by Julie Miller
“MIRZA?” Brooke looked up from the memo she was typing and smiled at the dark-skinned man lugging a big leather satchel through her doorway. “You’re the computer guy? They said Caldwell Technologies would be sending someone to train me on their software today, but I had no idea it’d be you. I haven’t seen you since our last class at UMKC.”
Mirza Patel brushed his curly black hair off his cheek and tucked it behind his ear. “To be honest, I volunteered. My supervisor says I will never get a raise if I cannot show the company that I can leave my cubicle and work with customers. When I saw your name, I thought of what we learned in class.”
Brooke was on her feet, circling the desk. “When you go into an unfamiliar situation, take baby steps. Plan so that not everything is completely new. New face? Familiar place.”
“New place? Familiar face.” His satchel thunked on the floor beside him as he finished the rhyme of advice from the assertiveness training they’d taken together. “You are my familiar face here.”
An impulse to welcome her friend with a hug became an awkward dodge of arms that ended with a firm handshake. “I’m happy to be your safety net. You can be my familiar face for a while, too. There are so many new people here, it can be a bit overwhelming.” She pulled him on into her office and gestured to her desk. “There’s my computer. I’ve been reading the manual, but I’m looking forward to a hands-on demo.”
While Mirza took a few minutes to set up, Brooke pulled a visitor’s chair around to the same side of the desk so she’d be able to observe the tutorial. “I understand Caldwell tailored this particular program to suit the needs of the police department.”
Mirza’s Indian accent was almost musical as he explained, “It is very similar to the word processing and database program we have created for military use. Of course, this is on a smaller scale. It allows you to create a network within the department, as well as access offsite systems while converting incoming information to a standard format.”
“That should save me a few steps.”
“It also includes neighborhood, city and state maps with resident and business addresses, as well as templates for spreadsheets, presentations and word processing, like the memo you are typing.”
“Oh.” Brooke reached over his shoulder. “Let me print that out and get it on Major Taylor’s desk. Then you can reboot the system and we can start.” After laying the memo in Mitch Taylor’s inbox to be initialed, Brooke returned to find Mirza plugging in cords and a router and typing in commands. “You said Caldwell based this system on a military program?”
“Yes. Caldwell Tech has worked very closely with the Department of Defense for nearly thirty years, developing various technologies for them. It has only been twelve years since Mr. Caldwell created the civilian division of the company. That is where I work, of course.” He gestured to the extra chair. “Are you ready to begin?”
TWO HOURS and several pages of notes later, Brooke had a good working knowledge of the new computer systems. She also had a serious crick in her neck.
She could probably attribute the stiffness to more than just hunching over the computer. She’d been worrying since she’d left the house that morning about how well her aunts were getting along with the new handyman that Atticus had been so opposed to hiring.
As if a twenty-nine-year-old woman couldn’t make a grown-up decision on her own!
Sure, maybe she was a little uncomfortable with his criminal record, but Tony Fierro had served his time. He hadn’t threatened her in any way. His record since his release was clean and the recommendation from Mr. McCarthy couldn’t be more glowing. On paper, there was absolutely no reason she shouldn’t hire Tony to do odd jobs around the house. And in the end, she relied on the facts, rather than her questionable intuition, to make her decision to give him the job.
“Sorry, but I need a break.” She stretched her neck this way and that. Maybe she should send Mirza for coffee in the break room while she phoned Peggy and Lou. “Do you mind?”
“Of course not.” Mirza stood when Brooke did, and did a little stretching himself. “We work well together.”
“We sure do.” Brooke reached up to rub her neck. “Turns out you’re a very good teacher. You should leave your cubicle more often,” she teased.
“Perhaps I will.” Mirza’s hands joined hers at the nape of her neck and massaged lightly. Brooke froze at the unexpected contact. “Is…this all right?”
“Um…” Mirza was a friend. As shy as she was. It had probably cost him as much nerve to reach out to her as it had to venture into customer service at Caldwell. A rejection from her right now would probably knock his confidence back a notch or two. Brooke forced herself to relax. “That’s fine. Maybe a little farther out on the shoulders,” she suggested, hoping to lessen that awkwardly intimate feeling.
Mirza’s touch grew more firm as the massage continued. One hand circled around her collarbone to provide a counterbalance as he worked the butt of his hand along her spine. Brooke silently began to count to ten. Then she’d find an excuse to remove herself from his touch without hurting his feelings.
Six. Seven.
“Mail.”
Thank God. When the intern rolled his mail cart through her doorway, Brooke slipped around the desk and greeted him with an enthusiastic hi. She didn’t turn to see if Mirza had noticed the abruptness of her escape. She didn’t want to know if his offer of a massage was just a friendly gesture or an unwelcome overture to something more.
Brooke kept her gaze purposefully lowered as she sorted through the mail. If Mirza saw her as nothing more than a friend, then he wouldn’t be offended by the loss of eye contact. If there was some unrequited feeling on his part, however, then she was giving him an easy way to avoid embarrassing himself.
“I’d better get this taken care of,” she explained needlessly.
“Yes. And I suppose I had better pack my things and get back to Caldwell.” The weird moment passed and Mirza sat to put away his equipment.
But a weird moment with Mirza Patel was the least of Brooke’s problems.
According to Mitch’s directions, she had permission to open each letter and prioritize them. But as she slit open one envelope and unfolded the parchment inside, all the other papers fell to the floor, unheeded. “This can’t be.”
A sick confusion twisted in her stomach. Why was this happening to her?
She pulled off her glasses as if reading the strange missive up close to her nearsighted eyes would make it more understandable.
Did you get the roses, pretty lady?
I wanted you to know I’m thinking of you. All the time.
See you soon.
Slipping her glasses back into place, Brooke dropped to her knees and searched through the scattered papers to find the envelope the anonymous note had come in. She snatched it up and read it more carefully. Kansas City postmark. Prepaid envelope with no licked stamp. Addressed to Mitch Taylor’s office at the Fourth Precinct, attention Brooke Hansford. No return address.
“Is everything all right, Brooke?”
Ignoring her friend’s concern, Brooke pushed to her feet and darted into the hall to catch the intern, but he’d already disappeared. Her heart thumped in her chest as she looked down the empty corridor to the vacant bank of elevators, and then turned to the busy squad room, wondering if someone was watching her now, wondering if anyone thought this was funny.
But no one was laughing. No one was paying any attention to her at all except…
Brooke dashed back into her office. “Mirza. Did you send me flowers yesterday?”
Please let it be this man’s misguided expression of his attraction to her.
“Me? Flowers?”
Before his gaping mouth could say no, Brooke went to the bookshelf and picked up the glass vase with the six red roses. “Do you have a girlfriend, Mirza?”
“No.”
“Boyfriend?”
“No!”
“Mother?”
Good enough. Brooke pushed the vase into his hands. “Here. Take these. Impress her. And for God’s sake, sign a card when you give them to her.”
“YOU THINK that color’s natural?” Holden rolled the sleeves of his black S.W.A.T. uniform up past his elbows and pointed to the computer monitor, indicating Liza Parrish’s tomboyishly short wisps of copper-colored hair on the television screen. She wore layered tank tops, cargo shorts and an attitude that radiated off her freckled skin. She sat alone in the interview room, alternately drumming her fingers against the metal tabletop and sneaking peeks at the wall clock—as though she knew an observation camera was hidden there. “The freckles look authentic, but that red’s not something you pass by without looking twice.”
“Missing the point, little brother.” Sawyer rose from his perch on the table in the back of the observation room and nudged Holden aside. “She’s here to answer questions, not help you get your game on. Now sit—” There was an audible pause in the good-natured ribbing. “How old is she? What the hell was a kid like that doing down at the docks in the middle of the night?”
Atticus hadn’t met the witness who’d called in John Kincaid’s murder in person, but he had the stats memorized. “She’s twenty-five. A veterinary school grad student. Claims she was rescuing a dog for a friend.”
“By herself in the middle of the night?” Holden nudged back to get a better look. “Is she smart enough for us to trust anything she says? Or do you think she’s lying?”
Technician Marcus Henry sat between them, making adjustments on his keyboard and shaking his head. “Dinners at your mom’s house must have been a laugh a minute with the three of you growing up.”
Sawyer thumped him on the back of the head. “Just see if you ever rate an invitation now. And there were four of us. Edward added plenty of noise of his own, believe me.”
“I haven’t seen Ed around the precinct since last December. Or was that two Christmases ago? Has he recovered from his—” Marcus tapped his headphones. “Wait. Grove’s coming in. Keep it down.”
Another man with Atticus’s temperament might have shushed the Two Stooges by now. But he knew his brothers. When it was time to get serious, the games would stop. Gathering behind Marcus as they watched Detective Kevin Grove enter the interrogation room, the Kincaid brothers were at once as focused and serious as the grave.
“Who’s that?” Atticus pointed to the tall, slender woman who followed the stocky detective into the room.
Sawyer answered. “The crime lab’s resident battleax, Holly Masterson. Not much of a people person, but thorough. She’s the M.E. I told you about who called me to report that some of her computer records had been tampered with—including Dad’s autopsy.”
Atticus filed away the information, keeping his eyes glued to the screen. Grove waited for Dr. Masterson to take a seat at the end of the table before sitting across from Liza Parrish himself. He raked his fingers through his spiky blond hair and took a deep breath as though this had already been a very long day for him. He pulled a small tape recorder from his jacket and placed it on the table.
“Let’s get the formalities out of the way first, Miss Parrish. You remember me, Detective Grove. This is Holly Masterson from the crime lab. We’re here to interview Liza Parrish regarding the homicide of Deputy Commissioner John Kincaid. You’ve waived your right to have an attorney present and we’ll be taping the interview. Do you understand all this?”
The redhead nodded.
“I need you to state it out loud for the recorder, Miss Parrish.”
The drumming of her fingers stopped and she sat up straight. “Yes. I understand. You know, I’m missing work for this. The animal clinic’s short-staffed as it is, so could we get on with it?”
“Of course.” Grove’s build resembled a heavyweight wrestler’s, putting his physical appearance at odds with his precise, articulate manner of speaking. “Dr. Masterson has pulled a tattoo from a victim we believe is related to the murder you witnessed.”
Liza rolled her eyes and leaned back. “For the umpteenth time, I didn’t actually see the murder. I saw people driving away in the car, and when I went inside the warehouse I found the body and called 911. I didn’t stay because my dog needed medical attention and there was nothing I could do for that poor man—”
“I thought it was a friend’s dog.” Holden pointed out the first inconsistency in her story.
“Shh,” Atticus warned.
“—but I gave the dispatcher my cell phone number and home address in case KCPD needed to reach me.”
Grove nodded. “We appreciate your assistance, Miss Parrish. But we have a new angle on the case we’d like to discuss.”
Atticus’s fingers tightened at his waist as he braced for the revelation.
Grove nodded to Dr. Masterson, who slid a manila envelope in front of Liza. “Does the number three have any significance to what you saw?” he asked.
Three? Alert to every word spoken on the monitor, Atticus opened a sidebar of memory in his head. He’d seen a number three on the drawing his father had sketched in Brooke’s journal. Did it mean something important?
“Huh?” Liza Parrish wasn’t sure of the answer, either. “There were three people there, I guess. The white guy driving the car. The big black man holding the back door open. And the suit who was climbing inside.”
Dr. Masterson interrupted, a little less woman-to-woman in her approach than Atticus would have expected. She opened the envelope and pulled out a photograph. “We’re talking about the number three being used as a symbol. Like a gang tat that shows affiliation. Did you notice this on any of the men you saw driving away?”
“That’s a tattoo?” Liza asked, leaning in to study the picture and crinkling her face up into a frown. “Oh, my God. Is this guy dead, too?”
“Yes. His name was James McBride…”
Sawyer turned to whisper in Atticus’s ear. “Masterson told me she saw a tattoo on Dad’s body. Almost microscopic in size. She overlooked it as a birthmark in the initial autopsy.”
“A number three?”
“Must have been. She said the markings were similar.”
Holden pushed his way into the conversation, too. “I never knew Dad had a tat.”
It was news to Atticus, too. “None of us did.”
Holly Masterson was still talking about the victim. “…a retired accountant at Caldwell Technologies. I’ve magnified the image to make it easier to see. Does the tattoo look familiar?”
Atticus tapped Marcus on the shoulder. “Can we adjust the camera to see that photo?”
“Are you kidding? You’re lucky you’re getting to see it from this angle.”
“It’s hard to tell on the dark skin.” Liza Parrish tapped her freckled chin. “The albino guy driving the car had tats all over him. But, you know, from my hiding place behind the trash cans, I didn’t get that good a look at him to see anything like this. It’s too tiny.”
Tattoos.
Albino.
Bad dye job.
The blood drained to Atticus’s feet. A surge of adrenaline followed right behind. “Son of a bitch.”
“Atticus?”
The door swung open before Atticus could reach it.
Mitch Taylor was not the man you wanted to see blocking your path if you were in a hurry. “What the hell are you three doing in here? Your father’s homicide is strictly off limits and you know it.” He thumbed over his shoulder, ordering them out of the observation room. “Unless you want to be directing traffic tomorrow, you get out of here now. And you,” he pointed to Marcus, “I’ll see you in my office when that interview is done.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mitch grabbed Atticus’s arm on the way out. His voice dropped several decibel levels. “I’ll keep you in the loop if anything comes from this interview. But you and your brothers stay away from this case. When we nail John’s killer, I don’t want the perp walkin
g on a technicality like personal prejudice from a detective.”
“You’re right. Having a guilty man go free might be worse than never catching him at all.”
“We’ll catch him,” Mitch vowed. “But you and your brothers can’t be a part of this. Now, you’re the reasonable one. Talk some sense into them.”
Reasonable, hell. If he was so damn smart, why hadn’t he figured out this case yet?
Atticus kept the frustration locked inside him and nodded. “We appreciate any information you can give us. It just feels like it’s taking far too long to get any answers. Homicide still hasn’t turned up one viable suspect or motive, and forensics’ evidence is inconclusive at best.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, A. We won’t give up until we have our man.”
“Neither will any of my brothers or myself.”
“Speaking of brothers—” Mitch ushered him into the hallway and closed the door behind him. “Any idea when Edward is coming back? Or if he plans even to be a cop again? I know the best sometimes burn out and can’t find their way back. I don’t want to lose him, but I can’t keep his position open forever.”
“He knows that. When I get a chance, I’ll see if I can find out where his head is right now.”
“You do that and I’ll pretend I never saw you here.”
With a final “Yes, sir,” Atticus hurried off to make sure Brooke hadn’t made a dangerous—even fatal—mistake in hiring Tony Fierro.
And whether his interference sparked her temper or not, he intended to meet Tony Fierro face-to-face and find out if those were brown contact lenses over colorless—albino—eyes.
Chapter Six
“I mean anything. No detail is too small. What street did he live on growing up? Did he run with a gang? Sing in the choir? Anything you can tell me.” Atticus held his cell phone to his ear and nodded to friends as members of B shift walked past his desk, getting ready for the night watch. He’d meant to check out himself half an hour ago, but these phone calls were too important to wait for the morning.