Backlash

by Paula Gosling

  Stryker stared at her. What the hell was going on? The last thing he needed was to have this at his elbow when he was trying to work. She obviously had decided the case was now hers. He made a show of looking through the papers which, to his intense annoyance, were perfectly correct. ‘Please – sit down, Miss Marchant.’

  ‘Agent Marchant,’ came the brisk correction. ‘Thank you.’

  He went on reading, avoiding Tos’s eye, which was suspiciously bright. He also, with some difficulty, avoided looking at the beautifully contoured knees which Agent Marchant exposed upon settling gracefully into the chair opposite him.

  ‘Can you give me any idea why Hawthorne would have been in Grantham?’

  ‘None at all. I see that you had the case down as a probable mugging.’

  ‘And you don’t agree?’ He kept his tone even.

  She shrugged her elegant shoulder. ‘I neither agree nor disagree. I didn’t see the scene of the crime.’

  ‘Let’s discuss it with the men who took the call.’ He raised his voice. ‘Neilson? Pinsky?’

  Pinsky got up and began his slow amble across the room, but Neilson was in the door almost instantly, as if riding on well-greased roller skates. ‘Yes, Lieutenant?’ Stryker raised an eyebrow – Neilson rarely used his title or anyone else’s below Captain. ‘This is Agent Marchant, from the Justice Department. You and Ned caught the French Street homicide, didn’t you?’

  ‘The tramp last Sunday morning? Yes, we took the call on that.’

  ‘He wasn’t a tramp. He was a federal investigator.’

  ‘No sh— well, for goodness’ sake,’ Neilson said. ‘He certainly looked like a tramp to us. Good cover.’

  ‘The problem is not his “cover”, Mr Nelson,’ she said.

  ‘Neilson, Harvey Neilson.’

  She looked him up and down briefly as he shook her hand. Neilson flushed under her scrutiny, and Stryker was reminded irresistibly of a young Roman matron assessing a new house slave. The woman had presence, he would give her that. He didn’t feel inclined to offer anything else.

  She was explaining things to Neilson, who was obviously ready to believe anything that emanated from those rosy, moist, perfectly formed lips. ‘His current line of investigation had absolutely no connection with this city, as far as we know, it involved corruption in and by certain so-called charitable organisations.’

  ‘No kidding.’ Neilson let go of her hand, reluctantly. Pinsky had arrived and was leaning against the door, listening with half-closed eyes as he sucked on his empty pipe. He’d run out of tobacco that morning, and hadn’t had time to buy any more. His homely crumpled appearance contrasted with Neilson’s, who had combed his hair and put on his jacket the minute after Dana Marchant had passed by his desk.

  ‘Agent Marchant has been seconded to us to aid in the investigation, Harvey,’ Stryker said, carefully.

  ‘Great,’ Neilson said. He beamed at her, encouragingly.

  ‘According to this letter, Washington feels that Hawthorne’s death may be connected with the sniper who is picking off our officers.’

  ‘Ha!’ Tos said, sitting up abruptly. ‘Told you.’

  ‘You know about that?’ Pinsky asked, rather surprised.

  ‘We have newspapers in Washington.’

  ‘Oh, come on!’ Neilson said, somewhat desperately. ‘This is an entirely separate case.’ Already he could see his exclusive claim to her time slipping away. Stryker was chasing the police killings. ‘Nothing to do with the sniper.’

  ‘Not according to the ballistics report,’ Dana Marchant said.

  ‘What did the ballistics report say, Harvey?’ Stryker asked.

  Harvey flushed. ‘I haven’t had a chance to look at it. We’ve been working this other—’

  Pinsky peeled himself away from the doorframe. ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘I believe you’ll find it was the same gun that was used to kill two of your policemen,’ Dana Marchant said.

  ‘How did you get hold of the ballistics report?’ Neilson snapped, embarrassed at being caught out.

  She glanced up at him. ‘We can get hold of most things we really want, Mr Neilson.’

  I’ll bet you can, Stryker thought. He looked down and found himself staring at Kate’s picture. Hello, honey, he thought. Why aren’t you here protecting me instead of running around England being intellectual?

  Pinsky ambled back and handed the report to Stryker. ‘Looks like it was the same rifle that got the first two victims. They red-tagged the report but the tag came off, apparently. Sorry, Jack, we should have caught it.’

  ‘Well, jeez – who would have thought some tramp being turned over had anything to do with—’ Neilson began, defensively.

  ‘Was he turned over?’ Stryker asked.

  ‘Hell, yes – shot through the back of the neck and stripped of everything but his socks and jocks,’ Neilson said. ‘The bullet wound in itself wasn’t fatal, but it opened some big blood vessels. Bannerman said he died of blood- loss, but it was more or less a dead-heat, you should pardon the expression, with freezing to death. Maybe that’s why we didn’t make the connection right away. Why should we? The guy was scabby, grimy – we figured a tramp, holed and rolled, right? We get maybe ten or fifteen like that every winter. It’s rough down there. You know that, Jack.’

  Stryker looked at the woman and shrugged. ‘Under the circumstances, I would have called it a drunk roll, too, Agent Marchant. If it was our killer, then I’d guess that someone else stripped the body, sometime during the night. And most bullet holes look alike – until the ballistics report came through they didn’t even know it had been a rifle.’ He glanced at Neilson. ‘Of course, if they’d read the thing sooner . . .’

  She nodded. ‘I take the point.’ She sat quietly, thinking, and they all sat and watched her. Finally she looked up. ‘If you don’t mind, I’d like to go to the morgue now.’

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ Stryker said. ‘The official fingerprint identification from Washington is good enough.’

  ‘Oh, I want to do it,’ Dana Marchant said. She stood up and smiled, a wide, brilliant smile, full voltage on Stryker but the rest got some of the charge, too. ‘You see – I want to make absolutely sure Gabe Hawthorne is dead.’

  FIVE

  ‘What the hell, McGuire?’ Stryker demanded.

  ‘Who’s that?’ came the cautious reply.

  ‘This is Jack Stryker.’

  ‘Hi there,’ McGuire said, in a suspiciously jovial voice. ‘What’s new?’ McGuire was the local FBI co-ordinator, a marginally tolerable man Stryker had worked with before.

  ‘You know goddamn well what’s new,’ Stryker snapped. ‘We’re having a problem with a sniper and—’

  ‘Yeah, I heard. Tough one.’

  ‘Right. Well, one of the victims turned out to be a visitor from Washington, name of Gabriel Hawthorne. Ring any bells?’

  ‘It might.’ McGuire never gave anything away.

  ‘Well, it did someone’s, because the Justice Department sent over a liaison officer by the name of Dana Marchant.’

  A deep chuckle came down the line. ‘Now that does ring bells. What do you think of her?’

  ‘Jesus – she’s unbelievable,’ Stryker complained. ‘She looks like something out of Vogue, but she talks and acts like Granite J. Hardrock. Why didn’t they just send me a nice guy in a Brooks Brothers suit?’

  ‘If it’s the outfit she usually wears, then it is a Brooks Brothers suit,’ came the gleeful reply.

  ‘Come on, listen, a joke’s a joke. Who should I talk to in Washington to get this changed?’

  ‘Changed?’

  ‘Yeah, dammit, changed. I want her out of here.’

  ‘Why? What’s the problem? Count yourself lucky. She’s as good as they come, Jack,’ was McGuire’s reply. ‘They call her The Firebrand.
’

  ‘I’ll bet they do,’ Stryker grumbled.

  ‘Got to you, did she?’ McGuire said, sympathetically. ‘I know the feeling. Thing is, Jack, the lady is all work and no play, despite the exterior decoration. I know – I’ve tried. We all tried when she was here once on assignment, but it’s strictly business with her. They’re beginning to say she’s a dyke, but that’s just the voice of bitter disappointment. She was married. Her husband died of cancer, and she has a kid of nine in a military school.’

  ‘What the hell has that to do with—’

  McGuire rolled on. ‘My advice is, don’t rock the boat, Jack. Tell her to ugly it up a bit if she’s bothering you or your people. She’ll understand. Some people think being beautiful is great – but it’s a burden to her. You didn’t see any make-up, did you? No fancy hair-do? The girl’s straight, Jack, she can’t help the way she looks. Hire the handicapped, that’s what I say.’

  Suddenly Stryker realised what McGuire thought he was talking about, ‘It’s not her looks that bother me, goddammit, it’s her manner. As far as she’s concerned, it’s a dead-heat between godliness, cleanliness, and her sweet ass.’

  ‘Oh, right – I guess you mean she’s using the Bossy Approach. Listen, we’re all like that, Stryker,’ McGuire said in what he pretended was a soothing manner. ‘We see the big picture, we’re take-charge guys, that’s why we’re in the Big People’s Police, and not running around the boondocks with you local guys.’

  ‘I love it when you’re obnoxious,’ Stryker snapped.

  ‘Only trying to put things in perspective for you,’ McGuire said, no longer attempting to hide his amusement. ‘You’re a real macho guy, aren’t you? Yell at her, knock her around a little, she’ll love it.’

  ‘Is that your only suggestion?’

  ‘Do you really want me to answer that?’ McGuire said, starting to chuckle.

  Stryker told McGuire what he really wanted him to do, and slammed down the phone on what had become outright laughter. He considered complaining to Captain Klotzman, or even to the Commissioner, but decided there wasn’t much point in amusing anyone else with this. They wouldn’t understand why he was upset. He wasn’t quite certain, himself, he just knew it wasn’t going to work. Agent Dana Marchant was beautiful, intelligent, able, and efficient.

  And they were stuck with her.

  Dana Marchant stepped out of the shower and blindly reached for the big towel that hung on the rail nearby. She wrapped a smaller one around her hair and walked, dripping slightly, into the hotel room. The television set was on, but turned down, so that the newscaster looked like a guppy in a square aquarium.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and opened the pack of cigarettes she had bought downstairs after dinner. Gingerly she shook one out and lit it, coughing a bit, then settling to it.

  Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she frowned. Not very clever to start again, when she had given up successfully six years ago. She took another drag, and then stubbed the thing out – tossing the rest of the pack into the wastebasket.

  That wasn’t the answer.

  Any more than Gabe Hawthorne had been the answer, four years ago. ‘Bastard,’ she whispered, but it lacked conviction. Hawthorne hadn’t been a bastard, just a guy on the make who had broken through her defences because he was good-looking and persistent.

  He hadn’t been so good-looking on that slab.

  She felt a tear rolling down her cheek and brushed it aside.

  For a month he’d made her happy – give him that – and then he had moved on, saying that a month was all he gave any woman. Of course, until that ghastly moment she hadn’t realised she was just any woman. All her life she had thought she was herself, unique, not one of a line of conquests. She’d honestly thought she’d found love again. Fool, she told herself. He didn’t do it – you did it to yourself. And the anger and resentment you’ve felt ever since – you allowed that, too.

  She’d been wrong to let it show this afternoon. Wrong to let her pain slip out. She knew that Neilson, the one who had taken her to the morgue, had noticed her reaction. He was young, savvy, attractive – and probably just like Gabe. Certainly he came on like Gabe, fast off the lip and ready for action. She was so sick of men who were ‘ready for action’.

  She wondered if Jack Stryker was like that.

  Standing up, she spoke aloud. ‘No,’ she told herself. ‘No.’

  Since Hawthorne, Dana had kept herself on a tight leash.

  Since Hawthorne she had thrown herself into her work.

  Since Hawthorne she had been dead.

  Now he was dead and the circle was complete.

  She stood in front of the full-length mirror and let the towel drop to the floor. Her body was slim and shapely, long in the legs, narrow at the waist, full busted and hipped. It had felt no man’s touch since Hawthorne’s, and had wanted none.

  Now she was remembering what it was like. And suddenly she wanted to be in a man’s bed again. To feel warmth, excitement, hunger, satiation. To feel what she had felt with Peter, her husband. To feel what she had tried to feel with Gabe Hawthorne.

  Could she find it with Jack Stryker?

  Stryker was so alive. Just like Peter had been. Something special ran in the veins of men like that, something extra in the blood, she was sure of it. It had hit her the moment she walked into his office, and although he didn’t look anything like her late husband, there was the familiar impact of being in the room with someone dangerous, someone ready to spring.

  Tiger, tiger, burning bright.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘Hi, Kate.’

  ‘Hi, yourself, grumpy.’

  ‘Sorry – I was in the bathtub.’ He leaned over and grabbed his terrycloth robe, switching the phone from hand to hand as he struggled into it. Water ran down his legs and soaked into the bedroom carpet, and in the bathroom he could hear his nice, hot bath gurgling down the drain – he’d caught the plug-chain with his toe as he scrambled out to answer the phone. ‘So where have you been all night?’ he asked, rubbing at his dripping hair with his sleeve.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Her tone was guarded.

  ‘Well, it’s about three a.m. there, isn’t it?’

  ‘Some of us had dinner together, then sat downstairs talking. You know how it is.’

  ‘Oh. Sounds like fun.’ There was a silence. He frowned. ‘Kate?’

  ‘I had a bad dream,’ she said in a shaky voice.

  He knew her ‘bad dreams’. They were bone-shaking nightmares that reduced her to a small child whimpering in the night. He didn’t know what they used to be like, but they were always the same now – him being shot or stabbed or thrown off the top of some tall building. He’d thought she was over it – she hadn’t had any for quite a while. He sat down on the bottom of the bed.

  ‘I’m sorry, babe. Too far to hug.’

  ‘I know.’ She sounded very small.

  ‘Have you met any of the other delegates yet?’ he asked, trying to take her mind off it.

  ‘Yes, most of them. They seem a very lively bunch. We’ve moved on to Stratford now.’ She gave him the number of the hotel. ‘Came on the bus – sorry, coach – this morning. Guess who I sat next to on the way?’

  ‘Shakespeare?’

  ‘No, silly – Richard Cotterell.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘You know, the one who wrote In Love With Language.’

  ‘Oh – that Richard Cotterell.’

  ‘All right, all right. I gave it to you to read, but I guess you never got around to it or you’d be impressed.’

  ‘I’m impressed, I’m impressed. What’s he like?’

  ‘Oh, very nice. Younger than I thought he’d be. Veddy English, you know – but nice.’ There was a pause. ‘I miss you. And I miss Pot.’

 
He glanced over at Hercule Poirot, the black and white cat, thus named at eight weeks because of his magnificent moustaches, but nicknamed Pot because that’s who he turned out to be. ‘Pot is fine, he is right here on the bed, washing his tail.’

  ‘Good. I hate missing you. Why couldn’t you have gotten the time off?’

  ‘I tried, didn’t I?’ But he hadn’t tried very hard. The conference was her thing, her life. She’d have been busy and he would have sat around all day twiddling his thumbs. Better by far for them to go there together on a special trip that was all their own. Someday, maybe.

  Theirs was an edgy relationship at the best of times. Sometimes he thought it might have been better if he’d fallen for some air-headed blonde who’d sit at home and knit him sweaters. And he was certain it would have been better for Kate to have loved some bespectacled professor with whom she could have long discussions about Proust. As it was, they pulled on opposite ends of the not-quite-marital rope – he in a job she hated and mistrusted, she in a world the impracticality of which occasionally exasperated him. They disagreed on almost everything, fought, struggled, and frequently despaired, alone and together. The only thing they shared was the deep need they had for one another.

  It was her turn to attempt positive thinking. ‘What’s happening back there, anyway?’

  ‘Oh, the usual. Murder, rape, pillage, girl scouts selling cookies, re-runs of I Love Lucy, stuff like that. Oh, here’s a twist. You remember that John Doe homicide on French Street last week-end? Turns out he’s a federal investigator named Hawthorne, and that he was shot with the same gun as two of our victims. So they’ve sent over this hot-shot to hound-dog us on the investigation. They think the whole thing should tie up, somehow. Neilson drinks in her every word, but I—’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘The liaison officer they sent us is a woman. Dana Marchant – apparently they call her The Firebrand.’

  ‘Why?’