I kicked off the vacuum, looked at the mess of paper around the room, and sighed as I began to pick stuff up.
It was mail, mostly. Some letters from one of my mother’s old boyfriends. I inadvertently saw the phrase nibble your luscious wet and had to turn away before I saw any more.
One envelope, however, stood out because it was still sealed. Written on the front was the word Jacqueline in my mother’s florid script.
I stared at it for a moment. On one hand, it was sealed and hidden in a box under my mother’s bed. On another hand, it had my name on it.
On any other day, I would have put it back unopened. But I was exhausted, emotionally frazzled, and I didn’t need anything else hanging over my head at the moment.
I opened the envelope and read the letter:
My Darling Daughter,
If you’re reading this, it is because you’ve been going through my things after I’ve died. I hope my passing hasn’t caused you too much distress.
I take that back. I hope you’re completely devastated. I loved you more than life itself, and know you felt the same way about me. You’re the one good thing I did with my life.
There’s something you should know, something I’ve never had the courage to tell you when I was alive. You see, I can’t forgive the man, and I knew if you learned the truth I’d have to deal with my buried feelings all over again. It was wrong, and you have every right to be mad at me, but now that I’m dead, I don’t have to hear you condemn me for my decision.
I’ve lied to you, Jacqueline. When you were small, you were told your father died of a heart attack. In truth, he didn’t die. He left us. One day, after supper, he calmly told me that he hated being a husband, hated being a father, and didn’t want to have anything to do with us ever again. Then he walked out of our lives forever.
I told you he died because, essentially, he was dead to us. It was easier to tell a child that her father wasn’t coming back because he was no longer with us, rather than he no longer wanted to be a father. I meant to tell you the truth, when you got older, but I feared you’d track him down and confront him.
It took a very long time for me to move on, after he left. You were a wonderful girl to raise, but you know how difficult we had it. I cannot ever forgive him for what he did to us, and never want to see him again.
I urge you to just let this go, but I know you won’t. It isn’t in your nature. You’ll track him down, and ask him why he did what he did.
When that moment comes, dearest Jacqueline, give the bastard a swift kick in the family jewels from me.
Love, Mom
It took me a few seconds to process what I’d just read. Then it took me a few more seconds to get on the phone with Mom.
“Good morning, Jacqueline. How’s my kitty cat? Is he eating?”
“Mr. Friskers is fine. I—”
“And how’s Latham? I really like that man. If I were a few years younger—”
I didn’t think this was the time to hit her with that news, so I held it back.
“Mom, I was cleaning up in your room, and I found the letter.”
“Oh, don’t be upset. So I exchanged a few dirty letters with a few men. I find the written word much more erotic than pornographic movies. Though I did date this one gentleman who took me to a peep show once —”
“Not that letter, Mom. The other one, with my name written on it.”
My mother paused. “Oh. That letter. Did you read it? Of course you did, or you wouldn’t be calling. Unless you’re asking my permission to read the letter, to which I’ll politely answer no.”
“Dad is alive?”
Mom sighed, as if I was such a disappointment she couldn’t bear it. “I honestly don’t know. He might be. I really don’t care, one way or the other. Did you read the part when I wrote that you were the one good thing I did in my life? Did that make you cry? I cried when I wrote it. But, truth told, I’d been hitting the schnapps.”
I rubbed my eyes. “Mom, don’t you think this is something we should have discussed before you died?”
“Well, I’m not dead, and we’re discussing it right now.”
“Who is it?” A male voice said in the background.
“My daughter, Charlie. Go back to sleep.”
“Mom, are you in bed with someone?”
“Don’t be shocked, Jacqueline. We were just sleeping.” I heard her peck him on the cheek. “The sex won’t happen until later, in the shower.”
“Look, Mom, I’m upset right now.”
“Well, don’t be upset with me. I’m not the one who left us.”
I set my jaw. “He’s my father, and I should have known he was still alive.”
“Why? So he could hurt you again? You don’t know what it’s like to have the man you married, the father of your child, look at you and tell you he wants no part of you. Believing he was dead was a much easier way to deal with the loss.”
It was like wrestling with an octopus.
“That should have been my decision to make, Mom.”
“Well, now it is. But if you find him, I don’t want to hear about it. I don’t want to know if he’s dead or alive. I don’t want to discuss it. Ever.”
“Fine.”
“Also, since you’re obviously being very meticulous in your cleaning of my personal space, I suggest you stay out of my bedside cabinet, lest you find more things that upset you. Good-bye, Jacqueline.”
She hung up. I marched into her bedroom, tugged open the drawer next to her bed, saw a variety of battery-controlled devices in different sizes and shapes, then closed the drawer and tried to get the images out of my head. Especially of the really long red one.
Mom knew I’d open the drawer. She did that on purpose to rattle me. I became even more annoyed.
Mr. Friskers appeared in the doorway and hissed in my direction.
“Not now,” I warned him.
He seemed to consider it, then trotted away. I glanced at the clock, saw I was running late, and hopped in the shower. I didn’t have time to condition, did a quick towel dry, dressed in a gray Tahari Mandarin collar jacket that I bought in a set with a beige cami and black slacks. God bless the Home Shopping Network. I eyed a pair of Emilio Pucci heels, which had so many different colors in their crazy design they looked like they were made of Care Bear skins, but ultimately went with some Taryn Rose “Stevie” flats, figuring I’d be running around all day.
The long drive to work gave me time to apply my makeup in the car and for my hair to air dry, providing it wasn’t humid enough to give me the frizzies.
An hour later I was pulling into my District parking lot. The day turned out to be rain-forest humid, and the only thing I could do with my brown curls was tie them in a ponytail.
I took the stairs up to my office, hoping Herb had gotten there before me and was waiting with a big cup of coffee, because I needed caffeine.
There was a person in my office, but it wasn’t Herb. And she didn’t have coffee.
“That’s my desk,” I said, pointed to where she was sitting.
The girl smiled. “I know. It’s your office.”
She was in her early twenties. Blond hair with pink highlights, in a short bob. Enough makeup to shame a gypsy fortune-teller. Multiple earrings. And a multicolored blouse that clung so tight, it looked painted on.
“I’m Roxanne.” She stood. Roughly my height, but slightly thinner in the waist and hips, and a cup size bigger. “Roxanne Waclawski. Call me Roxy.”
She offered a hand, a zillion sterling silver wire bracelets jingling at me.
I kept my hand at my side.
“Why are you in my office.” I added, “Roxy.”
She smiled big. “We’re partners!”
“I have a partner.”
“Captain Bains told me that I’m your new partner. Your old one died or retired or something.”
I spun on my Stevies and walked across the hall to Herb’s office. He was packing stuff into boxes.
&
nbsp; “Herb? What’s going on?”
My partner looked at me with an expression halfway between pain and remorse.
“My transfer came through. I’m going to Burglary/Robbery/Theft. No more Homicide.”
I felt like I’d been hit, like all the important people in my life were deserting me.
“Why?” I heard myself say.
“The stress. I can’t take it. Too many years of people trying to kill me. Or you. I think it’s worse seeing you in danger.”
“If it’s about yesterday—”
Herb set down the box, hard. The noise made me flinch.
“Yesterday was just an example. It’s been like this for a long time. I can’t take it anymore, Jack. I’ve seen too many dead bodies. Talked to too many crying relatives. I’m done.”
He pulled out his desk drawer and dumped all of the contents into the box. Most of the contents were empty food wrappers.
“Weren’t you going to tell me?” I asked.
“Bernice told me not to. She said you’d talk me out of it.”
“Of course I’d talk you out of it. You’re a Homicide cop. A damn good one. It’s in your blood. You can’t walk away from this.”
“I got less than ten years left in the Job. I’m spending them in Robbery. No crazed maniacs. No psycho killers. No lunatics poisoning the whole goddamn city. The next decade will be like a paid vacation.”
I walked around his desk and put my hand on his arm. Herb was practically family. I’d had partners before, but never one that I felt such a bond with.
“You saved my life yesterday, pulling me out of that house. If you go to Robbery, who’s going to save my ass next time?”
I said it half-joking, but his reply was so serious it stung.
“You’ll have to find someone else to save you next time, Jack.”
He gave me his back, pulling stuff off of shelves.
“I put all the task force stuff on your desk, which team is doing what. I’m sure Bains will assign you a new partner, if he hasn’t already.”
“He has. The paint on her isn’t even dry yet.”
Herb turned and managed a weak grin. “A younger partner, huh? I’d never put up with that shit.”
Maybe I was the one who reached for him. Maybe he was the one who reached for me. But the very next moment, two tough macho cops were hugging like relatives at a funeral.
“You’re going to make a great Robbery cop,” I said to his chubby neck.
“You can come with me. Think it over. No shooting. No dead kids. No serial creepos. And if the bad guy gets away, he won’t wipe out a preschool. The worst he’ll do is steal a BMW.”
“Sounds tempting. I’ll think about it.” But we both knew I was lying.
Herb broke the embrace, cleared his throat, and returned to the shelf. He came back with a cellophane package of Twinkies.
“Look at this.” He squinted at the package. “Date says 1998. They look good as new.”
“The best things in life never change,” I told him.
“Actually, Jack, sometimes they do.”
He tossed the package into his box. I didn’t think I had any tears left in me, but I felt them coming. I considered telling him about Latham, or about my father. Anything to make him stay.
Instead I said, “Call me when you get settled in.”
Then I turned around and walked out the door.
Chapter 15
MEANWHILE, BACK IN MY OFFICE, Roxy had once again appropriated my desk. She even had her feet up, her Skechers in the spot normally reserved for my morning coffee.
“That’s my desk.” I tucked away all of my pain in a private, secret place, where it wouldn’t get out until I allowed it, and forced a pleasant smile. “The next time I see you sitting at it, I’m going to roll you up into a ball and shove you back inside Cyndi Lauper.”
Roxy quickly removed her feet and stood up.
“Who’s Cyndi Lauper?” she asked.
“A girl who just wanted to have fun.”
“She sounds cool. Hey, while you were gone, Captain Bains called. There’s some big meeting happening downstairs that we’re supposed to go to. Conference Room A.”
“Are you really a cop, and not someone who just snuck in here?”
Roxy smacked her gum and grinned.
“I like you,” she said. “You’ve got attitude.”
I took the task force folder from my in-box. Roxy picked up her backpack—of course she had a backpack; how else could she carry her skateboard?—and followed me down the hall.
“I thought we were going to the conference room.”
“I need coffee.”
“Here.” She tugged at my arm to stop me, then reached into her pack and produced a twenty-two-ounce can of energy drink.
“I don’t want that. I want coffee.”
“This is sugar-free. And it has twice the recommended daily allowance of taurine.”
“What’s taurine?”
“I dunno. It kind of tastes like pee. But it has a real kick.”
The station coffee also tasted like pee, so I accepted the energy drink. The flavor wasn’t pee so much as carbonated bile, with a hint of salt. But my body instantly reacted to the caffeine, and I perked up a little on the way downstairs.
“Your outfit is so cool,” Roxy told me.
“Thanks.”
“I’m so going to wear stuff like that, when I get older.”
Captain Bains, Superintendent O’Loughlin, Special Agent from the Hazardous Materials Response Team Dr. Ric. Reilly, the ubiquitous PR guy Davy Ellis, and several other people I didn’t know were seated around the boardroom table, in a heated discussion. Roxy grabbed the last empty seat. I was about to strangle her with her hemp necklace, but Rick stood up and offered me his chair, leaving the room to find another.
“Jack,” the super said, “this is Dr. Abigail Van Hausen from the Center for Disease Control, Majo. Phillip Murdoch from the United States Army Medical Research Institute fo. Infectious Diseases, Dr. Sylvia Ng from the World Health Or ganization, and Dr. Wayne Astor, also from USAMRIID.”
I shook hands all around. Roxy did the same.
“I’m Roxy, Jack’s partner. Anyone need an energy drink? It’s got taurine.”
Everyone declined. Roxy removed a can and popped the top, taking a loud slurp.
“Has this become a DOD show?” I asked, eyeing the army guys.
The major answered, in a tone that was obviously military. “The Department of Defense is here to ascertain if the situation in Chicago is a threat to national security. Also, one of the victims at the diner yesterday was a dignitary from Japan, and we’ve been asked to assist in the investigation.”
I’d heard about the diner massacre while at the hospital with Latham.
Bains appeared unhappier than usual. “Six dead, four more in critical condition. We’ve confirmed it’s a Chemist attack—note found at the scene.”
He passed over a piece of paper in a large plastic bag and went into details about the time and place. The font was bigger this time, but matched the previous letter.
Two million dollars or I tell CNN what’s going on.
The Chemist
“We need to go public with this,” I said.
“Not necessarily.” This from Davy, of course. “If we went public—”
I interrupted. “It would cost the city billions of dollars. Which we all know is more important than the lives of a few innocent people.”
“That’s only part of it. The Chemist is bluffing. He doesn’t want the media to know, because then it would be harder for him to spread his poisons.”
“Explain how that’s a bad thing.”
“You need evidence to catch him. How will you find that evidence if he disappears?”
“Who is the asshole?” Roxy whispered in my ear. I ignored her.
“What will happen to the city’s approval rating when the public finds out there’s a lunatic poisoning their food, and we knew but didn’
t tell them?”
Mr. PR opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“I’m calling a press conference,” said the super. “We’re going public.”
Davy pursed his lips like a fish. “The mayor won’t like this.”
“Our job is to serve and protect, and keeping this from the public is doing neither. Dr. Ng, Dr. Van Hausen, I understand that you had colleagues at Cook County Morgue when they brought in the members of the Special Response Team from Alger’s house. Have you found anything?”
Dr. Ng, a thin, attractive Asian woman, nodded at Dr. Van Hausen, cleared her throat, and read off of a paper in front of her.
“The deaths all appear to be the result of poisoning. We’ve managed to isolate seven different toxins so far. Some of the deceased show symptoms and signatures of several toxins.”
Rick came back into the room, dragging a chair. Roxy whispered in my ear, “Who is the stud?”
I ignored her, and suppressed a smug expression when the stud pulled his chair close to mine and sat down.
“Nerium oleander,” Ng continued, “which is a cardiac stimulant and has an effect similar to digitalis. Ornithogalum umbellatum, Tanghinia venenifera, Strychnos toxifera, Ricinus communis. So far, we haven’t discovered any evidence of disease. And it should be noted that all of the toxins we’ve found have been derived from plants...”
“Have you had similar findings, Special Agent Reilly?”
Rick turned his attention to the super.
“Actually, no. I found traces of hydrogen cyanide, arsenic trihydride, and parathion. These are all inorganic compounds, and can be purchased everywhere or made with a child’s chemistry set. The Chemist apparently has knowledge of diseases, organic poisons, and chemical weapons.”
“Parathion is a relative of sarin nerve gas.” From Dr. Astor, the army guy.
“Yes. It’s sold under various brands as a pesticide.”
“Is everything the Chemist is using available domestically?” Major Murdoch asked.
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