Private Lies

by T. E. Woods

  Leslie tucked her chin-length blond hair behind one ear. “What can I say? Sydney wowed me. I wanted to know her better.”

  “And hasn’t it been fun?” Sydney asked.

  “A truckload,” Leslie answered. “I would have sworn such fast and true friendships couldn’t exist outside a college dorm.”

  “Well, I’m not surprised.” Clay’s eyes signaled his pride as he draped an arm across Sydney’s shoulders. “When this woman sets her mind to having you in her life, it’s best to just give in. Trust me. I’ve got stories.”

  “Which no one wants to hear!” Sydney insisted.

  Their table was set with pink linens. Sydney had purposefully chosen a restaurant other than her own. She wanted the evening to be about the two couples getting to know one another. If they’d dined at Hush Money, it would have been too easy for her to become distracted. Being the owner of Madison’s most popular fine-dining establishment required her total focus. Besides, she told herself, this gave her a chance to scope out the competition.

  “Help me with my manners,” Clay asked. “Do we call you Chief now?”

  “Oh, dear lord, let’s not feed his ego. Let’s just hope he tells us where we can get our parking tickets waived,” Leslie teased.

  Charles’s stern glare was wrapped in playfulness. “I’ll have my eyes on you two, that’s for sure. It’s my sworn duty to rid this town of desperados.”

  Talk was easy through dinner. Sydney had been impressed with the appetizer: a tomato ragout spiced with cardamom and mace, served on top of toasted baguette slices. She made a note to have her chef come try it for himself, but immediately erased it from her mind when she envisioned how Roland Delmardo would react to the idea that he had something to learn from another chef. She looked to Clay. He and Leslie were involved in a conversation about Madison’s apparently never-ending building boom. For an instant, Clay glanced toward her. His face telegraphed his love.

  He’s everything I ever thought I’d want, she realized as she returned his smile. Isn’t he? She bristled at an unbidden discomfort and focused on the discussion.

  “It’s a balancing act we take very seriously,” Leslie told them. “On the one hand, a city needs to grow in order to stay healthy and alive. But I’m well aware”—she laid a hand on her husband’s arm—“and it didn’t take sleeping with a cop all these years to teach me, that with growth comes cost.”

  “Which Prairie Construction benefits from,” Charles teased. “Every time your company builds a new building, you start drafting plans for the new elementary school the people in the building will send their kids to. Or some new hospital wing where they can send their sick.”

  “Somebody’s gotta do it,” Leslie said. “Might as well be Prairie.”

  “I tip my hat to you, Leslie,” Clay added. “That complex you built on the east side of the isthmus? It looks like it’s always been there. The design, the green space. You do good work.”

  “There’s a simple key to any success I have. I hire good people.”

  “False modesty,” Sydney said.

  “But it’s true,” Leslie protested. “How about you? You own the hottest restaurants in town. Rave reviews. Whether it’s ooh-la-la at Hush Money or the best burger I’ve ever tasted at The Ten-Ten. Would you have me believe you folded every napkin, selected every wine, chopped every onion all yourself? No. You hire the best, give them room to show off, et voilà! Success.”

  “You make it sound easy,” Clay said.

  “I didn’t say it was easy, I said it was simple,” Leslie reminded. “Managing people, especially creative people, is difficult. As you well know. I’m sorry to admit, however, that I’ve never been to your place.”

  “May I refer to my earlier remark that my wife is all about her business, leaving no time for a social life?” Charles interrupted.

  “But I know many people who have,” Leslie continued. “You get rave reviews, Clay. And now that I know you’re such a nice guy, I’m going to make plans to have Charles surprise me with a night at your club. You like blues, don’t you, Charles?”

  “Baby, with what I see on the streets every day, I could write a whole songbook.”

  They all laughed.

  “Tell you what,” Clay suggested. “Name the night and I’ll reserve a front-row table for you.”

  “For the four of us, I hope,” Leslie added. “This is fun.”

  Dinner continued in a relaxed and easy way. Sydney loaded a fork with her chicken-and-spinach special and offered it to Clay, who closed his eyes and moaned with ecstasy. In return, he offered her a bite of his rib eye steak, which Sydney had to admit was as good as any served at Hush Money. Charles and Leslie each raved about their own meals. Sydney did, however, feel a bit smug at the wine offerings. Anita Saxon, her sommelier at Hush Money, had assembled a collection that was the best in the state.

  Maybe that’s what Leslie meant, she thought. Hire the best and let them shine.

  By the time their desserts arrived, the two couples had already promised to get together again soon. Charles declared himself to be a skilled man at a grill and invited them over to their home for a barbecue.

  “We’ll work around your schedules,” he said. “I know the restaurant business has you hopping. But pick a date and I’ll fire up the coals.”

  “And come hungry,” Leslie warned. “My husband gets overexcited at the smell of meat on the grill. He’ll have enough for an army, I’m sure.”

  Charles Arbeit reached over to give his wife a what-can-I-say kiss, but his phone interrupted him. He answered it and all good cheer vanished from his face two seconds into the call. “Where?” he barked. “We know who?” His lips tightened as he listened. “The press will be there soon. Say nothing. I’m on my way.”

  He dropped his phone back in his pocket and reached out to touch his wife’s arm. “I’ve got to go. Can you catch a cab?”

  “What is it, Charles?” Leslie’s face tensed with concern.

  “We’ll get Leslie home,” Clay told him. “Is everything all right?”

  “A shooting. Officer down.”

  Sydney’s throat tightened. The festivities of the room faded far away as an image of a detective with shaggy dark hair and equally dark eyes flooded her consciousness. “Who?” she asked.

  Chapter 4

  Clay pulled his car to a stop in front of University Hospital’s emergency room. He hadn’t spoken ten words since they’d dropped off Leslie. His discomfort pulled at Sydney, but she was more focused on the icy fear that had slashed through her when Charles Arbeit told them Rick Sheffield was the officer reported down.

  “You think this is a good idea?” Clay asked. “Every off-duty cop on the force is bound to be in there. Sheffield’s gonna have more than enough support.”

  “He’s a friend, Clay. A friend who’s been shot.”

  “Can your visit wait until tomorrow?” His eyes took in her yellow silk dress. “You could change into something a little more hospital appropriate.”

  “What if it was you? Would you want me to go home to change before I came to see if you were alive or dead?”

  “I wasn’t aware Sheffield and I occupied the same emergency response level in your mind.”

  His words yanked hard. “Clay. I’m sorry. I…I don’t want you to think…Rick’s a friend…He has no family nearby…I…I…”

  “Go, Sydney.” His tone was calm and neutral. Sydney had the impression he was working hard to keep it that way. “See about your friend.”

  She hesitated, yet every cell in her being told her to get into that hospital.

  She leaned across the seat, hoping for a goodbye kiss. Clay pulled back.

  “Go, Sydney.”

  There may have been appropriate words to say, but none came to her. She opened the car door and stepped out. Clay drove off the moment she w
as clear.

  * * *

  —

  She walked straight into the group of uniformed officers huddled in the waiting room. There were at least a dozen. Double that when she added in the men and women in plain clothes who she knew were Madison cops. None of them seemed startled to see Sydney dressed in silk and diamonds. She was, after all, the proprietor of The Ten-Ten, Madison’s best cop bar. They were used to her strolling in to greet them dressed in the finery required by her other restaurant. And if they were observant enough to notice, they’d see Sydney always seemed more relaxed whenever she emerged from the hallway joining her two establishments. Hush Money may have put Sydney on the map for high-end restaurateurs, but it was The Ten-Ten that held her heart.

  She was, after all, a cop’s daughter.

  “What do we know?” she asked after she nodded her greetings to the group.

  “Caught one bullet,” Karen Amos told her. Karen was new to the department. She’d first come to The Ten-Ten to celebrate graduating from the academy.

  “He’s tough,” Detective Oscar Washington offered. “I’ve known Sheffield since his K-9 days. If anyone can pull through this, it’s him.”

  There was a general murmuring of agreement.

  “How?” Sydney asked.

  “Pitching in on a drug bust,” Marty Gleary told her. Sydney knew Marty was coming up on retirement. He and his wife, Karlee, came into The Ten-Ten every Wednesday night. Karlee always set “Born to Be Wild” on the jukebox before she joined her husband at the bar for a beer. Marty would have already ordered his wife’s hot pretzel with mustard. “Couple of asswipes up from Beloit. They bolt out the back door, Rick’s rushing toward them, Dickwad Number One pulls a piece.”

  “Rick returned fire.” There was worried pride in Karen Amos’s voice. “Even after catching a slug and going down, he put that bullet right where it needed to go. Caught his shooter in the leg.”

  “Shoulda slugged the creepshow in the chest, you ask me.” Sydney turned to see who offered that assessment. It came from a thin man with blond hair and a right arm entirely covered in tattoos. “There’s no shoot-to-wound in my book. Fucker busts a cop, he deserves to die.”

  The silence accompanied by awkward shared glances suggested to Sydney the cops gathered there had no better idea who the guy was than Sydney did.

  “Do we know anything about his condition?” she asked.

  “Some nurse came out about ten minutes ago,” Oscar Washington answered. “Told us they were taking him into surgery. Said it would be a while before anybody knew anything.”

  Sydney knew these men and women would stay right where they were until there was definitive word one way or the other. Only a scheduled shift would pull them away.

  It was the same with Dad, she remembered. A cop goes down, the blue wall circles around. Back when the ER vigil was for Joe Richardson, the wall had circled around her and her mother. It offered tight protection even after the doctors came out to announce Joe hadn’t survived. To this day, eighteen years after her father’s death, if she or her mother needed anything, at least five cops always stood ready to respond.

  She took a shaky breath and prayed Rick Sheffield’s outcome would be different from her dad’s.

  “Who’s on Jocko?” she asked, referring to Rick’s partner of six years. Jocko was retired from the K-9 unit the day Rick got his detective shield. Now the toughest work that golden retriever did was decide whether he wanted to sleep on the sofa or in the oversized bed Rick had built for him in his sunroom.

  “Karlee’s with him,” Marty told her. “She adores that pooch. Told me she stopped by Knoche’s Butcher Shop on the way to Rick’s. Picked up a couple of soup bones for the boy.”

  Sydney nodded, then stepped away from the group. She called The Ten-Ten. Roscoe answered on the second ring.

  “Everything okay there?” she asked.

  “Quiet.” Roscoe was not only her man-behind-the-bar, but The Ten-Ten’s manager as well. “Most every table’s full, but news about Sheffield is out. You’d think you were in a church for all the quiet reflection going on. How was your double date with the new chief?”

  Sydney glanced down at her gown, remembering that the evening had started out on quite a different note. “Listen, I’m at the ER—”

  “Of course you are,” Roscoe interrupted. “Any news?”

  “He’s in surgery. It’ll be a while. I was hoping you could—”

  Roscoe interrupted again. “Gitch should be there in about ten minutes. She’s got burgers, pizzas, and fries. I packed up sodas and water. Couple thermoses of coffee. Didn’t know the hospital’s beer policy.”

  She thanked him, promised to keep him posted, and ended the call. A gentle tap on the back of her shoulder turned her around.

  “How you doin’, Kitz?”

  Sydney took a rapid gasp of air, then fell into the arms of the only man in the world who called her that. She felt the warm strength she always did when Horst Welke held her. Immediately, her can-do pose evaporated. She felt the hot stream of tears drip down her cheeks while the man who’d been her father’s partner rocked her. He’d done the same for her eighteen years earlier. In that same ER. She experienced anew the solid protection of his embrace. Horst’s strength always had a way of making her believe everything would be all right.

  You held my father as he bled onto the concrete, she remembered. You were so young then, Horst. Were you able to get him to think everything would be okay, too?

  Horst patted her shoulders and let her cry. He’d assumed the role of father-protector ever since that ugly day. He watched over her mother, too. Sydney knew no one would ever replace her dad, but Horst Welke had tried his best to take away as much of the ache as he could.

  “Have you seen him?” she asked once her sobs had subsided.

  Horst shook his head. “I’m just getting here. I could kick myself. I was out in the garage. Left my phone on the counter, like an idiot. Scanner’s in the house. I called the station the second I found out what was going on.”

  Sydney nodded. “Drug bust is what I heard. Rick got a shot off.”

  “I know. Both of the bad guys are in custody, Kitz. One’s in jail, the other’s here. The important thing is Rick’s getting himself patched up. He’s tough. It’ll take more than a street punk’s bullet to pull him down.”

  Two ounces of lead can bring anybody down, she thought. All they have to do is land in the right place.

  “But it wasn’t a drug bust,” Horst added.

  “A robbery?” Sydney assumed. “And cops just happened to be there?”

  Horst shook his head. “The cops were there because the lead we got was these two yahoos were slated to make what our informant called a special delivery. Woman dropped names of a couple of two-bit fellas we know to be involved in the local distribution of drugs. Everybody, including our snitch, figured it was a drop. Our two guys show up, just like the informant said, but it wasn’t drugs they were delivering.”

  “What was it?”

  Horst glanced over to the cluster of waiting cops. “Vistole must have smelled a setup after he entered the drop site. He pulled his piece and yelled for MacDonald to get back to their car. He fired a few shots wide, then ran out to follow his partner. That’s when Rick tried to stop them both.”

  “And Vistole shot him.”

  “That’s right. But like I said, neither of ’em got very far. Vistole got carted off in a meat wagon. MacDonald was easy to grab. He was halfway to their car, still holding tight to his duffel bag when two cops stopped him. They open the bag. Body cams caught the whole thing. Not a flake of meth or a bag of weed.”

  “What was it, then? What were they delivering?”

  “Cash,” Horst answered in a hushed tone. “A giant duffel stuffed with hundred-dollar bills. Nobody’s counted it yet, but from the looks
of things, it’s well over a million dollars.”

  Horst had described Vistole and MacDonald as two-bit criminals. She wondered where they’d get their hands on a million dollars. But the sight of Gitch Brooks wheeling a service cart into the ER pulled her attention back to the moment before she got the question out.

  Gitch had come to work at The Ten-Ten seven months earlier, just before Christmas. It hadn’t taken long for her to become a favorite with customers and staff. Her bright blue eyes, pale skin, and cupid’s bow lips contrasted with her close-cropped coal-black hair. Gitch was small, no more than an inch past five feet and certainly no heavier than a hundred pounds. But she earned the respect of the bar staff with her ability to hoist case after case of beer, never complaining, never asking for help. Her sunny style with customers, coupled with a memory that allowed her to always remember what they drank, even if she’d only served them once, made her one of The Ten-Ten’s top tip earners. Sydney knew Roscoe had come to depend on her as his steadiest employee. She had no doubt he’d sent her to the ER knowing that if anyone could bring a ray of light into this dark situation, it was this little dynamo.

  “I’ll find some room over there,” Gitch told Sydney without preamble. “Can I bring you a plate?”

  Sydney shook her head. Horst declined as well when Gitch asked him the same thing.

  “Thanks for doing this,” Sydney told her. “The least we can do is feed them.”

  Gitch nodded and Sydney realized it was the first time she’d ever seen the young woman without a smile on her face. “Are you and Rick close?” Sydney asked.

  “I take care of Jocko when Rick goes out of town and can’t take him,” Gitch answered before she pushed the cart over to where the police vigil was huddled.

  “She’s quality people,” Horst remarked. “Even your mother sings her praises. And you know how hard it is to please Nancy Richardson.”

  The mention of her mother brought a new flood of memories of the ER vigil for her father all those years ago. “This can’t be happening. Not Rick.”