Protector With A Past

by Harper Allen

  "Your kind of policework got you kicked off the force, Tascoe." Stepping in front of the other man, Cord save him a tight smile, his eyes glittering like chips of black ice. "Too bad you still haven't figured out we're supposed to be the good guys. If you came here to pay your respects to a decent cop and his wife, you're going the wrong way about it."

  "He's right, Dean. Don't start anything."

  For the first time Julia noticed the thin, middle-aged blonde standing beside the burly ex-cop. Her face, like the faces of many there, bore traces of tears but Julia had the distinct impression that in her case grief was a constant companion rather than a reaction to today's funeral. She tugged again at Tascoe's hand.

  "Please, Dean. Let's go home."

  To Julia's surprise, instead of shaking her off impatiently, Tascoe looked down at the woman with uncharacteristic gentleness. He patted her hand awkwardly.

  "Don't worry, Jackie. I know you've got to work with these people, and I've said what I came to say, anyway." He raised his gaze to Cord, still standing in front of him. "I've got to admit, Chief, when I learned it was you who blew the whistle on me I was hoping for a long time that I'd run into you in a dark alley some night. But that's all water under the bridge as far as I'm concerned—you did what you thought you had to do, and I'm on easy street these days. I've got my own investigation agency now. If you're ever looking to change jobs, give me a call."

  He fished a dog-eared business card out of the breast pocket of his blue suit and handed it to a silent Cord, but as he did, his glance fell on Julia, and the slightly bloodshot eyes widened in recognition. Then, curiously, his glance slid uncomfortably away from her and back to Cord again. He addressed him with insincere enthusiasm.

  "Hey, you two lovebirds made up! I'll tell you, Chief—this little girl just fell completely apart when you dumped—"

  "Not one more word, Tascoe."

  Cord's voice barely carried, but its very lack of emphasis was a threat in itself. If he was forced to take on Dean Tascoe he wouldn't even break a sweat, Julia thought with a flicker of gratification that she instantly suppressed. Although clearly the other man had once been formidably muscled, much of his bulk had turned to fat, and despite his bullying manner it was obvious that he knew he'd pushed Cord to a dangerous limit. He gave an unconvincing shrug.

  "No offense, Chief. I just thought—"

  "Calling me Chief is offensive, Tascoe." Cord sounded suddenly weary. "But today all I want is to say goodbye to my two best friends in peace. Just go."

  "We're going." The blond woman Tascoe looked pasty and ill, and her voice was thready. "I—I'm sorry about your friends. What happened to them was—was terrible. Terrible. Especially since there was a—a child involved." The thin hand on Tascoe's sleeve trembled visibly.

  Tascoe bent his balding head once more to his companion, and again Julia was struck by the complete change in his personality as he did so. His arm around her, he nodded to Cord, ignoring Cindy Lopez and the others, and led the distraught Jackie away.

  "I can't believe he used to be a cop." Darting a disgusted look at his retreating figure, Cindy raked strong fingers through a swath of shining hair and then patted her pockets. "I don't want anyone ragging on me for this," she said belligerently, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and scowling. She lit one with a quick nervous gesture and took a deep drag. "I'm trying to quit, but having to deal with that yahoo right after a funeral is too much."

  "Jerks like that aren't worth it, Cin." A slender, almost fragile-seeming woman in the group spoke up, her voice attractively husky. Chestnut hair curved in elegant feathers around the delicate bones of her face and her arched brows knitted together as the other woman drew agitatedly on the cigarette. "Why don't we go home and I'll brew up some maté? We can have it out on the balcony."

  Her clear green gaze rested on Cindy with a mixture of love and concern that seemed oddly familiar to Julia. With dawning comprehension, she realized that it was the same look that she'd seen in Sheila's eyes when the stress of the job had gotten to Paul. The knowledge took her aback, but only for a moment. Although she hadn't guessed at Cindy's lifestyle when she'd met her after Cord had transferred out two years ago, Paul certainly would have known shortly after being partnered with her. He'd counted her among his friends, and that was good enough for Julia. Lopez sighed.

  "I know, Erica." She frowned and looked at Cord. "Dammit, he was grilling me for details like some stringer for the National Enquirer—asking me whether Paul was shot and then stabbed, or stabbed and then shot, wanting to know exactly where Sheila's body had been found, what she'd been wearing…" Her voice shook. "Hell, after everything I've seen at work you'd think I'd be handling this better."

  "He used to be my partner. I'm not handling it too well, either," Cord said bleakly. "Being a cop doesn't mean you stop feeling—unless you want to end up like Dean Tascoe."

  He squinted through the elm branches at the cloudless sky, his hands shoved negligently in the pockets of his trousers, his jacket open. Against the crisp white of his shirt Julia glimpsed the worn brown leather of his shoulder holster, and at the sight a small jolt of fear ran through her. He'd come armed. What was he expecting to happen here, of all places?

  "It seems all wrong, somehow, doesn't it?" Cindy's friend Erica looked at the perfect sky as Cord had and sketched a small, graceful gesture that encompassed the beautifully landscaped grounds, the freshly leafed trees, the golden sunlight bathing the scene. "If this was an opera the heavens would be splitting open with thunder and lightning, the sky would be dark, and we'd be rending our clothes and cursing the gods."

  "This is my only decent pantsuit," Lopez said with a lopsided smile. "But that cursing the gods thing sounds good to me. Erica designs stage costumes," she added to Julia with a note of pride in her voice. "She gets a little Wagnerian once in a while, but this time she's right. I'd feel better if I could just be doing something."

  As they'd been speaking, the crowd around them had gradually thinned. Lopez's frustrated comment brought forth a ragged and dispirited chorus of agreement from the few remaining officers clustered nearby, and one by one, men and women in uniform shook hands or clasped each other in brief, wordless hugs before heading toward the high and ornate iron gates enclosing the area. Beyond the gates, parked cars lied both sides of the winding, graveled drive that entered the cemetery.

  "I guess we should be heading out, too, Cord," Lopez said heavily. "Although tonight I don't think a nice hot cup of maté's going to cut it." She shot a defiantly guilty look at Erica that under different circumstances might have brought a smile to Julia's lips. "I've got a date with an almost full bottle of Scotch that I've been saving for a rainy day. Right now I feel like Noah."

  There was a heartbeat of silence after her words, and then her appalled gaze found and held Julia's. Her color rose under the smooth tan of her cheeks.

  "God—sorry, Julia. I didn't intend to—I mean, I know it's probably something you'd rather…" She raked her hair back, her expression contrite and her words trailing away. "Me and my big mouth," she mumbled,

  Great, Julia thought dully. Her only consolation these last two years had been that at least the people she'd once worked with had no idea of how completely her life had disintegrated. Now it seemed that her personal problems and weaknesses had been common knowledge right from the start. It was humiliating, and shameful, and…

  …and strangely liberating, she thought with a slight sense of shock. She wouldn't have to watch what she said or concoct any elaborate excuses—make that lies, she told herself—in the event that she found herself in a social situation. It felt as if a weighty load had been lifted from her shoulders—a weight that she never would have had the nerve to shrug off without Cindy's faux pas.

  Although she had been able to tell Cord, she realized, surprised.

  "Please don't think that Paul violated any confidences—" Cindy stammered, but Julia cut across her apologies.

  "I know he didn't. I th
ought it was such a terrible secret that I didn't tell anyone about it."

  Seeing the stricken look in the expressive brown eyes watching her, she laid her hand tentatively on Lopez's arm. The disconcerting thought came to her that it had been a long time since she'd reached out to comfort another person.

  "Cindy—it's okay. I'm not upset." She attempted a grin. "I'm certainly not about to run off to the nearest bar and knock back a dozen tequila shooters because of this."

  It was time to change the topic, she thought, wishing all of a sudden that she was back at the lake, alone in the big house with no one but King to intrude upon her solitude. But the German shepherd was with Lizbet at Mary Whitefield's house, where he would stay until all danger to the child had passed.

  "You must have your own theory as to who targeted Paul and Sheila." She directed her comment to Lopez, but she was conscious of Cord beside her. "I know neither of us has any official standing in this matter, but maybe the very fact that we aren't as close to the investigation as you are might help us see a pattern here."

  "I think I see the pattern," Lopez began, but then she broke off, darting a quick glance over her shoulder at a cluster of overall-clad workers standing by the discreet, foot-high chain that surrounded the rectangles of fresh earth a few dozen yards away. Julia followed her glance. Just beyond the two new graves the rolling landscape took a slight rise, and from somewhere out of sight she could hear the rumbling noise of a piece of machinery idling. It sounded like construction equipment, more suited to the side of a highway than to this pastoral setting.

  Cord had heard it, too. Julia saw the pain that flashed across his features without understanding the reason for it. A second later she understood.

  "I think we're holding up their work." His hand moved as if to touch her, but then he checked himself. "Let's go," he said quietly. "They want to fill in the graves."

  "Oh."

  The startled exclamation that escaped Cindy's lips made her suddenly sound much more vulnerable than her tough exterior suggested. Erica, taking in the situation at a glance, laid a hand on her back, shepherding her gently toward the gates that led out of the cemetery.

  "You said you thought you saw a pattern?" Cord's question was a timely diversion. Erica shot him a grateful look. Julia heard Cindy take in a deep, shuddering breath and saw her square her shoulders.

  "Yeah. And I think we were supposed to see it." She frowned at the velvety turf underfoot, and Julia realized that the dark-haired woman beside her was back in the unassumingly comfortable suburban house that she'd visited so often before as a guest, but that now had turned nightmarishly into a crime scene, with her partner and his wife as the victims.

  "It was the way Paul was killed, of course," Lopez said haltingly.

  Julia knew she was reliving the moment when, after getting the call at home and racing to the scene, she must have run up the pebbled walkway to Paul's house, her badge held wordlessly out to the phalanx of uniformed officers. She would have had to put away all personal feelings at the time, Julia thought with aching compassion, and it couldn't be done. She knew that from her own experience. But Lopez, with her cigarettes, her nervous mannerisms and her obvious stress, was tearing herself apart trying. Julia only hoped that Erica would be there for her when the inevitable emotional crash came.

  "The shot to the head killed him, and the killer would have known that. Anyone would have known that, just—" her throat worked convulsively "—just by looking at him. It was bad. Real bad."

  Her eyes were luminous with sadness. As they passed through the iron gates and headed toward the private road, now almost empty of cars, she continued with an obvious effort. "So the stabbing had to be some kind of sign. Its only purpose was symbolic, and once we accepted that, it was obvious what it was meant to symbolize."

  "You and Paul had been trying to destroy the heart of the DiMarco organization." Cord's statement was matter-of-fact. "The authorities were being warned off the mob investigation, and killing Paul that way was a brutal example of the retaliation in store if the case continued."

  "Yeah. You're good, Detective Hunter." Lopez shot him a twisted smile. "That's the way I read it, too. We'd targeted Vince DiMarco's chain of Laundromats because we knew there was more getting washed in them than just clothes." She gave a short laugh. "Now that heroin's trendy again, thanks to a couple of irresponsible movies that impressed the hell out of a whole new generation of kids, DiMarco—ever the savvy businessman—has gotten into it in a big way. Which means big money. Big dirty money that he's passing through his legit operations, including the Laundromats, so it loses that unpleasant smell of dead junkies and ruined lives."

  This time Erica's comforting touch couldn't stop the shaking. Her hair falling like dark brown silk around her face, Lopez stood stock-still at the edge of the drive, fists clenched at her sides, her head bowed. Julia looked up at Cord helplessly. He met her stricken gaze and this time she welcomed the brief moment of closeness. Then he stepped away, facing Lopez and gripping her shoulders.

  "You had a cousin. She died of an overdose, didn't she?" His words were gentle and barely audible, but at them Lopez's tearstained face jerked up.

  "How did you know that? Nobody knows that!"

  "Before I left for California I needed to be sure that whoever was replacing me as Paul's partner was someone I could trust. I won't apologize for investigating you, Lopez. If you'd been in my position you'd have done the same. We both cared too much for Paul to leave anything to chance where his partner was concerned."

  The woman in front of him nodded slowly. Julia felt some of the tension of the moment ease, and beside her Erica let out a pent-up breath.

  "Tina and I were as close as sisters. She was a few years younger than me, but the difference in our ages didn't seem to matter. We did everything together. But at the time I decided to become a cop she was dating this guy that no one in the family liked, especially me. I knew he was bad news and I couldn't see what she saw in him." She shrugged, her eyes clouded with memory. "Well, you two know how consumed your life becomes when you're in training. Then, after I found out I'd made the cut and took my first rookie position, I seemed to have even less of a personal life. I was working crazy shifts, pulling doubles a lot of the time, taking more training…" Her voice broke. "I should have made time for her. The day I made my first arrest I came home to tell my family. My mother was just hanging up the phone when I walked into the house. She told me Tina was dead. She was only seventeen, and when I saw her body at the funeral home I thought I was looking at an old lady."

  "So right from the start investigating DiMarco was personal," Julia said. "Now it's even more so. Have you thought about asking for another assignment?"

  Lopez looked at her as if she'd suddenly started talking Urdu. "Another assignment? I'm like you—I'll go down in flames one of these days. But until then I'll give the job everything I've got, whatever the consequences.

  Julia didn't dare look at Cord. "I didn't go down in flames," she said shortly. "I made the decision to leave because I wanted to do more with my life."

  "That's not what I heard. I heard—"

  "You heard wrong." Julia's tone was a clear signal that the topic was closed, and Lopez stared at her, obviously taken aback. Then she flicked a glance at Cord's impassive face, and her dark eyes widened.

  "Sure," she agreed smoothly, her features a bland mask. "There's a lot of scuttlebutt when someone leaves. I should have known better than to listen to rumors."

  "Where are you parked?" Cord's question was directed at Lopez and Erica. He didn't look at Julia.

  "Around that curve," Erica said. "When we arrived there was a line of cars almost all the way up to the main road. We couldn't get any closer."

  "Would I be pulling a Dean Tascoe if I offered to hike up there and get my vehicle first? It's a little closer, and then I could drive you back to yours." His grin, although it didn't reach his eyes, brought forth an answering smile from Erica.

&nbs
p; "I think I'd even put up with Tascoe's chauvinism if it would save me another walk in these heels." Although her companion was wearing a creamy silk blouse and a charcoal pantsuit, she'd opted for a tailored skirt and jacket. Her shoes, elegantly narrow, didn't look like they'd stand up to the graveled road for long.

  "I'll go with you, Cord." Lopez raked her hair back with one hand. Julia saw her reach toward the pocket that held her cigarettes with the other, and then stop. "Don't worry, I won't sneak one when I'm out of sight," she told a watching Erica with a guilty smile. "I just need to get Cord's advice on a couple of details that bothered me about the crime scene."

  "Julia?" Cord gave her a politely inquiring glance. The current that had flowed between them when he'd met her gaze earlier might never have existed. "Do you want to wait here or walk up with us?"

  He was distancing himself from her. She knew he was, because she'd used the same techniques herself—the impersonal courtesy, the meticulous consideration for her convenience, the painstaking inclusion of her in an activity. Those had been her tactics in the weeks leading up to that final discussion when she'd told him that she didn't want the future they'd planned together.

  The last thing she'd ever wanted to do was to hurt him. Now she realized just how wounding her inexplicable coolness must have been.

  "I'll stay with Erica. My heels aren't as high as hers, but since I practically live in Weejuns, my feet aren't too happy with me, either," she replied, hoping she sounded convincing.

  Apparently she did. In a few minutes Cord and Lopez were out of sight around the bend in the road, despite the fact that he had to be shortening his stride to match hers.

  "Cindy put her foot in it again, didn't she?" Slipping her shoes off, Erica sat down on a small ornamental bench just outside the iron gates. Julia remained standing, but she was careful to keep her gaze averted from the grounds themselves. She could hear the same rumble of machinery that she'd heard before, but now the varying timbre of the engine signified that it was in use.