Nerves of Steel (10 page)

His phone went off with a raucous chirp.  "I have to take this."  He began to slide from the booth.

"You stay," she said.  "I'm going to the restroom."

Cassie left Drake and headed toward the rear of the bar where a heavy oak door was labeled "conveniences".  Through the door she found a narrow hallway with the men's and women's rooms along one side and a door marked Private at the end.  When she finished, she emerged from the restroom to find a large man in police uniform waiting for her in the corridor.

"Hi there, Dr. Hart."  His smile bordered on a leer.  "I'm Tony Spanos."  He held his hand for her to shake.  Cassie took it, wondering if Drake had been called away and sent Spanos to relay the message.  The patrolman had shaggy, dark blond hair, thick eyebrows, and brown eyes that drilled into hers. 

"Nice to meet you," she said.  He kept hold of her hand with a gentle but firm grip.  Nothing overtly threatening, but alarm bells went off in her mind.

Alarms that were confirmed when he broke his stare to flick his gaze down her body.

"I'm sorry, Officer Spanos.  Detective Drake is waiting for me," she said, trying to keep her voice neutral. 

"I'm sure he is."  Instead of releasing her hand, Spanos shifted his weight so that one foot was between hers.  "Which is why I needed to talk to you, to warn you, Dr. Hart.  It's Cassie, right?" 

His free hand reached out to rest against the wall at her shoulder, one more wall of the cage he was constructing around her.  She pointedly turned her gaze to stare at the hand, but he didn't move it. 

"What do you want, Officer Spanos?"  She jerked her hand free of his grip.  Saw his Adam's apple jump in anticipation. 

The odors of Murphy's Oil, fried onions, and coffee swirled around her as the walls of the corridor receded, vanishing from her sight.  She channeled her anger, used it to sharpen her focus, to search out his vulnerable spots, just as Mr. Christean had trained her to do.  Not wanting violence, not escalating it, merely listening to her instincts and preparing.  Just in case.

"You don't want to get involved with a drunken piece of shit like Drake," he said, his tone conversational as if they were discussing Andy's pierogie recipe.  "He's unstable, people around him get hurt--innocent bystanders.  I wouldn't want anything to happen to you, Cassie."

"Is that supposed to be some kind of threat?"

"A warning.  Just a friendly warning.  You know us cops, serve and protect."

"Leave her alone, Spanos."  Drake's voice came from the doorway.  Spanos pivoted, straightened to his full height, his broad shoulders threatening to brush the walls of the narrow corridor.

Leaving Cassie trapped between the two men. 

She took Drake's arm.  "It's all right.  Let's just go," she urged him, surprised by the rigid tension in the muscles beneath his flannel shirt.  She turned to see Andy holding the door open, surrounded by the other breakfast patrons, all of them police officers.  Several held coffee mugs aloft, toasting Cassie in a mock salute.

Both Spanos and Drake had their hands bunched into fists.  Her face burning with anger and embarrassment, Cassie abandoned them to their testosterone-laden standoff, and walked through the door, brushing past the other men in blue.

She kept going until she got to the coat rack.  As she reached for her jacket, Drake's hand was there an instant before hers.  He lowered the coat and held it out for her.  Conscious of the stares of his fellow officers, she resisted the urge to yank it from his hand. 

"Now, you see boys, that's how a real gentleman treats a lady," Spanos observed loudly from the bar, trying to regain the upper hand.  "Hey, Cassie.  Ask him about what happened last summer.  Ask him where his last girlfriend ended up."

CHAPTER 17

Drake ignored Spanos' jibes and joined Hart outside.  Thick snowflakes swirled through the air, melting as soon as they hit the street.  It would turn to sleet or rain soon enough.

He had to jog to catch up with her.  Damn, she moved fast for someone so short.  Suddenly, she pivoted and stared at him.  He was tempted to reach out and brush the melting snowflakes from her hair, but the look on her face stopped him.

"What was that all about?" she asked.

"Sorry 'bout that."  No sense dragging her into this mess.

"You're just like him, aren't you?" 

He winced at the tone of disappointment before realizing he'd similarly judged her after witnessing her encounter with her ex.  Lumping her in with all the domestic violence calls he'd taken over the years.  Not the same thing, he told himself.  Not the same at all.

"Hell, no," he said.  "I'm much better looking, don't you think?"  They stopped at the light on Aiken.  Hart's glare could have drilled through diamonds.  How could he tell her that he was worse than Spanos; that because of him a woman died last summer?

"Is anything going to happen because of what he did?"

Drake took a step closer to her.  The light had changed, but neither of them moved from the curb.  "Why?  What did he do?"

She frowned, looked away.  "Nothing.  He--nothing."

He took her arm, but she shook him off.  "What happened?"

"Nothing.  That's the point isn't it?  Someone like Spanos, a cop for chrissake, doesn't need to do anything to intimidate someone, to make them feel..."  Her face colored once more.  "Damn, I hate bullies.  He just made me so angry."  She darted across the street, and he followed, ignoring the honking from a gray Olds.

"Don't worry, Hart.  After the way you walked out on him," Drake smiled at the thought of her exit from the Stone, head high, stride firm--regal, that was the word, "it's gonna get around that Spanos let a little woman get the best of him."

"Damn it, don't you see?  He shouldn't be allowed to treat anyone, man or woman, that way.  How'd a Neanderthal like him get on the force anyway?"

"Spanos is a good cop.  You just caught him at a bad time."

"Why's that?"

"You were with me," he admitted.

"I take it you two tangled over a woman."

"You could say that."  Now Drake was the uncomfortable one. 

They reached her car, a blue Subaru Impreza coupe.  Drake liked the color for her, bright yet rich at the same time.  Five speed, he noted as she opened the door and slid inside.  It suited her need to control, to take responsibility for everything. 

"I'm going to nail whoever's stealing the FX," he told her, breaking one of his cardinal rules.  Never make a promise you can't keep--it was written in stone, along with: always watch your partner's back, first call for backup. 

Her gaze was bleak as she looked past him at the towering medical center.  "I only hope it's before I have to send more kids to the ICU.  Or the morgue."

"Nice to know I inspire such confidence."

In response, she merely shrugged and closed the door.  He watched her drive away.  Every time he and Hart got together, he forgot about the case or being professional.  Somehow he seemed destined to always piss her off.

Drake hunched his shoulders against the wind, lowered his head as he trudged toward his Mustang.  Probably safer that way.  Otherwise things might end up like they had last summer with Pamela.  With him suspended.  And a woman dead.

CHAPTER  18

"Cassandra Rose Hart," Kwon addressed the task force members, sounding like a school teacher in front of a group of unruly students.  Which was pretty much what they resembled.  Drake, Kwon and Summers from Major Crimes, two guys from Narcotics, and one of the DA's investigators, the only one wearing a suit and tie, of course.  And Dimeo, watching from the rear of the room, the school principal waiting to send someone to detention.

"Age thirty, native of Pittsburgh, parents deceased, no other family that we've found.  Residency at Three Rivers, been there as attending ER physician almost two years now."

He stretched his legs, resting them on the back of Summers' chair.  They had appropriated roll-call to meet and brainstorm new approaches to the investigation now that it was focused on Three Rivers Medical Center.

Kwon continued, "No wants, no warrants, record's squeaky clean."

The others raised their heads at that.  Squeaky clean usually meant something dirty hidden somewhere.  And money or influence to hide it with.  Drake remembered Richard King's shoes that cost more than a month's salary and wondered about that.

"Finances?" Lisa Dimeo asked from the back, echoing his thoughts.   She was a thin, bony blonde who favored conservative suits and an even more conservative attitude to the concept of probable cause.  Dimeo was not there to make a case, she was there to make a career.  At every meeting, she would stand against the back wall as if afraid to contaminate herself by getting too close to the grunts who gathered her evidence.

"Worked as a waitress and hotel maid to put herself through Duquesne, then Pitt Medical school," Kwon said. 

Drake could tell by the gleam in Kwon's eye that she was holding something back.  Dimeo nodded in dismissal, her face resuming its bored expression.  Hunters and gatherers, that was what they were to Dimeo. 

"Married and divorced Richard King," Kwon continued, her voice bland.  "Divorce settlement sealed by King's attorney, his brother Alan."

Summers sat up, jostling his chair and knocking Drake's feet from the back rung.  "King?  As in Asshole, Asswipe and Pee-U?"

A snicker came from one of the Narcotic guys.  Every cop knew the law firm of Arthur King, Alan King and Paul Ulrich.  Knew and dreaded.  The Kings were known for shredding cops on the witness stand, took pride in making Pittsburgh's finest look like idiots.

Kwon smiled and nodded.  "Richard is Alan's brother and Arthur's nephew."

"Shit, we'll never nail this fucker."

Dimeo strode forward, her heels clicking on the linoleum.  The six detectives swiveled to look at her.  Her face held the gleam of a predator scenting blood.  "One of our principles is connected to the King family?"

Drake groaned.  He could see where this was going.  A chance for a prosecutor to derail the powerful King family was worth more than a pair of Steeler season tickets.  A solid gold chit to bigger and better things: State's Attorney office, judgeships, political office.

"Hart divorced Richard King last year.  The paperwork's sealed, but King recently returned to Pittsburgh after attending a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic.  The State Board of Medicine restored his license, now he's back at Three Rivers."  Kwon paused, her eyes gleaming as if she were ready to hit a home run.  "King's brother, Alan, is Lester Young's attorney of record.  And," the men all hunched forward in their seats, listening, "I found Richard King's name in two separate incident reports involving Young."

"What kind of incidents?" Summers asked.

"Routine witness statements surrounding two drug busts.  One at the downtown Hilton, the other at Gateway Plaza.  Both times King claimed he was just at the wrong place, wrong time, didn't see anything, didn't know anything.  Fine upstanding citizen that he is, no one pursued it.  Alan King was able to get the charges on Young thrown out on both occasions, so the investigations stopped before they went farther."

"Until now," the DA investigator put in.

"Either one, King or Hart, could be our source."  Dimeo mulled this over, liking it.  "Or both.  Supplying Young with drugs they picked up at Three Rivers."

"What about the new rave over at the West End Bridge?" Drake interjected, trying to deflect their attention from Hart.  It was too early to be focusing on only one suspect.  Especially when he was certain Hart had nothing to do with the FX thefts. 

"That might be where the teeny-boppers are buying, but we need to get the actor behind all this.  And now we know it has to be someone with a connection to Three Rivers Medical Center," Dimeo said.  Kwon nodded her agreement.  "We can't afford to let another high level source to slip through our fingers."  They all looked at Drake, as if he was responsible for Lester's death.

"So we focus on Three Rivers," Kwon said.  "Especially Richard King."

"If they're divorced, spousal privilege no longer applies," Dimeo said.  "Nail Hart.  Then we can use her to get King."

CHAPTER 19

One of the advantages of working nights was being always able to find a parking space when you drove home in the morning.  Cassie pulled into an open spot halfway up Gettysburg Street's hill.  Point Breeze was one of those Pittsburgh neighborhoods whose residents still sat out on their stoops in nice weather, and if you put a kitchen chair out to save a parking place, no one would dream of moving it.  People who lived in the upscale condos Downtown or in chic Shadyside thought of Point Breeze as "quaint", but to Cassie it was just home, the only home she had ever known.

She waved across the street to Mrs. Ferrara who, despite the flurries and the rain forecast for later that day, was washing the outside of her front parlor windows.  Cassie noticed the streaky grime that coated her own windows and grimaced.  Gram Rosa would have been mortified.

She climbed the concrete steps to her front door, closed the solid oak door behind her, leaned against it, and the turbulence of the night's events faded from her mind.  A few breaths later, and she felt the calmness of the house begin to envelope her.  She looked around her living room with its comfortable familiarity.  Her father's favorite chair still waited for him, his pipe and tobacco resting nearby.  Rosa's silk shawl sprawled over the back of the sofa, its bright colors repeated in the pillows at either end. 

Cassie hung up her coat, kicked off her boots, and traced one finger over the fringe of the shawl.  Hennessy, her fat tortoiseshell cat, head-butted her shin, pushing her into the kitchen.  Cassie translated the accompanying meows as: feeding fat cats should come before everything else.   Conceding the point, she measured a cup of the special diet cat food the vet charged outrageously for.  Hennessy sat back on her haunches looking from the bowl with its meager offerings to Cassie. 

"Sorry, girl, that's all you're allowed."  She scratched behind the cat's ears.  Hennessy stiffened her tail in indignation and stalked from the room.