Tommy's Mom

by Linda O. Johnston

  “Holly, believe me. After last night, I don’t want—”

  She stood, hauling the coverlet with her. Bravely, she approached him and stood on her toes. She kissed him lightly. “I understand, Gabe,” she said.

  And she did.

  He was a cop. And whether or not he was physically present, he was already gone.

  “SO WHAT was this interesting piece of evidence you couldn’t tell me over the phone, Jimmy?” Gabe asked Detective James Hernandez. And it had better be good, he thought.

  It had, after all, taken him away from an amazing night and morning with an amazing woman… An amazingly stubborn woman. The incredibly sensuous, delightfully insatiable Holly.

  Or had it been his own insatiability that had turned him on and kept him on for hours? It hadn’t ever been like that before, not with any other woman….

  He felt a flush creep up his neck, and not from embarrassment. Hell, no. But he had other things he needed to concentrate on now.

  He’d made a quick trip home to shave and change clothes. He stood now in Jimmy’s office at the station, and the slim, sharp-featured homicide detective looked none too pleased about what he had to tell Gabe.

  “This.” He thrust a folder toward Gabe.

  “And this is…?” Gabe said as he opened it.

  “The lab report on the mask from Sperling’s store.”

  Gabe lifted his eyes questioningly toward Jimmy’s stormy brown ones. “I take it there’s something significant here?”

  “You could say that.”

  Gabe sighed. “Stop playing games, Jimmy. Spit it out.”

  “You won’t like it. There were areas on the mask where Sheldon had apparently tried to fix gouges and scratches. The fingerprints there are blurred beyond redemption.”

  “Go on,” Gabe said at his hesitation.

  “There were eight good prints. Most belonged to Sheldon.”

  “Big surprise,” Gabe said. “It’s his mask.” But Jimmy was obviously leading up to something. “And the others?”

  “A couple aren’t identified yet.”

  “And those that are?”

  Jimmy looked him straight in the face. “The others belong to Mayor Evangeline Sevvers.”

  THERE WERE a dozen good reasons why Aunt Evangeline’s prints could be on the mask. Two dozen.

  When he returned to his office, Gabe set up patrols of Holly’s neighborhood. Overlapping patrols instructed to keep an eye out for anything amiss, no matter what the source. The patrols excluded Al Sharp, Dolph Hilo and Bruce Franklin. They were sent elsewhere so as not to arouse their suspicion.

  The patrols included teams of officers like the ambitious female cops aiming for detective, longtime veterans combined with new hires. All were to knock on the door now and then. Holly would love that.

  He’d also sent the word out about how Holly’s tires had been tampered with the day before. No one had better dare allow anything like that to happen while assigned to her neighborhood.

  He couldn’t be there with Holly all the time. She didn’t want him, or any cop, constantly. This would have to do. No monsters in cop uniform would bother Tommy or her.

  Besides, he now had another suspect—though things didn’t add up right. Yet.

  He pondered Jimmy’s report. A cup of coffee sat beside him. He took a sip. It was cold. He slammed it on the desk. A few drops sloshed onto the bare wood. Grumbling, he wiped them off with his fingers.

  Evangeline was a friend of Sheldon’s. She’d even been in the shop yesterday, talking about their play.

  The mask had been at the front of the shop for years, Holly had said. Evangeline could have touched it months ago, and her prints would still be on it.

  Gabe had told Holly the murderer didn’t have to be a man. Neither, from what she had told him, did the caller. Or the joker with the doll. And a woman as self-sufficient as Evangeline would know how to loosen valve stems on tires….

  Damn! He wasn’t going to just stomp in and accuse her of being the town’s public enemy number one.

  Hadn’t she hired him, even before Thomas Poston’s murder, to check into the suspicious—and possibly related—death of Mal Kensington?

  Yeah. And now she’d told him it was all a mistake.

  He stared at a picture on his wall. The one with Evangeline and him standing together. Smiling.

  What if she’d only hired him to make sure she’d covered her trail? Did she figure her surrogate nephew would protect her, out of love for her family, no matter what she’d done?

  At the expense of truth? His own integrity?

  But she was a Sevvers. And he owed them.

  And why would she kill Thomas Poston? Holly was her friend. Evangeline wouldn’t have turned her into a widow. She wouldn’t terrorize Holly and her sweet little son. Would she?

  Damn. He had to find out from Evangeline which, of all the reasons for her prints to be on the mask, was the real one.

  He slipped his suit jacket on and, using the reflection of the glass in the framed picture of Evangeline and him as a mirror, straightened his tie. “Explain it, Your Honor,” he demanded of the smiling red-headed woman in the photograph.

  He ran into Al Sharp outside his office door. Literally. The patrol officer grabbed at Gabe to steady himself. “Sorry, Chief,” he muttered and continued toward the department break room.

  He was in that much of a hurry for a cup of coffee?

  Gabe had felt Al’s hand thrust something into the pocket of his jacket. Relying on instinct, Gabe waited until he was alone in the elevator to reach into his pocket. He pulled out a piece of paper—one that hadn’t been there that morning. It said, “Chief, meet me right away in the garage.”

  It was unsigned, though Gabe had no doubt who he was to meet. What he wondered was why?

  Gabe had reached the third floor. Instead of getting off, he pushed the button for the parking level. Evangeline wasn’t expecting him. She wouldn’t be happy with their conversation when he did visit her. She could wait.

  The door closed. When it opened again, he was one floor below the main level of City Hall. The inside garage was restricted to parking for city employees and police units. It was late enough in the morning that the garage was filled with vehicles and empty of people. Gabe exited the elevator and looked around.

  The garage was well lighted. Still, he felt a prickling at the base of his spine. He listened. He heard the distant sounds of traffic from the road outside, courtesy of the nearby ramp to the street. Voices from the sidewalk above. The humming of the elevator. Footsteps…

  He pivoted. Al Sharp walked up to a patrol unit twenty feet away. He stared, obviously waiting for Gabe to approach.

  Was this a trap? Why?

  Gabe started toward Al. He heard the car door open. Al slid into the driver’s side. Gabe got the message and took a seat on the other side.

  He was surprised when Al turned on the engine. He was even more surprised when he drove down to the next underground level and parked in an area where there were no lights.

  The bulbs had either burned out…or been removed. The only illumination was scant, from other areas of the garage.

  Al turned off the engine as well as the computer and radio in his unit. If they’d been seen together getting into the unit, this exercise in surreptitiousness was useless. But if they hadn’t already been noticed, lurking in darkness could be effective cover.

  Gabe looked at Al in the shadows. The man’s sad eyes were even more grim than usual, his extra chin blossoming as he kept his head lowered. At first, he didn’t look at Gabe. His face was pale enough almost to glow in the darkness.

  “What’s up?” Gabe asked.

  The thin cop faced him and took a deep breath. The crevasses of his face made him appear ghastly in the shadows. “We’re not having this conversation. And what I’m going to give you didn’t come from me. Okay?”

  “We’ll see. If it makes sense, I’ll keep you out of it.”

  Al’s eyes na
rrowed, in fury? Or was it fear? After a moment, he said, “Fair enough.” And then he dropped his bombshell. “I know why Thomas was killed.”

  Gabe stared. “Tell me,” he urged. “Why, and who.”

  “Who, I don’t know. But some in the department are using their positions to shake down local businesses for money. Protection money.”

  “What?” Whatever Gabe had anticipated, it wasn’t this.

  “It started under Mal Kensington. It was innocent enough at first. Some shopkeepers along Pacific Way had been hit by a string of armed robberies. They requested special protection. Mal saw a way for a few off-duty officers to make extra cash. Then, when those bad guys were caught, the storeowners were told they could still pay to make sure they weren’t hit again. Some protested, and their stores were trashed. One guy hung out in his store one night with a gun to keep his place safe. He was beaten. Bad. The others stopped protesting.”

  “Who did the trashing?” Gabe demanded through gritted teeth. Sheldon Sperling had been beaten…and Thomas Poston killed.

  Al didn’t answer. But Gabe knew. Cops had done it.

  “Were you part of this?” he asked Al.

  “Let’s just say I knew about it.”

  “And Thomas Poston?”

  “He knew even more.”

  In other words, Gabe thought, he was part of it. How would Holly take it, if she found out her husband was dirty?

  She had loved him enough to marry him. But Thomas had let her down. They’d had separate bedrooms.

  And now Gabe loved her… No. This wasn’t the time for something like that to pop into his fool brain.

  “Do you have any evidence?” he asked Al.

  Al shrugged.

  “Did it involve all the shops along Pacific Way?” Gabe thought about the list of stores left by both Thomas Poston and Mal Kensington. He thought about Evangeline and her fingerprints on the mask. She was the head honcho of the city, near enough to being in law enforcement herself. Could she have been involved in this scheme? Or did this clear her?

  “I don’t know which shops were involved,” Al replied.

  “Was Mal Kensington murdered?” Gabe asked suddenly.

  Al half rose in his seat, but the steering wheel stopped him. “You know that? How—” He shut up quickly.

  “Tell me more,” Gabe demanded. “Which cops are in on it? How many?”

  “Not many,” Al said. “It only takes a few. And cops weren’t— Look, I don’t know anything else. Get out of my unit now. I have to roll. In fact, I left ten minutes ago.”

  Gabe pushed Al harder but got nothing more. But cops weren’t what? Dangerous? Alone? Trustworthy? Gabe decided to let it go…for now. Still… “Before you leave, I want to know why you told me.” It wasn’t because of burgeoning trust or friendship between them. Gabe suspected it was fear. But what had scared Al enough to make him talk?

  “This is why.” Al reached behind the seat. He extracted a paper shopping bag and handed it to Gabe. “It was planted in this unit, under my seat. Someone’s worried about me, and that makes me worried about them.”

  “About who?” Gabe said more insistently. The bag wasn’t heavy. It rustled slightly, as if it contained a plastic bag. He squeezed it gently but couldn’t figure out its contents.

  “I’ve said all I’m going to. Except to say again that what you’re holding was planted to get me. And to tell you that, if you’re smart, you’ll keep it damn quiet, get a lab outside Naranja Beach to take a look at it. Get out, Chief. Now.”

  “All right,” Gabe said. “But we’ll talk again.” He exited the unit, and in moments it was gone, leaving Gabe holding the bag…at least literally.

  He itched to know what was inside it. But not here.

  He used his radio to let the dispatcher know he was rolling out of the area on personal business. He drove his car from the garage toward the nearest school parking lot. It was summer. The kids were on vacation, so his was the only vehicle there.

  He parked. Very carefully, he opened the paper bag. He extracted the plastic bag inside that was wrapped around a wad of rolled newspapers. And then—

  “Son of a bitch!” he exclaimed as he made very, very sure not to touch anything and spoil any evidence.

  Inside was a long, ornate letter opener coated in the brown stains of dried blood.

  Gabe had no doubt he was holding the weapon that had been used to murder Thomas Poston.

  GABE CALLED Jimmy Hernandez first.

  When the trusted detective and longtime friend joined Gabe, he told Jimmy to take the letter opener up to Los Angeles to have its crime lab do the testing.

  “You don’t think Sharp’s guilty?” Jimmy asked skeptically as he gingerly took possession of the plastic bag.

  “That’s what we have to find out,” Gabe said. “Make sure no one at the L.A. lab reports to anyone but you or me.”

  “You got it.”

  And then Gabe went to Holly’s. He didn’t like the day’s developments. He had to make sure she was all right.

  She didn’t seem pleased to see him. That day she wore a form-hugging white T-shirt and cut-off jeans. Despite the way her expression remained as chilly as a can of soda from the fridge, he wanted to pull her into his arms, take up where they had left off that morning before the phone call….

  The sound of small footsteps padded from the kitchen. In a moment, Tommy stood beside his mom, grinning up at Gabe with a milk-rimmed smile. “Hi, Gabe,” he said shyly.

  At least someone seemed glad to see him. And the boy was still talking. Gabe was happy.

  But Tommy was just passing through. He headed up the stairs. Good. Gabe had to talk to Holly. “How would you and Tommy like to spend the day at the station with me today?” he asked.

  Holly’s lovely face paled, contrasting more starkly with the dark loveliness of her sleek dark hair. “Why?” The distance in her voice didn’t reflect the proximity in which they’d spent the night. And she still hadn’t budged from the doorway, invited him in. Damn it, didn’t she understand…? No, she didn’t.

  “Because I asked.”

  “Thanks, but I got a call from Evangeline. They need some more costumes sewn for the dress rehearsal tonight. I need to work on them all day.”

  “Forget the dress rehearsal,” Gabe growled. “I want you to come for your own protection.”

  “No thanks. I’ve got plenty of protection, remember? The whole police force shows up on my doorstep every half hour. There are female officers I don’t even know sitting outside in a patrol car, and a couple of the guys weeded around my yuccas and in my backyard garden. Which was good. I haven’t felt much like gardening lately.”

  Now wasn’t the time for his troops to heed his orders and help out around the Poston house, damn it. “Which guys?” Gabe asked through gritted teeth.

  The officers she mentioned were longtime veterans of the force. Family men who obviously felt for the widow of a downed fellow officer. They hadn’t been particularly close to Thomas. They were probably okay. Still…

  “Look,” he said. “We’ll compromise. I’ll work here today. There’s a meeting I need to go to later that I haven’t scheduled yet, and when I do, Tommy and you will come with me. All right?”

  “Do we need to?” For the first time, Holly seemed worried. She stepped back to allow him into the house.

  “It’s better if you do. There are new developments. I can’t explain, but until I know what they mean I’d rather you not be alone.”

  She sighed. “All right, come in. Have you had lunch?”

  He hadn’t even thought about it. “Don’t go to any trouble.”

  She smiled at him finally, and he felt as if a Santa Ana wind had come in and blown away the clouds to reveal a sunny day. “No trouble at all, as long as you like peanut butter and jelly.”

  Tommy returned back downstairs with some of his ubiquitous crayons in his hands. While he helped his mother get lunch ready, Gabe hid away in Thomas’s former office. First
, he needed to set up a meeting with Aunt Evangeline.

  He’d suspected her of the murder because of her prints on the mask. Had Al’s allegations of police corruption cleared her? Hell, he hoped so. The fingerprints on the mask were potentially explainable.

  But if Evangeline wasn’t part of the plot, why hadn’t she mentioned it? She owned a store along Pacific Way. Gabe didn’t know how long the protection racket had gone on, but Evangeline had only been mayor for a year. If she weren’t part of the scheme, surely she’d been approached to pay off the police.

  He was damn well going to ask what she knew. But when he phoned her office, he was told she’d already left for the day. “It’s the first dress rehearsal for the show tonight,” her receptionist told Gabe. She gave him Evangeline’s cell phone number, which he already had.

  She answered on the first ring. “Hi, Gabe.” She sounded exuberant. “Our dress rehearsal starts in a couple of hours but I’m already at the theater getting set up.”

  “I have to see you,” Gabe told her. “I need a few minutes.”

  “Not now,” Evangeline said sternly. “Why don’t you bring Holly and Tommy to the dress rehearsal tonight? Afterward, we’ll all go celebrate with ice cream.”

  Gabe knew Evangeline well enough to realize that, if he showed up when she’d told him not to, she’d simply go about her business. “All right,” he finally said. “That sounds like fun.”

  When he told Holly over their sandwiches, she seemed happy about the prospect of going to the dress rehearsal with him.

  He was glad, too. She wasn’t fighting him now. He’d be with her.

  Watching over her. Emotions aside, that was his job.

  What emotions? Any feelings for her needed to be crammed down deep inside, like a stomach ache. Rebound, remember?

  Today, she’d definitely reminded him.

  “I’ll get to see the costumes I sewed in action,” she said. “And to find out if I need to make changes. I’ll ask Edie to watch Tommy. I can’t rely on him to be quiet for the rehearsal.”