Honorable Death

by Linda S. Prather

  I didn’t recognize the new valet, but then it had been over six months since I’d visited. I wouldn’t recognize the maid who answered the door either. Katherine Lange had a way of changing staff as often as she changed the color of her hair.

  I smiled at the valet and held up my badge. “We won’t be long.” I pointed to the car. “Leave it here.”

  A sliver of a smile lifted the corners of his lips. “Yes, ma’am.”

  I liked him, but I doubted he would be around long enough for me to remember his name.

  Dave was still starry-eyed, taking in the surroundings.

  “You sure you want to do this? You could wait for me in the car.”

  “And miss a chance to see inside the infamous playboy Kurt Lange’s home? My wife would never forgive me.”

  I sucked in a breath and counted to ten before ringing the doorbell. Unlike Dave, I knew what was coming.

  “You have to ring the doorbell?”

  I laughed softly but sobered as the door opened.

  A prune-faced maid met my gaze head-on. “Can I help you?”

  “Detective Kacy Lang. I need to speak with my… Kurt and Katherine.”

  The gaze that traveled from my short reddish-brown curls to the tips of the black, police-issue boots was disdainful and, if I were honest with myself, rude and dismissive. “Wait here, please.”

  The door closed, and I heard Dave’s sharp intake of breath.

  “No. Hell, no. She did not close the door in your face.”

  Dave had been on my case for five years to tone down my gutter vocabulary. He’d cursed more in the last two hours than our entire five years together.

  “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  The wind had picked up, and snow was drifting in small piles around our feet. Dave shifted from one foot to the other, shoving his hands in his coat pockets. “Ring the doorbell again.”

  I shrugged, rang the bell, and waited.

  Prune Face answered it immediately, a red tinge spreading up from her neck into her face. “Mr. Lange says this is not a good time. They’ve just sat down to dinner. Call and make an appointment tomorrow.”

  She moved to close the door, and Dave stuck his foot inside, blocking it. “This isn’t a social call, lady.” He held up his badge. “You go back and tell Mr. Lange that the police are here to see him and Mrs. Lange.” He shoved the door, opening it wider. “Detective Lang and I will wait inside. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s freezing out here.”

  Dave held the door for me as the maid hurried through the foyer and down a long hallway.

  I stepped inside and grinned at him. “Thanks, partner.”

  “Don’t mention it.” He closed the door and stomped his feet on the Persian rug. “Remind me to call my parents when we leave. I owe them an apology.”

  He didn’t have to explain. Dave’s parents had emigrated from Italy with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. He’d grown up poor, but he’d grown up loved.

  In less than five minutes, Prune Face returned, her lips stretched thin. “Follow me.” She didn’t bother to see if we were following before heading toward a sitting room my father only used for those he considered unworthy of the formal living room. Dave didn’t know that, of course, and I wasn’t going to tell him. I waved him to an armchair and sat on the edge of the sofa.

  “What’s the meaning of this, Kassandra?” My father stood in the doorway, his face clouded by irritation. His eyes raked over Dave. “Who are you?”

  “Detective Dave Capello, sir. I think you’d better go get your wife.”

  He glanced at his watch and sighed. “My wife is entertaining our guests, which is where I will be in exactly one minute. Say whatever it is you want to say. I’ll decide whether it’s something my wife needs to hear.”

  Dave stood, and I waved him off. “Kyle was murdered, Kurt. Tortured and dumped in the Chicago River like a bag of trash. Now go get Katherine. We need to ask the two of you some questions.”

  Something flickered in the shadows of his eyes, and his expression changed from frustration to relief. “Is that all? Kyle has been dead to us for several years, Kassandra. As I suspect he has been to you. Any questions you have to ask can wait until morning. There’s no reason to spoil your mother’s evening or that of our guests.” His smile was placating. “If you’ll excuse me now, Hilda will show you out.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Dave exclaimed as my father calmly walked away, his figure immediately replaced in the doorway by the stoic Hilda.

  “I’m afraid that’s one person you’ll never find in this house.” I walked around him, ignoring Hilda as I stomped toward the front door. “Let’s go.”

  I could hear Dave muttering behind me, along with Hilda’s clipped gait as she stuck close to make sure we didn’t steal anything on the way out. I doubted Kyle had contacted our parents even if he was in trouble. It did surprise me that he hadn’t tried to contact me, though.

  The door slammed behind us, and Dave walked up beside me. He said nothing, but instead, wrapped an arm around my shoulders and hugged me.

  It had been years since I’d cried, and I blinked back the mist clouding my eyes. “Sorry. I tried to warn you.”

  He turned to stare at the house. “Yeah, well, that’s the one thing we forgot to do in there. If Mouse is right, and these guys haven’t found whatever it was Kyle was hiding, they’ll eventually make their way here.” His gray eyes sought mine, his voice filled with concern. “And they’ll find you.”

  The academy had stressed that there would be times we would be called upon to exhibit courage, to pull deep from within on the strength to persevere and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty. I’d been there before, but I shivered as an image of Kyle’s mutilated body flashed through my mind.

  Wrapping my coat closer to my body, I stalked toward the car. “Then I guess we’d better find them first.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Dave had a knack for finding small out-of-the-way restaurants where the coffee was good and the patrons were sparse enough we could talk without being overheard. Arlene’s was the perfect balm after a visit to my parents’. Cozy, warm, and inviting, it was one of those hole-in-the-wall places with home-cooked meals and smiling waitresses.

  Dave set a cup of coffee in front of me and took his seat across the table.

  I smiled my appreciation. “Did you call Martha?”

  “Martha, my parents, and Commander Park.” He sipped his coffee and took a bite of a chocolate doughnut. “He wants both of us in his office first thing in the morning. How about you?”

  “I spoke with the ME. She made a positive ID thirty minutes ago but didn’t connect the names.”

  “That’s been bugging me, and you can tell me to shut my yap if you want to, but most rich people can’t hide their kids from the media. I can’t remember ever reading anything about you and Kyle.”

  “The adoption was on a whim after Kurt went into politics. I think there were early baby photos, but when it didn’t help him with the Senate race, they palmed us off on nannies until we were old enough to send away to school.”

  “And your mother went along with that crap?” Dave frowned and attacked the rest of the doughnut with a vengeance.

  “She would have gone along with anything Kurt wanted as long she didn’t have to deal with us. They were both in their early forties, and I guess we were lucky in a lot of ways. We received a decent education, food, clothes, and were raised among the elite. It wasn’t until I graduated high school that they finally acknowledged they had children, and then it was only to force upon me my obligations to the family. They wanted me to marry one of Kurt’s older buddies. I refused.”

  “What happened to Kyle to turn him—not to use an old cliché—to the dark side?”

  “I don’t know. He went home one weekend, and I stayed at school. He missed the entire next week, and my parents called the school, saying he was sick. When he came back, he was different. After that, he used drugs and hu
ng out with the wrong crowd. He dropped out of school two weeks before we were to graduate and disappeared. I didn’t see him again until the day I graduated from the academy. I looked out in the audience, and there he was. He smiled at me, but when the ceremonies were over and I tried to find him, he was gone.”

  “How does this Mouse fit into the picture, and what did he mean when he said you owed him?”

  “Four years ago…” The words triggered memories, and I shuddered, fighting down the panic. Breathe and count to ten. But I couldn’t breathe. The air in the room was gone, leaving behind nothing but the smell of fresh dirt.

  “You want a doughnut? Arlene makes the best darned doughnuts in the world. I told Martha if I ever left her, it would be for Arlene.” Dave slurped his coffee loudly. “What was that about Kyle?”

  Dave’s gentle voice brought me back from the edge, and my breath caught. I picked up where I’d left off. “You know part of the story. Kyle was in over his head with loan sharks.”

  “Frederickson?”

  I nodded. “He went to our father and asked for help, but I guess you know how that turned out. Simon called me and told me they were going to kill Kyle to send a message to the people who owed them money. He showed me where to find him. I rescued Kyle, paid his debt and threatened the loan sharks with a federal investigation if they ever loaned him money again.

  “I know what you’re thinking, but don’t judge a book by its cover. Simon’s family is as rich as mine. He only used drugs to stay close to Kyle. And the condition he’s in right now is because of Kyle. I’ll call his mother in the morning. She’s not as jaded as mine.”

  Dave’s phone dinged with a text message. “That’s our cue. They’re finished at the hooker’s place if we want to do a walk-through.”

  I downed the lukewarm coffee. “Commander Park condoned this?”

  “Forgot to ask him about it.” Dave signaled the waitress for a doughnut to go. “We’ll tell him about it in the morning.”

  I followed him to the car, my thoughts chaotic. Sometimes in life, people got lucky, and my star must have been shining the day Dave Capello looked my way and said, “I want to partner with Lang.” Cheers had gone up, as most of the group was bemoaning the thought of being paired with me. Two of my former partners had been shot, and one had decided he wasn’t cut out for detective work. I’d never asked Dave why, and he’d offered no explanation. I suddenly had a burning desire to know. “Why did you ask for me as a partner?”

  “We were a good match.” He started the car and drove out of the lot.

  “What do you mean ‘we were a good match’?”

  “You were standing there all proud, with your back straight. Tall, skinny, and from what I’d seen on the track the day before, could run like a gazelle.” Dave chuckled. “There I was, and if anybody wanted to be nice, they called that roll around my waist stocky. I figured if you could do the long sprints after the ones that tried to get away and I could knock down the doors, we’d be the perfect team.” He gave me a sheepish grin. “Besides, nobody else wanted either of us. But we showed them. Best darn team the department’s ever had. Our case-solving rate is off the charts compared to the rest of them.”

  I stared at the passing scenery, his words sparking something deep inside. Dave was a good man. And he was right—nobody else had wanted either of us. Fifteen years my senior, Dave had become a detective late in life, and the younger guys were afraid he couldn’t keep up and wouldn’t be there if they needed him. I was a wildfire, never waiting for backup and not caring if my partner had my back. Rumors were I had a death wish, and anybody who partnered with me better have their life insurance paid up to date.

  They’d been wrong about Dave. He’d had a calming influence on me, taking my detective training to a new level by teaching me to wait, watch, and listen. Things were never black-and-white, and sometimes, the sharks were only one door down from the guppies we’d come to bust.

  The car was slowing, and Dave turned in to the parking lot behind the apartment complex. “We’ll solve this one, too, Kacy. You wait and see.” He climbed out of the car and scanned the area around us. “This girl got a name? Feel kind of funny calling her ‘the hooker.’”

  “Crimson Rose.” I exited and waited for him to lock the doors.

  “No way. Nobody names their kid Crimson when their last name is Rose.”

  “Don’t look at me that way.” I laughed as he shook his head from left to right, blowing bubbles. “She had it legally changed a year ago.”

  “You ready?”

  Am I? Whatever was left in that apartment represented the last remnants of Kyle’s life. We’d never shared the twin bond, but there had been a closeness when we were younger. He’d always been down the hall if I needed him. Maybe things would have been different if I’d ever needed him. “Let’s do this.”

  The door to the apartment was missing, and we ducked beneath the crime scene tape.

  “Jesus.”

  “Honestly, Dave, you keep looking for him in all the wrong places.” My teasing was a mechanism I’d developed to stop myself from screaming when things were bad. The condition of the apartment gave me a small inkling of how bad things were. Floors were ripped up, and walls smashed. The sofa and chair were ripped apart, with all the stuffing yanked out. Whatever these guys were looking for, they were desperate to find it. Crimson had probably had no clue and couldn’t tell them anything. And Kyle hadn’t given it up either.

  “I don’t think they’ve found what they’re looking for yet.” I stepped gingerly through the mess, making my way to the bedroom. Things there were just as bad. They’d even sliced open the mattress and ripped it apart.

  “I figured it was drugs, but now I don’t think so.” Dave stood beside me. “They’re looking for something smaller.”

  “It could still be drugs, but my guess is it’s money… or diamonds.”

  Dave shook his head. “Too much desperation in their search. They tortured Kyle, and I’d bet the girl too. If we’d shown up an hour later, Simon would be dead.”

  I trusted Dave’s instincts, and what he said made sense. The corner of a photograph caught my eye, and I knelt and pushed aside the rubble. The photo was old, faded and torn, and it was the only one I remembered of the two of us together. “We were ten when we took this picture. All the other children had gone home for Christmas. Before I woke up, Kyle snuck into the kitchen and packed a picnic lunch. He took me to a small cove he’d discovered the day before. We spent the entire day eating, talking, laughing, and splashing in the shallow water. When the headmistress found us, Kyle charmed her into taking the picture and not punishing us. I guess she felt sorry for us, but Kyle was charming back then.”

  “When times are bad, kid, you hang on to the good memories.”

  I pocketed the picture and swiped at a tear. It was a good memory, and before this was over, I would need all the good memories I could find.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Part of being a detective was looking for the small things that didn’t fit in with the normal picture. A place visited daily will have certain innate sounds and things that occur at approximately the same time of day. My body was tired, but my mind was wide awake as Dave turned onto Maston Street. Snow covered the highway, grass, and trees, but there was no sparkle. It took me a moment to realize the light on the corner was dark. In the ten years I’d lived there, that light had never gone out. Dave was humming a snappy tune, and the hair on the back of my neck and arms was rising. Kiser isn’t barking.

  “Don’t stop, Dave.”

  “What?”

  “Something’s wrong.” I unclipped my holster. “The light on the corner is out, for one, and Mrs. Anderson’s dog, Kiser, barks day and night when a car turns on the street.”

  “He could be sick.”

  I studied my house as he drove past slowly. One of the great things about snow-covered ground was that it made footprints that shouldn’t be there easy to see. “They’re here, or at least t
hey’ve been here.”

  “I see it.” Dave whipped in to the driveway of the last house on the street. “Let’s call for backup.”

  “Turn around and drive back slowly. I want to look at Mrs. Anderson’s house.”

  I’d missed it the first time around, but as Dave drove up the street, I noticed an oddity that had my stomach churning, and my heart beating a little too fast. Older people were creatures of habit. Mrs. Anderson had for years turned off all her lights at nine in the evening, and turned them back on at six in the morning. It was a quarter after ten, and three rooms were lit up.

  “What do you want to do?” Dave was at the end of the street.

  “I need to check on Mrs. Anderson. Go up one street and find a place to park. We’ll come in from the back.”

  Dave grabbed the radio. “Officer needs assistance at 408 Maston Street.” He hung up the microphone and grinned. “We’ll send the guys to your house. If they’re set up in Mrs. Anderson’s, they should flee out the back.”

  “You know, I think you’re right—we’re a perfect match. Brains and brawn and beauty and speed.”

  Dave guffawed. “That beauty thing is stretching it a little. You could stand to put on a few pounds.” He drove around the block and parked in front of the house that backed up to Mrs. Anderson’s. Sirens blared in the distance. “It’s too cold to wait out there. I say we sit here all warm and comfy and see what happens.”

  I nodded, my eyes scanning for a car that looked out of place. “Don’t look, but three houses down, there’s a guy sitting in a black Lexus.”

  Two patrol cars passed the street we were parked on, and lights flashed as they turned on Maston.

  “We got a plan?” Dave asked.

  “You watch the house. I’ll keep an eye on the guy in the vehicle.”

  The car down the street revved its engine as a figure streaked across Mrs. Anderson’s backyard. I reached for my door handle. “Let’s try to take at least one of them alive.”