by Julie Miller
“But the woman’s never married. She’s only had the one boyfriend we can verify.” Okay, so a fiancé who’d hurt her qualified as low-life devil scum, not boyfriend, in his book. But Rosemary March had money. A lot of it. Even if she had three warts on the end of her nose and looked like a gorilla, there should be a dozen men hitting on her. She should be on the social register donating to charities. She should be traveling the world or building a mansion or driving a luxury car or doing something that would make her show up on somebody’s radar in Kansas City. “The woman’s practically a recluse. She has her groceries delivered. She’s got a teaching degree, but hasn’t worked in a school since that plane wreck her parents were in. She’s probably a hoarder. Her idea of a social outing is visiting her brother in prison. If that doesn’t smack of crazy cat lady, I don’t know what does.”
“It’s a wonder you’ve never been able to keep a woman.”
Max forced a laugh, although the sound fell flat on his eardrums. Somehow, subjecting a good woman to his mood swings and bullheaded indifference to most social graces didn’t seem very fair. But there were times, like today, when he regretted not having the sweet smells of a woman and the soft warmth of a welcoming body to lose himself in. Looked as though another long run or hour of lifting weights in the gym tonight would be his only escape from the sorrows of the day. “I make no claims on being a catch.”
“Good, ’cause you’d lose that bet.”
He wasn’t the only cop in this car with relationship issues. “Give it a rest, junior. I don’t see you asking me to stand up as best man anytime soon. When are you going to quit making goo-goo eyes at Katie Rinaldi and ask her out?”
“There’s her son to consider. There’s too much history between us.” Trent muttered one of Max’s favorite curses. “It’s complicated.”
“Women usually are.”
This time, the laughter between them was genuine.
When Max and Trent both got assigned to the Cold Case Squad, their superior officer must have paired the two of them together as some kind of yin and yang thing—blond, brunette; older, younger; a veteran of a hard knocks life and an optimistic young man who’d grown up in a suburban neighborhood much like this one, with a mom and a dad and 2.5 siblings or whatever the average was these days; an enlisted soldier who’d gone into the Army right out of high school and a football-scholarship winner who’d graduated cum laude and skipped a career in the pros because of one concussion too many. Max and Trent were a textbook example of the good cop/bad cop metaphor.
And no one had ever asked Max to play the good-cop role.
But their strengths balanced each other. He had survival instincts honed on the field of battle and in the dark shadows of city streets. He was one of the few detectives in KCPD with marksman status who wasn’t on a SWAT team. And if it was mechanical, he could probably get it started or keep it running with little more than the toolbox in his trunk. As for their weaknesses? Hell, Detective Goody Two-shoes over there probably didn’t have any weakness. Trent wasn’t just an athlete. He was book smart. Patient. Always two or three steps ahead of anybody else in the room. He was the only cop in the department who’d ever taken Max down in hand-to-hand combat training—and that was because of some brainiac trick he’d used against him. And he was one of the few people left on the planet Max trusted without question. Trent Dixon reminded Max of a certain captain he’d served under during his Army stint in the Middle East. He would have followed Jimmy Stecher to the ends of the earth and back, and, in some ways, he had.
Only Jimmy had never made it back from that last door-to-door skirmish where he and the others had been taken prisoner. Not really. Oh, Max had led the rescue and they’d shipped home on the evac plane together after that last do-or-die firefight to get him out of that desert village. They’d been in Walter Reed hospital for a few weeks together, too. The two men he’d been captured with had been shot to death in front of him. Jimmy hadn’t cracked and revealed troop positions or battle strategies, and he’d never let them film him reading their latest manifesto to use him as propaganda. But part of Jimmy had died inside on that nightmarish campaign—the part that could survive in the real, normal world. And Max should have seen it coming. He’d been responsible for retrieving their dead and getting their commander out of there. But he hadn’t saved Jimmy. Not really. He hadn’t realized there was one more soldier who’d still needed him.
He’d failed his mission. His friend was dead.
Despite the bright summer sunshine burning through the windshield of his classic car, Max felt the darkness creeping into his thoughts. The image of what a bullet to the brain could do to a man’s head was tattooed on his memories as surely as the ink marking his left shoulder. He’d known today would be a tough one—the anniversary of Jimmy’s suicide.
Trent knew it, too.
“Stay with me, brother.” His partner’s deeply pitched voice echoed through the car, drawing Max out of his annual funk. “Not everybody’s the enemy today. I need you focused on this interview.”
Max nodded, slamming the door on his ugly past. He rolled the unlit cigar between his fingers and chomped down on it again. “This is busywork, and you know it.” Probably why Trent had volunteered the two of them to make this trip to the suburbs instead of sitting in the precinct office reading through files with the other detectives on the team. Max didn’t blame him. Teaming with him, especially on days like this, was probably a pretty thankless job. He should be glad Trent was looking out for him. He was glad. Still didn’t make this trip to the March house any less of a wild-goose chase when he was more in the mood to do something concrete like make an arrest or run down a perp. “Rosemary March isn’t about to confess or tell us anything her brother said. If she knows something about Bratcher’s murder, she’s kept quiet for six years. Don’t know why she’d start gettin’ chatty about it now.”
Trent relaxed back in his seat, maybe assured that Max was with him in the here and now. “I think she’s worth checking out. Other than her brother’s attorney, she’s the only person who visits Stephen March down in Jeff City. If he’s going to confide anything to anyone, it’ll be to his sister.”
“What’s he gonna confide that’ll do our case any good?” Max stepped on the accelerator to zip through a yellow light and turn into the suburban neighborhood. Hearing the engine hum with the power he relished beneath the hood, he pulled off his sunglasses and rubbed the dashboard. “That’s my girl.”
“I swear you talk sweeter to this car than any woman I’ve ever seen you with,” Trent teased. “But seriously, we aren’t running a race.”
“Beats pokin’ along in your pickup truck.”
Besides, today of all days, he needed to be driving the Chevelle. The car had been a junker when Jimmy had bequeathed it to him. Now it was a testament to his lost commander, a link to the past, a reminder of the better man Max should have been. Restoring this car that had once belonged to Jimmy wasn’t just a hobby. It was therapy for the long, lonely nights and empty days when the job and a couple of beers weren’t enough to keep the memories at bay. Or when he just needed some time to think.
Right now, though, he needed to stop thinking and get on with the job at hand.
Max put the sunglasses back on his face and cruised another block before plucking the cigar from his lips. “Just because the team is working on some theory that this cold-case murder is related to the death of the reporter Stephen March killed, it doesn’t mean they are. We’ve got no facts to back up the idea that March had anything to do with Bratcher’s death. March used a gun. Bratcher was poisoned. March’s victim was doing a story on Leland Asher and his criminal organization, and there’s no evidence that Richard Bratcher was connected to Asher or the reporter. And Stephen March sure isn’t part of any organized crime setup. If Liv and Lieutenant Rafferty-Taylor want to connect the two murders, I think we ought to be dig
ging into Asher and his cronies. The mob could have any number of reasons to want to eliminate a lawyer.”
“But poison?” Trent shrugged his massive shoulders. “That hardly sounds like a mob-style hit to me.”
“What if Asher hired a hit lady? Women are more likely to kill someone using poison than a man is. And dead is dead.” Max tapped his fingers with the cigar on the console between them to emphasize his point. “Facts make a case. We should be investigating any women associated with Asher and his business dealings.”
But Trent was big enough and stubborn enough not to be intimidated by Max’s grousing. “Even if she turns out to be a shriveled old prune, Rosemary March is a woman. Therefore, she meets your criteria as a potential suspect. Doesn’t sound like such a wild-goose chase now, does it?”
Growling a curse at Trent’s dead-on, smart-aleck logic, Max stuffed the cigar back between his teeth. It was a habit he’d picked up during his stint in the Army before college and joining the police force. And though the docs at Walter Reed had convinced him to quit lighting up so his body could heal and he could stay in fighting shape, it was a tension-relieving habit he had no intention of denying himself. Especially on stressful days like this one.
Feeling a touch of the melancholy rage that sometimes fueled his moods, Max shut down the memories that tried to creep in and nudged the accelerator to zip through another yellow light.
“You know...” Trent started, “you take better care of this car than you do yourself. Maybe you ought to rethink your priorities.”
“And maybe you ought to mind your own business.”
“You’re my partner. You are my business.”
Max glanced over at his dark-haired nemesis. Conversations like this made him feel like Trent’s pop or Dutch uncle, as if life had aged him far beyond the twelve years that separated them in age. Still, Trent was the closest thing he had to a friend here in KC. The younger detective dealt with his moods and attitude better than anybody since Jimmy. Nope. He wasn’t going there.
“Bite me, junior.” Max pulled up to the curb in front of the white house with blue shutters and red rosebushes blooming along the front of the porch.
“I know today is a rough one for you.” Trent pulled his notebook from beneath the seat before he clapped a hand on Max’s shoulder. “But seriously, brother. Did you get that shirt out of the laundry? You know you’re supposed to fold them or hang them up when you take them out of the dryer, right? Did you even shave this morning?”
“You are not my mama.” Although part of him appreciated the concern behind Trent’s teasing, Max shrugged his hand away and killed the engine. “Get out of my car. And don’t scratch anything on your way out.”
Max set his cigar in the ashtray and checked the rearview mirror, scrubbing his fingers over the gold-and-tan stubble that he probably should have attended to before leaving for work this morning. Although the crew cut was the same as it had been back in basic training, the wrinkled chambray of his short-sleeved shirt would have earned him a demerit and a lecture from Jimmy. What a mess. One beer too many and a sketchy night’s sleep had left him ill-equipped to deal with today.
Swearing at the demons staring back at him, Max climbed out, tucking in the tails of his shirt and adjusting the badge and gun at the waist of his jeans as he surveyed up and down the street. Looked like a pretty ordinary summer morning here in middle-class America. Dogs barking out back. Flowers blooming. Kids playing in the yard. Royals baseball banners flying proudly. Didn’t look like the hoity-toity neighborhood where he expected a millionaire crackpot to live. Didn’t look much like a place where they could track down clues to a six-year-old murder, either.
But he had to give Trent credit for dragging him out on this fool’s errand. Driving the Chevy and breathing in the fresh air beat being cooped up in the office with a bunch of paperwork and his gloomy thoughts. Max tipped his face to the sunshine for a few moments, locking down the bad memories before he took the steps two at a time and followed Trent up to the Marches’ front porch.
“What is this? Fort Knox?” he drawled, eyeing the high-tech gadgetry of the alarm on the front door, along with the knob lock and dead bolt. “My grandma lives in a brand-new apartment complex and doesn’t have this kind of security.”
“The woman does live alone,” Trent reminded him.
Max peered in through the front bay window while Trent rang the doorbell. The front room was neat as a pin, if stacks of boxes and piles of papers on nearly every flat surface counted. But not a cat in sight. He refused to believe that the noise of dogs barking out back might in any way disprove his theory about crazy Rosemary March.
“Yes?” Several seconds passed before the red steel door opened halfway. He could barely hear the woman’s soft voice through the glass storm door. “May I help you?”
Trent flashed his badge and identified them. “KCPD, ma’am. I’m Detective Dixon and this is my partner, Max Krolikowski. We’re here to ask some questions. Are you Rosemary March?” She must have nodded. “Could you open the outside door, too?”
“If you step back, I will. I’ll disable the alarm and come out.”
Max moved to one side while Trent retreated to the requested distance between them.
Max had expected that shriveled-up prune from his imagination to appear. He at least expected to see a homely plain Jane with pop-bottle glasses. He wasn’t expecting the generously built woman with flawless alabaster skin, dressed neck to knee in a gauzy white dress, exposing only her arms and calves to the summer heat. Although her hair, the color of a shiny copper penny, was drawn back into a bun so tight that words like spinster and schoolmarm danced on his tongue, he hadn’t expected Rosemary March to be so...feminine. So curvy. He wasn’t expecting to see signs of pretty.
He wasn’t expecting the Colt automatic she held down in the folds of her skirt, either.
Chapter Three
Max’s fingers immediately went to his holster. “Gun!”
The redhead nudged open the glass storm door and slipped the pistol behind her back as though they wouldn’t notice it. “I asked you to step—”
“Damn it, lady. Keep that thing where we can see it.” Max put up one hand to swing the door open wide and folded the other hand around her arm, sliding it down over her wrist until he had the barrel of her weapon in his grasp.
“Get out of my house—” The redhead gasped and recoiled, tugging against his grip. “Let go of me.”
No way. Even if she didn’t mean them any harm, he wasn’t trusting that a fruitcake like her wouldn’t accidentally fire off a round. “Damn it, lady, relax. We’re just here to talk.”
She curled both hands around the butt of the weapon now. If her finger reached that trigger... “Please don’t swear like that. It isn’t polite.”
“And pointing a gun at us is?” Two of her hands against one of his was no contest. She stumbled out the door, uselessly trying to hold on while he pried the weapon from her grip. A rush that was more anger than relief fired through his veins when he realized how light it was. “Oh, hell, no.” He turned aside, dropping the empty magazine from the handle and opening the firing chamber. “This thing isn’t even loaded.”
Her gaze was as icy cool as her skin. “May I please have it back?”
Max turned the gun over in his hands. “This thing is Army issue. About twenty years old.” He reset the magazine and thrust the Colt back at her, butt first. If she recoiled half a step at his abrupt action and loud voice, he didn’t care. “It isn’t yours.”
“It was my father’s.”
“Didn’t he ever tell you that you damn sure never point an empty weapon at a guy whose gun can really shoot? Hell, what if I’d pulled my sidearm instead of grabbing yours?”
Her eyes were the silvery color of twilight as she angled them up to him, searching for the intent
behind his mirrored glasses. She finally took the gun from him and hugged it near her waist. “You’re swearing again.”
“Looking down the barrel of a gun does that to me.”
“I didn’t point it at you,” she snapped. “You had no reason to—” And then she inhaled a calming breath and turned to Trent, as though raising her voice to Max violated some code of conduct she wouldn’t allow. “I was putting away my father’s pistol when the doorbell rang. If I had known you were the police, I would have locked it up first. But I thought it was my friend here to give me a ride into the city, and he would understand. He knows I don’t keep it loaded.”
Jimmy’s hand had held an Army pistol that fateful day, too. Max’s mind went hazy for a split second as the gruesome image tried to take hold. But he ruthlessly shoved it aside. Of all the stupid, fool stunts for this woman to pull today. “You don’t carry a gun around unless you’re prepared to use it.”
“And you don’t just grab a person because you—” Her chin jerked up to give him a straight-on look at the pink stains dotting her pale cheeks before she clamped her mouth shut and dropped her gaze. Well, what do you know? Crazy Dog Lady had a temper.
“Ease up, Max,” Trent warned.
Those gray eyes flashed in Max’s direction although she turned her body toward his partner, rightly suspecting that Trent would be the one more apt to listen to a reasonable explanation. “You should have called first. I have an appointment this morning with my attorney. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to come to the house.”
“Maybe we should start this conversation again.” Trent raised his notebook between them and intervened, leaving Max wondering if it was his partner’s presence or some snobby code of behavior that made her check her tongue when she clearly wanted to lambaste him for putting his hands on her. She turned her full focus on the taller man, dismissing Max. Trent pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them into his chest pocket. “I apologize for my partner here. His PR skills might be a little rusty, but believe me, he’s a good cop. You’re perfectly safe with him. There’s no one else I trust to have my back more. Are you Rosemary March?”