Dying to Know (3 page)

“Do we have anything to go on?”

In one violent rush, Bear got to his feet and closed in on my

filing cabinet. He slammed two brutal blows into its side, denting the metal and sending several framed photographs tumbling to

the floor.

“I guess not.” She waited until Bear straightened himself.

“Motive, clues? A friggin’ guess here? Come on, Bear, give me

something.”

“Motive? Give me a break, Cap. We’ve been chasing the man

for a week now. You know that. We pay him a visit and try to

connect the dots back to the guard’s murder and wham—Tuck’s

in a body bag. What more do you want?”

Helen Sutter might have been small for a cop, but she was

feisty. At forty-five, she still had a youthful, pretty face that hid the steel character inside. Small and girlie were deceiving; Helen Sutter would out-shoot, out-drink, out-cuss, and out-smart most

of the cops in the county. Now, she drove an iron finger into

Bear’s chest and backed him all the way to the dented filing cabi-

net.

“I want evidence, Bear. Speculation and revenge won’t im-

press a courtroom. Get me fingerprints, witnesses, or a frigging

microscopic fiber. Link this to him and I’ll drag his mobbed-up

10

ass in myself. Just prove it. Only a fool or a desperate man hits a cop.”

Bear straightened himself again and had to look down in

order to find her eyes a foot below him. “Yeah, yeah. I got that.

But if not him, who?”

“Find out. There’s no forced entry—nothing taken, nothing

ransacked. Nothing, nothing, nothing.” She walked to the open

den door and looked out at my body. “We rarely get two homi-

cides a year—let alone in a couple weeks. The crime boys have

diddly-shit. Tuck’s backup piece is gone. It’s probably the murder weapon. Son-of-a-bitch.”

Bear moved beside her and for the first time, looked over at

my body. His voice was guttural. “It was either someone who

knew the house and how to get in and out …”

“Or it was a professional hit.”

11

three

Carl called for Captain Sutter. She went to the doorway and

spoke quietly with him. When she turned around, her face was

white and drawn. “Okay, Bear. They’re taking him out.”

“Oh, shit,” Bear said, turning his back on the door. “I can’t,

Cap. I just can’t.”

“Right, okay. Listen, why don’t you finish in here. I want al

his files in the cabinet taken down to the office and gone over by the entire team. Maybe something in one of them will help. Take

care of that, will you?”

Bear nodded. “Okay. Close the door, Cap. I don’t want to

watch.”

She did and the voices in the foyer became a muffled drone I

couldn’t discern. Moving a homicide victim’s body was one thing;

moving a dead cop’s was another.

Bear stood in the middle of the den and listened. When the

front door banged shut, his eyes closed, and for a second, I

12

thought he was going to pummel the filing cabinet again. In-

stead, he did a very odd thing.

He went to the den door and quietly locked it. Then, he re-

turned to my filing cabinet and slid open the top drawer. He ri-

fled through the files until he found a thick manila one. He

opened it, scanned the pages, and nodded.

Instead of returning it to the drawer or placing it in one of the

cardboard boxes stacked alongside by the crime scene techni-

cians, he went to my bookcase and slid it behind a series of law

journals. He stepped back and surveyed his work.

“Bear?”

“Huh?” His head twisted around and he looked back at the

door. “Shit, what’s wrong with me?”

He again went to the filing cabinet, but this time began re-

moving files from the drawers and laying them into the evidence

boxes. His movements were slow and lethargic as if he had a me-

chanical arm mindlessly performing the task.

“Bear, did you hear me?”

Nothing. No nod. No eyebrows rose. Nothing.

I leaned forward in my office chair and found myself staring

at a photograph of Angel and me. We were dancing at last year’s

police bal . My Angel was beautiful. She has flowing, auburn hair, green eyes, and a curvy, sexy figure that, at thirty-five, put most twenty-year-olds to shame. Her short, black evening dress

showed off her wonderful curves and her smile stole all the at-

tention around us. Taped to the side of the frame was her black

lace garter belt that had my full attention later that night.

I reached out and touched the garter.

13

Lightning
.

Firecrackers ignited inside me. Every nerve exploded all at

once. A rush of emotions poured over and through me. I was

crying, laughing, aching—depression collided with exhilara-

tion—every emotion I ever felt grabbed me all at once and

twisted.

A blur swept before me.

It happened again. The cascade of memories swirled around

me like a tornado. They were fleeting wisps of faces and feel-

ings—loves, friends, and strangers. My life’s story whirled by like a train at a crossing; glimpses of the past, people I knew, places and things. Life.

My memory was a child’s—immature and vague.

Then it stopped just as it had earlier. I was crying. The photo-

graph held my eyes while Bear stood across the room filling his

boxes in total oblivion. Whatever had happened to me—had

done nothing more than show me what I’d lost and how I’d

ended.

It was abrupt and violent.

I felt woozy but stood and went to the doorway. I gripped the

knob and tried to open the door but nothing happened. My fin-

gers didn’t feel the cool brass knob or the hard oak doorway as I

pounded on it. There was nothing. The simple task of opening

my door was as impossible as my being in that room at al . I was

trapped in my own den, in my own three-story Victorian.

Returning to the desk, I tried to pick up the photograph that

had taken my breath away but my fingers closed on nothing. I

couldn’t open the desk drawer or lift a pen to write. Nothing

14

moved for me, nothing lifted in my fingers. Nothing would obey

my commands. Nothing.

Something tingled inside me and I felt myself aching for my

life back. Earlier, as an onlooker to my own crime scene investi-

gation, I felt nothing—no emotion, no fear, no despair. Now, al

those feelings were welling up inside me and heaviness began to

consume me.

I stood in the middle of the floor and took in all the photo-

graphs, knickknacks, and bric-a-brac. Flashes of memory con-

gealed and formed my past. I closed my eyes trying to recapture

every second of my elusive life.

The whirl of light and pictures began again.

I let myself go—let myself drift along in the feelings that were

sweeping over me. There was the smell of coffee and the aroma

of a thousand dinners I’d never taste again. The grandfather

clock in the hall chimed and I remembered Angel’s thirtieth

birthday—that was … five years ago. Our home was awash with

emotions that made me ache and laugh at the same time. I could

smell the fireplace logs smoldering and taste expensive wine. I

heard Angel’s laughter and felt the passion take me.

When I opened my eyes, I was alone and staring at our wed-

ding photograph on the bookshelf. Twenty years of memories

roared into me—one after the other, churning and twisting, all of

them jumbled and slamming into one another—into me. The vi-

sions were dizzying. I felt lifted and euphoric. Colors swirled and pictures coalesced—flashing images of my life. College, the police academy, Angel—the beautiful doctoral candidate who traded me

a speeding ticket for a date. Passion, love, darkness. Handcuffs on 15

my bookshelf showed me a foot chase through Old Town and my

first felony arrest. A plaque on the wall—Bear and I getting our

gold detective shields—laughter, bourbon, hangovers. Long nights

on stakeouts. Long nights with Angel. Aching for sleep, praying it never came.

The memories settled into their rightful places inside me and I

calmed again. I was standing outside the den door where my body

had been lying. It was gone now and so were the army of cops and

crime scene technicians. It was still afternoon, but darkness enveloped me—and so did the rush of questions that thrust into me like

needles.

The first answer spun me around and made me dizzy.

I looked up to the second floor balcony as I’d done a mil ion

times. This time, something was different. Strange fingers

grabbed me and drew me backwards and off balance. A dull ache

overcame me. Something sharp thrust into my chest and my

breath exploded. Above me, there was fading light and below,

black ooze that should have been oak hardwood. I heard Hercule

barking wildly before col apsing onto the floor.

It should be near four in the afternoon but the grandfather

clock chimed two. It was happening again …



… Angel was standing over me and in her hand was a gun—

the .38 I’d given her. She dropped to her knees beside me and

pressed two fingers against my throat. Her eyes went wide and

the gun slipped from her grasp. Tears welled in her eyes and she

brushed them away as I heard a low, painful moan from the top

16

of the stairs. Her hand slid over my eyes and closed them. With-

out a word, she jumped to her feet and ran up the stairs.

Somewhere in the distance, voices yelled and a siren grew

louder.

Before I slipped away, Angel’s voice cried out, “Oh, my God,

Bear.”

… light.



I understood. It was clear now; painfully clear.

Someone killed me—murdered me in my own home. I

shouldn’t be, but I was still here among the living but not one of them. There could be only one reason.

Detective, solve thyself.

17

four

The grandfather clock chimed four and I was back.

So was Hercule. He grumbled at me from his perch on my

recliner in the corner. When I went to him, he churned in the

chair. His tail was in overdrive and as he started to get down, he groaned painful y and stopped half in, half out of the chair. There was a swath of torn hair across the top of his head and a bandage

adorned parts of his scalp. I bent down and calmed his gyrations

long enough to examine him. His hair was …
singed
?

Someone shot Hercule. The bastard didn’t just kill me—he

shot my dog.

“Herc, I’m so sorry. You saved Angel. Good boy. It’s steak to-

night.”

Woof. Wag. Double-woof. Hercule was not modest.

I heard the front door open and someone came in. The crime

scene boys and everyone from the department were already

gone. Were they returning? Hercule barked and his tail returned

18

to happy-mode. He meandered around the room, found his fa-

vorite hard-rubber bal , and positioned himself at the ready.

Bear walked in.

“Hey, boy, how you feeling? You look okay. You saved the day,

Herc. At least part of it.”

Hercule moaned and flipped the bal from his mouth, letting

it bounce across the floor to Bear’s feet. It was good to know the big lab wasn’t going to let my murder spoil his day.

“Later, boy,” Bear said. He looked around the den with a long,

slow sweep of his eyes.

Then he did a more curious thing than hiding the folder in

my bookcase.

Instead of heading for the bookcase liquor stash and a taste of

my best Kentucky bourbon—that’s what I’d have done—he went

out into the hall and climbed the stairs. I followed him to the

second floor. There, he began a systematic search of my home,

room by room.

“Ah, partner? Didn’t you already search the house? The crime

boys left.”

He started with the spare bedroom at the far end of the hal . I

stood in the open doorway and watched him explore every

square inch. He went through everything—the dresser, closet,

bookshelves, even under and between the mattress and box

spring. It took him twenty minutes and when he was done, he

started on the other spare room next door. I knew every move he

was making and had done so myself a thousand times at crime

scenes. This time, though, this crime scene was mine.

19

Whatever he was looking for, he was a hound on a hunt—no

offense Hercule.

By the time we were done, it was two hours later and he had

exhausted two spare bedrooms, our storage room, two bath-

rooms, and a large walk-in hall closet. When he emerged from

the latter, his hands were still empty. The last place he vanished into was our bedroom. This time, he closed our door behind

him.

I was locked out. “Dammit, open it.”

Nothing.

Thirty minutes later, he emerged, empty-handed. Whatever

he was looking for, he had not found it. He went back downstairs

to the kitchen.

Hercule and I followed him out the back door that he left ajar.

Bear went straight to the garage. There, however, he stopped

Hercule and bade him sit and stay in the yard. He entered

through the side door, closing it behind him.

“Wel , Herc, we’re stuck. I wonder what he’s looking for. He

sure is acting weird. First the file, now this.”