by Nancy Martin
“Ballistics will tell.”
“Not unless you have all the guns you need.”
“What does that mean?”
“I have Trey’s gun, too.”
“Jesus Christ, Roxy. What are you doing?”
“I took it from him the night Julius was killed. Trey was acting all crazy, so I took it. It’s in the same drawer with the Delaney piece. We can go get both guns now, if you want.”
“Roxy—”
She said, “Look, it was stupid, but I’m coming clean now. Let’s get going. I’d like to get home to Sage, if you don’t mind. She’s going to see this on the news. I don’t want her to get upset about a shooting at her mother’s house.”
Bug shook his head. “Sorry. I’ve got to take you to Major Crimes. Some other guys want to talk to you. And they told me that before you said you have a gun collection.”
Roxy wasn’t surprised. But she said, “I’m not a part of this thing, Bug.”
“No?” Suddenly he turned on her, and he was pissed. “You just happened to be at the scene of Julius Hyde’s murder, and now his girlfriend is killed in your house? And you took firearms, then kept them a secret from me?”
“It looks sketchy, I know.”
“Sketchy? You’re up to your eyeballs in shit, in case you haven’t noticed. The guy in charge of this investigation wants you to spend the night in an interview room! Me, I just want to punch your lights out.”
“So I’ll confess to something I didn’t do?”
Bug pulled himself together. “Roxy, I’ll be straight with you, since we went to school together. You need a lawyer. And not a mob lawyer, one of your uncle Carmine’s friends. Not somebody you’ve slept with, either.”
“Screw you.”
“Nobody’s going to take you seriously if you’re banging your lawyer.”
“If a man sleeps around, he’s a hero. But a woman is automatically a stupid whore. I’ve heard that all my life.”
Bug looked away. “I’m trying to be your friend for as long as I can. Get on the phone and hire yourself a good lawyer.”
“Will Loretta do?”
“She’s better than nothing.”
Roxy made a call, and when Bug pulled out, she rolled down the cruiser’s window to speak to Zack Cleary.
“Look after my dog,” she said as the car went past him.
The kid’s eyes bulged at the thought of taking care of Rooney.
“And you’d earn a few points with Sage if you call and tell her everything’s okay.”
Half an hour later, Roxy walked into the building on the North Side that headquartered Major Crimes. Within twenty feet of the front door, she spotted two cops she’d had sex with. One of them was Marty O’Brien, though, who’d been so drunk at the time he didn’t remember her. The other guy had later admitted he was married, so Roxy had punched him in the gut and told him she’d better not see him ever again. She’d erased his name from her memory. He obviously remembered her, however, because he ducked his head and looked busy as she went past his desk.
Bug escorted her as far as an interview room, which had a linoleum floor, a mirrored wall, and furniture that looked as if it had been bought secondhand from a community college.
He left her alone in the interview room, and a few minutes later a couple of Homicide cops came in, offered her a can of pop, and tried to be her pals. Roxy declined, saying she’d wait for her lawyer. Disappointed, the cops went away.
In a while, her lawyer showed up.
The middle-aged cop who unlocked the door and let Loretta inside looked at her like she was a delicious slice of pie. He said, “A few years ago, we used to see you around here a lot, Loretta. Was it something we said?”
“I gave up being a court-appointed.”
“Old people slipping and falling is more lucrative, right?”
She gave him her most twinkly smile. “Give us a few minutes, okay? And turn off the camera, will you, Dave?”
“Sure.” Dave closed the door, maybe to go in search of a fork.
Loretta’s twinkly look vanished. By the time she set down her leather briefcase on the table and folded her raincoat beside it, she had a warrior’s glitter in her eye. But her hair was fluffy, her nails perfect. Her suit had gold braid, and her high-heeled shoes made her ankles look delicate despite the size of the rest of her.
She cocked one fist on her hip. “It’s a good thing I already had my temper tantrum today, or you’d be dead meat.”
“I’m innocent.”
“If you were guilty, I’d hang you myself.”
“What was your earlier temper tantrum?”
“Somebody tried to steal my briefcase on the bus. I knocked him down the stairs to the curb. That’s one purse snatcher who will think twice before he tries to steal something from a menopausal woman. What does he think? After fifty we turn invisible? That it’s okay to bully us? Take our things? Pretend we don’t exist? I may be middle-aged, but I can still—”
“I’m not the enemy, you know.”
Loretta sat down and picked up the can of pop. She pressed the cold aluminum to her neck to cool off. “At least you didn’t fall for the full-bladder trick. That’s got to be the easiest way to get people to spill the truth.”
“When I’m ready to drink something, it won’t be pop. Did you tell Sage I’m okay?”
“Yes. She’d already talked with her boyfriend. Was he with you? Maybe he’s a nice boy after all.”
Loretta put the can on the table and gave Roxy a steely, parental glare. “Bug Duffy says they sent officers to your place to pick up some guns.”
“Yes.”
“Roxy, what are you doing with weapons? First of all, you hate guns. Second, you’ll jeopardize Nooch’s probation hearing. Not that I care about that.”
Roxy had been sitting there wondering if a good cry might help her feel better about everything. Seeing Kaylee dead, primarily. But Loretta’s brisk manner helped her choke back the urge. “I was at the Hyde house a few minutes before Julius was killed—saw him, talked to him. And I met up with his little brother Trey later the same night.”
Loretta didn’t miss a beat. “For what reason?”
“He had an itch he wanted me to scratch.”
“And did you?”
“Not that night, no. But a few months back, yes.”
Loretta’s mouth tightened. “A few months back, you were seeing the John Donne professor.”
“Him, too.”
“Roxana Marie, this self-destructive behavior of yours has got to stop. Your friend Adasha called me.”
“What? When?”
Loretta reached into her briefcase for a notebook and a fancy ballpoint. “She’s concerned. She says you need to get over what happened with your parents. You can pretend it’s done and doesn’t mean anything, but here you are almost thirty-five years old and still acting like…”
“Like what?”
Loretta stiffened her spine. “Like sleeping with a lot of men is going to solve your problems.”
“I don’t have any problems.”
Loretta clicked her pen. “Well, Pittsburgh’s finest seem to think you do, so tell me everything before they start their interview.”
Roxy knew how hard it had been for Loretta to express her concerns, so she gave her the lowdown without further resistance. About Trey and the Delaneys and the guns. Loretta took notes in an illegible scrawl and asked a few pointed questions. Then she repeated the facts back to Roxy and asked for corrections.
Roxy did not tell her about the statue or where she’d moved it. The only reason she’d told Bug where to find the guns was that she’d spent part of her day hiding a naked man where few people would notice him.
Finally, Loretta tapped her pen on the notebook. “How much of this are we going to tell the nice police officers?”
Roxy leaned forward on her elbows and managed to keep her voice level. “Let’s get one thing straight. I want to help catch whoever did these two murders,
Loretta.”
“You need to protect yourself, too.”
“That’s what you’re here for.”
“Normally, I get three hundred dollars an hour, you know.” Loretta reached around to rap her knuckle on the mirror behind her.
Two detectives came in and treated Loretta as if she were the Queen of England.
With Roxy, they weren’t so polite.
Three hours later, Loretta walked Roxy out of the building.
“You did good,” Loretta said. “I’ll drive you home.”
“I need to pick up my truck.”
Loretta narrowed her eyes. “Whatever you have in mind for tonight, young lady, you can forget it. You need to see your daughter. You need to assure Sage you won’t get arrested for anything.”
“I’ll go see Sage,” Roxy insisted. “But I need to pick up my truck first.”
“I’ll take you to your truck. And then I’ll follow you home.”
Roxy stopped on the sidewalk. “I’ve got to do something else before I go home.”
“Roxy—”
“Trey didn’t kill Julius.”
Loretta looked relieved that she wasn’t going to go looking for a man to blow off some frustration with. “You know that?”
“He was with the cops today, so he didn’t kill Kaylee.”
Roxy hadn’t liked the teeth pulling, but she’d answered all the questions posed by the police. The whole time, she’d been thinking about Kaylee—a girl who’d lived her short life using the assets God gave her to get out of the neighborhood.
“She was under my protection,” Roxy said.
Loretta melted. She must have recognized the emotion that bubbled just beneath Roxy’s exhausted control. She put her arm around Roxy’s shoulders.
Roxy said, “Kaylee was my responsibility, Lo. I should have checked on her. I should have made sure the house was a safe place for her to stay. It’s my fault she’s dead.”
Loretta hugged her. “Oh, honey. Let’s get your truck and go home. I have a gallon of ice cream I’ve been saving for the right time. This is it—the perfect night to get drunk on butterfat. You can squeeze your daughter tight. Think about the joys of being a grandmother. Get some distance from all this. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
They climbed into Loretta’s car, and ten minutes later, they pulled up to the intersection near Roxy’s truck. The police still had the block roped off. Even the television trucks had been pushed back. The whole scene suddenly gave Roxy a headache. Her stomach felt like a sour, very empty pit, and ice cream wasn’t going to fix that.
She had her hand on the door handle when Loretta reached across and grabbed her arm. “Roxy, don’t go all vigilante about this Falcone girl, okay? Promise you won’t do anything stupid?”
“I promise.”
Loretta gave a bitter bark of a laugh and released Roxy’s arm. “I can always tell when you’re lying. Okay, come home when you can, will you? Let us know you’re alive.”
“Tell Sage everything will be okay.”
“Sure.”
Roxy bailed out of the car. She ducked under the police tape and headed for her truck, pulling her keys from her pocket. A few crime-scene techs were milling around her front door, all of them muttering into their cell phones. For them, it was business as usual. But all Roxy could think of was Kaylee’s lifeless body.
Out of the tech group popped Zack Cleary. He spotted Roxy and made a beeline for her in long, loping strides.
“Hey,” he said, subdued.
Roxy mustered some bravado. “You look healthier than the last time I saw you.”
He blushed. “Yeah, sorry I lost my lunch earlier.”
“Tomorrow you can get a hose and wash off my stoop.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Where’s Nooch? Do you know?”
“I took him home. I hope that’s okay.”
“Did he fart in your car?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Surprised that he’d taken the initiative to look after Nooch, Roxy lingered. She wasn’t ready to climb into her truck yet. She jutted her chin at the crime scene. “How’s it going here? They find anything useful? Footprints in the dust? Fingerprints on the door handles? Any of that Sherlock Holmes stuff?”
Zack put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as he looked back at the techs. “Some of that, yeah. Looks like the dead girl let the guy into the house, though. No sign of forced entry.”
“Kaylee. That was her name.”
“Right. Sorry.” Zack looked at her more closely. “You okay?”
“What else do they think? What kind of gun was used?”
“I don’t know, but they think the guy wrapped a pillow around the gun when he shot her. Kaylee.”
“I figured that out. What about shell casings?”
“What about them?”
“Were there any?”
Zack shook his head.
Same as Julius, Roxy thought. Either the killer picked up the ejected shells or used a revolver. “Are the cops asking all the neighbors what they saw?”
“Yeah, they canvassed the whole street. Not many people around here during the day, so nobody saw anything except a bunch of kids walking around like they wanted to break into a house, maybe.”
“That’s typical on this block. The cops will waste their time chasing down those kids. Did they talk to Dolores?”
“Who?”
Roxy pointed. “The lady who lives in this house.”
“She hasn’t been home.”
“How about on the other side? The doctor, Adasha Washington. She was probably sleeping during the day. Her shift started at seven, I think. Maybe she heard something before she went to work.”
“I don’t know. Look, I have something to show you.”
Roxy waited, jiggling her keys. Tomorrow she’d come back and ask a few questions by herself, without the cops watching. For now, she just wanted to get away, do some thinking. Find a few people and ask questions. The Hyde chauffeur, for one. He might know somewhere for her to start.
From underneath his jacket, Zak brought out a package. Wrapped in a plastic grocery bag.
Roxy almost stopped breathing. “Where the hell did you get that?”
Zack’s face was smooth of any expression. He lowered his voice. “From under the seat of your truck. I searched the vehicle. Before the crime-scene cops looked. It’s cash.”
“I know it’s cash.” Carmine’s chunk of bills looked the same as when she’d moved it from Kaylee’s car to her own truck. “And you took it. What do you think? That I’m going to let you keep it?”
Zack was shaking his head. “It’s not like that. I took it out of the truck because I figured you didn’t want the cops to find it.”
Once again, he surprised her. And Roxy didn’t like that the kid was capable of keeping her off balance. “You’re the cops, in case you haven’t noticed. At least you’re damn close. What the hell are you thinking, kid?”
Although her voice sharpened, Zack stood his ground. “I’m thinking maybe you should keep it a secret. You know, for a while.”
“And you want some of it? For removing incriminating evidence? For saving me from an arrest, is that it? It didn’t take you long to find a way to earn your protection money. Congrats, tiger. You’re a dirty cop before you’re even officially sworn in.”
Zack opened his mouth to protest.
But her cell phone rang. When Roxy opened it, Flynn said in her ear, “Are you under arrest?”
“Nope.”
“Then you’d better come over here.”
She could hear the kitchen noise behind him. “Now?”
“Hurry up,” Flynn said before disconnecting. “I’m feeding some Hydes.”
Roxy closed the phone, opened the door to her truck, and climbed behind the steering wheel. Then she caught sight of Zack standing on the sidewalk.
“I’m not a dirty cop,” he said, “I’m not. I just wanted to help you.�
��
She knew she’d regret it, but she heard herself say, “Get in the truck.”
22
To take the bull by the horns, Henry decided to telephone Arden Hyde. And a couple of hours later, they walked into Rizza’s together for a late supper. The pretheater crowd was long gone, and even the second seating seemed to be thinning out. They were shown to a table near the fireplace in a high-ceilinged dining room with tall windows and pillars made of tree trunks. Using the Hyde name always got good service, but Henry backed it up. The hostess winked at him as she pocketed the fifty he slipped her.
At the table, Henry said, “It’s good to see you again, Arden. Shall we order a bottle of wine?”
“Okay.”
“Do you have a preference?”
“No.”
She scanned the menu for a long time, nibbling the nails of her left hand.
Henry put down his menu. Arden looked sleekly blond tonight, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and some kind of exotic textile thrown around her shoulders, hippie style. She was definitely more presentable than she had been earlier. But her foot jiggled incessantly, and he noticed all her cuticles were red. The front of her hair was cut in long bangs, which she tended to use as a screen.
He decided he’d chosen the right person to question concerning Quentin’s plan for Monica and the situation with Julius’s will. Henry planned to pop Arden like a cork.
After a few minutes of watching her obsess about the menu, Henry said, “I recommend the chef’s choice. It’s always an interesting culinary experience here.”
“Okay. I like adventures.”
She flattened her menu on the table and looked straight at him, a sign she had gathered her courage. “So what’s this all about, Henry?”
His only mistake might have been the choice of restaurant. In Rizza’s, there was always a waiter swooping in to refill glasses or a busboy slipping dishes away. The tables were tightly packed, too, with snippets of conversation flying around like mosquitoes. The tempo of the place was busy, but maybe that would work in his favor, Henry thought. If the atmosphere were too intimate, Arden would be even more nervous.
