Heartbreaker Hero: Eddie's Story (Maine Justice Book 4)

by Susan Page Davis

  Jack leaned toward Eddie and smiled. “You could be an ambassador for the Portland Police Department on national television, Detective Thibodeau. Everyone will see you committing a heroic act, and then the hosts will have a little fun at your expense, mentioning how this video sparked a poll of women who’ve lost their hearts to you.”

  Eddie swallowed hard. “Okay, two things. First, it wasn’t that heroic. The kid wasn’t in danger anymore, unless it would be another car slamming into their van. They ought to be interviewing Mark Johnson, the EMT who kept his mother alive until they could get her out of there. Second, the kid has nothing to do with that blasted DeLaney Marshall or any other woman I’ve dated.”

  “Language, Eddie,” Harvey murmured.

  “Sorry.”

  “Who’s DeLaney Marshall?” Mike asked.

  “I believe she’s the one who started the thing about women who’ve cried over Eddie,” Harvey said. “She’s a nurse at Maine Medical, and she posted it on Facebook with a link to the video of him rescuing the child.” He made it sound so normal, Eddie almost calmed down. Almost.

  “You know—” Eddie looked at Mike and tried to forget that Mike was his boss’s boss and held his career in his hands. “Sir. The alleged fact that a woman—quote—shed tears over me—unquote—doesn’t mean I did anything to her.”

  “That’s a good line,” Jack said. “You should use it in the interview.”

  Harvey said, “He’s right. Some of them might be women who wished Eddie would look their way twice, but he never did, so they cried about it—whether literally or figuratively, I can’t say.”

  “Hmm.” Mike clicked a few keys on his keyboard. Eddie always thought of Mike as being a little out of the loop where computers were concerned, but a moment later, he turned the monitor to face them. “Is this the Delaney Marshall you know?”

  It was the same Facebook page Abby had showed them Friday night.

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s got more than a thousand comments on her post about you.”

  Eddie stared at him. Probably not safe to utter one word.

  “That’s a lot,” Harvey said, unnecessarily. “Could be she started it to drive traffic to her page.”

  “She’s not selling anything,” Mike said.

  Harvey shrugged. “Then I have no explanation for it.”

  Eddie scowled. “She wants attention.” At that moment, he was gladder than ever that he hadn’t called her again after their one outing. Definitely not his kind of woman, even if he’d thought she was a fun date at the time.

  Mike leveled his gaze at Eddie. “So, how well do you know Ms. Marshall?”

  Eddie hesitated. “Do I have to answer that?”

  Mike looked away for a second, and his mouth twitched like he was trying not to say something. Then he looked back at Eddie. “Is this something that could blow up in our faces and be an embarrassment to the P.D.?”

  “Uh ...” Eddie looked at Harvey.

  “Answer the question,” he said softly.

  “Well, uh, let’s see, I only took her out once. Possibly twice, but—no, no, it was only once. I’m sure. And it was about five years ago.”

  Mike blinked. “That long?”

  “At least.”

  “You must have made an impression,” Jack said.

  “I ...” This wasn’t something where Eddie could beg off and tell them to let somebody else do the interview.

  Harvey set down his mug. “I don’t know, Chief. This could get messy. What if they looked her up and put her on the show?”

  “Hmm.” Mike tapped his chin. “They say they want to film here and take him to the hospital to be reunited with the kid and his parents in the mother’s hospital room.”

  “That sounds okay,” Harvey said.

  “The hospital?” Eddie squeaked out.

  “Didn’t you say they took her to Mercy Hospital?” Harvey asked. “That’s not where Delaney works.”

  Eddie breathed. “Right.”

  Mike looked at him expectantly.

  “I ... guess it would be okay. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mason again. But what if a bunch of angry women picket outside, or something like that?”

  “I just had a thought,” Mike said. “Let me see what I can do to counteract any negative comments. And don’t you talk to anyone about this, you hear?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Right. Be ready when you come in Wednesday morning.”

  Eddie opened his mouth and closed it again. When the chief spoke, you didn’t talk back.

  “If you’re sure, Mike,” Harvey said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure.” Mike turned to Jack with a grin. “I love these guys. These are the two men I know are praying for me every day.”

  Jack nodded. “I was really glad to hear we had a couple of Christians in the department.” He smiled at them. “Wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I moved down here.”

  “Funny,” Mike said, “we sweated for months over who to hire. Harvey knows. We interviewed a ton of people. Of course, I wasn’t a praying man then, but I guess Harvey was praying about it.”

  “I was,” said Harvey. “Not that I had any say in it, but I sat in on most of the interviews.” He looked at Jack. “I missed yours, sir. Anyway, I was praying hard for the right person to take this position.”

  Mike nodded. “These guys have regular prayer times. Maybe we can get in on it with them sometime.”

  Harvey said, “Anytime you want, Chief. Mr. Stewart.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you boys get back to work.” Mike stood. “You got any leads on Hawkins yet?”

  “Maybe,” Harvey said. “The roads should be better this afternoon. We’ll be out in the West End, looking for him.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  Eddie and Harvey left the office and went back to Priority. Just outside the door, Eddie stopped. “Harvey, Mike wouldn’t do anything dishonest to slant the interview, would he?”

  “No, Mike wouldn’t—” Harvey stopped with his hand on the door handle. He got a funny look on his face.

  “I know he’s a Christian now,” Eddie said, “but it hasn’t been for long, and you gotta admit he has some screwy logic sometimes.”

  “Yeah.” Harvey’s chin jerked up. “Don’t you ever say that to anyone else.”

  “I won’t. Just an observation.”

  Harvey glanced at him. “Our Sunday school class has started a series on Genesis. You know—creation and all that.”

  Eddie nodded. In the singles class, they were doing a different study, but he’d caught half of Harvey’s the day before.

  Harvey said, “Mike called me yesterday to ask me how God could create plants before he created the sun.”

  Eddie thought about that for a second. “Plants need sunlight, don’t they?”

  “Yeah. For photosynthesis.”

  “Let there be light.” Eddie frowned. “He created light before he created the sun, too. So, there must have been some for the plants.”

  “Yeah. I suppose there was light in heaven before that. But none of it gets to the earth.”

  They looked at each other.

  Harvey said, “I wish he wouldn’t ask me these questions when I’m in the middle of a case.”

  “You’re always in the middle of a case.”

  “Come on. Maybe I’ll have time to do some reading tonight.” Harvey opened the door.

  Chapter 17

  Nate Miller jumped up as soon as he saw Harvey. “Captain, I think we’ve got a solid lead on Melanie Tucker.”

  Harvey looked out the window. “The roads?”

  “All the main arteries are good. They’re working on the side streets.”

  “Okay, let’s do it. Body armor. I’ll ask for some backup.”

  The men swarmed the locker room to get ready.

  “What happened to the tree on your road?” Eddie asked Nate.

  “My neighbor has a chainsaw and a tractor.”

  When Eddie came out of the loc
ker room, Harvey was talking to Jennifer. Eddie only knew because he heard his final, “I’ll be there, gorgeous.”

  Eddie wished for a moment that he could call Leeanne, but she would only worry. Then he saw a pile of square message memos on his desk. He picked them up and turned to scowl at Paula.

  “All personal,” she said. “Sorry.”

  Eddie shook his head and tossed the lot in the trash.

  They usually drove their own cars for this type of work. Tony had a vintage Mustang he loved, but he hadn’t brought it that day. Too risky with all the ice. They took Harvey’s SUV and Eddie’s truck, because both had four-wheel drive if needed. The backup officers followed them in a squad car.

  When they got to the address Nate’s informant had provided, Eddie said, “What is this, a crack house?”

  The run-down duplex looked neglected. All the blinds were drawn, and an old Chevy was parked out front.

  “Either that or a meth lab,” Nate said. “Dusty didn’t want to be too specific.”

  “Oh, yeah, Dusty. I’ve met him. It probably is a meth lab.”

  Eddie got out, and so did Nate. Harvey had pulled in behind them, a couple of lots down from the targeted house. The squad car rolled around a corner and parked out of sight. Nate and Eddie walked back to meet the others.

  Harvey gave them their assignments, making sure all the doors and windows would be covered, and they got into position. Jimmy and one of the uniformed cops, Chuck Norton, went with Eddie to the back of the house.

  “Hey, Eddie, did you send up a prayer for us?” Jimmy asked.

  Chuck shot him a curious glance.

  “Yeah.” Scanning the windows, Eddie saw a flicker of movement at the small one that was probably a bathroom window. “They know we’re here.” Harvey signaled him on his earpiece, and Eddie nodded at Chuck. “Go.” He tried not to think about how meth labs can blow on you.

  Chuck kicked the door, and they heard yelling and a couple of shots fired at the front. Eddie’s heart raced as he and Jimmy jumped into position, but it was already over. Harvey and Tony had two men and a woman lying face down on the floor. One of the men was bleeding, and Harvey was calling for an ambulance. Nate and another patrolman came in behind them. Together they checked all the rooms of the house, including the closets and attic, but the three people in the room with the setup for making crack cocaine were the only ones there.

  “Melanie Tucker?” Nate asked the woman.

  “Yeah?”

  “Put your hands behind your back.” Nate met Eddie’s gaze above the sprawled prisoners, and Eddie nodded.

  When she stood up, he was surprised at her appearance. Her hair was brown with gray roots, and she had serious wrinkles around her mouth. Eddie pegged her at fifty to sixty years old. If she’d been a book, he’d have said she was pulp fiction and showing some shelf wear. He was dying to question her, but the plan was to get them all secured in custody first and talk later.

  Harvey knelt and put pressure on the injured man’s wound, but that didn’t stop him from having the officers frisk all three prisoners. Eddie asked Tony who the shooter was.

  “Me.” The hotshot looked a little shaky.

  Eddie said, “You better sit down, Tony.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Chuck went to bring up the squad car. The two patrolmen would take Melanie back to the station and book her, so that she would be through processing when the detectives got there. Harvey asked for transport for the uninjured male prisoner.

  The ambulance came first. While the EMTs tended to the injured guy, Tony and Eddie bagged up the improvised lab equipment, supplies, and finished product. Nate and Jimmy’s thorough search turned up four thousand dollars in the kitchen and another twelve hundred in a bedroom.

  The second patrol car came for the other prisoner, whose driver’s license said he was Bruce Leare. Eddie didn’t remember him specifically, but he thought Leare had crossed his radar before.

  Finally a team of techs came to clean up after them, and the EMTs put the wounded man in the bus and drove off. The detectives headed back to the station. A soft mist was falling.

  In the police garage, the first thing Harvey said was, “Okay, Winfield, put your gear away and go home. You’ve got a couple of days off, maybe more. Enjoy it.”

  “Aw, Cap’n, can’t I just hang around and watch?”

  “Better not, Tony.” Harvey was probably thinking of his last suspension after a shooting. He, of all people, knew it was best to stay out of it until the administrative hearing came up.

  “We’ll keep you posted, Tony,” Eddie said.

  “Man, I really wanted to be in on this.”

  Harvey said, “I’ll push things through as quick as I can, but trust me, it’s good to take a little time off after a shooting.”

  Tony dragged up the stairs with Eddie and stuck his vest in his locker, swearing under his breath.

  “Who are you mad at?” Eddie asked.

  “Myself, I guess. If I hadn’t shot that guy...”

  “If you hadn’t shot that guy, he’d have blown your head off,” Eddie said. “Go on. We’ll miss you.”

  “Yeah, because I won’t be there to edit your reports, Shakespeare.”

  “Touché.”

  Eddie did a quick rundown on Bruce Leare and the guy Tony had shot. As he had thought, Leare had quite a rap sheet. The injured man had some smalltime infractions.

  Harvey called Tony over and talked to him quietly for a couple of minutes. Tony seemed attentive and nodded a lot. Eddie guessed Harvey was telling him what to expect for the hearing. He’d have to see the department’s head shrinker, too. Tony wouldn’t like talking to the psychologist.

  Paula came over to Eddie smiling. “Glad you guys all came back in one piece.”

  “Thanks,” Eddie said.

  “The desk sergeant just called to tell you the prisoner is ready for you.”

  “Okay.”

  She slipped more messages into his hand. “Highly personal, all of these.”

  Eddie glanced down at them. Heather. Did he know a Heather? He threw them away without looking at the rest.

  As soon as Tony left, Eddie told Harvey the news. They brought Melanie up to their interview room.

  Harvey wanted Jimmy and Nate to get some experience, so he had Nate stand guard in there while Eddie questioned Melanie, and he took Jimmy into the observation room to give him the annotated version and answer any questions Jimmy might have.

  The first thing Eddie asked her was what she was thinking, getting involved in a drug ring.

  “What? You think I should get a job at a classier place?” she said.

  Eddie let that pass. “Tell me about Al Hawkins.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Wrong answer. Try again.”

  “Oh, buzz off, you bozo.”

  Eddie sat back and looked her in the eye. “I’ve got all day, Melanie. Start telling me about Al Hawkins. That’s who you were making the crack for, wasn’t it?”

  “I wasn’t making it.”

  “Who was?”

  “Those two imbeciles.”

  “And your job was...”

  “I was just there to do laundry.”

  Eddie frowned. “Launder the drug money, maybe.”

  “Ha, ha.”

  “Okay, Mel, this is how it works: You tell me about Al, and I tell the D.A. not to set your bail too high.”

  She scowled. “You’re that guy on the news, aren’t you?”

  Eddie tried not to miss a beat. “I don’t know, am I?”

  “Yeah. All the girls have been talking about how hot you are.”

  “All what girls, Mel?”

  “Oh, you’d like to know, wouldn’t you?”

  “You got some girls working for you, or are they working for Al?”

  “Go easy on me, handsome, and I’ll set you up with a couple.”

  “No, thanks.” Just what he needed, on top of YouTube and Morning Nation. “Just tell me a
bout Al. He’s the only thing I’m interested in right now.”

  She tried to stare him down, but Eddie had a lot of practice.

  “Can I use the can?”

  Eddie sighed. “We’ll get a female officer to escort you.”

  “I can go by myself, hot stuff.”

  It was ludicrous, coming out of her mouth when she was so patently unattractive.

  With Harvey in the observation room, Eddie knew he would already have put the call in, so he just waited. After about half a minute, Melanie said, “I really gotta go.”

  “I’m sure you do. Any minute now.”

  A knock came on the door, and Nate opened it.

  “Ta-da,” Eddie said.

  Allison Crocker came in. She glanced at him, then at Melanie. “Let’s go.”

  Melanie got up and shuffled out into the office.

  “Use our locker room,” Eddie said. Behind Melanie’s back, he gave Allison the “watching” signal, pointing at his eyes, then the prisoner, meaning keep your eyes on her.

  “Oh boy, the locker room,” Melanie simpered.

  Eddie looked at Nate. “Wait outside for them.”

  Nate followed them down the short hallway. Harvey and Jimmy came out of Observation.

  “She’s tough,” Harvey said.

  “Yeah. Why haven’t we arrested her before?”

  “Maybe she’s good at hiding. Want me to take a crack at her?”

  “Sure. Maybe she’ll like your blue eyes better than my brown ones.”

  “I doubt it. She seemed pretty taken with you.”

  Jimmy laughed. “I heard you’re big stuff right now, Eddie, since that news clip ran of you carrying a baby.”

  “It wasn’t a baby, it was a kid.” Eddie shook his head. He didn’t want to get into that again.

  “Why don’t you take Jimmy down and have a few words with Mr. Leare,” Harvey said. “Nate and I will take on Ms. Tucker.”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Bruce Leare at first seemed surprisingly eager to talk. Maybe Tony shooting his buddy scared him. He admitted he’d been making crack cocaine for the man they were looking for, since Hawkins got out of jail.

  “Who did you work for before that?” Eddie asked.

  “Nobody.”

  “Sure.” Like Eddie would believe this was the first time he ever manufactured crack and sold it. “You were in jail in New Hampshire a month ago.”