Blind Rage (5 page)

BERNADETTE WAS STUDYING THE DIRECTIONS ON THE BACK OF
a frozen turkey dinner when she was interrupted by a knock.

“Cat. It’s me.”

She tossed the carton onto the counter and went to the door. Garcia was standing in the hallway with a pizza box in his hands. “Hope you don’t mind. I slipped inside the building right after one of your neighbors went outside. The front door doesn’t shut all the way unless you force it. You should tell the caretaker—it’s dangerous and should be fixed.”

“I’ll add it to the list.” She inhaled. “Sausage and green peppers and onions. Now
that’s
dangerous.”

He looked past her into the open loft. “I thought I heard someone else in here.”

“I wish. Can’t remember the last time I had a date.” She pointed to the CD player. Sinatra was launching into another song. “You must have heard the Voice.”

“Right.” Garcia adjusted his grip on the box. “You didn’t eat already, did you?”

“Nope.”

“Let’s tear into it before it gets cold.”

She directed Garcia to the kitchen. “Set it down. I’ll get the plates.”

He dropped the box on the table. Dipping his hands into his trench pockets, he produced a wad of paper napkins. “We don’t need plates.”

“Beer, wine, or water?”

He peeled off his trench and blazer and draped them over the back of a kitchen chair. “Beer for me. A beer would be good.”

“St. Pauli okay?” she asked as she headed to the refrigerator.

“Perfect.” He spotted the carton on the counter and pointed at it. “Lean Cuisine’s on the menu at my house at least once a week.”

Embarrassed, she retrieved the turkey dinner and shoved it back in the freezer. “Cooking for one sucks. What can I say?”

“Aren’t we a couple of pathetic singles?”

She pulled a beer and a bottle of Chardonnay out of the refrigerator. “You didn’t have to make a house call. I told you I was fine.”

“I know you’re fine,” he said, loosening his tie. “I was in the neighborhood. It was dinnertime.”

“Right,” she muttered, and popped the top off the St. Pauli.

AFTER POLISHING OFF
the pizza, Bernadette took one end of the couch and Garcia sat on the other. He was working on his second St. Pauli while she held her second glass of white wine in her hand.

She propped her stocking feet up on the coffee table. “When do I get those files?”

“I’ve got to wrestle them away from Thorsson. He and his partner were digging into them tonight.”

“Thorsson. You shouldn’t let that moron anywhere near those files.”

“I hate it when you kids fight.” He kicked off his shoes and pushed them under the coffee table. “Can’t we all just get along?”

She took a sip of Chardonnay. “Watch. He’s going to hang on to them just to tick me off.”

“I won’t let him hang on to them.” Garcia took a bump off his beer. “I’ll get them off him first thing tomorrow.”

“Should I swing over to Minneapolis and pick them up?”

“I’ll come by the cellar with them. I’ve got a meeting over at the St. Paul cop shop.”

“Don’t forget the—”

“The scarf. I know, Mom. I’ll remember.”

“I caught the six o’clock news,” she said. “Television played it just the way we wanted. There wasn’t even a mention of the other drownings.”

“That’s enough work talk, okay?”

She took a sip of wine. “Fine with me.”

Garcia pointed across the room, to a chrome and red Honda parked in a corner of her condo. “Your trail bike or motocross bike or whatever you call it. I swear to God I see dust on the seat.”

“You do.” Rather than leave the bike in the condo garage or on the street, she routinely sneaked it up in the elevator so she could keep it under her sight. It hadn’t seen much action lately.

“When you gonna take the thing out for a ride? You should get some mud on it before the snow flies.”

“You’re right. Maybe this weekend, if the weather holds out.”

“I wouldn’t mind going with.”

Surprised by his request, she paused before answering. “Sure.”

With his beer bottle, he motioned toward her DVD collection. “Why don’t we pop in a movie?”

She set her glass down on the table and went over to the rack. “What’s your pleasure? Something scary? A comedy?” She took down a copy of
The Departed
. “How about a police flick?”

“I hate cops-and-robbers movies. They never get it right. Bunch of bullshit. Comedy sounds good.” He polished off his St. Pauli and set the empty on the table. “I could use a laugh after what we saw today.”

“I second that,” she said, and started riffling through her Adam Sandler movies. “Help yourself to another beer.”

“In a bit.” Garcia yanked off his tie and tossed it on the table. “That’s better. I hate those things.”

She looked over and nodded to his chest. “You must hate your dress shirt, too. You’ve got sauce all over it.”

He looked down. “This is my lucky shirt.”

She went over to him with her hand out. “Give it to me, and I’ll run some water over it, so the stain doesn’t set.”

He stood up and started unbuttoning. “Do you mind? My wife bought me…”

His voice trailed off, and she knew why. Garcia’s wife was dead, her car run off the road by an unknown driver years ago. Bernadette preferred her own tragedy; at least she knew whom to blame for her spouse’s death. The uncertainty continued to haunt Garcia. “Give it here. It’ll just take a minute.”

As he peeled off the shirt and passed it over to her, their eyes met. “Appreciate it.”

“Not a problem,” she said. Garcia wore a tank T-shirt under his oxford, and she couldn’t help but notice the well-muscled arms and the six-pack rippling through the cotton. She went over to the sink, turned on the water, and held the fabric under the stream. “The stain’s coming out.”

“Great.” Burying his hands in his pants pockets, he walked around her condo while she worked on his shirt. “So…any visitors recently?”

“Visitors?”

“You get what I mean.”

Garcia knew she could see her dead neighbor, August Murrick, the former owner of the condo building. “Mr. Murrick hasn’t made an appearance in quite some time,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really.” She wasn’t lying.

“What happened? Why’d he hit the road?”

“I have no idea why he took off.”
That
she was lying about. She’d never confided to Garcia that she and Augie had been intimate once, before she realized he was a ghost. For weeks, she rebuffed his efforts to get her back into bed. He finally got the message and disappeared for good over the summer. She prayed Augie had gone to a truer heaven than a converted warehouse on the banks of the Mississippi.

“He sounded like an interesting character,” said Garcia, stopping to examine the movie titles.

“Oh, he wasn’t all that interesting.” She turned off the faucet, wrung out the wet shirt, and held it up over the sink. “Good as new. How lucky is that?”

“Thanks a bunch,” said Garcia, coming up next to her.

She pivoted around and found his body inches from hers. “Glad to…do it,” she stumbled, and felt her face heating up.

“Maybe we should forget the movie,” he said evenly.

She nodded and said with the same careful lack of emotion, “I’ll put this in a plastic sack for you.”

While she dug under the sink for a bag and stuffed the wet shirt into it, he slipped his shoes back on and pulled on his blazer. “Thanks for the brew.”

“Thanks for dinner.” She handed him the bagged shirt.

He grabbed his trench coat and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Wait,” she said after him, retrieving his tie from the coffee table.

He turned around. “What, Cat?”

“You forgot your tie.”

As he took it from her, his hand locked over hers. “I’m sorry I can’t stay,” he said hoarsely.

“You sure you can’t?”

“More sure than I’ve ever been of anything.” He released her hand, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.

Bernadette watched his back as he headed for the elevators, putting his trench coat on as he went. She wished like hell he’d turn around and come back. At the same time, she knew that would be a huge mistake for both of them.

He glanced back, staring at her while she stared at him. Raising his hand in a small wave goodbye, he stepped into the elevator and disappeared.

She waved back to the empty corridor and closed the door. Resting her forehead against the wood, she cursed with frustration. “Shit, shit, shit.”

THERE WAS
a period after her husband’s death when she’d lost the taste for sex. Then she found herself sleeping around too much, picking up strangers in hotel bars and going to their rooms. Since coming home, she’d struggled to find a middle ground between the nun and the slut. While her night with Augie had thrown her off balance, her relationship with Garcia was sending her into a tailspin. Far from being just a boss, he was becoming her friend, and buddies as hot as Garcia were hazardous.

Chapter 5

GARCIA HADN’T VISITED THE CELLAR IN A WHILE, AND BERNADETTE
had slacked off in her filing. She went to work early Tuesday to try to straighten the office before he showed up with the paperwork from the drowning cases.

She shrugged off her coat and tossed it over the back of a chair. As she started lifting up layers of files from one of the spare desks, she heard a familiar bass voice and felt a cold draft rolling in from the hallway outside her office.

“Finally fixing up the place. Long overdue. It never looked this bad when I worked here solo.”

“Go away,” she muttered without turning around. “And close the door behind you, Ruben.”

“It’s ‘Agent Creed’ to you, missy. Keep it professional.”

She heard the door shut but knew he was on the wrong side of it. She pivoted around, a pile of folders in her arms. A tall, slender African American man with short graying hair was sitting on the office’s ancient sofa, his ankle crossed over his bony knee. She’d been using the couch to store old newspapers, and on one side of Creed was a stack of
Star Tribune
s and on the other side was a
New York Times
tower. The newspapers framed his figure like Roman columns and made him appear even more cold and imposing. She especially resented the way he always strolled in impeccably attired as if ready for work, with his dark suit and dark tie and stiff white shirt. That hint of an accent—he was a native of the South—added to his air of superiority. “Whatever you have to say, make it quick,” she told him. “I’m busy.”

He propped one elbow on the
Times
pile and then had second thoughts. Lifting his arm, he brushed off his jacket sleeve and folded his hands on his lap. A saw buzzed overhead, and Creed frowned at the ceiling. “What in blazes is going on up there?”

She went over to a waist-high metal file cabinet, pulled the drawer open with the tip of her shoe, and dumped her armload of folders inside it. “They’re renovating the building.”

“It’s about time,” he said.

“I guess,” she muttered, and picked up another stack of folders.

A jackhammer fired up, drowning out the saw. “How can you work with all this commotion?”

“Lots of Tylenol.” She went back to the file cabinet, dropped the folders inside the drawer, and forced it closed.

“What kind of cockamamie filing system is that?”

“I’ll straighten it out later.”

“That’s precisely the attitude that got you where you are today.” He picked up a
Star Tribune
and waved it at her. “You know those people you read about in the paper, the ones with those garbage houses? That’s how it starts with them.
I’ll straighten it out later,
they think.
I’ll do the laundry tomorrow
. Next thing you know—”