Velvet Ropes

by Patricia Rosemoor

  She watched him sleep for a while, before her lids drifted shut again. A little more sleep and sweet dreams, she reflected, before they had to come back to reality.

  Everything was about to change, she thought hazily.

  She had to report the threats and the attack. She had to keep Logan out of it. No reason she had to admit the prints were already run on the note.

  In just a little while…

  The phone shrilled her back awake. Brilliant sunlight glowed through the high windows and streaked the bedroom area with gold, making her realize she must have slept for another hour or so.

  “Dermot…”

  But he was no longer there beside her. Focusing, she could hear the shower running behind the insistent ringing.

  Stella stumbled out of bed and grabbed the telephone from the dresser. “O’Rourke residence.”

  “Stella, it’s Logan.”

  She drew herself together and focused. “Good, I wanted to give you a heads-up. I, um, was forced to a decision last night. I need to let someone know about Manny and—”

  “Manny’s why I called.”

  A warning knot formed in the pit of her stomach. “He got himself arrested?”

  “Try murdered.”

  “What!”

  The last thing she’d expected to hear chased away any remnants of sleep.

  “He was murdered sometime during the night. His body was found a couple of hours ago. You can be thankful I pulled the case.”

  She couldn’t believe it—right after deciding she had to report Manny’s actions, among other things. Stella had expected he would be brought in for questioning. He might have cracked under expert interrogation, maybe given up a name…now that would never happen.

  “How?” she asked.

  “Knifed. And he was wearing a skull mask.”

  She gasped, “Skull…” But that hadn’t been Manny who’d attacked her the night before, she was certain. She might think the mask was a coincidence…if she believed in them. A sour taste rose in her mouth. “What about the murder weapon?”

  “Left in him. A real collector’s item, too.”

  Stella closed her eyes and already knew the answer when she asked, “The handle—was it white and carved to look like a skeleton?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Last night a man in a skull mask tried to kill me using that same knife.”

  But why kill Manny?

  “Okay, that doesn’t make sense,” Logan said. “The assumption at Area 4 is that someone from a rival gang murdered Manny. Apparently enough of them were at the Day of the Dead festivities yesterday.”

  “I know. We saw them. But that’s not it, Logan. My instincts tell me it wasn’t a gang war killing.”

  Stella quickly sketched out the attack for him.

  As she was talking, Dermot walked into the bedroom, wearing nothing but a towel. Stella flushed and felt awkward. It wasn’t supposed to be uncomfortable the morning after… Suddenly realizing that she was nude, she pulled a sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her while she explained what had happened to Dermot.

  Then she turned her attention back to Logan. “Did someone contact the family?”

  “Yeah. The parents are naturally distraught. And there’s more good news. The kid brother, Pablo, has disappeared. No clues as to where, either.”

  Stella shook her head. Poor Mrs. Santos.

  “Logan, I don’t know what to do now. After what happened last night, I decided to come in and make an official report about the threats and attacks without involving you, of course—I didn’t need to say anything about your running the fingerprints. But now with Manny dead…”

  “If that’s what you want, do it. What’s the problem?”

  She closed her eyes and replayed part of the attack in her mind.

  Skull-face fighting…knife swinging…clipping Dermot’s arm…Dermot grabbing the man’s knife hand…and when they broke free the knife in Dermot’s hand…

  When she opened her eyes it was to meet Dermot’s gaze.

  “There’s a hitch in the plan, Logan. Dermot’s fingerprints may be on the knife.”

  Logan cursed, and she watched the color drain from Dermot’s face.

  “Then they’re gonna get a match on Dermot, anyway,” Logan said. “You know they printed him when they brought him in yesterday.”

  “So we really don’t have much time,” she said.

  Only until the prints got into the system.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dermot’s situation hit him with full force. “I could be found guilty of two murders, not just one,” he said, after Stella hung up the phone.

  “You won’t be.”

  She was putting on a good face, but Dermot knew it was bravado. He read her all too easily. She was taking this personally. Rather than being better off for all her and Team Undercover’s work, his situation had just gotten worse and she was probably blaming herself.

  Not that anyone but the murderer was to blame.

  “Not making that report last night was a big mistake,” she said. “Skull-face mighta been picked up before Manny was murdered.”

  “You couldn’t have saved him, Stella. By the time anyone was looking for your attacker—”

  “But maybe I could have saved you with a preemptive strike. Now if we go in with the real story…”

  Stella pulled the sheet tighter around herself, covering more of her flesh, as if hiding it from him. Considering the various ways they’d made love the night before, he didn’t think there was an inch of her not familiar to him. So why the sudden modesty?

  Knowing she might simply be shy when not in the heat of passion—Dermot tried not to take it personally. She was distraught over the new turn of events, and he’d better concentrate on that. Getting her in cop mode was probably the best thing for her right now, even if he had other things in mind. Smelling the musky scent she hadn’t yet showered off, he was turned on all over again.

  “It would help to know why Manny was killed,” he said, putting some distance between them. Maybe if he couldn’t smell her, couldn’t be tempted to tangle his fingers in her hair once more, he could get rid of the sexual buzz that was distracting him. “Maybe Manny was ready to talk. And maybe that’s why Pablo disappeared—so he could protect his own hide. Maybe he even saw his brother murdered. So, if we find Pablo…”

  “We get the facts? An eyewitness? All our questions answered? Yeah, right, maybe.”

  Stella didn’t look convinced. Dermot knew there was something going on in her head. He could practically hear the wheels turning.

  “Where are you going with this?” he asked.

  Nope, distance didn’t matter. Nor did the sheet. He had a burning desire to distract her, which was quite obvious through the towel wrapped around his hips.

  Stella didn’t seem to notice.

  “What if skull-face meant to set you up for Manny’s death?” she asked. “Why the hell else would he leave the murder weapon behind?”

  “He was wearing gloves,” Dermot reminded her, “so what did he care if it came with him or not?”

  “Exactly. He was wearing gloves and you weren’t. But that knife was a collector’s item, worth a lot of money. If he left it behind, he meant to. That was no accident. It was planned. He knew your prints were on the knife handle, that you’d be held accountable.”

  “So you’re saying it’s a setup. Why?”

  “He could have hated Manny, figured this was a way to get rid of him without consequences.”

  “Or?” Dermot knew there had to be an or.

  “Or you were the main target and Manny was simply expendable. He could have gotten rid of someone who didn’t matter to him to make sure that you took the fall for both murders.”

  “That’s a big or.” Big enough to deflate any inclination he might have had about getting Stella back into bed.

  “I have another one.”

  Dermot was liking this less and less. “Give it to me.
”

  “What if the murderer meant to set you up for Tony’s death in the first place, not simply because you were convenient but because of some old grudge?”

  “You mean you don’t think Tony swiped my laptop—”

  “No. That’s not what I mean. The velvet ropes. Maybe their being stolen the night you were at St. Peter’s wasn’t a coincidence. The murderer could have been getting rid of two birds with one stone, so to speak, right from the first. Who have you pissed off lately?”

  “Probably a few people…but nothing worth all this.”

  “What about the past?”

  “How far back?”

  Although, why ask, when he knew where she was going with this. He’d been away at school, and then working in D.C. for years until recently.

  “Far,” she said. “Something that involved you and Tony, perhaps?”

  Dermot’s gut tightened. Only one thing came to mind, and it wasn’t something he could tell her about. It couldn’t be…

  But Dermot wondered if it was.

  The seal of the confessional was going to follow him to his grave.

  He only hoped that event didn’t come sooner than nature intended.

  WHILE DERMOT WENT to St. Peter’s to talk to Father Padilla about Manny and Pablo Santos, Stella decided to visit her cousin Frank, bring him up to speed and see if he’d gotten any more information. She met him in the auto-parts shop, where he was still waiting for his first customer of the morning.

  “I don’t like this, Stella. You’re gonna get hurt.”

  He didn’t say the obvious, that she could wind up dead.

  “So what do you suggest I do—turn my back on an innocent man?”

  “I’m gonna be a little selfish here and say, yeah. You’re too close to this thing…”

  Too close to Dermot—that’s undoubtedly what he meant. And Stella was wondering if he had a point he didn’t even know about. That is, she didn’t think Frank realized she’d slept with the man. Whether or not that was a mistake was still to be seen. But she couldn’t help but be nervous about the sudden change in her relationship with the man she loved.

  “I’m committed, Frank.” At least in clearing Dermot’s name. She would wait and see about the other. “I’m in it for the long haul.”

  Her cousin shook his head but he didn’t argue with her. Still, she felt his disapproval come at her in waves. She guessed she couldn’t blame him. She was all he had left in the way of family, at least family living in Chicago. He didn’t want to see anything bad happen to her.

  She hugged him and kissed his cheek. He hugged her back. Tight.

  “You always were a stubborn one, Star.”

  “When it comes to people I care about…”

  Realizing it was almost noon and still no customers, at least not in the parts store—a couple of cars were being worked on next door—Stella wondered how much business Frank actually got these days. The shelves were dusty, as if nothing much had moved off them in a while. Considering there were now several chain auto-parts stores in the Chicago area, a lot of the little guys were being forced out of business.

  Frank still lived nice, though, so he couldn’t be doing too badly. Or maybe he was living off the car repair and kept the auto-parts store open because he was too stubborn to give in. That stubborn thing ran in the Jacobek family.

  Coming back to the reason she was here, Stella asked, “Anything new on your front?”

  “I did some checking on Louie Z.”

  “The poker game?”

  “Not exactly. You ever wonder why Johnny Rincon never does time?”

  “Because he’s careful. He lets others take the blame. And then when he is arrested, things go wrong…like evidence disappearing,” she said, remembering the last time he’d got off, which hadn’t been all that long ago.

  “Did you ever wonder where all that bad luck is coming from?”

  Realizing he was implying Luis Zamora was more than friendly with a criminal—that he was actually a bad cop—she asked, “Where is this information coming from?”

  “One of my mechanics picked it up somewhere.”

  “That’s not good enough, Frank. Thirdhand gossip isn’t good enough to paint a cop dirty.”

  Stella hated having this half knowledge, hated the fact that part of her was tempted to believe Frank.

  “Okay, then forget it. I guess I don’t have the connections I used to, to get you good information.”

  “Or maybe you’re looking in the wrong direction. I imagine your contacts don’t have much to do with Marta Ortiz.”

  “The alderman again? What have you got on her?”

  “Nothing any more solid than what you have on Louie Z.” Gossip she overheard by accident at the Day of the Dead festivities. “Rumor has it her political coffers might not be clean.”

  “Rumors usually have some basis in fact. And that one doesn’t surprise me. Can’t trust a politician any further than you can throw one. But cooking the books and murder…they don’t necessarily go together. Besides, I don’t think Marta has it in her. A little thing like her isn’t strong enough to subdue and string up a healthy young man. And you said it was a man who attacked you last night, right?”

  “Yes, but it could be someone on her payroll doing her dirty work…or maybe even Louie Z.,” she admitted reluctantly. “At the festivities yesterday—they were huddled together, talking about something. I thought they looked pretty cozy.”

  So, was the thing they were talking about getting rid of her? she wondered. Could the masked killer have been a cop?

  “I wouldn’t take your eye off Johnny Rincon if I was you,” Frank said. “He and Tony weren’t friendly since Tony got out of the joint.”

  “Yeah, we discussed the blackmail angle there, but as much as I would like to pin Johnny with something, I don’t think this is it.” Stella let out a big breath. “I know how to do this, so why isn’t it easier?”

  “’Cause it’s personal. Personal makes doing things you don’t wanna do hard.”

  “I guess.”

  She glanced out the window again as another car pulled up to the repair shop. “Hey, did Leroy ever stop by?”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “His kids. He needs extra work to support them.”

  “He can go looking for it somewhere else then!”

  Stella whipped around to stare at Frank. What in the world had Leroy done to make her normally congenial cousin so uptight? Thinking about it, she remembered Leroy hadn’t been any more enthusiastic. Whatever—it was between the two of them—she guessed she ought to drop it.

  The bell above the door jingled as it opened. A stocky man dressed like a mechanic wandered in, saying, “Hey, Frank, I got me a list of stuff I need here a yard long.”

  “Can you wait a few minutes, Clive? I was just finishing up with my cousin, the new police detective,” he said, practically swaggering with pride.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure.” Clive busied himself looking over parts on a shelf.

  Stella took that as her cue. “I need to get on my way, but if you hear anything at all…”

  “You got it. Stay safe.”

  Frank’s words rang in her ears as she left the shop. Staying safe was definitely a priority. She simply wasn’t sure how to manage it.

  DERMOT ENTERED St. Peter’s wondering if he was wasting his time again, if the seal of the confessional would once more thwart him. No matter, he had to try.

  He found Father Padilla in his office. No receptionist sat at the front desk to announce him, and the door was open, so he walked right in.

  The priest looked up from his work before Dermot could even announce himself. “Dermot, another visit so soon?”

  But the priest didn’t sound surprised, Dermot realized. “You were expecting me.”

  Padilla inclined his head in answer, and Dermot studied him for a moment, wondering how much he knew. And how much he might say if carefully approached.

  “I’m looking for
Pablo Santos.”

  “His parents came to me, told me about his brother.” The priest shook his head sadly. “I tried to get Manny on a different road, but the lure of being part of a powerful gang was too much to resist.”

  “What about Pablo?”

  “He’s young. He still has a chance.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “If I had…” Padilla shrugged.

  “Your hands would be tied.”

  The kid had been here, Dermot thought, or he would have gotten a definite negative on that. And he hadn’t gotten a seal of the confessional speech, so maybe…

  Dermot said, “I think Pablo saw Manny being murdered and now he’s afraid for his life. If he could tell us what he saw, we might be able to get the killer behind bars. Then he could feel safe.”

  Padilla thought about it for a moment, then seemed to pick his words very carefully. “Often someone running in fear needs to find sanctuary. I’m sure you understand that concept, my son. So go, enter the church and pray for an answer. Perhaps one will be granted you.”

  He was being dismissed. Wanting to argue, to demand the priest tell him what he knew, Dermot held his tongue. Instinct told him Father Padilla was trying to tell him something without actually saying whatever he wanted Dermot to know.

  “You think I should go into the church to find my answers,” Dermot said, just to be sure.

  The priest nodded. “Pray, my son, and have patience.”

  His mind spinning, Dermot left the office and went through the sacristy and toward the entrance to the church.

  Often someone running in fear needs to find sanctuary….

  Sanctuary as a concept…as in the church sheltering someone who needed protection? A priest wouldn’t turn away anyone who sought sanctuary because he was in fear for his life. Traditionally, the priest would give him shelter, the protection of the church. Had Pablo, not knowing where else to go, asked Father Padilla for sanctuary?

  Senses alert, Dermot entered the church. He stood in the doorway, and without seeming to, scanned the area around him. The interior lights were off, but sunlight shone through the stained-glass windows illuminating hundreds of floating dust motes.