Deadly Gamble

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Somebody tried to kill me,” I said, stunned.

  “It was the Chinese gunk,” Tucker ascertained. He didn’t make a move to get out of the car, and neither did I. “Somebody laced it. Who could have done it, Moje? Where’d you get the stuff?”

  “A kid brought it to the door. There was a sales pitch on my voice mail when I checked my messages last night. Some food-delivery service, offering a free meal as a come-on. I didn’t call them back, and never thought about it again.”

  Tucker nodded once, shoved open his door. “Let’s have a look at the box. There might be a company name, though I doubt it.”

  We piled out of the Volvo and double-timed it up the steps, Tucker in the lead.

  “Did you delete the message?” Tucker asked, on the landing.

  That was when I remembered the other message. The death threat.

  “No,” I said. “But there was a call from somebody who wanted to kill me.”

  Tucker paused in the act of opening the door—which we hadn’t taken the time to lock on the way out—and glared at me. “And you’re just mentioning that now?”

  I bristled. “It’s not as if I’ve been sitting around twiddling my thumbs.”

  No, indeedy. I was an honorary suspect in a criminal investigation, with all the attendant responsibilities. Then, of course, there was the distraction of screwing Tucker’s brains out. Followed by the Russell crisis.

  Tucker shook his head. I guess he thought I should have worked the crank call into the conversation somewhere, and maybe he had a point.

  That didn’t mean I had to actually admit to anything.

  I would have followed him into the apartment, but he barred my way with one arm, and the unspoken “Wait here” was evident in his body language.

  After a few moments, he called me inside.

  He was sitting on his haunches on the living room floor, holding the food box gingerly and examining it. “No name, of course,” he said. “But there might be fingerprints.”

  “Mine,” I said. “The kid’s.”

  Tucker stood, headed for the kitchen. There, he grabbed the phone and keyed into the messages.

  He all but rolled his eyes, listening to Greer and then Jolie.

  The sales call came next. He frowned as he listened, then saved it.

  I watched his face intently as he took in the last message. He saved that, too, then did what I would have done, if I hadn’t been so rattled. He star-69ed the call, gesturing for something to write with.

  I gave him a pen and the envelope from my light bill.

  “Who is this?” he demanded, into the receiver.

  He listened.

  I listened.

  The whole world seemed to pause on one big indrawn breath.

  “Right. Thanks. What’s the address?”

  He scribbled.

  “Thanks again,” he said, and hung up.

  “Well?” I asked, when he didn’t immediately volunteer the details.

  “Convenience store in north Phoenix,” he answered briskly. “I’ll have it checked out.” He got back on the phone, waded through Greer and Jolie again, and did the same with the food-service message.

  “A cell phone,” he told me, scribbling down another note. “Probably a throwaway, but I’ll see if I can have it traced.”

  Scared as I was, I felt a certain admiration for Tucker’s competence.

  He placed a call, reeled off the information he had concerning the two voice-mail messages, gave out my number and rang off.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  Tucker thrust the phone at me. “Call whoever’s in charge of the investigation into Bert’s assault,” he said.

  I took the receiver, rummaged through the stuff on the table for Andy Crowley’s card, and dialed the number. I got voice mail, and left my name and contact information.

  “How did you know what happened to Bert?” I asked. Things were limping into my mind, overdue. Tucker and I hadn’t talked about much of anything, after he told me about his cousin Jessica’s death, and how he’d seen her ghost.

  “I’m a cop, Moje. I’m in the loop.”

  “Even when you’re undercover and the whole world thinks you’re dead?”

  “Even then,” he said.

  “Sit down,” I said, drawing back a chair and taking my own advice.

  Tucker sat.

  Another bus hobbled into my mental depot. “Allison knew the truth,” I said. “About your undercover assignment, I mean.”

  “Yeah,” Tucker answered carefully. “I couldn’t have Danny and Daisy thinking I’d been blown to pieces, Moje. They’re cop’s kids, and they’re used to keeping secrets, as young as they are.” He paused, looking sad. “It isn’t fair to put a burden like that on a pair of seven-year-olds.”

  “Just how close are you and Allison?” I’d been wanting to ask Tucker that question from the day we met, and though we’d danced around it numerous times, we’d never gotten to the crunch.

  No time like the present. A lot of other things were going down, but that was important, and I was tired of guessing.

  “I’m out of the marriage,” Tucker said. “But Allison and I have the kids, and that means there will be regular contact.”

  “You left your cell phone at her place,” I ventured, picking my way. Whatever Tucker and I had together, it had the potential of becoming something very good. I didn’t want to blow our chances. “I called you back, after that call about your going undercover in the first place, and I got Allison. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to make the connection.”

  Tucker sighed. “I left the phone with Daisy,” he said. I could see in his eyes that he wanted me to believe him, and wasn’t sure I would. “Allison must have found it.”

  It scared me, how much I longed for Tucker’s words to be true. I also knew how easy it would be to buy into the scenario because I wanted it to be that way.

  “Allison didn’t want the divorce,” I said. Dangerous ground, but it had to be crossed.

  “Allison instigated the divorce. She hated my job. Wanted me to go to law school.”

  “Is that the whole story?”

  “Of course not,” Tucker replied bluntly. “There are human beings involved. It’s complicated.”

  “You’re trying to win full custody of the twins?”

  “Partial custody,” Tucker clarified. “Right now, I can only see Danny and Daisy when Allison agrees.”

  “Why?”

  Tucker widened his eyes impatiently. “Because of my job,” he said. “Allison claimed the kids would be in deadly peril at my place, and the judge agreed.”

  “So the solution is—?”

  “I have to quit what I’m doing,” Tucker said quietly.

  “Then you could go back to Allison. Sign up for law school. From the looks of that house, she can afford to pay the bills while you hit the books.”

  “I don’t want to go to law school,” he replied, “and it’s over between Allison and me. Too much water under the bridge.”

  “What kind of water, Tucker?”

  The telephone rang before he could answer, and he looked relieved.

  I snapped out a “Hello.”

  “This is Crowley. You called?”

  I told the detective about the chow mein incident.

  He surprised me with, “And you’re sure the dog will be okay?”

  I liked him a little better than I had before. “The vet said he’d recover. I can probably pick him up tomorrow.”

  “That’s good. Now, for the official cop-speak. Don’t touch the chow mein or the box. I’ll be over as soon as possible, with an appropriate crew. I take it you’re up to speed on Mr. Bad-Ass’s current condition?”

  I watched as Tucker opened the pastry box, thought twice about it, and chucked the whole works into the trash. “I talked to his girlfriend, Sheila, late last night. She was hopeful.”

  “He was upgraded this morning from critical to stable,” Crowley said.

  Relief
hit me swiftly, and hard, like a punch to the belly. “Thank God.”

  “We’ll be taking his statement as soon as the doctor clears it. Unless he fingers you, you’ll be off the hook.”

  “That’s comforting,” I said, “since I didn’t do it.”

  “Remains to be seen,” Crowley answered. “Sit tight. We’ll be there in an hour or two.”

  “Guess it’s a good thing nobody has a knife to my throat,” I told him.

  He chuckled. “Touché, Ms. Sheepshanks,” he said, and hung up in my ear.

  “Why did you toss the doughnuts?” I asked, when I’d replaced the receiver on the wall hook. By then, Tucker was sniffing the coffee canister. Maybe he expected to get a whiff of cyanide or something.

  “I’m paranoid,” he said. “We didn’t lock the door when we left, and whoever tried to nail you with the chow mein could have gotten in and done more damage.”

  We weren’t through hashing out what Tucker meant to do about the job-custody situation, and I wasn’t ready to let it go.

  “What would you do if you couldn’t be a cop anymore?”

  Tucker decided to risk agonizing death and started a pot of coffee. I decided I wouldn’t have any until he’d downed a cup without foaming at the mouth.

  “I’ve been thinking about starting an agency,” he said. “Private investigation.”

  I brightened. While I didn’t go so far as to take it as a sign from the universe that I was finally on the right career track, it did seem like synchronicity. “I’m in the same business myself,” I said, somewhat proudly. “My sister, Greer, gave me five grand as a retainer. I get another five if I can either prove or disprove that her husband is a sneaking, skinny-dicked son of a bitch.”

  Tucker stopped, stared at me.

  “You’re hanging out a P.I. shingle?”

  “I guess it depends on how successful I am with this first job.”

  “Do you have any training?” The set of Tucker’s face said the question was rhetorical, since he already knew the answer.

  “I’ve read The Damn Fool’s Guide to Private Investigation,” I said. “A little review, and I’m golden.”

  Tucker looked as if he might either yell or laugh. He sort of hovered in the middle while the coffeemaker did its groan-and-steam routine.

  “Do you have a Damn Fool’s Guide to everything?” he finally asked.

  I grinned. “I wish they’d publish one on how to pick emotionally available men,” I said.

  Tucker made a face. Poured himself a cup of coffee before the machine was done, so the drippings sizzled on the little hot plate at the bottom. A strong java scent filled the air.

  He sipped.

  I waited.

  He didn’t keel over, so I had a cup, too.

  Crowley and his evidence crew arrived an hour later, by which time Tucker and I had made love again, and he’d been home to get fresh clothes. While he was gone, I did some repair work on myself. By the time we all gathered for the collection of the spilled chow mein, I looked fresh and virginal in a cotton sundress, with my hair tamed and caught up in a squeeze clip.

  Crowley listened to both the voice-mail messages, took some notes and called the station to have both of them tapped by some Big Brother computer program. That done, he asked me about a hundred questions, and oversaw the removal of the toxic evidence.

  While he was overseeing the process, his cell phone blipped. He answered with a crisp, “Crowley.” Listened intently. His gaze swung to me, landed and warmed. “Okay. Yeah. That’s good news for some people, and bad news for others. Thanks.”

  He clicked the end button.

  “Mr. Bad-Ass,” he said, “says you weren’t involved.”

  I let out my breath, and my shoulders went limp with the release of tension. “That’s the good news?”

  Crowley nodded. “The bad news is, he can’t remember what did happen. One minute, the place was full of customers and he was tending bar, as usual. The next, the crowd had thinned, and somebody stabbed him. After that, it’s the proverbial blur.”

  I could identify.

  Crowley’s gaze still contained a disturbing tinge of speculation. “Of course, I plan to question him myself.”

  “Of course,” I agreed, wondering if I was still a person of interest after all.

  The cop answered my unspoken question. He’d probably had a lot of experience, doing that. “Meanwhile, Ms. Sheepshanks, you’re free to go on about your business.”

  Whatever that was, I thought.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Did your contact happen to mention whether or not Bert could have visitors?”

  “I’m thinking no,” Crowley answered. “Give it a few days.”

  I nodded.

  “If you remember anything else about the chow mein delivery, or if you happen to see the kid again someplace, be sure and let me know. Same thing if you hear from the mystery caller again.”

  I’d told Crowley earlier that I suspected my half brother, Geoff, aka Steve Roberts, R.N. and health guru, might have been the perp. Ditto Heather, the stalker queen. I reminded him.

  “I’d change the locks if I were you,” he said, “and don’t accept anything edible from strangers.”

  Was he kidding? From then on, I wouldn’t take so much as a morsel from one of those sample ladies in the grocery store.

  Crowley left, and Tucker and I went back to bed.

  I woke to a dark apartment, an expanse of empty sheets and somebody hammering on the door.

  I got up, fumbled my way through the dimly lit rooms and down the hallway. I didn’t have a peephole, so I had to hope mimicry didn’t number among my enemy’s many skills.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Jolie,” my sister answered. “Let me in. I need to pee like a racehorse.”

  I opened the door. An attacker might have been able to do Jolie’s voice, but the urination metaphor was a throwback to when we were kids, and I doubted that my almost-Ph.D. sister used it in a public context.

  Fortunately, I was right.

  Jolie and I hugged on the threshold, and she came in, carrying a name-brand suitcase.

  “The place is dark as a tomb, I don’t smell food and you look like you’ve been rolling around in the sack with a man all afternoon,” she observed.

  “Good to see you, too,” I replied.

  Jolie made for the bathroom, while I set her bag in my room. I was smoothing the covers when she appeared in the doorway.

  “Lillian looks bad,” she said. “She didn’t even recognize me.”

  I’d forgotten, with all that was going on, that Jolie had planned to stop off at Sunset Villa on her way to my place. I’d also forgotten, I realized with a start, that she and I were expected at Greer’s for supper.

  I nodded sadly. “It kills me, seeing Lillian like this. She was always so—Lillian.”

  Tears stood in Jolie’s eyes. “I think she’s dying, Moje.”

  My throat constricted. “Probably,” I managed to say. The word came out sounding like a croak.

  “I called Greer from the car,” Jolie said, deftly turning the conversation in a direction both of us could deal with. “She’s under the weather, and wants to get together tomorrow night.”

  I frowned. “Is it serious?”

  “It sounded like a bad case of too much vodka to me,” Jolie said. “Greer’s really unhappy, isn’t she?”

  “Miserably,” I agreed. I was hungry, and I knew Jolie was, too. No way I was having anything delivered after the chow mein experience, so I suggested we head for the nearest IHOP.

  On the way there, in Jolie’s Pathfinder, I told her about the attack on Bert, Russell’s near-miss with the chow mein and the recorded phone message from Distorto-voice.

  She took it all in, in her thoughtful way, then asked, “So what about the sex?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t go into your tap-dance routine, Moje. I saw the tangled covers on your bed, and you’ve got a certain glow abou
t you. With all that’s been going on, there can only be one explanation, and that’s multiple orgasms in the very recent past.”

  I blushed. “Did you learn that in your forensics classes?” I dodged.

  Jolie chuckled. “No. I learned it having good times with bad men. Was it the cop?”

  “Yes,” I admitted. Jolie had a nose for the truth, and she was as persistent as a bloodhound.

  “So it’s back on with you two?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “He has kids, an ex-wife. And he’s thinking of changing jobs. There’s a pretty good chance Tucker’s rebounding, and I’m the trampoline.”

  Jolie winced. “Not good,” she said.

  “Not good at all,” I agreed.

  “And then there’s the sex.”

  I sighed again. “And then there’s the sex.”

  “Good?”

  “Beyond good. Beyond excellent.”

  “Aaak,” Jolie said.

  That about summed it up.

  At the IHOP, over breakfast suppers swimming in syrup, we switched subjects.

  “You still thinking of becoming a crime scene tech?” I asked.

  “I’ve got an interview with Phoenix PD,” she said. “Tomorrow afternoon, one o’clock.” She smiled softly, holding a crisp slice of bacon between two fingers. “Remember how we used to love it when Lillian served breakfast food for supper?”

  I felt a pang. Nodded. “It was always a treat,” I said. “Looking back, I figure it really meant she and Ham had run out of money before they ran out of month.”

  Jolie grinned. “Probably.”

  “Did you get Sweetie all squared away with the friends in the country?”

  “Yes,” Jolie said. “And it’s okay to say you’re relieved I didn’t bring him with me. He gave you a pretty hard time the other day.”

  I shuddered slightly at the reminder of being trapped on top of Jolie’s refrigerator for several hours with nothing to do but memorize the instruction book for the microwave. If I ever ran into a French person with thawing problems, though, I’d be ready.

  “I don’t think Sweetie likes me,” I said.

  “He likes you fine,” Jolie replied, chomping into her bacon.

  “Maybe with salt and pepper and a side of fries.”

  Jolie laughed. “He wouldn’t have eaten you.”