The Price of Innocence

by Lisa Black

  ‘It’s a somewhat gradual process as the dumped neurotransmitters pass out of the system. But in this case, the extra compounds riding along with the metabolites bond with the OH and the NH2 group on the dopamine.’

  He said this as if it were important. ‘OK.’

  ‘Bond with it,’ he emphasized, ‘and don’t let go.’

  ‘So the meth isn’t making them very euphoric?’

  ‘Not if the neurotransmitters are bound up instead of doing their happy dance. The chemist could adjust this effect by mixing regular meth with the adulterated version. A small amount of the latter would not make much of a difference, but a large amount would change the entire experience.’

  Theresa could not have drawn the exact chemical pathways on a piece of paper, but felt she was getting the picture. ‘So the high wouldn’t necessarily have been higher, but the low would have been lower.’

  ‘Exactly. The user thinks their dose is a dud, and takes more to get to that up stage. Then instead of sliding into the down stage, they’re plunged into it. Not, of course, that any of this is easily discovered – I’m definitely going to get into the Journal of Forensic Sciences with this one.’ She could hear his voice smile at the thought of his name in print.

  ‘So first it made Lily Simpson a little high, and then it threw her down a black hole.’ She hit the brakes for the daily slowdown at the 71–480 split. ‘Who would invent such a thing?’

  ‘Someone who wants to rid the city of meth addicts?’ Oliver suggested.

  ‘Or one particular one.’

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Theresa’s bed beckoned to her. Come and lie with me, love, it said. You’re tired. You need rest. She could almost hear it speak, in deep Barry White undertones. Just for a minute.

  She resisted, too occupied in clawing through her closet with increasingly desperate motions, trying to keep the damp towel from slipping off her damp body, wondering what the hell a forty-year-old woman wore on a first date. She couldn’t even remember what a twenty-year-old had worn on her first dates. It had been that long since she’d had a date that hadn’t been simply going to dinner with a man she knew fairly well already. David Madison was a stranger, possibly a stranger with an unpleasant and criminal past. So, the red satin shirt? Or the white camisole?

  Perhaps he had asked her out only to keep an eye on the investigation into Marty Davis’ death? After all, why her? A man with David Madison’s boyish handsomeness must encounter any number of women willing to help ease him through the pain of his ex-marriage. Theresa was old, with a weird job and a belly getting soft and laugh lines – oh, let’s be honest, crow’s feet – and a pimple forming on her left temple.

  And why the hell was she wasting time on a date anyway, when a mad bomber, a cop killer and a fatally virulent methamphetamine stalked Cleveland?

  Because the Feds wouldn’t share their information about the bomb site, Frank had the cop killer in his sights and there didn’t seem to be much she could do about Lily’s meth supplier. They’d already released the scene and Oliver would alert CPD Vice to the new version of the drug.

  So she had time for a date. David Madison had asked when she had lank hair and no make-up and hadn’t slept in twenty-six hours, so she couldn’t look any worse, right?

  Except that now it had increased to thirty-seven hours, and she couldn’t deny the pimple. Maybe some Oxy 10—

  The doorbell rang. He couldn’t be early, could he? She would not answer the door wrapped in a towel like some meet-cute in a rom-com. He’d have to wait. Unless it were the FedEx man, because she had ordered a few books. It couldn’t be her mother, who would simply come in and shout a hello.

  That left the FedEx guy or David Madison, and for either case she pulled on a pair of jeans and the white camisole. She didn’t want David to think of her as some dweeb who couldn’t even handle being ready for a date on time, and she didn’t want to frighten off the FedEx guy before he could leave her order.

  She opened the door just in time to remember that her hair remained damp and she hadn’t covered up the pimple.

  It wasn’t the FedEx guy. David Madison had foregone the shirt and tie ensemble of the workday and softened into a plain beige tee under a blue button-down shirt of such quality it made Theresa wonder if his wife had chosen it for him, it suited his eyes so well.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I see I have the right place.’

  ‘Come in. I’m sorry I’m running a little late.’ Little? She didn’t even have socks on. She hadn’t opened her mail or fed the cat or patted the dog, the small but very firm routines a single person develops. But she’d have to worry about that later.

  ‘I’m not surprised, after the day you’ve had.’

  She closed the door. ‘Where are we going?’

  He snickered as she guided him into the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry, I got distracted thinking up smart-aleck answers like, do you mean metaphorically speaking or in a more literal sense? As in, will the human race overcome its baser instincts or did I have a restaurant in mind? But you’re probably not in the mood for smart-aleck answers, are you?’

  ‘That would depend on their level of wit,’ she said, noticing with some dismay half a sink full of dirty dishes, and whirled around to keep him trapped in the hallway. ‘I’ll settle for the literal sense.’

  ‘Don’s Pomeroy House? According to Google, it’s designed to leave a favorable impression on one’s date.’

  There was that word again. ‘And only ten minutes away. Perfect in all respects.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, with a gentle smile and no trace of smart aleck. ‘You really are tired, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I think I’m getting a second wind. But I’ll have to change into something better.’

  ‘That’s a pity – I mean, you look – you look great in that,’ he stumbled, and changed the subject. ‘Is this your daughter?’

  After Rachael left for her first year of college, Theresa took the liberty of erecting a mother’s shrine: a series of similar frames along one wall. Left to right, they began with Rachael in infancy and progressed, two or three years at a time, to her high school graduation. ‘What gave it away?’

  He peered at each one, then stepped back against the opposite wall to take in the whole array at once. ‘This is nice. I should do this for my boys, even though they’d probably sue me for gross embarrassment. I don’t have any artistic ability, anyway. Our house is like a locker room – a little disgusting, but we like it.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘You miss your daughter a lot?’

  ‘I do. But I’m better about it now.’

  ‘Good.’

  In the closeness of the narrow hallway she could smell his aftershave, or cologne … whatever it was, she liked it. ‘Before we go, there’s one thing I’d like to get out of the way.’

  ‘What?’

  What, indeed? She hadn’t intended to say this, but now she had to keep going. ‘When you went to Cleveland State, did you know a Ken Bilecki?’

  No one could fake such blankness. ‘No.’

  ‘You said you knew Marty because of your wife’s case?’

  A puzzled frown. ‘Yes.’

  She explained about the yearbook photo she’d just happened to see, leaving out the part about looking up his school picture like a lovesick tween. The story still made him look at her a bit oddly, but she couldn’t blame him for that.

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. Marty and I had a class together. English, I think … and we’d hang in the bar with a group of regulars. I didn’t see him again until my wife’s arrest. He came with the detective – Deirdre taught in Cleveland, so it was their case – recognized me, and after everyone left he gave me the rundown on what would happen, the booking, the arraignment, and so on. He kept tabs on the case, would try to give me the heads-up when the detectives were going to question our friends and when the prosecutor would announce the charges, that sort of thing. He couldn’t do much, being a road officer, but he di
d what he could. He was a good guy.’

  She put her hand on his arm again, but this time she felt a bit guilty about it, as if trying to soften the fact that she had just questioned him about a cold case under the guise of romance. But the fact that it wasn’t a guise made it even more important to know the extent of his involvement with Marty Davis’ past. ‘Did you know a friend of Marty’s they called DaVinci?’

  His eyes flickered, as if they had seen an incoming blow. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. Why are you asking me about Marty?’

  She removed her hand. ‘Because he died at my feet.’

  After a moment, he said, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sure that must have been terrible. But what does Marty’s college career have to do with some felon gunning him down last week?’

  ‘Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. What about Doc? Do you remember a Doc?’

  He shook his head, and she hated to see the warmth begin to fade from his face. If she ruined this date, she’d regret it forever.

  But then, if she never asked …

  ‘There were a lot of kids called Doc in college. Usually the ones who sold drugs. But that has nothing to do with Marty. He was a good guy … loyal to a fault.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ she pressed.

  ‘Look at what he did for me – just some guy he used to have a beer with, and he went through a lot of effort for me. It’s the way he was.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw Marty?’

  His weight shifted from one side to the other. ‘Maybe once after the trial, about two years ago. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Did you know a Lily Simpson?’

  The warmth definitely fled and left behind a calculating look, as if he had two columns whose totals did not agree. ‘Marty dated a girl named Lily, in college. Why?’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  He snorted. ‘If it’s the same woman, probably twenty-five years ago. Why?’

  ‘Because she’s dead too.’

  The words hung over her dim hallway, dampening down the life around them to make room for the death. He would ask a question now, and she waited for it before moving on.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Overdose.’

  ‘Oh.’ That answer relieved him. Because she hadn’t been murdered, like Marty? Because it made him unlikely to suffer the same fate?

  ‘Did you have—’

  ‘Is this an interrogation or a date?’ he asked simply.

  She looked at him, his handsome solidness, and felt that if she closed her eyes she’d be able to locate him in a room by feel alone, picking up the aura through an outstretched hand. ‘I’d really like it to be a date.’

  The longing in her voice startled her, and seemed to surprise him.

  Maybe we don’t know how lonely we are until we stop being it.

  He reached out, ran one thumb along her cheek. ‘Then maybe there’s something else we should get out of the way.’

  Slowly but steadily he used both hands to pull her closer. Then one went around her waist while the other cupped her cheek, both burning wherever they touched. His mouth came down to meet hers, pressing lightly, then a little more firmly, then, lips opening, harder still. It gave her plenty of time to resist if she wanted to, if she could.

  She didn’t, and couldn’t.

  After one panicked thought trying to recall if she had brushed her teeth, she stepped into it, their torsos now up against each other, a shock of heat that made her gasp. His fingers on her face slipped around to her neck, twining through her hair until her mouth opened and his tongue ran along the inside of her lower lip. The hand at her waist moved first up and then down, guiding her hips to his. She stepped in further, leaving him no room for retreat if he wanted to, if he could.

  This isn’t me, said one of the few coherent thoughts bouncing through her brain. I don’t do this. Not with someone she’d only just met, and knew so little about.

  But apparently she did, because her toes arched to get her face closer to his and her hands pulled out the bottom of his T-shirt so her fingers could touch the peach-fuzz feeling of skin and hair underneath. Clothes suddenly seemed an encumbrance, an artificial barrier between humans that had grown wearisome. She stroked upward from his stomach to his chest and it became his turn to gasp.

  Then her fingers found a channel to follow, a streak through the soft hair where the skin stayed abnormally flat and smooth. Like a river. Or a burn.

  She tilted her head back slightly, giving him only enough room to say, ‘It’s a scar. I got caught in a fire a long time ago.’

  With her lips one-quarter inch from his and still tingling with hunger, she asked, ‘On Payne Avenue?’

  TWENTY-SIX

  To Frank’s dismay, the new-car smell had begun to fade. On top of that, Angela had introduced contraband.

  ‘I thought we agreed.’

  She sipped from the Styrofoam cup, the aroma of fresh-ground beans infiltrating the upholstery without pause. ‘We’re parked. This doesn’t count.’

  ‘How do you figure that?’

  ‘It can’t spill. The car isn’t moving.’

  ‘You’ve never spilled something when you weren’t in a moving car?’

  She appeared to give this some thought, then more thought, then apparently gave up any attempt to answer because, of course, he was right. ‘Well, why don’t we get out and go serve our search warrant and then I won’t be drinking coffee in the new car?’

  ‘Nah. According to the group home coordinator, Beltran always comes back for dinner. The man does not miss a meal, ever.’

  ‘Searching his room might go easier if he’s not here.’

  ‘Yeah, but guys get really ticked off when forced to watch you toss their stuff. Ticked-off guys say things they shouldn’t say and without waiting for a lawyer. I want him here. If he doesn’t show up for the chow line, we’ll go ahead without him. It’s only another ten minutes.’

  ‘OK.’ Angela often got antsy about working overtime. She didn’t like her son to have too many unsupervised hours after school let out, worried about what that might lead to. They had both seen how the guys in handcuffs seemed to get younger every year. He covered her hand with his.

  ‘There he is,’ Angela said, gesturing with the cup.

  ‘Don’t—’

  ‘It didn’t spill.’

  He examined the carpet to be sure, but then turned his head to watch ex-convict Terry Beltran approach the Calgary halfway house on East Forty-Ninth. The man’s history didn’t quite match his description. He had no more than average musculature and weight. He had only one tattoo and the sleeve of his shirt covered it. His short hair and trimmed goatee could look either sinister or mischievous, depending on the clothing he wore. Put him in a shirt and tie and he could be a banker with a maverick streak. Today he strode along in a very average pair of jeans and an oversized football jersey, not particularly intimidating until you added the knit cap and the irritated way he swung his arms. Then he became someone you would cross the street to avoid.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Frank said. He and Angela exited their vehicle, Angela taking her cup with her, so at least he didn’t have to worry about her setting it on the floor and then knocking it over upon re-entry. Behind them, two guys emerged from a marked unit to join in.

  Beltran saw them, had seen them the moment Frank touched the door handle, and bolted – but not away. Instead, he turned and ran up the sagging wooden steps into the house.

  ‘Damn,’ Frank sighed.

  Angela dropped her cup in the middle of East Forty-ninth and launched herself toward the house. She and Frank took the steps in unison, and he thought the combined pounding would rip off the entire porch. But the house had withstood plenty of pursuing cops over the years and barely quivered.

  Frank could see Beltran’s feet disappearing up the top of the stairs as he yanked open the screen door, which had swung shut behind their felon. A skinny, middle-aged black woman stood behind a
heavy reception desk and gave them a look which would have stopped a bullet train, but momentum kept Frank going. He slowed only long enough to shout ‘Police! Warrant!’ before his foot hit the first step. Somewhere on the second floor, a door banged.

  Beltran had gone to the right, right, as they came through the screen door? ‘Did he go—’ Frank asked Angela, or at least began to ask Angela. But when their feet, still in unison, hit the seventh or eighth step, the entire house exploded into a white heat of light and sound, and he felt himself falling backward, falling while knowing that eventually his head and the rest of his body would come into contact with something hard and it would not be pleasant, yet unable to stop his mental debate as to whether Beltran had turned to the right or the left.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  They sat at her kitchen table, the polished oak slab having been the scene of many a confession over the years. Theresa had learned a lot while seated on one of the four striped cushions: that her husband had lost his job for sleeping with the boss’s wife, that Rachael had developed a crush on Matt Devereau in her algebra class, and that there is no good way to tell a sixteen-year-old that her parents are splitting up.

  Now she waited to learn whether or not the man she had fallen for had once been a party to drug dealing, fraud and manslaughter.

  ‘So you were Bean,’ she prompted after blowing the steam from her teacup. Brewing a cup had given her heart rate and other bodily indicators time to slow down from the too-brief make-out session in the hallway. She hadn’t wanted to stop. Even now, she felt willing to ignore everything she had learned about crystal meth and explosions and dead students just to get his arms around her again. But she had to know the truth before going any further. She had an obligation to report a crime, though the statute of limitations on the drug charges would have run out by now, surely. And as long as the death had been accidental … maybe it had something to do with pride. She would not love a man who lied to her. Not again.

  ‘Yeah, I was Bean,’ he said, finally turning his gaze up from the table’s surface. The fact didn’t come as a surprise, but the way it made her feel as if her heart had slid five inches down her spine did. ‘Look, I’ll – I’ll tell you everything, but you can’t tell anyone else. Not your boss, not the police, especially not your cousin.’