think you know something that you’re not telling me, and I thought the information in the file might better help me to understand why you wouldn’t tell the police every single thing you knew about your daughter’s murder.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would I hold back information like that?” he asked angrily. “Do you honestly think I’d protect my daughter’s killer?”

“Not for a moment, Jack, but I think you’re trying to deal with something that’s so big that you don’t know what to do about it. That’s why I stopped by today—I was hoping I’d get you to tell me what you’re struggling with.”

He stood. “Detective, I’ve got a lot on my mind—my daughter, my wife, and the bill collectors too. So don’t try to analyze me. I don’t like shrinks. I’ve seen enough of them and they’re all full of shit. They feed you pills and talk to you about brain chemistry, and Oedipal complexes and Sigmund Freud, all the while knowing that some minds just can’t be fixed. You’d think they’d have the guts to tell you important stuff like that up front and not waste your time, but I guess everyone has to earn a living. They wasted a lot of my time, Detective, and they never fixed anything, but I get along. I work as much as I can. I try to take care of my family, and I never hurt anyone.”

He rubbed his eyes. “And then some monster had to come along and attack my daughter, just like those two animals attacked me. Shouldn’t things balance out? Shouldn’t Serafina have had a better life because of all the crap I went through? You’d think so, right? But no, some people have all the luck and others . . .” He took a deep breath and wiped his nose. “Look at me pouring my heart out to you. You Chalices, I guess you’re magnets for other people’s shit.”

I was hoping he’d unburden himself but not in the way he had. I was hoping he’d tell me something valuable about Serafina’s murder, but he hadn’t. He was right about the Chalices—we were all made of the same stock. “It’s okay, Jack,” I said in a comforting tone. “I’m here to listen.”

“Look who came to see you,” Ma said excitedly as she opened the door for Gus and me to enter.

We’d just come from my interview with Jack Burns, and as usual I was starving. But the sight of this special visitor made me forget about my hunger completely. My eyes opened wide. “Nigel?” I rushed into the apartment and put my arms around the strapping psychiatrist. Nigel Twain was a gorgeous man inside and out, a dark-skinned Adonis with a mind equaled by few.

“Hello, love,” he said in his husky British baritone. “How is my dear friend?”

“Living, breathing, and busting balls—same old same old.”

He brushed my hair with his fingers. “I’m loving the Posh Spice look. All you need now is a checkered mini and go-go boots.”

I winked at him. “Gets your motor running, does it?”

“
Indeed
. I’ve always wanted to kick Mrs. Beckham’s tires.”

“Kick her tires or stuff something in her boot?”

He chuckled. “Boundaries, love . . . boundaries.”

I could see that I’d embarrassed him. “Sorry. Anyway, when did you get back?” Nigel had crossed the pond to look in on his mum, who’d been ill.

“I landed last night.”

“And how’s your mum?” I said in my best Paul McCartney cockney.

“The old gal’s doing much better, thanks,” he said. “They finally found an antibiotic that would kick the snot out of her pneumonia. I’m afraid she’ll be hoarse for a while, though. I guess that’s not all bad—she sounds exactly like Rod Stewart.”

I grinned. “No wonder you left. That hoarse voice couldn’t have been pleasant to listen to.”

“She’s made ‘Maggie May’ her own.”

Gus was waiting patiently to say hello. He stepped forward and shook Nigel’s hand. “Welcome home, Nigel. Glad your mom is on the mend.”

The boys were close now, but they hadn’t always been the best of friends. Gus was my love, but Nigel was most certainly my secret lust, the man who tiptoed through my dreams dressed in little more than a loincloth. Though I’d never cheat, Gus sensed my secret longing and had been jealous of Nigel because of it.

My two gorgeous men bro-hugged, not just because they were seeing each other after a long absence but because . . . well, I could see it in their eyes and from their expressions that they were both deeply relieved that I’d survived the shooting.

“What’s with these two wussy men? Over four hundred pounds of sinewy muscle and there’s not a dry eye in the house. What’s going on here?”

“Ah, that’s so sweet,” Ma said. “They both love my little girl.” She sighed melodramatically. “Enough of this emotional crap . . . Who’s hungry?”

Leave it to Ma to put a smile on our faces and a pot roast in our bellies. Max was awake for part of the meal, but I put him down before we had coffee—decaf for me on account of my loose screws and faulty wiring. I was dying for a cup of real honest-to-God java, but more so dying to sleep with my husband and was still waiting for the all clear from the doc. Needless to say, if I could go two months without Gus’s riveting lovemaking, I could survive a little longer without a jolt of caffeine.

“How’s Ricky?” Nigel asked.

“So much better, thanks to you,” Ma replied.

My brother, Ricky, had gone through severe emotional problems and had come a long way under the guidance of my dear friend Nigel.

“He’s like a new man,” Ma continued. “Living on his own. Working. Thank God Max came along to keep me busy. I used to spend so much time with Ricky—I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”

“I made sure he had my cell number before I left, but he hasn’t called,” Nigel said. “And that’s a
very
good sign because independence is a wonderful thing. Still, we have our monthly appointment next week, and I’ll be calling in advance to remind him of it.”

As Nigel sipped his coffee, he glanced at Ma, giving her some kind of signal.
What the?
I wasn’t going to call him on it, but I made a mental note and put it in the vault.

“Let me clear this table,” she said.

As if on cue, Gus stood as well. “You’ve been doing everything—I’ll help you.”

I gave them both a knowing sneer and waited until they’d left the room before turning on Nigel. “Spill,” I ordered. “What are the three of you up to?”

“I’m surprised the world’s greatest criminal investigator can’t figure it out. You disappeared into the night. You left your husband, son, and mother without the slightest clue as to where you were or what you were up to. On top of that, you’d just sustained a near-fatal head injury and suffered memory loss. What’s going on? I’m wondering if you haven’t lost your mind.”

I gritted my teeth. “No one gets it. They made me a prisoner in my own home—don’t go on the computer, don’t watch TV, no alcohol, no sex . . . don’t do anything, nothing at all,” I huffed. “My partner was killed not ten feet from where I stood, shot through the chest by a sniper. And they expect me to twiddle my thumbs while this assassin runs free? No sir. I don’t think so.”