Chic’s chin came up. “Rafe’s working that? The Addwatter killing?”
I nodded. “And so am I. And I
“Michael.” He was buttoning his shirt now. “Listen to yourself—you’re buying into a theory and you don’t have a shred of evidence. Investigate,
I watched him as he continued dressing. Finally I asked, “Why do you call me ‘Michael’ only in the bedroom?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. Professional respect, I suppose.”
“Why? We don’t work together. What’s with the ‘Ms. Tree’ this, ‘Ms. Tree’ that?”
He frowned in confusion. “I thought you
“That’s not what I mean,” I said, “and you know it.”
He was seated on the edge of the chair pulling on his socks now. His face was a study in awkward embarrassment, a rarity for this graceful, self-confident man. “I guess I just don’t wanna...I don’t know....You think
I shrugged. “Maybe. He made an excuse to leave us alone tonight, didn’t he?...It
He was dressed now, and came back over to the bed and sat on its edge, swiveled my way. “I just....How will it look? Your husband’s old partner, his best friend, his best
My eyes widened. “Shacked up? Is that what we’re doing? That would suggest you ever spent the night here.”
“Michael....”
“Look, I don’t give a rat’s ass about what people say. You were there for me, when I really, really needed you.”
I leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. A little kiss but warm. Wet.
“Yeah,” he said breathlessly, “and how many people would say I was just a goddamned vulture, waiting there to swoop in and take advantage of my partner’s wife’s, you know, vulnerability.”
I laughed a little. “Vulnerability? Are you kidding? Who is it that knows me and thinks I’m vulnerable, anyway? What fool are we talking about?”
He smiled shyly. His smile only got shy in the bedroom, by the way.
“And as for what people think?” I said. “Screw them. Screw people. Screw what they say.”
I leaned forward and nibbled at his ear.
“For that matter,” I whispered, “screw me.”
His laugh was barely audible. “Hey, my name may be Steele, but I ain’t made of it.”
I slipped my hand down until it got to its destination.
“Based on the evidence,” I said, “speaking strictly police science? I’m building a theory otherwise....”
The motel near the airport seemed retro at a glance, with its ’50s deco neon sign and squared, one-story U of rooms making a courtyard around a swimming pool covered for the winter. But really it was just old.
This was December, cold, but not yet snowy. Judging by the cars in the lot on this late evening, the motel was at about fifty percent capacity.
The kind of honeymoons that happened here were usually not attached to actual weddings and seldom required spending the night.
And yet that was where my new husband Mike Tree had arranged for us to spend the first night of our marriage. He explained it by saying he wanted to be near the airport, as if his apartment—our apartment, now—on the North Side was a world away from O’Hare.
Not that I was questioning this decision, still a little high on wedding reception champagne, as Mike pulled his red Jaguar into the lot, the pricey vehicle adorned with soap-scrawled just married wishes (he’d stopped to remove the shoes and tin cans from the tail).
He was stone sober where I was giggly, but even without the bubbly I’d have had an awkward time of it, climbing from the sports car in my wedding gown. Mike helped me out, then got two small bags from a trunk heavily loaded with suitcases. We were headed for a week in Nassau, leaving at five AM.
I carried my bag and he carried his, arm in arm as we made our way to the motel room door, where he set his bag down and removed the bag from my hand and set it down, too, then gave me a look that consisted of his mouth hiking at left and an eyebrow arching at right.
“What?” I asked.
He held his arms out, palms up.
“You gotta be kidding me,” I said, and laughed.
“So I’m a traditional slob,” he said. “Sue me. Come on....”
Laughing some more, I consented to this nonsense, cooperating as he lifted me up into his arms.
What followed was worthy of a silent comedy as he held me like a load of laundry while trying to maneuver with the key in his right hand, getting the door unlocked despite his satin-wrapped cargo.
Finally we made it inside, into a motel room that had surely seen its share of happy couples, if rarely married ones; but we had to be among the happiest, laughing our asses off as he carted me over and dumped me unceremoniously on the bed. Should have busted the damn thing, but at a motel like this, one thing that was likely to be kept in top-notch working order was the bedsprings.
The door was still open, sending a slant of reddish neon light into the room; Mike was cast in that devilish shade as he went out to get the bags from just outside the threshold he’d so recently carried me over.
Then he closed himself and his wife—me—inside the wonderfully drab little room.
He gestured with an open hand to the furnishings that would have made any Sears showroom circa 1980 proud, including a matador print above the bed, the sword in the red-vested hombre’s grasp having a less than subtle phallic tinge.
“Do I know how to treat a woman,” he said, “or do I know how to treat a woman?”
He looked a little like a maitre d’ or maybe a classed-up bouncer at the kind of restaurant where gangsters went to die face-down in their pasta.
“What
“What this place is...” Mike was undoing his tuxedo pants. “...is close to the airport.”
“You said that before.”
He was stepping out of the pants now. “Five am’s gonna come early.”
“Sure will. Right after four fifty-nine am.”
He kicked off his shiny shoes. “Who’s wearing the pants in this marriage anyway?”
“Not you!”
And he was looking pretty silly, in his boxer shorts and tuxedo jacket, the tie loose like a bad lounge singer
