Compromising Positions

by Beverly Bird

  Angela nodded and moved carefully around him to sit at her desk. She removed the rest of her protective equipment and laid it all neatly atop her blotter. “You of all people should know that nothing is ever really the way it seems,” she responded. “Even the Lisettes of this world sometimes have secret lives we’d never guess at. I can’t take chances.”

  “No. I guess not.” He had, in fact, never thought about it until now. His job had never entailed risking his health or his life. He wasn’t sure how willing he’d be to do it if it did, and that shamed him a little.

  Shame was something he hadn’t experienced in too many years to count. He did what he had to, and he assumed he did it pretty well.

  “So what did you find out?” he asked at length. “About Lisette?”

  She hesitated. “It was an exceptionally clean job. She was killed by someone who took a great deal of care not to leave much of himself—or herself—behind.”

  Jesse sat on the edge of her desk again. Too close, she thought, and had to fight not to roll her chair back.

  “So you don’t know anything?” he asked.

  Angela shook her head fretfully. “I didn’t say that. The Magic Beam—”

  “The what?” he interrupted. “Oh, the cable.” It was a piece of technological magic. Using fiber optics, it could see things the human eye would never possibly find. In utter darkness—the nonlight she’d mentioned—it gave fingerprints a fluorescent glow and made things like fibers and saliva light up like neon.

  Angela nodded. “It picked up a single hair between the third and fourth fingers of her left hand. I bagged them—her hands—so it made it over here intact and in place.”

  His gut clenched. “Whose?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Whose hair was it?”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “There’s no way I can know that at this point.”

  Jesse almost flushed again. “So let me rephrase my question. What kind of hair?”

  “Head hair. Reasonably short—two and a half inches long. Black.”

  For a moment, the air seemed to leave the room. Jesse couldn’t breathe. “Damn it,” he growled, pushing to his feet again.

  “What?” Angela asked, alarmed by his tone.

  “What else did you find?” he demanded without answering.

  “Not much at all. She was neat as a pin except for the holes in her head.”

  He flinched at the images that brought to mind.

  “She wasn’t sexually assaulted,” she went on. “In fact...” It was her turn to wince. She covered her face with her hands. Part of her fought to cover her emotion again with some cold and professional facade, and another part couldn’t see the point in bothering. It was just Jesse now.

  And that feeling floored her.

  There was nothing “just” about Jesse Hadley. There was no reason, no sanity at all, in trusting him with her emotions.

  “What?” he demanded harshly.

  “She was a virgin,” she managed to reply.

  “Oh, God,” he muttered. And in that moment, he was not even a little bit arrogant. In that moment, his expressive green eyes showed a wealth of regret, sorrow, pity.

  Their emotions moved her even as she told herself she was a fool to allow it.

  “I know,” Angela whispered. “It got to me, too. She never even had the chance to be in love with someone.” And that had touched her deeply, personally.

  “Anything else?” he asked hoarsely. “Anything else I should know about?”

  Angela gave him a quick glance and shrugged. “She was the one who ate the strawberry that was missing, and she died mere minutes afterward. She’d also had a good bit of that champagne. Depending upon her body’s familiarity with alcohol—and based on the condition of her internal organs, I’d have to say that it was minimal—she consumed enough to make her drowsy and uninhibited, less capable of putting up a defense, maybe even less likely to have realized that a defense was even needed until the danger was right on top of her.”

  Jesse noticed that her voice had become clipped, short. precise. Void of emotion. And he knew that it would have to be that way for her, that she would have to pull her heart back into some remote place inside herself to do what she did for a living. A part of him hurt for her, though her profession was her own choice.

  “Other than that.” she continued, and he forced himself to follow what she was saying, “there was absolutely nothing. Cause of death was the gunshot, of course.”

  “Do you know if they found the bullet?” he demanded.

  “They hadn’t when I left. It’s possible that it didn’t imbed in the wall or any furniture, and the killer was able to retrieve it. In fact. it’s looking like that was the case.”

  “What did you do with the hair?”

  She scowled at him, at the quick pace of his questions. “I’ve got it packaged to send out for DNA testing.”

  “It’s mine.”

  She couldn’t possibly have heard him right. She stared at him.

  “It’s probably going to turn out to be mine.” he repeated grimly.

  She shot out of her chair, horrified, backing up until her spine hit the wall behind her. “What are you saying?”

  It struck him then, belatedly. that he was entrusting her with something a hell of a lot more explosive this time than the fact that he didn’t want to run for mayor. He was giving her information that could blow the entire Hadley empire sky-high—or at least rock it off its neat foundations for a time. And she didn’t like the Hadleys.

  He’d been doing it instinctively, without conscious thought, which was not how he ever did things at all. This woman was making him act in ways he hardly believed possible. Or maybe she just elicited a hidden, repressed part of himself. That possibility disturbed him.

  Whatever was happening, it felt right to trust her. He thought she would be open-minded, fair, even righteous, with any atrocity that landed in her lap. He remembered her idealistic speech about SIDS that first day. If something was wrong, he knew innately that this woman would do whatever she could to fix it, to set it right.

  He rubbed at his growing headache and told her about the tape Kennery had found in Lisette’s recorder. She’d find out about that through other channels anyway.

  When he was done, she only continued to stare at him.

  “I stopped by my office on my way here,” he added. “Maybe half a dozen of my dictation tapes are missing. We keep them for thirty days as backup to our computer records. It’s my office’s version of your protective mask there.”

  Angela’s gaze went blankly to her equipment. “Protection?” she whispered after a moment.

  “In the event that someone says I did or ordered something that I didn’t do or order.”

  “I see.”

  “Someone stole those tapes from my office to make another tape, one that made it sound as though I was going to Lisette’s last night to...well, to arrange an amorous meeting, so to speak.”

  Angela recovered. A bit. “Lisette had to know when her killer got there that he wasn’t you.” Then she wondered why she believed so implicitly that he hadn’t killed the woman. So he was the D.A.—so what? Stranger things had happened. Greater power than his had been abused.

  It was just her instincts. His eyes said he was innocent.

  “One would think so,” Jesse answered neutrally. “I’ve known her all my life. Unless the tape was planted afterward and she never even heard it.”

  Angela pushed away from the wall and began pacing. “No. I don’t think so. There’s that champagne. Now I have to wonder if it was hers.” Her mind was racing. “Maybe the killer didn’t get her tipsy. Maybe she was already tipsy. Try this. She was out somewhere, came home, found that message. So she popped open a bottle of bubbly because she was excited, or—” she waved a hand expressively “—or maybe she was getting in a soft. romantic mood, something that might not come naturally to a woman like her. So she drank it before her killer even turne
d up. When he got there, Lisette was already too intoxicated to do anything about the fact that it wasn’t you. Or maybe she didn’t care.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  She looked at him, surprised, then a smile Hicked across her face, so fast he almost missed it. “Sorry, Romeo. It works. If she didn’t get a lot of male attention, she might have been grateful for any guy coming along.”

  “This is assuming she heard the tape.”

  “Right. Except I’d think that if she was expecting you, and someone else turned up, that might have alarmed her.”

  He gave her a pained smile. “Maybe she thought she’d hit a bonanza. Maybe she thought he’d just stopped by, and I would be coming by later. Two for the price of one.”

  Angela groaned. “We’ll probably never know.” Her inference was clear. Lisette was the only one who could tell them that.”

  This was exactly why he had come to her. She was intuitive. She was creative and brilliant. Her mind picked up where his currently felt incapable of going on. “Why did you take this job?” he asked suddenly.

  She scowled at him. “We’ve already been through that.”

  “No. This job. The FBI is a pretty lofty employer.”

  “Oh. That.”

  He grinned, enjoying her discomfiture. It distracted him for a moment. “Yeah, that.”

  She flushed. “The federal budget is even worse than the city’s. I’m paid more here. And I have more authority, more control over my own domain.” She hesitated. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Money, he reflected. Authority and control. Interesting priorities. God, she intrigued him. He wouldn’t have thought such things important to the kind of woman she appeared to be on the surface.

  “I really admire the way you think,” he answered finally.

  She flushed again. She turned away quickly so he wouldn’t see it. It was bad enough that he touched off reaction in her. She was damned if she was going to let him know it.

  “Is it connected?” she asked hoarsely, as much to change the subject as anything else. “This and what someone’s trying to do to me with the Shokonnet case?”

  “I can’t imagine how.” He’d been thinking about it. “Can you?”

  She shook her head, her ponytail swirling from side to side. “No. I mean, why would anyone go after both of us? We had no earthly reason to connect closely until the Shokonnet thing happened. That was what linked us.” She yanked the band out of her hair, tried to run her fingers through it and failed. She gave up, swearing. “Unless someone’s trying to bring down the entire criminal justice system of Philadelphia,” she mused aloud. “You know, knock me out, then you. Maybe the police commissioner’s next. Wouldn’t that be wild?”

  “No,” Jesse said flatly. “It wouldn’t be my idea of a fine party.”

  But his pulse kicked. That, too, was something he hadn’t considered, and he was impressed with her all over again.

  “If the DNA matches yours on that hair,” she went on, “then the killer must have planted it. But how could he have gotten your hair?”

  “Any number of places. People shed, Doctor. You know that.”

  “I’ll check her hand again for fingerprints. I’ll look closer. In order to have placed it there, he would have to have had some contact with her.”

  “I’d guess he wore gloves if you didn’t notice prints the first time around. The beam would certainly have picked them up.” But he was touched at how ferocious she sounded, how determined she was to go back and find something that would exonerate him. He had been right about trusting her.

  “I’ll look again,” she repeated stubbornly. Then she let out her breath. “But the killer really didn’t leave much behind at all.”

  “Could he have worn a hood of some sort?”

  Her fingers plucked fretfully at the one at her neck. “Could be. Makes sense. But I’d think that would have frightened her sooner.”

  “As for my hair...” He thought of the one of hers that had clung to his lapel on Saturday. “It could have come from one of my suit coats, my hairbrush, my pillow, anywhere.”

  “You’re thinking this guy was in your house?”

  “Could be. He was in my office.” he returned grimly. “Those tapes were locked in my secretary’s filing cabinet.”

  Angela hugged herself. She didn’t want to ask, and it had to be asked. She had to know. She believed him so instinctively. and that wouldn’t, couldn’t be good.

  “Where were you last night?” she asked quietly.

  “Home.”

  “Alone?”

  “Of course, alone. The household staff had the night off. They’re generally off from Saturday evening until Monday morning, unless I give a party or some event. And I don’t like them living in. As for the woman I’ve been seeing, she ran off to Milan with another man, and my bedroom hardly has a revolving door.”

  He didn’t seem the least bit upset by the woman’s defection, Angela observed, only that she had asked. Was he that cold, that shallow?

  She couldn’t think about that now. “Did you drink anything?” she persisted.

  “Drink?”

  “Alcohol, Counselor.”

  “Oh.” He looked nonplussed. “I had a little brandy right after dinner.”

  He was big, tall, she calculated. His body could certainly handle that without fuss. “How much is a little?” she asked to be sure.

  “One snifter.” Suddenly his jaw dropped. “You’re thinking that I blacked out? That I don’t remember killing her?”

  She shot him a hard look. “It had to be asked. Besides, if that hair is yours, and there’s no alcohol content to the root, then it had to have been planted if you drank last night. It would have to have been taken from you at some other time. We can check for that.”

  He let his breath out. In truth, he would have thought less of her if it hadn’t occurred to her. Then he shook his head. “It won’t fly in court.”

  “Why not?” Then she understood. “Your staff of domestic help wasn’t working. So nobody actually saw you drink that brandy. It’s only your word that says you consumed it. Oh, God, Jesse.”

  She said his name on a gasp, and in spite of his dire predicament, it made his skin rise into something like gooseflesh. “My sentiments exactly,” he replied wryly.

  Angela closed her eyes. There was another question she had to ask, and she couldn’t believe she was actually going to do it. But it was another instinct, and asking didn’t necessarily mean that she would follow through on his dictates. She just had to...know.

  “What do you want me to do with that hair?”

  He stared at her, then his jaw went rock hard. “What are you asking me, Doctor?”

  I’m trying to figure out what you’re made of. “I just...need to know where you stand on this.”

  “Neck-deep in alligators comes to mind.”

  Incredibly, she felt another smile try to pull at her mouth. “That’s true.”

  “You have no choice but to send it out,” he snapped angrily.

  “No, I really don’t.”

  “So do it.”

  Angela couldn’t believe how relieved she was, how thoroughly, inordinately relieved. His uncle would have seen to it that that hair got lost. She uncurled her hands from the fists she had made of them and couldn’t imagine why it should matter to her so much whether Jesse Hadley was honest or not. She couldn’t imagine why it should matter so much that his response made her tremble.

  Jesse raked a hand through his black hair. “Send it,” he repeated. “It’ll take at least six weeks for the results to come back, right?”

  “Right. Probably eight if I don’t put a push on it.”

  “Would you be adverse to doing that, to giving me some time?” he asked carefully.

  She wanted to stiffen and couldn’t. What he said made all the sense in the world. And she never put a push on things anyway unless her office or the P.P.D. was breathing down her neck for some reason. Perf
ect, comprehensive work took time. The faster the lab worked, the more mistakes were possible.

  “No, I wouldn’t.” She sighed. “That’s fine.”

  “So theoretically I’ve got six to eight weeks to get to the bottom of this,” Jesse muttered.

  “Yes. As long as the killer didn’t leave any other little goodies lying around, anything that would point another finger at you.”

  This was ludicrous, impossible. It overwhelmed him that they were discussing it, that it was even happening to be discussed.

  “You said he didn’t leave any other goodies.”

  “Not at my end,” she answered honestly. “There was just that one hair. But I don’t know what all they found at her house after I left.”

  Jesse shook his head. If there had been more than that answering-machine tape, Kennery would have told him.

  “So...” She let out a deep breath. “Assuming there’s nothing else I can do for you, I’m going home.” She gathered her equipment from her desk again. “I’ll let you know, of course, as soon as I get any lab results back.”

  “There is one other thing,” he said suddenly.

  Something about his tone had changed. She looked at him, surprised then wary. “What?”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  She dropped everything. In one moment, she had it piled neatly in her arms, and in the next, the mask slipped. She hitched a shoulder and moved her arm to try to catch it, and everything else followed, clattering to the floor.

  “Put on something incredibly lovely,” he went on anyway, “and—”

  “I don’t have anything incredibly lovely,” she interrupted, frantic.

  He thought of fake carnations and turquoise shoes. “So buy something.”

  She inched backward until her bottom hit the desk. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Inviting you to dinner?”

  She nodded spasmodically. For a second, she couldn’t find her voice.

  “I’m not interested,” she lied, and wondered if her face looked as hot as it felt. “Is that what you came here for?” she demanded, trying to get back the upper hand. “Was all this stuff about Lisette and the hair a...a...?”

  His face hardened. “It was a request for information. Trust me, I don’t have to come up with excuses to see a woman. If I want to, I ask. I’m asking.”