Her father frowned, but took it. “Stone. I haven’t seen you since you…since the bombings. How are you?”
“Back in play.” Rembrandt gestured to the yellow-taped crime scene. “Just trying to work the scene before the evidence trail grows cold.”
“And if it were on your watch, then maybe that would be a good idea, but your shift doesn’t start until, hmm...” He looked at his watch.
Oh, brother. But her father had it out for Rembrandt ever since he wrote the tell-all memoir about his rookie year on the force. The book had landed him on the NYT bestseller list—and on Danny’s blacklist.
Cops don’t write about their lives, apparently.
But she’d read Rembrandt’s book cover to cover, even before she met him. Might have harbored the smallest crush on him—oh, who was she kidding? She’d practically jumped into Rembrandt Stone’s arms the moment he looked her way.
Yeah, that wasn’t happening again. Ever.
“I just happened to be here,” Rembrandt said, and she noticed his voice was easy, as if trying not to get tangled up with Inspector Mulligan’s ire.
“Just happened—”
“Dad,” Eve said, but he put up his hand.
“Another hunch?”
Rembrandt frowned, glanced at Eve. “No. Just hungry.” He nodded to the diner.
Her father’s mouth pinched as he looked at Eve. “Share what you have with our CSI.” His gaze went back to Rembrandt. “I’ll take it from here.”
Rembrandt’s jaw tightened. “I got this, Danny. And, I’ll tell the parents. I was the one who performed CPR on her.”
Her father had turned away, and his back stiffened, but he glanced at Rembrandt and gave a brisk nod before he walked away.
“He doesn’t like me,” Rembrandt said, his voice sotto.
“He…just…doesn’t know you,” Eve said.
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“So, you think she got out here, at the sidewalk?” Eve had walked over to the edge of the parking lot. “Did anyone from the diner see anything?”
“There’s not a clear view to here.” Rembrandt was walking along the sidewalk, looking at the windows. “There’s too many trees and bushes in the way.”
The road was edged by a green space, lilac trees, and flowers in a bed and— “Rem—” Whoops. “Inspector Stone, look.” She pointed to a trampling of fallen lilac flowers, smudged into the ground. And in the crushed mess of them, a tread imprint.
She crouched, took a burst of shots.
“Great catch, Eve,” Rembrandt said and came over. “That’s about two steps from the edge of the road.” He walked over to the curb. “She might have gotten out here.”
Eve joined him, scanning the other side of the street. The two-lane side street wasn’t busy this time of day. The tattoo parlor across the street had just opened, the owner flipping over the paper sign. And next door, through the window of the workout studio, women were holding what looked like a warrior pose.
The air smelled of summer, bacon, and the scent of the lilacs, and she’d bet on a glorious day, with the high in the seventies. Tonight, she’d open the windows and paint her dining room wall.
Maybe talk her brother, Samson, into starting her deck.
“How is your house coming along?” Rembrandt asked.
What, could the man read her mind?
“Good. I’m nearly ready to paint the dining room.”
“What color?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Rembrandt was looking up the street, away from her. “She gets out of a car, here? Or maybe was walking down the sidewalk, although, that’s on the other side—”
“What if she ran across the street?”
“From the tattoo parlor?”
“Or…there.” She pointed to a clinic the next block down. “What if she was at the women’s clinic? It’s twenty-four hours.”
He was nodding. “Maybe someone picked her up. But why did she get out here?”
“Fear? Hurt?”
He wore an enigmatic expression in his eyes, something almost sad and it stilled her when he said, quietly. “Those are good reasons to run, I guess.”
Burke walked over, and Rembrandt turned to him. “We need to talk to someone at that clinic.” He pointed down the street.
Burke raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me.”
“It’s just—”
“A hunch?”
“Somewhere to start.”
Burke glanced at her father. “What about him?”
Inspector Mulligan was talking to Silas.
Rembrandt looked at Eve.
“It’s not my job to tell you guys what to do.”
The look he gave her was so probing, she should probably run.
She looked away, and down and— “Inspector.”
“What?” He crouched next to her as she took a picture, then used her gloves to pick up something bronze and shiny, fallen against the curb of the street.
“I think it’s a cuff link.” She turned it over. “And, it has a crest on it.” She looked up. “Sigma Chi.”
“You are simply brilliant, Eve Mulligan.” He smiled at her, something so big in his expression, it fell through her, pinning her to the spot.
Everybody was simply, terribly wrong about Rembrandt Stone.
“Rem! Let’s go!”
He jerked, as if he came back to himself. “Thanks, Eve. I’ll find you later.”
I’ll find you later.
She watched him go. Yeah, okay. She might like that.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. She was pitiful.
She turned back to the crime scene to bag the evidence. Spotted her father looking at her, his jaw tight.
Yeah, well, he wasn’t in charge of her life—
And that’s exactly what she wanted to say as he came up to her, as she was bagging and labeling the evidence. But the words clogged in her throat.
“Your Mom is hoping you’ll stop by for dinner tonight.”
“Can’t. Have to work late—” She didn’t look at him.
“Lucas will be here from Chicago—
“Dad,” she turned to him. “I’ll be there this weekend, okay? For the Fourth of July party. I promise.”
His mouth tightened, and apparently he just couldn’t stop himself from looking over his shoulder, at Rembrandt, then back to her.
“Eve—”
“I know, I know. Rembrandt Stone is trouble.” She closed up the bag and put it in another. “There’s just something about Rem—Inspector Stone—that just—”
“Stop. He’s not a science experiment. And I know you love a good mystery, but stay away from this one. There is something about him that I just don’t trust.”
“Dad. You don’t know him.”
“Neither do you. I want you to keep it that way.”
She watched him head back to the scene and talk to Silas.
Problem was, she loved a good mystery.
8
I haven’t lost it.
Three years out of the force, and I still know when someone’s lying. And right now it’s Dr. Lindgren from Planned Parenthood who is trying to tell me she’s never seen Gretta Holmes before.
I have to be careful because no one has identified her yet, and the slip of her name might alert Burke the hound dog to keep sniffing around the comment he made as we walked over to the clinic.
C’mon, Rem, how did you know she’d be there?
He said it casually, easy, as if we were continuing a conversation from earlier, and I recognized an interrogation technique that I very nearly fell for.
There are no secrets between Burke and me. Well, there weren’t. Apparently now…
“I told you—I heard a scream.”
“She was dead, man. Not breathing. What did you hear?” And he’s right, of course. I look over at him. An unfamiliar distrust lurks in his eyes. “Don’t leave me out in the cold.”
“Listen, I don’t know where it came from,” I say. “M
aybe it was one of the pets from the vet clinic next door—don’t ferrets scream?”
He’s frowning, and what is he going to say—that I’m lying?
“Right,” he says and gestures to the green light. But there’s a chill in his tone.
He’s quiet as I ask about the victim (Gretta) at the front desk, describing her. Yellow pants, long brown hair, jean jacket. Something flickers in the receptionist’s eyes, and she’s about to answer when Doc Lindgren pops out and intercepts us like she’s Vikings cornerback Harrison Smith.
“We can’t give out that information without a warrant.”
Newsflash—we don’t need a warrant to ask for help identifying a victim. And in 1997, the Hippa laws were brand new, many doctors unaware of the rules regarding protected health information. But Lindgren looks a little militant, so I smile and keep my voice friendly. “We are just trying to identify a woman who was murdered just down the street. We believe she visited you today. This is simply an administrative request for help.”
“We don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Doc Lindgren is about five six, with crew cut gray hair and the sound and feel of a drill sergeant emanates from her pert little mouth. From the posters on the wall advocating choices and the freedom over your body, I can guess what kind of services they offer.
I’ve never been political, but my thoughts about abortion sure swung toward life after Ashley was born.
“Are you sure?” Burke asks. “We think she might have come here for help.”
“We don’t turn anyone away, if that’s what you’re insinuating.” Her mouth collects spittle along the edges, as if we have her worried.
“What about—” Burke starts, and I’m not sure what he’s going to ask, but Lindgren cuts him off.
“No. No one like that was here.”
The overweight woman at the front desk has chewed her fingernails to the nub. She looks about twenty years old and keeps glancing at the door.
“Our request is not against the law,” I add. And, it’s not. “I can have my office send you a written request—”
“You need to leave.”
“Listen.” I tenor my voice to the sotto voce I use when talking to an angry Eve. “What if it were your daughter, strangled and bleeding on the street, and no one knew it? She could go for years without being identified—” And this isn’t actually true because after a modicum of searching, we’ll identify her as a runaway in our system, reported less than three months ago, but Gretta’s connection to the clinic is a new clue, and maybe we’re one step closer to whoever put their hands around her neck. “And we’re just asking for help to put her mother’s mind at rest. To keep her daughter from being buried in an unmarked grave. Years of grief not knowing…”
Lindgren’s jaw tightens.
Out of the corner of my eye, and behind the doctor, the receptionist is scribbling on a piece of paper.
“You do know that an autopsy will uncover anything medical we need to know,” Burke says. “And we can get a warrant—”
“Do that,” Lindgren snaps and turns away.
Burke blows out a breath.
But I take the piece of paper that the receptionist—named Grace by the tag on her shirt, which feels appropriate, by the way—gives me.
Thank you, I mouth and go outside. Hand the paper to Burke.
“Gretta Holmes,” he says.
Bingo, but that will save us time. And time is the ticket when solving a case like this.
We walk back to my Camaro.
“You nearly had me crying in there,” Burke says. He looks at me. “Thinking about your brother?”
Yeah, maybe on some level. It’s always there, never buried deep enough to fully let go of. My kid brother who vanished while we were out riding our bikes. My mother never quite recovered, and our family fell apart in the waiting years. According to the history I know, some fishermen snagged his body while out fishing for walleye in a lake near our home just a month ago.
But no. I was thinking of Ashley. I nod, however.
“How are your parents?” Burke asks, and I should know the answer, but I haven’t a clue.
In the previous timeline, my mother had a stroke the day she received the long-awaited news.
In this timeline, or at least the one I just left, I remember seeing a picture of them with a parrot and an umbrella drink on a recent cruise, so maybe that went better the second time around. So, “As well as can be expected.”
Burke says nothing and we get into the Camaro and pull out. He’d left his boring Integra at the gym, and we drive back to Carefree Highway, an ironic ballad by Gordon Lightfoot, about picking up pieces of shattered dreams.
Eve is back in my head, my mind circling around her smile, her red hair flinging out of the ponytail she’d shoved it into after the gym, looking at me with those hazel-green eyes, and—
“You think she was pregnant?” Burke asks, turning down the radio. I hate when he does that. Feels like a man should be able to control his own volume.
“Dunno.” I can’t remember from the autopsy, but it seems that would have stuck with me. “Maybe she had an STD test.”
“Working girl?”
I can’t remember, but I hope not. “She didn’t look like it.”
“She might be in the system.”
Most definitely, but I don’t want to sound too eager, so I nod. “Good idea.”
As if fate has my number, Loggins and Messina come on with Danny’s Song, and I hum along.
“You like her.”
I glance at Burke and he’s grinning, his dark eyes shiny.
“Who?” I say, and my voice is too high.
Burke laughs and shakes his head. “Aw, you like trouble too much, Rem. I told you to stay away from her. She’s a blue blood. Imagine what Danny Mulligan would do to you if you two got involved.”
Already done, buddy. Involved with a capital I. But I do make a face because I hated the idea that Danny never liked me.
I’ll fix that, too.
I’m not much of a praying man, but sometimes, like now, I’d like to see what I have to barter.
“I thought you were over her.”
“What gave you that idea?” And now I’ve given myself away, Burke the slick one.
“Just…I don’t know. After the bombings, after the stabbing, she came to the hospital and sat by your bedside. And when you woke up, you barely grunted her direction.”
Oh, I could strangle young me. Apparently, my idiocy started early.
“I was just…I wanted to get back to work.”
“And today? What was that?”
“She looked good, didn’t she?”
He cocks his head at me. “Did you hear nothing of what I just said? Inspector Mulligan has your number. You even get near her, he’ll send the entire First after you—”
“Calm down, Burke. By the time the weekend’s over, Danny Mulligan’s going to love me.”
Burke raises an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yep.” I turn into Quincy’s and pull up to his Integra. “You just wait.” And then I wink.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe it’s the fact that I feel a little bit invincible, the wind under me.
I can change time.
Okay, and yeah, I very much remember the mess I made of things in the future. But I’m going to find a version, a timeline rewrite where eighteen-year-old girls don’t get strangled in alleyways, where fathers and sons aren’t gunned down in the street, where little girls aren’t abducted from their beds at night.
And yes, you’re saying, the world is full of tragedy and violent crimes and you can’t save everyone, Batman, but this is my timeline, er, timelines and I can fix what I want, so leave me alone.
This is going to end well.
Redbone confirms it with Come and Get Your Love as I pull into the precinct station. We’re still hanging out at the 5th precinct while the downtown office finishes up the remodel. This office on Nicollet
is new and shiny and nothing of the exhausted facade of future days. I get out, and saunter into the station, humming.
I enter, and for a second, I’m thrown.
What? My office isn’t in the middle of the conference room command center, but parked in the corner, the farthest from the coffee machine as if Booker has it in for me.
Burke’s office, I might add is the closest, so I guess we all know why he became Deputy Chief. But I’ll sort that out when I get back.
I fill a coffee cup as I walk by the machine and am just setting it on my desk—predictably piled high with file folders—next to a chunky box monitor (and I’m trying not to laugh) when I hear a voice.
“Rem. My office. Now.”
Chief John Booker. And I don’t know why but every time I hear his voice tunneling through the past to grab me, it takes a piece out of me.
After my Mikey died, Booker started coming around, updating the family on the case. He always had time for me. He was my mentor until we had the fight of the century the day I quit the force. Up till that moment I considered him a father.
Now, he’s standing in the door of his office, a hand on the frame and I have the sense of being summoned to the principal’s office, the tiny hairs rising on the back of my neck.
Booker wears every case—especially the few unsolved ones—in every craggy line on his face. Short clipped graying hair, he has the dry humor and few words persona of a Montana cowboy. Think a towering, solemn version of Sheriff Dillon, from Gunsmoke. A couple people look up as I walk by, a smattering of pity in their eyes.
They don’t realize that although Booker has a look that can stop a man from drawing a piece, he’s also the guy who actually gives someone the time of day and isn’t afraid to wait for you to speak.
He closes the door behind him and hangs on the knob for a bit.
Gestures toward a chair with his chin.
So this is a sitting talk. Great.
I lower myself into the chair, not sure what I did. I’m flying blind here, now on both sides of the timeline, and I’m just hoping that my respect for Booker in my youth was enough to keep me from doing something colossally stupid.
“How long?” His voice is soft, but there’s steel in the question. He folds his arms over his chest and walks to his desk, leaning on the front edge.
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