High Noon (36 page)

“You're getting married?”

“Two weeks from Friday.”

“Congratulations. Mr. Falk, I know you went through a very, very difficult time. You did the right thing, and I wasn't able to help you.”

“I did the right thing?” His hand came up to squeeze Charlotte's. “No, I didn't.”

“Pete—”

“No, I didn't,” he repeated. “I didn't get help for Brenda. I knew how much she wanted a baby…I thought I knew,” he corrected. “But I didn't get help for her. I didn't see, didn't want to see, didn't look. We had a good life, didn't we? That's what I kept telling her. I bought her a kitten, like that was a substitute.”

“Oh, Pete, don't—”

But he shook his head. “We were married eight years, and together nearly two before that, and I didn't know what was inside her. That awful need. I didn't see that what was inside her snapped. Going to her sister's for a few days, well, hallelujah. That's what I thought. She'd stop moping around one minute and rushing around the next. Shouldn't I have seen something was broken in her?”

“I can't tell you that, Mr. Falk.”

“Something was broken in her, and I never tried to fix it. She couldn't live that way, couldn't live with what was broken, knowing you were going to take the baby away.”

 

“Rough,” Sykes commented when they stepped out into the thick air.

“It's a crappy thing to do, taking him back through that.”

“It's a crappy thing to do, blowing some poor bastard to juice.” Sykes winced. “Sorry, Lieutenant, I forgot for a minute.”

“It's all right. What's your take on Falk?”

“He didn't make you when you walked up to him, and our guy would. Maybe he's a good actor, but it didn't play for me. He's got a nice woman, a decent business, what I'd say was a decent life. I don't see him screwing it all for revenge.”

“Agreed.” She dug out her sunglasses. “Next on my list, geographically, is a casualty from a bank robbery. A spree—three men hit a couple of banks heading down from Atlanta, then tried for one here, where they ran into trouble. Radio car made their plates from an APB, called it in. There was gunplay in the initial phase, and a woman was hit. A few hours into negotiations I managed to talk them into letting us take her out. But it was too late. She was DOA before she made it to the hospital.”

“How's that on you?”

“She died, and that's enough.” She dug into her bag again when her phone rang. And frowned at the Unknown Caller display. “Phoebe Mac Namara.”

“Hi there, Phoebe.”

She signaled Sykes, who quickly stepped off to use his own phone to call in for a triangulation. “Who is this?”

“Your secret admirer, sweetheart. It sure was nice of Roy to have your cell phone logged into his. I wanted to check in, see how you were feeling. You looked upset when you left the station house this morning.”

Cupping the phone between her ear and shoulder, she dug in her bag for her notebook. “Aren't you the bold one, coming around all those cops.”

Georgia cadence. Sounds satisfied, sarcastic.

“That doesn't worry me. You know, Roy said you were a hell of a good lay.”

“You call me just to talk dirty, or do you have something to say?”

Sweetheart. Good lay. Intimidating the female.

“Just passing the time. Oh, you don't want to waste yours trying to trace this. Isn't it something, this age we live in, when you can walk into a place and buy some toss-away phone already loaded up with minutes? Didn't see that pretty little girl of yours go into school this morning. Hope she's not sick.”

Her pad shook in her hand, dropped onto the sidewalk. She had to bite back the rage, the absolutely blinding red flash of it. “Spying on little girls? That seems low for a clever man like you.”

Fighting to keep her voice cool, she squatted to pick up her book, and crouched there, continued writing notes.

Watching the house, the family. Wants me to know.

“Why don't you and I get together and have a real conversation? Get down to the nitty.”

“We will, I promise you. We'll have us a nice, long talk. You won't know when or how or why until it happens.”

“Who was she? Did you love her? How'd she die?”

“We'll talk about all that. You know, I could've taken out your boyfriend that night you had your romantic dinner on his boat. I had the shot. Maybe I'll take it next time. Maybe I'll give myself the green light on that. Bye, Phoebe.”

“He's off,” Phoebe said to Sykes.

“Keep yours open, they're going to try to triangulate off your signal.”

“Unregistered cell. He'll have been moving while he was on with me. I could hear traffic. And he'll have tossed the phone. He's too smart not to ditch it.”

She looked around, down the street, across at a little strip of shops. He could be anywhere. He could've been driving right by while she was talking to him. How would she know?

Slowly, she straightened, then skimmed her notes. “I think he's a cop.”

“What?”

“He's smart, but he's puffed up, too.”

“Smart and puffed up equals cop?”

“He needs to show he's smarter and better.” She tapped her pen on her notebook. “He said he could've killed Duncan, taken him out, was how he put it, when we were having dinner on Duncan's boat. I could've taken the shot, he said. And that he might give himself the green light next time.”

“How does that—Hold on.” Sykes angled away, listening to his own phone. “They had him on River Street,” he told Phoebe. “Moving west on River, and lost him.”

“He threw it in the water, that's what he did. Small investment in a phone, big results. But he had to give me that one last needle. He didn't say I could've shot your boyfriend, but I could've taken the shot. That's cop speak, or military.”

She held up a hand before Sykes could answer, walked a few paces down the sidewalk and back while she thought it through. “And yeah, anyone who watches TV could pick up the jargon, but it was natural. I don't think he planned to say it, he just had to push my buttons a little harder, so it came out. Green-light the shot. It's not the usual term for a civilian to use. He's a cop or military, or he was.”

“Arnie's clear.”

“It goes back further than Arnie Meeks. And it goes deeper than just being a misogynistic asshole. It's in those files. He's in there, somewhere. I need to contact Duncan, make sure he's covered. Then, goddamn son of a bitch, we're going to find this bastard.”

Sykes watched her stride back to the car, punching viciously at her phone. It was tough not to appreciate a redheaded woman in full temper, he thought, so he only said, “Yes, ma'am.” And followed her.

 

Duncan walked into Ma Bee's house without knocking. He'd never had to knock on that particular door. He called out for her, but since neither the TV nor the radio was on, he kept going through the house.

If she was inside, she'd have what she called her company on. She wasn't much for silence. He moved through the house as casually as he would his own, and spotted her out the kitchen window.

She knelt in front of one of her flower beds, a big straw hat with a band of wildly colored flowers on her head and neon-pink gardening gloves on her wide and generous hands.

Love was a quick, warm spurt right through the heart.

She'd given him a mother when he'd already been a man, a family he'd never hoped to be a part of, and a home he'd never found anywhere else.

He knew there'd be a pitcher of tea in the refrigerator, and cookies in the grinning-cow cookie jar. He got out a couple of glasses, filled them with ice, a plate for the cookies. He carted everything out to the little table shaded by a red umbrella before crossing the yard to her.

She sang in her tumbled gravel voice. He recognized “The Dock of the Bay” and, spying the MP3 player clipped to her shirt, figured she was dueting with Otis.

He started to reach down, touch her shoulder, hoping not to startle her. Then he jumped when she spoke.

“Boy, why aren't you working at something?”

“Didn't think you heard me.”

“Didn't.” She switched off the music as he squatted down. “But you still cast a shadow.” She gave him what he thought of as the hairy eyeball. “You a man of leisure today, Duncan?”

“I had a meeting on the warehouse project this morning, and I've got some things going on later. But if a man can't take a little time out of the day to flirt with the love of his life, what's living for?”

She flashed him a grin, gave him a poke. “Fancy talk. Well, flirt while you yank some of these cursed weeds.”

The hat might have shaded her face, but there were beads of sweat along her temples. Enough gardening in this heat for now, Duncan thought. “I'll weed for you after we flirt over a couple glasses of tea and some cookies.”

Lips pursed, she looked over in the direction of the table. “That looks appealing. Help me up, then.”

When they were settled at the table, Ma's pink gloves tucked into her gardening apron, she took a long drink of tea. “Close today,” she commented. “Going to be heavy by afternoon. Hope those couple of things you got going are inside.”

“Some are, some aren't. Why don't you let me send you on that cruise this summer, Ma Bee? Or anywhere else you'd like to go.”

“I like where I'm sitting well enough. What's on your mind? You're not here just to flirt with me. Worried about your redheaded girl? Phineas told me what happened to her ex-husband. Said you were right there when it did.”

“It was…I don't have a word for what it was.” He drank deep.

“It's evil's what it is. People toss that word off so it loses the darkness of it. But that's what it is. Are you having trouble sleeping? I can make you up some herb tea would help some.”

“No, I'm all right. It's bad business, Ma. This guy, he says he killed that kid. The one over on the east side who had those people in the liquor store. Shot him after Phoebe talked him into surrendering. So yeah, I'm worried about her. She knows what she's doing, but…”

“When somebody matters, you've got to worry.”

“She's got her family pretty much locked up in her house on Jones while she's out there knowing what she's doing. Her mother…Well, she's had some hard knocks.”

He began to tell her, found himself going through all of it. What he knew, what he'd deduced, what he'd observed.

“Girl's got a lot on her plate. 'Course any woman raising a child without its father's got an extra serving right there. And her mother having that condition.” Thoughtful, Ma looked out over her yard. “I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't go where I wanted when I wanted. Walk down to the neighbor's, or drive to the market. Fear's a hard burden to carry. Responsibility's a heavy one. That's a complicated business, Duncan, even without this awful, ugly business heaped on it.”

“They seem to have a system, and it mostly works for them. But Phoebe—she's the glue, you know? She knows what to do. That's what I saw in her the minute she walked into Suicide Joe's apartment that day. It's…magnetic.”

“You got the moon on for her, do you?”

He smiled a little as he lifted his glass. “I guess I do. Bad timing, as it turns out. Hard to romance a woman under these particular circumstances.” He shrugged. “That can wait. Finding the son of a bitch who's after her, that can't.”

“It's her job to find him.” Fanning her face with her hat, she studied him. “Hard for you to sit back and let her do her job.”

“Yeah. Okay, yeah. In this particular situation anyway. I mean Jesus—sorry—jeez,” he corrected when she narrowed her eyes. “This guy wants her dead. More, he wants her to suffer first. If somebody matters, are you supposed to sit back while somebody else wants to hurt them?”

Ma broke a cookie in half, passed a share to him. “Is that what you're here for? You want me to tell you what to do?”

“No. Not exactly. She's a lot like you. She does what has to be done, she takes care of her family. And she sure as hell doesn't like to be told what to do—or what she can't do. I guess I'm trying to work out a way to help her without putting her back up—got a temper on her—so she gives me the boot out of pride or mad.”

“Mmm-hmm. Like you coming here, and thinking: Ma Bee's probably been out in the sun long enough for now. She should sit down and have a cold drink. So you fix that all up so you don't have to tell me to stop and sit, and don't get an argument.”

He grinned as he bit into his cookie. “Something like that.”

“You've got a sly mind in there, boy. I always admired it. You'll figure it out. Now, go yank those weeds while I have another glass of tea.”

“Yes'm.”

His phone signaled as he rose. “It's Phoebe,” he said as he read the display. “Hey. I was just…”

As she poured more tea, Ma watched Duncan's face. She knew her boy and saw the flash of irritation in his eyes. Phoebe, she thought, wasn't the only one with a temper.

“I've got a couple things going today. No, I'm not rescheduling. For…Phoebe, stop. Hold it. Let's remember, first off, you don't outrank me because I don't work for you. No,
you
be quiet for a damn minute. I'm not rescheduling because some psycho
might
try to track me down somewhere in the city of Savannah and then decide
maybe
to try to do me some harm, and I'm sure as hell not running home to lock myself in like some hysterical girl. In case you failed to notice, I've got a pair.”

Ma lowered her head, shook it and sighed.

“Sexist, my ass. Protective custody?
Your
ass. You go ahead and try it and yeah, you're right. We'll see who's got the biggest pair. You want to talk about this, we damn well will. Face-to-face. Later. Right now, Lieutenant Mac Namara, I'm busy. I'll see you later.”