by Kylie Brant
“And he was real scared, too.” Gabe noted the way Meghan’s fingers tightened on the boy’s shoulders, and Danny turned to look up at her. “He was, Aunt Meggie. Maybe ’cuz that other man was chasing him. Then they both got in the car and drove away.”
Gabe squatted before the boy. “There was another man? Did they say anything? Could you hear them talking to each other?”
Danny seemed to get tongue-tied then. Or perhaps he was reacting to the death grip his aunt had on his shoulders. It took minutes of prying to elicit that the boy hadn’t heard either man speak. Gabe visualized the dimensions of the alley and calculated that the boy wouldn’t have heard anything below a shout, at any rate. The way the kid described the scene, he doubted whether there had been a chase in progress. More likely both of them had been in D’Brusco’s apartment when he and Cal had knocked. He doubted the men had noticed the boy. If he’d been seated on the concrete patio, the wrought iron fence around it would have likely hidden him from view. With a bit more coaxing Cal was able to elicit a description that matched D’Brusco. He’d give a month’s pay to know who the other one was.
“That’s all the information my nephew can give you, Detectives.” Meghan’s voice was firm. “Now, if you don’t mind, it’s dinnertime, and we’re on a schedule tonight.”
Cal looked at Gabe, who nodded slightly. As they rose, he said, “We’d sure like to get an idea about the identity of the second man, ma’am. Could you bring your nephew in to look at some pictures?”
There was no mistaking the woman’s reaction. Her spine went rigid. Voice tight, she said to the boy, “Danny, go in and get washed up for supper.”
“But I just washed my hands a minute ago.”
“Now, Danny.”
Apparently the boy recognized the steel in his aunt’s words, because he turned without another word and trudged down the hallway. Meghan faced the detectives again and her tone went low and fierce. “Any further involvement of my nephew in your investigation is out of the question.”
Gabe tried to make his voice sound soothing, a difficult feat for his rumbling tones. “I don’t think you understand, ma’am. All we’re asking is…”
The look she shot him was as scathing as her words. “No, you don’t understand. Whatever it is that you do, you’ll do without Danny. The CPD has already cost my family more than enough already. Thanks to your department, my sister is dead.”
Chapter 2
“Uh-uh, buddy. It’s my day, remember?”
Gabe scowled, his fingers poised on the handle of the driver’s door. Heaving a matyred sigh he went around to the other side of the unmarked car and got in. Cal took cautious driving to new heights. Gabe had often thought if his partner entered a Daytona 500 held for females over ninety, every one of the little old ladies would be lapping him in seconds.
Once he’d eased the car into traffic, Cal spoke again. “What do you suppose Patterson’s story is? She’s sure carrying a whale of a grudge against the department.”
Gabe loosened his tie and unfastened his top shirt button. The confining clothes he was forced to wear was one of the biggest disadvantages of having switched assignments three years ago from undercover work to his current position of detective in the Organized Crime division. In his opinion, neckwear should be outlawed as a particularly cruel and inhumane form of torture. He’d like to get hold of the guy who’d invented ties and beat an apology from him.
“Hard telling. Maybe her sister swore out a restraining order that went south.” It happened, he knew, more often than they liked to consider. Domestic disputes especially could turn deadly. At any rate, after dropping her bomb-shell, Meghan Patterson hadn’t wasted any time ushering them out of the apartment. Gabe decided he’d dig around a little and see what he could discover about the sister. Despite Meghan’s hostility, the fact remained that they’d probably need to talk to her nephew again. Discovering the identity of the unknown man with D’Brusco just might be the key to blowing this case wide open. And the instant he had an inkling of who the guy could be, Gabe would be back on the woman’s doorstep. He said as much to Cal.
His partner never took his eyes off the traffic. “We’ll have to hope she changes her mind about letting her nephew cooperate.”
“She’ll change her mind.”
Cal’s brows rose at the certainty in Gabe’s voice. “I don’t know. She seemed pretty sure.”
Reaching into his pocket, Gabe withdrew a package of gum and unwrapped a piece. He placed it in his mouth and chewed. It was a damn poor substitute for the smoke he craved, but it annoyed the hell out of Cal. That was powerful incentive. “I can be very persuasive.”
Giving a hoot at that, Madison risked a glance at his partner. “You? Somehow I don’t think the intimidation tactics you find so effective on street scum are going to be appropriate in her case. To handle a classy lady like that requires a certain finesse.”
Just for the irritation value, Gabe cracked his gum loudly. “I’ve got finesse.”
Cal was chortling now. “Boy, do you. I don’t know what I was worried about. If the time comes, we’ll just count on you to change her mind with your usual suave personality.”
Gabe was undisturbed by his partner’s gibes. “Don’t discount my hidden charms.”
“Yeah, your charms are well hidden, all right.”
“Keep being mean to me and I’ll tell Becky. She loves me. She’d kick your butt if she could hear you now.” Becky and Cal had married the previous year, and Gabe returned the woman’s fondness tenfold. She was upfront and plain-spoken, traits damn uncommon in the females of his experience.
A sudden thought occurred. “Speaking of your better half, why don’t you give her a call when we get back to our desks. I was thinking of going out for a steak tonight. We could go together. My treat. I owe you for the last time you had me over. Or maybe for the last dozen times,” he mused. “I lose count.”
“Uh…” Cal cleared his throat. “I don’t think so. Not tonight.” He turned the car into the district parking lot and started cruising for a space.
Gabe looked out the window and spotted an empty slot. “There’s a place. Up on your left.” He shifted seamlessly back to the original conversation. “C’mon, think about it. How long has it been since Becky let you eat red meat? I could persuade her to let you order a steak. She’s putty in my hands.”
A dull flush had risen in his partner’s face. He took even greater care than usual to park the car and switch off the ignition. “Actually, we have special plans tonight.”
Gabe was perceptive enough to realize the plans weren’t the sort his partner would want him included in. “Yeah, okay. Why don’t you go on home and let me finish up the paperwork for today?”
“No, that’s all right. Becky isn’t expecting me until later, anyway.”
The two men got out of the car and walked toward the building. Gabe threw a companionable arm around Cal’s shoulders. “The trick to romancing a woman is to do the unexpected once in a while. Now you go on home and surprise Becky. Better yet, stop for some flowers and wine first.”
“Well…” Cal’s hesitation was minuscule. “Okay. I’ll owe you one.”
Gabe clapped him on the back. “Damn right you will. Oh, and give Becky a big kiss for me when you see her, would you? On the mouth.”
Cal shrugged off Gabe’s arm and headed for his car. “You’re depraved, Connally.”
“Yeah, I am. Forget it. I’ll give it to her myself the next time I see her.” He chuckled at the obscene gesture Cal made and entered the building.
Since it was time for a shift change, the halls of the Area One Detectives’ Division were more chaotic than normal. Winding through the maze of desks and cubicles, Gabe exchanged greetings and one-liners with his co-workers and then dropped into the chair in front of his battered metal desk. Before getting to work, he shrugged out of his coat, pulled the loosened tie from around his neck, wadded it up and jammed it in the pocket of his sports jacket. The
n he slung the jacket over the back of his chair, undid another shirt button and unfastened the cuffs, rolling the sleeves to his elbows.
“Connally, you savage. You’re a little late to be the featured matinee,” Detective Lydia Fredericks observed from her desk across the aisle. She raised her voice. “Hey, Connally’s doing a striptease over here. Could we have a show of appreciation?” There was a smattering of applause, and a wolf whistle from Lydia’s partner, Marcy Rogers. Coins rained on Gabe’s desk, courtesy of the detectives in the vicinity.
“Thank you, thank you. You’ve been a wonderful audience.” He stood and did a quick shimmy, eliciting a heart-felt moan from Lydia and some more loose change. He scooped up the coins, frowning over the lone penny in the group. “Hey, who’s the cheapskate? Fiskes?”
Detective Mark Fiskes grinned. “What can I say? You’re a cheap thrill, Connally.”
“Cheap, hell.” Gabe slipped the money in his pants pocket. “I just made enough to drink all night. I’m thinking about taking a second j—” The rest of the sentence went unuttered, as the sudden studiousness of the other detectives tipped him off. He turned around, and his tone went abruptly professional.
“Afternoon, Lieutenant.”
“Connally.” The man nodded at a coin beside the desk that had been missed. “Taking up a collection?”
It wasn’t uncommon for officers faced with Lieutenant Robert Burney’s stern ebony mask to feel sudden, urgent needs to be elsewhere. Fast. But Gabe couldn’t pass up the chance for a little retribution.
“You caught me, sir. I was just collecting my daily protection money from the others.”
“Protection money.”
Gabe propped his hips on his desk, crossed his arms over his chest and strove to make his tone earnest. “Yessir. The rest of the guys pay me to defend them from Detective Fredericks’s compulsive stalking.” Several of the men in the vicinity snickered, and Lydia invited Gabe to take a road trip to hell. He shook his head sadly. “She’s getting bolder and bolder, sir. She follows us everywhere, making all kinds of lewd proposals. The truth is, the other guys are getting scared. I’m the only one brave enough to stand up to her.” He turned to Lydia. “This is the last time I’m going to say it, Fredericks. Get help, for godsakes. You’re getting pathetic.” He dodged the pencil she threw at him, amidst guffaws from the surrounding detectives.
Burney’s expression didn’t change by as much as a flicker. “I’d like to see you in my office, Connally.”
Gabe pushed away from his desk and followed in his superior’s wake. When they reached the small office, he closed the door behind him and settled into a chair in front of the lieutenant’s desk. Burney lost no time getting down to business.
“You and Madison make any progress today on D’Brusco?”
“Some.” Gabe stretched his legs out before him and crossed one battered shoe over the other. “Best lead we got was from a five-year-old kid who was in the alley when Lenny took off.” He filled the man in on their visit to Meghan Patterson’s apartment.
The lieutenant leaned forward, interested. “Any chance you got a decent description of the second guy?”
“Well, the kid described Lenny pretty well, so he might be useful if we get a lead on the other’s identity. Said the guy was thin, taller than me, and his face looked like a skull.”
Burney’s weight shifted back in his chair, his disappointment obvious. “Great. The kid’s memory is probably influenced by a recent horror flick he watched.”
Gabe lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. But the presence of a second guy in the apartment would explain the shots fired. That never did seem like Lenny’s style.”
“D’Brusco might have changed his style after his last stint at Hill.”
That was entirely possible, Gabe silently conceded. It had been courtesy of Gabe that Lenny had been the state’s guest for a second time after Gabe had busted him for fencing. D’Brusco had only been out for two years, and apparently had changed his favorite con. He’d come to Gabe and Cal’s attention recently when they caught a money-laundering assignment he figured in. Gabe still had trouble believing that Lenny had risen to such a level. Working with that kind of money meant D’Brusco was playing in the big leagues. Apparently, he’d not only changed his habits, he’d also learned some new skills in prison.
The lieutenant was speaking again. “Just be aware that this case is attracting some attention from above. I fielded a call regarding it today from the deputy chief.”
Gabe’s low, tuneless whistle conveyed his appreciation of the fact. Given the chain of command in the CPD, the deputy chief’s inquiry meant that the interest was being generated several authority rungs higher, maybe even from the superintendent of police himself.
“Any clue what their interest is?”
“That wasn’t shared with me. However, a private source informed me that Justice has been sniffing around the investigation.”
Gabe went still. “Justice? Which agency?”
Burney shook his head. “That I don’t know. Just thought you should be aware that the case might be getting some profile.” He stood, indicating that the meeting was at an end. Gabe’s hand was on the doorknob before the lieutenant’s wry tone sounded again.
“Oh, and Connally—” he waited until the detective looked over his shoulder before finishing “—you might want to rethink that second job. You know how the department feels about detectives moonlighting.”
Grinning, Gabe opened the door. “If you say so, sir, but it seems a shame to waste a god-given talent. I figure I’m a natural.”
Too bad, he thought, an hour and a half later as he eyed the computer console before him balefully, that he wasn’t a natural at technology. The damn thing had already eaten his report once, and he’d had to painstakingly retype it. Cal would have made some wiseass comment about garbage in, garbage out, but then Cal understood things like computers and DVDs, the new technology rage that he’d once tried to explain to Gabe. His efforts had been in vain. Gabe had considered it a major feat when he’d learned to program his VCR. His talents, he’d explained to his partner, time and again, lay in other areas.
Once he’d collected his hard copy, his attention shifted to the woman who’d lingered in the back of his mind since she’d thrown them out of her apartment. Meghan Patterson. He typed her last name into the crime data base and waited for the computer to finish processing.
Despite his partner’s assessment of his intentions, his interest in the woman was purely professional. Well, okay, he admitted, drumming his fingers lightly on the keyboard, maybe he’d admired her in a purely detached sort of way. He could only figure one good reason for a woman to scrape her hair up on top of her head the way she’d worn hers. He doubted very much, however, that she’d worn it that way with the intention of allowing a man to take it down, a pin at a time. He gave a purely masculine grin at the mental picture.
A good cop got to be an expert at sizing people up. It certainly didn’t mean he was attracted to her, which was a good thing, because he had a long-standing distaste for dishonesty. Regardless of her reasons, Meghan had lied to him yesterday, and that alone was enough to keep him wary of her. There were, he’d found, simple facts in life that had to be accepted because they couldn’t be changed. Trees had their leaves, oceans had their tides, and women had their secrets. He knew that. And knowing was reason enough to keep the females in his life at a comfortable distance.
The search yielded forty-seven Pattersons for whom arrest warrants had been issued or by whom complaints had been filed. He was unsurprised when he failed to find Meghan’s name. He scanned each report, but could find nothing to match the little information she’d given them about her sister. He switched to the Internet and accessed the Tribune’s archives. He found several references to news articles in which Meghan was mentioned, and he went through them in reverse order, starting with the oldest.
The first he read had his eyebrows climbing. He hadn’t realized the woman he’
d spoken with this afternoon was part of the Tremayne dynasty. The connection implied old money, historic homes and very public divorces. Meghan’s mother was the sole heiress to one of Chicago’s wealthiest families and, from what Gabe could remember, had done her part to keep the family name in the news with the frequent breakups of her marriages.
It occurred to him then to wonder if Meghan had been married. He scrolled down the articles, but found no details to support the idea. Patterson had probably been her father’s name.
He skimmed through several more clippings, most having appeared in the social registry featuring Meghan being escorted to lavish fund-raisers. It was interesting to note that none of the pictures showed her with the same guy twice, although they all shared a polished, worthless look that made them interchangeable.
He paused to read a couple that mentioned her career in the art world and clicked impatiently on the most recent selection.
The picture unfolded in slow-motion, which, given the age of the district’s computers, was the way the Internet seemed to work most of the time. It was an invasive close-up shot, the kind the media was noted for, focused on Meghan, Danny and an older woman. The trio were dressed in black, and the photo had been snapped as they filed out of a church. Behind a casket.
The headline screamed at him, and he read the article quickly, his stomach dropping a little lower with each paragraph. He stared at the screen after he’d finished, absently rubbing a hand over his jaw.
Damn his luck. His earlier certainty about persuading Meghan to allow Danny to cooperate slipped several notches. He remembered the gist of the case involving Sandra Barton; who didn’t? It had been splashed all over the news for weeks, and the only place news traveled faster than in the media was within the department itself. He now understood why Meghan might hold the police responsible for her sister’s death.
On some level, he really couldn’t blame her.
He’d lost his appetite for the steak he’d been promising himself all day, so Gabe got a couple of fast-food sandwiches before heading to Brewsters. The bar was a local hangout, its customers mostly cops, and a favorite of his and Cal’s. Of course, Cal hadn’t made regular appearances there since his marriage. Becky kept him on a pretty short leash, which was another reason Gabe steered clear of serious relationships. He had a long-held aversion to being confined.
