himself into the kind of man she would be drawn to and trust. Only for as long as he needed her, of course. Just as long as it took to have free access to her and, through her, to her father. There was no telling how many times he’d helped himself to the papers in her father’s office before he was caught. Certainly he’d had plenty of opportunity. Her father had liked him, and invitations to the house had been frequent. Dennis had told her he wanted to be the bridge that mended the chasm between her father and herself.
That should have been the tip-off, she thought caustically. The only person he’d helped was himself. Once they had caught him, it hadn’t been too difficult to find that Dennis had used the information he’d gleaned to sell to businesses and corporations interested in making bids on city projects. When he was found out, he’d tried to explain it all away. When it became obvious that neither his talking nor his engagement to the councilman’s daughter was going to be enough to keep him from standing trial, he’d turned vicious. That was when he’d begun asserting that Madeline had helped him every step of the way. His lies had been public enough, believable enough, that she, too, had been forced to undergo an investigation. That had been the worst time of her life. She had longed for the opportunity to clear her name. And she’d eventually been cleared of any wrongdoing.
But even without her father’s innuendos, she was very much aware that she’d been cleared more because of a lack of evidence of her criminal involvement than because they’d found proof of her innocence. The difference was subtle but devastating. To some people, the doubt about her culpability would always remain. All she could do was live her life and do her job in as exemplary a fashion as possible, and ignore those who couldn’t-or wouldn’t-let go of their doubts about her.
“You’re thinking of that creep you almost married, aren’t you?” Ariel waved her hand dismissively at Madeline’s look of surprise. “It isn’t hard to tell. You get that same expression on your face every time you start thinking of him. When are you going to forgive yourself for being human?”
“It’s being gullible, not being human, that I need to forgive myself for,” Madeline corrected grimly. “Every time I think of the way I stood up for him… I refused to believe he could be guilty, do you know that? I wouldn’t let myself examine the evidence that was stacked against him. I ignored all my police training, and focused solely on what I wanted to see.” She snorted. “And he rewarded my loyalty by trying to make it look as if I’d known what he was up to all along. So much for true love.”
“He was a real pig, all right,” Ariel agreed. She’d met Madeline shortly after the whole thing had happened, but it had been years before Madeline had discussed it with her, even briefly. “Lots of men are, but not all of them. There are some good guys out there, and you’ll find one, if you just let yourself look. You should adopt the cowgirl philosophy.”
“And what, pray tell, might that be?”
Ariel’s face was solemn, as if imparting a divine wisdom. “When a man bucks you off, you’ve just got to get up and get back on.”
Madeline wadded up the empty doughnut bag in front of her and threw it at her friend. “You’re incorrigible,” she declared, an unwilling smile tugging at her lips. “I’ve got a degenerate for a friend.”
“Believe me, honey,” Ariel said with an arch look, “a few nights in bed with a certified man dime, and you’d have a whole new perspective on life.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that,” Madeline drawled. She sought, and found, another channel of conversation. “Pardon me for asking, but what have you done to your hair now?” Ariel was a hairdresser, and quite a successful one. But her efforts on her own hair did nothing to inspire confidence in her abilities. She changed colors and styles regularly.
“Like it?” Ariel brushed back the long straight mass, recently dyed to an improbable shade of black. “I felt like a change. Are you ready to break down and give me a chance with yours?” The look of horror on Madeline’s face was answer enough. “I haven’t steered you wrong yet, have I?”
“You were right about cutting it shorter,” Madeline admitted. “I like the new shoulder length you talked me into.” Actually, bulldozed her into would be a more accurate description, but why quibble with success?
“And?” Ariel fluttered her eyelashes, waiting.
“And the straightener was a good idea, too,” her friend said grudgingly. “The curliness is easier to manage now.”
Ariel got up and swept her a bow. “Thank you, thank you. And now, with your sweet compliments ringing in my ears, I’d better go. I’ve got a date with a new man tonight, and it’s going to take me all day to get ready. What do you have planned for the rest of the day, as if I couldn’t guess?”
“I’m going to work.”
“What a surprise,” Ariel muttered as she went to the door. When she reached it, she turned and pleaded, “Do me a favor? Do something,
“Thank you, Ariel. Goodbye, Ariel,” Madeline said, and closed the door before her life elicited any more comments from her friend. She leaned against it and closed her eyes for a moment. Sometimes dealing with her neighbor’s high-energy voltage drained her. Then her eyes popped open and she strode over to the desk in the corner of her small living room. She unlocked it and pulled down the drop front. Little did her friend know she was going to follow her advice. Well, kind of. It was time to start digging up what personal information she could on Cruz Martinez.
She pulled out the file that Brewer had had prepared on him, picked up a pen and tapped it reflectively against her teeth. This investigation was going to have to be approached a little differently from most, since she couldn’t talk to people who knew Martinez, at least not openly; she didn’t want to do anything else that would tip him off that someone was interested in his actions. That would make her job a bit more difficult, but not impossible. She listed everything she knew about him so far. Then she took another sheet of paper and marked off three columns. Under one she listed every bit of information she had that could be construed to look suspicious. Under the middle one she listed personal things she’d learned about his life. The final column was for the things that pointed to his innocence. When she was finished she put the information she had just written in the proper columns. There wasn’t much written on the sheet when she concluded.
But there was nothing at all written in the third column.
Monday morning when Madeline reached Cruz’s desk he was already working. At least, she assumed that was what he was doing. He was slouched in his chair in front of his desk, shoulders propped against the backrest. She shook her head, wondering by what marvel of nature he managed not to slide onto the floor. She was tempted to give the chair a nudge, to see if he’d do just that.
He raised his head from his cup of coffee when he saw her, and pointed to another steaming cup on his desk.
“Thanks,” she said gratefully, reaching for it and pulling up another chair. Sipping from it cautiously, she asked, “Did you talk to Ritter yet this morning?”
He grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
Instant understanding dawned on her face. “That bad, huh?”
“Not only did he strike out with Jacobs, he was not too pleased with me for talking him into it in the first place. Jacobs must have given him a real earful for even suggesting that he offer Stover a plea bargain.”
So Brewer had been right about that, Madeline thought with a sigh. “Well, we half expected this.”
“We did,” he agreed. “And who knows? If we could show proof that all these weapons came from the same supplier, and were assured that Stover could lead us to him, maybe Jacobs would reconsider. In the meantime, Stover isn’t going anywhere for a while. I’ve heard he’s having trouble coming up with bail.”
“Well, that’s the only bit of good news to come out of this so far. We’ll just have to get to work and come up with the proof it will take to convince him. Meanwhile, why don’t we use our laptops to access the listings of any people who bought AK-47s legitimately.”
“We already know that Stover didn’t buy that gun legally-he doesn’t have any papers for it,” Cruz replied.
“It’s possible that the gun could have been stolen from someone who did buy it legally.”
“I still think we’re going to find that one supplier is responsible for arming all these punks. Are you claiming the gangs have all coincidentally stolen the same kind of gun from different people in about the same time period?”
“No,” she admitted. “And I agree with your hunch. But let’s face it-we’ve only recovered one of the actual guns themselves. We need to cover all the bases.”
He gave a mental sigh, not looking forward to the tedious task of poring over lists of gun serial numbers, yet
