Tough Customer (39 page)

"You aren't responsible for what happened, so don't blame yourself," Ski said kindly.

She came around and gave Ski a watery, grateful smile. "Well, I just wanted to come and thank you for catching him."

"I had a lot of help."

"And something else? Thanks for being so nice to me the night it happened."

"You're welcome."

"I'm sorry my stepmother was such a bitch."

Ski smiled. "That's okay."

"Don't take it personal. She's a bitch to everybody." She cast one final, malevolent glace at Oren, then said good-bye and headed down the corridor toward the elevator. Dodge and Caroline stepped off as she got on.

Ski's cell phone rang, and he stepped aside to take the call.

"Any change?" Dodge asked Berry as they approached.

"No."

"Waste of time, just standing here, staring at him."

"Probably, but..."

Ski rejoined them, holding the cell phone against his chest. "We've got a situation at the sheriff's office. The man who found the Mittmayers' car--"

"Jesus. That inbred?" Dodge said with distaste.

Ski smiled. "Mr. Mercury is demanding his reward, accusing everyone in the department of trying to cheat him out of it. I hate to bother you with this now, Caroline, but would it be too much of an inconvenience--"

"Of course not," she said, not even letting him finish. "I'm happy to write him a check."

It was decided that they would go together and get that matter taken care of. They immediately departed for the courthouse. Dodge looked at Berry. "Guess that leaves us at loose ends, and, frankly, I think you should cut bait on this guy. The sooner you do, the better off you'll be."

"Perhaps you're right."

"Trust me. I'm hungry. You hungry?"

"I am," she said, just now realizing she couldn't remember when she'd last eaten. She glanced at her watch. "But it's late by Merritt's standards. I don't know what's open."

"I do."

"Hi, Grace."

"Hi, Dodge."

The bartender's smile dimmed a bit when she saw that he had Berry with him. "This is Berry Malone."

"We met once," Berry said, smiling at the other woman.

"You must be awfully relieved that that Starks character has been caught."

"I am."

"Is he still alive?"

"Hanging on by a thread," Dodge said. "Are you serving food this time of night?"

She nodded toward a row of booths along the far wall. "Claim a table. I'll bring menus over. What would you like to drink?"

Dodge ordered a bottled beer. Berry said that sounded good and ordered the same. They sat opposite each other on faux leather benches. The tabletop between them was made of heavily shellacked wood. Providing light was a red glass holder with a flickering candle inside. Grace brought their drinks. After a quick review of the laminated menu, they both ordered cheeseburgers and fries.

Grace returned to the bar. They were alone. Dodge watched Berry take a sip from her bottle of beer. He chuckled.

"What?" she said.

"Nothing."

"You're surprised that I'm drinking beer from the bottle."

That was precisely what he'd found amusing, but he remained noncommittal.

"Mother wouldn't be caught dead," Berry said. "She thinks it's unladylike." She took another drink, watching him down the length of the chilled bottle. When she lowered it to the table, she said quietly, "But you know that, don't you, Dodge?"

He leaned back against the tufted leather and studied her for a moment, knew that she knew. Gruffly, he said, "That's just one of your mother's prissy taboos."

"But you loved her in spite of them."

He reached for his own bottle, but, although his mouth had gone dry, he found he no longer had a thirst for the beer. He rubbed the condensation between his fingers as his gaze stayed fixed on the familiar beer label. "So you know. About me. Us." Although it took all the courage he had, he lifted his eyes to those of his daughter.

She nodded.

"When Caroline finds out, she'll be furious."

"She knows."

"She does? Since when?"

"Last night. I had figured it out. She confirmed it."

"She didn't want you to know."

She gave him an arch look. "Oh no? Then why did she involve you in this?"

Grace brought their burgers. After serving them and asking if they needed anything else, she left them to their meal. Berry wasn't shy. She dug in. Dodge had lost his appetite.

"How'd you guess? I treated you no differently than--"

"It wasn't how you treated
me,
" she said, licking a smear of mustard from the corner of her lips. "It was how you and Mother treated each other. First of all, she's been a nervous wreck. She's never nervous. I'm the one who's high-strung and impatient. In my life, I've never seen her so tightly wound. At first, I thought it was because of the crisis situation. But then I became aware of how she was with you. She was never like that with Daddy."

Dodge's gut was tied in a knot. He craved a cigarette, but not as much as he craved to know how Caroline's behavior toward him was different from what it had been with Jim Malone. He hated himself for asking, but he did. "What was she like with him?"

"They had a very solid marriage. They loved each other. I'm convinced of that. But they were unfailingly reserved and polite. She and Daddy never fussed over each other the way the two of you do. They never fussed
at
each other the way you do. Their relationship ... well, it didn't spark. I never knew any differently, so I didn't think anything of it until I saw how the two of you are with each other. There's no polite formality."

"We spark?"

She laughed. "Yeah. You do." She was reflective for a moment, then said, "Looking back on Mother's relationship with Daddy, I think she was always trying to ensure his approval of her. She doesn't strive for yours."

"My standards aren't as high as his."

Berry smiled. "No. She knows she has your approval. Unconditionally."

Grace appeared at the end of the booth. "Something the matter with the burger, Dodge?"

"No. Guess I wasn't so hungry after all."

"I'm going on a smoke break in a minute. Want to join me?"

"Check back."

Looking disappointed, she removed their plates. Berry's eyes followed her. When they came back to Dodge, she said, "She likes you."

He shrugged and reached for his beer.

"All women do."

"That's an exaggeration if I ever heard one."

"I don't think so. Mother hinted as much."

"Did she?"

"Was that the problem?" Berry asked.

He looked across at her but said nothing.

"You're popular with the ladies, Dodge. Is that why you didn't marry my mother?"

IF WORK HADN'T SUCKED SO BAD, DODGE'S LIFE WOULD HAVE been perfect.

Roger Campton's family had trundled him off to South America, ostensibly to oversee their oil interests in Venezuela. Good riddance to everyone except the Venezuelans, Dodge thought.

"I hope they know to lock up their daughters," he told Caroline when they read the notice in the business pages of the newspaper.

Her tummy had a bump that he thought was adorable. "I can see you in profile now."

He couldn't keep his hands off the slight protrusion, sometimes to her annoyance.

"Dodge, you're in my way."

"When's it supposed to kick?"

"A while yet."

"It'll feel weird, won't it? Something moving around inside you."

She winked at him. "You've moved around inside me."

"Hmm, talking dirty comes with pregnancy. I like it."

She swatted aside his wandering hands. "The first time I feel the baby move, I promise to let you know. In the meantime, it wants to be fed, and I can't get dinner on the table if you're going to continue feeling me up."

He grinned wickedly and covered her swollen breasts with his hands. "Now, about these..."

Dinner was late being served that evening.

She listed her house and his condo with Jim Malone Realty, and they sold within days of each other. She had found what she referred to as a "doll house" in an older, established neighborhood. Dodge donated his furniture to Goodwill, since it was nothing to brag about, and they moved Caroline's into their shared residence.

It took Dodge four evenings to paint the spare bedroom a soft unisex yellow and three evenings to assemble the crib. "I hope the kid likes it, because I'm never doing this again," he informed her.

"Stop calling my baby the kid."

He grabbed Caroline's hand and pulled her down beside him onto the nursery room floor amid the tools he'd used during the project. "

Our
baby. And what do you want to call it?"

"My mother's maiden name was Carter. What do you think? Carter Hanley?"

"What if it's a girl?"

"I'm thinking."

"You're pretty when you're thinking." He kissed the tip of her nose, and they wound up making love on the rug.

They were complacent about a wedding date. "A piece of paper isn't going to make me any happier than I already am," he told her. "But I want to make this union official."

She agreed. "Before the baby gets here."

But a date was never set, and they were content with the way things were, so neither dwelled on that technicality. Days turned into weeks, then months, and still they felt no urgency to have their pairing solemnized.

She had returned to work as soon as the bruises around her eyes were no longer detectable. To make up for lost time, she'd doubled her efforts to become the top salesperson in the company. Often she worked late into the evenings, showing houses when it was convenient for clients, hosting open houses on weekends.

Her erratic schedule was okay with Dodge since most nights he had to go to the task force jam sessions after his shift at the tire plant. He was beginning to think the whole thing was a waste of his time and the taxpayers' money. Had a promotion to detective not been the carrot, he'd have asked to be removed from the special unit. He hated having to spend every workday at that damn plant. Mopping floors and replacing burned-out lightbulbs didn't seem like police work.

But had he quit the task force and gone back to patrolling a beat, he would have felt that he was letting down not only his new family but himself, and especially Jimmy Gonzales. So he stuck with it, even though cultivating Crystal's confidence had lost all its allure. The only woman Dodge desired was Caroline, and his desire for her was so fierce, so all-consuming, it was damn near impossible to work up any enthusiasm for his quasi romance with Crystal.

But his pursuit must have been convincing, because one day as they ate their lunch together, she became weepy. "I'm worried about Franklin."

"In what way?"

"The way he's acting." She pulled her lower lip through her teeth. "I shouldn't talk about it. It's probably nothing."

Dodge appeared suitably worried about her. "But what if it is something? What if his rehabilitation in prison didn't take?"

She smiled weakly. "He's promised me that he won't break the law, ever again."

"Do you believe him? Can he keep a promise to anybody about anything?"

She crumpled against him, resting her head on his shoulder. He placed his arm around her. "You're so good to me, Marvin."

He bent his head over hers and kissed her lightly on the cheek. "I just want to take care of you."

The other members of the task force were excited when he reported this to them. "Albright's planning another robbery, and she knows it," the captain said, rubbing his stubby hands together with exhilaration.

"That's what I think, too," Dodge said. "I need to get into their house. It's a rental. A duplex. Crystal told me the other side is empty, and Albright is using it for storage, without the landlord's knowledge or permission."

"What's he storing?"

"Crystal doesn't know."

"You believe her?"

"Yeah, I do. It's a bone of contention between them. I need to find out what he's got in there."

"Anything you find would be inadmissible in court," the captain reminded him.

"Yeah, but if I saw something suspicious, we could put him under constant surveillance. And if it was something incriminating, I could use it as leverage to get Crystal to turn state's witness against him."

"You'd have to tell her you're a cop."

"Not necessarily. Not at first. I could still be the concerned friend persuading her to do as her conscience dictated."

"I doubt she would ever agree," one of the other cops remarked. "Not if it meant betraying her boyfriend."

Dodge looked at him with disparagement. "If it was easy,

you'd
be doing it."

The captain sided with Dodge. "Can you get in and out of their place without Albright knowing?"

"I'll do my best. But if I go missing, look there first."

"This is serious, Dodge. Cover your ass. Don't get yourself killed over this. It would make us look bad," the captain said with cruel candor.

"Let me work on Crystal, see what I can do."

Dodge seized upon the additional risk. By taking on the responsibility of going into Franklin Albright's lair, he was raising the stakes for himself. But the reward would be greater, too. If he came through, and delivered Franklin Albright, he'd get that detective's badge he so wanted.

Several nights later, he returned home particularly tired after a long, grinding day. Caroline met him at the door and hugged him close. He leaned in to kiss her, but she pushed him away and sniffed his shirtfront. "Is that Tabu?"

"What?"