Deadly Interest (4 page)

“
David Dewars,” he said.
He was more adept at covertly assessing women than most men, but I
caught his all-over glance just the same.

Mona returned, and Bass invited her to the
dance floor. I took a half-step back from David Dewars, and
fingered the low neckline of my gown with a glance William’s
direction.

He’d turned away, his attention claimed by a
group by the bar. His profile offered an expression I couldn’t read
and I thought about asking him to dance.

“
Alex?”

I turned. David opened his hand toward the
couples gliding across the shiny wood floor. “Would you do me the
honor?”

I opened my mouth to thank
him, to politely decline, when I saw William walk off, headed
toward a crowd of
Sun-Times
writers I recognized as his former colleagues.
That told me where I ranked.

“
I’d love to,” I
said.

It’d been a long time since I’d danced with
a man, and at first I found myself concentrating solely on staying
light on my feet. Soon, however, I loosened up, letting myself move
with my partner’s rhythms. He must have sensed the change because
his hand, flat against the small of my back, pulled me in closer
and he took control of our movements as though we were but one
body. David Dewars, beneath his exquisitely cut tux, felt precisely
how he looked. Solid, strong, and warm.

“
Your dress is lovely,” he
said.

“
Thank you.”

I hadn’t expected conversation, so it
surprised me when he continued. “I think Dan Starck is an ass, if
you’ll pardon the expression.”

I had one hand on his right shoulder, the
other tucked into his left hand. I leaned back far enough to make
eye contact. There was laughter there; we were sharing a joke.
Wary, I said, “He’s something, that’s for sure.”

“
Ah … being careful are
we?” he said, grinning, turning me. “Don’t worry. I can keep
secrets.” He pulled me in, his hand firm on my back, his cheek
close to mine. When he spoke, his breath grazed my ear, sending
surprising shivers down my spine. “Bass just gave me a quick
rundown about what really happened.”

“
Did he?” My voice came
out several decibels too high.

“
Mm-hmm,” he said. “I’d
love to hear the whole story sometime.”

“
Well,” I hedged, as the
final notes of the song ended and we parted, “it would be my side
of it. And it’s vastly different than Dan’s version. You’d have to
decide for yourself which story to believe.”

Still holding my hand, he stared at me for a
moment. “Did you really kill a man?”

I closed my eyes. “Bass told you a lot.”

“
Not nearly enough.” He
guided me ahead of him as we headed back toward the table. His
voice was husky as he leaned in to be heard over the next song.
“I’d welcome the opportunity to know more about you. Perhaps we
could have dinner sometime?”

Taken aback, I stopped, glancing at him over
my shoulder to decide if he was joking. And, to my great chagrin, I
stammered. “I’m not … sure,” I said.

He finally let go of my hand, turning me as
he did, to face him. “You’re a careful girl,” he said. “That’s
good. I certainly wouldn’t want to scare you off.” Taking hold of
both my shoulders, he brought his face just close enough to mine to
invade my personal space. Resisting the urge to push away, I caught
a twinkle in his dark brown eyes.

“
It’s the ones who get too
close, too fast, you have to be afraid of,” he said, winking.
“We’ll do lunch instead. It’ll make you feel safer.” He held me a
half-second longer. “I’ll call you, is that all right?”

I opened my mouth, with no idea what I was
about to say.

Not that it mattered.

With a grin and another wink, he was
gone.

* * * * *

The Davis Award celebration was still
blazing in rowdy elegance when I decided to duck out at ten-thirty.
Enough was enough, and if one more person were to make a “little
engine” comment, I knew I would embarrass myself. I reasoned that
it was better to go home, kick off the dress that hadn’t had any
effect whatsoever on its intended target, and catch some
much-needed sleep.

To my great surprise, William followed me
out.

He walked with me through the quiet parking
lot, giving me a “we’ll get ’em next time” pep talk. Behind us, the
pillared entryway stood bathed in hazy light, with glittery people
milling about outside, catching their smokes. The sounds of them
chatting and laughing faded as we made the long trek to my car.

Having arrived so late, the only spot I’d
been able to find was in the lot’s farthest reaches, where pavement
met farmland. Our slow pace and the buzz of high-beam lights in the
foggy March night gave me the first feeling of freedom I’d had all
evening. I took a deep breath of the cool dampness, finally feeling
myself relax.

“
What did you think of
David Dewars?” I asked as we reached my Escort.

William shrugged, his gaze on the clouded
moon. “Not much.” Moving closer, as I fitted my key into the door,
he added, “But then again, I didn’t dance with him.”

“
Oh,” I said. My voice
would have gone perfectly with eyelash-batting, but I exercised
restraint. “You noticed.”

“
Of course I
noticed.”

I thought I detected a note of jealousy in
his reply—but it was probably just my wistful imagination.

Stillness settled in around us like a
conspiratorial cupid and the very air felt different to me. I moved
closer to him, just a bit. Even with my spiky heels on he was
taller, and I couldn’t help but think our heights were perfect.
“Interesting evening,” I said, just to fight the silence.

“
It was,” he said, just as
blandly.

We hadn’t broken eye contact since we’d
gotten to my car’s door. I waited, hearing the swish of the wind
over the nearby wheat tips, and the beat of my heart, fast and
deep.

I thought about how easy it would be to lean
up and kiss him right now, but I couldn’t. It was his move.

His move . . . If he ever was going to make
one.

He opened his mouth and took a sharp breath,
as though to say something. But one moment later, he closed his
lips, flashed a quick smile, and looked away, obviously changing
his mind. And when his eyes came back to meet mine, there was
friendliness in them. Nothing more.

He leaned in, kissed me on the cheek.

“
Good-night, Alex. Sweet
dreams.”

Great, I thought, as he walked away. The
perfect end to a perfect night.

I wondered if he heard the frustrated slam
of my car door.

* * * * *

I’d been about to turn into my alley when I
changed my mind, deciding instead to park out front. With the way
my luck was going, I’d be hitting my remote for a half-hour and it
still wouldn’t open. One night without the shelter of the garage
wasn’t going to kill my little car.

As if to make me sorry for my words, rain
began, dropping in heavy patters on my car’s roof. I allowed myself
a long sigh. Every move today had been a mistake of some sort. No
reason to expect things to be different now.

I began to accelerate into the left turn
that took me onto my street, when I stopped short. Four squad cars
formed a rough semi-circle mid-block, their warning blue Mars
lights flashing across the fronts of all my neighbors’ brick
bungalows, flashing against their picture windows.

A female police officer approached my car,
her black-gloved hand raised to halt my progress.

I rolled my window down and she leaned
in.

“
You a resident?” she
asked. Her hat was sheathed in a clear covering and she had on a
dark raincoat, open over her uniform. Her blond hair was tucked
behind her ears and she wore an inquisitive expression.

“
What happened?” I asked,
pointing, “I live right there.”

I noticed belatedly, an ambulance parked
behind the last squad, and a crowd of neighbors all staring the
same direction, heads together, arms folded in worried fashion. I
couldn’t decide whose house it was, and all thoughts of my
miserable evening vanished as I searched the faces for family. My
aunt Lena and uncle Moose were getting up there in age. But even if
they’d taken ill, that didn’t account for all the squads.

The officer straightened and assessed the
street, shaking her head. “I can’t let you in.”

I spotted Aunt Lena breaking from the group
of onlookers, and I sighed my relief. She hurried toward my car,
waving. “This is my niece,” she shouted in a breathless voice,
pointing as she ran up to meet me. Her tan raincoat flapped in the
wind and she held a dark umbrella aloft. I noticed that she had on
her pajamas and house slippers.

The officer turned to her. “I’m sorry ma’am.
There’s nowhere for her to park.”

“
I’ll go to my garage,” I
said, then addressing Aunt Lena, “What happened?”

“
It’s just terrible,” she
said. Then, with motherly scrutiny, she asked, “You still having
problems with your door opener?”

I nodded.

“
Park in our garage. I’ll
tell Moose to open the door for you. I’ll meet you there.” She’d
turned to run back to the gathered crowd. “Just terrible,” I heard
her say again, but the rest of her words were swallowed up in the
night.

Uncle Moose met me at the garage. He’d
positioned his massive frame half-in, half-out of the structure,
straddling the threshold of the small service door, his hair a dark
wet helmet.

“
Come on,” he said with a
peculiar look on his face, as I came around the front of the
Escort. Then, “Where were you?”

“
At a big dinner.” No
sense in getting into detail. “What happened? Why are the police
out front?”

He dropped his gaze to my high heels. “You
going to be okay standing out there in those? Maybe I should get
Lee to find you something more comfortable.”

“
Uncle Moose,” I said,
with urgency in my voice, “tell me what happened.” I caught another
wary glance at my legs. Exasperated, I added, “I’m
fine.”

How many times had I said those words
tonight. And not once had they been true.

He popped open an umbrella over my head as
we trekked through the gangway that separated houses from one
another. Uncle Moose had been a professional wrestler—fairly
well-known in Chicago. Though he’d slowed down over the years, he
maintained the sort of lifestyle that kept him moving. He was
taller than my dad—heavier too. And while my dad’s hair was
beginning to fade from light brown to gray, Uncle Moose’s stayed
dark. Of course that might have had something to do with the used
coffee grounds he massaged into his head each night.

“
There was an incident
today,” he said. I could feel him choosing his words, like I was a
little girl again, like he needed to protect me.

“
Just tell me. About a
million possibilities are racing through my brain right now, and
I’ll bet they’re all worse than what really happened. So just tell
me. I’ll handle it.”

In the dark, I felt his skeptical glance
more than saw it. “It’s Evelyn Vicks,” he said.

“
Mrs. Vicks?” We were
walking pretty fast through the gangway that separated my aunt and
uncle’s bungalow from the two-story next to it. It took me
double-steps to keep up with him and I rethought the wisdom of
wearing these strappy heels. “Oh my God, what happened?”

He shifted the umbrella to his left hand and
pulled me in with his right as we navigated the narrow passageway.
I noticed he kept his eyes focused at some middle-distance in front
of him. He licked his lips, then bit them. “Somebody broke into her
house today.”

I blinked, not understanding. “That was
me.”

“
What?” His face scrunched
into a frown of confusion, but he didn’t stop walking.

“
She was locked out this
afternoon. I went in through her back window to unlock the front
door. She didn’t tell you that?”

He was about to answer when we emerged from
the shadowed gangway, and a quick gust of wet wind made me shiver.
My aunt Lena looked up from a conversation she was having with
another neighbor. She leaned in to the woman, said something, then
headed our direction.

A voice yelled, “Moose,” and my uncle
turned.

“
Talk to your aunt,” he
said, and started to walk off. A second later he came back, handed
me the umbrella and disappeared into the anxious crowd.

“
What is going on?” I
asked Aunt Lena with an emphasis on each word.

Women will tell women things; they don’t try
to hedge and protect the way men tend to. I watched resolve come
over her features. Her dark eyes tightened, making them seem
smaller within deep wrinkles. She’d been crying. Her words came out
trembling, pained: “Evelyn Vicks was murdered.”

My mouth dropped. I’d just seen her a few
hours ago. How could this be true? It seemed surreal . . . some
sort of joke.

I tried to wrap my mind around her statement
feeling like I didn’t completely comprehend. I started to say,
“You’re kidding,” but stopped myself when I realized how stupid
that would sound. All I could do was repeat the word that hit me
hardest. “Murdered?”

Aunt Lena nodded; she bit her lip. “Someone
broke in.”

Evelyn Vicks had been a good friend to all
of us for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t imagine who would
murder such a sweet, helpless woman. I shivered again, this time
from more than just the cold night air.