by Roberts, Ann
“I found it,” she said.
“What the hell happened, Nelson?”
Standing there with his hands on his hips was Captain David Ruskin, her boss and a man she detested for many reasons. Over the last three years she had learned to hold her temper and answer his questions succinctly. He tended to leave quickly if she refused to let him bait her. “The fibbies screwed up. The meeting place was abandoned, and now Rasp has Andre and me looking for the informant.”
“So what are you doing here? Why aren’t you out in the field?”
“We had to come back for the address. I don’t have it committed to memory.” She couldn’t stop herself from taking a dig at him. It had been years since he had engaged in any fieldwork. He loved sitting in his office and barking at people. He especially hated her, partly because of his homophobia and mainly because she was with Ari, a woman he desired and couldn’t have.
He snorted. “Well, you need to get moving. You’re not gonna find the guy sitting on your ass.”
“Captain Ruskin, that was uncalled for.” Rasp appeared in the doorway next to him, and he seemed to shrink. “If it wasn’t for Detective Nelson, we all would still be sitting on our asses watching an empty building. You need to congratulate her, not chastise her.”
His face turned beet red, and from her desk, Molly could see his jaw set.
Rasp waited and stared him down until he walked away. She watched him go and then came inside and shut the door. When she turned to Molly, she grinned. “How do you work for him?”
“Not well. Hey, thanks. I think you just made my day. What are you doing here?”
Rasp slid into a chair and crossed her legs. Molly noticed she had reapplied her lipstick and pulled her hair back with a clip. She looked sexy, and Molly felt warm all over. She paused before she said, “Unfortunately, I just did it. I came here to personally tell your captain about your effort today, but I guess you won’t be getting any pats on the back.”
Molly shook her head and stared at her nails. “Not from him. We just tolerate each other.” She glanced at Rasp, who cocked her head and folded her arms over her large chest. There was something different about her. She was relaxed, less professional.
“Why does he hate you?”
“Because I’m gay, and because my girlfriend wouldn’t go to bed with him, and because her father, a former cop, made his life hell when he was a rookie.”
Rasp smiled slightly. “Sounds like a lot of history, and it sounds like he’s an ass.” She immediately shook her head. “I’m sorry. That was terribly unprofessional of me. So how does your girlfriend know Ruskin? Is she a cop?”
“She was for a brief time. She sells real estate now.”
“Ah,” Rasp replied. “Couldn’t hack it?”
“Didn’t want to.”
Rasp held up a hand. “Hey, I didn’t mean to disrespect your woman.”
Molly leaned back in her chair and took a breath. “It’s okay. I’m just worried about my informant. What if something’s happened to him?”
Rasp folded her hands in her lap and looked away. “We’ll just have to see,” she said, and Molly realized Rasp thought he was already dead. She stood and faced her. “Well, good job today, detective, and good luck finding your guy.” She left, Molly’s gaze following her until the door closed softly.
• • •
The odor of the Liberty Apartments was a mixture of rotting drywall, sweat and sewage. Molly had no idea how anyone could tolerate the stench, but Itchy lived a step away from homelessness most months, and she imagined he didn’t care as long as he had a room to himself. She’d never been to his place, but he’d told her about it during one of their meetings at the Chase Field parking garage. She was very worried now that Itchy, who was relatively harmless on the criminal food chain, had been declared a missing person.
The rooming house sat on Madison Street, two blocks from the jail. This is a flophouse, she thought as she and Andre ascended the rickety steps. She didn’t hold the banister for fear of splinters from the cracked and decayed wood, and she watched the floor, concerned that a roach or a rat would scurry across her loafer at any moment. The peeling wallpaper and the single lightbulb illuminating the stairwell reminded her of a haunted house at Halloween. They found Itchy’s room—the door slightly ajar. Andre looked at her, and they both drew their weapons. No one was inside the sparse living quarters. His dresser drawers were open, and it was clear that the place had been searched, but she imagined the other residents were to blame.
“It looks like some folks borrowed his stuff,” Andre said. He held up two pieces of a flashlight, the batteries missing, thus confirming her theory.
“We need to go through everything carefully,” she said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “There might be a clue to his whereabouts and something that links him to Carnotti.”
They dug through separate corners, checking the pockets of his clothes and rummaging through the shoeboxes full of his possessions. Itchy compartmentalized his belongings so they would fit into a shopping cart in a minute should he ever become mobile. She found several photos of a beautiful woman sitting on a sofa with a small boy whose face reminded her of Itchy. She guessed the lady must be his mother.
“Molly, check this out,” Andre called from the closet.
He held up a backpack, the one Itchy always carried with him. She couldn’t imagine where he would be without it. Andre dumped all of the items out and they picked over them—a few sticks of gum, a can of Coke, a pencil, his Will Work for Food sign, seven dollars, his driver’s license and a bus pass for a woman named LaDonna Jones.
“Nothing here,” he said.
Molly looked around the room, certain that they were missing something. No doubt Itchy’s disappearance was tied to what he knew and who he knew, but he was shrewd. She remembered the first time she ever traded for information. He had fingered a drug dealer in return for a future favor from her, a marker he could claim later. Later was six months, when he called her one afternoon and needed fifty bucks to make his weekly rent. He was the only street person she had ever known who possessed foresight and an ability to plan. Now, as she stood in his rundown room, she was certain there was a clue that he was keeping in reserve. Her gaze returned to the filthy backpack. It was what he valued the most. She unzipped the bag and pulled both sides apart like an unfolded sandwich, carefully searching the small inner pockets. She found nothing, and she was about to give up when she noticed a small zipper in one of the straps. She unzipped the secret compartment, and withdrew a slip of paper with four numbers written in pencil—6815.
“What is that? It’s too short for a phone number,” Andre said.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s a locker.” She studied the scrap, clearly higher quality, perhaps linen, but it was worn and had been in the backpack for a while. Shaped like a triangle, two sides formed a corner while the longer one was jagged, as if it was torn from a piece of paper. She turned it over and found the words Here to Help! written in blue lettering. She held it up for Andre. “I’d say this is an end of one of those memo pads that companies buy with their name and slogan.”
“Yeah, and it looks like Itchy tore off a piece to write down this number. We just need to figure out where the pad came from. That’ll probably tell us what the numbers mean.”
“Maybe. Can you imagine how many companies have Here to Help in their slogans? It’s a standard line for customer service. And we don’t know how long Itchy’s had this piece of paper. The company could be out of business or it might be totally unrelated.”
Andre grinned. “I’m glad you’re approaching this with such optimism.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. He squeezed her shoulder and took the slip of paper. “Look, whatever it means, it’s important. He kept this in a secret pocket, and that tells me he wasn’t interested in seeing it every day. He was saving it to use only if he needed it. This was his insurance policy.”
She looked around the room, remembering that the
desk clerk had not seen him in nine days, since the day after his meeting with her. “Let’s hope it was life insurance.”
Chapter Seven
Saturday, October 14th
5:10 PM
Ari took a deep breath as the uncooperative Saturday traffic inched through the Deck Tunnel, every lane packed with Suns fans on their way to the evening preseason game. Purple and orange jerseys and foam fingers appeared in the windows of the cars and SUVs crowding to exit at Seventh Street on their way to US Airways Arena. An enormous Suburban cut her off and crossed two other lanes of irate fans, many of whom honked their horns in protest. Instead of joining in their complaints, she chose to focus on the upcoming evening. Some people dreaded their in-laws, and although she would never call the Nelsons her “relatives” in front of Molly, she thought of them as family, the family she had lost in her youth. She relished any opportunity to celebrate with them, and unlike many families who only gathered for a specific purpose, she delighted in being with them for no particular reason.
She pulled up next to a sedan and glanced at the couple with their two children sitting in the back, laughing and shouting at each other. Decades ago, that could have been her and her brother, Richie. They always argued in the car, the volume of their fights escalating until their mother turned around to scold them. Ari tried to picture her mother’s profile as she would lean over her seat with a serious expression on her face. The snapshot was blurred, and she couldn’t remember specific details about her mother. From photos she knew they looked almost identical with raven hair and strong features, but she struggled to hear her mother’s voice or recall favorite phrases or expressions her mother would use.
The family had suffered for fifteen years, watching cancer claim Lucia Bianchi Adams one cell at a time. When she finally succumbed to the disease four years ago, Ari had walked away from her father at the headstone and never looked back.
Abandoning him left her entirely alone without anyone to call a family. Richie had died as a child, the victim of a shooting at a convenience store. She had tried desperately to fill the void left by his passing, but she never felt she measured up in her father’s eyes. When she had told her parents she was gay, she proved to be a disappointment in the worst of ways to her father. Only in the recent months had he reentered her life, due to Sol’s prodding.
Her cell phone rang at that moment, and she glanced at the display to see her father’s name on the caller ID. How weird, she thought. “Hello,” she answered coolly. She still was not ready to answer her father’s calls with familiarity and kindness.
“Hi, honey . . . It’s Dad,” the voice quickly added.
“Hi.”
An awkward silence passed and she could tell she had flustered her father. They had been apart for so long and their recent conversations had not fully bridged the emotional distance between them.
“I won’t keep you. I just wanted to get some ideas for a birthday present. Do you like tools?”
She grimaced and automatically shook her head in disbelief. “No, Dad. I don’t need anything more than what I have. I live in a high-rise condo, so if something breaks, I just call maintenance.”
“Huh,” he grunted. “I just noticed on TV that women like you were very handy, at least the ones on this home repair show I saw on cable.”
“And what kind of woman am I, Dad?” She heard him curse under his breath but he didn’t respond. The traffic splintered and she was finally able to hit the accelerator. “Dad?”
“Look, Ari, I don’t want to fight. I just need some ideas. Give the old guy a break. If I’m going to learn about your lifestyle, I’ll need help. I admit it, okay?”
She sighed. He was making an effort and she was being a bitch. “Look, I’m sorry. Buying me a gift isn’t that hard. I love to cook, so anything for the kitchen is a good bet, and I love bath products, and books, particularly about architecture, so that gives you something to go on, right?”
“Yeah, that makes it easy.”
She could hear relief and surprise in his voice. No doubt Jack Adams had thought he either would be wandering into a dark sex shop to purchase a gift for his lesbian daughter or seeking out a handy bull dyke for advice about the latest home-improvement gadgets.
“Well, I won’t keep you.”
“So are you coming down?” she asked.
“Uh, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m ready, you know?”
“I understand.”
“Are you mad?”
“No, it’s okay. I need to go. The traffic is getting heavy,” she lied. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
She flipped the phone shut and spent the rest of her drive deciding if she was angry or relieved that her father might miss her thirty-fifth birthday. A respected police sergeant, he had retired to Oregon, and they had not seen each other since her mother’s funeral. It was just too hard. Without her, there was no buffer, no one to stop their dysfunctional conversations from devolving into shouting matches. Whatever relationship they could develop now would be totally up to him, and she had already prepared herself for the disappointment she was certain would come.
She wound her way through the Nelsons’ subdivision, scanning the driveways for the twin Nelson Plumbing trucks. It was the only way she could identify the house among an entire row of doppelgangers, all of which were painted muted tans, sported enormous oak front doors and were topped by tile roofs. She would never purchase a cookie-cutter home regardless of its reasonable price, but she had sold many of them and understood the attraction. They were new and full of amenities that families needed. She saw the trucks on her right and pulled up to the curb. She had barely started up the walk when the front door burst open and two children ran down the path to greet her.
“Ari!” they both cried.
She stopped, allowing them to wrap their little bodies around her middle. She couldn’t return the hug, her arms loaded with wine and gifts. “Hi, guys.” She loved five-year-old Chelsey and her three-year-old brother, Kenny, who treated her as if she was another aunt. “Can you help me carry these things in?” Both blond heads nodded, and she handed each one a present to take into the house. The children ran back through the front door and disappeared.
She stepped over the threshold and amazing smells poured out of the kitchen and loud sports commentary squawked from the plasma TV. Molly’s father, Don, and his oldest son, Don Jr., watched the Suns’ pregame show while Molly’s mother, Teddy, floated across the kitchen, stirring, checking and preparing the entire meal. Theodora Nelson was the old-fashioned kind of mother who wouldn’t allow anyone in her domain. The only exception was Don Jr.’s wife, Jenna, since Molly would have nothing to do with cooking. When Teddy had tried to teach Molly her culinary secrets, Molly always found convenient excuses to miss her cooking lessons. There was always a softball game or a flying lesson. Consequently, she never learned to make anything beyond grilled cheese.
“Hi, Ari,” Teddy called.
Don Jr. waved and Molly’s father jumped up and gave her a hug. “I hear my detective daughter is going to be late.”
“She is. She’s working on a big case.”
“Is it dangerous?” Teddy asked, emerging from the kitchen and giving her a quick hug.
“I don’t think so. She’s with a lot of other detectives and even some people from the FBI. I think this is really their case.”
“Hey, stranger,” a voice called. Ari turned to see Jenna coming down the hall. She looked as though she had just awoken from a nap. Ari imagined that Jenna, pregnant with her third child, needed more rest.
Ari kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her shoulder. “How’s everything going?”
“Doctor says we’re fine. We went in for our first ultrasound and the baby looks healthy.”
“Do you know if she’s a she or a he?” Ari asked excitedly.
“No, and I don’t think we’ll find out this time. We’ve got one of each and plenty of baby clothes for either, so we want to enjoy the surprise.�
��
“I don’t,” Don said. “I want another boy.”
“All you ever wanted was boys,” Teddy said, moving back into the kitchen toward the amazing aromas.
“Where are Brian and Lynne?” Ari asked Jenna.
“They’re on their way. Brian did some moonlighting work for a friend, and he had a major problem. They should be here in a while. Why don’t you open that bottle of wine, pour a glass and relax?”
She left the married women to the work and wandered through the house. She stopped as she always did to look at the family photos that lined the hallway wall. She adored the childhood pictures of Molly, and every time she studied the display, she wondered if she would have liked her when she was nine, or fifteen or twenty-three. Would there have been the unbelievable connection that existed between them now? They shared a variety of common interests, including a passion for old movies, fabulous coffee and making love. Many of their evenings included all three, beginning with great sex and ending with the two of them lounging in bed, sipping a great Sumatran blend while they watched an old classic, preferably a Lauren Bacall flick.
She sighed. Even though they had not said the words, she knew she was in love. Every time she saw Molly her stomach fluttered and a smile crossed her face. Their fiery tempers sometimes stalled their feelings, but neither could stay angry for long, and the make-up sex was incredible. She often teased Molly about her loose past, but her days of one-night stands were over. Molly had not ventured into Hideaway since they had become a couple. They were completely committed to each other, but Ari knew that Molly still felt unworthy of her love and insecure about their relationship.
“When will you leave me?” was Molly’s repetitious question, followed by a nervous laugh.
Ari always laughed back, but she could see the fear behind her eyes. “You’re all I want.”
And as quickly as it had come, the doubt was erased momentarily. Bolstering Molly’s confidence, though, was continually necessary, an injection that fueled the romance and gave her the boost she needed. So Ari played the game and things were fine—at least up until a few weeks ago, when Molly began to seem uncomfortable and nervous whenever they shared an intimate moment. As long as the talk remained benign—about work or current events—Molly relaxed. And sex was never an issue, she thought with a smile. Molly was the most capable lover she’d ever known.