"And you're still breathing?" Kevin asked. "I suggested she be in charge of cleaning the bathroom here at work because she's a girl, and I thought she would deck me."
"Naw, she's a pacifist," Joe assured Kevin. "Aren't you, sweet cheeks?"
The look she turned on him was anything but nonviolent. "I'm always willing to make exceptions for you."
He squeezed her tight against him and said, "That's what a man likes to hear from his woman." Then before she could utter a word and accuse him again of being a demon from hell, he pressed his mouth to hers, trapping her anger with his kiss. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, and she raised her hands to his shoulders. Before she could shove him away, he let her go, and her attempt to push him looked more like a grasp to keep him close. He smiled, and, for a few brief seconds, he thought her resentment might overcome her belief in nonviolence. But being the true pacifist she professed, she took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then she turned her attention to her mother and aunt and ignored him completely.
"Did you come to take me to lunch?" she asked.
"It's only ten-thirty."
"Brunch then," she amended. "I want to hear all about your vacation."
"We need to pick up Beezer," Claire said, then looked at Joe. "Of course you're invited. Yolanda and I need to check your life energy."
"We should test him with your new aura-meter," Yolanda added. "I think it's more accurate than-"
"I'm sure Joe would rather stay here and work," Gabrielle interrupted. "He loves his job. Don't you?"
Aurameter ? Jesus H. The nut didn't fall far from the family tree. "That's right. But thank you, Claire. Maybe another time."
"Count on it. Fate has given you someone very special, and I am here to make sure you take care of her gentle spirit," she said, her gaze so directed the hair on the back of his neck stood up again. She opened her mouth to say more, but Gabrielle took her arm and walked with her toward the front of the store.
"You know I don't believe in fate," Joe heard Gabrielle saying. "Joe is not my fate."
Kevin shook his head and let out a low whistle once the door shut behind all three women. "You barely dodged that bullet, my friend. Gabe's mother and aunt are real nice ladies, but sometimes when they get to talking, I expect to see their heads spinning like Linda Blair in The Exorcist."
"That bad, huh?"
"Yeah, I think they channel Elvis, too. Magnify Gabrielle by about a thousand, and you get her relatives."
For once he didn't think Kevin was lying. He turned to the fenceman and slapped him on the back as if they were old buddies. "She might have weird relatives; but she has great legs," he said. Time to get to work. Time to remember he wasn't there to pin his confidential informant against the wall and feel her soft body pressed to his, making him so hard that he forgot everything but her breasts poking his chest and the sweet taste of her mouth. Time to befriend Kevin, then nail him for the theft of Mr. Hillard's Monet.
The next morning Detective Joe Shanahan walked into Fourth District Court, raised his right hand, and swore to tell the truth, in The State v. Ron and Don Kaufusi. The Kaufusi boys were three-time losers facing a long stint in prison if found guilty of a string of residential burglaries. The case had been one of the first assigned to Joe shortly after he'd been transferred to property crimes.
He took his seat in the witness box and calmly straightened his tie. He answered questions from the prosecutor and the boys' public defender, and if Joe hadn't already had a prejudice against defense attorneys, he might have actually felt sorry for the lawyer assigned this case. It was a real slam dunk.
Seated behind the defense table, the Kaufusis looked like sumo wrestlers, but Joe knew from past experience that the brothers had balls of steel and were as loyal as Old Yeller. They'd conducted a real gutsy operation for several months before being arrested exiting a home on Harrison Boulevard. Every few weeks, the boys would park a stolen U-Haul next to the back door of a particular home they'd cased. They'd load the truck with valuables like precious coins, stamp collections, and antiques. In one instance, the neighbors across the street had watched, believing the brothers were professional movers.
When Don had been searched, the arresting officer had found a Wonder Bar in the pocket of his twill work pants. The tool's distinctive marks had matched a dozen others left in wooden door and window casements throughout the city. The prosecutor's office had gathered enough direct and circumstantial evidence to put the brothers away for a long time, and yet they'd refused to name their fence in exchange for leniency. Some might believe their unwillingness to cooperate had something to do with honor among thieves, but Joe didn't think so. He figured it probably had more to do with good business. The relationship between thief and fence was symbiotic. One parasite fed off the other parasite to survive. The brothers were betting on a short prison stay and already planning their return to business. It didn't pay to alienate a good fence.
Joe testified for two hours, and when he was through, he felt like raising his fists over his head like a prize fighter. The odds were in his favor, and the good guys were going to win this round. In a world where the bad guys were winning with more and more frequency, it was good to take a few of them off the streets for a while. Two down and two thousand more to go. He walked from the courtroom with a slight smile on his face and shoved his sunglasses onto the bridge of his nose. He moved from the recycled courtroom air and out into the sunlight. An endless blue sky and cotton-ball clouds hung over his head as he drove to his house off Hill Road. The ranch-style home had been built in the fifties, and in the five years he'd lived there, he'd replaced the carpeting and vinyl throughout. Now all he had to do was rip out the olive green tub in one of the bathrooms, and he figured he was done for awhile. He liked the creak of the floors and the worn bricks in the raised hearth. Mostly, he liked the lived-in character of his house.
The minute Joe walked in the front door, Sam flapped his wings and whistled like a catcalling construction worker.
"You need a girlfriend," he told his bird as he let him out of his cage. He walked into the bedroom to change his clothes, and Sam followed.
"You, behave," the bird screeched from his perch on Joe's chest of drawers.
Joe shrugged out of his suit, and his mind turned to the who-what-where-when-and-whys of the Hillard case. He wasn't any closer to an arrest, but yesterday hadn't been a complete bust. He'd learned the why. He'd learned what motivated Kevin Carter. He'd learned how much Kevin had resented being from a large family. And even more, how much he'd resented the hell out of growing up poor.
"You behave."
"You need to take your own advice, buddy." Joe tucked a blue T-shirt into the waistband of his Levi's and glanced up at Sam. "I'm not the one who bites wood or pulls out my feathers when I get mad," he said, then pulled on a New York Rangers baseball cap to cover his hair. He never knew when he would run into someone he'd arrested in the past, especially at something as weird as the Coeur Festival.
It was close to one o'clock when he left his house, and he made one quick stop on the way to the park. He stopped at Ann's Eighth Street Deli. Ann stood behind the counter; a warm smile lit her face as she looked up and saw him. "Hi, Joe. I was hoping you'd come in."
The way she looked at him, he couldn't help but return her smile. "I told you I would." He liked the spark of interest shining in her eyes. A nice normal spark. The kind a woman showed a man she wanted to know better.
He ordered a ham and salami on white bread, and since he didn't know what a lapsed vegetarian would eat, he ordered Gabrielle a turkey on whole wheat-lots of sprouts.
"When I called my sister, Sherry, last night and told her that I'd run into you, she said she thought you were a cop. Is that right?" she asked as she sliced the bread and placed a heap of meat on each slice.
"I'm a property crimes detective."
"I'm not surprised. Sherry said you used to like to frisk her in the ninth grade."
"I thought it was th
e tenth."
"Nope." She wrapped the sandwiches and placed them in a paper sack. "Do you want any salad or chips?"
Joe stepped back and looked into the long display case filled with different kinds of salads and desserts. "What's good?"
"It's all good. I just made it this morning. How about some cheesecake?"
"I don't know." He slid a twenty from his wallet and handed it to her. "I'm pretty particular about my cheesecake."
"I'll tell you what," she said and opened the cash register. "I'll give you a few slices, and if you like it, you come back tomorrow and buy me a cup of coffee on my break."
"When's your break?"
Her smile once again lit her eyes, and dimples creased her cheeks. "Ten-thirty," she answered and handed him his change.
He had to work at ten. "Make it nine."
"Okay." She opened the glass case and cut two slices of cheesecake and wrapped them in waxed paper. "It's a date."
He wouldn't go that far. But she was nice and could obviously cook. She certainly didn't look at him as if the only thing saving him from a good sock in the gut was her belief in nonviolence. He watched her place the cake and two plastic forks on top of the sandwiches, then she handed him the sack.
"See you in the morning, Joe."
Maybe Ann was just what he needed.
Chapter Nine
Thirty striped canopies lined a section of Julia Davis Park near the band shell. A knot of impromptu musicians sat cross-legged beneath a towering oak, beating their steady fingers against the tight skin of bongos. They were joined by several pan flutists and a small group of nomadic bus dwellers coaxing haunting strains from handmade instruments. Barefoot dancers swayed, their gauze skirts and long braids swirling to the hypnotic pulse, while white bread America watched from the sidelines looking a bit perplexed.
At the Coeur Festival, you could buy healing crystals and books on the art of seeing. Get your palm read, your life charted, and past lives interpreted. The food booths offered such organic delights as vegetarian tacos, veggie stir-fry, chili con veggie, and bean loaf with peanut sauce.
Gabrielle's booth sat between Mother Soul, the spiritual healer, and Organic Dan, master herbalist. The festival was a blend of New Age spirituality and commerce, and Gabrielle had dressed for the occasion in a white sleeveless peasant blouse, embroidered with gold sunburst and unicorns and tied beneath her breasts. The matching skirt rode low on her hips and buttoned up the front. She'd left it unbuttoned from her knees to her ankles, and she'd slipped her feet into a pair of handmade leather sandals. She'd left her hair down, and the thin gold hoops in her ears matched the ring in her navel. Her outfit reminded her a little of the short time she'd taken up belly dancing.
Her essential oils and aromatherapies were selling even better than she'd hoped. So far, her biggest sellers were her medicinal oils, with her massage oils coming in a close second. Directly across from Gabrielle's booth was a woman who did mendi, and next to her, Doug Tano, the colon hydrotherapist.
Unfortunately for Gabrielle, Doug wasn't in his booth. He was in hers, regaling her with the benefits of colonic hydrotherapy. Gabrielle prided herself on her open mind. She was enlightened. She understood and accepted other people's beliefs in different metaphysical plains. She supported unorthodox healing arts and therapies, but geez, discussing waste material was beyond her range of comfort and bordered the realm of gross.
"You should come in and get cleansed," he told her as she straightened small bottles of beauty and bath oils.
"I just don't see that I would have the time." Nor could she ever see herself making the time. As a job, she'd rank colon cleaning in the same ballpark as being a mortician. One of those jobs she supposed someone had to do but thanked her lucky karma that it wasn't her.
"You can't put off something so important," he said, kind of reminding her of a mortician, too. His voice was a bit too tranquil, his fingernails a little too polished, and his skin a lot too pale. "I'm telling you, you feel so much lighter once all those toxins are expelled."
She was going to take his word for it. "Oh, yeah?" was all she managed, then pretended great interest in her aromatherapies. "I think someone is at your booth," she said, so desperate to get rid of him she lied on purpose.
"No, they're just walking by."
Out of the corner of her eye, a brown paper sack was plopped down next to her crystal vaporizers. "I made lunch," spoke a deep voice she'd never thought she'd actually be glad to hear. "Are you hungry?"
She let her gaze travel up Joe's plain white T-shirt, past the hollow of his tan throat, to the deep furrow of his top lip. The shadow of a red-and-blue baseball cap covered the top half of his face, accentuating the carnal lines of his mouth. After her conversation with Doug, she was surprised she was hungry. "Starved" she answered and turned to the man standing beside her. "Joe, this is Doug Tano. Doug has the booth over there." She pointed across the walkway and couldn't help but notice the obvious difference in the two men. Doug was a calm soul in touch with his spiritual nature. Joe radiated raw, masculine energy and was about as calming as a nuclear blast.
Joe glanced over his shoulder, then turned his attention to Doug. "Colonic hydrotherapy? Is that you?"
"Yes. My practice is off Sixth. I aid in weight loss, detoxification of the body, improving digestion, and increasing energy levels. Hydro-therapy has a very calming effect on the body."
"Uh-huh. Don't you have to get a hose shoved up your butt?"
"Well, ahh… ahh," Doug stammered. "Shoved is an awfully strong word. We do place a very soft, malleable tube-"
"I'm going to have to stop you there, buddy," Joe interrupted and held up one hand. "I'm about to eat lunch, and I really do want to enjoy my ham and salami."
Disapproval pinched Doug's features. "Have you ever seen what processed meat does to your colon?"
"Nope," Joe answered as he dug around in the sack. "I figure the only way I'm ever going to see the inside of my colon is to shove my head up my ass. And you know what, Doug? That's just never going to happen."
Gabrielle felt her jaw drop a little. He was so rude… even for Joe… yet so effective. Doug turned and practically ran from her booth to get away from him. And although she hated to admit it, she was grateful and even a bit envious.
"Jesus, I didn't think he was ever going to leave."
"Thank you, I guess," she uttered. "He wouldn't stop talking about my colon, and I couldn't get rid of him."
"That's because he wants to see your naked tush." Joe grabbed her hand and slapped a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper into her palm. "Can't say that I blame him."
He walked past her to the back of the booth and sat in one of the two director's chairs she'd brought from home. She wasn't sure, but she thought he'd just given her a compliment.
"Is Mara going to help you out today?" he asked.
"She'll be here in just a little bit." Gabrielle looked at the sandwich in her hand. "What's this?"
"Turkey on whole wheat."
She sat in the seat next to him and glanced about. "I guess you didn't know," she said just above a whisper, "but the Coeur Festival is vegetarian."
"I thought you were lapsed."
"I am." She opened the waxed paper and gazed at a huge mound of turkey and sprouts shoved between two pieces of soft bread. Her stomach growled and her mouth watered, and she felt guilty and conspicuous, like a heretic at a born-again revival.
Joe knocked her arm with his elbow. "Go ahead. I won't tell anybody," he said as if he were Satan offering her original sin.
Gabrielle closed her eyes and sank her teeth into the sandwich. Since Joe had been uncharacteristically nice and brought her lunch, it would be impolite not to eat. She'd left her house that morning without eating breakfast, and she really was starving. So far, she just hadn't been able to work up an appetite for chili con veggie. She sighed, and her lips curved into a blissful smile. "Hungry?"
She opened her eyes. "Mmm-hmm." He stared at her from be
neath the bill of his cap, watching her as he slowly chewed, then swallowed. "There's some cheesecake if you want it."
"You bought me cheesecake?" She was surprised and more than a little touched by his thoughtfulness.
He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. Why not?" "Because I didn't think you liked me." His gaze lowered to her mouth. "You're okay." He took a big bite of his sandwich, then turned his attention to the crowded park. Gabrielle grabbed two bottles of water from a small cooler next to her chair and handed one to Joe. He took it from her, and they ate in companionable silence. She was surprised she didn't feel a need to fill up the quiet with conversation. She felt comfortable sitting beside Joe, eating her turkey, not talking, and that surprised her even more.
She kicked off her sandals and crossed her legs, settling back to watch the crowd flowing past her booth. It was a real mix of everything from Benetton preppies to Birkenstock New Agers, from polyester-loving retirees, to Woodstock wanna-bes born the same year as disco fever. And for the first time since Joe had tackled her in the park not far from where they sat now, she wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Some of the other vendors were extremely bizarre looking, and she wondered if he saw her that way, too. Like Mother Soul, with her tangle of dreadlocks, nose ring, and bright robes meditating on her prayer rug. And she wondered why she should care what he thought.
Gabrielle was full halfway through the huge sandwich, so she wrapped the other half back up, then set it on top of a block of ice in her cooler. "I didn't think I'd see you today," she said, finally breaking the silence. "I thought you'd be at my store, keeping your eyes on Kevin."
"I'll go there in just a bit." He polished off the last of his sandwich and washed it down with half his water. "Kevin isn't going anywhere, but even if he does, I'll know about it."
The police were following Kevin. She didn't think they'd told her that, but she supposed she wasn't surprised. She picked at the label on her bottle and watched him out of the corner of her eye. "What are you going to do today? Finish the shelves in the storage room?" By closing time the day before, he'd cut the shelves and screwed the brackets to the wall. All he had to do was put the shelves in place. That wouldn't take long.
It Must Be Love Page 12
