Brooding Angel

by Marie Ferrarella

  But there was more to her disappointment. Until she’d heard the therapist’s voice, Clancy had hoped that it was Mitch on the other end of the line.

  When she’d realized who it was, Clancy had upbraided herself for being an idiot. He wasn’t going to call to see how she was doing. Why should he? He had given her a number to call if anything was wrong. If she didn’t call him, he’d assume that everything was all right. Mitch operated on a strictly logical level. He wasn’t the type who understood the need for a human voice.

  He had no such need himself, Clancy thought ruefully.

  Still, she couldn’t help herself. She’d hoped.

  Hoped. Clancy replaced the receiver in the cradle and looked up at the ceiling. The sigh that escaped her lips echoed and seemed to surround her. Mitch had managed to stir hope in her, however minimal.

  It was as if his kiss last night had awakened the Sleeping Beauty.

  Hands on the wheels, she pushed, making her way toward the bathroom. She saw her reflection in the full-length mirror as she passed.

  “Some beauty,” she murmured disparagingly.

  Her bruises had, for the most part, faded. But there was still a slight discoloration on her right cheekbone and swelling above her eye.

  Clancy shifted self-consciously, a kernel of vanity surfacing. She looked like something the cat wouldn’t have dragged in on a bet. She’d never been the type to fuss over her appearance, but she’d always tried to look attractive.

  “He’s not here because of the way you look,” she said aloud, criticizing the woman in the mirror.

  Alexander Mitchell was here only because of his guilt. If there had been any other reason motivating his return into her life, he would have approached her long before now.

  He might not care what she looked like, Clancy thought, but she did. She combed her fingers through her hair. Cynthia had washed it for her Saturday morning, but it was already beginning to feel grimy. How was she going to manage to wash it herself now?

  God, there were so many details she’d always taken for granted, Clancy thought, trying to keep the despair from swallowing her. So many little things that were now out of reach.

  She pressed her lips together, pushing the maudlin feelings aside. They’d drown her if she let them. With determination, she arranged her hair in a French braid.

  Clancy looked at her reflection in the mirror. It was a tiny triumph, but it was a triumph nonetheless. She’d just finished congratulating herself when the nurse arrived.

  The tall, thin woman declined Clancy’s offer of coffee. She took a reading of Clancy’s vital signs, reviewed a few points with her, patted her shoulder and then left. The entire visit took a total of twenty minutes from entry to departure.

  She was alone again.

  Clancy stared at the telephone on the side table and willed it to ring.

  * * *

  To Mitch’s recollection, he’d never had such a long day. His mind kept straying no matter how he attempted to restrain it. But there was a reason for that. He’d never had someone depending on him before. Someone waiting for him to come home. It colored his perception of everything.

  The situation he’d plunged himself into was getting in the way already. Knowing Clancy was waiting for him, that she needed him, dwelled on his mind, got in his way constantly. It only reaffirmed his initial thinking.

  He’d been right not to entertain the possibility of a permanent relationship when he and Clancy had been together. It interfered with the way he saw himself. The way he operated best. Alone.

  “You okay?” McAffee peered at his partner’s rigid profile as they drove their customary route through the Beverly Hills area. There was a muscle in Mitch’s cheek that seemed to have a life of its own. It tensed and relaxed without warning.

  “Why?”

  He all but growled the word at him. That Mitch didn’t say “sure” told McAffee that he was on the right track. “You seem, I dunno, antsy.”

  Mitch shrugged a shoulder. He explained it away with a single word. “Heat.”

  A smile quirked McAffee’s thin lips. “Whose?”

  Mitch gave McAffee a murderous look, silently ordering him to back off. McAffee felt a nervous twinge travel down his spine. But curiosity blotted it out.

  “I overheard you talking to Sara this morning before we went out on patrol.”

  Mitch frowned. He’d thought that McAffee had gone down the hall. He should have checked first. “Since when has eavesdropping become part of your job description?”

  McAffee refused to be put on the defensive. “Since I found out my partner was holding out on me.”

  McAffee’s choice of words triggered thoughts of Mitch’s father. He hadn’t told McAffee of his suspicions yet, even though he had sent out feelers through LaRue. They’d turned out to be positive. Sam Mitchell had definitely been seen in Southern California, though not specifically in the Beverly Hills region.

  But checking further sources had led nowhere. No one knew where he was now. None of his old buyers had a clue, or if they did, they weren’t talking.

  The way McAffee had phrased his statement made Mitch think his partner had found out about his private investigation.

  Mitch decided to play dumb. He raised a brow as he glanced at his partner. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you’re seeing someone. You told Sara to patch her through if she called.” McAffee leaned back in the seat and all but hooted with glee. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “Don’t push your luck about that ‘living’ part.” Mitch rubbed his hand along the back of his neck and released a breath. He might as well correct him now as later. “I’m not seeing someone.”

  Like hell, McAffee thought. Why was it so damn difficult for Mitch to admit that he was human like everyone else? He looked at him innocently. “Sara’s patching through the woman who does your laundry, then?”

  “I do my own laundry.” Mitch glanced absently at a store window as they passed. What kind of a mind could come up with the bizarre fashions displayed there? And what sort of a woman would wear them? McAffee moved restlessly next to him. He looked as if he was going to launch into a blitzkrieg of questions. “I told Sara to patch through Clancy. The woman—”

  McAffee cut short the explanation. “I know who Clancy is.” He felt very pleased with himself as he folded his arms before him and eyed Mitch. “So what’s the story with you two? Picking up the romance where it left off?”

  “There is no romance to pick up,” Mitch answered curtly. “I caused the accident that put her in the wheelchair. I’m going to get her out.”

  He said it with complete confidence. It must be nice, McAffee thought. He knew it would do no good to tell Mitch that he wasn’t responsible for what had happened to Clancy. Even the special investigator had reached that conclusion, but Mitch lived by his own code. “Tall order.”

  Mitch knew that. He also knew there was no alternative. Not if he was going to live with himself. “It can be done.”

  McAffee thought of the questions he’d asked his wife about Mary Elizabeth Clancy’s condition. The prognosis on record didn’t sound nearly as promising as Mitch apparently seemed to think it was.

  Or maybe he knew, and thought he could turn it around anyway. “I didn’t know I was sharing a squad car with God.”

  Mitch firmly believed that God never went about things single-handedly. If you wanted something to happen, you went after it. You worked for it. You didn’t just wait for it to happen, because chances were that it wouldn’t.

  “God’s busy.”

  Some might think of it as conceit, but McAffee knew his partner. It was just Mitch’s way. “And you’re substituting.”

  Mitch watched a Ferrari and a Mercedes come within half an inch of melding. The carelessly driven vehicles added up to over two hundred thousand dollars worth of metal. The wealth that abounded here didn’t seem real at times. Especially to someone who at one time had had to subsist on ketchup sandwic
hes.

  “Something like that.”

  Mitch’s answers raised more questions than they answered. McAffee’s curiosity flourished like thirst after a particularly salty meal. “And just how are you planning on accomplishing this goal?”

  Mitch didn’t care to be interrogated. “Haven’t you got anything better to do than play twenty questions?”

  “Nope.” McAffee laughed as he eyed his partner. He’d always secretly believed that there was a soft streak in the man. It had just been buried quite deep. Until now. “Do you want my brother-in-law’s number?”

  Mitch was silent for a minute. He’d talked to the therapists at the hospital and the one that the home-services people had sent to work with Clancy. He’d compiled everything they’d told him into notes for himself and had applied the acquired knowledge to Clancy’s condition. There wasn’t that much to try except for passive-motion exercises. But there was no sense in leaving any stone unturned.

  “Yeah.” The more input he had, the better. If he was going to help Clancy, he had to know what he was doing. The latest therapist had given him some sound suggestions, but Mitch felt there had to be more. Something that he was overlooking. Something that would help Clancy walk again.

  McAffee straightened and looked around the area. He’d been paying attention to the people and not the street signs. “Actually, we’re not that far from his office. We could stop by if you want to.”

  Mitch preferred face-to-face conversations to calling someone on the telephone. “All right. What’s the address?”

  But before McAffee could answer, the radio crackled to life, putting everything else on hold. “We have a 459. Beverly Glen and Sunset. Car 17, please proceed to the site.”

  Car 17. That was them. Another burglary. McAffee exchanged a glance with Mitch. “Guess the visit’s going to have to wait for a while.”

  “Guess so.”

  With a swift movement, Mitch maneuvered the squad car into the extreme lefthand lane and then turned the siren on as he made a U-turn. They were three blocks away from DeSoto. From there it was another two miles to Twelfth Avenue.

  The code numbers for a burglary set off Mitch’s adrenaline.

  What if it was his father who was committing the burglaries? How would he feel, confronting the man after all these years? Arresting him? Mitch posed the question silently to himself, waiting for a reaction.

  There was none. The embarrassment that had haunted him as a child, when the secret had loomed so large in his life, wasn’t there. There was only a weariness. He was tired of the burden his father represented.

  Biology, he reminded himself, did not make a father. There was a great deal more to it than that.

  Mitch suddenly remembered that it was Clancy who had told him that. It had been in reference to a friend of hers who had discovered she was adopted. He’d come close to telling her about his own father that night. But he hadn’t.

  That would have been sharing too much.

  Still, her words had remained with him. Mitch knew he didn’t owe his father anything. The man had abdicated the right to any filial feelings on his part a long time ago, the day he had walked out on him and his mother. Sam Mitchell certainly hadn’t felt that he owed his young son or his wife anything. Not even a roof over their heads.

  They were even.

  * * *

  The site of the most recent burglary was deeply recessed from the street behind a large front lawn. Tall gates surrounded the entranceway.

  The gates had been no deterrent. Neither had the security system. Mitch made a note of the company’s name. So far, there had been no common firm involved. Each burglarized house had had a different company surveilling it.

  Or failing to surveil it, he thought sardonically.

  As before, it was the same M.O. By now, McAffee could recite it along with the victims whose statements he took down. Only the paintings and the money in the safe had been taken. The jewelry, including a rather large diamond ring, had been untouched. The family dog, a large, award-winning Doberman, was still unconscious. The animal lay on the lawn like a life-size toy.

  The victim’s daughter, a girl of twelve with hair the color of polished copper, was kneeling beside her pet, obviously terrified and grief stricken. Completely ignored by her parent, she was cradling the animal’s head in her lap and crying.

  “Daddy, he’s going to die.” She looked up tearfully at her father.

  The man, who had asked to come outside for air once the full effect of his loss had penetrated, was giving his statement to McAffee. He didn’t appreciate the interruption.

  “Miranda.” The stern recitation of her name called for her silence. He was obviously far more concerned with the loss of his treasured artworks than with the possible threat of losing a family pet.

  McAffee and Mitch exchanged looks.

  “Well, you want the details or not?” the man barked. Stress was etched into his face.

  Mitch bent over the little girl and looked down at the dog.

  “Is he going to die, Officer?” she asked quietly, hiccupping back her tears, afraid of further irritating her father.

  Mitch’s father had never taken a gun with him on any of his jobs. In his own odd way, Sam Mitchell had a great respect for life. That was why he never robbed, only burglarized. There were too many variables the other way. He was very careful not to hurt anything or anyone during his break-ins, including animals. Mitch knew without examining the evidence that there would be just enough tranquilizer in the meat to put the animal to sleep for a number of hours. The dog was going to be all right.

  “No, he might be a little disoriented when he wakes up,” Mitch assured her, “but he’s not going to die.”

  He didn’t smile, but there was something in his voice that gave the young girl confidence. She knew he wasn’t lying to her. There was complete faith in her eyes as she looked up at him. “Thank you.”

  He nodded, rising. He hadn’t done anything except reassure her. Mitch supposed that at times that was all a person needed to see him through.

  He glanced down again at the girl and her dog. There was a small, abbreviated sprout by his feet. A dandelion. One lone weed that had managed to escape the endeavors of a crew of gardeners.

  Mitch thought of Clancy.

  * * *

  When the telephone rang, its shrill sound breaking into the monotonous dialogue of an old movie, Clancy almost jumped.

  As if she could, she thought cynically, quickly pushing herself toward the side table. It was past two. She’d already spoken to her mother, and Cynthia had called to see how she was faring. Clancy couldn’t think who else could be calling. She would have settled for someone selling encyclopedias over the telephone. It bothered her to feel this desperate for human companionship.

  Desperate for anything that would take her mind off the fact that when she had attempted her exercises on her own, she’d done nothing but perspire. There’d been no progress.

  And there never would be.

  “Hello?”

  “How are you doing?”

  The rich, low, male voice filled the receiver and seemed to caress her face. Recognizing it, Clancy held on to the receiver with both hands. One hand didn’t seem enough somehow. “All things considered, okay.”

  He’d been anxious about her all morning. It annoyed him, but there seemed to be no way to banish the feeling. Not until he heard the sound of her voice. Now that he had, he felt like a fool. After all, Clancy was a capable woman. Her independence was one of the things he’d liked about her.

  He reminded himself that Clancy wasn’t exactly Clancy these days.

  Mitch was stuck for something to say. He didn’t want to seem like a mother hen. Neither of them would appreciate the image. “The therapist come by?”

  “She had to cancel.” Clancy could see his reaction to that bit of information. He liked things orderly.

  She heard him mutter an oath under his breath. “She give a reason?”

&nbs
p; “She made a mistake in her schedule. Said she’d be by tomorrow instead.” Clancy closed her eyes and envisioned Mitch standing at some public telephone, frowning. The image dissolved and reformed. Mitch, looming over her. Holding her to him. Sirens blaring.

  Clancy blinked hard, clearing her mind.

  “Okay, we’ll have some catching up to do when I come home tonight.”

  Why did he persist in this charade? Clancy had tried to do some of the exercises herself in a spurt of hope. It dried up when she couldn’t even drag herself up into a standing position. Angry tears filled her eyes the way they had then. “You’re hitting your head against a wall.”

  He’d thought that perhaps she had gotten past her feelings of despondency. He should have realized they would return over and over until she was walking again. “It’s my head.” There was nothing more to say. “I’ll see you at six, Clancy.”

  “Six?” The word echoed in her head, mocking her. Mitch usually got off duty by four.

  Was that loneliness he heard in her voice? “Can’t be helped.” He needed to stop at a medical-supply store before he came home.

  The captain had asked for volunteers to put in extra hours patrolling homes with extensive art collections. And there’d been a similar burglary in Newport Beach that was being investigated. Mitch had been briefly torn between two very opposing, very strong senses of duty. If it was his father perpetrating the burglaries, and Mitch had a gut feeling that it was, then he knew he should be out there, attempting to apprehend the man as quickly as possible. In a way, his father would always be his responsibility. Blood had obligations.

  But Clancy needed him in a way neither one of them had ever expected. He’d been to see McAffee’s brother-in-law, John. The man had been genial and eager to help. Mitch had come away from the meeting with a number of new things to try.

  His training had Mitch weighing both options. Clancy won. He was going home to her. But first he had to make a couple of stops to pick up a few things. Following John’s suggestions, Mitch was going to step up her physical-therapy program.