by M. G. Herron
“Oh,” she said. “That’s a great idea. Chicken soup soothes the soul. You’re a thoughtful partner. I saw you two yesterday, whispering together. You seem really good for each other.”
“Whoa, whoa, wait a second,” I put my hands up. “I’m not his partner. We’re not ‘together.’ Just friends.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Her hands flew to her mouth and her pale cheeks flushed pink.
I shook my head, bemused. “It’s okay. I can see why you were confused. Vinny is not… my type. Listen, I’ll let Vinny know you’re taking good care of the restaurant in his absence. I’m sure he’ll appreciate that. He loves this place.”
She beamed. For all her nervous chatter, she was rather chipper. But also stressed. Her smile faded as her attention was drawn elsewhere.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I need to turn on the pizza ovens. Duh. We open at eleven for lunch. Ugh, I still have so much prep to do. Be right back.”
I followed her inside, and she disappeared through the kitchen door for a minute. I blew air out through my lips, relieved that was over. It had gone about as well as I could have hoped, to be honest. She was so stressed about keeping the restaurant open she didn’t have time to be suspicious.
“Hey, Willow?” I called into the kitchen.
“Yeah?”
“Can I place an order? And do you happen to have a pen and paper I can borrow?”
Twenty minutes later, I walked out carrying a large box with a steaming pepperoni pizza inside it. I had taped a note to the top of the box that said:
Gonzalez,
Sorry you’re stuck here because of me.
I owe you one.
—Gunn
Moretti’s didn’t employ a delivery driver except on busy weekends, so I hired a driver with an app on my phone. I’d tip him extra to make sure he took the pizza into the station and handed it directly to the detective. Only way to be sure the message—and the pizza—made it into Gonzalez’s hands before her colleagues devoured it.
While I was waiting for the delivery dude to arrive, a blond woman came around the corner and it was all I could do to keep my mouth from gaping open in surprise. When she saw me, Annabelle Summers paused—for just a moment—and then strode purposefully in my direction.
Was that anger in her step? It was hard to tell, since I was so distracted by the motion of her hips. Something fluttered in my wobbly stomach.
Anna carried her laptop computer in one hand, and a notebook and phone in the other. Her hair was up in a messy bun. She had on a pair of fitted red cotton shorts that showed off her long, leanly-muscled and tanned legs. Anna didn’t wear a lot of makeup normally. She didn't need it. Today, she only had on a subtle touch of eyeliner.
My heart pounded faster as she came closer. No matter what she was wearing, Annabelle Summers was drop-dead gorgeous. Those long legs, and her heart-shaped face crushed the air from my lungs, as if something heavy sat on my chest.
“Anna, hey,” I said. “I…” My lips moved as I attempted to form words. Nothing came out. I was suddenly hot and sweaty. My mouth was as dry as an oven. The pizza box emanated heat, adding to my discomfort. I shifted it to my other hand, trying to angle it to hide the note on the top. She probably wouldn’t remember meeting Gonzalez, and I didn’t want Anna to get the wrong idea.
“Hey yourself,” she said, stopping just a few feet from me and clutching the tools of her trade to her stomach. “Nice of you to finally turn up.”
Up close, her defensive posture made me reevaluate her. Yes, Anna was my type, and would be beautiful no matter what she was wearing, but up close, I saw that her eyes were bloodshot and had black bags under them, poorly hidden by the eyeliner. She fidgeted constantly. Her eyes darted around, unable to rest on any one thing.
And they kept coming back to me, staring, untrustworthy.
The weight on my chest grew heavier.
“I just got in last night,” I managed to say.
“Is that right.”
I sighed and pulled on my big boy pants.
“I should’ve called you back,” I said. “I’m really sorry.”
Annabelle reached up and touched her hair self-consciously, two fingers tucking a loose strand back into the messy bun. She fidgeted, licked her lips, then looked back at me.
She said nothing.
“I’ve been busy with work, but that’s no excuse for not calling you back. I’m really sorry. Will you let me make it up to you?”
She exhaled a shaky breath. “You made me wait an awful long time to say that.”
“No excuse for acting the way I did. My mother would be ashamed of me.”
“Smart woman,” Anna shot back.
My self-deprecation seemed to pierce her defenses. Her lips parted slightly. There was an adorable gap between her front two teeth that made my heart beat double time.
“Our last date got cut kind of short,” I ventured.
“You know,” she said, her head cocking to one side. “I’ve been wondering about that, too.”
I’ll bet you have, I thought, knowing from Marsha Marshall’s blog that she didn’t remember anything beyond that red dining menu at the pizza parlor. The restaurant we now stood in front of. How often had she come back here, looking for clues? Looking for me? Her eyes flicked up and down my body, studying me carefully.
“Like I said, that job Alek had me on was a real doozy.”
The breath seemed to catch in her throat. “Oh, you… you got called away on work?”
“It’s a pain in the neck sometimes, but that’s part of the job. If a lead comes in, I have to chase it down before it goes cold.” The words felt plastic and fake as they tumbled off my lips. It was a white lie, but I was taking a risk by banking on what I’d read on her blog being the whole truth. Would Anna see through my excuses?
“If you say so.”
Swing and a miss. Hey, batter batter. I pretended not to notice. “Did you come here looking for me?”
She gave me the first real smile of the day. Guarded yet genuine.
“Nah,” she said. “I just like the pizza.”
I did my best imitation of a sagely nod. “Wise choice.”
“Takeout for one?” she asked.
I glanced at the pizza box in my hand. Absorbed in the conversation with Anna, I had forgotten I was holding it.
“Not for me. It’s for a friend.” I cleared my throat. “Another apology I need to make.”
My inner critic cackled at me from the corner.
“Ah,” she said. The fact that I bought pizza for a friend, but hadn’t even bothered to return her phone calls, did not escape the notice of the sharp-witted Annabelle Summers.
I never thought I’d be grateful to see the sour-faced meter maid come walking around the corner. She saved me when she spotted my truck, clenched her jaw, and began to march in this direction.
“Ah, hell,” I said. “I better move my truck before I get another ticket.”
“Another?”
“This meter maid has it out for me,” I explained as I jogged toward my vehicle and pulled open the door. I hopped into the cabin and called back, “Anna.”
She cocked her hip and shook her head at me, exasperated. “What?”
“I’ll call you, when this job I’m on is finished. I promise!”
I pulled away from the curb as the meter maid, huffing angrily, reached Anna’s side. She gave me the finger in my rearview, which seemed to amuse Anna.
At that moment, a Toyota Camry pulled up next to the curb, in the spot that I had just vacated. A handsome young man with a backwards baseball cap lounged on the open window, probably delivering some cheesy pickup line to Anna.
Oh no, the delivery driver! I’d completely forgotten. I glanced down at the pizza box on the passenger seat.
In the rearview, Anna looked at the young man, then narrowed her eyes and stared after my truck, her expression one of cautious yet intransigent determination.
10
On my way to deliver th
e pizza to the police station, my seemingly genetic ability to bury my problems failed me. Anna’s suspicions seemed to crank the temperature on this whole situation up a notch. Not that my problems hadn’t felt urgent before, what with Vinny in an Ora-induced coma, and the Gatekeeper’s illicit drug dealer problem scheming in the shadows—and the two incidents in all likelihood related. But now, the water around me seemed to be boiling and this lobster kept thinking about jumping for the rim of the pot.
When I reached the parking lot in front of the police station, my eyes were drawn up to a dark speck soaring high in the blue sky. The creature was circling in my vicinity, either a vulture who’d spotted a fresh piece of roadkill, or Samael continuing to tail me on the Gatekeeper’s order. I’d have to get him to stop doing that. They were broadcasting my damn location for anyone who wanted to know and had a pair of eyes. I was considering grabbing the rubber bullets out of my lockbox when my phone rang.
“Unknown number” flashed onto the screen.
Accepting the call, I said, “Took you long enough.”
“I missed my sleep cycle to scour security footage for you, human,” Hix grumbled. “It would be wise not to anger a tired Torlik when he has information you seek.”
“You found something?”
“Perhaps,” Hix said. “There were almost four thousand offworlders at the track last night, so it took some time for the algorithm to analyze them all.”
A low whistle escaped my lips. I knew it had been crowded, but that was almost four times the number I would have guessed. Vinny and I, in our brief tour, hadn’t veered far from the boardwalk. The offworld establishments honeycombed into the walls of the hive-shaped Jel’ka track must have gone deeper than I thought.
“In the end, we identified over two hundred offworlders who matched the general body type of the hooded individual—anyone who had a similar skeletal structure, weight, height, pattern of movement, that sort of thing.”
“Two hundred suspects is a hundred and ninety nine too many, Hix.”
“Understatement of the century, bounty hunter. What about you, did you find Ken Lard?”
“Oh, yeah, I found him all right.”
“And?”
“Of the two hundred possible suspects, can you tell me how many of them are Lodian or Torlik?”
Hix typed on the computer. “More than half.”
“And how many are Pangozil?”
“Hmm…” Hix typed into the computer on his end. “Fourteen.”
My eyebrows shot up. Now we’re onto something. But fourteen was still too many suspects to interview today, especially if I had to track them all down myself. I didn’t have the luxury of that kind of time. Not while the water boiled around me.
“Ken Lard told me that a Pangozil paid him to start a fight with Vinny,” I said. “Whoever it was approached him at the track, so it was premeditated, but not that far in advance.”
“Why do you think this hooded Pangozil attacked your friend?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. Vinny was a good guy—I didn’t want to think badly of him. But hearing Hix say it out loud made my detective instincts kick in. “I really wish we could ask Vinny. Is he awake yet?”
“Let me check.”
The Daacro made another lazy circle high overhead as silence on the phone line gave way to an increasing volume of noise. Holding the speaker away from my ear, I tried to pick out words between the screeches of raptors, the shouts of men, and another loud banging sound like a heavy gate latching. There was a low roar in the distance, something big. An engine? Muffled talking mixed in the background, but I couldn’t make out any words. Then Hix came back on the line.
“His heart rate has almost returned to normal, but he’s still in a coma. The medics say twelve hours before he’ll be conscious.”
A voice corrected him. “At least twelve hours.”
I blew a frustrated blast of air through my lips.
“All right. I’ve got at least two more stops to make before I head back your way. I’ll go by Vinny’s house, see if I can find any clues there.”
It felt like a distinct violation to enter my friend’s home without him there, and I hadn’t thought to take his keys with me. I had only been to Vinny’s place a few times, since we mostly hung out at his restaurant. But, if I was being objective, searching his home was the smart thing to do. I could imagine Detective Gonzalez berating me for not doing so already.
Hix grunted as if he couldn’t care less what I did with my time.
“In the meantime,” I said, “can you do anything to narrow down that list of suspects?
There was a pause.
“I have a job to do, you know.” I could hear the tired annoyance in Hix’s voice.
“I know you do, but please, Hix, this is important.”
Silence on the line. I was clearly losing him with my demands. He had little incentive to do what I asked, so my only chance to keep him on my side was to put it to him in a way that would make it matter.
“Do you really want whoever did this to Vinny coming and going freely from the Jel’ka track? What will that do to your reputation—to Rashiki’s reputation—if someone else gets attacked? Are you guys open tonight?”
Hix heaved a sigh. “We are.”
“Your security team can’t keep tabs on fourteen Pangozil at once.”
Silence stretched. Finally, he said, “Fine. I have other responsibilities that need my attention, but I’ll have one of my people look into it for you.”
I didn’t know if ‘people’ in this context meant offworlder, Torlik, or simply those on the security team, but it didn’t matter to me as long as someone was doing the work.
“Thank you.”
I hung up the phone as the Daacro overhead caught an updraft and rose toward the clouds. Soon, he was a distant speck. I grabbed the still-warm pizza and headed into the police station.
I searched through the glass partition for Gonzalez, finally spotting her in the back where she stood next to a handcuffed perp, talking to another cop in a matching blue uniform.
When she saw me, I held up the pizza box and Gonzalez stomped in my direction. She opened a door at the side of the partition and gestured me into the police station proper, in among the rows of desks and chairs and bodies. This place was always busy and several of the officers eyeballed my pizza box. Others I recognized ignored my presence with intensity, although I knew that once I was gone they wouldn’t ignore whatever was left of the pie. Not while it was hot and—more importantly—free.
“What are you doing back here again?” Gonzalez asked. Her voice was hard. She crossed her arms.
I opened the pizza box and let the delicious aroma of pepperoni and mozzarella and fresh Italian herbs waft in her direction. “I come bearing a peace offering.”
After pressing her tongue into her cheek for a beat, Gonzalez said, “It’s going to take more than a pizza.”
I lowered the lid and tapped the note taped to the top. “And I’ll owe you one. A big favor.”
“Ohhh,” she said, wiggling her fingers and shimmying in her blue uniform, “Mr. Fancy Man. A big favor, huh? You all hear that?” The uniforms manning their desks, and even some of the perps, chuckled heartily in my direction.
My face heated up. “All right.” I held up my free hand to placate the room. “I deserved that.”
I looked back at Gonzalez and made sure she was looking into my eyes when I said, “I mean it.”
She stopped joking around and really looked at me. Apparently, she found some sincerity in there because she sighed dramatically and snatched the box from my hands, then led me to a quieter corner of the station near the kitchen and set it down on an unoccupied table.
“I suppose it’s a start,” she said.
“So we’re cool?”
“I said it’s a start.”
“Okay. Okay. I hear you. Go ahead, have a slice. I know it smells amazing.”
Gonzalez lifted a slice from the box and b
it into the thin dough, melty on top. Her eyes closed as she chewed contentedly. I got a plate and took a slice for myself. The pepperoni was crisp and spicy. The cheese, gooey and savory and the sauce, flavorful, magnificent. While we ate, the second hand of the old clock on the wall made another circumference of its analog face.
“Any more word on how long they have you on desk duty?”
Gonzalez shook her head. “Still don’t know.”
“I can tell you hate it.”
She rolled her eyes, lolling her head back. “Gunn. I’m so bored.”
I laughed.
“I hate being bored,” she added.
With the pizza in my stomach—the only real food I’d eaten all day—I felt very tired all of a sudden. I rubbed at my eyes. I hadn’t gotten anywhere close to enough sleep last night. “I could use a little boredom in my life.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “What’s going on?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to ask anything else of Gonzalez right now. She’s already done enough for me.
Maybe she’d be into the idea if all I wanted was a little advice.
“I’m working this new job.”
She nodded. Gonzalez’s right hand brushed pizza crumbs from her starched front pocket. Though she loathed this assignment, she still had enough pride in the job to keep up appearances. That was good.
“Let me ask you something.”
“I’m listening.” She leaned forward. Her face was all sharp angles, her eyes still and focused. It was obvious how hungry she was for a new puzzle to solve. Detective wasn’t just a job to her; it was in her DNA.
“I’m on a bit of a time crunch,” I said. “What’s the fastest way to narrow down a list of fourteen suspects?”
“Fourteen? What kind of case are you working?”
“It’s a private investigation,” I said. The less she knew, the better. “We have security footage, but no clear shot of the guy’s face. He had a… a mask on.”
“Gotcha.”
I waited while her mind turned on it. The detective finally shrugged.
“You could try to get them all in the same room, start asking questions. Watch how people react.”