Jake barked a short laugh. “He’d have figured that out without your help.”
“Maybe so. But I gave that boy some of the best data points of his life.” I held up my device: a “D” battery with a length of wire taped to the terminal ends. “Ta-da,” I said, in my best Wall-E imitation. “Touch it.”
His heavy brows knit together. He gingerly touched the wire and then quickly let go. “It’s hot.”
“And it’ll get hotter.” I took his mug and set it on the dash. Dangling the wire inside the mug, I maneuvered the setup so as to wedge the battery tightly between cup and windshield, holding the contraption firmly in place. “What do you think?”
Jake tipped his head to the side, regarding the device as if it were an exotic insect he didn’t know whether to keep or crush. He shrugged. “It might not be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. That’ll work, will it?”
I nodded. “The coffee will get hot. I guarantee it.” It would, in fact, get hot but not because of the small amount of energy coursing through the wire. Shorting out a single “D” battery wouldn’t do much more than make the thin metal hot to the touch. The intense sunlight streaming through the windshield and reflecting off the bare dash would warm his coffee on its own, not to boiling, but enough to shut him up about my going for more. After all, what good is a working knowledge of the laws of the universe if you don’t use it to indulge in a little harmless naughtiness now and then? Of course, I was so going to rag him about it later. I would wait to find the perfect time to let him know he’d been had, which requires a certain amount of finesse. And a physical distance much greater than arm’s length.
As I relaxed into my seat, I noticed black smudges on my fingertips. “What’s this?”
“Looks like soot,” Jake said.
“Probably from the toolbox.”
“Not from my toolbox, I guaran-fucking-tee you that. I keep my tools clean.”
“And it’s not on the wire, the cutters, or the tape. Look. It’s on your mug, on the bottom. Did you set it down on something at work? You’ve got a little smudge on your sleeve, too.”
Jake looked down at his sleeve. He spit on the mark and then rubbed it away with his fingers. “There. All gone. Happy now?”
“Eeeew,” I said.
“A little spit solves everything. Here, let me help you.” He spit on his hand and reached for my soiled fingers.
I jerked my hands back, hurriedly rubbing the smudges off on my jeans. “No, thank you! God, you are such a pig.”
His eyes twinkled. “I thought I was evil.”
“You are an evil pig.”
He nodded. “I aim to please.” He retrieved his magazine and said, “Now, how about my Slim Jims?” Then his cell phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID before answering. “Yeah, Max. What’s up, tahyo?”
I humphed in aggravation. Maxwell Hunter was Jake’s best friend and his partner during their days as Louisiana cops. Hunter now owned the most successful detective agency in Chicago. He was rich, savvy, and built like a pro football player. He was twenty years my senior but still way hot: big, bad wolf’s younger, buffer brother. On the other hand, he treated me like an annoying ten-year-old and that mitigated against my attraction. Most of the time.
Jake’s eyes lit up at my expression. He mouthed, silently, “Should I send him your love?”
I gave him a simple, one-finger salute.
“No, I’m not laughing at you,” Jake said into the phone. “The babbette’s being a brat.” Pause. “Yeah, she’s still with me. For now.” Pause. “Ah, she’s not that bad.” After a moment, he laughed, then looked me up and down. “Uh-huh, she is. I have to give you that. But somebody’s got to watch out for her.”
I sat up straight. “Yes, I am what? What is he saying about me?”
Jake shook his head, still grinning. “Okay, Max. No sweat. I got the tickets. I’ll meet you at Spanky’s at four. Beer’s on you this time. Catch you later.”
I crossed my arms again as he hit the “end” button. “I can’t stand that guy,” I said.
“If you weren’t always such a smart-ass with him—”
“Smart-ass? Me? When am I ever a smart-ass?”
Jake’s eyes shot wide open as if I’d tried to deny that cosmic background radiation was two-point-seven-three Kelvin, or something equally irrefutable.
“Well, okay, maybe I am occasionally—”
“Occasionally?!”
“All right, all right. But he starts it! That patronizing way he calls me ‘Angel.’ And you know what he did? You want me to tell you what he did?”
“Not really. But that won’t stop you, will it?”
I threw my arms up. “He told me, point blank, that I’m not qualified for this job.”
Jake shrugged. “You aren’t.” He held up a hand to silence my protest. “Sorry, petite. You may know that science shit, but tech smart ain’t street-smart. You still got a lot to learn.”
“Hey, I may be starting out, but investigative work is in my veins. My great-great-however-many-times-over-Aunt Kate—”
Groaning, Jake rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Oh, Christ, not the Aunt Kate story—”
I held my head higher. “Kate Warne! This country’s first female detective—”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’ve heard this story a thousand—”
“Hired in 1856 by Allan Pinkerton, forty years before women were allowed to join the police force. Pinkerton, ‘The Eye’ himself, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, motto: ‘We Never Sleep.’ The man who invented private investigation as a profession—”
Jake held a hand up. “I know all this. Do we have to—?”
“Then one day, my great-great-whatever-Aunt Kate walks in to a one-man office in Chicago, just like I did not six months ago, and asked for a job, just like I did—”
“You demanded a job.”
“And just like I did with you, she won Allan Pinkerton over with her eloquent arguments—”
“More likely she nagged him into submission just like you did to me.”
“—and went on to help him form the greatest detective agency the world has ever known!”
Jake rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Please, God, shut her up.”
My heart sped up as I plowed on. “Then, practically single-handedly, she solved the infamous Adams Express robberies. Posing as a convict’s wife, she ingratiated herself into the confidence of the dastardly embezzler—”
He barked out a laugh. “Enough! Dastardly? Petite, no more Classic Movies Channel for you. And I know the story. Mrs. Naidenheim in the office downstairs knows the story; Mr. Keeper in the office upstairs knows the story; everyone in that drafty, Victorian, code-violation-we-call-an-office building knows the goddamned story. And you can spout that destiny crap all you want. But the truth is, you’re an overeducated babbette who needed a job, any job, because your mother cut you off for running away from school.”
I tried but just couldn’t keep the self-indulgent pouting out of my tone. “I didn’t run away. I’ll go back to finish my doctorate, eventually. I just want more out of life right now. I’m fed up with serving as slave labor to tenure-obsessed, bipolar, chronically cheesed-off professors! I need a break. And my mother is being ridiculous.”
“She’s the fucking chair of the fucking physics department of fucking Yale. I’m betting she doesn’t know how to be ridiculous.”
“That’s not exactly how her business card reads. But, yes, she’s … accomplished.” I felt my jaw tighten and deliberately yawned to loosen it. “In fact, she’s brilliant, and cultured, and beautiful. And I’m a poor knockoff. Okay? I’ve admitted it. I’m a shadow of her glorious self!”
“I didn’t mean—”
“But that doesn’t make her right all the time. And even if it did, I’m not her! And I don’t want to be like her, or the rest of my family. With the single exception of my father—God rest his soul—they’re all just a bunch of deskbound academics; think first,
act never. Never getting out there and … well, like you’d say, grabbing life by the balls like Aunt Kate did. Like my dad did.” I slammed my left fist into the palm of my right hand.
“Well, I’m not like that! I’m not afraid to grab life’s balls no matter how big and hairy and … blue and … um, uh … okay, that’s probably as far as I should go with that analogy.”
Jake shifted in his seat, seeming both bemused and pained. “Yeah, probably.” He exhaled deeply. “Christ Almighty, kid. I’d rather spend ten minutes in the ring with Lennox Lewis than five getting the shit beat out of me by you and your words. I swear the way you go on wears a man out.”
I squared my shoulders. “From where I come, my manner of speaking is standard. Ergo, if one were to say—”
Jake shot me a sour look.
“I guess if I want to be taken seriously, I should stop saying things like ergo, huh?”
“Fucking A.”
“Okay. I can do that. So who’s Lennox Lewis?”
Shaking his head, he said, “Never mind.” Then his eyes narrowed, and he tipped his head, glancing at the rearview mirror. “Well, what do we have here?”
I twisted toward the back window. One of our targets approached: the cheating husband. To be honest, he looked harmless enough to me: kind of geeky really. He was rail thin and gangly, with pronounced cheekbones and protruding ears, large eyes, and one of the biggest Adam’s apples I’d ever seen. He reminded me a little of Alfie, my youngest brother’s best friend, who spent most of his visits trotting on my heels, asking if he could “help” with anything. I was always half tempted to throw a stick to see if he’d actually fetch it. Blast from the past, notwithstanding: finally, some action!
“Christ in a crunch!” I said.
Jake groaned. “Crutch. It’s Christ on a crutch. Don’t you even know how to swear?”
“Apparently, I’ve yet to master the rudiments of blasphemy. You can teach me later.” I grabbed the door handle. “After we get this guy.”
Jake reached over me and held the door shut. He nodded toward the front of the car. “Hang on. Let’s give her a chance to spice the roux.”
A woman approached from the other direction. I’d been expecting full-out Trailer Park Barbie, but she looked more like a young executive, or at least like someone trying to be one. She was pretty enough, in a wanting-to-look-fashionable way. Her plum dress fit snugly enough to call attention to her figure but not so tightly as to shout. Her makeup was subtle. But still the dress was a bit too short, and the hair a bit too red. I half turned to face Jake. “Why would they meet in an alley?”
Jake watched the woman intently. “Don’t know. Maybe he likes getting his pecker lubed where he might get caught. Some people are like that.”
“I’ll have to defer to your expertise on degenerate behavior.”
“Hush. Get your game face on.” He nodded at the rearview mirror, his eyes solemn and focused. All business.
I leaned forward, adjusting the rearview to reflect our targets. Jake laid a beefy arm across the back of the seat, positioned himself to see the couple through the passenger’s side mirror, and leaned in. Jeez, I wish he hadn’t had so many onions on his burger. I relaxed into the seat, maintaining my line of sight.
My breathing turned shallow and quick. This was it! Here I sat in a stinking, rust-bucket of a car with a weather-beaten ex-cop stalking two human beings. Okay, so we were trying to catch them with pants down and dress up. But, it was life! Let’s see Mom do this.
“What’s going on?” I whispered. “I don’t see where he went.”
“Shhhh.”
“But—”
Jake dug his fingers into my stomach, forcing a burp out of me.
“Pardon me,” I said.
We watched for several more moments, and, just when I could almost feel my molecules vibrating, Jake looked down at me. My face flushed with excitement, I said, “Now?”
He smiled, his tone softening. “Got the blood going, eh? Well, don’t let it distract you. Listening to the blood rush in your ears will bite you in the ass every time.”
“The physiological impossibility of such a mixed metaphor aside, I’ve got it. But we need to get a picture, and I bet this guy’s performance won’t push the limits of an egg timer.”
Jake grabbed a wrinkled, tan suit jacket from the back seat and shrugged it on over his shoulder holster. “They went into the alley. Get the camera.”
I pulled Jake’s thin digital Konica out from under my seat. With a surprising fluidity, he exited the car, then strolled across the street. As I got out, I caught his Swiss Army knife—I’d forgotten I’d had it—just before it tumbled to the ground, stuffing it into my jeans. I trotted after him like an over-caffeinated Chihuahua tailing a mastiff.
We rounded the corner, and Jake stopped suddenly. I crashed into him and, leaning around, I looked into the empty alley.
“Where did they go?” My voice bounced off the brick walls.
Jake sliced a hand through the air, his expression wary. I swallowed hard.
The alley in which we stood may have dated back to the twenties and may have sheltered many a mobster among its trash cans, rat droppings, and cigarette butts, but the cans had long since been replaced by city bins. Flyers for local bands on their fifth name change and last hope littered the ground. The purpose of the alley clearly hadn’t changed: it disappeared people.
Jake’s right hand slipped inside his coat. I hung the camera over my shoulder and reached around to pull the nine-millimeter I’d bought just last week from the waistband of my jeans. The gun’s stock was hot in my hand and slick with back sweat.
Jake’s eyes went wide. In a harsh whisper, he said. “Where the hell did you get that? You can’t carry a gun, especially concealed! Are you trying to lose me my license?”
“But—”
“Put it away!” he said through gritted teeth. “Damn it, if that’s all the brains you’ve got, I made a mistake trusting you.”
I grimaced, my face flushing with chagrin. “All right! Don’t burst a blood vessel.” I stuffed the pistol back into my waistband.
Jake’s eyes hardened. “Can it. Something’s fucked up here.”
My shoulder muscles bunched up, and I tried to shake them out. One thing was clear: Jake was worried. And what chance do you have, Madison, my girl, against something that can spook a man like him? I chewed my lower lip. “Where do you think they went?”
Jake kept his right hand under his coat. With his left, he pointed to a wooden door a third of the way down the wall. A flyer tacked to its weather-scarred face rustled lightly.
“We checked that entrance days ago,” I said. “It’s blocked from the inside, remember?”
“Well, either it’s been cleared or Scotty beamed them up.” With a jerk of his head, Jake motioned me forward. Fighting a burbling urge to run, I scanned his stern face. He smiled faintly, as if to say it’s okay. But his ramrod stance and hard eyes said it wasn’t.
Steeling myself, I walked to the door. An off-white sheet of wide-ruled paper had been folded in half and fixed in place on it. A piece shaped like an isosceles triangle was missing from one corner. As I turned it, the sunlight caught the torn edge, and I detected a faint silvery gleam. “What do you think it is?”
Jake came up beside me. “Read it.”
I snatched it from the door. “It says: ‘Nice to see you, Big D. Save me a place in hell.’ What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jake whipped out his gun before I’d finished my question. A sharp crack blasted. Jake jerked and then grimaced. Stumbling forward, he slammed me into the wall. The breath burst from my lungs. I stared, dumbfounded, as his body slid to the pavement, landing with a gut-wrenching thud.
The paper floated from my hand and followed him to the ground. The sight of it kicked my brain into gear. I yanked my gun out of my waistband, throwing myself off balance, falling hard against the door. Searing pain tore through my right shoulder. Cold hit me like a river
of ice, needles of pain stabbing me. I dropped to my knees and tasted blood.
The world disappeared.
CHAPTER TWO
Finally, they’d gone—the nurses, doctors, police—leaving Jake and me in his small, darkened ICU room filled by the hum of air conditioning, the rhythmic hiss of oxygen, and the beep, beep, beep of his heart monitor.
Inhaling the bitter tang of antiseptic, I stared at him from the end of his bed, gripping the rails at his feet, trying to keep it together. Anguish and anger bubbled up inside me. I tried to shove them down yet again, scrubbing off the tears and wiping my nose with the back of my hand. Pain seared my right shoulder. I reached up to touch the bulge made by the thick bandages beneath my hospital shift. They covered the wound I’d gotten from falling on a nail sticking out of the doorframe in the alley. It had punched through almost three inches of flesh and nicked my clavicle. I suppose I should be grateful it merely hurt like hell and was a long way from life-threatening. But seriously, to have passed out from fear? How pathetic can you get?
I shook my head, struggling to wrap my dazed brain around what had happened. My mind wandered back to a day three months ago when Jake had tried to teach me how commonplace were the mindless, cruel acts that so-called civilized humans perpetrate on each other. He and I had been standing outside of the courthouse downtown. He’d just testified in a case against a man who’d been convicted of killing his neighbor over running his lawnmower too early on Saturday mornings. I remember standing there, eating street-vendor peanuts in the cool spring sunlight. “You have to admit,” I’d said. “The logical decision would’ve been to destroy the lawnmower.”
Jake dug into the brown bag, coming out with a handful of nuts. Crunching down, he said, “Fucking morons don’t make logical decisions. If fucking morons made logical decisions, they wouldn’t be fucking morons, would they?”
“Well, I can’t argue with that.” I stared up at a plane descending toward O’Hare, waiting for the roar of its passing to subside before continuing. “It still surprises me that the killer was absolutely convinced it wasn’t his fault, that the other guy made him angry so it was his fault.”
The Last Best Lie Page 2
