“There was a terrible accident at Chicago Steel and Wire,” she replied, setting aside her paperwork to gaze at him. “A cauldron cracked as it was being pulled from the oven. Two thousand gallons of molten steel spilled onto the work floor. Have you ever worked in a mill, Doctor?”
Doctor wrinkled his nose.
“Didn’t think so. Well, a spill is the worst thing that can happen to a steel man. That bubbling metal melts his flesh clean off, then roasts his bones for the devil’s soup. Leaves nothing for his widow to bury but his sainted memory.” She noted the doctor’s flinch. “Those steel men ran for their lives when the alarm sounded. All except one—Tommy Lutz, the son of a steel widow I know from the neighborhood. His boot got caught in a floorboard, trapping him. Mr. Thompson heard Tommy screaming and ran back to the cauldron room. He wrapped his legs in asbestos fire blankets and walked into that river to free his friend.” Mrs. Hoffmeyer shook her head. “The inhalator squad brought the casualties to our emergency room, where Tommy Lutz died. In Mr. Thompson’s arms.”
Doctor remained silent.
“I stayed with Mr. Thompson after the morgue boys wheeled Tommy away,” Mrs. Hoffmeyer continued. “I listened to how they’d fished and hunted the North Woods, up in Wisconsin. Then I escorted him to our maternity waiting room. The shift foreman told him just moments before the accident that his wife was going into labor and he should meet her here.” She fixed doctor a stony glare. “Mr. Thompson didn’t have time to wash his face or put on nice clothes like he would have preferred, Doctor. He had more important things to do.”
Crying erupted in Room 313. Yowls of a newborn mingled with the baritone gasping of a big male. Mrs. Hoffmeyer smiled.
“Don’t confuse those with tears of sorrow, Doctor,” she said. “Mr. Thompson’s all cried out for Tommy Lutz. Those are tears of joy for his newborn daughter, along with the children Tommy won’t ever have.” Doctor shifted his gaze to the wall clock. “If that man isn’t good enough be a father, Doctor, then God himself wouldn’t have qualified for baby Jesus.”
CHAPTER 5
Monday, noon.
Sixty-six hours till Emily’s birthday
Tongue still numb from the third cigar, Emily slipped her key in the front door. The more she thought about Benedetti’s “suggestion” that Lucy’s suicide was some kind of message to her, the funnier it got. The look on his face when he dreamed up the “gotcha” must have been priceless. She wished she’d seen it. She couldn’t put her finger on why she liked Marty Benedetti. She’d spent, what, five hours in his company, and most of that looking for clues. Still, there was an undefined something in how he watched her. That she didn’t mind looking back when his head was turned said something, too.
She grinned at the bellowed “Arooooooof!” from the end of the driveway. It was Shelby, the yellow Labrador retriever who lived down the street. He had the voice of a cattle wrangler, the fur of a worn-out broom, and the endearing personality of his master, an elderly widower who baked snickerdoodles for the neighbors when he wasn’t out skydiving. She turned to see Shelby’s enormous tongue lick the air like an invisible ice cream cone. How she’d managed to miss him she didn’t know—Shelby was a baby moose. But she’d make up his favorite way. “Come here, sweetie!” she cried, flinging her arms apart. “Hugs ’n’ kisses, come and get ’em!”
The Lab danced but stayed near the mailbox. That’s unusual, Emily thought. Her invitation always set off a rump wiggle and mad gallop into her arms. This prancing seemed to say, “C’mere, c’mere, I gotta show ya something!”
Normally, she’d oblige. She’d wanted a pack of beagles after settling into the new house, but Jack wasn’t keen on the idea. “We’d spend forever cleaning hair off my suits, and it’d be difficult to travel.” Engineer logic. She finally bowed to it. Marriage is the art of compromise, right? A year after the funeral, the hollowness of life alone prompted her to build a pet flap in her kitchen door, with every intention of adopting a fuzzy-faced pup from the city pound. But Saturday dawned, and she put off the search till next weekend, Jack’s objections fresh on her mind. Ten years later she was still putting it off till next weekend.
“I’d love to play, but I’m running late!” Emily said, envisioning Chief Cross pulling into the driveway while they romped. “Tonight after supper, I promise! Now run home so you don’t get hit by a car!” Shelby quit prancing but didn’t vamoose, either. “Home! Git!”
Shelby hung his head and whined. Emily waved good-bye and walked into the foyer, breathing deep the burnt-spice aroma from the back of the house. Excellent! In the mad dash to the Vermont Cemetery, she’d forgotten all about the French roast on the warmer. She trotted into the knotty-pine kitchen to pour her second cup—the first was drunk pre-run—into a coconut-size mug handpainted with the Three Little Pigs. It was a graduation gift from Annie Bates, who taught shooting tactics at the police academy, where they’d met and become fast friends. Each grinning pig wore a badge with Emily’s number—103201—waved a nightstick drawn suspiciously like a penis, and chased a fleeing Big Bad Wolf. Her good humor deepened, and she headed up the stairs.
The master suite at the landing was large enough for a king-size cannonball bed, triple dresser, two nightstands, armoire, lounging chair, and wide-screen TV. Floors and ceiling beams were crafted from the same knotty pine as the kitchen. She tossed her purse and gun belt on the bed and eagerly tuned the clock radio for news of Lucy’s suicide. A cold snap reduced Florida’s orange crop to pulp. Terrorists blew up a bus of schoolkids. An industrial psychologist named Marwood—she didn’t catch the first name, Trellis, Nellis, something like that—talked about his role in the hunt for the lunatic who’d kidnapped and torture-murdered a Massachusetts state trooper last Christmas. A dozen commercials, Newsradio jingle, traffic, weather, sports, more commercials, a “medical moment” on spring allergies.
Nothing about Lucy.
Disappointed, Emily kicked off her shoes and walked into the bathroom. Creak. She glanced at the floor, made a sour face. The pine planks were bowed from humidity, and she hadn’t had time to get them fixed. Or the inclination. She’d rather just rip the noisy things out. Along with the eagles and cannonballs and lace curtains and stupid, rustic, ancient, depressing…
Yo, Em, chill! The decor isn’t the problem! Well, actually, it was. She disliked Early American and its coffinlike woodiness, so she nearly bit off her tongue when Jack told her about the “surprise” he’d had constructed as his wedding gift to her—a high-end custom log home overlooking the Riverwalk. “It’s authentic Early American, honey,” he’d said. “Down to the milk paint and puffball curtains.” He’d been so excited that she couldn’t bring herself to say she preferred more contemporary architecture, airy, colorful, carefree. At times like this, though, she wished they’d met halfway.
Too many dead animals today! she told herself. That’s your problem! She flipped on the shower, stripping her clothes as cold water turned steamy. She opened the shower door and hopped in quick lest all that delicious steam escape.
“Yeah, baby,” she moaned, staccato Newsradio updates fading to background burble. She’d gotten a chill at the Vermont, and this was melting it out of her bones, off her skin, down the drain. She crick-cracked her neck to ease the stiffness, her mind drifting to a long-ago morning in this very bedroom suite, where she and Jack had Done It so much, she thought she’d never stand again. Delightfully sleepless as dawn spilled in, she’d wobbled into the shower for a pick-me-up. Moments later Jack did, too. Then Branch’s wife called, alarmed because her pal always got to his desk precisely at 7 A.M., and he was two hours overdue. Emily cracked up watching Jack drip all over the floor, stammering out an appropriate fib.
She closed her eyes, trembling from the unusually vivid memory. Jack’s sweet face faded to the penetrating eyes of Martin Benedetti.
“No!” Emily squeaked. She hopped out and toweled till the heat left. Then dried her hair. She wore a News ‘Do, the hairstyle of practically
every female TV news anchor on the planet. Short in front, off the ears and plunging to the shoulders in back, the News ‘Do had just enough sweep and under-curl to say, “Professional and perky.” She chose it because the police academy required short hair, or at least pinnable under a cap. At the time her hair hung to her waist. When she test-pinned it, her head looked like a twist of chocolate soft-serve. So she hacked off the tresses the night before reporting to the academy, naked as a jaybird and singing with Sting as she piled the bathroom sink high. She truly hated to part with her hair. Every strand was a cherished memory of Mama, who’d loved combing, teasing, primping, and untangling the chestnut mess after her daughter’s bath, occasionally Dippety-do-ing it into something so wacky—flower, surfboard, teeter-totter—they’d collapse in giggles. But rules were rules, chardonnay made the snipping easier, and she’d donated the mound to a charity that turned hair into wigs for cancer kids.
Finally dry, she hung the damp brown towel over the bar, lining up the embroidered gold eagles, glancing at the mirror from the corner of her eye. “Is our belly sagging?” the reflection asked. Emily pressed her pale abs. False alarm. Still a washboard. Whew. Better safe than sorry, though. Do a hundred more sit-ups before bed, swallow one less spoon of ice cream at breakfast. More sweat, less sugar, yeah, that’s the ticket.
She examined the rest while she was at it and found herself with the usual mixed feelings. She had a good behind—high, round, well-defined, no sag or dimples. It topped a pair of strong legs, the lower half of which pleased her no end. Her thighs…well, they were a preoccupation, if not exactly a problem, the former because of her daily intake of French vanilla ice cream and the latter because she ran six miles a day to make up for it. Her arms were well-defined from push-ups, which camouflaged the fact they were unusually long for her height. Her face was classically oval, with a sturdy jaw and wisdom lines around the large emerald eyes. “Or maybe they’re crow’s-feet,” she murmured. Her chin was strong, her neck slim.
Her chest was a little too small for her taste. Other people seemed to like it fine, though. The constant stares told her what she needed to know about that. Careful tweezing kept her thick eyebrows from being too Brooke Shields. Her skin was cream with a splash of coffee, limiting her make-up requirements to lipstick. Her teeth gleamed when she smiled, which she did easily and often. All in all, she told herself, the Total Emily, while far from perfect, had been good enough to hook a great guy like Kinley Jack Child.
“All right, all right,” she scolded her reflection. “The nuns said too much self-admiration makes you go blind. Let’s go catch some desperados.” The reflection winked, then vanished as Emily walked into the bedroom to lay out her uniform and equipment. Everything’s here, she noted. Good. She never violated her dressing ritual. Part of it was her need for order in her life, which intensified after Jack’s death. The rest was life insurance. The tools of her trade had to be in the same place every time so she could grab them without thinking. Quarter-seconds counted in a fight for your life.
Starting to shiver now that she was dry, she donned thong panties and a navy blue sports bra. She slipped a tiny slashing knife inside the left cup, a last-ditch survival tool she’d deploy if a bad guy took everything else. She slid on a T-shirt, athletic socks, bulletproof vest, navy uniform shirt and trousers, then clipped her seven-pointed badge to her chest.
Time for the third cup of French roast.
She double-timed back up the stairs, slopping on the sixth tread. Add it to the spring cleaning list! Movement in the large octagon window overlooking her front yard caught her eye. It was Shelby, clawing at her mailbox. “Geez Louise!” she said, shaking her head. “You just won’t go home till I see what’s up, will you?”
The Lab looked up and barked. Emily saluted. “You win. Soon as I’m done dressing.”
Shelby dipped his head as though he were nodding and went back to clawing.
Emily sat on the bed, swaddled her feet in steel-toed boots, knotted the laces, and wiped dirt spots off the leather. One less thing for Cross to complain about. She dreaded what came next, the twenty-odd pounds of equipment that street cops toted around their waists. The Mule Train, Annie called it. She sighed, then snapped, buckled, clipped, and Velcroed a gun belt, “garter” straps that married it to the trouser belt underneath, a Glock pistol, four spare magazines holding seventeen bullets apiece, a carrier for the two-way radio she’d sign out at the station, handcuffs, a collapsible baton, a folding knife, two flashlights, extra batteries, pepper spray, latex gloves, cut-resistant search gloves, an all-in-one tool with pliers, file, saw, knife blades, screwdrivers, wrenches, awl and scissors, lock picks, a pager, a cell phone, and a steel ring with eleven keys. Into various pockets went pens, a notebook, a ticket book, sunglasses, a key to unlock the handcuffs, a spare handcuff key, a third taped to her left ankle just in case, Kleenex, red-and-white Starlight Mints for coffee breath, a tube of lipstick in the muted cherry she liked….
“Now I know how Atlas felt,” Emily groaned as the gear dug into her hips. No matter how many miles she ran or sit-ups she knocked out, her lower back ached like grandma’s bunions by shift’s end. And it wasn’t even winter yet, with its hats, coats, gloves, boots, and cold tablets.
She shadowboxed into the bathroom and skipped rope on the way out, making sure everything was locked down. The badge rattled. She fixed it, then removed the bayonet from her nightstand. She kissed it for luck and slipped it into the scabbard inside her left boot. Every cop needed backup weapons. Many packed a second pistol, but she preferred this battered steel bayonet. It had accompanied Daddy on the killing beaches of D-day, then on hundreds of deer hunts and fishing trips to the North Woods.
Fully mule-trained, she hustled down to the kitchen and threw back the final cup. She rinsed the Three Little Pigs, gulped cranberry juice, a Power Bar, and three tablespoons of French vanilla—I’ll cut back tomorrow—then headed for the driveway. Ten minutes to the station, ten more to sign out a police cruiser and radio, then out on the street, where she belonged.
“What are you still doing here?” Emily blurted. Despite their “conversation” on the landing, she never dreamed Shelby would stay this long. The lively Lab never gathered moss when there was somebody to play with somewhere. He barked, then started head-butting the post holding up the mailbox. Whatever was prompting this behavior must really be something.
That’s when she noticed the flies dive-bombing the box.
“Christ on a crutch,” Emily muttered. “You hitch a ride from the cemetery?” She shooed them from the mailbox door, pulled it open, stared slack-jawed.
Goose head. Duck heads. Black with crusting blood. Eyes milky and staring back into hers.
The three missing pieces from the Riverwalk.
Each with a familiar white card slipped between its bill.
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. I fell asleep after my shower, and this is a bad dream, right? She closed her eyes, pinched her inner thigh, slowly reopened.
No dream.
“That’s what you were trying to tell me, wasn’t it?” she said, light-headed. Shelby thumped his tail but, seeming to sense Emily didn’t need more distractions right now, made no other move.
Emily punched her cell phone’s redial. “Branch,” the familiar voice boomed.
“Remember how we decided Lucy wasn’t a message to me?” she said without preamble.
“Emily?” Branch said. “Where are you? What’s the matter—”
“Remember?” Emily persisted.
“Yes,” Branch said.
“We were wrong. I just found three heads in my mail box.” Her voice was steady, thought processes efficient. Which surprised her, because at the moment she was frightened half to death. “Two ducks and a goose. They belong to three decapitated birds I found on the Riverwalk this morning during my run.”
Long pause. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“Yes. Each beak contains one of my police ca
rds. Like Lucy had at the cemetery.”
Longer pause. “You still home?”
“Yes.”
“Stay out by the street. Don’t touch anything. I’ll be there in six minutes.”
CHAPTER 6
Monday, 1 P.M.
Sixty-five hours till Emily’s birthday
“All this for a bunch of birds?” Emily groaned. Her lawn was as crowded as Easter church with cops, detectives, bomb dogs, CSIs, and firefighters. Even a sawhorse team from Public Works to keep rubbernecks at bay. Yellow tape was everywhere. It was monumentally embarrassing.
“Let’s talk,” Branch rumbled from behind.
Emily turned, saw he’d changed. At the cemetery he was detached—fascinated, certainly, but ultimately a bystander, like her. Here, on his home turf, Branch was Alpha Wolf, protecting his pack from marauders. His expression was harder, lips flatter, eyes wide and darting, looking for the scat and broken twigs that signified the presence of the Other. A warmth washed over her. Even though she could take care of herself, she was happy to see the department bare its teeth on her behalf. “Did you find those three…uh, bodies?”
“In the bushes, right where you threw ’em. We need to talk about that.” He answered his ringing cell phone. “Hey, Marty, good timing. I was just gonna call you. What? Geez, he’s a tricky scumbag. OK, sure, I’ll go first.” He peered into Emily’s mailbox as he sketched the crime scene, then listened to Benedetti. “Thanks, amigo. Hang on.” He handed Emily the phone.
“Hello?” she said, feeling her heart speed up.
“You all right?” None of the lighthearted banter from the cemetery.
“Yes,” she said, nodding, happy to hear his voice. “I guess our crimes are related.”
“So it seems. I filled Branch in on what’s going on here. He’ll give you the details. I just called to…I wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt.”
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