Deadly Interest (30 page)

“
Would you like to, Alex?”
His voice was like butter, and an alert feminine part of me
reacted. From the change in his dark eyes, I could see he knew it
had.

I made a show of glancing at my watch. Just
after seven o’ clock. The performance started at eight.

“
Would you like to walk
around?” he asked.

Teeming with tourists and browsers, the busy
center of the pier boasted an eclectic mix of indoor shops.
Although David asked me several times if there were any I’d like to
explore, I just wasn’t in the mood to fight the knots of busy
customers who crowded the tiny boutiques full of plastic souvenirs.
I much preferred empty places during off hours, and antique stores,
with creaky floors and memory-smells.

We headed up the escalators and through the
glass-topped arboretum. I pulled my coat on as we stepped out the
doors and took a deep breath. “You know,” I said, surveying the
relative silence outside, “even though there are still piles of
dirty snow hanging around, I can smell that spring is coming.”

David took a deep breath, pressing his hands
to his chest. “I smell mostly dead fish,” he said.

I gave his upper arm a playful slap, which
he evidently took that as an opening. He took my hand and asked,
“Would you like to go for a ride?”

Before I could answer, he canted his head
toward the giant Ferris Wheel, its long spokes aglow with thousands
of lights, turning slowly in the crisp night air.

“
Oh,” I said, happy to
have caught his meaning. “Do we have time?”

The ticket seller informed us that one
complete circuit around took just over seven minutes. But the line
looked like it would take at least twenty. Our meandering through
the promenade of shops had unfortunately taken too long.

“
Next time,” David said,
still holding my hand.

“
Next time.”

“
Promise?” He gave my hand
a squeeze.

I smiled up at him and remembered Jordan’s
directive to just have fun.

“
Sure,” I answered. “I
promise.”

* * * * *

As the play ended, and the
curtain calls began, I applauded with gusto. I had a smile on my
face and a lightness of heart that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Everybody had been right. I needed a night out. Shakespeare’s
comedy,
The Merry Wives of
Windsor
, had been just the right touch.
I’d been captivated by the character Falstaff, and had had to look
twice when he first strode onstage. With his dark-haired bulk and
his blustering, imposing personality I thought for sure it was Dr.
Hooker up there. We occupied seats very near to the thrust stage of
this cozy theater and even up close, the resemblance was so strong,
that I checked the program to see if perhaps the psychiatrist had a
younger brother actor.

David leaned to read over my shoulder. “Who
are you so interested in?”

“
All of them, actually,” I
said. It was the truth. “But this guy,” I pointed to Jason Noble’s
picture in the
Stagebill
program, “looks just like Diana’s
psychiatrist.”

“
The one who won’t tell
you anything?”

“
Yep.”

After the last bows, David pressed his hand
against the small of my back to guide me out of the theater, headed
back toward the parking garage. Along the way, he pulled me from
the mass of departing Shakespearean patrons to look out the
full-length windows to the south. “It’s a beautiful night,” he
said.

It was.

“
Come on,” he said. He had
my coat draped over his arm and now he held it for me to slip into.
We stepped outside into the chilly air, and I blew out a breath in
front of me, watching it curl and dissipate in the darkness. There
were lights along the perimeter, but the lake was black, and as
uneven waves slapped against the walls, sometimes splashing over
the edges, I wanted to close my eyes and fall asleep to the
sound.

“
Walk with me?”

We headed east along the path in silence,
taking our time to get to the far end of the pier. Even though the
night was cold and my feet were in heels, I enjoyed the freedom
night air always seemed to provide.

We rounded the far end and I leaned against
the railing, looking out into the lake and sky, realizing I could
barely tell where one ended and the other began. A far off
structure blinked a single red light, but otherwise I faced an
expanse of blackness, hearing only the steady hits of water against
the sides near my feet, cooing pigeons wandering nearby, and city
background noises, faded to near quiet.

The freshness of the late night felt
wonderful, and I smiled up at David, grateful for the evening’s
enjoyment. “Thanks,” I said. “I had a wonderful time.”

A breeze off the lake twisted my hair around
my head and I smiled even as I shivered.

“
You’re cold,” he said. He
stood behind me and wrapped his arms around mine, pulling me
close—his chest against my back—sharing his warmth. Pressing his
cheek against the side of my head, he whispered, next to my ear,
“It doesn’t have to end this early.”

I’d learned the hard way that the body can
respond even when the heart does not. Trouble came when the two
were confused. David pulled me closer, and dipped his head to place
a kiss on the side of my head. I took a deep breath, and steeled
myself against the pleasant feel of the gentle stubble of his
cheek, soft on my own. He smelled so good.

“
I should go,” I
said.

“
Alex,” he said, and being
so close, I not only heard my name, but I felt the reverberations
of his voice in my head, “why don’t you be a little selfish, just
for one night?” Still tight behind me, he trailed a finger down the
left side of my face, and along my collarbone.

I brought my base needs under control enough
to shake my head. “No, really,” I said. “Thank you, it’s been a
lovely evening, but I think it’s best I head home. Busy day
tomorrow.”

I pulled away to face him but couldn’t read
his eyes in the dark. “Of course,” he said, with a nod.

Taking my hand again, we started back the
way we’d come, and he asked, “So what does busy day on a Saturday
mean to a beautiful girl? Do you have a date?”

I grinned at him. “No. No date.”

“
Good,” he said with an
accompanying hand squeeze. “So, what do you have going?”

I told him about my plans to search through
Mrs. Vicks house, now that I had Barton’s permission to do so.

“
What do you think you’ll
find?”

“
Honestly,” I said, “I
have no idea. Something out of place, I guess.”

“
Be careful.”

“
I will.”

“
Don’t let Barton
accompany you.”

I glanced up, but still couldn’t read those
eyes. “He won’t. I convinced him that I do my best work alone.
And,” I added, “I have those files that Owen put together for me. I
don’t know what I expect to find in that information, either, but
it’s a place to start.”

“
What exactly is in those
files?”

“
Didn’t you look at
them?”

David shook his head. “No, the envelope was
sealed. I didn’t open it.”

“
I’m expecting that it’s
simply copies of checks. Mrs. Vicks wrote even-dollar-amount checks
every month for years. It’s probably nothing. Maybe it’s money she
sent to Bart. Or her savings plan. Or a retirement account. But I
don’t like to leave loose ends, so I’m following up.”

“
You’re tenacious,” he
said.

“
I take that as a
compliment.”

“
Exactly how it was
meant,” he said. Tugging me close, David leaned down to whisper in
my ear, “When I spoke with Owen today, I asked him if he could get
me a copy of Mrs. Vicks’ will for us to look at. He should have
that for me by Monday.”

“
Is that legal?” I
asked.

“
You’re consulting for us.
I could put you on the payroll temporarily, if need be. I think
it’s a gray enough area that there’d be no problem. Plus,” he
added, “it isn’t as though you’re going to broadcast the
information before it’s released to Barton, right?”

I knew that big business often exploited
these gray areas to their own benefit. And the truth was, I
wouldn’t use the information for anything more than my own
investigation, which was, at best, amateur. Still, something didn’t
feel right.

“
I’d feel better if I got
Barton’s permission on that.” I said.

“
As you wish.”

He held the car door open, but stopped me
just before I slid into the seat. Under the fluorescent lights of
the deserted parking garage, I could read his eyes this time, very
well. Too well. The raw desire I saw flickering there made my heart
beat faster, till I could almost hear it bang outside my chest.
“Thank you for tonight, Alex,” he said. He leaned in to kiss me,
cupping my face with his free left hand.

And I kissed back.

I ripped open the fat envelope the moment I
got home.

Quick glance at the kitchen clock. Already
after one in the morning. David had dropped me off back at my
building so that I could pick up my car and drive home—which I did,
as fast as the laws allowed. I couldn’t wait to see what Owen’s
department had prepared for me.

I thought about how I wanted to get an early
start in the morning, and I promised myself I wouldn’t go past
one-thirty. Reaching into the oversized envelope, I grabbed the
manila file folder; I needed to curl its thickness in order to ease
it out.

Whoever had put this package together had
done a thorough job. Savings and checking account statements for
every month over the past twenty-three years were paper-clipped
together, month-at-a-time, with copies of all the
even-dollar-amount checks over one hundred dollars, that I’d
requested. All set up in chronological fashion. All neat and easily
surveyed.

I started from the beginning.

The first questionable check, for
two-hundred dollars, had been made payable to cash. Fair enough.
Maybe Mrs. Vicks needed spending money. Or maybe she added
regularly to her savings account. I checked that statement, but
found no corresponding deposit.

The conscientious person who’d provided this
folder had also provided me copies of the back of each check. I
examined that now, expecting to see Mrs. Vicks’ signature, but
instead was surprised to find a stamped endorsement: “For Deposit
Only,” followed by an account number.

I dropped my high-heeled shoes to the floor
with a clatter, and tucked my left ankle under me as I tilted the
photocopy to read it better. Another stamp sat in the center of the
check, this from the bank that had accepted it. Judging from the
blurry copy, the deposit had taken place about five days after the
check had been written. I could barely make out the bank’s
name.

Five checks later, all with identical
endorsements and following nearly identical patterns of written and
deposit dates, I was able to finally decipher in which bank these
checks had been deposited. Second Federal Bank of Dubuque.

Iowa?

It could be an investment account, I
surmised. But that didn’t feel right. I didn’t know what would
persuade Mrs. Vicks to send regular checks to an out-of-state
account, but I intended to find out. Most of the elderly women in
my neighborhood, particularly those who had been widowed, were
exceptionally savvy in terms of investments, but almost without
exception, they preferred to keep their interests close to home.
Iowa made no sense.

There was no way that Second Federal of
Dubuque would give me the account-holder’s name on this, no matter
what ruse I could come up with, but—I thought as I slapped a stack
of copies against my hand—perhaps David could find out.

In the meantime, I still had a stack of this
to get through.

By three in the morning, I’d changed into my
typical sleepwear of ratty T-shirt and shorts, brushed my teeth,
and scrubbed my face till it felt as pink as it looked. I’d tried
three times to get to sleep, but the fact that I hadn’t gotten
through all the months’ information bugged me and made me return to
the solitude of the kitchen table, with only the buzz from the
overhead light and the click-step motion of my wall clock to keep
me company.

Mrs. Vicks pattern changed only
occasionally. Every few years, the dollar amount of the Iowa checks
went up, and every so often an individual hundred-dollar check
would surface. At Christmas and Easter, she wrote checks to the
church, and every March fifteenth, she wrote one out to Barton,
with “Happy Birthday, Son,” noted in the memo.

Eight years ago, the Iowa payments stopped,
though the church donations and birthday gifts continued. I
continued my scrutiny of her statements and was surprised to find
something I’d missed. Regular even-amount checks started up again
two years ago.

“
Hmmph,” I said
aloud.

I scanned the statements for a pattern
before pulling out the backup information. Monthly checks, in the
amount of two-hundred dollars, written with the same regularity as
before. When I pulled the copies out, I expected to see that they’d
also been made out to cash. When I saw the payee on these checks,
however, I couldn’t believe it.

Dr. Thomas Hooker.

I sat back in my chair, hearing the
accompanying squeak of the metal legs protesting my fidget. I asked
myself why in the world Mrs. Vicks would be writing checks to Dr.
Hooker. The answer, of course, was that she’d been paying for
Diana’s therapy, but for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine
why.