by Julie Hyzy
I’d been about to thank her, when two men stopped by the table. Both were older, businessmen types and evidently good friends of Bass’. One clapped our station manager on the back while keeping up polite conversation with the other. The other fellow kept a more reserved stance but smiled and shook hands all the way around as Bass introduced them.
Their names were familiar. More bigwigs. The chattier fellow, slim but rather short, pointed his finger at me, gunlike. “So you’re the little engine, huh?”
Bass shot me a warning look. I clenched my teeth and said, “Apparently.”
The man chucked his friend on the shoulder again and said something under his breath that I couldn’t completely catch. It sounded like he said he wanted to see exactly what my engine was capable of.
William returned, and placed a sparkling glass of white wine in front of me. Its bowl was twice as large as the other wine glasses at the table. I shot him a questioning look.
He shrugged. “I asked them for their biggest glass. You looked like you could use it.”
There was a hint of amusement in his face. I reached for the glass with a grin and was warmed both by the first sip and by his smile in return.
The second sip went down like warm honey, and I let out a long sigh of resignation. I’d be stuck here for at least another half-hour or so. To leave any sooner would be tacky, and obvious.
The houselights had dimmed, the music began, and waiters were now lighting large candle centerpieces at each table.
Mona whispered to us that she hoped to get her boy up on the dance floor soon and that getting him out of his chair was half the battle. “Warm him up for tonight, you know,” she said with a wink. I grinned at her and hoped Bass had remembered to pack the Viagra.
Eyeing my wineglass, I thought about getting myself warmed up. I pushed it farther toward the middle of the table by its base, and wrinkled my nose. Nah. I didn’t need to risk losing inhibitions tonight. I’d be liable to say something I’d regret later.
“Alex. William.”
We both glanced up toward Bass at the sound of our names. Mona had drifted off and Bass gestured us forward, with an eager smile of encouragement. Rising, we obliged him by coming around and joining the group.
“These are two of my staff,” Bass said to a gentleman who he’d called over. Close to fifty, and tall, with a big-man’s build, he had a gray mustache, a receding hairline, and wore circular frameless spectacles that were a shade too small for his round face. Still, there was an attractiveness about him that I couldn’t dismiss. I watched his glance touch lightly on William, as Bass made introductions. They shook hands and spoke briefly before he focused on me.
“You’re Alex St. James,” he said, without the customary question mark at the end of the statement. His right hand gestured vaguely in the direction of the stage. “The reporter Dan Starck mentioned in his speech.”
I was biting the insides of my cheeks, wondering how long I’d be forced to deal with the aftermath of tonight’s remarks, when he offered his thick hand.
“The same, I’m afraid,” I said, shooting him a lips-only smile. My dad taught me young to have a solid handshake, telling me that it didn’t matter that I was a girl, that people respected a good grip. He’d made me practice with him until I got it right and then started goofing with me with all sorts of silly handshakes until I started giggling. This man shook back with a firmness that matched my own.
“David Dewars,” he said. He was more adept at covertly assessing women than most men, but I caught his all-over glance just the same.
Mona returned, and Bass invited her to the dance floor. I took a half-step back from David Dewars, and fingered the low neckline of my gown with a glance William’s direction.
He’d turned away, his attention claimed by a group by the bar. His profile offered an expression I couldn’t read and I thought about asking him to dance.
“Alex?”
I turned. David opened his hand toward the couples gliding across the shiny wood floor. “Would you do me the honor?”
I opened my mouth to thank him, to politely decline, when I saw William walk off, headed toward a crowd of Sun-Times writers I recognized as his former colleagues. That told me where I ranked.
“I’d love to,” I said.
It’d been a long time since I’d danced with a man, and at first I found myself concentrating solely on staying light on my feet. Soon, however, I loosened up, letting myself move with my partner’s rhythms. He must have sensed the change because his hand, flat against the small of my back, pulled me in closer and he took control of our movements as though we were but one body. David Dewars, beneath his exquisitely cut tux, felt precisely how he looked. Solid, strong, and warm.
“Your dress is lovely,” he said.
“Thank you.”
I hadn’t expected conversation, so it surprised me when he continued. “I think Dan Starck is an ass, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
I had one hand on his right shoulder, the other tucked into his left hand. I leaned back far enough to make eye contact. There was laughter there; we were sharing a joke. Wary, I said, “He’s something, that’s for sure.”
“Ah … being careful are we?” he said, grinning, turning me. “Don’t worry. I can keep secrets.” He pulled me in, his hand firm on my back, his cheek close to mine. When he spoke, his breath grazed my ear, sending surprising shivers down my spine. “Bass just gave me a quick rundown about what really happened.”
“Did he?” My voice came out several decibels too high.
“Mm-hmm,” he said. “I’d love to hear the whole story sometime.”
“Well,” I hedged, as the final notes of the song ended and we parted, “it would be my side of it. And it’s vastly different than Dan’s version. You’d have to decide for yourself which story to believe.”
Still holding my hand, he stared at me for a moment. “Did you really kill a man?”
I closed my eyes. “Bass told you a lot.”
“Not nearly enough.” He guided me ahead of him as we headed back toward the table. His voice was husky as he leaned in to be heard over the next song. “I’d welcome the opportunity to know more about you. Perhaps we could have dinner sometime?”
Taken aback, I stopped, glancing at him over my shoulder to decide if he was joking. And, to my great chagrin, I stammered. “I’m not … sure,” I said.
He finally let go of my hand, turning me as he did, to face him. “You’re a careful girl,” he said. “That’s good. I certainly wouldn’t want to scare you off.” Taking hold of both my shoulders, he brought his face just close enough to mine to invade my personal space. Resisting the urge to push away, I caught a twinkle in his dark brown eyes.
“It’s the ones who get too close, too fast, you have to be afraid of,” he said, winking. “We’ll do lunch instead. It’ll make you feel safer.” He held me a half-second longer. “I’ll call you, is that all right?”
I opened my mouth, with no idea what I was about to say.
Not that it mattered.
With a grin and another wink, he was gone.
* * * * *
The Davis Award celebration was still blazing in rowdy elegance when I decided to duck out at ten-thirty. Enough was enough, and if one more person were to make a “little engine” comment, I knew I would embarrass myself. I reasoned that it was better to go home, kick off the dress that hadn’t had any effect whatsoever on its intended target, and catch some much-needed sleep.
To my great surprise, William followed me out.
He walked with me through the quiet parking lot, giving me a “we’ll get ’em next time” pep talk. Behind us, the pillared entryway stood bathed in hazy light, with glittery people milling about outside, catching their smokes. The sounds of them chatting and laughing faded as we made the long trek to my car.
Having arrived so late, the only spot I’d been able to find was in the lot’s farthest reaches, where pavement met farmland. Our slow pace and
the buzz of high-beam lights in the foggy March night gave me the first feeling of freedom I’d had all evening. I took a deep breath of the cool dampness, finally feeling myself relax.
“What did you think of David Dewars?” I asked as we reached my Escort.
William shrugged, his gaze on the clouded moon. “Not much.” Moving closer, as I fitted my key into the door, he added, “But then again, I didn’t dance with him.”
“Oh,” I said. My voice would have gone perfectly with eyelash-batting, but I exercised restraint. “You noticed.”
“Of course I noticed.”
I thought I detected a note of jealousy in his reply—but it was probably just my wistful imagination.
Stillness settled in around us like a conspiratorial cupid and the very air felt different to me. I moved closer to him, just a bit. Even with my spiky heels on he was taller, and I couldn’t help but think our heights were perfect. “Interesting evening,” I said, just to fight the silence.
“It was,” he said, just as blandly.
We hadn’t broken eye contact since we’d gotten to my car’s door. I waited, hearing the swish of the wind over the nearby wheat tips, and the beat of my heart, fast and deep.
I thought about how easy it would be to lean up and kiss him right now, but I couldn’t. It was his move.
His move . . . If he ever was going to make one.
He opened his mouth and took a sharp breath, as though to say something. But one moment later, he closed his lips, flashed a quick smile, and looked away, obviously changing his mind. And when his eyes came back to meet mine, there was friendliness in them. Nothing more.
He leaned in, kissed me on the cheek.
“Good-night, Alex. Sweet dreams.”
Great, I thought, as he walked away. The perfect end to a perfect night.
I wondered if he heard the frustrated slam of my car door.
* * * * *
I’d been about to turn into my alley when I changed my mind, deciding instead to park out front. With the way my luck was going, I’d be hitting my remote for a half-hour and it still wouldn’t open. One night without the shelter of the garage wasn’t going to kill my little car.
As if to make me sorry for my words, rain began, dropping in heavy patters on my car’s roof. I allowed myself a long sigh. Every move today had been a mistake of some sort. No reason to expect things to be different now.
I began to accelerate into the left turn that took me onto my street, when I stopped short. Four squad cars formed a rough semi-circle mid-block, their warning blue Mars lights flashing across the fronts of all my neighbors’ brick bungalows, flashing against their picture windows.
A female police officer approached my car, her black-gloved hand raised to halt my progress.
I rolled my window down and she leaned in.
“You a resident?” she asked. Her hat was sheathed in a clear covering and she had on a dark raincoat, open over her uniform. Her blond hair was tucked behind her ears and she wore an inquisitive expression.
“What happened?” I asked, pointing, “I live right there.”
I noticed belatedly, an ambulance parked behind the last squad, and a crowd of neighbors all staring the same direction, heads together, arms folded in worried fashion. I couldn’t decide whose house it was, and all thoughts of my miserable evening vanished as I searched the faces for family. My aunt Lena and uncle Moose were getting up there in age. But even if they’d taken ill, that didn’t account for all the squads.
The officer straightened and assessed the street, shaking her head. “I can’t let you in.”
I spotted Aunt Lena breaking from the group of onlookers, and I sighed my relief. She hurried toward my car, waving. “This is my niece,” she shouted in a breathless voice, pointing as she ran up to meet me. Her tan raincoat flapped in the wind and she held a dark umbrella aloft. I noticed that she had on her pajamas and house slippers.
The officer turned to her. “I’m sorry ma’am. There’s nowhere for her to park.”
“I’ll go to my garage,” I said, then addressing Aunt Lena, “What happened?”
“It’s just terrible,” she said. Then, with motherly scrutiny, she asked, “You still having problems with your door opener?”
I nodded.
“Park in our garage. I’ll tell Moose to open the door for you. I’ll meet you there.” She’d turned to run back to the gathered crowd. “Just terrible,” I heard her say again, but the rest of her words were swallowed up in the night.
Chapter Four
Uncle Moose met me at the garage. He’d positioned his massive frame half-in, half-out of the structure, straddling the threshold of the small service door, his hair a dark wet helmet.
“Come on,” he said with a peculiar look on his face, as I came around the front of the Escort. Then, “Where were you?”
“At a big dinner.” No sense in getting into detail. “What happened? Why are the police out front?”
He dropped his gaze to my high heels. “You going to be okay standing out there in those? Maybe I should get Lee to find you something more comfortable.”
“Uncle Moose,” I said, with urgency in my voice, “tell me what happened.” I caught another wary glance at my legs. Exasperated, I added, “I’m fine.”
How many times had I said those words tonight. And not once had they been true.
He popped open an umbrella over my head as we trekked through the gangway that separated houses from one another. Uncle Moose had been a professional wrestler—fairly well-known in Chicago. Though he’d slowed down over the years, he maintained the sort of lifestyle that kept him moving. He was taller than my dad—heavier too. And while my dad’s hair was beginning to fade from light brown to gray, Uncle Moose’s stayed dark. Of course that might have had something to do with the used coffee grounds he massaged into his head each night.
“There was an incident today,” he said. I could feel him choosing his words, like I was a little girl again, like he needed to protect me.
“Just tell me. About a million possibilities are racing through my brain right now, and I’ll bet they’re all worse than what really happened. So just tell me. I’ll handle it.”
In the dark, I felt his skeptical glance more than saw it. “It’s Evelyn Vicks,” he said.
“Mrs. Vicks?” We were walking pretty fast through the gangway that separated my aunt and uncle’s bungalow from the two-story next to it. It took me double-steps to keep up with him and I rethought the wisdom of wearing these strappy heels. “Oh my God, what happened?”
He shifted the umbrella to his left hand and pulled me in with his right as we navigated the narrow passageway. I noticed he kept his eyes focused at some middle-distance in front of him. He licked his lips, then bit them. “Somebody broke into her house today.”
I blinked, not understanding. “That was me.”
“What?” His face scrunched into a frown of confusion, but he didn’t stop walking.
“She was locked out this afternoon. I went in through her back window to unlock the front door. She didn’t tell you that?”
He was about to answer when we emerged from the shadowed gangway, and a quick gust of wet wind made me shiver. My aunt Lena looked up from a conversation she was having with another neighbor. She leaned in to the woman, said something, then headed our direction.
A voice yelled, “Moose,” and my uncle turned.
“Talk to your aunt,” he said, and started to walk off. A second later he came back, handed me the umbrella and disappeared into the anxious crowd.
“What is going on?” I asked Aunt Lena with an emphasis on each word.
Women will tell women things; they don’t try to hedge and protect the way men tend to. I watched resolve come over her features. Her dark eyes tightened, making them seem smaller within deep wrinkles. She’d been crying. Her words came out trembling, pained: “Evelyn Vicks was murdered.”
My mouth dropped. I’d just seen her a few hours ago. How co
uld this be true? It seemed surreal . . . some sort of joke.
I tried to wrap my mind around her statement feeling like I didn’t completely comprehend. I started to say, “You’re kidding,” but stopped myself when I realized how stupid that would sound. All I could do was repeat the word that hit me hardest. “Murdered?”
Aunt Lena nodded; she bit her lip. “Someone broke in.”
Evelyn Vicks had been a good friend to all of us for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t imagine who would murder such a sweet, helpless woman. I shivered again, this time from more than just the cold night air.
“Broke in,” Aunt Lena repeated, then stopped herself short with a strangled laugh. “What a joke, huh? You know she always kept her doors unlocked.”
Well, most of the time, I thought. “Yeah.”
She shook her head again. “Someone just waltzed in, killed her, and took off.” The squads’ blue lights flashed on my aunt’s face like an uneven strobe, illuminating the tight pain in her expression. “The bastards.” Though her body faced me, her attention stayed directed toward the movement in and out of Mrs. Vicks’ house.
“A robbery?” I asked. The rain had slowed enough for me to lower the umbrella. Thank goodness; I was fighting a sense of claustrophobia. I wanted to know what had happened. I wanted to know it all. Now.
“Nobody’s telling us anything. But, you remember how Russ Bednarski used to be a Chicago cop?” She gestured with her chin toward a cluster of people. Mr. Bednarski had his hands out in front, gesturing as he spoke. “Well, Russ was able to talk to some of the officers over there, and they said it didn’t look like a robbery to them.”
“But I just saw her,” I said, as though my words could somehow change the events of the evening. With a stab, I remembered the smell of the steaming pork roast, and the way she’d promised me a special dinner tomorrow night. I felt my eyes sting, my throat tighten. I pulled my shawl snug around my body, suddenly craving the warmth and comfort I’d felt at her house earlier. And then I remembered something else. “Diana? What about Diana?”