by Diane Kelly
Mackey continued to watch as the detective, Brigit, and I climbed into my cruiser. I started the engine and pulled into the street.
“So,” I said to Jackson, “about those burglaries—”
She let loose a snort. “I should’ve known you were up to something offering to drive me back to the station.”
“I’m eager to learn. That’s a good thing.”
“You’re right,” she acquiesced. “It makes you a little annoying at times, though.”
I chose to ignore that comment. “Given that the burglaries took place in the late afternoon, the thieves could have been teenagers looking for items they could sell or pawn, maybe to buy drugs.”
“Or the thief could be someone who is out of work,” Jackson added. “Or someone who is employed but doesn’t work a regular weekday shift.”
Darn. That could include a lot of people.
I pulled to a stop at an intersection. “The fact that both homeowners were on trips when the burglaries took place seems like it might be an important fact.”
Could both houses have been struck by someone who knew the homeowners would be away for prolonged periods of time? Maybe someone from their lawn care or housekeeping services, if they hired such people? I hated to suspect the maids. Cleaning crews were blamed far too often for the theft of items misplaced or wrongfully reported stolen by home or business owners. But sometimes they did, in fact, take advantage of their access in order to pocket things that didn’t belong to them. Or perhaps the victims had submitted orders at the post office to have their mail held. Maybe a postal employee was the perpetrator.
As I pulled out from the stop sign, I ran each of these ideas by the detective. “What do y-you think?”
“I think your idle speculation is just that. Idle. I don’t have time to run down all those leads.”
“I do.”
“That’s not what you’re paid for, Officer Luz. You’re paid to patrol the streets.”
“I’ll make it quick. You know, just ask a few questions and see if anything jumps out at me.”
She cut me a look. “You were one of those geeks in school who always did the extra-credit projects, weren’t you?”
She’d nailed me. The only extra-credit projects I hadn’t done were any that required me to speak in front of the class. My stutter had been too pronounced back then.
She let out a long breath. “I suppose it can’t hurt. I’ll e-mail you a copy of the files.”
“Great!”
After dropping Detective Jackson back at the station, I decided to head down to Berry Street, which marked the southern edge of the W1 division. My partner and I just passed Hemphill when a collision up ahead forced us to slow down. FWPD was already on scene and appeared to have things under control. I lifted my fingers off the steering wheel to wave to Summer, who was directing traffic to detour down Travis Avenue.
I was driving through an intersection a block down when a flash of red came out of nowhere and passed in front of my car, mere inches between the blur and my bumper. I slammed on my brakes. Screeech! What the hell was that?
I switched on my lights and turned left to pursue the offender.
During my stint as a cop I’d pulled over vehicles with four wheels, eighteen-wheeler trucks, and two-wheeled motorcycles. I’d even once pulled over one of those goofy-looking three-wheeled cycles. Seriously, if you need training wheels, maybe you should just drive a regular car. But this was the first time I’d pulled over someone on eight wheels.
The young woman on roller skates zipped ninety-to-nothing down the street. She wore a helmet and pads, but a fat lot of good they’d do her if she kept pulling out in front of moving cars.
I caught up to her, leaving a safe distance between us in case she suddenly fell. She made no move to pull over. Probably she had no idea I was behind her. Skating helmets don’t have rearview mirrors, after all.
I grabbed the mic for my public address system and pushed the button. “You on the skates. Pull over to the curb.”
The woman glanced behind her, spotted me, and performed a skilled half turn so that she now skated backward while facing my car. She dipped her feet forward to slow herself down and eventually came to a full stop in the street, raising her hands in the air.
I pulled my car over, left the lights on, and climbed out. As I walked toward her, I noticed several things. This woman was in her mid-twenties, like me. She was very tall, five ten or five eleven, I’d guess, and built from solid muscle. The red spandex shirt she wore featured the open-can logo for the Fort Worth Whoop-Ass, the local women’s roller derby team. And she was sobbing. Huge tears streamed down her face and her shoulders shook uncontrollably.
I stopped a few feet in front of her. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head, lowered one of her arms to wipe her eyes on her sleeve, and sniffled. “My boyfriend dumped me,” she managed between crying fits. “We’ve been together for two years—” She stopped to gulp back a sob. “And suddenly he says I’m not ‘girly’ enough for him.” She lowered her other arm now, too. “He sure seemed to think I was girly enough last night when he was jackhammering away at my—”
“Okay!” My own hand was up now. Funny how some people don’t want to give cops any information and others want to give too much. “I’m sorry about the breakup. But you can’t be out here skating around like this, not paying attention to traffic, or you’ll get yourself killed.”
She bit her quivering lip. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I had no idea this was coming and he’s moving his stuff out of our place and I couldn’t bear to watch.”
“What’s your name?”
“Francesca Kerrigan. I go by Frankie.”
Frankie? Hmm. Maybe her boyfriend had a point about the ‘girly’ thing. Still, he shouldn’t have used her for sex if he planned to dump her the next morning. Jerk. I glanced at my watch. “How long have you been out here, Frankie?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. An hour or two?”
“Any chance your boyfriend c-could be done now? I’d be happy to give you a ride home.” This woman was in no condition to be out on the streets. I’d feel horrible if I left her out here and she got plowed down by a bus or something.
She nodded and skated toward me. “One of his friends showed up with a truck a couple of hours ago. Between the two of them they’re probably done by now.”
I opened the passenger door for her and she skated over and climbed into the car, easily filling the seat.
“Wow!” she said. “You work with a dog? How cool is that?”
Sometimes it was really cool. Other times, like when Brigit nearly burst my eardrum barking in the car, not so much.
I circled around to the driver’s side and climbed in. I glanced over at her, noticing a few more things up close. She had great cheekbones and her eyes were blue, as were the few jagged pieces of hair sticking out from under her helmet. “Where to?”
She hiked a thumb behind us. I pulled into a driveway and reversed out, turning to go back the way I’d come. In less than a minute we turned onto Travis Avenue and pulled up in front of a bungalow-style home, a type common to South Hemphill Heights and the surrounding neighborhoods, though this one was on the smaller side compared to some of the others. The paint was a subtle mauve with ivory trim, the front door painted a nicely contrasting navy blue. A giant magnolia tree shaded the front yard, making it impossible for grass to grow, but ivy ground cover was doing its best to compensate. A prefab single-car detached garage sat to the right and back of the house, clearly having been added quite some time after the house was originally built. The backyard was enclosed with a six-foot wooden privacy fence. A pickup truck sat at the curb, the bed piled with a sofa, cardboard boxes, a pinball machine, and assorted odds and ends.
“Dammit!” Frankie said. “He’s still here.”
The front door opened and two large, dark-haired men came out, one on either end of a big-screen TV.
Frankie was out of
my cruiser as if she’d been hurled from an ejection seat. “Hey!” she hollered at the men. “You can’t take that TV! I paid for half of it!”
“And I paid for the other half,” retorted one of the men, who I assumed was the Dumper.
As the two men ignored Frankie and continued toward the truck, I climbed out of the patrol car and raised my palm. “Stop right there. You’ve admitted that half of that television belongs to Ms. Kerrigan. If you don’t return that television to the house I will have to arrest both of you for theft.”
“What the fuck?” Dumper spat.
His friend said nothing, though his expression made it clear he was annoyed. He probably had better things to do than get in the middle of a domestic squabble and risk arrest over a TV.
I turned to Frankie. “How much did the set cost?”
“Total? Six hundred dollars. We each paid three.”
I returned my focus to Dumper. “You can either pay Ms. Kerrigan three hundred dollars cash right now or you can return the TV to the house.”
“That’s bullshit!” he hollered.
“That’s the law.” Or at least I thought it was. When something—a television, a pet, a child—was the subject of debate, law enforcement tended to protect the status quo unless and until one of the parties obtained a court order to the contrary.
“Fine!” He lowered his end of the TV to the ground and his friend did the same. Not exactly what I’d told them to do, but Dumper looked so angry at this point I didn’t trust him not to intentionally drop the thing if he carried it back to the house.
Without another word, the two men headed back to the truck.
“Good riddance!” Frankie hollered after them, breaking down in fresh tears. Evidently, big girls do cry. A lot.
I patted the gun holstered at my hip. “He’s still in range. Want me to shoot him?”
A laugh spurted from her. “Would you? Between the eyes would be good.”
“Between the legs would be even better.”
The men climbed into the truck, slammed their doors, and drove off. She turned her back, as if it was too hard to watch.
I gestured to the house. “He may be gone, but at least you’ve got a nice place.”
“For now.” She used her fingers to brush away her tears. “No way can I afford this place on my own.”
“So you’ll be looking for a roommate?”
She shrugged. “I guess so.”
“Does your lease allow pets?”
She nodded. “I’ve got a cat.”
“Can my partner and I take a look?”
“Sure.” She sniffled. “Why not?”
We brought the TV up onto the porch where it would be safe. I rounded up Brigit and the three of us went inside. Rolling through the place on her skates, Frankie took me and Brigit on a quick tour of the house, her fluffy, green-eyed calico cat trotting along behind us.
The living room had lots of windows, hardwood floors, and an empty spot where the sofa had been. Though not large, the kitchen had sufficient cabinet space and an L-shaped counter with a two-seater breakfast bar, as well as a small dining nook. I opened the back door and let Brigit out to explore the yard for a moment or two. When she returned, we continued the tour.
Down a hallway off the living room were two bedrooms and two bathrooms, perfect for a roommate situation. The back bedroom stood empty except for a poster of Kate Upton lying bare-breasted and virtually bare-assed on a sandy beach. The only thing she wore was a tiny, ruffled thong that left nothing to the imagination.
Frankie snatched the poster off the wall, crumpled it up, and hurled it across the room. “He used to call this room his ‘man cave.’ Kept all his dirty magazines and porn collection in here.”
“Ick. You’ll be better off without him.”
“You’re right. What did that butthead ever do for me?”
I took one last glance around as we made our way back to the front door. Despite its age, the house looked to be in fairly good shape. There was some loose trim here and there and I’d noticed the toilet giving off the telltale sound of a loose seal in the tank, but nothing that couldn’t be easily repaired. It had everything I’d been looking for and then some—a fenced yard, off-street parking, convenience. It even had a fireplace.
I stopped on the front porch. “I’ve been looking for a place with more space and a yard for my dog.” Of course I’d been looking for a place I could manage on my own, but going solo didn’t seem to be in the cards. “Should we give it a try?”
Frankie gave me a smile and raised her hand for a high five. “Hell, yeah!”
Slap! As my hand met hers, I realized I’d known my new roommate for a grand total of ten minutes. I hadn’t asked about her job or run a background check. Moving in here was an incredibly impulsive decision.
But something told me it would prove to be a good one.
FOURTEEN
A YARD OF HER OWN
Brigit
Brigit loved this place!
The front porch was shady and cool, the perfect place from which a dog could keep watch over the neighborhood or lie down for a nap. So much better than their current digs, where she had to stand guard at a narrow window that gave only a partial view of the apartment complex parking lot. Hard to work under those conditions.
The floors were sturdy hardwood in the living room and bedrooms, linoleum in the kitchen and baths. Brigit would have preferred nice, plush carpet to lie on, but she knew Megan would put down a soft rug or bed for her. Besides, her partner let her up on the furniture, so the floors weren’t a deal-breaker.
The kitchen contained fading, residual smells of bacon grease and pork chops, making Brigit’s mouth water. Too bad her partner was a vegetarian. Still, those soy sausages Megan sometimes made for breakfast weren’t half bad. They weren’t half good, either. But a dog who’d gone without a meal for several days under the negligent care of a previous owner knew better than to ever turn down food, no matter how it tasted.
When Megan opened the back door for her, it seemed like a portal to heaven. Brigit saw a deep yard with a gnarly live oak and a tall pecan tree that, from the smell, served as home to an extensive squirrel family sure to provide Brigit with hours of entertainment. As soon as Megan unclipped her leash, Brigit had bolted into the space, running around and kicking up her heels, thrilled to have room to roam and romp. The dirt was soft under her feet, perfect for digging and hiding bones in. A rrrruf! from next door told her she’d have a friend in the neighborhood, a terrier judging from what she could see through a small gap in the fence boards.
The only downside was that darn cat. The stupid thing had followed them all through the house, had tried on several occasions to get Brigit’s attention by swiping at her tail. Pathetic. Brigit sensed the poor thing might be lonely. Heck, she’d been there herself, back when she’d lived with her first owner, who rarely gave her attention. While Brigit would have preferred to share her home with another dog, she’d learn to tolerate the feline if she had to.
As Megan led her back to their cruiser, Brigit slowed to sniff the ivy, scenting two rats hiding in the foliage. Had she not been on a leash, she would’ve eaten one as an hors d’oeuvre, the other for dinner.
Or maybe she would’ve shared the second one with that cat …
FIFTEEN
WRONG NUMBER
Dub
He stared down at the phone number scribbled on the Taco Bell napkin in his hand. He shouldn’t dial it. He knew that. Katrina Mayhew was his mother in name only.
But her crappy parenting hadn’t been totally her fault, had it? It wasn’t her fault she’d gotten addicted to drugs. Some people just couldn’t control themselves. She hadn’t come from the best family herself and the meth … it made her someone else.
Drugs could make a person do horrible things they never intended to do. Dub knew that better than anyone. And the dealers who sold the drugs, who got people addicted, who ruined so many lives? If it were up to Dub, every last one of
them would be wiped off the face of the earth.
He picked up the landline phone, willing it to explode in his hand, to stop him from doing what he knew he was going to do.
Okay, so he’d call her. No biggie, right? He would just talk to her for a minute, make sure she was doing all right, catch her up on his life. She’d be proud to know he was making good grades. That he’d played on the basketball team at Gainesville State School—second string and they’d had a losing season, but still. She’d be thrilled to know that, after encouragement from Wes and Trent, he’d auditioned for a role and would be playing Mayor Shinn in The Music Man at Paschal High School. It wasn’t the lead, but the fact that he’d been chosen at all, that the director had seen something in him, had made him think that maybe change was possible after all. And, of course there was Jenna. She’d seen something good in Dub, too, even if her parents only saw his rap sheet and had forbidden her from dating him.
He’d just call his mother.
Have a quick talk.
And that would be it.
Sure.
Trent and Wes wouldn’t find out. There was no record of local calls on a landline phone bill, right?
He began dialing—8-1-7—angry to find the phone shaking in his hand. For shit’s sake, he told himself. Chill.
He finished dialing.
He’d nearly hung up when Katrina answered after the fifth ring. Her voice sounded wary, probably because she didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Hi … Mom.” God, it shouldn’t be so hard to say that word, should it?
“Wade!” she cried, as if she’d just won a Caribbean cruise on Wheel of Fortune. “It’s so good to hear from you! I’ve been hoping you would call!”
He wasn’t sure where to start. “It was … uh … a surprise seeing you the other day.”
“It was fate, honey!” she cried. “Fate.”
Uh-oh. He feared where she might be going with this. Better take control of the conversation. “So, uh, I played basketball in Gainesville. And I tried out for a play here. I’m gonna be in The Music Man.”
