“Why would Dayton kill Archie?” she asked.
“I mean my meeting with Dayton. Quinton must have followed me there, seen me talking to them. He thought I might be working for Kein Mitleid—why he called me in the first place—and that meeting convinced him I must be. But here’s the thing, Felicia. Here’s what breaks my heart. Lambie. I think Archie was bringing Lambie so Quinton would play with him.” I could picture him bounding from his crate, tail wagging three thousand miles an hour. Quinton squatting a few feet away, maybe, knife behind his back. “Nice little doggie! Here, boy!” And Archie grabbing his toy, his precious little Lambie, and rushing this unexpected visitor, this unsought friend, play-growling deep in his throat.
“Ah, Ruzak. Why do you do this to yourself?”
She reached for me, and I pressed my face into the base of her neck while she ran her fingers through my hair and rocked me back and forth.
“I’m taking you home with me, Ruzak,” she said softly. “It isn’t safe here.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
“I have to stay.”
“You think he might come back?”
I shook my head and the tip of my nose dragged across her soft flesh. I breathed in her smell.
“Hoping,” I said.
“Christ, Ruzak. You say something like that and now what am I supposed to do?”
“They’re just words, Felicia,” I said.
She eased me away, popped my chest with the back of her hand. “Why didn’t you back off? Why did you have to go to that prison, meet with those racist assholes? Christ, the sicko hadn’t even done anything.”
“Maybe it’s what Farrell said. Not punitive. Protective.”
“Bullshit. You just couldn’t stand not knowing. So you tried to flush him out. What did you tell Dayton? ‘One word from someone who knows his whereabouts.’ That’s a threat, Teddy. Against a known homicidal psychopath. What did you think was going to happen?”
“If that was the catalyst,” I said, “then Dayton’s lying.”
“And it wasn’t Quinton who knifed Archie, but a foot soldier of the White Aryan Nation.”
“Stupid name,” I said. “Redundant.”
She started her car. I opened my door. She told me to close it. I told her if she started to drive, I would jump out. She turned off the engine, stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel hard. Her thigh muscles clenched, relaxed, clenched.
“Two things,” she said. “You’re not safe here tonight. If you’re not comfortable going home with me, at least check into a hotel.”
“What’s the other thing?”
“Let the cops take it from here.”
I took a minute before answering.
“Not sure I can,” I finally said.
“You wouldn’t listen to me before. Now Archie’s dead and you still won’t listen to me. Let … it … go, Ruzak.”
“I will when he does.”
“How do you know he hasn’t?”
Her hand was on my shoulder. I shrugged it off.
“They’re just words,” I said again. “Words, words, words.”
7:21 a.m.
I squinted through the peephole, then tucked my gun under my belt and threw off the dead bolt. Farrell was wearing his uniform.
“Felicia called you,” I said.
“Came straight from work,” he said. “You okay?”
“Thought I’d be more tired than I am.”
He made a sour face. “Christ, Ruzak. What’s that stench?”
“Pine-Sol.”
He looked at the floor near Archie’s crate.
“You ruined the finish.”
“It’s Google’s fault. The site said to use Pine-Sol.”
“Murphy’s would have been better.”
“I thought so, too. But I didn’t have any Murphy’s and I didn’t want to wait.”
“Kroger’s on Kingston Pike is open twenty-four/seven.”
“And I didn’t want to leave.”
“You thought maybe he’d come back.”
“Maybe he came here looking for me. What would be the best time to take another shot? Right after the cops leave.”
I asked him if he wanted a beer. He did. I did, too. It didn’t feel like morning to me. He sat on a bar stool and stared at the empty crate.
“For months, that dog would have nothing to do with me,” I told him. “I had myself eighty-three percent convinced it really wasn’t me, but something about his past. Then one day he just walks over and puts his head on my leg. Just like that. Like ‘Oh, you’re okay, I guess.’ ”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Did you tell Isabella?”
“Isabella doesn’t get up till eleven or twelve. Sometimes one or two.”
He took a pull of his Bud. “Now we know,” he said.
“Very slim possibility it’s someone else. Still leaves the conundrum.”
“The what?”
“The Yellowstone dilemma.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Here’s what I’ve been thinking about for the past four hours. He knows who I am. He knows, obviously, where I live. He’s been following me for at least two days. He still could be. He could be outside right now, watching. Serial offenders often haunt the scene of the crime—their way of reliving it.”
“Christ, Ruzak. I swear I never meant for something like this to happen.” He was looking at Archie’s crate. “I just wanted to protect my little girl.”
“And you have. She’s probably the last thing on his mind. It’s all shifted.”
“Protective order,” he said after thinking it through.
“Right. That worked for Isabella.”
He drained the rest of his beer. “You want to bunk at my place for a couple of days?”
“No thanks.”
“Because I feel bad about this, Ruzak. Damn bad. None of this would have happened if I hadn’t—”
“You were doing what you were supposed to do. I thought I was, too, and maybe I was. Sometimes we have to pay a price for doing what we think must be done.”
“We didn’t pay it,” he said, looking at the empty crate. “You know what you oughta do? Get another dog.”
I stepped over to the fridge, grabbed another beer, popped it open, drank.
“I don’t want another damn dog.”
He set his empty can on the countertop. “So what’s your next move?”
“I’ve been counseled to lie low.”
“And you’re gonna?”
“Probably best if everybody did.”
“Quinton, too.”
“Especially Quinton.”
10:37 a.m.
I was sitting at my desk, struggling through the third draft of my heartfelt note. I wasn’t sure why I felt compelled to write it now, except for the fact that a devastating loss can focus your mind on what really matters.
I wrote down everything that came to mind. The way her hair smelled like peaches and how that smell reminded me of long, lazy summer afternoons. That cute crinkle when she smiled. That smoky, Lauren Bacall quality in her voice when she answered the phone, particularly if my call had awakened her. How the very air around me thickened when she walked into the room and how the room itself seemed to shrink or I seemed to expand, jostling the air molecules. It sounded like syrupy crap—if crap can be characterized as syrupy.
A shadow appeared on the other side of the frosted glass of the front door. I pulled out my gun and laid it in front of me on the blotter. I heard a key slide into the lock, and then she walked in, gave a little start when she looked through the open door and saw my big self planted behind the desk.
“Ruzak, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Getting caught up on a little paperwork,” I said. I folded my hands over the drafts. “Why are you here?”
“Looking for you, dummy. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“I forgot to charge it last night.”
I
slipped my yellow pad into a drawer. Felicia, there’s something I should tell you. She lowered herself into the visitor’s chair. She was wearing the same khaki shorts and white shirt, and those flip-flops.
“What paperwork?” she asked.
“You know. The usual stuff.” It’s been weighing something I could have told you a long time ago something I haven’t been able to say.
“It was actually to see if you needed a lift to pick up your car.”
“Farrell gave me a lift.”
“What did you decide about Archie?”
“I’ve asked them to handle the arrangements. I sprung for the urn, too. It’s very tasteful—off-white, with a little design of a bone on the lid—but it has to wait until the cops are done with him.”
“The cops?”
“They’re over there right now, combing him for evidence. Said there’s a good chance they might find some of the perp’s DNA on him. You know, some people, usually little old lady types, have their dogs stuffed or freeze-dried.”
“Do we have to talk about this, Ruzak?”
“I guess we don’t have to talk about anything. Did you tell Bob I was gay?”
“You asked me that already. And no, I did not.”
She fought it. I could see her jaw working to stop it, but then she couldn’t help it and the giggle came out, followed by the laugh, the laugh superseded by a fit that brought her to tears.
“What?” I asked.
“He overheard you and Farrell arguing, and when I went into the kitchen, he goes, ‘What’s “Bunko my ass”? Is that some kind of gay sex act?’ ”
“And you told him Ruzak doesn’t engage in any sex acts with either gender.”
“Oh, Teddy,” she said, wiping away her tears. “Lighten up.”
“There is this one lady. Nancy. I’m a little too old for her, plus she’s married, but she has nice feet.”
“I’m sorry. Feet?”
“I’ve met her only a couple times, so the other features haven’t really sunk into my mind’s eye.” I have you memorized. Like a popular song on the radio the DJs play over and over fifty times a day until it’s burned into your subconscious and you think if they play that damn song one more time you’re going to puke like a favorite poem read a thousand times.
“There’s plenty of single girls for whom you wouldn’t be too old, Teddy.”
“Name two.”
“What, you’re only interested in dating people I know?”
I know your face better than I know my own. That little crinkle on the bridge of your nose when you smile. The way your hair looks in the morning light when you decide to color it blond. How when you smile one side of your mouth rises higher than the other. The way your lips shine when you eat a donut. so glossy and plump. Like a freshly waxed bowling lane. “Here’s the problem as I see it. Maybe I’m the type of person who habitually wants what he can’t have.”
“There’s this line from an old song.”
I nodded. “ ‘If you can’t be with the one you love…’ ”
“ ‘Love the one you’re with,’ ” she said, finishing the line for me.
“The problem is, I’m not with anyone.”
“You’re not in love, either.”
You walk into the room and this pressure grows in my chest. The walls close in; I can’t breathe. Like the girl in that poem, you break my breath in half. I’m like that fat pudgy big beefy kid in the Willy Wonka movie who drinks too deep of the chocolate river and balloons up four times his size. You’re my chocolate river, Felicia.
“This is not unlike the Stiles case,” I said.
“How so?”
“The point wasn’t so much finding him so I could do something about anything. The point was the quest itself.”
“And look where that landed everyone: your sole companion in life on a slab and you in the crosshairs.”
“I was myopic. An argument for the narcissistic personality diagnosis: I thought the only one I was putting at risk was me.”
“Hard lesson, Ruzak.”
“I have a thick head, but once something gets in there, it’s stuck good.”
“Like a woolly mammoth in a tar pit.”
She had kicked off a flip-flop and was swinging her naked foot with the bright pink nails at me, back and forth, back and forth. I don’t know what to do. I mean I literally don’t know what to do. In the beginning it was better, in a weird way, when you weren’t around. It was only when you were around that I felt like that Levy comet being sucked inexorably down by Jupiter’s gravity. Then somewhere along the way being apart from you was just as uncomfortable taxing trying lonely as being near you. I started having dreams about us together you. And I’d wake up all sweaty dazed and half-asleep I’d reach across my empty bed for you.
“And I’ve been thinking I might not be the only one here. What if he saw us sitting in your car? Saw us embracing?”
She actually laughed. “Your paranoia is showing. I don’t need you to save me, Ruzak,” she said.
The very weird thing is, here I am, Mr. Savior Complex, the one in need of saving. I need saving, Felicia. The guy who wants to be the one riding to the rescue is the one in need of rescue. But the only thing is, I can’t define what that means. What is rescue? You don’t love me. You never will. Could you ever? If something happened to Bob, not that I would ever want something to happen to him, or even if something didn’t happen to him, could you ever see yourself with someone like me? You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, even though you can be a little mean sometimes. I can’t think of a single topic I can’t discuss with you. Well, there is one. This one. Goddamnit.
“That’s right,” I said. “You have Bob for that.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing never means nothing with you. Your concern is touching, Ruzak, it really is, but why don’t you let me weigh the considerable risk of knowing you and make my own decisions?”
“It probably would be best,” I admitted. “Mine don’t work out so well.”
MONDAY
1:32 a.m.
I didn’t recognize the number that popped up on the caller ID, so I hesitated before answering: At 1:30 in the morning, odds were it was a wrong number.
It wasn’t.
“Teddy?”
“Bob?”
“Teddy, have the cops contacted you yet?”
“They’ve found Quinton,” I said. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Why would the cops tell Bob that they’d found Quinton? But it was 1:30 in the morning.
“Who? No, Ted, I’m here at the hospital. It’s—it’s Felicia.…”
I stood up. “What’s happened?”
“It’s pretty bad. She’s in the OR now. The doc said—”
“Which hospital?” I asked. I was already walking to the door. I hadn’t been asleep when the call came.
1:38 a.m.
Two men in dark jackets had stepped from behind one of the concrete pillars, midway between the elevators and my car. One of them held up a badge.
“Are you Theodore Ruzak?” he asked.
I said I was.
“Got a few minutes to chat?” He was the older of the two. Fifties, salt-and-pepper hair cut very short, a craggy face, very large ears. The other cop had to be twenty years younger. More hair, smaller ears, less cragginess.
“Actually, I was on my way to the hospital. Something’s happened.”
“That’s right,” the older cop said. “Why we need to talk.”
He took me by the elbow and pulled me gently toward a dark sedan. The younger one opened the back door and I slid into the seat; they got in the front.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Why were you going to the hospital?” the younger cop asked.
My phone buzzed. It was Bob.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s been in the OR fucking forever. The doctor hasn’t come out yet, so they
must still be working on her. Christ, it’s bad, Teddy. It’s—they said it came within an eighth of an inch of her carotid artery.”
“What came?”
“The knife. I gotta go. See ya when you get here.”
He hung up. I noticed the eyes of the younger cop staring at me in the rearview mirror.
1:55 a.m.
His name was Jones. His partner, the older, craggy-faced guy, was Eades. They took me into an interview room with a small table and three folding chairs. Jones said he’d be right back, and I sat across the table from Eades.
“Okay, so tell me what the hell is going on,” I said.
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
“All I know is that my secretary is at Baptist Hospital with a very serious knife wound. That’s all I know.”
“How did you know she was at the hospital?”
“Her boyfriend called me.”
“Bob.”
“Right, Bob.”
The door opened and Jones came back in carrying a case file. He slapped the file onto the table, flipped it open.
“Ruzak, Theodore Alan. Currently under a ten-thousand-dollar bond for breaking and entering, felonious threatening, and trespassing.”
“That’s all a big misunderstanding. It was case-related—I’m a PI.… Wait a minute, that’s why you guys arrested me?”
“You’re not under arrest, Mr. Ruzak,” Eades said. “We just want to talk.”
“About the B and E?”
“Not that B and E,” Jones said. “The B and E at White Knight Associates.”
“My office?”
Eades nodded. “Jumped your secretary. Cut her up pretty bad.”
Bob found her. She had told him she couldn’t sleep, so she decided she might as well catch up on some paperwork. After a couple of hours, he started calling. Didn’t answer her cell. Didn’t answer the office phone. Bob was nervous. There was this case, this maniac her boss was trying to track down, named Quinton Stiles, who had apparently slaughtered his dog. Bob drove downtown to check on her, found her collapsed beside my desk, her throat slashed.
“There’s no sign of a struggle,” Eades said. “No indication of forced entry. We’re thinking he may have already been inside, maybe hiding in the little bathroom off your office, jumps her from behind. Found her purse. Wallet, cash, credit cards, untouched.”
The Highly Effective Detective Crosses the Line Page 12
