Deadly Interest

by Julie Hyzy

  I got to my doorway, and braced myself against the wall with my left hand. “I have to get into work today.”

  For a half-second I thought Aunt Lena would laugh, but her face sobered and she shook her head. “I’m making breakfast. Why don’t we try starting with that, first?”

  Over my aunt’s protests that I’d slip and crack my head open, I took a long, hot shower. Raking my damp hair backward off my face as I toweled off, I leaned toward the mirror, trying to see how bad the bump above my right temple looked. Not too bad, I decided. The steam from the shower softened my reflection, blurred the bruising, but I just knew I was going to have a shiner.

  I felt much stronger after showering. Energized, I shuffled into the kitchen, to be greeted by the warm waft of bacon, eggs, and coffee.

  “I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven,” I said with a smile, meaning it as a compliment to my aunt’s cooking.

  She snapped at me. “Bite your tongue.”

  Lucy, seated at the table, watched us both through wide worried eyes. Aunt Lena glanced her direction, then smiled at me, softening her rebuke. “I just mean that last night was too close, Alex. I’m sorry I asked you to look around at Mrs. Vicks’. If I hadn’t been so eager to have Diana move back—” Her voice cracked.

  “Everyone’s fine,” I started to say, then noticed brightness streaming in from my back porch. I glanced that direction, out the window, then up at the kitchen clock. “It’s after eleven,” I said with alarm. I’d told Bass that I planned to be in extra early this morning for a meeting about the San Francisco trip. I could only imagine his fury when I hadn’t shown up. And then I realized something else. “You missed the funeral.”

  Aunt Lena pulled out my chair and thunked a steaming plate of food in front of me. “Some things are more important, dear,” she said. “Anyhow, Moose is at the services. He came by to check on you this morning before heading out.”

  I sat, nodded and turned to Lucy. “Can you grab me the phone?”

  Aunt Lena placed a mug of coffee on the table, accompanied by a little ceramic pitcher of cream. “I already called in for you.”

  “What?” I said, a bit rattled. Nobody had “called in for me” since high school. “But I need to talk to Bass about the trip on Friday.”

  “Oh, yes, he mentioned that.”

  That sent me off-kilter. I sputtered before I spoke. “You talked to him?”

  Placing a matching platter of food before Lucy, Aunt Lena rested a hand on my shoulder. “Of course. I asked for your boss, Philip Bassett. I told him everything that happened last night. He was quite sorry to hear about it. Very concerned about you. Such a nice man.”

  Bass? I thought.

  She continued. “He wanted to know when you’d be up and around again—when he could expect you back in.”

  Okay, that was more like the Bass we all knew and didn’t love.

  “I told him you were going to see your doctor this afternoon, but I definitely let him know how badly you were hurt. He asked me if I thought you’d be able to make some business trip to San Francisco this Friday, and well, I told him no, of course.”

  “But,” I said, then stopped. The aches and soreness suddenly seemed ten times worse.

  “Don’t worry, honey. Mr. Bassett said he would find somebody to take your place.”

  Yeah, I thought. That’s exactly what I was afraid of.

  Chapter Twelve

  Late that afternoon, when the long white box arrived, I knew who it was from even before I opened it.

  “Good news travels fast, apparently,” I said to Lucy as she carried the gift into the kitchen for me to open. An envelope, tied to the large black ribbon in the center, read: “Get Well,” in gold-embossed script.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  I shook my head, and Lucy didn’t push it. Aunt Lena had just left for the hospital to check on Diana, after extracting a promise from me and from Lucy that we’d call if even the smallest thing went wrong.

  I opened the card, half-hoping the flowers were from William, knowing better. “My Dear Alex,” it read. “Had I known your plan to revisit the site of that brutal murder, I should have accompanied you, of course. I am devastated by the news that you’ve been hurt. Please call me and let me know if there is anything I can possibly do to speed your recovery. Yours, David.”

  Oh, so now it was just “David.”

  I untied the wide satin bow and lifted the lid. Rather than roses this time, he’d chosen a variety of flowers. A rainbow of roses, lilies, daisies, tulips, and a few I didn’t recognize. Picking up the box, I took a deep whiff of their scent and tried to be cheered by the gift.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked. “Don’t you think they’re pretty?”

  “Yeah,” I said, unsure. “But something about them . . . I don’t know.”

  She leaned over my shoulder to look into the box for a moment then up at me, bright realization in her eyes. “I know why you don’t like them. They smell like the wake yesterday.”

  I dropped the box onto the kitchen table. She was right.

  Lucy canted her head at me, twisting at the back of her hair as she spoke. “You seem really sad today. Can I do something for you to make you feel better?”

  I pretended to think hard. “You know,” I said, “I haven’t heard you play the piano since you’ve been home.”

  Her face lit up with such sudden happiness it broke my heart. She’d been worried about me, I knew, but up until this moment I’d lost sight of her needs in this whole mess.

  Sprinting toward the living room, she shot a question over her shoulder. “What do you want to hear?”

  “Surprise me,” I said.

  Seconds later the house filled with the syncopated sound of Scott Joplin’s “Solace.” It fit my mood perfectly, and, sitting at the kitchen table, I pushed the box of flowers to the far edge, hoping the distance would help. I wrinkled my nose again. David Dewars had probably paid a lot for this arrangement, but the smell of them turned my stomach.

  When the phone rang, Lucy was just ending her first song. “Do you want me to stop?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Standing, I took the few small steps to the phone, and wondered if my stomach muscles would ever feel normal again. “Hello?”

  “Hey, bruiser.”

  William’s voice sent a warm wash of pleasure over me. “Hi,” I said.

  “I tried calling you earlier. They said you were at the doctor’s.”

  “Lucy told me someone called.” I said, hearing the cheer in my voice. “That was you, huh?”

  “Had to check on you myself,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  I gave him a quick rundown. “I guess Lulinski doesn’t suspect me anymore,” I said with a short laugh.

  A couple of beats went by as strains of “Rhapsody in Blue” trickled in from the living room. Lucy would never be able to balance a checkbook, but she played her music with tender emotion. When William spoke again, his voice was quiet, and I had to push my ear close to the receiver to hear. “I was worried about you.”

  “I’m okay,” I said. “Plan to be back at work tomorrow.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  The sentiment made me grin, which hurt, but not so badly this time. “So,” I began, broaching the subject that weighed on my mind. “You and Caroline are headed to Frisco Friday, huh?”

  “Actually . . .” I heard the discomfort in his pause. “One of our sister stations out there invited us out a couple days early.”

  “Early?”

  “We’re taking off Wednesday morning and spending two days in Napa before we head down to San Francisco for the seminar.”

  “Napa?” Wine country. Featured in the travel sections of upscale magazines. Known for its romance. “Sounds like fun.”

  “Ever been there?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m sure I’ll have lots to tell you when I get back, then,” he said.

  I forced fak
e cheer into my voice. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  “Me too,” he said. A voice in the background called to him. “Hey, gotta run. Don’t push yourself, okay? Take tomorrow off too, if it’ll do you some good.”

  “Sure,” I said, thinking: The hell I will.

  * * * * *

  The following morning, unwilling to subject myself to the double set of stairs from the building’s gilt lobby, I’d ridden the elevator up one level to the second floor. It might have been my imagination but the elevator’s other occupants, having pushed numbers fourteen and twenty-three, sighed dramatically and said “tsk” when I got off at two.

  Good lesson, I thought. If I had a set of crutches, no one would think twice. Reminded me not to be quick to cast judgment. Things are not always what they seem.

  I let loose a sigh of my own at the prospect of dragging open our station’s heavy glass entrance doors. I pulled, feeling pressure in my sore abs, wishing a magic sensor would have whooshed the doors open for me.

  I’d gotten in extra early because I wanted to avoid the heavy commuter rush. I hadn’t taken a bus downtown to work since my car had to be impounded after having been doused with gasoline six months ago.

  My doctor wanted me to wait a couple of days before driving again. In fact, he’d strongly advised me against coming back to work so soon, but since he admitted I was merely battered and bruised, not broken, I decided to push myself. The bus ride had been jarring, but getting an early start at least guaranteed me a seat.

  Bass was in early, too.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

  Oh, the support I got from this man. “I work here, remember?”

  He perched his fists onto his hips, regarding me. “You don’t look too bad.”

  “Thanks,” I said. From Bass, that was a high compliment.

  With his small hands tucked into the sides of his steel-blue suit coat, he reminded me again of a little boy playing grown-up. One eyebrow lifted, and he gestured with his chin. “In my office.”

  He circled around to the black leather chair behind his desk as I braced myself on the arms of the chairs in front of it, lowering myself slowly, trying to feign smooth movement. If Bass noticed, he graciously pretended not to.

  He’d pulled the window’s sheers across the expanse of blue that overlooked the Chicago River behind him. They’d predicted more snow, but the sky seemed way too clear for that.

  “You could have waited to talk to me,” I said.

  Hazel eyes shot a look of disbelief across the desk. “You can’t mean the trip to San Francisco.”

  “Of course that’s what I mean. You knew I wanted to go.”

  “Your aunt said you’d be out for at least a week.”

  Frustrated, my hands shot up. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You shouldn’t be.”

  “The point is, I am. And the further point is that you should have at least waited to talk with me before making a decision to send someone else.”

  He held up a hand. “Hey, I made the best decision I could, given the circumstances. I thought you were out for a week. I even gave Gonzales the stories you were working on.” Anger crowded his features for a moment which I then read as indecision as to whether to get them back from Gonzales or not. “Besides,” he said, his voice weary with having to bother explaining things to me, “they’re leaving tomorrow now instead of Friday. You’re in no shape to travel—even I can see that. As far as I’m concerned, the subject is closed.” He looked at me with an expression that dared me to argue, then added, without feeling, “Better luck next time.”

  I wanted to let him know just how pissed off I was, but the fact remained that he had, indeed, made the best decision he could at the time. For the station, that is. I shook my head and looked away. Things happen for a reason, they say. All of this. I blew out a breath, then worked to get my face into a semblance of calm. “Okay, so I’m here now. What have you got for me?”

  He tapped a pencil’s eraser against his blotter, and spent a long moment watching the action.

  Oh, this is promising, I thought. “What’s up?”

  Tilting his head to acknowledge my question, his attention remained on the center of his desk. “You realize we have an opportunity here.”

  “For?”

  “For . . .” he let it hang, with a stare at me as though I should finish the sentence.

  I didn’t.

  “Our chance to trounce Up Close Issues and Dan Starck on a very big human-interest story.”

  “You lost me, Bass. What story?”

  He gestured, indicating my face, my aching body. “Your story.”

  I shook my head, wagging a finger at him. “No,” I said. “Not my story.”

  “You’re trying to tell me you aren’t planning to follow this through? To find out exactly what’s going on?” Bass shot me a skeptical look. “I think I know you better than that.”

  I set my mouth in a line, and formed my next words in my mind before saying them. “I don’t know who killed Mrs. Vicks and I don’t know who attacked me Sunday night. I don’t even know if the two incidents are related. The police don’t think they are.”

  “That’s what they say.” He lifted one eyebrow.

  “Bass,” I said, in my serious voice, “you know as well as I do that when an obituary runs in the paper, thieves see the deceased’s unoccupied home as an easy target. That’s what the police think happened.”

  “Uh-huh.” He smiled. “And why were you there, anyway?”

  “I drove Diana there to pick up a few things.” I shrugged. “No big deal. Just bad timing.”

  “Uh-huh,” he said again. “So you weren’t there to have a look around yourself at all? Not the least bit curious about the murder? Not trying to see if there was something in the house that the police might have missed? Something to point to the murderer?”

  I fixed my gaze out the window. A gray front appeared to be moving in. Maybe we would get the big snow all the newspapers were predicting. “You’ve been watching too much TV. I have no intention of getting involved in this one.”

  “That’s not what your aunt said on the phone.”

  My gaze snapped back to meet his. Smug amusement there. He waited me out.

  “She asked me to look into it,” I admitted. “But if you talked to her, then you know how sorry she is. She wants me out of this one. Pronto.”

  “But you’re not going to let it go, are you?”

  God damn it, the man knew me too well. “Of course I’m letting it go,” I lied. “Look at me, I’m getting a black eye. It could’ve been a whole lot worse. I don’t plan to tempt the fates again.”

  The truth was, Detective Lulinski’s accusation that I would use my connection with Mrs. Vicks to further my own feature story aspirations, still rankled. Of course I wanted to know who killed my neighbor. And I wanted to know who assaulted us at her house. But I’d felt the beginnings of rapport between myself and the good detective after the attack. The truth was important—but for its own sake, not for the station’s. Not this time.

  Tilting his head, Bass examined my right temple for a moment. “Nah. No black eye. You might get a little bruising—some green, some yellow, maybe.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m backing out of this one. Let the police handle it.”

  As if I hadn’t said a word, he continued, “And since you’re going to look into this, why not do it with the station’s sanction? We can give you lots of backup, lots of help and we’ll come out with a kick-ass story. Homegrown, you know? Sweet old lady killed in her house as she’s fixing dinner. Ace reporter Alex St. James gets attacked when she starts looking into it. This is lightning, and we can catch it.”

  I shook my head again. “Didn’t you hear me?”

  “I see a Davis award in this one,” he said in a sing-song voice. “Wouldn’t it be nice to show up your former boyfriend with a trophy of your own?”

  I boosted myself from the chair, with a
look toward Bass that was meant to be withering but no doubt fell shy of the mark when I winced in pain. “You’re dreaming, bub,” I said, heading for the door. “And in case you forgot, we’re a news organization, not an investigative service. We report what happened, we don’t take part in it.”

  “You did. Last time. And Dan Starck got the award you deserved.”

  That hurt, but I refused to react.

  He spoke to my back. “So what are you here for anyway? I gave Gonzales all your stories. You got nothing else to work on. So why not? I’m giving you all the time you need to bring this one home.”

  The worst part was that this was a silver-platter offer. I had every intention of following through this one on my own, but the station’s resources were a compelling temptation.

  Facing him again, I wondered if this was how so many trusting folks sold their souls to the devil.

  I held my hand up, but even I could see that he knew I’d acquiesce. “Let me start looking. See where it goes. No guarantees, okay?”

  He grinned with such evil cheer that I half-expected horns and a tail to sprout out as he sat there. “It’s a deal.”

  * * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, the hub began to populate as the support staff wandered in, one at a time. Jordan caught me on my way back from refilling my water at the dispenser. Still wearing her red wool coat, sprinkled with white snow on the shoulders, she blocked my path, one hand perched on her cocked hip.

  “And what are you doing here?”

  “Don’t you start.”

  “Don’t you be telling me what to start and what not to start. I know why you’re in today.”

  “Oh you do?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, pulling her coat off. I couldn’t mistake the concern in her brown eyes as she checked me out from head to toe. “How you feeling?”

  “Not bad,” I said. And it was the truth. Moving felt good. It was only after sitting for a long time that my abs stiffened up again and caused me pain when I got up again.

  I followed her to the closet.

  She shook her head when I told her about Diana, still in intensive care. Jordan’s super short hair barely registered the movement, and I wished I could carry off that carefree look with the snazzy she did. “You were lucky, girl. Damn lucky.”