Lawman Lover

by Saranne Dawson

  Some people were leaving, while others lingered in the aisle, talking among themselves. Amanda tried to push past them as fast as possible, scanning the throng ahead for any sign of Tina, hoping that she would recognize her if she saw her.

  She had all but given up hope by the time she reached the hallway. Tina could have gone already, or she might still be back inside, invisible in the crowd. She was small, probably only about five-three or so, and she might have changed her hair color.

  Amanda’s eyes scanned the departing parents—then stopped as she saw two women turn the corner, heading for the front door. One of them was the right size, she thought, though her hair wasn’t blond. She turned briefly and looked back into the auditorium, where the reporters now surrounded the panelists. She should be there; her absence would be noted.

  Then she turned and hurried after the two women. By the time she reached the intersecting hallway, they were pushing through the outside doors. “Tina!” she called, her voice echoing crazily in the empty hallway.

  The two women stopped, and the smaller one turned toward her. It was Tina: a different, more subdued Tina, but definitely her. Amanda forgot her dignity and everything else and ran toward her, fearing that Tina might disappear before . she could get to her.

  But she didn’t. Amanda saw her say something to the other woman, who then continued on her way. A few seconds later, Amanda was standing before this new version of Tina Jacobs, who gave her a nervous smile.

  “It was my voice, wasn’t it?” Tina asked. “I knew I should have kept my mouth shut in there. But I figured you probably wouldn’t remember me after all this time—my name, that is.”

  “I’ve been trying to find you ever since you called,” Amanda told her as they both walked through the door. “Well, not exactly since then. I had to go through my old cases from the P.D.’s office to find you—or your brother, actually. How is he, by the way?”

  She knew she was babbling, but she also knew that she couldn’t just grab this woman and force her to talk. It was clear that Tina was nervous.

  The quick smile that Amanda remembered transformed her face into that of a gamin. “He’s doing great! He went into the army and decided to make it his career. He’s an electronics specialist. Don’t ask me to explain what he does. It’s complicated. But he’s in Germany now.”

  “And your mother?”

  “She’s in Pennsylvania, living with my aunt. She hasn’t been well. I try to get to see her as often as I can.”

  “And you? Tell me what’s going on in your life.”

  Tina rolled her eyes, then sighed. “Well, I guess it’s getting better, but it’s still kind of rough. I’ve got two kids. Their father took off a year ago. We were on welfare for a while, but then I took some courses at the community college and I’ve just started a job at the bank—in data processing.”

  Amanda laughed. “Well, I guess that explains why I couldn’t find you. It sounds like a good career move.”

  Tina shrugged. “I made more money at a couple of my waitressing jobs than I’m making now, but the hours are a lot better—with the kids, you know.”

  “How old are they?”

  “The boy is ten, and the girl just turned three. They’re good kids, but...” She heaved a sigh. “I’m just hoping that I can get out of here soon, before he starts to get into trouble.”

  Amanda followed her glance and saw the playground where a little girl just about her son’s age had been killed. “Can I give you a ride home? We could talk on the way. Or if you have the time, maybe we could go somewhere.”

  Tina shook her head. “I’d better get home. My sitter’s only fourteen and she has to get back to her place. It’s only a couple of blocks, but you can drive me there if you want.”

  As soon as they were in the car. Tina began to talk about her life and her children. Amanda could feel her nervousness, which did little to ease her own qualms. Whatever she knew, it was clear to Amanda that Tina was finding it difficult to tell her, and to Amanda, that meant that Michael must have been correct in his initial impression that Tina knew it was something that could hurt her.

  Amanda was still seeking a way to ease Tina into the reason for her calls when she broke off in midsentence and pointed to a building just ahead on the left.

  “I live there—the brick building with the dark trim.”

  Amanda pulled into the small parking lot beside the building as Tina gave her a tentative and rueful smile. “It’s not much, but it’s better than where I grew up, anyway.”

  “It looks nice,” Amanda said, aware of how dumb her comment must sound—and how patronizing, coming from someone who drove a Mercedes, and had grown up on the Hill. But she’d seen the building where Tina had lived before, and this one did look better, at least on the outside. The neighborhood was better, too.

  “There aren’t any junkies in the hallways,” Tina went on, “and the landlord does make repairs.”

  There were no empty spaces in the lot, so Amanda just stopped in the middle, and a tense silence filled the car. When it became apparent that Tina, whom she remembered as being outspoken, was going to remain silent, Amanda gave up trying to think of a gentle way to begin asking questions.

  “Why did you call me, Tina—instead of calling the police?”

  “I’m not really sure about it, you know?” Tina replied in a softly pleading voice.

  “I understand. But any information you have might help the police in their investigation.”

  “Is Lieutenant Quinn still in charge?” Tina asked.

  “Yes. Do you know him?”

  Tina shook her head. “I’ve never met him, but I’ve heard people talk about him. I know he grew up down here, and I heard that he had it real tough when he was a kid.”

  “He did. What do people say about him?” she asked curiously.

  Tina shrugged. “I guess it depends on who’s talking, you know? Everyone says he’s real tough, but most people think he’s fair. And he was right when he said at the meeting that there are people who know who killed that little girl.”

  “Do you know anything about it?” Amanda asked.

  “No. If I did, I’d tell him.”

  “But Tina, you do know something about another murder, and you haven’t told him.”

  “Yeah, I know. But it was so long ago.”

  “But if you’re right about the victim, she was your friend. Don’t you want to see her killer caught?”

  “She wasn’t really my friend,” Tina protested mildly. “We just knew each other, that’s all. You know how it is when you’re a kid. Sometimes, you aren’t too careful about who you hang around with.”

  “Tina, are you afraid that someone might hurt you if you tell what you know?”

  Tina threw her a surprised look. “Oh, no. That’s not it. I just don’t want to see...anyone hurt, that’s all.”

  “By ‘hurt,’ you don’t mean physically hurt?” Then, when Tina shook her head emphatically, Amanda plunged into it. “And when you said ‘anyone,’ you really mean me, don’t you?”

  Tina nodded, and Amanda could see the sheen of unshed tears in her eyes. “You were really good to us, you know? I mean, I’d heard about public defenders and how they just try to get everyone to plea-bargain. But you listened to us and you helped.”

  “I’m going to be completely honest with you, Tina. If your brother had come to me a year or so later, instead of when I was new on the job, I might not have done the same thing. It’s a terrible system and it wears all P.D.’s down, no matter how decent they are. There are so many cases—and most of them are guilty. That’s a fact.”

  Tina nodded. “I understand. It’s like any new job. You want to do your best, but after a while, you stop trying so hard because it doesn’t seem to be getting you anywhere and you stop trying so hard because you see that no one else is.”

  “Exactly.”

  Tina sighed. “It isn’t like that at my job now, though. Everyone really does try and you get lots of p
raise.”

  She was silent for a moment, and this time, Amanda let the silence go on. She could tell that Tina was trying to get her thoughts straight, and she held her breath, waiting. Her heart seemed to have moved up into her throat.

  “Her name was Eve Lauden. She was really pretty, you know—and she knew it, too. She was kind of different—more sophisticated than the rest of us. She had this aunt who bought her nice things and took her to nice places. But then her aunt died. I think she was twelve when that happened.

  “That’s why she decided to do it, you know. She wanted the nice things again. So she went to...to this woman and said that she wanted to be one of her ‘girls.’” Tina put an unpleasant emphasis on the word.

  “This woman was... well, she wasn’t a dealer, exactly. She was a sort of go-between. A lot of people were using coke in those days, not just people in the Bottom, you know. So this woman would give them the names of dealers she trusted.

  “Then she started to supply them with girls, too. She didn’t force anyone, you know, but if a girl was interested, she’d arrange it. Eve didn’t take drugs, but she wanted to make money. She’d tried stealing stuff from nice stores for a while, but she got caught. See, at first, she still had some nice clothes and she could go into good stores, but then she outgrew them and so she knew she had to find another way to get them.

  “She told me that the men were all nice, and they all had lots of money. So she wasn’t worried about getting hurt, you know. She said that’s a big problem for most hookers, but...the woman she worked for was careful about who she sent them to.

  “The last time I saw her, at school, she said that she was thinking about quitting school and going down to the city. One of the others had done that, and Eve said she’d told her you could make a lot more money down there and live in a really nice place and all.

  “So, when she disappeared, everyone just figured that’s what she’d done. Her mother never reported her missing. She was seventeen—close to eighteen—and her mother told me that the police wouldn’t look for her anyway. See, she’d told her mother the same thing she told me. Her mother was living with some guy at the time and she had two other kids to worry about, and I think the guy was abusing her.

  “Anyway, I always kind of wondered about her because she didn’t say goodbye. I mean, we weren’t all that close, but she was good friends with one of the other girls—another hooker, I mean—and she didn’t say goodbye to her, either.

  “I’d almost forgotten about her until I read about the skeleton they found.”

  Tina stopped, and this time, Amanda could tell that she wasn’t going to continue on her own. Fear vied with hope inside her. Was that all it was? Had the discovery of the skeleton merely revived old, unanswered questions?

  “There’s more, isn’t there?” Amanda asked, praying that there wasn’t. “Why would you think that a skeleton found on the island might be Eve’s?”

  Tina took a deep, quavering breath, and Amanda felt her heart leaping still higher into her throat.

  “It’s because of something she’d told me.” She glanced at Amanda, then looked away quickly. “She liked to brag, you know? I mean, she never said the men’s names, but she’d throw out hints, like she wanted us to know that they were important men.

  “She told me that she’d been to the island—to one of the cottages. She said that was what they...you...called them. And then she told Lori, one of the other girls, that she’d found a way to make some real money, that she’d be set up for life.

  “I thought she must have meant that she’d decided to go down to the city, but Lori thought she might be pregnant.”

  Amanda had to force her question out through a badly constricted throat. She could feel icy sweat prickle her skin. “So you’re saying that one of her customers was someone from the island?”

  “Yes, at least if you believe her. I didn’t want to tell you because I’d heard somewhere that you’re all related out there.”

  “Yes, we are, more or less.” Amanda was struggling to remain calm. “Did she ever say anything else about this man—anything at all?”

  “Only that he’d told her that his wife was sick and she didn’t want sex anymore. But she knew he wouldn’t leave her. Lori thought that’s why she got pregnant—to force him to leave her, you know? But maybe he killed her instead.”

  Her final words dropped like stones into the heavy silence. Amanda could hear her own heart pounding and hear her ragged breathing. John Verhoeven. It all fit. Uncle John—not really her uncle, though they were distantly related. He was her godfather, her own father’s closest friend.

  “This Lori,” she began, forcing herself to think like a prosecutor. But she had to stop and clear her throat. “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “No. She left long ago. She went down to the city.”

  “What about her family?”

  “There was only her mom and she died years ago.”

  Amanda could see that Tina wanted to leave, so she managed to smile and thank her for the information. Tina gave her a quick smile and escaped gratefully.

  Amanda drove home in a cold fog. Then she poured herself some sherry and sat in her darkened living room, thinking. It was still circumstantial. There was no proof of anything. Her prosecutor’s mind ran through it and confirmed that.

  But she wasn’t acting as a prosecutor now. As Michael had pointed out, she was playing detective, and the standards were different. There certainly wasn’t enough proof to make an arrest, but there was enough information now to ask John some very tough questions, and to do some more digging.

  And as she reviewed the conversation with Tina, she realized that she hadn’t played detective very well. She should have asked for the name of the woman—the madam, as it were. Tina had very carefully not identified her, she thought, though she’d nearly slipped that one time before catching herself.

  The identity of that woman was critical, Amanda thought, because if she was arranging the “dates,” then she would know the name of Eve’s last customer.

  Amanda got slowly to her feet and let them carry her out to the kitchen. She hadn’t asked for Tina’s phone number, but she had gotten her last name: Workman. And Amanda found her listed in the directory.

  “Tina?” she said when the soft, lisping voice answered. “It’s Amanda. I’m sorry to be bothering you again, but I need the name of the woman who was sending Eve and the others out.”

  After a long silence, Tina said, “I can’t tell you that. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you afraid of her?”

  “No, it’s not that. She’s a good person, you know? People really respect her. I mean, what she did was wrong and all, but she’s changed. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  “Was she ever arrested?” Amanda asked.

  “No. Or at least I’m pretty sure that she wasn’t. She didn’t do it for very long.”

  Amanda thanked her and hung up. She could check old court records but she doubted that she’d find anything. It seemed likely that the woman was the one from Parkside that Sam Hadley, the vice head, had told Michael and her about, and he’d said there were no arrests, just rumors.

  Furthermore, Michael had told her that Sam had gotten in touch with some retired vice cops and none of them had a name to give him—either because there’d been nothing more than rumors, or because they didn’t want to give out a name.

  So where did that leave her—or them? Michael’s image flashed into her mind, and she found herself hoping that he wouldn’t show up tonight. Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. She’d never before wanted so badly to lean on someone, but she couldn’t lean on Michael now, no matter how broad his shoulders or how gentle his words.

  There was, she knew, only one thing she could do. No, there were actually two things, but even as she admitted that, she knew she wasn’t ready to hand it over to Michael.

  She glanced at the phone, thinking briefly that she should call Tina again and ask her not to sa
y anything about Eve’s having been to the island if Michael should happen to find her. But she couldn’t do it. She was walking on the very edge already—and asking that would be stepping over the line.

  Instead, what she had to do was to talk to John herself. If she confronted him with what she knew, he wouldn’t be able to lie to her. But she had to give him a chance to explain.

  “LIEUTENANT QUINN IS waiting for you in your office.”

  Amanda could feel the blood draining from her face, and the expression on her secretary’s face told her that she wasn’t imagining it. She turned quickly and pushed open the door to her office.

  How could he know? It was impossible! He couldn’t have found Tina between the time she’d met with her last night and this morning! But he must have. What was she going to do?

  She pushed the door shut behind her. Michael had his back to her as he stared out the windows into the plaza below. Fear and pain and love mixed explosively inside her. She wanted to run to him and feel the strength and warmth of his arms around her—and at the same time, she wanted to turn and run from him.

  Instead, she stood rooted to the spot, and when Michael turned to her, she saw her worst fears confirmed by the look of triumph on his face. Anger moved in quickly, supplanting all the other emotions. He was enjoying this! He wanted to bring down John Verhoeven!

  But his expression shifted quickly when he saw her. His dark brows knit together into a frown. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  She couldn’t speak. Had she guessed wrong? She knew she hadn’t misread that initial expression, but was she wrong about the reason?

  Michael closed the space between them quickly and drew her into his arms. She remained rigid, nearly paralyzed with fear and confusion. Still holding her securely with one arm, he tipped her chin up to meet his searching gaze. And then, at the last possible minute, she remembered the drive-by shooting and Michael’s plea last night for information. She still couldn’t relax, but at least she found her voice.

  “Did you get some information about the drive-by?”

  He continued to frown for a second, then relaxed and nodded as the triumph returned to his eyes. “Three calls came in last night—all of them identifying the shooter as the same guy—Weems. He was already one of our suspects, but we hadn’t been able to find him. Now we’ve got him—and the gun. I hauled our ballistics guy out of bed at six this morning, and we’ve got a match.