Lucky Break (Lucky Strickland)

by Christine Gael

  And Abby’s non-response was all the response Lucky needed.

  “Whatever. I’ll take care of it.” With that, Lucky disconnected and tossed her cell phone on the coffee table, barely resisting the urge to hurl it against the wall.

  It had been a hell of a day on all fronts, from the second she’d been woken up the first time until now. Her call to Superior Shuttle had been a bust. She’d spoken to the dispatcher, who had gotten a cancellation call hours before the Bishop’s pickup time. He couldn’t recall if he’d spoken to a male or a female, never mind if the caller had a distinctive voice or accent. It had been a busy day and he’d barely had time to do more than delete the job from that day’s schedule. ‘Los hadn’t fared any better. A talk with the front desk clerk at the Marriott confirmed that the Bishop hadn’t received any calls or visitors during his short stay. All told, they had nothing in the way of leads on the Moncrief murder.

  Batting zero for the day, she was feeling less than optimistic as she approached her father’s room forty-five minutes later. She paused for a second outside the doorway and took a few deep breaths.

  When she walked in, she was relieved to find that he wasn’t in bed with a needle in his arm. Instead, he was seated in his recliner watching Matlock.

  “Hey, Dad,” she murmured softly so as not to startle him. He didn’t acknowledge her, his focus firmly on the TV. “How you feeling?” she asked as she moved to stand next to his chair.

  His expression remained blank, laser-blue eyes locked on the little screen.

  He looked exhausted, the creases in his face more pronounced and the bruise on his jaw from his recent fall turning olive green in sharp contrast to the pallor of his skin. All in all, George Strickland looked like hammered shit.

  “How about something to drink?” she said, snagging a mini jug of orange juice from the undisturbed tray of food and drink beside him.

  She peeled off the foil top and added a straw before holding it close to him in offering, but he ignored it.

  Tension crept up the back of her skull as she glanced at the clock on the wall.

  This was going to take some time. More than she could really spare, but there was nothing to be done about it. She set the juice down and took a second to pop a quick text off to Carlos, letting him know she might be a little late getting back. Then, she pulled up a chair beside her father and turned off the television.

  For the next fifteen minutes, he sat silently while she held his hand and talked. She told him about how she spilled coffee all over her shirt that morning. She filled him in on world news and how one of his favorite actors was starring in a new thriller. She told him about Emmie’s birthday party, and how cute she’d looked in her party dress. George barely blinked, but she didn't let that stop her. She was wracking her brain for something else to tell him when he turned toward her.

  "Did you find out who murdered Brad yet, El?"

  The red-rimmed eyes that had been blank and unseeing were now sharp and focused, drilling into hers.

  "No, Dad. Not yet."

  He turned his head to fix his gaze on the blank TV screen in front of him again. The only indication of his awareness now was the trembling of his hands on the blanket in his lap.

  A knot formed in her stomach as she tried not to focus on the question. If he was in there somewhere, underneath all the cobwebs and blank spaces, surely he knew she wanted justice for Brad as much as he did. That she never stopped thinking about it…

  One of the CNAs stuck her head into the room. "Cafeteria will have lunch out for another half hour. You want to take him down and see if anything catches his interest or you want me to?"

  "I'll give it a shot, thanks.”

  George’s face remained blank as Lucky helped him from the recliner into his wheelchair. Several of the other residents waved and called greetings to him as they made their way down the hallway to the cafeteria, but her father didn’t respond.

  “All right, let’s see what they’ve got today, shall we?” she said as they approached the short line for food, trying to sound upbeat despite the fear that had started bubbling inside her.

  This wasn’t the first time he’d been like this. Still, the fact that these days seemed to get closer and closer together wasn’t lost on her. Was it the beginning of the end? Eventually, the day would come that his brain would go offline and just never come back. She knew that on an intellectual level, but she was so not prepared for it emotionally. The very thought of that happening before Brad’s killer had been found was too devastating to even contemplate.

  “Monty! Oh, dear, I’m glad you’ve come.”

  Beverly Marks hobbled up beside them and the older woman clutched Lucky’s arm, tugging her down to eye-level.

  "I hate to be the bearer of bad news," she said in an exaggerated whisper, "but Rodolpho is gone. He's decided to leave my employ and head back to open a restaurant in Venice, of all places." She rolled her eyes and shuddered. "Have you ever smelled that place in the heat of summer? If you're going to go to Italy, at least make it Sardinia or Rome, you know what I’m saying? I've got this new guy, and he can't cook worth a damn, but he has bedroom eyes, which I rather like." She elbowed Lucky in the side and waggled one brow.

  The new guy stood behind the glass countertop, not a foot away, wearing a hairnet, a wry, dimpled smile on his face. "Ricky," he said with a pointed look at his name tag. "Nice to meet you, Monty."

  In spite of her mood, Lucky found herself smiling back and didn’t bother to correct him on the name. If she lost her marbles when she got older, she hoped she lost them in the same place Beverly did. Her world was fascinating and exciting. Lucky had never seen a happier person with dementia in her life. If only it had gone that way for her father. It still wouldn’t be easy, but it would be a lot less gut-wrenching if his days didn’t pass in a fog of confusion punctuated by moments of fear and crippling anxiety.

  "What will you all be having?" Ricky asked, spreading his hands wide. "We've got pork medallions with a ginger glaze and carrot puree or a meatloaf and mash. Don't forget to save room for bread pudding."

  They ordered their meals—Bev selecting the pork and Lucky going with the meatloaf for both her and her father—and then made their way to the lunch table.

  It took a good ten minutes, but as Beverly chatted animatedly, George began to tune in, little by little. She was telling them a story about a time she’d gone to Egypt and explored the pyramids when Lucky could tell he’d checked back in fully, or as fully as he was able these days. His eyes were firmly focused on Bev as she wove her tale.

  Taking a chance, Lucky reached for the cup of tea on his tray and lifted it toward him.

  “Thank you,” he murmured absently as he accepted the cup and took a long sip, gaze never leaving Bev.

  She wanted to weep with relief, but played it off like nothing happened as Bev continued. Over the next few minutes, Lucky managed to get her father to eat half his meal and drink both his tea and most of his water as she mentally thanked God for Bev. The woman was not only good for George’s mental state, she was also a good buffer. Every time Lucky and her father were alone, he wanted to talk about Brad. And Brad was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

  Lucky chewed and swallowed the last of her bread pudding past the knot in her throat. Sure, from now until the end of time, she could try to schedule her visits for social hours and meals when Bev was likely to be around, but that didn’t change the facts. And the facts were that she’d dropped the ball in a big way. She hadn't had a chance to work on Brad's case for even a second in the past week.

  As she thumbed through her mental datebook, she realized that it hadn't just been this week. It had been almost a month since she'd touched his file. Sure, she’d been inundated, especially this week, but she’d be lying if she said that was the only reason.

  The truth was, she’d failed at every turn so far. Every new stone she'd kicked over to that point had wound up being another nail in Brad's coffin. The peo
ple in his life that she'd listed in her own mind as potential suspects had dropped off the list one by one the deeper her investigation went.

  She hadn't set his case aside because she was busy. She'd set it aside because she was terrified she'd almost reached the end of the line. The last of the suspects. The last of the rocks to be kicked…

  So now what?

  She shoved her tray away and silently vowed to take the rest of her vacation time once these two cases had been solved. Then, she'd break out the old box and start again, from the top. She had to have missed something.

  "Did I miss meatloaf day?"

  A friendly voice interrupted her thoughts and she looked up.

  “Hey, Doug,” Lucky replied.

  Beverly’s grandson flipped the remaining empty chair at their table backward and straddled it.

  "Monty,” he replied with a wink before turning to his grandmother. “Hey, Gram," he said, bending to give Beverly a kiss on her leathery cheek. "Sorry I'm late, I had a bunch of students who needed more time on a test. How was your lunch?"

  Doug was in his late thirties and was a professor at Rutgers University. Bev seemed very proud of his accomplishments—when she remembered them—and he was clearly crazy about her.

  Lucky pushed aside her melancholy and offered him a smile.

  "Good to see you again. They just started cleaning up, but I bet if you get up there fast, you could convince them to hook you up with a slab of the good stuff."

  “I’m good. I was starving so I stopped at the gift shop and grabbed a snack,” he said, holding up the empty candy wrapper with a wince as he patted his little pot belly. “I’ll have to hit the treadmill hard tonight to pay for my transgression.” He leaned back and reached into the pocket of his chinos and pulled out a second candy bar. “I figured if I’m going to be bad, you might as well join me, Gram.”

  He handed the slab of chocolate to Bev, who shot him a toothy grin. “My favorite!” She leaned in close and gave his hand a squeeze. “Did you happen to see Thelma and Louise while you were in there?” she hissed. “You’ve gotta watch those two like a hawk, you know.”

  That got a genuine laugh out of Lucky. “Thelma” and “Louise” were actually named Margie and Stella. When Bev had first told Lucky that she'd seen the two old ladies casing the nursing home gift shop, she'd assumed it was just another one of the older woman’s delusions. But damned if Lucky hadn't stopped in one day to pick her dad up some Tic Tacs and seen it with her own two eyes.

  Stella had acted as the distraction, luring the cashier into a discussion about the overpriced muffins, while Margie rolled up in her wheelchair with a blanket in her lap and stuffed a copy of the Ladies Home Journal underneath it. But it hadn't stopped there. Lucky had watched her tuck away a half dozen Twix bars before she went over and insisted that all the merchandise be returned to the shelves. Margie had done it—grudgingly. Lucky had told her she was a detective with the NYPD and would find out if they ever tried anything like that again.

  “They weren’t there this time, but I promise, if I see them doing anything sketchy, I’ll let you know,” Doug promised.

  "If I wasn't so wrapped up in writing this article about the scandal behind the scenes on the set of The Maltese Falcon, I'd be calling my friends over at the police station to deal with them right now," Beverly said with a sniff.

  Doug smiled at his grandmother with such affection that it reminded her of Brad and the closeness he'd had with their mother, and that emotional punch, combined with exhaustion and another difficult visit with her dad, suddenly became too much.

  She glanced at her watch and cleared her throat. “I’ve got to head back to work, so I’ll leave you guys to figure out how to deal with Thelma and Louise. Dad, say goodbye to Doug and Bev, all right?” she added as she made quick work of cleaning up their trays.

  They said their goodbyes and she steered her father back to his room. Once he was settled in front of the TV again, she excused herself with a mumbled goodbye and jetted down the hall to the visitor’s bathroom. Tears clogged her throat as she slouched over the sink, turning the faucet on full blast and splashing tepid water onto her face.

  It was all right. Everything was going to be okay. She’d gotten her dad to drink and eat—double win—and when she got back to the station she and ‘Los were about to crack one of these cases wide open.

  “So get it together, woman,” she muttered at her reflection as she patted her face dry. Letting her emotions get the better of her was helpful to exactly no one.

  After making a quick pitstop for a double espresso and spending the trip back to the precinct listening to ocean waves crashing against rocks on her headphones, she was feeling marginally better.

  “You look bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” ‘Los observed as she approached his desk.

  He looked so pleased at the notion, she didn’t want to burst his bubble by telling him that she was barely holding it together with a mixture of caffeine and denial.

  “You too. Get some shut eye?”

  “Yup, I actually did. Viv, ‘Lita, and the kids headed down to the Jersey shore to spend a couple days with her sister. The house was dead silent.” He grinned and shook his head. “It was so weird, I ended up turning on the TV just for some background noise.”

  She’d been at the house often enough to know that chatter and chaos was the norm. As much as she liked her solitude and quiet time, she could imagine getting used to the giggles and chatter.

  She was about to respond when her desk phone rang. ‘Los turned his attention back to his computer screen as she padded over to her desk and answered it.

  “Strickland.”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  It was Bisby, and his tone was as serious as she’d ever heard it. Her fingers twitched, clutching the receiver like it was a lifeline.

  “Yup,” she lied. “Shoot.”

  “Moncrief was violated post mortem. We just extracted a marble chess piece from his rectum. A white bishop.”

  Son of a bitch.

  18

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Captain Satterfield’s snarled epithet mirrored her initial thoughts exactly. She and ‘Los had spent fifteen minutes discussing all the potential issues this new bit of information posed before bringing it to their boss, in hopes of coming up with a way to diffuse this grenade a little, but there was no helping it.

  This was poised to be yet another major clusterfuck.

  “The Catholic Church has been on me like white on rice since I walked in this morning, and when I finally got them to stop calling, the Commissioner and the mayor started in. They were already in a fucking lather about the optics of this whole thing, and now you’re telling me this?”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment and leaned forward.

  “I could’ve retired last year, you know,” he muttered, one, ham-sized fist clenched on the desk like he wanted to splinter the thing into a pile of kindling. “Almost did, until the wife started talking about going on a bunch of cruises. Imagine, me thinking floating around the Caribbean on a hundred million dollar petri dish with a thousand strangers stinking of coconut oil and rum was my own private hell when, in fact, this shitstorm awaited me.” He let out a snort and then leveled Lucky with a glare. “What else did he say?”

  “That was it,” she said, shrugging. “His full report will be ready tomorrow sometime, but he figured we’d want to get ahead of this. I thanked him and let him get back to work.”

  Satterfield scratched at his bristly, gray mustache and nodded, his knee-jerk reaction taking a back seat as his cop brain kicked in.

  “Alrighty, then. Initial thoughts?”

  ‘Los shot her a glance and she nodded, letting him take the lead.

  “I think the most obvious is revenge. An eye for an eye, only…”

  “Right,” the Captain said with a wince. “So if that’s the case, we’re looking for a former altar boy or a parishioner or something? Jesus Christ. What else y
ou got?”

  “Could be that’s what the killer wants us to think,” ‘Los continued. “We’ll look into Moncrief’s finances, see what shakes loose there. Get in contact with his friends and family in DC, find out if he had any known enemies.”

  A silence fell over the room, eclipsing the sound of three people grasping at straws.

  They were all very familiar with Occam’s Razor. The simplest answer was usually the right one. A concept that held true way more often than not in their line of work.

  “We also need to set up an interview with the Archbishop,” Lucky chimed in. “He caught some sort of virus, which led him to call on Moncrief to do the graduation service. Seems very unlikely this was a robbery gone bad or a random act of violence, now, and that call is what brought him to New York. We requested a meeting with him, but he’s still ill. They’ll call as soon as he is well enough to see us. But at the end of the day, there’s no way around it. We’re going to have to request the Bishop’s records, and get access to any complaints against him.”

  Satterfield rubbed his bald head and grunted. “Yup. All right, for the time being, keep your mouths shut,” he warned with a scowl. “Once we get the full report from Bisby, I’ll call Special Victims Department in to liaise. You two get back to work.”

  They stood in tandem and made for the door.

  “Anything on Mel Walsh yet?” he asked, cutting their escape short.

  “Nothing solid yet but we’ve got a couple interviews lined up today,” ‘Los replied smoothly. “We’ll keep you in the loop.”

  “You do that.”

  The two of them exited the office and ‘Los headed straight for the elevators, Lucky keeping pace beside him. They didn’t speak until they stepped out into the afternoon heat.

  “That went as well as could be expected,” ‘Los said as soon as the doors closed behind them.

  “His head didn’t explode, if that’s what you mean. Where are we going, anyway?” Lucky added as they jogged toward the car. “I thought the meeting wasn’t until three.”