Deadly Interest (8 page)

“
Do I need to call
Detective Lulinski back?”

“
Nope. He said he’ll see
you there.”

“
Of course,” I said, and
stood. I headed in to see Bass.

* * * * *

A half-hour later I caught William in the
hub of the office, talking with his assistant. “Got a minute?”

“
Sure,” he said. He was
back to his non-smiling persona.

He followed me into my office and I shut the
door. “Guess what?” I asked, deadpan, my butt against the door, my
hands behind by back.

“
I give up.”

“
Bass has a new assignment
for us.”

William watched me as I wound around my desk
and sat. His eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going
to like this one?”

“
I think you’re going to
love this one,” I said, feeling yet another pang of disappointment.
Bass had dropped opportunity in my lap not twenty minutes ago, but
Lucy’s imminent arrival could prevent my taking advantage. “You
know that big media conference next weekend?”

“
In San
Francisco?”

“
That’s the one. Turns out
there was some miscommunication. Bass thought Gabriela was going.
One of the directors, too. Problem is, they had no idea, and now
neither one can make it on such short notice.” I watched a
puffed-white cloud move across the otherwise clear sky. “Bass
doesn’t want to lose the hefty registration fee they
paid.”

“
So he wants us to
go.”

“
Yep. Both of
us.”

“
I’ll check, but I think
I’m open,” he said. “What about you?”

I shrugged, “Not sure,” I said, thinking how
if this had come at any other time . . .

“
First you turn me down,
then you send me away, huh?” He smiled, and I swore his eyes
twinkled that time.

Returning the grin, I laughed. “Yeah,
something like that.”

Just as I said that, Jordan knocked then
popped her head in the door. “Here,” she said. Pushing the door
open with her back end, she came in smiling—carrying a long white
box tied with a wide black ribbon. “This just came for you.”

“
For me?” I asked,
standing. I flashed a hopeful glance William’s direction, but he
looked as surprised as I was.

“
Uh-huh,” Jordan said,
sneaking a look at William too. She shrugged.

I’d seen enough old movies to know there
were flowers inside the box; I’d just never received them presented
this way, before. “You sure?”

She laid the package on my desk with a sense
of reverence. “I just signed for them. Came from one of those
florists on Michigan Avenue. Open it up, already. I can’t wait to
see what’s inside.”

I didn’t have to be coached. William took a
half step back, allowing me room to maneuver the cumbersome box. It
had to be at least two feet long, and I guessed about nine inches
wide. Deep, too.

I undid the careful bow, my excited fingers
fumbling at the knot.

Finally, with the ribbon removed, I lifted
the lid off the white box to see—tissue paper. As I moved that
aside, the scent rushed up. Roses. A dozen scarlet red roses
exquisitely arranged. “They’re beautiful,” I said.

“
Well, who are they from?”
Jordan asked.

A small linen note with my name written in
black sat at the middle of the arrangement, over yet another
ribbon, this one shimmery gold. “I have no idea,” I said.

Jordan grabbed the note, “Well, if you’re
not going to read this, I am.”

I laughed, and let her. Mistake.

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows lifted and
she shot me a knowing glance as she read the card aloud. “I am so
sorry to hear of the loss of your friend and mine, Evelyn Vicks.
Please accept these flowers as an expression of my condolence. And,
if you are able to extricate yourself from your Saturday
appointment with your colleague, please know that my offer for
lunch and more remains open. Call me. With warmest regards, David
Dewars.”

I glanced at William. He held my gaze for an
awkward moment, mumbled something about Dewars having good taste,
then moved toward the door.

“
I didn’t . . .” I said,
not knowing what to say, hoping to catch him, to explain. “I mean,
I’m not . . .”

He didn’t stop, but rather kept moving till
he was in the doorway. Turning around, his hand came up, as though
to stop me from talking. “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

I felt an immediate rush
of embarrassment. How to explain that this was all a set of
interlocked and unfortunate coincidences. “I
am
picking up Lucy tomorrow,” I
finally managed.

He nodded. “I never doubted that you
were.”

I watched the empty doorway for at least a
half-minute after he left. Jordan stayed silent, watching me, then
asked, “What was that all about?”

I dropped into my chair and rubbed my eyes.
“Missed opportunity.”

Bass called a meeting for three-thirty, so I
asked Jordan to reschedule my fingerprint appointment for one. I
called my Aunt Lena to discuss Lucy’s situation and was still on
the phone when Jordan dropped a note on my desk. She shot me a look
and rolled her eyes.

The pink paper gave me the police station’s
address with the message: “Two o’clock.” She’d added the word,
“Sharp,” underlined four times.

“
Hang on,” I said into the
handset. Scowling at the note, I put my hand over the mouthpiece
and turned to Jordan. “Problem?”

She shrugged. “He wasn’t too happy about
changing the time, let me tell you. Two o’clock was the best I
could do. I was trying to be real nice and I started to explain
that you’d been called to a meeting but he didn’t want to hear
about that.” She gave a little head wiggle. “He made some sort of
comment too, I couldn’t hear it all, but I thought he said
something about you being ‘high and mighty.’ So I say ‘What was
that?’ like I was being polite. He says, ‘Nothing. But just tell
her she better be on time,’ and then he hangs up.”

I glanced at my watch and nodded. “Sorry
about that.”

“
I feel sorry for you,”
she said. “You’re the one that’s got to go over there.”

Aunt Lena was talking again. “I need to let
you go, honey. My bunco club is meeting in about a half hour and I
still need to get my shoes on. But don’t you worry. We’ll be happy
to have Lucy stay with us while you’re at work. Okay? That’s all
settled.”

I mouthed, “Thanks,” to Jordan as she left,
and turned my attention back to the phone conversation. In the
midst of chaos it’s always nice to know there are people you can
depend on. Aunt Lena and Uncle Moose were just those people.
“Thanks,” I said again. “Lucy is going to love that, and it’s going
to make life a whole lot easier for me.”

“
Good. And you two should
plan to come over for dinner tomorrow night. It’ll be just the
thing after that long drive.”

“
That,” I said with
enthusiasm, “sounds fabulous.”

I ran behind schedule for
the rest of the day but managed to leave the office for my
appointment with Detective Lulinski right on time. An accident on
the southbound Dan Ryan expressway slowed me down, and I watched
the digital clock in my car turn to two just as traffic opened up
at 35
^th
Street.

Racing the rest of the way
to the station at 51
^st
and Wentworth, I got there about ten minutes
late. Not too bad.

I gave my name to the uniformed black woman
at the reception desk. Sitting within a circular wall of chest-high
brick, she took my name, phoned the detective, and then motioned me
to a set of benches along the wall of windows to wait. Because the
day was unseasonably warm, I’d left my coat in the car. Little did
I know the station would be ten degrees cooler than the ambient
air. Worse, the fabric of my skirt was so flimsy that the cold from
the metal under my butt seeped into my body and made me shiver.

I crossed my legs to maintain body warmth
and my airborne foot wiggled a nervous beat. I glanced at my watch:
two-twenty. I didn’t know how long the fingerprinting process took,
but I reasoned that as long as Detective Lulinski didn’t make me
wait too much longer, I ought to be able to make the three-thirty
meeting with a couple of minutes to spare.

The female officer shared the circular area
with an older man, currently in conversation with two other
officers. They flanked a handcuffed fellow dressed in baggy pink
pants, a ripped orange down jacket, and a white knit hat pulled so
low on his downcast head that I couldn’t tell what he looked
like.

I could tell that the officer standing
behind the counter was a sergeant; he had three chevrons on his
sleeve, a full head of white hair, bushy white eyebrows, and a jowl
that hung, wobbling, over his snug collar. He kept both hands palms
downward on the counter, and leaned forward, giving instructions.
An elderly black woman came through the glass doors, sending a rush
of cold air my direction. Moving as fast as she could, using her
three-footed cane to help her progress, she immediately started
shouting at the female officer. “My boy is gone. My boy is gone.
You got to help me find him.”

Although the officer tried to keep her tone
low, the elderly woman, her gray hair tight in pincurls,
gesticulated with her free left hand and shouted over and over
about her son having gone missing.

A flurry of activity expanded through the
rest of the station, behind this small group. It reminded me of our
hub, the only difference being that our people weren’t in
uniform.

Since the woman’s son was an
adult—thirty-eight years old—the officer behind the counter tried
vainly to explain that he couldn’t be considered missing unless
there was evidence of foul play.

“
But he’s not smart,” the
woman insisted.

“
He’s
handicapped?”

“
No.” She slammed her cane
on the floor. “He’s just not smart. He don’t go out by himself.
Never.”

My heart went out to her and it dawned on me
that I’d be in just that situation if Lucy ever decided to take off
without telling me. I reminded myself to discuss safety issues with
her when I picked her up tomorrow.

I eventually tuned out the shouting,
choosing instead to stare over the parking lot beyond the tall
windows. Trying not to think of the minutes ticking by.

“
Ms. St.
James?”

I jumped.

Detective Lulinski, looking even thinner and
more haggard than he had the night of Mrs. Vicks’ murder, stood
before me, a bland expression on his face. Again he wore gray—a
suit jacket and pants in a crisscross pattern, and a white shirt
with a dark gray tie loosened and askew.

He motioned for me to follow him, and I did,
walking past the round reception wall toward a pair of elevators.
The building had only a basement and two floors. I eyed the
wide-open adjacent staircase, but the detective pressed the “up”
button before I could suggest we take the stairs.

“
Have you ever been here
before?” he asked as the elevator opened. I caught a whiff of
just-finished cigarette as I walked past him into the boxy
room.

I touched my nose in a dainty motion, as if
that would help keep the smell at bay. “Not this station. I’ve been
in a couple of others. I have a friend who’s on the force on the
north side.”

He didn’t ask me her name, where she’d been
assigned, or anything. This guy wasn’t going to win any Mr.
Congeniality awards. When the doors slid open at the second floor
he allowed me out first and gestured toward a long hall. Not
knowing where I was headed, I stepped to the side. “Why don’t you
go first?”

“
No, go ahead. Up there,
on the right,” he said.

I found it disconcerting to have him
follow.

We wound up in a sizeable office, with more
than a dozen desks. A busy place, more than half of them were
occupied by detectives, with civilian guests seated next to each
desk, apparently giving statements.

Detective Lulinski led me through the room
and opened a far door. “We can do the fingerprinting in here,” he
said, by way of explanation.

When he set my first finger up for scanning
on a glass plate, I turned to him, “I heard all kinds of horror
stories about black ink that’s so hard to wash off.”

“
Nope. We’ve moved to the
twenty-first century here. We scan your prints
nowadays.”

He accomplished the fingerprinting task in a
matter of moments, navigating my digits around with a smoothness
that had to be borne of practice.

When complete, and once they’d been
uploaded, he guided me back into the big room of busy desks and
indicated where I should sit. We were nearly dead-center in the
room, and I was amazed at the buzz of sound, with each detective
busy on the phone or with the individuals seated at their desks.
There were a handful of fellows Lulinski’s age, but most of the
detectives were hard-body young men, dressed in varying shades of
black and dark blue.

One woman worked a desk in the far corner. I
wondered about that.

Detective Lulinski’s desk was a model of
Spartan efficiency. Except for his computer monitor and a Rolodex,
his workspace was empty. No pictures, no cutesy mugs, nothing that
gave me any indication of his personality. All business, this
fellow. But, to his defense, I imagined that he often interviewed
less than ideal citizens at this desk, and the last thing he’d want
to do is provide information they could possibly use against
him.