Ms. Simon Says (16 page)

Shelby picked up a plate and held it close to the big bowl while her mother loaded it with salad. After that, she held a second plate for her, and then the others, all the while taking note of the small, but distinct tremor in the agile and oh-so-talented hands of Linda Purl.

How the hell was she supposed to help if nobody would explain what was going on?

Before she could think of a different way to wheedle the information out of her mother, her father called “Here come the steaks” through the screen door just before he came in. Ah, God. He looked so handsome and happy just then that Shelby almost wanted to cry. Well, damn. Between laughing and crying and a burning tablecloth, she didn’t know how she was going to make it through this meal.

As it turned out, Shelby had been wrong about the seating arrangement. Contrary to her expectations, her mother put her across the table from Callahan rather than adjacent to him, which was probably worse because now Shelby had to look at his infinitely appealing face instead of just brushing elbows. He had not only changed into a clean flannel shirt, but he’d also shaved and perhaps even showered. His hair had that slicked back, wet look that she always found devilishly attractive.

“Wine, Shelby?” her father asked, the bottle poised over her glass. She was sorely tempted to grab it all for herself and let the others do with water.

“Yes, please.”

While he filled the other glasses, Shelby looked around the dining room. Beth had outdone herself in here with the dark and heavily patterned William Morris wall-paper. It looked as if she’d lightened the color of the woodwork, too, in order to perfectly match a particular beige in the paper. Little wonder it took her over a year to finish her renovations.

Her mother arrived from the kitchen a little out of breath, but still looking like the consummate hostess, and when her father pulled out her chair and gently touched her shoulder while seating her, Linda Simon didn’t seem to mind. That was good, Shelby thought. A dinner here, a dinner there, and maybe soon they’d be back together again.

Her mother raised her wineglass. “Here’s to Shelby and Mick.”

“I’ll drink to that,” her father said.

Oh, Lord. Shelby glanced at Callahan over the rim of her glass to see his reaction to the toast. If it embarrassed him, nothing in his expression gave that away. He looked—well—almost happy, a far cry from his usual end-of-the-world demeanor. Or end-of-the-rainbow, she reminded herself, trying not to laugh.

After that, no sooner had everyone begun to dig into their steaks than the phone sounded a shrill note from the kitchen.

“I’ll get it,” Shelby said, but her mother had already sprung from her chair and was sprinting toward the door, chirping, “That’s probably for me.”

And it was. Hardly a minute later, Linda Simon, aka Linda Purl, paused in the dining-room doorway just long enough to say, “I’m sorry. I have to take this call. It seems a truck has jackknifed in Colorado and my merchandise is being scattered all over the Rocky Mountains.” Then she disappeared.

From the head of the table came a grim, fairly hostile silence, and for a brief instant Harry Simon’s face said it all. This was a Maalox moment if ever Shelby had seen one. And suddenly she knew exactly what the problem was with her parents. Bingo! Eureka! How could she not have known? How could she not have guessed? It was just so obvious, and as plain as the nose on her face. Harry Harry Quite Contrary was now on the receiving end of a high-powered career, and he didn’t like it one little bit.

Ha!

She picked up her wineglass and took a healthy swig. Instead of being upset by the revelation, Shelby was hugely encouraged. Now that she knew what was wrong—and she was sure she was right—it ought to be easy enough to fix.

Her father cleared his throat, probably of bile, and like a good host leaned forward and inquired, “So, are you originally from Chicago, Mick?”

“No, sir. I was born in West Virginia.”

“Ah. I’ve never been there,” her father said. “I hear it’s pretty nice.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Callahan replied. “I only lived there a couple of months.”

Shelby sampled her baked potato, then picked at her salad. Sometimes it was nice having a lawyer for a father. Given the least opportunity, he’d grill her boyfriends so she didn’t have to do it herself. But this time her father had barely framed his second question when her mother reappeared in the dining room with the phone in her hand and a look of concern on her face.

She handed the phone to Mick. “It’s Sam Mendenhall. For you. He says it’s important.”

Callahan took the phone, and after a series of terse “Yeahs” and “Okays,” he broke the connection and pushed back from the table. “There’s somebody suspicious hanging around outside. Excuse me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He glared across the table then. “Stay here. Inside the house, Shelby.”

“Well, why don’t I...?”

“Make her stay here, Mr. Simon,” he ordered. And then he raced out of the room.

CHAPTER TEN

M
ick had grabbed his Glock from its hiding place beneath the mattress in his room, and then retrieved his flashlight from the car before heading into the dark woods behind the house. It crossed his mind that there might indeed be bears up here in the dense backwoods of this rural county. He swore under his breath, deciding he’d rather face a dozen gang bangers than a single mama bear playing defense for her cubs.

Edging forward, he swung the flashlight beam in a wide arc, expecting any moment to light up Sam Mendenhall, or if not to catch him in the light, at least to hear the guy limping through the underbrush.

But he didn’t see or hear a thing. Not until a voice, only a foot or so from his right ear, softly spoke his name.

“Mick.”

He pivoted, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, and there was Sam, who’d apparently materialized out of thin air.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Mick muttered. “You’re lucky I didn’t put a bullet in you.”

Sam didn’t appear to be either relieved or concerned. He angled his chin toward a distant spot in the dark woods. “Our stalker’s over there,” he said quietly. “Peeping Tom. Tell Shelby to keep her fucking curtains closed.”

Mick looked in the direction the security guard indicated, but he didn’t see a thing. “You recognized him?”

“It’s a kid from town. Eric Shaler,” he said. “The punk’s about to get busted. Listen. I want you to go around that way, come up behind the little bastard, and chase him toward me.”

Considering Sam’s status as a rent-a-cop versus his own as a longtime member of the Chicago PD, Mick was about to countermand his order—for that’s what it sounded like, as opposed to a strong suggestion—but then he figured it was as good a plan as any, so he nodded and then headed in the direction of the twisted little twerp. As he circled around through the dark, Mick was soon able to discern the boy’s lumpy shadow against the trunk of a tree. Beyond the boy and the tree shone the soft yellow glow of Shelby’s bedroom windows.

A flicker of pure and undiluted anger flared inside Mick’s chest, a feeling far more personal than professional, as if this Eric kid were treading on Mick’s home turf somehow. He’d been a cop long enough to know that feelings like that weren’t just inappropriate. They made you careless. They could get you killed. Instinctively, he shut down everything that didn’t pertain to the job and to the task at hand.

Angling silently between the trees, he decided to take up a position slightly up the hill behind the boy. That way, when he flushed him out, the kid would flee in the path of least resistance, back the way he had come no doubt, and straight into Sam.

“Police, Eric,” he shouted. “Don’t move. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Naturally, he did, taking off through the trees, crashing through the underbrush just the way Mick had predicted. By the time Mick and his flashlight beam caught up with the kid, Sam’s cane was snaking out a foot above the ground to bring the idiot down. Panicky now, the boy tried to scrabble away on all fours. That was when Sam reversed his cane with the slick efficiency of a Big Ten baton twirler and he hooked the boy by the collar of his denim jacket.

“You need a ride home, Eric?” Sam asked him, his voice sounding utterly in control, infinitely cool, and maybe a little bit like God’s.

“Y-y-es-sir,” the kid stuttered. “You’re not g-going to tell my...my mom, are you?”

God’s voice warmed a degree or two. “Well, that might be negotiable. Why don’t we talk about it on the ride to town?” He looked at Mick. “What do you think, Lieutenant Callahan? Care to come along and join the negotiations?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Sam’s Jeep was parked on the gravel road just at the edge of the woods. The negotiations amounted to Sam telling Eric he expected him to keep his nose clean, his pants zipped, and if he ever caught him behind the Simon house again, he’d beat the shit out of him.

“So, you won’t tell my mom?”

“Not this time. Next time, though, if there is a next time,” Sam warned, “it’ll be on the front page of the Mecklin County
Times
and you’ll be in a holding cell in the county jail with somebody looking at you like dessert. You hear what I’m saying?”

“Y-yessir.”

Shelby was in the kitchen, covering Callahan’s barely touched plate with a foot of plastic wrap when the telephone rang. She grabbed it on the second ring, not because she was faster than her mother or closer to the phone, but because her mother’s hands were currently wet and soapy from rinsing dishes.

Hello was hardly out of her mouth when Sam said, “False alarm, Shelby. Your boyfriend and I are going to have a few beers. Don’t wait up.”

“He’s not my . . .” Too late. Sam had already clicked off. Shelby swore as she slammed the receiver back into its cradle.

“What’s up, kiddo?” Her father, who had been smoking a cigar out on the porch, appeared in the kitchen doorway, his forehead creased and his mouth drawn down with worry.

“Nothing,” she said. “That was Sam. Apparently it was just a false alarm. He and Callahan are heading into town for a beer.”

“Well, that’s good,” her father said. He pitched his cigar out onto the lawn before coming through the screen door and sauntering toward the sink. “It’s getting late. Guess I’ll head out to the carriage house and watch the Lopez-Casteneda fight on TV.”

“Have fun,” her mother said, coolly offering her cheek for his kiss even as she continued to run a salad plate under the faucet.

Shelby, on the other hand, when it was her turn, threw her arms around Harry Simon’s neck. “Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, little girl. It’s nice having you home.” Then he whispered, “You should probably stay inside tonight, honey, false alarm or not. Just in case.”

“I will.” She planted a loud
mm-wah
of a kiss, half on his shirt collar, half on his warm neck before letting him go.

“G’night, Beauty,” he called to her mother as he went out the door.

Shelby finished securing the plastic wrap over Callahan’s plate before putting it in the refrigerator. Hearing her father’s favorite nickname for her mother nearly broke her heart. What did they think they were accomplishing with this ridiculous separation when it was perfectly obvious they still loved each other to death?

Frustrated, she closed the refrigerator a little harder than necessary, rattling all the bottles and jars on the inside of the door, and then turned toward her mother at the sink and launched a not-so-subtle trial balloon. “Dad’s having a hard time coping with the wild success of Linda Purl, I guess.”

Her mother reached for another plate to rinse under the hot stream of water. “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she replied, the Queen of Casual. Then she looked over her shoulder and added, “It sounds as if Mick and Sam have hit it off rather well, don’t you think?”

Touché.
Good one, Mom. Shelby didn’t want to talk about Mick any more than Linda wanted to talk about Harry, apparently. So, rather than answer, she asked if she could help with the rest of the dishes.

“I’m almost done,” her mother said. “You go on and do whatever. Are you tired?”

“Maybe a little,” Shelby lied. She looked at the half bottle of Merlot on the counter. “Want some more wine, Mom?”

“No, thanks, honey. I’m thinking about having a little dish of ice cream later.”

Shelby reached into an upper cabinet for a wineglass. “Well, maybe I’ll just take this upstairs for a little nightcap. Good night, Mom.”

“Night, sweetheart. I guess we should leave the front door open for Mick. Chances are we’ll both be asleep by the time he gets back.”

“Yeah,” Shelby said. Okay. One more try. “Unless you want to sit up and talk a while about... you know... things... sweaters at Neiman Marcus... sweaters lost in the Rockies... you and Dad.”

“Not tonight, honey,” her mother said in a voice that was as sweet as honey and as firm as concrete.

Shelby sighed. “Okay. Maybe later. G’night, Mom.”

The Penalty Box in the little burg of Shelbyville was no different from any corner bar in Chicago that Mick had frequented over the years, with lighting provided by Coors and Anheuser-Busch, and warmth provided by too many bodies packed into too few square feet, pretty typical of a Friday night anywhere.

He and Sam Mendenhall sat shoulder to shoulder at the bar. After one beer, the rent-a-cop had switched to coffee. Since Mick figured he had the benefit of a designated driver this evening, he was halfway through his third mug of draft.

Ol’ Sam, it turned out, was a babe magnet. It had to be the cane, Mick decided as he watched women of every age and size stop to flirt with the guy on their way to and from the rest room. The blond, ponytailed barmaid had just leaned across the bar, refilling Sam’s coffee mug and spilling a considerable amount of cleavage in the process, to ask the security guy if he wanted her to come out to the lake after she got off work. When he answered, “Maybe some other night, Rosie,” little Rosie looked like she was going to cry.

“Got a date for the Masque?” she asked him then. “It’s next Friday, you know. You’re planning to go, right?”

“If I’m here,” he replied. “I’ll be out of town for a couple days. But if I’m here, babe, I’m yours.”