“Unlike Clay, who always was an animal,” Teri piped up. She took a head count around the table. “Speaking of whom, where is he?”
“Work,” Andrew told her.
Shaw hooted. “Since when?” It wasn’t that Clay was a poor detective, quite the opposite was true. But he wasn’t exactly known for the long hours he put in. At least, not at the station.
So, this was different, then, Ilene thought. Clay was usually here in the morning. Had he deliberately changed his routine and gone in to work just to avoid her?
What if he had? Wasn’t that what she’d wanted? she asked herself. To avoid him as much as possible? This was supposed to be a safe house, not a place where she could interact with the man who had refused to leave the site of her dreams no matter how hard she tried to evict him.
But if this was a good thing, why did she feel so adrift?
“You watch the bacon,” Andrew told her. “I’ll take care of the eggs.” He looked around at the faces surrounding his table. “Okay, who wants eggs this morning and how do you want them?”
Rayne sighed. “Cholesterol, Pop, remember?”
“Eggs have been downgraded on the list, remember?” he echoed her tone and looked back at the others. “Now, again, who wants eggs?”
A show of hands appeared as the rear door opened and two more people entered. Greetings were tossed to Callie, Clay’s oldest sister, and a man who finally did not resemble the other men in the room. A little girl stood between them.
Outsiders? Ilene wondered. Outsiders who obviously meant a great deal to Callie if she judged by the look on the other woman’s face.
“This is Brent and his lovely daughter, Rachel, our newest additions,” Andrew told her.
“Almost additions,” Shaw put in. “Still time to bail out, Brent. It’s not too late.”
“’Fraid it is,” Brent replied. “I’ve given your sister a life sentence.”
The others groaned as Andrew explained to Ilene in a stage whisper, “In case you haven’t figured it out, Brent’s a judge. Our first. C’mon, Alex, it’s time for breakfast. You can sit by Rachel here. Rachel, make him feel at home,” he instructed the little girl, who looked more than happy to undertake the task.
Ilene smiled to herself as she let Andrew usher her into a chair. She took solace in the banter and in pretending, just for a little while, that she fit into this large, loving group.
Even if Clay wasn’t there.
Chapter 7
“We’ve got a match.”
Adrenaline still throbbing through his veins from a taxing nonproductive meeting with John Walken, Clay looked up at the tall, thin police lab tech who came hurrying into the room. The man waved a piece of paper that was hot off the printer. Before he and Santini had left to see Walken, he’d given the tech the drawing of the three monkeys that had been taped to Ilene’s dining room window. It was a long shot, but he’d hoped that the drawing would give them some kind of lead.
“Don’t toy with me, Harry,” Clay warned wearily. “I just spent the past hour talking to a guy who makes one of those oil tanker spills look like it came out of a bottle of bubble bath.”
Clay knew from talking to Ilene that she thought Walken was an upstanding and, up until now, decent citizen who’d possibly just gotten caught up in something that had gone out of control. But he didn’t see it that way. Walken struck him as a little too cool, a little too calculating. He was as certain that the man was behind the monkey drawing as he was that the sun was going to rise again tomorrow. And just as certain that things would escalate if Ilene didn’t recant her findings. Ilene was far too innocent, never seeing the bad in people, always thinking they were good because she was.
Things hadn’t changed all that much in six years, he thought. Ilene had had an innocence to her that he’d found incredibly attractive. She always assumed everyone and everything was good until shown otherwise.
He recalled the look on her face when they’d broken up. Well, he’d certainly shown her, hadn’t he?
Annoyed that he was letting guilt get the better of him when it was far too late to do anything about it, he roused himself as he looked at Harry.
“So, what’ve you got?” he asked.
Harry Nagan smiled proudly. “Found one print where he pressed the tape down on the paper.”
Rising, Clay slapped the tall, thin man on the back. “Knew you wouldn’t let us down. Who’s the print belong to?”
“Warren ‘Weasel’ Smith,” Harry recited. Excited by his find, he’d printed up the felon’s rap sheets and now handed them to Clay. “A small-time do-almost-anything-for-hire thug.”
Santini clapped his hands together. “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.” Standing behind Clay, Santini read the particulars over his partner’s shoulder.
The man was penny-ante, Clay thought, reading over his priors. “Weasel have a last-known address?”
“Right here.” Taking liberty, Harry took back the extra papers and flipped to the last page. “Got it from his parole officer. ‘Papa’ Bill Anderson.”
The parole officer, generally liked by the precinct personnel, had been at his job as long as anyone could remember. Married to it after three failed attempts at a regular union, he seemed to genuinely care about the men and women he saw on the other side of his desk.
Clay shook his head as he read through the report. “Wonder if Papa knows what junior is up to these days.” He glanced again at the address before tossing the file on his desk. “Let’s go.”
Santini fell into place beside him. For a big man he moved as fast as someone half his size. “Think he’ll still be there?”
That was the million-dollar question, Clay thought. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
It took them a little while to get lucky.
Their quarry wasn’t at home when they went calling, but a twenty-dollar-spiked conversation with the superintendent, who was repairing a broken lock down the hall, gave them a new place to look. The superintendent told them he thought he’d seen Weasel frequenting the corner bar more than once. As Clay recalled, there’d been a drug bust there recently. Shanghai Pete’s wasn’t exactly a place known for its upscale clientele.
“We could get him for consorting with known criminals right off the bat and work our way up to something more binding,” Santini suggested as they made their way out of the dilapidated building again.
Clay didn’t answer. His stony expression was identical to the one he’d been wearing all day. Except for when the veins had stood out in his neck after the frustrating Walken interview. Exasperated at the silent treatment, Santini took the bull by the horns.
“Hey, what crawled up your butt and died today, Cavanaugh?” Clay gave him a steely look as he slipped behind the wheel. “You’ve been like a wounded bear all morning.” Santini cocked his head, studying Clay’s profile. “Some hot little number say no?”
He was in no mood to banter. “Get your own life, Santini. Stop trying to live vicariously in mine. Nobody said no, because nobody was asked.”
“This about the case?”
Driving, Clay stared straight ahead. “Yes.”
Santini paused. “About the woman in the case?”
Clay gave him a silencing look before turning back to the road. “You only get two questions a day, Santini, and you’ve already used them up.” Though he was smiling, Clay’s meaning was clear. “Save the others for our pal Weasel.”
Santini sighed and shook his head.
The man behind the bar was neither cooperative nor friendly when Clay and Santini first walked in. But the owner who doubled as a bartender already had two violations issued against him by the city and wasn’t looking to jam himself up any further with a third. So after a minimum of prodding and a flash of twin badges, the bartender pointed out a man sitting at the other end of the sticky bar.
As Clay began to approach him, Weasel bolted off his stool and tried to make a run for it. His goal was the back exit. He never made it. Santini
blocked the path with his bulk alone.
Clay come up behind Weasel, amused by the expression on the suspect’s face. Everyone looked stunned the first time they met Santini. He looked as if he belonged on some professional football team instead of the police department.
Taking hold of the back of the man’s collar, Clay spun him around. “Looks like you just met the immovable object, Weasel. Mind if we call you Weasel?”
“It’s better than Warren.” His resentment vibrated in the air as the man mumbled into his nonexistent chin.
Still holding him by his collar, Clay brought Weasel over to one of the three rickety tables that were spread about the dim bar and deposited him into a chair. He and Santini took chairs on either side of him, buffering Weasel with their bodies.
Looking like the poster boy for the cold and flu season, Weasel wiped his nose with the back of his discolored shirtsleeve. His eyes darted furtively from one detective to the other. He looked scared.
It could have been an occupational habit, Clay thought, but he doubted it.
“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.”
Clay’s tone was deceptively genial. “How do you know what we’re going to ask?” He pretended to sniff the air around Weasel. “Maybe we’re the hygiene police and we’re here to ask if you took a shower this morning.”
Santini hooted as he made a face. Their suspect smelled of stale sweat, smoke and alcohol. And a few other scents that were best left unplaced. “Pretty safe bet he didn’t do that, either.”
Clay nodded, as if he was taking the answer into account. “Okay.” And then he pinned Weasel Smith with a sharp look. “Did you leave a certain drawing taped on Ilene O’Hara’s dining room window last night?”
Smith crossed his painfully thin arms before him as if to protect his equally thin chest and muttered sullenly, “Don’t know no Eileen O’Hara.”
Clay worked hard at keeping his temper. They had this man dead to rights. Sometimes the game was hard to play.
“How about the address?” Clay rattled off Ilene’s address. He got into Smith’s face, trying not to think how frightened Ilene had looked when he’d arrived last night. “Does that ring a bell?”
Smith remained silent.
Santini inclined his head toward the man, holding his breath a little in self-defense. “I’d talk to him if I were you, Weasel. He’s got the shortest temper in the squad room and you really don’t want to see him once he gets going.”
Their suspect looked genuinely frightened. His eyes darted toward the bartender, but if the latter was listening, he gave no indication of it. Smith’s voice bordered on hysteria. “You’re police. You can’t do that. I could sue.”
Clay’s tone was low, quiet, and all the more chilling for it. “You’d have to be alive to sue, Weasel.”
That was warning enough for the man. He hadn’t been paid enough to die. “Yeah, I was there.”
Clay drew his chair in closer. “Who put you up to it?”
“I don’t know.” Real fear entered the marble-like eyes.
Clay struggled to keep from grabbing Weasel by the shirt and shaking the answers loose out of him. “Don’t tell me. You just had a vision and drew these three monkeys, then went and taped them up on someone’s house at random.”
“No.” He raked his dirty fingers through even dirtier, stringy hair. “I got a call from this guy.” Unable to sit still, he’d been tapping his foot under the table. It began to sound as if a squadron of flamenco dancers had entered the bar. Clearly afraid, Smith looked from one detective to the other again. “The whole thing was done by phone. The guy said he wanted me to tape this on some woman’s window, maybe scare her a little, rattle a few windows, try the door, that’s all. He said it was a prank. Monkeys. What do I know?”
“Apparently very little,” Santini commented.
“Go on,” Clay urged angrily.
Smith rocked in his chair now as if preparing for a body blow. “He left the money for me at a drop-off point. I didn’t see nobody, I swear.”
“You recognize the voice?” Clay asked.
He knew the answer before Smith starting shaking his head. “No.”
Exasperated, Clay sighed. Another dead end loomed before him and he was in no mood for it. “You always do business like this?”
One bony shoulder rose and fell in a hapless movement. “This way I can’t finger anybody.” Just the slightest hint of boldness came to the fore. “Can I go now?”
“Yeah, you can go.” Closing his hand around Smith’s shirtfront, Clay rose, hauling the man up to his feet with him. “Go directly to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”
“But I told you everything I know,” Smith protested frantically. “Taping a drawing up on a window isn’t a crime.”
Clay fell back on the charge his partner had originally come up with. “No, but consorting with known criminals is a parole violation. We figure maybe Papa Bill might want to talk to you, tell you how disappointed he is with you.”
Defeated, Smith sighed as he allowed himself to be handcuffed and led out of the establishment.
Clay felt beat.
The rest of the day had been far less rewarding than their encounter with Smith. He and Santini had spent time combing through a month of Smith’s telephone records. He’d requisitioned them the minute he’d gotten back to the office. Not that it really mattered. The call from whoever had paid Smith off to leave the drawing had come from a telephone booth.
It came as no surprise.
Santini had left the squad room more than half an hour ago, telling him to pack it in for the night and go home. “We can always go at stuff better after a good night’s sleep,” he’d said as he’d walked out.
Good night’s sleep. That was a laugh. Clay sincerely doubted that that was in the cards for him tonight. Not as long as Ilene was under the same roof.
He flipped through the report Harry had left with him. There was absolutely nothing new there. He’d gone over it until the pages were worn. There was nothing more he could do tonight. He wanted to remain in the office.
Tired, edgy, with no new news, no headway, he just didn’t feel up to facing Ilene. He had nothing to tell her that would help erase any of the fears he’d seen in her eyes last night. They couldn’t pin this on Walken or any of the other CEOs, at least not yet.
But not assuaging her fears wasn’t the only reason he didn’t want to face her.
Over the course of the day he’d almost called her three times. Almost. But each time he’d flipped his cell phone closed, squelching the effort before it ever was completed.
The less contact he and Ilene had, the better off they’d both be.
Or so he told himself.
Rocking back in his chair, he blew out a breath. He knew he couldn’t put off going home, especially not tonight. His father was throwing a party, one that actually had a reason for being this time. It was Rayne’s twenty-fifth birthday, and he would catch hell from all sides if he didn’t attend.
Clay closed his eyes. Ilene’s image rose before him. Muttering a curse, he opened them again.
He was being a coward and he knew it. That didn’t happen very often, and he hated the feeling that came with it. He’d never been a coward. Any time he dealt with fear, it just goaded him on—
That wasn’t strictly true. He’d been a coward once before. And that time had involved Ilene, too.
With a sigh, he logged off his computer and shut it down.
When he turned onto his father’s block, Clay noticed there was no place to park in the immediate area. Cars littered both sides of the street, almost nose to tailpipe. The vehicles, big and little, spilled over to the next block in both directions. Clay was forced to leave his own car several streets over.
As he walked back to the house, his hands shoved in his pockets, the fog from this morning had returned and now enshrouded him.
Somehow, it seemed fitting.
By the time he arrived at the fron
t door, key in hand, his hair was iced with droplets of condensation. The cool, clammy air had seeped into his clothing. It did nothing to improve his mood.
The blast of hot air and noise that hit him the moment he unlocked the front door immediately began to evaporate both the droplets and his mood.
For a moment he just stood there, absorbing everything, trying to focus on who was where. Every place he looked, he saw another member of his family. He tried hard not to zero in on Ilene. He succeeded.
But when he didn’t see her immediately, he wondered if she’d been stubborn and taken off, going back to her place. It would be just like her.
Just when he was about to turn around and take a run over to her place, he saw her. She was walking in from the kitchen, carrying a tray of one of those concoctions that his father liked to make so much. The parts Clay could readily identify involved cheese and crackers, but there were a lot of other things residing in the velvety spread he felt were best left anonymous. Bottom line was that it tasted good.
He supposed love was a little like that, too. There were things you could identify and things that defied classification. The bottom line was important there, too.
What the hell was going on in his head? Had seeing her so suddenly after all this time thrown him completely off-kilter?
He was determined not to let it.
Taking a breath, Clay deliberately made his way over toward her. Time to take the bull by the horns, to challenge himself to be a man and not a mouse.
Right now, being a mouse was beginning to have its appeal.
His father was right behind Ilene, another tray of the same origin in his hands. Any attempts at what could have been an apology to Ilene died before it was born.
He frowned at his father. “I didn’t leave her here to be pressed into service, Dad.”
Andrew placed the tray on a table, then took the one Ilene was holding and put it down next to the first. “Then maybe you should have stuck around a little this morning and been a little more explicit in your instructions.” To underscore his point, Andrew indicated Ilene with his eyes.
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